Wednesday 5 February 2014
Photo, above: Helmstetter’s Curve Farm, Maryland. See Hour 3, Block A, Alan Bjerga of Bloomberg News on the farm bill.
"The Helmstetter barn burned down on July 9th [2009]. John lost cattle and his friend Teddy, the border collie featured in the photo. To help John Helmstetter, go to the John Helmstetter Farm Fund."
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Harry Kazianis, National Interest managing ed. & nonresident fellow of the Center of Strategic and International Studies, in re: Is Xi Jinping's animosity toward he US discontinuous from previous? Military these throughout Chinese New Year suggest that Xi is cousining up to the military – and doesn’t have as much power as is imputed to him. China in East China Sea and South China Sea: a man with a big belly pushing into neighbors bit by bit ("salami-slicing tactics"); Philippines: China's taking Scarborough Shoals is similar to Sudetenland. Troubling trend. Chinese sub surfaced very close to the USS Kitty Hawk carrier – wasn't detected till it surfaced. Note also: hypersonic glide vehicle ["a game-changer"]– a space-age sort of rocket on an ICBM launched into space, came down in China; can arrive at Mach 10. Sci-fi-sounding weapons. How soon are we at deathly risk? depends on China's economy; could easily be 2020. How Washington Is Losing Asia
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Charles Burton, Brock University, in re: Lunar New Year Chinese TV: gorgeous young women doing sword dances [The Red Detachment of Women?] (during the Long March, they were starving and carrying heavy burdens on their backs); regime is prepared to affirm its past – ten years of disaster – now recast as successful Party rule under Leninist norms. This is one step short of Springtime for Hitler plays Beijing. Farce. However, no real comedy was presented out of fear of any satire.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: David H. Grinspoon, Chair of Astrobiology, Library of Congress, in re: Ceres. Mars. Pursuit of evidence of life everywhere in he universe – opportunistic life. If we find water and an energy source in our Solar System, we'll look for a trail leading to life here. Ceres has evidence of liquid water.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Michael Auslin, AEI, in re: The Obama Administration in Asia Pacific. Last week Reid torpedoed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Last time the US has =d a free-trade agreement in Asia was with Korea, which was held up for three years. US doesn’t have a China policy: we're just reactive to whatever China is doing at he moment – just waiting to see what China will do next. Similarly, Mike McFaul is resigning from Moscow; we have no Middle East policy; just trying to run out he clock. Note that this Administration says one thing to the US, another to Asians – provocative and stern-sounding domestically, no problem to the Asian. Adm Locklear: "China was acting professionally" in establishing its sudden no-go maritime zone. Max Baucus – "I'm no Asia hand" – is being sent as US ambassador to China. ???
OPINION ASIA The Slow Death of Obama's Asia Pivot A trade-policy defeat in Congress marks the latest dent in Obama's Asia policy. The latest bad news for President Obama's Asia policy at first doesn't seem to have much to do with Asia. The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, last week announced he will not allow the Senate to consider Trade Promotion Authority, or "fast track" legislation. Fast track would allow the White House to negotiate trade deals that would then be guaranteed an up or down vote in Congress with no scope for amendments. Mr. Reid was motivated as much by domestic political concerns as by anything else in nixing a fast-track bill. But his decision also upends years of work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade deal. Any deal arising from those talks now faces an uncertain future in Washington.
