Lately we have been inundated with articles about the political entity called Chimerica, an entity likely to dominate the first half of the 21st century. The pundits disagree on how such a disparate union may hold. China is poor and capitalist, America is rich and socialist. China produces, America consumes. Both are instinctively protectionist and isolationists, but are the strongest forces of globalisation.

The secret may be that this union is changing, the Chimerica we see today will not be tomorrow's Chimerica. Will Chimerica's spirit of coopetition remain, or will China and America become rivals? Chimerica often consume more resources, and produce more pollution, than the rest of the world together. Together or separate, how will Chimerica affect our world?

Let's start with a map from last year. Chimerica is an optimistic lot these days. So is this country Sweden, but it isn't as economically entwined.

China is poor and capitalist, America is rich and socialist.

Chimerica often consume...

"Consumes".
?

America is rich and socialist? Uh? That will come as a surprise to the 40 million plus on food stamps the million losing homes annually and worse scenarios. If there is meant to be some deep and intellectual offering inthis one it is lost although the humour possibility is too.

and socialist?

You've answered in your very next sentence.

the 40 million plus on food stamps

Sic.

On one of the many bypassings China to USA, The Economist has a good, simple graph. The dragon takes wing

America is rich and socialist? Uh? That will come as a surprise to the 40 million plus on food stamps the million losing homes annually and worse scenarios. If there is meant to be some deep and intellectual offering inthis one it is lost although the humour possibility is too.

This comes about because our present ruling class-- we may as well confess we have a ruling class-- believe that the way to show that they are compassionate is to have as many people on food stamps and section-8 (housing assistance) as possible. The more people that are dependent on government assistance for basic necessities, the more compassionate our ruling class is.

Yes, it's twisted and vile, and yes, if God is everything the Bible says He is this will surely bring judgement on our nation. But, until we get a ruling class that "gets it" and starts changing the way they do things, this is what we have at the moment.

Funny thing, that. Every "socialist" system I've seen seems to be in a hurry to return things back to the feudal ways where a handful of nobles were supported by vast numbers of serfs, who barely had the wherewithal to feed themselves. Right now, the powers-that-be are trying to engineer the United States into just such a system. A handful of extremely wealthy, vast numbers of desperately poor-- and the extremely wealthy patting themselves on the back because they're so charitable, allowing the poor a pittance for survival.

Allowances should be dependable on restrictions. Otherwise they'll soon run out of the middle working class to take from.
The successful should be backed up - no matter how many starving losers are begging nearby. That doesn't mean there mustn't be some basic starters for everyone. However, that does mean that somebody shouldn't get more help just because that person won't give up having more offspring -- creating the black hole. Same as that which ruined Hellada.

Most interesting with this map is that while about half the Americans consider China the leading economy, all the Chinese consider the United States to have the leading economy. That and that the Germans have gone fully overboard on the Chinese side.

Well it is now generally being accepted that in the next couple of years America wil be superseded by the county yr it owes sackfuls to.

Most interesting with this map is that while about half the Americans consider China the leading economy, all the Chinese consider the United States to have the leading economy. That and that the Germans have gone fully overboard on the Chinese side.

For a while Germany was the country that exported the World's most goods in monetary terms, both absolute and relative to population, size and whatnot. This was often mentioned in the press, and a few years ago China took the first place in absolute numbers. So, depends what exactly people mean by 'leading economy'.

The US is still the world's leading economy in foreign investment, global influence, and whatnot. I imagine China is the world's leading economy in terms of exported goods and has been for a while now. Rotterdam was the world's busiest harbor from 1962 to 2004, when it was surpassed by Shanghai. At the time only Rotterdam, London, and Philadelphia were capable of receiving the very largest of vessels (and dry-docking them), but I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese have fixed or are fixing that gap* as we speak.

* Or perhaps I should say digging it.

They chose another route, and moved the deep-water port into the ocean. They landfilled a couple new islands and built a 32 km bridge connecting them to the mainland. That is huge, but not huge enough, so now they plan to build another bridge to the artificial islands/port, this one rail/road.

There is a number of inland ports, and they are building some huge ones now further up the Yangzi river, but they are obviously not deep-water.

They chose another route, and moved the deep-water port into the ocean. They landfilled a couple new islands and built a 32 km bridge connecting them to the mainland. That is huge, but not huge enough, so now they plan to build another bridge to the artificial islands/port, this one rail/road.

The largest container ships are peanuts.*

Receiving was perhaps a bit of a bad word choice. I was really talking about the dry-docking and thus properly servicing aspect.

* Incidentally, I visited that vessel while it was in dry-dock in Rotterdam, before it set off to Mexico to break some records.

The largest container ships are peanuts.*

Receiving was perhaps a bit of a bad word choice. I was really talking about the dry-docking and thus properly servicing aspect.

