Bush's sterner remarks regarding China in the Rose Garden last Thursday after the crew had been released are closer to his true feelings about that country. But in his speech, he clearly exempted the use of trade as a weapon of retaliation. Bush has still other options. And though some anti-China folks in the White House were eagerly chatting up plans for a revenge move last week, it is likely that Bush will conclude that retaliation is not worth the damage it might do to what may be the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Hence many of China's top leaders have been hunting for a new national idea to justify the continued existence of the party.
Economic modernization continues to be a viable theme.
At first glance, it seems a neat trick to substitute loyalty to the government with loyalty to the state. But as Beijing's leaders were reminded last week, nationalism is tough to control. The website of the People's Daily, the nation's largest paper, employed nine monitors, who sifted through 20,000 postings a day to make sure sentiment agreed with the party line. No wonder that the Chinese public was puzzled and outraged when the Americans were released. Beijing banned the kind of protests that had convulsed the capital two years ago after a U.S. bomber hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict.