Centrist Pundits

Today is the 20th anniversary of the June 4th Incident in Tiananmen Square in China.  Tomorrow is the anniversary of the famous Tank Man’s stand against the oncoming military vehicles.  Tiananmen Square is rapidly becoming part of history, and as a historic moment, one can only look back on conclude that while this incident raised the worlds awareness of China’s records on human rights temporarily, in the end, China has won on that issue – they’ve proven time and again the world doesn’t care about human rights or anything else China wishes to do poorly.

So the world discovered that the Chinese government doesn’t care about human rights or their citizen’s lives.  It doesn’t seem to matter.  Money still talks, and China continues to be such a valuable trade partner that no one seems to care that 20 years later, under similar circumstances, China would no doubt do the exact same thing.

20 years later, the government of China is still oppressing numerous territories around their nation, Taiwan and Tibet just being the most famous.  Even inside territories that are solidly within the Chinese sphere of influence, that are part of the country of China, discrimination against ethnic groups goes on with relish.

There’s no freedom of speech or freedom of religion or political freedom.  Heck, there’s not even freedom of movement.    Worker’s rights are more a theory than anything else, and corruption is the name of the game when dealing with the government.

But still, they win.  We and the world continue to trade with them as if we don’t care at all about human rights, because there is a dollar to be made.  Heck, they send us products laced with poisons that kill our pets and make our children sick but that doesn’t matter, as long as its trade.  Nor do any sort of international laws on copyright or anything matter; as long as we get cheap shoes we don’t care that writers are denied earnings on bootleg DVDs selling for a quarter on the streets in China’s major urban centers.  We (the world, as represented in this case by the IOC) let them have the Olympics despite their marginal at best attempts to improve human rights and their not even marginal ability to maintain a clean atmosphere.  The world is China’s enablers.

The Chinese people aren’t the problem.  The cultures of China are ancient, interesting, and worthy of respect.  The people in China are oppressed but have very little say in change within China, and anything that might become a movement for change is brutally repressed.  The problem lies entirely within the Government, and I don’t think change can come from within for China.  I don’t know that it can come from outside, either.

I don’t have solutions.  I’ve certainly expressed my dismay at “The China Problem” before.  But I have to think the world could have done better by the Chinese people since Tiananmen Square, but as it slips in to “times past”, the chances we will do anything dwindle to nothing.

JC Foreign Relations China, human rights

“We’re all for world peace, unless it is inconvenient.”  That’s the message South Africa is willing to let the world hear.  It has come out that South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa to visit during their conference for world peace.  Now, whatever you think of the China problem, or the likelihood of world peace, it would be hard to find someone outside the Chinese Government who thinks that the Dalai Lama isn’t anything other than one of the world’s foremost pushers of peace.

The conference was supposed to be about world peace and lead in to the 2010 World Cup; bringing together Nobel laureates and the top soccer officials.  The 2010 World Cup will be played in South Africa.  It is actually not even a particularly bad idea… while soccer has never really caught on here in the United States, the rest of the world plays and if a sport can cause world peace, soccer is probably the leading contender.

But South Africa was concerned that allowing the Dalai Lama to attend might distract from the soccer, and might make the conference more about the problems between Tibet and China (or about the internal China problem, depending on who’s line you take).  Further, they also stated that China is a valuable trade partner for South Africa, and they can’t risk that relationship.

This, to put it succinctly, sucks.  I know that international politics is a tricky business and I know that trade is important, but come on!  South Africa is supposed to be the example!  It was oppressive to its non-white population, but it turned the corner, it gave rights, it elected its most visible leader, imprisoned for his outspokenness for many years, it elected him as President.  It acknowledged the mistakes of the past and was trying to become a modern nation of equality.

The move to keep the Dalai Lama out may not be racist, but it is completely unenlightened.  It is an act of cowardice by a nation that shouldn’t backslide in to taking the easy way out.  And it isn’t even working, because their fear of the event being overshadowed by the China problem is going to cause their event to be overshadowed by the China problem.

There are heroes here, though.  Desmond Tutu is no longer attending, unless the Dalai Lama is granted his visa.  F.W. De Klerk is no longer attending, unless the Dalai Lama is granted his visa.  In fact, De Klerk said it best: 

“The decision to exclude the Dalai Lama is irreconcilable with key principles on which our society is based including the principles of accountability, openness and responsiveness and the rights to freedom of expression and free political activity,”

“South Africa is a sovereign constitutional democracy and should not allow other countries to dictate to it regarding who it should, and should not admit to its territory – regardless of the power and influence of the country.”

