I've had a fair amount of experience living and working in China and I'd say Hennessy's right. China's not about to assume the mantle of superpower any time soon.

If you want to read a really in depth analysis of power in modern China, I've never seen anything better than this piece by Rowan Callick. Utterly brilliant:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/the-east-was-red/story-e6frg7e6-1225779432478

There are numerous reasons why I don't think they're going to get in that position any time soon.

1) Domestically and culturally, the lack of respect for intellectual property laws renders investment in research pointless. What's the point of inventing a brilliant new product if it's copied and there's no profit?
No research = no innovation = a handy explanation for why there aren't any Chinese companies on the top 100 most recognised company brand names. This translates to a reduced influence economically and culturally and generates problems when considering foreign investment.

2) The economy is now predicated on a mantra of growth of more than 8% every quarter. In fact, news reports commonly state that if growth dips below that for more than three consecutive quarters, there will be problems with maintaining social order. Firstly, this is unsustainable and secondly, this means the party is going to be preoccupied for the foreseeable future unless there's some kind of structural change in both the economic and political systems.

3) The education system and cultural disposition of the country. Other commenters have been over this ground.

4) Lack of genuinely competitive commercial players. Most of the big ones in China are at least partly government owned and the CCP has a big influence. This doesn't provide the benefits competition does. Bigger, yes, more efficient, oh christ no. Combine this with a lack of R&D and you have a government, as well as companies, that aren't exactly cutting edge.

China will be come the new US. The rest of the world* will become neo-colonies after falling into the same debt trap Haiti fell into buying its freedom from France.
*Excluding perhaps Iran, the oil monarchies, India, but they will be under China's influence as Australia, Britain and the oil monarchies are today.

Hi Oliver

You commented: "I haven’t thought about Timor as a staging point for a strike on Australia. China, like Japan, certainly has been known to use its cheque book to buy favour and votes in international forums, from small Pacific Island states."

China developing Dili airport with a few light aircraft to train Timorese pilots will be the low level beginning of anxiety for Australia. More will develop. No strikes necessary - only for the movies. Staging base capabilities (air and naval) will cause realistic anxiety - which will mean a huge buildup of our bases in and around Darwin.

China is doing much more than chequebook vote buying. It is actually providing the power stations that will provide most of the electricity for East Timor for the next 20 years. The fuel for these stations only comes from China and the main technicians will need to be Chinese for the next 20 years.

You said : "At the time of Australia’s recent conflict with the Indonesia over East Timor, the potential for higher levels of engagement were present. In Oz, in reserve, heavier ground materiel and F-111s were on alert and a US carrier too, just in case."

Yes I know that. As well as the carrier the US also provided an AWD and a heavy LHD - all things still beyond Australia's capabilities.

Use of F-111's in defence of Dili and villages to bomb Indonesian forces would have proven an extreme escalation and seen internally as an Australian act of war. Would we bomb Jakarta? Menzies did after all envisage using the F-111s to drop nuclear bombs on that city...?

We are talking about more subtle things, in our region, short of war, but still guiding our defence posture.

Pete

plantagenet,

Yes, we went close to a full-on conflict ("Confrontation") protecting Malaya from Indondesia. In that era, we were helping the Brits with their nuclear programme. The Amercians had given them the cold shoulder, after the Suez Crisis. Mark Oliphant a significant contributor at the Manhatten Project was alive. We were talking about using nukes to create artifical bays along the WA coast line. So, I guess, using a nuclear weapon on Jakarta may have been feasible then. Definitely, we would have been disposed to bomb the city had a major broken out.

As for China building a presence in East Timor. In the medium, term, This would not go unnotived by the US. Already, the US has talked about landing fields for its bomber wings and I with our purchase of Abrams tanks, possibly "storing" a similar number of its own on our soil.