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It's really hard to say, personally I think that China will focus more on a sort of "tech" boom. I know a lot of chinese students (with quite a few being close friends) that are studying abroad in places like Cambridge and MIT, they're not the super nouveau riche, but the kids of factory workers etc. who have scrimped and saved to get their kids a good education abroad, and they damn well aren't going to waste their time at universities, and they of course inevitably return to China after their education. Most of these students also study things like Maths and Sciences (mainly Maths however since doing a course like natural sciences at Cambridge is incredibly expensive) whereas there has been a downward trend of "1st world" applicants doing mathematics and science subjects.
Also for those of you not in the know: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13114577
I expect a major boom in the quaternary sector as opposed to the secondary and primary sectors, with also more and more research papers being published from China as they pour money into research funds where places like in the UK are cutting back their research and university budgets.

ChrisWWII wrote:I would however, point out that many resources used in the Western computer industry do indeed come from Africa.

Any where are the majority of circuit boards and whatnot built? I think you'll find that whilst those resources come from Africa, they pass en route through china for manufacturing.

In any case, I'll point out (again) that it's irrelevant in the given scenario.

I would argue that even though China would posess a stronger claim to access to those mineral than the West in a time of resource shortage, such a claim would be irrelevant. Why? It'd be a loss to both parties.

Pardon? China has a stronger claim, but this is made irrelevant, because ....it's a loss to both parties? I'm sorry, I actually grammatically don't understand how you got from the first part of that statement to the second, let alone what you meant by it. Rephrase please, my dear boy?

If the Western economy takes a hit due to resource limitations, the Chinese economy will suffer as well. As a manufacturing based economy, they are dependent on continued export, and while they may choose to stop exporting at any time, such an action would likely go the same road as the US O-Grab-Me Embargo during the Napoleonic Wars. Granted, the West will feel it if China chooses to stop exporting to them, but the Chinese will feel it even more. China wlill have a strong position, no one denies that, I definitely don't, but the fact remains that China is an industrial nation highly dependent on exports (ooh, essay idea! 'Is China a Mecantillist Economy?'), and it would harm their own interests to try and abuse the resource shortage.

Hang on. You're doign the same thing as sebster now and shifting the goalposts, by attempting to apply current economic straits and circumstances, to a different hypothetical future scenario. I think we've reached the point whereby I need to state exactly what I am arguing here.


We are examining a future hypothetical. One in which the world is running out of resources. So. To clarify, by resources, we must mean oil (and thus all petroleum based products such as plastic), gas, mineral resources such as metals and gemstones, coal, and so on. Food is not to be considered an issue, neither is oxygen or water. For the sake of avoiding further debate on the state of economies, let us assume that the Chinese economy matches roughly to predictions, and we're thirty years in the future. China, whilst still a manufacturing powerhouse, has seen a rise of the middle class, and so on.

Right, that's the scenario.

It was stated previously that China would be in a worse position economically in such a scenario, because, 'China's economy is based on manufacturing, while the West focuses more on services. Resource shortages will hit them hardest, especially as they are not devoting the energy to R&D to make more efficient use of more limited resources. '

That's the statement I was contesting.

My position here, is that in a world of narrowing resources, China would actually be better placed than the West economically (at least with regards to raw minerals). Why? Because they have effectively bought up Africa, and all the untapped resources thereof. Therefore in a time of economic shortage, their capacity to have a supply from such a large geographical landmass would place them in a better position than the West. This not to say they would be in a good position, simply a better one.

Why is this? It is because controlling the flow of resources means that the lions share will go to China. They will of course continue to export, but if the UK for example, is desperate for imports of tin, and China is as well, China will get whatever limited tin reserves there are. The UK will not. In order to export a good, you need to have a surplus, if China barely has enough tin to meet its own needs, it will be less inclined to export it, be it in raw form, or that of manufactured goods. Therefore, places like the UK will go without, whilst China will have sufficient to meet its own internal needs.

Thus, I would say that the Chinese are in a better economic position here, because they have what the West lacks, and whatever little they do decide to export, they can charge outrageous prices for, due to the comparative tremendous demand in the West for the relatively small supply.

