Top News 2

Top News 2:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/11/news/international/china_japan/index.htm?cnn=yes

“China to push aside Japan as No.2 Economy”

Found this article on cnn.com in the money section, and this story interested me for a couple reasons. Firstly, because I am part Japanese I do feel a sort of connection to Japan being supplanted by China as the world’s #2 economy and I guess in some strange way I feel disappointed by this happening because it’s kind of like watching your favorite sports team lose in the semi finals. Secondly because I’m American first and foremost, it’s a little unsettling to see a country as corrupt as China close in on us. God knows how many corners and human’s rights they cut to get to be as powerful as they are now. As the article pointed out, as the rest of the world seemingly took a nosedive during the economic downturn, China not only stayed afloat but also still grew 8.7% economically. That’s just insane how powerful they are! So this is all important because not only does it show how close China is coming to basically finally ruling the world, but how far the U.S. has fallen in terms of it’s economic strength. While our congress continues to argue about same-sew marriage, handing out pay checks to Wall Street, and point fingers at each other for various faults with the country, China just keeps getting stronger and we continue to get weaker. It’s almost as if the American way and progressiveness of our country just evaporated and was replaced by party hackery and political rambling and it has stalled our once well oiled American machine. Uggh, it’s very unsettling.

Anyways though, the reasons that this article would be interesting to other readers is because it’s kind of like what I said earlier about the metaphor of sports teams. America is probably among the top 5, if not the top, in world egos amongst its people. We Ah’mericans love being #1, gosh darn it! And we won’t settle for #2! Basically what I’m getting at is this story would probably appeal to the more patriotic bunches of Americans because the impact of China catching us would be kind of like watching your favorite sports team lose the championship. It would also appeal to those who know about China’s humanitarian rights violations and how unsettling it is that the world’s best “secret dictatorship,” as I like to call it since most people see China in almost a friendly light, is closing in on us as the world’s top economic power. So readers will likely be emotional about such a corrupt country getting this powerful. In terms of immediacy it deals with the future here, almost foreshadowing future events, basically building up the reader’s paranoia of the coming tide of a super Chinese economy.

Anyways, it’s an important article to me because I’m not a big fan of China and the things they did in order to become this powerful and it’s unsettling to see them gaining this much ground so quickly. In the end though, as the article pointed out, there was a time when Japan threatened to be the #1 economic power and it faltered in the end, so I’m hoping that America can beat China out as well here.