Posted on 09/08/2025 11:24:37 AM PDT by EnderWiggin1970
Writing for these pages recently, Rahm Emanuel, a stalwart of the Democratic Party, asked if China could be the external threat that restores internal cohesion to American politics. It’s a good question, but Dan Wang asks an even better one in “Breakneck,” his brilliant book—equal parts gripping and depressing—about “China’s quest to engineer the future.” His question, distilled to its essence, is this: Can the success of China—with its dams and bridges, highways and high-speed rail networks, high-rise cities, world-altering factories and, increasingly, top-notch tech and military prowess—arouse or alarm America into rediscovering its soul and recovering the productive mojo that made the U.S. the most powerful nation in history?
A gloom quickly descends as we read this book. It’s hard not to conclude that the battle is already lost and that, in a generation or two, a hard-edged, hypernationalist, ruthlessly mercantilist and relentlessly revanchist China will have the world at its mercy. Mr. Wang hits us with the statistics: China has the capacity to produce 60 million cars a year out of an annual global market of 90 million; it has 100 million people working in manufacturing, as opposed to less than 13 million in the U.S.; in 2022 China had 1,800 ships under construction, compared to America’s five; by 2030 China will have 45% of the world’s industrial capacity, while the U.S. and all other high-income countries combined will muster only 38%.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I think China is a paper tiger, an empty hulk like the USSR was.
We should always be on the alert regarding this rogue and dangerous nation, but if we challenged them like Reagan did the USSR, I think China would fold just like the USSR did.
China has the capacity to produce but quality isn’t on the list.
THEN 3 RIVERS DAM BREAKS DOWN-—SO WILL THEIR REPUTATION
And yet somehow president Trump was elected with the youth and minority VOTE!
Throw that in any ignorant TDS depository face and have fun watching the reaction. Nuff said!
Just stop trade with China and ban them from America. After that I don’t really care what they do.
“ I think China would fold just like the USSR did.”
I don’t agree. The Soviet Union was a Western nation, in spite of its government. It had a Western, Christian moral base. China has completely different ideas about how things can work. Pretty much the best (worst) that would happen is a breakup of the central government into regional powers, but the Han majority has such complete control over the periphery that even that is unlikely.
I can see an economic contraction, but the government will still be there, and more or less in control.
I’m talking mainly about China’s economic condition which like the USSR is kept a tight secret.
However, we all know that nations with a totalitarian gov’t are poverty-stricken, serfdom nations.
Like the USSR, China puts all their resources into a military show, but I believe in a prolonged confrontation, there would be little to back up that show.
“but the Han majority has such complete control over the periphery that even that is unlikely.”
Wanted - Youngsters to push grandpa and grandma Han’s wheelchairs.
Abortions also murder civilizations.
bump
And why should you imagine that will happen? Isn't your comment a reflection of complacency?
What is your evidence for that statement?
People used to mock Japanese products for their cheap, poor quality in the 50's and 60's. By the 70's the US automakers were on their knees asking the US government to save them from the onslaught of superior Japanese autos. And as an automotive quality engineer I got a sweet deal on a Hyundai Sonata back when Hyundai's reputation for poor quality was lingering, but I knew from my work that they had matched or surpassed the competition.
What is your evidence for that statement?
Ever buy anything from China poor quility all the way down the line.
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