The Theraflop Threat

The Theraflop Threat

les aaron

When I first journeyed back to the US from Japan after touring the country in the early sixties, I warned my friends and associates about the potential economic threat we faced. When the laughter subsided, these folks pointed to the array of flimsy, cheap plastic products identified with Japan that graced their desks and looked querrilously at me as if I had lost my marbles.

They had not seen the latest Akai recorders, the Sony twelve transistor radios, the Canon 35 mm. cameras or any of the other quality products that were either on the drawing board or the fast track to production.

In retrospect, that may now seem like ancient history, and we’ve hopefully learned the lesson of taking our competition for granted.

Or have we?

Today, I find myself experiencing pangs of deja-vu every time I think of China as the new Japan, a modern day version with even more clout!. And I cannot help but believe that can’t appreciate how far they’ve come in such a short time or how committed they are to becoming the world’s economic powerhouse..

Let me cite one simple example. In my regular travels through Kowloon to the New Territories, a land bridge that separates mainland China from Hong Kong, I would pass one area that was largely allocated to rice cultivation. Today, on that precise place stands a city of more than one million housed in dozens of skyscrapers that supports a bustling infrastructure. All, constructed from scratch in under ten years.

How many cities of one million plus has America built in under ten years?

In comparison, consider that America has nine cities of one million or more. China, today, has 121 such cities. If that isn’t impressive enough, in addition to its 121 major cities, China has vest pocket cities that are committed to making specific products. For example, there are cities of 50,000 or so people that do nothing but make pocket books; another that makes socks—yes, believe it or not, an entire city that makes socks of every size and description. And the inhabitants work for pennies on the dollar. How can you compete with that kind of economic juggernaut?.

But it doesn’t just stop with cheap manufactured goods, today, China is on a roll.

Consider computers: Today, China is getting ready to break the petaflop barrier.

What’s that?

The petaflop is a measure of computing performance that describes the ability to perform 1,000 trillion mathematic operations a second. That’s eight times the speed of the fastest computer ever built! Right now, the best America seems able to do is about one-tenth of that although we are committing more resources to the challenge.

What’s more, of the 500 fastest computers in the world, China presently has 19. And, today, this country only a generation ago was known for tee shirts, bowls and garden tools, is preparing to catch up and perhaps lead the world in computers, perhaps besting names like Cray, IBM and Sun Microsystems..

What does that mean?

It means we can longer take China for granted. Or they are going to eat our lunch.

They already have a trillion dollar surplus of US dollars gained by stunning trade imbalances with the US. And they are crafting alliances left and right with all of our former allies for raw materials and manufactured goods.

Unfortunately, with the distraction of Iraq, little of what is really happening in the world trickles down to us. But the truth is that China is a force to be reckoned with.
Consider this story: Up til now, the leader in custom yacht building has been Korea. Korea builds more yachts than any other country in the world. But when they learned that the Chinese had set their sights on yacht building, they immediately changed their business model. The reason: The Koreans know that once the Chinese sink their teeth into a market, they drive out all competition. That may be something to think about when the reality sinks in.

In the meantime, it seems that our government continues to turn a blind eye to the Chinese Juggernaut imagining that it doesn’t represent a threat to our economic stability and that is a bit of naivete we can ill afford.

Les Aaron-

The Armchair Curmudgeon

I invite you to visit Superblog: http://lesaaron.blogspot.com