Asia will be an economic power, built on the backs of their slave labor, and lack of respect for human rights.

I believe militarily, the mighty west will never allow India or China to get to our level. That would be suicide. We don't want cultures with caste systems sharing all our western developed toys, it's bad enough the U.S wants to develop nuclear ties with India.

I believe that the cultures of Asia must change more into western cultures, where rights are protected, minorities aren't persecuted, and women aren't killed at birth in rural communities.

Frankly, I think that we should be sending troops in to these backward nations to force them to pay their people more, instead of paying them rice-bowl wages.

Why the middle classes in these countries don't care about their poor is disgusting, revealing much about the inherant every man for themselves culture they have.

And people think the west, with it's welfare systems, redistributing wealth to the poor, are the capatilists!

No, anybody who believes China will be a military power is kidding themselves. Only late last year, the Europeans & U.S met and agreed NOT to sell advanced weaponry, developed by the west in our free and open nations, to backward states like China.

Try inventing them yourselves....there is no ingenuity in that part of the world. That is why western culture is so much the preffered, and these nations can't get enough of it.

The superiority of western culture in every regard is undefeatable. They want western culture so much even the actors in Bollywood movies look as western as they can make them!

Since when do we believe the CHinese communist regime or any rogue state to be truthful keep their promises deals or pacts? Even our Howard Government is democratic (seemingly) and he cant keep his promise on anything.

Lets face it greed is their motto and this has blinded them to everything else inlcuding that Chinese regime wants to rule the world with Communism

Benjamin, interesting angle.

>>Asia will be an economic power, built on the backs of their slave labor, and lack of respect for human rights.<<

According to the mantra of twentieth century communism, the entire western economy was built in similar fashion. Only by consistent oppression of the working man did the capitalist barons build their fortunes etc. etc. Or something like that.

As a result of this exploitation, we in the West built a talented middle-class that created a society with individual economic expectations - at all levels - that are a world apart from those of their forbears.

This cycle is going to be repeated in China, and - when they finally rid themselves of the love of bureaucracy-for-its-own-sake - in India. Both countries have the capacity to produce legions of highly educated, potentially middle-class, professionals, who will shape their foreseeable future.

What will be really interesting, as you hint, will be the reaction of those countries who suddenly find themselves overtaken in the prosperity stakes.

Will they accept their new role for a few centuries, then find some means of resurgence when China and India subside into fat-and-lazy decadence, as both Europe and the US have already done?

Or will instead they take it upon themselves to "[send] troops in to these backward nations to force them to pay their people more", as Benjamin proposes?

Of course, the political and economic outcome of this kind of imperialist bullying will not necessarily be predictable, as most recently demonstrated in the less significant contexts of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But more importantly, it will mean the permanent abandonment of any form of moral high ground. Nobody particularly likes to be told what to do. To be told by a bunch of arrogant, well-fed countries that they should keep their peasants in poverty simply to satisfy another country's greed for more and more money, might not go down too well.

Nonetheless, given the relative military might of the US and the rest, they might be stupid enough to give it a try.

Hope I'm not around to see it, though.

Benjamin, do you really believe there is the remotest chance that the USA or other western nations would invade China or India, the 2 most populous nations in the world? And that the reason for such an invasion would be to relieve the oppression of the poor? And should such an invasion be contemplated for any reason, that these 2 nations would hesitate to use their nuclear weapons, or that any attempt to invade and occupy even if the conflict were limited to non-nuclear weapons would have the slightest hope of succeeding, given what we have witnessed in Iraq?

War is not the solution to the world's problems. Invasion of any peaceable nations would be a disaster for invader and vanquished. The best means of reducing threats to international security is to promote economic development and justice and reduce military posturing.

"Frankly, I think that we should be sending troops in to these backward nations to force them to pay their people more, instead of paying them rice-bowl wages."

Just like we did in Iraq, eh Benjamin?

Top idea mate.

"Only late last year, the Europeans & U.S met and agreed NOT to sell advanced weaponry, developed by the west in our free and open nations, to backward states..."

Jolly good thing too.

If Iraqi insurgents had gotten hold of advanced weapons, we could never have pacified the country by now. Fortunately their primitive AK47s, RPGs and IEDs were no match for our advanced weapons systems.

Should present trends continue though, within 5 years India and China will together be graduating more scientists and engineers than our Advanced World.

What we ought to be doing - to allow the heathen savages to keep revelling in their backward status - is to start bombing their universities.

We need to start doing it NOW.

Isn't that right, Benjamin?

Global heavyweights, such as microsoft in Malaysia, will rape the country and the government incentives until it is is only marginally more practical to be there, then they will ship out back somewhere else.

The whole way it works is whilst you have engineers etc coming out, they get paid crap and end up in a mass exodus as skilled migrants everywhere else.

This is life, they will become heaveyweights, but in Manufacturing and labour orientated activities.

We have little to worry about, we have set up a good shop and we will not be effected, because maximum efficiency means we all do what we do best as countries and therefore we will not be encroached on as a nation, and nations like India have too may internal hurdles that are neglected that will always come back to bite them. Few Asian countries have their own house in order, and the west will always call the shots, one way or another.