Is China planning to takeover America?

If China attacked the US, they would have no-one to sell their products to, and their economy would implode. That in a nutshell is why they haven’t tried to collect the massive debt we owe them.

It would be useless for them to attack us. Who would they sell their stuff to if they killed all of us? Besides, if we made a weapon that could hit, say, Canadian ships, for example, that doesn’t mean that we’ll go and bomb them; it just refers to how far the weapon could go.

Paranoia?

Not really an answer to your Q, John, but this is an eloquently written 1970s take on the idea.

Are the missiles built to only attack U.S. ships, or do they have the capability to attack any ship at sea?

Much of China’s military stance revolves around the Taiwan situation. The US positions itself as something of a guarantor of Taiwanese independence by staging a substantial naval presence in the area. China wants to demonstrate a capacity to neutralize those forces as a way of asserting its claim over Taiwan. It has nothing to do with taking over the US.

Yes. These missiles are specifically built to only attack United States ships at sea. They have US-seeking sensors that will keep people from other countries safe and only explode if they correctly lock on to signals indicating that the passengers on the ship watch baseball and eat apple pie. In fact, the whole world is conspiring to bring America down, either by moving into it or blowing it up. They’re not sure which, yet. But you can rest assured that every single action taken by every country in the world has something to do with us, and specifically being out to get us.

No, the relationship is symbiotic and too beneficial for China to do something so silly. I don’t know as much about this as I should, but I suspect @thorninmud is right.

China is manoeuvring to be the dominant power of the 21st Century, a position it will inevitably assume at some point. Dominant powers need a strong military.

I do not think the Chinese have any plans to take over the US.

The world economy is too intertwined for major nations to be able to afford a war. Building a strong military is part of the effort to show the world that China is now a major nation, perhaps even the most major nation.

China’s long term plan is the same as the US long term plan: build the highest standard of living for the most people they can. No one wants war. War reduces the standard of living. Pride plays some role in all this, and, in fact, I think that is what any conflict between China and the US is about: who is number one? Of course, as with most things related to pride, it doesn’t matter one whit.

@john65pennington, there are several reasons why the answer is no.

First, every powerful country has an interest in arms races and saber-rattling, unfortunately. America built many similar missiles during the Cold War—a period of much more hostility than our current relationship with China—but these were not intended to “take over” Russia.

Secondly, China can’t “take over” America to begin with. We have nuclear deterrence. Our military dwarfs theirs in other respects as well. Considering that we have lots of trouble “taking over” a stone-age country like Afghanistan, I’m not really sure how you think this would work.

Thirdly, China has other regional interests that don’t involve America; think Japan and the Koreas.

Finally, China currently depends largely on American consumers and producers to support their economy.

@wundayatta – I wouldn’t be so quick to ascribe such noble intentions to any government. They may not want war, but I doubt the primary intention is to increase standard of living for the greatest number of people. Rather, I suspect it is to increase the wealth of the wealthy to an even greater extent.

When I heard Trump spin this tale, I couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t think they’re planning to take over America but they wouldn’t mind being better than us in many ways. And why not?

Erm… China (as well as all superpowers) have been making plans to strengthen their world position since the beginning of time. It’s not like this is anything new or shocking.

This is why other superpowers (like the US) are well advised to keep both a strong military capability as well as a well functioning global intelligence gathering capability even during times of relative peace.

That said, I think that the US should be more worried about the economic threat China poses by providing low cost manufacturing (due to the lack of interest in human rights for their workers) along with a monetary policy that many believe to be unbalanced.

@Hobbes You could be right, although I think if that is the case, then we have the most massive covert conspiracy ever—supported by rampant corruption throughout government and business. Just seems unlikely to me.

No. But someday they will challenge our naval presence in the South China Sea. If the US retreats from, or loses that challenge, then all US military presence in the will have to move out of the Pacific Rim area.

@wundayatta – You mean you haven’t heard?

Given the rapaciousness and ruthlessness of the Amerikan Empire as it collapses in on itself, any nation which values its independence will build military defences capable of deterring them. It’s hardly a conspiracy. “How dare Iran develop a nuclear weapons program that would make them capable of deterring us from doing to them exactly the same thing we just did to Afghanistan and Iraq!”

I’ve never subscribed to the conspiracy theory of historn. Usuallly it’s just wrong-headed people doing stupid shit.

I seriously doubt China wants anything the USA has. They would be fools to attack a country that will be indebted to them into the next millenium.

@CaptainHarley – Just don’t forget all the wrong-headed people doing very smart if ruthless shit.

@Hobbes

Oh, yeah! Them too. : )

China is planning to take over America economically.

@flutherother

NEWS FLASH: China has ALREADY taken the USA over economically.

I don’t now if they’re planning to, but they’re definitely prepared to. That’s all we have the capability or responsibility to be worried about.

The Chinese are a pretty intelligent people. I don’t think they would want to risk a war with anyone unless provoked first. Then it’s self-defense. We have to look at things from their perspective too——the United States does a lot of “noseying” around (militarily) in Asia instead of minding its own business. Its presence is very tangible over there. Can you imagine if China “nosed around” like that in the U.S. and elsewhere in North America? Wouldn’t Americans feel defensive? Understandably, they certainly would! Maybe that’s why the Chinese have to put up a good defense.

“The Chinese are a pretty intelligent people”

I find it’s best not to make these types of generalizations about such large and diverse populations. I know it wasn’t a negative generalization, but still.

Why not?

Ha! With our financial problems, why the hell would the want us? With our cantankerous, heavily armed population, even more why would they want us. They have over a billion hungry mouths to feed right at home.

Yes, they are increasing their ability to project military force at a distance, but bear in mind they were invaded by the Japanese not that long ago with devastating results, and they had been overrun time and time again in ages past, each time with greeat slaughter and destruction. It’s perfectly understandable they would want to project military force to prevent a recurrence of that.

The US currently spends more on defense than all the other nations of the Earth combined. In light of that fact, fearing any one nation’s spending seems rather silly.

@Hobbes, on the whole, they are. That’s why China is the longest and oldest surviving civilization on earth, with one of the richest and most complex of all cultures.

take over america economically? yes. it’s a question of national pride.

@MRSHINYSHOES – It’s just that you seem to be implying that the Chinese people have some intrinsic property which makes them intelligent. You also seem to be implying that intelligence leads naturally to civilization, and that those Civilizations which survive longer do so because their populations are intelligent.

When did China take over America economically?

Last I checked, Chinese businesses weren’t using slave labor-like factories in America to produce luxury products for Chinese people….

@Qingu

According to this list, China currently holds 891.6 billion dollars in US Treasury Securities as of December 2010, which is about 20% of the total national debt (around 4 Trillion). They are matched by Japan, but they also sell an enormous number of products to the US. So I wouldn’t say they’ve “taken over”, but they’re certainly a major influence.

@Hobbes Not exactly. The US government itself and the Fed, private investors, corporations, pension funds, insurance companies and the like hold an absolute controlling interest in US Treasury debt. China’s 20% stakes buys them a seat at the negotiating table, but they are a long way short of owning a controlling interest.

To be specific, China is the #3 US debt holder with $895.6 billion. But US Insurance companies come in #10 with $261.8 billion, depository institutions in the US are #9 with $269.8 billion, state and local governments are #7 with $511.8 billion, mutual funds are #6 with $637.7 billion, pension funds are #5 with $706.4 billion, private investors and Savings Bonds holders are #2 at $1.458 trillion and the #1 slot is our own Federal Reserve and other Intergovernmental holdings at $5.351 trillion.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/29880401/The_Biggest_Holders_of_US_Government_Debt?slide=1

@Hobbes Great civilizations do not happen by chance unless the people in those civilizations “do” have a level of ingenuity which sets them apart from less developed civilizations. The fact that China has the longest, surviving civilization on earth with one of the richest and most complex cultures attests to the characteristics of the Chinese people themselves (and I’m saying this “in general”, not “all Chinese” which you seem to think I’m saying) innovativeness, ingenuity, and drive, which are borne out of intelligence.

@MRSHINYSHOES

From you use of the words “Great” and “less developed”, I infer that you seem to be assuming that Civilizations are superior to other ways of life. Given that Civilization depends on and arises out the continually increasing consumption of resources imported to dense population centers, it is inherently unsustainable. See, the giant mess it’s landed itself in at the moment. I would say that’s not a particularly intelligent way to live.

As long-lived as the Chinese civilization has been, non-civilized people were around for far longer, and were no less intelligent.

@Hobbes I may be “politically incorrect”, but I’m not sorry that I am. Non-civilized people are less intelligent. It’s a no-brainer my friend. Monkeys and apes are intelligent creatures, but they’re not as intelligent as humans, and though they have a social structure, they have never developed any kind of “civilization”. Great civilizations develop out of peoples with complex language systems, out of great innovations their cultures have given the world. Sorry, but I disagree——non-civilized peoples who were around longer lacked the ingenuity and innovation that could have led to their development. The fact that they “were” non-civilized attests to the fact they lacked intelligence and hence remained backward or undeveloped.

This comment thread has gone on far too long. I shall exit now and not return as it is getting tedious. I’ve said as I’ve said. It’s clearly obvious my friend. See ya. ;)

@MRSHINYSHOES Have you read anything by Joseph Campbell or Jared Diamond? Pre-agrarian culture may well be more “advanced” than anything we’ve developed in the last 5000 years. For example, pre-agrarian hunter-gatherers spend on average just 14 hours a week sustaining themselves. The rest of the time is spent playing, learning, teaching, creating art, and making love. Both Campbell and Diamond make a strong case that agrarianism was a huge mistake, which has resulted in a dangerously dysfunctional lifestyle which creates misery and mental illness.

While it’s true that modern medicine has extended our lifespans somewhat (modern anthropology suggests that people may have lived as long as 60 years in pre-agrarian culture, so the increase is rather modest), we spend much, much more of the life we have working and acquiring “things” which give us no pleasure, and serve only to enrich a tiny percentage of the population — who are no more happy than we are, only more rapacious. And the cost of this miserably unhappy existence is devastation of the ecosphere.

Civilization indeed.

(Just an additional note that there is a theory everyone alive today is brain-damaged. We evolved to live in an atmosphere with a much lower CO2 concentration. It’s quite possible that our pre-agrarian ancestors were in fact much smarter than we are, and that our industrialization has come at the cost of inducing brain damage from the moment of birth.)

@MRSHINYSHOES

“I may be “politically incorrect”, but I’m not sorry that I am”

I never called you politically incorrect, I pointed out an assumption you were making and argued that it was false.

“Monkeys and apes are intelligent creatures, but they’re not as intelligent as humans, and though they have a social structure, they have never developed any kind of “civilization”.”

Monkeys and apes are not the same as pre-civilized humans. The fact that they have not developed Civilizations does not meet that those humans who have also not developed Civilizations are less intelligent.

“Great civilizations develop out of peoples with complex language systems”

Pre-Civilized cultures had languages just as complex as our own.

“The fact that they were non-civilized attests to the fact they lacked intelligence and hence remained backward or undeveloped.”

This view is essentially what Colonists used to justify the slaughter, displacement and/or forced assimilation of indigenous inhabitants.

I’m sure that it’s at least a contingency plan – I expect that most states have something similar. Contingent on what is the worrisome question.
If the goal were general-purpose conquest, it would be more practical to stay (or at least start) in Asia.