Photo, above: New Yorkers rally at Union Square in support of the Hong Kong "Occupy Central" demonstrations for democracy.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com & Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show 

Hour One

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Arthur Waldron, Lauder Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, in re:   The rule of the law is the foundation of American society. China is not yet under that protection.  Why is the Communist Party resistant to this conversation?  The basic problem: you can’t simultaneously have a dictatorship enforced capriciously by police force and also have a society adjudicated by courts not under the control of a politician.  The Fourth Plenum ballyhoos itself as a bright path to comprehensively entering a rule of law "with Chinese characteristics" [oops] – but they’ve been saying this since 1936. The Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of press, religion, protest, association – but there's no way the Party can tolerate this. Also, note: the Party says it’s above the law and the constitution. Key is that i today's modernized societies, you don’t have  ruling party that claims to know the future – that's Nineteenth Century. If you establish real courts with real laws, you can’t have a superseding Party. North Korea, with destitute population, they don’t commit the error of talking about rule of law.  In China, they're trying to head off a growing challenge from educated, well-travelled, affluent and sophisticated Chinese people. Someone with a BA, let alone a Ph.D., has a trained mind and won’t buy slogans.  Esp you hear in China, "rule by laws not by men." I've heard this dozens of times in China and they really know what they mean.

In 1985 in the USSR  . . .   Even in 1950 in China people were doing well but now they definitely want to rule themselves. All of history suggest education brings this, In 1989 we saw the largest democracy demos in human history; could be put down only by he army sacking its own capital city These discussion s have been going on for more than a century and will not stop. Chinese leaders think they have a very short time to accomplish a lot – which they cannot, as what the people want is anathema to the Party.  Will we see huge transformations within five years?  I think so. "There's not a straight line from 1848  to 2014."

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Rick Fisher, senior fellow at International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re: Chinese nuclear ballistic-missile-carrying fleet of submarines: yes, there is an undersea arms race. China says not, but in fact they’re trying to seek parity with the US and, in the 2020s, to go beyond.  China Military Review – China may build 20 SSNs.  US might deploy only 30 SSNs to the Pacific – we can maintain a max of ten on station – rotate in threes (on station, in transit, in maintenance – so the umbers can shift against the US in the next decade.   See the open pix from Hainan Island base; patrols will soon start around the Pacific.  Two-channel chain of authority on subs: the commander and the commissar – this is so on Chinese AWACs aircraft.  Underwater drones: hard to see, and needn't be rotated out.  The Type 094 will be followed by 096, online in mid-2020s – far more effective and quieter, hard to detect. There will be a vial undersea drone contest as China has invested heavily in that technology – will network drones w sonar buoys; US will d the same. Undersea surveillance network. Philippines. How will China respond?  We'll probably see a lot of drones collisions. How quiet are Chinese subs?  By all indications, they’re getting better with each generation, making leaps in acoustical capability. 

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Hotel Mars, episode n.   Bill Harwood, CBS News, in re: Orbital Sciences; accident on the Pad. NASA: we learn from accidents.  Engineers haven’t yet gone through the telemetry or video. Engines are Soviet-era. . . .  US uses Russian engines in several important, national-security missions; is it wise for the US to do that? Is it too dependent on Russian technology?  . . .

Antares rocket explosion: The question of using decades-old Soviet engines

Russian Engines Could Be Focus of Antares Launch Failure Probe

 

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Christian Whiton, dciadvisory.com, in re: East Timor Belongs in Asean  The country has made great strides fighting corruption and building democracy.      East Timor has natural gas (is a petrostate), has been dependent on Australia; the PM, Xanana Gusmao [pron: sha-na-na  gooss-ma-o], has just visited Beijing.  Has set aside $16 billion for future generations.  IS close to Darwin, Australia  China would like to use it as a listening-post.  All the trade from the Middle East or Central Asia on its way to North America: if it met a problem in transit would have to move south next to East Timor.    Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta  [pron Portuguese: zhoh-zeh ramosh orta]  and others have been "almost Mandela-like" in their forgiveness of the Indonesians [a horrifying history there].  Any navy commander, at operational level, would understand the history; problem is with flag officers, who have to [parrot] political policies.  Timor needn't flirt with China the way some (poorer) African countries have had to.   Parliament tried to pass a law restricting the media, but the courts overturned that. After Xanana leaves, the younger generations seem to have a good grasp . . .

Hour Two

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Mike Davis, professor at Hong Kong University Law School, in re:  the Hong Kong protests.  Another presser with James Tien (a Hong Kong tycoon) asking C Y Leung to step down, then he resigned his position Was instrumental a decade ago anent natl security laws in HK, which brought down the govt's attempt to impose those laws. Beijing now demands that people vociferously support C Y Leung – a new, hard line. Everybody has tended to tell Beijing only what it wants to hear- which is why Beijing is regularly surprised by events in Hong Kong,, This is at the heart of the  Occupy movement.    If Beijing weren't so bullying about this, it might hear the truth.   It’s thought that Xi prefers not to have another Tien An Men in Hong Kong  . Climb down from it's hard line view on political reform.  Gordon's T-shirt, Democracy Now! with a yellow umbrella: from NY4HK.  Mtg in Oslo of people I nonviolent strategies; BBC ran a story as though they were advising and directing the HK protest movement, which is entirely wrong and bogus. Now Ren Min Jr Bao is publishing tales of Oslo interference. 

