Opinion Home   China   World   Cartoon   Readers' Voice     Forum Columnists     Laugk Chaiman Wchao37 Freeman Yapchongyee		Forum Columnist - Chairman   China's lost twenty years! For twenty years, schools and universities were shut down by Mao Zedong's failed Great Leap Forward, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Why a big China defeated by smaller states? From a historical perspective, the Chinese were never a martial nation. So what about Russia and Vietnam? The Sino-Vietnam War was in 1979. On Chinese chauvinism and need to keep open door policy Chinese culture is secular and tolerant. At her peak in the Tang dynasty (618-907), China absorbed foreign culture at an accelerated rate, this phenomenon being influenced by as many as more than 10,000 merchants coming from as far as Rome living in the ancient capital of Xian. A misconception about China's increased defence budget Among the East Asian states, China has the greatest economic potential. Currently it is the second largest economy (measuring by Purchasing Power Parity) and in fifty years will surpass the US. America is in no danger of attack from China It makes me wonder why would China perceive the US as the eventual enemy, as claimed by many American hawks? America is separated from China by the Pacific Ocean and is in no danger of attacks from a China that places the military least of its four modernizations. The US and China are neither friends nor foes An American perception of China as intransigent and belligerent needs some scrutiny. China is inflexible when it is asked to abide by rules it has no part in writing.