Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[a_majoor]

Actually the USSR had similar ideas during the same time period, but the United States objected strongly to that since the radioactive fallout would have drifted into the Pacific (especially American allies like the RoK, Japan, Tiawan etc.). Indeed, this may have been the "wedge" that allowed the US to get in and recognize China, split the communist world and finish the containment of the USSR.

 

[CougarKing]

Speaking of China's missile arsenal/Second Artillery Corps...

China’s Second Artillery Has a New Missile
thediplomat.com
By  J. Michael Cole
August 7, 2013


Quote:

According to online reports and photographs (which includes official Chinese publications), the DF-12 is a re-designation of the M20 tactical SRBM, which China first unveiled at the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) in Abu Dhabi in February 2011. The re-designation would confirm that the M20 is now fielded with the Second Artillery Corps, which operates China’s strategic nuclear forces and missile arsenal.

Analysts in 2011 pointed out that the M20 bore a striking resemblance to the Russian-made 9K720 Iskander (SS-26 Stone). While contemporary sources said they were unaware of China purchasing the Iskander directly from Russia, they pointed to the high likelihood that the technology was acquired via Ukraine or Belarus.


<snipped>


Quote:

Like the Iskander, the M20/DF-12 reportedly has built-in countermeasures, including terminal maneuverability, against theatre missile defense systems such as the U.S.’ Patriot PAC-2/3, which is deployed in Taiwan to protect major urban centers, and Taiwan’s indigenous Tien Kung II. It is said to be very accurate and reportedly relies on inertial navigation and global positioning system guidance, presumably China’s Beidou.

The missile carries an 880lb warhead and can deliver cluster, high explosive fragmentation, penetration and high explosive incendiary warheads. The transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) vehicle carries two missiles.

 

[Edward Campbell]

China moves again, big time, into the international petroleum business according to this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/#dashboard/follows/
My emphasis added

PetroChina to join Exxon in giant Iraqi oilfield venture: sources

CHEN AIZHU AND VLADIMIR SOLDATKIN
BEIJING AND MOSCOW — Reuters

Published Friday, Aug. 09 201

China’s biggest energy firm PetroChina Co. Ltd. will join Exxon Mobil Corp. in developing Iraq’s giant West Qurna oilfield and is in talks with Russia’s Lukoil to buy into a second project at the field, industry sources said.

China is already the top foreign player in Iraq’s oilfields. A deal at West Qurna, which is around 50 kilometres northwest of the southern oil hub of Basra, would boost its dominance and could make PetroChina the biggest single foreign investor in Iraqi oil.

West Qurna is central to Iraq’s oil expansion plans, with enough reserves to pump more than 5 million barrels a day, and it could rival the world’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, when its two phases are running fully.

“PetroChina will participate in developing the field,” an industry source with direct knowledge of the deal with Exxon said on Friday.

The agreement would be announced in weeks, the source said, but declined to give further details on how the world’s two most valuable listed energy firms would work together in Iraq. Both PetroChina and Exxon declined to comment.

PetroChina already partners BP PLC at Rumaila, now Iraq’s largest producer, and operates the Halfaya and al-Ahdab fields. The company was the first foreign firm to sign an oil service deal in Iraq after U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad signed a series of service contracts in 2009 that committed international oil companies to raising Iraq’s oil output by 2017 beyond 12 million b/d – more than Saudi Arabia produces now.

Infrastructure and security problems have since forced the government to cut the target to 9 million b/d by 2020. The issues are so acute Iraq could report a year-on-year output fall for 2013, its first after two years of robust gains.

Despite the frustrations, Exxon, which holds a 60 per cent stake in West Qurna-1, has made steady progress with minority partner Royal Dutch Shell PLC and the field, a $50-billion (U.S.) investment project, is pumping around 480,000 b/d.

In March, PetroChina’s ex-chairman Jiang Jiemin told Reuters the Chinese energy major was willing to team up with Exxon at West Qurna.

PetroChina is also in talks with Lukoil for a stake in another development project at the field, West Qurna-2, a Lukoil source said. The source declined to reveal the size of the stake under discussion.

“Lukoil bosses have already said they would prefer an Asian partner, a Chinese partner, in the project to secure a guaranteed market for oil sales,” the source said.

Lukoil’s chief executive Vagit Alekperov has said that the company wanted a Chinese firm to replace Norway’s Statoil ASA at the project. Statoil agreed last year to sell its 18.75 per cent stake.

China is the world’s second-largest oil importer after the United States, and its growth in fuel consumption has driven global oil demand expansion for a decade.

Faced with falling demand for imported oil in the U.S. and Europe, producers from the Middle East, Russia, Africa and Latin America are all competing for a bigger share of China’s growing market.

West Qurna-2 is expected to start up this year, produce 500,000 b/d in 2014, and need total investment of $30-billion. Lukoil plans to invest $5-billion in the project in 2013 alone.

Last year, Exxon offered to sell its West Qurna-1 stake after a dispute with Baghdad over contracts it signed with autonomous Kurdistan in the north, deals the central government rejects as illegal.

A source familiar with PetroChina’s operations in Iraq said in March the two companies were discussing a deal that would enable Exxon to retain operator status at the oilfield, where Royal Dutch Shell is minority partner with 15 per cent.

Some industry sources said it was unlikely that PetroChina would buy stakes in both projects, due to their sheer size.

But Iraq’s oilfields are the largest in the Middle East open to foreign investment, making them hard to resist as China’s dependency on imports rises.

“PetroChina is under big pressure to add output and reserves for its size,” said a second industry official, who has direct knowledge of PetroChina’s investment strategy abroad.

“Iraq, given its attractive contract terms, was among the brightest spots for PetroChina’s international operations over the past three years, working shoulder by shoulder with global oil majors.”

In a separate deal, Exxon and PetroChina agreed in late July to jointly study the 3,830 square-km Changdong block in northern China’s Ordos basin, the companies said, which industry officials described as containing gas that is hard to access.

So that's why America fought a war in Iraq ... to make it safe for Chinese investments. "American blood for Chinese oil" ... is that the new slogan?

 

[Edward Campbell]

This video, linked under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from al Jazeera, suggests that Hollywood is bowing to Beijing.

As Mr Rosen says, the Chinese film industry is a tool in China's ongoing soft power campaign ~ charm offensive, if you like ~ which aims to use popular entertainment to spread China's "message" as, many people agree, Hollywood spread America's message to the world in the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s. Some people argue that only jazz music was more influential, all around the world, than were Hollywood films.

 

[Inquisitor]

This video, linked under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from al Jazeera, suggests that Hollywood is bowing to Beijing.

Some people argue that only jazz music was more influential, all around the world, than were Hollywood films.

I suggest that American Hard Diplomacy in the 40's  was somewhat effective as well.

How many films out on Korea on the 60th anniversary of the end of the war?

 

[Edward Campbell]

I suggest that American Hard Diplomacy in the 40's  was somewhat effective as well ...

Indeed!  :nod: And soft power, as Joseph Nye always points out, is only effective when it is backed up by commensurate hard power. That was the major mistake Pierre Trudeau and Pink Lloyd Axworthy always made: they understood, perhaps intuitively, that soft power works and that it is both cheap and effective, but they failed to grasp the simple truth that, in order to get your soft power message across people must be willing to listen to your "voice" and they will only do that if you are respected, which means, being, just a bit, feared. Or, as John Wayne (might have) said:

But I would still argue that Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Louis B Meyer were more effective at spreading America's "message" all over the world and for a much longer time than was George Patton.

 

[CougarKing]

Xinjiang and China's justice system again in the news:

link

Two people get death sentence for violence in China's Xinjiang
Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in China's Xinjiang has sentenced two people to death and another to life imprisonment over deadly violence in the far western region where the government often blames what it calls Muslim separatists for causing unrest.

Twenty-one people were killed in a confrontation between police and residents in April that involved axes, knives and at least one gun and culminated in a house being burned down, in what authorities called a "terrorist attack".

In July 2009, Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, was the scene of clashes between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people. In late June, 35 people died in another outbreak of violence.

Many Uighurs, Muslims who speak a Turkic language, complain of restrictions on their culture, language and religion. China says it grants them wide-ranging freedoms.

A court in the southern city of Kashgar found the five defendants, all of whom appeared to be Uighurs judging by their names, to be guilty of crimes including involvement in terrorism and intentional homicide, the Xinjiang government said in a statement on its news site (www.tianshannet.com).

Two defendants were given nine-year jail sentences.

The Xinjiang government did not name any group responsible for the violence, but China has blamed previous incidents in energy-rich Xinjiang - on the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India - on Islamic separatists who want to establish an independent East Turkestan.

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said previously that the violence was sparked by the shooting and killing of a young Uighur by "Chinese armed personnel", prompting the Uighurs to retaliate.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The Reuters report says, "...  the [Chinese] government often blames what it calls Muslim separatists for causing unrest."

In fairness to the Chinese government if the article is correct then they, being Uighurs, almost certainly are Muslim and they are almost as certainly separatists. From what I have read something like 98%+ of all Uighurs are Muslim and 90%+ of them, the men, anyway, are avowed separatists.

The Chinese are trying to win them over, to reconcile them to being Chinese, but it is a haphazard process. One effective way to reconcile minorities to their status is by providing jobs, and there are plenty of good jobs in the energy/mining sector in Xinjiang, but:

    1. The Uighurs seem, by education, training and socialization, unprepared to move to mining camps and oil exploration sites and do the necessary work; and

    2. The companies, many government owned and controlled, would rather import Han Chinese workers than to deal with the locals.

Another way to pacify minorities is by recognizing, even celebrating, their unique, minority culture, but the Chinese are unwilling to do very much to accommodate Islam.

 

[CougarKing]

A reposting of a segment of the Armed Forces Journal article "Purge the Generals" by US Army Lt. Col. Davis, which has been discussed at another thread of the same name.

The segment in question focuses on the PLA and is thus relevant to this thread; the greater professionalization and streamlining of the PLA mentioned below has already been going on for sometime, according to books by such as notable watchers such as the book Modernizing China's Military by David Shambaugh. In that book, Shambaugh mentions the growing professionalization of the PLA through the increasing separation of the Party from the PLA as well as the focus on the new doctrine of "People's War under Modern Conditions" which also stressed technological modernization.

(...)

