# China over rated as a power ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 16, 2003, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734 "2003-10-16T04:35:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/61 "2003-10-19T20:02:11Z")
This is begining to sound like the cold war when the USA and the USSR had enough nukes to kill every single last person in the other country 1500 times over. Once you have a Mutually Assured Destruction situation there are no winners and therefore nobody is going to start an all out war. No way. I doubt the USA would start an all out war with China today, and it certainly won’t when China has more nukes and better ways to deliver them. No way. They may fight smaller wars by proxy as in Vietnam but not the big one. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/62 "2003-10-19T21:53:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scotandrsn \* > \*\* I maintain that the only distinction to be drawn between today’s China, the US and the USSR is that China lacks an outwardly stated imperialist push, at least compared with the other two. > > In my sense of things, a superpower is one with the ability to implement its will almost anywhere in the world at almost any time. Actually doing it on a regular basis has no bearing on the ability to do so. > > The fact that China lacks the outward bravado of Cold War Russia does not mean they can not operate as a superpower, only that they have not decided to do so up to now. > > Or have they? Their first “taikonaut” is currently orbiting the earth. \*\* ``` China claims several groups of islands near other countries... they also claim Taiwan. They don't have an imperialist push yet or fully formed... but they certainly have flexed muscles before. What do you think Japan's defense expenditure increase is motivated by... in part China's ever more present strength. ``` Your definition of superpower is a good definition… maybe not the only one of course… but China is certainly going for more regional “super” than global “super”. Yep the Taikonaut went up and… thou it seems more PR than anything else. 🙂 Nesbit > [@](#): > > Nukes, yes. A pretty big sub force? No. NEsbit I meant a conventional sub force… I understood they had over a hundred. Actually surprised they only have one Nuke carrying sub thou… still how many do they need to cripple the US ? One or two seems more than enough… Comparing Nuke numbers is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/63 "2003-10-19T22:55:10Z")
Gordon Chang, a Chinese-American lawyer, has written a book, _The Coming Collapse of China_ (Random House, 2001), predicting the Communist regime will collapse within five years (of the book’s publication) under the weight of economic inefficiency and popular disenchantment with the Party. You can read a good review of it, by John Reilly, at [http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tccc.htm](http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tccc.htm). From the review: > [@](#): > > The author gives the current regime five years, say about 2006, before it is overthrown. The proximate causes will be economic, as the residual command-and-control economic system crumples under the transparent trading rules required by the WTO. (China joined in December 2001. Most of the transitional rules expire in three years.) The book is particularly valuable for its witty case studies of two private-sector success stories, an Internet entrepreneur and a bowling-equipment manufacturer, and their travails in the not-quite-post-communist China of the late 1990s. Beneath economics are the irreversible corruption and irrelevance of the Communist Party of China. Beneath politics, though, are deep structures of Chinese culture that may distinguish the process from what happened in Eastern Europe in 1989. . . . > > Most Chinese still live in the countryside, far from the lawyers and venture capitalists with whom Chang is chiefly familiar. Nonetheless, he does suggest that something bad is happening there. In the 1980s, immediately after the end of the Maoist era, people in the countryside benefited enormously when they were permitted to farm private plots and run small businesses. More recently, though, farming has become uneconomic, and the cities of the east now host over 100 million refugees from the countryside looking for work. There are several reasons for this flight from rural areas. Part of the problem is mandatory sales of commodities to the government at artificially low prices. A bigger problem, though, seems to be the staggering corruption. > > After Mao, local officials were given far more autonomy, including responsibility for funding local government. Latterly, they have used this power to impose taxes and fees arbitrarily, and even to print their own money. They run public institutions as private businesses. In one appalling case, children at an elementary school were required to made fireworks for sale; many children were killed in an explosion. According to Chang, little uprisings are always happening throughout rural China. Sometimes they are put down by force, sometimes by negotiation. Sometimes, the Party cadres just withdraw until things calm down. In any case, the Party is profoundly unpopular in the countryside these days. It is just tolerated in the cities. > > It’s a paradox. Under Mao, China was a totalitarian state. Some representative of the Party was everywhere, on your block, in your work unit, in every government office. The Party was intrusive and it often enforced policies that were lethally unwise, but at least it was integrated into everyday life. Under Deng and his successors, however, the Party retreated. People could again have largely unobserved private lives. A measure of civil society returned, and not just in the economic sector. The Party has become unpopular because its relationship to this new China is entirely parasitic. People know the Party did not create the new