Impact of China's rise in the world - Long term predictions (30-50 years)

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member
Registered Member
I am opening this discussion to talk about the impact of China's rise and the likely reduction of dominance of US and Europe in the world. I would like to see a long term perspective in this analysis in the range of 30-50 years.

What I would like to know is. Where do you see China in 30-40 years from now in 2050-2060. How much wealthy, influential and militarily powerful do you think China will be?

What impact do you think China's rise will bring to the world and how would the world look different from what it is right now?

How would this effect on the power and standing of US and Europe? Would they lose their financial power of sanctions that they wield all over the world? How about their military power? Would there be any change on how their force is positioned now? Would they change their behavior in terms of using force to achieve goals? Would they become more hesitant or more aggressive in using force?

What about the wealth and power of the west in general? Would US and Europe become poorer due to China's rise? China's higher level of technology and education could create a big competition for US and Europe and Japan. Would they lose their market share and thus become poorer due to China?

Then the bigger question comes, Would the West accept China's rise? How would they behave to stop, contain, curtail or accept China's rise and the likely reduction of their dominance in world affairs.

How much effort are they willing to spend to stop China's rise in a long term perspective? If China say, surpasses US by 2030, would they become even more concerned and aggressive about containing China's growth? Or would they become demoralized and accepting?

How likely is full scale decoupling between China and US? How willing is Europe to do a decoupling in say 2030-2040 when China will be much bigger in power and influence?

How about Japan and Korea? Are they willing to accept a rich and powerful China at their doorstep? How would they behave to these changes?

Finally, how about other developing countries around the world? Would they welcome a China that is more powerful than US? How would the behavior of countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Venezuela is likely to change due to this transformation?

Finally, how likely is hot war to stop China's rise and where would that hot war occur and who might be the participants? Would this be a proxy war similar to the Cold War? OR would we see actual naval and air battle between say forces of China and US?

As you can see, there are many many open questions. These topics also touch on economics, IR, political science and military topics.

I hope you can keep the discussion here long term with a horizon of 30-50 years.
 

JSL

Junior Member
Registered Member
China is a much more peaceful and kind country compare with US or any western countries.

China is also much more kind compare with third world dump like india whom thinks itself as a shoopa powa but in reality is a sewer power.
 

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member
Registered Member
China is a much more peaceful and kind country compare with US or any western countries.

China is also much more kind compare with third world dump like india whom thinks itself as a shoopa powa but in reality is a sewer power.
I hope you can avoid the insults and make predictions in a neutral manner. I don't want this thread to become a slug fest of who is kind and not kind.
 

Nobonita Barua

Senior Member
Registered Member
" Impact of China's rise in the world - Long term predictions (30-50 years)"

Collapse of Hollywood - 10 years.

New reserve currency & global use - 10-12 years

American civil war 2 - within 20 years


" how likely is hot war to stop China's rise "
Zero.
But proxy war is a real possibility.
 

tamsen_ikard

Junior Member
Registered Member
" Impact of China's rise in the world - Long term predictions (30-50 years)"

Collapse of Hollywood - 10 years.

New reserve currency & global use - 10-12 years

American civil war 2 - within 20 years


" how likely is hot war to stop China's rise "
Zero.
But proxy war is a real possibility.

I disagree with these predictions. They seem too pessimistic of the west and ignores the power of inertia in how people do things and behave.

Why would Hollywood collapse in 10 years when English is likely to remain the dominant language for many decades to come? Hollywood movies are likely to still have the biggest budgets and audience numbers even 10 years from now. I don't see them collapsing.

I do expect Chinese movies to improve since more and more talents will join the industry and the movie budgets will also grow. But I don't expect Chinese movies to be hugely popular outside China that soon. It could happen 50 years from now. But I still expect hollywood to remain atleast equally popular.

Yuan will not become a reserve currency as long as China maintains capital controls and China will not give up capital controls that soon. If they give up capital controls, then they lose the ability to control the exchange rate. I don't think China is ready to give up on that so soon.

Finally, American civil war 2. I don't know if something like that will happen in 20 years but I do expect US to become more and extreme in terms of the rise of White supremacy and nationalism. This is due to both China's rise and thus the loss of power in the eyes of White Americans, this is coupled with increasing population of non-white immigrants in the US which reduces the white majority. I think there will be a huge anti-immigration backlash going forward in the US.
 

