The Law of Unintended Communist Consequences

The Chinese Communist Party has finished hosting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in what was clearly a feather-in-the-cap moment for the regime. Here it was, hosting and feting a man who had ripped the cadres so thoroughly his candidacy form Prime Minister was endorsed by yours truly, only to chuck it all out the window. This was yet another opportunity for the CCP show how it was moving forward, and bringing the Chinese people with it.

Except that even when it tries to impress, the regime leaves its guests . . . depressed. Paul Wells, one of the most insightful pundits in Canada (and easily the most humorous), gives his description of the hollowness of it all in Macleans. The last paragraph bring the point painfully home:

It’s a fake opera house across the park from a fake shopping mall next to a fake hotel in a fake neighbourhood designed to snow gullible foreigners, not 100 km from villages whose residents live in grinding poverty. A rich command economy is still a command economy, and it commands its subjects to live in ways that steal hope. There was much more to like about other parts of other cities we visited — Chongqing is wild, bustling, dirty and vital — but after less than a day I was eager to put Guangzhou behind my back. And grateful for the right to do so

That wasn’t in the CCP script. The ersatz wealth was supposed to make outsiders ignore the hopelessness, not zero in on it with sniper-like accuracy.

So once again, the regime’s attempt to win over foreigners (and thus justify its regime to the imprisoned Chinese people) goes awry, and the day when said Chinese people will take their country back continues its approach.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

How the CCP nailed jello to the wall

During the heyday of the “engagement” movement in the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton was being briefed on how the Chinese Communist Party was hoping to regulate the internet within its borders. After the now-forgotten aide explained with the cadres had in mind, Clinton let loose a famous, derisive remark, “That’s sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall.” To be fair, Clinton was merely articulating a widely held view that censorship would be impossible in the world-wide-web era. However, he was also very, very wrong. Rebecca MacKinnon, who has been following the state of the internet in Communist-controlled China for many years, details in the National Post how the CCP has succeeded in turning the information superhighway into a gelatinous decoration.

She starts with the usual, the “great firewall,” i.e., the cadres’ attempt to block anything problematic to the regime from even entering China. Impossible, you say? Not quite:

This blocking is easily accomplished because the global Internet connects to the Chinese Internet through only eight “gateways,” which are easily “filtered.” At each gateway, as well as among all the different Internet service providers within China, Internet routers — the devices that move the data back and forth between different computer networks — are all configured to block long lists of website addresses and politically sensitive keywords.

Ah yes, but one can get around the firewall with the right software, right? Well, yes. Here’s the problem: 99% of internet users in Communist-controlled China don’t have it, so while a large number of Chinese can see around the firewall, it’s “not enough percentage-wise to shape majority public opinion” as MacKinnon notes (to give an idea, over 5% of the entire population on the mainland is a member of the Chinese Communist Party).

MacKinnon then goes to show why the firewall is so important by recounting the story of Google: why it chose to create a Chinese-only version of itself to get in the firewall, what it had to do to stay, and why after four years it gave up and left again.

The result is, literally, two internets: a mainland-China-web and a rest-of-the-world-wide-web. The former version has its own Facebook (more than one, actually) and Twitter (use the real one and risk prison); it ensures that every resident of the mainland is connected to . . . each other and the CCP. The rest of us are locked outside, and only allowed in if we say the right things, at the right time, about the right people.

One of the hallmarks of “engagement” thinking was that the economic “reforms” the CCP unleased would, eventually lead to political freedom. For those of us on the right, the classic example of Augusto Pinochet – who dramatically lessened the state’s role in the economy, than responded repeatedly to pressures inside and out to shrink his own power base until he lost his own referendum on extending his leadership and stepped down – shined in our eyes. However, the CCP was not an anti-Communist general. Their reforms merely changed the Party from factory manager to holding company, and the cadre went from foreman to trust runner.

Many may argue with my interpretation of the economics, but on the political side, it goes without question that the regime has become more restrictive against dissenters,  more aggresive abroad, and more interested in dominating its neighbors, including the ”breakaway province” (Taiwan).

These trends had their beginnings in the 1990s, but one of the standard “engagement” responses was that the internet would force the CCP to loosen up. To the contrary, the cadres have managed to create their own information cul-de-sac.

