The scope of the tainted milk scandal seems to be expanding daily:

Milk tainted with melamine, a compound banned in food, has killed three other babies, two in China’s northwestern Gansu province and one in eastern Zhejiang. The health scare erupted after Sanlu Group last week revealed it had produced and sold melamine-laced milk, and a subsequent probe found a fifth of 109 Chinese dairy producers were selling products adulterated with the substance. [Emphasis mine] At the latest count, 6,244 children have become ill with kidney stones after drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, with three deaths and 158 suffering “acute kidney failure.”

Reading this reminded me of a Chinese academic and America expert I met over dinner last spring in Beijing while I was traveling with a delegation sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (the good people who brought you “ping-pong diplomacy”). Her current topic of study? America’s muckrakers like Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell, and incidents such as these, which led to our modern regulatory institutions.

No one had to spell out the obvious parallels to China’s current situation. That very morning, the New York Times had reported on a mass demonstration against a planned petrochemical plant near Chengdu, a project which had been approved by the central government’s National Development and Reform Commission. Such demonstrations seem to be generally tolerated, so long as the protesters don’t directly challenge the central government’s authority or legitimacy, as these protesters took pains to do:

“We’re not dissidents,” said Wen Di, an independent blogger and former journalist living in Chengdu. “We’re just people who care about our homeland. What we’re saying is that if you want to have this project, you need to follow certain procedures: for example, a public hearing and independent environmental assessment.”

Of course, there’s one big difference between China today and the U.S. in the first half of the last century: For all its imperfections, America had a democratic system of government which was better suited structurally for responding to scandals like these in a productive way.

Brad DeLong:

I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture—so that should the emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.

In 1877, the rising superpower to the west across the ocean was the United States. The preeminent superpower was Britain. Today the preeminent superpower is the United States. The rising superpower to the west across the ocean is China.

I’d be curious to know what Brad thinks we can actually do to bind China to us. Putting aside the ethno-cultural dimension for the time being, the main problem as I see it is one of rootedness and tradition. In both of Brad’s examples, he’s describing an older society making way for a younger, more malleable one on which the elder can impress itself. The Chinese, however, are not upstarts—they’ve been around for literally thousands of years. There’s precious little we can do to mould China one way or another. China will be ineffably Chinese and will fashion a dominant place in this world according to its own precepts and self-understanding.

Taiwan’s Kuomintang party won the parliamentary elections in a landslide today.

Ma, a former mayor of Taipei, has pledged to allow mainland tourists to visit Taiwan, and hopes to reinstate direct transportation, commerce and postal links that were cut off six decades ago.

The New York Times adds:

Mr. Ma, a Harvard-trained lawyer, has said Taiwan needs a strong military and close ties with the United States to counter the military threat from China. But he favors avoiding confrontation with Beijing while allowing closer economic ties.

I can’t help but think that America’s relevance in Asia just took another tumble.

Quite honestly, I’m not sure what to make of this story from the Daily Mail (via Naked Capitalism). Apparently, a Chinese submarine surfaced very close to an American carrier group participating in military exercises off the coast of Japan. The Navy brass is rattled that the sub was not detected and is accusing the Chinese of shadowing American carriers.

Curiously enough, the story is not being widely reported. All the hits on Google News seem to be based on the Daily Mail’s story, with no fresh quotes or insights being offered anywhere. How can a story potentially this big be ignored?

Well even if the story turns out not to be true, these photos seem to indicate that the Chinese are well on their way to creating a competitive fleet in the Pacific. These are the true threats to American security: mobile nuclear platforms that can sail undetected off the coast of California carrying up to 12 nuclear missiles each. That we’re currently steeling ourselves for battle with a nation which might possibly get its very first nuclear weapon a few years down the line beggars belief. Iran is of concern, to be sure, but it is a regional irritant at best. The legacies of Bush’s policies may prove to be darker than most think.