The world’s two great powers are growing dangerously hostile to one another. Could this be worse than the cold war?
A flourishing downtown Shanghai in January 2010
At the World Economic Forum in Davos this January, Chinese vice premier, Li Keqiang, gave an entirely unremarkable speech. Steering clear of subjects that make headlines, he instead sung the praises of China’s stability and technological progress. Yet the moment was made extraordinary by Li’s entourage: a group of about 75 subordinates who laughed, cheered and applauded on cue—and all with apparently genuine gusto. This scene brought to my mind Deng Xiaoping’s famous dictum that his country must “keep a low profile and never take the lead.” There was plenty of Chinese exuberance in the room, and the rest of us were meant to notice. Has the need to lie low subsided, I wondered? Does China believe that its time has come?
That was the message many people took from the triumphalist pageantry of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics. But the real game-changer was economic. The financial crisis, global recession, and China’s remarkable recovery have produced a big shift in the world’s most important state-to-state relationship. Chinese officials argue that their country’s resilience in the face of America’s meltdown has vindicated a Chinese model of development, one that rejects US-style free markets in favour of a “state capitalist” system. A relationship until recently shaped mainly by shared interests must now adapt to accommodate the two sides’ increasingly divergent views of capitalism—and a large shift in the balance of confidence.
The list of irritants in US-Chinese relations is growing. Google threatens to quit China over censorship and cyber-attacks. Washington and Beijing are at cross purposes over Iran’s nuclear programme. US lawmakers have again criticised China’s unwillingness to allow the value of its currency to rise and its failure to protect the intellectual property of foreign companies. There are trade disputes over tyres and steel pipes. Yet these problems are merely symptoms of an illness that has progressed further than some observers realise.
Put bluntly, the Chinese leadership no longer believes that American power is as indispensable as it once was for either China’s economic expansion or the Communist party’s political survival. Nor does it accept that access to US capital or commercial know-how is quite so important for the next stage of China’s development—or that its growth depends on the spending habits of American consumers.
China has embarked on a process of economic “decoupling.” The western financial meltdown put millions of Chinese out of work in early 2009, as factories that produced goods for export closed their doors. Over the past 18 months, Beijing has seen how dependence on western markets can produce unacceptably high levels of risk at home. The solution is to shift its model to rely more on China’s growing consumer base. This plan, however, must be undertaken with great care to ensure minimum industrial disruption.
Meanwhile, China’s political decoupling from the west is also in full swing. We saw it at December’s climate change summit in Copenhagen, as China spearheaded resistance from developing states to western-proposed targets on carbon emissions. We saw it in the strong reaction to an announcement in February of US arms sales to Taiwan and to Barack Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama days later. We will see more public Chinese pushback against what Beijing considers “interference” from Washington in months to come.
There is still considerable mutual dependence between the US and China, grounded mainly in commercial ties. But the unfolding conflict is in many ways more dangerous than the cold war. Economic decision-making in Moscow had little impact on western power or standards of living. But globalisation means there is no equivalent to the Berlin wall, insulating China and America from turmoil inside the other.
The rivalry may take on a life of its own, growing beyond the governments’ ability to contain it. American policymakers must ensure that US power remains indispensable to China’s rise. This will not be a popular undertaking in Washington. Facing voters this November, US politicians will want to shift the blame for the country’s woes onto someone else. Cultural conservatives of the right and labour champions of the left will tell voters that their problems are made in China. Even more sober figures are beginning to raise the alarm, as when economist Paul Krugman warned in March 2010 that China’s economic policy “seriously damages the rest of the world.”
Soon, more Americans will be asking why a country with 10 per cent unemployment can’t persuade a country with 10 per cent growth to respect trade rules and play a responsible role on the global stage. And Beijing’s new assertiveness is feeding a growing insecurity in the US. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre in 2009, 44 per cent of Americans named China as “the world’s leading economic power.” Just 27 per cent chose the US. Reasonable or not, this is a sea change in attitudes—2008 was the last presidential election in which average voters didn’t know or care where the candidates stood on China.
***
How did we get here? For the past 30 years, China’s rise and America’s power have been complementary. In the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership began to tinker with capitalism and to cautiously open the country to foreign trade and investment. Less hawkish officials in Washington and Beijing hoped that a relationship could be built, but fallout from the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 put their plans on hold. As the Warsaw pact governments fell later that year and the Soviet empire followed in 1991, China’s hardliners applied the brakes on capitalist experimentation. But in 1992, 88-year-old Deng Xiaoping breathed new life into market reform. Deng’s successor, Jiang Zemin, beat back old guard resistance to liberalisation, and stepped up the pace of reform in the early 1990s.
The collapse of European communism taught China’s leadership that to hold onto power, it must succeed where other socialist states had failed by offering people a rising standard of living. Building China’s economy meant establishing the country as an export powerhouse, a plan that required access to consumers in the US, EU and Japan—still China’s three largest trading partners. That meant opening the economy to ever-higher levels of foreign trade and investment—effectively“coupling” China’s growth to the west’s.
