The economic indicator is based on GDP and economic growth. In 2004, China's GDP was 6.449 trillion dollars, and America's GDP was 10.990 trillion dollars (CIA World Factbook). The Chinese economy grows about 9% per year, and the American economy grows an average of 3% (CIA World Factbook). Assuming these growth rates stay relatively stable (and there's good reason to believe that they will), China should have a larger GDP than the United States by 2014. As for the military, I rescind my previous assertion after more careful examination of the numbers. Historically, China has spent much less proportionally on its military than the United States, because China has never concerned itself with international affairs outside of its region of the world. As of now, the United States spends approximately 6.7% of its GDP on its military, while China spends only 1.0%. If these numbers stay stable, it probably will indeed take much longer than twenty years for China to achieve military parity.
you honestly believe that a nation can sustain 9% growth? They are booming, they will level off and drop down to 2-4%. No nation can sustain 9% growth. here is an interesting read... edit: http://english.people.com.cn/english/200004/28/eng20000428_39918.html also, i'm not sure why the cia factbook says that china has a 6 trillion economy... the IMF says its 1.4 trillion(2003 and it didnt grow by 5 trillion in 1 year!) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-05/19/content_332004.htm
China has more people under the age of 15 than the entire population of the USA. That is a lot of future potential. That damn dam they are getting up and running will supply vast amounts of power to propel their rise up the national influence ladder. I see this as very good, with the damn dam's huge environmental impact the main exception to that.
China has done so for over 15 years...quite a long time for a boom. The bottom line is that China simply has more room to grow because they have only recently started to move toward capitalism, whereas America has been a capitalist nation for its entire history. Also, countries with lower GDP per capita tend to grow faster than wealthy nations. Dunno. The CIA World Factbook is generally regarded as the definitive online source for country information though. Are you sure the 1.4 trillion dollar figure is the figure for the GDP?
Yes they have more room to grow, but they also need the resources to grow. They will need vast amounts of oil. Whether they can continue to grow at that rate will depend how much oil they can get their hands on. Sooner or later, there will be a big oil shortage that will slow down all the world economies. Well, if iraq is any indicator, i'll take the IMF's word on the GDP. But yes, i'm positive thats for gdp. Unless there are different measurements of GDP that the IMF and CIA are using, which is highly possible since those numbers are SO different.
Oil may not be as crucial to their rise as once may have been. The days of oil as the primary fuel are numbered. The power that they will use may very well come from other sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc.
rome, & before that Babylon.... That's the scary part w humans, they forget so fast, we just keep on repeating. Let's brake the viscous circle and invent something NEW
Isn't it strange how for a very long time now, people have always carried the knowledge that someday their civilization will end? Be it in the form of religious stories of apocolypse or something, or historical knowledge of other civilizations...we seem to know this way of life is not sustainable. One must wonder if "primitive" peoples, living the old ways, ever thought that someday, the shit will hit the fan and their tribe will die...that it was a certainty. I can't imagine that they ever thought that way. I mean, sure they knew it was possible, given a catastrophe like disease, drought, famine, etc...but it couldn't have been seen as an inevitability. Makes one wonder why we continue to try at this failed experiment we call civilization.
Our time will come soon. I think it was Stephen Hawkins who said something about our civilization reaching its maximum technological capacity. Now is basically the time where our self destruction begins.
Maybe they were aware that if they continued to live in an ecologically sustainable way, allowing nature to remain as is, that nature would always be there to sustain them. If so, then they would not worry, whereas we've known for a long time that we cannot sustain this level of consumption indefinitely. Chief Seattle pointed it out in 1844, so it has been known by some since at least then. I know what you mean about the strangeness aspect, though it has been decades since I knew that the ancients all around the world independently predicted a shift of some sort right about now. The only group with enough chutzpah to tag an actual date are the Mayans, who are putting their wagers on 13.0.0.0.0 baktun, which is most likely 21/12/12 in our system. The Mayan Calendar then starts over at 1.0.0.0.0, and maybe, just maybe, the actual day will be every bit as spectacularly unique and earth changing as when our calender rolled over from 31/12/00, to 1/1 01. I think a good reason
