Why should we care if china become a world power?

[Benzoate]

Who cares if china a super power? If t the United States focuses more on defending it national borders instead placing its armed forces in other countries, then we should not worry about another nation invading and taken over our country. Whats wrong with just being a 2nd rate world power? Canada is not a superpower and no other country has tried to invade it; in addition , I believe their education system for math and science is rated in the top ten among nations in the world along with Japan. I would like to hear your thoughts.

 

[russ_watters]

Canada is a member of NATO and they know if anyone messes with them, we'll jump to their aid. No western country is worried about being invaded and taken over. That just isn't the way the world works anymore.

The poblem with China being a superpower is similar to the problem with North Korea, for example, being a superpower (a more extreme example). If their social/political development does not advance far enough for them to be responsible with their power, they become a threat. And I don't just mean a military one. And I don't just mean an external threat. While their development is helping their people somewhat, their development is also taking place at the expense of their people and their environment.

 

[Benzoate]

There I think lies the problem. I don't think its a good idea for other countries to rely on one country to defend them if another country decides to take over. They should be developing there own defenses . What if we stop being friends with Canada? Then they would not be able to defend themselves if china decided they wanted to conquer Canada? I think the reasons why the United States may have potential enemies is because of our foreign policy. Our only purpose should be when communicating with other nations would be to trade with other nations, Not fight diseases plagueing nations or establishing democracies in other nations.

 

[Economist]

While their development is helping their people somewhat, their development is also taking place at the expense of their people and their environment.

What do you mean here? I think to state that their development is "helping their people somewhat" is a gross underestimate. Also, what do you mean "at the expense of their people?" I have heard that China's development has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, which to be sure is no small feat. How has hundreds of millions of people raising out of poverty hurt the others? I'm pretty sure that the others have not gotten poorer because some of their neighbors have become richer. Now, with the environmental issue I think you have a point, because their development has had some negative effects on the environment. However, there is definitely a trade-off to be made because it is unlikely that they would have economic growth anywhere near what they have under much stricter environmental regulation. So in some sense we're forced to ask, is their negative effect on the environment "worth" it considering that so many human beings have been lifted out of grinding poverty? Now, this is a value judgement so you could go either way. I tend to believe that it is/was definitely worth it, because many people have been helped. Furthermore, as nations develop and escape poverty, they are in a much better position to innovate and develop the technologies and equipment which will reduce pollution. I really can't blame impoverished nations when their people want to raise out of poverty, even if it means that they will be increasing their "carbon footprint." Sometimes I think it's hypocritical when people from industrialized nations criticize development on environmental grounds.

In regards to the OP, I've noticed that sometimes people tend to worry about China becoming an Economic Superpower. I know this is not exactly what you were talking about, but I would like to discuss it briefly. Often times people tend to worry about China's economic progress because they think it will decrease our standard of living. This idea stems from a common economic fallacy that there is a "fixed-pie" to be divided up among all people. This fallacy implies that the world is a zero-sum game, and that one person's gain comes at another person's expense. In reality nothing could be further from the truth, as people prosper by creating wealth.

As P.J. O'Rourke states when summarizing Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations."

Smith's logical demonstration of how productivity is increased through self-interest, division of labor, and trade disproved the thesis (still dearly held by leftists and everyone's little brother) that bettering the condition of one person necessarily worsens the condition of another. Wealth is not a pizza. If I have too many slices, you don't have to eat the Domino's box.

By proving that there was no fixed amount of wealth in a nation, Smith also proved that a nation cannot be said to have a certain horde of treasure. Wealth must be measured by the volume of trades in goods and services — what goes on in the castle's kitchens and stables, not what's locked in strongboxes in the castle's tower. Smith specifies this measurement in the first sentence of his introduction to The Wealth of Nations: "The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes." Smith thereby, in a stroke, created the concept of gross domestic product. Without GDP modern economists would be left with nothing much to say, standing around mute in ugly neckties, waiting for MSNBC to ask them to be silent on the air.

