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This article argues for an improved economic partnership between China and the United States based on nonpolitical, profit-seeking, market, and rule of law–based agreements. We begin by describing the major domestic economic issues that each country is facing, specifically the diverse threats of inflation in China and U.S. government debt. We argue that these substantial obstacles can be best overcome through partnership. As well, we argue that such an arrangement will have the incidental effects of reducing China's vast income disparity and improving its shaky rule of law. We then describe the current strained relationship between the two nations and argue that these attitudes will be improved through the actions of "agents of change"—young professionals on both sides of the Pacific who study in North America and return to China, building cultural and economic bridges between East and West. We then outline a strategy for partnership, arguing that the United States should allow freer trade with China and should facilitate Chinese direct investment in American assets. We conclude by describing Canada's potential role in this partnership both as a mediator between the two superpowers and as a source for investment in natural resources.

For the past several years, we have presented and published studies based on postal related data, from postmaster cash books and the Official Register, where we use postmaster salary data as a measure of local, highly disaggregate proxies for general economic activity at town and village level. Using micro-level, high frequency, nationally uniform and previously unknown data, we will report on the outcome of measuring levels of economic activity, political influence and social mobility phenomena. In our latest work, we will use a recently published work of railroad history investments in the 19th century. The railroad history we have is highly detailed, naming particular towns and routes. Our own micro data will allow us to associate our postmaster data with railway town information at the same micro level. Our data will also allow us to report the economic activity of non-railway towns. We will then have, at the micro-level, bi-annual comparisons made over the life of the railway routes. The relative economic, political and demographic impact of railway investment will be examined. For example, as we have the names, birthplaces and ethnic origins of postmasters in addition to their salaries. We can measure not just differences in economic activity between railway and non-railway towns but even examine questions like: "Are the railway towns places where new immigrants get to be postmasters more quickly than elsewhere?" Our larger purpose is to advertise our ever-expanding postal based dataset, which provides information of interest to economists, sociologists, historians and political scientists.