this "core-Gap" analysis is interesting.
I find it a little optimistic re China, but in a way that I hope pans out.
Barnett argues that the Pentagon has been looking for a Big-Time Threat to replace the Soviet Union for planning purposes (and to justify budgets). China was put forth by some as the replacement Big-Time Threat. He argues that, by joining the Core, China will no longer be a military threat as it will be forced, by the logic of Globolization, to follow a different rule-set.
In a recent seminar I saw in C-SPAN, he said that China had a 4-2-1 problem, by which he meant one young one is supporting two parents and four grandparents. China's population program has led to this position - that its population is rapidly aging, and it will be too busy trying to support its older population to be able to divert resources to military adventurism.
The whole business of demographics is fascinating. Europe, too, is aging and must import foreign workers (from Turkey, North Africa, Middle East, Pakistan) to work its economies. These populations, though, are not assimilating into the European society. The future doesn't look good, IMHO.
We even see the same thing here. In western Pennsylvania where I reside, we have not seen many foreign workers and the economy here is rather scleorotic compared to the rest of the country. Some attribute (Senator Rick Santorum, for instance) the economic performance here to the lack of emigration here by foreigners.