The rise of China - China will grow larger

[Ghostapplesause]

China's rising status has been talked about for years, even decades, now. China has become the world's factory, it's GDP exploding and it's skylines ever expanding. The People's Liberation Army is growing too and is building its own domestic military equipment like stealth fighters. I was surprised there was no thread talking about this.

Is China's economy really that sound or is it a bubble waiting to burst? Would and could China take over the South China Seas? Is China's government actually stable with Xi Jinping's takeover and with it's more rebellious providences like Tibet, Xinjiang or Hong Kong? Should we fear a man that gets pissed when he is compared to Winnie the Pooh? Could there be a war between the USA and China? and the most pressing question, is it a Superpower?

I think people are too quick to call China a Superpower now. Its military and soft power are still too weak and inferior compared to America's. I think that the 2020's will definitely be a decisive moment in history and will make or break China. What do all of you think?

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

China fucks with their currency too much.

 

[NIGGO KILLA]

yeah sure


question is how long is it goning to be until their house of cards collapses when their inflated economy, ruined environment , gender ratio imbalance, and numerous social issues comes crashing down?

 

[Save the Loli]

I could see China as a superpower in 50 years. In the next ten years though, just watch as China's economy collapses and Great Depression II starts.

 

[nanny911]

I'm still hoping that the rising levels of Christianity, Islam, and Capitalism in China will break the Communist's stronghold forever. And if China falls, hopefully Vietnam, North Korea, and the last Communist counties will collapse too.

 

[Jetpack Himmler]

The impression that I got from the People's Republic of China is that it is effectively a paper tiger. It will probably be a "great power" in the sense that the UK/France/Germany/etc. were pre-World War I, but not a superpower like the United States was post-World War II. For one, the PLA lacks the kind of power projection the U.S. Navy has and would likely lose in a naval war. Additionally, While the PRC has a nuclear arsenal, it remains to be seen if it will even try to match the US or Russia in number of warheads and with an estimated 270 warheads, they have a long way to go.

Then there are problems with pollution and corruption; the aforementioned gender imbalance; and the fact that the PRC itself has an aging population. One thing that people forget is that there will be other emerging powers in the form of the other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) members. If any of these countries can get their acts together, then that will put the PRC's ambitions in check--India and Russia in particular.

Additionally, I am skeptical that the PRC will ever have a cultural stranglehold on the world the same way the United States (and Japan to a lesser extent) do. While their films have been doing well domestically, their presence overseas in negligible to the point of nonexistence.

I find it hard to see China as a superpower in an age where we are seeing more regional powers vie for influence.

 

[Xetzyr]

China is like... say you got a REALLY big house... and you invite some smelly shit ridden bum to live in one of your rooms and in exchange he mows your lawn and takes out the garbage and gets to pretend like he's not a smelly shit ridden bum... that's China.

 

[Slap47]

China is fucked.

Population
-Massive gender imbalance
-Looming aging population crisis
-Massive poverty and a huge population of single people with nobody to care for them when they age.
-Huge ethnic tensions
+Large population of smart people
-Massive brain drain and siphoning of money to foreign countries
+Good literacy
-But the rural people are still retarded
+Rising ethnic tensions

Government
+Rapidly expanding bureaucratic morass
+Nepotism at every level of government
+Corruption at every level of government

Economy/Infrastructure
-Very limited innovation due to Confucianism that encourages plagiarism and the CPC 's rampant corruption
-Bubble economy dependent on huge construction projects with no purpose
-They literally can't maintain shit for some reason
-Massive public works projects that cause more harm than they're worth
+Government control allows for quick intervention in the case of emergency
-Lack of private property, freedom and rule of law discourages serious foreign investment
+Rising standard of living
-Huge cost of living in cities
-Manufacturing jobs going overseas despite most of interior still being shit

Military
+Huge manpower reserves
+Huge amount of artillery and vehicles
-Soldiers spend more time reading Marxist theory than training
-Out of date equipment too small for fatter Chinese population
-Only recently decided to have joint command so army is dysfunctional
-Literally no blue ocean fleet and one broken carrier
-Backwards airforce
-Extreme reliance on trade route bottlenecks


