I've been thinking about the post below on China, and my indifference to American nationalist fears, trying to explain to myself my own glibness. I just don't find nationalism to be moral, and there's a continuing implication in the language of this country that it is.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. An international lawyer and expert on international institutions and American foreign policy, Dean Slaughter is the author of numerous academic articles and a frequent contributor to leading newspapers and magazines. She is a former president of the American Society of International Law and serves on the boards of the McDonalds Corporation , the New American Foundation, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Her most recent book is A New World Order. which argues that global networks of national government officials -- regulators, judges, and legislators -- are a vital but under-used tool for addressing threats from terrorism to global epidemics in the 21st century.

I don't associate capitalism with morality any more than I associate nationalism with morality, but I can respect prudence. The Chinese leadership, like smart businessmen, are prudent cynics. America's foreign policy elite continue to live a Panglossian hypocrisy that says the United States represents something more. Nobody else believes them.
Is there a more cynical corporation in this country -excepting those that are simply criminal conspiracies [read:Big Pharma]- than McDonalds?