m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | 1 Its economy is going gangbusters, and it barely felt the global recession
that has left the world's most advanced nations with a nasty hangover. It
has cornered the market on some of the world's most valuable minerals. It
has a fancy new stealth fighter, proof that it can turn out world-class
technology. And its parents are raising overachieving kids who seem way
smarter than the slackers slouching around in America's schools.
[See why you might be better off than you think.]
China is clearly on a roll. President Hu Jintao's recent visit to Washington
, replete with a formal state dinner, put China's leader on a par with
President Obama and the world's most powerful politicians. Many in China
feel it's finally their time to displace America as the world's preeminent
power, a turnabout that's on the minds of many Americans, too. In a recent
Pew Research poll, an astounding 47 percent of Americans said that China is
the world's leading economic power, while just 31 percent felt that the
United States is No. 1—a complete reversal of Americans' views just three
years ago. As if that's not enough, the new bestseller Battle Hymn of the
Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, trumpets the superiority of demanding, Asian-
style parenting over the indulgent coddling that American parents prefer.
Now that really hurts.
China does represent a remarkable story of progress, and since it's
technically a Communist country—which relatively few Americans have ever
visited—it's not surprising that Americans find it somewhat scary. Still,
it's like a mouse tormenting an elephant. "I find it very amusing," says Wei
Li, a professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business,
who also teaches at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing.
"China has gone through an extraordinary growth period, but it's going to
take China a long time to realize American levels of prosperity." He also
points out that Americans had similar fears of Japan becoming the world's
dominant power in the 1980s—right before Japan went into a 20-year swoon
from which it still hasn't emerged.
So the next time you're gripped with fear about the prospect of life under a
Chinese boot heel, take a deep breath and keep these points in mind:
China still has a middling economy. China's population is four times that of
the United States, yet its GDP is just two-thirds as large. That makes
China an important economic power, but hardly the world's most dominant.
China's per-capita GDP—which measures the productive capacity of the
population as a whole—is just $7,400, which ranks 128th out of 230 nations,
according to the CIA World Factbook. (The United States, with per-capita
GDP of about $47,000, ranks 11th, after a handful of tiny nations like Qatar
and Liechtenstein with concentrated wealth and a minimal underclass.) The
number of poor people in China is probably greater than the entire
population of the United States. And vast stretches of China's interior
remain untouched by the impressive modern infrastructure that makes China's
coastal region highly productive.
[See why baby boomers are bummed out.]
Given China's size, ambition, and industrial capability, it's inevitable
that China's economy will become the world's largest. But it's worth keeping
in mind that 30 years ago, China was nearly as backward as North Korea is
today, with little external trade, a population that was mostly poor, and a
government that could barely prevent mass starvation. China's progress since
then has been unprecedented, but it still has a long way to go before
lifting the majority of its people out of poverty and raising overall living
standards to anything near western levels.
Paranoid Americans (or Europeans, or Japanese, or Koreans) may think China's
goal is to somehow conquer them, but China's leaders are overwhelmingly
focused on creating jobs and raising living standards for their own people.
Failing to do that could provoke class warfare and open rebellion, one of
the biggest fears of China's leaders. That's why China will continue to
pursue aggressive economic policies meant to boost growth by 7 to 10 percent
per year—for the next 10 or even 20 years. But at some point growth will
slow and China will start to resemble a mature western economy—with a lot
of economic power, but also the bureaucracy, special interests, and
destructive speculative behavior that tends to bog capitalism down. China
will be no more able to dominate America than America has been able to
dominate China.
[See what Chinese consumers can teach Americans.]
It desperately needs the United States. China's rapid growth depends on a
huge stream of consumers to keep buying the stuff it makes. And Americans
are China's best customers. Worries about the U.S. government being too
dependent on China to finance its debt are legitimate, since China is the
top purchaser of U.S. government securities, with about 21 percent of all
holdings. But the real problem is Washington's overdependence on debt, not
the portion held by China. It's also true that Chinese officials sometimes
overplay their hand, which may be the case with reported restrictions on the
exports of rare-earth metals found largely in China, which are key
components in many high-tech devices. Still, that kind of maneuvering is
standard capitalist fare (commodity traders in New York and London try to
corner markets all the time) and China is likely to exploit its own
resources just as every other capitalist nation has done.
