Victor Davis Hanson
Is China already unbeatable?
In just 40 years, China has created the second-largest economy in the world. Its military is the second(?) strongest military in the world. It is producing ships, military and mercantile, at a rate 230 times greater per year than America, which has all but destroyed what was once the greatest shipbuilding industry in the world. (In World War II, we built a Liberty or Freedom ship every 5 days, producing almost 3,000. And by the end of the war, we had built well over 120 fleet, light, and escort aircraft carriers. Our battleships, carriers, submarines, and cruisers were also the best in the world; and the U.S. fleet by 1945 was larger than all the navies of the world combined.)
China is building 4-5 nuclear weapons a month, in efforts to reach 1,000 in five years on its multiyear trajectory to pass the United States. China may already have about 2,500 jet fighter aircraft, about double the number of America’s (which may still be plane for plane far superior).
So, is the future China’s?
Not necessarily so.
Consider even at our nadir and China’s ascendence the U.S. still has lots of advantages.
China is about 4.2 times greater in population than the U.S. Yet in terms of nominal GDP, the Chinese economy is approximately $19.53 trillion in size, while the United States’ is about $30.34 trillion.
So, in rough terms of population to nominal GDP, one American still accounts for about 1.5 times the gross domestic product for each of his four Chinese counterparts. In terms of per capita income, Americans nominally are nearly 7 times as wealthy as Chinese.
Even in terms of relative purchasing power, Americans enjoy three to six times greater wealth, depending on the formula used. In most metrics, America is the 6th richest country in the world in terms of per capita income, and China is far back at 73rd.
The U.S. produces about 3 times the oil per day as does China. In terms of the value of food produced, the U.S. generates about double ($400 billion to $200 billion) the worth of agricultural goods than China.
In terms of all military aircraft, from helicopters to logistics planes, the U.S. is still far ahead with 3,435 total military aircraft while China operates just 1,943. And in terms of high-tech fifth-generation fighter aircraft, America is again far ahead with 586 to China’s 38.
We operate 11 carrier groups, all centered around huge, nuclear-powered, 100,000-ton plus fleet carriers; China is attempting to build a third carrier.
You get the picture.
Our grandparents and parents left us an enormous inheritance, preeminent globally in almost every category. So great was their bequest that even China has not yet caught up, even though the last 40 years have seen a general decline in the quality of American generations.
We have committed near economic and social suicide, pursuing all sorts of disastrous and social projects such as radical anti-meritocratic wokism, the DEI and ESG dual drags on productivity, the politicization and dumbing down of our universities and K-12 schools, the bizarre idea of destroying the border and welcoming in 30 million illegal aliens, the insane Green New Deal straitjacket on energy production, and the growth of a 3-million-person regulatory federal workforce, fraught with waste, fraud, and abuse.
It is the above that Trump, perhaps alone of recent presidents, is trying to address. He is welcoming Silicon Valley and Wall Street titans under nationalist-patriotic auspices to ensure the U.S. is globally number one in artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, biotech, genetic engineering, lasers, cryptocurrencies, robotics, and electronic communications.
He is pushing back where China first pushed forward from Panama to Greenland. He is trying to stop the offshoring and outsourcing to China, in which American companies lose valuable technology to their Chinese hosts. The latter welcome companies in, xerox their methods and expertise, and then either harass or expel them when they are no longer useful idiots.
Trump sees our once-great universities are our Achilles’ heel. They have become indoctrination centers and are losing their once-wide global leads in math, science, engineering, physics, and professional schools like business, medicine, and law. And the reason is largely because of a toxic commissar system that demands ideological fealty rather than encourages free thinking and rewarding exceptionalism.
So, China is an existential threat, but we began so far ahead of Mao Zedong’s legacy mess, and our system once was so meritocratic and open, that we still have time to repivot and reassert the values and protocols of our parents to widen our now shrinking lead.
Who has done more for the country—Tim Walz or Elon Musk?
The future is in our hands: is it to be SpaceX or burning Teslas?
Top SAT scores or 80 percent A’s at Yale?
A balanced budget by 2026—or paying $3 billion a day in interest.
Sixth-generation fighters and a 100,000-drone air fleet or drag shows at military bases?
Welcoming in Tren de Aragua and M-13 or PhDs from Europe and Asia?
Campuses of engineering supremacy or overrun with pro-Hamas/October 7 violent student visa holders?
A $1.3 trillion-dollar trade surplus or tariff parity with all our friends, neutrals, and enemies?
So, we can choose our destiny: global preeminence and “don’t tread on me” Jacksonism or subservience to a future Chinese diktat?
The post <span class="ultra-flag 4"><i class="fas fa-lock"></i>VDH Ultra</span>The Problem with China. Part Two appeared first on VDH’s Blade of Perseus.