A Paranoid NYTimes?

America's Summer of Discontent - New York Times: "When analysts and economic historians look back, this summer may well prove to be the turning point in Chinese-American relations, the time when America chose short-range paranoia over rational behavior. From the dozen or so proposals in Congress for across-the-board tariffs against Chinese imports to the Pentagon's rumblings about Chinese military buildups, the rhetoric from Washington keeps escalating. America seems to be on the run, fueled by the false perception that China's rapid economic rise poses an inevitable threat to the United States. By repeatedly demonizing China, Washington risks creating the hostility it fears."

The NYTimes has been all over the place with the Unocal deal.... unfortunately, America can't have its cake and eat it too. While the actions of Congress in this matter may have been blunt enough to be worthy of the John Bolton School of Diplomacy (PLEASE tell me half my readers understand that remark!), I still think the results are merited. While I personally am rather an advocate for government sponsored development/capitalism, especially as it is seen in places like Sinagpore or Ireland, I feel it is unfair competition for a firm to approach a M&A in a fairly free market environment with absurd amounts of government financing. CNOOC's bid was essentially a giant bid on margin that is, in my youthful opinon, competitively unfair and normally incredibally risky (or impossible) if it were not for such favorable loan arrangements. Now I do concede that this will likely push China in other directions that the US might be even more alarmed by (Iran, Sudan, *cough* cough*), but I feel that a) such actions were rather inevitable anyway, as energy prices skyrocket and supply is barely able to keep pace with global demand and b) the unfair competition bit still stands, even though Unocal's assets were of far more strategic importance to China than the US--they don't have *much* it's just *where* it is.

In all this I see a classic case of international relations theory where a global superpower on the wane strugglex and tries to hold down the waxing new superpower. Some say we've been through this before (Japan, Germany) and the US remained "on top." With 1.1+ billion people and rising income, appetite, etc etc etc..... I'm not so sure things will be so wonderful for an increasingly lazy and inefficient US who is living on borrowed time and a culture and economy of ideas (a good thing). If we can maintain the lead on the innovation curve, we can keep an edge on global business. The rest of world affairs....with the mess the UN is in, we shall see. I forsee a quagmire of sorts in the UN at least, redundancy and purposelessness unless things change. If the US falls in decline, it is only as a result of the sum of our choices and history functioning in a spiral of marginally different repitions. Let things follow their natural course.

My ideas are all over the place today, so I apologize for a scattered post.