They really, really respect us, now

Chinese-born pianist Lang Lang plays an old, Korean-war vintage anti-American song, “Battle on Shangganling Mountain”, at Obama’s state dinner for Chinese President Hu-Jintao. The Chinese, of course, just loved it.

I can just feel the respect our competitors in the world have for us, now that international relations have been “reset”.

This will not end well.

A perfect parallelism

From Sadie:

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient gave a state dinner in honor of the leader of China.

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, is imprisoned in China.

All conclusions are obvious.

China not quite the sophisticated, humane country Tom Friedman thinks it is

Lately, you can’t read a Tom Friedman article without gagging.  Oh, sorry.  I didn’t mean to say that.  Let me try again.

I mean that you can’t read a Tom Friedman article without having him praise China to the skies as the example America should follow.  (I gather that the Saudis have fallen somewhat in his estimation.  I don’t know if it was the misogyny, the homophobia or the antisemitism that did it, or maybe he took umbrage when the Saudis turned on Al Qaeda.)  In any event, I thought Friedman would find this story interesting:

Wang Cuyun was attempting to prevent a demolition team from knocking down her house when she was allegedly beaten by a worker with a wooden stick and then pushed into a ditch that had been dug around the property.

A bulldozer then covered Mrs Wang with earth, burying her alive. By the time her relatives dug her up, she was dead. The incident occurred last Wednesday in Maodian village in Huangpi district.

Mrs Wang’s case is the latest in a series of cases in China that have drawn widespread public condemnation of the behaviour of rapacious property developers and the government’s failure to intervene. Last year, Tang Fuzhen, a woman in Sichuan province, climbed on to the roof of her three-storey house and set herself on fire to protest against being evicted.

With house prices rocketing across the country, developers often team up with local governments to force homeowners out of their property, according to a recent report by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), an NGO based in Hong Kong.

It is not possible to refuse an eviction in China, since the government technically owns all the land.

Chinese law also does not require developers to agree a compensation fee before they demolish a property.

“The current framework offers little protection to homeowners,” said a spokesman for CHRD.

Read the rest here.

Admittedly, the story’s not about direct government action (rather, it is about government inaction), but it does indicate a certain cavalier attitude towards life that we might not wish to emulate here.  I’m sure Friedman will find some convoluted, cliche-ridden, soporific and illogical way to explain why this act of cruelty, one that seems to be part of a pattern, reflects well, rather than badly, on our primary debt holder.

Sacred cows are falling at SNL, as it skewers Barack Obama and his policies

Why didn’t they figure out before November 2008 that there was no there there?  The parody is good, but is it too late?

http://www.liveleak.com/e/d9c_1258865433

Even the Times has to concede that Obama’s charm offensive is unavailing

Liberals assured us back in 2008 that, after the horrible Cowboy Bush years, we needed someone charming to bring rogue governments back into the American fold.  So far, these same rogue governments have been resistant to Obama’s charm, whether in Russia or the Palestinian territories* or Iran, just to to name a few instances of rebuffs.  Chavez has been doing hugs and kisses, but he hasn’t changed his policy, so I’d say he too is playing the boy.

Now, China joins the line-up of potentially threatening (to America) regimes that are willing to be polite (Oba-mao), but don’t have the faintest desire to make concessions to one who is so manifestly weak and hostile to his own national interest.  After all, if Obama doesn’t care for America, why should they?  Instead, with a machiavellian stealth that is to be much admired, China used the groveling Obama for their benefit, while squishing him politely under their Communist heels:

President Obama made a big effort Tuesday at presenting his first visit to China as a step forward in America’s evolving relationship with its fastest rising competitor. But what emerged after six hours of meetings, two dinners, and a stilted 30-minute presentation to the press in which Chinese President Hu Jintao would not allow questions, was a picture of a China more willing to say no to the United States.

