Checker is not wrong to be concerned about China (although I think his worries over the test scores of students in Shanghai are overblown). Indeed, Robert Samuelson, writing in today's Washington Post, also believes the United States is too breezily naive, too undemanding in its approach to the communist behemoth. He and Checker are partly right: feting a dictator, Hu Jintao, in such an obsequious manner as the U.S did, gleefully welcoming the representative of a nation that acts, immorally or otherwise, purely to advance its self-interest, is inappropriate. But is China a threat? Perhaps. But perhaps a country of thieves, a parasitic state that produces only what it steals, or what it bribes other nations to give it; where creativity is not only not encouraged but actively discouraged; for which the concept of individuality let alone human rights hardly exists; for which appearances are more important than substance; whose leadership coddles savage despots while it robs their nations' of resources and wealth; whose massive population cannot forever be placated by double-digit economic growth?perhaps such a place, promoting such an uninspiring and unsustainable philosophy, is not so serious a threat as so many suppose?
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow