Today, current Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano, along with former DHS Secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, participated in a panel discussion moderated by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell to celebrate the eighth anniversary of DHS. During the conversation, Ridge made the case that those who are blocking immigration reform simply “need to get over it” and come up with a solution:

I do hope that some time in the future we do end up looking at our immigration policy generally. It’s great to talk about defense we do, enforcement we do. At the end of the day, the demographics in the United States suggests that we will need additional labor going back and forth across the border in a lawful way. [...]

At some point in time I just hope that Congress accepts the responsibility and I can say this because I was there for twelve years and voted for “amnesty” under Ronald Reagan. At some you’ve got to say to yourself, ‘We’re not sending 12 million people home. Let’s get over it…So let’s just figure out a way to legitimize their status, create a new system, and I think that will add more to border security than any number of fences we can put across the border.

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Ridge also told Americans not to be “arrogant” and just assume that everyone who emigrates to the U.S. wants to become an American citizen. “A lot of them would just love to come up here, work lawfully, and go home,” stated Ridge. While that may be true for a significant portion of the undocumented population, many undocumented immigrants have built families and established roots in the country.

Ridge’s successor, Michael Chertoff, echoed Ridge’s sentiments, saying that “we’re going to have to come up with a solution that takes into account not only the need for enforcement, but to deal with the immigration system overall comprehensively.” Chertoff also noted that “most people who come across the border are not coming to do harm to the U.S., they’re coming across the border for jobs that either Americans don’t want to work or the wage isn’t attractive.”

Ridge also lamented that “sometimes there has been hyperbole associated with the language and a general feeling that if you’re a Muslim you’ve been condemned.” He warned politicians to be “careful about the language we use to describe the jihadists and extremists.”

Earlier this year when President Hu of China came to the US, Washington was a buzz in talk of declinism. China in the relatively near future could overtake the US as having the world’s largest economy, which according to the declinist meme, would make China more powerful than the US (no matter that the EU, which operates as a single economic entity in global affairs is bigger than the US). Yet the events of the last few months in the Middle East should throw some cold water on the notion that China is a few more good years of economic growth away from being a new global hegemon. China’s problem is that no one really cares what it has to say.

Okay, people of course care what China says. But on issues and events that don’t have a direct connection to China, the world doesn’t seem to care very much. The events in the Middle East seem to demonstrate this. Over the last couple of months, the world has been closely following every murmur out of the US government. Whether from President Obama, Secretary Clinton, or even State Department spokesman PJ Crowley, every word receives a ton of coverage and is heavily analyzed and scrutinized not just in the US, but around the world. An almost ubiquitous conversation topic in the global media has been the timing of Obama administration statements — should they have come sooner, has the Administration been too cautious, etc, etc. These statements are scrutinized because they matter.

Yet few in the global media are anxiously waiting for the comments from the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman. When it comes to big global political events in which China is not directly involved, no one seems to care what it has to say. The world looks to Washington, not to Beijing.

This is not because the size of our economy vis-a-vis China, it is because Washington has something that China doesn’t — a ton of like minded allies. And with our network of alliances and allies, we have helped build something of an international order. This order is incomplete, often weak, we often do stupid things to weaken it (coalition of the willing anyone?), and we are by no means all powerful in dictating what other countries do. But when push comes to shove, countries in Europe, South America, Africa, and much of Asia are strongly committed to maintaining it and sometimes strengthening it. Therefore, when there is upheaval in the world, we are looked to for direction and our words matter.

China doesn’t have an international system it is pushing, it has China. And it is pretty hard to develop a new alternative international order in an age of nationalism, liberalism, and democracy whose sole function is to benefit the mothership power. China is developing and expanding its relations with other countries and building somewhat of a network of associates. But these are largely transactional relationships. A vivid example of the nature of China’s priorities was evident in the evacuation of Chinese oil workers from Libya. China was in Libya because it could get oil, but in Egypt, where resources are scarce, China was relatively absent. For the US the situation was reversed. We had close ties with Egypt and paid it billions, despite it being resource poor, because Egypt is critical to regional stability and peace.
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