China Daily recently did a web survey on how the U.S. are looked at here. Some interesting results, all in order of hits:
– favorite websites: Google – Yahoo – Hotmail – Youtube
– most powerful biz person: Bill Gates – Warren Buffett – Alan Greenspan
– president with biggest contribution to bilateral relations: Bill Clinton (47%) – Richard Nixon (37.9%) – George W Bush (9%!)
– non biz celebrities with highest commercial value: Michael Jordan – Bill Clinton (!) – Michael Phelps
Not mentioned is that quite a number of Chinese think the financial meltdown was intentionally caused by the U.S. to “harm China”. I guess those are mainly the ill-informed “Patriotic Cybernationalists”, a dangerous breed here. They should have a round table discussion with their American counterparts who genuinely believe bad China is going to attack the USA.
Whatever misunderstandings between the two countries, China is now the major owner of U.S. debt instruments. It’s like the expression “riding the tiger”: you can’t get off. Unless China decides to terminate the USA – not by a big bomb. Simply by dumping all the dollars (and losing their reserves in the process). They are an odd couple: bickering but can’t do without the other.