I am convinced China is going to be the next dominant super-power.

[drray23]

Especially given that Trump is pulling us out of every global institution. Anyhow, people often have a distorted view of life in China. Truth is, their big cities are more high-tech than ours, and their transportation system is modern (their trains are high-speed).

I have been following a YouTube channel called "Zaza in China". He is a very likable guy living alone in Shenzhen and his videos show the daily life of a Chinese freelancer. This city is amazing. Everything is high-tech, immaculate and well organized.

In his more recent video he travels back to his hometown for the Chinese New Year. It is 1500kms from Shenzhen in a small northern Chinese city. The contrast is very interesting. The big cities are incredibly nice and high tech, rural China not so much.

Very interesting to see how people live in other parts of the world.

http://www.youtube.com/@zazainchina

[Tetrachloride]

1. A lot of countries are more interesting these days, thanks to FB and other tubes.

Prestige and stability and innovation.... a bunch of countries have them.

Of these, some of them will have influential military.

Connecting some future dots, new alliances are destined.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Yes, but first China had to get the US out of the top spot.

Being the sole global superpower has been their goal for decades.
They have achieved it at long last.
Next the yuan will be the global currency.

It was like stealing candy from a baby.

[Bev54]

6. Not sure there will be another global currency rather trade will be within several different

currencies depending on the group trading.

I remember one Chinese Canadian expert making the point that China is a country of engineers who will build their way out of problems and the US is a country of lawyers. (in other words trying to sue their way forward)

[Irish_Dem]

12. China has been aggressively pushing for the internationalization of the yuan.

It is also acquiring massive amounts of gold.

China plays the long game.

People keep poo pooing my predictions.

[Bev54]

18. Yes they have signed up about 180 or more countries in BRICS but it is not all traded in Yuan.

PM Carney has himself said he does not expect one reserve currency anymore. I don't think a lot of the democracies are going to want China to have those powers if the US loses the reserve.

He explained that those trading partners like ASEAN, Commonwealth and others will choose their trading currencies. No country is going all in with China, that lesson has been learned with the US backstabbing.

[Irish_Dem]

34. We shall see.

China is building up the largest military in the world.
Bribing entire countries to do their bidding.
Buying huge amounts of gold.
Will have strong financial interests all over the globe which is power.

China plays the long game.
I would never bet against them.

[Hey Joe]

17. The US reminds me of the parable of the man

who was so greedy he sold the rope to the people who used it to hang him, for that last bit of lucre.

[Lonestarblue]

3. China will lead the world in clean energy because Trump has turned the US back to dirty energy.

China is already leading the world in electric cars. China is now benefitting from fewer Chinese scientists attending graduate school in the US and pursuing careers here because Trump has cut off much scientific and medical research. China is also moving into AI at warp speed and is more likely to use it for major innovations rather than just social media apps that monetize user data or revise our writing for us as US companies seem to do. Trump has done his best to drive our allies away and toward China. Make China Greater Than the US.

[in2herbs]

4. Americans can resist by demanding that their financial advisor move all their investments to green

energy stocks.

[littlemissmartypants]

19. And when they do what happens next? Watch their 401k crash?

[mdbl]

10. At least they realize their breathing depends on it

Something that hasn't hit home with the stupid asthmatics that still vote for the GOP.

[MichMan]

16. Hasn't China also been building a large number of coal burning plants to produce electricity?

China has had a higher number of coal power plants between January and July of 2025 than at any time since 2016, despite massive renewable capacity, according to new environmental research report.

The report — published by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a Finland-based independent air-quality research organization; and Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a US-based energy analytics company — says China put 21 gigawatts (GW) of coal power online in the first six months of 2025.

Total projected coal plant output is forecast to hit between 80-100 GW in 2025.

Coal currently accounts for half of China's energy production, down from three-quarters in 2016.

China, the world's second-largest economy, is also the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter.

https://www.dw.com/en/china-boosting-coal-capacity-at-record-high-report/a-73753189

[littlemissmartypants]

21. Yes. Chinese life is no panacea. But it's full of propagandists.

Which I suspect, is what these videos might be.

[3_Limes]

5. That's been obvious forat least a decade.

But I didn't think that we'd give them sooooo much help getting there ahead of schedule.

[mike_c]

7. I think so, too

In any event, I think the frequent propaganda videos on DU warning breathlessly that China is in imminent danger of collapse are just that: utter propaganda. These days, anyone can make slick propaganda vids.

[H2O Man]

8. It already is.

[DoBW]

9. A-hole Trump

is just handing it to them > so naturally

[msongs]

11. they guy on youtube is showing you the bits he wants you to see not everything nt

[mainer]

13. China re-invests in its people and infrastructure

Instead of letting all the money end up in the pockets of oligarchs.
It also seems to focus its energies on moving the entire populace ahead, whether it's through education or environmental projects.

