      Home |
Today's Commentary:By Lou Guzzo Let’s Look to China, India for America’s Future FriendsSome observers are telling us we should be terribly worried over the news that China has now surpassed the United States as the world’s leading consumer of energy --- and also that the Chinese are now threatening to surpass us in the number of electronic items produced each year. I say the news from China should be treated as welcome developments for a number of reasons. First, we have been freely exchanging products with the Chinese for some time now. They are using more and more of the items we produce and we are using more and more of the items they produce. Second, the emergence of China as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of a great variety of products and the fact that millions of Chinese are now riding automobiles, watching up-to-date TV sets, and utilizing a number of many other modern products signifies that the nation is becoming more and more like the United States and less and less like the old Soviet Union. Having mentioned the old Soviet Union, let me carry my argument further. As the people of China continue to prosper and lead lives much like our own, they will learn to rely much less on a Communist government and cherish all the modern items such a government denies the people. Eventually, the increasing wealth and freedoms the Chinese are enjoying will coax them into overthrowing their Communist government and moving inexorably toward a democracy and the kind of free republic we have enjoyed for more than two and a half centuries. For the sake of completing the argument, India also is showing signs of turning into the free republic we enjoy. That means that the two largest nations in the world may soon join with the United States on the road to eternal freedom. India and China each have more than a billion inihabitants. For some time now, I have been appealing for the United States to look more toward China and India than it has toward the nations of Europe. The Europeans have been highly critical of the U.S. and deplore our free system of government, in contrast with the Socialism that has gripped the nations of the European Continent. While the Europeans are moving closer and closer to the Communist ogre, China and India are moving in the opposite direction --- and toward the same goals in their economies that mark America’s. As the people of those two nations enjoy their greater economies, they are bound to seek the ultimate freedom a democratic republic will bring them. As an example of the extraordinary economic change that is taking place in China, note this paragraph from the Associated Press article announcing the great strides in energy consumption that have taken place in that Far Eastern nation: “Last year, China passed the U.S. as the biggest auto market by number of vehicles sold and supplanted Germany as the biggest exporter. Passenger vehicle sales in China jumped from 326,000 in 1995 to 8.7 million in 2009, according to J.D. Power and Associates.” As I have said so often in recent times, phooey on the America-hating Europeans; let’s look to the Far East for our future friends. |