Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[a_majoor]

The FP on China's corruption crackdown. There will be some fallout here, since Canada is one of the destinations of this cash:

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/08/08/chinas-anti-corruption-crackdown-threatens-to-spill-over-into-canada/

China’s anti-corruption crackdown threatens to spill over into Canada

Diane Francis | August 8, 2014 | Last Updated: Aug 8 7:41 PM ET
More from Diane Francis

Robber barons built America, but were brought to heel following scandals and evidence of corruption and abuses. If muckrakers and gutsy leaders hadn’t taken them on a century ago, the place might have become another banana republic without the bananas.

Fortunately the lessons of history have not been forgotten. In 2012, China’s President Xi Jinping launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign to clean up the country’s culture of graft.

The man in the middle, as head of the Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection, is China’s sixth most powerful man, Wang Qishan, who happens to be a historian. His favorite television show is House of Cards, the Netflix series about Machiavellian tactics in Washington, and two years ago Wang suggested to his colleagues that they read Ancien Regime and the French Revolution to underscore that only reforms can derail insurrections.

Without reform, China will, and should, be a no-go zone for businesses. Without reform, the Chinese will suffer too, their wealth concentrated in a few undeserving hands and their economy looted by officials on the take who hide billions abroad.
 
According to Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit group that traces illicit flows of capital, US$1.06-trillion left China between 2002 and 2011 despite tough currency controls. This is equivalent to China’s GDP in 2002 and roughly US$10-billion a month.

Recently, a leaked report from China’s central bank estimated 18,000 officials and employees of state-owned enterprises pilfered US$123-billion and fled to the U.S., Canada, Australia and the Netherlands. Recouping these assets will be on the agenda, but efforts must focus on removing the culprits at home to create a meritocracy and deploy the nation’s capital to build wealth, not to build political buildings or bridges that line politicians’ pockets.

“Our current task is to alleviate the symptoms [of corruption] in order to give us time to eventually cure the underlying disease,” said Wang in a speech late last year.

The anti-corruption crackdown began in 2012 following the high-profile arrest, then conviction, of Wang and President Xi’s colleague, Bo Xilai, for bribery and corruption and Bo’s wife for murder.

In 18 months, nearly 250,000 officials and others in governments and state-owned enterprises have been held for detention or charged. Some 70 have died or committed suicide while in custody.

In recent weeks, investigators have shocked the world with the detention of Zhou Yongkang, former head of PetroChina and the secret service; oil executives (with Canadian connections); the country’s most popular TV anchor (taken into custody just before the evening’s broadcast) and with money laundering allegations about the Bank of China itself.

Investigators are unraveling schemes that embezzle, launder and export bribes, kickbacks or the proceeds of crime.

Some involve bribing a bank officer to take a deposit then wire funds offshore.

Another option is to drive truckloads of cash into the backdoor of friendly casinos in Macao where the cash is blended then paid out, minus a fee, as gambling winnings in another currency.

Macao and Hong Kong are semi-independent jurisdictions called Special Administrative Regions of the People’s Republic of China. Macao’s casinos enjoy six times’ the gaming revenue of the Las Vegas Strip and Hong Kong has obliging banks. A more appropriate label for the two would be the Special Laundering Regions of China.

In China, crooks don’t have to go to the casino because intermediaries called “junkets” will swap Yuan for gambling chips that can be cashed into Hong Kong or Macao currency at the casino then wired by Hong Kong banks to tax havens or accomplices offshore.

The goal is to buy a condo or luxury goods with funds from a trust managed by a shell company in Grand Cayman, owned by another trust in Guernsey with an account in Luxemburg managed by a Swiss banker who doesn’t know who the owner is.

More devious schemes by big shots have moved tens of billions offshore without handling cash or involving banks. For instance, money managers are paid inflated fees to invest Chinese corporate funds abroad. The catch is that half of the fees are paid out to shell companies owned secretly by Chinese officials or paid out to buy them condos or art.

Other tactics involve bribing officials or executives by selling assets at a loss so they can pocket immediate profits; overpaying for offshore assets in return for kickbacks or wiring cash to “fronts” owned by officials or their children who wash the bribes as though they were legitimate income.

China isn’t the only country with capital flight problems. Russia is in second place with US$880-billion in illicit capital flows between 2002 and 2011. But whatever the source, Canada must stop being naïve and aiding and abetting such crimes.

Australia got smart years ago, and requires foreign buyers of real estate or companies to fully disclose their identities and obtain permission from the federal government. In Canada, there are no restrictions or disclosure requirements with the result that Toronto and Vancouver housing costs have been driven up artificially due to frenzied buying by anonymous foreigners. This is why Toronto has 130 high-rise residential projects or as many as New York City with dramatically more people and immigrant arrivals.

The China crackdown has just started and will reach into Canada and other “host” countries.

dfrancis@nationalpost.com

 

[a_majoor]

Trifecta of China articles today. This looks at the pattern of Chinese history, and is very much in accord with how Edward reports China's "world view" and her position within it:

http://www.hoover.org/research/cycles-or-stages-chinese-history

The Cycles—or Stages—of Chinese History
by Edward N. Luttwak
Saturday, February 1, 2014

The logic of strategy and all that comes from it, including the idea of the “balance of power,” for example, is inherently universal, transcendental, and timeless, but each clan, tribe, nation, and state has its own peculiar political constructs—that is why seemingly homogeneous systems, for example parliamentary democracy, function in ways so radically different from country to country.

Equally, the elemental sense of the centrality of any polity takes very different forms, ranging from the quiet certitudes of the Kingdom of Denmark to that well-known Chinese construct, the Tianxia (whose logographs 天下 have been much seen in the Japanese press of late, their Kanji versions being identical). Literally “under heaven,” short for “all under heaven” or more meaningfully, “the rule of all humans,” it defines an ideal national and international system of ever-expanding concentric circles centered on a globally benevolent emperor, now Xi Jinping or more correctly perhaps, the seven-headed standing committee of the Politburo.

