The headline here is bleaker than the one on the other blog, where I explain why western powers have their hands tied and cannot — well, will not — help Tibet.
Category Archives: Asia
Update on Tibet
From what I can piece together from a distance, it appears that during the violence that broke out in Lhasa two weeks ago, a mob of mostly young Tibetan laypeople did kill and injure Han Chinese. However, I don’t believe monks were involved in that.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been in exile for 49 years. My understanding is that younger Tibetans may still revere him, but they don’t necessarily listen to him.
There’s a good background article on Tibet in the Wall Street Journal. Basically, Chinese government officials are idiots.
It should be no surprise that beatings of monks and closings of monasteries naturally stimulate civil unrest, or that civil unrest, spawned in this way, can turn violent.
Why aren’t these simple truths more obvious? Phuntsog Wanggyal, a Tibetan now retired in Beijing who for years was a leading Communist official in Tibet, has observed that a doctrine of “anti-splittism” has taken root among Chinese government officials who deal with religion and minority affairs, both in central offices in Beijing and in Tibet. Having invested their careers in anti-splittism, these people cannot admit that the idea is mistaken without losing face and, they fear, losing their own power and position as well.
Their ready-made tag for everything that goes wrong is “hostile foreign forces” — an enemy that justifies any kind of harsh or unreasoning repression. When repeated endlessly, anti-splittism, although originally vacuous, does take on a kind of solidity. Careers are made in it, and challenging it becomes impossible.
Sounds a lot like the Bush Administration. Who needs reality when you’ve got a good talking point?
Iraq in Meltdown?
It’s CNN’s headline, folks — “Al-Sadr in trouble, Iraq headed for meltdown.” The Independent has another alarming headline — “Iraq implodes as Shia fights Shia.” And if you need further alarming, read Juan Cole.
Professor Cole says that violence is breaking out in many parts of Iraq, including Baghdad and Najaf, the latter of which is often mentioned in President Bush’s Iraq success myths.
But even though Iraq is either melting down or imploding, or both, the warbloggers are curiously not on top of this so far. In fact, the only thing worrying the gang at the Weekly Standard site is a trip taken to Iraq in 2002 by some Dem senators that was bankrolled by Saddam Hussein’s government. Nothing going on in Iraq now is, apparently, interesting to them.
In other news, this morning about 30 monks disrupted a carefully controlled tour of Lhasa being conducted by the Chinese government for foreign tourists. The resistance is not completely crushed, it seems. You can read about it on the other blog.
Forget Mia Farrow
I’m a tad baffled as to why The Moderate Voice chose to feature this apology for the government of China, except that it disses Hollywood icons Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg.
Apparently Farrow has been critical of China, and Spielberg withdrew as an artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics because China was not doing enough to pressure Sudan to end the ongoing atrocities in Darfur.
Here’s a 2004 Washington Post article explaining the China-Sudan-Darfur connection. Very simply, China is investing heavily in Sudan’s oil industry. Because they need Sudan’s oil, China is helping to prop up a rogue regime in Sudan. As part of their deal, China set up weapons factories in Sudan. The weapons plus revenue from the oil are finding their way into the hands of militia who have been carrying out mass slaughter in Sudan’s western region, Darfur.
This has been going on for five years, so one might have assumed Spielberg ought to have figured things out sooner, but never mind. This is not about Spielberg. It’s about China.
Poor, misunderstood China is also helping to prop up the military junta in Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar). China is not alone; the junta also benefits from association with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Unfortunately for the monks and laypeople of Burma, their country is a rich source of natural gas, much of which is being piped into China. And if you want to know what life is like in Burma today, please read this heartbreaking story in the National Catholic Reporter.
Barbed wire surrounds pagodas, and large numbers of Burma’s monks are either exiled, imprisoned, or “disappeared.” There are rumors of mass slaughter of monks. And then there’s this:
An economic symptom that Peters has seen develop over the past 10 years are “pint-sized monks and nuns†— children not older than 6 or 7 years who are left at Buddhist monasteries by parents unable to care for them. At the monasteries, the children will be educated and “they’ll go on the alms rounds and the public will feed them,†Peters said.
In Myitkyina, a priest who runs an orphanage told Peters that parents will come to Mass and leave a child behind. “Parents have to decide: Which of the seven kids are we leaving in the pew on Sunday?†Peters said. “It’s the mother’s job to pull the kid aside and say, ‘After Mass, when we leave, you stay. Stay in the pew, don’t leave.’ What does that do to a child’s mind, for the rest of his or her life saying, ‘What did I do that you chose me?’ What does that do the woman who made that choice?â€
During last year’s “Saffron Revolution,” many nations called on China to apply pressure on the Burmese junta. China was silent.
Basically, China is willing to supply arms to and support any dictatorship, no matter how vile, as long as they’re getting oil and gas in the deal. And why is this sounding familiar?
I’ve been blogging all week at the other blog about the atrocities in Tibet. I’m not sure most westerners really appreciate the situation in Tibet. I have a background article here. I argue here why the government of China, not His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is entirely at fault for the unrest in Tibet.
I don’t know what Mia Farrow said about the government of China, but if anything I bet it wasn’t harsh enough.
Update: See also The Peking Duck.
Crises Mode
Hale Stewart on the Bear Stearns situation:
The Federal Reserve is scared shitless.
