ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a major element of uncertainty into any calculation of China’s future role as an Asian-Pacific power. The implication for Chinese foreign policy is twofold. First, to the extent that political uncertainties impede economic progress, the increase in Beijing’s power will occur at a slower rate than during the first half of the 1980s. Second, a political reaction is likely to have an antiforeign content, as seen already during the “spiritual pollution” campaign. In the economic area, where China for more than a century had fallen far behind, the country has become an Asian giant in quantitative measure and, since 1979, has made rapid strides in qualitative and per capita terms. Asia as a whole will tend more and more to be composed of strong, modernizing, assertive, and expansionist nations all obeying the Iron Law of International Politics.
