Paul Starr in the American Prospect hits the nail on the head:
China is so integrated into the world economy that we hope its leaders would hesitate to resort to force. But the flip side of China's integration is that the United States and other countries have become so dependent on China that we may hesitate to confront it. With America's staggering trade and budget deficits -- and with the Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds vital to the dollar's stability -- we have unnecessarily undermined our own position and put the dollar (and our economy) at risk. The long-term danger is that persistent taxophobia -- and Republican political opportunism -- could create a lethal fiscal crisis undermining our strength.
Exactly.
The discarding of any sense of fiscal sanity for the sake of unadulterated tax cuts has left the U.S. in a precarious spot. Earlier this month Bush
reiterated our support for Taiwan if its situation with China should escalate into military conflict. While this may be the right thing to do, the question of "Can we do it" is another matter. Indebted to Beijing via the twin deficits, do we dare risk China's anger? Add to that the fact that our military is stretched woefully thin by the Iraq War, and you can see whose court the ball is in.
And who do we have to blame for putting us in this situation? Do I even need to say his name?
The situation for us is not hopeless. But it requires something of the American people:
I'm not saying we're destined to decline. But we had better jog ourselves out of the eternal sunshine of our president's spotless mind and start dealing with our real economic and political problems. We cannot stop China's sun from rising, but we can keep our own from setting.
And the only way to do that is remove the Republican-corruption-machine out of our government. Our fate is in our own hands. Let's make use of that while we still have a chance.