On everything from Iran, where Mr. Hu did not publicly discuss the possibility of sanctions, to currency, where he made no nod toward changing the value of the renminbi, to human rights, where a joint statement bluntly acknowledged that the two countries “have differences,” China held firm against most American demands. Combined with China’s micro-management of Mr. Obama’s appearances inside the country, the trip showcased China’s ability to push back against American pressure, analysts said.

“China effectively stage-managed President Obama’s public appearances, got him to make statements endorsing Chinese positions of political importance to them, and effectively squelched discussions of contentious issues such as human rights and China’s currency policy,” said Eswar Prasad, a China specialist at Cornell University. “In a master-stroke, they shifted the public discussion from the global risks posed by Chinese currency policy to the dangers of loose monetary policy and protectionist tendencies in the U.S.”

Read the rest here.

My husband assured my son this morning that Obama is doing a great job as president, and castigated me soundly for filling my son’s head with negative remarks about our president.  I refrained from pointing out that, while I give my children hard facts, and let them draw their conclusions, my husband has only airy-fairy conclusions, unconnected to any facts.  Some days, it looks as if even the New York Times is being forced to move beyond those rose-colored glasses.

_________________________

*The first time around, in a beautiful Freudian moment, I wrote that as “Palestinian terrortories.”

Tune in next week when the Empire State goes Red & Black to honor the Nazis *UPDATED*

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting, but WHAT THE HELL IS THE EMPIRE STATE DOING HONORING A BRUTAL REGIME THAT KILLED TENS OF MILLIONS OF ITS OWN CITIZENS, THAT STILL PUNISHES SPEECH WITH TORTURE AND DEATH, THAT USES SLAVE LABOR, AND THAT SEES ITS POLITICAL PRISONERS AS ORGAN DONOR MACHINES?

Just asking.

And yes, I’m definitely a hypocrite, because my house is filled with things made in China.  The sad fact is that there is a lot of stuff nowadays that you can’t buy at all unless you’re willing to accept Chinese manufacture.  Most Chinese goods are poorly made (and that’s not even touching upon the food poisoning and lead poisoning issues) so, as a savvy consumer, I try to avoid them, something separate from also trying to be a relatively principled shopper.  The fact remains, though, that Chinese goods are ubiquitous and my money supports that regime.  I still think, however, that being a prisoner of the marketplace is different from giving the Communist government itself the kind of accolade and honor that goes with colors on the Empire State.

UPDATE:  I’m not the only one asking this question.

The practical implications of Obama’s decision to pick a trade war with China

Obama’s foolish decision to pick a trade war with China has larger implications about his governing style, as Jennifer Rubin explains:

[D]omestic political considerations and the good opinion of his base are more important to Obama than just about any other concern. That seems to be the motivating factor in a lot of what he does. The international apology tour is catnip for his Left-leaning academic friends, who are delighted that we finally have a president who “understands” there isn’t anything special about America. He unleashes another investigation on CIA operatives, cheering the “get the Bushies” netroot crowd. He selects an entirely mediocre Supreme Court judge because the Hispanic vote could use a boost. And despite what must be the advice of free-traders within his administration, he has no qualms about risking economic retaliation from China to mollify his Big Labor patrons.

During the campaign, Obama’s supporters assured us that Obama was intensely “practical” and therefore would make fact-based decisions devoid of ideology. The reality is that he persistently tends to the whims and demands of his Left-leaning base (whose views he, in any case, sympathizes with), the result being a series of policy choices that send a thrill up the legs of union bosses and Harvard professors. If we trigger a trade war or throw the intelligence community into a tailspin, well, that’s a small price for keeping the base quiet.

To which I say, yup, you’re right.

N. Korea tests Obama — and the world *UPDATED*

Clearly, predator nations smell blood in the water — and that blood is Obama’s manifest inability to cope with predator nations.  At least, that’s how I read this, from BNO News at 9:30 ish p.m. PST:

N. Korea says it is no longer bound to the armistice which ended the war and says the peninsula will soon be returned to the state of war.

