China The Dominant Superpower In 20 Years..... - What does this mean for US?

deagleninja · 2004-08-25 02:53:43

Thanks for the link Harold. China's need for orbital data on their own country means a great market for satellites that can be peacefully deployed without too much concern from the Pentagon. This could get very interesting....

SpaceNut · 2004-08-25 05:45:28

You are welcome deagleninja.
A lot of the old cold war additudes and justifications are fading with time as more nations begin there own trips towards freedom and democracy in some form or another. Cooperation is the key to this continual growth of freindship and of trust as we move forward into the space age.

SpaceNut · 2004-08-25 10:27:40

The US-China space cooperation In this week's issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman discusses the potential for cooperation between the US and China on space issues.
Forum topic discusion on this web site:

http://www.spacepolitics.com/

deagleninja · 2004-08-25 11:32:15

And as that article you pointed out correctly states, we can learn more about China's intentions through cooperation than by ignoring them.

smurf975 · 2004-08-26 16:43:05

Black Shirts in Red China?
Beijing today is more fascist than communist.

Read more http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial … 01682]here.

deagleninja · 2004-08-26 21:59:13

If the conditions of fascism are apt in China, then we are even more fascist.

I saw a shirt on a man yesterday that was white with a bible colored like the american flag and it said 'If God is on our side.....then who is on their side?'

Too many Americans believe that we are somehow blessed by god and that we are god's choosen people. Is this not a misplaced sense of superiority? Afterall, if god is choosing us, then everything we do must be right!

I always find it comical to hear preachers spouting out text from arab countries written thousands of years before the US existed in Old English.

deagleninja · 2004-08-26 22:01:19

PS That article was written by someone affiliated with the Wall Street Journal.......perhaps they have reason to fear China.

comstar03 · 2004-08-27 01:04:19

Have a look at the Jovian Chronicles RPG, books and the discussion on this topic some similarities and some diffences, the main one is china.

Cobra Commander · 2004-08-27 05:28:10

Black Shirts in Red China?
Beijing today is more fascist than communist.
Read more here.

Interesting article. However, while China may have some fascist elements, it doesn't really make that "fascist minimum" level. It's even debateable whether a fascist state can endure long-term without mutating into a conservative military dictatorship (they aren't the same thing). Fascism being revolutionary and in part defined by what it opposes, what happens after the revolution?

National Socialist, on the other hand might be an apt description, but this gets into some fine distinctions that would take us down some long and winding tangents.

If the conditions of fascism are apt in China, then we are even more fascist.

Trust me on this, we're not. :;):

deagleninja · 2004-08-27 06:10:28

Come on Cobra....absolute power, tempting isn't it? :;):

Bush was even quoted saying things would be a lot easier if America were a dictatorship instead of a democracy.

Where does one draw the line between nationalism and fascim? Both the american and chinesse people love their respective countries (and both have good reasons).

If China seems prouder as of late, or they seem to be digging deeper into their history to justify that pride, let's not hold it against them. They have accomplished much as a nation very recently and are poised to do even more if they can hold it together.

A strong China isn't something we should fear without question. As many people have pointed out, Japan raised more than a few eyebrows in the 80's, but their growth stabilized and they are now an ally we could not do without.

For the US to have any chance of balancing our trade deficit with China, we need its people to make more money so they can buy more of our goods.

Mark my words, China's growth today means our growth tomorrow.

SpaceNut · 2004-08-27 06:13:46

But for china's people to want to buy American goods they need to be equal to or of lower cost than there own produced products.

Cobra Commander · 2004-08-27 06:40:05

Bush was even quoted saying things would be a lot easier if America were a dictatorship instead of a democracy.

Well wouldn't it? :;): No one ever claimed democracy was efficient. No one sane, at any rate.

Where does one draw the line between nationalism and fascim? Both the american and chinesse people love their respective countries (and both have good reasons).

Fascism is a political ideology composed of several specific traits, policies and goals. Nationalism is just nationalism, often a component of fascism but not the sole element. You can be extremely nationalistic and be nowhere near fascism.

