052C and beyond

In 2003, the first two 052C class destroyers were launched in JiangNan shipyard. These two ships (170 and 171) were commissioned into the South Sea Fleet in 2004 and 2005. Since then, they have been the most advanced and powerful warships in service with PLAN. After these ships joined service, we have been waiting for the next evolution of destroyers to join PLAN. Russia delivered a couple of Type 956 EM battleships shortly afterward, but they really are not as advanced as 052C. After that, 2 051C destroyers were launched in Dalian and commissioned into North Sea Fleet, but they do not have the advanced combat system, multifunctional radar, long range anti-ship missile and more streamlined hull of 052C. As a result of Shanghai World Expo in 2010, JiangNan shipyard was moved to ChangXing Island. We were waiting to see new photos from ChangXing Island to see new DDGs to come out. Finally in 2010, we started seeing photo of a new 052C at the JiangNan shipyard at ChangXing. The third 052C was finally launched in late 2010. We looked carefully at the pictures and did not see any major external change compared to the first two.

After almost 2 years, the third 052C is finally ready to join East Sea Fleet as 150. We see a photo below of what appears to be its last sea trial. The number has yet to be painted, but everything should be set. These will be using the new QC280 gas turbines as opposed to the GT-25000 on the first two 052C.

We also had a boatload of pictures coming out of JiangNan shipyard over a week ago. First, we can see the current status of the 4th and 5th 052C. The 4th 052C might have had its first sea trial already, but it still has plenty of scaffolding, indicating the additional work needed. Both of these ships should join East Sea Fleet in the same flotilla as 150 before end of 2013 (as 151 and 152).



The 6th 052C also launched recently at the shipyard. It looks much further away and launched without much installations. I think it was only launched because newer warships had to be moved into the dry docks (which can only handle two warships of 052C size at the same time). This will probably join ESF as 153 by early 2014. We will have to wait a little bit to see if 5th and 6th 052C have any external differences from the earlier ones.

A little less further along, we have 3 more destroyers under construction in JN shipyard. There are two destroyers in the dry docks as shown below. We can also see the modules of a third one outside. At this point, we don't know if these ships will be like 052Cs or of a new class. It could be the 052D class or a whole new designation.


We have a seen a couple of development on experiment ships that may carry forward for the newer ships. First, we have this new type of multifunctional radar being tested on 891. It looks like an improvement over the current type on 052C.

Another interesting development are these launchers for what appears to be the naval version of CJ-10 LACM. It's quite possible that 052D and future variants will be using tube launched LACM. There have been words on Chinese version of MK-41 in development, but it might not be able to launch something the size of a LACM.

China's foreign policy under Deng

This is the second part of my blog entries on Deng Xiaoping based on the book by Ezra Vogel. Next time, I will explore Deng and June 4th student movement, but this entry will look over his foreign policy works. Ezra Vogel did a great job exploring the major foreign policy decisions faced with Deng at the time of his reign. They included the normalization of relations with USA, Japan, USSR, war with Vietnam and negotiations with Taiwan and Tibetan exile government.

When looking at the normalization of relationship with USA and Japan in the late 70s, it's really interesting to see how weak China's negotiation positions were. At that point, China needed the west for investments, technology, education and support against USSR. In fact, Mao decided to approach US only after he realized China badly needed America to help fend off the Soviet threat. It's probably hard for someone from Deng's generation to imagine the West needing China for money to bail out.

When Deng came back to power in the late 70s, China was facing not only overwhelming Soviet threat to the north and West (the backfires could bomb Beijing and fly back to their bases without escort), but also a superior trained and equipped Vietnamese side to the south. Even North Korean support was not guaranteed. China was faced with a full encirclement and was weak economically and militarily. First, Deng made sure to firm up China's relationship with the North Koreans to reduce threat from East. Then, Deng decided China had to break the encirclement by attacking Vietnam. Of course, China was facing the threat of Soviet retaliation, so it worked hard to speed up the normalization of relations with both USA and Japan. America and its allies feared USSR hegemony over continental Asia, so both USA and Japan were willing to extend hand to China for cooperation against USSR. Deng recognized a window of opportunity to show a new and stable China to the rest of the world and normalize relations with Western powers. In 1972, China had already officially normalized relations with Japan, but a more comprehensive treaty needed to be signed and China wanted an anti-hegemony clause for support against USSR, Before Deng visited Japan in October 1978, Japan had been reluctant to accept such a clause that was so blatantly pointed at USSR. China was limited by time constraint of its impending invasion into Vietnam, so eventually gave in by allowing a mitigation clause saying the anti-hegemony was not aimed at anyone. When Deng visited Japan, he put a lot of Japanese at ease about Chinese intentions and focused on future cooperations rather than the past. By not bombarding Japan with past guilt, Deng won a lot of support from Japanese business in investment and modernization. When I read this, I think that the current generation of Chinese leaders also have better options in negotiations with Japan than only trying to push forward with hard power. They can have less aggressive foreign policy toward Japan without appearing to be weak at home.

By the late 70s, high level discussions were under way for normalization of relations between China and USA. Deng realized that he not only needed US to counter Soviet threat, but also to modernize and invest. Deng's biggest pitch to USA was the threat of Soviet ambitions and hegemony in Asia. He labeled the Americans as too soft on USSR. There was the one major problem of Taiwan. Deng would not normalize relations with US unless US broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan, ended US/Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty and withdrew its military from Taiwan. Deng expected Taiwan to be forced to reunify with China once this happens. Deng would allow Taiwan to still have its own autonomy and even keep its army, but take down its flag. US basically agreed with all the conditions, but insisted that it reserves the right to sell Taiwan selected weapons of defensive nature. Deng eventually gave in to that demand allowed normalization to continue. i think Deng realized that China did not have enough leverage on Washington to stop all weapon sales. They had a narrow window of opportunity to negotiate the normalization of relation due to the political climate in Washington and the Taiwan lobby. Deng and the US negotiators at that time believed that weapon sales would eventually stop completely as American public accept mainland as the only China, which would pressure Taiwan into reunifiction talks. I think Deng held out hope that Taiwan would cave and reunify with China during his life time, but that obviously did not happen. Two important events happened to stop this. Taiwan ended martial law and human right abuses and adopted democracy. The June 4th student movement was crushed in Beijing and stopped China's move toward greater political reform. After that, Mainland became the evil dictatorship and Taiwan became the democratic underdog seeking liberty. It would be hard to imagine American public supporting ending weapon sales at this point. At the same time, the Chinese leadership have not given up the hope that America would stop weapon sales to Taiwan over time due to these early discussions. So if you wonder why China makes a big deal out of each weapon sales to Taiwan, it is because China expected USA to stop selling weapons to Taiwan several years after the normalization. We've seen many change of leadership in America since 1979, but the Chinese leadership still adopts the same position taken by Deng over 30 years ago. Of course, the normalization has helped China far more than USA, so Deng was correct to conceed on the weapon sales even if he was accused by some as too soft in negotiations. More importantly, Deng impressed his American counterparts with his directness and provided a look of reason to the American public during his visit. He did not appear as a hated communist but rather someone looking to improve the lives of his people. That's someone the Western world can sympathize in. He managed to have a successful trip even though he told Carter that China is about to attack Vietnam. The current generation of Chinese leaders are a bunch of lifeless technocrats who always stick by the script. I don't think any of them could have pulled that off without widespread condemnation.

