I ran across an excellent video I wanted to share concerning the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Incident. They do an excellent look at both the Chinese and Japanese positions. If this guy is fully representing the Chinese side, his argument is pretty weak, especially since the actual collision did not take place in disputed waters, but clearly […]
Over the past six months, there has been much of focus in the international media on the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors in the East and South China seas. However, China has territorial disputes along most of its borders. Although the United States has injected itself into the former, the dispute between China and […]
Here is an interesting take on the situation from Taiwan based blogger, Michael Turton. Warning: Michael is un-apologetically pro-Taiwan, but I believe his take on this issue is quite astute: Context: China kicked up a massive fuss in the world media and put a on a show for the home crowd. Yet in February Russia […]
PART II North Korea will never honestly negotiate a dismantling of its nuclear weapons; this is the only trump card that has ensured cash flow into the regime. In essence, N. Korea is black mailing the region (and the U.S.). This behavior is not surprising, as the North is a “mafia state” lead […]
map from BBC Hot Spot – East China Sea: Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands: China, Japan, Taiwan In continuation: Over the last few days, China has been increasingly the saber rattling in regard to the arrest of a Chinese fishing crew by Japanese authorities. Japan contends that the former rammed the latter (JCG patrol ship Yonakuni) at […]
The Kim mafia has been in the news quite a bit lately, and every time Kim Jong-Il makes a headline, China gets uncomfortable. Great Leader Kim is somewhat akin to the the late U.S. mafia boss, John Gotti Jr., he makes far too many newspaper headlines, a spotlight that makes his friends uneasy. As […]
Nationalism is a beast the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did not create, but has often tried harness to it’s benefit. Still, the use of this tool is tempered by the ever present Chinese fear of chaos (luàn:乱). A potential disaster scenario for the party is one in which it finds itself on the wrong side […]
Black helicopters, U.N. conspiracies and shadowy cabals of all-powerful financiers – this is the stuff that fixates in the feverish imagination of a certain segment of the American populace. In one of those wonders of globalization (and ideological indoctrination), those same shadowy cabals do double duty as the object of much Chinese paranoia. This is […]
The last minute confirmation of Hu Jintao’s attendance at the Global Nuclear Security Summit in D.C. later this month has put to rest fears that China would send a lower-ranking official to the summit in retaliation for arm sales to Taiwan and other bilateral quarrels. The Western media, recently fixated on the ebb and flow […]
An epic drought is ravaging the Mekong River basin, destroying crops and endangering livelihoods. From the the river’s origins in western China, where it is known as the Lancang, and along its winding route through the countries of the southeast Asian peninsula, record high temperatures and low precipitation have brought the Mekong so low as […]
Finally, China comes to the table on Iran. A few days ago Liu Zhenmin, a former deputy ambassador to the U.N. and lead Chinese negotiator on previous Iran sanctions, reportedly participated in a conference call about U.S.-proposed Security Council sanctions, ending months of disengagement on the issue. While this is a step in the right […]
This past Sunday in Beijing marked the closing of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its more eclectic sidekick, the China People’s Political Consultative Congress, familiarly known in Chinese as lianghui, or “the two meetings.” Both are typically derided as “rubber-stamp” bodies, theatrical reenactments of democracy that give the public a vague whiff of political […]
In the past few months, China’s senior-most officials have all identified structural economic reform as one of the nation’s most important priorities. Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao, premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang, and Minister for Industry and Information Technology Li Yizhong have each publicly stressed the need for domestic demand to supplant exports as China’s main engine of […]
The upshot of the recent trip to Beijing by NSC Senior Director Jeffrey Bader and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg? The U.S. got an earful about China’s top three foreign policy concerns: “Taiwan, Taiwan, Taiwan” (courtesy of The Cable). “It was all about Taiwan,” said Bonnie Glaser, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic […]
China can be less “hurried” on the Iran nuclear question, a scholar with a key PRC think tank wrote last week. Writing in an op-ed for the Party mouthpiece Global Times, Gao Zugui argued for calm in the face of Western pressure over Iranian sanctions and to “be less rushed, more independent, less tied-up.” This […]