The Asianist

The End of The Asianist

2006-02-12T23:53:00.000-05:00

This site is no more. Please visit Guns and Butter Blog or NoVaPolitics.com. Thank you.

Humor, Judeo-Christianity, the West, Islam and Globalization

2006-02-10T01:09:00.000-05:00

Well, that title is a mouthful. Oh, where to begin?

"Spengler" posits a fascinating (thanks Spock) and thoughtful comparative analysis of humor in Judeo-Christianity and the West as opposed to in Islamic societies and notes the necessity of "submission" rather than "dialogue" for Islamic societies to function stably (h/t Charles Ganske; read the whole thing, it's worth the time).

His citations and graphs of correlations between secularism, literacy and population growth rate are interesting -- he argues that as literacy rises, religious ferver decines, secularism rises and the population growth declines.

Of course, like all arguments involving correlations, they do not explain the possible hidden causal factors that could change the picture dramatically with even a slightly different configuration of variables.

More interesting are some of his associated observations:

Muslims rage at affronts to their faith because the modern world puts their faith at risk, precisely as modern Islamists contend. [3] That is not a Muslim problem as such, for all faith is challenged as traditional society gives ground to globalization. But Muslim countries, whose traditional life shows a literacy rate of only 60%, face a century of religious deracination. Christianity and Judaism barely have adapted to the modern world; the Islamists believe with good reason that Islam cannot co-exist with modernism and propose to shut it out altogether...

With stable institutions and material wealth, the secular West evinces a slow decline. Not so the Muslim world, where loss of faith implies sudden deracination and ruin. In the space of a generation, Islam must make an adjustment that Christianity made with great difficulty over half a millennium. Both for theological and social reasons, it is unequipped to do so. Muslims might as well fight over a cartoon now; they have very little to lose.

As I mentioned briefly in a previous entry, the toleration for "doubt" and "dialogue" (as "Spengler" puts them) began with a series of painful, widespread societal convulsions in the West. The Thirty Years War was utterly destructive, a freebooter fest, that practically depopulated much of Central Europe. But this destruction created conditions for eventual tolerance of spiritual dissent, primacy of the state over church, rationality and other good things associated with the Rise of the West. And the West got to do this in relative international isolation (the Ottomans were lurking in the periphery, but never posed a serious threat at this time).

I agree with "Spengler" that Islamic societies face similar challenges only with significantly more compressed time and place. With 24-hour news cycles beamed through satellites, global air travel booked on the Internet and rapacious societal/civilizational, if not political, competitors, they are in even worse position than the West was to undergo the repercussions of Reformation with Islamic characteristics.

Even China's "rise" was achieved with so much blood and destruction. As competition becomes ever keener in a networked globe, what chance do Islamic societies have? As "Spenger" writes:

It is not a good thing to come late to the table of globalization. China and its neighbors have emerged from the maelstrom of revolution and the violent loss of tens of millions of lives to become actors on the world economic stage. Of China's 1.3 billion people, 400 million are integrated into the world division of labor, and millions more are becoming urbanized, literate and productive by the year. India remains behind China but has good prospects for success. Against these formidable competitors, few countries in Western Asia, Africa or Latin America can hope to prevail. In a world that has little need of subsistence farmers and even less need of university graduates with degrees in Islamic philosophy, most of the Muslim world can expect small mercy from the market.

Yet, what is the alternative? The Islamic world cannot shut the world out and oppress their own masses to maintain the untenable status quo. Everyday delayed is another pound of gunpowder added to the powderkeg, which worsens the repercussions of the inevitable explosion.

An Islamic Reformation and Islamic Thirty Years War will mean human suffering of massive scale, but without them, Islamic societies will not be able to reach the 22nd Century as full-fledged members of the advanced human civilization, especially as Western societies begin to rely more on non-petroleum sources of power-generation.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]

Really, There is Something Exciting Coming.

2006-02-09T01:38:00.000-05:00

*I* am excited anyway. Are you?

I will announce shortly. Stay tuned.

Strange N. Korea-U.S. Parallels

2006-02-09T01:00:00.000-05:00

Maybe my brain's switches are mixed up. I am beginning to see strange parallel patterns between North Korea and the U.S.!

Exhibit A: Elaborately constructed tunnels.

First the North Korean version:

It has a prefabricated wall of concrete and slate. When discovered, there were 220-volt and 60-watt lamps, electric lines, railways, and track vehicles. The ground is inclined by 5 degrees to the north to prevent water from gathering. There are turning points on the railroad. The tunnel is large enough to allow the transit of a regiment of troops and heavy artillery every hour.

Now, the U.S. version (more accurately the U.S.-Mexican version):

Unzueta described the shaft as technically advanced, with electricity, a ventilation system, pumps to remove groundwater, cement flooring for traction in steep areas, and wood roofing to bolster the walls and ceiling. It had a clearance, he said, of nearly six feet and was about five feet wide.

At 2,400 feet, the tunnel is the longest and most sophisticated of the 21 underground passageways linking the United States and Mexico that have been discovered since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when investigations and enforcement were beefed up in the region. Unzueta said most of the tunnels have been located in the San Diego area because the composite soil of that region is ideal for such work. From 1990 to 2001, 15 tunnels were unearthed.

Exhibit B: Fire fights and incursions at the borders.

First, the U.S. version:

An American law enforcement officer and news crew in Texas have witnessed another armed incursion into the United States by men dressed in Mexican army attire, the second such incident in just two weeks.

Now, the North Korean version (h/t OneFreeKorea and DPRK Studies):

One of the South Korean leading newspaper, Dong-A Ilbo, reported on February 7th that there had been simultaneous attacks and gunshots at the Sino-Korean border patrol checkpoints. Where the incidents occurred are Huiryeong City and Onsung-gun, in North Hamkyung Province.

Ah, but the action figure for our (U.S.) leader (who also happens to be the Leader of the Entire Free World^TM) is much more snappily dressed than the action figure for their (North Korean) Leader. So we win.

Okay, okay, I'm in the mood for levity, so sue me.

Stay Tuned!

2006-02-06T13:55:00.000-05:00

An exciting announcement for "The Asianist" coming soon. Stay tuned.

Myth of "Rising Star," "Centrist" Democrat Governor

2006-02-03T10:27:00.000-05:00

Not Asia, I know, but I gotta plug my own work!

My latest RCP column is up.

February 2, 2006
Another "Rising Star" Governor Takes on President Bush
By James J. Na

Oh, no. It's yet another "rising star" governor of the Democratic Party to the rescue!

After President Bush's State of the Union address, Democrats trotted out Tim Kaine, the recently elected "centrist" governor of red-but-increasingly-purple Virginia to present their response.

Governor Kaine gave a laundry list of purported ills that afflict America and declared repeatedly, "there is a better way." Apparently the qualities Kaine represents are some democrats' vision of what it takes to beat Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

On the surface, Kaine seems politically appealing. He can "talk faith." He speaks the vocabulary of free enterprise and often speaks of Virginia as "the best managed state" as if it were a corporation. More importantly, he is "a rising star in the [Democratic] party who... [won] election in a state that Bush won comfortably in 2004." During that election, he even did unexpectedly well in Loudoun County, Virginia, where I live, which is a quintessentially Republican exurb.

But, as the saying goes, I have seen this movie before.

Read the rest here.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]

North Korea, Anti-Tank Obstacles, My Clansman Speaks Up!

2006-02-02T03:51:00.000-05:00

Anti-tank obstacles in Uijongbu and other South Korean cities in the traditional invasion corridor to Seoul from the North are being dismantled:

But in yet another sign of the easing of tensions between the Koreas and the changing nature of warfare, South Korean workers began dismantling the fortification at Uijongbu (pronounced wee-jong-boo) last month and are expected to finish tearing it down before spring...

"Tanks, coming?" Jung Bin said, as her eyes widened and the two seventh graders erupted in a fresh round of giggling. "It sounds like a story from far away."

Well, it's not a joke if you lost family to the commie invaders. Or if you know about the premature blowing of the bridge across the Han River that trapped the bulk of the ROK army on the north side in 1950 that led to the virtual disintegration of the Southern defenses.

Like most young people interviewed in the area, Kim Nan Hee, a 19-year-old student waiting at a bus stop next to the fortification, said the sooner it was gone, the better.

"It's ugly," she said. "Besides, we'll be reunifying soon."

Yeah? Dream on. Thankfully, one of my clansman sticks up for the sane side!

But Na Jung Seon, 59, who operates a small real estate office in the shadow of the fortification, was less optimistic about the possibility of reunification.

"I'm a conservative person," he said. "I don't trust the North Korean regime. They're our adversaries."

Seeing as there is only one Na clan in South Korea, the man is distant family I guess... even if I don't know him. Anyway, he took the words from my mouth.

Rampant "Age-ism" of Asian Airlines

2006-02-02T03:23:00.000-05:00

Only lovely young things need apply:

The stewardesses on Asian airlines tend to be much younger and more attractive than their matronly - sometimes even grand-matronly - counterparts on American and European airlines.

I am very torn on this one. It seems unfair to fire women over 35. On the other hand, I do enjoy the people-watching on some Asian airlines. My favorite airline in the world is Singapore Airlines. They have it all: service, high-tech IFE (that's inflight entertainment system, for those of you outside the aerospace industry), comfortable cabin, decent food (although Asiana has better food now I hear) and, yes, beauty.

Oh, it would be so tough to give that up on trips to Asia.

But maybe it won't be so bad. It is, after all, possible that my sour experiences on domestic, U.S. airlines is due to sour service from these "matronly" flight attendants rather than lack of beauty.

And speaking of Singapore, does anyone else notice the great service orientation of businesses there? Those plucky, adventurous, ever-so-proper Brits (Raffles et al.). They really instilled lasting service sense when they lorded over the place long ago. Like imperial vestige of a periphery long forgotten at the center, I often find that the British sense of service and propriety is more alive in parts of once Anglophone Asia than among Brits themselves (esp. the young ones).

Assassination of Surviving Lao Royalty?

2006-02-02T01:14:00.000-05:00

A couple claiming to be of the perished Laotian royal house was assassinated (h/t Kyle H).

Reader "Kyle H" who alerted me about it writes:

The man claimed to be a descendant of Chou Anouvong, a very revered Lao king who led a failed rebellion against the Siamese almost two centuries ago. The failure of three Lao kingdoms, serving as vassal states, to unite led to the utter destruction of the city of Vientiane, which is now the capital of Laos. I personally think that he was full of it-- the Siamese systematically absorbed or wiped out his blood line-- and the royal family that was either murdered or escaped after communist takeover of Laos was from an entirely different line.

Very intriguing. There is little attention being paid on what's going on in what used to be called French Indochina in American policy circles right now. Things are happening while we are paying attention elsewhere.

It's tough and busy work being the global hegemon.

More Thoughts on Google: Google the Whore

2006-01-31T05:54:00.000-05:00

Here is another thought about Google.

My best friend and mentor, Jack (a warrior and a patriot who has given so much to defend our country), once told me this little old joke to teach me about compromising with "the reality of life," aka, evil:

A well-dressed man meets a really attractive woman at a bar. He approaches her and then propositions her. "Would you be interested in having sex with me for a million dollars?"

The woman thinks for a while. And then says, "For a million dollars? Yes."

Then the man says, "Well, actually, I don't have a million bucks. How about I pay you $50."

The woman then becomes indignant and says, "What? $50? What kind of woman do you think I am?"

The man retorts smartly, "We already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just negotiating the price."

This is now what comes to my mind when I hear and read about all kinds of legal and technical gyrations Google intends to implement in China to be "less evil" after having agreed with the Chinese government to censor search results.

None of these "lessening" measures change the fundamental moral implications of what Google has done. We've already established what kind of company Google is and what kind of people run it. The rest is just negotiating the price.

No More Soldier-Entrepreneurs in China

2006-01-31T00:05:00.000-05:00

This should stop military corruption in China:

China plans to audit more than 4,000 military officers for the efficient use of its military expenses in the 11th Five-Year (2006-2010) Program, a senior military officer said.

Among the 4,000-plus military officers, more than 100 will be army commanders or above, said Liao Xilong, member of the Central Military Commission and director of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army.

I was being sarcastic of course.

Maybe they're trying to weed out those who don't know how to call for air support by other means.

Taiwan's Last Ditch Defense

2006-01-30T23:39:00.000-05:00

Taiwan is unwilling to spend money on its defense. Who needs high-tech weapons, when they've got the Kindersturmkorps!

For those who can't figure it out, Kindersturmkorps is a play on Volksturm units that Germany created as last ditch defense out of old men and young boys. Kinder, of course, means children in German (that's whence our term "Kindergarten" -- children's garden -- originates).

Japan's New Exports: Bums

2006-01-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

Maybe too many Japanese saw the film "The Beach" one time too many.

Behold, the phenomenon of lazy Japanese bums in Southeast Asia:

Sotokomori are almost exclusively in their 20s or 30s, making quick cash through high-paying jobs, then head off to live in cheap haunts overseas. But instead of broadening their horizons and learning more about other lands, these Japanese only hang out with their fellow countrymen, almost always at Japanese-owned businesses and spend their time talking about their homeland.

"In Japan, you can pick up a quick 1 million yen working part-time and then using that money to fund a long-term stay in a country like Thailand, Cambodia, India or Nepal, where the prices are cheap,"

It's as if social trends in Asia are about 10-20 years behind those of Europe and the U.S. I think the Japanese are now going through the "be-yuppie-make-money-go-hippie" phase.

Japan's Transparency

2006-01-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

Japan's economy is now the second most advanced in the world. Yet its transparency still leaves something to be desired. Tied to this is the issue of unfair competition Japanese companies maintain in the domestic market by means other than tariffs on foreign competitors (known as NTBs or non-tariff barriers).

In essence, by erecting a high barrier to entry, Japanese big companies, often in collusion with the government, prevent foreigners (almost always late comers to the market) and new, innovative Japanese companies from getting a foothold in many industries. Sometimes this strategy takes an overtly criminal form in "bid-rigging":

A senior Japanese defense official was arrested Monday for his alleged involvement in rigging bids for a series of projects at two military facilities in Tokyo, prosecutors said...

The case is the latest in a series of bid-rigging scandals to surface in recent months. Japan has long been criticized for the widespread practice in public works projects, which virtually shut out foreign competitors.

Asian Pie

2006-01-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

Argghh! I had enough Ramen growing up and in college! Must they turn it into pie as well???!!!

Why Read?

2006-01-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

In our case, it's "Why read when you have HBO?"

In their case, it's "Why read when you can smoke?" (h/t Simon World)

Ah, Asians... Perhaps the last unrepentant smokers in the world.

Adapting to Chinese Authoritarianism, Part 3

2006-01-30T02:36:00.000-05:00

[Edit: Upon further reflection and after my anger subsided somewhat, I thought I'd clean up my language a little.]

This angered me extremely (h/t RConversation). Bear with me, I have "lost it" and I'm going to be "colorful" for just a little bit, perhaps for the first time online since I started blogging:

I can attest personally to the passion with which this issue was debated within the company [Google]. Great concern was expressed for those in China who would know only a bastardized version of Google search and for the company’s employees who would be subject to the whims of the Chinese government if an official office opened there.

Oh, I get it, we're supposed to be sorry for poor Google's conscience-stricken internal debaters, because they cried before agreeing to join in on China's repression to make additional gobs of cash. Guess what, you still decided to cave in and fold, in the end. It doesn't matter how much you cried crocodile tears before doing so! You still decided to collaborate. Can you imagine a similar defense of another kind of collaboration with evil? ("We decided to help the Nazis murder Jews in the end, but we really had a heart-wrenching, 'passionate' internal debate beforehand.")

I was in China recently and it was my sense that search engine censorship was expected by most Internet users, since so much of their news is already run through a government filter. They simply seem to shrug and factor it into their use of the web. The limited group of people with whom I spoke preferred search engines that gave them the best way to find mp3s and movies online and handled Chinese names correctly, rather than those that gave the most complete information about Taiwanese efforts to remain independent.

