China

After centuries of China, a truly ancient civilization, being humbled and used economically by Western countries (including the U.S.), China is asserting that it is just as good as everybody else and trying to prove this by expansionism (Tibet, Taiwan) and military build-up. China and the Chinese deserve to be left alone and to feel good about themselves, just as every other country is so entitled, as long as they do not aggress against other countries. Unfortunately the Chinese have a history of thinking of themselves as superior to other societies, and this may be reflected in their current assertiveness. Despite the bellicose talk by the Chinese Communist Party, I doubt that ordinary Chinese citizens want wars or conflict any more than ordinary Americans do. The problem, once again, is in our leaders and their drives to power. This does not justify China’s underhanded methods, such as stealing trade secrets and other economic information, but we need to approach our relations with China by being scrupulously fair, and this will be my approach. Of course, we must also be strong enough militarily to prevent any actual aggression toward us by China. I will approach China in a friendly way, hoping for cooperation, but I will also enforce our demands for fairness and for non-aggression. Perhaps we should impose the exact same controls on Chinese companies operating in the U.S. as China does on our companies operating in China and see how they like it!