What are the possibilities of China become the next world superpower?

I live in China as a transplanted American.

I have learned two things.

#1 what most people in the west know of China would fit in a thimble, what most people think they know would fit in a barrel.

#2 China has no desire to be a huge military power. They know that to do that is economy busting and does little to protect themselves. Their 5,000 year history is full of imperialistic games and they have learned that it does not pay in the long run. China is upgrading its military because they need to and can now afford to without robbing the people, like they did in the past. They even have planes in their active air force that date back to pre WWII.

While they have a huge military, it is really huge on paper, since every person of military age must go through a basic type training. At both colleges I have taught at, that training is done on the campus. The students go through a 2 1/2 week course that pretty much amounts to learning how to march and take orders. There is no weapons training etc. About 1% of those students later decide to take up a military career. What many in the west do not know, even though it was reported, that China made a pledge they would reduce their military by one million active duty personal two years ago and met that obligation.

Where China will excel is in the market place and monetary system. Their population believes in saving as opposed to instant gratification of spend and be in perpetual debt, like we in the west live under. Plus they have a labor pool of 800 million people that has problems of under and unemployment, thus will keep wages low for decades to come. Which of course will keep the cost of manufacturing and living down.

China's government is very stable as well as their society. While they do have problem area's, nevertheless, the best way of measuring a country is not by what partisans and our news media says, but the amount of foreign investment and manufacturing flowing in. China is a very safe bet for western companies and has been that way for the last 20 years. While China has controlling interest in those companies, nevertheless, even with that, investment remains very high.

Finally, Warren Buffet said 5 years ago that China's economy would surpass the USA in 50 years. 2 years ago he revised that to 25 years. I think, with today's economy and the fact that China's economy is very resilient (despite what some in the west say) and has vast untapped domestic and foreign markets and massive rebuilding after the earthquakes, this country's economy is very strong, even while the west is in recession, this one is growing by over 7%, that China will surpass the USA's economy in 15 years.

Peace

Jim

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Will they become a superpower? Yes, the next century will see them rise in standards of living, military spending and capabilities and expand their sphere of influence. However, their potential is limited by the fact that their economy is built on an abundance of cheap labor, and its population will decrease, become older and more expensive with every decade as a consequence of its one child policy (India is poised to become the next major industrial growth center as they face none of these problems). It also lacks natural resources and space to grow (the US and Russia, meanwhile, have both in abundance). Part of the reason that China's growth has been so rapid is because it was outside of the global economy for so long, but now that its caught up, its going to slow down.

China will become the next superpower, but it will not become like the United States.

China is not a country that can justify to its people nor does it have a history of engaging in military action far from its shores. It wants Taiwan back, as was the terms in the surrender document signed by Japan at the end of WWII, and it wants to keep all of its provinces, including Tibet. It will not venture into other regions that were never part of its territory.

China is the oldest continuous civilization in the world, and when Europeans first went there they were awestruck and confused. Awestruck by their art, inventions and engineering. Confused by their culture, their spiritual beliefs and their traditions.

China will never become a US-style democracy, though the US needs to work on becoming a better democracy as well, but it will allow more freedom as time goes on. What will appear in China is their own form of people's government. They already allow elections in some of their outlying provinces. These types of elections give the rural people a representation and a voice in the development of their regions. The US took over 150 years to become a full-fledged democracy. Giving African- Americans the vote in 1869, then the Native Americans and women got to vote in 1920. Finally the very people who built the transcontinental railroad in the 1800's, the Chinese Americans, got the vote in 1940. For nearly 150 years after it was formed the US only allowed white men to vote. That was never a democracy. Give China time.

