The John Batchelor Show

July 11, 2012

Air Date: 
July 11, 2012

1950s Chinese cartoon, showing U.S. Dollar abusing peasants (before Liberation).

 

Wednesday 905P Eastern Time (605P Pacific Time):  Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow at the U.S. Business & Industrial Council, on this: Chinese are probably laughing out loud - WTO is not serious - this is one of the dumbest complaints any country has ever filed [US vs Chinese tariffs on imports of cars & auto parts sent by US to China] because there are almost US exports of any cars to China; rather, blds massively within China. Predator Chinese trade practices are widespread; to focus on this is so cynical it staggers the imagination.  Anticurrency-manipulation bill assed by Senate last fall: undervalued yuan destroys competition with China; being bottled up in the House by Republicans, John Boehner. Pres Obama also doesn't want to upset the trade status quo.  Panda tariffs.

Wednesday 920P Eastern Time (620P Pacific Time):  Nury Turkel, former president of Uyghur American Association, in re:  Beijing calls Uyghurs "terrorists," while Uyghurs defend themselves with hatchets against Han guns.  Govt says Uyghurs tried to break down a  down to a pilot's cabin with with "a broken crutch." Three overlords of Xinjiang: regional govt, Communist Party  and construction corps all rule Xinjiang. The new "king" of Xinjiang, supposed to be a nice guy, announced he'd fight Uyghurs with an iron fist. Uyghurs recently arrived in US say conditions are now overtly those of a prison. Rebiya Khadeer says, "Xinjang is the new Tibet." Nury Turkel's emendation: Tibetan matters are ruled by a  "United Front," while Xinjiang is considered a natl security issue, and so Han are more brutal.   Chinese Communist aggression.  Cultural destruction: to eradicate religion and local culture; under UN definitions, is cultural genocide-- liquidate culture in both Tibet and Xinjiang.  A 12-year-old child - a Turkish citizen - was just killed by Han because he was praying. Chinese govt out of control.

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. . . Li Tong, the daughter of Chinese propaganda and media tsar Li Changchun, who ranks fifth in the politburo standing committee, runs a large investment fund at Bank of China Internationalthat focuses its investments in the media industry. One of the biggest and most successful homegrown private equity funds in China, New Horizon Capital, was founded by Winston Wen, son of premier Wen Jiabao, who often publicly rails against official corruption. Mr Wen's wife, Zhang Beili, is deeply involved in the country's diamond and jewellery industry and is known for extravagant tastes that contrast sharply with Mr Wen's public image as a humble public servant. Wu Bangguo, second in the party hierarchy, has several relatives active in investment management, property development and construction. His son-in-law, Feng Shaodong, is chief ex ecutive of China Guangdong Nuclear Industry Investment, a fund management company set up in 2009 by a giant, state-owned nuclear company. He previously worked as head of Merrill Lynch's investment banking arm in China, where former colleagues and competitors say he almost single-handedly won the mandate to underwrite the 2006 Hong Kong offering of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in the world's biggest initial public offering. 

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Wednesday 935P Eastern Time (635P Pacific Time):   Tom Jones, chair of NEO research of Assn of Space Explorers; consultant, B612 project ; astronaut; in re:  B612 project (named after the asteroid of the Little Prince) announced last week on the first privately funded deep space mission to map and detect NEOs.  Sentinel machine: space-based telescope proposed by B612 Fdn to protect against incoming asteroids; to circle around Venus to inspect asteroid belt and find potential danger in advance.  For 15 yrs, NASA has been charged with finding such potential dangers to Earth; found 90% of those objects, none yet aimed here. However, smaller objects not easily discovered. Five yrs to raise funds, design telescope, get it launched; then a functioning life of five years or so. Transit time =/< one year. There are about a million asteroids coming at us able to destroy a city; last one known was 1908 in Siberia [Tunguska]. Australia's Sighting Springs observatory had to shut down. Lost all that planetary defense in Southern Hemisphere. Mass extinctions seem to come every 100 million years; last one was 55 million years ago.

Wednesday 950P Eastern Time (650P Pacific Time):  Michael Auslin, Resident Scholar in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute, in re: "After a while, an undertone creeps into discussions with Chinese counterparts on regional and global issues.  Whether meeting with Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, academics and policy analysts, or the media, an American soon begins to sense that part of the conversation is missing.  What's absent is not boilerplate about values, opportunities, or common interests, but rather a sense of China's broader set of relations . . ."

Chinese obsession with America.  Soviet Union had an ideological basis to animate everything it did; Chinese now are obsessed with the US, not with spreading revolutin. Rather, it's emerging into the XXI Century  as a major power and doesn't know how to deal. When China looks at Asia, it feels frustrated to see that the region isn't centered on China; whereas, in looking at the rest of the world, it sees that it has a long way to go.  In all authoritarian/totalitarian societies, freedom to look at the world is absent in China today, was absent in old Soviet Union, is surely absent in North Korea. 

