A Bad Time to Wreck Our Relationship with China

Throughout its first year in office, the Obama administration has completed numerous course corrections across the breadth of American foreign policy. Demonstrating the power of a much-needed apology, President Barack Obama's new-look foreign policy was charming enough to earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. But it struck many observers as a change in style, not substance: Many of Obama's "changes" merely extended or expanded upon those made during the last two years of the Bush administration, following the repudiation of the 2006 mid-term Congressional elections.

Continue reading this week's New Rules column at WPR.

Comments

[Joe Canepa]

You are right on in that the idea of a public challenge the PRC is not a good or practical policy.

But a move by China to political pluralism, in the American sense, is unlikely in the immediate future. From a Chinese point of view, the political gridlock, which prevails in the United States, is not a goal for the Chinese to aspire to.

A single party system, while prone to favor only those in charge, can work when those in charge go for the greater good. This was illustrated when China went from its Mao roots to a pragmatic economic system under Deng Xiaoping http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_reform_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

[Gilbert Garza]

“Tired of Bush-Cheney's frighteningly combative view of world affairs as well as the neocons' glaring blind spot (otherwise known as economics), they chose as their president a leader given to cool, holistic analyses of global dynamics.”

Speaking for America’s middle class, I/we am/are OK with the cure/reaction to “Bush-Cheney frighteningly combative view” (and action) as a more deliberate less frightening less combative view (with less action). Delivery/presentation/expression in public oration of this view seems to come and go with no lasting good effect. We don’t see and probably couldn’t properly evaluate any real evidence of plans/orders of action as a consequence of “the cool holistic analyses of global dynamics” other than perhaps in occasions when the evidence and the plan/order has been for patience and guarded or no new action-- which has at least not made things worse as yet.

“America's middle-class ethos, suffering a serious case of self-doubt and feeling decidedly threatened by increasing global competition, needed tending.But middle-class doubt and vulnerability have now coalesced into populist anger.”

Speaking for America’s middle-class ethos, I/we are beginning to know that our self-doubt derives from a repenting/(denying) recognition of our own irresponsible behavior in what we did and in what we allowed/encouraged others to do on our behalf in a period of unusual economic opportunities problems and adjustments (consequences of globalization and our place in its historical development). Understandably for our part and almost forgivable on their part we and our leadership have colluded in making the worst of our situation taking from what’s left here (or can be borrowed here) to give there in populist justification and political business and personal opportunism (populism). What’s mistakenly being called populism recently is (generally but not entirely) a different kind of populism if the label still applies. This new populism is a reaction to the failed guilty populism that we now see as misguided in its self-involvement with individual and class outcomes and a new recognition of what it has always taken to keep our economy honest and strong.

[Petrer]

The Chinese can go to a UK parliamentary system, where the PM will also be Legislator in Chief. Then the opposition can just bang their hands on the desk and grandstand until their party gets elected.

This is a very logical way to go, since most countries simply do not like the US system, where the party out of power actually has more power than people think....I mean it will probably be the end game in some decades.

[stuart abrams]

You must be starting to feel like John Adams in the final song of my favorite musical, "1776":

Is anybody there?Does anybody care?Does anybody seeWhat I see?

[David Emery]

Mr Garza does not speak for me.

[Huyu]

What I know for sure and as plain a fact as it can be is that here we have 3600$ in an average pocket a year and over there you have more than 45000$. This is the simple, hard, cold truth that cannot be overcome. So our timelines are not going to be what you want or hope for, and for now we just have to attend to our own business until that this basic fact changes to something more a parity through our own hard work and sweat. So please please please, enough said, and leave us alone!