Gee – how un-American of you! Cracks aside, the defense of doctrines’ purity (stuff like “free market”) usually seems to come from vested interests, if not monopolies, and not from “thinkers”, even if businesses keep think tanks to have them do the philosophical decoration. The east-Asian and south-east Asian economic miracles would have been unthinkable without the state playing a guiding role. The problem for a government is to let go in time, in terms of (temporary) import tariffs, subsidies, tacit preferential treatment of domestic industries, etc.. Seems to me that the CCP finds the process of liberalization – in those terms, too – harder to do than most other former regimes in the region did.

That said, it isn’t the CCP (or the CPSU, for that matter) who invented cartels or monopolies. Pure “free-market” ideology is probably one of the roads that lead to the destruction of efficiently-performing markets.

Great question. I don’t know. But Iran should be very afraid. Next time Syrians can’t receive VoA clearly, Romney will declare Tehran a <satellite signal manipulator.

“And when it comes to our military and Chinese security, part of the reason that we were able to pivot to the Asia-Pacific region after having ended the war in Iraq and transitioning out of Afghanistan, is precisely because this is going to be a massive growth area in the future. And we believe China can be a partner, but we’re also sending a very clear signal that America is a Pacific power, that we are going to have a presence there. We are working with countries in the region to make sure, for example, that ships can pass through, that commerce continues. And we’re organizing trade relations with countries other than China so that China starts feeling more pressure about meeting basic international standards. That’s the kind of leadership we’ve shown in the region. That’s the kind of leadership that we’ll continue to show.” (from the transcript)

I still think Obama’s silent diplomacy with Chinese is much more effective than the erratic slogans such as “On Day 1 I will declare China a currency manipulator”. And then what?