 

Wednesday 1005P Eastern  (705P Pacific Time):  Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, in re: cyberwar.  Indian navy infected with malware; Chinese IP address, which clearly is not dispositive but seems like a good place to look.  At  present, scale and scope and speed are so great that it's no longer cost-effective for US just to watch and calculate how the intruder operates.  Good idea to call China out publicly.  Cant expel dips in cyberspace, but we can almost identify specific groups involved in the hacking, can use targetted sanctions. 

See: http://freebeacon.com/cyber-war/

1950: Foreigners now have to obey the law (After liberation)

1950Foreigners now have to obey the law (After liberation).Wednesday 1020P Eastern (720P Pacific Time):   Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania, in re: In CHina, no one knows where dissidents are - "airbrushed out of the picture."  The society has become so complex that the simple-minded COmmunist system - never effective is all ways - is no longer useful, and too many Party members are just filling their own pockets. May be approaching a crisis. Bullies preventing to their most basic tools. Oligarchs unwilling to face a controlled, planned route to a new system, or there'll be an "over-the-cliff event." DIfferent dynamic from old USSR - Gorbachov, Besmyertnikh, others, "built a fire escape" that got them out with few casualties. In China, leaders are padlocking all the doors and sealing the windows.  Bishop Ma disappeared, speaking of the notion that the Party has no business running the Church.

Wednesday 1035P Eastern  (735P Pacific Time):  Toshi Yoshihara, in re;  sovereignty of Senkakus. China basically claims the whole South China Sea, which puts it in conflict with about seven other nations.  US values free flow of navigation across the waters. Philippines (strategic partner of the US)  demands a code of conduct, which China refuses to discuss. China insists in engaging only in bilateral discussions to avoid all [25] ASEAN nations' banding together to back it off.  Comes back to capacities and capabilities of regional powers to protect against China. PetroVietnam asked CNOOC to stop acting as though it owns large blocks in the South China Sea. Last year China cut cables of a Vietnamese survey ship and chased it away.  Aggression in the past, now established. When Vietnam invited India to explore in one of the blocks, the Chinese were up in arms against India. Aggressive double standard.  Japanese military is much more competent, powerful; Tokyo needs to back up its claims with long-term investments in its military capabilities. China h-is taking on everyone, at home and abroad, all at once; 'way over its head.

Wednesday 1050P Eastern (750P Pacific Time):  Sruthi Gottipati, New York Times, in re: Survey finds widespread spying by Indian companies. $807milper year, growing by 30% pr year

 

Wednesday 1105P  Eastern (805PPacific Time):   Joseph Sternberg, WSJ, in re;  Chinese business. John Paulson lost half a billion dollars in the SinoForest scam. "We're not playing with choirboys here; we're dealing with people who know how to sing in Las Vegas." 

Wednesday 1120P Eastern (820P Pacific Time):  Reza Kahlili, A Time to Betray, in re:  Iranian legation in Canada packed with IRGC agents, Supreme leader makes threats.

Wednesday 1135P Eastern  (835P Pacific Time):  Bob Zimmerman, behind the black, in re: NEO defense down from South;  more private space. 

Wednesday 1150P Eastern  (850P Pacific Time):  James Taranto, WSJ, in re: The Little Blue Book, and "framing" moral questions;  how to "talk Democrat" on TV, a lesson to George Lakoff. "Don't repeat conservative language or ideas, even when referring to them; come up with synonyms (according to Zombie of PJ Media). Introduce odd terms. "People who donate money to Republicans are trying to get advantages from govt; who donate to Democrats are merely doing the right thing."  Also, rumors of a leak from Supreme Court decision to White House.  

 

Wednesday/Thurs 1205A  Eastern (905 Pacific Time):  Ben Protess, in re: LIBOR scandal.

Wednesday/Thurs  1220A Eastern (920 Pacific Time):  Eric Trager, Washington Institute, in re: Egyptian government challenge to military control, Morsi to Saudi Arabia

Wednesday/Thurs  1235A  Eastern (935P Pacific Time):  Tom Jones, chair of NEO research of Assn of Space Explorers; consultant, B612 project, and astronaut; in re:  B612 project (named after the asteroid of the Little Prince) announced last week the first privately funded deep space mission to map and detect NEOs.  Sentinel machine: space-based telescope proposed by B612 Fdn to protect against incoming asteroids; to circle around Venus to inspect asteroid belt and find potential danger in advance.  For 15 yrs, NASA has been charged with finding such potential dangers to Earth; has found 90% of those objects, none yet aimed here. However, smaller objects not easily discovered. Five yrs to raise funds, design telescope, get it launched; then a functioning life of five years or so. Transit time =/< one year. There are about a million asteroids coming at us able to destroy a city; last one known was 1908 in Siberia [Tunguska]. Australia's Sighting Springs observatory had to shut down. Lost all that planetary defense in Southern Hemisphere. Mass extinctions seem to come every 100 million years; last one was 55 million years ago.

Wednesday/Thurs  1250A  Eastern (950P Pacific Time): Exeunt: Michael Ledeen, FDD, in re: Supreme Leader cranky in Iran, Iran strugging, long process of falling.

 

Molotov of Russia with PRC delegation, 1950.