If wealth is all ebb and flow, then so is its measure, money. Money has no intrinsic value. Any baby who's eaten a nickel could tell you so. And those of us old enough to have heard about the Weimar Republic and to have lived through the Carter administration are not pained by the information. But eighteenth-century money was still mostly made of precious metals. Smith's observations on money must have been slightly disheartening to his readers, although they had the example of bling-deluged but impoverished Spain to confirm what he said. Gold is, well, worth its weight in gold, certainly, but not so certainly worth anything else. It was almost as though Smith, having proved that we can all have more money, then proved that money doesn't buy happiness. And it doesn't. It rents it.

My point is that China's economic progress is great for the people of China, and it does not harm those of us who do not live in China (in fact, China's economic progress is probably good for most of us).

 

[DrClapeyron]

Canada is a member of the British Empire and is bordered by the US and there have been at least a few occassions within 100 years when someone has tried to invade Canada. But I understand your argument.

Protecting the border is very a broad scoped definition of national defense because the border is a separation between neighboring states not an end to national interests. If a country has business interests across an ocean the country has the right to defend its interests there. The days of empires waging war against nations to collect tribute are long gone, today's economic powers wage war as a last resort to protect economic activity.

 

[Benzoate]

Canada is a member of the British Empire th and is bordered by the US and there have been at least a few occassions within 100 years when someone has tried to invade Canada. But I understand your argument.

Protecting the border is very a broad scoped definition of national defense because the border is a separation between neighboring states not an end to national interests. If a country has business interests across an ocean the country has the right to defend its interests there. The days of empires waging war against nations to collect tribute are long gone, today's economic powers wage war as a last resort to protect economic activity.

Are you going to say protecting our economic interests means waging war against another country ang killing hundreds of people simply to gain control of certain capital , then that's not in line with our basic fundamental civil liberties that every person is born with. There are more countries to trade who are willing to share there resources with us.

 

[DrClapeyron]

Here in the US when a law is broken a criminal is caught he is placed on trial convicted and then given punishment. This applies equally to international theory. The case for NATO has been made.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

No western country is worried about being invaded and taken over. That just isn't the way the world works anymore.

The days of empires waging war against nations to collect tribute are long gone,

Unless you're an Iraqi. Though I do agree that NATO is responsible for some of the safety of Canada, as would be things like the British Commonwealth. Remember, Canadians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812" at one point and burned Washington to the ground.

I have to agree with Economist that any downsides to economic development in China are insignificant next to the benefits, considering how many tens or hundreds of millions of people there died from poverty, famine, and wars that were to some degree a consequence of economic instability during the last century.

The way I think China will be a ‘threat’ is economically and culturally rather than militarily, as the economic mass and inertia of China make it more and more dominant in the world (due to its per capita GDP catching up with the first world) and the U.S. continues to wane in power and importance, thank you Mr. Bush for pushing us off the cliff - sort of the way that the Japanese own much of Hawaii and many street signs there are now in Japanese. The same thing will probably happen with India and Brazil. But it's only a ‘threat’ in that Americans will have to experience international relations the same way everyone else does.

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[BadDog]

What if we stop being friends with Canada? Then they would not be able to defend themselves if china decided they wanted to conquer Canada? .

A good friendship with Canada or not, would the US sit back and watch China take over our northern border, I think not and Canada knows it .
But maybe the US should allow it, just think of all the cheap labor and new language the US could bring in from it’s north to make it an even greater country .

 

[CaptainQuasar]

A good friendship with Canada or not, would the US sit back and watch China take over our northern border, I think not and Canada knows it .

Uh, anyone been to the Vancouver area lately? It's just a liiiitlebit Chinese. Maybe we'll have to send the http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Militi_71/4563_71.htm" up there to deal with things.

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[thinkies]

Greed for power never ceased in any century, nor it will ever in the future.