Though the word "fascism" has been abused as the ultimate political cussword used to label anyone who doesn't agree with the one making the accusation. Most people don't really know what it is, just that it's "bad." Hence all dictators are "fascist" as is anyone to the Right of the accuser, which is itself a screwy interpretation but we're talking about China so I'll leave the detailed examination of fascism for a later time.

A strong China isn't something we should fear without question. As many people have pointed out, Japan raised more than a few eyebrows in the 80's, but their growth stabilized and they are now an ally we could not do without.

Certainly it could prove to be beneficial to us. But it could be a major problem as well, much can happen down the road. It probably won't prove to be a huge market for American goods for awhile, but eventually wages will equalize. In a shorter term, just wait until the Chinese start exporting cars. They'll make that Korean stuff look over-priced.

The American automotive industry is dying unless they can drastically reduce costs. The UAW won't allow this, so we'll be seeing alot of Chinese cars on the road in the coming decades.

But it does look like they're going to try to make the same mistake we did regarding automobiles. Poor bastards, you'd think they'd see that maybe they shouldn't copy everything about America. :hm:

deagleninja · 2004-08-29 03:27:56

Hopefully, when China does become a mobile society, they won't do so using combustable engines. I don't think it's unrealistic to predict that by the time the majority of China has long range transportation, the combustable engine (gas using) will be obsolete (perhaps even frowned upon by industrial nations).

Grypd · 2004-08-29 07:13:22

Hopefully, when China does become a mobile society, they won't do so using combustable engines. I don't think it's unrealistic to predict that by the time the majority of China has long range transportation, the combustable engine (gas using) will be obsolete (perhaps even frowned upon by industrial nations).

One of the main reasons for the massive increase in the cost of Oil is that China has become hungrier for oil than ever before frankly it needs more than is being produced. Car ownership in Shanghai tripled in one month. and this increases are carrying on. 100 k of cars to 300k is a lot of increase all needing fuel. That is just a symbol of Chinese buisness success as foreign capital at the moment floods in to invest in China, Of course it will move when the cost of doing buisness gets too high, but it may be many years before that happens and China will reap the benefits in increased tax and technologies

smurf975 · 2004-08-29 07:22:58

I think that China like Europe has a bigger chance for a good and functional public transportation system then the USA.

Its simply that most Chinese live in eastern China (their coast), so it's possible to invest billions of dollars in a public transportation system thats profitable*..

The Chinese government should for to get people in public transporation only maintain the roads in the cities and urban areas but not expand them. However at the same time invest in the public transport systems. These public transport systems can be powered by nuclear power and other forms of energy not based on fossile fuels.

However in rural areas roads should be more sensible.

*Profitable not being purly money based just that it's an important factor of the infrastructure.

smurf975 · 2004-08-29 07:27:29

One of the main reasons for the massive increase in the cost of Oil is that China has become hungrier for oil than ever before frankly it needs more than is being produced.

Actually its China, India and other south east asian countries.

But I read some place (could be these forums) that Americans have some inborn obsession with China.

comstar03 · 2004-08-30 00:16:13

People feared the Big Chinese Dragon, that wants to eat up there resources. !!!!!!! And if you get in its way it will huff, and huff, and blow your off away.

honesty, China is a great opportunity for all corporations and economies in the world, and will power development prospects for the next two decades or more, use the excess wealth generated to enhance our space activities and expand look after our national's people, Also develop new technologies for the future, including new transportation systems will alternative fuels for earth and outer space.

deagleninja · 2004-09-05 07:09:24

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.0 … _tophead_7

China is going nuclear........yay?

Rxke · 2004-09-05 07:16:19

yay indeed.
It's the only sane thing they can do, energy-wise. All the other options will lead to disaster, economical, environmental, infrastructural...

Of course the 'free world' will go ballistic (pun intended) over the word 'nuclear' in combination with 'commie Chinese...'

Sigh.

Grypd · 2004-09-05 09:19:46

China is suffering from growing pains!

