Friday, October 26, 2007

Credit where credit is due

A work that represents the original vision and persistent long-term efforts of myself and a talented artist is being used in prominent China democracy-related campaign promotions without any acknowledgement, as far as I've noticed, of myself and the artist.

This is a concept that I devised and pursued for a very long time with determination until it finally became a reality. Others are now using it to benefit their promotions, and it is obviously helping them achieve recognition. I think it's not asking too much to request that credit be given where it is due, to the authors of this work. I hope the relevant people will do the right thing and do just that, rather than riding on the vision and talent of others without acknowledging it.

Curry Kenworthy

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Mike Huckabee is unacceptable

Amidst the whirl and the rush of the Republican presidential campaign, one candidate has largely escaped my view - former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has acquired some momentum as late, and has thus forced me to examine him on the issue that matter most in this space.

On that issue - Communist China - Huckabee, frankly, stinks.

Yes, he has been recently making comments about the Communist regime's trade practices, but this is what he told Time about the Communists just six months ago (emphasis added):
The good news is that China is becoming much more a part of the mainstream. In its economic development and even in giving greater liberties to its people.

I'm sorry, but that's the talk of a man who was swallowed the "engagement" Kool-aid, and he's been drinking it for quite some time. Take a look at a letter he co-signed regarding PNTR:
China's accession to the WTO is a vital step in its incorporation into the rules-based multilateral trading system. This move will strengthen the rule of law and accelerate domestic reforms in China. The long-term political and social impacts of China's accession may even exceed the commercial benefits.

Naivete like this has no place in the White House. Huckabee is no better than Giuliani or McCain.

Again, Duncan Hunter remains the best, followed in order by Tom Tancredo and Fred Thompson. No one else makes the cut.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Enlightened Comment of the Day: John Derbyshire

The in-house curmudgeon for National Review Online has a list of "demonstration sports" that the Chinese Communist Party has ready to go for next year's Beijing Olympiad.

I have made several attempts to describe or summarize it, but words fail me: read the whole thing.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and the Shotgun

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Ignorant Comment of the Day: What was Stanley Kurtz thinking?

Stanley Kurtz's latest column on Stalinist North Korea (National Review Online) is quite unique; in the column, he managed to be dazzlingly brilliant and shockingly ignorant at the same time and with the same words. That's hard to do.

First, I'll dispatch with the brilliant part: Kurtz is one of the very few pundits who has never really signed on to the six-party nuclear talks, and now that Stalinist North Korea's nuclear dalliance with Syria is an open secret, he aims squarely - and correctly - at the Bush Administration for its weakness:

President Bush did in fact adopt the Democrats’ North Korea policy. And now, within a year, that Democratic policy has failed. Almost immediately after North Korea’s nuclear test on October 9, 2006, President Bush warned that “the transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and we would hold North Korea fully accountable.” Having deployed the stick, at the behest of conservative hawks, the president then offered the carrot of economic aid and promises of security in return for disarmament . . . The problem is that a combination of carrots and sticks has not stopped Kim Jong Il from handing Syria extensive nuclear technology, and perhaps even fissile material.


Indeed, it hasn't, just like many of us said it wouldn't.

Kurtz then goes on to detail just how damaging to American deterrence this is, how both the Administration and its critics are trying to downplay the SNK-Syria connection in the hope it goes away, and then ends with an ominous (but not necessarily inaccurate) prediction: "Based on current trends, in the decade ahead, a nuclear attack on the United States seems at least as likely as not." The piece is brilliantly and cogently written for its limited scope. However, it is exactly the limitation in scope that also makes the piece completely useless.

Why do I say that? Simple, in all of Kurtz's 2,200+ words on Stalinist North Korea, the number of times he mentioned Communist China was - exactly - zero. Not one reference to the regime that has propped up North Korea for almost sixty years; no mention of the Communist-run Bank of China's possible role in helping the Stalinists launder money for its nuclear program or Communist regime's sale of plutonium making, uranium enriching tributyl phosphate; and no discussion of Communist China's history of running interference for its Stalinist ally during the six-party talks.

Kurtz's glaring omission become all the more shocking when one finds his comments about the similarities between SNK today and Cuba of 1962:
The answer, says Allison, is a direct and unambiguous warning to Kim Jong Il modeled on President Kennedy’s statements during the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Kennedy warned Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that any nuclear missile launched from Cuba would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union, President Bush needs to unambiguously promise retaliation for any nuclear explosion of North Korean origin on American soil. According to Allison, America will only be safe if Kim feels “in his gut” that North Korea will be held directly responsible for nuclear terror — even if the blast results from material passed through a chain of rogue states and only eventually into terrorist hands. On the other hand, if Kim feels as though he can escape detection as the ultimate source of a terrorist nuclear weapon, or if Kim believes that he will not be held directly responsible for his place in a long and complex chain of nuclear proliferation, the path is open to likely nuclear terror on American soil within the next decade.