Let me translate: "Oh, these yellow bastards don't care about democracy and freedom, they expect repression, you see. They just wanna buy dirty pictures and videos. Sell them some even if it means cooperating with the secret police just a little." This is even worse than doing a Lee Kuan Yew (see Adapting to Chinese Authoritarianism, Part 1).

Doug’s post is quite a refreshing view in a blogosphere of attack dogs going after Google.

About as "refreshing" as pile of dog doodoo. To call those who criticize Google -- remember "Don't be evil" -- cooperating with repression "just a little bit" to make more millions "attack dogs" shows how glib, smug, amoral and cowardly some in the the West have become.

Doing Business in China without Partners, Part 2

2006-01-30T01:23:00.000-05:00

Regarding my earlier entry about China business, a reader responds:

I just read your blog post on “Doing Business in China without Partners,” and it reminded me of the sentiment expressed by one of my colleagues, Kent Kedl. Kent is the host of the China Business Podcast, and he’s recently done a couple of podcasts on partnerships in China.

As the executive director of Technomic Asia, a strategy consulting firm that helps Western businesses find successful ways to operate in China, Kent has seen just about everything. I think he’d probably disagree with your expat friends who say that “You often get screwed when you get a partner/joint venture.” Kent would argue that the “six Ds” – due diligence, due diligence, due diligence – would eliminate just about all the risk involved in forming a partnership or joint venture. Generally, though, I think you’re right on with this post, and your insight is appreciated.

You might be interested in a brand new article from the most recent issue of IndustryWeek. Kent’s colleague from Technomic Asia, Steve Ganster, was featured in a big article on small and midsize companies expanding into China. This particular article doesn’t get into the angle of partnerships, per se, but it does stress the importance of research and preparation before entering China.

Mike

Michael Keliher
St. Paul, MN

Thank you, Mike.

Of course, due diligence would do much to reduce the risk of partnerships in China. But in my experience, due diligence has limits in places like China where transparency is still weak, and true players behind businesses are at times murky. I certainly wouldn't want to be the investigator who conducts in-country due diligence either, for that matter (outsourcing to local investigator would incur the problem of reliability on the other hand).

This isn't just limited to China, per se, but one of the main problems in creating joint-ventures, especially for low profile, politically-unconnected, mid- to small-sized expatriate firms, is the lack of rule of law in many countries, especially in minority owner/shareholder rights.

First of all, governments in these countries often force foreign investor to be the minority owner (usually 49%) with the local owner holding the minimum majority of 51%. At first, everything goes well. The foreign investor brings in capital and know-how. The local partner finds labor, location and connections. They start making money. Just when things start to take off, the local partner suddenly becomes more "assertive" and starts making unilateral decisions, with the tacit approval if not support of the local regulatory officials/courts. In essence, he takes over the business.

Now, I am not suggesting that this scenario is "automatic" or common in China. What I am suggesting is that there are benefits and risks to partnerships, and the betrayal by a local partner and the indifference of the local legal system to such betrayal are common problems in countries with a weak rule of law and low transparency (especially if the betrayer is well-connected).

One usually enters into partnerships with local players because of 1) regulatory requirements and/or 2) for bypassing high barrier to entry, legal or otherwise (e.g. language, market knowledge, supplier network, etc.).

I think the expatriate businesses are finding in China that the regulatory requirements are loosening (allowing for more totally foreign-owned operations) and paying the costs of high barrier to entry upfront is well worth it in the long run, because the profit and control are higher and more secure as the business takes off.

Repression 2.0

2006-01-30T00:06:00.000-05:00

This cartoon about Google et al. rocks! H/T to Asiapundit.

Condi Challenges "Old Diplomacy"

2006-01-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

My latest column in RealClearPolitics is online.

Some snippets:

In a speech at Georgetown University on January 18th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threw down the gauntlet at the State Department bureaucracy by expounding "transformational diplomacy" to shift the priority and direction of the department in the post-modern, post-Cold War era...

Conservatives have long viewed the State Department as a hostile territory where disloyalty to Republican administrations is routine. They are responding favorably to this declaration of war on "old diplomacy" and bureaucratic intransigence, still mired in the traditions of an era when Europe was the mistress of the world and the lingua franca of diplomacy was, well, still French. Indeed the department's European Bureau has long considered itself first among equals, and also second and third.

The institutional culture of the State Department is frequently contrasted unfavorably with that of the Defense Department. Whereas the dominant ethos of the latter, being of a military outlook, is said to be "action," especially in danger zones around the world, that of the State is contemptuously said to be "talk," mostly in posh European capitals. One observer who worked with both departments relays a common, but telling stereotype: "Defense takes in ordinary people and achieves the extraordinary; State takes in extraordinary people and achieves the ordinary."

... In struggles with the State Department over ambassadorial appointments, both Republican and Democratic administrations in the White House offered the rationale that their political candidates possess superior "administrative skills" over State Department career candidates. They argued that the politically appointed ambassadors could simply rely on their staff for regional and linguistic expertise. It is in response to this internal political reality that the State Department began stressing administrative skills in its own promotion programs in order to compete with political appointees for choice ambassadorial posts. In one case, an ambassador claimed such a background from his prior work in running the department's motor pool.

Read the whole thing here.

[Cross-posted in Guns and Butter Blog]

Growing Economy Doesn't Always Buy Quality People

2006-01-27T02:03:00.000-05:00

I discussed the rising Chinese military power earlier.

Here is a contra-indication of that trend (maybe Richardson was right about the personnel quality issues):

Three divisions, comprising about 50,000 troops, from the Shenyang military region took part in the four-stage exercises, in which the troops representing the PLA were defeated by the enemy Blue Army - believed to have simulated US battle techniques.

In the first stage, the Red Army was ordered to repel the attacking Blue Army. Despite its firepower being strengthened by the availability of six hi-tech aircraft, the Red Army troops were defeated because the army commander forgot to call in air support. The other three stages revealed the PLA officers were slow to respond and did not have a firm grasp of the advanced technologies needed to stage information warfare.

Or maybe this is all just disinformation warfare to lull us into complacency. So the PLA excercies with OPFOR and all that, huh? I guess Kerqin is their Mojave Desert.

It's Not About Respect, It's About Fear

2006-01-27T01:37:00.000-05:00

[Update] Debra Saunders says something similar to what I wrote below -- that Google is tough with the DoJ and wobbly with the Chinese government, because it takes no courage to confront the DoJ (in fact, such fake "courage" might even help its business) while the Chinese can hurt its business.

[Original Entry]

Yesterday, I expressed an admiration for what Rebecca MacKinnon wrote about the "we're just following the laws" defense of American corporations that operate in places like China.

Well, I also said that I sometimes disagree with her views. While she writes inspiring stuff like what I read yesterday, she also writes something like this that really bothers me:

3. If the Chinese government makes unreasonable requests for search result data, do the same thing you [Google] did to the U.S. Department of Justice: just say no. Othewise, you'll be sending the message that you respect U.S. users much more than you respect Chinese users.

See, if Google were to be more obliging to the Chinese government, it wouldn't be because it "respect[s] U.S. users much more than.. Chinese users."

It would be from the simple reason that the Chinese government scares Google much more than the U.S. government does. Companies like Google (and those who run them) that say chirpy things like "Don't be Evil" (h/t Michelle Malkin) are hypocritical cowards. They are real tough to the U.S. government that respects their rights, doesn't intimidate them or create "accidents" for them. But they are not so tough when it comes to governments like China's that play rough.

This is the exact same reason why you see a lot of "liberal" human rights organizations go after the U.S. for chicken-s**t stuff like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, but are silent on much more heinous atrocities like China's oppression, North Korea's executions, Saddam's mass graves (when he was in power, that is) and ad naseum.

You see, Ms. MacKinnon, it's not about respect. It is, apparently, about fear -- something that these bleeding heart companies are loath to admit.

Little Evil vs. Big Evil in China

2006-01-26T01:28:00.000-05:00

[Update] More here and here.

[Original Entry]

There is already a lot of coverage about Google's acquiescence to censorship to operate in China. Rebecca MacKinnon has some choice lines:

Obviously this contradicts its [Google's] stated desire to make information freely available to everybody on the planet, and it contradicts its mission statement: "don't be evil." As Mike Langberg at the San Jose Mercury News puts it: their revised motto should now read "don't be evil more than necessary."

... But I want to get a better sense for exactly where they rank on the evil scale...

What we do know at this point is that Google seems to be trying to minimize it's evilness in several ways, according to how their statements describe the service:

The following paragraph from MacKinnon is written in heaven:

Google spokespeople liken what they do in China to the filtering they do in France and Germany - censoring porn and Nazi sites in compliance with their laws. I do not believe you can compare compliance to laws in democratic societies to what they're doing in China. In France and Germany, there is some connection between the laws and the user's consent. People in those countries have the ability to vote out of office the politicians who make unpopular laws. Chinese users have no way of punishing their government for its censorship policies by voting the current group of leaders out of office.

Sometimes I disagree with her views strenuously, but when MacKinnon writes like that, I feel like writing stalker-like fan/love mails to her (if I weren't married already, that is).

Companies and their apologists often fall back on "we're just following the laws of the land" defense when operating in cahoots with repugnant regimes. Well, you know what? There are countries where the laws are morally codified -- with the consent of the governed -- and there are countries where the laws are not morally codified (or just plain "evil" as MacKinnon puts it and Google PREVIOUSLY put it). Guess where China is on that dichotomy?

Google's management and institutional ethos are pretty leftist. It turns out they are just as compliant with evil to make money as those other capitalist-cum-imperialist pigs^tm at other companies they often criticize and snicker.

I guess that makes Google folks hypocritical capitalists: people who like to make gobs of cash just like others, but would like to pretend and pose that, really, they are do-gooders.

President Bush Talks Beef

2006-01-24T02:21:00.000-05:00

The President talked some beef during a speech in Kansas today.

In response to a question from the former chairwoman of the Kansas Cattlemen's Association (or some such thing), he said something like:

"We've got good beef in Texas, too. But this isn't the place to argue about that [Big laugh from the audience]."

"I've spoken to Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan and President Roh of South Korea about it [beef exports]... I told them that they're missing some Kansas beef!"

Okay, the text might be a little off (don't make me find the exact transcript), but the gist is there. In any case, the President was at his folksy best today (there is a bad kind of inarticulate and a good kind of inarticulate; today he was the latter) .

Attentive readers may recall this earlier entry on The Asianist, which in turn links to this article about U.S. difficulties with Japan over beef exports to that country.

Japanese Enron

2006-01-24T02:02:00.000-05:00

A Japanese rising corporate star explodes like Enron.

You know when a Japanese CEO behaves as follows:

Horie, a brash entrepreneur, has carefully cultivated a playboy image that is the antithesis of the stereotypical anonymous salaryman. His casual clothing and speech, regular TV appearances, disdain of protocol, and audacious - though ultimately failed - bids for a baseball franchise, a TV station, and a seat in parliament have made him a household name in Japan.

... something is not quite right:

The daily stream of allegations, denials and rumors surrounding the firm shows no sign of abating. Further claims of financial misdoing emerged late last week, hitting the value of Livedoor affiliates such as mail-order company Cecil, data-processing firm Media Exchange and property developer Dynacity Corp.

Doing Business in China without Partners

2006-01-24T01:53:00.000-05:00

[Update] More on the topic here.

[Original Entry]

The conventional wisdom about China business used to be that one should get a local partners and suck up to (bribe) the government officials. Wrongs says China Law Blog:

It should go without saying that foreign companies should not just show up in China without any local connections. However, the local connection need not be a "partner." "Partner" implies joint venture, and as we just discussed the other day, foreign businesses are generally trying to avoid joint ventures by entering China as a wholly foreign owned entity (WFOE). This is the trend because the Chinese government has greatly expanded the number of business sectors in which WFOEs are permitted and because foreign companies see the benefits of going it alone. This article's advice also fails to account for the rapid decline in the Chinese government's ability to influence the success or failure of a business. It would be naive to think one can operate in China without government approval, but it would be equally naive to think government connections are the essential element for success.

I much prefer the advice given in the article by Kevin Hobgood-Brown, an attorney with the Deacons law firm, who says:
"Everybody who is successful in China develops their own networks. If you open a medium-sized factory in the provinces, it is not necessary to have high friends in China. But you do need to have a good relationship with the officials in your county and, possibly, the province," Hobgood-Brown says.

I am increasingly hearing from expatriates who are doing business in China that:

1) You often get screwed when you get a partner/joint venture.

2) Developing your own network takes a lot of work and much local know-how, but produces very handsome dividends in the end, particularly outside super large cities like Shanghai -- in other words medium size-cities where fewer foreign firms venture. Untapped, but still lucrative and has economy-of-scale, apparently.

3) If you must suck up to any government official, do so with the local ones, not central government ones as China is much more decentralized than people assume, particularly in "retail" running of regulations.

Japanese UAV Sold Illegally to PLA

2006-01-24T01:45:00.000-05:00

[Update] Angry Chinese Blogger has more, including a blurb about Harpy drones from Israel in Chinese service.

[Original Entry]

There is a report that Japanese-made unmanned helicopters may have been sold illegally to the (Chinese) People's Liberation Army:

Suspicions have arisen that the helicopters, which are employed largely for industrial use but can be also used for military purposes, were illegally exported to China, investigators allege.

Yamaha Motor has denied the allegations, but suspicions have arisen that the helicopters may have been passed on to the People's Liberation Army. Police and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are investigating the company over its actions.

Investigators said Yamaha Motor was involved in trade with an aircraft firm in Beijing. The aircraft firm's Web site says Yamaha Motor's unmanned helicopters have prospects for "wide use in civilian and military fields." An unmanned helicopter is pictured alongside a People's Liberation Army jet.

Fukuoka Prefectural Police uncovered the latest incident while investigating a Chinese broker over allegations of illegal work. The broker was reportedly involved in negotiations between Yamaha Motor and the Chinese firm. Judging from statements made by the broker, police and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry believe that Yamaha Motor was sufficiently aware of the wrongdoing.

I hope the folks at Yamaha Motor realize that the greatest security threat to Japan, perhaps aside from crazy Nork nuke, is from the People's Liberation Army. Not much for patriotism, eh?

Don't Steal from Your Kids

2006-01-24T01:39:00.000-05:00

... even in the patriarchy that is Japan, because kids will lash out:

A teenage boy arrested for setting fire to his own home here has told investigators that he committed the crime to vent his anger at his father who had skimmed his wages from his part-time job, police said Tuesday.

Kick Ass Asian Athleticism

2006-01-23T23:48:00.000-05:00

Wow. These guys rock at ping pong (h/t Unread Bits).

It's an amazing video of athleticism that goes unrecognized in the West.

Condi Declares War on State

2006-01-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

[Update] More on the State Dept. "transformation" from the WaPo (h/t RCP).

[Original Entry]

Secretary Condi Rice has declared war on comfy Euro-oriented State Department careerism!

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that she will shift hundreds of Foreign Service positions from Europe and Washington to difficult assignments in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere as part of a broad restructuring of the diplomatic corps that she has dubbed "transformational diplomacy."

Just as our military is undergoing "transformation," so too must our diplomatic sector, which is mired in bureaucratic instransigence and old world thinking.

As part of the change in priorities, Rice announced that diplomats will not be promoted into the senior ranks unless they accept assignments in dangerous posts, gain expertise in at least two regions and are fluent in two foreign languages, citing Chinese, Urdu and Arabic as a few preferred examples.

And Rice is really cutting through to the matter. If you want to change the direction of an organization "for real," you must, MUST change the promotion criteria. We don't need more French-speakers who covet living in Brussels or Paris. We need Mandarin, Cantonese, Urdu, Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Malay (you get the picture) speakers who understand where rubber meets the road in the 21st Century post-modern conflict zones.

Rice noted that the United States has nearly as many State Department personnel in Germany -- which has 82 million people -- as in India, with 1 billion people. As a first step, 100 jobs in Europe and Washington will be immediately shifted to expanded embassies in countries such as India, China and Lebanon. Many of these diplomats had been scheduled to rotate into coveted posts in European capitals this summer, and the sudden change in assignment has caused some distress, State Department officials said.

"Some distress" is an understatement. I'm sure many of these career types were looking to settle into a nice European lifestyle at one of these coveted cities and are just apoplectic over the proposed changes. But what use is a large contingent of diplomatic corps in polished Western European capitals to the U.S. foreign and security policy when the action is elsewhere?

And on the international aid front:

Anticipating such a change [merging USAID with State], some outside the government have warned that it could result in a greater politicization of foreign assistance. "We're concerned that the same priority won't be given to long-term development as resources are siphoned to support shorter-term diplomatic or military objectives," said Jim Bishop, a senior officer of InterAction, the largest coalition of non-governmental U.S. aid groups.

Earth to Mr. Bishop. Earth to Mr. Bishop. Foreign aid is and should be a an extension of serving our political goals in the world. It doesn't exist to make the bureaucrats feel good about themselves with our tax money.

Furthermore, it has been demonstrated time and time again that the traditional "black box" model of long-term foreign aid does little but breed a culture of dependence among those who receive it. Instead of wasting all the money down this black hole of corruption and dependence, we ought to use the valuable resources (again from our tax money) to sustain and support aid to improve our public diplomacy and strengthen/develop our allies outside Western Europe.

No doubt the career types and the aid types will launch a full-scale counterattack on Secretary Rice and this transformation, but we must proceed full steam ahead if we are to derive some use out of the bloated and often uselessly Euro-centric diplomatic bureaucracy.

[Cross-posted on Guns and Butter Blog]

Taiwanese Political Turmoil Roils Security

2006-01-18T13:19:00.000-05:00

Taiwan's prime minister resigned as the opposition puts brakes on a long-delayed defense purchase from the U.S.:

The opposition-dominated legislature last Thursday voted down the NT$10.9 billion (US$338 million) budget earmarked for Patriot missile batteries and a NT$272.62 million outlay preparing for the purchase of items remaining in the special arms procurement package.

I strongly support the U.S.-Taiwan alliance, but given the increasingly Sino-philic tendencies in the U.S., largely urged on by those making money in China's economic growth, it would be foolish for Taiwan to count on the U.S. "for everything" in security matters. One day it may find, upon being attacked by China for "re-unification," that there really isn't much will in the U.S. to shed American blood to preserve Taiwan's way of life.

After all, why should Americans shed their blood to defend Taiwan when Taiwan has been so tardy to spend Taiwanese money to defend itself?

Sex and Income in Japan

2006-01-18T13:03:00.000-05:00

If you haven't got it, you don't get any, or "No money, no honey" as the article puts it.

But, seriously, this indicates something of a social trend, not just in Japan, but much of financial success-obsessed East Asia. Once I read a tour guide that gave social/cultural faux pas in Asia (don't show the bottom of one's feet in Muslim Indonesia, etc.). The faux pas in Singapore was "Don't be poor."

Of course, male financial success does much to attract females in just about every culture, but this tendency is particularly pronounced in East Asia.

In the West, sometimes women will go ga ga over men who are talented in humor, music, poetry, fashion, French-speaking or other kinds of skill that may not necessarily bring pecuniary gain (sing funny French poetry about fashion to some women and watch how fast they develop that glint in their eyes for you -- no, I do not speak from experience). The point is, there is, in the view of many in the West, a certain something (or je ne se quois) other than money that attracts women to men.

Not so, in my view, in East Asia. There, increasingly, money is king. Women are often obsessed about "the good life" and will desperately seek men who can provide it. Again, I am not saying this is uniquely Asian, merely that such a trend is more pronounced in Asia than in, say, the U.S. or France.

Japan -> U.S. -> Canada

2006-01-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

What beef Canada has with the U.S., the U.S. has with Japan!

Heaven and Hell in Asia

2006-01-17T01:38:00.000-05:00

The commentary about Hong Kong cops and their rule of law in context of the violent Korean demonstrators arrested in Hong Kong [h/t The Marmot's Hole and SimonWorld] made me think the following:

Heaven in Asia is where you have:

Hong Kong cops
Japanese cars
Singaporean streets
Korean lover

Hell in Asia is:

Japanese cops
Korean cars
Hong Kong streets
Singaporean lover

What do you think?

Kim So-Wol's "J.M.S." Translation

2006-01-17T00:18:00.000-05:00

Since I received requests to translate the poem "J. M. S.," I'll take a crack.

Its author, Kim So-Wol, is arguably the best known Korean poet. Befitting a Korean of his generation, living under Japanese occupation, he lived a tragic life and likely killed himself in 1934.

His most popular poem is "Azaleas," which captures the soulful quality of Korean folk expression (there is a very detailed analysis of translating such work into English as well as multiple versions of translation here).

My favorite, however, has been "J. M. S.," because it always reminded of my maternal grandfather, of stern edification and kind, gentle smile, who was born to great privilege and acquired much education, but gave them up to help poor and uneducated tungsten miners in deep mountains. He was the most principled man I ever knew personally.

I am by no means someone versed in poetry or translation, so please keep in mind that I likely butcher the poem:

J. M. S.

You sir were a personality born in Pyongyang, J. M. S.
Hating me when I lacked virtue
Loved me when I was talented
Resided in Osan, J. M. S.
In ten years this spring, I think of you this morning
This year for the first time I arise from a dream-less sleep.

Bound face and short height and thin build
Yet possessed of intellect like iron chisel
Blazing eyes especially shone like bright light
Without regard for heat worked he in feverish passion for our people.

Outwardly plain, gentlemanly the way you looked in the bygone days
But, oh, oh, disheveled from avarice of liquor and wenches
Wasting away for fifteen years I did
For what reason do you sir
Come searching to my mind? This morning.
Beautiful great love never dies as a rule,
Remebering always hidden within my heart,
Rests to sleep my mad twisted conscience,
Until the day I depart this unbearable world.

Kim So-Wol

J. M. S. likely refers to Jo Man-Shik (Cho Man-Sik), perhaps the most significant Christian, non-communist (many say, pro-Western) leader of the movement for Korean national liberation from the Japanese occupation in what became North Korea. Jo was also an educator and taught Kim So-Wol at an Osan-area school.

Jo was approached by the Soviets in 1945. When rebuffed, they arrested him, never to be seen again. Most likely he was then executed by the communists when they started the Korean War.

Japan in America

2006-01-14T07:45:00.000-05:00

Why Seattle is indeed Japan in America.

Uwajimaya and the "International District" (i.e. Chinatown) are more Chinese than Japanese nowadays, and "the Japanese community" is really not a coherent community (Asian-Americans in metro Seattle are actually some of the most assimilated I've seen in the U.S.), but the rest of the article does an adequate job of capturing what Seattle feels like sometimes.

I do miss Uwajimaya. I shopped there all the time when I lived in Seattle. Korean (or other Asian) grocery stores in Northern Virginia really can't match it.

Corporate Communication in Japan

2006-01-14T07:40:00.000-05:00

Man arrested for sending a sword:

A company executive who sent a samurai sword to the Kobe Shimbun newspaper president's office in November last year has been arrested for intimidation, police said.

Masatoshi Nishida, 47, a resident of Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, admitted to the allegations during questioning. Hyogo Prefectural Police have also obtained an arrest warrant for a 51-year-old construction company owner in Himeji over his role in the incident, and are poised to question him.

"Construction company"? I smell Yakuza.

Career tip: try some flowers or a nice fruit basket next time.

Plastic Surgery in China

2006-01-14T07:35:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Korean women are not the only ones in Asia to be self esteem-challenged. Chinese women are taking to the knife as well:

Plastic surgery -- outlawed in China until the early 1980s, when it was permitted for medical reasons -- is a $3 billion business, testament to rising incomes and expanding social freedom in the world's most populous nation. The demand also underscores intensifying competition for jobs, as the once centrally planned economy becomes market-oriented.

"People these days regard plastic surgery as an investment as it will help them to get a good job or attract a man of their dreams," said Lee Jong Won, 48, a Korean plastic surgeon who works at Shanghai's Beauty China Medical Center, a venture between Ruijin Hospital Group and Korean investors...

China has 1 million plastic surgery clinics employing 6 million people, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Dec. 27, citing the China Consumers Association. More than 1 million people went under the knife in 2004 and the growth rate tripled, the report said.

Now that's a real growth industry! But this is a good thing. As I wrote before:

Despite the alarmist rhetoric, however, this is a good news. Such concerns are a sign of prosperity. Remember, hungry women in poor countries don't worry about cosmetic surgery and self-image -- they are too busy worrying about daily essentials.

Death of a War Hero

2006-01-13T01:47:00.000-05:00

Colonel Young Oak Kim, (US Army, Retired) passed away (h/t The Marmot's Hole and Oranckay). A little about Col. Kim:

Colonel Young Oak Kim (Ret.), a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran of World War II and the Korean War and humanitarian who dedicated his life to helping others and supporting and founding many Asian American civic organizations, passed away from cancer on December 29, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He was 86.

Colonel Kim was born in Los Angeles and raised in the Bunker Hill area, the second child of Korean immigrants Soon Kwon and Nora Koh Kim. Understanding the importance of serving his country, Kim enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1941 and was later selected to the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, the only Asian American in his class. In February 1943, as a 2nd Lieutenant, Kim was assigned to the 100th Infantry Battalion, a segregated unit of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. When asked by his commanding officer if he would like a transfer, knowing the historical conflicts between Koreans and Japanese, Kim stated that they were all Americans and were going to fight the war together. And they did just that, Kim as a member of the 100/442nd Regimental Combat Team fought valiantly in Italy and France to become the most decorated in U.S. military history for its size and length of service [boldface mine].

Recently a few folks and I had a little conversation about identity and communal shame in context of the Abramoff scandal (check the comments section). Well, Col. Kim's way of thinking is what I look up to in identity-by-choice. In America, you are what you want to be.

Rest in peace, patriot and old warrior!

Kim So-Wol

2006-01-13T01:11:00.000-05:00

[Update] I tried my hand at translation into English.

I am not much of a poetry man, but while I am on a poetry kick, the following is one of my favorite Korean poems (may look garbled if your computer can't read Korean):

제이 엠 에스 (J. M. S.)

평양서 나신 인격의 그 당신님, 제이 엠 에스
덕 없는 나를 미워하시고
재주 있는 나를 사랑하셨다
오산 계시던 제이 엠 에스
십년 봄 만에 오늘 아침 생각난다
근년 처음 꿈 없이 자고 일어나며.

얽은 얼굴에 자그만 키와 여윈 몸매는
단 쇠끌 같은 지조가 튀어날 듯
타듯 하는 눈동자만이 유난히 빛나셨다.
민족을 위하여는 더도 모르시는 열정의 그 임.

소박한 풍채, 인자하신 옛날의 그 모양대로,
그러나, 아아 술과 계집과 이욕에 헝클어져
십 오 년에 허주한 나를
웬일로 그 당신님
맘 속으로 찾으시오? 오늘 아침.
아름답다 큰 사랑은 죽는 법 없어,
기억되어 항상 내 가슴 속에 숨어 있어,
미쳐 거치른 내 양심을 잠재우리,
내가 괴로운 이 세상 떠날 때까지.

김 소월

This poem always reminds me of my maternal grandfather. Rest in peace, grandpa.

"Kipling-esque"

2006-01-12T23:39:00.000-05:00

One of the commentators at The Marmot's Hole, a popular Korea-based English blog, said that I wrote "Kipling-esque" words or something to that effect. He probably meant to disparage me by it ("neo-colonialist" or "stooge of white/American imperialism" I think), but I thought it was great, if unwitting, compliment.

In any case, I wish I could write a hundredth as well as he did. That poem came to my mind during one of my e-mail correspondences today (my mind works in a non-linear way).

English is such a beautiful language!

South Koreans Learn...

2006-01-12T01:24:00.000-05:00

that crime pays if you cry enough about it.

Violent South Korean demonstrators who were arrested in Hong Kong are being released.

Man, it's becoming like Seattle over there!

China-Burma Gas Deal

2006-01-12T00:53:00.000-05:00

This new natural gas deal was really not much of a surprise to most folks in the know:

In a major blow to India's effort to secure its energy needs through transnational pipelines, Myanmar has refused to supply natural gas to New Delhi and instead preferred doing business with China.

After beating Indian firms in overseas oil field acquisitions on three occasions in the last five months, Hong Kong-listed PetroChina has inked an agreement to purchase gas from A1 Block Block in Bay of Bengal.

HK Dave at Simon World has some comments on it as well.

China and Burma are pretty much natural fits as far as Realpolitik alliances go. China gets not only energy, but also naval facilities that open up the Indian Ocean to the Chinese navy and its influence. Burma, mired in international isolation due to its horrible human rights record and repression, get an ally, a big brother, who is willing to devote military and economic resources to its cause.

Indeed, Chinese advances in Burma are a grave cause for concern for India:

The Indian Navy has long expressed apprehensions about the Chinese navy's incursions into the Indian Ocean region and hopes to 'blunt' its thrust into this area through engagement.

The navy is also concerned about Beijing's 'pincer movement ' of extending its military influence in Burma and on Pakistan's western seaboard, where it is developing Gwadar port that provides access to the Persian Gulf.

China is also helping Burma modernise its naval bases at Hainggyi, the Coco islands, Akyab, Za Det Kyi, Mergui and Khaukphyu by building radar, refit and refuel facilities that could support Chinese submarine operations in the region.

The Chinese are also believed to be establishing a Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) facility on the Coco islands, 30 nautical miles from the Andaman islands, to monitor Indian missile tests off the Orissa coast, an activity that has proliferated after India's 1998 nuclear tests.

Consequently, the Indian Navy too is expanding its role in the Indian Ocean region by providing security cover to the African Union Summit in Mozambique in July and by assisting Mauritius in protecting its exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Bill Gertz at The Washington Times has also written on the expansion of Chinese influence in the region, although he ends with this happy conclusion:

China believes the U.S. military will disrupt China's energy imports in any conflict over Taiwan, and sees the United States as an unpredictable country that violates others' sovereignty and wants to "encircle" China, the report said.

Beijing's leaders see access to oil and gas resources as vital to economic growth and fear that stalled economic growth could cause instability and ultimately the collapse of their nation of 1.3 billion people...

Eighty percent of China's oil currently passes through the Strait of Malacca, and the report states that China believes the sea area is "controlled by the U.S. Navy"...

Chinese specialists interviewed for the report said the United States has the military capability to cut off Chinese oil imports and could "severely cripple" China by blocking its energy supplies.

All the more reason for China to "head North," eh, even though Nathan at Registan.net thinks such a possibility is remote.

North Korea's Stunning Admission

2006-01-11T04:05:00.000-05:00

[Update] Apparently Kim flew to Shanghai rather than taking his mondo luxury train as is normally the case. You gotta give it to the little pigmy. He is very good at unleashing surprises. I suppose when you're bankrupt, isolated and at your wit's end, you gotta rely on your "guile" to survive.

[Original Entry]

North Korea's Stunning Admission... Or is it?

Check out what's buried in the latest Kim Jong-Il abroad story:

North Korea has refused to return to the six-party talks, scheduled to resume in Beijing early this year, unless the United States lifts restrictions on firms the Bush administration says are involved in counterfeiting, money laundering and drug trafficking by the North Korean government.

"The U.S. is applying financial sanctions against the DPRK in an effort to destroy the system in the DPRK by stopping its blood from running," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday, referring to the country by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Is there any need to have talks under the situation where the U.S. is enforcing such a policy?"

If U.S. anti-counterfeiting, money laundering and drug trafficking measures are "stopping [North Korea's] blood from running," is this a tacit admission from North Korea that the economy of the Workers Paradise^tm is in such desperate shambles that its must engage in crime to make ends meet?

