"The Communists have taken over the World Bank!" (Head economist is Chinese.)

[pampango]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/china-already-on-top_b_787990.html

So far, this phrase hasn't appeared on Glenn Beck's infamous chalkboard. I'm still waiting for Beck or Rush Limbaugh to make a big stink that the World Bank's chief economist is from Mainland China. Justin Yifu Lin has been in his position for more than two years and the right-wing crazies have been largely silent. Maybe they're too busy attacking their fantasy version of President Barack Obama - the Muslim/elitist/socialist-in-chief - to pay much attention to what's going on in the real world.

The coverage of Lin's appointment in The New York Times and The Weekly Standard stressed that Lin was the first chief economist not from Europe or the United States. He was also the first appointment from a "developing country" (this word choice seems odd: if the world's second largest economy is a "developing" country, then perhaps we've outgrown this particular nomenclature). But the decided lack of controversy surrounding Lin's installation at the World Bank suggests that an even more radical transformation has taken place. China has become such an indispensable world power that its penetration of the top levels of international financial institutions is, basically, a non-story.

China's international influence is measured not only by its presence - in the World Bank, on the Forbes list - but also by its absence. Obama recently toured Asia in a sweeping arc around China's borders to India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. The agenda was all too transparent: encourage our friends to buy weapons, sign up for missile defense, and keep an eye out for a restive China. Loose talk of China's ambitions for a blue-water navy has encouraged Asian allies to huddle closer and boost military spending, although China's naval intentions are more likely defensive, as Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) contributor Greg Chaffin points out in a Focal Points blog post. Meanwhile, Washington cozies up to Russia with a new plan to cooperate on a system to protect against long-range missiles, which conspicuously leaves China out in the cold.

So, like Sarah Palin, China is suddenly everywhere. It's just a matter of time before Hu Jintao will have his own reality show (Hu Jintao's China) or appear on Dancing with the Stars to whirl Snooki around in a foxtrot. And when that happens, it won't seem out of the ordinary. That's the true mark of hegemony: to slip into power by invitation not intervention. In the end, the strategic competitors simply shake their heads. "China," they'll say, "Can't live with it, can't live without it."

[SpiralHawk]

1. Marvelous Marvin Bush (R) & Neil Silverado Bush (R) must luv them this

The Bush boyOs are thick as thieves with the 'evil godless commie red Chinese,' are they not?

[Angry Dragon]

2. Just too much inbreeding in the bush clan