china is ready to take over the world

you've probably heard all kinds of things about china's production capacity, but probably not the latest:

• in the past 3 years, china has doubled its nuclear weapon stockpile
• it has also doubled its supply of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and produced more than 400 fighter aircraft
• a single chinese shipyard can build more ships than all of the shipyards in the u.s. combined
• in fact, china has 230 times the ship-building capacity of the u.s.
• they also increased their satelite launched by 50%

walking the chinese tightrope

everyone talks about our growing trade deficit with china, but always in vague, quickly-changed-to-another-subject terms. what does it all really mean? and why does the issue of china's growing online offensive capabilities keep getting swept under the rug?

let's start here: china is hacking into every us government computer system that they can. now word is out that they've hacked our power grid, too. why? because the us has a formidable military, and china - although they have more bodies to throw into a battlefield - understands that war (at least until we start to really run short on water and oil) has become a lot less about who's got more guns and a lot more about who's got the ability to turn off the other guy's lights. if they turned off all the power here for, say, 2 weeks in the middle of february, how long do you think it would be before we became tibet?

so why don't we do something about it, like hack them back, or slap'em with a white glove or something? in a nutshell: because it's complicated.

walk into any retail store that you like, pick up an item, and look at its country of origin. unless your income is about us$400k/year, chances are better than 90% that the tag says 'made in china'. we have an unhealthy appetite for chinese-manufactured goods, folks. the reason is simple: because they're cheap. and in an era when wage values are actually declining, the decreasing costs of chinese goods allow us to fool ourselves into thinking that we're actually doing okay.

we're not. it's an illusion at best, and a deliberate lie at worst. us companies, of course, are only too happy to have their wares made in china. that way lies no workers comp, no environmental concerns, lax tax enforcement, and incredible profits. so the state department is under pressure from industry to make nice with china, our military is distracted by (and overextended in) the middle east, and our intelligence community keeps slapping its forehead wondering why we're concentrating on securing oil fields when they can see china buying up us$2 billion of our country every single day of the year (including christmas).

at this rate, china will own us in less than 30 years, without firing a single shot. turns out you don't need light sabers or exoskeletons, after all - just a large, cheap labor supply and a calculator.