Posted on 01/26/2007 8:42:42 PM PST by aculeus
There is almost no chance that China will become the world's hegemonic superpower, or that the Chinese yuan will dislodge the US dollar as the key reserve currency in our life-times.
It is ageing faster than any nation in history. Indeed, there is a risk that China’s demographic structure will implode long before the great mass of China’s interior ever become rich. This was more or less the conclusion of a closed-door session of Chinese experts at the Davos gathering, regrettably on “Chatham House” rules so none can be named.
Those who fret about Chinese chauvinist-militarism certainly have a point. The Chinese navy now has 50 state-of-the-art attack submarines, the spearhead of an offensive maritime force.
Beijing has just smashed an old weather satellite with a highly accurate kinetic missile, mounting an implicit challenge to America’s space monopoly. It has whipped up anti-Japanese feeling, and indoctrinated a whole generation of school children with revanchist beliefs.
The central bank commands reserves of over $1,000bn, the greatest ever seen. It could soon be in a position to trigger a US financial crisis by off-loading its vast holding of US bonds, though that would rebound violently against China herself.
Veiled threats might achieve some purpose, however, and that is how successful superpowers operate.
Yet, as soon as you crunch the demographics you can see that all this is never really going to amount to much. The one child policy has doomed China’s imperial dream. The ratio of males to females born in China in 2005 was 118.6 to 100.
The experts warned that the policy is already creating a huge cohort of unmarried men, a tinderbox for social conflict. The extended family structure has broken down because scarcely any Chinese now have cousins.
The country will catch the European disease of worker shortages within a decade, and then slither even faster down the demographic curve. By 2050, 31pc will be aged over 65.
There is no social security system worth the name. Its funding is just $40bn, a pittance. The state will have to step in to prevent social protest, causing the national debt to mushroom.
China’s surplus will vanish in no time.
In the end, there will be a “suicide epidemic” as the older generation carries out a heroic sacrifice, like the proverbial Eskimos on the ice.
Such are the predictions of those who have explored the theme, not mine. A useful antidote to all the hyper-ventilating we hear these days over China’s new ascendancy.
Polygamy in Arabia predates Islam*. Muhammad actually curtailed the practice by limiting the number of wives permitted to observant Muslims to 4. * Actually, throughout history, polygamy has been the rule outside of the West - most non-Western countries that do not allow polygamy are bucking their own historical traditions in favor of Western legal codes.
Here.
Force reductions and selective new equipment acquisitions are creating a more mobile, combat-ready core within the larger ground force. Since the mid-1990s, the army has shrunk from about 100 divisions to approximately 50, with many of the units downsizing to brigades.
ping
I agree with your overall assessment, but I think its already too late for the West, the USA included. It will not be a surprise within twenty years to see a reverse "brain drain" begin from Europe and the USA to China and India. The USA's current world preeminence was built on values and societal energies that no longer exist in much of the country - and the lone bright spot, our technological innovation, is not something we have all to ourselves. The fumbling at NASA and the lack of corporate interest in private space ventures is a good metaphor for our whole economic/military edifice. Like the Romans, we'll ride the crest of the wave for a while longer, then the end will come. I hope for a slow fade and a gradual realignment of powers rather than the end Rome suffered, but that's hard to predict.
Among the Chinese people I know, the elites are, as you say, extraordinarily self-confident bordering on arrogant, while the "little people" are extraordinarily deferential and self-effacing toward their betters. Looks like an American liberal's dream culture. ;)
While they have every reason to be pissed off at the Japanese, they have 4X-6X the reasons to be pissed off at their Red leasdership.
But their government doesn't let them talk about that, I presume.
Or a ready supply of military manpower.
This presumes that the CCP will not find other "uses" for all of those extra men, and do so in a very nationalistic way. I would not count on that.
None the less, the Muslims practice polygamy while Western nations do not. China doesn't either. Who else besides Muslims are polygamous today?
Long ago, we had a Japanese-American as part of a deployment team to Korea.
He didn't like it but he always had two others with him except when we were working directly with counterparts.
(And he had in-laws in Seoul)
The Japanese probably get along with westerners much better than with other Asians - and they can be prickly over here.
And, a note to another FR'pr, japan took to western technology WAY faster than any other Asian state:
Think Russo-Japanese war.
You're missing the point. Muslims were more war-like after Islam than before. It has nothing to do with polygamy, which was restricted to 4 wives max after Islam became the religion of the Arabs. Europe has been monogamous throughout most of its history, which consists of an unending series of brutal wars that repeatedly resisted any attempts to weld a coherent whole out of the region. By contrast, most of polygamous Asia has been relatively peaceful over the millenia despite the presence of large numbers of unattached males, which is why empires managed to reign for such long periods of time, in stark contrast to the warlike European states, which resisted any attempts to "unify" them, and fought wars of religion, ethnicity - any old reason would do.
I should have written: Arabs were more war-like after Islam than before.
Very interesting points throughout this thread.
The U.S. reaped the rewards of capitalism rooted in individual freedom. You would have to argue this system outpaced any other in history. Can we sustain it in light of new factors that threaten the American experiment?
China appears to be a centrally controlled economy that benefits the state over the individual with a sprinkling of capitalism. Can those two co-exist? At some point does the individual become bigger than the government in China?
How much do you think corruption will rear it's ugly head as China's wealth grows?
Thank you.
Won't deny what you posted but my theory is that in arid areas and when you deal with nomads, polygamy leads to a class of unmarried men who want war and conquest to get wives and sex slaves. Not so with the settled rice farming cultures you mention. But Genghis Khan's armies and the Muslims armies would fit into my theory
"Warriors of the Steppe" http://www.amazon.com/Warriors-Steppe-Military-History-D/dp/1885119437
You forgot Communist Chinese killed tens of millions of their own people in the 2nd half of 20th century. That's 10,000 times worst than the Japanese.
"The party has decided that rapid increases in population leads to violent revolt. It is far easier to kill the babies before they are born, than to fight the adults once they have grown up. That's all there is to it."
*** Are you serious? The "party" has "decided", that says it all. What a bunch of stupid idots. I'm just so so sad that China has to suffer this terrible disaster......
Well, the government has its cadres forcibly abort second children, while saying that China (despite having only 1/5 Taiwan's population density) is overpopulated. You can draw a variety of conclusions from that statement. My conclusion is that they fear economic problems from population expansion accompanied by violent revolt - all as a result of their incompetence. Easier to just dispose of the babies in the womb rather than have to fight the adults. Note that no other country has a policy of forced abortion. They're not stupid at all, just ruthless. Their area of competence lies chiefly in acquiring and hanging on to power.
...." Their area of competence lies chiefly in acquiring and hanging on to power."....
This says it all. Aman!
Well, here is one nation that needs "Gay marriage"
For years there was a stubborn Japanese *massacre denial*. The Japanese people were barely aware of the Nanking incident and for years they seemed very intent in denying the whole thing ever happened.
After a couple of very disturbing books were written, such as Iris Chang in The Rape of Nanking and What Really Happened in Nanking by Tanaka Masaaka, there was a lot of pressure brought upon Japan to apologize. The photos and details made it clear that Japan could no longer pretend the atrocities never happened.
What I think might have been one of the first official acknowledgments of the wrongdoing, was made by Murayama in 1995, in the following *general* apology:
“During a certain period in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and, through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations.”
Aside from a very *specific* apology, and reparations, the people of China want Japan to correctly teach what happened in the Japanese schools. It is presently referenced as the NanKing *incident* where *many* people died. One cannot deny that the Japanese have censored the real story in Japanese textbooks.
Chinese empire-builders have, in their time, carried out atrocities every bit as brutal as the Japanese
You are using the “everyone does it” defense here .. and it is not an honest defense. This defense is an obvious attempt to neutralize Japan's personal responsibility, by spreading the blame. Why is it necessary to hold Japan up to the *WORST* things that others have done, in order to make what Japan did, seem more acceptable?
I think the Japanese are at the point where they're done apologizing, and aptly so.
That's a rather high-handed attitude, in view of the years of denial and censorship of the facts in Japan. Further, it seems to imply that it is the Japanese who are the victims in all of this.
But getting back to the point .. I think we can both agree that there is rising anti-Japanese sentiment in China stemming from what the Chinese deem as unresolved war issues .. and it has the potential to get out of hand.
That was my whole point to begin with.
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