Will China Outsmart the U.S.?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/adam-davidson-china-threat.html?ref=world
Partly as a result, the U.S. still dominates the world of research and development, as it has for more than a century. The country spends nearly double the annual R.-and-D. budgets of Japan and Germany combined. But China’s decadelong rise from a nonplayer in R. and D. to the world’s second-largest spender poses a serious threat. A recent study by the Battelle Memorial Institute, a research firm, predicts that China’s spending will match ours around 2022. In research terms, that is effectively today.
China already has plans to focus on exciting but vague ideas now — like green energy and bio- and nanotechnology — that will most likely become products in the 2020s. And if U.S. government labs, university departments and corporate researchers aren’t already on top of the next generation of breakthroughs, the country will very likely fall behind in 10 or 20 years when those innovations become marketable products. Our global competitiveness is based on being the origin of the newest, best ideas. How will we fare if those ideas originate somewhere else? The answers range from scary to scarier. Imagine a global economy in which the U.S. is playing catch-up with China: while a small class of Americans would surely find a way to profit, most workers would earn far less, and the chasm between classes could be wider than ever.end quote.

China will only outsmart the U.S. when it has a few people on top like Steve Jobs who are taken seriously. But the main problem for China is the Asian philosophy of "The nail that stands up gets pounded down". Which basically means if you are different in any way you will either be made to conform or you will be imprisoned or killed. So, basically, all the real Steven Jobs' of China have already been pounded down or have died or are presently dying in prison there. This is the problem of China. What likely will happen for China is that they will find a Steven Jobs kind of person in another country and that person will be drawn by Chinese financing. And at that point China might Outsmart the U.S.

However, I see a completely different dynamic at play than this. What I actually see happening is the demise of the Nation State worldwide caused by globalism and communication and the internet. So, as we become more and more interdependent as nations, wars of all kinds become more and more unthinkable for all big nations and areas. As this dynamic takes place, we become one world and one nation which reminds me more of The United States of Earth or The Global States of Earth under something more like the United Nations. Even if this hasn't happened yet, that is the direction all this is moving. This will become more so as Global climate change destroys whole regions of earth and millions die over every 5 year period from weather calamities and earthquakes. Since these events are "Acts of God" and not nation states being bad as such, it will tend to draw the world together to "circle their wagons" against these "Acts of God" destroying worldwide civilizations. In this way it will become everyone helping everyone survive some really bad calamities as these increase exponentially over the next 10 to 20 years.