Word: sorting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...mistake we often make in thinking about China is to ask, How does the West accommodate a rising China? This is sort of like asking, How do we fit a big and growing guy into the back of an already full car? It's a question to which any answer suggests expanding discomfort. And in the eyes of many in Beijing, the car isn't running so well anyway. Might it not be better, Chinese wonder, to redesign it? Some of the questions China has started asking about the world system are ones we should be asking too. This...
...working with China in a way that can protect our interests is less about direct confrontation of the sort we remember from the Cold War - when the U.S. knew it faced a very dangerous enemy - and more about what we might call co-evolution. The phrase comes from biology and describes how some species work together to become stronger over time. A textbook example is the hummingbird and certain flowers, which, scientists have found, have evolved together to serve each other's mutual needs. Think of the long beaks on the birds and the narrow funnels on the flowers...
...money. China has three choices: it can remain unplugged from the global system, it can plug in gradually, or it can say, We're the largest developing country in the world and everyone wants to invest here, so we're going to make our own rules. This is the sort of challenge China will pose in many areas. It'll want to configure the system so it fits its needs - whether in relation to exchange rates, nuclear proliferation, how to handle North Korea or how to ensure that the benefits of information technology flow freely. In all these areas...
...used to telling the rest of the world what to do. It will require energetic diplomacy. Practically, one item on Obama's agenda this week should be starting to retire the forum we now use for engaging China - something called the Strategic and Economic Dialogue - which is sort of like an annual parent-teacher conference with China. The slow-moving dialogue drives issues at a pace largely irrelevant to what they demand and removes the chance for spontaneity. The U.S.-China joint reaction to the financial crisis is a better model: it was and is informal and constant, based...
...informed by remembering that our biggest risk with China isn't out-and-out war but rather a failure to cooperate on issues of a global scale - though that could be a tragedy almost as great as any war. China is not sure we're capable of this sort of transcendence. So with the patience of thousands of years of history and the urgency of a rising power, it is gathering the tools to protect itself...