US companies were happy to oblige. Wal-Mart became the world’s largest retailer because its founder, Sam Walton, recognised the possibilities of low-cost Chinese labour. In the years since, a growing number of American companies have begun banking on huge profits based on sales to China’s potentially enormous middle class. In turn, Chinese companies looking to move up the value chain have benefited from exposure to the management, advanced technologies and marketing techniques of US, European and Japanese companies.
Beijing’s relationship with the US reached a crucial moment in January 1993, when Bill Clinton entered the White House. As a candidate Clinton had denounced China’s leaders as “butchers,” and promised to end the “most favoured nation” trade status that China had enjoyed since 1980. As president, Clinton proved more circumspect, pursuing a policy of “constructive engagement.” US consumers benefited as cheap Chinese products helped to keep inflation in check during the 1990s. Before leaving office, Clinton signed into law “permanent normal trade relations” between the two countries. The relationship had become too big to fail.
At the time, Beijing had good reason to value American power and Washington’s willingness to use it. Developing trade and investment relationships with potentially volatile emerging states in Africa, the middle east, southeast Asia and Latin America exposed China to risks it had little experience in managing. America’s willingness to play the global policeman helped open and maintain trade routes and sea lanes for Chinese companies. Expanded access to US consumers helped China’s economy create millions of jobs. Washington proved willing (for the most part) to respect Chinese sensitivities on Taiwan, Tibet and Tiananmen Square.
In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organisation: a landmark moment in its embrace of the global status quo. In the years since, the creative destruction that comes with decades of double-digit growth has created big problems inside China: the disparities of wealth between coastal cities and the rest of the country, serious environmental damage and social unrest. To ensure a more “harmonious” rise, a new generation of leaders led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao has taken a direct hand in managing expansion. The government already relied heavily on state-owned companies to secure access to resources. It now began to use privately owned companies to dominate certain sectors: Yingli and Suntech have taken over the solar-power industry; BYD dominates batteries and cars. Beijing relies on both public and private sectors to manage the pace of growth and the distribution of its benefits. And sovereign wealth funds, created from the country’s enormous reserves of foreign currency—the People’s Bank of China valued the country’s holdings at $2.399 trillion (£1.580 trillion) in December 2009—are used to direct huge flows of investment.
In sum, the Communist party is using markets to create wealth that can be directed as officials see fit. The ultimate motive is not economic but political: to maximise the state’s control of development and the leadership’s chance of survival. It is a model that has so far been strikingly successful—to the extent that China no longer needs to keep a low profile and let the US take the lead. But it is not a system that offers a level-playing field to foreign companies and investors.
***
The signs of decoupling are all around us. In January, Google claimed that its proprietary source code and the Gmail accounts of human rights activists had been targeted in a sophisticated cyber-attack from inside China. In response, the company threatened to quit the Chinese market. It remains unclear whether the Chinese government played a direct role in the attacks, condones them, or is simply unable to stop them. The government promotes “indigenous innovation,” a vaguely articulated plan to encourage homegrown intellectual property and the companies that develop it. Some of that innovation has been stolen. Google’s charges placed the issue of Chinese cyber-espionage in the headlines, but the problem has been building for years. Following the Gulf war in 1991, the Chinese government saw the need to invest in the information warfare capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army. At first, cyber-espionage was mainly confined to the military realm, but in the past three years it seems to have expanded into the corporate world.
Beyond the espionage problem, China’s ambitions have provoked a sharp response from high-tech companies in the US and Europe. They charge that China’s policy of favouring products made with domestically created intellectual property proves that Beijing is no longer even pretending to observe international intellectual property rules. That’s why the Google story is not really about censorship or state persecution of dissidents. It is mainly about Baidu, Google’s main Chinese rival. Baidu already holds the dominant market share within China, and if Google leaves or is forced out, Baidu will benefit the most. Companies such as Baidu have growing influence within China’s state bureaucracy and have also become symbols of pride for the government and public.
In January, the US government announced a plan to sell $6.4bn in weaponry to Taiwan. This kind of deal was sure to provoke an angry response from the mainland, and it did. But this time Beijing added an extraordinary threat: the imposition of sanctions on US aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which dominates China’s airline market, worth $400bn over the next 20 years. Were Boeing to lose this business, some of it would surely fall to European aircraft-maker Airbus. But over time, more of it would move to emerging Chinese companies.
The predicaments of Boeing and Google illustrate how the US and Chinese brands of capitalism are pushing Washington and Beijing towards conflict. For the moment, the governments’ incentives for co-operation outweigh any advantage that either can find in direct confrontation. But the forces that divide them are too large for either side to fully control.
There is also trouble looming over the dollar. As China moves to shift from exports to greater domestic consumption, the need to purchase dollars will lessen and much of the extra cash will flow into the purchase of commodities. America will then have to look elsewhere to make up the difference in financing its debt. This larger shift in the balance of power in the relationship will also empower Chinese hawks to call for greater resistance to US pressure on places like Iran, Burma and Sudan. Chinese state-owned companies have established lucrative commercial relationships with these governments—ties that serve China’s interests. In exchange, China provides these governments with the resources and political cover they need to reject US and European demands for policy change.