OppositeDay

Senior Member
Registered Member
The biggest consequence would be that much more people would be empowered to make direct contributions to human progress in the fields of science and technology. If China becomes a developed country, the total population of the developed world will double. If China can eventually become like South Korea and Japan with 4%+ R&D intensity, then wow.

Right now the wealth gap between the developed and developing world is glaring. Look at how few countries are between 12K and 30K in per capita GDP. Not many. Why? Because the vest majority of humanity are artificially prevented from being able to contribute to science and technology by members of the elite club of existing developed nations with a system of export technology control. It’s obscene that an engineer in the US or Japan can make a hundred times as much as a farmer in Africa.

China will change this. When China masters a technology, the price drops. Why? Because the knowledge is disseminated across a country of 1.3B. So the artificial scarcity of scientific and engineering talents disappears. At the same time, by making technology more affordable China increases the volume of production, making commodities more expensive. So China lifts up commodities producing developing countries by driving up demand and pulls down industrialised developed countries by increasing supply of effective STEM talents.

In the future, the difference in GDP between developing and developed countries won’t be 30 or 40 times as it’s now. It will be 3 or 4 times. And that’s a much fairer distribution.
 

Nobonita Barua

Senior Member
Registered Member
Why would Hollywood collapse in 10 years when English is likely to remain the dominant language for many decades to come? Hollywood movies are likely to still have the biggest budgets and audience numbers even 10 years from now. I don't see them collapsing.
It was sarcastic. I meant you would see less alien fighting earth defending movies.
Yuan will not become a reserve currency as long as China maintains capital controls and China will not give up capital controls that soon. If they give up capital controls, then they lose the ability to control the exchange rate. I don't think China is ready to give up on that so soon.
I ain't so sure about that. Regardless of capital control, I would say bypassing sanction throug digital yuan would have better say in this. Combining with fact that it could be used in energy transaction from country like Iran.

Finally, American civil war 2. I don't know if something like that will happen in 20 years but I do expect US to become more and extreme in terms of the rise of White supremacy and nationalism. This is due to both China's rise and thus the loss of power in the eyes of White Americans, this is coupled with increasing population of non-white immigrants in the US which reduces the white majority. I think there will be a huge anti-immigration backlash going forward in the US.
You can write it down now.
People often sees another possibility of civil war in America through racial lens. Racial division will only play catalyst role in the cracks that were buried during ww2, but never were repaired. For a "country" that keeps spitting grandeur ideas of racial equality, they can't keep their own white race in line. Their media only highlights "problems " when it occurs between race.
When rioters broke into capitol hill, they weren't trying to hang black mike pence.

An US that is number 2, is an US that won't exist.
 

SilentObserver

Junior Member
Registered Member
What I would like to know is. Where do you see China in 30-40 years from now in 2050-2060. How much wealthy, influential and militarily powerful do you think China will be?
I think it is very likely China will see sustained economic development. It takes a very scientific approach towards development and has major development goals for 2050-2060 already mapped out with details in the process of being developed. These goals are not as simple as hitting GDP targets (which is no longer a main goal) as some think but are structural changes in society. As long as these reforms are continued, sustained growth is likely to be maintained. Current development is pretty much in line with with 'China Modernization Report 2005' from Chinese Academy of Sciences which maps out general societal goals until 2080.

My projection is 2021-2025 China will likely grow at around 5.5% lowering to 5% from 2025-2030, and 4% from 2030-2040, 3.5-4% 2040-2050. Nominal gdp will converge with PPP over time with a starting point of $15,000 in 2020, resulting in GDP of around $74-$78 trillion in current USD, per capita of $53,000-$56,000 and population of about 1.4 billion. Military expenditures would likely be around 1.5-2% of GDP (currently its at 1.3%), $1.1 trillion to $1.56 trillion. China's current regional inequalities would still be present into the future with coastal regions and major cities being well into the level of developed nations.

Pre 2007 EUs average l
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rate was 1.5%, currently half that around 0.7%. I think we will see it pick up in the future, baseline 1% growth would be $48,000 per capita and optimistic 1.5% would result in $55,000 per capita by 2050. China's average would be approximate to EU's per capita level by 2050.