Not quite 3 a.m. in the White House, but close enough, right?  The only thing I know with pretty perfect certainty right now is that BHO has absolutely no idea what to do.  Let’s hope (a) his advisers have some plans and (b) he picks a good plan from the options presented to him.

UPDATE:  Lorie Byrd reminds us that, while there’s every reason for us to continue to hope that Obama is unable to carry out his domestic agenda, we should all be at his back right now, praying for a good outcome.

UPDATE II:  This news story started running over the wire at about 9:00 pm PST last night (and I picked it up about a half hour later).   Shortly before 10:00, I told Mr. Bookworm that North Korea had announced that it was no longer bound by the armistice but was, instead, at war (which I think accurate represents the wire information).  Mr. Bookworm was flabbergasted and instantly turned on the news:  which didn’t mention this story at all.  Every single local station was obsessed with the gay marriage story and nothing short of Amageddon was going to dislodge it!  Mr. Bookworm concluded I was hallucinating, although I suspect today’s Drudge headlines might change his point of view.

As it is, someone who has a very good read on these situations thinks it’s still sabre rattling — and will continue to be so until China has a good read on Obama and, if Obama fails to impress China, moves in on Taiwan.

Again, let us join with Lorie Byrd in hoping that Obama passes this test.

Dalai Lama — as good and stupid as Gandhi

The Dalai Lama spoke today in Berkeley, and reminded me strongly of Gandhi.  This was Gandhi’s approach to the Nazis, as expressed to the English (who were, you remember, the nation against which he was rebelling):

“I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity.  You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions. . . .   If these gentlemen [a word Gandhi apparently used without irony] choose to occupy your homes you will vacate them.  If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them”  (Non-Violence in Peace and War.)

As an interesting historical aside, it appears there was a lot more talk than action behind Gandhi’s non-violence stance, and he seemed to preach it most aggressively to those whom he disliked and who happened to be in the Nazi line of fire.  Nevertheless, he is the standard bearer for the coffee klatch approach to dictatorships, which is that one should just walk into their lair for some peaceful chit-chat, after which everything will be well.

Of course, Hitler walked all over countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium) and peoples (Jews, Gypsy’s, homosexuals) who hadn’t done a damn thing to him and who had been strikingly non-violent.  He did it because he could.  Nonviolence against someone determined to be violent works only when you negotiate from a position of peace.  The wagging tail is great when you can back it up with sharp teeth.  Otherwise, you’re just a victim in the making.

Turns out the revered Dalai Lama espouses the same view as Gandhi:

The Dalai Lama told a standing room only crowd of some 7,000 at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre on Saturday that peace and nuclear disarmament can be accomplished if only the world’s leaders could talk to one another in a compassionate and understanding way.

The exiled spiritual leader of Buddhist Tibet chose the university where the Free Speech Movement began more than 40 years ago to endorse President Obama’s philosophy of establishing dialogue, even with reviled world leaders.

“We must promote dialogue with full respect and consideration of others’ interests,” said the world’s best known Buddhist as he sat cross-legged in a maroon robe on a cushy chair placed atop a platform covered by a rug, presumably Tibetan.

Unsurprisingly, the DL managed to be exceptionally nasty about George Bush, ostensibly praising him and then slapping him ungraciously across the face:

“As a human being, very nice person,” the Dalai Lama said, “but not, like, a great leader or good politician.”

I think the DL will be surprised when he discovers that Obama’s kissy-face across the table from the Chinese, rather than bringing in a new era of love and sunshine, will see a resurgent China, more determined than ever to stomp on the DL’s beloved Tibet.

The DL also showed himself to be no student of human nature:

“Everybody, including animals, want peace. It is clear,” he said. “Our long-term goal should be a more compassionate humanity.”

So untrue. As studies show, war appears to be hard wired into human beings. (See, for example, Nicholas Wade’s Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors.)  People do want peace, but only on their terms. Also, some people actually crave warfare — the excitement, the power, the volatility, the clarity, etc.

Lucky Chinese. Their avowed enemy, the one who goes around the world opposing them, is an idiot preaching the approach most likely to defeat his own interest.

