The Incoming Rise of China

[Avernian Republic]

We've all seen it coming. China's economy, military, and general power is growing. Fast. Within a couple decades, they will have a larger economy than America. Their military will consequentially grow alongside it as they will almost definitely begin to push against America's global hegemony.

The sheer size of China's population makes it seem nearly impossible to stop them.

I think it goes without saying that a Chinese-hegemonic world would be worse than what we've got going right now. It ain't perfect, but it'll get worse when China, an authoritarian, autocratic empire that has nearly no democracy and no free speech begins to have more influence.

How do we stop them?

I personally think that opening free trade with them will make the US and them become co-dependent and that'll at the very least keep the peace. Possibly force them to become more Western if we threaten to end such trade. They depend more on us than we on them (contrary to the popular notion)

[Greed and Death]

Better nuke them first.

[Adrien Agreste]

I hope there is no war. I like eating Chinese food.

[Imperial Esplanade]

A Chinese-hegemonic world requires:

1.) China to actually become a hegemonic power.
2.) The United States to collapse badly enough to allow China to become a hegemonic power.

Both of which are rather unlikely, as China appears content to nurture its' economy and avoid flexing its' military might all that much beyond its' neighbors and surrounding region.

Meanwhile, the United States isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We may not be the great, indisputable power we were at the beginning of the 21st Century forever, but there's little to suggest we're going to shrink away from relevance.

[Krasny-Volny]

Stop sharing our technology with them.

China's success is built on its flagrant disregard for intellectual property. It reverse engineers everything it can get its hands on and then produces cheap, unlicensed knockoffs which it then proceeds to flood the market with. I'm talking everything from toys to microchips. The PRC regime sees this as a legitimate business strategy, leapfrogging on others to get ahead. It has military applications too, since Western defense products can also be copied. In the early 2000s companies like Norinco were just beginning to achieve a tech level comparable to smaller NATO powers in the 1980s. They were still decades behind. Sharing defense technology with them has profited the West none and the Chinese by a great deal. They buy very small quantities of weapons or start joint projects just to copy the technology. Stop letting them do this and their military will remain stuck in the last decade.

[Dooom35796821595]

Yeah, because China is the country with the history of invading other countries, and installing sympathetic dictators.

No wait, that's not right...

[Avernian Republic]

Yeah, because China is the country with the history of invading other countries, and installing sympathetic dictators.

No wait, that's not right...

You mean like what they did with North Korea?

Or when they invaded Tibet?

Or when they ran the Nationalists off their mainland and to the island of Taiwan?

Or when they threatened to invade Taiwan like twice?

Or how about those attempts to take parts of India going on right now?

And the very idea that you're trying to imply that China is somehow morally comparable to the US is absolutely ridiculous. Just look up the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. 60 million people dead. Mao has killed more people than anyone else in history.

Don't try to act all smug like you think you're being clever for trying to say "well, the US is bad, man. We're like, evil n stuff"

[Neanderthaland]

Oncoming.

[Czeskia]

Yeah, because China is the country with the history of invading other countries, and installing sympathetic dictators.

No wait, that's not right...

You mean like what they did with North Korea?

Or when they invaded Tibet?

Or when they ran the Nationalists off their mainland and to the island of Taiwan?

Or when they threatened to invade Taiwan like twice?

Or how about those attempts to take parts of India going on right now?

Soviet Union

Fair enough

All's fair in love and [civil] war

Awful regime change pales in comparison to Chinese threats

Fair enough

[Cetacea]

Is this an OP from the 1980's?

China has already risen and has already replaced the US and European controlled “international financial institutions” (the IMF, World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank) as the principle lender in Latin Americaand prime investors in African energy and mineral resources. It's the world’s biggest manufacturer and exporter, even dominating the US market, and it holds over $1.3 trillion in US Treasury notes.

Western Scholarship often ignores the fact that up until the 1800s China was the global power, China had its Mercantile revolution (banking, a stable paper money economy, high tech manufacturing, textiles weaving and high yield agriculture) seven centuries before Europe and was trading throughout Southern Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. It only declined after the Military Imperialism of Britain forced it to retreat and the subsequent rise of the PRC

The truth however is that for centuries the Chinese have relied on their superior production and sophisticated commercial and banking skills, to dominate via ‘reciprocal benefits’ with its trading partners accompanied by resettlement and sinicization. Europe (the British in particular) relied on tariff protection, formenting local rivalries, the systematic destruction of overseas competitors, military conquest and the appropriation and plunder of local resources.

