China is definitely no friend of the US, nor an enemy (at this point), but definitely a genuine competitor. If the US does not recognize this and act accordingly, China will indeed replace it as the world superpower. If you're Chinese, this would be great news, if you're American it would be concerning. It's always going to be bad news for one of the parties due to the conflicting ideologies.

Why?

When China becomes uber powerful, will the state then stop controlling everyone's thoughts?

Will they have basic rights then?

Or will corruption go away?

Will people still be looking to flee China when it's #1?

> Will they have basic rights then?

> Or will corruption go away?

> Will people still be looking to flee China when it's #1?

If you assume that the future will be basically like the past (untrue, but better than most assumptions), then the answers are:

1. It doesn't now, it can't now, and it won't be able to then. But it definitely won't stop trying.

2. Yes, in much the same way they have basic rights now. Which is to say, they will enjoy what their culture thinks of as basic rights, but probably not what you think of as basic rights.

3. No.

4. Yes, just as people have sought to flee every country in the past or present.

Some people like the story and rally around it.

As our world gets more and more hyperconnected whatever delusions groups of people have of their favorite story being accepted as global narrative get tested very fast.

And break down faster if there is no universal appeal. There are enough examples playing out around the world.

All these nationalistic stories will keep breaking down.

There are 5 billion more people in the world than the Americans and Chinese put together. They aren't going to blindly bend over to either an American or Chinese narrative.

We like to live in this dream state that the most powerful countries matter. They dont. Ask the Taliban.

The Indians and Russians and Europeans and South Americans and Africans don't give one shit about Make America great again or Make China great again.

What will play out is a collapse of these narratives in spectacular fashion.

You mean ask a bunch of people living in the stone age, who are getting killed en masse what they think of their power relative to others?

I think you picked maybe the worst possible example: just because a group can live on rice in inhostile territory doesn't mean that the power ratio is negated.

If the Americans wanted to actually destroy the Taliban it wouldn't be that hard, it would just come at a cost nobody wants to pay.

Besides, anybody can ask the same. If the US keeps its power or gains even more, will the cops stop killing black citizens? Will the big corps stop have politicians in their pockets? Will Wall Street lackeys get out of power? Will mass surveillance stop? Will wars for oil and "national interests" stop? Will the middle and working class stop declining? Will healthcare be affordable?

I call rubbish.

Corruption is corruption and nobody ever accepts it as 'part of our historical culture'.

Having a corrupt government official take your home because they want to build a mall is pretty much Universally bad.

Being thrown in a concentration camp because of your religion not something anyone wants.

Having to bribe officials to get where you want is not something anyone wants.

Being told how many children you can and cannot have is not something anyone would rather live with.

I accept that people will accept differing levels of surveillance etc. - but in the end there are universal issues here.

You'd be surprised. Some cultures don't like rigid "law and order" on everyday life, and prefer bendable laws in some cases (even if are OK with stricter laws in others). It has a lot to do with historical development and custom law, rather than some sterile "law trumps everything" being everybody's utopia.

>Having a corrupt government official take your home because they want to build a mall is pretty much Universally bad.

Sure, but having a strong government and not blow up a 1.6 billion country into competing factions and civil war chaos is pretty much universally badder.

Most of the "bleeding hearts" (for the countries of others), assume once you break down the "corrupt government" a functional democracy will follow.

The never bother wondering whether a functional democracy is even possible at that scale, nor to ponder the other places they've turned into hell-holes with their interventions.

Nor do they care much about sovereignty, the idea that people should fix those things for themselves, and not have some third parties (with their own ideas, culture, and interests) impose a solution.

>Being told how many children you can and cannot have is not something anyone would rather live with.

At the individual level maybe. But having too much population grown in your country is not something "anyone would rather live with" either.

What if you're not American nor Chinese?

And America and China really do want to both be the lone superpower. (I'm just not convinced of this premise by the way, but let's assume it's true)...

Then the rational thing for you to do is look back on the past, what? 70 or so years and ask yourself has it been good for you or bad for you? That should give you a pretty good idea of which nation you'd be best off with as the super-power.

Then kick back, grab some popcorn, and hope that your guy wins.

I mean, if you're not American or Chinese...

it's easy.

