Is China's Superpower Status Real?

 #339: Well, Maybe Not

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Because it's behind a pay-wall at the Atlantic (a publication well worth a subscription), I'm summarizing David Frum's recent review of Michael Beckley's 2018 book, Unrivaled: Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower.

Crucially, one can access a dozen or so interesting articles a day, online for $49.99 a year, by signing up for their newsletter, clicking on any of their most popular pieces (which appear as a top-5 list), then once at their site, clicking on "Latest Articles".

That said, here's the gist of Beckley's book via Frum's piece:

1. Having the world's largest economy does not mean a country is a superpower.  China arguably had the largest GDP in 1830, but was a relative backwater.

2. Chinese troops spend 20%-30% of their time studying Communist ideology.  Their troops' training is heavily scripted, with the 'Red' team almost always winning.

3. High test scores compared to the US?  They are high because free public education in China ends after junior high.  76% of China's working age population has not completed high school.  At the college level, a quarter of studying is devoted to that ever-popular Communist ideology, while the student-professor ratio is double that in the US.

4. Research?  "China now leads the world in retractions of scientific studies due to fraud; one-third of Chinese scientists have admitted to plagiarizing or falsifying results (versus 2 percent of U.S. scientists); and two-thirds of China’s R&D spending has been lost to corruption."

5. But military prowess?  The big difference is that the US doesn't need to spend a large part of its defense budget on keeping everyone 'happy', 'peaceful' and 'obedient'.

6. All that money?  "China misallocates capital on a massive scale. More than a fifth of China’s housing stock is empty—the detritus of a frenzied construction boom that built too many apartments in the wrong places. China overcapitalizes at home because Chinese investors are prohibited from doing what they most want to do: get their money out of China."