China The Rise of a New Power paper ECO 360

Essay by skogUniversity, Bachelor'sA, February 2009

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China

The Rise of a New Power

The article I read was entitled "The Rise of a New Power: A Communist Economic Juggernaut Emerges to Challenge the West", written by Richard J. Newman and published in the June 20, 2005 issue U.S. News and World Report. The article examines China's growing and changing role in the world, and the struggle by the United States to reconcile itself with the changes.

The rise of China as a major player in the capitalist world-economy is likely to become one of the most significant developments in the first half of the 21st century. After more than two decades of consistently rapid economic growth, in terms of GDP, China now accounts for 12 percent of the world output and will soon stand as the second largest economy in the world, behind the United States. China is currently the world's largest saver, and a major source of finance for the U.S.

budget deficit.

According to the article, China is "teaching the West something new, its economy, growing at 9 percent per year." The problem for the United States, however, is that the economic growth in China is based, in part, on a very large discrepancy in the amount of money that Americans spend on Chinese products versus the amount that the Chinese spend on U.S. products. Specifically, the article states that in 2004, "Americans spent $162 billion more on Chinese goods than the Chinese spent on U.S. products." An even bigger problem for the United States is that the difference in spending, which the article claims "has been growing by more than 25 percent per year." This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest threats to the United States and one that demands our government's immediate attention if...