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Several Chinese ships threatened and harassed a U.S. Navy ship in what U.S. officials are calling an “extremely provocative” and “very dangerous” action on the part of the Chinese.
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What You Didn’t See In Beijing
I’ve been largely willing to turn a blind eye to the politics in China, at least while the Olympics were going on. I thought the games were really exciting this year and except for China cheating with underage gymnasts, the games went quite well.
Having said that, now that the games have concluded we’re beginning to learn more about just what made it possible for Beijing to put on such a spectacle. It seems that like everything else in China, one must take a peek behind the curtain to see what’s really going on.
Foreigners traveling around Beijing over the last couple of weeks have admired the beautiful flowers blooming and lush green grass around famous monuments.
We’re now learning that China was terrified that they would run short of fresh water during the games, predicting as much as a 30% spike in water usage. Rather than gather the smartest minds in China to come up with a solution, the Chinese government did what any good dictatorship does, and decided to steal the extra water.
More than 200 miles of pipeline was constructed which drained thousands of farms completely dry leaving farmers without a livelihood and many without a home.
More than 30,000 people have been left homeless, and many have even been driven to suicide. Security officials blanketed the area to ensure none of the disgruntled farmers could somehow make it to Beijing and clue the world in on what’s going on.
The blunders began when officials started to worry that Beijing might not have enough water to cope with 500,000 visitors to the Olympics. There was talk of a 30% spike in demand. Their gaze turned to Hebei province, its fields ripe with vegetables, corn and rice, providing a good living for its huge rural population.
Decrees were issued, targets were set and engineers scurried to complete a “100day struggle” to build almost 200 miles of channels and pipes to Beijing. These will form part of a gigantic project to bring the waters of the Yangtze River to the drought-stricken plains of northern China. Meanwhile, four strategic reservoirs in Hebei, around the city of Baoding, were filled to the brim.
Accounts differ of what happened next. Some farmers say the price of water was raised by 300% to put it beyond their reach. Others simply say that their irrigation channels ran dry. As subterranean water levels fell, their wells collapsed, fields were abandoned, mud-brick farm houses stood empty.
About 31,000 people around Baoding are said to have lost their homes or land. Local leaders complained; China’s tiny environmental movement agitated. That all stopped when the Hebei media trotted out a barrage of propaganda assuring readers that the entire population was overjoyed to be making a sacrifice for the national good.
The security services were also on high alert for any foreigners entering Baoding. Taxi drivers were told to drive any foreigners who asked for a ride straight to the police station.
A reporter for the London Times who uncovered this whole story experienced the creepy security first-hand when he traveled to Baoding.
At a city hotel, the staff at the front desk arose aghast when I entered to ask for a room, then immediately telephoned the authorities. Deciding to forgo the pleasure of their acquaintance, I made my excuses and left Baoding.
As I waited at the railway station, the only foreigner in a reeking hall crammed with shabby migrants, a young man in a perfectly ironed green polo shirt and polished black shoes came and sat opposite, apparently engrossed in a newspaper.
A few minutes later a second young man, in a neat purple T-shirt and equally shiny shoes, sat down nearby and stared into space. A third fellow, this time in a pink polo shirt, materialized in the heaving throng next to me as we tramped towards the night express, murmuring into a mobile phone. After I climbed on board they vanished.
Yet another red banner, strung across the interior of our packed carriage, read: “The five Olympic rings include you and me.”
This pretty much destroys any illusions about the Chinese government. The entire Olympic games was a remarkably well choreographed charade intended to maintain a facade of progress. President Hu Jintao is really just a quieter and more reserved version of Joseph Stalin. It was a mistake to allow China to host the Olympics and it’s a decision the world will grow to regret more and more as time goes on.
HuffPo: Documents Reveal Underage Chinese Gymnasts
The Huffington Post has a very interesting collection of documents that seem to definitively prove what we’ve all known to be true since these games started — China cheated.
Like any other country, when a Chinese athlete has an impressive victory the Chinese media reports it. This otherwise routine reporting of sports news in China has left a lengthy paper trail that reveals the true age of China’s gymnasts.
Making an issue of this has nothing to do with being “sore losers” because the U.S. team came in second. The Chinese team was amazing and they deserve all the credit in the world. However, rules are rules and winning a medal at the Olympic games doesn’t mean anything if it’s based on a lie.
The athletes are not to blame here, the Chinese government is. China has proven that not only do they have no respect for human rights or freedom, but they also have no honor. In other parts of Asia, to have no honor is a fate worse than death.
