"China (whether controlled by a Han dynasty or by the Communist Party) has never been an expansionist power. The Chinese believe they live in the best part of the world. Their whole aim has generally been to keep you the fuck out of their 'heaven on Earth'.

They have never had an interest in ruling over the foreign barbarians or their barbarian lands."

Quite true.

It wasn't expansionism that led China to invade Korea and Vietnam once upon a time. It was the need to secure the saftey of the Chinese people. It wasn't expansionism that led China to establish military outposts in central Asia once upon a time. It was the need to protect the economic interests of the Chinese people. More recently, it wasn't expansionism that led China to conquer Tibet. It was the need to prevent Tibet from becoming an Indian client state. (Or a Western client state. Or China didn't actually conquer Tibet at all, because Tibet has always been part of China, whether the Tibetans know it or not. Pick your rationale.)

In fact, when you sufficiently understands all the countires of the world, you realize that no country has ever actually been an expansionist power.

But strangely, territorial wars seem to happen anyway. No way to account for it.

"I don't think Hu Jintao makes a good Kaiser Wilhelm"

He certainly doesn't. He does, however, make a good Bismarck. (Bismarck after 1870, of course.) (Not as smart as Bismarck, but then a brain deficit seems to be a universal quality among early 21st century politicians.)

And Bismarck's reasonable, non-aggressive, concilliatory policies were succeeded by... to finish that sentence would be superfluous.

"I'm with James Fallows; just to assert that a disastrous divorce is inevitable is positively dangerous because it ignores a world of other possibilities, and constricts our freedom to move."

A dangerous idea? The horror!

^ This is very close to saying "Judges have to govern because elected officials aren't good enough at it."

Does Bateman really want to go there?

Those of us who knew that Borat was no more a representative portrayal of America than Dickens' American Notes now have the luxury of being completely unsurprised by this piece of shit.

"Hopefully globalization will eventually smooth out all differences. I think that in a hundred years the whole world can have the same standard of living as Europe, Japan, the US, Canada, et al, have. As for the States, well, a country without factories is one without wealth. This will come back soon, as labor costs start competing with distant labor costs."

^ So, basically, reduce the American standard of living to third world levels, then wait for third world standards of living to rise to first world levels.

I'm astonished. One rarely sees the pro-globalization case stated so straighforwardly.

"Bush started his presidency with a surplus and ended it with a massive deficit.

He started his presidency with a healthy economy and now it's in tatters.

And what's with "only eight years"? That's more than enough time to screw up a nation. I have to wonder - where have you been all decade?"

--------------------------------------------------

Don't mistake me for a Bush apologist. The last eight years have been a catastrophe.

That said: I'd be curious to know where you were in the 1990s, to conclude that our economy was in a "healthy" state when Clinton left office.

(http://www.globalpolicy.org/images/socecon/crisis/2004/dollarfall.gif)

"I like how commercial media reps ignore the most stunningly successful policies of our time: neo liberalism."

^ The implication here being that everyone was going swimmingly in the Clinton years, and that the Republicans managed to conjure up the conditions for the current economic situation in a scant 8 years.

Sure.

"Instead, they're lining up to find fault with Obama's faultless and inspiring Cairo speech."

^ This is laying it on a bit thick.