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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (2846)	12/30/2005 7:57:44 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

As China becomes the largest economy in the world "I don't think that is going to happen soon." No but by 2040 or 2050 it should. I'm not even sure about that. You have to project some serious growth out in to the future and I have my doubts that it will continue for another 4 or more decades. Even if it does China's GDP will have to go to a lot of people, who will probably by then be demanding and consuming more. Not that its not a serious potential threat but its far from a forgone conclusion that China will be the biggest economy by the middle of the century or by any time this century. we will be getting better at the same time. They might never surpass us in power, or if they do it might take a long time. My "very unlikely" statement referred to the next two or three decades. Give it a century or so and anything can happen. British citizens might have been saying that 100 years ago. Venetian citizens might have been saying it half a millennium ago. Yes and if they did say it about a number of particular real or potential rivals they would have been correct. Romans saying it about their rivals would have been correct for a lot longer. I'm not saying that the US will be top dog forever, I'm just saying that China won't be top dog in 2030 and probably won't be for awhile after that, and that there is a chance it will never be. If it isn't China than it will be someone else eventually. Whether its 50 years, 100 years, or longer someone will eventually surpass the US. I don't have anywhere in mind, China is becoming more aggressive toward Japan and Taiwan. They would want to cut their teeth on something smaller and less likely to involve the US. The next logical step would be to fight a proxy war with client states so they could see how their weapon systems match up against ours. That could be on the Korean peninsula. I don't think that would be "less likely to involve the US. They could try attacking in South East Asia, but when they attacked Vietnam it didn't work so well. Russia and India have nukes. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan would have American protection. Maybe Mongolia? Might not be much of a test. Land based attacks would be easier for China than attacking over the ocean. China's navy and amphibious capability trails it land based capability, and it would probably be navally inferior to the US even if it GDP was slightly bigger. But a massive attack against Korea or Japan, or even invading Vietnam or Mongolia wouldn't be very good for China politically and economically. Maybe Bhutan is so small and weak that it could be gobbled up without much difficulty but what would China gain by doing so, unless their goal is to make India nervous and wary, which doesn't seem like much of a goal. Maybe some of the small disputed islands in the East or South China seas could be a Chinese target. The Paracel islands are already controlled by China. The Spratleys are disputed but I'm not sure that would be a real war. Going after the Senkaku Islands would mean a confrontation with Japan and the US and they are also close to and claimed by Taiwan. All three would oppose a Chinese invasion, and although the Islands are small they are bit far away for the Chinese to cease them quickly and present the other powers with a fair acompli. Mainly I don't really see a good target for China, strong enough to be a real test but weak enough to not be too big of risk. Taiwan would be the one situation where nationalist concerns might prompt an invasion even though it wouldn't be in China's practical interests, but it would be hard for China to pull off, and esp. hard if it didn't want to wind up in possession of the ruins of what was once Taiwan, but rather something worth controlling. Tim