[Bread and Circuses]

14. That's been the plan for the past 1,000 years....China is patient ....

They write 100 year plans, this country seems to focus only on quarterly reports.

[gulliver]

15. It's why we can't let the house stay divided here

We need to get both the angry right and left together for talks. Find a neutral island somewhere, and the people who self-identify as super patriots and caring saints can go there to meet. Once they're on the island, we shut down the island's airport and cut off its Internet access.

Then, the rest of us Americans who just want a better economy, universal health care, renewable energy, etc., can get some real work done. If we don't, China will eat our lunch.

[roamer65]

20. Let's see how they come through their housing crash.

Plus unemployment over there is high, especially for younger Chinese.

[orangecrush]

22. That ship has sailed

[KPN]

23. Is going to be?

[relayerbob]

24. Not news. No matter what we do ...

Trump has guaranteed our decline, for at least a generation

[hibbing]

25. China is also building infrastructure internationally

China is investing a lot of money into many African countries. Not that this is out of generosity of course, but their own self-interest. The Belt and Road Initiative is an example.

Peace

[Kaleva]

30. Some nations have found the Belt and Road to be a debt trap

[hibbing]

33. Interesting, like I said, not altruistic

[citizen blues]

26. They already are!

When I taught international students at Oregon State University, I had a Saudi student come up to me after class to ask me a question. He wondered why Americans talk about China being the next superpower. After I asked him for for clarification, he responded, "They already are! Americans are the only ones who don't know that."

[progressoid]

27. My brother (rip) was telling his students that 20 years ago.

The Chinese have been advancing, while everyone here was freaking out about brown people from Central America and the Middle East.

[haele]

28. If we give up our innovative advantage we lose no matter what.

AI is not the be all and end all, it does not innovate, it only leverages.
But all these wealthy drop-out Tech Bros who were clever enough to leverage other people's hard work and genius for most of their innovations past garage level science don't understand that, because, basically, they're like AI themselves. They don't really imagine, they re-imagine.
If they depend on AI to come up with, say, creating and turning a brand new quantum physics model into a working prototype ready for production, they will fail miserably 9 times out of 9.5... ( I'll give them a .5 for luck, or if someone was smart enough to isolate and train that particular AI specifically on the history, known proofs, and particular theorems and hypothesis behind the development of the project functionality)

As for China - it's possible, but not guaranteed.

Actually, from my perspective (and observing years of my dad's Master's Degree work on Far East history), China could have become a world dominant power as far back as, say, the 12th century CE and maintained it throughout the ages.

The problem China has (still) is the governmental ingrained cultural avoidance of failure. The Court Bureaucracy that has been the backbone of continuity for Kingdoms and Emperors was (and is) highly risk adverse and suspicious of anything foreign or potentially ridiculous because of (justifiable) paranoia of losing the status quo.

Even Mao couldn't erase that risk aversion and paranoia. And that sort of risk aversion stifles innovation, which thrives on learning from loss.

They have enough diversity of culture, access to resources, and population with a potential for all sorts of innovation, especially scientific.
But their overwhelming fear of failure insured that their scientist and engineers will often sit on innovative ideas until some other scientific or engineering institution comes up with a success or failure - or they will partner with other then leverage off that published information to take the ball and start running.
As I said, they aren't stupid or inept. They're very capable, smart and have a deep scientific bench, as it were. They just historically have had a cultural problem making that first uncertain step.

So yeah, China has eaten other people's scientific and engineering lunch to become a powerhouse, but still, it was a lunch other people made...whether or not they can continue that momentum depends on Xi's ability to overcome the underlying cultural avoidance of failure.

[miyazaki]

29. They've been some form of super power since ancient times.

Fascinating history.

[MissB]

31. Firefly was a prediction then?

[Initech]

32. The point of Trump getting elected was to bring the United States' standing in the world down.

That's what the conspiracy theorists and right wing radio shitbags have been shitting on for the last 40 years. Well, they got what they wanted.

Under Trump, with Fox News calling the shots for Congress, we're a third world country. Look at how far Texas has fallen under the spell of Rupert Murdoch's siren song. They went from being a state that at one point, was bluer than California and an example to follow. Under Fox and MAGA, they have become a brutal authoritarian shit hole that's proud of their ingorance and keeps voting for authoritarian psychopaths like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton to further put themselves in an even bigger hole every single time.

The conspiracy theorists have become the conspirators. They went from merely whining about mass media to owning it. They're tearing down our institutions in favor of ass kissing propaganda.

It sucks and there's no easy solution. But we at least must recognize the root of the problem before we can tackle the big fish.