Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Kristof's take on china and tibet

The NYT's highly influential Nicholas Kristof wrote a column about US/Sino relations. An excellent analysis and here's my favorite part:

America and China get on each other’s nerves partly because they are so similar. Both are big, self-absorbed, and insular nations; both are entrepreneurial overachievers; both are infused with nationalism and yet tread clumsily on the nationalism of others — whether in Vietnam or Iraq, or Tibet and the Muslim region of Xinjiang.

Both the United States and China also hurt themselves by petulantly refusing to engage leaders they don’t like. The U.S. shrinks from talking with Iranian and Cuban leaders, and China refuses to negotiate directly with the Dalai Lama, whom it recently denounced as “a jackal wrapped in a habit, a monster with human face and animal’s heart.

Link

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

mike gretz

Anonymous said...

Hey, i didn't see that you responded to me a while ago. Sorry for hounding you. Just to let you know, I never deleted your facebook friends. I don't know if you thought I was someone else or if you just thought that to be the kind of prank that I would pull on you. It's not though. Let me know if there is any time that you would want to talk on the phone or via email or something, okay? Stay safe...I'm proud of what you are doing.

MG

Anonymous said...

Lex, its nice to see what you've been up to, and you're doing some great writing. im studying russian for uncle sam in cali, not as exciting as your adventures. hope all is well. stay safe.

Lex Pelger said...

both of you, send me an email. two guys i've wanted to hear from for awhile. we can talk more there. i think there's people listening right now.