APEC Summit

This should be an interesting APEC summit. APEC being, of course, the Asian Pacific Economic Conference, that annual meeting of Pacific Rim nations. Even though the meeting is in Australia, China's bound to dominate the proceedings. The Chinese President, Ju Jintao, showed up a week early and has been touring the continent-nation extensively, a signal of China's famed soft power. I noted in this blog a few weeks back that when I attended an Organization of American States summit of presidential spokesmen from throughout the Western hemisphere, the U.S. didn't bother to show up. Oh, and the conference was paid for, in large part, by the Chinese. Were in a China-dominated world now and a conference like this is bound to deal with China's currency issues as well as China's contributions to global warming. Bush's Asian policies have actually worked out pretty well. The U.S. is much closer to India than it used to be. The North Koreans are vowing to dismantle their nuclear program. There's no trade war with Japan. Relations with Vietnam continue to expand. With all the focus on Iraq, it's worth noting some of the administration's successes.