Sort of gets your attention, doesn’t it? Hale understands financial stuff and explains it better than I can, so see him for details. See also Paul Krugman.
I’m still watching the Tibet crisis on the other blog. Per my agreement with About.com I cannot cross-post, but today I wish I could. Chinese bloggers are weighing in, and they do not understand why the Tibetans are so ungrateful for being liberated. You’d think they’d be greeting the Chinese with flowers and candy, after all. Oh, wait …
The Chinese are really cracking down now. They are going house to house in Lhasa, arresting people and parading prisoners through the streets. I suspect the protests will either taper off after today, or they’ll get a lot worse. See also the Peking Duck, here, here and here.
Marc Ambinder catches Bill Kristol in a major flub. See also Balloon Juice.
Scott Helman reports for the Boston Globe that Republican voters are coming out for Clinton.
For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show. …
… Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons: Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want to register objections to Obama.
Now that McCain has sewed up the Republican nomination, Republicans in remaining primaries could really do some mischief. Pennsylvania has a closed primary, meaning only registered Dems can vote in the Dem primary, which should help. And I’m sure the pro-Clinton bloggers who have alleged there’s something sinister about Obama’s appeal to Independent and moderate Republican voters will take note and … oh, wait. They won’t. Never mind.
Oh, and happy Saint Patrick’s Day. Image above copyrighted — © Jeannel | Dreamstime.com
Crises, Real and Manufactured
While I’m busy blogging the Tibet crisis on the other blog, see Pastor Dan on the Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama flap.
Free Tibet Again
There are huge demonstrations going on in Lhasa, Tibet, and the Chinese military is cracking down. I haven’t yet heard of any deaths, but demonstrators (including monks) have set fire to Chinese-built markets, police cars, and possibly a tourist bus. I’ll be updating events as I learn about them on the other blog.
Free Tibet
Lately most of the news I’ve read about Tibetan activists has been from AlJazeeraEnglish. Make of that what you will.
For more background on what’s been going on lately, see the other blog.
Bad Credit?
James Fallows says that the same geniuses who were gung-ho to invade Iraq, and who favor military aggression against Iran, are also thinking about a military confrontation with China.
Considering that China has been lending us the money to pay for our current military escapades, what do you think the chances are the Chinese would lend us money to invade China?
Possibly messing with China is a bad idea.
What We Might Do
Twenty years ago, President Reagan made this offhand remark: “I think it’s better if the Iranians go to bed every night wondering what we might do.'” The late Herbert Block drew a cartoon (click here or on thumbnail) showing a sleepless American, also wondering what we might do.
Maybe Bush and Cheney aren’t so different from Saint Ronnie after all.
A White House request for $88 million to fit “bunker-busting” bombs to B-2 stealth has caused speculation of attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. Today the Bushies announced broad new sanctions on Iran.
From today’s Morning Edition on National Public Radio:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday that new sanctions against Iran will protect the international financial system from “the illicit activities of the Iranian government.”
The sanctions will “provide a powerful deterrent to every international bank and government that thinks of doing business with the Iranian government,” Rice said. …
… The idea is to cut Iran from the international financial system. U.S. sanctions could hurt because of the signal it sends to the rest of the world. The U.S. has put in its list three banks, in addition to the defense ministry and the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps controls numerous businesses in Iran, including some in the oil sector. Specifically it means any assets these groups may have in the U.S. will be frozen and Americans can’t do business with them.
On the other side of the debate, Rice is playing defense and losing, according to experts who say sanctions only push the two countries into a situation where it will be harder for future administrations to deal with Iran.
Barbara Slavin writes for National Interest Online,
The Bush administration’s decision Thursday to put new sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its elite Quds force is a calculated gamble intended to convince Iran’s leadership to behave better in Iraq and suspend uranium enrichment.
But the step could backfire by arousing a nationalist backlash in Iran and convincing the leadership there that the U.S. government is not interested in negotiations—only in squeezing the Iranian economy until its people rise up and overthrow the regime.
Unfortunately, the chances of regime change remain minimal while oil approaches $100 a barrel. Meanwhile, U.S. actions could eliminate whatever slim chance there is of a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program and its rising power in the Middle East.
With whom exactly is the United States supposed to negotiate such a solution? The Iranian ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, is a Quds force commander, according to Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military man in Iraq. Does that mean that U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has met twice with Kazemi-Qomi, cannot speak to him again? Or just that Crocker can’t lend him money?
One man’s terrorist is another’s diplomat.
It’s a bit like watching a herd of buffalo stampede toward the brink of the Grand Canyon.
Rosa Brooks of the Los Angeles Times asks, “What’s a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles?”
We’re in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration’s interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it’s a great time to start another war.
That would be with Iran, and you’d have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that “if you’re interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” On Sunday, Cheney warned of “the Iranian regime’s efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions.” On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need “to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat.”
Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don’t yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they’re not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.
Writing in Newsweek on Oct. 20, Fareed Zakaria, a solid centrist and former editor of Foreign Affairs, put it best. Citing Bush’s invocation of “the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon,” Zakaria concluded that “the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?”
Planet Cheney.
The thing is, we’ve gotten so used to an executive branch making no sense whatsoever that most of the country pays little attention. And if we did pay attention, how could we sleep at night?
Update: See also Crooks and Liars.