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It would seem that a different set of choices were made during the 2008 recession in China than here in the West.  I’m having trouble seeing the problem with the economic strategy the Chinese pursued.  Of course, it was because the centralized power of China’s government put the needs of the country first, as opposed to the needs of the investor class.  China’s growth continues to chug a long while the sclerotic US economy seems unfocused except for the primal urge to grind it’s underclasses into the ground.  If as what Clegg says is true about China eclipsing the US in 2030 is true, perhaps a new paradigm might enter our Western consciousness, one that focuses on the welfare of the nation instead of exclusively on the welfare of the wealthy.

“It is clearly hard for any dominant power to accept the need to adjust to a rising power and avoid the ‘Thucydides trap’, but what is all the harder is for the West – the US and its allies – to acknowledge that China’s advance, in contrast to their own sluggish performances, exposes the difference between a system which chooses to bail out the banks and one which sought to bail out the economy; between one that does all it can to boost its financial sector, and one which promoted economic stimulus to boost production; between one which squeezes those poorer in the blind pursuit of profit and one which raises up the poor, organising development in a systematic way; between one that pumps out huge amounts of ‘hot money’ into the world economy to play havoc with other countries’ financial systems and one that offers patient capital to help others manage their financial difficulties to avoid crises.

In the last 10 years, whilst Western economies have endlessly pumped their ‘printed’ money round and round the ether of financial markets in the same exhausted circles, China has become a different country and indeed the world is becoming a different place. Yet the US remains utterly committed to blocking change to keep the world dependent on the American dollar and the American consumer even at the expense of huge trade deficits. And now comes the trade war.

China is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy sometime before 2030, an event which will mark a psychological turning point. However right now, debt levels remain high and a Chinese-style crash is still possible. Can China limit, or failing this, withstand the pressures of a US trade war? In fact, the prospects for the US-economy not that great either – the Trump tax cuts bounce may be short-lived, and the ‘America first’president may have to learn that the US and China need each other.”