Economic competition is heating up in Asia. Meanwhile, Oregon refuses to expand the Asian language competencies of its next generations. From the NY Times article “Clinton Makes Effort to Rechannel the Rivalry With China” by Jane Perlez (here):
.... President Obama, fearful that the United States risked being shunted aside in Asia, embraced an initiative last fall known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that aims to create a new free trade group among some Asian countries, several Latin American nations and the United States. Canada and Mexico were invited to join the talks at the recent G-20 summit meeting in Mexico.
But by not inviting China to participate, Washington again raised suspicions among Chinese economists and political analysts about its intentions.
“It’s much ado about nothing,” said Fred Hu, the chairman of the financial advisory firm Primavera Capital Group, and former chairman of Goldman Sachs in greater China. “How can you have a credible trade organization if you exclude the biggest trading nation?” Mrs. Clinton’s Asia tour is seen in the region as being prompted in part by China’s success in turning itself into the engine of Asia’s economic powerhouse.
At the turn of the century, “China’s rise was viewed by many of its neighbors as a potential threat,” said Peter Drysdale, editor of the East Asia Forum at the Australian National University in Canberra. “But when economies from South Korea to Thailand revived and the regional production-sharing networks matured, and China embraced an activist economic diplomacy to open its markets toward Southeast Asia, everyone seemed to benefit.”
Now Washington is worried about being left on the outside, looking in.
“Asian integration without the United States is the real competition,” said Liu Xuecheng, one of China’s leading experts on America. That, he said, is “the real challenge to the United States.”
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