China e-Lobby

We've moved . . .

2011-06-27T17:24:00.002-04:00

. . . to Wordpress.

To all the readers who have continued to follow even as the blog slowed down, thank you. I hope you will come with us to the Wordpress site as we rev things back up again.

Why the Hunstman-for-President speculation badly misses the point

2011-01-04T13:38:00.004-05:00

The complete lack of interest in eastern Asia within MSM was exposed (again) with the recent flare-up in speculation that John Hunstman, current American Ambassador to the Chinese Communist regime, refused to rule out running for President in 2012. The State neatly summarizes the reaction, which completely focuses on Hunstman's Republican bona fides and how (or if) he could manage to run against his current boss (for more on Hunstman himself, see the Los Angeles Times). Even Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard was stuck on the domestic political implications.

No one, to date, has even bothered to ask why Hunstman would consider leaving in the first place. He is, after all, Ambassador to the CCP regime. If this were an Ambassador to a European nation considering a run against the president who appointed him, or a Middle Eastern nation, speculation would almost certainly focus on policy differences. In fact, given the Obama Administration's recent policies on the CCP, this may be the most important (if unrecognized) reason.

Lest we forget, Hunstman signed up for the job expecting (as nearly everyone else did) that he would be the point man for continued "engagement" with the ChiComs. Instead, Hunstman has watched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly rebuke the CCP for trying to claim the South China Sea and the Senkakus for itself (Duncan Currie: National Review Online - The Corner). Then the president engaged in a post-election tour of Asia that included all of Zhongnanhai's major rivals expect Vietnam, but not Hunstman's posting itself.

Finally, there was the reaction to the recent antics from Stalinist North Korea, in which the early inaction (disappointing for those of us looking to send a message to the CCP) was followed by . . . more inaction (a pleasant surprise for those of us expecting concessions to Beijing and Pyongyang).

So what does a marginalized ambassador who is watching the Administration for which he works move toward a policy unseen in 20 years - and a policy the ambassador himself opposes to boot?

Drop broad hints that you could turn from appointee to rival is a good way to get attention. It worked wonders for opponents of American military action in Iraq.

Unfortunately for Hunstman (and fortunately for the rest of us, if only in this case), American MSM still hasn't paid enough attention to Obama's Asia policy. The combination of domestic politics and traditional attention bias toward Europe or the Middle East has blinded nearly everyone to the fact that the policy Hunstman was appointed to promote and the policy into which the Administration has stumbled are quite different.

So, I think we can expect more heartburn from Hunstman, until the media begin to notice what the Administration is actually doing in eastern Asia (our allies there already know, and are deeply grateful). In the meantime, it must be enormously painful for the CCP to discover that everything it has tried, from provocations by its Korean colony to rumblings from its American friends, has failed to change Washington slow-but-steadying drift toward anti-Communism.

The Obama Administration continues to be far weaker than it should on human rights in the CCP, but in the purely geopolitical realm, its policy in eastern Asia continues to be an improvement over its three most recent predecessors. It would be nice for someone other than the CCP itself or the American Ambassador there to notice.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift

Will Japan re-energize Obama on the CCP?

2010-12-14T10:48:00.004-05:00

The Obama Administration's reaction to Stalinist North Korea's attack on the democratic South was traditional, conventional, and weak. Once again, the Chinese Communist Party was able to position itself as the supposedly reasonable regional power trying to get a handle on their crazy ally - even though it has to this day refused to criticize Kim Jong-il and his crew. That said, Zhongnanhai has been unable to get policy concessions out of the president yet, and what Japan is about to do with its National Defense Policy Guidelines may get the White House to snap of out its post-attack stupor.

According to the Financial Times (UK), Japan's military will release the aforementioned guidelines later this month, and they will call for a major shift in military policy.

Officials and analysts say the keenly awaited National Defence Policy Guidelines will signal a historic refocusing of Japan's army and other forces toward securing the line of small islands in the southern Nansei chain that stretches from Japan’s main islands toward Taiwan and are seen as threatened by China's rapidly growing military power.

Among the islands in the Nansei chain are Okinawa and the Senkakus, the latter of which are claimed by the Communists (they call them the Diaoyus).

The implications of this are numerous, and none are good for the CCP.

Within Japan, it means a maturing of the Democratic Party of Japan - recently elected to power on a platform that included cozying up to the Communists. According to an analyst quoted by the FT, a recent incident with a fishing boat from mainland China woke up the DPJ and the military top brass about the threat from the CCP. The long-governing Liberal Democratic Party had moved in an anti-Communist direction under Junichirio Koizumi (the last LDP leader to win an election - in 2005). Now the DPJ is joining its rival.

Regionally, the CCP may find itself repeating recent history - and not in a good way for the Communists. Last year, Zhongnanhai tried to take advantage of apparent American weakness by declaring the entire South China Sea for itself. Several American allies, including Indonesia, cried foul - and much to everyone's surprise, America joined them. Just weeks ago, President Obama himself called for India to be made a permanent member of the Security Council. Now, Japan will be heavily reinforcing an island chain that at present includes a large (and locally controversial) American military base.

If Okinawa is now a regional front-line island, the US military may not be so unwelcome. Or more likely, a strong Japanese military presence may allow the US to pull out of Okinawa entirely, thus replacing an unpopular foreign power with a strong domestic military presence dedicated to defending the homeland, while the Pentagon can score an unexpected boon to reallocate or contribution to overall deficit reduction.

I sincerely doubt the CCP was hoping for that.

In any event, Obama, whatever one thinks of him, is clearly the most multilateral president America has had in a long time. As I noted earlier, this has led to a focus on our more well-known allies in Europe - most of whom are wheezing social democracies increasingly unwilling to defend themselves from regional and global threats.

However, in Asia, America's allies are more practical - and the CCP threat is more pressing and immediate. As such, Obama's instincts have lead him to be tougher on Zhongnanhai then previous Administration's in the South China Sea. Unfortunately, the refusal to accept the reality of the CCP-North Korea alliance (i.e., that it's a tool Zhongnanhai uses to pry democratic nations apart) afflicts Seoul and Tokyo as much as it does Washington. However, the Communists have no such deflection at the ready where the Nansei-Sankakus are concerned.

If Japan really does shift its military posture (the report has not yet been released) and Washington stands with Japan as it did with Indonesia, the Obama Administration's unnamed-containment policy may be back on track.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Is Beijing Using North Korea again?

2010-11-23T09:02:00.002-05:00

Apparently out of the blue, Stalinist regime in northern Korea shelled Yeonpeyong Island in the democratic part of the country (a.k.a. South Korea). The rest of world is trying to come to terms with the shock. There are at least two death as of 8AM EST. The White House "strongly condemned" (MSN India) the attack, but hasn't had much time to react beyond posturing.

Analysts are fishing for explanations, but the most popular one is that this has something to do with the power struggle within the regime. As Iain Martin put it, shelling a South Korean island is "what passes for a campaign ad in North Korean politics."

I'm not so sure, or to be more precise, I don't think that's the only reason. As much as people would like to think the regime in charge of northern Korea is a lone wolf unable to control or even understand, that regime is wholly dependent on the Chinese Communist Party for its survival. Moreover, the CCP prefers its allies and satellites take full blame or credit for their antics, as it turns Beijing into the "good police state" and enable them to extract more concessions from the democratic world (this is why the ChiComs' closest ally in the Middle East is the Iranian mullahcracy, but I digress).

In fact, there's almost no way a move like this wouldn't get green-lighted by the CCP; keep in mind, the Communists have even gone so far as to make a historical claim to northern Korea as Chinese territory, in part to make it clear who's boss and in part to lay the groundwork for a possible annexation if the Stalinist regime becomes more trouble than its worth.

So, this begs the question: why did the CCP let this happen? For that, we have to look at the last year in eastern Asia.

Amidst the European bailouts, the bizzare "reset" with Russia, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the numerous domestic issues the decided the November elections, little attention has been paid to the western Pacific. However, events there have been dramatic, and dramatically unexpected.

It began when the CCP tried to declare the South China Sea as its own lake. As expected, numerous nations in Southeast Asia cried foul. Not so expectedly, the United States - led by the American apologist President and the Secretary of State whose husband was arguably the Communists' best friend in the White House - responded, essentially, "No."

One can only imagine the shock in Zhongnanhai from that.

Perhaps the Communists believed that this was mere posturing for the voters. That notion disappeared with the President's post-election tour of Asia (India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan). It could have been called the China Containment Tour. Now we're hearing elected officials inside and outside the Administration slanging the CCP for their deliberately devalued currency, and while the criticisms stem from economic confusion rather than geopolitical clarity, that's a distinction without a difference to Hu Jintao et al.

In short, the Chinese Communist regime has watched, likely in subdued horror, as Barack Obama's government moved - haltingly, and with some stumbles, but unmistakably - towards the most anti-Communist Asia policy in twenty years. It has been, almost literally, Nixon-goes-to-China in reverse.

So, now the CCP - and the rest of us - will see if the Administration's newfound and quasi-accidental policy will come with newfound resolve. It won't be as easy as it sounds initially. In Southeast Asia, the President's backbone was widely applauded, especially in Indonesia (in an even more painful irony for the CCP, Obama's time there may be driving his policy in the region). Japan, by contrast, has a center-left government with a more accomodationist policy towards Beijing (although South Korea does not).

This is a critical moment. If Obama follows precedent, i.e., comes hat-in-hand to the CCP to enlist its help in "controlling" Kim Jong-il and his would-be successors, then things will come back to normal in East Asia (and that's not good). However, if the President follows his instincts from Southeast Asia, it could dramatically alter the global balance - and in America's favor.

Nixon's fervent anti-Communist history made him practically the only American politician who could reach out to the CCP. Conversely, Obama's left-wing history may make him the best-equipped American leader to take the CCP on. I believe the ChiComs condoned this incident in the hope to prevent the above from happening. Time will tell if they were right; if not, the Chinese people may get a surprising boost in their fight to take their country back from the Communist regime that enslaves them.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Korea: the endgame no one sees coming

2010-05-26T09:34:00.003-04:00

At first, I was surprised to hear that the Stalinist regime in northern Korea had chosen to sink a democratic Korean ship. The timing (late March) seemed off. The Tibet occupation commemorations had already passed, while the remembrance of the Tiananmen massacre was still more than two months away.

Adding to the surprise, the Chinese Communist Party let some of their mouthpieces fire some rhetorical rounds at . . . Kim Jong-il (Yonhap via One Free Korea):

In a rare move for Chinese state-controlled media, the Beijing-based newspaper openly criticized North Korea, calling it "proud."
"North Korea is dancing haphazardly along the nuclear tightrope, fraying the nerves of every world power. It is apparently proud, believing that it has played a dominant role," the Global Times said. "But North Korea fails to realize that the most dangerous role is the one the country itself is playing."

Joshua Staunton (the founder of OFK) doesn't think this amouts to much, and he has a point. The Global Times may be a CCP mouthpiece, but it isn't the CCP mouthpiece. Moreover, the cadres in Zhongnanhai have a history of playing the democratic world for fools. Who can forget when the CCP voted in favor of United Nations-imposed sanctions on northern Korea and then told the world - on the same day - that it wouldn't enforce them?

This time, however, I think something deeper is in play, something that few, if any, will see coming, and dramatically change East Asia - and not for the better, though it will appear that way to the untrained eye.

One thing we need to remember is that the cadres have been claiming for almost five years that northern Korea is actually Chinese territory, or at least it was back when it was called the Kingdom of Koguryo. Lest anyone consider this preposterously irrelevant, keep in mind that Mao used a similar verison of revisionist history to conquer Tibet in 1950.

Of course, the idea of that CCP could send in a military force to annex northern Korea and get away with it would be ridiculous - unless the democratic world was scared enough of the Korean tyranny to acquiesce in the move. That's more likely than one would like to believe.

Both America and Japan have elected governments more focused on domestic matters and less interested in projecting national power. Russia remains more obsessed with the European "near abroad" than the demographic loss of its own Far East provinces. Hardly anyone else considers the situation on the Korean peninsula as anything but a regional issue (i.e., one which doesn't involve them). All of them would be either uninterested in a CCP annexation or secretly grateful to the cadres for bringing "stability" with their conquest.

For the CCP, meanwhile, the benefits would be considerable. Hu Jintao, facing a party conference in two years and very little to show for his current tenure as CCP supremo, could bask in becoming the first Chinese leader since Mao to add territory the Middle People's Republic. This could enable him to handpick his successor as Party leader at least, and perhaps even stay around as Chairman of the Central Military Commission (and thus continue to wield the true power) for years after 2012. For the party as a whole, it would make radical nationalism suddenly look relevant again, especially if it can show the Chinese people that the democratic world endorsed the land grab (silent acquiescence will be more than enough for the cadres to twist and exaggerate to meet their needs).

For the Chinese people, however, it would be awful. The day the CCP loses power could be knocked back by decades as a rejuvenated tyranny once again takes aim at political dissidents. The balance of power would be permanently reoriented in Zhongnanhai's favor. Finally, Korea would never be whole again.

Naturally, democratic Korea would be furious, and loud. The CCP would have to make sure Washington can and will restrain South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, especially given that Korean nationalism would quickly transform from a long a left-wing phenomenon exploited by Kim and Beijing to a right-wing fury that would never forgive them for the annexation.

That's where the latest news Joshua dug up at OFK is so revealing (emphasis added):

Now, there is the story of Kim Soon-Nyeo, whose targets included a 29 year-old college student, two travel agency workers, and her grand sugardaddy, a former executive of the Seoul Subway system.
. . .
The spy collected “confidential” information about the subway system from Oh, information about local universities from the student, and a list of names of high-ranking police and public officials from the travel agents.
Oh maintained extramarital relations with the spy since his first encounter with her in China in May 2006, and transferred nearly 300 million won ($252,000) to “help” her cosmetics business. In June 2007, he became aware that she was a North Korean spy, but continued the relationship.
“What Oh handed over to the spy included contact information of emergency situation responses and other not-so-important internal data,” Kim Jung-hwan, a Seoul Metro spokesman, told The Korea Times, dismissing concerns that it could be used in possible acts of terrorism here by the North. Kim retired from his post in 2008. [Korea Times]
Yes, I can imagine a circumstance in which we or South Korea might face a provocation or a threat so serious that we have to do something more dramatic, in which case what Halloran calls for might have to be our first step. But I’m not there yet, because I fear that North Korea’s most dangerous weapons are already inside South Korea.

In other words, the Stalinists were gathering information to conduct terrorist attacks that could cripple the democratic South while leaving American troops at the demilitarized zone unscathed.

One can imagine what could happen next: terrorist attacks in Seoul, Lee demanding retaliation. America and Japan wringing their hands. When suddenly, the People's Liberation Army crosses the Yalu River, pounds their de facto colony's military and industry, dusts off the Koguryo claims, and reassures the rest of the world that it will all be over soon. Koreans may be enraged, but in Washington the reaction will be a sigh of relief, and strong reminder to Seoul of just who depends on whom for military protection. Game, set, and match to the cadres.

Now, there are still a number of variables that can stop this: Kim Jong-il may calm down; the various would-be successors to his weakly gripped crown could defuse the situation themselves (or argue among themselves enough to have the situation defused by inactivity); the terrorist network the Stalinists would use against the South might not be in place; someone in Pyongyang might even be smart enough to figure all this out (probably not Kim himself, but in his current condition, the right word at the right time can be awfully persuasive).

Still, we need to be prepared for the possibility that the cadres will decided using Kim Jong-il and his cronies has run its course, and annexation is their next move. Whatever one thinks of Kim and his regime, we must not forget that it is only in place because the CCP wants it in place. Replacing Pyongyang's anti-American tyranny with Beijing's anti-American tyranny is no solution.

Why the Administration's policy toward Communist China is so dangerous

2010-05-17T12:16:00.003-04:00

The president sent his Assistant Secretary of State to discuss human rights, and in response to the Chinese Communist Party's labor camps, one-child policy, and indiscriminate imprisonment of political prisoners, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner . . . apologized for an Arizona state law on immigration.

The Obama Administration has entered new territory in regards to its policy towards the Chinese Communist Party. The new way of doing things is mind-boggling, sickening, and outrageous (and lest anyone think I'm being partisan, Obama's Ambassador to the CCP - Jon Huntsman, who according to Posner's comments on Politico was in on the self-hate fest - was formerly the Republican Governor of Utah; if he's representative of the Utah GOP elite, then that's one more reason Senator Bob Bennett's campaign bit the dust). However, it is also very, very dangerous for several reasons. They are as follows.

It risks further harm on the political prisoners themselves: One comment I will always carry with me is from a speech Richard Gephardt gave when he declared his opposition to permanent free trade with the CCP. He talked about how sensitive the cadres were to outside criticism, so much so that the prisoners themselves could gauge how much flak the Party was getting - the more critics chirped, the nicer the guards were. Nonsense like this makes the cadres think they have a free hand to do whatever they'd like to their opponents behind bars - and when Chinese Communist hands are that free, they usually end up very bloody.

It demoralizes and confuses current dissidents: Does anyone think Hu Jia would be that upset over Arizona's attempt to battle illegal immigration? Think about it, an Arizona cop might ask Hu to show his green card if he's pulled over while driving within the state. Cadres in Henan province let as many as one million people die of AIDS and had Hu arrested for trying to expose them. How about Chen Guangcheng? The regime imprisoned and beat him for helping women violently abused by cadres enforcing the "one child" policy. Don't get me started on Falun Gong, independent Christians, or Hanyuan County.

What this nonsense out of Washington does is make these victims feel completely ignored by the one nation that should remember their plight. This will make it much harder for them to help the Chinese people take their country back.

It gives the CCP international prestige that it will use to enslave more people. After all, if the Chinese Communist Party is the same as the Arizona legislature, what's the big deal about the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong? Or the invasion of Taiwan, should it happen (and I am increasingly convinced that it will)?

My last point doesn't deal with Arizona, but rather the larger context (which, as Jay Nordlinger ruefully notes, included American apologies about "crime, poverty, homelessness, and racial discrimination."

These comments reveal an appalling ignorance of reality in Communist China. Lest anyone forget, the Chinese Communist Party Member card is a license to steal. Outside of the Potemkin cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen), China is mired in a poverty unimaginable in the United States. Millions are "relocated" due to land seizures by corrupt cadres. As for "racial discrimination," try being a Korean in Communist China - actually, on second thought, don't.

In the end, it all points to one thing: the Chinese Communist Party no longer has any reason to take America seriously. This will have catastrophic repercussions, be it with Taiwan (as mentioned), our enemies in Afghanistan and Iraq (who have been past receivers of Communist support), the mullahcracy in Iran (long the CCP's best friend in the Middle East), North Korea, or anywhere else.

Meanwhile, there was no mention of the long arm of lawlessness interfering with Chinese-Americans trying to exercise their political rights in this country, although this dangerous combination of repression and espionage has been unchallenged by Administrations in both political parties.

CCP-watchers have long since gotten used to dissapointments in Washington. No one who remembers the Clinton or Bush Administration were completely shocked when Obama went the "engagement" route. However, this president has been far more obsequious to Beijing than any other, and given the Ambassador, Obama's political opposition is hardly without blame.

There will come a time when the American people will demand a bona fide anti-Communist president, and (s)he will help bring down the CCP, but that future looks more expensive and, quite frankly, much bloodier today than it did even last week.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and Virginia Virtucon

Reflections on Earth Day

2010-04-22T08:49:00.004-04:00

I write this on April 22 - known before 1970 as Lenin's birthday and since then in America as "Earth Day" (when you are reading this, of course, I cannot know). With each passing year, the irony of grafting environmental awareness on the birthday of Communism's founder and examining the ecological records of his largest political heir (the Chinese Communist Party) grows more painful, more cynically amusing, and more impossible to ignore.

This will surprise the casual observer who only sees the CCP press releases on alternative energy sources (yes, Tom Friedman, that means you), but there is arguably no regime that damaged our planet as much as the Chinese Communist Party. The cadres have been forced to account for such exotic chemical spills as cadmium, benzene, and heaven knows what else. They have a slew of mining accidents - annually. Their hydroelectric dam addiction has thoroughly disturbed and distorted water flows, while turning such natural treasurers as the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers into toxic soups. Air pollution is so bad in the interior that the cadres in one city actually explored cutting out the tops of mountains to allow fresh air in. Then there are the open-air nuclear tests from last century, which killed over 200,000 people in occupied East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang) and sickened many, many more.

In short, the regime in Zhongnanhai has taken its rightful place among Communist defilers of the environment. The Soviet Union was infamous for its toxic-caused animal mutation, and the Chernobyl fiasco was a shocking example of Moscow's lax concern for nuclear safety both before an accident and during one. Yet in the free world, environmentalism remains a largely left-wing phenomenon, complete with the lack of concern for Communist regime's actual records.

What the Western left may be thinking is not the point here, but rather the strange dichotomy between the presumed notion in the free world of government superiority in ecological matters and the reality of totalitarian regimes where the government is itself worse than any corporation - or entire industry - imaginable.

Most economists, environmentalists, and elected officials in the democratic world understand that in making decisions about what to buy, build, or bring together, long-term environmental consequences are not usually a major factor (the term in economic geek-speak is "externality"), and that government can have a role in countering this. However, that assumes government is an arbiter, or at most a facilitator, in the market, without any interests of its own.

Whether this assumption is correct or not is one of the disagreements that have driven politics in the free world for decades, if not centuries. However, there is one important point missed: a totalitarian regime is never an uninterested arbiter; it will always have its own interest - namely survival - front and center. Therefore, the aforementioned long-term environmental consequences are just as irrelevant to the Chinese Communist Party as it would be to your average consumer in the free world. In fact, one could argue that it's less relevant to the CCP, as the regime will assume it has enough power to protect itself from the consequences of the ecological damage it does (the people are, of course, left to suffer).

Thus, tyrannical regimes - interested only in surviving and protecting the group of tyrants (however large or small) - are all but certain to be worse stewards of the planet than democracies are, and the Chinese Communist Party is proving it every single day.

In time, this reality will become harder and harder for the CCP to conceal (the truth about the Soviets started to leak out in the 1980s, but the USSR collapsed before it became common knowledge). Thanks to the regime's faulty policies, China has become the largest carbon emitter on the planet. Its major electric dams are pollution havens. I shudder to think what will happen as they build more nuclear power plants (and I say this as a fan of nuclear power).

As the Zhongnanhai regime limps ahead, it will become abundantly clear to the free world's legion of "green" activists that the CCP is as much their enemy as it is the enemy of everyone else. It may very well be an event celebrated on the birthday of Communism's founder that become the tipping point for the end of Communism's largest regime.

On the Chinese Communist Party and Nuclear Proliferation

2010-04-15T07:59:00.001-04:00

So the nuclear summit has wrapped up in Washington, and we have learned that we are safer today because we no longer have to worry about loose nuclear material from . . . Canada. France, on the other hand, refuses to join the nuclear-free fantasy. I suspect Washington will be keeping an eye on Paris for a while - again (of course, it's not exactly unusual for America and France to be at loggerheads; it's just a little strange to see the Parisians take the side of reason - but that's for another day).

If the above paragraph sounds flippant, then I've written it correctly, because so much of what happened this week was utterly useless. The "big fish" in nuclear proliferation - namely, Iran and North Korea - were never really going to be "caught," largely because the regime responsible for each one's nuclear ambitions - the Chinese Communist Party - was let off the hook, again.

The two large mistakes Washington has made regarding the Iranian and North Korean regimes - and it's a mistake shared by both this Administration and its predecessor - were these: an insistence that the CCP can be a useful partner without being coerced, and a refusal to replace the chimera of non-proliferation with the more robust counter-proliferation.

The first problem is in no small part due to the actions of Tehran, Pyongyang, and Zhongnanhai. It is no accident that the CCP has escaped blame for the actions of the rogue regimes. The cadres have continually sought out allies who meet three key characteristics. They are

a willingness to frustrate American ambitions or American interests
a willingness to defend the CCP's interests on the global stage when asked to do so, and
most importantly, a willingness to take all the blame for their antics, leaving the CCP unnamed and unaccountable

These are what make Tehran and Pyongyang perfect allies and tools for the CCP, especially the last one - and it is only by removing that last characteristic that the free world can get the CCP to seriously address these two regime's nuclear ambitions.

