This Newsweek article is a fine piece of work which makes several good points regarding China's military spending which are often not found in many other articles and news stories. Primarily that China's military spending, as large as it may seem, is nothing significant at all compared to the US as well as in the context of its geostrategic position. The writer notes accurately, that the majority of China's fighters, submarines and army vehicles are old. Regarding the geostrategic position, here's a short paragraph from the article:

"The Middle Kingdom, moreover, sits in the middle of a tough neighborhood. It's not only the U.S. fleet off its shores Beijing must contend with. Of China's four nuclear neighbors—Russia, India, Pakistan and North Korea—two (Russia and India) spend almost as much on defense as China does (so does nonnuclear Japan), and at least two (Pakistan and North Korea) are potentially unstable. Just a generation ago, China was defeated in war by tiny Vietnam."

I just saw this and I was quite taken aback though not in a bad way. Taiwan will allow direct chartered weekend flights between China and Taiwan from July 4, and then plans are in place to expand the service to daily flights, by the end of the year, which is even more astounding and impressive.
Recently the Vice-President elect Vincent Siew held a one-on-one meeting with China's President Hu Jintao at the Boao forum in Hainan, the most high-level interaction between China and Taiwan in over half a century. It seems progress is definitely being made on cross-straits relations and better economic performance will happen for Taiwan, at least in tourism due to the expected influx of visitors from China.
Direct air links will bring about a significant impact of normalization in cross-straits relations due to enabling the actual arrival of Chinese and Taiwanese on each other's soils after taking direct flights. This will obviously bring both "countries" closer together and some might believe, eventual reunification. How would people in Taiwan react to having loads of visitors from the mainland coming into Taiwan every week? Of course, people from Taiwan constantly visit China anyways but then Taiwan is always the one on the defensive in this cross-straits geopolitics.
I'm personally a bit skeptical of course, because of my personal experience of hearing how strong some Taiwanese people identify with Taiwan. I think some people, including from Hong Kong, underestimate the pride and faith that many Taiwanese feel for Taiwan and I don't think they will easily accept losing any of their current autonomy and allow China to regain Taiwan in their present state. Despite the idealism, for some Taiwanese, things like democracy, free media and a vibrant open society are things to be treasured. I guarantee that the time when China has a reasonable level of those three things, Taiwan would lose a lot of its reluctance and defiance for reunification.
But certainly this latest development-the announcement of direct air flights-bodes well for the near future.

The situation in Zimbabwe continues to muddle along as Robert Mugabe prolongs his reign by any means necessary with the latest being to hold recounts in several constituencies which were supposedly won by the opposition MDC, helped by the less-than-firm remarks by South African leader Thabo Mbeki. One must sympathise a bit with the opposition who have had to endure so much tribulations in the past and in the recent weeks. Kofi Annan speaks out to demand more action by African leaders, especially regional leaders to resolve this issue. As long as Mugabe has the support of Mbeki, however lukewarm and reluctant, as well as access to arms and control of the army, he stands a good chance of maintaining his dictatorial control for now.

While the situation in Tibet, China seems to have calmed down in terms of the street violence, international repercussions still persist and the uproar over China's supposed oppressiveness of Tibet has grown. It is clear that negative feelings towards China from many people in the West have arisen, not just from this recent Tibet situation but also from Darfur where blame has been put on China for maintaining economic relations with the Sudanese government.
Feelings of anger and indignation have also arisen in many Chinese as well however, judging from the reaction on online Chinese forums and websites. One of the most notable is anti-cnn.com which, though I can't read chinese (shame on me), features several pictures and adjoining explanations in english which show clearly what's going on. Before you dismiss this site as pure chinese propoganda garbage, go to the site and scroll down the whole page and look at the pictures.
Apparently news outlets like CNN have put up pictures of protests where Tibetan Buddhist monks protesting have been restrained and arrested by police and then state in the captions that the pictures are of crackdowns in China. The problem is that these pictures are clearly showing people and events in Nepal and India, places that are near but not China.
This doesn't change the fact that Tibetans have been arrested in China for protesting but the point is that the anti-cnn website does have a point, that CNN and other outlets were very erroneous and certainly unprofessional in making these kinds of mistakes. In fact there are quite a number of media websites and tv broadcasts in America, Germany and England which anti-cnn show featuring mistaken identifications of Tibet for scenes in Nepal and India.
HK-based media professor and journalist Rebecca MacKinnon also has a post about anti-cnn.com and its criticisms which are accurate, the view from many Chinese over the Tibet protests and government reaction such as unblocking youtube to allow anti-Western and pro-China videos to be accessed. Media manipulation or misrepresentation has occurred on both Western and Chinese media so strong levelheadedness has to be exercised to determine the true events and forces.

