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Q: What will Europe and US do to avoid China become the first economy and military power?
I have heard US and Europe are dealing a new economy agreement in order to avoid china become the superpower. I think it's really scary China become the first economy and first military power. I just think of the values of chinese. I hope we can stop them. What do you think about it?
You can sleep safely at night knowing that high ranking Chinese military people openly admits China couldn't win a war against any of the countries in the hood.
I think Sting's song 'Don't stand so close to me!' will became popular again
'Du-du-du da-da-da, it's all I want to say to u.......
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-06/bundesbank-warns-chinas-currenc...
Following the most recent shift 'away' from a USD-centric world (with the China-Australia direct currency convertibility), it seems the possibility of China's Yuan as the next global reserve currency is getting closer. The Brits, Germans, and now the Swiss (who just signed a free-trade-agreement with China) are all actively vying to become Europe's Yuan trading hub as it seems the long line of developments to internationalize the currency over the past two years. As Bundesbank board member Joachim Nagel noted in a speech entitled "Reniminbi as a potential reserve currency" this week, "the Chinese currency is well on its way to becoming one of the future global reserve currencies." He noted that, although the USD is still the most commonly-used currency for settling trade with China; from virtually zero in 2010, the Yuan is used to settle over 12% of trading transactions now - and is likley to increase further.
That's post on ZH from 07/06/2013
'Every little thing she does it's magic, every little thing she does…….'
icnif77:
And the euro and the renminbi are already directly tradable as of this month.
On Tuesday the UK also became the first country besides China to issue a sovereign bond in renminbi.
This coincided with the issuing of 180 million renminbi of corporate bonds by China’s ICBC in South Korea. Another first. South Korea is firmly on the renminbi train as renminbi deposits in the country jumped 55-times in just one year.
The writing is on the wall. The day of endless money printing and abuse of power by the United States is coming to an end. Its allies are even now beginning to jump ship. This transition will take many years and face much resistance by the current power structure, but that changes nothing.
The transition has begun and there is no stopping it now. As gold is flowing from West to East, so too is economic power. A historic economic change lies just over the horizon.
http://www.sprottmoney.com/news/the-us-dollar-is-rapidly-losing-dominance-the-silver-bug-sprott-money-news
Lord_hanson:
I agree the US will eventually lose the top dog status but I doubt China will replace it. It is unusual to have a single super power. The US gained this thanks to the 2nd world war devestating europe and the colapse of the soviet unit made them sole leaders. I think soon there will be many big fish in the pond.
China? Are we talking about the country that traded his environment for growth? Soon or later Chinese will realize their mistake and realize that they are the losers in that deal with the Western powers.
Because what's the purpose of having money if you can't breath and drink clean water? Despite the promises and the "efforts" of the government the pollution is worsening, 1/3 of the water in China is not even usable for growing crops, a region the size of Belgium in Shandong is so polluted with heavy metals that it will not be arable for at least 200 years even after cleaning.
Congratulation China, you've got money, now let's see how long it takes you to realize that you can't eat money.
andy74rc:
No, but you can go abroad and buy somebody elses land....
About pollution in your own country, well, just foster the propaganda one side, and people's ignorance the other.
Eorthisio:
They can only go abroad and buy land because other countries allow them to do so. I hope for them that no nationalistic party ever come to power in those countries, very unlikely considering the rise of nationalism in most of the world.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/chinas-deceptively-weak-and-dangerous-mil...
meet the people. unshroud the mystery of China, and you'll also deflate some of the myths.
China is definitely not a country that is easy to conquer. not without a high price. but that's not because of its prowess and potence in battle. it's because the military has invested heavily in nuclear armaments, drones and other things that can cause massive collateral damage to civilian population during war.
the actual troops can't survive a 12-day training exercise without a mutiny, ending in KTV night, and sending for "cultural performers" as entertainment.
luckily for china, the hardware needed to hold the world's civilian's lives hostage, doesn't depend on human competence or professionalism anymore.
