We are yet to meet.

Even your name has been a mystery to your progenitors until recently. But don’t take that as a sign that we’re being slightly too casual about your imminent arrival, for that earth-shattering moment when parents embrace their first born consumes our every thought.

Some basic facts and guidelines to get you started on planet Earth:

First, a few words about your likely physical and psychological attributes based on genetic inheritance. As you’re not a boy, I can thankfully skip right past issues relating to whether or not male appendage size skips a generation and move swiftly on to extremities. Both your mother and I are pretty skinny, so get used the idea that you’re not going to end up representing your country (whichever that turns out to be) at weight-lifting or the shot put. If you’re lucky you’ll get you mother’s calves, which can at least be seen with the naked eye. On the plus side, you’re not going to end up a looking like the pillsbury dough boy on steroids, and that’s got to be a good thing.

So, what of the personality that both nature and nurture are likely to bless you with? Well, let me start by reporting – with all due humility – that your parents are decent, law-abiding folk, with a penchant for what the English refer to as Queensberry Rules, or what the Australians like to call ‘a fair go’. If you’re a businessman, a human rights campaigner, or the holder of dissenting opinion in China, on the other hand, you call it a fantasy. You can be thankful of this parental gift, for it is the one that guarantees you will stand up for what morality demands is justified, and support those who are denied their fundamental rights by oppressors.

You see, daughter, there are some seriously bad fuckers really naughty boys and girls (mostly boys, it has to be said) in this world, and while it is adviseable to avoid these people wherever possible, when they attempt to impose their own jaundiced view of the world upon you, you must meet them head on. At such times, I have every hope that you will confront the enemies of freedom with reasoned argument and compassion in equal measure.

But that kind of stuff comes later. For the first year or so you need only be concerned with demands for nourishment, sleeping soundly, and feigning delight when your toneless father sings to you. That you will be cared for in a loving environment is a given, but for every thing we know for certain there are a million unknowns, daughter. I know that we’ll provide a safe and comfortable home for you, but I don’t know exactly where that will be; I know that we’ll feed your imagination with a rich palette of language and ideas, but I have no idea how you will choose to organise and express your resulting thoughts; and I know that you’ll make lots of friends, but I can’t tell you who they will be or what their names are. I also know that there will be moments of frustration with the unfairness of this world (yes, my daughter, there will be some). At such times you may be tempted to vent your frustration irrationally and inappropriately. We promise to imbue with the serene fortitude that will, by degrees, teach that resisting this urge is the healthier course. Instead, we hope that you will work through such pent-up emotions through exercise and sporting endeavour. For example.

In addition to these conundrums, you’ll be born in Australia of a British father and a Chinese mother. Dispel forthwith any notions that this state of affairs is a cultural identity crisis-in-waiting, for you will enter this world as a citizen of the planet, and there is no finer earthly identity than that. Your mother is carrying you right now, as she has done lovingly for 34 weeks already. Until she walked into my life the window of opportunity for fatherhood seemed to be closing. I love her deeply, even when she hides chocolate from me. You will, too (love her, that is, not hide the chocolate).

One more thing, daughter: there are those in this world that will try to tell you that God will protect you. They’re wrong. Protecting you, loving you, and raising you are the primary responsibilities of me and your mother. Though it is our considered opinion that we are the sole creators of your flesh, blood, and dimples, we acknowledge your right to search for – and find – your own belief system when the time comes. And we cherish the prospect of being witness to your individuality, and to your unique journey of discovery in this world. With this journey in mind, your name, as you will be aware by now, is Ulyssa – the female form of Homer’s intrepid explorer. And that is what we intend to raise you to be: an explorer of the unknown; a traveler in search of knowledge, much as Tennyson described in the poem Ulysses:

To follow knowledge like a sinking star;

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought

Ulyssa, you are by an order of magnitude the most incredible and important thing that has ever happened in the lives of your parents. We await your arrival in a few short weeks with a heady mixture of anticipation and wonder. At that time it will be your mother that does all the hard work. For my part, I get to cut the chord and thereby perform my first act of facilitating your path to independence. It’s going to be a hell of a ride, Ulyssa, and we are blessed to be part of it.

