So on this occassion of the Chinese Peoples’ Congress, whither China in the coming years?
On the one hand they are clearly on the verge of an economic break-out. They are industrializing and opening up markets. They are accepting capitalism (the different social strata). The vast potential of the Chinese people may soon be released, and when it does there is no reason that Chinese economic might cannot eclipse this age of American economic hegomony.
But.
They have this incoming wave of a demographic mismatch. It cannot be good for a society to have so many more unattached young adult males than females. Current figures place the excess males at 41 million out of the 1.26 billion, and this mismatch is concentrated in the under 25 crowd. Currently there are 117 recorded male births for every 100 female births … presumably secondary to selective abortion, infanticide, and abandonment.
Perpetrators of violent crime tend to be young unattached males.
And then there is the spectre of a possible AIDS catastrophe unless the Chinese government steps up with an adequate response.
So. What way will go China? Will this be their century, or will they be hobbled by problems inherent in their demographics?
Predictions like that are notoriously hard to make. Remember how Japan was going to take over the world? Or that the Soviets were ushering in a new, enlightened age?
Being a good capitalist, I believe that Chinese economic strength will be proportional to the degree in which they adopt capitalism. This is even more true in a high-tech world. High technology and innovation are not easy to accomplish in a totalitarian country. And the need for the population to have access to the Internet for productivity reasons means it will be increasingly hard for Beijing to maintain discipline in the population.
So China will have to thaw even more than it has already, IMO. What happens next really depends on how the people respond to that.
China certainly has the capability to be a superpower. But the U.S. has a huge head start. For China to surpass U.S. supremacy, it would have to not just grow, but grow at a rate well in excess of the U.S. growth rate. I don’t see that happening. So China might get to the point the U.S. is at today, in maybe 50-100 years. But at that point, the U.S. will be vastly more powerful than it is today, unless something happens to drastically change the world.
It’s fallacial to assume that the U.S. will keep expanding beyond its current economic/world power base. The U.S. is already seeing worldwide backlash to its perceived American hegemony. I’m not anti-american at all being that i’m American myself. My point is that with all great “empires” the destruction usually comes from within. We saw it with Rome, with Egypt, with several of the european empires, and of course the Chinese empire. The U.S. can’t expand economically and militarily without worldwide checks and balances. You can say that the U.S. had a headstart against the rest of the world after WW2 but now those gaps are closing fast. In my estimation I believe Europe as a whole will surpass U.S. as the economic power, then eventually China may supersede the U.S., with the U.S. finally coming in third place. This won’t happen overnnight of course and it might not happen until 50 years down the road but I think it will happen a lot sooner than you think.
Military might in this day and age is relatively meaningless since several countries have nukes. It’s how you wield your economic sword that matters the most and the U.S. is losing strength in that area.
The thing about China is a little perspective. Very few people in 1980 (20 years ago) predicted that China could have come so far so fast. The problems facing China now are daunting, but I would argue much less than they were 20 years ago.
It ain’t gonna be a staight line up and there are a lot of pitfalls, but China’s got a lot going for it.
I hope so, got property and progeny invested in it
Actually, as long as China Guy is checking in, I’d like to ask about the plausibility of an observation Jan Wong made in her book Red China Blues (which I strongly recommend).
Wong witnessed a family group consisting of four grandparents, two parents and one infant: the typical result of a one-child policy. The child was throwing a major tantrum and each of the adults was tying to calm him by offering various bribes. Finally one of the grandfathers gave the child an unlit cigarette, which calmed him down immediately. Wong thought the ultimate result of such “only child” spoiling would eventually unravel the collective spirit of communism, because how can you encourage a bunch of “me generation” children who have been the focus of all their family’s attention to care about working with others? Wong thought this selfishness would cause radical change in China in a generation or so.
Mmmmmm… 22% of the world’s population with 7% of the arable land, and even less of other natural resources. The size of the population is a disadvantage.
No tradition of Western institutional infrastructure (pluralism, rule of law).
They’re sliding into crony capitalism, like mid-20C Latin America. Huge gap between rich/poor and city/country. Big overlap between govt and business. Major corruption all round.
Big growth opportunities if you know the right people or are in the right place at the right time. Otherwise, a huge gamble.
When Americans try to smuggle themselves into China in containers, I’ll be impressed. Meanwhile… Sorry. Next century, maybe.
I agree with HEMLOCK: China’s decline has already begun! There is no way that China can find jobs for its 1 billion plus people-it is totally dependent upon western markets, and the willingness of the USA to allow the total destruction of our industrial base. Chinese businesses are inefficient, and the low cost of production is largely becuase the yuan (chinese currency) is not convertable, and the exchange rate is artificial. If you look at the coastal cities (Shanghai, Canton, etc.) you get the impression of tremendous growth , and this is true. But, you have to remember that the interior is poor and overcrowded. The real crunch will come when Chinese agrigulture begins to displace all of those small peasant farms-and 100’s of millions of jobless Chinese flock to the cities-then there will be a real revolution!
Finally, China will begin to run out of domestic petroleum in 2020 or so…then , there will be nothing to keep the export-assembly economy growing, and economic collapse will follow.
I hope not. As much as I don’t want them as a competitor, Id rather not think about CHina revolutioning again.
Though in truth, I think perhaps CHina might do better as a looser coalition of regional States than the one big blob county, given the xtreme variability in its character and economy.
The most vital currency in today’s international economy isn’t agriculture or even oil. It is information and know-how.
Will the incoming generation be so spoiled as to not accept past values of hard work and education? Will those in power allow the open communication that is requisite for an information economy to thrive? What will be the effect of the incoming demographics?