Simply put, the president should tell Hu Jintao the following, in no uncertain terms:

If the North Korean regime uses a nuclear weapon, Pyongyang and the CCP will be held responsible
If the Iranian regime uses a nuclear weapon, Tehran and the CCP will be held responsible
If a terrorist organization uses a nuclear weapon, given that the sources would almost certainly be Tehran, Pyongyang, or CCP-ally Pakistan, that terrorist group and the CCP will be held responsible

The painful fact is this: Tehran and Pyongyang are looking to become nuclear powers in order to use the weapons as blackmail to the rest of the world. It is no surprise that both have pursued their ambitions amid signs that their regimes are undergoing serious decay. They see their survival in blackmailing the free world to keep them in power. Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party finds these regimes useful, and has no incentive to restrain their behavior. That may change if it becomes clear they will suffer consequences from the actions of their allies.

That said, while forcing the CCP to accept responsibility for their allies can help the situation, there is still the regimes themselves to consider. Beijing is not Moscow, and the CCP is still the party of the late Mao Zedong - who famously deadpanned that a weapon capable of blowing up the Earth would only be "a major event for the solar system." Thus, Tehran and Pyongyang probably need more incentive than half-hearted warnings from Zhongnanhai to behave.

This is where counter-proliferation comes in. I first mentioned it three-and-a-half years ago, and I still consider it valid. Tehran may not feel so frisky about its nuclear capability if it new Georgia had a nuclear deterrent of its own (in fact, while Georgia with nuclear protection may mean little to the CCP, it may be enough for Russia to push Tehran to disarm entirely). Pyongyang may have the same concern if Japan, South Korea, and/or Taiwan had ready nuclear deterrents (that would certainly get the CCP's attention). These actions would also make abundantly clear that these regimes will be held responsible for any "loose nukes" that wind up in terrorist hands (the latter set of nuclear deterrents could make the message more pointed for the CCP).

Of course, as I said back in late 2006, these actions won't solve our problem, because the issue is not the nuclear weapons per se, but who has them. This is where my opening paragraph becomes more serious. The idea of democratic France posing a threat to world piece is laughable, but tyrannies like Iran, North Korea, and Communist China are something else again. It is the regimes, not their weapons, that are the threat. Thus, as I've also said before: America will never be secure until Iran, Korea, and China are free.

This is IT

2010-03-25T09:11:00.003-04:00

For years, the Chinese Communist Party has benefited from a tidal wave of foreign investment in a slew of sectors, none more dramatic than that in information technology. The cadres had high hopes that IT firms from abroad - unable to resist the lure of "one billion customers" - would come banging on the door of Zhongnanhai, hat in hand and ready to little the information superhighway with whatever tolls or lane restrictions the Communists demanded. Instead, IT may just be the sector that points to the regime's future demise.

It all began with Google, who reacted to the CCP's refusal to address their concerns about censorship and hacking by shifting their search engine base to Hong Kong, where (for now) speech is still largely free, and self-censorship is not demanded (Washington Post). What this means for "one country, two systems" (or, as it has increasingly become, one country, one-and-a-half systems) remains unclear. It's reflection on the business environment in Communist China was far more revealing.

In effect, Google announced to the world that the Communist tyranny was incompatible with its business model. This makes Google arguably the first - and inarguably the largest - firm to make that decision. It shattered the myth that the CCP is a business-friendly regime, while putting a much-needed focus on how the Communists distort the market with their political objectives - to say nothing of their taste for corruption.

Google may not be alone for long. GoDaddy, an internet-domain firm best known in America for advertisements floating somewhere between provocative and bizarre, told a Congressional committee that CCP regulations for domain registration - including one that requires a domain buyer provide photo identification - left them "concerned for the security of individuals" (Daily Telegraph, UK), enough so that they could follow Google out the door.

An even bigger surprise came from India, where Dell is opening up a new computer production plant. According to India's Prime Minister, this could be the start of a dramatic shift (same link):

Mr Singh told the Hindustan Times: "This morning I met the chairman of Dell Corporation. He informed me that they are buying equipment and parts worth $25 billion from China (£16 billion). They would like to shift to safer environment with a climate conducive to enterprise with security of legal system."
. . . According to the Indian media, tax breaks given to Dell make it cheaper for the company to supply the Middle East, Africa and Europe out of India, rather than China.

Read that last line from Singh very carefully: "They would like to shift to safer environment with a climate conducive to enterprise with security of (a) legal system." That is clearly a shot at the Communist tendency to treat the Party card as a license to steal. It appears Michael Dell is getting frustrated with the lack of genuine rule of law in Communist China. If Dell follows through on the Chairman's apparent thinking, it would be the latest and most dramatic example of a growing investment trend away from Communist China in favor of democratic India.

Lest anyone think these are isolated incidents, a new poll from the American Chamber of Commerce revealed that a majority of foreign IT firms are unhappy with the Communist regime, and 37% of them blamed the CCP for damaging their sales. Overall 38% of all foreign firms polled "say they feel increasingly unwelcome to participate and compete in the Chinese market" (Newser).

Not that the Communists themselves are noticing. Mere days after playing the anti-American card against Google (BBC), they resorted to another heavy-handed tactic that makes so many investors squeamish - they tried to burst a housing bubble by banning all land sales (Business Insider).

Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party do not consider "a climate conducive to enterprise" as a top priority. Then again, they never have. What is different today is that many outside investors are noticing, and making decisions accordingly. Those decisions could not only put a crimp in the Communists' corrupt gravy train, but also provide an economic boost to the one rival that worries them as much as America does - India.

The cadres have literally unleashed upon themselves the hallowed (and hackneyed) Chinese curse: they have put themselves in "interesting times."

Iraq and China

2010-03-18T09:21:00.002-04:00

The people of Iraq went to the polls last week, and we are just now beginning to get a picture of whom they elected. The election tells us many things, not just about Iraq, or even the Middle East, but about democracies in general, and whether governing with the consent of the governed is a concept that can take hold in China (hint: it can).

For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has insisted that "Western-style democracy" could not take root in its country. China was just too different, too special, and essentially too unique for such a thing to work. Never mind that the group of islands just across the Taiwan Strait - islands that CCP members insist are as Chinese as they are - have managed to build and maintain a functioning democracy for fourteen years, with not one, but two transitions of power from one party to another. Never mind that Hong Kong actually had a democratically elected City Council in place when it passed into CCP control, and that it was the CCP, not the people of the city, who limited and restricted democracy there. Never mind that with every day these contradictions continued, the notion that "mainland China" was no different from Hong Kong or Taiwan sounded stranger and stranger, compromising the CCP's own nationalist agenda. All that mattered was that mainland China was unsuitable for "Western" politics.

Of course, even the CCP noticed that the above seemed a little weird, so they changed the subject by focusing on other places outside of Western Europe where the people were not allowed to choose their own leaders and holding them up as paragons: the mullahcracy of Iran, the military junta in Burma, the al-Qaeda friendly regime in Sudan, the Ba'athists in Syria, at times even the Taliban itself, and - of course - Saddam Hussein. Every tyranny was another example of the folly of "Western-style democracy" outside of the West.

This is where Iraq's second election comes in.

For years, Iraq's painful experiment with popularly elected government seemed to confirm the CCP's self-serving notions. As prized as the ballot was to Iraqi voters, the politicians seemed to use that power largely to aggrandize themselves, enrich their connected friends, settle old ethnic and religious scores, and generally tear the country apart. Adding to the CCP's macabre glee was the fact that their client regime in Iran was well-positioned to pick up the pieces.

Then something happened, starting about three years ago: Iraq's political process began responding to the people's needs and wants - exactly what critics from the CCP on down insisted it could not do.

It started with the formation of a functioning political opposition (al-Iraqiya, or the Iraqi National Movement) under ex-Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The rise of Allawi as de facto opposition leader created a dynamic where voters knew they could hold their government accountable without resorting to violence or terror. Within two years, the government was not only responding with better services, but Prime Minister Nouri Maliki himself split off from the religious coalition that helped install him and created his own secular cross-faith coalition.

This month, Maliki and Allawi are far and away the leading vote-getters in Iraq. Which one will lead the country is still unknown, but clearly the Iraqi government has become and will continue to be more accountable and responsive to the people.

What caused it? The rise of an opposition.

That's what the CCP fears; that's what makes "Western-style democracy" a real threat to them; the presence of a competitor for votes that can't be arrested, beaten, or pumped full of pharmaceuticals. In the long-run, it means the end of CCP rule. Even in the short-run, it would force the Communists to attempt honest and responsible government - an anathema to a regime where the Party Card is a coveted licence to steal.

So Iraq is a reminder of how important democracy is, and how dangerous it can be for tyrants. However, we cannot simply declare victory and rest on our laurels. The CCP knows how dangerous democracy can be, which is why they have spent so much time trying to restrict it at home and limit its influence abroad. Tyrants around the world can count on the CCP to help them because the CCP understands that each tyranny that survives give them more time to rule over the Chinese people.

Thus, every democracy is a threat to the CCP, and in response, the CCP has made itself a threat to every democracy, from the oldest (the U.S. and U.K.) to the youngest (Iraq, among others).

On the State of Play

2010-03-04T08:30:00.003-05:00

The Zeitgeist had two more examples of where we are vis a vis Communist China: the threat is understood by most to be real, but perhaps stronger than it truly is. Unfortunately, those who know enough to understand how weak the Chinese Communist regime is still use that fact to ignore - to out peril - the Party's motives.

Our first example is unusual - broadcast television. CBS' NCIS: Los Angeles is a new favorite in the household, with plots usually surrounding your typical crime drama with a military veneer. On occasion, the show ventures into modern geopolitics - almost always regarding the Wahhabist-Ba'athist-Khomeinist War (better known as the War on Terror).

This week, however, the emphasis was on "almost," as viewers were treated to one of the most anti-Communist TV hours since the PNTR debate of a decade ago. An investigation of a naval officer's suicide uncovers an espionage ring of whole families who agree to raise children as intelligence agents in exchange for life in America - and permission to have more than one child (the officer himself was the would-be spy; he took his own life rather than betray the United States).

Now, whether Communist Chinese intel is smart enough (perhaps) and patient enough (absolutely) to hatch a plot like that isn't the point. Here's what is: the major themes of the anti-Communist movement - the danger of CCP espionage, the plight of regime victims bullied into becoming regime agents, the horrifying "one child" fiasco - were aired across the country on a major network for all to see. If even Hollywood is prepared to accept the Communist Chinese threat, Washington can't be that far behind.

Unfortunately, so long as Washington continues to attract the Tom Friedmans of the world, it will be a maddening place in the interim. This is was the Washington Post piece by Steve Mufson and John Pomfret is so helpful - to a point. The former Post correspondents in Communist China detail the holes in the "Chinese century" theory. Among the juicier nuggets . . .

Projections of China's economic growth seem to shortchange the country's looming demographic crisis: It is going to be the first nation in the world to grow old before it gets rich. By the middle of this century the percentage of its population above age 60 will be higher than in the United States, and more than 100 million Chinese will be older than 80. China also faces serious water shortages that could hurt enterprises from wheat farms to power plants to microchip manufacturers.
And about all those engineers? In 2006, the New York Times reported that China graduates 600,000 a year compared with 70,000 in the United States. The Times report was quoted on the House floor. Just one problem: China's statisticians count car mechanics and refrigerator repairmen as "engineers."

In other words, the CCP isn't nearly as strong as so many fear.

Unfortunately, Pomfret and Mufson make an increasingly common mistake:

Some decades ago, Americans were obsessed with another emerging Asian giant: Japan . . . But then something happened. Japan's economy lost its game. The 1990s became a "lost decade," so much so that during the toughest days of the recent financial crisis, Japan was invoked as a cautionary tale, lest we not do enough to jump-start our economy.

Indeed, I remember when fear of a rising Japan seemed to consume America. There's only one problem: Japan was an American ally, a fact that always made the Nippo-phobia (assuming that's a word) overblown and ridiculous.

The CCP, by contrast, is an American enemy. This motive, lost on Mufson and Pomfret but not on the Writers' Guild, makes all the difference.

In the 1970s, European Communism was an economic basket case, too. The Soviet Union had a leader growing more and more detached from reality as his people suffered deeply. Yet the Soviets, like the CCP today, saw these weaknesses as reason to expand their power around the globe (in order to counteract the weakness), and because they came up against an unsure and self-doubting America, the decade that was supposed to spell out their doom turned into their best shot at global domination.

The Chinese Communist Party is in similar desperate straits, and may be facing a similarly distracted and despairing America. The CCP's weakness should reassure us about our position, but not reassure us on the Party's motive.

That last part is still something Washington hasn't quite figured out. That Hollywood - of all places - has is a good sign, but also a reminder of how far we still have to go until China is once again free and America is at last secure.

The astonishingly resilient anti-Communist majority

2010-02-18T09:43:00.003-05:00

CNN took advantage of today's meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama to conduct a poll on American attitudes toward the Chinese Communist Party. The results were a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

First, it should come as no surprise that the Dalai Lama is very well-liked in the United States. The rest of the poll regarding Tibet seems contradictory at first.

Nearly three-quarters of all Americans think Tibet should be an independent country, according to a new national poll.
However, the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday also indicates that most Americans think it is more important to maintain good relations with China than to take a stand on Tibet.

Again, that may sound contradictory, but we have to remember that the Dalai Lama himself repeatedly insists that he is not demanding independence, and he himself has been trying to build bridges to Zhongnanhai. The independence question aside, the American people are largely following the Dalai Lama's lead.

Meanwhile, as one would expect, human rights remains at the forefront of American thinking:

The poll also indicates that 53 percent say it's more important for the United States to take a strong stand on human rights in China than to maintain good relations with Beijing, with 44 percent saying good relations are more important.

Where things get interesting is the "Taiwan question":

By a 6-point margin, the survey also shows that more Americans say taking a strong stand on Taiwan by force is more important than maintaining good relations with Beijing.

Read that again, slowly, and you'll see how dramatic a statement that is.

We're talking about Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China), a subject so delicate even the anti-Communist community has to treat it with kid gloves. Making matters even more difficult, the solution most anti-Communists would prefer (an anti-Communist movement willing to help the mainland overthrow the CCP and then reunify with a democratic China) has vanished over the last few years do to event that have led to a Communist-friendly vs. anti-Communist/pro-independence polarization, with the latter also suffering from a serious corruption hangover that allowed the former to sweep the electoral field in 2007 and 2008.

On top of that, the poll asked about "taking a strong stand on Taiwan by force." In other words, the American people - in the midst of a two-pronged war against al Qaeda and the Great Recession - were asked about effectively going to war to protect the island democracy, with all of its troubles, against a would-be (and soon, will-be) superpower.

Despite all of this, the American people responded, "Sign me up."

This is the latest - and probably, the most dramatic - example of the American people's resilient anti-Communism. For much of the 1990's, a majority of Americans called the "China" a threat (they meant the CCP, trust me), but in part, that could have been Republican reaction to the Clinton Administration's "engagement" with the regime.

Now, in 2010, Republicans and Democrats have seen one of their own espouse "engagement" in the White House in an attempt to get Beijing's cooperation on their respective foreign policy objectives. Despite this, the anti-Communism did not wane. If anything, it became more resolute (I know of no poll that said Americans in the 1990s were willing to use military force to defend the ROC).

In the 1930's, the Democrats embraced anti-fascism: they completely dominated American politics until 1953. In the late 1970's, the Republicans firmly stood against European Communism. From 1980 to 2008, they were the driving force in American politics.

This poll confirms what I have said it before, and I am compelled to say it again: the party that embraces the anti-Communist majority will be the majority party in American politics for at least the next generation. If history is any indication, it will also lead the American and Chinese peoples to victory over the CCP.

What we still do not know - and had best figure out soon - is this: which party is it going to be? One could make the argument for either the Democrats or the Republicans. In fact, liberals and conservatives are more likely to be anti-Communists than moderates, further complicating not only partisan predictions but, more importantly, making it harder to build a political coalition.

However, this poll clearly shows that the coalition can be built, and events around the world show it must be built. The questions remain: when and who?

A bitterly disappointing night

2010-01-28T07:28:00.002-05:00

Last night, the leader of the free world and one of the most dynamic members of America's loyal opposition took to the airwaves to present their cases to the people. For anti-Communists, it was a terrible night.

Whether one was inclined to trust President Obama over Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell - or for independents, both and/or neither - the night was punctuated by the near-total silence on the dangerous rise of the Chinese Communist Party on the global stage. Admittedly, politicians don't like to give foreign policy does much attention during a recession - especially the Great Recession, as this one is now known. However, those who have risen above politics to embrace the mantle of true leadership have insisted on keeping their eyes, and ours, on the world around us to thwart the dangers with which we must deal.

Franklin Roosevelt mobilized America to resist the Nazi Empire despite the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan continued to lead the fight against European Communism despite the only recession since World War II to challenge this one in length and severity. Sadly, neither Obama (for whom, I will confess, I did not vote) nor McDonnell (for whom I did) seemed eager to follow in the footsteps of these two late leaders.

To the extent the president mentioned Communist China at all, it was as an economic competitor similar to India - latently invoking a China-India linkage that has been repeatedly debunked by reality. More ominously, the threat from Communist China itself was completely absent from the speech. There was no mention of the regime's ties to our enemies in the War on Terror (or as it is now known, "Overseas Contingency Operations"), nor any mention of the continuing military threat to the island democracy known as the Republic of China (despite recent reports that he has approved a new arms package for the ROC, as reported by CBS News). Even the CCP's continuing currency manipulation - which has done more to damage American manufacturing than anyone is willing to admit - received deafening silence from the president.

When the president mentioned foreign policy at all, he simply recycled the Pollyannaish words of his predecessor on North Korea and the Iranian mullahs. Does he really believe the Stalinist Korean regime "faces increased isolation and stronger sanctions . . . vigorously enforced"? Has he really convinced himself that the Iranian regime "is more isolated"? The only way the president can say these words with a straight face is if he believes what Zhongnanhai tells him about these two regimes. However, Zhongnanhai has always told presidents that they're willing to work with Washington on these issues; they just have their own definition of "work with Washington."

It is painfully ironic to see a president so determined to lay blame at the feet of his predecessor simply following the Bush line in the one area where a departure from the past would do the most good.

In response to the president, the Republicans brought forth Bob McDonnell, recently elected Governor of Virginia. As a Virginian myself, I saw McDonnell's campaign up close, and as I mentioned earlier, I liked enough of what I saw to vote for him. However, foreign policy was not and is not his area of expertise, and as such, he gave scant mention to it. Unlike the president, he never even mentioned North Korea or Iran, let alone the CCP.

Now, one might think I'm being a little harsh on the president and the governor, given the current times. However, geopolitics don't simply stop for the free world to recover its economic balance. In fact, our enemies - from the CCP on down - have used recessions, depressions, or panics to take advantage of the free world and out-muscle it wherever possible. The 21st Century is no exception.

Nor is the largely domestic careers of the two politicians any excuse. In the 20th Century, America won two World Wars and one Cold War. In all three cases, the dynamic leadership required for victory came from governors (Woodrow Wilson - New Jersey, FDR - New York, and Reagan - California).

What we saw last night was not merely reflective of two men; it was a symptom of the continuing elite notion that the CCP is a "rival" at worst, a "potential partner" at best. That the CCP is in fact an enemy is hardly considered. That is the root of the free world's problem, and if last night is any indication, it will remain a problem for a long time.

Tom Friedman and the elite point of view, revisited

2010-01-21T08:24:00.003-05:00

Tom Friedman had another column out this week on Communist China - although it was somewhat disguised as a rant against the "War on Terror." Friedman makes it clear he would simply prefer the war go away; I prefer the term Wahabbist-Ba'athist-Khomeinist War, but that's not entirely relevant here. More to the point, Friedman's column reveals two things: first, the viewpoint of the Washington "elite" - which usually is very close to his own thinking - and second, the complete ignorance he, and they, have of the world around them.

We'll begin with an issue I normally don't discuss - the chimera of "energy independence." Friedman insists that "nothing would make us more secure" than becoming "independent of imported oil." This is a near-universal error among the chattering classes - and, sadly, much of the American people. It is, however, based on two seriously mistaken assumptions. The first is that most of America's oil imports come from the Middle East, and therefore enabling our enemies (the Wahabbists, Ba'athists, and Khomeinists, hence the term I use for this war). In fact, the our largest source of foreign oil has been - for six years and counting - Canada. Moreover, if present trends continue, by mid-decade the Great White North will export more oil to us than all of the Middle Eastern nations put together.

Secondly, and far more troubling, is Friedman's ignorance (shared by far too many people) of just where al Qaeda has received support over the years. In fact, the Chinese Communist Party has been an armer or funder of the Iranian mullahcracy, al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and Stalinist North Korea. Yet for some reason, Friedman ignores this, and he's not alone. Hardly anyone in the corridors of power in the free world have paid proper attention to the role the CCP has played in this war - namely, as a benefactor of our enemies. Then again, if more of them accepted the fact that it is a war, they might pay more attention.

The important point is this: the United States of America could stop importing oil tomorrow, and it wouldn't even slow our enemies down. It could, however, knock the Canadian economy back into recession. Good thinking there, Tom!

Having gotten so much about the geopolitical realities of the world wrong, Friedman's other mistakes really shouldn't surprise. Still, amidst the wreckage, there is one jaw-dropper:

Has anyone noticed the most important peace breakthrough on the planet in the last two years? It’s right here: the new calm in the Strait of Taiwan. For decades, this was considered the most dangerous place on earth, with Taiwan and China pointing missiles at each other on hair triggers. Well, over the past two years, China and Taiwan have reached a quiet rapprochement — on their own. No special envoys or shuttling secretaries of state. Yes, our Navy was a critical stabilizer. But they worked it out. They realized their own interdependence. The result: a new web of economic ties, direct flights and student exchanges.
A key reason is that Taiwan has no oil, no natural resources. It’s a barren rock with 23 million people who, through hard work, have amassed the fourth-largest foreign currency reserves in the world. They got rich digging inside themselves, unlocking their entrepreneurs, not digging for oil. They took responsibility. They got rich by asking: “How do I improve myself?” Not by declaring: “It’s all somebody else’s fault. Give me a handout.”

So many errors, so little time.

First of all, despite the sweet talk of Ma Ying-jeou and Hu Jintao, the CCP is still aiming hundreds of missiles at Taiwan. The island democracy is just as threatened today as it was before Ma was elected two years ago. In fact, the Taiwanese people themselves seem to understand that better than their President - confronted with Ma's rose-colored-glasses policy, they have actually done the unthinkable and resurrected the much-maligned Democratic Progressive Party as a functioning opposition.

More to the point, the Taiwanese people have, in fact, depended upon the United States for decades. Two generations ago, President Eisenhower threatened nuclear war with Mao Zedong to protect Taiwan. A quarter-century later, the Taiwan Relations Act compelled America to ensure Taiwan had the ability and strength to defend itself.

I don't want to be too hard on Tom. He seems to be coming to the realization (however slowly), that the CCP is a genuine threat. He's not there yet, but I can see him making the journey. Unfortunately, his ignorance of the globe's past and present is hindering his ability to make the trip. More ominously, most of the free world's decision makers have the same blind spots that he does. That is a problem the electorates (i.e., you and me) need to fix - and quickly.

On the Google Incident

2010-01-13T12:34:00.004-05:00

The hacking of Google, and the firm's decision to re-evaluate its entire operation in Communist China (h/t to NRO - The Corner) , may lead to dramatic changes on several levels, including bringing the day of liberation closer than before Google made its announcement. That may sound dramatic, but I believe it to be true. To understand why, let's take this step by step.

We'll start with the purpose of the attack on Google: "accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists." The first lesson we - and everyone else - can learn is this: any foreign business in Communist China will become part of the regime's surveillance system - whether they want to be or not. Ethan Gutmann has done a terrific job detailing how low the American business community had fallen in Losing the New China. In those cases, however, the firms were more than willing to help the cadres find and seize anti-Communists. In this case, Google clearly assumed (like most investors and businesses) that they would be "non-political." They found out the hard way that there is no such thing as non-political in Communist China. Current and future investors will take note, and hopefully make some very different decisions based upon this.

