Quokk.auMajority of Australians think China will be world’s most powerful country by 2035, poll finds
www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/16/…
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31521912
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What makes the US the most powerful country in the world? It's our cultural exports, our educational institutions, and our technology. We spent decades handing all our technology over to China, and undermining education. Now Trump has poisoned the American brand for at least a generation.
China is way ahead on building a science and technology culture, and promoting education. The dividends from those investments are already paying off, and they are going to start compounding.
A lot of Americans still think of China as the place to make cheap goods, but their manufacturing sector has benefited from decades of stolen expertise. It turns out there are benefits from having engineers and factory workers in the same location. Faster feedback means faster development. Now the US is falling behind.
BrikoXCompletely agree. Also it's not really "stolen expertise" as wetern companies and capitalist countries given it away willingly in exchange for cheap manufacturing. They just never expected China to take advantage of it to compete on a global market.
I don't think they really cared if China took advantage of it. America's CEOs are only invested in the next few quarters, at best. Something that might take a decade or two is entirely not relevant to their planning and actions.
A lot of Americans still think of China as the place to make cheap goods, but their manufacturing sector has benefited from decades of stolen expertise.
I listened to a podcast (Dithering; it’s subscription based) talking about a book about Apple’s manufacturing operations in China. The distinction was that other companies guarded because their techniques would be stolen, whereas Apple focused on “we’re gonna teach you to do this,” which then proliferated to other companies. We wouldn’t have semi-affordable (depending on your situation) iPhones otherwise. They be impossible to build at scale. Really eye opening.
The ep was the second one last week, if you wanna listen.
harkWe wouldn’t have semi-affordable (depending on your situation) iPhones otherwise. They be impossible to build at scale. Really eye opening.
Yes we would, they'd just have to lower their ridiculously high profit margins: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/30/apples-gross-margin-hits-record-as-services-business-keeps-growing.html
For many years in the iPhone era, Apple’s gross margin would predictably come in at between 38% and 39%, reflecting the company’s tight grip over its supply chain and its pricing power in the market.
Apple's huge profit margins are only possible because of the scale of their operations in China. They're moving to India and Vietnam. It remains to be seen how that will work out. China has been building expertise in manufacturing for decades. My statement stands.
Possibly linuxThe biggest problem with China is that they are Authoritarian.
That is indeed a problem but, speaking strictly about competitiveness, it does have it's advantages. For example, the US really needs more strategically important goods to be manufactured at home, but that is really hard to do if market conditions favor offshoring. China can just dictate the sourcing - even in the (so called) private sector.
AmnesigenicThat is in fact their greatest strength and the primary reason why our usual strategies for undermining our political & economic rivals don't work on them. Sitting back and allowing shit to fall apart because "freedom" is moronic, just look at what the US has turned into for a perfect example.
SalvoChina has already successfully destroyed manufacturing in most Pacific “first world” countries by undercutting us.
The fact that US, Australian, Japanese, Korean and New Zealand manufacturers were so ready to outsource to China in the first place, just to save a few cents in the dollar is how they got us.
Sounds more like "we got us" to me. It's our system and our philosophies that made those pennies so precious.
OgmiosNow Trump has poisoned the American brand for at least a generation.
Bitch please. Trump is far from the only reason people hate the USA. Especially after they used the Internet as a trojan horse to launch mass surveillance upon the entire globe.
What are your “cultural exports”?
Movies, fast food chains, clothing chains, etc. The American brand and lifestyle that goes with it. Not exactly the greatest cultural achievements of all time, but they brought in cash.
Capitalism isn’t culture.
Correct, the clothes and movies and music are the culture
Can you name an aspect that is USA specific?
CalaveraYou have a wrong concept of what is culture
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in Serbia 90% of TV shows and movies are American, and generally people watch primarily American movies/series online and in cinemas. Most people listen to American music and use English words in daily conversation. Most are familiar with things like 9/11, Vietnam, 4th of July, Woodstock, hippies etc.
A lot of younger people are more familiar with American history, topics, movies and music than their own culture. I'm not saying it's good, but Americans have an undeniably strong cultural influence, at least in Europe.
DiplomjodlerWhat did you write this comment on?
I’m gonna skip a step…Nothing invented by USAian, no I won’t be elaborating or entertaining your delusions with further discussion. Search engines are your friend.
There was a moment around the year 2000 when this might have been the case but China's demographics and unwillingness to permit meaningful immigration will see a decline of 20-25% of their working age population over the next 30 years due to a plummeting fertility rate. This phenomenon isn't unique to China, but China is one of the hardest hit for many reasons. A decline of hundreds of millions of workers is going to destroy their economy - especially with such a large elderly population set to retire. There is no chance they fully transition to a services based economy by then. Not even close. They still have hundreds of millions of citizens living subsistence farming lifestyles.
Now compound this with all of the structural issues like command and control policies which destroy whole industries because the dictator in charge has a mood swing, a property bubble from which they will never recover, an economy built on unnecessary public spending, and an educational system which continues to emphasise blind obedience over individualism, and I think it very difficult to believe China becomes the most "powerful" country by 2035.
The question is, will they decline more than their competitors? Right now i think the US will decline a lot more a lot faster. And Russia will likely not even be around.
