On Trying to Visit the Future (and Finding It Vaguely Familiar)

In 1893, Chicago played host to the World's Columbian Exposition.  Europe's industrialists and princelings came and saw a city and nation on the rise.  Just 22 years after the Great Fire, Chicago was growing at a rapid clip, its construction (and giant slaughterhouses) providing jobs to the masses of immigrants arriving daily, including my ancestors.  There were growing pains, to be sure, but the coming American Century was on display for those who visited Chicago in 1893.  For our guests from the Old World, that may have been a rather disconcerting realization.

And, fully recognizing that I could never possibly come close to understanding China in 3 days (you'd need 3 decades), I went to Shanghai.  Frankly, if one wanted to see the birth of a modern power, I'm way too late, arriving during the new China's adolescent phase.  Yes, I am aware of the irony in referring to a civilization that's been around for millenia as adolescent, but China has re-booted itself several times and the current incarnation is a bit of a teenager, still learning how to project its power in the world.

After years of hearing fear-mongering in the States about how China is bound to surpass us -- that they own too much of our debt, that their children are more disciplined, that, unlike 21st Century USA, this is a country that can still do big things -- I came wondering if my experience would be similar to an Englishman visiting Chicago in 1893.

Indeed, the Chinese have accomplished something remarkable.  The rise of hundreds of millions of people from poverty over the last 30 years ranks right along side the Information Age and the fall of Communism as the most important societal changes of our time.  The Chinese were able to accomplish it with measures we would find unconscionable, such as the one-child policy and a police state that can order the building of cities and destruction of villages at the stroke of a pen.  There is a reason they can do big things, you know, and I really don't think it's a price we're willing to pay.

When you get off the plane in Shanghai, you can take the "Maglev" train to the edge of the city proper.  As the words magnetic levitation imply, the train doesn't use wheels, and travels at about 165 mph/300 kph.  You can see my photo of the on-board display of the train's speed below.

Now this is the future I came to experience!  Their airport and train may be better than anything we have, but what does that really say about the future?  More telling, I think, is that I arrived right after some of the worst smog Shanghai had experienced in years.  People happily told me I had arrived on a "sunny" day, but really, it still looked a little hazy to me -- and felt that way to my lungs.

One can only be impressed, however, after visiting Shanghai's Urban Planning Museum, where you can see a full scale model of the city (see below, but know that I could only get about 80% of the model in the shot).  It's a must for anyone who ever played SimCity.

Some might find this a little disconcerting, but I don't.  Some day in the next ten years, the Chinese economy will tie, and then surpass, the size of the American economy.  When that day arrives, we will hear how we now are in the Chinese Century and there will be a little crisis of ego in the States.  In reality, all it will mean is that since there are 4 times as many Chinese as Americans, the average Chinese will have 1/4 the GDP per capita of the average American.  That's not a cause for fear, again, that's cause to marvel at the end of poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

I would rather be playing America's hand, however, both now and for the foreseeable future.  China's challenges remain more difficult than ours.  They have 50 million more men than women, a population that's aging at an alarming rate, endemic corruption, human rights abuses, awful environmental conditions, and a population that, inevitably, will demand greater freedom and autonomy.  We have an economy still recovering from self-inflicted wounds, a political system designed centuries ago that cannot respond quickly enough to the demands of the modern age, tragic levels of violence, and enemies still determined to knock us where they can.  We also have people lining up around the world (including in Shanghai) to enter the US.  Apart from North Koreans, you don't see people who are beating down China's doors to get inside.  If nothing else I write convinces you about the relative standing of these 2 countries, the wisdom of those crowds should tell you something.

But wait, you say, haven't we been borrowing money from the Chinese, giving them leverage over our economy and foreign policy?  Truthfully, we bought Chinese goods, helped finance their economic rise, and then borrowed the money back.  They got millions out of poverty and we used the money in part to go to war in Iraq -- you can decide who got the better of that bargain.  But, the Chinese only own 8% of publicly held U.S. debt, roughly the same as our pals Japan and the U.K. combined.  And, ultimately, the Chinese are really more dependent on us than vice versa.  In the near and medium term, China desperately needs the US economy to succeed so we (and the rest of the world) can continue to buy Chinese goods and create jobs for China's population.  Whatever leverage they have is ultimately toothless -- if they use it, they will be worse off.

I don't fear the future.  And visiting China hasn't changed my mind.  American power is not going to look the same in the next 100 years.  We must recognize the limitations on our ability to throw our weight around anywhere we please.  That takes some getting used to.  America was able to run laps around the rest of the world while everyone else was recovering from World War Two.  That period is over and the U.S. economy faces competition now like never before.  The rise in living standards the U.S. experienced over most of the second half of the 20th Century simply occurred under conditions we are unlikely to see again, and the harsh truth is that we cannot expect similar gains in the decades to come.

The bottom line, though, is everyone has problems: Europe, China, Brazil, India, Russia, the developing world, etc., and I'd rather have ours.  Economically, China still has a long way to go to come close to matching the US.  And one local told me he doubted China could ever be an "economic threat" to the US because, in his opinion, Chinese schools did not encourage creativity.  In foreign affairs, cooperation will more and more be the order of the day, but that doesn't mean America will be replaced.  Far from it.  The recent spat between Japan and China (and, to a lesser extent, Korea) over some unpopulated rocks in the East China Sea only drives nations in the region away from China.  Look, we're not perfect, but America will continue to lead (in some changed way, shape, or form) as long as it wants, because no one else, including China, cares for that responsibility.