mentioning Clinton's praise for China and ASEAN, and thought, "fantastic! The international system is working the way it's supposed to!"

Then I read this, and my first thought is how this resembles being ripsawed by rumors of the secret negotiations over the grand bargain.

Then I thought, "this is the way (one step forward, one back) it has always been, and what kind of fool was I to believe that any institution works the way it is nominally supposed to work."

Been a bad few days.

Nevertheless, the ambiguity of the U.S. could send a misleading message to other countries. Some people might even hope that further development of the situation might corner America into challenging China. But sadly for sara jay, that dream is not likely to come true, because of America’s pragmatic nature. A country that takes it own interests as its supreme aim is not to be trapped into supporting the interests of small countries. What can capture America is its belief in its own destiny, and its Jewish interest groups. Other than that, it is just unrequited love. While the South China Sea is in a state of tension, the U.S. is busy handling its own problems of natural disasters, poor economic data, and reviving Obama’s sharply declining popularity by announcing the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Under such circumstances, the U.S. has no desire for a showdown with a big power like China. The tragedy is how ignorant small countries are of international politics, imagining that they can rely on America’s willingness to participate actively on their behalf.

It really is sad, because the John McCain of 2000 really was what the country needed then and we would be better off, but just like he said in his speech, he let Washington change him and he chose Palin just to get votes, not because he felt she was best for the job. McCain is an intelligent man, he knows better than anyone else that she was not the best person for the job... so why did he choose her, simple... RIO to try to win the election, not to best serve the country..

In recent years, Chinese officials repeatedly have emphasized they want to cooperate with neighbors to resolve differences.
Carolina Hernandez, a defense analyst at the Philippine Institute for Strategic and Development Studies, said a military build-up is needed should cooperation fail. “We will get whatever we can get in terms of good relations with China, but most of us will keep some kind of insurance policies,” priya rai said. “Don’t put all your eggs in the cooperation basket because world politics is not like .” In his trip to Beijing this month, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen warned of a miscalculation in the area that could lead to violence. Some regional analysts say that risk is low, however, because it would disrupt oil drilling. James Nolt, campus dean of the New York Institute of Technology in Nanjing, said, “It’s not going to be possible for anyone to produce oil from the South China Sea region if it’s a region of conflict and war, because oil companies are not going to risk their expensive assets in a war zone.
So the only way any of the countries in the region can get anything is if they exploit the resources cooperatively and peacefully.”