March has proven to be a very tumultuous month for China as protests in Tibet broke out and continued despite state crackdown. This event has been in the news a lot lately and it doesn't seem as if it's going to end soon. While mainly I'm talking about the international ramifications of the Tibet protests, things in China don't seem to be ending quietly either.
It's been a rough chain of controversies for China over the past 8 months or so as the Beijing Olympics come closer to starting this August. There was the monk riots in Burma last year, then the outcries and accusations against China for the continuing genocide in Darfur, Sudan and now this in Tibet.
I've argued before that China doesn't deserve much of the blame levelled against it for Darfur, but the cases do seem overwhelming against China now. Another major issue which is at play here is the status of China in the world. Is it a major power which is one of the world's most glamourous and heralded nations or is it still a developing nation bedeviled with serious internal social flaws combined with an indifferent foreign policy?
Imagethief states this quandary pretty well here-
"The Chinese expected the Olympics to change foreign perceptions of China for the better. Foreigners expected the Olympics to change China for the better."

This looks to be the biggest blow to China's reputation in regards to holding this year's Olympics Games. Steven Spielberg, the famous director has quit his role as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics because of his differences towards China's relationship with Sudan, which has been accused of supporting genocide in Darfur. While this seems a brave move full of integrity by Spielberg, one wonders whether criticism of China is getting out of hand. The criticism, especially those made by American actress Mia Farrow including at one point saying in a Wall Street Journal editorial that Spielberg risked becoming seen as a latter-day version of a film director who collaborated with the Nazis to become a "chief propagandist" for them, is full of ridiculous hyberbole. To compare China to the Nazis of WWII is a foolish claim that has no substance. Similarly, accusations of China "underwriting" genocide are also very foolish and verge on the point of discrimination and slander. The main reason I believe so has to do with looking at intentions, specifically China's own. Is China selling arms and buying oil from Sudan because China wants to support or encourage atrocities against the Darfurians? No, I really do not think so. The main purpose of China conducting economic relations with Sudan and other not so benevolent regimes is for its own economic gain and to guarantee energy supplies which are especially needed for China's giant energy needs.
I do think that China needs to be more aware of the consequences however, such as the negative perceptions when it does business with regimes like Sudan's, and has to realize how with a wider world profile, there is also an accompanying responsibility. Or is it? I mean, judging from certain powers such as the US and the UK, doing business with shady regimes and rulers has been a common practice. Nevertheless China does need to show more recognition of the tremendous suffering being inflicted in Darfur by Sudanese government-supported forces,and should do all that it can to influence the government to somehow stop or cut down on such actions. But the world, especially supposedly nice, caring activists like Farrow need to realise that the world is a complicated place and that focusing on China as such an evil villain is naive, foolish and erroneous.

Rebels attack Chad's capital

Large-scale armed violence broke out recently in Chad as rebel forces stormed the capital N' Djamena before being driven out by government forces. Tensions are high in Chad where rebel groups oppose the nation's leader, President Idriss Deby who they view as corrupt and authoritarian. The Chadian authorities are blaming Sudan for supporting the rebels. Conversely Sudan has accused Chad's government of supporting anti-government Darfurian rebels in Darfur. Many refugees from the Darfur conflict have gone across to Chad, which lies on Darfur's Western border. While the circumstances behind these events seem complicated, they provide a perfect illustration of the complexity surrounding many African conflicts. Not only do they affect local peoples, but neighboring countries are often affected and sometimes, actively involved. The Congo War during the late nineties which involved at least 5 other African nations is a significant example, as is the West African civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

This Walrus blog post offers another take on the situation there, a somewhat more reserved perspective from many other articles about the electoral violence. At the same time, there's no doubt that serious problems are going on. Hundreds of people killed, tens of thousands fleeing from their homes, places burning, of course this is terrible.
The post tries to say that inspite of these problems, the country is not falling apart or being consumed by violence and barbarity, as much as certain parts may be. I have a sad feeling though that in reality, the sheer amount of tragedy and suffering in Africa means there's a high threshold for true disaster and what's going on in Kenya now maybe isn't there yet.

This BBC article gives a good commentary on the ethnic tensions apparent in the Kenya crisis. It's important to understand that these tensions aren't necessarily products of pure ethnic hatred or prejudice but exacerbated and exploited by political leaders. Thus when one leader or governing regime favors its own ethnic group by giving land and high-status jobs, then consequently other groups will feel very resentful.

