China’s Plans to Match US Economic and Tech Power and Vie for Economic Influence

The Pentagon has published its 2019 China military power report.

China continues to move ahead on military modernization. China is on track to have per capita income at about 25% of US levels in 2030 which would be at about the level of Eastern Europe. The richest areas like Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangdong will be at a per capita income level ranging from Spain to Italy. By 2050, China will have per capita income levels at about 50% of US levels. This would mean wealth would be at levels of from Spain to Italy across most of China. The wealthiest cities might get to UK to US levels.

If China can strengthen its currency then it is possible that China could do better in currency exchange based per capita income comparisons.

China’s goal is full military modernization by 2035. This means all 2000 some planes will be generation 4 fighter and bombers. These would be at US F-35 levels. Currently, China has about 600 advanced fighters.

By 2050, China plans for a military that will be able to match the future US military. This will require China matching US high technology in AI, Quantum and other technologies.

China appears to want to match US global economic and technological dominance. The UJS mainly dominates the global business and financial systems. China’s Belt and Road is to establish regional influence and then extend to global economic and business competition with the USA.

There is also a wide range of long term economic performance possibilities for both China and the USA. There is also the question of whether India and ASEAN countries will have higher GDP growth than China from 2020 to 2050.

90 thoughts on “China’s Plans to Match US Economic and Tech Power and Vie for Economic Influence”

  1. Measure and algorithm for debilitation input has co-existed with utility and production in dichotomy with chaos and order for successive growth and inculcation, mankind. Successive gain in technology (advancing civilization) is disparity to what will become future developments. How can this contrast with quantum entanglement theory and augmentation as energy? How is the transfiguration conformative with quantum physics? (losses are built-in debilitations) The most implicate statement about string theory, entanglement of forces combined in matter and energy, non-deterministic as a function of order and chaos; can the geometries and compositions of black holes be as significant as the entanglement of forces by which they exist? The entanglement of forces, matter, energy, both deterministic and non-deterministic as in function for sub-atomic order for formulations of matter within atomic sub-matrix, distinguished by atomic/quantum number, spheres and metrics, turning arcs into waves – assimilation-form – shape to its integument, di-synchrony of time within light, which has one constant speed.

    This is compelling in contrast to man’s contextual life force, inner dialog, cooperation, incorporation, carnal properties for existence from which the quantum realm, (quantum microcosm) is method and construction for development of matter as the macrocosm. Viability and robustness for algorithms in the medians of order and chaos bridge creation in positive and negative polarities…

  2. “Theirs is pervasive, they’re upfront, they’re publishing experimental results, public interest in it is high but they haven’t started even drafting legislation yet”

    Please don’t pretend that the final bill can be benign. We can look on the pilot programs, and guess what is to come by the pilot programs. Apparently, 5.5 million high-speed trips and 17.5 million flight tickets have been denied. Pretty grim when this is expanded to include the whole of China…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

  3. You do understand that all governments’ primary responsibility is repression, don’t you?

    Countries with governments that don’t repress criminal violence, for example, don’t last long.

    The NYPD is even more repressive: they repress graffiti, fare-dodging, jay-walking, drunkeness…

    Don’t believe the Fox News version of China. It’s the main reason we’re falling behind: Fox has told us that we’re #1 and China’s a backward, authoritarian hellhole for so long that people think it’s true.

    Social Credit is much more interesting than Fox News makes out. Read about it here:
    http://www.unz.com/article/social-credit-datong-dreams/

  4. I am not for pervasive surveillance anywhere, but one oppression does not justify another one. Even you must realize this?

    Officially, the “no fly list” is supposed to stop prospective terrorists from entering the USA and perform a terrorist act on a plane. This may be wrong, and the implementation may also be wrong, but it does have a kernel of common sense. If you don’t let in a terrorist it will awfully difficult for that person to commit a terrorist act on US soil.

    But what is the common sense part of the “social points” system? Do you think that the morals of the inhabitants is the states business? I sure don’t. Could you please explain what of this extremely pervasive system bears any resemblance to “common sense”?

  5. “There is no ‘zero trust’ program and never has been. That’s a translation of a nickname allegedly given by some researchers to one of many experiments in AI. All we know is that the government is experimenting with AI as part of its anti-corruption campaign. Stay tuned.”

    It’s a gross mischaracterization to call it a “research experiment” since it has helped catch about 9000 corrupt officials. No funny thing is that this program will not be rolled out large scale, unlike the social points program. I wonder why….?

    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2184857/chinas-corruption-busting-ai-system-zero-trust-being-turned-being

  6. “Where did I say that suppression is OK since only a fraction of the population is affected by it?”

    It is implicit in your argument. If you bring up the fact that 80% of the Chinese are supporting the “social points” as an argument *for* the social points, then it is implicit in your argument. Obvious, is it not?

  7. LOL. Actually, they determine rank largely by racial, geographical, and socio economic components. Totally meritocratic!

    Becaue a child born to a poor farmer cannot possibly be smarter than a child born to a wealthy business person. DUH

  8. There is no ‘zero trust’ program and never has been. That’s a translation of a nickname allegedly given by some researchers to one of many experiments in AI. All we know is that the government is experimenting with AI as part of its anti-corruption campaign. Stay tuned.

