This article on China is so typical of the mindset of the Fairfax / Murdock press, et al, whose ability to analysise / hypothesise current events,leaves much to be desired. Laurie Oakes, Peter Harvey, John Bonjorno etc have a much deeper insight of the issues at stake. Perhaps that is why they are employed ?

The Author should not believe a word the sexed up CIA Fact Book promulgates. Notorious for obscuring the facts, it's bias against everything non aligned with the Stars and Stripes. Amusingly, it's editors are more obsessed with how many AIDS and HIVs per capita, as about a Nation's Trade deficit ? Who, apart from the RBWH or Mater Hosp, would want to know ?

Fact: The US is a consumer Nation. Like Aust, it consumes more then it produces. Savings are nil, 75% loss in Foreign exchange. Suffers 25 years of inflation - Govt spending, health,household debt, mortgages, CPI, etc rose 59%. Free market economy ? The Fed is printing what it doesn't have.

No Country in the World, not even the dynamic manufacturing powerhouse US, which Delano Roosevelt put to good use WWII, can match C's performance. For all it's faults, it has rocketed ahead at an unprecedented rate. Far outpacing the Industrial giants US, Germany, Japan etc.

Third Largest World Economy; 20 % of the World's growth; $ 9 T GDP. In 1990 the US Economy was enviable, whilst China stagnated. Since then it has surged in great 5 year leaps forward.
Where they lack in technology, they have compensated with blood-sweat-tears-and toil, low wages ( western standards ) and volume productivity. Exports $ 30 B to US alone.

Where the pundits fail dismally, the population are happy with the status quo, relieved they are employed, and appreciate the opportunity to patriotically produce items which are marketable to the World at large. No one is exploited, as CL suggests. More kids and single mums, are exploited by the Tourist / hospitality industries on the glitz Surfers Paradise strip. Believe me.
The fact that numerous Industries have moved off shore reinforces my point

that numerous US, UK, OZ Industries have moved off shore - wages are just too goddam high !

Union demands and intimidation have left thousands unemployed. On the perennial scrap heap, and ultimately on the welfare gravy train. Business establishing in C must be joint ventures to qualify for tax exemptions. Not readily apparent is the lack of transparency as Corporations avoid the impost, but invariably bill the ATO excessive claims under the guise of " start up costs ". Who can forget BHP, and AWB fiasco involving $ 300 M gone missing ?

That the Middle Kingdom has amassed $ 2 T of US Treasury Bonds, and an unimaginable investment portfolio, is a worry to Obama, Congress, G20 etc ! Central to this is the devaluation of the $US, and the threat to shed tyhe Reserve currency.

That Greece,Dubai etc are on the brink of default is a sorry reminder, the US crisis is only just emerging. The Euro has plunged, and the 28 Union members are in a quandary. IMF, World Bank will find their jobs tailored to rescuing Sovereign Debt. Cries from Germany, etc for readjustment solutions which will NOT imperil the Euro. Worst scenario, the white-anting has already begun. G20 is committed to support, and like dominos, the collapse will send the wrong signals, and panic will gain momentum for the greco-apocalypso . IMF and World Bank can ONLY resort to Reserve currency which is recognised throughout the World. Since 1933, the Fed in their wisdom dumped the gold standard, which previously saved the Weimar Reichbank from total collapse 1923. Hyper inflation, and the debauchery of currency ( uncontrolled printing ) was the cause, which precipated Hitler's Mein Kamf, and WWII.
Printed ( monopoly ) paper money eventually returns to it's intrinsc value - zero ! Bugger all.

Quote: Loss of purchasing value of the Dollar, caused by increasing out of thin air, the supply of money and debt by the Financial system of the Day. To control Inflation, one must control money supply - Milton Friedman.

Evidently, we have learnt nothing.

dalma. A few points.

Firstly, I don't think the author is a news ltd journalist. Your point about it being typical Murdoch fare merely stereotypes and categorizes the discussion.

You lambast it for not being balanced, then make a swipe because it doesn't criticise the US as much as you'd like.

Tunnel vision. Get over it.

You actually make the amusing comment: "No one is exploited, as CL suggests."

Uh, *nobody* is exploited? In all of China? Are you serious?

Clearly you've redefined exploitation as something only Americans are capable of. In the same breath, you talk about cheap manufacturing.

And frankly, I find your glib remark: "(the Chinese) appreciate the opportunity to patriotically produce items which are marketable to the World at large" to be about the most condescending attitude I can imagine.

