The problem with secrecy

This is a story from MSNBC, via Chinadigitaltimes, about Wang Wenyi, the reporter arrested for heckling President Hu in D.C. during his visit.

 

Wang claims she had to do what she did because of China's involvement in harvesting organs from live Falun Gong members.  China "vehemently denies" the allegations.  The U.S. can't confirm that this is actually happening. 

 

A lesson the U.S. learned long ago (with occasional lapses through our history) has been that the best way for a government to remain credible to both its allies and its adversaries is to be open.  China has taken a different path since the Revolution: releasing information about employment, the economy, jobless rates, government policies, and certain changes in laws can all be violations of State Secrets (the Chinese equivalent of leaking Valerie Plame's name). 

 

The problem with that kind of secrecy is that when seemingly crazy allegations are made, there's just enough doubt about the government that people, while disbelieving, don't think it's completely crazy.  Which deteriorates confidence in the government, and leads to bigger problems.  If the Chinese are really worried about the Falun Gong as a political movement, it is this type of discrediting of the government the CCP should be most concerned with.

Dazed and Confused

Washington, DC--In amazing news today, Charles Krauthammer wrote something I agree with.  At least on the basic premise: the oil-price surge is based on supply and demand. 

 

He sites as evidence the fact that 10 years ago, President Clinton ordered an investigation into gasoline prices remarkably similar to the one President Bush has just ordered.  And it found approximately nothing.  The first investigation was conducted by an administration whose Vice President was not still receiving income from Halliburton, and where many of the political appointees did not come direct from the energy sector.  In any case, I'm guessing that the current investigation will lead to the same conclusions (regardless of the veracity of same).

 

What boggles the mind, however, is the fact that no Democrat has come out and offered this as a fantastic reason to funnel money into fuel-conservation efforts, attempts to develop (or, heaven forbid, incentivize) development of alternative fuels, or even something as basic as a "turn your lights off" campaign--the likes of which I remember from early in my childhood.  Remember, "If you leave a room, turn off the lights."  A walk down any street in an office-building-rich section of a downtown anywhere in the country will remind us just how rarely lights are actually being turned off these days.

 

So, once again, let me thank the Democrats for looking an opportunity to show leadership and affect change squarely in the face, to only turn sheepishly away with tail between legs.  And D's think they're going to win over the American public during the midterms?  Keep dreaming.

Crisis, Conflict, or Ephemera?

You Decide.

 

The International Crisis Group has put out a good synopsis of the state of affairs in NE Asia.  (Their pieces are nearly always good.) 

 

It focuses on the rise of Nationalism in Japan, Korea, and China; and the impact it is having on their relations in the region.  The flashpoint for the most recent cacophony of saber-rattling stems from territorial disputes between Japan and S. Korea over a bunch of uninhabited rocks.  There are a lot of these disputes in the Greater East Asia Region. 

• Dokdo/Takeshima--the present problem;
• Senkaku/Diayu--between China and Japan over rocks between Okinawa and the mainland;
• Kuriles/Northern Territories--one of the last WWII holdovers, between Japan and Russia;
• The "everyone wants a piece islands" Spratley Islands;
• Probably several more I don't know about.

No one seems to be paying much attention to the increasingly boisterous posturing and rhetoric coming out of Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo (as regard each other).  It might not make much difference over the next 5-15 years, as the current generations of leadership continue to be constrained by half-a-century of what constitutes gentility.  But when people my age start rising to power, I worry that economic considerations will start taking a back seat to the crescendoing drum-beat of nationalism, and that Asia is heading for some nasty conflicts.  This is where a strong (and deft) U.S. hand could help mitigate concerns, and negotiate settlements.

 

My proposal: Give all disputed territories and the surrounding exclusive economic zones as the sole purview of the Dalai Lama.  China might not like it, but at least it would give the poor guy some territory to call his own.

 

Violence begets....what?

Oh yes.  This.  As if Israel's treatment of Palestinians (and vice versa) over the past 40 years wasn't lesson enough, we've got another case study in how not to resolve ethnic-politico-economic tensions.

