Asia 'set to eclipse' US by 2030

[Jimbuna]

I was aware of China but not sure about India :hmmm:


Asia will wield more global power than the US and Europe combined by 2030, a forecast from the US intelligence community has found.
Within two decades China will overtake the US as the world's largest economy, the report adds.



But the report says it does not anticipate that China will emerge as a superpower in the mould of the US, forging coalitions to take on international issues.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20671917

[Takeda Shingen]

Neither quote is surprising. We all knew that economic power was shifting to Asia, and it was inevitable that the US was not going number 1 forever. However, it will likely remain the seat of political power for some time to come, as the Chinese government hasn't learned to treat it's people well enough, nor get along with other nations in a manner to place it as a political leader worldwide.

In terms of politics, India does not seem to have any such ambitions.

[the_tyrant]

Kindof expected you know, I mean, the continent is 50% of the world's population.

Also, when the comparisons are at the national level, Asians have the advantage. You don't really see many "libertarians". 99% of people I know in china are fiercely pro-government. Whereas most young people in the west are all about "sticking it to the man", in China, most young people want to "serve the nation".

Asian cultures also have many advantages against the west in certain aspects. 0% tolerance towards drugs (all users are forced into rehab, dealers with more than one ounce of product get the firering squad, no ifs or buts), no teenage rebellion (do well in school OR ELSE:stare:), 0% tolerance towards crime (Whether it is China, or Japan, or even Cambodia, the average death row convict is executed within months, not after ten years).

I am not saying that Asian culture is "better", I'm just saying on a national level, it does have significant advantages in creating "national strength".

[Jimbuna]

Well I certainly feel more comfortable with our US allies maintaing that position.

*Hides under cover awaiting the backlash*

[AVGWarhawk]

Is the worlds largest economy always a good thing? It comes with it's own challenges and issues.

Super Power. Is it really all it's cracked up to be?

[STEED]

The fat pigs are already got there eyes on the East.

[August]

Whereas most young people in the west are all about "sticking it to the man", in China, most young people want to "serve the nation"

Small wonder.

Our media spends most of it's time telling people that "The Man" screwed them over and that the game is rigged against them, whereas the Chinese media is all about instilling their people with national pride and patriotism.

[Oberon]

China and India will have their times, but with greater power comes greater social pressure. The sort of things in Chinese media could well have been seen in British, European or American media a hundred and fifty years ago.
Every empire has a rise and a fall, who knows who will be next after China? My money is on South America. :yep:

[Penguin]

Asian cultures also have many advantages against the west in certain aspects. 0% tolerance towards drugs (all users are forced into rehab, dealers with more than one ounce of product get the firering squad, no ifs or buts), no teenage rebellion (do well in school OR ELSE:stare:), 0% tolerance towards crime (Whether it is China, or Japan, or even Cambodia, the average death row convict is executed within months, not after ten years).


So a repressive drug policy with questionable results (http://www.thecabinchiangmai.com/archive/heroin_use__abuse__and_addiction_in_china), raising children as robots and denying due process should be a role model for the world?
You might also want to inform yourself about the deterrence of capital punishment (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty)

No way, I prefer to stick to the motto of East Frisia, Europe : Lever dood as slaav.

[the_tyrant]

So a repressive drug policy with questionable results (http://www.thecabinchiangmai.com/archive/heroin_use__abuse__and_addiction_in_china), raising children as robots and denying due process should be a role model for the world?
You might also want to inform yourself about the deterrence of capital punishment (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty)

No way, I prefer to stick to the motto of East Frisia, Europe : Lever dood as slaav.

You missed the point.

Understand that obedient robots do wonders for the country's "strength". People in china trust the government's decisions, this means that if the country has effective leadership, it can do a LOT more than western nations.

In the great leap forward, even the most idiotic decisions had millions of people doing it willingly. this just shows, that if the nation's leadership wants to execute a policy, it WILL BE DONE, no ifs or buts.

This is something that no western politician has the capability of doing. people in asia value unity, in fact, in Chinese, “你想造反？” (you want to be a rebel?) is used like "are you insane" in English. Asian countries have a type of national pride never seen before in the western word. And this is why I say they will be a force to be reckoned with.

[August]

We once had the same national pride and we didn't need an authoritarian government to have it either.

[Penguin]

You missed the point.


Nope, I replied to the words you wrote that I quoted.
If your argument would be how govenment decisions get enforced quickly in authoritarian regimes, you should have written that - given you wrote it now:

Understand that obedient robots do wonders for the country's "strength". People in china trust the government's decisions, this means that if the country has effective leadership, it can do a LOT more than western nations.


Slaves comply and things get done fast without checks and balances. Your point is? How are top-down decisions more efficient? Just look how effective the planned economy was. Not even talking about long term-costs of dumb decisions, because no other side was heard. For example an interesting point to consider would be enviromental costs, which are not calculated in short-time thinking.
There is a big difference between getting things done quickly and getting things done efficiently.



In the great leap forward, even the most idiotic decisions had millions of people doing it willingly. this just shows, that if the nation's leadership wants to execute a policy, it WILL BE DONE, no ifs or buts.


I think several million people who kicked the bucket during the Great Leap would disagree. Or do you want to argue that all those "only" died of starvation and nobody was killed because they disagreed with the govenment?
And how many people were prosecuted again during the Culture Revolution? Guess those are the minor damages when enforcing obedience. Though I agree: killing and imprisoning opposition is effective in creating obedience through fear.

And do you really want to argue about the advantages of blind obedience to the government, no-questions-asked national pride and millions of willing followers with a guy whose parents were born in the 3rd Reich?

On the economic side:
I would like to see proof how a worker who has pride in his nation is more efficient than a worker who has pride in his company, or a self-employed guy who has pride in the product he creates.

[Armistead]

Let's face it, being a melting pot in the US seems more to divide us now than anything, China has the advantage of being of one mindset.

[Skybird]

There is a decisive difference between India and China.

India, formally being a democracy, has failed (miserably, I would say) to increase the living standard and increasing the wealth for the general population. The rural place stay haunted by supressive caste system, violent supression of women, poverty, and poor medical conditions.

China, a party dictatorship (or oligarchy, if you want), has ensured a breathtaking rise in generla wealth for the country and most of the people. A general, materially well-being social middle class has formed up. The times when progress just was to be seen in the coastal areas, but not oin the rural heartlands, for the most are over, too.

China is the economically most successful nation of the past 30 years or so.

And it has America and Europe by its balls. What Westerners often ignore is that having debts makes you vulnerable to blackmailing. That'S one of the several reasons why I just shake my head over the american fiscal policy and the Fed. It's sometimes said then that the Chinese will not act against Ameria saince that would be against their own economical interest. To me that sounds more like a desperate mantra one repeats to not be afraid when being alone in the forest of debts one has panted. China is working with high speed at disconnecting from the - exaggerated - ties it has to the American fiscal misery.

And jujst weeks ago, the ministry of economy and trade openly threatened the Japanese to use the enormous stockpile of Japanese bonds the Chinese hold to bring Japan to its knees if it pushes too far in that conflict over those islands. Chinese is the biggest creditor of Japanese bonds outside Japan.

The Chiense are also in a buying frenzy in Europe. Instead of buying worthless Euro crap bonds as Eurocrats wanted to tell them, they buy the filet parts of top rated European, especially German, hightech and key industries.

China must not be a military superheavyweight like the US has been. It has as sharp a weapon, which to used with mastery it knows since three thousand years at least: trade and economics. America sooner or later will learn this the hard way. Coming from a different position, the gerontocracy of Europistan will learn the same lesson, too.

[AVGWarhawk]

We once had the same national pride and we didn't need an authoritarian government to have it either.

Some of that national pride is diminished with the influx of people from other cultures, ideals and religions?

[August]

And it has America and Europe by its balls. What Westerners often ignore is that having debts makes you vulnerable to blackmailing.


Blackmail? Yeah right.

So what's to prevent the US and Europe from telling the blackmailer to go pound sand? Just remember when you put money into a foreign country you're only a politicians pen stroke from loosing it.

Just ask the oil companies what happened to their investments in Venezuela, Libya, Iran and the many other countries who decided to nationalize their production.

