US and PRC relationship & India

[prashanth]

China hits back at US over 'woeful' human rights record - TOPI

The report, released by China's parliament, the State Council, said Washington has "turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation", despite styling itself as "the world judge of human rights".

China responded by blasting US surveillance of its own citizens, and said that political donations have damaged the country's democracy.

The report also cited "astonishing" casualties that resulted from mass shootings at a movie theatre in the state of Colorado in July and at an elementary school in Connecticut in December.
"Americans are the most heavily armed people in the world per capita," the report said. It added that the US had "serious" issues with discrimination of a sexual, racial and religious nature.

A copy of the report was published by China's official news agency Xinhua.

[sanjaykumar]

Well America may have a Tibetan president before the glorious democratic people's republic of China.

Yes shocking human rights abuses in America.

Chinese--yes very smart people.

[abhishek_sharma]

While America Slept: How the United States botched China's rise.

[Pranav]

While America Slept: How the United States botched China's rise.

Good article - seems to be behind a paywall?

Anyway, posting here -

--------------------------------------


While America Slept
How the United States botched China's rise.
BY KISHORE MAHBUBANI | FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Since the dawn of geopolitics, there has always been tension between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power. No great power likes to cede its No. 1 spot. One of the few times the top power ceded its position to the No. 2 power peacefully was when Great Britain allowed the United States to surge ahead in the late 19th century. Many books have been written on why this transition happened peacefully. But the basic reason seems cultural: One Anglo-Saxon power was giving way to another.

Today, the situation is different. The No. 1 power is the United States, the standard-bearer of the West. The No. 2 power rapidly catching up is China, an Asian power. If China passes America in the next decade or two, it will be the first time in two centuries that a non-Western power has emerged as No. 1. (According to economic historian Angus Maddison's calculations, China was the world's No. 1 economy until 1890.)

The logic of history tells us that such power transitions do not happen peacefully. Indeed, we should expect to see a rising level of tension as America worries more and more about losing its primacy. Yet it has done little to act on these fears thus far. It would have been quite natural for America to carry out various moves to thwart China's rise. That's what great powers have done throughout history. That's how America faced the Soviet Union. So why isn't this happening? Why are we seeing an unnatural degree of geopolitical calm between the world's greatest power and the world's greatest emerging power?

It would be virtually impossible to get Beijing and Washington to agree on the answers to these natural questions, as there are two distinct and sometimes competing narratives in the two capitals.

The view in Beijing is that the calm in Sino-American relations is a result of the extraordinary patience and forbearance shown by China. Chinese leaders believe they have followed the wise advice of Deng Xiaoping, the late reformist leader, and decided not to challenge American leadership in any way or in any area. And when China has felt that it was directly provoked, it has also followed Deng's advice and swallowed its humiliation. Few Americans remember any such instances of provocation. Chinese leaders remember many. In May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, a U.S. plane bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. America apologized, but no Chinese leader believed it was a mistake. Similarly, a Chinese fighter jet was downed when it crashed into a U.S. spy plane near Hainan Island, China, in April 2001. Here, too, China felt humiliated. Few Americans will recall the humiliation Premier Zhu Rongji suffered in April 1999 when he went to Washington to negotiate China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO); Chinese elites haven't forgotten. In their minds, China has been responsible for the low levels of tension in U.S.-China relations because China has swallowed such bitter pills time and again.

The view in Washington is almost exactly the opposite. Few Americans believe that China has been able to rise peacefully because of China's geopolitical acumen or America's geopolitical mistakes. Instead, the prevailing view is that America has been remarkably generous to China and allowed it to emerge peacefully because the United States is an inherently virtuous and generous country. There can be no denying that the United States has been generous to China in many real ways: allowing China's accession to the WTO (under stiff conditions, it must be emphasized, but stiff conditions that ironically benefited China); allowing China to enjoy massive trade surpluses; allowing China to join multilateral bodies like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum; and perhaps most importantly of all, allowing hundreds of thousands of Chinese students to study in American universities. These are generous acts.

But it is also true that the United States allowed China to rise because it was so supremely self-confident that it would always remain on top. China's benign rise was a result of American neglect, not a result of any long-term strategy. China acted strategically; America did not. After the 9/11 attacks, for instance, the United States focused on the Middle East instead of the rise of China, leading Hong Kong journalist Frank Ching to write, "The fact is, it's not going too far to say that China owes a huge debt of gratitude to Osama bin Laden."

America has been sensitive to criticisms about its lack of a long-term strategy. I can speak about this from personal experience. In February 2009, Hillary Clinton visited China on her first overseas visit as U.S. secretary of state. I wrote at the time:

[T]here's little evidence Clinton has engaged in any serious strategic thinking about U.S.-China relations. If she had, she would have asked some big questions. Traditionally, relations between dominant powers and emerging powers have been tense. This should have been the norm with China and the United States. Yet China has emerged without alarming Americans. That's close to a geopolitical miracle. Who deserves credit for it? Beijing or Washington? China seems to have a clear, comprehensive strategy. The United States has none.

Officials in Washington reacted angrily to this column. A senior official at the National Security Council called up the Singaporean Embassy in Washington to complain about a Singaporean criticizing U.S. foreign policy -- even though, in theory, America welcomes debate and a free marketplace of ideas.

I also tell this story to illustrate how sensitive the establishment in Washington has become to any discussion on the nature of Sino-American relations. The real truth about this relationship is that, while there is a lot of calm on the surface, tension is brewing below. I am convinced that there is great simmering anger in Beijing about being pushed around callously by Washington. The Chinese resent, for instance, allegations of Chinese cyberspying that make no mention of America's own activities in this area. The Chinese do not believe that they are the only ones playing this game.

Given the many simmering tensions, it would be unwise to assume smooth sailing ahead for the United States and China. The need to cooperate is rising each day, as is the potential for a major U.S.-China misunderstanding. In November 2011, then-Secretary Clinton announced loudly and boldly a "pivot" to Asia, signifying a turning point in U.S. foreign policy that would reduce the focus on the Middle East. Barack Obama's administration took pains to avoid saying that this was America's response to a rising China, but nobody, including China, was fooled. Other countries saw it as a clear signal that Sino-American geopolitical competition was heating up. The logical consequence is therefore not difficult to figure out: We should be prepared for global turbulence if the U.S.-China relationship follows the millennial old patterns and no longer remains on an even keel.

[Agnimitra]

Not sure if posted before:

China makes waves as new force in drone warfare

Invasive patrolling anarchic pseudo-states - especially ones like TSP - will be a major part of politics in the region and the world in the near future.

