"Please allow me to give a view on the "Rhodes Scholars take the path to Wall Street" topic -- as I think my own experience sheds light on a fundamental fact which might be missing in the author's dismay that young US students in Oxford might lower their moral standards by pursuing a get-rich career in Wall Street: we need to understand the heavy weight of business pervading many segments of American political life and society, and to appreciate the lack of alternatives available to young American professionals if they wish to create a respectful career with an international background in non-business areas (diplomacy, journalism and/or academic). That in a nutshell is how I wound up in a Wall Street job coming out of a traditional university environment.

"Although I'm [from a country other than the US] and so outside of Mr Gerson's jurisdiction, I'm friends with many American Rhodies and I think it's worth noting one or two things about his article. It was an interesting and thought-provoking piece, but...

"First, it should not be assumed that Rhodes Scholars are leaving Oxford for business in overwhelming numbers. The most convincing evidence Mr Gerson cites is that 6 (presumably 6 out of 32 American Scholars) went into business "recently". While 6/32 is a lot more than the 3/320 in the 1970s, it hardly signals that there has been a fundamental change in the nature of the organisation or the Scholars involved. The road from Oxford High Street to Wall Street is far less well travelled than the road from Oxford to law school in New Haven or med school in Cambridge, MA.

"In your series, you touched on the Shanghai town hall, quoting from President Obama's opening and his response to the Twitter/Great Firewall question, and gave voice to a White House insider as to the power of his words and their likely reach inside China. There's been some buzz among western journalists about how the town hall "reached no one".

"I've been monitoring the China internet in the wake of the town hall and, based on my observations of these things over the years I'm very much leaning toward the White House insider's view -- that the reach was vast and deep, in the many millions or tens of millions, though not necessarily entirely positive. But the comment from President Obama that I think will have the most impact inside the firewall was not the one about US principles that you quoted in your followups. It was this one:

'Now, I should tell you, I should be honest, as President of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn't flow so freely because then I wouldn't have to listen to people criticizing me all the time.  I think people naturally are -- when they're in positions of power sometimes thinks, oh, how could that person say that about me, or that's irresponsible, or -- but the truth is that because in the United States information is free, and I have a lot of critics in the United States who can say all kinds of things about me, I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear. It forces me to examine what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis to see, am I really doing the very best that I could be doing for the people of the United States.'

"Wow! As a resident of China for two decades and a Mandarin-speaking China-watcher for three decades, I can say without any doubt that those words will resonate far more deeply -- and potentially more "subversively" or "destabilizingly" -- than any overt thumb-in-the-eye hectoring that any foreigner or foreign leader might muster, in public or private. Those words are ***precisely*** the kind that Zhongnanhai [Chinese term equivalent to "the Kremlin"] fears the most, and rightly so."

"We were watching the Bejing dinner highlights on cable at home (CT state), via CCTV network [China Central TV, state controlled] and saw a very close friend among the group of musicians/artists performing. My wife woke me up to tivo it, then she called our friend in Shanghai (he had already returned the next early morning).

"He apparently accompanies the bigwigs when they travel and/or entertain foreign guests, etc. For instance, he was in Moscow last year when Hu saw Putin. So unlike other performers, he gets to see the leadership withforeign dignitaries on a routine basis.

"Anyway, long story short, from his local chinese perspective, it was obvious to him that the Chinese leadership were clearly enamored with Obama. They sincerely enjoyed our President's company, it was obvious from their body language of some connection with Obama.   Obviously the state press wouldn't show that.....hopefully this visit established some mutual 'trust'.  We'll see...."

"One of the things that struck me when I was reading one of the NYT's stories on the President's visit to China was their odd way of contrasting it to past presidential visits.  As I remember, the reporter(s) writing the story as much as said that Mr. Obama had not "gotten" any concessions on this and that unlike how it used to be in the good ol' days. [WaPo story to that effect here.]

"You remember those days right? when the U.S. President could helicopter into China and come back with the RMB exactly where we want it, no more internal censorship or repression, all political prisoners freed, China ready and willing to impose sanctions on country A and help invade country B, and of course solid enforceable contract law appearing by magic all around the country, and whatever else comes up in these silly articles."

"I remain sympathetic to the traveling press corps and their coverage, in part because I think the White House did such a lousy job about conveying its goals for the trip during and in the immediate aftermath of the visit. Put differently, I've learned more about the administration's hopes from the mission from your post-facto interview with  the un-named gov't official, than I did from any statements given to the media by the White House during the mission. Why couldn't the un-named official have briefed the press corps in the same way that you are being briefed while everyone was crossing the Pacific? Clearly, they didn't. So, to some extent, I think the blame for negative coverage - and, true, I'm sympathetic to some of it - must be laid at the feet of the White House and those responsible for getting the press corps up to speed."

"We closed some of the gap but not all of the gap. The Chinese do not wish, three weeks out of Copenhagen, to be seen working hand in glove with the US to impose a "G2" solution to the G77. They have their own reservations about how far things should go. But they also don't want to be seen as the stumbling block or odd man out.

