On Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:46:07 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

It seems that the Chinese are ahead of us almost in every area

It's more complicated than that. Are they really ahead of us in tire
manufacturing technology or do they have lower costs due to cheap
labor plus low standards for environmental pollution and worker
safety? I suspect it's more the latter. If so, is that the kind of
competition that we really want to be advocating?