There is one line of thought that Google's decision is driven more by dollars and cents than common sense or moral outrage (see Sarah Lacy at Tech Crunch). In its own way, however, even this is good news, in part because the thrust of Lacy's column (revealed in this question: "Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top market share in the country?") completely misses the point. The CCP will ensure Google will never win "top market share." Foreign business aren't supposed to succeed; they're supposed to throw good money after bad into Communist China while the CCP finds their intellectual property and robs them blind (again, Gutmann is a fantastic source). That hasn't stopped so many from dreaming of profits and "one billion customers." Google is no different.

What Google's action tells us is something about the American information technology sector: aiding repression is still considered bad business. We weren't sure if the old hyper-libertarian impulse that had been with the IT sector since its birth was still around. Now we know it is. This means it will be much harder for the CCP to convince Google's rivals or its successors to take its place as a dissident tracker (no one can claim they didn't see it coming anymore).

Given the fallout that is coming from this, why would the CCP risk losing so many investors - present and future - with this move? Well, here's the final (and most important lesson) here: The CCP cares about its preservation and its power first, last, and always. Economics, diplomacy, and everything else are just means to the above end. No one can claim otherwise. No one can be fooled by the CCP propaganda that they peddle about its "peaceful rise" and its supposed concern about economic growth above all else.

In short - to borrow and twist the famous line from The Usual Suspects - the devil can no longer convince the world that he doesn't exist.

This is something that will be remembered with every CCP acquisition abroad, every CCP foray into international politics. The elites of free world may finally began to view the CCP with the suspicion it deserves (the peoples of the free world have that suspicion already). However, this could be most damaging in the area it first started - outside investments in Communist China.

The CCP needs outside investors for a slew of reasons: the money, of course, the de facto endorsement that comes with an investment, and the new friends that can be used as apologists. As I have noted repeatedly, the CCP needs affirmation from outside to justify its regime to the suffering people inside. Without the former, the latter becomes that much harder (one of the lessons learned from European Communism in the 1980s), and getting more of the former took a major hit with Google's announcement yesterday.

Yes, the regime will survive if Google finally does withdraw, but it will be weakened, and with Iran in turmoil, anti-Communists gaining momentum in Taiwan, and India growing more leery of Zhongnanhai, the CCP cannot afford any more weakness.

Looking back, looking ahead

2010-01-07T08:00:00.003-05:00

On this side of the Pacific (the east side), January is the beginning of the new year; on its western shores, it is close to the end of the old one. This gives us the perfect opportunity to look back and look ahead at the same time.

From one perspective, the anti-Communist had a very bad 2009 (for those readers suffering from pun withdrawal, one could say democracy supporters were quite gored in the Year of the Ox). A new Democratic president - Barack Obama - turned his back on nearly everything his predecessor did, except for "engagement" with the Chinese Communist Party. Meanwhile, the potential for the new Republican opposition in America to rediscover its anti-Communist past disappeared when Obama appointed Utah Governor Mike Huntsman to the post of Ambassador to the CCP. For the rest of the year, the Communist regime was largely ignored in Washington - not necessarily a bad thing, but it could have been much better. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi particularly disappointed with her near silence on the issue when there was never a better time for her to influence the debate in the capital.

Moving past the politicians and into the punditry, things actually got worse. What began as a discussion about global warming devolved into leading columnists pining for tyranny. Tom Friedman gushed over the "reasonably enlightened" CCP in a piece that should have embarrassed him. Canadian writer Diane Francis did Friedman one better by actually endorsing a global version of the hideous "one child" policy that made Zhongnanhai infamous around the world.

As all of this was going on, the regime seemed on the march across the globe. Beijing alone had the thrill of publishing good economic statistics (whether they were actually true statistics is for another column). More leaders of the free world - including Canada - seemed willing to do its bidding. Its chief Middle Eastern ally (the Iranian mullahcracy) moved closer to becoming a nuclear power. Its one-time Taliban allies were turning the tide in Afghanistan.

All in all, it's been a very good year for the CCP - on the surface. Scratch said surface, however, and it's a very different story.

While the American elite fell all over itself in praise of the regime, the American people maintained, and even increased, their wariness of Zhongnanhai. By the end of the year, even some of the "chattering classes" began to realize that the CCP's "peaceful rise" was anything but.

Meanwhile, the motivation for Tehran's hellbent quest for "the bomb" suddenly became known to the world: the Iranian people. Their continued defiance of the mullahcracy inspired the world, but it also sent a powerful message on the limits of dictatorship. About a decade ago, (First) Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis reminded us that oppressed people do have the power to force their oppressors to spend financial and political capital keeping the regime in place - and Tehran had to spend massive amounts of it. We saw the effects in Lebanon, where the pro-democracy March 14 movement scored an upset victory in national elections, and to a lesser extent in Iraq, where previous Iranian meddling seemed to ebb as the regime was forced to turn inward.

Given that the CCP's anti-American objectives and policies have largely been outsourced to Tehran - in part because the mullahs are so willing to credit for them and get the CCP off the hook - weakness in Iran means weakness in Zhongnanhai. Moreover, the regime can't look at the convulsions in Iran without worrying about the Chinese people rising up to take their country back.

Finally, even in Taiwan, things went south for the regime. While the CCP-friendly Kuomintang governed without any threat for much of the year, the voters in the island democracy brought the anti-Communist Democratic Progressives back to life in local elections last month. This time last year, President Ma Ying-jeou was a popular leader of a people seemingly willing to reach out to the Communists over the future of the Republic of China. Today, Ma is the leader of the Republic of China; the rest no longer holds.

So what can we expect in 2010? It's hard to say, but I think we'll know where to look: Iran. The resistance of the Iranian people will continue to spook Beijing and Tehran, while forcing both to ignore opportunities elsewhere. Meanwhile, the mullahs quest for nuclear weapons (which in no small part is fueled by a need to have the free world knuckle under and accept their repression of their fellow Iranians) will lead to more problematic headlines for the CCP.

Of course, if the Iranian people succeed in ending the mullahcracy, that could send shockwaves through tyrannies around the world - especially the CCP.

Another warning to the CCP . . . from Tehran

2009-12-10T08:55:00.004-05:00

The Chinese Communist Party prides itself on protecting fellow dictators around the world - and none more so than the mullahcracy in Iran. The Khomeinist regime in Tehran has been the CCP's oldest and closest friend in the Middle East - albeit because most "Middle Eastern" maps do not include Pakistan. Moreover, Tehran's virulent anti-Americanism makes it a perfect tool for combating the United States and the rest of the free world with little chance of geopolitical consequences. Zhongnanhai would prefer not to be blamed for fueling the Iranian regime's ambitions, and the mullahs are desperate to take all the credit for their actions. It's a perfect arrangement - so long as the mullahs had a firm grip on Iran.

Events of this past week, however, revealed that the mullahcracy's grip on the Iranian people remains as shaky as it was this past summer.

December 7 in Iran is National Students Day, a day to honor students who in 1953 protested a pro-American coup. For twenty years, the regime is happy to have large crowds marching in the streets, but anti-regime students essentially took over the day's events in 1999; the regime has tamped down December 7 ever since (Los Angeles Times).

It didn't work this year. Despite over a hundred pre-NSD arrests and the usual clamor about "foreign influence" (Fox News), campuses all over Iran witnessed large anti-regime protests. Even worse for the mullahs, for the first time, ethnic minorities (Kurds and Azeris) got in on the act (LAT).

Now, the regime did survive, and will for some time yet, but the mullahs will continue to waste energy terrifying their people into silence and imprisoning - or worse - those who refused to be cowed. This comes despite anemic support for the protesters coming from the free world.

That won't be lost on the folks in Zhongnanhai. They, too, have a potentially lethal combination of determined dissidents and ethnic issues - the latter exacerbated by the fact that the CCP conquered the nations in question (Tibet and East Turkestan). They, too, have done everything they can to take advantage of the free world's willingness to look the other way on human rights and other matters. Moreover, unlike the Iranian regime, the CCP long ago lost its ideological justification for its cruelty.

If the Iranian tyrants still have to worry about massive protests erupting at certain dates, to what can the CCP look forward? That is the question that keeps the cadres up nights.

For nearly two decades, the CCP has tried to avoid the fate of the European Communists. They deftly redesigned economic Marxism - effectively transforming the state from factory manager to the equivalent of an omnipresent holding company. They spent years polishing their image among the elites of the world, building alliances with other tyrants, and attempting to co-opt any dissident they could find.

Here's the problem: the first item, while quite ingenious, can only take the regime so far, and there's evidence aplenty that it has run its course. The rest is straight out of the European Communists' playbook - and it has led to the same paucity of results.

Anyone who remembers the 1970s has seen this movie before. The free world was willing to look the other way vis a vis European Communism, too (including both political parties here in America). There were other matters that seemed to trump human rights (in that decade, it was the nuclear arms race and, ahem, global cooling). Tyrants seemed on the march under Soviet protection. The decade ended with Iran itself succumbing to the Khomeinists. Yet European Communism still fell.

What we tend to forget, however, is that the 1970s was the one decade during which the CCP paid the least attention to the rest of the world. The chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the post-Mao factional battles within the CCP, and the first signs of popular protest against the regime combined to keep the eyes of the CCP leaders firmly fixed inward.

So, while the CCP learned the lessons of the 1980s (i.e., the state as factory manager doesn't work, and neither does open resistance to an assertive free world), they missed the lessons of the 1970s (an unassertive free world never stays that way, the people will never be won over by foreign plaudits, and allied tyrants inevitably cost more to prop up then their worth).

In other words, the CCP is marching into the same trap the snared their European brethren, but they don't see it coming, but they were not paying attention during the decade that most closely resembles this one. In time, when the free world arises from its stupor (as it inevitably does), the trap will be sprung, and the Chinese Communist Party will take its rightful place on the ash heap of history.

A dangerous paradigm shift

2009-11-19T07:56:00.003-05:00

This past week, the anti-Communist community came to grips with the painful reality best described by this summary of the Greek tragedy genre: "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it."

After spending nearly ten years trying to warn my fellow Americans about the dangers of the Chinese Communist Party (and compared to some of the giants in the movement, I'm still a rookie), it is becoming clear that the "chattering classes" finally recognize the danger (a majority of Americans have always understood the problem). Unfortunately, the mood in the corridors of power and punditry have shifted not to firm resolve to resist the CCP, but mordant despair over its eventual conquest of the world.

The best (or, perhaps, worst) example of the gloom and doom comes from John Tkacik, a leading anti-Communist himself and a longtime defender of the island democracy currently on Taiwan (National Review Online):

As the smoke clears from President Obama’s 2009 Asia tour, America’s new status as the second-most powerful nation on earth is no longer obscured. It is the measure of a superpower that nobody else tells it what to do, but America is no longer the superpower. It is now China whom no one dares lecture.
The Obama administration has failed to muster the leverage necessary to gain China’s cooperation on any of its global priorities: nuclear proliferation, climate change, trade, exchange rates, human rights, competition for resources, environmental despoliation, or moderating China’s territorial claims against its neighbors — most of which are America’s friends and allies.
It simply is not credible in Beijing that Obama’s Washington has the courage to come up with an “or else” if China insists on pursuing its goals via a robust state-mercantilist ideology. So Beijing now does what it will, and will lecture the U.S. president if it pleases.
This was evident in Obama’s handling of the Tibet issue. He dared not meet with his fellow Nobel Laureate, the Dalai Lama, because China was not pleased. In his comments to Chinese leaders, Obama reassured them that the United States recognizes that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China,” without pausing to consider that China claims 32,000 square miles of Indian territory — the state of Arunachal Pradesh — as “part of Tibet.” Clearly, President Obama sees his challenge as managing America’s decline gracefully.

Now, not everyone is as glum as Tkacik, but most have a similar theme, driven by either criticism of the Obama Administration (which is justified) or concern over CCP-held American debt (which is badly overblown). Thus, I am now forced to shift gears myself, and remind everyone that things really aren't that bad.

True, the obsequiousness of the president is deeply disturbing, but that's not just for anti-Communists (see Victor Davis Hanson, also in NRO, for the overall details). America's allies are starting to notice the trend in other areas, too, and are not happy (America in the World, UK). Moreover, while "engagement" has become a standard lunacy among American presidents over the last two decades, the Obama version is so bad that even "engagement" luminaries such as the Financial Times (also UK) are telling the president that he "need not – and must not – kowtow" (via AITW).

In fact, the FT even goes so far as to detonate the myth of the CCP's power as American creditor: "Contrary to common perception, China’s huge holdings of US treasuries are not a sign of great strength. They are evidence of how dependent Chinese growth has been on the US consumer." I take a somewhat different angle in my view on the subject, but any comments that steer clear of unnecessary pessimism is welcome at this point.

In reality, America is weak toward the CCP because President Obama chooses to be weak. For the democracy on Taiwan - which is facing both a likely invasion deadline of 2012 and its own lack of resolve - this isn't very consoling. The American people, however, have available a simple solution - replace Obama with an anti-Communist president. Whether any Republicans or other Democrats are willing to embrace the anti-Communist model is another question, but Obama's errors here make it much more likely.

Indeed, the recent election results in New Jersey hint to a second, and still underemphasized, reason for optimism: India. Even the FT took note of India's role as "a potential regional counterweight to China." Now, I've been talking about the geopolitical importance of India for years, but if what Michael Barone (DC Examiner) is any indication, Indian-Americans may be shifting to the Republicans. This will give the GOP more reason to emphasize India's role in the world. Democrats, if they're wise, will likely follow suit (lest anyone forget, the first notion of upending Communist regimes in Eastern Europe came from Republican candidates desperate to peel immigrants from said countries away from the Democrats in the 1950s). As more Americans become aware that there are three superpowers rather than two - and that the "third" is a far better fit with the free world than the CCP - they will realize their strength, and demand leaders act upon said strength.

Last but most, we need to remember the adversary: the Chinese Communist Party. Yes, it is bloodthirsty, ruthless, and very effective is presenting the veneer of respectable calm across Chinese and occupied territory. In the final piece of irony, it is John Derbyshire (author of the pessimism manifesto titled We Are Doomed), who reminds us of our reasons for hope:

Let us bear in mind that those (economic) growth rates are based on an economic model that may already have ceased to be tenable (see Gordon Chang in the November 23 issue of National Review); that Chinese weapons, now as in the past, are intended for use against those inhabitants, or recalcitrant ex-inhabitants, of the Celestial Empire who will not bow to the Son of Heaven; that Chinese diplomats excel mainly at making their nation disliked; that resentments of class and wealth inequality can sunder a nation as surely as can ethnic troubles; and that the median duration of a Chinese dynasty has been 45 years.

In other words, between America and the CCP, America is the weakest - except for the CCP.

So, while we can shake our heads at the Obama Administration's mistakes, and cringe as the CCP takes advantage of them, the fundamentals have not really changed. The CCP is still a regime hiding its weaknesses from itself and everyone else, while America and the rest of the free world has strengths that remain unacknowledged - or even ignored - but won't disappear.

After all, how many of us on December 31, 1979 would even dare dream that European Communism would be crushed just a dozen years later?

Well, that wasn't supposed to happen

2009-09-30T21:49:00.002-04:00

New York City's tallest building - the Empire State Building - is glowing red and yellow to honor the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

If you're the cadres, that's supposed to be fantastic news, a sign that they have finally arrived as an institution that can be accepted and celebrated. Now, New Yorkers and Americans can look at the skyscraper and marvel at the oceans of blood spilled in their name.

If that sounds a little odd, it's because things haven't quite gone according to plan.

The Empire State had barely turned on the CCP lights before Fox News was wading through a smorgasbord of furious anger from tourists, a historian, and a local Congressman (Anthony Weiner). So, instead of "oohs" and "ahs," the cadres are reading this:

"I think it's a bad idea," said Dick Paasch, 69, from Billings, Montana. "The Chinese Revolution ... in the years 1958-1960, there were something like 26 million people starved to death. Why would we want to celebrate something like that?"

"China gets treatment that other dictatorships can only dream of — a free pass on human rights," said Arthur Waldron, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Would we have lit the Empire State Building for the USSR knowing what we
do about the Gulag?"

New York politicians have paid notice as well, and say they are let down by the light-up. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said it was a mistake to pay tribute to what he
called "a nation with a shameful history on human rights."

Um, that wasn't supposed to happen.

Even worse for the cadres, their 60 years of rule have been permanently linked with another number: its 72 million victims. That certainly wasn't part of the plan, but it has darkened any celebration.

In fact, no matter where one looks (the aforementioned Fox News, Associated Press, The New York Times, National Review Online, U.S. News and World Report, NBC, etc.), the "celebration" is given so perfunctory quotes while the anger and outrage gets a majority of the coverage.

Of course, the real purpose of the lighting - to ensure the Chinese people are told how much the rest of the world loves the CCP - was a smashing success. So long as the peasants, migrant workers, prisoners, and appellants don't see the seething of the American people, it's all systems go for the demoralizing propaganda.

Keep in mind, stuff like this isn't about Chinese pride; it's about debasement. It's about keeping the Chinese people scared, isolated, and quiet. It's about making sure they have no idea that the people of the democratic world would love to see them rise up and take their country back.

Still, that would have been a lot easier had the red-and-yellow vibe lasted longer than a New York minute. Now the cadres will have to keep an even tighter grip on its contacts with the outside world. All nations dealing with it will have to be even more intrusive within its own borders so as not to "offend Chinese dignitaries."

All of this brings inevitably closer the day when the democratic world throws up its hands in exasperation - the exact opposite of the long-term objectives stemming from the 60th anniversary.

If anything, here in this country, the Empire State fiasco revealed an anti-Communist majority as strong as it ever was - if only one of the political parties would step up to represent them.

The American and Chinese peoples are still waiting.

The fall of Tom Friedman

2009-09-10T02:24:00.002-04:00

If you want to see how and why so many otherwise enlightened people have fallen for the snake oil of the Chinese Communist Party, look no further than the New York Times' Tom Friedman.

Friedman embarasses himself with an ode to the "enlightened" CCP in his latest column:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Nothing is more dangerous than claiming to know the future, and Friedman painfully proves it here. This is a regime that is still working its citizens to death - literally - in labor camps, still imprisoning and killing those who refuse to put the Party between themselves and their God, and still actively helping America's enemies abroad. None of it matters to Mr. Friedman, because so long as the regime dyes its bloody hands "green," it can become "a reasonably enlightened group of people."

Keep in mind, Mr. Friedman, and so many like him, know nothing of the real CCP. They have spent time in one or more of the Potemkin cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Shenzhen), and fool themselves into thinking they've seen China.

Only this can explain the nonsense Friedman spews next:

It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.

Of course, this would come as a shock to Canada, which is watching these very same leaders make a massive move on Alberta's oil sands, which according to Friedman et al is not only a no-no because it is oil, but even worse, it's "dirty" oil.

What would a regime "committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power" want with Albertan oil? Well, they'd want energy, and unlike Friedman, they understand that it takes more than pies in the sky to get it. Meanwhile, China outside of the Potemkin cities remains an ecological nightmare.

So what's driving this strange impulse by Friedman to embrace dictatorship. It is as simple as it is tragic: Friedman is not getting what he wants politically in America. Frustrated with the American people refusing to agree with him, he longs for the will to impose his views on them anyway.

It is the typical column of a frustrated "in" pundit - railing at the "out" party (in this case the Republicans) as doomed to irrelevance and powerful enough to stop the Democrats at the same time. The problem is, the GOP can't be both. Unable to control the agenda in the House or even slow it down in the Senate, Republicans can do nothing but dissent - unless the American people stand with them.

It is the same in any democracy - even the parliamentary ones where traditionally a majority government reigns supreme. If the opposition has the ear of the people (or vice versa) governing suddenly becomes difficult, if not impossible.

The proper, democratic thing to do is try to persuade the people that you are correct and they are not - but that requires effort, effort "in" parties usually don't have after some years in power. That Friedman is already exhausted after mere months of the Obama Administration is tellng about its weakness.

That said, different people resort to different methods. President Bush, for all his faults, made a dramatic pitch to the American people on the "surge" in Iraq. The people were surprised, and more than a little apprehensive, but they agreed to give it a chance, with very good results.

President Obama may face a similar choice in Afghanistan. That one of the capital's leading columnistst is now longing for the power to imprision dissidents is a sign of trouble.

The week that was

2009-09-03T07:34:00.002-04:00

By any indication, this was a week that began just awfully for anti-Communists. Yet, as it comes to an end, it may be the CCP itself who rues the seven days.

The week began (badly) in Japan, where Taro Aso - the latest and possibly most passionate in a line of anti-Communist Japanese premiers that included Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe - became the first Liberal Democrat in sixteen years (and arguably the first in over fifty) to suffer an outright defeat at the hands of the voters. The newly empowered Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been spouting about moving away from the United States and closer to the Chinese Communist Party for years. Now, with a hammerlock on Japan's House of Representatives, they can form the government for the first time in history.

The next day brought a double-whammy: the family of Chen Shui-bian (former President of Taiwan and former leader of the anti-Communist Democratic Progressive Party) were convicted of perjury in his corruption trial. Chen himself will hear his verdict in about a week (Epoch Times); a conviction is all but certain. Meanwhile, Petrochina put in a nearly $2-billion bid for a major Albertan oil project, possibly turning North America's alternative to Middle Eastern oil into Beijing's overseas resource center.

All in all, the week looked horrific - and it was only Monday.

In fact, however, that was the whole point: the week still had five days left. Much as you don't declare the football game over at half-time, one cannot declare a week a disaster just two days in. On the contrary, as the week wore on, it started to wear a little better.

While the anti-Communist leaders were reeling from the Chen drama in Taiwan, the anti-Communist populace were making their presence known. President Ma Ying-jeou continued to take it on the chin politically on several fronts, while the presence of the Dalai Lama (whom Ma could not dare to ban from the island democracy) brought out the worst in the CCP - and reminded all who live on Taiwan just what reunification under Zhongnanhai would mean (Central News Agency). Much like the Republicans here have sprung back to life with the departure of George W. Bush, recent events on Taiwan make clear the anti-Communist DPP could have a revival of its own once the Chens leave the scene (voluntarily or otherwise).

The situation in Japan also improved - or to be more precise, it was revealed to be better than originally thought. For all the DPJ talk of moving closer to Beijing, one glaring obstacle stares them dead in the face - the choatic House of Councillors (known as the "upper house"). While the outgoing LDP lost control of that chamber in 2007, the DPJ doesn't control it either. Instead, it will have to rely on smaller parties from left and right - the latter will likely be nonplussed with any serious move in Beijing's direction. Until new Councillor elections next year, any new move in foreign policy could lead to trouble, which is why the triumphant DPJ is suddenly talking down any references to them.

Even the situation in Canada improved, and not just because the anti-Communists in the country began rousing themselves to take on their former friends in the governing Conservative Party (Calgary Herald). The bigger news may have come from the Gulf of Mexico, where a massive oil reservoir was discovered deep underground (Washington Post). While it will be a while before the field brings oil to the market, there is already talk of its effect on world oil prices. This could dampen the dollars enough for the Tories in Ottowa to clear their heads and give the Petrochina deal the long, painful look it deserves.

Meanwhile, word leaked out to the Epoch Times that the latest attempt by the cadres to pilfer state-owned assets and line their pockets had been met with a labor strike in Hunan Province - a telling reminder that the CCP's ongoing struggle to silence and dominate its own people continues to run into problems.

Of course, we have no idea how any of these items will resolve themselves, but we can be more optimistic about them than we could have been earlier in the week. While no one is really sure who coined the phrase "a week is a lifetime in politics" (the late UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson came close with the British subdued/deadpan version "a week is a long time in politics"), they were certainly validated this week.

The CCP's organ trafficking admission - a sign of things to come?

2009-08-26T22:10:00.005-04:00

The Chinese Communist Party admitted to breaking its own law against organ trafficking, and admitted to it in a big way (BBC):

About 1.5 million people in China need transplants, but only about 10,000 operations are performed annually, according to the health ministry . . . the government passed a law in 2007 banning trafficking as well as the donation of organs to unrelated recipients. But in practice, illegal transplants - some from living donors - are still frequently reported by the media and the Ministry of Health . . . In a rare admission of the extent to which this takes place, China Daily - citing unnamed experts - said on Wednesday that more than 65% of organ donations come from death row prisoners.

In other words, the CCP just admitted that over 6,000 organ "donations" came from the condemned, 2007 law be damned.

Of interest to many readers of this column, the cadres of course did not make any admission about organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Then again, they don't really admit to killing them either, so this is no surprise.

