China Marks 9-11

"How has US anti-terror strategy lead to more terrorism?" is the headline that graces the top of the page on the people's daily. The Chinese language portal of xinhua.cn has a similar headline citing experts in their criticism of US foreign policy. The English version says "U.S. fails to nab chief culprits as 9/11 attacks commemorated" and the pages are filled with similar sentiments.

Is it ironic that China, a country which has a fairly bad record of treating its own people well and is not at all shy to violently suppress all types of uprisings, is criticizing the US for its violent strategy in Iraq.

But of course China is not critizicing the human rights violations, nor the number of deaths, nor even the waste of resources. They're just saying we're doing a bad job of the goals we set. The Chinese government is very clear about its stance on foreign policy and the control of violence. It must be effective and it must maintain stability. Namely, their criticism of our policy is that we have not reduced the amount of terror in the world. This is much more important to them than our meddling with democracy, handling of sectarian violence, our political manipulations at home. These things are in a different class for Chinese leaders, where the credibility of following through with stated goals and maintaining a constant, stable policy are the most important.

By this measure, as the headlines show, the Chinese are clearly not happy with US foreign policy, and more importantly, they are not being hypocritical in their criticism. Good job guys.