Geithner in Beijing--What to Read (or Perhaps Re-Read)

With press reports circulating about Timothy Geithner's plan to speak at Peking University/Beida tomorrow, this might be the perfect time to dip into China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance and read Geremie Barmé's "Facing Up to Friendship" (pages 212-214), a smart look at the talk Kevin Rudd gave at the same campus on April 9, 2008. (If you don't have the book, check out the earlier and slightly shorter version of it that appeared in the April 12, 2009, edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, under the title "Rudd Rewrites the Rules of Engagement.")

For two typically smart wrap-ups of readings about Geithner's visit (what he'll be doing, how the trip is being covered, you name it), see this by Sky Canaves of the Wall Street Journal's "China Journal" blog, and this at the China Digital Times.