The Russians are coming! The Ru...No, make that the Chinese!

China eyes new turf: S. America | csmonitor.com: "SANTIAGO, CHILE - When President Bush arrives here Friday for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, he's likely to be met by student protesters already in the streets chanting against 'globalization,' 'colonialism,' and the US occupation of Iraq.
But China's President Hu Jintao is getting quite a different reception. For two weeks now, he's been cutting ribbons at new factories in Argentina, enjoying beef barbecues in Brazil, addressing congresses, and announcing investment projects as he and 150 Chinese businessmen make their way across South America and on to Cuba."

From an Asian blog comes an interesting take on the growing importance of China and its expanding tourist outflow.
In this country we find it offensive to imagine that our newly elected president is anything other than the best thing since sliced bread, but that is not the case elsewhere. Link. An outbreak of fighting in a sports arena gets more attention than riots in the streets of another country here in the Western Hemisphere.

Seems like I ran across another reference to China's sending peacekeepers to Haiti. The story struck me as a non-sequitur at the time, but it's beginning to make sense. I hat it when I have to work so hard to undeerstand something. You'd think somebody besides me would be paying attention.

I got distracted as I read.
My curoisity was actually about why Chinese tourists are avoiding the United States. Heck, I didn't know there were any number of chinese tourists. I thought the Chinese were mostly poor peasants doing forced labor producing cheap toys for Walmart.
Silly me.

From time to time I check out the news from Asia via Simon World.
The Chinese tourist links are third down the list.