Currency/Warfare:¨A new world order will emerge from the ashes.¨

[CharliePrime]

(06-05-2012 11:43 PM)h3rm35 Wrote:  then don´t read my threads. this one has over 300 reads right now and your the only one complaining. Topics of this size need a lot of context to be understood

Done. http://concen.org/forum/usercp.php?action=editlists Bye.

[h3rm35]

Iran, Russia, China, Syria to Stage Biggest Joint Wargames in Middle-East
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...#pid244517

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From the Chinese Academic Perspective:

Global Order Poised between Promise and Chaos
The Role of China

by Prof. Pang Zhongying

Whatever kind of world...ordered or disordered, a new or the old order, a diversified world or a Western-dominated one, the next five years are still of key importance. It could be the turning point of a new world order. It could also be a key moment for the West to regain the dominant position with all its might. Or perhaps, it will be a transition into a more chaotic world.

Only when we can properly handle China's relationship with the European countries and the US, and promote a shift from a Western-dominated world to a world shared by all nations, which means a world governed by global rules and including Chinese participation, can the relations between China and the West fundamentally shift.


The next five years are a key moment of the evolution of the world order, and for China's own governance as well.

Due to suffering from the crisis and a lack of effective plans to solve the problems, the positions Western nations hold in the international pattern have slipped. Western nations generally believe in the "power transition" theory. They worry the current world order will either be replaced by a pluralistic, diversified, multipolar world, or a more disordered, chaotic one.

Though the G20 is organized and led by the West, it could be the beginning point of a new multipolar world order. In regard of the monetary system, the US dollar, euro, yen, yuan and the pound sterling can co-exist. In addition, besides the World Bank, the development banks and regional monetary finance plans, organized by the new big powers, have also burgeoned. After the decline of regionalism in Europe, other regional cooperation organizations, such as ASEAN and similar South American groups may be further enhanced.

In 2012, several large powers will have presidential elections or witness changes of leadership. The diplomatic policies of their new administrations will be key factors to evolve a world order for the future. If the EU cannot turn around its decline in five years, its influence and position in the world order will be gravely weakened.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has just returned to his former office. The national strength of Russia is expected to rise along with its international status.

For the 2012 US presidency, whoever wins the presidential campaign, the US will make all efforts possible to retain its leadership and hegemony. Unavoidably influenced by the crisis of the West, the BRICS will be less influential on the world order, which will result in a lack of strength for them to promote a new order.

Whatever kind of world China asks for, ordered or disordered, a new or the old order, a diversified world or a Western-dominated one, the next five years are still of key importance. It could be the turning point of a new world order. It could also be a key moment for the West to regain the dominant position with all its might. Or perhaps, it will be a transition into a more chaotic world.

Whether China can become a more influential country largely depends on to what extent we can take advantage of the crisis of the West. The West's crisis can be taken as an opportunity. Whether or not we can take advantage of the crisis can decide the role China will play in the future world order.

Meanwhile, the evolution of China's domestic situation, including the economic transformation, social progression, political reform, military reform and the diplomatic changes can be the basis for China to fight for the building of a new world order and seek a better position in it.

To deal with the changes of the international and domestic circumstances, some principles in China's diplomatic policies, such as "never become the leader," "non-alignment, " and "non-interference" need to be revised. Rethinking and adjusting the principles and priorities of our diplomatic policies do not necessarily mean giving up the current ones, but making them more flexible and applicable.

In the next five years, China should emphasize strengthening cooperation with new powers, of various sizes, and deal with their possible conflicts properly. At the same time, only when we can properly handle China's relationship with the European countries and the US, and promote a shift from a Western-dominated world to a world shared by all nations, which means a world governed by global rules and including Chinese participation, can the relations between China and the West fundamentally shift.

To make this happen, China needs to introduce more appealing and inspiring proposals and targets for a new world order, as well as possible solutions that can address global issues.

The author is a professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China.

[h3rm35]

China, Brazil in $30 billion-currency swap deal

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — China and Brazil have agreed a currency-swap arrangement that enables each country to access up to $30 billion as part of efforts to build a financial buffer to help guard against a freeze up in global markets, according to reports.

Each country will be able to tap the other’s central bank for funds to help bolster reserves in the event of a crisis, according to newswire reports, which cited Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega.

Mantega said the fund could be useful in the event of a major liquidity event, noting that global trade foundered in 2008 when the global banking system froze.

With the swap, our trade flows can continue,” Mantega was cited as saying by Dow Jones Newswires.

The agreement was viewed as connected to a 10-year accord designed to promote two-way investment and trade, he said.

The swap agreement was also seen as the first step to a wider pact that could also draw in the other Brics nations of Russia, India and South Africa to participate in the pooling of liquidity, according to Mantega.

The idea of collective pooling of resources was discussed among Brics leaders this past week at the Group of 20 summit in Mexico, he said.

The swap agreement between China and Brazil is expected to be finalized in a few weeks, the reports said.

[h3rm35]

This is the "New World Order will arise from the ashes" shit that this thread has lead up to.

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): More Power to Corporations to Attack Nations
Extreme Foreign Investor Rights & Private Enforcement Would Promote Offshoring, Attacks Against Our Laws

By citizen.org

Global Research, July 5, 2012
citizen.org

Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free trade" agreement, foreign firms would gain an array of privileges:

Rights to acquire land, natural resources, factories without government review
Risks and costs of offshoring to low wage countries eliminated
Special guaranteed “minimum standard of treatment” for relocating firms
Compensation for loss of “expected future profits” from health, labor environmental, laws (indirect or “regulatory” takings compensation)
Right to move capital without limits
New rights cover vast definition of investment: intellectual property, permits, derivatives
Ban performance requirements, domestic content rules. Absolute ban, not only when applied to investors from signatory countries

A major goal of U.S. multinational corporations for the TPP is to impose on more countries a set of extreme for-eign investor privileges and rights and their private enforcement through the notorious “investor-state” system. This system elevates individual corporations and investors to equal standing with each TPP signatory country's government- and above all of us citizens.

Under this regime, foreign investors can skirt domestic courts and laws, and sue governments directly before tribunals of three private sector lawyers operating under World Bank and UN rules to demand taxpayer compensation for any domestic law that investors believe will diminish their "expected future profits." Over $675 million has been paid to foreign investors under U.S. trade pacts, while over $12 billion in claims are pending on environmental, safety, and public health policies under U.S. trade deals.

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Global Coalition of Big Business Actors

By Mark Vorpahl

Global Research, July 5, 2012

During the week of July 1st - 7th an international cabal of corporate lobbyists will be meeting behind closed doors in San Diego. Their aim is moving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) towards completion. For over two years TPP negotiations have been in process, yet the proposals and agreements made so far have been carefully kept from public view, until recently.

A leaked TPP document, published at Public Citizen, has revealed what the 600 corporate advisers involved in the negotiations, including representatives from Verizon, FedEx, and Walmart, have been up to. Considering the contents of this document, it is no wonder why the public and even elected representatives have been kept in the dark.

Publicly the TPP is being described as a Free Trade Act (FTA). This understates its scope. While the FTAs already in existence have raked in giant profits for the corporate elite, for workers internationally they have resulted in lay offs and a race to the bottom in terms of living conditions and rights. The big business tops have been working hard to enhance the power of their moneymaking weapons of mass destruction. If NAFTA was a hand grenade, the TPP is a bunker buster.

What is perhaps most astonishing about the TPP is its architects’ disregard for the consequences of its destructive potential. Their greed has blinded them to the political instability and popular revolt the consequences of the TPP will create. The corporate elite imagines their rule to be absolute and eternal. Sheltered by these illusions and goaded on by the need to increase their riches regardless of social costs, they are creating a bomb that could blow them up as well.

Currently the countries in on the TPP are the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. These countries alone are a combined market of 658 million people worth $20.5 trillion annually. (1) Canada, Japan, and Mexico are also expected to get on board. The TPP also has built in mechanisms to allow other nations to join after its ratification.

While China could theoretically become a member, there can be little doubt that part of the intention of this pact is for the United States to build a coalition, in which its big business interests dominate, to compete against China's economic might. This ratcheting up of competition will result in greater political animosity. In turn, these consequences will contribute to a course towards greater conflict, including the possibility of war. This is because international capitalist competition is not determined by gentlemanly agreements, but by the law of the jungle and, frequently, brute force. While it may be a relatively simple matter for the United States to bully its economically weaker TPP partners into line, China is not so easily dominated. Other more crude and costly measures than diplomacy will be required to get the competitive upper hand and the TPP is laying the foundation for this possibility.

What all FTAs share in common, including the TPP, is how they open up doors for multi-national corporations to transfer operations to other nations where labor is cheaper and the profit rate is greater. In the first 10 years of NAFTA this outsourcing resulted in the net loss of 879,280 U.S. jobs. (2) Considering the greater number of countries involved in the TPP, this number of lost jobs will be all the greater.
In addition, for the nations these jobs are outsourced to, the results are even more devastating. The dislocation of local economies by the larger scale corporations moving in also results in greater unemployment. For instance,
NAFTA resulted in the loss of 1.3 million Mexican farm jobs as U.S. agribusiness moved in (3), leaving the farmers to toil for a living in the brutal Maquiladoras or move to the U.S. for jobs where they have been persecuted as "illegal" immigrants. Even more damaging was how NAFTA accelerated the privatization of Mexico's once strong public sector resulting in huge layoffs, wage cuts, and a dramatic drop in the countries unionization rate. Other than for a well-connected few within the developing nations signing onto the TPP, there is nothing to gain and much to lose for these countries’ citizens if this agreement is enacted.

Where the TPP departs from past FTAs is in the range of issues it covers and the degree it flagrantly defies national sovereignty in favor of multi-national corporate interests. Only two of the TPP's 26 chapters have to do with trade. The rest are focused on new corporate rights, privileges and tools to override local government interests.

Perhaps the most controversial of these tools would be the setting up of a three attorney tribunal, with no checks on conflicts of interest, to judge foreign corporate complaints regarding government regulations in the countries they are setting up operations in. If, for instance, a foreign owned corporation argues it is losing profits because of its host nation's overtime laws, this tribunal could rule that the country's taxpayers owe that corporation compensation for this loss. Such costly judgments could result from any regulations including labor law, local environmental standards, financial rules, etc. In short, the TPP's tribunal would act as the hammer of multi-national corporate interests above the power of the states' governments they do business in. While, because of their size, U.S. based corporations have the most to gain from this arrangement, it will result in not only a greater deterioration of the living standards of those working in the U.S. but also any semblance of democracy as well.

As negotiated under the Obama administration by U.S. trade representative Ron Kirkland, the TPP is extremist. Public interest and national sovereignty are sacrificed on the altar of a corporate agenda to a degree that it is doubtful a Republican president could get away with. Should it be passed into law, revolts against its effects are likely. This will set into motion events that will not go as planned by the 1% behind the measure.

The time is now to start trying to defeat the TPP. Currently, many of the organizations expressing concerns about it, including the AFL-CIO leadership, are limiting the fightback to pressuring the Obama administration to amend or drop the TPP. It should first be demanded that the agreements and proposals regarding the TPP are open for all to see. The public needs to be educated about its effects. If such efforts are linked to a mass action campaign for jobs - not cuts, it would go a long way towards creating a grass roots political movement that could take on this extremist 1 percent agreement.

