BEIJING — China is in a foul mood, according to the appropriately titled Unhappy China, a white-hot bestseller that is as controversial here as I've found it to be accurate in a week-long canvassing of this country's increasingly important growing pains. It's a collection of essays from five overtly nationalist writers who want China to stand up and assume the global leadership that, in their opinion, naturally falls to their country once America's profound bankruptcy has been revealed. The book has triggered an intense debate across China's vast sea of netizens, with the bulk of commentary as scathingly critical of the authors' long-term vision of China's superpower-dom as the book is of American leadership.
Taken as a whole, one can easily get the impression that China is deeply distressed by Team USA's recent streak as globalization's guns-a-blazing Leviathan, but equally reluctant to replace. Having survived Mao Zedong's murderous insanities, China's version of Boomers are truly careful what they wish for.
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