China's GDP per capita is currently about 14% of the United States [1]. That's roughly the same ratio that Japan faced in 1960, yet within 30 years Japan overtook the US in GDP per capita [2].
My view is that China has a number of economic and demographic disadvantages that mean in 30 years China is 'only' likely to reach 30-50% of US GDP per capita. But with a population projected to be 3 times the US [3], China's overall GDP will be greater than the US. In 30 years.
And once that happens, how long will it take for China's military power to exceed the United States? You might be dead, but your grandchildren will certainly see it happen.
First, the post I responded to did not claim that our militaries could reach parity. It claimed that China could conquer the US. That's impossible, preposterous even, and the only thing that could change that is the singularity, and if that happens all bets are off.
Second, even reaching parity is an immensely daunting proposition. If China were to start building ships and aircraft, the US would respond in kind. Right now there's a lot of overhead and waste in the procurement process, that waste would disappear if shit suddenly got real. Sure, we 'only' have 20 carrier groups right now, but there's no reason we can't have 40.
There's two main force multipliers I see that we have that China will never be able to catch up with us on. First, training and experience. The reason we keep a small military manpower-wise is because every US soldier is extremely well-trained. If China conscripted a percentage of their population, they could instantly have a larger army, but that army would then need to be trained in how to conduct modern warfare.
Second, alliances with other countries. The best air-to-air missile right now is the Meteor, it's being developed in Sweden and sold throughout Europe. If China started rising militarily, the US and Europe would immediately start cooperating to counter it by sharing technology.
The US has an enormous amount invested in its military dominance, it will not give that up at any cost. China could not reach parity slowly, as it would never catch up, and it can't reach it quickly, because we'd notice and respond appropriately. It would be such a huge drain on their economy that they'd abandon the effort.
The Soviets never even came close to parity in conventional force projection. The Chinese wouldn't either in a strategic arms race. Even if they did, they'd still never in a million years be able to conquer the US. As well try to conquer the Sun.
> First, the post I responded to did not claim that our militaries could reach parity. It claimed that China could conquer the US.
For China to some day have the ability to conquer the US, wouldn't they first have to reach parity? Seems to me the post was implicitly claiming that the China's military could reach parity with the United States. But I agree that the focus of the argument is on exceeding the US military power.
The generals of the First World War had training and experience, but technological change meant that training was useless and they had to re-learn how to fight on the battlefield. Future technology will have the same effect - for example, a swarm of drones might be more capable than a manned fighter aircraft. Air superiority might come down to who can write the better drone software, or perhaps simply who has the most drones. The old investment in manned fighter aircraft would count for nothing.
I agree that the US alliances with other countries is a benefit that China will not have. But China has its own unique benefit - its manufacturing industry. It already far exceeds the US in ability to mass produce smartphones. Couldn't it one day churn out military robots at a far greater rate than the US and Germany combined?
The Soviets never came close to achieving economic parity with the United States. A better analogy would be Britain in the 19th century - it lost its military dominance as the US grew its economy to be much larger than the British economy. In the 21st century China will do to the US what the US did to Britain the 19th century.
My logic is simple: (a) in 30 years China's economy will be bigger than the US economy; (b) in 60 years China's economy will be double the US economy; (c) A country will lose its military superiority to another country if that other country can afford to spend twice as much on its military.
None of these three statements seems particularly controversial to me.
> For China to some day have the ability to conquer the US, wouldn't they first have to reach parity?
Sure. But it's not enough.
To conquer a country you have to invade it. To invade it you have to move soldiers to it. A lot of them. China could destroy our entire navy and air force and still not be able to conquer us.
This is the reason we used nuclear weapons against Japan in WW2 rather than try to invade it. We could have, but the amount of resources and blood it would have taken was extreme. An operation of that scale conducted across an ocean has only been successful once, and that's because we had a friendly country to establish a base on. (DDay)
Should the Chinese want to invade us, their only real option would be through Mexico. No amount of conventional military dominance can overcome the sheer impossibility of trying to invade a country by sea. And the US and Canada are too close for them to go that route. Invading Canada would be just as hard as invading the US. They could maybe try overland across Russia, Alaska, and Canada, but that would be just as hard as an amphibious assault.
Should the US see that China was gearing up for such a plan, we'd send our army there to rebuff the attempt, ignoring Mexican sovereignty if we had to.
Without troops on the ground, there is no conquest. They could conceivably beat us in conventional conflict given a serious enough advantage, but they could never actually invade us, so complete neutralization is impossible.
But it doesn't really matter whether Japan got to 105% or 95% of US GDP in 1990 - my point that China could get to 30-50% of US GDP in 30 years stands.
China's GDP per capita is currently about 14% of the United States [1]. That's roughly the same ratio that Japan faced in 1960, yet within 30 years Japan overtook the US in GDP per capita [2].
My view is that China has a number of economic and demographic disadvantages that mean in 30 years China is 'only' likely to reach 30-50% of US GDP per capita. But with a population projected to be 3 times the US [3], China's overall GDP will be greater than the US. In 30 years.
And once that happens, how long will it take for China's military power to exceed the United States? You might be dead, but your grandchildren will certainly see it happen.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...
[2] Based on the Google graph when you search "Japan GDP per capita", etc.
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_gr...