Mao's Bloody-Mindedness.
The PLA plan for the rest of the century, I am told by best signals source, is to move several hundred million Han Chinese to the west, to Tibet and Xinjiang, and to establish a secondary center of security and trade. The PLA believes this will make it more difficult for an adversary, such as the US or Japan or Russia, to launch a strike that would beggar China on the Beijing to Shanghai corridor. Therefore, the Beijing cadre is building an infrastructure to move tens of millions of Han Chinese (the vast majority ethnic group in China) into the generally underpopulated western regions. The conflicts in capitals such as Lhasa and Urumqi (above) follows because neither Tibet nor Xinjiang natives will give up their freedom nor dream of independence from the Beijing tyranny. The PRC is an imperial construction, the product of Mao's bloody-minded warlordship and the crude dream of world domination. The empire is artificial and incoherent. One billion people will not obey a gang of timid clerks who live inside the delusion that Mao was a hero.700 Million Dead.
Recall that Mao made a speech in Moscow in November 1957 that shocked and appalled even Khrushchev when Mao said that 700 million dead in an atomic war with the West was likely and acceptable. The Sino-Soviet feud and eventual complete antagonism followed. Mao was a lunatic genius whose brutality caused more human suffering over a longer period of time than anyone but Satan. This cowardly lot in Beijing and the PLA just now are the grandsons and great grandsons of Mao's sadism. After Stalin''s death in '53, Mao coveted the role of super communist leader. The pride of place has passed on to the lackies in the Chinese Party. Arrogant, cruel, obvious, paranoid, second-rate and timid, the unelected leadership cadre knows that it is losing to the much smarter and wiser forces of liberty in Tibet, in Xinjiang, in Hong Kong, in Taiwan and the Diaspora, and in the Mainland as well with the resistance groups of democratic idealists, Falun Dafa, Christians. There is no legitimacy anywhere in sight of the pervertedly frightened Hu and his stubborn, jealous pal Wen. (Hu rushing away from G-8 to Beijing is because Hu's job is that brittle: he knows that he can be replaced between planes.) The middle-aged Beijing cadre sleeps each night expecting to be arrested by its former personal assistants in the morning. Again, does the Obama administration have a Chinese liberty policy other than the cowardly passive, make-believe and Federation non-interference directive?
URUMQI RIOTS FORCE HU TO CANCEL G-8 PARTICIPATION
B.RAMAN
The seriousness of the situation in the Xinjiang province of China would be evident from the fact that President Hu Jintao, who was on a state visit to Italy before participating in the G-8 summit in Italy starting on July 8,2009,has flown back to Beijing after cancelling his participation and his state visit to Portugal, which was to follow the summit.
2. There is considerable concern in Xinjiang as well as in Beijing over the dangers of a communal conflagration between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese following large demonstrations by the Han Chinese in Urumqi on July 7. The Han Chinese, who are in a majority in Urumqi but in a minority in the rest of the province, have been enraged not only over the alleged attacks by young Uighurs on Han Chinese on the night of July 5, but also over the alleged failure of the security forces to protect them. What has been worrying the Chinese leadership is that the
anger of the Han Chinese, which was initially against the Uighurs, has started taking an anti-Government turn.
3. In an attempt to inform the rest of the world about the extent of the violence indulged in by Uighur students and others allegedly at the instigation of the Munich-based World Uighur Congress (WUC), the Chinese for the first time gave details of what was happening in Urumqi. They did not give such details during the Lhasa uprising of Tibetan youth and monks in March,2008. They were unusually transparent giving
details of the number of dead and injured and allowed their media to disseminate photographs of the scenes from the riot-hit Urumqi The despatches from the correspondents of the State-controlled Chinese media used expressions such as " a catastrophe", "horror", "chaos" in reporting on what happened on July 5.
4. A Xinhua despatch quoted Li Zhi, the chief of the Urumqi branch of the Communist Party of China, as saying as follows: "The casualty rate and loss from this incident are the most severe in Xinjiang since the establishment of the People's Republic of China." It also quoted Jerla Isamudin, the Urumqi Mayor, as saying as follows: "This is not a single, ethnic issue. The violence has not only impeached the peace and order of Xinjiang, it has also ignited anger among people."