Such a movement cannot afford to counter the TPP with an equally reactionary protectionist program. Currently, this is the position put forward by the AFL-CIO leadership and their "buy America made" slogan. At first glance, it appears to be common sense for many rank and file U.S. workers. "If we want to prevent the off shoring of American jobs we should only buy products made at home" goes the reasoning. However, there are several problems with this line that undercut our ability to combat the TPP.

One problem is that there are very few products that are made exclusively in the U.S. The division of labor to produce even most "American made" commodities is international in scale. Otherwise, few if any of the corporations that make them would be able to survive. Therefore, the logic behind this protectionist slogan is utopian, harking back to a long gone time before the economy became such a globally dependent system.
There are other more pernicious consequences to protectionism, however. It fosters jingoistic "America first" attitudes that, as political tensions increase between economically competing nations, can easily be manipulated into support for military adventures that are against the 99% interests. In addition, even if U.S. jobs are being protected by such measures as tariffs against foreign competitors, this, in effect, exports unemployment and divides the working class by nationality. If extremist 1% measures are to be defeated, it can only be done by a political policy that unites the 99% across national boundaries. Protectionism creates just the opposite.

Workers need their own international campaign to fight the TPP. The labor movement in the U.S. could begin by linking up with other union and community groups from the nations signing onto it. An international conference could be set up to share information, assist one another in their efforts to combat the TPP, and plan for joint actions. However, in order for such a conference to not be limited to purely symbolic value, serious efforts must be dedicated towards turning the ideas coming out of it into a physical force through mass organizing.

The passage of NAFTA was a defeat for workers that we are still suffering from in a big way. Labor and its allies were unprepared to effectively fight it, though there were notable solidarity efforts between U.S. and Mexican unions. The stakes are even higher with the TPP. Statesman like appeals to President Clinton by labor to drop or, at least, reform NAFTA did no good. Likewise, similar appeals to President Obama, especially after the passage of the Korean, Colombian, and Panama FTAs, will leave us saddled with the TPP. The unions need leverage to defeat the TPP, and that leverage comes from mass organizing and action.

For further reading check out the leaked document at http://www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-cont...stment.pdf

For "Controversial Trade Pact Text Leaked, Shows U.S. Trade Officials Have Agreed to Terms That Undermine Obama Domestic Agenda go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/release...-06-13.pdf

For Public Interest Analysis of Leaked Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Investment text go to http://www.citizen.org/documents/Leaked-...alysis.pdf

Notes

1.) Trans-Pacific Partnership decoded: Canada lobbied to be part of trade talks. Now what? By Madhavi Achar-Tom Yew for Business Reporter.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/...s-now-what
2.)See "NAFTA – Related Job Losses Have Piled Up Since 1993" by Robert E. Scott for the Economic Policy Institute.
http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatur...s_archive_
3.) Disadvantages of NAFTA By Kimberly Amadeo for About.Com US Economy.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradepolic...oblems.htm

[h3rm35]

August 21, 2012
U.S. Companies Worry About Effect of Russia Joining W.T.O.
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

MOSCOW — After two decades of negotiations, Russia will finally join the World Trade Organization on Wednesday. The lower trade barriers that come along with membership will open up new opportunities for foreign companies to do business in Russia.

But American companies are guaranteed no such advantages — and may even face higher Russian tariffs than their competitors from other countries.

Because of broader policy concerns about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissidents and its support for rogue governments, Congress has balked at the Obama administration’s request to grant Russia permanent normal trade relation status. That status is important since the W.T.O. requires that any country that seeks to benefit from it must apply the same trade rules to all member countries.

Major American exporters to Russia, like Caterpillar, Deere and General Electric, are worried about the potential impact on their business from the Congressional inaction. Across all sectors of the economy, Russia will lower import tariffs to 7 percent, from about 15 percent today, for the 155 countries in the trade organization. Although Russian officials say they do not have any immediate intention of applying discriminatory tariffs against American companies, they could legally do so at any time.

Russia was the last major economy that was not part of the trade group, and joining is expected to be a boon for Russian consumers and businesses. Exporting companies in Europe, Asia and the United States eagerly await open access to a population of 142 million people with growing incomes and an expanding middle class.

The World Bank estimates that W.T.O. membership will add three percentage points to Russia’s gross domestic product once the new tariffs are phased in.

Russia negotiated for membership for 18 years, beginning when the W.T.O. was called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. That is longer than any major W.T.O. entrant, including China, for which permanent trade status was also a battle in Congress. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all supported Russia’s inclusion, and the country won accession last year, with formal membership coming this week.

After Russia joins the W.T.O., most other countries in the world will have recourse to the global trade group’s means for resolving disputes and can demand the lower, favorable tariffs negotiated during Russia’s application process.

Whatever the economic implications for American companies, members of Congress have suggested that granting Russia permanent normal trade relations would in effect turn a blind eye to Russia’s support for rogue governments, its defiance of Western efforts to isolate Syria and Iran, and President Vladimir V. Putin’s crackdown on dissent at home.

“The Obama administration has not articulated a clear and coherent strategy regarding Russia,” Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in June. “Instead, they ask Congress to simply pass permanent normal trade relations and remove Russia from long-standing human rights law, while ignoring Russia’s rampant corruption, theft of U.S. intellectual property, poor human rights record and adversarial foreign policies.”

Just last week, Russian authorities sentenced members of the punk band Pussy Riot to two years in prison for holding an anti-Putin concert, and then arrested the chess champion Garry Kasparov, who was protesting outside the court, and accused him of biting a policeman.

To grant the favored trade status, Congress must repeal a cold-war-era trade sanction intended to compel the Soviet Union to allow Jewish and other religious minorities to freely emigrate. Russia has not imposed restrictions on such emigration for about 20 years.

Some members of Congress from both parties, but not the Obama administration, support replacing that restriction with a human rights law addressing current issues of government corruption and police abuse. The proposed law — named after the whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in pretrial detention in 2009 — would block visas and freeze assets of Russians implicated in human rights abuses.

Mr. Hatch noted that exports to Russia account for only about half of 1 percent of all American exports. American businesses are also protected by a 1992 bilateral trade treaty that guarantees equal treatment with companies from other nations, though this lacks the enforcement mechanism of the W.T.O.

For companies with major Russian exports, an extended Congressional delay could be dire. Earlier this year, several chief executives testified to Congress that their market share in Russia and jobs at factories, research and development centers and head offices in the United States could suffer.

“The United States will be in violation of W.T.O. rules that require every member to grant every other member permanent normal trade relations,” said Andrew Somers, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia. “To many congressmen, it looks like they would be rewarding Russia for bad behavior. But in fact, they will not be rewarding Russia at all, because Russia is already in the W.T.O.”

For some goods, the new tariffs take effect immediately. In other sectors, like automotive manufacturing, the tariffs are phased in over up to seven years.

Yekaterina Y. Mayorova, deputy director of trade negotiations at the Russian ministry of economy, said in an interview that the initial drop in tariffs to take effect later this week would not discriminate against American companies. “We are not preparing any special tariffs for the United States, though legally we are not obliged to offer the same conditions,” she said.

But several large companies are at risk. G.E. competes with Siemens of Germany to sell medical imaging devices, and the market for Caterpillar’s big bulldozers is crowded with European and Asian manufacturers, all with sharp elbows.

Russia, with its heavy dependence on mining and energy industries, is one of the top 10 export markets for Caterpillar, and the company sold $2 billion worth of machines there over the last five years.

After Russia joins the W.T.O. and without permanent normal trade relations, “American companies like Caterpillar will be at a disadvantage compared to Chinese, Korean, Japanese and European competitors,” said Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman. Losing sales in Russia could affect hiring decisions at United States factories, where Caterpillar employs 55,000 people.

The company’s gigantic mining trucks illustrate the risks to American exporters. Tariffs on the vehicles will decrease to 5 percent, from 15 percent, under W.T.O. rules.

Depending on their size, these trucks costs $1 million to $7 million, meaning the Russian government could, without risking recourse under the W.T.O., ask Caterpillar to pay $100,000 to $700,000 more in tariffs than its principal Japanese competitor, Komatsu, for each American-made truck sold in Russia.

Caterpillar is also facing mounting competition from a Chinese maker of big bulldozers, Shantui, and an upstart German engineering group, Liebherr, that makes construction cranes but is now competing with Caterpillar for pipe-laying equipment for the petroleum industry.

“This will really help them,” Bill Pigman, an American dealer of heavy equipment in Moscow, said in an interview. “Why do you have to play brinksmanship? Congress is threatening Cat’s toehold in Russia.”

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US Military Build-up against China
Blueprint of Washington Think Tank on Contract to DoD

By Peter Symonds

Global Research, August 13, 2012

A paper by the Washington think tank, the Centre for Strategic and Independent Studies (CSIS), entitled “US Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Independent Assessment,” provides what amounts to a blueprint for the Obama administration’s military preparations for conflict with China.

While the CSIS is a non-government body, its assessment was commissioned by the US Defense Department, as required by the 2012 National Defense Authorisation Act, giving semi-official status to its findings and proposals. The paper involved extensive discussions with top US military personnel throughout the Pentagon’s Pacific Command. The CSIS report was delivered to the Pentagon on June 27, but gained media coverage only after its principal authors—David Berteau and Michael Green—testified before the US House Armed Services Committee on August 1.

The report featured prominently in the Australian media, which headlined one of its proposals: to forward base an entire US aircraft carrier battle group at HMAS Stirling, a naval base in Western Australia. If implemented, the recommendation would transform the base, and the nearby city of Perth, into a potential target for Chinese and Russian nuclear missiles. The proposal serves to underscore the far-reaching implications of the CSIS assessment, which is in line with Obama administration’s confrontational “pivot” to Asia, aimed against China.

The CSIS assessment declares that the underlying US geostrategic objective in the Asia-Pacific region has been to prevent “the rise of any hegemonic state from within the region that could threaten US interests by seeking to obstruct American access or dominate the maritime domain. From that perspective, the most significant problem for the United States in Asia today is China’s rising power, influence, and expectations of regional pre-eminence.” In other words, the prevailing American hegemony in the region must continue.

The document recognises that military strategy is bound up with economic imperatives. It identifies “trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement” as crucial to “a sustainable trans-Pacific trade architecture that sustains U.S. access and influence in the region.” While declaring that the US “must integrate all of these instruments of national power and not rely excessively on US military capabilities,” it is precisely America’s relative economic decline that is driving the use of military power to maintain its dominance in Asia, as in the Middle East.

Having identified China as the chief potential rival, the report rules out any repeat of the US containment strategy employed to isolate the Soviet Union during the Cold War—thus pointing to the United States’ economic dependence on China. Significantly, the authors reject a power-sharing arrangement with China, or, as described to the armed services committee, “a bipolar condominium that acknowledges Beijing’s core interests and implicitly divides the region.” This latter conception, in one form or another, is being promoted by some strategic analysts in the US and Australia as the only means of preventing war. The CSIS report rejects any pull back by the US from Asia, which would effectively cede the region to China.

