Sunday, January 29, 2012

Soft Power?

This must be some of that "soft power" that China is supposed to be using so skillfully to undermine America:

An official Chinese newspaper says Beijing must punish the Philippines economically for proposing closer military ties with Washington.

I think Peking just made our negotiations for basing arrangements a little easier.

China feels strong enough to not need to use smiling diplomacy to persuade. But China isn't strong enough to purely bully countries into doing what they want. In that gap we have room to maneuver.