The innermost circle of the Tianxia is formed by the rest of the Politburo and top Beijing officialdom, while its outermost circle comprises the Solomon Islands along with the twenty or so other utterly benighted “outer barbarian” countries that still do not recognize Beijing, preferring Taipei. In between, all other Chinese from officials and tycoons to ordinary subjects and overseas Chinese fit in their own circles, further and further from the imperial coreas do foreign states both large and small, both near and far, both already respectful (too few) and those still arrogantly vainglorious. It is the long-range task of China’s external policy to bring each and every state into a proper relationship with the emperor—that is, a tributary relationship, in which they deliver goods and services if only as tokens of fealty, in exchange for security and prosperity, but even more for the privilege of proximity to the globally benevolent emperor1. All this is of course nothing more than an exceptionally elaborate rendition of universal ambitions that are merely grander for the greater—the Byzantine ranking of foreign potentates by their proximity to the emperor was only slightly less elaborate.

Nor is there anything peculiarly Chinese about the desire to bring other states into a tributary relationship—often better than a full incorporation, which may be unwanted for any number of reasons, and obviously superior to an alliance however close and secure but between equals, whereby there must be reciprocity, a quid for every quo, usually costly or irksome in some way. Hence from time immemorial, stronger clans, tribes, potentates, and entire nations have done their best to impose tributary relations on weaker clans, tribes, potentates and nations, obtaining goods and services for their forbearance and perhaps protection, or at least tokens of respectful subordination. Chinese emperors wanted no more than that, and unlike most recipients, not infrequently gave gifts more valuable than the tribute they received (as did many Byzantine emperors, by the way).

What is peculiar to China’s political culture, and of very great contemporary relevance is the centrality within it of a very specific doctrine on how to bring powerful foreigners—indeed foreigners initially more powerful than the empire—into a tributary relationship. Specialists concur that this doctrine emerged from the very protracted (3rd century BCE to 1st century CE) but ultimately successful struggle with the Xiongnú (匈奴) horse-nomad state,2 just possibly remote ancestors of Attila’s Huns, but definitely the inventors of the Steppe State political system that would be replicated by all their successors, and more adapted than replaced even by the Mongols3.

Formidable mounted archers and capable of sustained campaigning (a primary objective of the Steppe State), the Xiongnú ravaged and savaged and extorted tribute from the perpetually less martial, and certainly cavalry-poor Han until the latter finally felt able to resist again. Even then, 147 years of intermittent warfare ensued until Huhanye (呼韓邪), the paramount Chanyu (Qagan, Khan) of the Xiongnú, personally and formally submitted to the emperor Han Xuandi in 51 BCE, undertaking to pay homage, to leave a son at court as a hostage, and to deliver tribute, as befitted a vassal. That was a very great downfall from the familial status of earlier Chanyus of the epoch of Xiongnú predominance, who were themselves recognized as emperors, whose sons and heirs could have imperial daughters in marriage, and who from 200 BCE had received tribute from the Han, instead of the other way around.

It is this successful transformation of a once superior power first into an equal (signified by imperial marriages) and then into a subservient client-state that seems to have left an indelible residue in China’s tradition of statecraft. It was achieved with a specific “barbarian-handling” tool box first described by its early practitioner, the scholar and imperial advisor Lou Jing (婁敬) 199 BCE. His method was first applied when the Xiongnú were still very strong and the Han were not only tactically inferior (their chariots were totally obsolete for fighting mounted archers) but also beset by political divisions, so much so that a 198 BCE4 treaty required the payment of an annual tribute in kind (silk, grain, etc.), and the formal attestation of equality for the Chanyu embodied in a marriage alliance, formalized by imperial letters that make the equality fully explicit.

The first barbarian-handling tool is normally translated as “corruption” in English translations, but perhaps “addiction,” or more fully “induced economic dependence” are more accurate: the originally self-sufficient Xiongnú were to be made economically dependent on Han-produced goods, starting with silk and woolen cloths instead of their own rude furs and felt. At first supplied free as unrequited tribute, these goods could still be supplied later on when the Han were stronger, but only in exchange for services rendered.

The second tool of barbarian handling, is normally translated as “indoctrination”: the Xiongnú were to be persuaded to accept the authoritarian Confucian value system and the collectivistic behavioral norms of the Han, as opposed to the steppe value system, based on voluntary allegiance to a heroic (and successful in looting) fighting and migration leader. One immediate benefit was that once the Chanyu’s son and heir married an imperial daughter, he would be ethically subordinated to the emperor as his father-in-law—remaining so when he became Chanyu in turn.

The much larger, longer-term benefit of the second tool was to undermine the entire political culture of the Xiongnú, and make them psychologically well as economically dependent on the imperial radiance, which was willingly extended in brotherly fashion when the Han were weak, and then contemptuously withdrawn when the Xiongnú were reduced to vassalage. What happened between the Han and the Xiongnú from the equal treaty of 198 BCE to the vassalage treaty of 51 BCE, remained thereafter, and still remains today the most hopeful precedent for Han dealings with powerful and violent states—evidently the assigned role of the United States in the present Beijing world-view.

The method forms a logical sequence:
Stage One: start by conceding all that must be conceded to the superior power including tribute, in order to avoid damage and obtain whatever forbearance is offered. But this in itself entangles the ruling class of the still-superior power in webs of material dependence that reduce its independent vitality and strength.
Stage Two: offer equality in a privileged bipolarity that excludes all lesser powers, or “G-2” in current parlance. That neutralizes the still powerful Other party, and isolates the manipulated soon-to-be former equal from all its potential allies, preventing from balancing China with a coalition.
Stage Three: finally, when the formerly superior power has been weakened enough, withdraw all tokens of equality and impose subordination.

Until the Chinese government decided—very prematurely I believe—to awaken the world to its classically imperial territorial ambitions by demanding the cession of lands, reefs, rocks, and sea waters from India, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam (demands that disturb and damage the concurrent Tianxia narrative of an alternative and more harmonious state system, disseminated even within the confines of Stanford University 5), it was making much progress towards Stage Two, the stage of equality preparatory to the final stage of subordination.

