If we are talking about China's military power, all we have to remember is that if they can put a man in space they can put a rocket in your backyard.
And we have many, many more missiles and bombers capable of hitting them back. We also have a sizeable carrier force, which means we could stage bombing runs right next door to them.
Roman, no one on earth could beat the USA in a war, apart from a few Iraqi insurgents. For sheer military hardware no one beats the USA and hopefully no one ever will. Europe got it right with their stance of free health care rather than huge Army’s. But China could ruffle some feathers if it truly wanted to. Also any country that has Nuclear weapons, in many ways have as much military power as the USA, and China has them.
But we have MORE nukes. If anyone was foolish to detonate a nuke, you can bet the US would empty it's arsenal on China. Can you imagine the response of the US would be if one of our cities was nuked? Total war; China would be completely obliterated. The insrugency situation in Iraq is far different from what a real war with China would look like. We'd have hard targets– military & industrial, a real regime to target. Once the regime fell, China would be broken and no longer a threat.
Is China really that over populated? In terms of sheers numbers China is over populated, but is that all we need to look at here? Lets compare China to the USA on this! What is the average height and weight of a Chinese citizen and an American? Every one in China is tiny compared to the USA. You have a large number of citizens that have the body mass of 3 or 4 Chinese people and that’s normally just one thigh. The amount of resources needed to sustain an American is excessively more than that of a Chinese citizen. Proof of this can be found if you look at the figures for the environmental footprint left by the average American, it is by far the biggest on earth. Therefore, I would claim that China is over populated but its needs created by over population as on par with the needs of the American population. The only difference is that the USA is greed driven. I don't see the USA rationing Big Mac's to only 5 per person. It's also very important to look at the mentality of the Chinese population. Here in the UK the Chinese are some of our top student in terms of high grades. Chinese people are a dedicated nation. This is very important in building a superpower. I also think its important to take into account Alcohol consumption. The UK will never get anywhere, in general we go to work earn money and spend it down the pub or on Alcohol or leisure activities. I believe drinking culture holds back any country, it makes for an unproductive workforce. Here in the UK young Muslims save and invest from a young age and buy property and businesses, young English people on the other hand spend the money in the Pub. China I would assume is the same as a large percentage of their population are genetically unable to process Alcohol. Therefore, I believe China could never have a substance abuse problem. Especially as it appear from another post on this forum illegal drug use can lead to being shot. Maybe this is another China/USSR difference, as the Russians love their Vodka.
Roman the USA has enough Nukes to destory China and China has enough Nukes to destory the USA. That seems as equal as it needs to be from where I am sitting. Unless you feel some strange need to triple Nuke China.
alex, You miss a key point of economics, then. To win in the industrial market, one must outproduce everyone else. And to outproduce, one must find the markets to consume. Americans concume lots because they can. If a chinaman could consume as much as an American, he would. And thus the growing rivalry between China and the US. China wants to consume more. China has about 1.3 billion persons, each person with a purchasing parity of $5,600. The US has a population of about 300 million, each person;s purchasing parity is $40,100. As you can see, the average American is worth more than seven times as much as the average chinaman.
Who is more likely to launch a suicide attack, the US or China? It doesn't take very many cobalt bombs to completely destroy an enemy. After doing that, it will be many years before anyone can live above ground again, anywhere. Some of the US's behavior says to me that China has promised to obliterate the biosphere if the U.S. does anything decisive to win against China. From there, we are just running and fetching for them and saving them from spending resources to cripple oil-producing countries or to fight any wars at all that drain resources. If the U.S. gains the high ground it might not be enough in itself to provoke China to use the final option. I would rather risk it. I would rather have a stalemate with China than a victory by China. If they have the suicide weapon, dare them to use it. I would rather die anyway than live under Chinese rule.
Actually, China has become more pragmatic than fanatical in recent decades. America would probably be the one to do crazy-assed stuff like that... but only when we have our back to the wall. It hasn't happened in a while so most people don't remember that we can be the craziest one of the lot.
