I wanted to end today's run of posts with something positive.
"Taiwan's rapidly improving ties with longtime foe China are diminishing US influence"
My propaganda pre$$ can't have that!
"China, Taiwan hold first official talks since 1949; Breakthroughs not expected, just less tension" by Austin Ramzy | New York Times, February 12, 2014
TAIPEI — Representatives of Taiwan and China on Tuesday held their first official talks since the end of China’s civil war in 1949, a meeting expected to produce few concrete results but one that marked a symbolic development in the easing of the two sides’ longtime rivalry....
How do you like the slanted narrative by my Jewi$h pre$$?
China considers Taiwan to be a part of its territory that must eventually be reunited. It has reacted angrily in the past to steps seen as moving the self-governed island toward formal independence.
In 1995 and 1996, it fired missiles into waters around Taiwan ahead of its first democratic presidential election, and it regularly denounced Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan’s independent-leaning president from 2000 to 2008.
Following the 2008 election of President Ma Ying-jeou, who favors closer ties with the mainland, Beijing has taken a more conciliatory approach.
Yeah, stop living in the past, NYT.
Cross-strait trade has nearly doubled over the course of Ma’s presidency, reaching $197 billion last year. Nearly 3 million Chinese traveled to Taiwan last year, constituting the largest single group of visitors following Taiwan’s easing of restrictions on mainland arrivals starting in 2008.
The two sides signed a landmark trade agreement, the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, in 2010. A follow-up agreement to the trade accord has been held up in Taiwan’s legislature....
Related:
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has made it clear he doesn’t intend to seek passage of a second Obama priority, this one a bill to facilitate passage of trade deals with Europe and Asia. ‘‘I’m against fast track,’’ said the man who sets the Senate’s agenda, referring to the measure Obama wants. ‘‘I think everyone would be well advised just to not push this right now.’’"
Yeah, wait until after the elections.
Even as the two sides spoke of closer ties, some developments revealed how many differences remain. China prevented Taipei-based reporters from Apple Daily, an aggressive tabloid newspaper, and Radio Free Asia, a broadcasting service that receives US government financing, from attending the meeting. While China maintains strict controls on domestic and foreign journalists, Taiwan is known for its aggressive media outlets.
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I see now why the U.S. has been trying to used the Korean and Japanese cards to goad China into war.
Related:
"China put a leading activist on trial Wednesday for demanding government transparency, but barred diplomats from attending and roughed up foreign journalists trying to report from nearby streets. On Wednesday, hours before the trial began, the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a report detailing how families of elite Chinese leaders, including China’s president, had squirreled away their wealth in secret offshore tax havens. The group’s website and foreign news about the report were immediately blocked in China."
Treating you guys worse in China than Russia, huh?
Also see:
Chinese prosecutors charge activist
China puts more activists on trial
Hey, at least they are doing something about corruption.
Related:
12 killed as violence rocks western China
China announces offenses against detained scholar
Uighur Muslims released by US after 10 years
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"An American businessman who is accused of loansharking, arson, kidnapping rivals, and paying thugs to toss acid in the face of a judge, among other crimes, went on trial this week in a case that has raised questions about the use of forced confessions by Chinese courts and prompted concern from US officials. In a deposition, he said he had been hung from the ceiling by his arms, force-fed stimulants that kept him awake for days and beaten until he signed the confession."
You know, the kind of thing AmeriKa has done at Bagram and CIA black sites.
Is "businessman" the CIA agent's NOC?
Time for the Globe to do some $oul-$earching:
"The recent apologies, though, have received widespread news coverage in China’s state-controlled media, suggesting a fresh willingness to hold perpetrators of violence accountable. The Cultural Revolution remains a touchy subject, and some critics have turned on the apologizers for dredging up old ghosts. But as so many countries recovering from upheaval have learned, confronting the past is better than burying it."
That's when the mirror shattered!
Related:
Six Zionist Companies Own 96% of the World's Media
Declassified: Massive Israeli manipulation of US media exposed
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Looks to me like they got lo$t in more ways than one.
Yeah, through my pri$m of a paper China looks like a real mess, what with the GM plant, the factory fires, the baby-selling, the coal mines, and bird flu is coming for the New Year (the year of the horse means war!) so take your shot even if it kills you (as my whoreporate pre$$ takes out the connection to Merck).
"With awareness rising of China’s severe environmental degradation, there has been a surge of anxiety in the last year among ordinary Chinese and some officials over soil pollution in the country’s agricultural centers and the potential effects on the food chain. Increasingly, Chinese news organizations are reporting on clusters of villages that have high rates of cancer, raising questions about the potential link between cancer and various forms of pollution."
Then the Chinese media is better than my whoreporate po$ pre$$ that minimizes or ignores such things.
Then again, maybe there is hope for them after all, even if there is none for India.
Related: Slowdown in China beginning to ripple around globe
Oh, is that what is going to be blamed for the collapse of the Federal Reserve Ponzi scheme and destruction of the AmeriKan economy? It was all China's fault? I suppose that will get the U.S. out of paying off all those Treasury bonds they bought.
Next thing you know they will be blaming China for the cold weather and the fire in Tibet.
I'll bet I know who can fix it all:
"Senate OK’s Max Baucus as China envoy" by Alan Fram | Associated Press, February 07, 2014
WASHINGTON — The Senate easily confirmed longtime Senator Max Baucus on Thursday to become ambassador to China, handing the job to a lawmaker well-versed in US trade policy but with little expertise about military and other issues that have raised tensions with Beijing.
Senators gave final approval to the nomination of the moderate Montana Democrat by a vote of 96 to 0. Baucus, 72, accepted colleagues’ congratulations before and during the roll call and voted ‘‘present’’ for his own nomination.
So much for the fal$e parti$an$hip narrative of the propaganda pre$$.
Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus has worked with Republicans during his 35 years in the Senate on issues ranging from taxes to health care reform — an independent streak that has vexed Democratic colleagues.
Baucus supported President George W. Bush’s sweeping 2001 tax cuts and his 2003 creation of Medicare prescription drug benefits, despite opposition by many Democrats. He also helped write President Obama’s 2010 health care law.
Then he should be on trial!
Btw, Obama waived damn near the whole bill.
In 2001, Baucus championed China’s inclusion in the World Trade Organization, which has helped Beijing conduct business with other countries. He has sponsored legislation — not enacted — punishing China for undervaluing its currency and has criticized Beijing for blocking US imports of beef.
Then he should have an enjoyable stay.
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He should have as much success as China reaching the moon:
"China’s lunar rover has mechanical trouble" Associated Press, January 28, 2014
BEIJING — China says its first lunar rover is experiencing mechanical problems, a rare setback for its burgeoning space program that in recent years has conducted space walks and placed a space station in orbit....
The 300-pound rover was traversing a relatively flat part of the moon known as Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows....
Online speculation focused on the possibility of lunar dust having blocked one of the solar panels from folding inward, leaving equipment exposed to the dangerously low temperatures. It won’t be known if the probe is able to function again until after the two-week break.
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Related:
"I see that the Chinese Jade Rabbit "probe" on the moon is now in trouble... Supposedly the Chinese rover has suffered a major "malfunction" and is unable to turn itself off for the long period of lunar night where the temperatures are around -240F. Such extremes between lunar "day" of +250F temperatures and "night" of -240F temperatures will indeed damage or destroy electronic equipment ( but not supposedly on NASA's Apollo missions, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), and the Jade Rabbit is now at the mercy of this swing in temperature with the resultant destruction of its on-board electronics. I am still not buying the entire Chinese rover on the moon bit though, because from day one I looked at it as a massive fraud... But this latest occurrence does give the Chinese their much needed excuse to end this fraud and "save face".....China has been faking its space missions for years now, and Jade Rabbit is just the latest in this list of frauds....
Well, I guess that is enough for now... But of course I have those amazing last minute tidbits that everyone is waiting for..... Speaking of frauds in space, I am still waiting for the word from NASA for their mystery "rock" that magically appeared beside their Opportunity rover on Mars. I still say whistle blowing by someone fed up with NASA's lies, but I am dying to hear NASA's own excuse.....
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I used to believe, but.... they never made it to Mars?
