Truth from a potential Adversary

This first paragraph from Asia Times Online speaks volumes:

China's four-play

With US President George W Bush in essence rendered to lame-duck status and Republican Party stalwarts such as Donald Rumsfeld missing in action, China has a unique opportunity to accelerate its path toward becoming the world's second superpower.

...and... from an earlier ariticle:

A country that cannot stomach civilian losses and is limited from engaging in massive retribution will in essence have to rethink its strategic paradigm. In a matter of a few years, the US will go back to defending itself domestically from hostile forces, rather than projecting its power globally.

It is the end of the American century.

For fifteen years, I have listened to Chinese in-laws about how the 21st Century is the Chinese century. I have always taken them seriously, if not prophetically. Some would say (we know who they are) there is nothing wrong with taking a back seat, that there is nothing written in the stars that says American supremacy is eternal. I don't necessarily disagree, but I refuse to be fatalistic about it.

The past affects the present and the present affects the future.