China Could Whup Our Butts
At least that's the assessment of East Asian allies.
The U.S., on the other hand, is clearly moving in the opposite direction. Our manufacturing capabilities are declining while our list of growth industries suggests that our strengths lie in financial regulation, landscaping, home construction, and restaurants. Note that none of these are tradable commodities - they are only fit for domestic consumption and can't be exported.
And already we are considered militarily inferior to China? What will it be like in 20 years? What can we do to stem this tide?
The overwhelming assessment by Asian officials, diplomats and analysts is that the U.S. military simply cannot defeat China. It has been an assessment relayed to U.S. government officials over the past few months by countries such as Australia, Japan and South Korea, Insight magazine online reported in its Nov. 21-27 issue.Of course Japan has underestimated us before, with disastrous results for them. Still, that's a rather sobering thought since China is only just getting started. They've just put men into space, and are only a small fraction of the way into industrializing their economy.
The U.S., on the other hand, is clearly moving in the opposite direction. Our manufacturing capabilities are declining while our list of growth industries suggests that our strengths lie in financial regulation, landscaping, home construction, and restaurants. Note that none of these are tradable commodities - they are only fit for domestic consumption and can't be exported.
And already we are considered militarily inferior to China? What will it be like in 20 years? What can we do to stem this tide?
posted by ziel | 11/23/2005 08:27:00 AM
7 Comments:
Forget that wall between the USA and Mexico, we need a bridge between us and China.
Our standard of living will decline until we are competitive with China. Hopefully demographics keep housing prices up long enough for our biggest assets to carry us.
Unless we can bring organized labor to China to increase there wages
One alternative is to declare war on them and then nuke their biggest cities. That should set them back a few decades. I don't think they could win that kind of war right now. Of course, some would consider this approach slightly extreme...
I don't buy it. Where are the Chinese carrier groups, nuclear subs, or JDAMs?
I'm not sure I buy it right now either, but as far as the nuclear subs and carrier groups etc., they're working on it. I think the near-term concern among the Asian nations is that the U.S. would be unwilling to take the kinds of casualties a Chinese offensive would entail, leaving the Asian countries exposed. I'm not sure I buy that either - I think Americans have shown themselves to be fairly calloused to Iraq casualties. It's more the lack of any signs of progress in Iraq that's driving the unpopularity.
As long as Americans continue to elect clueless leaders such as Bush who wage senseless wars such as Iraq , America will continue to be less competitive militarily and economically.
By the way Ziel, the lack of progress you note may at best open the eyes of Americans to the truth about Iraq that has been available since the invasion began. The American press appears, consciously or not, to be spoon-feeding the bad news (for the Bush Administration)on a daily basis. As with Vietnam, there never was any progress to be made.
Depends on what you define as "beat". Could we march in and take over like we could in Iraq? Hell, no, but then we never could. (Remember the first rule: never get involved in a land war in Asia. The second, of course, is never go in against a Sicilian when death in on the line...) Can we prevent the Chinese from invading, say, Taiwan? Yes - we still have unquestioned air superiority.
But it's irrelevant anyway, bacause there isn't going to be any war, because the Chinese are not interested in going to war with their biggest market, and we both have nukes anyway. The only reason you hear about this is that there are a lot of guy in the Pentagon that are more interested ni fighting a straight up enemy like China than the sort of beuch wars we actually are going to be fighting for the foreseeable future...
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