***
Back at Davos, tensions were evident during an exchange between Zhu Min, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, and the Democratic congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts. Zhu was questioned on China’s currency. “It is very important to have a stable yuan… It is good for China and good for the world,” Zhu said. “Could it be stable but a little higher?” Frank asked. The audience laughed. Zhu smiled, unperturbed. No need to explain your strategy when you’re holding a winning hand. Nonetheless, the same dispute broke into the open again in March 2010, when Premier Wen Jiabao slapped down calls by another group of American lawmakers for China to allow its currency to appreciate.
Last autumn, Washington moved against Chinese exports of tyres and steel pipes to protect American companies and jobs in these industries. But the next conflict will extend well beyond trade. In December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent an open letter to President Hu Jintao in which he accused China of, among other things, pursuing “a policy to undermine American competitiveness… while simultaneously benefiting from open access to the US market” and “rampant intellectual property theft.” There is an abundance of bootleg Windows software in China, for example, something Microsoft has been unable to control; it’s estimated that up to 80 per cent of all software sold in the country is pirated. When congress debates energy policy later this year, Republicans will demand to know why the US should accept binding commitments on carbon emissions that undermine its competitiveness while China refuses to follow suit. In turn, China’s fast-growing blogosphere will ask why free market champions in the US are threatening them with protectionism.
China will not mount a military challenge to the US any time soon. Its economy and living standards have grown so quickly over the past two decades that it’s hard to imagine the kind of catastrophic event that could push its leadership to risk it all. Beijing knows that no US government will support Taiwanese independence, and China need not invade an island that it has largely co-opted already by offering Taiwan’s business elite privileged investment opportunities.
That said, China’s determination to defend its territorial integrity, its ambitions to extend its influence in Asia, and its plan to form new commercial partnerships in far-flung places have given momentum to military plans. With 2.3m soldiers under arms, the People’s Liberation Army is already the world’s largest. Its investments in cyberwarfare technology continue to cause anxiety in Washington. Its military budget is thought to have tripled between 2003 and 2009 to about $70bn. This is only 13 per cent of what the US spends each year, but significant enough to pose future challenges.
Any cold war-type conflict is much more likely to develop over issues of economic security than military confrontation. Charges of Chinese corporate espionage will complicate the efforts of Chinese companies to invest in the US. China will respond with investment restrictions of its own. And western companies will find themselves competing for natural resources across the developing world with Chinese state-owned companies, armed with subsidies and political backing. This is already happening openly in places like Nigeria and Ghana, and there is more subtle competition taking place from Angola to Venezuela to Iraq. China and other authoritarian governments that embrace state capitalism will increasingly direct trade flows toward one another, lowering the trajectory of economic growth in the west. Finally, though China’s military will not offer the US a global challenge, it can certainly take on American forces in Asia.
***
So how should America respond? The country’s cold war experience offers a useful strategy. The stalemate imposed by “mutually assured destruction” that prevented the US-Soviet conflict from igniting created a sense of stability. Today, the US and China are locked in a new form of “mutually assured economic destruction,” a dependence that can force some degree of co-operation even as political, economic and security disputes simmer. America still needs China to help finance its debt. For the moment, China needs access to US consumers to keep unemployment in check and for continuing foreign investment. Even if the Chinese economy becomes more driven by domestic demand, consumers will still want access to foreign-made products. The two sides will be doing business for decades to come.
US officials should do their best to ensure that this “mutually assured economic destruction” continues. But in Washington’s poisonous political climate, populist opportunists will cast engagement as appeasement. With criticism of China from both left and right, those who see the wisdom of deepening mutual dependence will need courage—particularly when China’s leaders criticise US policy to appease hardliners within the leadership, and a restive population.
American (and other foreign) companies doing business in China can take lessons from how multinational oil companies have adapted to a world in which state-owned energy companies control at least 80 per cent of the global oil reserves—by shifting their business models to exploit their remaining comparative advantages. To compete with state-owned energy operations, multinationals now invest in the project management and advanced technology that their rivals can’t yet match. Foreign companies in China should similarly invest more heavily in products with a blazing-fast product cycle, like advanced electronics and videogaming. By the time their Chinese rivals have broken the code on this intellectual property, they will already have a newer model. And given the greying of China’s population, foreign investment will remain welcome in healthcare innovations. There are many such examples.
It is also important for the US government and American companies to invest in those areas where their comparative advantage is most likely to endure. For Washington, that means maintaining US “hard power” advantages. Soft power helped America survive the cold war, and continues to play a crucial role in extending US influence. But over the next several years, hard power will ensure that the US remains indispensable for global political and economic stability. The US now spends more on its military capacity than all potential competitors combined. It outspends China by about eight to one. Even if defence spending were significantly reduced, the US will hold a dominant military position for the foreseeable future, because it will be decades before any rival will prove both willing and able to accept the burdens that come with global leadership. China will continue to expand its influence, particularly within Asia. But it makes little sense for a still developing nation to challenge US hard power outside its immediate neighbourhood—particularly when China’s state-owned oil companies will rely for several decades on oil and gas supplies from unstable parts of the world such as the middle east, the Caspian sea basin and west Africa. In addition, the presence of US troops in Japan and South Korea limits the risk of an Asian arms race. That saves China, Japan, South Korea and India a great deal of money.
