Why are we learning Chinese?

Well, then they'll have cash to build weapons factories, whether they buy them or make them is not really the important thing.

Just because they will try to doesn't mean we have to cede the advantage to them.  Your idea is one that will lead to decay and vulnerability through thinking "well, there's nothing we can do, so we might as well do nothing."  It was people thinking like that that failed to stop the remilitarization of Germany after World War I.

We would be moronic not to stop something that runs contrary to our interests, and letting the Chinese get away with military adventurism and conquer one of the most oil rich areas in the world would most certainly be contrary to our interests.

Most terrorists are actually from pretty wealthy families, most members of Al Qaeda are disillusioned middle class members.  Bin Laden was from the richest family in Saudi Arabia with the exception of the Al Saud family.

If we are number one, and they are number two, and they are trying to become stronger, that makes them our enemy in and of itself.

I'm not saying we should suppress the entire world, just China because they're trying to take over our mantle of superpowerdom.  Just as I don't believe it would correct to think that the world consists of USA vs. the rest of world, it would just as inaccurate to think the world sees it as everyone vs. the USA.  Even with China, we have plenty of people who are equally if not more worried about them, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and India to name a few.  We even suppressed two of those aforementioned countries and now one is our greatest ally in the region and the other is warming up relations with us because of trade and the China threat, among other things.  I can also think of very few times a collection of little states that were oppressed by a large one banded together to attack a hegemon, and even fewer when they were successful.  Alliances are notoriously difficult to forge and maintain.  It took about a decade of German saber rattling for the nations of Europe to form the Entente, and it took German attacks on the USA, UK, and USSR for them to ally against Hitler, it also took Napoleon's debacle in Russia for Prussia, Russia, Austria, Sweden, and Britain to all unite against the French empire.

Genghis,

As I recalled, I stated to you, every collapse of every great civilization had one common component.  Economic/budgetary collapse.

The U.S. is in a situation where if this current trend continues, the Great Depression will look like a walk in the park.  The solution is what I expressed on the earlier post about economic development.

Their military endevours are on Taiwan & not the US.  Being we support Taiwan, we are in the crossfire. 

The GDP is very bad.  It would be mildly bad if we (US consumers) saved money.  However, we don't, so a large portion of our debt is held/financed by foreigners.  Look what happenned a couple of months ago to the dollar when the BOJ and the Bank of Korea misspoke about their intention to diversify their dollar holdings.  It is a two prong problem.  The US government spends too much and the US consumer saves too little.  I read you advocated that we cut or reduce some government programs.  But has it occur to you that those are the exact programs that make the American customer confident about the future, thus translating into higher consumer spending.  Take the corporate pension, social security, medicare, medicate, etc... out, that will compell consumers to save more, but spend less.  Thus causing a recession if not outright depression.  The consumer is the pillar of the US economy.  The consumer has to save because they know when they grow old, the government will not look out for them.  Consumers spending less will result in lower tax revenue, thus compelling the US government to rely more heavily on foreigners.  The cycle will eventually spiral to a point where the foreigners become uneasy with the level of our debt.

Hear everybody talking about the pending housing collapse.  Is that not what I predicted a couple of months ago.  The foreigners are slowly & quietly reducing their positions of US treasuries.  You may think I am just ranting, but I am currently a MBA student majoring in Investment Analysis. 

Wouldn't lower tax revenue be fine if spending were also less, which it would be if we got rid of things like social security?

And if nonstop spending is what's keeping our economy buoyant then how do you reconcile that with successful high savings countries like Japan?

u support them because there's nothing to lose and everything to gain when china is not reunified. if taiwan was reunified with mainland china, china would be in the best strategic position to challenge us domination in the pacific.

the example of polland and germany is inappropriate. a better, but not perfect, example / circumstance would be to prevent west germany to from being reunified with east germany.

I agree with you there, but Jiangwei doesn't and I was asking him to reconcile the apparent contradiction in what he said.

Lower tax revenue would be fine if it was dollar per dollar vs spending, but that is not the case.  Look just recently the budget plan that the Bush Admin just gave to Congress.  Record Budget.  Now bear in mind that the tax cut that just past about two to three years was suppose to spur investment and increase tax revenue.  It did (to a degree) but was offset by spending.  A large part of the spending increase was the military endevour in Iraq.  The U.S. Treasury had to reintroduce the 30 year bond because of the budgetary needs of the U.S.  It was retired during the Clinton period.

Yes, if you eliminate Social Security, you can pay for the military endevours, but it is highly unlikely that there is any political support for that.  Also, the end result of that is that the U.S. consumer will stop spending.  Think about it, you know you have no social security, so you have to save a lot more for your retirement .  Your savings translates into less spending.  Less spending will equate to less corporate profit and tax revenue for the government.  Less corporate profit equates to layoffs.  Layoffs equate to unemployement compensation & drop in home values and drop of consumer confidence.

The Japanese economy has been in a recession for over a decade.  Only recently has it seem to be stabilizing.  Almost solely due to increase exports to China.  Their economy is a export driven economy.  Their economy is a manufacturing economy while the US is a service economy.  Basically for a service economy, you have to spend.  For a manufacturing economy, you have to sell the good.

And why are the Japanese saving, because their economy has been in a recession.  If you know that the job market is bad, you save every penny.  Right?  And that is exactly what will happen to the U.S. if we eliminate Social Security.  That will compell the consumer to increase savings (for retirement) and reduce spending.

The Chinese and Americans both want the same thing, pre-eminence in East Asia, tell me how we can be friends when this fundamental conflict of interests exists.  Give me a concrete plan and quite using abstract musings about different strokes.

We already can't spend that money because it's taxed to pay for social security, now it will just be saved.  Higher savings would also eliminate much of a current account deficit.  You also don't have any proof that the drop in savings will be enough to destroy the economy like you say.  Sure some extra workers might be laid off, but until you actually do a thorough research study you can't prove that it will be the death knell for the US economy.

What might happen is that if U.S. treasuries are "dumped" the economies of the dumpers will follow ours into depression.

It is not likely they will "take that dump."