I do not advocate armed conflict with the People’s Republic of China, nor do I hold that such conflict is inevitable. To the contrary, I strongly suggest that we engage Beijing in the diplomatic and economic spheres to foster mutual understanding and the common good of our nations and those of other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Any sort of war would be destructive for all involved. Based on China’s recent declarations of their military intentions, however, it is wholly appropriate to ensure that our country is prepared for reasonable contingencies.

In April, the Chinese government laid out the focus of its military reformation in a white paper titled “The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces.” “The Asia-Pacific region has become an increasingly significant stage for world economic development and strategic interaction between major powers,” the document said. “The U.S. is adjusting its Asia-Pacific security strategy, and the regional landscape is undergoing profound changes.”

To meet these changes, the paper says, the People’s Liberation Army “is engaged in the building of new types of combat forces. It optimizes the size and structure of the various services and arms, reforms the organization of the troops so as to make operational forces lean, joint, multi-functional and efficient. The PLA works to improve the training mechanism for military personnel of a new type … and strengthens the development of new- and high-technology weaponry and equipment to build a modern military force structure with Chinese characteristics.”

Over the past decade, the Chinese leadership has taken concrete steps toward these aspirations. In “Chinese Lessons from Other People’s Wars” (Strategic Studies Institute, 2011), Martin Andrew explained that the PLA no longer relies on large-scale artillery fires and masses of infantrymen. Since 2000, he notes, the Chinese have been “in the midst of a transformation from essentially an infantry-based force into one designed around combined arms mechanized operations. A decade into the new century, the PLA is redesigning its forces into battle groups, using modular force structures and logistics to support operations in high-altitude and complex terrains, conduct out of area operations, and develop the core for its vision of a hardened and network-centric army.”

Recent articles in Chinese professional journals confirm that the PLA conducts combined-arms joint field exercises that in some cases involve two mechanized divisions, air force and naval assets. These exercises combine computer simulation, field units equipped with laser gear (as the U.S. uses in its maneuver training centers) and live-fire ranges. Some of these exercises have taken place over hundreds of kilometers, akin to the Reforger exercises U.S. forces once conducted in Germany.

In short, during a decade in which the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have been focused almost exclusively on counterinsurgency and small-unit warfare, a new generation of Chinese military leaders has deepened its understanding and application of conventional warfare.

 

[CougarKing]

China Prepares for Psychological Warfare
thediplomat.com
By  Aaron Jensen
August 14, 2013

The recent unveiling of China’s new PSYOP (Psychological Operations) aircraft, the Gaoxin-7(高新七号), marks an important step forward for People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) psychological warfare capabilities.

Based on a Y-8 airframe (similar to the U.S. Military’s C-130), the Gaoxin-7’s primary mission is to conduct PSYOP missions against enemy forces. Although specific details are few and far between, People’s Republic of China (PRC) media has compared the Gaoxin-7 to the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) EC-130J “Commando Solo” in terms of its mission and capability. The EC-130J Commando Solo is essentially a flying broadcast station which can transmit media in AM, FM, HF, TV and military communication frequencies to enemy positions. Its transmission capability is so powerful that it is required to operate at least 200 miles off the coast of the United States during training missions so as to avoid interfering with civil communications.

(...)

 

[Edward Campbell]

One of the more phenomenal stories in the "Rise of China" domain is: Shanghai.

This webpage has some amazing photos showing the changes to the Pudong district.

 

[Inquisitor]

Here is a rather grim laundry list
Reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the copyright act from blacklistednews


Meet Your New Boss: Buying Large Employers Will Enable China To Dominate 1000s Of U.S. Communities


June 8, 2013

Source: Michael Snyder, Guest Post


Are you ready for a future where China will employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of small communities all over the United States?  Such a future would be unimaginable to many Americans, but the truth is that it is already starting to happen.  Chinese acquisition of U.S. businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace to absolutely shatter that record this year.  Meanwhile, China is voraciously gobbling up real estate and is establishing economic beachheads all over America.  If China continues to build economic power inside the United States, it will eventually become the dominant economic force in thousands of small communities all over the nation.  Just think about what the Smithfield Foods acquisition alone will mean.  Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world.  It has facilities in 26 U.S. states and it employs tens of thousands of Americans.  It directly owns 460 farms and has contracts with approximately 2,100 others.  But now a Chinese company has bought it for $4.7 billion, and that means that the Chinese will now be the most important employer in dozens of rural communities all over America.  If you don’t think that this is important, you haven’t been paying much attention to what has been going on in the world.  Thanks in part to our massively bloated trade deficit with China, the Chinese have trillions of dollars to spend.  They are only just starting to exercise their economic muscles.

And it is important to keep in mind that there is often not much of a difference between “the Chinese government” and “Chinese corporations”.  In 2011, 43 percent of all profits in China were produced by companies that the Chinese government had a controlling interest in.  Americans are accustomed to thinking of “government” and “business” as being separate things, but in China they are often one and the same.  Even when there is a separation in ownership, the reality is that no major Chinese corporation is going to go against the authority and guidance of the Chinese government.  The relationship between government and business in China is much different than it is in the United States.

Over the past several years, Chinese companies have become increasingly aggressive.  Last year a Chinese company spent $2.6 billion to purchase AMC entertainment – one of the largest movie theater chains in the United States.  Now that Chinese company controls more movie ticket sales than anyone else in the world.  At the time, that was the largest acquisition of a U.S. firm by a Chinese company, but now the Smithfield Foods deal has greatly surpassed that.

