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 April Fools' day came early for Blackburn, with the visit of the tricky-to-spell Condoleeza Rice.
The surreality of the event was probably lost on all but the British, who know that Blackburn is about as drab and conventional as a spent industrial town can get. No wonder Jack Straw hails from there.
Yet Condi chose the moment to make quite an admission - that the US administration is fallible. Well sort of. Grunts on the ground make 'tactical errors', often because they are hot, tired, scared and badly trained. Strategic brilliance, lest we forget, is down to politicians. Like Condi.
Continue reading "Strategic Remarks" »
Another piece by Jonathan Fenby, on the threat of protectionism.
Hang on, though. Am I wrong or isn't China also an economic nationalist of the highest order? Everyone is very keen to promote China as a model of free trade, but I'm really not so sure.
Isn't China implementing protectionist policies itself - over car parts for example? How about its deliberately lackadaisical approach to patent laws? And how does China's policy on the yuan fit in with post-Bretton Woods principles of free-floating currency exchange?
At the end of the day, like it or not, we're all protectionists. Except for some reason, commentators are reluctant to admit this about China - which, developing country and WTO member or not, is singing from a different songsheet.
Again, too knackered to comment effectively, but I direct you to read these two articles on The Guardian's Comment is Free by Martin Jacques. He's a senior visiting research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, so should know what he's on about.
The most recent, Imperial overreach is accelerating the global decline of America, is a useful analysis of how the US is blind to what the real issues are, though I disagree that the Middle East is completely irrelevant. See the sample quote below:
In becoming so catastrophically engaged in the Middle East, making the region its overwhelming global priority, it downgraded the importance of everywhere else, taking its eye off the ball in a crucial region such as east Asia, which in the long run will be far more important to the US's strategic interests than the Middle East.
A real shame that we can't comment on it, though perhaps I'll e-mail him instead.
The other, How the west is lost, I've already commented on in the past. However, scroll down to the bottom for the 22 March comment by Franc. This is a perfect summary of how a Chinese person would typically think on the issues, and as such is an incredibly useful reference for anyone who wants to begin to understand China from a non-Western perspective.
 Just when you thought the US forces in Iraq couldn't get any more inept, they surprise you again.
It's sometimes hard to believe how badly the Iraq war is being conducted. Everything the US military does - and even if it's Iraqi forces on the scene, the US army is still culpable - seems calculated to aggravate the situation:
"In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," said US military spokesman Barry Johnson.
How stupid do you have to be? Even if you are not sure about the status of the venue where guerilla fighters are congregating, you don't just march in guns ablazing. That way you fall straight into the propagandist's hands. Any ambiguity at all about the target has to make it a no-no.
I realise that this ties the US military's hands somewhat, but surely that's better than aggravating an already bad situation. In a war like this sensitivity is just as important as firepower. But it's as if the US is incapable of learning from past mistakes.
BBC report below.
Continue reading "Bulls in a China Shop" »
 I'll always remember something one of my students once said during an English class. I was trying, perhaps against my better judgement, to stimulate debate on the issues facing young people in China. One of the groups was stuck, so I stepped in to lend a hand.
"First, try to think of the big problems facing China in general," I said.
The student looked confused for a moment, then answered: "There are no problems in China."
Well, there clearly are. Pollution. Resources. And most importantly - at least in the here and the now - the incredible gap between rich and poor.
This week in The Economist there's a China special, and the leading article is reprinted below.
The key paragraph is worth quoting in full:
Now is the time to revive Mao's vision of a new landowning order. This would ease rural strife, fuel growth and help develop the genuine market economy the leadership claims to want. Giving peasants marketable ownership rights, and developing a legal system to protect them, would bring huge economic benefits. If peasants could mortgage their land, they could raise money to boost its productivity. Ownership would give them an incentive to do so. And if peasants could sell their land, they could acquire sufficient capital to start life anew in urban areas. This would boost urban consumption and encourage the migration of unproductive rural labour into the cities. For China to sustain its impressive growth rate and reduce inequalities, getting the many tens of millions of underemployed peasants off the land and into wealth-creating jobs is essential. The exodus would help those left behind to expand their land holdings and use them more efficiently.
