As Americans watch for some twenty years the spectacular economic success of the Pacific rim nations and nowadays even more spectacular rise of China, economical growth as well as political influence, a sort of anxiety sets into the good old American faith in future, the confidence in future plenty to be more precise. Says David Brooks, NY Times OP-ED columnist:

"The Chinese, though members of a famously old civilization, seem to possess some of the vigor that once defined the US. The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans. ...Only 22 percent of the Chinese believe their country is an innovation leader now, but 63 percent are confident that their country will be the global technology leader within 30 years. The majority of the Chinese believe that China will produce the next society-changing innovation, while only a third of Americans believe the next breakthrough will happen here."

People here are already accustomed to seeing Asian immigrant children collec- ting top academic honors in America’s schools.