That is true to an extent, but only to an extent. Example: Finland during USSR times. Due to exceptional USSR conventional and nuclear superiority, Finland kept itself neutral, but never really turned to the USSR camp.
Military and Hard Power are real and very important. But they are not everything.
No, hard power is always everything. The USSR was in a hard power struggle with the US. It was not dominant. If the US fell and the USSR issued an ultimatum from a position of unrivaled power for Finland to join or be attacked, Finland would join.
A countries success depends on external environment as well as its own innate capability.
That's particularly true for small countries, which is why they must always seek the greater pole of hard power.
Your point is like what some Americans like to make when they say that they essentially built China's success.
I see no parallels; you will need to be more specific.
For Japanese case yes, however later down the line when the Manchus started conquering the Ming, Joseon still sent help for Ming even in the very later stages of the battle when Qing victory looked likely.
For every victory, there is a defeat. They were not defeated because they wanted to uphold some soft power at the cost of their lives; they were defeated because they lacked hard power. The losing side miscalculated thinking they could win.
You are looking only at the most negative Indian news and extrapolating it to make an image of India as a whole. Let me respond in depth regarding India related points that you and
@FairAndUnbiased raised separately.
Ok... I really don't even want to talk about them because they're losers. We have so much positive energy in China; we compete with the US and the West. India's like a stain on a white tablecloth in this conversation... but OK, whatever. If that's what you want to talk about.
I meant overall number of births not births per woman.
What a funny thing to say. Those 2 are very much related, aren't they??
1 is not true. There are various ways of measuring top-ranked papers, and in the absolute highest venues, China is still behind the US. Like in the Nature and Science journals.
No, it is true; high impact papers isn't defined by only Nature and Science. That's moving the goalpost. If you keep moving the goalpost like that A will never surpass B because you can keep increasing the stringency and excluding venues at which A excels until you are at literally only 1 thing and B can hold on due to actual control of the journal.
I have met many immigrants to America who are perhaps more loyal to America than native people.
I've met those. They usually suffered political persecution in their home countries and lived extremely shitty lives. Even then, I don't accept their excuse; there is never a reason to betray your own country, even if your country betrays you. That is the fortitude real men must carry. These people you mention are not very useful people; their lives are focused on growing thier little mounds of dirt that they're so happy to have compared with the squalor offered to them at home.
Even during the early half of the 20th century, America was fueled by German Immigrants and Scientists. While some people will move back and some will have some loyalty to their home countries, overwhelmingly people start working for US interests.
1. I'm not familiar with Germans or what they do so if you want to claim that they overwhelmingly supported the US against Germany during WWII, then you'll need some evidence and citations.
2. Germans are Caucasian and can very easily be absorbed into American society. Asians have a racial divide to always remind us that we are not them.
It's not half, probably 20-25%.
20-25% of what? I simply threw a number out there and an unspecified field as an example. But Chinese scientists comprise a large population of the American tech landscape across the board. In my field of genetics, I would say it's half Chinese.
And many of these people don't like it back in China due to a number of reasons.
This will really need some citation. And I don't even know what that means. There's things that we dislike about all the places we live in. In China, I'm going to dislike many things, like my children's elementary school teachers expecting bribes or that I only own the house I buy for 70 years. In the US, I dislike more fundamental things, like being a minority in general or the mass shootings that happen on average more than once a day. But where do these people land? More than 80% in China, and that was in 2020; the number rises every year.
Not at nearly sufficient pace. This is why Japan/South Korea are already facing huge labor issues and they are trying to import seasonal low-skill labor.
China's best at stepping up the pace of technology. The argument that China's going to have a labor shortage cannot coexist with the complaint of high youth unemployment. If they do coincide, then it's a cultural issue of refusal to do low wage labor rather than a population issue.
Marriage is not important. Marriage and Kids should be separated from each other.
That is probably the wrongest thing you have said. Children need to grow up in a secure family with loving parents that instill the correct values into the child. There are peoples in the US that are famous for having many children (with different partners) though often times remain unmarried and some do not even know the identities of their fathers. These people are also known for low achievement despite their growing population in the US. China. MUST. NOT. BE. LIKE. THEM.
Yes, cultural change is important. What is also important is that work cultures change. You can't have people working 996 and then expect them to also raised more than 2 kids.
China needs to break away from East Asian model of corporate repression of workers. Japan/SoKo and all other East Asian societies impose high cost of living (specially property/rent) and brutal work hours on people. This model has to change.
OK, that is fine but right now might not be the right time. It seems we are in a final sprint to overtake the US so easing up to enjoy life may not be the right choice at this moment. In the long term, we do need to move in that direction.
Having no tax penalty on the childless but giving tax advantage to those with children is already an implicit wealth transfer to those with children.
You can term it in whatever way, but there has to be a transfer of wealth and taxes to those with children to generate. Obviously I think the softer measures should be tried first, but this is such a big problem that a lot of steps should be undertaken.
I've already addressed that; we do not need to tax the childless but simply reduce their portion of wealth by the inflation caused by the positive incentives given to those with children. We do not want to outwardly penalize people for this personal choice; it's very insulting. But the effect would be achieved anyway. No need to rephrase this unless you want to argue against it.