American Happiness vs. Asian Fortune

2006-01-11T03:26:00.000-05:00

My latest Seattle Times column is up:

Don't Worry, Be Fortunate

By James J. Na
Special to The Times

ANOTHER new year is upon us, and as we emerge from the holidays, we exchange the greeting "Happy New Year" with our families, neighbors and colleagues. We begin anew — for a few days in any case — with the hope that this year will be better than the last.

Vocabulary often provides much insight into a culture that produces it, and the words of holiday greetings are no exception. In the English-speaking world, "Happy New Year" is the greeting de rigueur of the season. In fact, the British even wish for a "Happy Christmas." And, of course, our Declaration of Independence boldly asserts "the pursuit of Happiness" along with seemingly more weighty Life and Liberty to be "unalienable Rights ... endowed by [our] Creator." Happiness is apparently of primary importance in our society.

East Asians, on the other hand, greet each other with "Please receive many blessings [of Fortune] in the New Year" or some similar variation involving "Fortune." Despite the stereotype of East Asians as industrious people who build their own success, the notion of fortune, in context of wealth brought by a favorable turn of events, is surprisingly entrenched among them.

Read the rest here.

China Law Blog

2006-01-10T23:03:00.000-05:00

These guys are much more bullish on China than I am. But then again, those who engage primarily in civil/business side of China tend to be so while those who deal in security or human rights issues tend to be more cautious (I count myself in the latter category).

But Dan Harris travels where rubber meets the road (esp. legally) in East Asia and should have some insightful comments and views about the region.

Welcome to the blogosphere!

Korean scientific ethics, part 3

2006-01-10T05:53:00.000-05:00

It's final, the erstwhile South Korean national hero-cum-scientist Hwang Woo-Suk is a fraud again:

An academic panel investigating South Korean stem cell scientist Hwang Woo Suk concluded Tuesday that the embattled researcher's fraudulent experiments reach back further than previously known and encompass the most seminal of his so-called successes: the first creation of stem cells from cloned human embryos...

But the findings of a month-long investigation into Hwang's results by an eight-member peer review panel at Seoul National University, where most of the research was conducted, indicated that DNA studies on preserved stem cells did not match those from the published study and that they were not cloned human embryonic stem cells. The same panel had already determined that studies published in 2005, in which Hwang claimed to have made 11 stem cell lines matched to patients, were fakes.

Previous entries on this here; and here in depth about post-war Korean "success is everything" ethics.

[Update] The NYT is on it too. Some money lines:

In hindsight, analysts say, it is clear that a hard-driven researcher used - and was used by - a government desperate to generate a vision for a nation whose chronic insecurity among big neighbors was deepening in economic doldrums and a North Korean nuclear crisis...

Through Dr. Hwang's fall, South Korea is belatedly learning that biotechnology is not the forum in which to play out its industrial policy ambitions. Unlike electronics or information technology, where the country excelled by building upon technology pioneered by others, biotechnology is a cutting-edge sector teeming with critics. And the field requires a highly sophisticated regulatory system.

"The lesson is that in biotechnology, growth is not everything," said Song Sang Yong, head of the Asian Bioethics Association. "It's an area where countries should take each step cautiously."

More Pride-Oriented Weapons Development in South Korea

2006-01-10T01:19:00.000-05:00

The Marmot's Hole has a good coverage of the leaked plans about future South Korean air force upgrades (here and here), including an indigenous next-generation fighter/attack aircraft.

Economically, it makes very little sense for a country of South Korea's size to develop indigenous major weapon systems like fighter/attack aircraft. The initial outlays are huge. The industrial infrastructure is very costly to maintain. Considering the rather small procurement quantity of the domestic market, the per unit cost becomes outlandishly high.

It would, therefore, make sense to buy "off-shelf," i.e. purchase existing weapon systems from other countries, which usually fall over themselves to sell their weapons at reasonable costs (to defray their R&D costs and to reduce production costs for their own domestic needs).

Otherwise, there is relentless pressure for any indigenous producer to export its product (which is why Israelis defense companies are so aggressive in marketing their products overseas). Alas, the competition in this market is intensely fierce and political pressures are often brought to bear to sell the products -- which means smaller countries don't do as well unless there is some unique niche it can fill that bigger countries do not.

So why do some small countries insist on developing their own?

First, there is the political autarky angle. Israel, for example, had trouble obtaining weapons from others in the early years of its life. Its alliance of sorts with France guaranteed flow of weapons from there for a while, but the supply was cut off when Israel became "too victorious" for French tastes and, at the same time, the French Middle Eastern policy orientation changed. Having suffered this temporarily crippling disruption, Israel has sworn to maintain some degree of autarkic military production capability (esp. in armor and aircraft, which have long been the decisive weapons in desert warfare).

Second, there is the technological angle. Indigenous military production of high-tech weapons naturally help the development of associated high-tech industries. Some political economists even argue that there is a symbiosis between defense and civilian techno-economic sectors. But even here, the biggest payoff occurs when there is economy of scale in both sectors (i.e. large military and civilian markets).

Clearly, these two situations do not fit particularly well with South Korea, leading to the third reason why small countries sometimes develop weapons indigenously at great economic costs -- national pride.

This is likely the reason for South Korea. Possessing major weapons systems is a high status symbol, but possessing the technological-industrial capacity to develop and produce the same is an even higher status symbol.

Perhaps the South Korean government should look to the Taiwanese example in this regard. Taiwan, too, tried to build the "Indigenous Defense Fighter" -- and Taiwan had a far better motive in attempting to make up for unsteady supply of weapons from the US (esp. with Democratic administrations with cozy ties to communist China).

The Taiwanese IDF was a very expensive undertaking. And you know what many in the know called the IDF?

"It don't fly."

Ashcroft, IAI and South Korea

2006-01-10T01:14:00.000-05:00

All's fair in love and war... and lobbying for defense contracts in Asia, I guess.

Gold-plated Weapons for Everyone!

2006-01-05T00:56:00.000-05:00

Koreans crave status symbols. Most of them don't know much about Savile Row or Patek Philippe, but they sure know about Polo (whose factory outlets can be relied upon to have some Korean-speaking customers at any given time) or Rolex -- which is to say, they know a lot about pedestrian brand names, but not much about true tradition and quality.

Well, now South Koreans have the ultimate status symbol of a powerful nation, the gold-plated weaponry (h/t DPRK Studies). The weapon platform in question is the F-15K, which is claimed to be "the only U.S.-produced fighter capable of long-range precision strike missions without escort, day or night, in any weather" by Boeing, its manufacturer.

And like some under-trained 1950's Korean peasant conscript, they "point" the thing at a wrong direction:

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kim Sung-il was in the pilot's seat of one of Korea’s new F-15K fighter jets on Monday afternoon in a symbolic sortie high over Dokdo [disputed with Japan]... the aircraft with a top speed of Mach 2.5 could reach Dokdo from base in eight minutes... Air Force officials said the flight was symbolic of the Air Force’s determination to defend Dokdo."

No mention of its capabilities vis-a-vis North Korea in sight in the coverage by this supposedly conservative South Korean daily!

In all seriousness, this is a typical immature chest-thumping of a nouveau riche nation. Defend Dokdo from whom? If Japan were militarily serious about occupying Dokdo, the ROK military would need more than a handful of F-15K's whose crews have only recently been trained. In an actual war, the air and naval elements of the JSDF would blow the Korean military out of the "Eastern Sea."

And what exactly is the point of "needling" Japan here, if not to placate the delicate psyche of a self-esteem-challenged nation? (Hint, it's not Japan in this case.)

There used to be a phrase "First class people, second class country, third class government" (reputedly about 1960's Japan). Perhaps now that third moniker is appropriate for those setting defense policy in Seoul.

Rising Chinese Military Power

2006-01-04T00:53:00.000-05:00

Hudson Institute has released a new study of the rising military-technological capabilities of the PRC (full report here):

The study, China’s New Great Leap Forward: High Technology and Military Power in the Next Half-Century, addresses the growing scientific and technological sophistication of China’s economy and military and, accordingly, the implications for broad U.S. national security interests.

As U.S. foreign policy has shifted in focus since September 11 overwhelmingly toward the war against terror and in support of democratization in the Greater Middle East and Central Asia, the prospect of China’s emergence as a peer competitor to long-standing U.S. technological leadership, though widely discussed, has not been adequately analyzed. China’s New Great Leap Forward seeks to encourage serious discussion among both the general public and policymakers about the challenges of China’s anticipated development of weapons of greater complexity and power.

Angry Chinese Blogger has a pretty thorough analysis of the report, including this "side" issue (the accompanying -- and very telling -- graph here; h/t Simon World):

Other Areas of Concern

Though the Hudson institutes's report was primarily concerned with the impact that China's increasing military prowess may have on the US and its ability to influence Asian affairs, it did however also highlight a number of side issues that are likely to have far wider implications for America, and to be of concern to Chain watchers and non-China watchers alike.

Among the concerns highlighted by the Hudson Institute was the increasingly observable shift that has occurred in the Sino-US educational coefficient that has accompanied, and to some extent made possible, the advancement of China's military forces. As shift that has seen the number of Americans being trained in science, mathematics and engineering decreasing, while the number of Chinese, including those trained as foreign students in the US, has been steadily increasing.

One of the great mysteries of the situation is, of course, Chinese intention. The Chinese themselves have taken to using the term "peaceful rise." But there is much doubt as to whether that is the official and actual position of the Chinese leadership, given the internal struggle within the latter. Outside analysts (most notably the realist John Mearsheimer in his recent op-ed "The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful") have cast the rise of China as inherently expansionist and confrontational.

Furthermore, whatever the intentions may be of the current generation of the Chinese leadership, its future intentions are difficult to divine and complicated by the fact that the shape and form of the future Chinese party/state remains a question mark. Without knowing who will rule China ten, twenty years from now and in what form of government, one cannot easily answer any meaningful question about intent.

Without intent, we are left with capabilities. And the intelligence appears pretty clear in this regard -- the Chinese have been dramatically improving their power projection capabilities, if not globally, then certainly in the South China Sea and the vicinity.

And I share the Hudson report's one thesis -- the current US "transformation" is geared toward fighting the present War on Terror and may not be entirely appropriate for dealing with a rising Chinese "conventional" military power.

Wars have a habit of catching nations by surprise in both timing and form, and the US is not exception to this rule. While I have been largely a fan of "transformation," I must acknowledge that "betting the whole house" on a prediction that the next American war will also be against an "asymmetric" insurgent type foe is risky. What the US must do, then, is to maintain a diverse and flexible force that can deal with a range of widely divergent scenarios and contingencies, including one that foresees a now much-unfashionable state-to-state conventional conflict.

Such a force is expensive to maintain, to be sure, but one golden rule has not changed: deterrence is far less costly than war, usually in material terms and always in terms of human lives.

S. Korean Hit Film "Oldboy" Named Salon's 10 Best

2006-01-03T23:54:00.000-05:00

The Marmot's Hole reports that the hit Korean film "Oldboy" which won the second prize at Canne Festival in 2004 (under jurors headed by Quentin Tarantino, who awarded Michael Moore's repulsive propaganda piece "Fahrenheit 9/11" the top prize) was selected by Salon.com film critic Stephanie Zacharek as a top ten film in 2005.

Influential film critic Roger Ebert also raved about the film when it was released in the US. Ebert even goes on to say that "the Korean cinema... is considered in critical circles as one of the most creative in the world."

I finally had a chance to see the film just a few days ago, so I can now comment on it with firsthand experience. But why re-invent the wheel? My sentiment about the film is reflected well in the review of the film by Manohla Dargis of the NYT:

Given the body count and sadistic violence in "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Oldboy," it's no surprise that [the director] Mr. Park's largest fan base may be those cult-film aficionados for whom distinctions between high art and low are unknown, unrecognized and certainly unwelcome...

The screenplay, which the director helped write, is the least of the film's attractions; certainly the puerile, big-bang finish, which flashes the story back to high school and a teenage "slut," suggests that Mr. Park knows the adolescent mindset of his target audience all too well.

"Oldboy" is a good if trivial genre movie, no more, no less. There's no denying that Mr. Park is some kind of virtuoso, but so what? So was the last guy who directed a Gap commercial. Cinematic virtuosity for its own sake, particularly as expressed through cinematography - in loop-the-loop camera work and, increasingly, in computer-assisted ornamentation - is a modern plague that threatens to bury us in shiny, meaningless movies. Historically speaking, the most interesting thing about "Oldboy" is that like so much "product" now coming out of Hollywood, it is a B movie tricked out as an A movie. Once, a film like this, predicated on extreme violence and staying within the prison house of genre rather than transcending it, would have been shot on cardboard sets with two-bit talent. It would have had its premiere in Times Square.

The fact that "Oldboy" is embraced by some cinephiles is symptomatic of a bankrupt, reductive postmodernism: one that promotes a spurious aesthetic relativism (it's all good) and finds its crudest expression in the hermetically sealed world of fan boys. (At this point, it's perhaps worth pointing out that the head of the jury at Cannes last year was none other than Quentin Tarantino.) In this world, aesthetic and moral judgments - much less philosophical and political inquiries - are rejected in favor of a vague taxonomy of cool that principally involves ever more florid spectacles of violence. As in, "Wow, he's hammering those dudes with a knife stuck in his back - cool!" Or, "He's about to drop that guy and his dog from the roof - way cool!" Kiss-kiss, bang-bang, yawn-yawn. We are a long way from Pasolini and Peckinpah.

I love "cool" just as much as anyone, but devoid of any kind of meaning or purpose, other than entertainment for the sake of entertainment, "cool" by itself is just utterly hollow.

Though certainly crafted with much skill, I was disappointed by the film in the end. It reminded me so much of the rampant "success at any cost" and "success as an end in itself" mentality in South Korea.

North Korea's Vote in South Korean Election

2006-01-03T14:36:00.000-05:00

This isn't exactly news to those who have even a small modicum of knowledge about North Korea, but here it is:

A government-funded think tank says the two Koreas could agree on a fresh inter-Korean summit later this year because Pyongyang will want to swing the vote in South Korea’s next presidential election.

The Korea Institute for National Unification issued its 2006 report on Tuesday. "As North Korea prepares to celebrate the 95th birthday of Kim Il-sung on April 15, 2007, an agreement on a North-South summit could be achieved in the second half of this year because of a desire by the North to influence the South Korean presidential election," it predicts.

The report says North Korea is also likely to exert influence in various ways to make sure that the progressive camp wins regional elections on May 31 this year, including pushing for a "coalition of national unity" that sidelines conservatives [boldfaces mine].

All the more reason for South Koreans to go conservative this year, finally, and try to avert the looming dissolution of the US-ROK alliance.

Broken Credit in Japan

2006-01-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

It isn't only the US where the credit card system has gone amok. In Japan, too, banks are becoming careless enough to give credit to those without income (!):

The unemployed woman, 36, applied for loans from several credit companies. Despite the fact that she didn't fill in the income section of loan contract forms because she has no income, a number of the credit businesses granted her loans...

The loans she received from five loan businesses total about 6.5 million yen. She tried to get money to repay the loans through several methods such as pawning the kimono, and has repaid about 1.8 million yen, her lawyer said.

Contrary to the "saving is good for the country" mantra, the Japanese consumers' unwillingness to spend has long stalled Japan's recovery, which is slowly beginning (h/t RCP). So I guess when a consumer requests credit to buy something, Japanese lending companies are only too eager to provide it without much risk analysis, leading to such an absurd episode.

And, in a side note, who'd thunk that rampant consumerism of Americans would be the saving grace of the economy!

"Experienced" Tax Cheats Only, Please

2006-01-03T14:16:00.000-05:00

Heh, I love this headline: "Virgin affiliate rapped for avoiding taxes."