5.These details of the situation as disseminated by the media have ignited anger among the Han Chinese not only in the Xinjiang province, but also in adjoining Tibet and in the Sichuan province. Many of the Han Chinese living in Urumqi had migrated from the Sichuan province. Throughout July 7, police vans fitted with loudspeakers moved around Urumqi appealing for calm and saying: "Uighur people and Han Chinese are brothers and sisters, we are a family." The local Mayor and party chief went round the city appealing to the Han Chinese for calm. Despite this, some Han Chinese beat up Uighurs. The police had to use tear-smoke to disperse them. Urumqi continued to be under curfew for the
third night.
6. In a belated attempt to mollify the Uighurs, the Chinese authorities have announced the arrest of 13 Han Chinese workers of a Guangdong factory for allegedly attacking their Uighur co-workers on June 26 during which two Uighurs were killed. If they had taken this step immediately after June 26, Urumqi might have been spared the outbreak of violence seen since July 5.
7. In a demonisation campaign reminiscent of the campaign mounted against His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) after the Lhasa uprising of March 2008, the Chinese continue to blame the World Uighur Congress and organisations associated with it as well as its President Rebiya Kadeer for the violence. The Chinese media have come out with articles describing her as the Uighur Dalai Lama, highlighting her professed admiration for His Holiness and projecting the Urumqi uprising as a copycat of the Lhasa uprising of March 2008. A Chinese court had sentenced Kadeer, a 59-year-old former business tycoon from Xinjiang, to nine years in prison on charges of instigating and engaging in secessionist activities in 1999. But she was allowed to go to the US for medical treatment in March 2005 after promising to keep away from any separatist activities. She became the President of the WUC.
8. The linkages alleged by the Chinese between the Lhasa and Urumqi uprisings may cause Han Chinese anger against the Tibetans and His Holiness, thereby creating fresh tensions in the Tibetan-inhabited areas.
9. The Urumqi uprising, like the Lhasa uprising of March 2008, has been a rude wake-up call for the Chinese leadership in Beijing. It shows dramatically in the 60th year of the People's Republic of China how unpopular are the Han Chinese and the CCP among the non-Han minorities. They also show that the use of brutal methods of suppression have only added to the feelings of alienation. China's non-Han periphery is a simmering volcano blowing up from time to time.
10. These uprisings have also demonstrated how out of touch the Beijing leadership is with the ground situation in the peripheral areas and how inadequate are the Chinese intelligence capabilities.
11. Will heads roll after Hu's return? Will the rolling heads be confined to Urumqi or will they cover Beijing too? Is the situation in Xinjiang likely to weaken Hu's leadership of the CCP? These are questions for which one has to look for answers in the days to come. (8-7-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com
this from Hong Kong, via Leslie Hook of Asia Wall Street Journal, who will be with me Sunday 12 re Urumqi crisis:
From today's Wall Street Journal Asia.
Authoritarian states are typically less stable than they appear, and China is no exception. This week's ethnic riots in western Xinjiang province are the deadliest on record since the end of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. Until the Chinese government is truly accountable to its citizens -- both the majority Han and other ethnic minorities -- these kinds of deadly uprisings will continue.
Sunday's riots started when around 3,000 ethnic Uighurs, including many high-school and college students, gathered to protest ethnically motivated killings in a factory in China's southern Guangdong province. The riots turned violent but, thanks to China's information firewall, no one knows exactly why. State-run media report that Uighurs had attacked Han Chinese and count at least 156 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.
Government outlets blamed Uighur "separatists" and labeled U.S.-based Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, the "mastermind" of the violence. Ms. Kadeer denies this in an article on a nearby page. Yesterday, thousands of Han Chinese, armed with homemade weapons, swarmed the streets of Urumqi, calling for revenge. Police stopped them with tear gas, but not before they had destroyed some Uighur shops. Other protests and violent outbreaks ripped across the city.
China's draconian policies in Xinjiang stem in part from fears that the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic group who speak a Turkic language, want to secede from China. The province is rich in oil and gas reserves and shares a sensitive border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan and Russia (which has tried to foment uprisings in Xinjiang in the past). There are about 10 million Uighurs in Xinjiang.
But these fears are no excuse for China's punitive and often violent suppression of the Uighurs. Beijing has poured money into a quasimilitary conglomerate, the "Bingtuan," which runs businesses and large farms in the region. Bingtuan jobs often go to Han Chinese immigrants who receive economic incentives to move west. Meanwhile, a 2006 government policy encourages migration in the opposite direction -- i.e., getting young Uighur men and women to work in coastal factories. The program is designed to get young Uighurs to "integrate" (read: marry) into Han society.
