China Confidential

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has again rejected calls to suspend his nation's nuclear program, saying Western nations would exploit the move for propaganda purposes.

Ahmadinejad told students in Tehran Saturday that any suspension of nuclear enrichment would be portrayed by the West as a surrender. He vowed to continue, in his words, to protect Iran's right to a nuclear program.

Western nations say the program is intended to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says it is for peaceful purposes.

Earlier this week, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana met Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, to discuss the dispute.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to speak in coming days with her counterparts from other world powers to discuss that meeting. France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany will take part in the consultations.

Earlier Saturday, the US Congress passed a bill that would apply sanctions on companies or individuals providing materials for Iran's weapons programs. The bill (which is widely assumed to be directed at China and Russia) must be signed by President Bush to become law.

UPDATE: President Bush signed the bill late Saturday.

-VOA

American Economic Alert published a brilliant piece this week by William R. Hawkins, headlined, "The Goldman Sachs Effect Transfers the Strategic Advantage to China." Excerpts appear below, but we urge readers to click through to the entire essay. Hawkins is one of the smartest, best informed analysts of the US-China relationship. He's also a prolific writer; so be sure to bookmark the site.

Hawkins writes:

"A front page article in the September 25 issue of Defense News reported that China has tried to blind US satellites with high-powered lasers, which can disable electro-optical satellites like the giant Keyhole spacecraft or even interfere with radar satellites like the Lacrosse. Satellites have become critical to American military communications, surveillance, and targeting. Thus they are at the heart of the strategy to transform the US military through net-centric warfare systems.

"That China, a strategic rival of the United States in East Asia and increasingly in this hemisphere, would seek to disrupt American capabilities should not be surprising. There have been reports for many years that Beijing was working on a variety of anti-satellite weapons. What is truly alarming is the response from the Bush White House, or, rather, the lack thereof...."

Click here to continue reading.

Another nail in Detroit's coffin.

German-US carmaker DaimlerChrysler AG says it is cutting production of vehicles made in the United States so it can focus on producing smaller, more fuel-efficient cars in China.

The company is reportedly in talks with potential Chinese partners to produce lower-cost automobiles for the US market.

DaimlerChrysler has joined the rush of foreign automakers for a share of the booming Chinese market.

This month, the German-based automaker formally opened its new plant in Beijing--complete with traditional pomp and fireworks. Chairman Dieter Zetsche said it's all part of the company's $1.9 billion investment in China.

"This, obviously as everybody knows, is one of the most dynamic if not the most dynamic countries and economies on the face of the earth,” said the chairman. “And DaimlerChrysler, we are very proud to play a role in contributing to China's economic growth and development."

China is the world's second-largest car market after the US, with seven million new vehicle sales a year. The company is said to be in talks with a state-owned company to sell Chinese-built subcompact cars in the US and Europe.

Chrysler Group Chairman Tom Lasorda said the company plans to introduce 10 new models this year. "Bottom line, we need to partner with someone who has low cost, high quality," Lasorda said. "We can't rule out China and we can not rule out European markets or other parts of Asia because there are a lot of key players in the "B" segment today and we are going to look at all of them."

Unlike other automakers that have produced specially designed cars targeted for a Chinese market, Dieter Zetsche said Mercedes and Chrysler models made in China will be identical to models sold abroad.

"The only difference ought to be the country of origin," he said. "As far as quality is concerned, there can only be one quality we are striving for with Mercedes or with Chrysler products around the globe."

The company plans to reduce dealer shipments in the US by 15 percent because of declining sales of pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Although DaimlerChrysler claims its international operations have been profitable, its US sales are down about 10 percent this year resulting in a projected loss of $1.5 billion in the third quarter.

Source: VOA

Major disappointment.

Bogged down in Iraq and eager to please, or appease, Rising Red China, the politically battered Bush administration is backing down on two important fronts: North Korea and Iran.

Israel will probably be next. The US and Europe will almost certainly allow Iran's Shiite proxy force, Hezbollah, to rearm and effectively take over the failed Lebanese state (which was long regarded as the "Paris of the Middle East" until its partial seizure by the Palestine Liberation Organization led to a horrible, protracted civil war with Christian militias).

On Friday, Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said his country has no reason to suspend its nuclear activities. Also on Friday, US President George W. Bush said he was prepared to let the clock continue ticking in an effort to bring the Islamist power back to the bargaining table pursuant to US demands for at least a temporary halt to Iranian uranium enrichment.

Iran has ignored an August 31 United Nations Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.

Meanwhile, the US and South Korea have reportedly agreed on a Chinese-approved plan for accommodating nuclear armed, missile mad North Korea. Washington is increasingly concerned that Beijing's Stalinist vassal--a declared nuclear power--is preparing its first-ever nuclear bomb test.

How sick is Rising Red China?

Extremely sick.

The country that trades in harvested human organs--taken from political and other prisoners--is also known for its sickeningly cruel treatment of animals, including dogs.

Countless creatures are annually tortured and beaten to death, electrocuted, skinned and burned alive.

So it should come as no surprise that China is holding "Animal Olympic Games." That the awful events are being held in supposedly civilized and more Western oriented Shanghai is somewhat surprising, especially since China's Communist Party rulers are anxious about their international image ahead of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

More than 300 animals are being abused at the biannual spectacle at the Shanghai Wildlife Park. The cruelty Olympics have attracted thousands of visitors, including school children.

What goes on at the degrading games? An elephant is forced to engage in a tug of war with audience members. Bears and kangaroos are forced to box humans. Chimpanzees are forced to play basketball and lift huge weights. Monkeys are forced to race bicycles.

And so on and so forth.

All told, more than than 30 species of animals from 26 Chinese provinces and cities are reportedly taking part in the events.

And just think: the Chinese Century has barely begun!

FACT: US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has argued that a strong China is in the US national interest. According to the fabulously rich ($700 million net worth) former chairman of Goldman Sachs, a strong China actually makes the US stronger.

FICTION: Toward the end of the American Century, in the fall of 1998, the inner, control group of the Council on Foreign Relations, America's most elite and influential foreign policy think tank and advisory group, covened an emergency session. It was a busy time for the Council; but the matter at hand--growing US weakness--had to be addressed, even if it meant taking time away from other high-priority items on the Council agenda, including diplomatic initiatives aimed at North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, and a newly unearthed faction of moderate mullahs in Islamist Iran.

The problem of how to make the sole surviving superpower stronger was deemed to be even more pressing than, say, finalizing plans for a book-signing cocktail party to promote the publication of "The Crisis of Global Capitalism" by billionaire Council member George Soros, or finding someone to finally write that nutty novel about the theory of a sacred Jesus bloodline.

Details are hard to come by (minutes of inner circle Council meetings are still recorded by hand in invisible ink), but this much is known: after some heated debate and discussion, the members arrived at an ingenious solution to the perceived problem of US weakness--make China stronger. The stronger the better! The time had come for a Chinese century--to make the US stronger, of course.

The outline of the China plan, or plot, to strengthen the US, has been made available to this blog. It is a stunning scheme, completely in line with Secretary Paulson's brilliant theory of Rising Red China serving the US national interest. Key elements of the plot are set forth below.

1. In the name of global capitalism, help China to hollow out the US economy by speeding up the destruction of the remnant US manufacturing sector and the loss of millions of US jobs.

2. Encourage China to run up huge trade imbalances through the manipulation of its currency.

3. Stimulate the flow of tens of billions of dollars of direct foreign investment into China, while ignoring depressed regions of the US, including decaying urban areas and rural communities in desperate need of high-speed Internet access and reliable mobile phone service. These areas are to economically erased, eventually, in favor of any and all Third World nations.

4. Tolerate and tacitly encourage Chinese espionage and illicit influence peddling operations.

5. Look the other way while China modernizes and expands its military in ways that will permit it to eventually project power and challenge the US around the world--and out in space.

Other ideas--encouraging a Chinese alliance with terror-sponsoring, America-hating Radical Islam and allowing Chinese government-controlled listed companies to roam the planet and lock up energy supplies and fuel conflicts through arms sales to rogue states--were considered but shelved because they seemed too impractical and far-fetched at the time.

The concept of using China to bring about a multipolar world, however, in which the US would have to compete with China--and perhaps also Radical Islam and a resurgent Russia--was well received. Council leaders reportedly agreed with Soros that US supremacy threatened world peace--was perhaps the main menace of the new global era--and that the sole surviving superpower therefore had to be taken down several notches in prestige and influence ... in order, of course, to be made stronger.

Of course.

technorati tags: China

technorati tags: US-China Relations

Interesting insight from a dovish expert on Iran.

Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University, told Voice of America that Tehran is quite accomplished in simultaneously sending "conflicting messages" to sow confusion. For example, Milani said in a radio interview, former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, considered to be among the "reformers," sent a conciliatory message during his recent visit to the United States. The Stanford professior said the message was designed to strengthen the position of China, Russia, and France, who support more negotiations before imposing an embargo on Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment as mandated by the United Nations Security Council.

Milani told VOA that the Iranian regime is indeed “bent on having a nuclear bomb,” adding that the only long-term, effective deterrent to a nuclear-armed Iran is to "push for democracy" there.

Fact: It is an open secret on Wall Street and in some or many board rooms in Corporate America that powerful Communist Party officials in booming China are often illicit secret partners in and beneficiaries of many of the big deals made possible by foreign direct investment. The following questions therefore come to mind:

1. Are US bankers and investors and executives of US public companies who look the other way and fail to report their suspicions, or evidence of wrongdoing, in violation of US federal law--specifically, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Sarbanes-Oxley?

