I read this article, by Vice President Joe Biden, about the growing concern for China becoming a more major world power and its negative impact on the United States. In the article, Biden clearly tries to discredit all reasons why citizens should be concerned about China's increasing power. He mostly discredits it because of economics reasons. Mainly that the United States is not really in debt financially to China. He states, "China holds just 8 percent of [the United states'] outstanding Treasury securities." Another important claim he makes is that the United States has a competitive edge over China with regards to the labor force's skills. He states, "In the 20th century, we measured a nation’s wealth primarily by its natural resources, its land mass, its population and its army. In the 21st century, the true wealth of a nation is found in the creative minds of its people and their ability to innovate." He continues to remark about the United State's educational system to be far superior to China's. I thought this was an interesting remark; especially because in class we have been focusing on educational reform. Sir Ken Robinson's video ("Changing Education Paradigms") gave a strong argument that the United State's educational system is very outdated and not suited for the current economy. Robinson also strongly argued that our current education system does not develop these "creative minds" that Biden suggests. This is interesting because Biden is saying almost the complete opposite in his article. Biden is saying how the United State's education is what is helping us keep up and stay a world power over upcoming powerful countries.
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