Forum: Friedman on China: Scapegoat or Sputnik

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Thomas Friedman, correspondent for the New York Times and popular author, ran a column recently wherein he said the present preoccupation of the Republican party is with Iraq, while the coming preoccupation of the Democrats will be with China. It is an interesting view.

Friedman considers China the more important of the two. He believes the rise of India and China poses immense economic problems and opportunities for this country. If we respond positively to this situation, the future will be bright, indeed. If we respond negatively, the opposite will be true, he insists.

The great danger, in Friedman’s opinion, is that the Democrats will engage in behavior that is protectionist and punitive towards China. Friedman believes that is entirely the wrong course of action to take, and he places the blame on people like Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Sherrod Brown, the newly elected senator from Ohio.

Friedman believes these courses of avoiding doing the hard things the situation calls for, such as making comprehensive changes in health care, making pensions portable, making necessary changes in entitlements and arranging lifelong learning to give the nation’s middle class the best tools to thrive in the future, would be catastrophic. The correspondent warns against using China as a scapegoat and not a Sputnik. (Sputnik was the national reaction to the Soviet Union’s temporary supremacy in space technology, which was successfully countered by the American people making the hard choices to regain that supremacy).

Iraq is certainly a major problem. But, if Friedman is correct, it pales in significance when compared to China. That’s an encouraging word!

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