Major violence has broken out in the past few weeks in Kenya over election result disputes, resulting in lots of deaths, injuries and people fleeing their homes. All this mainly stems from overwhelming anger by the opposition and its supporters over the election results which they believe contained significant vote-tampering. The incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki won by a very small margin of 230,000 out of a total of 10 million.
However, it is unfortunate that this great anger and violence that has broken out is strongly based on ethnic tensions. This ethnic tension is a result of continued corruption and patronism during Kibaki's rule in which his fellow Kikuyu were perceived to have benefited whilst many other Kenyans have suffered from poverty and unemployment.
The incumbent party is mainly Kikuyu-supported whilst the opposition has their support mainly based on other, smaller tribes such as the Luo.

This goes to show that ethnic-based tensions and conflicts are still apparent in Africa. Even more disturbing though is the fact that this has taken place in a country considered one of Africa's more stable and even prosperous nations. Ethnic-based politics and tensions have been around since independence as Kenya's first leader Jomo Kenyatta favored his fellow Kikuyus. His successor Daniel arap Moi was a member of another group, the Kalenjin and they were rewarded accordingly during his reign. As the current President Kibaki is also a Kikuyu, many Kikuyu have become the victims of violence and resentment.

Nevertheless it's hard to understand exactly why ethnic violence has broken out when in previous years there has been relative peace and coexistence between the different groups of Kenya. Media pieces like this from Newsweek describe the stability that existed in places like the Mathare slum and of how surprised some Kenyans themselves are of this outbreak of ethnic tension.
This other Newsweek story presents a grim account of gang violence in Nairobi, again based on ethnic identities. This was preceded by violence last year concerning a sect, the Mungiki, which committed atrocities and engaged in firefights with Kenyan police.

"Throughout much of last spring, in part because of the run-up to the elections but also for a host of other reasons, huge swaths of Kenya were succumbing to a particularly undulant, brutal kind of gangsterism. In episode after episode, many of which were documented by Kenyan reporters, innocent people were beheaded, skinned, raped, murdered and tortured by members of a secretive outlawed sect called Mungiki."

China's economic growth has been described as staggeringly impressive in many quarters especially in the last few years. One of the most recent examples of this impressive is the huge amount of foreign reserves that China has amassed which now stands at around 1.4 Trillion $US. With this amount, China has a lot of potential to impact world financial markets significantly especially through using some of its reserves to make investments and purchases of foreign assets.
Well apparently, not so fast as the following article says.

This article in Asian Times warns of a coming crash in China's stock market but it also paints a pessimistic picture of China's financial health, specifically that many of China's banks which are state-owned, are basically unprofitable and holding onto bad loans which combined total over a trillion. Many Chinese state-owned enterprises borrow large amounts from these state-owned banks which many do not pay back.
The following excerpt explains this scenario:

"To see why a crash may be coming, it is worth examining the behavior of the China Investment Corporation, the US$200 billion sovereign wealth fund set up by the Chinese government in September.
...
Six weeks ago, the power of sovereign wealth funds was celebrated and China Investment's moves into the market were awaited with bated breath.
Well, so much for that. A third of China Investment's portfolio is to be invested in Central Huijin Investment Company, a purchaser of bad loans from the Chinese banks, and another third will recapitalize China Agricultural Bank and China Development Bank, to shape them up for privatization.
....
The lackluster investment strategy of China Investment exposes a central flaw in the Chinese economy, its lack of a rational system of capital allocation. For more than a decade, Chinese state-owned companies have made losses and have been propped up by the banking system.
...
None of these losses have resulted in bankruptcy; instead the cash flow deficits have been covered by the Chinese banks. As a result, these banks have an enormous volume of bad loans $911 billion at May 2006, according to a later-withdrawn estimate by Ernst & Young, which must surely have ballooned to $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion now.

That explains why China Investment is somewhat unaggressive in its international investment strategy. China's $1.4 trillion of reserves will in fact almost all be required to prop up the banking system when the inevitable liquidity crisis occurs."

The writer goes on to say that with this huge banking problem, China will experience an economic downturn such as what happened to Japan in the nineties after exorbitant corporate overspending and the subsequent bursting of their economic bubble. Slow economic growth or huge inflation will ensue and then China might experience significant domestic turmoil. This will surely have a very negative effect on the world economy especially as the US economy isn't doing so good lately.

Iraq doesn't exist anymore?

That's the bold opinion that is stated in this interview that Counterpunch has with a writer, Nir Rosen who spent 2 years in Iraq.

"Now Iraq doesn't exist anymore. ........ There is no Iraq. There is no Iraqi government and none of the underlying causes for the violence have been addressed, such as the mutually exclusive aspirations of the rival factions and communities in Iraq."