Of this progress—now interrupted, one may hope—one example suffices, though Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Zoellick among many others have expressed similar notions: at the end Dr. Henry Kissinger’s very widely read On China, after 526 pages of historical retrospectives and personal reminiscences, definite prescriptions are offered, summarized in the heading “Toward a Pacific Community,” i.e. a harmonious US-Chinese “G-2” that logically proceed from his relentlessly benign assessment of Chinese intentions. Dr. Kissinger’s G-2 is identical to that relationship very persistently advocated by Chinese officials high and low, and by senior advisors such as Zhen Bijian (郑必坚) of “Peaceful Rise” fame.

That Stage Two could be achieved only by persuading the still-powerful Other party to accept equality and its limitations, most notably the isolation of the soon-to-be former equal from all its potential allies, preventing it from balancing China with a coalition. Indeed, Dr. Kissinger calls for the creation of a Chinese-American “commonwealth”: one “which would enable [sic] other major countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Australia to participate in the construction of a system perceived as joint rather than polarized between ‘Chinese’ and ‘American’ blocs.” But Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, and Australia are hardly likely to share Dr. Kissinger's optimism. Deprived of American support in facing Chinese demands, forced to become the objects of a Chinese-American entente, today’s actual and potential allies would have to make their own accommodations, eliminating the one and only potential long-term counterweight to China, the coalescence of all lesser powers menaced by its expansionism. As the man said, history need not be remembered but must still be lived.

1. It was thus at Mao’s lying in state, which I attended: diplomats accredited to Beijing were brought in to view the body in clusters, each forming a circle of the Tianxia—the innermost and the first to join us, most privileged guests, were the ambassadors of Romania, the Khmer Rouge, North Vietnam (soon to be demoted), and North Korea, with the Russian only coming in at the very end, in the outermost circle at that time.

2. Described in a military report in Book 88 of the Hòu hànshu (Book of the Later Han) attributed to Fan Ye (John E. Hill, tr.) http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/hhshu/hou_han_shu.html.

3. See Nicola Di Cosmo, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 206 ff.

4. In the Shiji (史记), the Records of the Grand Historian (or Grand Scribe) of Sima Qian, 司馬遷, Vol. 99, Cols. 2144 and 2179. Increasingly available in English translations.

5. Stanford University Tianxia Workshop: Culture, International Relations, and World History May 6-11, 2011. The workshop will gather together a small group of distinguished scholars to engage in sustained conversations on the theoretical implications and practical values of the traditional Chinese vision of world order, or tianxia (all under heaven). Varied discourses indebted to tianxia have resurfaced in modern China in quest of moral and cultural ways of relating to and articulating an international society. We believe that the Chinese vision may prove productive in exploring possibilities of world culture and literature in the tension-ridden yet interconnected world. [author’s emphasis] http://www.stanford.edu/dept/asianlang/cgi-bin/about/tianxia_workshop.php

 

[CougarKing]

Chinese warships visit the CONUS after the end of RIMPAC 2014...

Chinese Ships Drop Anchor in San Diego
By Christina London

For the first time in nearly a decade, Chinese ships docked at Naval Base San Diego on Sunday.

The three warships –- destroyer Haikou, frigate Yueyang and supply ship Qiandaohu –- recently participated in RIMPAC, the world’s largest naval exercise. Twenty-two countries took part in training off the coasts of Hawaii and San Diego.

Colorful Chinese lion dancers and drummers performed on the pier during Sunday’s celebration. Visitors were invited to tour the destroyer Haikou.

Officials from the U.S. Navy and the People's Liberation Army of China said they hope the port visit will strengthen ties between the two countries.


(...EDITED)

Source: NBC San Diego

 

[CougarKing]

Yet another instance of a government so paranoid for its own survival that it now wants to crack down on rumours that may lead to potential unrest...

From Agence France Presse via's the China Post (Taiwan news source)

Arrests as China cracks down on Internet rumors
Agence France-Presse · Saturday, August 9, 2014 · 10:58 pm

BEIJING — Police in China have arrested four people and detained or warned another 81 as authorities crack down on alleged Internet rumour-mongering, state media reported Saturday.

Police did not give details on the timing of the actions, Xinhua news agency said, adding that 16 websites were punished for “weak safety management”.

Citing police, Xinhua said that the alleged rumour-mongers “used social network services to fabricate and spread rumours, or forward rumours published on foreign websites”.

It added that among the rumours were “predictions of an earthquake in Beijing within two to six days and gunshots having been heard in the west of the Chinese capital”.

The latest moves come amid a crackdown on the spread of online rumours, which rights groups have criticised as an excuse to punish people who publish information critical of the ruling Communist Party.

Hundreds have been detained in the campaign, while several bloggers have been handed lengthy jail sentences, resulting in a decline in use of microblogs.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

With the recent closure of the business class/investor class visa as reported in this other thread, Canada certainly won't be a destination for the newest members of this exodus who want to make a permanent stay here (who have no previous family ties) unless they opt to take the arduous longer route that goes from student visa to work permit to permanent residency to citizenship.

Wall Street Journal

The Great Chinese Exodus
Many Chinese are leaving for cleaner air, better schools and more opportunity. But Beijing is keeping its eye on them.

(...SNIPPED)

Today, China's borders are wide open. Almost anybody who wants a passport can get one. And Chinese nationals are leaving in vast waves: Last year, more than 100 million outbound travelers crossed the frontiers.

Most are tourists who come home. But rapidly growing numbers are college students and the wealthy, and many of them stay away for good. A survey by the Shanghai research firm Hurun Report shows that 64% of China's rich—defined as those with assets of more than $1.6 million—are either emigrating or planning to.

To be sure, the departure of China's brightest and best for study and work isn't a fresh phenomenon. China's communist revolution was led, after all, by intellectuals schooled in Europe. What's new is that they are planning to leave the country in its ascendancy. More and more talented Chinese are looking at the upward trajectory of this emerging superpower and deciding, nevertheless, that they're better off elsewhere.

