China » Undiplomatic

1 December 2008 Charles J. Brown
09:20 pm

India-Pakistan: China, Obama,and the Specter of 1914

Given the increasingly heated rhetoric between India and Pakistan, two questions come to mind, one obvious, the other not so much. Will this spiral out of control and lead to war, including perhaps a nuclear exchange? And what will China do? Specifically, what happens if China comes in on Pakistan’s side?

Remember that the First World War began when a small group of Serbian nationalists committed an act of terrorism on Austrian soil (or at least Austrian-controlled soil). But things didn’t get out of hand until Russia came in on Serbia’s side and Germany did the same in the case of Austria-Hungary.

If I were President-elect Obama, I’d get Hillary on a plane now, preferably on a joint mission with The Condi. We can’t wait until January 20th to allow this thing to get completely out of control. Because the current crisis is no more about terrorism than it was in 1914.

Obamamania in China

A montage of Chinese newspapers’ front pages, via Danwei:

Here’s one reporter’s story about what he saw in a pub in Beijing:

Barack Obama’s victory seems to mean something special in China. Four years ago I was in a Hong Kong restaurant on election night, and the only responses were tepid nods and pats on the back. In the packed Beijing bar where I watched the election returns this year the mood was celebratory. I saw the first champagne drinker around 11:30 a.m. When Obama’s win was declared by CNN a half hour later, the room erupted in cheers. A few people began crying.

Remember that Chinese nationalism has led many Chinese tor regard the United States as an antagonist. For average citizens to react to Obama’s win may lead to a shift in that perception. Of course, that probably will not result in a similar change in the Chinese government’s perception.

Morning Buzz: Chinese Democracy

First shock: Axl Rose finally got around to releasing “Chinese Democracy,” the new Guns-n-Roses album. For those unaware of the saga, just know that it took something like twenty years and evry other member of the band quit in frustration over a decage ago — it was, until now, the most famous failed rock album since the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.”

Second shock: “Chinese Democracy,” the first single, is surprisingly not-half-bad. Trust me — I hated GN’R. This is tantamount to me saying I spend my evenings listening to “Tammy Faye Baker Sings PTL Club Favorites.”

Granted, the guitar solo on the bridge is so old-school awful that it sounds like the dude-that-replaced-Slash is consciously channeling David St. Hubbins, but other than that, there’s not much to complain about. For me it sounded more like Blue Oyster Cült’s “Godzilla” or The Move’s “Brontosaurus” than “Welcome to the Jungle” or any other GN’R late 80s metal cliché.

Third shock: Axl doesn’t scream. Not once. Well, sorta at the beginning, but it’s not part of the lyrics.

Fourth shock: the song is about. . .wait for it. . .the future of democracy in China. That’s right — Axl Rose is really, really pissed at the ChiComs.

Really.

Granted, the lyrics aren’t that sophisticated. Okay, they’re lame. He rhymes Falun Gong with, uh, now.

CHINESE DEMOCRACY
It don’t really matter
You’ll find out for yourself
No, it don’t really matter
I’m gonna leave this thing to somebody else

If they were missionaries
Real time visionaries
Sitting in a chinese stew
To view my disinfatuation

I know that I’m a classic case
Watch my disenchanted face
Blame it on the Falun Gong
They see the hand and you can’t hold on now

Cause it would take a lot more hate than you
To stop the fascination
Even with an iron fist
All they’ve got to rule the nation
But all I got is precious time

It don’t really matter
Guess I’ll keep it to myself
No, it don’t really matter
I guess you’ll leave this thing to somebody else

Cause it would take a lot more time than you
Have got for masturbation
Even with your iron fist
All they’ve got to rule the nation
But all I got is precious time
All they’ve got to rule the nation
But all I got is precious time

It don’t really matter
I guess you’ll find out for yourself
No, it don’t really matter
So you can hear it now from somebody else

You think you’ve got it all locked up inside
And if you beat ‘em enough they’ll die
It’s like a walk in a park from a cell
And now you’re keeping your own kind in hell
And if you’re Great Wall rocks blame your self
While they all reach out for you hand/help?
And we’re out of time…

But hey — who’da thunk Axl Rose could be political? Now we know why he wasn’t invited to perform during the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

But dude — masturbation with an iron fist? Ouch. And ewwww.

Axis of Photoshop: Card Games

Once again, I have to give props to the North Koreans. Kim Jong “License to” Il and friends may represent the worst dictatorship in the world, but when it comes to propaganda, few can rival them. We’ve already taken a look at their propaganda posters; today, we’ll look at their mass display card rallies.

