May 1, 2008

Excited Delirium Book: Chapter 10 (Made In China)

By liam

Author’s Note: The following is Chapter 10 of the my online book “Excited Delirium”. Please post comments. Please tell your friends about this story. If you’ve missed a chapter, please click here for Chapter 1 (Prelude) or here for the full index.

China has fascinated the West for centuries. To this day, we understand very little about China, its culture and its inhabitants. The news we see is simplified. It’s filtered and refined so that we just see a few headlines, but little more. Most stories emphasize how bureaucracies let environmental or production standards slide, how the standard of living is so low or how cruel the Communists can be.

China represents 20% of the world’s population, has an economy that’s doubling every three years, and holds enough cash to buy most of the companies listed in the Fortune 500, possibly even all at once. Ironically, the aforementioned list is topped by Wal-Mart, which many now call the Bank of China.

Moves are being made today by both the Chinese and Western governments and businesses that will have a profound impact on the global landscape not within decades, but possibly within the next few weeks.

Every news story today is littered with clues concerning what’s happening. We just have to read them carefully to fully appreciate what’s happening and why it will mean so much to all of us in the months and years to come.

China is not so different from the United States or Europe. Its leaders have a sense of Manifest Destiny, much like expansionists in America do. In most cases, China is simply trying to return to its ‘original’ size and capacity that it had at the end of the last dynasty. This is why Tibet had to be added to China. And Hong Kong. And eventually, even Taiwan will be added.

Economically speaking, we handed everything to China, much like we did with Japan. People who were craftier and smarter than us knew how to play the game: let us think we’re in charge and then strangle us on our own rope. Rope that’s ‘made in China’, of course.

(Note: “Excited Delirium” is a work of fiction. Any person, place or thing depicted in this work of fiction is also a work of fiction. Any relation of these subjects or characters to real locations, people or things are an unintentional coincidence.)

Read more with Chapter 11

Did you miss a chapter? If so, click here to see all chapters or click here to go to Excited Delirium: Chapter 1 (Prelude)

Creative Commons License
Excited Delirium by Liam Young is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.
Based on a work at www.exciteddelirium.ca.