Dominant powers have often run relay races among each other throughout history. Today, globalization and technology can increase the speed of those races, which, in the past, would take centuries to be finished.
We are told that a third of the world population lives in China and India and that a demographic explosion is feared. Actually, it’s not the number of people what matters but their actions. In a Marxist economy, a numerous population necessarily leads to famine, while in a market economy, a numerous population is a positive thing since it makes up a great internal market.
In today’s world, Europe is a declining power which preserves its prosperity to the detriment of its defense expenses and respecting democracy. Europe may recover or, on the contrary, get stagnant and become a simple destination for U.S. and Asian tourists. Nobody knows yet what’s going to happen to the United States, but we seem to enjoy the Asian vitality respecting democracy and freedom as Europe does. Knowing how China and India will evolve is something that we must do in the future.
They are very different countries. India is a nuclear power that respects democracy and speaks English. An alliance should be established with India and we must succeed in getting it to take a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. On the other hand, China is turning into a Soviet-like power. Currently, China uses North Korea against the United States and Japan. China’s behavior is much worse than that of the U.S. but China’s breaches of the Human Rights are not published in big headlines due to a mixture of third-world backwardness, anti-Americanism and Chinese-fright.
By the time China becomes a threat, a defenseless Europe might be likely to turn again to the United States and find there much better quality than today.

Source
National Review (U.S.A.)

"The Global Shift", by Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, June 10, 2005.