China, America, and the Danger to World Order
Consider two outlying statistical extrapolations: the 2010 estimate by Nobel laureate economist Robert Fogel that, by 2040, China’s GDP will total a staggering $123 trillion and its share of gross global output 40 per cent, or twice the combined output of the USA and the EU; and projections by the US Congressional Budget Office in 2009 that public debt in America will rise from 44 per cent of GDP in 2008 to somewhere between 280 per cent and 716 per cent by 2080.
As Mark Steyn acidly observes in his feisty, apocalyptic polemic After America: “It doesn’t matter which of these figures is correct and it was a complete waste of time running the numbers … If either number is right, there isn’t going to be a 2080, not for America.” Such are the parameters of current debate. Let me make three basic points and enlarge on each of them.
First point: we should avoid getting too carried away by dramatic scenarios like this. We should concentrate chiefly on the immediate challenges we face,…
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