The episode is a revealing commentary why Mr. Obama's pivot to Asia is on the rocks. In short, the problem is that the White House promised too much, assumed its rhetoric alone would sell the deal, and showed little appetite for the politicking required to execute a complex strategic shift. Fast track would allow the White House to negotiate trade deals that would then be guaranteed an up or down vote in Congress with no scope for amendments. Mr. Reid was motivated as much by domestic political concerns as by anything else in nixing a fast-track bill. But his decision also upends years of work on the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral trade deal. Any deal arising from those talks now faces an uncertain future in Washington. Much of the blame for Mr. Reid's trade action must be laid at the doorstep of the Oval Office. Both congressional supporters of free trade and business leaders openly bemoan how little time Mr. Obama has personally invested in such a crucial matter. In other ways, too, the pivot is falling victim to a combination of distraction and disinterest in Washington. TPP was supposed to be the economic leg of the rebalance tripod, while an increased military presence and renewed political engagement formed the other two supports. Those other two legs of the tripod aren't particularly sturdy, either. Lack of a coherent security strategy has allowed China to take the initiative in the waters and skies of East Asia. Beijing's decision to establish a controversial air defense identification zone over a large part of the East China Sea last November led to little more than a subdued Washington response from a White House that seemed less concerned than its Asian allies. Likewise, China's recent demands that fishing boats in the South China Sea identify themselves to its patrol boats have been met with near-silence from the Americans. The U.S. Navy's announcement last week that it will drop down to just two aircraft carriers deployed globally raises new concerns about the U.S. ability to live up to its manifold commitments around the world and respond to unforeseen crises.
And Mr. Obama seems to grow less focused by the day on Asia's dangers. It was bad enough that he chose to skip last year's major Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings due to domestic budget battles back home. Now Secretary of State John Kerry is prioritizing Middle East issues. Washington seems almost entirely missing in action as America's top two allies in Asia, Japan and South Korea, are barely on speaking terms, while Chinese newspapers openly muse about war with Japan. The real danger for Washington is that it becomes seen as a paper tiger. . . . [more]
Hour Two
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Kelley Currie, Senior Fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, in re: Thai elections - no one shows up on the side of democracy. Most Shinawatras are under indictment, only the sister can take over. Disastrous rice scheme concocted to appeal to their base among rice farmers in north of Thailand. Judicial coup to remove the govt. The king, who normally would intermediate, is currently impotent and may be part of the problem. Thaksin Shinawatra was driven out in disgrace by military years ago; he installs his sister in his place so he can get back in. In the north: poor people and farmers saw the billionaire Thaksin as on their side – he's a bad guy, but a sort of Huey Long-style populist. Looks like a collective Shinawatra dynasty. Chinese now cancel a huge rice contract, putting thumb on one side of the scales. Monarchy has intervened over the years, which has prevented dvpt of Thai democracy by stifling the maturation process.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Charles Ortel, managing director of Newport Value Partners, in re: Investors dump emerging market stocks. CORRECTED-EMERGING MARKETS-China PMI keeps mood glum, Hungary weak. Systemic problems, not only with BRICs. Rescue agencies now too highly leveraged and central banks behind them aren’t that strong. US is more buffered than Europe is – each megabank is domiciled in a country not [rich enough]; capital will accelerate out of the BRICs. Turkey disappointing for may reasons. Brazil is bigger than but connected to Argentina. India's currency not wholly convertible, and country will have elections later this year, outcome probably troubling to the US. Keeping interest rates much to low moves stock prices much too high. Large companies's revenues falling – no cash flow, no income. Pennies dropping all at once.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Peter Navarro, UC-Irvine; producer, Death by China, in re: Lenovo. China wants to buy everything possible "on the scrap-heap of American technology." Losers our market translate into winners in China, where illegal currency manipulation can be worked, etc. Its now about accumulating technologies. A lot of Western govts won’t buy Lenovo computers for defense because of fear of "back-door" hacking. Major companies are at least partly owned by the state. Once Lenovo gets into the server business, it'll be able to steal global packets. Strategic issue: some of Lenovo's clients are govt agencies, incl SIPIUS, which determines which country may buy US secure products. Eric Schmidt says Sure; wants to sell Motorola. He should no better than to do any business with China after what China did to Google. [How stupid.] Stole its source code, gave a local Google's market share, hacked gmail - these corp execs don't care a whit about US security. Disgraceful. Lenovo sells computers to the Pentagon?? And if it gets into the server market, can get into US govt data in the cloud – national security and corporate. US current natl security review isn’t working: trips at 10%, so China buys 9% of firms. Also, we have lousy controls over dual-use technology. Note David Leg-ue [?] articles: Euro countries selling dual-use technology to China for submarines. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS, pron: SIFI_ous) - broken.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Joseph Sternberg, WSJ Asia editorial board, in re: 20017 to 2020: contract with Hong Kongers is supposed to provide universal suffrage – but looking shaky. Beijing swore to Great Britain, now is dragging its feet. Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen, in the task force to figure out how to implement promises, says HK's reputation for economic freedom could take a hit if its reputation were damaged – he blames liberty activists. Another stooge of the unelected tyrants of Beijing. It's obvious Beijing will betray Hong Kong. Growing awareness among citizenry. Supposed to be direct election of HK leader; Beijing demanding a nominating committee (run by Beijing). HK Occupy is much more reputable and better-organized than the shaggy folks in New York a few years ago. Restrictions on who may buy property, restrictions on exporting powdered milk. When Beijing pulls the f=rug out from under Hong Kong, that'll also set things back in China. The Secretary and the Think Tank A Hong Kong official obscures the relationship between democracy, freedom and prosperity. The Hong Kong government's latest attempt to weasel out of its promises to deliver meaningful electoral reform prompts further meditation on the relationship between democracy and prosperity. At issue is the debate over how Hong Kongers will select their leaders. Currently, the chief executive is chosen by a committee of 1,200 worthies, most of them with ties of one sort or another to Beijing or mainland interests. Half of the legislature is directly elected, albeit via a complex party-list system designed to favor pro-Beijing parties, while the other half is selected by different industry groups. Beijing has promised that the chief executive could be elected directly by universal suffrage in 2017 and the legislature could be fully elected by 2020, but now the government is dragging its feet developing a plan to implement that promise.
Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen this week waded back into that debate with a strange appeal to authority. Mr. Yuen, who sits on the constitutional reform task force, suggested that pro-democracy activists in the territory should accept even an "imperfect" reform deal—such as one that still allowed a pro-Beijing nominating committee to vet chief executive candidates—because otherwise the activists would dent Hong Kong's international reputation. "I'm concerned with the international impact . . . people outside Hong Kong are also watching," Mr. Yuen said, as quoted in the South China Morning Post. He specifically cited the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, which last month again put Hong Kong at the top of our global Index of Economic Freedom. Mr. Yuen suggested that we had warned that political unrest could ding Hong Kong's ranking. That interpretation seemed odd given the Journal and Heritage's broader support for democracy and political, as well as economic, freedom. And sure enough, when I asked Index lead author Terry Miller to clarify where the think tank stands on democratic reform in Hong Kong, the response I received via email was the opposite of what Mr. Yuen implied:
"Hong Kong stands at a critical moment, both politically and economically. Risks abound on all sides. Any backtracking by the government on its promises to deliver democratic reforms and universal suffrage would undermine the societal trust that is the foundation of the rule of law, and likely lead to political instability that would have a negative impact on Hong Kong's reputation as an open economy in which it is both safe and profitable to do business. In the worst case, such backtracking by government could even call into question the durability of the Basic Law [the territory's mini-constitution] and the continuing validity of the concept of one nation, two systems." To be clear, the threat comes not from pro-democracy activists' insistence on meaningful electoral reform, but from the possibility that Mr. Yuen and his colleagues will fail to deliver it.
Mr. Miller, director of Heritage's Center for International Trade and Economics and a former U.S. ambassador, argues that if democratic reform goes forward as promised, "it is imperative that government not succumb to the temptation to accede to populist demands for greater social or welfare spending in an effort to increase political support from the subsidized groups." But this is a political, not a structural, challenge—a call for politicians in a democratic Hong Kong to recognize that freedom has undergirded the territory's prosperity for generations now and to build public support for pro-freedom policies. Put another way, Hong Kong doesn't need fewer elections. It needs more Ronald Reagans.