The problem is that the ownership issue is one of the last vestigial reminders of 'socialism' and the Party faithful, those few who remain, won't give it up without a fight.
Moreover, it's the local government officials who benefit from the lack of peasant rights - so it's they who stand to lose the most. If you can't indulge in a bit of corrupt landgrabbage in China, then where can you?
As the article alludes, it's time for another great leap forward - a real one, this time, not a forced one which results in sending China back into the dark ages.
Too often in China, the people have risen up and disposed of the regime, only for it to be replaced with a carbon copy of the old one. This is the government's biggest fear by far and it is looking for ways out. Allowing the 'farmers' the right to farm their own land - or to do with it what they will - is the first step on a journey that will lead a thousand miles.
It's boring. But it's important.
But if the PRC succeeds in accelerating industrialisation through emancipating the peasantry, then what will follow? More trade imbalances and provocations to a jittery West. More environmental destruction. More demand on resources. More demand for oil. Democracy - whatever the liberals may believe - is certainly not a given.
There are no easy answers. But at least the PRC may be beginning to face, rather than deny, the problem - though it may already be too late.
Continue reading "A Republic for the People" »
Reports on Russia supplying intelligence to Saddam Hussein during the run-up to the Iraq invasion omit one significant question: whose side were they on?
At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Keen to temper US influence in the region, Russia was attempting to aid the Iraqi regime in the only way it could short of straight military support. But the US deception effort was so skilful the Russians were fooled too and fed the Iraqis the very same disinformation.
But it's a well known irony of intelligence work that in order to sell a big lie, you have first to feed the enemy a few small truths. That way you gain their trust - they can see your intelligence has value - and they are more likely to fall for the sting in the tail.
So was this in fact Russia's real tactic? Though he outwardly opposed US policy in the UN, Putin had no real desire to see the continuation of Saddam Hussein's reign. It was a destabilising influence that affected the whole Middle East and thus Russian security too - particularly with regard to their pipelines to Europe.
And the report also emphasises Russian business interests in Iraq. It's all about oil, everyone, don't forget it.
BBC Report below.
Continue reading "Whose Side Are They On?" »
 Thinking of investing in China? Read this. The full blow-by-blow account of what happened to the that's brand, in the words of its founder Mark Kitto.
I happened to freelance occasionally for that's Shanghai while it was still a brand worth working for: I was even interviewed for a job by Mark Kitto who is a very impressive chap. Driven, canny and courageous. So I certainly feel for him, even more so having read this piece.
Glad the job offer was withdrawn though. Among other reasons, I think Mark may have been trying to protect me.
He basically spent five years of his life striving to build a business in China only for it to be shot down in flames literally overnight. He was still involved in publishing (as far as I know - nearly a year since I left China now) via Hong-Kong based tom.com and Asia and Away magazine, but if he had hoped to become an influential mandarin of Oriental publishing he should, I'm afraid, have stayed at home.
If I was him I'd set up a business warning and advising other entrepreneurs who reckon they'll profit out of China. Which they won't. A US publisher even got cold feet for publishing his book about his experiences - they didn't want to put off their partners in China.
The only people who'll profit from business in China are the Chinese. That's FDI for you...
See also Shanghaiist for more links.
 The Economist's Global Agenda reports on the pipeline story in more depth.
'Friction more than friendship'? An interesting hypothesis - but I don't see how. Sure, it increased mutual reliance on each other, but Russia and China are more natural geographical and political partners than, say, Russia and the US, or China and the Middle East.
There is, however, a strong element of 'pipeline diplomacy':
Even the promise of a pipeline is a useful means of wielding influence over neighbours, both to the east and to the west. Russia may hope for a favourable outcome in a territorial dispute with Japan over the Kuriles, a chain of islands linking Japan to Russia. Or, with China, it might expect better co-operation in Central Asia.
