Zenster’s point about much of China’s growth being unsustainable is probably true to an extent. But some of its growth is undoubtedly real and there’s no reason why China, like the US, can’t adapt or cope with its problems as it goes along.

Stratfor argues that China’s fault line is between the interior and the coasts. That in the early 20th century, China was being divided between the Global Coast (dominated by European enclaves) and the backward interior. That China has now gambled that it can open the coasts while keeping the country together, which in an era of a retreating West may be possible.

However, that calculation is double edged. The combination of a retreating West and Chinese globalization means that Beijing must inevitably assume an increasing “system administrator” role in the empty spaces of governance. Nowhere will this be more pronounced than Central Asia and the Middle East. China has become one of the largest consumers of oil.

While the US maintains freedom of navigation China’s economic engine will continue to chug along. But a hostile or weakening America might compel China to look further abroad to preserve its interests. As to the one-child policy, different societies are reeling under different types of demographic bombs. The Islamic world is being overrun by an unemployed, militant, largely uneducated baby boom, while Europe, Japan and China are downsizing their future generations. The United States’ population mix is changing under the pressure of open borders. Everybody’s got their problems. But there is some worry that while China might have the political will to do something about its problems, Europe and the US may just coast along, ineffectually distracted by political correctness.

One thing that seems certain is that the Age of the Europe is now over. What America’s fate will be in the emerging world still depends; and it depends largely on how it responds.