United States of China  

Relative point of interest to digest; with the collapse of the Soviet Union as a superpower, we in the United States became complacent, at least to a certain degree. I think we have forgotten what it is like to live each day knowing that there is a nation on Earth working just as diligently against our interests as we work for them. In the post-Cold-War era, that nation is communist China. The battlegrounds on which we prosecute a not-so-cold war with China are not proxy conflicts in third-world nations; they are the twin fields of endeavor most vital to continued human progress. These are technology and industry.

Anyone familiar with the state of contemporary manufacturing is familiar with how things are done in China. From photocopiers to pocket knives, anything and everything that can be made is made by Chinese manufacturing facilities. For the longest time, the factor holding the Chinese back in the world market was the critical issue of quality control. The Chinese have largely overcome this, however, and now as American companies are farming out its manufacturing to China, they can essentially pay for the level of product quality it needs. The Chinese will simultaneously, quietly copy anything and everything submitted to them for manufacture, of course; this is expected and even tolerated, if not appreciated by the traitorous greedy corporate world of America.

While in the short term this state of affairs leads to a loss of American manufacturing jobs, an increase in cheaper consumer products of at least adequate quality in American stores, and perhaps a gradual normalization of the relationship between nations that trade with each other, in the long term there is a very real threat represented by Chinese technological development. The only thing stopping this communist nation from being the rival (and hostile) superpower the Soviet Union was to us is that it lacks the technological sophistication to compete with us directly. This is rapidly changing, and evidence of that fact is all around us. It starts with the slow but steady increase in quality control of consumer goods made in China (which a few years ago were cheap, yes, but very shoddy). It ends with ... well, we don't know where it ends, but it continues with the Chrisoms in space.

There's no shortage of nationalists in the United States who are just pining for the day when China slips. According to these "America First!" boosters, on that bright day, all the lost U.S. manufacturing jobs will return to the states; the U.S. economy will grow 10% a year like China's does now; and America will once again be the land of milk, honey, and fully funded pensions.

That outlook ignores a couple problematic facts. The first is that China is America's banker. As of March 2009, the Chinese government owns $727.4 billion in U.S. Treasury securities-- second only to Japan, China's next-door neighbor, which holds $610.9 billion in U.S. debt. Those calling for China's demise may be overlooking the reality that when a bank starts going under, it calls in the loans, something the United States can ill afford.

Furthermore, though the U.S. trade deficit with China was more than $230 billion in 2006, China is still a country of 1.3 billion potential customers. The Chinese are manufacturing a lot of America's stuff -- but Chinese consumers are buying a lot of it too. On the day China's economy has a hard landing; it will drag a good number of U.S. businesses down with it.

Addendum, to essays (Corporate Greed in America)

(The Stock Market of choice into wise or lies)

Written and Designed by,

Don L. Johnson