Is China already at war?

[Kadagar_AV]

Something I pondered lately...

I will keep this very short to allow for broader discussion.


Remember how the US "won" the cold war, by driving Soviet bankrupt?

Did China learn that lesson really well?

Tin Foil Hat Mode On: If china has had an agenda to remove USA from their dominant position, they couldn't have made a better job. I think we all can agree that the US is much diminished over the last 10 years...


Mind you, I am not claiming this is the case... I just mean that it's an interesting enough of a topic to be worthwhile here, no?


* Is China using US cold war tactics?

* If so, are they successful?

* If not, why?

[Strike For The South]

moder! moder! moder!

Today in school we learned that countries can antagonize and leverage eachother for gain in ways other than open conflict!

In any event, China will have to deal with internal strife long before they can stand toe to toe with the US

[Kadagar_AV]

moder! moder! moder!

Today in school we learned that countries can antagonize and leverage eachother for gain in ways other than open conflict!

In any event, China will have to deal with internal strife long before they can stand toe to toe with the US

That was insightful.


Anyone else wanna have a go?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Actually, Strike is spot on with internal strife issue. China is shifting from a command to a market economy, from a police state to something less so, from an agro industrial to a fully mixed economy....and they are dealing with turmoil over the occupation of Nepal and traditional Chinese regionalism into the bargain. Strife they have in plenty and will have to get past significant chunks of it to assume superpower status.

There economy, though slowing from its headiest growth, seems likely to reach the requisite level of power and influence. Economics, though a key element, are not the sole requirement.

[Kadagar_AV]

Actually, Strike is spot on with internal strife issue. China is shifting from a command to a market economy, from a police state to something less so, from an agro industrial to a fully mixed economy....and they are dealing with turmoil over the occupation of Nepal and traditional Chinese regionalism into the bargain. Strife they have in plenty and will have to get past significant chunks of it to assume superpower status.

There economy, though slowing from its headiest growth, seems likely to reach the requisite level of power and influence. Economics, though a key element, are not the sole requirement.

Why draw that conclusion? Look at the US, where a worker happily accept to earn like what? 5000% less a month than their boss. Might be worse, I don't know?


If the US can keep their workers down with pure BS, I am sure China can as well.

Long live The Chinese Dream!!

[Strike For The South]

Why draw that conclusion? Look at the US, where a worker happily accept to earn like what? 5000% less a month than their boss. Might be worse, I don't know?


If the US can keep their workers down with pure BS, I am sure China can as well.

Long live The Chinese Dream!!

The plight of workers in the two countries is in no way comparable.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Why draw that conclusion? Look at the US, where a worker happily accept to earn like what? 5000% less a month than their boss. Might be worse, I don't know?


If the US can keep their workers down with pure BS, I am sure China can as well.

Long live The Chinese Dream!!

You call it BS, I call it a staggering standard of living wherein our urban poor possess resources that outstrip the median standard of living in many developing nations. Where else in the world do the poverty-stricken die so frequently from "metabolic disease?" It's the ultimate "opiate of the masses."

[HoreTore]

Actually, Strike is spot on with internal strife issue. China is shifting from a command to a market economy, from a police state to something less so, from an agro industrial to a fully mixed economy....and they are dealing with turmoil over the occupation of Nepal and traditional Chinese regionalism into the bargain. Strife they have in plenty and will have to get past significant chunks of it to assume superpower status.

There economy, though slowing from its headiest growth, seems likely to reach the requisite level of power and influence. Economics, though a key element, are not the sole requirement.

Indeed. I hear a lot of alarmists ranting about how "China has increased their defense budget by 3000%(or some other high number) in the last decade, WWIII is imminent!!"

What these folks are forgetting is that China is restructuring how their military(and other state functions) are funded. The Chinese military used to be self-financed, by the profit made by factories owned by the army. They're changing this now, however, and the army is now increasingly being funded directly by from the national budget, with the factories handed over to the state in exchange. Thus, you will have a gargantuan increase in military spending on the national budget, but the actual amount of money pooled into the army doesn't change.