Happy New Year

2006-01-03T14:13:00.000-05:00

My New Year's resolutions are here, including the following:

6. Release my inner dandy.
When I was living in NYC and other large urban areas, I thought I dressed pretty well. Since getting married and, living in, ahem, "conservatively-attired" Iowa and "relaxed" (read "grungy") Seattle, my fashion sense has declined (well, I kinda stopped caring, I guess, since I am functionally-minded, and I am already married as mentioned before).
The truth is that, while I aspire to this, I now look more like this.
I don't think I'll ever be like this, but maybe I can reach for the "classic dad" look (does one have to be an actual dad to look like that?). Don't know whether I can afford his clothes though, seeing as his favorite stores are "Casa dello Sport in Firenze and Marinella in Napoli."

No Santa for you!

2005-12-24T21:57:00.000-05:00

Normally, I try to keep this page very "business-like" and reserve the wacky stuff for my other blog "Guns and Butter Blog."

But since this is Christmas, I give you some joviality -- the American gun-nut Santa-hater's Christmas pictures!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

General Motors doesn't get it

2005-12-21T19:19:00.000-05:00

G.M.'s chief goes on and on about "unfair" advantages foreign competitors have, especially the Japanese auto makers.

The fact is I -- and many other American buyers -- shy away from Detroit-made cars, because they are badly-engineered and produced. Even as the reliability of American-made cars improves (to the point where it is now on a par with that for European cars -- but that's another story), there still remains a rather sizable gap in quality, reliability and ergonomics between Japanese and American vehicles. My guess is that even if outwardly similar Japanese cars sell for a sizable premium, many buyers, including Americans, would still continue to buy Japanese rather than American (cars are a major purchase that affects daily lives -- most people don't want to be stuck with unreliable vehicles at almost any price).

This isn't really Japan vs. U.S. issue per se, however. Toyota and Honda make outstanding, reliable and popular, not to mention highly profitable, vehicles right here in the U.S. of A with American workers. Clearly the issues are ones of management and corporate culture.

In other words, G.M. suffers not because Japan is "unfairly" advantageous over the U.S. or because American workers are lazier than Japanese ones. It suffers because G.M., as an individual corporation, is uncompetitive compared to Toyota and Honda. There just isn't a substitute for leadership and good management, and any government bailout of G.M. would mask rather than fix its woes... at a great cost to the taxpayers.

Chinese eminent domain turns violent, part 2

2005-12-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

WaPo has been doing pretty good reporting on the issue of increasing confrontations between rural villagers and the corrupt Chinese rural government bureaucracy.

I blogged about one of its stories previously. Now there is a follow-up. Some choice bits:

Two weeks after a protest that culminated in gunfire and bloodshed, the rebellious farmers and fishermen of Dongzhou have been reduced to submission. Authorities have sealed off the seaside village and flooded its streets and lanes with police patrols, residents said, and an unknown number of men have been summoned by a knock on the door and hauled away for interrogation...

After setting up an investigation, police typically pay rewards to those willing to denounce their neighbors. Protesters have described being taken into custody and suffering excruciating pain at the hands of interrogators who try to force them to admit criminal actions during the rioting...

For years, the relentless pursuit of those who challenge the state's authority has impeded the development of anti-government movements. But loyalty toward the state, particularly among peasants, has diminished in recent years, and repressive tactics have become less effective...

The Public Security Ministry has acknowledged that the number of riots has risen sharply in China, reaching more than 70,000 in 2004 and developing into a major concern for the government. But the violence in Dongzhou stood out because police used their guns. Most of the recent uprisings have been suppressed by riot police armed with tear gas and truncheons. People's Armed Police, who carry automatic weapons, rarely have been deployed [boldface mine].

Unless there is a major restructuring of the way rural China is administered, I see no chance that this trend will subside. Repressive measures will be effective in the short-term, but will make the rural population more sullen and disloyal (the ChiComs ought to remember why the rural population turned against the Nationalists, then in power, back in the days of the civil war). At this point, I don't see the Chinese leadership engaging in any substantive changes.

The ChiComs once considered the rural areas their ocean (and themselves as the fish) and kept a close eye on the hearts and minds of villagers. Now, like the Nationalists before them, they have become a corrupt, greedy, elitist urban power. I do not think the folks who are occupied with fine dining and shopping of Beijing or Shanghai really understand how the peasants live and feel in dirt poor rural areas.

They don't seem to realize that rising living standards in China's cities are feeding a great deal of expectations in rural areas via mass media -- expectations that are clearly not being met due to lopsided economic development and persistent and pervasive government corruption.

As I stated before, I believe the Communist Party has a much more tenuous grip on the country than outwardly appears to be the case. The rural discontent may die down for a while due to concerted, repressive measures, but will simmer and brew until the next spark ignites. When that occurs next time, I predict the violence will be worse.

By themselves, urban dissidents have not been effective in challenging the Party, but I suspect that should they start spreading to the rural areas and provide ideological and intellectual underpinning to such discontent, not to mention organizational acumen, the picture will change drastically. And should that occur, it will be poetic justice to the Communist Party that came to power by precisely the same way.

The origin of the Na clan

2005-12-20T12:31:00.000-05:00

I am always fascinated by the origin of family names, including that of my own. DPRK Studies has an entry about Korean surnames and inspired me to dust out some Na clan lore I found on the Net a while back.

Behold the power of the Internet!

First, the Na entry in ancestry.com shows that there were possibly dozen or so Na folks in the U.S. in the 1920's. I find this highly unlikely, but government records say so, so it must be true. The same site has this info on the Na name:

Korean: there is only one Chinese character for the Na surname. Some sources indicate that there are 46 different Na clans, but only two of them can be documented, and it is believed that these two sprang from a common founding ancestor. The Na clan’s founding ancestor, Na Pu, migrated from China sometime during the mid-seventh century and settled in the Naju area.

So my family origin is Chinese, eh? Not quite. Here is some info about a mosque (!) in China built by the Na clan:

Najiahu, meaning “neighborhood of the Na family”, is the name of a famous northwest Chinese Muslim mosque in a Hui-inhabited village in Yinchuan’s Yongning County. The Nas are the descendants of a Mongol aristocrat who settled in Yinchuan during the Yuan Dynasty. During the Ming and Qing dynasties the neighborhood of the Na family wa an economic and cultural center for local Muslims... The buildings on the premises are adorned with numerous boards and couplets with calligraphic inscriptions on them, one of which tells of the origin of the Na family and the mosque itself: “My family left Qing (center China) and moved to Western Xia, and built this temple during the Jiajing reign.” After receiving repeated facelifts, the mosque is now opened for cultural and religious exchanges with foreign countries.

So my clan is Muslim! No, not really either. But it is corroborated by many other sources (not just ones on the Net) that the Na clan indeed descends from a Mongol nobleman of the Jenghiz Khan era (note the Yuan Dynasty, 1279-1368 AD, mentioned in the text above was established in China by Kublai Khan, the grandson of Jenghiz).

I am pretty sure my "aristocrat" ancestor was some 13th Century illiterate Mongol thug who rode with the Mongol horde and made it big as the power of the Mongol Empire came to stretch from the Danube to the Bering Sea. Funny how pretty much all aristocratic families actually originate from illiterate bandits, petty chiefs or strongmen -- even most European royalty and nobility come from Germanic raiders of the post-Roman Empire variety, their present pomp and sense of (self-) importance notwithstanding.

Then there is this family memorial gate in South Korea:

This gate is a jeongmun, a gate especially designed to pay public tribute to three generations of the Naju Na clan which, beginning with Na Sa-chim, included two cited for loyalty, two cited for filial piety, and four women cited for their womanly virtue.

Yup, that's us, loyal, pious and virtuous. In any case, there are more pictures of this structure here, which say:

This small shrine was constructed by the Naju Na family in 1722 to commemorate Na Sachim, magistrate of Iseong, and seven other members of the Na family from three generations.

There was another bit of Net info on the family origin I found, but unfortunately the link is no longer active. It was some sort of a scholarly study done about the Central Asian and even West Asian (Middle Eastern!) origins of some Korean families. In it, there was a mention of a Na, reputedly the ancestor of the modern Nas in Korea. He was apparently a Mongol warrior and nobleman who accompanied a Mongol princess who was sent off to marry a Korean (Koryo Dynasty, 918-1392 AD) crown prince (the Mongol Empire defeated Koryo, made it a protectorate and made its crown princes marry Mongol princesses to ensure loyalty).

There are also some Web documents in Korean about the family origin (here and here).

Much of this information is in conflict with the family lore I heard growing up as well as some of the genealogy studies I read. But what is clear is that the family goes back at least to the 13th Century for sure, and possibly to the 7th Century (that makes my family at least 1300 years old!). And now there are and will be American Nas!

Now go look for your own family stuff on the Net!

McDonald Socialists

2005-12-20T12:11:00.000-05:00

Simon World continues its excellent coverage of the WTO conference in Hong Kong as well as the often silly protesters surrounding it.

One case, in particular, illuminates the mindset of the modern, young anti-capitalist protester, the McDonald Socialist^tm(h/t Simon World):

This is why I was surprised to see a protester holding a rolled up flag eating lunch in a McDonalds in Causeway Bay.

I bumped into him later during the march to Wan Chai. He was holding a red flag with "Revolution" written on it, the name of his group, marching with members of the Australian Socialist Party.

Mark Boothroyd, 20, said that he had to eat somewhere, and that it was not the individual companies that were the problem, but the economic system as a whole. And "I had to eat," he said (boldface mine).

Greg Bradshaw, 21, reinforced his point. "We're not against hamburgers," he said. "The problem is capitalist society."

Oh, I see, it's not corporations, you see, it's the whole capitalist society. Tell me, Comrade, in which communist society have you seen the likes of McDonald's arise?

And the remark "I had to eat" explains precisely why these anti-capitalist protesters are from, by and large, highly prosperous capitalist societies. That's because people in poor countries are thankful, yes, thankful, that there is more free trade in the world. Precisely because they are hungry all the time (and not just after a "good" day of protesting back at the hotel), they crave economic development, trade and, yes, foreign corporations like McDonald's that create economic activities and jobs.

On the other hand, well-fed kids with chic socialist ideals from first-world countries are precisely the kind of people who often engage in this kind of protest, because they really don't know what it's like to live in poverty. They don't know what it is like when there is little trade, no market-efficient and -driven corporations to provide well-paying jobs and a host of other amenities that they take for granted, all made possible by the capitalist system they seemingly abhor.

So maybe capitalists don't sell the rope with which to hang them. They merely clothe, feed, entertain, transport and provide jobs for those who call for their destruction. Or simply put, they just hand the rope to their bratty kids to hang their parents. Viva la revolución del estúpido, eh?

The missionary and the defector

2005-12-19T04:37:00.000-05:00

The NYT has a brief take on the efforts of South Korean missionaries to convert North Koreans and Chinese.

This being The NYT, the tone of the piece is mostly negative. The piece emphasizes some of the frictions and miscommunication between missionaries and defectors, and ignores the big elephant in the story -- that just as the abolition movement in the U.S. before the Civil War was fired by Christian religious zeal, so are many South Korean (and American) missionaries who brave enormous risks to smuggle out North Korean defectors to freedom through the new underground railroad (meanwhile the rest of of the world is largely sitting on its collective behind, ignoring a massive human tragedy ensuing in the world's largest prison that is North Korea).

Still, there are some interesting bits in the piece:

With a nearly 30 percent Christian population, the South [Korea] has the world's second largest missionary movement, after the United States, with 14,000 people abroad. An estimated 1,500 are deployed in China, evangelizing secretly and illegally among Chinese and among North Koreans living in China - a population that various estimates say ranges from 10,000 to as many as 300,000. South Korean missionaries shelter North Koreans and have brought thousands here to the South; others train them to return home to proselytize, as well as smuggle Bibles into the North.

And the following quotes should delight leftist materialists everywhere:

"My wife was never a party member, so it was easier for her to accept Christianity," he said. "I was a party member for 10 years, and they indoctrinated us with the party ideology. When I hear Christian preaching, it sounds similar to the party teachings. Christians praise God, but North Koreans praise Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il," the founder of the North Korean state and his son, the current leader. "At least, they are mortal and we can see them. In Christianity, they ask me to praise the Lord, whom we cannot even see."

As with other corrupt, repressive dictatorships, this particular defector's tale also demonstrates that life can be good for the elites in such societies:

... Mr. Park made money in the growing unofficial trade between North Korea and China. A strong swimmer, he smuggled people back and forth across the Tumen River, charging about $60 for the 30-minute swim and sometimes making as much as $1,000 a month. He often bribed a North Korean intelligence official to protect him.

At the time, while most people in his town counted themselves lucky if they ate three meals of corn a day, he and his family ate chicken, pork and rice daily. He said that he liked the freedom and opportunities in South Korea, but that he missed his relatives and the power he had back home.

"Here I'm just a follower, but over there I was a leader," the defector said. "It's not because I was a party member, but because capitalism is creeping into North Korea, if you have a lot of money, you can have power."

Except without a genuine rule of law, it really isn't capitalism, because the government comes knocking:

But in the middle of one night, in 1999, the friendly intelligence officer woke him up. He told Mr. Park that he had been implicated in a case and warned him to flee to China. With his wife, seven months pregnant with their second child, Mr. Park swam across the river, barely making it to the other side. A month later, he returned to North Korea one last time, to get his older daughter and money for a lattice machine for his wife.

That's what happens when there are no constraints on the government, when there is no freedom. One might do well economically, enjoy power and then suddenly -- WOOSH! -- the secret police shows up and throws one in a gulag, never to be seen again. People who cry "police state" about the U.S. have absolutely no idea what a real police state is.

Korean scientific ethics, part 2

2005-12-16T00:20:00.000-05:00

Earlier I wrote about Dr. Hwang Woo-suk and what he exemplifies about the modern South Korean society.

Now even the NYT is waking up to Dr. Hwang's fraud, which keeps unraveling.

This is what you get when science is divorced from morality. To repeat:

First of all, no human endeavor of any kind is its own world unto itself. Just as church sex abuse isn't just a religious matter, but a matter of law for the society at large, ethical lapses in the scientific world aren't just scientific issues, they are also about the morality of the society at large.

[Update: WaPo is on it too.]

Finding money on the street, the Tokyo version

2005-12-15T23:33:00.000-05:00

Back in the days before I was an American, I'd find some currency on the ground in Asia. Being a good little boy, I'd drop by the local police station to declare the lost bills and ask that the police find the owners of the said currency.

Thinking back on it, I think I was contributing to the metro police coffee fund. Perhaps I should've kept those bills for plastic toy kits or whatever else I was interested in at the moment.

In any case, something similar happened to a Tokyo man recently. Only, this being the age of electronic volume trading, his dumb luck came to 563 million Yen (according to this little handy tool, that comes to about $4.74 million at today's interbank rate):

A 24-year-old man made a profit of 563 million yen after buying thousands of shares mistakenly offered for only 1 yen each in a massive botched stock trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a report has shown.

The man, a resident of Tokyo's Minato-ku, cashed in on the error after snapping up 3,701 J-Com shares mistakenly offered by Mizuho Securities Co. at a price of 1 yen for 610,000 shares instead of one share for 610,000 yen, a report submitted to the Kanto Local Finance Bureau showed.

I am guessing, however, that the man isn't returning the loot. He is not required to do so by law in any case:

The Japan Securities Dealers Association plans to ask securities firms to return profits made on the botched sale, but it has exempted individuals from the request.

Let the seller beware, too, eh?

Keynote speech for North Korea human rights summit

2005-12-14T07:15:00.001-05:00

[No explanation necessary; the speech says it all]

Keynote Speech for Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea
Remarks by Suzanne Scholte – December 8, 2005

I am deeply honored to be a part of this Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea and thank the Organizing Commitee and Freedom House for asking me to be one of your key note speakers. It is an especially great honor to be here with you with a man I greatly honor and respect, Hwang Jang-yop, who has been such an outspoken leader and champion for the North Korean people. He has inspired so many of us in our common cause for North Korea freedom. I also appreciate sharing this opportunity with my brother, Kim Seung-Min, who has been a brave and courageous leader among the North Korean defectors.

Read the whole thing here.

[Update: Scholte forwarded me the entire text, which I promptly displayed in its entirety, but since Joshua at OFK has a nice page with a photo of Scholte "throwing it down" at the power that be, I'm sending the readers there.]

WTO in Hong Kong

2005-12-14T07:11:00.000-05:00

I have nothing to add to the excellent coverage from the big blogger who lives there.

Once was an Asian

2005-12-12T10:13:00.000-05:00

My latest Seattle Times column is up.

By James J. Na
Special to The Times

THE Christmas season is upon us again. For many, the holidays are about getting together with family and reflecting upon the year.

As a naturalized American, I ponder the parents and relatives I left behind in Asia and my life since immigrating to the United States. To borrow Adm. James Stockdale's immortal words at the 1992 vice presidential debate: "Who am I? Why am I here?"

Although I celebrate being a Constitution-thumping, ruggedly individualistic American, this is one time of the year when I think wistfully about a land that is now foreign to me, people who are strangers, and a language I once spoke that no longer feels as natural as English does.

Read the rest here.

Chinese eminent domain turns violent

2005-12-09T00:18:00.000-05:00

There has been much rural unrest in China in the recent years. As the coastal cities grow prosperous, many oppressed, poverty-stricken rural migrants have flocked to cities looking for work. Those who remain behind have become increasingly strident and angry at the corruption and repression of the Communist Party.

Things have finally come to blows. WaPo reports that the Chinese police have begun to suppress such outbursts of discontent with gunfire while the protesters have also notched up the level of violence from rocks to Molotov cocktails.

The latest row seems to have originated from a Chinese version of the eminent domain controversy:

The long-simmering conflict in Dongzhou arose over disputed confiscations and what farmers here said were inadequate compensation payments. Authorities exercising the equivalent of eminent domain seized farmers' fields to build a wind-driven electric generating plant on a hillside overlooking the village. The plant would be part of a $700 million electricity development project to supply the growing power needs of Shanwei and surrounding towns and villages.

Villagers, contacted by telephone, complained that the compensation was inadequate. Moreover, they charged, the power plant would spoil fishing in Baisha Lake, a tidal inlet just below the hill on which villagers rely for seafood.

The confrontation was typical of the tension across China between economic development, which runs about 9 percent a year, and farmers' desire to retain the land that they regard as security for their families. The tension is particularly acute here in Guangdong province and the Pearl River Delta, where during the past two decades of economic liberalization, factories and dormitories have steadily eaten away at the rice paddies, corn fields and fruit orchards that used to flourish in the warm, wet climate.

For most of this year, Dongzhou villagers have been protesting on and off against the power plant project, originally scheduled to be finished in 2007 but now delayed. One protest leader, surnamed Huang, was arrested in July...

The villagers, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the current round of violence was set off when authorities arrested three village leaders who had gone to the hillside plant site Tuesday afternoon to lodge a complaint. Before long, they said, several thousand villagers gathered on the hilltop to demand their release.

Those villagers were dispersed by volleys of teargas fired by police, residents said. But shortly afterward, authorities dispatched between 400 and 500 more riot police into the village as reinforcements, the residents said. That contingent was met by several thousand angry villagers, they added, and police again resorted to teargas about dusk. This time, however, some villagers reacted by pelting police with the explosives, according to witnesses, and the police responded with sustained pistol and automatic weapons fire over the following three hours.

Bursts of organized violence are funny things. We expect people to launch revolutions based on lofty ideals, but events like mass protest and revolts often grown out of seemingly insignificant, unrelated triggers. For example, the first Intifada by the Palestinians (more spontaneous, grassroots uprising compared to the "Second Intifada" or "Al-Aqsa Intifada" which was more cynically launched by the "leadership") was triggered by a traffic accident.

I am by no means suggesting that this is the beginning of a new Chinese revolution against communism. What I am suggesting, however, is that a seemingly "simple" event can trigger a widespread political violence and uprising if there are sufficient conditions in existence already. My personal view is that the Communist Party has a much more tenuous grip on the country than it appears. So I would not be surprised, if China were to undergo a tumultuous upheaval in the near future all because of a seemingly minor confrontation.

[UPDATE] See Part 2 here.

S. Koreans favor torture

2005-12-08T00:37:00.000-05:00

From MSNBC (h/t Charles Ganske):

In America, 61 percent of those surveyed agreed torture is justified at least on rare occasions. Almost nine in 10 in South Korea and just over half in France and Britain felt that way [boldface mine].

Didn't I write earlier that -- stereotypically-speaking -- Koreans are pretty amoral, result-oriented folks?

I think the poll was flawed. It did not ask them about a special case in which the Imperialist Yankee GI^tm would be torturing a South Korean national. I suspect the 9-in-10 ratio would reverse rather fast in that case. Blood is thicker than reason in ROK, eh?

A day that will live in infamy

2005-12-07T22:46:00.000-05:00

It began like this:
But eventually ended like this:

Now Japan is not only one of America's best allies in the world, it is one of the richest and the most democratic. What kind of "imperialists" ever created such a nation out of their once vanquished, mortal foe?

The terrorists from the Middle East started this current war, but it too will end one day with our victory. And the Middle East will also become less repressive and more economically vibrant. Doubtless, others will still call us an "imperial power," but we will rest satisfied knowing that in the process of strengthening our own security through our just war, we did not subjugate or colonize others, but freed and enriched them for mutual benefit.

Just ask the Germans and the Japanese.

.asia in, .xxx still out

2005-12-07T02:05:00.000-05:00

Apparently, there is a thing called the "Asia-Pacific community" that needed to be "unified":

The quasi-governmental organization that oversees the Internet has tentatively approved a ".asia" Web domain to unify the Asia-Pacific community, but the group has delayed a decision on whether to move forward with a ".xxx" zone for pornography sites.

At its annual meeting this past weekend in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers took up several topics related to the global administration of the Internet, which has become a heated topic because the U.S. has insisted on maintaining oversight.

The new ".asia." domain would supplement suffixes available for individual countries, such as ".cn" for China and ".jp" for Japan. ICANN earlier approved ".eu" for the European Union; registrations for that begin Wednesday.

Read the rest on your own.

China-Vietnam: "It's a bit like the United States and Mexico"

2005-12-06T01:40:00.000-05:00

What do you do when you are businessman in China (who are now welcome to join the "Communist" Party) who faces growing competition and higher labor costs?

In the first years, wages in impoverished Henan ran as little as $12 per month. But as China has boomed and factories proliferated, wages climbed, reaching about $72 at the Henan factory. At the same time, China's appetite for energy has exceeded its generation capacity, forcing factories such as Li's to shut down during key hours.

Answer: you go to Vietnam:

So, much as capitalists have always done, Li went looking for an easier place to profit. He ventured south of the border, putting up a factory here in a new industrial park in northern Vietnam, where wages are roughly one-third cheaper than at home and where workplace safety and environmental standards are in scant evidence.

"The competition in China is intense, and the investment in Vietnam made sense," Li said, sitting in his air-conditioned, glass-fronted office, as 500 workers toiled in an adjacent factory bay amid the clatter of machinery and the smell of melting plastic. "In this area, workers have a hard time finding jobs. They are happy for any work, and they are willing to eat a lot of bitterness."

"Eat bitterness"? Such as the following I guess:

"Here, the workers can really accept hardship," said Qing Song, deputy general manager at Lifan Vietnam, a motorcycle factory opened outside Hanoi by a Chinese company. "Whatever requirements you set out for them in a day, they meet."

At the factory on a recent afternoon, men uncoiled sheaths of aluminum without protective gloves, while others operated heavy machinery without goggles or earplugs. The work went on beneath corrugated aluminum ceilings in poorly ventilated structures. Men in flip-flops used a donkey cart to move bricks to a construction site.

Question: where do Vietnamese go when it becomes too competitive and high-priced? Laos?

Korean scientific ethics

2005-12-05T23:23:00.000-05:00

The bioethics world has been stirred by the ethics lapse admission from the leading scientist working on cloning/stem cell research, Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk of Seoul National University (see a previous entry on my old site about why South Korea is a leading force in such research).

Michael Look has some of the sordid details:

Researchers who want to clone human embryos and create stem cells are facing the biggest public relations disaster in the history of their fledgling science. Their most acclaimed colleague, Hwang Woo-suk, of Seoul National University, has admitted that he lied about his compliance with ethical protocols. It was a devastating blow: Hwang's team had been the first to successfully clone human embryos, the first to clone a dog, the first to create embryonic stem cell lines. Now a shadow had been cast over his work.

"I am very sorry that I have to tell the public words that are too shameful and horrible," he told a packed press conference. "The world gasped in awe when I first showed the results of my research. I felt a national pride and tasted the confidence that we Koreans could achieve things too," he said. "I was blinded by work and my drive for achievement." Hwang has now resigned from all public posts and has slipped away to a remote Buddhist temple to reflect on all that has happened [boldface mine].

Sounds like he's contrite, right? Wrong:

Koreans are masters of rhetorical self-abasement and Hwang's self-criticism is somewhat exaggerated. His misdemeanour was fairly minor. Despite explicit assertions that the eggs for his research had been donated by generous Korean women, he actually purchased most of them from needy women. Two of his subordinates donated eggs as well. There were persistent rumours of this but the issue came to a head when he denied them in an interview with the journal Nature. In fact, he had done nothing illegal under South Korean law, although since then selling eggs has been banned in South Korea.
In fact, in the eyes of most of his countrymen and women, Hwang is not a criminal but a national hero. Hundreds of indignant women have volunteered to donate their eggs to further his research. Korean politicians have muttered that his humiliation was engineered by jealous Americans. A Korean bioethicist contends that "we have our different social and cultural context, so we have to formulate our own bioethics." (1) [bold face mine.]

Does this remind one of Lee Kuan-Yew-style "Asians are different" routine? Funny, I always thought right and wrong/good and evil are pretty clear and universal.

As for Dr. Hwang, I guess the apology was a mere show:

But Prof. Hwang Woo-suk has been through much in recent weeks: he has been hounded by investigative reporters, apologized for ethical lapses as he pushed ahead with ground-breaking research, and quit all his official posts. It has now been 11 days since he told his inner circle, "I hate the world," and left the city for the respite of a secluded country home...

"In this climate, I've started to wonder what hope there is for scientific research," he says. But then a plea for patience: "With the situation being what it is, please wait. Once things calm down, and science can once again be seen as science."

Hwang does not conceal his sense that he has been unfairly accused and hurt by the controversy stirred by "PD Diary" and its overzealous questioning of his research. "I don't understand why non-scientific parties are involving themselves in scientific matters," he says. "Science has an independent path to follow, and its own process." [boldface all mine.]

Now we are apparently past the abject apology phase and into the the "world-is-an-evil-place-for-pure-minded-scienists" phase, also known as "I-didn't-do-anything-wrong, I-am-a-victim" phase.

First of all, no human endeavor of any kind is its own world unto itself. Just as church sex abuse isn't just a religious matter, but a matter of law for the society at large, ethical lapses in the scientific world aren't just scientific issues, they are also about the morality of the society at large.

In this regard, I think there are some unfortunate elements in the psychology of the South Korean society. Having emerged from the devastation of the Korean War to enormous economic and technological successes, South Koreans are justly proud of their accomplishments. Unfortunately, this drive for success also came with the "results-at-all-costs" mentality where law, morality or simply any basic sense of right and wrong are shunted aside in the name of success and accomplishment. So you have collapsing buildings (due to flimsy construction), corruption in politics and business and ethical violations in scientific research.

In the traditional Korean society, there was a thing as public shame, an example for all, especially for the students and the young ones to edify on moral grounds. Now South Korea's society has aped our American celebrity culture where doing wrong is either okay or a mere temporary setback that will just blow over in "a little while" so wrong-doers can go back to what they were doing so long as they are successful at it. Only, South Koreans are doing so without also aping the traditional Western (I dare say Christian) notions of fairplay, gentlemanliness, chivalry and charity.

What you have in the end, then, is a gross distortion of the negative aspects of success-oriented Americanism without the redeeming qualities of American culture that balance such tendencies: it's the worst of both worlds.

[Update: The NYT is on him too, with additional allegations of fraud.]

Japan, a nation of gun makers?

2005-12-02T04:10:00.000-05:00

Simon World spots this Asia Times Online dreck on Japanese gun exports:

The international annual publication, the Small Arms Survey, for example, reported that in 2002 Japan exported $65 million worth of small arms which, in monetary terms, ranks Japan among the top eight exporters of small arms worldwide for that year. [8]

The Japanese government evades this issue by contending that "hunting guns and sport guns are not regarded as 'arms'," [9] and therefore the self-imposed ban on arms exports only applies to guns of a military specification. This raises the question of what differentiates a military specification gun from a sporting or hunting weapon. However, the Japanese Ministry for Export, Trade and Industry (METI) provides no comprehensive definition. Instead it decides on a case-by-case basis whether a weapon should be defined as being of military specification...

Each year small arms kill about 500,000 people around the world. So great is their impact on human security that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan observed, "In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as 'weapons of mass destruction'."

First of all, I think it is over-the-top to blame Japan's exports of fine hunting rifles and shotguns for small arms deaths around the world. Secondly, it is absolutely asinine to suggest that small arms are what are killing people. No. Other people are killing people -- for greed, money, resources, religion, land, ideas and so on. Guns, like clubs, rocks, knives, tanks, are facilitators of violence. In turn, whether violence is good or bad depends on context. Violence in defense of the innocent against the depredations of evil is good. Violence in context of thieving and murdering is bad.

The funny thing about it is that I often say "I wish the Japanese made more guns and exported them to the U.S." Look how the Japanese auto industry has contributed to the competition in the global and American auto markets and helped to improve quality and lower prices.

As it stands, I have to choose between reliable, but pricey European guns or sometimes unreliable American-made guns (not referring to U.S. military arms). Wouldn't infusion of the gun industry equivalents of Honda and Toyota be simply tremendous? One can only wish.

Jackie Chan, cultural warrior (updated)

2005-11-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

Isn't naming oneself "Jackie" for the Western audience merely succumbing to American/Anglophone cultural imperialism one is railing against?

Barf on Jackie Chan. He is a hypocrite. I didn't see him rail against American cultural imperialism when Hollywood paid him millions to put him in films or when he appeared in the Oscars ceremony.

Or perhaps he's merely sucking up to his CCP overlords now that Hong Kong is a part of the PRC. Either way, it's repugnant.

It's really very simple. It's called buyer's choice. Don't like American cultural imports? Don't buy them, period. And, please, please, don't steal our intellectual property by illegally copying and selling it on the streets. It's an insult for a Chinese film star to blather about American cultural imperialism while millions are stolen from the creativity of American artists and companies by Chinese intellectual property pirates.

[Update] Check out these little factoids about Jackie Chan, the recently stout defender of Chinese culture:

In 1989, he was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire by the British Government for Hong Kong/ Commonwealth...

In 1990, he was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Minister of Culture and
Communication...

Underwent plastic surgery in 1976 to re-shape his eyelids, giving him a more "Western" appearance [boldface mine]. The final film with the old-look Chan is Shao Lin mu ren xiang (1976)...

His role models are Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, all of which were more important to him as a child than any martial arts star, the latter label he was basically forced into at a very young age...

Salary
Rush Hour 2 (2001) $15,000,000+ gross points
Shanghai Noon (2000) $5,000,000

I guess American culture wasn't so imperialistic when its film industry was giving Chan $15 million plus gross points! ("You culturally imperalist Americans! Oh, $15 million plus gross points? I guess I can lower myself to work with you then.").

The sad thing about it is that Asian cinema is beginning to have a lot of impact on the West, particularly Hollywood. Culture is a fluid, dynamic thing. It travels, influences each other and hybridizes (in fact, that's kinda what America is all about).

