Do you think China wants to be the hegemonic economic power

[buddahsmoka1]

Originally Posted by RandV

This is what I was wondering about, but the interesting part is it's entirely intentional thanks to their 1 child policy. They have a billion people now, but how will the country look 50 years from now when the older generation dies off and all the 'one child' kids grow up? And following up again with the generation after that since they're having more boys than girls.

If there's one thing the Chinese government does is think in the long run, so I've always wondered exactly what the goal with these policies were.

The goal is rather simple: to decrease population growth so that depreciation of capital does not occur at a much faster rate than savings and investment. If you want to raise the standard of living and GDP per capita, you can't have high birth rates. But because of the asymmetric nature of fertility rates in rural-urban China, they had to install a policy that forced fertility rates down instead of the more incremental economic approach observed in developed countries.

[Rabid Ranger]

China needs to worry more about maintaining it's #2 position rather than trying to be the top dog. A few factors:

* Despite their pandering to the third world, they lack the "soft power" to truly be an ideaological mover and shaker

* Their own infrastructure is built on a house of cards

* They seem intent on waging the same losing battle as the Soviet Union did when it comes to runaway military spending in an effort to compete with the U.S. armed forces

* Other countries (India, Brazil, Mexico) are creeping up economically. Mexico in particular is close to being a more valuable trading partner to the U.S. than China

I think what China has done in a relatively short period of time is amazing-but it is not without cost. The next decade or so will be very interesting.

[Johnnywhite]

Originally Posted by Rabid Ranger

* They seem intent on waging the same losing battle as the Soviet Union did when it comes to runaway military spending in an effort to compete with the U.S. armed forces

Yap away when Chinese military expenditure gets close to 25% of US military expenditure...whose 'runaway military spending', get real.

[buddahsmoka1]

Yeah, I kind of did a double take on that one as well. Although China's military spending in absolute terms is going up quite quickly, so is their revenues and GDP.

In terms of military spent as a percentage of GDP, most organizations have it from 1-2%. Which is average.