Free Republic

.... Has China's rise peaked? If one were to pose this question a few years ago, he would probably be laughed out of the room. The conventional wisdom then was that China's rise was certain to continue. But today, this question is very much on everyone's mind. What has changed? .... (snip) it may be reasonable to argue that the Beijing Olympics in 2008 symbolically marked the peaking of Chinese power. Everything began to go downhill afterwards. Caught up in the global economic crisis, the Chinese economy has never fully recovered its momentum. To be sure, Beijing's stimulus package of...

August, 2012. The Great Rediscovery is in the headlines: "Senate Candidate in Texas is Known as an Intellectual Force " -- The New York Times "Romney: Media trying to 'divert' from real issues with focus on foreign gaffes." "Romney praises Poland as model of economic liberty" To borrow from Bob Dylan: "The times, they are 'a changin'" There is no accident in all the headlines cited above, you know. America is in the midst of the next chapter in what Ronald Reagan called "the great rediscovery" of American values. And the Other Side knows it. Which is why the aroma...

........This week, Beijing set up a new provincial-level city government to administer all its island claims in the South China Sea, as well as administer all the waters in the Sea, and “elected” a mayor for its insta-city of Sansha. The new governing council will represent approximately 1,100 Chinese residents of three island groups, all of which are claimed by multiple countries, including Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, in addition to China. The real news, however, is that Beijing is also setting up a military garrison on Yongxing Island, which is also claimed by Vietnam. The garrison will serve “self-defense”...

China is continuing its bold economic and geopolitical march through the Caribbean and Latin America, using its growing economic might to dole out grant aid and soft loans to win friends and influence governments, continuing its plans to displace the United States as the region's major trading partner in the not-too-distant future. For two days this week, a large Chinese delegation led by Vice-Premier Wang Qishan spent hours in talks with Caribbean leaders and business delegations. By the time the forum ended in Trinidad's capital of Port of Spain, Beijing had unveiled measures worth $6.3 billion aimed at sealing better...

So this is a taste of what it will be like when the American superpower starts shrinking. Enjoying it yet? After the humiliation of the United States losing its AAA credit rating; after watching the American stock market descend into chaos; after living for two years in a $15 trillion economy unable to grow beyond 2%, with unemployment rates rarely experienced in the U.S., Americans have their first whiff of inhabiting an empire in decline.

<p>With the landing of the Atlantis shuttle only a few days away, reality is setting in: For the first time in more than 50 years, the United States of America will not have the capability of launching American astronauts into space.</p>

The moment of truth seems to be coming closer by the minute. China will become the world's largest economy by 2050, according to HSBC. No, it's 2040, say analysts at Deutsche Bank. Try 2030, the World Bank tells us. Goldman Sachs points to 2020 as the year of reckoning, and the IMF declared several weeks ago that China's economy will push past America's in 2016. There's probably someone out there who thinks China became the world's largest economy five years ago. In an interview with WSJ's John Bussey, Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer insists that for China to become the...

China will "top out" a new skyscraper every five days for the next three years as it continues to embark on the biggest building boom in history, according to newly published research. The 2011 China Skyscraper City List shows the speed with which China is redrawing the skylines of its major cities as it builds houses and offices for the millions of people migrating from a rural to urban lifestyle over the coming decades. Compiled by "Motian City", a Chinese website for skyscraper enthusiasts, the list finds that China and Taiwan currently boast five of the world top 10 tallest...

Liberals wants you to know that America's best days are almost behind her. They even pegged a date. And included pictures. The date is 2016, says the mainstream media. That's the date when they say that the IMF warns China's economy will surpass America's in real terms. The IMF disputes the claim.  (Source: MarketWatch) Let's just say that I'm suspicious. There are a number of problems with this projection as the "End of America." Firstly, in actual dollars the U.S. will still have a substantial advantage in GDP in 2016 according to the IMF.    "An analyst at the IMF said in a statement,"...

