China Takes Over the World: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

The People's Republic of China began to focus on export-driven growth (and thus gain economic influence in the world) under the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping, but it wasn't until [[The Nineties]] that it began to assert itself as a world power. Since the mid-to-late [[Turn of the Millennium|2000s]], this trope has become firmly established as China in [[Real Life]] grew into its present position, though [[The New Russia]] [[Make the Bear Angry Again|is still often used a source of plots and]] [[Renegade Russian|characters]] (the [[Shanghai Cooperation Organisation|connections]] between the two nations sometimes being mentioned).

 

{{examples}}

* There was a [[So Bad It's Good]] movie in the 1960s called ''Battle Beneath The Earth'' with Red Chinese forces using a high-tech laser system to dig tunnels under the Pacific Ocean to sneak entire armies through and invade the United States from within.

* In the early ''[[James Bond]]'' films, there were at least three implicit attempts by supervillains to wreak havoc that were being directed from China.

** ''[[The Man with the Golden Gun]]'' is a minor example; the titular assassin lives on a luxury island in Chinese waters "rent free" in return for "[[Professional Killer|an occasional favour]]". His island has been turned into a power plant for a revolutionary solar energy device by a Malaysian conglomerate, but though it's in their territory, the Chinese don't seem to have much involvement in that.

 

* The first chapter of C.M. Kornbluth's novel ''[[Not This August]]'' has the United States lose to an invading army of Soviet and Chinese forces, who proceed to split up and occupy the country. The rest of the book deals with the resistance movement against them.

* There's a Kurt Vonnegut story that involves the Chinese people becoming microscopic and spreading across the world as a plague, killing half of the US population.

* The [[Philip K. Dick]] short story "Faith Of Our Fathers" is a particularly bizarre and unsettling riff on this.

 

* A [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSQozWP-rM political ad] by a corporate-funded right-wing lobby during the fall 2010 US electoral campaign depicts a history lecture in 2030 Beijing: the professor explains how Americans bankrupted themselves "and now they all work for us!"

 

* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'', the Human Reform League, one of the three major superpowers in an early-twenty-fourth century Earth, is made up of China, Russia, India, and the ASEAN nations. Although it is strictly a very tight-knit international alliance rather than a single nation, it is heavily implied that China holds the greatest political sway in the HRL.

 

* Possibly as a deliberate subversion of the early years of the Bond series, ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]'' has China almost enter a war with the United Kingdom... but only because of the actions of a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|rogue media mogul]] who knows that such a war [[War for Fun and Profit|would be good for ratings]].

* An upcoming remake of ''[[Red Dawn]]'' was set to replace the original's [[Reds with Rockets]] with these guys, but [[Executive Meddling]] caused the villains to become [[North Koreans With Nodongs]].

 

* ''Black Star Rising'' by [[Frederik Pohl]] had China and India being the major powers after the US and the Soviets nuked each other to smithereens. [[Hilarity Ensues]] after aliens arrive, demanding to speak to the US president...and China has to come up with one, since they control North America.

* [[Tom Clancy]]'s novel ''The Bear and the Dragon'' has the People's Republic of China becoming a significant threat to world peace, building on [[Xanatos Gambit|Xanatos gambits]] from the previous two "mainstream" novels, ''Debt of Honor'' and ''Executive Orders''. Though, part of their becoming a threat was due to drastically downsized armed forces of Russia and the United States.

* The basic premise of Maureen F. McHugh's Alternative History novel ''[[China Mountain Zhang]]''.

* Eric L. Harry's 2000 novel ''Invasion'' chronicles a, yes, ''invasion'' of the US by a rampant Chinese military. This is the final step after the Reds have invaded SE Asia and the Middle East, nuked Tel Aviv, wiped out a combined European fleet in the straits of Gibraltar and destroyed the bulk of the US Navy in a [[Curb Stomp Battle]] off Cuba.

* The plot of Frank Schätzing's 2009 novel ''[[Limit]]'' takes place in [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|2025]]. China is much like today, only more [[Cyberpunk]]-ish and competing with the USA over helium-3 mining sides on the moon.

