Playing China

I have this feeling that the first media reaction at China's retaliations for the Taiwan arms sales will be some kind of breathless, "shock"y-doomseeing (especially among the supposedly super tough Republicans who oppose Obama,) but I'm seeing this in a little larger context.

Let's go back a about a month to the global climate meeting where the Chinese very intentionally engineered a personal and globally visible failure for Barack Obama. As I wrote then, the modern Chinese historically test new American presidents. (Remember the US electronic spy plane the Chinese forced down and reverse engineered in Bush's first year?)

So, see the Obama provocations, like the Google/internet freedom stuff and the Taiwan arms sale, as part of a calculated US response. This US China "tension" is kinda necessary to find a good footing for the next seven or so years.