Chinese President Hu Jintao, smarting under the lash of American condescension, was perhaps muttering to himself that the main problem is that United States economy can't "grow up" anymore, and needs China's help - but can't bring itself to ask for it.

However, it looks like Obama may have gone a little too far during a subsequent stop in Australia.

There he laid a wreath at a memorial in Darwin to US victims of the Japanese attack of 1942, and announced the two countries had agreed on a program to rotate 2500 US Marines Corps through Australian military bases in the Northern Territory, thereby establishing a permanent US military presence.

Nothing says "containment" like invoking the historical crimes of the Yellow Peril and plunking down 2,500 marines at the part of Australia closest to China.