China: 3 Different Thoughts For the Day

No time to elaborate (too much nerd work -- AAACCKKK!), but these 3 very different pieces on China are rather interesting:

• "China's False Monoculture" -- the myth of Chinese homogeneity; China's not nearly as uniform as people think. In fact, only about half the population speaks Mandarin, and China has dozens of (officially recognized) minority people groups and plenty of strange "autonomous regions." Recent riots by Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang and last year's unrest in Tibet should be reminders of ethnic/tribal/social/religious/cultural chasms, exacerbated by China's use of force to absorb minority groups.
  
• "When China Rules the World" -- Hey, we welcome our new insect overlords. Or not.
• "China's 100 Years of Ineptitude" -- or why China's not going to rule the world, or even Asia. (Do you really think that the true Asian democracies will meekly roll over and accept the hegemony of China?)