To make
matters worse, this creditor is not going to go away and will come knocking at
the door to collect the debt from the debtor. And no matter what the debtor is
trying to do, the debt keeps piling up and sitting on the debtor like a
mountain. There is no escape from the weight of the debt.
And everyday,
the superiority and advantage of the debtor in every field of endeavour is
shifting to favour the creditor, from manufacturing to farming, from consumer
goods to weapons, from ships to aircraft, commercial planes to war planes, war
ships, transportation, telecommunication, satellites, rocketry, computer and
cyber technology, green technology, the creditor is catching up and already
better in many fields.
How can it
be? In only a short span of one generation, the seemingly unsurpassed
superiority of the Americans has been surpassed. Everything the Americans are
doing, or have done, the Chinese have bettered or in the process of catching
up.
The
Americans must be shaking in disbelief, pinching themselves silly asking
themselves this is not true. The sad thing is that this is true. The poor
illiterate, backward peasants of a poor communist country, plagued by poverty
and famine, inefficiency, low education, lack of financial resources and money,
lack of talents, scientists, engineers, architects, medical professionals,
academics, thinkers and planners, military experts, now they have plenty of
them, and damn bloody good ones. There was not a single millionaire in 1980 in
China. Today the millionaires are crawling everywhere, with equally many
billionaires and some to the riches in the world.
The
Americans did not see this coming. It is now history. It is too late to think
of containing China and keeping it as a developing nation for another century
by all kinds of sanctions, blockages and obstacles placed in its way. The new
China is here. Who did it?
Two men, one
an American, another a Chinese but not of Chinese nationality did it. The
American and the non Chinese Chinese convinced the Americans that it was a good
thing to engage China and bring China into the world community, to integrate
China with the world instead of making China an enemy. Of course that was real
and a good thing, but may not necessarily be good to the American hegemony. The
one billion people will rise one day to be the equals of the world. It would be
better to work with them and cultivate and build a healthy relationship with
this one billion people, to be friends than enemies.
It sounded
logical. The Americans also thought so. What harm could it bring to help another
nation of people to live better and to live in peace? It would take maybe a
century for them to get the act together to rise out of poverty. It was a tough
and long process and maybe they might not be able to do it. These are the same people that were good
enough to be coolies, cooks and laundrymen, without very little talent.
Many
countries were still struggling to reach the level of wealth of developed
countries and many hardly made any real changes, just managing to stand above
the poverty level, to join the ranks of developing countries since the end of
WW2. A huge moribund country like China,
with one billion hungry and illiterate people would take much more time to sort
themselves out of poverty. How to feed a billion people is not a joke.
Who in his
right mind could perceive that a poor China that was short of everything except
poor people could turn around in 30 years and in 40 years, vying for world
dominance with the Americans for world supremacy? Who would believe the richest nation could owe
the poorest nation a ton of debt in a short span of 40 years?
The
Americans are in shock and in awe today. Now, how to reverse the trend? The losing
trend is just too fast and too hard to swallow. All the defences are up, all
the obstacles are raised again, to contain China, to keep it poor or not
allowed to get richer, to overtake the richest and most powerful country in the
world.
Alas, it is
a bit too late. The momentum is so strong that within the next 5 years, China
will be Number One in financial terms, the Number One economy in the world.
Two men did
it, to change the balance of power of the 21st Century.