ABSTRACT

There is no more weighty uncertainty for East Asia than the future of China. If China should stagger through with leadership struggles and perhaps even a disintegrating state, then the region will worry about mass migration and spreading chaos. If China should power ahead with double-digit growth, East Asia will worry about the implications of Chinese power. Futurology has always been a mug's game, but senior fellows in prestigious think tanks like to believe that it is legitimate to try to 'anticipate' the future. Hence the following, central theme: no matter whether China is weak or strong (or anything in between), the outside world has an interest in tying China in to the international system. By so doing, the implications of either Chinese chaos or Chinese power will be managed by a worried world.