[Prem]

US Interventionism in Asia Antagonizes China, Aggravates Regional Tensions
John Glaser,

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/05/09/us-i ... s/#comment

The dispute between China and Japan over territorial claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu island chains has become the front line in the Sino-Japanese realpolitik rivalry. But it is at least as much about the geo-political contest between the U.S. and China, with Japan as a proximate instrument of American power in East Asia.President Obama’s so-called ‘Asia pivot’ is an aggressive policy that involves surging American military presence throughout the region and backing basically all of China’s rivals in a nationalistic scheme to block China’s rise as a world power. Included in this scheme is beefing up U.S. naval presence in the region’s vital waterways and reaffirming America’s security arrangements with countries like Japan. If Japan’s security is ever threatened, say our defense treaties, America will go to war on their behalf.This understandably rattles China. A 2012 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies predicted, correctly it turns out, that 2013, “could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a U.S. strategy that seeks to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power.”“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The U.S. Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new US defense strategic guidelines.”
And America’s role in Sino-Japanese tensions became even more explicit with news today that Japan lodged a diplomatic protest after Chinese state media “published a commentary by two Chinese government-backed scholars who said ownership of the Ryukyu islands should be re-examined,” Reuters reports. The Ryukyu islands are separate from the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute, resting further northeast. Importantly, the Ryukyu islands include Okinawa, the location of the biggest U.S. military base in all of Japan, holding about 50,000 U.S. military personnel.The controversy prompted an ostentatious exchange:“China cannot accept Japan’s so-called negotiations or protests,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular briefing.“The relevant scholars’ academic articles reflect attention and research paid by China’s populace and academia to the Diaoyu Islands and related historical problems,” Hua said.Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing in Tokyo on Wednesday that the islands were Japanese territory.“Japan lodged a stern protest that we can by no means accept the article in question if it reflects the Chinese government’s stance,” Suga said.China had responded to Japan by saying that the piece was written by scholars as individuals, Suga said.The Chinese scholars claimed the Ryukyu islands were a “vassal state” of China’s Ming and Qing dynasties before they were annexed by Japan. Whether that has any legitimacy whatsoever, I don’t know. But it is probably not so coincidental that the conspicuous claim to even more territory long claimed by Japan also holds 50,000 U.S. military personnel.The attempt by the United States to debilitate China for the sake of its own global hegemony has predictably emboldened China. Beijing and Tokyo have nearly come to blows in the recent past over conflicting territorial claims, but only after being inflamed by the U.S.-China rivalry in the background.

Late last year, a Chinese think-tank predicted rising that military conflict between China and Japan might be inevitable, thanks in part to US meddling in the Asia-Pacific region.As for the Senkaku Islands, the report explained that Japan’s right-wing groups, which have gained strength through the country’s two decades of a sluggish economy called “the lost 20 years,” regarded U.S. policy of “pivoting to Asia” as the best opportunity to nationalize the islands. In September, Japan purchased three of the five Senkaku Islands, called the Diaoyu Islands in China, from a private landowner.…“Japan’s nationalization of the Diaoyu Islands destroyed the framework for keeping a balance, which means ‘shelving a conflict,’ ” a Chinese diplomatic source said.
A veteran Chinese diplomat warned back in October that the US is using Japan as a strategic tool in its military surge in Asia-Pacific aimed at containing China and is heightening tensions between China and Japan. Chen Jia, who served as an under secretary general of the United Nations and as China’s ambassador to Japan, accused the US of encouraging a militaristic response by Japan. “The US is urging Japan to play a greater role in the region in security terms, not just in economic terms,” he said.The U.S. shouldn’t have a military presence in Japan and shouldn’t be subsidizing Japanese defense. Washington has kept up its massive military presence throughout East Asia in order to keep geo-political rivals weak and maintain its own dominance. U.S. troop presence doubly antagonizes China in the already threatening context of Obama’s Asia-Pivot and U.S. meddling in the peculiar territorial disputes in the region that are none of America’s business only makes things worse, while giving Washington an excuse to police that part of the world just as it tries to do so in the rest of the world.

[kmkraoind]

Frustrated Chinese complain to Obama-Washington Post

WTF happening. Is it good for India in long term?

In a strange and diplomatically awkward turn of events, Chinese citizens have flocked to the White House’s Web site over the past week to lodge formal petitions, many of them directed against their government. Some are deadly serious, others frivolous and funny. A few have a touch of both .

Some of the signatures — more than 170,000 total on the various petitions as of Thursday evening — were undoubtedly posted in jest, but many more, Chinese online users say, reflect a sincere sense of powerlessness among people frustrated with their leaders’ repressive style of governance.

I think there is a rule that if 1 lakh sign a petition for White House, it had look it formally, whether this rule applies here?

[Agnimitra]

Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American, is considered the "expert" on Middle Eastern and Islamic affairs in the US. He was personal advisor to Holbrooke for a while. He always advised Holbrooke to keep paying Pak more jiziya and encourage "democracy" there. Similarly, he favoured diplomacy vis a vis Iran. He says this now:

PBS.org:
Is China 'Pivoting' Toward the Middle East? Author Vali Nasr Says Yes

He has lately been throwing a tantrum about the fact that the US seems to be moving towards confrontation with Iran, especially after the Mojahedin e Khalq started getting some traction in lobbying withing the US. It seems that he is now resorting to the China bogeyman, in order to convince the US that if they antagonize Iran and Pakistan any further, they will fall into China's aggressive embrace.

As the United States eases back from involvement in the Middle East, China's influence and economic dependence there grows, author Vali Nasr recently told PBS NewsHour senior correspondent Margaret Warner in a web exclusive interview.

"For China, the Middle East is a rising strategic interest," he said. In fact, he continued to say that the Chinese don't refer to it as the Middle East but as "West Asia."

The U.S. has announced it wants to "pivot to Asia" and focus attention on China and away from the Middle East, Nasr said, but "the problem is just as we are pivoting East, the Chinese are pivoting West."

The Chinese are looking to the region -- from Pakistan to Iran to Saudi Arabia and Turkey -- to help supply their vast need for energy and products, said Nasr, author of "The Dispensable Nation," which critiques the Obama administration's foreign policy. And China considers stability in the Middle East important to its own stability, he said.

The growing relationship might develop further. While the Middle East watches the American role recede, it will look to China for economic, diplomatic and possibly even military purposes, said Nasr. So as the United States leaves the region, it must be cognizant of what it's leaving behind and why China is so interested, he said.

Nasr was a special adviser to Richard Holbrooke, who was envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009 to 2010. Prior to that, Nasr was an adviser on Hillary Clinton's foreign policy team while she was running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. He is currently dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

[ramana]

Meanwhile domestically in US

A President loses is power

...
First time out, Obama was elected president in 2008 with 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes, along with a Democrat-controlled House and Senate. He commanded one-party rule in Washington. There was no real opposition. The national media were alternately cheerleaders or groupies who challenged nothing and excused everything. His party held a 79-seat majority in the House of Representatives and 59 votes in the Senate. (That later became a filibuster-proof 60 votes when Al Franken was declared the winner in Minnesota.) With Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in charge, the president could raise any tax and pass any legislation. Obama acted as if this was the natural order of things and that it would last forever. No need to play defense or focus on the long term.

....
AFTER WINNING a second term last year, Obama again wielded very real power. Yet by January 2, 2013, 57 days after winning re-election and before his inauguration, he’d already given it away. Not since George Washington declined a third term has an American president voluntarily surrendered real power so nonchalantly. And at least Washington did so on purpose. Obama foolishly did not understand what he was sacrificing.