But China is not just relying on acquisitions to expand its economic power.  The truth is that “economic beachheads” are being established all over America.  For example, Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, Inc. recently broke ground on a $100 million plant in Thomasville, Alabama.  I am sure that many of the residents of Thomasville, Alabama will be glad to have jobs, but it will also become yet another community that will now be heavily dependent on communist China.

And guess where else Chinese companies are putting down roots?

Detroit.

Yes, the poster child for the deindustrialization of America is being invaded by the Chinese.  The following comes from a recent CNBC article…


Dozens of companies from China are putting down roots in Detroit, part of the country’s steady push into the American auto industry.

Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology, selling everything from seat belts to shock absorbers in retail stores, and hiring experienced engineers and designers in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers.

If you recently purchased an “American-made vehicle”, there is a really good chance that it has Chinese parts in it.

In fact, it is becoming harder and harder to get auto parts that are actually made in America by American companies.  A lot of those companies are dying off.  One example of this is a battery maker that had received $132 million from the federal government that was recently gobbled up by a huge Chinese corporation…


Industry analysts are hard-pressed to put a number on the Chinese suppliers operating in the United States. “We simply don’t know how many there are,” said David Andrea, an official with the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, a trade organization for auto parts makers.

In one of the more prominent deals, the Wanxiang Group bought most of the assets of the battery maker A123 Systems, which filed for bankruptcy last year despite receiving $132 million of $249 million in federal grants to build two factories in Michigan.

Congressional Republicans criticized the deal, saying A123′s technology could support military applications in China. Still, the buyout was approved this year by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal government panel.

China seems particularly interested in acquiring energy resources in the United States.  For example, did you know that China is actually mining for coal in the mountains of Tennessee?

Guizhou Gouchuang Energy Holdings Group spent 616 million dollars to acquire Triple H Coal Co. in Jacksboro, Tennessee.  At the time, that acquisition really didn’t make much news, but now a group of conservatives in Tennessee is trying to stop the Chinese from blowing up their mountains and taking their coal.  The following is from a Wall Street Journal article back in March…


The Tennessee Conservative Union began airing an ad Tuesday that says lawmakers have failed to protect the state’s scenic mountains and are allowing the “Chinese to destroy our mountains and take our coal…the same folks who hold our debt.”

But when it comes to our energy resources, China has been most interested in our oil and natural gas.  It is a complete and total mystery why the federal government would allow China to buy up our precious domestic sources of energy, but it is happening.  The following is a list of some of the oil and natural gas deals that China has been involved in during the last few years that was compiled by the Wall Street Journal…


Colorado: Cnooc gained a one-third stake in 800,000 acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming in a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

Louisiana: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 265,000 acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale after a broader $2.5-billion deal with Devon Energy.

Michigan: Sinopec gained a one-third interest in 350,000 acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Ohio: Sinopec acquired a one-third stake in Devon Energy’s 235,000 Utica Shale acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Oklahoma: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 215,000 acres in a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Texas: Cnooc acquired a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy’s 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a $2.16-billion deal.

Wyoming: Cnooc has a one-third stake in 800,000 acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming after a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy. Sinopec gained a one-third interest in Devon Energy’s 320,000 acres as part of a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Gulf of Mexico: Cnooc Ltd. separately acquired minority stakes in some of Statoil ASA’s leases as well as six of Nexen Inc.’s deep-water wells.

How could we be so stupid?

Sadly, as our politicians endlessly bicker China just continues to aggressively push ahead.

And pretty soon China may want to build entire cities in the United States just like they have been doing in other countries.  According toBloomberg, right now China is actually building a city larger than Manhattan just outside of the capital of Belarus…


China is building an entire city in the forests near the Belarusian capital Minsk to create a manufacturing springboard between the European Union andRussia.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenkoallotted an area 40 percent larger than Manhattanaround Minsk’s international airport for the $5 billion development, which will include enough housing to accommodate 155,000 people, according to Chinese and Belarusian officials.

And this is actually already happening on a much smaller scale in this country.  For example, as I have written about previously, a Chinese company known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” has purchased 200 acres of land near the little town of Milan, Michigan.  Their stated goal is to construct a “China City” that has artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.

In other cases, large chunks of real estate in the middle of major U.S. cities are being gobbled up by Chinese “investors”.  Just check out what a Fortune article from a while back says has been happening in Toledo, Ohio…


In March 2011, Chinese investors paid $2.15 million cash for a restaurant complex on the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio. Soon they put down another $3.8 million on 69 acres of newly decontaminated land in the city’s Marina District, promising to invest $200 million in a new residential-commercial development. That September, another Chinese firm spent $3 million for an aging hotel across a nearby bridge with a view of the minor league ballpark.

Are you starting to get the picture?

China is on the rise and America is in decline.  If you doubt this, just read the following list of facts which comes from one of my previous articles entitled “40 Ways That China Is Beating America“…

#1 As I mentioned above, when you total up all imports and exports of goods, China is now the number one trading nation on the entire planet.

#2 During 2012, we sold about 110 billion dollars worth of stuff to the Chinese, but they sold about 425 billion dollars worth of stuff to us.  That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.

#3 Overall, the U.S. has run a trade deficit with China over the past decade that comes to more than 2.3 trillion dollars.

#4 China now has the largest new car market in the entire world.

#5 China has more foreign currency reserves than anyone else on the planet.

#6 China is the number one gold producer in the world.

#7 China is also the number one gold importer in the world.

#8 The uniforms for the U.S. Olympic team were made in China.

#9 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

#10 The new World Trade Center tower is going to include glass that has been imported from China.

#11 The new Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall was made in China.

#12 One of the reasons it is so hard to export stuff to China is because of their tariffs.  According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.

#13 The Chinese economy has grown 7 times faster than the U.S. economy has over the past decade.

#14 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#15 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#16 Overall, the United States has lost a total of more than 56,000manufacturing facilities since 2001.

#17 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#18 China now produces more than twice as many automobiles as the United States does.

#19 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.

#20 After being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, General Motors is currently involved in 11 joint ventures with companies owned by the Chinese government.  The price for entering into many of these “joint ventures” was a transfer of “state of the art technology” from General Motors to the communist Chinese.

#21 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.

#22 The United States has lost more than a quarter of all of its high-tech manufacturing jobs over the past ten years.

#23 China’s number one export to the U.S. is computer equipment, but the number one U.S. export to China is “scrap and trash”.

#24 The U.S. trade deficit with China is now more than 30 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#25 China now consumes more energy than the United States does.

#26 China is now the leading manufacturer of goods in the entire world.

#27 China uses more cement than the rest of the world combined.

#28 China is now the number one producer of wind and solar power on the entire globe.

#29 There are more pigs in China than in the next 43 pork producing nations combined.

#30 Today, China produces nearly twice as much beer as the United States does.

#31 Right now, China is producing more than three times as much coal as the United States does.

#33 China now produces 11 times as much steel as the United States does.

#34 China produces more than 90 percent of the global supply of rare earth elements.

#35 China is now the number one supplier of components that are critical to the operation of U.S. defense systems.

#36 A recent investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services found more than one million counterfeit Chinese parts in the Department of Defense supply chain.

#37 15 years ago, China was 14th in the world in published scientific research articles.  But now, China is expected to pass the United States and become number one very shortly.

#38 China now awards more doctoral degrees in engineering each year than the United States does.

#39 The average household debt load in the United States is 136% of average household income.  In China, the average household debt loadis 17% of average household income.

#40 The Chinese have begun to buy up huge amounts of U.S. real estate.  In fact, Chinese citizens purchased one out of every ten homes that were sold in the state of California in 2011.

And what we have seen so far may just be the tip of the iceberg as far as Chinese “investment” in U.S. real estate is concerned.  The following is a brief excerpt from a Bloomberg article that was posted just last week…


China is studying the possibility of investing a portion of its $3.4 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. real estate, said two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange began the study after seeing signs of a recovery in the U.S. property market, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter. China may acquire properties, invest in real estate funds or buy stakes in property companies, they said. The safety of the investments will be the top priority, said the people, who didn’t elaborate on a timetable or other details.

So what can we do about all of this?

Unfortunately, not a whole lot.  Both major political parties seem to be fully convinced that merging our economy with the economy of communist China is a great idea.  I would not expect major changes in our policies regarding China any time soon.

For now, I will just leave you with one piece of advice…

Learn to speak Chinese.  You might need it someday.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here is a rather grim laundry list
Reproduced under the fair dealing provision of the copyright act from blacklistednews


Meet Your New Boss: Buying Large Employers Will Enable China To Dominate 1000s Of U.S. Communities


June 8, 2013

Source: Michael Snyder, Guest Post


Are you ready for a future where China will employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of small communities all over the United States?  Such a future would be unimaginable to many Americans, but the truth is that it is already starting to happen.  Chinese acquisition of U.S. businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace to absolutely shatter that record this year.  Meanwhile, China is voraciously gobbling up real estate and is establishing economic beachheads all over America.  If China continues to build economic power inside the United States, it will eventually become the dominant economic force in thousands of small communities all over the nation.  Just think about what the Smithfield Foods acquisition alone will mean.  Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world.  It has facilities in 26 U.S. states and it employs tens of thousands of Americans.  It directly owns 460 farms and has contracts with approximately 2,100 others.  But now a Chinese company has bought it for $4.7 billion, and that means that the Chinese will now be the most important employer in dozens of rural communities all over America.  If you don’t think that this is important, you haven’t been paying much attention to what has been going on in the world.  Thanks in part to our massively bloated trade deficit with China, the Chinese have trillions of dollars to spend.  They are only just starting to exercise their economic muscles.

And it is important to keep in mind that there is often not much of a difference between “the Chinese government” and “Chinese corporations”.  In 2011, 43 percent of all profits in China were produced by companies that the Chinese government had a controlling interest in.  Americans are accustomed to thinking of “government” and “business” as being separate things, but in China they are often one and the same.  Even when there is a separation in ownership, the reality is that no major Chinese corporation is going to go against the authority and guidance of the Chinese government.  The relationship between government and business in China is much different than it is in the United States.

Over the past several years, Chinese companies have become increasingly aggressive.  Last year a Chinese company spent $2.6 billion to purchase AMC entertainment – one of the largest movie theater chains in the United States.  Now that Chinese company controls more movie ticket sales than anyone else in the world.  At the time, that was the largest acquisition of a U.S. firm by a Chinese company, but now the Smithfield Foods deal has greatly surpassed that.

