Israeli prime minister 'Bibi' Netenyahu is putting all his eggs in one basket in the crisis he created with the United States. He's betting that he can wear down the Obama administration's insistance that the building of the 1600 housing units in East Jerusalem be put a brake on, and is counting on the US Congress and American public opinion, to back him up.
He may be barking up the wrong tree. President Obama [BHO] spoke the hard truth to Mr. Netenyahu during his 2 day star turn in Washington to address the powerful American Israeli Political Action Committe [AIPAC]. BHO didn't mince words, but they were wasted on Mr. Netenyahu who has the 'Torah' and God on his side!
The announcement of expanded building of housing in East Jerusalem, which Israel claims as a birthright, but international begs to differ 'de facto' and 'de jure', came immediately on the heels of vice president Joseph Biden's clear, strong words of support of the Zionist state. Biden, as we call, came to Israel to give CRP to the limp, dying body of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He is one of the most stauch and housebroken cheer leaders of Israel in the American government. His 'devotion' got him nothing but a slap in the face, and the press release coming out of the Israeli prime minister's office following Biden's speech effectively poured cold war on the American initiative for indirect talks.
It was quite clear that Israel has no intention in allowing the birth of a Palestinian state unless it's an emasculated satrap, or if it has enough time to gobble up Palestinian territory illegally by implanting settlements.
Mr. Netenyahu has misread BHO. His insult to the US has stirred quiescent currents in the Pentagon and the State Department. General Petreus, with the approval of his boss Admiral Mullen, appeared before the Senate Armed Services committe. He spoke of the unreliability of Israel as an ally in the Middle East and Central and South Asia, as it pertains to US goals. Remarkably in his 'tour de horizon' of west Asia, he included Hamas.
In another underreported bit of news in the US media, at a conference in Doha, a US representative had talks with Hamas in the corridors. Now that's an important development, one which should put Israel on notice.
But Israel is threatening again invading Gaza, to forestall and scotch any moves towards a Palestinian state.
The Obama administration, it appears, is dusting off a ploy George HW Bush used 20 years ago. It is sending mild but readable signals that it might not extend uncritical, complete support in the UN. Such a move would surely bring a condemnation of Israel. The Obama administration may even go the extra step in abstaining the next time the UN Human Rights Commission has a resolution condemning Israel for not implementing the recommendations of the Goldstone Report on investigating the crimes of war committed against the civilian population of Gaza by the 'Tsahal' or Israel Defence Force [IDF].
Mr. Netenyahu is tone deaf to these signals. He is banking on the Israeli street lack of trust of Mr. Obama, especially after the US president's speech in Cairo which was well received in the Arab and Muslim world.
Such a reaction is proof positive that a strong current of Israeli public feeling consider Palestinians inferior and unworthy as a partner in negotiations. Such attitudes simply mirror the anti Semitism rife in Europe a century ago. Mr. Netenyahu & co., to sustain such opinion, can do no better than the poster on the walls of Jerusalem. We see a photo of Mr. Obama head bowed receiving a medal from the Saudi king or a Trucial state emir, with a big print warning in Hebrew: 'Beware of a PLO spy in the White House'.
Mr. Netenyahu & co. are playing with fire and will surely get their fingers burnt. They forget Israel is an American protectorate and the only friend they have in the Middle East is America. Without US backing, it will be left to its own devices, suffer diplomatic, economic, and deep psychological damages.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Tibet & Xinjiang
On the 51 anniversary of the uprising [11 March 2010] of the Tibetans against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama made an important speech. He linked the struggle of Tibetans for cultural and political autonomy to that of the Turkomen or Quyghurs in Xinjiang. He did not neglect support for Chinese intellectuals and ordinary citizens who are struggling for their rights and democracy in China itself.
The Chinese Communisty Party [CCP] and its functionaries are put on notice. For, the linkage of the three struggles for democracy and the rights of minority peoples in Tibet and Xinjiang [east Turkmenstan], and in China proper is now established.
The time seemed right to hook up these struggles, although now that it is announced, the fight of these 3 people, is as plain as the nose on one's face.
Of course the CCP will not take the challenge sitting down, and they've a standing army to prove the point. Yet, strong and invincible as they might seem, the time and the fast moving evolution of Chinese economy and society, tied down by the weights and measures of the past, are against Beijing.
