And even if they are, isn’t that what we want? A China that is on the same level (democratically, economically, and liberally) as the US?
The Alans. There are over 326,000 guys with the first name Alan in the United States alone. United and supplied with enough trained ponies and composite bows the could do…something. Perhaps.
To the OP, in answer to your question - no.
Oh yeah, we DEFINITELY want that. I think the Obama administration is currently working on a Pacific trade agreement that will include China (again, IIRC), which has to potential, alone, to boost our export trade by several hundred billion dollars. China is a huge market for us already, and it’s only going to grow. And it cuts both ways…as they grow, their markets grow, and their own exports grow, and as they become more prosperous that means our (and Europe, and everyone else who trades with them) has their own exports grow.
If they can get through their various issues, and toss out their government baggage at some point without flying apart they will certainly be a major power in the world to rival the US and Europe. But like I told the OP, it’s not a zero sum game…more like an upward spiral that takes everyone else up as well.
Two factors not previously mentioned:
The really horrible pollution in China seems likely to start limiting its growth.
Rome’s decline began when it started to use mercenaries. The US has started to use military “contractors” in a big way. Contractors = mercenaries.
[QUOTE=Mr. Duality]
Rome’s decline began when it started to use mercenaries. The US has started to use military “contractors” in a big way. Contractors = mercenaries.
[/QUOTE]
As far as I know, every country in the ancient world (as well as most countries in more modern times) used mercenaries in one way or the other. Rome was hardly unique in this. The US uses contractors (and not in ‘a big way’) to do things like cook food, logistics and as security, not as front line combat troops, so it’s not really much of a comparison and not much to base the supposed fall of the US (or Europe) on.
Taiwan and South Korea have a per capita gdp of about 20-25k nominal usd. Despite their per capita income being half or less of the US they are both considered developed.
I don’t know if/when China will reform culturally (their scientific research and manufacturing have issues that will need to change for them to become more competitive) or politically, but I’m guessing they can reach a per capita income that puts them in the lower ranks of developed nations by 2050. I doubt they catch up to us though, anymore than I expect Taiwan or south Korea to have higher per capita income than us anytime in the reasonable future. My guess is China will hit an economic wall around low upper income status. But who knows.
It is not analogous. If China ever reaches the point of outperforming the West economically, that is only a shift in relative positions. It does not threaten the West with the kind of civilizational destruction that consumed Rome.
Yeah, I somehow doubt the Filipino KBR contractors dealing with the garbage at Camp Victory are a sign of the US’s creeping decline.
While China is a theoretically big market for us, they don’t want to be. If they keep insisting on getting access to the source code of software sold there, and suing companies like Qualcomm for $1 billion, companies are going to eventually figure out that they are not going to make money there. And move manufacturing to lower cost suppliers like has already been done for the garment industry. Those are examples of the structural issues you mention. If China signs trade agreements and doesn’t live up to them, things are going to change.
There is pollution and corruption also, but this stuff is government policy, and is more significant.
I work in Silicon Valley, and I don’t notice any stagnation. But I do remember back in the '80s and early '90s when I sat through all sorts of videos about how the Japanese were going to kick our butts. Didn’t happen, did it?
90% of the people I work with come from various parts of Asia. Almost all are American citizens today. They are contributing their intelligence and skills to the US. You got a problem with that?
As for the space program, you might have missed the really important development - that private companies have gotten into the game. The real basic work has been done by the government, now we need engineering and innovation to make it cheap and practical and self sustaining through being profitable. If we saw that in Russia and China I’d be concerned.
Much as I love NASA, today we need a bunch of highly competitive rich people duking it out to be first and to get even more money out of space.
Also high debt and declining and interest in science and education.
And look at the US declining in education,science,space, technology and inventions.
Where China is doing the opposite.
The trouble thing is it took the cold war of the US and USSR to get them into a space program. If there was no cold war I don’t believe the US and USSR would have manned space program today.
The USSR had plans to go to moon and plans of space shuttle. But in late 80’s Gorbachev started cut backs and reform policy.
If the cold war was still going on today we would be at Mars by now.
In the late 90’s NASA started doing it’s own cut backs.
European space agency run by welfare states has no interest at all spending money on manned space program.
Japan is questionable they cannot make up their mind if they going get into manned space program.
And both parties in US are ant-NASA and anti-science.
Next US President would probably do away with manned space program altogether.
What country are you from, and where are you getting your information about this one?
The Roman state never had any interest in science and education. It was all private. I’m not aware they were much in debt either. Who would they have borrowed *from *? They were at war with any and everyone rich enough to lend… Their economy eventually tanked due to its over-reliance on slave labour and plunder. I think the former got solved in the US relatively recently, but y’all might look into bringing back plunder actually - since you seem so eager to fight all of the wars all of the time…
We have a manned space program? Coulda fooled me.
You are right about the Cold War. Remember, Eisenhower and his science adviser specifically stopped an attempt to launch a satellite before Sputnik - but when the Russians did it, it was full speed ahead.
It is not clear that the rush created by the Cold War was good for the space program. The consensus of science fiction (and space books) in the 1950s was that a near space infrastructure, including a real space station, would be developed before a moon flight. As it turned out Apollo was rushed to beat the Russians, so we got something with a limited payload and relatively short time on the Moon.
You didn’t respond to my comment on the commercialization of space. That might be able to build a way of getting to orbit inexpensively, which will finally allow the infrastructure to be built.
The very last thing we need today is a Mars mission. It would be expensive, it would be dangerous, and if we got there and did not find life the disappointment would really kill manned space flight.
When we really understand long term survival in space, and when we can build spacecraft in orbit economically, then it will be time to go.
I heard Burt Rutan speak, and one of his points was that a lot more people got killed in early air travel than in early space travel, and that was one of the reasons air travel expanded so quickly. 50 years after Kitty Hawk we had military jets and a large and thriving commercial aviation system. 50 years after Mercury we don’t even have orbital capability.
Some died in a commercial test flight - and while a tragedy, there are no Congressional hearings, no suspension of all work, and no suspension at all by other companies. That is encouraging in a weird way.
We have to invade small nations with huge natural resources to do that, the Iraq war cost over a trillion.
This just in! Equatorial Guinea, Qatar, something, something, something, 9/11!
Seriously though, I don’t think invading to conquer resources really works anymore. The cost of war is going to be much more than the cost of natural resources. Cheaper to bribe/blackmail politicians overseas.
What worries me is the social and political parallels between the present day USA and the Roman Republic just before the civil wars that eventually led to the Empire. A book that I think is an excellent summary of that is Cullen Murphy’s Are We Rome? Essentially, everything that politically, socially and economically made Rome a republic faded away- and a similar process seems to be happening today in the US.
What’s going to be our version of the Holy Roman Empire that everyone makes fun of? Florida?
People think Romans were crazy because of lead lined pipes, we’re crazy because of leaded gasoline and endocrine disruptor pollution. Wow, history does rhyme!
Well, going by analogy with Roman history, it would be the land of what are now the Northern Barbarians (Canada).
There is a weird phenomenon on sports-related message boards where a handful of coaches and players are adulated as being “great” and everybody else “sucks.” Which obviously isn’t true and it’s also not true that not being the “Number One” country in the world means that the country sucks.
We will always thrive if we make ourselves a place that others want to be like or move to. Having the biggest military or the biggest economy doesn’t really define that.