Real World Event Discussions

What kind of superpower could China be?

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 19:05
VIEWED: 6082
PAGE 1 of 13

KPO

Sunday, October 21, 2012 3:34 PM

Interesting article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19995218

Quote:
China is on course to becoming a superpower - but not in the way many expect, writes economist Martin Jacques.

Beijing these days is positively throbbing with debate. It may not have the trappings of a western-style democracy, but it is now home to the most important and interesting discussions in the world.

When I addressed an audience of young Chinese diplomats at their foreign ministry a year ago, it was abundantly clear that a fascinating debate is under way about what kind of foreign policy might be appropriate for the global power China is in the process of becoming.

What will China be like as a superpower? You might think it is already - it is not.

Its military power is puny compared with that of the US. While America has 11 aircraft carriers, China only commissioned its first last month - based on, of all things, a Ukrainian hull.

And its global political influence is still extremely limited.

The only sense in which China is a superpower is economic - that is, its economy is already over half the size of the US economy and projected to overtake it around 2018, notwithstanding its reduced growth rate of 7%. But this is overwhelmingly a function of China's huge population. In terms of technology and living standards it lags far behind the US.

So when we speak of China as a superpower, we are talking about the future.

A common reaction to the idea of China as a superpower is that it will be like the US - except worse. Worse because it is not a democracy, it has a communist government and because its people are not like us. I guess that gives some the jitters.

In fact we should not expect China to behave in the manner of the US. It will be very different. And nor should we assume that it will necessarily be worse.

Why will it be different? Because its history is so different. Articles about China's growing involvement with Africa - in terms of trade and investment - often talk of the "new colonialism".

Beware historical ignorance. China has never colonised any overseas territories. Overseas empires were a European speciality, with Japan getting in on the act for a short while too.

China could have colonised South East Asia, for example, in the early 15th century. It had the resources, it had enormous ships, many times bigger than anything Europe possessed at the time. But it didn't.

That is not to say China ignored its neighbours. On the contrary. For many, many centuries it dominated them - as a result of its sheer size and far more advanced level of development. China's relationship with them was based not on colonialism but what we now know as the tributary system. It neither ruled them nor occupied them. Rather, in return for access to the Chinese market and various forms of protection, the rulers of tribute states were required to give gifts - literally tribute - to the Emperor as a symbolic acknowledgement of China's superiority.

The tributary system comprised what we know today as East Asia, home to one-third of the world's population. It stretched from Japan and Korea to the Malay Peninsula and parts of Indonesia.

It proved remarkably stable, lasting for at least 2,000 years and only coming to an end around 1900.

The West and China share an important characteristic - they both believe they are universal, a model for all others. But the way they have interpreted this in practice has been entirely different. For Europe, and latterly the US, it meant projecting their power around the world, most spectacularly during the heyday of colonialism in the 19th and first half of the 20th Century, when a large part of the world found itself under European rule.

We governed from afar, exported our ways of doing things, imposed our languages, our education, our religion and much else besides.

The Chinese, in contrast, preferred to stay at home. They believed the Middle Kingdom, the old name for China, literally meaning the centre of the world, was the

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, October 21, 2012 4:54 PM

Not a colonial power? Tell that to Tibet. And yeah, they "look inward" 'cause they have some 9,000 uprisings a year. We got a 1% over here, they got a 1% over there--it's called the middle class. ZING! They got a long way to go if they want to be a superpower. Zhou En Lai had the right of it when he said, "It's too early to tell."

I think Americans (and I guess to some extent Europe, judging from this puff piece) have a romantic notion about dictatorial power. We love imagining the mysterious and cruel majesty of our ideological enemies. The USSR mannaged to destroy themselves nicely and they didn't have half the problems of mondern day China.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

AURAPTOR

Sunday, October 21, 2012 5:07 PM

A super power that would greatly influence world events, but then an hour later, would have to influence world events again ?

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, October 21, 2012 5:30 PM

ZING! AURaptor and I should go on the China Defamation Comedy Tour.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

KWICKO

Sunday, October 21, 2012 8:48 PM

I stopped reading the article when it claims that China isn't a superpower because it doesn't have enough military power.

The author clearly never understood China's strategy. For that matter, neither did America. China achieved superpower status without needing to engage in a war or fire a shot at us. They used their biggest resource: their people. They engaged us in an "arms race" of sorts, in that they showed the world that they can compete with anyone on the manufacturing front, and can do it for less than other industrialized nations. In so doing, they've gotten the rest of the world to fund their growth while simultaneously undercutting the manufacturing industries in those other countries.

"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

1KIKI

Sunday, October 21, 2012 10:23 PM

What kind of superpower could China be?

One that dominates access to resources around the globe, not through war but through trade and superior economic power. It has already taken ownership of or created exclusive deals with other countries to dominate oil and other minerals.

One that treats all others as composed of inferiors. As China was to the US in terms of cheap goods, so Vietnam is China's China. But while the US didn't crush China, China is crushing Vietnam. China has no problems crushing smaller countries economically for its benefit, in fact seeks out countries that it dominates, and without qualm for the persons involved. While US policy has been run by those who do seek economic dominance over other peoples no matter the cost to those peoples (and little rappy and Geezer are prime proponents), it hasn't been backed by a culture that consistently views them as less than human. There has always been a minority strain of guilt or concern for the people themselves. China doesn't have that.

SIGNYM

Friday, October 26, 2012 4:33 PM

I would have said "Any kind it wants to be", but then I thought a little further and my thinking got stuck. Maybe someone can help un-stick me.

China is indeed an economic power. And quite honestly, in an economic war I think China would win in the near-term. Or at least persist in better shape than the USA, because they have an economic plan.

But there's a "but" to that.... China lacks essential resources. China has grown economically but depended on selling its cheap labor in exchange for factories and so forth to service its international markets (Walmart, Apple etc.) and also importing raw materials to sustain its production and population.

So China has a booming trade with Brazil for soy and beef, has bought up whole copper mines in Mexico, has invested heavily in purchasing coal mines (believe it or not!) and agricultural land in Africa, and so forth.

But all of these far-flung dependencies themselves depend on such things as political stability in the host nations, currency stability across the world (they use dollars to buy up stuff), the continued honoring of international contracts, and safe trade and banking. But if the contracts become too burdensome for the host nations, and if they become politically unstable and abrogate their contracts, who does the enforcement? The IMF? Because, really, China could tell the IMF to piss off. I guess my point being that without a military, China really doesn't have an effective enforcement arm. A lot of contractual enforcement would come from the free-trade agreement nations themselves, at the behest of the international corporations which rely on them. For example, I could see our own government (laws/ police/ military) enforcing some particularly egregious deal in defense of the GATT. In a weird way, it seems to me that Chinese power depends on USA currency and military hegemony. Whether deliberate or not, I think this was a very clever way of offloading all that expensive enforcement on the USA. OTOH, what happens when US hegemony comes to an end, as it must?

There is ONE thing that China is doing in Africa, and that is sending an lot of Chinese over to "mind the store". One Ethiopian I know seems to resent it quite a bit; I'm not sure if he's representative of the population, but apparently the Chinese are building up pretty large enclaves around their investments under the aegis of corrupt African leaders. If they're doing this worldwide, this COULD be how they intend to protect their investments sans military.

JAYNEZTOWN

Saturday, March 19, 2022 10:43 PM

Biden holds video call with Xi Jinping amid Ukraine crisis

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/272401343/biden-holds-video-call-w
ith-xi-jinping-amid-ukraine-crisis

JAYNEZTOWN

Saturday, March 19, 2022 11:28 PM

QUOTE

http://f2bbs.com/bbs

"Let he who tied the bell on the tiger's neck take it off."

as for preparation, energy, transport, building investments....a lot happening

Whenzhou

Shanghai

Nanchang Jiangxi

Shuzhou Jiangsu

and the old Communal Home

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, March 19, 2022 11:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
"Let he who tied the bell on the tiger's neck take it off."

That's a direct quote from Xi to Biden*.

Translation: Xi just told Biden* to get fucked.

--------------------------------------------------

Me: "Remember Covid?"

Useless Idiots: "What's Covid, durr? Russia, Ukraine, Putin, NATO *drool*. DURRRR!!!!"