Why should Chinese pay heed to Bush?

[Oreo]

This is an amazing read from The Star Tribune in Minneapolis
http://www.startribune.com/stories/562/5758485.html

Reva R. Rasmussen: Why should Chinese pay heed to Bush?
Young people in China don't see America representing a democracy they want.
Reva R. Rasmussen

George W. Bush, you are so last century. There you were in Beijing, trying to tell the Chinese they needed more freedom and they needed to equalize the trade imbalance and they needed to respect human rights. I do so wish you had been reading the newspapers the last 20 years.

If you had read the papers, you'd know the Chinese people have more freedom today than they've had in the last 50 years of China's history. More than they've had in the last 30, 29, 10 and five years. China is on a steady march toward more personal freedom.

Steady is the important word, here. The Chinese like steadiness. Getting ripped apart by war in order to be free people does not make sense to the Chinese. Probably because they've been ripped apart by war and were not free after. They are especially resistant to demands made by foreigners because they were ripped apart by war while being occupied by foreigners. So, George, your noble mission in Iraq does not give you credibility with the Chinese, not with their leader, Hu Jintao, nor with the Chinese people themselves.

--snip--

My students said democracy evolves, it does not come by war. My students in China wore Adidas and ate McDonald's hamburgers and watched the movie "Titanic," and they didn't want any more of America than that.

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