The China Question

[tamarin]

http://www.thestar.com/article/172989

Although continuing problems in the Mid-East dominate network and newspaper coverage I can't help but think the real story is China. Big, brawny and increasingly bold. This article highlights once more the type of adversary the West and Canada are dealing with.
It's all part of a larger question, the China question. What's to be done about the country's lack of regard for what are normally seen as key international expectations of the global community's members? And where is China heading?

 

[vinod1975]

All I know is , the electronic gadgest they have are awsome and cheepest in the world

 

[tamarin]

Yes, they are but according to 'conventional wisdom' they're not supposed to be making them. I always get a kick out of folk discussing the China conundrum locally and using dated arguments about how the Chinese are only supplying the lower rung of industrial output. Boy, that's yesterday! Does Canada have a plan to meet the challenge of a country that wishes to usurp all of its key manufacturing trade with the US? I think we should.

 

[hermanntrude]

why should we consider a country an adversary just because they're doing well? I admit they have been rather forceful with neighbouring countries but they're not really threatening to the west are they? we depend on each other. Without chinese imports any western country you can name would be totally different. the same is true of chinese immigrants

 

[tamarin]

Herman, read the lead article. They're not playing fair on trade. And so far they're big enough to get away with it. Over the long run, if not the short, Canada can't win without the proverbial level playing field.

 

[marygaspe]

why should we consider a country an adversary just because they're doing well? I admit they have been rather forceful with neighbouring countries but they're not really threatening to the west are they? we depend on each other. Without chinese imports any western country you can name would be totally different. the same is true of chinese immigrants

They're not threatening us YET. But anybody would be blind if they can not see that the rising superpower is China.

 

[hermanntrude]

I guarantee if you investigate the trade of any country you will find that it isnt playing fair. that's not how the modern world works.

China i am sure is a potential problem, but no worse than any of the other countries. We're all greedy liars and cheats.

 

[humanbeing]

Any more gigantic governments with power and influence such as that of we see from Washington is not a good thing to me...

However, hundreds of millions of people experiencing the upward mobility that we see in China is wonderful. Don't mean to generalize, but China is full of a lot of bright people (like any place with a lot of people) that will potentially go on to do wonderful things for themselves and everyone.

New innovations are a plenty already, so just imagine how it is going to be when you more than double the amount of minds pushing the envelopes of art, science, technology, etc.

We have little to nothing to lose, and a whole lot to gain, from having more well-off, intelligent people in the world.

 

[Zzarchov]

I think people are forgetting something, while you are right that we don't have anything to worry about in terms of China, in the people of China.

The government of China is our mortal enemy, and will use those people in it as living weapons or producers of them. As dictatorships grow in power, they invariabley seek to control more and more things.

If we really were friends with China we would be seeking to topple and usurp its current government.

 

[tamarin]

Zzarchov, I think you're right. China is a country to be reckoned with. It is the elephant in the room at the moment.
Story after story comes through of what China is doing. The lead article only looks at some of the mischief. Stories over the last year have looked at how China's immense fishing fleet (the world's largest) is plundering the oceans. Another reviewed once more China's reliance on the illegal timber trade that is devastating so many of the earth's remaining tropical forests. Another looked at how peasants in the country are increasingly revolting against land expropriation to make way for the new urbanization and industrialization that has exploded there. Another looked at the insatiable desire of the Chinese for future energy sources and how they're buying up contracts across the globe to ensure Chinese supply well into the future.
The country can't be faulted for wanting progress. But it does have to play fair. At the moment it's not and intimidated western countries, loath to lose Beijing's favour, are saying little.
Marygaspe, this will be China's century. A transition is already underway.

 

[TenPenny]

One of the stated aims of the leadership of China is to "oppose US Hegemony", and become a superpower to replace the USSR, so that there is a balance to the US.

While there are a few people in the US who talk about this, the full impact does not seem to have sunk in, everyone's too busy shopping at Walmart. Did you know that all US cruise missiles have a guidance system that uses a magnet that is now ONLY made in China? And that every time someone like Boeing gets an order from China Airlines for some 777s, they have to do a certain percentage of technology transfer to the Chinese aviation industry? Where do you think all this is headed?

China is now buying up large stakes in natural resources in Canada, but also in Russia. As well, consider the huge amount of US national debt that is now held by China. Is this a good thing? China will be technologically equal to the US, perhaps without some of the societal restraints that a western democratic country has. It could be very, very uncomfortable.

 

[tamarin]

TenPenny, it's the century's biggest story but most of us are still stuck on Iraq and Iran. It wasn't that long ago that the US stopped sharing military technology secrets with Israel as the Israelis were too chummy with the Chinese including aiding in the training of the Chinese army. There's something going on and the Chinese will at some point think they're ready to test the US for both its resolve and its supposed might. Americans especially should be worried at how this confrontation will play out. The space spat lately over Chinese space weapon technology is just a little taste of what's to come.

 

[L Gilbert]

Herman, read the lead article. They're not playing fair on trade. And so far they're big enough to get away with it. Over the long run, if not the short, Canada can't win without the proverbial level playing field.

We've never been on a level playing field with our next door neighbor either. The way it looks to me is that Canada will have to continue filling a niche instead of trying to build an empire equal with the States and probably China. A little company started out here in Nelson building circuits for electronics firms. They had the idea that a lot of folks could use what turned out to be daytime running lights. Next thing you know, GM gave them a contract. http://www.pacificinsight.com/automotive.php# So instead of building entire vehicle computers, they build parts.

 

[L Gilbert]

I think people are forgetting something, while you are right that we don't have anything to worry about in terms of China, in the people of China.

The government of China is our mortal enemy, and will use those people in it as living weapons or producers of them. As dictatorships grow in power, they invariabley seek to control more and more things.....

Yeah. There's another thing that China has in common with the US.
I don't trust either of them.

 

[vinod1975]

Why we have to look at each and every angle from political point of view when even there no need for the same.

 

[L Gilbert]

Don't know about that, but I look at various things from an analytical point of view. Politics is one of them.

 

[vinod1975]

What I belive if somthing or some is doing well so we need to appriciate the way we want to be appriciated when we do well in our job and bussiness

 

[L Gilbert]

Certainly, but ignoring the dysfunctional areas doesn't help any. My method is to analyse things, point out the good parts, save them, point out the bad parts, throw them in the trashbin, and proceed forward.
JK Galbraith once said, "In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it's the opposite". So the answer must lie in between the two. Take the good bits from both sides, combine them, and trash the bad bits.

 

[vinod1975]

my style diffrent , you need to accept bad thing with lots of good thing its 80 - 20 rule which is world wide acceptable.

 

[tamarin]

My style is focus on the big picture. Get past the mischief and nuisance of incidentals. China is trouble for the West. It's nice that its people are making all these neat, cheap little things for us but the real story is of a country exploiting every opportunity it has to acquire capital and power. I know what the American experience with power is like. And it's often not pretty. But what will the Chinese do with it?