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NASA Banned From Working With China
astroengine writes "In the wake of the Chinese cyber-threat and claims of espionage, a clause included in the US spending bill approved by Congress to avert a government shutdown a few weeks ago has prohibited NASA from coordinating any joint scientific activity with China. The clause also extends to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy."
China's GDP is propped up by its constant construction projects that have no one to use them.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/12/21/ghost-town-mongolia-inside-chinas-empty-cities/
China tells its districts/provinces/cities to increase GDP, so they do it the easiest way possible: Build more stuff.
It's a problem of having something, but no one to use it. No one's visiting shops in these empty malls. No ones' buying these apartments in cities that have no jobs.
It may implode, it may fix itself, but it can't last forever.
USA doesn't produce anything of any value except for the raw materials, that Chinese would want to buy.
From a consumer point of view, yes, absolutely. Aside from plastic trash from walmart, we vary from complete utter domination to merely being major players in aerospace, heavy construction, and especially weapons. There are still plenty of plants that OSHA and EPA and NAFTA have not managed to shut down yet, although our govt is trying their hardest to destroy our middle class.
One Very important point you missed, is the US is the "saudi arabia" of food... we stop exporting and hundreds of millions will starve, probably mostly in Africa rather than China, but still... practically every nation either directly eats our food, or benefits secondarily from other folks eating our food instead of us. Its a simplification, but block the Mississippi river, or do the same thing by screwing up the economy so we can't export, and about 2 billion of the world's poorest will pretty much starve to death as a result... How that benefits China is not entirely clear, it might even be mostly neutral.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
How long can the US count on this though? The education system in China isn't THAT horrible, they are bound to produce some brilliant minds, and China has proven time and time again that they can apply themselves to a problem when faced with it. If anything, limiting collaboration with China may be what causes China to start a major shift towards research and innovation. If they have the ability to come up with the ideas, and we already know they can implement them, what does that leave for the US?
The US has for the past few years been betting everything on "Intellectual Property" because in a lot of ways it's the only export the US has left, but if China decides it no longer needs US "IP" then what does the US have left? And if the only answer is "consumers" then the US is in a worse position than most people want to believe.