What makes a super power?

Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, wrote an article called “The future might not belong to China” on the Financial Times (https://www.ft.com/content/ae94de0e-0c1a-11e9-a3aa-118c761d2745). He suggests in this article that he borrows some argument by Capital Economics, an independent research firm to show that there are some downside risks in the Chinese economy that prevent China from becoming the next super power. I conclude from his article that there are these several main downside factors. The first is the rapid debt accumulation which helps to generate higher investment and higher growth makes China more vulnerable to a sharp deceleration. The second one is that China is too dependent of the growth generated from high investment that Martin Wolf believes that consumption is crucial to generate sustainable economic growth. The third one is that the working-age population is declining, which can negatively the competitiveness in labour wage and the potential production frontier. These three factors Martin Wolf believes can collaborately contribute to preventing China from becoming the next super power. Furthermore, he also mentions that factors which make other countries more likely to become super power. For example, he mentions the arrival of artificial intelligence can help the US to maintain its power as the world super power. 

However, some counter arguments can be drawn. First of all, China does read the history and know how Japan losts its chance of becoming a world super power, so the government is aware of the debt level and the high investment and the government knows it is important to make the economy better structured. Secondly, the arrival of artificial intelligence is not a bad thing to China as well. China is also investing heavily on artificial intelligence and robotics, as Martin Wolfs mentions in his article that China is facing a declining working-age population, the arrival of artificial intelligence can help China to counter the issue of ageing population. Thirdly, all countries have their advantages and disadvantages. China may have some disadvantages, but it does not mean other countries do not have any serious disadvantages.

Overall, of course I am biased since I am Chinese, and I do believe China is a very strong competitor in the race of becoming a world super power. Moreover, the number of world super power does not necessarily equal one that during the Cold War we saw there were two world super powers at the same time.