Chronicle of China's unfolding ten years foretold

The next 10 years could see the world economy go into a tizzy, wobble and then crash. The signs are there. The European Union debt crisis does not seem to end anytime soon. The United States still has no definite answer to its debt crisis or "fiscal cliff". Japan is too busy trying to clear the economic and political mess of its own making to find a foolproof way of reversing its downward economic trend. This, in brief, is the state of three of the world's four largest economies.

The next 10 years could also see the Middle East go up in flames despite the US-led West's efforts to spread democracy in the region, militant Islam become more militant, and Northeast Asia engaged in a bloody power game that could derail the established political and economic order.

In the next 10 years, rising temperatures could wreak greater havoc across the planet, scalding the land, drying up lakes and rivers, destroying crops and causing a food crisis. There could also be more hurricanes and typhoons, sandstorms and snowstorms, and of course floods.