Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[The Bread Guy]

Harvesting organs from prisoners in order that they may "redeem themselves" is a very Confucian notion ~ in fact, I suspect, it likely predates Confucius. The notion of this sort of redemption seems, to me, to be deeply rooted in China's cultural history, going all the way back to the  Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC) - there are two concepts: redemption for legal guilt and redemption for "excesses" or accidents. But both, crimes and accidents, have, traditionally, required some form of redemption. This was one bit of traditional Chinese culture that was very popular with the hard line communists; they, too, believed that everyone needed to redeem themselves for mistakes they made.

Interesting that in light of this, the Chinese government was so reluctant in the past to admit this was happening to this extent.

Somehow, I doubt this is ever truly going to stop in China considering the lucractive black market in organs that's already established there...

We'll see, indeed.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is going to sound terribly illiberal, especially coming from a self proclaimed classical liberal like me, but I think it ~ harvesting organs ~ is a good custom, under certain very constrained circumstances.

When prisoners are executed, as they are in China, then I believe their organs should be harvested. Since I believe that there is nothing after death, I can find no moral justification for not harvesting the organs of those who are executed. (It obviously doesn't apply in Canada, but it does in China.)

I also believe that healthy and sane prisoners should be allowed to sell selected organs, for money, or to donate them and then receive considerations, e.g. earlier parole, in return.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I also believe that healthy and sane prisoners should be allowed to sell selected organs, for money, or to donate them and then receive considerations, e.g. earlier parole, in return.

At first blush, I'm actually reasonably ok with that (notwithstanding the issue of "how truly consentual can a prisoner's decision really be in such a situation?"), too, but I believe the Western value of consent was in question in cases that led to complaints by medical bodies outside China.

Then again, as you and others have said before, one man's/culture's values is another's WTF.

 

[CougarKing]

Reminds me of the time the US Navy's Admiral Mullen visited a PLA-N Yuan class sub, if I can recall correctly...

Military.com link

China's Defense Minister to Visit NORAD

Aug 16, 2013


China's defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan, arrived in Hawaii Friday for a series of high-level meetings with U.S. military officials that will include the first-ever visit by a major Beijing official to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

The overall theme of Chang's first trip to the U.S. as defense minister was improving military-to-military contacts from the junior officer level on up, a senior U.S. Defense official said. The visit will conclude with a joint press conference with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Monday.

Chang's visit will also afford him an opportunity "to maintain what we see as a very positive momentum" in relations between the two militaries, the senior Defense official said at a background briefing.

Hagel and senior U.S. commanders were also expected to "have a robust exchange of views" with Chang on a range of issues including cybersecurity, the U.S. rebalance to Asia, the arms buildup in nations neighboring China and the ongoing dispute with Japan over uninhabited islets off China's coast, the official said.

In Hawaii, Chang was meeting with Adm. Samuel Locklear, head of the Pacific Command. At a Pentagon briefing last month , Locklear said the rapid growth of the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese navy as an opportunity or a grave threat to the U.S. "and I look at them as an opportunity. "

"If the opportunity is not realized, then, as it would be with any other growing military, it potentially, you know, could become a threat.  But I certainly view it and approach it as an opportunity," Locklear said.


Locklear also noted that China has accepted the U.S. invitation to attend next year's Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the world's largest international naval exercise, which will take place in waters off Hawaii.

Over the weekend, Chang will visit the NORAD near Colorado Springs for talks with Air Force Gen. Chuck Jacoby, head of the Northern Command. Chang will also get the tour of the nuclear bunker at Alternative Command Center under Cheyenne Mountain.

China has never permitted a U.S. visit to its own version of NORAD, but the senior official said that having Beijing's military leader at the heart of U.S. homeland defense would allow the two nations "to better understand each other. It's an opportunity for the defense minister to see a different part of the U.S. military," the senior Defense Department official said.

At the Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the U.S. and China in Washington last month, the U.S. sought to minimize China's concerns about President Obama's plan to rebalance U.S. forces to the Pacific, which is viewed by Beijing as a move to counter to its influence in the region.

At the Dialogue, the two nations agreed to "actively explore a notification mechanism for major military activities and to continue discussions on the rules of behavior for military air and maritime activities."

However, China's official press said the dialogue agreement raised more questions than it answered: "Does that include the U.S. deployment of troops or weapons systems on China's periphery as part of its rebalancing to Asia? Does it include anti-satellite missile tests?"

The China Daily commentary also asked: "On the rules of behavior for military air and maritime activities, does this include U.S. reconnaissance in China's exclusive economic zone and the Chinese naval flotilla's unannounced but legitimate passage through the Straits of Japan?"

At the Pentagon briefing, the senior Defense Department official played down China's concerns about the arms buildup by China's neighbors, but the official media in Beijing railed against the launchings last week of an aircraft carrier by India and a destroyer that looked more like a helicopter attack ship by Japan.

The launching by India of the carrier Vikrant, which was expected to be operational in 2018 "reminds us that the strategic significance of developing aircraft carriers in Asia is not declining," the Global Times, China's Communist party newspaper, said in an editorial.

"The earlier China establishes its own aircraft carrier capabilities," the editorial said, "the earlier it will gain the strategic initiative."

China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, an upgraded version of the Soviet carrier the Varyag, went on sea trials last year, but the Vikrant was built in Indian shipyards.

China reserved its harshest criticism for Japan's launch of the $1.1 billion Izumo, an 813-foot ship that Japan called a "helicopter carrier-type escort/destroyer."

The Izumo, expected to join Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force in 2015, can accommodate 14 helicopters on its flight deck and can be adapted to take on the F-35B version of the Joint Strike Fighter that Japan is seeking to buy from the U.S.

