NY Times link…

I’ve been genuinely intrigued at how much fiction and reality have been intersecting recently.

See, there’s this film called MOON and it follows the story of a guy working on the far side of the moon who figures out that there’s a lot more to his mission than collecting the natural resource Helium-3. It’s a fantastic piece of science fiction cinema and if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and catch it while it’s still in theatres.

But after seeing it I discovered that not only is the energy source they talked about in the movie real, but it’s clean, supposedly economically viable and extremely plentiful on the moon’s surface.

More at True/Slant.

There are few images as iconic as this, and none that serve as both a realistic and symbolic portrayal of the war China has waged against freedom and free thinkers.

And while this one was snapped on June 5, 1989, I felt the need to share it today. Because as Americans we should remember Tinananmen and feel thankful that we live in a country where something like this could never happen.

One British journalist remembers…

The massive student protest of 1989 was seen by the world – as was its brutal suppression by the People’s Liberation Army, sent into Beijing by nervous and angry Communist Party bosses.

From just before midnight on June 3, I spent five hours on the streets among those unarmed people being shot by their own army.

Although the political drama took place in Tiananmen Square, we roamed for miles that night and saw killings in the suburbs and back streets.

Scores of trucks thundered down Chang An Avenue towards Tiananmen Square, each with soldiers firing down every side street.

Bewildered citizens were killed as they wandered outside to investigate the noise. Others died as bullets ripped through the thin walls of their traditional hutong houses.

Students who confronted the army were faced with thousands of soldiers firing volley after volley.

It was a hellish scene – at the city’s Children’s Hospital, I saw the floor awash with blood.

I have to admit, this all happened well before I started paying attention to politics, but what do you remember about those fateful days in 1989?

Looks like last week’s nuclear test angered a key ally too.

From Bloomberg:

China suspended government exchanges with North Korea after Kim Jong-Il’s regime last week tested a nuclear device and fired short-range missiles, Yonhap News said.

China has halted plans to send officials to North Korea and won’t accept visits from Kim’s government either, the Korean- language news agency said today, citing unidentified diplomatic sources in Beijing.

China’s foreign ministry has said the country “resolutely opposes” North Korea’s nuclear test. China on May 25 agreed with the U.S., Japan and Russia to work toward a United Nations Security Council resolution censuring North Korea. The U.S. and Japan want the statement to call for cutting the communist country’s global financial ties, UN diplomats said.

And that begs the question: if China can’t get through to North Korea, who can? After all, China has long been seen as one of the only real partner North Korea has, and if they can’t exert some type of control over them…what then?

Troubling stuff.

Well, North Korea has the world’s attention. Exploding a nuclear bomb and launching missile tests will do that. All that’s left now is for the world to respond.

North Korea has long been a foreign policy conundrum, frustrating a long line of U.S. presidents who’ve attempted to stop the so-called hermit nation from threatening its neighbors. North Korea’s leadership has repeatedly placed raw pride over any other consideration, content to let their people suffer rather than enter normal relations with the world. To complicate matters more, both Russia and China have, at various times, backed North Korea, finding such alliances a convenient way to irritate the United States and our allies or, in China’s case, the easiest way to prevent massive numbers of refugees from streaming over their border.

Has this latest outburst from North Korea changed anything? Early indications are that, if nothing else, the world is generally united against Pyongyang.

Russia, which called the test a “serious blow” to the effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, suspended a Russia-North Korean intergovernmental trade and economic commission, apparently in response to the nuclear test. The slap on the wrist was a telling indication that Moscow, once a key backer of North Korea, was unhappy with Pyongyang.

And China, which has been the closest thing North Korea has to a friend, is reacting by holding high-level meetings with South Korea to discuss ways to respond.

At this point, I doubt China will want to do anything which might create the feared refugee crisis. And outside of military action – which really isn’t on the table for a large number of reasons – nothing will change in North Korea without Chinese intervention. That leaves President Obama in an unenviable position. He has to take a tough stand but knows he’s no more likely to directly affect North Korea than were his predecessors. As such, his best bet is to work behind the scenes with Chinese and Russian officials (because it’s always prudent to include the Russians in these matters) to develop a coordinated and meaningful response.

Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of resolute response presidents (and the American people) prefer. But I’m not exactly sure what other options we have.

This is a pretty surprising turn of events, because not only was Huntsman mentioned by many as a potential presidential contender in 2012, but this move will have the net effect of thumbing his nose at the entire Republican party. Because if anybody is Mr Bipartisanship in the Republican party, it’s Hunstman.

Mix this in with the Judd Gregg choice (even though it failed) and Arlen Specter’s move to the Democratic party, and you’ve got the appearance of Obama consistently building bridges.