Of course, too, the CCP's propaganda machinery is working triple time, to launch lightning bolts of invective, lies, and fabrication cloth of stories woven from falsehood. Beijing will cajole, bribe, throw into prison those it cannot buy off or consider too weak but whose mere frail voice shakes the pillars of their temple.
It is curious that a brutal regime that always talks of history and history being on its side, remains impervious to the lessons of its own past.
Little does the CCP understand that the prophets of their doom are speaking, and the cracks and crevices of a corrupt society are widening day by day.
When the fall comes, the CCP won't have the luxury of wondering why. And that is the significance of the Dalai Lama's words.
The Chinese Communisty Party [CCP] and its functionaries are put on notice. For, the linkage of the three struggles for democracy and the rights of minority peoples in Tibet and Xinjiang [east Turkmenstan], and in China proper is now established.
The time seemed right to hook up these struggles, although now that it is announced, the fight of these 3 people, is as plain as the nose on one's face.
Of course the CCP will not take the challenge sitting down, and they've a standing army to prove the point. Yet, strong and invincible as they might seem, the time and the fast moving evolution of Chinese economy and society, tied down by the weights and measures of the past, are against Beijing.
Of course, too, the CCP's propaganda machinery is working triple time, to launch lightning bolts of invective, lies, and fabrication cloth of stories woven from falsehood. Beijing will cajole, bribe, throw into prison those it cannot buy off or consider too weak but whose mere frail voice shakes the pillars of their temple.
It is curious that a brutal regime that always talks of history and history being on its side, remains impervious to the lessons of its own past.
Little does the CCP understand that the prophets of their doom are speaking, and the cracks and crevices of a corrupt society are widening day by day.
When the fall comes, the CCP won't have the luxury of wondering why. And that is the significance of the Dalai Lama's words.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Israel slaps the US
US vice president Joe Biden is in Israel, to reanimate the corpse of 'peace talks' between Israel and the Palestinian Authority [PA], albeit indirectly, the goal of which is a two state solution.
For his domestic audience back in the US, Biden went out of his way to assure that when push comes to shove Washington stands tall with Jerusalem. Israel needs no such proof of doglike fidelity from the Obama administration. It knows that it can count of congress and a large body of public opinion to support whatever it does, legally or illegally.
Biden came offering an olive branch, but right wing prime minister Bibi Netenyahu went out of his way to bite the hand that has so liberally funded the 'Jewish' state for the last 60 years with US rate or taxpayer monies.
President Obama [BHO] has caved in on all his conditions save the weak straw of a freeze on illegal settlements on the west bank and east Jerusalem which are under internationa law, recognised as belonging to the Palestinians.
Well living up to its arrogance, Israel, led by the Likud government, announced the building of 1300 additional units in Arab east Jerusalem, and thus in once breathed killed even the merest of hopes of getting on with stillborn negotiations.
Consider every move Israel has done facing Washington's demands. It has dug in its heels, wearing down spineless American presidents to water them down or simply let Jerusalem have its own way. For it full well knows that any party in the White House in the hope of staying in office, won't risk taming the rogue state which is Israel.
Netenyahu's announcement of further building in Arab east Jerusalem, which is yet another example of ethnic cleansing, simply rubbed Biden's face in donkey manure. Biden kept smiling, reaffirming support for arrogant and lawless Israel, but he did make Netenyahu wait 4.5 hours before joining the Israeli prime minister for dinner. Had he any 'cujones', Bidon should have taken the first aeroplane back to the states.
BHO & co. are used to being 'kicked around' by Israel, whose value in the Middle East for US policy is a game of diminishing returns, more a liability than an asset. Jerusalem as a client state of the US knows full well how to manipulate its 'protector' and 'banker', the US. If Washington has caught on to the game, it has a poor way of showing it, the more especially since it demurs to Israel's demands.
Not since the presidency of George WH Bush and his savvy foreign secretary James Baker, has Israel had to jump through US hoops and dance to Washington's tune. And to this day, Baker is a curse word in Israel! You won't find BHO cracking the whip; he will find his administration dragged into the infernal designs of Israel for a unitary state from the Mediterrean to the Jourdan river, with Bantustans for Palestinians Arabs.
