Comment by hintymad

In the late 80s and early 90s, the foreign-exchange reserves of China was less than a billion dollars. The US government could spend $50M to negotiate a lot of things from China, like having a war with Vietnam even though it was Soviet who was behind Vietnamese government. Nowadays, Chinese government could easily say fuck this $100B. Papa can afford it to call your bluff.

It's great that an entire nation can gain wealth through hard work and good strategic decisions, at least in some way. But it hurts me that the US lost its way in the process by losing so much manufacturing capabilities, to the point that we can't even adequately produce saline solutions, nor could we make shells or screws for our war planes cheaply.