Potemkin villages in China

Catherine the Great’s beloved Grigori Potemkin used to be her advance man as she toured Russia.  He become famous in history for building entirely false villages in the recently conquered Crimea to elevate the status of her new conquest:

Potemkin villages were purportedly fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. According to this story, Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress’s eyes.

(Read more here to learn how these villages might not have been as duplicitous as they sound.)

The Chinese have gone Potemkin one better.  Rather than building something out of nothing, they’ve used elaborate false fronts to hide the squalor in which so many of their citizens live.  The QandO Blog has more, along with a little dig at Obama’s naive belief that Beijing has created a fully functional infrastructure, just for the Olympics.

Hat tip:  suek

The pain behind the perfection

As you may recall, I was both impressed and dismayed by the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics.  I’ll quote the point I made that comes back again in this post:

They were gorgeous.  They also reminded me very strongly of the public spectacles that socialist countries have always loved:  vast numbers of people moving in tightly choregraphed formations.  It’s certainly impressive, but it’s also a vivid, visual reminder of the socialist state’s ability to subordinate peoples’ individuality to almost robotic perfection.

It turns out that the impressions I picked up were dead on.  First, the Chinese impresario who created the entire spectacle was trying to outdo North Korea — the most rigidly socialist state in the world — when it comes to mass people movement:

Filmmaker Zhang Yimou, the ceremony’s director, insisted in an interview with local media that suffering and sacrifice were required to pull off the Aug. 8 opening, which involved wrangling nearly 15,000 cast and crew. Only North Korea could have done it better, he said.

[snip]

He told the popular Guangzhou weekly newspaper Southern Weekend that only communist North Korea could have done a better job getting thousands of performers to move in perfect unison.

“North Korea is No. 1 in the world when it comes to uniformity. They are uniform beyond belief! These kind of traditional synchronized movements result in a sense of beauty. We Chinese are able to achieve this as well. Though hard training and strict discipline,” he said. Pyongyang’s annual mass games feature 100,000 people moving in lockstep.

In other words, there was definitely a political element to the mass movement of synchronized people.  And the only way to create that mass movement of synchronized people is to rehearse at an almost inhuman rate (emphasis mine):

Some students of the Shaolin Tagou Traditional Chinese Martial Arts School in Henan province who began training for the event last May were injured in falls on the LED screen that forms the floor on which they performed and was made slippery by rain, said Liu Haike, one of the school’s lead instructors.

[snip]

While in Beijing, the constant exposure to the dizzyingly hot summer resulted in heatstroke for some students, particularly during one rain-drenched rehearsal that stretched on for two days and two nights.

The students were kept on their feet for most of the 51-hour rehearsal with little food and rest and no shelter from the night’s downpour, as the show’s directors attempted to coordinate the 2,008-member performance with multimedia effects, students and their head coach told the AP.

“We had only two meals for the entire time. There was almost no time to sleep, even less time for toilet breaks,” Cheng said. “But we didn’t feel so angry because the director was also there with us the whole time.”

Beware the socialist state, even when it looks pretty.

Hat tip:  B.S.

It was never about Africa qua Africa

Burt Prelutsky today, in a longer column about Obama’s political failings, launches into a blistering attack against US aid to Africa:

Speaking of Africa, when are we going to wean the dark continent? Are we ever going to get over this nutty notion that we have an obligation to keep pumping money down that particular sewer? It’s bad enough that George Bush is convinced that billions of American tax dollars — money that could better be spent trying to cure Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and ALS — should be squandered dealing with AIDS in Africa, but Obama has already endorsed the U.N.-inspired giveaway known as the Global Poverty Act. It’s estimated that filling this particular Christmas stocking would run us $845 billion. Worse yet, most of this largesse would wind up in the pockets or Swiss bank accounts of those various thugs, such as Omar al-Bashir, Teodoro Obiang Mbasogo, Isayas Afeworki and the aforementioned Robert Mugabe, who run Africa the way that Al Capone ran Chicago.