Finally, America will have to get by with a little help from its friends. US relations with Japan have been tested over the past year as the Obama administration and the new Democratic party of Japan-led government re-establish the common interests that bind the two countries. The Clinton and George W Bush administrations built closer ties with India; that work should be broadened and deepened. The US should co-ordinate more closely with the EU—and its most influential member states—on ways to create a unified front in trade disputes with Beijing.
Post-cold war US hegemony didn’t last long. But there is no coherent alliance of rising powers to contain the American colossus. Instead, the speed with which ideas, information, people, money, goods and services now cross borders has enabled a host of nations to make a mark on the international stage—just at a moment when the US is overstretched militarily, and its responses to international terrorism have exacerbated global anti-Americanism. And no single relationship will play a larger role in shaping Washington’s response to the messy new order that is now emerging than its increasingly troubled relations with Beijing.
Interguru
Hold on, the Author missed some points.
Right now China is in the midst of a frantic property bubble, the same kind that, on popping, devastated the Japanese and American Economy. It may do the same for the Chinese economy.
Also, China, unlike the US, has for a time had a very low birthrate, and is in for a population implosion.
Shalom Freedman
The Chinese defiance of the U.S. on the Iranian issue provides an example of Chinese diplomatic duplicity. One day we hear about cooperation on sanctions, and the next day we hear there is no cooperation. China has denied it has been supplying materials and aid for the Iranian nuclear program while Western intelligence sources report the opposite. The support of Iran is done in good part out of commercial reasons, and the Chinese need for Iranian energy supplies. But it is also done to undermine and diminish the power of the United States.
Keir
American (and other foreign) companies doing business in China can learn to adapt appears to be the moral of this article, one of the most detailed and sober to come out in some time. I would argue however that by adapting, it really means jettisoning all the values we in the West cherish. When IBM is providing the means for the regime to monitor its subjects through mobile technology and Yahoo snitches its users to the regime or MSN does its censorship job for it, it is not the type of adaptation that augurs well for our civilisation. At least that was one thing we understood during the Cold War.
George Butler
I agree with Keir that this article is “one of the most detailed and sober to come out in some time.” However the significance of the US-Sino conflict is missed altogether. It is between liberal democracy and dictatorship. The outcome of the conflict will determine whether humankind will continue the trend to individual dignity and social justice or revert to the pre-Enlightenment days of autocracy and social hierarchy. With the precedented concentration of wealth in hand, the Chinese authorities have started to advertise the “China model” of development, viz crony capitalism under absolute one-party dictatorship, and spread the value system behind it — Confucianism. What is at stake is far more than purely ecomonic.
Phil
How can you write an article about the economic ties between these nations without mentioning the fact that China holds nearly $900 billion of US debt, twice what it was in 2007 and ten times what it was in 2002? That hardly looks like a “de-coupling” to me?
There is no parity or mutual anything here. China is eating our lunch. As a nation we spend more than we earn. Consumption is 70% of our GDP and investment is paltry. We have the world’s largest trade imbalance (mostly because of our vast imports from China).
China, on the other hand, only consumes about 35% of their GDP and saves a tremendous amount of what they earn. They are a net exporter and net lender to us. If we stop buying from them for a while, they have reserves to sit on. If they dump our debt, our interest rates skyrocket and currency falls.
How long can the US spend more than it earns, borrowing the difference from the one who is selling to us? If I borrow money from a supplier in order to buy supplies from him and fail to invest in my business, eventually my supplier becomes my owner.
Wen hu
As a person living in Shanghai for almost 8 years, it is true that the chinese resent American dominance in the world, yet in my opinion the government does not represent the people. Although the government may act in defiance of the U.S, normal chinese citizens still acknowledge the importance of ties between the U.S and China, just that the chinese people do not have a say in the world, it is a bunch of smart terrorising and controlling officials that decide the future for China, not what really represents China, its citizens. Yet here i see many judgamental individuals showing resentment against the chinese, what i really want to say is that China has only one political party, a puppet democracy and a government with absolute dominance over its people. Until there is a day where the chinese really withhold the rights to freedom and the right to choose its role in the world, China(Communist party) will only represent MR. HU and all those who work for him in order to maintain political, financial and international status.
A
The mention of China holding 900B of US debt is exactly why there would never be a head to head “war” China could not afford it. If we “go to war” we won’t pay on our debt. I don’t know much about China, but I know if you fight with someone who owes you money they will not pay you.
Jonathan Reiter
Focusing on monetary policy: Ronald McKinnon of Stanford has written that the notion of conflicted virtue has placed China in a difficult position. It can, and has, acquiesce to our demands to appreciate the yuan. But research (e.g. latest BIS working papers) has shown that it will not significantly affect the balance of payments between our countries.
Furthermore, you have claimed that China’s rise of SWFs is a vicious, nontransparent form of investment that allows for unchecked subsidization of domestic firms. But this is not the sole reason for Chinese SWFs to exist; they also exist as a function of the conflicted virtue thesis. The People’s Bank in China invests in SWFs rather than private institutions to guard against the threat of speculative attacks aimed at currency mismatches. Of course, this problem could be solved with liberalization of the capital account, but many economists agree that liberalizing without adequate preparation would be dangerous.
In my mind, therefore, the financial habits of Beijing policymakers are towards transition, and have yet to figure out the proper preconditions for opening their capital accounts. You, on the other hand, go almost so far as to claim mercantilism on their part, without entertaining this counter argument. From this basis, I can only concluded that you are nothing more than another senseless dragon hunter.
Peter
China is a civilization that has lasted for over 4000 years. The US has only lasted a few hundred. Most of the inventions that you use today such as Paper, Gunpowder, and Rockets are all chinese inventions. Gunpowder was what allowed the US to expand to what it is today. The first rocket built by the Chinese led to the technology that we have today. Lets be fair and give credit to the chinese and cut off a bit with the “white supremacy” or the “Big American” ideas.
Shmuel
Peter, you are so stupid. What does it matters that gunpowder was invented in China. Most of the tools we use today, including fire, were actually invented in Africa, since humanity originated in Arica. It doesn’t mean though that Africa is the most developed place on earth. Many other inventions were developed in ancient Egypt and Iraq, but those countries are lagging in technological novelty nowdays.
China will beat the US eventually and rule the world but it has nothing to do with ancient history.
Akura
Don’t worry about the Chinese. They can regulate any bubble better than in Japan and the US. Dictatorship has one advantage – things are getting done much faster. Don’t worry avout Chinese population either. In Europe and Japan the population shrinks by choice – there is no changing that. But in China low birth rates are artificially imposed on the society. Once the population begins to declide, Chinese leaders will allow people to have as many kids as they want. Secondly, China is surrounded by much poorer countries with poor citizes who would like to come to China as immigrants once China gets richer. The demographic problem can be worked out. The education is getting better and the universities are growing with te economy. Inovation will follow soon.
Akura
To George Butler.
America is not a democracy, it is a Feminist dictatorship. In America a woman will be acquited for murdering her children or false rape accusasions, yet a the \justice\ system has no problem to send an innocent man to jail without any proof. Your laws allow your women do what ever they want, while a man will be destroyed merely for touching a woman’s shoulder if she decided to compain.
Akura
To Peter,
What allowed America to become America is its economic system, high-tech and their country’s size.
Today’s technology is based on science – math, physics, chemistry, etc, and it has nothing to do with rockets and gunpowder (which are bad things). Many nations contributed to science since ancient times, but 99% of the core contributions that allowed modern-day technology were made by the west in the last few centuries.
Akura
America has become great because it was a democracy, and had a stable political system, with free market capitalism, endless opportunities, constant immigration influx, large middle class and science worship. Now it has become Socialistic, Feminazi, hypocritical, cold shithole.
That’s why China soon will overthrow it.
hiremequick
To Akura re your response to George Butler:
You appear to be one of those barbarians who agree with, endorse, encourage and promote the dis-empowerment of women. I arrived at this impression by your description of America as a Nation filled with “Feminazi”; and your skewed perception of the actual historical and current reality of the majority of average women in America. It was only about a century ago that women in America were even allowed to vote, or own their own property (no matter how they got it-either through inheritance from their Father, or their own industry prior to marriage). Once a woman was married, all of her assets were automatically transfered to her husbands ownership and control. She then basically became a non-person; simply a chattel of her husbands, like his cows and goats.
Please remember that your very life, and all living mens’ lives are a direct result of a WOMAN’s deliberate decision not to abort you! The truth is that EVERY pregnant woman has ALWAYS had the opportunity to abort the unborn baby, long before her husband even knows that she is pregnant!
I have no idea of your history; maybe your mother was a monster and treated you cruelly while you were a child, and that is why you hate women so much. Maybe she was a kind, loving and gentle Mom who cared for you well-but you saw your Dad treat her like a slave, and learned your hatred that way. Maybe your despise for women came from something completely unrelated, like a love affair gone bad. Whatever it was that caused you to feel the way you apparently do about women, I want you to know that you are absolutely wrong about the status of women in America. In America, women are still often treated in a demeaning and disgraceful manner by their husbands, and even murdered by them far too often. Men often get away with it, while many women end up in prison for killing their abusive husbands; even if they killed him in self defense while he was attempting to bludgeon her to death.
I think that there likely is an extremely small fraction of the female population who could accurately be described as “Feminazi”; although I have never yet met one in my 54 years on this continent.
Is it not understandable to you: that within any oppressed people (whether the basis for the oppression be racial, religious or gender), that there will be a courageous few among them who will stand up for their weaker fellows? Should we not be proud of them? Where would South Africa be without Desmond Tutu? Where would the Blacks of America be without Martin Luther King Jr? etc…
Please reconsider your attitude toward women. Try hard to put the shoe on the other foot. You may start to see things in a different light.
Best Regards,
Hireme
Code
I am a Chinese. it’s real fun to read all your comments on this article.
In a word, the real fun is from the sense that you know not a real thing about China.
I see your own problem, and know your weakness.
You cared about change others too much than to improve yourself and believe the world think in the same way.
In many time, you see changing others as the only way to solve your own problem.
That is really bad.
