Beijing finally got off the dime to appreciate the RMB but only after the US Treasury Department had a completed report in hand that would declare the PRC to be a "currency manipulator." Such a Treasury Department designation against any country, China especially at this time, would have created enormous problems to Beijing. The number one and immediate problem to Beijing would have been 100 countries waving the report in the face of PRC officials in Beijing and at Beijing officials anytime they visited in 100 foreign capitals. The heat would have been applied to Beijing at the WTO, APEC, the G-20, by the EU, ASEAN etc etc.

Paper and text still speak loudly, usually more loudly than actual raised voices. The United States has learned much about diplomacy in the modern globalized world that Beijing completely misses, for example, such subtleties as the Treasury report. Indeed, the report was never issued and the RMB is appreciating.

Yes, the Chinese do push back, which is their greatest weakness. The always immediate and predictable Chinese kneejerk pushback response reliably and consistently aggravates high profile problems and makes worse already complex international differences. But the Chinese in their aggressive, loud, klutz attitudes miss this. They thus consistently find themselves in the humiliating position of eating their words such as when Beijing told the sheeple of the PRC that it will "not obey" the United States concerning the RMB or anything else, then only shortly after the vacuuous declaration caved. The Chinese didn't obey the US, they capitulated to the world of nations.

The Chinese in international intercourse instinctively bluster, bully; simultaneously and clandestinely skulk in the cover of night. Either way, they make a lot of noise so it's hard to miss what they're doing. The Pentagon Report will reiterate the fact.

Your inherent belief in the superiority of the US vis-a vis China clouds your judgement and discredits you to many Chinese who genuinely want to improve their country's standing in the world. You should recognize that the US is no saint and if China finds it hard to hide its blunders, the US does far worse when it screws up. It attempts to reorient people's idea about right and wrong so as to make themselves perpetually right. "If there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we'll fight for...uh.....democracy! Thats right! Thats what we were after all along and if your not with us, well then you must not believe in democracy."

China's foreign policy is not, and I cannot emphasize this enough, not made for ideological concerns. The diplomats do not care about their appearance to Westerners or to anyone. Ironically, foreign policy is really domestic policy and a good decision is not one that remains true to stated principles, goals, or plans. It is the one which derives to most immediate advantage to Chinese interests. You might find it selfish, short-sighted, and unneighbourly, but it is the conception of people that China has based on its unfortunate history. This is why international pressure simply would not work - it is applied to people who make choices the consequences of which are shielded from outside influence, the people in charge dont care as long as they maintain their small part of the juggernaut.

A pentagon report about China's military is meaningless to anyone outside of the Congressional committee which gets to play with it. It cannot stimulate a positive response from people who do not respond to outside stimuli. The best way to affect positive change is through a conscientious alignment of interests. The US needs to not only say that they want what the Chinese want, but to demonstrate it

My inherent belief vis a vis China is in Western Liberalism versus Chinese top down rule over the past 5,000 years. Western Civilization has created the modern world: the Chinese are only reacting to it. The Chinese are reactionaries in every respect: political, social, cultural, economics.

The United States is only a part of Western Liberalism, which originated in Greece as the ancient center of Western Civilization. That the United States, with all of its warts, has become the leading light of Western Civilization is not by accident. Germany could never make the claim; the Spanish conquistadors discredited their civilization; France is incompetent and incapable; Italy is a joke in this respect - Great Britain had its day.

China is one of the four centers of ancient civilization in the world and a shytty one it is. If you like the totalitarian, authoritarian, docile and rote nature of the Chinese, then go ahead and kiss their arse.

You remain bound by your own convictions. Is the "modern world" really all that it is hyped to be? Does liberalism allow for the actual expression of individual countries or does it force them to act along the accepted trends of Western thought?
For that matter, what is a "shitty" civilization? Is it one which rejects liberal thought in favor of its own convictions? If China had to "react" to the western world, then it is obvious that your liberal world is not voluntarily accepted by all, and so it should be recognized for what it really is, a modified version of imperialism, or if that term be too easily misconstrued, western "influence over other countries while refusing to adapt to political realities in others."
I do not necessarily prefer communist party rule to any other sort of rule, so long as the result of that rule promotes what i believe in. The one thing I am opposed to is worldwide American rule, because it suppresses collective expression by an overzealous individualism, it reinforces a world of hierarchies, and it gives individual Americans far more political power and influence above others. Such a world is necessarily unjust, hypocritical, and cruel to those who are not born into the ruling country, and unless this is understood by those with power, it cannot change.

