Hacker News Reader

You need to take into account the population of these countries. US is 319 million people, Japan 127 and China 1,368 (figures from 2014). South Korea and Taiwan are even smaller at 50 million and 23 million inhabitants.

For China to be as developed as Korea, Taiwan or Japan would mean for its GDP per capita to be roughly on par. A quick calculation shows that if China GDP per capita were to be on par with that of Japan, its overall GDP would be 3.5x bigger than that of US! Which mean the ability (for instance) to spend 3.5x more on the PLA than the US on its army without impacting other budgets.

China still has a long way to go, but it actually has a shot at getting there (contrary to Japan). I think (very personal theory) that the US managed to become the de facto only superpower standing simply by virtue of being the biggest developped country in the world, by far: France, UK, Germany or even Russia are very small (population wise) compared to it. Hell: France, UK and Germany put together are still small compared to the US.

population size was certainly a factor, but the main reason the us became the largest super power was that it was the only major developed country that was not bombed to crap during world War ii. being isolated by two large oceans is a great advantage.

I don't think Germany is less developed than US today by any meaningful measure, despite having been essentially destroyed and then cut in two for half a century. I would even argue that most of Northern Europe (Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc.) is more advanced than US, at least for things I care about: affordable healthcare and education, low criminality, etc.

But all in all when it comes to "might", to being a superpower, it just doesn't add up. Size does matter. The EU is in the correct league, but in my opinion it's not heading in the right direction: I'd rather a much smaller, much more integrated EU, with unified defense, budget, administration, etc. The United States of Europe, in short.

On the other hand you could argue that without WWI and WWII, France and UK could have kept their respective empires united. I'll readily admit that I'm not particularly fond of colonization (unless we are talking about the video game, the first one), but you could certainly make the numbers add up.

The US spends $600B annually on defence, and China spends $130B. Multiplying by 3.5 still doesn't close the gap...

China's security concerns are also focused inwards (protecting the party from rebellion, unhappy minorities in the west, semi-hostile neighbors), preventing it from projecting much power outside of China.

They're starting to realize now that by projecting power externally you can keep all the minorities and malcontents placated with nationalism </cynicism>

Nationalism doesn't work well for Uighurs or Tibetans. Nationalism plays more to the poorer Han majority in the east.

They got trillions worth of defense for free by hacking the US also.

You can't blame them at all for doing that though, if someone or another country has some technology or information that the US wants and can't access then I'm sure we would employ similar (or much more devastating) techniques to acquire it.

I didn't explain myself clearly: if China had a comparable GDP per capita as Japan, its GDP would be 3.5x bigger than that of US. But currently China GDP per capita is 10x smaller than that of Japan ($3600 vs $37500). $130B times ten would bring China defense budget to a staggering $1300B.

$1300B is quite a bit more than $600B, but indeed not 3.5x more. Two factors are at play: US defense budget is larger in scope than that of China (for instance, if I remember correctly, most rocketry stuff fall under defense budget in US, but not in China), and China just doesn't spend as much (as a percentage of GDP) as US for its defense.

Again, China has a very very long way to go.

What Xixi says is that when China's GDP per capita matches that of Japan, it's economy will be 3.5x as big as US's. A similar percentage in budget for defence as that of US would then mean 3.5 x 600B. Nothing to do with China's current GDP or her current defence budget.

If China does reach South Korea in economic development, though, that means 25,977 USD in GDP per capita. With a population of around 1.35 billion, this means 35 trillions of total GDP, more than twice as much as the U.S. Even more if it matches Taiwan, Japan, U.S. or Norway in GDP per capita, of course.

Now, I think very few people are actually making the argument that China is going to be the most developed country on earth in per capita terms (the U.S. isn't, by most accounts that title belongs to one of the Nordic countries). What most people expect is for China to become a developed high-income country, which is pretty damn significant when we are talking about the most populous country on earth. More than one fifth of humanity joining the developed world is no small deal. It will have and is already having a massive impact in the economy, politics and environment world-wide. That said, whatever the challenges, it's hard to paint over a billion people going from poverty to developed-world-wealthy in about half a century as anything short of impressive. In general we are nearing the tipping point after which most of the world will count as a "developed" country by the metrics of the previous century, and China rising is a big part of that.

Reaching ROK levels of development are quite ideal, and a bit hard considering China's population is much larger. You'll see some cities that are quite rich (e.g. Shanghai), but if you go into the hinterland where most of the people still live, they are quite far from it; the Thai countryside in comparison is much richer. The caste system (i.e. hukou system) doesn't help with that.