Once Deng came back from America, China launched its war against Vietnam. The elite PLA troops were left along the Soviet border for possible retaliations, so only secondary tier of troops were attacking Vietnam. The conflict concluded in less than 30 days without Soviet intervention and PLA claimed to have achieved its primary goals before withdrawing with a "Scorch Earth" policy. However, PLA suffered serious casualty, because it was still recovering from the Cultural Revolution and was simply not ready to fight. Looking broadly, Deng did achieve his goal of reducing Vietnamese power in ASEAN region and enhancing China's standing amongst countries fearing Vietnam/USSR hegemony. The Scorch Earth policy seriously damaged infrastructure/countryside in North Vietnam and severely reduce the offensive capability of Vietnam along the border. By demonstrating to Vietnam that it is willing to attack, Vietnam was forced to keep more than half a million soldier to protect itself from China. Vietnam eventually could not afford to keep that many soldiers along Chinese border while also occupying Cambodia, so it had to give up its dream of regional hegemony. This conflict basically removed the Soviet encirclement allowing China to have peace and fully pursue economic development. Even so, I tend to think the last part could have been achieved without attacking Vietnam. Not only did China suffer 20,000 to 60,000 causalities, it also diverted precious resources that should have gone toward improving the economy. Unlike the current American model of financing war on debt, China had to run a relatively balanced budget at that time. On top of that, the invasion and earth scorching policies have left deep distrust and resentment toward China from Vietnam. And after Soviet Union got bogged down in Afghanistan in the 80s, China no longer faced the same level of encirclement dangers from the Soviets. We will never know if the Soviet encirclement threat was so great that China had to loose so many young lives and money to ensure peace and stability.

Deng's approach toward USSR as a whole was quite effective. By the 70s, the security threat facing China from USSR was so strong that even Mao decided to turn to the much hated Americans for support. PLA combat capabilities significantly weakened during the Cultural Revolution as it focused on class struggle and political thoughts rather than training and improvement. And America was receptive toward Chinese overtures because it was concerned that USSR would take over China and dominate all of Asia. Deng faced the same threat when he took over, which is why he made such a strong presentation to Japan and America about the threat of Soviet hegemony in Europe and Asia. He repeatedly pointed out American weakness and labeled SALT II as American appeasement toward Soviets. Deng himself took a very hard stance toward Russians. He attacked Vietnam to show that Russia was not prepared to be drawn into a land war in East Asia. This was an extremely gusty and risky move, because PLA really would have a hard time stopping Soviet advances had a retaliation come. Deng felt that Soviet concerns in Europe and China's new found friendship with USA and Japan would prevent Soviet retaliation to the north. He turned out to be right. After he felt the encirclement threat was gone, he reached out to USSR again for normalization of relations. He felt that USSR would eventually exhaust from arms race with America and its war in Afghanistan, so he gave them three conditions for normalizing relations. He demanded that the Soviets had to pull out of Afghanistan, remove troops from China's northern border area and the Vietnamese had to leave Cambodia. He stuck by those conditions all through the 80s until the Soviet leadership gave in to normalize relations. Gorbachev came in 1989 on Deng's terms and even offered to sell China its most advanced Su-27 fighter jets.

Deng, like Mao and Zhou before him, had hoped that Taiwan would reunite with China during their lifetime. In 1683, 22 years after remnants of Ming troops fled to Taiwan, their leaders agreed that Taiwan would again become part of China. Deng hoped that Chiang Ching-Kuo would also rejoin Taiwan to China. He proposed that Taiwan could keep its own social system for 1000 years and even keep its own army, but have to take down its flag. Chiang was defiant and maintained that the Republic of China represented all of China. Deng wanted to isolate Taiwan in the international stage to pressure them into voluntarily rejoining China, but the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act provided all the support that Taiwan needed. It was a huge blow for Deng, who felt that that the conditions of normalization would lead to reduction of arms sales to Taiwan. Deng believed at that time that US would eventually stop selling all weapons to Taiwan, which would pressure Taiwan to rejoin China at some point down the road. 15 years after Deng's death, US and China still have the same position toward Taiwan. On one hand, Taiwan has drawn closer to China with business integration, increased trades, direct flights and increased tourism. On the other hand, the majority of Taiwanese now consider themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. Deng had said that China is willing to wait a century and even a millennium to reunify with Taiwan. You can see that the current Chinese leadership is still trying to slowly increase its leverage over Taiwan until Taiwan takes down its flag. The negotiations over Hong Kong was also quite interesting. Britain was coming off the highs of Falkland Islands victory and Thatcher came into the negotiations thinking that Deng's positions were negotiation tactics. Thatcher came out of the meeting with Deng so shaken by Deng's tough stance that she slipped and fell to her knees. Over the next year, Deng made it clear that China is not Argentina and would send in the troops to take control of Hong Kong if needed. China's forceful position eventually persuaded the British to sign the declaration for handing over Hong Kong in 1997.

