The Rise of China
by Daryl Dominic Tan

People have been talking about it for decades; that the People’s Republic of China would overtake the United States someday as superpower of the world, that a dynamic shift would take place in the global economy - a shift of economic prosperity from the West to the East. We look at Japan as a prime example, a nation that had built itself up over the course of a few decades and morphed itself into a technological powerhouse. But was that enough to reach the celestial altitudes it has always been striving to achieve? As we can see from today’s news, Japan is currently undergoing a governmental crisis with prime ministers having been transposed on an almost annual basis, but what about their rivals and next-door neighbors, China, how are they doing? I’d say pretty amazing. All that talk about China becoming the next big thing is finally taking shape and becoming a gradual reality and I, for one, agree for a myriad of reasons.

Firstly, China has been tacitly destroying the United States dollar reserve status by increasing their own Gold reserves. It is a well known fact that the U.S. has been curbing the price of gold in order to maintain the U.S Dollar as the international reserve currency. Assisting the U.S. in this conquest is Europe, both the U.S and Europe collectively wish to weaken gold’s function in order for other countries to rely on them instead of Gold Reserves. China, however, is not perturbed by this fact and has been constantly acquiring as much gold as possible in hopes to drive up the price and ultimately thwart the plans of the western world. What’s going to culminate in the next few years will definitely be interesting to watch.

The second important factor we have to consider is China's very own accumulating collection of rare earth materials. China holds 95% of the world’s rare earth deposits. These compounds are used in many devices that we use every minute: computer storage memory, DVDs, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, car catalytic converters, magnets, fluorescent lighting and a lot more. Because China owns 95% of these compounds, the world is practically at China’s beck and call as China has occasionally shown its strength and willingness to hold the world at ransom.

This was evident in September 2010, when Japan detained a Chinese fishing boat skipper whose trawler had collided with two Japanese Coast Guard ships in waters that both China and Japan make claims to. China reacted by immediately cutting off export of Rare Earth materials to Japan until Japan was finally forced to released the prisoner.

That being said, is the dramatic shift from the West to the East really happening as we speak? Is China going to dominate the world economy by 2016 (the predicted year)? With large industries booming in countries like India and even Indonesia, this theory is definitely a plausible one. Many believe the East will rise with none other than China leading in the front line.