Bill Kay predicts the end of al quai'da

Lunch and dinner meetings are much underestimated as sources of information and ideas largely, I suspect, because of the damage done to their reputation by the 20th century British and European tradition of the long (ie booze-soaked) business lunch. It is, I have to admit, my biggest loss in moving to America. Not that I don't do lunch or dinner, of course I do. But when I was in London as Money Editor of the Sunday Times I had at least three lunches and maybe a couple of dinners a week with people in the money business and that produced a steady flow of stories and column ideas from the hours of discussion and free flow of thoughts.
This is a preamble to an idea that struck me with particular force at dinner last night, at home with a friend of ours, Mary Mallory. Out of nowhere we were talking about how China might, as it rises to become a world power, become a bulwark against Islamic terror. But the contrary thought occurred to me: that Islamic terror will fade as the current crop of terrorist leaders ages and dies, but that China will turn into the country that poses the greatest threat to world peace.
This, I confess, attracts me because it chimes with my long-held belief that Chinese economic growth will eventually lead to a demand for political power which could easily find expression in military expansion. Happily China is a long way from feeling the pinch of overcrowding. But, as Germany proved under Hitler, overcrowding is not the only motive for expansion; nor, as Britain has shown, does overcrowding necessarily lead to military aggression. Brits just get used to jostling with one another without deciding that it would be a good idea to invade France by force.
No, I think it will be a badge of Chinese machismo to find a pretext for war, possibly against an Asian neighbour to begin with but maybe later on the big contest: a military superbowl against the US fought across the Pacific.
This naturally concerns Washington already. Its intelligence services have created files on every aspect of China, and the military threat is one of them; they wouldn't be doing their slightly paranoic job if they did not at least run through that scenario. I am sure their Beijing counterparts are doing the same thing.
Whether one side or the other decides that the balance of probabilities and the gains versus the losses add up to a decision to go to war is hard to say at this stage. But, just as 9/11 has not led to the global conflict that was feared in the weeks following that outrage, so I think the Islamic terror campaign will blow itself out. Too many Muslims are too intelligent to let themselves be consumed by hatred and jealousy towards the west, and they will kennel their stupid dogs of war, especially the suicide bombers with their ludicrously childish fantasy of meeting 71 (or is it 72?) virgins in heaven.
However, China faces a much more serious generational transition, in virtually the opposite direction, from peacefulness to bellicosity. We may be lucky. China may manage its growth rationally and calmly, without throwing up a Napoleon, a Hitler or a Stalin - or, for that matter, a Mao Zedong. But that country will at some stage have to throw off the constraints of communism, which have been shown everywhere else in the world to be tolerable only in the adolescent phase. I do not suffer from the delusion that democracy is inevitable. It suits western culture, but is by no means a universal solution. But whatever form greater freedom takes, it opens the door to a wider range of leaders, some of whom will attempt to subvert whatever system of government holds sway.