Political Crises and the Consequences of Economic Growth

An experienced person whose judgment I respect recently offered the following as major concerns/crises facing the administration:

• a wavering domestic political consensus to stay the course in Iraq;
• the controversy over Rumsfeld's tenure;
• Hamas' election;
• Iran;
• Russia's potential backslide toward regional strong-man status;
• Stalemate on North Korea;
• Oil price instability leading to domestic political foment;
• Domestic immigration debate.

I don't disagree with any of these, but find it striking that the last two are, essentially, economic issues.  And the first two are, more or less, reflections of a President's popularity in the polity.  When people start questioning a President's decision making, it is because there is instability or uncertainty in their own lives and they are seeking reasons for it.  When issues like oil-price or immigration start mustering political force in the country, it is because the economy is slipping and people have little confidence in near-term economic expansion. 

 

But we've had a booming economy for 15 years now, so what's happening?

 

My guess is that the average person is feeling the crunch of the new (and newly competitive) global economy far more acutely than the executives and boards of the companies they work for.  Small business owners--accountants, IT consultants, machinists--are having to compete with Bangalore and Beijing in ways they've never had to.  So even though overall economic growth is high and productivity is rising, real wage rates (when accounting for inflation and reduction in benefits like health care) are declining. 

 

Apparently the old adage is true: people vote with their pocketbooks.  Regardless of what the broad economic numbers suggest, it appears that globalizations unequal distribution of benefits are starting to pinch at average American's bottom-lines.

Now that's a stretch

Far be it from me to criticize other countries, or their leaders, especially in a place where I know very little, but this one isn't getting through my five-hole.

 

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is making statements covered in the Washington Post threatening consequences to U.S. interests around the world, if the U.S. attacks Iran:

"The Iranian nation and its officials are peace-seekers and the Islamic republic would not invade anybody," the television quoted Khamenei as saying.

I'm sorry.  Did he just say, "the Iranian nation and its officials are peace-seekers"?

 

The same man whose country funds Hezbollah?  The country whose President said, " As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."? 

 

Yeah.  Peaceful.  Mmm hmm.

Weeping at what we Sow

President Bush, recognizing limited public support for his positions, is taking a new political approach: go after the low hanging fruit.

 

Stories in the Star Tribune has a story about the President seeking to calm American fears about rising gas prices.  The Washington Post describes the President's efforts to alleviate American's at-the-pump costs this way:

President Bush, faced with rising public discontent over high fuel prices, today directed his administration to help investigate possible price gouging and ordered a temporary halt to deposits in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

According to the Star Tribune:

Bush is under pressure to do something about gas prices that have reached nearly $3 a gallon. In a new CNN poll, 69 percent of respondents said gasoline price increases had caused them personal hardship. Other polls suggest that voters favor Democrats over Republicans on the issue, and President Bush gets low marks for handling gas prices.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to reality.  Americans are becoming aware of the costs (literally) of excess dependence on a commodity with a limited supply.  For some reason the political talking heads, and the media pundits find American's response to rising gas prices completely normal and dare-I-say, logical.

 

I realize that each of us, and every country by extension, is a walking contradiction.  Apparently I'm sufficiently naive to be surprised at the depths, however.  Consider it this way:

America is the capitalist, driving force of the world economy.  It's the leader of the Free World.  We are the "Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave" as a bumper sticker explained to me yesterday.

 

But really, all we want is the safety and security of government intervention in markets; the stability of price-caps; and surety of whatever an American version of the Iron Rice Bowl would be.   Because otherwise, how could we possibly be A. surprised, or B. Alarmed, that oil prices are going through the roof.  It's not like it wasn't expected.  We've always known that Oil isn't renewable.  And we've known since at least the 1950s that supply would start to decrease at some point.  The only thing that might have caught us slightly off-guard is the present-day situation of surging demand driven by developing economies adaptation of our own petroleum reliant methods of economic development. (China and India creating automobile economies.)

 

Do I think there is price gauging and collusion going on?  Most likely.  Otherwise, wholesale prices (price per barrel) wouldn't hit $70 in the same quarter as industry posts unbelievably large profits ($10 billion).  But I don't think the gauging or collusion matter.  Because the market is willing to bear the costs.  There is grumbling, but not outrage. There is complaining, not campaigning. 