    China’s interpersonal trust is almost twice as high as ours and when they curse civil servants it’s because they traditionally repose more trust in them than in each other because they’re supposed to be more trustworthy–it’s literally part of their job to set a moral example and has always been.

    Like them, we live in a surveillance state, but the similarity ends there.

    Ours is pervasive (I listed just some of America’s surveillance programs. Snowden exposed far more) but, somehow, no-one is responsible for it. Try finding out why you’re on the No-Fly List, for example. Or this: “Leaked Documents Show the U.S. Government Tracking Journalists and Immigration Advocates Through a Secret Database.” Or this: “The US Mail Cover Program allows postal employees to photograph and send to federal law enforcement organizations (FBI, DHS, Secret Service, etc.) the front and back of every piece of mail the Post Office processes. It also retains the information digitally and provides it to any government agency that wants it—without a warrant.”

    Theirs is pervasive, they’re upfront, they’re publishing experimental results, public interest in it is high but they haven’t started even drafting legislation yet

  9. Godfree, are you a paid chinese operative whos job it is to chill for the chinese government? Your english is great for a chinese, but there are giveaways.

    For instance, you talk about “the government”. Now, a foreigner would talk about “the chinese governmen”, not “the government” in this case. You seem to know that 62% of the delegates voted for the three Gorges dam. What foreigner would memorize such a meaningless figure from chinese internal politics? And what westerner would doubt that there is legislation that does not make sense?

  10. @Godfree Roberts

    “Can you provide one piece of legislation that is not commonsensical?”

    Again, you must be chinese, or deliberately obtuse. Of course there is stupid and/or nonsensical legislation, but my question to you was what about the laws governing *social points* is common sense to you. Please go into specifics.

    Do you, for instance, find that if you have unpaid bills you should be barred from taking a plane? Or is it blocking students from top universities on account of their parents “moral score”…? All of these rules, some of them…? Please tell me what you specifically find “common sense” about social points.

  11. “That sounds good to me: I don’t want my employees–public servants–stealing from me and transparency is a good way to prevent it.”

    We seem to have a serious language barrier, Godfree. Are you a chinese with a western name?

    OK, I have linked to at least two articles. One describes “zero trust”, which is indeed aimed at finding corruption among government employees. And this system is being shut down. Which is funny.

    The other system, with social points, is aimed at all citizens of China, and it monitors much more than just criminal behaviour, but rather moral /immoral behaviour. This system is being scaled up.

    So the useful system is being shut down, because the crooked officials want to continue to steal from the citizens, while the oppressive micro management of the citizens morals is being scaled up. Ironic, no? Do you at least get the point?

  12. When, after thirty years of engineering studies, the government presented its proposal to fund the Three Gorges Dam, Congress demurred.

    The project’s cost and scale were beyond most members’ imagination, retired engineers and foreign experts damned it and a million people who would be displaced criticized the project vehemently.

    So legislators demanded a similar, smaller dam be built nearby to demonstrate feasibility and geological stability. The government duly built the Gezhouba Dam downstream yet, when they re-presented the funding request for the Three Gorges, only sixty-two percent of delegates supported it and, when the government announced that it would proceed without the customary unanimity people accused the government of ‘ramming the bill down people’s throats.’ 

    Look at China’s 70-year record. Look at how quickly they’re passing us in every field of endeavor. How do you think that happened?

    If we had independent Congresspeople perhaps we could compete, but we don’t and we can’t.

  13. Can you provide one piece of legislation that is not commonsensical?

    The Constitution says: “The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision. All administrative, judicial and procuratorial organs of the State are created by the People’s Congresses to which they are responsible and by which they are supervised.”

    Our media’s ‘rubber stamp’ meme arises because policy development is managed like double-blind, randomized clinical trials called ‘Trial Spots’ and Congress is responsible for evaluating public data about them. Congresspeople (all volunteers) visit, inspect and audit Trial Spot cashflows, calculate affordability and debate scalability and national impact and it’s not hard to muster ninety-percent support if the data is sound.

    Policy proposals are first tried in villages, towns or cities and the vast majority of ideas die during the experimental phase for the same reasons that most scientific experiments fail.

    Europe recently started Universal Income trial spots but China has been doing them for thirty years and has a mature system to support it and manage it.

  14. Are you sure you linked to the correct article?

    I read, “According to people involved in the programme, this allows it to draw sophisticated, multiple layers of social relationship maps to derive behaviour analyses of government employees.
    This was “particularly useful” in detecting suspicious property transfers, infrastructure construction, land acquisitions and house demolitions, a researcher said.”

    That sounds good to me: I don’t want my employees–public servants–stealing from me and transparency is a good way to prevent it.

  15. If you could tell them just one thing about their leadership that they do not know, what would it be and how would you prove to them that you are telling the truth?

  16. Where did I say that suppression is OK since only a fraction of the population is affected by it?

  17. We became a consumer society a generation ahead of China so, in 1968, when credit bureaux routinely reported debtors’ sexual and political preferences, The New York Times⁠1 raised the alarm about digitized information, “Transferring such information from a manual file onto a computer triggers a threat to civil liberties, to privacy, to a man’s very humanity–because access is so simple.”

