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Originally Posted by Seaver
Bit of a stretch in my opinion. If you hold a gun to a person's head to make them evacuate their home of a thousand years, force them to work on dangerous building projects (say he lucks out and loses an arm), and then force him to move to a new village (where acient feuds exist), then force him to work in a cramped environment making $2/week so that they can afford a new class of jets. Is that butter?
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Good point, though I'd argue some of the specifics. I don't say economic development is being done for the best interests of all Chinese, let's say (or in a humane or just or egalitarian manner), but it is focused on building up the country's economic might, not military might. Arguably butter.
To be fair, there are some forces in the Chinese gov't -- including the new #1 guy -- who realize that China can't really develop beyond a low-cost export power unless they start sharing the wealth with the little guy, though better wages and societal guarantees, and thus jump-start internal demand. Kind of like Henry Ford, back in the 1910's, deciding to raise his line workers' pay substantially so they could all afford to buy his cars. Thus starting a real boom in the industry.
Who's to say that China won't put guns over butter later, though, when they're richer and feeling fat and sassy? No one. That's certainly what happened with the U.S.
I do know that you're not a true superpower unless you've got the economic might to back sufficient military might. China's not there yet, though it might be someday not too far off.
And it can be argued that the U.S. no longer does have the economic might to support our military might and thus has limited time left as a superpower. Because we have to borrow from the Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans to maintain our current guns/butter mix. Go too far along that road, and international bankers will do more to take America down than all the nukes and planes in all the other arsenals in the world ever could.