Also, we have to note that if the situation got so bad that China had a crippling control of the worlds resource markets, you can not deny that the West may be tempted to use its military superiority to secure their own interests, especially in the African mines. It's definitely not a likely scenariou, but its one to keep in mind, especially since anxiety about using military force will only go down as desperation increases.

Certainly, but I'm regarding this as an initial 'advantage' scenario.

Ketara wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I would however, point out that many resources used in the Western computer industry do indeed come from Africa.

Any where are the majority of circuit boards and whatnot built? I think you'll find that whilst those resources come from Africa, they pass en route through china for manufacturing.

In any case, I'll point out (again) that it's irrelevant in the given scenario.

I would argue that even though China would posess a stronger claim to access to those mineral than the West in a time of resource shortage, such a claim would be irrelevant. Why? It'd be a loss to both parties.

Pardon? China has a stronger claim, but this is made irrelevant, because ....it's a loss to both parties? I'm sorry, I actually grammatically don't understand how you got from the first part of that statement to the second, let alone what you meant by it. Rephrase please, my dear boy?

I do believe resources such as uranium, plutonium, rare earth metals, sulphur, and diamonds are imported to the western world. These often require more advanced facilities to process into industrial tools/fuel etc. which the west has more of.

Also luxury goods such as high quality gems, diamonds for jewellery (including the infamous blood diamonds), gold and platinum also find their way into the hands of western companies (I'm looking at you DeBeers!)

Ketara wrote:Pardon? China has a stronger claim, but this is made irrelevant, because ....it's a loss to both parties? I'm sorry, I actually grammatically don't understand how you got from the first part of that statement to the second, let alone what you meant by it. Rephrase please, my dear boy?

Basically, my argument was that while China has a stronger claim to the mines and resources, such a claim is irrelevant due to the fact that cutting the West off from those resources would not be of any benefit to China.

Thus, I would say that the Chinese are in a better economic position here, because they have what the West lacks, and whatever little they do decide to export, they can charge outrageous prices for, due to the comparative tremendous demand in the West for the relatively small supply.

To save room in the reply post, I snipped out your description of the scenario and most of the argument, just for ease of reply. My response is that given the scenario you're proposing, you're absolutely right. China will have a better position due to their increased investment in Africa. In a vacuum, this does support the claim that the Chinese economy will perform better than the Wests given resource shortages.

However, looking at this scenario in the wider context, and factoring in influence, military hard power, etc. China's position becomes less stable. Why? Because, while they may be able to import more to their nation due to their control of the resources, and they COULD charge exorbitant prices for what's left, neither they, nor their African suppliers will have any true reason to follow through with such a situation. While the West may not consider direct action against China a fair move, I would not put it above them to suddenly decide that many of the so called 'republics' in Africa have suddenly become much more 'evil' than they'd previously considered, and warrant a military intervention. (And no, I am not subtly arguing Iraq was for oil, that's a whole seperate can of worms). Given that China does not want its suppliers suddenly under Western occupation, nor do the African governments wish to be hounded by Western forces, it'd be in their best interest to avoid some kind of supply monopoly, and continue to charge fair market prices (at least to the West, the Chinese may arrange a discount fror themselves).

I would also point out that beyond military threats (which I still hold is a very unlikely occurence), the big advantage and 'resource' the West continues to have will be R&D. The West continues to devote more and more of their energy to R&D, and in times of resource shortage, this research will no doubt be aimed more at using limited resources more and more efficiently. This information bargaining chip the West has will go up against the Chinese bargaining chip of the actual raw resources. So, in essence, it will be mostly the same situation as today, only with different things traded. The Chinese give us raw materials from the mines, while we provide the Chinese the research for using the materials in a more efficient way.

In essence, while I agree with you that in isolation, the Chinese will have a better industrial position due to control of the resources production facilities in Africa, I also hold that you are discounting the West's own bargaining chips of military superiority and research. I believe that the combination of those 2 advantages will mean that any Chinese dominance of resource production will be tempered by the need to maintain good relationships with the West.

ChrisWWII wrote:
I would also point out that beyond military threats (which I still hold is a very unlikely occurence), the big advantage and 'resource' the West continues to have will be R&D. The West continues to devote more and more of their energy to R&D, and in times of resource shortage, this research will no doubt be aimed more at using limited resources more and more efficiently.