Having ruled out peaceful alternatives, the CSIS paper sets out a military strategy. The authors do not openly advocate war with China, declaring that “the consequences of conflict with that nation are almost unthinkable and should be avoided to the greatest extent possible, consistent with U.S. interests.” They do not exclude the possibility of conflict in the event that US interests are at stake, however, adding that the ability to “maintain a favourable peace” depends on the perception that the US can prevail in the event of conflict. “U.S. force posture must demonstrate a readiness and capacity to fight and win, even under more challenging circumstances associated with A2AD [anti-access/area denial] and other threats to U.S. military operations in the Western Pacific,” the report states.

Thus, in the name of peace, the US is preparing for a catastrophic war with China. US strategic planners are especially concerned with China’s so-called A2AD military capacities—the development of sophisticated submarines, missiles and war planes capable of posing a danger to the US navy in the Western Pacific. While the US habitually presents such weaponry as a “threat” to its military, in reality China is defensively responding to the presence of overwhelming American naval power in waters close to the mainland. US naval preponderance in the East China Sea, the South China Sea and key “choke” points such as the Malacca Strait, menaces the shipping lanes from the Middle East and Africa on which China relies for energy and raw materials.

The CSIS report approves of the repositioning and strengthening of US military forces in the Western Pacific that has accelerated under the Obama administration’s “rebalance” to Asia. This includes: consolidating US bases, troops and military assets in Japan and South Korea; building up US forces on Guam and Northern Mariana Islands, strategically located in the Western Pacific; stationing in Singapore littoral combat ships—relatively small, fast, flexible warships capable of intelligence gathering, special operations and landing troops with armoured vehicles; and making greater use of Australian naval and air bases and positioning 2,500 Marines in the northern city of Darwin. In addition, the paper confirms that the US has held discussions with Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam over possible access to bases and joint training.

The document also reviews US efforts to strengthen military ties throughout Asia—from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to Burma, Indonesia and New Zealand—as well as with its formal allies. Significantly, in ranking military contingencies from low to high intensity, it identifies Australia, Japan and South Korea as critical allies “at the higher spectrum of intensity”—in other words, military conflict with China—“with other allies and partners at the lower spectrum of intensity.”

While broadly dealing with all contingencies, the CSIS assessment is primarily focussed on “high intensity.” Its recommendations involve the further development of military arrangements with South Korea, Japan and Australia, and also between these allies. It recommends the implementation of the latest military agreements with Japan and South Korea. In relation to Japan, the document makes the strategic significance of Okinawa clear. It is “centrally located” between Northeast Asia and maritime Southeast Asia, and “positioned to fight tactically within the A2AD envelope in higher intensity scenarios”—that is, it is crucial in any war with China. The Obama administration has intransigently opposed Japanese government calls to relocate the large US Marine base at Futenma off Okinawa.

The CSIS document is not the official policy of the Obama administration: its findings are couched as recommendations. It considers all scenarios, including maintaining the status quo and winding back US forces from the Asia Pacific region, neither of which it favours. However, the most ominous aspect of the report deals with a substantial list of steps that could be taken to markedly strengthen the US military throughout the region.

As well as basing a US nuclear aircraft carrier in Western Australia, these include: doubling the number of nuclear attack submarines based at Guam; deploying littoral combat ships to South Korea; doubling the size of amphibious forces in Hawaii; permanently basing a bomber squadron on Guam; boosting manned and unmanned surveillance assets in Australia or Guam; upgrading anti-missile defences in Japan, South Korea and Guam; and strengthening US ground forces. While recommending consideration of all these options, the CSIS specifically calls for more attack submarines to be placed at Guam—that is, within easy striking distance of Chinese shipping routes and naval bases.

Any of these moves will only heighten tensions with China and the danger of an arms race and conflict in the Asia Pacific region. The CSIS assessment points to potential flashpoints, from the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait to the South China Sea and the disputed borders between India and China. The report clearly represents the thinking more broadly within the Obama administration, and top US military and intelligence circles that are recklessly preparing and planning for war with China.

[h3rm35]

August 23, 2012
China Confronts Mounting Piles of Unsold Goods
By KEITH BRADSHER

GUANGZHOU, China — After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy: a huge buildup of unsold goods that is cluttering shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses.

The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. It has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home.

The severity of China’s inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government — all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors.

But the main nongovernment survey of manufacturers in China showed on Thursday that inventories of finished goods rose much faster in August than in any month since the survey began in April 2004. The previous record for rising inventories, according to the HSBC/Markit survey, had been set in June. May and July also showed increases.

“Across the manufacturing industries we look at, people were expecting more sales over the summer, and it just didn’t happen,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, the research director for J Capital Research, an economic analysis firm in Hong Kong. With inventories extremely high and factories now cutting production, she added, “Things are kind of crawling to a halt.”

Problems in China give some economists nightmares in which, in the worst case, the United States and much of the world slip back into recession as the Chinese economy sputters, the European currency zone collapses and political gridlock paralyzes the United States.

China is the world’s second-largest economy and has been the largest engine of economic growth since the global financial crisis began in 2008. Economic weakness means that China is likely to buy fewer goods and services from abroad when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is already hurting demand, raising the prospect of a global glut of goods and falling prices and weak production around the world.

Corporate hiring has slowed, and jobs are becoming less plentiful. Chinese exports, a mainstay of the economy for the last three decades, have almost stopped growing. Imports have also stalled, particularly for raw materials like iron ore for steel making, as industrialists have lost confidence that they will be able to sell if they keep factories running. Real estate prices have slid, although there have been hints that they might have bottomed out in July, and money has been leaving the country through legal and illegal channels.

Interviews with business owners and managers across a wide range of Chinese industries presented a picture of mounting stockpiles of unsold goods.

Business owners who manufacture or distribute products as varied as dehumidifiers, plastic tubing for ventilation systems, solar panels, bedsheets and steel beams for false ceilings said that sales had fallen over the last year and showed little sign of recovering.

“Sales are down 50 percent from last year, and inventory is piled high,” said To Liangjian, the owner of a wholesale company distributing picture frames and cups, as he paused while playing online poker in his deserted storefront here in southeastern China.

Wu Weiqing, the manager of a faucet and sink wholesaler, said that his sales dropped 30 percent in the last year and he has piled up extra merchandise. Yet the factory supplying him is still cranking out shiny kitchen fixtures at a fast pace.

“My supplier’s inventory is huge because he cannot cut production — he doesn’t want to miss out on sales when the demand comes back,” he said.

Part of the issue is that the Chinese government’s leaders have decided to put quality-of-life concerns ahead of maximizing economic growth when it comes to two of the country’s largest industries: housing and autos.

Premier Wen Jiabao has imposed a strict ban on purchases of second and subsequent homes, in the hope that discouraging real estate speculation will improve the affordability of homes. The ban has resulted in a steep decline in residential real estate prices, a sharp fall in housing construction and widespread job losses among construction workers.

At the same time, the municipal government in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities, has sharply reduced this summer the number of new car registrations it allows so as to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.

Municipal officials from all over China have been flocking to Guangzhou to ask for details. Xi’an, the metropolis of northwestern China, has already announced this month that it will limit car registrations, although it has not settled on the details.

The Chinese auto industry has grown tenfold in the last decade to become the world’s largest, looking like a formidable challenger to Detroit. But now, the Chinese industry is starting to look more like Detroit in its dark days in the 1980s.

Inventories of unsold cars are soaring at dealerships across the nation, and the Chinese industry’s problems show every sign of growing worse, not better. So many auto factories have opened in China in the last two years that the industry is operating at only about 65 percent of capacity — far below the 80 percent usually needed for profitability.

Yet so many new factories are being built that, according to the Chinese government’s National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s auto manufacturing capacity is on track to increase again in the next three years by an amount equal to all the auto factories in Japan, or nearly all the auto factories in the United States.

“I worry that we’re going down the same road the U.S. went down, and it takes quite some time to fix that,” said Geoff Broderick, the general manager of Asian operations at J. D. Power & Associates, the global consulting firm.

Automakers in China have reported that the number of cars they sold at wholesale to dealers rose by nearly 600,000 units, or 9 percent, in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year.

Yet dealerships’ inventories of new cars rose 900,000 units, to 2.2 million, from the end of December to the end of June. While part of the increase is seasonal, auto analysts say that the data shows that retail sales are flat at best and most likely declining — a sharp reversal for an industry accustomed to double-digit annual growth.

“Inventory levels for us now are very, very high,” said Huang Yi, the chairman of Zhongsheng Group, China’s fifth-largest dealership chain. “If I hadn’t done special offers in the first half of this year, my inventory would be even higher.”

Manufacturers have largely refused to cut production, and are putting heavy pressure on dealers to accept delivery of cars under their franchise agreements even though many dealers are struggling to find places to park them or ways to finance their swelling inventories. This prompted the government-controlled China Automobile Dealers Association to issue a rare appeal to automakers earlier this month.

“We call on manufacturers to be highly concerned about dealer inventories, and to take timely and effective measures to actively digest inventory, especially taking into account the financial strain on distributors, as manufacturers have to provide the necessary financing support to help dealers ride out the storm,” the association said.

Officially, though, most of the inventory problems are a nonissue for the government.

The Public Security Bureau, for example, has halted the release of data about slumping car registrations. Data on the steel sector has been repeatedly revised this year after a new method showed a steeper downturn than the government had acknowledged. And while rows of empty apartment buildings line highways outside major cities all over China, the government has not released information about the number of empty apartments since 2008.

Yet businesspeople in a wide range of industries have little doubt that the Chinese economy is in trouble.

“Inventory used to flow in and out,” said Mr. Wu, the faucet and sink sales manager. “Now, it just sits there, and there’s more of it.”

Hilda Wang contributed reporting.

[h3rm35]

September 16, 2012
U.S. to File W.T.O. Case Against China Over Cars
By KEITH BRADSHER

The Obama administration plans to file a broad trade case at the World Trade Organization in Geneva on Monday accusing China of unfairly subsidizing its exports of autos and auto parts, a senior administration official said late Sunday, in a move with clear political implications for the presidential elections less than two months away.

The W.T.O. case accuses China of providing at least $1 billion worth of subsidies from 2009 to 2011 for exports of autos and auto parts. While China exports virtually no fully assembled cars to the United States, it has rapidly expanded exports to developing countries, and those exports compete to some extent with cars exported or designed in the United States.

President Obama plans to announce the move on Monday during a visit to Ohio, one of the most important of the battleground states and a place where the president is trying to capitalize on his bailout of the auto industry. A poll by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and Marist College last week showed Mr. Obama building a significant lead in Ohio.

The upper Midwestern states have emerged as a key battleground in the presidential election, particularly Ohio, which has rivaled Florida in recent presidential elections as the most hard-fought state of all. Ohio is also the hub of the American auto parts industry, which has suffered heavily from job losses that have coincided with surging imports of auto parts from China.

Auto parts employment in the United States has dropped by about one-half from 2001 to 2010, as imports from China grew nearly sevenfold over the same period, according to data provided by the senior official, who insisted on anonymity citing an administration policy banning on-the-record comments on a new policy before an official announcement is made. Auto parts manufacturers directly employ 54,200 people in Ohio, and when suppliers like steel makers are included, the auto industry accounts for 850,000 jobs in the state, or 12.4 percent of total employment there.

But auto industry experts debate the extent to which those imports have been directly responsible for the closing of factories and for cutbacks at other plants, as ever-increasing automation has also played some role. The slowing of the American auto market since 2008 has had an effect as well, although auto sales have begun to recover in recent months.

Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly accused the Obama administration of not doing enough to challenge China on trade and currency policies. But the timing of the administration case, coming so soon before the elections, makes it likely that the Chinese government will accuse President Obama of playing politics — an accusation already made by Chinese officials, particularly those with close ties to affected industries, in connection with recent trade cases involving solar panels.

Asked whether the trade cases against China were timed for political impact, the senior administration official replied by e-mail that “President Obama has prioritized enforcement of Americans’ rights in the global trading system from day one, and this administration has a consistent record of action to support American jobs.”

The press office at China’s commerce ministry had no comment when told by telephone on Monday morning of the planned trade case, asking for a fax of questions, which did not yield an immediate reply. Chinese officials have denied in general that they subsidize exports.

Chinese exports have surged particularly in the past year, as the Chinese economy has slowed sharply, leaving particularly the domestic Chinese automakers with huge inventories of unsold cars that they are seeking to sell overseas.

Speakers repeatedly mentioned during the Democratic convention the federal government bailout for the Detroit auto industry three years ago, following a perception that the bailout will prove politically advantageous in key states. By contrast, speakers during the Republican convention generally avoided the subject.

The administration also plans to take further legal steps on Monday in a W.T.O. case already pending against China over its imposition of steep anti-dumping duties last winter against more than 80 percent of American car exports to China. That case, described by people in China as largely the result of factional rivalries in Beijing that produced a need to take a strong stand against the United States, has begun to shift the focus of trade tensions between the United States and China toward the automotive sector.

The administration has been mulling a possible W.T.O case against China in the auto sector since at least last winter, and has been encouraged by unions to do so, particularly the United Steel Workers.

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Japan brandname firms shut China plants after protest violence
By Kazunori Takada and Chris Buckley | Reuters – 9 hrs ago

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Some major Japanese brandname firms announced factory shutdowns in China on Monday and urged expatriates to stay indoors ahead of what could be more angry protests over a territorial dispute between Asia's two biggest economies.

China's worst outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment in decades led to weekend demonstrations and violent attacks on well-known Japanese businesses such as car makers Toyota and Honda, forcing frightened Japanese into hiding and prompting Chinese state media to warn that trade relations could now be in jeopardy.

Another outbreak of anti-Japan sentiment is expected across China on Tuesday, the anniversary of Japan's 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China.

"I'm not going out today and I've asked my Chinese boyfriend to be with me all day tomorrow," said Sayo Morimoto, a 29-year-old Japanese graduate student at a university in Shenzhen.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the government would protect Japanese firms and citizens and called for protesters to obey the law.

"The gravely destructive consequences of Japan's illegal purchase of the Diaoyu Islands are steadily emerging, and the responsibility for this should be born by Japan," he told a daily news briefing. The islands, called the Senkaku by Japan and Diaoyu by China.

China and Japan, which generated two-way trade of $345 billion last year, are arguing over the uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a long-standing dispute that erupted last week when the Japanese government decided to buy some of them from a private Japanese owner.

In response, China sent six surveillance ships to the area, which contains potentially large gas reserves. On Monday, a flotilla of around 1,000 Chinese fishing boats was sailing for the islands.

The weekend protests mainly targeted Japanese diplomatic missions but also shops, restaurants and car dealerships in at least five cities. Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co said arsonists had badly damaged their stores in the eastern port city of Qingdao at the weekend.

Toyota said its factories and offices were operating as normal on Monday and that it had not ordered its Japanese employees home.

Honda said it would suspend production in China starting on Tuesday for two days. Fast Retailing Co, Asia's largest apparel retailer, said it had closed some of its Uniqlo outlets in China and may close yet more.

Japan's top general retailer, Seven & I Holdings, said it would close 13 Ito Yokado supermarkets and 198 "7-11" convenience stores in China on Tuesday, while Sony Corp is discouraging non-essential travel to China.

Mazda Motor Corp will halt production at its Nanjing factory, which it jointly operates with Chongqing Changan Automobile Co Ltd and Ford Motor Co, for four days. Nissan Motor Co suspended China production for two days, starting Monday, sources said.

"I want to leave," said a Nissan executive, who declined to be named, in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. "Protests near my home were horrifying over the weekend."

Electronics group Panasonic said one of its plants had been sabotaged by Chinese workers and would remain closed through Tuesday.

Canon Inc will stop production at three of its four Chinese factories on Tuesday, Japanese media reports said, while All Nippon Airways Co reported a rise in cancellations on Japan-bound flights from China.

The dispute also hit the shares of Hong Kong-listed Japanese retailers on Monday, with department store operator Aeon Stores (Hong Kong) Co Ltd falling to a seven-month low.

"All Japan-related shares are under selling pressure," said Andrew To, a research director from Emperor Capital.

Japan warned its citizens about large-scale protests in China on Tuesday. Many Japanese schools across China, including in Beijing and Shanghai, have cancelled classes this week.

U.S. SAYS NOT TAKING SIDES

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who met visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday, urged Beijing to ensure Japan's people and property were protected.

Panetta said the United States would stand by its security treaty obligations to Japan but not take sides in the row, and urged calm and restraint on both sides.

The overseas edition of the People's Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, warned that Beijing could resort to economic retaliation if the dispute festers.

"How could it be that Japan wants another lost decade, and could even be prepared to go back by two decades?" asked a front-page editorial. China "has always been extremely cautious about playing the economic card", it said.

"But in struggles concerning territorial sovereignty, if Japan continues its provocations, then China will take up the battle."

China is Japan's biggest trade partner and Japan is China's third largest. Any harm to business and investment ties would be bad for both economies at a time when China faces a slowdown.

Qingdao police said they had arrested a number of people suspected of "disrupting social order" during the protests, apparently referring to the attacks on Japanese-operated factories and shops there.

In Shanghai, home to China's biggest Japanese expatriate population of 56,000, one expat said his family as well as other Japanese customers had been chased out of a Japanese restaurant on Sunday by protesters near the Japanese consulate.

Guangzhou police said on their official microblog that they had detained 11 people for smashing up a Japanese-brand car, shop windows and billboards on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Norihiko Shirouzu, Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING, and Yoko Kubota, Antoni Slodkowski and Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Editing by Nick Macfie)

[h3rm35]

related post:
secret ‘negotiations’ are underway to secure the Trans-Pacific Partnership
http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?t...#pid248580

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when you look at the TPP, the Japanese actions, and the WTO suit, and then combine that with the rampant anti-China/pro-auto workers pube-lick appearances by Barry in the last 24 hrs, you can see the Economic war in full swing...

I've been trying to fuse that war and the geopolitical physical --war into a global scheme, and things are starting to knit together in Yemen w/boots on the ground and India in the economic sense.

That's not necessarily where things will pop off, they're just the places where the most intense proxy wars are being fought with the deepest fusion of both types of warfare. I'm pretty sure the ignition-point will be Pakistan.

[h3rm35]

The Sino-Japanese Standoff and International Politics
By Afshain Afzal
Global Research, September 20, 2012
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-sino-ja...-politics/

[I]t was the presence of the US’ most advanced submarines in the Philippines’ Subic Bay this month which generated alarms in Beijing while the Japanese action regarding the detention of Chinese was taken as part of the plan.

The expanding US’ submarine presence in the region, especially on bases in Guam, Japan and Hawaii, coupled with movement on Subic near the Chinese Navy’s southernmost submarine base on the side of a cliff on Hainan Island was something that required monitoring.

[D]ue to Chinese commitments to put her own house in order, the US’ Navy presence in the Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean would remain undetected, which may pose a threat to Iran.

* * *

It is always difficult to guess on which side the camel will sit but the recent statement of Japanese Liberal Democratic Party’s Secretary General, Nobuteru Ishihara, has given quite clear signals from Washington. Ishihara said: “Our relations with China are at their worst ever since the normalization of relations between the two countries. It is precisely because the US-Japan alliance is shaken that neighbouring countries keep entering Japan’s territory and Japan’s peace and safety have come under great threat.”

It is pertinent to mention here that relations with Washington had also turned hostile after the ruling Democrats took power in 2009. The ongoing tension between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands flared up last month when on intelligence input from Washington Japan detained Chinese activists who had landed on the islands.

This led anti-Japanese protests in China followed by a political statement from Tokyo that they intend buying the islands from a Japanese businessman. If we recall, on 16 April 2012, Tokyo’s Governor Shintaro Ishihara during a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a think-tank in Washington, issued a statement that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government is negotiating with the owner of three major islands in the uninhabited chain.

The present standoff has been conspired with to realize in Japanese political circles the necessity of the alliance with the US. If we critically examine the latest developments we will arrive at the conclusions that it was the presence of the US’ most advanced submarines in the Philippines’ Subic Bay this month which generated alarms in Beijing while the Japanese action regarding the detention of Chinese was taken as part of the plan.

The expanding US’ submarine presence in the region, especially on bases in Guam, Japan and Hawaii, coupled with movement on Subic near the Chinese Navy’s southernmost submarine base on the side of a cliff on Hainan Island was something that required monitoring.

Beijing did what it had to do but both Japan and China should not come to the point of no return.

In fact it is third countries that are playing their game in the region. Washington benefit from the present standoff in three ways. Firstly, due to Chinese commitments to put her own house in order, the US’ Navy presence in Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean would remain undetected, which may pose a threat to Iran.

Secondly, it would also provide a chance to the anti-China bloc to win geo-strategically important countries like Maldives to its side, directly or through its partners like India.

And thirdly, it would distort the international image of Japan as well as China, which will help India to contest a United Nations Security Council seat quite comfortably.

In fact, Western nations have completely backed capitalist India as a third world playboy for the US in the Asian region. In the recent move involving the navy buildup in Indian Ocean against Iran, China being a veto-wielding power has international obligations and Beijing must remain current on day-to-day movements in the Arabian Gulf and Mediterranean Sea.

The present Chinese standoff with Japan would not allow its navy to move to the other side of the world and monitor US-Israeli moves. Indians also got a life time opportunity to mend its fence with the Maldives in order to isolate China. To counter Chinese influence in the Maldives, Indian Defence Minister AK Antony is on a three-day visit to Male in connection with the inauguration of a military hospital and foundation stone-laying ceremony at the Training Academy of the Maldivian National Defence Forces. In another development, Japan’s ambassador-designate to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, died on 16 September 2012.

Doctors were looking into the cause of his death. He was in mid-October to take over from Uichiro Niwa as Japan’s ambassador in Beijing. The latest setback in long-troubled relations between China and Japan is due to Washington’s instigation and assurance to some politicians of support against Beijing.

As the tensions between the two powers increased, Washington gained a golden chance to cash this opportunity to further isolate China and Japan.

The dispute over the islands is not only distorting the international image of both countries but is also militarily weakening them in favour of countries ambitious to emerge as new powers in the region.

There is no doubt that, being a strong supporter of cooperation between regional countries, one also needs to comprehend that India’s invitation to Western powers on Asian land and waters would be no wise step. Japan’s decision to buy the disputed islands seems to be a political decision rather than Tokyo’s ambitious plans against China.

The magnitude of the tension between the two nations has grown so out of proportion that Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had to ask Beijing to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens and businesses amid growing anti-Japan demonstrations. New Delhi’s interference in the internal affairs of smaller states in South Asia left Male in chaos.