This is an excellent question. I think the major question mark hanging over this projection is the role that automation will play in the future. Both in terms of physical production, and in terms of white collar or office work. One could argue that economies which are best positioned to take advantage of automation might feel the impact of a declining workforce less, but then those same societies run the risk of high unemployment and low domestic economic demand for products and services. The balance is crucial and economies are generally slow to pivot.
China has proven itself able to change drastically and quickly. High speed rail and renewable energy. Both massive undertakings tackling massive problems for China and both done far faster and on a much larger scale than anywhere else. If there's one country I actually trust to be proactive about securing its future, it's China. I'll take the wait and see approach to the supposed imminent demographic collapse
I agree that authoritarian governments have more latitude than democracies. The CCP displaced up to two million people when it built the The Three Gorges Dam. There was no recourse. No ability to object. People who had lived on the land for generations were simply told to leave. Some were lucky to be given meagre government apartments to live in elsewhere, but that was it. It's much easier to build large infrastructure projects when you don't have to worry about pesky things like property laws, health and safety, and human rights.
If your argument is that authoritarianism will win over democracy in the long term, it's an interesting debate. Most of human history was some form of authoritarianism. Some form of might makes right. There have been small democratic experiements in history (see Greece), but modern democracy is a relatively new experiment. I hope it succeeds, because I like it a lot more than the alternatives.
My argument is that I don't think the demographic collapse will be as devastating as you made it out to be. Did you even read my comment?
Sunshine (she/her)China already dominates the global ev market.
Sure, China will rise and then it will fall under its own weight just like every empire before it.
That's true, but the time between rise and fall takes a while. From the looks of things, the US empire is in the process of falling, which would clear the way for China to take over the top spot. This may change depending on how things go, but if China can grab that spot then it'll take a while for their turn to fall.
Edit: damnit, replied at the wrong place
A lot of Americans still think of China as the place to make cheap goods, but their manufacturing sector has benefited from decades of stolen expertise.
I listened to a podcast (Dithering; it’s subscription based) talking about a book about Apple’s manufacturing operations in China. The distinction was that other companies guarded because their techniques would be stolen, whereas Apple focused on “we’re gonna teach you to do this,” which then proliferated to other companies. We wouldn’t have semi-affordable (depending on your situation) iPhones otherwise. They be impossible to build at scale. Really eye opening.
The ep was the second one last week, if you wanna listen.
myrmidexI saw that book pass by on the Daily Show:
Patrick McGee - Apple In China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company
iktto me after trump backed down on tariffs, this was essentially the US playing its hand and finding out that they weren’t as strong as they thought and in the process handing world super power status to china
It was really just Trump finding out the US isn't as strong as HE thought. Everyone with a brain told him it was a bad idea but the man doesn't understand economics
Deceptichum
Can't see it happening. It'll be a multi-polar world with no singular 'most powerful'.
By many metrics and anecdotal evidence it already is.
They literally own the means of production.
Time to learn Mandarin
It's hard to argue given their trajectory
The reality is that if China stops supplying the world with stuff, we're fucked
The entire world relies on China's cheap and available "stuff", and it encompasses everything
They have economic power, they have soft political power and have been pumping money into Africa and the pacific
They have harder political power in Asia
The have enormous military power
They have abundant resources
They already have the world by the balls, but it's unpleasant for most people to acknowledge it
Honestly modern China in my lifetime has been a more benevolent world player than the US by orders of magnitude. Not perfect, obviously, but at least they haven’t been starting wars or electing fascists. I’m excited for this shift.
The biggest issue I have with China is their suppression of freedom of speech.
Mostly agree, but;
I think is more their engineering expertise than cheap manufacturing. Cheap manufacturing can be easily moved to other countries as is already happening in India and Vietnam among others. However China has big expertise in high tech/large scale manufacturing in many areas like electronics, batteries, EV’s,… that doesn’t move easily.
However for those engineering domains China also strongly relies on other countries. In our world you can’t do everything alone.
They haven’t fought a war in 4 decades though.
Cheap as cheap price or cheap quality
Global power doesn't tend to be a peaceful transition though. If China does make a play to become the dominant force by then, it's bad news for everyone living right now.
There are benefits China has that will go away as they transition, which could also cause them to stumble. No longer being considered a developing nation, any poverty will be 100% on them to fix, international agreements will expect them to contribute instead of receiving, emissions will be more heavily scrutinized. Other countries will not be a tolerant about the rampant IP theft and extreme protectionism of their domestic markets.
I could be wrong, but it seems like they are already to this point.
I think this falls into the realm of "what are they going to do about" the only power block that cares about those ip's are the na-eu group, which after the play for global dominance will become a rounding error to them. The emissions may bite them, but it won't be from other nations, I have no doubt they'll keep polluting until the problems actually manifest, basically every unchecked government in history doesn't play proactively when it comes to environmental issues.
China is slowly transitioning from a developing country, but it's a slow process as new agreements are signed and old ones expire.
NA and EU wouldn't be a rounding error, China wouldn't magically be more powerful than everyone else combined. The EU can already make the US and it's companies make concessions, that wouldn't change with China replacing the US.
As far as emissions China already hit the point they couldn't ignore it. That's why they are rolling out so much solar and nuclear, the Internet being flooded with pictures of absurdly bad smog already forced that issue.
They're not spilling treasure fighting another country's wars.
They’re not ruining their economy by fighting what makes them great or their people healthy. They have their grift and corruption more under control. They’re not cutting back on investments for their future in favor of investments for their past. They have the attention span to commit to a plan for more than four years at a time.