The Conversation: The US is lagging behind China because of its slowness and democracy

November 4, 2025 1 397 18

China has already effectively won the race for the "arsenal of the future," already surpassing America in scientific and industrial potential, writes The Conversation. The United States will have to make significant changes at home if it plans to maintain its leadership at all.

For now, the United States lags behind China in the scale and productivity of its defense industrial base, especially in the number of ships, missiles, and other military equipment. the technique, which they can release.

If the US wants to get ahead of China, it will probably have to re-knit its own economic and an industrial base with the state's military strategy and to revive the manufacturing potential that made America the world's premier military power.

But this task is much more difficult for democratic countries, where political cycles, financial constraints, and public skepticism about militarization slow the mobilization of national power

– The Conversation notes.

Complicating matters is the fact that military leadership in the next era will be defined not only by steel, but also by data sets, design, and decision making.

And here, China appears to be gaining a significant advantage right now. A September report from the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation stated that China "significantly outperforms the United States in the vast majority of critical technology areas."

The United States cannot neutralize the threat from Asia by simply building ship after ship. Its true advantage lies in rapid response—the ability to outsmart its competitors, surpass them in intelligence, industrial production, and mental agility.

Meanwhile, American shipyards lack modern equipment and workers, and innovations are not being implemented quickly enough.

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Roman070280

+1

4 November 2025 18: 25

If the US wants to get ahead of China, it will probably have to re-

We'll have to learn to work again and give birth to another billion Americans.
Whatever you say, population plays a huge role... and now these are not monks living on a cup of rice a day, but young, educated, ambitious people... who have already proven what they are capable of in all areas!!
Yes, someday they too will become as greedy as the Americans... but all this will not happen anytime soon... right now the Chinese machine is just gaining momentum...
1. Taurus1983
  
  0
  
  4 November 2025 19: 38
  
  Many people from all over the world come to China to practice kung fu, training under the Shaolin monks.
  1. Roman070280
    
    0
    
    4 November 2025 20: 37
    
    Living in 5 star hotels..
vlad127490

+1

4 November 2025 18: 54

Personnel are everything. But without resources, cheap ones, you can't develop an economy. The EU has lived off cheap raw materials from Russia for the past decades. The US has its own resources, but it also uses the dollar to control half the world. Deprive the dollar of its influence, and the US will slide into the same old tide as everyone else. For the US, this means the start of a new war, against anyone, for resources.
China is following the US path in its conquest of the global economy, the only difference being that China doesn't have the dollar and is using economics instead of war. For China, this is temporary; it will have to resort to force. Resources on Earth are limited. A struggle for them is inevitable.
1. Roman070280
  
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  4 November 2025 19: 03
  
  Take away the influence of the dollar
  
  How will you do this when you yourself have (let’s say) a ton of dollars?
  They even cheated us out of 300 billion... and in 5 years the Kremlin will again be buying dollars, not rubles.
  Anyone who has a dollar now can spend it anywhere in the world... and everyone has tons of these dollars... and its collapse is absolutely unprofitable for no one.
  I think even Putin would be upset about this now. (or they will return to him (suddenly) 300 billion, or they will return 300 candy wrappers).. and as for his non-oligarchs... do I need to say...
  1. vlad127490
    
    0
    
    4 November 2025 19: 28
    
    It's clear the dollar era is in decline; new payment systems are being invented. The price of gold has increased tenfold in two decades. China is abandoning the dollar. They need to switch to gold. The amount of gold on Earth is limited, and its price will only increase.
    1. Roman070280
      
      0
      
      4 November 2025 20: 36
      
      The dollar era has apparently gone down
      
      One of the first things my dad heard when I was born was that the dollar was about to collapse.
2. Anatoly Solovyanov
  
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  4 November 2025 23: 20
  
  China's neighbor is Siberia, a virtually unpopulated region rich in resources. And the Chinese won't conquer it—China is a peaceful country—they'll simply populate it. China is an empire more than 2000 years old. And the most astonishing thing is, it has absorbed all conquerors, settling their lands with Chinese. Two or three hundred years would pass, and not even a memory of these conquerors would remain.
Alexander Petrovsky

