SEOUL, South Korea - At the conclusion of the G20 Economic Summit, Chinese president Hu Jintao rebuffed critics and boldly announced, "China is the global leader in trade, industry, wealth, and technological development. We are the new great power. And so China claims that which has been the right of all empires throughout history, the right to invade Afghanistan and then leave in humiliation and disgust.
"From Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, to the British Empire, the Soviet bloc, and the American hegemony, every reigning superpower has tried and failed to create a stable nation in Afghanistan. China deserves no less respect.
"But China will adapt to the modern era, realizing that its glorious and expensive disaster in the Hindu Kush need not be by military means alone. Embarrassment can be assured by introducing to the Afghanis liberal ways that offend them, building factories they don't need, selling them products they don't want, and providing them jobs that pay far less than opium farming.
"But regardless of how it is done, it shall be done. For we, the Chinese people, shout with a single voice, 'Now is our time'. The only obstacle that delays China's fiasco in Afghanistan is waiting for the Americans to leave."
