China's Pipe Dream

I find little of value in this. China will either abandon its Communist principles or follow the Soviet Union into the dustbin of history. Already there are signs of resentment of the oppressive conformity of Chinese society, and it'll get nothing but worse.

China is utterly reliant on the US for its economic health. Were we to pull any significant amount of our business from the mainland, China's economy would collapse. And I think the US economy would hardly skip a beat; we'd just reduce our consumption a bit as the cost of some goods increased. People seem to forget that the Chinese GDP is about $2 trillion, while ours is about $13 trillion. That's orders of magnitude stronger and, I image, more resilient.

Also, it's inconceivable that increasing economic freedom in China won't translate to increasing pressure for political freedom. It's already happening, only it's so heavily censored that it takes one back to the Soviet Union, where the people were always happy and the economy was always on track--right up to the collapse.

I still consider China a threat, but mainly because I fear what will happen once the transition really starts.