Sunday night, Art Bell had a guest, Ralph Sawyer, who discussed the possibility of China becoming the dominant economic--and perhaps military--power by 2050.

There are a lot of challenges in determining when and if China will become the next superpower. Art and Ralph both held the sentiment that in the U.S., we are living "in the last days of the Roman Empire." However, there are a number of social tensions within China that might derail their ability to continue to be a reliable producer of cheap consumer products. In that case, somebody else will be at the ready with cheap labor.

When I heard the 2050 date, I was a bit surprised that it would take that long for China to become #1. I would have suspected that if China didn't falter due to internal tensions, they would become the #1 superpower, at least economically, in just 20-30 years. I think that the days when ambitious high school students take Chinese language classes and plan on doing some part of their university education in China could be just around the corner. I believe that there are some high schools that offer AP Chinese language classes today.

Oh, 2050? Cool.....guess, then, that I still have some time to dig out my old "Conversational Mandarin" tapes.

Maybe I'll run down to the local take-away and pick up some Chou Mein while I'm at it.

"Chitty Wok? Ready take order, please......"

The more reasonable questions:
Do they have a transcript of this report? This was on Coast to Coast last weekend, wasn't it?

Actually, as far as manufacturing is concerned anyways, isn't China *already* sort-of a super-power? Seems probably nine out of every ten products I Find At Freddy's are made in China, or somewhere very near currently.

(And saying of cheap--you ought to see some of the cheap, sub-par Made In China dirt bikes like you find at Schucks or G.I.Joe's.....I was even at a Fred Meyer's in Portland recently which had "Baja Sport" 500's with their other bikes! Let's just say, long rant made short, it's doubtful most of these would likely barely survive even a single, moderate-height jump, let alone an entire race all in one piece.......)

And if social tensions are, in fact, derailing China from being a prime producer of cheap consumer goods, where might the responsibility fall once China drops out of favour? Europe? Maybe Japan might see a re-surgence in international product manufacture?

Possibly we might start seeing "Made In Japan" once again being stamped on the backs of our computers and radios!

What amazes me a bit, tho, is China is a Communist nation, as is Cuba. Supposedly trade embargoes are in place preventing the United States from doing business with Communist nations (which is why you rarely, if ever, see LEGAL authentic Cuban cigars being imported to the USA!)

So if this is the case why do we get most of our products currently from China anyways? Shouldn't that be just as illegal as potentially doing business with Cuba? I don't get it........

No, there is a specific embargo against Cuba, nothing to do with communism, but the fact that they took over a lot of american business's.

Communist govts in general, are allowed to be traded with, with exemptions for equipment that can be used in weapons.

moto, seeing that fred meyer is primarily a grocer, i'd question that 9 out of 10 products statement, but your point is a good one.

the way for the U.S. to remain a superpower is to let in anyone that wants to move here, including those from Mexico. Otherwise we'd become like one of those old European countries -- powerless.

China does not have, and probably won't acquire the power to project power.

They have no true aircraft carriers, or other main battle type ships, most of the submarines and other navel ships are urchased, or built from foreign design.

China will continue to be a dominent local power, unless it breaks up like hte old soviet union.

I heard the same program on Art Bell last night.

What ought to be really interesting is to see how they are able to continue growing their economy and country while at the same time restricting personal freedoms.

Unless they're careful, at some point, China may end up like East Germany and have to deal with bombardments about freedom of speech, of worship and political thought via broadcast mediums from outside their communist haven. Plus, they'll be able to contain this internet thing for only so long.

And at some point, environmentalists may take them to task for being among the world's worst polluters.

Herb

I firmly believe that China won't take the lead as a world power, but rather we will give it to them.

The US has become so preoccupied with internal power politics, that no one is focusing on what we should really be doing.

If China falls out of favor as the #1 supplier of cheap consumer goods, I think that India might be a contender. Perhaps, we might see a resurgence of Taiwanese made products. Whatever happened to Taiwanese stuff, anyway? I remember that back in the 1980s, it seemed that everything was made in Taiwan.

Herb said>>>
And at some point, environmentalists may take them to task for being among the world's worst polluters.

Screw that! Let them mess up their country as long as most of it stays there. The life expectancy there is falling to all time lows because of the pollution.
Their going to run out of drinking water faster than they can become the #1 world power.

"Let them mess up their country as long as most of it stays there"

Unfortunately most of it isn't saying there. A huge amount of it crosses the Pacific and raises air pollution levels here.

"The US has become so preoccupied with internal power politics"

Its always been this way in one form or another . . . perhaps THIS is why we're a superpower -- no one view gets absolute rule here.

Yeah, just look at the mess when we came close to having absolute rule!

How many days left again?

1 year and 322 days and counting them down. KC coast to coast.

China's economy is on track to displace the US as #1 in the world by about 2030.

The US has a huge tactical advantage militarily - our dollar is the world's reserve currency, the medium of exchange in settling debts between most countries in the world, now that no country has a currency tied to gold or silver. This status allows the US to abuse its credit, and project military force it could not afford based on the actual productivity of its economy. The dollar will take this abuse as long as it benefits other nations to keep propping it up.

If China tries to match us militarily by matching us in deficit spending, it will not find willing lenders to support it, limiting military growth. Many of the goods China exports are sold below the cost of production, subsidized by bad loans, which poses a long-term danger to the Chinese banking system.

China is still very vulnerable economically to a recession or depression in the US economy.

China is moving VERY aggressively into nuclear energy to address the pollution issue. That's a big part of why uranium was $7/pound four years ago, and is $72 a pound and still rising today.

If (some say "when") the Euro ever replaces the dollar as the medium of choice for payment for oil, we could be in serious trouble in the US. Such a shift could influence the nations which buy our debt to stop loaning us the savings of their citizens, and the fall of the dollar's value in foreign trade would accelerate.

No matter how this all plays out, the next 30 years will be a fascinating time to be alive!

"Last days of the Roman Empire" is probably not a fitting metaphor, because the way things happen here in the 21st century ... any situation is likely not to be as monolithic or unchanging as that 2000-year old comparison. However, we need to be both super-strategic and flexible to meet this brave new world.

Paulwarren is right about the power of the US dollar. And now would be the time to get our economic house in order, so that we don't give away the underpinning to our economy. Whoever is elected president in '08 is going to have to "be the grown-up" after eight years of economic lunacy.

Plus, the US needs to keep its eye on the fact that US workers are the most productive in the world. That doesn't mean the cheapest ... it means that we don't come cheap compared to India and China and other places, but our level of education and infrastructure allows us to be far more productive that workers in other parts of the world (no joke ... look it up).

That means we shouldn't try to undercut 3rd-world countries, but lead with our strength.

Cool topic. Thanks for starting it.

Everybody has some real meat and potatoes here, and that makes it a great thread!

Herb brought up the environment, Trixter told China to put the wonton where the sun never shines and Skeptical nailed it right on the head when it comes to their mess and our skies. Paul Warren also discussed nuclear energy as a current solution, at least to the glut of coal powered electricity. Since you fellows got the ball rolling, I am gonna run with it a little way.

China already has the foundation for a manufacturing base that could dwarf anything this planet has seen. A long time ago, they built a wall entirely out of lots and lots of rocks and stones that we can still see from outer space. Yes, that is scary when you consider the staggering manpower it took, and how many folks live there now, with a landscape of power plants and factories.

I remembered a brown haze a few springs back that made most everyone I knew sick, including me, so I figured I might just look into it.

Bingo. Here is what made everyone sick and continues to do so -- at least according to Yale and the Wall Street Journal:
"Last April [2004], an instrument-laden U.S. surveillance aircraft near the California-Oregon border hit a plume of dirty air inbound from China."
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5058

"Dan Jaffe, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington, said he has detected ozone, carbon monoxide, mercury and particulate matter from Asia at monitoring sites on Mount Bachelor in Oregon and Cheeka Peak in Washington state. "There is some amount of the pollution in the air we breathe coming from halfway around the world," Jaffe said. "There ultimately is no 'away.' There is no place where you can put away your pollution anymore."
-- Associated Press, 7/28/2006
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1Y1-96100289.html

An even more in depth report from the Bend Bulletin, 8/20/2006
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060820/NEWS0107/6082003 40/0/NEWS01

The study on airborne Mercury from China polluting Oregon's waterways by Dan Jaffe and his team of researchers:
http://research.uwb.edu/jaffegroup/publications/116400a.pdf

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The dangers are many fold, but two big ones that could loom in the distant or not so distant future popped out at me right off the bat.

1) They could poison the land so much and so quickly that it forces them to invade other countries, just to breathe and continue on their manufacturing binge. If they become their own market, it will be just like our cozy little land of rock-n-roll, the bomb, bowling and neon. A perfect mating of industries and a captive consumer audience, much like our post war boom, but with no limit to potential manpower or customers.

2) They could poison the planet so quickly that it tips the balance, all hell breaks loose, and bada bing, not much arable land, but not too many folks left to work it. Exports are the least of China's worries when a 600 mile an hour wind is sailing intermodal containers and boxcars through school buildings.

Either way, what keeps them our pals -- long after we handed the country in two pieces to two despots -- is our insatiable desire for stuff. It is why Wal-Mart decided, just before Christmas, that communism was good for business. Let's hope people keep the cheap crap popular, or they might go broke, and have to ask for the money they lent to our government. Happy Holidays and Red Red Redder than Red Poinsettias from your other Uncle Sam:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/12/19/2003341019

As it stands, the whole machine is out of control. American technology has been passing from our hand to their hand at an alarming rate, but without the lessons learned the hard way in the west. I think, as residents of the Pacific Rim, it would do us a world of good, if ideas were batted around to solve this growing problem. It is going to take a louder group of voices than they are used to hearing, and unfortunately, there are 1,313,973,713 of them. According to the CIA, those folks use 417 million radios to listen to 369 AM stations, 259 FM stations, and 45 shortwave outlets, that is, if they feel like going domestic.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/ch.html

If China is not presented with some consistent hard evidence that they are already affecting all of us here with pollution, and soon, the escalation is going to continue without a murmur. India hollers and they still say, "Yeah, but you live in a polluted dump." This is not true of our corner of the world. We definitely need to find out what the phrase, "Not in my Damn Backyard!" is in Chinese, show them our creeks, rivers and mountains, then, show them the door.

I am not sure if they will want to be number one. They are a rather xenophobic lot, all in all, but as good land becomes scarce, and there are condos in Mongolia, I would watch the coastline with a really big gun.

Another problem I see here is the Chinese government's ploy to control the population by allowing only one child per family, and that one child only being a boy ... for a long time they even forced selective gender abortions in order to implement this policy. Besides the obvious human rights catastrophe here, it's going to create generations more or less lost in the future. In a 2000 census, China recorded 116.9 boys to every 100 girls, a number gap that had doubled in 18 years. Some areas it's 134 to 100, boys to girls.

Now tell me that THAT isn't problematic for future generations!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=44553