Response to "America held captive to utopian ideology"

After reading this article by Patrick Buchanan I was amazed but not surprised about what the contents said. I actually agree with most if not all of what Buchanan had to say. One of the first things that I found to be very interesting was the fact that China has maintained a 10-12 percent annual growth ever since Deng Xiaoping dispensed with Maoism. 10-12 percent may not seem like much but with China's vast population it is a HUGE increase. The fact that China is building dozens of nuclear power plants and also tying the nation together with bullet trains and highways just boggles my mind. During the summer of my freshman year I visited China during the summer and this was the first time I had done so since I was about eight years old. I don't remember much from my trip when I was eight but I remembered enough to notice the unfathomable change that the country has undergone in the six years that I haven't been there. I had stayed in Beijing for a week or so and was amazed to find that it was very similar to the United States in terms of how industrialized and structured the city had been. Since then, China has taken Germany's title as the world's leading exporter and China is set on a path to overtake Japan as the world's second largest economy this year. One thing that I disagree with Buchanan is that he thinks being captive to a utopian ideology is perilous to the republic. I think this is true to a certain extent. As the leading power in the world, I believe the United States has an obligation to set the example for the rest of the world and it is doing a good job by setting many regulations to help the environment and other areas. At the moment, it is not helping the United States at all as China's economy is growing at such a rapid rate. However, as soon as China catches up and is no longer considered a third world country, I think China will or at least should begin to set up similar regulations seeing as how it will be one of the largest, if not the largest, powerhouses in the world. So Buchanan should not be attacking the United States for doing what is right. Instead, he should dwell on the fact that it will be China's turn to set the example for the rest of the world in the near future.