What is important (and as with most important things regarding the CCP, it has been largely ignored) is this: the CCP admitted, once again, that it can't or won't enforce its own laws among its own members. After all, who else could be selling the organs taken from prisoners but the very Communist regime that supposedly made such organ selling illegal?

While most of the rest of us may not have noticed that whopping admission, the cadres certainly did: they were so nervous about it the rushed out anti-Uighur propaganda without notifying their "Xinjiang" counterparts. Even worse, the BBC got to the cadres in occupied East Turkestan before Zhongnanhai did.

That this would so badly scare the regime will surprise most people. After all, they have the friendliest Administration in Washington since Nixon. The elites in the free world are still seeing the mounds of American debt held by Beijing in economic terms (where it appears powerful) rather than in geopolitical terms (where it's practically worthless). Perceptions like that mean something, and for the CCP, it means a lot.

Still, reality trumps perception in the end - no matter how late that end comes. The one thing the cadres fear the most is the Chinese people rising up to take their country back. Amidst massive unemployment (as the Epoch Times noted earlier this week), the cadres were clearly worried that another example of their refusal to follow the rules could cause problems.

At the same time, with the next CCP Congress only three years away, and most cadres looking to take advantage of the transition from Hu Jintao, information like this could easily be used by one faction against another. So, off it goes into China Daily, leaving the party apparatus scrambling to distract the people's attention.

Lest anyone forget, Hu Jintao is the first leader in CCP history whose exit is considered common knowledge (Mao died in power, while Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin hung on as Central Military Commission Chairman for years after handing over the ostensibly omnipotent role as CCP General Secretary). As any other "lame duck" can attest, the people supposedly following Hu's orders are starting to look beyond him. Even in most democratic countries, factions within the incumbent party will start leaking against each other in an effort to gain the upper hand for their champion come convention or primary time - except that the leader is still considered legitimate and everyone accepts that the voters will decide the successor.

Neither of the above applies to the Chinese Communist Party. Thus, every factional battle has the potential for disaster - and the cadres have three more years of this coming, unless Hu has enough power left to tell everyone to calm down for the good of the Party.

That may be more wistful than it initially appears, for the factions within the CCP are marching straight into the classic "prisoner's dilemma" - concern for weakening the tyranny is trumped by the fear of the other faction (or factions) doing it anyway and getting the upper hand in the process.

European Communists, whose leaders almost always died in power, never had these problems unless the Soviet leader himself was gravely ill - and even then there was a faction interested in keeping that news under wraps to preserve their position. Ironically, in an attempt to ensure a smoother transition from one leader to the next, the Chinese Communists stumbled into this new problem without any guide to solve it.

By 2012, the factional warfare could end up with enough exposures to lead to a full-blown revolution. It may seem improbable, but it can't be seen as impossible. Hard as it is to believe, the Chinese Communist Party's attempt to modernize itself could very well be what seals its doom.

Why China Won't Rule the World

2009-08-13T10:43:00.003-04:00

There has been quite a buzz lately over Martin Jacques' When China Rules the World. I will confess, I have not had the chance to read the book, so this should not be taken as a review of it; that would not be fair to him - let alone all of you. Still, I have had the chance to look over Jacques' comments in an interview with Macleans, and I can already tell his thesis has problems - problems that make the entire notion of China - or, to be more precise, the Chinese Communist Party - running the planet to be utterly laughable.

The first problem with Jacques' theory is that he apparently takes the cadres' economic growth statistics at face value. Anyone who has been tracking the regime for a while should know by now the danger in that. National statistics in Communist China are just amalgamations of provincial statistics, which are themselves summations of county, city, village, and town numbers. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but with cadres at every level trying to justify their existence, the "fudge factor" can be significant. A few years ago, Communist economic chicanery was estimated to add almost 1.5% of false growth to their GDP statistics. Stretch that out to the supposed date the CCP passes the U.S. in economic size (sometime in midcentury), and one sees a lot of padding.

Criticism number two is centered around the notion (at the end of the interview) that the Chinese are a patient people. This has long been marked as a virtue that someday would lead China to pass the shortsighted Western powers. There's only one problem: the Chinese Communist Party has no such patience. While Western observers fret over Beijing's plans for the next century, the leaders in Zhongnanhai are too busy plotting against each other's plans over the next decade, at most. One could even argue that most high-ranking cadres can't even think past three years (i.e., the 2012 CCP Congress, which could very well include a major shakeup), let alone three decades.

One would expect Jacques, "an academic and journalist working throughout East Asia" would have taken the factionalism of the CCP into account - until they notice his glaring error with one of the most hackneyed examples of the "patience" theory (Macleans again).

You remember what Deng Xiaoping was supposed to have said when Henry Kissinger asked whether he thought the French Revolution was a good thing: “It’s too early to say.” That to me is a very good insight into the Chinese mentality.

In fact, it was Zhou Enlai, not Deng, who dropped that famous line about the French Revolution - Deng was not even rehabilitated by the regime until after Kissinger and Nixon's trip to Beijing. While this doesn't necessarily impeach Jacques' views about the Chinese culture, it certainly calls into question his knowledge of the Chinese Communist Party.

All that aside, what really sinks Jacques' vision of a CCP-dominated world is his regional bias, i.e., toward East Asia. Normally, this is hard to spot, as Eurocentricism remains the dominant bias nearly everyone tries to combat. However, in his discussion about the fate of the globe, Jacques focuses entirely on the CCP's relationship with its eastern neighbors (Japan, Vietnam, etc.), while its western neighbors are barely an afterthought. Thus, Jacques falls into the common yet catastrophic China-and-India trap (one more time with Macleans).

We’re moving into a world where former colonized countries like China and India will become the big players. This is going to shake up the global value system. So I’m not arguing personally against democracy, but I’m trying to imagine what the world’s going to be like when countries have different imperatives, different histories, and therefore different priorities.

I am continually and perpetually amazed at how many people treat Communist China and democratic India as indentical twins. Nothing could be further from the truth. While India could probably care less about what Europe wants (and that's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way), its entire foreign policy has evolved into a deep mistrust and concern for the CCP. Beijing and New Delhi still don't have an agreed-upon border, and the Indian people know full well that Pakistan - which lacks either the will, the ability, or both to prevent terrorists from crossing into India and killing hundreds to thousands of people - is protected by Zhongnanhai.

The idea the India would be willing to play second fiddle to the CCP would be hilarious if it weren't so insulting. That India furthermore would not use its democratic history as part of its rivalry with Beijing is to further insult the intelligence of the Indian people and its elected leaders.

Again, I don't want this to appear to be a criticism of Jacques' book itself (although I don't have high expectations for it), but it is clear that the author has a worldview that is lacking not only in vital information about Asia, but even about China itself. More to the point, these areas of ignorance are the only things that have allowed Jacques to even entertain the notion that the CCP could ever "rule the world."

The CCP and the Axis of Evil

2009-08-06T07:40:00.005-04:00

Yesterday morning, Americans woke up to see former President Bill Clinton return from Stalinist North Korea with two former hostages - Current TV News reporters arrested in the CCP's Korean colony - in tow (Washington Post). Pictures of happy reunions were beamed across the grateful nation as talking heads abounded at Clinton's ability to bring the reporters back and speculated as to just what role the Obama Administration played in all of this.

Half a world away, in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (or, as he is known in this corner, Mad Mouthpiece Mahmoud) was officially inaugurated to a second term as President - despite thousands of protesters in the streets and a slew of boycotting legislators still angry over the obvious fraud behind his "re-election" two months ago (Washington Post).

Most would presume that these events have nothing to do with each other. I'm not so sure.

First of all, we need to remember that Kim Jong-il is a lot like Teamsters pension-fund head "Andy Stone" from Casino - "by all appearances . . . a powerful man . . . but Andy Stone also took orders." Kim Jong-il may be many things (including on death's door), but he remains the Chinese Communist Party's Korean viceroy - even more so now that he is desperate to ensure his son as his successor. Thus, if the CCP wanted those two journalists back in America and out of the headlines, it would have gotten exactly what it wanted.

The question becomes, then, why now? What made early August different from July? Or, for that matter, April? That's where the Iranian inauguration farce comes in.

The CCP has a habit of using the Korean colony to change the subject from any unfortunate matter it would rather avoid. The most dramatic example of this came just over two months ago when Kim and his cronies conducted a nuclear test less than two weeks before the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. So, it was fairly obvious the moment these reporters were captured that this could be of use to the CCP.

How they could be useful wasn't clear until the Iranian uprising, which was as much of a surprise to Beijing as it was to the Tehran regime itself. Under normal circumstances, the CCP would pay no attention to a tyranny cracking down on its own frustrated people - besides making sure everyone knew it stood with the tyranny.

Things became a bit more sensitive when the Iranian people - noticing Beijing's long alliance with the mullahcracy - included "Death to China" among their street slogans. Suddenly, the CCP was itself the target of the protesters, and any trouble coming out of Iran could redound to the free world (whose anti-Communists continue to make the regime very nervous) and China itself (ditto - and then some).

Thus, August 5, the date Iran requires its president to be inaugurated for a new term, became a very important date the cadres in Beijing - important enough to ensure the rest of the world paid no attention to the ongoing battle between the Persian people and the Tehran tyranny. Can we really be surprised that North Korea suddenly jumped on Bill Clinton's trip as an excuse to release the captured journalists just as Iran was approaching another flash point?

As it is, hardly anyone paid attention to Tehran, even when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs slipped and called the Mad Mouthpiece Iran's "elected" leader (Fox News). All eyes were on North Korea, Bill Clinton, and the two released reporters. Speculation swirled around Kim Jong-il's motives, pundits praised Bill Clinton to the skies (although some are now wondering what was offered in return), breathless reports about the "deep involvement" of the Obama Administration (now that things went well) were whispered and then broadcast.

In short, the plight of the hostages dominated the news day - and the ongoing reverberations of the Iranian uprising did not. The Chinese Communist Party not only saw more press for its Korean colony, but also no press for its Iranian ally. Whatever kind of day it was for Clinton, the reporters, the president, and the media, it was certainly an excellent day for the CCP.

CCP Uses Washington as a Scapegoat

2009-07-30T10:06:00.004-04:00

The latest round of Sino-American talks came to an end with yet another expression of "concern at the record American budget deficit"(Bloomberg). In fact, the most consistent line Washington has heard from Zhongnanhai is criticism of the Administration's spending and borrowing. Most Americans are themselves too worried about the president mortgaging the future to raise much of a stink about Beijing's nagging. Still, the Chinese Communist Party is not going after our record deficits to get us to see the light, but rather to pull the wool over the eyes of their own people.

That the Communist regime now holds more American debt than anyone or anything on earth has given them a perception of economic power. Granted, there isn't much reality behind that perception, but that will take some time to sink in over here. What is important here is what Beijing's carping reveals: deep concern about their own economy, and an inability to fix it.

The latest economic figures out of Beijing trumpeted 7.9% GDP growth in the second quarter. However, given the cadres' penchant for phony statistics, the actual growth number could be as low as 6% - well below population growth. In other words, the average victim of the CCP is continues to grow poorer. This despite a half-trillion-dollar "stimulus."

Meanwhile, the already creeky banking sector continued to dig itself a deeper hole, with wave after wave of reckless loans that have brought back the dreaded B-word ("bubble"). The regime has promised to use "market tools" (Bloomberg) to slow down the lending spree - without explaining to anyone just what it means by that.

So, with the economy not recovering to the extent required, corruption still out of control, and several banks sure to end up drowning in bad loans in the near future, the regime needs someone to blame - and up steps the Obama Administration. To be clear, I am in no way endorsing the reckless spending of the president. The consequences of trillion-dollar-deficits (the entire federal budget was less than a trillion dollars just twenty-five years ago) are obvious: high inflation, a devalued dollar, and a crippling effect on business investment. That's what makes it so easy for the cadres to hide behind America's mistakes.

If things continue to get worse in Communist China, look for the cadres to make more threats about dumping American bonds, while blaming the falling value of said bonds for the regime's own failures. Unfortunately, too many critics of the Administration will seize upon the cadres' smoke screen as yet another consequence of the president's refusal to slow down the spending train. This is especially true regarding the Communist banks, who will scream bloody murder about the loss of value in American assets while hoping no one notices the domestic-default tsunami.

In fact, this entire ruse is yet one more reason Washington should get its fiscal house in order. Without this crutch, Beijing will have no explanation for the continuing economic downturn, and more of their victims will rise up to take their country back. Instead, the regime could very well succeed (and certainly will attempt) to lay blame for all of their economic difficulties at the feet of the president. Foreign investors (who should know better, but that's for another day) will hear stories about worthwhile projects withering on the vine due to weakened Communist banks and those spendthrift Americans, and odds are they'll believe them. The cadres may very dupe the foreigners out of millions to billions of new dollars to make up for the mythical investment gap, giving the regime yet another vein of money siphon off for party members.

Contrary to what the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, they are in a very weak position. Their economic policies are causing more problems while leaving unsolved the ones that led to the policies in the first place. However, so long as the United States continues to spend money like it grows on trees, the cadres will have the cover story they desperately need to survive. Once again, like nearly every other tyrant on the planet, they will find their survival in whipping up anti-American hatred and blaming us for things we did not do.

The tipping point - ten years later

2009-07-23T08:52:00.007-04:00

Ten years ago this Saturday, the Chinese Communist Party openly announced its own demise. It didn't realize it was doing this, so don't go looking for Kevorkian references or anything, but the suicide was publicly proclaimed all the same; for it was on July 25, 1999 that the CCP officially began the conflict that will eventually lead to its downfall: the Falun Gong War.

With just about every tyranny that has darkened the world with its shadow, there is an event, a moment, where an observer can pinpoint things beginning to go "off the rails." At that moment, the regime loses its rationality and its perspective - an inevitable consequence of its loss of humanity. Difficult to see when they happen, these inflection points stand out in bas relief when the regime's history is reviewed.

On occasion, this is a foreign policy blunder (the Nazis' invasion of the Soviet Union), but usually it occurs when the regime decided to turn a non-political issue into a political one - best shown by European Communism's visceral reaction to Solidarity in Poland. The world's peoples understand when a tyrants go after their political enemies - they don't approve, mind you, but they understand the reasons for it. As such, the tyrants' victims use this understanding to help survive the dictatorship - stay clear of political no-go areas, chant the regime's slogans at the right place and the right time, etc., and no one will come for you in the middle of the night. It is when the regime decides to attack something widely perceived as apoliticial that the persecuted people(s) realize they have no choice but to rise up against the regime. The regime need not fall immediately (it took eleven years for European Communism to finally and completely collapse), but it will, inevitably, fall. For the CCP, that moment was July 25, 1999.

To understand why, we need to remember what Falun Gong was before it became an enemy of the state. In the 1990s, Falun Gong was one of many qigong movements spreading among the Chinese people. Unlike most of the others, it quickly found favor with the regime for its refusal to engage in politics. Moreover, Falun Gong was inherently Chinese in its aspirations, its methods, and even its flaws (note: I am not a practitioner). If there was any spiritual movement that the CCP could co-opt, it was Falun Gong.

However, as the decade came to a close, the regime suddenly discovered that Falun Gong had more adherents than the Chinese Communist Party. This, in the minds of the paranoid post-Tiananmen leadership of the CCP, made it dangerous, and worthy of a crackdown. Outside the CCP, however, the crackdown made no sense whatsoever. Why would the regime care about something so firmly non-political as Falun Gong? What else would the regime suddenly decide was "political" and worthy of a prison term or a spell in a labor camp? Practitioners themselves were so surprised that they demanded the regime stop: 10,000 of them in one April day. Ironically, that demonstration (which was largely a show of fealty to the CCP) was twisted by the regime into an act of dissent it never was.

The rest is tragic history - although there have been some darkly comical moments. As always, they center around the regime's charges of foreign influence - an utterly hilarious notion given that it comes from a regime inspired by German philosopher and aided in its quest for power by two Russian tyrants. Looking from 2009, it appears the regime succeeded. However, it looked just as dark in Poland in 1987, or even the Soviet Union itself in early 1991. We now know better.

The regime does, too. They're not foolish enough to think they've won the Falun Gong War (although they are intelligent enough to claim they have). Perhaps they are even aware of the massive unforced error they committed in turning Falun Gong into a dissident faith. In any event, the regime will - and in fact, must - continue its path of repression until the Chinese people rise up and take their country back.

When that happens, history and historians may very well look back to July 25, 1999 as the tipping point.

Why Urumqi has frightened the CCP

2009-07-09T08:18:00.002-04:00

In all my years watching the Chinese Communist Party and its ever-growing list of victims, I don't think I have seen a single incident more telling about the weaknesses of Mainstream Media (and, by reflection, the immense value of the Epoch Times - and I'd say that even if they didn't run my columns) than what happened in Urumqi this week.

To hear MSM discuss it, it was yet another sad case of clashes between Chinese police and restive Uighur Muslims. As Matthew Little noted yesterday (full disclosure, he interviewed yours truly for the piece, as you can see via the link), that was almost exactly how the CCP wanted the incident reported, and at least at first, the cadres got their wish.

Still, I fear that even most anti-Communists have failed (so far) to understand the immense importance of Urumqi 2009 - even I was prepared to largely underemphasize it for quite some time. Upon further review, however, it becomes clear just how dangerous this was to the CCP - and it had nothing to do with the religious faith of the Uighurs.

Roughly two weeks before the people of Urumqi took to the streets, an argument in Shaoguan, Guangdong between Uighurs and ethnic Chinese in a local factory became violent. Two Uighurs died - and the rest were summarily fired. It seems yet another sordid combination of repression and radical ethnic nationalism for which the regime has become infamous, sure to be remembered locally, but not anywhere else.

That the news of this made it to Urumqi at all was something new - and, for the regime, something grave.

The CCP has survived the last twenty years on two things - a radical nationalist agenda (its justification for its continued existence) and a deliberate atomization of any resistance (to prevent a nationwide anti-Communist movement from threatening its continued existence). The latter in particular has made sure outrages like Hanyuan, Taishi, or Shanwei were known only to local victims and their grieving relatives.

Needless to say, things didn't go according to plan in Shaoguan. That an incident in a southeastern province should extend all the way to the formerly independent East Turkestan must have come as quite a shock to the regime. Here, suddenly, was the possible beginning of a continental network of resistance - after all, if a Guangdong incident could get this far, a future clash between cadres and locals reaching the eyes and ears of Beijing appellants, Henan AIDS victims, or Sichuan earthquake survivors was all-but-certain.

How the cadres can prevent those scenarios will keep them up nights for months, but the top priority was making sure no one knew about this. So, the cadres sent in their police to either disperse the protesters or incite them to violence (depending on your source of information, they managed to do at least one), while Beijing told the rest of the world that it was all about Islam.

For the most part, the cadres' desperate gambit worked. The Uighur-Han dimension has dominated everything else. Precious few news outlets are even aware of the Shaoguan incident, let alone the larger significance of it all. Even the death toll (which local sources put well over the ridiculous cadre-endorsed number of 156) has been largely misreported.

Still, the cadres cannot consider this a complete victory. Hardly anyone is willing to defend their brutal occupation of the region - something the Communists have craved ever since the beginning of the War on Terror. Moreover, one of their methods in overhyping the ethnic angle - empowering and arming ethnic Chinese mobs in Urumqi - risks serious public-relations blowback. Many elite Westerners have feared their own native populations going into a rage against the nearest Muslims they can find. To see their nightmare come true not in their homelands, but under the Chinese Communist regime will come as a complete shock - one that could shake more than a few of their "engagement" notions.

However, the real problem for the cadres - the one they can't fix with a heavy police presence or a hail of bullets - is the one still largely unnoticed: the connections among anti-Communists revealed by Shaoguan and Urumqi. Long after the streets of the latter calm down, the CCP will desperately try to figure out how news of the former traveled thousands of miles in less than two weeks. If they can't prevent similar incidents from traveling similar information paths, then every incident of local repression will become nationally known, and help create the nationwide resistance that frightens the CCP more than anything else on earth.

Nice to see Gordon Chang agrees with me

2009-06-26T09:04:00.007-04:00

I was once fortunate enough to share a television studio with Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China. Sadly, we were there to disagree about Beijing's North Korean colony; still, it was a good natured discussion, and for me it was an honor just to appear to be at his level for fifteen minutes.

Anyhow, Gordon has decided to examine the CCP's situation regarding its massive holdings of American debt (Weekly Standard), something into which I delved last year. I am happy to say that this time, Chang not only agrees with me, but echoes the very same arguments I did, including the most critical one - the reaction of the rest of the world:

What would happen in the worst case scenario if the Chinese central government decided to dump U.S. Treasuries? Beijing would have to buy something with the proceeds of its sales. As a practical matter, it would have to buy debt denominated in pounds, euros, and yen. The values of those currencies would then skyrocket. London, Brussels, and Tokyo would then have to try to depress the values of their currencies, which means they would have to buy . . . dollars. In short, there would be a great circular flow of cash in the world's currency and debt markets.
There would be turmoil in those markets, but it would not last long beyond the time the Chinese ended their dollar dump. And we would end up in just the same place that we are now, except that our friends, instead of a potential adversary, would be holding our debt. Global markets are still deep and flexible and can handle just about anything. The fact that Beijing has not employed its so-called nuclear weapon is an indication that the Chinese know it is not, as a practical matter, usable.

I would add one more ironic twist for those who are simply worried about American debts and deficits in general (not an unfounded concern): the odds are far better that our allies and friends could convince us to slow down our rampant spending at home - in part because more Americans would be willing to listen and in part because none would be so dependent upon Americans importing their goods as the CCP. This is probably why, as Chang notes, the cadres have suddenly stopped hectoring us about our excessive borrowing - because they desperately need to keep lending to us.

Iran: What the unfinished revolution means

2009-06-24T22:10:00.008-04:00

Today was probably the closest the Iranian uprising has come to reminding the world of the Tiananmen massacre. In fact, the regime-ordered violence in Baharestan Square brought back memories of twenty years ago to many.

For a large number of Iran-watchers, the last few weeks have been somewhat bewildering. No tyranny on earth has been so careful to project a democratic image than the Islamic theocracy of Iran. By allowing discussion and argument within an infinitesimal political space, the Iranian mullahs managed to look far more favorable to the rest of the world than their Arab neighbor tyrants. This was especially the case during the presidency of "reformer" Mohammed Khatami, who managed to put the free world at ease about his fellow mullahs even as the regime continued to develop nuclear weapons, funnel aid, money, and weapons to foreign terrorist groups, and cement an alliance with the largest dictatorship on earth (measured by people imprisoned): the Chinese Communist Party.

Four years ago, the Iranian regime began its departure from the charm offensive with the "election" of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I pondered what the rise of Mahmoud the Mouthpiece meant, and I came to the conclusion that the regime was close enough to the CCP that it didn't feel the need to pretend at being democratic. It was full speed ahead to nuclear weapons, terrorism abroad, and tyranny at home. Iran had just become a large Taishi.

Now, we are once again seeing the effects of Tehran's ties to the CCP, but this time, the Iranian people refuse to play along. If anything, the events in Iran have unfolded as they have because the mullahcracy has become too close to the CCP.

The Communists had their own experiments with "elections" at a local level for roughly a decade before basically closing it down in 2006. Like the mullahs, the cadres hoped to score points with the outside world and perhaps soothe some very ruffled feathers at home. However, like Tehran, Beijing insisted on its rules, including approval of candidates and real power staying outside the elected bodies and in the hands of the local Party leaders.

However, events in small towns like Taishi made it clear to the cadres that even controlled elections can wreak havoc on their plans. Thus, they had to go. That Beijing went back to the straight dictatorial path just as Iran was relying more heavily on its CCP allies may be coincidental to the embarrassment of last month's "vote," but I'm not so sure.

After all, the Iranian mullahs couldn't help but notice the division caused by the local elections, and the factionalism within the CCP (the mullahcracy has similar factional issues). Moreover, the stubborn refusal of Hong Kong's democrats to go away had to be a shock to the mullahs in Tehran, and perhaps made them think twice about letting anyone even remotely linked to "reform" achieve the powerless but highly public role of president.

After all, something had to occur that made the regime - a group so willing to hand Khatami the reins - balk at giving Mir Hossein Mousavi the post. After all, Mousavi - the 1980s prime minister who railed against the west and cheered Hezbollah - was no less nationalist than the Mouthpiece. He never stated an intention to change the regime - even minimally. He called for greater freedoms for the Iranian people, but only within the framework of the "Islamic Republic."

