Mr. Huchton's Lectures on China: Summer Session

I've enrolled in the Summer Session of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at University of Texas-El Paso, although I've missed some classes due to scheduling priorities.

I noted in the two classes I've attended (having missed 2 others) the Chinese government's passion for emulating the United States as much as it finds practical in so doing. Where I find departures from the American way of making policy decisions is in certain profundities stressed in Mr. Huchton's two lectures I've attended.

For one thing, China does not seem interested in vying with the US for international world-power leadership.  Instead, it wants to build an Asian nexus of countries of which it is the dominate force.  For instance, while it trades with the United States, the EU countries and England; and Russia, its primary trading partners are India and Japan.  It is currently reaching out to S. Korea and to Vietnam, too.  And it seeks to control to some extent the South Seas, though its navy which is still relatively underdeveloped.

I also detected from Mr. Huchton's summer lectures that I've attended the reason for its copying American patents: it is doing nothing different in purpose than when the American colonists would mimic the English manufacturing of goods of the time--taking the English designs and virtually reduplicating them.  The obvious way to stop that practice is simply to find another country to manufacture American goods, as for instance, India (which is also a cheaper way to go than to resource out to China).  Nevertheless, in order to be even more like America, China continues to send its youth to America to be trained and skilled in the sciences and technological areas. They believe as a people that the American lifestyle holds promise in their bright future ahead.

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Given their propensity to pursue what they believe are the best habits of Americana, I now understand why it is China wants to control the South China Seas and wrest advantage from the Philippines.  China's Hainan Province is within its scope; and its presence amounts to establishing its sphere of influence in the region.

Nor does the United States strenuously object to Iran's controlling the Strait of Hormuuz and surrounding waterways.  That is to say, China's overstepping into the South China Seas is simply a physical sign of a political reality: China dominates the region, naturally, I contend.