Koreans are from America, Japanese are from England

2005-11-30T02:23:00.000-05:00

Why Korean soap operas are more compelling than Japanese ones (via Simon World):

For me what stands out the most is the very, very high production values of the popular Korean shows - there simply is no discernable gap between them and those made in Japan, with all being shot in gloriously vivid HDTV detail - as well as the expressiveness of the acting: to indulge a stereotype or two, where the Japanese are said to be the British of East Asia, all reticence and understatement, Koreans might be said to be the regional equivalents of Americans, direct and unafraid to tell you exactly what they feel about anything on their minds, and this comes across in an almost exaggerated fashion in the TV shows being made in both countries.

Read the rest on your own.

Kazakh Gov't Gets Humor

2005-11-30T02:16:00.000-05:00

Borat is by far my favorite TV character today (question: is HBO renewing "Da Ali G Show"?). I actually hooked almost the entire male staff of Discovery Institute (you know, the folks who kinda pay me, sort of) on it. So much for right-wingers not having a sense of humor.

Anyhoo, this fictional character offended the Kazakh government apparently, but now its officials are getting the humor (via Registan.net).

Hello Kitty, the American version

2005-11-30T01:23:00.000-05:00

This ought to sell well in East Asia, where even grown-up women revel in Hello Kitty stuff, eh? I might have to get one for my better half (she's not Asian, but plays one rather convincingly).

Lest anyone forgets, my other blog is called, afterall, Guns and Butter.

Meet China's Nick Leeson

2005-11-30T00:09:00.000-05:00

Remember Nick Leeson, the destroyer of the ancient Barings Bank? His story was even made into an HBO film starring Ewan McGregor called "Rogue Trader."

Now comes China's version of Nick Leeson:

China on Thursday acknowledged that a since-detained government trader placed a series of disastrous bets on the price of copper in London this summer, leaving the state to cover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, according to a report in official Chinese media.

As rumors of the scandal filtered out this month, China first denied the existence of the trader, and then branded him a rogue operator. Thursday's report in the official China Daily newspaper suggests that the Communist Party-led government has resolved to take responsibility for a scandal that has roiled commodity markets while renewing fundamental questions about the transparency of the fast-growing economy.

This seems to be the standard PRC PR/damage control operating procedure: first deny, then grudgingly admit, but shift blame.

Anyhow, more on the Chinese Nick Leeson:

But where Leeson was a highflying renegade, Liu Qibing, 36, a career Communist Party functionary, seems an unlikely maverick capitalist. Since graduating from Wuhan University in his native province of Hubei in 1990, he has worked at the National Control Centre, an institution that dates back to China's central planning days, according to a report in the China Securities Journal.

Well, Barings was an old, prestigious institution too (as the only non-Jewish bank in England, it was the one to which many anti-Semitic British nobles flocked to conduct financial affairs).

Liu soon amassed a reputation as a savvy navigator of the markets. According to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, he netted the state more than $300 million by betting on a sharp appreciation in the price of copper between 2002 and 2004, correctly assuming that the country's construction boom would translate into escalating demand.

But this year, he got it wrong, underscoring the difficulties of forecasting in an economy that is increasingly capitalist yet still subject to the often secret dictates of its Communist Party leaders.

I actually think that the parallels are striking. Both Barings and NCC were "old school" places whose leaders probably did not and could not understand what their respective rogue traders were doing. Both organizations were probably excited and enthused by the young mavericks who seemed to generate money as if by magic, using new tools and technology.

As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true...

Caveat emptor and welcome to capitalism, comrades!

Bruce Lee Remembered

2005-11-28T22:34:00.000-05:00

Reader Josh Dill writes:

James, a couple events took place recently regarding a Chinese world icon. Bruce Lee’s birthday was Sunday Nov. 27th. Hong Kong unveiled a statue honoring Bruce Lee, and also Bosnia unveiled their bronze statue of Bruce Lee in the city of Mostar.
King 5 covered the local Bruce Lee gathering at the gravesite.
Taky Kimura, Bruce’s friend, is my instructor. I see him three times a week and he is the most humble man I know, just an amazing human being. Anyway I believe that the decision in Bosnia to erect a statue of Bruce Lee in an effort to bring together opposing parties is just remarkable.

A few points. Lee was an American world icon, not a "Chinese" one. Yes, he was ethnic Chinese and, yes, he made lots of Hong Kong martial arts classics. But he was born in San Francisco, attended the University of Washington and was eventually buried in Seattle by his wife Linda. A figure like him could not have risen in Asia. He was a hybrid of cultures, that quintessential American creation.

However, I must admit that he was the first Asian-American to be "cool" in the pop culture. Before him it was all Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. After him, it was possible for an Asian to be cool in America (as I am fond of saying about "Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story," starring Jason Scott Lee, "What's there not to like about this story? An Asian kicks ass, marries a hot blonde and makes it big in America!"). And, to be frank about it, many of my generation who practice martial arts got into them in part because we found him utterly cool in his films.

While I don't hold him up to be a hero like some fans do, there is no doubt he made a big cultural splash. What's more, he was an innovative martial artist. Outside films, he was a serious martial artist, the original "mixed martial arts" practitioner who saw beyond the stylistic rivalries and rigid forms of traditional Asian martial arts and created a unique, hybrid (there goes that word again!) system that encouraged innovation, growth and integration of what worked in real life.

Despite the tragic ending, his story is another one of those great American stories of "making it."

More industrial accidents in China

2005-11-28T21:38:00.000-05:00

On the heels of the Harbin toxic spill incident comes the mining accident nearby in a nearby city that has killed over 100 people:

Anxious relatives demanded access to a coal mine Monday after an explosion killed at least 134 miners and left 15 others missing, adding to a soaring death toll in China's mines despite a safety crackdown.

The blast in the Dongfeng Coal Mine prompted national leaders to demand stricter enforcement of safety rules in China's mining industry, by far the world's deadliest with more than 5,000 fatalities a year in fires, floods and other accidents.

This series of deadly accidents reminds me of growing up during the rapid industrialization of South Korea. The government there pushed for rapid economic growth with extremely lax safety standards, thus inevitably leading to periodically deadly accidents like collapsed buildings and contaminated water (leading one normally wooden Korean news anchor to exclaim uncharacteristically on television "When will we ever be able to drink water safely without worrying?").

In many ways, the Chinese economic growth has been even more rapid and unbalanced than that which occurred in South Korea in the 70's and the 80's. The proximate reason for such accidents obviously is lax enforcement and regulation of safety standards in China, but the real cause is simply the pervasive lack of the rule of law.

In a society like China where industry and government are almost entirely collusive, there is no incentive for companies to adhere strictly to regulations when political clout suffices in squelching murmurs of discontent from the consequences of such accidents.

Sure, the Chinese government can go on executing company leaders for spectacular lapses of safety, making "examples" of such people just as it does for certain cases of corruption, but that will do nothing to reduce such accidents until the industry has to answer to an independent judiciary and the government to the mandate of the people. I guess some people call that democracy.

Sexual slavery of North Korean women

2005-11-23T08:57:00.000-05:00

My latest column is available in The Seattle Times today:

THEIRS were compelling tales of privation, hardship, sorrow and unspeakable horrors of sexual slavery.

Kyeong-Sook Cha and Soon-Hee Ma, two defectors from North Korea, testified for the House Committee on International Relations, and provided firsthand accounts of widespread tragedy occurring in the Sino-North Korean border areas.

In order to avoid the massive starvation resulting from North Korea's failed economy, the daughters of these women had escaped to China to earn money for food. When their daughters failed to return, the women followed, braving the icy waters of Tumen River and the security forces on both sides of the border.

Read the entire piece here.

[Update] My sincere thanks to RealClearPolitics for linking to my column today.

China regulates virtual worlds

2005-11-22T13:58:00.000-05:00

Earlier I asked about online gaming in China:

An unmentioned, but interesting corollary to the story is, will the Chinese government regulate the virtual worlds created by these online games? If not, will they become havens for dissent and free information exchange, places to escape from the censorship and government regulations that is the Chinese Internet?

Well, it seems the answer was already pretty clear (my thanks to reader Josh Dill for digging this up):

Chinese authorities unveiled new regulations on Tuesday that will prohibit minors under the age of 18 from playing more violent online games, which currently dominate the Chinese online gaming market.

Effective immediately, all minors are banned from playing online games in which players are allowed to kill other players, an activity that has been termed Player Kills (PK). China's Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country's online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games. These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills. No timetable was given for when these authentication systems must be implemented [boldface mine].

Under the guise of protecting the children (once more, "for the children,") I suspect the PRC government is attempting to police and regulate virtual worlds that could be used to express and spread dissent. Once the authorities know the citizen ID numbers of these avatars or online characters, they can track when the avatars make "seditious" remarks or spread "rumors" about government corruption and repression.

Welcome to China where even the video game characters can't say what they want.

Emergence of competing blocs

2005-11-17T01:34:00.000-05:00

Lots of Asia news today. Beginning with...

Koizumi and Bush affirm the strong US-Japan alliance.

During summit talks here, Japanese government officials quoted Bush as saying he believed stronger relations between the two allies would prompt Beijing to try to improve its ties with Tokyo and Washington.

Bush's remarks echoed sentiments uttered by Koizumi.

"The stronger our ties with the United States, the better relations we can build with China, South Korea and the rest of Asia," the prime minister told a news conference after the talks at the Kyoto State Guest House in Kamigyo Ward.

United we stand, divided we fall, eh? So what about China and South Korea? They are congratulating each other on the rising bilateral trade and South Korea's recognition of China's full "market economy" status.

South Korea became the 43rd country which has rendered its recognition of China's MES. But it is the first time for a country, which has a bilateral trade volume exceeding $100 billion, to grant it to China.

Beijing's major trade partners - the United States, Japan, and the European Union - have yet to acknowledge China's MES because they apparently want to use it as leverage for further reform of China's market system, Lee Gun-tae, director general of the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry's bilateral trade bureau, said at a press briefing in Pusan.

Well, maybe. But by any objective measure, China is NOT a full market economy. It is at best a quasi-market economy. But that reality didn't stop the South Korean government from extending the recognition. Why?

"We [South Korea] have a different stance from them [the U.S. and the EU]," Lee said, "because they are recording trade deficits every year, but we are making enormous trade surpluses with China."

Economics may be a reason. But political considerations are not far behind:

After their meeting Wednesday, Roh and Hu issued a statement declaring that they "shared the view that each party to the six-party talks should show sincere flexibility on its position, and implement the statement in order to ensure continued progress in the talks."

The joint declaration reflected a move by South Korea to build closer ties with China, a move that leaves U.S. officials and some Korean officials nervous. The two sides agreed to deepen military and security dialogues, establish a hotline between their foreign ministers and hold regular meetings between vice foreign ministers.

According to Roh's critics, however, that agreement may come at the expense of ties between South Korea and its traditional key ally, the United States. South Korea has dispatched 3,000 troops to Iraq to aid U.S. efforts there, the third-highest presence on the ground. But conservatives in South Korea fear that the U.S. government and Japan are moving closer together as South Korea's relationship with the U.S. government becomes more strained.

What this seems to signify is that there are now competing blocs forming in East Asia, with the U.S. and Japan on one side and China and South Korea on the other.

The U.S.-Japan relationship is understandable. They prefer the status quo in the balance of power in East Asia, and China's sudden rise may disturb that status quo. For China, its relationship with South Korea is also natural. There is much bilateral trade between the two, and stealing away a formerly strong ally from the U.S. camp is a coup for China.

This, however, is an exceptionally dangerous course for South Korea. Should China succeed in its quest to become the Asian hegemon, South Korea would be likely relegated to be a mere satellite. China is unlikely to be as generous a patron as the U.S. has been with South Korea when it no longer needs South Korean recognition for anything (i.e. once its dominance of the region is complete).

So why is South Korea heading down this dangerous course? Short-term economic gain may be a motive. The vast Chinese market is just as alluring to South Korea as it is to the West. But the psychological angle is more interesting. Long having been dominated by their American patrons, many South Koreans, including its leftist elites, want to become a power of some reckoning (a "middle" power). Because South Korea can be helpful in the short- to mid-term to China, the Chinese have been feeding into South Korea's sense of self-importance.

But that vision of a powerful, independent South Korea is flawed. The underlying assumption behind that vision is that China would NOT be successful in its quest to beat the U.S. in dominating Asia. So long as a balance of sorts persists, South Korea may be able to derive some benefits from this "balancer" role.

Should the balance shatter, however, and any kind of struggle (not necessarily a hot war, but even a new cold war) should ensue, South Korea can only suffer -- as a mere, no-longer-so-useful satellite should China win or the junior partner of an enemy coalition should the U.S. remain dominant.

As the competing blocs solidify in East Asia, the peril for South Korea will deepen.

Adapting to Chinese authoritarianism II

2005-11-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

Previously I took issue with Rebecca MacKinnon's report about Chinese bloggers. I was galled by MacKinnon's claim that most Chinese bloggers take an accommodationist view of the Chinese government's repression of the freedom of speech and expression. In fact, I took MacKinnon to task for stating "you are not going to get anywhere by openly defying or opposing it" (she responded to my critique here).

Now she has a more balanced look at the Chinese blogosphere where she acknowledges that there are strong disagreements among the bloggers and categorizes them broadly into three categories, namely:

The sellouts:

...working not only to comply with censorship requirements, but also to develop better methods for filtering and monitoring to make sure their services don't accidentally enable political dissent.

The reformers ("work within the system"):

...are making a lot of effort to convince government officials -- especially in the fields of education, charity fundraising, and local government -- that blogging and other tools can help people learn and do their jobs more effectively, and that this new medium can help government officials get their own messages across.

Then there is the third group, the revolutionaries:

There's another D-word for Chinese who advocate big D democracy: Dissident.

In other words, MacKinnon seems to be suggesting, the majority either collaborates with oppression or seeks to reform the existing system rather than subvert it and invent something new. A bleak outlook for those who wish for Chinese "big D democracy," right?

This categorization made me think of the population makeup right before our own American Revolution. A third of the American colonists were committed royalists. Another third staked out the middle and wanted "reform" (more autonomy and representation, but stay within the monarchy). Only a third, a minority, sought revolution and complete self-determination.

That minority was able to succeed in the end, because it forced a confrontation, a struggle in which it was no longer possible to sit in the middle, a point of no return. It was either English monarchy or a new republic. Everyone had to choose (and outsiders like the French helped and encouraged the revolutionaries).

And that, I think, is what must happen for China's new revolutionaries to succeed. They must utilize the web and the blogosphere to subvert Chinese political and social repression. They must force a confrontation and make people choose. And we outsiders who value freedom must help, encourage and exhort.

Now, some folks might worry that such a confrontation would merely result in the majority choosing accommodation and destroying any nascent "reform." I disagree. Increasingly, there is a viable Chinese middleclass which is not concerned about merely feeding itself. As the economy grows, expectations, both economic and political, are liable to grow faster still, creating the "expectation gap." This is an ideal condition for a revolution.

Are we at that point with China? I do not know. But we won't find out until we foment a spark.

Feel the love: China-Zimbabwe

2005-11-16T03:14:00.000-05:00

The Chinese government sure does keep quite a company. Yes, that's right, Zimbabwe.

China baldly announced today that it was stepping up law enforcement cooperation efforts with Zimbabwe, that African breadbasket economy turned into a basket-case thanks to the idiotic, repressive, anti-Western, autarkist Robert Mugabe.

According to the China Daily article I reference, the public security departments in the two countries will learn from each other's methods "in a bid to crack down on crimes against the two countries and the two peoples." They are going to focus on keeping order at border-crossings and "create a better environment for people to people contact," whatever that means.

Hu and Mugabe, happy together! Get that "law enforcement cooperation" and "learn from each other's methods." I wonder what those words mean.

For some reason, this makes me think of an old joke:

An Asian minister and an African minister become friends at an international function.