To most of the rest of the world, Mousavi is hardly different from the Mouthpiece (and many believed just that), but anyone who observed Hong Kong politics would (or, in my case, should, as I did not) know better. Hong Kong's democrats are as nationalistic as the Communists; they have never expressed any interest in challenging the CCP's control across China; all they have asked for is greater freedom in their city. Yet even with these limited aims (and in no small part because of them), they still give the CCP fits, and dissidents hope.

Could it be that the Iranian regime looked out at Mousavi and saw a home-grown Kam Nai-wai? Did they see his wife as a Persian Emily Lau? Did they fear the "reform" movement - previously known for its fealty to the regime on the big issues - would someday become the Hong Kong democratic movement writ large?

Whatever their motivation, the Iranian regime lost its subtle advantages just as it drew closer to Beijing's embrace. Much like Czechoslovakia's Communist movement lost popularity, independence, and legitimacy as it moved closer to Moscow after World War II, the Iranian mullahcracy lost its deft ability to appear at least somewhat democratic just as it moved closer to a regime that came to see any democratic appearance as an unnecessary headache.

Thus, all the regime has left now are the same weapons the CCP has had since 1989: brutal military force and radical nationalism. The CCP has managed to hold itself together for two decades. Only time will tell if the Iranian mullahcracy can likewise thwart the will of the people it oppresses.

Is the CCP headed for a lost decade?

2009-06-11T07:38:00.002-04:00

It didn't take long after the Tiananmen anniversary to slid into the rear-view mirror for the "engagement" crowd to spin up the CCP once more - this time as the saviors of the world economy. The lead cheerleader was World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who had this to say about recent "growth" in the CCP's realm this year (Breitbart): "By and large (China's growth) has not only been a stabilizing force, but a force that will pull the system (out of the downturn)."

While such nonsense is not entirely unexpected from Zoellick, who prior to his current sinecure was doing far more damage as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, it certainly was treated as heady stuff in Zhongnanhai. There's only one problem: the CCP's economic "recovery" is largely a regime-driven fantasy that could very well repeat Japan's "lost decade."

To see what I mean, let's take a look at the recent "growth" Zoellick trumpets (Bloomberg). For starters, growth in the first quarter (January to March) was only 6.1% a figure that does not keep up with population growth - meaning the average resident under the CCP's thumb grew poorer this year.

Secondly, the forces behind the "growth" should be troubling to anyone knowledgeable of recent economic history (Bloomberg again):

China’s spending on factories, property and roads surged by the most in five years as the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) stimulus package countered a record slump in exports.

. . .

Since the stimulus was announced in November, the nation has built 20,000 kilometers (12,430 miles) of rural roads, 445 kilometers of highway and 100,000
square meters (1.08 million square feet) of airport buildings, the National Development and Reform Commission said on May 21. China is also building 5.2
million low-rent homes over three years.

In other words, regime-driven "stimulus" was the main driver; without it, there might not have been any "growth" at all. To anyone even remotely familiar with 1990s Japan, this is not a comforting development.

A slew of Japanese governments tried public works spending in a desperate attempt to pull the Japanese economy out of the ditch. It failed so spectacularly that the period is now known as Japan's "lost decade." Even today, the Japanese economy is still feeling the after-effects of wasted resources, mounting debt, and lost private investment.

If this is where the CCP is headed, it will be a much rougher ride.

Japan's "lost decade" also came with unprecedented political competition. The long-governing Liberal Democratic Party actually lost power for brief intervals, and its dominance over Japanese politics was forever destroyed. Meanwhile, even within the LDP, reformers fought pitched battles for control - and sometimes actually won them. The economic doldrums brought with them a pathway to political maturity for the Land of the Rising Sun, a pathway it is still walking to this day.

The CCP, by contrast, will be in no mood for any political competition should the economy continue to stumble. Instead, we will see more arrests, more phantom concessions to protesters, and - as always when the Chinese Communist Party is involved - more bloodshed.

Even so, one would think that the CCP would find a way to muddle through, as it always has. I'm not so sure this time, and ironically, it could be the "engagement" crew itself that has unwittingly put in motion the regime's unexpected endgame.

What with Zoellick's comments (which are far from isolated) there will be many in the elites of the democratic world who are expecting and hoping for CCP-fueled economic growth to pull the rest of the world out of recession. When it doesn't happen, Beijing will be peppered with friendly advice on what to do different. In Japan, such advice was outwardly taken with a mixture of false gratitude and real annoyance, but opposition movements within the country seized upon the admonitions of Wall Street, Washington, and others to force domestic debates.

The CCP will allow no such thing. As it slowly dawns on the "engagement" crowd that the CCP cares less for their various nations' economies and more about preserving its own power, it could very well lose some of its strongest and most vital foreign supporters. It will certainly make the electorates in those nations far more anti-Communist in thoughts and votes.

Thus could the largest piece missing from the anti-Communist puzzle - a united free world determined to help the Chinese people take their country back - be put in place by the very people who are trying to prevent it from happening, all because no one seems to have remembered the lessons from Japan's "lost decade."

Those who do not remember history . . .

Twenty Years Later

2009-06-03T22:39:00.006-04:00

So here we are, at another June 4 that much of the rest of the world won’t notice. It is all the more painful here in the West in that this anniversary – the 20th is one of our more important ones. It will hurt to see those who so bravely gave their lives be so cruelly forgotten.

The irony here – and one we must remember – is that this year, more than any other except perhaps for 1989 itself, we can truly say that those who were murdered did not die in vain. For whatever the rest of the world thinks of the Tiananmen Square bloodbath, the Chinese Communist Party is more afraid of it than it has ever been.

It would seem odd that this would be so. After all, the cadres have spent the last two decades erasing the Tiananmen Spring from local history books, and have rather brilliantly co-opted the previously non-Communist elite into the regime. Likewise, they seem to have convinced much of the rest of the world to move on and embrace the “new” China of the 21st Century. However, below the surface, it’s abundantly clear that the pressures that led the people to take to the streets in 1989 have never really gone away. They just went underground, and thus have become the cadres’ obsession.

We remember the students of 1989, but the CCP also remembers the laborers, farmers, pensioners, and other ordinary Chinese who joined the demonstrations (yes, that’s plural – it’s believed that 1 in 10 Chinese citizens joined some demonstration in hundreds of cities and towns that year). The cadres knew how to handle the intellectuals: a dose of radical nationalism and a slew of licenses-to-steal (otherwise known as Party Cards) did much of the trick. Thus, Beijing appears the model of peace and tranquility – to locals and outsiders.

Go beyond Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Shenzhen, however, and it’s a different story. The anger, fear, and frustrations are still there, met not with kind words and incentives but party-sanctioned violence and corruption. In fact, the CCP pyramid scheme used to win over the intellectuals in the cities actually made the situation in the countryside worse – since it was peasants and laborers who were forced to pay for the CCP’s plans.

This is the real reason Tiananmen – even today – must remain buried in the past: too many people outside the cities remember what really happened, and have no interest in forgetting. We who live and work outside China rarely see this, in no small part because the cadres cannot afford to let us. Much like the hard-line Communists in Europe saw their regimes collapse when the outside world noticed the people’s anger, so, too, would the CCP if the foreign approval upon which it depends turned into wishing – and helping – the Chinese take their country back.

So, to prevent this, the cadres have to make sure June 4 passes by quietly – or, to be more accurate, that something else distracts our attention. For years, it hasn’t taken very much (a late Presidential primary, the proximity of the D-Day anniversary, etc.). This year, however, the anniversary so spooked the cadres that they apparently allowed (and perhaps even encouraged) their Korean colony to become a nuclear power – a rather large role of the dice that, if they’re not careful, could lead to more Americans and others catching on to the ruse.

That the CCP felt compelled to let Kim Jong-il frighten the entire free world, spin South Korea permanently away from the pro-Beijing “sunshine” of the last decade, and nearly inject an unexpected hawkishness into the Obama Administration is a sign of just how desperate the regime wanted the Tiananmen anniversary off the front pages. If they remain that scared of the 20-year-old crackdown, lovers of freedom cannot be completely discouraged.

Moreover, despite what the CCP would have us believe, the future is actually bright for anti-Communists. After two decades of prosperity-fueled corruption, the regime is facing a recession that could leave tens of millions of Party Members without the ill-gotten perks to which they think they are entitled. India and the United States have moved closer than at any time in 40 years, while CCP ally Pakistan is losing credibility in Washington faster than it’s losing territory to the Taliban. Japan and South Korea are now firmly in the anti-Communist camp, and even Taiwan, despite the Communist-friendly Nationalist government, seems to be returning to its anti-Communist roots.

All the while, the historical symbol of bloody repression hangs everywhere. Invisible but undeniable, it reminds tens of millions of Chinese that there was, once, a different path, and makes laughable every effort by the CCP to make it go away. With what the regime felt it had to do to keep the past away, we can truly see that it (the past) is still strong enough to guide the present and the future.Communism in China will fall; the only question remains: how much time, blood, and treasure must be lost before it does? That question can only be answered by those who helped accelerate the end of European Communism but, for now, have yet to do the same to Chinese Communism – namely, us.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and Virginia Virtucon

Krauthammer hits the nail right on the head

2009-05-27T11:05:00.002-04:00

Charles Krauthammer on Fox News (as transcribed by National Review Online - The Corner) regarding North Korea and the CCP (emphasis added):

North Korea is a nuclear power. It's not going to be stopped. The only issue is what do we actually do?

I would say forget about U.N. resolutions. Forget about the six- party talks, and forget about even bilateral negotiations. What we need is action.

Action number one, a nuclear Japan. Japan is a country that is directly threatened. I think we ought to have intensive negotiations with the Japanese to encourage them to declare themselves a nuclear power.

The only way in which we're going to have any progress in the area is if we reshuffle the interest of the parties here. A nuclear in Japan will send a message to China, especially, to recalculate its interests.

Up until now, it had zero interest in curbing its client. It is a thorn in our side. It is an ally in the area. It is a threat to South Korea. It supports its hegemony in the region.

A nuclear Japan will reshuffle the deck on its recalculations. It may send a message which would encourage China to change its policy.

Otherwise, nothing happens.

Well said, Dr. Krauthammer. Until Washington comes to terms with the root of the problem - namely, the CCP - "nothing happens."

I guess Iran just wasn't ready

2009-05-26T08:51:00.004-04:00

I must confess that I was surprised to hear that the Stalinist regime in northern Korea had conducted a nuclear test (BBC), especially when it occurred to me where we are on the calendar (less than two weeks out from the Tiananmen Square anniversary). Until yesterday, I had always assumed it was the Iranian mullahcracy who would conduct a test at this time. I can only assume that the mullahs just weren't ready yet.

Whatever reasons the Stalinists had for conducting the test can and will be analyzed and debated around the world and throughout the world wide web. However, we must not forget to examine why the Chinese Communist Party allowed it to happen - and make no mistake; this sort of thing does not happen unless it was run by the CCP. For the answer to this question, we must go back to the calendar.

I write this on May 26; in roughly a week and a half, the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre will be upon us. It was the one anniversary that scared the cadres more than any other - not because it alone could threaten the regime, but because it could aid or even set in motion a chain of events that could lead to the regime's downfall in the future. This is why I assumed that the Iranian mullahcracy - the CCP's strongest ally in the Middle East - would gladly take attention away from Beijing with a nuclear test.

Instead, Kim Jong-il seized the honor, but for the cadres, the main effect is the same. This test assures Beijing that Tiananmen Square will be nowhere near the front page on June 4, 2009. In fact, the CCP will likely see more democratic leaders praise it for trying to restrain its Korean colony, while insisting no one has the right to push the regime on touchy domestic issues while it is busy with the critical task of bringing Kim Jong-il et al into line.

To get an idea how this will play out, take a look at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's utterly forgettable trip to meet with CCP leaders. For years, Pelosi was one of the very few members of Congress who understood the danger the CCP posed to the world. Now, flushy with power and allies in the White House, she has fallen for the "engagement" nonsense and has gone instead - hat in hand - to talk about climate change, an issue in which the CCP can once again look "responsible" without doing anything except pull the wool over the eyes of politicians who know better.

It will be the same with Korea. Already, the regime is calling for "coolheaded and appropriate" (Voice of America) action - i.e., don't do anything to risk the Korean colony. Keep in mind, the CCP has had plenty of opportunities to solve this problem all by itself. Yet it has instead chosen to prop up Kim even as he starved his own people and threatened his neighbors (I would even say it has preserved him because he threatened his neighbors, but more on that later). We must also remember that Beijing voted for sanctions against its colony in the past - only to announce it wouldn't enforce them hours later. In short, the Chinese Communist Party has never been serious about keeping Kim Jong-il in check.

Why? The reason is simple: Kim doesn't threaten Beijing; he only threatens the United States and America's allies, which makes him immensely useful. Moreover, he is more than willing to take full blame for his actions in the world community, knowing that Beijing's backing ensures that he can survive the ever growing pile of hollow words. Thus, the CCP gets the benefit of a distracted and scared free world with none of the consequences of having a hand in the distracting and scaring. The CCP even ends up watching the democratic world beg it to fix the mess that it created.

In other words, the CCP allows Kim Jong-il to behave like this because they want him to behave like this. Until that changes, he will keep this up, to the point of actually helping terrorists acquire the weapons they need to do us grievous harm.

If we truly wish to have the Korean colony reined in, we'll have to go over their heads. We'll have to make sure Beijing suffers immediate consequences for this: things like the revocation of Permanent Normal Trade Relations, talks with Japan and South Korea about deploying domestic nuclear deterrents (Japan will likely be more receptive to that than South Korea, but the offer should be made), a permanent American naval presence in the South China Sea, and perhaps even a revival of the American defense pact with the Republic of China (currently on Taiwan). The CCP has been using North Korea to distract us for nearly two decades; we need to create and push our own distractions against them.

However, that cannot be all we do. We must also make clear that any act of nuclear terrorism against America, her interests, or her allies, will be taken as an act of war by the CCP against the United States. Whether it's al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Iranian mullahs, the Kimist regime in northern Korea, or anyone in between, nearly every terrorist state or entity has been blessed with support from the CCP. Zhongnanhai must be told in no uncertain terms that we will bear the CCP personally responsible (as opposed to China in general) for actions that any of them take against us.

Finally, we must come to terms with the painful but unavoidable truth: America and her allies will never be secure until China is free. Our enemies in the War on Terror will, if defeated, simply be replaced by other ones as quickly as the CCP get find ambitious people who hate America as much as Beijing fears her. North Korea is, in many respects, the first and last evidence we should need on this. It is time we recognize that we are fighting - and must win - the Second Cold War.

The CCP's Illusion of a good week

2009-05-21T07:27:00.007-04:00

Over the weekend, President Obama chose Utah Governor Jon Huntsman as his Ambassador to the Chinese Communist regime (Washington Post). Most of the analysis on this side of the Pacific has focused on the domestic politics of the move (Huntsman is a Republican and was considered a strong possibility to be Obama's opponent in 2012). Far less time has been spent examining the international implications - mainly due to the assumption that Hunstman's appointment typifies the pervasive "engagement" mentality among the political establishment (for more on that, see Agence France Presse via Yahoo). Still, one would have to assume that a Democratic President being able to pick off a high-profile Republican to advance "engagement" in Beijing would make it a good week for the CCP. If so, one would be wrong.

For starters, Hunstman's Ambassadorship makes any 2012 campaign almost impossible for him. This actually increases the possibility that the Republicans look to an anti-Communist as their nominee in 2012. How much is hard to say - if a week is a lifetime in American politics, 2012 might as well be an eon or two in the future - but removing a telegenic defender of "engagement" from the presidential field certainly can't be good for the CCP and its cronies.

More importantly, the Huntsman appointment does nothing to alleviate the numerous internal and external problems the CCP faces, some of which are the CCP's own doing, and one of which - by far the most problematic - hits close to home.

First, there is the regime's continued military buildup and geopolitical expansion - both of which are necessary to justify the regime's existence to the Chinese people, but neither of which are exactly neighborly. As the Communist military boasts of its latest achievements (United Press Int'l) and tries to extend the CCP's reach into the hotly disputed South China Sea (Bloomberg), the United States - engagement or not engagement - is beginning to get nervous (Arstechnica). More ominously for the Communists, the US is largely responding to this by developing closer ties with India (Times of India).

Even outside military and territorial matters, foreign affairs is increasingly more foreign. Whatever one may think of the new Administration's efforts to reduce carbon emissions, it has put the CCP in the unusual (and uncomfortable) position of taking it on the rhetorical chin from American environmentalists and their left-of-center allies, such as Paul Krugman in the New York Times.

Then there's the economic front, where the cadres are suffering the worst of both worlds. Outwardly, there is growing alarm at what the Communists could do to the American economy (London Telegraph), making "engagement" all the harder to sell to a beleaguered (and already skeptical) American public. Inwardly, however, all of the signs of a quick recovery - to say nothing of a return to the white-hot days of the last decade - have vanished. Foreign investment is way off (Wall Street Journal). Hong Kong is suffering its worst economic contraction since the "Asian flu" of the 1990s (Financial Times). Meanwhile, the regime's attempt to reverse this is leading to comparisons not with the the CCP's go-go era, but the American housing bubble (Bloomberg).

As for the regime's ominous hints of ending its binge on U.S. Treasury notes, it's not happening (AFP via Google); the powerlessness of credit continues to thwart the CCP. Rather, it is American investors unloading Communist-controlled assets as fast as they can (Wall Street Journal).

Of course, the release of Zhao Ziyang's memoirs (Wall Street Journal) is sure to cause some heartburn in Zhongnanhai; although, like John Pomfret, I don't think the regime will suffer too much. It's not as if they didn't see this coming, and any genuine reformers were purged from the regime long ago. Still, it will remind the Chinese people (those who can get a hold of the book) and the rest of the world that the continuing abuses of human rights by the regime (Asia News and Religious Intelligence is the rule rather than the exceptions.

The biggest threat to the regime's plans, however, has arisen on the island democracy just across the Taiwan Straits.

As the Associated Press reported, at least 100,000 Taiwanese/free Chinese marched in opposition to ROC President Ma Ying-jeou's own "engagement" policies with the Communists (Yahoo). By itself, a protest doesn't mean much (Zhao's memoirs will, ironically, confirm that, too). However, the march is symbolic of increasing nervousness on the island democracy about Ma's olive branch to the CCP. At least one poll had more Taiwanese disapproving of Ma's performance in office than approving (AP via eTaiwanNews) - an outcome driven largely by concern over Ma giving away the store to Beijing.

A new American Ambassador can't make this problems go away (heck, American Presidents have tried to help the CCP win over the Taiwanese people - with disastrous results). Despite the Obama Administration's acceleration of "engagement," the rest of the world continues to get nervous about the Chinese Communist regime - especially those closest to it. That tension will likely continue to grow as the regime - bereft of the economic growth needed to assuage even the tens of millions of party members - bets even more heavily on radical nationalism and growing geopolitical power to survive.

Thus, the American people will be more likely to seek out anti-Communist leaders in 2010 and 2012 - and one the regime's best chances to head that off in the Republican presidential nomination contest was just taken out of the picture. In time, the CCP may rue their supposed good fortune over the Huntsman selection.

CCP's attempt to distract from one troubling anniversary lead it stumbling into another

2009-05-14T09:09:00.003-04:00

As one might expect, China-watchers are slowly moving into countdown mode - as in, counting down to the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Tiananmen is merely the latest in a series of anniversaries this year that will culminate with the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Communist regime this October.

Of course, the cadres are desperate to have their friends and foes abroad talking about anything but the bloody demise of the visible pro-democracy movement. So they're returning a tried-and-true canard, local "elections." As John Pomfret notes on his Washington Post blog:

There's been talk in the last year that the party is again interested in political reform. Citing a speech last December by China's president Hu Jintao, some experts have predicted that the party is interested in "intra-party" democracy first, meaning it's willing to experiment with letting party members vote in real elections for seats on powerful party committees that control townships and elsewhere. Like Buyun, there have been a few experiments. And like Buyun, Chinese officials have been talking them up to foreign friends.

Buyun was the township that became the first to hold local elections at that level in Communist China (villages, as Pomfret also notes, had had elections prior to that, but are also "not part of China's governing structure"). It just so happens that Buyun held their election in 1999 - makng 2009 the tenth anniversary of the first township election the CCP ever allowed.

This is where the CCP runs into trouble, again. While Buyun was the first township election, it was also close to the last. Moreover, as Pomfret details:

Then, after two smaller, less ambitious township votes, township elections were
halted. There were no public attacks on the votes in the state-run press; the results were allowed to stand. There were just no repeats.
What happened next, however, was curious and illustrative of how China - in some ways -- has grown wise in the ways of PR. Despite the fact that this type of experimentation was over, Chinese government officials kept talking up Buyun and other elections to foreign visitors, leaving prominent Americans with the impression that democratic reform was still very much on the table. After the Buyun election, I heard this kind of talk from Chinese officials routinely.

But the clearest example came when Premier Wen Jiabao hosted a delegation of Americans in October 2006. In a trip report by John Thornton, chairman of the board of the Brookings Institution, Wen was quoted as predicting that direct elections would move from the village level up to the townships, then counties, then even provinces.

The only trouble was that Hu was lying through his teeth (Pomfret again):

In an article that appeared on Aug. 30, 2006, in Seeking Truth, one of the most authoritative of the Party's publications, Sheng Huaren, secretary general of the Standing Committee of the NPC, stated that the direct elections of township leaders violated the constitution and that in upcoming elections such practices would be prohibited.

Whoops!

Of course, even without this obvious subterfuge, the "elections" were a sham. While village elections being common in some places, recent events in Taishi made it pretty clear that all the amenities that usually come with elections - real power, accountability to the voters, etc. - are non-existent in area under CCP control.

In other words, you can vote in village elections, run in village elections, and even win village elections, so long as you do the Party's bidding. Otherwise, your term in office is exchanged for a term in prison.

Thus, the Communists, in trying to make people forget how they responded to a national democratic movement with the barrel of a gun, have shifted attention to the times they responded to local democratic movements with, well, with the barrel of a gun. Clearly, the cadres still have a ways to go on PR.

More to the point, it is yet another reminder that for the Chinese Communist Party, nothing is more important than maintaining power - not good relations with its neighbors, not the export market of the United States, nothing. The sooner the leaders of the democratic world understand this, the sooner they will see through things like the "elections" charade, recognize the danger the CCP poses, and get on with the business of helping the Chinese people take their country back.

Series on 1989 slaughter by China of its citizens who longed for freedom in 1989

2009-05-11T12:54:00.006-04:00

"This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. To commemorate the student movement, China Digital Times is posting a series of original news articles from 1989, beginning with the death of Hu Yaobang on April 15 and continuing through the tumultuous spring."

The dangerous rehabilitation of Chiang Kai-shek

2009-05-07T07:38:00.005-04:00

Of all the historical figures for the Chinese Communist Party to exploit, the most unlikely would be Chiang Kai-hsek, the man who led the fight against it for over nearly fifty years. However, the CCP - while being brutal, cruel, corrupt, and devious - is also the shrewdest tyrannical regime on earth. Thus, anti-Communists are in the highly unusual position of being wary over the historical rehabilitation of the CCP's most well-known enemy.

Chiang's memory is riding the latest revisionist wave of history. Jay Taylor's The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (reviewed in the Washington Post) is leading the way on this side of the Pacific, but as John Pomfret notes, "Mainland scholars of the Nationalist period have also written essays intimating that China would probably have been better off if Chiang had stayed in charge."

On some level, this is a dramatic admission from the Communist regime, impossible at any point before 1976. However, this is 2009, meaning the newfound appreciation for the Nationalist leader is much less than meets the eye.

For starters, Chiang is almost always compared to Mao Zedong, rather than Hu Jintao or Jiang Zemin. For historical purposes, this makes a lot of sense. However, when attempting to use the past to explain the present, it falls woefully short for four reasons.

First, neither Chiang nor Mao were genuine democrats in any way, shape, or form. Both men were tyrannical rulers who merely different on the nature of the tyranny. Because Chiang sided with the anti-Communists during the first Cold War, too many assume that Hu and Jiang, by hewing closer to Chiang's tyrant model, have surrendered the argument. This is far from true. Chiang's brutality, his insistence on the Nationalists dominating the state and the economy, and his tolerance for corruption would make him quite comfortable in today's CCP. In fact, Chiang himself managed to convince Joe Stalin that he was a dedicated Communist - to the point that the Soviets actually designated the Nationalists as their allies for much of the 1920s.

