Um? And their military gets stronger. So does their manufacturing base. And our manufacturing base becomes weaker.
Now what happens if we get into conflict with them? We have problems producing sufficient ammunition in a war with Iraq. Whatever would we do in a conflict with China?
,,, the returns from investing in China can be astronomical, but the risk can be too. Euro investors know this and are cautiously buying into more Chinese debt. A safer, long term and quite lucrative return since Sep 11 can be derived from premium funding in markets outside China. There's more than one way to skin a cat and get to keep one of it's nine lives.
We manufacture more goods now than ever before. I doubt that China would want to conduct war with its best customer. If we are having miltary procurement problems I suggest you look at the crooks in Congress before looking at China.