Since the PRC is making inroads into Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan anyway, Russia has no option but to service its neighbour with fuel. The routing of pipelines is of great political significance too: via its pipeline to Kazakhstan, China may soon have access to the Caspian too, and will need Russia even less. So may as well strike while the iron's hot.
As the article concludes, oil is influence. And influence, sooner or later, will be oil.
Continue reading "Pipeline Politics" »
 Compare and contrast these two articles from the BBC:
After the invasion: Iraqis speak
Kyrgyzstan's revolution: One year on
They make for depressing reading. Though the circumstances of regime change in Iraq and Kyrgyztan wer profoundly different - the first imposed by the US and heavily criticised, the second an organic uprising by the people - the comments are the same.
None of the people interviewed in either Krygyzstan and Iraq are happy. In Central Asia the corruption continues; in the Middle East the violence has simply taken on new clothing.
If neither invasion nor revolution were successful ways to remove authoritarianism and oppression, is there anything, then, that can work?
Iraq interviews below.
Continue reading "Whatever it was, it didn't work" »
 I was astonished to read in The Economist that I am, in fact, a neocon:
...neoconservatives came to believe that American power should be used for moral purposes, that democracy and human rights in other countries were a legitimate foreign-policy concern, but that international law and institutions were generally unable to solve serious security problems. This strand of thinking blended some fairly left-wing elements with a right-wing belief in the use of military power...
The snippet comes from a review of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy, which I'd like to get my hands on once I have time and money.
I didn't agree with much of Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man, and he doesn't agree with much of it any more either. The reason is Iraq, the invasion of which occurred three years ago today.
This raises the question of the lasting effects of the Iraq policy and of George W in general, another subject raised by The Economist this week. At present, it certainly does not appear that Iraq has dug the foundation for democracy in the Middle East, far from it.
But hold on - what's this? The US holding talks with Iran over Iraq? OK, on the one hand they are fighting a war by proxy in the south of the country. On the other, anything that gets the US and Iran into dialogue isn't a complete disaster; America has to begin at least listening to the other side of the story and I suspect it's about to get an earful.
Finally, with Bush and Blair's credibility at their lowest ebb, what next? Though many are eager to demonstrate against the war, it is a question few are ready to answer. Simple withdrawal from Iraq would be catastrophic and would almost certainly lead to wider Sunni-Sh'ia conflict that may well spill over across the region. Yet as long as they are there, the troops are part of the problem as well as part of the solution.
The Economist passes on a couple of ideas in the last paragraphs of the article 'Resolve, but no solution':
For instance, one of the war's main cheerleaders, Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, recommends securing the calmest parts of Iraq first, rather than concentrating American forces in Sunni Arab areas where the insurgency is strongest. That way, he argues, more Iraqis can establish normal lives more quickly. Political power and oil revenues should be decentralised, he says, and some powers transferred to a UN high commissioner, as happened in Bosnia.
By contrast, in the latest Foreign Affairs Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations urges America to concentrate on brokering a compromise between the Kurds and Shia and Sunni Arabs by threatening to manipulate the military balance of power between them. To force the Sunnis to the negotiating table, America must threaten to arm and train a Shia-Kurdish army. To force the Shias and Kurds to compromise, it must threaten to pull out of Iraq prematurely, or back the Sunnis. Mr Biddle admits that such a radical shift from idealism to realpolitik would be “a challenge” to explain to American voters.
It may be a challenge to explain to voters, but not as hard as explaining 2,000 more American bodybags and tens of thousands of forgotten victims in the Middle East.
I reproduce this last article below.
Continue reading "An End of History, Three Years On" »
 The people of Taiwan have a right to protest, but they must be aware that they are playing a very dangerous game.
Chen Shui-bian's words "annexation and invasion" could so easily be interpreted as a come-on to the PRC to do exactly that - semantically, in English, they are an implication of independence.
