Seventy-five years [after the start of
the 20th Century], China is a revivified nation, with a developing modern industrial economy, a skill and capacity for technological achievement which has placed her — a sinister but significant indication — among the small group of powers technically and industrially able to produce nuclear weapons and launch satellites.
Her armed forces, if still weaker than those of the two superpowers, are
strong enough to ward off the danger of foreign intervention and
aggression, and are feared as capable of expansion on land, even though no such attempt has in fact been made.
In the field of international relations, whereas China in 1905 was only
a problem for others to meddle with, she is now a major power, and her
interests and views have at all times to be taken into careful account.
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