Obama’s big stick was the “perfect storm” of three temporary tax cuts that were scheduled to lapse on January 1, 2013: the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch. No vote needed to be taken by Congress. The total automatic tax hike amounted to $500 billion in 2012 alone; over 10 years, it would be $5 trillion, the largest tax hike in the history of the world. This sword was in Obama’s hands thanks to the Republicans’ failure to extend these tax cuts when they had the power to do so in 2005 and 2006.

......
Obama could decide to allow all $500 billion in automatic tax increases to take effect, or only just some of them. He had the power of the Roman emperor to stand above the crowd and hold out his thumb, up or down.

He focused on hitting just the top 1 or 2 percent of American earners. He said this was in the name of fairness. .....”

Obama spent the months of November and December reveling in his power to get his pound of flesh from the rich. He thought, as he sat across from Republican negotiators, that he was empowered by his election victory, his personal popularity as measured in polls. He misunderstood. His power flowed from the fact that he held the fate of a $500 billion annual tax hike in his hands. Like an upriver landowner with a dam and sluicegate, Obama alone would decide how much income would flow and to whom and for how long.

......

But the most important point is this: 82 percent of the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, along with the AMT patch, have now been made permanent, never to lapse again. The only way to increase taxes in the future will be for Democrats to pass a bill through both the House and the Senate and have the president sign it. By making this deal, Obama unilaterally disarmed. He no longer holds the leverage of automatic tax hikes. Had he extended the tax cuts for just one or two years, he would have maintained the threat of automatic tax hikes—significant leverage in debates on sequestration or the debt ceiling or the budget.

I know it looks domestic but it impacts all aspects of politics domestic and foreign as we can see from the spate of scandals emerging.

[abhishek_sharma]

The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object: Could the United States really go to war with China?

[Prem]

x-Post

Chinese Army Cyberunit Apparently Attacking U.S. Targets Again
http://readwrite.com/2013/05/20/chinese ... gets-again

Getting called out by the Obama administration wasn't enough of a deterrent for Unit 61398, the cyberattack unit of the People's Liberation Army of China, because apparently they're at it again, working to pilfer information from private company and public government data stores.The New York Times is reporting that Unit 61398 has resumed operations and is actively engaged in hacking into any U.S. systems that might hold information considered to be of use for the People's Republic of China.
Security firm Mandiant told the Times "that the Chinese hackers had stopped their attacks after they were exposed in February and removed their spying tools from the organizations they had infiltrated. But over the past two months, they have gradually begun attacking the same victims from new servers and have reinserted many of the tools that enable them to seek out data without detection."They are now operating at 60 percent to 70 percent of the level they were working at before, according to a study by Mandiant requested by The New York Times," the article reported.If accurate, then it's clear that the U.S. is going to have to step up its game when it comes to cybersecurity, particularly organizations that have data related to trade secrets or, more disturbingly, infrastructure plans - both targets of Chinese hackers.Even if this isn't the PLA, someone is hacking these systems, and it's time to stop treating cybersecurity like a game.

[ramana]

Thanks, ramana

[Prem]

Thanks, ramana

Lots of Indian telecom Equipments are of Chinese Origin, Only God Knows the extent of Chinese capability in hack into indian Companies, Sarkar and military.

[Prem]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/com ... 0801.story
America's China mistake

This spring, China's navy accepted the Pentagon's invitation to participate in the 2014 Rim of the Pacific — RIMPAC — naval exercise to be held off Hawaii. This will be the first time China takes part in the biennial event.Our allies should signal their intent to withdraw from the exercise if China participates. Failing that, the invitation should be withdrawn. RIMPAC is for allies and friends, not nations planning to eventually wage war on the United States. Russia sent ships in 2012, but while its senior officers may occasionally utter unfriendly words, they are not actively planning to fight the United States. Analyst Robert Sutter was surely correct when he wrote in 2005 that "China is the only large power in the world preparing to shoot Americans."That assessment, unfortunately, remains true today. Beijing is configuring its forces — especially its navy — to fight ours. For instance, China has deployed along its southern coast its DF-21D, a two-stage solid-fuel missile that can be guided by satellite signals. The missile is dubbed the "carrier killer" because it can be configured to explode in midair, raining down sharp metal on a deck crowded with planes, ordinance, fuel and sailors. Its apparent intent is to drive U.S. forces out of East Asia.A pattern of aggressive Chinese tactics also points in that direction. Especially troubling is the harassment in international waters of unarmed U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessels for more than a decade, most notably the blocking of the Impeccable in the South China Sea in 2009. And there was the 2001 downing of a Navy EP-3 and the surfacing of a Song-class attack submarine in the middle of the Kitty Hawk strike group near Okinawa in 2006.

Since then, we have been hearing bold war talk in the Chinese capital, from new leader Xi Jinping to senior officers and colonels who say they relish combat — a "hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.," as one of them put it in 2010.Why do China's officers want to go to war? There is an unfortunate confluence of factors. First, there is a new Chinese confidence bordering on arrogance. Beijing leaders, especially since 2008, have been riding high. They saw economic turmoil around the world and thought the century was theirs to dominate. The U.S. and the rest of the West, they believed, were in terminal decline.The Chinese military also has gained substantial influence in the last year, perhaps becoming the most powerful faction in the Communist Party. Beginning as early as 2003, senior officers of the People's Liberation Army were drawn into civilian power struggles as Hu Jintao, then the new leader, sought their support in his effort to shove aside Jiang Zemin, his wily predecessor who sought to linger in the limelight. Last year, the civilian infighting intensified as the so-called Fifth Generation leadership, under the command of Xi, took over from Hu's Fourth. Like a decade ago, feuding civilians sought the support of the generals and admirals, making them arbiters in the party's increasingly rough game of politics.The result of discord among civilian leaders has been a partial remilitarization of politics and policy. Senior officers are now acting independently of civilian officials, are openly criticizing them and are making pronouncements in areas once considered the exclusive province of diplomats.
The remilitarization has had consequences. As Huang Jing of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said: "China's military spending is growing so fast that it has overtaken strategy. The young officers are taking control of strategy, and it is like young officers in Japan in the 1930s. They are thinking what they can do, not what they should do."What do China's admirals want? They are supporting their nation's territorial ambitions to close off the South China Sea to others. This brings them into conflict with nations surrounding that critical body of water and pits them against the U.S. If there has been any consistent U.S. foreign policy over the course of two centuries, it has been the defense of freedom of navigation.
According to a white paper it issued in April, China is building a navy capable of operating in the ocean's deep water, and has 235,000 officers and sailors. Its navy last year commissioned its first aircraft carrier, and it is reportedly building two more. China has about a dozen fewer submarines than the U.S., but the U.S. has global responsibilities. The Chinese, therefore, can concentrate their boats in waters close to their shores, giving them tactical and operating advantages.While the Chinese plan to dominate their waters and eventually ours, we are helping them increase their effectiveness with invitations to RIMPAC and other exercises and by including them in joint operations like the one directed against Somali piracy. The U.S. Navy at the same time is continuing to reduce its fleet, currently at 283 deployable ships. As Beijing's behavior has become more troubling, the Pentagon has clung to the hope that military-to-military relations will somehow relieve tensions with the Chinese.Yet as Ronald Reagan taught us, the nature of regimes matter. We are now helping an incurably aggressive state develop its military — to our peril. There is something very wrong at the core of the Obama administration's and the Pentagon's China policies.