"We kept making the argument, We're the #1 and 2 emitters, so we have a special responsibility, a special role. We got some movement. They are taking substantial mitigating steps, which they didn't enumerate but we know what they are. As best we can tell, they are prepared to submit those as their "target" in Copenhagen, and of course we want them to be "commitments" rather than targets. There is still a stumbling block on the issue of accountability, which is always a hard one with the Chinese. We'd like to have an independent peer review of whether doing what you said you would do.  There are lots of different ways to do that... But we haven't closed that part of the gap yet.

"Prime Minister Rasmussen [Lars Loekke Rasmussen of Denmark, with obvious involvement in the Copenhagen talks] has been saying that while a binding legal treaty by this December is not possible, he has been calling for a politically-binding accord at Copenhagen. Then there would be the task of turning it into a treaty over the next year. The Chinese have bought into that general framework. And we made a lot of agreements with them on clean energy [details here]. So on climate change, there were no miracles, but we moved them out out of the position of being blockers to being part of the game.

"North Korea first. We announced that [Ambassador Stephen] Bosworth was going there on December 8. Essentially we want his talks to be followed by resumption of Six Party Talks before terribly long.  We told the Chinese that. In the joint statement, the Chinese did in fact commit to seeking resumption of Six Party Talks at an early date. They agreed to that principle, and they were pretty robust in their insistence that they care about the denuclearization of North Korea. In fact they more than anyone else have reasons to be troubled by the program.  The missiles may not be aimed at China, but they are right next to China. So our perspectives are not identical, but on North Korea, we're doing pretty well.

"Iran has been more difficult, and will probably become a more sensitive issue. Iran itself is heading the wrong direction. By end of the year, we may have to go to the pressure track. We made a strong presentation, whose gist was: Time is running out, and if this situation continues, several other clocks are ticking. There's the Israeli clock. If Israel decides to do something, we cannot stop them. If it's an existential decision, you don't consult anybody else. And Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Egypt probably would follow with nuclear programs. What's the impact of that on security in the Persian Gulf and the international non-proliferation regime? And on Japan and Korea? It is profoundly in China's interest to stay close to the "P5 + 1." [Five UN Security Council permanent members, plus Germany.]

"On the one hand, they get it. But as a matter of principle they don't like sanctions and are concerned about their energy supplies, and they always like to free-ride. If the Russians are on board they will be on board too.  At the end of the day, I expect the China will be on board. There may be some foot-dragging about specifics of a resolution, depending on how draconian it is. Russia is the bigger challenge, in the sense that if you get China.

"Discussions with the Chinese just don't offer dramatic breakthrough moments. It's water on a stone. They don't reveal their Eurekas to you. While you're there you get fairly predictable responses. Next time you go back and get a little different treatment.

"Judgments will be borne out over time. Will they cooperate or not on Iran? Will they be spoilers or not on climate change? On North Korea? Rebalancing their economy? None of those is a one-day story. The only fair way of evaluating results will be over time.

"But I get the sense that many of our critics would not be happy unless Obama punched the Chinese leaders in the nose."

"I don't care if someone criticizes us, I just would like it to be accurate and in context. I fear I am learning that is not the skill of some in the White House Press corps. They are experts on horse races, and so that is the way everything is cast."

"In thinking about the trip, the things we were trying to accomplish were all basically long term things. We were not looking for 'deliverables' or one-day stories. You've now got eight or nine countries among the G20 that are Asia-Pacific countries. The historic shift of power and influence from West to East is reflected in that number.

"Obama is very focused on global issues, things like climate change, financial imbalances, non proliferation, energy issues. We saw all the countries on this trip as players on those global issues. Of course China is important in particular, but also Korea and Japan and the ASEAN countries. So we saw this as a way of developing relationships that would be helpful to us as we tackled these issues coming down the road. 

"We've got Copenhagen [climate talk] coming up in mid-December. We have Iran heading increasingly likely toward Plan B rather than Plan A, pressure rather than inducements. North Korea. And the Copenhagen session is very far from a done deal. The countries we dealt with are all key players here. And on the economic side, you've got the whole issue of rebalancing the global agenda. None of those is something where you come out of a meeting and say Eureka. They're all part of a long process and a long game.

"The other thing we had in mind, which has to do with the whole "rising China" phenomenon: we wanted to solidify the relationship with China. To show them that we're not going to have a fluctuating policy. That we know what we're doing, and understand that we are dealing from a position of strength. And at the same time, to all our traditional allies [Japan, Korea, etc], we wanted to reinforce their sense of comfort that our relationship with China won't be at their expense."

"In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic."

"I find that the Washington reporters tend to be typically the most subject to this instant scorekeeping. This is part of the game of Washington reporting. They're at the bleeding edge of this phenomenon that I think is distressing in terms of the approach of the press to serious questions. Everything is shot through this prism of short-term political calculation as opposed to thinking seriously about stuff. You can't be an expert on every question, and so you're part of the Washington press corps and if you're really good and really diligent, you're going to be expert maybe in a few things and one of those things might not be China."

"Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."

"Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out on Friday at negative US media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues...

