From WikiChina [New York Times]

Tongue-in-cheek, but definitely revealing in this Op-Ed wake-up call for the Americans, fantastic if it is read in the right spirit, but potentially lethal for the Chinese public image -‘…record numbers of U.S. high school students are now studying Chinese, which should guarantee us a steady supply of cheap labor that speaks our language here, as we use our $2.3 trillion in reserves to quietly buy up U.S. factories. In sum, things are going well for China in America.’

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OP-ED COLUMNIST | From WikiChina
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Source – New York Times, published November 30, 2010

While secrets from WikiLeaks were splashed all over the American newspapers, I couldn’t help but wonder: What if China had a WikiLeaker and we could see what its embassy in Washington was reporting about America? I suspect the cable would read like this:

Washington Embassy, People’s Republic of China, to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Beijing, TOP SECRET/Subject: America today.

Things are going well here for China. America remains a deeply politically polarized country, which is certainly helpful for our goal of overtaking the U.S. as the world’s most powerful economy and nation. But we’re particularly optimistic because the Americans are polarized over all the wrong things.

Filed under: Beijing Consensus, Economics, Influence, International Relations, Nationalism, Opinion, Politics, Population, Public Diplomacy, Social, Soft Power, The Chinese Identity, Trade, U.S., Wikileaks