Japan Braces for a 'Designed in China' World

My favorite indicator is GNP per capita:

31,910 - USA: 285 million population, $10 trillion GDP
00,780 - China: 1.3 billion population, $5 trillion GDP
32,030 - Japan: 130 million population, $3 trillion GDP
26,620 - Germany: 80 million population, $1.8 trillion GDP
23,500 - UK: 60 million population, $1.2 trillion GDP
24,170 - France: 60 million population, $1.2 trillion GDP
20,170 - Italy: 60 million population, $1.2 trillion GDP

An expansion of the Chinese economy to $20,000 per capita would give it a $125 trillion GDP.

...I disagree about past trends being nothing more indicators. Economics is not as random as many believe. In essence, given a country's land size, population size, and other resources, every country has a certain maximum potential GDP size called the "production possibilities frontier." You wouldn't generally expect a country with just a 5 million population to have as large a GDP over time as a country with 100 million population. And, if anything, China today is following the one-party path of development that E. Asian tiger economies took earlier, so it's reasonable to assume that just as the tigers developed their economies very rapidly, China will do more or less the same. China's economic growth over the past 20 years has actually surpassed those of the tigers...

I agree as far as the economy is concerned. However, other factors must be taken into consideration. The government will affect the growth rate as it chooses to relax or restrict its control on the economy. And as it relaxes or restricts its control on the middle class. China also has to contend with 55 official minority nationalities totaling 91,200,314 and 201 languages. In addition religion has largely been repressed.

People's Republic of China. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo. National or official language: Mandarin Chinese. 1,262,358,000 (1998 UN). 55 official minority nationalities total 91,200,314 or 6.5% of the population (1990). Han Chinese 1,033,057,000 or 93.5% (J. Matisoff). Also includes Central Khmer 1,000, Portuguese 2,000, Shan, Tai Dam 10,000, Tai Don 10,000. Information mainly from J. Dreyer 1976; S. Wurm et al. 1987; J-O Svantesson 1989, 1995; J. Janhumen 1989; J. Matisoff et al. 1996; J. Evans 1999. Secular, Chinese traditional religion, Buddhism, Taoism, Christian, Muslim, traditional religion. Blind population 2,000,000. Deaf population 3,000,000 (1986 Gallaudet University). Deaf institutions: 7. Data accuracy estimate: B. The number of languages listed for China is 202. Of those, 201 are living languages and 1 is extinct. Diversity index 0.48.
link

I believe you made a math error.
China's $5 trillion GDP divided by 1.3 billion people = $3,846 per-capita PPP GDP
$20,000 / $3,846 = 5.2
If China's per-capita PPP GDP were $20,000 instead of $3,846, then China's overall PPP GDP of $5 trillion would have to be multiplied by a factor of 5.2 to give you an overall PPP GDP for China of $26 trillion, not $125 trillion.

I used a different source for my numbers (britannica), which uses the UN system for translating foreign GNP to US dollars, which gave the GNP for China at $923 billion . I didn't check the math against your numbers.

The revised line should read:
00,780 - China: 1.3 billion population, $923 billion GDP
20,000 - China: 1.3 billion population, $24 trillion GDP

Not as scary as 125 but it would still be a big leap for China and a big change for the world.

In an interview last November, Liu Binyan, the former Xinhua journalist and now dissident Chinese writer living in exile in the U.S., suggested: "Nationalism and Han chauvinism are now the only effective instruments in the ideological arsenal of the CCP. Any disruption in the relationship with foreign countries or among ethnic minorities can be used to stir 'patriotic' sentiments of the people to support the communist authorities."

http://www.innermongolia.org/english/ethnic_threat_in_china.htm

The authorities' worries may be justified. Ethnic disturbances could jump from Xinjiang to Tibet and other areas. Hui Muslims, for instance, are chafing under the majority rule of China's dominant Han people. Late last year, they blocked streets in the Shaanxi city of Xian for days after a Hui died in police custody.

