China is a serious, long term threat to American strategic interests.

Cultural HegemonyR2) Pro starts off his round by engaging in further semantics and attempts to duck the issue. During the previous rounds I argued that Pro had to show how culture affected foreign relations- that two countries having the same belief system necessarily strengthened relations. While it might be true that being virtually the same ethnolinguistic group has fostered relations between countries such as America and Britain, Pro gives zero explanation as to how Taoism or Buddhism will have a noticable effect on foreign relations because he hasn't told us how they effect anything! I gave examples of culturally and religiously similar countries being at odds with each other and he has not responded to them whatsoever. In addition, Pro once again gives zero evidence for his ad hoc assumption that Islam could assimilate the largest country on Earth within a few decades when they currently make up 2% of the population. The point goes to Con. Economic HegemonyR3) Pro claims that my case was that exports are bad. I'll pause for a second so that the readers can scroll up and and see my argument. When they're done laughing, I'll explain now that I claimed China does not have a true free market, and that the government has artificially inflated exports in order to facilitate growth, meaning that little real wealth is being created. I gave numerous details to prove my point (such as the extraordinarily low profit margins that the Chinese are getting of these exports). He has not responded to or acknowledged one iota of my case. Pro then argues that China's domestic consumption is doing fine (despite the very clear GDP statistic I gave proving otherwise) because they have a large market for cars. However, it makes quite a bit of sense that this is the case- developed countries such as the US have enough cars for their populations already, while China has almost ten times fewer cars per capita then the US does [1. . http://en.wikipedia.org...]. Shortages create demand, and the auto companies start selling in China. That's how supply and demand works. The point goes to Con. R4) My argument has been completely strawmanned here. My source did not say that China's economy was doing badly because of their stimulus package (or whatever Pro interpreted it as), my source said that China's stimulus package in response to what apparently seemed to be a slight slowdown in growth was inconsistent with the official data and thus their economy was not doing as well as most believe. I encourage the readers to actually look at the source and see if he refuted anything in it: [2. . http://www.heritage.org...] The point goes to Con. R5) Pro asserts that since the US has economic inequalities as well as China, it makes no sense for me to posit that China is unstable because of it if the US isn't as well. However this fails because:1. Con engages in an equivocation between percentages and actual wealth. While China and America both have massive income inequality gaps, America's poor simply have a much higher standard of living than China's poor.2. The Chinese income gap varies across regions. This makes those regions have different interests and the government has to balance these out in order to maintain control.3. The Chinese do not have a unifying ideology the same way Americans do. For all of its propaganda, China has historically had numerous problems retaining power even among its own population [3. . http://en.wikipedia.org...]. As I said, the government buys popularity with mass employment and continuing growth. My point about income inequality was not as simplistic as Pro makes it out to be. Pro then claims that "CON would rather have us believe in the preposterous notion that optimistic people are inherently unstable. " This is a bastardization of my argument to such a degree that it is ridiculous. My point was that the fact that China's population is confident does not necessarily mean that they are right to be confident in China's economy any more than the investors were right to be optimistic about the US's housing market in 2006. Estimating the long term-strength of an economy is not done by asking random people how they feel. I urge Pro to drop this for his own good. R6) I am not referring to propaganda or public opinion. I am referring to the actual capabilities of the military. My point about China's ground forces remains true- they were always designed for domestic security, and the continued instability of the country will force them to remain suited for that purpose and make it harder for them to allocate funds for power projection. Fragile states do not create empires. The point goes to Con. R7) Recall that in the last round Pro used examples of successful Asian economies as evidence that China could follow the same path. I pointed out the differences between them (which have been ignored by Pro) and I also claimed that the US boosted their economies with free trade agreements- not in the present day, but during their economic miracles! Once again, Pro has completely misinterpreted my statement. The point goes to Con. Political HegemonyR8) I don't have a credible response? Really? As I have said, the US cannot invade China directly and never could. My entire purpose in bringing up the Korean War was to highlight the limitations that the PLA has always had, and that even in neighboring countries like Korea they needed massive forces in order to hold off overseas invaders. Whether or not this is a propaganda victory for the Chinese has little to do with my point. This, once again, goes to Con. R9) I did argue against China's long term prospects for a military. As I said, China's ground forces are designed to occupy and stabilize the country, and are irrelevant to any potential war in the Pacific. I pointed out how weak and small China's air force was, whereas the United State's air force is the most sophisticated in the world and has support of the air forces of its allies. I also highlighted the enormous time it takes to build aircraft carriers and train human resources. As far as I can see, he has not responded to anything I said, while I directly rebutted his own claims about China's military in the previous round! ConclusionPro claimed at the beginning of his round that I was "projecting" my own fears onto China and my hopes onto America. Has that claim been substantiated? These criticism have often been turned on their head by my opponent who claims that my argument consisted of basic assertions such as "exports are bad" or "inequality will lead to instability" and then refuting them thus, whereas they really were substantial, detailed objections that have not been touched throughout the debate. My claims of economic and political instability were, as I showed, very different from the problems America faces. My military analysis from Round 3 has not even been mentioned despite his repeated assertions that I am not looking at future trends, even though I repeated myself in Round 4. Arguments: Pro thoroughly ignored my case and was unable to concoct direct refutations of my points, failing to answer my questions about how religion would give China hegemony over its neighbors, my detailed claims about China's overblown economy, China's power projection, and the fundamental geostrategic advantages the US has over China in the region. Conduct: As of this writing neither of us has committed any egregious violation of conduct. S/G: Both of us have had adequate spelling and grammar. Sources: The quality of source material should be left to the discrepancy of the voters. As I have undoubtedly fulfilled my burden while my opponent's arguments fail to respond to my case, I strongly urge a vote toward Con. Thanks to wrichcirw for this debate and thanks to the audience for reading!