Study what can be derived from the material in Appendix C1 on the development of the relationship between the US and China’s power resources. The survey must be supported by relevant calculations, and you must apply concepts of power in international politics.
In the following task, I will examine what the data from appendix C1 can deduce about the development of the relationship between the US and China’s hard and soft power. The difference between hard and soft power, is being able to pressure or force another country into actions they wouldn’t normally do, compared to being a politically or ideologically influencing country via. attractive opportunities within. The soft power of a country acts on the actions of others by shaping the values and convictions that the actions originate from. Within this assignment, the economic and military power has been treated separately.
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In the first table (Table 1), we can see that China’s GDP has moved near USA’s GDP, from the year 2000 to 2013. China’s GDP in the year 2000 was 29,93% of the US’s, but in 2013 it had moved up to 90,15% of USA’s GDP. This is because within this period, China has had relatively higher growth rates than the US.
Period in time:
2000-2005
2005-2010
2010-2013
Average yearly growth in China’s GDP:
11,91%
11,21%
8,16%
Average yearly
growth in US GDP:
2,53%
0,75%
2,18%
China’s GDP per capita in 2000 was $ 3160, while in 2013 it was $ 11,116. US GDP per capita evolved from $ 47,123 in 2000 to $ 52,788 in 2013. As a result, China’s GDP per capita in 2000 was 6.71% of the United States while in 2013 it was 21.06% of the United States. It is expected that Chinese growth will decrease as the country approaches GDP per capita close of the leading economists (US fx.). This may be one of the explanations of the falling Chinese growth, as seen in the table above. In that case, the relationship between the US and China’s economic power resources is possibly in the long term more dependent on the relationship between their population size. From the year 2000 to 2013, the US population has has a slightly larger growth than China has. In 2000, China’s population was 4.46 times as high as the US, while in 2013, it was only 4.28 times as large.
Figure 1 shows us that USA’s public debt to abroad countries has from 2001 grown from approx. $ 1000 billion, to around $ 5500 billion in 2013. A big part of this debt is established at China. This weakens the US’s hard power, because the country is very much financially dependant on, among others, China.
Table 2 also shows us that economically, dealings with import and export has increased between the US and China. An increasing part of USA’s export goes towards China, and the same goes for USA’s import, as imports from China has increased. Figure 1 and table 2 points towards the fact that USA and China is in an increasing manner economically dependant of each other. This means that the use of hard power, such as economical and military power, is much less usable, if not impossible between the two countries, as it would include huge economical costs for both.
On the account of military power, table 3 shows us some of the relations between China’s and the US’s military power. Table 3 shows us that while China mostly uses approx. 2% of it’s GDP on the military, the US’s share changes between 3% – 4,8%. If you were to change the chinese military spending into USD, we can see a large rise from around $ 76 billion in the year 2000, to around $ 302 billion in 2013. This increase comes to a total of approximately $ 226 billion dollars from 2000 – 2013. Within the same time period, the US has increased with $ 236 billion dollars. From these numbers, it can be seen that China’s military budget is expanding toward what the US is spending, being that China’s military spending has increased from 18,96% of the US’s, to 47,45% within 13 years.
Figure 2 shows us different countries opinions about the US and China, with answers coming from a share of approx. 400.000 people, though the answers has been narrowed down to those who either thinks it’s positive, or very positive. Three of the countries included on the graph (India, Nigeria and Brazil) only has data from 2014, while the seven others (Argentina, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, USA) have data from both 2008 and 2014. If we look at this data historically, which is only possible for the seven countries that have answers from both 2008 and 2014, we can see a mixed opinion. Especially Russia, but also Egypt and Pakistan has become less positive towards the US, while Argentina, Turkey and China have become more positive. Egypt, Turkey and USA has become less positive towards China, while Argentina, Pakistan and Russia has voted more positive. On behalf of the US’s history, it could be said that the unipolar system that occurred within the US around the cold war’s ending, is unstable because other countries now want to unionize / join together in an attempt to balance USA’s power. This sort of unification could be the result of the other countries thinking more positively of other countries than the US. China, being in an economical stalemate with the US, have had their positive votes increased with 9% between 2008-2014. This could be because the US possesses a large amount of soft power, which makes their role as the world’s hegemon, perceived more positively.
From all this data, it can be concluded that China’s hard power resources has significantly moved towards the US’s. China has gone from having a GDP at around 30% of the US’s, to having around 90%. Their growth rate seems to make it possible that they will overhaul the US as the world’s largest economy, within a few years. Evenfurther, the US has an already huge, and still growing foreign debt, to among others, China. This is a big economical disadvantage for the US, but at the same time, reassures a economical relation with China, which is also seen within their tradings. This lessens the usability of hard power in conflict between the two countries, and since China’s military power is quickly expanding, it is only placing them in even more of a stalemate. It is to be noted though, that the difference in the US’s and China’s military power, is still significantly visible. When it comes to soft power, the annex material (even though giving a slightly limited view) gives the idéa that the US possesses a large amount. Positive views on the US from China has expanded within the time period 2008-2014.