* In Robert J. Sawyer's ''[[WWW Trilogy]]'', the PRC raises the [[Banned in China|"Great Firewall of China"]] when it blocks the flow of information on their [[I Did What I Had to Do|handling of a pandemic]]. Apparently dividing the internet into two disconnected halves [[Instant AI, Just Add Water|gives birth to the first artificial intelligence]].

* Heinlein also mentions in ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' that the "Terran Federation" arose after the Western nations had their asses handed to them by the "Chinese Hegemony" in a world war. Actually it was specifically stated to be an alliance of both the Western powers and Russia. Echoing mistreatment of POW's by the Japanese during World War II, but also an eerie foreshadowing of Vietnam, a key point of contention was the mishandling of the POW situation. While the Western powers freed Chinese POW's, the Chinese simply didn't bother to release the nearly 100,000 civilian and military prisoners they had taken. The humiliating defeat leads to near-anarchy in the West, which sparks the formation of the "Terran Federation" in which only soldiers have the right to vote, etc. The Feds spend the next full generation gradually recovering from the war and "trading butter for guns" to better prepare for the next one.

* Chinese are sometimes the villains in [[Dale Brown]] books. Sometimes alongside Russians. Standout examples include ''Fatal Terrain'' where they nuke Guam and ''Executive Intent'' where they have the power-projection needed to amphibiously invade Somalia and Yemen.

* In ''[[Ender's Game|Shadow of the Hegemon]]'' by [[Orson Scott Card]], several powerful nations make a grab for power, starting with [[Make the Bear Angry Again|Russia]] (AKA the Second Warsaw Pact). However, after it's revealed that the person running the show is {{spoiler|a murdering teenage psychopath}}, he flees to {{spoiler|India}} where he proceeds to convince them to take over {{spoiler|Southeast Asia}}, while {{spoiler|Pakistan}} handles the {{spoiler|Middle East}}. As it turns out, though, his real plan is to get China to obliterate the overtaxed {{spoiler|Indian}} army and have free reign over Southeast Asia. Russia throws its political support behind China and expands the Warsaw Pact by promising to be more benevolent than the Chinese. The US, no longer being a real superpower, can't do anything beyond... selling new world maps.

* In ''[[Snow Crash]]'', "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong" is right up there as one of many national franchises working to get the major market share in the [[Divided States of America]], and "Kongbucks" are still real money, while American dollars are hyper-inflated to the point where people use them for toilet paper.

 

 

* In the ''[[Transhuman Space]]'' RPG setting, China is one of the world superpowers (the leading military power; the EU is the leading technological power; the US comes second at both), and controls a significant chunk of ''Mars'' ("Rust China").

 

* The [[Chinese With Chopper Support|PLA]] is the most powerful out of the military, paramilitary and insurgent forces opposing the BLUFOR in ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield]] 2'', and remains so in ''[[Project Reality]]''.

* The PLA is one of the three factions in ''[[Command & Conquer]]: Generals'', alongside the [[Yanks With Tanks|USA]] and [[Middle-Eastern Coalition|Global Liberation Army]]. (They are, of course, allied with the Americans.) {{spoiler|They end up the winners in [[World War III]].}}

* ''[[Deus Ex]]'' features China as the only remaining autonomous nation in the world, having abandoned the UN at the time it started wielding actual political and military power through UNATCO. The USA still claims to be a superpower, but this is pretty obviously not the case.

** Also, at the time of ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'', China is stated to be the global economic superpower. The largest human augmentation company in the world is based in the Chinese city of Hengsha, a ''two-tiered'' city.

 

 

* Played with in an episode of ''[[American Dad]]'' with Klaus telling Steve he needs to be attentive at school because "the Chinese boys pay attention, and they outnumber us 5 to 1. The [[Yellow Peril|Red Dragon]] awakens!"

 

* Some religious circles interpret [[The Bible|Revelation 9:16 and 16:12]] as referring to China.