But the fact that 45,000 people turned out, many of them brandishing comedy inflatable missiles- I assume they were not all coerced into this - is a sign that Taiwan is and remains different to mainland China. It is, we must remember, a democracy, where people can demonstrate in public without being imprisoned or shot.
Were 45,000 people to take to the streets of Xi'an, for example, protesting land grabs, there's no telling what would happen. Vive la difference.
I bet the inflatable missiles were made in Shenzhen. Now that would be ironic.
BBC report here - also reproduced below.
Continue reading "Missile the Point" »
 A comment piece on the two worlds we live in - the Eurocentric western perception and the Asian century.
Is the West lost? Not yet. There's enough other people who realise that increasingly we are going to have to look at the east not as potential resources for exploitation but at best as partners and at worst as dangerous rivals.
The author Martin Jacques correctly identifies the key problem with this relationship: put very simply, we don't understand them:
It is difficult living in two worlds - especially when it is the world called home that is becoming more and more parochial and less and less able to understand the wider world. It is becalmed, bemused, defensive, increasingly introverted and fearful. But there aren't many people I can talk to about it - you see, not surprisingly they are part of the problem.
And he also realises that the Middle East is simply a distraction:
How are Americans going to react to their country's decline and the rise of China and India? At the moment they don't believe it could possibly happen. Despite the disgraceful mess they have made of Iraq, they are still gung-ho. They are still convinced it is the right of God's chosen people to boss the world. And 9/11, unilateralism, and the invasion of Iraq have hugely encouraged that.
I suspect, though, that it was all a huge historical miscalculation. Always beware your moment of triumphalism: such emotions are a poor steer on the future. And that future is not primarily about the Middle East, but east Asia...
Also take a look at the comments, this one for example:
I don't kid myself that China is free from virulent racism and nationalism. Racial epithets are commonly used (Westerners are "Big noses", KOreans are "pancake faces" and Japanese are "Little noses") and the language used about Africans is sometimes appalling. They can be very parochial and extremely nationalistic.
We shouldn't be surprised by this- we are all human beings and we share the same failings. In fact our common humanity means that we are prone to the same stereotyping and beliefs in our own superiority.
Jacques' big mistake is to assume that these are unique to Westerners or are uniquely bad in the West. Factually this is simply not true.
My own comment is below.
Continue reading "Worlds Apart" »
 Manmohan Singh knows what side his roti's buttered. First the nuclear deal with the US, and now another with Russia.
Of course it's in India's medium-term national interests to improve its energy system, and nuclear is the lesser of two evils if you consider the effects of burning enough coal to keep a billion people powered - like they do in China.
But there's a more subtle political game going on in the background too. Singh is cleverly tying himself up with major potential allies, and by so doing puts India on a higher pedastel, confirming her position as a regional power of weight and consequence.
There's a sense that Russia is playing a game of one-up-manship against the US, but as far as India's concerned that's just fine.
Continue reading "Nuclear Diplomacy?" »
 Breaking news of a major air assault on Iraq. What's the bigger picture, though? Is this intended as a sign that the US is still in control? Is it a warning to the factions that lethal force may be visited upon them at any moment? Is it intended to mark the three year anniversary of the beginning of hostilities?
Probably all of these things. But what's for sure is that an all-guns-blazing Colonel Kildare-style attack is not the best way to deal with insurgents. And this is what the US forces just don't get.
The kind of war they are fighting is not a war where you can fight enemy formations in pitched battles over defined stretches of territory. It's a guerrilla war, where the enemy is smart, elusive and blends into the civilian population. Small groups, often acting entirely independently, make their move and then melt back into the towns and cities.
Just like in Vietnam. Except none of the lessons appear to have been learned.
My prediction for the news over the next few days: tens of American bodybags; scores of dead terrorists; hundreds of wounded and displaced civilians; maybe a thousand new recruits, militated to the cause; and increased tension across Iraq.