It will be interesting when China reaches Russia's level of GDP/person ($15K/year vs. $7k/year now), which should happen in a decade or so.

> More than one fifth of humanity joining the developed world is no small deal.

Income inequality is quite bad, that wealth is not spread out very evenly. It is not a fifth of humanity joining the developed world, but maybe a tenth or even less. China has huge challenges in lifting the boat more evenly, or there will be a lot more instability during the rise. Rooting out corruption and nepotism (under the guise of guanxi) is key to that.

China is technically proficient, and has been one of the top countries for much of its history, so this it's re-rise is to be expected and is definitely not unprecedented.

Expected and not unprecedented, sure. But still, a pretty big change as far as recent history goes. Certainly new in the post-industrial-revolution world.

Income inequality seems indeed like a big issue. When discussing rising inequality in China, authors describe it as "quickly approaching Latin American levels of income inequality". I am from Mexico. I can tell you that reaching that bar is not a good idea. Also, I am sure that is one of plenty of challenges, not the only one by any measure. Still, given past performance and historical precedent, developing past those challenges is, as you say, expected and not unprecedented. Also, as far as I understand, income inequality within nations is quickly rising all over, but global income inequality is in general narrowing because of the gap between developed and developing countries closing, no?

It is really hard to say, on the one hand we have:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/upshot/income-inequality-i...

But if you look at China or India, which are getting richer, I think you'll see a lot of people not really benefiting from it. So while the middle class reaches some parity with the rest of the world, there are many people getting left behind.

Thailand has had the benefit of never suffering from communism, great natural beauty and really, really friendly people, along with being where loads of American G.I.s went for R&R during Vietnam. China suffered Communism, mostly Mao, may he rot, and has been recovering slowly since. But I'd be really, really surprised if China hasn't overtaken Thailand in per capita, purchasing power parity GDP.

The fundamental reason I believe that is the same Deng Xiaoping did, he looked around Asia and the only place the Chinese weren't getting rich was China.

Thailand and China are about at parity right now in GDP per capita, so the comparisons are apt. Thailand also has a lot of political instability to deal with (military coup anyone?), and is a more laid back tropical country (barring the very Chinese Bangkok).

> we said the same thing about Japan in the 70s/80s, and they really didn't blow past us

"pass" another country in terms of what? Total GDP? Or military might, or environment protection, cars per household? It's a really vague notion. There are literally one thousand and one criteria to compare two countries. "pass" or "not pass" is not a useful measure for a nation's progress, imho. For example, Sweden/Denmark/Belgium/Japan/South Korea/etc. need not to pass (in whatever sense of it) USA or UK or another country for its citizens to enjoy high standard of living and peaceful environment. I think the same will happen to China. The living standard and environment will improve tremendously in the near future, passing usa or not.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but note that I was replying to grandparent:

> Someday a few decades from now we'll look back and try to figure out how China surpassed everyone else.

There were real feelings in the 80s that Japan would somehow be much richer than it is today (say, "kuwait" rich without the oil)...this was before its real estate bubble popped and it went through a decade of stagflation and deflation.

oh, my bad. yeah I remember the numerous news in the 80s that Japanese were snatching up properties in NYC and other places.

I visited Japan couple of times in recent years, beautiful place and amazing culture. If _majority_ of Chinese citizens can reach the current level of Japan's living standard in, say, three decades(am I a little pessimistic?) it will be a truly remarkable achievement of the country and humanity, imho. But it's the ride that's exciting. We are living in an interesting time.

I always say that it's mind-blowing how wasteful and inefficient the English teaching system is, with literally millions of kids (and adults) wasting millions of houses of precious schooling to study a language that they have no use for, no interest in, no talent with and will forget a lost as soon as they graduate.

That said, whenever I meet people with incredible English (and it happens often) I find it amazing how they did that without ever having come into contact with native speakers or even semi-decent language materials. It's a puzzling one.

" Take the educational system for example: it is great if you are middle class with money, but it doesn't work well for most of the students who go through it"

That sounds very much like school systems in the US, UK and Australia.

> That sounds very much like school systems in the US, UK and Australia.

Completely different levels of dysfunction (by at least an order of magnitude). How many kids in the US have to worry about dying in Tofu schools during an earthquake or in an accidental explosion because their teachers forced them to make fireworks?

If I have kids, I either need to pony up $30K a year for schooling, or move back to the states.