Free Republic

What's Japan going to do? Bomb its own Toyota, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic, etc. factories that are popping up all over China? Japanese fear China economically more than Americans, yet Japanese are re-locating factories to China faster than anybody else, because capitalism is capitalism and Japan's competitiveness and Japan's vitality as a nation will suffer if Japan's factories don't move to China. Once China's economy grows as big as America's in 2-3 decades and twice as big in 4-6 decades, anybody who attacks the world's biggest economy will end up hurting their own economy more than China's. More than half of America's and Japan's entire stock market values and retirement funds will derive from their companies' business activities in China, and attacking China will be the best way for them to shoot themselves and their own people in the foot.

China's banking system is obviously healthy enough to buy hundreds of billions in US Treasury bonds a year, isn't it????

It was Intel and GM's CEO's who said China's official economic statistics probably understate China's actual economic growth, because their sales in China is the fastest in the world for both companies.

If China is a basketcase, why is it getting more FDI than any other country now?

It's obvious you have no clue about how Taiwanese perceive their economic future vis-a-vis mainland China.

Cronos wrote: "More commie propaganda. By your definition democracy should not have worked in 18th century America or 19th century Europe. Don't spout any more commie propaganda stating that the people need a Glorious leader to rule like in China or in N Korea."

By the start of the 18th century, both America and Europe had large middle-class population. I suggest you actually read your old high school history book. These middle-classes came about as a result of the Industrial Revolution and were called the "bourgeoisie." It wasn's peasants who led the American and French Revolutions, introducing modern democracy, but the bourgeoisie/middle-classes. Did you even know that half the signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence were in the business of international trade, i.e. middle-men? And America's biggest complaint with England was excessive, burdensome taxation: "No taxation without representation!" It's not poor peasants who don't have money to tax to begin with that are worried about over-taxation. It's people who have money that can be taxed--i.e., middle-classes--that started Revolutions in America and Europe to escape the burden of taxes!

Given that China helps fund America's Iraq war in the first place through the massive purchase of US Treasury bonds, it is not surprising that the US government would allow China to participate in Iraqi reconstruction as well.

The thing that you continue to fail to realize is that democracy is a fine system of government for countries that already have a middle-class, but terrible for today's Third World countries that have majority-poor populations. Remember, it was the "bourgeoisie" that led the French Revolution and Americans annoyed about King George's taxes on their "bourgeois" international trading activities ("No taxes without representation!") that led the American Revolution.

But for Third World republics with majority-poor populations, democracy just gives the vote to a majority-poor population, who tend to vote left, that is, for a massive welfare state and anti-capitalist policies. This has been the story of India for over the past 50 years. Even in the U.S., the poor people tend to vote Democratic, so why would you expect different in Third World republics with majority-poor populations?

As we speak, poor people in Latin America have voted in socialist leaders like Chavez and Lula, and in Russia the population (which is 50% poor) supports Putin over the super-rich oligarchs. The Western media dislikes Putin, but he has a 75% approval rating in his own country.

I'll tell you again, it's really hard for democracy to take root in a country and flourish unless it has a majority or near-majority middle-class population. Just look at America's own difficulties in setting up democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's definitely not an overnight process as you imagine but takes decades at least, especially to build up a strong middle-class. East Asia's one-party governments all built up strong middle-class populations over many decades before they made the leap to full multi-party democracy. If you don't understand history, you will never be able to truly understand anything. You will just shout, "Democracy now! Democracy now!" like an unthinking robot. And again foreign investors avoid investing in today's Third World republics like the plague and prefer "communist" China instead for all the reasons I gave above.

If you don't like my use of the word, "messy," to describe today's Third World republics, how about "fledgling." And it isn't just Russia's democracy which is a fledgling banana republic but every other Third World democracy on earth you can name.

I can assure you that one reason Taiwanese businesses have invested so heavily in China is because Taiwan's parliamentary political system is not only messy but often an arena for so-called "ultimate fighting" by Taiwanese politicians. Taiwanese politicians really are too busy punching and pulling each other's hair on the parliamentary floor to take care of the economy's increasingly dire ecoomic situation anymore.

Time is running out for Taiwan. Every Taiwanese youngster today knows that his personal economic future is inextricably linked to the mainland. He is likely to even marry a mainland wife. The basis for Taiwan's democracy all along was the wealth and middle-class lifestyle that Taiwan's hi-tech, export-based "economic miracle" produced over the past several decades. Now, that entire hi-tech industrial base is being transferred to the maindland wholesale. Soon, there'll be no industry left in Taiwan except Taiwanese boy bands and rice farming. Taiwan's standard of living is already declining, its economy is wasting away, and its tax revenues and military budgets are shrinking. An island of 23 mil. cannot compete economically (and, thus, militarily) with a nation of 1.3 bil. indefinitely. America wants to hook its economic future onto the mainland's fast economic growth story over the next several decades, not Taiwan's no-growth, Asian boy-band story. Chen's making some noises now, but Taiwan's economic future is inextricably linked to the mainland.

Why do the dictators in Orwell's fiction and in real-life China so fear sex?

China's population grew by 700 mil. (more than 100%) over the past 50 years while the Communists were in power because Mao specifically encouraged Chinese couples to have 5-6 kids per family. He thought that any great country requires a large population. Indeed, it is because of China's large population today that everyone fears China's economic potential and future economic output. Even during the past 20 years when the one-child policy has been in effect, China's popultion grew by an additional 300 mil., which is bigger than America's entire current population.

America is a capitalist country. Capitalism is what makes America great. Taiwan is a small island with 23 mil. people. China is the big future market with 1.3 bil. people. Even Taiwanese are investing in China like crazy, moving there, marrying mainland wives, their children saluting Mao at mainland elementary schools, etc. For the good of America's own future economic viability, America needs to place its bet on the horse with the 1.3 bil. population.

China's didn't grow to have a 1.3 bil. and growing population by practicing celibacy.

Have u ever visited Third World republics like Brazil, Indonesia, S. Africa, and Turkey? I think you'll find a whole lot more economic chaos in these supposedly pristine "democracies" than you will in China. Again, just ask yourself why are today's Third World republics such utter jokes that can't seem to get themselves off the ground?

Just for your information, China is the #1 recipient of foreign investment in the whole world and gets 80% of all the investment that goes to Asia. Secondly, communist China and Vietnam are the two fastest-growing economies in Asia right now. All the other "one-party but still democratic" Asian countries are their biggest investors. And of course the most democratic country of them all, America, invests big-time in China too. So I guess all these countries are more compatible than you think! Isn't it ironic that these "communist dictatorships" should be attracting so much foreign investment? In fact, China's economic rise so far is the WHOLE reason China is even on anyone's radar screen right now. If China were a country in the middle of Africa with a population of 10 mil., nobody would even be paying attention to it, let alone feel all scared and threatened by it.

Read my post #5 more carefully about the role of 18th century European "enlightened despots" in setting the stage for democracy later.

Just be aware that all those "democracies" you mentioned such as Japan, Korea, etc. are some of China's biggest investors.

Plus theKoreans, europeans etc. would not want the US economy to collapse -- they wouldn't mind a chicom collapse though

China just replaced the U.S. as S. Korea's #1 trading partner this past year. This is a trend not just for S. Korea but for every other Asian country. That is why China is becoming the geopolitical center of Asia.

All the former fascist military dictatorships you mentioned before(in Korea, Taiwan, etc.) are currently some of the biggest investors in China today. When they see China today, they see a mirror image of themselves about 3 decades ago.