For all the tea in China!

■"Read the Tea Leaves; China Will Be Top Exporter," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 11 October 2005, p. A1.

Those Chinese are so different! They think differently, eat differently, have sex differently, drink differently . . .

Wait a tick on that last one!

Turns out the new generations are Pepsi generations, and Coke ones, and Sprite and coffee and Gatorade and Budweiser and so on and so on.

So China's huge tea industry has to look abroad, much like our tobacco industry had to turn to Asia a couple of decades ago.

Hmmm. Seems like we got the better deal on that one: cancer sticks versus cancer-preventing green and black teas.

So China will soon become the biggest tea exporter in the world, and guess who loses out? Gap states like Sri Lanka and Kenya.

This is a dynamic we've seen before and will see many times: New Core pillars emerging economically and crushing previous Gap incumbents in various sectors. The textile quota system ended last year and China cleaned up. Same brusing dynamic will be generated here for very different reasons, but with the same basic outcome: the China price wins.

Actually, this article reminds me of one of my favorite Chinese trip stories from last year: after my talk at the Central Committee building, Vonne and I are having this big banquet lunch with all these reformist academics and wonks and political advisers. One of them, my translator for the talk, proposed this notion over a course: "Dr. Barnett," he said, "we propose that American culture is based on sex, while Chinese culture," he paused to wave his arm over the fabulously arrayed food, "is based on food."

"Really!" I retorted, "then how come we're so overweight and there's a billion Chinese?"

I mean, they were laughing so hard most of them accidentally dropped their cigs from their lips onto their plates of food . . .

Actually, I found his notion very funny, because everywhere I travel in this world I find cultures that claim they're based on food while the "yours" is based on sex! I mean, it's like some Erma Bombeck rule of globalization: everyone believe that everyone else is getting laid more and they comfort themselves with the notion that at least they eat better.

It's hilarious when you think about it.