It is the wisdom of the Maldivian leadership to agree on early elections, otherwise the US had been pressuring the Maldives to hold elections at the end of 2013.

The fact cannot be denied that Washington always looked for tackling single individuals as compared to negotiations with elected representatives.
To conclude, if the tension continues, Japan will be forced to pull out its nationals from China and vice versa.

Such moves will only benefit the enemies of Japan and China who want to establish their hegemony in the region.

It is high time that both countries agree on bilateral talks to ease the tension, as further escalations are neither in the interest of the two countries or for global peace.

[h3rm35]

From a Russian source:

Quote:U.S. ambassador’s murder in Libya reveals ‘uncontrolled chaos’ around the globe
by Vicky Pelaez at 21/09/2012 17:41

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," Lao Tzu, 604 B.C.

The widely held belief that the "illuminati" globalists know exactly where they are going in their efforts to transform the world into a global village - through interventions under false pretexts, "controlled chaos," and "color revolutions" - has been called into doubt by U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton's recent comment on the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya. "How can this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?" she asked, channeling the likely question on the minds of the Americans.

"How can this happen" encapsulates the foreign policy that the United States and its European NATO allies have been pursuing of late. Together they orchestrated and bankrolled the overthrow of the Muammar Gaddafi regime last October. The country's subsequent disintegration let them seize control over its rich oil and other natural resources.

Stevens was then the U.S. State Department special envoy to Libya's National Transitional Council in Benghazi (the seat of the provisional government and the nucleus of the Libyan opposition). Which is to say that the American diplomat fully backed the anti-Gaddafi "revolution" only to fall victim of the revolutionaries he consistently provided with assistance and support.

The murder was presumably perpetrated as an act of protest against the recently released trailer of a U.S. film mocking the Prophet Mohammed.
In post-revolution Yemen and Egypt, too, U.S. missions have become the target of hundreds of angry protesters, with dozens left wounded in the Yemeni capital, Sana, and more than 240 injured in Cairo.

Those incidents have prompted the globalists to conclude that the presence of NATO troops is indispensable to future "color revolutions." Next in line are, obviously, Syria and Iran.
France's socialist president, Francois Hollande, and the prime minister of Belgium, Elio de Rupo, also a socialist, both insist on a military intervention into Syria to oust Bashar al-Assad, much the same way Gaddafi was removed a year ago to give way to "democracy" in Libya.

Earlier, Western-style "democracy" was exported to Iraq and Afghanistan but has remained dormant to this day.
The two most important sites built in Iraq since the start of the invasion here eight years ago are the U.S. Embassy compound, the world's largest, and the Camp Victory military base, which, too, is the largest such base in the world, with enough space on its 47-kilometer grounds to accommodate 40,000 servicemen and 20,000 private contractors.

The country is in ruins. Its industrial infrastructure has been destroyed, and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, wounded, or displaced.

The same has happened in Afghanistan, where, after eleven years of war, the allies are unable to control the situation despite their 400 bases on Afghan soil, forcing them to enter into negotiations with the Taliban. The only other "achievement" in Afghanistan, besides the destruction and killing, is a boom in opium production, which has grown to 9,600 tons per year, up from 1,100 tons in 2001.

Both wars, labeled "preemptive," exacted a heavy human toll, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops and 5,000 private contractors having lost their lives. More than 40,000 Americans have been injured and some 300,000 have developed a post-traumatic stress disorder. But it has been the hardest for the local populations.

Some will argue it is time Western powers ended their Iraqi and Afghan campaigns, especially given the severe economic crisis currently facing the U.S. and the European Union. Both nations should be left alone to solve their problems as they see fit, choosing a system of governance by themselves rather than having a foreign model imposed on them.

But the globalists have their own logic, one that serves to enhance national governments' industrial and military power and to put the financial sector at the service of transnational corporations.
As he was leaving office in 1961, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." But the warning that Eisenhower delivered to his fellow Americans in his farewell address fell on deaf ears, it seems.

The United States has now become the world's largest arms exporter, with a market share of 78 percent. And despite the failure of the Iraqi and Afghan wars and the revolutions "without rhyme or reason" in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, the country's military-industrial and financial establishment continues down the same road, supported by NATO allies in Europe.

Many of today's drug-related, religious, and politically motivated wars are direct consequences of Washington's unbridled ambition to control the world's natural resources.

The economic crisis is no obstacle to the globalists, who believe that wars and conflicts, along with being profitable, can also be instrumental in distracting the public. They have now set their sights on Asia and the Pacific Rim, particularly on China, the powerhouse of the global economy.

It is not so much the growth of China's political clout that the Americans find disconcerting as its evolution into the region's economic leader.
The world's second largest economy, with an annual defense budget of $142 billion, China has spent the last five years modernizing its armed forces, and is expected to achieve military parity with the U.S. by the year 2020. This is the reason behind the establishment of a U.S. base in Darwin, Australia, with 2,500 marines deployed. Also, this has prompted the U.S. Pacific Command to develop an Air Sea Battle Plan so that its air and naval forces will have the capacity to deter and destroy the increasingly powerful Chinese Navy in the Pacific Ocean.

In addition, the United States is working to set up a base for unmanned drones somewhere in the region (in Australia, Vietnam, or the Philippines). It is well aware of the increasingly important role this type of aircraft plays in modern warfare. In 2011, the Americans had 350 drones, with 1,300 pilots deployed in thirteen bases; by the year 2015, the number will have increased to 2,000. Curiously enough, as the presence of the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea grows, Hanoi, Manila and Tokyo are beginning to aggressively assert their rights to islands that China also claims.
This illustrates that the globalists are planning to turn the Asia-Pacific Region into a new center of gravity in the 21st century.

James Covert, an analyst with International Forecaster, argues that Washington came out with the Cold War concept in the 1950s to build up its military budget and expand its global domination. Later on, this concept was replaced with "the war on terrorism." And now a new Cold War is in the making; this time, the target is China and the objective is to prevent its further geopolitical expansion.

Already, the globalists are sounding the alarms over the "dangerous" situation in the Asia-Pacific Region, using the International Crisis Group as their mouthpiece. This non-government organization is financed by the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Soros Open Society Institute, and several oil giants. Which means the ICG report is governed by the corporate interests that are at the roots of all the conflicts of the modern world.

The U.S seeks to neutralize China at the international level, forcing it to adopt the Western stance on Syria and Iran. The only option left to the Chinese under these circumstances is to continue their economic and military growth, with a $3 trillion reserve in the Central Bank, and to try to bolster their alliance with Russia.

The latter will be no easy task, according to Chinese experts, despite the fact that 70 percent of Russia's territory lies in Asia, because its people "have always lived under the influence of the United States and Eurocentrism, and have never demonstrated a real interest in Asia, remaining completely unaware of its idiosyncrasies."

But given that geo-economic needs change with the appearance of new centers of economic development and financial power, the latest APEC Leaders' Week in Vladivostok may serve as an eye-opener for many Russians, showing them just how much the alignment of forces on the world's political scene has changed in recent years.

The time has come to define a strategic relationship between Russia and China so that together they could shield the world from a wave of "preemptive wars," "color revolutions," and "controlled chaos." People around the globe are now rising up against militarism because they want to live in peace. If only the powers that be could realize it.

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US Soldiers in Nepal on China’s Tibet Border, On a Reconnaissance “Humanitarian Mission”
By Arun Shrivastava
Global Research, September 22, 2012
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-soldiers...n-mission/

Early this week, sixty-five American soldiers landed in Kathmandu and moved to Dhikurpokhari of Kaski district of Nepal. They are also travelling in Manang and Mustang districts bordering China’s Tibet region.

Ostensibly they are on a “humanitarian mission” of assessing the quality of healthcare services available to the local people. They have been meeting health workers and holding talks with NGOs working in these parts. This job could have been better accomplished by a team of public health experts in civilian dress.

In reality, it looks like an advance reconnaissance party to evaluate the nature of local terrain and assess possible local cooperation to overcome logistical bottleneck in the event of Nepal’s occupation. Nepalese Army’s senior officer is coordinating with American soldiers; again the coordination could have been better with local public health experts who are more knowledgeable in these matters. Effectively, this ‘humanitarian mission’ appears to be strictly an army matter and it stinks.

The US soldiers have never ever entered a sovereign country on a humanitarian mission anywhere in the world, except in a limited way during the Second World War and that too in Europe.

In every third world country, US Government’s ‘humanitarian mission’ has been a cover to eliminate popular leaders and/or incite civil wars.

Since there is no leader in Nepal either popular or opposed to Western domination or both, that can’t be a reason for the humanitarian mission of US soldiers. On the other hand, the undercurrent of simmering ethnic strife stoked by well funded INGOs and NGOs, USAID, FORD Foundation, Asia Foundation, George Soros’ Human Rights groups and the UN Framework Team could be used as an opportunity to grab strategic territory close to China. The construction of Lily Pad in Gorkha district, of no use to the local civilian population, is a strong indication that the US Government is planning an extremely risky surgery in the Himalayan heart.

Nepalese NGOs, people and politicians should note that Russia has expelled USAID for their nefarious activities including interference in Russia’s electoral process. [1]

Intelligence reports from North Korea confirm that US boots are also on ground there, with the connivance of Kim Jong-un’s sister and brother-in-law who want North Korea to become another star in the spangled banner. Equaling or surpassing the Korean pecuniary motives, are the over ambitious India educated Prime Minister Bhattarai and his cohort, well known to the Nepalese people. Aptly, a leading Kathmandu daily, responding to Bhattarai’s helpless ‘power is not in my hand’, asked “So, where is the power centre?” Valid question. Since Bhattarai doesn’t know where his power stems from, who allowed the US soldiers on the Nepalese soil is a moot question. If the Prime Minister approved it then Nepal has a huge problem as it amounts to surrender of national sovereignty.
State of Nepal’s political institutions and politicians

At this juncture, Nepal’s governed under the 2007 Interim Constitution; the mandated tenure of the Constituent Assembly [CA] expired on 27th May, 2012. The mandate to the Prime Minister stands on pretty shaky ground, yet, he somehow managed to represent Nepal in the recently concluded Non-Aligned Movement [NAM] summit in Teheran. Along with him went twenty without people’s mandate. During preparations in Kathmandu, ambassadors of Israel, US and UK made several visits to the Foreign Ministry to dissuade the troupe not to go to Teheran because ‘it’d send a wrong signal that Nepal supports a terrorist state.’ Did any senior leader give a press statement that Iran is not a terrorist state? I can’t recall even one senior politician stating that Nepal is a sovereign state and at full liberty to enter into any relationship with any country including Iran. [2] Only one person Dr Shashank Koirala, BP Koirala’s youngest son, has said “International forces perceive China as the future super power. They thus want to unnerve China by provoking aTibetan issue through the Nepali soil”, as reported in The Telegraph Nepal.

