Like China In A Bull Market

It seems that China is surpassing the US on at least 2 levels.

In Is China now more capitalist than the US?, Ed Morrissey writes:

In response to the financial crisis of 2008, the United States has responded bynationalizing industries and electing a president who promised to raise taxes on entrepreneurial efforts. China, the nominally Communist nation, has responded bycutting business taxes to stimulate growth. Remind me which nation supposedly supports capitalism and free enterprise.

...When one looks to Beijing for rational tax policies … well, that’s just a sad day for Americans, even if it does portend a brighter future for China.

Read the whole thing.

But China is also surpassing the US in a different and equally important area--the future. Spengler writes:

America outspends China on defense by a margin of more than six to one, the Pentagon estimates. In another strategic dimension, though, China already holds a six-to-one advantage over the United States. Thirty-six million Chinese children study piano today, compared to only 6 million in the United States. The numbers understate the difference, for musical study in China is more demanding.

It must be a conspiracy. Chinese parents are selling plasma-screen TVs to America, and saving their wages to buy their kids pianos - making American kids stupider and Chinese kids smarter. Watch out, Americans - a generation from now, your kid is going to fetch coffee for a Chinese boss. That is a bit of an exaggeration, of course - some of the bosses will be Indian. Americans really, really don’t have a clue what is coming down the pike. The present shift in intellectual capital in favor of the East has no precedent in world history.

...Few of its piano students will earn a living at the keyboard, to be sure, but many of the 36 million will become much better scientists, engineers, physicians, businessmen and military officers.

Spengler shows how this is not idle speculation, but rather in the context of Chinese history and past achievements:

Until now, the West has tended to dismiss China's scientists as imitators rather than originators. As a practical matter, China had little incentive to innovate; an emerging economy does not have to re-invent the wheel, or the Volkswagen, for that matter.

This was not true in the remote past, of course. China invented the clock, the magnetic compass, the printing press, geared machines, gunpowder, and the other technologies that began the industrial revolution, long before the West. When it comes time to develop the next generation of anti-missile radar, or electric car batteries, Chinese originality may assert itself once again. Chinese who have mastered the most elevated as well as the most characteristically Western forms of high culture will also think with originality. Anyone who doubts this should watch Lang Lang's performance of the Mozart C Minor Concerto once again.

Read the whole thing.

The US has shown signs that it is finally waking up and taking action in response to the Islamist enemy. The question remains as to whether it is ready to take action in response to its Chinese competition.

Technorati Tag: China.