Free Republic

SIGHTSEEING in the capital of the world's most populous nation can be a chore. At Mao Zedong's mausoleum in Tiananmen Square, surly guards quickstep thousands of rubbernecking visitors past the Chinese Communist Party chairman's embalmed corpse every day. The Forbidden City, once the seat of emperors, is now open house for insufferable, flag-following tour groups. The Summer Palace's lake is clogged with day-trippers on tacky, fibreglass pedal boats shaped like cartoon ducks. Beijing's sites are spread across the city, temperatures can top 40C, and without fluency in Mandarin, public transport is as indecipherable as an acupuncturist's handwriting. Determined to stand...

The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was For some time now no navy or air force has posed a threat to the United States. Our only competition has been armies, whether conventional forces or guerrilla insurgencies. This will soon change. The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific—and when it does, it will very quickly encounter a U.S. Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the...