On the contrary, while leaders have been asserting that Nepal is a buffer state between China and India, during the past two decades these very politicians, willingly or unwillingly, have allowed infamous international institutions with known history of covertly engineering civil wars in third world countries, to expand their activities in Nepal which threatens peace and stability in border areas of China and India. Worse, the situation they have created will make life miserable for the Nepalese people and for the ethnic minorities in some of the most sensitive regions.
Learning from history

After the untimely demise of King Mahendra Vir Vikram Shahdev’s in 1972, not one Nepali leader, including the well meaning late King Virendra, has shown the perspicacity of steadfastly remaining neutral in regional power politics panning out now under the Zionist Neo-Conservative sponsored Project for the New American Century [PNAC]. If King Virendra had his father’s insight into the subtle manipulations of the western powers, he would not have allowed Kathmandu to become the South Asian operational base of fifth columnist INGOs and NGO and all the Trojan horses of rogue international developmental agencies. It was King Mahendra who had a consistent policy of keeping Nepal as a buffer state between China and India, leaning towards China, and keeping western powers’ illicit and perverted designs at bay.

Recall that the moment King Mahendra found out that the then Prime Minister BP Koirala had secured arms from Israel to overthrow monarchy he ordered his arrest and imprisoned him for treason. His advisors were astute analysts and nationalists. They knew how the British and CIA had engineered the murder of democracy and violent overthrow of Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 to install a brutal despot, the ‘Shah’ as King of Iran. They also knew that Americans had a hand in democratically elected Pakistani Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination to install a military dictator five years later [Ayub Khan] as an agent of chaos in South and West Asia. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, one after another, democratically elected popular leaders were removed or murdered by the same western powers whose soldiers are on ground in Nepal today. The current Nepali leadership is complicit in defiling God’s own divine soil.

Delve into the history of Indonesia where popular leader Sukarno was removed and a brutal dictatorship of Suharto was installed. Both USAID and FORD Foundation played pernicious role and Mrs. Ann Dunham Soetoro, mother of the US President Barak Hussain Obama whose real name is Barry Soetoro and has travelled to South Asia [Pakistan] on an Indonesian passport with his mother, working as anthropologist for the CIA, handed over a complete list of every ethnic group that had even remotest communist leaning. Ann Dunham, according to Wayne Madsen’s sources, was perhaps responsible for a quarter million to one million Indonesians slaughtered by Suharto in league with the CIA. [3]

Complete list of every ethnic group in Nepal by number of households, population, residence, social structure, economic activity, and religious and political affiliations are known to CIA, MI6, and MOSSAD. That list was prepared by the Christian Church under Joshua Project and that list is in the public domain. Similar lists have been prepared for Burma, Northeastern region of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Scientific Committee of the Vatican, despite opposition of many Archbishops, approved the use of Genetically Engineered Seeds on 17th May, 2009, and the USAID and MONSANTO have already announced in league with stupid Nepalese Agricultural scientists to promote GM seeds; this will decimate Nepalese population within two generations. [4] Contrary to media reports, the US and NATO forces are unlikely to leave Afghanistan and the US will further intensify Drone attacks on Pakistani people.

Nepalese people should further note that Islamic Relief Worldwide [IRW] working in Nepal is under heavy scanner in India for funding Islamic terrorist activities in South Asia. There are hard evidences that the European Community headquartered in Brussels directly funds their activities in South Asia controlled from Dacca. [5] This organization also gets Wahhabi funds from Saudi Arabia whose rulers are Zionists closely allied with Israeli Government. This network coordinates with the Chabad Lubavitchers and the Tibetan refugee centres in Kathmandu and funds hard drug production and distribution via Nepal which Nepalese authorities can’t control. [6]



Nepalese people should watch every move of foreign agencies and that of their politicians carefully. They can’t be trusted exactly as the leaders thousand mile West-South of Kathmandu can’t be trusted by 1.2 billion Indians. Sitting silently in the hope that the current crop of leaders or the ethnic federalists NGOs will provide them with stable and democratic Government is tantamount to national suicide. Trusting European and American institutions to help them would be even more foolish.
Notes:

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-20/ru...id/4271094

Most people don’t realize that USAID is a division of the US-Department of Defense and serves the expansionary imperialist agenda of the US Government and their cohorts in West Europe, especially UK.

[2] I don’t have access to all the Nepali dailies. If any leader has responded to the three ambassadors’ interference in Nepal’s sovereign right to decide its foreign policy, then I apologize and stand corrected.

[3] Wayne Madsen; “The Manufacturing of a President”-How the CIA ‘inserted’ Barak Hussain Obama into the White House; Lulu Publication; 2012

Wayne Madsen is a former US Naval intelligence officer and a well known investigative journalist. He has extensive intelligence network in Asia and has the canny ability to accurately predict events by connecting the dots.

[4] Weaponization of the food system-Genetically engineered maize threatens Nepal and the Himalayan region; Centre for Research on Globalization; 2012. http://www.globalresearch.ca/weaponizati...an-region/

A recent French study shows that rats fed GM foods develop cancers and vital organ failure. If Nepal’s agricultural scientists, with dollars rammed down their throats, think that Nepalese people are laboratory rats, and they can live with this scenario, then I have no further comments, except that Nepal will be completely depopulated in two generations and that will affect China and India and the entire Himalayan region too. Nepal’s Agricultural scientists can amass wealth but they have no right to kill people in three countries because of their stupidity.

[5] Islamic Relief Worldwide is registered in Birmingham, UK. They are the conduit of European Community funding of social chaos and terrorism in South Asia. India’s Home Ministry has extensive documents tracking their nefarious activities. Nepal should ban their activities but, unfortunately, Nepal does not have a leader who has the anatomical feature of having a spine.

[6] Political Crisis in Nepal; Centre for Research on Globalization; 2012 http://www.globalresearch.ca/weaponizati...an-region/

[h3rm35]

Currency war warnings follow US Fed’s “quantitative easing”
By Nick Beams
Global Research, September 24, 2012
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/currency-wa...ve-easing/

There are growing fears that the US Federal Reserve’s policy of “quantitative easing”—the process by which tens of billions of dollars are pumped into financial markets every month—is sparking international tensions over currency values.

One of the consequences of the Fed’s actions is to push down the value of the US dollar, thus worsening the competitive position of other major countries in international markets.

Following the latest decision, in which the Fed gave an indefinite commitment to purchase mortgage-backed securities to the tune of $40 billion per month, the Brazilian finance minister, Guido Mantega, repeated his earlier warnings of a currency war.

Interviewed by the Financial Times last Thursday, Mantega said the US move was “protectionist” and could have drastic consequences for the rest of the world. “It has to be understood that there are consequences,” he told the newspaper. The Fed’s latest move would have only marginal benefits, he said. There was already plenty of liquidity in the economy but it was not going into production. The real purpose of the measures was to depress the value of the dollar and boost US exports, he added.

Mantega pointed to last week’s decision by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to intervene in financial markets with its own version of quantitative easing as another sign of global tensions. “That’s a currency war,” he said.

In a move clearly aimed at pushing down the value of the yen and lifting Japanese exports, the BoJ decided to add $128 billion to its program of asset purchases. It cited the effects of “financial and foreign exchange market developments” as one of the reasons for its actions.

Further evidence of the impact of global financial turmoil is revealed by Japanese trade figures for last month. These show that exports to Western Europe were down by 28 percent compared to a year ago, with exports to China falling for the third month in a row.

China is also concerned about the impact of the Fed’s actions. The head of the country’s central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, publicly released criticisms he made last April of the “quantitative easing” program. He said the continued injections of cheap credit were not working and more targeted measures should be developed to get money where it was needed.

China has two concerns about the fall in the value of the American dollar. It tends to push up the value of the yuan, which impacts on Chinese export markets, and reduces the value of the more than $1.2 trillion of US treasury bonds that Beijing holds.

The US Fed’s rationale for its actions is that the injection of liquidity will lower interest rates and encourage investment, resulting in the creation of more jobs and a lowering of unemployment. But a recent Duke University survey of the chief finance officers of 887 large companies found that a lowering of interest rates would have virtually no impact on their decisions.

According to the Duke University analysts: “CFOs believe that … monetary action would not be particularly effective. Ninety-one percent of firms say they would not change their investment plans even if interest rates dropped by 1 percent, and 84 percent said they would not change investment plans if interest rates dropped by 2 percent.”

In other words, so far as the real economy is concerned, the Fed’s actions are equivalent to pushing on a string. Indeed this is recognised within leading financial circles.

Addressing the Harvard Club of New York last Wednesday, Richard Fisher, a non-voting member of the Federal Opening Market Committee, which decided on the latest policy, said the Fed was sailing deep into unchartered waters. In a frank admission, he stated: “The truth … is that nobody on the committee, nor on our staffs at the Board of Governors and the 12 Banks, really knows what is holding back the economy. Nobody knows what will work to get the economy back on course. And nobody—in fact, no central bank anywhere on the planet—has the experience of successfully navigating a return home from the place in which we now find ourselves. No central bank—not, at least, the Federal Reserve—has ever been on this cruise before.”

Former Fed chairman Paul Volcker has added his voice to those who insist that further quantitative easing will do nothing to boost the economies of the US and Europe. Speaking at a conference in Scotland over the weekend, he said: “There is so much liquidity in the market that adding more is not going to change the economy.”

The growing sense that the world economy is heading down again was reinforced by the latest forecasts from the World Trade Organisation. It predicted that the world economy would grow only 2.5 percent this year, down from its previous estimate of 3.7 percent.

While the Fed’s measures have almost no impact on investment and jobs, they do give a boost to financial markets. Since the collapse of September 2008, the Fed has followed a clear agenda. The banks and finance houses, whose speculative activities, some of them of an outright criminal character, triggered the crisis, have been given endless supplies of ultra cheap money. Profits are being made through the elevation of the price of financial assets resulting from the injection of more money from the Fed.

However, the stagnation and outright recession in the real economy means that this process cannot continue indefinitely and the house of cards must collapse. The interventions by the world’s three major central banks—the US Fed, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan—means that rather than being able to provide further bailout money, they will themselves be dragged into the maelstrom.

[TheQleaner]

http://worldtruth.tv/china-launching-gol...-currency/

China Launching Gold Backed Global Currency

Quote:According to the article, China is recasting all of their gold reserves into small one kilo bars in order to issue a new “gold-backed” currency. Many say this will disrupt global trade and will eventually cause a collapse of the US dollar.

There can be no doubt that the US dollar will soon be history. China is recasting all of their gold reserves into small one kilo bars in order to issue a new ‘gold backed’ global currency. This is surely a strategic part of their recent push to sign new trade agreements with Russia, Japan, Chile, Brazil, India, and Iran. The cat is now out of the bag, the US will be given the ‘bums rush’ by the largest trading nations in the world and the dollar will go down in flames. GATA now estimates that 80% of the gold that investors believe they have in allocated accounts is long gone, the majority of it probably wound up in China. More..

[h3rm35]

Thanks for that info. While I don't doubt that China would like to create a gold-backed currency and crush the petro-dollar and the inordinate strength of western financial powers, from everything that I can find, this move would be a long way off. If they did so, they'd be handing their burgeoning super-power status and financial stability over to NATO, since the US, Germany, Italy, (which doesn't really count anymore since they're bankrupt and their gold reserves amount to a tenth of their portion of the Eurozone bailout alloted them) and France all hold, at minimum, double what China does. They do have the capability to produce more gold than anyone else, but their ability to do so is tied to oil, and therefore in a secodary way (since they buy oil with gold,) to the petrodollar and the geo-political realities of Venezuela, Iran, and Russia (which aren't all that good.)

