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Ehhh that only tells part of the story. Sure, in a communist country where the government controls everything including the standard of living of the people who live there, the government always confiscates the peoples' wealth to focus on its goals.
But if you take these numbers and factor in the difference in the cost of living in the United States versus China you reveal that in America far more wealth is held by the average citizen than in China and they have a far better lifestyle. Here are the adjusted figures. Even with the higher cost of living, America blows China away with between 1.7 to 4 times the individual wealth and buying power in the hands of the PEOPLE.
If you measure by prosperity among the people, the United States blows China away.
I'll take capitalist freedom over authoritarianism socialism and communism every time. And so will the millions upon millions of immigrants both legal and illegal (including Chinese citizens) who are waiting in line just to have a chance to live in America.
All you need to do to figure out which country is better is look at which country people are trying to get of and which country they are trying to get into. No country on planet earth holds a candle to the United States of America on that metric.
I'll grant you that China excels in stealing American inventions and intellectual property and copying it. But your question fails to recognize that it is the United States that is the greatest innovator in the history of the world. The vast majority of the most important and widely sought technology in use today in virtually every field from medicine to military was developed in America. And it's no surprise. That's the beauty of capitalism and the incentive it provides. Without American capitalism the world would still be living in the Stone Age. Don't underestimate this with respect to our military strength. It isn't just how much you can produce, it's how effective it is.
China's GDP numbers are dubious. The national gov't sets targets and local gov't sets about them. Of course local gov't realizes the target... as they need too. :)
But China does things like build a freeway or fast rail which was a productive investment, then build another unproductively. Only 6% of their lines are economic/productive. It is a relatively easy way for gov't to get a GDP boost.
What is very verifiable is that China should have more lights on at night than it does. From that it is inferred actual GDP is 60% lower than gov't stats.
We should note too that China doesn't know what it's population is. Instead of 1.4 Billion it seems like it is 700-800 million.
Even though it is ill advised to believe china's stats. It is still a big country and economy regardless.
Let’s just say that successive US presidents since Obama and his ‘pivot to Asia’ have tended to take his figures quite seriously. Except, perhaps, Mr Trump, who seems to think it is perfectly justifiable to squander precious American resources in a region of third-rate importance
Elbridge Colby, with whom I had the honour of exchanging a few words on social media before he took up his current post as US Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy, has written a superb book on the policy the US should adopt towards China. He must be secretly tearing his hair out over this war in Iran.
No two countries might collect and report their numbers exactly the same and there may be differing levels of the cash economy that is directly intended to be dark for taxation purposes.
It is a while since I read the paper on using night time lighting as a measure of GDP but as I remember for other advanced economies a pretty good correlation was found... except for China.
China is reputedly all electrified now so it can't be due to citizens just not having access to electric lighting. by the way a motivator for China's development of rare earths was to obtain cerium for kerosene mantles.
Am I confident in stats or revised stats for China? Hardly but I like the night time lighting measure as it is an absolute verifiable measurement. I will see if I can find the paper and post a link here if I can.
As promised...
While not a peer reviewed academic paper, this Federal Reserve Bank report contains interesting discussions of methods of estimating China's real GDP including night lights. (I no longer have an academic account).
It was from Owyang and Shell that I got the 65% overstatement I quoted. And then it is nearly a decade past. That there is Li index is funny.
I find there is uncritical fanboy reporting of things China. Technological reports of new technology often turn out to be old tech that has been discarded.
www.stlouisfed.org/.../chinas-economic-data-an-accurate-reflection-or-just-smoke-and-mirrors
Yes India is another country that is questionable too. Myanmar is particularly egregious.
Institutions just tend to accept it is what is given to it because it would be highly political not to. if IMF criticized China, then it might not contribute.
The US military has an interest in accepting China's military capabilities being at a high level because than it can beat the drum for bigger funding.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter. It is a large economy but not a normal one as it has an internal and external currency. Like other Asian Tigers it has made money very freely available which has enabled high growth. It's housing market will take while to recover.
The later is a good example of unproductive investment. Local provinces got most of their money from land sales and that has kinda evaporated. Unfinished apartment towers have individuals paying for an apartment they can never occupy
You’re reading way too much into a PPP chart. Cheap life cost and local services make an economy look bigger in PPP terms too, and none of that tells you how well a country would actually perform in a major war.
True
I agree that PPP alone doesn't tell us how a country would perform in a war. That wasn't my point. In a large-scale war, however, the real domestic resources an economy can mobilize matter enormously. PPP is relevant because exchange-rate GDP can understate the scale of goods and services that can be produced and purchased domestically. Of course, this has to be considered alongside industrial capacity, technology, access to strategic resources and the ability to import.