PS

It’s ten years to the day since 9/11, and I weep for all those lost, and for the children who said goodbye to their parents for the last time that morning.

http://www.teamofmonkeys.com/

I’ve been silent since January, in part due to other commitments and partly due to engaging more on China matters through Twitter and Facebook contacts. Plus, I really wanted my first post since my wife’s pregnancy was confirmed to be the wandering thoughts of a father-to-be. Alas, having waited long enough to have confirmed the sex of my offspring, we now find ourselves on the cusp of that troublesome anniversary again.

And I’m not about to let that pass without comment – nor should anyone with an interest in China and access to a medium through which they can freely express themselves. So, more briefly than in previous years, here goes:

Peter Foster at the Telegraph recently posed the question: Did the tanks of Tiananmen bring stability to China, or store up trouble for the future? It’s a reasonable question if it leads to rational back-and-forth about what happened 22 years ago, and given that Tiananmen ’89 has never been a black and white issue, all the more need for open discourse. But here’s the thing: as ever, the one place where the events surrounding ’89 are a debate-free zone is the one place where such discourse could make a difference. And not just for China and the Chinese.

This is why we must keep prodding Zhongnanhai and their sad multitude of hard-wired acolytes, however much it fries their restricted neural pathways. Having perpetrated an act of violence against innocent civilians that remains singly the most defining moment of China’s relentless economic, geopolitical and military growth, the CCP have failed to mature commensurate with their rising global influence. Instead, China’s ruling party have recently shown a renewed vigour for practising their penchant for punishing the dissenting voice.

Where will that end?

The influence Beijing already has reaches far and wide, and is all set to reach further still. China routinely puts pressure on foreign governments to prevent critics and activists from being allowed to express themselves or have their views heard by a wider audience. Beijing’s enormous economic leverage cannot be understated as a successful tool in this endeavour. How long before film/book/art festivals near you stop exhibiting the work of artists critical of Beijing altogether? How long before your children are reading from textbooks that toe Zhongnanhai’s line on historical ‘truth’? How long before global media outlets consign Tiananmen and other sensitivities to the ‘off limits’ folder?

I know what some are thinking: “Calm down, bro. It’ll never come to that.”

Think again.

And that’s the prize of sticking a fire up Zhongnanhai’s ass every June. By refusing to forget the events of June 4th 1989 the freedoms that China’s leaders would happily deny all of us given half a chance are kept alive. Power of the magnitude now wielded by Beijing must not be allowed silence uncomfortable discourse or airbrush inconvenient history. Ever.

Update

Once again the defiance of the people of Hong Kong in remembering each year is inspirational.

An article by John Lee at Forbes.com entitled Beijing’s Motives Behind Rare-Earth Metals caught my attention today. Initially, I was given cause to roll my eyes in incredulity that for such a smart guy it should have taken so long for the penny to drop:

There’s a growing suspicion that China is increasingly taking a zero-sum rather than ‘win-win’ approach to open markets and free trade.

Never!! Tell me it ain’t so. Really? This opening possesses about as much permeating insight as a scientist who suggests that global nuclear conflict might be bad for your health. In other words, in the name of human compassion, it’s high time that commenters on China (especially the smart ones) get off the damn fence of ‘growing suspicion’ and embrace the reality of Beijing’s long game.

I could name dozens of China-watchers and analysts more clued up than I am on Chinese history, culture, politics, and trade. And yet, so many seem lost in the mists of denial about the clear disconnect between China’s stated regional and global ambitions and their real intentions. Thus, when I read that opening sentence I said to myself, “what the hell took you so long to figure it out and why are you still equivocating?”

By the end of the article, however, I was more inclined to give John Lee some credit for spelling out exactly what Beijing has in mind for its near monopoly of rare-earth metals. First, the author neatly recaps the importance of this group of metals, and how China has come to dominate 95% of the world’s supply:

Realizing the growing importance of these metals, Beijing has spent the best part of the past sixteen years attempting to control the market in the supply of these materials. While state-owned Chinese mines were able to mine these metals at much cheaper prices than foreign competitors–in the process pushing these competitors out of the market–foreign governments and corporations were content to increase their reliance on Chinese suppliers.