2. Could the current, widening and intensifying crackdown on high-level official corruption in China implicate foreign investors--particularly in the real estate sector?

3. Is China's influence in Washington so great as to make the above two questions hopelessly academic and irrelevant?

This just in on the Iranian nuclear standoff:

1. No progress. The EU-Iran talks are producing ... talk ... without any real substance. EU sources say it is increasingly clear that Iran is playing for time. The murderous mullahocracy is still only thinking about ... maybe ... possibly ... perhaps temporarily ... suspending uranium enrichment.

2. Every day counts. Some analysts believe Iran may only be weeks away from having a nuclear bomb; so stalling tactics are the order of the day for skilled Iranian negotiators.

3. No sanctions. China and Russia remain committed to blocking meaningful sanctions against Tehran. Beijing will throw Washington an economic bone, in the form of yuan appreciation, to strengthen the position of the appeasement camp.

4. Helping hand. Like a so-called tag team in exhibition wrestling, North Korea and Iran are effectively working together to keep the US off balance and on the defensive. The Axis of Evil is no myth; on the contrary, China's Stalinist vassal and Islamist ally have a definite understanding regarding anti-American strategy and tactics. A North Korean nuclear bomb test will be timed to refocus attention away from Iranian intransigence.

FLASHPOINT TAIWAN: As previously reported by China Confidential and confirmed today by remarks made by Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, the self-ruled island democracy will continue to apply for United Nations membership. But from now on, Taiwan will apply as Taiwan and not as the Republic of China. Chen will also push for a constitutional name change, from ROC to Republic of Taiwan (despite the less than appealing initials ROT ). Analysts expect a sharp reaction from Beijing, which has vowed to attack Taiwan if it moves toward formalizing its de facto independence (recognized by 24 UN member states). China's Communist Party rulers can be counted on to exploit tensions across the Taiwan Strait in order (a) to whip up nationalist sentiment, and (b) to pressure Taiwan's ally, the United States, at a time when it desperately wants Chinese help in curbing Iran's nuclear development program and bringing missile mad North Korea back to the multiparty bargaining table for nuclear disarmament talks....

NORTH KOREAN NUKES: The US State Department is plainly worried about China's Stalinist vassal. North Korea's mass murdering Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, one of the world's truly psychotic heads of state, is reportedly bent on conducting an underground nuclear bomb test. His regime is a declared nuclear power, and a menace to the civilized world, but has yet to test a weapon. North Korea depends on China for most of its food and fuel; and the Chinese and North Korean armies are quite close. China will not support any truly tough or meaningful sanctions against its vassal (a country that boasts concentration camps and actual gas chambers, in which whole families have been murdered). Nor will China support tough sanctions against nuclear developing Iran, which has followed China's advice in attempting to buy time for its disputed uranium enrichment program by offering "serious negotiations" to a divided Western world. China's strengthening and deepening ties with Islamist Iran constitute the Communist regime's most important relationship in the Muslim world....

AMERICAN APPEASEMENT: As for the US, it will bend over backwards to avoid public criticism of China over the North Korean and Iranian issues. In fact, Washington will go to great lengths to avoid angering Beijing over any issue now that it seems to be rewarding US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson with a mysterious upward creep in the relative value of China's manipulated currency, the yuan. The fabulously rich former investment banker--he made 70 trips to China as chairman of giant Goldman Sachs--is a fierce advocate of accommodating (appeasing) China's rise. He and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have sidelined the administration's China critics, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A bishop belonging to China's underground Roman Catholic church has reportedly been released from a Chinese prison after 10 months.

Reports by Catholic-affiliated news outlets (Asianews and the Union of Catholic Asian News) say bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo returned to his home this week in the northern city of Zhengding, in Hebei province. Authorities have also allowed the bishop to receive visits from priests from his diocese.

Jia is believed to be at least 70 years old. He has been arrested eight times over the past two years, apparently for refusing to join China's state-approved church, known as the Catholic Patriotic Association.

The bishop's latest detention began in November last year. Reports say that earlier this year, Jia was taken to a hospital for medical treatment, but remained in police custody.

Jia was ordained as a bishop of China's underground church in 1980. Beijing only allows Catholics to belong to government-controlled churches, but many Chinese Catholics remain loyal to the Vatican and worship in unofficial churches and private homes.

-VOA

In a rare act of political will when it comes to dealing with Rising Red China these days, President George W. Bush on Wednesday defied the country's Communist Party rulers and signed into law a bill to present to the Dalai Lama a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Congress.

The decision to honor the leader of Tibetan Buddhism caused outrage in Beijing when the US House of Representatives passed the measure two weeks ago. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the honor "seriously interferes with China's internal affairs and damages China-US relations."

The increasingly aggressive and assertive Chinese tyranny, which has conquered and occupied Tibet, considers the Dalai Lama a political enemy who works from his exile in India to push for his nation's independence. The universally revered religious and spiritual leader led large numbers of followers to refuge in northern India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese Communist oppression.

The proposal to honor the Dalai Lama with a Congressional Gold Medal was co-sponsored by 73 of 100 US senators. The proposal said the Dalai Lama "has struggled for half a century to better the lives of the Tibetan people."

In 1989, the Dalai Lama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. China denounced the award.

Washington sources tell China Confidential that Beijing's biggest booster in the Bush administration, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, opposed the decision to honor the Dalai Lama. (Ironically, Paulson is a follower of Christian Science, a faith that shares many metaphysical concepts with Buddhism.)

The Dalai Lama is enormously popular in the US. Last Thursday, for example, more than 2,000 people gathered in a field in the small Upstate New York town of Woodstock (the famous 1969 music festival was actually held in Bethel, NY) for a surprise appearance by the Tibetan leader. The gathering coincided with the International Day of Peace. It was publicized only by word of mouth, because of security concerns. Metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs were on hand for added safety.

Audience members, mostly local residents, told reporters they were pleased with the Tibetan Buddhist leader's unexpected visit and his message calling for peace, compassion and simple living. Many waited in the sun for hours before he appeared on the outdoor stage.

The Dalai Lama arrived in North America earlier this month, first stopping in Canada.

China is warning Taiwan not to reform the island's constitution. The warning from the Communist leadership on the mainland comes as legislators on democratically ruled Taiwan consider making changes, including re-naming the island.

Revamping the constitution has been one of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian's main political objectives, and one that Beijing--which considers Taiwan a part of its territory--sees as a move toward independence.

Members of Chen's party are expected to introduce a bill on changing the island's name from the current "Republic of China," to "Republic of Taiwan."

China considers the change an assertion of Taiwan's separate identity and tantamount to a declaration of independence.

At a briefing in Beijing Wednesday, Li Weiyi, a spokesman of the Communist government's Taiwan Affairs Office, put Chen government on notice.

"We will never tolerate their seeking to legislate independence by amending the constitution," Li said. "We will closely watch their situation and be on high alert to new developments."

China last year enacted legislation authorizing an attack on Taiwan if Beijing determines that the island is moving toward declaring formal independence or if efforts to peacefully reunify fail.

Taiwan has been self-governed since 1949 when Chang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled there following their defeat by Mao Zedong's Communists in the Chinese civil war.

The United States has pledged to help Taiwan defend itself from an attack, but has said it does not support Taiwan independence. Washington has repeatedly urged both sides to avoid taking any unilateral steps to change the status quo. (The US does not consider the above-referenced "Anti-Secession Law" a change in the status quo.)

A senior State Department official this month voiced US concern over China's military build-up, including the hundreds of missiles that Beijing is pointing at Taiwan. The official called on China to demonstrate more transparency in its military, and cease its arms buildup opposite Taiwan.

-VOA

Shinzo Abe, 52, has become Japan's youngest prime minister since the Second World War. He told the nation that he wanted to improve relations with China and South Korea, and vowed to continue the structural reforms begun by his predecessor.

With the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) firmly in control of Japan's parliament, there was no doubt Tuesday who would be selected as prime minister.

Lawmakers cheered the announcement of the lower house vote showing LDP President Shinzo Abe defeating his rivals by a large margin.

Within hours of his election, Abe spoke to the nation, saying he would not back away from the reform program implemented by his predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi. Abe instead vowed to accelerate administrative reform.

Abe also told reporters it is time to improve Japan's relationship with China and South Korea that deteriorated during the Koizumi administration.

Abe says improved Sino-Japanese relations are very important and he will make further efforts to this end.

The new prime minister reiterated his campaign pledge to make Tokyo a more equal partner in its security alliance with Washington.

Abe said the Liberal Democratic Party will study what constitutional changes might be needed to accomplish this.

The existing pacifist constitution was imposed on Japan by the United States following the Japan's defeat in World War II.

Earlier in the day, Abe announced his new cabinet. He kept Taro Aso in the post of foreign minister.

Aso told reporters that he believes the new administration will be able to achieve a Sino-Japanese summit, something that was not possible during Koizumi's five years in office.

China, along with South Korea, objected to Koizumi's repeated visits to a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. The two neighboring countries saw the visits as a sign of lingering militarism, and relations deteriorated during Koizumi's tenure.

Lawmaker Yasuhisa Shiozaki, a fluent English speaker, a rarity in the Japanese political world, is the new chief Cabinet secretary and top government spokesman. Shiozaki will also hold a new post dedicated to resolving the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korean agents during the Cold War.

Opposition party leaders predictably criticized the new Cabinet lineup, saying it will not be up to the task of making needed reforms. Some criticism is also coming from Abe's party.

Outgoing finance minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, who challenged Abe for the party leadership, says the new prime minister selected loyalists and that the lack of diversity threatens party unity.

-VOA

Kim Jong-Hill has failed again.