[Cosmo_R]

Thanks, ramana

Lots of Indian telecom Equipments are of Chinese Origin, Only God Knows the extent of Chinese capability in hack into indian Companies, Sarkar and military.

God, the Chinese and the Chindu

[Prem]

Battle Lines Drawn in Asia’s Game of Thrones
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... f-thrones/

The battle lines between friends and rivals are coming into sharper focus in Asia’s Game of Thrones.Chinese Premier Li Kequiang traveled straight to Pakistan following his trip to India. There, Li deftly avoided touching on sensitive subjects; in Pakistan, he praised the military, promised to strengthen the two countries’ economic links, and gushed that “the China-Pakistan friendship has stood the test of hardship and is more precious than gold.” Pakistan is China’s ”iron brother” and an “all-weather friend,” Chinese state media said after the visit.Officials in Delhi didn’t wait long to let Beijing know that they felt scorned. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived this week in Japan, China’s arch rival, and immediately emphasized how closely India and Japan’s interests align. The two countries, he said, have: “a shared commitment to the ideals of democracy, peace and freedom”; “shared interests in maritime security”; “similar challenges to our energy securities”; and “strong synergies between our economies.” Japan is a “natural and indispensable partner in [India's] quest for stability and peace in this vast region,” Singh also said yesterday. Today he met Shinzo Abe and vowed that the two countries would speed up progress on a partnership on civilian nuclear power. Chinese state media responded by calling Japanese politicians “petty burglars” and urging Delhi to avoid allowing “international provocateurs” to sully its relationship with Beijing.The intrigue deepened further today when Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa arrived in China on a four-day visit. He met Xi Jinping and the two leaders vowed to cooperate in “law enforcement, security and defense” in the Indian Ocean, Delhi’s backyard.This is what makes this geopolitical competition so interesting: there aren’t just one or two all-powerful nations vying for supremacy. Numerous centers of power from Tokyo to Islamabad to Canberra to Washington have a stake in this game.

[kmkraoind]

Is China 'reciprocating' US maritime surveillance?

Thus it was striking to hear a Chinese military officer reveal in an open discussion at this conference today that China had 'thought of reciprocating' by 'sending ships and planes to the US EEZ', and had in fact done so 'a few times', although not a daily basis (unlike the US presence off China).

This was news to me. It turns out, from discussions with several maritime security experts in the margins of the conference, that rumours have been circulating for some time of China sending ships on missions to waters off US territory – not the continental US, but probably Hawaii and possibly Guam too. Still, this is the first time any of us can recall this point being made on the public record.

The Chinese think that they have become once again a middle kingdom. At least USA has kept its relations with immediate neighbors friendly, but Chinese have worst relations with every neighbor, and they started poking directly US.

If Geopolitics demand an assertive India, there are high chances that Scam-A-Day UPA will burst, and NaMo may come into power to lead India.

[SSridhar]

Is China 'reciprocating' US maritime surveillance?
If Geopolitics demand an assertive India . . . .

I like the assertiveness of China. That is how one must react, not timidly like what we have done in the last 66 years including during the rules of non-Congress governments.

[Prem]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -lady.html
Michelle Obama 'snubs' China's first lady

Communist Party bosses had seen the June 7-8 Sunnylands summit as a golden opportunity to deploy Peng Liyuan’s much-vaunted charms on the world stage in a bid to spin a more favourable image of China’s leaders.But on Tuesday Mrs Obama’s office told the New York Times the first lady would remain in Washington with her daughters who are coming to the end of their academic year.Mrs Obama’s absence is likely to limit her Chinese counterpart’s role at the two-day California meeting, which begins on Friday, and may be interpreted as a snub, analysts said.Zhang Ming, a political scientist from China’s Renmin University, predicted Mrs Obama’s absence would “not go down very well” in Beijing.“First lady diplomacy is also very important and the US side has failed to cooperate,” he said. “According to normal diplomatic etiquette this is very strange. It shouldn’t be like this.”

[Prem]

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/ ... rtsleeves/
Superpowers in Shirtsleeves

Yesterday, Hu Jintao’s successor Xi Jinping arrived in California for a “shirtsleeve summit.” His visit underscores how much China’s global influence has grown over the years since Kissinger’s visit. It’s a “meeting of equals,” reports USA Today. The state-run Global Times called it a “milestone” that offers a “glimpse of what China’s future might look like when it catches up with the U.S.” Xi arrives in California after several days in the Caribbean and Central America, where he struck trade and energy deals and deepened China’s growing relationship to countries in America’s backyard. In 2012 China overtook the US to become the world’s largest trading nation as measured by total exports and imports.The Sunnylands estate where Xi Jinping will meet President Obama is “opulent, even palatial,” but informal enough to encourage frank talk on all kinds of issues: trade, cyber security, North Korea, and territorial disputes, to name a few. Back in China, people are watching closely; people are largely “warm and optimistic” about the summit, a professor at Beijing’s Center for Foreign Strategy Studies told Time. But many perceived the absence of the Michelle Obama as an insult, “an affirmation of deeply held suspicions that Washington does not respect China,” the Washington Post reports.
Indeed, since 2010, Chinese opinion toward the US has become less favorable. According to a poll by Pew, 58 percent held a favorable view of Americans in 2010 but just 40 percent do this year. American attitudes toward China have similarly slipped. Some hope the shirtsleeve summit will improve these numbers. As a senior US administration official told CBS News, Xi and Obama will try to “forge a working relationship that we will be relying on very much in the years to come.” And as Henry Kissinger himself said to the BBC: “I have the impression that both sides are willing to re-examine their premises, and to see whether they can achieve a relationship based on some perspective that goes beyond the moment – in other words that goes beyond solving immediate problems.” The US-China relationship is the 21st century’s most important bilateral relationship; we need them to get this right.

