There are so many thing wrong with his assumptions and arguments in this article that I am too weary to even address them all. If I start, I'll be at it all day.
The problems only start with his assertion that America "demonizes" China. We bend over backwards to avoid offending China, yet if defending our interests collides with the hope that China's rising power will lead to cooperation and not confrontation with us, we are "demonizing" China.
How Barnett has a reputation as some deep strategic thinker is beyond me. But in a world where Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria are also considered deep thinkers by our elites, anyting is possible, I suppose.
Sorry. I know I'm falling down as a blogger.
UPDATE: We continue to "demonize" China during Hu's visit. If we "demonize" them any more, they should buy us dinner.
UPDATE: Oh, the humanities! Can we not leave these poor Chinese alone?
Chinese leader Hu Jintao is being feted in Washington this week with a lavish state banquet at the White House and other pomp usually reserved for close friends and allies — all intended to improve the tone of relations between a risen, more assertive and prosperous China and a U.S. superpower in a tenuous economic recovery.
Will we stoop to any depths to demonize the Chinese?
UPDATE: Barnett casts his gaze on Tunisia. Who has to worry about Tunisia spreading to them?
Well, any countries with a youth bulge, he says, with lots of people under 30. Which means much of the Moslem world. And Africa. Oh, and India. And most of the rest of Asia outside Japan and the Korean peninsula. And Latin America. A lot of countries have populations with a majority under age 30.
And China, he says. So the countries that have to worry are nations with youth bulges and the largest country in the world which has an elderly bulge working through the system. So that's the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
And he adds Egypt. Which should have been part of the youth bulge category. What's up with that? So we're holding at the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America as places that have to worry about Tunisia spreading to them.
And Algeria, too, according to Barnett. Again, aren't they in the youth bulge category? So we haven't budged on his risk list.
Here's a good one: the European Union. Why? Because they are becoming less welcoming of immigrants from North Africa. Really. He wrote that. So we have the places at risk up to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe.
Oh, and he says any government with food subsidies. So toss in the EU again with their massive farm subsidies programs. But we're used to repeats in new categories. We should probably add North Korea.
So that's it. His deep analytical abilities have narrowed down the countries that have to worry about the Tunisian example spreading to them to basically the whole world. Well except for America, Canada, and Russia, I suppose.
Wow, that's deep thinking, all right.