China come to its own position, by improving itself, by the hard working of every people in its country.
The wealth that the rest of the world today, does not come from those investment or using of resources, but come from the work of people.
US has lose its spirit as the elite of human race in that it becomes lazy and believe its rule over other people will give itself good life.
Looking at the hard working chinese and their sacrifice (spend as less, separate from their family, (wife, young baby), to work in cities far away for all year long, 20 hours a day, even having no time to find a wife or husband, I know all these will not make you give any credit to them.
You will enjoy what they make, use up what they save, and criticize who organize and direct the way (the authorities), as dictators.
Just entertain yourself.
A government will exist, only when it follows the will of its people.
The will of Chinese people is nothing but to get out of the shit of years of poverty, not the shit of your high expectation and luxury-freedom.
Do you feed on freedom?
When we are rich, as much as you are, we will have the mood and joy to ask for it.
State own company, or private corporation, whatever, are ways to speed up the accumulation of wealth, effectively and efficiently as far as it works.
When you are not willing to sacrifice, you lose your edge in competition, admit it, no arguments.
I always respect the US for the business spirit in the bone and blood of its people.
But you do not deserve that respect anymore.
YOU play dirty games, and cry like a baby when you lose.
Intellectual property is worth as much that it creates and saves, NOT what is claim to create and save. When you claim a sky price for your whatsoever poor software, it would not last.
You try to fool the world and hope the world stay foolish, then find you are the only fool.
Work and Work Hard Ever, is the only way to good wealth and health.
Try to look into what I said in good faith.
Thank you.
Anonymous
Let’s continue to help the Chinese with every purchase we make from them using our free market polcies vs. their strategic well thoughout military policies using finance as their primary weapon. Thank God America has the best current leadship.
Americans… The best example where we put the “I” in individual freedom, including the freedom to beat up on one another.
Jake
Ok here’s my argument. To start off I want you all to know I’m a 13 year old American boy. Ill admit that in America that some of us have fallen back in education I.e. the kids that put forth no efort in class, but we seperate them with the honers system & other advanced classes. But to get back to the debate, I’m going to put this in a broad term by saying America & China are at war. I can’t really say who would win. They both have strengths and weaknesses. One thing people haven’t thought about though, the people who say China would win I mean, is that China has a HUGE population but its all basically grouped into major cities. So say we make the decision to drop an atom on Shanghai, do you realize how many people that is? America has major cities too, but none that would provide that many deaths. And not to meantion all of the allies america has. They might have roughly 1/6 of the population, but when we have roughly 4/6 of it with allies i mean, it doesnt really matter. In all I think it would be a good fight. But i would have to give the victory to America. But I hope that war never happens, I’m sure it would take many lives and maybe even start a nuclear endgame. Sorry if i mispelled anything, im on my phone.
-Jake
jake
in a proxy war i have to say america. america…as most of us know…has the best orginazied military on this planet. maybe the universe. ( unlikely) back to the subject, i dont want to throw out who has more troops or land vehicles or shit like that because it is irrevalent. pointless. neither of these powerful countries could invade eachother. both for the same reasons: civilian resistance. they are both HUGE and geographicly unbeatable. the more armored tank or the faster jet DOES NOT MATTER. both sides are equal in many ways. both wealthy countries. war does not determine who is right. only who is left. the point is when super powers like these go up against eachother its like a nuke hitting another nuke and both blowing up destroying the whole world. NATO would get involved…possibly russia and other parts of the world for sure. both would be blown to shit and if all goes bad each other a radio-active wasteland. both countries would be wiped clean of this earth. but if a conventional war 1 vs 1 here i say america. just the advancement and training of the soldiers. but thats my opinion…
Chang
China is a cruel dictatorship, the state takes all the money away form us, the companies are steeling American and European technology, it’s a shame. Be happy Americans ’cause if i had a choice i would imediately move to the US or the EU.
jake
aw chang i live in america and im not making fun of u i really do feel bad for u…ive heard many things about china but i think when u can move to US. take it from me…it is really really good here…
Edwin
I think that sooner or later there will be war between china and tha United States but knowing that for every 1 men in the US theres 7 Chinese the fight would be tough. You also have to know that the US have the skills and the expirience to go against such country.. Power is what everyone wants and if acomplished who ever wins will rule and everyone will fear them… I also think in oder to win such war they will have to take out the leader without a leader theres no oder… Buajajaja : p
jake
america….war is much different from call of duty. what do u do if artillary starts to fall around you and your best friends. your best friend just got his arm and leg blown off 5 feet away from you calling for a medic. the medic runs over and gets shot through the head by a sniper. you are lying low in a ditch…and the question your asking like everyone with an iq over at least 50 is asking which is when do i come up and where do i go? do i fire back? yeah your friend over there just died of blood loss. that gives you pity reducing your combat effiency. you run out blindly and just dash behind a half-destroyed apartment in central china halfway through an american liberation. Ressisstance would be way to strong but america would pull through it. You stick your head and the barrel of the M4 carbine out and take of the snipers helmet, a red stain on the wall behind him as he slumps down permanently. (Hope your enjoying my story so far im not really in the mood to debate so im just doing an action sack basicly.) you run out and behind a destroyed Triple 777 american artillary piece and take out your map, lost in a small city. there is only 2 other men left in your squad. you are a private, there is a corporal and a sergeant. you hear a loud crack in the distance and your corporal who was looking through his binoculars around to scout for enemies and he slumps foward with a red circle of A positive dripping new ground around him. You run to the dead medic and jump into a foxhole spraining your ancle. You pull your dead friend into the foxhole and take his napsack off his back with the big red cross on it and take out his blowout kit. you grab it and leave your friend once and for all and run like a chettah to the triple 777. you have been trained in medic skills in case of what just happened were to happen. You pull over the shot corporal with a would in the abdomen and you take the bullet out. Then you bandage him up, hoping his desprate screams of pain dont draw all the entire PLA’s attetion. he is good to go for now but will always need support for a little while. you shed a tear at the sight of your dead friends back at the foxhole. it wasnt their fault..only the PLA. the PLA would pay…and pay with many lives. The gun slips out of your hands because of the blood. you pick it up, and move out with your squad, ready for as long as it takes to get revenge for his best friend…and those snipers. he would always go for them first, oh without a doubt. comment for another story from a PLA perspective.
