How many years before China is No. 1?
POSTED BY: TraineeAlternate
UPDATED: Saturday, September 5, 2026 17:48
VIEWED: 15091
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Just asking a few opinions: How many years before China's economy, military, technology, and culture becomes powerful enough to trump that of the United States? What happens after this; more importantly, can it be stopped?
Chinese culture is very prevalent in Firefly, almost as much as Western-American culture. Even shipping crates bear as many US flags as Chinese stars. This is obviously a prediction of US-Chinese cooperation or conflict as almost-equals sometime in the future.
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Well at least for the next ten years we will have assured military dominance beyond the Taiwan strait due to the fact they lack any creditable power projection capability in their navy i.e. they have no Carriers and only a few guided missile Destroyers. Also we have so much pre-positioned equipment in the area we can counter any move they could make. We have (what use to be called) SOSUS ocean floor sensors to monitor any ship/sub movements, Carriers based in Japan, Attack Subs in Japan & Guam, and airbases all across the Pacific Ocean. One Los Angeles class attack sub could probably defeat the entire PLAN (People’s Liberation Army-Navy) Nuclear sub force (5 Han SSNs and 1 Xia SSBN) and that’s no joke! An LA has torpedoes with over twice the range (nearly 30 miles vs. 10) and sensors with ranges the Chinese can’t possibly dream of (possibly over hundreds of miles vs. around 30 on a very good day). Their Air Force really can’t stay as massive as it is now. Currently they still fly versions of the MiG-21 (a jet from the 1960’s) and the cost of having to produce spare parts for such an obsolete jet while building modern ones is high and their ineffectiveness in combat makes it stupid.
As for Chinese technology there really isn’t such a thing it’s all begged, bought or stolen from Russia, France and the US. That’s the problem with communism; innovation vanishes and your always playing catch up.
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Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
As for Chinese technology there really isn’t such a thing it’s all begged, bought or stolen from Russia, France and the US. That’s the problem with communism; innovation vanishes and your always playing catch up.
At one time, only slightly more than a lifetime ago, the same was being said about the Japanese - that they had no innovation and that they had begged, borrowed, or stolen everything they had from the US and the British. By the time it was too late they had beaten the Russians and were well on their way towards becoming an imperialist power; traits they carried beyond WW2 and into becoming the technological juggernaut they are today.
Also, the rate at which we are wrecking our educational system and outsourcing most of our innovation doesn't bode well for us in the future, either. There is also a growing nationalist movement going on in China, as anyone who follows Chinese news certainly knows, which is more cooperative with the government than it is with the progressive movement.
I used to think that once the old guard communists passed away, democracy would take root in China (and China would fragment) and they would be no threat to the US on the world stage. I find it harder and harder to keep that belief as the years pass.
Just 7%'s 2c.
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With all the bonds China is holding, they already own the US.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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How many years before China is No. 1?
TRAINEEALTERNATE
What? You mean they're not?
Made in Japan used to mean something Chrisisall
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HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (snort) hee hee hee hee hee hee .... (titter)
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... China can be a scary place. They are every bit as prideful as Americans, and at least as patriotic (or is that "nationalistic", as they're not us). They nearly ALL see China's rise to domination as some kind of definate, Manifest Destiny".
... But they have no liberty... very sad. What's even more sad is that most of those I met who actually know they are being manipulated and having terrible truths hidden from them, don't really care all that much. It's a relative thing. Compared to twenty-five years ago they've got mountains of cash, stuff they can buy, and more freedom (relatively speaking) than they've ever known.
... Still, I was pretty upset to see them cheering when 9/11 went down. That upset me pretty bad. (American news didn't discuss that much, did they? Think about why that might be...) Hell, people were setting off firecrackers for God's sake. 
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China probably will never be number 1. There are some potentially passive catastrophes ahead of China right now. There’s an AIDS crisis in rural China. The one child policy is working out a bit too well. The majority of the families are having only boys. A lot of families that have girls kill them, especially families in rural areas. In some places, the boys outnumber the girls ten to one. Many people in China are still very superstitious and fall easily to cults like Falun Gong and mystical crap like Fung Shui, the ancient magical art of not making stuff look like crap.
"I swallowed a bug." -River Tam
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Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Well at least for the next ten years we will have assured military dominance beyond the Taiwan strait due to the fact they lack any creditable power projection capability in their navy i.e. they have no Carriers and only a few guided missile Destroyers.
Yeah, but they have cash... and how long does it take to buy pretty much anything you want ? Well they already have :
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JIW/is_1_57/ai_113755343
3 carriers bought, negotiations to buy / build several more.
Seems they have their act together more than you would like to believe.
Hell, soon they will be ahead of the US in space as well
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7AE1968B-9551-42E8-820F-9D4E977
E8F8F.htm
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Quote:They can have the Kievs and the Varyag! Varyag just spent two decades rotting away in the Ukrane and the Kievs are a joke. The US has 14 carriers each with more fixed wing jets than all three combined (that’s assuming they could get all three operational and train the pilots for carrier operations) and we have 12 amphibious assault ships that can carry over half of what they carry plus a MEU. Plus if you count in NATO you can add 5 more dedicated flat tops and at least one other Harrier capable deck. Those Russian carriers were designed to launch their missiles and then get blown out of the water when NATO air and sea forces sweep the seas clean of anything that flies the hammer and sickle, that’s why they don’t carry many if any reloads for their big surface to surface missiles and that’s why they are hard to reload while underway (you have to roll the missile out on deck and load it or bring it in by crane).
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Well at least for the next ten years we will have assured military dominance beyond the Taiwan strait due to the fact they lack any creditable power projection capability in their navy i.e. they have no Carriers and only a few guided missile Destroyers.
Yeah, but they have cash... and how long does it take to buy pretty much anything you want ? Well they already have :
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JIW/is_1_57/ai_113755343
3 carriers bought, negotiations to buy / build several more.
Seems they have their act together more than you would like to believe.
Hell, soon they will be ahead of the US in space as well
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7AE1968B-9551-42E8-820F-9D4E977
E8F8F.htm
Also remember just buying a flat top or two doesn’t mean they have a creditable force Argentina had a carrier in the Falklands War, which was on paper superior to any of the Royal Navy’s carriers (ironically the carrier was built in England). But when the attack sub HMS Conquer sunk one of their light cruisers they had to turn tail because they had no defenses that could take on an SSN. The PLAN is the same way their two best ships (well they did built another ship but I don’t have the specs on hand) are two Russian destroyers built to fight surface battles and don’t have the sophisticated sonar systems of dedicated ASW units. A US SSN could run wild in a sea of PLAN warships if they ever ventured in to deep water. You need to have a full hierarchy of trained personnel that takes decades to develop. The US has been playing the carrier game for over 70 years that kind of experience can’t be bought.
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