A Cautionary View

Robert Kagan (not to be confused with Kaplan) has an interesting rumination on China's rise in the Washington Post today. He's right to notice the paternalistic tone of the discussion on how to "manage the rise", and also the complete inability of any of us to know what manner of rise it will be - we are indeed peering off into the fog. China has never had the 19th century imperialist ambitions that plagued so much of Europe, but then Japan hadn't had them either, until the end of that century. This is why the hyper-nationalism evident in some of the Chinese protests is just a little worrying.