That the next generation of superpowers will get there by non-military means while respecting the rule of international law, will make the world as a whole safer. All the BRIC countries have indisputably shown infinitely more respect for the rule of international law than those nations which destroyed Yugoslavia & Iraq.

The logic of strategic power is not entirely compatible with political idealism. In wartime, your enemy’s enemy’s is your friend. In peacetime the same should apply.

The only enemies we have that threaten our lives and our property are Islamic extremists. In that instance China, Russia and India should all be our friends. Yet Bush and the western media propagate against Russia and China, ensuring more regional instability than is necessary.

Political correctness is bad enough when you keep it at home. When people try to export it, the results can be disasterous.

International stability is worth more than having politically perfect allies. The West needs to set its priorities better and see that the requirements for peace in the world come first - and human rights have to inevitably come second. Yet out of stability more progress on secondary objectives might be made - not less.

Of course there remain exceptions to the generally happy picture; non-democracies such as China and energy-suppliers like Russia whose wealth comes from underground rather than tax-payers that need to be kept happy. These regimes are still viewed with suspicion by their neighbours who often look to the USA for security. The ultimate goal of the English-speaking countries should not be to blindly support the suspicious neighbours of China or Russia but to solve the concerns at root by encouraging these titans to become fully-fledged liberal democracies integrated fully into the global economy.

In the 1980s it was thought that Japanese growth would go on forever. Today many repeat the error in assuming the same of China. It is easier to catch up than overtake, but it is questionable if the Chinese can be as effective as the Japanese in catching up. The Japanese certainly struggle in software-based technologies, but they are as strong (i.e. unassailable) in many advanced (e.g. optical or silicon) technologies as the Americans are in the Internet or the Scandinavians in mobile telephony. The Chinese role in the global economy is of fundamentally lower value; essentially they are a low-cost supplier of manufactured goods to Western markets that free up labour here to work on more productive things. Their role will certainly give them an impressive GDP (perhaps even the highest) by virtue of their massive population, but the existing GDP/person leaders (USA, Japan, UK etc.) will remain the pathfinders.

China, though, is different.
I have never been. I know nothing about Chinese History. Do you?
The problem is that books coming out of China are pretty scary really. there was a new one this week about the Cultural Revolution - something about Wolves. I read the review in the Spectator. Ouch! Then Mao - by Jon Halliday. I also read a book by a Christian who was falsely imprisoned - not much fun, actually.

Religion? Notice how the Christian based West is most anxious to supply aid to their neighbours in Burma (Good Samaritan). Muslim Java has supplied some aid too (Zakat). And Buddhist Ceylon? Buddhist Thailand? Buddhist Indo China? Smile and wave! Smile and wave|!

China, I understand, has a strong Buddhist edge, tinged with callous Stalinist Communism. Stalin chose Mao. (piece shortened-ed)

For this reason the west must make overtures to Mr Medvedev who has called for greater ties with the western world. We should even bring Russia into NATO, this was an idea that was floated at the end of the cold war but unfortunately wasn’t followed up. Russia as part of NATO would effectively end any possibility of a Sino/Russian pact and would help restore better relations between Russia and former Warsaw Pact countries that have already joined NATO. Currently far too much emphasis and resouces are being poured into a dead-end in the midle-east.

The west must become conscious of China’s growing military strength, China’s hegemonistic aims in Africa and China’s attempts to court the Russians into military co-operation. China and Russia have already held military manouvres together as part of their ‘Peace Mission 2007′ which involved 6,500 troops and 500 tanks and other armoured vehicles. The manouvres were seen by both nations as being a first step in developing a counterweight to NATO and particularly the United States.

Of course nothing can beat quietly painstaking, thorough, world-wide, skilled diplomacy, as displayed by the Conservatives and George Bush Senior’s people over the liberation of Kuwait in 1990, and which appears to have been lacking in the Blair/Bush Junior method of winning the second war against Iraq with overwhelming military superiority. But it doesn’t get any less complicated or compromising for people who have been fed for so long on the Blair/Brown/BBC diet of “ethical foreign policy” and must now admit to themselves that they were naively taken in, to very great cost. How will these diverse populations ever develop a sense of national interest now?