More important city: Beijing or Washington D.C.? (refrigerator, military)
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The two capitals of the world's two super powers at the moment.
Which city is most import to the world as we know it today in 2020? As well as, which will be the most influential in the future going forward this century?
Beijing is one of the most historical, misunderstood and sophisticated cities in the world for a nation that is a potential superpower whereas DC is the capital of the most powerful nation on the planet.
In essence, this is a “China Vs the US” topic which could lead to further comparisons such as:
Hong Kong Vs New York City
Shanghai Vs LA
Beijing Vs Washington DC
Guangzhou Vs Chicago
Shenzhen Vs San Francisco Bay Area
Macau Vs Las Vegas
Last edited by SnobbishDude; 05-25-2020 at 08:47 PM..
Here's a fun fact. Of the 500 largest companies in the world [Global 500], 65 are based in China, and 167 are based in the United States. That's a pretty big gap of 100+.
But when you add up U.S. allies, the numbers dwarf China.
Japan, Korea, and Taiwan together have 67 such companies [2 more than China]
The Commonwealth Realm - Australia, Canada, United Kingdom - add another 64.
The European Union has 86.
And when we add other U.S. allies like India [10], Brazil [5], Mexico [2], Norway [2], Colombia [1], etc, we come to grand total of 404/500.
80% of the world's corporate powers are in the "democratic" world, so to speak. China has 13%. China has 16% of the world's GDP nominal.
In military terms, China is vastly outmatched by the U.S., much less NATO/ANZUS.
In cultural terms, China's soft power is far weaker than the U.S., whose pop culture, fashion, arts, music, are global. Look at how domestic protests - like the Women's March - became a global movement the day after Trump was incorporated.
In International Relations, there is a concept called the "sticky institution," which says that global institutions far outlast the power of those who put them into place. If you think about it, the United Nations [based in New York] was signed into being by the Treaty of San Francisco, and created a Pax Americana-based global order.
In other words, the ways countries comport themselves diplomatically today is a direct consequence of a global order instituted when the U.S. had 50%+ of the world's economic might following the end of WWII.
China won't be stronger than the U.S. for many, many decades [they're 20 years away from breaking through the first island chain, and 50+ years away from being able to project power globally]. They have economic potential because of sheer demography, but are missing the key determinants of power: military might, alliances, global multinationals and cultural appeal.
If anything, this year has been terrible for China: COVID-19 and its reputational disaster for China, the end of Hong Kong, the continued bullying/aggression of ASEAN, India, Australia, Central Asia, etc, the re-election of Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan's rapid embrace of Japan/West, the weakening of globalization, etc.
Washington vs. Beijing is basically a proxy for which world order has more power today. And we have two contenders:
Democratic World Order: Led by Washington Other Key Cities: Ankara, Berlin, Brussels, Canberra, London, Madrid, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo
Key Partner Cities: Brasilia, Delhi, Jakarta, Mexico City [not fully enmeshed with Democratic World Order, but more supportive of it than not]
Authoritarian World Order: Led by Beijing Other Key Cities: Caracas, Moscow, Pyongyang, Tehran
As you can see, the Washington-led order is still FAR, FAR stronger than Beijing's. The U.S. is still by far the most powerful of the two where it counts. Even if China closes the gap, it will be INCREDIBLY hard for it overcome the NATO/ANZUS/Japan alliance. And even if does surpass ALL of those, the global institutions created by the Democratic world order will remain sticky for far longer still.
Lastly, Washington is not simply synonymous with the U.S. Government. It's the de facto seat of the global economy [The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Dollar], and two of the pillar IOs: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And nearby New York's United Nations [and the daily coterie of diplomats moving between DC and NYC on Acela] makes D.C. a very tough challenger for Beijing to defeat.
I also didn't speak much about Africa and Latin America, but Latin America is clearly under the U.S. sphere of influence. Africa is largely under Chinese tutelage, though the relationship is more transactional. Beijing doesn't have control over Africa - they simply can bribe enough African dictators to bend to China's goals. Once Beijing doesn't pay up, Africa no longer cares about Chinese interests. To me, that's a sign of weakness, rather than strength.
And I also didn't speak much about Russia. It's a decaying regional power. It will continue to fall into Beijing's orbit, which is nice for China in terms of land area, but Russia's economic, cultural and military might are in heavy decline. It has no bearing on my analysis, since Russia isn't a global pole any more. It's the junior partner in a Chinese-led challenge to the democratic world order.
Here's a fun fact. Of the 500 largest companies in the world [Global 500], 65 are based in China, and 167 are based in the United States. That's a pretty big gap of 100+.
But when you add up U.S. allies, the numbers dwarf China.
Japan, Korea, and Taiwan together have 67 such companies [2 more than China]
The Commonwealth Realm - Australia, Canada, United Kingdom - add another 64.
The European Union has 86.
And when we add other U.S. allies like India [10], Brazil [5], Mexico [2], Norway [2], Colombia [1], etc, we come to grand total of 404/500.
80% of the world's corporate powers are in the "democratic" world, so to speak. China has 13%. China has 16% of the world's GDP nominal.
In military terms, China is vastly outmatched by the U.S., much less NATO/ANZUS.
In cultural terms, China's soft power is far weaker than the U.S., whose pop culture, fashion, arts, music, are global. Look at how domestic protests - like the Women's March - became a global movement the day after Trump was incorporated.
In International Relations, there is a concept called the "sticky institution," which says that global institutions far outlast the power of those who put them into place. If you think about it, the United Nations [based in New York] was signed into being by the Treaty of San Francisco, and created a Pax Americana-based global order.
In other words, the ways countries comport themselves diplomatically today is a direct consequence of a global order instituted when the U.S. had 50%+ of the world's economic might following the end of WWII.
China won't be stronger than the U.S. for many, many decades [they're 20 years away from breaking through the first island chain, and 50+ years away from being able to project power globally]. They have economic potential because of sheer demography, but are missing the key determinants of power: military might, alliances, global multinationals and cultural appeal.
If anything, this year has been terrible for China: COVID-19 and its reputational disaster for China, the end of Hong Kong, the continued bullying/aggression of ASEAN, India, Australia, Central Asia, etc, the re-election of Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan's rapid embrace of Japan/West, the weakening of globalization, etc.
Washington vs. Beijing is basically a proxy for which world order has more power today. And we have two contenders:
Democratic World Order: Led by Washington Other Key Cities: Ankara, Berlin, Brussels, Canberra, London, Madrid, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo
Key Partner Cities: Brasilia, Delhi, Jakarta, Mexico City [not fully enmeshed with Democratic World Order, but more supportive of it than not]
Authoritarian World Order: Led by Beijing Other Key Cities: Caracas, Moscow, Pyongyang, Tehran
As you can see, the Washington-led order is still FAR, FAR stronger than Beijing's. The U.S. is still by far the most powerful of the two where it counts. Even if China closes the gap, it will be INCREDIBLY hard for it overcome the NATO/ANZUS/Japan alliance. And even if does surpass ALL of those, the global institutions created by the Democratic world order will remain sticky for far longer still.
Lastly, Washington is not simply synonymous with the U.S. Government. It's the de facto seat of the global economy [The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Dollar], and two of the pillar IOs: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And nearby New York's United Nations [and the daily coterie of diplomats moving between DC and NYC on Acela] makes D.C. a very tough challenger for Beijing to defeat.
I also didn't speak much about Africa and Latin America, but Latin America is clearly under the U.S. sphere of influence. Africa is largely under Chinese tutelage, though the relationship is more transactional. Beijing doesn't have control over Africa - they simply can bribe enough African dictators to bend to China's goals. Once Beijing doesn't pay up, Africa no longer cares about Chinese interests. To me, that's a sign of weakness, rather than strength.
And I also didn't speak much about Russia. It's a decaying regional power. It will continue to fall into Beijing's orbit, which is nice for China in terms of land area, but Russia's economic, cultural and military might are in heavy decline. It has no bearing on my analysis, since Russia isn't a global pole any more. It's the junior partner in a Chinese-led challenge to the democratic world order.
I think you are very optimistic about DC’s strength and influence while severely underestimating Beijing’s. If this was back in the 90s or early 2000s, I would have agreed with you whole heartedly. But now the political climate in Asia has changed a lot in recent years especially after China’s GDP surpassed Japan and became the World No.2 economic powerhouse in 2010, followed by the Hong Kong Protests and recently the Covid-19. Honestly speaking, I’m not as optimistic as you are. There is too much “gray area” in international relations nowadays that you can’t say it is entirely black or white. Of course, in terms of the political, military and economic influence at the global level, China is still no where near the US at least within the next few decades. But if you are to shift your focus to only within the Asian Pacific region, I think it is not impossible for China to successfully establish its stronghold to accomplish its short term goal in becoming a “regional” superpower and China has been making steady progress in doing it.
Last edited by SnobbishDude; 05-26-2020 at 01:39 AM..
There's no such thing as a regional superpower. You're either a regional power or a superpower.
You forget that China being contained to the First Island Chain isn't because of the mean old USA, but because China has horrific relationships with nearly all of its major neighbors, including the most important ones: Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, India.
Think of it this way: if I told you there was a country with a navy that couldn't establish supremacy more than 50 miles from its borders, would you call that a superpower?
Yet China's navy is entirely blocked from accessing the Pacific due to the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan, and then the Philippines. To China's south is the ASEAN cohort, of which China has ticked off the majority with their "Nine Dash Line" nonsense.
To the Tibetan border is an India that hates them, and China, of course, can't extert influence beyond the Himalayas. India's rise is the other counterbalance here that no one is talking about. India won't let China "dominate" Asia and Japan/Taiwan/ASEAN are clamoring for closer ties to India and its 1.3 billion people.
And then you have Central Asia and Siberia which are under Russian dominion.
Essentially, there's no "strategic depth" to China. The entirety of its borders are essentially the entirety of its power projection.
There's no superpower in history that hasn't been able to even entertain continental hegemony. Yet here we are talking about pre-eminent global China when they can't even control East Asia because all of China's neighbors have acted together to create a formidable counter-balance.
Is Hong Kong screwed? Yes. Will China's economy continue to grow? Yes. Is China the biggest threat of American national security? Yes.
But GDP PPP isn't the only measure of power. I'd argue it's the worst. And yet that's what most "Hoorah Hoorah China #1 Superpower will destroy the Evil American Empire" cheerleaders cling to.
well, if you know a bit of history, you will see this city vs city/nation vs nation is hundreds of years vs thousands of years.
when it's election time, all this china vs us / cold war thing is purely brought up for political gains.
do you know what happened last time when china had the world's most powerful navy? what land did they colonized? can you say the same thing about the west?
what does the chinese have on american? nothing, they don't really care
what does america have on the chinese? taiwan and hong kong, well, only taiwan left in a couple months.
I think the american and chinese life's are already too tightly that fighting any type of war will only hurt the people of both nations, in both short and long term
Fortune magazine has released the latest list of the world's top 500 enterprises. Among them, 129 were Chinese enterprises, 121 were American enterprises, and China surpassed the United States for the first time. At the top of the list is still Wal Mart, the global retail giant, with operating revenue of 514.4 billion US dollars, and Sinopec rose to the second place from the third place last year. Last year, China's second largest state grid fell to fifth place. Below is a detailed list of Fortune 500 companies.
World power generation ranking China (7111.8 billion KWH)
United States (4460.8 billion KWH)
India (156.11 billion KWH)
Russia (1118 billion KWH)
Japan (1051.6 billion KWH)
Canada (654.4 billion KWH)
Germany (648.7 billion KWH)
Korea (594.3 billion KWH)
Brazil (588 billion KWH)
France (574.2 billion KWH) China's auto production NO1 Steel production NO1 Mobile computer refrigerator air conditioner No1 Beer production No1............@manitopiaaa ...You know too little about the world
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