Do people out of China have a blown-out-of-proportion view?

[xuechengfeng]

Honestly, MANY people I know think that China is going to be the contending, or absolute superpower in the near future. They think since they have 1 billion people their armed forces are too powerful. They think it's the only place where you can do business. They think that we are going to be speaking Chinese in the future.

out of proportion view?

yes.

But, what will China become?

[BeijingSlacker]

Honestly, MANY people I know think that China is going to be the contending, or absolute superpower in the near future. They think since they have 1 billion people their armed forces are too powerful. They think it's the only place where you can do business. They think that we are going to be speaking Chinese in the future.

As a native Chinese myself, I never think this way and none of the Chinese people I know would agree with the whole superpower thing. Who are those many people you know ??

[Alhazred]

Reminds me that in a not so-distant past, French papers used to discuss the "péril jaune", many journalists were afraid of China just because of there being too many chinese... Maybe they will soon switch to fearing India too ? Western countries are afraid of losing their privileges I think.

[yonglan]

Plenty of Chinese think that way. It's been expressed on this forum, in fact.

As for people from other countries, there are two reasons, I think.

1) When someplace is rising you wonder where/when it will stop. Japan in the 1970/80s.

2) China is more than a fifth of the world's population. They are growing very quickly economically and have been for more than a decade. They are increasing their military. They have swallowed up places around them, including post-1949. They even tried taking part of India. Who knows what China will do. Maybe nothing. But we can't say that for sure.