Allison Addicott

After watching Tom Friedman of the New York Times discuss with Charlie Rose the updated version of his book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” I have been thinking more about the tension between the ideas of “The Decline of the American Empire” and “The Rise of China”.  To opine on this topic one must first make a “boilerplate-ment”, and it must read:  that which you will read is my opinion, and to actually hit every factor or variable in this complex situation would result in a text too long to read.

Josef Joffe’s recent article, “The Default Power: The False Prophecy of America’s Decline” in Foreign Affairs (Sept/Dec 2009) reminds us that the declaration of the death of “US” primacy may be too loud and strident when compared to the statistics at hand. He, further, gives a kind of historiography of this myth, with hard and fast stats to back up his doubts as to this most recent iteration of the death knell.  Thus, as Friedman responded to Charlie Rose with a “maybe” when asked whether or not China was going to be a kind of “next great superpower” I have found further supporting evidence (other than my own) to question the assumption that the US is incontrovertibly on the way down as “China rises”.

For my purposes, I am interested in digging deeper into the political relationship as it may have consequences for other tangential freedoms flowing from those “sensibilities” of power.  And those freedoms are related to political expression, religion, and the access to power for those who are not among the most elite.

More soon.