The ignorance is jaw-dropping.

Contrary to Kurtz's assertion (I know he quotes Harvard professor Graham Allison here, but it's pretty clear he agrees with him), Kim Jong-il has never been in the Krushchev role during this crisis; he's in the Castro role. Kim is not acting on his own, he is acting in concert with his de facto colonial masters. Any threat against him is utterly useless for this reason.

It is not Kim Jong-il who must face the threat of annihilation by counter-strike, it's the Communist Chinese regime that props him up. They are in the Krushchev role, not Kim; they are the source of America's proliferation worries. In fact, it is Communist China, not its Stalinist puppet, that killed off non-proliferation. So long as learned men like Stanley Kurtz continue to ignore this fundamental fact, they will miss the forest for the trees, and not only will nuclear proliferation not be stopped, it will likely be accelerated, due to the simple fact that the true culprit continues to act unnoticed, let alone unchecked.

Stanley Kurtz is a brilliant writer and thinker, one of the very few outside of the anti-Communist community that I respect. Therefore, I can only ask (in the hope he responds): what was he thinking?

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

GOP Presidential debate: highs and lows

Yesterday's Republican presidential debate covered a lot of topics, including Communist China (transcript via Detroit Free-Press).

As usual, Duncan Hunter was terrific on the damage Communist China is doing to the American economy:
. . . let me tell you, Chris, what is missing from this economy: 1.8 million jobs that have moved to communist China from the United States . . . what I would do is pass the Hunter-Ryan bill which would put countervailing duties on the Chinese when they cheat. They are cheating on trade right now . . . when Communist China devalues their currency by 40 percent, they undercut American products around the world . . .
That said - and remember, I say this as a Hunter guy - I would have preferred he focus a little more on the national security threat of the Communist regime. As it was, that issue was taken up by two other candidates, Tom Tancredo . . .
But if they wanted to buy something else that would have, in this case, certainly, more of an impact on our national security interests, I'd say, no, we'd have to think about that in a totally different way. It is exactly the same with regard to China. There are things that we should have thought of in the first place, when we passed the PNTR, which I voted against, along with Duncan Hunter. And I absolutely agree that trade is a great idea in many respects. But when you trade with people who are your potential enemy, and they have shown a willingness to use that economic opportunity to actually increase their threats to the United States, I'm not for trading with them at all.
. . . and Fred Thompson:
I was one of the strictest advocates of imposing restrictions on the Chinese for their behavior in terms of exporting dangerous materials to other countries and tying some of trade policies to what they did in that regard. They have still not done enough. They have devalued their currency which puts them in a favored position as far as our manufacturers are concerned.
FYI and for the record, Fred Thompson did indeed push hard for those curbs, but he still voted for PNTR with Communist China after the curbs were voted down. As for Tancredo, again, but for the presence of Hunter in the race, he'd be my favorite.

However, the last candidate who had previously won my conditional approval, Rudy Giuliani, lost it with a slew of terrible answers:
We're a country that should think about all these people that are coming out of poverty in China and India and elsewhere -- we should think of them as new
customers . . . What are China and India trying to do? China and India are trying to develop themselves to be like us, which is why we got a heck of a lot we can sell to them . . .
This is utterly wrong on so many levels that I can't get into all of them, but I can remind everyone that "China and India" is just about the most ignorant geopolitical pairing imaginable. No one who falls into that trap can be expected to steer the ship of state thoughtfully enough, in my humble opinion.

As for the rest, John McCain was terrible ("It sounds like a lot of fun to bash Chinese and others, but . . .) - trust me, Senator, if it were that much fun, we would have a lot more company over here - while Messrs. Romney and Brownback made some minor comments.

The main thing, however, is this: Giuliani is off the "list," while Thompson stays on. As the year comes to a close, those of us in the anti-Communist community (at least those of us who are Republicans) need to remember the need to prevent the anti-Communist vote from splitting, and ask ourselves if a Thompson in the hand is worth Tancredo and Hunter in the bush.

