It is unclear if Yahoo! really did help convict this Chinese activist but what can Yahoo! do – It has to obey laws in China like it does in every other country. I hope President Bush speaks to China’s president Hu Juntao about this today.

But realistically, China is China and unless there is a revolt from the people what are we really going to change? Economic and diplomatic pressure will not change a country that is growing so quickly. Besides, China is striking natural resource deals with what we consider to be rogue states so if anything they will be even tougher to put pressure on.

But the flipside here – and there is always a flipside, is that China needs the US as much as we need them – perhaps more. They need to start playing ball and President Bush is going to have his hands full getting the Chinese to do all the things we want like expand human rights, be a better global citizen, let their currency float, stop supporting rogue nations and of course respect intellectual property.

In the end if Bush really wants to balance trade we should encourage Hu’s country to start purchasing their “Made in China” labels in the US. This would probably employ 100,000 additional US workers.