BobL: "Tell me about it.
Lots of people don’t seem to understand that when you consume 30-50% of the world’s resources, as in the case of China, they just might be a major economic power and perhaps we should simply ACCEPT that."
But there's nothing to accept or reject -- facts are still facts regardless of how we feel about them.
According to every number we have, China's basic manufacturing economy dominates the world, is growing in technological sophistication and providing an unparalleled industrial base for its expanding military.
Yes, in terms of overall GDP, the US with our European and Indo-Pacific allies still dominate China by 2.5:1, but in basic manufacturing (i.e., steel or cargo ship production) the rest of the world combined would struggle to match China's today.
Those are facts (so far as we know) regardless of whether we "accept" them or not.
However, we should also notice that times are changing, China's growth is slowing down, even in its own official (cooked) reports, and reality for 2025 may well turn out to be higher US GDP growth than China!
Pres. Trump lit a fire under the US economy and proved that a mere 2% GDP growth per year is not only stupid, it's also unnecessary.
We can easily strive for 4% & 5% long term, with the right policies.
That's what the Dow at 50,000 is telling us, and it's what Trump's promise of Dow at 100,000 requires.
Bottom line: if someone is here to shill for CCP China and tell us we need to give up Taiwan & South China Sea without a fight... no, that's not happening, not now, not ever.