Deng's positions toward Tibet was not as inflexible as some may think. Back in the 1950s, Mao had achieved relatively good relations with the Tibetans by allowing Dalai Lama to have relative autonomy over the Tibetan Autonomous Regions (TAR). Tibetans accepted Chinese sovereignty, but was granted the right to administer TAR, keep their own currency and even maintain their own army. China would be in charge of foreign affairs, military affairs and border controls. The problem happened due to the communist reforms in areas outside of TAR, where half of the Tibetans lived. The Tibetans in Sichuan rioted and then fled to Tibet after they were beaten. Of course, we had more conflicts on TAR in 1959, which led to Dalai Lama moving the Tibetan exile government to India. When Deng came to power, he had to reconcile with Tibetans who had suffered the wrath of Cultural Revolution when the red guard destroyed a lot of Tibetan culture. Deng really tried to make amend when he first came to power, but he also was unaware of the true alienation of Tibetans against the Han population. When Tibetan exile delegation visited TAR, they became more critical of Chinese treatment of Tibetans. Hu Yaobang and Deng tried to take a much softer approach in TAR to satisfy the Tibetans. However, their position was still not good enough for Dalai Lama and also increased Tibetan belief that they can become independent. The two sides did try to reconcile their positions, but at least one Tibetan condition is too much even for the most reasonable and leniant Chinese negotiator. Tibetan exiles wanted the boundaries of Tibet to be extended to include the Tibetan minority areas in other provinces including Sichuan, Ginghai, Gansu and Yunnan. Now, Tibetans are the minorities in these area (and have been so for quite some time), so I think this is probably the most unreasonable condition. Now, the softer approach toward Tibetan led to to Tibetan revolts for full independence in the late 1980s, which were crushed. Since then, China has practiced a much more heavy handed approach in Tibet while trying to promote economic growth to stabilize the region. Through the negotiations in the 80s, I think Chinese leadership concluded that although Dalai Lama himself may accept autonomy and return to rule in Tibet, the rest of the Tibetan exile movement are more extreme and would not allow Dalai Lama to take a middle approach. I think the Chinese leadership would've been okay with granting Dalai Lama the same level of autonomy that he had in the 1950s (if not more) for TAR, but there have been too much bad blood built up in the recent years for Tibetans to accept that. The positions from both side have not really changed since the 80s. Unless Chinese leadership is willing to apologize to the Tibetans and push local officials to be more lenient in TAR, I don't really see things moving for the better. On the overall scheme of things, Deng never regarded Tibet as important as Taiwan, Hong Kong and foreign relations.

