Link Banana

As nominally communist countries who believe firmly in capitalism as a way to economic development, China and Vietnam obviously have a lot in common. From this week’s Economist’s Special Report, an explanation of some of the ways they differ:

A foreign diplomat in Hanoi who used to serve in Beijing says that “everything here is more moderate than in China.” Vietnam is a bit less harsh with dissidents than China, and its capitalism too is less red in tooth and claw. Its health and education services have adapted more successfully to the transition to a market economy. Its press is strictly controlled, as in China, but the growing numbers of internet surfers have free access to most foreign news websites: there is no Vietnamese equivalent of the Great Firewall of China.

Whereas China is led from the top down and one man is clearly the paramount leader—Hu Jintao, who is both the head of the Communist Party and the state president—Vietnam has a consensual leadership. Its triumvirate of president, party boss and prime minister must reach accommodations with an increasingly independent national assembly and a host of other forces, and avoid upsetting the many surviving heroes of Vietnam’s independence wars.

Though I’m not sure this is a “breakthrough,” it’s certainly better than nothing.

BEIJING — China appeared to bend to international pressure on Friday as the government announced it would meet with envoys of the Dalai Lama, an unexpected shift that comes as violent Tibetan demonstrations in western China have threatened to cast a pall over the Beijing Olympics in August.

China’s announcement, made through the country’s official news agency, provided few details about the shape or substance of the talks but said the new discussions would commence “in the coming days.” The breakthrough comes as Chinese officials have pivoted this week and moved to tamp down the domestic nationalist anger unleashed by the Tibetan crisis and by the protests at the international Olympic torch relay.

It’s possible I went from sharing to much international news to too little… In any case, Foreign Policy’s Passport has most of the details on this intriguing/troubling story:

A shipment of ammunition, rockets, and mortar bombs en route from China to Zimbabwe has been denied passage from the South African port of Durban to the shipment’s landlocked destination. […]

Although the An Yue Jiang is expected to return to China, a South African paper, News24, reports that a second arms shipment from China is scheduled to arrive by air in order to “expedite the delivery and to circumvent the controversy around last week’s shipment by sea.” The story also claims that both orders, placed by the Zimbabwean government, were finalized just days after Zimbabwe’s elections.

Also of note: The Economist has some broader coverage of what’s been happening on the ground in Zimbabwe.

The New York Times ran three interesting Op-Eds yesterday about the Olymics. All of them, I should note, were blessed with blandly simple titles.

The first, Matthew Forney’s “China’s Loyal Youth,” details how, contrary to expectations, Chinese most well-educated youth are among it’s most patriotic. An example:

As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.

Elliot Sperlings’s “Don’t Know Much About Tibetan History” detail’s Chinese distorted historical claims to Tibet. The basics:

In China’s view, the Western misunderstandings are about the nature of China: Western critics don’t understand that China has a history of thousands of years as a unified multinational state; all of its nationalities are Chinese. The Mongols, who entered China as conquerers, are claimed as Chinese, and their subjugation of Tibet is claimed as a Chinese subjugation.

And finally, Buzz Bissinger’s “Faster, Higher, Stronger, No Longer” argues that the “Olympic movement” should be completely disbanded. (A similar argument is made by Stephen Hugh-Jones.)

A permanent end to the Olympics might actually not be that difficult. All it would really take is a single act of courage and morality by the United States to pull out of the Games forever on the basis that the mission is not coming close to being served. An American departure would severely dilute the Games since it would no longer be a world competition of anything.

Just a small chart to scare the pants off of those who recently found out that the “BRIC” countries are serious about growing. And that the United States is, well, not growing as fast as them. More embarrassingly, because the recession the US is also forecast to grow slower than Japan or the Euro area.

You thought it was just the United States, but now some Chinese patriots are discussing a boycott of all things French.

