China Ready to Eclipse U.S. Economically

China is well on its way to eclipsing the United States as the world's number one economic power. The U.S. remains the largest economy for now but the margin is shrinking and China's GDP will surpass America's within the next five years. Once that is in place it will inevitably follow that China will similarly become the number one diplomatic, strategic and military power as well. This is happening because China is following a brilliant strategy to expand its reach and capabilities and the U.S. is following a foolish strategy of retrenchment.

This link will take you to a New York Times article detailing the trillion-dollar international investment program China is currently implementing. It includes things like a $6 billion railroad project into Laos and the rest of Southeast Asia, a $46 billion investment into electrical generation in Pakistan, the construction of a brand new port in Greece, and roads across Russia into Europe. It has already bought hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in Africa and Latin America. All these are calculated to produce profits, grow China's influence in these regions, tie their economies to China's and speed the import of resources from and the export of Chinese products and financial influence into the targeted areas.

This is the fruit of the capital amassed beginning forty years ago when China threw off its Maoist economic ideology and relentlessly enlarged ever since in positive trade balances earned as manufacturer to the world. First the profits were used to develop China and now the continued surpluses are being reinvested to refashion the world into the Chinese economic orbit. Comparisons to the American Marshall Plan initiative of the late 1940s and early 1950s are strongly valid. The U.S. is and for some time has been a timid, inward-looking, short-sighted player by comparison. It's afraid to do big things now. Even a single modest high speed rail project in California is hamstrung by nay-saying and fought every step of the way. "We can't afford it," they say. So progress, growth are forfeited and the baton is being passed, or rather seized, by China.

This is not because of currency manipulation or some other form of chicanery. It's because China is being smart and we are not. If you do not spend to invest, modernize and expand, you languish and get surpassed. The U.S. is making some progress in things like green energy, but falls woefully short of the massive strides China is making on all fronts. Twenty years from now, when the nations of the world are clearly turning the cold shoulder to the U.S. and cozying up to China the US citizenry still won't understand why and how this all happened. But those of us who are paying attention, if we're still around, will. And we will obnoxiously be saying "I told you so."