Cloud Computing: Is China a Friend or Foe?
The state visit to Washington DC by President Hu Jintao last week was the first by a Chinese leader since 1997, and closes a long loop that began almost 40 years ago–when President Richard Nixon visited Chairman Mao Tse-Tung-in a way that Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s 1997 meeting with President Bill Clinton did not.
In 1997, the biggest issue between the US and China was Taiwan-today, Taiwan and China are major trading partners with one another and have as good a relationship as they are able. In 1997, the US had a trade deficit with China of about $50 billion annually-that amount represents eight weeks’ worth of activity today.
In the interim, China has emerged as an economic superpower, due to reforms begun by Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping. It now has the world’s second-largest economy, in terms of sheer output, although its per-capita output still stamps it as a developing nation, in the lower half of the world’s nations.
Meanwhile, the United States is…what? Fading? Sliding? In irreversible decline? A recent report by Price Waterhouse Coopers predicts the US will be the world’s number 3 economy by the year 2050. A recent report on BBC-which I watched with, frankly, a sick feeling in my stomach-took a tone that assumed the US was now past its prime, even headed toward insignificance.
Are the good times really over for good this time? I’ll write more about this question later.
Here are some related posts:
Category: China, Cloud Computing News, Government, Infrastructure, Leadership, Resources
Pingback: Tweets that mention Cloud Computing: Is China a Friend or Foe? | Cloud Computing Zone -- Topsy.com