If you thought the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics were scarily impressive, wait until you see what the North Koreans can do. There’s a reason Chinese director Zhang Yimou mindlessly worships their precision. The only problem, of course, is that it comes at a small cost: a destroyed country, mass starvation, torture, cruelty, and a bats**t crazy supreme leader.

A few weeks ago, I ran across the work of freelance photographer Eric Lafforgue, who recently traveled to North Korea to document conditions there. Eric has kindly allowed me to reproduce some of his work here. Please keep in mind, however, that all these photos are ©Eric Lafforgue, and should not be reproduced without his permission.

The following photos all examples of something called “mass games” or “mass gymnastics.” From Wikipedia:

Mass games or mass gymnastics are a form of performing arts or gymnastics in which large numbers of performers take part in a highly regimented performance that emphasizes group dynamics rather than individual prowess. Because of the vast scale of the performance, with often tens of thousands of performers, mass games are performed in stadiums, often accompanied by a background of card-turners occupying the seats on the opposite side from the viewers. Mass games are typically used to emphasize themes of political propaganda. . . .

Today, mass games are regularly performed only in North Korea, where they take place to celebrate national holidays such as the birthdays of rulers Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il. In recent years, they have been the main attraction of the Arirang Festival in Pyongyang.

The following images are from this year’s Ariang Festival, which took place on September 12, 2008. Keep in mind that those little black dots in each photo are actually the kids’ heads.

Eric: “Food crisis? What food crisis?”

Eric: “Legend says that Kim Il Sung, using the two pistols inherited from his father, founded the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army (AJPGA), the first of its kind in Korean history, in April Juche 21 (1932). So if you visit North Korea, you will see many images of these two pistols.”

Eric: “The photo shows 100,000 people performing a choreographed dancing and gymnastics routine on the pitch of Pyongyang’s May Day stadium. In the background, 20,000 performers flip colored cards to form detailed pictures. . . .This picture is supposed to be Pyongyang at night, which is funny because Pyongyang at night is dark.”

Thanks once again to Eric for giving me permission to reproduce his amazing photos. Please remember that all photos are ©Eric Lafforgue. Be sure to check out Eric’s entire photostream — it’s pretty remarkable. You can find the North Korea photos here.

The Nobel Committee Chickens Out

With all due respect to Martti Ahtisaari, who has played an outstanding role over the years in mediating conflicts, I cannot believe that he was the best choice for the Nobel Peace Prize, especially given the speculation that the Nobel Committee was considering giving it to Hu Jia and/or other Chinese activists.

Honoring another European bureaucrat-politician at a time when China’s human rights activists labor in anonymity, largely forgotten around the world (or worse, willfully ignored in order to appease the ChiComs) is both a travesty and a farce.

I once heard a story, perhaps apocryphal, that upon learning that he had been nominated for the Peace prize, Vaclav Havel urged the committee to consider instead a then-little-known human rights and democracy activist from the other side of the world. The result was the awarding of the Prize in 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, an act that has helped maintain public awareness of and support for the cause of human rights and democracy in Burma.

It is a shame that Mr. Ahtisaari did not do the same when he was nominated.

Never Again? Really?

Further proof that the Chinese are integrating the best parts of Western culture into their system.

Controlympics: Gonna Pro’ No Mo’ (Not That I Ever Could)

Ha! Just when you thought there was no freaking way I could write another Olympics story, I mean with the economic crisis and election and other stuff, I, uh, do.

Remember those “protest zones” that China set up as part of its agreement with the International Sycophant Olympic Committee? Well it turns out they’ve gone bye-bye.

The three parks in downtown Beijing designated as demonstration zones during the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics will cease function upon the ending of both Games, a senior official with the Games organizing committee said here on Wednesday.

“In future, relevant departments will continue to accept and handle demonstration applications in accordance with China’s law on assemblies, processions and demonstrations as well as the law’s implementation methods,” said Liu Shaowu, director of the security department under the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG).

The three parks, namely the Zizhuyuan Park, Ritan Park and World Park, were approved to serve as demonstration areas during the two Games in accordance with the requirement of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the common practice of other host cities of major international events, said Liu.

“During the Games, relevant departments received a number of demonstration applications from home and abroad. Except for very few cases that were not allowed by Chinese laws, all applications aimed at the settlement of some specific problems and issues,” said the official.

Through consultations between relevant authorities and the applicants, all the problems and issues were handled and settled properly, and the applicants withdrew their applications voluntarily, he added.

The final score, in case you were wondering is zero protests in the protest zones. And not a peep from the IOC.

Believe it or not, that’s not the worst of it. The ChiComs learned so much during the games:

[Liu] revealed that the Beijing 2008 Games have applied many high-tech security systems and facilities, such as the venue security control system, electronic ticket and card verification system, communications guarantee system, monitoring system, counterterror and riot-prevention system, and the security screening facilities.

And the planning, design, installation and application of these first-class systems and facilities have kept pace with the design and construction of all Games venues, to avoid incompatibility and ineffectiveness, he noted.

Avoiding incompatibility and ineffectiveness helps avoid other problems — like pesky protesters, free speech, and religious freedom. You can bet that those cameras and other “high-tech security systems” will now be used to control dissent.

Can’t wait for Sochi 2014. Gonna be a laugh riot, I’m sure.

Hat tip: China Digital Times

China and the Financial Crisis

James Fallows links to a Fareed Zakaria interview with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao:

ZAKARIA: There is another sense in which we are interdependent. China is the largest holder of U.S. Treasury bills. By some accounts, you hold almost $1 trillion of it. It makes Americans - some Americans - uneasy. Can you reassure them that China would never use this status as a weapon in some form?

WEN (voice of interpreter): As I said, we believe that the U.S. real economy is still solidly based, particularly in the high-tech industries and the basic industries. Now, something has gone wrong in the virtual economy. But if this problem is properly addressed, then it is still possible to stabilize the economy in this country….

Of course, we are concerned about the safety and security of Chinese money here. But we believe that the United States is a credible country, and particularly at such difficult times, China has reached out to the United States.

I actually like Wen’s distinction between the real economy and the virtual economy. I’ve noted that I believe that this is a crisis of confidence, not liquidity, and Wen’s analysis is consistent with that. What’s missing, however, is the question of whether the real economy can operate without the virtual economy’s credit.

My second reaction is that this is the way Greenspan and Rubin talked about the bailouts of Asia, Russia, and Mexico back in the Clinton Administration. Even though the Chinese have not acted proactively to help get us out of the mess we’re in right now, they also are doing nothing to put their dollar reserves at risk. That in and of itself is helping to prop up the dollar more than I expected.

Welcome to the post-American century. It may not yet be China’s but it’s not ours anymore either.

Twenty Questions for the Debate Tonight

Twenty questions I would like to see asked at the debate tonight:

1. Are we at war with Pakistan? Senator Obama, given your pledge to go into Pakistan, if necessary, to take out Osama bin Laden, do you support President Bush’s current counter-insurgency efforts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border? And Senator McCain, when Senator Obama made those comments, you accused him of being reckless. Do you now think President Bush is being reckless?

2. Numerous reports have indicated that the State Department is woefully underfunded and understaffed. Secretary Gates, among others, has urged Congress and the President to take steps to address these concerns. Congress has largely been unsympathetic. What would you do, as President to make the State Department more effective, and to give it the resources it needs to succeed?

3. Do you support making USAID a cabinet-level agency? Given the current financial crisis, can the United States afford to continue its foreign assistance programs? Do you support reestablishing the US Information Agency or a similar construct to coordinate and strengthen our public diplomacy?

4. Is the United States more or less safe and secure than it was on September 12, 2001? Why or why not?

5. Senator McCain, can you please tell me what the difference is between Russian incursions into Georgia and American incursions into Pakistan? Don’t both involve a large power moving into territory controlled by a democratic ally of the United States?

6. Some have argued that the American century is over and that China will soon be the world’s dominant economic and political power. Do you think that is accurate? Why or why not? Would it matter if the United States wasn’t the biggest dog in the yard anymore?

7. Senator McCain, five former Secretaries of State, including two who have endorsed you, have called for dialogue with Iran without preconditions. You have stated your opposition, and your candidate for Vice President has suggested that such views are naive. Yet when it came time for you to choose someone to brief Sarah Palin on foreign policy, you asked Henry Kissinger, one of those five, to do it. Do you still believe that it is not possible for the United States not to talk to Iran?

8. Senator Obama, are there any situations where you think it would be necessary to set conditions before meeting with a foreign leader? In other words, is there anything that any leader can do that would make it impossible for you to meet with him or her?

9. Senator McCain, your running mate has suggested that the United States should not second-guess Israel should it decide to attack Iran. Is that your view as well? Senator Obama, do you agree or disagree?

10. Both of you have called on the Bush Administration to close Guantanamo and to end the practice of torture. There is growing evidence that Bush Administration officials may have violated U.S. law as well as treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. Would you favor the investigation of such allegations and the prosecution of those, up to an including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, found to have broken American laws including statutes against war crimes?