Kim, also known as Christopher Hill, is America's point person for Asia and the chief American delegate to stalled six-party North Korean nuclear disarmament talks. The Assistant Secretary of State is also a notorious dove and diehard advocate of appeasing the secretive Stalinist state ruled by one of the world's leading lunatics, North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-il.

Which explains why many conservatives have nicknamed the American diplomat Kim Jong-Hill.

For Hill and his ilk, dialogue and discussion are sacrosanct; and diplomacy is apparently an end, not a means.

Some background: though the United States has officially opposed direct talks with China's Stalinist vassal, demanding instead that Pyongyang return to the six-party negotiations, we learned yesterday (scroll down) that Hill has had face-to-face meetings with his Communist counterparts, and would do so again under certain conditions. US ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said Tuesday that Washington is prepared to have high-level one-on-one talks with North Korea if it returns to the six-party talks. The US envoy offered to send Hill to Pyongyang for the meeting.

North Korea's reaction? Drop dead!

As reported by Voice of America (which is blocked in China), a top North Korean official has ruled out a return to six-party talks, and accused the US of trying to rule the world.

The verbal broadside came during North Korea's annual address to the United Nations General Assembly.

VOA said North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon blamed "vicious, hostile policies" of the US for "touch and go critical tension on the Korean peninsula." Referring to his country by its initials, DPRK, Choe said Washington is purposely stoking tensions in a strategy aimed at world domination.

"The United States aims to strengthen its armed forces in this region, and thus contain the ever-growing-strong DPRK and neighboring countries within its world supremacy strategy," the North Korean official said. "This is what the real intention of the United States is."

Choe accused the US of imposing unjustified financial sanctions on Pyongyang, and said that under such conditions, North Korea would not return to the multilateral negotiating table.

Said Choe: "It is quite preposterous that the DPRK, under the groundless US sanctions, takes part in the talks of discussing its own nuclear abandonment. This is the matter of principle which cannot tolerate even the slightest concession."

Washington imposed sanctions on Pyongyang a year ago because of North Korea's alleged involvement in counterfeiting US currency. North Korea responded by calling off the six-party talks, which also involved China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

North Korea declared itself a nuclear weapons state in February of 2005, but has not conducted any nuclear tests. There is growing concern, however, that Pyongyang could test a bomb before the end of this year.

On July 4, North Korea defied US and Japanese warnings by carrying out ballistic missile tests that included launching a rocket capable of reaching the US.

The UN Security Council reacted with a resolution condemning the tests, and imposing weapons-related sanctions. But North Korea rejected the resolution, and vowed to continue its missile program.

China was responsible for preventing truly tough sanctions against its vassal, which depends on Beijing for most of its food and fuel supplies.

A season of appeasement is upon us.

Like changing autumn leaves in the northeastern regions of the United States, the country's positions on key issues are wavering--and falling.

But relations with Rising China are picking up, according to the US State Department.

Providing fresh, dramatic proof that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are now firmly in charge of China policy--and, in the case of Nobel Peace Prize-seeking Rice, foreign policy in general--the State Department's point person for Asia told reporters on Tuesday that the US and China are cooperating closely to resolve the North Korean and Iranian nuclear disputes. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said relations with China--he called the Communist tyranny a "kindred spirit"--are improving in many respects.

Regarding China's Stalinist, mass murdering vassal, Hill stopped short of predicting that Pyongyang would return to six-party nuclear talks.

The reason is simple: the US has softened its stance and agreed in principle to engage in direct negotiations with North Korea, which may be preparing its first underground test of a nuclear bomb. In fact, Rice, who continues to talk tough about a deadline for North Korea to return to multilateral negotiations, confirmed that Hill has met with his Communist counterpart on the sidelines of previous talks. The US has repeatedly rejected North Korean demands for formal face-to-face discussions.

The six-party talks involving the US, North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia, have been stalled since last November.

So much for nuclear-armed, missile mad North Korea. Turning to nuclear arming, missile mad Iran (which is close to having a bomb and may already possess nuclear warheads), Hill said China is "working very closely" with the US on that front.

Translation: Washington, as we have reported, has softened its stance toward the Islamist mullahocracy, which is backed by China. In a stab in the back to Iranian opposition groups, Rice, now acting for all intents and purposes as America's foreign policy president, is promoting the notion that there are authentic moderates among the Iranian clerical fascists.

It's probably only a matter of time before the State Department identifies supposed moderates in the North Korean regime of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. Until that awful day, we will have to settle for moderates in ... Hamas. Really. The new US view, as articulated by Rice, is that Hamas leaders in Gaza and the West Bank are moderate relative to Hamas leaders headquartered in Syria.

Next, we predict, the State Department will announce that it has found moderates in Iran's Lebanese Shiite proxy force, Hezbollah. Seriously. The line will be that the good Hezbollah leaders favor political and social action over military/terrorist activities.

technorati tags: China

technorati tags: US-China Relations

The Shanghai Clique is going down--and no party boss or princeling will be spared. The lucky ones will be allowed to switch sides, however, and swear allegiance to the center.

And the whole episode will serve as yet another reminder that for all the talk of a new China, it remains a complex, mysterious dictatorship, where membership in a losing faction can lead to loss of freedom and even loss of life.

That's the real story behind the story making news: an intensifying, widening crackdown on alleged corruption in Shanghai, where well connected, corrupt officials loyal to China's former president, Jiang Zemin, and their privileged offspring--so-called Communist Party princelings--have long ruled. The scandal has already claimed the city's Communist Party chief, Chen Liangyu; not surprisingly, party rulers today announced that other officials could be targets. Several have already been named, along with a number of prominent businessmen.

"Any party member who violates party discipline, no matter how high or low his rank, will be thoroughly investigated and seriously dealt with," Gan Yisheng told a news conference. Gan is secretary-general of the party's anti-corruption Central Discipline Inspection Commission.

Translation: many arrests and convictions are certain; executions are possible.

Han Zheng, the acting party boss in Shanghai, warned local officials to fall in line behind President Hu Jintao.

State-owned Xinhua News Agency quoted Han as saying: "All Shanghai's party members and officials must unify their thinking and actions around the center."

Chen is accused of mismanaging 10 billion yuan (around $1.25 billion) by looting a social security fund for illicit loans and investments.

Analysts say he is probably guilty, but no more corrupt than other officials in booming China, including Hu's clique. The party's "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is essentially a mix of Stalinist-style socialism and state-supported capitalism--for the powerful, privileged elite.

Sources tell China Confidential that Hu made a final decision to crush the Shanghai Clique in early spring. The investigation of Chen and his cronies commenced in July; but the first big sign of things to come was in late August, when official media downplayed the publication of Jiang's collected works.

This is a crucial time for Hu to publicize his anti-corruption efforts. The party is preparing for a major party congress next year, during which Hu is expected to further consolidate his power by installing puppets and proteges in key party positions.

China's Communist Party leadership on Monday announced Chen Liangyu had been dismissed from his post as Shanghai Communist Party secretary. Analysts say the move is a bold measure by President Hu Jintao, who is consolidating his power ahead of expected major changes in the party leadership next year.

By removing a party boss in Shanghai, a stronghold of former President Jiang Zemin, Hu is advertising that after three years in office, he is fully in control of state and party machinery.

Observers say it is important for Hu to demonstrate this ahead of the 17th party congress next year, when Hu is expected to install several of his proteges in key party leadership posts.

Chen is under investigation for allegedly mismanaging hundreds of millions of dollars in city pension funds, and other charges including nepotism. His dismissal is part of a probe, going on since July, of corruption in Shanghai.

Monday's announcement, carried by the Xinhua state news agency, said Chen's firing demonstrates the leadership's resolve to "build a clean party" and fight corruption.

Hu has made fighting graft a top priority. Political analysts say his administration has much to gain from publicizing the removal of corrupt officials.

Source: VOA

China's Communist Party rulers are interpreting last week's visit by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (scroll down to read "Death by Dialogue") as a comforting signal that the Bush administration has no intention of getting tough with Beijing over its continuing support for Stalinist North Korea and Islamist Iran. Their meetings with the fawning former investment banker--who made 70 trips to China as chairman and chief executive of giant Goldman Sachs--persuaded China's leadership that the Bush administration will bend over backwards to avoid any confrontation with the Middle Kingdom with regard to economic or foreign policy issues.

The Chinese view is that following a steady decline in bilateral relations, culminating in President Hu Jintao's disappointing White House summit meeting in April with US President George W. Bush, the political picture is brightening because Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney--perceived as hardliners toward China--have been effectively eclipsed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Paulson.

technorati tags: China

technorati tags: US-China Relations

Foreign investors and media companies are awaiting word on how China plans to enforce a set of restrictions it announced earlier this month on the foreign media. The restrictions are widely viewed as an attempt by the government to keep control of the country's growing, lucrative media market. Analysts say the rules highlight the paradox of China's attempts to open its markets while at the same time seeking to retain control of them.

The set of vague rules announced by China's state-owned news service, Xinhua, on September 10 give the agency control over what foreign news wires may publish in the country. Xinhua has given itself the power to cut out politically sensitive news and other material deemed taboo.

As part of the restrictions, Xinhua also reserved the sole right to distribute the foreign agencies' products in China.

The financial news market in China is estimated to be worth $100 million--and growing. At the same time, officials at Xinhua have complained that foreign news services, including Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg, dominate the Chinese market, providing business news directly to financial institutions.

Andy Browne, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Beijing, says the agency is trying to build its control over agencies such as Reuters and Bloomberg by playing on the fact that they are selling news the government regards as dangerous and subversive. He says that by controlling the delivery of the agencies' products, Xinhua puts itself in a position to poach their know-how.