The decision to go is often a mix of push and pull. The elite are discovering that they can buy a comfortable lifestyle at surprisingly affordable prices in places such as California and the Australian Gold Coast, while no amount of money can purchase an escape in China from the immense problems afflicting its urban society: pollution, food safety, a broken education system. The new political era of President Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has created as much anxiety as hope.

Another aspect of this massive population outflow hasn't yet drawn much attention. Whatever their motives and wherever they go, those who depart will be shadowed by the organs of the Leninist state they've left behind. A sprawling bureaucracy—the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council—exists to ensure that distance from the motherland doesn't dull their patriotism. Its goal is to safeguard loyalty to the Communist Party.

This often sets up an awkward dynamic between Chinese arrivals and the societies that take them in. While the newcomers try to fit in, Beijing makes every effort to use them in its campaign to project its political values, enhance its global image, harass its opponents and promote the use of standard Mandarin Chinese over the dialects spoken in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

How China's fishing fleet serves as a proxy navy that secures their maritime claims without using the negative global image emitted if it sent warships instead:

Defense News

Fishing Vessels in China Serve as Proxy Enforcers
Aug. 17, 2014 - 02:46PM  |  By WENDELL MINNICK 

TAIPEI — China’s use of swarming tactics with fishing vessels to project and protect Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea appears unstoppable, experts say.

The latest example in May was the placement of a Chinese oil rig within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, which was pro­tected by more than 70 maritime security and fishing vessels.

“Fishing vessels are wonderful tools for autocratic governments where business and industry are under their control,” said Sam Tangredi, author of the book, “Anti-Access Warfare.”

Sending them in swarms to circle a disputed area of contention or create a barrier to prevent access by other navy or coast guard vessels does not create negative media images like harassment by warships, he said. “It may be made to appear like a spontaneous peaceful protest caused by popular nationalist fervor … almost like ‘nonviolent resistance,’ as if Gandhi was a fisherman.”

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Fears of a possible conflict between the 2 regional giants return:

Defense News

Sources: China Troops Enter Disputed India Territory
Aug. 19, 2014 - 02:28PM  |  By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

SRINAGAR, INDIA — Chinese troops have advanced in recent days into disputed territory claimed by India, echoing a similar incursion last year that raised tensions between the two rival giants, official sources said Tuesday.

Chinese troops twice crossed over the border into a remote area of the western Himalayas, with some unfurling a banner that read “this is Chinese territory, go back,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

Indian border police noticed the troops on Sunday in an unpopulated area of Ladakh during a patrol of the informal border that separates India and China.

“It was a temporary peaceful face-off with PLA well inside Indian territory,” the official told AFP referring to China’s People’s Liberation Army.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Are any of North Korea's antiquated tanks (such as the Soviet copy T-62 they use called the Chonma-ho) even capable of taking on more modern Chinese MBTs like the Type 96 or Type 98/99?  :facepalm:

North Korea reportedly moves tanks to Chinese border over 'betrayal' fears

North Korea has reportedly moved tanks as well as armored vehicles to its border with China.

The vehicles are reportedly being sent to an army corps near the border, The Chosun Ilbo, one of South Korea's largest newspapers, reports. North Korea's 12th Corps is in charge of "responding to movements of Chinese troops in an emergency."

There is some cause for skepticism, however, as the report came from a single, unnamed source, and nothing has been confirmed by China or North Korea. The source claimed that the tanks and armored vehicles were moved to the border because North Korea fears China could "betray" it over its nuclear program.

If true, though, it would be the latest example of China and North Korea's fraying relationship. While China is by far North Korea's most important ally — and the main provider of its fuel, arms, and food — Beijing is reportedly growing tired of Pyongyang's behavior, especially the renewal of its nuclear program. It was even said that China recently cut off North Korea's fuel supply.

So the question is: Is this North Korea's way of telling China it won't be easily bullied?

The Week

 

[CougarKing]

China's neighbours will probably want to upgrade their air forces accordingly as the J20 develops:

Source:Business Insider

China's Fifth-Generation Fighter Could Be A Game Changer In An Increasingly Tense East Asia
Business Insider
By Jeremy Bender – 1 hour 19 minutes ago

China is in the process of developing its own native fifth-generation fighter to compete with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and Russia's T-50.

Although China has been secretive about the exact specifications of the aircraft, experts are warning that the plane could be a game-changer in East Asia'spotentially fragile security environment.

China's Chengdu J-20 is currently in its fourth round of prototypes. On July 26, the most recent version of the fighter flew for two hours before successfully landing.
Information about the J-20 is limited, but an unnamed Asian government source told IHS Jane's that upwards of 20 J-20s could be deployed by within the decade.

The J-20 has evolved rapidly from its first documented prototype in 2011. Each successive prototype has shown a number of design advancements that help the plane evade enemy radar detection. These changes include modifying the plane's wing size and adjusting the air intakes to maximize stealth.

It's likely that China is also outfitting the J-20 with an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar in the plane's nose.

AESAs are incredibly powerful radar systems broadcast at a range of frequencies, allowing a plane to remain stealthy in the process. And the use of the AESA in the J-20's nose marks a striking similarity to the design of the U.S.'s F-35 fifth-generation fighter.

(...EDITED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

There is an interesting and informative essay in this week's edition of The Economist entitled "What China Wants." It is too long and complex to reproduce here but I think everyone should be able to see it without a subscription.

 

[Edward Campbell]

According to this article, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Financial Times, Xi Jinping is going to try to revise the internal narrative of the Red Dynasty:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/dd77c90a-2918-11e4-8b81-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3B7DvO9DY

Deng anniversary eclipses Mao’s as Xi builds reformist credentials

By Tom Mitchell in Beijing

August 22, 2014

So effusive is the propaganda campaign launched to mark the 110th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s birth that a casual visitor might think it is his body embalmed in Tiananmen Square, rather than that of Mao Zedong.

