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How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

reuters.com

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Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#41

Post by User23 »

jayd16 wrote: post #24
NTDF9 wrote: post #14

I can't be the only one noticing so much noise about China in American media. Is America really so scared of being number 2?

Of course. Our entire national psyche has been centered around American exceptionalism for at least 70 years. Scared isn't exactly right. We're very rival focused, I would say. It's China now but there was a time when it felt like Japan would control the electronics industry, for example.

The US no longer has any coherent national psyche. It's just a variety of different identity groups scrabbling over who gets how much of the pie.

China isn't so much rising, as they are preparing for the inevitable collapse of the US Empire.

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#42

Post by Areading314 »

luckylion wrote: post #37
JimboOmega wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of worked with the Soviet Union. They tried to keep up, but just didn't have the economic power to do it. It won't with China, because China isn't playing the force projecting world superpower game like the SU was.

The SU was also much smaller than NATO wrt to population, it's reversed with China.

NATO countries have a comparable population to China, 938 million, according to this: http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nato-countries/

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#43

Post by [deleted] »

AtlasLion wrote: post #33
mc32 wrote: post #17

Ideally the US, EU and CN would work cooperatively rather than adversarially with regards to leading the world into a brighter future. The US and EU share s lot in terms of philosophy and economic goals. Japan and the “Asian tigers” also fit in. I think India to a great degree shares the same, but China currently is not in synchronicity with the EU-US-JP and to a lesser extent India’s goals on the world stage. We can…

your priorities seem way off to me, I don't care if these countries disagree about trade but climate change needs everyone on board. Also, we don't need China following the US regime change war machine.

[deleted]

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#44

Post by sremani »

>> His push to project power abroad was accompanied by a power play at home. Xi has purged more than 100 generals accused of corruption or disloyalty, according to the official state-controlled media. >>

For me this is a resounding signal the PLA is predominantly a domestic force. American Presidents do not sack Admirals that easily, because the American admirals are more powerful on the seas than domestic policy or DC.

I am not discounting the improvements in Chinese firepower, esp. their missiles targeting carriers. This article does not have anything substantial to say, China is a military Titan.

China may escalate certain issues to divert the attention of people especially if their economy has a hard landing. Its a risk, but we all know it.

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#45

Post by JamesBarney »

AtlasLion wrote: post #33
mc32 wrote: post #17

Ideally the US, EU and CN would work cooperatively rather than adversarially with regards to leading the world into a brighter future. The US and EU share s lot in terms of philosophy and economic goals. Japan and the “Asian tigers” also fit in. I think India to a great degree shares the same, but China currently is not in synchronicity with the EU-US-JP and to a lesser extent India’s goals on the world stage. We can…

your priorities seem way off to me, I don't care if these countries disagree about trade but climate change needs everyone on board. Also, we don't need China following the US regime change war machine.

I think any type of global war would far worse for human lives than climate change and also be terrible for the global climate. And if we are tightly coupled through trade that aligns our interests and helps reduce the risk of war as well makes it easier to cooperate on things like climate change.

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#46

Post by jayd16 »

NTDF9 wrote: post #31
jayd16 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. Our entire national psyche has been centered around American exceptionalism for at least 70 years. Scared isn't exactly right. We're very rival focused, I would say. It's China now but there was a time when it felt like Japan would control the electronics industry, for example.

But is there an acceptance that the exceptionalism cannot be had by massive global bullying, wars, lack of investment in people vs corporations? I mean, its literally impossible to be number 1, if the competition is investing in their people and aren't going to insane wars. America is still number 2 and that's not a bad place.

You say that but quality of life is still considered considerably higher in the US than China. Even if the trajectory looks good, as more of China moves to a middle class lifestyle, the growth that's fueled by cheap labor will slow.

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#47

Post by JamesBarney »

rayiner wrote: post #22
olivermarks wrote: post #12

In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.

Both "federal" and "discretionary" are weasel qualifiers that attempt to make military spending look artificially large. For one thing, defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing--you would expect defense to account for a disproportionately large fraction of "federal" expenditures. (And it makes for misleading comparisons to countries with unified governments, where mil…

> defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing

Most people agree the government should also be providing some type of insurance i.e. social safety net.(social security, medicare)

Also where are you getting the 7.65 trillion number from? Most numbers I've seen were close to 4 trillion

see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#48

Post by avar »

rayiner wrote: post #22
olivermarks wrote: post #12

In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.

Both "federal" and "discretionary" are weasel qualifiers that attempt to make military spending look artificially large. For one thing, defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing--you would expect defense to account for a disproportionately large fraction of "federal" expenditures. (And it makes for misleading comparisons to countries with unified governments, where mil…

> "federal" and "discretionary" are weasel qualifiers that attempt to make military spending look artificially large[...]

It's not just a weasel qualifier. There is mandatory military spending in the US, e.g. pensions paid to retired members of the military. Considering pensions paid to veterans a part of military spending is the norm, e.g. NATO's % GDP numbers take that into account for all its members.

> For one thing, defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing[..]

Sure, but the extent to which it does it is largely discretionary. It's mostly a political decision to keep spending more today as a percentage of GDP than the US was doing in the 1930s[1], or to name an example closer to the current day more than was being spent on September 10th, 2001.

1. https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_201...

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#49

Post by boomboomsubban »

jlarocco wrote: post #25

Honestly I don't see a problem with it. We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.

The entire "world police" concept is ridiculous and used to mask the true colonialist ambitions the US operates under. The reason this is a "problem" is that it might make China richer rather than the US.

The notion that the US military has been a force of good for the world needs to be abandoned. It serves only to encourage the US to attack more countries, as killing millions more Asians would be viewed as the more moral option than allowing Chinese influence to spread.

Re: How China is replacing America as Asia’s military titan

#50

Post by [deleted] »

crowdpleaser wrote: post #27
jlarocco wrote: post #25

Honestly I don't see a problem with it. We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.

+1. We should make sure that our allies get access to our best technology and weapons platforms and obviously we can commit to defend them if they can commit to defending themselves (places like Germany need to step up to the plate) but America doesn't need to be the world's police man and can't afford to be the world's police man.

[deleted]
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