I think that China’s ascent to superpower status is a pretty good thing. While the Chinese (present) government may not be all that democratic, the Chinese are very practical-they never get into wars without some big benefit for them.
Take Afghanistan-I don’t think the Chinese would ever have blundered there the way we did-what they would have done is:
-open relations with whatever government was in control (Taliban, royalist, whatever)
-evaluate the natural resources (mineral deposits, gas, oil, etc.)
-negotiate an agreement to extract the resource-supply weapons to the government (to protect the mining operations)
I can’t see the Chinese ever getting into a mess as we did. For that reason, I doubt that there would ever be a war with China-they simply want to make money; with no concern for ideologies.
One giant mess the US is in is that we are too busy fighting over ideology to have pragmatism. Our politics is heavily about enforcing a rigid ideology on the world (at least domestically). I get the impression China is different, they are more pragmatic. I am assuming it is because the Chinese have seen the damage of ideology run amuk with communism and the cultural revolution, and the advances seen post 1978 due to pragmatism.
So nations like the US (or communist or islamic nations for that matter, but the US isn’t nearly as ideological as those nations) will continue trying to force the world to fit an idea while the Chinese will just do whatever works. As long as they do that, I think they will do fairly well.
Rereading your post, you seem to be making the same argument. The war in Iraq is something the Chinese wouldn’t do, they have no interest in molding the world to fit their philosophy from what I can see.
Aside from what what mistakes do wealthy nations make? You can argue that they/we become more concerned with today than tomorrow. We spend far more on wealth redistribution and health care than on scientific R&D, at least in Europe. I think they only spend about 1-2% of GDP on R&D as opposed to the 3% or so the US spends and that China is shooting for. So we invest less in making the world better tomorrow so we have enough money to make life better today.
Aside from that, I don’t know. But I don’t see China keeping solely to themselves. I am sure they will use whatever pressures they can to get whatever resources or concessions from the world they can.
During the recession when China had tons of liquid capital, they bought up lots of rare earth mines. Their goal was to corner the market in the hopes that the world’s R&D and manufacturing of renewable energy tech and communications tech had to be centralized in China. And (from what I remember) they wanted to set up a system where the nations had to share their info with China. A country couldn’t do R&D in China w/o the Chinese getting a piece of it. The world is now (hopefully) trying to rectify that by opening up rare earth mines elsewhere though. But I could see China trying the same thing in the future, trying to corner markets and do things that slow down innovation to make their own economy better.
This is more of a debate though.
Communists, even Chinese ones, are not infallible. You might want to read up on China’s short but nasty war with Vietnam.
Furthermore, China won’t be a superpower for at least 20 years.
It’s possible that they may not ever be a superpower.
[ul]
[li]Demographics–Some analysts believe that China will grow old before it grows rich.[/li][li]Geography–China is functionally an island–the Gobi Desert and Siberia to the north; and rugged, inhospitable mountains with very few roads to the west and south. This makes it hard to project power.[/li][li]Economy–China is still a poor country in almost every way. The tools of power projection are very, very expensive. Furthermore, some analysts, most notably Stratfor, believe that the Chinese economy is headed for a great deal of pain, similar to what Japan experienced. Back in the 80’s, everybody thought that Japan was going to the top.[/li][/ul]
And while it’s probably a mistake to take history as a complete guide, don’t forget that we’re talking about a country that was better positioned to be a superpower than anybody else about 500 years ago, and actively shunned the opportunity.
[quote=“Flyer, post:3, topic:664529”]
. . . [li]Geography–China is functionally an island–the Gobi Desert and Siberia to the north; and rugged, inhospitable mountains with very few roads to the west and south. This makes it hard to project power. . . . [/li][/QUOTE]
I’d say quite the opposite: having an island fastness assists in Naval power projection: look at Britain, Imperials Japan, and the U.S. The world is no longer in a strategic situation that involves land transport of armies.
(This is really only a very minor nitpick. I actually agree with nearly all that you said.)
Really?
[LIST=*]
[li]The Korean War (1950-1953)[/li][li]The Sino-Indian War (1962)[/li][li]The Sino-Soviet Conflict (1969)[/li][li]The Chinese Invasion of Viet Nam (1979)[/li][/LIST]
It is true, aside from saber rattling over Taiwan, that the Chinese have been smart enough to take profit in being an arms dealer as opposed to engaging in direct military adventurism. The lack of foreign basing–which the United States gained due to its involvement in World War II–limits the direct military reach. However, is they build up their navy, air force, and space warfare capability, there will be an increasing impetus to justify the investment through use. The supposed ideological conflicts of the Cold War were less about the actual ideologies–especially among the Soviets who pretty much mouthed the words of Leninist-Marxism while scamming for everything they could leech from the less fortunate–than about the insecurities of both burgeoning empires which replaced the hegemony and colonialism of the powers now in decline and their attempts to secure buffer zones and engage in conflict via proxy.
