Tonight, students from the China Factor will unveil a series of scenarios that will describe the China we may see in 20 years.
As part of a course discussing the rapidly evolving role of China in the contemporary world, discussion of what the future holds for this rising global power is necessarily difficult. When I started my studies at the institute in the fall of 2007, I had no idea that I would spend the next summer in the Russian Far East or that I would witness the unfolding of the 2008-2009 financial crisis just as I began the first semester of my MBA finance course.
However, through a partnership with a prominent Bay Area consulting firm and MIIS faculty, my class and I undertook the task of describing potential scenarios for China in 2030. We based these scenarios on two driving forces, in our case the state of good/bad Sino-American relations and a low/high degree of fossil fuel reliance. Out of those four possibilities, I picked a world in which China and the US are very cooperative but are also both reliant on imported fossil fuels.
As someone long accustomed to reading dire warnings of China’s exponential increases in energy consumption clashing with the USA, I initially viewed the scenario as unlikely to say the least. It could in a sense describe the current state, but with more cars, airports, people, and less oil in 20 years, it was hard to see how that pressure would not cause serious fissures between Beijing and Washington.
Going through the methodology our training provided us, I fleshed out what about the scenario would have to be true and how I could distill the scenario in the form of succinct news headlines. After much analysis, I figured out a plausible way that China and the United States could 20 years from now still be international partners despite decades of competition over dwindling energy reserves. I was able to broaden my perspective, make myself open to ideas and possibilities that my own bias hid from me. As I face the future and potential strategic decisions, I need to be as open and responsive as possible.
So tonight, I’m excited to see what my peer think.
