The zero-sum game everyone is anticipating is the battle for limited resources as Indians and Chinese live a Western middle class life. There's a stat where if all Chinese ate what a middle class industrialized Asian (S. Korea, Taiwanese, Japanese) ate, they alone would require all the food in the world. Simply put, we need another earth or two by current consumption standards to handle India and China's emergence, let alone other developing nations such as Mexico or Brazil. Another concern is that the protectionists at home aren't seeing a pronounced comparative advantage offshoring our jobs abroad. Someone posted articles by Paul Craig Roberts before. A search for it would go into more detail.
As the Chinese and Indians increase in affluence its unlikely they will still remain robot workers. Japan and Taiwan both long had very low wage rates compared to the US but as they gained in economic might those have risen along with greater social and environmental consciousness. The Indian and Chinese developmental model need not and very likely won't follow the same highly wasteful model that the US took.
That's a good point but as I mentioned in my previous post the Chinese and Indian developmental model need not follow the US's or Europe. In fact when the PRC and India have tried the route of heavy industrialization it hasn't worked out for them.
^ I agree and I've been a big fan of themwhe they take advantage of the opportunities for a greener infrastructure. Nonetheless, it's more likely that they'll use both green and brown methods because of their population and because the demands to maintain that economic edge come at the expense of costlier ecologically friendlier alternatives. For example, they know oil is highly supply limited, but cleaner alternatives such as nuclear and wind are also supply limited at the moment. They've taken steps to pursue these and other energy alternatives, but they can't ignore high consumption demands.
That's with current technology though. I admit to being a little concerned about China, but one reason for a little hope is that they are now graduating more scientists, engineers, and medical people than just about anywhere else on Earth. They will soon be driving the technology bus; and there is a chance that the wonders we will see from them in the coming decades will eclipse anything that has come before. In a race between education and global catastrophe (H. G. Wells), I'm betting on education.
My money's on Russia, once they stop arresting and assassinating each other, though centuries-old habits die pretty hard. Nice amount of oil and gas for a western country, though.
The brain drain effect is still fairly strong. Top Indian scientists don't stay in India, they still come to the US because of better funding and research opportunities. The Indian scientific field has grown tremendously but it still lags behind in support. The same holds true with China. It however does bring up the issue that government funding of scientific research has declined tremendously and what research funds that do come out are generally politicized and directed solely based on politics rather than sound science. (stem cell research being a recent case in point) Also, agencies like NASA used to fund tons of scientific ventures but much of that funding has dried up and has slowly been shifted to other priorities. The politics of research is a major and contentious issue and is driving both foreign and domestic scientists away from critical areas of science.
As I hinted in the previous post, the transition towards cleaner and more efficient tech occurs on top of the consumption standards the Western world has developed. I believe the Chinese planners realize that challenge. However, whatever developments the Chinese or Indians attain doesn't stop us from currently consuming 25% of the world's energy and resources. The industrialized Asian country's standard of consumption is far less.
I heard recently the brain drain in India is starting to reverse with many Indian scientists and engineers returning to India.
Maximizing efficiency in industrialization reduces the quality of life for the worker. Who has more satisfaction, the hand craftsmen or the assmbly line drone? Competition based soley on end user prices promotes the elimination of the middle classes. It is the inefficiency of worker benefits that promotes it. You have to ask yourself, "what is the point of human life?" Is it just to stand in one place putting nuts on bolts 10 hours a day? Is it just sitting in a cubicle trying to look busy for 8 hours a day. I would propose that life should be love and interaction with people and some sense of accomplishment in your work. I would propose that more primitive societies actually live more actualized lives and more modern societies are more removed from life. I'm not saying we would be better off without medical science or diplomacy. I'm just saying people would live with more of a sense of self worth in smaller groups with less specialization. The 6 billion people on this planet will never live at the quality of life of the Western World due to the finite capacities of the planet to produce energy, clean air, clean water and absorb waste products. Technology can increase the capacity to some extent but the effects are only temporary because of mankind's Malthusian capacity to propigate. There certanly is the phenomena of declining birthrates in more developed nations compared to the explosive birth rates in underdeveloped countries and maybe that is the saving grace for planet Earth. But just to project Western standards, with forseeable technology is to invite disaster.
