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CIA projection sees China 'crash,' North Asia boom

Special To World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Friday, December 19, 2003

A CIA report predicts that North Asia will prosper over the next 17 years and large states in South Asia could grow unstable.

The report also warns that China could "crash" in the coming years, leading to a desperate attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to unite Taiwan by force.

The report, "Global Trends 2020 Ñ East Asia," was made public Dec. 8 by the National Intelligence Council, an advisory unit that reports for the CIA director. The report is part of a yearlong effort to study "alternative futures," according to the NIC web site (www.cia.gov/nic)

Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, said in a Dec. 1 speech that East Asia is "on the brink of major change, as China continues to move toward greater economic openness and political flux."

"The key question is whether that political system is sufficiently elastic, and its leaders sufficiently imaginative, to accommodate continued rapid economic growth and the social pressures it will bring," he said.

Hutchings also noted that unification on the Korean peninsula "cannot be far off, with all the uncertainties that entails."

"Northeast and Southeast Asia will progress along divergent paths: the countries of the North will become wealthier and more powerful, while the largest states in the South -- Indonesia and the Philippines Ñ will become poorer, more populous, and more unstable," the report states.

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