Thanks for the comment. I agree with some of what you said. My objection is towards the recent (mostly in the west) hyper nationalistic attitude towards China,

Thanks for the comment. I agree with some of what you said. My objection is towards the recent (mostly in the west) hyper nationalistic attitude towards China, as-if everything they do is necessarily evil. Personally, I have no dog in this fight as being neither American nor Chinese (not that it should matter anyway :) ). I'd like to counter some of your points though. I don't think the US could have checked the rise of all of those countries. The US (Allies) forced their way economically into Japan/Germany/Korea/etc after the war, in an act of pure self-interest - Reparations, forced exports, etc. They continued to benefit from the rise of those countries anyway. China is strategic as you say, but they've always been isolated from the West. They've tried creating alliances (BRIC), which have been moderately successful. Now they're also trading with many heretofore neglected countries in Africa to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Western media calls it "the new colonialism". I happen to think that this is the west realizing that there is a chance, however slight, that they could be excluded from a large portion of the future growth markets. Maybe an emergence of the Silk Road? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road