By Andrew L. Jaffee

I almost fell off by chair when I found out that Japan, the world’s second largest economy, “…has paid out billions of dollars in yen loans for Chinese infrastructure projects over the past two decades.” Why? Fear of the 1.3 billion person gorilla just across the straits from the Japanese archipelago? Guilt over Japanese war crimes during WWII? The loans are just one piece of the puzzle of new strategic alliances being formed while old ones are being challenged — even rekindled. This seismic reshuffling confronts the security of all the democratic nations, not just Japan, and the story’s antagonists include China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia.

Having China next door must be quite disconcerting for the Japanese:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

China and Russia’s relationship has come full circle. Warm. Cold. Now warm again. This warming is a strategic threat to the democratic world, to be ignored at its own peril. Just yesterday:

Russia and China have signed an agreement to pipe large quantities of gas from fields in Siberia to China. …

The agreement came as part of a raft of economic deals signed between the two sides during the visit to Beijing of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization accord of 2001 seems to have slipped under the radar, at least in the popular press. Hopefully it was not ignored in the capitals of the Western World. As Lev Navrozov points out:

If the SCO jointly develops post-nuclear superweapons to annihilate the West or enforce, by the threat of annihilation, its unconditional surrender, the further development of SCO relations (”who whom,” as Lenin used to say) will be purely academic history for the West if any history will be studied in the colony once called the West except the history of the glorious global victory of communism as predicted by Marx, Lenin, Mao, Hu and Putin – until Hu destroys Putin, or vice versa.

What bigger strategic threat could there be than an anti-democratic, ex-KGB Russian autocracy aligned with China’s billionaire dictators? Yesterday’s gas deal will serve to cement these dictators in power, and unfortunately impede the spread of democracy — perhaps threaten its very existence.

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Commentary by the Canadian Coalition for Democracies
Alastair Gordon, March 15, 2006

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the passage of China’s Anti-Secession Act, an act that legitimized the use of military force by China to impose its will on the 23 million people of democratic Taiwan. This act is no idle threat, as China now has 800 ballistic missiles aimed at this tiny island to enforce its unilateral statute.

Taiwan has never, not even for a day, been part of the People’s Republic of China. The people of Taiwan have repeatedly voted to remain independent from China in fair and open elections. Hence, China’s claim has neither historic nor democratic legitimacy. Yet last year Paul Martin, for reasons he never explained to Canadians, signed the One China Policy, endorsing the imperialist aims of non-democratic China over a democratic ally.

The new Conservative government has promised to “articulate Canada’s core values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, human rights, free trade… on the international stage” (p 44 - Conservative Election Platform). Canadians are now looking for a change in our policy toward Taiwan to reflect that platform.

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Yesterday, two well-known dictatorships decided to further isolate their own peoples, and build higher walls around the national prisons these “leaders” have created. China’s communists and Iran’s Islamists both banned publications, further starving their people of information, something that tyrannies fear most. China “shut down Freezing Point, a four-page weekly feature section of the state-run China Youth Daily that often tested the censors and challenged the party line…” Iran “…started to block the BBC’s Persian language internet site…” But what could China and Iran possibly have in common?

According to the Washington Post:

China’s ruling Communist Party on Tuesday suspended one of the premier publications in Chinese journalism, escalating a campaign to rein in the state media, part of the government’s toughest crackdown on freedom of expression here in more than a decade. …

Party officials summoned the senior editors of the China Youth Daily and ordered Freezing Point closed a day after distributing a five-page document that accused the section of “viciously attacking the socialist system” and condemned a recent article in it that criticized the history textbooks used in Chinese middle schools.

From the BBC:

When entering the BBC’s Persian site a sign comes up saying “access to this site denied”, says the BBC’s Frances Harrison in Tehran.

It is not clear if the filtering will be permanent, but many websites are routinely blocked in Iran, our correspondent says.

Two dictatorships acting alike on the same day. But what could China and Iran possibly have in common — besides being ruled by tyrants? China’s leaders claim to be communists, who professedly despise religion (the “opium of the people”). Iran’s rulers assert that religion and God are important above all.

The truth is that evil makes for strange bedfellows. From China Daily:

In 2004, Iran agreed in principle to sell China 250 million tons of liquefied natural gas over 30 years, a deal valued at $70 billion. China already imports 14 percent of its oil from Iran.

From the Asia Times:

Iran’s mammoth energy deals with China imply that Tehran is now integral to China’s national security.

According to the Middle East Quarterly:

Iran’s appetite for Chinese weaponry is far from sated. The Chinese government has sold Iran surface-to-surface cruise missiles and provided assistance in the development of long-range ballistic missiles. By November 2003, a year after Iran successfully tested the Shihab-3 missile—which can carry a 1,000 kilogram payload for a distance of 1,300 kilometers—the CIA issued a report that China, along with Russia and North Korea, were the leading providers of assistance to Iran’s ballistic missile programs.[8] Repeated U.S. sanctioning of Chinese firms for proliferating missiles and missile technology to Iran have so far not stopped the practice.[9]

Beijing has also contributed substantially to Iran’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs despite assurances to Washington that it has ceased such work. Perhaps the most egregious example was the supply of a uranium conversion facility and nuclear power reactors to Iran.[10]

But China and Iran acting alike, and doing business together, belies the complete hypocrisy of these two nations’ alleged ideologies. By the book, each should dogmatically hate each other, because their supposed belief systems are so contradictory.

The conclusion is that it is not about ideas or beliefs. It all boils down to a desire for power and control. Fascism, Communism, Islamism… a (stinky, black) rose by any other name.