The above post "Again" prompts some old fashioned Socratic Q & A, contains some rhetorical questions and presents disussion, all of which constitute a decided improvement over a previous post by you which has more presumptuous lecturing to it than either respectable questioning or discussion.

However, you and a few others (TOMHE for instance) will just have to pardon me for having a set of values, a world view and for being consistent in these respects. Your statement, "I do not necessarily prefer communist party rule to any other sort of rule, so long as the result of the rule promotes what I believe in," is so vague and in the clouds -not to mention wordy - it's possible to think you could be saying 'the end justifies the means.' Perhaps you're not saying that, but I and others can't be confident of what you're saying. Herein may lie the (mild) friction reflected in our volleyball of comments.

You also say, "The US needs only to not say that they want what the Chinese want, but to demonstrate it," whatever that may mean. It's difficult to have a discourse with such nebulous and non-specific statements - for one thing, we need fewer 'theys' and 'whats' to your statements in favor of specifics. Can you given an example of what the US 'wants' that the Chinese 'want', and of how the US might demonstrate such a presumed common affinity? Could it be human rights for example? Or perhaps and end to the persecution of Google?

An unanswered challenge to the CPC/PRC is its absence of any ideas and visions that have universal appeal to the peoples of the world. Beijing is a censoring and repressing government and makes no apologies for it. The US is an easier target to criticise because when it establishes a Guantanamo concentration camp, it's directly contrary to the principles and spirit of the Constitution so the Bush Boyz should indeed be criticized, and were in fact sharply criticized. When the CPC/PRC censors and represses, there isn't any contrary higher principle there to cite as the basis of criticism. Censorship and repression are the arrogantly stated policies of the CPC/PRC, so the whole of the system and its foundation deserve and get criticism. This is not the case in respect to the United States.

While 40% of the PRC continues to develop in economic respects, The Other Half live on less than USD $2 a day - this kind of economic development is unsustainable. In actual raw numbers, while 500 000 000 Chinese continue in a remarkable economic development, 800 000 000 remain economically destitute.

While the CPC/PRC promotes some economic development, it is only a self-serving development to the CPC. Yet development in the PRC is vacuuous because the PRC is philosophically bankrupt - it believes in neither communism nor liberal democracy. There remains only the 5,000 year old inward looking mindset of the Middle Kingdom and the self-interest of its leaders to preserve themselves in power, money, authority.

And believe me TOMHE, this does not anger me. When Pres Truman was whistle stop campaigning to successfully seek reelection in 1948, someone in the crowd at the train station shouted, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" Not missing a beat, Truman said, "I'm speaking the facts and the truth, so they only think it's hell." In other words TOMHE, one is accountable to one's self for one's own reactions to that which is presented. Much more than anger towards the PRC, I have a disrespect - a disrespect that is profound. You could even say contempt.