"They'll get an up-close look at the product.," Browne says. "They'll get a look at the management processes, the marketing processes, the sales processes. And they've said, the president of Xinhua has said, that it's his goal to build a news organization that can compete with both Reuters and Bloomberg. So this fits right into the strategy that Xinhua has of turning itself into a global financial news organization."

A former senior writer at Xinhua, who asked that his name not be revealed, says Xinhua knows it cannot compete with foreign news agencies unless it starts behaving less like a propaganda mechanism for the Communist Party and more like a professional news organization.

"Xinhua would have to compete with international wire services like AP and Reuters. That means its reporters must write more professionally, more truthfully, more timely," he says.

Media advocates say for that to happen, China is going to have to allow greater press freedoms--a concession the Communist leadership does not appear ready to make.

Neither Xinhua nor the Chinese government has issued any directives on how the regulations will be enforced. Some media and business experts say the vagueness of Xinhua's notice this month and its failure to announce an implementation plan may mean the government has a chance to reexamine what could turn out to be a damaging decision.

-VOA

Henry M. Paulson, Jr. is a well known nature lover. He is also, according to media reports, a lover of snakes. Seriously. Whereas most Americans recoil at the sight of snakes, the fabulously rich, recently appointed Secretary of the Treasury of the United States reportedly likes the look and feel of an interesting snake. Pundits have pointed out that his affection for snakes should serve him well in Washington, DC, which, politically speaking, has often been compared to a snake pit.

Ahead of Paulson's first official trip to China (where people eat snakes and also use them for medicinal purposes), many American manufacturers, lawmakers, and labor leaders had hoped the Treasury chief would put his snake charming skill to good use for the American people--that is, for ordinary American workers and the relatively few American companies that still make things in the US. Their hopes died--quickly--with accounts of the high-level meetings between the representative of the world's greatest democracy--who made 70 trips to China as chairman and chief executive of giant Goldman Sachs--and the leaders of the world's greatest and fastest rising dictatorship.

Simply put, the so-called summit was a disaster--for America. Against a depressing backdrop of unfair Chinese trade practices--including illegal currency manipulation--which have helped to hollow out the US economy to the detriment of millions of workers, Beijing's Communist Party rulers have offered to engage the US in "strategic dialogue." Incredible! The "responsible stakeholder"--whose missiles, machine guns--and nuclear know-how and technologies--have a way of showing up in the hands of some of the planet's worst people, the "peacefully rising" regional power that protects the likes of Islamist Iran and Stalinist North Korea, the "status quo power" that threatens to erase self-ruled, democratic Taiwan and seeks to replace the US "hegemon" as the world's dominant economic and military power, has actually agreed to ... talk.

Amazing--not! Paulson's speech after arriving in China was an insult to the intelligence of every American worker; and his "heaven help" America warning, should it, heaven forbid, demand action instead of talk, was downright offensive, a remark that may play well in a despotic board room, or with the powers that be in Communist China, but not in the democratic marketplace of ideas.

What is truly amazing is this: never before in its history has the US been so influenced by a foreign dictatorship as it is today in the case of China. China's reach and influence in American economic, political, and academic life is without precedent. From Wall Street to Washington, from Corporate America to the classrooms of the country's leading universities, one can easily ruin his or her career by speaking out against Chinese tyranny and treachery.

For Americans who see China as a menacing adversary, the phenomenon is increasingly worrisome. Imagine if the Soviet Union had been America's biggest creditor. Consider what it might have been like if US consumers had been funding Soviet imperialism by buying cheap Soviet-made goods, kept artificially low in price by a manipulated currency regime. Think about a behemoth like Wal-Mart, which is essentially China's US retail partner, or arm, stuffed with Soviet toys,TVs, clothing. (By the way, one wonders if the launching of Wal-Mart's generic drug price war was timed to coincide with the Paulson visit.)

Now, substitute the words Nazi Germany and German, or Nazi, for Soviet Union and Soviet in the above paragraph. Scary, right? But not to Paulson, apparently. And perhaps that's the real significance of the Paulson trip: proof of a new awareness in Washington--secret knowledge, in a way--that the game is largely over and the US has already lost. Maybe Paulson knows--in his heart--that the Chinese propagandists who describe the US as a "dying hegemon" that does not yet know it is dying--and is therefore still dangerous--are only half-right. The American people are in the dark; but America's leaders--and bankers--know the score. China is trading, manipulating--and talking--the US to death.

Death by dialogue. It's the new Chinese way, from North Korea to Iran to the Sudan....

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Regarding the Iran nuclear standoff, two explanations come to mind for the conflicting messages emanating from Jerusalem and Washington this week:

(1) the United States and Israel dramatically disagree in their respective assessments of Iran's intentions and capabilities, or

(2) the two allies are disinforming the public--perhaps with the help of certain seemingly soft European allies--while secretly planning a military attack against the nuclear arming Islamist rogue that has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel and defeat, if not also destroy, the US.

The first explanation obviously makes more sense.

Consider this: on the same day, Wednesday, that Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned the United Nations that Iranian leaders pose the greatest threat to civilized values, a senior official in the US government told reporters that Washington no longer sees the Iranian regime as monolithic. Since August, the official said, the US has changed its position on the nuclear issue in response to perceived internal divisions in Iran.

The hoary notion that there are moderates within Iran's clerical fascist ruling elite--an idea dating to the Carter administration's attempts to appease the bloodthirsty Khomeini regime---is anathema to US and Israeli hawks, who have compared the concept to pre-war talk of Nazi moderates in Hitler-ruled Germany.

The United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China has concluded human rights in China deteriorated this past year, following some limited improvements. This was among the findings in the group's annual report issued in Washington Wednesday.

The US Congress created the Congressional-Executive Commission on China six years ago to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China.

At a Capitol Hill hearing where the report was released, commission chairman Senator Chuck Hagel praised Chinese government efforts to establish the rule of law and raise hundreds of millions of citizens out of extreme poverty. But he said that while China is advancing economic freedoms, it is limiting political rights.

"The gap between forward-looking economic freedoms and a backward-looking political system remains significant," Hagel said.

Some of the experts consulted by the commission were at the hearing. New York University law professor Jerome Cohen criticized China's failure to pass a law covering criminal procedure. He said China had been expected to enact the law to pave the way for ratification of the United Nations Convention on Civil and Political Rights.

Cohen also expressed concern that China's legislature, the National People's Congress, has yet to abolish the punishment known as "reeducation through labor," which allows police to imprison people for up to four years without judicial review.

"That has been one of the most effective and feared police sanctions for almost the entire career of the People's Republic of China," said Cohen. "There's been a bill before the National People's Congress for over two years that would abolish or at least substantially reform that sanction. And that too seems dead in the water."

Another speaker, John Kamm, is head of the Dui Hua Foundation, an American organization that works to advance human rights in China through dialogue with the Chinese government. For years, Dui Hua has raised cases of Chinese political prisoners by presenting lists of their names to the Chinese ministry of justice. Kamm said about one year ago, though, this communication stopped.

"The Chinese government has now decided to close this channel," he noted. "The ministry of justice has said it will not meet me anymore, unless I agree to stop raising names and submitting lists. This I cannot agree to do."

Meanwhile, some experts say China's rapid economic growth may actually be providing disincentives for the government to allow greater political freedom. This argument is made by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Minxin Pei, who says the country's strong economy takes pressure off the government, to either pursue democratic reforms or allow the existence of opposition political parties.

"Because under one party rule, China's political elites can easily convert their political power into economic wealth, they have even less incentive to permit greater political competition," he explained. "It is obvious that democratic reforms will threaten not only their political monopoly, but also their newly acquired economic wealth."

Pei warns China is heading into a period of more intensified government control. He said the country is determined to maintain social and political order as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympics. In Beijing's mindset, he says, control equals stability.

-VOA

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The US Business and Industry Council (USBIC) dismissed as "bureaucratic gimmickry" an announcement by United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that a new US-China dialogue has been set up to "promote economic cooperation and the growth of China-US relations." USBIC, which represents many domestic manufacturers, called for rapid progress to help the "American victims of Chinese protectionism and mercantilism."

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at USBIC, said: "Secretary Paulson's announcement of this new institution reveals a determination to substitute bureaucratic gimmickry for meaningful progress in eliminating China's predatory trade practices. America's domestic manufacturers and working families don't need another talk shop tasked with discussing China's trade barriers, its currency manipulation, and its other illegal subsidies. By the administration's own count, three other such high-level mechanisms already deal directly with US-China economic issues, and several more address them indirectly. The American victims of Chinese protectionism and mercantilism need action from their government now, not endless dithering."

Founded in 1933, the USBIC is a national business organization comprised of roughly 1,500 small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. In a recent national conference on the problems of the US trade deficit, USBIC called for an Article XII, WTO-compliant solution to the trade deficit that would impose an emergency import surcharge on many manufactured goods.

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We now know why Paris was buzzing ahead of the visit to Washington by former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, as China Confidential reported on September 10. Turns out, the French rumors were accurate.

After months of tough talk about deadlines and sanctions--and hints of possible military force should the need arise--the United States has indeed softened its stance toward Iran. Sensing a shift in Tehran's position on the nuclear development dispute, the United States is ready to participate in a new round of negotiations with the Islamist nation, provided it halts its uranium enrichment activities in a verifiable way.

And US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is ready to join the talks, which would actually aim for a broad improvement in US-Iran relations. (Rice reportedly has her eyes set on a Nobel Peace Prize.)

One concession on the part of Washington: a willingness to allow Tehran to pursue peaceful nuclear development, possibly by allowing Russia and China to enrich uranium for their Islamist ally.