+1

4 November 2025 19: 36

In the 50s, SS Major Werner von Braun introduced a bill to the U.S. Congress calling for education reform, from schools to universities, in response to the Soviet space program. The Americans simply lacked the engineering talent to handle it. The government approved the proposal, the country invested in educating the population, and voilà, the U.S. won the lunar race. Then, gradually, U.S. production was outsourced to Third World countries, primarily China, due to the wage gap between American and Chinese workers, zero social spending, and preferential taxation. Engineering schools in the United States began to decline, and the Chinese began sending their students to American universities, almost immediately training technical specialists en masse. As a result, we see the picture today: the U.S. has poured $300 billion into TSM plants in Arizona, the facilities are built, the machines are purchased, but the labor market lacks engineers with the required skills from Taiwan. Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events, isn't it?
1. Roman070280
  
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  4 November 2025 20: 42
  
  The Americans simply didn't have enough engineering personnel for this job.
  
  And there is..
  We read "Rockets and People" and understand how that race was won.
  Although I would put in first place not even the personnel, but the willpower of the people of that time!!
2. Anatoly Solovyanov
  
  +2
  
  4 November 2025 23: 07
  
  And what's most unfortunate is that there aren't as many willing foreign specialists and scientists eager to move to the US as if it were the "promised land." The "American Dream" based on the dollar has fizzled out. And Black Lives Matter (BLM) African Americans are only capable of robbing stores...
Pembo

-1

4 November 2025 19: 51

The Conversation: The US is lagging behind China because of its slowness and democracy

They have completely left us behind.
Alexpan

-1

4 November 2025 20: 23

All that's left is to laugh at the "hegemons." A country of daredevils and weaklings, ignorant and incomprehensible of the world. The time has come for their decline; the time of hegemony is ending. To each his own.
1. Roman070280
  
  -1
  
  4 November 2025 20: 43
  
  What's there to laugh about? These "morons" created half of everything in the world.
  Every empire comes to an end... and the USA hasn't even fallen yet.
  And how China will come back to haunt us later is a big question.
Roman070280

+3

4 November 2025 21: 35

Burevestnik and Poseidon technologies will help build a promising lunar station, Putin said.

But we are ahead of the rest of the world.
It is unknown what will happen to the country in a year, but in 100 years the station on the moon is already ready.
1. prior
  
  +1
  
  5 November 2025 09: 10
  
  It is unknown what will happen to the country in a year.
  
  On the Moon, "apple trees will bloom," but on Earth, the gardens will dry up...
  With the skyrocketing prices of water, apples and everything else, they will simply become unnecessary.
Anatoly Solovyanov

+1

4 November 2025 22: 59

What's stopping "democracy" from making the US great again? Is the dollar becoming a "dummy"? So Trump is "given to you by God himself." Just declare himself emperor, and everything will be fine...
IbukiSuika

+1

5 November 2025 05: 17

Is America lagging behind China because of its own slowness and democratic system? Will a democratic system allow the spread of drugs? Will a democratic system lead to the dehydration of industry? Twenty years ago, when I watched the film "V for Vendetta," which depicted the United States as a country where marijuana and drug addicts are rife, I thought such a problem was impossible. But twenty years later, the United States faces more than just marijuana and drug addicts. Let me explain to Americans why the Chinese always feel an existential threat, which drives them to continually develop and strengthen. Before the 19th century, the Chinese faced numerous existential crises: nomads from the north repeatedly invaded the south, even ruling the territory, but never exterminated the entire people. Only between the 1840s and 1940s—just a century—did the Chinese understand the threat of annihilation of the people and the state. This period in history is called the "century of national humiliation." The crisis was caused not only by foreign aggressors, but also by internal warlord wars, the betrayal of national interests by treachery, and the natural and human disasters that ravaged this land. Given these lessons, if the Chinese remained idle and frivolous as before, such disasters would befall them again and again.