Ahem.
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/research--chinese-companies-dominate-solar-manufacturing-spending_100001626/

China has been increasing it's R&D spending, and it's expected not to fall any time soon. It's expected that at least some of this research funds will be allocated to renewable research (there's big bucks to be made in energy!)

That article seems to go along with the idea that the Chinese are really good at manufacturing stuff, which doesn't surprise me at all.

China may have increased it, but they're still an industrialized country. The amount of money being spent on R&D in the West no doubt outstrips the Chinese by far. It's the main reason why Western growth is so 'slow' compared to China or India. The Chinese and Indian economies buy up technology from the West, and uses the tech to advance rapidly, while the West has to slowly develop new technology for it to use. That is why, sooner or later, China's growth will slow down. They'll catch up to the West, and will have to spend more time developing their tech,

I'm not too sure about that, I agree that the transfer of technology and things like ease of transport (air planes) and ease of information transfer (internet) has been a major role in China advancing in the world, however, going by the amount of money China is putting into research it's going to rival the U.S at least in the money they spend in the near future (at least within the next 10-15 years anyway if the trends continue).

Also, when you mention Western, I hope you're not bundling all of Western Europe and the U.S together, since I think that the combined economic and research capabilities of both would outstrip the entire of east asia (including the highly developed Japan) in economic, militarily and research.

China will continue to gain power until 2020 when they will conquer the world and force us to eat everything with chopsticks.

ChrisWWII wrote:
However, looking at this scenario in the wider context, and factoring in influence, military hard power, etc. China's position becomes less stable. Why? Because, while they may be able to import more to their nation due to their control of the resources, and they COULD charge exorbitant prices for what's left, neither they, nor their African suppliers will have any true reason to follow through with such a situation.

Except....to amass wealth and power? Y'know, those boring old things countries like to have.

While the West may not consider direct action against China a fair move, I would not put it above them to suddenly decide that many of the so called 'republics' in Africa have suddenly become much more 'evil' than they'd previously considered, and warrant a military intervention. (And no, I am not subtly arguing Iraq was for oil, that's a whole seperate can of worms). Given that China does not want its suppliers suddenly under Western occupation, nor do the African governments wish to be hounded by Western forces, it'd be in their best interest to avoid some kind of supply monopoly, and continue to charge fair market prices (at least to the West, the Chinese may arrange a discount fror themselves).

So...your response is that the West would risk WW3 and China wouldn't want to take that risk, so they'd continue to subsidise cheap exports of ever dwindling supplies at fear of a Western military intervention? Sorry, but I don't necessarily buy that one. If we're considering military factors, and western military intervention looked possible, its entirely likely the Chinese would imprint upon their erstwhile 'allies' the necessity of having Chinese troops on the ground to 'safeguard' their interests. But by this stage of the game, we're wandering into the concepts of spheres of influence, and Cold War Mark II. And there are so many other military/economic factors to consider in such a case that I think your analysis is far too simplistic.

I don't think the Chinese response to the West threatening war would be, 'here take lots of cheap resources! We don't ahve enough for ourselves any more,l but at least we're not at war!'. I think they'd be a spot more belligerent than that.

I would also point out that beyond military threats (which I still hold is a very unlikely occurence), the big advantage and 'resource' the West continues to have will be R&D. The West continues to devote more and more of their energy to R&D, and in times of resource shortage, this research will no doubt be aimed more at using limited resources more and more efficiently. This information bargaining chip the West has will go up against the Chinese bargaining chip of the actual raw resources. So, in essence, it will be mostly the same situation as today, only with different things traded. The Chinese give us raw materials from the mines, while we provide the Chinese the research for using the materials in a more efficient way.

The Western idea of technological superiority is actually starting to fade away now. You reach a point of technological capability whereby all advances are tiny and incremental. Allow me to demonstrate.

A wooden spear to a Iron sword is a massive jump.
A iron sword to a musket is a big jump.
A musket to a sub-machine gun is a big jump.
A submachine gun to a submachine gun capable of firing more rounds and jamming less is not such a big jump.

You're bandying around the term 'R&D' without any real specificity. The only time you mentioned specifics is for 'using resources more efficiently'. Do you honestly believe the West is that much significantly further along in the roads of metallurgy, energy generation, and so on to make a noticeable difference?

But you're going than that. You're claiming that the West will exchange raw materials for new more efficient technology for the resource extraction/processing. There's a few problems with this scenario:-

-Eventually the West gives China all its technology, China is 100% caught up, and no longer has trade resources, putting them in the same advantageous position.
-That this 'R&D' is of substantial enough physical worth, and conceptually far enough ahead, that the Chinese can't simply develop it for themselves.

The Chinese aren't stuipid, they're as capable of sponsoring technological research as anyone else. Why on earth would they trade vast amounts of limited resources in exchange for incremental technological advancements? Better to do it themselves!

In essence, while I agree with you that in isolation, the Chinese will have a better industrial position due to control of the resources production facilities in Africa, I also hold that you are discounting the West's own bargaining chips of military superiority and research. I believe that the combination of those 2 advantages will mean that any Chinese dominance of resource production will be tempered by the need to maintain good relationships with the West.

Military superiority is a whole other ball game. If we're going into WW3/Cold War II scenarios here, there are far more factors to take into account than simple economics. As to research, I hold that any of these unspecified 'research' advantages are incremental enough as to be capable of being developed by the Chinese themselves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ChrisWWII wrote:That article seems to go along with the idea that the Chinese are really good at manufacturing stuff, which doesn't surprise me at all.

China may have increased it, but they're still an industrialized country. The amount of money being spent on R&D in the West no doubt outstrips the Chinese by far. It's the main reason why Western growth is so 'slow' compared to China or India. The Chinese and Indian economies buy up technology from the West, and uses the tech to advance rapidly, while the West has to slowly develop new technology for it to use. That is why, sooner or later, China's growth will slow down. They'll catch up to the West, and will have to spend more time developing their tech,

And thus.....the West will lose their technological advantage over China? Meaning that Western superiority in that field is nullified? Resulting in China wielding considerably more power?

Pssst, just a hint: There is a reason that the Chinese are good at producing stuff, they can COPY things just fine. But actually R&D... No way.

My dads company sold a Chinese company 1 tool. The Chinese called back asking for repair parts for their SEVEN. All of them were identical to the one that they had sold the Chinese. They had reproduced this tool 7 times instead of making their own.

Ketara wrote:
Except....to amass wealth and power? Y'know, those boring old things countries like to have.

True, but I'm think that it'd best serve them increasing wealth and power to NOT kick the legs out from under the Western economy.

So...your response is that the West would risk WW3 and China wouldn't want to take that risk, so they'd continue to subsidise cheap exports of ever dwindling supplies at fear of a Western military intervention? Sorry, but I don't necessarily buy that one. If we're considering military factors, and western military intervention looked possible, its entirely likely the Chinese would imprint upon their erstwhile 'allies' the necessity of having Chinese troops on the ground to 'safeguard' their interests. But by this stage of the game, we're wandering into the concepts of spheres of influence, and Cold War Mark II. And there are so many other military/economic factors to consider in such a case that I think your analysis is far too simplistic.

Not that they'd risk WW3, but a lot of current African republics will be seeing some 'interventions' by the West, and those interventions will just happen to hit countries that posess vital resources. They wouldn't provide cheap resources, no. In a time of shortage, prices WILL go up, there's no stopping that, but the Chinese will at least charge the West fair market value for their resources. They'll probably engineer a discount in for themselves under the table, but they aren't going to try and guy the West. It's just not worth it. A wounded superpower is dangerous. Two wounded superpowers is a threat to everyone they can reach.

My analysis may indeed be simplistic, I am writing this on a web forum for an internet debate, and thus am not devoting as much time and energy to the discussion as I would like. However, a true analysis of possible conflicting Sino-Western influences in Africa in the near future in time of resource shortages seems like it'd be a major essay topic at the very least, and--at the moment--beyond my ability to properly display.

The Western idea of technological superiority is actually starting to fade away now. You reach a point of technological capability whereby all advances are tiny and incremental. Allow me to demonstrate.

But you're going than that. You're claiming that the West will exchange raw materials for new more efficient technology for the resource extraction/processing. There's a few problems with this scenario:-

-Eventually the West gives China all its technology, China is 100% caught up, and no longer has trade resources, putting them in the same advantageous position.
-That this 'R&D' is of substantial enough physical worth, and conceptually far enough ahead, that the Chinese can't simply develop it for themselves.

The Chinese aren't stuipid, they're as capable of sponsoring technological research as anyone else. Why on earth would they trade vast amounts of limited resources in exchange for incremental technological advancements? Better to do it themselves!

True enough, indeed as you get more and more advanced technology, the increase of each individual invention become smaller and smaller and smaller. However, this holds true for everyone, and if I may say so, the West--culturally--is much more research oriented than China and other East Asian powers. Speaking as an American born Chinese myself, I don't feel racist saying this. My reasoning behind this comes from the educational system, in the West the stated goal of education is to teach children how to think and reason critically. East Asian education tends to focus much more on taking in facts and putting them back out, leaving the West with an almost cultural propensity for research, at least opposed to China and East Asia.

Furthermore, I would like to point out that even the Chinese seem to recognize the West's superiority in higher education facilities, sening thousands of students abroad yearly to study in Western universities.

I hold that while the Chinese may be capable of doing it themselves, it'd be almost more cost effective (especially in terms of maintaining a positive relationship with the West) to just continue to current trend of buying Western technological advancements, producing them at a lower cost, and selling it back to the West.

And thus.....the West will lose their technological advantage over China? Meaning that Western superiority in that field is nullified? Resulting in China wielding considerably more power?

China will catch up to the West, eventually. However, the West will continue to pull itself ahead with research slightly faster than the Chinese, the resultant gap may be small but it will be significant. Besides, the Chinese still have a lot of catching up to do.

More importantly, if they get to the point where they're on an even technological footing with the West, their economic growth boom will stagnate, and decrease to something similar to the West's own growth rate.

Ketara wrote:I think you'll find you can. Governments have oft times in history decided to stop exporting to a particular region. Indeed, economic sanctions are supposedly one of the main weapons the West has to impose on various dictatorships around the world. There are also other ways of influencing imports and exports, from heavily taxing certain goods, to banning them altogether.

I'm pretty sure Britain isn't currently exporting arms to Col. Gaddaffi, no? Yet we were a short while ago! *shock horror* A perfect example of how when the situation demands, a country can cease exporting.

You're comparing UK arms exports to Libya with all Chinese exports to the rest of the worth? The former is measured in, what, tens of millions of pounds, the latter is measured in trillions of dollars.

That kind of scale makes the two things very, very different.

However, Western activity there is generally limited, due to the fact that Western nations are generally not so hot on the manufacturing side of things anymore, and so raw resources are of less importance and consequence.

There's a vast amount of Western owned resource extraction companies operating in Africa. All those ore mines and diamonds... they haven't been built by China in the last decade. I mean, all those blue chip resource companies... you're just going to ignore their existance?

And 'Western nations are generally not so hot on the manufacturing side' is one of those internet truths that is actually completely wrong. The biggest manufacturing nation in the world is still the US.

Nor does resource extraction mean the aluminium or whatever has to go to the companies home country.


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Snarky wrote:I'm not too sure about that, I agree that the transfer of technology and things like ease of transport (air planes) and ease of information transfer (internet) has been a major role in China advancing in the world, however, going by the amount of money China is putting into research it's going to rival the U.S at least in the money they spend in the near future (at least within the next 10-15 years anyway if the trends continue).

It isn't about being able to buy tech developed elsewhere, it's about having the economic, political and social infrastructure in place for a business to succeed. It's those intangible factors that you have to build up over time.

China has succeeded because it's very low wages have enabled it to grow low value added industries like textiles, and the difficulty of doing business is not such a factor when you're looking at factories that consist of a warehouse and gakload of sewing machines, but once it starts wanting to move into the really top end market then the bureaucracy, corruption, minimal infrastructure, and small number of highly skilled professionals will become a serious problem.

Look up the comparison charts on "ease of doing business".