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This essay is being written to all those China-lovers and sympathizers; to all those who declare that China will (and maybe even should) eclipse the United States as a world power and economic powerhouse. China is loaded with many serious problems. It's "destiny" is not exactly a sure thing, and it is not necessarily headed for the dominant economic power of Asia. Its arrogance is symptomatic of Communist contempt for all democratic nations such as Israel, India, the United States, Britain, Australia, and the other NATO powers. China is not out of the woods yet, by any means.

Let's review some of the serious issues facing China today:

(1) The Communist Chinese Legal system is one of the most primitive and juvenile systems known in the world; it is a complex amalgamation of Confucian and Taoist custom, interspersed with statute, largely criminal law and rudimentary civil code that has only been in effect since January 1, 1987. New legal codes have been in effect since January 1, 1980. Constant and major efforts are constantly being made to improve the civil, administrative, criminal, and commercial law. The concept of "stare decisis," i.e., that the law should remain the same, except for an occasional re-evaluation of precedent, is totally foreign there. In other words, the judicial system in China does not make any cogent sense. If any business needed some type of legal resolution, that convoluted judicial system would choke them. Not to mention that in any arbitration situation betwen China and another country doing business with them, the PRC could intervene, at any time, and influence the business decision to the adverse consequences of the unlucky company which did business with them in the first place;

(2) The Falungong sect and the China Democratic Party are considered serious threats and potential rivals to the People's Republic of China, and could seriously harm the stability of the government there, or any of the foreign businesses which find themselves unlucky enough to invest money there;

(3) Although in late 1978 the Chinese leadership began moving the economy from a sluggish Soviet-style centrally planned economy to a more "market-oriented system." The authorities switched to a system of household responsibility in agriculture in place of the old collectivization, but instead of democratizing the government, Communist China instead increased the authority of local officials and plant managers in industry, permitted a wide variety of small-scale enterprise in services and light manufacturing, even while declaring that they had "opened the economy" to increased foreign trade and investment. On the darker side, the leadership has often experienced, in its hybrid system, the worst results of socialism (bureaucracy and lassitude) and of capitalism (windfall gains and stepped-up inflation). Thus only a handful of the political and moneyed "elite" control the entire infrastructure of the PRC, over one billion people. And they literally have the power of life and death over everybody there. Beijing thus has periodically backtracked, having to retighten central controls at numerous and unstable intervals. The government has had a hellish time (a) collecting revenues due from provinces, businesses, and individuals; (b) reducing corruption and other economic crimes; and (c) even keeping afloat the large state-owned enterprises, many of which have been shielded from competition by subsidies, and have been losing the ability to pay full wages and pensions. From 80 to 120 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time and low-paying jobs. Popular resistance, changes in central policy, and loss of authority by rural cadres have weakened China's population control program, which is essential to maintaining growth in living standards. Another long-term threat to continued rapid economic growth is the rapid and massive levels of deterioration in the environment, notably air pollution, soil erosion, and the steady fall of the water table, especially in the north. China continues to lose arable land because of erosion and economic development. Weakness in the global economy in 2001 could cripple growth in exports;

(4) Communist China has as many as 16% of its population below the poverty line (2000 esimate) - I thought Communism was supposed to take care of that completely? I mean, you ARE giving up all of your basic and fundamental human rights in exchange for economic security, aren't you?

(5) The Communist Chinese labor force is by far one of the least skilled forces in the entire world, and will be unable to compete with the modern technologically savvy Western world. - by occupation, the PRC divides its people into agriculture 50%, industry 24%, and services 26%. Where are your techies? Your geeks? Your innovators? Your artists? Answer: they are suppressed, jailed, murdered, or "re-educated;"

(6) The unemployment rate in the PRC is staggering for a Communist nation that supposedly can cure all of society's ills: urban unemployment is roughly 18%, and there is substantial unemployment and underemployment in rural areas;

(7) Although China's exports are $232 billion a year, it's imports clock in at about $197 billion. You may think that's just fabulous, but wait until you get a load of the fact that Communist China's external debt is a whopping $162 billion. Guess that eats into their profits a little bit, huh;

(8) The PRC's roadways are still primitive - highway total is 1.4 million km, but the paved ones are only 271,300 km, while unpaved dirt roads dominate the landscape at 1,128,700 km;