Everyone seemed so sure that China would play by the rules, foreign governments have effectively given Beijing’s strategists the opportunity of taking vital rare-earth candy from a group of helpless infants. And now they’re going to pay for it. Dearly. Following a decision to cut exports of rare earths by 72% in the second half of 2010, Beijing has recently announced a further reduction in export quotas by 35%. These moves, the article notes, mean that only 14,508 tonnes will be available to foreign markets in the first six months of 2011 – not even enough to sustain one large Japanese auto manufacturer.

Just to be clear, it is not the case that China does not have the capacity to meet existing demand, it has just decided that it doesn’t want to. Did I mention how vital these elements are? For any fence-sitters out there still clinging to the forlorn hope of China as a responsible stakeholder, this state of affairs has nothing to do with coincidence:

Beijing knows that governments and mining companies around the world will respond by reopening existing mines and developing new ones outside China. Indeed, the production of these metals is being accelerated by miners operating in countries such as Australia, Mongolia, Thailand and Ukraine. But reviving defunct mines and opening new ones require significant capital and will take several years …

… given the number of years needed to mine enough rare earth metals from sites outside China, Beijing is attempting to force foreign companies who want access to large quantities of rare earth metals to form joint-ventures with local firms and base their manufacturing operations within China. Revealingly, any foreign company in such a joint venture is not subject to any quota restrictions.

Foreign manufacturers are compelled to engage in joint ventures with a local firm. To be sure, legitimate technology transfer from joint ventures between local and foreign firms operating within China is one thing. But large scale industrial espionage and theft, especially when it is initiated by state-owned giants is another.

One would have thought that some think-tankers with a handful of under-utilized brain cells could have figured this out before the planet outside China backed itself into this unenviable corner. Apparently not. Well, we’re in it now. The only thing that could make this position any worse is if our present crop of estimable China analysts persist in the perpetuation of the myth that Beijing will wake up one morning and start playing fair. It won’t. The Forbes article ends:

The problem is that many products requiring rare earth metals are in lucrative and cutting-edge sectors. The suspicion is that illegitimately optimising imported technology has become one primary strategy for many of China’s domestic champions – an approach that is condoned by the Chinese Communist Party. If so, this goes to the heart of whether China is emerging as a responsible stakeholder in the global economic system.

Take another look at that last sentence. Yep! He said “whether”. Still sitting on the fence, I see, despite overwhelming evidence that Beijing intends not only to maintain China’s rare earth needs (which is fair enough), but to control global supply to the comparative detriment of others’ industries and livelihoods. That’s the kind of cold-blooded, zero-sum approach to human life not seen since this happened:

Admirable for its clinical pragmatism, perhaps; but a force for planetary good? Never. It’s time to send for Sigourney Weaver.

Do it now.
Update

Justrecently has pointed out, quite rightly, that China really doesn’t have much incentive to stop screwing everyone around – a policy that is yielding all the dividends Beijing craves. See his latest offering on Sino-EU ties as a further example of the leverage they have. The planet is in need of a new game plan, because waiting or expecting China to behave responsibly is never, NEVER, going to happen under present dynamics.

I’m back, after a frenzy of non-foundinchina duties.

A quickie on the eve of Liu Xiaobo’s honour in absentia. A lot has been written about this, mostly because of Beijing’s punitive, bullying petulance in response to the Nobel committee’s award. Peter Foster at the Telegraph has produced as balanced an account of the workings of an infantile global bully as Beijing can reasonably expect for its conduct:

For a country that spends countless millions projecting its soft-power – reassuring the world that its rise is peaceful and its intentions benign – tomorrow’s event is a horrible embarrassment. At a stroke, much of the work of a very expensive Olympic Games, international Confucius Institutes, student exchange programmes and English-language television channels and newspapers has been undone.

At a time when the international community is nervously wondering whether China will become a “responsible stakeholder” in world affairs – think of its recent refusal to condemn North Korean aggression or its increasingly muscular approach to global trade – the country has allowed itself to be directly compared to Nazi Germany, the last regime to stop a Nobel peace laureate from collecting the prize.

