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Yeah, I didn't find this to be a very compelling argument. China has a ton of internal problems that will come due in the next few decades. I'd actually predic

Yeah, I didn't find this to be a very compelling argument. China has a ton of internal problems that will come due in the next few decades. I'd actually predict the exact opposite of this post: China will have serious internal turmoil around 2040 or 2045. They are not in a position to overtake the U.S. culturally or creatively. No one in Europe or Africa or India or the Middle East can name more than one or two cultural figures from China. I don't see this changing, because China is a traditional ethnic nation-state, whereas America is built on diversity. American culture is "open" by definition and it's easier for people worldwide to adopt it. Chinese culture, while incredibly rich and worthwhile, is almost universally centered toward China.

yumraj 6y ago
> China has a ton of internal problems that will come due in the next few decades. While the may be true, unfortunately that argument is only leading to complacency on part of the rest of the world. CCP has shown remarkable resiliency so I won’t rule them out.
- ipsocannibal 6y ago
  Remember when the Soviets were on top of the world in the 1950's, largest military in the world, Sputnik, ICBM and nukes, building a Communist Bloc to match NATO and the United States. Fast forward 40 years and it was all gone. Look at China now, gleaming ghost cities that will require massive infrastructure maintaince cost to maintain all funded with massive amounts of debt, a huge population bubble that will drag down China's productive capacity in the comming decades, a world that is more strongly and vocally resisting Chinese influence everyday. What looks powerful and inevitable now only does so because people tend to miss the whole picture.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Weird that this is downvoted. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
    - ipsocannibal 6y ago
      Yeah, it's pretty common that anything that remotely questions China's rise inevitably gets downvoted on HN. Funny how a supposed powerful and up and coming nation has to constantly silence its critics (just look at HK or early Covid journalist). Its almost as if the myth of China's supposed success is just that, a myth.
    - iforgotpassword 6y ago
      Because Russia was just focusing on the arms race, nothing else. China does in fact get people out of poverty and is making serious efforts to make education as accessible as possible. For the past 20-something years "experts" have made predictions of how China will catastrophically fail "in the next 5 years" because whatever the latest issue was that we just identified with how China does things wrong. At least you put your predictions 20 years in the future so you don't have to correct them that often. ;-) And while it's true that China has a lot of internal conflicts and issues, I don't see how any of them should pose a serious threat to their road to success, or rather not more than the issues we have in the west now. As the article says several times, it's better to prepare, rather than trying to find arguments that the problem will magically solve itself and everything will comfortably stay the way it is.
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        > China does in fact get people out of poverty and is making serious efforts to make education as accessible as possible. That is exactly what the Soviet Union did for the first 30 years of its existence. > For the past 20-something years "experts" have made predictions of how China will catastrophically fail "in the next 5 years" because whatever the latest issue was that we just identified with how China does things wrong. At least you put your predictions 20 years in the future so you don't have to correct them that often. ;-) 20 years ago, China was barely on the radar of anyone in the media. > As the article says several times, it's better to prepare, rather than trying to find arguments that the problem will magically solve itself and everything will comfortably stay the way it is. I don't disagree with that, but it's always important to accurately identify the problem before implementing solutions.

yumraj 6y ago

> China has a ton of internal problems that will come due in the next few decades. While the may be true, unfortunately that argument is only leading to complacency on part of the rest of the world. CCP has shown remarkable resiliency so I won’t rule them out.

ipsocannibal 6y ago
Remember when the Soviets were on top of the world in the 1950's, largest military in the world, Sputnik, ICBM and nukes, building a Communist Bloc to match NATO and the United States. Fast forward 40 years and it was all gone. Look at China now, gleaming ghost cities that will require massive infrastructure maintaince cost to maintain all funded with massive amounts of debt, a huge population bubble that will drag down China's productive capacity in the comming decades, a world that is more strongly and vocally resisting Chinese influence everyday. What looks powerful and inevitable now only does so because people tend to miss the whole picture.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Weird that this is downvoted. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
  - ipsocannibal 6y ago
    Yeah, it's pretty common that anything that remotely questions China's rise inevitably gets downvoted on HN. Funny how a supposed powerful and up and coming nation has to constantly silence its critics (just look at HK or early Covid journalist). Its almost as if the myth of China's supposed success is just that, a myth.
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    Because Russia was just focusing on the arms race, nothing else. China does in fact get people out of poverty and is making serious efforts to make education as accessible as possible. For the past 20-something years "experts" have made predictions of how China will catastrophically fail "in the next 5 years" because whatever the latest issue was that we just identified with how China does things wrong. At least you put your predictions 20 years in the future so you don't have to correct them that often. ;-) And while it's true that China has a lot of internal conflicts and issues, I don't see how any of them should pose a serious threat to their road to success, or rather not more than the issues we have in the west now. As the article says several times, it's better to prepare, rather than trying to find arguments that the problem will magically solve itself and everything will comfortably stay the way it is.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      > China does in fact get people out of poverty and is making serious efforts to make education as accessible as possible. That is exactly what the Soviet Union did for the first 30 years of its existence. > For the past 20-something years "experts" have made predictions of how China will catastrophically fail "in the next 5 years" because whatever the latest issue was that we just identified with how China does things wrong. At least you put your predictions 20 years in the future so you don't have to correct them that often. ;-) 20 years ago, China was barely on the radar of anyone in the media. > As the article says several times, it's better to prepare, rather than trying to find arguments that the problem will magically solve itself and everything will comfortably stay the way it is. I don't disagree with that, but it's always important to accurately identify the problem before implementing solutions.