No one in the department of state or the endless number of intelligence outfits the US government has, has taken into account that Netenyahu & co. come out of the reformist Zionist movement intent on a state from the sea to the river, without recognising the existence of Palestinians. Or if they do, they have a funny way of keeping quiet.
Netenyahu's slap in the US face is yet more proof of Israel's arrogrance, its thumbing its nose at the world, thinking rightly for the moment, it is beyond criticism. Consider the assassination of the Hamas leader in Dubai, caught on security cameras, involving identity theft, and flipping the bird at 5 friendly governments. Consider too the pre emptive war against Gaza, and the high deaht toll of civilians, complete destruction of infrastructure, and then holding Gazans as hostage with the bare minimum of food, to keep them from massive starvation. Consider not cooperating with the UN Goldstone commission and then falsely accusing the Jewish South African jurist of being a self hating Jew for putting the lion's share of blame on Israel for war crimes in Gaza.
Israel's behaviour is a law unto its own, but slowly but surely outside and weakly in the US, is growing a chorus of protest that Israel will not escape judgment for war crimes, and high crimes against the Palestinians and the world community.
This in spite of Washington's shameless support of what Israel does and the contempt Israel shows to its protector.
For his domestic audience back in the US, Biden went out of his way to assure that when push comes to shove Washington stands tall with Jerusalem. Israel needs no such proof of doglike fidelity from the Obama administration. It knows that it can count of congress and a large body of public opinion to support whatever it does, legally or illegally.
Biden came offering an olive branch, but right wing prime minister Bibi Netenyahu went out of his way to bite the hand that has so liberally funded the 'Jewish' state for the last 60 years with US rate or taxpayer monies.
President Obama [BHO] has caved in on all his conditions save the weak straw of a freeze on illegal settlements on the west bank and east Jerusalem which are under internationa law, recognised as belonging to the Palestinians.
Well living up to its arrogance, Israel, led by the Likud government, announced the building of 1300 additional units in Arab east Jerusalem, and thus in once breathed killed even the merest of hopes of getting on with stillborn negotiations.
Consider every move Israel has done facing Washington's demands. It has dug in its heels, wearing down spineless American presidents to water them down or simply let Jerusalem have its own way. For it full well knows that any party in the White House in the hope of staying in office, won't risk taming the rogue state which is Israel.
Netenyahu's announcement of further building in Arab east Jerusalem, which is yet another example of ethnic cleansing, simply rubbed Biden's face in donkey manure. Biden kept smiling, reaffirming support for arrogant and lawless Israel, but he did make Netenyahu wait 4.5 hours before joining the Israeli prime minister for dinner. Had he any 'cujones', Bidon should have taken the first aeroplane back to the states.
BHO & co. are used to being 'kicked around' by Israel, whose value in the Middle East for US policy is a game of diminishing returns, more a liability than an asset. Jerusalem as a client state of the US knows full well how to manipulate its 'protector' and 'banker', the US. If Washington has caught on to the game, it has a poor way of showing it, the more especially since it demurs to Israel's demands.
Not since the presidency of George WH Bush and his savvy foreign secretary James Baker, has Israel had to jump through US hoops and dance to Washington's tune. And to this day, Baker is a curse word in Israel! You won't find BHO cracking the whip; he will find his administration dragged into the infernal designs of Israel for a unitary state from the Mediterrean to the Jourdan river, with Bantustans for Palestinians Arabs.
No one in the department of state or the endless number of intelligence outfits the US government has, has taken into account that Netenyahu & co. come out of the reformist Zionist movement intent on a state from the sea to the river, without recognising the existence of Palestinians. Or if they do, they have a funny way of keeping quiet.
Netenyahu's slap in the US face is yet more proof of Israel's arrogrance, its thumbing its nose at the world, thinking rightly for the moment, it is beyond criticism. Consider the assassination of the Hamas leader in Dubai, caught on security cameras, involving identity theft, and flipping the bird at 5 friendly governments. Consider too the pre emptive war against Gaza, and the high deaht toll of civilians, complete destruction of infrastructure, and then holding Gazans as hostage with the bare minimum of food, to keep them from massive starvation. Consider not cooperating with the UN Goldstone commission and then falsely accusing the Jewish South African jurist of being a self hating Jew for putting the lion's share of blame on Israel for war crimes in Gaza.