I think the most impressive part is that Deng knew what he could extract from each country that he dealt with. He knew which countries he needed to visit to build up support for his agenda. He also had a clear understanding of the geopolitical situation around the world and waited for the right time to strike. He also appealed to other world leaders with his directness and honesty. During normalization of relations with USSR, he told American counterparts that negotiations were going on and assured them that relations with America would remain strong. Deng formulated the theory that China should "adopt a low profile and never take the lead". Simply put, Deng knew how to reduce tension and build relationships without caving into foreign demands. After Deng, I think the Jiang Zemin + Zhu Rongji administration also did a good job, but the current Hu Jintao administrations just seem to bundle one situation after another. The other interesting thing he did was allowing large numbers of Chinese students to travel abroad to study (compared to Soviet fears of brain drain). He thought that those who go abroad would help China even if they did not return to China right away. That's one assessment that he had great foresight in. An ever increasing number of former students that settled abroad have now brought back their knowledge and expertise to improving China. I see this in my parents' generation. Many of them are living comfortable lives in the Western world, but still talk of doing something to help their home land. Overall, I think Deng should not have attack Vietnam. Other than that, I think his policies were spot on.

An updates from Chinese shipyards

It's been a while since I've last updated on the activities of the Chinese shipyards. I've last updated in April and we have seen quite a lot of activities since that time. Just to give an update on progress from different shipyards before showing some pictures.

The 3rd 052C looks to have entered service as 150. We haven't seen too many photos from JN shipyard, so I'm not sure what exactly are the status of the 4th and 5th 052C. Although, I expect the 4th 052C to be on sea trials right now. 054A construction continues to be at a brisk pace. The 5th 054A from HD shipyard joined the North Sea Fleet as 546. The 6th 054A from HP shipyard joined the South Sea Fleet as 572. We have seen the launching of the 8th 054A from HP shipyard and the 7th 054A from HD shipyard. I think there will eventually be 18 054A joining service. Combining that with the 2 054 FFG, they will form 5 flotillas (2 in SSF, 2 in ESF and 1 in NSF). The other interesting part is that the newer 054As are all getting sent to Gulf of Adens. Having additional 054As in rotation for 3 months deployments (longer when we factor the time to go there and back) would reduce the stress level for the sailors of the earlier 054As. It provides for a long extended sea trials for the new 054As and a great training opportunity for their crew. We have to remember that most PLAN crews have neither operated on a modern ship nor been on long deployments before getting assigned to their new ships.

We also have seen the launching of the first 056 class patrol ship from both HD and HP shipyards. It remains to be seen how large of a production run 056 will see, but the speculation is that 056 will be replacing 037 class. That would put the production number somewhere between the 054A class and the 022 class. Among the larger ships, we have seen both Type 903 AORs from GSI and HD shipyard launched. PLAN's existing fleet of AORs have been severely over-worked on Gulf of Aden deployments, so they would really welcome the additional Type 903s. Also, it appears that the second Type 926 submarine tender have joined the service.

Here are some recent photos from around Chinese shipyards. The first 3 are from HD shipyard. They show the recently launched 7th 054A and the first 056 from HD shipyard.


The pictures below shows the yet to be launched second 056 class and the newly launched Type 903 AOR.


Now, we have photos from HP shipyard showing the 8th 054A and the first 056 ships. The one below shows the second 056 which appears ready to be launched soon.


Finally, we have a picture from GSI (Guangzhou Shipyard International) showing the third type 926 submarine tender and the other Type 903 AOR.

First thoughts on Deng Xiaoping

Recently, I've been reading Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China by Ezra Vogel. I still have not finished reading this book, but have read enough to be riveted by its content and amazed by Deng and other important leaders of his time. Many of the people mentioned in the book like Deng, Mao, Zhou Enlai, Nixon, Kissinger and Brzezinski are larger than life characters to me. Not only are they truly impressive human beings with knowledge and leadership qualities, but they are also masters at diplomacy and maneuvering in foreign relations. Compared to leaders of that era, the current Chinese leaderships are a group of dull, gutless technocrats who continually get out-maneuvered in the international arena by their American counterpart. For those who want a thorough understanding of China, I think this book is a must read. Many of the competing forces in the communist leadership mentioned in the book are still there today in the current Chinese leadership.