These policies threaten the very existence of Uighur culture. Today Uighurs comprise less than half of the population of Xinjiang, according to official Chinese government statistics -- down from around 75% in 1949, when Mao Zedong's army took control of the area. Recently the government announced it would tear down the old city of Kashgar, the Uighur's cultural home, and replace it with a "new" old city. China also restricts the use of the Uighur language in schools and requires state employees to eat during Ramadan, when devout Muslims fast during the day.
Beijing's reaction to Sunday's riots is thus true to form. Officials say 1,434 people were arrested, and Uighurs protesting yesterday told journalists that the men in their families had been arbitrarily rounded up. As of last night, Urumqi is subject to a curfew. The Internet has been cut off and mobile phone access is limited. Foreign reporters have been allowed into the region -- in contrast to the March 2008 Tibet riots, when they were kicked out -- but they are accompanied by government minders.
Like Beijing's brutal response to the Tibet riots, a crackdown will only strengthen the Uighurs' pro-independence movement. This holds risks for Beijing. Although most Uighurs advocate peaceful methods to achieve equal rights, a fringe of violent extremists already exists. During the Olympics last year, three attacks on government outposts in Xinjiang killed 21.
The immediate priority must be to stop further killing in Urumqi and other Xinjiang cities, either by Han or Uighurs. But to prevent violence from recurring, Beijing needs to address the concerns of a Uighur population who have no say over the policies that have transformed their homeland and threaten to eradicate their way of life.
I wonder at the wisdom of these constantly recurring fights.
We have obvious provinces, with lines of geographic demarcation and demographics that have certain special interests and needs, which are unique and mostly incongruous from the centralized governance. Overall, there is no suppressing these interests. There is no dictation of reconciliation that satisfies the hordes. In other words, there is not a chance for a permanent fix... short of forced migration or genocide.
When people take to the streets with knives and axes to attack one another based on ethnicity, then it has mastasticized into eventual mayhem and madness. Maybe not now, but, eventually.
Enveloping another people by encroachment and expansionism is human history and naturally leads to conflict. It's not necessarily the differences in looks, thought processes, religion, or even numbers. It's that one has taken what the other believes should be theirs and if they weren't there then this would be mine. With limited resources and opportunities to provide for family and loved ones then it becomes a fight for survival.
Any little thing might provoke the other. Any event is a reinforcement of an ingrained perception and prejudice. This current unrest began with some workers from their province that were targeted and singled out by co-workers in another province thousands of miles away in the East. Essentially, they were Uyghers trying to make a living in a foreign land which is supposedly the Nation that they are a part of.
Once again, wisdom has been trumped by pure tribalism and failure is owned by the less than wise. Wisdom would say "We wash our hands of this. You are free to do as you will."
Ignorance denies facts, distracts, reacts, and protracts. *Let the people go* and they will sort things out... they are going to do it, one way or another.
There are protests; and there are protests. The trick is to know which is which. There are genuine grievance protests; there are rent-a-mob protests; there are get-your-face-on-TV protests; there are let’s-kick-some-ass-because-we’re-bored protests. Then there are protests that are made up of any combination of these.
For Barack Obama, there is only one kind of protest. It’s the one defined in communist protocol as being the precursor to social revolution which in turn is the precursor to the imposition of totalitarian governance. As a community organizer on the streets of Chicago, he routinely helped organize protests as a means to weaken the system in order to wring out concessions. This, he believed, was wholly legitimate as a means to advance his ideology as well as his own political ambitions. He remains fully aware of the potency of the tactic.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot and Obama has reached the pinnacle of power, he is no longer so enamored by protest movements of any type. So far, the protests against him and his policies have consisted of relatively polite tea parties, easily marginalized by his adoring press flacks’ inattention. Still, the numbers of those participating are worrying. Somehow, information is getting out. Equally (if not more) troubling is the fact that the American people seem to have decided en masse to sit on their hands and refuse to participate in the hotly anticipated economic recovery. It’s almost as if they’ve adopted a passive-aggressive stance – not working; not spending – deliberately designed to bleed the system dry.
Still, as long as it stays that way, the revolution advances. What is its aim? Why, to stamp out every vestige of America’s past (presumed) power, of course. The theory goes that, without America (and its few remaining allies), it would be a peaceful world, safe from the corrosive effects of racism, greed and pollution - a virtual utopia in which everyone loves each other and happily contributes to the limit of their ability to everyone else’s need. (Did I get that right?)
