Still think it's hard to determine in which direction China is headed. Perhaps this recent episode is a lesson about wanting greater presence in the world.
It has demonstrated China's weakness in stemming international criticism and that China as a potential challenger to the US in the region is premature. There is alot of baggage that makes its neighbours anxious.
As well, there are tremendous internal problems. Poverty in the countryside, repression of dissidence, rising expectations of those who have benefited from recent economic success, the energy challenge, and the issue of so many single Chinese men due to the gender section question.
If Chinese history is a guide, I suppose a cycle of looking outwards for opportunity/exploration/engagement with the rest of the world, could be followed by a retreat inward. It has happened before, even before the Cultural Revolution.
Also, its reaction to external criticism is partly fed by the humiliation felt at the hands of foreign powers in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
One thing is certain, you can't isolate China like say aparthied South Africa.
"They agitated for boycotts against Western businesses based in nations that object to Beijing's policies"
Not too smart an idea, I can get my shoes from Indonesia or Vietnam and electronics from Korea or Malaysia.
The one child policy coming home to roost. In China they call the kids "little emperors". They grew up with doting parents and grand parents and never had a brother or sister to keep their ego's from expanding to hot air balloon size.
Posted at 2008-05-07 07:04:07 [PermaLink]"Wilhelmine Germany"...I was thinking more of Weimar Germany, when many young people were in the forefront of the emerging Nazi movement.
Hopefully, this will turn out to be a bad analogy.
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