The book spent a lot of time talking about the two leaders (Mao and Deng) who have most profoundly affected China since the communist party took over. I've always thought of Mao and Deng to both be incredibly ruthless people with strong leadership qualities. Those beliefs have been more or less confirmed reading this book. This book confirmed to me that Mao was extremely egotistical and used his power for self-promotion and the promotion of his own brand insane economic and political model. His ruthlessness brought poverty and backwardness to China as well as the deaths and punishment of everyone around him who dared questioning him. By contrast, Deng used his ruthlessness not for his own gains, but rather for improvements in the life of Chinese people and continued strength of the communist party. Deng believed strongly that only peace, unity and political stability behind the rule of communist party can lead to the prosperity and strengthening of China. He believed extremely strongly that China needed centralized powers to achieve its end goals. He was willing to use his powers to toss away/humiliate leaders like Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and Hua Guofeng, crush student protest and take heavy casualties in war against Vietnam. He did all of this because he believed those things are needed to achieve the end goals of prosperous and strong China. He had been purged 3 times in life (humiliated many more times) and his son became crippled during one of those purge. Those events really hardened him to the point where he seemed to believe that individuals or minority group suffering is okay as long as the majority of country gains. These ideals that Deng instilled in his reign seem to still be prevalent in China now. I will talk about everything in detail later, but I want people to know that Deng is not a warm fuzzy leader with Western ideals of democracy and liberty nor is he a brutal dictator like Mao, Stalin or Qaddafi. He is a strongly convicted and committed reformer willing to do whatever is necessary to bring the changes that he thinks are needed to fix China. He was very effective in leading China out of poverty and irrelevance. Since his departure from leadership, the past 2 generations of leaders have only lived off the changes that he brought.

SAC's 5th generation effort

I've been gone most of the past month because I was getting read to be married and then going on honeymoon and moving in to a new place afterward. I've finally been able to catch up on the PLA news a little bit in the past few days. One of the more interesting things popping up in the last few days is the mysterious plane under the covers from SAC. There are a lot of suspicions that this is SAC's 5th generation project. In fact, Huitong has posted one of these pictures on his website and Chinese military forums are again buzzing with talks on the so called F-60/J-21 project. I have always thought that SAC was working on a 5th generation project and believed that it will be unveiled around this time, so I'm not surprised at these news. However, I think we should also wait and see the covers off and more pictures coming out before judging how effective of a plane it will be or if this model that's been transported is even real. As usual, let's keep our figures crossed and wait for more info to come out.

Recent activities around Chinese shipyards

The last blog entry was deemed to be too negative toward Chinese social problems by some readers. So, I want to spend this entry to just catch up on the activities around the different Chinese shipyards. In many ways, this has been one of the most active years of naval shipbuilding in recent times. We are seeing heavy activity going on in most of the major shipyards around the country. Below are some of the recent photos we have seen of surface ships. There has been a continued submarine production, but I've somewhat lost track of the exact number of Yuan submarines that have been produced. I think they are still in the single digits. Work is also continuing on Varyag, but I don't have any news to report other than it is recently conducting another sea trial. First of all, the 056 project is really making some progress. They are building them in both HuDong and HuangPu shipyard alongside the 054A projects. I'm really curious of how the 056 will turn out in the end, but it's already turning out to be smaller than I had expected. If you get a full picture of 056 next to 054A at HP shipyard, you'd see how small 056 is. Interestingly enough, it does have an outsized looking bow mounted sonar. There are currently 2 056 in advanced stage of construction at HD shipyard. You can see them below with the first picture showing both of them and the second one just showing the one that's more advanced.


The pictures below shows the first 056 from HP shipyard that is building beside the 8th 054A from there. This appears to be the 056 that's the furthest along.


The pictures of 052C below are from a month ago. The first two pictures shows the third, fourth and fifth 052C from JN shipyard. The third one has since joined the East Sea Fleet as 150. The next 3 052C should be joining the same flotilla as 150. You can see that the fourth and fifth are both launched and in various stage of fitting out. I don't believe either has gone on sea trials yet.


