Outcomes

Abstract

Ushering in the twenty-first century were the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. This inauspicious beginning of a new century came as a terrible revelation to most people in the world. The insecurity of the new global environment reveals a world marked by vehement religious revivals, strong desires for a voice by disempowered people, and the resort to violence by nongovernmental actors. Clearly, the horrible events of September 11, 2001, were not on the same scale as the two cataclysmic world wars that revolutionized the world system in their wake, but the events did change the way the world perceives the international system and thus the way states react to and within the system. It changed the way that ruling, resources and religion fit into that world system. The outcomes of this global twenty-first century shift have wide-ranging impact on not only China as a country, but also the Asia-Pacific as a region and throughout the world.