Was I Right?

As I suspected, Washington Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett was misquoted. Yong Tang repeatedly presses him on the question of whether America should be the leader of the world, and Bennett insists that he doesn't think in those terms, but when Yong Tang says, "First of all I think that America should be the leader," he says,

I don't think you could imagine a world where one country, where one group of people, lead everybody else. I just can't imagine that happening. And I think it would be unhealthy if one country - whether or not it was this country or China or France or Great Britain - would describe itself as the leader of the world. People in other countries do not want to be led by a foreign country....If we are headed into another period of imperialism where either the United States or China, for example, thinks of itself as the leader of its area and where it's interests should prevail over all others interests of its neighbor or others then I think we are headed for an unhappy period. So I guess that's how I would answer that question. Maybe the answer is then no I don't think the United States should be the world leader. But what I really mean to say that I don't think we are headed into a period of history where one country or one set of ideas is going to dominate all others.

Italics mine. So while the context was different, he did say it. But then so did Yong Tang.

Finally, is it disheartening that he wrote "it's interests"?