Still, China can hardly be described as scrutable. Its performance in the spy plane affair is mystifying as well as maddening. The Bush administration did what it had to do to end the intolerable detention of American service members. But these verbal concessions, which the Chinese have been trumpeting as a form of apology, are a trifle compared with the damage China has done to itself by overreacting. The Chinese weakened the support of the many, including myself, who have long felt that America should have a constructive engagement with their country.
China is run by an aging regime seeking to preserve power while modernizing the country.
There has been progress, as those of us who have been going there over the past 25 years can attest. Decision making has been decentralized, and people have greater access to information and more freedom to travel. China's projected entry into the World Trade Organization this year promised to accelerate those trends. America and China have so many common interests beyond trade. But the spy plane affair reminds us that China is a one-party authoritarian state, dependent on its military, resistant to political change, intolerant of intellectual dialogue, and prone to exploit emotional nationalism to rally the citizenry and legitimize the regime.