Certain. China's rise to its rightful place and the restoration of its glory are as immutable as gravity.You sure about that?
Count. On. It.
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Count. On. It.
You sure about that?
Come on guys let's keep things good natured...
We should be able to talk about the realities of power politics without resorting to underhanded remarks or low effort sarcastic replies
SinoSoldier
Colonel
Certain. China's rise to its rightful place and the restoration of its glory are as immutable as gravity.
Count. On. It.
At the risk of going off-topic this will be my last $0.02 on the matter.
Regardless of what the future holds for the US-China power balance (my prediction is that the status quo remains, but that's another story), the current scales tip heavily in favor of the United States in all sectors: military, political, economic, industrial, & cultural. This is true both on a global scale and in the Pacific. China may be vying for time but she only does that because she knows any misunderstanding would spell tragic consequences for the PLA. Ask yourself why China's leaders have been relatively silent on the USN's "show of force" and why China's military activities & intrusions have died down in recent times.
I won't comment on this, because that is a rather big topic that will lead down pages and pages of debate.
But this confuses me a little bit.
I'm not sure what change in behaviour you've seen regarding China being "relatively silent" towards USN "shows of force". I suppose my question would be what would you consider to have been "not relatively silent" versus what "relatively silent" is today.
I'm also not sure what domain you're referring to in terms of "military activities and intrusions" and what timespan "recent times" means.
Because from where I'm sitting I've seen no particular change either in terms of China's vocalization of displeasure towards USN activities such as say FONOPs in the SCS, nor any change in their military activities either in the SCS or anywhere else in the region. Certainly no recent change this year compared to previous years (when accounting for things like the military capability they have at hand in 2018 vs 2015 vs 2012, and the overall state of regional tensions etc).
If anything, when comparing 2018 to a decade or more ago I would argue that it's pretty obvious that China's increasing military power has produced greater caution and calculations on the USN side in terms of high profile demonstrations in SCS or other regional hotspots.
There is a chance that China has already peaked or close to peaking economically. So the remaining growth should all about being efficiency, sustainability and equality. In the event of a new cold war, the defense can be boosted to 500 billion which should yield a military that matches the US's.
I'll let this be my last opining on this matter as well, I've already troubled myself far more than it's worth.
What "tragic consequences" might those be? Do you truly think America could resolutely defeat China, even today, and in the Western Pacific of all places? Well, it seems America's admirals don't share your optimistic appraisal, else they would have counseled attacking China immediately - because it's never going to be this "easy" again.
I've asked myself this, and - generously granting the dubious premise of your entreaty - the answer I came up with is that China has already achieved its objectives: its island fortresses have been established and its neighbours have been suitably quieted. That's very good for the time being. America's objectives, on the other hand, have not been achieved and can never be achieved because time can't be rolled back. America is trying to hold up a crumbling facade, a facade that falls further into decrepitude with each passing day - it is the very definition of a Sisyphean task.
China vies for time because time is on China's side.
What "tragic consequences" might those be? Do you truly think America could resolutely defeat China, even today, and in the Western Pacific of all places? Well, it seems America's admirals don't share your optimistic appraisal, else they would have counseled attacking China immediately - because it's never going to be this "easy" again.
China is nowhere close to peaking economically, it will have "peaked" once its per-capita GDP matches that of a developed country. We're in the wrong half of the century if we're looking for a "peak."
Well that's the best case scenario.
The worst case scenario is the Made in China 2025 and One Belt One Road all fail and then China gets stuck in middle income trap like Brazil, Russia, Turkey, etc.
China remaining at 60-75% as big as US is still a super power. USSR was only ever 50% of US economically.
Reality is that Chinese per-capita GDP will never match that of developed countries unless some major technology revolution happens in China, or the Chinese population declines in a stable fashion. Instead of growth the country is better served improving stability, sustainability, and equality. Raising the military gdp to 4% would go a long way.
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Does not look like China will get stuck in the middle income countries. Unlike those countries China invest heavily in education, university and research institution. cutting edge technologies factories. With close to 5 million STEM graduate and ambitious , vibrant private sector I doubt China will get stuck. For your information China venture capital is now the largest in the world exceeding US
But the clincher is the Chinese people's entrepreneurship spirit and natural risk taker, hard work and delayed gratification that will carry the day. You see everywhere where the Chinese settle they succeeded sometime even in the most hostile environment. All you need is to let them free to pursue their dream
All China need is peaceful environment for the next decades. All bet are off if there is war in next decade But I don't think anybody is crazy enough to initiate war with China.
China might not reach western living standard in foreseeable future but the gap will be narrowing substantially over the next decades
The western press has been orchestrating high volume propaganda to demonize and wishing China stumble to no avail for at least 5 decades now Yet every year China grow and grow. The prediction of implosion never come
Every year China add GDP the size of Korea or Indonesia GDP
I do agree with your idea China need to raise the defense spending to at least 3% of GDP. The present built up is just too slow!. While security environment is deteriorating
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No, that's the baseline scenario. If anything it's too conservative.
The "middle income trap" is a profoundly misunderstood economic phenomenon, and comparing China to any other country, especially the ones you mentioned, is methodologically unsound. None of these countries have a domestic market on the scale of America, the EU, or even developing China. China has the markets, the capital (human and monetary), and a monomaniacally committed government to support its climb up the value chain. Last but not least, significant parts of China are already fully developed and well out of the middle-income trap.
Russia and Brazil have middle (as opposed to low) incomes because they're sitting on commodities economies like China's need. Their fortunes wax and wane with the commodity price cycles. Turkey I don't know enough about to comment on. Maybe they don't have political stability, maybe their elites take their money and park it in Europe instead of investing in Turkey, or maybe they're just too small. Whatever it is, it has no bearing on China.
How can something like Made in China 2025 "fail"? It's an investment program in advanced technology, are you proposing that every single bet China makes on future technologies fails? If so, why would anyone else get it right? Similarly, how can the BRI "fail"? At worst, some projects won't meet projected returns, but that happens all the time and if it were an actual problem then no one would ever invest in anything. What the BRI is meant to do is create new markets (both consumers and investment opportunities) far in the future for China to exploit. It doesn't matter if country A defaults on project X, what matters is that country A start growing. Unless you think some people are just genetically wired to excel at poverty, there's no way the BRI can "fail."
Why not? Incidentally, major technology revolutions happen all the time in China (just note the financial technology revolution), and a lot more of them will happen with MiC2025.