China’s rise presents great opportunities and great challenges for the world. But they are new and quite complex. There are some in Washington”like Rumsfeld”who seem to see it as a replay of the cold war, with China playing the role of the Soviet Union. This misunderstands both present-day China and the world we’re living in.
George Santayana famously observed that those who can’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Here’s my variation: those who only remember the past are condemned to misread the future.