What Prelutsky rather surprisingly forgets is that America’s political and economic involvement in Africa was never really about the Africans.  That is, while a bunch of individuals and NGOs today may be genuinely concerned about the plight of individual citizens in that benighted continent, the West’s support for Africa was simply an outcropping of the Cold War.  Once the old Imperialism vanished, Africa was the place of a thousand proxy battles between the Americans and the Soviets.  Savvy tinpot tyrants in Africa, freed from the benefits and burdens of their former imperial ties, quickly learned that they could increase the flow of money into their coffers by playing the two Superpowers off against each other.

Even South Africa wasn’t about apartheid as far as the Superpowers were concerned.  Instead it was about a West-leaning white government that found itself facing a black opposition that got funding from the Soviets.  And before you start thinking that the Soviets funded the blacks because of a principled stand vis a vis apartheid, abandon that thought immediately.  The Soviets funded the blacks only because the government, at a political level separate from apartheid, allied itself with the West.

Nowadays, with the face-off being one between Islam and the West, Sudan is exactly the modern South Africa.  It’s not the slaughter that’s the problem — sadly, that’s par for the course in Africa — it’s the nature of the hand wielding the machete that’s the problem.  You see, this time around it’s not a Communist hand, it’s an Islamic hand.  Of course, 30 years ago, America would have done something, not out of any Carter-esque human rights mushiness, but because the Sudan had suddenly become a front in a larger ideological war, not between the Sudanese, but between America and her enemies.  Things are different now, when we just stand on the sidelines wringing our hands.

All of which means that our presence in Africa, which looks like a lot of mushy, emotionally driven money, is in fact a Cold War legacy.  And it turns out that our presence their may still be necessary as we fight proxy battles against yet another Communist entity — China.  You see China is doing a fair bit of meddling in Africa now and, given Africa’s vast natural reserves, it’s not in America’s interests to let that continent drift irrevocably away from the West and land in the Chinese orbit:

Close on the heels of the latest sham election in Zimbabwe, the International Criminal Court announced last week that it is seeking the arrest of the president of Sudan on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. As Africa notches up more failures on the long road out of colonialism, a new pseudo-colonial power–China–is busily engaged in getting exactly what it wants out of the continent. The implications for the kind of political and economic evolution likely to unfold in Africa are significant.

Until about 20 years ago, China’s interest in Africa consisted mainly of encouraging Marxist revolutionary factions. Lately, however, that interest has taken a decidedly economic turn. China is in the market for most of Africa’s products and is selling its own there as well. Once a major oil exporter, China became a net importer of oil in 1993 and is now dependent on imports for half its oil and natural gas. To meet this need, it has diversified its sources, in particular making deals with most of Africa’s oil-producing states.

Just in the past three years, Beijing has signed energy deals with Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, and Sudan. Its investment in Sudan’s pipeline and refinery infrastructure, valued at between $3 billion and $5 billion, is mind-boggling in such a poor country, but it is not unusual for the energy industry. China bought a stake in a Nigerian offshore field two years ago for $2.5 billion and promised to invest the same amount in further exploration and development.

China has huge investments in Algeria, with whose government it is also cooperating on the development of nuclear energy, and Angola, which this spring overtook Nigeria as the continent’s largest producer of oil.

Read more about China and Africa here — and keep in mind that, as has always been the case, while ordinary citizens agitate about Africa because it’s pathetic, governments get involved there because it’s important.

Random thoughts

There was a round-up of illegal aliens in Marin County. The story included the obligatory reference to the children who had to watch their parents being arrested for illegal activity:

Wilson said children watched while their parents and other adults were taken away by authorities. Some were removed while accompanying children to the school bus, he said.

“They are taking parents of citizen children,” Wilson said. “Most people are just dealing with the shock and the loss and trying to find their loved ones.”

