Wake up, America! You’re falling behind

[ChinaToday]

Every time the United States or the West steps into an Islamic country it presents a major geopolitical gift to China. (When the U.S. decided to intervene in Libya) China was saying, “Great, go ahead! Go into more Islamic countries. Make my day.”

If you’re a logical, long-term, hard-headed geopolitical realist thinker from America it is very, very clear that the only country that can overtake the United States in absolute power - militarily, economically, in every sense - is China.


The Islamic world will not overtake America– not in my lifetime and not in your lifetime. So America should be devoting 90% of its resources on managing China and 10% of its resources on managing the Islamic world.

Instead it is spending 90% of its resources getting involved in the Islamic world - whether it is Iraq or Afghanistan or Palestine or Libya– and 10% of its time managing China.

The U.S.should engage China more seriously and try to work out a long-term, viable, geopolitical partnership with China. It should also give up its dream of achieving democracy in China. It should stop believing that a “Jasmine Revolution” is on the way and realize that this government in China is going to survive and possibly do very well.

You may wish for all kinds of worst-case scenarios for China, but as a geopolitical planner you should plan for the best-case scenario.

China is going to go from strength to strength. And if China is going to go from strength to strength and you spend all your time either in the Islamic world or having this absolutely stupid domestic debate about how to cut the deficit, you’re just buying time for China.

A lot of my writings are intended to serve as a wake-up call to the West. I’m not anti-West nor am I anti-American - even though many people think I am. I’m actually just telling the West that you are acting against your own long-term geopolitical and economic interests in your policies towards the rest of the world. There was a time - and it lasted only 200 years - when the West could make decisions and the rest of the world had to comply. That era is gone, finished – poof!

Now the West has got to learn to understand what the rest of the world wants and pragmatically adjust. The biggest advantage that Asian countries have over the United States and other Western countries is that they’re very pragmatic and flexible and America has become ideological and dogmatic. America needs to become pragmatic and flexible too.

Unfortunately, American public intellectuals have an incestuous, self-referential discourse among themselves saying, “Aren't we the greatest in the world? Gee, aren't we wonderful?” And they don’t realize that Western power - American power - is receding steadily in the world.

Look at Southeast Asia. After theU.S.won the Cold War, (Southeast Asia) was frankly an American lake. And then suddenly Americans became very arrogant and they said, “Hey, we don’t need the world; forget you.”

You do what you want to do and slowly, steadily,China is (advancing). I admire what the Chinese have done. It’s amazing how careful, deliberate, and systematic they are in their policies towards the rest of the world and how arrogant and ignorant American policies are.

If you want to learn about how to grow a country’s economy right, don’t go to Europe, don’t go to America; go to Asia. Frankly, the best governed country in the world - and I can say this somewhat immodestly - is Singapore.

Or even go to China.

Let me give you a very simple example. The most shocking thing I’ve learned recently for someone who lived in New York for 10 and a half years is that the Tappan Zee Bridge which carries thousands of cars can only survive another 10 years. Isn't that shocking? In the meantime, while you can't hold up one bridge across one river, guess what,China is building the world’s fastest trains and the world’s best airports.

I’ve flown several times, just by chance, directly from Shanghai to JFK (airport in New York). And when you fly from Shanghai airport to JFK, you’re flying from the first world to the third world. And yet Americans are not aware of how far they’ve fallen behind. The Americans cannot conceive of the idea that you can learn about governance from the rest of the world.Chinacan andChinadoes.Chinaspends so much time studying best practices in the rest of the world and America spends no time studying best practices in the rest of the world.
So my message to America is that the clock is ticking. Time is no more on your side. And fortunately even today there’s a huge reservoir of goodwill towards America in the world. Try to figure out how you can use this reservoir of goodwill for the long-term benefit of America. Don’t waste it.

Wake up, America! You

i find this article hillerious but some of the things mentioned in this article is quite interesting.
A wake up call for america? i think is too little and too late, how can usa get tough with china? as hillary clinton rightly said " how can you get tough with yours banker",they shouldnt underestimate china long way back then, no one can stop china rising now.

 

[blackops]

well america has to change its foreign policies stop the ongoing wars seriously how many un necessary wars have usa fought and still fighting pull out of afghanistan the money that usa is spending on all these wars is to much just re divert it to you economy and it will come bacl to live

 

[rcrmj]

whats the point of this article, getting more attention`? in no means U.S is falling behind`in terms of infrastructure quality and scale China is still behind``we may hv fantastic infrastructures in those 20 big chinese cities, but other 250 cities are still behind compared to U.S, especially the western part of china, only Ulumuqi can be considered having good infrastructure, but the rest cities in tibet, qinghai, guizhou, gansu are very backward``!

 

[S10]

Technologically, no they are not falling behind. They still enjoy a considerable lead over the closest competitors, China included. The biggest problem I see facing United States is the state of their finance, with massive debt and money printing. The US dollar has gone down in value as much as 1/3 in the past 10 years when your consider the buying power. Their political system, with all its bickering and lobbyists, cannot address these shortcomings. All empires are destroyed from within.

 

[below_freezing]

US tech is surviving on momentum and brain drain, not any significant internal innovation.

 

[anon45]

US tech is surviving on momentum and brain drain, not any significant internal innovation.

false.

1234

 

[gambit]

US tech is surviving on momentum and brain drain, not any significant internal innovation.

Spoken by someone who grossly exaggerated China's semicon industry and proven grossly wrong?

 

[casual]

well, it doesn't look like congress is going to make up their minds on how to deal with the budget crisis anytime soon. doesn't look like we're going to stop our wars anytime soon.

 

[Tractor]

America just as in chinese meaning 'a beautiful country' and no more.

 

[Bizarre]

China's per capita is some $4,300? or something like that..US doesn't need to fear in terms of per capita/infrastructure competitiveness from China for the coming decades...cuz China still has very low per capita income.

 

[casual]

China's per capita is some $4,300? or something like that..US doesn't need to fear in terms of per capita/infrastructure competitiveness from China for the coming decades...cuz China still has very low per capita income.

if you're counting per capita income, america's not the highest. not even close.

 

[StingRoy]

The recent flood of articles and campaigns by Obama are desperate attempts to kick start their economy. Obama has been appealing the companies in the silicon valley to innovate and add more jobs to their payrolls. Be prepared to see more of such articles in the US media.

Despite the economic situation, US is still leading the world in innovation and engineering. If they stop innovating today, it will take almost a decade for another country to challenge their technological capability. Thing to take from this article is nothing beyond a wake up call.

 

[Bizarre]

if you're counting per capita income, america's not the highest. not even close.

correct,but it still is so so so ahead of China.
China and India can be in the same league of per capita incomes with some $1,300 and $4,400 respectively...Not much of a difference,eh?
But compare US and China $4,400 and $47,132..eh?Too much difference!!

 

[Bigoren]

America is falling,no doubt.But america is still light year ahead of other countries,no doubt.

 

[below_freezing]

correct,but it still is so so so ahead of China.
China and India can be in the same league of per capita incomes with some $1,300 and $4,400 respectively...Not much of a difference,eh?
But compare US and China $4,400 and $47,132..eh?Too much difference!!

Multiples are the way to compare.

Why do we compare with multiples? Because economies grow in multiples, and multiples reflect the actual time it takes for economies to surpass each other.

The distance between US and China is 10x while the distance between China and India is 4x. Indeed, a large difference. But at this growth rate, we'll go down to 4x within the decade.

Gambit: Without economies background in the state of the market, its no problem, such knowledge is picked up with a book. But deep theoretical knowledge of semiconductor materials, that's what a few days of reading magazines doesn't get.