時 代 》 ﹕ 中 國 崛 起 美 國 力 減 弱

China Takes on the World
The railroad station in the Angolan town of Dondo hasn't seen a train in years. Its windows are boarded up, its pale pink façade crumbling away; the local coffee trade that Portuguese colonialists founded long ago is a distant memory, victim of a civil war that lasted for 27 years. Dondo's fortunes, however, may be looking up. This month, work is scheduled to start on the local section of the line that links the town to the deep harbor at Luanda, Angola's capital. The work will be done by Chinese construction firms, and as two of their workers survey the track, an Angolan security guard sums up his feelings. "Thank you, God," he says, "for the Chinese."

That sentiment, or something like it, can be heard a lot these days in Africa, where Chinese investment is building roads and railways, opening textile factories and digging oil wells. You hear it on the farms of Brazil, where Chinese appetite for soy and beef has led to a booming export trade. And you hear it in Chiang Saen, a town on the Mekong River in northern Thailand, where locals used to subsist on whatever they could make from farming and smuggling--until Chinese engineers began blasting the rapids and reefs on the upper Mekong so that large boats could take Chinese-manufactured goods to markets in Southeast Asia. "Before the Chinese came here, you couldn't find any work," says Ba, a Burmese immigrant, taking a cigarette and Red Bull break from his task hauling sacks of sunflower seeds from a boat onto a truck bound for Bangkok. "Now I can send money back home to my family."[Times]

(星島日報報道)最新一期出版的美國《時代》雜誌以「中國﹕一個新王朝的開端」作為封面，並發表一篇題為《中國世紀》的專題文章，對中國在經濟上和其他各方面的長足發展作出評論，指出中國崛起已是一個既定的事實，但中國只會和平崛起，而相對之下，美國在這個世紀的國力將會減弱。

　　《時代》雜誌在文章中指出，美國在這個世紀的相對力量會走下坡，而中國的力量將會上揚，這已經既成事實。中國經濟發展之快，目前可說是首屈一指，中國更踏上國際政治舞台，積極參與外交事務，要說廿一世紀是「中國的世紀」，並不誇張。

　　《時代》雜誌在分析文章中還認為，中國只會和平崛起，中、美之間並不會爆發戰爭，也不會出現失控的經

濟競爭。