China In Our Backyard While The US Has It's Head In The Sand

A couple of years ago, I wrote about having coffee at an outdoor cafe with
a Russian guy who graduated from the University of Moscow with a graduate
electrical engineering degree and who was married to a very wealthy
Chinese lady , but now is divorced.

The guy is about 50 yrs. old and was driving a new Mercedes Benz of the 500 class.

Anyway, he was involved with the Russian project that uses satellites to discern
surface anomalies from a passing underwater submarine. He states that a submarine
can only hide un the polar ice caps or be perfectly still underwater in the open ocean because the minute it moves, it creates compression waves that are reflected on the surface and can be easily tracked by satellite.

Anyway, we discussed politics and what Russia and China's intentions were. He
stated that Russia and China were biding their time for our empire to collapse from
within due to maintaining of over 700 military bases in foreign countries and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that the US spends more than half of it's money
on the Defense Dept. and most of this is borrowed.

Anyway, I ran into the same guy again the other day and we began to pick up where
we left off two years ago. He said "See what I told you. It's happening now as America is suffering from financial problems."

I replied that if we go down, China will also as we are their largest purchasers of their goods. He said, that won't happen as China is in the process of diversifying their market which they feel they have relied on the US to long. He said Russia has no problem with their vast oil wealth.

Well, when he said this, I quickly began to put two and two together after my recent two stays in Costa Rica and reading the news in a Latin paper.

I was in San Jose when the Chinese president made a visit among his many visits to the capitals of Latin America. I was in the hotel with Chinese engineers who are building the 60 million dollar sports arena. I read where the Chinese had donated 200fully outfitted police cars to Costa Rica. I read where the Chinese are building two large hospitals as a gift to the Costa Ricans. I read where they have just completed a "Confucius" center where Costa Ricans can go and learn Chinese and read about their culture.

Now, to make a long story short, China is doing this all over Latin America which has a population of 600 million plus with a burgeoning middle class consumer. I was totally blown away by the huge middle class in Costa Rica which is now similar to the US. I've known Costa Rica for more than 35 years and even had a restaurant there from 87 to 92 , but haven't been back for 15 years, I could not believe all the new cars jamming the roads and the upscale suburbs and condos. It seemed like this happened over night. I saw more fancy Land Cruisers and high end automobiles than I see in the US.

Anyway, this jives with what the Russian guy said about China's moves to diversify their market and become less independent on the US purchaser.

China had previously ignored the Latin American market, but certainly is not and they
are making a concerted effort to sell their goods there apparently to be not so dependent upon our consumers.

Again, what all this portends for us, I do not know. But, I don't feel good about it.

Bob