News of the Day (April 19)

German Foreign Minister calls for “containment” of Communist China: Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister and Green Party leader, recommended a “policy of containment” (EU Observer) against Communist China as the best means of avoiding a war. Fischer put forth this advice just after publicly calling for the European Union arms embargo against Communist China to remain (last item). With both comments, Fischer, publicly broke with his Chancellor (Prime Minister) and coalition partner: Social Democratic leader Gerhardt Schroeder.

Japanese Foreign Minister goes home, calls trip “small step”: Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Nobutaka returned home from Communist China, calling his trip a “small step” (United Press International via Washington Times). Given the verbal harangue he took from his Communist counterpart Li Zhaoxing, it must have been a very small step. Meanwhile, more reports streamed in that the protests against Japan in Communist China were orchestrated by the cadres themselves (Epoch Times).

Trilats rip Japan for the dispute; others slam Communists: The Trilateral Commission, which is either an overblown confab, the puppet-masters of the world, or something in between, weighed in on the dispute with harsh words – for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi: “he is basically stubborn. If he is criticized for one thing, he intentionally sticks to it and repeats it” (Washington Times). Not a word of criticism of Communist China was reported, although the editors of the Washington Times and the Japanese press (via BBC) had that angle well-covered.

U.S. hopes dispute is settled, hoping all will cooperate on Stalinist North Korea: Thomas Schieffer, the new American Ambassador to Japan “said the U.S. was concerned about the tensions between Japan and China and hoped they would be able to resolve their differences” (Cybercast News). He also claimed that both Communist China and Japan “shared the goal of denuclearizing” Stalinist North Korea. Will they never learn?

Australia agrees to free trade talks with Communist China: Visiting Prime Minister John Howard signed an agreement with his Communist Chinese hosts “to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement” (CNN). Howard also called Communist China a “market economy,” which would come as a surprise to those who thought a market economy included the freedom of labor to organize independently. The news sparked another round of speculation on Australia’s growing ties to Communist China, and their effects on its alliance with the United States (Cybercast News).

Auto sales falling in Communist China: Foreign car builders who have thrown good money after bad in Communist China may face a day of reckoning, car sales fell by more than 3% in the first three months of this year, compared to last (BBC). General Motors “expects a fierce price war with its rivals to intensify,” cutting revenue even further.

More praise for Harvard’s divestment of PetroChina: Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky, a law student at Harvard University, praises his school for choosing to divest in PetroChina – the Communist-owned oil firm “responsible for bankrolling much of the Arab-dominated Sudanese government's genocide against the black African population of Sudan's Darfur region” (National Review Online).

On the fate of New Tang Dynasty Television: Bin Wang, a writer for the Epoch Times, explains why the fate of the dissident run New Tang Dynasty Television is so critical to the paper’s quest for freedom for the Chinese people.

UN envoy to SNK admits financial ties Oil-for-Food tainted South Korean: Maurice Strong, the United Nations special envoy to Stalinist North Korea, admitted that Tongsun Park, a South Korean indicted “as an ‘unregistered agent’ of the former Iraqi regime to lobby senior U.N. officials for favorable terms in the oil-for-food program” (Washington Post). More interestingly, Park supposedly “counseled Strong on his dealings with the North Korean regime” – the same “regime” that sold missile technology to Saddam Hussein for $10 million (second item).