Gideon Rachman, a good writer for the Financial Times, has an article in the current issue of Foreign Policy entitled "American Decline: This Time It's Real." In his words, "the wolf did arrive -- and China is the wolf." He cites Goldman Sachs prediction that by 2027, the Chinese economy will be larger than the American economy, and says that if Washington has to scale down its presence in the Pacific for budgetary reasons, American allies will start to desert us.
But as I argue in my new book The Future of Power (coming out on February 1), even if China's GDP passes that of the United States around 2030, the two economies will be equivalent in size but not in composition. In per capita income, (which is a better measure of the sophistication of an economy), China will not pass the US until decades later. And the United States is also well ahead of China in military and economic power and will remain so.
Even if Rachman is wrong -- as I believe -- his message can be helpful if it wakes us to make some necessary reforms in deficit reduction and improving K-12 education. But there is also a danger in exaggerating China's progress. (A 2009 Pew poll shows that 44% of Americans held the wildly erroneous view that China is the world's leading economy.)
If such views creates hubris among Chinese officials and fears in American officials, it can lead to policies that create unnecessary conflict. Managing the complex relationship with China will be difficult enough without such faulty projections. I will spend next week in China and India, and will post some of my observations after I return.
Using per capita income as a measure of an economy is not very sophisticated either, especially if one considers the fact that the US dollar is only used in one country in the comparison. After all, a family living on $40K per year in China will have a much higher standard of living than a family with the same income in the US.
A better measure would be to use a calculation similar to the way the CPI is calculated and determine the per capita purchasing power.
It's only the US that sees China's rise as a competition. Nobody else does that; mostly, they see it as another huge market, and that's true even in Asia. The US government is busy competing with, limiting, encircling, containing and bashing, China, while China is just trying to grow and have a better home for its people.
The Chinese are not in any way hegemonic or imperialistic. They want Hong Kong, Taiwan, and a few islands that have always been theirs, and that's it. China will never invade anybody. To the Chinese, any kind of conflict is a loss - the result of an inability to negotiate well. But the US enjoys conflict, and even seeks it out. Constant provocations, like the 'civilian' ship spying only 6 miles off China's Hainan Island.
China is one of many countries whose GDP is climbing rapidly, and good for all of them. Who cares who is bigger? That's juvenile "king of the hill" stuff.
Here is something you might enjoy, an editorial titled "Let's Meet Some Real People" (in China):
http://www.bearcanada.com/travel/realpeople.html
And just for fun, here's "What's Good For the Goose": it's a tongue-in-cheek editorial about what China's foreign policy would be like if it copied the US.
http://www.bearcanada.com/china/thegoose.html
What line of work do you do that allows you to travel so much and meet so many interesting people? More importantly, how do I get into that line of work?
The western way of stimulating progress worked well for them until they ran out of new lands to conquer. It will take time for the mindset to change, but nothing changes one's mindset better than reality.
The question is how far will America decline in terms of standards of living. I think this has little to do with China or foreign countries, but a lot more to do with domestic policies pertaining to growth and innovation.
I agree China is far behind in economic output and military terms, and the threat is exaggerated. But since China is not the great threat to America, could American empire eat itself? It seems to be trying.
The average citizen is well-informed enough to understand that the United States is not what it once was. Just by dint of living for a few decades, one can see that American power and prestige have been steadily declining since the fall of the USSR. We live in a different world now, and it is a world that is catching up to us in every respect.
Nowhere else is this more true of course, than in Asia, and China in particular. Economically, in terms of GDP, they are on track to surpass us. India will follow, and perhaps Europe, Russia, and even Brazil. In any case, they will all make gains in catching up--but so what? Yes, it is decline in the strictest sense, but this does not necessarily mean an end to American prosperity or importance in the world. Far from it, in fact. The world is changing from a unipolar one to a multi-polar one, but Americans should keep in mind that this country will always remain an important and powerful one, so they need not fear the rise of China, or their relative decline.
Of course, the way the figures are calculated to determine the size of an economy are useless anyway. If you take financial transactions out of the formula, the US isn't nearly as big as people think. When you consider that the manufacturing infrastructure is now in China, it makes one wonder how they come with these numbers at all.
Funny money on Wall Street turning a handful to fat cats does not make a strong economy. One doesn't need a degree in economics to have common sense.
have their " one child " policy. So, even in this regard, they may be catching up fast. China's military power
is not in the same league as the U.S. but that doesn't mean much since we are unable to win decisively
in Iraq and Afghanistan after all these years. How do we measure " military power " then ?
With the US military deployed all over the world trying to subdue developing nations, it's safe to say that the Chinese military is more powerful at accomplishing its mission (defending China). A lot has been said of US military power, but people fail to take into account that they haven't won a war since 1945 and that was against such powerhouses as Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. Considering that China has shown no historical tendencies to try and rule the world, I'd say they have the military advantage. When you consider that both countries are nuclear armed, it's a moot point anyway since any conflict would result in a stalemate.
its better to look at china from a long, long term perspective. they ruled the world economically far longer and by a wider margin than any other empire in the history of the world but have had a two hundred year hiatus from that status. they are coming back, with a long memory and the same fervor they have exhibited throughout their history.
as far as military power, the chinese have shown no interest in any areas outside their immediate geographical strategic interests. they have no interest in the atlantic ocean or the mediterranean sea or even the southern or eastern(their perspective) pacific. the indian ocean is even a far away place for them. their land interests, militarily, have been confined to their borders. they have allied with russia.so what if the usa controls the rest of the world. as long as china can obtain what resources it needs there will be no conflict. if its borders are threatened it can respond effectively. if its resources are threatened the usa is its only viable adversary and it will have to mobilize a force to a place thousands of miles away against a population of 1.3 billion potential combatants.
What has China's rise in economic power got to do with it? NOTHING. This societal and national downward spiral is self-induced, enabled and reinforced by the people's silent complicity.
Thank you for your critical thinking. Such a sadly lost art.