Similar trend has started in China about 5 years ago, just like what happened in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, 20 some years ago. However, it's a little different in China right now. Instead of the projected reverse brain drain of scientists and engineers with advanced technology, large amount of those so-called "oversea returnees" are opportunitists. Many of them are still working for large international corps, enjoying great compensation (similar to, or even better than what they had in Western countries), with much lower cost. The discrepancies of incomes and social status between them and average Chinese are much wider than normal gap between educated engineers and farmers. For those people, they do not bring any advanced technologies back to China, but rather enjoy life based on their oversea experience and culture convenience. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I wouldn't consider that as a brain drain. Among those returned oversea Chinese, some are top scientists and engineers, who are ambitious entrepreneurs, brought back technology and even venture capitals. Those people are making a much profound and bigger impact in the technology field, as well as hiring local brights minds. But on the other hand, there are also a large number of people, who didn't do well overseas, but tried everything possible to make up their experience and "advanced technology", and "successfully" made their way to gain fame and benefit with this trend. As Chinese people more and more informed about the world, the above mentioned people are having a harder time to "success". That being said, I do believe that more and more Chinese scientists and engineers will seek for opportunities in their familiar culture, and impact the society willingly or unwillingly, in a positive way. When you are fed up with the crowded and noisy city, you will start to enjoy farmland. However, if you are fed up with "boring" and poor life in the farmland, all you see in the cities are opportunities. People will demand cleaner air and cleaner government and more freedom when they can at least have a semi-decent life. It's just a natural process. Technology and innovation go as far as people push them. Yes, resources are a big concern for any country, but human beings will overcome that hurdle, just like they have been doing to survive. If not, natural disaster or war will take care of that. Developing countries will accelerate their economy faster than developed countries. Population is always the biggest advantage in initial developing stage, but it will become a liability after you reach certain standard. The world is dynamic. Super powers come and go, some last longer for hundreds of years, some are much shorter, but there will never be one ever-lasting sole super power. That being said, to project China or India to overtake US in 30 years, is as worthless as projecting Rockets dynasty would have a ten years dynasty from this season. Too many variables will affect the outcome. Sooner or later, both China and India will face demostic social problems. If they can overcome those difficulties, they will truly become powers; otherwise, they would be another "next Jordan". As of projecting who will be your ally or friend in 30 years, in geopolitical, is as ridiculous as projecting Yao Ming could either never score 19 points, or revolutionize the center position before he played one NBA game. There will never be forever friends or enemies in the world. Everything is interest driven. Democracy or capitalism is some proven means, but it's never goals. People always tend to confuse means with goals. I don't understand the notion that US and China could never be friends. People selling those ideas, instead of projecting, I believe they are rather selling their own agendas. Many things can happen in 30 years. I don't think communist party or single party ruling can survive that long. It's not like China and US are enemies for the past 200 years. Besides, if huge population is the only and nature conflict of interest as some believe, I don't see how a democratic huge population is any different. As for compitition over natural resources, it's not like US is only going to compete resource with non-democratic countries. In my opinion, nowadays, academic world is totally different than it used to be. It's too much interest-driven, and it's too subjective.