Chinese media noted that Izumo, Japan's largest warship since World War II, was the name of the cruiser that led Imperial Japan's navy in attacks on Shanghai in 1937.

Zhang Junshe, a senior researcher at the People's Liberation Army Naval Military Studies Research Institute, told the state-run China Daily that "It is an aircraft carrier, and Japan just called it a helicopter destroyer to downplay its aggressive nature."

 

[CougarKing]

And China finally submits a formal claim on a part of the East China Sea to the UN:

Yonhap News link

China submits claim on East China Sea shelf to U.N.

BEIJING, Aug. 17 (Yonhap) -- China has submitted a claim to a U.N. commission stating that its naturally extended continental shelf stretches to the Okinawa Trough in the East China Sea, state media reported Saturday, a move that could rekindle territorial spats with South Korea and Japan.

South Korea, China and Japan have separately claimed the Okinawa Trough, with part of Seoul's recent claim overlapping with China's. Seoul and Beijing, however, share a largely similar stance on defining the limits while being in discord with Japan, according to Seoul officials.

 

[tomahawk6]

China Finds Gold In The Northeast Passage

August 19, 2013: China recently sent a 19,000 ton cargo ship through the ice free Northeast Passage (along the north coast of Russia) to confirm what satellite images have shown, that there is an ice free route for four months a year from Alaska to Norway. Research has shown that this route has been ice free in the past, but this is the first time in the modern period when that has happened. Russia is encouraging the use of the Northeast Passage, as it cuts the time it takes to get from East Asia to Europe by a third (from six weeks to four). Time is money in the shipping business and this is a big deal for China which is a major exporter of goods to Europe. If the Northeast Passage remains open dependably China could end up sending 15 percent of its foreign trade along that route, making the increased Russian military presence up there welcome.

For the last two years Russia has been regularly patrolling (usually from the air) large portions of its 5,600 kilometer northern border (from Murmansk, near Norway, to the Bering Strait, near Alaska.) The increased patrolling is to protect the growing number of oil and natural gas fields being developed near these coastal areas. Naval patrols will begin by 2015. With this coast is ice free in warm weather Russia sees a need for surface ships patrolling the area. Nuclear subs continue to run underwater patrols during Winter, when the coastline is iced in. 

The appearance of the Northeast Passage is a boon to Russia as well, which can more cheaply supply the oil and gas fields along the north coast as well as the few people who live up there. The Chinese are not the only ships using the passage. Last year 46 ships used it, up from only four in 2010. If the China trade moves to the Northeast Passage in a big way it could mean thousands of transits a year. This is bad news for Egypt, which will lose hundreds of million dollars a year in Suez Canal transit fees.

The U.S. Navy noted the increased Russian activity in the arctic and became publicly alarmed at the fact that the U.S. Navy was no longer prepared to operate in the Arctic. Actually, the U.S. Navy was never big on operating in the Arctic. The navy used to have seven Wind class icebreakers, built near the end of World War II. But these were mainly to maintain access to polar shipping lanes that were only needed in wartime. These icebreakers were turned over to the U.S. Coast Guard after World War II and all were retired by the 1980s. The navy saw no compelling reason to maintain a fleet of icebreakers. The U.S. Coast Guard currently has three icebreakers but one is being decommissioned and the other is out of action for maintenance. The more recent one (entered service in 1999) is on call to rush to Antarctica to help keep a passage open to research facilities there.

But now all the other arctic nations (especially Russia and Canada, which have the largest claims because of their long Arctic coastlines) are increasing their military presence in the arctic. This is mainly to back claims to gas, oil, and mineral deposits believed to be present in shallow arctic waters. The U.S. Navy is using this potential for conflict over these arctic resources to get back into arctic operations.

In reality, the U.S. Coast Guard has far more experience in the arctic and is the force that is called on for any emergencies up there (there are very few). Navy interest in the arctic may disappear if Congress agrees that the navy should be involved, but preparations will have to be paid for out of the current (shrinking) navy budget. In the last fifty years the only navy ships that regularly operated in the arctic were SSNs (nuclear attack submarines) that usually move about under the ice and occasionally surface where the ice is thin or, in the Summer when there is no ice at all. This is as much for PR as it is to make sure no potential foe is sneaking about under the ice. The U.S. Navy intends to operate some ships up there during warmer, ice-free, months, just to show the flag. Canada, however, is intent on developing its increasingly ice-free Northwest Passage as a shorter route from the Pacific coast of North America to Europe. 

 

[CougarKing]

T6's posting about the Northeast passage above, as well as ongoing discussions about the Northwest Passage and Arctic Sovereignty here, brought this article below in mind.

Aside from China, maritime archipelago nations such as Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia would also be vulnerable if a blockade would threaten adjacent their SLOCs (Sea Lines of Communication), which are vital to maintaining maritime trade.

Still I question whether commerce raiding would work in a modern context (other than the case of Somali piracy of course...), given the role of maritime patrol aircraft, UAVs and other technology in locating would-be-raiders?

While the German Kriegsmarine example from World War II is one example of commerce raiding, wouldn't the 1980s Iran-Iraq tanker war also count? Thoughts, anyone?

Shipping as a Repository of Strategic Vulnerability
Michael Haas
August 16, 2013

In a global system marked above all by its complexity and interconnectedness, dependence on international shipping is universal. Yet some nations are far more vulnerable than others. As students of naval history well know, such vulnerability is often turned into a source of strategic leverage. To what extent can this leverage actually be exploited under 21st century conditions?


