Hacker News Reader

A Chinese national was talking about this 100 year plan to me just the other day. It's certainly no secret or just a theory. The Chinese Dream is all about "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". This isn't explicitly about overtaking the US, it's more about China taking what it considers to be its rightful place in the world - and that certainly isn't second place. In my view, it's only rational that this would be their goal.

China is definitely no friend of the US, nor an enemy (at this point), but definitely a genuine competitor. If the US does not recognize this and act accordingly, China will indeed replace it as the world superpower. If you're Chinese, this would be great news, if you're American it would be concerning. It's always going to be bad news for one of the parties due to the conflicting ideologies.

"f you're Chinese, this would be great news"

Why?

When China becomes uber powerful, will the state then stop controlling everyone's thoughts?

Will they have basic rights then?

Or will corruption go away?

Will people still be looking to flee China when it's #1?

> When China becomes uber powerful, will the state then stop controlling everyone's thoughts?

> Will they have basic rights then?

> Or will corruption go away?

> Will people still be looking to flee China when it's #1?

If you assume that the future will be basically like the past (untrue, but better than most assumptions), then the answers are:

1. It doesn't now, it can't now, and it won't be able to then. But it definitely won't stop trying.

2. Yes, in much the same way they have basic rights now. Which is to say, they will enjoy what their culture thinks of as basic rights, but probably not what you think of as basic rights.

3. No.

4. Yes, just as people have sought to flee every country in the past or present.

It's just a story.

Some people like the story and rally around it.

As our world gets more and more hyperconnected whatever delusions groups of people have of their favorite story being accepted as global narrative get tested very fast.

And break down faster if there is no universal appeal. There are enough examples playing out around the world.

All these nationalistic stories will keep breaking down.

There are 5 billion more people in the world than the Americans and Chinese put together. They aren't going to blindly bend over to either an American or Chinese narrative.

We like to live in this dream state that the most powerful countries matter. They dont. Ask the Taliban.

The Indians and Russians and Europeans and South Americans and Africans don't give one shit about Make America great again or Make China great again.

What will play out is a collapse of these narratives in spectacular fashion.

"We like to live in this dream state that the most powerful countries matter. They dont. Ask the Taliban."

You mean ask a bunch of people living in the stone age, who are getting killed en masse what they think of their power relative to others?

I think you picked maybe the worst possible example: just because a group can live on rice in inhostile territory doesn't mean that the power ratio is negated.

If the Americans wanted to actually destroy the Taliban it wouldn't be that hard, it would just come at a cost nobody wants to pay.

Well, whether the give a shit or not, there are winners and losers. People didn't give a shit about the Roman Empire either.

A rising tide raises all boats. All things being equal its better for a Chinese to be in a strong China than a second tier one. Plus, the average Chinese doesn't necessarily share the concerns of western observers, they have had a different culture and values of their own for millennia, and a state that wasn't entirely different than their current.

Besides, anybody can ask the same. If the US keeps its power or gains even more, will the cops stop killing black citizens? Will the big corps stop have politicians in their pockets? Will Wall Street lackeys get out of power? Will mass surveillance stop? Will wars for oil and "national interests" stop? Will the middle and working class stop declining? Will healthcare be affordable?

"Plus, the average Chinese doesn't necessarily share the concerns of western observers, they have had a different culture and values of their own for millennia, and a state that wasn't entirely different than their current."

I call rubbish.

Corruption is corruption and nobody ever accepts it as 'part of our historical culture'.

Having a corrupt government official take your home because they want to build a mall is pretty much Universally bad.

Being thrown in a concentration camp because of your religion not something anyone wants.

Having to bribe officials to get where you want is not something anyone wants.

Being told how many children you can and cannot have is not something anyone would rather live with.

I accept that people will accept differing levels of surveillance etc. - but in the end there are universal issues here.

>Corruption is corruption and nobody ever accepts it as 'part of our historical culture'

You'd be surprised. Some cultures don't like rigid "law and order" on everyday life, and prefer bendable laws in some cases (even if are OK with stricter laws in others). It has a lot to do with historical development and custom law, rather than some sterile "law trumps everything" being everybody's utopia.

>Having a corrupt government official take your home because they want to build a mall is pretty much Universally bad.

Sure, but having a strong government and not blow up a 1.6 billion country into competing factions and civil war chaos is pretty much universally badder.

Most of the "bleeding hearts" (for the countries of others), assume once you break down the "corrupt government" a functional democracy will follow.

The never bother wondering whether a functional democracy is even possible at that scale, nor to ponder the other places they've turned into hell-holes with their interventions.

Nor do they care much about sovereignty, the idea that people should fix those things for themselves, and not have some third parties (with their own ideas, culture, and interests) impose a solution.

>Being told how many children you can and cannot have is not something anyone would rather live with.

At the individual level maybe. But having too much population grown in your country is not something "anyone would rather live with" either.

> If you're Chinese, this would be great news, if you're American it would be concerning.

What if you're not American nor Chinese?

If you're not American or Chinese...

And America and China really do want to both be the lone superpower. (I'm just not convinced of this premise by the way, but let's assume it's true)...

Then the rational thing for you to do is look back on the past, what? 70 or so years and ask yourself has it been good for you or bad for you? That should give you a pretty good idea of which nation you'd be best off with as the super-power.

Then kick back, grab some popcorn, and hope that your guy wins.

I mean, if you're not American or Chinese...

it's easy.

I hope that my country (Hungary) will not be the battle ground for the 2 superpowers. It was for the last 1000 years.

In that case you don’t care who wins — just that win quickly ;)

the 'cold war' ended up being a bunch of proxy actual-wars in my area, and I don't think the thousands that died liked it very much.

Generally going to face a similar fate as Americans. With exception of a few sanctioned countries everyone can participate economically and legally in the US subject to the same laws.

Pick a side to bet on.

>China will indeed replace it as the world superpower...

Again, why would this be an issue? I mean, for us here in the USA? Why would we not want to be rid of the "privilege" of being the "super" power in what is clearly a multi-polar world?

The US position as the top superpower is what allows it to print its way out of recessions without being crushed by inflation, since all those extra dollars get stashed away in foreign reserves. If the dollar loses that status, the chicken that is the federal debt will finally come home to roost. At least that's my understanding. If the US loses its edge, inflation will go up as growth slows, resulting in something like Japan's lost decade. Not to mention the preferential treatment it gets by having the biggest stick.

I'd make two points here though:

First, the vast majority of our debt is owed to ourselves, not to foreigners.

Second, what makes our dollars so valuable, is not our status as a super-power, but our willingness to pay it back. Think of it this way, the big ticket items in the US government budget are the military, Medicare/SS, and debt service. Now we hear all the time talk about cuts to the military or medicare/ss. But no one even CONSIDERS talk about cutting debt service. THAT is what makes dollars so valuable. (It's also why the vast majority of them are eaten up by us and not foreigners.)

So I'm not convinced at all that our dollars are valuable because we are a super-power. Russia was a super-power, and no one was stockpiling rubles. Likewise, Switzerland is not a super-power, but everyone should have some swiss francs.

For most countries, paying their debt is just table stakes (not paying their debt is not an option).

That doesn’t give them leverage to print money inflation-free.

What allows the US to do it is the USD’s status as the leading global reserve and trade currency. That status is based on habit and influence.

Yes, but what makes it possible to service such debt at such scale is that US can strongarm the whole world into submission. It is not the only thing that matters (relevant to the USSR example) but it is the major one.

Correlated to that US would also lose its huge influence in financial institutions world wide. Right now US influnce is preventing World Bank funds from being used to pay for One Belt projects. Few countries want to pay off loans for One belt project using Western loans. If China had been sole superpower, it would have bulldozed even more on projects similar to One Belt project than it is currently doing now.

This is true, but the interesting thing is that USA is quite favourable to Bitcoin, which I believe will be the next reserve currency. For now it looks like Chinese government is missing out on the most important technical innovation.

Because when you lose power, you are exposed to a greater number of risks that are beyond your control. This risk is magnified when the new superpower is different to you politically, culturally, and ideologically.

China would need to come clean with a few of the skeletons behind its firewall before I would feel comfortable with them wielding that much power.

I'm not saying that America is innocent (by any means), just that I would rather them hand the torch to a country that's more honest to their own people and operates more openly.

>just that I would rather them hand the torch to a country that's more honest to their own people and operates more openly.

So, China then? At least with party rule, what you get is what you see.

Wow people other than Americans want to succeed and compete. This is devastating news /s

Perhaps Americans should stop blaming others and look inwards. Break up all the corporate monopolies and duopolies to trigger innovation again. Build functional affordable sustainable cities. Switch to renewable power as soon as possible. Welcome the brightest and most motivated people instead of banning them from the country. Invest your trillions of borrowed money into infrastructure and the health of your population instead of killing civilians abroad for no reason. Do all these things and more and America will succeed and people will always want the USD. Be humble and competitive rather than arrogant and convinced of your own exceptionalism on the basis of mere existence.

But nah, rather sit in front of the TV and yell about China.

I find the intensity of the anti China sentiment in this forum to be quite puzzling to be honest.

> Do all these things and more and America will succeed and people will always want the USD.

From my limited understanding of the issue (emphasis on "limited"), it seems that Most countries in the world don't want the USD to be their currency of reference but are forced to out of fear of being invaded.

I may be wrong but from the oustide looking in it seems to me that a lot of people in the US live in denial and don't necessarily want to come to terms with the fact that the show is almost over.

They can have whatever plans they want, it doesn't mean they have a remote chance of success.

The natural resource of the information age is not iron or oil, but a populace of free thinkers who are unafraid to fail while working outside of cultural norms. Why does the US dominate the Internet? It's not because our 1s and 0s are better quality, or our technology education is superior or even that we have better funding for tech (it costs almost nothing to create a web site except time, desire and expertise.) It's our culture: we value the pioneer spirit. New frontiers are dove into head first.

China's recent successes can be attributed to intellectual theft from innovative cultures, and brutal oppression of their own people. This does not scale. Until they free the minds of their populace, they will never be able to globally complete in science and technology.

The US does have a great innovation-oriented culture but much of it stems from continual immigration of brilliant people from all over the world as well as being the largest single market with largely uniform culture and language, which greatly helps with the scaling of large enterprises.

China's domestic market is coming close to the US size and arguably larger in PPP terms which matters more than in dollars since the costs for R&D are often dominated by domestic salary. Anyone knowledgeable about Chinese domestic market will attest to its vitality and bustling competitive spirits, not to mention intense work ethics that results in rapid experimentation and iteration.

The US continues to lead in breakthroughs but rollouts of innovation happen faster in the Chinese market. With more funding and resources, China also starts to lead in fields they focus on including quantum communications, some areas in AI, and a few other engineering fields.

What is clearly lacking for the US is solid education in mathematics. This deficiency leaves the majority of population behind most peers in the developed world. The gap behind East Asian nations including China is especially acute as shown by the PISA result.

The gap in math between US and participating Chinese provinces (200+ million population) in PISA 2015 is about 0.6 SD, or roughly comparable to students with 2.7 vs 3.3 GPA.

The US needs to expend more effort to attract the best people in the world while pushing ahead with education reforms. The latter takes over a decade to bear fruits, however, so attracting and retaining global innovators should be a key current priority.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...

> The US needs to expend more effort to attract the best people in the world

US did that for the last 50 years, and it did not work out as much as it was imagined it would.

You do not only need a world class academicians, but their second-in-command people, regular full time researchers, junior assistants for them, and qualified blue collar workers to help run universities they will be working in.

People have been saying China haven't a hope in succeeding since the 80s yet here we are. Smashing everyone out of the water with ease. Doing the unthinkable as a matter of fact. They play to win and they're good at it.

The thing is back in the 80's, China was starting from a low point. It's easy to catch up which is what they've done but like the original poster said, it's much tougher to take the lead position. I agree with him that the Chinese culture makes it harder to innovate.

While I can see the logic in the argument I think it doesn't reflect in reality. For example they are miles ahead in stem cell research because they pursue technological advancement with much less concern about morals and regulation at the research phase.

Are they miles ahead? My impression of Chinese biology isn't that it's super advanced - I mean, it's another subject, but consider the recent headlines about the CRISPR baby. Ask any biologist about that experiment, and they'll tell you it's not only the ethics that are seriously bizarre, but just the idea that you should use something like CRISPR on a baby at this stage in the technology's development. It's mad science, but it's not likely good science.