So the African visits the Asian at the home of the latter. The home is beautiful and stately. It has over 50 rooms. Surprised, the African asks the Asian "How is it that on your $500 a month salary, you are able to afford this?" The Asian minister points out of his window at a gleaming new bridge. He says with a pride "You see that bridge?" He then points at himself and says "50 percent."

The next year, it was the turn of the Asian to visit the African minister. The African has a palatial home with over 100 rooms. Shocked, the Asian asks the African "How is that on your $50 a month salary, you can afford this?" Grinning, the proud African minister points out of his window and says "See that bridge?" The Asian minister sees nothing and is puzzled. The African minister then points at himself and declares "100 percent."

Chinese Olympics Marketing II

2005-11-16T02:34:00.000-05:00

Earlier I critiqued the Chinese 2008 Olympics mascots. Mutant Frog has more about the deep meaning of the "Five Friendlies" and why Asian mascots have goofy names.

Russo-Japanese Affairs

2005-11-16T02:19:00.000-05:00

Sixty years after the last Great War (aka WWII), Japan and Russia still do not have a peace treaty. The main stumbling block is the status of the "Northern Territories."

Now Russian President and avid Judoka Vladimir Putin will reputedly propose a solution of sorts:

Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to present a new proposal on joint Japan-Russia economic activities in the disputed Northern Territories when he meets with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Nov. 21, it has been learned.

Diplomatic sources announced the move. Under the proposal Russia is reportedly considering jointly developing marine resources with Japan.

While focusing on the expansion of economic exchange, Russia appears likely to adopt a firm stance with respect to the standoff between Japan and Russia over the Northern Territories. Fears have been raised that Russia will step back from the Tokyo Declaration of 1993, which stated Japan and Russia would solve the problem of the attribution of the Northern Territories and form a peace treaty.

Aside from oil development, what will Russia gain from letting Japan "in" on the politically sensitive area? Perhaps the following offers a possibility:

Russian President Vladimir Putin will sign an agreement with Japan on his nation's joining the World Trade Organization when he meets with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Nov. 21 as the two governments have virtually reached accord on Japan approving Russia's bid for membership, sources close to the government said Sunday.
Putin will arrive on Nov. 20 for a three-day visit. The government plans to notify the WTO office within the month of the content of the agreement, the sources said.

The agreement incorporates measures to significantly cut current tariffs on nearly 9,000 items, including automobiles, automobile parts and farm produce, the sources said.

The two governments also plan to ease entry conditions for foreign capital to make it easier for financial institutions and international telephone service providers to do business in both nations , the sources said.

Russia hopes to join the WTO in the first half of next year.

Nothing happens alone in the world of international diplomacy. Much is linked.

Enforced ethnic harmony of Singapore

2005-11-15T01:53:00.000-05:00

Singapore is a lovely country to visit, for sure. It is just about the only place in Asia (including Japan) where I would drink the tap water without a thought (yeah, yeah, I know, some of the water in Singapore is treated urine and other waste matter, supposedly, but I only care about the quality of the end product).

But I would never live there, because it is not a free country, but a benevolent dictatorship (with a big emphasis on benevolence to be sure). I guess it's the American in me -- I'd rather live free in a squalid country than live well in a repressed society. Luckily (or perhaps not so coincidentally), America is both free and prosperous.

In any case, Todd Crowell narrates an episode of the Singaporean enforced ethnic-religious harmony gone mad:

This curious incident started when a Malay woman wrote a letter to the main Singapore newspaper, the Straits Times, complaining about uncaged dogs in taxi cabs, which she said was offensive to Muslims. That teed off one Benjamin Koh, 27, who happens to be a kennel employee and ran a website for dog lovers.

He posted some disparaging things on his site. The exact words were not made public (to my knowledge anyway) but reportedly included expletives and urging the desecrating of Islam's holy site in Mecca. Another youth chimed in on a chat room as did another 17 year old. All three were charged under the Sedition Act. Imagine a 17-year-old being charged with sedition.

The Act makes it illegal to "promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between the different races or classes of Singapore." In October Koh got one month in jail; the younger Chinese one day, the 17-year-old a warning. Said the judge: "The callous and reckless remarks on racial and religious subjects had the potential to cause social disorder."

To say that the incident has caused consternation among bloggers in Singapore is an understatement. Even the person who alerted the authorities seemed taken aback. She seemed to think that they would be let off with just a warning.

If this were the case in America, many leftists would go to jail for badmouthing Christianity and Christian figures, eh? I guess for these folks the mantra is "respect for religions of others over there, but not over here."

Unfortunately, Crowell seems to think that this is just so swell:

This incident may have been over the top, but the Singapore model reflects the tough-minded realism of its founding father Lee Kwan Yew. Racial peace does not flow naturally from the human breast, at least not in Asia. You have to work hard at it.

Oy veh! Where to start? I guess the simplest way to put it is thusly: people who are free, free to express their views without government intervention, free to go about building businesses and jobs, and free to create art do not need government enforcement to achieve racial peace. Only societies where failure is pervasive must one be concerned about racism, because that is whence racism originates, blaming failures on "others."

Racial hostility, thus, is not uniquely Asian as Crowell seems to suggest. Racism, rather, is a refuge of the under-achieving. Now, it may be that under-achievement is due to laziness. In many countries, including those in Asia, however, under-achievement is often the result of government repression and corruption and sometimes even outright encouragement, as those who are in power illegitimately often rely on sectarian violence and ill-feeling to maintain their power as the "balancer."

The solution, then, is not enforced harmony (an oxymornic attempt), but freedom and the rule of law, pure and simple.

North Korean Arbitrage

2005-11-15T01:28:00.000-05:00

Dr. Andrei Lankov's pieces on North Korea are always interesting to read (via North Korea Zone). Some snippets:

In the late 1990s, the North Koreans used to say "there are only three types of people in North Korea: those who starve, those who beg and those who trade."...

In the 1990s, a person who could command a truck easily made a huge amount of money by moving merchandise around the country and exploiting the large differences in prices between the regions...

Even some humbler professions found themselves in relatively good times. Drivers, for instance, could take money for moving passengers and merchandise _ especially, after the quiet breakdown of the travel restriction system around 1997. They also augmented this money by selling and buying goods themselves and became a major source of income for train conductors...

Of course, this is hardly capitalism. True capitalism requires relatively inexpensive and free flow of information. Under near-ideal capitalism, arbitrage opportunities are exceptionally rare (in my view, the difficulty with which arbitrage opportunities can be obtained is the classic metrics of how capitalist a society is).

What went on in North Korea in the 90's is not even crony capitalism, in fact. It is merely a side effect of failed combination of Marxism and autarkism, leading to easy arbitrage opportunities for those with the means and connection to take advantage of widespread information gap on supply, demand and thus price.

According to Dr. Lankov, there was yet another side effect of the situation:

When economic disaster struck, this arrangement had unintended consequences. The men kept going to their factories and offices, even if their wages were becoming meaningless. They were afraid of the still formidable state machine, they wanted to keep the status traditionally associated with proper jobs and they also needed the rations -- as long as the rations were forthcoming. Women, especially housewives, were free to pursue completely different economic strategies. They took up market commerce with great enthusiasm and soon comprised a majority of North Korean vendors. This also meant that the women's earnings became the major source of income in many [North] Korean families.

The human desire to survive by deriving profit is persistent, notwithstanding extreme oppression and long cultural traditions against it.

English the lingua franca

2005-11-15T00:58:00.000-05:00

Joi Ito claims that there was a discussion among the G8 about dumping Japan!

One of the possible reasons is that Japanese foreign minister is often the only one who doesn't speak enough English to participate directly in the conversations. Several of us pointed out that it was bad policy in this day and age to appoint people who don't speak any English as Foreign Minister. One surprising comment was another member asserting that there was nothing wrong with a non-English speaking Foreign Minister. Doh. It's this sort of block headed pride/nationalism that gets us into trouble. English is currently the primary language for international diplomacy like it or not.

Bingo! And why are influential Japanese not English-speakers?

It reminds me of when I was interpreting for the chairman of NHK (The Japanese public broadcast company) in a meeting with Jack Valenti. He told me to tell Jack that "the more English a Japanese speaks, the less power he has." He was pointing out the fact that traditionally people focused their energy on gaining power in Tokyo and people who lost political battles were typically sent overseas as punishment or to get them out of the way.

This tendency is particularly pronounced in the bureaucracy and related organizations, but less so among more dynamic corporations (yes, there are such creatures in Japan) that deal with foreign partners/clients/customers more regularly.

There is a similar dynamic at work at American corporations. Those who serve overseas, who gain linguistic and cultural skills, but do not acquire political capital through network building at the HQ often get shut out of the highest level of management. Overseas posting at middle-management level is thus often considered the kiss of death for the ambitious. This is surprisingly common even among American multinationals.

What's interesting about that is there is an opposite tendency among American bureaucrats and politicos. International experience is generally considered good-looking on a spiffy DC resume (which is why many ambitious young folks, in the government and related fields, flocked to work in the Green Zone in Iraq, putting their "tour" in). It's akin to "combat experience" in the military.

So in my view, to put rather broadly, the stereotypes are actually contrary to the reality. Unlike the image of uncouth Americans, American government officials tend to be very outward-looking while the supposedly world-savvy corporate types tend to be very inward-looking. In Japan, the trends are reversed.

CNN Presents North Korea

2005-11-14T01:01:00.000-05:00

I just saw the program on CNN (Sunday, Nov. 13th, 8 PM EST). The expose of North Korea and the Sino-North Korean border was gritty, and provided some much needed injection of reality to the debate about North Korea's nuclear program and human rights violations.

What is interesting about the program is that it exposed the permeability of the Sino-North Korean border, a clear sign that the North's regime is losing its grip on the population, as more people and goods, including videos, cross the Tumen River in both directions.

I know there are those who are predicting that the Kim Jong-il regime would fall within 5 years. I am of the opinion that such things are exceedingly difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy. The regime may yet survive 10 more years. Or it may suddenly meet its demise through an unexpected, seemingly small-at-first triggering event.

What is abundantly clear from the program, however, is that the U.S. has some options other than a risky war or futile negotiations with the North to achieve regime-change in North Korea (the first helpful step, of course, would be a change of government in South Korea).

Rep. Weldon blasts Scholte over N. Korean threat

2005-11-11T15:48:00.000-05:00

From The Washington Times "Inside the Beltway":

Rep. Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Republican who recently hosted a Capitol Hill luncheon "in honor" of North Korea's deputy chief to the United Nations, says that, contrary to a report in this column, his guest never threatened the life of a North Korean defector and journalist who testified that same day on Capitol Hill.

Instead, Mr. Weldon writes in a scathing letter to Inside the Beltway, Ambassador Han Song-ryol was expressing any anger he had at "the deluge of paparazzi-like reporters that descended upon him without warning."

Now the real story:

In the Nov. 1 Inside the Beltway column, Mrs. Scholte charged that Mr. Han threatened Mr. Kim in the moments before he and two fellow North Korean defectors, both women, testified about purported human rights atrocities in the communist country. Mrs. Scholte had arranged for the defectors' congressional testimony as head of the DFF.

She said others accompanied the defectors into the Gold Room, where Mr. Kim held up a sign in Korean that read: "The Road to Peace on the Korean Peninsula is the Expulsion of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-il."

"Kim then said these same words to Ambassador Han as he was walking across the room," said Mrs. Scholte, at which time "Han then threatened Kim with 'Do you want to die ... ?' "

In the first place, why the heck is the North Korean diplomat being feted in the hallowed halls of Congress? Thankfully, Congressman Hyde, who earned kudos from The Asianist for his great letter to the government of South Korea over the MacArthur statue incident, came to rescue:

Meanwhile, it was learned yesterday that Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican and chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has warned Pak Gil-yon, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, that his government will be held responsible if any harm comes to Kim Seung-min, the North Korean defector and journalist purportedly threatened on Capitol Hill.

Chinese Olympics Marketing

2005-11-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

China may be making a lot of money, but it has a lot to learn about marketing.

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say, so behold, the "Five Friendlies," the official Beijing Olympics Mascots!

[Update] More on the story.

No visa necessary for Koreans?

2005-11-11T15:14:00.000-05:00

The Marmot's Hole reports:

Virginia Republican Jim Moran submitted a bill Thursday to extend the U.S. visa waiver to Koreans for 90-day visits to the United States. Moran cited the Korea-U.S. alliance, Korea's commitment of troops to Iraq and bilateral trade, as well as the difficulties Koreans experience when they apply for visas. He said that if Korea were included in the visa waiver program, this difficult process would be simplified and Koreans would enjoy the same opportunities to visit the United States as citizens from other U.S. allies.

Whoa, where to start? First of all, Moran is not a Republican, but a super-leftie Democrat, who apparently subscribes to the noxious "Jews run America/Bush administration/Iraq war" meme.

Secondly, I suspect Moran is pandering to the sizable and politically active Korean-American community in Northern Virginia where I live.

Lastly, does Moran realize that his touted "alliance" between the U.S. and ROK is on the rocks -- seriously? Now would be a funny time to do any special favors for South Korea. If this bill were to pass, it would again prove the leftie, anti-American politicians in South Korea, yes, they can continue to throw eggs at their American uncles and still get goodies from them.

Burn, Kim Jong-il, burn!

2005-11-11T15:10:00.000-05:00

Not something one sees often in the Western media, eh? Via ABC News and Judith Klinghoffer.

Yes, there are still South Koreans who see the truth and are not afraid to express it.

EU-China axis and Taiwan

2005-11-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

Even as the US warns EU about lifting the weapons embargo against China, one must ponder the increasingly friendly geopolitical relationship between the Franco-German axis of the EU and Red China.

France, in particular, seems to be drifting into a warped "balancing" foreign policy of welcoming America's potential geopolitical competitors, and indeed setting itself as one of them by co-opting others.

This means that Taiwan will no longer be able to count on any moral position from the EU should China decide to be overtly aggressive toward Taiwan.

And, yet, Taiwan seems ever so reluctant to purchase advanced weaponry from the U.S. even when the latter is clearly interested in selling some. Taiwan appears to be counting on the TRA, the Taiwan Relations Act and the political interest in the U.S. (the specter of "Who Lost Taiwan" political attack) to preserve Taiwan's de facto sovereignty against any Chinese aggression.

I'm sorry to say, however, that America hasn't not always been a reliable ally to those who count on its protection blindly. Any nation that does not preserve for itself an autarkic military capability, thereby putting its security needs almost exclusively in the hands of another, is playing with its survival.

Should the EU take an immoral and regrettable step of dropping the arms embargo against China, Taiwan's legislators should immediately authorize a massive purchase of advanced weaponry from the U.S. In turn, the U.S. government should permit sales of, and make available, more advanced equipment to Taiwan. In such an event, the U.S. could also transfer -- as a gesture of friendship -- its mothballed, older equipment (that is nonetheless high-tech compared to Taiwan's increasingly obsolescent military gear).

Uzbekistan's descent

2005-11-10T03:34:00.000-05:00

Nathan at Registan.net relays a report from Uzbekistan of an independent/web journalist being intimidated, possibly by the local security service:

More deserving of concern from the US government in regards to Uzbekistan is the plight of the endangered species known as the independent journalist. Ferghana.ru's Alexei Volosevich was attacked near his home after agreeing to meet someone promising him some "interesting material from Andizhan."

Uzbekistan's regime continues to descend into repression. Frankly, I am glad that the U.S. cut military ties with the regime.

Small war in Korea c. 1960s

2005-11-10T03:00:00.000-05:00

I have been looking for Daniel P. Bolger's account of the small war in Korea in the 1960's for a while (it's been out of print at Amazon). I just found it online, via The Flying Yangban.

Bolger is a well-known name in contemporary military history/doctrine studies circles, of course. Those who are interested in military history, post-Korean War conflict on the peninsula and small unit action will find the account -- as Spock would put it -- fascinating. Thank you, Andy, for finding it.