■"Who's In Charge of Determining U.S. Interest Rates? It May Be Hu," by Floyd Norris, New York Times, 13 May 2005, p. C1.

■"A Chinese Deal Gone Awry: Charges Fly After a Plan to Bring Video to 100 Million Falls Through," by Lowell Bergman, New York Times, 13 May 2005, p. C1.

■"China Acts to Curtail Property Speculation: With Shanghai prcies up 70% in two years, Beijing is worried about a bubble," by David Barboza, New York Times, 13 May 2005, p. C4.

The frightening proposition? The man with the most say over future interest rates in the U.S. is President Hu Jintao of China. He's the one weighing the notion of freeing up his currency to float and, by doing so, lowering his economy's voracious demands for U.S. bonds.

Hu's your daddy now, America?

Done with my first Esquire profile of an American classic, I now turn to my "anonymous" second subject. After him, I'm going for the best there is the National Football League. And after that, I want Hu.

A dream perhaps, but tell me who America needs to know more about in the next two to three years?

China's getting in our pants whether we like it or not. Their scandals are starting to land in American courts. So their bubble can be our bubble in a way that Japan's was not.

One doesn't want to entertain that fear too much, and yet it's not a good one to blow off.

This dynamic drives the largest strategic choices I propose in Blueprint for Action