Hmmm...china vs japan....they are quite the apple vs orange....
China....people (hardworking) power....they own Africa and SE Asia.....military might......security council permanent member....owns a whole bunch of America....
2 things: The article lacks substance and I find it hard to take anyone seriously who would go to a foreign country and eat at McDonald's.....
两个问题:文章缺少实质性的主题。对于一个在外国叫McDonald人,我很难严肃地对待他。
Jeremy
updated Thur May 21, 2009
Were the Japanese not "free" back in the 1980's? That's the way you make it sound.
你是说日本在1980的时候不自由吗?~~~至少看上去,你是这么认为的。
miranda updated Thur May 21, 2009
Yeah, who cares if the Chinese have a higher rate of education beyond primary school? Who cares that they already own most of the wealth in this country and that the majority of our national debt is financed by them? We know how to innovate!
是呀~~谁关心中国的教育水平、以及他们拥有的对我们国家的债务?
我们知道如何创新!!
Gustavo Ledebur updated Thur May 21, 2009
I do not why is so much infatuation for China. Remember that China is a Comunist State bend in defeating us at all costs. Now, if they can not do it by Economic means they will do it by military force. At this moment he is getting ahead in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua Bolivia , Ecuador and working on the rest of Latin America, how about that. I would say also that mostly of the States in Europe are very please how the things are going for China. less
"Freedom" is an illusion here. We just think we have freedom, as our government wants us to believe. The media only reports what the government want it to report. A lot of news, especially regarding our current two wars, can only be found reported by other countries' news agencies. If you are in Europe or Asia, you hear a lot more news than here in the States. I seriously doubt our news media is that oblivious so that they couldn't find out those news that other countries' new agencies report. So what stopping them from letting us average Americans know? I wonder.
Talking about education, I thought our education system is failing us tremendously in recent years. Colleges and Universities, now even High Schools, are driven more and more by money than passion for education. A lot of our schools lack academic atmosphere. You can go to any public school, and pick 20 kids, ask them who in their class they admire the most, the football star in their class or the one who just won the Intel Science competition. I'd been teaching oversea for more than 15 years, in different countries, including China. Chinese people by far impressed me the most with their respect to academics. "Never pick on anybody who's smarter than you, and further more, never pick on anybody." One of my Chinese students once told me, responding to my questions regarding bullying, which is totally opposite to the situation here, the 'nerdy' kids are almost always the victims first. We fail to each our young kids, our future, how to be decent individuals with respect for others. Of course, there are a lot of very intelligent and respectful young people. However, with the overall atmosphere of the schools these days, from my observation last 4 years since I've been back to teach here in the State, it worries me.
Yet, we still announce to the rest of the world that we are the best of everything. In the bottom of our heart, we still believe we are still leading every way we were. How can we fix anything if we don't admit there are fundamental problems of our society? How blind can we be? less
、Japan had half of the US population in 1980, 120 million people vs. our 240 million. It was very unlikely that they would take us over because their population just could not produce enough to make up that difference.
China today has 4.5 times the population that the US has, 1.3 billion people to our 300 million. It's likely that the country will surpass us in total industrial output because they have numbers on their side. Where we will likely remain ahead of them is standard of living for a long time to come. Similar to the fact that Scandanavia has a higher standard of living compared to the US, but cannot compete in overall industrial output.
I don't think it's a bad thing if China were to assume Top Dog status. That just means more people will lead better lives.
China's future competitor will likely be India, which will actually overtake China as the most populous country in the near future.
So yes, China will soon be the "Economic King". less
Jyoti updated Thur May 21, 2009
Freedom in USA is a relative thing - yes freedom compared to China. But only if you suck up to your superiors. There is no freedom of thought. Innovations come not from freedom to spend more than you earn, but from freedom to think. With all children on Ritalin, US is making robots with no brains.
Elias updated Thur May 21, 2009
If this isn't the most illogical article I have ever seen, I do not know what is...
Japan did beat us, they make the best products hands down. American cars are a joke. The only way I would take one is if it was given to me and then I'd use it as a trade in for a reliable Toyota or Honda.
China is beating us, and so is India. U.S. companies hell bent on maximizing profits at any cost have outsourced almost everything possible overseas to China and India where labor is extremely cheap. At this rate, there will be no jobs available for Americans except in-person jobs such as retail. We as Americans will become the cheap labor of the future and live in our own version of Shanty towns...
Clark must be living in an alternate reality where "freedom" somehow pushed America to being filled with highly innovative and educated citizens.
The real America we live in is filled with a growing population of morons who value entertainment over education, bad parenting, teenage pregnancies, and bad decision making by CEOs who are willing to destroy companies and employees as long as they can resign with a multimillion dollar bonus on the way out... less
MD updated Thur May 21, 2009
With all do respect Mr. Howard, I'm lost as to the point of your article. Why do you feel that China is "competing" with the US? China is simply making ends meet and developing technological advances at their own pace, for their own people. This is not an issue of "Beat them or be beaten". There's no reason to feel threatened or out-done by the Chinese.
Freedom of speech is certainly restricted in China, and it's rather unfortunate that such abuse still exists...but for you to publicly say "we are making a comeback and we will win" is confusing and somewhat childish. What are you trying to win? What have the Chinese done to threaten American democracy or technological advances? I have the answer; the answer is nothing.
There's no reason to feel hostile. It isn't very professional of you to pick a fight due to boredom