Does the author mean they have schools that produce illiterates?
And of course, being idiots, we are building them a 145 acre terminal at the Port of Los Angeles which lies just past the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Is this a "prime" spot for all kinds of things? The name of the terminal is COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Co.) which just happens to be partly owned by the PLA.
Also, check this out!
http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2003-11/23/content_283886.htm
China says it will not dump US Treasuries to retaliate ( 2003-11-23 09:28)
China will not retaliate in a developing trade spat with the United States by dumping US Treasuries, a Chinese paper reports, citing the agency in charge of the country's ballooning forex reserves.
"The nature of our agency is to manage the national forex assets well," an unnamed official with State Administration of Foreign Exchange told the China Business newspaper.
"To put it simply, we're looking at profits, and as long as we don't get instructions from the central bank, we won't sell US Treasuries in a bid to retaliate," the official was quoted as saying.
The remarks were made against the backdrop of heated tempers on both sides of the Pacific after the US government, under pressure to protect US jobs, said it would cap imports of Chinese bras.
US Ambassador Clark Randt was called in by Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong for an emergency meeting Thursday to be told the US decision would have a negative impact China-US trade.
China's foreign exchange reserves are the second-largest in the world after Japan's, hitting 383.9 billion dollars by late September.
A large part of this money has been spent buying US Treasuries and other debt instruments, helping to keep American interest rates low.
If China was suddenly to sell off Treasuries, it could potentially cause US interest rates to rise, wreaking significant damage on the US economy.
Could a good portion of Wall Street's problems be traced back here?
American manufacturing is almost non-existent these days. Socialist Unions and government over-regulation have worked hand-in-hand to drive our manufacturing capbilities overseas into the hands of the competition. You can hardly find affordable items that are made in the USA and not China on the shelves of any store. The trade inbalance between the USA and China is incredibly stacked against the USA and toe-lickingly favorable to China. Economists in the USA tremble and fret over the slightest twitch that China displays when they become upset with US policy.
I can only repect the brilliance of their leaders and stand baffled at the incompetence of our own. If we continue down this path, as with the teachings of Sun Tzu, by the time the first shot is fired, the Chinese will have already won.
well that ought to slow em down!
Anyway, we have a rule around our house - if it says "Made In China" it goes back on the shelf. We either don't buy or find something from somewhere else.
Look, China has three key elements working against it, that will utterly cripple any efforts for them to seriously challenge us. Here is the Reader's Digest of what the issues are.
Linguistic / Educational
Political Trends
Population
First off, the Chinese language is neither practical to teach nor effective in technical fields. The majority of Chinese are essentially illiterate, many times unable to read basic words that relate to their line of work. Educated Chinese are handicapped in technical fields by a language that hasn't produced a new character since 'dian' (electricity), a character that looks suspiciously like a kite under some stormclouds. Hmm...
Forced to look outside the Middle Kingdom, and learn foriegn tongues to master new skills, they are exposed to dangerous and exotic ideas.
This has led to political trends that steer well away from Mao's hard Communist line. The national desire is for wealth and prosperity, and in their eagerness to adopt modern ways, they are absorbing modern ideas. The ideals that were crushed in Tiananmen in 1989 may have slid under the surface, but they are 100 times more widespread today.
The government knows that its hold on power slips every year, and the ground they lose will never be regained. It's just a matter of time before there is a reckoning that they cannot stop with tanks.
Time, thanks to their vast population, is not on the government's side. China is simply to large to contain. With horrific corruption at every level of government, unyielding pressures from powerful business lobbies, loyalty from the middle class that is entirely conditional on a good economy, and a younger generation that is growing up far more 'Western' than many of their parents realize, China is in for a major breakdown in the next twenty years. The Communists are riding a tiger they cannot control or dismount.
At any rate, the concerns are misguided. While America is like a ship that sails back and forth between fortune and misfortune, China is a runaway train, powered by pressures that have already slipped entirely out of hand. There is no turning back for them. Their power is remarkable, but it cannot be harnessed in the long run. in its written form to be taught