    But the information was transferred and now the Federal Child Support Registry tracks irresponsible parents, the No-Fly List grounds dissenters, the IRS blocks delinquents’ passports, the Federal Sex Offenders List outs offenders everywhere and the NSA’s mission statement⁠ is, “Know All, Collect All, Process All, Exploit All.” 

    In China, according to court statistics, since capitalism was introduced, seventy percent of individuals and organizations tried to evade enforcement or failed to perform court-ordered obligations.

    The government created a public blacklist in 2013 to name them and allowed users to search the database and the Supreme Court allowed the Bank of China to incorporate court records into a unified social credit scheme. The program has a well-defined appeals process.

    1 Witness Says Credit Bureaus Invade Privacy and Asks Curb. NYT.

  18. ” It will require the support of 95% of Congress so you can bet your ass there will be little to offend anyone: it will be mostly common sense.”

    Tell me, Godfree, what of this system is common sense to you? I am all ears.

    Also, Godfree, could you post a link to support your claim about them needing 95% of the votes in the National Peoples Congress (that name… hahahaha) to roll out the system large scale in China? And while you are at it, please post a link of just how independent the representatives are..?

  19. Here is a hilarious detail about China. Where the enlightened leadership thinks it’s a great idea to have micro management of the their citizens, the corresponding system to catch corruption of officials is being scrapped [1]. Apparently, keeping tabs of the average Joes drinking habits is OK, but preventing officials from skimming public money is not. Hahahahahahaha!

    (1)
    https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2184857/chinas-corruption-busting-ai-system-zero-trust-being-turned-being

  20. “Neither I or any Chinese will live with such a silly system–that’s your hallucination. When the legislation is drafted in 2021, read it.”

    Well, now I have a conundrum. Should I believe you or my lying eyes? Here is the wikipedia article [1], where *it is explicitly mentioned that a child of low social points parents can be locked out of the top universities*. Do you have a better source?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

  21. Again, you are missing the point. Sure, the chinese might be better informed of life in the west compared to how we are informed about the life in Chine, but the chinese are not informed about their own leadership.

  22. “perhaps you would like to live with social points that prevented your kid from getting a place at university if *you* were drinking and playing too much video games? Would that strike you as fair? No..? Well why is the system then good enough for the chinese?”

    Neither I or any Chinese will live with such a silly system–that’s your hallucination. When the legislation is drafted in 2021, read it. It will require the support of 95% of Congress so you can bet your ass there will be little to offend anyone: it will be mostly common sense.

    “the chinese hardly have access to free information and they are subjected to indoctrination so their opinions matter little”

    You’ve been watching too much Fox News. The Chinese are better informed about us than we are about them–a huge advantage when they negotiate with us. Six percent of us find our media trustworthy while 80% of them trust their media (and 150,000,000 of them travel abroad each year to see for themselves).

    They do have indoctrination and they call it “indoctrination.” Weird.

    We have indoctrination, too, but we don’t call it that. We don’t even talk about it because, as Edward Bernays said, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society..Those who manipulate its unseen mechanisms constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” 

  23. About free speech. You claim that I am mixing the countries, but then you support my claim that the chinese are oppressed by arguing that the suppression is OK since only a fraction of the population is affected by it.

    You can argue that the oppression is OK *or* that it does not exist, but you cannot argue both. Capisce?

    And we once again have a problem with relativism. You argue that if a majority is for something, then it is always good. But would you preferr to sensured yourself, or live in a country where your oppinions would be suppressed? Since I guess you are a leftie, I am sure that you would have no problem suppressing my opinions, and that is why I ask you if you would be happy if *your* expression would be repressed. So, would you like it if you would not be allowed onto an airplane for the next couple of months for what you have written here on this site? No..?

    As in the case of support of social points, the majority oppinion can only be a guidance if it is formed under free flow of information, which is clearly not the case in China.

  24. About the right to a trial. Obviously, my comment about chinese not having a right for a trial was with respect to the “social points”. Obviously!

    And they don’t have a right to trial, they are just punished if the system has found them to be guilty. Sounds like a great system to you?

  25. About the social points. It does not matter if 80% of the chinese supports the social points or not for two reasons.

    First off, even if a terrible opinion is supported by a majority, it is still terrible. Say that on planet nazi, a majority is for torturing children. Does that make it OK? No?

    If social points are OK, perhaps you would like to live with social points that prevented your kid from getting a place at university if *you* were drinking and playing too much video games? Would that strike you as fair? No..? Well why is the system then good enough for the chinese?

    Second, the chinese hardly have access to free information and they are subjected to indoctrination so their opinions matter little. What would they think if there were articles about how this and that student were refused position at the university because of something that their *parents* did..? Me thinketh that it would not be 80% support…

  26. First off, you have not nailed hunger stats. You have nailed “anxiety of having money for food next month”-stats. Not the same thing. Please do better.

    Second, you do not seem to dispute that asian americans have the same suicide rate as chinese citizens. I.e. the american society is just as good/bad as the chinese society with respect to suicide.

