What will life be like in America, Europe, Japan or China in the year 2020？
As everyone's lives across the world are become increasingly interconnected by globalization and new technologies quicken the pace of everything, the answer to that question depends on the fate and paths of the world's major nations. In Futurecast, Robert Shapiro, former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce and Chairman/Co-founder of Sonecon, looks into the future to tell us what our world will over the next dozen years.
Though that time span seems brief, Shapiro foresees monumental(adj.纪念碑的，有重大意义的) changes caused by three historic new forces—globalization, the aging of societies, and the rise of America as a sole superpower with no near peer— will determine the paths of nations and the lives of countless millions.
• Even as China expands its military and its economy, America will be the world's sole superpower for at least the next generation, and continue to lead efforts to preserve global security and stability.
• The U.S. and China will be the world's two indispensable(adj.不可缺少的) economies, dominating the course of globalization.
• Globalization will continue to shift most heavy manufacturing（重工业）and millions of high-end service jobs from advanced countries like the US, to China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Romania, Turkey and other developing nations.
• Europe's major nations and Japan will face the prospect of genuine economic decline and critical problems in their retirement pension systems, moving further towards the periphery（n.外围，边缘地段）of global economic and geopolitical（adj.地理政治学，地缘政治学的） power.
• Every major country—the U.S., Europe, Japan, China—will face critical problems with their health care systems, and the entire world will face a crisis over energy and climate change.
