#2008: Silently Fearing the Chinese

The Asian continent has had its share of problems over the past half-century with more in-fighting than an episode of Flava of Love. India invades Pakistan; Sri Lanka attacks India: Vietnam incurs on Cambodia; China takes Tibet; Japan takes everything. Bad blood is part of the continent's history like gun-powder, Buddhism and succumbing to the will of Europeans.

Between all the bickering, though, one nation stands as the Greg Brady to this rag-tag bunch. If India can boast Johnny Lever, then China takes the cake as the region's Johnny Bravo.



If the Financial Times and every other cover of the Economist are to be believed, India and China are poised to be the industrial powerhouses of the 21st century. Both countries claim a population of 1 billion and a military strength that make them targets for diplomacy rather than intervention. On paper, it would seem, that India and China are geopolitical neighbors of equitable standing. Um, not so much.

Though the media has made much of India's comparable economic strength with China and Indian-Americans' association with Chinese and other Asian Americans under the penumbra of Model Minorities, most Indians know deep down inside that China's got the upper hand in this cold war culture war.

We may smile and wave our politically correct banners for Pan Asian solidarity at multicultural meetings on the campus of UC-Berkeley, but in the back of our minds we fear that the general public will figure out what we already know: the Chinese could kick our ass.