They really did succeed in nailing jello to the wall.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and Bearing Drift

Tsai Ing-wen for President of Taiwan

Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China) will begin voting for its president and its legislature in about 31 hours. The CCP is very happy with its onetime nemesis, the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party; so yours truly has been a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) backer for over a dozen years. The DPP candidate is Tsai Ing-wen; for anyone in Taiwan reading this, please vote for her and the DPP (or the Taiwan Solidarity Union – TSU) for the Legislative Yuan.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

America’s defense strategy: the good, the bad, and the ugly

While much of the focus on the president’s defense strategy has centered on the reduction to the Army and to the Marine Corps, the overarching strategy changes America’s defense position across several dimensions. Not all of them are uniformly negative.

I will not get into the discussion of overall military spending. Like any other federal bureaucracy, the Department of Defense can be made more efficient. Unlike many of the others, DoD has been focused on efficiencies for many years, and more to the point, cutting the wrong thing can be exceedingly dangerous. However, this should not prevent us from cutting the right thing.

So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly in the new defense strategy.

The good: One can only imagine what it feels like in Zhongnanhai, knowing that the CCP is the only force that will see more of the American military in their midst. In fact, the president has repeatedly shown an unexpected, unadvertised, and thus largely unknown determination to protect and preserve our interests in southeast Asia (in northeast Asia, he hasn’t been much better than his predecessors, but not much worse either). The greater emphasis on our allies in the Pacific received far more attention outside the U.S. than anything else (BBC, twice). For the first time, the United States is making it clear it has concern about the “peaceful rise” of the Chinese Communist regime, and it is prepared to put resources in place to address that concern. That is a change, and a good one.

The bad: Unfortunately, the concern the Administration has about the CCP is only a regional one. The idea that the regime would seek to build its power and prestige outside East Asia is surprisingly absent here. Given that Zhongnanhai has already established alliances with the mullahcracy of Iran, numerous tyrants in Africa, and the Pakistani military (and through them, the Taliban), Washington’s newfound concern for the CCP is thus dangerously limited. Or, as Nadia Schadlow put it in the Weekly Standard:

This geostrategic pivot toward Asia, accompanied by an emphasis on high technology Sino-centric warfare, fails to account for the character of conflict in most of the rest of the disordered world.

One can be certain that the CCP will not “fail to account” for the rest of the world. This leads us to . . .

The ugly: The overall weakening of the American military will make it that much harder to actually achieve the excellent goal of holding the CCP, its tyrannical allies, and its terrorist proxies in check. While Zhongnanhai may find things more difficult in Asia, the regime will likely find eroding American power easier in the rest of the world.

The question then becomes this: will America then weaken itself in Asia to face those other threats abroad? Or will she swallow hard and reverse the manpower and strength reductions that are part of the newly current strategy? This is the question the president, his would-be Republican opponents, and the American people must address – preferably this year.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and Bearing Drift

The tyrant is dead; long live the tyrant

Kim Jong-il is dead. Few outside of northern Korea will mourn him (and of those inside who do, I would suspect most do so out of fear of arrest if they don’t). This has led more than a few to ask: what is next for northern Korea? The answer is this: not much of a difference.

That answer will certainly surprise some people, who would think that no one could be worse than Kim Jong-il. This assumption misses several important factors.

First, a regime is always more than one man. Millions have heard of Joseph Stalin, yet few remember Beria, Molotov, or the blood on Nikita Krushchev’s hands. Osama bin Laden’s death did not destroy al Qaeda (although it has been weakened by his passing). The Ba’athist regime in Iraq predated Saddam Hussein’s rise to power, and some of his highest-ranking psychophants are fighting the current Iraqi government today. Kim Jong-il relied on a vicious and brutal military to rule, and groomed his son only too well to match his cruelty (Corner – NRO).

Secondly, Kim did exactly what the Chinese Communists wanted him to do – namely, bring America to the table and extract concessions from her. Despite a slew of leaks supposedly expressing frustration from Beijing at Pyongyang (all of them dutifully reported by media entities drunk on the “engagement” Kool-Aid), Kim was never once truly brought to heel, and for good reason. Every dollar Kim extracted from the Americans freed up 6-8 Chinese renminbi that went to Iran, Syria, various terror groups, or the PLA. If anything, Kim III will be weaker than his father, and thus even more beholden to his de facto colonial administrators. He will do their  bidding.