[Prem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/world ... ted=2&_r=0
U .S. and China Move Closer on Climate, but Not on Cyberespionage

Mr. Obama warned that if the hacking continued, Mr. Donilon said, it “was going to be a very difficult problem in the economic relationship.” In remarks during a joint appearance on Friday night, Mr. Obama at least publicly softened his language and spread the blame for the hacking and theft of business, financial and military information. “Those are not issues that are unique to the U.S.-China relationship,” the president said. “Those are issues that are of international concern. Oftentimes it’s nonstate actors who are engaging in these issues as well.”
Secretary of State John Kerry, who attended the meetings, has previously announced that the two countries would discuss the matter as part of the annual meetings known as the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, to be held in Washington in July. Mr. Yang said that the two discussed a host of contentious issues and “did not shy away from differences.” Mr. Xi called on the United States to end its arms sales to Taiwan, he said, and reasserted its territorial claims, while pledging to resolve them peacefully. Mr. Yang also defended China’s control of its currency and said it was not the core trade issue between them. Broadly, though, both leaders urged cooperation, not conflict. Mr. Obama called for joint efforts to address climate change, including through sharing clean-energy technologies, and to establish better military communications so “that we each understand our strategic objectives at the military as well as the political levels.”
Mr. Xi agreed. “China and the United States must find a new path,” he said, “one that is different from the inevitable confrontation and conflict between the major countries of the past.” The Chinese president, who as a young man lived for a time with a family in Iowa and visited again during a trip to the United States last year as vice president, said he and Mr. Obama would keep “close communication” through letters, phone calls, bilateral meetings and visits, adding, “I invited President Obama to come to China at an appropriate time for a similar meeting like this.” “Both sides have the political will to build this relationship,” Mr. Xi said.

[ramana]

China is a 'phenomenon', must study its rise, PM tells young IFS officers

FPPM met 33 IFS probationers of the 2011 batch

The rise of China is a "phenomenon", and budding Indian diplomats must study its chronology, and what goes on in that country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is learnt to have told a group of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) probationers.

Singh also told the 33 young IFS officers of the 2011 batch they should realise that although the US was a "declining power", it would "still remain a superpower", several sources present at the interaction on Wednesday told The Indian Express.

Singh, who is believed to have spoken with a lot of candour, stressed on the importance of relationships in the country's neighbourhood.

"While we should work for maintaining peace in the region, we should also be ready for the emergencies that may arise because of the presence of not-so-friendly neighbours," he told the probationers at his Race Course Road residence.

He said global power was shifting eastwards, and "it is upon us to ensure that we do not miss the bus".

The PM congratulated the group — which included 11 women — on their success in a very difficult examination, but underlined that their "education does not end with clearing the UPSC examination", and that the probationers "must continue to learn".

He told them that IFS officers were the carriers of India's message to the world, and they must, therefore, keep themselves updated on developments in the country. Singh added that India's foreign policy was not divorced from its domestic policies, and the probationers must constantly think about how to eradicate the challenges of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment facing the country.

Sources said the PM repeated the famous quote by Victor Hugo that he had used as finance minister in the pathbreaking budget speech of 1991 — "No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come" — and asked the young officers to project the image of an India that wants to work with the globalised world.

India, Singh said, needed its economy to grow fast, and should aim at a GDP growth rate of 10-12 per cent in the coming years. The nation's energy security was a prerequisite for that, he added, and asked the diplomats to work towards that goal.

The PM stressed the need for maintaining good relationships with Russia, Britain and Japan among others, and asked the probationers to understand the importance of engagement with Africa, where economic diplomacy was important.

The interaction was attended by senior officials including National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, Principal Secretary to the PM Pulok Chatterjee, and Dean of the Foreign Service Institute Nengcha Lhouvum.

President Pranab Mukherjee too met the officers. "India's foreign policy must constantly adapt to the changing world. The world recognises the fact that the bulk of global growth is coming from emerging economies, especially China and India, and India has an important place today in all major international fora like G-20," Mukherjee said.

[devesh]

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/ ... 05216.html

Philippines vs. China Moves to the UN

"What belongs to us belongs to us," Benigno S. Aquino III, President of the Philippines, said in a speech marking the 115th anniversary of the country's navy. In January of this year the Philippines, rather boldly, and all alone, took China to an international tribunal over its nine-dash line on a map marking vast areas of the South China Sea over which China claims sovereignty. The broken line blithely includes islands that lie within 270 kilometres of the Philippines coast and which the Philippines claims is theirs under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

All five judges to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) have now been appointed. The case doesn't need China's agreement to proceed. China was offered the right to appoint an arbitrator but waived it.

The Chinese nine-dash map includes areas that have been claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam. Taiwan's claims echo those of China. No other country has joined the Philippines and Japan, which has a different territorial dispute with China, has also stayed to one side.

As a territorial claim, the nine-dash map is a bit of an oddity. The dashes haven't been joined, the area is vast and no coordinates are specified. The map came into existence in 1947 and China claims historical sovereignty over the whole region. To say that it doesn't meet standard map drafting requirements is an understatement. Nevertheless, China filed it with the United Nations some time before the case the Philippines laid before the tribunal.

China acknowledges that there are disputes with the other claimants but wants to see them settled by bilateral talks with the country concerned. It opposes internationalisation of the issues. By taking the case to international jurisdiction, the Philippines is almost certainly saying that it has given up any hope of progress through direct talks with China.

China regularly sends military patrol ships to waters claimed by the Philippines, which in turn makes formal protests. The Philippines coast guard recently shot and killed a Taiwanese fisherman, bringing forth stern reprimands from both Taiwan and China.

President Aquino's comment was accompanied by a promise of more support for the navy. China has protested about the Philippines putting more structures on Ayungin Shoal. The Philippines responded that China couldn't tell the Philippines what it should do with its own territory.

China and ASEAN have agreed to establish a Code of Conduct in the East Sea. Some hope-though not much-rests in that. The islands have been subject to competing claims for many years. The difference now is that China has become more assertive about its claims.

Australian and NZ interests are palpable. Any major conflict in the South China Sea would undoubtedly affect both countries badly. Moreover, UNCLOS has served Australia and NZ well and any deliberate questioning, flouting or undermining of its principles would create considerable uncertainty. Among other things, UNCLOS allows both countries to manage and police their fishing resources.

The Philippines' move is a sensible one, and its outcome will be watched keenly by other Southeast Asian countries, by ASEAN itself, by Japan and by the United States. But it's also something of a long shot. First, if ITLOS happens to rule that China can't make such a huge claim, the chances are that China will simply ignore it. There's a precedent over the mining of the Nicaragua Harbour by the United States in 1986 when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the US had violated Nicaragua's rights. President Reagan simply ignored the ruling.

The US participated in the UNCLOS negotiations but hasn't ratified the treaty. The US Navy traditionally favours ratification but there are strong opponents to ratification elsewhere within the American polity. Because of its ambivalence, the US is unlikely to press China to accept to accept any UN ruling.

Although China and the Philippines have both ratified UNCLOS, which gives it a little more weight, the second reason for doubt is that at the time of ratification, China put in its own reservations, quoting from a 1992 domestic law:

The PRC's territorial Sea refers to the waters adjacent to its territorial land. The PRC's territorial land includes the mainland and its offshore islands, Taiwan and the various affiliated islands including Diaoyu Island, Penghu Islands, Dongsha Islands, Xisha Islands, Nansha (Spratly) Islands and other islands that belong to the People's Republic of China.

Most of these islands cited, especially the Spratlys and the Paracels (Xisha) have are the subject of claims by various countries. Diaoyu is what the Japanese call Senkaku.

That Chinese law seems unequivocal and the willingness of China to undo domestic law to accommodate an international tribunal's ruling, to say the least, is not a sure thing.

Thirdly, there's a question over whether the issue really falls within the jurisdiction of ITLOS. After all the tribunal might interpret the question before it as one of disputed territorial claims on which it wouldn't rule. If there is no ruling by ITLOS then the dilemmas over the value and integrity of UNCLOS might disappear. But the issues of what rocks and islands belong to which country will remain.

[abhishek_sharma]

Beijing's Brand Ambassador: A Conversation With Cui Tiankai

[Agnimitra]

X-post from Africa thread:

Someone has this blog:

China in Africa - The Real Story

So far, President Obama's visit to Africa has produced no comments as sensational as the "new colonialist" remarks directed at China by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she visited Senegal and Zambia in previous years.

Yet during a town hall with young African leaders, the President invoked a similar sentiment in his remark that "I want to make sure that as countries come to Africa, that it’s benefiting Africans. ... If there’s going to be manufacturing taking place of raw materials, locate some of those plants here in Africa."

Well ... I wish whoever prepped him for this trip had at least tried to get an accurate picture. Two chapters of my book cover China's many manufacturing investments across Africa. I've since followed up with fieldwork on Chinese factories in the (raw material) leather processing sector in Ethiopia and several articles about the special economic zones -- focused on manufacturing -- being built by Chinese companies in Africa.

A recent guest post by SAIS student Yuan Li on this blog provides another example. In South Africa, the country where President Obama made this comment, the China Africa Development Fund has seven projects: two are in mining, and five are in manufacturing.

The Chinese state that as of the end of 2011, 15.6% of their Africa investment is in manufacturing and 30.6% in mining, with finance (purchase of 20% of Standard Bank) at 19.5% and construction at 16.4%.* From what I can see, there is far more manufacturing investment from China than from the United States. This includes raw materials processing: oil refineries in Chad and Niger, copper smelters in Zambia. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US total stock of investment in Africa as of end-2011 was $56.6 billion. Mining made up $33.3 billion (59%) and manufacturing only $3.6 billion (six percent).

Yes, despite concerns about costs and competitiveness, manufacturing is going to be vital for Africa's future employmet generation. So, President Obama: what is the US going to do to catch up to China here?

[ramana]

Interesting tangle between US,China and India. Russia is the hidden player.

[habal]

there is just US and China in that tangle. India is a me too. Russia is not in picture at all.

[ramana]

Think it over. Will try tomorrow.

[ramana]

Interesting tangle between US,China and India. Russia is the hidden player.

The Indian response to the balance of payments crisis of 1990s and collapse of FSU was to liberalize and change the economy from commmanding heights Soviet model to free-market.
And keep controls on some segments to prevent unfettered access to foreign capital.

US immediately started propping TSP and PRC.
- TSP was kept on life support, (Taliban allowed to grow,) despite acquiring nuke weapons including testing in PRC site.
- PRC was given market access, mfg technology and brought into WTO as a developing nation.
This phase lasted from 1991-1997.

PRC used this support to emerge and develop its own status.

It managed the transfer of NoKo NoDongs to TSP to give delivery vehicles to the already transferred nukes.
It used the decade after 9/11 to finance the US deficit and made inroads into Latin America and Africa.

A faction in PRC wants to achieve domination soon after the 2008 financial collapse. We can see that in the recent leadership change.
- The border incidents are a sign of the new thinking of assertiveness in PRC.

Now US wants to enlist India in a sublatern role.

- They are offering weaponry and wherewithal to oppose PRC.

India doesn't want to be anyone's Gungadin.

- So they are delaying the weapons purchases and opening up the economy to prop up the advanced economies.
- Same time they have started taking delivery of Russian weaponry
- The RBI reduced the support to the rupee making imports expensive amongst other things.
- And India announced joint exercises with PRC! And wonder by thunder PRC also wants to be part of them!

Essentially India is buying time.

Time for what?

I really dont know. Maybe its for a few more years are needed to increase the Pakiness in the West?

[ramana]

X-post for completeness....

More than jihadism or Iran, China's role in Africa is Obama's obsession
Where America brings drones, the Chinese build roads. Al-Shabaab and co march in lockstep with this new imperialism

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -obsession

Countries are "pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world", wrote Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, in 1898. Nothing has changed.

John Pilger
The Guardian, Wednesday 9 October 2013
Hu Jintao, who stepped down as Chinese president last year, in Tanzania on a tour intended to cement China's ties with Africa. Photograph: STR New / Reuters/REUTERS

Countries are "pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world", wrote Lord Curzon, the viceroy of India, in 1898. Nothing has changed. The shopping mall massacre in Nairobi was a bloody facade behind which a full-scale invasion of Africa and a war in Asia are the great game.

The al-Shabaab shopping mall killers came from Somalia. If any country is an imperial metaphor, it is Somalia. Sharing a language and religion, Somalis have been divided between the British, French, Italians and Ethiopians. Tens of thousands of people have been handed from one power to another. "When they are made to hate each other," wrote a British colonial official, "good governance is assured."

Today Somalia is a theme park of brutal, artificial divisions, long impoverished by World Bank and IMF "structural adjustment" programmes, and saturated with modern weapons – notably President Obama's personal favourite, the drone. The one stable Somali government, the Islamic Courts, was "well received by the people in the areas it controlled", reported the US Congressional Research Service, "[but] received negative press coverage, especially in the west". Obama crushed it; and last January Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, presented her man to the world. "Somalia will remain grateful to the unwavering support from the United States government," effused President Hassan Mohamud. "Thank you, America."

The shopping mall atrocity was a response to this – just as the Twin Towers attack and the London bombings were explicit reactions to invasion and injustice. Once of little consequence, jihadism now marches in lockstep with the return of unfettered imperialism.

Since Nato reduced modern Libya to a Hobbesian state in 2011, the last obstacles to Africa have fallen. "Scrambles for energy, minerals and fertile land are likely to occur with increasingly intensity," report Ministry of Defence planners. As "high numbers of civilian casualties" are predicted, "perceptions of moral legitimacy will be important for success". Sensitive to the PR problem of invading a continent, the arms mammoth BAE Systems, together with Barclays Capital and BP, warns that "the government should define its international mission as managing risks on behalf of British citizens". The cynicism is lethal. British governments are repeatedly warned, not least by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, that foreign adventures beckon retaliation at home.

With minimal media interest, the US African Command (Africom) has deployed troops to 35 African countries, establishing a familiar network of authoritarian supplicants eager for bribes and armaments. In war games a "soldier to soldier" doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. The British did this in India. It is as if Africa's proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master's black colonial elite – whose "historic mission", warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the subjugation of their own people in the cause of "a capitalism rampant though camouflaged". The reference also fits the son of Africa in the White House.

For Obama, there is a more pressing cause – China. Africa is China's success story. Where the Americans bring drones, the Chinese build roads, bridges and dams. What the Chinese want is resources, especially fossil fuels. Nato's bombing of Libya drove out 30,000 Chinese oil industry workers. More than jihadism or Iran, China is Washington's obsession in Africa and beyond. This is a "policy" known as the "pivot to Asia", whose threat of world war may be as great as any in the modern era.