11. What can the United States do to strenghten the United Nations?

12. Should the United States ratify the International Criminal Court treaty?

13. What can the United States do to prevent genocide? Would you favor military intervention by U.S. forces if it could help prevent a genocide? Would you have intervened in Rwanda? What are you going to do in Sudan?

14. What is the one foreign policy issue that you think is currently under the radar but will have an impact on your administration?

15. Most of the world has come to regard the United States as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. What steps would you take to reverse that?

16. Have we “lost” Latin America? What steps would you take to reverse growing anti-Americanism in the region?

17. When this campaign started, no issue was bigger than Iraq. Now it appears to be an almost forgotten issue. Senator McCain, given Prime Minister Maliki’s outspoken desire to see American troops leave, why do you continue to oppose a phased withdrawal from Iraq? Senator Obama, is there any situation where you can see American troops remaining in Iraq beyond the timetable you outlined?

18. Is the war in Afghanistan lost? Would you favor a surge there along the lines of what happened in Iraq?

19. Senator McCain, how can we afford to stay in Iraq and deal with the financial crisis at home? Senator Obama, you have suggested moving troops in Iraq to deal with the growing crisis in Afghanistan. Can we afford to do that as well?

20. Given the fact that Russo-American relations have cooled considerably since Russia’s invasion of Georgia, what steps would you take to ensure continued Russian-American cooperation on anti-proliferation measures, including not only implementation of Nunn-Lugar, but also the situations in Iran and North Korea?

Add your own questions in the comments below.

I Wish This Was from The Onion. . .

. . .but it’s not. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sent a letter to Ben and Jerry’s:

Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America’s number one cause of death.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream?

Oh. My. God. I think I need to call my therapist.

Here’s the response from Ben and Jerry’s:

We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child.

What makes this particularly obnoxious is the fact that they did this right in the middle of a major scandal in China, where 2 children have died and more than 1,200 have fallen ill because of tainted baby formula. Once again, PETA demonstrates a level of sensitivity that makes a brain-eating zombie look compassionate in comparison.

PETA press releases can be a hazard to your health as well. They have been linked to hysterical laughter, shock, heart attacks, brain damage, aneurysms, nervous breakdowns, psychotic breaks, and uncontrolled and profane verbal diarrhea. In fact, I think I feel some coming on right now.

While You Were Watching McCain Implode: China Rises

So at the very moment that everyone in Washington is running around flapping their arms and Johnny McPalin is continuing to campaign while suspending his campaign, here’s the news out of China:

China on Thursday successfully launched a three-man crew into space where one of them will make the country’s first spacewalk, the country’s most challenging space mission since first launching a person into space in 2003.

And in case you didn’t know it, NASA turns 50 this week. And it sure seems to be suffering a bad case of schlerosis:

NASA is delaying next month’s shuttle launch to the Hubble Space Telescope because of problems stemming from Hurricane Ike and replacement parts for the observatory.

China is designing a sports car while the United States is desperately trying to keep its ancient Studebaker from falling apart.

Would the last person still believing in the continued dominance of American power please turn out the lights?

This is China’s century now.

Life under House Arrest in China: Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for those standing up to the ChiComs, if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be under house arrest, watch this extraordinary samizdat videos from Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, two Chinese human rights activists who also are husband and wife. Hu currently is in jail and Zeng is constantly harassed.

You can find more here and here. A version that shows the highlights of all four videos can be found here.

Today, there’s word that Hu and Zeng may be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

This year’s Nobel peace prize will most likely be awarded to a Chinese dissident to highlight China’s human rights record in the wake of the Olympic Games, according to experts who closely follow the workings of the award.

A likely candidate to receive the prize, the winner of which will be announced on October 10 in Oslo, is Hu Jia, a Chinese activist who has campaigned on democracy, the environment and the rights of HIV/Aids patients. Hu is serving three-and-a-half years in jail for “inciting to subvert state power”.

“The prize will go this year to a Chinese dissident and I believe the most likely [recipient] will be Hu Jia, perhaps together with his wife [Zeng Jinyan],” said Stein Toennesson, director of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, and a close observer of the peace prize. “He has become the most well known Chinese dissident now and it has been a very long time since anyone [related to China] has won the prize.” The last occasion was the Dalai Lama in 1989.

The list of those nominated is always fodder for entertainment. This year’s list includes 164 individuals and 33 organizations. No Jerry Lewis, but believe it or not, Vladimir Putin was nominated. So was the Esperanto language. I know a certain professor friend of mine in St. Louis who will be delighted to hear about the latter.

