Originally posted by LittleTiger:
China.... lets work thru 10 trillion reserves!!!
Like everyone else who has not been there yet, I can't wait to visit China next month. I must admit, however, that I am not going free of preconceptions.
I will explain why in a moment, but first -- in the extremely unlikely event that somebody out there has actually missed out on the gossip -- it is perhaps worth recounting why China is universally acknowledged as a brand-new megapower in the making.
Some hard facts -- the Asian giant has already surpassed Japan as the holder of the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world; fact two -- nine out of every 10 tons of steel produced in the world is destined for Chinese construction sites.
Yes, that's right: nine out of every ten. By the time you read this tomorrow the country will have sold close to a billion dollars more in goods and services to the United States than it will have bought from the latter, and, partly on that basis, will have lifted another 30,000 of its nationals from the grip of grinding poverty.
Such is the sheer force and power of what has come to be known as the "Chinese model," which, however, should more appropriately be referred to as Xiaopinism, after Deng Xiaoping. This remarkable party overlord and career bureaucrat miraculously chanced on the insight that a Communist need not be frightened by capitalist money, provided the political system is kept free of the rough-and-tumble of business enterprise.
Everything about the Chinese system inspires awe. Pundits do not remark often enough on the extraordinary genius of the country's unique political process that allows for a generally incident-free transfer of power to a new crop of leaders at regular intervals.
While it regulates society with military precision, it still manages to confine the entire security apparatus in the hands of the civilian party. It is worth bearing in mind that the party itself consists of only 50 million members, and yet its hold on this nation of 1.4 billion is as close to absolute as can ever be said historically of the relationship between rulers and ruled.
China confounds a stunned world with the longest running economic boom in history. Indeed, by 2010 she will be poised to meet half the world's manufacturing needs and probably bankroll most of the rest. Similar estimates say that by 2025 her GDP will have overtaken that of the United States by some $3,000,000,000,000 (no, that's not a typo), and by 2050 the Chinese economy may well have outstripped the combined production volume of the Western Hemisphere.
And we must not forget the well-known competitive advantages of China. There is nothing really mysterious about them: a well-educated workforce, low wages, the attraction of becoming the world's largest consumer market, and a level of foreign direct investment that makes planning entry into the Chinese market less risky with each passing year.