This is a good thing, China is far far behind the US in its aggressive war-making capacity. It is not a militant society and it is unlikely to develop the capoacity to the point where it will challenge US military dominace. But it doesn't have to, it only needs to leverage its mercantile superiority and its huge population to circumvent US might in favour of maximizing economic dependency

The Chinese domestic market has been a focus of investment lately which has resulted in increased wages and social spending to rebalance the economy and avoid social instability. More importantly the Belt and Road initiative is focussing on the Chinese interior and a Eurasian link through Central Asia to the EU, and if the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank can keep up its projects and the soft power of Chinese worker settlement then China will have entirely circumvented the US hold on Pacific Maritime routes such that it will entirely replace the US as the leading world economic power.

China upholds its policy of “harmonious development” and “non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries” while the US has responded by intensification of its Pacific interest and undeertaken military interventions in a host of China’s trading partners, for instance China had a trade and investments agreement with Gadhafi


Now I live in a Western Nation and enjoy that fact, but I'm also a brown 'native' in a country colonised by Britain, so I'm not going to denying the bad side of China nor that the process of CHinese sinicization is just as much imperialism as the Western neocolonialsim. What I do look upon as a positive factor though is that China's modern rise and its modern political leaders are a new class of billionaires running global businesses and milking their own Western equity funds. Their children attend elite universities in the US and Europe and they are happy to find “accommodation with the West” while maintaining their own power.

The question then is do we want to be accomodating of Chinese economic dominance and follow a path of ‘reciprocal benefits’ where China adopts more Western approaches and the West sees a lot more Chinese influence or do we want to keep up the US War Machine with its constant need to intervene against Chinese expansion so that Chinese strategist call for their own increase in Chinese military investment too?

I say lets welcome our Chinese friends with open arms

[-Ocelot-]

How do we stop them?

Who is "we" exactly? The US? Or the west in general? And why should we stop a nation like China from becoming the biggest superpower? Historically, China has never showed the same aggressiveness or imperialism as western nations, which seeked and continue to seek complete world domination and have passed this mindset to their people (e.g: OP)

It ain't perfect, but it'll get worse when China, an authoritarian, autocratic empire that has nearly no democracy and no free speech begins to have more influence.

Modern China isn't an empire. They haven't installed bases everywhere like the US does and they have never showed any intent of expanding their borders or cultural influence outside China. Chinese "imperialism" is only economic.

[Albrenia]

Uh... aren't they building military islands to extend their reach in international waters?

Also the human rights abuses, human organ trafficking, secret-policing stuff. I don't buy the 'nicer than the US' line at all.

[The Transhuman Union]

Stop sharing our technology with them.

China's success is built on its flagrant disregard for intellectual property. It reverse engineers everything it can get its hands on and then produces cheap, unlicensed knockoffs which it then proceeds to flood the market with. I'm talking everything from toys to microchips. The PRC regime sees this as a legitimate business strategy, leapfrogging on others to get ahead. It has military applications too, since Western defense products can also be copied. In the early 2000s companies like Norinco were just beginning to achieve a tech level comparable to smaller NATO powers in the 1980s. They were still decades behind. Sharing defense technology with them has profited the West none and the Chinese by a great deal. They buy very small quantities of weapons or start joint projects just to copy the technology. Stop letting them do this and their military will remain stuck in the last decade.

Oh wow, the Chinese people are ignorant and cannot innovate on their own apparently by your logic.

[Cetacea]

Uh... aren't they building military islands to extend their reach in international waters?

Also the human rights abuses, human organ trafficking, secret-policing stuff. I don't buy the 'nicer than the US' line at all.

it's not nicer than the US, but the US isnt nicer than China either

[The Conez Imperium]

Or when they ran the Nationalists off their mainland and to the island of Taiwan?

Or when they threatened to invade Taiwan like twice?

Taiwan and China is a civil war issue. Fundamentally, I believe this is an issue for the Chinese people to solve and the only role the international community can do is to ensure the preservation of human rights and system of law. I wouldn't as any 3rd party interfere with civil wars unless I have very good reasons.

[Trumptonium]

The US is objectively the nicest superpower that has ever dominated the world, and I'd rather not have Russia or China taking that role.