I would beg to differ, regarding Chinese planners and the challenge of cleaner, more efficient energy. And as what I'm posting below points out, we aren't being nearly as "clean" as we could be, and we certainly have the technology readily available to make a huge difference in carbon emissions and global warming. November 25, 2006 Editorial Taming King Coal The front page of this newspaper’s business section recently featured two articles about the world’s most plentiful fuel, coal. Written from different parts of the globe, they framed the magnitude of the task confronting international negotiators and the newly empowered Democrats in Congress who want to put the brakes on emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. One article pointed out that China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide by 2009, a decade ahead of previous predictions. A big reason is the explosion in the number of automobiles, but the main reason is China’s ravenous appetite for coal, the dirtiest of all the fuels used to produce electricity. Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China, with enough capacity to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego. What’s frightening about this for those worried about the long-term consequences of warming is that nearly all of these plants are being built along traditional lines, burning pulverized coal to make electricity. And what’s sad about it is that there’s a much cleaner coal-burning technology available. Known as I.G.C.C. — for integrated gasification combined cycle — this cleaner technology coverts coal into a gas before it is burned. These plants produce fewer of the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain than conventional power plants do. More important, from a global warming perspective, they also have the potential to capture and sequester greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide before they enter the atmosphere. This new technology is not readily available in China, but it is available to utilities in the United States. Which brings us to the second article — an announcement by TXU, a giant Texas energy company, that it intends to build 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas, plus another dozen or so coal-fired monsters elsewhere in the country. All told, this would be the nation’s largest single coal-oriented construction campaign in years. Is TXU availing itself of the cleaner technology? No. TXU will use the old pulverized coal model. The company says the older models are more reliable. But the real reason it likes the older models is that they are easier to build, cheaper to run and, ultimately, much more profitable. So, like the Chinese, TXU is locking itself (and the country) into at least 50 more years of the most carbon-intensive technology around. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who will shortly assume command of the Senate environment committee, believes that we should impose a price on carbon emissions (as Europe has done) so that companies like TXU will begin to think about investing in cleaner technologies — technologies that China could then use in its power plants. The message from both Texas and China is that Ms. Boxer should get cracking. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/o...n/Editorials and Op-Ed/Editorials&oref=slogin Lets hope the new Democratic Congress will do something about requiring clean coal-burning power plants. We have enormous reserves of coal, as does China, I believe, and we should use the high technology we've developed in our own country for those plants, and make that technology available to countries like China gratis, if they will use it. D&D. Is the Air Clean in Here?
The Chinese, like us, are sitting on mountains of cheap coal that will definitely be used to power our countries until alternatives like solar and biomatter become just as cheap (next 50 odd years). The clean coal technology mentioned (along with sending CO2 deep into the earth) is similar to what Bush proposed when he tried to shut reporters up about his "pro-climate change" record. Not many greenies here are in favor of sustaining the fossil fuel infrastructure when new breakthroughs in materials science and nanotechnology are making solar, wind and energy storage much cheaper to make. I agree that China should get on that bandwagon asap, but coal is still considered a stopgap and I don't think future generations would want to be saddled with that technology. China, as it is now, is one dirty country, just like all the other Asian countries that rapidly industrialized in the span of ~50 years at the expense of the environment. Their challenge is to maintain the demands of their 300 million some-odd middle class on top of the several millions of people flocking to urban cities by the month. The biggest example is the Three Gorges Dam, where thousands of villages have been destroyed at the expense of diverting the Yangtze River. There's untold ecological damage that's occuring right now and will occur when it's functional. Yet the dam will power nearby cities in a "clean" fashion. The Chinese have a larger challenge than we do because they have to industrialize but can't in the way other countries have done it. They don't have the option for their middle class to reach mass first and then decide what to do, rather they have to plan on the fly. I remember replying to a relevant topic that was posted last year. As usual, it's one of tigermission's interesting finds. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=1927529#post1927529 EDIT: After reading real_egal's great post, I have to mention that while I'm optimistic about technology finding methods for everyone to live a middle class lifestyle, the transition will be a big hurdle to overcome. I mean, in a hundred years or so, there won't be an overpopulation problem once every region stabilizes. It's just a matter of getting there.
I really don't understand why China just doesn't go to nuclear power to quench it's thirsty energy needs...
Well, it's all a matter of perspective. Modern life doesn't have to be so bleak or removed - it's a choice. Modern life has it's different challenges where as primitive life has a whole different set of ones. I certainly wouldn't want to be foraging in a forest for food and all....believe me, I tried that lifestyle for a bit and it's alright and liberating, but yearning for a comfortable bed and the ability to buy a slice of piece at 2am - nah, my paradise is here. That being said, no one can impose their way of life on other. well, should at least. Will the earth be perserved or the seas turned into a cesspool, the air into an asthma factory, and the land into cancerous toxic waste? Well, we're still living longer then our ancestors...and despite the fact people take it for granted - our lives are so much more cerebral and intriguing. We touch so many people in a given day - any where in the world. There's so much knowledge to be gained, so much to take in to the sense...so much that a person is empowered to do. You are freer then ever - able to move and change your location almost instantaneously. Expose yourself to a new culture over night. It's a wonderful amazing world we live in. If anyone can't figure out how to be happy - well, the problem isn't the outside world, it's the inside one. Truly an amazing time to be alive.
