The Dragon Chases Oil

The Dragon Chases Oil
By David Morris, AlterNet
Posted on February 23, 2005, Printed on February 23, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/21313/
China reminds me of that time-honored axiom, "Be careful what you wish for."

It was 33 years ago this month that President Nixon made his historic trip to China. He found a self-absorbed, static, isolationist, communist nation striving for self-sufficiency in all things. Today, the world's largest nation has abandoned communism and enthusiastically and successfully embraced capitalism and international trade.

We won. So why aren't we savoring our victory? Perhaps because we are discovering that China has become a far more formidable economic competitor than it ever was as an ideological opponent.

Since 1980, China's economy has grown faster for longer than any country in history, doubling every six to seven years. In the 1980s and '90s, that exponential growth went largely unnoticed because it applied to a tiny economic base. But as that base expanded, each doubling added ever-increasing amounts of capacity and strength.

By 2000, China needed only one more doubling to burst upon the global economic stage as a leading actor. Recognizing that dynamic, the world's manufacturing firms quickly moved into China to take advantage of its rapidly growing domestic market and its vast quantities of low-paid, highly educated and well-disciplined labor force.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/21313

Why aren't people attacking that?

US corporate lobbyists are effectively now China lobbyists, since so much of their interest rests on policy issues which affect business in China, and not things over here.

These are the same lobbyists that write the laws in closed-door sessions with "our" "elected" Congress.

So it is no wonder US interest rates are low--which encourages investment in China. It's no wonder Congress just passed a bill to "create US jobs"--that instead allows more job-destroying mergers in the US...leaving more room to grow IN CHINA.

"Treason"

There have been reports coming out of the oil industry for some time about China's purchases of oil companies with substantial reserves. Unlike the US, where our government is busy raping and pillaging our economy in order to make political donors richer, China's government is deeply intertwined with its economy and is doing whatever it takes to win. A hard rain's a gonna fall...