Lots of interesting stuff, but nothing that's said is really surprising, such as that the US had no real plan for Iraq after they invaded in '03, that the exodus of middle and upper-class Iraqi professionals is devastating for society and that ultimately the current decrease in violence is only a temporary lull which is likely to intensify in future. Rosen also says that he does not believe that the sectarian conflict which has ravaged Iraq in the last few years was deliberately facilitated by the US as they did not know enough about the state of affairs in Iraq before they invaded. I'd think that was reasonable, as the US administration was really narrow-minded, or just plain ignorant and idiotic, in the way they envisaged how the situation would turn out to be after they invaded and deposed Saddam. This doesn't take away from the American responsibility from the mess they caused in Iraq with the fighting, the deaths,the internal and external refugee exodus and all that.

2008 Prediction for Africa from the Economist

The Economist puts out a bold prediction for Africa in its World in 2008 report by stating frankly that African will be worse.
China will wear out its welcome but the main point is that in spite of economic growth, there will not be enough jobs to bring people out of poverty, whether in urban slums or the rural areas.
As the article says, lack of infrastructure and foreign investment will make it very difficult for governments to provide much jobs to locals. Less understandably, the article also mentions that hurdles to foreign employees such as small numbers of available work visas will also affect improvement. Why exactly do there need to be more foreign employment if there are already a lack of jobs. The author might be referring to Africans who have immigrated abroad and want to return to work in their home countries. If so there might be a valid point though I didn't know that they would need work visas.

Almost every time one reads about Africa, it's bad news and the sad part is that there's a lot of truth in them. There are some little pieces of optimism such as the renewed purpose of the African Union in dealing with continental issues, ineffective though it may be for now and NEPAD, as well as the rebuilding in Sierra Leone and Liberia, but they only represent a small part of the state of affairs in Africa, much of it not good.

Why is there so much international focus on humanitarian violations of enemies of West, especially by Western liberals but not on allies of the West who commit humanitarian violations of their own? This article asks and states a very interesting point relating to human rights violations and oppressions and the focus in the West. For instance, Sudan and Zimbabwe receive a lot of bad press, and deservedly so, and their leaders made to look like devils or psychos (Mugabe), but others like Western allies Uganda and Ethiopia do not receive much attention.
It's very interesting and it really makes you think about atrocities and injustices happening in Africa, in that even in supposedly clearcut cases of oppression, there might be others that are just as bad but are not mentioned much at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there isn't massive atrocities occurring in Sudan, Darfur but that the author makes a really good point.

Following the mass street marches led by monks against the military junta in Burma, repressive measures have been fully undertaken by the junta to crush these marches including mass arrests, raids on monasteries and military presence in the streets. Around the world, concerned activists held rallies on October 6 to call on their governments to take action and to show support for the people of Burma.
While concerns arise over whether Western governments have the will and means to mount any form of intervention, the bigger question is over the stance of China and India to the situation in Burma, as they are both trading partners of the regime. This would be a great opportunity for China to use its moral powers in persuading the junta to allow more freedoms and to gain goodwill from the world. But given the official Chinese stance of non-involvement in "internal affairs" of other countries and respect for sovereignty, it's hard to see Beijing agreeing to Western intervention or to press hard on the Burmese junta to stop its repression.

This past week Buddhist monks in Myanmar (Burma) marched in the streets for days to protest the military junta that rules the country. With the junta being one of the most oppressive regimes in the world and having ruled for over 19 years, many Myanmar citizens went out onto the streets as well to support the monks and criticize the government. Predictably the junta responded with armed suppression, firing on and arresting many protesters and critics. Some were even killed but the actual death toll remains unclear.
The junta even cut the nation's Internet, after images and blogs on the protests were posted within Burma, allowing the world to see and know what was going on. Some of the photos quite clearly showed the protestors as well as the troops, as these from racoles on flickr. It's very remarkable how technology can make us seem close to events yet be so far away and helpless. Also knowing the about backdrop to these protests, of the military regime and how back in 1988 thousands of Myanmese were killed in similar street protests, makes me understand how poignant and desperate the situation is.
The protestors, as well as Myanmar diaspora around the world are putting hope on the UN and the world in general, and even the US to help them overcome junta rule. To me, it seems unlikely though that the military junta will bow to world pressure and relinquish their rule, especially given they have tacit support from some neighboring countries who do a lot of trade with Myanmar for its natural resources. The junta has enjoyed a long and relatively stable rule and have endured a lot of world criticism that they do not care much about their lack of legitimacy on the world stage.

"you got rid of one Saddam and you left us with 50."

