http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/world/asia/15china.html?hp When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker. People demonstrated Friday for the release of political prisoners in China in front of the American Consulate in Hong Kong. That stark fact — China is the largest... [more]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/world/asia/15china.html?hp
When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.
People demonstrated Friday for the release of political prisoners in China in front of the American Consulate in Hong Kong.
That stark fact — China is the largest foreign lender to the United States — has changed the core of the relationship between the United States and the only country with a reasonable chance of challenging its status as the world’s sole superpower.
The result: unlike his immediate predecessors, who publicly pushed and prodded China to follow the Western model and become more open politically and economically, Mr. Obama will be spending less time exhorting Beijing and more time reassuring it.
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