If you track the piece you posted back, the original source seems to be from a site that backs actual gold investment over investment in commodities fixed by banksters: http://www.goldenjackass.com.
While I appreciate the sentiment of the site in general, I have to wonder about their motivations for publishing such a piece, especially considering the paywall you hit when looking for recent articles. My guess is that they've got a piece of places like Goldline

I found a piece from the Financial Times from August 17th, about a week after this was posted, and it outlines what I believe to be China's stance on Gold. It shows that they'd like to value it more than they do, but they're not there yet.

---

back to the China/Japan craziness:

excerpted:

Quote:A similar dynamic is unfolding in East Asia, this time involving two nuclear weapons powers (one declared, the People's Republic of China, another on the threshold of weaponization, Japan) 1.5 billion people and the economic future of the planet.

In the Western media a considerable, perhaps excessive, amount of time and energy has been spent denigrating the anti-Japanese demonstrations for their allegedly unspontaneous character. Chinageeks' Charles Custer perhaps went the furthest, titling his post on the subject, "China's Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored. Period." [4]

He justified his assertion with the declaration that no Chinese security forces were present at the demonstrations, indicating that the demonstrators were docile stooges marching against Japanese facilities on regime orders.

This was demonstrably incorrect, as photos showing protesters mixing it up with security forces in Shenzhen and Chengdu indicate, and the comments section contains some unedifying wrangling between Custer and some of his commentators. [5]

That the anti-Japanese demonstrations are condoned and facilitated by the Chinese regime is incontrovertible. Applications to demonstrate were expeditiously approved, making it safe, easy and convenient for people who were encouraged to leave their places of employment to join the crowds.

Caixin reported this amusing exchange between one of their reporters and police at a demo:

A nearby street was filled with police, most of them relaxed. When I photographed the protest, he smiled and said: "You can join the protest."
"Can I? Won't I be pulled out?" I asked.
"Since it is me who let you in, who dares pull you out!" he said.
"But I haven't applied for permission," I said.
"It is OK. The organizer has applied," he said.
A middle-aged policeman also encouraged me to join the parade.
"Can I shout 'Punish corruptions'?" I inquired.
"No, you can't!" the middle-aged officer said, suddenly seriously.
"Only slogans concerned with Diaoyu Islands are allowed," a young policeman chimed in. [6]

However, trying to parse the issue of the degree of sincerity of the demonstrations would appear to be futile. It is quite plausible that the offer of a day off, a ride downtown, and a free lunch-box could induce quite a few Chinese to join an anti-Japanese demonstration.

But that's only because anti-Japan sentiment is already rife within China and confrontation with Japan arouses genuine passion for many Chinese. In several cities, the police and paramilitaries had their hands full trying to keep the demonstrations against Japanese businesses in bounds.

China Daily and a Japanese think-tank, Genron NPO, have conducted an annual survey of Chinese and Japanese attitudes for the past eight years. This year, 31% of Chinese respondents held a favorable opinion of Japan, with the unfavorable north of 60% (the Japanese breakout toward China is even worse, with favorable of only 15.6% and the unfavorable probably over 80%). [7]

A quick scamper through some dissident blogs on Weibo did not turn up any posts along the lines of "Stop picking on Japan and go back home, you stupid demonstrators". One may speculate that few dissidents, in addition to his or her other worries, are interested in enduring an orchestrated web-wide accusation of treason to the Han race.

Instead, there seems to be a veiled hope that, since the Chinese government has allowed people to get on the street en masse to abuse Japan, perhaps the demonstrators will start shouting anti-government slogans as well, and the mass anti-regime movement that the dissidents have never been able to kickstart themselves will grow out of the anti-Japanese protests.

That doesn't seem to have happened.

The demonstrators appear to have the mindset of a violence-prone crowd of soccer fans presented with irresistible and vulnerable targets. They displayed little interest in going beyond the easy exercise of anti-Japanese prejudice for the life-changing perils of turning their ire on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The preoccupation with attempts to prove the insincerity of the anti-Japanese demonstrations by demonstrating their government links is, I believe, a dangerous distraction.

Because it seems to imply that, if the demonstrations are government-organized/facilitated/supported/condoned, they can be dismissed and, if the demonstrations are removed from the equation, the PRC's strategy on the Senkakus/Diaoyu can be dismissed as a futile exercise in Astroturfing (simulation of a grass-roots movement).

This, I think, draws from the preconception that impassioned popular against authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, in Russia, and in China are the only ones that matter, and if they advance the agenda of authoritarian actors, they can be ignored.

However, the regime's intention is not to try to manufacture a false Chinese simulacrum of Tahrir Square.

I believe the CCP is sending a series of messages to Japan and the United States via these demonstrations, and to send the message it is important that everybody is aware that they actually were state-managed.

First, the CCP is determined not to back down in the Senkaku/Diaoyu conflict. Although Japanese Prime Minister Noda stepped in to purchase the islands as a conciliatory measure in order to short circuit a carnival of provocation planned by Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, the CCP whipped up anti-Japanese sentiment and demonstrations on the announcement of the purchase regardless, in order to demonstrate its deterrent capabilities in economic and diplomatic warfare or, in old-fashioned terms, fire a shot across Japan's bow.

Second, China does not intend to provoke a military confrontation at the islands that would viscerally alarm Japan's populace and elite, and allow Japan to deploy its unanswerable geostrategic advantage: the military alliance with the United States. China's provocative movements in the waters around the islands are carried out by maritime surveillance vessels and fishing boats, not the navy.

Instead, Japan will be confronted at its most vulnerable point: the economic interests of its corporations and the well-being of its citizens inside China.

Third, the CCP is conveying that it can manage the unrest that goes hand-in-hand with a mass campaign, and will be prepared to escalate the damage it inflicts on Japanese businesses in China as needed despite the losses suffered by the Chinese economy and Chinese employment.

Finally, the ultimate purpose of the furor over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands is to demonstrate that Japan must rely on accommodation with China, as well as its alliance with the United States, to achieve peace and prosperity.

With this background, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta's recent remarks in Japan can be taken as an acknowledgement - at least for now - of the limits of American power and the challenges facing the pivot into Asia:

The United States, in all cases of disputed territory involving Pacific waters, urges "calm and restraint on all sides," the secretary said.

"United States policy with regards to these islands is well known, and obviously, we stand by our treaty obligations," Panetta said. "But the United States, as a matter of policy, does not take a position with regards to competing sovereignty claims." [8]

In other words, the threshold for active and open US involvement in the controversy is a military clash over the islands between Japan and China. Short of that ...

Panetta's remarks are not a matter of throwing Japan under the bus, but they do reflect the reality that there are limits to what the United States can, will, and wishes to do about the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. And they reinforce the signals sent by the Chinese demonstrations.

It looks like the Japanese government - at least the current, relatively cautious and non-confrontational government, which may not be in power very much longer - got the message:

"We do not want anything that would affect the general bilateral relations between Japan and China," Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said at a press conference Tuesday. He emphasized that the government has paid special consideration to China, in putting three of the five islets under state control.

The government will not construct any port facilities as shelters for fishing boats or improve the lighthouse, but keep the three islets as they are, at least for the time being. [9]

It would appear that, at least for the time being, China has come up with a diplomatically and economically costly but effective pushback to the cycle of provocation that was driving the Senkaku/Diaoyu confrontation. If and when the Noda government falls and is replaced by a new hardline Japanese government with a mandate for confrontation with China, the US will be trying to hold it back, not egg it on.

The anti-Japanese formula may also be applied to dealings with Vietnam and the Philippines over the South China Sea disputes.

In other words, China's anti-Japanese demonstrations are not a pathetic charade. They are dead serious - and successful.

Quote:notes:
...
4. China's Anti-Japan Riots Are State-Sponsored. Period., ChinaGreeks, Sep 17, 2012.
5. Anti-Japanese protests in China turn violent, Journal Star, Sep 19, 2012.
6. Closer Look: How a Protest in Beijing Stuck to the Script, Caxin, Sep 17, 2012.
7. Sino-Japan ties important, but not satisfactory, China Daily, Jun 20, 2012.
8. Panetta Addresses Osprey, Territory Disputes in Japan Visit, US Department of Defense, Sep 17, 2012.
9. Govt drew up multiple plans for Senkaku, Yomiuri, Sep 13,

[h3rm35]

In all the western news sources, they downplay the launch of China's first aircraft carrier yesterday as "unnecessary," "a waste of resources," and say "Experts Doubt Its Worth."

seems pretty significant to me.

China’s Emerging Blue Navy: Strategic Necessity or Waste of Resources?

China recently launched its first aircraft carrier, and thus marked its first foray into genuine “Blue Water” naval warfare. “Blue water” refers to a capacity to operate in deep oceans. Currently, only France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have blue-water navies, but China, India, and a few other countries are building navies that will allow them to engage in long-distance, open ocean operations. Given the huge costs of operating such a navy however, one might wonder if China is making a good investment or wasting money that could have been spent better elsewhere?

China Navy

The answer to this question depends upon what China is trying to achieve. Many leaders claim that armies are needed for “defense” not offense. The goal isn’t to invade other countries, but to ensure other countries don’t invade you.

If this is the case, then China’s blue-water Navy could be considered a waste. China’s land and air defenses are already among the strongest in the world and no regional neighbor, with the exception of Russia, could hope to invade China. With a population in excess of 1 billion, and military technology that can rival anyone except the United States, China would be nearly unconquerable. And, in light of setbacks the United States faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is unlikely that even the world’s foremost military power could occupy China.

Most likely, however, China isn’t concerned with “defense.” Instead China is most likely trying to project its regional power and putting neighbors, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, in check. China has made its long term ambitions of becoming a world superpower clear. Now they are pouring in the resources to develop a military that will, in the short-term, allow them to dominate regional neighbors. In the long-term, China appears to be bent on challenging the United States on the world stage.

Perhaps the most relevant question however, is if China even needs a powerful military to be a world power? Japan has long enjoyed status as an economic super-power, even as its fortunes have waned in the last two decades. Japan is highly respected in international politics and an important player in many international activities. And, Japan has achieved this respect, while limiting their military strictly to defense.

In the context of a multipolar world, with numerous nations tied to each other’s fate through international commerce, large standing militaries are growing obsolete. Nations are now less likely to go to war, not just because of the military costs, but because a war would sever trade relations and could have huge impacts on the domestic economy.

Building up a massive military may actually be counter-productive in the 21st century, drawing away resources that could have been spent on economic development and increasing the “power” of one’s economy. The stronger a country is economically, the more power it will have over trade partners. In this sense, some might argue that China would be better-off shifting resources spent on developing its military, to developing its economy.

This isn’t to say that China should abandon the build-up of its military. China should continue to develop its military in order to project power regionally, especially in conflicts over regional assets, such as the Diaoyu Islands. However, this build-up should not come at the cost of economic supremacy.

Military spending can bolster economic development, by leading to R&D in cutting-edge technology and public spending on infrastructure and other important investments. But resources must be “invested” into high-value areas, not spent on wasteful projects. China should direct military investments into areas with high spill-over effects, such as space technology, green energy, etc.