Again, why would this be an issue? I mean, for us here in the USA? Why would we not want to be rid of the "privilege" of being the "super" power in what is clearly a multi-polar world?

First, the vast majority of our debt is owed to ourselves, not to foreigners.

Second, what makes our dollars so valuable, is not our status as a super-power, but our willingness to pay it back. Think of it this way, the big ticket items in the US government budget are the military, Medicare/SS, and debt service. Now we hear all the time talk about cuts to the military or medicare/ss. But no one even CONSIDERS talk about cutting debt service. THAT is what makes dollars so valuable. (It's also why the vast majority of them are eaten up by us and not foreigners.)

So I'm not convinced at all that our dollars are valuable because we are a super-power. Russia was a super-power, and no one was stockpiling rubles. Likewise, Switzerland is not a super-power, but everyone should have some swiss francs.

That doesn’t give them leverage to print money inflation-free.

What allows the US to do it is the USD’s status as the leading global reserve and trade currency. That status is based on habit and influence.

I'm not saying that America is innocent (by any means), just that I would rather them hand the torch to a country that's more honest to their own people and operates more openly.

So, China then? At least with party rule, what you get is what you see.

Perhaps Americans should stop blaming others and look inwards. Break up all the corporate monopolies and duopolies to trigger innovation again. Build functional affordable sustainable cities. Switch to renewable power as soon as possible. Welcome the brightest and most motivated people instead of banning them from the country. Invest your trillions of borrowed money into infrastructure and the health of your population instead of killing civilians abroad for no reason. Do all these things and more and America will succeed and people will always want the USD. Be humble and competitive rather than arrogant and convinced of your own exceptionalism on the basis of mere existence.

But nah, rather sit in front of the TV and yell about China.

> Do all these things and more and America will succeed and people will always want the USD.

From my limited understanding of the issue (emphasis on "limited"), it seems that Most countries in the world don't want the USD to be their currency of reference but are forced to out of fear of being invaded.

I may be wrong but from the oustide looking in it seems to me that a lot of people in the US live in denial and don't necessarily want to come to terms with the fact that the show is almost over.

The natural resource of the information age is not iron or oil, but a populace of free thinkers who are unafraid to fail while working outside of cultural norms. Why does the US dominate the Internet? It's not because our 1s and 0s are better quality, or our technology education is superior or even that we have better funding for tech (it costs almost nothing to create a web site except time, desire and expertise.) It's our culture: we value the pioneer spirit. New frontiers are dove into head first.

China's recent successes can be attributed to intellectual theft from innovative cultures, and brutal oppression of their own people. This does not scale. Until they free the minds of their populace, they will never be able to globally complete in science and technology.

China's domestic market is coming close to the US size and arguably larger in PPP terms which matters more than in dollars since the costs for R&D are often dominated by domestic salary. Anyone knowledgeable about Chinese domestic market will attest to its vitality and bustling competitive spirits, not to mention intense work ethics that results in rapid experimentation and iteration.

The US continues to lead in breakthroughs but rollouts of innovation happen faster in the Chinese market. With more funding and resources, China also starts to lead in fields they focus on including quantum communications, some areas in AI, and a few other engineering fields.

What is clearly lacking for the US is solid education in mathematics. This deficiency leaves the majority of population behind most peers in the developed world. The gap behind East Asian nations including China is especially acute as shown by the PISA result.

The gap in math between US and participating Chinese provinces (200+ million population) in PISA 2015 is about 0.6 SD, or roughly comparable to students with 2.7 vs 3.3 GPA.

The US needs to expend more effort to attract the best people in the world while pushing ahead with education reforms. The latter takes over a decade to bear fruits, however, so attracting and retaining global innovators should be a key current priority.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_...

US did that for the last 50 years, and it did not work out as much as it was imagined it would.

You do not only need a world class academicians, but their second-in-command people, regular full time researchers, junior assistants for them, and qualified blue collar workers to help run universities they will be working in.

It scales pretty well. Reason? Facts. Anyone saying China can't innovate is self-denial.

Using fear and brutal dominance causes people to take less risks and focus on appearing to succeed instead of committing to the unpopular, long-term effort and delayed results that innovation requires. China's appearance of recent success is exactly that - an appearance. A thin facade created by a PR campaign. We all know from being ripped off on Amazon the real quality of Chinese products. It's exactly what one would expect from a country of prisoners.

