CAMBRIDGE, England -- There has been much talk in China recently about hegemony. Some of it has been about denying that China has hegemonic interests in East Asia. But most of it has related to the United States. One wonders if everyone in China understands what is being complained about. I have this image of Chinese President Jiang Zemin with his grandchild on his knee asking "Granddad, what's hegemony?"

Jiang could have gotten some clues from the Daily Mirror, one of Britain's largest tabloid newspapers, on July 4, Independence Day in the U.S. "The USA is now the world's leading rogue state," it screamed across its front page. "Mourn on the Fourth of July," it advised its readers in a banner headline.

The Daily Mirror's complaint was that the U.S. is not only becoming unilateralist but that it is using its superior power to mold the world in its own interests. As examples of its hegemony, it lists the "unsigning" of the Kyoto Treaty on the environment; Washington's attempt to block the establishment of the International Criminal Court and its successful campaign blocking the court's jurisdiction over U.S. soldiers; the blocking of proposals for increased aid to the Third World at summits in Rome (by absence) and in Canada and Indonesia (by design); and its expansion of agricultural subsidies that will disrupt world trade. It also suggests that the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns and its support for Israel's illegal activities in the Palestinian territories are justified in U.S. eyes in terms of securing U.S. access to oil and gas and its policy of "containing" China.