My Comment: There is a lot of hot air out there these days about the threat China might be to the United States going forward. I’m not inclined to think so given the profound economic ties that exist between the two countries.

Its been said that the United States cannot stay a great country without China and China cannot become a great country without the United States. Maybe yes, maybe no. But to help that possibility become a more likely reality, ways have to be found to cause China to assume more responsibility for our future mutual prosperity. Here’s one way to do that.

Thursday is my day to focus on economics. If this bores the s___ out of you, I’m sorry. What topics would you like to read about. Let me know, PLEASE.

By Thomas P.M. Barnett | 19 Mar 2012

When Robert Zoellick recently announced that he won’t seek a second term as president of the World Bank, representatives of numerous emerging-market countries issued a flood of statements decrying America’s 66-year lock on the position. Meanwhile, the Chinese went out of their way within the organization to express their firm desire to have a commanding say in who succeeds Zoellick. Insiders are predicting that an American will still win the spot and that the Chinese simply want to exercise a showy veto over the proceedings. That would be too bad, because there are a host of good reasons why Washington should presently burden Beijing with the job of running the World Bank.

It would force China to be a “responsible stakeholder.” The symmetry here would be spectacular, as it was Zoellick himself who, as deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush, coined the phrase in describing the administration’s desire that China start pulling its weight in a global leadership role. If Washington wants China to assume such stake-holding leadership, then it needs to lure Beijing into positions of genuine responsibility. And this is a perfect one, given China’s increasingly outsized role in the global economy.

It would put a spotlight on China’s “free riding.” For years now, China and the United States have engaged in a silent and limited liability strategic partnership, with America pulling the trigger in police actions and the Chinese quietly stepping in to supply much of the “reconstructing” foreign direct investment. America shoots up Iraq, and then Chinese national oil companies score major deals in both the Arab south and Kurdish north. We drive al-Qaida out of Afghanistan, and Beijing subsequently engineers the biggest FDI deal — the Aynak copper mine — in that country’s sad history. Washington sanctions Iran and threatens “all options,” while China quietly sucks out as much Iranian oil as possible — at bargain basement prices. The list goes on and on, with the common theme being “American blood for Chinese energy and minerals.” Making China the face of the World Bank would be a nice way to make that strategic dynamic far more explicit, hopefully triggering a direct dialogue that for now simply does not exist.

It would shore up the U.S.-dominated World Bank’s relevance. In a recent Financial Times op-ed, former World Bank Vice President Ian Goldin noted that “the development of global capital markets and a network of national and regional development institutions, as well as a vibrant global scholarly and policy community to give expert advice, is rendering [the World Bank] marginal to all but the poorest countries.” With emerging markets now accounting for more than half of the global economy, they’re naturally playing the role of investment and trade connectors to countries that previously depended on the World Bank — with China leading the way. China now loans more money to developing economies than the World Bank itself, rendering it the de facto World Bank to Africa, for example. Why not end the charade that developmental funding flows are a West-to-South dynamic when they’re clearly an East/South-to-South dynamic?

China-driven South-South trade is the most dynamic engine of growth in the world economy today. After Asia, the two regions experiencing the fastest developmental growth recently have been Africa and South America. In both instances, China’s skyrocketing demand for commodities has been the primary driver. Yes, experts are saying that the China-fueled “supercycle” of commodities demand is already peaking as China hits the S-Curve slowdown normally associated with achievement of middle-income status. But those inter-regional co-dependent relationships aren’t going anywhere. Instead, they’re only deepening because of the “bamboo curtain” effect, whereby any developing economy’s increased trade with China leads to its increased trade with all of China’s trade partners — and the world at large. That structural reality alone means China should be in charge of the World Bank, for all the same reasons that America has long controlled the post. China is now the chief integrating agent in globalization’s advance, much as America once was.

China’s looming slowdown is the biggest challenge facing the global economy. China’s ability to muscle its way through the global financial crisis was the primary reason why the developing world essentially glided through its impact, demonstrating the latter’s growing dependence on the former’s demand for commodities. But as a recent joint China-World Bank report makes clear, that relationship will have to evolve to survive at the same mutually beneficial level. China must move up a level in production chains, shipping not cheap consumer goods, but low-end manufacturing jobs to developing regions from which it has up to now almost solely drawn commodities. If the ambitions of the “bottom billion” to truly integrate their economies into global supply chains are to be met, China will be the chief architect of those resulting trade and investment structures. Again, assuming that sort of role means China should step into the appropriate leadership limelight at the World Bank.

As chief saver in the global economy for several decades now, Asia — primarily in the form of China — now determines the future global financial order. This is an age-old reality of global economics: The biggest saver in the system sets the financial rules. America abandoned that position a long time ago and has since held onto the global economy’s controls primarily due to the dollar’s status as dominant reserve currency. But even that reality has been further self-defeating, as America’s addiction to cheap credit fostered a national overleveraging. Our nation’s relative decline now requires a several-decade economic renaissance that, thankfully, seems to be in the works due to the so-called fracking revolution in shale gas and “tight” oil. But to achieve that rebound, we’ll need vast amounts of Chinese FDI, as will fiscally constrained and rapidly aging Europe. That means China is on the hook to finance its own continued rise, the West’s rebound and the South’s continued emergence. With all that responsibility already in the works, it behooves us to push China into explicit leadership of the World Bank, if only because the West will never surrender leadership of the International Monetary Fund.

The right guy is already there on the job. Chinese national Justin Yifu Lin, age 59, already holds the positions of chief economist at the World Bank and senior vice president at the WB Group’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Respected for his analysis, Lin is known to have a strong relationship with Zoellick, who, by some accounts, would support his presidency. As one blog devoted to the selection process puts it, Lin “has been focusing on ‘big ideas’ after the financial crisis and is a strong advocate of a new development economics where experiences from developing countries should count more.” (In case it’s not obvious, “developing countries” here is longhand for China.)

Add it all up and history would seem to have provided U.S. President Barack Obama another clear opportunity to “lead from behind” in a realm — foreign aid — where America’s declining assets demand such practicality.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is chief analyst at Wikistrat and a contributing editor for Esquire magazine. His eBook serial is “The Emily Updates: One Year in the Life of the Girl Who Lived” (September-December 2011). His weekly WPR column, The New Rules, appears every Monday. Reach him and his blog at thomaspmbarnett.com.