That last comparison is well-made, I believe. It is folly of the greatest magnitude to think that the kowtowing of 19 countries to Beijing’s bullying on this issue will not have consequences for your children’s right to freedom of expression if that already worrying level of appeasement does not meet with the sternest resistance.

Appeasement.

Resistance.

I told you the comparison was well founded. Peter Foster goes on:

In handing an 11-year sentence to Liu Xiaobo last Christmas, the state tried to send a warning to others who dared to challenge the Communist Party’s self-appointed right to rule. It succeeded only in making an icon of a man determined to see power shared among the people. The attempt to head off the consequences of that first mistake, by officially warning the Nobel Committee not to give Mr Liu its peace award, did more than any letter of support ever could to guarantee him the prize.

Even at that late stage, there was still a chance for China to show the kind of diplomatic maturity that the democratic world wants to see. Instead, it responded like a scolded child determined to spoil the party, doing everything in its power to undermine the Nobel ceremony, banning not just Mr Liu’s family from attending but also as many of his friends and supporters as it possibly could.

If China sees itself as a future superpower that will one day rival America for global pre-eminence, it had better get used to putting up with the kind of criticism that comes with being the big kid on the block. From invading Iraq to the setting up of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, America has taken decisions that have drawn the world’s opprobrium, even hatred, in recent years. However it hasn’t hesitated to justify or, if necessary, modify actions many have felt unconscionable.

It is a measure of China’s worrying brittleness that it could not take the Nobel Committee’s decision on the chin and argue the case for its authoritarian system of government and the political stability it brings to a country barely three decades out of dictatorship.

Exactly. Read the entire piece here. This is no small matter for the course that the planet may take under the shifting rhythms of China’s tide. It’s not going to be a comfortable journey for nations to swim against that tide, but the alternative may well be drowning. So learn to swim; or, more accurately, learn to demonstrate that you have the ability to swim.

And do it now.

I’ve been saying it for a long time. Krugman’s latest op-ed echoes the frustrations of dealing with a nascent superpower that has the mentality of a five-year-old pointing a taser at the neighbours to see how high they jump.

On the recent Senkaku imbroglio that belatedly brought rare earths to the world’s attention:

I don’t know about you, but I find this story deeply disturbing, both for what it says about China and what it says about us. On one side, the affair highlights the fecklessness of U.S. policy makers, who did nothing while an unreliable regime acquired a stranglehold on key materials. On the other side, the incident shows a Chinese government that is dangerously trigger-happy, willing to wage economic warfare on the slightest provocation.

And the all too obvious questions now being asked:

You really have to wonder why nobody raised an alarm while this was happening, if only on national security grounds. But policy makers simply stood by as the U.S. rare earth industry shut down. In at least one case, in 2003 — a time when, if you believed the Bush administration, considerations of national security governed every aspect of U.S. policy — the Chinese literally packed up all the equipment in a U.S. production facility and shipped it to China.

Krugman’s frustration coming to the boil:

Then came the trawler event. Chinese restrictions on rare earth exports were already in violation of agreements China made before joining the World Trade Organization. But the embargo on rare earth exports to Japan was an even more blatant violation of international trade law.

Oh, and Chinese officials have not improved matters by insulting our intelligence, claiming that there was no official embargo. All of China’s rare earth exporters, they say — some of them foreign-owned — simultaneously decided to halt shipments because of their personal feelings toward Japan. Right.

And the lessons to be drawn?

First, and most obviously, the world needs to develop non-Chinese sources of these materials.

Second, China’s response to the trawler incident is, I’m sorry to say, further evidence that the world’s newest economic superpower isn’t prepared to assume the responsibilities that go with that status.

I could take a swipe at Krugman here for stating the bleedin’ obvious. Except it’s been obvious for some time and nobody has been paying attention. So I’ll give him a break for spelling it out.
Update

Only Sino novices will be surprised to learn that China today signalled more cuts in its rare earth exports: http://ow.ly/2WjkY