Stygius

Free the bloggers

Posting will continue to be sporadic, light, and otherwise unsatisfactory. In the meantime, I hope my dwindling readership joins in Amnesty International's call to free imprisoned bloggers. To scratch the surface:

Yahoo! via its Chinese partner company, Alibaba, has provided the authorities with private and confidential information about its users that has been used to convict and imprison journalists. It has also agreed to censor and deny access to information. Microsoft shut down the blog of New York Times researcher Zhao Jing on the basis of a government request. The company has also admitted that it responds to directions from the Chinese government in restricting users of MSN Spaces from using certain terms. Google has launched a censored version of its international search engine in China.

Recent abuses reported have included imprisoning people for transmitting news and opinions in emails, chat-rooms and on websites, and denying access to information and opinions on the Internet through content removal and filtering of search engines. At particular risk are those who defend the human rights of others.

A Shanghai realignment?

Blogging will continue to be light.

I've written previously a bit on the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, a multi-lateral group of Central Asian nations organized under China and Russias' mutual desire to counter-balance the US's growing presence in the region. It is a young effort -- and I don't think the SCO has much in the way or credibility yet -- but reading two stories this morning really makes clear the cooperative attempt to force a global realignement right now.

AFP reports that the SCO is talking about letting Iran join. Given the West's attempt to turn Iran into a pariah nation, even the discussion of this is a blatant shot across the bow.

Likewise, the New York Times piece on the oil-producers' increasing use of increasingly expensive oil as a political tool, points to the great strategic weakness this country faces.

As energy-rich countries feel empowered by high oil prices, they are increasingly using a blunt instrument to make their influence felt. Call it the power of the pipeline.

He who grows food has far less power than he who supplies the farmer with water. There's the dependency dynamic in a nutshell.

Thus, having a US vice president rail against Russia about energy prices -- even if on Russia's doorstep, is a sign of incredible weakness. And this was the same vice president who equated national security with oil access, when the oil itself is the insecurity.

China's labor shortage

Important piece on the New York Times' front page:

Persistent labor shortages at hundreds of Chinese factories have led experts to conclude that the economy is undergoing a profound change that will ripple through the global market for manufactured goods.

The shortage of workers is pushing up wages and swelling the ranks of the country's middle class, and it could make Chinese-made products less of a bargain worldwide. International manufacturers are already talking about moving factories to lower-cost countries like Vietnam.

Scary subs and activist journalism

The other day, Drudge *cringe* linked to Bill Gertz's latest; this one on a super secret Chinese sub base.

Commercial satellite photos made public recently provide a new look at China's nuclear forces and bases images that include the first view of a secret underwater submarine tunnel.

We're thrilled the guy has cultivated such great contacts in the Pentagon, but he's such a half-assed ideologue he needs the indulgence of a Washington Times to get his shtick published. Is Chinese military buildup a threat? If so, make your argument and persuade. Don't try and manipulate me with obvious crap articles. For example:

Disclosure of the underground bases supports analyses of Pentagon and intelligence officials who say China is engaged in a secret military buildup that threatens U.S. interests, while stating publicly that its forces pose no threat.

Gertz has long been an activist in intra-Pentagon struggles, to the detriment of his readers. Do I wish the Chinese government spent less GDP on military modernization? You bet. But in order to help his source build hype for waging bureaucratic warfare, Gertz leaves out some facts known to the most casual Tom Clancy reader. First, China's ballistic missile submarine force amounts to:

The Type 092 (NATO code-name: Xia class) is China's first and only ballistic missile nuclear submarine (SSBN).

It entered service in 1988. (There was supposed to be a second that was launched, but it was never operationally deployed and is rumored to have sunk in '85). Second:

Operations of the Type 092 SSBN have been limited and the boat has never sailed beyond Chinese regional waters.

To put it less kindly, the Xia is a piece of shit. And I doubt the PLN has any confidence in its ability to actually fire its missiles (it has a mixed launch record, dating back to the 1980s.) It's role is more symbolic for a China desiring international parity with the United States and Russia/USSR. As for the "disclosure" of the ultra-secret underground submarine base, Jeffrey Lewis rolls his eyes:

I see Gertz has put his usual spin on the document, suggesting that Hans et al found evidence of “China’s hidden military buildup.”

That is most certainly not what they found, as the bunker was constructed in the 1970s. If the bunker is associated with a buildup, it was one that happened during the Mao-era. Deng Xiaoping actually canceled construction of a follow-on SSBN, leaving China with the lone (not operational) Xia-class SSBN for the past 20 years.

For the curious, you'll see Jeffrey's post is actually informative.

Radio days

I've been sick lately, and so brain-addled that I've been listening more to radio then reading anything. (However, I highly recommend this nice little biography of colonial-era theologian, civil libertarian, and Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, as recommended by Reason's editor.) So I've been listening to a lot of radio. Check out:

• Marketplace is doing its broadcasts from China this week, and Tuesday's edition concerns the nouveau riche's discovery of the soul-crushing, purposeless banality of conspicuous consumption.

• Living on Earth has an excellent, balanced segment on the controversy over mercury toxicity in fish, and since I try to follow mercury politics (for example), I was chagrined that I had missed -- but pleased to be informed -- of the Chicago Tribune's series, "The Mercury Menace".

• American Radio Works takes a generally unsympathetic look at neo-creationism in "Intelligent Designs on Evolution," where I learn about the Discovery Institute's notorious gameplan, the "Wedge Strategy" document. For folks arguing there to be "parity" between evolution and the pseudoscientific ID, it has no positive features to its argument, only the incompetent, burden-shifting argumentum ad ignorantiam (Also see previously here and here.) To quote Elvis:

Points up to heaven with cathedral spires
All the time indulging in his base desires
Ever since we said it
He went and took the credit
It’s been headed this way since the world began
When a vicious creature took the jump from Monkey to Man

China peasant shootings not sanctioned?

An update on the violent crackdown in Dongzhou. Today's New York Times:

The commander of paramilitary forces who opened fire on villagers protesting land seizures has been detained by the authorities in connection with the shootings, an extraordinary response that suggested high-level concern over whether the crackdown was justified.

This indicates the shootings and beatings weren't even locally sanctioned, or -- if it was -- then Beijing is instituting an instant revisionism of why this happened.

Li Ao on tour

Following up on this, Taiwan's ostensibly pro-mainland politician continues his tour of China, in the process stepping on all the right toes:

A leading writer and political maverick from Taipei who ardently supports the unification of China and Taiwan - is confounding authorities in a rampaging lecture tour that ends Monday, by doing something no one here ever does: criticize the Communist Party in public.

In truth, Li Ao, a TV personality, leftist, and prolific author who was born in northern China, attacked the US, Japan, and nearly everything but the moon in rambling speeches that have embarrassed official China.

With articles like this showing that China's politics are again ossifying into rigid CCP domination, let's hope Li Ao is planting fruitful seeds.

Look! No strings!

The PRC had Taiwan's most prominent pro-mailand politician speak at Beijing University recently. Oops, reports the New York Times:

During an address at Beijing University on Wednesday evening, broadcast live on a cable television network, Mr. Li chided China's leaders for suppressing free speech, ridiculed the university administration's fear of academic debate and advised students how to fight for freedom against official repression.

"All over the world leaders have machine guns and tanks," Mr. Li told the students and professors in the packed auditorium. "So I'm telling you that in the pursuit of freedom, you have to be smart. You have to use your cunning."

[snip]

"A group of slaves will never make a liberal and progressive country," he quoted Mr. Hu as saying. "Such a country can be made up only of independent minded and free-thinking people."

Though his arrival in China was covered prominently by the state-run media and his speech was viewed on television by millions around China, propaganda authorities imposed a blackout on reporting about his visit after the speech.

CSM rocks my world

The Christian Science Monitor is a paper everyone should read daily. Put it in your feed. In the wake of the July 7 London attacks, the articles they have been publishing have been incredibly insightful.

There are two utterly different pieces you should read today:

• "The Sidewalks where Terror Breeds" advances our perspective on the evolving relationships and interactions that drive underground terrorist networks
• "Australia sidesteps US on China" is basically a bad-ass blog post; a media round-up and heads-up on the increasingly complicated US-China-Australia relationship as the Howard Government becomes falls less and less in line with US policy.

See also this, this, and this.

China unpegs the yuan

Well, well, well. China finally unpegged its currency (partially) from the US dollar, allowing the yuan's value to float within a limited range. It immediately rose against the dollar, of course. It will make Chinese imports a bit more expensive, but I suspect any effect on the trade deficit will be marginal. For China, it needed to be able to slow down its economy, which it couldn't do by keeping its currency artificially stabilized. It was flirting with serious inflation by printing excess yuan and selling them abroad and then buying yuan out of the domestic economy with debt notes.

It's not only had an immediate effect on the value of other currencies, and boosted the stock market, but other Asia countries that peg their currencies are following suit.

Bloomberg, NYT, and prakitke have more.