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The BRIC countries, can they keep up with China's growth? Can that be a problem for
BRIC countries that China is developing so rapidly?
Let's put this in context. China has gone from 147th in the world to number two in the
economy in the world in the last 33 years. But the US economy is still four times bigger.
It'll be a long time arithmetically, you can figure it out, before China catches up if
it ever does.
So here is what a lot of people also think, that with its economic and military growth,
China is poised to become the center of the new multi-polar world.
It's not a multi-polar world. By the way, they have been building military, but still
US has the military that is equal to all the other militaries in the world put together.
And we've heard a lot of talk about multi-polar world, but last century it was in Soviet Union
and the US, this century to be very simple-minded about it, this century it's the US and China.
That world is going to be dominated by the bipolar connection of China and the US. And
countries will make decisions and calibrate their actions against what they perceive will
be the response of the US and or China, there will be a bipolar world replacing the Soviet
Union and the US, but on a very different basis.
So no Cold War?
Yes, a Cold War, sort of a Cold War, but with the Soviet Union on an ideological basis,
with China on an economic basis.
What do you think is China's strategy in relation to Russia?
I'll summary the strategy. Russia is the biggest producer of oil in the world, China is the
biggest consumer of energy in the world. That dictates the strategy.