 

 

* In ''[[Code Geass]]'', the Chinese Federation is one of the three major world powers, between the EU and the Holy Britannian Empire in strength. In R2 episode 16, they join up with the United Federation of Nations against Britannia.

** Interestingly, a throwaway line of dialog in the first season implies that the nation is Communist, but R2 shows that this is primarily because the people in charge are greedy twits.

 

* H.G. Wells' novel ''[[The War In The Air]]'' is among other things about a Chinese invasion of the United States using zeppelins in the early 1900s, eventually defeated by an American guerilla army using ornithopters.

** The ''Buck Rogers'' comic strip begins the same way, and is just ''embarrassingly'' [[Yellow Peril]] themed for a long while. However, it eventually redeems itself (somewhat) by ending the war peacefully. Buck and Wilma infiltrate the enemy capital, where they meet the Mongol leader and are startled to discover he is a [[White Prince|very nice guy, who had naively left the running of his empire to corrupt subordinates,]] while he puttered about with scientific studies. [[Heel Realization|Upon learning how tyrannical their rule has been,]] he [[Occupiers Out of Our Country!|releases North America from the empire.]] He and the heroes [[Heel Face Turn|part in friendship,]] Wilma even giving him a kiss on the cheek. [[The End of the Beginning|From then on, the strip quickly gets away]] from the Yellow Peril theme entirely, and pits Buck and his allies against space aliens, Atlanteans, and stuff like that there (as well as [[Card-Carrying Villain|perpetual no-goodnik Killer Kane,]] who ''is'' an American, just a rotten one).

* The ''[[Chung Kuo]]'' series of science fiction novels by David Wingrove are set in a world-spanning Chinese empire

* An early example comes from the 1907 dystopian novel ''The Lord of the World'', in which the Chinese and Japanese monarchies have united into "The Empire" and conquered all of continental Asia and Australasia, and are poising to annex Europe to their empire. Ironically this is viewed as a good thing by the sympathetic characters of the story, the persecuted Catholic Church, as it will free them from domination by the socialist forces in control of Western civilization.

 

* ''[[Home Front]]'' - which posits a scenario where [[Acceptable Targets|North Korea]] somehow conquers most of East Asia and invades the USA. The villain was originally to be China, but due to the possible [[Banned in China|backlash from China's Ministry of Culture]] and the economic interdependence between the USA and China that made the Chinese [[Villain Decay|"not that scary"]], they cast the DPRK instead as the villain and an [[Expy]] for the PRC.

** This is a common phenomenon in video games - the Chinese are unlikely to buy games where they're the villains, while the North Koreans are just plain unlikely to buy video games.

* ''[[Rise of Nations]]'': You can accomplish this by playing as China in the basic campaign mode.

 

* ''[[Fansadox]]'' series ''The Great Invasion''.

* Earth is not ruled by the Chinese of ''[[Quantum Vibe]]'', but they do rule [[The Red Planet|Mars]] (or Huǒxīng as they call it).

 

* The ''[[GURPS]]'' setting "Ming-3" is an [[Alternate History|alternate timeline]] in which the Ming Dynasty conquered most of the world in the 16th century.

 

* From the Chinese point of view, they ''did'' rule the world for much of their history. For centuries, imperial China considered the Emperor to be the ''de jure'' ruler of the entire world, with all other sovereigns considered either vassals or rebels. Not that they were really committed to enforcing this.

* Mandarin-language instruction is becoming increasingly popular in elementary schools [[Invoked Trope|based on the assumption this will happen.]] [[Japan Takes Over the World|A similar thing happened with Japanese in the 1980s.]]

*** Some preliminary experiments into [[Organic Technology]] seem to suggest it might very well be the workaround for the rare earths problem. Not to mention simple recycling measures go a long way.

** Plus, environmentalist policies often forbid American companies from extracting raw minerals, but allow foreign companies to do so under less stringent regulation. Why? Because the EPA and the US Trade Department have two completely different agendas.

[[Category:National Stereotyping Tropes]]

[[Category:Stereotypes of Chinese People]]

[[Category:Hollywood History]]

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]