It's not going to reassure the Sh'ia majority; it'll only provoke the Sunnis. Even if it solves the Samarra problem, ultimately it'll create new ones.
Continue reading "Operation Swarmer" »
 It's just a phrase; it has little substansive meaning.
Today the UN formed a new Human Rights Council to replace the Human Rights Commission. So the new council doesn't contain members with bad records on human rights. But so what? What is anyone actually going to do about human rights violations?
Studying International Law as part of my course, it's becoming increasingly obvious that there is not really any such thing as International Law. The basic reason is that it can't be enforced. Sanctions inevitably hurt the people they are designed to protect; military intervention is rare, has to be approved by the UN, and seldom has a sufficient mandae to achieve anything concrete.
The only real remedy is the 'motivation of shame'; which doesn't work when the governments and individuals concerned are utterly shameless.
Meanwhile, serial abusers such as Milosevic are free to pass peacefully away in their cells; others still, like Karadzic and Mladic, remain at large.
What we need are not just councils and conventions but a real, permanent standing force capable of taking swift and decisive action, removing the authority of abusive regimes and of dragging these people straight from their palaces to face the firing squad. That I'm afraid is the only thing these people will recognise, and will be the only deterrent to human rights violators elsewhere.
Yet with the ICC a joke and the Iraq War a mess, there's a long way to go yet.
Continue reading "Human Rights for Who?" »
One to watch from The Guardian - Comment is Free, its new 'uber blog':
...the first collective comment blog by a British newspaper website. It will incorporate all the regular Guardian and Observer main commentators, many blogging for the first time, who will be joined by a host of outside contributors - politicians, academics, writers, scientists, activists and of course existing bloggers to debate, argue and occasionally agree on the issues of the day.
Worth keeping an eye on.
 It's well known that the PRC is utterly unable to accept, consider or even discuss any point of view other than its own - but today's gaffe by the Japanese foreign minister was truly excruciating.
Aso by name and Aso by nature, the Japanese well well have successfully managed to tie up three of China's biggest bugbears - Taiwan, the Senkaku Islands and World War Two - and release them onto their own doorstep.
Taiwan's de-facto independence notwithstanding, Mr Aso really should have known better than to refer to it as a "country", something guaranteed to provoke China. As if denial about the war wasn't bad enough.
Japan, if it knows what's good for it, rather than giving China backchat should get the history issue dealt with once and for all - if, that is, if China will let it. Junichuro Koizumi has to stop visiting the Yasakuni shrine; it's not much to ask.
But would China actually accept an apology from Japan - phrased somehow differently from the last ones? Or are Japanese atrocities too useful a tool to leverage it on more immediate commercial issues such as gas exploration?
At the end of the day, the real issue of history - and the Japanese occupation, the civil war, the Kuomintang's flight to Taiwan and the establishment of the RoC are all interconnected - the real issue is where events have left the borders, and who has the rights over the hydrocarbon resources. That is what it really comes down to.
BBC article below.
Continue reading "A Foot in a Foreign Minister's Mouth" »
 Quite some analysis from Randeep Ramesh in The Guardian today. He tries to pull together a few too many strands, and not all of them tie up, but the nub of the piece is still quite interesting.
It's the great game, again, but Ramesh posits that the recent Bush visit signals that the US is finally recognising India as a player.
Until this year India has been strangely invisible from world headlines, but for the occasional bomb attack, religious festival or threat of nuclear armaggedon. It's still, I would argue, variously perceived as a land of poverty, Gurus and call-centres (they're known as BPOs - Business Processing Outsourcing - in India itself). But increasingly India is arriving at the political table too.
Here's two of the key paragraphs:
As the centre of gravity of the world's economy shifts to Asia, there is recognition that India was needed as a strategic counterweight not only to China but to provide diplomatic options to Japan and Russia.
