World Thinks China Will Catch Up With the US -- and That's Okay

Majorities around the world believe that China will catch up with the United States economically. It's a prospect that leaves most of those polled -- even Americans --
unperturbed.

In no country do most people think that this would be mostly negative, finds a multinational poll by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org. Majorities in every country polled believe this would be either equally positive and negative or mostly positive.

"What is particularly striking is that despite the tectonic significance of China catching up with the US, overall the world public's response is low key -- almost philosophical," says Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org.

This sanguine reaction is not because China is widely trusted to act responsibly in the world. World publics do not trust China any more than they trust the United States and distinctly less than they trust Japan.

Among the 15 countries asked about China's future economic prospects in 13 the most common answer is that China will eventually catch up with the United States. This includes 60 percent of Americans and strong majorities in Peru (76%), Israel (75%), France (69%), Iran (64%), and Russia (62%).

Across all countries polled, on average 55 percent had this belief.

The Chinese themselves are somewhat skeptical about their country's economic potential. Only 50 percent of Chinese respondents say China's economy will match the US economy.

Asked how they would feel if China were to catch up with the United States, publics show little concern. In no country does even a plurality say that this would be mostly negative.

The highest level of concern is in the United States, where one in three is worried. But a majority of Americans (54%) say instead that China's economic rise would be "neither positive nor negative" while another one in ten (9%) say it would be mostly positive.

In just one country does a majority say that China catching up would be mostly positive -- Iran (60%).

The world's seemingly sanguine view of China's possible economic ascendance does not mean most publics think they can trust Chinese leaders.

Ten out of 15 publics polled say they do not trust China "to act responsibly in the world.


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Newsweek: Bush Looking For An Excuse To Attack Iran

Some Bush admninistration advisers secretly want an excuse to attack Iran, at least one former White House official tells Newsweek.

"They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for," says Hillary Mann, the administration's former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs, in the February 19 cover story,"The Hidden War With Iran" (on newsstands Monday, February 12).

Even if her fears are overwrought, the fact remains that thelong standing war of words between Washington and Tehran is edging toward something more dangerous. A second Navy carrier group is steaming toward the Persian Gulf, and Newsweek has learned that a third carrier will likely follow.

Iran shot off a few missiles in those same tense waters last week, in a highly publicized test. On the chaotic battleground of Iraq, a hidden war between the United States and Iran is already unfolding. Iran has blamed the kidnapping of one of its diplomats on Feb. 4 on Iraqis linked to U.S. forces. Is conflict inevitable? U.S. officials insist they have no intention of provoking or otherwise starting a war with Iran. But former secretary of state Colin Powell tells Newsweek that he thinks President Bush never had any intention of negotiating with the mullahs.

"My position in the remaining year and half [of my term] was that we ought to find ways to restart talks with Iran," Powell tells Newsweek. "But there was a reluctance on the part of the president to do that."

He angrily rejects the administration's characterization of efforts by him and his top aides to deal with Tehran and Damascus as failures. "I don't like the administration saying, 'Powell went, [deputy Richard] Armitage went...and [they] got nothing.' We got plenty," he says. "You can't negotiate when you tell the other side, 'Give us what a negotiation would produce before the negotiations start'."

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U.S. Faces 'Axis of Oil'

U.S. interests over the next 25 years will be challenged by strategic and political consequences of ongoing structural shifts in global energy markets, especially the global oil market -- most notably, cooperation between China and Russia on energy matters, an expert has told lawmakers.

"Most notably, cooperation between China and Russia on energy matters is bolstering Sino-Russian cooperation on strategic issues, effectively creating a Sino-Russian 'axis of oil' as the principal counterweight to America’s global hegemony," says Flynt Leverett, a former senior analyst at the CIA and former senior director at the National Security Council.

Today Leverett is director of the Geopolitics of Oil initiative at the New America Foundation.

The global oil supply has grown steadily in recent years, and there is considerable evidence that it will continue to grow for many years to come, Leverett notes. However, global demand for crude oil has been growing faster than supply—particularly due to burgeoning energy demand from emerging economic powerhouses in Asia, particularly China and India.

The second important structural shift in the global oil market is the progressive concentration of the world’s oil reserves under the control of national governments and national oil companies, especially in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, Leverett says.

"Taken together, these two trends are generating strategic and political responses on both the supply side and the demand side of the global oil market," he says.

The new axis of oil is also reflected in Sino-Russian cooperation to frustrate a significant segment of U.S. policy objectives regarding the Iranian nuclear issue, Leverett says.

"Both Russia and China have complicated policy agendas toward the Islamic Republic," he says. "To be sure, neither Moscow nor Beijing sees Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability as a Iran as a desirable turn of events. But both are prepared to tolerate a higher-level of Iranian nuclear development than the present U.S. administration. Moreover, each has other interests that it wants to pursue with Iran."

