by Billy Sunshine

Created on: March 04, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

China has a huge and booming population of 2 Billion people, and an abundance of farmable land to grow food to feed those people. I think of this when I consider the "wealth" of a nation: If a nation has vast natural resources but no agriculture(An oil rich Middle-Eastern desert nation, for instance), and that country's people would starve if other countries stopped importing food to them, how rich and powerful are they, really? China should, in theory, have enough land to feed itself, although they have experienced some notorious famines in the past.

The communist Chinese government holds ideals contrary to American capitalism, and has a potentially large military with which they could argue their case, should they ever choose to do so. Though their military technology lags in places, the sheer man power is certainly worthy of concern. Mao Zedong famously claimed that China could raise an army of 20 million soldiers, which would absolutely dwarf the Armed Forces of the United States, which is currently under 3 million soldiers.

In a sense, maybe it is that Americans detect that China is the only single Nation that potentially has the power to unseat us as the World Superpower, whether it be by economic or military means.

However, China has no reason to attack us. The United States provides a huge market for their goods. American companies cut costs by having things manufactured in China, where workers are paid wages disproportionate to the value of the goods that they produce. Maybe Americans don't say anything because they know that if sweatshop workers were paid a fair wage, their hi-top signature sneakers might cost 300 dollars. (I know of one derided Mega-Store chain that would probably go out of business if the U.S. stopped trade with China.) The affluence of one group depends on the exploitation of another, same as it ever was.

China builds more and more factories in their growing cities, as factory jobs in the United States disappear. On one hand it's unfair and selfish to think of sending all of your polluting industries to one area where the government's environmental standards happen to be lax, and on the other equally bad hand, moving these fair paying factory jobs to other countries seems to be killing the "middle class" in America.

I think America should re-industrialize itself in an environmentally considerate way, as a measure towards ending the needless carbon emissions and petroleum usage of importing goods from halfway around the world just so greedy corporate strategists can exploit people to maximize profits. To that end, the re-establishment of small, local farms wouldn't be a bad idea either.

If China were compelled or forced to address the human rights issues that they have, and if it were demanded that Chinese workers be paid fairly, it would definitely drive up prices and cause companies in the United States to move manufacturing jobs back to America.

Learn more about this author, Billy Sunshine.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.