Targeting Shipping for Strategic Effect

Two main methods of waging war on commercial shipping can be distinguished, at least at an analytical level: (1) the blockade, and (2) guerre de course, or commerce raiding. The blockade relies on concentration and persistence to choke off the flow of sea-borne goods into enemy harbors, and as such will usually require some form of command of the sea. Commerce raiding, on the other hand, relies on dispersed, attritional attacks by individual vessels (or small groups of vessels), which makes it an attractive option for navies that find themselves in a position of inferiority. Both methods leverage the disruption of shipping to impose a cumulative toll on the adversary's economy, which is expected to have a significant indirect impact on the war effort and/or erode the opponent's will to resist.


Execute against China?

Considerably greater attention has been attracted, however, by the possibility that the People's Republic might itself become the target of offensive military action against the sea-borne commerce on which the integrity of its economic model stamds. After all, 90 percent of China's exports and 90 percent of its liquid fuel imports - which, as Sean Mirski observes are "functionally irreplaceable" - are transported by sea. The oft-cited "Malacca dilemma" is but one expression of a suspicion that now unites an increasing number of strategic thinkers, both Chinese and foreign: namely, that its dependence on maritime transportation may prove to be China's Achilles' heel on its way to greatness.[/font]

Stranglehold: The Context, Conduct and Consequences of an American Naval Blockade of China
Sean Mirski

Abstract
The mounting challenge posed by China's military modernization has highlighted the need for the United States to analyze its ability to execute a naval blockade. A blockade strategy is viable, but it would be limited to a narrow context: the United States would have to be engaged in a protracted conflict over vital interests, and it would need the support of key regional powers. The United States would also need to implement a mix between a close and distant blockade in order to avoid imperiling the conflict's strategic context. If enacted, a blockade could exact a ruinous cost on the Chinese economy and state.

source link

Conclusion: Return of the commerce raiders?

If nothing else, the current debate about a U.S. naval blockade of China reveals that - much like their predecessors in past centuries - strategists in a globalized era see shipping as a repository of strategic vulnerability, particularly in cases of high-intensity conflict between great or medium-size powers. But while the potential leverage to be gained from nations' dependence on international shipping is perhaps greater than ever before, the actual leverage might not correspond to planners' expectations. The sources of this disconnect lie primarily in the political and economic context in which any concerted military action against sea-borne trade would be embedded. Given the U.S. Navy's determined stewardship of freedom of navigation, the U.S. in particular would find itself on the wrong side of the norms it has been upholding for the past 60 years. And while the economic fall-out of any great power war is likely to be significant, the willful disruption of trade flows for strategic effect would only serve to accentuate the costs to regional allies and global trading partners.

As a result, unrestricted commerce warfare of the type pursued by the U.S. Navy against Japan in 1941-45 is just not in the cards. On the other hand, anything short of a strategically counterproductive "sink-on-sight" policy might not produce sufficient strategic impact to justify the cost of embarking on such a risky course of action in the first place. Finally, once we move beyond the context of open interstate warfare, multilateral economic sanctions offer the possibility of causing many of the same effects at markedly lower cost to the attacker's international standing.

Overall, the recent surge of interest in economic warfare strategies does little to encourage faith in the potential decisiveness of military actions against globalized trade, and serves to underline the practical and political challenges presented by any attempt at leveraging the vulnerabilities of a major trading power under 21st-century conditions. While the dependence on international shipping poses many risks, the strategic leverage it provides as a direct result of its crucial contribution to the prosperity of nations is now more apparent than real.

 

[CougarKing]

Another reason why I think Taiwan's reunification with mainland China will not happen anytime soon (at least not peacefully) even if Beijing may try to lure Taipei into a "one country, two systems" arrangement similar to Hong Kong and Macau:

Defence News link

President: Taiwan To Continue Buying Arms From US

Aug. 23, 2013 - 07:43AM   
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE     
Asia & Pacific Rim
   

TAIPEI — Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou said Friday the island will continue to acquire arms from the United States, dismissing reports that the US and China could discuss ending such sales.

Ma spoke after local and Chinese media on Thursday quoted a Chinese defense official who said Washington had reacted positively when China’s defense minister, Chang Wanquan, proposed setting up a joint working group to discuss arms sales to Taipei.

Chang made the proposal during a visit to the US that started last week, according to Guan Youfei, who accompanied him on the trip.

Guan reportedly also said that, during a meeting with his US counterpart, Chuck Hagel, Chang offered to adjust Chinese military deployment in exchange for the US ending its weapons sales to Taiwan.

Guan’s remarks raised concerns in Taiwan, where the US is the leading arms supplier.

“To acquire necessary weapons that we can’t manufacture ourselves, we will keep buying arms from the United States,” Ma said during a visit to the offshore island of Kinmen to mark the 55th anniversary of a bombardment by the Chinese army that killed 618 servicemen and civilians.

“The US made ‘Six Assurances’ to our country back in 1982, including not to set a date to end arms sales to Taiwan nor to hold prior consultations with China on arms sales,” he said, referring to the promise made by the Ronald Reagan administration.

Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but at the same time Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires Washington to provide the island with means to defend itself.

In 2001, then-President George W. Bush approved the sale of eight conventional submarines as part of Washington’s most comprehensive arms package for the island since 1992.

President Barack Obama’s administration has approved more than $12 billion in sales and equipment upgrades but has held off on Taiwan’s requests to buy new F-16 fighter jets, a step against which China has repeatedly warned.

Tensions between Taiwan and China have eased markedly since Ma came to power on a Beijing-friendly platform in 2008. He was re-elected in January 2012.