The pageantry for Deng, China’s late paramount leader who disdained the cult of personality that surrounded his predecessor Mao and elected to have his own ashes scattered over the ocean, has included the broadcast of a 48-part biopic on state television and seminars attended by the Chinese Communist party’s top leadership. The fanfare far exceeds the official remembrance of the 120th anniversary of Mao’s birth last December.

Underlying this lionisation of Deng, who faded from China’s political scene 20 years ago and died in 1997, is a very modern agenda. Analysts say Xi Jinping, China’s president, party general secretary and head of the country’s “fifth generation” of leaders, is using the campaign to burnish his own credentials as – like Deng – a transformative figure.

Deng was the principal architect of China’s move to a more market-oriented economy in the 1980s – a project that was almost derailed by his decision to order the army to crush the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, leading to a massacre in which hundreds if not thousands of people died.

Deng rekindled the reform drive, which his rivals had impeded after Tiananmen, with his now famous “southern tour” of 1992, in which he urged provinces to forge ahead with economic liberalisation. By the end of the decade China would emerge as a global manufacturing and trading powerhouse.

Speaking at a seminar on Wednesday, Mr Xi hailed the political courage of the man credited with launching China’s economic rise, putting it on a trajectory that will soon make it the world’s largest economy. “We should dare to break old rules and make new rules,” he said, “so that reform and opening can proceed without hesitation.”

“Xi’s spin-doctors are trying to project the image that he carries the mantel of Deng and is a worthy successor,” says Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The message is that Xi’s own reforms will be even more wide-ranging.”

As it has been less than two years since Mr Xi assumed power, his case for greatness is a work in progress and is thus far based on two pillars: an ambitious party reform document, notable mainly for its pledge to let market forces play a “decisive role” in the economy, and the unprecedented speed with which he has consolidated power.

He has taken control of portfolios – economic management, national security and cyber security – that his predecessors Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin either delegated to others or managed by consensus.

While Mr Xi’s power grab has fuelled flattering comparisons of his strongman status with Deng and even Mao, it also belies a rise to power that could not have been more different from the two founding fathers of modern China.

Mr Xi was the privileged “princeling” son of a senior party official who rose through provincial positions, a path that gave him neither the natural authority nor the national reputation that Deng enjoyed after his decades at the centre of Mao’s revolution.

“Xi’s power base is much weaker than Deng’s, so he has been using ideological campaigns and new media to increase his personal authority,” says Wu Qiang, a political-science professor at Tsinghua University.

Delivering on the reform document, issued at the end of an annual party plenum last November, could entail the erosion of privileges enjoyed by the state-owned enterprises that control the commanding heights of China’s economy, from energy to telecommunications.

“If he really can achieve these reforms and let the market determine the allocation of resources, then his accomplishment will be as significant as Deng’s,” says Zhang Ming, professor at Renmin University’s School of International Studies.

According to one person involved in regional trade talks ahead of this November’s Apec summit in Beijing, Mr Xi’s reform drive is already having an impact. “The whole tenor of Chinese trade diplomacy has changed over the past 18 months,” he says. “I have never seen the Chinese in a more liberal mode than they are in right now.”

The person adds that one notable exception to this trend has been Beijing’s bilateral talks with the US over the stalled Information Technology Agreement, reflecting the marked deterioration in relations between the two powers after their disputes over the South China Sea, cyber spying and human rights.

Some analysts also argue that Mr Xi’s own consolidation of power threatens the very reform process unleashed by his idol Deng. “Does Xi really have any concrete reforms to his credit?” asks Zhao Chu, a political analyst and columnist. “Deng spread real power to lower levels, but all we have seen in Xi’s tenure is the recentralisation of power and the beginnings of his own personality cult.”

Additional reporting by Wan Li and Gu Yu

If one accepts, as I do, that the period between the last Qing emperor (1912) and the rise of Deng Xiaoping (1981) was just another interregnum and that Mao was an aberration, not in any way analogous to, say, Sun Yat-sen or Deng Xiaoping, then what Xi Jinping is doing makes sense and when he is doing it - in his third year in office - is equally sensible. But it is not clear, at least not me, that Xi has a comprehensive reform platform. I can see the anti-corruption campaign and some fiddling with e.g. executive compensation but I believe that the Chinese people want (and have a right to expect) more: more economic development in the central and Western provinces; action on water and air pollution; pension reforms ... and the list goes on and on and on.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Prof Danny Quah opf the London School of Economics is a very bright guy and he offers some insights, with which I broadly agree, and a conclusion, with which I disagree, in this article which is reproduced under the fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from Global Policy:

http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/20/08/2014/economics-democracy-and-new-world-order#.U_XxhAABHew.twitter

Economics, Democracy, and the New World Order
Danny Quah argues that beyond ‘liberal democracy’ and ‘free markets’ there are multiple pathways to prosperity and legitimate governance.

Danny Quah

20th August 2014

Some of us wake up every morning to find ourselves living in a society where economic opportunity is unfairly distributed, where a narrow social elite is given everything while many others endure harsh deprivation. If we live in such a society, every morning our soul yearns for a system better than that we’re in.

We might live in a society where discrimination is rife, where government cronies are handed plum benefits, where extractive elites plunder national wealth.

We say we want out of that system. We ask only for a level playing field, for a system that is fair, open, and transparent, a system that practices meritocracy.

The Way the World Went

If what I’ve just described resonates with you, the good news is the world has your back. The world wants for you what you want for yourself, and indeed more and more of the world has been on that delivery run for a quarter of a century now. Twenty five years ago the Soviet Union collapsed, bringing on what some observers announced as The End of History. The wisdom that emerged was that only liberal democracy and free-market economics remained viable as ways successfully to organize society. What could be fairer, more open, and more transparent than a political system that declared all people equal in the process of selecting a leader – one person, one vote? What could be more meritocratic than a system where whether you succeed or fail is decided by a free market blind to social status, not some prejudiced official checking out your family connections?