But China is not just relying on acquisitions to expand its economic power.  The truth is that “economic beachheads” are being established all over America.  For example, Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, Inc. recently broke ground on a $100 million plant in Thomasville, Alabama.  I am sure that many of the residents of Thomasville, Alabama will be glad to have jobs, but it will also become yet another community that will now be heavily dependent on communist China.

And guess where else Chinese companies are putting down roots?

Detroit.

Yes, the poster child for the deindustrialization of America is being invaded by the Chinese.  The following comes from a recent CNBC article…


Dozens of companies from China are putting down roots in Detroit, part of the country’s steady push into the American auto industry.

Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology, selling everything from seat belts to shock absorbers in retail stores, and hiring experienced engineers and designers in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers.

If you recently purchased an “American-made vehicle”, there is a really good chance that it has Chinese parts in it.

In fact, it is becoming harder and harder to get auto parts that are actually made in America by American companies.  A lot of those companies are dying off.  One example of this is a battery maker that had received $132 million from the federal government that was recently gobbled up by a huge Chinese corporation…


Industry analysts are hard-pressed to put a number on the Chinese suppliers operating in the United States. “We simply don’t know how many there are,” said David Andrea, an official with the Original Equipment Suppliers Association, a trade organization for auto parts makers.

In one of the more prominent deals, the Wanxiang Group bought most of the assets of the battery maker A123 Systems, which filed for bankruptcy last year despite receiving $132 million of $249 million in federal grants to build two factories in Michigan.

Congressional Republicans criticized the deal, saying A123′s technology could support military applications in China. Still, the buyout was approved this year by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal government panel.

China seems particularly interested in acquiring energy resources in the United States.  For example, did you know that China is actually mining for coal in the mountains of Tennessee?

Guizhou Gouchuang Energy Holdings Group spent 616 million dollars to acquire Triple H Coal Co. in Jacksboro, Tennessee.  At the time, that acquisition really didn’t make much news, but now a group of conservatives in Tennessee is trying to stop the Chinese from blowing up their mountains and taking their coal.  The following is from a Wall Street Journal article back in March…


The Tennessee Conservative Union began airing an ad Tuesday that says lawmakers have failed to protect the state’s scenic mountains and are allowing the “Chinese to destroy our mountains and take our coal…the same folks who hold our debt.”

But when it comes to our energy resources, China has been most interested in our oil and natural gas.  It is a complete and total mystery why the federal government would allow China to buy up our precious domestic sources of energy, but it is happening.  The following is a list of some of the oil and natural gas deals that China has been involved in during the last few years that was compiled by the Wall Street Journal…


Colorado: Cnooc gained a one-third stake in 800,000 acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming in a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

Louisiana: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 265,000 acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale after a broader $2.5-billion deal with Devon Energy.

Michigan: Sinopec gained a one-third interest in 350,000 acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Ohio: Sinopec acquired a one-third stake in Devon Energy’s 235,000 Utica Shale acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Oklahoma: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 215,000 acres in a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Texas: Cnooc acquired a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy’s 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a $2.16-billion deal.

Wyoming: Cnooc has a one-third stake in 800,000 acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming after a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy. Sinopec gained a one-third interest in Devon Energy’s 320,000 acres as part of a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Gulf of Mexico: Cnooc Ltd. separately acquired minority stakes in some of Statoil ASA’s leases as well as six of Nexen Inc.’s deep-water wells.

How could we be so stupid?

Sadly, as our politicians endlessly bicker China just continues to aggressively push ahead.

And pretty soon China may want to build entire cities in the United States just like they have been doing in other countries.  According toBloomberg, right now China is actually building a city larger than Manhattan just outside of the capital of Belarus…


China is building an entire city in the forests near the Belarusian capital Minsk to create a manufacturing springboard between the European Union andRussia.

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenkoallotted an area 40 percent larger than Manhattanaround Minsk’s international airport for the $5 billion development, which will include enough housing to accommodate 155,000 people, according to Chinese and Belarusian officials.

And this is actually already happening on a much smaller scale in this country.  For example, as I have written about previously, a Chinese company known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” has purchased 200 acres of land near the little town of Milan, Michigan.  Their stated goal is to construct a “China City” that has artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.

In other cases, large chunks of real estate in the middle of major U.S. cities are being gobbled up by Chinese “investors”.  Just check out what a Fortune article from a while back says has been happening in Toledo, Ohio…


In March 2011, Chinese investors paid $2.15 million cash for a restaurant complex on the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio. Soon they put down another $3.8 million on 69 acres of newly decontaminated land in the city’s Marina District, promising to invest $200 million in a new residential-commercial development. That September, another Chinese firm spent $3 million for an aging hotel across a nearby bridge with a view of the minor league ballpark.

Are you starting to get the picture?

China is on the rise and America is in decline.  If you doubt this, just read the following list of facts which comes from one of my previous articles entitled “40 Ways That China Is Beating America“…

#1 As I mentioned above, when you total up all imports and exports of goods, China is now the number one trading nation on the entire planet.

#2 During 2012, we sold about 110 billion dollars worth of stuff to the Chinese, but they sold about 425 billion dollars worth of stuff to us.  That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.