  27. I spoke of hunger, not starvation, and I’ve nailed the hunger stats and the suicide stats.

    Your other concerns are entirely based on unsupported allegations and misinformation, like your reference to “social points”. Fully 80 percent of Chinese citizens approve of social credit systems with just 1 percent reporting either strong or moderate disapproval. And only 1 percent believe that a nationwide social credit system should not be implemented. Our survey findings were echoed in a round of in-depth interviews with social credit users, giving us confidence that survey respondents were not falsifying their survey answers because of concerns about reprisals from government officials. https://www.washingtonpost.com.

    And your statement, “Did I mention that you cannot get a trial?” is true of American arrestees, not Chinese. Two million Americans are jailed without trial each year while, in China, even those who accept plea deals must go to trial so that the public can see there’s no hanky-panky going on.

    “And the lack of free speech”? Again, you’re mixing your countries. A Washington Post article says”No matter how you measure it, no matter what questions you ask, the results always indicate that the vast majority of people are truly satisfied with the status quo.” And:”only a relatively small segment said they had experienced censorship. Among the people who had experienced it, most of them said it didn’t matter, that they weren’t that bothered by it. Out of the entire se

  28. OK, the suicide rates are pretty much nailed down, but you should be comparing asian americans with chinese, and there the difference is close to zero (USA ~6.5 and China 6.9 per 100 000) [1]. Presumably, the two countries are about the same with regards to “inspiring” suicide. The rest of the differences are due to group cultural differences and group differences in psychological afflictions.

    As for “food insecurity”, it is not the same thing as starvation. Get a better source.

    Interesting as this is, it hides the fact that the USA is a vastly more attractive country than China. Not a lot of westerners would voluntarily choose to live in China, whereas many Chinese are begging to get out of China. This is particularly true of the Uigurs that are forced (1 million [2]) to join “reeducation camps”.

    Then we have the little detail of the “social points” in China [3], which punished not only offences against the law, but against “moral codes”. Did I mention that you cannot get a trial? And the lack of free speech, the imprisonment of dissidents [4], a.s.o.

    (1)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Age_adjusted_US_suicide_rate_by_race_1981-2016.png

    (2)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps

    (3)
    https://www.businessinsider.com/china-social-credit-system-punishments-and-rewards-explained-2018-4?r=US&IR=T#2-throttling-your-internet-speeds-2

    (4)
    https://freedomhouse.org/blog/china-global-leader-political-prisoners

  29. True. The WHO gives the figures as 6.9 per 100,000 population for China and 13.2 for the US.

    FAO FOOD INSECURITY
    During the last 12 months, was there a time when, because of lack of money or other resources: You were worried you would not have enough food to eat?

    12 percent of households (15.6 million households) are estimated to be food insecure. 5 percent of households (6.1 million households) experience very low food security. Households with children report food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 17% compared to 11%.
    https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/.

    GALLUP: Of the 45 high-income countries in our sample, Japan has the lowest food insecurity at 1%, while Uruguay has the highest at 28%. Only 19 countries have levels of food insecurity lower than 10%, meaning that one in 10 children in these countries lack access to safe, sufficient and nutritious foods. The United Kingdom and United States are among the high-income countries that perform the poorest, with approximately one in five children living with a food insecure adult. In China, the figure was 5%.
    https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/219965/hunger-knows-no-boundaries.aspx

  30. You are comparing chinese suicides (only) with the USA sum suicides+drugs+alcohol. Please return with USA suicide numbers excluding drugs and alcohol.

    And you have presented no numbers for starvation for neither country.

  31. Debt is good only when it finances projects that are more profitable then the interest on the debt and in a way that it is returnable. Simple math that is getting proven again and again. I don’t think that that is the case overall for China anymore.

  32. In a couple of decades Russia wont be an issue and the Chinese … it doesn’t look good from a demographics perspective. Who knows if China can even stay together over that time frame.

  33. Also we need to really be careful about backing them into a corner like that. What if the Iranians hears the door bell ringing and found a bunch of DF 26 missiles and satellites ready to launch at their door steps? That would really complicate our position there in the Middle East.

  34. I think the Strait of Malacca is no longer an option. The Persian Gulf is still viable today, but the Chinese have land options via Russia and Iran. I think that this option will be not viable or very costly if they have 4-6 carrier groups in a couple of decades.

  35. About 30 years … about as long as a generation. Nothing could possilby go wrong as the generations replace each other.

  36. I’m not sure the electorate does believe in(support) the two parties. The single largest party is now “independent, or unaffiliated).

    The barriers put into place to keep third party candidates from winning show that the two parties are terrified. For instance, after Ross Perot made the other candidates look like fools in the presidential debates, the running of the debates was taken away from the League of Women Voters which had always run them, and given to a commission composed solely of democrat, and republican hacks.

    While Trump is nominally Republican, he was elected despite everything the Republican party “leadership” could do to keep him from becoming the nominee. Ross Perot would have been president, except for his leaving, and then reentering the general election. I believe he did this to throw the election because the lives of his family were threatened. For some reason he decided he did not want to win.

  37. The US can already control the tap for China if they want to. Just put an Aircraft carrier near the Strait of Malacca or the Persian Gulf and shut down oil shipments.

