Ian Bremmer , president of Eurasia Group, recently wrote an incisive editorial in the Financial Times in which he rightly observes Beijing believes its day in the sun has arrived. He writes, “Put bluntly, Beijing no longer believes American power is indispensable to Chinese economic expansion and the Communist party’s political survival.” The global economic meltdown and China’s ability to weather the storm have created a mindset in Beijing that it is invincible: much like the teenager who’s friends go out for the night on a drunken binge, and have a car wreck; the teenager believes that through his prudent decision to stay home and not go out that night that he is far wiser than his mates. Actually, what he doesn’t tell you is that his family forced him to stay home to study and do all his homework, otherwise he would be disowned. However, such are the effects on those “fooled by randomness,” who put transient symptoms of success down to their peculiar form of genius.  Frankly, it remains to be seen if China’s letting flood US$2 trillion in loans was really as “wise” as the “state capitalist” system seems to trumpet.

Nevertheless, as I fully agree with Brilliant and as I’ve written many times before, the US needs to take a multilateral approach in curbing and channeling Chinese machismo; a unilateral trade war would simply magnify the Chinese leadership’s sense of being a legend in its own mind.