#3 Overall, the U.S. has run a trade deficit with China over the past decade that comes to more than 2.3 trillion dollars.

#4 China now has the largest new car market in the entire world.

#5 China has more foreign currency reserves than anyone else on the planet.

#6 China is the number one gold producer in the world.

#7 China is also the number one gold importer in the world.

#8 The uniforms for the U.S. Olympic team were made in China.

#9 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

#10 The new World Trade Center tower is going to include glass that has been imported from China.

#11 The new Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall was made in China.

#12 One of the reasons it is so hard to export stuff to China is because of their tariffs.  According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.

#13 The Chinese economy has grown 7 times faster than the U.S. economy has over the past decade.

#14 The United States has lost a staggering 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

#15 The United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#16 Overall, the United States has lost a total of more than 56,000manufacturing facilities since 2001.

#17 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#18 China now produces more than twice as many automobiles as the United States does.

#19 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.

#20 After being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, General Motors is currently involved in 11 joint ventures with companies owned by the Chinese government.  The price for entering into many of these “joint ventures” was a transfer of “state of the art technology” from General Motors to the communist Chinese.

#21 Back in 1998, the United States had 25 percent of the world’s high-tech export market and China had just 10 percent. Ten years later, the United States had less than 15 percent and China’s share had soared to 20 percent.

#22 The United States has lost more than a quarter of all of its high-tech manufacturing jobs over the past ten years.

#23 China’s number one export to the U.S. is computer equipment, but the number one U.S. export to China is “scrap and trash”.

#24 The U.S. trade deficit with China is now more than 30 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#25 China now consumes more energy than the United States does.

#26 China is now the leading manufacturer of goods in the entire world.

#27 China uses more cement than the rest of the world combined.

#28 China is now the number one producer of wind and solar power on the entire globe.

#29 There are more pigs in China than in the next 43 pork producing nations combined.

#30 Today, China produces nearly twice as much beer as the United States does.

#31 Right now, China is producing more than three times as much coal as the United States does.

#33 China now produces 11 times as much steel as the United States does.

#34 China produces more than 90 percent of the global supply of rare earth elements.

#35 China is now the number one supplier of components that are critical to the operation of U.S. defense systems.

#36 A recent investigation by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services found more than one million counterfeit Chinese parts in the Department of Defense supply chain.

#37 15 years ago, China was 14th in the world in published scientific research articles.  But now, China is expected to pass the United States and become number one very shortly.

#38 China now awards more doctoral degrees in engineering each year than the United States does.

#39 The average household debt load in the United States is 136% of average household income.  In China, the average household debt loadis 17% of average household income.

#40 The Chinese have begun to buy up huge amounts of U.S. real estate.  In fact, Chinese citizens purchased one out of every ten homes that were sold in the state of California in 2011.

And what we have seen so far may just be the tip of the iceberg as far as Chinese “investment” in U.S. real estate is concerned.  The following is a brief excerpt from a Bloomberg article that was posted just last week…


China is studying the possibility of investing a portion of its $3.4 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. real estate, said two people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange began the study after seeing signs of a recovery in the U.S. property market, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter. China may acquire properties, invest in real estate funds or buy stakes in property companies, they said. The safety of the investments will be the top priority, said the people, who didn’t elaborate on a timetable or other details.

So what can we do about all of this?

Unfortunately, not a whole lot.  Both major political parties seem to be fully convinced that merging our economy with the economy of communist China is a great idea.  I would not expect major changes in our policies regarding China any time soon.

For now, I will just leave you with one piece of advice…

Learn to speak Chinese.  You might need it someday.

Notwithstanding anything else in the article, that's good excellent advice all on its own, and it needs no economic justification.

 

[GAP]

And before the Chinese there was the Japanese......

 

[Inquisitor]

Precisely and the Koreans  both of which have done, in my opinion, an excellent job of taking advantage of the West's and your countries lack of acumen in several areas, trade being one of the more important.

Having had your pockets picked by the previous two, one would hope that one would be a bit more wary of the Chinese.

While all three profess true allegiance to free trade the reality is that many of their markets are heavily protected, officially and otherwise. 

Example. The west doesn't produce cars that the japenese want to own, right? Wrong there is a quota in place allowing the west only 15% of the Japanese market.

An example of the later, Korea, buy a western car and your chances of a tax audit go up dramatically.

Disclaimer, source is "In the Jaws of the Dragon" so that last two  might be a little out of date. BTW is is an excellent read. 

 

[Inquisitor]

and now for something a bit lighter check out the video in the following link

Hint a swarm of drones playing the James Bond Theme

Air Force's New Idea for Spying on China: Swarms of Tiny Bug Drones
http://killerapps.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/13/the_air_forces_new_idea_to_spy_on_countries_like_china_swarms_of_tiny_bug_drones

 

[Inquisitor]

I hope you enjoyed the musical interlude ;D

Now for something a bit more serious link here http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/14/pacific_standard?page=0,1

Pacific Standard

America needs to learn from Asia or get used to following it.

I will produce a few snippets under the fair dealing of the copyright act from Foreign Policy though I don't think I will do the article justice.

