"Analysts say distrust between China, US is growing; Report says gap between nations is narrowing fast" by Jane Perlez | New York Times, April 03, 2012
BO’AO, China - The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the US economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst.
China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China becoming the world’s most powerful country, according to the analyst, Wang Jisi.
How would AmeriKa react to someone doing that to them?
Wang is the coauthor of “Addressing US-China Strategic Distrust,’’ a monograph published this week by the Brookings Institution in Washington and the Institute for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. Wang, who has an insider’s view of Chinese foreign policy from his positions on advisory boards of the Chinese Communist Party and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contributed an assessment of Chinese policy toward the United States.
Kenneth Lieberthal, the director of the John L. Thornton Center for China Studies at Brookings and a former member of the National Security Council under President Clinton, wrote the appraisal of Washington’s attitude toward China.
In a joint conclusion, the authors say the level of strategic distrust between Washington and Beijing has become so corrosive that if not corrected the two countries risk becoming open antagonists.
Okay, I'm getting sick of all the conflict talk regarding darn near everyone on the planet in this relentless push to get WWIII of the ground.
The United States is no longer seen as “that awesome, nor is it trustworthy, and its example to the world and admonitions to China should therefore be much discounted,’’ Wang wrote of the general view of China’s leadership.
The fallout of all the thefts and lies of the last 12 years.
In contrast, China has mounting self-confidence in its own economic and military strides, particularly the closing power gap since the start of the Iraq War.
In 2003, he argued, America’s gross domestic product was eight times as large as China’s, but today it is less than three times larger.
The candid writing by Wang is striking because of his influence and access, in Washington as well as in Beijing.
Wang, who is dean of Peking University’s School of International Studies and a guest professor at the National Defense University of the People’s Liberation Army, has wide access to senior US policymakers, making him an unusual repository of information about the thinking in both countries.
Wang said he did not seek approval from the Chinese government to write the study, nor did he consult Chinese leaders about it.
It is fairly rare for a Chinese analyst who is not part of the strident nationalistic drumbeat to strip away the official talk by both the United States and China about mutual cooperation.
There is that pot-hollering-kettle media I love so much. Only difference is mine dances to a supremacist Zionist drummer.
Wang and Lieberthal argue that beneath the surface, both countries see deep dangers and threatening motivations in the policies of the other.
Wang writes that the Chinese leadership, backed by the domestic news media and the education system, believes that China’s turn in the world has arrived and that it is the United States that is “on the wrong side of history.’’
Yes, it's true. The lies that led to the mass-murdering wars and the torture based upon it did that.
And if the psychopaths managing the EUSraeli empire continue the way they are going, they are going to be losers of this one -- and we all know how history judges losers!
In sum, the period of “keeping a low profile,’’ a dictum coined by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1989 and continued until now by outgoing President Hu Jintao, is over, Wang warned.
“It is now a question of how many years, rather than how many decades, before China replaces the United States as the largest economy in the world,’’ he adds.
China’s financial successes, starting with weathering the 1998 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, and the execution of events like the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Shanghai Expo in 2010, contrast with America’s “alarming’’ deficit, sluggish economic recovery, and polarized domestic politics, Wang says.
He does not address head on the far superior strength of the United States in military weaponry.
What, nukes? Because that's the only advantage I see. The endless corruption and looting in AmeriKa's "defense" industry has them turning out s*** (I know, I know, since I never see it in the Globe so it can't be happening). In terms of manpower, you can forget. China has more manpower, and AmeriKa's war-weary Army is so psychologically traumatized it won't even be a contest. And China now has the manufacturing capability that was once the provenance of America and which won us WWII and turned the last 50 years of the 20th-century into the AmeriKan century. You can thank the globalization advocates behind the offshoring and outsourcing for that. I will never, ever blame the Chinese for looking out for their own national interest on that.
But he notes that Beijing has developed advanced rocketry and space technology and sophisticated weapons systems without the United States.
Yeah, and they have nuclear weapons, too. That's a war I'd rather not see waged -- EVER!
