MacAurthor was right when he stated that America should bomb the Manchurian supply lines and rearm Chiang Kai-shek, because China would eventually be the greatest threat to America and the free world. (Truman fired him instead.)
It is a shame that our leaders have not at least put together the tenants in "The Art Of War" and China's current economic growth (growing American dependence upon China for most manufactured goods). Basically you strive to make your enemy dependant upon you, weaken him, and then strike with the chances for resistance are very low.
It is also a shame that they don't teach kids in school about a major reason for the fall of the Spanish empire. They had become so much of a consumer society - buying cheap goods from neighboring countries because of the wealth flowing into Spain - that they lost the know-how to manufacture their own goods. When the money dried up (due to the English "privateers" and the fact that the "New World" was not really a land filled with gold), they no longer had the know-how to be self sufficient/self sustaining.
C'est la vie.