Hate to be so harsh with another old-timer, but this "China? No way" is about the depth of analysis I would expect from someone who uses the word 'prolly' in a sentence. "China? You're goddamn straight" is more like it. Why the hell not China as the next economic/military superpower? They have everything going for them, including (and maybe most importantly) a political system which will allow those in power to make decisions that are best for the country even if they aren't the best for the citizens (and if anyone is tempted to spout some crapola like 'The citizens are the country', please... wake up). You think that American pols don't drool over the kind of control the Chinese state has?
Oh, Nick, I don't know, I guess most of us perceive that outside of a few large cities most chinese are living in hovels, drinking polluted water, wiping their asses with their hands and scratching out an existance in a hellish semi-agrarian 18th century industrial revolution nightmare. Ever heard of "the myth of the chinese market"? Its driven quite a few nations to ruin including the UK. The chinese middle-class does not exist. Are you familar with the work of Gauss?
--------------------------------------- Keeping "nuclear" out of the equation, China today could polish off Britain in one afternoon, all of Europe in a month and the USA within a year. Russia would stay out. India would look the other way. And the kicker is that as the USA gets weaker China is getting stronger exponentially. >>> It's still the greatest place of all. <<<< .... live well beyond one's means, pay for a pack of gum with a credit card, buy anything one wants with zero down (perhaps not anymore), large % of families just 1-3 months from the Salvation Army (or parents), kill blackies and/or brownies and sleep like babies thereafter, but one whitey dies and TV/pubic opinion carries on for weeks on end like a bunch of sissies. Just the totality of transgressions against blackies alone guarantees endless lives in purgatory or Hell when KARMA comes a calling sooner or later, perhaps already. The War on Terror? ... engineered by the #1 terrorist country on earth? ... yep, BEAR has a sense of humor and he's laffin his ass off at how upside down things have gotten and yet the pubic swears its NORMAL.