 

[thinkies]

There I think lies the problem. I don't think its a good idea for other countries to rely on one country to defend them if another country decides to take over. They should be developing there own defenses . What if we stop being friends with Canada? Then they would not be able to defend themselves if china decided they wanted to conquer Canada? I think the reasons why the United States may have potential enemies is because of our foreign policy. Our only purpose should be when communicating with other nations would be to trade with other nations, Not fight diseases plagueing nations or establishing democracies in other nations.

China would never want to conquer Canada...=.=.There's something called international relationship and I believe we are not that bad regarding political and business affair with China. ;)

 

[drankin]

If China invaded Canada (militarily, immigration is a diff story), the US would see that as a strategic threat to the US. It would threaten our pipeline from Alaska and transit to and from Alaska. We have an immense military presence in Alaska (I grew up next to several bases up there). It's not going to happen. I think it's kind of silly to even consider it.

 

[thinkies]

If China invaded Canada (militarily, immigration is a diff story), the US would see that as a strategic threat to the US. It would threaten our pipeline from Alaska and transit to and from Alaska. We have an immense military presence in Alaska (I grew up next to several bases up there). It's not going to happen. I think it's kind of silly to even consider it.

Good point...

 

[falc39]

One possible problem is the change to the standard of living. China's standard of living for its citizens will go way up. Chances are that will probably mean ours will go down, not really sure by how much though. But the thing is, disregarding China, we are shooting ourselves in the foot economically speaking anyway.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

If China invaded Canada (militarily, immigration is a diff story), the US would see that as a strategic threat to the US. It would threaten our pipeline from Alaska and transit to and from Alaska. We have an immense military presence in Alaska (I grew up next to several bases up there). It's not going to happen.

Yes, we would respond the way Iran would have responded to an invasion of Iraq, if it had possessed nuclear weapons. Which is why we don't want Iran to gain that deterrent - we want other countries tiptoeing around us, not the other way around.

China will probably avoid direct military confrontation with any state that possesses nuclear weapons.

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[ShawnD]

Who cares if china a super power?

China does not have the checks and balances other nations have. There is no media to mock the leader. There are no people to protest. There isn't even political opposition because they only have 1 party. With a political system that doesn't allow disagreement, having some military and money to backup stupid ideas is very dangerous.

 

[Hurkyl]

One possible problem is the change to the standard of living. China's standard of living for its citizens will go way up. Chances are that will probably mean ours will go down

Why?

 

[ShawnD]

Why?

People who don't understand economics think money is zero sum.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

With a political system that doesn't allow disagreement, having some military and money to backup stupid ideas is very dangerous.

God bless the USA, where military-and-money-backed stupid ideas can at least be disagreed with at least once every four years!

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[gravenewworld]

China will never become a superpower until it does something about the enormous amounts of poverty and pollution rampant in its country. Has anyone here ever even been to China? I have been and I don't think I have seen such horrendous and deplorable living conditions for so many people before. The pollution in China is also unbelievable. Millions of Chinese don't have access to clean water and more and more Chinese land is becoming arid from over farming and pollution. China faces the risk of having a severe famine and hundred of thousands of deaths from undrinkable water. This could lead to a destabilization of the government if enough Chinese residents start to revolt against all of the corrupt local and federal government leaders in China that get paid kickbacks to allow industrial factories to continue to dump massive amounts of toxic waste in the waterways and on land near farmers.

 

[ShawnD]

God bless the USA, where military-and-money-backed stupid ideas can at least be disagreed with at least once every four years!

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Having the dictator change every 4 years is better than never changing it

 

[falc39]

Why?

China right now is providing for our standard of living. This could soon change if our economy keeps spiraling down. If they are freed from the burden, then they can actually start producing for themselves, and their standards of living will rise accordingly. As their savings finance increased capital investment, rather than being squandered on American consumption, their future standards of living will rise much faster as well.

