I dont' disagree with anything you say, except for the fact that the UN is more ineffectual and corrupt than John Street.
I also have some interest and puzzlement in what China can/would do. One one hand their a nationalistic country that is the only nation to become a world power without being in a major war to get there(from some china studies book I glanced through once). But on the other hand, isn't their whole economy based on making us all the cheap crap we are required to buy to keep the economy moving? As some guy in a business mag said, "it's all made in china now".
I can't figure it out, but hopefully we're get a good spacerace going. If I'm going to have an enemy that makes us strive for innovation and other things, it sure aint' going to be the arab shieks.