Do you guys think China would still be as big of a threat if some of the autonomous regions break off?

I don't know how much this would hurt the economy, but this is about 100 million people that could theoretically not be part of the country anymore.

It would hurt the Chinese economy as far as access to rare Earth minerals and oil resources are concerned.

Holy walls of text, Batman!

I think the reality is that China's government is unsustainable. History reflects that authoritarian states, particularly those with quasi-liberalising tendencies, don't last in the long run. In the same way that perestroika made glasnost inevitable in the Soviet Union, social liberalisation will eventually have to follow economic in China.

Why?

1) Archaic social constructs like the caste system deal massive damage to the Chinese economy. In the same way that Korean chaebol and Japanese keiretsu are slowly crumbling due to their inefficiencies and bureaucracies in a global market which more than ever rewards true competitive advantage, ancient elements of the Chinese economy will need to modernise in order for China to remain competitive. This only hasn't happened already because China has been relying on (i) cheap, primary labour, the monopoly on which is already reducing as the Chinese middle-class grows, (ii) the deflation of the yuan, which is now close to value, causing a loss of distorted currency-based advantage, and (iii) the inaccessability of China to foreigners, and of Chinese people to the outside world, which is ever decreasing with pan-global trade enterprises and companies and with an increasing need for more advanced infrastructure to modernise the Chinese economy further.

2) As already mentioned, a growing middle class tends to create pressure towards liberalising, non-extreme reforms, as they seek the same comforts that their Western counterparts have, particularly in relation to their children's opportunities.

3) The divide and disparity between coastal and inland China must be rectified if they are to prevent medium-term discontent and conflict. The only way to do this is with the above social changes and a more modern, liberal system of taxation and resource distribution. This is, in itself, social liberalisation.

Therefore, in terms of the China-US relationship, I think it will end amicably with a more liberal, democratic China. In the end, while China is happy to throw its weight against Vietnam and the Philippines, it is not in a position to take such action against the US, Japan or South Korea. China's power in its current state will always been castrated in the international arena by other regional and global players seeking to limit its power; liberalisation, in that regard, is its best and most likely path forward.

The only reason America is still at the supposed forefront of the contemporary world is because China wills it so. China practically owns the US of A, it's hardly in their interest to see anything which would hurt the US economy occur when you owe them so much from all of their FI's. If the US economy falters, they loose out. Thus, if there is any mention of said wars it would only be due to the old fears of 'reds under the bed' being revisited by Americans who fear the transition of power.

Would you care to explain how China "practically owns" the USA?

If you'll notice i chose my words carefully earlier when I said 'practically', in that if the US has any economic sense they would not dare to make a move against a country to whom they owe so much to.

China’s huge accumulation of US dollars gives it the sway to lead the United States by the nose. However that's not to say that China completely dominates the US, it just means they hold in their hands the power to decide the economic future of America should they choose to do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apXQurhB ... re=related

As the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, China owns a surplus of more than $1.2 trillion in bills, notes and bonds (according to the US Treasury).

In total, China owns about 8 percent of publicly held U.S. debt. Subsequently, making China the third-largest out of all the holders of U.S. debt, behind only the Social Security Trust Fund's holdings of nearly $3 trillion and the Federal Reserve's nearly $2 trillion holdings in Treasury investments, purchased as part of its quantitative easing program to boost the economy.

To put it in perspective, China's ownership of U.S. debt far outweighs that of American households. U.S. citizens holding only about $959 billion in U.S. debt Which when compared to the holdings of $1.2 trillion by China seems almost laughable. (figures from Federal Reserve).

Not to mention the fact that if warfare did ensue, America would struggle without access to the cheap imports and exports that China provides, having opened themselves up to a free market. The US would be further crippled and most likely set of a chain of events which would affect not only America and China but the world, for 'if America sneezes the world catches a cold'.

Let's be honest - if there was a non-nuclear war, China would be shattered. The US currency would theoretically collapse with a US refusal to pay debts to China, but would almost certainly survive in practice (I doubt dollars would lose value as internal tender, at least). While the US might be upset without Nike sneakers made in China, China would be doomed by their lack of access to high-end technology, particular in military operations. China can't call their debts, in reality, because their economy is even more reliant on the US economy.

Hmm, the joys of co-dependance. Seriously if Americans didn't spend so much on a useless military and properly invested the money they borrowed they wouldn't have to worry about being reliant.


That's what their buddies down under are for hehe.