Finally, and most importantly, the free world is weak in northeast Asia, and our enemies know it. Japan is in political flux, again (and I’m being euphemistic); the United States is distracted and uninterested (in contrast to Southeast Asia, where the president is very engaged); and Canada has never been included in the mix. Only South Korea remains concerned, and that nation’s left is recovering from the 2007 wipeout and could retake the country next year. Washington could change the dynamic by working to help dissidents in northern Korea, but it chooses not to do so (and even if it did, it wouldn’t change much in the short term).

In short, don’t expect the regime to be much different after Kim Jong-il’s passing.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift 

An open letter to John Bolton

Dear Ambassador Bolton,

I do not know if you saw the Republican presidential debate last night (just in case you did not, here is the transcript via Politisite). I am all but certain the debate will leave or has left you as disappointed as I am at our current crop of Republican candidates for the Oval Office. Yet this was merely the latest in a string of debates that made clear that there is a yawning and dangerous vacuum in the field – one that only you can fill.

Many will say that it is difficult to discern the candidates’ views on foreign policy because it is so infrequently discussed. Many more believe foreign affairs are too frequently discussed as it is. Both are symptoms of a growing myopia both within the party and the nation on the global threats to the world from Palestine to Pakistan to the People’s Liberation Army. Yet no candidate is willing to even attempt to shift the debate and the campaign to a badly needed discussion of the threats will we face and how we must defeat them.

Can you not see that it was a mistake to decline to run for President? Is it not obvious how badly needed your voice is on that stage?

I know at the time you were under the impression that it would be difficult to win the nomination. Surely recent events have shown that belief – understandable at the time – to be mistaken. The remarkable fluidity in national and state Republican polls have propelled Herman Cain – the only current candidate who was never elected to office – into the lead. Republican voters are desperate for an alternative to Mitt Romney, and have gone through nearly everyone in the current field to find that alternative.

Moreover, last night made clear just why an alternative is so necessary. Mr. Romney’s comments on foreign policy were of a frightening ignorance matched only by a cavalier dismissiveness. He actually implied that it would be better for the Chinese Communist Party to backfill our foreign aid, essentially inviting that dangerous element to enlarge its current geopolitical offensive (this is not to say that foreign aid is the best way to counter or prevent said offensive; far from it in fact, but you knew that already). He then listed Pakistan as a logistical ally, rather than a two-faced, duplicitous regime. Is it really a wonder the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are seeking someone else?

Sadly, on the international crises that await us (and face us already) no one has the strength, intelligence, experience,  or wherewithal to be that alternative to Romney (and Obama, for that matter).

Yet you have all of them.

Please, sir, if you are reading this (and I hope you do read it soon), reconsider. Take one more look at the field, and realize that it has a place for you.

You can run, you can win.

You must run; you must win.

Cross-posted to John Bolton for President and the right-wing liberal

Why Iran’s plan to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador is about more than just Iran

The Tehran regime was caught trying to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States. The mullahcracyhad hoped to hire out a Mexican drug cartel (!) to set off a bomb at a restaurant, killing the Ambassador and a whole slew of Americans who would have been eating there, too.

Lest anyone think this was just a weird one-off, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear some of what’s at stake (Weekly Standard, emphasis in original):

Here is what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to say during an interview with NBC’s Today Show about the Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S.

Clinton believes that the alleged plot by the Iranian government to kill a Saudi official, which she called a “dangerous escalation,” came from the highest levels.

“We think that this was conceived and directed from Tehran,’’ Clinton said. “We know that it goes to a certain level within the Quds Force, which is part of the Revolutionary Guard, which is the military wing of the Iranian government. And we know that this was in the making, and there was a lot of communication between the defendants and others in Tehran.

“So we’re going to let the evidence unfold. But the important point to make is that this just is in violation of international norms. It is a state-sponsored act of terror, and the world needs to speak out strongly against it.’’

Naturally, much of the reaction has centered on what action will or should be taken against the Tehran regime (Weekly Standard), although the U.S.-Mexican border has been a topic (NRO and WS), as well as American energy policy (NRO).

Yet something continues to be missing: any talk of repercussions for Tehran’s strongest ally and arms supplier – the Chinese Communist Party.