The next two photos show the 6th and 7th 052C under construction and yet to be launched. It's still unknown at this point if these units will have any differences from the launched ones.


We have not seen much new action for 071 LPD. The third unit is still parked outside of HD shipyard.

The picture below shows the 2nd and 3rd Type 926 submarine tender that were getting fitted out at GuangZhou shipyard. I believe the second one may have gone on sea trials recently, because we have not seen any pictures coming out for it.
Of course, the 054A project is still ongoing. The picture below shows the 6th 054A from HD shipyard. The 5th one just joined service recently with North Sea Fleet. I haven't seen any recent photos of the 7th one, because HD shipyard has a lot of activity going around.

The next two are the 7th and 8th 054A from HP shipyard. I think the 6th one is close to joining service. The 8th one looks to not be that far away from launching.


And finally, we are seeing new AOR ships with PLAN. Unlike previous speculations, these look to have very few modifications from the existing Type 903 AORs (886, 887) currently in service with PLAN. One of them was launched a month ago in Guangzhou.

The other one is in advanced stage of construction of HD shipyard.

So, there is a lot of activities going on. I will I have more time to report on these things, but things are pretty busy, so I will try to report on them once in a while.

Looking at a recent article on US/China rivalry

The relationship between China and America has been characterized by many as complex. Even with the bitter partisanship in Washington, most democrats and republicans seem to have no problem looking at China as a threat and using China as a scapegoat for economic problems in America. I think it's also quite clear that the US military views China as its most likely foe in the future regardless of how many confidence building measures are proposed. Of course, the Chinese government officially try to avoid overly confrontational language, even though PLA generals and Global Time often voice strong opposition to America.

Recently, I read this article where it talks about how people in the Chinese ruling elite really feel about America. Here are a few really interesting snippet.

The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble

China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country

the authors say the level of strategic distrust between the two countries has become so corrosive that if not corrected the countries risk becoming open antagonists.

In contrast, China has mounting self-confidence in its own economic and military strides, particularly the closing power gap since the start of the Iraq war. In 2003, he argues, America’s gross domestic product was eight times as large as China’s, but today it is less than three times larger.

the Chinese leadership, backed by the domestic news media and the education system, believes that China’s turn in the world has arrived, and that it is the United States that is “on the wrong side of history.”

China’s financial successes, starting with weathering the 1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, the execution of events like the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai Expo in 2010, contrast with America’s “alarming” deficit, sluggish economic recovery and polarized domestic politics

None of these above views are surprising, since I've read all of these view points from different sources and at least partially agree with most of the above points. It's particularly hard to address all of them, so I hope I don't go completely off track with my thoughts here. I think this is an extremely important topic. I know this can be a sensitive topic and most of my views are probably not popular, but I can only state how I see things. I do apologize in advance if I offend anyone.

The first question is whether or not US is a declining power. I think if we compare where US is right now to where it was at the collapse of Soviet Union, there is no question that it has declined. More than anything else, I think the two prolonged wars in Middle East that are operated completely on debts have really accelerated the American decline. In the coming years, I think it will decline further when compared against the rising economies of China, India and Brazil. In several areas like financial prowess and manufacturing power, China has already caught up or surpassed America. In other areas like military, higher education/research and cultural influence, it's hard to see when China will ever catch up to America. The areas that China will likely to gain ground on America in the coming years is the overall economy and political influence around the world. Another thing to consider is that American allies in the Western world are also on the decline due to debts issues, decreasing productivity and population decline. So if we just look at the current economic and finance situation in America and the rest of the Western world, it would seem like China (and other rising powers like India and Brazil) are poised to take over.

