I think I'm turning Chinese, I really think so

There are a couple of things I've been thinking about a lot lately - China and Christianity. They come up in conversation constantly and I really feel like these two monoliths will shape our global future more than anything besides global warming in the next fifty years. I've started several rambling essays on paper about one or the other, essays that never make it to the computer I think for the simple reason that I can't write on paper! Part of the generation that grew up on computers, typing is part of my thought pattern. It's kind of scary, really, but I can barely put two sentences together when I'm not typing. But I digress...

I won't pretend to know anything about China but the awareness of their significance in the world, and their potential threat to our future, is very real and something I hear expressed by people in causal conversation all the time. This is what blows me away: Nothing about what we used to hate/fear/oppose about China has changed. They still have gross human rights violations and they're still Communist. But they're very smart and they won our hearts through commerce. They catered to a greedy capitalist society, buying us for dirt cheap. In return, the Chinese got McDonald's, the Internet and cars. But it's a false world they've built, it looks like freedom but it's not. Their citizens are still monitored, imprisoned and killed for "anti-government activities." The Dalai Lama is one of their top terrorists, an enemy of the state who preaches peace and threatens the stability of the Chinese empire.

In 2007 though, instead of boycotting Chinese products like we did in the 80's, we'll be going there for the Olympics! We've allowed them to purchase our national debt, destroy their land, poison their rivers and still we encourage them to buy cars and live like us. Our president honors the Dalai Lama but doesn't take a photo with him after the Chinese threaten it will sour relations between the two countries. The argument is that China needs us as much as we need them but it doesn't stand up to logic. Twenty years ago we didn't need China at all so clearly the scale is not tipping in our favor. Rumor has it that Microsoft silenced a corporate blogger to satisfy the Chinese. As soon as the long arm of censorship can reach across the world to the US, we're doomed. The moment we start taking orders from the Chinese, the scale will have tipped...over.