By winning on a lie, not only has China cheapened the victory of their own athletes, but they’ve stolen the dreams of athletes from other countries who’ve trained for years hoping for a shot at Olympic glory. For many of those athletes this Olympics in Beijing was their last chance to fulfill a dream they’ve spent their entire lives up to this point working for — the chance to honestly compete against the best in the world.
What a disappointment.
-Chris Jones
Pollution Threatens Olympic Sailing In Yellow Sea
Everyone knows China is on of the most polluted places on earth. Many of the rivers in China are so polluted they no longer support life. In some rivers the pollution level is so toxic that merely touching the water can cause skin burns.
The unchecked pollution in Chinese waters however, is now threatening at least one popular Olympic event–sailing. With only six weeks until China hosts the Olympic sailing regatta in the city of Qingdao, officials are working feverishly to clean up a massive algae bloom that is choking off large stretches of coastline.
As many as 20,000 people and more than 1,000 boats are participating in the clean-up effort. Nearly a third of the coastal waters (5,000 sq. miles) designated for the Olympic games is covered by the algae.
Algae blooms occur naturally in the Yellow Sea and elsewhere, however the size of the bloom is believed by everyone except Chinese officials to be caused from the raw sewage that is dumped into the water daily. In addition to that, the rivers and tributaries that flow in to the coastal waters are often polluted with industrial run-off.
Hundreds Buried In China Quake
Via the BBC:
Almost 900 students are buried after an earthquake measuring 7.8 caused a building to collapse in south-western China, state media reports.
President Hu Jintao urged “all-out” efforts to rescue victims of the quake, which hit 92km (57 miles) from Chengdu, Sichuan’s provincial capital.
Premier Wen Jiabao is travelling to the area and troops are being sent to help with disaster relief efforts.
Officials have confirmed 107 deaths in the area but the figure could rise.
Chinese Spy ‘Slept’ In U.S. For 2 Decades
From The Washington Post:
Prosecutors called Chi Mak the “perfect sleeper agent,” though he hardly looked the part. For two decades, the bespectacled Chinese-born engineer lived quietly with his wife in a Los Angeles suburb, buying a house and holding a steady job with a U.S. defense contractor, which rewarded him with promotions and a security clearance. Colleagues remembered him as a hard worker who often took paperwork home at night.Eventually, Mak’s job gave him access to sensitive plans for Navy ships, submarines and weapons. These he secretly copied and sent via courier to China — fulfilling a mission that U.S. officials say he had been planning since the 1970s.
Mak was sentenced last week to 24 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge who described the lengthy term as a warning to China not to “send agents here to steal America’s military secrets.” But it may already be too late: According to U.S. intelligence and Justice Department officials, the Mak case represents only a small facet of an intelligence-gathering operation that has long been in place and is growing in size and sophistication.
The Chinese government, in an enterprise that one senior official likened to an “intellectual vacuum cleaner,” has deployed a diverse network of professional spies, students, scientists and others to systematically collect U.S. know-how, the officials said. Some are trained in modern electronic techniques for snooping on wireless computer transactions. Others, such as Mak, are technical experts who have been in place for years and have blended into their communities.
“Chi Mak acknowledged that he had been placed in the United States more than 20 years earlier, in order to burrow into the defense-industrial establishment to steal secrets,” Joel Brenner, the head of counterintelligence for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an interview. “It speaks of deep patience,” he said, and is part of a pattern.
Spies like Chi Mak should get the death penalty for living here all these years and pretending to be a honorable American, but betraying his country all along.
At the same time, U.S. agents could probably learn a lot from these guys. You have to admire the dedication and patience it takes to pull off an intelligence operation that lasts 20 years.
This guy was sent here more than twenty years ago to be educated, employed, and then send back information to China. Imagine how many opportunities there was for Chi Mak to stop reporting back and just live a normal life. I’m sure China sends these kind of operatives to many countries around the world to the exact same kind of thing.
I’m not sure an American agent could pull off something like that. I don’t think you could find a CIA agent willing to move to a foreign country for the rest of his life and work as an undercover operative.
The whole thing is pretty amazing, and it really shows what a cunning adversary China truly is.
-Chris Jones
Pentagon Official Pleads Guilty To Giving Secrets To China
A Pentagon official pleaded guilty Monday to passing US military secrets to an agent working for China after being showered with gifts and gambling money, the Department of Justice said.
Gregg William Bergersen, 51, faces up to 10 years in jail after admitting to one count of conspiracy to disclose national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, the department said in a statement.
