Go Team Go!!!

The people rooting for the US to become a failed state are starting to get on my nerves. It seems that a lot of people cannot wait for China to supplant the US as the world leader. I feel they are basing their hopes on propaganda, lies, and hatred of anything even remotely connected to the US. It seems like more and more people are looking at international relationships and standings like a football game. The "my team versus their team" attitudes are causing nothing but harm and misunderstandings. It seems people do not care who is right or wrong anymore they just want their team to win. 

 Lets examine some of the arguments being used to propagate this view of the world.

• "China owns the US because of the US debt they have purchased from the US". China has "bought" US debt by purchasing government issued bonds and securities which basically means they have invested money in the US with an expectation of receiving a return on their investment. The fact that they are willing to do this shows that they believe the US is still strong enough to make their investments worthwhile. They do not "own" anything. In total China only holds approx 6% of the total outstanding bonds and securities.  
• "The US has lost their manufacturing base to China". It's true that the US level of manufacturing has decreased over the years but that is only a natural result of market economics. The US cannot expect to maintain their abnormally high levels of manufacturing in today's world economy. Other countries need to become productive in order to support their own populations. Thanks to WW2 the US was the only country who had none of their industries damaged in the war and did not have to re-build from the ground up. In fact the war energized the US economy and gave them a healthy head start. As time has went by the other countries are finally recovering so of course the US will see a drop in their manufacturing levels. However, as of 2011 the US is still the #1 manufacturing country in the world. Nobody ever mentions this fact.
• Most of the people rooting on China to surpass the US always use statistical trends to estimate when China will take over. Most of these prediction's are based on over optimistic reasoning. In order for these predictions to become reality China will have to experience no problems and make no mistakes in their administration of their country and the US will need to do nothing but keep making bad decisions. The US may make mistakes but every once and awhile they do make some right ones. If you look at the US economy you will see it is not unusual for the US economy have it's ups and downs. In China's case this means keeping the largest population on earth happy and content so nobody rocks the boat.   As China's population becomes more successful and empowered they will eventually want more say so in regards to the country politics and mandates.
• It was disclosed earlier this week that China is building their own stealth fighter and that the US should some how be concerned. This is complete nonsense. China or any other country for that matter have seen the pictures and specs on the US F-22 and F-35 air frames and these countries that are capable of affording and building such airplanes can do it thanks to the US having already proven it can be done. Plus the fact that China uses industrial and manufacturing espionage to avoid most of the costly R&D involved. And besides any war between the US and China will not be decided by stealth aircraft and  China and the US really have no reason to go to war. Sure they have differences of opinion on such topics as Taiwan and currency manipulation but that is nothing to go to war over. Unless China strikes one of the US allies in the region there will be no war.
• The one looming potential conflict will be access to resources like oil in the coming years. China's economic growth depends on them having access to all the resources they need to sustain their economy. The  US also relies on access to resources but China's larger population means the level of resources needed to maintain their growing economy with escalate while the US amount of resources required have pretty much evened out over the years.
• China's economy is fragile. They are not only competing with the US they are competing with the growing economies of Japan,India, and South Korea.
• If China and the US were to have a major falling out the US could cripple the Chinese economy by cutting imports. China does not provide the US with anything that can't be obtained elsewhere or made in the US. Americans would probably see a cost increase but if the US starts manufacturing more products locally there should be more jobs available for US workers. China's advantage has always been their low labor costs. As their economy grows their citizens are going to want salary increases and this advantage will start shrinking. 
• With everyone concentrating on bashing the US the Chinese are getting away with all kinds of questionable policies and practices like stopping the export of rare metals to  pressure the Japanese to release a Chinese ship captain that was being held because of actions related to a disputed island a few months ago. They have been been accused of sponsoring cyber attacks across the internet. Just the other month they temporarily disrupted internet traffic on 1 of the domain name servers. Their Internet firewall is also well known and monitored by the state to prevent it's citizens from sending or receiving any information that the government deems dangerous. If the US government did something like this the entire world would be up in arms but somehow China gets a pass for actions such as this. 
• While everyone is slamming the US on it's environmental policies you never hear about China's non-existent policies. Everyone has been criticizing the US for not signing the Kyoto treaty but China also did not sign the treaty and nobody has been attacking them. As a matter of fact Russia and India also did not sign the treaty and nobody is criticizing them either. I am not making these comparisons for the purpose of excusing the US actions. Two wrongs don't make a right. Instead I  am trying to expose the uneven criticisms being fired at the US. With the US taking all the criticism for certain policies it is letting other countries that have the same or worse policies off the hook and all the criticism of the US is starting to put US citizens on the defensive and increasing the populations isolationist tendencies. This is certainly how I feel.
• The people cheering for China are also experts at ignoring the fact that the Chinese government is totalitarian in nature and the only rights their citizens enjoy are the ones the government tells them they have and if you have an objection it's off to the work camp. The Chinese citizens have no say at all in what the government does. The US capitalist system is always being criticized for helping only the rich and not the general population. This pattern occurs in every form of government. Communist and Socialist governments also have elite and privileged class. The only difference is that they don't acknowledge this fact because their system is supposed to be centered on the people. The upper class in the US certainly has no problem announcing and exposing their wealth.
• One of these days the Chinese population will wake up to the fact that they have the government greatly  out numbered and Chinese military doctrine has always favored mass wave attacks to overwhelm the enemy without any regard for human losses.