Do you think in 20 years China will be more powerful than the United States ?

to help get you started http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-463/97463pl1.html

20? More like 5. Especially if Bush gets reelected

you think that if push came to shove, being "environmentally friendly" would ever be uttered? As far as expense goes, trust me, money is not an issue, as the costs would only be passed onto the consumer

20 years is probably too short a time scale, but yes, China is at least a candidate to be more powerful than the US in the not too distant future.

Globalisation and the misplaced belief of Americans in the superiority they ascribe to themselves will ensure the continued downward slide of the US. Europe doesn't suffer from the latter and may get a temporary reprieve if there is enough drive to pull together the 450 million people who live in EU countries. But it is also a high-wage area that the pendulum is swinging away from.

The big stumbling block in China could be their political development: not because of their brand of socialism per se (and right now capitalism isn't serving the west too well), but because it is hard to see the present leadership surviving the pressures which are building up there. There is no way to know, if the lid does blow, how long it will take things to settle, or what direction they will go off in afterward.

I don't put much faith in this kind of forecast. As a teenager in the sixties, I got used to predictions that WW3 would be a nuclear conflict between the US and the USSR. That wasn't some kind of left-wing conspiracy theory: many US and European government policies were/are a result of the extent to which that forecast was given credence. We know how that all evaporated...

i certainly hope not, but i do see this as a possibility in 50+ years.

And i am preety sure they will be..there is just too many of them...

20 years is way too long. Here's some stats

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global...y/FA23Dj01.html

"China recycles trade surplus into US Treasury bonds
American companies may have forgotten what Henry Ford propounded when he first built his Model T: If you do not pay high enough wages to your workers, they can't afford to buy your product. One simple basis for that Bush boom is that China is recycling its US$100 billion-plus trade surplus with the US back into dollars, and especially into US Treasury bonds. Almost half of the US Treasury bonds are now owned in Asia. So China is financing Bush's bold economic experiment: running two or more wars simultaneously with a huge budget and trade deficit, and equally huge tax handouts for the richest Americans.

One has to question the long-term economic rationale for China of putting its long-term assets into very low-interest bonds in a currency that has already dropped recently by a third - and is going to drop even more. It certainly makes strategic sense: if push came to shove over, for example, the Taiwan Strait, all Beijing has to do is to mention the possibility of a sell order going down the wires. It would devastate the US economy more than any nuclear strike the Chinese could manage at the moment. "

China Issues US$78 BLN Of Treasury Bonds In 2003
http://au.news.yahoo.com/040130/3/nibj.html

CHINA TO ISSUE EQUIVALENT OF US$4.6 BLN IN T-BONDS
http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/5/8/54028985.html

CHINA'S CENTRAL BANK QUICKENS MONEY WITHDRAWAL
http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/9/5/54130559.html

China float might hit US Treasuries-PIMCO's Keller
http://www.forbes.com/markets/bonds...rtr1004460.html

China is an important buyer of U.S. Treasury securities, holding $119.4 billion of them at the end of April, U.S. Treasury Department figures show.


China's New 'Self-Defense' Tool: U.S. Bonds
http://www.iht.com/IHT/PS/98/ps040398a.html

http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/73234/1/
China is also using its large foreign currency reserves--a total of $356 billion--to buy more U.S. treasury bonds, which provide U.S. investors with capital for re-investment

http://wwwc.house.gov/International...08/bian2021.htm
The People?s Republic of China presently receives approximately $4 billion each year from American taxpayers in the form of interest income on U.S. Treasury bonds held by the Chinese government. The PRC also enjoys a $100 billion annual trade surplus with the United States, giving them an estimated $400 billion current account. Yet the government of China continues its discriminatory evasion of payment to American bondholders. It is the position of the Chinese government that China should not have to honor their nation?s full faith and credit sovereign obligations if they choose not to. Such an insular worldview, flaunting the flagrant disregard of established principles of international trade and commerce, will not serve the interests of the PRC in the community of nations and is inconsistent with the status of the PRC as a most favored trading partner and member of the World Trade Organization. Such a posture can only act to harm the long term interests of both the United States and China.

The Economy:US to buy back national debt
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business...nomy/411973.stm

It now says it will begin repurchasing Treasury bonds before they fall due, as early as next February, cutting back on the $3.6 trillion (£2.4 trillion) it owes to the public.

US Dollar Implosion - Part II
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorial...ield120503.html

Asians Aren't Dumping U.S. Treasuries -- Yet
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/new...id=aCvJZvr6BM4I

China also has emerged a key U.S. Treasury holder. Maintaining its 8.3 peg to the U.S. dollar means buying lots of dollar assets. Politicians and manufacturers who complain that Beijing manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage fail to appreciate its role in holding down U.S. borrowing costs.

China Now Second In Oil Consumption
China's fast-growing economy has overtaken Japan to become the world's second largest consumer of crude oil after the US
http://www.ruggedelegantliving.com/change/a/002062.html

China has total of 270 million cellular users as of the end of 2003 and around 60 million new users were added in the same year. See:
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/do...tent_259693.htm (the news in 08/2003)

Broadband users in China:17.4 million. see: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04...ecommunications

China produced around 225 million tons of iron and steel and imported other 35 million tons in 2003 for the construction.
See: http://www.worldsteel.org/media/wsif/wsif2003.pdf

55% of the world cement (Another infrastructure construction index) was used in China. See http://www.economist.com/displaysto...tory_id=2446908

More that 13 million of PCs were sold in China in 2003. See http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040212/tech_china_pcs_1.html

International trade in 2003
China topped 840B$ (import < export) in 2003. See: http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/do...tent_294145.htm

Mcdonads?s Business in China:
http://breaking.tcm.ie/2004/02/26/story135939.html

China has more than 400B$ reserve. See: http://www.china.org.cn/e-company/0.../page031222.htm
China has 160B$ external debt. Reserve >> debt

Here's world military spending

http://www.cdi.org/budget/2004/worl...ry-spending.cfm

China is also pushing Europe to lift the Arms embargo so they can buy more high tech weapons and tech transfers. Imagine what will happen if they got a copy of the Euro Fighter and started mass producing.
http://www.contumacy.org/bbs/index....ames;read=26893
http://www.euobserver.com/index.pht...3&aid=14196

They also got their first batch of SU30MKK from Russia.
http://www.kanwa.com/edaily.htm

China more than doubling budgeted military spending this year
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040423060406.hm15bwqn.html
China's official defense budget in 2004 is more than 25 billion dollars.

But when off-budget funding for foreign weapons system imports is included, total defense-related expenditures this year should soar to between 50 and 70 billion dollars, said Richard Lawless, the deputy undersecretary of defence.

time for a bump 3.5 years later

any new opinions?

yeah you're still an idiot

I predict Greenland will be taking over the world with its ice exports and its army of penguins by 2150.

I'm not sure what planet your living on there skippy.

Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s and got their asses kicked. We knocked on the door and a month later Afghanistan was ours. We also had two large scale engagements with Iraq, and both times we kicked their asses so quickly it was funny.

I'm not saying that the US can kick China's ass, but calling the US military "pussys" is a bit out there.

correct me if i'm wrong, but isnt the national debt at 9 Trillion dollars so far ??? (and counting!)

oh please, and who the fuck are you?

Sure.

After WW II we lived in a bipolar world with two camps. That which was supportive of and supported by the US and one supportive of and by the USSR. A little under 20 years ago the USSR collapsed and a power vacuum was created. Briefly there was and has been a more monopolar world with the US as the "World's Only Superpower". Too many Americans tend to think this will last forever.

Now, naturally and as they always do, things are changing. There are two main power considerations I think; military and economic. Economically the US has been or is in the process of being joined by the EU. Soon, within a few decades they will quite likely be joined by China. India could also come into play down the road. None of these entities will be capable of dominating the other economically. China has political hurdles they have to jump over but they have handled them masterfully so far.

As far as military there are too many possibilities. Equal economic powers mostly have the option to become equal military powers but it is a choice they have to make. Will the EU become more nation-like and form a military under one command? Will the temptation of being a military superpower for China be too strong? Will the recognition that there will be multiple economic powers mean that US leadership will care less about military options? Maybe we'll all just "get along" but history gives very little hope of that.

20 yrs from now?
?maybe yes, maybe no? coz i dont have an idea...