is a result of a interest in brevity, but yes, some specifics are in order. The US appears to want everything that China doesnt want, for instance strong rivals in the neighbourhood (India, Japan) and also somewhat weaker rivals (Vietnam, Taiwan), Korean reunification, messing around with the security council, regional alliances which either exclude or are actually pointed at China, ethnic self-determination (as illustrated by recent event s over Kosovo), and free access to waters which Chinas considers way too close. Im sure there are others, but those are the ones that I can easily think of. The point is that such actions make it necessary for the CPC to develop any unifying ideology. Struggle against, and resistance to American initiatives, which in all seriousness do threaten the intergrety and prominence of the country is a self-evident goal in and of itself.
The CPC has a historical aversion towards strong ideological goals, and yes, one can think of it as the ends justify the means. This is because in the bad old days of Mao the ends didnt matter so long as the means were ideologically sound. the economy didnt really matter so long as certain classes were being overthrown. Nowadays, no one even asks for justification because of the widespread knowledge of the consequences of failure.
What the US does is to create a model, then exhalt it as the one and only acceptable model, and then judge others relative to itself. This is not only an incredibly nonobjective method of understanding others, but is a method sure to cause resentment.
There was someone here who was talking about a "world run on the Chinese model" and for all of his (hers?) concerns, the fact remains that the Chinese model demands far less force to enforce. It is like laissez-faire, but for other people's politics. Eastern Asia was under Chinese hegemony for centuries without war and conflict, whereas American hegemony favours its friends at the expense of people it declares to be enemies.
There are many failures in the path to development, and when the US was developing it was no different.
Western values have never actually been challenged by Beijing. It is widely accepted that the capitalist economic model is best suited to a prosperous nation, it is acknowledged that the UN, G20, and vaious other western constructs are legitimate forums for discussion, and it is generally believed in CHina that westerners live better lives because they live in more developed countries. The very fact that China is not urging other governments to adopt censorship, to de-democratize, should be highly reassuring. Repression is not a goal, but a legacy of past misrule which cannot be eliminate overnight without serious repercussions such as pieces of the country declaring itself independent or power struggles breaking out between havs and hav nots.
People who project their national instinct upon China are the most dangerous, the most warlike. Seeing hostile enemies all around you indicates that you yourself is a dangerous menace to those around you. The tendency to divide the world up into ideological camps is another dangerous western, liberal side-effect. The CPC is an organization doesnt do this, which is interested in more tangilbe goals other than ideological world domination. My contempt goes towards the American masses who have such little knowledge and sympathy for the world they rule, towards the American political types who debate endlessly over how best to improve the world, without recognizing their own hand in its suffering. Towards people who think they could do better with what fate dealt to China, and to those who mock the political dignity of the Chinese people.

i meant to say "unnecessary" in the first paragraph

If you haven't already done it, MISHMAEL, read on this page my extension to the analysis of TEMUJIN, which I titled "Buying time" in reference to the present and future China.

Also, your purely logical argument about the supposed illiberal failings of Western Liberalism is erroneous in the same ways as the Chinese erroneously think and believe that logic is the absolute determinant of all things. This rigid and illusory reliance of the Chinese on logic as the one and only true protocol, which always leads to 'correct' conclusions is not only inflexible, but is done in the absence of a sense of reality - or of any sense itself.

The Chinese have suffered from this failure of intellect and of the innate for thousands of years. Indeed, the vast majority of Chinese continue to believe strongly that logic necessarily equals correctness, that logic means impeccable reasoning and accuracy each and every time. Consequently, there is a complete absence of the cognition that that which is logical isn't necessarily right - that common sense and innate intelligence that recognizes the limitations of logic, syllogisms especially, is often far more reliable than cold, calculating logic.

Your arguments to this page against Western Liberalism are logical. However, as frequently occurs in the use of logic alone, logic isn't necessarily true or accurate or connected to reality. In fact, your logically presented arguments that Western Liberalism is intolerant and forceful stand the test of logical discourse, but not the test of truth, reality or a reasonable analysis of Western Liberalism.

In 1792 it was logical for the China Emperor Quianlong to present to the trade representatives of King George III of Great Britain, who had traveled to China to offer fruits of the early and budding Industrial Revolution, the following message to HM George:

"You O king, live beyond the confines of the many seas, nevertheless, impelled by your humble desire to partake of the benefits of our civilization, you have dispatched a mission respectfully bearing your memorial...To show your devotion, you have also sent offerings of your country's produce. [However] strange and ingenious objects do not interest me. I have no use for your country's manufactures. It behooves you, O king, to respect my sentiments and display even greater devotion and loyalty in future, so that by perpetual submission to our throne, you may secure peace and prosperity for your country. Tremblingly obey and show no negligence."

This is an example of the history Western Liberalism is confronted with by an inward and arrogant China.

Accordingly, two hundred years later the logic of Quianlong has long since been smashed by reality as the CPC/PRC chase after Western riches. Meanwhile, the successor Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi (Cixi) found during her 70 years commanding the throne of the Middle Kingdom that the Chinese worship of logic was confounding, costly, catastrophic. Your logic against Western Liberalism fares no better.

Lenin prophetic?!? Ha ha ha! The country he founded collapsed of its own dead weight a generation ago. After the collapse, one worker was quoted in the NYT, "We pretended to work and they pretended to pay us."