In all seriousness, let’s hope that this is not merely a rumor, but the truth. Human rights activists in China are all but forgotten, swept aside by the glitz and glamour of the Olympics.

Compare and Contrast: Obama and Paulson on Economic Crisis

Here’s part of what Barack Obama said today about the problems plaguing Wall Street:

The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Now here’s part of what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said today:

We’re working through a difficult period in our financial markets right now as we work of some of the past excesses, but the American people can remain confident in the soundness and resilience of our financial system. . . . We’ve got excesses we need to work through and we need to work through them as quickly as possible, and I think we’re making progress.

I appreciate the fact that Paulson is, along with Bernanke, doing his best to prevent a total meltdown of the economy, and I recognize that both men are largely trying to fix problems created by their predecessors. But come on — who exactly does Paulson think was responsible for the “excesses” that brought about this mess? Or is the Bush Administration going to try to do what they did with 9/11: blame it on the Clinton-Gore team?

The reality is that for the past seven (nearly eight) years, the Bush Administration has allowed the rich to play with everyone else’s money in ways that has left many Americans exposed to real risk. In the process, it also has failed to fix many any of the other problems the country is facing — a weakened industrial base, an eroding infrastructure, a blooming debt, a growing climate crisis, a continued dependence on foreign oil, and a declining dollar, just to name the first six that come to mind.

I do not discount the role played by people who bought houses they could not afford. But who allowed the market to exist in the first place? Who ignored the problems we faced until it was too late? Republicans’ arguments that this is all somehow the fault of people who took out sub-prime loans is little more than blaming the victim. That is so typical of Republicans: blame the middle class and the poor for the fat cats’ mistakes.

Should things really go south, there really isn’t a safety net capable of preventing the slide. Face it: we’re broke. As a government, we’re no different that Lehman Brothers: our debits exceed our assets. Do people really think that the Chinese are going to continue to bail us out, especially now that they’re beginning to find other markets for their goods? (For the Chinese perspective, read between the lines of this piece.)

Large segments of the world would like nothing better than to see the United States economy crash and burn. Yes, there will be some short-term impact on global markets, but the reality is that the rest of the world will quickly find that it can live quite well with a weakened United States.

This is, in many ways, even worse than the Depression, even if the final economic consequences prove not to be as dire (something we are not yet assured will be the case): this time, the government doesn’t have the ability to turn this around. Unless, of course, à la Zimbabwe, we start printing worthless money (but of course that just creates a new set of problems).

I don’t know whether Obama or McCain or anyone can reverse this slide. I do know that an Obama administration would be far more likely to convey the reality of the situation than a McCain administration. An Obama administration would be able to work with a Congress more likely to act on his prescriptions. But that doesn’t mean that what he wants will work.

In my gut — and that’s all it is at this point — I can’t help believing that this isn’t merely the start of another recession/depression. It feels much more like the beginning of America’s slide off the top of the pyramid. I hope I’m mistaken.

In the meantime, you might want to go back and take a look at this James Fallows piece from 2005. He gets some of the details wrong, but I think he’s scarily on target in terms of the big picture.

The Future of Music in China

Former Ministry/Public Image Ltd./Killing Joke drummer Martin Atkins went to China in 2006 to meet and record the next generation of Chinese musicians. The result is Sixteen Days in China. Here’s the trailer:

My favorite line: “He’s such a good scratcher, he should have leprosy.” Heh.

Atkins believes that what’s happening in China now is not unlike the London punk scene circa 1977 and New York’s new wave circa 1980:

The backdrop is different, but the immersion, the focus on just the music and attitude feels like a definite ripple from those times. It doesn’t feel strategized in a careerist way. The guys in D-22, who now have a label called Maybe Mars, and their venue reminded me of the vibe of CBGBs. . . .I think a natural process is underway. One of the reasons I mentioned New York in 1980 and London in 1977 is that both of those places and times seemed to be on another planet to me. . . . I thought I was going to get shot in Times Square while eating pizza. Whether that was true or not, it certainly adrenalized our activities and adrenalin opens up the pathways.

You can find more on the documentary, including the full interview with Atkins, here. I can’t wait to watch the whole thing.

How China Views Us

Basically, they’re laughing at us. From an editorial in China Daily, via the World-China Bridges blog:

With the clout of China and India rising on the international arena, some people in the West, who are concerned over the already fragile, US-dominated unipolar world political structure or the Western hegemony, have rushed to offer a variety of recipes for inter-power relations in the 21st century and for the world’s new power structure. These recipes include multi-polar, non-polar or collective power models, a “democracy value alliance”, a new trans-Atlantic union, and even a joint China-US governance idea.

