China as a World Leader?

Question

How do you feel about China being a potential world leader? I myself can't help feeling quite worried.

I think that America is a good world leader. Being British, I feel relatively safe seeing as they our allies and similar to us, and America on the whole seem to like resolving the worlds problems.

China on the other hand seem, well, a little ruthless. They had all those problems with human rights among other things.

I guess I just feel that they'd be out to help themselves, but not so much anyone else.

China as an industrialising country seems only interested in expanding and growing more powerful, and not about morals, such as climate change and human rights.

I realise that this could be directed at other countries too, but I feel it applies more so to China.

What do you think?

I apologise if I offended anyone with this, it wasn't intentional.

Answer 1

Don't apologise for speaking your mind.  I wish people would stop worrying about "offending" people and just be honest about what they think or how they feel.  

You are right about China, I think.  When was the last time China did anything to help out another country?  The only reason why China is getting to be such a "world power" is because investors and business owners in other countries are willing to exploit China's lower cost of production and of doing business so that they can make more money.  China's low labor costs and lack of regulations make having factories there very profitable.  Why do you suppose so many things say "made in China" on them?  Because you can sell stuff made in China for a lower price than stuff made elsewhere and still make a profit.

Meanwhile, China does not import very much from other countries.  What it does import, it slaps heavy taxes on which make the imported stuff even more expensive than it already was.  This keeps demand for imported goods in China low while demand for their exports is high.  Some politicans say the trade imbalance is ok because as long as capitalist countries are allowed to do business with China, they reason, the capitalist ideals and the democratic freedoms that go hand in hand with them will "rub off" on the Chinese.  The hope is that eventually China will no longer be a communist country and the people will be free from government control.  It's happening very very gradually, but it's happening.  

My concern with this approach however, is that meanwhile the economies of the countries that are trading with China are suffering.  With the higher labor costs and over-burdensome regulations, it's hard for businesses in those countries to sell anything that can compete with the cheap stuff from China.  That's why, for example, the economy in the United States has gone from being based on producing durable goods to being based on services and information.  Now with high speed internet and global sattelites, even those sectors are going overseas.  Eventually, the U.S. will be importing more of everything than it produces itself.  That's nice for the multinational companies but not good for U.S. citizens.  

By the way, all these attempts to control or stop "climate change" will never work.  The Earth's climate has changed dramaticly in the past (way back before humans got good at making fire let alone before the industrial revolution) and will continue to do so regardless of what we do. Meanwhile, these "green" regulations are going to raise the cost of production even more for the countries that implement them.  Countries like China that don't have environmental regulations and labor unions will continue to out compete countries like the U.S. and U.K. until either all countries have the regulations or until the countries that have the regulations drop them.

Answer 2

they make good electronics

Answer 3

As an American, I think our country is great, possibly the greatest in the world. We have the strongest military, a powerful economy, and we are highly influential.

I would hate to see China become a world leader, as I would never want a Communist country like that having that sort of power...kind of reminds me of the Cold War.

China won't take a position like that for a while, though.