[the_tyrant]

@Penguin

You are still missing my point.

What I am saying is, having 80% of 1.3 billion people backing you up makes you powerful.

Hitler might have made some bad decisions, but that does not mean he isn't powerful. Having a nation of supporters backing you up tends to make you extremely powerful.

Also, I tend to disagree with the concept that mindless supporters are all slaves. Slaves can only do basic menial labor, whereas true believers can do more advanced stuff. After all, Nazi Germany did have many brilliant scientists and generals. There are some in the country forced to believe, but much more are true believers.



Blackmail? Yeah right.

So what's to prevent the US and Europe from telling the blackmailer to go pound sand? Just remember when you put money into a foreign country you're only a politicians pen stroke from loosing it.

Just ask the oil companies what happened to their investments in Venezuela, Libya, Iran and the many other countries who decided to nationalize their production.

Thing is though, by doing so, the US would ruin its credit. Just like how if you declared bankruptcy, you can probably never get a loan again. I'm pretty sure that unless significant amounts of changes can be made, the US can no longer support its government without any borrowing.

[Takeda Shingen]

Just like how if you declared bankruptcy, you can probably never get a loan again.

That's not true. You can get loans after decaring bankruptcy. They may not be prime, and they won't be offered for a few years after you declare, but you are not blacklisted for life. You can always fix your credit.

[Oberon]

We once had the same national pride and we didn't need an authoritarian government to have it either.

The work ethic between America and China/Japan is not comparable though, in fact I think most Western nations would struggle to understand the mindset of most Japanese, I certainly do. National pride though, yes, there was once a similar mindset, but then people became allowed to question and doubt the state. China and Japan spent many years not being allowed to, in China it's still taboo, although it's a LOT better now than it was even thirty years ago, in Japan I think the government is considered secondary to business, since most of the time the government is either corrupt, out of touch or ineffectual, so loyalty is owed to your boss, not your nation. Even so, there's still a fair bit of nationalistic pride, particularly amongst the youth. Same in South Korea from what I can tell.


And Skybird, what China has is a suicide bomb. Yes, it can do severe damage to Western economies, yes it can drive Japans economy even further down the toilet, but at the cost of destroying its own. China has an economic bomb, but the firestorm that it would unleash would consume it along with its enemies.
China isn't stupid, it wields the threat but it's reluctant to use it until it can put itself into a position where it would survive the backlash. The US would recover, Europe would recover (eventually), Chinas current success is built on this economic boom, if it loses that, it goes backwards, it's like kicking the legs out from underneath a table.

[AVGWarhawk]

7 years for bankruptcy. 3 years for short sale on a house. Credit worthiness can be obtained again. It takes work and time.

[Penguin]

@Penguin

You are still missing my point.

What I am saying is, having 80% of 1.3 billion people backing you up makes you powerful.

Hitler might have made some bad decisions, but that does not mean he isn't powerful. Having a nation of supporters backing you up tends to make you extremely powerful.

Also, I tend to disagree with the concept that mindless supporters are all slaves. Slaves can only do basic menial labor, whereas true believers can do more advanced stuff. After all, Nazi Germany did have many brilliant scientists and generals. There are some in the country forced to believe, but much more are true believers.


Oh I got your point. However your statement, that I quoted said something universally about advantages. Yet you only argue from the government's perspective.
To me a nation consists of the people, not the government, hence my argumentation where the advantages for the population lie.

If the Chinese government is really backed up by 80% of the population, they should have no fear of free elections or the free flow of information and would have no need to imprison people for their opinions.

If you have doubts that Hitler made some bad decisions, as implied through the word "might" it's time to get the good ole history books out, even the most fierce Nazi would claim that Adolf did indeed made mistakes.

Also does is the word "slave" defined through ownership, not by the kind of work they do. Though I agree, that volunteers are certainly more productive. Let's call them programmed work drones instead.

You also don't recognize how many brilliant minds left Germany because of the dictatorship. A non-Nazi 1930s/40s Germany would have had even more brain potential.
Many scientists in the 3rd Reich who stayed, would have also worked under another government. The rocket scientists the USSR and the US imported after WW2 are surely the most prominent examples.