I think that the US and China are at a fundamental and irremediable disagreement. That is because when China says that it believes in non-interference in other countries, that is directly contrary to what needs to be done. Some countries (i.e. Sudan) have such a rotten situation that you need to intervene. The government is an active agent in the suffering of Sudan, but China would have you defer to what the government says.

China only says that because she is trying to set a standard that you don't interfere in other countries internal affairs, which works out very favorably to the Chinese ruling party.

My political forums

How do you know that China "aches for great powerdom"? How do you know they don't "ache" for greater security, for self-determination, for trading markets and partners, a lifting of their people out of poverty, a return of their sovereign territory and an equal partner on the world stage with the great western powers?

Why do you want China to suffer "blowback" and resentment from other nations? China is providing "public goods" to developing nations - they've built more roads, dams, schools hospitals and communication networks (which the west has historically disdained in the last 40 years) in the last five years than the U.S. has, and they don't tie their loans and aid to hypocrtical ideology, privatization and so-called morality such as restricting abortion and birth control rights as the U.S. has.

What makes China's foreign aid any more sinister than western aid? The west has made a practice of bolstering and aiding despots, tyrants and human rights violaters for more than a century -what is the difference between the corrupted despots in Saudi Arabia and the corrupted despots of Sudan and Sierra Leone or even Saddam Hussein whom we propped up for decades? Is it the number of people they've killed? We had no compunctions whatsoever in aiding Stalin and the Soviet Union when it was in our best interest, and Stalin holds the record in genocidal killing.

The U.S. like all other nations, ties their aid to their own political, strategic and trade needs and the notion that U.S. ties their foreign aid to human rights progress and demonstrations of democratic ideals by foreign nations is absolute, unadulterated nonsense.

There is something so self-important, so blinded to reality, so conceited in the thinking or foreign policy makers that they seem completely unaware of how the rest of the world sees us and understands us - and they don't trust us. Being on the receiving end of our "foreign aid" they fully understand the implications, restrictions and self-serving interests that we tie to our aid and exactly why we do it. That China is playing our game and playing it well, doesn't mystify or dazzle them - they've had decades and centuries of being on the receiving end of this kind of strategy from the west. They know full well where those weapons came from, what countries are doing our torturing for us, what gun runners, diamond and drug cartels are protected by the CIA and why they're protecting them. They know when a world criminal like Viktor Bout, one of the greatest inflictors of human misery on the continent of Africa is given a pass, because the U.S. is using his air transport network to render "unlawful combatants" that the U.S. isn't particular about democratic "ideals" and "values".

That China is running an endgame around the U.S. and the west, is not only the smart thing to do, it is the right thing to do for China. Why shouldn't they do this for themselves? Why should they need permission from the U.S. to conduct their foreign policy in the best interests of China? China has managed in the last fifty years to lift 1.6 billion people out of famine, illiteracy and the degradation of centuries of ill treatment by the west. They've done more to increase trade and build an infrastructure in Africa in the last five years than we have in the last two hundred years. Instead of hatching plots and strategizing their ruin, maybe it would be in our best interest to encourage it.