Money itself is not sum zero, but goods are. The central banks can print money however they like, but they can't make goods appear from thin air. For example, if one country is using 50% of the world's current oil supply, then that means the rest of the world has to share the other 50%. China's increased purchasing power from their booming economy will allow them to get more of the share of the worlds exported goods while we will eventually have to come to terms with our debt. Not rocket science.

I'm not saying that America will be a third-world country or anything, but do expect a shift in the standard of living.

 

[CaptainQuasar]

China will never become a superpower until it does something about the enormous amounts of poverty and pollution rampant in its country.

The Soviet Union had tons of poverty and pollution and they were a superpower no prob. China has nukes and their own space program already, dude. Soon they may have their own http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMPASS_navigation_system" . And they're just getting started.

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[CaptainQuasar]

China's standard of living for its citizens will go way up. Chances are that will probably mean ours will go down, not really sure by how much though.

Why?

China will compete with us for all of the scarce and limited resources in the world such as petroleum, timber, and steel. Consequently the prices of those resources will go up.

China is very efficient and successful at producing a wide variety of consumer and industrial products and is a major source globally for those products. As their standard of living increases the average wage in terms of real $ / yuan will increase and as a result Chinese products will become more expensive. Unless another location that can produce said products with lower wages is found, the prices of those products in the U.S. will rise.

As China's industrial and business acumen increases U.S. businesses that compete globally may face incursions from Chinese companies into their markets, reducing revenue and profits for U.S. businesses.

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[BobG]

What do you mean here? I think to state that their development is "helping their people somewhat" is a gross underestimate. Also, what do you mean "at the expense of their people?" I have heard that China's development has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, which to be sure is no small feat. How has hundreds of millions of people raising out of poverty hurt the others? I'm pretty sure that the others have not gotten poorer because some of their neighbors have become richer. Now, with the environmental issue I think you have a point, because their development has had some negative effects on the environment. However, there is definitely a trade-off to be made because it is unlikely that they would have economic growth anywhere near what they have under much stricter environmental regulation. So in some sense we're forced to ask, is their negative effect on the environment "worth" it considering that so many human beings have been lifted out of grinding poverty? Now, this is a value judgement so you could go either way. I tend to believe that it is/was definitely worth it, because many people have been helped. Furthermore, as nations develop and escape poverty, they are in a much better position to innovate and develop the technologies and equipment which will reduce pollution. I really can't blame impoverished nations when their people want to raise out of poverty, even if it means that they will be increasing their "carbon footprint." Sometimes I think it's hypocritical when people from industrialized nations criticize development on environmental grounds.

In regards to the OP, I've noticed that sometimes people tend to worry about China becoming an Economic Superpower. I know this is not exactly what you were talking about, but I would like to discuss it briefly. Often times people tend to worry about China's economic progress because they think it will decrease our standard of living. This idea stems from a common economic fallacy that there is a "fixed-pie" to be divided up among all people. This fallacy implies that the world is a zero-sum game, and that one person's gain comes at another person's expense. In reality nothing could be further from the truth, as people prosper by creating wealth.

As P.J. O'Rourke states when summarizing Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations."


My point is that China's economic progress is great for the people of China, and it does not harm those of us who do not live in China (in fact, China's economic progress is probably good for most of us).

World wealth may not be a zero sum game, but it's not an infinite sum game either.

The trade off between pollution and raising the standard of living for people in China is definitely worth it for China. It doesn't help the average person in the US.

We're already seeing the effects of jobs moving overseas. That job movement does wonders for the less rich nations of the world, and it doesn't seem to hurt our economy overall. It does have a negative effect on the standard of living of a large segment of the US population, ranging from outright loss of jobs to slower raising wages (relative to inflation). Raising the wealth of other nations also raises the competition for resources, including raising the price of fuel. The increase in the number of factories and use of energy also increases the world's pollution levels.