But as you presumably have not noticed, the simple fact is that not only have use of resources increased several times over, so too have interpenetration of economic entitites. The situation today is different simlpy by virtue of the trends that were in place back in the 20's and 30's in terms of corporations, trade etc growing and coming to the state they are now. I thiinnk you'll find that it is far more open that that now, at least for an appreciable percentage of the population. Look at the Southern states, and the extent of entrepreneurship going on, as well as state investment in everything from universities to motorways. Having said all that above, I disagree with alexb123 to a point, because as has already been pointed out, China has a lack of natural resources with which to bootstrap its way out of poverty. THe USA had lots by comparison, and used the fairly well to increase its industry and then its financial markets. China as far as I know imports just about everything in large quantities except coal. Roman, your point about purchasing parity doesnt necessarily take into account the effects of debt. The USA is running a trade deficit, China has a trade surplus, which can be used to build up the economy. (Of course they'll probably waste a lot of it on military stupidity, but hey.) For the title of next superpower, I expect CHina and India to be arguing about it. I read recently that wages are rising in Chinia, but staying quite low in India, which gives India an advantage in attracting cheap labour for cheap manufacturing.
The Chinese trade surplus mentioned by quthrie is expected to be $200 Billion. That is an awesome amount of money by anyones standards. Also remember these are early days for this new era in China's history. The Queen here in the UK had top China officals here last week and even today Bush is in China. If you want to lick a Chinaman's arse these days you have to wait in line. Also that $200 does not get swallowed up in welfare payments or huge Admin costs. It looks like much of it will go to Universitys and R+D. On that kind of income China could get to Mars before the USA. Now that would be a sign that China had become a superpower.
I didn't look it up. How many nukes do you need? 10 or 15? I am sure they have more than that anyway. Also if you can put a man in space your warheads must be able to reach the USA. I might be wrong to presume but I think its clear cut.
A lot more than that. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! While those 10-15 would be targetted towards major cities, just to give you an idea in regards to landmass, 10-15 nukes wouldn't even blow up all of California. It's not like one nuke blows up all of the American Southwest, one blows up the Northwest, one blows up the Northeast, one blows up the Southeast, one blows up the North, South, East, West, the Midwest, and Central U.S. then there's no more U.S. of A. That winds up being 10 nukes right there, heh. - N
I think that in the case of China, the threat of Doomsday is quite pragmatic. They are already prepared for it with underground shelters for those humans who they care to save. The threat paralyzes others who would just as soon see them dead. We are talking about gangsters here, not upstanding citizens like American legislators. With these gangsters it's like "either let us take over or we will kill everyone." Americans don't know how to play that game well, apparently, but at some point we should just dare them and see if they can learn to live with the chips that they have already won. We don't need to dominate China nearly as much as we need them to be unable to dominate us because it is a fate worse than total obliteration to be dominated by China.
You clearly don't know shit about China. China's is an export-driven economy. And they don't have any kind of communist command economy there anymore; they're more than capable of getting bright, motivated people into jobs that suit them.
I think they are talking about exportable materials. If all else fails, you can export oil, wheat, cement, whatever. IN that sense China doesnt have much to export. Look at the UK. little manufacturing left, it is sustained by financial industries, and ws until recently also helped by oil exports. What China does just now is act as a cheap manufacturing place, like Mexico did 10 years ago. China can onsly stay strong or get stronger if it can keep this advantage of cheaper labour, then turn it into an advantage of having enough capital concentration and investment that it stays at the forefront of global manufacturing investment and development.
Hmm, maybe that's why the US has been working on anti-ICBM systems since the 1970's? Wow, so they put a man in space; now they're only 50 years behind the Russians in the space field! The bottom line is that China's missile and nuclear technology is generations behind America's, and even if they managed to get a nuke or two through, the counterattack would be beyond any calculation. As in the total destruction of China's infrastructure and populace. Thus, they will not launch a nuclear attack on America in the foreseeable future, under any circumstances. This does not mean that they won't threaten to, but these pronouncements are merely diplomatic and propaganda tools.
Indonesia? India? I cant remember anything about CHina's coal output, I shall have to check. I know they're building coal fired power stations at a rate guaranteed to melt the ice caps, but apart from that I dont know. As for China's missile technology, its probably only 20 years behind the USA's, if that. Bear in mind that China has been building parts and entire wings for Boeing for over 5 years now, let alone the number of PhD's it is producing, and you can see it wont be that far behind. At the moment all it has to do is copy the USA's old technology.
