Don’t Count Your Chickens before They Hatch

We Americans always have that paranoia about competition from others countries.  In the middle of the 20^th century, it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with Sputnik and the Red Army. In the 1980s, it was Japan with its high-technology cars, robots, and electronics. Today, Americans are now worried about the 1.3 billion communist strong nation that is China.  For many foreign policy analysts, China is the nation right now. Her economy is stupendously growing by 10% every year. She does not have the heavy debt that the U.S. has right now, and she has 1.3 billion people ready to work, consume, and become middle class.  China’s economy may grow larger than the U.S. in the first half of this century which many view as a lethargic lumbering path towards a lost decade of economic growth and activity.

However, it might sound frightful, but one should not be. America has strength that still makes her a very competitive nation. While China’s has a centralized form of innovation, which involves manufacturing of planes, trains, and automobiles, she still does have the openness of our markets, which provides innovation. We have open markets, which allow investments into small startups, such as Google and Face book to be major corporations. Furthermore, China is an authoritative regime, which does not allow dissent. As a result, the only way the citizens can express their displeasure is through violent protest or through nationalism, which can complicate matters of diplomacy for the regime. The U.S., on the other hand, view allows free speech and open protest in the country, allowing her citizens to vent their anger rather than bottle it up as China would. As a consequence, we generally accept our country’s government and democratic regime as legitimate, which can be hardly be said for the Chinese government, using economic legitimacy in order to stay in power. If this economy would to turn sour, it might make the nation unstable if not let foreign investors flee the market. America has held steady for the last two centuries whether through Civil War, Depression, and the Great recession.  We have gone through past crisis’s generally stronger than previously. This pattern should not change. Even though it seems bleak today, never expect the future to be certain. Recalling back in 1988, I was taught that the Cold War would likely last for decades if not continue into the 21^st century.  Two years later, the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union dissolved. In others words, do not count your chickens before they hatch, who knows what the future might bring?

Vocabulary

Lethargic

Adjective

Of, pertaining to, or affected with lethargy; sluggish.

Stupendously

–adjective

causing amazement; astounding; marvelous: stupendous news.

amazingly large or great; immense: a stupendous mass of information