If China is such a great power, why not compete on a even field? Get rid of the mail subsidies and use a fair currency exchange rate. You won't, because you know your backwater has no hope of competing with civilized nations. Arrogance and corruption are not a replacement for responsible and effective.

But praying for the downfall of your enemy due to their own weaknesses isn't very good strategy leads towards victory, as we all understand it.

Go examine how common private debt is in China. How common corruption is, which leads to bad products and failing infrastructure.

Pride goeth before the fall..

I can't tell you how many projects I've been on where everything is spelled out to spec and nothing gets implemented right.

Devil's Advocate I know, but what would be so bad about this?

Our position, considering the world is now multi-polar, is really more of a predicament than a privilege. Why would we fight them replacing us? (Or rather, I suppose game theoretically it would be best to make a show of fighting it, and pretend to regret losing it. A la Huck Finn and whitewashing fences.)

I mean, my concern is that they don't WANT to replace us. Which, to my mind, is worse for us.

The reason the dollar is in great demand is that it's backed up by American political and financial clout and force projection capabilities. If that ceases to be the case then demand for US currency collapses.

But if the USA is able to keep doing machinations around the world so that the dollar is demand for 200 years, eg by just making it the most stable currency, then their dollars and treasuries will literally be the thing that they trade for everything else. Like what if a bank goes insolvent... ok but what if it doesn’t, then everyone wants to use its money and credit.

The USA also lobbies for strong IP protections and international treaties because that’s another one of its exports.

Manufacturing and raw materials are actually less likely to remain a comparative advtantage than this artificially enforced stuff.

But, we do produce a lot of value; we may be more specialized in intangible goods and services, but as long as those are marketable, we're fine.

> Sadly, this experiment has already been run repeatedly throughout history and it doesn't end well.

Leaving aside disagreement over whether the US is even in he scenario you propose, when has it ever ended badly for a country whose debt was denominated in its own fiat currency, rather than a commodity currency or foreign fiat?

That's why I'm trying to figure out why would even fight China trying to replace us? Surely the bigger issue would be if they only wished to sit back and make money for China without helping anyone else do anything?

It’s a bit like men being upset that feminism has led to women doing more work building careers and earning more money. Male lions sit around and have intercourse while the lionesses hunt. Maybe that is the future for humans too?

I don’t actually believe this, I think both sexes should scale down their devotion to the corporate world and focus instead on their families and other pursuits with a UBI. Robots will pick up the slack eventually.

Robots really are the only viable way forward. The idea that we can keep increasing production, but somehow force companies to continue to hire all kinds of employees at wages that support middle class lifestyles is fanciful in the extreme. I'm not sure why politicians keep putting that idea forward as viable? It's directly contradictory to the fundamentals of economics.

What's so bad for the world? Depends on how China tries to run it. But looking at the Uighurs, I'm kind of concerned that they won't run the world all that well for the rest of the world...

What kind of glory? Who knows. Certainly it's not about simply replacing the USA. China has no wish policing the world. (Maybe dicking around but certainly not busy installing democracy everywhere)

The reason China appears to acting against US is because it looks like the biggest abstacle for China's development is the island chains and the technological gap. Chinese are somehow extremely affirmative of their belief and power structure.

They'll dabble, because of the perceived prestige but probably not really put weight behind it. They'll find something that works (maybe this new silk road) and then rinse-repeat until it doesn't. In time, china will have their own disfunctional, sprawling global dominance machinery..

The envy of the world.

Uhm, our dominance has a lot to do with WWII. Our economy boomed while Europe, including the UK, rebuilt itself.

So we definitely fired lots of shots to get on top, but we can probably assume those shots are defensive.

Now, I don't think the U.S. can afford to provide much of a safety net, in regards to basic income and healthcare if it's going to have open borders and a great deal of economic freedom. It will be expensive enough just to deal with the enviornmental problems of a dynamic economy.

https://azizonomics.com/2012/01/04/a-history-of-reserve-curr...

You’re extrapolating from a 200-year history with N=2.

Culturally, no. Americans would consider it an attack on their sovereignty.

It would be a tough sell in anything like the current political climate.

Why would it have to be a "secret strategy"? Of course they'd like to replace the US as the world's dominant power...