Few Americans (let alone citizens of the rest of the democratic world) think much about Zhongnanhai’s continued support for the mullahs in Iran – and that’s just how the cadres want it. For years, they have sought out opponents of America who were both willing to attack us and shield the CCP from any responsibility. Terror sponsors in the Middle East and Central Asia, for their own reasons, almost always fit the bill. That’s why the Iranian mullahcracy, al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, and Stalinist North Korea have all found favor with the cadres since the Tiananmen Square massacre forced a reset of the Party’s geopolitical priorities.

Now, the first of that bunch (the mullahs) are taking the battle to American soil – and once again, the Chinese Communists are getting off scot free.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, our Pakistani “allies” have once again sided with the Taliban and al Qaeda against us (first WS link), while openly boasting of their friendship with Beijing; no consequences have hit the latter.

This cannot go on.

When Cuba decided it wanted a nuclear weapons program, no one in Washington tried to separate Fidel Castro from his weapons suppliers in Moscow. In fact, no Soviet satellite actions were considered to be free of Soviet influence – or unworthy of counteraction against the Soviets themselves by the free world.

The Chinese Communist Party needs a similar understanding of its attachment to its allies and beneficiaries. Washington should make it clear in no uncertain terms that Zhongnanhai will be held responsible for actions taken by their allies in Tehran, or Islamabad, or Damascus, or Pyongyang, or anywhere else on the globe.

This need not necessarily mean a military reaction. There are plenty of diplomatic and economic levers than can be used against the Communists and their allies. Acceleration and increase of arms sales to Taiwan, greater military cooperation with the CCP’s rivals in Southeast Asia (to be fair, the current Administration has already made moves on this front), encouragement of Japan’s remilitarization, threats of a retaliatory strike against China if Iran detonates a nuclear weapon by itself or throught its terrorist proxies (and yes, I do mean a nuclear retaliation), a public alliance with India, all of these should be considered and adopted (as well as my favorite, counterproliferation).

These policies (and the list is not exhaustive) would make it abundantly clear to the Chinese Communist Party that its actions have consequences, and force the regime to understand that being a superpower has grave responsibilities. The cadres in Zhongnanhai have been spared that lesson so far. It is time to teach them, good and hard if need be.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Mitt Romney may actually get it

Mitt Romney gave his first major foreign policy speech at the Citadel today, and for anti-CCP folks, it was a pleasant surprise. Of course, presidential candidates fortunate enough to be elected have a habit of sounding anti-Communist before Election Day, only to fall into the “engagement” morass soon after the victory party. Still, Romney broke new ground for a top-tier candidate, new and welcome ground.

In previous post-Tiananmen election cycles, incumbents hew the engagement line while challengers rail about economic threats from the CCP. Romney is the first major candidate I remember to go straight to the geopolitical threat. Here’s his first mention of the problem (transcript courtesy of Katrina Trinko - NRO, emphasis added):

China has made it clear that it intends to be a military and economic superpower. Will her rulers lead their people to a new era of freedom and prosperity or will they go down a darker path, intimidating their neighbors, brushing aside an inferior American Navy in the Pacific, and building a global alliance of authoritarian states?

Let me restate for emphasis: no other top-tier candidate for president has ever even noticed, let alone warn of the CCP building an anti-democratic alliance – not one. This is a major step forward for anti-Communists; even most of our prominent allies in Congress are missing this.

Later, Romney reiterated his concerns about the world with a list of “ a handful of major forces that vie with America and free nations, to shape the world in an image of their choosing . . . determined, powerful forces that may threaten freedom, prosperity, and America’s national interests” – and the Chinese regime made the list.

This is not to say it was a perfect speech. When Romney talked about what he would do as president, East Asia was not specifically mentioned. India was never mentioned at all, a glaring faux pas on several levels.

Still, Romney has given hope to anti-Communists everywhere that he at least understands better than anyone else how dangerous the Chinese Communist Party is to the democratic world. If that is maintained by Romney as GOP nominee (if he is to be that), it could be one of the surprise issues of the 2012 campaign; if President Romney (if he is to be that) turns it into policy, it could dramatically halt the CCP’s global march, and perhaps even hasten its demise.

I once thought I could never be able to support Romney’s bid for nomination. I can’t say that anymore after today.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal and Bearing Drift

Communist China’s high-speed railway . . . made in Japan?

