Is the China fever passing in DC?
■"Rice Warns China to make Major Economic Changes: Harm to World's Financial System Cited," by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 19 August 2005, p. A9.
■"Investor Group to Acquire Stake in Bank of China," by David Barboza, New York Times, 19 August 2005, p. C5.
Condi Rice does better when she emphasizes that China needs to get its internal economic rule sets more synched up with globalization's emerging economic rule sets than when she chides them on their "outsized" (in terms of regional ambitions) defense spending. Frankly, the U.S. chiding anyone on their military ambitions is truly a case of the pot calling the kettle black. China isn't fighting any global wars, nor has it invaded any countries lately, nor is it engaging in nation-building except in an economic sense in sub-Saharan Africa. I mean, China's playing the pure SysAdmin role here, one devoid of military content, and in a world that needs a lot of SysAdmin effort from the Core, this is to be applauded, not condemned. Frankly, if we had any serious grand strategists in this administration, they'd be working to lock in China on exactly that score: we specialize in the Leviathan work and China mans the SysAdmin force. We do what we do well, and they bring to the equation exactly what they have in abundance and which costs us far too much-bodies galore that are willing to take risks and build a future worth creating in numerous Gap countries.
No pretense here that China would do this for any reason other than the usual ones: economic benefit. So we're not talking the Chinese turning over a new leaf, just being Chinese, and I always say, trust people to be who they are, not who you want them to be.
The news on that economic front is good from China: revaluation of the yuan, move toward a floating currency based on a basket of Core currencies, and the banking sector opening itself up to foreign ownership. Fast enough? Never quite, since the greatest threat to globalization that anyone can imagine right now is a Chinese financial meltdown, but certainly progress.
Too bad the U.S. can't manage any serious effort to make major military changes as quickly, because many of our Core allies cite our growing harm to the world security system.
Still, with President Hu Jintao visiting the U.S. next month, the latest bout of anti-Chinese hysteria seems to be abating now that the yuan and Unocal issues seem to be gone from the scene.