With the construction of the three gorges dam it got a lot of cleaner hydro power but at the expense of some towns and a lot of good farm land, Not to mention some serious political and focus group backlash. It was almost certain that China was going to have to go to a nuclear solution to solve all the electrical shortage it would be facing. It like all countries cannot use Gas and Oil as the costs of this are going up. It really only left Coal and Nuclear, and coal was too heavy a polluter so nuclear it had to be.

Rxke · 2004-09-05 09:30:20

Yup. They have lots of coal, but it's a nightmare to dig enough and transport enough, fast enough...

BTW, the wired article is a must-read:

"Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen."

Hydro power sounds 'green' on first glance, but isn't, as Grypd pointed out: loss of valuable aerable land, flooding of cities, villages (and polluted grounds from factories, based there(!)
irrigation headaches downstream...

So: yay for the pebble bed reactors, bring 'em on!

(Considering, only years ago, I was rabid anti-nuclear power... Phew! Can hardly believe I'm typing this... But if you watch closely, even Greenpeace is changing their tune... Slowly...)

John Creighton · 2004-09-05 09:35:16

China is suffering from growing pains!

Anyone read the august issue of economist. It has some great articles on this. Anyone read the august issue of economist. It has some great articles on this. Specifically with regard to pollution health care and cancer.

Vir Stellae · 2004-09-05 09:53:21

Behind the mask

Mar 18th 2004
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/images/2004032 … 204SU8.jpg

Hailed as the business opportunity of the century, China is bound to disappoint. Sameena Ahmad (interviewed here) examines the mismatch between excitable perception and sober reality

THE whole world's gaze is fixed on China—not just because the country is vast and growing rapidly, but because it profoundly affects the fortunes of companies everywhere. Around the globe, shelves are stacked with the low-cost goods churned out by “the world's workshop”. Chinese-based manufacturers suck in imports and dictate global prices of everything from steel to microchips. For foreign companies, a huge market beckons as China liberalises its relations with the rest of the world, having acceded to the World Trade Organisation in 2001.

China's progress since it first opened to foreign investment and reform in 1978 has been dazzling. Over the past 25 years, its real gross domestic product has expanded at an average of 9% a year. Growth in foreign trade has averaged 15% annually since 1978; China's trade surplus with America is now twice the size of Japan's. And every week, more than $1 billion of foreign direct investment flows into the country. All this testifies to the global integration of China's economy, now the sixth-largest in the world with a GDP of $1.4 trillion.

This rapid growth has ensured political stability. Whereas socialist regimes around the world have crumbled, China's Communist Party survived the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, the 1997 Asian crisis and last year's SARS virus without making concessions to democracy. The present leadership is well-educated, capable and pragmatic.

Internationally, China has become respectable, more a partner than a threat. The continuing debate about the “undervalued” yuan says more about partisan American politics than about Chinese mercantilism. Domestically, the government is well aware that its political acceptance derives solely from rapid economic growth, and will do whatever is necessary to meet its internal benchmark, an annual rise of 7%. China's leaders still call themselves communists, but they have become capitalists in practice. If they have a guiding philosophy, it owes nothing to Mao or Marx, but is best summed up by Deng Xiaoping's famous dictum: “It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches the mouse.”

The combination of growth, stability and potential has set off a tidal wave of foreign enthusiasm for China. Businessmen return from pilgrimages to Shanghai and Beijing convinced that this is China's century. Robert Bestani, head of the private-sector arm of the Asian Development Bank, calls the phenomenon “future shock”—change so rapid that it seems like a vision of the future. Dietmar Nissen, East Asia president of BASF, a huge chemical company, says that “the speed and scale of growth in China over the past 12 years is a miracle. It is a miracle that China is developing in such an orderly fashion.” Messianic terms are de rigueur when discussing the country's 1.3 billion consumers, its vast pool of low-cost workers and its need for every imaginable product and service. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, predicts that by 2040 China will overtake America as the world's biggest economy.

