Indeed, Chinese economic and financial data is notoriously unreliable. A large Chinese company just missed an interest payment on a local currency bond even though just a quarter ago they claimed to have cash 15x the total value of that bond. A lot of the nationalistic rhetoric pushed by Xi and company is the result of China having a long history of secessionist movements. If you look at a map of China throughout history you'll see that it has rarely been as unified as it is now. A lot of people forget that Vietnam was a Chinese territory through the mid-1400s.

China's long-term political fate is difficult to predict. Just too many variables.

Taiwan will be an interesting issue which will probably be pressed by China in the next five years.

Not sure there has ever been another country with more people, more land, and more natural resources than us before.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

I guess it depends on what you mean as downfall? if/when China's economy is double that of the US they will be the power house. I really doubt it comes to a war, never heard China expanding much beyond Tiawian and the south china sea... the US has really stopped them from spreading there.

Its a pretty simple numbers games, for centuries we had the numbers, in a few decades China will have the numbers.

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

"We" literally never had the numbers. China had ~4x the number of people as the U.S. in 1970... and in 1980... and in 1990. Starting around 2000 that jumped to just short of 5x where it's stayed since. What's changed now vs then? Turn the clock back to 1800 and the U.S. had a population of 5,300,000 and China had a population of 300,000,000.

Where's your argument for India overturning the U.S. as a global hegemony if it's a "simple numbers game"?

People aren't always an asset. They can also be a liability.

Well, there certainly hasn't been one with our unique form of democracy, which is the oldest in the world and which seems to stand up to every punch, kick and blow landed on it, including by the idiot in charge right now.

Don't underestimate the value of such a durable political system, because it seeps into our cultural outlook and the way we look at government and work with it. The Chinese can't even come close to encouraging their people to look at their government in such a manner.

For one, the Chinese are inveterate tax cheats and wouldn't pay a dime to the government if they weren't forcibly made to. We understand here what the Internal Revenue Service can do, but we pay taxes voluntarily, by and large. That alone is a significant difference between us and the Chinese and between us and Greece and other countries.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I was being facetious. The Sea Hunter was designed to be a technology test-bed, not a warship, and would almost certainly never enter actual service in anything like its current form. The technology being developed could certainly find its way into future procurement.

But can a robotic ship still run into a merchant vessel? Only time will tell.

A robotic ship being remotely piloted by a drunken (being serious, more likely just an incompetent) Navy sailor still can.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Yes

Same way as Russia needed some small local victories (Tchetchenia, Crimée, ...) to give some wood to the nationalism fire, China will need some also.

Taiwan is high on the list. The only on the list ?

Hard to say. It's also hard to say what the right thing to do is for the U.S. Let's say that China demands accession, Taiwan refuses, China sends troops, Taiwan declares independence and asks for U.S. assistance. If the U.S. provides this assistance it will come at a great cost to both the U.S. and China: probably thousands of U.S. servicemen dead, a carrier battlegroup sunk or damaged, and we briefly flirt with a nuclear exchange. What does China do? Go home and keep to itself? Unlikely. It won't want to be seen as week so it will seek another confrontation with the U.S. Further, other Pacific Rim countries will at that point "know" that the U.S. will aid them even if they don't have a formal alliance so they don't enter said formal alliance and play both sides to benefit themselves economically. This forces the U.S. to invest in (expensive) force projection rather than comparatively inexpensive foreign military bases.

On the other hand, if the U.S. stays out of an invasion of Taiwan the Chinese will obviously succeed. At that point, China appears to the entire world to be willing to use military force to implement territorial ambitions and its political will. In such a world, what does Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, etc. do? Probably enter into a formal alliance with the U.S. and allow for the presence of U.S. military bases in order to guarantee their own security. Strategically placed bases in these countries and Japan's southern islands would basically ring-fence China and prevent it from projecting force abroad. In the long-run, this is probably the better option.

Yes. Europe helped in the first Iraq War and Afghanistan and those were not direct threats to a key ally. They would certainly help the US in US territory was threatened.

but more importantly, my point is that it is far less likely the US would need that help if it can maintain a strong partnership with its allies. If the US cooperates with all these allies, not just in direct military terms but in science, trade and cultural ways, the US (and allies) can jointly remain stronger than China.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

China. India.


Russia, Canada


Depends on resources but Russia, Canada, Brazil, etc. have oodles of these.
China has a decent resource base and is rapidly growing it into a colossal one. Huge swaths of Asia and Africa are quickly falling under Chinese economic control, often through resource exploitation. Read up on the 'Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)' . In the past the Chinese wasted a ton of capital on stupid internal infrastructure (too many hotels, concrete apartment buildings, etc.) - they appear to be smartening up and are better at putting that massive capital into things that will deliver long term ROI.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

FishyJoe wrote:

I don't agree. There is a real bias against creativity in Chinese culture. They can only advance to a certain point and won't be able to proceed because they will not have the intellectual creativity necessary for ground breaking advancement.

I've been hearing that not-so-subtly racist crap for too long.
In the 70's and 80's it was the Japanese - "all they can do is copy US technology cheaply, but they can innovate"... In the 90's/2000's it was the Koreans... Now its the Chinese...

Science & Innovation requires a few components: capital, political desire and infrastructure (universities, labs, centers-of-excellence). China has the first two and is moving headlong to develop the last.

The US is moving in the opposite direction. By making it less attractive for foreign STEM graduate students (particularly PhD) its undercutting its own future dominance and helping other countries keep their top brains.










https://www.economist.com/...uld-dominate-science

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Well, I am Chinese. As far as Chinese Universities are concerned, they are a joke. They have like a 99% graduation rate. Why? Because that's how they attract students by guaranteeing a degree. It's very hard to get into the universities because the testing is insane, but once there the students don't need to do much to graduate.

Did you ever heard about nuclear dissuasion ?

FishyJoe wrote:

Well, I am Chinese. As far as Chinese Universities are concerned, they are a joke. They have like a 99% graduation rate. Why? Because that's how they attract students by guaranteeing a degree. It's very hard to get into the universities because the testing is insane, but once there the students don't need to do much to graduate.

This is too broad of a brush you are using. Yes - there are tons of Universities in China that are simply diploma mills... not unlike the USA. (I wonder if there is a Chinese Trump University?)
Yet there is a growing number of elite Chinese Universities and Polytechnics that are rapidly climbing the world rankings. https://www.topuniversities.com/...gineering-technology

I am not Chinese... but I did spent a significant portion of my life living in Singapore & Malaysia, and working/travelling all over Asia. In the 1990's Singapore Universities were considered good but not great. Today NTU and NUS typically rank top 10 in world for engineering and science. Give China time - they will get there.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's