Damn you for giving my hopes up Cyth
Hey all you guys who are so adamant that the US is dependent on China but not vice versa, how about some numbers to back up these statements? Like import/export figures for each sector of the economy. I'd like to know what is making you so confident that the US is a complete slave to China when it comes to trade.
So much anger echoing in so small a post; let's calm you down a bit.
No one has said China is invincible; I made the claim that China would defeat our current military outside of a nuclear war (and would make off better than us inside of a nuclear war due to geographic placement). We are in debt, but that does not mean that China wouldn't lose out on some ground if they stopped trading with us. However, if China were to sell the bonds that they've invested in us... it would mean bad times.
Here is the CIA factbook (no tin-foil hat wearing asshattery please)
China
U.S.
If you want the Import/Export lists you can always grab it from the Labor Board
Right Here:
Import/Export Price Index from China
About.com is owned and operated by the New York Times, and the editors are employed through said company - so there are no wikipedia like false edits here:
U.S. Trade Deficit with China
American-Chinese Trade and Exchange Analysis
The U.S. is expensive, and to make things in the U.S. is an expensive endeavor; for China, they can make things for pennies on the dollar compared to us - stuff that is the same quality, stuff that will be bought by other countries because it is cheaper. We are not slaves to their trade, but there are definitely repercussions from China pulling out of the U.S. Hell, if we turned into an isolationist country we would ruin the international economy while simultaneously dooming every country that receives aid from us and destroying our own infrastructure from within. Isolationist/protectionist tendencies are akin to prohibition, and prohibition was proven to equate to failure.
The fact of the matter is that China owns a chunk of our deficit, and continuously buys more of it while systemically keeping its currency undervalued in the world market. There are reasons for this - think about it.