Liberal democracy and free-market economics are both structures that appeal to technologists and designers. In theory they have an apparent emergent intelligence that will seem magical to some: You install rules in the system; you turn on the system; you stand back, and you watch it execute to the best outcome possible for the system. If a disturbance perturbs the system, the rules in place allow innovation, flexibility, and adaption, and the system self-stabilizes to a new best outcome.

The US, the UK, and other economies on both sides of the Atlantic to varying degree practice these principles. Indeed, many observers consider that TransAtlantic Axis to be where such principles are held safe, to be passed on to others. Thus, even though membership in the club of successful economies would be open to all, it was there, the TransAtlantic Axis, from which success would unfurl. And, indeed, that happened big-time: while, by one reckoning, world democracies numbered only 45 in 1970, their number ballooned to 115 by 2010.

Then the World Changed Again

But then history decided it wasn’t quite finished with humanity. First, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis struck: from exactly the TransAtlantic Axis, waves of financial collapse lashed outwards until 12 months afterwards, in the wreckage, world financial markets had fallen by US$26tn (half of annual world GDP), an estimated additional 34mn had been thrown into unemployment, and it looked like the world financial system was on the brink still of collapse. Free-market economic orthodoxy transformed into a witch-hunt for those who dared still to suggest that market competition might produce anything other than banks too big to fail (and therefore just too big) or grotesquely unfair distributions of well-being across citizens.  All the good things that free-market economics brings with it – the rich variety of consumer goods, competition that lowers prices, innovation that improves the lives of people – seem to have been forgotten or are in danger of being unjustly dismissed.

But then, for the purposes of this narrative, something even worse happened:

China, the world’s largest one-party autocracy, far outside the orbit of the TransAtlantic Axis, will imminently become the world’s largest economy almost surely, overtaking the US which had held that position for over 140 years. Not only that but over the last three decades China had lifted over 600mn people out of extreme poverty, while inequality in the West had gotten so bad, the income share of the population’s top 1% has recently reached heights not seen for almost a century.

Top 10 contributions to world growth: 2007-2012. GDP evaluated at market exchange rates (Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2012)

Over the course of the Global Financial Crisis many observers had remarked how in their view China grew only because the West imported and therefore when the West underwent austerity the effect on China would be devastating. Yet between 2007 and 2012 it was China that added most to the resuscitation of the global economy, more than 3 times the contribution of the US.

German exports to the rest of the world (Source: IMF Direction of Trade Statistics, 2011)

Germany, Europe’s most successful economy in this time, continued to grow — even with the collapse of its exports to its European neighbours and to the US, historically its largest export market outside of
Europe — precisely by selling to China and the rest of Developing Asia.

The Great Shift East, 1980-2050. Source: Quah, Danny. 2011. “The Global Economy’s Shifting Centre of Gravity.” Global Policy 2 (1) (January): 3–9

In the last 30 years the rise of the East, not just China, has pulled the world’s economic centre of gravity 5000km out of its 1980s TransAtlantic moorings, into the Persian Gulf. If growth trajectories continue in the 700 points on Earth used for this calculation then the world’s economic centre will soon come to rest on the boundary between India and China, 10 timezones east of the world’s traditional pole of economic power.

None of this was supposed to happen. Twenty years ago this year, soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world’s most influential economist wrote:

“From the perspective of year 2010, current projections of Asian supremacy extrapolated from recent trends may well look almost as silly as 1960s-vintage forecasts of Soviet industrial supremacy did from the perspective of the Brezhnev years.”

Yes, by 2010 those economic trends were indeed found to have given inaccurate extrapolation, not from their having been too optimistic, but instead the opposite.  They have been too modest.

China and the rest of East Asia of course rely on markets, after a fashion. What they did not do was buy whole-heartedly into the notion that you get economic prosperity only through ballot-box driven electoral democracy. Hugh White, the former senior official in Australia’s Department of Defense, said what many thought when in September 2013 he considered varied foreign policy stances that might be taken by his then-incoming Prime Minister:

“Abbott’s conservatism also inclines him to be uneasy about modern China. Like many people in the West—and not just conservatives—he finds it uncomfortable that China could grow so quickly and become so powerful despite its authoritarian one-party political system. That challenges his deeply held ideas about the ascendency of democratic principles, which had seemed so decisively validated by the collapse of communism elsewhere in the world.”

What Happened?

Wasn’t national success only guaranteed by a mix of liberal democracy and free-market economics? Have both planks of the end of history just fallen away? How have Chinese and other Asian systems been able to innovate and to adapt when others, those arguably the more likely to succeed, instead failed to be as robust?

Make no more mistake, China’s system has been truly flexible and adaptive. As Eric Li reminds us, China is a country that has taken on a dramatic range of innovation: radical land collectivization, the Great Leap Forward; the Cultural Revolution; privatization of farmlands; Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms, modernisation, and urbanisation; Jiang Zemin’s opening up Chinese Communist Party membership to private businesspeople. High-level official and party leadership posts previously for life have been replaced by those with term limits and mandatory retirement by 70, a sensibility that not even university professors keep, despite the academic profession’s insistence on ideas always having to be fresh and innovative.

Lessons

Obviously, any serious study on such large issues I’ve described will demand great rigour and considerable detail. Moreover, history from here on out might decide to lurch once again in an unexpected direction. Either way, however, I would shy away from concluding that one system or another is necessarily better than the other. My own hunch is there are multiple pathways to prosperity and success: the evidence, it seems to me, indicates that. Trying to say once and for all that one system is best (or even the least bad) is almost surely foolish. And while it sounds authoritative to pronounce one system or another “not sustainable”, it should be apparent to everyone that, simply as a matter of logic, such a statement can never be proven wrong. No system in history has yet been shown to be indefinitely sustainable.

Where this discussion gets somewhere more concrete is instead the following. Too often, “liberal democracy” and “free markets” become simply code and catch-phrase to stand for all the bright shiny things someone wishes to have but does not.