The latest country to face Chinese wrath is France, which Chinese netizens singled out as the worst embarrassment in terms of the torch relay over the past week (frankly, things weren’t pretty in London or San Francisco either). Citing a human rights banner at Paris city hall and a protester trying to wrench the torch from a Chinese girl in a wheelchair, grassroots sentiment is again spiraling out of control, though only in cyberspace for now. Calls for boycotts of French companies — including L’Oréal, Louis Vuitton and Givenchy — have appeared on Web sites and chatrooms.  Meanwhile, Xinhua ran a story today biting back at the French media entitled “Paris slaps its own face.”

Also about China: Channeling Sex in the City in Beijing. (via Mr. Fallows)

At Slate, Alexandra Harney makes the reasonable claim that the combination of higher commodity prices, a modest appreciation of China’s currency, and a lower willingness among Chinese to be exploited will likely mean that the cheap junk Americans are used to will be getting at least a little dearer.

The problem for American retailers and consumers hooked on $3 T-shirts and $30 DVD players is that there is no other China waiting in the wings to make cheap goods reliably for American shoppers. American importers are now arriving by the planeload in Vietnam, hoping to take advantage of the country’s lower wages. But Vietnam, hard as it tries, has only 85 million people—the size of one Chinese province. And only a fraction of its population is suitable for factory work. Moreover, prices are rising faster in Vietnam than anywhere else in Asia. Add in the rising incidence of strikes and labor disputes, and Vietnam looks increasingly like a short-term alternative.

James Fallows, who’s living in China, reposted these words from a recent story in The Atlantic. It’s probably as much cute as insightful, but I enjoyed it.

I think if more Americans came to China right now and saw how hard so many of its people are struggling just to survive, they too might ask: What are we thinking, in considering China an overall threat? Yes, its factories are formidable, and its weight in the world is huge. But this is still a big, poor, developing nation trying to solve the emergency of the moment. Susan Shirk, of the University of California at San Diego, recently published a very insightful book that calls China a “fragile superpower.” “When I discuss it in America,” she told me, “people always ask, ‘What do you mean, fragile?’” When she discusses it here in China, “they always ask, ‘What do you mean, superpower?’”

Breifings by the Economist Intelligence Unit are rarely compelling reading, but this one I actually read. And I found it thoroughly disheartening for sounding so… accurate.

In theory, the Chinese government stands ready to negotiate with the Dalai Lama on two conditions: that he renounces violence, and that he accepts Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. In the West’s view these conditions have already been met, as the Dalai Lama has repeatedly argued that his goal for Tibet is real autonomy, not independence. On March 25th, moreover, the Dalai Lama repeated his threat to resign as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile if anti-Chinese violence continues. Both the Dalai Lama and the leader of the parliament of the Tibetan government-in-exile in India have also recently said that they support China’s hosting of the Olympics and would oppose a boycott of the games. China, which has traditionally accused the Dalai Lama of insincerity, argues that these statements are belied by his alleged role in masterminding the violence in Tibet.

As a result, the prospects for meaningful negotiations are exceedingly dim. Even if it were possible to envision a scenario in which China, concerned about the damage to its pre-Olympic international credibility, agreed to negotiations in principle, it would be very difficult to imagine the government approaching such negotiations with a view to making significant compromises. Since China sees the problems in Tibet as primarily rooted in separatist elements based outside the country, it is unlikely to consider granting Tibetans more autonomy or easing religious restrictions.

Intent on following the pessimism of the horror story the paper told about rice prices, The Economist’s Asia.view columnist makes clear that a few recent elections do not mean that historical conflicts will quiet down.

IN NORTH-EAST Asia run the world’s most potentially lethal geopolitical faultlines, along which historical animosities and devastating weaponry are arrayed. Yet for Panglossians, particularly American ones, the regional picture looks suddenly better, thanks to the promise of three new national leaders in little more than six months: Yasuo Fukuda, who became prime minister of Japan last September; Lee Myung-bak, who assumed South Korea’s presidency in February; and Ma Ying-jeou, who won Taiwan’s presidential election by a landslide and will take office on May 20th.

