Quote:
Originally Posted by RealJames
A world power is more like soaring through the sky in the sink or swim analogy.
I'm not sure that America will have the ability to remain a world power, yeah top 10 for sure but not quite the way it has been in the last 50 years. It just feels inevitable to me, like it's time in the spotlight has passed. That's just a feeling though, no facts or proof to back it up.
But yeah I do think that learning Chinese will help America hold it's position a lot longer.
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Chinese people who need to speak English speak English. It's a little different from the Japanese boom of the 80s when learning Japanese could actually benefit someone individually and benefit a business.
Many schools are dropping Spanish to pick up Chinese in the US. This is strange to me. The school I used to work at is phasing out Japanese to phase in Chinese... and this is pretty common now. China is a new powerhouse in world economy, but in some ways it is built on a foundation of sand. They have a population, factories, and people willing to work for pennies an hour (unlike Japan and the US) but how long is that going to last? The gap between the upper class and the lower class in China is massive. Japan is still making cars, electronics, etc. that the world wants. America is still making cars and some things the world wants. The world is not looking for Chinese high end items.... and even though all cheap things in the US are made in China, how long is that going to last on the China side? When Chinese people start wanting more, and as long as American corporations are allowed to outsource, it will be NAFTA in reverse. We went from South America to China, and when someplace else gets cheaper, we'll go there. It may be India, it may be Africa, it may be South America again, who knows?