This period of history, at least in American eyes, is about relations between great powers, and in the Bush vision of India - with its dynamic economy - is about to become one of them. This alone challenges the notion that there is an emerging US empire in the world.
Yet on the other hand, surely this reinforces the US's position as, if not the hegemon, then at least the core of a hegemonistic alliance of which India is the latest jewel in the crown. Ramesh stumbles over his own argument in that it's US self-interest pure and simple that drives this relationship; Washington is building up a front against Islam and China, and India is perfectly positioned for it to do so.
From an Indian perspective, setting aside her own internal issues, she is effectively encircled by China-friendly nations with serious instabilities of their own. Pakistan, Nepal and Burma are some rather thorny problems. India needs a US hand to hold when she feels scared.
Burma suffers under an extremely authoritarian regime, bolstered by China. Nepal is experiencing civil war in which the government and the rebels are both sponsored by, who else, China.
And worst of all, Pakistan has been India's number one rival for 60 years; a hotbed of extremism, President Musharraf is left holding a delicate balance between Islam and his rival sponsors, the US and China. The moment one of these slips out of his grasp, India could be in trouble.
India may well be the regional hegemon for the time being - but in this multipolar world it's a lot more complicated than that. Do you know what George W. Bush's cat is called? India.
Continue reading "From Chesspiece to Chessplayer?" »
 It's easy to forget, sometimes, how we are all interconnected, and how the world around us affects us all. The War on Terror and Islamic extremism all too often appear as disposable images on TV screens, casually consumed over our TV dinners with no relevance to us here and now.
But today, just like on 7 July 2005, a place that I know was attacked. Varanasi, the holy city on the banks of the Ganges, suffered three explosions. At the time of writing the death toll is 15, but except this to rise as morning comes.
It's hard to describe your feelings when something like this happens. No, I am not directly affected, nor those close to me. Yet in Varanasi I spent two of the most illuminating days of my trip to India, and we met a gamut of local characters from street-boys to sweet-vendors to silk-traders any one of whom might just have been caught up in events. The bombed Sankat Mochan temple, for example, was not far from the hotel where we stayed.
Is this Islamic terrorism? It could be Maoists, but for now let's assume the former. Why? It is clearly a brazen attempt to stir up tensions between Hindu and Moslem, just as the attack on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra was aimed at sparking tensions between Shia and Sunni in Iraq.
At times like this you wonder whether Bush was right all along, that terrorism is one of the biggest threats that we face - or whether his policies are actually the inspiration for the carnage and the sorrow and the anger that will ensue.
If India were to descend into violence, as happened in Gujarat in 2002, it would be deeply sad, not only for India but for us all. India has just been welcomed into the nuclear club: for all its faults, and there are many, it has been recognised as a stable and responsible democracy with a key role in the future of the planet. It is a paradigm for the rest of the region it sits within.
A few explosions must not destroy that.
BBC coverage below.
Continue reading "River of Tears" »
 Poverty in Africa gets Bob Geldof, Bono and a whole host of philanthropists, politicians and hairy Irish rockers prattling on about their plight. Today it's Asia's turn.
Here's the key sentence:
As well as being a human rights issue, it also raises fears of social instability.
Absolutely. In Africa, poverty is mainly a moral issue. They don't affect us all that much - they just fight among themselves and die of disease and starvation. Asia is something else. There, poverty is political.
That being said, I do also see the infamous 'hand of history' caressing Tony's shoulder again. He knows that he has only a year or so left in office and with the stigma of the Iraq debacle clinging to him he wants to ensure it's not the only thing he's remembered for.
Perhaps I'm being harsh; perhaps he really means it and should be commended for daring to step where other Western leaders fear to tread. There's certainly self-interest there, for Tony the man, Tony the politician and for Britain as a whole. But even so, something is better than nothing.
See also this editorial in The Guardian by Robin Greenwood of Christian Aid.
I remain suspicious and sceptical about NGOs, particularly religious charities, but he raises a couple of good points:
As the Asian century began, many thought macro-economic growth alone could end the continent's poverty once and for all, but those who still believe this need a reality check.