Sources say the US policy shift--which could still be reversed should Iran refuse to freeze uranium enrichment--reflects a change in US thinking about Iran's increasingly important role in the Middle East. Following its proxy war with Israel in Lebanon, during which America's ally failed to defeat Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, the Islamist non-Arab nation has become a regional superpower. Its influence is clearly felt in Iraq, where Shiite militias and death squads are making a mockery of US efforts to transform the Middle East by establishing a democracy. Thus, Washington may actually by looking to Iran to play a moderating role.

If that turns out to be the new direction of US policy, we can comfortably make a few predictions as follows:

1. Israel will be extremely concerned and disappointed. Jerusalem is convinced that Iran's Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is an implacable enemy bent on destroying the Jewish State. The Israeli government believes Iran is quite close to developing a nuclear bomb; some Israelis suspect Tehran may already possess atomic warheads to match its missiles.

2. America's influential neoconservatives and many, if not most, of the country's conservatives will also feel let down; they will interpret US diplomacy as appeasement, a "peace for our time" disaster reminiscent of the runup to World War II.

3. China's international influence and prestige will be greatly enhanced. Beijing's most important relationship in the (loosely defined) Middle East and Muslim world is with oil-rich Iran. China will persuade Russia to let Iran join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a tool of Chinese "energy diplomacy" that seeks to counter US influence in Central Asia.

4. US diplomacy will fuel Saudi/Sunnni fears of Shiite encirclement. Iraq will mainly be considered part of the Iranian sphere.

5. There will be no more talk on the part of US officials of a war with "Islamic fascism," or Islamism, or Radical Islam. A rapprochement with Islamist Iran rules that out. Washington will revert to the "War on Terror" term--that is, until and unless the Democrats come to power, at which point, the rhetoric is likely to be further tuned down to a demilitarized, defensive, law enforcement-style "struggle" against terrorism.

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The largest industrial trade association in the United States is not likely to support bipartisan legislation that would allow domestic manufacturers to take China to court for predatory trade practices that have devastated the US economy.

China Confidential has learned that John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), has written to NAM directors to inform them that in the opinion of the group's legal counsel, the bill--one of several proposed punitive measures making its way through the US Congress--is fundamentally flawed. Engler's two-page letter, which is dated September 15, says the group's lawyers have concluded that the bill would not be "actionable" (liable to a lawsuit) under the rules of the World Trade Organization.

The legislation, which is sponsored by two US Congressmen, Republican Duncan Hunter of California and Democrat Tim Ryan of Ohio, has been crafted to make alleged Chinese currency manipulation actionable under US law and to work within International Monetary Fund and World Bank guidelines in order to avoid possible retaliatory sanctions by the WTO.

Called the Hunter-Ryan Chinese Currency Act of 2005, the bill is in the first stage of the complex US legislative process. A bill introduced to the House of Representatives first goes to House committees that consider whether the bill should be presented to the House as a whole. The majority of bills never make it out of committee.

Hunter-Ryan reportedly has the support of over 100 House members. The lawmakers blame unfair Chinese trade practices for the loss of millions of US manufacturing and outsourcing jobs over the course of the last five years.

In June, some NAM members apparently agreed--surprisingly, in view of the organization's pro-free trade orientation. Reflecting growing frustration with both China and the US government's failure to take tough action on the trade issue, the NAM international economic policy committee voted to endorse Hunter-Ryan. A final decision will be made by the NAM executive committee and international economic affairs policy group, which is scheduled to meet on Sept. 28. But Engler's letter is a good indication of how the vote is likely to go--against Hunter-Ryan.

The bill's backers will be disappointed. The legislation is unique in that it seeks to define currency manipulation as an illegal “trade subsidy,” which would make it actionable under US law. A countervailing duty could be applied to Chinese imports should China be found guilty of keeping the value of its currency artificially low.

US manufacturers could file currency complaints against China with the US International Trade Commission and seek sanctions on Chinese products until the illegal practice is ended.

Many US lawmakers and some economists argue that the managed--or manipulated--yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent against the dollar. The low yuan is believed to have helped raise China's soaring trade deficit with the US, which is running well above last year's record $202 billion.

In his letter, Engler writes that "even if China's currency manipulation met the definition of a subsidy, it is neither a prohibited nor an actionable subsidy as defined by the WTO and would not be countervailable."

About the bill's status: Hunter-Ryan is currently in both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee. Because it is a trade bill, it must first clear the House Ways and Means Committee before it can go to the full floor for a vote.

The security angle? Addressing concerns that China is effectively arming itself--against US interests--with US dollars, the bill requires that the US defense secretary notify the International Trade Commission when imported goods manufactured in China are similar enough to US made products used in its national defense. This requirement would guard against so-called market disruption--i.e. the US manufacturer being driven out of business by low-priced Chinese goods.

Meanwhile ... US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has begun a four-day visit to China that is expected to include an appeal to the country's Communist Party leaders to accelerate economic reform.

But before his arrival, Paulson warned China's legion of critics in Washington not to expect a "quick fix" and vowed to resist protectionism.

Paulson, whose net worth has been estimated at $700 million, is regarded as one of Beijing's best friends in Washington. As chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, he made 70 trips to China to expand the investment banking firm's business there.

In a move widely interpreted as a gesture to the Treasury chief, China allowed its currency to rise to its highest value relative to the US dollar since a small revaluation in July last year. The Chinese central bank set the central parity rate at 7.9342, up from 7.9431 on Monday.

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One of America's most influential and respected human rights advocacy organizations has condemned the Iranian president's speech at the United Nations.

David A. Harris, executive director of the century-old American Jewish Committee, issued the following statement Tuesday night following the appearance at UN world headquarters by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has once again revealed why he poses such a danger to the international community. If there were any who doubted the megalomania, messianic zealotry or hatred in this Iranian leader, his performance at the United Nations should clarify matters.

"In his speech to the UN General Assembly, strikingly empty for the occasion, he tried to wrap himself in universal ethical values, but in truth reminded the world why he cannot be trusted.

"He blatantly lied about Iran’s nuclear intentions, claiming only that his nation sought nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, when the UN Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency have both found compelling evidence to the contrary.

"He spoke about human rights and human dignity, when his own country violates both on a daily basis. Iran’s treatment of political reformers, protesting students, members of the Baha’i community, independent journalists and countless other groups belies his sanctimonious claims.

"He wrapped himself in a mantle of brotherhood and piety, while Iran supports and funds terrorist groups targeting innocent civilians far from its borders.

"He invoked the quest for peace, while Iran develops missiles with an ever longer range and precision and flaunts its newest weapons systems for the entire world to see.

"He claimed that all nations and states are entitled to peace and security, but then refused to call Israel by name and denounced it as an illegitimate entity.

"He repeatedly attacked the United States and United Kingdom, two nations that have a lot to teach Iran about the true meaning of human liberty, the rule of law and mutual respect, turning the truth on its head again and again.

"This man is dangerous. He should not be underestimated. He believes he has a direct line to the Almighty, and, even more ominous, he believes the Almighty has a direct line to him. He has put the world on notice. We can only hope that the world draws the necessary conclusions before it is too late."

The commander of US forces in the Middle East told defense reporters in Washington, DC this morning that apparently new, longer-range Chinese rockets have been found in Iraq.

General John Abizaid said that he believed the Chinese rockets came from Iran, although they may have been removed from arsenals of the defeated Saddam regime.

Military experts tell China Confidential that Iran supplied the rockets and that they are in fact brand new, Chinese-made weapons.

Energy-starved China and oil-rich, Islamist Iran have deepening economic, political, and military ties. Beijing, as we have reported for months, is firmly committed to blocking meaningful sanctions against America's arch-enemy. And Chinese arms have been instrumental in Iran's military modernization (scroll down to read Ilan Berman's prepared statement before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission).

Abizaid also said that a new, armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenade has turned up in Iraq. The weapon, which was first used in Lebanon by Iran's Shiite proxy, Hezbollah, in its month-long war with Israel, has a dual warhead and has proved effective against most types of armored vehicles.

Citing links between Hezbollah and Shiite militias in Iraq, the US commander said the RPG could be "a hint of things to come."

“You [IAEA] can pass as many resolutions as you like and be happy about it, but you cannot stop the progress of the Iranian people.... We thank God that our enemies are idiots.... This [decision of the IAEA to refer Iran to the UN Security Council] is the funniest decision Iʹve seen.”

-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “laughing off” the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution referring the Iranian nuclear issue to the UN Security Council, AFP, February 5, 2006.

EDITOR'S NOTE: On September 14, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, commonly called "the China Commission," conducted hearings on "China's Proliferation to North Korea and Iran." Ilan Berman, vice president for policy of the American Foreign Policy Council, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization, testified. His prepared statement, excerpted below, summarizes and analyzes China's relationship with Iran relative to its nuclear standoff with the West. The information is up-to-date--and terribly alarming.


Iran’s nuclear ambitions have emerged as a cardinal challenge for the United States and its allies. Over the past four years, the Islamic Republic’s concerted quest for a nuclear capability has catalyzed a widening international crisis.

Tehran’s intransigence in this stand-off has been made possible in part by its strategic partnership with Beijing. Since the start of international negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program some three years ago, China has worked actively to dilute the effectiveness of any global response. It has done so initially through its vociferous opposition to Iran’s referral to the United Nations Security Council, and more recently by its resistance to the imposition of multilateral sanctions against Tehran.

THE LOGIC BEHIND SINO-IRANIAN COOPERATION

China’s obstructionism on the Iranian nuclear issue has been driven by two primary considerations.

