I very much doubt China's lead will just be a blip in history. Many historians have suggested that China lead the world in living standards perhaps 900 years out of the last 1000. The "American Historical Association" calls China "The Oldest Living Civilization"[1], so China is no shooting star.
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Thanks, that's a very good post.
I agree, that the coming rising of status of China, is very likely to be something which carries on for a substantial amount of time. Which could be tens or hundreds of years or much, much longer.
I get the impression, that China's rise, is way, way past the point of critical mass, and is long past the point it could be realistically stopped by the West.
I suspect that even if the west grouped together, and completely stopped all trade with China. China's home market and all the other countries round the world, which would continue trading with China, would continue to propel its progress along.
Assuming, and hopefully no wars between Russia/China/North-Korea and the west, break out.
I assume that at some point, the west, will try and rebuild its industries, and become less and less dependent on China.
This might be sparked off by an out of control trade war between China and the US (Trump being a kind of loose cannon, or whatever the term should be for someone who might take the trade war too far and lose control of it), internal troubles in China, or simply the Chinese prices (sooner or later), becoming much higher than they are now.
I'm still not 100% convinced that China will make it to the very top of the powerful country, and technologically advanced tree, like the US has done and been for many decades or longer.
Because, (sorry to be rude about China), they tend to copy inventions/ideas/IP/patents (usually from the west), rather than cleanly/freshly invent and innovate the stuff themselves.
Also, there is a tendency for the quality, to not be very good. Especially as regards, consistency of manufacturing, reliability, durability, safety standards and using safe renewable materials (i.e. I'd panic if I found food I was eating, came from China, especially milk).
Part of the reason for the often amazingly low prices of things from China. Is because, the item price does NOT include the costs of development and research for future products, of that type (which is partly a reflection, of the fact, that things are often copies, rather than really invented by/in China).
To put it another way, the latest cpu, from the west, might cost £100. (All figures VERY approximate, just to show the concept).
The breakdown of that cost might be £10 to make the cpu, £10 paying for the existing design, £10 towards inventing future cpus = £30 so.
The rest (£70), is dealer markup/profit, cpu manufacturer profit and taxes and other charges, to make it £100.
So a (hypothetical) Chinese cpu, may only cost £15.
Partly because it only costs £5 to make it in China (rather than £10 in the west), partly because the design might be "IP stolen" or copied, and because they only pay £0 towards tax, and £0 for research into future cpus.
But, in order to go 8086/8, 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486 etc.
You have to invest huge amounts of money, into developing the future IC processes and later cpu designs.
I don't think the Chinese method, spends (perhaps) half of the money, towards developing things for the future.
I can't see how they can sell things, and keep them up to date, with the latest technology trends, if they fail to put huge amounts of money into research and development.
Because, sooner or later, the west will wise up to China's (rumoured) IP/patents/inventions/designs/copyright "stealing" antics, and stop/minimise/reduce the chances of the loss of IP, in the future.
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