Other than Japanese fishing vessels, who has China been "smashing out of the water with ease?"

World's expectations!

Yes, it's that attitude that's the problem. Not all problems can be solved with tanks. And they are getting worse, not better, no matter what their propaganda shills claim.

> China's recent successes can be attributed to intellectual theft from innovative cultures, and brutal oppression of their own people. This does not scale.

It scales pretty well. Reason? Facts. Anyone saying China can't innovate is self-denial.

Theft doesn't scale. Like a parasite that kills its own host, after you drive your victim out of business, who will you steal from then?

Using fear and brutal dominance causes people to take less risks and focus on appearing to succeed instead of committing to the unpopular, long-term effort and delayed results that innovation requires. China's appearance of recent success is exactly that - an appearance. A thin facade created by a PR campaign. We all know from being ripped off on Amazon the real quality of Chinese products. It's exactly what one would expect from a country of prisoners.

If China is such a great power, why not compete on a even field? Get rid of the mail subsidies and use a fair currency exchange rate. You won't, because you know your backwater has no hope of competing with civilized nations. Arrogance and corruption are not a replacement for responsible and effective.

Oh, well, your faith is strong with this one.

But praying for the downfall of your enemy due to their own weaknesses isn't very good strategy leads towards victory, as we all understand it.

Praying? More like waiting.

Go examine how common private debt is in China. How common corruption is, which leads to bad products and failing infrastructure.

"civilized nations"?

Pride goeth before the fall..

Yeah, this kind of blind racism and ignorance of what's actually happening in China is always a bit shocking. A lot of people are going to look back on the US from 2001 to 2030 and ask themselves how people be so totally blind and stupid. It's going to be one of those monumental historical blunders that will never really be lived down.

They're innovative enough to implement off of stolen documents and whatever they already know which is a pretty hard skill.

I can't tell you how many projects I've been on where everything is spelled out to spec and nothing gets implemented right.

Political change in China is more plausible than the US suddenly increasing its population by 800 million or so.

Are you talking about free non-military funded thinking outside of Microsoft, Alphabet, Oracle, IBM and other corporations?

If you really think it's Americans with the pioneer spirit these days you should spend a month driving around the US observing people then do the same for the cities in China.

Could you elaborate? What differences would you expect your driver to see?

Information wants to be a keystone of the US economy?

>what if the “China Dream” is to replace us, just as America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot?...

Devil's Advocate I know, but what would be so bad about this?

Our position, considering the world is now multi-polar, is really more of a predicament than a privilege. Why would we fight them replacing us? (Or rather, I suppose game theoretically it would be best to make a show of fighting it, and pretend to regret losing it. A la Huck Finn and whitewashing fences.)

I mean, my concern is that they don't WANT to replace us. Which, to my mind, is worse for us.

Because their ideals are to control everything and disappear dissidents. I don't want that to occur globally thanks.

I was also wondering, what is so bad about being the consumer nation, when our currency is in great demand around the world? In some weird way, the US has made the dollar itself a sought-after commodity, that is super easy to generate and sell to the rest of the world. An amazing deal, really.

>I was also wondering, what is so bad about being the consumer nation, when our currency is in great demand around the world?

The reason the dollar is in great demand is that it's backed up by American political and financial clout and force projection capabilities. If that ceases to be the case then demand for US currency collapses.

That's the present. What about the future? The USD can't be the world's reserve currency forever. What happen's when demand for oil is 50% of what it is now? What happens if oil starts to be traded in terms of some other currencies? What happens if the numerous countries whose currencies are pegged to the dollar decide to peg them to the yuan instead?

That can be said about any export. What if other countries don’t want it anymore? Well then you have to diversify. Looj at Russia or Venezuela and how oil prices affected them. That’s their “dollars”.

But if the USA is able to keep doing machinations around the world so that the dollar is demand for 200 years, eg by just making it the most stable currency, then their dollars and treasuries will literally be the thing that they trade for everything else. Like what if a bank goes insolvent... ok but what if it doesn’t, then everyone wants to use its money and credit.

The USA also lobbies for strong IP protections and international treaties because that’s another one of its exports.

Manufacturing and raw materials are actually less likely to remain a comparative advtantage than this artificially enforced stuff.