But Ma has stressed that Taiwan needs to maintain sufficient self-defense, as China still regards the island as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Another reason why I think Taiwan's reunification with mainland China will not happen anytime soon (at least not peacefully) even if Beijing may try to lure Taipei into a "one country, two systems" arrangement similar to Hong Kong and Macau:

Defence News link

I don't know about "soon," but I would not be surprised to see reunification in my lifetime ... and I don't expect to be around for much more than the next 25 years.

I can imagine a "forced" reunification if a Taiwanese government does something incredibly stupid. America will not, because it cannot, intervene militarily to save Taiwan. But there are some things that China cannot accept, as matters of domestic policy and pride self respect. If Taiwan crosses one of those few, but very clear lines China will take it by force of arms.

But, I expect a peaceful reunification when the economic situation makes it mutually advantageous ~ the Chinese people, it has always seemed to me, were born with a few extra capitalist genes and I expect them all, eventually, to vote with their wallets. But I actually expect them to vote for unification with both heads and hearts because my reading is that the Taiwanese want to be Chinese, again, too - just under their own terms.

 

[CougarKing]

America will not, because it cannot, intervene militarily to save Taiwan.

Are we not forgetting the US Taiwan Relations Act? As well as the "Six Assurances" mentioned the article above?

 

[Edward Campbell]

My reading of both the US Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances is that neither requires America to go to war.

The US Taiwan Relations Act requires the USA to "provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character; and ... maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan." It is a long way from "maintaining the capacity to resist" to "go to war to defend Taiwan," and I'm not sure the US is honouring provision 6; with what will the USA defend Taiwan?

The Six Assurances are even weaker.

I repeat, "America will not, because it cannot, intervene militarily to save Taiwan."

 

[tomahawk6]

Taiwan's best defense is its armed forces and their defensive moat.The PRC has enough problems without having a war over Taiwan.

 

[CougarKing]

Former CCP posterboy and Chongqing's former party secretary Bo Xilai in the news again.

Interestingly, Bo Xilai's notorious playboy son Bo Guagua reportedly once drove the daughter of former US Ambassador Gary Locke to a dinner date, where he made unwanted sexual advances on her. In spite of this "Red Ferrari" scandal that almost caused a diplomatic mess between the US and China, Bo Guagua got to attend grad. school at Harvard's Kennedy School for government and will be attending Columbia Law School soon.

From the Australian

Bo Xilai trial reveals lavish lifestyles of China's rich and infamous 

From:  AFP 
August 27, 2013 2:34PM

THE family's safes held more cash than an average Chinese might see in a lifetime. Their French villa was held through shell companies designed to avoid taxes and publicity. The son gallivanted around the world at huge expense. 
 
The sensational corruption trial of Bo Xilai exposed the lavish lifestyle of one of China's most powerful politicians, gripping the Communist-run country where mounting inequality has stoked public discontent.

The bribery and embezzlement charges against Bo, until last year the head of the megacity of Chongqing and one of China's top-25 leaders, amount to 26.8 million yuan ($4.87 million).

And that only touches on a few business dealings in the early part of the 64-year-old's career.

Bo defended himself against allegations from his wife Gu Kailai that she once saw $US80,000 in bribe money by revealing the amount of ready cash they kept at home.

"In the shared safe there were hundreds of thousands of yuan, so how could she know the money she took out was from me?" he said, according to court accounts.

The ruling party mounted an apparently unusually open trial following its most explosive political scandal in decades.

The court in the eastern city of Jinan posted lengthy transcripts on its Twitter-like Weibo account each day - although their completeness and accuracy could not be verified.

Bo was charged with bribery amounting to 21.8 million yuan ($3.9 million), embezzlement of 5 million yuan ($900,000) and abuse of power, all of which he vehemently denied during the five-day trial.

He is accused of accepting 20.7 million yuan ($3.7 million) in bribes from businessman Xu Ming, who testified for the prosecution.

The court heard that Xu paid for a $US3.2 million villa in the French Riviera resort of Cannes after Gu said she wanted to buy it.

The six-bedroom mansion with a pool, shaded terrace and colonnaded balconies sits in an exclusive neighbourhood overlooking the Mediterranean.

It was allegedly funded by Xu through three different companies and managed by others, so that neither Bo nor his family appeared on records as owners of the property.

The complex setup was "to avoid tax" and because "I didn't want to bring any bad influence on [Bo]", according to Gu's testimony.

Tang Xiaolin, another businessman, allegedly gave Bo 1.1 million yuan including the $US80,000 seen by Gu after profiting from a land deal the politician helped facilitate.

Gu would grab thick wads of yuan and US dollars from safes in the couple's homes during three trips back to China a year from England, where she lived with their only son, Bo Guagua.

Both bribery accusations stemmed from Bo's years overseeing Dalian city and its northeastern province Liaoning in the 1990s and early 2000s. He became national commerce minister in 2004 and Chongqing's leader in 2007.

Their son meanwhile attended top-notch schools and universities with hefty tuition fees, including Harrow in Britain, Oxford, Harvard and, from this autumn, Columbia law school in New York.

Xu paid for Guagua to travel to Germany for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, as well as Italy, Latin America and Africa, and for toys such as an 80,000-yuan Segway scooter, the court heard.

Guagua charged $US50,000 to his credit card - paid off by Xu - brought back a month's worth of exotic meat from Africa and in 2011 treated 40 Harvard classmates to an expenses-paid trip to China.

At the same time in Chongqing, Bo - who during the trial admitted to having had extramarital affairs - mounted Maoist revivalist rallies chanting "Serve the People".

Some Chinese would be surprised if a politician of Bo's stature had not obtained even more wealth, said Steve Tsang, a China politics expert at the University of Nottingham in Britain.

