The China question

摘要

There is so much noise surrounding and emanating from the world's miracle economy that it is becoming cacophonous. In Washington, DC, the latest idea is that China is becoming too successful, perhaps even dangerously so: while Capitol Hill resounds with complaints of trade surpluses and currency manipulation, the Pentagon and sundry think-tanks echo to a new drumbeat of analysts worrying about China's 12.6% annual rise in military spending and about whether it might soon have the ability to take pre-emptive military action to force Taiwan to rejoin it. So it may be no coincidence that for three consecutive weekends the streets of big Chinese cities have been filled with the sounds of demonstrators marching and rocks being thrown, all seeking to send a different message: that Japan is the problem in Asia, not China, because of its wanton failure to face up to its history; and that by cosying up to Japan in security matters, America is allying with Asia's pariah.