I feel as though China is much more reliant on the USA than the USA is on China.

I'm inclined to think the opposite. But hey, that's just me/

China is not the only country we get cheap imports from. If China were to lose their market share on cheap imports to America, there would be many other countries (India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Brazil) in the waiting to take China's place. As well, it may even bring some business/US made goods back to the US.

The two nations will never go on a head on war with each other.

Any potential arm conflict in my opinion would be related to Status of Taiwan, The only cases where US was prepared to goto war against China was about Taiwan. See Third Taiwan Strait Crisis where US sent an aircraft carrier to support Taiwan.

Will this happen again? Not likely, PRC's policy these days to claim Taiwan is playing politics. See the most recent Taiwan Presidential election where China literally send pro-PRC Taiwanese citizen to Taiwan to vote....buying votes literally.

Unless PRC or Taiwan appoint/elect dumber than dumb leader do not expect anything to change -including armed conflict between China and US.

As for economic power, China's reliance on US is so deep that if US default, China is screwed. PRC's dominance in Secondary Industries basically prvent them to compete against US. When they shift to Tertiary it will be different.

I wouldn't bank on that. I think the central government of China has been business-as-usual over the past decade, and they have a prerogative of governance that the Soviet Union did not have - the average Chinese person's life has been consistently improving for a long time under the current government, which has created a largely complacent majority. As an example, usage of the Chinese internet recently surpassed 300 million users, and the top three topics searched by said users were love and relationships, beauty and fashion, and the stock market.

Additionally, the concept that authoritarian regimes, including the subclass of hybrid regimes, are short-lasting or transitional is entirely incorrect. Some of the most esteemed and field-changing researchers of comparative politics, such as Alan Siaroff, actually made note that there are more authoritarian regimes in the world right now, and historically, than there are totalitarian or democratic regimes, and they are often more pervasive and long-lasting than democratic regimes, which are not nearly as permanent as you would expect either.



Now you're misunderstanding China entirely. Their traditional caste system has already been flipped on its head twice in the past 70 years, and is no longer culturally embedded. The inequalities in Chinese society don't run down lines of any sort of traditional caste, but rather along lines of Hukou - legal household registration (urban versus rural), which is a measure the central government put in only to try and slow down the massive wave of urbanization the country is struggling with. Hukou is already one of China's biggest struggles, but it is nothing like you're making it out to be, since there is still considerable mobility in Chinese society when you compare it to chaebol and keiretsu.



The growth of the middle class will be a lesson for China, but I don't think it's necessarily regime-breaking. The renminbi, however, is nowhere near close to value - where are you getting that information?

The current exchange rate is $1USD = ~6.34RMB, whereas the real purchasing power of 1 USD is still at about 3.5RMB.



The assumption that their quality of life is inherently tied to their regime type is a pretty big one, in this case, particularly since, as I mentioned, the quality of life in China has been skyrocketing in the past 20 years already.



I disagree entirely. China's development is internally funded, while development of the United States is entirely dependent on the cruel irony of borrowing money from those poorer than them.

The average Chinese person saves as much as 1/3 of their income, while the average American is banking a net-loss (they owe more than they save) right at the moment.

I actually agree more with CrownedClown's characterization of the current situation as co-dependent. China uses this wealth to willingly buff up its USD reserves and invest in the United States to stimulate demand for its own goods, but breaking the cycle in the United States would result in temporary economic collapse of a magnitude perhaps even greater than the 2008 crisis. The magnitude of the economic reforms we're going to necessarily see in the United States in the coming years is at least as great as what we're going to see in China, economically and socially.

While I think you're completely mistaken on plenty of your points, however, I agree that we're going to see a lot of social liberalisation in China, which is likely to prevent conflict with the western world before it even happens - but I think you're running under the assumption that we haven't already seen a lot. Take into consideration the Chinese response to the 2003 SARS epidemic - while the central government was perfectly willing to restrict the flow of information within China, they were forced to alter their response based on the growth of information accessibility within China. Now, a state-enforced method of discourse exists in China that would have been unimagineable in 1995.

Similarly, within the years since then, communities in Xiamen and Shaanxi have strongarmed their provincial governments to take action on the location of a polluting chemical factory and a child labour scandal, respectively. The action taken in both of these scenarios was started in blogs on the internet which were largely inaccessible to the Chinese people as recently as 2001. Both cases and their responses represented assimilative change within provincial governments in China.