US will likely maintain 2% long term labour productivity growth. By 2050 per capita gdp would be around $115,000, population 380 million and total gdp of $43 trillion. Military expenditures of 3.5% of gdp or $1.5 trillion. This is projections based on current trends. The unknown is how the US would deal with its debt and possible change in USD primacy. I still see the US being a very relevant player into the 21st century, as long as its able to maintain its technology lead and by in large be a global talent magnet. A budget crunch would be devastating for US government discretionary spending, half of which goes to the military. If the US is forced into such a situation, comprehensive national power would rapidly decline. US would want to avoid this situation at all costs. With the decline in the gap between US and China's military spending, US would be inclined to further integration and control of its allies. It would try to centralize resources of nations it has influence over in order to maintain primacy.
 
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ansy1968

Brigadier
Registered Member
@tamsen_ikard @Nobonita Barua what I can envisage is that the developing world will benefit and had a voice, since they are the future market for Chinese goods as the west decoupled and raise trade barriers against China. They (the west especially the US) are doing what China had done since the late Ming dynasty (the destruction of the Imperial fleet) that led to her decline. A hard lesson learned ,that is the reason why the CCP doesn't subscribe to sanction, instead they open up its economy more knowingly by trading and doing business is the best way to introduce your culture and influence.
 
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boytoy

New Member
Registered Member
Yuan will not become a reserve currency as long as China maintains capital controls and China will not give up capital controls that soon. If they give up capital controls, then they lose the ability to control the exchange rate. I don't think China is ready to give up on that so soon.
This is a good starting point to talk about.

It's bullshit that in order for yuan to become reserve currency, China will have to give up capital controls. The so called experts who advocate this usually have no idea what they're talking about or is trying to willfully mislead.

U.S dollar is the world's number one reserved currency. Yet, does America lack control of its own currency and exchange rate? Of course not! If the U.S had "given up capital control," they wouldn't be able to sanction anyone; they wouldn't be able to implement unlimited quantitative easing; or have such astronomical debt rate. Financial sovereignty is perhaps the most important right of a nation, and lack of it will contribute little to the yuan becoming a reserve currency.

How did America achieve and maintain reserve currency status? Two main reasons:
  1. War. After World War II, America gave Europe massive loans to rebuild the continent. This was the basis for the dollar becoming widely accepted. Today, America continues to enforce dollar hegemony through war as seen in Iraq and Libya (Saddam Hussein wanted to
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    ; while Gadafi wanted to
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    ).
  2. Ease of use of the
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    . U.S Swift system further consolidates the dollar's acceptance and all banks today use it to handle transactions. There is currently no real alternative and America wants to keep it that way.
Therefore, for a currency to become a reserve currency, it just needs to be widely accepted and used around the world. China is in a unique position to achieve this because China is the largest trading nation in the world. All China needs to do is make it law that from now on, all trade transactions with a Chinese institution must be denominated and completed in Yuan. In other words, you want to buy Chinese goods? Pay in Yuan.

However, such a law will cause serious problems. First, it's not in China's style or interest to do this. For China, as the biggest advocate for multilateralism, making such a unilateral declaration will seriously harm China's image and damage international trust. Therefore, China must continue on the path of multilateral win-win co-operation and consensus building; China should not strive to become like America.

Secondly, America will surely react negatively as it did with Iraq and Libya. We can already see signs of the U.S manufacturing consent for a war with China, and China hasn't even done anything yet! For Iraq the story was Saddam had
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and must be stopped, and we all know today that there was no WMD in Iraq. For Libya the story was Gadafi used
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on his own people; Nato intervened in Libya in 2011 and yet by 2016 they were still looking for chemical weapons
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I think in another 10 years we will find out that this is just another example of atrocity propaganda just like the
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. For China, the story is concentration camp in Xingjiang, forced slave labor, and forced abortion. Therefore, to achieve reserve currency status, China must also continue to modernize its military such that there is sufficient deterrence for an American invasion.

Thirdly, there is still no viable alternative to Swift banking. Currently yuan accounts for only about
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. Which means even if China mandates the use of Yuan, no one in the world has it and there's no way for China to easily distribute the Yuan around the world. Therefore, China's strategy will involve developing better alternatives to Swift banking. And this is where the digital blockchain Yuan comes in. Once developed, this will enable Chinese banks to give out loans directly to you or I on our phones. There would be no need to establish global banking branches, and transactions are safer and faster.

In conclusion, from this one aspect of attaining global reserve currency, China's future will be predominately about building multilateralism and win-win cooperation, increased military development, and financial sector reform within China with focus on digital currency. All these development will take time and I expect this to be the trend for the next 20-30 years.
 
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