Is China really the next U.S.?

Great Debates
1

There has been a LOT of punditry tossed about re how China is going to leave all of us foreign devils in the dust in the very near future. Cited often are the figures showing explosive growth and trade. However, I have my doubts for the following reasons:

  1. Any country that carried serfdom well into the twentieth century would have experienced explosive growth when the chains were loosened;

  2. Ditto, even a small dose of capitalism energized a people who for decades, had no opportunities whatsoever;

  3. The resultant rates of growth cannot possibly be sustained;

  4. China will face increasingly stiff competition for raw materials and energy as global supplies run low;

  5. If China starts to flex its military muscles, it will just create alliances between nations such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc., all of which have a major interest in checking the Chinese plan to dominate Eastern Asia;

But perhaps the most compelling reason I can see that China will not become a world superpower is that it still is a brutal, repressive state, run by a corrupt oligarchy. A country cannot thrive without rule of law. Others might point to Soviet Russia or Hitler’s Germany as examples of regimes that flourished without personal freedom, but I consider those exceptions that prove the rule.

What do you think? Will our kids all be learning Mandarin in school so that they can better communicate with the occupation authorities? Or will China crash and burn?

2

Nitpick: That expression actually uses “prove” in the sense of “test,” not “confirm.” Exceptions never prove the rule in the sense of confirming it, quite the reverse, they show the rule is either completely wrong or requires modification.

3

I want to see what happens when the products of the one-child policy reach their forties and fifties. They’ll be, what… 65% male, because of selected female infanticide and abortion?

4

Let them import Russian brides, it’s a buyer’s market.

5

A lot of people here have much more experience with China than I do, but these issues tend to make me wonder how big China will get.

The country is still full of dirt poor farmers. There are a lot of middle class (by global standards, ie 5-20k a year in household income) but the % of Chinese citizens who live on less than $5 a day is about 2/3 of the nation even after 35 years of 7-10% a year in GDP growth. It isn’t a middle class nation like Japan or South Korea and I wonder how long it’ll take to transition to that. Did those nations go through the same thing, where around 6k per capita income they had a lot of people entering the global middle class but 2/3 of the country was still agrarian? If/when Chinese GDP doubles 2 more times, per capita GDP will be about 25k which is solidly middle class. At 7% annual growth rates that will take 20 years (although 25k will be worth less by then). But can China maintain those rates for 20 more years?

China is spending a lot of money on R&D, they are the no. 2 world spender behind the US. However I don’t know if they are really bringing any meaningful innovations to the global marketplace. Has China brought meaningful products in biotech, engineering, IT, etc. to the world? It seems like they mostly just export existing technologies.

I’d love it if China became like Japan or South Korea. If the per capita GDP in China was $30,000 that would make their economy about 40 trillion. A wealthy China would contribute to solving global problems and they are already becoming a world leader (arguably the world leader) in renewable energy tech. But I wonder if China will get suck in some middle income trap like Latin America.

6

Well, they are already clearly a rising super power, so it depends on how you mean the next US. I doubt anyone will ever have the same levels of economic, military and political penetration that the US has enjoyed for the last few decades, but I’m sure there were some folks in the British Empire thinking the same things a century or so ago.

Certainly. If you start at rock bottom you have no where to go but up. That said, many countries started there and have remained there, while others have had growth but nothing like what China has experienced.

Again, true, but again other countries in similar situations haven’t managed to do as well or come as far.

It better be or the current political system will crumble. They HAVE to sustain the current growth (in fact, they need to do better than the last few years).

This assumes that raw materials and energy supplies will in fact run low. That’s not a given. Personally, I think the real challenges China faces is not a race for dwindling resources but from it’s own political system. Eventually they are going to hit the wall with it, and whether they continue to grow and expand will depend mainly on how that pans out.

That’s already happening, and regardless the US is still here so they are not going to be able to stretch their military muscles TOO far anyway.

China is already a world super power, so that ship has sailed. Also, they do have a rule of law, though it’s still somewhat arbitrarily applied in some cases. Whether they will be able to continue to grow and expand is he real question, and it’s going to depend on how things play out politically.

Regardless of whether China becomes a hyperpower like the US, the rest of the world won’t be learning Mandarin (which not even all Chinese speak :p)…in fact, a large number of the most educated Chinese speak English.

7

I specifically said Mandarin and not Cantonese because a) Mandarin is still the language of administration and authority in China and b) Cantonese has all the really good swear words, so the occupation authorities would forbid its use.

8

No, it’s not.

While the US has had periods of violent unrest, they pale in comparison to the butchery which rears its ugly head every few decades in China. In fact, China is “overdue” for another cycle of bloodletting.

For people steeped in history, the Chinese never seem to learn from their own. There are only cosmetic differences between the empires of old and communist party ruling the nation today. Both are/were autocratic and they both rule vast populations using terror and suppression of dissent rather than democratic processes. Since this is only a long-term strategy when you have an uneducated populace, its a wonder that the leaders of today don’t seem the looming disaster that they face by continuing to use failed methods of leadership.