"I think for a lot of people, the question would be, 'Could this be it?' " he said. "Surely someone in Bo's position could and would have enjoyed much more than what was revealed in court."

Many Chinese have come to expect ill-gotten riches of their leaders and Bo's supporters may be willing to overlook his actions, said David Goodman, of the University of Sydney.

"Given that they're all at it, why shouldn't you support people you think have views that you think are acceptable?" he said.

"They don't make a complicated calculus about, well, he's corrupt but he's for us - but that's what it comes down to."

Official corruption is rampant across China, as the leadership has acknowledged this year while vowing to crack down.

Multiple examples of excess have been revealed over recent months, even among low-level civil servants.

A county official in the southern province of Guangdong was found to own 22 properties worth as much as 40 million yuan ($7.2 million), at a time when homes are becoming increasingly unaffordable for many.

But far greater wealth at the highest levels was exposed by Western media last year - and proved so sensitive that the outlets' websites have since remained blocked inside China.

President Xi Jinping's family was reported by Bloomberg to have investments worth $US376 million, and the New York Times said former premier Wen Jiabao's relatives had controlled assets worth $US2.7 billion.

 

[CougarKing]

China's "non-interference" policy resurfaces again now that a conflict between Western powers and Syria seems imminent...

China Couldn't Intervene In Syria Even If It Wanted To
www.businessinsider.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - The worsening Syria conflict has exposed an uncomfortable truth behind China's cherished policy of non-interference: Beijing cannot do much to influence events even if it wanted to.

With weak and untested military forces unable to project power in the Middle East, China can only play a low-key role in a region that is crucial for its energy security.

As the United States and its allies gear up for a probable military strike on Syria, raising fears of a regional conflagration, China remains firmly on the sidelines, despite it having much more at stake than some other big powers.

<snipped>

China has few economic interests in Syria itself but believes it has a strategic and diplomatic imperative to ensure Middle East stability and to protect a vital energy source.
Retired Major General Luo Yuan, one of China's most outspoken military figures, told the official People's Daily last year that with so much oil at stake "we cannot think that the issues of Syria and Iran have nothing to do with us".

 

[CougarKing]

It's ironic that the Chinese are using an American invention- the idea of maritime sovereignty- to justify their "historical claims" to the South China Sea.

From The Diplomat site

History the Weak Link in Beijing’s Maritime Claims

East Asia
August 30, 2013

By Mohan Malik

If the idea of national sovereignty goes back to seventeenth-century Europe and the system that originated with the Treaty of Westphalia, the idea of maritime sovereignty is largely a mid-twentieth-century American concoction that China and others have seized upon to extend their maritime frontiers. As Jacques notes, “The idea of maritime sovereignty is a relatively recent invention, dating from 1945 when the United States declared that it intended to exercise sovereignty over its territorial waters.” In fact, the UN’s Law of the Sea agreement represented the most prominent international effort to apply the land-based notion of sovereignty to the maritime domain worldwide—although, importantly, it rejects the idea of justification by historical right. Thus although Beijing claims around eighty percent of the South China Sea as its “historic waters” (and is now seeking to elevate this claim to a “core interest” akin with its claims on Taiwan and Tibet), China has, historically speaking, about as much right to claim the South China Sea as Mexico has to claim the Gulf of Mexico for its exclusive use, or Iran the Persian Gulf, or India the Indian Ocean. In other words, none at all. From a legal standpoint, “the prolific usage of the nomenclature ‘South China Sea’ does not confer historic Chinese sovereignty.” Countries that have used history to claim sovereignty over islands have had the consent of others and a mutually agreeable interpretation of history—both elements missing in the SCS.

Ancient empires either won control over territories through aggression, annexation, or assimilation or lost them to rivals who possessed superior firepower or statecraft. Territorial expansion and contraction was the norm, determined by the strength or weakness of a kingdom or empire. The very idea of “sacred lands” is ahistorical because control of territory was based on who grabbed or stole what last from whom. The frontiers of the Qin, Han, Tang, Song, and Ming dynasties waxed and waned throughout history. A strong and powerful imperial China, much like czarist Russia, was expansionist in Inner Asia and Indochina as opportunity arose and strength allowed. The gradual expansion over the centuries under the non-Chinese Mongol and Manchu dynasties extended imperial China’s control over Tibet and parts of Central Asia (now Xinjiang), Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Modern China is, in fact, an “empire-state” masquerading as a nation-state.

Even if one were to accept Beijing’s “historical claims” argument for a moment, the problem is that the Chinese empire was not the only empire in pre-modern Asia and the world. There were other empires and kingdoms too. Many countries can make equally valid “historical claims” to lands that are currently not a part of their territory but under Chinese control (e.g., the Gando region in China’s Jilin province that belongs to Korea). Before the twentieth century, there were no sovereign nation-states in Asia with clear, legally defined boundaries of jurisdiction and control. If China’s claims are justified on the basis of history, then so are the historical claims of Vietnamese and Filipinos based on their histories. Students of Asian history know, for instance, that Malay peoples related to today’s Filipinos have a better claim to Taiwan than Beijing does. Taiwan was originally settled by people of Malay-Polynesian descent—ancestors of the present-day aborigine groups—who populated the low-lying coastal plains. Noted Asia-watcher Philip Bowring argues that “[t]he fact that China has a long record of written history does not invalidate other nations’ histories as illustrated by artifacts, language, lineage and genetic affinities, the evidence of trade and travel.”