Democracy has, ultimately, meaning far more noble and important than simply, say, access to the ballot box. Instead, what it should stand for is this: Every government, every ruler must be daily insecure. Every government, every ruler must every day understand their power to be built on the shifting sands of the will of their people. And they must daily strive to advance the well-being of those people.

By this measure the state in China and other officially autocratic economies throughout Asia are already more democratic than many observers might think.  By this same measure many ballot-box electoral democracies fail.  Every time we read yet another account of how China’s leaders desperately need the economy to grow at more than 7% a year, so enough jobs can be generated for their hundreds of millions of new workers, that’s not a creaking oligarchy desperately hanging on to power. Well, of course, it might be. But it might also be simply what’s called advancing the well-being of one’s people.

This does not change how Europe will continue to be the liberal anchor of the world, even as the economic centre shifts East.  But it does say alternative internally self-consistent forms of liberalism might emerge in response to different circumstances.

In contrast, however, parts of our current global system carry hypocritical and damaging inconsistencies.  While the TransAtlantic Axis seeks to disseminate democratic ideals throughout the world, today’s system of global governance built on US benevolent hegemony is itself deeply undemocratic. For the last 50 years our world has chosen as its leader from only among the richest and most powerful of nation states. That leader has not only status and wealth beyond those of all others, it wields unrivalled political influence and military superiority beyond imagination. As leader, it operates with effectively no counterbalance on the international stage.

In brief our current world order is built on the leadership by military and economic power; that world order pays no mind to how well that the global leader serves humanity. US hegemony in the current world order is a system of leadership that is truly and deeply undemocratic.

This is why a simple graph of China’s economic overtaking of the US or the world’s economic centre of gravity hurtling to ten timezones east of Washington DC might seem so disconcerting to the TransAtlantic political elite. If US hegemony in the current world order will soon have neither economic nor political legitimacy, does that hegemony simply become despotism? Why should it remain?

If the world were a democracy this is where it would make decisions of global significance. From an idea due to Ken Myers.

From a point in the South China Sea, roughly in the same timezone as the world’s economic centre of gravity, draw a circle 4000km in radius. This is a tiny circle, comprising only 25mn sq km of land, only one-sixth of the planet’s land area. Yet, this circle contains more than half of humanity. If we want to construct a new world order with democratic legitimacy and economic strength, let’s begin here, with fresh ideas, and see where that takes us.

The point with which I take issue is in the last paragraph. The Indians, about half the people in that circle, have a working, functioning, albeit somewhat ramshackle democracy. The Chinese, the other 'half' of the people in that circle, don't and, in my opinion will not have democracy. I do not believe that Western, liberal democracy is either "natural" for all mankind or, even, necessary, neither does Xi Jinping.

 

[CougarKing]

A snip from a longer essay that's a worthwhile read:

Lawfare blog

The Foreign Policy Essay: China’s ADIZ in the East China Sea
By Eric Heginbotham
Sunday, August 24, 2014 at 10:00 AM

(...SNIPPED)

However, other new activities have been repeated: in July 2013, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Y-8 surveillance aircraft flew through the East China Sea, through the Miyako Strait, and into the Western Pacific—marking the first time that a Chinese military aircraft had flown through the Ryukyu Islands to the Pacific. In September 2013, two Chinese H-6 bombers took the same path to the Western Pacific, as did mixed groups of three to four H-6 bombers and Y-8 surveillance aircraft on four subsequent occasions through the end of April 2014 (the last Japanese reporting date). Because the Miyako Strait is 300 km wide, Chinese aircraft do not have to traverse Japanese airspace; however, these operations show the Chinese military’s increasing reach.

Of greater relevance to the ADIZ are China’s intercept activities, though it should be noted that these predate the establishment of the ADIZ itself. In January 2013, Chinese J-7 and J-10 fighters reportedly tailed U.S. P-3C and C-130s over the mid-point line in the East China Sea. Another incident, also in January 2013, saw the first reported episode involving fighters from both Japan and China. In the incident, a Chinese Y-8 surveillance aircraft was intercepted by two Japanese F-15s, and China responded to Japan’s intercept with two J-10 fighters of its own.

The nearest Chinese airbases to the contested areas of the East China Sea originally held third-generation J-7 fighters, but modern J-10s have been deployed over the last several years. Since the ADIZ was declared in November 2013, China has begun using longer-range and more capable twin-engine J-11s in East China Sea intercepts. At least some of these have been from bases in Chongqing, some 1,500 km distant, suggesting that they staged from forward bases in Fujian before flying missions and indicating a considerable degree of operational flexibility.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

The air group of China's carrier is revealed: 24 J-15 fighters, aside from the embarked helos, or so they say.

Lineup of 36 aircraft on China's Liaoning carrier revealed
Staff Reporter
2014-08-28


China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, can carry four Z-18J airborne early warning (AEW) helicopters, six Z-18F anti-submarine helicopters, two Z-9C rescue helicopters, and 24 J-15 shipborne fighter jets, the Chinese-language Shanghai Morning Post reported on Aug. 28.

Cao Dongwei, senior colonel and researcher at the People's Liberation Army Naval Research Institute, said the aircraft carrier could gain the upper hand in any potential battle for air or sea supremacy. The lineup may differ for various missions, however. The full lineup of 36 aircraft shows that the "PLA Navy's era of aircraft" has arrived, the report said.

China is faced with a grave threat from the US, which owns the most advanced nuclear submarines, as well as Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force, the report said. Countries operating in the South China Sea, particularly those engaged in territorial disputes with China, have also been strengthening their naval forces, putting pressure on China, said the report.


Want China Times

 

[CougarKing]

Massive protests in Hong Kong after Beijing only approves so-called "patriotic candidates" in running for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's government.

Why even bother with the 50-year transition period where Hong Kong officially becomes just another Chinese city in 2047 and not a special region under the "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement, when Beijing is effectively ALREADY in direct control?

The "Occupy Central" movement in Hong Kong has evolved from just another "Occupy Wall Street" group to one calling for true democracy in the territory.

