Trillion-Dollar Baby: China's Impact on the U.S.

This week we "celebrated" the anniversary of Ping-Pong Diplomacy. For those too young to remember, back around 1971 the U.S. made it's first tentative steps toward breaking down what was then called "the bamboo curtain" with Communist China, by sending a delegation of Ping-Pong players over to bat some balls around. (I think they whooped our butts.)

We imported zip, nada, nothing from China then; they were isolated from much of the world by their own choosing; fearing, I suppose, the influence of America on their perfect Communist state. And oh, yes, the two countries had been busy trying to kill each other, through intermediaries, in Vietnam and Korea for 20 years.

Today things are much, much different. I read somewhere that over 24 percent of the manufactured goods we buy today are Chinese made. I think the Chinese influence on the average American is even bigger if we remember that it takes a lot of Chinese toys and textiles at Walmart to offset the billions we spend on a single U.S. built warship or bomber.

China's success is leading to a burgeoning middle class there. They're buying cars and eating more meat. Which means we must compete with them for gas and wheat. Don't expect to see $1 a gallon gas or 49-cent loaves of bread again in our lifetimes.

Did I mention that the Chinese are holding something on the order of one trillion dollars in U.S. Treasury notes? That's $1,000,000,000,000.00 in debt we owe the Communists, folks.

And, have you noticed that when referring to China, nobody ever calls them "Red China" any more? I guess they've earned (or bought) the right to political correctness.

All that power and influence gathered in just one generation. Amazing. Maybe if we'd been better at Ping-Pong...