The British papers this week have been contemplating the death of Joan Hunter Dunn – who was the muse who inspired that most English of poets, John Betjeman.
But never mind Betjeman. I have just come across something that struck me as quintessentially English, on the website of the Cambridge University Philosophy department. It is the biography of one of the members of the faculty, John Marenbon. The full version is here. But let me just highlight the first paragraph and a half:
What is the cure for anti-Americanism in Europe? I have always thought that there is a one-word answer to that question – China.
And so it has come to pass. The FT-Harris poll released this week shows that a narrow majority of Europeans now regard China as the biggest threat to global stability – ahead of the United States. Of course, these kind of polls always reflect recent events. So the news out of Tibet – and, to a lesser extent, Darfur – will have hurt China’s image. Meanwhile the decline in coverage of the Iraq war – and the fact that the Bush administration is winding down – will help the US.
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