China has legitimately become an economic superpower, but it also has a host of problems which may yet cripple its growth. As a military superpower, its ascendence is still uncertain, and will probably depend largely on developments in the militarization of space rather than navy and air superiority.
Stranger
I think the only accurate part is that China isn’t generally a country to screw with. Their wars are nasty, brutish, and short(except for Korea), and they don’t care much for the niceties of the laws of war.
China is nowhere near a superpower and probably will never become one. Too much poverty, corrupt governance, surrounded by potential enemies who are also quite powerful in their own rights, and diplomatically amateurish except for being ruthlessly fixated on their self-interest.
The other big problem is that China’s wealth is dependent on exporting. While trade has always been important to great powers, China’s home market can’t yet make them rich. A war with powerful Western nations would cut them off from their main source of wealth and that’s not likely to change in our lifetimes.
A big problem hindering China is that most countries do not like them.
Many countries are friendly with China because of money, but they still do not like them.
As a crazy example:
If Russia invaded England tomorrow, then there would probably be many countries willing to help England.
If Russia invaded China tomorrow, then my guess is that many countries would have a “ehhh…lets wait and see what happens” attitude.
I don’t think they would repeat our mistakes unless they became a lot more democratic. I’m sure they’ll make plenty of other mistakes though.
Has the United States ever acted wrongly? Sure. But at least we attempt to maintain a moral standard. I don’t see how the world view described by the OP is better.
The worst mistakes made by the United States in its foreign policy were those occasions when we practiced the kind of politics the OP would like to see become the norm.
I’m not sure that a superpower motivated by money is any better than a superpower motivated by ideology. Among the colonialists, the British colonies seem to have done better than the rest, and ISTM that the reason was they weren’t just focused on pillaging stuff.
I’m not sure if it’s a function of technological advancements or anything else, but the US appears to be the first superpower that isn’t wrecking shit too badly in the rest of the world (compare colonialism, empire, etc). Could China do the same? Maybe.
I doubt that.
I can’t see many nations showing restraint after 9/11. That’s not to say invading Afghanistan was the correct course of action. Merely to say that any country with a significant military is going to lash out in a big way after such an event.
I am living in China right now, and I can tell you there is a lot of saber-rattling over the senkakus – a couple of tiny, uninhabited, basically useless islands that are disputed ownership between china and japan. I certainly hope it’s just posturing on both sides, but I’m certainly not confident of that.
Then compare that to what if China was presented with a real or perceived threat.
I’m not as sure as you that it will never be a superpower but I do wonder about the general assumption that it’s ascent will continue.
ISTM that going from poor to middle-income, and going from middle-income to rich are two different things, with different strategies required.
Autocratic government and state ownership of key industries can work great for the first stage, but the wheels come off before the second stage.
Hopefully china will transform itself enough now that it won’t stagnate or worse, collapse.
its ascent
I don’t think Chine wants to be a super power. I get the feeling they’re perfectly fine with the status quo just the way it is.
{ahem}…Native Americans…genocide…{cough}…
They will make their own set of mistakes.
And they seem to be off to a brilliant start with the whole idiotic South China Sea thing.
Aaah, something to link to the next time American Exceptionalism comes up…
China already is a world superpower - just not an excessively imperialist one like its forerunners (Tibet and the whole “Historic China” bit duly noted). Any nation that can project power globally, or put a man in space, is a superpower, and China can certainly do that.
All you naysayers will regret your stance when they’re raining KEPs on you from their moonbase 
China cannot project power globally. They have no long range airlift capacity and no navy capable of even landing men on Taiwan. They have not even proven that they can maintain an offensive more than 100 miles outside their own territory, over land.
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here. From the way you said it, it appears to be a rebuttal of what I said. But it seems we’re in agreement. Our treatment of Native Americans is certainly an example of the United States acting wrongly.
You are assuming that power = military power. Poor assumption.
China certainly projects economic power around the world.
Don’t confuse “can’t right now” with “never will.”
Also, if I can remember enough from my “Economics of China” class the issues of concern include:
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Property rights, and just legal rights in general
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Financial market is underdeveloped, not just relative to the western world - in general. Financing and banking may be exploitative, but also useful in getting the most out of your purchasing power.
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The poor. The population is artificially kept low with the 1 child policy but the aging issue is negligible compared to how many unemployed, displaced, rural migrant poor there are in the cities and just overall income disparity
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Environment. All aspects of it. Not just power plants. Manufacturing runoff. Agricultural runoff. Waste management. Water management. Economics of scale with respect to current building supplies (plastics, ceramics, brick, cement) and the environmental costs thereof.