China as a Major Power

China was once one of the poorest countries in the world. However, over the past few years, it has grown into an economic powerhouse and is well on its way in surpassing the United States in become the country with the most powerful economy in the world. The rise of Chinese economy in turn has helped raise China's status in the global political arena and this is an issue that is very important to world politics because the actions taken by China in the future will greatly influence the future political shape of the world.

When China becomes capable of challenging the United States' power and leadership role in the global community, it is certain that there will be a great change in the international community. As a major economic power, both the United States and China would have influence over many of the countries and it is possible that another Cold War might be started where China and the United States will try to divide the globe in half and compete to see who will come out as the ultimate leader of the world. In this case, there would be drastic changes in the relationships between these two major powers and other nations of the world; factions will be formed with these major powers as one of their leaders and economy will be the major weapon to battle the opponents. Another possibility is that China and the United States will cooperate as economic and political partners and try to lead the world in basically the same direction. This is more likely to happen than the first case where China would challenge the United State's power, but it doesn't mean that there won't be any changes to the political shape of the world. Even through cooperation, both China and the United States will have different agendas and different goals that they are pursuing, and these differences will lead to clashes. This would result once again in a battle for the leadership role, and it seems that unless the US and China has the same agenda, conflict between the two major powers, and the consequential changes in world politics is inevitable.

I have mentioned two scenarios that could unfold once China gains power from its economic growth, but there are many more scenarios that could unfold. One common future is that there will be clashes and conflicts, because no two governments have the exact same agenda. Since these clashes will be happening between two major world powers (once China gains enough power), it will inevitably lead to political changes and changes in alliances, and the political world we see today will not be the same once China reaches the height of its powers. This makes the rise of China as one of the most important issues in world politics.