Q. How should the US view China's developing relations with her neighbors? Should the US modify its foreign policy toward these same nations in light of their changing relations with China? I wish to humbly suggest without too long a tangent to defend it that the word "should" in these questions is loaded, and suggests an ideal to which the US does not possess the necessary being to recognize and enact. I actually believe that morality is hierarchical, and involves epistemological threshholds, such that the whole idea of "revealed truth" basic to all spiritual tradition is a claim of a higher moral authority, which, could it be perceived correctly, would serve as a yardstick to amend our own ethical philosophies - that is to say, what makes sense to us on our own level. For example, many people snicker at the "simpleton" pacifism of Gandhi, assuming that their culturally conditioned worldview faces reality much better in a violent world. Yet anyone who studies the life of Gandhi knows he was far from being naive about the realities he faced. He saw deeper and further, and proved that a pacifist philosophy could in principle be pragmatic to the extent that on occassion it makes more sense that the brute force mentality of the rest of the world. No one who supports a trillion dollars and thousands of lost lives for a decade-long heinously violent imperialist campaign to stubbornly cling to fossil fuel myopia in a patch of Middle East desert has any room to call pacifists naive. That last remark pulls me back on track for the questions at hand. And having spent time in discussion board on Southeast Asia, I will devote more attention here to Central Asia. My source is Sean L. Yom in his discussion of SCO: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This is an alliance of Russia and China with the four "stans" that I'll not torture myself typing out. (The prior "Shanghai Five" left out Uzbekistan). The six countries pledged to fight "three evil forces": terrorism, extremism and separatism (violent Islamic radicalism). The alliance was lopsided with Russian and Chinese hegemony. But 9/11 and the Afgan conflict altered the playing field with more western influence and attention and Russia and China a bit diluted. The economic and political future of the region is dependent on three principle vectors: Sino-Russian relations,, the US presence, and Islamic militancy. All the "stans" have positive US relations. The US has two primary interests there: 1) oil and gas reserves, and 2) tactical ground. Needless to say, Russia and China are less than happy with the US presence development. US presence is the key variable of SCO's future. I'll spend my time more on one of the three vectors - Islamic militancy, and US presence will ride piggyback on that discussion. The militants are not well organized and are weak in resources. They are not terribly imposing as a military front, but more effectual in isolated terrorists tactics. Russian and Chinese hawkish policy actually overstates the threat, and on this the US hopscotches depending on where situated - placating in the "stans" and in accord with Russia and China in Iraq and elsewhere. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International complain that hawkish policy "actually sustains an ebb-and-flow cycle of Islamic violence". Brutal repression alienates unemployed youths who face little economic opportunity. Networks easily recruit more fighters from among them. Moscow and Beijing in the face of that population justify even further suppression and the cycle repeats in a positive feedback loop. The US might seem a counterbalance in the "stans" if their motive was humanitarian and not oil. The US first needs to extricate itself from the Bush regime (and not fall into another Republican oligarchy) and then re-think both motive and action in its policy. There is a part of me like many others that does not much care how the Muslims fare in all of this. They don't inspire my sympathy. But another part of me knows that such a position is the most myopic of any of my inner Munchkin's opinions. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International represent a wiser perspective, though I shall not presume to know much less elaborate on how this would or should play out. But at a time in a higher state I myself made the following quote: "Whoever sees reality for what it is knows that the only sensible consistent inner response to one's fellow humanity is one of compassion." I know that I was across a higher epistemological threshhold when I said that - said it not glibly but with real insight. I know to trust that insight. And yet, most of my life I do not live in the state where this is evident and it sounds hollow. I am just another cynic who would be more comfortable if all the Muslims were gone. US policy comes from this kind of level upon which I spend most of my time. Whoever has spent a trillion dollars on a decade-long experiment to put my quote into practice can call it naive. Steve