In my last column in late April, I treated critically the transformation of America's foreign policy between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war against Iraq, focusing on the unilateralist policy of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. At the end of that column, I gave a bit of a preview of my next article, saying I wanted to discuss the change that has occurred in China since the 9/11 attacks.
My prediction, and it is becoming something of a pet theory, is that world politics in the 21st century is going to develop with the United States and China as the two major powers. But just as I was about to put pen to paper, America and China were each hit by difficult problems that have left them in rather dire straits.
On the one hand, China was slow in responding to the outbreak of SARS, which is spreading in Asia. China now has the highest number of cases in the world, with several thousand infected and about 200 deaths. Just as China was beginning to boast about its economic strength, its tight manipulation of information and the backwardness of its national life were suddenly exposed to the whole world.