LETTER: Worries about China economic power are misplaced

Recent commentaries by politicians (of both parties), pundits, admirals and generals display an astonishing failure to grasp the fundamental difference between military conflict, which is a zero-sum game, and commercial activity, which is a win-win affair.

For example, they worry that China’s gross domestic product will someday overtake that of the United States, ignoring the fact that China’s population is approximately four times ours. This is just as irrational as worrying about the fact that our GDP is about 12 times that of Canada, whose population is about 11 percent of ours.

Another example of China’s supposed economic threat is the recent hair-on-fire claims that China is rapidly buying up America’s farmland. Well, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Chinese firms and individual investors now own about 384,000 acres, out of a total of more than 895 million acres. That amounts to roughly four-hundredths of 1 percent of our farmland.

Of course, China does pose a potential military threat because it’s a statist regime with virtually no regard for individual rights. But it’s also true that China is highly unlikely to launch a nuclear war against us. Why? Because China exports about $429 billion worth of goods annually to the United States, making us literally its best customer.

So we should not fear China’s future economic growth and prosperity because history teaches that statist regimes with failing economies are much more likely to resort to war against other countries.