CHINA’S FEARS

CHINA - ECONOMIC JUGGERNAUT, RUNNING SCARED

Its economy is growing at 10% a year, but Chinese officials worry that they may run up against an old economic proverb: If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Doyle McManus

Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2010

The world sees China as an economic juggernaut. It's growing at a dizzying annual rate of 10% as the rest of the world struggles out of recession. Its big cities are jammed with new cars, new buildings and Prada, Gucci and Cartier boutiques — the real thing, not knockoffs. It just blew past Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.

China has even offered to build a high-speed railway in California. The state's first long-distance railroad, in 1869, was wrought with American capital and Chinese labor; this time it could be Chinese capital and American labor. Even for a high-speed rail fan, that doesn't sound like good news.

In short, China's on the way up and we still seem to be going sideways. So an American visitor to Beijing, which is where I was last week, quickly feels an unfamiliar and unsettling sense of inferiority, at least when it comes to economic strategy.

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