That is as tall an order as it sounds, and most modern democracies have a mixed-to-discouraging record when it comes to economic freedom. But consider that Hong Kong's current government has not been any more successful in that regard. If anything, recent experience highlights the extent to which lack of true democracy is creating an environment that is as bad for prosperity as the government's defenders claim democracy would be. Because the government lacks a popular mandate for a pro-freedom agenda—or for any agenda—leaders instead spend their time reading polls and other tea leaves to construct policies that will assuage whatever gripe seems to be on the public's mind at the moment. That has resulted in a series of new property transaction taxes that seek to "cool" the market by denting citizens' right to dispose of their property how and when they please; a new minimum wage by which the government now sets the price of labor; and even a cap on exports of baby milk powder.
Meanwhile, the breakdown of societal trust of which Mr. Miller warns already is happening. Witness the autumn's protests over the decision not to grant a broadcast license to the new HKTV network. Regulatory decisions involving telecommunications licensing are rarely the stuff of popular anger. Yet Hong Kongers have become so suspicious of their government that this license move sparked concerns about censorship, drawing tens of thousands of protesters into the streets. The fact that economic freedom is a proven prosperity-driver doesn't always, or even often, make it an easy political pitch. Foreign businesses worried about economic freedom should worry about democratic politics. But they should worry far more about an unelected government with no obvious mandate making major decisions on the basis of vague perceptions about its short-term popularity.
Hour Three
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Alan Bjerga, Bloomberg News, in re: the farm bill. recall the Supercommittee. Half of the cuts come from the food stamp program. SNAP program: state advantage connecting food and heat subsidies. [more] See country-of-origin labelling, fought by Canada and Mexico.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re: Iran’s Former Top Nuclear Negotiator: Tehran Will Never Dismantle Any Centrifuges “American Security and the Iranian Bomb: Analyzing Threats at Home and Abroad.” See: http://homelandthreats {{dot}} com/live-webcast/ for an important event on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) warfare, to which the US is extremely susceptible.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Sid Perkins, Science Magazine, in re: GRAND CANYON. The age of the Grand Canyon? (Answer: Some parts are really old [starting around 70 million years or so], and others are relatively fresh [6 million years or so]) [more]
DRIPPING EARTH Video: When Earth's Crust Was Drippy Before modern-day plates and slabs, our planet's outer layer recycled in drips and . . . Thermogeology.
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Anurag Rana, Bloomberg, in re: Microsoft Names Nadella CEO: New Era or New Error? Longtime Microsoft veteran Satya Nadella replaces Steve Ballmer in the top spot. And Bill Gates steps up his involvement Can Nadella give Microsoft an edge it was lacking?
Hour Four
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl (1 of 4) As the Soviet Union ravelled in the 1980s, eastern Europeans returned to the rosary in their thousands. Pravda, the Soviet party daily, condemned sightings of the Madonna in Poland and elsewhere as the work of "wreckers" bent on subverting socialist utopias. (The Ukrainian Mary usually appeared in a glow of orange and blue light – the Ukraine national colours.) The political significance of Marian apparitions was not lost on John Paul II, the Polish-born pope and cold war intransigent who defended spiritual values against the state in the eastern-bloc satellites. To his detractors, John Paul II was a doctrinal conservative out of touch with the exigencies of modern life. Graham Greene, for one, condemned his views on birth control and anti-left animus in general. Asked what he would like to say to John Paul II, Greene replied tetchily: "I think my five minutes with the pope would only lead to excommunication."
In this provocative if highly original account of the year 1979 and its political significance, the pope is hailed as an unlikely "rebel" figure, who helped stage a counter-revolution against moribund ideologies. His ideologue-in-arms, Margaret Thatcher, was another anti-state evangelist who came to power that momentous year. In Christian Caryl's view, 1979 was a pivotal 12 months which diverted the course of history in radical and unforeseen ways.
The author, a former Newsweek correspondent, tells the story of that single year with verve and scholarship. He makes unlikely connections between the Iranian revolution and John Paul II's papacy, the Afghan jihad and the economic reforms pursued by Deng Xiaoping and Thatcher, all of which took root in 1979. [more]
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl (2 of 4)
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl (3 of 4)
Wednesday 5 February 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl (4 of 4)
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Music
Hour 1: Transformers. Armageddon. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Hour 2: House of Flying Daggers.
Hour 3: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Inception. Oblivion.
Hour 4: The Kingdom.