China the next super power?

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In case you haven't noticed, it isn't around anymore, and didn't really last that long compared to other empires.

I guess there's still the commonwealth, but not the same thing.

Regardless, I was more addressing the modern world.

Since when can China not do this? They have plenty of agricultural producing regions.

Enough to support their population?

I've always heard that China imports most of it's food from the USA.

It is precisely that reason that China's growth is somewhat sustained, it cannot do whatever it wants to its neighbors who all sport impressive militaries of their own, it has like... 3 alliances, its growth is very much dependent on the US, it has major social issues to deal with which is a lesser point I guess, and all of these things are on the projection that China grows at the rate that it does, and that has not been the case.

The United States, if it deals with structural and entitlement issues, will remain the defining super power for the rest of the century.

Thanks for moving the goalposts. By the way, I don't see how the British Empire is not modern. It was very much alive until about 60 years ago. What has changed so much? If anything, economies are less reliant on food production as time goes on: it's called "industrialisation".

That being said, did or did not the British Empire "take over the world"?

If any empire ever did such a thing, the British Empire it was. It dominated all the world economically, most of it culturally and a lot of it politically, which neither the Romans, Chinese, Mongols or any others can claim to have done. That domination lasted a century at the very least, arguably up to two, which I find rather honest as a duration (more than the informal and very partial, in both extent and scope, American domination). If anything made it less enduring, it would be demographic factors: densely populated though it was, Great Britain was smaller demographically than even France. Food, however, does not enter into it.

Food production is not a prerequisite to anything: one can buy food if one has money. The Italian city republics controled the Mediterranean, yet produced little food themselves (in the case of Venice, almost none): they just bought it. Actually, Italian communes exerted such a control over their hinterland that, in drought years, it was the rural areas that suffered. On the matter of "buying vs producing food", you will notice that normally, in periods of famine, the poor peasants starve before the rich city-dwellers.

If the Civilization game franchise has taught me anything, it's that the Persians built the Eiffel Tower in 1200 AD and that Moses was an Aztec religious leader.

This topic reminds of Japan in the middle 70's through the 90's. The Japanese were in the process of eating our lunch. They were buying up American firms. They were getting a hold of American patents and producing the finished products for 40 cents on the dollar. There was all kinds of talk about the Japanese style of doing business, Corporation "Z" and such like. And there was serious speculation that Japan was on its way to becoming ichi ban, Number 1. It didn't turn out that way. Japan had some serous problems with financing and with using their aging labor force. So Japan did not become ichi ban. However the United States was put on notice that there was and there will be still serious competition from Asia. As Thomas Friedman wrote, the world was becoming "flat", that is the comparative advantage of the U.S. over Asian nations was shrinking in relative size.

ruveyn

No. They began losing control of their colonies in the late 1700s - early 1800s.



Tell me, if China starts using it's power to bully the nations it buys food from, what if those nations decide to stop selling food to them? Everyone likes food. You can always sell it to someone else.

... what? They had barely started to have them in the first place. They lost (most of) their American colonies, but acquired others elsewhere. The British Empire last expansions of the Empire took place in the early 20th century. The Empire crumbled only in the second half of the 20th century.

In any case, I was not thinking only of colonies. Even without them, Great Britain could exert economic control over an area, as it did in South America, Siam, China, etc.


Whom does China bully? And how does that relate to the quote?

I'll admit I'm not very familiar with British history, but I do know that, as of yet, no country has successfully taken over the world.

I never said China bullies anyone. I said "If they START".

This whole thread seems to be based on a paranoid idea that China can take control of other countries with it's power. If China starts to bully us, we can pull the plug on their food supply and we have the military to keep them from just taking it long enough for them to starve, that is assuming they don't suffer some pollution related catastrophe in the next few years.

Until China can feed it's own population, any country that has a good military and is capable of feeding it's own population has nothing to fear.

Granted. I misread.


I agree that it is unlikely that China rule the world. For that matter, it is unlikely for any country. However, its food production capacities don't come into it. If China decides to bully other nations, it can do so with the intent of getting food in the first place.

Raw military power is not the priority of China. It is in a process of economic development. China has not attempted to conquer anyone or anything, a few border wars and island disputes notwithstanding. I don't think world domination is in the Popular Republic's agenda. Modernisation? Certainly. Being more advanced than the West? Maybe in the very long run. Domination? No.

Ok, then lets build some s**t then. We can do it.

I just think its creepy that the Peoples Liberation Army controls COSCO, one of the major shipping companies for goods coming into the US.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKb-TZk-zyg[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfYUCv1OECo&feature=related[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcSyNbMNF6U&feature=related[/youtube]

I'm not convinced that domination is on it's agenda either, but I do believe you're downplaying the importance of food production. Could China being bullying/taking over other countries for food? Yes. The point is they'd have to take care of that first before they'd stand a chance against a country that both produces it's own food and has a large, modern army.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_nH_PYU7rk&feature=related[/youtube]