Yes, indeed. And the US just sits and watches.
We better start learning Chinese, before long they’ll take over the US too, before we realize what’s happening.
The US rightly focused on counter-terrorism after 9/11. However, the US was so focused on that one problem that it lost track of other equally weighty issues - e.g. the brewing financial crisis and the rise of China.
The Chinese were very smart at seizing opportunities from a distracted United States. When Bush traveled to Malaysia and Indonesia in the wake of 9/11, he was only interested in counter-terrorism but his hosts also wanted to talk economics. He didn’t get it.
Hu Jintao flew down very quickly and signed all sorts of deals with these people. He was all over the place, traveling from South East Asia to Latin America to Africa.
It is not too late for America, America needs a leader who can push for serious economic diplomacy in 2013.