Google:  Michael Davis Hong Kong in  e-ir.info

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Anna Cheung, organizer at ny4HK, in re: the Hong Kong protests.  Most of our members were born in Hong Kong and so have a natural interest in events there even though we now live in New York.  We enjoy freedom of speech and nice life in the US, so we're here to support Hong Kong's umbrella movement.  I've been an activist for 20 years to support democracy in HK and China.  Since I was born and raised in HK, my first attention is there.  Every weekend we go to Union Square on Saturday from 1 to 3 PM, deliver yellow ribbons and talk to everybody to tell New Yorkers what’s going on in HK.   . . . Students here should have some understanding of the power of China.

On the risky new nuclear IPOs coming up in China.  On companies in China's trucking sector with funky accounting -- a sign of how terrible the sector is.   How China is prolonging the coal market's pain by slapping tariffs.  China's secretive oil hoard - and what that means for oil prices. 

But one positive China story - how PetroChina, the largest SOE of them all, is accidentally undergoing real reform

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block C:  Abheek Bhattacharya, Heard on the Street WSJ in Hong Kong and now visiting New York [most welcome] (1 of 2), in re:  CGN Power is China's largest nuclear-power provider, as China suddenly claims to be anti-coal.  However, for he sake of stimulus, they're willing to suppress power prices; if I were an investor, I’d be dubious Further, CGN Power is laden with debt, and State-owned (huge set of risks).  While it Regulated rate of return, as in the Wet? No, in China there are a lot of weird requirements where they want different power modes to compete with each other: If your nuke plant is more expensive, you have to bring it down to the cost of coal-powered – a race to the bottom.  Ergo, you can’t make much money but you could lose a lot. Intending 58 gigawtts by 2020 – hasty building. China claims it’s adopted a new safety plan: OK, everything's fine now. It’s highest-tech plant is French-designed. Do they have interstates on which to haul the nuclear waste?  Btw, trucking is slowing down.  Wei-chai Power can make money only by letting its customers pay late, Eventually, shadow financing builds up on the books, stock goes nowhere, and investors flee. 

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Abheek Bhattacharya, Heard on the Street WSJ in Hong Kong and now visiting New York [most welcome] (2 of 2), in re: Coal in China (lignite). In Xanxi Province, an endless train of railroad cars. China produces half the world's coal, yet now is importing it. Buoyed up Australia and Indonesia, which thought they'd keep making money selling it, but now that the Chinese economy is sliding down, will slap a tariff on nonlocal coal.  The problem is that without govt support the coalmines will keep producing at an unneeded rate, will not diminish mining, and so will prevent the consolidation that must occur.   By this means the State creates a market distortion that will return to bite the nation. Coal is a big job-creator, and the Party feels obliged to [in effect, damage the economy] in order to look good to workers.  Political system in paralysis.  HOWEVER, Petro-China is upbeat:  the largest state-owned firm in China; has got entangled in the largest corruption scandal as Xi takes on Zhou, which ensnares a lot of official and caused Petro-China to freeze a lot of absurdly wasteful intending spending. Suddenly have to allocate capital efficiently!

Hour Three

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor;  in re:  Obama: No hiding under the covers on Ebola  ... and hiding under the covers, it makes me a little frustrated,” Obama said in the East Room . . .  (1 of 2)

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor;  in re:  Dems need ground game to save Hagan    Top Tillis Strategist: Our Internal Polls Never Showed Us Ahead of Hagan  (2 of 2)

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Shawn Donnan – World Trade Editor, Financial Time, in re:  Jim Yong Kim finds mission in Ebola crisis

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 3, Block D:   Paul R Gregory, Forbes & Hoover, in re: Ukraine Election Exit Polls: The New Parliament Will Resist Putin and Defend Ukraine

Hour Four

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block A:  Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: The Nov. 4 election could test the work the Republican Party has done to change party culture and the mechanics of reaching out to voters after painful losses two years ago.  Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, whose task force assessed the party's failures from 2012, said he's pleased with some progress made, particularly in establishing a party that can go toe-to-toe with Democrats on voter registration, data and digital operations.

“We have moved light-years ahead, but we are not done,” Priebus told the Tribune-Review.  He knew there would be no quick fix.  “But for a year-and-a-half turnaround, people should be floored by the amount of progress that we have made,” he said.  The party is looking ahead to the 2016 presidential election and has ramped up its voter outreach efforts and fundraising. In September, Republicans raised $13.5 million to the $10.2 million reported by the Democratic National Committee in Federal Election Commission filings. Click here for link

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Bret Stephens, WSJ GLOBAL VIEW, in re:  Bibi and Barack on the Rocks

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Adam Chandler, The Atlantic , in re: GLOBAL: Samantha Power’s return from Africa and the changing federal Ebola policy: “Ebola, The Ambassador and the Nurse”

Wednesday  29 October  2014 / Hour 4, Block D:   Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re:  Hubble gives Jupiter a giant eye  By timing things perfectly, scientists have used the Hubble Space Telescope to take a very cool image of Jupiter, with the shadow of its largest moon Ganymede cast into the planet’s Giant Red Spot.  The science from this image is somewhat limited but, darn, it sure is a neat demonstration of our modern ability to do amazing things with technology.

 

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