The international financial crisis has becomea kind of induction ceremony for China as aworldpower, which will go through another ritual when Timothy Geithner, America's treasury secretary, pays tribute in Beijing next month.
For American society as a whole, and for the rest of the world, there is the reassuring paradox that the world's strongest power has becomea society that now elevates for admiration not square-chinned rough riders, but victims.
Instead of respect, the US is feared around the world because it has becomea 'loose cannon' with greedy and 'power crazed' mentally unstable people at it's helm.