Misconceptions like these are extremely common when dealing with China. It really is a different country than the rest, and understanding it takes quite some effort.

On the subject of increased spending, what is increasing is the internal security force. That's where China puts it money, meaning that's where the leadership believes the focus should be. Internal issues, not external. What's happening in Washington just isn't as important as what's happening in Chongqing.

There's a large demonstration/riot somewhere in China every single day, that's what concerns the Chinese leadership.

[Montmorency]

Horetore, the estimates of China's defense spending - not "budget" - from the 90's take that into account. Money spent is money spent, no matter how it is ordered on paper.

In fact, while China's military spendings as proportion of GDP fell precipitously in the 1980s and has been on a gradual downward trend ever since, China is spending 3-5x as much in real terms now (on the national military) than it was 15 years ago. So while much of it could be attributed to China raising spending to be in line with economic capacity, and a closer relationship between the officially-reported military budget and actual spending, it is quite clear that China is interested in establishing a credible military-response capacity for their near-abroad - and yes, this obviously means that along the line this will cause friction between the USA's and China's desire to exert influence or control over, for instance, key sea lanes of the Pacific. But nothing really out of line is going on here. Modernization is expensive, as the Chinese are restructuring their military into a more professional and better-equipped institution.

It is important, though, to refrain from handwaving real trends in order to bolster the point against their sensationalization; it stands on its own.

[drone]

Remember how the US "won" the cold war, by driving Soviet bankrupt?

Did China learn that lesson really well?

Tin Foil Hat Mode On: If china has had an agenda to remove USA from their dominant position, they couldn't have made a better job. I think we all can agree that the US is much diminished over the last 10 years...

Our decline has little to do with China. I think we have shown that we are quite capable of screwing this country up all by ourselves.

[Sarmatian]

USA isn't in decline.

Other countries are growing in power so it may look like it, but in absolute terms, US is growing as well.

The influence USA had on the rest of the world since the Cold War ended was unprecedented in human history and should be considered a momentary spike rather than natural state of things. It's going to end but that's normal and there's no room for doom and gloom.

The other thing I disagree with is the internal strife that China is supposedly gonna experience. There were and are many examples of a significant gap in the development between developed and less developed areas but that never spelt internal strife automatically.

China is investing a lot into developing the interior, much more than just economic reasons would necessitate. Also, most of the population in China lives in the developed areas. Sure, the interior is vast and quite a lot people live there if we take the actual numbers into account, but almost insignificant in terms of percentages.



China is also one of the ethnically most homogenous nations in the world, with 90+% identifying as Han people. Regionalism in China is pretty much non-existent.

[Ironside]

Why draw that conclusion? Look at the US, where a worker happily accept to earn like what? 5000% less a month than their boss. Might be worse, I don't know?


If the US can keep their workers down with pure BS, I am sure China can as well.

Long live The Chinese Dream!!

Well, the income inequality is about the same for both countries nowadays.

Our decline has little to do with China. I think we have shown that we are quite capable of screwing this country up all by ourselves.

I'll say that's the Republican ideological warfare within itself and the rest of the US. Combine it with that enough of the people buys the worst of it. I mean, the current Republican policies makes the Bush era look sensible.

China is also one of the ethnically most homogenous nations in the world, with 90+% identifying as Han people. Regionalism in China is pretty much non-existent.

China got several (2 from memory, probably more) regions that aren't filled with Han Chinese and are suffering from significant tension since all the good jobs from the economical improvement for the region is ending up in the hands of migrating Han Chinese. It's basically creating a racial upper class division.

And you also have the lack of females in the new generation, due to the abortion of girls.

[Papewaio]

Current estimates in Chinea there is something like 35 million single men even if every women married.

Not only is the aborting of girls creating an imbalance but the women are now higher educated and more likely to marry late/not at all.

