[mad puppy]

"...simply wait until the current Chinese regime begins to realize that the grass is a lot greener on our side of the fence."

Sadly, I do not share your optimism that the current Chinese regime will see the light and actually go toward it. Rather, I envision a couple of old Chinese hardliners currently in power dieing and being replaced with the Chinese version of Gorbachev.

Now, I do think that eventually many of the 1,600,000,000 Chinese will realize that there is greener grass to be had and begin to demand a more representative gov't that they can have some control over. The real questions are "when" and "how violent" will the changes be. Typically those in power don't give up power just because its the right thing to do.

[Brilliant]

As long as it doesn't spill over the borders, we can deal with it. The Soviet Union would not have been a problem for us but for the fact that it was expansionist. Putin is not a whole lot better than Khrushev was, but at least he's not expanding. The Chinese have historically limited their expansions to their immediate neighborhood. So long as they don't get adventuresome, we can wait them out.