By Paul Honda
paul@hondareport.com
Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007

Carla Watase doesn't wrestle for Kamehameha or Waiakea or even Kapaa. She is Iolani's three-time state champion, aiming for a fourth crown this weekend. I know next to nothing about wrestling technicalities. Don't ask me what kind of move a kid uses to pin someone. The data bank in my head is completely empty on that stuff. (Which means, actually, that I know nothing, which is less than 'next to nothing.' Brilliant.)

Writing about champions, though, never gets old. As a rule, they are humble, focused and workaholics. Well, if you consider team sports, that rule isn't absolute. In wrestling, which I consider both an individual and team sport, the rule is golden, 100-percent true since I started covering prep sports in 1990.

Carla is almost shy, but that doesn't mean she lacks confidence. She can go from effervescent to steely in a split second. I saw it happen during Richard Walker's photo shoot on Monday at Iolani's wrestling room. The word I'd use for Watase the Warrior?

Sharp.

Sharp, sharp, sharp. Don't get cut.

Middle Kingdom, indeed: China is a real part of the real world now.

How do I know? The China of my youth was the Oppressor, a crusher of independent thought, crucifier of free markets, executor of cultural history.

The China of today? The Chinese stock market has accelerated so quickly in the past decade that a selloff there yesterday triggered a global slide that hadn't been seen since 2003.

Bad news, yes, but also a reminder that China is more than the most populous nation in the world. We're in an age when New China will arrive, building our cars, sinking our economies, emerging as a hub of global trade whether we like it or not.

This has nothing to do, of course, with prep sports, but the implications of a different world for our keiki are undeniable. There is no Cold War with the commies. That relationship is driven today not by nuclear threats, but gargantuan economic trade and slippery policies.

A lot of of folks believe the threat of terror will never end. The reality is that poor people who have been oppressed eventually get their say, if not their way. The sacrificial lambs — young men and boys — who filter into terrorist groups come from some of the poorest, most hostile regions of the world.

Would it be too far off to see economic progress in these hotspots in the near future? Possibly. There was a time when China and the Soviet Union seemed so distant, so unlike us that we couldn't put a human face on their spooky politics.

I just wonder how long it will be before economics in places like Afghanistan and Iraq can begin a turnaround. Nothing talks quite like money, especially to uneducated, poor young men.

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