There's a classic test for determining if you really should be supporting your government's foreign policy. Simply replace the word "America" with the word "China". Here's an example:

"America reserves the right to protect its interests wherever they might be in the world. Sometimes that means putting boots on the ground."

Harmless enough, right? I mean, it's a little imperialistic, but nothing to get worried about. Standard stuff. Heard it all before. Now we run the test:

"China reserves the right to protect its interests wherever they might be in the world. Sometimes that means putting boots on the ground."

Now just hang on there!

The best sentence to use is "[Country name here] reserves the right to maintain a deterrent nuclear arsenal." Try substituting "Iran" for "America" in this case.

But of course there is no difference between these sentences. If you are in favour of allowing for "America", you must be in favour of allowing "any other country" in the same policy sentence. Unless hypocrisy is your game.

Back to the original article, this has precious little to do with "propping up dictators" and "blocking sanctions" or any other distractingly emotive issues -- no matter how important they might be on their own -- this is simply the capitalist system that we have set up at work, finding the cheapest source of supply available.

China could say "You said you wanted us engaged in the world. You taught us all about the free market, etc. etc. You said our markets have to be open. Well now here we are, we've done everything you've said, and you're crying foul?!"

It's all in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1.

What difference does it make to Africa

what outside country comes in and mines out

the resources? Whether America gets the

gold, or whether China gets the gold, Africa

still gets the shaft.

Okay, all right, I get it. America is no longer the Boss. Liberal journalists all over the place have been shouting this for a while now, either with a kind of wide-eyed fear that the sky is about to fall on our poor little heads, or with a kind of feverish glee that, for better or worse, things are changing. Okay. All right. Things are changing.

Now what?

China is rising, India is rising... even the Middle East is rising in a different and weird kind of way. It's exciting because for the world at large there will be no stagnation. In addition to their "dark side" on some human rights issues, the Chinese, for example, are nevertheless developing environmentally friendly practices, simply because their industry is getting so huge they'll all suffocate before they get anywhere. So it's not like the East is adopting American capitalism, they're building their own, and I guess that's called "progress".

What do we do? Do we swallow our pride and realize that when in China, do like the Chinese do? Or do we try to pull ourselves out of the swamp by our own hair and develop a new revolutionary paradigm from scratch? Do we get excited about the new challenges, or do we ruminate on a Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times?"

Right now, from what I read (and it's little enough, I must say), Americans are split right down the middle: some are bouncing up and down in frightened excitement at the changes all around us, while others are squeezing their eyes shut and shouting "la la la". Both of these approaches have one very important thing in common: inaction. We are beginning to suck at this game.