[Cronos]

Japan, which has the second-largest GDP of any nation on earth

That's not correct. As of 2003, the top 10 countries ranked by GDP are:
Nation per capita

1. United States $10 trillion
2. China $6t
3. Japan $3.65t
4. India $2.664t
5. Germany $2.16t
6. France $1.588
7. United Kingdom $1.528
8. Italy $1.455
9. Russia $1.409
10. Brazil $1.3765

As per cia.gov.

[Jeff Head]

Thanks for that info...I thought China was at least on the verge of becoming number two...now it looks like they are far and away and solidly in the number two position based on those numbers.

[vanmorrison]

I stand corrected. China has, indeed, overtaken Japan as the second-largest GDP in the world, although very recently, particularly with the annexation of Hong Kong.

In validating your figures, however, I discovered some other interesting considerations. For example, Japan has a larger GDP than France and Germany combined. In addition, look at the powers arrayed against China, that is, the combined GDPs just of the "Coalition of the Willing". That is:

US 10.6T, Japan 3.7T, UK 1.5T, Italy 1.5T, South Korea 1.0T, Australia 0.5T, The Netherlands 0.5T, Taiwan 0.4T, The Philippines 0.4T, Poland 0.4T, Romania 0.2T, The Czech Republic 0.2T, Denmark 0.2T, Israel 0.1T, Singapore 0.1T, and various and sundry others, totalling over 21.3T.

Then, if you throw the "Axis of Weasels" together, you get:

Germany 2.2T, France 1.6T, Russia 1.4T, Brazil 1.4T, and other assorted misbegotten third-world hell-holes totalling about 6.6T.

Let's assume that the Europhiles are lousy and unreliable allies. This doesn't give the Red Chinese any warm and fuzzies, when they consider the forces arrayed against them.

Finally, India 2.7T, can be considered an implacable enemy of the Chinese, when the chips are down.

I agree that the Chinese of today are no more formidable than the Soviet Union was during its heyday. I remember being told for years that the USSR was every bit as powerful as the US was by the CIA. It came to pass, however, that the USSR was a basketcase. I don't believe that the CIA didn't know this; I believe they did know and misrepresented that facts for military appropriations reasons. The maintain that the same is true today.