Unless one subscribes to the notion of Chinese exceptionalism, imperial China’s “historical claims” are as valid as those of other kingdoms and empires in Southeast and South Asia. The problem with history is where and when to draw the line, why, and more importantly, whose version of history is accurate. China laying claim to the Mongol and Manchu empires’ colonial possessions would be equivalent to India laying claim to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia (Srivijaya), Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka on the grounds that they were all parts of either the Ashoka, Maurya, Chola, or the Moghul and the British Indian empires. From the tenth through the thirteenth centuries, several of the Pallava and Chola kings in southern India assembled large navies and armies to overthrow neighboring kingdoms and to undertake punitive attacks on the states in the Bay of Bengal region. They also took to the sea to conquer parts of what are now Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia. In his study of India’s strategic culture, George Tanham observed: “In what was really a battle over the trade between China and India and Europe, the Cholas were quite successful in both naval and land engagements and briefly ruled portions of Southeast Asia.”

(...)

 

[CougarKing]

By having an open trial for the sake of "setting an example", perhaps Bo's opponents may be unconsciously setting him up for a political comeback in the same way that the late Deng Xiaoping was "rehabilitated" after a purge and eventually rose to lead the CCP...

South China Morning Post link

Why Bo Xilai won't go quietly
Minxin Pei says the relative openness of Bo Xilai's trial could have been the work of allies wishing to aid his fight for a political comeback. Indeed, such hopes may have inspired his feisty performance

Friday, 30 August, 2013, 3:11am

Minxin Pei

As show trials go, the drama featuring Bo Xilai , the once-swaggering, media-savvy former Communist Party chief of Chongqing , veered anomalously into improvisation. Before the proceedings began, the conventional wisdom was that Bo's trial had been carefully scripted and rehearsed to portray a forlorn and penitent sinner confessing his crimes and apologising to the party.

But the historic five-day trial dispelled any notion that Bo would go quietly to his cell in Beijing's infamous Qincheng Prison, where China's fallen top leaders are incarcerated.

By appearing dignified, defiant and forceful, Bo sought to preserve his image among his allies

He challenged the prosecution vigorously, defending himself with a feistiness that surprised nearly all who read the transcripts released by the court in real time on the trial's first day.

Bo dismissed one of his accusers as having "sold his soul". He characterised testimony given by his wife, Gu Kailai , now serving a suspended death sentence for murdering the British businessman Neil Heywood in 2011, as "comical" and "fictional", and he called her "crazy".
Throughout the trial, Bo flatly denied most of the corruption charges, often professed ignorance of the facts, and claimed to be unable to recall any details of the matters in question.

He even retracted his confession to the party's anti-graft agency, blaming mental stress for his admission that he accepted bribes from a man he called "soulless" in court. In his closing statement, he dropped a bombshell: he claimed that Wang Lijun , his former police chief and henchman (and a "vile character"), was secretly in love with his wife.

The trial transcripts create an impression of a man who, had he not gone into politics, would have excelled as a trial lawyer. Bo made the prosecution look sloppy and incompetent.

However, anyone who believes that the courtroom drama in the provincial capital of Jinan will determine the trial's outcome (the verdict and sentence will be announced next month) is seriously mistaken. Party leaders have already decided that Bo is guilty and must spend years in jail.

A logical question to ask, then, is why the party allowed an unprecedented degree of openness at the trial. The two most recently purged Politburo members were tried in secret, as were Bo's wife and his former police chief.

The optimistic view is that China's new leadership wants to demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law and fairness. But that is a naive interpretation. While the trial proceedings on the first day were refreshingly open by Chinese standards, that quickly changed. Transcripts were not released in real time on subsequent days, and they omitted some crucial details (for example, Bo claimed that the party's representatives threatened to execute his wife and prosecute his son if he refused to co-operate).

Perhaps worried that Bo's defiant behaviour was winning the public-relations battle, the official media also launched a blitz, savaging Bo's character and all but pronouncing him guilty.

Even more disturbing, on the first day of the trial, the Chinese police formally arrested Xu Zhiyong , a human-rights lawyer who was leading a campaign to force mandatory disclosure of the wealth of senior officials and their family members. The Chinese government has also begun a ferocious crackdown on social media, arresting prominent activists on dubious charges.

So there must be a different - and more political - interpretation of the Chinese government's handling of Bo's trial. It is worth recalling that purging him was a deeply divisive affair at the party's highest levels. His patrons and allies could not save him, but they were well positioned to demand that his trial be conducted as openly as possible.

Given Bo's gift for dazzling an audience, his allies must have felt confident that a spirited defence would serve him well, both legally and politically.

Bo certainly did not disappoint. He could have grovelled his way through the trial, like other senior party officials brought down by corruption scandals, and as most defendants have done in the long, grim history of communist show trials beginning with Stalin.

But Bo apparently is not accepting his political demise as a final act - in his closing statement, he told the court that he wanted to keep his party membership (he was expelled anyway) - and a comeback calculus may well have motivated his spirited performance. Bo understands that he should not be perceived as a pitiful loser who gutlessly besmirches his honour.

By appearing dignified, defiant and forceful, Bo evidently sought to preserve his image among his allies and supporters as a strong leader. Denouncing himself in order to gain leniency - in a case that he portrayed as a grievous miscarriage of justice - would have made him look like a coward.

Bo may be heading to jail, but he retains some chance of political rehabilitation should things change dramatically in China. His botched - but riveting - trial may be over, but the Bo Xilai show will go on.

Minxin Pei is professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Yes, I suppose I do.

China needs to become:

    First, and as a mater of urgency, less corrupt; and

    Second, more "democratic," by which I mean - government with the consent of the governed (free and fair elections being one way, our way of doing that) and equality and and under the law, for both the governed and the governors, and,
    most important, respect for the rule of law.

