"Neither Chinese nor Spanish get the recognition and respect they deserve". Discuss.

[Duffmannn]

But given its huge population and military, China is many times more a real contender to challenge the US for global domination than Japan ever was. Besides, they own most of the US' debt and it has got to be paid eventually. It is this notion that the US (or the West in general) shall always dominate the world that is itself both ahistorical and panglossian.

Mainly by that, japan is plenty of japanese, and China is plenty of chinese.

I have seen this many times, when a country is living an economic boom, mainly by debt and/or selling raw materials, it seems that it´s going to eat the world. But in any point the lacks of this growing merge, and the dragon becomes a cat.

Anyways, China is still a middle income country, very organised with labour-minded and intelligent people, but its economical performance is more similar to that of Mexico or Brazil than to any western country. It seems to be powerful by its size, but it´s far away of becoming a power (development of a proper internet or technological sector without cannibalising or copying the western companies, a modern army capable of produzing missiles, aircraft carriers or other military artefacs of good quality, in general produce its own technology without running after the westerners)

I have seen this with many countries (Brazil, Mexico, Spain....)

Como entiendes español te voy a poner dos vídeos muy ilustrativos de lo que quiero expresar.

En los 70, debido a la crisis del petróleo, los países que seguían exportando petróleo se hicieron de oro. México vivió un boom económico sin precedentes, el presidente mexicano López-Portillo se atrevió a decir que México estaba a un paso de ser un país primermundista (tuvo más PIB total que España durante algunos años), luego pasó que en 1982 los países exportadores de petróleo volvieron a producir cantidades normales de petróleo, el resultado: México se había endeudado muchísimo en los 70 aprovechando los bajos intereses, ahora sus ingresos habían disminuido por la bajada del precio del petróleo, el gobierno tuvo que devaluar la moneda y entró en bancarrota por los siguientes 20 años.

El mismo López-Portillo llegó a defender en televisión que "defendería al peso como un perro" para tranquilizar a la población y que no cambiara sus ahorros a dólares, para al día siguiente devaluar brutalmente el peso mexicano mintiendo así a la gente. Momento épico:



Año 2007: España crece como un cohete, se construyen más casas que en toda Europa, entran 10 millones de inmigrantes y aún así hay pleno empleo. Hemos superado la renta per cápita de Italia y de seguir así en pocos años superaremos la de Francia o Reino Unido.

Momentos épicos:



Cartel electoral del PSOE para las elecciones del 2008:



Realidad:

[Tooting Carmen]

Sorry Duffmann, but you cannot really compare China's military and economic might to that of Mexico or even Spain. It is just in a different world altogether. And the fact it is now the world's leading lender gives it a lot of clout too.

[Duffmannn]

Sorry Duffmann, but you cannot really compare China's military and economic might to that of Mexico or even Spain. It is just in a different world altogether. And the fact it is now the world's leading lender gives it a lot of clout too.

Spain has more aircraft carriers of its own production than China (we even export them), it means that Spain can move the war to China than the opposite. Not to mention other military technologies.

This is Spain, a mediocre country, now imagine more powerful countries or the USA.

China is working well, but they have many handicaps:

-Their levels of development were extremely low when they began, in the 80´s China had less total GDP than Spain (it seems hard to believe) and its living standards were under those of Africa, decades of communism and centuries of anti-developmente had provoked that.

-Its growth is very dependant on the transfers-deslocalizations of western technologies and industries and the western consumption of their exports (designed by western engineers-designers mostly). China has barely began to develop their own industrial development sectors, they are basically copying very well the technology, but a power is defined by its capacity of inventing new technologies from zero, not copying them.

-They have a huge internal debt that could explode.

[Tooting Carmen]

Spain has more aircraft carriers of its own production than China (we even export them), it means that Spain can move the war to China than the opposite. Not to mention other military technologies.

This is Spain, a mediocre country, now imagine more powerful countries or the USA.

China is working well, but they have many handicaps:

-Their levels of development were extremely low when they began, in the 80´s China had less total GDP than Spain (it seems hard to believe) and its living standards were under those of Africa, decades of communism and centuries of anti-developmente had provoked that.

-Its growth is very dependant on the transfers-deslocalizations of western technologies and industries and the western consumption of their exports (designed by western engineers-designers mostly). China has barely began to develop their own industrial development sectors, they are basically copying very well the technology, but a power is defined by its capacity of inventing new technologies from zero, not copying them.

-They have a huge internal debt that could explode.

Much of what you write is true. However, China has developed an incredible amount over the last three to four decades, it is on the vanguard for AI and facial recognition technology (for good and for ill), its military capacity and technology are vastly improving too, and if anything it owns more foreign debt than it owes.

[Tenma de Pegasus]

Well even so, how easily do you and most other Brazilians understand Spanish?

Sometimes its incredibly easy, others not. The majority of the words are the same with different pronunciation. Its only a little bit more difficult than Portuguese from Portugal and Africa.

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[Tooting Carmen]

bump

[Tooting Carmen]

Sometimes its incredibly easy, others not. The majority of the words are the same with different pronunciation. Its only a little bit more difficult than Portuguese from Portugal and Africa.

Muito bem.

[Touijer]

I agree with Spanish because it’s spoken in 4 continents but Chinese is only spoken in one country, might as well add Hindi to the mix

[Tooting Carmen]

I agree with Spanish because it’s spoken in 4 continents but Chinese is only spoken in one country, might as well add Hindi to the mix

Except the crucial difference is that India has English as a co-official language, whereas China apart from Hong Kong does not.