What The Karate Kid Can Teach You About The US and China
Remember The Karate Kid? At the beginning the bullies kicked the crap out of the main character, Daniel. Later, he learned all he needed to return the favor (and more importantly, the importance of self mastery).
The lesson? It doesn’t matter how big, strong, or smart you are now. What matters is how fast you are growing or learning.
Could China Kick America’s Ass Sometime in the not so Distant Future?
Today’s China is like the Daniel you cheered on as a kid, albeit with a less pure heart. And the US? It’s falling behind: China will soon be growing faster than us in absolute terms. The days of the US being able to easily bully China around have already passed, and the day that China can bully around (or at least fully stand its ground with) America may be nearer than we’d like to think. After all, China has amassed a small fortune in reserves, while the US falls into greater debt by the day.
This short piece translated out of this week’s Modern Weekly shows how China may well contribute more to global growth this year than America:
Although China’s economy is only 1/4 the size of America’s, it may contribute more to global GDP growth this year than American with a 16% cut. And if you use purchasing power parity (which is generally seen as a better way of weighing the demands of products and services) to calculate China’s contribution, it would be quite a lot higher.
Of course I’m rooting for the US to get its priorities in order, stop throwing money at wars (including the war on drugs and the war on terror) where the costs far outweigh their benefits, and start investing much more in energy, infrastructure, research, education, affordable health care, and effective foreign aid to establish a better image for the rest of the world to see and a stronger economy. But instead it is China making the smart financial choices (with the glaring exception of China’s worsening pollution).
You might be thinking that China is not yet a superpower, and has no chance of beating the US Karate Kid style. While you are spot on in this observation that China is not yet as strong or powerful as the US, China grows closer to this unstated goal with every passing day.
The only question is: Who is China’s Mr. Miagi?
Who is China’s Mr. Miagi?
Gao Yaojie