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/13/b352086.htm

Yunnan is one of nine western provinces that China is lavishing attention on in the form of its ''Western Big Development'' plan. The plan is designed to bind China's minorities to the motherland, especially in the three western provinces - Yunnan, Tibet, and Xinjiang - where separatist sympathies have simmered. In the 19th century a warlord founded a Muslim kingdom here for 10 years before it was put down by the ruling Quing dynasty, and separatist movements continued well into the 20th century. The struggles of the Tibetans to protect their autonomy and identity are well known. But China's most serious ethnic problem lies to the northwest in Xinjiang, a province geographically half the size of India. There, 8 million Muslim and Turkic-speaking Uighars bordering on the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, outnumber the Han, as ethnic Chinese are called. Xinjiang means ''new province'' and has fallen in and out of Chinese control many times. From the mid-19th century to the Communist victory in 1949, Uighars succeeded three times in setting up independent republics. Unlike the Tibetans, Uighars are part of a greater Turkic-speaking hinterland spreading westward into the new republics of Central Asia. In recent years Uighar separatists have blown up buses and attacked police stations in the name of independence. The Chinese cracked down in 1996, issuing the infamous ''Document 7,'' which rolled back the nascent freedom of religion that had been allowed to grow across China. The document claimed that Islam was being invoked to incite rebellion, which in some cases it was, and hinted darkly that foreign influences were at work. China sees Islamicist rebellions in the Philippines, Indonesia, Russia, and Central Asia and wonders if it could spread to China now that the state is loosening its authoritarian grip. Unfortunately, the thrust of the ''Western Big Development'' seems to be to encourage ethnic Han people to come and settle in the west in order to dilute the minorities and their culture - to create ''new facts on the ground,'' as the Israelies have done in the West Bank. Given the Chinese record in Tibet, this can only lead to more misery for the Uighars and the growth of the same separatist sympathies that China hopes to suppress.

http://www.tibet.ca/wtnarchive/2000/10/24_3.html

China's Communist rulers have captured lands which previous dynasties have only held intermittently. Beijing rules many Muslims whose ancestors owed no traditional allegiance to Beijing. In modern China there are 18 million followers of Islam scattered among 10 ethnic groups. It is the Muslim population of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region which exercises the minds of the Chinese leadership. Recent years have seen the mobilisation of Islam in the cause of their ethnic separatist struggle. The Uighurs are a Turkic people who have their own language and distinct Islamic culture. Uighur separatists lay claim to the revival of a short-lived earlier political entity of Eastern Turkestan. The western Uighur region of Xinjiang is rich in minerals, oil and gas - resources lacking in the Chinese heartland and essential for China's growth and stability. Beijing has no interest in fostering greater self determination for its Uighur citizens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/monitoring/media_reports/newsid_1304000/1304652.stm

At the session, the president also called upon the PLA to assume more responsibilities in fighting anti-terrorist activities, primarily in regions with concentrations of ethnic minorities -- and underground separatist groups.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/03/12/china.jiang/

Sperling emphasized that economic growth and better material conditions in Tibet will not necessarily resolve the region's ethnic problems. Because of historical conflicts between Chinese and Tibetans as well as Beijing's harsh measures against religious freedom and political protests in Tibet, it is difficult to imagine that Tibet would be integrated into China through economic means and the implementation of the great western development program. Both Benson and Sperling believe Tibet and Xinjiang will maintain their cultural identities despite increased Han immigration. As Benson pointed out, the language and culture in Xinjiang is primarily Turkic, despite Beijing's claims that Xinjiang has always been part of China. Ethnic Uighurs and the newly arrived Han Chinese are intolerant of each other, and little or no intermarriage has occurred. Benson concluded, therefore, that Han Chinese immigration into Xinjiang is not likely to lessen local identity. Sperling argued that increasing immigration from China proper into Tibet will strengthen rather than weaken Tibetans' national feeling and their struggle against Sinicization.

http://wwics.si.edu/asia/reports/2000/chminor.htm

Xinjiang, a predominantly Muslim Uighur region, with ethnic Han Chinese making up only 37 percent of the population, has faced a growing separatist movement since 1996. A wave of violent demonstrations in February 1997 was followed by a government crackdown, in which thousands or tens of thousands of separatists (depending on the report) were arrested. According to security sources in Beijing, cited by the South China Morning Post, Xinjiang's pro-independence movement has escalated into an armed struggle due to "an influx of firearms into the western parts of the autonomous region." The sources claimed that clashes involving "heavy firearms" have taken place when authorities attempted to confiscate arms caches. Beijing has sought the assistance of Central Asian republics in stemming this arms traffic, but the Chinese government is worried that the Uighurs could find a new source of arms in the Taleban militia of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/asia/GIU081898.html

China's secrecy and preoccupation with saving face make it all but impossible to confirm the rebels' claims. But every so often the bamboo curtain parts to reveal the reality of its ethnic divisions. An official Xinjiang newspaper, the Talimu Daily, reported that in one region, Aksu, between February and July the police "destroyed 78 violent terrorist groups, captured 768 suspects, caught 153 violent terrorists and cracked 633 criminal cases". It said security forces seized 908 illegal guns and nearly 3,000kg of explosives from separatists and extremist religious elements.

