By Steve Clemons

(Shop along South Luogo Alley, Beijing; photo credit: Andrew Oros) I have seen a lot of foreigners wearing this ObaMao shirt, but no Chinese yet.

(Learning about Wuxi’s New District Industrial Park; photo credit, Peter Pi) So far, any slice of China and the Chinese people one wants to cut out is full of economic, cultural and intellectual diversity — so I fear that it is very easy for an observer to see what he or she wants to see…

When James and Deborah Fallows lived in Beijing, Jim regularly featured on his blog pictures of the weather — well, the smog — from his balcony. This is not from my balcony but it does capture just how thick the smog is in Beijing right now.

On this trip to China, I haven’t yet made it up to the Shanghai Expo, but I hope to go soon. China’s Pavilion towers among the rest and is a testament to the fact that after a few hundred tough years, China is back.

I’ve been in Beijing for a few days, but in contrast to most of my previous trips here, my schedule thus far has been driven more by happenstance and serendipity than planning.

This is a guest note by Eric Schwartz, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration at the Department of State. Schwartz previously headed the Connect US Fund. He sends regular reports of his overseas work on humanitarian matters, and TWN is pleased to share them here.

(click image for larger version) Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest. He has just returned from Tanzania. Here’s a cartoon I drew on BP’s mess.

As I write this, it is 3:40 am in Buenos Aires where the Argentine Senate is debating a same sex marriage equality bill.

Tom Toles (c) 2010 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Pursuing al Qaeda, a.k.a. Moby Dick.

I write this as a political independent who finds strengths and weaknesses in both of America’s major leading parties, but just as I observed during the battle against John Bolton’s Senate confirmation vote to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, Democrats often declare defeat when they are ahead, and Republicans declare victory even…