Asia is home to the majority of the world's population and to most of its poor. Of the planet's 1 billion people who exist on less than $1 (57p) a day, two-thirds live in Asia.
They are not just in fragile states such as Afghanistan, Burma or the freefall economies of former Soviet central Asia. Hundreds of millions still live in poverty despite the fashionable, much-reported success of the region's drivers: China and India.
The myth of a richer Asia is shattered in the slums and villages of these vast countries. Even with double-digit growth rates, the poor are getting poorer.
Precisely. If I forget everything else I saw in China and India, it the gap between rich and poor that will remain with me. Not only is it wrong, but it is dangerous. It needs to be addressed with vigour.
What we in the West do is frequently counterproductive - it is all very well to speak of 'lifting people out of poverty' but the responsibility ultimately lies with government.
Read the BBC article below, or click straight to the conference website.
Continue reading "Turning to Asia" »
 Okay. Let's deconstruct this one.
It's the National People's Congress in Beijing - cue fireworks, carnival, dancing animals and laser shows. No, really, it's perhaps the dullest political event in existence, as unelected party leaders outline their policies in an atmosphere of bland acquiescence.
No debate whatsoever. Anyway, here, according to the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, is the soundbite:
"Building a 'new socialist countryside' is a major historic task," Mr Wen told the conference.
Right then. What's 'new'? Does it mean 'absence of the old'? Or does it mean that the previous model failed and has to be replaced?
'Socialist'. Are we talking Maoism here? Marxist-Leninism? Or is this simply a word now? What, if at all, are the PRC's socialist ideals these days? Is it about redistributing wealth and ownership from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat? Or is it something else?
And 'countryside'. This is where the majority of Chinese still live, the 'countryside', meaning perhaps the absence of urbanisation and industrialisation. But the word (admittedly, any translation from the Chinese cannot contain every nuance of the real phrase employed) to us in the West has nostalgic undertones of straw-chewing yokels quaffing cider in Olde English villages.
The reality in China is somewhat different - it's about poverty.
Finally 'historic'. Is something really significant about to happen? Or is this in fact Karl Marx's end of history, the replacement of capitalism with a socialist order?
Well, I haven't deconstructed this very well. But the phrase really raises a lot of questions, a lot of them uncomfortable ones.
Continue reading "'New' 'Socialist' 'Countryside'" »
 Condi's new buzzword, as elaborated upon in this lengthy Guardian special report (also below) is hijacked from DoD-speak: probably coined in this speech back in 2002, 'transformational' originally referred to a huge shift in military doctrine (including strategy and procurement) inspired by the end of the Cold War and then, of course, 9/11.
Now, according to Ms Rice, we need 'transformational diplomacy'.
Perhaps it's a shame that transformational diplomacy didn't precede transformational military doctrine, but better late than never. The article below elucidates on the new policy - which is basically a diplomatic paradigm shift of the West away from Europe (particularly the former Warsaw Pact) and towards - you've guessed it - Asia and the Middle East.
We can already see it in action:
Exemplifying the new American thinking, George Bush this week travelled to three countries at the heart of the new strategy. First stop was Afghanistan, to reassure its nascent yet fragile government that the US would not abandon its fight against the Taliban. Then India, a new economic powerhouse, which according to some is being courted as a counterweight to the rapidly expanding ambitions of China. And finally to Pakistan, another nuclear power, whose volatile regions provide a harbour for al-Qaida.
This attention to diplomatic in addition to pure military power perhaps reflects a small nudge to the left in US policy, and can only be read as a positive move.
However, Condi and George would do well to read a book by Harvard history professor, Niall Ferguson, named 'Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire'. It's reviewed here by The Guardian.
I admit, from a personal point of view as someone who's considering a Foreign Office career, that I wouldn't like a posting to Baghdad or Kabul, and certainly wouldn't want to take my loved ones there.