Alarmists tend to worry that China's self-interested behavior could become a
form of economic terrorism. That's a stretch. "The Chinese ideology has
changed from Communism to GDPism," says Li. "Nothing matters except that the
economy grows." Communist Party officials even earn perks and promotions
based largely on their contributions to economic growth. So by that logic,
China will carefully cultivate its relationship with the United States as
long as it needs our business. Which is likely to be a long time. Long after
China becomes the world's largest economy, it will still depend on heavily
on trading partners, just as the United States does today. In fact, it's
hard to imagine a scenario in which China could get wealthy, or stay wealthy
, without the trade that has done far more to lift it toward world-power
status than any other factor.
[See who will prosper in 2011.]
The richer China gets, the more it will buy. During a recent visit to Spain,
a key member of China's Politburo pointed out that if every person in China
bought one bottle of Spanish wine and one container of Spanish olive oil
per year, Spain would run out, with nothing left to offer the rest of the
world. The rise of China's consumer class may be the most powerful economic
force of the next 100 years, and China won't be the only beneficiary. As
Chinese consumers earn more disposable income, they're beginning to covet
the same cars, appliances, gizmos, and luxury items as everybody else in the
world. Western business leaders are right to demand that China crack down
on piracy and welcome foreign-made goods on the same terms that other
nations import products made from China. But as China becomes wealthier and
more dependent on trade, it has incentives to do just that.
One reason Chinese consumers haven't made much of a mark yet is that they're
still some of the thriftiest people on the planet, with a savings rate that
's close to 50 percent. (The U.S. savings rate, by comparison, is about 5
percent, up from nearly zero a few years ago.) But Chinese consumers are
nearly certain to spend more as credit becomes more commonplace, mass
marketers work their black magic, and the first generation of affluent
consumers begins to retire in a few years, which will force them to spend
down their savings. Even if those consumers do buy mostly Chinese-made goods
, that could divert some of China's exports to internal markets, creating
new openings for exports from America and other nations.
[See who will struggle in 2011.]
China's military might is overblown. If you're worried about a Chinese
stealth fighter dropping bombs on your neighborhood, you can relax. The
staged leak of recent photos showing a "secret" Chinese-made stealth
aircraft generated terrific front-page drama and got the world's defense
contractors excited about another arms race. But it was more of an exercise
in national pride than in aeronautics. As China becomes richer in coming
decades, it could well end up with the world's biggest military budget. But
for a good long while, America's military technology will be generations
ahead of China's.
The stealth fighter is a good case study. If China did in fact build its own
stealth aircraft—without simply reverse-engineering a Russian design—then
it's a nice achievement. But the plane's first flight, reported a couple
weeks ago, comes more than 30 years after America's stealth program began.
During that time, the United States has developed numerous next-generation
stealth technologies, established a detailed training regimen, built a
global support infrastructure, and learned how to defeat stealth technology
if an enemy should ever use it. Rather than sending a threatening message to
the United States, China was probably showing off its advanced jet for more
practical reasons—like advertising its wares to other countries that might
want to buy Chinese-made weapons. And if China does decide to sink vast
amounts of national wealth into the world's costliest weapon systems, it
could end up diverting resources away from worthier projects that might have
a much bigger economic impact, as some critics feel America has done.
China is trying to modernize a military that not long ago was completely
obsolete, and it does have modern missiles, submarines, and Russian-made
aircraft that make it quite capable of defending itself. And there probably
are still some Communist party hardliners who feel that waging a war to
reclaim Taiwan would be worth the cost. Americans tend to think of China as
a superpower wannabe always focused on Washington, but Michael Swaine of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out that China shares
land borders with 14 other countries and has a long history of territorial
disputes with truculent neighbors. That makes regional dominance its first
national-security priority. Plus, any war would torpedo the economic gains
China has spent the last 30 years making. Still, if you're really concerned
about Chinese aggression, then worry about cyberwar, not bombs and bullets.
[See how we're learning to be happy with less.]
Our biggest enemy isn't China. It's ourselves. Critics tend to describe
China as "taking" American jobs, as if a whole variety of industries
rightfully belongs in the United States, in perpetuity. That's not how
capitalism works. Jobs always move from place to place, based on who can do
the work most effectively at the lowest price. As low-paying jobs migrate
away from the United States, it's up to us to replace them with higher-
paying jobs that require more skill and generate more innovative products.
