US and PRC relationship & India

[svinayak]

^^^
Acharya-ji

That was my point (d) above. Introduction of religion requires
1. Strong backers (British Indian Government & Missionaries, Islamic invaders)
2. Complacent elite or subversion of the elite (Constantine, Ranjit Singh's son)

Even under these conditions, it takes a minimum of 2 generations. The half converts to raise their kids as full converts. The full converts, raising their kids who in turn forget history (that their grandparents were half converts). That is about ~60 years.

This is not the era of forced religion. This is the era of discovery of the truth and universality. Chinese will discover the truth and the world in their own eyes. I have seen chinese discuss kriya yoga and breathing. They have manuals translated into chinese, vietnamese etc.

[Anujan]

^^^
Well then it becomes a competition of ideas.

Except that one idea has guns & censorship backing it. I revise my estimate to 10 generations.

[svinayak]

^^^
Well then it becomes a competition of ideas.

Except that one idea has guns & censorship backing it. I revise my estimate to 10 generations.

World is full of surprises and life is strange

[Shankk]

World is full of surprises and life is strange

BR is full of mysticism.

[Chinmayanand]

US defends China role in South Asia

WASHINGTON — A senior US official on Monday defended a role for China in South Asia despite Indian sensitivities and said that New Delhi likewise had a role to play in East Asia.

President Barack Obama's administration has tried to broaden relations with both emerging Asian powers but it has struggled to address perceptions in New Delhi that the United States is more interested in China.

Some Indian pundits reacted with dismay last year when Obama visited Beijing and, in a joint statement with President Hu Jintao, called for the United States and China to cooperate in South Asia.

"I know there is a certain sensitivity maybe about that, but I don't see that it should be the case," Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said Monday of the Indian concerns.

"China has an important role -- it's a neighbor of South Asia -- and it's unimaginable that China would not be involved. And so the question is can we work together in a positive way on shared interests in creating peace, stability and economic opportunity in South Asia," Steinberg said.

Steinberg, addressing the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that the United States likewise was engaging India over East Asia and considered New Delhi a "key partner."

"We see India as (an) East Asia country. We engage with them on issues like North Korea and the like because we think of the importance that India plays," he said.

Steinberg said China could play a role in bringing stability to Afghanistan and Pakistan, two key priorities for the Obama administration as it campaigns against Islamic extremism.

India has longstanding territorial disputes with China and has been suspicious about Beijing's close relations with Pakistan.

The United States earlier this year voiced concerns to Beijing about its planned sale of two civilian nuclear reactors to Islamabad.
Obama plans to pay his first presidential visit to India in November. Many Indians have fond memories of former president George W. Bush, who championed a landmark nuclear cooperation deal with New Delhi.

[ramana]

There you have it! In case you wondered who was behind the PRC moving into Gilgit-Baltistan.

RajeshA, Do you think
- in a failing TSP, US will like India to have POK?
- Or would they prefer the PRC?
- Or has PRC moved in due to 2008 meltdown?
- Or has TSP invited PRC to come in as it cant handle the stress?

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 72#p937872

[Carl_T]

This is well in line with Obama's foreign policy approach towards both China and Russia. China is supposed to be guarding over it's sphere of influence and the US will stay out.

[Jarita]

^^^ Sounds like 1960's again - The Kissy-Mao unclassified documents

[sanjaykumar]

Because Pakis desire (a) India's destruction (b) More "Pureness" (Pakistaniyat). As long as any ruling class panders to (a) and (b), they can hold on to power, even at the cost of teaming masses with no food or shelter. The unwashed teaming hungry masses will gladly salute the army, send their sons and daughters to Jihad and wait patiently for Ghazwa-e-behind.

Anyone who believes this cannot possibly be acquainted to Pakistanis. This is the world view foisted, out of desperation on a peasantry who neither care for th evils of India nor the glories of Araby. Th emotivation for this idiotic social engineering is obvious- to maintain the slightly fairer, more pot-bellied 200,000 people in comfort. I do not consider Pakistan to be decolonised.

Does one really believe the beggars exposed by Sindhu's ablutions fancy themselves to be lords over Hindustan.They are neither that naive nor so dangerously stupid.


Talk to Pakistanis especially Sindhis, Shias or best of all Amhedias. Pakistan is decaying to death.

[Shankk]

There you have it! In case you wondered who was behind the PRC moving into Gilgit-Baltistan.

Whatever happened to Shri J. N. Dixit. Will Zbigniew Brzezinski follow?

Sorry for a one liner. This is not meant to be a smart a$$ comment but rather inability to express openly.

[abhishek_sharma]

Keeping a closer eye on China

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2 ... e_on_china

[Carl_T]

Cliches of the century
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... he_century

[dinesha]

The People’s Republic of China’s PLAN in the Indian and Pacific Oceans: The Game is Changing and the US is Now on the Defensive
http://www.globalintelligencereport.com ... -Defensive

Two warships of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLAN) docked at a port in Myanmar on August 29, 2010, in the first publicized PLAN ship visit — but not the first actual PLAN visit — to Myanmar.

It was a move designed to help pre-position the PRC in its relations with Myanmar in the lead up to that country’s upcoming national elections. The move also ended two decades of discreet PRC approaches to its naval presence in the Indian Ocean. It also follows the open PLAN task force presence in anti-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, and the now open commitment to use of the Pakistani Baluchistan port of Gwadar, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Significantly, although the PRC maintains itself as both a heartland and maritime power, it is aware that the great challenge to break out from US global strategic dominance is essentially a maritime matter. Given economic and other realities, the US will be forced to rely increasingly on the US Navy — and particularly the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific and Indian Oceans — to project US influence.

But Washington is also working to bolster its strategic relations with the Republic of Korea, the ASEAN states as a whole, and India. The crunch for the US will be in finding the economic resources to boost the US Navy’s power projection advantages, particularly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

An Australian analyst, Dr Joel Rathus, of Adelaide University and Japan’s Meiji University, has noted (in the East Asia Forum, August 28, 1010): “A re-alignment is steadily underway in East Asia. Increasingly, ASEAN (and Korea) are moving closer to the geographically distant US, while China is becoming more distant from its neighbors.”

He also said: “China has seen the US and ASEAN draw closer on issues of major interest, such as the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Clinton’s identification of this issue as a ‘pivot’ of regional security brings the United States back as a player after more than a decade of diplomatic passivity (to China’s notable discomfort).”

Building, or re-building, the US Navy in the Pacific and Indian Ocean to its earlier pre-eminence will not be easy for the US, despite the apparent numerical dominance which the USN has in the regions in terms of air and naval striking power.

To begin with, the PLAN has already deployed assets which severely inhibit the US Seventh Fleet: the Kilo- and Improved Kilo-class submarines, and other modern submarines, which can readily penetrate USN anti-submarine warfare (ASW) pickets around carrier battle groups; and the shipborne SS-N-22 Sunburn (P-270 Moskit or 3M-80/-80E) supersonic anti-ship missiles, against which there is as yet no adequate defense.

Now, Adm. Robert Willard, commander of the US Pacific Command, has confirmed during August 2010 discussions in Tokyo, that the PLA was “close to becoming operational” with its anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM), based on a variant of the CSS-5 medium-range (1,500 to 2,000 km) ballistic missile (also known as the DF-21).

The DF-21s have maneuverable warheads (MARVs: Maneuverable Re-Entry Vehicles), and the type has undergone testing. The yet-to-be-deployed DF-21D would, most US sources agree, be a game-changer in the Pacific, giving the PRC, not the US, control of the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) high ground. The PRC is highly conscious of the fact that control of the seas is foreseeably being removed from the US.

All of this potentially makes the US-Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan) strategic relationship of greatly renewed importance, but the US has gone out of its way in recent years to downplay this, even to the point of supporting the ROC Army’s internal political lobbying to retain control of the ROC defense equation.

Right now, some 80 percent of the ROC’s defense spending goes to the Army, which reflects the original “continental army” approach which the ROC had when it left the mainland and was positioning itself to return. That situation no longer prevails: the ROC is now an island, maritime power, which relies on sea transport for some 99 percent of its raw materials.

Despite this, the US — and even the US Naval War College analysts — have gone out of their way to promote a so-called “porcupine strategy” for the ROC, by which it would rely on the Army to repel a PRC invasion. Now, however, the US needs the ROC to develop its maritime and air power resources, which have long been neglected.

Mark Helprin, writing in The Wall Street Journal on August 15, 2010, noted that “If present military trends continue, the correlation of forces will shift much more to Beijing's advantage within the next decade.” He continued:

“Lurking about the presidency in the guise of secretary of state, America's chief diplomat has embarked upon a mistake that someday may rival Dean Acheson's exclusion of Korea from the Pacific defense area, or April Glaspie's muddled words to Saddam Hussein.

At a regional meeting in Hanoi in late July, Hillary Clinton unveiled an initiative the effect of which is an attempt to forge a defensive alliance along the maritime perimeter, with nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Like her predecessor Acheson, Mrs. Clinton seems averse or blind to military analysis. Her inevitably stillborn South China Sea initiative is showy diplomacy that may lead either to a military clash with China or, more likely, a ratification of China's aims as the United States lets its implied guarantees die on the vine.

China's assertions in regard to the potentially oil rich and strategically important South China Sea are consistent, clear, and patently absurd. Based upon the questionable ownership of uninhabited rocks and shoals, some which do not rise above water and others roughly the size of a Volkswagen, it claims an area almost as large as the Caribbean Basin and as far as 1,800 miles from its nearest shoreline.

In linking America's national interests to those of the coastal states thus insulted, Mrs. Clinton's recent comments are commendable but insufficiently backed. China above all is sensitive to "paper-tigerism" and ready to challenge it, especially in regard to its essential interests and where the balance of applicable power is swinging in its favor. A naval battle in which China has the upper hand? Do we not have the most powerful military in the world?

We do, but strategic appraisal must not be one-dimensional. Although decisive to some, that this country spends more on defense than the next 14 countries combined is irrelevant to things such as the scope of its commitments, personnel costs, the willingness or reticence of allies, purchasing power parity, force structure, asymmetrical advantage and disadvantage, domestic politics, strategical genius, its absence, and many other factors including not least geography.

China fought us to a draw in Korea more than half a century ago. In Vietnam we stayed our hand for fear of drawing it into the battle, when its primitive navy was not even a tenth the size of ours, it had no nuclear weapons that could threaten us, and the Western Pacific was an American lake with a necklace of massive military installations now largely abandoned and an alliance structure we are at present trying to rebuild with words. Whittled down by successive administrations, the big stick now turns on the Obama lathe as it is pressed against the Gates knife. If present trends merely continue, in five or 10 years, when the U.S. will have to decide whether to challenge China's claims or acquiesce, the correlation of forces will have shifted much more to China's advantage. “

The PRC’s anti-fleet capabilities are not the only concern which the US must face in the region. The Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is already deployed with the Indian fleet and the new BrahMos Block II — which is capable of more complex trajectory and maneuver — has now (as of September 5, 2010) been successfully tested. These various missiles, deployed by the PRC and India, have yet to see successful countermeasures deployed by the US Navy.

At present, the US has pursued an aggressive strategic campaign to provide strategic partnership to India, but in reality India cannot afford to abandon its relationship with Russia, even though New Delhi is aware that it must move its relationship with Russia to a new parity, abandoning the old Cold War paternalism with which Moscow treated India.

Moreover, India, while seeing accord with the US on dealing with the PRC, has its own strategic agenda to follow in the Indian Ocean, and this, too, is not necessarily in total accord with the objectives of Washington.

[rohitvats]

I really find such articles as funny.....how couple of kilos (12 in PLAN) are supposed to have dettered US and put USN on defensive. But somehow, 5 Virginia Class+3 Sea Wolf+49 LA Class SSN in USN Service are ineffective....yeah! sure.

[Christopher Sidor]

The People’s Republic of China’s PLAN in the Indian and Pacific Oceans: The Game is Changing and the US is Now on the Defensive
http://www.globalintelligencereport.com ... -Defensive

.....
.....
The PRC’s anti-fleet capabilities are not the only concern which the US must face in the region. The Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile is already deployed with the Indian fleet and the new BrahMos Block II — which is capable of more complex trajectory and maneuver — has now (as of September 5, 2010) been successfully tested. These various missiles, deployed by the PRC and India, have yet to see successful countermeasures deployed by the US Navy.

At present, the US has pursued an aggressive strategic campaign to provide strategic partnership to India, but in reality India cannot afford to abandon its relationship with Russia, even though New Delhi is aware that it must move its relationship with Russia to a new parity, abandoning the old Cold War paternalism with which Moscow treated India.

Moreover, India, while seeing accord with the US on dealing with the PRC, has its own strategic agenda to follow in the Indian Ocean, and this, too, is not necessarily in total accord with the objectives of Washington.

So after China is dealt with, it is India's turn? So use India first to deal with China then deal with India. This sounds awfully like let Germany deal with Soviet Union. Once Germany has dealt Soviet Union a bloody blow and has scarified itself on the altar of anti-communism, we will then contain Soviet Union and reduce it to a fraction of its former glory. Replace Germany and Soviet Union with India and China and the nothing changes.
And already reasons are being formed, against India, "Moreover, India, has its own strategic agenda to follow in the Indian Ocean, and this, too, is not necessarily in total accord with the objectives of Washington".

This is precisely the reason that I have again and again cautioned as assuming India's and America's interests as one. Or assuming that what is harmful for America is harmful for India. America's past history in the sub-continent, its history with the nuclear-denial and sanctions, its hyper-activity w.r.t to the cryogenic engine transfer from Russia, etc, should have been a eye-opener for us. But even now we have some pundits, saying "it is not in India's interest that America suffers a defeat at the hand of a non-democratic entities."

[ramana]

VinodTk posted in the India-Japan thread...

The Japan Times: A Sino-centric Asia unlikely

There are at least four possible Asian security scenarios. The first is the rise of a Sino-centric Asia, as desired by Beijing. China seeks a multipolar world but a unipolar Asia. By contrast, the United States desires a unipolar world but a multipolar Asia. A second scenario is of the U.S. remaining Asia's principal security anchor. A third possibility is the emergence of a constellation of Asian states with common interests working together to ensure both power equilibrium and an Asia that is not unipolar. A fourth scenario is of an Asia characterized by several resurgent powers, including Japan, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and a reunified Korea.

Of the four scenarios, the least unlikely is the first one. China's neighbors increasingly are uneasy about its growing power and assertiveness. While Beijing aspires to shape a Sino-centric Asia, its actions hardly make it a credible candidate for Asian leadership.

Actually each of those Asian scenarios are dependent on US. The first scenario even though it is propogated by China is a US scenario. Since the collapse of FSU, US has been propping up PRC economically, technologically and diplomatically. PRC dominance of Asia is US unstated goal. Recall the various Prseidents making statements of how they see a role for PRC in all parts of Asia. And Ring magnets case. So while they speak of helping India's rise they are enabling/consolidating PRC's rise.

However PRC is not China and bullies its neighborhood. This enables the second scenario where the non PRC Asia wants the US to be a balancer in Asia. But the financial meltdown has inhibited this role for US as it become s too expensive and PRC is making inroads and creating local mess(Noko, Iran etc) for US to get bogged down.
The fourth scenario won't happen for it requires the PRC to provide an ideological challenge to the countries in Asia. The PRC system is hardly capable of enticing any one to emulate it. Key is Korean unification. PRC wont let it happen and US will laos not let it happen for it negates the second scenario. And moreover India will not join alliances. So this scenario won't happen.
The third scenario of informal groupings coming together and breaking apart on case by case basis will most likely happen.

[Prem]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ndication=
China says US-Chinese ties linked

Wen told U.S. business executives on the sidelines of a United Nations summit that China wants a "strong and stable U.S., just as the U.S. needs a strong, stable China," The Wall Street Journal reported.
The politically sensitive U.S. trade deficit with China jumped to $26.2 billion in June, the largest one-month gap since October 2008. Wen, however, said the trade imbalance isn't intentional. Wen also was quoted as saying that the exchange rate of the yuan - China's currency - isn't the "main cause" of the bilateral trade imbalance.
Ahead of U.S. congressional elections in November and at a time of high American unemployment, China's currency policies are a major source of friction in ties with Washington. U.S. lawmakers say Beijing's tightly regulated yuan is undervalued, giving China's exporters an artificial advantage over U.S. manufacturers. They say Chinese policies cost Americans their jobs.Obama, speaking Monday in Washington, said China's currency "is valued lower than market conditions would say it should be.""So it gives them an advantage in trade," Obama said. "We are going to continue to insist that on this issue, and on all trade issues between us and China, that it's a two-way street."Some U.S. lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would punish China if it doesn't do more to let the yuan rise.The Obama-Wen meeting also comes as China lashes out at the United States for what Beijing says is interference in its territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China is also angry over U.S. arms sales to Beijing rival Taiwan and Obama's meeting earlier this year with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader China calls a separatist

[Arihant]

[
So after China is dealt with, it is India's turn? So use India first to deal with China then deal with India. This sounds awfully like let Germany deal with Soviet Union. Once Germany has dealt Soviet Union a bloody blow and has scarified itself on the altar of anti-communism, we will then contain Soviet Union and reduce it to a fraction of its former glory. Replace Germany and Soviet Union with India and China and the nothing changes.
And already reasons are being formed, against India, "Moreover, India, has its own strategic agenda to follow in the Indian Ocean, and this, too, is not necessarily in total accord with the objectives of Washington".

This is precisely the reason that I have again and again cautioned as assuming India's and America's interests as one. Or assuming that what is harmful for America is harmful for India. America's past history in the sub-continent, its history with the nuclear-denial and sanctions, its hyper-activity w.r.t to the cryogenic engine transfer from Russia, etc, should have been a eye-opener for us. But even now we have some pundits, saying "it is not in India's interest that America suffers a defeat at the hand of a non-democratic entities."

I agree with most of what you're saying, but if I'm given a choice between a unipolar world dominated by China vs. one dominated by the US, I'd pick the one dominated by the US any day. China playing the role the US has played till now is a prospect too horrible to contemplate....

[sanjaykumar]

China will set back human cultural evolution five centuries.

[Sanjay M]

NYT

Op-Ed Columnist
Their Moon Shot and Ours
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 25, 2010

China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments.

[RajeshA]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ndication=
China says US-Chinese ties linked

Wen told U.S. business executives on the sidelines of a United Nations summit that China wants a "strong and stable U.S., just as the U.S. needs a strong, stable China,"

So the same codswallop that USA dishes out to Pakistan, gets dished out by PRC to USA. There must be a constituency in USA, that is just as vulnerable to this, as there is in Pakistan.

[ramana]

X-post...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... ement.html

an interesting article but the author has dealt with quite a few issues plaguing the finances of world economies. informative read in toto.

The US and Britain are debasing coinage to alleviate the pain of debt-busts, and to revive their export industries: China is debasing to off-load its manufacturing overcapacity on to the rest of the world, though it has a trade surplus with the US of $20bn (£12.6bn) a month.

Premier Wen Jiabao confesses that China’s ability to maintain social order depends on a suppressed currency. A 20pc revaluation would be unbearable. “I can’t imagine how many Chinese factories will go bankrupt, how many Chinese workers will lose their jobs,” he said.

Plead he might, but tempers in Washington are rising. Congress will vote next week on the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act, intended to make it much harder for the Commerce Department to avoid imposing “remedial tariffs” on Chinese goods deemed to be receiving “benefit” from an unduly weak currency.

Japan has intervened to stop the strong yen tipping the country into a deflation death spiral, though it too has a trade surplus. There is suspicion in Tokyo that Beijing’s record purchase of Japanese debt in June, July, and August was not entirely friendly, intended to secure yuan-yen advantage and perhaps to damage Japan’s industry at a time of escalating strategic tensions in the Pacific region.

Brazil dived into the markets on Friday to weaken the real. The Swiss have been doing it for months, accumulating reserves equal to 40pc of GDP in a forlorn attempt to stem capital flight from Euroland. Like the Chinese and Japanese, they too are battling to stop the rest of the world taking away their structural surplus.

The exception is Germany, which protects its surplus ($179bn, or 5.2pc of GDP) by means of an undervalued exchange rate within EMU. The global game of pass the unemployment parcel has to end somewhere. It ends in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, parts of Eastern Europe, and will end in France and Italy too, at least until their democracies object.

Where is India in this tango?

[Pulikeshi]

Foreign Currency Wars Fuel Gold’s Rally to $1,300

The prospect of QE-2 by the Fed is prompting other central bankers to counter with currency devaluations of their own. Some central banks such as Banco de Chile, the Bank of Australia, and the Bank of India, are going the opposite way - lifting their interest rates - and their currencies have become magnets for foreign capital.

[Hari Seldon]

^^^ Capital controls are called for. The trickle in will soon become a flood - magnet for carry traders. We can probably do without it.

GoI however, recently opened up desi debt mkts further to phoren players. I don;t know the details indepth but I hope it is more the longer duration securities that are in play here, not mere short term ones.

[Jarita]

^^^ One year duration securities atleast because after that no tax.
How long ago did government open up markets?

[Sanjay M]

Despite American QE+QE2, global leakiness means that much of the stimulus is leaking out and stimulating other countries onlee. As a result, the hapless Obama can't get any political traction now matter how hard he has Fed try for him.

Likewise, India's anti-supply-side economy (aka. "infrastructure-challenged economy") is going to suffer such a monetary monsoon of incoming capital, that the resulting inflationary pressures will keep the hapless Kaangress biting its fingernails and trying to think up new subsidies to keep the aam admi placated. Such subsidies would have to be financed by heavy taxation and export tariffs.

Both sides are riding the tiger.

[ramana]

SanjayM and others, A request. Please don't be on a constant roll to bash India. Already the West and the jihadis do that. India just by surviving has frustrated their plans singly and jointly.

All the UQueendom's media dumping on India or the CWG games will just aid and comfort the jihadis. No one else would be inspired by that.

[Prem]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04658.html
China's quiet power grab

America fights, in other words, while China does business, and not only in Afghanistan. In Iraq, where American troops brought down a dictator and are still fighting an insurgency, Chinese oil companies have acquired bigger stakes in the oil business than their American counterparts. In Pakistan, where billions in American military aid helps the government keep the Taliban at bay, China has set up a free-trade area and is investing heavily in energy and ports. China has found it lucrative to stay out of other kinds of conflicts as well. Along with Western Europeans, Americans are pouring vast amounts of public and private money into solar energy and wind power, hoping to wean themselves off fossil fuels and prevent climate change. China, by contrast, builds a new coal-fired plant every 10 days or so. While thus producing ever more greenhouse gases in the East, China makes clever use of those government subsidies in the West: Three Chinese companies now rank among the top 10 producers of wind turbines in the world.

Which brings me back to my original point: Why on earth are the Chinese playing military games with Japan, threatening Southeast Asia or entering politics at all? When they stay silent, we ignore them. When they threaten boycotts or use nationalist language, we get scared and react. We still haven't realized that the scariest thing about China is not the size of its navy or the arrogance of its diplomats. The scariest thing is the power China has already accumulated without ever deploying its military or its diplomats at all.

[ramana]

The real scary thing is the West suddenly realizes it aukkad. Serves them right in building up a constrained giant.

Wasn't it Napoleon who said "China is a sleeping gaint and the world will tremble when it wakes!"

[Prem]

That was Napoelan (A tasty pastery)
In BR speak "Indics suffer Hanuman Syndrome, Once they remember and make the call , China will Shake"

Its long haul for India, race is juts beginning to pace up. Japan of 80, China of Now , too early to call for India.

[naren]

Which brings me back to my original point: Why on earth are the Chinese playing military games with Japan, threatening Southeast Asia or entering politics at all?

From good 'ol Tzu's Bible:

# All warfare is based on deception.
# Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
# Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
# If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.
# If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
# If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.
# Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

In short, when you are an empty vessel, make more noise.

[Sanjay M]

SanjayM and others, A request. Please don't be on a constant roll to bash India. Already the West and the jihadis do that. India just by surviving has frustrated their plans singly and jointly.

All the UQueendom's media dumping on India or the CWG games will just aid and comfort the jihadis. No one else would be inspired by that.

ramana, we can't live in some kind of sublime ignorance. If we ignore fundamental realities, we will be the main losers in the long run. I'm sorry, it gives me no pleasure to grouse, but I feel that blind optimism will be death of India.

I don't like to give comfort to the jihadis - but the way to discomfort them is for us to actually succeed, and not pretend to. I want to see the Kaangress fail, because they must fail and be cast aside in order for the country to succeed. Otherwise, what India will end up with is endless suffering with only delusions of grandeur.

I'm frightened of our tendency towards escapism. It shows in our notorious love of movies that bear no resemblance to reality. It shows in our constant self-hype and reflexive rationalization of results which don't match. Ultimately, we have to be worshippers of reality and not in self-worship of ourselves.

Part of the reason that India is getting so many foreign capital inflows is that the traditional safe countries like the US have become corrupted by their safe haven status and have become abusive of foreign investors through irresponsible borrow-and-spend policies. We cannot count on their forever. Tomorrow the US may elect a responsible David Cameron type who ruthlessly cuts wasteful spending and starves the Left's constituencies by cutting off their welfare cheques. More European countries may do the same. Then everybody around the world will be pulling money out of India and pumping it into the US and Europe. And then where will Indians be?

I'm thinking that India needs to put more money into the roads and toilets that are glaringly lacking. We need to pump more money into the things that will pay off for the common man. Otherwise, if the govt instead takes the route of EVMs that are designed to strip the common man of his rights and keep him downtrodden, then this will be a slippery slope to hell.

[Karan Dixit]

^ I suggest you listen to this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o750OkFjTCg

(Especially starting at 0:40.)

[shyamd]

House Passes Bill to Impose Tariffs on Chinese Goods

By DAVID E. SANGER and SEWELL CHAN
Published: September 29, 2010

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives sent a unusually confrontational signal to the Chinese leadership on Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to give President Obama the authority to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports — more than $300 billion this year — in retaliation for Beijing’s refusal to revalue its currency.

The vote was 348 to 79.

The bill is unlikely to become law because the prospects for Senate approval are dim.

Nonetheless, the action was intended to hand President Obama additional leverage in what has become a major flashpoint between the world’s two largest economies. While tariffs have been slapped on specific products, from steel to tires, because of evidence of unfair export subsidies, the threat to put sizable tariffs on a country’s entire line exports to the United States is highly unusual — and, some argue, of dubious legality under international trade law. It reflects both election-year politics over jobs and huge frustration over unfulfilled promises by China to allow its currency to rise in value, which would make Chinese goods less competitive in the United States.

The administration has been of two minds about the legislation. It has often used the rising public anger over China’s trade advantage to argue to Chinese leaders that the United States would no longer tolerate deliberate currency manipulation. That was a point Mr. Obama made repeatedly last week in a two-hour-long meeting with Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister.

But in conversations with Congress, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and other officials have warned of the danger of touching off a trade war, in which China blocks American goods in retaliation — a tit-for-tat feud that could hurt both economies.

The risks go beyond trade. President Obama is pressing China for help on cutting exports to Iran, managing a dangerous leadership transition in North Korea and coming to some kind of accord on curbing carbon outputs that contribute to global warming. He is also coming up with what one senior administration official called “new rules of the road” over disputed maritime territory.

But in Beijing, and on Capitol Hill, all that has pales in comparison to the currency dispute, which is often portrayed in the Chinese press as an effort to curb China’s growth, and thus its power.

[abhishek_sharma]

Amid China-U.S. climate debate, India goes missing

http://www.hindu.com/2010/10/10/stories ... 201100.htm

Why ?

[sourab_c]

Amid China-U.S. climate debate, India goes missing

http://www.hindu.com/2010/10/10/stories ... 201100.htm

Why ?

Because climate debate is something where you do not want to draw attention to yourself. Stay low and avoid any legally binding environmental targets imposed on you which can severely hamper economic growth.

[abhishek_sharma]

U.S. Warns on Territorial Disputes But Tiptoes on China

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/10/ ... china.html

[Philip]

Enjoy this!

Uncle Sam too senile to lead Asia
18:10, October 09, 2010
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90002 ... 61254.html

Viewed from a practical prism, the so-called US-ASEAN realignment as the US has been assiduously seeking after is far from an ironclad wholeness, but a patchwork. The Free Trade Pact the ASEAN countries have been yearning for cannot be granted by the U.S., owing to its mounting domestic pressure and sluggish economy. Likewise, the U.S. intention in aligning with ASEAN countries to encircle China and encroach upon China's regional preeminence seems nothing but an empty talk, as the ASEAN countries could not and would not start the conflict with China, a giant with whom they have already formed a well-established and win-win cooperative mechanism.

Instead, on the chessboard of Uncle Sam, all the ASEAN countries as well as China are taken as the chess pieces which can be positioned at will and as he sees fit, even though the senile Uncle always overestimates his intelligence and obstinately believes he is the unchallenged player.

The sad fact is that, although he has a splendid history left behind, today's Uncle Sam is unable to retrace his powerful yesterday. The robust emerging economies are enlivening the skyline of a new Asia, out of its own design. Uncle Sam is at the moment an unexpected guest to the region, let alone gaining the initiative and leading the hosts.

[abhishek_sharma]

U.S. and China Soften Tone Over Disputed Seas

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/world ... gates.html

[Christopher Sidor]

Something has to give. Either the Chinese currency appreciates or America suffers pain. Like it or not, America believes that one way to come out of the mess is to inflate its debt away or let dollar depreciate to catastrophic levels. Anyway we look at is, the so called nuclear option of selling all the american debt, will harm china more than it will harm the yanks.

Offcourse china can always let yuan appreciate and provide more subsidies to its export oriented companies, to nullify the appreciation of yuan. But for china that would imply kicking the eventual re-balancing act further down the road. And right now the pain will be bad, later on the pain will be worse. China's premier has said on record that an appreciation of yuan will mean massive closures and possibly social unrest.

But there is one more worrying historical precedent.
In the 1930s the great depression along with the american blockade of oil for japan and closure of american markets to japan led to a belief among the Japanese that the yanks were hell bent on stopping their growth economically and financially. It is one of the most commonly attributed causes of the brutal pacific war and the eventual use of nuclear weapons. Off course it ignores the fact that the Japanese behavior in China and its racist view did not help matters. And the american oil and trade embargo were a reaction to Japanese actions and not some deliberate actions to stymie the Japanese economy.
Will China go down the same path as Nippon Japan? The parallels are striking. There is a growing chorus in China, if you read some of the articles on peoples daily or visit Chinese forums, that america is trying to deliberately stifle chinas growth. This off course ignores the fact, that china decides on its own to go down an export led growth path. The fact that china cannot invest its hard earned foreign currency in its own country but has to export it back to its trading partner is one of the most glaring fact. Consider this, a person saves some 10% of his or own money and instead of investing it for his development and growth and lends it for peanuts to others. It would be laughable if it were not so tragic.