What Xiao Bush got right.

• Author: Fallows, James
• Position: THE STAKES 2008

If the election were only about China policy, the choice would be easy: Reelect George W. Bush. An administration that has damaged U.S. interests in nearly every other part of the world has done a surprisingly good job in dealing with China. At a private dinner in Beijing just before the Olympics opened, the first President Bush said how impressed he was with what his son had achieved. (George H. W. Bush, still beloved in China after his days as the first permanent U.S. representative there in the 1970s, is known as Lao Bush, "Old Bush." His son is Xiao Bush, "Little Bush." The terms are not quite so blunt in Chinese--"Old" is more respectful, "Little" more affectionate. But still.) Lao Bush said that he had spoken recently with China's president, Hu Jintao, who told him that under Xiao Bush U.S.-China relations were "better than ever before." And "as a proud father," Old Bush said, he considered that very good news.

What is good for Hu Jintao is not necessarily what's good for America. But in this case, Hu and Bush were correct. This is the rare case where we can observe what the current Bush administration has done right--with the certainty that it can be done better by whoever follows him.

Bush's main achievement is to remember, recognize, and constantly reemphasize that two contradictory-sounding points about China are both true, and that both are likely to remain true for a very long time. One is that China is a problem, for America and for the world. It locks up people arbitrarily, and was brazen enough to do so even while on display to the whole world during the Olympic Games. It tightly controls the national media. It crassly supports odious regimes that control crucial raw materials (America also has some experience in this field), and then blandly deflects criticism by saying that to try to stop evils in Darfur or Burma would be to violate its sacred principle of not interfering in others' affairs.

China's economic system has become much more integrated into America's corporate structure than Japan's ever was. Most of the exports that pour daily from Chinese companies are actually ordered and made by foreign-owned, largely American firms: Nike, Apple, Dell, Wal-Mart, and so on. From a strict economic-benefit standpoint, this interaction has helped many people in America: employees and owners of those brand-name companies, whose profits increase because of lower-priced Chinese products; consumers, especially those on tight budgets...