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The China drum-beaters here are ignoring one important thing: the ironclad grip of the CPPRC is only maintained through rigorous control of thought and information, including the Internet. Sooner or later, the greed and ambition of individual Chinese (which they possess to the same degree as the rest of mankind) will overcome their willingness to subordinate their innate intelligence to the interests of their government. The transfer of population from rural areas to the cities is reaching flood stage in the Middle Kingdom...
Maybe Brazil and Russia as well; however, serious wealth stratification and declining demographics are huge barriers to advancement, respectively...
I essentially agree and that latter part of your statement is why I'm convinced that the United States is well on it's way to being a former member of the superpower club.
Another factor in Europe's favor are the large scale science projects taking place there, as the United States looses it's scientific/technological edge/lead. Including The Large Hadron Collider and ITER.
The China drum-beaters here are ignoring one important thing: the ironclad grip of the CPPRC is only maintained through rigorous control of thought and information, including the Internet. Sooner or later, the greed and ambition of individual Chinese (which they possess to the same degree as the rest of mankind) will overcome their willingness to subordinate their innate intelligence to the interests of their government. The transfer of population from rural areas to the cities is reaching flood stage in the Middle Kingdom...
Yes, you are spot on! The signs are already there that this government will crack. The leaders are paranoid that the people want more freedom.
On a recent visit to Hong Kong, the citizens admitted that it belongs to China. They believe it's one country but two governments. China leaves Hong Kong alone. Hk is the goose that lays the golden egg and wouldn't dare to kill it.
It was very noticeable who the mainland Chinese were with new found wealth in HK. From my observation, the mainlanders were as materialistic as their HK cousins. You can sense they were yearning for more than what life had to offer in the rural mainland. As the citizens continue to prosper in the rural areas, they will continue to seek more freedom and freedom will be at a cost.
As far as their military is concerned, it is poorly trained even if there are a million of them. A million scrubs is a million scrubs. I think history proved that in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War that a tiny country with a well trained army can destroy half a million scrubs if they wanted to. And it's military hardware can't even compare to Russia's.
The China drum-beaters here are ignoring one important thing: the ironclad grip of the CPPRC is only maintained through rigorous control of thought and information, including the Internet. Sooner or later, the greed and ambition of individual Chinese (which they possess to the same degree as the rest of mankind) will overcome their willingness to subordinate their innate intelligence to the interests of their government. The transfer of population from rural areas to the cities is reaching flood stage in the Middle Kingdom...
I agree that the Communist Party is a big hindrance to China realizing it's full potential. Communism is failed ideology and has too many negative influences on a society. While I'll concede that in recent years China has created many impressivine building projects such as dams, bridges, skyscrapers (see SkyscraperCity - Powered by vBulletin for many of the outstanding building projects in China), and the world's fastest train ... it seems to me that these things are for show and there is a growing discontent in the country especially amongst the ethnic minorities and the religious minorities in the provinces.
I think after the collapse of the Soviet-Union, the U.S.A. has transformed into a hyperpower, a type of empire essentially. Unless they seriously reform their political functioning, they won't hold that position for a very long time anymore.
Personally, I think the world will break down into an amalgam of roughly equal superpowers: the U.S. and China as the two main actors on the global stage and (not very far) behind them the E.U., Russia, Brazil, India and Japan...
I don't think China would ever be interested in the role the U.S. is playing today, even in case they would be capable of it. Even then, I wonder how China will fare in the future, due to their amount of potentially explosive internal matters.
Here an elitist class runs the government and big business....I see no real differences between the Chinese system and ours....except as you say they are better at "the game". I say our own game because, in general, we are an arrogant country and think we invented most everything and do most everything better than other countries.
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I generally agree with this. The thing is....with exception of a few countries, it's true everywhere. The elite have gone global. They are setting up their prsion without bars right in front under our noses (tracking our financial transactions, what we say on the internet, etc.). Their main weapons are fear and keeping our perceptions of what's possible very limited (EG, the "right/left" paradigm). They divert our attention with meaningless issues (celebrity news) as well as vices like sex & drugs. These are all methods used to control people.
As you mention even our low quality/high cost education and health systems also are tools used by the elite. Our schools are so dumbed down people don't even know how to spell. The health care system only knows how to give people expensive pills for everything but does nothing to address the probems that lead to us needing so many pills in the first place. Our complacent population just goes along with the program and never questions anything.
I am surprised to see Russia on this list. Like Japan, they have a declining population.
I agree. Russia is definitely not a "super power" in the sense compared to the United States, China, etc... The only thing Russia has going for it, is its nuclear forces.
I essentially agree and that latter part of your statement is why I'm convinced that the United States is well on it's way to being a former member of the superpower club.
Another factor in Europe's favor are the large scale science projects taking place there, as the United States looses it's scientific/technological edge/lead. Including The Large Hadron Collider and ITER.
The US culture is as much to blame for that as anyone else....
The corporate "off-shoring", the glorification of the "celebrity-star" personalities, the declining education system, etc..
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