Buddy, it'll take at least 10 years for the US to re-establish those lines and just get caught up to current Chinese practice in separations and purifications.
Any credible basis for that assertion? But say that it does. So what?
Would the US still exist in 10 years? That's a question mark.
More like can China sustain the current economic growth inside that time span?
Here is an excellent explanation of basic economics and growth...
Ask Marilyn Sunday's Column November 20, 2011 | Parade.com
Q: I keep reading about how slowly the economy is growing and how this is such a bad thing. Why do we need growth? If we depend on more and more people to swell the economy, how can weor the world, for that matterpossibly sustain this? Andrew Karpe, Brookline, Mass.
A: Economic growth refers to escalating productive transactions from the use of natural resources, technology development, labor, etc. It doesnt correspond to population growth. A growing economy is one in which more and more of these buy-and-sell activities occur, regardless of the number of people involved. In other words, an economy can grow with a stable population. Economic growth is what raises our standard of living. An economy can be perfectly sound without an expanding output of goods and services, but the quality of everyday life wont increase rapidly, if at all.
Pay attention to Vos Savant's answer.
What she is saying, from basic economics, is that
EXPLOITATION OF CONSUMPTION is the engine of economic growth. That consumption can be internal or external but usually best if there is a balance of both. China's economic growth has been based mostly upon
EXTERNAL consumption: US and Europe. China's internal consumption has not yet reached the same as that of the American and European level, especially at the individual level. I consider myself a financially discipline person but I know I spend and consume a lot more than the average Chinese. China's low labor cost is an attractant for anyone who wishes to reduce overall cost and in a competitive market environment, low cost of anything is desirable.
What Vos Savant said is significant:
'...escalating productive transactions...' with emphasis on 'escalating'. Inside a population, regardless of whether it is stable or growing, in order to have persistent economic growth, that internal transactions must occurs and they must increase. Sorry, but as we have seen everywhere, including now in America, governmental activities cannot sustain that growth. What we have seen in China so far is the encouragement of capitalism but under governmental controls to initiate and attempts to sustain growth. The result is a disparity of wealth in China where the vast majority of wealth is concentrated on 'special economic zones', official or unofficial, and namely the coastal cities. Any wonder why so many Chinese want to move to the cities?
Russia is already facing
INTERNAL problems relating to the
euro. China's dependency on American consumption, from the iPhone to Walmart's imports, make China economically vulnerable. Will China's internal consumption make up for any decrease in external consumption? No. This now treads into human behaviors. China's high savings rate does not help that internal consumption. The Chinese government can use that huge reserves to fund building new (ghost) cities but if no one can afford or willing to live in them, that will never be counted as
'escalating productive transactions'.
Americans cannot force Chinese to demand a higher living standards. But if during economic hardships, the human reflex to save and to exercise extreme discretion on spending kicks in, the Chinese, the Americans, the French, the Brits, or anyone else for that matter, will be willing to live with the current or even lowered standards of living. So if Americans decides to be frugal and Chinese internal consumption cannot make up for that loss, say goodbye (in Chinese) to that economic growth you have been boasting about.
The Soviet Empire was an excellent example of basic economics and Vos Savant's answer. The Soviet government
DID NOT want internal consumption based upon competitive market principles. The simple microwave oven could not be invented and marketed under the Soviet system. The military-industrial complex so often warned about in the US was more appropriate for the Soviet system and it worked. The principles behind the microwave oven would have been scuttled away by the Soviet government for military purposes and the Soviet public would have been no wiser of the convenience offered. But more likely given how the Soviet system discouraged creativity, even the principles of this ordinary thing would not have crossed a Soviet citizen's mind. No wonder why Western products were so popular and eagerly acquired by the Soviet citizenry.
If we go down, so will China.