All these concepts are in essence changed versions of the new US or Western hegemonic model that proposes maintaining the world’s established power structure through absorbing some emerging powers. The model also proposes carrying out reforms of the new power structure. In all this the idea is to keep the US and Western hegemonic position intact as much as possible. The new situation emerging from the very beginning of the 21st century indicates that neither the US nor the Western hegemony will last for ever, and there will not be a transfer of the old hegemony to a new one. In the 21st century, the world will see the end of not only the US-dominated hegemony, but also of the hegemonic model that allows a few world powers to control global affairs.

The decease of the US and Western hegemony will not be caused by the challenge from such rising powers as China or other countries. It will be caused by the world’s irreversible efforts for a hegemony-free political structure. As the result of this situation, we can expect a hegemony-free and harmonious world in the 21st century in which big countries will fulfill their responsibilities and obligations and small ones can enjoy equality, democracy and assistance from each other.

In the 21st century, the United States, the protagonist of the current unipolar world, will gradually evolve into a common power because of accelerated efforts of many countries which will advocate an end to the unipolar power pattern. Since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, a “balance of power” has come into being among the major countries. Despite its sole superpower status, the United States cannot always succeed in solving some global issues. It is even incapable of handling some domestic issues such as the subprime crisis. All these transmit to the world a strong signal that the US hegemony and Western dominance are now in an irreversible process of decline and final disappearance.

In dealing with some global issues, today’s United States not only needs substantial support from staunch allies, but also needs understanding, participation and cooperation from other key world or regional players. Sometimes, it even has to give up its leading role to other big powers in finding settlements of some intractable issues.

The title of the piece is “The Coming Collapse of the Hegemonic World.” I may not like the ChiComs very much, but it looks like they understand our declining role in global affairs better than we do.

Just whatever you do, don’t send this to John McCain and Sarah Palin. They may threaten to start yet another war. We’re going to have our hands full enough with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Russia without adding China to the list.

While We Were Putting Lipstick on That Pig. . .

One of the tragedies of the current campaign is that the two candidates have not yet had a serious debate about America’s role in the world. Both McCain and Obama have laid out very different visions — to oversimplify, McCain’s robust nationalism versus Obama’s effective internationalism. But instead of debating the future of American foreign policy, the campaign has degenerated into discussions about such salient topics as lipstick, pigs, celebrities, and bridges.

Jeffrey Goldberg over at The Atlantic suggests that this isn’t a coincidence — McCain is pursuing a vicious campaign because he knows his worldview won’t get him elected.

Like many people who have covered John McCain, I think of him as a deeply serious man, preoccupied with America’s defense and its position in the world. So I’ve been confused for the past few days, trying to figure out why he’s allowing his campaign to make a circus of this election, leveling unserious and dishonest accusations about Barack Obama’s positions on sex education and Sarah Palin.

Then it came to me: The answer can be found in. . .John McCain’s philosophy of war, and in particular with the doctrine of preemption, which McCain still endorses. . . . McCain knows that preemption isn’t the easiest sell these days: “It’s very hard to run for president on this idea right now,” he told me.

So, what do you do when one of your core ideas is out of sync with the predispositions of the American public? You spend your days talking about lipstick on pigs. This might win him the election, but I’d rather see him debate preemption.

I think this is largely true. Thanks to the Bush Administration, preemption isn’t exactly a popular concept right now. It’s not merely intellectually bankrupt, it’s also despised by the rest of the world. What McCain, Bush, Cheney, and I presume, Palin (once they explain everything to her) view as America asserting its interests is viewed in the rest of the world as exceptionalism and even imperialism.

Four more years of such a policy may destroy what’s left of American power and credibility in the world. Right now, Russia is asserting itself, and they’re doing it by using the Bush playbook. While no one is paying attention, Venezuela is quite effectively building a new anti-American bloc in Latin America (more on this in a future post). Erstwhile American allies are beginning to reevaluate whether it makes sense to continue to make friendship with a weakened, angry, and often bellicose United States a priority in their foreign policy. And perhaps most troubling of all, a strong and assertive China is confidently asserting itself — not merely by hosting the Olympics, but in a number of other ways, most notably through massive foreign assistance projects that just happen to give China access to the natural resources it needs to continue to grow.

