November 23,
2008: Civil unrest in China is a growing problem that the government is trying
to hide. Mobs attacking the police, or government buildings, is an increasingly
common event. The news gets out via the Internet, not the government controlled
media. The cause is corruption in the police and among local government
officials. These are all communists, and most Chinese see membership in the Communist
Party as a license to steal (because only party members can be government
officials, which includes police and military commanders). The government admits
that these incidents occur, but refuses to release details. Information gets
out via the Internet, and that indicates an increasing boldness, apparently
born of desperation, on the part of the protesters. This indicates that many
officials at the local level are not listening to the growing government
pronouncements about fighting corruption.
While
Western governments and companies are increasingly alarmed about the growing
number of hacking efforts coming out of China (and stealing government and
commercial secrets), China is also a victim. That's because China's PCs
(slightly more than in the U.S.) are the most poorly protected (from hackers)
in the world. That's because China largely uses stolen software (which is more
difficult to update and maintain protection from hackers), and a much higher
proportion of Chinese PC users know little about protecting their computers
from hackers. So more Chinese PCs are taken over by hackers to serve as "zombies"
in botnets, or just spew ads at the PCs user. Microsoft, the American firm that
is at the center of all this (because most PCs in the world use the Windows
operating system), has made a deal with the Chinese government to provide cheap
legal (and more easily update with Internet protection updates) copies of
Windows. The government wants China's PCs protected, but is wary of protecting
them with an operating system from an American firm. So far, efforts to get
Chinese to adopt Linux (an "international" operating system) or an
operating system created in China, have been unsuccessful. But long term, China,
like the rest of the world, wants to get away from Windows.
November 15,
2008: Japanese anti-submarine aircraft
(P-3s) have been detecting Chinese nuclear submarines being much more active at
sea, including shadowing American aircraft carriers and Japanese warships in
international waters. The Chinese nuclear subs are primitive and noisy (thus
easy to track), but all this new activity indicates China is risking these
unreliable boats in order to give the crews experience. Thus when the next,
quieter, generation of Chinese nuclear subs shows up in 5-10 years, experienced
crews will be ready.
November 6,
2008: At the same time that a global recession is cutting foreign orders for
Chinese goods, scientists announce they have compiled an accurate record of
monsoon rainfall (essential for the rice crop that has always fed most Chinese)
for the last two thousand years. This shows that, understandably, major
internal upheavals occurred during those times that there were many consecutive
years of low rainfall. In contrast, when the rains were good for a long time,
the empire was strong and expanded. But in the last few decades, China has, for
the first time in its history, been moving away from complete dependence on
agriculture. China is entering the industrial age, where educated workers and
"information workers" can produce enough wealth in factories and
offices to buy food on the world market. India is moving in the same direction,
but more slowly than China. The major obstacle is the apparent shortage of planetary
resources (raw materials, oil, food) to support the movement of most Chinese to
a standard of living similar to that enjoyed in the West. This is an urgent
matter for China, because currently only a quarter of the population is
enjoying most of this prosperity, while the rest of the population simmers in
rural poverty. There is growing risk of rural revolution against the wealthy,
modern, urban minority. Chinese leaders are asking the West to cut back on
their consumption and, in effect, share their prosperity with China. It's a
request now, but may become a demand later.
November 4,
2008: China and Taiwan were relieved
that the head of the Japanese armed forces was fired. The general had written
an essay claiming Japan was not the aggressor during, and before, World War II.
This is a popular myth in Japan, and horrifies Japans neighbors, who suffered
most from the very real, and brutal, Japanese aggression. But the Japanese aren't
the only ones who rewrite history. China insists that the 1989 Tiananmen Square
massacre was actually an event in which the democracy demonstrators attacked
unarmed police sent in to ask the unruly students to leave the square.
Similarly, many of the atrocities committed by communist troops and secret
police over the years did not officially, at least in China, happen. The Korean
War, the Chinese officially believe, was started by the United States (although
there were only about 600 U.S. troops in South Korea in early 1950). Meanwhile,
even the UN is investigating and criticizing the Chinese use of torture and
prison camps (where millions of "disloyal" Chinese live as slave
labor). As much as China would like the world to think otherwise, China is
still a brutal communist police state, with all the bloody baggage that goes
with that.