One point and one suggestion. The point is that one never reads stories about the trauma suffered by children whose parents are arrested for crimes other than being illegal aliens. Apparently it’s only the children of illegal aliens who suffer newsworthy emotional trauma. And the suggestion: why don’t we say that, if Mom and Dad are illegally here, so are you, regardless of where you were born? That way parents and kids can stay together, here or there.

***

America is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. China and Russia used to castigate her for her temerity in developing missiles. Now they scold her for her temerity for developing defenses to their (and others’) missiles. Since American can’t win, one does get the sense that she could go ahead and do whatever the Hell she deems best for her security.

***

Speaking of Russia, I find it somehow amusing that Russia is upset that finally, long after the Cold War ended, an American movie once again reverted to its pre-Leftist roots and depicted the Communists as bad guys. (And yes, I know that during WWII, the Lefties in Hollywood went nuts making movies glorifying Communism, but that stopped for a while when the Cold War actually began.) I thought the Russians had abandoned Communism, having recognized that it wasn’t beneficial for them. Why, then, are they taking it personally now? Could it be that, when it comes to Putin, once a KGB apparatchik, always a KGB apparatchik?

***

Hillary is historically accurate that things can happen in a primary between there and now (whenever that here and now is) and the actual convention, where the delegates place the final imprimatur on their candidate of choice. Nevertheless, with a woman as calculated as Hillary, it’s hard to believe that it was coincidence that she mentioned that a primary candidate could be assassinated in the June before the convention. It’s a nasty thing to do, and it’s also a horrible thing to say about Americans, especially conservative Americans, with the implication that they’re still racist enough to do something like that.

***

Israel wiped out Iraq’s nascent nuclear arsenal, and the world has had cause to be grateful. Israel probably wiped out Syria’s nascent nuclear arsenal, and the world ought to be grateful. There’s talk now about Israel once again taking on responsibility for the world and wiping out Iran’s nuclear arsenal. Many are afraid that, if she does so, Iran will strike back like a wounded, but still dangerous, animal. Tellingly, one pair of experts isn’t that worried. Patrick Clawson and Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy wrote a paper called “The Last Option,” in which they discuss the possibility of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. In an interview about their conclusions, Clawson had this to say:

And what will be a possible result of an Israeli attack?

Again, my answer is that it depends. Israel has to create the circumstances in which world public opinion will understand Israel and its motives, even if it regrets the attack.

That’s more or less what happened with the attack against the nuclear facility in Syria?

Yes, it is quite similar. Israel benefited from President Assad’s hostile attitude to the world, and therefore the international community showed understanding of the Israeli air force’s attack. Israel did not have to do much because Assad did the job for it. In this respect, Israel also benefits from Ahmadinejad and his statements. They help Israel present its position to the world and explain the threat it faces.

Do you share the sweeping assessment of most experts that Iran’s reaction if attacked will be harsh and painful?

No. Iran’s record when it comes to its reactions in the past to attacks against it, or its important interests, is mixed. When the Taliban assumed power in Afghanistan and persecuted the Shi’ite minority there, Iran mobilized military forces on the border and threatened to respond, but in the end it did nothing. The same occurred when the U.S. shot down an Iranian passenger airline in 1988: Iran threatened to avenge the incident, but in the end the exact opposite happened. Not only did Iran not respond, but also the incident hastened its decision to agree to a cease-fire in the war with Iraq for fear that the U.S. was about to join the war on Saddam Hussein’s side.

In another incident during the war, Iranian boats attacked an American naval force that set out to mine the Gulf. The U.S. did not expect Iran to react, and was surprised. This did not stop it from sinking half of the Iranian fleet in response.

Iran has lately been threatening that if it is attacked it will close the Straits of Hormuz and block the flow of oil, and thereby damage the world economy. But this is a problematic threat, since it would also affect Iran’s friends and supporters, such as China and India. I have no doubt that in such a case, they would be angry at Iran.

But most experts estimate that in the event of an Israeli attack, the Iranians will respond with force and launch Shihab missiles at Israel.