.....Just a few years ago the United States was genuinely feared on the world stage, and dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state sponsors of terror treaded carefully in the face of the world’s most powerful nation. Now Washington appears weak, rudderless and frequently confused in its approach. From Tehran to Tripoli, the Obama administration has been pathetically slow to lead, and afraid to condemn acts of state-sponsored repression and violence. When protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamist dictatorship in Iran in 2009, the brutal repression that greeted them was hardly a blip on Barack Obama’s teleprompter...

China’s military conducted a test flight of a new stealth fighter jet on Tuesday, overshadowing an important visit to Beijing by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates aimed at improving defense ties — and apparently catching China’s civilian leadership off guard. Staging the test flight of the long-secret J-20 while Mr. Gates was in Beijing amounted to an unusually bold show of force by China. But the demonstration also raised questions about the degree of civilian control of the Chinese military, as President Hu Jintao and other civilian leaders gave their American visitors the impression that they were unaware that the...

China's new "aircraft carrier killer" ballistic missile can cover 1,243 miles, according to The Chosun Ilbo. To show the distance it could cover, we added the approximate radius of China to the distance the missile could travel. As you can see, China now wields formidable power in the Indian Ocean and the East Pacific. Read More:Click This Link

We have been raised to think of the historical process as an essentially cyclical one. We naturally tend to assume that in our own time, too, history will move cyclically, and slowly. Yet what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arhythmic, at times almost stationary, but also capable of accelerating suddenly, like a sports car? What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly, like a thief in the night? Great powers and empires are complex systems, which means their construction more resembles a termite hill than an Egyptian pyramid. They operate somewhere...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Governments must smash markets supplied by the global "superpower" of organized criminals trafficking drugs, people, arms and counterfeit goods, the U.N. crime chief said on Thursday. Criminals are reaping profits in the tens of billions of dollars, Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told Reuters about a report released by his agency. But countries are not cooperating enough with each other and the United Nations, and are too focused on traffickers. "We have to start addressing the markets, which are gigantic in size," Costa said, adding that criminals who supply...

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the US was too strong" —Ronald Reagan This morning Sarah Palin has sent a second strong message to Barack Obama that he is on a dangerous path, a path that puts America and the free world in great peril. As we wrote yesterday, Sarah called Obama out for his ridiculously insane statement: “Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower” Sarah called this “Unbelievable” and “Outrageous“

In case you missed it, the Apologizer-in-Chief, Barack Obama, is at it again, and the leader of the Free World, Sarah Palin is setting him straight, once again. To refresh your memory: The rookie President, who has zero foreign policy experience, and absolutely no negotiating skills, proved it earlier when he announced his suicidal policy on the use of nuclear weapons. Something Sarah noted was akin to telling the school yard bully to come on over and give you a beat down, because you aren’t going to do anything about it afterwards. Obama tried to be cute with his media...

The man who is our president: “Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them; and that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.” -President Obama yesterday at Nuclear Security Summit The man who would have been: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., slammed the leader of the free world Thursday, calling the remark a "direct contradiction to everything America believes in." Read more at floppingaces.net...

It may be hard for most people to imagine, but Spain was the first global Superpower. It gained this status as the defender of Europe against Muslim armies and by leading the West’s exploration of America. In 1492, the same year that Spanish-financed Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, the last Muslim stronghold of Granada was ceded to Ferdinand and Isabella to complete the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula... It controlled rich parts of Italy through Naples and Milan, and Central Europe from the Netherlands through the Holy Roman Empire to Austria. In the 16th century it added the...

Bush dinner tastes sour for Obama - PMO decision to entertain former President causes hurt in Washington K.P. NAYAR Washington, Oct. 24: Preparations for Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington on November 24 have begun on a negative signal to the Obama administration with a decision by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to host former President George W. Bush for dinner at Singh’s residence at the end of this month. Bush is visiting New Delhi on October 30 and 31 at the invitation of an Indian newspaper and will speak at a conference organised in New Delhi on October 31 on...

America is no longer a superpower. Led by President Obama, its retreat on the world stage has been sudden, swift and stunning. His administration is actively pursuing a foreign policy of detente and self-abnegation. Washington no longer wants - or believes it is possible - to remain the last, sole hyperpower.