The first is energy. China’s runaway economic growth has brought with it a voracious appetite for energy....

All of this has made Tehran an indispensable energy partner for the PRC....

Iran has become China’s single largest oil supplier, and as long ago as 2002 already accounted for more than 15 percent of the PRC’s annual oil imports. This degree of economic dependence, moreover, is poised to deepen considerably as energy projects now underway between the two countries begin to come online over the next several years.

While energy represents the primary driver of contemporary cooperation, mutual opposition to America’s primacy in world affairs serves as an important secondary force. In the post-Cold War era, officials in Beijing have expressed their commitment to a multi-polar world in which American influence is diluted, and have pursued partnerships with nations antagonistic to the United States as part of this effort. As numerous observers have noted, China today has embraced a “balancing” strategy designed to frustrate US policy through robust international diplomacy. While it is doing so most directly in Asia, the Chinese government has increasingly sought Middle Eastern partners for this venture as well. Cooperation with Iran, the emerging geopolitical center of gravity in the post-Saddam Hussein Middle East, has consequently emerged as a major point of political focus.

These sentiments have been echoed in Tehran.... As one conservative Iranian paper put it following then-president Mohammad Khatami’s landmark visit to the PRC in the year 2000, “the strengthening of the Tehran-Beijing axis is of great importance” in the context of “confronting the unipolar world being considered by America.”

These trends have found their expression in an increasingly robust proliferation partnership, and in the integration of Iran into Chinese-dominated security structures.

FROM CHINA, WITH ARMS

As a practical matter, China’s record of proliferation to Iran is poor—and getting worse....

Over the past decade-and-a-half, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been engaged in a sustained, multi-spectrum modernization of its military, and China has played a big part in these plans.... The goods provided by the PRC have included anti-ship cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, combat aircraft, and fast-attack patrol vessels, as well as advanced technology designed to expand the versatility of Iran’s burgeoning cruise missile arsenal. These supplies have contributed significantly to what has become the central element of Iran’s military rearmament—a revitalization of its naval forces. As a direct result, US intelligence agencies now estimate that Iran has the ability to shut off the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf for brief periods of time, even with a Western military presence in the region.

Despite its commitment to abide by the guidelines of the Missile Technology Control Regime, China remains an active missile partner of the Islamic Republic. The US intelligence community believes that Chinese entities continue to provide substantial assistance to the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program, and have assisted the Iranian regime in erecting an indigenous production capability for its strategic arsenal. In particular, American officials have expressed concerns that Chinese firms have aided in the development—and subsequently the enhancement—of the centerpiece of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, the 2,000-kilometer range Shahab-3.

China has also provided Iran with sophisticated cruise missile technology. Beginning during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), large quantities of Chinese-origin “Silkworm,” C-801 “Eagle Strike,” and C-802 cruise missiles found their way to the Islamic Republic. Iran, in turn, has wasted no time in transferring this technology to its terrorist proxies. A recent example took place in July, during the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, when an Israeli warship, the INS Hanit, was hit and disabled by an Iranian variant of the C-802 “Silkworm”—a missile that Israeli officials previously did not know the Shi’ite militia possessed.

Iran’s efforts to acquire chemical weapons (CW), like its ballistic missile program, began during the Iran-Iraq War, when the Iranian leadership launched a national effort to develop a response to Iraqi chemical weapons attacks on Iranian troops. During the mid-1990s, this effort received a substantial boost from foreign suppliers, including China, who provided the Iranian regime with critical precursor chemicals and key weapons know-how. The results have been dramatic; since the mid-1990s, the US government has termed Iran’s CW program to be the “most active” in the developing world—encompassing nerve, blister, choking and blood agents, as well as “a stockpile of at least several hundred metric tons of weaponized and bulk agent.” And, despite its status as an original signatory of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, Chinese firms still appear to be actively engaged in the transfer of “dual-use CW-related production equipment and technology” that could assist in this effort.

China’s most active WMD assistance to Iran, however, has been in the nuclear sphere. Preliminary nuclear contacts between the PRC and the Islamic Republic began in the mid- to late-1980s. The two countries are known to have signed nuclear accords in 1989, and again in 1991, paving the way for what would become a vibrant and multifaceted atomic partnership. By 1996, in a manifestation of the strength of this collaboration, the Pentagon had officially designated China as a “principal supplier of nuclear technology to Iran.”

A decade on, this aspect of the Sino-Iranian strategic partnership is still going strong, despite the threat of US sanctions. China has reportedly been a major focus of Iranian procurement activities, with Iranian front companies successfully acquiring nuclear-related materials from the PRC in recent years. Iranian opposition elements have also charged that Chinese experts are employed at multiple nuclear facilities inside Iran, including the Saghand uranium mine and a uranium centrifuge facility outside Isfahan. Beijing’s most important support, however is moral; through its resistance to US and European efforts to hold Iran accountable, Beijing has bought Tehran valuable time to forge ahead with its nuclear program.

Iran is likewise expanding its links with the premier security bloc in the “post-Soviet space,” the China-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Established in June of 2001, the SCO is an expansion of the “Shanghai Five,” a regional grouping begun in 1996 with the purpose of strengthening the common security of its member states: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. By contrast, both the membership and the mission of the SCO are substantially broader. Ostensibly, the purpose of the new bloc, which now also encompasses Uzbekistan as a full member and Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Iran as observers, is to expand regional economic, cultural and counterterrorism cooperation. Iran’s involvement, however, increasingly underscores the bloc’s unstated purpose: the diminution of American influence in the “post-Soviet space.” As Iranian observers have made clear, “[t]he national interests of Iran and China are in clear contradiction to the presence of the American military forces in [C]entral Asia, and the support of China for Iran's membership… should be seen within that framework.”

Indeed, Beijing appears to be receptive to Iranian efforts to expand its role in this grouping. Iran’s radical president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was a guest of honor at the SCO’s most recent summit in June 2006, delivering a public address that called upon the group to play a greater role against “the threats of domineering powers”—a thinly-veiled reference to the United States. Beijing has also sent positive signals to Iran regarding its quest for full blown membership in the six-country bloc (though so far stopping short of directly lobbying for the Islamic Republic’s full inclusion in the forum).

Such a union, however, would have major benefits for both sides. Iran, facing a looming confrontation with the United States over its nuclear program, is eager to obtain a measure of collective security. China, meanwhile, has a vested interest in securing its most important energy partner against external threats. And while Iran’s immediate membership is not likely as a result of both institutional and political constraints, the potential of such an expanded bloc, if and when it does materialize, will be immense. As David Wall of Cambridge University has explained, an SCO incorporating Iran “would essentially be an OPEC with bombs”: an energy-rich geopolitical alliance stretching from the Taiwan Strait to the Strait of Hormuz.

With the expiration of the United Nations-imposed August 31st deadline to cease uranium enrichment, the international crisis over Iran’s nuclear program has entered a new and dangerous phase. World attention is now focused on available punitive measures against the Islamic Republic, sanctions chief among them.

China has a decisive vote in this process. By virtue of its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, China has the ability to stymie the UN’s implementation of multilateral measures against Iran. And, despite repeated US entreaties, Chinese officials have done just that, steadfastly refusing to back sanctions against Iran on the grounds that they would be “counterproductive.”

Beijing’s resistance is logical. Sanctions against Iran threaten to undermine an increasingly important element of the PRC’s economic construct. China requires steady supplies of oil in order to maintain its current economic momentum, and can ill afford a supply interruption—particularly from an energy source as important as Iran. By way of comparison, the impact for China of Iran going “offline” as a result of sanctions would be roughly equivalent to the effect a sudden cessation of oil supplies from Saudi Arabia would have on the US economy. It has likewise not been lost on Chinese officials that a likely result of sanctions could be an escalation to military action against Iran, and the possible loss of a major Chinese ally to US-supported regime change.

Iran is well aware of China’s calculus. As one Iranian analyst recently put it: “The dimensions of the historical, religious, economic and commercial cooperation between Iran and China are numerous, and it seems that China has always considered very seriously the dilemma of choosing either Iran or the United States, and it is hoped that in the end, it is going to choose that option which will safeguard the long term interests of China.”

None of this is to say that Chinese officials are not cognizant of the dangers of Iran’s atomic drive. In recent months, China has joined with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council in pressuring Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment activities. But, in keeping with its internal economic imperatives, the PRC has insisted on “diplomacy” as the sole means of resolving the Iranian nuclear impasse.

China’s stance has far-reaching implications. So far, the Bush administration has focused on international diplomacy as the primary means by which to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that China’s political and economic priorities militate strongly against a constructive role for Beijing in the peaceful resolution of this crisis.

China will continue to disappoint the United States and support its arch-enemy, Islamist Iran, in its nuclear standoff with the West. The Chinese-Iranian strategy of stalling for time by offering "serious negotiations" is working brilliantly. The two countries have effectively derailed the US drive for meaningful sanctions against Tehran by driving a wedge between Washington and its European allies. Western opinion is more divided than ever, even in the US, regarding Iran's intentions and capabilities, with appeasement advocates, led by former US President Jimmy Carter, challenging assertions that Iran is close to developing a nuclear bomb. Carter, who was fundamentally complicit in the 1979 Islamic fundamantalist overthrow of the pro-American Shah, is telling anyone who will listen that Iran is not really pursuing nuclear weapons and is instead simply seeking to use the issue to strengthen its legitimacy and prestige in the eyes of the international community. Across the Atlantic, French President Jacques Chirac is doing his part. Chirac told the BBC Monday that he is opposed to sanctions and supports dialogue to defuse the issue, referring to Iran as "a great country" ....