In the face of China’s strengths, and worries that the United States will be displaced from its premier position in the world, Washington is engaged in a host of activities, including stepped-up spying by US planes and ships along China’s borders, that anger the Chinese, particularly its military, Wang wrote.
Yeah, but you see, here in AmeriKa that is all for the good, and how could anyone question our altruistic aspirations?
Of course, if it were Chinese ships and planes doing this along the West Coast we would have bombed them already.
Promotion of human rights in China by US-supported nongovernmental organizations is viewed as an effort to Westernize the country and directly undermines the Communist Party, a stance the party will not stand for, he says.
The lying, torturing, mass-murdering empire has no standing to criticize anyone at this point.
That China is increasingly confident that it will prevail in the long run against the United States is backed, in part, by Lieberthal’s appraisal of US policy toward China.
Lieberthal cites findings from US intelligence based on internal discussions among crucial Chinese officials that these officials assume “very much a zero-sum approach’’ when discussing issues directly and indirectly related to US-China relations.
Because these are privileged communications not intended for public consumption, US officials interpret them to be “particularly revealing of China’s real objectives,’’ Lieberthal wrote.
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How much they spending on "defense," anyway?
"China’s rising military spending tops $100b" March 05, 2012|By New York Times
That's it? AmeriKa spends seven times as much.
BEIJING - China announced a double-digit increase in military spending Sunday, a rise that comes amid an intensifying strategic rivalry between the United States and China in Asia and concerns in Washington about the secrecy surrounding the Chinese defense budget....
For its part, China, heavily dependent on imported energy, has shown that it wants greater control of sea lanes off its coast and wants to protect heavily populated and increasingly wealthy cities on its eastern rim.
This strategy along China’s periphery, known in Washington as “antiaccess, area denial’’ has in turn prompted calls at the Pentagon for new weapons systems that can overcome China’s eventual capabilities in its coastal waters.
Oh, all the defense contractors must have just gotten erection$!
Oh, yeah, NO BIG DEAL if we VIOLATE CHINA'S SOVEREIGNTY, right? I mean, it does say THEIR COASTAL WATERS, right?
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So what about the future?
"China’s next leader treated to elaborate welcome in D.C." February 15, 2012|By Ben Feller
WASHINGTON - The man destined to be China’s next leader won an extraordinary welcome across Washington yesterday, a finely scripted opening to one of the world’s most important relationships. Trading kind words of cooperation, President Obama and Xi Jinping also spoke directly about human rights and worsening foreign crises.
Everything about the day reflected just how much China and the United States need each other, no matter what their differences, given their economic and military might and global influence.
I always wondeR who would wANnt to split them apart, and why, over what issue?
Xi got a lengthy Oval Office audience with Obama, an elaborate reception at the State Department, full military honors at the Pentagon, a gathering with chief business executives, and a dinner at Vice President Joe Biden’s house.
At the center of it was a president seeking four more years and the man expected to lead China for the next decade. Xi (whose full name is pronounced shee jeen-ping) is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as China’s president next year.
“I’m sure the American people welcome you,’’ Obama said.
There were no obvious breakthroughs - Xi is not empowered yet - but the stature he is set to assume was enough to draw rare attention.
Never before, for example, has the Pentagon heralded a visiting vice president the way Xi was. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta greeted Xi on the steps of the Pentagon’s River Entrance, facing the Potomac, as US troops held an honor cordon for Xi. He got a 19-gun salute.
The relationship between the nations is complex. It is strengthened by their joint need for international stability and economic growth, yet tested by currency disputes, China’s limits on basic human freedoms, trade imbalances, and growing military tensions.
Obama and Xi said they would maintain a relationship based on the traditional diplomatic speak of mutual interests and respect. They kept their focus on a diverse and cooperative agenda, although Obama did push China on human rights and the importance to recognize the “rights of all people.’’
Does that include the people in, say, Palestine or Kashmir? The hypocrisy becomes galling.
In a separate setting, Xi later defended his country’s rights records over the past 30 years but added: “Of course, there’s always room for improvement on human rights.’’ His comments at the State Department luncheon were similar to those made by Hu during a state visit to Washington a year ago.