My bright young friend's prescription - "one country, two systems" spreading, slowly but surely, from province to province until the "second system" is dominant - seems to promise both better than my "one country n systems" course of action.

I have banged on and on and on about corruption being China's single most significant problem and I have suggested that Hong Kong provides a good model for China, proper. Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the SouthChina Morning Post is a good article that says I'm wrong:

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1302736/hong-kongs-anti-corruption-model-wont-work-mainland-china

Hong Kong's anti-corruption model won't work on mainland China
Sonny Lo says the advocates of a Hong-Kong-style fight against corruption on the mainland misunderstand the nature of the scourge across the border, and the tools available to fight it

Sonny Lo

Wednesday, 04 September, 2013

Mainland China's anti-corruption campaign has been gathering pace since Xi Jinping became president in March. Members of the Politburo's Standing Committee reportedly voted against a proposal this summer to adopt a Hong-Kong-style amnesty of corrupt officials.

Despite the fact that some China watchers believe the mainland has much to learn from the Hong Kong model of fighting corruption, the reality is that Beijing's approach will remain a far cry from that of Hong Kong.

First and foremost, the amnesty of corrupt Hong Kong police officers, introduced by then governor Murray MacLehose in 1977 soon after a police mutiny in that year, cannot be replicated across the border. Doing so would be tantamount to a slap in the face for the anti-corruption campaign and a contradiction of China's criminal law, according to hardliners in the Politburo.

Second, Hong Kong's anti-corruption fight is led by the powerful Independent Commission Against Corruption, but the mainland situation is complicated by the unique institutional design of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. At the provincial and city levels, the anti-corruption fight is constrained by the need to be accountable to the top levels, and most importantly to be answerable to the local party secretary. If the party secretary is somehow involved in corruption, he or she becomes a "protective umbrella" obstructing anti-corruption efforts. The ICAC does not have this problem.

Third, the "protective umbrella" on the mainland is vast, with complex personal networks involving party cadres, officials, businesspeople, land developers and professionals. The recent anti-corruption campaign targeting club memberships, for example, is testimony to the extensive networks of bribery. Unless a Maoist-style education campaign is launched, to teach all citizens the importance of clean government and ethics, it will be difficult to instil these values into the minds of all party cadres and government officials, not to mention ordinary citizens.

In Hong Kong, the ICAC can employ legal measures against any "protective umbrella", which won't be tolerated by the elite or the people.

Fourth, defying conventional wisdom that assumes severe penalties would be imposed on those found guilty of corruption, the reality is that, on the mainland, suspended death sentences often provide an opportunity for offenders to have their sentences reduced later, especially if they show good behaviour in the early stages of imprisonment. At best, some "small tigers" have been executed, as an example. In Hong Kong, those committing corrupt acts face the very real risk of severe punishment; this isn't really the case on the mainland.

Fifth, China is a huge country where central-local relations are extremely complex. While the central government is keen to fight corruption, local officials often bend the rules somewhat and deviate from Beijing's directives. Hong Kong, by contrast, is relatively small; its 18 districts are comparatively easy for the ICAC to monitor. Hence, to argue that the ICAC model could be implanted into the mainland is to ignore the complex central-local relations.

So what can Xi's anti-corruption campaign learn from Hong Kong? The lessons include the need for Beijing to use extensive education as a means to inculcate the values of good and clean government into the psyche of all Chinese people, especially Communist Party officials and cadres.

Moreover, it is imperative for Beijing to review whether court judgments are consistent in all provinces and localities, and whether standardised and tougher measures should be introduced to penalise those found guilty of corruption. If not, the anti-corruption crusade will not achieve a significant breakthrough.

After all, corruption has been the hallmark of dynasties throughout China's history. The crux of the matter is not about eliminating corruption, but containing its further spread and minimising its impact on the legitimacy of the party and government.

Mainland businesspeople and officials working in Hong Kong must learn the importance of ethical behaviour to help further development of the rule of law on the mainland. The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection should work closely with the ICAC and its Macau counterpart to educate mainland executives and officials working in the two special administrative regions and instil clean government and administrative ethics into their behaviour.

This could contribute immensely to the development and consolidation of clean government all over China.

Sonny Lo is professor and head of the department of social sciences at the Hong Kong Institute of Education

Prof Lo makes one very good point, "corruption has been the hallmark of dynasties throughout China's history. The crux of the matter is not about eliminating corruption, but containing its further spread and minimising its impact on the legitimacy of the party and government." Corruption has not been, cannot be, in my opinion, eliminated from America, Britain, Canada or Denmark ... and so on and so forth ... so why should we expect it to be eliminated from China?

But, as Porf Lo says, mainland Chinese should learn from Hong Kong that a mostly honesty system enhances profits. Look at the least corrupt countries - note that Hong Kong and Singapore, both Sinic societies with all that baggage, are both honest and rich. There is a link between honesty, which includes government respecting the right to property, and prosperity, and Hong Kong and Singapore show China that simple truth.

 

[CougarKing]

The Navy is seeking ways to bolster ties with the Chinese Navy, including exchanging officers and conducting fleet operations.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert said these possibilities would be discussed when he hosts his counterpart, Adm. Wu Shengli, next week for a visit that starts in San Diego and then heads to Washington, D.C.

The US and Chinese navies have seen some recent cooperation, including when the US destroyer Mason and a Chinese destroyer landed each other’s helicopters as part of an anti-piracy exercise. Greenert wants to build on that by planning more exercises and operations and creating command and control rules, much as the Navy has when operating with other foreign navies.