Not the Maersk Triple E, they are the super-jumbos of ships, with only 16 ports that can handle them (Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Yantian, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, Singapore, Colombo, Rotterdam, Gothenburg, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Gdańsk and Antwerp).

The Solitaire seems cool.

I had to look up the docks, they are by the coast not so far away from the Yangshan port. By the size of their dry dock they should be able to handle it, but I don't know if there is a big enough channel into it.

Not the Maersk Triple E, they are the super-jumbos of ships, with only 16 ports that can handle them (Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen, Qingdao, Yantian, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, Singapore, Colombo, Rotterdam, Gothenburg, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, Felixstowe, Gdańsk and Antwerp).

Fair enough about the size of those enormous vessels. But I'll bet not all of those ports can dry-dock them. How come there aren't any harbors in the Americas that can take them, btw?

First problem is that these ships are too big for the new Panama Canal, which would limit them to the West Coast of the Americas. Second is that many American ports haven't yet been dredged for the New Panamax size, let alone these ships, nor upgraded the cranes. NYC and Baltimore supposedly support New Panamax, but that doesn't help when the ships can't pass the canal, and there isn't enough cargo to warrant such ships between Europe and America.

Los Angeles Port is supposed to have been dredged to Triple E class size, I don't know what's the holdup. Future ships should be able to go there if desired.

It was a toss-up whether this should go here or in "infrastructure", but it seems the fit is a little closer here so here goes:
I read a story that China is thinking of building a high-speed railway between China and the United States. That's right, a railway from China to the US. It would start in China, head up into Siberia, cross the Bering Sea into Alaska, down through Canada and end up in the Lower 48 somewhere-- I haven't read the entire story yet so I don't have the full details on start and stop. It involves a tunnel under the Bering Sea, some 125 miles of tunnel would be built to make this happen. The trip is supposed to take about two days once trains start moving on this line.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623491/China-considers-building-rail-link-AMERICA-8-000-mile-journey-two-days-involve-going-125-mile-undersea-tunnel-Alaska.html

It certainly would be Chimerica (with quite a bit of Russia and Canada thrown in), it is also blue sky thinking, and one of the international links mentioned in an earlier thread of mine. It might be time that the Americas and Australia were linked with the rest of the world.

The actual Bering Strait crossing in itself isn't particularly hard, it would be a great technical feat, but nothing exceptional. The climate and conditions, and the challenge of moving construction materials and facilities would make it harder.

The problem lies in connecting a bridge in the middle of nowhere with the rest of the world. This is by far the most expensive and challenging problem. There is a whole lot of nothing, with very lousy weather. The massive detour through nowhere is hurting the business case, not only the construction cost, but especially the time it will take to get to market.

A ship doesn't move particularly fast, say 40 km/h or 25 mph, but it can move direct, something a Siberian-Alaskan rail line wouldn't. A Eurasian backbone would, as the article say, be in the opposite situation. Whether going from Beijing through Moscow or Tehran, it would go fairly straight while the ships that have to take the detour around Singapore and Suez. Even so, almost all the traffic go by ship, very little by rail. This is primarily an IT/organisational problem, the cargo trains spend most of their time standing still, processing papers.

Hmm, wasn't there some sort of bridge across the Bering Strait proposed a few years ago?

Hmm, wasn't there some sort of bridge across the Bering Strait proposed a few years ago?

I remember watching something about this on Discovery, if I remember that right. One problem with the bridge is that the Bering Sea has heavy, moving ice. Any bridge built would have to withstand the stress of ice moving about in heavy seas. This is where the Chinese idea has a distinct advantage: a tunnel would be under the ice and probably would not be affected by heavy weather and ice on the surface.

Chinese bearing cash enter Californian housing market

California is the most popular U.S. destination for Chinese real estate buyers, according to Juwai.com, a Hong Kong-based property search engine.

Chinese bought 32 percent of homes sold to foreign buyers in the state, double the share sold to Canadians, according to an April survey by the California Association of Realtors. About 70 percent of international buyers pay cash, the survey showed.

"The uncertainties in China's domestic market are contributing to a higher rate of growth in Chinese interest in U.S. property," Andrew Taylor, co-chief executive officer of Juwai.com, said in an e-mail. "That interest began accelerating in the second quarter of 2014, in part because of China's property slowdown."

New-home prices in China fell in June for a second straight month as a slowing economy and excess supply deterred buyers, according to the China Real Estate Index System Survey. In Hong Kong, new-home prices have dropped by 15 percent to 20 percent since October, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co report last month.

U.S. house prices have climbed 26 percent since March 2012, after falling 35 percent from their June 2006 peak, the S&P Case-Shiller Index of 20 cities shows.

New Pew survey, looking at the image of the US, China, both, and Asian relationships.

Young people seem to love both the US and China, while them old ones are more sceptical.

Of course the world sees America as the top economy but there are a number of countries that would like to see that going. The BRICK group are moving in that direction