prosperity. Furthermore, despite its continuing efforts to instill communist orthodoxy in the people, the Party does not believe what it says, and neither does anyone else. The Chinese people are not, at the moment, angry enough at the Party to overthrow it. However, if the Party is threatened, the people will not defend it. > > What should the Party do in this situation? Chang has this suggestion: > > “If only Beijing’s bureaucrats had studied Chinese philosophy. Before laissez-faire there was wu wei. ‘Practice not doing and everything will fall into place,’ says the Tao Te Ching, Taoism’s primer.” > > There is indeed a “free market” tradition in China, but here is another paradox: traditionally, the officials and scholars who opposed government interference in the economy were the party who opposed economic growth, which they thought was socially disruptive. The pro-growth faction were dirigists of the Legalist tradition. They were the ones who wanted to dig the canals and establish the government salt and iron enterprises. If growth were to occur, everyone assumed, it would have to be through official will. > > Of course, even when Chinese governments act, they sometimes seem to rely as much on mimesis as on ordinary administration. Consider this description of how China began its last major bout of real reform: > > “When residents of Kunming in southwestern Yunnan Province heard that Deng Xiaoping was talking economic reform during his Southern Tour of early 1992, the effect was immediate. Like a ‘swarm of bees’ the people took matters into their own hands. Overnight, private vendors put up strings of white lights along roadsides and began selling trinkets from card tables.” > > While this might seem like an odd way to run a country, it does chime with traditional Chinese notions about how societies work. The people are like a force field, or perhaps better, like a fluid in motion. China itself is like a great whirlpool, with the ruler in the still center. The people adapt by shaping their behavior to fit the circumstances, but in the end they sweep all before them. Philosophers can speculate about the causes of the tidal shifts of history and historians can describe them, but they have a dumb inevitability that cannot be resisted. Going with the flow of history has always been the acme of Chinese political theory. > > When a season of deluge approaches, signs appear. The old rulers cease to promote morality. Corruption spreads at all levels. Public order declines. The people no longer support their leaders spontaneously, so the rulers maintain themselves by force and trickery. Wizards and holy men appear in the countryside, working miracles and denouncing the corruption of the times. Often they form cults and mount rebellions, sometimes with success. While of course deploring the suppression of the Falun Gong cult, Chang points out that the current regime is right to be afraid. Master Li Hongzhi “preaches ideas that are even zanier than those of the Party, but at least he appears genuine when he claims to be the incarnation of the supreme divinity.” Delusional sincerity has put people on the throne of China before. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/64 "2003-10-20T01:26:47Z")
\>\> predicting the Communist regime will collapse within five year It may sell books but that is nonsense. OTOH you could argue communism itself is falling or has already fallen because China’s economy is already mostly raw capitalism. ---
**Author:** ![NeSBiT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@NeSBiT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeSBiT)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/65 "2003-10-20T01:53:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rashak Mani \* > \*\*China claims several groups of islands near other countries… they also claim Taiwan. They don’t have an imperialist push yet or fully formed… but they certainly have flexed muscles before. What do you think Japan’s defense expenditure increase is motivated by… in part China’s ever more present strength. > > Your definition of superpower is a good definition… maybe not the only one of course… but China is certainly going for more regional “super” than global “super”. Yep the Taikonaut went up and… thou it seems more PR than anything else. 🙂 > Nesbit > > NEsbit I meant a conventional sub force… I understood they had over a hundred. Actually surprised they only have one Nuke carrying sub thou… still how many do they need to cripple the US ? One or two seems more than enough… Comparing Nuke numbers is irrelevant. \*\* they have 60 diesel, 5 nuclear powered, and one ballistic. 55 of the diesel ones are obsolete. the u.s. has 56 nuclear powered and 18 ballistic And I doubt that China could cripple the US with the 12 warheads it’s sub carries, and it would have to get within 1000 miles to launch them. the U.S., on the other hand, has 192 warheads for each of the 18 ballistic subs it has, and that would be more than enough to decimate China. Their range is about 4600 miles. SO, I don’t think comparing nuke numbers is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/66 "2003-10-20T07:09:14Z")
[This](http://www.gs.com/insight/research/reports/99.pdf) is a rather interesting Goldman Sachs report, predicting the state of the gobal economy in 2050. It’s a .pdf file, so I can’t cope-paste a quote. The report refers to the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China. The report has used “the latest demographic projections coupled with a model of capital accumalation and productivity growth”. Their results say that India’s economy could be larger than Japan’s by 2032, and China’s could be larger than the US’s by 2041 (and larger than everyone else’s by 2016). The authors admit that their predictions are optimistic, ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/67 "2003-10-20T07:15:35Z")