“It takes too much time to get one simple operation going,” Greenert said Thursday in a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. “I want to move ahead in that so that our folks, when they get out there, they can do more.”

Greenert’s sitdown will be his first with the head of the People’s Liberation Army Navy since he took over as CNO two years ago. Greenert said he’s looking for “areas of overlap” between the navies, such as counter-piracy and humanitarian assistance.

It’s particularly important that the navies began exchanging mid-grade officers and senior enlisted so that people in both services had useful contacts and knew how each others’ fleets train and operate, Greenert said.

One Chinese ship is set to participate in next year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise for the first time and Greenert said another opportunity is a joint humanitarian mission, perhaps using both services’ hospital ships.

......

Defense News

 

[CougarKing]

Hyperlink at article title below:

Chinese Navy Ships Visit Hawaii
September 6, 2013
PEARL HARBOR - Three People's Liberation Army-Navy [PLA(N)] ships pulled into Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Sept. 6, for a routine port visit.

The crewmembers of the Luhu-class destroyer Qingdao (DDG 113), Jiangkai-class frigate Linyi (FFG-547) and Fuqing-class fleet oiler Hongzehu (AOR 881) are scheduled to participate in receptions and sporting events with their American counterparts.
<snipped>
The visit will be topped-off with a one-day search-and-rescue drill on Monday, Sept. 9.
<snipped>

Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, shakes hands with Rear Adm. Wei Gang, chief of staff, North Sea Fleet, following an an arrival ceremony for the visiting ships. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Nardel Gervacio)
---

The Chinese People's Liberation Army-Navy Jiangkai-class frigate Linyi (FFG 547) moors alongside the Luhu-class destroyer Qingdao (DDG 113) following the ships' arrival. (U.S. Navy photo by MC1 Daniel Barker)

source: cpf.navy.mil

 

[Kirkhill]

Our E.R. Campbell, Burke, China, Confucius
and Ambrose Evans Pritchard

Convergence.

China embraces 'British Model', ditching Mao for Edmund Burke

David Cameron might be reassured to know that China's Communist leadership is studying the long arc of British history with intense interest, even if Russia's Vladimir Putin deems our small island to be of no account.

David Cameron might be reassured to know that China's Communist leadership is studying the long arc of British history with intense interest, even if Russia's Vladimir Putin deems our small island to be of no account.
Professor Li said the 18th Century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke is now all the rage in Chinese universities, studied for his critique of violent revolution, and esteemed as the prophet of stability through timely but controlled change.

"We want to learn from the British model," said Daokui Li, a member China's upper chamber or `House of Lords' (CPPCC) and a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University.

"Today's leaders in China are looking carefully at the British style of political change over the last 400 years, analysing the difference with France," he told me at the annual Ambrosetti gathering of world policy-makers at Villa d'Este on Lake Como.

"England went through incredible changes: a war against the US; wars against France; wars against Germany twice, the rise and decline of empire; and universal suffrage. Yet society remained stable through all this turmoil, with the same institutions and political structure. We think the reason is respect for tradition, yet willingness to make changes when needed."

"It is a contrast with France. We know from De Toqueville's study of the Ancien Regime that if you don't do reforms, you will end up with a revolution, and that is what will happen in China if we don't reform in time,"

Professor Li said the 18th Century Irish philosopher Edmund Burke is now all the rage in Chinese universities, studied for his critique of violent revolution, and esteemed as the prophet of stability through timely but controlled change. They are enamoured by his theories of inheritance, the "living contract" through the generations, the limits of liberty, and -- a harder sell -- his small battalions.

Hobbes too is sweeping China's intelligentsia, and so is Hannah Arendt, the philosopher of the twin totalitarian movements Left and Right. It is a ferment of ideas. Mao is out, even if the Communist Party is still coy about saying this too publicly.

"We went through the Revolution of 1911 when we overthrew the emperor, then the May 4th Revolution of 1919, then the Communist Revolution of 1949, and then the Cultural Revolution. We're looking back at our history, and we are tired of this."

"This is why Bo Xilai scares people. He was embracing Mao's practice of continuous revolution, and it brings back bad memories."
I was aware that Burke is making a much-deserved come-back in Britain, propelled by Jesse Norman's splendid book "Edmund Burke:The First Conservative". But China's enthusiasm for his work has more global "gearing", as traders say.

The Nobel peace laureate -- and dissident -- Liu Xiaobo is a Burkean, as were many of those who signed the 2008 human rights charter.
Needless to say, Burke has much in common with Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher of order, tradition, and harmony, now enjoying a revival in China as a post-Maoist source of authority. Jiang Qing cites Burke extensively in his classic work on the rise of a new Confucian political order published in 2008: "China: Democracy, or Confucianism?"

You will recognise the words and style if you have read Burke's masterful Reflections on the French Revolution, the book that unmasked the squalid character of the Paris Putsch, and shattered the illusions of Jacobin fellow-travellers across Europe.
''Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.’’

“To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude.

By this wise prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those children of their country who are prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations they may regenerate the paternal constitutions and renovate their father’s life.”

To hack that aged parent to pieces. How resonant that must seem to survivors of the Cultural Revolution.

Prof Li said the new team of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang -- both singing from the same hymn sheet according to him, though not others -- will start reforming the one-child policy, the hukuo code of rural `serfdom', and much else, before the end of the year. The last team coasted complacently, he said, relying on post-Lehman stimulus to keep growth going as the old system festered.

Whether China can really pull it off in an orderly way after letting rip with the biggest credit bubble in modern market history is a very open question.
But let us wish them the best of British luck, and celebrate our new Special Relationship with China.