Oh yes. All those Chinese workers just love toiling away night after night.

You also state: ", the population are happy with the status quo,"

Uh huh. All of them? All 1.3 billion? No exceptions?

Are exceptions permitted?

There's the question to ask yourself.

I'm not a big fan of the US by any stretch. I just find that people allow their Anti-US attitude to make them overly rosy-eyed about the other major powers.

Just remember that you're permitted to voice your opposition to western led powers.

Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident, simply wrote articles laying out a foundation to move toward a democratic system, and on Christmas day he was sentenced to 11 years in jail. He wrote nothing advocating violence.

But I guess he should have just shut up and gone one toiling, right?

Sure there is plenty to criticise the US about. It could be argued that the US has indeed the worst example of federalism in the western world given its unequal outcomes.

In the case of communist China, however, I don't see the grey areas as much for good reason. China and the US are light years apart in the example they set to the world. One did use its power to encourage a decent set of principles for the world (although not without contradictions: concept that trade deficits are just as important as trade surpluses to encourage trade, anti-colonialism, and even racial diversity given the multicultural character. And when its own economy got into trouble (1970s), it persisted with free trade even though the reliance on services and debt was always going to cause immense problems. Further, there would not be a more affluent China if it was not for the US.

As for China, where do we get inspiration: from its ability to plan for whatever is the current whim of its policy elites, its crackdown on anyone who gets in its way because it does not have faith in civil society, its treatment of certain minorities, its most polluted cities.

Daima, you have hardly convinced me of anything. Your comments of the West's predicament are heavily biased to what an ideological market economist would say. The real world does not operate according to an economic theory. The west is not about to emulate the example of china (at least i hope), it will not decimate social welfare to the point that its labour costs will be competitive against China.

Sure the answers for the West are difficult, but i have faith that we can make them and not begin a policy path that eliminates many of the societal gains that have been made over many decades as many issues indeed need the allocation of sufficient resources.

Sure the balance between competitiveness and compassion is becoming harder and harder, but it still can be won in a sensible way (the Western way). To hell with China's example.

Chris Lewis's article and all of the respondents are all assuming
business as usual.
China as you may have noticed has been running around the world either
buying oil fields and coal mines or failing that are taking out very
long term contracts.
Have you asked yourself why are they doing this ?

Our recent economic crash was not triggered by a credit squeeze and
sub prime mortgage crash, but was triggered by a squeeze on oil supply
and the resulting swift rise in oil prices from 2007 to 2008.
The peak of oil production was July 2008.
The result was high fuel & food prices and mortgages were not paid.
China has been expecting this and has been driving their resources
acquisition policy for some years. Their intention is obvious.
When the next squeeze comes, perhaps later this year or in 2011/2012,
they want to be able to continue their growth while the rest of us
will be left scrambling for what we can obtain on the spot market.

It just shows the difference between our politicians and theirs.
Ours do not want to know about peak oil and indeed there is an
unspoken ban on those two words.
Our politicians should have been planning for a change to alternative
energy sources for at least ten years by now but they have done
absolutely nothing.

No one has even asked the question as why it has become so hard to
get growth going again ?
Tha answer is disarmingly simple;
Growth comes from energy, and the higher the cost of that energy the
less energy available the less growth that is possible.

China will be in the same boat as the rest of us after their buffer
is depleted and international trade will dry up.
That is when we will have to watch China very carefully.
How hungry will the dragon be ?

Chris gave interesting facts and statistics about China. I can't disagree with them. But I feel a little bit hesitant to go to a conclusion that it seems he is leading us to. I am sceptical and I do not hope, either, that sort of thing will happen for the sake of the world and for the sake of China, too. We must wait for a while and see what all that will turn to be.

There is a historical reason for China's enormous sense of self-importance. Chinese society was differnt from European, Islamic, and Indian in that the last three had more or less contact with each other in origin, formation and development. China has its own developmental history. It had had trade with distant lands like India, Arabia, and the West Coast of Africa but this was exceptional, and Chinese leaders took care that China would not be involved in the external affairs of the world. China was made up of itself. It has neighbours but they were all dwarfs like Japan and Korea. It is no wonder that the Chinese have developed an imbalanced sense of ethnic pride.

All this has chaneged. China is no longer an autarkical society as it used to be; it is enormously dependent on the outside world for its own subsistence and prosperity.

I do not think that China can go on indefinitely in the way it has been advancing. The world is beyond China's power to alter or shape.