The US has many faults. It’s racism and ethnocentrism are deplorable in a nation which proclaims itself to be a world leader. It fails to effectively deal with its many class-related issues. It favors business over the working man and anti-intellectualism is actually seen as a point of pride in many parts of the country. It also needs to make far greater strides as far as feminism.

Having said all of that, the US is probably about a century ahead of China as far as human rights. China will be never be another US because it would first need to become a society which respects the rights of the individual and which allows true political freedoms.

The economic and military issues are secondary (even tertiary) to this,IMHO.

9

Good points, but you can argue the Japanese do not have a lot of respect for the individual or individual rights (at least not compared to western europe or north america) and they are a wealthy, middle class nation. South Korea and Japan went from authoritarian (in Japan’s case a religious authoritarian government) to democratic societies in a few decades. China could do the same.

10

That’s true about Japan.

However, China has been a superpower MULTIPLE times in the past and it never seems to to do much with that role. It seems that the more influential China could be the less it wants to be. It seems to be satisfied using the same insular formula for running its society which has failed it in the past.

If China did become a democracy it would likely only be after yet another major bloodbath as political transition in China never seems to be a peaceful nor a unifying process. I predict that their plan to move rural dwellers into the cities will trigger the next round political unrest in the nation.

Whatever happens, China will be so absorbed with its own internal issues that it will be unable provide any leadership on the world stage.

11

When has being a brutal repressive state ever prevented a nation from becoming a world power? Historically, most major powers were brutal and repressive by the standards of modern western society. It’s the countries that weren’t that are the exceptions to the rule here.

12

An alliance like NATO is unusual because the countries that formed it already had an existing culture in common. Alliances are more often between countries that don’t particularly like each other otherwise - and that means they tend to be more flexible. If a country, like say Vietnam for example, has no cultural connection with Japan or China (both of which have invaded Vietnam within living memory) then it will choose its alliances on the basis of self-interest. So if there’s the threat of war between China and Japan and both sides are seeking Vietnamese support, Vietnam is probably going to decide to ally with the country it thinks is more likely to win.

History has shown the small countries that border big countries are often willing to make accommodations with those big countries rather than band together in a united resistance.

13

No. 65% male would be two men for every woman, and it’s not anywhere near that bad. The stats I googled up quickly suggest 55%.

Indeed, Japan is one of the best-case scenarios for a developing nation. They went from being quite undeveloped to a world leader in technological innovation in what, century? The only nation I can think of that did it faster is South Korea.

14

China has more than 4 times the population of the United States. That means that when China has 1/4 the per capita income of the U.S. that it will have a bigger economy.

15

I find it bizarre that, even after the example of the Cold War, some people still have no idea what a superpower is. Very simply put, a superpower is a country that can project significant military force anywhere in the world.

China is not yet even a regional superpower–if they were, they would be capable of invading Taiwan. Israel is a classic example of a regional superpower. They can reach out and touch any of their neighbors and near-neighbors at any time, and do so effectively. China shows no signs of being able to do more than they could do 30 years ago.

When China fields an operational aircraft carrier, they will be starting to begin to eventually become a regional superpower.

16

[quote=“Desert_Dumpster, post:1, topic:680635”]

But perhaps the most compelling reason I can see that China will not become a world superpower is that it still is a brutal, repressive state, run by a corrupt oligarchy. A country cannot thrive without rule of law.

[QUOTE]
With all due respect, China is not a brutal, repressive State. Certainly not in the classic Maoist or Stalinist definition. China most definitely has instances of arbitrary brutal repression. There is a big difference between Western headlines and the vast majority of what takes place during daily life. That said, the basic bargain the government has with it’s citizens is that “we’ll let you make some money, and you don’t overtly question our right to rule.”

China has a rule of law that works for China. It is not anarchy here. There are laws, rules, ways of getting things done, etc. And the deck is stacked in favor of Chinese versus foreign businesses. And in favor of urban versus countryside.

As for corrupt oligarchy. Yep, exists. It’s obviously not to the extent that it has curtailed development (look to Indonesia, India, etc for examples of where systemic corruption has really impacted development). And, I hope there is no implication that corruption doesn’t exist to a much greater degree than any of us would like in the US of A?

17

From what I heard/read, China already creates more patents than any other country. So I would assume there are many innovations appearing there. I understand also that their universities have massively improved and are churning out year after year large numbers of very qualified young engineers. These won’t stay idle.

Also, I’m old enough to remember a time when South Korea was assumed by many to be only able to produce cheap fabrics and Japan was the butt of jokes about copying western technology.

Personnally, I’ve almost no doubt that in a couple decades, China will be the country where the most innovations and technological advances will take place.

18

If by “next U.S” you mean a massive real estate bubble blowing up the econony, fo sho. Unless the stories about ghost cities are Western propaganda.

19

Any country that is able to land a Moon probe, is capable of projecting “significant military force anywhere in the world” - if only to leave said “anywhere” a smoking crater.

20

No. China is the next “US of the 1950s”, if you want to look at it that way.