It said Bergersen started handing secret information in March 2007 to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a Taiwan-born US citizen with business interests in New Orleans.
Bergersen worked as a weapons systems policy analyst at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which implements the Pentagon’s foreign military sales program.
I can’t think of anything more disgraceful or repugnant than selling your own country out for a few gifts and some gambling money. Actually, I can’t imagine selling my country out for any amount of money or gifts.
Bergersen deserves a hell of a lot more time than 10 years in prison. In fact, the most appropriate punishment would be for him to hang.
-Chris Jones
China may scrap one-child policy
China, worried about an ageing population, is studying scrapping its controversial one-child policy but will not do away with family-planning policies altogether.
With the world’s biggest population straining scarce land, water and energy resources, China has enforced rules to restrict family size since the 1970s.
An unintended consequence of China’s one child-policy has been a growing gender gap. China’s culture has a preference towards boys and those boys are expected to grow-up and get married. As a result, in some villages women have become quite sought after as there are very few.
This problem is biggest in rural areas, but even large cities like Bejiing are feeling the effects. Even when men move to big cities, the competition for women can be fierce.
What has made the problem even worse is that China’s economic boom has created a generation of well educated, independent women who prefer to be CEO’s and business tycoons than housewives.
The Chinese government has been combating the problem in rural areas by paying families to have girls and emphasizing that girls are as much a part of China’s future as men.
China for its part argues that while the policy is not perfect, it’s prevented several hundred million births which has boosted the overall prosperity of the country.
-Chris Jones
Christmas Becoming Popular In China
Made In China
During the eighties I’d read articles in the Wall Street Journal about jobs being sent to China. I was in management in the sales arena of electronic components, even then I knew that wasn’t good news for America. This trend continued through the nineties when off shoring became the battle cry of America’s industrial might being handed the communist country. Now that I lost my job to a Mexican in Renosa for a tenth of what I was making it has become perfectly clear that manufacturing is essentially gone.
I went out to buy a desk lamp for a table I planned to do some doodle art (the only pastime I can afford these days) when I was told every lamp in the store was made in China, regardless of whether the company was Canadian, American or European. I asked the sales person if there was a store in town that might have exception to this reality. I drove across town and found a German halogen for $377.95 which I passed on. Then after a couple of second hand stores I found a lamp made in Taiwan for $39.00 and bought it on the spot, claiming victory after spending all day looking.
After the lead paint found in much of the Chinese made products with the direct knowledge of American executives fiasco this Christmas, I had driven my personal stake in the ground – no more “Made in China” products. I wasn’t sure why corporate CEOs were knowingly trying to kill off our young, but I suspected it had to do with being traitors to our people by giving our enemies our jobs and now working with the enemy to kill our children. We’re still in the cold war only now the communists have powerful friends in Washington and board rooms all over our country.
I don’t care how many things I go without until I die. I still won’t kill my granddaughter off for corporate profits and the exploding wealth of the investor class in our country no matter what.
By Lloyd H. Frye
Op-Ed Columnist
The Hot Joints
China Drops Out of Talks on Iran Sanctions
It looks like China is taking a hard line against further sanctions:
China has dealt a blow to Western efforts to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by dropping out of a meeting to discuss tougher sanctions against Tehran.
Russia, which like China opposes further U.N. sanctions against Iran, added fuel to the fire by announcing on Friday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog would soon start inspecting and sealing atomic fuel bound for an Iranian reactor.
The West fears Iran wants to develop atomic weapons but Iran denies this. Tehran says it wants only to generate electricity.
Political directors from Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia and China were due to meet on November 19 to assess reports about Tehran’s nuclear program from the United Nations and from EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
“I think it’s partly related to genuine travel difficulties, but also linked to resistance on the broader question of sanctions from that quarter,” a European diplomatic source said of China’s decision.
It doesn’t make any sense that China and Russia keep urging the Bush Administration to use diplomacy rather than war, but then block our diplomatic efforts at every opportunity.
-Chris Jones
Tony Blair Overtakes Bill Clinton As Most Sought-After Speaker
Tony Blair has been paid more than $500,000 for a 20-minute speech in China, meaning he has overtaken Bill Clinton to become the world’s most sought-after public speaker.
Britons might have tired of hearing from the former prime minister but in the southern Chinese industrial town of Dongguan his words appear to be worth their weight in gold.
Mr Blair’s lucrative speech to a group of about 600 Communist party officials, businessmen and investment bankers confirms he has shot into the super league of after-dinner speakers.
Bill Clinton was paid a mere $100,000 for a speaking engagement in Hong Kong late last year.
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