Monday, November 1, 2004

It seems that most people in Taiwan don't want to be reunified with the People's Republic of China. 43% of Taiwanese (pro-independence plus pro-status quo forever) don't want it at any price; and another 40% don't even want to consider it until the Peoples Republic of China has changed into a democracy. In an oblique way, this misfortune of history reminds me of the joke about an old Russian man answering a series of questions: Question: "Where were you born?" Old Man:"St. Petersburg." Question: "Where did you study?" Old Man:"Petrograd." Question: "Where did you work?" Old Man:"Leningrad." Question:"Where did you retire?" Old Man:"St. Petersburg. I've been told that if you want to understand Taiwan's politics, you need to talk to the Taxi Drivers. I've also read that some expats living in Shanghai think that Taiwanese are actually running the show on the Mainland. It seems both the Taiwanese and the Mainlanders will be "living in interesting times" for quite some time to come. 10:26:25 PM      comment

Saturday, June 26, 2004

Calling Temple Grandin It was strange enough to see a cow wandering alone, well after dark, down the main street of Deqin. But when it walked up to a butcher shop, I really started paying attention 4:48:15 AM      comment

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

China has shutdown 8600 Internet cafes in two months, in a campaign to reaffirm Communist party control over media and publishing in China. 3:39:54 PM      comment Via OsaruTaru, I have now become aware of The Notorious MSG - Sort of a Guandong Chinese American Beasty Boyz, laying down beats as punishing as Bruce Lee on his Guailo students, these guys embrace all the U.S. stereotypes about Chinatown culture and turn the FOB lexicon into badass raps. 12:37:55 AM      comment

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Lhasa (Tibet) has the largest concentration of prostitutes in the world? Deliberate policy to suppress resistance of Tibetan youth? 12:05:06 AM      comment

Friday, March 26, 2004

Sites inaccessible in China - RadioShack.com??? 6:51:27 PM      comment

Monday, February 2, 2004

What follows is pure speculation: North Korea is behaving badly. The U.S. looks to China, South Korea, and Japan for help in dealing with the North. In the absence of reasonable negotiations, the only Four options to cope with the North are: Give in to North Korean demands (which only encourages them, and postpones the problem.) Confront the North aggressively (decapitation strike?) Get the Chinese to exert pressure just wall off the North and wait for the inevitable collapse. China frequently declares that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. (Unlike the U.S., which has turned this into an art (the modern, abstract messy kind.) BUT, China doesn't have a problem interfering (or threatening to intefere) with other nations on its borders if it can declare that those nations are in fact historically a part of China. (Tibet, Taiwan, Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands.) (And let's not forget the "punitive" (punishing) attacks made by China into Vietnam in 1979.) China has been funding the"Northeast Progress"project, a state sponsored development effort in the North Eastern region of China. Part of this project includes a research project to prove that the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Kokuryo) was historically part of China. The Guangming Ribao, a daily scholarly publication of the Chinese Communist Party, claimed that "Goguryeo is part of China." (Have you heard this line before? Hint: "Taiwan is part of China") Goguryeo is one of the historic kingdoms from which Korea draws its lineage. In fact the "Go" or "Ko" in Goguryeo / Kokuryo is what puts the "Ko" in "Korea". Historically, Goguryeo occupied a territory that spanned both Northern Korea and large parts of North East China / Manchuria. Some Chinese emperors may have had bloodlines traced back to royalty in Goguryeo (but then again, European royal bloodlines were extensively mixed...) Goguryeo is part of China. North Korea was part of Goguryeo. E.G. DPRK is part of China. In the event of a DPRK collapse, or outbreak of hostilities between North and South (and therefore U.S.) - China could stake the claim to pick up the pieces, based on history. For a more restrained view, see this AATimes opinion piece 5:27:05 PM      comment

Wednesday, July 9, 2003

Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages This site is dedicated to the Chinese propaganda poster as it has been produced from 1949 till the present day. So-called propaganda art has played a major supporting role in the many campaigns that were designed to mobilize the people, and throughout the People's Republic, the propaganda poster has been the favored vehicle through which art conveyed model behavior. I've been collecting these Chinese political posters for many years now, and have brought together quite a nice collection of some 1,400 titles, spanning five decades of Chinese poster production. From time to time, new sections will be added, devoted to the political, social and economic movements and developments that have found their way into visual propaganda over the years. 12:31:15 AM      comment

Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Protesters Burn China Communist Flag Before HK Rally 12:56:41 AM      comment

Monday, June 2, 2003

China's Monumental Gamble River Halted by Dam That Will Bring Power, or Untold Destruction China begins to fill the three gorges dam resevoir... 12:12:38 AM      comment

Sunday, May 11, 2003

SARS exposes holes in China's health care This article demonstrates a fact well known to Americans: market based reforms for health care systems result in degraded health care (not to say that this makes Americans smarter, to the contrary, it proves that dogmatic loyalty to market based systems as a solution to everything may result in dismal failures, which American's don't know how to solve (because, we don't want to be COMMUNISTS! DO WE?.) Ironically, healthcare in China was better under the old communist system than it is today. (Are you listening, America?) 12:40:50 AM      comment