So far, so good. But there’s trouble brewing. Obama’s inability to speak out decisively on recent protests in Iran and in various parts of China stems from the fact that his own position has changed. He knows that, though bearing the mantel of U. S. president, his is a tenuous hold on power. He knows that the majority of Americans do not support his policies. He knows he must be in a position to crush any resistance movement that may emerge in order to have a shot at ramming his radical agenda through.
Iran is the template when it comes to dealing with protesters. Use brute force, intimidate (got a head start on that with ACORN); deny free speech (working on it); and fill the prisons (with tax cheats). Make it so no one will dare to speak out. Keep them busy mourning over the lives and deaths of celebrity icons. Draft rubber-stamp celebrity icons to serve in Congress.
Uyghurs? (Probably should be spelled with a "W”. Can’t really blame them; why, with Bush giving the poor letter such a bad name.) Yeah, those guys are trouble alright. I wonder who’s stirring them up? I hope it’s not us.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
CHANGE YOU CAN'T BELIEVE IN
The biggest change in American policy is Obama changing his mind on seemingly every position he has ever held. The insecurity of his voting 'Present' has morphed into testing the waters by now saying the opposite of what was said before. Given that we, the American People, are not sure where he came from (politically) and are not sure where he's going (politically), how can POTUS negotiate w/world leaders? I mean, who can believe what he says for more than 5 minutes? His view on Chinese dissidents: "Present".
Where are the Saudi Princes? Where are the Mullahs? Children of Mohammed (Blessed be his Name) are being brutalized by a godless dictatorship. Since it does not involve Israel or White Europeans, the Muslim world does not care.
The liberal, American-hating intelligentsia has no skin in this game either, no need to get our Chinese socialist brethren angry at us!
Couple of thoughts:
---Does this remind anyone else of Stalin moving the manufacturing base east of the Urals early in WW II?
---Mao? This started in the Warring States Period.
---Mao was the only leader who really understood the key point in Chinese history: it is prone to sudden, catastrophic reversals of fortune.
---Mao's solution: create these catastrophes (The Great Leap Forward; The Cultural Revolution) to prevent the entropy from building up.
---Governance as a controlled burn.
A potpourri:
Summary: Beijing has and is developing Xingjiang's oil and natural gas reserves (35 trillion cu/ft). From this region they are expecting to meet the energy needs of the industrialized East. A second West/ East gas pipeline will complement the existing 4000 km installation that goes to Shanghai and will route to Guangzhou and Shanghai. Also, oil and gas product from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan investments and partnerships already flows through the province.
The oil and gas boom has contributed to the tension between Han and Uygher with the Uygher believing they have been locked out from reaping the benefits while Hans have essentially taken over during Beijing's "Go West" policy and apparently seem to be more than willing to try and force the Uyghers to move West, too, against their will.
From NewsWires:
Iran wants investment from China in $43 billion worth of projects for energy development. The National Iranian Oil Refinery & Distribution Company is seeking $30 billion for the construction of seven new refining plants in the country’s west, the South China Morning Post reported today, citing Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum. The
Chinese companies are also encouraged to expand some of Iran’s existing refineries and build a 1640-kilometre oil pipeline from Neka on the Caspian Sea in the north to Jask on the Gulf of Oman in the south, Bloomberg quoted the report as saying.
The Iranian government is offering foreign investors a 5% discount on the prices of crude supplied to the refineries, an eight-year tax exemption and the right to own as much as 80% percent of the new refining projects, it said.
>> Venezuela oil drilling slowed to a five-year low in June after state-run PDVSA deferred payments to service companies, spurring rig shutdowns. Drillers are shutting down because of bills that have gone unpaid for as long as a year.
US driller Helmerich & Payne said last month that eight of its 11 rigs in Venezuela weren’t in use because of unpaid bills. Fellow US driller Ensco International ended a contract for a rig over bills. Local media reported on 22 June that US driller Ensign Energy Services idled five rigs last month. Workers at rigs owned by state-run China National Petroleum Corporation were on strike on 2 June over late pay.
PDVSA has also sent a letter to a large group of service providers and vendors demanding a discount on the money the state-oil company owes them, several recipients of the letter said.
