From The Boston Globe, via The International Herald Tribune:
The launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957 woke up Americans: It signaled that the United States could not take its technological and military superiority for granted.
China has become this generation’s Sputnik. We hear fevered expressions of anxiety that China is going to overconsume strategic raw materials, suck up global manufacturing and investment and build a military behemoth that is a new threat. But the challenges are very different, and the possibilities are far more positive.
Sputnik represented principally a military challenge. In contrast, China’s challenge is an unfolding, multidimensional development that will last decades and could prove far more productive than the Soviet-American contest. China wants to play ball with America. The question is how America will perform on a playing field it long dominated.
