Perhaps but ANY nation today, whether capitalistic or not, that attempts to match the US one for one in an arms race would bankrupt itself.
The point was not whether China’s economy is growing but its current consumption. China’s current comsumption is huge. Much greater than the USSR but it still does not have the same equivalent numbers of weapons as the old USSR. So it is not engaged in an arms races. If it were you’d see far more ships, planes and tanks.
How many people live in India and how many live in America? India buys nowhere near as many refrigerators and televisions as the US. The old USSR which had the same population size as the US consumed much, much, much less than the US.
All third world countries, even those with large populations, buy less refrigerators and other appliances than the US or even small western states. Third world nations simply buy less, no matter how many people live in them. China is the one exception of a third world country that buys more than western states.
But the question isn’t really about the number of refrigerators or televisions but about a nation that could buy many times more of these items than the USSR and yet doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of weapons as the USSR.
China simply isn’t engaging in an arms race in the level that its total economic strength would allow it too. It doesn’t because it is a lost cause to challenge the US in procuring weapons.
Another reason why you won’t want to engage in an arms race with the West. So why would you want to engage in an arms race with the US and the West if they take a large chunk of your exports?
BTW, China actually runs a deficit with the world but a surplus with the US and the West so it is not really like Japan and Taiwan that depends on an overall surplus to survive. China’s internal market is what allows so many televisions and refrigerators to be bought.
If the US decides to block every port in China, there is nothing China can do anyways so why bother trying to match the US submarine for submarine. You are proving exactly my point.
The bottom line is this: China is not engaged in an arms race in spite of its total economic and industrial capabilities (evidenced most strikingly by its consumption of steel) because it’s pointless – and economically suicidal – to match the US one for one in arms.
Golden Dragon and Plawolf,
Let me be the first to say, that I am in complete agreement with the above. But as mature members (especially Golden Dragon), please do not try to flame. Flame highlighted in Red Above.
Most people are under no Illusion that China will be the Superpower of the 21st Century and at present is at least twice as powerful (in almost all aspects of Human Development that matter*) as India. These facts are easily verifiable and are no secret to anyone.
* Democracy and its associated ‘benefits’ do not a superpower make. Not in the short to medium Term anyway.
So please, give it a rest and leave India out wherever possible.
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