3 Reasons China Won't Overtake America as the Leading Superpower - TLDR News

Arguably the biggest geopolitical question of our time is whether China will one day surpass the United States of America as the world's dominant superpower. In this video, we explain why China's falling birth rate, lack of international allies and their inferior military investment will hold them back.

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1 - Empty Planet, Darrell Bricker & John Ibbitson
13 - Empty Planet, Chapter 3
15 - Empty Planet, Chapter 3
20 - “Will Xi invade Taiwan”, Spectator podcast
21 - “Easternization”, Gideon Rachman, Chapter 2
23 - “Easternization”, Gideon Rachman, Chapter 2

[SuperSnickerSof]

Honestly you guys have picked a really deep and multi-faceted topic, not to mention very controversial. Well done for summarising really well into 3. I think you've more or less nailed them in a general sense

[zsoltsz]

We have that childlessnes-tax in Germany as well, just as in most other western countries. It's just labeled the other way around: The higher tax number is called "default", and whoever has children gets a tax allowance. Same thing, though.

[eduardgusan]

I would also add the China's inability to project itself as a soft power, this includes media, language and the political doctrine. In all these aspects China is too different to establish cultural ties with other countries and influence the public opinion.

[rv]

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[bobbyb]

Good video, I know that you said the list wasn't meant to cover everything but another important reason why China may not overtake the USA is cultural 'soft' power. The USA has massive amounts of cultural influence and power through its film/TV industry and the English language. Hundreds of millions of people speak English as a second language and watch American films and television, which gives the USA influence that China simply can't match

[ScuffTuff]

Weird nitpick but Canada and Australia aren’t good examples of countries who don’t like the US. We poll so low because we compare them to ourselves which doesn’t happen with almost any other country and naturally, we think we’re better. As a Canadian, the only country I see rivalling the US for how close they are to us is the UK and I’m sure Aussie sees it the same way with New Zealand. We think we’re better but we still see the US as our closest partner and friend.

[hey.sanoop]

Reason number 1 : 02:18

Reason number 2 : 05:21

Reason number 3 : 07:20

[________________________]

I've been wondering about Italy not liking China a decade ago. Is it due to knockoffs of Italian luxury brands? I know they are fiercely protective of Italian brands since I think they are their biggest exports.

[SwissSareth]

And then there's the real-estate-focussed economy,
the reliance on coal,
the corruption,
the human rights abuses,
....

[diarmuidfaherty]

A major factor that is underrated is China's reliance on importing natural resources, the vast majority of which either come from US allies (like Australia) or have to pass through chike points in Indonesia. They don't have the blue water navy to secure these routes, the US does.

[johnpotts]

I'm old enough to remember when Japan was inevitably going to overtake the USA. Since then its economy has stalled, largely due to its aging population. China is going the same way in population terms and President Xi is currently acting against successful businessmen which is sure to act as a break on its economic growth (and it is likely to discourage foreign investment as well, further slowing growth).

[radugherman]

Saying you are impartial and will make an opposite video won't stop the 50 cent army.

[merrymachiavelli]

Even if China wanted to 'do' immigration, the scales, geography and language would make it tricky. First, most of China's large neighbours are either richer than it or not much poorer, and with the semi-exception of refugees, large scale migration usually flows from poor > rich. Second, the migrants you 'want' to shore up an aging population are ideally people aged 18-30, as well as potentially child dependants, and that's an age bracket that is set to shrink globally, especially in the Asia-Pacific area. Third, language is in my view an under-appreciated problem - Chinese is a very difficult to learn for most of the world's population. You tend to see the strongest migration flows between countries that speak a common language, but even having languages that belong to the same language family or share a script is a bonus. The fact that China is already so huge makes this even more difficult - they'd basically have to 'import' the entire youthful population of a fairly large country to reverse the population decline.

The only real place China could source migrants from is Sub-Saharan Africa. Which seems like a recipe for disaster in terms of internal social cohesion, given what it's like in places like Guangzhou. I truly do not know whether the Chinese government will suffer economic decline as population woes start to really bite in 20-30 years, or whether they'll allow large-scale immigration from African countries at the risk of social disharmony.

[Mr.Nichan]

7:04 India likes the U.S. very slightly more than the U.S. likes itself, and Brazil likes it almost as much. Interesting.

[RakiRatvian]

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[charliecrome]

I think they were on track to 10 years ago, but now they're shutting down again

[autarchprinceps]

One thing you forgot to mention is, that not only does China not do immigration, it also has quite a number of emigrants, since it is you know a dictatorship, and per capita it is still far behind a lot of countries its people can at least somewhat emigrate too. Obviously, it can be safely assumed, that those emigrants are also at least above average in several ways typically, constituting brain drain of a certain level. Definitively better than East Germany before it felt it necessary to build a litteral and figuratively wall, but still significantly worse, especially than the US or Western Europe.

[MortgageBrokerLondonOntario]

Great video!

The definition of a superpower that i always found most useful was that a superpower can act on the world stage without consulting other countries - they can go it alone - they don't always choose to, but they maintain the wherewithal to conduct unilateral operations. China does not yet have that power, as they are largely hampered by the U.S. There has yet to be a large-scale international conflict to test whether or not China maintains the power to stop the U.S.

[adialbano]

Would you rather live in a world where USA is the superpower or China? By no mean people in US don't have the life quality of let's say Sweden, but take 5 minutes to research what living under Chinese regime means. Would you want that to influence your country? Being Albanian I'm 100% pro US, but I understand people having a slightly more negative view of them, yet between the 2, China would be my 300th choice

[Bodabodabroadcast]

The China African nations relationship isn't the dream that this video thinks that it is. The Pew Research has a severe blind spot on the developing world that would definitely be more in line with western tastes.