 

Americans are convinced (against evidence, empirical proof, and realistic considerations of the world) that bigger is better, and by-golly, we're going to pay for it.  So thank you, Mr. President, for taking our concerns so deeply to heart, but really, we're fine.  And prices will keep going up.

 

---

1 Billion Miles/Gallon

 

In other news, we've found a way to get 1 billion miles to a gallon.  Now all we need to do is miniaturize black holes (about 10,000 light years across) to get them to fit under the hood.  Engineers: you've now got a mission.  Let's get cracking!

The Senate, by Blogspot

I'm not sure, but I think Blogspot just got the contract for the Senate homepage.  Don't believe me?  Check it out.

Missing the boat

"Fresh off the boat."  A not-so-nice way to describe newly arrived immigrants who just haven't caught on to "being American" yet.

 

Well, the expression of current U.S. policies towards China--as depicted in this Washington Post article--make it sound like Americans are the ones fresh off the boat.

 

After spending the first 2 decades after World War Two creating an interlocking system of international political and financial institutions, and the three decades after that supporting and nurturing them, the past half-decade has seen what looks like a concerted U.S. effort to dismantle the system that has given us our wealth, power, success and prestige.

 

People say it took Nixon to open China.  It might be one of the great ironies of history that the second coming of his advisors is what it has taken to close China off from the U.S. again.

 

For those of you unwilling or too busy to read the Post article, you're probably wondering what I'm talking about.  Here's a quick example:

"China, [the administration says], must let its currency rise in value to reduce the unfair advantage its exporters enjoy against U.S. manufacturers. China must further crack down on the piracy of American films, music and other products. And China must open its market wider to help shrink the U.S.-China trade imbalance, which soared to $202 billion last year -- accounting for more than one-quarter of the U.S. trade deficit."

Not to beat the ghost of a dead horse, but: China is a nation of 1.3 billion people.  It has a 5,000 year history.  They invented paper, gunpowder, fireworks, and public works programs.  They created the modern bureaucracy--about 4,000 years ago.  Basically, what I'm saying is that they are a proud people capable of monumental feats, and engaging in a politics sophisticated enough to endure far longer than the Holy Roman Empire, for example. 

 

For the administration in any country--much less a country with deteriorating ties to an up-and-coming regional and world power--to demand what are in essence, concessions, can have no effect but the automatic rejection of the proposals.  Even though President Hu has already pledged to crack down on intellectual property rights abuses in China.

 

Where I'm from, if you want someone to do something you want, it can't be an order--it has to be a request and it should be done politely.  Maybe other parts of the U.S. work differently.  And maybe parts of China allow that type of behavior.  But I haven't seen them, and I haven't heard about them.

 

Maybe it's really the Americans who are "fresh off the boat" in this case.

China Woes

In continuing bad news for the sick in China, there is news today of an explosion in Shanxi province (not to be confused with Shaanxi) that rocked building for over a kilometer, and broke windows as far as 2 km away.  As near as I can tell from multimaps.com, Yuanping is about 200 km west of Shijiazhuang. And if you haven't heard of that provincial capital before, it's because the province is the epitome of provincial.  Probably also why the hospital was in a state to operate more like a bomb than a building.

 

I don't know what China is doing in it's hospitals, but it seems to me that an explosion of that magnitude is not likely to come from an exploding tank of anesthetic gas.

 

This follow's on the fire last fall in a hospital in Jilin province that, supposedly, led to an emphasis on hospital safety issues.

The rising cost of "it's someone elses problem"

The Washington Post included this graphic on the rising cost of education in the online edition. I'd go to the living room to see if it was in the print edition too, but does anyone read the print edition for anything but sales and coupons anymore?

While not trying to be crass, does it really come as a shock to anyone that the costs of public education are going up? The requirements and expectations we have put on our schools over the past 20 years (and possibly longer, but, education not being my baliwick, I can't really say) have grown while our criticisms of it have also grown.

