Word: americanizing
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...several years, Kyrgyzstan has been stuck in a tug-of-war between the two Cold War enemies, frequently making the landlocked state the center of geopolitical strategizing. The Americans have been pushing to maintain their cherished military base in the north of Kyrgyzstan, without which U.S. supply lines to the nearby war in Afghanistan would be significantly hampered. Russia, meanwhile, has lobbied to kick the American military out of what it still sees as its sphere of influence in the territories of the former Soviet Union. (See pictures of the disorder in Kyrgyzstan...
...would roll along Eternal Peace Street and the once-a-decade ritual in which the top leader dons a Mao suit, stands in the open sunroof of a 1950s-style limousine and is driven past the Forbidden City - a moment that can seem quixotic to Westerners, as if the American President crossed the Delaware River wearing a tricorn hat every 10th anniversary of the winter of 1776. But the Chinese know that such symbols matter. Amid the uncertainty of reform, they sketch a confident line: Look where we came from. Look where we are going...
...many cold-warrior views of it might wish, be "contained"; it's far too interwoven into the global system for that. But it is also true that the fantasy some had of "engagement" - the hope that as China became richer, it would become more supportive of American interests - isn't working out either. What the U.S. needs is a new strategy. It should be one that takes a ruthless defense of American interests as a starting point, since without that, no strategy is sustainable. It must reflect a real understanding of the levers of power in Beijing and the psychology...
...many in Beijing, the U.S. looks weak. Chinese intellectuals often pair 9/11 with what they call 9/14 - the day news broke of Lehman Brothers' 2008 collapse - as mileposts of Western decline. There is a sense of American haziness that is reinforced by the fact that our leaders have often shown only a rudimentary understanding of what we might call Real China - the harsh, smashmouth China familiar to anyone who works in its streets and corridors of power. This is the China that has grown for 30 years at an average rate of some 10% a year with no rule...
...past 30 years, U.S. Presidents arrived in office bashing China and left praising it. Ties between the countries were cemented by a desire to balance the Soviet Union and, later, economic co-dependence. But these underlying forces have now been complicated. The growth of nationalism in China, American economic nervousness, China's changing economic model - all conspire against common interest...