News of the Day (April 12)

More on the Communist military buildup: Communist China’s military buildup caught the notice of Edward Cody, Washington Post today (via MSNBC). Cody’s well-written piece details the possible effects against Taiwan, and also included a largely unreported part of the story: the Communists’ efforts to improve their anti-U.S. nuclear “deterrent.”

February trade deficit breaks monthly record thanks to Communist import surge: The U.S. trade deficit reached a monthly record high of $61 billion in February, in part due to the fact that “textiles and clothing from China rose by 9.8 percent” (Washington Post). Said numbers, and Communist China’s continuing aggressiveness on Taiwan and other matters, is fueling a growing anti-Communism on Capitol Hill, as noted by Irwin M. Seltzer (Daily Standard), and exemplified by the Senate’s agreement to take up a bill no later than July to slap a currency-corrective tariff on the Communists (second item).

Japanese Trade Minister and Wen Jiabao throw insults at each other: In response to Japan’s concern over violent protests against its citizens and embassy in Communist China (third item), Premier Wen Jiabao told Japan to “face up to history” (BBC), without saying whether said “history” would respond with rocks and bottles. Wen also took the time to blast Japan’s attempt to join the United Nations Security Council (Newsmax), adding insult to injury after it already killed the plan last month (eighth item). Later, Japanese Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa called Communist China “a scary country” (CNN). Meanwhile, Communist Foreign Ministry mouthpiece Qin Gang blamed Japan for the whole incident, saying, “It's not China that bears the blame for letting Sino-Japanese relations come to this pass.” Naturally, Japanese papers were livid (BBC).

Communist Premier praises India’s Security Council bid – after killing it: The Communist move to kill UN Security Council expansion (eighth item) also dealt a setback to India, which was hoping for its own seat on the council. Of course, that didn’t stop Premier Wen from cynically praising what he called “the Indian aspirations to play an even bigger role in international affairs including in the UN” (BBC). So before anyone gets too nervous about the supposed coziness between Communist China and India (United Press International via Washington Times), let’s see how it holds up when the world’s largest democracy figures out it was stabbed in the back.

Human rights groups condemn persecution of Uighurs: Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China issued a joint report blasting Communist China’s repression of the Uighurs of East Turkestan, which has been brutally occupied by the Communists since 1949. Communist China has tarred the Uighurs – arguably the most pro-American Muslims on Earth – as bin Ladenites to camouflage their persecution of them as “counter-terrorism” (BBC). HRiC and HRW prove this to once again be false.

Nationalist Party blasted for “consensus” with Communist China: Wu Cenxi, Epoch Times, spoke to Jin Hengwei, Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Monthly. Jin ripped the Nationalist delegation that visited Communist China and signed a “10-point consensus” with the cadres, calling the entire episode “scripted and composed by the CCP long ago.”

Harvard praised for divesting in PetroChina: Students from Claremont College openly praised Harvard’s decision to divest in PetroChina – the Communist-owned oil firm whose investment in Sudan is fueling (pun intended) that regime’s mass murder in Darfur – and call on all universities to do the same (reprinted by Epoch Times).

Up-and-down column on Stalinist North Korea: Paul French, author of North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, opines on what he considers the relationship between SNK’s economy and its nuclear ambitions (BBC). French is rare in noting that the Stalinist “reforms” have bombed, but he still rehashes the conventional wisdom that Communist China is “exasperated” with its Stalinist ally. Nothing could be further from the truth.