April 22, 2008
The Strategic Test of the An Yue Jiang
America appears to have won a round in the battle for southern Africa if, as Chinese foreign minstry spokesman Jiang Yu said today, the ship An Yue Jiang turns back without delivering its cargo --weapons for Zimbabwe's embattled ZANU regime headed by vilified strongman, Robert Mugabe.
Both Namibia and South Africa are firmly in Washington's control dating back at least to 2006 when then Deputy Commander of USEUCOM Gen. Charles "Chuck" Wald began plans for armed intervention if Zimbabwe crumbled. The situation is now more extreme as there is a disputed election and threat of a [insert color here] revolution for the USA to support or perhaps rescue.
Mugabe and the Zimbabwe African National Union regime are short of arms since their Chinese supplies can't get through. The vessel An Yue Jiang, said to be loaded with containers of bullets and grenades, is refused entry by every port in American control. Chinese influence in the region is lacking despite all the billions spent on investments and arms sales there.
What can we deduce? Even though southern Africa has less strategic value than many places the sea routes around the continent are vital to Chinese plans to import more oil not just from southern and eastern Africa but possibly South America (Venezuela, Brazil someday) as well. But the US Navy controls the area. The USS Ft. McHenry and HSV Swift were dispatched to the Gulf of Guinea in late 2007 and form part of a new "partnership" to control the region. Sea power still triumphs.
Labels: An Yue Jiang, arms, elections, freedom, great power, military, navy, oil, revolution, strategic, zimbabwe
Dollar v Yuan
An interesting discussion underway at Brad Stetsor's blog at the most excellent RGE Monitor website on the dollar's shrinking value and its ultimate impact on China centers on a hot editorial in the Shanghai Daily that says:
"The negative results of the US dollar's decline are evident: the rising prices
of all primary products, the intensified pressure on inflation globally, the confusion in the settlement of international transactions, etc. Worst of all, this is the US' disguised way of avoiding paying off its debts to foreign
countries."
The need for the dollar as the chief medium of exchange and unit of account in trade gives it an advantage that can't be matched at present. If the RMB Yuan matures, is fully convertible, and Chinese financial markets continue to advance the day may come when the Yuan may supplant the dollar. Morgan Stanley analysts still believe the most likely challenger to the dollar will be the Yuan or a currency unit centered on it.
Labels: china, currencies, dollar, foreign exhange, renminbi, yuan
April 10, 2008
Boycott Beijing 2008 Olympic Games? Chinese Stock Market Doldrums and China Wants Africa's Oil
full transcript at www.sinomania.com
Chinese shares still bearish, China turns to Africa for new oil supplies, and just who is behind the boycott Beijing Olympics campaign?
Sinomania! Volume II Webisode 55, April 8, 2008
April 09, 2008
Same Time Last Year for Chinese Stocks + Mekong Summit + China's 3G Wireless
full transcript at www.sinomania.com
Big news in Chinese telecoms with tests of China's 3G wireless standard, the continuing slide in China stocks, and report on the Greater Mekong Subregion economic summit ... Sinomania! Volume II Webisode 54, April 2, 2008April 07, 2008
Man in Black Cap Protests Olympic Flame
Playing Games with Tibet
Anti-Beijing Olympics protests currently exaggerated by giant headlines and cropped wire photos today beg the question: who is behind the Beijing Olympics boycott?
Principally, it is a project of Paris based Reporters Without Borders / Reporters Sans Frontiers or RSF. The grand sounding organization was founded by Robert Menard, the self-styled "General Secretary" of the supposedly independent non-governmental group.
RSF is anything but unbiased however and receives its funding from a variety of government sources including the US State Department and Ronald Reagan's National Endowment for Democracy, whose officers read like a who's who of neoconservatism and include nearly all of the signers of the "Project for a new American Century." RSF has long been a font of anti-China news stories of dubious credibility.
RSF was banned by the United Nations in 2003 and kept away from its sessions on "human rights" because of its political activities. An imporitant financial contributer of RSF is TECRO, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which has its own agenda with Beijing.
Beyond RSF there are some Hollywood hypocrites such as Mia Farrow or George Clooney, a myriad of "actvist" groups affiliated with the Falun Dafa cult, and collections of coffee house revolutionaries from far right Christian Zionists to far left limousine liberals.
Amidst all this ridiculousness very little, if anything, is actually being done to the benefit of anyone in Tibet.
Labels: beijing olympics, boycott, boycott olympics, free tibet, london, olympics torch, paris, san francisco
April 03, 2008
"Classic Espionage" (Updated April 3, 2008)
UPDATE: Chi Mak was sentenced to over 24 years in prison even though the documents Mak took and passed to unnamed Chinese operatives were unclassified. "Mak's attorney, Ronald O. Kaye, said his client was a scapegoat for other U.S. intelligence failures and a 'symbol of the government's cold war against the Chinese.'"
UPDATE (April 1, 2008): Pentagon weapons analyst Gregg William Bergersen plead guilty to one count of criminal information conspiracy yesterday in US District Court. Last week Chinese born Chi Mak, a retired 65 year old engineer, plead guilty in California. No other details are available. These are unusually swift trials and convictions. Beijing's Foreign Ministry denies any knowledge of these conspiracies. The FBI, Navy, and Air Force investigators behind these espionage cases have not shown any evidence that any information was actually procured or received by the Chinese government.
Previous posts:
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Liu Jianchao had this to say in a press briefing on Thursay (Feb. 14):
"Q: Not long ago, the US alleged that they had arrested four Chinese spies. Do you have any response? What is China's position on the espionage issue?First post (February 11, 2008):
A: We have taken note of the report. The so-called accusation against China on the issue of espionage is utterly groundless and out of ulterior motives. We urge the US to abandon its Cold War mentality and put end to the groundless accusations and do more to contribute to mutual trust and friendship between our two peoples."
What do the following have in common? The FBI, Boeing, the Pentagon, upcoming elections in Taiwan and the United States, the Space Shuttle, and the US Air Force's unhappiness with its share of the near $1 trillion USA defense budget?
They are "all the elements of a classic espionage operation" Kenneth L. Wainstein, USA Assistant Attorney General for National Security gushed in a release first reported by the chief purveyor of anonymous Pentagon secrets Bill Gertz in his Washington Times column and picked up by the Associated Press today.
There are actually two separate stories in the "operation" according to today's Justice Department announcement of espionage arrests. First the New Orleans - Pentagon connection centered on the efforts of Tai Shen Kuo to buy information on Taiwan arms sales from a Pentagon analyst. Mr. Tai is described in an AP report as a "furniture salesman" but someone with the same name is listed on the Internet as the CEO of Houma, Louisiana, based G T L International, a business services consultancy. There are a lot of GTL companies found on the Internet ranging from shadowy conglomerates of "The Global Group" based in Mumbai, India, to carriers in France.
The other witch hunt is against a Chinese native 72 year old retired Rockwell International (now part of Boeing) employee. Shades of Wen Ho Lee?
The first spy ring, if true, is entirely the result of US Government actions. Beijing would not need to counter American technology transfers to Taiwan if Washington would abide by the 1982 joint communique on ending arms sales to Taiwan.
It will be interesting to see the impact of this latest Chinese spy scandal on the elections in Taiwan on March 22 and the campaigns of USA presidential contenders Obama, Clinton, and McCain. I believe it is the first sign of a China bait and bash that will come to dominate the "news" cycle for the rest of the year with peaks next month, August, and October.
Labels: boeing, china, defense, espionage, military-industrial complex, pentagon, spy, taiwan
April 02, 2008
Is Renminbi The Future Reserve Currency?
According to Morgan Stanley's global economic group:
Of course this is big picture and looong term (decades if not more). Something to think about just the same."In the long run, the most likely contender to the USD as the dominant
international reserve currency, in our opinion, is likely to be an Asian
currency centred on the Chinese RMB."
Labels: bretton woods ii, china, currency, dollar, globalization, renminbi, rmb, yuan
Taiwan Reunification Watch
According to Radio Australia yesterday and a Financial Times story today, Beijing is reaching out quickly to Taiwan. In Laos for the Greater Mekong Subregion summit (see my report in this week's episode of The Sinomania! Show), Wen said Beijing is ready to reach out to new Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou and the door is open to resume the talks begun in 1992 in Singapore with the sovereignty issue on an agree to disagree posture. The talks could lead to a peace treaty. Wen also mentioned establising direct links which Ma already favors.
Labels: china, ma ying-jeou, reunification, taiwan
March 28, 2008
Deep Thought
The mouth of the Yangtze (Changjiang) river will be dredged to increase its depth to 12 and a half meters, that's about 41 feet deep and increase the shipping channel's span to 350-400 meters or no more than 1,312 feet. This narrow channel will allow the biggest bulk and container vessels.
What this tells us is just how vulnerable China really is. One channel barely the length of an American aircraft carrier must funnel all the ship traffic from the East China Sea and beyond to Shanghai up the Yangtze to Wuhan - the heart of industrial China.
And yet the Pentagon expects us to view China as a threat.
What this tells us is just how vulnerable China really is. One channel barely the length of an American aircraft carrier must funnel all the ship traffic from the East China Sea and beyond to Shanghai up the Yangtze to Wuhan - the heart of industrial China.
And yet the Pentagon expects us to view China as a threat.
Labels: china, shipping, strategic, threat, yangtze
Why They Hate China
A must read from Justin Raimondo of Anti-War.com on the moral righteousness of the "Free Tibet" and "Save Darfur" crowd.
Some salient grafs:
After all, what if Chinese government leaders constantly reminded the world that the American Southwest was stolen from Mexico? Imagine the Chinese and Mexican ambassadors to the U.S. demanding independence, for, say, California – or better yet, its return to Mexican sovereignty! Shall the Olympics be forever barred from Puerto Rico, which was forcibly incorporated into the U.S. "commonwealth" in the invasion of 1898?
. . . . .
In short, the popular narrative of the pacifistic Buddhist Tibetans as the good guys and the Han Chinese as the bad-guy aggressors is the stuff of pure myth, pushed by union propagandists, lefty Hollywood do-gooders, and trendy sandal-wearing Western camp followers of the Dalai Lama, who has become a secularized yet "spiritual" substitute for Mother Theresa.
READ IT!
Labels: capitalism, china, communism, dalai lama, free tibet, pelosi, save darfur
March 27, 2008
Shanghai Collapse
The Shanghai Composite Index, a benchmark of Chinese shares owned inside and outside China, fell again today to its lowest level in almost a year. The index closed down almost five and half percent March 27 to 3,411 representing a loss now of well over 30% probably close to 40% from its peak last year.
Labels: bear market, china, crash, finance, shanghai composite, stocks
March 26, 2008
Taiwan Gains Chinese Bear All in the Family
full transript at www.sinomania.com: A political shift in Taipei with the election of Ma Ying-jeou and the Kuomintang win for Taiwan, the week's Alpha Bet, and Chinese markets bearish predicament...
March 25, 2008
Minuteman Missiles on Taiwan?
The Pentagon today acknowledged that devices for intercontinental ballistic "Minuteman" missiles were shipped by the Air Force to Taiwan. The devices are "component[s] for the fuse in the nosecone for a nuclear system" according to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne. Wynne said the shipment was supposed to be helicopter batteries and is being investigated.
According to the joint Sino-USA communique of 1982:
"... the United States Government states that it does not seek to carry out a long-term policy of arms sales to Taiwan, that its arms sales to Taiwan will not exceed, either in qualitative or in quantitative terms, the level of those supplied in recent years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, and that it intends to reduce gradually its sales of arms to Taiwan, leading over a period of time to a final resolution."
It is time for the United States to live up to its agreements and honor the 1982 communique. The people of Taiwan spoke last weekend in a popular election and chose to move away from confrontation with Beijing. Unless it changes its actions and begins to honor its actual policy, the USA will act as provacateur and risk a nuclear standoff.
Labels: arms sales, china policy, minuteman, nuclear missles, pentagon, taiwan
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