Agriculture
-Holy fuck, these people don't understand erosion, wtf.
-The farmers don't own their land and it can be taken away by a corrupt official on a whim
-Massive overfarming of land with backwards farming practices
-Pollution making water unusable
-Scandals caused pooor regulation ruining export economy
-Extreme reliance on food imports

Health
-Overuse of anti-biotics will create super aids
-Shit regulation
-Aging population crisis and a traditional system where kids are supposed to take care of their parents
-Obesity epidemic
-Pollution where the air and water is 1000x over the safety limit in major cities
-People still choose magic horn powder over actual treatment
-Street shitting

 

[Douglas Reynholm]

That patriotism though, got to appreciate that rabid nationalism. Those gold reserves count for shit when your nuclear arsenal is a piss in a puddle though.

 

[ulsterscotsman]

I believe they're pretty much colonizing Africa at the moment.

 

[ATaxingWoman]

It is a great power which has the capacity of evolving into a super power, but considering China's many problems which are bound to eventually culminate and come crashing down, I simply don't see it happening anytime soon. However, I would say that what matters the most isn't when the crash is coming, because it's more or less inevitable at this point, but what the government's plans are for reconstructing the country.

 

[TiggerNits]

China has nearly zero military logistical output. The BIG reason the US is the global player that it is is due to four very important things

-In Theater assets: We have runways, deep water ports and access to allied facilities on every continent and none are secluded from the others. China has 6 leases (which can be canceled at any time because they don't have a whole litany of international treaties supporting them) and a bunch of piss ant islands that aren't a real threat to any NATO or Russian naval force

-Long term support capabilities: We can get fuel, food, ammo and personnel to any given location in meaningful numbers to reinforce positions faster and more heavily than any other nation on the world by a factor of much greater than 10:1. The large airlift capacity of our Air National Guard (Not the Air Force itself, mind you) outweighs that of China and Russia by about 4:1.

-Integrated Cross-Training of Personnel: The US and a few NATO allies do something that no one else really does. We train our forces to multi-task and allow for NCOs to take command of smaller groups with a large amount of autonomy. If an Abrams tank has the gunner become injured in a way he cannot do his job, the loader, driver and commander are all properly trained to do his job in a pinch. If a US ship is hit and on fire, every crew member knows how to put out that fire and tend to wounded sailors. If a an artillery position is being over run, every single man on that base is qualified to defend themselves and their compatriots with small arms. Every officer knows how to direct air and fire support and trusts their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to do their job in supporting them. This is FUCKING MASSIVE, because if you ever work with a non-integrated force that doesn't go nuts in cross training, you'll quickly realize they lose their nerve about 7 minutes in to contact with the enemy when whatever doctrine they have will be insufficient to handle it. Since the US doesn't give two shits about doctrine and has a very "Just fight, regroup, call in fire support and push until someone higher ranking than you says to stop" mentality, it makes combat for extended periods against us a fucking nightmare because we won't allow you to become entrenched or suitably defensive.

-Strategic Resource Allocation: China has a TON of resources. They mine at full capacity, they farm at an amazing rate and they pump out oil and gas at tremendous speed. But here's the killer, they sell ALL of it. Their entire workforce is built around full production. They have an economy built on moving ALL the product they create. Its like living paycheck to paycheck, so long as that job is secure and safe, you can do it and live pretty well. But you're always just a bad couple of days from being tits up and on the street. If they go to war, and that workforce has to muster out all of their able men, their production drops, their resources already are spent and their ability to arm, repair and replace those men and their fighting systems is non-existent. The US also has a ton of resources, infrastructure that allows immediate access and an economy that uses a lot of resources, but here's the catch, we don't use our own. We buy oil from the Saudis. We buy steel from Europe, we import silicone and goods from Asia, we only use 1/7th of our farmland. In a real conflict, we can be cutoff from our allies and vendors and still be 100% capable of carrying on conflict on a global scale in such a way that we can actually increase production and the size of our military and it's capabilities in a matter of weeks. If China is living paycheck to paycheck, America has a savings account it can live off of for more than a decade.