(9) The PRC seems to have a military beef with nearly everyone. They have more enemies than any country I have ever heard of, and each one of them wants a piece of China's hide. Some examples of these China-hating countries include (a) India - most of the boundary with India is in dispute, (b) Russia - there is a dispute over at least two small sections of the boundary with Russia that remains to be settled, despite a 1997 boundary agreement, (c) Tajikstan, where large portions of the boundary with Tajikistan are indefinite, (d) North Korea, where a 33-km section of boundary with North Korea in the Paektu-san (mountain) area is indefinite, (e) Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and possibly Brunei involved in a complex dispute over the Spratly Islands, (f) Vietnam (man you are going to love those guys) with disputes in maritime boundary agreements in the Gulf of Tonkin, awaiting ratification, (g) the Paracel Islands occupied by China, but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, (h) claims by Japanese-administered Senkaku-shoto (Senkaku Islands/Diaoyu Tai), and finally, (i) Taiwan, which detests China;

(10) Another wonderful problem the PRC faces is the illicit drug market. The PRC is a major trans-shipment point for heroin produced in the Golden Triangle, producing massive criminal activity and murder, and Communist China has an unprecedented and growing domestic drug abuse problem. The PRC is also the world's leader in the supply of such illegal substances as chemical precursors and methamphetamine.

Conclusion: I do not think China will emerge as the major power of Asia by 2015, as is being predicted by many liberals, communists, socialists, opportunists, and other academic "schlup-schwanzes.". But it is important that we, as Americans, remain vigilant, and understand that it depends upon us, the consumer, to boycott Chinese products and services, and to force our democratically elected politicians, as well as our overfed and overpaid corporate CEOs, to do the same. If we need a consumer market, and if the powers that be respond with, "labor is cheaper in China," then counter with, "Why not India?" India is democratic, free, religiously, racially, and culturally diverse and tolerant, also has roughly 1 bilion people as in China, is closely allied to the United States, is a military powerhouse, shares borders with our greatest threats, Islamic Fundamentalism and Chinese Communism, has a clear common law based legal system, is predominantly English speaking, is technologically advanced, secular, and was once a British colony like Australia and the United States. It has a deep and strong friendship with the State of Israel, and is struggling right now to make democracy work. It is the duty of every red-blooded and patriotic American to support them in their struggle, because their struggle is almost exactly the same as ours.

Freedom is not free, it requires constant upkeep and maintenance. If we no longer fight to maintain those freedoms, both physically and economically, we run the risk of no longer remaining free.

God bless the U.S.A.

--thanks for the inside view FreepForever and the flag to it Miss Boop.

query? My analysis shows that china must make an expansioninst move well within this decade. Numerous factors involved, you have primarily touched on some in your essay, in particular their leadership's use of both foreign and external "threats" (USA, japan, india, falun gong, and etc) to keep the populace looking for enemies, instead of looking within at their own leaders, the lack of employment for almost one hundred million adults. And the realities you pointed out too, severe lack of domestic energy and fresh water, the two most viatl things necesary for both agricultural uses and manufacturing.

If they run out and "need", and cannot "pay", that leaves 'take", in other words. And nations "take" by warfare, that is the only option that's ever available usually.

So, do you think that there is a possiblity of a major military move by them, and if so, would you have a timeframe? I am thinking in around two years or so the first signs of overt moves, building very slowly to a final overwhelming first strike with WMD, unless the global economy collapses faster than that, or if normal world supplies of oil are disrupted. Then, it might come sooner. What are your views on that? I see what we SHOULD be doiung with china, but I have less than zero confidence that any consortium or US politicians or business leaders will take any necessary steps like that, the rice bowl hijacking for example, it would be too devastating to the short term profits of their clients mostly. Clients being defined in order as the international arms and construction firms, their branches and suppliers, then down the list. Large global agricultural is important, but I doubt china would allow that to take over their market, treaties, after all, are words meant to be taken as lies written on pieces of paper. most nations think of treaties that way. WTO or not, china won't bankrupt themselves for food, they'll go the north korean route first, I am thinking. or seek subsidised food, like russia did-successfully- for years, to free up capital for military expansion.