Israel's behaviour is a law unto its own, but slowly but surely outside and weakly in the US, is growing a chorus of protest that Israel will not escape judgment for war crimes, and high crimes against the Palestinians and the world community.
This in spite of Washington's shameless support of what Israel does and the contempt Israel shows to its protector.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
A Greek tragedy
A few observations about the toppling of Greece's sovereign funds. One, it has exposed a systemic weakness of the European Union [EU]. Its constitution has no mechanism to treat a member's default, thereby putting in peril the single EU currency the Euro.
Two, the role of the US banking house Goldman Sachs in advising in an Enron manoeuvre, hidding the growing Greek debt as long as 5 years at least.
Three, the scrambling of Germany and France to strong arm the newly elected Socialist government in Athens, to accept draconian measures, before bailing out Greece.
Four, the crisis has already drawn the social forces more tightly to a point they might explode, by sharpening extremes on the right and strengthening the small, but effective Greek Communist party. Already an odour of civil war prevades Greece. The open attack on foreigners and illegal immigrants encouraged the not so latent fascistic right, by playing the anti foreign card, and accusing the immigrants of taking Greek jobs from Greeks. The implication is that 'they' are feeding off the fat our Hellenic land whilst we the Greeks are starving. Eyewash. The waves of emigration fill those meanial jobs which the Greeks themselves won't do.
On the left, the strong arming of the Germans and the French whose banks have the lion share of at least US$100 bn in debt, will impoverish Greece. Greece's debt makes up close to 13 per cent of its GDP, the big sticks of the EU are demanding that it be brought down to at least 3 per cent in 3 to 4 years, to meet EU rules.
Translation: a break to any economic activity in Greece. A slash in salaries from the bottom to the top, yes, including CEO's; an attack on education and a comprehensive health systems; impoverishment of the average Greek citizen; a tightening of the tax laws in a country which is notorious for tax evasion, and where yacht owners outnumber those who declare falsely their wealth.
Greece has become a tinderbox which can ignite a 'prairie fire' in the world's hugest economy, the EU, and lead to dire consequences politically, economically, and socially.
Greece is the EU's weakest link!
Two, the role of the US banking house Goldman Sachs in advising in an Enron manoeuvre, hidding the growing Greek debt as long as 5 years at least.
Three, the scrambling of Germany and France to strong arm the newly elected Socialist government in Athens, to accept draconian measures, before bailing out Greece.
Four, the crisis has already drawn the social forces more tightly to a point they might explode, by sharpening extremes on the right and strengthening the small, but effective Greek Communist party. Already an odour of civil war prevades Greece. The open attack on foreigners and illegal immigrants encouraged the not so latent fascistic right, by playing the anti foreign card, and accusing the immigrants of taking Greek jobs from Greeks. The implication is that 'they' are feeding off the fat our Hellenic land whilst we the Greeks are starving. Eyewash. The waves of emigration fill those meanial jobs which the Greeks themselves won't do.
On the left, the strong arming of the Germans and the French whose banks have the lion share of at least US$100 bn in debt, will impoverish Greece. Greece's debt makes up close to 13 per cent of its GDP, the big sticks of the EU are demanding that it be brought down to at least 3 per cent in 3 to 4 years, to meet EU rules.
Translation: a break to any economic activity in Greece. A slash in salaries from the bottom to the top, yes, including CEO's; an attack on education and a comprehensive health systems; impoverishment of the average Greek citizen; a tightening of the tax laws in a country which is notorious for tax evasion, and where yacht owners outnumber those who declare falsely their wealth.
Greece has become a tinderbox which can ignite a 'prairie fire' in the world's hugest economy, the EU, and lead to dire consequences politically, economically, and socially.
Greece is the EU's weakest link!
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
After hurricane Goldstone, Israel is planning to go on the charm offense
Israel pooh poohed the UN commissioned Goldstone Report on its preemptive war in Gaza, pompously called 'Operation Cast Lead'. It had the gaggle of trained lapdogs in the US Congress and even in the White House, to denounce it as 'biased', and unworthy of consideration. Jerusalem turned down the opportunity to cooperate with the eminent South African and Jewish jurist, Richard Goldstone, as he patiently gathered evidence for his report to the United Nations.
In fact, ruling circles in Israel dismissed Goldstone as a 'self hating Jew', even though the judge is a supporter of Israel.
