Another Obama record-China passes US as largest trading nation

China Eclipses U.S. as Biggest Trading Nation
By Bloomberg News - Feb 10, 2013 11:01 AM ET


China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show.

“For so many countries around the world, China is becoming rapidly the most important bilateral trade partner,” O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs’s asset management division said in a telephone interview.

“At this kind of pace by the end of the decade many European countries will be doing more individual trade with China than with bilateral partners in Europe.

The U.S. emerged as the preeminent trading power following World War II as it spearheaded the creation of the global trade and financial architecture. Protectionist policies in the 1930s had exacerbated the global economic depression. At the same time the U.K., the leading trading nation of the 19th century, began to dismantle its colonial empire.

History has not been kind to enpires. One powerful nation or another gets its turn to dominate the world politically, economically, and cuturally, then it declines, and, eventually, falls - rarely to return. China will break that cycle.

A great empire for 200 years at the turn of the first millenium, during the Song dynasty, China engaged in international commerce with sailing ships that held more than 1000 men. A genuine market economy linked coastal areas to the interior, and cities were developed specifically for industry, trade, and maritime commerce. China was using paper money in the eleventh century, long before the West. Stores in the Capital of Kaifeng, then the World's second-largest city, were open 24 hours a day.

China was last considered the leading economy during the height of the Qing dynasty. The difference is that in the 18th century, the Qing Empire -- unlike rising Britain -- didn’t focus on trade. The Emperor Qianlong told King George III in a 1793 letter that “we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and I have no use for your country’s manufactures.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...ng-nation.html

Another new record under Obama

 

Obama usually has the DOJ sue or investigate people/companies who cross him like the Standard and Poors and the anti-islam film maker. I wonder if he is going to go after importers for importing Chinese goods and making his bad policies look bad.

 

We need something helpful in this regard, like, say, a national initiative to double our exports in five years.

 

Always looking out for yourself, eh ricter?

Still having problems with the wife?