For Xi, the itinerary was carefully negotiated to convey high-level significance and minimize the chance of making news or, worse, any gaffe.
Neither he nor Obama took questions.
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"Tibetan exile lights self on fire at anti-China protest in India" Associated Press, March 27, 2012
NEW DELHI — A Tibetan exile lit himself on fire and ran shouting through a demonstration in the Indian capital Monday, just ahead of a visit by China’s president and amid a series of self-immolations done inside Tibet to protest Beijing’s rule.
I find that form of protest to be among the most useless ever imagined. Gandhi didn't do that. What can you do once you are a pile of ashes? The strange thing is the act is revered as some sort bravery here in AmeriKa, probably as a result of memories of Vietnam.
Indian police, who had already tightened security in New Delhi for President Hu Jintao’s visit, swept through the protest a few hours later, detaining scores of Tibetans.
The man apparently had doused himself with something highly flammable and was fully in flames when he ran past the podium where speakers were criticizing China and Hu’s visit.
Fellow activists beat out the flames with Tibetan flags and poured water onto him. He was on fire perhaps less than two minutes, but some of his clothing had disintegrated and he was severely burned.
The man, identified as Jamphel Yeshi, sustained burns on 98 percent of his body and was hospitalized in critical condition, according to the Association of Tibetan Journalists.
Protesters initially prevented police from taking him to the hospital, but officers eventually forcibly took him away.
Yeshi, 27, escaped from Tibet in 2006 and had been living in New Delhi for the past two years, activists said.
Hu is expected to arrive in India on Wednesday for a five-nation economic summit.
While activists had been whispering Monday morning that something dramatic was expected at the protest, organizers insisted they were not behind the self-immolation.
“We have no idea how this happened, but we appreciate the courage,’’ said Tenzing Norsang, an official with the Tibetan Youth Congress. He called on participants at the summit to discuss Tibet.
The New Delhi protest comes amid a series of self-immolations inside Tibet. About 30 people — many of them monks or nuns, and often in their teens or early 20s — set themselves on fire over the past year, calling for the return to Tibet of the Dalai Lama and to protest Chinese rule over their homeland.
The Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet amid a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule, has blamed China’s “ruthless policy’’ for the self-immolations. China accuses the Dalai Lama of stirring up trouble.
The DL was spirited out by the CIA, and he's one of their assets and agents. I know it's a tough one, and it didn't go over to well with me, either; however, it explains the reverence and awe he receives in AmeriKa.
At the site of the protest, a large poster of Hu — with a bloody palm print over his face — read: “Hu Jin Tao is unwelcome’’ at the summit.
More than 600 demonstrators marched across New Delhi to protest Hu’s visit.
China says Tibet has always been part of its territory. Tibetans say the Himalayan region was virtually independent for centuries.
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So China's last "invasion" of anyone was in 1959, huh?
"Self-immolations reflect Tibetans’ anger with China; Crackdown has renewed refugees’ sense of identity" by Simon Denyer | Washington Post, April 03, 2012
DHARAMSALA, India - In this tense and heavily militarized town, police first kicked him and beat him with clubs spiked with nails before dousing the flames, according to witness reports compiled by refugee groups here in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala.
22-year-old Lobsang Jamyang was one of more than 33 Tibetans who have set themselves on fire in a recent wave of copycat acts of resistance against Chinese rule.
This is becoming heartbreaking.
The self-immolations are a reaction to what many Tibetans see as a systematic attempt to destroy their culture, silence their voices, and erase their identity, a Chinese crackdown that has dramatically intensified since protests swept across the region in 2008.
Sort of like what Israel is doing to Palestinians, 'eh?
Before he died, Jamyang had given his friend three messages, said a close friend. One was that Tibetans in his village should work harder to preserve their language against the onslaught of Mandarin; the second was that a couple in his village who had recently divorced should reunite.
“The third message was that Tibetans should be very strong to face China, that Tibetans should not be cowards and should not remain silent,’’ said the friend, who fled his homeland for Dharamsala but remains in touch with local people. Today, Dharamsala is home to thousands of Tibetans, grouped around the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 as an uprising there was brutally crushed.
In spring 2008, as the Beijing Olympics approached, Tibet was once again engulfed in a series of protests and riots in which hundreds were killed and thousands arrested. The response has been brutal, human rights groups say.
A program to resettle Tibet’s nomads into apartments or cinder-block houses and fence off their vast grasslands has gathered pace, the replacement of Tibetan by Chinese as a medium of instruction in schools has been expanded, and government control over Tibet’s Buddhist monasteries, the center of religious and cultural life, has been tightened.
Yet the crackdown seems to have fueled a renewed sense of Tibetan national identity, according to refugees who have fled the region recently for Dharamsala....
Once a week, all across this vast Himalayan plateau, Tibetans wear traditional dress, speak only in Tibetan, and avoid shops run by Han Chinese migrants, a protest known as “White Wednesday.’’
********************************
The Dalai Lama has said he does not condone the immolations, but he has largely removed himself from the debate since he retired from politics last year in favor of a democratically elected exiled administration headed by Lobsang Sangay, a former Harvard professor.
The movement is a western instrument of destabilization.
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"Two who targeted corruption win vote
WUKAN - Two protesters who led a rebellion against officials accused of stealing farmland were elected yesterday to run their fishing village in a much-watched election that reformers hope will promote democracy as a way to settle many of the myriad disputes in China. Thousands of villagers filled in ballots for the seven-member village committee in Wukan in southern China. By the end of the day, the election committee declared Lin Zuluan and Yang Semao the new village head and deputy head. The pair had been instrumental in protests in Wukan last year.(AP)
"China’s gender imbalance improves for newborns" Associated Press, March 30, 2012
BEIJING - The gender imbalance in Chinese newborns has improved for a third year but is still alarmingly high, and progress in combating the problem has slowed....
Yang Juhua, a demographic professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said China should address the gender issue by improving women’s rights.
In China, women lag behind men in job opportunities and compensation.
Good thing that is not the case in AmeriKa, right ladies?
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"China moves to increase criminal rights, limit secret detentions; Legal observers question if reform will be enforced" by Sharon LaFraniere | New york times March 09, 2012
BEIJING - China moved to enhance the rights of suspects and defendants in criminal cases Thursday, recommending that its handpicked national Legislature adopt a series of Western-style safeguards in the most sweeping revisions to its criminal procedure code in 15 years.
They going to allow waterboarding?
The hard-fought changes, amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law, were presented to the National People’s Congress and are almost certain to be adopted next week. The new language would curb the power of the police and prosecutors to detain suspects without notifying relatives; to use evidence extracted by torture; and to keep defense lawyers at bay.
If those are safeguards why are they absent AmeriKan justice these days?
Still, legal analysts said, much of the state’s overwhelming advantage over criminal suspects would be preserved. They also questioned whether the new protections would be enforced....
China’s criminal justice system is steeply tilted in favor of the police and prosecutors.
Oh, just like ours, 'murkn!!!
The vast majority of cases turn on confessions by suspects who have no access to defense lawyers until long after interrogation, if ever. Defense lawyers are powerless to do much except argue for a lesser sentence. Convictions are all but assured....
Why did Gitmo just jump into my mind?
The most controversial provision, dubbed “the disappearance clause’’ by human rights advocates, would have let the police hold suspects for up to six months at secret locations without notifying their relatives.
CIA has a worldwide network.
Human rights activists and legal scholars argue that China’s police use detention in secret sites to restrain and silence government critics, a practice they say has grown in the past three or four years as China has clamped down on dissent. The internationally known artist Ai Weiwei, for instance, was held for 43 days last year in a secret location in Beijing before his wife was allowed to visit....
Legal scholars contend that alerting relatives is important because otherwise suspects and defendants are completely isolated in a system stacked heavily against them, with no way to seek legal help.
Any American who has ever been entangled by the AmeriKan judicial process understands that.
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"Rights activist is missing in China, advocacy group says" New York Times, March 20, 2012
BEIJING - Liu Ping, 47, a rights activist who has angered officials in China with her advocacy of free elections and support of labor and women’s rights issues, has been missing since early this month after she was detained in Beijing by security personnel from her hometown, according to an advocacy group.
