intro

It’s tempting to think about what destination China might reach in
20 years. Will it be a seething pot of nationalist hate? A rich,
super-large Singapore, warlike only in the board room? The common
conceit of most non-Chinese policy planners is that in 20
years China will be a “near peer” power, bumping up against the
United States in terms of economic and possibly military might.
Thus, this logic runs, the next 20 years must be devoted to either
engaging China to shape its rise or working to contain the country
so it doesn’t acquire more power than the current global power
leaders. But the fact is that no one knows what China will look
like in 20 years.

by

Joshua Cooper Ramo is Managing Partner in the office of
John L. Thornton, Senior Advisor to Goldman Sachs and professor
at Tsinghua University. Ramo’s advisory work focuses on
political, economic and business areas with a particular emphasis
on China. Formerly, Ramo was Editor at Large at Time Inc. He
joined Time magazine in 1996, and went on to become the magazine’s
youngest Assistant Managing Editor and Foreign Editor,
overseeing Time’s international coverage. Ramo was also an international
affairs analyst for CNN. Ramo is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations, a Crown Fellow of the Aspen
Institute, a co-founder of the U.S.–China Young Leaders Forum
and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Leaders of
Tomorrow. Joshua also holds two US national point-to-point air
speed records and is an avid aerobatics pilot. He divides his time
between Beijing and the United States.

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First published 2004 by the Foreign Policy Centre
The Foreign Policy Centre
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ISBN 1 903558 35 2
Copywright The Foreign Policy Centre May 2004

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