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Well he can pound his chest about having hot water 24/7, unlike many in China.
You mean if the US army and Halliburton went into Equatorial Guinea, and did nothing but set up a water system that would provide 24/7 running water to every home, then Equatorial Guinea would be a super-power?
This sounds like complete bull****. Just like driving into rural West Virginia, you might find people who couldn't find China on a map but they've heard of the word and will tell you it is a country in Asia.
I've had 3 different people in Pittsburgh say to me: "You're Chinese? I thought you said you were Asian!"
You mean if the US army and Halliburton went into Equatorial Guinea, and did nothing but set up a water system that would provide 24/7 running water to every home, then Equatorial Guinea would be a super-power?
Nope, but I'd certainly judge their standard of living for most of their citizens to be higher.
I never claimed that was the only factor in being a superpower, just that it is certainly something that can be used to evaluate a nation.
I would concur that the "china fear" is overblown just like during the 70's and early 80's we were all going to wind up speaking Japanese.
China in particular is still grossly overpopulated and faces a lot of internal social pressures.
How they fare long-term will somewhat depend upon what happens in the EU and the USA....a power vacuum allows for more rapid growth....as well as how other countries develop and pressure China in areas like manufacturing.
A lot of China's boom has been at the cost of pollution controls, honoring patents etc. which starts to catch up to you as you enter the world community.
My friend in Shanghai told me NOT to visit the World Expo, too crowded and not worth it. It's more a theme park for the newly rich peasants from all over the country, he said. They have as many billionaires/millionaires as in the US, but I am sure their poverty level in the countryside are 10x more too.
2 recent articles from Bloomberg Busines week and CNBC respectively,
US Is 'Practically Owned' by China: Analyst (http://www.cnbc.com/id/39376706 - broken link) "Property of China" - Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine
"Super power" is a stretch of imagination. In the 70s-80s, rich Japanese bought up Hawaii? That was before my time, can't confirm. Today the super rich Chinese are buying up expensive properties in Vancouver.
What will China become, if all her wealthy citizens abandon her to reside in US and Canada? Print more money and devalue the yuan. LOL
Any way, there are less opportunities now as Wall Street, Bay Street and Multi-National companies narrow down their selection to Chinese and send them back to China.
Communism is an economic theory espousing that all means of production (ie capital) is not in private hands.
China does not employ Communist Theory. China uses Socialist Theory in which certain sectors of the economy, such as public utilities, public services, defense industries, raw materials and other sectors might be owned in whole or in part part by the government, or in which the government is heavily invested (China is just like the United Kingdom prior to divestment).
China uses a Mixed Economic System which is heavily Market oriented (the US also uses a Mixed Economic System but one that is more heavily Market oriented than China), and not a Market System or a Command System.
The Soviet Union used the Command Economic System. Not only did the government set the prices for all goods, services and wages, the government also allocated all resources for all industries based on a 5, 7 or 10-Year Plan.
For example, the Soviet Union in a 7-Year Plan might set a goal of X number of barrels of oil to be produced.
Then each industry, military, agriculture, transportation, raw materials processing, consumer goods, electrical power production etc are allotted a percentage of the oil produced over that period.
A certain percentage of oil was also allocated to be sold on the world market, primarily to obtain cash US Dollars to import purchased goods since the US, UK and other countries conspired to successfully block the currencies of the Soviet Union and all East Bloc countries from being traded on the world market.
If actual oil production was less than projected oil production, the Soviets then had to re-allocated the percentage of oil to each industry. The consumer industry was always cut first, and naturally the result was a shortage of consumer goods in the Soviet Union and in conjunction with fixed prices led to Black Markets for consumer goods (like blue jeans).
You and people like you who fail to grasp even the rudiments of economics are dangerous, especially hurling around you baseless "opinions" and I'll give you proof.
During the Carter Administration, the Soviets approached the US to purchase grains. This was a big deal, not only in terms of the amount of grains the Soviets desired to produce but also based on the amount of media coverage given by television, newspapers and magazines, and the fact that US grain farmers were lobbying furiously for Congress to approve the deal for the sale of grains to the Soviet Union (especially since US grain farmers had a surplus and would likely lose their shirts).
Naturally, some were suspicious. Why does the Soviet Union want or need to buy grains from the US? Was there massive crop failure in the Soviet Union? Bad harvests? Why?
So the US sent its satellites over the Soviet Union and also violated Soviet air space with U-2/SR-71 recon over-flights only to find that Soviet fields were full of beautiful and bountiful grains.
That only increased the suspicions and war-mongering as everyone thought the Soviets were hoarding grain, and if they were hoarding grain it could only be for an attack on NATO, so everyone go on full-alert.
Carter approved the grain deal anyway.
A few months later, the US sent its satellites over the Soviet Union and also violated Soviet air space with U-2/SR-71 recon over-flights again only to find that Soviet fields were still full of grains, except now they were rotting in the fields because they weren't being harvested.
So why aren't the Soviets harvesting their grain and instead purchasing it from the US? Well it has to be because the Soviets are hoarding oil and if the Soviets are hoarding oil, it could only be for one reason and that was to attack NATO, so everyone go on double full-alert.
There was in reality a very simple answer. The price of oil had risen. The Soviets did a cost-benefit analysis and decided to take the oil allocated for harvesting, and the oil allocated for transporting grains to markets, and the oil for processing grains and sell it all on the world market to take advantage of rising oil prices.
The profits the Soviets would make from the sale of that oil on the world market far and above outweighed the cost to purchase and import grain from the US.
It was a shrewd (and profitable) business move on the part of the Soviets.
It isn't so bad that the US lies, but when the US starts to believe its own lies, it's a problem and that, in conjunction with morons in the government who don't understand economics and then are totally clueless as to how things really work in the Soviet Union (and East Bloc), creates situations that can easily get out of hand and lead disastrous consequences.
Fortunately the US didn't aggravate the situation worse than they already had, so WW III was avoided.
Those who don't understand the situation in China will always guess wrong, and make the wrong decisions and end up causing harm to themselves because they misunderstood and under-estimated the situation and that's why China will ultimately surpass the US (as will India). The Chinese were always smarter.
There's no shortage of reports coming from China that the Government and not business rules the country. It's in this rigid central control that you can find the backbone of Chinese communism, it never was a true socialist/communistic construct and was never designed to be one. The fact that the western manufacturing model is adapted to a state run economy suggests that hybrid economies have been the norm for quite a while, our own economy still defies the theoretical definition of capitalism. There was always money to be made in the Soviet Union, but I don't see making money being a capitalistic thing, it's been part of every economy regardless of name.
Superpower status is defined by how powerful you are, and how much you exert this power. Luxembourg has a higher per capita income than the US does, it is more powerful in world terms.
China has a growing economy, has nukes, and by a long shot is the most powerful country in its region. I think China today is where the USA was in say 1900. In that day, the USA was emerging but countries like the UK, France, etc. were still the top dogs.
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