I have a very different opinion on China's totalitarianism (which I am very unimpressed by); I only meant to argue that China possesses expertise that we do not, yes, because of our own Ricardian motivations, but that leaves us in a position where we cannot build our own bridges, trains, nor even computer chips even if we wanted to. You can say we are no longer burdened with manufacturing our own goods, and have moved onto more productive, intellectual pastures, but I'm not so sure. It seems like we spent our capital building up off-shore talent and have enjoyed the largess of lower cost of living, leaving a lot of infrastructure unmaintained. I could go on with my cynicism, but it's not especially productive ;)