The Great American Self-Imposed Psyche Out

"Today, the Great Recession has led many Americans to overstate China’s power. Thomas Friedman, an influential newspaper columnist, has advanced the idea that the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’ of free markets and globalisation may be supplanted by a ‘Beijing Consensus’ model — a Confucian-Communist-Capitalist hybrid under the umbrella of a one-party state. These notions are by no means confined to political theorists: the public are guilty, too. An opinion poll in December last year found that 44 per cent of Americans believe that China is the world’s leading economic power; just 27 per cent name the United States.

The Middle Kingdom is certainly growing faster than the Grand Old Republic, but by any conventional measure — economic output, military capabilities, scientific and technological capacity — the United States is the most powerful country in the world. And it’s not a close-run thing."

-- Daniel W. Drezner, reminding us not to listen to fools - even if they write for The New York Times - or conventional wisdom, if you're going to be known as The Spectator.