It is possible, but first, the Shihab missiles are not considered particularly reliable. Iran deploys them without having done hardly any significant tests. Second, the Shihab’s guidance system is not very accurate. The missile’s range of accuracy is up to a kilometer. And finally, Israel’s aerial defense system – the Arrow missiles would certainly intercept quite a few Shihab missiles. Moreover, Iran’s firing missiles at Israel would enable Israel to respond in a decisive manner.

You can read the rest of the interview here.

***

And as a reminder of what the statists housed in today’s Democratic party are all about, I leave you with this video of the lovely Rep. Maxine Waters talking to America’s oil companies:

The forgotten victims

Dennis Prager writes really movingly about the unfairness of a world that elevates Palestinians to “chief victims,” while ignoring the murderous horror that the Chinese have visited on the Tibetans.  I doubt we’ll see a principled stand that has the world boycott the Olympics, but we should.  I’m no fan of Jimmy Carter, but he did the right thing back in 1980.

A truly modern problem in China

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, a very common expression was that “the rich get richer and the poor get children.” In China, that’s been turned on its head. Not only do the rich (probably) get richer, they also get the children — and their Communist overlords are cracking down:

Rich Chinese people who flout the country’s family planning policies, which usually limit couples to one child, will face higher fines under tougher new enforcement guidelines, state media said on Saturday.

The China Daily said the move to assess fines in line with the violator’s income came in response to widespread concern that current fines did not serve as enough of a deterrent to the well-off, essentially allowing them to treat the fines as a fee for having more than one child.

The new measures, issued by the National Population and Family Planning Commission and 10 other agencies, single out the elite as needing to play their part in controlling the country’s population.

“(Communist) Party members, cadres and social public figures should take the lead in following the population and family planning regulations,” the paper quoted the statement as saying, threatening strict punishments for public figures who violate the rules.

Violators could also see their credit ratings damaged, the paper said — a serious threat in a society where people are increasingly taking out loans to buy homes and cars, and where banks are often prodded by authorities to restrict lending to certain groups or companies in line with policy aims.

China credits family planning laws with preventing 400 million births and thereby boosting prosperity in a country that now has 1.3 billion people, a fifth of the world’s total.

Another modern problem in China, flowing directly from the limit on the numbers of children any family can have, is the huge gender imbalance.  Since females have little value in that society, the article points out that there are 118 boys born for every 100 girls born.  The normal ratio is about 105-107 boys for every 100 girls (although there are more boys being born lately).

I used to think that the furious rate of abortions and infanticides in India and China, all of which are aimed at getting rid of unwanted girl babies, would raise the status of girls in those societies.  My theory was that, as something becomes more rare, it becomes more valued.  As far as I can tell, and I’m too lazy to look up links to support my impression, that hasn’t happened.  Instead, it has simply led to women being kidnapped and raped in greater numbers as there are more and more men in need of feminine companionship (whether for brute sex or “holy” matrimony) and fewer and fewer women to fit the bill.  That is, women, instead of being valued for their rarity, are being fought over and destroyed like the toy in the center of a violent tug of war.

Sickening

This is what happens in societies that don’t value women:

Her relatives had always described her as a colicky baby.

When Luo Cuifen was 26, she found out a likely reason why.

Doctors discovered more than two dozen sewing needles embedded in her body, some piercing her vital organs.

X-rays of her head and torso look like a dart board.

Doctors believe the needles were driven into her body when Luo was days old. One in the top of her skull could only have been stuck there when the bones in her head were still soft.

“They wanted her dead,” said Qu Rei, a spokesman at Richland International Hospital in Yunnan province, which has agreed to surgically remove the first six of the 26 needles in her body today. “The fact she is still alive is a medical miracle.”

Luo does not remember ever being stabbed. Relatives suspect her grandparents. They wanted a grandson instead of a second granddaughter.

“I was horrified,” said Luo, now 29, in an interview by phone Monday from her hospital room. “How could they do such a thing to me when I was so young?”

If you go here you can read the rest of the story, which not only discusses other horrors visited on female fetuses and babies, but shows one of Luo’s x-ray.