Bharat Rakshak

Perception of Beauty


Only white is beautiful
In China light skin is beautiful and brown skin is avoided like the plague. Chinese women use skin whitening beauty products and avoid the sun while western women use tanning products and embrace the sun. Travelling around China you will often see Chinese women out and about with an umbrella to protect their delicate white skin from the ravages of the sun.

In ancient times white skin was a sign of wealth and status and brown skin was a sign of poverty and labelled you as a low class labourer or farm hand. Hundreds of years later this belief still dominates perceptions of beauty.

Queuing


Queuing is for suckers
Queuing is for the weak and pushing and shoving are the norm. This sounds very harsh but you will see the reality of it when you go to banks, train stations, shop counters and most other places where people would normally queue in the west. Chinese are slowly improving and you can see nice orderly queues at many bus stops but the general rule in many places is that if you want service, you will have to join the pack and fight for it.

Noise and restaurants


The louder the better
Chinese people love to talk loudly and constantly while they eat and meals in a Chinese restaurant are very noisy and boisterous affairs. Restaurants should be noisy and the noisier it is, the better it is. If you like don’t mind the noise, share meals with the Chinese you meat during your travels and you’ll have a great time. If you prefer a quiet peaceful romantic candlelit dinner while you travel in China, order room service.

...
China: In the past week, Chinese blogs have spread rumors of anti-government action by the supporters of Bo Xilai, the former party secretary for Chongqing who is almost openly a Maoist, instead of a communist-capitalist. Bloomberg reported a jump in credit default swaps (CDS) owing to the coup rumors.


Comment: The rumors arose from unconfirmed reports of gunfire in Beijing since last Thursday. Private citizens may not possess guns in China. Thus bloggers and analysts have strained to provide an explanation for the reported gunfire exchanges, which might not have happened.


What is known is that Bo Xilai has not been seen in public since his summary ouster last Thursday, which is not unusual. Additionally, a large number of Chinese internet users apparently judge reports of gunfire between powerful political factions to be plausible, which is surprising considering Chinese gun controls.


An analysis of the phenomenology of coups d'etat indicates there has been no coup and that it is extremely difficult to overthrow a collective leadership structure by a coup d'etat. There are six essential components of a coup. If any of them are absent, there is no coup.


The six components of all coups, including Musharraf's in Pakistan in 1999; Bainimarama' s in Fiji in 2006; Colonel Vall's coup in Mauritania in 2008; the Ben Ali coup in Tunisia in January 2011 and the Tantawi coup against Mubarak in 2011, are,


• the existence of a gripe--a motive to overthrow the government;

• the formation of an insider opposition group that opposes the government in power;

• that group's access to guns;

• that group's formulation of a plan;

• its access to transportation; and,

• an opportunity-- most often the absence of the head of state from the national capital.


Applying this template to the China rumors, based on open source reporting, two, possibly three, of the six common characteristics are in evidence. These are the existence of a group with a gripe.


The group with the gripe is the followers of Bo Xilai, in Chongqing and beyond. Maoist sympathizers are likely to reside in Beijing and many other cities, but no reporting or behavior indicate they formulated a plan or developed the capability to hold hostage the nine members of the standing committee of the politburo; nor acquired enough guns to hold off a counter move by the forces loyal to the existing political order.


The coup reporting is simply not credible, if only because it is extremely difficult to capture all the members of a collective leadership and to suppress their supporters in other cities.


The fact of the rumors, however, indicates Chinese bloggers are willing to credit reports that are hostile to the leadership, until they are disproven. That signifies that Chinese persons who are knowledgeable and adept in using social media and the internet have little confidence in the stability of their political system.
...

For the night of 23 March 2012


China: Update. Additional information about the coup rumors surfaced in open source reporting today. This included internet postings of images of military vehicle movements and the replacement by Premier Wen of the Minister of Public Security, which probably would have required strong support. All public security officials nationwide reportedly were instructed to perform study sessions, the updated euphemism for re-education and re-indoctrination.

Comment: The reports of gunfire and military vehicle movements are not confirmed, but something unusual appears to have unsettled parts of Beijing between 14 and 20 March, after the removal of Bo Xilai. The most commonly cited explanation is that the Minister of Public Security, Zhou Yongkang, was connected to or supportive of Bo and was purged, but resisted, requiring paramilitary support.

