From the Readers

Facing human crisis,China, US should ditch old mind-set

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-06-25 17:27

Comment on "Why the US can't contain China" (China Daily website, June 25)

I have lived and worked in China and the USA. I’d like to give a perspective from the sidelines as a citizen of a third country, which depends on China for its wealth and the USA for its current defense.

China and USA are two of the most important nations for global stability in this new century. They share the most important strategic interest in a stable and peaceful world.

The recent book by Henry Kissinger, "On China" is a fascinating account of what actually happened in the past 40 years between China and USA. This is sometimes different from the hot air from the media.

To look forward to the future and what should be the best win-win outcome for both countries, China and the US need to try to identify what the greatest dangers are to the world in this century.

Apart from accidental nuclear wars, the greatest danger comes from continued global population growth and the subsequent critical global food crisis, which in my opinion will occur before 2060. The media in some Western countries are very excited about global warming but turn a blind eye to global population growth. A good introduction to this global food crisis is in a video on the China Daily website: m.hwdly.com.cn/video/2011-06/15/content_12702559.htm.

China with its one-child policy can survive the food crisis if it maintains and improves the policy and increases its food production.

If this scenario of the greatest global crisis is right, then USA with EU should encourage China to deal with all of Asia while the US focuses on Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Dr B S Goh, on China Daily website

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