I wish Mr. Reed wouldn't ignore China's support for dictatorships simply because (1) a Republican, Fred Thompson, points this out and (2) Mr. Reed's former boss convinced Congress to grant China permanent normal trade relations status. The Nation doesn't ignore China's support for dictatorships and our immoral neoliberal support for trade with China. What's Mr. Reed's excuse for glossing over this fact—it's only fashionable to criticize trade policies when the United States trades directly with dictatorships?

Economists, those not busy lionizing America's favorite new source of dirt-cheap labor, might recognize this as a perverse set of incentives that hastens undesirable outcomes. "Pick a dictator anywhere on the globe," Mann writes, and you'll find Chinese backing. The Chinese gave Robert Mugabe an honorary degree—and "new surveillance equipment to crack down on Internet traffic and block dissident radio signals." The military regime in Burma has enjoyed consistent backing, as have Uzbek President Islam Karimov (the "body boiler"), the genocidal government of Sudan, even the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Don't raise a fuss: "Any tension between America and China is inherently bad," Mann paraphrases the China watchers, "and is the responsibility of the United States. However, if the confrontation involves intellectual property rights or other U.S. commercial interests, then it is China's fault and is a legitimate issue that must be addressed immediately."