everyone already knew that i suppose................The dragon awakens.... http://finance.yahoo.com/news/China...0.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode= By Aileen Wang and Alan Wheatley BEIJING (Reuters) - China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others. In an assessment disputed by Beijing, the International Energy Agency said last week that China had surpassed the United States as the world's largest energy user. If China can keep up a clip of 5-6 percent a year in the 2020s, it will have maintained rapid growth for 50 years, which would be unprecedented in human history.
I tend to agree, but here is an alternative view. Ben Wattenberg is moderator of the PBS program "Think Tank." http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/06/rise-and-fall-of-nations/?page=1 <<I have worked more than 40 years examining and interpreting American and international social and economic data. To me the evidence seems clear. There is no collapse in sight. The United States will become vastly more powerful in the decades to come. My primary reason concerns demographics. China's coercive one-child family policy has left them with a massive demographic shortfall. Who will pay the health and retirement bills when small cohorts of Chinese have to pay for huge numbers of elderly people who need health care and living expenses?
you see what you are saying is a commonly used argument but culturally it might not be correct. Here, in the west, generally speaking we value individuality, often we treat outsiders better than our parents, after graduation you are supposed to go out, not live with your parents, make your own money, its your world now and when you get married you might move far far away only returning at christmas or whenever to see your parents. To take care of our aged parents, that is not a common concept in the west. For that, they rely on their own savings, pensions,state aid,etc. In the east, fillial piety is paramount, it is a fundamental tenet of east asian culture. In china they say even if you carry your parents on your back walking to the ends of the earth for 100 years, you will not be able to repay them for giving birth and nutturing you, this makes no sense to us but to them its normal. For them they frequently treat family members much better than outsiders(friends, colleagues,etc). Extended families are very common., grandfather,father,grandchild all live together under one roof. Some years back,I saw this documentary of this son living in northern china, i believe inner mongolia, he was taking care of his mother who had dementia, one day while he was out working , she ran off somewhere. He looked everywhere for her for 3 years, riding out to the dessert, going to beijing, he would not give up and did everything possible. eventually she came back as someone found her in another city. the minute he saw her, he cried and kneeled before her , kept kowtowing to her, asked for her forgiveness in not trying harder for his search. This kind of dedication towards one's parents we will not see over here, so to use a western perspective and to analyze china is not accurate