China's current government is not "unsustainable" because they are following an east-Asian bureaucratic authoritarian model, which accounts for gradual change within its own framework. My hope for China is that the central government has enough foresight to adopt a system of fiscal federalism, and for accountability within individual regional governments to continue increasing, but I don't perceive any substantial reforms of the central government within the foreseeable future.

However, if you look at which authoritarian regimes last, it's those with cultural uniformity AND a superior unifying entity, such as a strict dictator or strict state-imposed religion. China, with neither, is in my opinion more comparable to the Soviet Union than any other dictatorship in history, though they have shown that they can stretch economic reform further without social reform. I more meant, anyway, that reform is likely to come from the upper-middle class and those more involved in business.


Okay, you're right - I totally muddled this point which was really two separate points. On the one hand, from what I've read of Hukou, it remains fairly restrictive and particularly damaging in areas like education and healthcare. The other point really dealt with the bureaucratic inefficiency of a "Communist" dictatorship which is comparable to, and in fact, worse than, chaebol and keiretsu at suppressing growth.


By the Economist's latest analysis, they don't think that the renminbi is overtly undervalued; the 40% devaluation usually picked up on reflects an inability of the Big Mac Index (or similar indexes) to fully take into account differences in real purchasing power between countries.


For some people. As with all such regimes, there is a group of people who benefit and a group of people who, by virtue of being less valuable to the state, lose out (in this case, I'd imagine it's those in rural areas). What's more, I feel that there is a clear link between economic freedom and a desire to have greater choice in one's social life.


I'll bullet-point this stuff:

- While China largely funds internal development, a combination of trade tariffs and subsidies mean that a huge amount of the industry that they're building suffers from a total lack of global competitive advantage. That means that if they lose their current trade deals and are forced to open up trade, some of their businesses will inevitably collapse or require bailouts. That said, I agree that co-dependence is the best way to view the situation - I just feel that it weighs slightly in the opposite direction.

- I absolutely agree that we've seen a lot of social liberalisation, and I didn't mean to suggest that we'd see the whole regime collapse a la the Soviets. I merely wanted to point out that economic liberalisation tends to lead to social liberalisation, which in turn has a tendency to snowball, as, I think, the examples you've mentioned reflect (holding Party officials accountable for instance). As we've seen in the Arab Spring dictatorships, and in states such as Franco's Spain, moderate lines are very dangerous for authoritarian dictatorships; hard-line oppression has always been the only way that dictatorships are able to cling to power for long periods of time. Perhaps China will break that characterisation, but given the propensity for social change to lead to more social change, I'm willing to say that we'll see significantly more liberalisation in the years to come.

I'm not sure the comparison between China and the Soviet Union is particularly solvent. While China boasts a wealth of cultural diversity, empirically speaking, still more than 90% of all Chinese people belong to a single ethnic group, bound together by a very unifying perception of their own culture as strongly alternative to any democratic equivalent. The guiding ideology is no longer as detailed as it was under Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, but I think I need to explain my conception of authoritarianism.

Alan Siaroff, Juan J. Linz, and Alfred Stepan, when they were writing, already distinguished authoritarian regimes from totalitarian, post-totalitarian, sultanistic, and theocratic regimes based on their lack of a strict dictator or a state-imposed religion, so the analysis of the pervasiveness of authoritarian regimes already takes that into account. Consider Singapore, which has existed on a cosmetically unaltered regime for ten years longer than the birth of the existing order in China (which I would define as Deng Xiaoping's introduction of a controlled market economy in China).

For a historical example, consider that Britain itself, and many of its individual colonies (including Canadian colonies) operated under an authoritarian regime (by today's standards) for centuries at a time during their development with little real cultural cohesion and no strict dictator. Certainly things are moving faster in China's development, but I don't see any evidence of a breaking point at this time.



Direct currency trading and blooming free trade agreements with China have meant a general revaluation in China's currency, but I'm not sure how I feel about their analysis. The renminbi's exchange is still a very controlled float, and its purchasing power is still domestically pumped up quite significantly. I think trying to pit this year's competing analyses against each other would just be splitting hairs at this point, though.



Certainly, on both points, but the nature of China's regime at this point is such that I don't believe people in the middle class in more developed areas of the country feel socially oppressed in any important measure - at least, not by the government, but rather by the cultural attitudes of people around them.

