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Why is it a problem if China develops a higher GDP than the US. Its not a problem for the people. It might be a problem to politicians that want to tell a story
by conanbatt 10y ago
Why is it a problem if China develops a higher GDP than the US. Its not a problem for the people. It might be a problem to politicians that want to tell a story, but wishing china to do worse economically is truly backwards. If china comes out with better technology than the us, better products and services, cheaper and all that, the whole world gets better. If you dont believe that, then you must for the sake of consistency think that products that come out of the us into other countries are vultures in nature and draining in economic terms.
A more mature approach would be to think what to learn and do(or not do) when someone is showing great signs of progress. Getting more products from China makes the whole richer. China's protectionis policies are probably harming them more than helping them, why play in the same game.
- paulsutter 10y agoWhy was this downvoted? It's a perfectly good question.
- muninn_ 10y agoChina's GDP compared to it's population is interesting. 3-4 times the population of the US but 80% of the GDP. To me it only seems natural that they will eventually overtake the United States in GDP. India should too, as should the EU
- jld89 10y agoThe EU has the biggest GDP in the world btw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
- ittekimasu 10y agoIt's hardly that simple. China/Korea/Thai/Vietnam/India... were economically at the same level at the turn of WWII - India was probably in better shape. Now India is comparable only to S-Saharan Africa (and other S.Asian countries), in terms of educational attainment/malnourishment ... Systems matter; it's not surprising that deeply colonized countries remain basket cases. It's likely that China will be the last nation to "re-industrialize" in the near term.
- jcoffland 10y agoChina is repressive and has very low standards for human rights. If China becomes more powerful they may decide to conquer the US properly. This may be along way off but this is the fear that's behind not wanting China to surpass the US economically.
- gbog 10y agoChinese civilization is different from western civilization, specially in its habit to absorb other culture, instead of conquering them. China had a Mongol dynasty, a Manchu dynasty. But it never rode to the other side of the world to force remote populations to change their religion or political system.
- jombiezebus 10y agoNeither had Japan.
- pests 10y agoThis interests me. Do you know of any good books, articles, or other sources I could learn more about this topic? Specifically your first sentence.
- cttet 10y agohttps://archive.org/details/problemofchina00russ https://archive.org/details/problemofchina00russ Not exactly answers the question, but I quite like Russel's view on this.
- gbog 10y agoAny book on the long history of China would do, I'm not sure which one in English should be recommended.
- qiqing 10y agoWhat do you think of the U.S.'s record for human rights? To be fair, the U.S. has done a much better job of keeping many of those incidents (Gitmo or elsewhere) secret until fairly recently.
- jomamaxx 10y ago"Why is it a problem if China develops a higher GDP than the US" That isn't the issue. The issue is protectionist policies and direct interference by the state in all sectors. They can do that if they want, but we need to slap tariffs on their products and ban some Chinese companies from selling in the West.
- conanbatt 10y agoWhy, the US is richer for being able to import Chinese products. The victims of the proteccionist policies are the chinese people, that are forced to consume worse products, or at a higher price, or paid with their taxes. Its like saying "my neighbor is stabbing himself, we should stab ourselves so they learn!"