I don't think the world could currently support every nation consuming at the same rate as the US (#1 in per capita consumption) or polluting at the same rate as the US (#3 in pollution per capita). Considering the disparity of wealth between China and the US, you could probably get away with saying it would be more fair for the US to suffer a slower increase in their quality of life for a while and that the US should do more to reduce their pollution levels than a country like China that's trying to raise their population from a low standard of living (especially if you said that somewhere besides inside the US). However, I don't think many in the US consider raising the standard of living for the rest of the world to be worth having their own standard of living stagnate.

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2&sec=natres

 

[CaptainQuasar]

However, I don't think many in the US consider raising the standard of living for the rest of the world to be worth having their own standard of living stagnate.

Ah... those must be the people who make sure they never buy products made in China.

 

[Economist]

One possible problem is the change to the standard of living. China's standard of living for its citizens will go way up. Chances are that will probably mean ours will go down, not really sure by how much though. But the thing is, disregarding China, we are shooting ourselves in the foot economically speaking anyway.

I disagree, and I think your claims are not backed by much of the economic evidence.

The trade off between pollution and raising the standard of living for people in China is definitely worth it for China. It doesn't help the average person in the US.

Right, but I was just pointing out the benefit of their economic progress and the fact that so many people have been lifted out of poverty. Furthermore, it's easy for someone in the US to say that they don't like this tradeoff, precisely because it is not helping their standard of living as much as those who live in China.

It probably does help the average person in the US if China becomes more developed. Don't forget that the more developed countries there are, the more innovation and advancements in technology that take place which helps everyone on the planet.

We're already seeing the effects of jobs moving overseas. That job movement does wonders for the less rich nations of the world, and it doesn't seem to hurt our economy overall. It does have a negative effect on the standard of living of a large segment of the US population, ranging from outright loss of jobs to slower raising wages (relative to inflation). Raising the wealth of other nations also raises the competition for resources, including raising the price of fuel. The increase in the number of factories and use of energy also increases the world's pollution levels.

The effects of jobs moving overseas is completely overblown. First of all, people often use the statistics in misleading ways, such as pointing out the number of jobs that have been "lost" without reporting on the number of jobs that have been "created." Or someone will state that the number of manufacturing jobs in the US has decreased without pointing out that even China has seen decreases in the total number of manufacturing jobs. Second, people fail to mention how jobs moving overseas benefits us, and instead chose to only discuss the dark aspects. People often fail to mention how our high standard of living largely comes from the fact that we have relatively free-trade and are therefore allowed to buy cheaper goods and services while utilizing someone else's comparative advantage. For example, many of the people laid off because of free-trade would be very poor if they were not allowed to buy so many goods and services from abroad. This is why practicing mercantilism is not believed to be a good idea by economists. Not to mention, often these people had a job in the first place precisely because of free-trade. In other words, if they weren't exporting goods or services in the first place many of them would not have been hired.

Or as this blog article put it: http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/01/winners-and-los.html

Don argues in the book and in the podcast that to point to an American steel worker put out of work by imports of Brazilian steel and say that he is "harmed by trade" is to misunderstand the nature of trade and its winners and losers. He says it's like saying that a man whose wife leaves him for another man is harmed by love. After all, the man married because of love. The man is the product of his parents who were touched by love. So it is with the steel worker. His steel job exists because of trade. His whole life is supported by trade of various kinds. So in what sense is he "harmed by trade?"

It's a profound point. It forces you to see just how trade and specialization and the division of labor create the incredible lives we lead, lives of wealth and health unimagined by previous generations.

I don't think the world could currently support every nation consuming at the same rate as the US (#1 in per capita consumption) or polluting at the same rate as the US (#3 in pollution per capita).

You might be wrong about this. People often make this argument about there not being enough resources to go around.