Israel misjudged the breath and depth of the global effect which the Goldstone Report would have. In brief, it was a time bomb ready to explode, and it did in Israel's face. It seriously damaged the 60 years old crafted and manicured image of the 'Jewish' state, with 20 per cent Arab citizenry, and a state which had two national languages--Hebrew and Arabic.
'Operation Cast Lead' badly tarnished Israel's international glow, wot, with the price civilian Gazans payed with loss of life and limb and the high numbered of injured; they saw the Strip's infrastructure--schools, hospitals, roads, factories, farm land, destroyed before their very eyes. Furthermore, after 22 days of fighting, the continued Israeli blockade lets enough food in...something like 15 per cent of daily nutritional intake, to enter the ringed Gaza Strip, something which David Pelham documented in the 'London Review of Books'. Vindictive hardly describes the animus that Israel has towards a Hamas governed Gaza Strip.
And then Israel's use of white phosphorous and collective punishment against a civilian population against the puny rocket attacks against southern Israeli settlements, pales in comparison to the Bantustan Israel has forced Gaza to become.
Speaking of Bantustan more broadly, the ongoing illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian west bank, under 43 years of Israeli colonial occupation, have so eaten away Palestinian territory that what's left is unconnected 'islands' of Palestinians, and hardly land which one can say would make a viable Palestine which more likely than not--short of a miracle or US pressure--will never perhaps see the day. In all, Israel has embaced apartheid as a way of ruling the Palestian population. And this belief that Israel has inherited the mantle of the racist South African government, and all the baggage that goes with that, suddenly has awakened Israel to the crisis of their own making, which the Goldstone report was the straw that broke Jerusalem's camel's back.
To wash its reputation with rose water, Israel is plotting a huge charm offensive, to tart itself up as a sainted, but wrong virgin. A media blitz which it is hoped will significantly tilt world opinion in Israel's favour. The road map remains to be more finely drawn, before being put into execution. This makes one pause to ask, how could the Israeli propaganda machine which has more or less well oiled, yea these 60 years break down? What happened to the 'Shalom' campaign to beef up sagging tourism, wot, with smiling Israelis welcoming one and all, Jew and non Jew, to the land of 'milk and honey'? Potemkin like images masking the brutual suppression of Palestinians, the theft of their land, and the double standards of the 'uebermenchen' Israelis lording it over the 'untermenschen' the Palestinians.
That, too, failed. So it's back to the drawing board to rewrite history or the scenes of the misery and humiliation and the brutality of more than 40 years occupation on the tv screen, the computer, or the cell phone.
No matter how Israel tries, it will fail. The UN Goldstone report has torn the veil of the 'holy of holies', exposing Jerusalem's warts and festering sores. No matter, too, how diligently Israel strives, it will never fully dominate. It has to finally own up to a two state solution, making amends to the Palestinians for 42 years now of harsh colonial rule.
The Israeli government, right wing or centrist or even 'socialist', strive to fulfill the dream of the earliest settlers: a state from the sea to the Jourdan river. Were that to happen, it would spell the death of Zionism, in the same way South Africa's apartheid crash under the weight of its own ideology.
In fact, ruling circles in Israel dismissed Goldstone as a 'self hating Jew', even though the judge is a supporter of Israel.
Israel misjudged the breath and depth of the global effect which the Goldstone Report would have. In brief, it was a time bomb ready to explode, and it did in Israel's face. It seriously damaged the 60 years old crafted and manicured image of the 'Jewish' state, with 20 per cent Arab citizenry, and a state which had two national languages--Hebrew and Arabic.
'Operation Cast Lead' badly tarnished Israel's international glow, wot, with the price civilian Gazans payed with loss of life and limb and the high numbered of injured; they saw the Strip's infrastructure--schools, hospitals, roads, factories, farm land, destroyed before their very eyes. Furthermore, after 22 days of fighting, the continued Israeli blockade lets enough food in...something like 15 per cent of daily nutritional intake, to enter the ringed Gaza Strip, something which David Pelham documented in the 'London Review of Books'. Vindictive hardly describes the animus that Israel has towards a Hamas governed Gaza Strip.
And then Israel's use of white phosphorous and collective punishment against a civilian population against the puny rocket attacks against southern Israeli settlements, pales in comparison to the Bantustan Israel has forced Gaza to become.
