Joshua Kurlantzick & China’s Soft Power
My review of Joshua Kurlantzick's new book, Charm Offensive: How China's Soft Power is Transforming the World, has been published at Asia Times and can be read here. A quote from the review: Loitering throughout Kurlantzick's analysis of China's ability to employ soft power is the painful realization that the US has squandered much of its own accumulated soft power. This strength, the product of a country that has embodied some of the greatest insights into human governance and which chose to interject itself successfully into two World Wars in the last century, has been severely damaged through policy missteps that Kurlantzick traces back to the administration of president Bill Clinton. The "flat world" of globalization, so stridently ...China, US in Search of a Level Playing Field
My most recent article at Asia Times covers the re-introduction of the Fair Currency Act of 2007 (FCA) and what it suggests about changes to the US-Sino trade relationship. A quote from it: The questions circling around China's accountability to international standards have gradually become increasingly specific and built momentum as a number of congressional panels have publicly begun to question Beijing's commitment to conformance with World Trade Organization (WTO) standards. With the introduction of a Democrat-controlled Congress, legislation like the recently reintroduced Fair Currency Act (FCA) of 2007 attest to a subtly changing position on the broad topic of globalization, and the more specific set of assertions that have supported China's entry to the marketplace for the past 15-plus years. ...Hitchens & the Inevitability of Iraq
Christopher Hitchens has a new article at Slate on Ali Allawi's new memoir, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace in which Iraq as a fractured state on the cusp of implosion (our involvement or not) should be recognized. From Hitchen's essay: Without needing or wishing to soften any critique of post-invasion planning, I would propose that this analysis has a highly unsettling implication. Hell was coming to Iraq no matter what. This point is undergirded by another one, which is that hell was already making considerable strides in Iraq in the decade before 2003. Again, Allawi's cool analysis and careful evidence darkens this already black picture. All the crucial indices, from illiteracy to unemployment to ...Carnage Hits Home
The heinous nature of yesterday's killings at Virginia Tech defy comprehension. But they are not without their immediately contemporary parallels, and unfortunately one such is in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan makes the comparison: Imagine that this kind of massacre happened every day. Imagine a police force that was far too small to even respond to most of them. Imagine this occurring repeatedly for years until the perpetrators and their accomplices became the de facto power-brokers throughout the land. Imagine the shootings also being accompanied by the brutal torture of victims. Imagine families never having finality on whether their own siblings or parents or children have been murdered or not. This is Iraq today. Now think of the justified rage many ...John Bolton & the BBC
John Bolton recently sat down with BBC reporter Jeremy Paxman. There are a couple of important points to draw out of Bolton's appearance: first, the neo-conservative justification for "what went / is going wrong" in Iraq is shifting to the Iraqis themselves. We heard this first from the Administration during the run-up for the November '06 Congressional elections, and it has a certain cache to it: ultimately no one is responsible for the outcome of their own governance other than those being governed. If you find that satisfying, ask yourself if it really makes sense after what we pre-emptively did, or whether you're just frustrated with the slow bleed that Iraq has become. ...Eisenhower & Pre-Emptive Wars
Found this an interesting quote from a President who knew something about strategy, the military, and the reasonable aims both can and cannot accomplish: All of us have heard this term "preventive war" since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it.... I would say a preventive war, if words mean anything, is to wage some sort of quick police action in order that you might avoid a terrific cataclysm of destruction later. A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today.... I don't believe there is such a thing, and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. But again, this was also ...Jeff Sharlet’s Fightin’ Fundies
The most recent Rolling Stone has a good article by Jeff Sharlet on Ron Luce and his organization Battle Cry. If you haven't heard of this organization, it's membership can usually be determined by the overly serious visages from teenagers who at their point in life should be discovering a lot of things other than religious thinking cloaked in military metaphors. That, or anyone wearing a t-shirt with one of a host of pithy slogans like: "ABREADCRUMB & FISH" or "Not Of This World" or "RAISE THE DEAD". You have to look carefully, because the t-shirts are designed to look like any avant-gard rock & roll band or Lucky-Jeans paraphernalia. And that's a good ...Totalitarianisms Revisited
This is an article I wrote some time ago which did not get picked up; because I am still working on the idea, I wanted to get it out into the public in order to get feedback from those who might have something to contribute to my thought process. At the moment, China holds the potential to become a beacon of insecurities for the West. Politicians aware of the underlying economic disquiet which colors their electorate, even now in times of relative stability, are likely to intensify the focus on China’s role in job loss and lowered standards of living once the issue with illegal immigration is no longer politically expedient. Similarly, the powerful community of ...When China’s Economic & Political Agendas Collide, Will You Be Ready?
Forcing broader WTO compliance on China is a complicated proposition in large part because the US’ own motives relative to China are mixed. The US government is attempting to balance the interests of two American business communities who have disparate agendas. On one hand are the well connected multi-national companies who call the US home and who rely on the low price of Chinese imports to sustain their growth and profitability. These organizations are leery of the US government being too heavy-handed in an effort to enforce WTO compliance for fear China may resist and engage in their own form of protectionism which would subsequently damage the US companies’ ability to access China as a source for ...March 2007 USCC Meeting
According to testimony at last week’s USCC meeting, China’s current sophistication in its perception management parallels that of the latter stages of the Cold War, in particular the Soviet downing of KAL007. After this tragedy, the Soviets were surprisingly successful at getting certain portions of the international media to take its claims seriously that the flight was an illegal intelligence gathering mission designed to “tickle” border radar stations. Similarly, incidents which occur within China’s sovereign territory give it, coupled to its state-run media outlet, a unique ability to craft what information is disseminated, and thereby much of what constitutes world opinion on the event itself. « Previous Entries Next Entries »About MysteriousFaith
“If anyone can show me, and prove to me, that I am wrong in thought or deed, I will gladly change. I seek the truth, which never yet hurt anybody. It is only persistence in self-delusion and ignorance which does harm.”
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