While China’s new leader has won praise at home for his aggressiveness in pushing China’s interests abroad, this is one situation in which his boldness was bound to backfire. As bad as the Fonterra scandal appeared, China’s own dairy companies have seen far worse.
Last week as the U.S. Federal Government shut down, President Obama canceled his planned trip to Indonesia and Brunei, where he was to have attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Bali. Some foreign policy analysts have argued the canceled trip will inflict serious damage to the United States’ position in Asia.
As with communist China, sooner or later the leaders who have mismanaged Iran's economy will lose their grip or change their policies, and the sanctions imposed by the West will be lifted. At that point, Iran is likely to take off rapidly.
President Obama’s cancelled trip to Asia makes a mockery of the “pivot” or rebalancing to that part of the world and away from the Middle East, which was the big strategic theme of Obama’s foreign policy. The result is that small countries in the region are more likely to acquiesce to Chinese demands.
After walking several blocks through New York's busy streets recently, I finally found Wang Juntao in the middle of Times Square, where the exiled Chinese dissident was holding a sit-down protest.
Secretary of State John Kerry replaced President Obama at the opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, leaving China’s president, Xi Jinping, as the dominant leader at a economic gathering.
Even if nothing interesting could be written about 99 percent of Beijing's approximately 20 million people, there would still be 200,000 great stories remaining.
This vast array of specific reforms can’t be achieved at a stroke, and certainly not at a single party gathering. But the decisions likely to be taken in November will set China’s economy in a positive—and lasting—new direction.
The Beijing News says the monitors, described as Internet opinion analysts, are on state and commercial payrolls.
