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The Last Thing I Will Write About Mitt Romney’s Book

I’m trying to kick the No Apology habit, I really am. But one of the central themes of Mitt Romney’s analysis of global affairs is that China’s acceleration

Jul 31, 202044K Shares898K Views
I’m trying to kick the “No Apology” habit, I really am. But one of the central themes of Mitt Romney’s analysis of global affairs is that China’s acceleration of economic and military power threatens to dislodge American international standing. There are only four models for global power, Romney writes: the American, the Chinese, the Russian and the “Violent Jihadist.”
So today we see this:
China’s official military budget will rise by just 7.5 percent in 2010, a government spokesman said on Thursday, a rate that is about half the increase in recent years and the first single-digit rise in military spending since 1989.
The announcement by Li Zhaoxing, a spokesman for the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, gave no explanation for the slowdown. Some analysts speculated, however, that China’s huge economic stimulus program and other efforts to address unemployment and welfare had eaten into monies that in a normal year would go toward the nation’s rapid military buildup
I choose to interpret the move as the Chinese being so impressed with the force of Romney’s argumentation that they decided to back down. You just haveto show strength on the world stage.
Paula M. Graham

Paula M. Graham

Reviewer
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