CHINA THE NEW GREEN June 10, 2009
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, Natural Environment, South Asia.add a comment
Somebody should tell the coal exporters that China may not want the stuff in the future. Maybe they get global warming.
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CRACK IN THE FACADE August 14, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.2 comments
The structures and performance Olympic Games in Beijing surrounding the athletic perfomances, clouded too by the suggestion of drugs, is an elaborate Potemkin village designed to fool world public opinion. To some extent public relations designed to show the host nation in a good light is true of all public events of this, or similar, scale. The crack in the facade was significantly revealed by the case of miming in the Opening Ceremony.
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SMASH THE DALAI LAMA June 21, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.add a comment
Tibet’s Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party proclaimed that nonviolent protest will be smashed with state violence. He obviously believes that physical power is the ultimate power. Of course, he is right, such threat power can be used to kill people, but it cannot build a united society which seems to be his other aim.
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TIBET BOMBINGS June 5, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, South Asia.3 comments
The Chinese Government has determined to put its legal system on trial for the world along with its economic development at the time of the Beijing Olympic Games. Tibet monks have been accused of several bombings. Questions will arise as to the plausibility of the charges arising from motivation, the knowledge to make bombs, and access to bomb making materials. The likelihood that Buddhist monasteries have been converted to bomb making factories is not strong, but perhaps not completely impossible, but it is more possible that evidence has been planted.
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PEOPLE POWER EMERGES ? May 21, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.2 comments
While The New York Times does not call it people power, they report that many Chinese are offering independent assistance to the earthquake victims in Sichuan Province. Loss of control over the population is a fear for authoritarian governments in China and Burma.
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RUDD AT BROOKINGS April 1, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in Australian Politics, East Asia, South West Asia.add a comment
ABC News Online carried a report today relating to Prime Minister Rudd’s speech to the Brookings Institute in Washington. The speech included the following topics:
He said China should be encouraged to participate more in global and regional institutions. And he said it should work with the US, Australia, Japan and Korea to deal with emerging challenges. “We must remain vigilant to the changing strategic terrain but strategic vigilance must not be allowed of itself to become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. “There is nothing predetermined about US-China conflict in the future. We decide the future by our actions today.”
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RIO TINTO STAKE February 1, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, Natural Environment.add a comment
Thirty-five years ago, I was walking around parts of North West Australia with a Geiger counter as part of the search for uranium ore bodies, and giving ocular and audio confirmation that the objective world is fundamentally reflective of its atomic and sub atomic composition. I mention the latter point, not because it is especially relevant here, but that it is so difficult to grasp, at least for me, despite the fact I am aware of compass needles and the evidence of chemical reactions I see around me in nature.1. As for the former recollection, there is a degree of poetic license. I had moral problems with this activity, but take the money and run, then spend it fruitlessly. The result was I had a direct and indirect experience with the mining industry and a interest which persisted, including a familiarity with the names of the leading companies. So I take note that the Chinese Government, in conjunction with Alcoa, has acquired a 12% interest in Rio Tinto – which we would have known then as CRA.
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SINO-INDIAN RELATIONS January 15, 2008
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, South Asia.add a comment
As we know China and India share a common border, which has been a source of military conflict. They have a joint influence on the countries to our North, along with Islam. (Islamic influence may have been greater in India, but are significant in the eastern China, spurring separatist aspirations seen often now as terrorist movements.) Of course, now both countries as well as be populous are significant global economic players, and so that improvement in trade and economic relations between them will seen as important developments.
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FALUN GONG PERSECUTION December 6, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, Human Rights.1 comment so far
When I got to Central from Westmead, I had a hour before the next train to the South Coast so I went off looking to buy a book. At Haymarket, a elderly women was offering a pamphlet to passers by which reported that the Chinese Government was harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners. Two Canadians, David Matas and David Kilgour, have carried out an investigation into this allegation. The UN Special Repporteur, Manfred Nowak, has also investigated this matter.
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ONE STEP AT A TIME October 3, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.add a comment
The meeting between President Roh of South Korea and Kim Jong-il may be more symbolic than substantial, but it is nevertheless a promising development. The last meeting between the two governments was seven years ago. Roh with his entourage drove to Pyongyang from Seoul, and along the way got out of his vehicle to walk across the line between the two Koreas, who officially remain at war.
President Roh and Mrs Roh walk into North Korea (via BBC).
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HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW September 15, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.add a comment
In Japan the Liberal Democratic Party has been in government since the Second World War. The reverse side of the that permanence has been the impermanence of the prime ministers, who have usually enjoyed short stays in office. How different from Australia, where prime ministers have to be shoehorned out of office once they get established. J W Howard sounded to my ears remarkably like R J Hawke in claiming he was the best person for the job, except that Howard it seems was accepted for lack of an alternative given the time constraints before the election, and Hawke was ditched.
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THE KOREAS TO TALK August 8, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia.add a comment
BBC News reports that talks will be held between North and South Korea. I had not realized that the proposed summit to take place at the end of this month will be the second one between the leaders of North and South Korea. The previous talks took place seven years ago. The president of South Korea is facing an election this years so his political motivation is relatively easy to understand. What is intriguing following the recent deal to end the development of nuclear weapons that the North Korean government would be interested in talking with the South. At first brush, I am inclined to think, so much for the Bush doctrine of never talking or dealing with your adversaries.
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HIROSHIMA DAY August 6, 2007
Posted by wmmbb in East Asia, Humankind/Planet Earth, Middle East, US Politics.add a comment
Sixty-two years ago, President Harry S Truman approved the dropping of the first nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. This single bomb devastated an area of 13 square kilometers and killed an estimated 140,000 people in a city of 350,0000. The second nuclear bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, three days later, killed 74,000 people.
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