And do you seriously think that China is inferior to the US in every single area? 😅
China certainly has size and cheap goods on their side 😂
Yes. China is self sufficient.
I like that Trump wants to do the same for us. And I really want America to be great and we can. But I am not sure if it will.
Indeed the US has so much potential as a world leader.
Often times it’s the negativity that over powers the media.
By the way, we hosted a young man (16) from Lille for 3 weeks back in June right before we left to China. A very good kid. 11 kids that age came to our town and stayed in other homes. We only took one in because it’s our first time. Wr had a great experience. We are opening our doors to host kids from other parts of the world.
China was an eye opening. So clean, friendly, giving people. Everything was very convenient, safe. Very easy to get places. We ran into 2 other traveler family groups from France 😂
Hubby and I were counting the names of the cars… by the time we got to 30… we gave up and asked AI… turned out, China has over 100 different car brands.
Since their buildings are new. They have the infrastructure to put in electric changes everywhere.
Silly but one thing that was important 😂 bathrooms are everywhere and free.
We have to decide where to go next summer… Europe or Asia.
How have you been Miss Julie?
I’m fine, thank you very much. I’d love to visit China as well; I’m fascinated by Chinese history and civilisation. And I think we in the West often have an overly negative view of China because we tend to focus solely on the political side of things there.
So, is that what they call au pairs?
Opinion
26Opinion
u Undoubtedly, China is a powerful country, but comparing GDPs is misleading, because GDP includes agricultural production. China has a population of approx. 1.4 billion people, while the US has population of approximately 342 million, roughly one-fourth of China's population. China should have a larger GDP, but that does not automatically mean that it has a strong war machine in place.
China lured western capitalists with cheap workforce and unlimited market, this worked because greed always works.
China tried to take over some key technologies like chip production, jet engines, high pressure pumps, transistors, specific chemicals for plastic production... this didn't work in most cases
China tries now to make so called brain trust while luring competent people to chine. I guess this won't work because it's not 1950 where half of the world was destroyed and only one superpower had acceptable life quality.
China tries to secure resources around the world. Obvious expansion direction in Russia and it's only question of time there will be a conflict. South America is US' yard and Africa is too destabilized to keep up infrastructure necessary for most resources.
China has a golden age new and maybe next 5 years but they have to challenge the hegemon and direct fight isn't part of their ideology. They work with deception and empty promises which aren't a good long term strategies.
GDP at PPP provides a better picture of what its like inside a country, nit within the global marketplace.
PPP stands for Purchasing Power Parity, or how well people within the country can buy goods and services. China ranks high because of its large domestic economy and lower relative prices.
As an example, I was in Shanghai several years ago and had a huge 7-course meal at a restaurant for the Yuan equivalent of 7 US dollars. The same meal in the US would cost about 40 US dollars, while in Europe it would cost the equivalent of about 50 US dollars.
It was interesting to see the culture differences. I just visited China. I was so surprised that almost every cab driver I chatted with asked how much I make in the US. Then they compared my salary to the RMB currency. I was confused at first... because I didn't know that they were so open to discuss incomes/money.
But I am not sure if that is a good comparision. In the US, my salary will not buy me much.
One taxi driver said he can make 6-7 RMB a month. His paid 14k RMB. for his eletric car. That is livable.
Top taxi drivers make $5k a month. A decent car is $20K. We don't have as much buying power.
lets start with air force yes china has a thousand fighter jets it is strong we know. but still far less than we have. only 1000 ready and we have 1300 so hundreds more.
i asked a guy if he was scared that china has a thousand fighter jets? he said he is not worried because they were MADE IN CHINA!
for your chart with china bigger- they relied on government numbers! there and wikipedia, probably lied in china because can't check and can't doubt government there! so even PPP to adjust for money power, is not better. certainly not product per capita ppc!
it has 4x more people working and contributing! so should be 90 000 per capita not 15 000! that is 6x less! and now attach these 2: we see china is 24x less than an equal economy! much weaker than u. s. india russia and japan!
china is not even in top ten of gdp per capita! just 15 000 far less than saudi arabia the tenth!
see for yourself
Top Ten Countries (Population > 20 Million)1. United States: $94,430 (Population: ~340M)2. Australia: $75,648 (Population: ~26M)3. Germany: $65,303 (Population: ~83M)4. United Kingdom: $61,056 (Population: ~67M)5. Canada: $60,305 (Population: ~38M)6. France: $52,083 (Population: ~68M)7. Italy: $46,505 (Population: ~59M)8. Taiwan: $42,103 (Population: ~23M)9. Spain: $41,563 (Population: ~47M)10. Saudi Arabia: $37,811 (Population: ~36M)
Helps to have a population 5 times larger? 🤷♂️
It's one way to judge. Though we see a Chinese economy slowing, especially with lack of access to Iranian oil
www.reuters.com/.../
m.investing.com/.../iran-has-oil-to-sell-but-asia-is-not-bidding-200683262
I'm not worried.
