Will China over take us as the super power in the world in 10 years?

[southernleftylady]

what do you think?

[chuck555]

1. 10 years?

How about now. Who do you think is buying the $445 billion note that Bunnypants borowed? Don't you get it? The rich get the thrill and you pay the bill.

[Nimrod]

2. Probably not

I think we're a little too attached to our position in the food chain to let someone unseat us without a struggle.

[lastknowngood]

5. Remember it's not "We" who are at the top but the top 3% of the

people in this country, and they don't care about anyone else. Were going down fast that is why PNAC was put together to maintain the dominance of the top 3%. They don't care who the slaves are as long as they continue in being.

[Nimrod]

8. True enough

Most of us are just along for the ride.

[Green Lantern]

38. I agree

The corporitism we have here now will destroy our economy and culture before we go down as a military power. I suspect the US will break up in to several small segments, part of which will be absorbed into Canada.
The rest will be small corporate fiefdoms. Corporatism is creating tremendous poverty in the US, and we will find ourselves lucky to be considered third world.

How's that for a little fantasy?

[Alpharetta]

3. too hard to say

with their rapid ascent to prosperity they are skipping steps which could cause ecological disasters. It's a lot of people to feed.

Also the prosperity of the middle class could feed dissent which could undermine their government. A lot of their success is due to repression and there is a future price to be paid for that.

China seems to me a bit like U.S.S.R. with multiple languages and cultures as part of its empire. That carries risk.

But if the power remains with the wealthy it's possible China could remain a strong world political force.

Who knows? Not me. Interesting to watch, though.

[H2O Man]

4. Probably in 20 ......

Only the Euro-American culture is in a big hurry .....

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. what do you think?

Not if we control the energy resources.

http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d0408smac.htm
>>It's All About Oil, Stupid
the Catalyst
newsletter of the Winnipeg SMAC group
April, 2003<<


True, but what does this mean?

>>Most obviously the U.S. is increasingly dependent on imported oil for its own consumption. And aside from Canada most oil reserves are located in countries whose people are overwhelmingly anti-American or whose governments are in danger of being toppled by anti-American forces: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Venezuela, Columbia, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Caspian Sea and of course Iraq. Nearly two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves come from the Middle East. Securing all of these regions under firm U.S. control is Bush's primary goal. Iraq is essential to this, but not the only target by any means.<<

[Junkdrawer]

11. I've been saying that here for a long, long time...

Seems pretty obvious to me.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

12. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Awe... the poor rich people... going to lose their incredibly materialistic way of life.... might have to sell one of th Beemers.... such a shame.... and just forget about the manicure and the haircuts for the poodles... they will just have to make do.

But really... I am not against material posessions... it's just that when they become the basis for global hedgemony... it gets a little "wierd". If this movie and several of the others at this site were played in churches across this country... you would see this mob that has infested the WH run out of the country in a week.

http://www.snowshoefilms.com/
DON’T BE A ROGUE SUPERPOWER: Pervez Hoodbhoy
"We are entering a new American Century in which we will become still wealthier, culturally more lethal and increasingly powerful. We will excite hatreds without precedent. There will be no peace at any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes. There will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe...To keep the world safe for our economy...we will have to do a fair amount of killing."

[H2O Man]

13. That's very interesting .....

This might sound curious at first, but: yesterday, a few of us were conversing about a thread that a person posted regarding Condi Rice. It was in regard to her qualifications for the unelected office she holds. A few people noted -- and I agreed fully -- that although the poster did not necessarily intend it, the thread took on a flavor of "racism" as well as "sexism." A heated debate followed, which unfortunately resulted in the thread being locked. I say unfortunately, because I think the various "-isms" are important topics, and that as adults, we are capable of discussing them, even if a few feelings are hurt, and egos bruised.

But racism seems to be an issue that can only be openly discussed as it applies to republicans, at least on DU. And that's a shame, because the democratic party and the left needs to put some cards on the table.

The truth is that there is no such thing as race. It's a man-made concept, with exactly as much validity as the boarders between thje counties in any given state ..... meaning it's an artificial division to keep people separate. But the idea of geographic boundries can serve a useful purpose, where as the idea of "race" only can have negative implications.