Let’s be blunt: nobody is really that impressed with us anymore. We’ve become the annoying guest who insists on dominating the conversation but who has little of value to contribute to the conversation. We’re on the verge of becoming the kid who was a star athlete in high school but who never reaches similar heights in adulthood.

It’s not only that we’re despised. It’s that we’re increasingly a laughingstock. If McCain is elected, it could be a tipping point. Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and a number of lesser states will see no reason not to organize in opposition to our interests. We will find it harder to assert ourselves, or even to be heard.

To be clear, I’m not interested in appeasing or even appealing to such states. But I’m also not interested in poking all of them in the eye with a sharp stick, especially when we do it constantly and frequently simultaneously. McCain doesn’t seem to understand that there are a finite number of states you can anger before people start seeing you as the problem — even when you’re in the right.

It’s almost as if McCain wants to go it alone. After all, that’s what has worked for him in campaigns. Why not turn it into a foreign policy?

Paralympics: Shame on NBC

You may not know it, but the Paralympics are going on in Beijing right now. Not that any network is covering it. That’s a shame, because it looks just amazing.

For more of these photos, go to The Big Picture, The Boston Globe’s fantastic photo blog. Time has more photos here.

When the regular Olympics were on, NBC had six networks covering them — NBC, MSNBC, USA, CNBC, Univision, and Universal (their HD channel). For the Paralympics, they couldn’t be bothered to show it on even one.

Do they think the Paralympics are less dramatic? Do they think that people wouldn’t want to watch these amazing athletes? I would bet good money that this would draw more than whatever crap USA or Universal is showing every day.

This is just part of what makes NBC so blinkered. If you watched NBC’s primetime coverage of the “regular” Olympics, you might have thought that there were only four sports: swimming, gymnastics, track and field and freaking beach volleyball. The only time other sports got coverage was if the United States won a gold medal.

What is so infuriating about this is that people don’t remember, but gymnastics never was popular until Olga Korbut came along in 1972. First Korbut and then Nadia Comaneci made gymnastics into the hugely popular Olympic sport it is today. And they weren’t even Americans, for crying out loud. That couldn’t happen today. NBC would never give it a chance. For all we know, there is another sport that has the potential to break through now the way gymnastics did then. Perhaps the Paralympics have that potential. But thanks to the soul-sucking money-grubbing pinheads at NBC, we’ll never know.

Guess what? The ChiComs are broadcasting them. According to Time, it’s making a huge difference in China in terms of how people there see the disabled:

The disabled have traditionally been marginalized in China. Ahead of the Olympics, organizers issued an official apology for a manual cautioning volunteers that the disabled can have “unusual personalities” and can be “stubborn and controlling.” Beijing alone is home to nearly 1 million disabled, but they’re a largely invisible part of the population. Those that can work are funneled into the few jobs that are open to the disabled, like paraplegics who can drive three-wheeled motor taxis or those who are sight-impaired and work in massage parlors. The Paralympics offers the hope that watching disabled athletes compete will change old attitudes and improve opportunities for the nation’s 83 million handicapped.

It is possible that the Paralympics will have an impact in China similar to the passage in the United States of the Americans with Disabilities Act, helping to mainstream the disabled into society. But, as Time notes, that is going to take more than installing a few ramps in Beijing. But at least the whole country is getting to see these talented athletes in action.

Unlike those of us in the United States.

Shame on NBC. Shame on them for putting a misguided sense of profits ahead of an incredibly compelling and exciting story. Shame on them for treating these talented athletes as somehow second class.

Russia: Anything You Can Do I Can Make Worse

A few weeks back, Dubya sent a ship to visit Georgia. The Russians were outraged. Now we have their response:

Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers, the government said, announcing an unprecedented deployment to the territory of a new ally at a time of increasingly tense relations with the U.S.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the two Tu-160 bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission. It said in a statement carried by the Russian news wires that the planes will conduct training flights over neutral waters over the next few days before heading back to Russia. . . . In Moscow, Defense Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky refused to say how long the Venezuela deployment will last or say whether the planes carried any weapons. . . .

Earlier this week, Russia said it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela in November for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean.

Everyone keeps saying it isn’t a new Cold War. I certainly hope that’s true. But let’s look at the evidence:

The U.S. and Russia are no longer cooperating on reducing nuclear arsenals.
Cheney just spent the past week running around Europe and warning against Russia (more on this later).
The EU is looking into ways to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil.
Russia is developing close relations with a Latin American neighbor of the United States, and has potentially sent strategic assets within striking range of the continental U.S.
U.S.-Russian space cooperation appears to be a thing of the past.
Both the Bush Administration and the McCain campaign no longer talk of Russia as an ally, but as a rival.
Russia and China have become more and more friendly since Putin came to power.
Russia has supported the establishment of two nascent organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), either of which could evolve into a rival to the United States/EU/NATO.