Resources (even natural) are not fixed. For example, people have often pointed out that using paper uses trees. However, the assumption that there's not enough trees to go around is erroneous. It has often forgoten that one reason we have so many trees is because people use paper, so others go out and plant trees that would otherwise not exist. Sometimes people make the same argument about famine, that there's not enough food to go around. However, even in some horrible famines there has been enough food to around, but the problem was that the food did not get to were it needed to be. Likewise, 500 years ago people probably wouldn't have thought we'd have enough resources to enjoy our current standard of living.

Not to mention, even if you are right, I gaurantee there will be all sorts of innovation in the next several centuries that will allow us to do things more and more efficiently (just like we've had in the past several centuries). This will increase the amount of consumption that can be done.

However, I don't think many in the US consider raising the standard of living for the rest of the world to be worth having their own standard of living stagnate.

Good point, and I agree with you. However, this is also the reason I believe in such limited government and power. Why should the citizens of the US be allowed to decide how much citizens of China will be allowed to prosper and escape poverty? Would you trust me to make decisions that mainly effect your life?

 

[fourier jr]

China will never become a superpower until it does something about the enormous amounts of poverty and pollution rampant in its country.

Really? The United States managed to become one! Is the hypocrisy in the US really this blatant?

 

[OmCheeto]

You might be wrong about this. People often make this argument about there not being enough resources to go around.

Resources (even natural) are not fixed.

Ah. hahahhaaha! We live on a finite world.
How can resources not be fixed?

Not to mention, even if you are right, I gaurantee there will be all sorts of innovation in the next several centuries that will allow us to do things more and more efficiently (just like we've had in the past several centuries). This will increase the amount of consumption that can be done.

ah. hahahahaha! next several centuries? Have you heard of peak oil?
Can you say 50 years?

Why should the citizens of the US be allowed to decide how much citizens of China will be allowed to prosper and escape poverty? Would you trust me to make decisions that mainly effect your life?

hmmmm... I consider the Chinese my allies and brothers. We should not fear the Chinese. We should learn Cantonese. Well, at least two words.

 

[DrClapeyron]

Ah. hahahhaaha! We live on a finite world.
How can resources not be fixed?

Because you do not know what you have until it is gone.

The Chinese make pencils for students, I hardly think this makes them a world superpower.

 

[gravenewworld]

Really? The United States managed to become one! Is the hypocrisy in the US really this blatant?

I'll repeat myself again, have you even ever been to China? And I'm not talking about just to the major cities in China like Beijing, but have you ever even been to the countryside in China where people live in unbelievable squalor? No? The only reason you think that China has become a superpower is because of only what the media reports. I have passed by some of the places mention in the article below, and let me tell you it is nothing more than a hell hole on Earth.

From a WSJ article entitled

The Truth About China

The Western press is full of stories these days on China's arrival as a superpower. A steady stream of Western political and business delegations visit Beijing, confident of China's economy, which continues to grow rapidly. Investment pours in. Crowning China's new status, Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Olympics.

But after spending all of 2005 and some of 2006 traveling through China—visiting not just her teeming cities but her innermost recesses, where few Westerners go, and speaking with scores of dissidents, Communist Party officials, and everyday people -- my belief that the 21st century will not belong to the Chinese has only been reinforced. True, 200 million of China's subjects, fortunate to work for an expanding global market, are increasingly enjoying a middle-class standard of living. The remaining one billion, however, are among the poorest and most exploited people in the world, lacking even minimal rights and public services. The Party, while no longer totalitarian, is still cruel and oppressive.

Its mendacity has been fully displayed in China's AIDS crisis. The problem is gravest in Henan province, where an untold number of poor peasants contracted AIDS during the 1990s from selling their blood plasma—a process that involves having their blood drawn, pooled with other blood and then, once the plasma has been removed, put back into their bodies. China didn't conduct HIV tests and therefore ended up infecting donors by giving them back tainted blood. Victims are now reportedly dying in the hundreds of thousands.

The government's initial reaction was to deny that the problem existed, cordon off AIDS-affected areas and let the sick die (a pattern that the government tried to repeat when SARS broke out). In this case, police barred entry to villages where infected people lived (new maps of the province even appeared without the villages). Forced to acknowledge the problem after the international media began reporting on it, the Party nonetheless continues to obfuscate.

When Bill Clinton visited Henan in 2005 to distribute AIDS medicine, for example, the Party prevented him from visiting the worst-off villages. Instead, in Henan's capital city, he posed with several Party-selected AIDS orphans as the cameras clicked. It was an elaborate public-relations charade: China, with the West's help, was tackling AIDS!

Had Mr. Clinton been given a tour by Hu Jia, a human-rights activist, a far grimmer picture would have emerged. Only 30, he is a democrat and a practicing Buddhist who favors Tibetan independence. In 2004, Mr. Hu gave up studying medicine to look after Henan's sick. Months after Mr. Clinton's photo-op, Mr. Hu and I traveled to one of the villages that the former president missed: Nandawu, home to 3,500 people. It's not hard to visit—you can get past the police checkpoint at the village's entrance by hiding under a tarpaulin on a tractor-trailer, and the police fear AIDS too much to enter the village itself.

What I saw there, however, will remain with me forever. The disease inflicts at least 80% of the families there; in every hovel we entered an invalid lay dying. Most of the sufferers had no medicine. One woman put a drip on her sick husband, a man who has been bedridden for two years and who is covered with sores. What did the bottle contain? She didn't know. Why was she doing this? "I saw in the hospital and on television that sick people had to be put on the drip."

As long as Mr. Hu worked alone to help the sick, bringing them clothes, money and food, the Party left him alone. But he has recently drawn attention to himself by urging the victims to form an organization that can demand more from the government. The Party will sometimes put up with isolated dissent, but it won't tolerate an "unauthorized" association. Several months ago, the government placed Mr. Hu under house arrest in Beijing.

But dissent cannot be stifled everywhere. There has been an explosion of revolts in the vast countryside. The government estimates the number of public clashes with the authorities (some occurring in the industrial suburbs too) at 60,000 a year. But some experts think that the true figure is upward of 150,000 and increasing. When, in late 2006, I reached one village in the heart of the Shaanxi Province after a 40-hour journey from Beijing by train, car and tractor, I saw no trace of an uprising that had taken place a month earlier. Alerted by a text message sent from the village, the Hong Kong press had reported a violent clash between the peasants and the police, leaving people injured and missing or even dead, with the authorities spiriting away the bodies.

I pieced together the reasons that had provoked the uprising. The village had a dilapidated school, without heating, chalk or a teacher. In principle, schooling is compulsory and free, but the Party secretary, the village kingpin, made parents pay for heating and chalk. Then a teacher came from the city who wanted to be paid more than his government wages. He demanded extra money from the parents. Half of the parents, members of the most prosperous clan, agreed; the other half, from the poorer clan, refused.

A skirmish erupted, and the teacher fled. The Party secretary tried to intervene and was lynched. Then the police roared in with batons and guns. The school has reopened, the teacher replaced with a villager who knows how to read and write but "nothing more than that," he admits.

The uprisings express peasants' despair over the bleak future that awaits them. Emigration from the countryside might be a way out, but it's not easy to find a permanent job in the city. All kinds of permits are necessary, and the only way to get them is to bribe bureaucrats. The lot of the migrant—and China now has 200 million of them—is to move from work site to work site, earning a pittance at best. The migrants usually don't receive permission to bring their families with them, and even if they could, obtaining accommodation and schooling for their children would be virtually impossible.

The fate of Chinese citizens often depends on where they are from. Someone born in Shanghai is considered an aristocrat and conferred the right to housing and schooling in Shanghai. Someone born in a village, however, can only go to the village school, until a university admits him -- a rare feat for a peasant. An American scholar, Feiling Wang, had come to China to study this system of discrimination, which few in the West know about, but the government expelled him.

