The October 27 2008 issue if the New York Times includes an article Editorial entitled
“As China Goes, So Goes ...”

It goes on to describe China’s immense holdings, and amount of other things to include speculations on how they can help in the current worldwide fiscal crises.  As usual, blog commentators have been invited chimed in and left their remarks.  Among the comments are pieces of very entertaining quotes below:

“...hope that when Barack Obama becomes president, he will sit down - without preconditons - with China's leaders and talk about what both countries can do that will be mutually beneficial.”

Talking and negotiating certainly have their place, but so does stalling.  Stalling is the time honored tactic guised as diplomacy to put off the other party as long as possible in order to keep doing what is already being done without changing or stopping.  To think Barack is going to sit down with the Chinese and suddenly change all that is assigning him godlike powers indeed,  “ObahMessiah.”  I hope this NYTblog commentator won’t be let down.

And so a response comment of my own:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  Barack, like all the other predecessors before him, can do all the talking he wants.  He can make all the agreements that paper and ink will hold. BUT it remains to be seen if any ACTUAL Chinese progress will occur.

China was able to enrich itself immensely by artificially devaluing its currency against the world market and thereby transfer huge amounts of wealth from the western world to itself. Its good were priced cheap, because of this,  foreign currency poured in.  Bitter complaints have been lodged for years.  In response, China allowed its currency to appreciate a bit.    In view of current world conditions, China stopped this appreciation.  China once took a step on the thousand mile journey, and is now STANDING STILL.

Another writes as below:

“Considering that China is just now recovering from the plundering of western powers (remember the Opium War?), I don't blame the Chinese for staying somewhat isolated.”

My response to the above:

I personally don’t know of anyone who still personally recalls the Opium War of 1839 to 1842 or even the one from 1856 to 1860. But there are quite a few who remember the 1954 Great Leap Forward and 1960’s Cultural Revolution which killed by some estimates 20-43 million people all across China.    It would seem those events would have more impactive effect on current China. 

But then, there is  probably a few Americans still upset about what Pancho" Villa did in Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916 and his subsequent eluding of General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition.