Of course revaluation of the renminbi is an effective devaluation of the dollar. Doubtless the Chinese will recall, with an eerie sense of deja vu, that America paid for the Vietnam war by stuffing Europe full of dollars, and then devaluing the dollar. The Communist Party of China still has a very large card up its sleeve. It could completely deregulate the economy and so create a massive boom, the mother of all bubbles, and see how the United States likes that. A risky move to be sure, but they might just get away with it. Those, on the other hand, who would enjoy seeing the statues of Mao toppled and blood in the streets, might pause to think about what would replace the Communist Party. There is more than a possibility that it would be an aggressively nationalistic and xenophobic regime. Difficult to see how this would be in the interests of the United States, or of anyone else.

Those you describe most probably are prepared for the hard and violent men. What might cause them worry, however, is the prospect of a convulsion of the State that wipes out the influence of the existing political class. Is the Soviet collapse the best guide here? Perhaps the earlier events in a nation a little to the west of Russia represent a scenario not to be dismissed entirely. An interesting index of progress in that direction, for example, may be the next British election, not for who will win, but for the support expressed for the extreme right-wing and centrifugal parties.