China idol-izes America

■"No 'Idol' Threat: Chinese fear skein spreads pop culture," by Clifford Coonan, Variety, 10 September 2005, p. 20.

"Skein," in Variety-speak, means genre of show, so what's spooking the Chinese media mandarins is the spread of "American Idol"-like reality contest shows.

China just witnessed the phenom called "Super Girl," a fever that swept the nation like nobody's business, "becoming the TV event of the year."

The finale on Friday "pulled in more eyeballs than giant state broadcaster CCTV's annual Spring Festival Eve gala, a politically correct variety show that regularly tops the ratings with an incredible 400 million viewers."

Our "Idol," by contrast, pulled in a whopping 48 million, or roughly 1 out of every 6 Americans. 400 million in China is more like 1 out of every three.

What seems to spook the Chinese leadership most is the voting process by which millions of young girls across the country paid 2 cents a piece to vote by cell phone text messages.

The full name of the show is the "Mongolian Cow Yogurt Super Girl Contest," which makes one suspect that Mongolian Cow Yogurt is the main sponsor (sounds like American TV in the 1950s, no?).

Finalists bounced between Avril Lavigne-style misery to punky Cranberries numbers to schmaltzy ballads. Costumes ran from sexy schoolgirl to ballerina babe.

The winner was noted more for her transgender appeal than her singing voice.

CCTV can kill a "third edish" (again with the Variety-speak!). The problem is that the commercials that ran on the show pulled in more bucks than nets in China typically get (upwards of $15,000 per 15-second ad).

Natch, a "Super Girl" concert tour follows.

I wonder if Michael Pillsbury reads Variety. I mean that seriously. It's one thing to note with amazement that aging Chinese military officers seem to think differently than we do, because they've lived amazingly isolated lives (reminding me of when the first Sov generals came to America in the late 1980s and were simply stunned into silence by things like a drive on our interstate system-they couldn't believe we were so advanced in our infrastructure and just seeing it made them realize how pointless their military competition with us had been). But look at the youth and tell me Chinese and Americans will be thinking differently a generation from now.

I know, I know, you'll tell me about all those peasants inland. Let me tell you, I've spent some time inland with those peasants and they're not any different-just more deprived.

Grand strategy is about anticipating, not driving by looking out your rear-view mirror (which is what you do when you read military writings, frankly). The China hawks throughout DC need to read more widely, need to travel more widely, need to frickin' open their eyes, talk to their kids, get to the West Coast more often (where the Asian influence in America is boat-loads above that found on the East Coast).

When I sat with House Armed Services Committee staff members after my talk on Thursday, I said their time and effort would be best spent by substantial CODELs (congressional delegation trips) throughout China. Our politicians need to catch up with the growing economic interdependency between China and the U.S., as do our military thinkers. The gap between their rhetoric and the emerging reality is huge.

And that's no "idol" statement.