You could always move to China as a French girl if you want? ☺
China has a far greater industrial capacity than the United States, can produce many goods at a lower cost, is a major producer of rare earths and other strategic resources, and has a much larger population.
But I suppose all of that is just a minor detail when it comes to sustaining a long-term war, isn't it?
Certainly didn't help them in the past.
It's largely lived off US exportation of industry. This isn't much new. Currently, the US and China are very intertwined. It's why we see a move against it.
No, as always, it's far more complicated than you suggest. History has proven this 🤷♂️
We don't know what a war would like.
We haven't seen that scale since WW2.
Hasn’t that helped in the past? Seriously? . The US was simply the country with the greatest industrial capacity in the world during the Second World War; this time round, it’s the Chinese who are in that position, along with other advantages. Once again, I’m not saying that this determines who will win the war
The US fought in nearly every front.
Yes, it more or less funded the entire war effort.
It didn't start that way.
Your are ignoring the realities of post war US. The entire economy changed. Its structured itself for decades as being a consumer.
The assumption you make is that it will always be the same 🤷♂️
In a major war, nation do drastic things to survive.
As you admit, you don't know 🤷♂️
My comment was directed towards China. 🤷♂️
My original question wasn't “Who would win a US-China war?” It was “Do Americans realise how powerful China is?”
And on the historical point, I think you're conflating industrial capacity with military mobilization. The US already had the world's largest industrial base before WWII; what changed was the scale at which that existing capacity was mobilized for war.
The same distinction applies to China today. China has an enormous industrial base, but the vast majority of its economy is obviously not currently mobilized for military production either. In the event of a major war, both countries would likely have to radically reorganize their economies and industrial capacity.
That is precisely my point: I'm not saying China's industrial capacity guarantees victory in a hypothetical war. I'm saying that having the world's largest manufacturing base, a huge population, extensive supply chains and significant resources is a major component of national power—and therefore something Americans should take seriously when assessing China.
Of course, a future war would involve countless other factors, and nobody can know in advance who would win. But “we don't know who would win” doesn't mean we can't identify the advantages each side already possesses.
I'm not arguing that.
As I stated, it's far more complicated.
Your question already implies your position on the outcome.
We've seen this play out many times on history, and not always with the expected results.
Yes, obviously the US recognizes this.
It's why it cuts off its allies, kicks China out of its spheres of influence, prioritizes rebuilding its industry. Etc.
Recognising China's enormous industrial and economic power isn't the same thing as predicting the outcome of a hypothetical conflict.
I'm also not sure what historical examples you're referring to.
And regarding your final point, I actually agree: the fact that the US is trying to reduce strategic dependencies and rebuild parts of its industrial base suggests that policymakers in Washington absolutely do recognise China's power. My original question was more about whether the broader American public fully appreciates its scale.
What I'm speaking about is every major power in history that had advantages and eventually collapsed. Each story has difference reasons. Internal struggles, war, financial collapse, corruption etc.
We can't look at just 1 indicator and develop an assumption about a future scenario. Especially if thsst indicator is subject to change. What is relevant today, wasn't a century ago, or a century before that. Things change. 🤷♂️
Americans generally recognize China as a place of cheap labor and cheap things.
Most recognize it's the current major competitor with the US.
Looks like you answers your own question? 🤷♂️
I think we're still arguing against a position I never made. I never said industrial capacity was the only indicator, nor that it determines the outcome of a future war or China's future trajectory. Obviously, great powers can decline for countless reasons.
My point is much simpler: China is no longer merely a source of cheap labour and cheap goods. It has developed an enormous and highly sophisticated industrial base, major technological capabilities, a huge domestic market, extensive supply chains and significant strategic-resource advantages.
Those are important components of national power, even if they don't tell us what China will look like 50 years from now.
And that's actually why I don't think I've answered my own question.
Recognising China as America's main competitor isn't necessarily the same as fully appreciating the scale of its economic and indust ower.
My question was about that distinctio
If your question is if Americans recognize, I've answered that too.
The government certainly does
Entertainment has for years, think of the movie looper, when they speak of a dominate China.
The public at large certainly does as well.
It seems very well understood the US is in some sort of influence war with China.
Not quite the same as the Cold War (the US. and USSR were not connected at the hip).
Fair enough. I think we're probably closer in our views than it seemed at first.
China isn't simply a country producing cheap goods for Western consumers anymore; it has become an industrial and technological power in its own right.
