Why should Chinese pay heed to Bush?

[Oreo]

This is an amazing read from The Star Tribune in Minneapolis
http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5758485.html

Reva R. Rasmussen: Why should Chinese pay heed to Bush?
Young people in China don't see America representing a democracy they want.
Reva R. Rasmussen

George W. Bush, you are so last century. There you were in Beijing, trying to tell the Chinese they needed more freedom and they needed to equalize the trade imbalance and they needed to respect human rights. I do so wish you had been reading the newspapers the last 20 years.

If you had read the papers, you'd know the Chinese people have more freedom today than they've had in the last 50 years of China's history. More than they've had in the last 30, 29, 10 and five years. China is on a steady march toward more personal freedom.

Steady is the important word, here. The Chinese like steadiness. Getting ripped apart by war in order to be free people does not make sense to the Chinese. Probably because they've been ripped apart by war and were not free after. They are especially resistant to demands made by foreigners because they were ripped apart by war while being occupied by foreigners. So, George, your noble mission in Iraq does not give you credibility with the Chinese, not with their leader, Hu Jintao, nor with the Chinese people themselves.

--snip--

My students said democracy evolves, it does not come by war. My students in China wore Adidas and ate McDonald's hamburgers and watched the movie "Titanic," and they didn't want any more of America than that.

--MORE--

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Perfect

Dead right on.

Thanks for this. It's absolutely on target about how we're perceived by the Chinese, and how the country's working now. My husband does business there - he's Chinese - and the changes have been remarkable, much of them quite Western (private owership, the right to burden yourself with mortgages, etc.), but the sense of being Chinese far outweighs the old-fashioned notion that everyone wants to be American.

Not any more.

Watch. This Thug In The Oval Office, goaded by the Pentagon, which will be looking for more and more money in its budget once the Iraq draw down is in place, will start demonizing China, accusing it of building up its military in order to attack anyone and everyone.

It will be a lie. Don't bite.

China will simply buy out everyone, gradually, until, one day, as Americans might yet discover, people wake up to find that China owns them, and if China decides to call its note, we are ruined.

Thanks again. Great article.

[Doctor_J]

2. If Smirky attacks China, we'll go from being

1936 Germany to being 1942 Germany. Ouch.

[Neil Lisst]

3. China still needs to improve in human rights, but Bush is NOT ...

... the guy to be lecturing them on anything! Human rights? He's a major violator, at home and abroad.

In case you missed it, here's what I did on Bush and that speech to China while he was there: