Re: America Wounded Bashes China
- From: PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 10:24:41 GMT
On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:29:59 GMT, PaPaPeng <PaPaPeng@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Power to the wrong people
A sense of waning power is not just bad for the self-esteem of
Americans. It is already having dangerous consequences. Inside the
United States, “China-bashing” has become a defensive strategy for
both the left and the right. Isolationism is also on the rise. Most
Democrats already favour an America that “minds its own business”.
(more)
The concluding paragraphs are
That lesson is worth bearing in mind when it comes to the challenge
of China. China is likely to be more and more in America's face,
whether buying American firms, winning Olympic gold or blasting
missiles into space. Merely by growing, China is disrupting the
politics of the Pacific. But that does not mean that it is
automatically on track to overtake America. Its politics are fragile
(see article) and America's lead is immense. Moreover, economics is
not a zero-sum game: so far, a bigger China has helped to enrich
America. An America that stays open to China—an America that sticks to
American values—is much more likely to help fashion the China it
wants.
If America were a stock, it would be a “buy”: an undervalued market
leader, in need of new management. But that points to its last great
strength. More than any rival, America corrects itself. Under pressure
from voters, Mr Bush has already rediscovered some of the charms of
multilateralism; he is talking about climate change; a Middle East
peace initiative is possible. Next year's presidential election offers
a chance for renewal. Such corrections are not automatic: something (a
misadventure in Iran?) may yet compound the misery of Iraq in the same
way Watergate followed Vietnam. But America recovered from the 1970s.
It will bounce back stronger again.
The last paragraph links to their article on Hongkong.
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9407815
[The Hong Kong model
There is another reason why democracy in Hong Kong should be welcomed
by the government in Beijing: Hong Kong could serve as a laboratory
for political change on the mainland, as it earlier served as an
economic model.
A crucial element of the reforms unleashed in China by Deng Xiaoping
nearly 30 years ago was the recognition that Hong Kong had much to
offer China. He saw how much its entrepreneurial people and their
capital could do for the mainland; and he copied some of its economic
freedoms. Often judged the world's freest economy, Hong Kong is not a
bad model. The Pearl River Delta—Hong Kong's hinterland—became China's
fastest-growing region.
Hong Kong could now play a similar role in politics, where the
Communist Party is again toying with the idea of reform (see article).
China remains a viciously repressive dictatorship, where any weakness
of the central government is compensated by the even more arbitrary
exercise of power by local authorities. But people are immeasurably
freer now than they were 30 years ago.
Every year sees tens of thousands of protests—many by peasants over
official land grabs. But the new property-owning, shareholding middle
classes are also restive. None of this, so far, amounts to a challenge
to Communist Party rule. But it does suggest that the instability the
party fears may come. Hong Kong would be a good place to try an
alternative way of dealing with dissent. On Sunday, after the
fireworks have fizzled and China's and Hong Kong's leaders have told
each other how well they are doing, tens of thousands of Hong Kongers
will take to the streets to demand their democratic rights. It is fair
to predict that they will do so without violence and with considerable
good humour. They should be cheered on by everybody who wishes China
well. ]
In the same issue of the Ecomonist is this artcle.
[The hobbled hegemon
Jun 28th 2007 | CAMP LEJEUNE AND FORT BRAGG
From The Economist print edition
Its troubles in Iraq have much weakened it; but America is likely to
remain the dominant superpower
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9401945
Even before the surge was announced, Colin Powell, the former
secretary of state and an ex-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff,
said that the active army was “about broken”. The outgoing military
chief, General Peter Pace, warned Congress earlier this year that
America's ability to deal with another crisis in the world was being
eroded. In a classified report, he said there was a “significant” risk
that America would not be ready to respond properly to a series of
possible military conflicts—from Korea to Taiwan, Cuba or Iran.
America could still beat any likely enemy, said the general, but its
response would be slower and bloodier.
America is the richest country and the most sophisticated high-tech
military power in the world, and is spending more on defence in real
terms than at any time since the end of the second world war. Yet it
is being exhausted by insurgents armed with AK-47 assault rifles,
rocket-propelled grenades and improvised bombs. With strong pressure
on President George Bush to withdraw from Iraq, jihadist militants
scent a victory as momentous as the eviction of Soviet forces from
Afghanistan in 1989—a defeat that helped to dissolve the Soviet
empire.
True, America has recovered from previous disasters, not least the
Vietnam war. But its military troubles come at a time when the global
strategic balance appears to be tilting away from America. Iran is
filling the vacuum created in Iraq, and is accelerating its nuclear
programme. China's military punch is growing along with its booming
economy. Russia is more belligerent. The transatlantic relationship is
loveless. Across the world, anti-Americanism has increased to the
point where the United States is often regarded as a threat to world
peace rather than its guarantor.
Strategists wonder whether the Iraq war has damaged America so badly
as to set it on a path to “imperial decline”. Is the post-Soviet
“unipolar” world, established after America's first war against Saddam
Hussein in 1991, coming prematurely to an end as a result of the
second war to topple him? For Richard Haas, president of the Council
on Foreign Relations, a leading think-tank, “the American era in the
Middle East is over”—and because of the importance of the Middle East,
American global power has also been weakened, for years if not for
decades.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, blames
all three post-cold-war presidents for wasting America's moment of
supremacy. In his recent book, “Second Chance”, he praises George Bush
senior for his handling of the collapse of Soviet communism with
“delicacy and skill” but gives him only a B grade for failing to
exploit the victory in Kuwait in 1991 to resolve the Arab-Israeli
conflict. He gives Bill Clinton a mediocre C for his vacillation.
George Bush junior gets an unforgiving F for his “catastrophic
leadership”. The most powerful image of America, says Mr Brzezinski,
is no longer the Statue of Liberty but the prison camp at Guantánamo
Bay. Unless Mr Bush's successor takes urgent steps to restore
America's political and moral standing, he says, “the crisis of
American superpower will become terminal”, and the epoch of American
dominance will be shortened. [more]
=============
There are too many interesting articles in this issue. Will comment
later if I can remember what I want to say.
.
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