Beijing has been seeing red over Obama’s Southeast Asian road show. Chinese analysts saw it as America’s attempt to consolidate ties with old allies such as Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand, while snaring new friends like Burma. “None of the countries neighboring China is willing to join with Washington to confront Beijing,” declared analyst Wang Yusheng, of the Strategy Research Center at the China International Studies Research Fund, in a recentChina Daily editorial. “In fact the specter of an ‘Asian NATO’ has been hovering around China without causing any real concern.”

A Side note: (Washington denies it sees Beijing as an enemy, citing, rather, elements of “both cooperation and competition” in their interaction—as U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon put it just before Obama’s trip—but stressing the long-term need for “a stable and constructive relationship with China.”)

Washington better not try to put the squeeze on our biggest creditor lest we find ourselves in a position of having to trade our sovereighty in leiu of a payment!