China Sucks Up to Bush

China. Now there's a villain's villain. They have us by the short hairs. Monstrous trade deficit (including Hilo Hattie's dashboard hula dolls, Curious George being only one variation). They've bought all of our nation's debt, they want nuclear power, & they have domestic problems that even George can empathize with, if only he knew what such a long & useless word meant.

And don't forget that they're one of the worst in terms of human rights abuses, though they very cleverly know that the capitalist running dogs of America will fall all over themselves to be the first to exploit the ginormous Chinese consumer market, & will indeed turn over online dissidents' personal info so the State can carry them off, never to be seen heard of or from again.

(George can only watch with envy. Try as he might to concoct elaborate wire-tapping & electronics communication schemes, he still has to deal with a few of us who are outraged by it, and there are still very public embarrassments associated with putting away U.S. citizens without affording them the opportunity to learn the charges against them. What's a dictator in training to do?)

We hope they can bridge their differences & find common ground.

A Chinese delegation is also visiting Washington state tomorrow (Tuesday) to close a deal on Boeing airplanes that's very, very good news for Boeing indeed. In fact, that may have had something to do with a group of Chinese businessmen in a restaurant I was in last week. Maybe they were the advance guard. THEN they go onto the OTHER Washington.

Which reminds me that I saw our Governor on the boob tube the other day, so unabashedly giddy as she gushed for the cameras that the Chinese knew Washington (and they weren't talking about D.C., she crowed)!

Oh hold your horses, people. The Chinese government knows damned well that all you have to do is throw cash at Americans to have them willingly line up to be your slaves. Nothing about this is accidental. The Chinese have always had a very shrewd take on the practical advantages of cold hard cash. There are very good reasons to stop swooning & start paying very close attention, as one always should with so populous & ancient a civilization. Tread VERY cautiously.

And now, back to the news (will I never learn not to editoralize first?) It was this in The New York Times that tickled my funny bone:

"With an aura of candor described as unusual for Chinese leaders, President Hu Jintao told President Bush that fighting political corruption, rural unrest, a widening wealth gap and severe pollution consumes nearly all his time. He said domestic problems left China with neither the will nor the means to challenge America's dominance in world affairs, according to two Bush administration officials who were told about the session.

"The overture — described as having improved Mr. Hu's ties with Mr. Bush despite the Chinese leader's generally aloof style — is part of a Chinese effort to reduce, or at least to deflect, American anxiety about the country's growing economic, political and military power.

"When Mr. Hu travels to Washington this week for his first White House visit as China's top leader, the question will be whether the improved chemistry between the heads of the world's richest nation and its fastest rising rival can enhance a relationship that seems to be stuck somewhere between tentative stability and stormy."