Its boring and it ain't sexy, but the secret to America's status as the Super Power is that we can farm, mine, pump and build independently of the rest of the world, we're positioned between the two largest oceans in such a way that it becomes impossible to cut us off and to top it off we've got our hands in everyone's pockets.

China is powerful if they're on your border or you have a coastline withing 200 miles of theirs, but if they have to travel and spend more than a few weeks fighting you, they're a paper tiger at best, or an inept old man swinging his paper mache cane at worst

 

[Forever Train Engineer]

China will grow larger

MELT! EVERYTHING MUST MELT!

 

[Slap47]

China has nearly zero military logistical output. The BIG reason the US is the global player that it is is due to four very important things

-In Theater assets: We have runways, deep water ports and access to allied facilities on every continent and none are secluded from the others. China has 6 leases (which can be canceled at any time because they don't have a whole litany of international treaties supporting them) and a bunch of piss ant islands that aren't a real threat to any NATO or Russian naval force

-Long term support capabilities: We can get fuel, food, ammo and personnel to any given location in meaningful numbers to reinforce positions faster and more heavily than any other nation on the world by a factor of much greater than 10:1. The large airlift capacity of our Air National Guard (Not the Air Force itself, mind you) outweighs that of China and Russia by about 4:1.

-Integrated Cross-Training of Personnel: The US and a few NATO allies do something that no one else really does. We train our forces to multi-task and allow for NCOs to take command of smaller groups with a large amount of autonomy. If an Abrams tank has the gunner become injured in a way he cannot do his job, the loader, driver and commander are all properly trained to do his job in a pinch. If a US ship is hit and on fire, every crew member knows how to put out that fire and tend to wounded sailors. If a an artillery position is being over run, every single man on that base is qualified to defend themselves and their compatriots with small arms. Every officer knows how to direct air and fire support and trusts their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to do their job in supporting them. This is FUCKING MASSIVE, because if you ever work with a non-integrated force that doesn't go nuts in cross training, you'll quickly realize they lose their nerve about 7 minutes in to contact with the enemy when whatever doctrine they have will be insufficient to handle it. Since the US doesn't give two shits about doctrine and has a very "Just fight, regroup, call in fire support and push until someone higher ranking than you says to stop" mentality, it makes combat for extended periods against us a fucking nightmare because we won't allow you to become entrenched or suitably defensive.

-Strategic Resource Allocation: China has a TON of resources. They mine at full capacity, they farm at an amazing rate and they pump out oil and gas at tremendous speed. But here's the killer, they sell ALL of it. Their entire workforce is built around full production. They have an economy built on moving ALL the product they create. Its like living paycheck to paycheck, so long as that job is secure and safe, you can do it and live pretty well. But you're always just a bad couple of days from being tits up and on the street. If they go to war, and that workforce has to muster out all of their able men, their production drops, their resources already are spent and their ability to arm, repair and replace those men and their fighting systems is non-existent. The US also has a ton of resources, infrastructure that allows immediate access and an economy that uses a lot of resources, but here's the catch, we don't use our own. We buy oil from the Saudis. We buy steel from Europe, we import silicone and goods from Asia, we only use 1/7th of our farmland. In a real conflict, we can be cutoff from our allies and vendors and still be 100% capable of carrying on conflict on a global scale in such a way that we can actually increase production and the size of our military and it's capabilities in a matter of weeks. If China is living paycheck to paycheck, America has a savings account it can live off of for more than a decade.

Its boring and it ain't sexy, but the secret to America's status as the Super Power is that we can farm, mine, pump and build independently of the rest of the world, we're positioned between the two largest oceans in such a way that it becomes impossible to cut us off and to top it off we've got our hands in everyone's pockets.

China is powerful if they're on your border or you have a coastline withing 200 miles of theirs, but if they have to travel and spend more than a few weeks fighting you, they're a paper tiger at best, or an inept old man swinging his paper mache cane at worst

That patriotism though, got to appreciate that rabid nationalism. Those gold reserves count for shit when your nuclear arsenal is a piss in a puddle though.

Despite all the bitching and moaning, Americans generally love their country. The American army is that of citizen soldiers and the American public are trained to act as citizens in a democracy. Modern Chinese patriotism and nationalism mostly manifests as beating up people that criticize the government. American patriotism and nationalism manifests itself in criticism and the championing of innovation.

China had the potential to be a superpower and it had the potential to be an America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Song_dynasty

Geography is all well and good but China was on the cusp of becoming the first capitalistic state and probably would have went on to colonize the world if not for its border with the Mongols.

They Song dynasty had huge cities where people lived well above subsistence, joint-stock companies and investment houses where anybody could try to make a buck. After the defeating the Yuan, the following Ming dynasty enforced centralized planning, aristocratic privilege and the cracking down on foreign ideas. Dynasties would not match the Song economically for centuries despite having more land and people. China was in a position to explode like Europe and fucked it all up.

 

[Your Weird Fetish]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Song_dynasty

Geography is all well and good but China was on the cusp of becoming the first capitalistic state and probably would have went on to colonize the world if not for its border with the Mongols.

They Song dynasty had huge cities where people lived well above subsistence, joint-stock companies and investment houses where anybody could try to make a buck. After the defeating the Yuan, the following Ming dynasty enforced centralized planning, aristocratic privilege and the cracking down on foreign ideas. Dynasties would not match the Song economically for centuries despite having more land and people. China was in a position to explode like Europe and fucked it all up.

Same thing happened to India with the Hepthalite invasions. The poo-in-loos were on their way to inventing capitalism and colonizing a lot of Indonesia and maybe even Oceania but then some asshole steppe nomads came in, wrecked everything, and sent them crying back to feudalism.

Beware the (((Khan)))s of the world. They're just biding their time until we nuke ourselves into the stone age. Then the horde will come screaming out of Mongolia again.

 

[Vocaloid Ruby]

Didn't they just ban the new Winnie The Pooh film because chinease people were saying Pooh looked like their president?



No.

 

[This+]

Superpower is mostly measured through military strength. capability, and power projection but I think culture also plays a big part in it.

SK/Japan has a much better lead when it comes to modern culture compared to China. Like them or not, K-Pop is a worldwide phenomenon that only gets bigger every year. I thought SNSD was big at the start of the decade, and now BTS completely overshadows them. Chinese pop/rap? Nobody outside of China and surrounding countries with Mandarin-fluent people really know them. Even J-Pop is more popular than Chinese pop/rap across the world.

A lot of that can be traced to American culture. USA has a big presence in both countries even to this day, and despite being a small patch of water or land across, China hasn't done much to spread their culture to SK and Japan as the US did.

Censorship also has a big influence to cultural relevancy. China censors anything that the government doesn't like. The new Ghostbusters movie ban in China is summed up best by Mike from redlettermedia: "Their Communist government thinks the movie's witchcraft." Winnie the Pooh is banned in China because Pooh looks like Xi? Blocking creative content like that from coming in means less influence/inspiration for native artists to draw from, and thus it just becomes a mess of media/art that only confides to whatever the government likes and not what actual people like.

Take SK for instance, Park Chung-Hee during the 60s/70s blocked foreign influence from affecting domestic art and culture, leading to stagnancy that was only alleviated once foreign (mostly Japanese and American) culture bans were lifted. I don't think Japan ever had a culture ban which explains why things like anime/manga got a much earlier headstart than Korean webtoons/manhwa. Same goes for live-action drama. Korean and Japanese gameshows and drama are much more popular and enjoys wider reach and influence across the world than whatever censored bullshit China has.

The Chinese government is still holding onto the "Middle Kingdom" fantasy that was long broken since the Opium War. As long as they have that mentality, their culture will always be lesser than their neighboring and who they perceive as "lesser" countries. That is why the USA has a much stronger grip on the world: everyone likes the influence and ideals American culture brings to the table, and you'll be hard-pressed to remove that and replacing it with a much more constraining one.

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

 

[Mysterious Capitalist]

China will grow larger

China is fat and I would not have sex with it

 

[laoyang]

I believe they're pretty much colonizing Africa at the moment.

I wouldn't know anything about that...