Building a large blue-water navy may prove to be a waste of money, drawing precious resources away from economic development. On one hand China will be spending money to “reinvent the wheel,” given how much technology the US has already developed in naval warfare. On the other hand, nations are increasingly shifting focus from military power to economic power. China should move forward with its military development by identifying areas of R&D that will lead to both a stronger military, and a large spill-off into the general economy, while scaling down investments in non-vital areas.

---

Partners in Global Warfare: NATO Reinforces Pentagon’s Shift to the Asia-Pacific Region
By Rick Rozoff
Global Research, September 25, 2012
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/partners-in...ic-region/

On September 24, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization granted Iraq the second Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme under the auspices of the bloc’s latest military collaboration and integration framework, partners across the globe.

The latter program (for which the substantives are occasionally capitalized), NATO’s latest, incorporates to date eight nations in the broader Asia-Pacific region (including West Asia, the Middle East) that have supplied troops for the U.S.-led military organization’s war in Afghanistan under International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command or are subsumed under NATO consultative arrangements and training programs like the Afghanistan-Pakistan-ISAF Tripartite Commission, the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and the NATO Training Mission – Iraq.

The partners across the globe currently are Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Korea. Among the 50 nations providing NATO with troop contingents for the war in South Asia are additional Asia-Pacific states not covered by other international NATO partnership formats like the Partnership for Peace (22 nations in Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia), the Mediterranean Dialogue (seven nations in North Africa and the Middle East, with Libya to be the eighth) and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, which targets the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates).

Those states – Malaysia, Singapore and Malaysia – are likely the next candidates for the new global partnership, as are Latin American troop contributors like El Salvador (present) and Colombia (announced). The inclusion of the last will mark the expansion of NATO, through memberships and partnerships, to all six inhabited continents.

In the past two years there has been discussion about NATO establishing a collective partnership arrangement, which could include individual partnerships as well, with the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which are, in addition to Malaysia and Singapore, mentioned above, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.

During the NATO summit in Chicago this May, Secretary General Rasmussen met with what were identified as 13 partners across the globe.

Regarding the new partnership agreement with Iraq, the NATO website reports that it follows and builds upon the eight-year NATO Training Mission-Iraq, which was employed to train thousands of Iraq officers, soldiers and oil police, and “inaugurates a full-fledged partnership.” (2)

The Alliance further stated, “The signing of the partnership accord marks the formal accession of Iraq to NATO’s ‘partnerships family,’” which will create the basis for the Western alliance “assisting Iraq as it builds a modern security sector which can cooperate with international partners.”

That is, the NATO-trained Iraq armed forces are being recruited into the Western military axis’ international nexus.

Four days earlier NATO signed an Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme with South Korea in Brussels which, the NATO press release on the occasion stated, “follows seven years of progressive engagement from a dialogue that was initiated in 2005.”

In June NATO Secretary General Rasmussen traveled to New Zealand and signed the same agreement with the nation’s prime minister, John Key.

The first Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme was signed with Mongolia this March. (Though an agreement with the same title was signed with Switzerland in the same month.) That country borders China and Russia; in fact, of the eight current partners across the globe, three – Mongolia, Pakistan and Afghanistan – share borders with China and two others, Japan and South Korea, are its near neighbors.

In conjunction with the U.S., NATO is striving to assemble the remnants of defunct or dormant Cold War-era military blocs in the Asia-Pacific region, all modeled after NATO itself – the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Security Treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America (ANZUS) – to replicate in the East against China what NATO expansion has accomplished in Europe over the past 13 years in relation to Russia: its exclusion, isolation and encirclement by military bases, naval deployments and interceptor missile installations.

The U.S. has recruited Japan, South Korea and Australia into its global sea- and land-based missile shield grid, with a recent report indicating the Pentagon plans to add the Philippines to the list with the deployment there of an Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance mobile system of the sort already stationed in Japan, Israel and Turkey.

Following Mongolia, New Zealand, South Korea and Iraq, NATO intends to sign Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme accords with its remaining partners across the globe: Afghanistan, Australia, Japan and Pakistan.

Like South Korea with its neighbor to the north, Japan is embroiled in a showdown with China, and Afghanistan and Pakistan are involved in armed conflicts, with NATO waging a nearly 11-year war in Afghanistan and periodic incursions and attacks across the border in Pakistan.

The formal consolidation of military partnerships with the above nations will provide NATO the rationale for direct participation in hostilities in the Asia-Pacific region as a manifestation of the bloc’s repeated claims to being a global military force.

Notes

1) Partners Across The Globe: NATO Consolidates Worldwide Military Force, http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/04/...ary-force/

2) Iraq: NATO Forges New Strategic Partnership In Persian Gulf, http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2012/06/...sian-gulf/

[h3rm35]

via the Obama admin's version of Fox news in print:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/world/...nted=print
September 26, 2012
China Politics Stall Overhaul for Economy
By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — When it comes to confronting economic slowdowns, the Chinese government has not been shy about making bold moves. Faced with the contagion of global recession four years ago, policy makers created a $585 billion stimulus package that helped inoculate the nation against the economic malaise still sapping the United States and Europe.

But today, even as China’s vaunted export manufacturing juggernaut loses force and the Shanghai stock market remains in a slump, the Communist Party appears so distracted by its politically tangled once-a-decade leadership transition that it is unwilling or unable to pursue the more ambitious agenda that many economists say is necessary to head off a far more serious crisis in the future.

Although the departing government has tried in recent months to address decelerating growth by easing bank loan restrictions, increasing pensions and offering tax breaks to small businesses, a lack of consensus among the top stewards of the economy has stymied a more muscular response, insiders say.

Similarly, many analysts question whether the incoming leadership has the political will to overcome the resistance of the so-called princelings and other well-connected families that have prospered under the current system.

China’s standard economic formula, they say, is losing its potency: overzealous government investment and lagging consumer spending are creating serious imbalances that are expected to lead to a much more painful reckoning, perhaps not long after the new raft of younger leaders assumes power in early 2013.

“There are tough choices to make, but the central government appears to be so paralyzed they are just sitting on their hands,” said Ho-Fung Hung, a political economist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “The situation is looking increasingly dire.”

The economic data is indeed glum. Direct foreign investment has fallen for 9 months out of the past 10, and industrial output is rising at the slowest rate in three years. Last week, Frederick W. Smith, the chief executive of FedEx, the global airfreight titan, warned of more trouble to come, saying that China’s faltering exports pointed to a weakening global economy in the coming year.

Since the death of Deng Xiaoping, the wily leader who steamrollered his conservative opponents to introduce market reforms in the 1980s and ’90s, China’s political system has increasingly operated through consensus. The horse-trading, involving a dozen or so men who negotiate in secrecy, has dimmed the prospect of significant political or economic change.

“The slogans are loud and the plans are grand, but when it comes to implementation, the constraints are many,” said Zhao Xijun, an economics professor at Renmin University in Beijing.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is a vocal advocate of what many experts see as the kind of change China needs: breaking up state-owned monopolies, encouraging more consumer spending and reducing reliance on investment in real estate and heavy industry. But he has already been rendered something of a lame duck because of his planned retirement in March. He lacks the political capital to undertake a more ambitious overhaul of the economy, particularly anything that would undercut the favored position of state monopolies, analysts say.

“Wen is a spent force,” said a person with close contacts in the upper levels of the Chinese government.

To be sure, China’s developing economy enjoys many advantages over those of most other major industrial nations, with growth still robust enough to prevent unemployment from rising significantly. But unrest is increasing, as riots at a big Foxconn electronics factory on Sunday demonstrated, and there is so much uncertainty surrounding economic policy and the leadership hand-over that few are willing to hazard a prediction about the future.

“The system is so opaque and the new guys are such unknown entities that no one really knows what to expect,” said Alistair Thornton, senior China economist at IHS Global Insight.

Supporters of Xi Jinping, the man expected to be China’s next president, and Li Keqiang, who is all but certain to replace Mr. Wen as prime minister, have been quietly putting out the word that the new team plans to introduce a more far-reaching agenda once the incoming leaders are secure in their new posts. Some even argue that the worse things get, the better the chance the new leaders will have to deal with China’s biggest challenges after the successors are announced at the 18th Party Congress, expected to take place next month.

“When the bubble bursts, there will be an initial period of pain,” Li Zuojun, a prominent government economist, said in a recent speech, “but it would be good news for the new leadership because it would be clear who is to blame — their predecessors. The new leadership can start over on solid ground.”

But so far, Mr. Xi has offered almost no clues as to where he stands on overhauling the economy, while Mr. Li’s track record during his time as a provincial governor and party secretary suggests he is more of a risk-averse technocrat than a reformer.

For the moment, the world’s second-largest economy is drifting, as exports to Europe and the United States wane. Some economists even suspect that the official figure of an annual rate of growth of 7.6 percent in the second quarter is overstated; indicators like electricity generation are rising much more slowly. Moreover, part of the growth led only to producing stocks of unsold appliances, toys and coal that are piling up at warehouses and ports.

Still, Beijing has largely held back from the kind of prodigious investment in housing and public works that propped up the flagging Chinese economy during the global downturn. In an editorial published this month, People’s Daily, the party’s influential mouthpiece, conveyed the official view, saying the central government should resist the temptation to spend its way out of the slowdown.

In a speech this month at a World Economic Forum session in Tianjin, Mr. Wen agreed that the government was holding its fire, but said that it would step in forcefully if necessary. Beijing has a budget surplus of $158 billion, with $16 billion more in a reserve fund, he noted.

“We will use that money at a right moment for pre-emptive policy and fine-tuning to propel stable economic growth,” Mr. Wen said.

Local governments, alarmed by a slowdown they fear could lead to mass unemployment and the kind of sluggish growth that can dent political careers, have decided to take matters into their own hands. In recent months, a number of cities have proposed extravagant infrastructure projects they hope will be financed in part by newly liberalized bank loan policies.

Tianjin claims $236 billion will be spent in the petrochemical, aerospace and other industries. Xi’an, home of the famed terra cotta warriors, plans to invest tens of billions of dollars on nine new subway lines. In Guizhou, one of China’s poorest provinces, officials said they hoped to funnel $472 billion into tourism-related development.

In Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, officials brag of 12.9 percent growth as they spend billions of dollars on a new subway system, a ring road, an intercity rail line and a pair of bridges to knit together its transportation system.

“We haven’t felt any impact from the crisis in Europe,” said Liu Maosong, chairman of the Hunan Economics Association and an adviser to the Changsha government. “Our guiding philosophy is ‘investment, investment, investment.’ ”

Even if many such projects turn out to be wishful thinking, economists have expressed alarm that municipalities are still chasing debt-financed growth. “It almost scares me to death,” said Mao Yushi, a prominent economist. “Local governments are using the people’s money for investment, but when they can’t repay the banks, the financial system will snap.”

And Liao Jinzhong, an economist at Hunan University, worries that much of the spending is misplaced. “What we really could use is a functioning sewage system,” he said, speaking from his sixth-floor apartment in a crumbling faculty building that has no elevator.

Mr. Liao said he gave frequent lectures at the local party school about the dangerous fixation on propping up growth figures at all costs. He said officials often congratulated him on his frank views.

“But then they admit they can’t change the way they do things,” he said. “Given that the whole system is oriented toward bolstering the careers of officialdom, I just don’t see things changing any time soon.”

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing and Hong Kong. Patrick Zuo contributed research from Beijing.