But for diplomats to have just one-year postings defeats the purpose of ambassadorial staff. Why send them home just as they gain contacts, linguistic skills and experience? Is America really in this for the long run?
It's exactly the kind of 'attention deficit' that Ferguson criticises:
...namely, the attention deficit that seems to be inherent in the American political system and that already threatens to call a premature halt to reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not intended as a term of abuse. The problem is systemic: it is the way the political process militates against far-sighted leadership.
The US needs to realise that it's in this for well beyond the forseeable future. It can't just walk away from Iraq, Afghanistan, or China and India for that matter. Transformational diplomacy is all very well, but the first thing it needs to transform is itself.
Continue reading "Transformational Diplomacy" »
 ...does not need to raise its military budget by 14.7%.
Granted, it's impossible to know what China's exact budget really is, since it would be foolish to believe any figures emanating from the PRC itself. The US believe's last year's spend was $90; the PRC puts it at a third of that.
However, whatever the true sum, the announcement of the budget increase is a clear signal. The extra cash for fuel and salaries cannot be much more than 5%, in my reckoning, given average world fuel price increases of 2% and Chinese inflation also of about 2%. So that's 10% for technological development.
Were I Taiwan, I would be reading between the lines, especially having just scrapped my council on re-unification. Funny that this announcement is coming now - I'd call it a warning.
BBC report below.
Continue reading "A Peaceful Nation..." »
 I'm not quite sure what this means yet - but basically China is introducing some new IP address suffixes to add to .com, .cn and the like.
They will be in Chinese characters, not Roman letters.
In a way that's fair enough. But in another it's not. Not only will it make it easier for the PRC to bypass ICANN ( and probably, therefore, easier to censor the Internet) but it's also a threat to one of the best side effects of the Internet - its role in spreading English.
I'm not saying this for nationalist reasons, though as an Englishman I admit to an interest in English. What I mean is that in this globalised world we need an international language - and it's English. It just is.
Here in Amsterdam I'm surrounded by people of all nationalities - in my block, for example, there are Slovakians, Bulgarians, a Slovenian, a Frenchman, some African people I haven't yet met and the inevitable Brits and Yanks too. Whenever we communicate, it's in English.
I'll always remember a boy in Malawi, who told me that he was a poor fisherman's son. But instead of begging for money, he asked for a book. I gave him an old novel I had, and asked him why. "Because," said the boy, in remarkable English, "if am ever to be anything more than a poor fisherman, I need education. And to get education, you must speak English."
The Internet is the best way to introduce English to China. Whether they like it or not, for 75% of the world's population it's easier to learn English than Chinese. And the more Chinese understand English, the more that they'll understand the world around them.
And the more Chinese who understand the world around them, the better it is for China.
And the better it is for China, the better for everyone else too.
Economist piece below.
Continue reading "All English to Me" »
 Bush's visit to India, reported here by the BBC, shows that the US can indeed engage with major third-world nations in a positive and constructive manner.
But it really begs the question: why can't this be done with Iran?
Iran also has nuclear ambitions, and has every right to pursue atomic energy. At the end of the day, it's still the best option we have to counter the incresing threat of global warming.
There are differences between Iran and India, however. India already has the bomb, which is a big stick to be carrying during any negotiations. Iran does not.
Furthermore, Iran is viewed as a pariah state, a member of the 'axis of evil'. Thus the US is out to block it from gaining nuclear technology. It's this dichotomy that is the most hypocritical, and ultimately the least helpful.
Arguably, US policy against Iran - the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, for example - has done little but encourage the radical elements it is supposed to subdue, and has held back Iran from serious development.
While I too would not like to see a nuclear-armed Iran, the presence of nuclear detente between India and Pakistan has kept the peace between them for a few years. So the bomb is not such a bad thing after all. If only the US were willing to engage with Iran the way they can with India, then a lot of problems would fade away.
Continue reading "The Nuclear Family" »
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