This survey will cut through some of the hyperbole currently enveloping China. Progress there is as real as it is dramatic, but the country is still in transition from one political and economic system to another. The constraints imposed by the communist leaders (not least on themselves) have produced “a darker reality” behind the impressive statistics and soaring skylines, in the words of Orville Schell, a professor at Berkeley who knows the country well.

http://www.economist.com/images/2004032 … CSU946.gif

Look on the dark side
China needs 12m-15m new jobs every year just to keep pace with its population growth. It has to provide opportunities for the 800m people living in rural areas who have been left behind by the current boom, and a third of whom are under- or unemployed. It also has to deal with the 100m-150m migrant workers in the cities who have no job security, no long-term housing and no health care. And it needs a functioning pension system. No wonder the government is concerned, above all, with growth and job creation.

Currently there are worries that the economy is overheating. Bubbles are beginning to form in property, steel and cars, and power generation is running up against capacity constraints. China's real problem, however, is not inflation but overinvestment. In its quest for growth, the government has directed its state-owned banks to open the taps. Easy credit is producing massive overcapacity, leading to deflation, more bad debts and fewer new jobs. Already, nine-tenths of manufactured goods are in oversupply, yet investment in fixed assets last year grew by 30% and contributed 47% of GDP. Three-quarters of China's growth comes from capital accumulation, according to Paul Heytens and Harm Zebregs of the IMF, yet total factor productivity—a measure of overall economic efficiency—rose by only 2% a year in 1995-99.

http://www.economist.com/images/2004032 … CSU461.gif

Even for a developing economy, China's level of investment is unusually high. South Korea in its period of rapid growth in the 1970s and 80s had investment levels closer to 25% of GDP. But the biggest concern is that China's growth is staggeringly wasteful. Whereas in the 1980s and 90s it took $2-3 of new investment to produce $1 of additional growth, now it needs more than $4. Even India, often compared unfavourably with China, is now more efficient on that measure (see chart 1).

Only a very high domestic savings rate—around 40% of household income—and the uncontrolled exploitation of its natural resources make it possible for China to waste capital on this scale. But neither is sustainable. With little social welfare on offer from the state, the Chinese need to save to provide for themselves. And environmental degradation and noxious pollution are storing up costs for the future. All this means that China's growth will have to slow markedly unless its government wants to drown in debt—maybe not this year or next, but soon.

That is yet another risk for businesses already facing a host of challenges. China's developing capitalism is not solidly based on law, respect for property rights and free markets. It is unbalanced and potentially unstable. Multinational companies operating in China have often failed to produce an adequate return on their investment, or indeed a profit of any sort. That is partly their own fault, because they overestimated the market and underestimated the competition. With experience, more are getting it right. However, the business climate in China remains capricious and often corrupt.

Chinese firms contribute to that climate. State-owned enterprises are much more concerned to maintain patronage and employment than to generate profits, and even the best are not globally competitive. China's fledgling private businesses, by contrast, have shown astounding growth and produced the country's first crop of wealthy entrepreneurs. But they are still too small to offer an effective counterweight to the state sector.

It is in the financial sector that China's brand of “not wholly black, not fully white” capitalism works least well. The banks do not allocate capital rationally, and they are vulnerable to external shocks. Yet the potentially huge cost of reforming them will constrain the government's ability to finance economic growth. That will have implications for China's political stability, and for its attractiveness as a place in which to do business.

Grypd · 2004-09-05 09:54:01

(Considering, only years ago, I was rabid anti-nuclear power... Phew! Can hardly believe I'm typing this... But if you watch closely, even Greenpeace is changing their tune... Slowly...)

As things go to be able to have the energy we need for our evergrowing power needs it seems nuclear is the way to go as it is actually greener than the many other options and some so called green options are athough not polluting have serious side effects. From a space advocacy point of view this is good as it will reduce the opposition we have, to using Nuclear Engines and power in space.

Rxke · 2004-09-05 10:12:16

Yes, although i have to admit I still cringe by the idea of the classical reactors being run by greedy corporations, who arguably will try for as little safety measures as they can get away with.

That's why I cheer the pebble bed type. I asked Deagleninja to start a seperate topic about the Wired article, for it's very interesting for spaceflight.
These reactors will be launchable in one go (the low-power ones... Send the pebbles separate...) standardized, easy to maintain, better mass/power ratio than classical ones etc...

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