China e-Lobby

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...