Well, that is one view. In fact, that is the childish view that Bush and Cheney take, which makes it impossible to make any progress whatsoever. That is why they walked away from Kyoto.
Now, the frustration is not without merit. China does have a history of doing any darn thing they please. However, we have some levers now, the WTO being one of the best. Recently, you might have noticed that the US announced we were going to start increasing tariffs and duties on targeted Chinese imports due to China not allowing the yuan to float freely and due to the rampant software, DVD, music priacy going on over there. We also decided to bring that matter before the WTO. Shortly thereafter, China decided they were going to spend $120B in the US to help assuage our prickly stance.
So the bottom line is that walking away doesn't get us anywhere. We need to stay engaged and USE DIPLOMACY, which sometimes means persuasion, sometimes bullying, sometimes suing, sometimes sanctioning, sometimes tariffing, and sometimes giving in on something that the Chinese want in return.
Diplomacy is about engagement. Of course, Bush and Cheney have no clue what diplomacy means. So it's not surprise that others in new generation of Republicans eschew diplomacy as well. |
