Very enlightening. I have read about China, when its people were taken over by Japan, with land seized and women raped. I have read about Mao and his controlling ways, cradle to grave. I had not seen as many details on the state of the economy today, however. I worry that the US IQ is falling, that students spend all their time on short information bursts, abetted by texting. They no long read in-depth. They no longer are taught math, but how they feel about math. Everything has become a chance for indoctrination by liberal teachers. I just wonder how we are to turn it around so the students actually want to become adults and contribute, not just run society as uninformed kids who throw Tweeting tantrums.

Interesting conclusion that the reason China succeeds is because the government is full of very intelligent people who have studied in government schools and there is a strong market influence provided by government subsidies and the belief that the only driver of invention is the necessity of governments to kill people, it's own or others.
It is true that before a strict structure of government people killed each other in small numbers because there was no authority, it is also true that once there was a very strong central government people were killed by the 100 millions with more efficient tools and the result was terrifying for the citizens who still worshiped those who killed them, stole their crops leaving the people to starve or made demands for increased iron production that were impossible to meet so tools were melted down to prove they were loyal subjects and could do as they were told, which resulted in poor manufacturing production.
Chairman Mao decided that sparrows were responsible for lowering food production (they eat insects that eat food) and ordered them killed. The masses responded killing them by the millions, food production dropped precipitously but the taxes were increased to prove that the Chairman was right. The people starved, resorted to cannibalism and worshiped their leader.
If the free market is left alone it won't just create the ability to download movies, it will create all the things that the military industrial complex will create faster and cheaper.
Society's dumb down when the government is in control and runs education. Very few respond beyond demands for others to pay for their lives. It is the same in China. They believe their government protects them because very few (when compared to the total population) suffer directly because of the ineptness of government and almost all believe they are better off because of it and they would be worse off if they were free.
The thinking that drives these conclusions is that in order to beat the Gambino family is to be more ruthless than they are. A little freedom might be desirable but only as long as the goal that the culture is striving for is set by the central planners.

This article has a serious error.

China's history is given as
once covered a relatively small geographic area. It took about 1,500 years for
it to reach its current borders in the ninth century.

So China is not an inherently expansionist power !

We are told-
China cannot expand over the Himalayas, to the west- desert, to the east- ocean.

There was a period, about the 19th C, when this may have been a fair comment,
the top was weak, corrupt and enveloped in the past. A violent revolution ended that.
The Marxism behind that did not work either. In the last few decades it has been a different
story made possible by ignoring communist ideology and replacing by capitalism subject
only to the state, or what they call the state.
This works, it has produced dramatic economic growth.

Easy to ignore when viewed against the rise of industry are the curious foreign policy adventures.
There was a violent tho' short confrontation with India in the Himalayas.
The Indians came off worse, their troops had no cold weather gear, they were unprepared,
the Chinese were prepared (see Enders Game for the advantage of attack v. defence).
There was an incursion into Vietnam. After seeing off the French and Americans, the Viets
gave a repeat performance.

Now, we are still assimilating the implications of the new 'islands' in the South China Sea, a brilliant move.
There was an adverse ruling from the World Court, yawn.
The direct losers are the small littoral nations, even as a united group they lack the military or economic
heft to counter the level of determination shown by China.
In that area only Japan is big enough to count, but Japan is mired in economic stagnation following years
of Keynes worship and is still pacifist. Japan will take no military action without backup from the US.
As for the US, the construction of the islands took place with the knowledge and probably
complaisance of the Obama administration.

The article is very sound when the military expansion argument is put aside.
It is well written in both a clear and educated style.

China poses a formidable strategic challenge to America
This statement is clear, direct and correct.
The article describes well how China is emulating the example of Pax Americana.
Influence, power and wealth are achieved more easily by economics and culture
than by military expansion, tho' military power is there to back up.

Very interesting article indeed. Our small company making off road LED lights now buys about 75% of the component parts from China, partly because of the low prices we get from China, and partly because they are the ones who make the high tech parts we need.

They are pretty darn good at quality and delivery now, and actively encourage us to buy from them. It bothers me to a degree, as they are a communist country and actively try to take over additional territories.

I do think they want to be independent of the USA at best, and to take over our industries and leave us to battle ourselves with PC. Between this challenge and the stupidity of printing money to finance nonsense, our country is indeed doomed.

Negotiating with the Chinese is somewhat refreshing. They do what is in their self-interest.

Highly informative from a reliable source. I was pleasantly surprised.

"China’s Communist Party government is a merciless meritocracy, ... which means you haven’t met a stupid person since you were in junior high school. ... "

The top 25% of the smartest people in China is more peop[e than there are in the United States.

As for language and writing. When Japan modernized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a committee of scholars met to choose the national language for science. After some debate, they chose English over French. But Japanese was not an option. Similarly, Chinese has the same drawbacks: lack of case; lack of tense. Plus, the ideographic writing is nice for poetry, but less amenable for techincal topics. So, the Chinese learn English. Thus, they have two different modes of thought, which is a clear advantage.

What they do not have is innovation.

However, the "One Child Policy" created an entire generation of only children, which will bring changes they have not expected and cannot stop. A similar problem exists in Japan, also, with Americanism and Westernism eroding traditional collective modes. In Japan, it has been going on longer, now in its third full generation.

Still, tradition runs deep. The world still comes to America for graduate school. Not many people are flocking to China or Japan to take on pure research.

Too much to absorb in a timely manner.

"The back story to Chua's memoir is this: She is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and is now a professor at Yale Law School and the author of two best-selling "big-think" books on free-market democracy and the fall of empires. When Chua married her husband, fellow Yale law professor and novelist Jed Rubenfeld, they agreed that their children would be raised Jewish and reared "the Chinese way," in which punishingly hard work — enforced by parents — yields excellence; excellence, in turn, yields satisfaction in what Chua calls a "virtuous circle." "
https://www.npr.org/2011/01/11/132833...

See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...

It describes people who dress drably, avoid calling attention to themselves in public but enjoy spending their money on loud, bumptious activities in private. It describes another people for whom the concept of individual rights and freedom dates back to the Roman Republic.

Do these two groups of individuals long to see their overloads come out on top, maybe inflicting Century-of-Humiliation retributions back and forth? No. They want to be let alone, life free, and pursue to their individual happiness.

Mr. Goldman says "the best kind of innovation" is funded by the government because it can spend tax money on R&D that willing investors wouldn't part with without more certainty of outcome. They will part with it under threat of the IRS though. He laughs off the idea of information technology forming the basis of the economy of the future. I honestly don't know if information will continue to be an engine of growth or if nanotechnology, space technology, materials science, or something I cannot even think of will be keep creating value for future generations. But I sure don't think gov't experts know either.