Instead, we can accurately view people in terms of "tribe" ..... which simply means groups of extended families ..... and humankind has several large tribes .... the white tribe, the yellow tribe, the red tribe, the brown tribe, and the black tribe. Today there is a wonderful blended group of people, who represent our common ancestors.

Although these tribes are closely related as parts of the same human family, there has been centuries of conflict, for the control of resources around the globe. The human potential for stupidity and greed has contested the human potential for insight and cooperation on every corner of the globe. The white tribe has in the past several centuries dominated: the enslavement of the black tribe, the genocide of the red tribe, and the colonial approach to the brown and yellow tribes are but examples.

The white tribe has had fights within its clans, but whenever another tribe threatens one of those clans, the whites have united as a tribe, and have been militarily superior in every instance .... although morally inferior in some instances.

Today, the yellow tribe threatens the staus of the white tribe as the top tribe in the world. And the key is, as you noted, the control of resources .... and that means oil in our world.

There is a growing movement within each of the tribes ..... and there are a few agents of this evolution within humanity even here on DU .... who recognize the significance of re-defining the word "race" in order to over-come the false barriers in our human minds: there is only ONE RACE -- the human race. And we need to place that realization at the fore-front of human consciousness, and begin to live in harmony as the human family .... or we will very soon become engaged in a battle from which there is no return .... only human extinction.

[NewJeffCT]

10. agreed - probably closer to 20

The Chinese are pretty patient. They've been around for thousands of years, we've been around for 230 or so.

It will be a slow ascent for them, though. Their banking system has a lot of problems, their currency is still tied to the US dollar, and they have a huge amount of unemployment, despite a rapidly growing economy. They are sort of like the US during our Industrial Revolution following the Civil War.

Now, will the US under PNAC be like Germany in WW1 and WW2, with China - the new manufacturing superpower - being the US in those wars coming in to save the day?

[JNelson6563]

7. Within my lifetime

I'd bet big on that.

Julie

[0007]

32. Not in mine Julie, but it will happen -

Everything comes to an end.

[Shoeempress]

9. If Chimpy has his way the dollar will be worthless, an we'll have no jobs.

Everyone will have to go into the military and our educated will be building and designing weapons. So basically we will end up the World's mercenary.

[Guy_Montag]

14. Then there's India...

which seems to be about 10 years behind China in terms of growth.

[Capt_Nemo]

15. US economy has never been so vulnerable as it is now

if it colapses under its own weight or is pushed off the cliff
in a daring operation of economic/finantial warfare, then it
could conceivably happen sooner than that.

To their credit the Democrats are better imperialists than the
Republicans, and because of that, they realised that to preserve
US supremacy in a post-Cold War World, they would have to tackle
the debt, the comercial and the budget deficits.

They managed to solve ONE of these problems but then came the PNAC
crowd into the WH...

The irony of it all is that PNAC is on the verge of becoming the PNCC:
Project for the New Chinese Century! :evilgrin:

[Old and In the Way]

18. Seems that the Republicans took away future options from this country

as far as our ability to use the federal government to effect internal change. Where will Kerry find the money to reinvent our economy by investing in alternative energy and the necessary infrastructure changes to accommodate it?

Clinton left Bush with a $400BB surplus....Kerry gets a $400BB deficit. What did America get in return? About 3MM less jobs, a quagmire in Iraq that sucks down American blood and capital, and a country more socially divided then I can ever remember.

Why do Republicans hate America?

[Old and In the Way]

16. I think you are about right.

I went into China for the 1st time in 1992. When I came home I told my wife that our kids better learn Chinese because that would be the language of commerce in 20 years. Overstatement, for sure, but I was blown away at what I saw. And the changes since then are equally mind boggling.

That 1st trip in, I went through the New Territories into the mainland via train. The entry city was Shenzhen. I remember that then it was big, but pretty dirty and not particularly impressive. Last summer, I went there again last summer....I was totally amazed with the transformation. It now looks like one of the most modern cities I have ever seen.