Secondly, Chiang and Mao shared an absolute refusal to accept Taiwanese self-determination. During their time, given the deep disagreement over who should control the mainland, that seemed a secondary issue. Today, with the Nationalist/Kuomintang Party having accepted Communist domination of the mainland, Taiwanese self-determination (which is not to say formal independence per se, but could include it) is the only protection the island democracy has left now.

Which bring us to the third reason Chiang's newfound acceptance is problematic: Taiwan (or, for those who prefer it, the Republic of China) is now a vibrant democracy, something Chiang would never accept. What has inspired mainlanders was not Chiang's rule over Formosa, but its transition away from Chiang's rule.

If Taiwan is to have any hero, it should be Lee Teng-hui, but the cadres can't stand him, so instead they encourage a Chiang boomlet. This has the added bonus of aiding the current Nationalist Party on the island, so as to block the return to popularity of Lee's anti-Communist allies, the Democratic Progressive Party.

Finally, the Chiang boomlet does nothing to alleviate concern over the CCP's continuing adventurism abroad. That Hu Jintao may be closer to the Chiang model doesn't make the military he now commands any less dangerous (The Australian and the BBC). Nor does it lighten the dark shadow the regime casts around the globe (Brisbane Times and The Malaysian Insider). It certainly doesn't mean improvement in the areas where Chiang and Mao were equally terrible, be it corruption (Agence France Presse via Yahoo and the Los Angeles Times) or cruelty to dissidents (AFP via Yahoo and Deutsche Presse-Agentur via Hispanic Business).

The CCP, contrary to what they would like us to believe, is still in serious trouble. American investors, fed up with tales of profits that never materialize (Forbes), are finally beginning to look to India as a profitable alternative (New York Times). The tainted export meme has shifted to drywall found in tens of thousands of American homes (CNN). Finally, the rural interior continues to be impoverished and plundered by the regime itself (BBC). In this context, it's easy to see why the regime would want the world (and the Chinese people) to believe the Mao-Chiang conflict was all about semantics - and for those two men, it may very well have been just that.

For the rest of us, however, it is about freedom and tyranny - and which will prevail. The more we focus on how close Mao's heirs have moved to Chiang, the less we notice that the people of the mainland and the island democracy have moved beyond both of them to demand (and in the case of the island, achieve) genuine freedom. Therein lies the danger of Chiang's rehabilitation.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Jackie Chan, Gao Zhisheng, and the true meaning of bravery

2009-04-30T07:22:00.005-04:00

Most people wouldn't put "cowardice" and Jackie Chan in the same sentence. Chan's physical bravery - he does his own movie stunts, to the point where no one will even insure him - is fairly well-known. However, there is more to bravery than risking injury on a movie set. When it came to the most important stage he has ever held, Jackie Chan's bravery left him, in a way Gao Zhisheng's bravery did not.

On Hainan Island, Chan was asked about the Communist censors who banned his latest film. As Communist Premier Wen Jiabao sat in the audience, Chan veered into an anti-freedom rant (Telegraph, UK):

"I'm not sure if it is good to have freedom or not," he said. "I'm really confused now. If you are too free, you are like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."
He added: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we are not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

Theories abound on Chan's pro-CCP line: buttering up to the CCP to get his next film OKed (The Useless Tree), an elitist's unvarnished view of poor Chinese (John Pomfret), etc. Whatever the cause, it was pretty clear that Chan knew what side of the bread was buttered. He placed his financial interests above truth, freedom, and his fellow Chinese. It was painful to see.

Meanwhile, miles away, in an undisclosed prison, Gao Zhisheng continued (and continues) to suffer at the hands of the Communist police.

Like Chan, Gao was at the top of his profession in the eyes of the CCP - in Gao's case, the legal profession. Like Chan, Gao was faced with a choice: continue following the party line or accept the truth about the regime and fight for justice. Unlike Chan, Gao took the latter course.

Gao started to wonder why the regime was so cruel to Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who refused to put the Party between themselves and their God. Worse (for the regime), he started to wonder publicly why this happened. In time, he became one of the leading defenders (legally, politically, and vocally) for the victims of Communist persecution.

As one would expect, it didn't take long for him to join them.

Gao's family managed to escape earlier this year (National Review); when the CCP discovered this, Gao disappeared. To this day, no one knows where he is, how badly he has been hurt, or even if he is still alive.

We do know this, however: Gao Zhiseng is a true hero. He risked his practice, his reputation, his career, his livelihood, and even his life to help the persecuted and speak truth to power.

Jackie Chan, by contrast, played to the crowd, basked in the applause, and risked nothing. As John Pomfret notes in particular, Chan was merely parroting the line the CCP-dependent "elite" have been using for some time:

My reaction, however, is this: Chan is just saying what a lot of other rich Chinese feel. In the 20 years since Tiananmen, Chinese society has changed enormously. One of the most astounding ways has been in the return of a class society and in the disdain with which China's rich view China's poor. When Chan was saying Chinese need to be "controlled," to be sure, he was speaking about the poor. He didn't have to say it, But that's what the audience at Boao heard and that's why they cheered him on. Anyone who has conversations of depth with members of China's elite has heard this argument before. "The quality of the average Chinese is too low," the line goes. (Zhongguoren de suzhi tai di le.) "So of course we can't have full freedom."
Of course, the elite have become increasingly free. But they also increasingly rely on the instruments of state to maintain those freedoms and to maintain their advantages over China's hoi polloi.

Gao Zhisheng once belonged to the same elite, but he saw through the veneer. That's what makes him so dangerous to the regime, and so heroic to the rest of us. Gao Zhisheng refused to be bought by the Chinese Communist Party.

Becuase of this, future generations will remember Gao Zhisheng long after Jackie Chan retires, his film company goes under, and his films gather dust on Blockbuster shelves. Jackie Chan acts bravely on the silver screen; Gao Zhisheng embodies genuine bravery in real life. Once again, this week revealed that Gao Zhisheng is the true hero; Chan just plays one on TV.

Some apologies Obama could make, but probably won't

2009-04-21T07:58:00.006-04:00

President Barack Obama continued his worldwide apology tour at the Organization of American States over the weekend. Much like his trip to Europe was spent emphasizing his break with the previous Administration on several fronts, this trip was all about the new direction America will take - one that will apparently leave Venezuela's brave democrats in the dust, but that's for another post.

Of course, new Administrations usually spend their first few months emphasizing their differences with their respective predecessors. John F. Kennedy tried to project his youthful image and vigor into nearly every foreign policy issue. Eight years later, Richard Nixon's messages to Moscow and Beijing were more subtle (and kept a secret from the American people), but Mao and Brezhnev understood them fairly quickly. Jimmy Carter tried to turn thirty years of American history on its head in one commencement speech. If conventional wisdom is to be believed, Reagan got the point across to Tehran even before he was inaugurated. Despite running as Reagan's heir, even George Bush the Elder spent his first year emphasizing a closer relationship with continental European allies. Bill Clinton spent nearly two years loudly announcing differences from the previous twelve. Bush the Younger's divergence on Kyoto and other European multilateral efforts are now the stuff of legends, but Asian democracies quickly noticed that he paid more attention to them than - arguably - any president in American history.

Thus, it should not surprise us that, roughly 100 days into his term of office, Obama is mainly emphasizing contrasts with the person he succeeded - and against whom he railed for nearly two years. Sadly, and more tellingly, are the areas where the President has chosen not to strike new ground or ask forgiveness for past errors.

For example, we have yet to see, and probably never will see, Obama apologize to the Chinese people for nearly 20 years of neglect while "engagement" with the corrupt Chinese Communist Party set the tone for every previous post-Tiananmen presidency.

We neither have nor likely ever will have witnessed Obama ask the forgiveness of the people of northern Korea for allowing so many of their loved ones to starve to death, be murdered, and/or be tortured to death while Kim Jong-il played two presidents for fools over fourteen years. Likewise, Japan has heard no regrets for the nerve-wracking missile launches that were largely received with a shrug and a slew of useless words from the United Nations.

Obama has offered a regret-soaked olive branch to Tehran - but only for the mullahcracy and its sycophants. The long-suffering Iranian people received the same cold shoulder that has been shown to them for decades.

Any of the above apologies would be different from the easy and empty ones the Administration has been spouting. The apologies I propose would involve recognition of weakness and lack of nerve at critical times. More importantly, they would show an Administration willing to do the hard work necessary to achieve a true, lasting peace - because it understood that could only come with freedom.

Ironically enough, Obama can look to George W. Bush for the best example of this. In May of 2005, Bush expressed his regrets for the Yalta agreement that handed Eastern Europe over to the Communists. The dramatic gesture helped seal the peoples of Eastern Europe as America's closest allies, and emphasized the danger of thinking a deal with a tyrant today is worth his exploitation of it tomorrow. Unfortunately, that may be the very reason Obama does not consider it worthy as a precedent. This Administration appears to have no concern about what our tyrannical enemies will do with their newfound opportunities, namely: 1) bind America to agreements they have no intention of honoring, 2) repeatedly raising the bar just to see how high the president will jump for them, and 3) using the smiles and handshakes to ostracize and persecute those who would lead their victims to overthrow them and take their countries back.

Even as we take in the reaction from the OAS gathering, the Taliban continues to gain strength in Pakistan, North Korea is getting back in the plutonium business, and Iran is moving forward in both nuclear weapons and repression of its citizens. All the while, the regime that aides them - the Chinese Communist Party - continues to avoid blame or consequences.

For that, this president owes all of us an apology.

Here we go again

2009-04-06T07:45:00.003-04:00

This was supposed to be the weekend in which the world watched the Chinese people memorialize those who have passed - including the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Hanyuan County massacre, and the Sichuan earthquake (Epoch Times). Given the fact that the casualties from the last of the three were greatly increased due to Communist corruption, it would have been a difficult weekend for the cadres.

Then North Korea - long the de facto colonial regime dependent on the Chinese Communist Party to survive - tried to launch an ICBM (Epoch Times). The rest is forgotten history.

That it took a matter of hours before the CCP was running interference for their Korean viceroy (Guardian, UK) should surprise no one. While the launch had been planned for some time - and the date more than likely given the OK by Beijing to divert attention from the customary April day to honor the dead - the actual firing of the missile was a geopolitical godsend to the Communists.

Consider the world the cadres were facing before Kim Jong-il distracted everyone. Australia was transforming itself from an "engagement" success story into the new anti-Communist hotbed (Agence France Presse and Epoch Times). Making matters worse, the CCP's cyberwarfare against the United States was convincing Americans that perhaps Beijing was not the friend it claims to be after all (David Gelernter, in Forbes, actually used the favorite phrase of this quarter - Cold War II). One of the leading organizations defending the persecuted Uighurs of occupied East Turkestan announced the date for their annual meeting - inside the U.S. Capitol (McClatchy).

Meanwhile, the news from within was equally bad. A leading shipping firm announced a cutback for the first time ever (Steel Guru). The chairman of its first "private" railroad company was jailed for embezzlement (AFP). Dissident groups came together to indict the CCP for its crimes against the Chinese people (China Aid). A factory closure lead 1,000 laid off workers to march into Beijing in protest (AFP). Questions about Gao Zhisheng refuse to go away (New Yorker).

All of this was crowding for the attention of the CCP, the Chinese people, and the rest of the world - before the Korean colony blew it all off the front page. Now, once again, the CCP is the indispensable force, the regime to which the world must come and pay "respect" in the hopes that it will once again corral Kim Jong-il and get him to behave. Meanwhile, "engagement" supporters will be sure to do Beijing's bidding against anyone who refuses to fall for this nonsense and is determined to press the CCP.

In some places, however, the act is waring thin. While President Obama appears willing to keep playing the game, the fellow who won nearly 60,000,000 votes running against him has had enough (Voice of America).

More ominously, however, is the response of the Iranian mullahcracy:

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran said on Monday that North Korea was justified in carrying out its controversial weekend rocket launch and denied there were any links between the two countries' missile programmes.
"We have always maintained that space can be used for peaceful purposes by adhering to international laws," foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi told reporters when asked about Sunday's controversial rocket launch.
"As it is our right to do so, we maintain that others also have that right."

This matters for two reasons. The first and most obvious is the mullahs' desire to become a nuclear-armed state. The second reason, however, is just as important - Tehran's alliance to Beijing.

Lest anyone forget, as the mullahs close in on their first nuclear test, the calendar is closing in on the most dangerous anniversary for the cadres: the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Once more, the CCP faces the world remembering how it (the CCP) let its military loose on the Chinese people and painted the streets of Beijing in blood. The memory will lead the free world to recoil in horror. Even worse, it will lead to the inevitable examination of the two decades since, and how the regime is still the tyranny it was then, with broken promises about international trade and cooperation to boot.

It is sure to be a harrowing, painful day for the CCP - unless their friends in Tehran pull their own nuclear distraction.

In other words, this week is merely a preview of what we can expect in about two months time - and it will be just as maddening then, too.

As the Commission on China convenes, the CCP demonstrates its brutishness by rearresting tne aged Bishop Julius Zia Zhiguo

2009-04-02T13:55:00.008-04:00

Vatican protests the arrest of Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo of Zhengding, and the fate of other bishops and priests who continue to be "deprived of their freedom". The arrest of Bishop Jia took place just as the Commission on China's work was beginning on March 30^th, when police appeared outside the bishop's home and took him to an undisclosed location. Bishop Jia, 74, suffers from various disturbances because of past imprisonments and his age, and the faithful of the diocese are concerned that this new arrest could endanger his life.

(Click on the microphone icon on the website to listen to the news report.)

Remembering Wojtyla

2009-04-02T11:01:00.002-04:00

The Greatest Anti-Communist Died Four Years Ago Today...

They just can't help themselves

2009-04-01T09:18:00.002-04:00

The greatest instrument for the building of political anti-Communism in America and the rest of the free world in the 20th Century was the Soviet Union itself. Even at times when anti-Communism seemed at its nadir (the 1930s, the latter half of World War II, and the 1970s), the blatant and horrific actions of the U.S.S.R. drove pragmatists and idealists headlong into the anti-Communist camp.

One of the Chinese Communist Party's greatest achievements in international affairs was stopping that movement. It took oceans of lies, oceans of exports, and a wide net of espionage agents (not all of them willing) to do the trick, but it probably added years to the life of the regime. Yet now, the cadres seem to be forgetting all of their lessons of old, as anti-Communists are starting to pop up in the most unusual places.

By far the most shocking display of anti-Communism has to be from the Australian Liberal-National coalition. After more than a decade in power playing the "engagement" game, the Coalition was turfed by Australia's voters in 2007. Rudd himself was a firm "engagement" politician, but his government has stumbled a bit with an investigation into the Defense Minister's very close ties to Helen Liu, a Chinese-Australian with deep CCP ties (The Australian and the Epoch Times).

The surprise came when the Opposition decided to make this a major issue (Epoch Times) - a dramatic departure from the past. While it is certainly to early to predict how effective the Liberals will be (or even how long they keep this up), it is a pleasant surprise so far, and one that has to have the cadres worrying about what they thought was a relatively pliant Australia.

Still, the bigger shift came from Washington - or to be more precise, the United States Navy.

While presidents have been wedded to the "engagement" policy towards Beijing since 1989, there has always been a group of civilian (i.e., non-political) employees in the Department of Defense trying to sound the alarm about the CCP. This time, however, the cadres themselves drove the Navy's rethink, with the development of an anti-ship ballistic missile designed specifically to sink American aircraft carriers (U.S. Naval Institute):

Along with the Chinese naval build-up, U.S. Navy officials appear to view the development of the anti-ship ballistic missile as a tangible threat.
After spending the last decade placing an emphasis on building a fleet that could operate in shallow waters near coastlines, the U.S. Navy seems to have quickly
changed its strategy over the past several months to focus on improving the
capabilities of its deep sea fleet and developing anti-ballistic defenses.

In other words, the Navy has an eye fixed on Beijing. Again, it's too early to discern the effect (especially given the support for "engagement" at the highest levels of the Obama Administration), but it is nonetheless a good sign.

The inevitable question then arises: how did the cadres let this happen? The answer is equally inevitable: they can't help themselves. While the Tienanmen massacre removed economic growth as a sufficient means of justifying the Communist regime, growth was still necessary on several levels. Now, the CCP will be lucky to have the economy keep up with population growth (Bloomberg). Thus, radical nationalism - the regime's claimed raison d'etre since the bloody summer of 1989 - becomes even more important.

So, challenging the United States becomes more essential - exports or no exports. So does espionage (Business Day). Meanwhile, desperate attempts to resuscitate the local economy leads to barriers against imports, further alienating the democratic world whose appeasement is so vital to the regime's survival (Bloomberg).

It is likely that the regime is convinced they have a free ride, thanks to President Obama. However, the Soviets made the exact same error regarding President Carter, and thus allowed anti-Communism to grow by leaps and bounds outside Washington, until Ronald Reagan stepped in to lead the free world to victory in the First Cold War.

Today, an anti-Communist government holds power (however tenuously) in Canada; anti-Communism is on the rise in Australia; and the leading contenders for power in India are both vying for the anti-Communist label. The CCP is making the same Soviet-era mistakes they sought to avoid.

Their loss is our gain. It is becoming more and more clear that when an anti-Communist finally does become president (perhaps in 2013), the rest of the free world will be there to help him or her win the Second Cold War.

A painful lesson is being relearned

2009-03-24T07:08:00.004-04:00

Just over a month ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled that under President Obama, the United States was no longer interested in pushing human rights or other thorny issues. Henceforth, "cooperation" would reign between Washington and Beijing.

Zhongnanhai responded by pressuring South Africa into banning the Dalai Lama (Guardian, UK) and calling for a new international currency to replace the dollar (BBC).

The wages of weakness have come.

To be fair to the new Administration, "engagement" - the label that the president believes still encompasses his China policy - has been the coin of the realm for two decades. If anything, President Obama has merely been more obsequious, more eager-to-please, and more naive about the cadres than his three most recent predecessors. However, it is that degree of difference that has given the Chinese Communist Party the belief it can act with this impunity, and so it has.

The Bush and Clinton Administrations would never have presented such a weak face to Beijing - and in fact, even at their worst, neither of them did. That the Obama Administration (as of Tuesday morning) has still said nothing about the South African ban on the Dalai Lama is painfully telling.

When you allow the last apartheid president to take the moral high ground (London Telegraph), it is a good time to reassess your policy. Sadly, what we get instead is the spreading of the "engagement" virus across the world map.

As the president was ignoring the CCP's muscle flexing, he was making an "overture" to the Iranian mullahcracy, itself a major coup for a regime listed by President Bush as part of the "axis of evil." Yet Mr. Obama made no attempt to reach directly to the Iranian people, who have suffered the effects of Tehran's tyranny for more than anyone else on the planet. Instead, he gave the "Islamic Republic" a legitimacy no predecessor had granted them in nearly three decades.

The tyrants' response was quick and unsurprising: thanks so much, now give us more (Time).

Meanwhile, the CCP's Korean colony is preparing to test-fire a missile that could hit the United States and holding two American journalists prisoner (BBC) - and Washington's silence is deafening.

For those who remember the Carter Administration, it is all gruesomely familiar: a new president looking to break from the past and reach out to our enemies, a lack of understanding about just how dangerous these enemies are, and a refusal to take a stand even as previous weaknesses lead to adventurism from said enemies. Yet even President Carter coupled his unfortunate geopolitical policies with a genuine concern for the rights and dignity of the oppressed. That is nowhere to be found in the Obama Administration.

President Carter reaped what he sowed in Afghanistan and Iran. This president will likely see the result of his weakness in Taiwan, Korea, and the Middle East - if he's lucky, the consequences will remain that far away for now.

However, for all the dark clouds on the horizon, there remains an important silver lining.

Carter took office in 1977, after defeating a Republican incumbent (Gerald Ford) who had the "detente" policy of his predecessor (Richard Nixon) hanging around his neck like a millstone. "Detente" was in many respects a doomed policy, certain to give the Soviets badly needed breathing room and a chance to advance its interests abroad at our expense. Domestically, it was one of the many things that made the Republican Party an anathema among voters. Yet the four years out of power, along with the mistakes of the Carter Administration, gave the GOP an opportunity to capture the anti-Communist mantle for its own - which it did under Ronald Reagan in 1980. The rest, as they say, is history.

Likewise, the Republicans in 2009 are recovering from a deep "engagement" hangover, yet once again, the mistakes of the Obama Administration gives the party a chance to grasp the anti-Communist mantle. The question is: will they?

For those of us eager to see the Chinese, Iranian, and Korean peoples take their countries back, it will be a very difficult four years. However, if we take the time to make sure the peoples of the democratic world are aware of the rising dangers - and the need to confront them - they can be productive all the same. With enough hard work, we could get the anti-Communist leadership that is so desperately needed, and see freedom finally come to the dark tyrannies of the world.

Has the Speaker found her voice?

2009-03-12T12:42:00.004-04:00

Since her ascension to Speaker of the House in January 2007, Nancy Pelosi has been a deeply painful disappointment. Her long history of championing freedom in China appeared (from afar) to vanish the moment she was handed the gavel.

Yet, if Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball of Newsweek are to be believed, Mrs. Pelosi may very well have found her voice again during the Chas Freeman fiasco:

But Pelosi's objections reportedly focused on Freeman's ties to China. A well-placed Democratic source said Pelosi, a strong supporter of the Chinese human-rights movement, was incensed about public remarks that Freeman once made that seemed to justify the violent 1989 Chinese government crackdown on democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. The source, who asked not to be identified, said Pelosi thought Freeman's views were "indefensible" and complained directly to President Obama about his selection.

h/t Greg Pollowitz at NRO Media Blog.

If true, we can only hope this isn't the last time Pelosi speaks up and out. After all, when it comes to actions and policies regarding the CCP worthy of criticism, the Obama Administration has redefined "target-rich environment."

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

The next four years

2009-03-11T11:49:00.004-04:00

As always, Ethan Gutmann is a must-read in the Weekly Standard on the Obama Administration:

Human rights in China. Democracy in China. These are things that the Obama administration wants nothing to do with. Are the Chinese people on their own now?

His view has a lot of company now, especially in light of the Administration's recent actions (which Gutmann also details):

First came the news that Chas Freeman would chair the National Intelligence Council. The former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an adviser to CNOOC (the state-owned Chinese oil company), Freeman clearly fits the Chinese Communist party's idea of a four-year plan for American intelligence oversight. Just note Freeman's curious 2006 statement about the Tiananmen massacre (C e-L note: said statement can be found here).
. . .
The Chinese will score their number two victory with Gary Locke, former governor of Washington, becoming our new commerce secretary. Locke's been a very--very!--good Friend of China: making public displays of affection for the party's brilliant stewardship, carrying a torch for China in the Beijing Olympics relay, and easily straddling his public and private interests to make a deal. Locke has paraded his guanxi--his connections--and, indeed, his numerous meetings with Hu Jintao are real. As are the campaign funds he got in the 1990s through Buddhist temple fundraisers, Chinese cut-outs, and confessed felon John Huang.

Naturally, Gutmann also had some choice words for the Secretary of State.

I am happy to report that Mr. Freeman has seen the writing on the wall and has chosen not to serve in the Administration (National Review Online - The Corner), but the person who wanted to give him a job is still there, as is the president whose "leadership" has brought us to this point.

That said, I'm not prepared to follow my good friend Ethan into the despair in which he understandably finds himself - not yet, anyway.

True, we are seeing an Administration with the largest blind spot on the totalitarian threat since the Carter era, and that should be cause for great concern. However, we also need to remind ourselves that the Carter era also happened to be one of the most prolific for anti-Communist dissidents - no matter how much they were ignored in Washington. Moreover, as the Carter crew continued to cower before Soviet expansion, more and more Americans started to wonder why, and demanded a change. Up stepped Ronald Reagan, and the rest was history.

Of course, this leads to a brief discussion of the Republican Party, which appears in disarray, recovering from a wildly unpopular president, and is still shot through with "engagement" supporters. However, again, we need to remember that the GOP was in just such dire straits in 1977 - in fact, one could say they were in worse shape. Moreover, unlike in the late 1970s - when Henry Kissinger was easily powerful enough to hijack the party's foreign policy views until Reagan won the nomination - no such "engagement" supporter is in a similar position today.

