[csomar]

> China has more people.

Wrong. More people, more problems, the harder control will be. Think of a big company, like Microsoft.

I think the article is crap, written by someone with degrees, who value degrees and the article is based on the current education system.

> 1. China's leadership understands engineering

Hahaha. We need leaders and not Engineers, sure they need a minimum knowledge, but they don't need doctorate in Physics.

> 2. China's leadership wants to out-innovate the U.S.

That's my dream too and the dream of France, England and the whole world.

> 3. China's science and technical talent pool is vast

Again, he relies on the educational system. Who said China has a quality educational system and that the 350K engineers know really what they should know.

[kkshin]

The US is, by and large, successful because we have the largest market in the world (forgetting for a moment the effects of WWII). We continue to be a success because we have a huge population of affluent people who can spend enormous amounts of money on consumer goods. The Chinese middle class is already larger than the entirety of the US population* and will continue to rise as the country increasingly becomes a first-world country.

There are of course issues with managing such a large population, but the chance of any sort of collapse is the figment, and hope, of our pride and does not reflect the realities of the situation.

* - Income of middle class in the US is higher, but cost of living is also substantially less in China.