Teacher pay is usually a primary scape-goat, but what about special education, the number of kids that are 'special needs' because their parents aren't willing or capable of doing the job of raising their children? What about the "great melting pot" effect? It's one of America's great strengths, but it also costs us a lot: we accept immigrants from all corners of the world. Immigrants whose children don't speak English--yet. So they have to learn English at school. Not necessarily a big deal 50 years ago when our ethnic enclaves were fairly uniform: northern Europeans in Minnesota; Hispanics in the Southwest; Asians tended to stay on the coasts. Well, welcome to globalization. Everyone is everywhere, and so the challenge of teaching kids english (so they can get good jobs, pay taxes, and be upstanding Americans--rather than go to jail) goes up as well.

OH, and I forgot one of the largest pieces. We've begun to recognize that forced memorization is not necessarily the best teaching method. Many children (and adults) learn much more by actually doing something that simply reading about it or listening as it is described. It costs more to give children the opportunity to learn by doing (but actually learn) rather than just go through the motions of learning as so many countries' education systems encourage.

I've written about it before, and undoubtedly will again, but education is one of this country's greatest stregnths. We do it better than other countries precisely because we teach everyone. Precisely because we ensure that we teach to the kids who need to see, hear, or do to learn; not just the kids who have a natural gift for picking up lessons from books and multiplication tables. If we as a society decide that it costs too much to educate our children in a way that not only prepares them to operate in the world we have created for them, but also educates them in such a way that prepares them to thrive in it, then we will have failed as a civilization--and we'll all have to spend a lot more time studying Hindi and Mandarin.

Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the Jungle. 

Not Axel Rose's jungle, but Thomas Hobbes', or Upton Sinclair's.

 

Apparently the declining college admission rate--the fact that there are so many students applying to college today that even students with rather good High School performances aren't getting in--has gotten so bad that the Washington Post is breaking from their political coverage to inform us of our imperiled future.

 

Too bad for Sinclair's protagonists, but Hobbes' description of life as competition is clearly getting worse as Thomas Friedman's description of our Flat World becomes more apparent to those of us living it.

 

Part of me wonders how the ever-increasing drive for people to go to college is coupled with the fact that wages in all non-college (and really, non-graduate educated) positions are going down.  I wonder how this is coupled with unions driving wages up, and influxes of immigrants (from countries that are economically far worse off), are playing into making the erosion of a working-middle class evaporate. 

 

Any thoughts?

 

The Two Americas

I was talking about the "Two Americas" last night with a co-worker from Spain.  I was describing how it can mean a lot of things to a lot of people: the divide between rich and poor; educated or not; white-collar or blue collar; city vs. rural; coast vs. "heartland".  He said he's seen some of that--between attending a U.S. high school in a rural part of a state bifurcated by the agriculture/industry divide, and then living and working in D.C.  He said they are just two very different places.  I'm fairly sure most of us would agree with that.

 

Today the news is that our Number 1 and Number 2 constitutional officers within the executive branch authorized the use of classified information for political gain--and possibly to mislead the country into a war.  These allegations could be true or false, but our reaction to them as a country will be telling, as far as which of the two Americas really shows up.

 

Are we the America that holds the law above all men, and where personal ambition is not to be put above national interest.  In short--a nation where even the President has to follow the law, and suffer consequences for not doing so.

 

Or are we an America where the President can do whatever he wants with his office, so long as I would prefer to grab a beer with him rather than the other guy running?

 

Yet another version, are we going to react as though President Bush is a Dubai company specializing in sea-commerce trying to buy U.S. based assets from a company owned by a different foreign country?

 

Or are we going to react as though President Bush is a commander in chief using faulty intelligence and cherry-picking hand-crafted analyses to support a faulty position and immerse America in a war he has recently stated will ultimately be"someone else's problem"? (It's all the way at the bottom.)

A start, but a false start?

OK, last one for the morning, I promise.

 

Massachusetts's (am I the only one who hates spelling that?) legislature just passed a law requiring health insurance the same way states require car owners to purchase car insurance--you have to have it, or you have to pay a fine.  From the Boston Globe.  I can't find a copy of the bill online, but I haven't really put a lot of time into it either.

 

The bill passed overwhelmingly in the Mass. House, and unanimously in the Senate.  So, apparently, it's popular.