It does seem however inevitable that China (should they solve their debt problems) will dominate the world in two or three decades unless we merely slow that process down by limiting our trade with them.

China has a much easier route to that as it has no democracy or elections to worry about, instead having a very efficient governance system focused solely on precisely increasing their nations' influence on the world.

China is showing its imperialist ambitions in their own region by militarist claims on the South China Sea as well as attempting to ... vassalize .. Vietnam. It is showing its imperialist ambitions in the West through industrial espionage and the Confucius Institute. Rather worrying.

[The Conez Imperium]

Stop sharing our technology with them.

China's success is built on its flagrant disregard for intellectual property. It reverse engineers everything it can get its hands on and then produces cheap, unlicensed knockoffs which it then proceeds to flood the market with. I'm talking everything from toys to microchips. The PRC regime sees this as a legitimate business strategy, leapfrogging on others to get ahead. It has military applications too, since Western defense products can also be copied. In the early 2000s companies like Norinco were just beginning to achieve a tech level comparable to smaller NATO powers in the 1980s. They were still decades behind. Sharing defense technology with them has profited the West none and the Chinese by a great deal. They buy very small quantities of weapons or start joint projects just to copy the technology. Stop letting them do this and their military will remain stuck in the last decade.

Oh wow, the Chinese people are ignorant and cannot innovate on their own apparently by your logic.

Krasny Volny also assumes that other countries are stupid and they happily share China sensitive military technology. Not only that, these countries forgot to charge China!

[The Conez Imperium]

China has a much easier route to that as it has no democracy or elections to worry about, instead having a very efficient governance system focused solely on precisely increasing their nations' influence on the world.

It's a double-edged sword. A lack of democracy means the state itself is concerned about survival rather than governance.

[Apadana]

Doesn't matter how you try to approach it, China has been, is and always will be a superpower. Too big, too many resources, too many people, very well positioned geographically.

What I propose is this, might be slightly off topic, but can anyone imagine the communist party as the current holder of the mandate of heaven? Possible that it's yet another imperial dynasty in another form? That someday when it loses the mandate another political entity from within will take hold of the nation?

[Vistulange]

The US is objectively the nicest superpower

By which objective criteria? Are there criteria for "nice"?

that has ever dominated the world, and I'd rather not have Russia or China taking that role.

And why should Russia and China not be able to satisfy these "objective criteria" for being "nice"?

It does seem however inevitable that China (should they solve their debt problems) will dominate the world in two or three decades unless we merely slow that process down by limiting our trade with them.

Power transition may not be inevitable as people often suggest. However, theories posit that war will break out either by the hegemon declaring war before they fall behind the new hegemon, or the prospective hegemon declaring war on the old one to conclude the transition of power. However, I'm sceptical of the probability of a US-Chinese war, solely due to the power the United States wields in the world. The United States' power is much more than its economy, which by itself is a juggernaut, or its military, which is most likely the most powerful in history to exist. Therefore, as long as idiocracies such as the Trump administration can be avoided in the long run, the United States will remain a superpower for a large part of our lifetimes, though China will likely be a close contender - but probably never more powerful than the United States itself.

China has a much easier route to that as it has no democracy or elections to worry about, instead having a very efficient governance system focused solely on precisely increasing their nations' influence on the world.

China is not an efficient country. I was under the impression that the trope of "the trains run on time in autocracies" had been debunked over and over again, repeatedly, but apparently this doesn't seem to be the case. China is corrupt as hell, which makes for some god-awful inefficiency in the medium and long run. Centralising power in a single focus and allowing for unquestionable decision-making does not necessarily correlate with efficiency, it only correlates with speed, which is a different concept than "efficiency".

China is showing its imperialist ambitions in their own region by militarist claims on the South China Sea as well as attempting to ... vassalize .. Vietnam. It is showing its imperialist ambitions in the West through industrial espionage and the Confucius Institute. Rather worrying.

The question becomes "how do we define imperialism", or rather, "neo-imperialism". Some would argue that the United States is conducting imperialism through, for instance, the Fulbright program, or even through Hollywood. I'm personally very sceptical of the view that industrial espionage constitutes imperialism: It's unpleasant, but it's not an effort to extract resources from a particular place and transfer them to the homeland. In addition - and I'm aware I'm venturing into tu quoque territory here - practically everybody engages in industrial espionage, but we don't call everybody "imperialists", unless we happen to be far-left conspiracy theorists. Therefore, while perhaps annoying, industrial espionage would not, in my opinion, constitute imperialism.