I really do wish these states, before taking on hyper or superpower status, structure their governments to account for the people in a democratic way. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/68 "2003-10-20T07:17:09Z")
[This](http://www.gs.com/insight/research/reports/99.pdf) is a rather interesting Goldman Sachs report, predicting the state of the gobal economy in 2050. It’s a .pdf file, so I can’t cope-paste a quote. The report refers to the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India and China. The report has used “the latest demographic projections coupled with a model of capital accumalation and productivity growth”. Their results say that India’s economy could be larger than Japan’s by 2032, and China’s could be larger than the US’s by 2041 (and larger than everyone else’s by 2016). The authors admit that their predictions are optimistic (in the sense that they assume reasonably sucessful development), but that they are economically sensible, and are based on the assumption that economically sound policies will be pursued by all these nations. More snippets: in US $ terms, China could overtake Germany in the next 4 years, and Japan by 2015. India’s economy could be larger than all but the US and China in 30 years. Interestingly, the report says that as the BRIC nations get richer, individuals are still likely to be poorer on average than those in G6 countries by 2050, with Russia as the exception, catching up with the poorer of the G6 in terms of per capita income. And, per capita income in the US by 2050 cold reach $80,000. So much for outsourcing hurting the economy! ---
**Author:** ![Feistymongol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Feistymongol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feistymongol)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/69 "2003-10-20T07:18:13Z")
I always get a good chuckle out of these threads because it always ends up as a U.S. vs China military penis waving contest. The true extent of China’s military is a mystery except for maybe top pentagon officials and maybe even then they only have a rough estimate. A lot of what China does is under wraps and they also have underground military installations all over the place. I’m sure the NSA/CIA and whatever other govt agency has their satellites trained on China 24-7 but China is a big country, which is comparable in size to the U.S. China is no Iraq or Afghanistan. The fact is a war with China could spell complete disaster and doom for the global economy and the world. I dont’ see how anyone can benefit from a nuclear exchange or understand how there would be any clear cut “winners” out of any of it. I know some of you U.S. armchair jingoists expect China to start the war but after America’s recent middle eastern adventures i’m starting to think the gauntlet might be tossed by the U.S. first if anything. It’s also foolish to assume a spacefaring country doesn’t have plenty of icbms. You can bet your ass that’s the first thing China developed as a nation. Read about the early silkworm project sometime and the genesis of the PRC’s development into the nuclear age back when they were just a fledgling government A lot of this forum’s viewpoints about China are based on the 1950-1970’s Mao era China. The new China is nothing like that and you can bet within 20 years it will be a technological/industrial powerhouse. The mao suits were traded in for business suits a long time ago. Anyone that assumes otherwise are underestimating how fast a motivated nationalist (that’s right nationalist not communist) country can catch up with the “leaders” of the western world. China’s interests are mainly introverted, the people care less about the west as a rival than many people in the west care about China. ---
**Author:** ![Feistymongol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Feistymongol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feistymongol)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/70 "2003-10-20T07:23:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*Gordon Chang, a Chinese-American lawyer, has written a book, _The Coming Collapse of China_ (Random House, 2001), predicting the Communist regime will collapse within five years (of the book’s publication) under the weight of economic inefficiency and popular disenchantment with the Party. You can read a good review of it, by John Reilly, at [http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tccc.htm](http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tccc.htm). From the review: \*\* Heh, it’s a ridiculous and somewhat ironic book because in a few ways it’s correct but not in the context the author intended. The communist regime has already collapsed in China. What we are seeing now in China _isn’t_ communism, it’s a nationalist government with a limited capitalist economy. If Gordon Chang can predict the “economic” collapse of countries then i’m sure he wouldn’t be writing yellow peril type books but would instead be making money as a “loss consultant” during the dot com bust :D. ---
**Author:** ![Feistymongol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Feistymongol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feistymongol)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/71 "2003-10-20T07:29:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by NeSBiT \* > \*\*Those vast numbers of chinese infantry don’t mean a damn thing when China doesn’t have the ability to deploy them anywhere that’s too far from China. The U.S.'s air superiority shouldn’t be overlooked, after crushing the Chinese air force they would proceed to bomb the hell out of their infrastructure. Oh, and meanwhile the U.S. Navy would be launching Tomahawks. > > Of course, all of that is moot since the U.S. could always use subs to deliver nukes in less than ten minutes. \*\* War isn’t a video game. There are existing variables that are much more complicated than the above scenario of “might makes victory certain.” Look at Vietnam for an example… politics, the will of the people to commit to heavy casualities, and global issues would have a far greater effect than the simple power of one nation’s military. