The New York Review of Books

China's posture of still being a developing state is nothing new--it's proven useful in many situations. What they really think about the relative status of their system--superior? a temporary phase on the way to a Marxist utopia? a facade for totalitarian power-at-any-cost?--is probably unknowable. So the world needs to go by their actions, their heft, their physical plant, the factories and cars on the steaming freeways. The rest...all theater.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_article/7643/

China and America: the economic Odd Couple

Stephen Roach provides some useful, counterintuitive insights into the economic relationship between America and China, but too often uses the term ‘global imbalance’ as a euphemism for ‘US decline’.... Read More

by Sean Collins

Tuesday 15 July 2008

Frank Furedi

The rise of China — threat or opportunity?

From Green fears to Cold War fantasies, the West’s own cultural confusion explains why it cannot make its mind up about China.

It's this a reprint of a Harper's article from the 1870s?

Thank you Stephen for that info. To see plastic as such is revolting.

How can more people be informed about this? How can they be made to believe it? (Some describe it as "an urban myth".) How can the entire packaging industry be turned around - and plastic not be accepted as the default substance in our lives?

indeed an interesting question, many experiences point to the latter part of the question, still i have no clear answer either...

I have a hard time seeing how people could make a profit using these loans--and I can't tell if this is Western paternalism or exploitation. Probably a little bit of both, given our history.

conflict resolution at its best