How important is China to America?

I was reading how much Titanic 3D made in sales and found that a staggering amount came from China (you can read it on wikipedia). That and also for last three years or so, amost every single day the term China is in the top 10 searches. A while back, I also heard that Boise, Idaho was almost bought by China. Discuss.

• Not very.

• Every day for the rest of your life, something that you touch will have originated in China. Think about that.

• Considering the fact we owe them $1.2T they better be pretty damn important!

• It's important to the CEOs of America, because they sold out the United States - its country, its values, its industry, its citizens - so they could make even more millions and billions in profit from slave labor and a country with zero environmental, worker and human rights.

• As a frequent visitor to the US it seems that a lot of products which once were made in the US are now made in China

• [quote]A while back, I also heard that Boise, Idaho was almost bought by China. This makes no sense without more context.

• China can have Idaho - it's mostly Mormon.

• I heard that Uruguay was gonna buy Delaware, but I heard it on Fox News.... honestly, "I heard that...." anyone can say anything, thus making it possible for it to be "heard".

• R4 is correct.

• R4 if only China had had some sort of workers' revolution that would give control of the economy to the masses, then they wouldn't be able to be exploited.

• I know, they need that, R10. Actually the world needs that or we will all turn into Chinese exploited workers.

• Unfortunately, everyone likes a deal. If everyone was willing to pay double or triple what they are paying now for a product you would see jobs move back here so you could pay what people expect here and cut out the shipping delays/costs. If the Chinese labour market ends up making double what they are now, you will see the jobs shift to further south and east (Vietnam, Malaysia, etc). To some extent that is already happening - Foxconn is already trying to preempt what they see coming in the Chinese Labour market. At the end of the day, the world will exploit cheap labor. Where it is, how much they make is irrelevant to most consumers. Most consumers aren't willing to pay $1,800+ for an iPhone vs. current market prices. I lived in China for years and let me tell you, you cannot imagine the conditions if you haven't seen it with your own eyes. The news articles about Foxconn and other manufacturers are seeing the best and most humane conditions. The far-flung sites are completely shocking.

• R1 Wrong! America needs China very much, esp. to keep N. Korea and Kim Jong-Un's thirst for nuclear missle-ing at bay.

• We were better off when we didn't trade with them, say in 1983. How can you idiots say we "need" them when we can all remember when they did nothing for us and we lived better than today?

• R14 - that was as much, or more, because of their policies than ours. Their policies were much more on the isolation side of the spectrum. The textile industry was one of the first to break the seal and once they were able to drop prices vs. competitors manufacturing in the US it was game on. Americans have grown to expect lower prices and you simply can't manufacture at the same costs in the US without prices going up dramatically.

• All true r15, but until Americans realize they are having to buy that five dollar Chinese t-shirt five times to get the same wear they get from one twenty dollar US T-shirt, they are never going to free themselves from Yellow Peril.

• People want the five dollar t-shirt because they have no money. All of industry went to China and the third world which also killed jobs and higher-paying jobs. If people had a decent standard of living (which means decent paying jobs, jobs and industry in their community), they wouldn't be obsessed with five-dollar t-shirts and dollar stores. When people bought clothes made in America, they were dressed better, too - even working-class people.

• The China of today, the one the pearl-clutchers are getting their panties in a twist over, was created by Western greed. Western CEOs and Western politicians built the modern China. China would just as soon be left alone, for all the foreigners to go away, but who can blame them? All they have done is provide us with what we want... cheap goods. One result is that the standard of living throughout China has improved. As awful as it is still in many places, overall there has been improvement. It's true that manufacturing will follow the cheap labor, where ever it is. China yesterday, India tomorrow. How important is China to America? As America's center of manufacturing, quite important... but only as long as that continues to translate into profit for American companies and American politicians.

• R18. Have you been to china?

• CHina has the best caftans

• Yes.

  R18

• Shanghai or Beijing?

• Peking

• If Americans were paid a living wage they could afford to buy from places other than China. I don't blame people for shopping for what they can afford, I blame the disgusting powers that be for selling us out and living off the fat. Death to them all.

• Well there you go. Peking was a colonial name. Talk to me when you have been to China

• R23 is not R18 R21 I am in Shanghai now, lived in Beijing last year, and have been in China for a few years.

• Serving china used to be a thing Americans owned. Now it's a thing we do.

• Totally agree, R24. And it's only going to get worse. It is not all wonderful in China now. People are working in deplorable conditions and the pollution is terrible.

• Let's see, how important is China to me? Well,it's much nicer than eating off of Living Ware by Corelle.

• Some of those Corelle patterns are interesting R29.

• Fie!