jake
your a PLA lance corporal. America is halfway through China except for one spot we refuse to give up: Beijing.
“i hope we come out in one piece” you say to your commander. “fuck you with your pussy excuses. last time we fought in defense of Beijing you retreated. Your not fucking french!” he yelled back.
You take a transport helicopter till your over western Beijing. a 30 mm AA gun blazes at you and the helicopter’s rotor gets blown off and you and your squad crash into the ground, slamming the wind out of you.
your squad re-couperates and catches your breath and run out behind a trash-pale.
The battle for Beijing has been going on for 34 hours and there is no clear winner. All around you MBT’s and Soldiers run and shoot crazed. America has taken the North and East and are comming down on you. “Where do we go?” you ask fearful. “Where ever. orders are to stop the American advance and fight to the death, so thats what we will do.” says your commander. Out of no-where, where the 2008 olympic games were held, an Abrams come smashing out of it and fires its 120 mm smoothbore HE round and blows down a house.
Your squad scatters and your commander gets cut down by the .50 caliber on top of the abrams. You dash from behind the garbage pale to a military motorcycle. you ride it to position charlie-zulu, where the big guns are. You get off and get the stash of hidden anti-tank weapons and climb the ladder on a lop-sided truck. You load the Queenbee anti-tank rocket launcher and shoot at a M1A3 bradley. you destroy its left track system and it goes spinning in a circle three times before falling on its side. The battle around you is going crazy, flashes of orange-red and a wave of wind following it all around. Buildings crumple as A-10 Thunderbolts straif. One is shot down by a concealed Sam system and goes crashing down into a houses garden. You run to the top of a 3 story building and see an American laying down with an m24 sniper rifle. You sneak up till you can touch him, and silently take out your knife. You position yourself above him. you turn him over so you can see his face. he looks young, around 23. He has a stunned but frightened look on his face. You, with great force, take your razor sharp knife and push down so it goes about 3 inches into his abdomen. He gasps, and you pull out your knife and blood covers it. He lets his sniper rifle fall out of his hands and lays on the ground and puts his hands on his abdomen, looking up at you for mercy. you take your knife and stab him in the abdomen again, and he stares at you and puts his hand up for mercy. you pull out your knife and it is again covered in blood. he lets out a cry and rolls over and he looks at you again and you lean down next to him. you open his vest and his shit as well till you see his abdomen, covered in blood. you take your knife and shove it in to create a third wound. He is heaving for air, and he lets out a final defened cry and he rolls till his face is looking up. You get up, look over him and his eyes, for a breif second, meet yours as if he is saying “help” and his head rolls to the side. you get up, take his m24, and put your knife in its sheath. You look at him and wonder why you would do such a thing, but you did it. He was young, perhaps if i had only shot him through the head to end his suffering, but no i had to brutally stab him. you take his dog tag and se its says may 25 2000. He was 25. He was so young. He could have had a family, or came home to a family or brother. but he will be burried, because i killed him.
ryan
You are a chinese Sniper overlooking A squad of americans. NATO has taken the capital, but not the entire country. You are one of the few survivors in Hurtishemu, north of the great wall of china. You look down without a spotter too help you. You scan through your sights of your QBU-88 sniper rifle, and you see a four man squad of American soldiers. The squad looks around the age of 23 per person, all males. One sits on the hood of a destroyed toyota and takes out a cigeratte, and puffs it breifly. His squadmate comes over to talk and they both laugh and resume setting up station. The other two are looking at a map and trying to figure out where to go next. You aim your sniper at the cigeratte soldier and pull the trigger. The bullet flys and the silencer stops it from sounding like a gun. the bullet goes along and hits him in the neck. He drops the cigeratte and falls foward and lays on the ground clutching his neck and screaming. His friend that was talking to him that looked the youngest ran behind a car on your side of the street. You are in a two story house on the top floor firing out a window. The cigeratte man screams again and his hand falls from his neck and he slumps sideways as a pool of o negative fills the street cracks around him. You then re ajust your gun and fire at the second youngest looking and hit his abdomen and he slumps down in shock. You then aim at the oldest looking one probabky around 25 and shoot his face and his left eye blows off and he dies immedately. The youngest man runs into the house your in and you leave the sniper on the windowsill and rush into a closet and take your knife out. He runs into the room your in and slows down and walks toward the gun on the windowsill, still hot from fring. He lowers his gun and looks at your gun and picks it up and throws it out the window. Before he has the cahnce to turn around you run up behind him and take out your knife and wrap it around him and stab his abdomen. He jumps back with his gun flying and you pull out your knife and spit on him. He gets up and stabs YOU with his knife in the foot. You step back and your foot is throbbing with its pulse, and blood trickles out. You stab him in the bottom of the head a little behind the chin and his eyes widen and he steps back and stabs your foot. You get on top of him and stab his chest so hard the knife goes the whole 8 inches in and he gasps and dies. You look at what you did and you just killed the most popular 23 year old on cherokee road. You just killed high school football star. You just killed a personality. You leave the room with your knife and leave the building and go to where the man shot in the abdomen is and he looks at you with his dying eyes. You take your knife and stab his heart. He dies immedately and blood comes out of his mouth.
paul
Dreamer!Chinyse soldiers don’t need to fight civilians in America,they just bomb their food power and water supplies.After a copple of days the civilians will trade in their guns for a loaf of bread and gallon of water!
Phantom
Ok, like Jake said with his arguement, I am a 14-15 year old teenager living in America and my argument against this topic is that everything everyone says about America and China going to war is garbage. Even though most comments here are arguing about which country is better here in the comments. Both countries have their good-bad sides. China has the highest ranking average grade score in the world with America somewhere falling in the 5th to 7th place.
As I am both Chinese and America, my argument maybe biased but to say that china and america will go to war as tensions are growing is a double-edged sword. What defines a country? This is the big question that the topic is simply pointing out. I went to China last year and had been visiting relatives and one time I had been in a hotel and the hotel service workers asked me whether I was american or not, this experience was quite funny because unlike my chinese friends I have the worst chinese so the employees had a hard time understanding me expect for when I stated I was American. It ended up that they followed me around the entire place like they wanted to help me.
Funny experience, but bottom line, when a tourist from a foreign country visits China,citizens will treat you with a sort of respect if your American, but, if you state your from somewhere else, they just say “oh” and leave you alone. Chinese want to be like Americans.
They envy the freedoms that Americans have, the Chinese government is a mock-verison of the democrarcy that the US inherited form Ancient Greece, China is communist, a one party government that has all the power in their hands. Chinese hate it, especially the younger growing population that has yet to take over. With the quickly decrease support for the Chinese government, we may actually be or may not be seeing a Civil War or Civil movement in the next century or so where a real democratic government 2-party government that will take over.
This may seem a little too optumistic and it probably is but the Chinese are quickly switching their postion from a side-liner in Worldly affairs to a more direct role as America plays today.
Another thing to look at is American and Chinese economies, China’s economy as said in the book, “The Next 100 Years” by George Friedman, even though the book is much wrong with the theories, he points out that China lives in a fragile economic bubble that could easily pop with the write senerios. America industry, ecomoically has fallen behind due to transfer of strength of American industries like Apple, Microsoft, and other powerful economy driving corperations to China because there are better job and profit chances in China espeically with easier labor. As above pointed out by the article that China is cracking down on internet user because China doesn’t want their citizens to be influenced by the outside world or the world around china. As this continues to take shape, American industries will more likely start to flow back to America and they will finally escape the 2008 stockmarket crash.
Every century America will have atleast 2 Economic depressions, things that simply do not matter too much as proved America has surivived in its short existence as America has only existed for about 250 years while China has gone on for 4000 years as split state-countries too one country under one power. To go to war with each other is simply outrageous because of mostly Economy and Social nessesity.
America is china greatest trading partner and our citizens need Chinese products, even against the age old claim that Chinese products are extrememly cheap which is only certain in some form. Also america is in no shape or form to go to war with China in its current position due to insuffient leaders to fight a long and costly war and the economic crisis. China wouldn’t go to war because of civilian outcry against such and because China needs America’s consumer money to continue to prosper.
Another thing to look upon is the countries’ average peronalities. America is too ignorant, as Cpt. John Price said from Call of duty (Even though quoting video games is strange, some quotes are true and can be used) “Overconfidence makes you careless.” Americans have become overconfident in our postition of the world, we think we are in control but we will again come across an event much like Pearl Harbor that will more likely end up being worse. America will find its self suprised and more likely crippled by and enemy suprise attack no matter who it is, but, America always comes back, she always does.
Chinese are mostly not meant to be leaders, leader traits are uncommon among Chinese, they serve best as mentors and teachers. America will again lead the world in the future, China will be by their side. Everything I state hear is in theory. but, based on other accounts of books and television and what I have seen in my own experince. Then again, another quote from Cpt. John Price, “The only truth I found is that the world we live in is a giant tinderbox. All it takes…is someone to light the match.” The world will always be at the brink of war is always unpredictable, all we can do is watch and for all we know, China and America can go to war.