China and India deserve my thanks. I really do admire them. They take care of their people within their borders. The Chinese and Indians live with much less and yet have more personal dignity and family cohesivness. Imagine what will happen if 2 billion people were to spill out of mainland China or India in the event of a potato famine like the one in Ireland not long ago. A prosperous China and India will ensure the demographic safety of the rest of the world.

Sean,

Looks like you've had enough beer for both of us and your remarks portray someone who can't see beyond his own nose. It's short sited people like you who refuse to see where our current policies (or lack of them) are taking us. All the signs are there, you're just too stupid to see them.

The power in this country has always been our manufacturing base and the middle class it creates. If you listen you can hear the sucking sound as these jobs are all being sent to various Asian countries, but primarily China.

China will be a threat to our national existence as a world power. N. Korea isn't. N. Korea is a bug that can be squished, if necessary. They are a pest that China has unleashed just to be a thorn in our sides. China is a gathering power. If you want to worry about something near term, (within your immediate mental grasp), worry about Taiwan. We stand between the two and have vowed to protect Taiwan. China has vowed to repatriate them. When China feels militarily stong enough, they will attempt to retake Taiwan. Worry about that.

Master key? I hardly think so. The last couple of weeks have hilighted China's impotence in dealing with North Korea. Rapid economic growth has forced the Chinese government into a 'survival mode' as they try to stay on top of its effect on personal liberties. North Korea's leadership is out of their control. North Korea has verbally threatened the US and its neighbors militarily, despite the fact it would result in national suicide. Yet, at no point has the US said, "okay, here's the rope, go hang yourself." What seems to be playing out is a sort of International good cop--bad cop with the US and Japan on one side and the Chinese on the other. Put up the UN resolution and let the Chinese veto it; in a real sense, that's progress.

Tom Hart's hilarious remarks betray his Ignorance and Coarseness. This kind of comment I have seen before: in late 1980 and early 1990s... about Japanese. C'mon, boy, have a beer and let us focus on North Koreans and their atomic bombs.

Communist China is no more (if they were, their economy would look like those of North Korea or Cuba and that would not cause your anxiety in the first place) - they will be eventually converted to Protestant Christians and the Kingdom of God will come after that. Take a Heart (Hart)!

Communist China will be the leading economic force in the world within 50 years, maybe even less, and the USA will be moving even faster than we currently are toward a 3rd world class economy.

At some point China will rival, and then surpass, the USA economically. They are playing an economic chess game and have moves figured out far into the future, while we do not even know we are playing chess. They are not in a rush. It's not too obvious yet, but they are winning.

They have our markers. We owe the Chinese hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, with no end to the borrowing in site. How stupid is that. This is COMMUNIST COUNTRY who would love nothing more than to supplant our way of life with theirs. So what do we do, we keep borrowing. This WILL come back to hurt us. Not only when they call in our markers and bankrupt us, but when they want concessions on human rights and other minor things like individual freedoms. We have no leverage to stop them from doing anything they want to do. They have more lobbyist in Washington DC than the citizens of this country do.

They are rapidly building infrastructure and high Tech businesses. How long will it be before we will be buying computers from China (along with everything else). Oh..I forgot, they bought I.B.M' didn't they. We are already buying Chinese computers.

Major corporations go where the taxes are less, employee pay is low, and incentives to come there are high. WOW..China is offering the best deal going, Slave labor. Almost no overhead. What a deal. Are we trying to stop them ? Of course not, that is against our belief in free and open trade. Doesn't matter if it will eventually destroy our county. It's good for corporations bottom lines, and that's all that matters...isn't it ?

Our only salvation is the middle class in this country. They have always been, and if this country is to continue, will always be the rock that the entire system depends upon. Most are still asleep and go about their day to day, middle class lives not seeing or caring about the impending danger. They do not see the gradual erosion of the middle class and the massive assault that is taking place on it yet. I can only hope they do before it's too late.

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class are moving into either one class or the other. Since it's safe to assume that the numbers are not equal, then an inordinate number of people each year are dropping into poverty. Shoot...we're even importing poor people from Mexico. I guess we gotta compete with China some how.

I'm scared. I see an assault on our way of life from all sides. The Roman way of life lasted for over 2000 year. The way we are headed, our way of life may not make 300.

Sure, let's Japan bombs North Korea. The next thing you know that Pearl Harbor is the target again. Becareful of what you wish. It may comes true.

China follows a simple rationale of power politics.

Being a revisionist power, China would want to supplant USA in the Pacific and beyond, but before that can be possible, it is necessary, that US loses its mantle.

For China to rise:
1. Diverting American Attention: USA must not build up a national security policy on the single issue of containment of China. So the American attention needs to kept diverted. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Islamic Fascists, WMD Proliferation are all handy tools to keep America's attention diverted from China's rise.

2. American Dependency of China: USA must appeal for Chinese help as often as possible. Chinese status as UN Security Council veto-holding permanent member comes in very useful. Moreover Chinese cooperation in containing North Korean transgressions through the Six-Party Talks is often looked for by US. As long as USA is dependent on China, US would not confront China.

3. Increase in Relative Soft Power: By becoming the sole guardian of the international order, America is increasingly coming under world-wide criticism and losing out the world's sympathy and support. China on the other hand has increased its soft image and thereby soft power. China has entered into strong political and economic relationships with countries in South East Asia, Central Asia, Africa and Latin America. By playing protector of controversial rights and bad behaviour by regimes like in Tehran, Islamabad, and Caracas, China is gathering all the sundry pissed off at America.

4. Building an Anti-American Alliance: Together with Russia, China is quitely building up a formidable alliance consisting of authoritarian Central Asian states, rabidly anti-American Pakistan, and Iran, under the banner of SCO, all the time quitely giving USA false assurances of not being anti-American.

5. Economic Monopoly: By undercutting the rest of the world by dumping under-valued Chinese goods in US market, China has built up a formidable reserve of American dollars. With so much debt to China, USA has become docile to Chinese interests.

6. Military Buildup: China has gone on a buying spree of latest weaponry and technology from Russians and dual-use technology from Europeans and Americans. They are spending far more on military than officially acknowledged.

So everybody,
North Korea is just a pawn on China's chessboard. Americans are playing the game wrong by depending on Chinese support on the issue.

There are only two ways to solve North Korea.
1. Make US-Chinese trade contingent on Chinese support on North Korean issue.
2. Get Japan to bomb North Korea, and to hell with South Korean sensibilities. They have only themselves to blame for not taking the US side. Besides after the collapse of the North, South Koreans in the aftermath may even consider it a positive turn of events.