China and the United States were rivals, not sweethearts, and it didn’t pay to become enamored of these laowai. Despite their protestations to the contrary—their delusional American exceptionalism—there was nothing special about them. For sixty short years they’d mattered as a country. Perhaps in another five thousand they might have a case. Until then, they should remember that they were little more than children. Pompous children, at that.