One country that has little doubt about Iran's intentions is Israel, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to destroy. Many Israeli analysts are also increasingly concerned about China's alliance with Iran, which, in the wake of Israel's failure to defeat Iran's Lebanese Shiite proxy, Hezbollah, and America's failure to crush Iranian-backed Shiite militias and death squads in Iraq, is fast emerging as the most dominant--and dangerous--power in the Middle East. Israeli hardliners see a replay of the Cold War period in which Egypt, supported by the Soviet Union, posed an existential threat to the Jewish State. The difference, Israelis note, is that whereas Egypt was an economically weak Soviet client state, Iran is an oil-rich Chinese ally....

To keep the US off balance, China's Communist Party rulers are likely to increase tensions with self-ruled, democratic Taiwan. The pretext will probably be Taiwan's continuing campaign to join the United Nations. Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, has reiterated his intention to keep applying for UN membership following the island's 14th consecutive rejection by the world body, bowing to pressure from Beijing. Chen told a video news conference last week that Taiwan would apply as Taiwan, not Republic of China. Beijing is certain to cite such a move as a provocation; China's recently adopted "Anti-Secession Law" authorizes use of force against Taiwan, a de facto sovereign state actually recognized by 24 UN member-nations, if it moves to formally declare independence or if peaceful reunification efforts fail. For image reasons, China will try to muzzle its more outspoken generals, some of whom have in the past publicly threatened the US with nuclear war should it intervene in a cross-Strait conflict. One general talked about "nuclear dust clouds" over Los Angeles....

Reporting on the Non-Aligned Movement summit meeting in Communist Cuba, the official news agency of Islamist Iran has published an article that reads like a news release from Axis of Evil central command. Excerpts are set forth below.

But first, consider this: the fact that the meeting--a kind of Woodstock festival for Third World tyrants, terrorists, and crooks--took place just 90 miles off the coast of the United States is itself a tragic commentary on America's misguided, decades-old tolerance of the Castro dictatorship. Apparently, the so-called imperialist "hegemon," to use China's preferred term for the US, is not so scary, after all.

Imagine a global anti-China conference--with the US in attendance as an "observer"--convening in, say, Taiwan. You can't--because China would not allow it. And the US would not dare to participate in a hate China fest. But Beijing, sources say, was quite comfortable in Havana. Instead of exercising a moderating influence on the gathering, as Washington had hoped, Rising Chinese diplomats conducted a series of bilateral meetings--with Iran's Hitlerian monster-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's wannabe tropical Mussolini, Hugo Chavez, and the spies and stooges constituting the delegation representing China's rogue Stalinist vassal, North Korea, and Congo head crook Denis Sassou N'Guesso, who also holds the do-nothing African Union in his hands, among other luminaries--all of which will no doubt be explained away to fawning Western observers and appeasers as "just business."

The US State Department wants--begs--China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system. China's response? To pay lip service to the stakeholder nonsense while preserving the traditional Chinese "lips and teeth" relationship with nuclear armed North Korea ... and bolstering and investing in nuclear arming (or already armed) Iran.

Another thought: it is indeed ironic that Iran and North Korea met in Cuba, which is still in the grip of a regime that used Soviet-supplied nuclear-tipped missiles--and atomic brinkmanship--to ensure its survival.

Now for that Axis of Evil dispatch....

HAVANA (IRNA) --- In a meeting with the Chairman of Supreme People's Assembly of Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Yong Nam, (Iranian president Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad stressed the importance of bolstering all-out ties with North Korea. Pointing to the similarity of stances between Tehran and Pyongyang on international developments, particularly the fight against imperialism, the president reiterated that "the era of imperialism and bullying powers has ended."

(He said:) "Independent states should reinforce their unity and bolster ties by increasing their nations' economic, industrial and political cooperation."

He said Iran fully supports North Korea's right to conduct peaceful nuclear activities. "The brave and strong North Korean government and nation will emerge victorious in the battle to assert their right."

Kim, for his part, said the Islamic Revolution is bearing more fruit with the passing of each day through strategic moves being taken by the Iranian president which attract the attention of the world.

Imperialism is at its final days, he said, adding that strategic ties between Tehran and Pyongyang are based on a joint struggle against it.

He noted that policies of the North Korean government and nation favor promotion of friendship, convergence and solidarity with Iran and adding that the two governments compliment each other in their very strong stances against the United States.

He also said that North Korea fully supports the Iranian government, particularly its principled stance on access to peaceful nuclear energy.

Again, China disappoints--denouncing accusations by senior US officials that it has sold weapons to Iran and North Korea, and reiterating its opposition to sanctions and use of force against Iran.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Friday that Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called Washington's weapons proliferation charges "groundless and irresponsible."

And Iran's news agency reported that Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, whose photo appears here, told Iran's Vice President Ali Saeedlu in Tajikistan's capital on Friday that Beijing is opposed to imposing sanctions against Tehran.

China's proliferation record is "dangerously shortsighted," according to Peter Rodman, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security.

Addressing the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an advisory panel created by the US Congress, Rodman on Thursday urged China to re-evaluate its relationships with (Islamist) Iran and (Stalinist) North Korea, two countries with which the US is engaged in nuclear standoffs.

Rodman cited North Korea's July 4 test-firing of several missiles (in the direction of Japan and the US) and the use by Iran's Shiite Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, of Chinese-designed cruise missiles in strikes against Israeli naval vessels 11 days later as evidence of Chinese behavior.

Paula DeSutter, US Assistant Secretary of State for Verification, Compliance and Implementation, told the "China Commission," as the panel is known to Washington insiders, that despite repeated assurances from the Chinese government that it opposes the proliferation of materials and technology used in the production and delivery of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the US government remains concerned about lapses in enforcement.

DeSutter said: "China's nonproliferation efforts have shown some improvement over the past several years. Unfortunately, Chinese entities' record of transferring WMD and missile technologies and materials--and the record of the Chinese government's enforcement of its own laws and regulations to stem these transfers--remains unsatisfactory."

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Some 20 years in the making, the Iran nuclear dispute has clearly reached a crucial stage.

The issue is complicated for the United States by many unexpected developments, of which the most important are: the rise of China, its economic and political ties with Tehran and escalating involvement in the Middle East; the resurgence of Russia, its turning away from the West and worsening relations with Washington; the rise of Radical Islam as a bridge for Sunnis and Shiites, Arabs and non-Arabs; China's failure to moderate the behavior of its nuclear armed, Stalinist vassal, North Korea, which has been instrumental in assisting Iran's weapons programs; the US debacle in Iraq and Israeli defeat in Lebanon, which have increased Iranian influence, while dividing Western opinion and weakening Western resolve; the emergence of Venezuela as a radical, anti-American actor allied with Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, and ally, Syria; and the resilience and resourcefulness of the Iranian Islamic Republic, which depends on crisis and confrontation for survival. The present regime is just as radical and perhaps even more dangerous than the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, which took power in 1979 after the overthrow of the pro-American Shah.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Analysts say China's Communist Party rulers are struggling with two conflicting imperatives regarding the media. On the one hand, they want to encourage China's media to become economically profitable and globally influential; thus, the BBC and Al Jazeera are seen by many officials as models of influential media, while American networks, such as Fox and CNN, are viewed as economic models. On the other hand, the party wants to ensure that it continues to maintain exclusive control over all politically-related news reporting in China. Voice of America correspondent Luis Ramirez, one of the best reporters covering China's rise, filed the following dispatch about new controls. As VOA is blocked in China, we are republishing the article as a service to our mainland readers.


China is defending its recent decision to restrict the activities of foreign media in the country. Critics have blasted the move as yet another means to clamp down on the flow of information and some have accused China of acting to monopolize control of the country's growing financial news market.

The new rules issued by the government's Xinhua news agency ban foreign news agencies from publishing information that--in the government's view--threatens national security and promotes the spread of cults and superstition. It gives Xinhua full authority to delete content the Communist government considers taboo.

Liu Binjie, vice minister of the General Administration of Press and Publications, the government entity that controls print media in China, spoke to reporters in Beijing Thursday. He denied allegations by international media analysts that Xinhua is unfairly imposing the controls for a commercial advantage.

"In implementing these rules, the government will certainly attach importance to having a competitive environment and prevent excessive monopoly," he said.

Premier Wen Jiabao sought to allay international concerns triggered by the restrictions. In London Thursday, he told British business leaders his government will continue its policy of opening up. He vowed to protect the rights of investors and the right of journalists to report news in China.

The Chinese leader also said his government expects the foreign media to comply with China's laws.

China's domestic media are subject to censorship, especially on matters relating to the Communist Party leadership, corruption and social unrest. The government has long restricted access to foreign publications and news broadcasts.

It is not clear how the new regulations will be implemented or exactly which foreign news organizations must obey them.

VOA has two correspondents based in Beijing. The Chinese government, however, tries to jam VOA radio broadcasts into the country and blocks access to the VOA Internet site.

International press freedom advocates and governments have condemned the new restrictions. A US State department official has expressed concern, noting that freedom of the press is a fundamental right that is recognized in China's constitution. He said Washington would be opposed to any steps that would restrict it.

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China has urged Iran to heed the concerns of the international community and cooperate with the United Nations nuclear watchdog. The statement comes the same day Iran's president says his country is open to what he calls "new conditions" to resolve the standoff with the West over Tehran's nuclear program.

The Chinese government says Iran should seize the opportunity for negotiations its nuclear program and its efforts to enrich uranium.