Venezuela has become the first South American country to be excluded from annual cover under war risks insurance policies for 20 years following Hugo Chavez’s confiscation of offshore vessels and other oil assets.
London underwriters have added Venezuela and an economic zone out to Isla Aves, about 350 miles (564 kilometres) off the coast, to the list of at risk areas. The at risk area includes Lake Maracaibo.
The move follows last month's expropriation by Venezuela of offshore oil related assets including 11 Tidewater vessels, up to 300 other craft, two US gas installations and various shore facilities.
Okay... if they really want to make US mad, they will muck with cyberspace. That will bring their whole world crashing in... like Windows 2000 OS. Kaablooey *)(*
Can hackers take control of a Predator or just breach Treasury? (Surely, they know we are broke, don't they? Like the Terminator said, "We don't have any money"
Mr B- I was expecting that hilarious video of the training camp to explode and burn film right up to the end... I was disappointed *:-(*
Who's that guy in the beige dress dancing like the Scarecrow in Oz? I'm going to call him Limp Bizkit and put him at the front of the line flora real jab, I mean, job.
I've just gotta say "Uh Oh" ICQ
There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of Uyghers giving up on Urumqi during the past two days.
Excerpts from Guardian July 9:
The south bus station on Xinhua South Road – in a predominantly Uighur area of town – was packed with students and families scrabbling for tickets to other parts of the region. At one point police had to intervene as the crush in the ticket hall got out of hand.
Chinese media reported yesterday that passengers were also crowding Urumqi airport and camping out in nearby hotels until they could buy a ticket. "We fear Xinjiang is not safe anymore," one told China Daily.
"It's not safe now. When it's stable I hope I can come back," said a man who had come to work in the computer trade, but was now returning to his home town of Yili, in southern Xinjiang.
Shi Guanzheng, a retired teacher originally from Shanghai, told Reuters he did not dare venture too far. "Now both sides are so filled with emotion that the repercussions will last a long time," he said. "I'm scared about what will happen when the People's Armed Police have to leave. It's not about tomorrow or the next day. It's about next month or after. What then?"
*I'm not so sure that the People's Armed Police will be leaving anytime soon. Reports are there may be 20,000 troops in and around Urumqi right now and, you know, well, you know... they have to be somewhere, don't they?*
In the spirit of goodwill and wishes for peace and happiness in a world of despair and corruption, I cite the *new economics foundation's* recent offering of their list for the "10 Happiest Nations on Earth."
Maybe when everyone finally comes to realize what is truly important, then we might look for inspiration from the following places:
(1) Costa Rica (life expectancy 78.5 yrs in a lush jungle)
(2) Dominican Republic
(3) Jamaica (hmm, Rasta babi maybe!)
(4) Guatemala
(5) Vietnam (yep, North and South)
(6) Colombia
(7) Cuba (everybody loves vintage cars and fine cigars, don't they?)
(8) El Salvador
(9) Brazil (Blame it on Rio!)
(10) Honduras
Now, we all know where to go... http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/
The chaos of war is so untenable, so unimaginable, so repulsive, so frightening to the human mind, most simply refuse to see it coming. Those who do understand something about the volatile cocktail that can trigger all-out conflagration, go about shoring up defenses. This has been the prudent way of guarding populations throughout the ages.
A new (so far, untested) template has captured the imagination of Americans with the election of Barack Obama, the underlying principle of which can be summarized by three words: appeasement, submission and (public) atonement (groveling) for past (real or imagined) sins. This, it is thought, will remove us as a threat to anyone who might be contemplating aggression.
Wars, for the most part, always begin unexpectedly. Perhaps this is why we don't pay much attention to the saber rattling of the likes of Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il. What does rattle us is an attack like the one on Pearl Harbor and the one on the WTC. Such attacks are not easy to ignore and protocol demands a response. From then on, the narrative becomes entirely predictable. Strike back, but keep the chaos away from mother.
Equally devastating (if not more so) is civil strife. It means that the leadership has failed. The only exception is if the leadership is deliberately trying to instigate civil strife for its own nefarious reasons.
Civil strife also flares unexpectedly. Suddenly there's a Trojan horse inside the gates - wonderful to look at. Once the wall has been breached, the fine art of defense becomes meaningless. That's why it was so critical for Frank Sinatra to find and neutralize the assassin, Lawrence Harvey, before the latter could set into motion the plot to install the Manchurian candidate as POTUS. (There was a twist at the end, but you get the point.)
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/