Speaking of Bantustan more broadly, the ongoing illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian west bank, under 43 years of Israeli colonial occupation, have so eaten away Palestinian territory that what's left is unconnected 'islands' of Palestinians, and hardly land which one can say would make a viable Palestine which more likely than not--short of a miracle or US pressure--will never perhaps see the day. In all, Israel has embaced apartheid as a way of ruling the Palestian population. And this belief that Israel has inherited the mantle of the racist South African government, and all the baggage that goes with that, suddenly has awakened Israel to the crisis of their own making, which the Goldstone report was the straw that broke Jerusalem's camel's back.
To wash its reputation with rose water, Israel is plotting a huge charm offensive, to tart itself up as a sainted, but wrong virgin. A media blitz which it is hoped will significantly tilt world opinion in Israel's favour. The road map remains to be more finely drawn, before being put into execution. This makes one pause to ask, how could the Israeli propaganda machine which has more or less well oiled, yea these 60 years break down? What happened to the 'Shalom' campaign to beef up sagging tourism, wot, with smiling Israelis welcoming one and all, Jew and non Jew, to the land of 'milk and honey'? Potemkin like images masking the brutual suppression of Palestinians, the theft of their land, and the double standards of the 'uebermenchen' Israelis lording it over the 'untermenschen' the Palestinians.
That, too, failed. So it's back to the drawing board to rewrite history or the scenes of the misery and humiliation and the brutality of more than 40 years occupation on the tv screen, the computer, or the cell phone.
No matter how Israel tries, it will fail. The UN Goldstone report has torn the veil of the 'holy of holies', exposing Jerusalem's warts and festering sores. No matter, too, how diligently Israel strives, it will never fully dominate. It has to finally own up to a two state solution, making amends to the Palestinians for 42 years now of harsh colonial rule.
The Israeli government, right wing or centrist or even 'socialist', strive to fulfill the dream of the earliest settlers: a state from the sea to the Jourdan river. Were that to happen, it would spell the death of Zionism, in the same way South Africa's apartheid crash under the weight of its own ideology.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Pyongyang misses a beat
The DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea aka North Korea] is backstepping from its demonetarization of the won. The move has proven ill advised but not without warning. An article in a North Korean economic review, under the signature of Kim Jong il's sister, in September, gave warning that monetary reform was coming on close heels.
The Korean Workers' Party and possibly high ranking military had an 'early warning' that change was imminent, to the extent that Pyongyang wanted to swiftly regain control of its money supply, including foreign currency, and with a sharp blow, knock the wind out of loosening of control on the market.
It did not count on limited scenes of riots in the market place, an unreported backlash among the 'core' group that forms the backbone of support of the DPRK, which the reevaluation of the currency hit hard.
As immediately proclaimed, Kim Jong il's government modified the decree, weakening it to what extent outsiders might ever know. And a scape goat was found in the person of Pak Nam gi chief of the finance and planning department of the Workers' party. He was blamed for the sharp increase of food prices in a country which is still suffering from years of bad harvests, and of course, instances of social unrest in a society which boasts of law and orderliness.
We know very little of the inner workings in the DPRK, but one thing, we do know is that decisions are never made by a single authority, collectivism reigns although the 'Dear Leader' can and does modify or overrule them, depending on the occasion.
Rumour has it that after Mr. Pak's disgrace, in the higher echelons of the nomenklatura, some, albeit unnamed, found themselves out of a job, downgraded, or shifted to the provinces, and others, also unnamed, came into favour to stem the fallout of the monetary reform.
GuamDiary has already reported on the Petersen Institute's senior economist Marcus Norland's talk at the New York Korea Society. Dr. Norland hit the right notes on the reform's immediate consequences, on the hardships encurred, and took too task Pyongyang's unwillingness to embrace 'free market reforms' which China and Vietnam had done.
The DPRK is not China, nor is it Vietnam. Furthermore, one thing is crystal clear, the DPRK is got trashing the mechanisms of a planned economy. Still, as even Mr. Norland observed in the provinces of North Korea, thanks to a relaxation of Pyongyang's central control, experimentation in 'liberalising the market' has taken place. More on the order of a cooperative nature than as critics of North Korea would like to describe it, for they almost to a man, see hope only in laissez faire, free market capitalism.
Pyongyang's rude awakening and swift rush to remedy the situation, does indicate that willy nilly, like it or not, market reform continues taking place in the DPRK, no matter what.