Is it me or is it getting chilly in here?

So Much for Mars

Further proof of the absolute inability of this Administration — and its allies in Congress — to think through the consequences of its actions:

NASA is about out of options for keeping U.S. astronauts in space after 2011. Unless President George Bush intervenes, or whoever succeeds him in January immediately steps into the space arena, the dismantling of the space shuttle program will be too far along to reverse course. . . .

The three-ship fleet is scheduled for retirement in 2010. NASA wants to use the shuttle’s budget for developing replacement ships that can go to the moon as well as to the International Space Station. The new vehicle, called Orion, won’t be ready until 2015 — five years after the shuttle stops flying.

NASA had counted on buying Russian Soyuz capsules to transport crews to the space station during the gap. But in recent interviews, NASA administrator Michael Griffin said he has no hope Congress will pass the legislation needed for NASA to keep the Soyuz assembly lines running. . . . “My guess is that there is going to be a lengthy period with no U.S. crew on (the space station) after 2011,” Griffin wrote in an email to top NASA managers that was posted on the Orlando Sentinel’s Web site.

The agency cannot purchase Russian rockets unless it receives an exemption from a trade sanction Congress levied in 2005 after Russia reportedly helped Iran develop nuclear weapons technology. Griffin has said the exemption to the Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act, needs to be in place by early 2009 to keep U.S. and partner astronauts in orbit. U.S. outrage over Russia’s handling of a dispute with neighboring Georgia has pretty much nixed any chance Congress will lift the trade ban again, Griffin said.

“Exactly as I predicted, events have unfolded in a way that makes it clear how unwise it was for the U.S. to adopt a policy of deliberate dependence upon another power for access to ISS,” Griffin wrote.

When I was growing up, there was nothing more exciting or romantic than the space program. John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land on the moon by the end of the decade was both a great achievement and a wonderful example of what we as a nation could do if we put our minds to it.

In contrast, our policy today, as Griffin notes, is “deliberate dependence.”

Here’s the thing. I think it would be cool for us to go back to the moon or to Mars. But I also think that there are other things that are more important and more worthy of funding if we have to make difficult choices. I’d love for us to do all the things we’d like to do, but those days are gone, at least for a while if not forever.

But if we are going to have a space program, is it too much to ask that it not be completely half-assed, utterly dependent on unreliable “third parties,” and hopelessly unrealistic about the gap between what we want to do and what’s possible with the money we plan to spend?

Ask not what the Bush Administration can do for you. Ask the Bush Administration whether they can screw things up any more than they already have.

Maybe we can beg the Chinese to let us hitch a ride.

China: It’s Still Propaganda and They’re Still Dictators

James Reynolds of the BBC has a short post today about just how human Chinese leaders are:

China’s leaders sometimes do their best to look as stolid as possible (they wear identical black suits and blank expressions, they sit in oversized chairs and clap politely). But many of them are known for more than just staring straight ahead and signing decrees.

He recalls that Deng Xiaopeng was an avid bridge player and that Jiang Ziemin liked to sing — even attempting Western opera. He then highlights the current leaders’ hobbies:

The current president, Hu Jintao, doesn’t appear to sing in public (apart from the national anthem, presumably). But it’s mildly worth knowing that he took a dance class when he was at univ

India-Pakistan: China, Obama,and the Specter of 1914

Related posts

Obamamania in China

Related posts

Morning Buzz: Chinese Democracy

Related posts

Axis of Photoshop: Card Games

Related posts

The Nobel Committee Chickens Out

Related posts

Never Again? Really?

Related posts

Controlympics: Gonna Pro’ No Mo’ (Not That I Ever Could)

Related posts

China and the Financial Crisis

Related posts

Twenty Questions for the Debate Tonight

Related posts

I Wish This Was from The Onion. . .

Related posts

While You Were Watching McCain Implode: China Rises

Related posts

Life under House Arrest in China: Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan

Related posts

Compare and Contrast: Obama and Paulson on Economic Crisis

Related posts

The Future of Music in China

Related posts

How China Views Us

Related posts

While We Were Putting Lipstick on That Pig. . .

Related posts

Paralympics: Shame on NBC

Related posts

Russia: Anything You Can Do I Can Make Worse

Related posts

So Much for Mars

Related posts

China: It’s Still Propaganda and They’re Still Dictators