http://www.uyghuramerican.org/researchanalysis/chinahides.html

Even assuming peaceful reunification with Taiwan and victory over Tibetan separatists, Beijing's leaders face some big hurdles. They must integrate a billion subsistence-level farmers and workers into the consumer economy of the east coast or face ethnic discontent on a scale that would dwarf America's racial strife of the 1960s. Yet burdening the developed regions could breed separatist sentiment in Guangdong, Fujien, Manchuria and other regions. Over 100 languages and dialects are spoken in China. Long-suppressed religious minorities are becoming better organized thanks to the internet and other communications technology

http://goldsea.com/Air/Issues/China/china.html.

Let's hope China develops a large wealth middle class as soon as possible. However, I just saw a TV show about traveling through the Sichuan area of China, and it shows that China still has a long way to go.

...China can gradually introduce those freedoms as its middle-class gets bigger...Introducing religious freedom and other freedoms associated with democracy too early may lead to premature adoption of democracy itself, and the end result may be that China becomes another Third World democratic economic basketcase like India or Russia...

Name one instance where any nation has peacefully transitioned to democracy. I don't think it has ever happenned.

...we live in an age of globalization where the trend is for countries to unify together (like the European Union) so as to be in a better, stronger position to face the larger global economic environment. Even if China ever did break apart, eventually it would just unify back together again because of Han homogeneity and globalization...

independent
Estonia (from USSR 1990)
Latvia (from USSR 1991)
Lithuania (from USSR 1990)
Belarus (from USSR 1991)
Moldova (from USSR 1991)
Ukraine (from USSR 1991)
Armenia (from USSR 1991)
Azerbaijan (from USSR 1991)
Georgia (from USSR 1991)
Kazakhstan (from USSR 1991)
Kyrgyzstan (from USSR 1991)
Tajikistan (from USSR 1991)
Turkmenistan (from USSR 1991)
Uzbekistan (from USSR 1991)
Czech republic (from Czechoslovakia 1993)
Slovakia (from Czechoslovakia 1993)
Slovenia (from Yugoslavia 1991)
Croatia (from Yugoslavia 1991)
Bosnia and Herzegovina (from Yugoslavia 1992)
Macedonia (from Yugoslavia 1991)
Namibia (from South Africa 1990)
Eritrea (from Ethiopia 1993)
East Timor (from Indonesia 1999)
Palau (US 1994)

violent struggles
Palestine (Israel)
Transdniester (Moldova)
Nagorno-Kharabak (Azerbaijan)
Chechen republic (Russia)
Ossestian (Georgia)
Abkhazian (Georgia)
Ulster (United Kingdom)
Aceh (Indonesia)
Moluccu Islands (Indonesia)
West Sumatra (Indonesia)
North Sulawesi (Indonesia)
Irian Jaya (Indonesia)
Kosovo (Yugoslavia)
Bougainville (Papua New Guinea)
Basque (France,Spain)
Tibet (China)
Xinjiang (China)
Taiwan (China)
Inner Mongolia (China)
Kurdistan (Turkey,Syria,Iraq,Iran)
South Sudan (Sudan)
Chiapas (Mexico)
Mindanao (Philipines)

non-violent struggles
Scotland (United Kingdom)
Cornwall (United Kingdom)
Wales (United Kingdom)
Quebec (Canada)
Corsica (France)
Occitan (France)
Brittany (France)
Alsace-Lorraine (France)
Savoy (France)
Mughalstan (India)
Tamil (India)
Sikh (India)
Padania (Italy)
Two Sicilies (Italy)
Catalonia (Spain)

I don't care if it's China. I don't care if it's Panama or any other nation. Doing this, turning over R&D to a foreign entity, is nothing less than national suicide.

Yup. The push to move manufacturing to China is going to be even stronger if somehow the Kyoto Protocol gets implemented. China has no limitations under that treaty.

At least it's a long swim from China to Japan.

It's about four hours by plane between Tokyo and Beijing.

But with Japan rivaling the United States as China's biggest economic partner, such hostile talk has prompted a series of "China is not a threat" statements.

It's about as hard to avoid the "Made in China" label in Japan as it is in the US.

The Nintendo (news - web sites) Company, for instance, produces 70 percent of its GameBoy Advance units in China

Oh no! Say it isn't so.

Exactly. And the lapdogs of the corporations are licking their lips. Lot's of profits to be made when you can pay people $0.20 an hour to work 12 hour days.