The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday 24 October

Air Date: 
October 24, 2018

Photo: Naval Base Kitsap in Silverdale, Wash., is about 200 miles from Chinese underwater monitoring devices planted in the high seas in June.  Permissions: Wikimedia commons
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com
 
Hour One
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block A: Charles Burton, professor at Brock University, in re:  Canada installs Chinese-made [by a unit of Chinese Academy of Sciences, of the PLA] underwater sensors next to US sub base. Part of Canada’s increasing willingness to transfer sensitive information to China in the  hope that Canada will [eventually] benefit.  The four monitoring devices were dropped by a Canadian ______.  The US would have good cause to feel quite unhappy. Yes, Canada is still a NATO member.
The Canadian PM and foreign minister have not commented on this, and there’s little on the matter in the Canadian press.  . . . It's hard to find a political party in Canada that doesn't have strong connections to the Chinese regime.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2169474/canada-installs-chinese-underwater-monitoring-devices-next-us
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block B: Rick Fisher, senior Fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re:  Regan and Gorbachev abolished a complete class of intermediate-range missiles – which had no warning, unlike ballistic missiles, which travelled in an arc and so gave a small amount of advance warning. 
Pres Trump has announced that he US will soon leave the treaty on grounds that Russia has been secretly building forbidden missiles.  Concern that Russia is putting missiles on trucks, and so can shoot at any time from anywhere.  Russians have been violating since 2008or earlier.  Further the Chinese are not part of the treaty. Could China be persuaded to join such a treaty?  Have refused entirely to be constrained in any way by any arms-control treaty; their goal is dominance.
There’s a wide swath of Russian security elite long concerned with Chinese missiles; Putin has decided he needs China’s support to survive.  However, Putin and his advisors know that after this entente, China will come after Russia, so are using this period to prepare.  US doesn't have mobile missiles. China has been bldg short-range mobile missiles since the 1990s. 
Rick Fisher's just-published article on INF and China:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-growing-missile-ambitions-helped-kill-the-inf-treaty_2695851.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/10/23/how-china-plays-into-trumps-decision-pull-out-inf-treaty-with-russia/?utm_term=.165f89c246b6
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block C: Alan Tonelson (@AlanTonelson), independent economic policy analyst who blogs at RealityChek, in re: 7-9 December in Shanghai at the expo center, on production, mfrg, and all related persons in E6 industries. . . . Purportedly on encouraging other nations to export to China – a Potemkin trade show , since China is anything but an import-friendly economy.  “Persuade China to open up its economy to foreign imports, playing fair, etc. Chinese have no intention of keeping markets open to foreign competition one moment longer than it needs to. Once it's managed to steal relevant intellectual property and succeeded at reverse engineering, it chews up and spits out the foreign company.
What we see there is the Trump Adm endeavoring to move US mfrg out of China. A watershed moment in US history.  . . . What do data say about US companies relocating?  Only anecdotal; can look at US mfrg output, growing nicely, and mfrg employment, growing faster than other employment. Real wages in mfrg are falling.
https://on.wsj.com/2yvUEVq 
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/22/trump-tariffs-could-hurt-china-economy-very-badly-in-months-ahead.html
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 1, Block D: Larry Johnson, No Quarter blog, in re: Cold-case examinati0n of the hack of DNC documents that turned up in the hands of Julian Assange and were published to the great embarrassment of the Clinton campaign.  FOIA-requested response: NSA information links the death of Seth Rich to the material held by Julian Assange.     Fifteen documents either secret or top-secret pertaining to the death: downloaded into a thumb file, uploaded to a Dropbox, and thereafter to Assange.  Hacked chiefly by GRU and passed to Assange?  Crowdstrike was called in by DNC, took possession of all the relevant hardware and software, and said it was Russians who hacked. The company owner is Ukrainian-Jewish family and hates Russians. Crowdstrike began on 7 May 2016: shd have turned off all computers, installed new software, In fact, it was 25 May when __, and turned off computers on 10 June.  . . . Goosifer 2.0  . . . The transfer rate showed that the metadata could not have been transferred over the Net, only over a thumb drive.   . .  Why was the FBI not given access to the servers in May or June, and never has been? The allegation that Russia was deeply involved in all this is based on not a shred of actual evidence.  Seth Rich was at odds with his DNC bosses and was a “burning” Bernie Sanders supporter. 
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen Yates, CEO of D.C. International Advisory and former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, in re: Nat Christiansen: “The US will continue to fly and sail wherever international law allows.” Continuing dispute with the PLA and the PLA navy on [territoriality].  US maintains freedom of navigation operations worldwide.  China is trying to close off the global commons. The US has incipient elections; China doesn’t have elections, it's all under he control of one man, Xi Jinping.  Recently, the mayor of Taipei, who’s running for re-election, has questioned Trump’s reliability.  Pres Tsai Ing-wen welcomes American commitment in face of relatively accelerated provocations from China. Taiwan’s concern generally is if Americans become distracted by China and [ignore] Taiwan.  The president is clear that he’s open to a deal but is firm on the context in which the deal is made.  Low odds on a grand deal on trade or security. Washington was in the warm bath of conventional thinking for so long that . . .  Don’t recall that either Bush or Obama sent warship through the Strait of Taiwan for sixteen hours.  – This has more to do with freedom of navigation than merely with Taiwan.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warships-transit-taiwan-strait-in-defiance-of-china-1540222457
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block B:  Charles Ortel of the "Sunday with Charles" podcast, in re: China in a recession? A retreat? What’s the polite word?  Where is China in six to nine months?  No one knows how much debt is in the Chinese economy – need debt destruction. 
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-20/alhambra-chinas-economy-not-crashing-its-worse
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block C:  Denny Chared, DC-Finance.com, in re: Family offices, where investments are decided and maintained by one’s own team, are non-biased, and working only for one’s own interests, as distinct from a private banker. 
Our firm does gatherings, conferences, held in many cities and countries; closed to the press at those meetings. Attendees learn about investment, estate planning, many relevant topics. Among the frequent problems of high-net-worth families are addiction and suicide.  A single-family office might best be opened by a family having $100 million or more; with $10 to 100 million, usually have a multi-family office. 
I can put VR glasses on you and say, “This is the future, and why.” You may fall in love with it, go to your parents and say, “We’ve got to be involved in this thing.”  They love adventure and tech investments.
Different countries have different taxations and rules; in Europe m it; harder to co-invest: where I’m knowledgable in one field of investment, and a family I trust is informed in another, so each of us depends on the other for wisdom and we co-invest.  . . . There were many Madoffs, by the way. This led to a lot of co-investment among families that truly trust each other.
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 2, Block D: Monica Crowley, London Center for Policy research, in re:  Trump calls the bluff of the left-wing mob.
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block A: Salina Zito, CNN and Washington Examiner, and Lara M Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management at the George Washington University; in re:
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block B:  Bill McGurn, WSJ, in re:  
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block C:  Brenda Shaffer, Caspian specialist, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, Fellow with the Atlantic Council and professor at University of Haifa; in re:
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 3, Block D:  Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security, in re: Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar; Saad Hariri in Saudi forced to resign as Lebanese PM, and then recover it a few weeks later.   MBS and Israel.
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block A:  No Man's Land: Fiction from a World at War, by Pete Ayrton
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block B: No Man's Land: Fiction from a World at War, by Pete Ayrton
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block C: Hundred Days: The Campaign That Ended World War I, by Nick Lloyd
Wednesday 24 October 2018/ Hour 4, Block D: Hundred Days: The Campaign That Ended World War I, by Nick Lloyd
 
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