Don't really agree with your last statement. If West pressed on the issue, it would be another cold war.
Tim,
You'll have to forgive my hawkishness. But in the world of realpolitik, we have far more buttons we can push than does Bejing. So a cold war would hurt China more than the West.
While the US is not a perfect system (Democracy being the worst form of gov't except for every other kind), our strength is that our gov't power is derived from the bottom up, not the top down.
In a democracy the gov't has to pay attention to the will of the people or face a loss of moral authority. In a totalitarian regime, moral authority is derived at the discretion of whichever current leadership is in charge (which still happen to be overpopulated by octagenarian reactionaries).
But I do agree that Bejing made a strategic play out the bombing and are milking it for what it's worth. However, press the American people too far and you can forget the WTO negotiations. The forces of protectionism are barely being kept in check as it is.
With the current trade suplus China is running with the US, it wouldn't take much for all the progress we've made in trade relations over the past years to be seriously damaged, if not reversed.
Regards,
Ron
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