After all the hand-wringing over symbolic issues, President Obama probably found himself with little leverage at his summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The red herrings needed to be refrigerated to clear the air. Taiwan seems to be more inclined to make its own peace with China, not ours. America's support for the anti-scientific, pseudo-religion Falun Gong, which demonizes gays and celebrates faith healing, is only embarrassing. Despite U.S. pressure, which included training and parachuting troops into Tibet in 1959, China is working its way steadily, if unevenly, toward integration of Tibet.
We need to tone down our imperious hectoring and get real about the Peoples Republic. Their accomplishments are staggering. The arc of their rise is breathtaking. And they have nowhere near reached their apogee.
- They have raised over 300 million people out of abject poverty.
- They have become the second largest economy in the world and will become the largest before 2030.
- Their National Highway Plan of 2008 has yielded over 2 million kilometers of modern expressways, supplemented by the world's most extensive, fastest network of high speed railways, including the world's first high speed commercial magnetic levitation line.
- They produce four times as many engineers a year as the United States does. While our production of scientists is declining by 10% a year, China's is increasing by 35% annually.
How have they done this?
Their educational system stresses science and technology -- not textbooks censored by the religious right. It rewards actual achievement. Their planned economy responds quicker to real national needs than our highly politicized system which is geared more and more toward serving the financial class at the expense of the middle class.
China's superior leadership has emerged from a meritocratic, competitive system where skill, training and achievement, not bombast and money, is rewarded. China is not a country where a Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee would be considered seriously.
Certainly the Chinese have their problems. There are harsh disparities between the sleek cities of the coast and the inland rural poverty. The overhaul of their legal and health care systems needs to be completed. The current real estate bubble and inflation threaten continued prosperity.
On the one hand, the Peoples Republic government needs to be more responsive. On the other hand, national laws and policies which address serious environmental problems need to be enforced. Local governments tend to be more afraid of unemployment and unrest caused by closing or regulating polluting factories. China's conventional wisdom that "God is high and the Emperor is far" have worked to undermine progressive national laws.
But what do we need to do to compete with our latest international rival? Just as China has taken lessons from the United States, we could learn from their success. China's highly successful government stimulus program was more adequately funded and better targeted than ours. It underwrote building the infrastructure which underpins their economic growth. Their well-supported state educational system is aimed more toward national needs than short term profiteering.
Finally, their bold leadership looks to a future of science and technology, more than backwards over the centuries towards its founders for guidance. These are issues which we need to take away from the Chinese visit.