China and Money and Asia - Oh My!

The New York Times gives even more reason to worry that aWol's tunnel vision on fighting "terra" has made the whole administration lose sight of the rest of the world. Looks like competition for oil is not the only thing we have to worry over China about.

Seems that as we focus on the Middle East and as BushCo talks only of the war on terror, China is stepping in where we are now afraid or too busy to go.

Karim Raslan, a Malaysian lawyer and writer who traveled to Washington recently on a Fulbright scholarship, put it this way. The American "obsession" with terror seems tedious to Asians, he said. "We've all got to live, we've all got to make money," said Mr. Raslan. "The Chinese want to make money and so do we."

China has lots of money to throw around in the region thanks to our penchant for wanting cheap goods - and hence our huge trade deficit.

Most disturbing for the United States, China's surging economy has much to offer America's most important Asian allies. Japan's rebound is being driven by a surge in exports to China. Australia's healthy economy is being kept that way by Chinese investments in liquid natural gas projects. China is now South Korea's largest trading partner.

Seems even our (formerly) staunchest allies are finding the flow of money from China too hard to resist. And what happens if - when - America remembers to pay attention to the Tiger of Asia? The prognoses are not hopeful:

"After Afghanistan, after Iraq, after bringing democracy to the Middle East, when the United States refocuses on Asia, it will find a much different China in a much different region," James J. Przystup, a research fellow at the National Defense University, wrote recently.

[snip]

...the more provocative Mr. Przystup counters, "Today, China is East Asia's great power."