It is "intellectually and politically facile" to answer these challenges by simply advocating “energy independence” for the United States, according to Leverett.

"Unfortunately, this is not a serious response to the strategic challenges facing our country," he says. " Simply put, there is no economically plausible scenario for a strategically meaningful reduction in the dependence of the United States and its allies on imported hydrocarbons during the next quarter century. Reducing our dependence on domestically produced and imported hydrocarbons has many attractions as a policy goal, but we should have no illusions about how rapidly this can be achieved or how soon it can provide meaningful relief to the strategic challenges I have described."

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Democrat Reid Challenges Bush On Various Security Threats

While he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenge President Bush on Bush's course for U.S. involvement in Iraq, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also calls Bush's moves inadequate on several other security matters facing the United States.

"As much as we're convinced the president has chosen the wrong direction in Iraq, we're increasingly concerned he's headed in the wrong direction in Iran and Afghanistan," Reid, Democrat of Nevada, says. "Five years after we defeated the Taliban, the extremists are returning. Drug production is soaring. And attacks on U.S. and NATO forces are on the rise. By all measures, the country is at risk of slipping away; yet, some reports suggest the president will be moving some U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and into Iraq. This is a terrible mistake."

Bush must put more attention on the mission in Afghanistan, Reid says.

"Although time is short, there is still an opportunity to defeat our enemies in Afghanistan once and for all," he says. "The president must acknowledge what's at stake, and immediately take action to prevent the country from returning to what it was -- a haven for international terrorism."

President Bush will need explicit new authorization from Congress if Bush wants to pursue military action against Iran.

"Much has been made about President Bush's recent saber rattling toward Iran. This morning, I'd like to be clear: The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization -- the current use of force resolution for Iraq does not give him such authorization," Reid says.

Reid also criticizes Bush's approach to the threat posed by the apparent nuclear ambitions of Iran, saying ultimately the best way to defang the regime in Iran to cut U.S. dependence on Middle East oil.

"Let there be no doubt, the Iranian regime poses one of the great threats of the new century, but the Iranian people -- two-thirds of which are under the age of 30 -- present a great opportunity for progress. Regrettably, this administration has no strategy for connecting with this generation of potential reformers.

"Iran sends millions of barrels of crude oil to theWestern world, and gets billions of dollars in return," Reid says. "Fortunately, we have the power to turn the tables on Iran. That power is energy independence. If the United States led the world in developing new alternative fuel technologies, we could create new jobs, export new products, slow global warming and reduce Iran's leverage on the international stage."

Democrats in Congress are advancing an energy bill that would shift priorities away from oil production to alternative sources.


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Kucinich: Bush Setting Stage for Wide War

President Bush's announced plans to send further U.S. troops to Iraq is an inducation Bush appears to be setting the stage for a wider war in the region, according to U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).

"He has blamed Iran for attacks on America," Kucinich says of Bush. " The president is vowing to disrupt Iran. He is going to add an aircraft carrier to the shores offthe coast of Iran. He has promised to give Patriot missiles to 'our friend sand allies.' Isn't one war enough for this president? It is time the media and the Congress began to pay attention to this president when he talks aggressively about Iran and Syria."

Kucinich was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004.

Bush named Iran, as well as Iraq and North Korea as members of the "Axis of Evil."

Iran is developing a nuclear capability it says is for peaceful energy production. Others say it is developing atomic weapons.

Kucinich this week announced a 12-point plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, establish an international security and peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations, and take steps to begin the political reconciliation process, shore up Iraq's economy, re-start reconstruction efforts, and institute reparations for Iraqis.

"It is imperative that Congress step up to its constitutional responsibility to restrain this abuse of executive authority by notifying the president that we will no longer agree to fund the war in Iraq," the congressman says. "The supplemental budget request of up to $100 billion would enable the president not only to continue the war against Iraq through the end of his term. It would give him the resources to attack Iran, in the name of defending Iraq and the region.

"In Iraq, his new plan is a plan for more door-to-door fighting, more civil war, more civilian casualties, more troop deaths, more wasted money, more destabilization in the region and more separation from the world community," Kucinich adds. "The President wants to send more troops to Baghdad, where theywill work to quell a civil war. Only a small portion -- less than 20 percent -- of the new effort will be spent in al Anbar, to fight al-Qaeda. Does anyone in this administration have any sense left at all? They are sending more US troops into the middle of a civil war!"

Congress needs to take the necessary steps to bring home U.S. troops, Kucinich says.

"We need to begin talks with Iran and Syria -- and not blame them for our misguided war in Iraq. Diplomacy isthe only way to avoid a widening war. If we follow the president's path ofwar, we will get . . . more war."


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