U.S. Watches As China Woos Caribbean

[VegasWolf]

<snip>
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- China is waging an aggressive campaign of seduction in the Caribbean, wooing countries away from relationships with rival Taiwan, opening markets for its expanding economy, promising to send tourists, and shipping police to Haiti in the first communist deployment in the Western Hemisphere.
And the United States, China's Cold War enemy, is benignly watching the Asian economic superpower move into its backyard.

For decades China and Taiwan used dollar diplomacy to win over small Caribbean nations where small projects building roads, bridges, wells and fisheries go a long way.

But Beijing's growing economic clout is tipping the scales in the region. Caribbean trade with China reached $2 billion last year, a 42.5 percent increase from 2003, the Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Caribbean-Choosing-China.html?

There we go 200 years and the US is on its way to becoming a
Britian. Timing is about right for the fall. Thanks bushie!

Nerd Bush

[Swede]

1. China sells everything from garlic to honey at 1/4 the price

of local producers,which ain't exactly and good thing.

[Igel]

2. Very little * or anybody else could do about it.

Britain stopped being #1 when they lost their empire. Smaller population, fewer resources, fewer guaranteed markets. US is bigger, but has the same disadvantages wrt China, in the end.

China has 1/6 or so of the world's population. If you give them the tools and a chance to use them, you just can't expect them to stay in the bottom 1/3 for very long. And, as with the US, Spain, France, Russia, Japan, and every other large economic machine that's ever existed, threaten the markets and resources, and all of a sudden the "no armies in any other country" becomes a bit of history.

On the other hand, India could give them a run for the money.

The risk is that the usual "countries with per capita GDP over a certain amount tend to become free" will seriously backfire. It's not the "free" part that's risky, it's the "becoming". Start "becoming", and there's no telling what you'll actually become. The oppressive government's done a fairly good job of freeing up things without the usual ensuing chaos. But at some point, the Gorbachev effect may kick in.

[madrchsod]

3. we are spending close to 300 billion dollars

for a war that did`nt need to be. meanwhile china can invest a third of that and reap the investment for years to come....we are Argentina