 

My question is, is it fair to require people to purchase health care, like people do for a car.  Owning/operating a car is optional.  Not everywhere, not all the time, but it's a choice one can make or not.  Having a body doesn't fall under the "optional" category.  The most expensive programs are around $250 a month, and the least expensive, nearly free--according to the story.  What I worry about are unintended consequences.

 

What happens when Mass. businesses start switching over to cover only the cost of the least expensive program--and have their employees pick up the rest?  How will that impact people working in Massachusetts?  Yes, it will help corporate profits--but how many Massachusettans own those shares?  Will the increased stock price result in sufficiently greater earnings for those people to offset rising health care costs for their families?  I'm not so sure.  Massachusetts is a state full of smart people: Harvard, and MIT, and Good Will Hunting are all natives.  I would just like someone to talk through the consequences of the bill for the rest of us "normal" people to understand.

The un-Democratic, and un-democratic, too!

I don't know if there's anyone left in this country who would accuse former House Majority Leader, the 'hammer' Tom DeLay of being a Democrat.  He was, proudly and effectively, the un-Democrat.  The man ran the Republican House machine for a decade (in name or in deed) by pulling all the levers of power that he needed to.

 

The Post is running a story on him today saying that he wanted to leave only after he, "vanquished his challengers in the Republican primary to deny them the chance to become his successor, associates said."

 

I guess that's one interpretation of dropping out of a race after the electorate has had a chance to participate in the process.  But another way to describe it is undemocratic. 

 

Never having been a big fan of Mr. DeLay and his "my way or the highway" political maneuvering, it's hard to be dispassionate about his departure.  It just seems to be telling of DeLay's ultimate respect for the democratic process, when, even in departure, he goes out of his way to short circuit it.

 

Thank you Mr. DeLay for yet again finding ways to undermine our republic's democratic process.

A Glimmer of Recognition

The Beijing Morning Post ran a story (sorry, no link because it's in Chinese) about a problem that, for those who've spent any time around young people in China, has been readily apparent for a while: hiring discrimination.

 

The story sites a survey in which 8 in 10 girls said they had been discriminated against in their job hunt.  While there is some potential room for confusion--as I've heard many students say they were discriminated against simply because they didn't receive a job--which in the root sense of the word 'discriminate' is true--it doesn't really match up with our common usage of it today.  Even with that caveat out in the open, I'm surprised the response was only 80% of the surveyed girls. 

 

Anecdotally, from my own 3+ semesters teaching English department students at a teachers' college in Jilin, my average class-size was about 40 students.  Each class was about 36 girls and 4 boys (almost completely uniform).  It wasn't a random event either--because the only elective course my students had to choose between were: French or Japanese as a 2nd foreign language. Apparently Spanish has since been added as a 3rd option.  Because of this, Chinese students spend all four years, every class, surrounded by the exact same 40 classmates.  But I digress.

 

Of the 40 students in class, invariably the girls were better students.  There were rare exceptions when the boys would apply themselves to their coursework, but I would say 90% of the boys spent most of their energies on playing soccer or playing video games.  The girls were engaged, worked hard, and sought out extra help far more often than the boys did.  But did that pay off when graduation came and they started looking for jobs?  Not really.  The boys were almost always the first-hired from every class--and hired to the best positions.  Not because they were more qualified, or even as qualified as their fellow job-seekers.  But because they were 1. Male, and 2. more well-connected. 

 

As someone who believes in equality and wants to see talented, qualified people in positions they deserve, this frustrates me enormously.  As someone who has spent two years working with China's future teachers to give them the best tools I know of to help improve the learning experience of China's next generation, I find this greatly discouraging.

 

As someone who lives in the United States, and isn't opposed to the many comforts this affords, I'm happy to see a rising economic and political power on the world stage sabotage it's chances for continued growth and success by giving the least-qualified and the least-well prepared the most power and the most privilege.  From an economic perspective this is a horribly inefficient allocation of resources.  From a competition perspective it stagnates growth.  From a political perspective it increases the rate of erosion of credibility from the CCP in the eyes of average Chinese.  Far be it from me to offer suggestions to a civilization with 5,000 years of history.  Instead, let me just say "thank you" to the Chinese system for giving America a little more breathing room before China is ready to fully compete.

