Via Niall Ferguson

What are the geopolitical implications of all this(credit crunch)?

One possibility is that the “great reconvergence” between East and West is speeding up. If you go back to the very first report that Goldman Sachs produced about the “BRICs economies” (Brazil, Russia, India and China), China was projected to overtake the United States in gross domestic product in 2040. But in more recent reports, that has been brought forward to 2027. Maybe it will be even sooner. For one inevitable consequence of the credit crunch is that the United States will grow more slowly for the foreseeable future – at closer to 1 or 2 percent per year, rather than the 3 or 4 percent it has grown used to. By contrast, China’s semi-planned economy can comfortably maintain growth of 8 percent or more per year, propelled forward by state-led investment in infrastructure and growing consumer demand. Because net exports are no longer the key driver of China’s growth, an American sneeze need not necessarily cause an Asian cold.