This week's meeting in Tokyo between John Kerry, the US secretary of state, Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary, and their Japanese counterparts accelerated the prospect of war. Sixty per cent of US naval forces are to be based in Asia by 2020, aimed at China. Japan is re-arming rapidly under the rightwing government of Shinzo Abe, who came to power in December with a pledge to build a "new, strong military" and circumvent the "peace constitution".

A US-Japanese anti-ballistic-missile system near Kyoto is directed at China. Using long-range Global Hawk drones the US has sharply increased its provocations in the East China and South China seas, where Japan and China dispute the ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands. Both countries now deploy advanced vertical take-off aircraft in Japan in preparation for a blitzkrieg.

On the Pacific island of Guam, from where B-52s attacked Vietnam, the biggest military buildup since the Indochina wars includes 9,000 US marines. In Australia this week an arms fair and military jamboree that diverted much of Sydney is in keeping with a government propaganda campaign to justify an unprecedented US military build-up from Perth to Darwin, aimed at China. The vast US base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs is, as Edward Snowden disclosed, a hub of US spying in the region and beyond; it is also critical to Obama's worldwide assassinations by drone.

'We have to inform the British to keep them on side," McGeorge Bundy, an assistant US secretary of state, once said. "You in Australia are with us, come what may." Australian forces have long played a mercenary role for Washington. However, China is Australia's biggest trading partner and largely responsible for its evasion of the 2008 recession. Without China, there would be no minerals boom: no weekly mining return of up to a billion dollars.

The dangers this presents are rarely debated publicly in Australia, where Rupert Murdoch, the patron of the prime minister, Tony Abbott, controls 70% of the press. Occasionally, anxiety is expressed over the "choice" that the US wants Australia to make. A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute warns that any US plan to strike at China would involve "blinding" Chinese surveillance, intelligence and command systems. This would "consequently increase the chances of Chinese nuclear pre-emption … and a series of miscalculations on both sides if Beijing perceives conventional attacks on its homeland as an attempt to disarm its nuclear capability". In his address to the nation last month, Obama said: "What makes America different, what makes us exceptional, is that we are dedicated to act."

[V_Raman]

Essentially India is buying time.

Time for what?

I really dont know. Maybe its for a few more years are needed to increase the Pakiness in the West?

To make west pay for their pakiness maybe?

In the end, China is our neighbor. We have to come to an understanding with her and west is the common enemy for both of us.

[Christopher Sidor]

^^^
That is a misreading of the current situation. China has become our neighbour. This state of affairs has to be reversed. ASAP.

[Agnimitra]

The birth of the 'de-Americanized' world

This is it. China has had enough. The (diplomatic) gloves are off. It's time to build a "de-Americanized" world. It's time for a "new international reserve currency" to replace the US dollar.

It's all here, in a Xinhua editorial, straight from the dragon's mouth. And the year is only 2013. Fasten your seat belts - and that applies especially to the Washington elites. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Long gone are the Deng Xiaoping days of "keeping a low profile". The Xinhua editorial summarizes the straw that broke the dragon's back - the current US shutdown. After the Wall Street-provoked financial crisis, after the war on Iraq, a "befuddled world", and not only China, wants change.

This paragraph couldn't be more graphic:
"Instead of honoring its duties as a responsible leading power, a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies."

The solution, for Beijing, is to "de-Americanize" the current geopolitical equation - starting with more say in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for emerging economies and the developing world, leading to a "new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant US dollar".

Note that Beijing is not advocating completely smashing the Bretton Woods system - at least for now, but it is for having more deciding power. Sounds reasonable, considering that China holds slightly more weight inside the IMF than Italy. IMF "reform" - sort of - has been going on since 2010, but Washington, unsurprisingly, has vetoed anything substantial.

As for the move away from the US dollar, it's also already on, in varying degrees of speed, especially concerning trade amongst the BRICS group of emerging powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which is now overwhelmingly in their respective currencies. The US dollar is slowly but surely being replaced by a basket of currencies.

[Cosmo_R]

In the end, China is our neighbor. We have to come to an understanding with her and west is the common enemy for both of us.

West is an enemy? Seriously? The West is not stapling visas, claiming large swathes of India as lower Tibet. Shades of JLN and his genuflection towards the middle kingdom allowing the enslavement of millions of Tibetans.

We are are also their neighbor. They have to come to an understanding with us. Neighbors who tunnel under us are proximate enemies not someone you have over for tea.

The Han eat everything they can catch.

[Agnimitra]

^^^ And another related article, also from ATimes:

Old game, new enemy: China

Countries are "pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world," wrote Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, in 1898. Nothing has changed. The shopping mall massacre in Nairobi was a bloody facade behind which a full-scale invasion of Africa and a war in Asia are the great game.

The al-Shabaab shopping mall killers came from Somalia. If any country is an imperial metaphor, it is Somalia. Sharing a common language and religion, Somalis have been divided between the British, French, Italians and Ethiopians. Tens of thousands of people have been handed from one power to another. "When they are made to hate each other," wrote a British colonial official, "good governance is assured."

Today, Somalia is a theme park of brutal, artificial divisions, long impoverished by World Bank and IMF "structural adjustment" programs, and saturated with modern weapons, notably President Obama's personal favorite, the drone. The one stable Somali government, the Islamic Courts, was "well received by the people in the areas it controlled," reported the US Congressional Research Service, "[but] received negative press coverage, especially in the West." Obama crushed it; and in January, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, presented her man to the world. "Somalia will remain grateful to the unwavering support from the United States government," effused President Hassan Mohamud, "thank you, America."

The shopping mall atrocity was a response to this - just as the attack on the Twin Towers and the London bombings were explicit reactions to invasion and injustice. Once of little consequence, jihadism now marches in lockstep with the return of unfettered imperialism.

With minimal media interest, the US African Command (AFRICOM) has deployed troops to 35 African countries, establishing a familiar network of authoritarian supplicants eager for bribes and armaments. In war games, a "soldier to soldier" doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. The British did the same in India. It is as if Africa's proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master's black colonial elite whose "historic mission", warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the subjugation of their own people in the cause of "a capitalism rampant though camouflaged". The reference also fits the Son of Africa in the White House.

For Obama, there is a more pressing cause - China. Africa is China's success story. Where the Americans bring drones, the Chinese build roads, bridges and dams. What the Chinese want is resources, especially fossil fuels. NATO's bombing of Libya drove out 30,000 Chinese oil industry workers. More than jihadism or Iran, China is now Washington's obsession in Africa and beyond. This is a "policy" known as the "pivot to Asia", whose threat of world war may be as great as any in the modern era.

[Agnimitra]

Maybe this is why Zaid Hamid dreams that the decisions of the world will be taken in Pakistan a few years from now:

Global Times (Chicom tabloid): Sino-Pak ties a testing ground for new global order

Middle Kingdom Bhadrakumar's commentary on this: China eyes Pakistan as regional partner

The thrust of the piece is on reorienting China-Pakistan strategic cooperation to cope with the changes in the global order characterized by the decline of the West and the surge of China, and China’s search for a new type of relationship with the US.