CBC

China rejects open nominations for Hong Kong leadership
Democracy activists say nominating committee that will choose leader is beholden to China

The Associated Press Posted: Aug 31, 2014 6:19 AM ET Last Updated: Aug 31, 2014 6:21 AM ET

China's legislature on Sunday ruled against allowing open nominations in elections for Hong Kong's leader, a decision that promises to ignite political tensions in the Asian financial hub.

The legislature's powerful Standing Committee ruled that all candidates for chief executive must receive more than half of the votes from a special nominating body before going before voters. Hong Kong democracy activists have held massive protests calling for genuine democracy in the Chinese territory, over concerns that candidates would continue to be screened to assess their loyalty to Beijing.

(...EDITED)

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think what we`re seeing, in China, at and near the very top of the Chinese government, is a struggle between two factions: I'll call one the Lee faction (named after former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew) and the other the Li faction (also pronounced as Lee  ) (after Chinese Premier Li Peng who was almost the ultimate hard liner).

The prize for both factions is reunification ~ bringing Taiwan back into China.

The two approaches are quite different:

    The Lee faction believes that Taiwan must want to rejoin China because it will see that reunification makes both political and economic sense. The Lee faction holds up its own political dynasty, the People's Action Party,
      as the model for China: an apparently permanent ruling dynasty that allows opposition but manages so well that it can, apparently always, secure at least 60% popular support. The Lee faction proposes that
    "one country/two systems" needs to be enhanced os that, eventually, Hong Kong will be at least as democratic as Taiwan and Taiwan will be confident that it can rejoin China without giving up its political liberties.
    The Lee faction also favour further and further economic freedom and a massive anti-corruption campaign.

    The Li faction opposes corruption, but it is, in every other aspect 180o out of phase the the Lee faction.

We know where Xi Jinping stands on corruption, but we don't know where he stands on political liberty.

----------

Just for fun, we can add a "face" to the Li faction: Li Fei, deputy secretary general of China's National People's Congress, is the man responsible for legislative matters:

Li Fei, deputy secretary general of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee
(far right), addresses a briefing session on constitutional development in Hong Kong at AsiaWorld-Expo,
Hong Kong International Airport, Sept 1, 2014.                                        (Edmond Tang / China Daily)

 

[Edward Campbell]

See, also, this in relation to China : Russia : Ukraine : America.

 

[CougarKing]

    The Lee faction believes that Taiwan must want to rejoin China because it will see that reunification makes both political and economic sense. The Lee faction holds up its own political dynasty, the People's Action Party,
      as the model for China: an apparently permanent ruling dynasty that allows opposition but manages so well that it can, apparently always, secure at least 60% popular support.
 

Sure enough, Taiwan's president Ma Ying Jieou weighs in:

Agence France Presse

Taiwan leader says he backs democracy for Hong Kong
By: Agence France-Presse
September 2, 2014 10:27 PM

TAIPEI - Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, who initiated detente with China, on Tuesday threw his support behind Hong Kong's push for democracy -- calling it a core value shared by Taiwanese people.

His support comes after pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong vowed a new "era of civil disobedience" in front of thousands of supporters at a Sunday rally after Beijing crushed hopes for full democracy.

"Democracy and rule of law is also the core value of people in Taiwan and the long-term goal of our pursuit," Ma, also chairman of the ruling Kuomintang party, said during a party meeting.

"While keeping our concerns about the development in Hong Kong, we'd also like to voice our support for the pursuit of democracy and rule of law by the people in Hong Kong."

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

Zimbabwe's leader Mugabe must be aware that being so dependent on China for all these benefits would come at a price...

Mugabe Goes to China

China has agreed to help Zimbabwe avoid a total economic meltdown. Without the promise of assistance from Beijing, Zimbabwe could not even begin to pay its civil servants, police, and soldiers their monthly wages. Nor, without China’s support, could Zimbabwe continue to import oil and gas, and crucial foodstuffs with which to feed its people.

Ever since President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) unexpectedly won a possibly rigged parliamentary and presidential election last year, defeating the reformist Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe’s economy has been in free fall. A number of banks have failed, hundreds of businesses have collapsed, and 80 percent of all adults of working age are unemployed.

ZANU-PF’s victory in mid-2013 meant that Mugabe, now 90, would continue to govern Zimbabwe with a heavy hand. His administration’s attempt to control 51 percent of all foreign-owned large, medium, and small businesses would continue. So would his decade-long assault on the country’s handful of remaining white farmers. With official Chinese assistance, Mugabe’s reelection also meant that he and his associates would continue to control the country’s massive diamond fields near Marange in eastern Zimbabwe.

These policies precipitated capital flight, a resultant loss of liquidity within the commercial and banking sectors, and relatively rapid and pronounced deflation. Since legal tender in Zimbabwe since 2009 has been the US dollar and the South African rand, and more recently the Chinese yuan, Mugabe’s government cannot just print money to give itself working capital. Hence a series of visit to Beijing by Mugabe and his senior ministers throughout this year, culminating with a full state visit in late August, a generous welcome by Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the signing of a nine-part agreement to pump funds into Zimbabwe’s heroically called Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.

Under its terms, Chinese firms will receive preference over all others, even local ones, when construction contracts are put out to bid. Zimbabwe and China will also work together to promote visits by Chinese tourists, an influx that could prove substantial. Last year, China invested heavily in the agricultural sector. President Xi Jinping also promised Mugabe massive short-term food with which to feed hungry Zimbabweans.

But the key use of Chinese funds will be devoted to helping to restore Zimbabwe’s crumbling infrastructure. Zimbabwe’s electrical and water systems are in shambles, especially in Harare, the capital. Chinese money will be used to revive the economy by rehabilitating, upgrading, and building key physical as well social facilities.

(...EDITED)

China Focus

 

[Edward Campbell]

Mugabe doesn't care; he and his cronies run a kleptocracy and China will be happy to let them continue to rob their own people. China will be content to have an (eventually) productive colony.