The CCP has little interest in conquest. They have their own personal playground at the moment. Apart from a few minor conflicts over islands (for the sole purpose of their egos) I doubt China would start a major conflict. China just doesn't have the capacity to launch a major offensive as its navy is a joke. Lets say they win a war and annex a country, what have they gained? Millions of people with a type of thinking that could disrupt the social harmony. What if they lose? They risk losing their playground. The top guys here live like kings of old, they are happy stroking their members and pretending to be like the heroes in old chinese stories. I would also like to point out that China doesn't have what is needed to be thr sole economic superpower. If you want to make money as a country you need to provide something others need. Cheap labour is starting to become a thing of the past now that other asian powers are growing. The Chinese are not the most innovative of countries at the moment. They can't be the leaders in technology as then who will they copy the designs from? The only way to fix these problems would be to better educate people and increase wages but that will lead to a type of population that questions the government. It looks like the CCPhas come to a junction on the road to China's rise. They can go one way and stay how they are now and keep their power or they can go the other way. They can choose for massive reforms that will make China more competitive and help China fufill its full potential but they will eventually lose power this way. The CCP has a choice they can prosper or China can prosper. We all know they will prefer to hold China back so they can keep power.
USA?
WP's today's edition with:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/researchers-identi...
sam239:
Stealing nerds' lunch money makes you the biggest bully in the lunchroom. The action is going on in the classrooms.
They need only to wait. Time isn't on China's side. If China even wanted to be a Superpower, they would have to act soon because the wind is coming out of their sails. All the low hanging fruit of growth have exhausted. They will never be the military superpower. They have the largest army in the world, but it's as corrupt as the government. And pretty soon, demographics will come back to haunt them. Being a world superpower can't be China's game plan. The CCP needs to gain back some big face in Asia to keep the people distracted and this is their main goal. Fighting over those islands of rock in the South China sea is where it will happen. Not for the rock, not for the oil, but for national pride.
Eorthisio:
Agree, time is playing against China, the pyramid of ages is completely screwed up thanks to the one child policy, Chinese youth must support 2 parents and 4 grandparents in most cases, the family values are collapsing with more youth who don't want to put with this crap, get ready to see more homeless elders just like in Japan a few years from now because their own children will not want to spend half of their income on them. If the government raises the income taxes to give a decent pension to the elders then the youth will get angry because people tolerate the CCP in exchange for increase of their personal wealth. In the early 2000s a number of economists predicted that China will become old before it becomes a high income country, hard to believe back then, today perfectly believable.
Economy: I've said this before, but I think that the Chinese economy will not survive in the long term. There is nothing here that is conductive of an advanced, high-income economy and while it isn't too late yet, I have my doubts as to whether the CCP are willing (or able) to do the deep structural reforms needed to shift China's economy.
Military: Yes, the PLA is incompetent and the hardware isn't the best however this was also true for the Soviet military when Germany invaded... The geography is both a blessing and a curse for China. Blessing because it's is really difficult to invade, even wtihout the "meat grinder" component present. A curse because it would be fairly easy to block and contain China as China is not self sufficient when it comes to several key resources. As much as I don't like the CCP, I don't think military action is possible or indeed desirable.
I think the best thing for other countries to do right now is to call China out on the lame "soft power" attempts they are doing, and to show the true face of the CCP, but right now it dosen't seem like any major Western players have the balls to do that.
sam239:
No one's talking about invading the mainland...the last to do that was the Empire of Japan and they were humiliated. Keeping the PRC contained is what others are interested in.
Eorthisio:
I hope you meant that China was humiliated, losing 10vs1 on your own territory is nothing to be proud of.
tbh66:
W. Europe and US have no worries. China is its own worst enemy. It has too many internal issues to face, before taking on the West
China has too many internal problems to deal with, maybe only a regional power instead of world super power.
Stealing nerds' lunch money makes you the biggest bully in the lunchroom. The action is going on in the classrooms.
icnif77:
I was trained in Okinawa Martial arts school at young age. Through extensive physical training (torture) there is one 'doctrine' inserted to trainee's head: 'use knowledge only for defense, not ever for/as an attack'.
I don't bully!
'genius never repeat her/himself' 
In order for China to be the best China can be, they would have to change systems but the window of opportunity may have already closed.
China is doing a pretty fine job of shooting itself in the foot. Corruption, no rule of law, trying to strangle HK, attacking foreign companies you name it.
If HK or Taiwan's government took over the mainland, would that save China? I don't think the mainland could be saved. Cheating , not respecting rules, laziness, ignorance are deeply imbedded in Chinese culture. Fixing the mainland would be an extreme burden with little chance of success.
Over the last 30 years China received a lot from foreign trade and could have used that position to develop and grow into a world power if they would have learned from the mistakes of South Korea and developed nations. China was never threatened but they kept acting as if they were under constant military threat from Japan and the US in order to screw over their own people. They insisted on repeating the same mistakes made in the past by others. Think for a second, how much talent is in the land of 1.3 billion? Chinese are brainwashed into thinking that Japan is at fault for what China is today. But the truth is only one man is responsible for wiping out the intellectuals and the culture (soul) of the mainland. That one man's thinking still lives on in the one party. And that is why today there is so little talent produced in China, the schools are set up to create drones.
If HK/ Tai was in charge from the beginning of the opening up, reforms could have been introduced in education to produce more educated people. But I don't think it is possible today, as Chinese often use the excuse, "there are too many people (dumb, uneducated people)"
sam239:
KMT (Taiwan's government) had similar crackdowns on foreigners, separatist movements in Manchuria, T, X, etc. I'm not sure they'd be so much more enlightened leaders, seems that Taiwan is the way it is due to its size.
Englteachted:
Wait ... are you trying to say the KMT/ Formusa went around their own country killing their own people simply because they were educated?
This kind of paranoia is feeding and justifying China's own paranoia, way to go... China went big
* at the expense of its environment (you got only one life at that game)
* with very unfair distribution of the benefits to the population (education, health, etc.)
* while keeping a very poor ability to innovate and thus capitalize all that growth apart from building stuffs that might be needed or might not.
So this paranoia is not even justified. Others can capitalize on their capacity to innovate, and they can produce things back home. It might be more expensive, but also less polluting, more respectful of worker's condition and balance economy a little.
Roll over and die. They're pussies. Scared of China.
And it pisses me off.
I love drama, come on China, lets get the #1 seed in the east. lol
And what's wrong with the fact that China may (and probably will) become the number one superpower?
Apparently the last decades ruling style is provably brining economical progress and improved life conditions for majority of the population. And here I would like to add that GDP is at best highly questionable tool for meassuring the economical growth - it measures quite well economical activity but in the modern times is quite inaccurate as the scale of economical development.
And what I find the best on Chinese economy development is its connection with American and European one.
I think the best motivation for people all over the world is their own living standards and conditions. In other words I think that we can enjoy the 'piece and quite' in this world as long as it will be in economical interests of all major players.
At the moment China is growing a lot and needs America and Europe (on top of othere big economies of course ...). I see it quite positively.
Burak43:
First of all, I totally agree that GDP is a really poor measure of wealth.
Second, I'm not against China being the biggest anything in the world. I actually do want a modern, prosperous China, that will improve the world as a whole.
What I don't want however, is the CCP as the leaders of the biggest economy/military power/superpower in the world. That is because I see a strong CCP as a threat to human rights globally. I also don't belive that the CCP as it is now is able to do what is needed for China to become truly prosperous.
gouxiong:
Burak43, I think that's not the point. When you compare the China at the begining of 20th century with the current China so I am not aware of any other state who would succeed to achieve such tremendous progress. It's on he acocunt of China leadership during this time and it's important to notice that the huge development accelaration started in 1980ies +/- and more or less lasts till nowadays.
Does anyone want to sit in a circle and share a pot of tea. Does it really matter who has the bigger one? In the 1820ies China was actually 3rd in the world. Then came the century of self humiliation and now China is back on track. The economy is still only 60% of the US, so there is quite a way to go still.
Of course the most populous country would have a big one. But GDP per capita still suck in China. The recent announcement from (was it) IMF is based on GPD corrected for purchase power, so it assumes all Chinese wants to only spend at home. Say they had to buy crap at US prices, and the USians had to buy crap at China prices, the table would turn faster than the tables in a Chinese restaurant when the stinky tofu dish is served.
The thing you have to remember is that even if China is Number 1, it is number 1 with a Number 2 USA, A number 3 Japan, and a number 4 Germany all very close. In the 1950's the USA percent of World GNP was close to 50%...Now That is a SUPERPOWER. This situation was a once in a life time situation, where the Economy of all major countries was either in ruins after WW2 or dedicated to Smokestack industry like in the USSR and North Korea...all guns no butter.
-So remember that the EU would have to stop existing as a market for China to ever have the kind of power the US had in Marshall Plan Europe say...
I think Europe is already out of the race. Except Germany, i think no other european country can even defeat pakistan, iran, turkey etc..
gouxiong:
Well I pretty much agree that Europe, in case we would not be able to change our current not well functioning system, would probably soon be out of the race. However I do not see it on the military site - it's more the economical issue.
If you don't know anything than you should really keep your mouth shut. France! UK! 32% of the world's wealth is in the UK. French weapons are so advanced that they sell to Russia the 2nd biggest arms dealer needs to buy from France. Learn before you speak child.
every country is asia is increasing military spending against the ghost of china, reminds me of the fake scare tactics of evil russia to overspend on the military in america in the 80's, what a joke, i doubt china could be a regional power because india and japan and now a distrustful vietnam would not sit by on their ass and let it happen like the americans are currently doing because we cant stop spending on useless domestic crap and cant afford to outspend china like we outspent russia in the 80's, so the players at the table change chairs and the game and the repeat of history continues, nothing new under the sun.
europe is a complete wasteland with exception of germany, unless the nationalistic parties bring back some reality and stop immigration of low skilled workers when there is no jobs or money to support and take care of them, they will collapse and the eu will have as much influence as nigeria, if france and russia did not have nuclear weapons, nobody would even notice they are on the earth at all. i hope europe saves itself from itself, but i have my doubts.
for those flamers i dont consider norway, finland, and sweden to be europeans, its quite insulting to them because they are the best countries on earth, the southern neighbors are like the crazy uncle in the family nobody wants to talk about.
Reading your comments and looking at the current state of world affairs, the conclusion is obvious. We can see where things are heading. There won't be another superpower. Everyone's running on empty (or will soon be). The future looks bleak. The system is breaking down. The age of humans is coming to an end.
I thought europe and north america look in the same way, we are in the NATO so its kind of useless compare countries.
gouxiong:
If you are Spanish so then your comment is kind of surprising ... Even EU countries are not able to agree among themselves (well many countreis in Europe has soem problems to agree on many aspects eveen internally - it seems to me Spain is one of them :) ) - not talking about adding US to it.
Gouxiong you dont know what you are talking about. If NATO EU and other international organizations have been created is cauae there are some common interests and way of thinking.
gouxiong:
Of course that there are a lo tof common interests among different coutnries. SOme of thoose countries then decided to group and create a closer relationship by forming certain clubs (well I admit this certainly is the simplification of the issue). Therefore we have EU and therefore we have NATO. However already EU and NATO are not the same and have different purposes. On top of that for instance in EU we have countries which recognise for isntance Palestina (lately Sweden did officially and UK parliment recommended to do so to UK government) and some support Izrael - I assume it then makes sense to distinguish among individual countriies unless they are able to agree on unified policy - what I hope will be the future in European Union as otherwise I am afraid EU will loose in the race.
RiriRiri:
EU countries are among the only developed powers that haven't yet given up to completely fucking up their environment in the name of GDP. That will count, in the long run. I'm just a bit worried about the low military spending. I'd rather have us sell breathable air and edible food than having it taken away by force.
gouxiong:
RiriRiri, not sure if only one but certainly some of the few. But that was not my point. I wanted to say that individual EU countries differs a lot - from the European, internal perspective of course. And if we will not start quite fast drive towards political and economical unification so we may pretty soon end up on the shorter end. By the way there can be no efficient common military without deeper economical and political integration and so far all such attempts failed. May be current, relatively strong position of UK will wake up Europe and with or without UK (better with ;) ) will integrate more - a good start would be a common language as US and China have :).
Think it will scupper itself. Too many challenges...
It's been said that the whole economy is one big bubble.
Personal debt isn't like it is in the west...yet.
But debt at the local govt level is crazy (watch the bbc documentary with Robert Peston about the plans for Wuhan....where is all that money coming from?)
The whole shadow banking thing is an unknown threat.
If the economy slows more, what are the 50 million unemployed, unmarried young males gonna do? (due to the gender imbalance)...sit there and drink baijiu or get a little pissed off and start a bit of "argy-bargy" in the region?
Read Fenby's book about it...worth a look.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/13/tiger-head-snake-tails-fenb...
My name is Gordon Chang and I'll be here all week....I thank you
Seriously Gordon hasn't been right in over 15 years...but he only has to be right once
