Wake Up! The World is Flat.

"China does not just want to get rich. It wants to get powerful. China doesn't just want to make GM cars. It wants to be GM and put GM out of business. Anyone who doubts that should spend time with young Chinese." (Friedman, 2006, p. 422).

This is a quote from "The World is Flat", the recent bestseller by US journalist Thomas Friedman, which describes those forces which led to the world as we know it today. Even though Friedman's approach might be more journalistic than academic, his book delivers the right message: political and technological innovations have put a large part of the world on a level playing field where a design student in a rural Chinese village fights with the same weapons as a professional design company in London - and both are competing for the same customers.

The books systematises what most of us have just started to realize in their everyday lives: through the (new) Internet, which has been made possible by increased bandwidth and object-oriented programming concepts like AJAX, the way we do things has changed dramatically. People collaborate all over the world, we share thoughts through blogs, we call our friends all over the world for free via Skype, we use online tracking systems for our parcels and connect through social networks - just to mention a few things which we certainly did not do ten years ago. All you need to participate: a PC and an Internet connection.

Jointly with the rapid economic development of India and particularly China, this will lead to enormous changes in the world's balance of power. I chose the above quote from the book because it exactly corresponds to my own impression of China after spending four months at Tsinghua University, China's most prestigious educational institution: China will not only continue to be the world's largest production site, it will soon also take the lead in geopolitical, cultural and global economic aspects. And this change is happening faster than anyone can imagine, so roll up your sleeves...