"There is nothing like a trip to Asia to put Washington's lack of perspective on the great global issues of our time into perspective. I'm not saying this in that typical snarky self-hating American abroad tone often found in media commentaries. I say it because every place I've visited on this trip still actively and respectfully looks to the U.S. government for leadership

...

But this trip has made it clear to me that pervasive ignorance of the great realities of our time is only one of the problems we face.

It is just as striking to see how America's policymakers are falling behind in terms of creativity and vision compared to their counterparts. Our gaze is too firmly locked on our political navels and our energies too devoted to impeding our domestic political opponents' success for us to thoughtfully consider the challenges ahead. In Washington, it seems, "tomorrow" is the day that will never come, a place to which problems are punted and where we assume solutions will magically present themselves. Here however there is a daily sense that "tomorrow" has already arrived. It's a mindset that has even the blandest of bureaucrats thinking ahead. "Say what you will about the Chinese," said one senior official from a close U.S. ally in the region, "they are always grappling with the implications of tomorrow, of growth, of demographic change. They have yet to undertake many reforms that are needed. But they are at least having an ongoing conversation about strategy. You don't get that sense from the U.S." A senior Southeast Asian diplomat offered this: "The concern isn't about a shifting balance of power at the moment.  The U.S. remains militarily strong. It is about a shifting balance of influence."

...

It's not that other countries don't have political distractions or dysfunction. In Australia, last Sunday's political debate between party leaders seemed dedicated to the proposition that what their country needs now is a robot prime minister.  Nonetheless, there was plentiful evidence at a conference I attended that, in their day-to-day work, political leaders from both parties recognized Australia was at a turning point and that greater open-mindedness and creativity were called for.

...

(Mandarin is already the second most widely spoken language in Australia.)

...

Singapore, while earning brickbats over the years for the authoritarian dimensions of its evolution as an independent city-state, has always led the region in terms of policy creativity. As a small island economy it feels the constant need to reassess and reinvent itself in ways that more self-sufficient economies do not. And some of its recent innovations are particularly striking. For example, the country has just concluded an unprecedented "national conversation," a series of some 6,000 local meetings in which politicians did something very uncharacteristic for their professional counterparts in the United States -- they listened

...

How many Americans know or care enough about core issues of public policy to come together to tackle the big questions we face? How many politicians and executive branch officials would take the time to really hear what they were saying? We often talk about participatory democracy, but can we really envision such innovative participatory policymaking happening in America today?

...

Now, at the critical moment that the United States must manage the tapering process it has its "weakest international economic team in years" and that consequently it is suffering from a "leadership vacuum." (China was cited as being sui generis because it -- unlike some of the other big emerging economies -- was actually enjoying growth fueled by genuine and consistent productivity gains. That said, and as noted earlier, the country is also widely seen as in need of major reform.)

But leading the world in the failure to make the reforms that circumstances require is not exactly what people were hoping for from the United States. So we face a choice. Either look to Asia (and wherever else we might find it) to discover inspiration for the kind of creativity and open-mindedness our own policy process needs for us to lead again ... or learn to look to this part of the world for the leadership we once provided."

 

[The Bread Guy]

China will start phasing out its decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplant operations from November, a senior official said on Thursday, as it pushes to mandate the use of organs from ethical sources in hospitals.

China remains the only country in the world that still systematically uses organs extracted from executed prisoners in transplant operations, a practice that has drawn widespread international criticism. Many Chinese view the practice as a way for criminals to redeem themselves.

But officials have recently spoken out against the practice of harvesting organs from dead inmates, saying it "tarnishes the image of China".

The health ministry will begin enforcing the use of organs from voluntary donors allocated through a fledging national program at a meeting set to be held in November, former deputy health minister Huang Jiefu, who still heads the ministry's organ transplant office, told Reuters.

"I am confident that before long all accredited hospitals will forfeit the use of prisoner organs," Huang said.

The first batch of all 165 Chinese hospitals licensed for transplants will promise to stop using organs harvested from death row inmates at the November meeting, he added. Huang did not specify the exact number ....

Reuters, 15 Aug 13

 

[Edward Campbell]

China will start phasing out its decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplant operations from November, a senior official said on Thursday, as it pushes to mandate the use of organs from ethical sources in hospitals.

China remains the only country in the world that still systematically uses organs extracted from executed prisoners in transplant operations, a practice that has drawn widespread international criticism. Many Chinese view the practice as a way for criminals to redeem themselves.

But officials have recently spoken out against the practice of harvesting organs from dead inmates, saying it "tarnishes the image of China".

Reuters, 15 Aug 13

This speaks to the HUGE power of Western culture and of our cultural values.

Harvesting organs from prisoners in order that they may "redeem themselves" is a very Confucian notion ~ in fact, I suspect, it likely predates Confucius. The notion of this sort of redemption seems, to me, to be deeply rooted in China's cultural history, going all the way back to the  Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC) - there are two concepts: redemption for legal guilt and redemption for "excesses" or accidents. But both, crimes and accidents, have, traditionally, required some form of redemption. This was one bit of traditional Chinese culture that was very popular with the hard line communists; they, too, believed that everyone needed to redeem themselves for mistakes they made.

In a way I will be sad to see the custom end ~ I find much of value in China's traditions.

 

[CougarKing]

Reuters, 15 Aug 13

Somehow, I doubt this is ever truly going to stop in China considering the lucractive black market in organs that's already established there...