But that requires a strong education system, effective government policies,
the careful use of national resources, citizens willing to sacrifice and
work as hard as necessary, and above all, enlightened leadership. If we can'
t muster that, it's not China's fault. It's our own. And if China or any
nation can do better, then maybe they deserve to be No. 1 after all.
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2011/1/21/5-reaso | t*******y
发帖数: 21396 | | a********l
发帖数: 39524 | 3 keep telling yourself.
we are better than china...
don't fear china...
china is nothing...
no need to be afraid of china...
china does not exist...
repeat infinitely | m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | 4 美国人不怕印度啊，此文的重点是最后一段
【在 t*******y 的大作中提到】
: 人家写挺好啊，通篇没写印度，不能算五毛文啊。
| a********e
发帖数: 5251 | 5 美国人对自己的强弱点很清醒啊。
Washington
【在 m**********n 的大作中提到】
: Its economy is going gangbusters, and it barely felt the global recession
: that has left the world's most advanced nations with a nasty hangover. It
: has cornered the market on some of the world's most valuable minerals. It
: has a fancy new stealth fighter, proof that it can turn out world-class
: technology. And its parents are raising overachieving kids who seem way
: smarter than the slackers slouching around in America's schools.
: [See why you might be better off than you think.]
: China is clearly on a roll. President Hu Jintao's recent visit to Washington
: , replete with a formal state dinner, put China's leader on a par with
: President Obama and the world's most powerful politicians. Many in China
| m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | 6 美国人又被你代表了
【在 a********e 的大作中提到】
: 美国人对自己的强弱点很清醒啊。
:
: Washington
| a********e
发帖数: 5251 | 7 你以为别的美国人不知道啊？ 到处都是这口吻的。 人家居安思危的意识比几个傻X无
知自大，一心以为自己撅起来了的小将强多了。
【在 m**********n 的大作中提到】
: 美国人又被你代表了
| m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | 8 哈哈哈，扯淡吧你，美国人不都说中国抢工作，要buy american，中国是大威胁么？
【在 a********e 的大作中提到】
: 你以为别的美国人不知道啊？ 到处都是这口吻的。 人家居安思危的意识比几个傻X无
: 知自大，一心以为自己撅起来了的小将强多了。
| a********e
发帖数: 5251 | 9 就那点蝇头小利的工作？逗你傻子的。
【在 m**********n 的大作中提到】
: 哈哈哈，扯淡吧你，美国人不都说中国抢工作，要buy american，中国是大威胁么？
| m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | 10 你多看看关于中国的新闻评论，看看普通美国人是怎么说的，如果都像作者这么想，那这篇文章给谁看的？
还有，你才是傻子，居然想着靠phone sex让他继续以前的热情，哈哈
【 以下文字转载自 Sex 讨论区 】
发信人: alwaystrue (nicheng), 信区: Sex
标 题: 征建议：怎样 long－distance 勾引。
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Nov 26 20:51:00 2010, 美东)
在一起的时候，对我五体投地。但Long－distance以后，感觉他兴趣越来越少。体现在
以忙为理由打电话很少的频率上。但每次对我称呼还是很亲密。知道男性是visual
animal, 除了phone sex, 有什么办法能让他继续以前的热情呢？还是应该move on？ | a********e
发帖数: 5251 | 11 你受的刺激真大啊！难怪得靠天天吞跏哩伟哥才能high一下。
美国人感到威胁了，也是事实啊。但总比搞得胡团团颠颠地给送银子的危机小吧。
那这篇文章给谁看的？
【在 m**********n 的大作中提到】
: 你多看看关于中国的新闻评论，看看普通美国人是怎么说的，如果都像作者这么想，那这篇文章给谁看的？
: 还有，你才是傻子，居然想着靠phone sex让他继续以前的热情，哈哈
: 【 以下文字转载自 Sex 讨论区 】
: 发信人: alwaystrue (nicheng), 信区: Sex
: 标 题: 征建议：怎样 long－distance 勾引。
: 发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Nov 26 20:51:00 2010, 美东)
: 在一起的时候，对我五体投地。但Long－distance以后，感觉他兴趣越来越少。体现在
: 以忙为理由打电话很少的频率上。但每次对我称呼还是很亲密。知道男性是visual
: animal, 除了phone sex, 有什么办法能让他继续以前的热情呢？还是应该move on？
|
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