China rising
January 18th, 02010 by Kirk Citron
The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.
Robert Fogel writes in Foreign Policy this month:
In 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion, or nearly three times the economic output of the entire globe in 2000… Although it will not have overtaken the United States in per capita wealth, according to my forecasts, China’s share of global GDP — 40 percent — will dwarf that of the United States (14 percent) and the European Union (5 percent) 30 years from now.
If we’re considering the long term future, it may seem parochial to worry about which nation is “ahead” — but the world will be a different place if China is the country setting the global agenda for everything from climate change and the exploration of outer space to human rights and censorship (go Google!). China is rising; is the rest of the world ready?
Some recent news stories about China:
1. Last year, China passed the U.S. in carbon emissions. Not only that:
China overtakes Germany to become largest exporter
China overtakes U.S. as world’s biggest car market
China consumers to overtake U.S. in a decade
2. They’re making great strides in technology:
Nuclear power expansion in China stirs concerns
Gene rice on its way in China
China’s high-speed-rail revolution
China unveils anti-missile test
China energy efficiency “improves in first half”
3. And science:
China ascendant
Get ready for China’s domination of science
4. As the dustup with Google shows, China approaches social issues differently:
China’s says web crackdown to be “long-lasting”
China to be short 24 million wives
In China, DNA tests on kids ID genetic gifts, careers
We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Long News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Posted on January 18th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
[...] nice list of links to recent news about China and their consolidation as a world [...]
Posted on January 18th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
I don’t buy it.
Robert Fogel is a bright man, but his forecasting here seems profoundly flawed. His predictions are stunningly optimistic, exceeding even the imagination of most Chinese students, and we all know – surely – that one should never predict the future based only on present trends. One necessarily has to explore factors active on the present, because change happens in response to those forces, not simply of its own volition!
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/123000000000000
I ask people to read it. It seems clear that in his obsession with raw past data he can’t see the wood for the trees and misses the shifting nature of international economics, and that his radically pro-China line (Cynically, I wonder if it’s a calculated headline catcher?) ignores completely the social pressures facing China, the brewing demographic problems, and the dangers facing its political unity and even its clear global geographic disadvantages against the United States.
This is not, I think, a good example of forecasting!
Posted on January 19th, 2010 at 8:17 am
As a Chinese myself, what I find most interesting about the rise of China is that we are leapfrogging into the 21st century. The speed of development is so fast that few people can really lean back and take the long view. While I don’t want to comment on what the rise of China means for the whole world, I do recommend people from the West take a multi-dimensional views on this subject, not just looking at China in the last 100 years, but also take a look at this country in the past 1000 years. A recent lecture at London School of Economics by Martin Jacques might serve as a good guide:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2010/20100113t1830vOT.aspx
Posted on January 20th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
[...] China Rising – The Long Now Blog [...]
Posted on January 24th, 2010 at 2:38 am
When the Chinese enonomic surge began, the received wisdom was that they would increasingly become more western in civic matters. It seems more and more that the opposite is the case – ‘we’, if anything, are becoming more like ‘them’ – remember those Tibetan protestors cleared off the streets in London in the brave new dawn of New Labour? Not to mention the possibilty of surveillance drones. They will no doubt be cruising over Middlesborough’s sink estates by the time we welcome the world to the 2012 Olympics.
I suppose being British, we’ve always had an ‘in’ on the hegemonic power, sharing a language with and displaying an empathy for it’s culture despite being geographically outside of it. So much of our pop culture, for instance, has been an awkward embrace of or reaction against the “American dream”. We excitedly imagine its vast, unexplored vistas, despite our awareness of the cramped, hellish urban reality (i.e. one not that different from our own) that for so many represents the reality of living in the US. Having been brought up on those terms, it’s quite interesting to imagine how the “Chinese dream” is going to play out.
Population, I guess, will also become the central political issue again (remember Malthuss?) – if it isn’t already. Hard to thnk of ‘Long Nows’ with that many mouths to feed today, I suppose… The combination of a big, autocratic state, unaccountable to its citizens, driven by neo-capitalist greed, with a spiraling population to be fed within the context of a global environmental catastrophe could be quite nightmarish.
L.U.V. on ya,
Bob
p.s. – good luck with the clock!
Posted on January 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Does no one think that China gross and reckless disregard for the environment, in favor of “growth”, will not come back to bite the entire planet? “Green energy” development aside, coal power plants are not slowing, cancer-causing chemicals are poured into water and river and air; I can’t help thinking about a story on BBC this weekend, hearing about a chrome factory dumping its remnant poisonous chemicals into the street, into the sewer, and thus into the water table. This eventually winds up in the ocean – you can see the pollution from space, flowing into the Pacific.
Not to mention general harm to endangered species and ocean fish stocks, global reach for the grab of disappearing resources and thus exportation of this disaster, and on and on. Without serious national environmental protection, this “growth” of China should be feared by the entire planet, unless it is able to use its wealth to do a 180-degree turn in awareness. How likely is that to happen in just thirty years?
Posted on January 29th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
[...] China rising- The Long Now Blog, January 18, 2010 [...]
Posted on February 2nd, 2010 at 8:15 am
[...] an economic sense, the Chinese nation is a power waiting to bloom, but all of this is very much in flux because China is going to be facing a great many challenges [...]