Inch by inch

Even though The New Yorker's Evan Osnos is writing specifically about the Google situation, I think this last paragraph of this March 25 dispatch could apply to a variety of situations here. Of course, I am specifically thinking about the status of the Church here, where any given day can deliver good news, bad news, or a mixed bag of news. 

There is, however, a deeper, more troubling sensation. As Americans living in China at this moment in its history, many of us have fashioned an image of a country that is moving—in its own shambling pattern of fits and starts—toward something better for itself and the world. Sure, it thrashes around a lot along the way, but on many days it seems to end up a fraction of an inch closer to a better, healthier, more humane way of life. But this is not one of those days. A superpower that is willing to jettison a tool so central to life as a global citizen begins to look less like a calculatingly pragmatic steward of its people’s interests and more like an addled Goliath.