Villagers often told me that it wasn't the local Party secretary whom they most hated, but rather the family-planning agents who enforce China's one-child policy, often subjecting women to horrific violence. The one-child policy is not only monstrous, it is yielding an increasingly elderly population in need of care—a problem that a poor country like China is unprepared to handle.

Will China's surging economic growth end the rumbling discontent? Not according to the esteemed economist Mao Yushi, under house arrest for asking the government to apologize for the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He doesn't trust the Party's claims of a 10% annual growth rate -- and why believe the official statistics when the Party lies so consistently about everything? Doing his own calculations, he arrives at a rate of about 8% per year, vigorous but no "miracle," as some in the West describe it.

Moreover, he believes that the current growth rate isn't sustainable: natural bottlenecks—scarcity of energy, raw materials, and especially water—will get in the way. Also, Mr. Mao says, the fact that investment decisions frequently obey political considerations instead of the market has helped generate an unemployment rate that is likely closer to 20% than to the officially acknowledged 3.5%.

Many in the West think that Chinese growth has created an independent middle class that will push for greater political freedom. But what exists in China, Mr. Mao argues, is not a traditional middle class but a class of parvenus, newcomers who work in the military, public administration, state enterprises or for firms ostensibly private but in fact Party-owned.

The Party picks up most of the tab for their mobile phones, restaurant bills, "study" trips abroad, imported luxury cars and lavish spending at Las Vegas casinos. And it can withdraw these advantages at any time. In March, China announced that it would introduce individual property rights for the parvenus (though not for the peasants). They will now be able to pass on to their children what they have acquired—another reason that they aren't likely to push for the democratization of the regime that secures their status.

Because China's economy desperately needs Western consumers and investors, China's propagandists do all they can to woo foreign critics. "Do you dare deny China's success story, her social stability, economic growth, cultural renaissance and international restraint?" one Party-sponsored scholar asks me in Paris. I respond that political and religious oppression, censorship, entrenched rural poverty, family-planning excesses and rampant corruption are just as real as economic growth in today's China. "What you are saying is true, but affects only a minority yet to benefit from reforms," he asserts.

Yet nothing guarantees that this so-called minority—one billion people!—will integrate with modern China. It is just as possible that it will remain poor, since it has no say in determining its fate, even as Party members get richer. The scholar underscores my fundamental assumption: "You don't have any confidence in the Party's ability to resolve the pertinent issues you have raised."

That's true. I don't.

©2007 The Wall Street Journ

The Soviet Union had tons of poverty and pollution and they were a superpower no prob. China has nukes and their own space program already, dude. Soon they may have their own GPS satellite network (which only the U.S. and the Russian Federation / ex-Soviets have right now) and will probably be on the moon. And they're just getting started.

Since when does becoming a nuclear power equate to being a superpower? North Korea has nukes but has way too much poverty and such low standards of living that they are centuries away from ever becoming a superpower. You realize that China ranks only about 80-100th in the world in terms of GDP per capita right? All of that new "wealth" that China is supposedly getting is hardly being evenly distributed among its population. If you have never been to China then you wouldn't know. You have to see with your own eyes how many millions of people in China live in extreme poverty.

 

[OmCheeto]

Because you do no know what you have until it is gone.

The Chinese make pencils for students, I hardly think this makes them a world superpower.

They are doing a lot more than that.
Virtually every durable good I have purchased in the last 2 years has been made in China.
The next car I was considering buying is made in China.

But I heard the people of India are making a car about the same size for a quarter of the price. Finally, a car I can afford with less than 100,000 miles on the odometer...

 

[mheslep]

Canada is a member of NATO and they know if anyone messes with them, we'll jump to their aid. ...

Really? The United States managed to become one! Is the hypocrisy in the US really this blatant?

Well maybe NATO need not save all the Canadians.

 

[DrClapeyron]

The Chinese manufacture durable goods like bicycles and baby seats but not F-14's and GPS satellites.