The second question is whether or not the China is actually ready to take over from America. I think the answer to this is no. A lot of times, we are blinded by the 30+ years of economic growth in China and fail to see the problems in the country. The problems that China and America face are quite different. America is facing huge debts problems from years of excessive public and private sector spending. American Federal, state and municipal governments faces much financial problem in the coming years related to the runaway health care, social security and public sector pension costs. China's government is not burdened by these excessive public sector spending problems, but it faces a lot more social problems. I have always that pollution and corruption are China's biggest problems. Now, I have to add two more to the list: the extreme male/female population imbalance and the increasingly unsustainable wealth gap between the rich and the poor. The first problem results in a lot of frustrated single men, large prostitution industry and escalating home prices (from women demanding owning home before marriage), Having a lot of frustrated single men have historically been a really bad social situation (more conflict and wars). The second problem is exaggerated by the absolute wastefulness of many rich Chinese people and how these people made their money in the first place. These people make Wall Street bankers look like Mother Theresa's. So even though China has gotten a lot wealthier, there are serious social tension within the country toward the wealthy and the corrupted officials that are further exaggerated by frustration over male/female imbalance, lack of free speech, inflation and very polluted environment. The Chinese government really has more things to worry about at home. On top of all of this, China's banks and local governments are also grappling with debt problems from all of the recent economically unfeasible public sector projects. I think the Western bank and public sector debt problems are larger, but China's debt problems are ready to explode too. The Chinese leadership would be making a huge mistake if it overestimates itself and underestimates America.

The third question is whether or not America is really trying to hold back China. I think the answer to this is yes. China's goal is to create a multi-polar world where it assumes regional hegemony. American goal is to remain as the sole superpower in a unipolar world where no other country establishes local hegemony. Clearly, the two countries have different political goals and will clash against each other. Currently, this is playing out in South East Asia where China is trying to achieve regional hegemony, but America has managed to inject itself back into the region and prevent that. I think this will continue to play out in the future as long as the two nations have such polar opposite political vision. I think that once India grows powerful enough, it will also clash with America on the very same issues. Just think about what would happen if India becomes confident enough to assert its own view points on countries like Iran, Afghanistan and demand greater say in energy coming out of the Middle East.

The fourth question is whether or not this is a zero sum game. I think the answer is yes and no. The two countries can obviously work together to address a lot of the security threats that we face today. At the same time, China cannot achieve regional hegemony with America around nor can it be part of a multi-polar world without America loosing influence. There is also the scenario where both country looses influence if the social problems in China blows up and the debts problems in America blows up. We are already seeing EU declining significantly in the recent years due to its financial and debts problems. The other part of the zero sum game is economy. In the near term, the two countries need each other to have continued economic growth. If one country suffers a large slow down, it will have large affect on the other country. As I've said in the past, a trade war would have crippling effects on both countries. In the long term, I think it is somewhat of a zero sum game. The world has finite natural resources and energy sources. As we approach peak oil, the cost of energy will simply grow higher and higher. If all of the countries are battling for the same finite resources to keep economy going, then they will clearly be in competition with each other. We already see some of that with China signing deals around the world for oil reserves and mining rights to different natural resources. This is another area where India will also really be competing with China and America on. Just imagine the energy and natural resource demand of China and India if they all seek to live the same quality of life as Americans. As the world population expands, we will also be battling over basic necessities like water and food.

In the end of the day, I think both countries face a lot of challenges ahead. In their current path, China and America clearly has confrontation world view, but that may change in the future. If China goes through a period of social instability or economic meltdown, who knows how its foreign policy will change. Looking at its 5000 years of history, China has always been a country that concentrated on itself. If America goes through anything close to Greece style debts crisis, I think that would have to cutback on its role in the world affairs. I think India will be a very large player in the future as its population and economy continues to grow. I think Brazil will also have a very strong voice in the future, whereas countries like Japan, UK and the rest of EU will continue to be in decline. In 15 years, we won't just be talking about a G2 kind of world. With energy and natural resources become increasingly scarce, we could see conflicts over them in the future. More than anything, I think that's where I see the highest possibility of a major future conflict.