Posted on 02/02/2009 11:40:27 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
In contrast to the general rush in most parts of the world to congratulate Barack Obama and hail a new era of American leadership, an initially muted response from Beijing followed by an outburst in the state-run China Daily immediately after the inauguration is significant.
It suggests that he enthusiasm with which Obama was received in Europe will not be replicated in China, at least not in the Communist leadership. On the contrary, the new president may well fan old Chinese fears, pointing to difficult times ahead in the most important bilateral relationship for the world.
The editorial on Jan. 22 in the China Daily, the official English-language newspaper frequently used by Beijing to voice its views to the rest of the world, was extraordinary in its harshness, given the Chinese Communist Party's usual prudence in refraining from public criticism of America.
The article began by criticizing President Bush for taking a "wrecking-ball" to world affairs.
Then, turning to Obama and his vision for America, the paper said "U.S. leaders have never been shy about talking about their country's ambition. For them, it is a divinely granted destiny no matter what other nations think." Obama's "defense of U.S. interests," the article said, "will inevitably clash with those of other nations."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
(eyes rolling)
China doesn’t ‘fear’ Obama.
Hell, nobody outside of our nation, with perhaps the Israeli’s, ‘fears Obama’.
What a joke.
Even the Chicoms can see the recklessness of Porkulus Maximus.
The Chicoms know that the ‘Rats have worked to screw up the economy in order to gain political power. They also know how badly socialism and communism actually works and that Obama’s socialist plans will screw up the economy even more.
What exactly are they afraid of, WHO’S THE BIGGER COMMUNIST!?
As best I can judge from talking to people, Obama’s election was a shock pretty much everywhere outside of the United States, confounding a lot of assumptions about who we are and what we are capable of doing.
To the Chinese it looks a bit like someone from Tibet had assumed a leadership role in China, to a lot of Europeans it’s as though a Muslim was now the leader of Germany - it’s actually much less revolutionary and unsettling to most Americans to have a mixed race president than either of those situations would be to the Chinese or the Germans, but international assumptions about the degree of institutional racism remaining in America so deep and so wrong that Obama’s election it seems as revolutionary to them as such a change in their own leadership. (In defense of their surprise, a lot of Americans were awfully surprised too).
Because in this country we are rapidly coming to see the Obama administration in terms of political ideology rather than racial identity I think it’s very difficult for us to comprehend that for much of the rest of the world - more deeply mired in religious, ethnic, racial and sometimes even tribal prejudice - this appears to be an absolutely revolutionary change, and the fact that it has occurred as part of an orderly and in fact many ways very ordinary political transition is deeply unsettling to many in parts of the world where it is assumed that this sort of change and progress is impossible.
The Chicoms also have an good grasp of ‘the long view’ in a way we in the West simply don’t consider, and because of this they know all things are temporary.
Especially when it comes to America’s leaders. 48 months is ‘nothing’ compared to 4,000 years of history.
His views of how China sees the world are more or less correct, but his idea that China fears Obama’s supposed popularity are just academic/media over-the-top, @ss-kissing nonsense.
Can you just imagine Hu and Wen sitting around the Politboro saying “People just LOVE Obama so much, what are we to do? We are ruined!”
The Chicoms have gradually evolved their economy to fascist from communist. We're the largest consumer of their goods and they're seriously into us due to their investment in U.S. Government bonds. Unlike Obama and his fellow communists, they understand what terrible damage he's doing to the U.S. economy, to which they are almost irrevocably attached. Hence, they're worried.
Largely because most of us are mongrels, like myself as Irish-English-Dutch. And as my ancestors were here before the revolution, there's been plenty of time for other ethnic groups to be in there as well. My daughter's mother (my ex) was German Jew.
But as for the Chinese, or Japanese, and yeah probably the Germans, it would be very different.
Yup.
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