Hey China, Stop Laughing at the U.S.

Oct. 18 (Bloomberg) -- By most accounts, the past few weekshave exposed a drastic maturity gap between the U.S. and Chinesegovernments. The purported icon of democracy watched its systemdescend into chaos and petty political gamesmanship, comingwithin hours of a default that would have sparked globaleconomic disorder.

Publicly, Chinese leaders remained statesmanlike and abovethe fray, withholding comments on the circus in Washington. Atthe same time, and unsurprisingly, surrogates in the Chinesenews media and commentators in the intelligentsia were lessrestrained. They gleefully piled on with op-ed articles arguingfor “de-Americanizing” the world and rapidly reducing China’spurchase of U.S. Treasuries. It is notable that some of thesecommentaries only appeared in the English-language press, bothwithin China and globally: They were clearly aimed at a Westernaudience. So was the showy downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt byChina’s Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. -- a feature of the lastdebt-ceiling crisis, too.