Ten reasons why China fails the global responsibility test: #1
While the Chinese government’s army of Internet harmonizers are busy blocking free discourse as well as your humble correspondent’s website (and once you’ve boiled that down, what’s the difference?), the naysayers keep branding those with a grip on reality as alarmists. Here is the first of ten reasons why they might just want to put the spliff down and take a cold shower:
Reason #1
They gave the bomb to Pakistan, and then cheered as Iran and the DPRK enriched away while embroiling the US in a strategic tarpit. And now they’re turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to the nuclear ambitions of their military dictator buddies Burma.
Real responsible, boys.
Update
I’ve decided to head in another blogging direction, so just for the record the other current and pending areas of globally irresponsible behaviour emanating from Beijing are as follows:
#2 Claims to the Arctic (unbelievable, but true)
#3 Antarctic treaty and exploration (they’ll pass on any accord and start digging)
#4 South China Sea disputed territories/claims (question of time before they occupy a disputed island)
#5 Exhaustive mass fishing of southern hemisphere oceans (lots of mouths to feed and they don’t give a crap about the damage to the ecosystem)
#6 Monopolising rare metals (thereby holding a gun to the world’s head – a strategy already well underway)
#7 Corruption of foreign politicians in return for CCP-friendly policies/access to resources (this is the latest example, and I see their fingerprints all over Rudd’s demise in Australia)
#8 Malevolent use of cyber capabilities to track, steal, punish, and control (this isn’t alarmist – it’s already happening)
#9 Building and controlling of ports in Asia, Africa, and Europe (Again, already happening and a conflict-generator in the making.)
#10 Ongoing efforts to undermine the efforts of other nations through misuse of growing influence at the table of various world bodies/conferences (e.g. UN, WTO, G20). This was a classic example.
June 17th, 2010 at 12:25 am
You’re becoming a pro at these sequences of enumerated posts . . . I look forward to 2 through 10!
June 17th, 2010 at 10:39 am
Thanks, AEC !
Actually, it’s a pretty weak effort on my part to keep things alive while I’m too busy for anything more substantive.
June 19th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
Iran going nuclear isn’t in China’s interest either. A test would be that Washington would stop pushing for an aligned global reaction to the Iranian efforts. Iran as a nuclear power would either not be deemed all that dangerous by China and regional countries, or China would start pushing for sanctions against Iran itself, and America and Russia could happily follow suit.
The rule of the game at the moment is that America advocates stability and pays a price in its own national interest, in Taiwan’s national interest, etc.. It’s a pretty stupid game – and not the right one to take part in.
June 19th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
“Iran going nuclear isn’t in China’s interest either.”
Indeed, justrecently. But they do so love to strategise to cause maximum inconvenience to the US.
July 9th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Stuart, I realised I didn’t have a contact for you. I hope you don’t mind me dropping off a couple of links in the comments here.
It sounds like you have a fair bit of stuff bubbling away in the cauldron already, but if you’re interested in doing some pieces on ‘rule of law’….
Chinese artist Wu Yuren has been detained by police indefinitely, without charge, without notifying his family, without access to his family, and with only very limited access (eventually) to a lawyer, for the crime of….. well, accompanying a friend to the police station to file a complaint against his landlord. I suspect that, rather than anything very ‘political’, it’s just a routine case of people in the criminal justice system fishing for bribes. His wife, Canadian, is starting to drum up some press coverage about it: recently this piece in the New York Times and this in the Toronto Star.
They’re two of my oldest friends in China, and this makes me sick to my guts. In so many ways, in almost all of the ways that matter, this country is still medieval. I’m thinking it may be time to leave.
July 10th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Froog,
Not at all – much appreciated.
I had no idea of your personal connection to Wu Yuren (no reason why I should, of course), but I’ve no doubt that the anger at such injustices must resonate at a deeper level when the victims of China’s opaque legal system are known to you. I’ll do what little I can to spread the word.
After a hectic last couple of months – plus a leisurely last week or so while my wife was away in China – I’ve rather neglected foundinchina. I feel I should try and produce something more substantial but need to recharge batteries a bit more before applying myself to the task.
About time I checked in at Froogville, too.