[Cacique]

China is what Japan was 20 years ago. A perceived economic threat, but in reality it is just a manufacturing center with little hope of making any technological strides to compete with the American engine of invention. They are hampered by a homogeneous society that prizes conformity, just like Japan and they also lack a simple alphabet which is helpful in expressing complex thought. We will remain the premier society as long as we allow individualism, reject PC socialism and collectivism and encourage eccentricities. Europe has the same problem save the alphabet. Look at 90% of the technological innovation in the last 50 years and it was produced here. You can't name any major innovation to come out of Europe, Japan or China in the last 50 years.

BTW welcome to FreeRepublic...

[MadIvan]

China and Japan of 20 years ago also have a similar problem that's going to come back to haunt them: bad debt. Much of China's economic growth is fuelled by lending from state owned banks, and that's questionable at best. When the bad loans become too large to ignore, China is going to have a major case of economic indigestion.

Regards, Ivan