scotoma:
Without the USA buying stuff from the Chinese sweatshops China will revert to its old methods of keeping people under control - pruning theirpopulation through starvation.
It's easy to chuck words like "Chinese sweatshops" around. And, there are some, but I've been in a number of factories (businesses) and I have not seen conditions that merit the word "sweatshop."
I've managed small factories, and I believe I can tell how hard workers are working. In one metal working factory in Changzhou, I formed an opinion that my best workers (in Australia, in my past) would've been more productive than the workers in that particular factory.
A funny story - a friend in Suzhou manages a family business - six showrooms and a warehouse. He was driving us around Suzhou one day (took the afternoon off) and he suddenly explains we were near his warehouse, so have a look. We parked, and as we walked to the front, he stopped us, put a finger to his lips to tell us to be quiet, went back to car and got a camera. He then walked to the warehouse, and took a pik of three workers sitting around a table, asleep!
I asked if he was going to sack them, and he said, No! I'd only have to train three new ones. But soon our annual wage negotiations take place, and the first thing I'll do when we sit down, is throw this photograph on the table.
Does that tell you anything?
About this time, I was helping a friend start a business in Sydney, importing commercial refrigerators from Taiwan. (A really good product). The Taiwan factory always had labour problems then, because the best workers kept moving to China, because the wages were higher.
China has a huge population, four times the size of the USA. The change in China, from Mao's failed attempt to build a centralling controlled communist economy, to a market based economy only commenced in the 1970's. Deng stated clearly at the beginning, that all Chinese could not all become prosperous at once, but it is also true that never before in history have so many people moved from poverty to a lower middle class existence.
BTW, take a good hard look at the similar period in the USA, say from 1850 to 1940 and compare.
There are still many things to change in China, but there is continuous change and experimentation. In the last 6 years, local governments along the eastern seaboard have commenced telling the cheap product makers to move out (to the west of China, to Vietnam, to India, etc).
I've been a China watcher for over 50 years. (yeah! I admit that I sometimes read more than the WT-grin) the attempts to re-organise China intrigued me, and contineu to do so. That's why in 2008 I commenced a wide study of China and Asia.
pruning their population through starvation.
This is a nonsense statement, it's true that China has been subject to some terrible famines, but government policies through 2500 years were established to attempt to avert famine. The last great famine was during Mao's great lep forward, and more than anything else that famine likely persuaded the Chinese Communist Party's attempt to remove Mao from executive power. His reaction was to seek to re-establish his power through the cultural revolution.
Since Mao's death the CPC swung back to market economics and food supply (currently) is not a problem.