The GT piece makes the case for a new globalization system in which China and Pakistan will actively engage in “South-South cooperation” and strive to “unify” (rally) other countries that are today passive participants in the US-led international system. It argues that China-Pakistan cooperation, which was based on “balanced diplomacy” historically, should assume a broader sweep whereby both “should view the troubles of the other as their own problems.” While the core of the partnership should be economic cooperation, its “essential foundations” involve “mutual trust in politics and security and practical defense cooperation.”

The commentary has appeared just before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China and, equally, against the backdrop of the upswing in the US-Indian defence ties after his recent visit to Washington. To be sure, Beijing takes note that India is steadily being drawn into the US’ rebalancing strategy in Asia, which of course it sees as paramountly directed at containing China.

China feels the pressure from the US’s “pivot” to Asia and would look for ways to counter it by intensifying ties with friendly countries such as Pakistan. The Chinese-Russian “coordination”, for example, is assuming an orientation directed at the US’ strategies. East Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East are mentioned as the theatres where China would pursue such “South-South cooperation” strategy — with Africa and Latin America slated for the medium term.

Clearly, from what it appears, there is no scope for the US and China to cooperate in “moderating” the Pakistani policies, as American pundits fancy. The commentary promises Beijing’s support for Pakistan in its efforts to deal with “interference” from the US. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif is due to visit the US later this month.

[Cosmo_R]

These words from a Lord Macartney: "The empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate man of war, which a fortunate succession of vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these 150 years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance.

"But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore - but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom."

This is how the Empire contemplated its would be prey and why China eventually fell

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24517648

MMS can now be seen in perspective

On a minor note, in the Beeb piece, can you see the over sized chairs to make Osborne and Johnson look small on TV?

[Prem]

http://www.cfr.org/pakistan/impact-grow ... dia/p31626

What is the impact of growing Pakistan-China relations on the United States and India?Question submitted by Shreedhar K. Powar, from Shivaji University, October 15, 2013

Relations between China and Pakistan are indeed growing, but must be considered in a wider context to understand their potential implications for the United States and India.Close Sino-Pakistani relations are nothing new. Especially with respect to military and nuclear ties, Beijing and Islamabad have have been friendly since the 1960s. In recent years, bilateral trade and investment have increased. Looking to the future, China's expanding influence in Central Asia and its interest in overland access to the Arabian Sea could motivate even stronger links with Pakistan.
From that starting point, add the following: Pakistan's deeply rooted hostility toward India, Washington's post-Cold War courtship of New Delhi, and the potential for a future global order characterized by competition between the United States and China.If these were the only pieces of the regional puzzle, it would be reasonable to expect a competitive two-bloc formation to take shape in South Asia: China and Pakistan versus India and the United States. But the puzzle is actually much more complicated. Four trends cut "cross-bloc."First, China-India trade is now larger than both trade between China and Pakistan and trade between India and the United States. Whereas during the late Cold War China had good reasons to unite with Pakistan in undermining India, today Beijing profits from regional stability and normal working relations with New Delhi.Second, India is not entirely sure that it wants to place all its eggs in the U.S. basket; longstanding nonaligned tendencies die hard, and "strategic autonomy" is more popular in Delhi than is playing for Washington's team.Third, Pakistan's future is a real wildcard. In a worst case scenario, internal violence and instability would even scare off its Chinese ally. In a best case, Islamabad would act to realize its own economic interests through normalized relations with India.Finally, if future U.S.-China relations are cooperative more than conflict-prone, then Chinese involvement in Pakistan offers little to fear; it may even promote stabilizing economic development that would serve everyone's purposes.

[Prem]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldkirk/ ... -pakistan/

In Asia's New 'Great Game,' China And India Talk Nice Despite Pakistan6 comments, 0 called-out Comment Now Follow Comments Following Comments Unfollow Comments .For a brief time in the 1950s, the catch phrase for relations between the world’s two most populated countries was “Hindi-Chini bhaibhai” — Indians and Chinese are brothers. Nobody’s suggesting the two are about to resume fraternal ties, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a visit to Beijing has gone further than seemed possible a few months ago toward resolving the worst problems between Asia’s two giants.Just when the Chinese appeared sure to go on harassing Indian troops along the cease-fire lines established more than half a century ago after the bloody Sino-Indian war, Singh and China’s President Xi Jinping have agreed on a raft of measures for soldiers on either side to get along with each other.

No more will Chinese forces shadow the Indians when they go on patrol on their side of the line. In case of a sudden misunderstanding, officers on either side can communicate on a hotline — maybe more than one, maybe hotlines at sensitive points along the line at India’s northern tip and also across the line in the northeast. Considering that the Chinese have been known to refer to swatches of the northeast as “lower Tibet,” that’s a meaningful advance. And the forces on either side are even supposed to let each other known in advance when they’re about to play war games that might otherwise be misinterpreted as the real thing.The happy talk from Beijing, though, comes with a huge downside that flared up yet again just as Singh and Xi were shaking hands. That’s China’s support of Pakistan, by far the largest recipient of Chinese arms as well as nuclear technology and even components for nuclear warheads.Confident the Chinese won’t stop them, Pakistani forces persist in launching bloody cross-border attacks against India, sniping and sometimes firing artillery rounds , across the LOC, “the line of control.” That’s the ceasefire line in Kashmir, not to be confused with the LAC — the “line of actual control” between Indian and China.Just hours before Singh and Xi signed a “Border Defense Cooperation Agreement,” the Pakistanis opened fire from their side of the line on upwards of 50 Indian positions., killing at least one Indian soldier and wounding several others. No, China isn’t condoning the Pakistani attacks, but the fact is that Pakistan relies primarily on China as the source of its arms. India gets no arms at all from China but imports planes and other heavy weaponry from Russia, where Singh paid a call on President Putin before going on to Beijing.It’s hard to know what to make of the Pakistani attacks since Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, keeps trying to soothe tensions, as if the attacks were almost accidental. Visiting Washington, before seeing President Obama, he even asked if the U.S. could intervene diplomatically, maybe help negotiate a solution. That might have seemed like a great chance for the U.S. to hold sway over both sides in the role of honest broker, but the U.S., worried about its relations with both India and Pakistan, has said it’s up to those two to settle their own dispute.Obviously whatever the U.S. does will upset one side or the other while China seems to hold all the cards — providing arms and nuclear know-how to Pakistan while placating India in in their longstanding confrontation across the northern borders.the issue of Chinese military support for Pakistan does not seem to have merited more than maybe a passing mention while Singh was in Beijing. Instead, the Indians appear overjoyed by Singh’s diplomatic success.Not that negative considerations were far away.”China’s provision of nuclear and missile technology to Pakistan can only be interpreted as an act of hostility toward India,” said the Hindustan Times. Still, it was possible to sublimate such concerns. “India and China may never be friends,” the paper editorialized , “but they need not be enemies

[ramana]

And note the week this was signed? The anniversary of the 1962 debacle!!!