[gred]

We'd be seeing significantly less concern in the West if the "official" Chinese worldview were more democratic, less authoritarian, more humanistic, and less illiberal.

How long will it take for the emerging Chinese middle class to force changes internally, move up Maslow's hierarchy, and demand freedom of conscience, speech, religion, assembly, press, petition, and privacy? IMO it's a bit of a race between the Chinese middle class' moderating influence and whatever spark (Taiwan?) sends us tumbling to war. Maybe if we can make it 60 more years (2 generations) without a war, the Chinese middle class will pick up some momentum in demanding their rights. That's the larger, longer-term tragedy of Tiananmen Square, that it set this process back decades (again, IMO).

[cbozeman]

Things are going to get worse in China, not better. In 60 years, they'll have half their current population (One Child Policy). Not only that, but Western companies have seen the writing on the wall. Production is moving out of China to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc.. Semiconductor facilities are being built in America.

We're not going to be able to avoid a war with China, because Pooh Bear has to have a scapegoat and the U.S. will be it, but make no mistake, China is on the way down, not up...

[PeterStuer]

Funny thing is you could write a very simillar post with the protagonists reversed.

[throwaway290]

How so? The US never had a one child policy and replenishes population by allowing migrants to become Americans (try becoming a Chinese--this basically never happens). Manufacturing is moving to the US. Regarding scapegoating it's China where you see government propaganda adverts showing terrible and ugly capitalist western countries, nothing even close the other way around.

[cbozeman]

You could do that... if you had no knowledge of geopolitics and demographics.

[qwezxcrty]

> We'd be seeing significantly less concern in the West if the "official" Chinese worldview were more democratic, less authoritarian, more humanistic, and less illiberal. |

As a Chinese have a mostly negative feeling about CCP government, I'm not sure if this is true.

Imagine hypothetically, Chinese government got magically replaced by a democratic regime. Is the intensifying competition between US and China going to stop? I think the same thing like US and Japan competition in the 90's, fuelled by purely economical reasons, will still be there.

While I deeply hope China can get a more liberal government in the future, I don't believe the current concern of US is driven by "belief in democratics".

Also look at non-democratic non-liberal at all countries like Saudi Arab, why US sell F15s to them but have concerns selling chips to China?

[throwaway290]

> How long will it take for the emerging Chinese middle class to force changes internally, move up Maslow's hierarchy, and demand freedom of conscience, speech, religion, assembly, press, petition, and privacy?

Standards of living in China were low very recently, for now middle class remembers this, and not having access to a parallel timeline (plus being under influence of ever-present propaganda) they think they should thank CCP for that. I suspect many of them are dissatisfied Taiwan is not attacked yet, hardly a moderating influence.

[eunos]

Theoretically it's supposed to be now (>$10K GDPPc). Yet, 4 years of Trump really wrecked everybody minds. Now those values aren't seen as ideal but surrender to the US. I saw Chinese reaction to the death of Gorby recently, wasnt pleasant.

Anyway, Chinese determination to recover Taiwan will not change even if her GDPPc is 50k or more. The quest of national restoration will not be abated by a mere richer country.

[cycrutchfield]

Sure, it will be abated by deterrence from a stronger military and international allies.

[eunos]

If UN forces with much better armaments did not deter PVA crossing the Yalu River, I don't think this will

[cycrutchfield]

Got any references from the past 70 years?

[eunos]

Sino-{Soviet|Indian|Vietnam} conflict

[cycrutchfield]

Doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in their military prowess.