While China has made astounding progress over the past 20 years or so, I think the government has to worry about unrest in the countryside. Managing rising expectations is becoming more and more critical. While a 100MM+ people have become employed over the past years, there's a far greater number of "have-nots" in the interior provinces who want jobs but can't get them.

China is buying our debt and they are keeping their currency under valued by as much 30%. I'd be worried that when the day arrives when our manufacturing infrastructure is essentially dismantled, China will begin to raise their currency value....and we really won't have the option of switching our manufacturing back on to counteract it.

[Deja Q]

17. Well, if we bring our jobs back to America from them, then no.

Or if peak oil occurs and they realize it, and then we realize, it somebody's going to strike so they can get that deliciou$ ooze.

In other words: :nuke:

[Massacure]

19. China won't be able to sustain their growth because of peak oil

I think the European Union will be in the best shape going into the peak oil era.

[Gregorian]

22. Ah, there's a thought

But won't peak oil affect everyone equally? And since they are on the same continent as the oil, won't they be affected less? Now it becomes a study in oil availability.
And what about the hydroelectric that they've created?

And another thing that goes against what I posted earlier is that they may have made their advances due to the fact that many of them are living below the poverty level. When they turn on the heat and hot water, they will be consuming much more petroleum. I don't know how that would affect the economy, but I'd guess it wouldn't be good.

[treepig]

23. but china is activity building nuclear power plants

i don't have my links at my fingertips (but it's true nonetheless).

in the past, IIRC, they were building CANDU's and were buying westinghouse technology.

now, IIRC, they are developing their own technologies - no doubt for export in the future since this country (the usa) hasn't done much for three decades or so.

[Yupster]

29. I thought Europe's growth

rate was pretty stagnant these days.

[Strelnikov_]

31. I Agree. In Addition, The Growth In China Is Based On Crony Capitalism

with the vast majority of the workers not able to purchase the products they manufacture, similar to conditions in the U.S. prior to 1929.

Once our economy implodes within the next couple of years, the golden goose for China fly's away, and I fully expect a reversion to past conditions in that country.

The United States is better positioned than China for the transition to a world where the supply/demand relationship for oil no longer works, primarily due to the ability to grow enough food to feed ourselves. I fear for the EU if the 'rapid climate change' (Atlantic conveyor) models prove to be true.

Anticipating the response that we will not be able to grow enough food due to a lack of petroleum, I feel that there is a lot of 'low-hanging' fruit out there w.r.t. energy efficiency and sources. For example, we use 60% of our petroleum for personal transportation. If we convert from living rooms on 4 wheels to 60 mpg hybrids, we would be close to being energy self-sufficient, with the technology available today.

All of the above assumes leadership. If the GOP remains in power, with their demonstrated lack of leadership in anything that does not line their pocket, I feel that our future is as grim as China's.

[NewJeffCT]

34. China does have a rapidly growing middle class

There are stark differences between eastern China (Shanghai, Jiangsu province, etc) and the dirt poor western China. Other than larger amounts of Chinese, there are not many regular differences between Shanghai and a city like New York or Los Angeles. Granted, it is harder to get a Visa to visit overseas as a Chinese citizen, and you're not going to be lining up to protest the Communist Party's next convention... but, for everyday life, there is not much difference.

[Columbia]

20. Depends

4 if Bush wins.

10-15 if Kerry does.

[Gregorian]

21. I thought they already did.

Haven't you seen all of the Made in China stickers. I've been vigilantly watching to see what doesn't have them, over the last twenty years. I always heard that the power is in manufacturing. And we gave them ALL of our manufacturing.

And looking at the booming cities that they are building, and energy production, like the Gorge, I'd say they are rolling away into the sunset at a very high rate.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Our grasp on control is slipping badly. 10 years? Could be.

Like all empires, the American version depends on our ability to defend it. We have been dependent on creating and using surrogates to do the dirty work. We did so throughout the "cold war" (which wasn't all that "cold") by creating "friendly" governments usually dictators or authoritarian ones under a thin veil of "democracy". They would brutally repress dissent in their own countries (Nicaragua, Haiti, Honduras, Korea, Indonesia, to name a few), or offer troops to fight for us in other countries threatened by revolution.