The USSR had a formidable military machine and complex, from which the United States to include Adm Mullen and the Pentagon can apply many principles and much long term experience to neutralize the ongoing PRC military buildup. Remember that Iraq during the 1990 - 91 Gulf War and again in 2003 had the top of the line Soviet equipment, and that the Iraqi armed forces were trained by the best cadre the Soviets had. The result was a catastrophe for both the USSR and Iraq in 1991......remember that year? The PRC will be added to the heap that is the long dead Soviet Union and Saddam's Iraq.

Lenin, ha ha ha! Lenin was as successful as Stalin, Hitler, Mao.

If you like a national ID number and censorship enforced by special police, and if you love one party government rule by an IT-reactionary oligarchy which prohibits information, communication, knowledge, analysis that are in circulation globally from entering the PRC, then you'll love all of 'em - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Deng, the Communist Party of China, the dictatorship that is the government of the People's Republic of China. Deng ordered Tianaman.

In fact, I'm sure you already do love 'em all.

Premier Khrushchev of the long defunct USSR once famously said to the West in general, but of course to the United States in particular, "We will bury you," meaning of course the USSR would have control and possession of democratic societies globally within a generation or two. The USSR, Khrushchev, Lenin, Saddam and the rest of 'em are buried and we're still going strong. The same is coming for the PRC, especially when the 800 000 000 PRChinese who live in the countryside on USD $2 a day or less decide to have their say in Beijing, where they're perpetually ignored. Even the USSR wasn't ever so poor during its most retarded times during the Cold War. Beijing's day of reckoning by this accounting is coming too.

Your statements TEMUJIN that Beijing is presently buying time with the lunatic goal and purpose of ruling the world is exactly the knowledge and understanding I have acquired here in the PRC of the Communist Party of China, which rules the People's Republic of China. The present PRC pretends to have peaceful intentions to develop itself economically and, far more importantly, to construct an economic base that will support its military buildup eventually to rule the world as a hegemonic empire, the true realization of the Empire of the Middle Kingdom in ways no emperor of the place had ever imagined the Middle Kingdom capable of reaching.

Yes, every Chinese school child is taught the humiliation of the Boxer Rebellion and in the process are loaded for payback. The PRChinese dream of sinking a US aircraft carrier, an event which would be inevitable were any enemy truly determined to do it. But to the delusional CPC/PRC Chinese, that would make them a superpower.

Yes, indeed, the Chinese don't forget, and want to give Japan especially payback for WW II and for many previous invasions over the course of history. Whatever payback the CPC of the PRC has against the United States remains unclear, as the US was a Johnny come lately to the turn of the 20th century actions of the European Powers and Japan to overrun China, to slice it and dice it. The US was only playing catchup to the then global power and reach of the Western Europeans and the Japanese. The US is the target of the ever imperialist Chinese only because it is the reigning superpower.

Your statements, based on knowledge, analysis and a certain special insight, are consistent with what I have discovered in the PRC about the PRC. China always has been a hegemon. It is more so presently and will increasingly be so in the future. The analogy of Japan and its Meiji but its Showa leaders especially to the CPC of the PRC, which has been advanced by others, is true and accurate, but the plans of the CPC/PRC extend well beyond any "East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" to, in fact, world rule.

The important and significant thing to know and to keep in mind is that the PRC will meet the same fate as the Showa leaders of Japan, the fascist communist leaders of the former USSR, Hitler, Mussolini, bin Laden, the ayatollahs of Iran and their ilk everywhere.

It's important to know that there's a difference between vacuuous arrogance and what is reality and confidence. The United States always has been realistic. Post WW II it has gained confidence, especially following its victory in the Cold War. Pres Obama this week signed the 2,500 page financial reform laws and will be reelected in 2012 despite the expected Republican Party gains in the upcoming November "off year" elections to the Congress (the election of the president will not be on the ballot, thus not attracting his expanded base of electors to the polls).

Be assured the people of the United States, and now post-Copenhagen the Europeans, don't for a minute trust the CPC/PRC and view it as a hostile and illiberal force in the world. The CPC/PRC faces the profound opposition of the people of the United States in all that it does. No one in Beijing is kidding the people of the United States as to the fundamentally freak and evil nature of the CPC/PRC.

I'm sitting here looking at the space to my right on the page, "My Network on Foreign Policy" which leads in to FaceBook. But because FB is PROHIBITED in the PRC, the space reads "Connection closed by server." The server of course is controlled by the CPC/PRC. I can't access FB from the PRC by the usual means. I can however access FB from within the PRC by using the Google technology "Ultrareach" which is an "Unblock and Uncensor" function of Google available to those Chinese in the PRC, to include we devils from abroad, who know of the Google unblock and uncensor technology, and can download it to access PROHIBITED sites in the PRC such as FB, YouTube, Twitter, Friendster etc etc. This is a real beef of the CPC/PRC government against Google in the country, which is why Google now continues to operate its search engine from Hong Kong, which itself hates the CPC/PRC.

Your statement above is well presented, the analysis clear and understood. Be not concerned about the US sleeping about the CPC/PRC. We're better prepared to deal with the CPC/PRC as the new USSR, Showa Japan, Nazi Germany, bin Laden, the fascist ayatollahs of Iran and thier ilk than ever previously. When it comes down to it, the United States will deal with the CPC/PRC to the same outcome as it has dealt with its previous attackers who would destroy it.

Be assured of the fact.

Reforms of the PRC by its ruling CPC are limited economic reforms, and are wholly absent the necessary and required political and social reform required of the CPC/PRC. The United States is reforming its own economic and financial system, but the PRC ruled by the fascist CPC can only allow some certain economic reforms.

This week Pres Obama signed into law the 2,500 page financial reform package approved and sent to him by the elected Congress. The United States is again renewing itself, reforming itself, re-engineering and regenerating itself in the presently required and necessary ways. The CPC/PRC are incapable of initiating any such comprehensive reforms. The reforms the CPC have allowed in the PRC are designed only to preserve itself in power, money, authority.

The neocons proved to any wingnut dreamers or others who were drawn to them that the United States is not the Roman Empire, nor could it ever be a Roman Empire - nor should the US every try to be a Roman Empire. The financial reform package is the intelligent and necessary response to the need of the present time that the US reform itself from within. The national health care package is yet another necessary reform the US has enacted and adopted. A people, country, who identify and respond successfully to the internal reforms that are occasionally necessary are not a people in danger. The self-critical abilities of the people of the US and of the West in general, is absent among the sheeple of China. Worse and very dangerously, it also is absent among the leadership in Beijing.

It is Beijing we need to be seriously concerned about.

Given China's 5,000 years of arrogant and totalitarian elite rule by oligarchy, accepted and expected by a submissive and deferential population, I haven't any expectations of China that would fail me. None whatsoever. China is entirely predictable as a top down civilization only.

The CPC/PRC have nothing but troubled waters, both metaphorically and and literally. Their culture is polluted by a history of only authoritarianism and nowhere in the PRC can one drink the water - that which remains of the water.

PUBLICUS,

In one of your previous posts, you wrote:

The Chinese in international intercourse instinctively bluster, bully; simultaneously and clandestinely skulk in the cover of night.

I thought you had cetain expectations on China. You are very arrogant for sure.

I also think you are holding too much reductionism. You said:

Given China's 5,000 years of arrogant and totalitarian elite rule by oligarchy, accepted and expected by a submissive and deferential population.

That is an over-simplification of Chinese history. For example, there are more than 20 dynasties in China's 5000 years history. Every dynasty is toppled by your "submissive and deferential population". I would call Chinese regular revolutionary population. As matter of fact, CCP took power after one recent revolution(1949). Most of CCP members are not "totalitarian elite rule by oligarchy"; instead, they ordinary peasants who don't how to run a modern country. So, they have to learn to rule. The rest of population are feeling OK, right now.

So, every of the 20 dyNASTIES during China's 5000 years has been toppled by the revolutions and revolts of the Chinese sheeple? Warlords yes; the mass of the population I'm not sure.

You would call the Chinese a "regular revolution population"? To include Mao in 1949 after a literal and figurative Long March through China.

Try regular constitutional elections as a viable alternative to periodic violent revolts, violent rebellions and violent revolutions.

Oh, that's right, we're talking about China. I almost forgot!

So where's the legally mandated Pentagon report? Are we going to have organize an expeditionary group of citizens to venture into the maw that is the Pentagon to find it, wrestle it from its obstructionist antagonists to at last bring it out into the global light of day?

Look at the problem of small brain and little history...you are so pitiful.

Izzis another Soviet Premier Nika Khrushchev 1963 statement to the West in general, but to the United States in particular, "We will bury you?"

You're getting to be more laffs than DEBANJAN.........