Back in the day, I sailed on a couple of Pacific cruises with the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). A special shout-out to my shipmates on the Chuck Boat.
America’s relationship with China is a fascinating look at dysfunctional geopolitics.
On an economic level, our fortunes are tightly intertwined. As far back as 18 months ago, I reported about how, while China is America’s largest creditor — and we’re their largest market — China also been developing modified Dong Feng 21 missiles capable of extremely long flight. The potential of threat to Americans and American interests certainly didn’t go unnoticed by our government.
China has also shown itself to be a cybersecurity threat on both the industrial and military fronts. China has conducted numerous penetration tests against U.S. computer systems and networks.
We also know that China has a relatively active, organized cybercriminal community, with large groups of people conducting phishing attacks against Americans. Of course, the People’s Republic of China (mainland China) isn’t the only China phishing on Americans, so is the Republic of China, better known these days as Taiwan.
But it’s the PRC that concerns us most. There are a few important things to keep in mind when you think about mainland China — and if you don’t think about Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó, it’s time you started.
The first thing to think about is the country’s amazing population. China has 1.3 billion people, more than four times America’s population. China gives birth to more babies each year than Canada has people — and that’s after China’s incredibly draconian jìhuà shengyù zhèngcè policy, the policy where China only allows one child per family.
The second thing you need to know is that China has become an economic powerhouse, growing its GDP by about 10% per year. This year, China blew past Japan to become the world’s second largest individual economy, after the U.S.
China also consumes a tremendous amount of energy. In How To Save Jobs I did some mathematical modeling and showed that China’s cows, alone, will be consuming more than one seventh of the world’s oil supplies within 10 years. Just their cows. That’s not counting what their 1.3 billion people need.
There’s more. I wrote:
China consumes slightly more than we do, at about 2.6 billion tons of go-juice. What makes China particularly interesting is that they’re consuming more and more each year. While our demand increases only 0.34% annually, China’s demand is increasing at 8.68%. Even the rate of increase is increasing. Back in 2000, China’s demand only increased by 2.46%.
I did a lot more math in How To Save Jobs, but one calculation stood out. China has made it a national priority to push more and more of its citizens into a middle class. But if China manages to “middle class” most of its citizens, China alone would then consume 10.1 billion tons of oil equivalent per year, or 78% of the world’s total output.
If India were to grow at the same rate (and India is growing fast, as well), China and India combined would consume 1.5 times the world’s total energy supply. In other words, those two countries, alone, will need more oil that the world actually has. This could be a problem.
The Chinese government is aware of all of this. The more they build, the more they consume. This is why China has become frenemies with the United States. We provide a market for their goods and a source of money for all that energy they consume.
But there’s one more important fact about China you should know. China absolutely hates that Taiwan isn’t part of the PRC. They absolutely, viscerally hate that the United States has been defending Taiwan and has been standing in their way to repatriate Taiwan, to bring Taiwanese citizens under mainland control.
In fact, to many PRC government minds, Taiwan is now part of mainland China. It’s just that America is blocking their rightful governance.
So, put it all together. China has four times our population. They have an economy going gangbusters, but will likely need more oil than exists on the planet, and they have an irrational anger at us for our role in keeping Taiwan out of their clutches. Plus, we owe them trillions of dollars.
It makes for a potent and volatile cocktail, doesn’t it?