It is just as likely (perhaps even more likely) that the Republican Party will spend the next four years reconnecting with their anti-Communist past and bring that forward to the 21st Century.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Ethan has effectively noticed the complete silence of the left:

Nancy Pelosi cut her teeth on China human rights, but she won't break ranks without sustained pressure. Amnesty International has made some noises about Clinton's comments. To a lesser extent, so have Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, and Human Rights Watch. But it's not nearly enough. And where are the AFL-CIO, the academy, and the sweatshop coalitions?

Either this pitiful state of affairs will be halted by other Democratic heavies who are not so worried about the president's views (Barney Frank comes to mind), or appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party will become a partisan issue - landing the president on the wrong side of a nearly 60-40 split.

Now, none of this is to excuse the president and his supporters from gross negligence in foreign policy - a negligence that is sure to cost blood (Chinese certainly, American possibly) and treasure (ditto). In addition, 2012 is a long way off, and the CCP can do a lot of damage in the interim (like Ethan, I am very concerned about Taiwan).

However, the regime cannot overcome its inherent weaknesses. It cannot afford to scale back the international adventurism that upsets so many in the free world. It cannot afford to wean party members of ill-gotten gains - the promise of which remain the biggest incentive for joining the CCP in the first place. All it can do is delay the inevitable.

History tells us the inevitable will come sooner than we can imagine; Ethan reminds us that it is already painfully late.

Will Wall Street FINALLY get it now?

2009-03-05T15:37:00.002-05:00

From CNN Money, detailing the latest bloodletting in the financial markets (emphasis added):

Stocks plunged to fresh 12-year lows Thursday as investors waded through more grim news: GM said its survival is in doubt, bank shares took a beating and Citigroup fell below a buck.
Adding to the global woes: China defied expectations by failing to boost its economic stimulus program.

Oops!

Will President Obama save the CCP? No.

2009-03-04T22:38:00.002-05:00

For those of us who have been watch the Chinese Communist Party, this is a painful time. A golden opportunity to work with the Chinese people to end the CCP tyranny is being tossed away. There is no other way to describe the Obama Administration's policy toward Beijing.

Fresh off Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's abysmal visit to Beijing and the execrable appointment of cadre-sympathizer Chas Freeman, it should come as no surprise that Washington has resurrected military talks with the "People's Liberation Army" (Agence France Presse via Google). One of the "engagement" floozies called the talks "the single best set of talks I’ve been to" (Bloomberg).

Meanwhile, the new Commerce Secretary-designate (Gary Locke) prides himself on "reluctance to link trade issues to alleged human rights abuses in China" (Los Angeles Times).

Clearly, the new Administration prefers the cadres to the people. It's maddening; it's depressing; and it's an outrage.

But is it enough for the CCP to stave off its inevitable demise? I don't think so.

It will postpone it - and that postponement could lead to a painful loss of blood and treasure for the free world - but the Soviets gained a similar reprieve in the 1970s, and their decline continued apace in the 1980s.

In the case of the CCP, the problems that they face cannot be reversed by Washington, no matter how pliant or cooperative Washington may be. For starters, while President Obama has run away from his tough-on-Beijing rhetoric far faster and with more callousness than either Bush the Younger or Bill Clinton, the fact remains that neither of Obama's two predecessors stuck to their rhetoric for very long. Anti-Communists are still smarting from the betrayal, but it is a pain they've felt before.

More importantly, matters inside the CCP's realm continue to depart from the "engagement" script. There is no better example of the problems Zhongnanhai faces - and the appeasers' impotence in solving them - than the very "stimulus" package Beijing repackaged for the world today.

If one believes Wall Street, the Communists' stimulus plan is just what the doctor ordered. Markets zoomed upward today (MSNBC). Unfortunately for the cadres, optimism about the package is greater abroad than at home.

Take a look at what Peng Yunliang, a Shanghai Securities analyst, had to say (MSNBC):

Obviously, this unusual rally suggests that investors are overly optimistic about what to expect from the legislature.

A ringing endorsement this is not, but it was tame compared to the reaction of several "liberal Communist Party elders" (Int'l Herald Tribune), who had the audacity to demand the funds not be stolen by their fellow cadres:

A cluster of liberal Communist Party elders recently wrote to President Hu Jintao and the rest of the party leadership, seizing on the economic troubles and the need for more accountability to promote democratic reforms.
"We very much endorse the central government investment of 4 trillion yuan" — $586 billion — "to invigorate the economy," they explained in the letter, dated Jan.
20, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.
"At the same time, we are extremely worried that the privileged and the corrupt will seize this opportunity to fatten themselves, damage the relationship between the party and the people, and intensify social conflict."
They pressed for checks and balances on the recovery program. More sweepingly, they urged that state media be freed from censorship and courts allowed to operate without inference from the governing party, reforms the party has repeatedly rejected in the past.

In other words, not even the cadres trust each other with the "stimulus" money! This comes despite another rash of "anti-corruption" measures (AFP via Yahoo), although given the regime's history with these things, it may actually be because of them.

After all, it is become more and more clear that bribery fueled the Communist expansion of the last generation (Times of London).

Finally, and most importantly, there is the reaction of the impoverished interior. This is typical (AFP via Google):

The central government is always promising us beautiful things, but in reality these things never happen.

There is one organization sure to be happy with the CCP: the PLA. After all, they got another whopping increase in funding (15% - London Telegraph).

Meanwhile, the very West that is bending over backwards to be nice to the CCP is - accused by the CCP of stirring up trouble in Tibet (BBC and AFP via Google) - and the people of Macau are told the true meaning of one-country, one-and-a-half systems (BBC).

The mutual distrust between the CCP and the Chinese people is still there; the economy - stimulus aside - is still unable to provide the funds necessary to keep the urban elite happy; and the regime must still rely on radical nationalism to survive.

Unfortunately, another Administration is determined not to take advantage of these weaknesses within the CCP, but that doesn't make the weaknesses go away. The CCP will limp along, adding more names to the tens of millions of victims inside and outside China, until the Chinese people finally have a partner in the democratic world ready to help them take their country back.

China's Human Rights Record Worsened--State Department Report

2009-02-25T15:38:00.003-05:00

Is Clinton playing both sides against each other? It wouldn't be the first time.

"China's human rights record worsened in some areas in 2008, including the repression of dissidents and of minorities in Tibet, the report said.

It came just a week after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on a trip to China that co-operation should take precedence over tensions."

Today in Dharamshala, more than 500 Tibetan refugees in exile have demonstrated their solidarity with the population of Tibet

2009-02-24T23:05:00.002-05:00

"On the eve of the Tibetan new year - February 25 - and just days ahead of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the anti-Chinese revolt - on March 10 - Beijing has stepped up security measures in the region. In recent weeks, the police have forcibly repressed some demonstrations, arresting at least 24 Tibetans. The government is denying entry to tourists and journalists, and is vowing to "crush" any show of solidarity with the Dalai Lama."

A telling appointment

2009-02-24T11:57:00.003-05:00

The Obama Administration has offered a "the influential, low-profile job of chairman of the National Intelligence Council" to Chas Freemen (Politico).

Mr. Freemen is known for many things - among them, effectively saying the Tiananmen Square victims of 1989 deserved what they got (Weekly Standard Blog).

So much for the fellow who would "be frank with the Chinese about such failings and will press them to respect human rights" (National Review Online - Campaign Spot). Appeasement is back.

The CCP "spending spree": A sign of strength? Or Weakness?

2009-02-24T08:28:00.004-05:00

As one would expect, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Beijing was the leading news regarding the Chinese Communist Party - and not in a good way. The Secretary not only threw the victims of the CCP under the bus (New York Post), but then proceeded to embarrass herself and her fellow Americans even more by pleading with the cadres to keep buying American debt (Agence France Presse via Breitbart). The cadres were more than happy to agree, and score highly undeserved political capital in Washington for it (AFP via Yahoo).

The regime was sickeningly gleeful at how obsequious the Secretary was (AFP via Yahoo), but such is the cost of ensuring the cadres will continue to lend to us, right?

Wrong.

To understand why the Secretary's appeasement was so unnecessary (and thus, all the more maddening), we need to look at what else the cadres are doing abroad.

In Australia, Canada, and France, the CCP is looking for firms desperate enough to need capital now - and finding them in abundance (Christian Science Monitor). The regime is building a special sovereign wealth fund to buy up foreign resource firms (London Telegraph) - at least the ones not already dependent upon regime-run banks for loans (International Herald Tribune). High-ranking cadres are going on import tours in Europe (AFP via Yahoo), and the regime is already buying half of Australia's mineral exports (Bloomberg).

All of which would be taken as signs that the regime is spreading its economic wings and effectively buying geopolitical power - which it is. It will also be taken as a sign that the CCP has arrived as a major global power in all realms - which is also true.

Finally, it will be seen by some as a "tipping point," revealing that with America weakened by the global downturn, the Chinese Communist Party is taking the wheel and driving the global economy. That's where the narrative jumps the track.

While the regime does indeed look strong from afar, get closer in and the picture looks very different. As Zhongnanhai prepares to gobble up chunks of the global economy, the regime's national pension fund posted its first ever loss (Bloomberg). Meanwhile, the details released on the CCP's "stimulus" are so vague that a lawyer in Shanghai (Yan Yiming) is threatening to sue for more information (Bloomberg) - and in a very clear sign that the cadres themselves haven't figured out their own thinking, Yan is not only still out of prison, but being quoted approvingly by Communist mouthpieces. Given what the regime would normally do to such gadflies (Epoch Times), one can only assume at least some of the CCP's factions are cheering Yan on, which would mean a deep division on the most important issue the regime faces: how to get the Chinese economy out of the ditch.

So what can we take from the regime's recent actions? What does it mean when the tyrannical elite will invest in prostrate foreign firms but steer clear of its own pension fund? What can we infer from the cadres' complete clarity on what to do for, with, and to other economies when coupled with the fog of confusion about fixing their own?

I would humbly submit that the regime is not investing abroad because it wants to do so, but because it has to do so.

First, we have to remember that the regime is dependent upon expanding its influence and power abroad to distract the people at home. This has been the cadres' modus operandi ever since the Tiananmen spring. So it should be no surprise that they are moving into the economic realm now that they appear to have the resources needed.

However, there are two other factors that cannot be forgotten. The more obvious one is the cadres' dependence on their exports. Despite the advice of nearly every economist on the planet to shift from an export-centered economy to a domestic-demand-centered one, the cadres know that such a move would (as all adjustments do) cause some serious hardship in the transition. Since the cadres have been relying on a wealthy, urban elite to defend its "mandate from heaven," any transition that would turn said elite into a poor and angry one is not in the cards. Thus, the Communists, trapped in their export dependence, must rely on foreign spending to keep them in power.

In America, that means the regime cannot pull the plug on its massive debt holdings. In fact, it is facing the exact dilemma I predicted last year. Any attempt by Beijing to force American policymakers to do its bidding by unloading American bonds would either drive down the dollar so far that American exports become competitive with their CCP counterparts, have absolutely no effect as others snap up the bonds the cadres sell, or (most likely) somewhere in between these two extremes. More importantly, such a move would certainly reduce or eliminate any appearance of Communist leverage over the American economy (and appearance is all it is), while moving American politics an decidedly anti-Communist direction.

For these reason, the CCP can't afford to sell its American debt holdings. In fact, they can't even afford to stop buying more - especially with U.S. Treasury notes continuing to be a safe haven for just about every investor on the planet.

In other words, Secretary Clinton didn't need to beg Beijing to keep buying American debt. If anything, the cadres need to lend us money more than we need to borrow it from them. That the Secretary of State felt the need to do it anyway - almost certainly at the behest of her boss, the President - is a very troubling sign of what we can expect from both of them regarding the CCP.

Sadly, it appears we must wait until 2013 for an anti-Communist Administration - and in many ways, that could be too late.

The Death of a Tireless Champion for Democracy and Human Rights is Mourned in South Korea

2009-02-22T21:50:00.007-05:00

"Cardinal Kim is remembered by South Koreans...as an ardent supporter of democracy who unreservedly stood up against the authoritarian governments that reigned here from the 1960s through the 80s...Kim often outspokenly criticized the governments of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan for suppressing student activists and labor unions. In 1987, he gave sanctuary to dozens of anti-government student activists at Myeongdong Cathedral and told authorities who came to arrest them, "You'll be able to get to the students only after you get past me, the priests and the nuns."

A gift of clarity from 1937

2009-02-21T17:22:00.004-05:00

It seems that the appropriation by Communist China of a 19th-century capitalism has--in many minds--worked well to obscure the fact that it is still Communist. In 1937, the Vatican published the Encyclical Divini Redemptoris, which articulated most clearly and forcefully the slavery that is life under Communism. Whether or not a person is Catholic (or even anti-Catholic), this document clarifies the humanity-destroying nature of Communism.

Seventy-two years later, and there's still nowhere for the enslavers to hide.

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11DIVIN.HTM

Facebook and Hutchison-Whampoa

2009-02-21T16:43:00.003-05:00

The previous post is a link to a news story on MSNBC about Facebook, in which entities from Communist China have a significant investment. For example, the Chairman of Hutchison-Whampoa, whose holdings include ports around the world, has invested at least two-hundred million in the social network.

The Chairman: http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com/eng/about/chairman/chairman.htm

The container ports on both the Atlantic and the Pacific sides of the Panama Canal, along with many others, are listed on their website. Oh well, the Panama Canal has no strategic value anymore, right?

The ports they own in the Americas are here:
http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com/eng/ports/international/the_americas.htm

Reading all of this would lead a person to conclude that money will buy anything, and that the spiritual fire of the Americas, and its citizen-warriors' uncomprising intellect in service to truth, have been in a coma for awhile.

I think we're awake now, don't you?

2009-02-21T13:29:00.001-05:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/29278396#29267464
"...except whatever you've already shared with friends"--which meansthey definately own everything, (and the "new terms" were actually_always_ the terms--the classic "bait and switch")
In case you want to be LKS's friend:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Li-Ka-shing/15864788958

Hope and Change? Ha!

2009-02-20T12:48:00.004-05:00

Each of the previous two Administrations (Clinton and Bush the Younger) sounded tough on the Chinese Communist Party for months, only to transform itself into an apologist for the regime.

Even by that weak standard, the Obama Administration's one-month transition is starkly painful (Washington Post):

Human rights violations by China cannot block the possibility of significant cooperation between Washington and Beijing on the global economic crisis, climate change and security threats such as North Korea's nuclear program, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.
"We pretty much know what they are going to say" on human rights issues such as greater freedoms for Tibet, Clinton told reporters traveling with her on a tour of Asia. "We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere" with dialogue on other crucial topics.
Clinton's remarks elicited sharp condemnation from Amnesty International, which has urged her to move human rights near the top of the U.S.-China agenda. The organization accused Clinton of saying "that human rights will not be a priority in her
diplomatic engagement with China" and urged her to "publicly declare that human
rights are central to U.S.-China relations before she leaves Beijing."

Amnesty International criticizing a Clinton? Why that hasn't happened since . . .

. . . since . . .

. . . since the last time a Clinton in power talked about the CCP.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Who will succeed Kim Jong-il? Who cares?

2009-02-20T10:46:00.002-05:00

Leave it to the New York Times to bury the most important part of Hillary Clinton's comments on North Korea at the bottom of their piece on the subject. The Times was obsessed over the Secretary of State's decision to speak openly about life after Kim Jong-il:

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Thursday that a succession battle in North Korea could complicate nuclear negotiations with that country’s government, she broke an informal taboo. Diplomats do not talk publicly about what comes after Kim Jong-il, the convalescing dictator who turned his isolated country into a nuclear rogue state.
Mrs. Clinton, on her first trip as secretary of state, broached the topic with reporters on her plane, and then answered two questions.
“If there is a succession, even if it’s a peaceful succession,” she said, “that creates more uncertainty, and it may also encourage behaviors that are even more provocative, as a way to consolidate power within the society.”
The question is whether Mrs. Clinton made a beginner’s error that could upset other
players in the negotiations, like China. Or whether she showed refreshing candor — the kind of approach that could shake loose what has been a diplomatic quagmire for the last eight years.

The answer to that last paragraph, of course, is "neither." In fact, the cadres pretty much said it all with their subsequent silence: "neither China nor North Korea itself issued any official reaction to her comment."

There has already been plenty of scuttlebutt about who would succeed Kim Jong-il as the Chinese Communist Party's Korean viceroy (One Free Korea is the source to which I turn). In the final analysis, however, the name of the new "leader" is irrelevant. What matters is that when the time comes, the CCP will be the ones who put or keep him there.

The cadres may be in uncharted and threatening territory regarding the global economy and the anti-Communist resurgence in India, but when it comes to manipulating Washington through Pyongyang, they're experts. Two successive Administrations over the last fifteen years have been worked over by Beijing, and a third one (the current Administration) is ripe for the same.

That was all but telegraphed by what Clinton said later:

Mrs. Clinton said she was interested in exploring whether neighbors like China could exert more influence on North Korea. “North Korea is on China’s border, and I want to understand better what the Chinese believe is doable,” she said.

So, not only does the CCP keep its role as gatekeeper for its Korean colony, it now has the American Administration seeking their advice on what is "doable."

Given that, does it really matter who the CCP decides will play the role of "leader" of North Korea? Of course not. What matters is that the Communist regime will continue to be able to use its Korean colony as a lever to pry loose concessions from the United States.

So, whatever Secretary Clinton intended, she revealed that her Administration's policy towards the CCP will be no better than that of her husband or that of Bush the Younger. In fact, as impossible as it may have seemed a month ago, this Administration's policy toward the CCP could even be worse.

The Communist edifice of lies and its weak foundation

2009-02-17T08:51:00.004-05:00

The Chinese Communist regime announced to the United Nations that it was developing "a major move to advance human rights protection in China" (Agence France Presse via Yahoo). That was more than enough for their usual friends on the UN Human Rights Council (Pakistan, Sudan, etc.), although Canada refused to fall for it (Voice of American News).

Within 24 hours, Gao Zhisheng's arrest by Communist police hit the internet (Worthy News). Oops.

Not the the cadres will mind, much. They've survived such juxtapositions in the past. So long as the rest of the world was content to line their coffers and praise their "reforms," the leaders and the members of the Chinese Communist Party were content to just ignore the minimal effect of their blatant disregard for their own words.

That's where the trouble comes in (for them): neither of the above are happening anymore.

The cadres themselves had to admit that roughly half of their toymaking firms fell under the waves of the global recession last year (AFP via Google and the Financial Post). The effect is cascading into other sectors (Wall Street Journal's China Journal Blog), but even that paled in comparison to the bigger danger for the regime. The recession is causing economists and financiers around the world to notice the cadres' penchant for padding its statistics (China Journal Blog).

Of course, in many capitals, the old combination of smiles and promises of economic aid can still work its magic (AFP via Google, AFP via Yahoo). However, in the private sector, the magic is gone. Foreign investment in Communist China fell by nearly a third last month alone (AFP via Yahoo).

It's gotten so bad now that even when a Communist-owned firm invests abroad, local investors are choosing to take their own money and run (AFP via Yahoo).

Meanwhile, in the developed democracies of the world, the Communists are running into a bit more flak then they anticipated. Rome's hard-left mayor reminded the world of the long-running anti-Communist impulse in European socialists by welcoming the Dalai Lama (AFP via Yahoo). The embrace of anti-Communism by India's Congress Party has the cadres doing a painful double-take (AFP via Yahoo).

Finally, in the United States, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is moving heaven and earth to shift from George W. Bush's largely friendly policy towards the CCP to her husband's even more friendly policy towards the CCP (Global TV and the Washington Post), Communist cyberhackers are leading others in the American government the opposite way (Bloomberg and China Aid) - including, ominously for the cadres, the president himself (AFP via Google).

Has any of this slowed down the cadres rapacious appetite for global power and resources? Of course not. The buying spree is now shifting to oil and other resources (Bloomberg and Bloomberg again); the military buildup continues (AFP via Google); and the persecutions continue (China Aid and Radio Free Asia).

They even went to the old standby - getting the Korean viceroy to act up and distract everybody, in this case with a test-launch of a missile that can hit the American Pacific Coast (CNN and National Review Online: The Corner).

Why are they doing this? They believe they have no other choice.

The cadres have been relying upon geopolitical power abroad to appease the masses at home for years, ever since the economy-first model resulted in the Tiananmen spring of twenty years ago. For the CCP, radical nationalism is the only card left to play, and they have played it well for nearly two decades.

Unfortunately, the regime is now discovering the awful truth: such a move forces it to really on outsiders for its own survival. So long as said outsiders were buying up Communist-made exports and playing nice with Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, everything was fine.

Now, however, with the recession wiping out the export market and more people in the free world wondering just what the CCP is planning, there is more risk in what the regime is doing. Most Westerners don't notice this because only the economic change has happened for them: governments in Washington, London, Paris, etc., still have the same vague confidence in "engagement" that they did before (while Ottawa maintains its vague skepticism).

In India, however, the change is profound - and much more troubling for the cadres. Nothing in the twenty years spooked the CCP more than India going nuclear in 1998. It turned the largest democracy on earth into a regional military power with an anti-Communist government at the helm. Eleven years later, India has grown to be a full-fledged economic competitor to Beijing as well, while the center-left coalition that ousted the anti-Communist in 1998 is mimicking them (and may lost to them anyway in upcoming elections).

This means the cadres only have one real hope: President Obama. So long as the president extends to the CCP the same olive branch he is trying to extend to nearly every rouge regime and entity the CCP backs, then the cadres can isolate India and still draw on international appeasement to ward off rising anger at home.

I sincerely doubt the cadres will leave their survival to such chance. Therefore, I still expect the satellites to be used to ensure Washington continues to "cooperate" with Zhongnanhai. North Korea's possible missile launch is part of that strategy. We should expect the Iranian mullahcracy to do its part soon.

The "center" loses its grip

2009-02-09T08:12:00.004-05:00

Hardly anyone remembers William Butler Yeats these days - at least outside of Ireland that is. However, one phrase from "Second Coming":

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.

Now, the Chinese Communist Party didn't even exist when Yeats wrote this (the Soviet Communists were maneuvering for control of China through the Nationalist Party back then), but I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few cadres in Zhongnanhai were wondering about the ability of the "center" (themselves) to keep a firm hold on events.

Given the current global recession, the CCP desperately needs its Party members to dial down the graft. Yet for lower-level cadres (and middle-level cadres, and a good chunk of the higher-ranking cadres), the License to Steal was the first, last, and only incentive to Party membership in the first place. Can the CCP really change a behavior it was using as an incentive to boost its numbers for a generation?

Two pieces of evidence from this weekend suggest the answer is "No" - a former vice president of a regime-run bank busted for taking $1.5 million in bribes (Agence France Presse via Yahoo) and the head of the regime's credit export insurer nabbed doing the same thing. That these two corrupt officials were caught in the most sensitive areas of the economy - exports and bank lending - tells us all we need to know about the failure of the CCP to root out corruption.

If that wasn't bad enough, a new nightmare arose for the cadres - evidence that they themselves caused the Sichuan earthquake (London Telegraph):

The 511ft-high Zipingpu dam holds 315 million tonnes of water and lies just 550 yards from the fault line, and three miles from the epicentre, of the Sichuan earthquake.
Now scientists in China and the United States believe the weight of water, and the effect of it penetrating into the rock, could have affected the pressure on the fault line underneath, possibly unleashing a chain of ruptures that led to the quake.
Fan Xiao, the chief engineer of the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau in Chengdu, said it was "very likely" that the construction and filling of the reservoir in 2004 had led to the disaster.
"There have been many cases in which a water reservoir has triggered an earthquake," said Mr Fan. "This earthquake was very unusual for this area.

As an aside, we might want to keep an eye on Mr. Fan himself.

If word of this reaches the Chinese people (in Sichuan especially) it could get very ugly for the regime. In fact, the CCP may be preparing themselves for the worst; its latest report to UN on human rights deliberately skipped over several incidents of repression (Bloomberg). Meanwhile, its promises of being more open to the press - made in the run-up to the Olympics - have been exposed as fraudulent (Bloomberg).

