Is China that threatening?

[003]

I really think that China is a threatening country even more of what they are showing, expansion in terms of military and territory. They are confident to wage disputes and claim lands to be their own, though that's not really the case. Given that they have the money, logistics and brilliant people, I think it's really possible that they can subjugate the whole world. They are just at par with US, if not better, not too mention that they don't have that much allies as US does.

 

[weepforsweep]

They are only threatening when it comes to hacking. Their hackers are notorious for their skill and we need to always find ways to combat this.

 

[xTinx]

They appear "threatening" and if you're someone who's not aware of Chinese products and their quality, then it would be easy to get swept by their threats. What were their threats so far? Mostly just empty. They really can't act on those threats for fear of economic backlashes. For all their bravado, China's economy is still pretty much dependent on the world at large. Imagine if people suddenly stop importing Chinese goods. Imagine if US companies pull their factories out of the country. China can say goodbye to their economy.

 

[Gasoline]

In my opinion, China currently still can't go beyond USA or even Russia,but their power is growing faster and remarkably,too.

We can't escape its ambitions to control the world, but I can say China's force is temporary may not be strong for a long time as the USA and Russia because they must have a strong allies and deep relations with other countries.

They've many options under their hands to achieve their plans..I guesses they may do it starting by dominating the world economy as a first step.

I don't know how's their believes and what they're thinking of ,but I see their people are friendly ?

What I'm fearing of is a " communist regime " controls the world ...That's the biggest problem that I can guess it now .

 

[DeltaForce103]

They are not at par with the US, not by a long shot. China is at the moment, a global economic power and a regional geopolitical power. But it has yet to demonstrate the sort of diverse, sophisticated indigenous military technology on par with a superpower, or even exercise geopolitical power on a global scale.

What most find threatening about China is not what it is, but what it could be. The country has grown at phenomenal rate over the past few decades, and their ambitions are hard to judge. The US is a known variable that has been more or less the dominant economic power for centuries, while China is not.

 

[Gelsemium]

China so far has been a peaceful country, their policy is, don't mess with me and I won't mess with anyone. I pity for the living conditions of the Chinese, but what can we do really?

 

[petesede]

There isn´t much fear from China. They are going through a growth face similar to the USA in the early 1900s. The problem is that they haven´t yet hit the stage of their economy where the middle class starts making demands. At some point, healthcare, the environment, worker´s rights, and social rights for children are going to kick in and it will drastically slow down their economy. Right now, they have all the benefits of an economy similar to the west, but without the need to provide any services for their people. That will change soon as the middle-class matures there.

The other thing that is going to kill China is their lack of creativity and their lack of protection for intellectual property. China´s entire economy is based around doing stuff other people do, but cheaper. And that works as long as you have cheap labor. But because China has never honored any type of intellectual property laws, nobody there really tries to be creative, because even if you are the guy that invents something amazing, your neighbor will just do it cheaper and there is nothing you can do. The USA grew in the last century because people who invented and created had a big payoff, that caused more people to want to invent and create. Look at the biggest tech companies in China, all they are is cut-n-paste copies of US companies. Alibaba is exactly what Amazon.com is. When their economy and middle class matures, they will no longer have the cheap labor they have now, and they won´t have a culture of inventors and entrepreneurs like we have.

You want to know when China will start to fail, wait for protests about the environment there or about working conditions. When they have to play by the same economic rules as the rest of the world, their lack of creativity and IP protection will be their downfall.

 

[globulon]

China is extremely far from matching the military and geopolitical influence of the United States. That being said, China is definitely a very big regional player in its own backyard and a big economic player in the world. Perhaps countries in the region, without the umbrella of protection offered by the US, should feel threatened. However, I doubt they would go off subjugating the entire world even if they had the capability.

 

[Kamarsun1]

They are only threatening when it comes to hacking. Their hackers are notorious for their skill and we need to always find ways to combat this.

Hacking is a major issue to be concerned with. The whole world runs on Computers, and if we had a major such down of networks, we could be in the dark ages pretty quick.

 

[Kamarsun1]

There isn´t much fear from China. They are going through a growth face similar to the USA in the early 1900s. The problem is that they haven´t yet hit the stage of their economy where the middle class starts making demands. At some point, healthcare, the environment, worker´s rights, and social rights for children are going to kick in and it will drastically slow down their economy. Right now, they have all the benefits of an economy similar to the west, but without the need to provide any services for their people. That will change soon as the middle-class matures there.

The other thing that is going to kill China is their lack of creativity and their lack of protection for intellectual property. China´s entire economy is based around doing stuff other people do, but cheaper. And that works as long as you have cheap labor. But because China has never honored any type of intellectual property laws, nobody there really tries to be creative, because even if you are the guy that invents something amazing, your neighbor will just do it cheaper and there is nothing you can do. The USA grew in the last century because people who invented and created had a big payoff, that caused more people to want to invent and create. Look at the biggest tech companies in China, all they are is cut-n-paste copies of US companies. Alibaba is exactly what Amazon.com is. When their economy and middle class matures, they will no longer have the cheap labor they have now, and they won´t have a culture of inventors and entrepreneurs like we have.

You want to know when China will start to fail, wait for protests about the environment there or about working conditions. When they have to play by the same economic rules as the rest of the world, their lack of creativity and IP protection will be their downfall.

Good post and you have some key issues that I didn't think about, but do you think America is that creative, or did they steal some tech ideals from the China, and just re packaged and renamed them? I could see cheap labor being a problem for China, especially if the quality of their products are low.

 

[zenfive]

Threatening would be the wrong word to use, they've definitely grown into one of the most powerful countries in the world, but they haven't done that through inflicting fear in the enemies, rather, they've made smart economic decisions and have made investments around the world, especially in the poorest countries in Africa and also in South Asia. They have been very clever with their foreign diplomacy, and they often put up a front for claiming to support one thing, but then do the complete opposite themselves.

They are definitely an economic super power, and the amount of control they have around the world is often not understood (just look at the US, the Chinese government owns around $1.2 trillion of their debt).

 

[Morvack]

I would say China's biggest advantage is not its military might, or its hacking ability, though I don't deny both factors are impressive.

I would argue that chinas economic stranglehold on most first world nations is its most threatening part. Think about it, if China puts an embargo out on the us, 98% of our goods would dissappear from their shelves. Toys, couches, canned food, video games, TVs, and so much more would become unavailable. America wouldn't be able to make such things due to how costly it would be for us to make such things vs china making them.

Not to mention the large amount of money the us currently owes China.

 

[missbishi]

Hacking is a major issue to be concerned with. The whole world runs on Computers, and if we had a major such down of networks, we could be in the dark ages pretty quick.

Too true - everything about life is online now and disrupting certain services and processes could be far more damaging to society than any of us realise. There is also the possibility of global government networks being hacked into - which could easily cause almighty wars. So I would say that hacking is almost as much of a threat as religious terrorism right now.

 

[rares209]

Of course it is 'that' threatening, just think of their massive economical power, because I see that you already know about their very talented hackers. Francis Bacon said that "Knowledge is power" and I agree with him 100%, but I think nowadays money means power too and this is where China dominates. Remember when the whole world was struck by the financial crisis in 2008? Well, China couldn't care less about it and this says a lot about the power of this country. Meanwhile, powerful countries like USA or Russia were confronted with major problems due to their economical flaws. I think this was the moment when people from all over the world realised how powerful China could be.

 

[drc65]

I think the perception of threat originates in a lack of understanding and fear. If Chinese culture was accessible to the western world, the western world and China could grow their economies together. Instead it seems to be a struggle of dominance.