Now, to protect out "Vital Interests" - cheap labor, natural resources, etc, we are having more and more to send our own goons to enforce The New World Order because the surrogates have their own fish to fry and have to keep their own populations under control.

China is happily sitting all of this out and stealing our markets without having to do much of anything except try to figure out how to keep it's people from rising up. It's doing so by making a lot of money at our expense and increasing the middle class, and painting us as the threat we are, and waiting patiently for the inevitable collapse as we expend our own resources on fruitless wars and "defense".

10 years? Could be.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

25. 10 years? Way too soon. 20 years? Very possible.

30-50 years? Likely, by my reckoning.

Many question marks that could put a monkey wrench in this.

Bloody revolution leading to social chaos.

Devastation by AIDS epidemic.

But it certainly looks like they are well on the road.

Any DUer who is able should certainly visit China to get a much more concrete idea of what is going on there.

[NewJeffCT]

33. going next month

Flying out on 9/11... no fear for me. Visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and a few other cities in the East. Unfortunately, probably won't make it to Xi'an this time.

I'll let folks know.

[slackmaster]

26. In some ways China is already there

It's already an economic superpower.

[wickerwoman]

27. I don't see it happening.

So much of China's growth in the past ten years has been based on American prosperty and investment. There's a hell of a lot of inertia to overcome. And if the American economy tanks it will take China down with it. The only scenario in which I see China surpassing the US is if we continue to grow at a moderate rate and China overtakes us in 30 or 40 years.

Yes, China can point to some gleaming (kind of) metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai, but it's not the whole picture. Take a look at Inner Mongolia some time if you want to see how far China really has to come. 70% of the countries wealth is concentrated in cities where 17% of the population lives.

7 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world are in China. And the Chinese government's solution is to move the factories into the suburbs and plants more trees. National Geographic did a recent story on environmental damage in China. It's extrodinary. There's a picture of a man with all the skin on his hands burned off from washing them in tap water. The entire north of China is in a permanent state of drought and the Gobi desert is closing in on Beijing. I read that something like a third of the arable land in northern China is threatened by desertification.

And then there's the impending oil crisis. I live in Shanghai. The street lights are turned off at night to save power and many of my student say their workplaces are closed two or three days a week because electricity is too expensive. And the Three Gorges dam is barely going to put a dent in the enormous demand for more power.

China is an enormous country with an enormous population and it isn't going to go away. It may well achieve super-power status within a few years (arguably it has already achieved it, depending on your definition) but I don't see China surpassing the US in the next decade baring a total collapse of the US economy (but that would collapse the Chinese economy as well).

[Yupster]

28. With four times our population, it

seems like it's only a matter of time.

Ten years is probably too short a time, but they will eventually pass us, I'm pretty sure.

[IrateCitizen]

30. There will be no more superpowers in 10-20 years

China is certainly ascending -- in many ways reclaiming its place after a decline brought about by the Opium War, Western colonialism and exploitation, Japanese colonialism and exploitation, and some of the disasters of Maoism. But it will not arrive as a "superpower".

No country will be a "superpower" in 10-20 years. The world will be much more organized in regions, with major players in each region. In this regard, China will certainly be a major player in the Pacific Rim, perhaps surpassing Japan in many regards. The United States will recede to be more of a major player in North America (along with Canada).

But there will be no Chinese "superpower" in the future. Should we suddenly suffer an energy shock due to diminishing supplies of fossil fuels accompanied by increasing demand, or an environmental catastrophe, then obviously ALL bets are off. Civilization will move backwards due to there being no energy sources with which to drive industrial capacity.

[Zorra]

35. Only if Bu$h is re-selected. His administration is weakening our nation

on every front on a daily basis. Our military is being used for illegitimate purposes and has been severely depleted in resources, morale, and personnel.

Our economy has tanked and our national deficit, and trade deficit, has skyrocketed into the wild red yonder.

It almost seems that the Bu$h administration is deliberately weakening our country. How could any genuinely concerned national "leadership" be this thoroughly inept and incompetent?

[LeftistGorilla]

36. maybe....

they need to find more energy to sustain their towering growth...

[number6]

37. with Bu$hkkko bankrupting us, it'll be somebody else

China, ...EU ....