Opening chapter to Twilight Visitor
China’s rise as a global leader and their general sense of global indispensability was best couched by their ambassador to the Asian Economic Summit held in Kuala Lumpur, wherein he announced that both Asia and the rest of the world could no longer enjoy true prosperity and stability without China.
Although almost arrogant, the statement was nonetheless factual – because over the last several decades, both western and even Asian economies, now enjoyed a higher standard of living because of the massive Chinese workforce and the lowered cost of manufacturing the essentials which fueled their own economies. China had entered the households of millions, if not even billions across the planet, and its global influence was both undeniable and irrevocable.
Economists and the banking industry all knew, in fact, predicted, that the trend would only continue. The manufacturing process had already been well ensconced into the Chinese and Asian domain and the west was now utterly dependent on them. Whereas in the mid-20th century, 80% of the global wealth resided in the west and 20% in the eastern and poorer economies, that powerbase was radically shifting. So much so that predictions estimated that in just a matter of years, China’s GDP would surpass the global giant, America, and moreover, within another decade or two, the scales would tip, with the lion’s share of global wealth residing in the eastern nations, not the west. The world was changing, radically so, and China had its foot on the accelerator and was driving that very change.
However, that global dominance came with a price, one which had been seriously threatened by the recent announcement from OPEC that oil reserves were estimated to significantly drop-off by upwards of 25-35% as early as the next five or ten years.
The looming repercussions of such had sent renewed shockwaves through the inner sanctum of Beijing’s governing enclave. And though the Chinese leaders had known years before that they had to move fast in generating new forms of renewable energy, unfortunately the giant had been far too complacent...
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