The Dragon's Swagger
By ROGER COHEN
NYT
BEIJING — A U.S. official here told me he was “getting a little nervous about 2010” when it comes to Chinese-American relations. I’d say there’s plenty of cause for that. I’m not optimistic about the world’s most important relationship in the short term.
The Obama administration came in with a deeply held philosophical view about making the Chinese stakeholders, and partners, in an interconnected world. Human rights complaints were muted, the Dalai Lama put on hold, and President Obama swung into town in November with arms outstretched to the rising behemoth.
The Chinese were polite enough, if less so at the Copenhagen climate talks a month later, but they’re not buying this touchy-feely interconnection thing. When you’re sitting on sums north of $2 trillion in reserves, riding three decades of near double-digit growth, and just trucked past the United States to become the world’s largest auto market, nationalism trumps globalism.
Think of the headiest moments of U.S. expansion — the Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties — to get some idea of Chinese swagger and possibility.
(More here.)
NYT
BEIJING — A U.S. official here told me he was “getting a little nervous about 2010” when it comes to Chinese-American relations. I’d say there’s plenty of cause for that. I’m not optimistic about the world’s most important relationship in the short term.
The Obama administration came in with a deeply held philosophical view about making the Chinese stakeholders, and partners, in an interconnected world. Human rights complaints were muted, the Dalai Lama put on hold, and President Obama swung into town in November with arms outstretched to the rising behemoth.
The Chinese were polite enough, if less so at the Copenhagen climate talks a month later, but they’re not buying this touchy-feely interconnection thing. When you’re sitting on sums north of $2 trillion in reserves, riding three decades of near double-digit growth, and just trucked past the United States to become the world’s largest auto market, nationalism trumps globalism.
Think of the headiest moments of U.S. expansion — the Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties — to get some idea of Chinese swagger and possibility.
(More here.)
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