Even though Barack Obama was re-elected handsomely as president of the United States, his ability to govern has been severely limited by the continuing vicious infighting with Congress over the budget.

The sound of squabbling from the schoolyard brawl of Washington's political academy must be music to the ears of those who say that American democracy always was a fraud and now it is broken.

The contrast between the fractious partisan fighting in Washington and the smooth way that the changing of the guard is now going on in China, with choreographed precision that could not be bettered by Her Britannic Majesty's brigade of guards, has emboldened some people to assert that we have seen the global future and is the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.