Of course, the Communists are responding as all Communists do - by trying to project more power abroad and prevent the democratic world from noticing what's going on at home. However, even this is beginning to cause problems.

The cadres have clearly succeeded in building a blue-water naval force (AFP via Yahoo). However, rather than earn the respect of the United States (or engender weakness in the same), it has fueled the revival of anti-Communism in India (Indian Express). Meanwhile, recent comments by American Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner about the CCP's deliberate currency devaluation got an unexpected boost from Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty - not previously known to be part of the anti-Communist force within the Great White North's Conservative government.

In fact, the only place where the elected party in power is consumed by the "engagement" nonsense is on Taiwan (AFP via Yahoo), and even there, talk is moving to concern that President Ma Ying-jeou - who has a bridge to sell, literally - "has no idea what he is doing and is compromising the nation’s security" (Taipei Times).

Now, all of this put together hardly spells the CCP's doom - for now. The center can still "hold" a while longer. However, if the anger of the Chinese people were ever to combine with a clear-eyed and sober free world recognizing the threat from Beijing, the cadres would suddenly be in very deep trouble. A similar combination that defeated European Communism, and the CCP has been trying to prevent it ever since.

Over the weekend, the CCP Doomsday continued to come closer. The center still holds, but its grip is weakening.

With job losses now at 20 million and counting, the regime looks for scapegoats

2009-02-03T08:30:00.007-05:00

The Chinese Communist Party is literally going back in time. All of the prosperity and "reforms" of the last thirty years have kicked into reverse.

The regime is now being forced to admit that over 20 million jobs have vanished over the last year (BBC). At least three provinces that went from rural backwaters to major commercial hubs - Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu - are now home to "dozens of protests that are never mentioned by the state media" (Sunday Times of London), reminiscent of the tens of millions that took to the streets outside Beijing during the spring of 1989. The cadres blacked out those protests, too.

Guangdong is also finding its modern model of corrupt corporatism under attack from Beijing - not for reasons of modern reform but old-style anti-business Marxism (Financial Post).

Of course, none of these things had to be a harbinger of going back to the future by themselves. What really triggered the way-back machine was how the cadres continue to handle the situation - with pages ripped right out of the Brezhnev playbook.

As more and more ordinary Chinese demand accountability from their Communist leaders, said leaders recycle charges of "slavery" against the Dalai Lama (Hindustan Times) and aim the bloggers' ire at a show-thrower in London (BBC). The usual crackdown against anyone in Tibet who does not approve of the Communist occupation continues apace (Bloomberg). Meanwhile, the cadres have decided the economic crises is a perfect time for a massive investment - in propaganda (Manila Times).

For the most part, the leaders of the rest of the world hasn't noticed this, or is trying to pretend it's not that big of a deal (BBC, Bloomberg, and the Taipei Times). There is, however, one country that may follow (to an extent) the CCP back into the pass - and in a way the regime truly cannot afford: India.

As the CCP continued to juggle its blood-and-circuses act, India's Bharatiya Janata Party - currently the lead opposition party and quite possibly the leader of the next government after elections this spring - railed against the Communist regime for its militarization of Burmese regions bordering India and refusing to accept India's territorial claims east of Kashmir (Calcutta News).

India and the CCP fought a border war forty-five years ago (during which the Kennedy Administration made fairly clear it backed India), and while not even the BJP is willing to go that far, a resurgent anti-Communism in an Indian democracy once again close to Washington has to have Zhongnanhai on edge. While the Soviets managed to limp along, and even score geopolitical gains, until the United States got serious about winning the First Cold War in 1980, the "other" power that concerned Moscow (ironically, the CCP) was presiding over a traumatized people and a flattened economy. India, by contrast, is a vibrant democracy with an economy that was already drawing investment money away from Beijing before the downturn. Should the BJP win the upcoming elections, it would give the CCP a neighboring threat from a political, economic, and military perspective - something not even the United States could be at present.

Unexpected events from places that should have been followed more closely have changed history before. A political sabotage operation by German intelligence in World War I led to the founding of the Soviet Union; Communist Party parliamentary maneuverings - on orders from Moscow - in a chaotic Weimar Republic gave Adolf Hitler the keys to power, a shipyard protest in Poland led to a mass anti-Communist movement that inspired the American electorate - at least in part - to elect Ronald Reagan. If anything, the Indian people electing an anti-Communist government would be a more straightforward cause for change in China than any of the above.

The CCP continues to seek power abroad - and outrun problems at home

2009-01-27T09:37:00.004-05:00

One of the things that made the Chinese Communist Party so dangerous was that they had learned from the mistakes of European Communism. Whereas Moscow and its satellites tried to be factory managers, the cadres are comfortable as conglomerate heads - or what the folks in the nineteenth century called "trusts." The Soviets broadcast their anti-American propaganda for all to hear; the CCP does its best to ensure it only reaches target audiences. The Soviets tried to latch on to any anti-American group in sight and incorporate it into the Eastern Bloc. The CCP, far more mindful of the benefits of anonymity, are more than happy to let anti-American terrorists keep the entire spotlight for themselves and hide Zhongnanhai's aid. Even with its own satellite state and de facto colony (North Korea), Zhongnanhai has used subterfuge and Kim Jong-il's tremendous ego to downplay its own vital role in keeping his Korean puppet regime afloat. In just about every respect, the CCP figured out what the Soviets did wrong, and made sure they didn't do it.

Thus, one can imagine my shock as, over the past few months, the cadres have driven right into the same trap that the ensnared the Soviets in the 1970s: a rickety economy ignored in pursuit of the fantasy of global domination. Like the USSR, the CCP will fail, but they will have a hand in killing plenty of innocent victims along the way.

We'll start with the economy. Already, the cadres are facing an economy that is not keeping up with population growth (Bloomberg). The last time that happened was in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, during which economic growth was hardly a priority. Citizens are already getting nervous (Agence France Presse via Yahoo).

Meanwhile, the usual perks that go with a white-hot economy - namely the license to steal that comes with Party Membership - are in deep trouble now that there isn't as much to take. Moreover, fleecing foreigners won't be so easy either. The World Trade Organization just called foul on the mass counterfeiting operations that made Communist China infamous (Bloomberg), and while that means almost nothing in actual terms, it is a signal to the rest of the world that they should be more careful in dealing with the CCP - and they will be more careful. Already, the Obama Administration seems more willing to go after the CCP on the currency issue (AFP via Yahoo) - although it is early, and previous American Administrations waited until later in their first year to show their true colors.

The other major prop on which the Communist economy rests - exports - continue to be hit with the double-whammy of the global slowdown (Yahoo) and tainted products (United Press International).

So, are the Communists taking stock and trying to fix the problem? Nope, they're too busy trying to take over the world.

As the Chinese people look worriedly to the future, the cadres are looking up to the heavens - to create their own GPS-like system (Strategy Page). They are continuing a military build-up that they hope will make them equal to the United States (SP), and then pass us to become the world's leading power. Much as Mao let his people starve but sold grain to the Soviets for arms, Hu Jintao and his crew are sending money to allies in Pakistan (Newkerala) and Zimbabwe (London Telegraph) to keep their economies afloat.

As for dissidents, it's business as usual (Radio Free Asia).

The Soviets could not avoid their day of reckoning; nor, I suspect, will the Chinese Communist Party (the Japan Times has a decent summary of the economic reality). Again, the question is, when will the day come?

This is a more important question than it seems. The Soviets had a pretty good idea they were in deep trouble in the 1970s; they just managed to keep it a secret for roughly a decade. In that time, they sparked bloody civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador while invading Afghanistan and setting in motion events with which we are all still grappling. One can only imagine what the world would have been like if the USSR had been allowed to survive into the 21st Century (think Putinism on steroids).

The Chinese Communist Party's downfall may be inevitable, but every day it remains in power is a day that it helps anti-American terrorists, fuels the ambitions of Kim Jong-il, and indulges its hidden but always present lust for Taiwan, all in the pursuit of power - and adding more days to its reign. The longer the free world waits to help the Chinese people free themselves, the more blood and treasure it will take from both of them to succeed.

Passing along a blog award

2009-01-24T19:27:00.003-05:00

Sunrise in Havana has listed her recipients for the Blog Destemido (fearless) award; yours truly was one of them. I am deeply honored and grateful.

SiH now has a place on the Friendly Blog list; hopefully, I will be able to add her to the China Freedom Blog Alliance, but that's up to her, of course.

Meanwhile, in the tradition of the award, I hereby pass it along to the following blogs:

Boycott 2008 Communist Olympics
One Free Korea
and
Shaun Kenney

The key point

2009-01-23T11:06:00.002-05:00

Dan Twining in a very good summary of the latest white paper from the Communist military (Shadow Government, h/t Weekly Standard blog) says in one sentence what I have (in part) been trying to say for almost nine years: "This white paper is a useful reminder that China’s is the only military in the world explicitly training and equipping to fight the United States."

How long before our leaders face what this means?

Mr. President, the China file is calling

2009-01-22T09:39:00.002-05:00

I don't want to be too hard on President Obama yet. After all, he has been in the Oval Office less than a week. Still, if his first two days are any indication, East Asia will end up on the back burner - the last place it needs to be.

The Chinese Communist Party is facing its worst economic crises since the Cultural Revolution. Economic growth fell below population growth in the last quarter (BBC, CNN, and the Washington Post), and given the cadres' penchant for inflating their statistics, the population may have outgrown the economy for the entire year of 2008. To make matters worse, the consumer benefits that have come to other economies from the fall in oil prices have not appeared, due to Communist-imposed directives to keep oil prices high.

Lest anyone think this is merely a problem for the CCP and the Chinese people, the cadres are already trying to divert attention on this failure by rattling their sabres abroad (much like the Brezhnev-era Soviets did). In addition to the usual propaganda on Tibet (John Batchelor and Radio Free Asia), the regime is continuing to project its ever growing naval power (Japan Times and the Weekly Standard), and the espionage network is alive and well (Agence France Presse via Yahoo). Meanwhile, the rest of the free world continues to be asleep (BBC).

I fear the President's East Asia policy will not be centered around Communist China, but North Korea. If so, Nicholas Eberstadt has a good column on how his (Obama's) predecessor fouled up (Weekly Standard). Still, even Eberstadt missed the CCP's role in making North Korea the "bad cop" and reeling in the concessions (BTW, they're at it again - One Free Korea).

It took almost a year before the CCP managed to get President Bush where they wanted him, and Clinton took a little longer. It would be a shame if the CCP were able to get President Obama where they want him, especially if its driven by the latter's indifference.

Welcome President Obama (and don't let the door hit you on the way in)

2009-01-21T07:41:00.003-05:00

In his inaugural address to launch his Administration, President Barack Obama had this to say to the tyrants of the world (BBC):

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of
dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.

Clearly, the Chinese Communist Party didn't get the memo. Their actions over the last few days made it abundantly clear that they intend to keep the President's version of "history" at arms length.

In fact, they made sure their fellow countrymen wouldn't even see Obama's statement - a reference to the defeat of Soviet Communism was also left on the cutting-room floor (BBC). Before that, the cadres had the gall to declare March 28 "Serfs Emancipation Day" - a reference to the beginning of their bloody occupation of Tibet. The regime continues to clamp down on any and all dissent, be it based on faith (Epoch Times) or human rights (Epoch Times).

Just in case the new President thought any of this might be a conversation piece, let alone a move to change course and adopt a more anti-Communist foreign policy, the Korean colony announced just before the inauguration that it had weaponized plutonium (CNN) - a move sure to make it the focus of Obama's East Asian team while the Beijing crew returns to their usual duplicitous role as public facilitator and private instigator. Having squeezed almost everything they could out of the last Administration (One Free Korea), Beijing and Pyongyang are well-positioned to start holding the new one up for ransom.

That said (and I do hope the new president is paying attention), all of this aggressive behavior is being done for a reason - to hide the serious damage from the economic slowdown.

Economists are guessing that economic growth in Communist China fell to 6.8% last quarter (Bloomberg), which would be an annual rate below population growth. Unemployment could reach levels not seen 1980. One of the cadres' own professors is talking about job losses of 50 million this year (The Australian).

As one would expect, there is talk once more about reversing the slow upward valuation of the Communist currency and returning to the 1990s devalued peg (Epoch Times) - a move sure to enrage a heavily Democratic Congress already willing to consider putting up barriers to foreign trade. Given the unique nature of the CCP (and yes, that's a euphemism), a currency-corrective tariff has a far better chance of reaching the President's desk over the next two years than over the last fifteen.

What the President will do with it - should it reach him - is another story. With the wife of the friendliest American president Communist China ever had as his Secretary of State, Obama is sure to hear the "engagement" tripe. One can only hope House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will remember her anti-Communism of old and apply pressure in the other direction.

If not, the Obama Administration could go down as merely the extension of the Bush/Clinton reign of error in East Asia, but with far more damaging consequences. Still Barack Obama has been president for all of one day. No one can say for certain what he will do, and in what direction he will go.

That is most likely why the cadres played the Tibet-propaganda and Korea cards so soon: they're looking to influence Obama right out of the gate - no waiting on Hope and Change for them.

And they were doing so well

2009-01-16T09:39:00.003-05:00

It was another rough day for the Chinese Communist Party, with the biggest blow coming from a most unexpected source - Taiwan.

Beyond the Taiwanese straits, things pretty much followed the new normal. The European Parliament raked Eutelsat over the coals for shutting out New Tang Dynasty Television (Epoch Times), but the EP has little real power. Senator Hillary Clinton (part of arguably the friendliest American Administration the CCP ever faced) gave the usual fog of words on her way to becoming Secretary of State (McClatchy via Yahoo). South Korean appeaser-in-chief Kim Dae-jung tried his hand at advising President-elect Obama (Washington Times), while the American "engagement" crew held another gathering to blast "isolationary policies" (Epoch Times).

Meanwhile, the usual platitudes about fighting corruption (Bloomberg) came with the ever-increasing warnings to from the higher ranks to the rest of the cadres of the economic problems ahead (Agence France Presse via Yahoo), which was likely done to reinforce the former because there won't be as much bounty to steal. Add to it the typical persecutions (BBC and Epoch Times) and one is left with a series of events and news that was par for the course.

The news from the island democracy, however, was chilling - for Beijing (AFP via Yahoo):

A Taiwanese government official and a legislator's aide were arrested Thursday for allegedly leaking state secrets to China, officials and reports said.
Wang Ren-bing, a specialist in the presidential office, and Chen Ping-ren, aide to a ruling Kuomintang lawmaker, were taken into custody early Thursday on suspicion of violating national security laws, said a spokesman at Taipei district court.
The spokesman declined to comment on reports that Chen allegedly passed information on the May 20, 2008 inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou he obtained from Wang to Chinese intelligence.
The United Daily News, citing unnamed sources, reported Thursday that Wang photocopied documents pertaining to the handover of power to Ma from his predecessor Chen Shui-bian as well as the presidential office organisational charts and division phone numbers.

Now, under normal circumstances (even the new normal), it would be Taiwan alone that would suffer the consequences of this embarrassment. However, this Taiwanese government specifically campaigned on a platform of non-confrontation with the CCP. President Ma's determination to follow through on that has spooked larger numbers of Taiwanese, and not just the supporters of the anti-Communist Democratic Progressive Party, which Ma tossed out of power with his election win last year.

The fact that Ma's party employed a conduit for sending information to Communist China will remind everyone why they were suspicious of Ma's Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party in the first place (it lost the elections of 2000 and 2004 over concerns it was too cozy with the CCP), which is the last thing the cadres need right now.

We already knew that the Communist-Nationalist charm offensive was falling flat - with less than one in fifteen Taiwanese asking for reunification under Communist rule. Now the rest of the country - but especially the voters who pulled the lever for the Nationalists due to domestic issues - will have to think long and hard before voting "blue" (color of the Nationalists and their allies) again.

Taiwan was one of the few bright spots for the CCP in 2008. Amidst the poisoned exports, the Olympic flop, and the economic slowdown, the cadres could look to the friendly government on the island and realize that its primary goal (gobbling Taiwan up) was becoming closer to reality. That "progress" could very well be halted in its tracks, giving the anti-Communist "green" coalition (DPP and its friends) time to regroup and make its case that resistance to the CCP trumps everything else.

After all, even most Taiwanese who wanted friendly relations between Beijing and Taipei probably didn't have this in mind.

Past and present collide

2009-01-15T11:13:00.005-05:00

One last sliver of what the Chinese Communist Party will certainly call "the good ol' days" popped up this morning amidst the gloom of the new reality: Communist China passed Germany in 2007 to become the third largest economy on the planet (BBC and CNN). Now only the United States and Japan can claim larger economies.

I'm sure it was quite nostalgic for the cadres, as they continue to face the effects of a crippling economic slowdown (Guardian, UK) and an ever-increasing resentment of Communist corruption (Epoch Times).

In fact, the battle between past and present was the prominent theme of today's collection of news. Regarding relations with the United States, the cadres put the halcyon past on display once more - marking the 30th anniversary of the official establishment of diplomatic relations (Bloomberg). They even got the usual throw-Taiwan-under-the-bus language from their American guests. Meanwhile, Dr. Henry Miller detailed how Communist corruption has literally poisoned Sino-American trade relations of multiple levels in the Washington Times.

Even the shibboleths of the recent past are crumbling. President Bush still hasn't left office, yet the world-hates-America theme is already being debunked (Weekly Standard) - to the point that "polling data from the Pew Research Center shows that the United States still has approval ratings of more than 50% across Asia, giving it a more positive reputation than China" (Weekly Standard Blog). Ouch!

Not that recent events have been all bad for the Communists. Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton's tough words on the cadres' Korean colony (One Free Korea) were a painful reminder of how far we have fallen from the time when such words were commonplace - and credible (OFK). The viceroy has even gone so far as to pick his successor, we think (OFK).

Still, it should be clear that things are different now. Foreign investment is drying up, the ability to buy off the various elites who would otherwise form an anti-Communist civil society is vanishing, more Americans are seeing the regime as an immediate, personal threat due to poisoned exports, and the rest of the world (particularly Asia) has recovered as healthy perspective on Zhongnanhai and Washington. The trends that pointed to the CCP's ascendancy on the world stage have suddenly shifted. We will see if the CCP adapts before the Chinese people are able to notice.

Follow the money (if you can keep up)

2009-01-14T09:17:00.005-05:00

The pillars holding up the myth of Communist China are coming down, one by one. The latest the bite the dust was the notion of the CCP as the great investment opportunity of the 21st Century. What makes this more important than the others is that in many cases, political leaders were drawn to "engagement" by the business communities in their respective nations. With the business community now exiting Communist China, the political backing for "engagement" could start to crumble.

We'll start with the news. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which bought into the regime-run Bank of China less than four years ago, has sold out, following in the footsteps of Bank of America. They're not be alone either, as Bloomberg notes:

The Edinburgh-based bank sold 10.8 billion shares for HK$1.71 apiece, or about 7.6 percent less than Bank of China’s closing price in Hong Kong today, said three people familiar with the sale who declined to be identified before a formal announcement.
. . .
Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing raised $511 million selling shares in Bank of China on Jan. 7. Separately, Bank of America sold $2.8 billion of shares in China Construction Bank Corp., while Zurich-based UBS sold about $900 million of Bank of China shares last week.
Goldman Sachs still owns 16.5 billion shares in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest bank by market value, and has agreed not to sell the
shares until after April 28.

Folks, when Li Ka-Shing is unloading his investments in Communist China, it's time to head for the exits. The fact that RBS lost over $750 million on the investment is another omen (BBC). If Goldman Sachs starts dropping stock on April 29, the jig may very well be up.

However, this is all in the economic and financial realm, and anyone who follows this space would know that economics is not reliable as a weapon. Certainly, the economic downturn will cause the CCP serious headaches - and is, in fact, causing a few already - but I doubt it will lead to the regime's demise per se.

What should worry the cadres - because this really could put the regime in danger - is what it means for the outside view of their regime.

As John Pomfret notes so well in the Washington Post Global Blog, "There's a cottage industry in Washington and in investment banks around the globe (who have a lot of skin in China's continued growth) that China is going to make it." Some of the investment banks to which Pomfret refers are the very banks that are taking their "skin" out of the game as fast as possible. These are the moneyed entities that have most politicians' ears on economic, political, and even some geopolitical matters. For years, if not decades, this bunch (Wall Street for Americans, Bay Street for Canadians, the City for Britons, etc.) have been insistent that the CCP is a fine group of folks, a decent player on the world stage and excellent steward of the economy. For all I know, these may still be the words used in the financial community, but now the money is saying something entirely different.

This could have dramatic implications whenever the CCP needs cover for its overseas intimidation (Epoch Times) or its human rights abuses (Epoch Times). No longer will the leading entrepreneurs and financiers in the free world have a vested interest in keeping the Communists' happy. No longer will they feel so compelled to come to the regime's defense. It may take time for that reality to trickle down to the political realm, but it will get there.

Thus bereft of the support of Western financiers (or at the very least, with that support diminished), the regime will have to rely on their anti-American terrorist allies to intimidate or defeat the free world (Epoch Times and One Free Korea). Lest anyone get the wrong impression, the Communists won't be increasing their anti-American activity or support; they'll just have more at stake in its success - at the exact same time when the democratic world will become more interested in seeing the CCP as it really is. For Zhongnanhai, that's a perfect storm - right on top of them.

The Soviet Union was never able to present itself as a part of the global economic community (it was decades before they were even willing to try). The CCP managed to pull that off in many circles, and they have used that as cover for their real objectives against America for years. We are watching that cover slowly disappear. Expect many more eyes to be opened to the real nature of the Chinese Communist Party.

Ready, Aim, Watch the Backfire!

2009-01-13T08:00:00.006-05:00

The Chinese Communist Party's attempts to use economics as a weapons continue to reveal that when it comes to weapons, one should stick to the real thing - notwithstanding the cadres' best efforts otherwise. At a time when the CCP still manages to maintain its grip on conventional wisdom among Western elites (Agence France Presse via Yahoo, International Herald Tribune, and the Washington Times), it appears to have fallen for one of the elites' greatest errors: the myth that a currency is more powerful than a gun.

For years, the Communists relied on building economic power to compliment their military power and bring the West to heel. The model was simple, make the free world more and more dependent on the CCP, and then spring the trap. The problem for the Communists is that economics and politics are never that simple.

Sure, many in the free world who should know better are buttering them up (as Rana Foroohar of Newsweek does, in what is easily the Ignorant Comment of the Day; Matthew Continetti takes Foroohar apart on the Weekly Standard Blog), but for the cadres, the painful realities are coming into view.

The CCP's position as the largest creditor to the United States has not removed any roadblocks for Huawei Technologies' effort to break into North America (Forbes), or prevented members of Congress from taking aim at its deliberately devalued currency (The Hill). Meanwhile, the Canadian government continues to be a headache for both the regime and its enablers (Canadian Business). The best the cadres can seem to do is keep America from resolving the issue of its detained Uighurs in Guantanamo Bay (The Australian), but that's more a function of the Communist propaganda on East Turkestan (Epoch Times) than any economic concerns.

Even the Communists' financial and political charm offensive in Taiwan (AFP via Yahoo) has struck out - the number of Taiwanese who support reunification with Communist China is still less than one in fifteen (Angus Reid). Looks like that 2012 invasion is still necessary.

Meanwhile, the current economic climate has led the cadres to scale back their investments overseas (Market Watch) - save for their propaganda machines (Fox Business). Clearly, the regime is deemphasizing the yuan in favor of the pen. One can hardly blame them, as their previously envious economy has gone off the rails (Epoch Times).

More ominously, laid-off workers are "becoming increasingly bold in expressing their unhappiness -- expanding a debate over how to protect the Chinese economy into long-fought disputes over other issues such as freedom of expression and equality before the law" (Washington Post). This is exactly the sort of thing the regime fears most.

So what will the Communists do when they realize (as they soon will) that the economics cannot be aimed at pointed at their enemies? They'll go back to more traditional methods. In fact, for the CCP, the foray into economics was itself a diversification of weaponry. The old standbys - military buildup and projection (Weekly Standard), arming terrorists (Epoch Times), etc. - never really went away.

So the regime is still threat it has always been, but now we should be aware that it cannot use economics as a weapon. That should allow the leaders of the free world (who tend to be hyper-focused on economics in the belief that it drives their respective electorates) to take a clear-eyed view of the CCP and the danger it poses.