Looking at all that, the Chinese must be laughing all the way to the bank when Washington dignitaries — apparently very eager to reestablish friendly relations — keep falling over each other to convince Beijing that the U.S.-China competition does not imply an adversarial posture.

Some pictures of glad-handing suggest that the Chinese don't care. And they surely don't need a semiotician of the late Umberto Eco's caliber to explain to them that competitors are always engaged in adversarial games. Shrugging it all off with the philosophical "never mind" resignation, the Chinese are happy to pocket the money while promoting their own "win-win cooperation" ditties.

Eventually, though, the Chinese, the Japanese and the Germans should think of how long that extraordinary bonanza can last. Who knows, one fine day somebody in Washington might realize that this outrage can no longer be tolerated.

So, here is an idea: Beijing, Tokyo and Berlin should quickly come out with a statement that they are ready — no kidding — to immediately begin buying more, much more, from America while dumping their excess production on somebody else.

That would be a wonderful Twitter line, and it would also pave the way for another gushing torrent of: "I think we'll make a deal with China, and I think it will be a very fair deal for everybody, but it will be a good deal for the United States."

Deals with China don't come easy, though, as Indians and Russians can testify. India unsuccessfully tried to make a border deal with China in April 1960. After a brief war in 1962 and occasional skirmishes, Beijing and Delhi are still talking about an unlikely but crucially important bilateral agreement. And it took 40 years of negotiations for the Russians and the Chinese to agree on their more than 2,600-mile border.

Closer to home, it's been 46 years since the U.S. and China agreed on a "One-China" policy, but Beijing still protests that the agreement is being violated, asking Washington twice last week to stop "official contacts or military ties in any form between the U.S. side and Taiwan region."