Mark Helprin says that that’s the solution to the crisis in Darfur.

Which would the regime in Sudan prefer? To be annihilated, or to discontinue its campaign of mass murder in Darfur? Given Sudan’s record, very few nations would be willing to come to its aid with other than a pro forma whimper, and given the geography and the air and naval balance, no nation could. Though many a repressive dictatorship would protest, and Sudan’s patron, China, might determine to speed up the formation of the blue-water navy it is already building, little else would change except for the better.

Also of note, a damning rebuttal from Mark Goldberg.

Though I doubt it would happen, such talk’s got to worry Beijing at least a litle.

“If there continue to be no signals of compromise, I see boycott measures as justified,” Mr Poettering told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper ahead of a debate this week about Tibet at the European parliament.

The idea of European politicians boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympics was mentioned last week by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, although he later backed away from the idea.

The Economist says that China’s found and following the absolutely wrong solution to the Tibet problem:

So China persists in seeing the Dalai Lama as the embodiment of its “Tibet problem”. In fact, he offers the only plausible solution to it. China’s strategy for dealing with him is to wait for his death, and install a pliable successor. Last year it even passed an edict giving the government a role in approving new incarnations of such “living Buddhas”. But this strategy is doomed. No successor will command such veneration. And so none will be as persuasive an advocate of non-violence and of a “middle way” for Tibet, short of the full independence many Tibetans believe is their birthright.

… Serious talks with the Dalai Lama, and the possibility of his returning home for the first time since fleeing to exile in India after an uprising in 1959, might help assuage Tibetan anger. It would also help vindicate those who argued that the staging of the Olympic games in Beijing would make China less repressive. It would give China the chance, belatedly, to honour the promise of autonomy it gave Tibet in 1951, in an agreement foisted on the young Dalai Lama. It would boost its image around the world, and even in Taiwan, which might become less averse to the idea of Chinese sovereignty.

Also of note, their correspondent’s most recent reporting.

So says The Economist:

Australians’ response to all this has been overwhelmingly positive. Politicians of all stripes vie with each other to be seen as China’s friend. When John Howard was prime minister, he invited Hu Jintao, China’s president, to make two state visits in the space of four years. The most recent one, which took place just before a big international summit in Sydney last year, was seen as a bid to raise Mr Howard’s standing ahead of an election. But Kevin Rudd, then leader of the opposition, upstaged Mr Howard with his fluent Chinese. Mr Rudd, who went on to win the election, gave an interview to China’s state-owned television network in which he promised to elevate Australia’s relations with China “to a whole new level”.

Australians do not seem to suffer from the faint unease about China’s rapid growth that often afflicts Europeans and Americans. Instead, they see China’s rise as an opportunity. In a poll conducted last year by the Lowy Institute, a think-tank, a majority of Australians said they had positive feelings towards China and saw it as their country’s most important economic partner. Only 19% said they were very worried about China’s growing power.

James Fallows, who happens to be living in China, has an interesting piece about how the Chinese press has handled the Tibetan violence. This bit was especially useful for me:

In judging popular reaction in China to this episode, bear in that mind few ordinary Chinese people have even been exposed to the idea that Tibet’s place within their country is controversial in any way. In the ordinary course of going to school and reading newspapers or watching TV, they would hear that Tibet, much like the largely Islamic Xinjiang region and other frontier parts of China, is an ancient, inseparable, happily integrated part of the motherland, whose tranquility is threatened from time to time by hooligans or even terrorists. History books, TV series, museum displays, and of course newspaper articles like this one convey the message.

I’ve rather ignored this story. A protest by Tibetan monks wasn’t that surprising to me, and that China would do it’s best to suppress it certainly wasn’t. This morning, I woke up — both literally and figuratively — and began paying attention. Says Reuters:

Protesters in Tibet’s capital Lhasa burnt shops and vehicles and yelled for independence on Friday as the region was hit by protests, prompting the Dalai Lama to urge Beijing to stop “brute force.”

Peaceful street marches by Tibetan Buddhist monks over past days gave way to the biggest and angriest demonstrations the remote, mountainous region has seen in nearly two decades, with anti-riot police patrolling the streets just months before the Beijing Olympics.

“Now it’s very chaotic outside,” an ethnic Tibetan resident said by telephone. “People have been burning cars and motorbikes and buses. There is smoke everywhere and they have been throwing rocks and breaking windows. We’re scared.”

This seems to have an eerie similarity to Burma, I do hope it ends differently. Also, I should note that it’s Mr. Fallows who made me really wake up, saying this:

But as you follow the news, be aware that this is something that could matter a great deal in many ways. More later.

The Economist’s Special Report on China arrives with these contentions:

[C]oncerns about the dire consequences of China’s quest for natural resources are overblown. China does indeed treat some dictators with kid gloves, but it is hardly alone in that. Its companies do not always uphold the highest standards, but again, many Western firms are no angels either. Fifty years of European and American aid have not succeeded in bringing much prosperity to Africa and other poor but resource-rich places. A different approach from China might yield better results. At the very least it will spur other donors to seek more effective methods.

For all the hue and cry, China is still just one of many countries looking for raw materials around the world. It has won most influence in countries where Western governments were conspicuous by their absence, and where few important strategic interests are at stake. Moreover, as China is becoming more involved in places such as Congo, its policies are beginning to change. It has promised to co-operate with the World Bank in its development efforts in Africa. It no longer seems prepared to back its most objectionable allies in the face of international opprobrium. Its diplomats, for example, did eventually stop parroting their line about unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state and allow United Nations peacekeepers to be deployed in Sudan.

Fred Kaplan’s not completely satisfied that Robert Gates wants 187 of the planes, and he’s even less satisfied that the Air Force still wants 381.

Still, even stodgy bureaucrat-generals need a rationale to keep their favorite programs afloat. The F-22 is the centerpiece of Air Force procurement at the moment. It has nearly no role in the sorts of wars that the United States has been fighting in the last 20 years—or has much prospect of fighting in the next 20.

And so, the China threat is dragged out of the cellar once again, as it has been to justify troubled weapons systems for 40 years now.

The Economist brings word of a troubling but not suprising development.

The practical argument for action is simpler: the tobacco industry is getting the world’s poor hooked before governments can respond. In recent years, as rich countries have clamped down on smoking, tobacco firms have shifted their focus to poorer places. A study by Britain’s Bath University found that by using aggressive tactics, such as targeting women, international tobacco firms had helped to double smoking rates in Russia since 1991.

The tobacco industry is regrouping in order to focus on “promising” markets and escape the pesky lawsuits it is likely to face in rich, litigious countries. For example, Altria, a global tobacco concern based in the United States, plans to spin off Philip Morris International as a stand-alone foreign entity in late March. China is now home to more than a quarter of the world’s smokers; it will soon be manufacturing Marlboro cigarettes for Philip Morris, and the firm will be exporting Chinese tobacco to other countries.

April Rabkin has an unknown story of another war against another winter holiday. It’s more interesting than it sounds.

By government decree, Chinese New Year was rechristened “Spring Festival.” For most urban families, celebrating is limited to eating dumplings, setting off fireworks, and watching the national TV program (this year’s theme, “Thriving China, Harmonious Society”), which will feature a blind singer and a comedy routine called “Olympic Torch Bearers.”

Gone from cities are rituals like kowtowing to elders and burning the Kitchen God. (As is also the case with the fortune cookie, large Chinese New Year parades like San Francisco’s are an American invention.) Almost every one of the Chinese New Year traditions has been banned at some point in recent decades. It’s as if the U.S. government outlawed and vilified Santa Claus costumes, nativity scenes, and Christmas lights.