The day the students laughed in China

The Headlines say it all.

Time Magazine:

Can China Save the World?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1913638,00.html

Quote verbatim:

“Numbers alone do not capture the sense that the balance of global economic power is shifting eastward. There have been several moments that seemed to crystallize the zeitgeist, none more memorable than U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s speech in June before the best and the brightest at Peking University, the Harvard of China. Not long ago, students there would have been the most respectful and polite of audiences. Yet when Geithner tried to reassure one questioner that China’s investments in U.S. government debt were “very safe,” the response was perhaps an indication of the onset of a new economic order: the students laughed.”

It is perhaps ironic that it comes at a time when this other Headline runs in Time/Swampland/CNN Worldwide News:

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/07/30/the-beer-heard-around-the-world/?xid=newsletter-daily

What happened to the Country that was the undisputed Leader of the World lees than one year ago?