The problem is, as a debtor nation our currency is only good as long as we can make our debt payments. If we don't actually produce much of value, that won't be for much longer. We (the U.S.) are currently running an experiment to see how much we can run up our debt while simultaneously becoming more dependent on the rest of the world for just about everything and wondering what's the worst that could possibly happen? Sadly, this experiment has already been run repeatedly throughout history and it doesn't end well.

> If we don't actually produce much of value, that won't be for much longer.

But, we do produce a lot of value; we may be more specialized in intangible goods and services, but as long as those are marketable, we're fine.

> Sadly, this experiment has already been run repeatedly throughout history and it doesn't end well.

Leaving aside disagreement over whether the US is even in he scenario you propose, when has it ever ended badly for a country whose debt was denominated in its own fiat currency, rather than a commodity currency or foreign fiat?

Yeah.

That's why I'm trying to figure out why would even fight China trying to replace us? Surely the bigger issue would be if they only wished to sit back and make money for China without helping anyone else do anything?

a bit tongue in cheek...

It’s a bit like men being upset that feminism has led to women doing more work building careers and earning more money. Male lions sit around and have intercourse while the lionesses hunt. Maybe that is the future for humans too?

I don’t actually believe this, I think both sexes should scale down their devotion to the corporate world and focus instead on their families and other pursuits with a UBI. Robots will pick up the slack eventually.

I know it's off topic, but I agree with this as well.

Robots really are the only viable way forward. The idea that we can keep increasing production, but somehow force companies to continue to hire all kinds of employees at wages that support middle class lifestyles is fanciful in the extreme. I'm not sure why politicians keep putting that idea forward as viable? It's directly contradictory to the fundamentals of economics.

What's so bad for us? You could argue that. If we stopped trying to run the world, it would be a lot less expensive (in terms of both money and lives). That might not be so bad.

What's so bad for the world? Depends on how China tries to run it. But looking at the Uighurs, I'm kind of concerned that they won't run the world all that well for the rest of the world...

China's ambition is to "rejuvenate the nation" to its past glory.

What kind of glory? Who knows. Certainly it's not about simply replacing the USA. China has no wish policing the world. (Maybe dicking around but certainly not busy installing democracy everywhere)

The reason China appears to acting against US is because it looks like the biggest abstacle for China's development is the island chains and the technological gap. Chinese are somehow extremely affirmative of their belief and power structure.

Very likely China will view the US' "world police" strategy the same way the US viewed the later period British Empire.

They'll dabble, because of the perceived prestige but probably not really put weight behind it. They'll find something that works (maybe this new silk road) and then rinse-repeat until it doesn't. In time, china will have their own disfunctional, sprawling global dominance machinery..

> What kind of glory?

The envy of the world.

lol right. Even the pretended envy would do.

> America replaced the British Empire, without firing a shot

Uhm, our dominance has a lot to do with WWII. Our economy boomed while Europe, including the UK, rebuilt itself.

So we definitely fired lots of shots to get on top, but we can probably assume those shots are defensive.

If that's the case (which clearly it is), then limiting immigration is a bad move. Historically, the most powerful nations have been those with a free-wheeling economy and open/liberal attitudes. The U.S. needs to continue to attract the world's bright, ambitious, and hard-working people.

Now, I don't think the U.S. can afford to provide much of a safety net, in regards to basic income and healthcare if it's going to have open borders and a great deal of economic freedom. It will be expensive enough just to deal with the enviornmental problems of a dynamic economy.

The history of reserve currencies suggests a ~100 year arc of dominance, and the US is at the end of that line.

https://azizonomics.com/2012/01/04/a-history-of-reserve-curr...

> The history of reserve currencies suggests a ~100 year arc of dominance

You’re extrapolating from a 200-year history with N=2.

Those are all western countries. Do you think Americans could be amenable to a European-based reserve currency? They share our values.

>Do you think Americans could be amenable to a European-based reserve currency?

Culturally, no. Americans would consider it an attack on their sovereignty.

It would be a tough sell in anything like the current political climate.

>Based on interviews with Chinese defectors and newly declassified, previously undisclosed national security documents, The Hundred-Year Marathon reveals China’s secret strategy to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, and to do so by 2049, the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic.

Why would it have to be a "secret strategy"? Of course they'd like to replace the US as the world's dominant power...