This means something...

China now has more broadband subscribers than the US.

China has overtaken the US as the largest fixed broadband subscriber market, ending the quarter with 71.6 million subscribers, according to market research firm Dittberner Associates.

In the first quarter China added 4.8 Million subscribers, surpassing the United States by 1.4 million. Sub- scriber growth in the United States was 12 percent over the first quarter of last year. Overall, global fixed broadband subscribers increased 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2008 to reach 355 million. According to Dittberner, following China and the United States, the remainder of the top 10 largest broadband subscriber bases are Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Korea, Italy, Canada and Spain. [More]

I know, they have four times the possible subscriber base. But given the huge disparity in per capita income, I think this event demonstrates which country is looking ahead and which country is holding on.

The political rule of conservatism is based in the resistance to change (be sure to watch USFR this weekend and all the mail I got about the switch to digital TV) and has gripped the US for two decades. Americans tend to view the future as a chance to lose accumulated gains, while peoples like the Chinese look to finally gain a piece of the pie.

The dynamic difference between these two viewpoints are contained in the above statistic.