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(guest blog by Taylor Marsh)

President Bush's approval rating hit a new low according to a new Fox poll, 33%. Baby, if Bush is into his base, even on Fox, can the news get any worse? Of course, especially with our president bumbling the visit of China's President Hu. It doesn't get much worse than this.

First it was Jeff Gannon sneaking into the White House press corps without credentials. Well, yesterday the Bush administration gave a Falun Gong protester press credentials. You can guess what happened next. A little over one minute into President Hu's speech, she began yelling, "'President Hu, your days are numbered!' ... 'President Bush, stop him from killing!'" But if you think that was bad, when announcing the anthem to be played in President Hu's honor, the "national anthem of the Republic of China" was introduced. That's Taiwan. He meant to say the national anthem of the People's Republic of China. Oops. Nice one, George. You didn't even get their flag up for the visit. Talk about incompetence, with a little U.S. humiliation on the side.

President Bush can't even get the "official" visit from China right. It's almost as bad as what the Administration has done with the policies of our country in respect to the exporting behemoth that had Hu walking into this country and meeting with Boeing and Microsoft straight out of the gate. Got bucks? Lou Dobbs isn't exactly a favorite among many, but when you're right, you're right.

The fault lies entirely with the U.S. government, our lack of strategy and our failed policies. This administration and U.S. multinational corporations have lost sight of the national interest. This administration and the Republican-led Congress have permitted the dismantling of America's manufacturing base and created a dependency on China for our clothing, computers, consumer electronics and a host of other products that is greater than our dependency on foreign oil.

Make no mistake: Our leaders are the fools, and China's leaders are not to be blamed for taking advantage of this administration's commitment to faith-based economic theories and so-called free trade that permits the Chinese access to the world's richest consumer market while China denies our businesses access to its emerging market.

Hu's visit shows who's in charge

George W. Bush and the Republican Congress are a disgrace.

Bush asked President Hu to "expand Chinese consumption of U.S. goods, enforce intellectual property rights, and allow freedom to assemble, speak and worship," but he might as well have belched into the breeze. Hu didn't come to talk to Bush. China came to make more deals with U.S. corporations. But when talking about the Bush administration's policy on China, you don't have to be a genius to figure out their bottom line.

Slowly but surely, the grand strategy of the Bush administration is being revealed. It is not aimed primarily at the defeat of global terrorism, the incapacitation of rogue states, or the spread of democracy in the Middle East. These may dominate the rhetorical arena and be the focus of immediate concern, but they do not govern key decisions regarding the allocation of long-term military resources. The truly commanding objective - the underlying basis for budgets and troop deployments - is the containment of China.

This objective governed White House planning during the administration's first seven months in office, only to be set aside by the perceived obligation to highlight anti-terrorism after September 11, 2001; but now, despite President George W Bush's preoccupation with Iraq and Iran, the White House is also reemphasizing its paramount focus on China, risking a new Asian arms race with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Bush and his top aides entered the White House in early 2001 with a clear strategic objective: to resurrect the permanent-dominance doctrine spelled out in the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) for fiscal years 1994-99, the first formal statement of US strategic goals in the post-Soviet era. According to the initial official draft of this document, as leaked to the press in early 1992, the primary aim of US strategy would be to bar the rise of any future competitor that might challenge America's overwhelming military superiority.

Containing China: The US's real objective

One last item, according to the Times today, Yale became the first foreign university to get access to China's "closely restricted" securities market.