I can fully agree with you on the South China Sea, however. It's a challenge, and combined with some other steps China is taking, such as the launching of an aircraft carrier, it certainly deserves a mention. China is certainly looking to expand its influence beyond its immediate region, but I doubt it can seriously rival the United States in the near future.

[Apadana]

China has a much easier route to that as it has no democracy or elections to worry about, instead having a very efficient governance system focused solely on precisely increasing their nations' influence on the world.

It's a double-edged sword. A lack of democracy means the state itself is concerned about survival rather than governance.

Isn't governance a way to ensure survival?

[The Conez Imperium]

It's a double-edged sword. A lack of democracy means the state itself is concerned about survival rather than governance.

Isn't governance a way to ensure survival?

I guess I should be more clear.

When talking about the state, I'm talking about the collective entity of the state.

In a democracy, the power of the state comes from the people. If we don't like our current leader, we can elect him out of office. In a non-democratic state like China, the power of the state comes from its control over their people. The Chinese people can't kick the general secretary if they don't like him.

This doesn't mean the Chinese government keeps its citizens on a tight leash, rather the current system of laws, the Chinese government philosophy, the entire state's modus operandi is anchored on an artificial - forced control over the Chinese people. It's an arbitrary system imposed upon the people that cannot survive if the people decide they want to change. The saving grace of the system is (if you want to be cynical) bread and circuses. The Chinese people are experiencing economic growth like never before and generally people are satisfied with the peace and their improved living standards.

[Ethel mermania]

In German or english, I know how to count down
And i am learning chinese, says Werner von braun.

[Novowarsawianka]

There is a fact that people keep forgetting: China can't afford to be a superpower.

While you might find stats that point that China's debt to GDP ratio is rather small, some sources putting it several times less than that of the USA, economic experts seem to differ, estimating the real debt to GDP ratio at around 200% (in comparison, the USA are at some 80%). What is even worse is that it is projected to rise to 300% by 2020.
Another looming economic problem is a demographical one: the population keeps aging. With a rising life expectancy and lower birthrates, the employee to pensioneer ratio will also grow.
With all those economic factors taken into account, consider that the USA have a military budget three times the size of the Chinese one. It simply can't afford to spend an additional 400 billion a year.
A factor to also take into account is the general poverty of the average citizen there. Not just that, but they still massively rely on the secondary work sector, that is, industry. Automatization might affect developed countries a bit, raising unemploment, but China would be hit far worse, given that it depends on offering cheaper labour.
There is a final economical factor to take into account. As people have already said, for China to take the place of the USA, something bad has to happen to the USA, but China already depends a lot on the USA, thus, it would impact China as well.

Then there is the other thing to being a super power: Cultural influence.

Look at us, writing English regardless of our native language or country. US culture dominates the world media sector, especially the internet, movies, tv and music. China will never achieve even a portion of that.
Then there is also the fact that the USA simply has better allies. In fact, China sadly lacks any firm allies, rather having good economic partners. This on it's own is a sign that China itself has no wish to be a superpower. Compare that to Russia's feeble attempts to gain lasting alliances with dictators.

In conclusion: China will be an important player on the global market, and even in global diplomacy, but it has no wish to become a global superpower like the USA. That is the path they are obviously going. They focus their power on their economy, while their diplomatic and military power remains regional.

[Apadana]

Isn't governance a way to ensure survival?

I guess I should be more clear.

When talking about the state, I'm talking about the collective entity of the state.

In a democracy, the power of the state comes from the people. If we don't like our current leader, we can elect him out of office. In a non-democratic state like China, the power of the state comes from its control over their people. The Chinese people can't kick the general secretary if they don't like him.

This doesn't mean the Chinese government keeps its citizens on a tight leash, rather the current system of laws, the Chinese government philosophy, the entire state's modus operandi is anchored on an artificial - forced control over the Chinese people. It's an arbitrary system imposed upon the people that cannot survive if the people decide they want to change. The saving grace of the system is (if you want to be cynical) bread and circuses. The Chinese people are experiencing economic growth like never before and generally people are satisfied with the peace and their improved living standards.

Would we be expecting a collapse of the system at some point if an economic crisis hits or a peaceful transition to a mild democracy? I wonder.