I've always felt that we needed to deal with Iran and North Korea as quickly as possible, that the Chinese were a much bigger long-term threat. They have a working civilization, a country with which to work, a positive vision for that country, and the luxury of thinking strategically.

My Fixed Income Assets class this fall is the kind of class that MS Finance students take. The kind that's heavily mathematical, and heavily analytical. Here's the roster. See if you can spot a pattern.

Chang, Chi-hung
Chang, Ling-Yuan
Changyoo, Theinvannee
Chen, Hsuan-Yi
Chen, Szu-Chi
Coggon, Brian
Hanson, Scott
Hogan, John
Li, Guijun
Lin, Chien-Hsiu
Liu, Tse-Hui
Lovett, Eric
Lu, Kuo-Cheng
MacDonald, Kellen
Qi, Aidong
Schiller, Andrew
Schrader, Wes
Sharf, Joshua
Shepherd, Joseph
Solorzano Arevalo, Jose
Varma, Raani
Wang, Tsa-Wei
Wei, Wen-Hui

None of this is to suggest that any of my classmates wish the US any harm, whatsoever. They don't. Some of them are planning to get jobs and stay here as long as they can, and all are just looking to improve their lot. But national strength is measured in part by education, and eventually this kind of know-how and talent is going to make China a very strong nation indeed. And it's not clear that the internal contradictions of a one-party state and a capitalist economy will make themselves felt in time to prevent a very effective challenge.