One of the dirty little secrets about technological advances in Communist China is that there almost never started within Communist China. As much as the CCP would like to have us think they’re the next technological superpower, their myriad engineers, scientists, and other overcredentialed cadres keep building things with imported parts and/or stolen technology . . . and it still has problems.

The latest exhibit: the highly praised (from the outside) bullet train network in the eastern mainland, which suffered a bad crash earlier this year. As the Wall Street Journal noted, this should not have been a surprise:

. . . China’s high-speed rail network was in fact built with imported components—including signaling-system parts designed to prevent train collisions—that local engineers couldn’t fully understand, according to a review of corporate documents and interviews with more than a dozen rail executives inside and outside China.

During a late July lightning storm, two of China’s bullet trains collided in the eastern city of Wenzhou, killing 40 people and injuring nearly 200 in one of the world’s worst high-speed passenger-rail accidents.

The cadres quickly pinned it all on Anonymous (or, to be terminologically precise, “human error”), but – surprise! – the regime “recently postponed public release of its crash findings.” Of course they did.

The WSJ goes on to note that one of the more important pieces of the rail network was imported from Japan – with a built in “black box” to keep the ChiComs from stealing the technnology within. The contracting firm (an ex-state-run-enterprise that likely was “sold” to a cadre group in the 1990s) had trouble with the parts, but rather than simply agree not to steal the intellectual property, the cadres were OK with installing parts about which they didn’t know enough to keep them operating,

Then again, they decided lightning rods were unnecessary, too. Is it any surprise that that collision came during a lightning storm?

This is a tragic yet telling example of how “modern” Communist China works. Rather than a well-structured society based on freedom, property rights, and the rule of law, we have a slipshod edifice held together by fear, treachery, and corruption. The results is a rail system that gleams wonderfully for ignorant foreigners while killing innocent Chinese.

Does anyone really expect this bunch to inherit global leadership if we give it up? History tells us leadership seeks nations out more than nations seek it. If Washington ever sends it into exile, it’s headed straight to New Delhi, a stumbling Beijing’s effort to chase it down notwithstanding.

Sic Semper Tyrannis?

There is no other way to describe it: Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell embarrased herself, her husband, and her state with this litte get together. Ugh!

From the Governor’s Office press release:

On Friday, Sept. 9, First Lady of Virginia Maureen McDonnell hosted a delegation from China Central Television (CCTV) at the Governor’s Mansion in Richmond. The group came to Virginia as a result of Governor Bob McDonnell’s trade mission to Asia in May of 2011. During that trip, the First Lady and representatives of the Virginia Tourism Corporation met with China Public Television officials regarding opportunities to work together on media related initiatives.  

 “It is exciting to work with an institution like China Central Television on initiatives that can produce such great mutual benefits” said Mrs. McDonnell. “I am grateful that our trade mission is producing results such as these and that Virginia now has the opportunity to host this distinguished delegation.” 

As the great John McEnroe would say: You cannot be serious!

CCTV is not PBS, or even NPR, or anything else that passes as “public television” in the United States. It is Communist propaganda, pure and simple. Among the many “educational” programs this bunch of cadres airs for the Chinese people was this drivel seen and noted by Troy Parfitt (Why China Will Never Rule the World):

That night on CCTV, a panel of Chinese scientists was explaining how the Americans had never landed on the moon. Not only were the lunar missions faked, they said, but the Apollo program itself was largely a matter of science fiction. The shadows were all wrong. Where were the craters? And just look at that ridiculous flag – not moving even with solar winds. Their tone was both mocking and disdainful, as if even having to explain why this was the biggest fraud of all time insulted their very intelligence. It was announced that part two of the program would air the following evening and I made a mental note to remember to watch it. I reckoned I might be able to learn where Elvis had been hiding and why Princess Diana was murdered by Britain’s secret service.

So now the Commonwealth of Virginia is on record endorsing the source of nonsense like this, and this meeting is sure to be beamed from the Pacific to the occupied nations (Tibet and East Turkestan) as evidence of Virginia’s thumbs-up to the regime and its propaganda arm.

Virginia’s motto is Sic Semper Tyrannis – with the controversial image of a half-naked woman stepping on a dictator. Something tells me the semi-clothed femme fatale would have been the one embarrassed this time.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift