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Title: China destined to eclipse the United States - Dam if you do, dam if you don't
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URL Source: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts ... /dam_if_you_do_dam_if_you_dont
Published: Jun 5, 2011
Author: By Stephen M. Walt
Post Date: 2011-06-05 05:20:09 by HAPPY2BME-4UM
Keywords: None
Views: 84
Comments: 4
China's remarkable transformation over the past three decades is obviously an event of major geopolitical proportions, with far-reaching ramifications in both economic and security affairs. It has also led some observers to conclude that the PRC is destined to eclipse the (decadent) United States and its various feckless allies in part because its leaders are more farsighted and disciplined and able to set a course and stick to it despite occasional vicissitudes. This view implies that our own unruly political system needs more executive power and less democracy. (I'll confess to occasional grumpy thoughts along those lines, mostly when I'm bicycling to work and pondering how China can build whole cities or an Olympic Village in a year or two, while the state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston can't manage to renovate a single bridge in less than three.) But I digress. Anyone who is convinced that China is on a relentless march to world domination ought to read today's New York Times article on China's authoritarian response to its water shortage. The basic story is that China is engaged in a historically unprecedented effort to redistribute water resources, which involves massive dam and canal construction and has all the signs of a major ecological, social, and maybe even political disaster. Then go read Chapter 12 ("China, Lurching Giant") in Jared Diamond's Collapse, which details the ecological consequences of China's rapid development in greater detail. And then follow that up with a book I've plugged before: James Scott's Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Scott argues that authoritarian regimes inspired by "modernist ideologies" tend to produce major socioeconomic disasters, largely because they can impose grand schemes but lack adequate feedback mechanisms and institutions of accountability to correct errors or deal with unintended consequences. By the time they realize the full consequences of their actions, it is too late to prevent enormous harm. None of this is to suggest that we are about to see a replay of the Great Leap Forward (Mao Zedong's disastrous attempt at forced-march development, in which at least 20 million people starved) or that China won't continue to rise. But I suspect there's a day of reckoning ahead, when the ecological and social consequences of this unprecedented transformation are fully felt and the political consequences will be profound.
Dam if you do, dam if you don't
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Mission Statement: China-Threat.com U.S. Constitution - Article IV, Section 4: NO BORDERS + NO LAWS = NO COUNTRY
When will China's economy overtake America's? 1 Comments U.S. Constitution - Article IV, Section 4: NO BORDERS + NO LAWS = NO COUNTRY
The West has sent 500 years of wealth and knowledge to human ants. The Chinese would have never done it on their own. The Nazis were going to take over the world!! Then the Commies!!! Then Japan!!! Then Islam!!! Now China!!! It's alll bullshit, and it's what comes from having a self-deluded conspiracist paranoid mindset. Which I don't.
“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend” - J.R.R. Tolkien
China is gobbling up hard assets while the US continues to increase debt. The borrower is a slave to the lender.....
" If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11
Post Date: 2011-06-04 16:19:10 by CadetD
1 Comments
American Universities and Multi-national Corporations have forgotten that they are Americans. They are bleeding America of its technologic advantage over China for short term profits. The University of Michigan has more than 2,500 Chinese students and scholars mostly studying in technologic fields such as engineering, science and mathematics. Most of these students will eventually return to China with American technology. These Chinese students are taking opportunities away from American students who would like an opportunity for a University of Michigan education. The University of Michigan is making joint research agreements with China that allow Chinese scientist access to our newest ...
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Post Date: 2011-06-04 03:22:17 by Tatarewicz
BEIJING - Is China poised to surpass the United States to become the world's largest economy? The International Monetary Fund recently predicted that the size of China's economy would overtake that of the US in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) by 2016. But a recent co-authored study by Robert Feenstra, an economist at the University of California, Davis, shows that global economic leadership would pass to China in 2014. And, even more radically, Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute of International Economics argues that China actually surpassed the US in PPP terms in 2010. Purchasing power parity measures a country's income using a set of international prices ...
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