From Wash Post:

Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. will be introduced today as President Obama’s choice as ambassador to China, a source familiar with the decision said last night. [...]

Several Salt Lake City media outlets reported last night that Huntsman had accepted the offer to head the U.S. mission in Beijing, and that Lt. Gov. Gary R. Herbert would replace him as governor. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Huntsman was in Washington last night, but that calls to his spokeswoman and various staffers were not returned.

Huntsman was elected in November to a second term as Utah’s governor, drawing 70 percent of the vote. He served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy U.S. trade representative from 2001 to 2004 and, for President George H.W. Bush, was ambassador to Singapore. He is an expert on China, and he speaks Mandarin Chinese fluently.

Could Huntsman use this as a pivot to run for President in 2012? Doubt it. I think he has his eyes on 2016, when Republicans will most likely be looking for a way out of the hole. Yes, I could be wrong and the Republican party may recover, but I just don’t see the mood of the electorate shifting their way on anything but fiscal policy.

More as it develops…

Oh, and hybrids too.

From NY Times:

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit’s Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today. [...]

To some extent, China is making a virtue of a liability. It is behind the United States, Japan and other countries when it comes to making gas-powered vehicles, but by skipping the current technology, China hopes to get a jump on the next.

My guess is that this has less to do with the economic advantages and more to do with China’s epic pollution problem. But the story says that, because electrics still have to get their power from somewhere, the greenhouse emissions are only cut by 19%. Still, this could merely be an effort to shift the pollution from the city to the countryside where most of the power plants resides.

But here’s the thing…China’s government can mandate a lot of things we can’t. So a green revolution can happen a lot faster there and they can reap the rewards before we do. Of course, they can also make more mistakes, but what did Edison say about failing?

Here’s more on what they’re doing to ramp this up…

Beyond manufacturing, subsidies of up to $8,800 are being offered to taxi fleets and local government agencies in 13 Chinese cities for each hybrid or all-electric vehicle they purchase. The state electricity grid has been ordered to set up electric car charging stations in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.

Government research subsidies for electric car designs are increasing rapidly. And an interagency panel is planning tax credits for consumers who buy alternative energy vehicles.

China wants to raise its annual production capacity to 500,000 hybrid or all-electric cars and buses by the end of 2011, from 2,100 last year, government officials and Chinese auto executives said. By comparison, CSM Worldwide, a consulting firm that does forecasts for automakers, predicts that Japan and South Korea together will be producing 1.1 million hybrid or all-electric light vehicles by then and North America will be making 267,000.

Regardless of China, the most damning stat in all is that Asia will be outproducing us by almost 8 to 1 in two years. How did this happen? The market for hybrids and electric is white hot right now and Asia is absolutely destroying us.

Question: What would the world have been like had we raised CAFE standards and mandated that the Big 3 start producing electric and hybrids back in the day? After all, GM had the EV1 spun up long before Honda or Toyota had options and if the political will would have been there it would have been a viable enterprise…especially if local and state governments bought the vehicles for use by their employees.

All I’m saying is that government interventionism isn’t always the worst thing in the world, especially when you’re talking about long term strategic goals that we know will benefit our economy, national security, etc.

For complete information on gas mileage rates between different brands, check out GreenHybrid’s list. Very useful.

You knew the time would come when the dollar would fall out of favor, but did you think it would happen this fast?

Actually, it’s not just the dollar that we’re talking about here. What China is proposing is leveling the playing field and including all world currencies in the reserve basket, which now only includes the dollar, the yen, the pound and the euro. So this wouldn’t amount to the monetary armageddon some were predicting since it would happen over a much longer period of time, but these adjustments would still have repercussions.

From Financial Times:

Analysts said the proposal was an indication of Beijing’s fears that actions being taken to save the domestic US economy would have a negative impact on China.

“This is a clear sign that China, as the largest holder of US dollar financial assets, is concerned about the potential inflationary risk of the US Federal Reserve printing money,” said Qu Hongbin, chief China economist for HSBC.

Although Mr Zhou did not mention the US dollar, the essay gave a pointed critique of the current dollar-dominated monetary system.

“The outbreak of the [current] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system,” Mr Zhou wrote.

Note the language there in that last sentence. The world was relying on the US to lead the way when it came to finance. And for a time it worked out, but our deregulatory policies threw the entire thing into a tailspin, and now world powers aren’t so trusting anymore…especially when we want to deficit spend (even though they’re doing the same thing).

More as it develops…

China’s premier didn’t say it in so many words, but the implied warning to Washington was blunt: Don’t devalue the dollar through reckless spending.

Premier Wen Jiabao’s message is unlikely to be misunderstood at the White House. It is counting on Beijing to help pay for its stimulus package by buying U.S. bonds. China already is Washington’s biggest foreign creditor, with an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt. A weaker dollar would erode the value of those assets.

“Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I’m a little bit worried,” Wen said at a news conference Friday after the closing of China’s annual legislative session. “I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets.”

This reminds us of a very real fact behind the stimulus: we won’t get many, if any, do-overs if the package doesn’t work. Before we even hit this crisis, our debt was astronomical. As China is hinting, we shouldn’t count on being able to push that debt much further.

Sometimes I worry that politicians on both sides see our national debt as nothing more than an accounting nuisance. They never seem to concern themselves with how much of our future GDP will be sacrificed to nations like China once our debts become due. But those debts will become due and, as China reminded us today, our creditors are keeping a close eye on our financial strength. Let’s hope we’ll pull out of this recession stronger than ever so that the debt in which we’ve put ourselves never becomes an insurmountable problem.

Because it’s the best of the worst…and it’s all bad right now.

From FT:

China will continue to buy US Treasury bonds even though it knows the dollar will depreciate because such investments remain its “only option” in a perilous world, a senior Chinese banking regulator said on Wednesday.

China has used the dollars it accumulates selling manufactured goods to US consumers to accumulate the world’s largest holding of Treasuries.

However, the increasing US budget deficit and its potential impact on the dollar have raised questions about the future Chinese appetite for US debt.

Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said after a speech in New York on Wednesday that China would continue to buy Treasuries in spite of its misgivings about US finances.

And here are the key statements…

“Except for US Treasuries, what can you hold?” he asked. “Gold? You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China, it is the only option.”

Mr Luo, whose English tends toward the colloquial, added: “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion [$1,000bn-$2,000bn]?.?.?.we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

Lucky for us?

50 cents a post to make your country look better?

Joe The Plumber would approve.

Here’s more from BBC:

China is using an increasing number of paid “internet commentators” in a sophisticated attempt to control public opinion. [...]

They have been dubbed the “50-cent party” because of how much they are reputed to be paid for each positive posting (50 Chinese cents; $0.07; £0.05).

“Almost all government departments face criticism that is beyond their control,” said Xiao Qiang, of the University of California at Berkeley.

“There is nothing much they can do, other than organise their own spinning teams to do their public relations,” said the journalism professor, who monitors China.

Part of me thinks this is actually a smart strategy because it can be extremely hard to tell if somebody is genuine or not on the internet…especially if they argue their position passionately.

Case in point…

A document released by the public security bureau in the city of Jiaozuo in Henan province boasts of the success of this approach.

It retells the story of one disgruntled citizen who posted an unfavourable comment about the police on a website after being punished for a traffic offence.

One of the bureau’s internet commentators reported this posting to the authorities within 10 minutes of it going up.

The bureau then began to spin, using more than 120 people to post their own comments that neatly shifted the debate.

“Twenty minutes later, most postings supported the police – in fact many internet users began to condemn the original commentator,” said the report.

However, the other half of me acknowledges that this was bound to backfire…and stories like this prove that. Now any posts originating from a Chinese IP address that defend Chinese policy are bound to be ignored by those in the know.

More as it develops…

Will this day ever come?

Discuss.

My cartoon was linked to post from the NYTimes

(Click on Bob McCarty) NYTIMES link

Yet another sign he would have a much more nuanced worldview of the world? Of course, it’s not saying that much when you compare it to somebody who characterizes the Olympics as just “a sporting event.” Bush has set the bar pretty low on expectations for the next Republican candidate’s decision making capabilities, but John still gets credit, and so here it is.

From NY Times:

Senator John McCain said today that he would not attend the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, barring significant changes in China’s behavior, if he were president.

During an appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Whoopi Goldberg asked the presumptive Republican nominee whether he would attend the ceremonies.

“Unless they change something pretty quickly, I would not go to the opening ceremonies,” Mr. McCain said.

Again, well done John.

Much like China’s treatment of dissidents and unwanteds, the Olympic torch relay is now being hidden behind a veil of secrecy. It’s a shame San Francisco felt the need to be a part of that. Maybe they felt they didn’t have a choice but I think cowardice played a big role here.

Large protests also met the flame in London on Sunday. While it would be nice if we could condemn China’s human rights record without dishonoring the symbols of the Olympic games, it’s a fine line. We can either ignore the games or we can use them as an opportunity to speak out against China’s continuing oppression of its people as well as its immoral foreign policy. I don’t think extinguishing the Olympic flame is helpful but lining the streets with protestors is important.

The torch is scheduled to pass through San Francisco, California on Wednesday. We’ll see if Americans react with similar defiance. The city, which is no stranger to activism, is preparing for large protests.

Update: The torch relay through Paris has now been canceled due to the protests.

And she’s not the only one…

The disclosure that Germany is to stay away from the games’ opening ceremonies in August could encourage President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to join in a gesture of defiance and complicate Gordon Brown’s determination to attend the Olympics.

Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, became the first EU head of government to announce a boycott on Thursday and he was promptly joined by President Václav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who had previously promised to travel to Beijing.

“The presence of politicians at the inauguration of the Olympics seems inappropriate,” Tusk said. “I do not intend to take part.”

Well done all around. China’s behavior is simply inexcusable.

But will Bush show up?

The lighting of the Olympic flame in Greece was disrupted today by human rights protestors. We can only hope to see more peaceful demonstrations against China as the torch travels to Beijing.

If the Chinese are going to use the games as an opportunity to present themselves as a global power, the rest of us have an obligation to use the games as an opportunity to speak out against Chinese human rights abuses. I don’t believe in punishing the athletes by boycotting the games but I do believe in using the event to shine intense light on China’s dark secrets.

We’ll be live blogging the event.

2:07: Only 3 topics will be discussed during the debate: (1) Iran and the lessons of Iraq, (2) relations with China and how they affect us here and (3) immigration. The participating candidates are Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, John Edwards,

2:10: First question, do the candidates agree that Iran still presents a threat? Clinton disagrees with Bush’s assessment that a policy change is not required. She stresses more diplomacy. Mike Gravel doesn’t think Iran is a threat. Obama thinks Iran is still a threat. He expresses concern over the fact that the Bush administration has a tendency to ignore facts that could get in the way of ideology. Dodd thinks their needs to be more international support, reminds everyone that we need a more multilateral approach and Iraq hurts our ability to do that. Biden says that we cannot trust President Bush, criticizes some of his policies. Biden states that Iran is not a nuclear threat and says that Iran must be dealt with directly. Edwards points out the vote in the Senate to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Kucinich reminds everyone that he’s been right about WMD in Iraq and now Iran for the longest time.

2:16: Hillary is questioned regarding her vote to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. She cites their support for Hamas and Hezbollah and then cites Obama as a corresponding source. Hillary maintains that Obama is just as militant towards Iran as she has always been. Edwards “strongly disagrees” with Hillary regarding her vote, but fails to be able to defend his remarks against Iran while discussing Israel. Obama responds to Hillary to more clearly define his position – he insists that IF Iran had WMD’s he would strike but that it was only a hypothetical case.

2:20: Kucinich clarifies… Hillary, Edwards and Obama sanction the President’s militant rhetoric by insisting all options are on the table. Dodd points out that he and Biden voted against that Senate resolution. Hillary defends her vote saying that the resolution did not, in any way, license the President to go to war – she says that the resolution only provides sticks. Edwards insists that Hillary “agrees with George Bush” and Hillary calls it an “outlandish political attack.” She insists that her vote has further pressured the Iranians with positive results. Gravel insists there is no evidence – Gravel refers to Hamas and Hezbollah as elected organizations and cites that Iran has a right to support any political group, just as the United States can support Israel. Biden chimes in, as the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee – Biden says everyone misunderstands – the declaration of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization undermines America – in both foreign policy and oil prices. Obama piles on. Edwards wants to clarify to the listeners that only ONE democratic candidate voted for the aforementioned resolution. Edwards then proposes a return to stick-and-carrot diplomacy. Hillary responds that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is directed by the Ayatollah – and that diplomacy requires economic sanctions provided in the resolution she voted for. Hillary insists “none of us is advocating a rush to war.”

2:29: Question – why are Americans disliked so much? Biden contends it’s because we are trust so little. Argues that our foreign policy makes it seem as though we’re engaging in a war on Islam.

2:31: Edwards is asked how to reconcile our support for Israel with the concerns of the international Muslim community. Edwards gives an odd answer about education. Obama criticizes the rhetoric of many GOP candidates. Says that it gives the impression that we are not willing to engage in diplomacy. Specifies by saying that we need to close Guantanamo and take other measures to appeal to the people within those regions. Kucinich cites the Iraq war.

2:35: This is truly a good debate. It’s a shame more aren’t like this.

2:38: Time for a break. Next topic is China.

2:40: Question – Given China’s size, who has more leverage China or the United States? Edwards initially dodges the question. When pressed says that they are strong, but we are stronger and need to engage China more. Obama notes that China has more leverage in areas that we do not engage in. Kucinich pulls the ‘I told you so’ card again by referencing his vote against trade benefits for China out of concern for its impact on the manufacturing base in America. Clinton says we have more leverage, but it doesn’t count because a) we’re not using it and b) we’ve handicapped ourselves through fiscal irresponsibility and bad foreign policy.

2:46: Question – Would you restrict trade with China? Biden would not restrict trade through tariffs. Justifies this by saying that we are over emphasizing the significance of China.

[Continued at 2008Central.net]