OPINION: "The Yin and Yang of U.S.-China Relations," by Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, Wall Street Journal, 1 September 2009.

This is a weird piece. First, there's no Roubini in it, so I can't figure out why his name is on it. Second, the analysis is so generic as to be meaningless: both China and the U.S. have big bureaucracies that will find it hard to work together; both states are now focused on internal problems; and the rising power China doesn't want to pull its fair load in international security. You could transpose these arguments to a host of rising powers and not just China. Go ahead and try it with the rest of the BRIC and tell me it's particularly useful. Then move on to the Next 11 and you can do it all over again, to little useful understanding. So true strategic alliance won't happen overnight. Wow. I really thought it could happen next week, because that's how it's gone with China in the past. The piece ignores the serious thinking going on inside China about its great-power role, the rise in nationalism, and the growing ambition to influence events beyond its shore--driven as much by need (all those network connections) as by a sense of history (this is who we should be now). But none of these trends will suddenly switch on an alliance. The change is generational--something also not discussed here. Instead we get generic caveats we could apply to our relationship with any real or potential ally in the world. The weirdest bit: China isn't free-riding on security. It's paying for our debt and that allows us to have a military (old argument of mine), and that's enough of a security role for now. Really? To me, there is no better definition of free-riding. Bremmer's a very smart guy whom I respect a lot for building a very able company, but this was phoned-in. It's fine to sell "political risk," but this is not balanced analysis. The give? You can only sell one idea in an op-ed. When you try to balance, that stuff usually gets cut.