China isn't quite as mean as the Soviet Union, but it's four times bigger (relative to us), and a hell of a lot more economically competent.https://twitter.com/bopinion/status/1050915857445113857 …
USSR's economy was never close to ours in size. China's is already bigger in PPP terms and is approaching us in nominal terms. That makes a huge difference. If China chose to spend a USSR-like % of its GDP on its military it would vastly overshadow everyone else.
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Could China beat us in a war today? Depends on the kind of war. Could China beat us in a protracted, Cold War-like struggle, where total spending power matters a lot? I'd say they have a much better chance than the Soviets did of winning that sort of multi-decade contest, yeah.
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1/ This is utterly incoherent. The reason that China has so much more spending power than the soviet union is that, under Deng's influence they have done the OPPOSITE of what the soviets did -- rather than a "cold war-like struggle" they have embraced the global economy
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2/ and free trade. I am struggling to be civil because I find it inexcusable and professionally irresponsible for you as an economist, and professor of economics to be making these claims trying to stir up jingoism against China.
End of conversation
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That is an absurd overestimation of the threat from China and no one -- including the DOD which has an incentive to exaggerate the threat to justify higher defense spending, shares your view.
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This is clear in retrospect, but that is NOT what many people in your profession thought at the time, and indeed there was a lot of discussion, and handwringing -- quite reminiscent of your remarks know -- about how the soviet planned economy was going to surpass us.
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