As for Congress, Ralph Cossa, at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu, argues for restraint there, to avoid feeding anti-American sentiment in China and playing into the hands of hardliners.

ECONOMIST: The Olympics

It also, according to Ralph Cossa, head of the Pacific Forum of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, sends a message to South Korea and China, alarmed by the Bush administration's taste for talking tough, and to hardliners in Mr Bush's own government, who are loth to grease the axis of evil in any way.

ECONOMIST: It��s security, stupid | The