Wang Songlian, a researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Monday that Liu’s disappearance was most likely part of a wave of detentions tied to the meetings of China’s handpicked Legislature, the National People’s Congress, and an advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
The meetings typically lead to detentions of people whom the authorities consider troublesome.
Like Occupy Wall Street protesters?
The meetings ended last week.
Liu, who is from the city of Xinyu, sent two text messages to Chinese Human Rights Defenders on March 6, saying that she had been intercepted at a Beijing rail station. Liu’s cellphone has been off since then, Wang said.
People who answered phones at the Xinyu Public Security Bureau and at the city’s detention center said they could not help with inquiries into Liu’s whereabouts.
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But China's not all bad, especially when it comes to bu$ine$$:
"Mass. firms chasing China’s boom; Exports likely to grow as middle class surges" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, April 09, 2012
SHANGHAI - China’s transformation from developing to industrialized nation has already made the Asian giant the state’s third-largest export market, trailing Canada and the United Kingdom, and accounting for nearly $1 out of every $10 in merchandise that Massachusetts companies sell overseas.
As China continues to advance - gaining wealth, expanding the middle class, and losing its low-cost-labor advantage to newly emerging economies - China’s appetite for technology, advanced industrial machinery, medical devices, and other products in which Massachusetts specializes is expected to grow.
China is expanding so fast it essentially builds a city bigger than Boston every year, said Robert Theleen, chief executive of ChinaVest, a Shanghai private equity firm.
Paula Murphy, director of the Massachusetts Export Center, which helps companies expand internationally, estimates China could become the state’s top export market within a decade.
Many of the state’s marquee firms, including the financial services company State Street Corp., medical device maker Boston Scientific Corp., and data storage giant EMC Corp., already have a significant presence in China, while a long list of small to mid-size companies have established sales offices or hired local sales reps to export into Chinese markets, Murphy said.
Related:
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I can't figure out why China would want them there.
Companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Waltham instrument maker, and Boston’s Cabot Corp. are not only shipping their products to the country, but also making them there. Thermo Fisher has nearly 2,000 employees in China to manufacture, assemble, and sell air-quality monitors, food-safety testing devices, and medical research instruments.
Cabot employs roughly 600 workers in China, including at the plant in Shanghai’s Minhang district....
As Massachusetts companies grow in China, benefits flow back home in the form of greater revenues, higher profits, new investment, and more jobs....
Yeah, unless you worked at Evergreen -- and it only cost Massachusetts taxpayers over $300 million dollars.
Shanghai is China’s commercial center, a magnet for foreign investment and a place where many US and Massachusetts companies establish footholds. The Pudong District, just east of the Huangpu River, which cuts the city in half, illustrates the changes reshaping the Chinese economy.
Fifteen years ago, it was a swampy section of dilapidated buildings and marginal farmland. Today, the district is a business hub edged with skyscrapers, including the futuristic, needle-like Oriental Pearl TV Tower. Construction cranes dot the horizon, filling any gaps between buildings....
As China matures, incomes rise, and the middle class expands, that should be increasingly good for Massachusetts companies, which tend to make expensive products, such as specialty chemicals, biotechnology drugs, sophisticated medical devices, and other technologies that are in greater demand in wealthy, developed countries....
Good for some Massachusetts businesses. Strange how a shrinking middle class is consider good here in AmeriKa.
Despite the rapid growth, companies face enormous challenges doing business in China.
They must deal with policies that dictate whether a foreign company can work independently, or must partner with a local firm - a stipulation that often requires the non-Chinese company to share technology to benefit the indigenous operation.
They face an uncertain legal and regulatory environment, in which enforcement is spotty and intellectual property is at risk.
They don't face that in AmeriKa?
Finally, they must compete with a growing number of Chinese and foreign companies piling into the huge and growing market....
The rest reads like a company promotional pamphlet.
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Also see: China changes transplant strategy
Forgive me, but whenever I see transplants in my paper I think of Israel's worldwide organ-harvesting ring.