It goes without saying that the central government in pursuit of its own interests wants to appropriate it, However, here's the rub, to the outside world, no one really knows of internal debates, the clash of ideas for or against reform, etc. etc.
Nonetheless, this has not stopped economists formed in the old Peoples' Democracies of eastern Europe, who pursued graduate studies in Pyongyang, from writing, as they follow North Korea's political economy, from discerning, even 15 years ago, a slow, gradual evolution in the mechanics of the market in the DPRK.
Western critics take vicarious pleasure in stereotyping North Korean economists or political economy. And yet, Pyongyang is not unaware of 'bourgeois' economics. Remember they have a Swiss funded School of Business in the North Korean capital, which does teach capitalist economics, so on and on.
It is foolhardy to assume, yea presume, that somehow the DPRK is a fossil of another age, and klewless.
The Workers' party is binding its wounds, girding its loins for tomorrow's battle, to direct and lead the economy of the DPRK, in the direction that it sees the best for the country.
For outsiders, the difficulty lies in the opaqueness of the process which lends itself to wishful thinking, wild eyed speculation, and not necessarily to the patient work of reading material from the DPRK itself, and then trying to make good sense of it.
The Korean Workers' Party and possibly high ranking military had an 'early warning' that change was imminent, to the extent that Pyongyang wanted to swiftly regain control of its money supply, including foreign currency, and with a sharp blow, knock the wind out of loosening of control on the market.
It did not count on limited scenes of riots in the market place, an unreported backlash among the 'core' group that forms the backbone of support of the DPRK, which the reevaluation of the currency hit hard.
As immediately proclaimed, Kim Jong il's government modified the decree, weakening it to what extent outsiders might ever know. And a scape goat was found in the person of Pak Nam gi chief of the finance and planning department of the Workers' party. He was blamed for the sharp increase of food prices in a country which is still suffering from years of bad harvests, and of course, instances of social unrest in a society which boasts of law and orderliness.
We know very little of the inner workings in the DPRK, but one thing, we do know is that decisions are never made by a single authority, collectivism reigns although the 'Dear Leader' can and does modify or overrule them, depending on the occasion.
Rumour has it that after Mr. Pak's disgrace, in the higher echelons of the nomenklatura, some, albeit unnamed, found themselves out of a job, downgraded, or shifted to the provinces, and others, also unnamed, came into favour to stem the fallout of the monetary reform.
GuamDiary has already reported on the Petersen Institute's senior economist Marcus Norland's talk at the New York Korea Society. Dr. Norland hit the right notes on the reform's immediate consequences, on the hardships encurred, and took too task Pyongyang's unwillingness to embrace 'free market reforms' which China and Vietnam had done.
The DPRK is not China, nor is it Vietnam. Furthermore, one thing is crystal clear, the DPRK is got trashing the mechanisms of a planned economy. Still, as even Mr. Norland observed in the provinces of North Korea, thanks to a relaxation of Pyongyang's central control, experimentation in 'liberalising the market' has taken place. More on the order of a cooperative nature than as critics of North Korea would like to describe it, for they almost to a man, see hope only in laissez faire, free market capitalism.
Pyongyang's rude awakening and swift rush to remedy the situation, does indicate that willy nilly, like it or not, market reform continues taking place in the DPRK, no matter what.
It goes without saying that the central government in pursuit of its own interests wants to appropriate it, However, here's the rub, to the outside world, no one really knows of internal debates, the clash of ideas for or against reform, etc. etc.
Nonetheless, this has not stopped economists formed in the old Peoples' Democracies of eastern Europe, who pursued graduate studies in Pyongyang, from writing, as they follow North Korea's political economy, from discerning, even 15 years ago, a slow, gradual evolution in the mechanics of the market in the DPRK.
Western critics take vicarious pleasure in stereotyping North Korean economists or political economy. And yet, Pyongyang is not unaware of 'bourgeois' economics. Remember they have a Swiss funded School of Business in the North Korean capital, which does teach capitalist economics, so on and on.
It is foolhardy to assume, yea presume, that somehow the DPRK is a fossil of another age, and klewless.
The Workers' party is binding its wounds, girding its loins for tomorrow's battle, to direct and lead the economy of the DPRK, in the direction that it sees the best for the country.