  38. >Because the average person is an idiot and communism and socialism are attractive ideology for the average sub 130 IQ.

    They like the idea of free stuff, and the lie that the poor will benefit. Shown the example of the entire Warsaw bloc, told that their taxes will skyrocket, and their property will be taken, the popularity of communism soon wanes. I can remember when all kinds of idiots hated the idea of Communism, and would go to war to fight it.

    >The definition of central planning is the government states how many widgets are produced at what price.

    There are many forms of central planning, including that done in the US. The US currently suffers from the price of the single most important commodity, capital(interest rates) being set by the Federal Reserve. It also suffers from the fiat currency nature of the dollar, and it being the main international reserve currency. While this is advantageous to incumbent politicians, and bankers, it has destroyed most of the industrial base of the nation, and pushed many from the middle class. This foolishness is partly responsible for the rise of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

  39. I’ve posted a chart, above, with the hunger stats and executions are a no-brainer. Fatal shootings by police are the rare outcomes of the millions of encounters between police officers and the public. Despite the unpredictable events that lead to the shootings, in each of the past four years police nationwide have shot and killed almost the same number of people — nearly 1,000.

    Chinese police are unarmed and state execution sentences receive a two-year stay of sentence. After that, only the most remorseful are executed. The exception remains as it has for 70 years: those with heavy ‘blood debts’ to society, like this: “China executes six for killing workers in mining compensation scam. Defendants convicted of luring 11 workers to work in mines, killing them and claiming compensation from mining companies.” They were not offered a stay of execution.

  40. More than 150,000 Americans died from alcohol and drug-induced fatalities and suicide in 2017. This is more than twice as many as in 1999 and the highest number since record keeping began in that year. This skyrocketing rate of so-called deaths of despair was confirmed in a new analysis released this week by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Well Being Trust (WBT).TFAH and WBT analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) between 2016 and 2017 and found that the national rate for deaths due to alcohol, drugs and suicide increased 6 percent over that year, from 43.9 deaths per 100,000 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000. While the rate of increase is lower than in the previous two years, it is still higher than the 4 percent average annual increase since 1999. The new analysis provides insight into the CDC’s findings last years that showed a drop in life expectancy from 78.7 years to 78.6 years, the third consecutive year-on-year decline. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/08/deat-m08.html

    WHO Suicides per 100k: China 9.7

  41. I am hoping that the US could become the biggest exporter of oil and gas and could hence control the tap, even for China.

  42. OK, so you have no sources then, just some generalities with no bearing on the matter.

  43. Chinese woman offers oodles of free noodles to the needy, but no one seems to want them. Friends and customers gift US$380 to help finance scheme, but just one couple has so far enjoyed a complimentary meal
    Kinling Lo, South China Morning Post.  
    Published: 6:02pm, 15 Oct, 2017

  44. China’s leaders are the smartest men in the world therefore based on normal curves and standard deviations the most intelligent amongst 7 billion is around 180 IQ

    China’s system is designed so that only the most intelligent become president

    Xi Jinping to get to his position needed to pass numerous trials, impossible odds with nothing but his brainpower alone. He needed to devote 40 years of life to do nothing but passing trials, showing performance results. He needed to outperform every other person vying for the title of president of China.

    There is no dispute over whoever becomes president, because China is a meritocracy. Xi Jinping went from being a assistant, to running a village, then a town, then a city, then a province etc… if at any point is performance failed he would not be promoted to the next level

    The US is the opposite, democracy is nothing but glorified popularity contests so they empower dunces. Then they wonder why Detroit and baltimore are the way they are, why kids are listening to rap music and popping caps and why people in San Francisco are doing number 2 on the street.

  45. Regarding the Middle East and oil. It is not about oil independence for us, it is about achieving global dominance by controlling the tap, where ever they may be. So the Middle East is still very important to us even as we have oil independence. But I fear that such independence, if it ever happen, will be short lived anyways.

  46. and yes, losing them as villains in movies is the worst part of this whole thing 🙂

  47. Yes, I think he is right on the money as well. The best destroyer of the Chinese Navy, the type 55, is already better than our best Arleigh Burke flight III by a very big margin. What is more, they can produce this at or below the cost of a Burke. I believe in time, maybe 10 years, their carriers and nuclear subs will catch up to ours in quality. Their AIP conventional subs are already at the cutting edge. After that, they will need maybe a decade to catch up to us in quantity and training.

    regarding Russia, the Israelis are fighting Iran and Syria. Russia is on the other side. Since our foreign policy is beholden to the Israelis we will always be antagonistic towards Russia, which is too bad.

    With regard to SCS, I think we already lost and just does not want to show the public that we did. With their formidable land base AAAD and their growing navy and their proximity, it will be very difficult for us to fight in that neighborhood. Carriers are very powerful, but are no good if you have to park them 1500 KM away. The planes have a much shorter combat radius.

    On Taiwan, the question is only about the cost of invading now versus the future. I think in the future, after they push us out of the region, Taiwan will capitulate without a fight. Taiwan alone versus China will be over in a week militarily. Without the hope of U.S. help, it would be over much sooner as the troops would understand the futility and give up much sooner.