I think you're not really unpacking the idea that China's current regime is restricting real growth, however. Do you mean to say that China's immense rate of economic growth and development could be even greater under a more liberal (and very possibly less adaptive, if you take a look at India or the United States) regime? Moreover, in a country that's already trying to fight against globally unprecedented externalities of development, is that really what anyone wants?

You're right on the mark that China loses competitive advantage in certain industries via tariffs and subsidisation, and that those industries would collapse in a totally free market, but this behaviour is hardly so characteristic of an authoritarian or even communist regime type. Canada does exactly the same thing, and so do many other developed and capitalist countries. Deregulation of these industries in China would do nothing for their own producers, so I'm not sure who's supposed to be demanding changes in this area.

The two characteristics of Chinese governance which I believe are likely to spell business-as-usual are that, first, even though development in China has certainly been picking favourites (along the urban areas in China's east, specifically), it differs from countries like the Soviet Union in that even the bottom line has been empirically dragged up so significantly by this development all the same. China is perhaps the only success story of the Millennium Development Goals, as their poorest continue to become gradually wealthier and more literate than fifteen or twenty years ago. Secondly, China's regime is not quite as restrictive as most Arab Spring countries, for instance, because typical Chinese structures of social relationships and cultural attitudes towards meritocracy mean that playing a part in the governance of the current, unchanged system is very attainable for their middle class - perhaps even just as attainable as it is for the middle class of the United States.

This is why I think that the entire attitude of this thread is completely off the mark. When I was mingling with university students in Hangzhou and Yiwu, I could be reasonably sure that these were the kind of people who are the next generation of Chinese governance, and they were far from anti-western. In fact, I felt far more welcome in Shanghai, Yiwu, and Hangzhou than I did in Houston, Miami, or San Francisco.



Somehow, I don't think the people who wrote these sticky notes (most of the ones written in Chinese are things like messages of love, friendship, or birthday wishes) in a mall in Guangzhou are the people we're most likely to go to war with in the next decade or two (I know you're in the anti-war camp, but this is directed at the thread in general).

For the rest of your points, however, I think we've hit a point of insolubility, and I can't really fault what you're arguing.

You know, there always is that rather pesky issue of the bonds issued by China prior to World War II (that carried the explicit promise of repayment by any successor states) that the People's Republic of China is in no rush to discuss...



Just felt it necessary to pint out that people in the Weimar Republic were rather friendly and forward thinking as well. I'm not saying that the Chinese are evil, I am however pointing out that even the friendliest of people may not be so friendly tomorrow.

That's true. Nations were much more insular back then, however, so it was easier for things to swing back in the opposite direction when economic hardship became too much, and in all fairness there was a good decade and a half of Weimar Republic before it all went to hell (which is still consistent with my timeline).

Also, as a quick addendum, the Weimar Republic still continued Germany down the path of forced sterilization and euthanasia based on selected undesirable traits, something which was unheard of and considered shocking in most non-protestant countries in the world, so I guess it always depends what portfolio you're considering them on.

Ah, see, I was looking at authoritarian regimes as distinct from totalitarian regimes, but which nevertheless have a central point of authority and often use culture and religion as tools with which to control and immobilise the populace.

I'd also note that a comparison with British colonies is hardly apt - they face totally different challenges, such as a lack of communication (let alone instantaneous, global communication) and were not surrounded by a world full of burgeoning, liberal democracies.


Agreed.


Rather, I think that a liberalised economy and society would produce similar growth, albeit better growth, based on sound infrastructure and genuine competitive advantage, as opposed to what I would term sham-growth, which will not hold up in the long run and will need to be replaced with a genuine, effective economy.


And I agree. I don't think that there's any real chance of a US-China War, or a war between China and any major power, in the near future. I think that as this generation, who are used to social networking and seeing the outside world, grow up, they will naturally bring with them social liberalisation. I think that will pave a path to even greater cooperation with China and ultimately, with the downfall of the single-party state, as almost inevitably happens when social liberalisation occurs.

Oh, I don't mean between British colonies, I mean in individual British colonies. True, it was an entirely different era, but the colony of Upper Canada/Canada East/Ontario alone was very heterogeneous in its population base, and went without responsible local government for the better part of 100 years.

China is going to boil over once the current economic boom is over and its stuck in the middle income trap. People will start to demand greater freedoms... (like non-censoring of the internet for example. I don't think even GTF is allowed in China)...in order to improve their lives and keep up the momentum of change that was initiated by the economic boom times.