By Mackenzie Madison
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Ten trillion dollars in debt. Yeah, that’s a lot. That is a one followed by 13 zeros. To put that number into perspective, our current population is roughly 300 million. In order for us to get out of debt, each person in the United States would have to come up with around $50,000. Sounds rough, right? Good news is, the United States is not in this alone. One of our biggest contributors to take this heavy weight off our shoulders is China. And whether you believe it or not, China is the most important country for the United States.

After our history of conflicting governments and the fact that we’re one of China’s biggest competitors in the race to have the largest GDP, why would China want anything to do with the United States? The answer is simple: while we might be China’s biggest competitor, we’re also the biggest patrons of Chinese goods.  In other words, they have too much money invested in us to watch us go further and further into debt. Virtually everything we buy in America is made in China: Nike, Jansport, Mac (Apple), just to name a few.

But the animosity we see on the surface doesn’t always carry to the rest of the population. This past summer, I spent a month traveling China with my family and I was simply amazed. The cities were beautiful, the countryside was breathtaking and to my surprise, the air was clean. So where were all those clichés of China: busy dirty cities, poor country sides and a restrictive government? Not once while I was there did I feel like I was in a communist country. The Chinese people never made me feel like I was not welcome in their country or that they hated Americans; people wanted to speak English with us and take pictures together. They made us feel extremely welcome, and oddly enough, I sort of felt like I was at home.

But on the other hand, I have to be cynical about these impressions.  We are a consumer based society obsessed with mass consumption, and China is helping fuel that. And despite differences in culture and government, it’s a symbiotic relationship, and we need each other to survive. The United States does not support the type of government in China, but it works for them. If China did not have such a repressive government, they would not necessarily have such an outstanding GDP. Without this massive GDP, a lot of our daily items would not be so readily available or as inexpensive. Mackenzie Madison is a sports reporter for the HiLite. Contact her a [email protected].