Map of the Playground – Eastasian P.O.V.

From our comrades at Beijing’s People’s Daily we give you this succinct, to-the-point, completely lacking in irony discussion of the competing values of security against terrorism and protection of civil liberties that the American Congress is now confronted with. China, of course, need not tell us that it is, to put it politely, an “authoritarian” country that doesn’t trouble itself with these things, but China’s house organ gently reminds us that civil liberties were the founding principle of our republic… so perhaps this sort of debate will be more agonizing (or God damned well should be) than, well, than the way it has been going… pronouncements by a bully on one side, and cowed acceptance (by and large) by the so-called opposition party out of fear of being perceived as “soft on terror”.
This article gives us a discussion of increaseing cooperation vis a vis resource sharing (or at least agreements not to compete) between the two largest nations on Earth, India and China. Frankly, this is the sort of news we should welcome as human beings, as confrontation between these two nations could be devastating to everyone else. OTOH, as Americans, we now won’t have to deal with two competitors acting a gainst each other that we can divide and conquer, but with the two acting in concert, making them a most formidable competitor as we battle (hopefully a metaphor) for the world’s scarce resources. Still… another trend not necessarily widely reported… here…
And, in Axis of EvilTM news, we see that China, along with Russia, the USA and the EU troika (UK, France, Germany) will be meeting in London to discuss Iran and its non-compliance with international nuclear agreements as it tries to build an atomic bomb. The article, of course, is loaded with diplomatic double-speak… China and Russia are a tad less worried about Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, as the terrorists likely to be provided them are much more likely to target, say, Israel, the United States or Europe than… China and Russia (tell that to the Chechens, Pooty…)
But that’s what things look like from Beijing. The “obvious” response won’t go anywhere, of course. Just as I once suggested buying Russia’s defense exports so that Iran couldn’t, since Iran purports to want to develop future energy alternatives to oil and gas, why not invest in cutting edge solar and wind programs in Iran? I mean, call their bluff– and do it in the form of an aid program… we could make a similar deal with North Korea… if its about the megawatts and not about the bomb, they should go along with this, right?
Of course… don’t expect anything “creative” in the foreign policy sphere or anything else as long as the current American government is in place… see above.