All that’s left is for Mandela to refuse to participate.  That, I think, would be the final straw, and would force South Africa to back off on this policy. 

South Africa wanted this conference to showcase South Africa and its progressive stance on human rights of late.  But their actions have showcased just the opposite.  Only rarely is there so obvious a case of right and wrong, but South Africa has somehow managed to come down on the wrong side of just such an obvious case.

JC Foreign Relations China, Dalai Lama, South Africa

As a follow up to my post yesterday on the China problem, we have to acknowledge that perhaps Hillary Clinton gets it.  Maybe, maybe not.  But she did do something important: she’s going to Asia.  It is her first trip overseas as Secretary of State and it has raised a few eyebrows because it breaks off the tradition of the SecState going first to Europe.

It is a welcome change.  I have no problem with our strong European ties, but they are, in this tradition’s sense, a victim of their own success.  We are not going to have any significant falling out with Europe.  We may disagree on some things like Iraq or the Death Penalty, but overall, we’re rooted in European roots and we’re tied very strongly to Europe.  While we always need diplomacy, Europe doesn’t need to be our diplomatic focus.  We aren’t going to undermine them, and they aren’t going to undermine us.

Asia is where it is at.  I wrote yesterday about how China has significant influence over the future of the United States.  Japan is one of our biggest trade partners, even if that trade could be a bit more equitable.  India now supports many of our major companies.  Afghanistan and Pakistan are where the Taliban and any major terrorist organizations are likely to resurge.  North Korea is lead by a crazy person who wants missiles and nuclear weapons and is willing to have a global hissy-fit to get America to pay attention to him.  And so on.

Clinton’s first stop may be in Japan, our staunch ally in this day and age, but the money talks are in China.  Clinton has already said she wants the China talks to discuss the environment, the economy, nuclear proliferation, and human rights.  Those are all huge topics, and the Chinese government’s thoughts on all of them except perhaps nukes are vastly different from our own.  (China has no interest more interest in the spread of nuclear weapons than we do.)  Clinton has her work cut out for her.

Obama may go to Europe more often than Asia and bring his star power to bear there, and repair America’s reputation with our allies on that small, increasingly less relevant continent.  But Clinton will probably visit Asia more often than Europe, because that’s where the real diplomatic thorns are.

I really hope she’s ready for it.

JC Foreign Relations China, Clinton, diplomacy

The G7 met over the weekend and the supposedly richest economies in the world agreed to do what it takes to help the global economy recover.  They were specifically against protectionism.  The G7 nations consist of the US, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan.  We can all sincerely hope these 7 nations mean it.

Even though at least one of those nations is notorious for protectionism.

And even though all 7 of those nations would most likely sell out the other 6 for their own recovery.  Pretty words don’t always make actual policy.

But the G7 is inherently missing some things.  Like countries.  What about emerging economies, most notably India?  America talks a lot about creating jobs but not very much about how many jobs have left our shores, especially to those countries where English is prevalent.  I’m not sure what, if anything, America can do about that but such job shifting surely affects our economy, and when Obama or anyone else says that higher technology jobs can’t leave our shores, I’d say that 100 years ago manufacturers probably couldn’t conceive of a time when those jobs would leave.

Worse, there’s at least one country that’s not an emerging economy but isn’t part of the G7.  China is a force to be reckoned with in every possible way.  It has a labor force the size of which the world has never seen, and that costs very little.  It either has no respect for or no desire to enforce international copyright laws.  It has no real problem sending America goods laden with lead or with outright poison (although America also needs to clean up its own act on not shipping food with poison, like peanuts and salmonella).  The country has been buying up American dollars and can help hurt our economy as they desire by dumping them back on to the market.

None of this is about the people of China, but the government of China has a definite low-level hostility toward America, and their policies definitely reflect that.  Even their better policies reflect indifference.  And America seems to abide it because Americans want 25 dollar sneakers at Walmart.  

Its also possible that China has its own problems.  They are having to carefully manage the emergence and growth of the middle class in China and the introduction of more capitalism because to little and those not enriched will revolt, and to much and the new middle will seek to become the new ruling class.  But China has existed as a powerful nation for millennia, and even the switch to “communism” didn’t change as much as one might think.  I don’t think we can hope that our example will change things.  If indeed America or any of the other G7 nations can be considered examples.

Until something is done about the China problem, China will remain a problem.

JC Economy, Foreign Relations China, diplomacy, finance, G7