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/72 "2003-10-20T07:34:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Feistymongol \* > \*\*Heh, it’s a ridiculous and somewhat ironic book because in a few ways it’s correct but not in the context the author intended. The communist regime has already collapsed in China. What we are seeing now in China _isn’t_ communism, it’s a nationalist government with a limited capitalist economy. \*\* I have heard the PRC referred to as fascist, rather than communist. Makes sense, if you drop the ‘Nazi’-baggage from ‘fascist’. As to the OP, China has a long ways to go before it can think about being a proper military rival to America, àla CCCP. Still, given the interwoven nature of all modern economies, I think we have seen the end of great powers openly fighting each other. Too expensive. As has been mentioned, I do think we will square off against China through proxy wars, and I don’t think China would do too hot in such situations, lacking a the proper military infrastructure for such ventures. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/73 "2003-10-20T10:48:50Z")
Fascism and communism are fruits from the same rotten tree. China can’t really do proxy wars like the Soviets did because there just aren’t that many Marxist groups around any more to back. Even the Soviets couldn’t create them out of thin air they had to already exist and the Soviets supported them with arms and advisors. China could probably influence events in a few places, like the Philippines, Colombia, and Nepal, which all have Marxist guerilla problems, but why? China doesn’t seem like the type of nation to want to get to involved in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/74 "2003-10-20T11:00:40Z")
What does the Acronym BRIC mean ? Darn Brazil will only overtake Italy in 2025… considering we have multiple times as many people its not that great an achievment… ☹ China is big… any GDP per capita growth translates into huge economy gains. ``` As for the Communist Regime... its over in all but name. There is no reversing the current economic changes without horrible bloodshed. As for democracy... not likely. Its more like a prosperity for compliance agreement. The chinese don't make a fuss about democracy and the government gives them more jobs and opportunities. ``` ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/75 "2003-10-20T11:32:48Z")
**B** razil **R** ussia **I** ndia **C** hina. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/76 "2003-10-20T11:52:21Z")
Strange acronym… I thought it was something crazy like: Big Relatively Industrial Countries… 🙂 What we all have in common is Size and large populations… ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/77 "2003-10-20T19:33:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sailor \* > OTOH you could argue communism itself is falling or has already fallen because China’s economy is already mostly raw capitalism. True dat. When I was in China last month, all I could think about was wondering when Mao’s body would pop out of his grave from the torque. If China is communist, I’m Ari Fleischer. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/78 "2003-10-20T21:03:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rjung \* > True dat. When I was in China last month, all I could think about was wondering when Mao’s body would pop out of his grave from the torque. As someone put it: If Mao were alive today, he’d turn over in his grave. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/79 "2003-10-20T21:19:14Z")
They knew a pure communism would crumble and so switched before they lost control… still its the relatively same elite in power. A power they won’t let go. What happens when new elites from the new business groups demands a bigger share of the power ? This economic model of Asian Tiger mainly exporter has been done before… never in this scale thou. At some point their underdeveloped country and huge poor population will hold back their boost. I just read an article on China being the next big power… and one quote marked how things are… and it was from a regular joe. It went along something like this: “Who cares about democracy… we just want money and jobs.” ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734/80 "2003-10-21T20:59:26Z")
In the twenty years between 1953 and 1973 Spain progressed what other countries had progressed in 100 years. The rate of development was amazing. All this happened under a tightly controlling dictatorship. During that time the attitude was, indeed, that most people wanted money and jobs. Still, there was some unrest which grew as the new generations grew up in more comfortable conditions. But, at the same time, the extremism diminished as the middle class grew. When General Franco died in 1975 Spain had enough internal stability to transition to a democratic system (although just barely). I think China can easily follow a similar path. They will have a few decades of capitalist development with high growth and tightly controlled politics. When the country has developed and has a solid middle class and conditions are ripe, the political system will gradually open up. It is easy to say an authoritarian system is never justified but it worked for Spain and it can work for China. The alternative is what happened to Russia with the fall of their empire. A sudden transition to a democratic system for which they were ill prepared has been a disaster. China took good notes of that and is following a very different path which, I think, can be successful. Note also that Taiwan and South Korea have had authoritarian political systems while they developed the economy and only later transitioned to more democratic systems. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/china-over-rated-as-a-power/207734.md?page=5)