hetterikka.. j payo tyahi bold bhayecha.. p[lease disregard my earlier post.. read this one instead.. Poonte Bro, Lekhidim Thesis/dissertation nai lekhidim bro.. will help me a lot with my own dissertation. OK, here's something from me, since many of you seem serious regarding the issue. (I am writing my dissertation on something very similar to this topic, so let me throw in my ideas, you guys help me out by providing me with constructive criticsim and feedback) America became a superpower because of it's strategic location. When talking about any superpower or emerging superpower, you cannot rule out it's location. America is isolated from the world by the Pacific and the Atlantic and the neighboring countries are small (except for Canada) and weak defensewise. So America didn't have to worry about preserving it's terretorial integrity. For the most part, Americans had no internal and external security threats. It's one of teh raesons the economy did good, and the governmnet could spend money on defense and military/troop deployment elsewhere in the world, whenever it had to. Russia, another superpower was an ideological and miltary superpower, not a financial superpower. It didn't have a strategic location (it was next to China) and it's ideological isolation from the world except for East Europe, reflected badly on it's economy and a constant "percieved" China threat made it spend more than it's economy could handle on defense. The result: it broke down. So to have a superpower, one has to have a liberal ideology and a strategic location. China is following the liberal path, it might make it an economic superpower in the long run, and given its defense capabilities, it might take even longer for it to emerge as a military superpower. But it won't be that easy. Of course, America and EU will want a stable and a powerful China, as China and the US+Europe have always considered themselves "Strategic Partners". Before this partnership was necessary to contain the Russian adventurism in East Asia, now it is needed to control North Korea. But the question is: Will China be a superpower? Before you try to answer this, just look at the raesons that will make it difficult for China to become a superpower: 1. It won't be on the best American interests if China becomes a superpower. 2. Japan will be an obstacle in China's rise. 3. Russia will not want a superpower in it's neighborhood. 4. Any rise in China's defense capacity will alter the regional balance of pwoer.. and India will have to increase its defense standing, and Pakistan will be forced to do so, just to maintain the balance of power in South Asia. and most importantly, The politics of Central Asia and China's internal security are intertwined. And Central Asia region is probably a volcano waiting to erupt. And CENTRAL ASIA is not under China's sphere of influence. [If any of you are seriously thinking a carreer in IR, my suggestion is study this yet-to-be deeply studied region, i.e. Central Asia and learn Russian and some Turkish. You'll have no problems gettinga good joba s an analyst or graduate school grants re ke...... just my view.. fokat ma sallah diyeko..:-) ] Also in economics, trade and development: How will China ensure an uniturrupted supply of the energy sources, mainly Oil needed to sustain the growth? Recently Russia and Japan signed an oil deal, making China look towards Latin America and Africa for its energy sources (the middle eastern sources are already controlled by America and Europe). And both Latin America and Africa are not very stable either. Furthermore, Japan ahs been urging Israel and the European Union to not sell arms to it's neighbor. Also, Japan is actibvelys eeking the US support to recreate it's Army and has already singled out China as a potential security threat. ASEAN and China recently signed a free-trade agreement, this means, China will be exporting a lot to ASEAN. India, Korea and Japan are likely to follow suit. So you'll see trade rivalary between the major players in the region. Also, America will keep its PRESENCE in the region, its not withdrawing from the region anytime soon. The Chinese scholars have starte dto show their concerns on this. For them America is encircling China (given that America has established its military bases in Central Asia after Sept. 2001 and it already ahs a heavy presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East). In East Asia, America will keep its presence to make sure there's no changes in the status quo vis-a-vis China/Taiwan and to check on Japan's military ambitions. India feels threatened by a strong China. When Gorge fernandes was justifying India's nuclear tests, he didn't say Pakistan was a threat, he specifically pointed China as a security threat to India and the reason for its nuclear bombs. The Russians won't make it easy for China to become a superpower eiter. They have now resumed their defense reserach and have bene developing some awesome weapons and "counter-weapons". Plus, it has what China lacks: natural resources and because of it's not-so-remote history, it has a tight grip on the Central Asian states bordering the most strategic of all China's provinces, Xinjiang. These reasons will certainly make it difficult for China to rise as a superpower, but if things change and China becomes a superpower, I will be happy. Unlike Japan and Russia, China doesn't believe in imperialism and expnasionism because Chinese culture is not a warrior culture like that of Japan and Russia. Even in the Imperial times, when China was strong defensewise and culturewise and was a hegemon in the region, it did not seek terretoirial gain because of the age old Chinese tradition of "hao han bu dang bing"- A good Han (Chinese) does not fight. This emphasis on not-fighting and instead on learning was, in the later days was seen as the most crucial factor in developing/maintaining China's high civilization/culture. Things haven't changed in the post imperial China either. The only times China fought outside its borders in the alst 50 years were: Korean War and in Vietnam after it invaded Cambodia. Both can be justified as wars not for terretorial gains or for control but for prserving its own terretorial integrity. Therefore, I have no hesitation to say that China as a superpower will be much safer to Asia and the world, than to have Japan or India as a superpower.