Chapter 6, titled ‘The Far Eastern Anchor’, in ‘The Grand Chessboard’(1997) by Zbigniew Brzezinski is about Asia. In regard to China, Zbigniew said:

Chinese consumption of energy is already expanding at a rate that far exceeds domestic production. That excess will widen in any case, but especially so if China’s rate of growth continues to be very high.

I am always impressed by how well scholars or researchers in the Stats have done in the study of China. Remember the Economists have predicted cruel oil price would hit $5 a barrel in 1999? This was apparently a prediction based on extrapolation of the then oil price movement. But a geo-strategist sees beyond short-run trends and tries to foresee how nations will engage each others to compete for finite resource on planet Earth.

Actually reading this book now I realise a fair numbers of predictions made in this chapter are not too far off the mark, e.g.

1) energy and food supply issue

2) when China will surpass Japan’s GDP (‘within two decades [from 1997]’), and may rival that of USA

3) Tension between China and other Asian countries