Whatever the underlying facts, the descriptions in the web reports and the analyses of knowledgeable observers belie China's international image of a mature orderly state, governed by sober-minded technocrats.

The web-reports project an image of the same old gut-fighting Chinese Communist Party politicians, but a lot wealthier, better armed and somewhat younger. The leadership apparently remains as faction-ridden as in earlier times, with any one faction still as willing to use force to destroy its rivals as has been the case for the past 60 years. It is still struggling with orthodoxy and obedience issues, requiring paramilitary forces to ensure compliance to "smooth" leadership change within the Party, all under the veneer of a modern-looking government.

PRC may not face a real coup per se, but specifically a power struggle between factions. If Zhou Yongkang is removed, it would constitute the first adverse action against a PSC member since Deng moved to have Zhao Ziyang purged in the immediate aftermath of Tiananmen. Interestingly two PSC members are under a cloud now - Zhou and Jia Qinglin, who fall on opposite sides of the 'lefts' vs 'capitalists' split .

As a separate dynamic, when Jiang Zemin quit in 2002, he packed the Politburo and PSC with his backers. Hu will doubtless attempt the same in the next Politburo. Further, he needs to push for his own legacy. Unlike Jiang's 'Three Represents', he hasn't come up with any particular doctrine.

matrimc, he is quite reliable. I stopped as I didn't have the time.

Pakistani na teen main na terah main iske alawa pindi ke jernail sacche desh bhakt hein hamein unki desh (bharat) bahkti per ungli nahin uthani chahiye aur unki budhimatta per hamein puran visvas hei.Jung ke maidaan main unki buddhi aur budhi ki karamat ke kisse jag jahir hei

Can someone kindly translate Satya ji's comment:

UMANAND JAISWAL
JJ. Singh. Tarun Gogoi and Nabam Tuki

Guwahati, March 22: The Centre has decided to increase the presence of army personnel in Arunachal Pradesh, a move which could raise the hackles of neighbouring China which frequently stakes claim to the frontier state.

The Centre’s move was indicated in the budget speech of Arunachal Pradesh governor J.J. Singh in the Assembly at Naharlagun, 20km from capital Itanagar, this morning.

The former army chief’s address conveyed India’s commitment to the development and protection of a state which has remained a thorn in bilateral relations between the two nations.

Besides China, the state also shares a border with Bhutan and Myanmar.

“Our army has plans for considerable additional deployment in our state, and setting up of headquarters of new formations and units has already been initiated at several locations. Additional deployment of border-guarding forces along the international border to check cross-border movement of insurgents is also likely,” the governor said.

The announcement comes close on the heels of Union defence minister A.K. Antony’s visit to the state on February 20 to participate in its 25th Statehood Day followed by the visit of Union minister of state for home Mullapally Ramachandran on March 1.

Both discussed the internal and external security situation of the state.

Antony had asserted that a secure, non-porous international border must continue to be the topmost priority area of the Centre, acknowledging the challenges of people living in border areas of the underdeveloped state.

Mullapally had revealed the sanctioning of a special financial package of Rs 138 crore for modernisation of police forces in the insurgency-torn Tirap and Changlang districts, which also found mention in Singh’s speech.

China had objected to the visit of Antony without alluding to him.

India should refrain from taking any action that could “complicate” the border issue, Chinese foreign ministry spokesmanHong Lei reportedly said, asking India to work with China to maintain peace and stability in border areas.

Antony countered by asserting that the development as most unfortunate and objectionable.

Besides increasing army presence, Singh said raising of the first battalion of Arunachal Scouts will have a substantial multiplier effect on the strike and defence capability of the regular army units.

The ongoing renovation and re-operationalisation of eight airfields will help to give a major boost to air connectivity in the state.

why is B.Raman claiming that the Bo Xillai episode never happened and it was just an internet rumour and that all is well ?

BEIJING — As Bo Xilai, the dismissed Chongqing party chief, becomes immersed in an ever-more tangled scandal, disturbing details are emerging about one of his best-known initiatives, a crusade against organized crime on which he built a national reputation.

critics now say it depicts a security apparatus run amok: framing victims, extracting confessions through torture, extorting business empires and visiting retribution on the political rivals of Mr. Bo and his friends while protecting those with better connections.

“Even by Chinese Communist Party standards, this is unacceptable,” said Cheng Li, an analyst of the Chinese leadership at the Brookings Institution. “This is red terror.”

The campaign’s overlord was Wang Lijun, Mr. Bo’s police chief and, now, the force behind Mr. Bo’s downfall. Mr. Wang caused an international incident last month when he sought refuge in a United States consulate, apparently fearing for his safety. Details that have surfaced in the past week indicate that, in part, he feared retaliation after telling Mr. Bo that his family was linked to an inquiry into the death of a British citizen, Neil Heywood, who was an acquaintance of Mr. Bo’s family.

Examples are not hard to find. Gong Gangmo, 48, a motorbike mogul, and Fan Qihang, 40, a construction entrepreneur, were charged with a string of felonies that included ordering the murder of a man after a nightclub fight. Both claimed innocence.

In an interview videotaped before his death, Mr. Fan said he had been secretly confined in a military reserve camp for five months and shackled to an iron bar — once, for five days straight — with only his toes touching a table. His handcuffs cut so deeply into his wrists that his guards once needed an hour to remove them.

Mr. Fan said he had tried to kill himself by beating his head against the concrete wall and by biting off the tip of his tongue, injuries supported by medical records. His lawyer, Zhu Mingyong, said he had seen only a few pages of the prosecution’s voluminous file. Even so, “There were so many obvious violations of the law, you don’t even have to look for them,” he said. Mr. Fan was found guilty and executed in July, 2010.

His co-defendant, Mr. Gong, underwent similar torture, according to his lawyer, Li Zhuang, and his medical records also documented wrist scars. But any chance to exclude his confession vanished after Mr. Gong suddenly accused Li Zhuang of advising him to lie about being tortured. Li Zhuang said Mr. Gong had turned on him to spare himself from execution.

Li Zhuang was convicted of suborning perjury just 18 days after his arrest. Upon appeal, with no hope of justice, he said he wrote a confession, but began his paragraphs with words that combined to read “forced to confess.” His 18-month sentence scared other private attorneys away from da hei cases.

He Weifang, a Peking University law professor, said the case “sets China’s legal reform back 30 years.”

One of the wealthiest magnates ensnared in the purges was Li Jun, a Chongqing real estate mogul. Like hundreds of other private business executives, he said during 16 hours of interviews this month, he became a target of police, government and military officials who framed him as a “black society” boss.

He eventually lost control of his $711 million conglomerate and fled the country, branded a fugitive. Before his escape, he said, he endured three months of beatings, torture and relentless pressure to implicate others in nonexistent crimes.

He said his tormentors sought to confiscate his assets and extract a confession that could help frame rivals of Mr. Bo’s powerful ally in the military, Gen. Zhang Haiyang, now the political commissar of China’s nuclear forces.

Li Jun buttressed his account with photos taken at a secret detention facility and with binders of legal documents signed by military and police officials. A scholar of Chinese politics at Columbia University, Andrew Nathan, authenticated five documents supporting his claims of innocence.

Li Jun’s troubles began within a year after Mr. Bo’s appointment. A subsidiary of his company won a $50 million public bid for a hilly tract of land outside Chongqing. The seller was one of China’s five regional military commands, he said, led at the time by General Zhang.

In December 2009, under orders signed by the police chief, Mr. Wang, Li Jun was detained on suspicion of more than a dozen crimes, including organizing prostitution, usury, contract fraud, bid-rigging and bribery. He was bound to a “tiger bench,” a medieval-style iron seat with a straight back and a grooved bottom, and was kicked, pummeled and berated for 40 straight hours. At that point, he said, “I just wanted to die.”

A top military interrogator presented Li Jun with a list of more than 20 military officers, apparently rivals of Mr. Bo’s ally General Zhang, and accused him of bribing 2 of them to win the bid on the tract of land. “Don’t you see?” he said his interrogator finally told him. “Bo Xilai and Political Commissar Zhang are friends who grew up together. You are being framed. ”

Thirty-one relatives and colleagues have since been jailed. His wife served a one-year sentence for aiding his flight. His elder brother was sentenced to 18 years in prison, his nephew 13 years. He had transferred ownership of his company to them in an attempt to shield it.

“It’s just like some new kind of Cultural Revolution,” he said. “Chongqing strikes down the landlords, redistributes the land and slaps a bad name on your head, ‘triad,’ from which you can never be freed.”

Watching what X is saying about Z is a good way of tracking who is representing about Z to X. If the proposed model was to focus away attention from Pak, and concentrate jingo attention on PRC - then one needs to be told that Bo affair was nothing, nothing is internally wrong with PRC power structure.

This serves two subtle purposes.

First, the fear of PRC strength cannot be allowed to be diluted. So that PRC can be posed as the overwhelming enemy while Pak gets to play innocent as it prepares - and pro-Paki elements can pull the wool.

Second, jingos do not feel that now is the time to push for peripheral dismemberment of China - and do something more substantial for Tibet. Eventually Tibet will have to win its freedom at the point of the gun, and this again is something that cannot be allowed.

So whoever is saying such sweet nothings to X - is actually speaking on behalf of both Pak and PRC interests.

“BRICS countries have been left with few other options. One avenue is utilisation of foreign exchange reserves, which all BRICS countries have in ample quantity, for infrastructure development in BRICS and other developing countries. But routing foreign exchange reserves through multilateral financial institutions such as the IBRD, ADB and IMF will not give these countries enough say over utilisation because their voting power still remains small.

Rod Vaughan | Wednesday March 28, 2012 | 68 comments
Huawei boss and former People's Liberation Army officer Ren Zhengfei

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei - involved in a $1.35 billion Ultrafast Broadband project in New Zealand - is almost certainly a front for Chinese intelligence, a defence analyst claims.

That's the collective view of the security community in the US, Britain and Australia, according to Auckland-based defence analyst Paul Buchanan, who says it would be prudent for Prime Minister John Key to listen to them.

Dr Buchanan worked for the US Department of Defence before imigrating to New Zealand.

Huawei has been blocked from bidding for the national broadband network in Australia. In the US it is blocked by Congress in 2008 from buying networking company 3Com, and in 2010 Congress blocked them from bidding on telecommunications gear for Sprint.

"Our major security partners think these guys are up to no good. I would be very surprised if the GCSB and the SIS had not been in contact with our larger partners about the presence of Huawei in the New Zealand broadband market," Dr Buchanan told NBR.

"It could well be that concerns about these guys are about protecting market share for local businesses. But I think this is unlikely, so I tend to think their security concerns probably have a basis in fact."

Dr Buchanan believes Huawei could be intent on tapping into the top-secret Echelon intelligence network in which New Zealand exchanges highly classified information with the US, Britain, Australia and Canada.

"China has no such luxury. It has to do everything by itself and it's been lagging behind with signals intelligence and technical intelligence, and they've been playing catch-up for the last 10 years.

"But if they're going to be a great power they've got to do this. They've got to get out and get a significant signals and technical intelligence capability, and the suspicion among the Americans and the British is that Huawei is one way of doing something."

Dr Buchanan says there's no hard and fast evidence in the public domain that Huawei is up to no good. But he believes there is classified information in the hands of US intelligence agencies which would implicate the company in covert activities.

"Professional intelligence agencies do not deal in prejudice, they deal in facts. So whether they were Chinese, Indian, German or Pakistani it wouldn't matter.

"If these agencies think they are being used as a front they will say so and so it's not about being anti-Chinese."

So what is Huawei's primary objective in New Zealand if it is a front for the Chinese security services?

Paul Buchanan thinks it goes way beyond commercial considerations.

"With their global weight they can undercut the pricing structure of the whole local internet should they wish to, but in providing these platforms and being the basis for internet communications allows them indirect access to a number of things.

"If you have a government official's private broadband account on a server that is controlled by Huawei then, if people's suspicions are correct, they can tap into that.

"They can tap into government agencies, they may be using their servers or platforms, and that's what the Americans and others are concerned about.

"And let's not forget that New Zealand is particularly vulnerable to cyber espionage. This has been mentioned time and time again by the SIS.

"Within the last six weeks Murray McCully's private emails in which he had been discussing official business were hacked into and leaked to the press by people with an axe to grind.

"These people were not professional intelligence collectors with hundreds of hackers working right round the day to penetrate security systems of government agencies.

"They were just disgruntled folks, and that shows you the looseness of internet security protocols in this country - that a government minister can have his private emails hacked into by amateurs."

Dr Buchanan says New Zealand must stop thinking of itself as too insignificant and too remote for any major player to take a keen interest in it.

"I think that's a bit short sighted because we're part of a much bigger play as the south Pacific is becoming an arena for future competition and whether we like it or not we're being thrust into this fray."

All of which raises a fundamental question.

If Huawei is a wolf in sheep's clothing, did New Zealand do enough due diligence on it before allowing the company to set up shop here?

Paul Buchanan thinks not.

"I think sometimes in the quest to be market competitive the government sometimes overlooks the security concerns with the entrance of a foreign competitor such as a firm that has very direct ties to the Chinese State.

"There is a perception that China is now a market capitalist country. It is not. It is a state capitalist country run by a one-party authoritarian state.

"Nothing happens in their strategic sectors without the explicit permission and involvement of the Chinese State, specifically not in telecommunications.

"There's no such thing as pure private enterprise, particularly in the strategic sector, so the idea of Huawei having no State involvement, quite frankly, defies credulity.

"That's where the reports from the States and the Australians are very important because they detail the amount of capital the Chinese government has put into Huawei, and they detail the number of individuals who have come from Chinese intelligence to work as managers in Huawei.

"So are we doing enough vetting when it comes to this sort of business? Well, my answer would be no."

Dr Buchanan says now that Huawei is ensconced in New Zealand it would be very difficult to dislodge it as it would undermine this country's Free Trade Agreement with China.

But if the company's presence jeopardises our intelligence-sharing relationship with our closest allies it could force the government to have second thoughts about allowing it to remain here.

"The bottom line is that our security partners have these concerns, seem to have some reason to believe that they are an espionage threat and we're ignoring those concerns. John Key might want to take them on board."

The country should not banish 'non-alignment' from its foreign-policy dictionary
Shyam Saran / Mar 21, 2012, 00:46 IST
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The publication of “Non-Alignment 2.0”, which seeks to promote an informed debate on evolving a new consensus on India’s foreign and security policies, has generated controversy. The authors stand accused of resurrecting the buried ghost of non-alignment, which allegedly served to limit rather than advance India’s interests. This is puzzling as no political dispensation in India, since the end of the Cold War, has discarded it. How do you stand guilty of resurrecting something that has not quite been pronounced dead by those who run India’s foreign policy?

Non-alignment needs to be assessed objectively and without prejudice. The way Jawaharlal Nehru conceived it, non-alignment was a strategy and not a dogma. Its relevance as a principle of our foreign policy must also be distinguished from the fate of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was specific to a binary Cold-War construct that no longer exists. There is more substance to the criticism that it has often been a convenient cover for not taking positions on key issues of the day, which all great powers must do. There is also a suggestion that non-alignment is reflexively anti-West and the use of this term may bring that attitude of mind back into the conduct of our foreign policy.

The phrase “non-aligned” was first used by V K Krishna Menon at the United Nations General Assembly in 1953 and by Pandit Nehru in 1956. However, the strategy that lay behind the phrase had been spelt out by Nehru much earlier, first in Constituent Assembly debates and later in Parliament. The very sense of India, with its history and civilisational attributes, he said, demands the pursuit of an independent foreign policy. Decisions relating to India’s vital interests should not be externally determined. Maintaining and, if possible, expanding the country’s strategic autonomy is a continuing objective. Nehru did propose that India should avoid entering into “other people’s quarrels”, unless, and this is important, “our interest is involved”. He demonstrated a realistic awareness of the limits of India’s ability to influence events when he added: “We should either be strong enough to produce some effect or we should not interfere at all”. This is eminently sensible advice.
Nehru also did not rule out entering into an alliance if that proved necessary: “We are not going to join a war if we can help it: we are going to join the side which is to our interest when the time comes to make the choice.”

The same pragmatism is evident in the following remarks: “Whatever policy you lay down, the act of conducting the foreign affairs of a country lies in finding out what is the most advantageous to the country.”

We often face a dilemma about how India should vote on important resolutions at the United Nations. Consider the controversy over our abstention on the Security Council resolution on Libya and our more recent affirmative vote, along with the West and the Arab League, on Syria. Nehru suggested criteria on which such decisions could be evaluated: “Our instructions to our delegates have always been to consider each question first in terms of India’s interest, and secondly on its merits.” This means that if the two criteria diverge, India’s interest should prevail.

None of these elements of non-alignment can be described as irrelevant today even if in the actual conduct of our foreign policy, we have often been seen as unusually defensive and even negative. In the Cold War period, such defensiveness was a product of our own limited power. Today, the essence and logic of non-alignment have not changed but they have to be applied in a vastly transformed international landscape and at a time when India itself is being transformed. India must continue to seek strategic autonomy but through a more contemporary reinterpretation and application of the principles of non-alignment. That is what “Non-Alignment 2.0” seeks to do.

So what are some of the features of the contemporary world that Indian foreign policy must address?

India’s enhanced economic and security capabilities enable it to influence external events and outcomes in a widening orbit compared to the Cold War years. India enjoys greater leverage but bears greater responsibility in dealing with regional issues such as South Asian and East Asian economic integration and global issues such as climate change and energy security. Furthermore, in a globalised world, external issues impact our economic and social development prospects while domestic choices we make as a country, in turn, have an impact on the external environment. Promotion of India’s interests demands far greater engagement with the world than ever before. Depending on the issue at hand, India will find itself working with shifting and variable coalitions rather than through settled alliances or groupings. The country has inherent assets, such as a favourable demography, a strategic location and a culture of creativity and innovation, which create a window of opportunity to drive India’s emergence as a front-ranking power, a master of its own destiny but generating a range of public goods that make the world a better and safer place to live in.

It has been argued by some that we are on the threshold of a new and enduring confrontation between the US and China. Given the challenge that China’s apparently relentless rise poses to India, the pursuit of a “non-aligned” policy appears unwise. The US has greater affinity and empathy with India. It supports India’s acquisition of economic and technological capabilities and has convergent concerns over Chinese hegemony. But the US has not yet determined whether, in its relative decline, its interests are better served by playing a balancing role in Asia among Asian powers including between China and India or seeking to contain China through a network of allies. Neither precludes India and the US pursuing closer partnership and both seeking a more cautious and nuanced relationship with China.

It is possible that a change in circumstances and India’s vital interests may demand that it gravitate towards alliance with the US and other major powers. As Nehru said, when the time comes to make a choice India will do so. It came close to doing this in 1971 when it concluded the Indo-Soviet treaty. But as long as the prevailing regional and international situation remains fluid and uncertain, India would be wise to hedge its bets, engaging with all with different degrees of proximity, but allying with none.

DHARAMSALA, India — The body was late for the funeral. It had left New Delhi on Thursday morning for the winding 12-hour drive to this Himalayan hill town. The Tibetan exiles here talked with anticipation about a mourning ceremony on Thursday night. But the ambulance carrying the body stopped overnight in the town of Chandigarh, and in the early morning continued the climb toward the snow peaks.This time, the streets were thronged with red-robed monks and young men wearing black jackets that said “Team Tibet 08” on the back. There were elderly women fingering Buddhist rosary beads, children carrying the Tibetan flag adorned with a snow lion, and teenagers taking photographs with their cellphones. personally respect and believe in what he did,” Mr. Kunchok Tenzin added. “He sacrificed himself not just for politics, but for religion. He is one of those figures that protects Buddhism. I am one of those figures that practices Buddhism. You need the two — they go together.” The speeches began with that of Tenzin Yangzom, an official with the Tibetan Youth Congress, a group advocating Tibetan independence, who read from a note that Mr. Jamphel Yeshi had left, one that beseeched all Tibetans to join together to end Chinese oppression.

Penpa Tsering, head of the Tibetan Parliament in exile, sought to put them in a religious perspective. “It’s not an act of violence,” he said. “The figures who took this action had pure motivation behind their actions. They sacrificed their lives no matter how painful it was, no matter how much they suffered, for the benefit of the majority of the people.” Later, he said in English, “Now the question is, how many more Tibetan lives will be lost before the Tibetan issue is resolved?” Dharamsala is a magnet for foreigners, and there were many in the crowd. One woman carried an American flag, and a man held aloft a South Korean one. Some young foreigners wore signs around their necks: “Germany, I Am With Tibet.” “U.K., I Am With Tibet.”