It seems amazing that the mainstream media ignored a recent IMF report that now estimates that China’s economy will surpass that of America in five years. That’s right — China’s real GDP will exceed ours by 2016. This adds to the cloud already hanging over the U.S dollar — because of our twin habits of printing dollars like mad (pardon me, “quantitative easing”) and running massive deficits (pardon me, “investment spending”).
What is really stunning is that only a decade ago our economy was triple the size of China’s.
As the Chinese become dominant, questions arise. How will this authoritarian regime conduct itself vis a vis the other nations in the region? Will it look to expand its imperial reach? Will it look to exact revenge against Japan for past injustices? We can only guess, but given the treatment the Chinese have meted out to the hapless Tibetans, the explosive growth of China’s military, the cynical way China helped Pakistan (the archenemy of China’s perceived rival India) develop nuclear weapons, as well as the missiles to deliver them, and the way China uses North Korea as a thorn in the side of its perceived Pacific rivals Japan and the US — the future looks challenging.
I said that it “seems amazing” that the media hasn’t mentioned the surprising closeness of our economic eclipse by the Chinese. In truth, however, it is not amazing. The mainstream media is the cheerleading squad for the Obama regime, and the fact that China has made such strides is in great measure due to the extended recession and feeble recovery caused by Obama’s policies. Compare America’s persistently high unemployment and anemic growth in this economic recovery to the features of past recoveries, and you will be depressed by the difference.
America has retreated from classically liberal economic policies, even as China has used them to grow rapidly, even in the context of a corrupt political regime. For the results, we have only ourselves to blame.
