If you haven’t seen this interview with the managing editor of the Washington Post, Philip Bennet, in the Chinese People’s Daily Online, check it out:

Yong Tang: In such sense, do you think America should be the leader of the world?

Bennett: No, I don’t think US should be the leader of the world. My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now. What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it. I don’t think you can imagine a world where one country or one group of people could lead everybody else. I can’t imagine that could happen. I also think it is unhealthy to have one country as the leader of the world. People in other countries don’t want to be led by foreign countries. They may want to have good relations with it or they may want to share with what is good in that country.

That is also a sort of colonial question. The world has gone through colonialism and imperialism. We have seen the danger and shortcomings of those systems. If we are heading into another period of imperialism where the US thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others, then I think the world will be in an unhappy period.

… and …

Bennett: … I don’t think there is much evidence that promoting democracy is what the US is doing. It is what it says it is doing…

Spinbad has a good deconstruction of this interview. The National Ledger has more. Michelle Malkin pointed out on Friday that there is a chance that nuances were lost in translation.