Thursday, May 8, 2003

70 dead in Chinese Submarine disaster This is somewhat old news, but I thought I'd record it here. 70 persons (on a boat that normally carries 50?) were lost due to a disaster which has not been clearly explained onboard a (PRC) Chinese submarine. The sub was a diesel-electric type sub - a copy of a Russian design - which is a copy of a WWII era German design. Although "diesel-electric" sounds pretty archaic compared to the modern Nuclear powered submarines used in the U.S. navy, it turns out that the older type of power is more stealthy (and therefore deadly) when running underwater on battery power. Of course, there are more limitations on range and endurance, but if your goal is to defend the area around your coast (and or interdict U.S. Naval forces coming to the rescue of Taiwan), those limitations probably aren't as much of a factor. The Chinese "Ming class" subs are pretty old though, and may not be as good as modern "diesel-electric" attack subs (which are still being built by other countries even today.) China is said to be spending more money and putting more effort into training and retaining experienced crews to improve its submarine forces. (SARS may be a speed bump in this process.) If you want to read a GREAT book about the U.S. submarine force's cold war adventures (where many heroic and unbelievable actions took place that most people never even heard about), I recommend reading the non fiction book Blind Man's Bluff. One can only wonder if the U.S. submarine forces are playing the same tricks on the Chinese that they used to play on the Russians. 12:31:00 AM      comment Strategy Page 's "military news about China" section reports that the economic impact of SARS in China will force reductions in military spending. (The Chinese military is trying to modernize, especially the Navy, which is seeking to create a Navy capable of engaging the U.S., and perhaps sufficent to secure and defend a successful invasion of Taiwan.) 12:10:16 AM      comment

Wednesday, April 2, 2003

China says submarine accident kills 70 sailors 1:18:47 PM      comment The Big Story Everyone Missed December 30, 2002 People who were whipped into a frenzy about the 'Chinese peril' must wonder what happened. But Washington's shift in attitude is a return to sanity. 11:42:10 AM      comment

Sunday, March 16, 2003

The Korean Crisis: China Maneuvers behind the Scenes 03-12-2003 By Tom Knowlton History teaches us that small wars are invariable precursors to much larger conflicts. The path to the cataclysmic First and Second World Wars can be found in the smaller Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, Spanish Civil War, and Italian-Ethiopian War. It is a credit to the governments of the United States and the former Soviet Union that none of the post-Second World War conflicts erupted into a full-blown conflagration between the two superpowers. The dangers posed by Iraq and the saber-rattling North Korea likely herald the beginning rather than an end to new cycle of warfare. While the arsenals and maniacal leaders of both nations pose a global threat, neither nation can be construed as a global power. The same, however, cannot be said for the nation that has been operating behind the scenes as a macabre puppet master instigating the brinkmanship of both Iraq and North Korea communist China. China has long believed that it possessed a manifest destiny to establish a political and economic hegemony over all of eastern Asia. In the mind of many Chinese policymakers, China's "rightful place" as overlord of Asia has been hindered by foreign powers dating back to the 19th century, when Japan, the United States and the Western colonial powers divided China into "spheres of influence" and later crushed the nationalist Boxer Rebellion in 1900. 12:29:56 AM      comment

Thursday, March 13, 2003

Chinese military blasts confusion at the top BEIJING - Military deputies attending the ongoing annual meeting of China's supreme legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), have launched a broadside at the state of confusion at the top hierarchy of the country. "Multi-center means no center, which will lead to no achievement," uttered deputies Gu Huisheng and Ai Husheng after listening to a speech given by Jiang Zemin, the incumbent chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), as reported by Tuesday's People's Liberation Army Daily. To make their point more figuratively, the two generals cracked Chinese characters. "One zhong and one xin together make one loyalty, but piecing two zhongs together to one xin gives one huan, a problem."ÊZhong meains "middle" and xin means "heart". Ê Zhongxin as a phrase means "the center". On paper, China's top political boss is Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The official order of precedence, however, puts Jiang above him as the CMC chairman. The question therefore hangs: who is superior, CCP or CMC? 6:10:18 PM      comment China blocking major-power UN meeting on N. Korea UNITED NATIONS, March 13 (Reuters) - China on Thursday acknowledged blocking major powers from discussing the North Korea crisis at the United Nations, saying it was pushing instead for a dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang. Council diplomats said the United States, backed by France and Britain, has been pressing for the Security Council's five permanent members to get together to draft a council statement condemning North Korea for failing to meet its international obligations to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. However China has objected to such a meeting, the diplomats said. The 15-nation council's permanent members are the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China. 1:25:44 PM      comment

© Copyright 2004 John W. Williams II. Last update: 11/5/04; 1:15:00 PM.