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China’s communist leadership is trying to paint a smiley face over its most recent brutal suppression of dissent. Five days ago, protestors were gunned downed by police in a village not far from Hong Kong. The authorities blame a “few instigators” for the violence, but this event is indicative of growing socio-economic shifts in mainland China; namely the disparity between those profiting from communist experimentation with capitalism, and those left on the sidelines.

China’s government is trying to put lipstick on the pig. From MSNBC.com:

The government said three people died in Tuesday’s violence in this coastal village northeast of Hong Kong, but witnesses put the death toll as high as 20.

From the International Herald Tribune:

The delayed response by the government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers’ accounts, as well as upholding Beijing’s own vision of public order and the “rule of law.”

The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.

Is China really “perfecting communism through capitalism,” as its architect of economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, once said? Again, MSNBC.com:

Such incidents have alarmed communist leaders, who are promising to spend more to raise living standards in the poor countryside, home to about 800 million people.

By the government’s count, China had more than 70,000 cases of rural unrest last year. Protests are growing more violent, with injuries on both sides.

President Hu Jintao’s government has made a priority of spreading prosperity to areas left behind by China’s 25-year economic boom. But in many areas, families still live on the equivalent of a few hundred dollars a year.

The Washington Post adds:

The long-simmering conflict in Dongzhou arose over disputed confiscations and what farmers here said were inadequate compensation payments. Authorities exercising the equivalent of eminent domain seized farmers’ fields to build a wind-driven electric generating plant on a hillside overlooking the village. The plant would be part of a $700 million electricity development project to supply the growing power needs of Shanwei and surrounding towns and villages.

Villagers, contacted by telephone, complained that the compensation was inadequate. Moreover, they charged, the power plant would also spoil fishing in Baisha Lake, a tidal inlet just below the hill, on which villagers rely heavily for food.

The confrontation was typical of the tension between the drive for economic development in China — which has a growth rate of 9 percent a year– and farmers’ desire to retain the land that they regard as security for their families. Land disputes have been a prime reason for popular explosions of violence, which the Public Security Ministry estimates involved 3.76 million people in 74,000 incidents during 2004.

In a country which supposedly adheres to an orthodox version of communism, the disparity between haves and have-nots is growing. So much for Mao’s dream of making everyone “equal” — forcing all the “people” to wear the same uniform and carry the same “little red book.” This is all more Kafkaesque than it is a page out of Das Kapital.

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Another reminder that just because China produces cheap products, we shouldn’t be buying them — and that the leftists who still see China as the last remaining outpost of “socialism” are delusional:

Chinese authorities have confirmed several villagers were shot dead by police in a protest earlier this week.

Three people died as result of the shooting in Guangdong province on Tuesday, the Xinhua news agency says after days of official silence.

But local residents have alleged that up to 20 people were killed.

If that is true, these killings could represent the deadliest use of force by security personnel against protesters in China since Tiananmen Square.

A special investigation into the incident has now been launched.

Protests against corruption, pollution and land seizures have become increasingly common in rural China.

- From the BBC

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250,000 people marched through the streets of Hong Kong today, demanding they be able to keep the democratic system enjoyed under British rule. This is not the first time, and will not be the last. Despite the mainland communist hypocrisy — 40 of China’s richest people are worth $26 billion — its economic “liberalization” has not translated into democratic freedoms. From The Canadian Press:

Organizers said the massive protest drew 250,000 people - far exceeding analysts’ forecast of between 50,000 and 100,000. But police put the turnout at 63,000.

Pro-democracy lawmakers and some protesters gathered outside the government’s headquarters after the march. They demanded Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang to immediately respond to calls for a roadmap specifying when and how Hong Kong can have universal suffrage, promised as an eventual goal under the territory’s mini-constitution.

“I can’t think of anywhere else in the world that you can have such large number of people turning out in such a peaceful manner to ask for something which is of their own right,” said Ronny Tong, a lawmaker and march organizer. “Any responsible government owe it to themselves to respond positively to what happened today.”

The big turnout means hopes are faltering for the government to push through a political reform package that critics said was too conservative in the legislature.

To the mainland, “political reform” means full control in Beijing. They might not get what they want, though.

At least 500,000 pro-democracy demonstrators filled the streets of Hong Kong on July 1, 2003. That day marked the 6th anniversary of transfer of control of the city-state from British to Chinese rule. Protestors were out to harangue their appointed (not elected) leader Tung Chee-hwa and his push for Hong Kong’s “legislature” to pass an “anti-subversion bill.” The bill basically would have allowed the city-state’s government to imprison a person for life for “acts of subversion.” This time around, the communists didn’t pull a Tiananmen Square. The Beijing-appointed Hong Kong government peaceably withdrew the anti-subversion bill on September 5, 2003. Another half-million-strong march occurred in 2004.

Looks like the communists have put lipstick on the pig, basically trying to push through “anti-subversion bill,” version 2.0. Hong Kong isn’t buying it:

Retiree K.T. Wong, another marcher, held a cardboard saying, “I’m 75. I want popular elections. Never give up.”

“Beijing will have to consider our views if more people speak up. We have to keep fighting,” Wong said.

Marx and Engels would be turning in their graves if they could see what China’s commies are up to these days. According to Forbes.com Asia:

China’s wealthiest got much richer in the past year, thanks to the nation’s booming economy. The 40 richest businesspeople are now worth a collective $26 billion, up from $18 billion a year ago. China is now home to ten billionaires and their families, up from three last year. A net worth of $321 million was required to make the top 40, up from $231 million last year. The nation’s richest man is once again Larry Rong Zhijian, who runs one of China’s most successful conglomerates, Citic Pacific. Those who make their money in real estate did particularly well. Moving up eight slots to number 2 is property baron Zhu Mengyi and family, whose holdings are in Guangdong Province and whose Hong Kong-listed Hopson Development recently attracted international investors such as the U.S.’ Tiger Fund.

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