This is a good article from the Guardian on the situation in Iraq. A historian visited Iraq and not surprisingly came up with the conclusion that the Americans really messed up the invasion, ignored realities of the nation and made things much worse than it was under Saddam. This is best summed up by what one Iraqi said in the article which is both the title of the article and of this post. By ignoring skeptics, critics and informed experts on Iraq, the American Bush-led administration, as well as UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, rushed into Iraq with a simplistic and short-sighted mission to topple Saddam and take over the country. This initially succeeded but when it came to the nitty-gritty of running the country and helping Iraqis rebuild a post-Saddam society, they failed miserably. Of course, there are accusations, quite a lot of them actually, that the Americans were never really interested in helping the Iraqi people and were just interested in oil. But that's another story of course.

About the civil struggles that have broken out between Sunni, Shiite and Kurd elements, historian Charles Tripp had this to say- "...we were trying to say that there was a complex society in Iraq which shouldn't be reduced to the caricature of Saddam Hussein sitting upon the oppressed masses. The oppressed masses have their own agenda - and sometimes they're very nasty indeed."

It's getting harder to post more here, not just because of school but also because of a change of heart. I'm still interested and concerned in world affairs but more and more it seems this will decrease in the future. Anyways, for now I'll just post this on Israel's declaration of Gaza as hostile. Israel bases this decision on the firing of rockets by militants in Gaza. Since last year Gaza has been under an embargo as Israel maintains a tight grip over it. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says it best with this, "There are 1.4 million people in Gaza, including the old, the young and the sick, who are already suffering from the impact of prolonged closure. They should not be punished for the unacceptable actions of militants and extremists."

Interesting points made by Gwynne Dyer on Asian dynamics among several powers and China. Apparently the growing "might" of China is causing enough alarm and concern to Japan, India, the US and Australia to cause them to want to form some sort of unofficial alliance and work together. Of course the situation is not as simple as it sounds like here. However that doesn't mean that the gist of it isn't correct. I've read of the US desire for a stronger India acting as a counterpart to neighboring China in several sources. As Dyer and others have written, that is what the US nuclear deal with India in 2005 was about as the cooperation offered by the US was very significant.
China isn't trying or going to be very belligerent (except over Taiwan) as they have been increasing cooperation and agreements with many of its neighbors especially SouthEast Asia. It's no secret that China is trying to upgrade and strengthen its military but so what? Why is this not allowed, why is there so much furor over China's military spending when much smaller England and France spend just as much or even more. If there is any evidence that China will use its military to attack or invade any other country, then that'd be a very serious concern.

These Guardian articles focus on the harshness of the situation in Afghanistan and the serious toll on British troops. What's really telling is the underlying point that the Taliban have regrouped and rearmed enough that they have become a serious threat to the British. While this is true for the Canadians as well, the British military is supposed to be more competent and feared. For instance, this quote from the second article- "In terms of soldiering, the conflict has offered some of the most intense fighting for 50 years, with two million rounds of ammunition so far fired by British forces." gives an idea of the fierceness of the fighting there for the British.

This Toronto Star article suggests that if fighting the Taliban isn't working in bringing peace to Afghanistan, maybe it might be better to talk with them. The article details several reasons why American, NATO and Canadian forces are ineffective such as the limited use of force which cannot provide full victories over insurgents, the confusion over differing commands operating in the same areas and the contradicting strategies and actions.

While Canadians are wondering whether their troops should pull out from Afghanistan because of the constant vicious attacks and casualties they face, a senior British commander in Afghanistan has said that it could take many years, possibly even 30, of British armed occupation in Afghanistan to create real stability and peace in that country.
That sounds very bleak and hopeless but judging from past experience as mentioned in the article and also from the conditions of Afghanistan in terms of the physical size and terrain, the population size and the divisive social relations, it's not an unrealistic judgement. Of course, it's going to take more than military occupation from Western countries to improve conditions, but it is a prerequisite because if not them, how is some sort of stability and order going to be maintained or upheld? The central government is weak, and so is their army and given the fractiousness of the politics, with the various warlords based in different home provinces, it would not take much for the Hamid Karzai and his government to be overthrown if Western troops pull out.
I'm not naive to the possible self-serving motives and overbearing conduct of the West but I think in some ways, those people who constantly protest Canada's involvement in Afghanistan are naive as well. To pull out of a country that you are involved in for humanitarian intervention reasons because of military casualties means a weakness and superficiality to your humanitarian intentions. If Canada should exit Afghanistan now or soon, then it shouldn't promise any more troops to any peacekeeping and intervention missions again anywhere else including Darfur.