The visit of the Chinese premier and the state dinner tomorrow night is getting a lot of coverage by the media, including the increasingly frequent meetings between the countries at lots of levels.

But in watching "The Morning Joe" show on MSNBC yesterday, the hosts and panelists were discussing an interesting and important question...with the economic and political success they are achieving, and the increasing military might (nuclear subs, stealth fighters and the like), why should China be very receptive to U.S. efforts to negotiate change on their part?

The response by all the participants in the discussion, from both the conservative and liberal sides was the same--China has no particular need to respond to U.S. requests and demands to take action, either economically or with regard to their foreign affairs. In fact I think it was Pat Buchanan, the conservative panelist who observed that we've been where China is now, and we never listened much, nor did we ever really do anything meaningful to satisfy the entreaties of other, weaker countries who were basically supplicants, asking or suggesting that we do something, stop doing something, or give them something we had and they didn't.

None of the panelists could see that changing anytime in the foreseeable future. China knows that they are growing their economy at a rate that has already surpassed Japan as a world economic power and will likely displace even the U.S. in a decade or so. It appears that one of their next steps is to quickly build their military capabilities with the objective of, if not equaling U.S. capabilities, at least neutralizing any advantage we may currently have. All this at the same time that they effectively "control" our political leaders because they are funding our government and know that they can very easily apply pressure on us at any time by simply tightening their willingness to roll over or buy more of our government debt.

With all this happening our erstwhile elected representatives are making a big deal about whether or not they will agree to sit next to one another at the State of the Union address and arguing about repealing a piece of legislation that clearly cannot be accomplished. It's pretty easy to see how history is going to record the rise and fall of the U.S. as a world power...pretty much the same way as it recorded the rise and fall of the British empire.

And as you point out in the initial post here, it is probably already too late to reverse the end result. We are being surpassed in lots of ways and it's probably already too late to reverse the trend.

There are those that will say, no no, the U.S. is the greatest country in the world, with the strongest economy, the best system of government, the most lethal military, the best healthcare, the best schools, the happiest people, and on and on. It's pretty obvious to anyone who takes time to see what's happening to understand that is very much a backward-looking view, and a refusal to see what the future so clearly holds for us. There's a reason why the majority of Americans now believe that they've lived a better life than future generations of Americans will. I wish it were otherwise, not so much for me but for my children and grandchildren.