And I agree that this isn't quite the same as the Cold War. The level of economic interdependence between the US and China makes the current rivalry fundamentally different from the US-USSR relationship. The ideological aspect is no longer the same either
Seems so I guess? 🤷♂️
I don't see it going hot anytime soon.
The US and USSR was more likely to do that.
I also doubt China will move on Taiwan, along as the US holds its position there. Chinese military equipment has proven very inept in Venezuela and Iran 🤷♂️
We will see where it goes
China was not going to risk a war over Venezuela and Iran, as that would not be in its best interests. In Taiwan, however, China has enormous interests at stake, and US interests are equally significant.
I don’t think China will attempt anything for the time being. But we must always remain cautious.
No disagreement
"My original question was more about whether the broader American public fully appreciates its scale.""
Julie, the answer is no.
Most US citizens do not want to believe it. They want to live in their little own world.
We were there the past 6 weeks. What you are saying is very true about China.
If you can, you should go to Yunnan. You will see the scale of the production their.
FrodoSkywalker007 you hate china typical racist.
I am associated with a holiday resort. Whenever Chinese tourists are around, they eat as if they had nothing for weeks... as long as there is no surcharge.
Things must be really bad in China.
If Americans realise it is doubtful. Most of them haven't even been around outside of their territory.
And if China indeed were that ''powerful'' - - - how is it that no Mexican wants to go there?
They're only powerful when we have weak, gutless elected officials, like Obama, Biden and Skamala, selling U. S. interests out to them. Their only power lies in bullying, brutalizing and censoring their own people.
Societally China is a total mess. The Chinese economy is in the toilet. Considering every Chinese building project falls apart, I'd seriously doubt the actual strength of their military. They only steal western designs, or base it off Russian stuff. Trusting ANY official Chinese numbers is a huge mistake because truth is what Xi Jinping says it is in China. China is powerful in Africa, where they do modern day imperialism. Look up the Kafue river disaster in Zambia by a Chinese company.
Maybe not economically, but with other things, yes. COVID showed the world what they're capable of, when they don't get their way. The fact that many countries pulled out of supporting Taiwan, says it all
To be honest, the Americans should find out a lot more about Taiwan’s importance to their own interests. But it’s ridiculous to portray this as ‘evil China’ versus the ‘good Westerners’.
The US and Europe do not want to see China impose its hegemony in Asia – that’s only natural. At the same time, I understand China’s perspective: it feels encircled by the US and its allies, not to mention the historical context.
Yeah that's why their buildings collapse daily, why their food is made with fake ingredients, and why they can't even get proper military equipment.
GDP at MER is generally more relevant for assessing conflict in a space between countries. Like the Taiwan Strait, for example. You can't launch haircuts at your opponent.
Though, by either measure the likely outcome is a bloody standoff.
Many people only look at nominal GDP and forget just how massive China’s purchasing power parity and industrial output actually are on a global scale
but even assuming the china government did not lie, to seem strong, still with more people contributing! to work labor, it would be 32.4x4 if it was equal to u. s. so it is far weaker than u. s. in fact ppp-pc is REALLY just 11 using same chart!
Do you really think they’re gonna out maneuver us and fly fancy fighter planes and and have the skill too shoot us down in the air I don’t think so. We’re too skilled
China is a joke. The amount of fake everything about China is mind blowing.
Yes, this is why President Trump is addressing this now before it gets worse.
u " it's not size of the PPP but... how you use it... "
It's irrelevant.
Watch "On the Beach".
Yeah, but 90% of what they produce is Temu garbage.
yes stuff made in china FALLS APART quickly including its jets and rockets.
They’re still not a superpower however mostly because of their Navy which is just a regional green water Navy unlike ours which is a global blue water Navy. They’re still classed as a great power
You are the biggest maga liar you keep lying about having a black girlfriend when we all know that you are a racist so enough with your lies about dating a black lady. Just stop we all just laugh at you because it is so not true. 🤣
Americans aren't very well informed when it comes to anything beyond their borders because they don't need to be.
Our conservative leadership does liberals don't care we also know their weaknesses.
Most Yanks don't realize much about neighbouring states, let alone China !!!
Some probably don't. But those same people probably don't understand all their internal problems as well. So, it's kind of a wash.
If you have not figured it out by now, nobody really cares.
Yes, we realize this. They do not have as strong of a military as we do. We are #1 in the world when it comes to military, and always will be.
Americans have started to look Chinese too with their Asian mixed babies who look more Asian than white
I like to see the magas faces reaction 😂🤣🤣🤣🤣 and yet they claim they aren't racist when we all know they truly are the racist ones.
I'm sure many don't!
They are sick pigs
China is absolutely very powerful.
China is going to take a big old dirt nap
That they think they are? yes paper tigger
All but MAGA. MAGA couldn't find China on a map.
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