■"Hong Kong, Taiwan Draw Investment As China Cools Down," by Craig Karmin, Wall Street Journal, 22 November 2004, p. C1.

■"Drug Companies Look to China For Cheap R&D," by Laura Santini, Wall Street Journal, 22 November 2004, p. B1.

■"New York Port Hums Again, With Asian Trade," by Eric Lipton, New York Times, 22 November 2004, p. A1.

Investors are cooling on China the mainland, but still pumping money into Hong Kong and Taiwanóor the so-called Greater China markets.

That phrase tells you plenty: Greater China is an economic reality to which the political reality of something beyond China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan has yet to emerge. Economics racing ahead of politics. Connectivity racing ahead of security. The gaps suggest the need for new rule sets.

The question is, How do they come about? By violence or by diplomacy?

Guess which route means more money for everyone?

The definition of Greater China includes sectors like the drug industry, which is deciding to send more and more of its R&D effort from the US to China. But it also includes geographic realities, like a New York port system that is revitalized largely by Greater China's explosive growth over the past five years.

When I was in Beijing, I told reformists there that they needed to do more than come up with a Theory of Peacefully Rising China. They need to come up with a Theory of Greater-Than-Mainland China that was more than just economics and growing connectivity, but included political and security definitions of a better tomorrow for all who joined.

This is Rising China's real task right now, and if completed, the world will enter a new era of even greater stability and growth across a growing Core.