The recent earthquake in China's Sichuan province has exacted a gigantic toll in terms of lives, infrastructure and other resources. Yet it may also provide a significant example of China's actual rescue, military and other capabilities through China's response to this tragedy.
The reason why this issue is relevant is because of popular line of thinking of China as an emerging superpower. This is a notion that sounds good and might have some merits but on the whole, it is not very true. This Asia Times Online piece tries to debunk this thinking with some comparative facts of China's economic growth. The author also questions the soundness of China's institutions like its legal framework and social welfare capabilities as being inadequate. While the bleak predictions may be a bit farfetched-China breaking up into separate regional zones for one- most of the descriptions of China's weaknesses and the falseness of claims of China as an "emerging superpower" are spot on, in my opinion.