  48. Never go full straight line extrapolation. Too many other factors that are being ignored which should go into the model. The more factors, the more chaotic and non deterministic.

  49. Will there really be more hungry people in the USA in 2021 than in China? Well, americans are often bashed for being fat, but now you are claiming that in 2021 there will be more hungry people in the USA than in (rural) China? I.e. four times less hungry people per capita in China compared to the USA?

    So, interesting source, but I would like sources regarding homelessness, starvation, suicides and executions. That Chinese finish 3 years ahead in high school and that the net worth for urban Chinese can rival USA average I believe right of the bat.

  50. What a load of bull. First off, correlation between IQ and income level off at about 135 IQ, but you are claiming that the correlation between leadership position and IQ still holds up to 180 IQ !?! First off, you have to prove that there *is* a positive correlation between power and IQ, and then you have to prove that it is valid to 180 IQ. Please, do it. Post a source.

    And then you have all this nonsense about crying children and low IQ. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but my guess is that you don’t have kids yourself and that you have very little practical experience with kids.

  51. One of his predictions have not come true. How Russia would be an ally of the USA in containing China. And who have we got to thank for this? Well, the collusion nonsense has prevented USA foreign policy from playing Russia against China.

    Also, he predicted that the middle east would be very important due to energy considerations. But now the USA is the most important energy producer, so perhaps the middle east will be less important..? Go fracking!

  52. Interesting. The talk is 7 years old, but I think he was right on the money. He talks about how there was disputes about the south Chinese sea, and what have we observed lately? Yes, China has manufactured islands to be able to claim this sea for themselves… And, since the USA is based far away, the USA cannot do much about it. It’s about regional dominance…

    Chine is expanding it’s navy so that they will not be stopped by the Malacca straights, and if Brian here is correct, they will have such a powerful navy soon that there will no stopping them from going where they want to go.

    Also chilling to hear him state that China would go to war right now – in 2012 – if Taiwan would declare independence. And that was with the power balance then. What about the future? How likely is an official state of Taiwan when China is just growing and growing in power?

    Can’t say I’m happy about this development. I would rather have a poorer world than one dominated by China…

  53. “If the leadership is so bright, why do they still claim to be communist”

    Why do American still believe their own two major political parties? It is their tradition, isn’t it?

    This goes to the people of China, because it is their tradition.

  54. >If the leadership is so bright, why do they still claim to be communists?

    Because the average person is an idiot and communism and socialism are attractive ideology for the average sub 130 IQ.

    Everybody has a job, food and education. Hooray! But the reality is that society is better off when resources on concentrated on the best and brightest.

    >The history of central planning says you are wrong

    China is not central planning. The definition of central planning is the government states how many widgets are produced at what price. Nowhere does the China decree how many smartphones or cars etc… are to be produced

    >Why do they still believe that governments role should be to control the populace

    Because letting the masses run free is a recipe for disaster, just like letting children run free is ALWAYS a disaster. Things like porn, gambling, drugs, jersey shore etc… would have been better off if the government banned them.

    To a 100 IQ person legalizing hard drugs seems like a good idea.

    >I’ll believe the leadership knows what they’re doing when they get out of the way, and let the Chinese people make themselves prosperous.

    Rome wasn’t built in a day.

    China went from not having cell phone reception to being the first country with 5G

    China went from Zero rails, to having the worlds largest rail system

    Keep in mind there are 130+ countries and no country has matched China’s rise, the vast bulk of democracies have failed to better themselves

  55. The US is screwing itself. Central planning via central bankers, senseless wars, fiat currency, income tax, advantage given to corporations over sole proprietors, the list is endless. The Chinese don’t have to beat the US, it’s defeating itself.

  56. The history of central planning says you are wrong. The brilliant don’t rise to the top, the corrupt, and sociopathic do.
    If the leadership is so bright, why do they still claim to be communists? Why do they still believe that governments role should be to control the populace, rather than protect them from force, and fraud.
    I’ll believe the leadership knows what they’re doing when they get out of the way, and let the Chinese people make themselves prosperous.

  57. You do realize that people have been saying the exact same thing you are saying for 30 years now

    It is the same argument, china has a lot of debt, the debt must be bad because its not a free market. Therefore the debt will keep growing until the system collapses

    Yet 30 years, no recession and one of the worlds highest rates of growth

    —————————–

    Debt is good, borrowing is good. Debt means people are borrowing money to create new businesses

    China = more debt means more people are borrowing money to create new businesses and grow businesses

  58. A high IQ person realizes that his 150 IQ is nothing compared to the leadership of China’s CCP

    The CCP is a meritocracy, the best and brightest get the privilege of leading China

    I will never be able to understand their thought process, no more than a dog could understand the thought process of a man.

    A high IQ chinese may disagree with China’s leadership, but he also understands that it is probably because his 150 IQ is nothing compared to 180+

    A good example of this is high IQ children and low IQ children

    Low IQ children are disobedient, they cry when they are forced to eat vegetables they cry when their parents force them to get good grades

    This is because the low IQ child cannot understand the mind of an adult who has far more intelligence

    High IQ children may not like vegetables and may hate studying. But they do it anyway because they are intelligent enough to realize that their parents are more intelligent than they are.