I really dont see it happening, they have a lot of people but they are sole dependent on the unitied states for there economy, There military is much weaker than you would think and they have little navy or airforce to speak of. If they became a democracy i think there chances of being a major power would increase then

like the person above me, i would vote on japan , they already have the worlds second most power economy, a powerful military and are very creative. The united states and japan are great allies

Being a superpower is more than a powerful military - it also involves goodwill and helping our friends defend their freedoms. The Soviet Union was labeled a superpower, but it was a facade....while their own citizens lived a third world existence without any incentive to be productive, they had a choice of one brand of everything, including party choices.

China is accumulating the wealth needed for a first class military, but again, at the expense of their citizens. If they get to the point of using their power to intimidate the West - like with Taiwan - their economy will take a nosedive and they will repeat the disintegration of the USSR. They would have to shed communism and give their people freedom and a middle class to be a true superpower. It'll never happen without another revolution.

The reports of the demise of the USA are premature. Trust me.

Possible but not unless they find a clean source of energy. If they don't, they'll poison their environment so badly it'll hamstring any attempt to grow their economy/infrastructure. They also have a lot of internal economic (wealth disparity) and demographic issues to deal with. It depends how this recession turns out, they may get hit harder than the US does depending on how high their unemployment goes (and how much unrest results from it).

But the US disloged in the near future..., like what, 10 years? No, not unless there's a complete global economic meltdown, and even then, you'll still see the US weathering the storm better than most countries thanks to its wide open spaces and abundant supply of freshwater/farmland.

I think you are right. Also one other thing you didn't mention, we owe China a large sum of money which they could hang over our heads the longer we don't pay them. However I really do believe the U.S. has tarnished its image and under the failed leadership of the past and present we have weakened our military power by needless spending and not protecting our borders. As it relates to China, it is apparent that they are becoming the world super power. They have the resources to do it, they have nuclear plants which they could develop into weapons, they also have better technology. There is nothing stopping them from doing it. Our way of putting sanctions on places like North Korea haven't worked, and if China were to strike the same idea of nuclear weapons, it would be chaotic. I think what we need to do is enforce tough diplomacy. But before we do, we need to get our image back to better standings, otherwise we will look worse than we already do.

Note: I am a Chinese-American.

Quite frankly, no. Not in the near future. China does have the man-power but not the technology. It's service sector is despairingly small and most of it's people live in poverty. I love China, but I think that China must also solve problems of censorship, freespeech, Tibet, etc. before it can take it's place at the world stage. China is capable of amazing things, it has shown us this last summer during the Beijing Games.

I think that it's much more likely that Japan will. Japan's technology far surpasses those of the US. Japan's people also have the drive that most Asian countries seem to possess to become stronger and better.

I think that this next century will belong to Asia.

China and Russia are contenders. India has a place.

Central Europe will fight like hell against Putin's armies. Western Europe will continue their long process of surrender.

The US will be a full-on socialist bureaucracy in eight years unless there's a revolt.

On the other hand, 2008 is a great reason to never predict anything.

China has not done any of the work necessary to be a superpower and is likely going to split into several separate nations as its economy falls apart. Their economy, such that it is, is completely dependent on providing cheap, non-essential, consumer goods to the United States using extremely underpaid labor. The US is no longer buying those goods.

Chinese society is mostly a peasant existance with a handful every year moving up to a middle class existence. That slow movement from a third world to a modest first world existence will no longer be possible. Without it, there is little to no reason for the average chinese citizen to identify with other people outside their local area (many of whom don't even speak the same language, let alone hold the same values). Worse, those people become a burden on those modern chinese who are living a first world existence.

What china has NOT done is provide any infrastructure, either internally, to diversify its economy and become a first world nation on a large scale....nor globally, to become an important hub of international relations. They barely handle major problems in their own backyard (ie South Korea) and only then, with major arm twisting.

I'm sure china would love the power and prestige of being the next world super power. However, they just aren't interested in the responsibility involved.

Also, US power and influence is growing, not crumbling. We own everything, have everything, control everything and people quibble about a slight downturn in our economy. Sheesh.

The truth is, most of the world would starve to death tomorrow if we stopped providing for them.