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blue bits. red rocks.
Tuesday 10 November 2009

China is spending where it will really hurt us: building universities, advanced infrastructure — including high-speed rail — and on research. Its playing currency and protectionist games to build and maintain its productive economy, including striving to become the world leader in energy sustainability. China has its own problems, too, such as a huge poor cohort and a pile of American IOUs. But it seems more focused on a future of competition for economic and educational supremacy, as well as scarce resources, especially energy. China is happy to see America bleed itself weak with foreign military entanglements, while Beijing extends a friendly trading hand around the globe — gaining access to oil and raw materials in the process. We act like the French general staff of old, always preparing for the last war. Britain suddenly collapsed in the late 1940s, after fighting two world wars, carrying the always-losing cost of empire and seeing the rise of economic competitors that exploited London’s advocacy of free trade. The British people, having given so much (nearly 900,000 killed in World War I alone, out of a population of 45 million), demanded such things at home such as national health care. Britain’s retreat was sudden and earth changing. Fortunately, America was willing and able to fill the void. Yet Pax Americana was not just made possible by military power, but also by economic dominance in every industry, a strong and secure middle class, a sense of community unbroken by sprawl, a robust government and unions countering the power of the moneyed elites, and great public education. America was also an oil power, something not to be underestimated. Now all these advantages have slipped away. Rogue Columnist

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