For outsiders, the difficulty lies in the opaqueness of the process which lends itself to wishful thinking, wild eyed speculation, and not necessarily to the patient work of reading material from the DPRK itself, and then trying to make good sense of it.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Butcher Hu Jintao issues orders
Buther Hu Jintao, once Beijing proconsul in Tibet, ordered US president Barack Obama [BHO] not to meet China's nemesis the Dalai Lama.
In late 2009, the silly goose who is president of the US, civilised as he is to the point of correctness, refused to receive the Dalai Lama, in another foreign policy misstep, because BHO was going to meet Butcher Hu on Chinese soil.
BHO had much to talk to the Chinese president about, he didn't want to make unnecessary waves. BHO's talks didn't produce much. The Chinese Communist leaders read him as a fool, thereby hidding behind polite formulae of gossamer weightiness, but yielding nothing of substance on currency reform, Iran, North Korea, so on and on.
Butcher Hu in issuing his tsarist like ukase warning that receiving the Dalai Lama at the White House would damage Sino US relations, shows a side of an arrogant China flexing the growing strength of its economic clout. Capitalist China has become a caricature of its 'socialist' persona, and is exhibiting the monstrous ego that the once dominant British, French, or Dutch paraded when they had the world at their 'command'.
Monster China, now the economic engine hauling the dead weight of the west's economy and cracking the whip to the west's finance capitalists, cannot escape the burdens of capitalism. It is turning imperialist as the beads of sand flow effortlessly in the hourglass of history.
BHO rebuffed Hu. He showed a slight stiffening of his backbone, which gained stronger posture by selling more sophisticated arms to Taiwan, albeit of a more strictly defensive nature. A move calculated to nettle Butcher Hu & co. To add more injury to an inflated China's pride, it upped the import tax on China's good, which sent Beijing crying foul.
Of course Butcher Hu & co. think what's good for its goose is not good for others' ganders. Wrong. Strong as Butcher Hu may think of China, it always has a blind side which it cannot see; an Achilles heel waiting for a spear to poison it.
Butcher Hu & co. view BHO and the US as China's foremost adversary. They will do business with it as long as it profits Beijing. In other words, there is no peace and friendship. Peace there is as long as it benefits China, no more, no less.
Butcher Hu may think the world's China's oyster but he is 'con comme ses pieds', as the French would say. And ain't that the truth!
In late 2009, the silly goose who is president of the US, civilised as he is to the point of correctness, refused to receive the Dalai Lama, in another foreign policy misstep, because BHO was going to meet Butcher Hu on Chinese soil.
BHO had much to talk to the Chinese president about, he didn't want to make unnecessary waves. BHO's talks didn't produce much. The Chinese Communist leaders read him as a fool, thereby hidding behind polite formulae of gossamer weightiness, but yielding nothing of substance on currency reform, Iran, North Korea, so on and on.
Butcher Hu in issuing his tsarist like ukase warning that receiving the Dalai Lama at the White House would damage Sino US relations, shows a side of an arrogant China flexing the growing strength of its economic clout. Capitalist China has become a caricature of its 'socialist' persona, and is exhibiting the monstrous ego that the once dominant British, French, or Dutch paraded when they had the world at their 'command'.
Monster China, now the economic engine hauling the dead weight of the west's economy and cracking the whip to the west's finance capitalists, cannot escape the burdens of capitalism. It is turning imperialist as the beads of sand flow effortlessly in the hourglass of history.
BHO rebuffed Hu. He showed a slight stiffening of his backbone, which gained stronger posture by selling more sophisticated arms to Taiwan, albeit of a more strictly defensive nature. A move calculated to nettle Butcher Hu & co. To add more injury to an inflated China's pride, it upped the import tax on China's good, which sent Beijing crying foul.
Of course Butcher Hu & co. think what's good for its goose is not good for others' ganders. Wrong. Strong as Butcher Hu may think of China, it always has a blind side which it cannot see; an Achilles heel waiting for a spear to poison it.
Butcher Hu & co. view BHO and the US as China's foremost adversary. They will do business with it as long as it profits Beijing. In other words, there is no peace and friendship. Peace there is as long as it benefits China, no more, no less.
Butcher Hu may think the world's China's oyster but he is 'con comme ses pieds', as the French would say. And ain't that the truth!
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