    When their brains finally develop, the high IQ child is grateful while the low IQ child is now a highschool dropout working in fastfood

    I know many high IQ chinese, many working in the west and they realize that they are merely extremely tall ants amongst ants looking up at giants. They are extremely low to the CCP because many of them have well developed brains who look at numbers rather than rhetoric.

    The low IQ ones on the otherhand are the most anti CCP people because they think they are smarter so they should be in charge

  59. You are reproducing the equivalent of Fox News version of China’s economy, which is always about to collapse or explode.

    In real life, ccording the Bank for International Settlements, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio in 4Q 2017 was the same as the US and the EU (with much lower shadow banking exposure), but there they part ways because
    1. China’s economy is growing 300% faster than theirs and growth eats debt.
    2. China’s debt is 98% domestic.
    3. China’s asset to debt ratio is 3.8:1
    4. China’s debt is productive, and of very high quality. Its Keynesian multiplier is 200-300%, according to one Federal Reserve study.
    5. China can turn on a dime: everyone is on board and cooperative with whatever measures the government prescribes.
    6. 95% of Chinese trust their government.

    In 2018, Chinese total debt to GDP was 266%, according to the US-based financial media service Bloomberg whereas those of the US, EU and Japan were, respectively, over 310% and 307.0%. When taking external debt to GDP into consideration, China’s 15% versus the average G7 country’s 156%, its financial posture is in even better shape, according to Wikipedia. China’s debt is largely internal.

    According to the China National Bureau of Statistics (CNBS), SOE debt totaled US$17 trillion (125% of GDP) in 2018. The total corporate debt-GDP ratio is approximately 156%, and since SOEs borrow from SOBs, the lending-borrowing arrangement is a “family affair.” It is more of an accounting issue than a debt burden one.

  60. There’s a real gradient in what’s really ‘urban’ there, since they’re capping populations in the biggest cities and creating mini-cities and satellite cities that are really transplanted villages. Xi’s goal is to eliminate the urban-rural income gap by 2035 and so far the signs are good.

  61. “And btw, by 2021 there will be more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.”
    hahaha, ok, sure. You can keep on spraying febreze on dog shit & telling people their roses.

  62. 98% of them will own their own homes and they’ll all have an income, plenty of food, education, safe streets, health- and old age care.

  63. That looks like very good progress for 300million people over 20 years, assuming that mckinsey forecast pans out.

    I recall China was supposed to be more than 50% urban today, perhaps the fact that forecast was made in 2012 accounts for the pop discrepancies.

  64. This is a debt of both private companies and government companies. The latter hold almost half of it, about $ 9 trillion, and their repayment ability, other than through an additional debt, is quite limited. The debt of the private sector, more than $ 11 trillion, consists of bonds, bank loans, and credit from shale banking, the same world that connects various financial entities that deal with different types of loans and operate outside the formal banking system and under limited regulation. China’s household debt also grew strongly in the last decade. In September, they stood at $ 6.74 trillion, up from $ 516 billion in January 2007, an increase of more than 13 times. The huge increase in debt and its considerable effects on the Chinese economy, including a slowdown in growth, began before the outbreak of the trade war with the United States, but there is no doubt that this confrontation adds to the already difficult Chinese economy. Therefore, it is also clear that a new trade agreement, which will ultimately be achieved, will not solve the fundamental and structural problems of the Chinese economy. Wall Street’s tense anticipation of this agreement is nothing more than an act in the absurd play unfolding before us, centered on the belief that a debt economy and endless printing of money will produce abundance for all, and especially endless price hikes in share prices. All this while the opposite is true.

  65. The Chinese credit bubble, which exceeds even the American credit bubble, is a source of instability and real and immediate danger to the world economy. The air has already begun to emerge, and the weakening is evident in all sectors, and not just in real estate.

    For example, sales in China’s auto market have been on the decline for the past eight months, falling 16 percent in January and 13 percent in December from the same period last year. Total industrial output also fell in the first two months of the year to a 17-year low. It is therefore difficult to see how and why a trade agreement that would worsen China’s relative position vis-à-vis the US will improve its economy and reduce the risks it creates.

    In 2009, the Chinese government, like its Western counterpart, launched a massive stimulus program of more than $ 600 billion. This money went mostly to loans to government-owned companies. These and other funds raised were used to finance a series of massive real estate projects as well as massive construction of factories.

    The zombie companies are burdensome for the economy
    The incentive and activity that ensued led to a huge burst of economic activity for almost a decade, but this construction also created a huge surplus of means of production. And like any demand and production that does not stem from market forces but from artificial stimulation, when the “energizing” money is over, the activity ends.

  66. As a result, there are many thousands of zombie companies in China today, who are constantly bleeding, while there are no real customers for their production capacity. Companies still exist only because the government continues to subsidize them or by virtue of loans they receive, usually from government banks.

    At the beginning of 2016, the Chinese Ministry of Property Supervision announced that there are 2,041 such companies. The Chinese government has set itself the goal of recovering or closing a large part of it, a worthy long-term goal, but such a closure will create another short-term slowdown.

