Can China Take On The United States & Win?

It bristles with anger when any country even obliquely talks about Taiwan as an independent nation, which it effectively has been since 1949

An 82 year old lady from California, the United States has enraged the Chinese regime and the citizens so much that people are openly talking about a military confrontation between the two countries. The Speaker of the House of Representatives of America, Nancy Pelosi has paid a visit to Taiwan despite stern warnings from the Chinese state that this “act of provocation” will have “grave consequences” for the United States. China considers Taiwan, which is a functional democracy, as a renegade province of China and is publicly committed to unifying the island with the mainland, with the use of military force if necessary. It bristles with anger when any country even obliquely talks about Taiwan as an independent nation, which it effectively has been since 1949. In the 21^st century, China has used its economic muscle to isolate Taiwan from virtually all global forums. Naturally, it sees the Nancy Pelosi visit as an assault on the sovereignty of China. Geo-political pundits are already furiously debating the possibility of a war between the US and China. In the 20^th century, three countries, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union challenged the supremacy of the US as the global superpower. Germany and Japan lost militarily and the Soviet Union collapsed as a result of the Cold War. Can China do what the three could not?

India Tracker will leave the debate to experts. Instead, it looks at data to understand how China became a country that could pose a credible challenge to the United States. It is already the second largest economy in the world and analysts reckon the GDP of China will inevitably surpass that of the US in the future. India Tracker looks at two sets of data to understand how economic reforms that began way back in 1978 created the Chinese miracle in the last three decades or so. The first set of data looks at the export performance of the country.

The first chart shows how China has broken all historical records when it comes to export performance. In 1991, when India too embraced economic reforms, the export revenue of China was a middling $ 51 billion. The almost magical transformation started in 2000 when China became a member of the World Trade Organisation that enabled it to become the export and manufacturing powerhouse of the world. Export revenues totalled $ 253 billion in the year 2000 when the 21^st century arrived. China has never looked back since then. By 2021, the total export revenue was staggering $ 3.55 trillion, much higher than the total GDP of India. The export performance reflects the rise of China as a bona fide manufacturing super power even as America has seen factories shutting down by the day.

The second chart shows how its emergence as a manufacturing and export super power has transformed the economic condition of its citizens. Despite rising population (at least till recently), China has a seen a dizzying rise in per capita incomes of citizens. In 1991, the per capita income of China was $ 317 a year, almost exactly the same as the per capita income of India. By 2000, the per capita income had grown to $ 959, more than double the per capita income of India. The gap has been widening since then. In 2021, China’s per capita income was $ 12,000. No wonder it feels it is now in a position to challenge the supremacy of the United States.

China is already the longest surviving authoritarian regime in modern times since democracy spread roots in the world. Political scientists marvel at this “achievement” and wonder how much longer could the authoritarian Chinese state keep democracy at bay.