Krauthammer hits the nail right on the head

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They just can't help themselves

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

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?

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

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?

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.

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

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

"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

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.