    Moreover, Chinese government companies have a combined debt of $ 9 trillion, a large part of which belongs to those zombie companies. Closing them will thus create a huge wave of “quantitative reduction”, ie, a reduction in the amount of money (a debt that is wiped out as money disappears, the opposite of a debt that has been created), and will also have a severe impact on lenders’ balance sheets. These two factors will, of course, cause economic slowdown and bring about the explosion of the credit bubble.

    Thus, China, like the US, has maneuvered itself through its expansionist policy and the production of debt-money into a corner that can not be extricated without real economic pain.

  67. This is a google translate of to English of a very good article one out of three describing the three giant bubbles the Chinese economy is sitting on. Don’t expect a perfect translation. This particular one is about the credit bubble. There was another one about the real estate bubble Which I cannot find the link to anymore. The third one I haven’t seen yet.

    The growing pressures in the Chinese real estate market, the locomotive of the local economy, are evident from every corner, but the effects of China’s monumental credit bubble are far from limited to this sector alone.

    The whole Chinese economy is littered with factories with no use or no ability to make money, and zombie companies living on credit.

    As in the US, China’s credit increased by 416% since 2008, the debts of non-financial corporations increased by 400% , And household debt rose by 716%, and cheap credit also caused the economy to become addicted to it and to continue to roll over and inflate the credit bubble out of anxiety over the results of its expiration.

    China’s debt mountain has raised more than $ 34 billion, or 300 percent of GDP, and most of it – 57 percent, $ 20 trillion, or 170 percent of GDP – consists of corporate debt. This amount, by the way, is almost twice the size of the debt of the companies sector in developed economies.

    Continue in the reply.

  68. I question whether the Chinese government can bring itself allow the disorder that comes with innovation, and disruptive technologies. If it can’t, I don’t see how China can be a technological leader.
    Both the Chinese culture’s lack of respect of individuality, and the fact that its government always hammer down the nail that stands up must make it hard for truly creative people to grow into innovators. A teenager who sees through the schemes, and denounces the corruption will not be suffered gladly. Any child with an IQ of 150, and a mind of his own is not going to fit in, and will be punished for it, by his peers, if not the school management. If there is one thing communists hate, it’s a bright child who sees through their lies. With today’s relatively easy access to information, even in China, those lies are on display.

  69. Why, they’ll be so powerful that even kryptonite won’t stop them!

    By 2040, China could have $10 to 100 trillion in unfunded pension costs. China is about to experience the most rapid aging crisis in human history, with the ratio of workers-to-retirees shrinking from 8-to-1 today to 2-to-1 by 2040.

    Some estimates run to their 1.3 billion dropping to 560 million by 2100. This is a phenomenon the planet has never seen before.

    So they drop the one child policy, persecute homosexuals, and cut off foreign adoptions in a futile attempt to get numbers up. Then they start embracing something called “996” which is a lot of their leadership exhorting people to work from 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days per week. Anyone see a problem with that (aside from not being much fun)?

    Despite all their grand talk, they wall themselves off from the internet, they steal Tibet and seek to eliminate Tibetans as a people, they seize the seas and dispute right of passage, they do terrible things to their own people for things that aren’t even wrong, they steal technology and other things, and they are heavily engaged in debt-trap diplomacy (the only ones that deny this are their own stooges . . . and their own army of propagandists).

    By most standards, the current leadership is morally bankrupt.

    “You betrayed the Duke. You stole his wife. You took his castle. Now no one trusts you. You’re not the one. Give me the child. I will protect him.”
    – Merlin, in John Boorman’s Excalibur

  70. “China is on track to have per capita income at about 25% of US levels in 2030”?

    Only if you use nominal dollars. In the real, PPP world, next year 500,000,000 urban Chinese will have more net worth and disposable income than the average American, their mothers and infants will be less likely to die in childbirth, their children will graduate from high school three years ahead of American kids. 

    And btw, by 2021 there will be more drug addicts, suicides and executions, more homeless, poor, hungry and imprisoned people in America than in China.

  71. “There is also the question of whether India and ASEAN countries will have higher GDP growth than China from 2020 to 2050.” Of course they will. China’s economy is maturing, so of course other countries with more growth potential could pull ahead. The question is whether OBOR can utilize China’s over production capacity to keep their GDP growing higher than it would have ordinarily. If not, their economy is in for an eventual correction crash from the government pushing growth instead of letting the market decide. It seems a reckoning is in play again between centrally planned economies vs. the laissez-faire system we prefer in the West.

    It’s a shame that we do not trust China’s government. It would be nice to be able to cheer China’s success without feeling like we have a bull’s eye on our back. Whether they realize it or not, the Chinese government is in serious need of an image overhaul if they really want to play leader on the world stage.

  72. Some people keep saying that China is going to be a benign super power.. But if that is so, why do they keep increasing their military strength? Can this really be motivated by “defence”..? I don’t see any invaders on the horizon..

    We already see some very troubling signs; China has taken the south chinese sea by making new islands and claiming it for themselves. And their big movie market now has made movies where a chinese is villain obsolete, even though their regime is just as bad as ever (and would make *great* crooks in a movie).

    What will happen when they are not number 2, but rather number one in both economical terms and in military terms? How will the west adapt to China culturally? What consession on economy will we have to make?

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