Beijing's rapidly growing military spending, estimated at $US85 billion to $US125 billion ($93 billion to $137 billion) last year, is still dwarfed by the United States (file photo) (Reuters: stringer Shanghai)(ABC News Australia)Intelligence Community Sees Asia Rising
-- U.S. Department Of Defense
-- U.S. Department Of Defense
U.S. intelligence planners predict the 21st century will be the time for the rise of Asia, the director of national intelligence said Feb. 12.
Dennis C. Blair told the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that “China and India are restoring positions they held in the 18th century when China produced approximately 30 percent and India 15 percent of the world’s wealth.”
While the current global economic crisis will slow growth in China and India, the two countries are likely to become the world’s third and fourth largest economies by 2025. China’s emergence as a world power is affecting the regional balance of power in Asia, Blair said in a prepared statement.
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My Comment: Asia has the population, the resources, and the cultural and political components to be the focus and engine of growth for the world in the 21rst century.
This Department memo is a good summary of what is happening in the Far East.