For now, though, I'm still holding out hope for Hunter.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

More on Burma and Capitalism CCP-Style

BURMA:

"...the Alliance of All Burma Buddhist Monks urged people around the world to boycott the Olympic and goods from China, in a statement released on Monday. The statement also warned China that Buddhist monks in countries around the world would lead the boycott against the Olympics which are scheduled to be held in Beijing in August 2008.
Meanwhile, Burmese people across the globe have been demonstrating against the Chinese government, calling for a halt to its investment in Burma and its support for the Burmese regime. China is currently the largest importer to Burma and the third largest market for Burmese exports. Analysts estimate that Chinese investment helps maintain the junta’s grip on power and finances its military arsenal."

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8956

"Almost a deja vu if one recalled Tiannmen of 1989. The generals of Myanmar, like the Communist Party of China, is not going to be bother with world public opinion or even threats of sanctions."

http://researchsea.com/html/article.php/aid/2315/cid/6/research/


Great resource for other articles on the crisis:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/

Power Corp - "Firm under fire for ties to Burma:

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/National/2007/10/07/4556813-sun.html

All about the Democratic movement in Burma:

http://english.dvb.no/

In the meantime--China continues her aggression through "business":

Merger opens U.S. defense to China:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071003/NATION/110030088/1001


Experts worry that China could use Li´s firm as an intelligence-
gathering conduit in the U.S!
http://northstatesman.com:2005/Statesman/2007/10/china_eyes_us_ports_mndotnasco.html


Asians Say Trade Complaints Bring Out the Bully in China:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/04/AR2007090402284.html?nav=rss_busines

Monday, October 08, 2007

A great one is lost

Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis passed away over the weekend. Although she had been battling breast cancer for a few years, she took a sudden turn for the worse last week.

Jo Ann Davis was one of the best anti-Communists in Congress; I was honored to call her my member of Congress. This is a painful blow.

We will all miss her.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and On the Spot

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Huawei and Burma--the Smiling, False Face and the Brutal Face of China

Background on Huawei Technologies' attempt to partially buy out 3Com:

(1) Selling National Security:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/179jszao.asp

(2) The Huawei Way:

The telecom giant is either a security menace or a real comer—or it could be a house of cards. Or all of the above.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10756804/site/newsweek/

HUAWEI

(3) Nortel-Huawei Deal Marks a New Model of Canada-China

Toronto-based Nortel Networks and Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd,...The Potash Corp-Sinofert and Nortel-Huawei partnerships are likely the ... www.asiapacificbusiness.ca/apbn/pdfs/bulletin245.pdf

Similar pages:

(4) Nortel, Huawei to Form New Company--Executives said the company will be headquartered in Ottawa,

http://www.xchangemag.com/articles/631feature01.html

(5) Huawei, Nortel call off joint venture

http://www.telecomasia.net/article.php?id_article=425

__________________________________________________

BURMA:

A HORRIFYING WEBSITE

"China is paralyzing UN Security Council action on Burma. They are the main economic, military, and political supporters of the military junta. For fifteen years China has refused to press its closest ally to allow its people human rights, and used its veto power to block the UN Security Council from acting. As a result, the UN is making the same mistakes it made on Darfur and Rwanda. We are calling on people of conscience throughout the world to boycott the 2008 Chinese Olympics, join our efforts."

http://www.uscampaignforburma.org

and more at: http://www.freeburma.org


Burma's foul regime depends on Beijing. - By Christopher Hitchins

http://www.slate.com/id/2175047/

The heroism of the Burmese, the shame of China

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rosemary_righter/article2563025.ece

Chalk one up for the kids

OpenDoorsUSA reports that Chinese police raided an underground church Sunday school class, hauling 30 kids off to the station.

The youngsters started singing a hymn in the van, and you can imagine the surprise to the officials at headquarters when the children marched in singing.

The interrogator told them they would be released if they wrote "I do not believe in Jesus" 100 times.

Instead, the children wrote, "I believe in Jesus today. I will believe in Jesus tomorrow. I will believe in Jesus forever!"

The report states that the children were all eventually released.

Hats off to those boys and girls from the Sunday school. That's the kind of spunk we need when dealing with tyrants.

If only we could get Western politicians to emulate them on any number of issues, when the Communists would like a certain policy or statement to be written....

--

Curry Kenworthy is Vice President of China e-Lobby, your source for important news and original opinion on China and the Communist threat. Visit our site at china-e-lobby.blogspot.com or sign up for e-mail alerts here.

Fred Hiatt: Burma and Olympics

Fred Hiatt suggests in Washington Post:

"And here's something else I would do: Tell China that, as far as the United States is concerned, it can have its Olympic Games or it can have its regime in Burma. It can't have both."