When 1.3 Billion people is not enough?

According to this story in the New York Times, when you are China's economy.

 

The story talks of how there are labor shortages in some provinces of China--notably the Pearl River Delta (adjacent to Hong Kong), as Chinese are either A. taking higher paying jobs in the Shanghai area, B. taking (close to) decent paying jobs nearer their homes, or C. staying on the farm because of agricultural tax reform.

 

The story talks up China's labor force as "moving up the production chain"--essentially how China's workers are rapidly becoming more skilled, and capable of engaging in high-order work.  Moving beyond the George Jetson button-pushing/lever pulling/hammer swinging work and into things that require more skills. 

 

As evidence of this, the story says that in 2006 Chinese universities enrolled 14 million students--up from 4.3 million who enrolled in 1999.

 

Granted, the story was focused on businesses in the Pearl River Delta, but it still seems to miss the point that nearly quadrupling the number of college graduates in only 6 years is going to put enormous pressures on an economy.  The people who are "moving up the production chain" aren't exactly making it any easier for Chinese college-grads to get jobs at home.  In fact, it is usually the college grad's parents who are moving up, and then competing with their children for jobs. 

 

As one friend of mine, who has taught at a Chinese University for the past 8 years or so describes it, the job market for this year's graduating class is not good.  These aren't philosophy or poetry majors.  They are students who have majored in English.  Most of them speak it well and read it better.  They are trained as teachers.  In theory a sector that an up-and-coming economy would have booming--as new schools opened up, or increased tax revenue (from 10% economic growth) pushed more money into education, allowing class sizes for elementary schools to fall lower than their current level in the mid-50s.  But it seems to not be the case.

 

Interestingly enough, the story of the job-seekers market, and the consequent improvement in wages and working conditions comes at the same time as a push by China's government supported trade union seeks to unionize 60% of foreign invested companies in the next year.  I'm no union organizer, but wouldn't it behoove the unions to go out and organize before employment conditions improved on their own because of the market?

Lower the Bar

We interrupt this broadcast for a bit of
inside-the-beltway who-haa that will likely be
uninteresting to anyone living in the reality, which I
have recently been informed, surrounds the island of
D.C. on all sides.

The Washington Post is describing the problems of
Representative Katherine Harris's campaign in Florida.
Apparently anyone with the seniority to have
something to lose by being associated with her
campaign is jumping ship. Campaign managers, press
secretary, finance director, all leaving. And leaving
soon.

For those of you less up-to-date on arbitrary senate
races around the country (and therefore more likely to
have a life than those of us who do follow them),
Katherine Harris (famous for her role as Florida
Secretary of State in 2000, and instrumental in the
election and post-election manuevering that ultimately
resulted in the United States having a second
President Bush), who was elected to the House of
Representatives in 2002 is now the primary (some say
only) Republican challenger to incumbant Democratic
senator Bill Nelson.

Call me a cynic, but part of me thinks this isn't just
a bunch of seasoned campaigners smelling blood in the
water, and trying to make sure as little of it as
possible is their own. Part of me thinks this is
actually an ingenious ploy by Harris and her team to
get nation-wide atttention for a flailing candidacy.
It will bring the "elect a Republican at any cost"
types running to the campaign, will shore up support
with the rank-and-file out-to-the-horizon rightists,
and it will give her a chance to establish a new
campaign team to pursue a more solidly defined goal.
Not only that, it will send a signal to Democrats that
while initially targetted as a could-win seat for
Republicans, he's now a rather safe figure. This will
stop or slow the flow of Democratic resources (people
and money) into the race, and make Harris's bar easier
to surpass.

Most of the rest of me is mocking that small part of
myself for even considering such a risky, treacherous,
politically suicidal course of action. But then
again, if you're a two-bit snake-oil politician with
almost no credibility to begin with, what do you have
to lose from trying lunatic tactics.

My hope-of-hopes is that Harris is a bellweather for
the nut-job Republicans across the country. Maybe
they have pushed the American public just a little to
far into theocratically driven fiat-rule, and we might
start to experience a swing back towards a more
rational political conversation.

This concludes the interrruption. We return you now
to your regularly scheduled reality.