[Sarmatian]

Current estimates in Chinea there is something like 35 million single men even if every women married.

Not only is the aborting of girls creating an imbalance but the women are now higher educated and more likely to marry late/not at all.

35 million sounds like a huge number on its own but taking it in context of China's population... World average male/female ratio is 1.07. Chinese is 1.12, just like Indian and Vietnamese.

Countries by male/female ratio, courtesy of CIA factbook (notoriously unreliable source, I know).

[Rhyfelwyr]

China is enjoying something of a honeymoon period having come out of communism, but as the next couple of generations pass it is going to start feeling the same sort of strains we've been feeling in the West, only in a much more dramatic way.

They'll be going into rapid population decline as the pre-[seriously enforced]One Child Policy generation dies off, and they are soon going to be dealing with a very high pensioner:worker ratio.

Because of the traditional family values they have in, they are going to get hit in a big way by the changing nature of employment which doesn't really give the time or stability to allow for that sort of family model. This is an East Asian phenomenon and its already happening in Japan - people are giving up on marriage and having kids.

That sort of thing is going to be a lot more problematic than ethnic divides or inequality.

[Viking]

....and they are dealing with turmoil over the occupation of Nepal

I know the mountains in the area may all look the same, but...

[Greyblades]

I was confused about that, if the chinese had tried to occupy nepal we would have at least noticed the charities set up to help the poor chinese.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Apologies, I meant Tibet and wrote Nepal. Kukrikhan will never forgive me.

Ayo Gurkhali!

[Shaka_Khan]

Apologies, I meant Tibet and wrote Nepal. Kukrikhan will never forgive me.

Ayo Gurkhali!

I understand. I used to confuse Slovenia with Slovakia. That was until about a decade ago when someone on the internet pointed it out. Thank goodness for the internet.

[Papewaio]

If you want a population harder to occupy then Afghanistan it would be Nepal. Chinese are too smart for that.

[a completely inoffensive name]

China is enjoying something of a honeymoon period having come out of communism, but as the next couple of generations pass it is going to start feeling the same sort of strains we've been feeling in the West, only in a much more dramatic way.

They'll be going into rapid population decline as the pre-[seriously enforced]One Child Policy generation dies off, and they are soon going to be dealing with a very high pensioner:worker ratio.

Because of the traditional family values they have in, they are going to get hit in a big way by the changing nature of employment which doesn't really give the time or stability to allow for that sort of family model. This is an East Asian phenomenon and its already happening in Japan - people are giving up on marriage and having kids.

That sort of thing is going to be a lot more problematic than ethnic divides or inequality.

This is the truth right here. Current Chinese culture is going to have a shock wave hit it relatively soon. The demographics for the US look better and better the further out you look. While China grows in education and an imbalance between women and men, their population will decline accordingly and they will have to deal with the double whammy of both modernization and the transition of their domestic policies from a youth heavy, growing population to an older heavy, declining population. Meanwhile, the US maintains steady youth demographics and population growth through immigration and will conceivably do so for a while.

Another reason why less restrictive, individualistic society is in the best interest of everyone.

[rory_20_uk]

1800s the UK was the most powerful country.

The USA effortlessly powered past.

They had more people. They were developing from a lower base. What the UK had didn't last and decreased as an absolute especially by engaging in many costly ideological wars that did not serve its own interests whilst the USA focused on its own interests for longer.

And now the USA spends vast sums all over the place and enforces a Pax Americana throughout the world. That China might dare to have a blue water fleet that can operate off its own coast is, well, warmongering and might upset USA's fleet based at Taiwan.

The USA probably will have less ability to project its power wherever it wants over whoever it wants in the future as it takes a lot less money to have a complex spy satelite than it does to fire a missile to blow it up.

China has managed to have several massive upheavals for over 100 years and cope. Ones coming up are equally massive but given cohesion survived the Great Leap Forward I think they'll pull through.