"The trip was the top news story in China, drawing strong interest from the mainland public who, surveys suggest, are largely positive in their view of the American president.

"However, much of the US media coverage was strongly negative, accusing Obama of failing to gain concessions on key issues such as Iran's nuclear programme and climate change, as well as being weak on human rights."

"I attended all those meetings that President Obama had with Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao," Huntsman said, referring to the Chinese president and premier. "I've got to say some of the reporting I saw afterward was off the mark. I saw sweeping comments about things that apparently weren't talked about, when they were discussed in great detail in the meetings," he said.

"President Barack Obama's first visit to China on 16 November will produce positive rhetoric, but achieve little on a range of issues from North Korea to economic rebalancing. Washington and Beijing will continue to highlight areas of mutual cooperation and interests, but domestic political agendas will pose serious constraints on the extent of near-term progress....

"Little to be expected on economic rebalancing and trade... Obama will likely raise the currency issue as part of a broader economic rebalancing framework. But the Chinese will continue to reject greater emphasis on the rebalancing issue, because Beijing interprets it as Washington shifting more of the blame on China for the global recession....

"No bilateral agreement will be reached on emissions reduction targets that might precipitate an ambitious global climate change treaty next month in Copenhagen. Obama's more modest task is to prevent China from aligning too closely with the G77 developing country bloc in global negotiations, although he has limited bargaining chips to encourage cooperation from China." [emphasis mine]

"President Barack Obama's first visit to China met the modest expectations set by the White House, making some progress on creating a more expansive relationship and on clean energy and climate change cooperation...Obama appears to have effectively reassured Beijing that the US does not intend to contain China's rise, creating a framework for mutual assurance that could augur a more mature relationship in the longer term.

"The US-China presidential summit involved a genuine attempt by both sides to push toward closer cooperation -- producing a robust joint statement that highlighted a range of common interests. In particular, Obama's first visit to China saw deliverables on clean energy and climate change cooperation, as expected. By dampening Copenhagen expectations in Singapore, Obama avoided a potential collision with China at next month's meeting... But Chinese domestic politics prevented Beijing from publicly discussing contentious issues such as currency and economic rebalancing during the trip...

"While policy disagreements and trade frictions will continue in the near term, Obama took an important step with a very public reassurance for Beijing that the US does not seek to contain China's rise. Beijing's receptiveness to this appeal indicates the intent of both countries to reduce the mutual distrust that has colored aspects of the relationship -- from currency, military engagement, and Taiwan to human rights and climate change. The Obama administration's more public approach, if successful, can promote longer term stability by engaging China on a broad range of issues within the context of a more mature and pragmatic relationship -- and in preventing specific, contentious issues from defining the relationship."

"I am the product manager responsible for fraud prevention on Google Checkout, and I want to follow up with you about the recent issues with your account.

"The issue with your Checkout account actually begun shortly after you placed the first order on January 28, 2009 for domain [XXX] which was cancelled because the IP address that was used for the order had a high rate of attempted fraud. [The IP address was our apartment building in Beijing.]

"Google's algorithms automatically review IP addresses when orders are placed on Checkout to catch attempted fraud with stolen credit cards.  Fraud is a pressing issue in the electronic payment industry, and merchants bear the financial risk associated with these transactions so Google (and most online merchants) collect additional signals to determine the risk of online orders. Where our algorithms see suspicious transactions, we will often ask for additional proof of identity.

"While Google employs an advanced fraud detection system, it does occasionally catch legitimate user orders, which was what happened in your case. An error can occasionally arise when people share the same IP addresss on WiFi or VPN networks.  For more info about Checkout fraud detection, take a look at the Checkout Security Center and our recent blog post."

"Put simply, I reacted myself mostly to the following phrase of Obama [in his Shanghai town hall presentation]:
      "We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation,"

"Read again slowly: 'We do not seek to impose any system of government on any other nation.'

"My take: the disconnect is as old as the CIA, Mossadegh or Cuba... I would have not reacted strongly when told the same by Kennedy, Reagan or Clinton. But now it is different. And my epidermic intolerance is now quite wide ranging, not only relating this affirmation as concerns Iraq, but extending to the sermons about sclerotic European Market, Global warming [etc].      

"I understand that Obama's task is among others to sell the American Brand, and marketing people have a tenuous obligation to stick to the product. Or if we want to be kind, they want to mold the public perception of a brand new product they are bringing to the market. Nonetheless: I suspect you didn't even react yourself to this sentence. Could you comment on the state of the American eardrums, as you did for the Chinese ones?

"My background: French with (European) multi-countries experience...and close relatives living in the US. As I consequence, I lost my patriotic Innocence, and often smile at the overblown universal moralistic discourse of my Presidents or Intellectuals. You?"

"Relating to comments on the Shanghai town hall, enough of the parsing of what he said on issues and how he said them, I think the most significant sentence was "That's why I'm pleased to announce that the United States will dramatically expand the number of our students who study in China to 100,000." Even without details (per year (I hope) or over what period, college and/or high school students, how funded, etc), I am surprised you have not remarked on it (and that the NY Times did not even report it). It is of major significance."