At a regular news briefing on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (above) said the Iranian nuclear issue is at a critical moment. He urged Tehran to cooperate with the UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We call on relevant parties to maintain patience and calm and find ways for the proper solution to the Iranian nuclear issue," Qin said. "At the same time we call on the Iranian side to seriously consider the concerns of the international community and take measures to cooperate with the IAEA to solve some unresolved issues."

The comments in Beijing came just hours after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his government wants to resolve the issue through dialogue and is ready for "new conditions." He did not elaborate on what he meant by new conditions.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States, together with Germany, are offering Iran economic and political incentives to stop uranium enrichment.

The US and other Western nations believe Iran is enriching uranium to make nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful energy purposes.

Washington says Iran should face sanctions for ignoring the UN's August 31 deadline for suspending its uranium enrichment program.

Despite the deadline passing, Russia and China have resisted US-led moves toward sanctions and have urged continued negotiations.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that Washington would push for sanctions against Tehran at the UN, next week.

-VOA

Relations between Israel and China are deteriorating as a result of China's strengthening ties to Israel's enemies--Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

An accidental Israeli killing of a Chinese United Nations peacekeeper during this summer's Lebanese war did not help matters; neither did a Chinese-designed Iranian missile striking an Israeli Navy ship; and many Israelis are less than happy about China's decision to send up to 1,000 troops to the expanded UN peacekeeping force.

To make matters worse, from a Chinese viewpoint, five Israeli lawmakers recently met with Taiwanese officials--in Taiwan. Israel's envoy to the self-ruled island and a local rabbi also attended the meeting.

China lodged an angry complaint with Jerusalem after learning about the meeting. China's Ambassador to Israel, Chen Yonglong, pictured above, called for an urgent meeting with the head of the Union for Sino-Israel relations, during which he expressed his government's fury over the incident.

Israel's Ynetnews.com reported that Knesset members from the Shas, National Union and Kadima parties traveled to Taiwan for the meeting.

The website quoted Yonglong as saying that if such an incident "happens again, that matter will be viewed as critical."

Diplomatic sources tell China Confidential that Yonglong is angry about the Israeli article because it inaccurately referred to Taiwan "sovereignty." The self-ruled island enjoys de facto independence and is recognized as a state by 24 countries. But it has held back from moving toward formal independence, which would almost certainly result in war with the mainland.

China recently adopted an "Anti-Secession Law" that authorizes use of force against the island if it moves toward declaring formal independence, or, ominously, if peaceful reunification efforts fail.

China has some 800 missiles pointed at Taiwan and is adding 100 or more each year.

After suffering from Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel, many Israelis and Diaspora Jews are said to be increasingly sympathetic to Taiwan's plight. Chinese threats to erase Taiwan resonate.

Israel has been a major supplier of military technology and weapons to China; but Arab and Iranian oil supplies are nowadays more important to Chinese policymakers than Israeli arms.

On Wednesday, the Jerusalem-based blog Israel matzav published an insightful analysis of the Chinese uproar over the Taiwan visit.

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Rumors of a softer American stance toward Iran (scroll down) were apparently just that--rumors.

As reported by Voice of America and other news agencies, the United States today called on the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear activities.

US envoy Gregory Schulte, whose photo appears here, told a meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that the time has come to back diplomacy with international sanctions.

He said the action is necessary considering what he described as Iran's history of deception, lack of transparency, provocative behavior and disregard for its international obligations.

Three key European nations--Britain, France and Germany--called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities to avoid sanctions. But fellow Security Council veto-wielding members China and Russia remain opposed to sanctions.

Iran ignored an August 31 UN deadline to stop the enrichment of uranium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Also Wednesday, a European Union spokeswoman announced that a meeting planned for Thursday between the European Union's foreign policy chief and Iran's top nuclear negotiator has been postponed.

The spokeswoman said that now only the aides to Javier Solana and Iran's Ali Larijani will meet in Paris.

The US and other Western nations have accused Iran of enriching uranium for a secret nuclear weapons program. Tehran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful, civilian purposes.

China Confidential sources say Washington had hoped for a last-ditch breakthrough in the nuclear standoff, citing reports that Iran had offered EU negotiators a temporary freeze of enrichment pending a resumption of talks. But spirits on both sides of the Atlantic fell, sources say, when Tehran denied the reports.

If Iran persists in its hard line, it could create problems for China because of its deepening relations with the oil producing Islamist nation, which has repeatedly vowed to destroy Israel and drive the US from the Middle East. Washington wants Beijing to exert a moderating influence on Iran and also on nuclear North Korea, which depends on China for food and fuel.

"It's testing time for rising China," said one analyst. "China cannot be seen as a responsible stakeholder in the international system if it adopts a business-as-usual attitude toward Iran and North Korea. That won't wash."

Peacemaking for our time? Time will tell....

There is increasing speculation among European diplomats that the United States is softening its stance toward Islamist Iran, a Chinese ally, in return for Chinese help with Beijing's Stalinist vassal, North Korea.

According to this analysis, Washington wants China to pressure Pyongyang to return to nuclear disarmament talks--and to apply meaningful punitive measures against North Korea if it insists on exploding an atom bomb and firing more missiles in the direction of the US and Japan.

And China, some say, is interested in working with the US out of mounting concern that North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-il is determined to provoke a confrontation with Washington.

The speculation is that having seen things spin dangerously out of control this summer--with the North Korean missile tests of July 4 and a month-long war between Iran's Lebanese Shiite proxy army, Hezbollah, and US ally Israel--Washington and Beijing have decided to cool the rhetoric and cooperate in bilateral efforts to defuse key flashpoints.

Fears of a world war triggered by a chain of unforeseen, seemingly disconnected events--analogies to 1913 and 1938 abound--have allegedly refocused great power minds on the time-honored concept of peace-preservation as the primary purpose of international diplomacy.

Diplomatic sources cite statements by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday--suggesting a last-ditch willingness by Washington to return to the negotiating table with Tehran if it temporarily suspends uranium enrichment--to support their thinking that Washington has decided that in the near term, at least, North Korea represents a potentially more serious threat than Iran.

Sources say China is upset with North Korea for flatly refusing to return to six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear program--in contrast with Iran's bazaar-like offer to keep talking about its nuclear activities.

In a related development, Japan has launched its third spy satellite into orbit. It is intended primarily to monitor activities in North Korea, just like the first two satellites.

The Japanese satellite went into orbit aboard a rocket launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.

Japanese government officials say the optical satellite will give Japan the ability to monitor any point on the planet once a day.

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Though today's Al Qaeda attack in Syria was a military failure, the brazen assault on the United States Embassy in Damascus was nevertheless a blow to the Bush administration.

The attack by Al Qaeda terrorists shouting Islamic slogans, which was foiled with the help of Syrian security guards, is likely to bolster arguments by the administration's domestic and foreign critics--on both the left and the right--who have argued that the "war on terror" is a simplistic and seriously misleading misnomer.

Many conservative critics (including this reporter) have urged Washington to broadly brand Radical Islam, or Islamism, as the enemy with which the US has been at war since September 11, 2001, while liberal/left critics have generally sought a narrower identification of the foe, focusing specifically on Sunni Islamist terrorism. The latter group of critics--and some of their rightwing, antiwar allies, such as the popular conservative pundit Pat Buchanan--reject (a) the idea of an Islamist foe bridging Shiite Iran and Hezbollah with Sunni Al Qaeda and Hamas and (b) the Bush concept of an "Axis of Evil" that throws the secular, pseudo-socialist dictatorship of Syria and Stalinist North Korea into the mix.

In the days leading up to the five-year anniversary of September 11, the President and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld seemed to be moving toward a definition of the enemy as Islamist, or "Islamic fascist;" but Bush's prime-time television speech last night reverted to stock "war on terror" terminology--which not only seems more "politically correct," but is also useful in justifying the decision to invade Iraq, a secular dictatorship, and the continuing commitment to defend post-Saddam Shiite Iraqi elements supported by Iran. (The Saddam regime's relations with Islamist terrorist groups remain a subject of intense debate; but the administration has conceded that it has found no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.)

Syria, which has a long history of supporting Islamist and secular Palestinian and Lebanese terrorism against Israel and the United States, is allied with Iran, which has reportedly given safe haven to Sunni Al Qaeda leaders, including, perhaps, Osama Binladen.

In the aftermath of this summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, some analysts have argued that the US missed an opportunity after September 11 to separate Syria from Iran and its Lebanese proxy through a combination of economic inducements and pressure on Jerusalem to return most or all of the Golan Heights, which Israeli forces captured during the Six-Day War of June 1967. Today's incident could revive the argument, which rests on the notion that the Syrian regime, notwithstanding its backing for Iran and Hezbollah, is threatened by Sunni Islamist terrorism--i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood that constitutes the core of Al Qaeda--and mainly concerned with getting back its lost territory.

Syria is famous for its tight control of its population; the prevailing view among many analysts is that the state security apparatus is aware of almost everything of importance that takes place in the country. Given Syria's reputation, some Western observers suspect a Syrian hand in today's attack, the theory being that the regime could have allowed it to happen to improve its image in the world.

The US, however, was quick to thank Damascus for its help, suggesting, even, that the bloody incident could mark a new trend in relations between the two countries.

"Syrian officials came to the aid of the Americans," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. "The US government is grateful for the assistance the Syrians provided in going after the attackers. We are hoping they will become an ally and make the choice of fighting against terrorists."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington "very much" appreciated the Syrians' efforts to secure the embassy, adding that it was too early to say who was behind the incident.

No Americans were killed or injured in the car bombing and grenade attack. But the state news agency SANA said a Syrian guard was killed and two others were among 14 people wounded in the assault.

And, as if to signify changing currents in the region, a Chinese diplomat suffered minor injuries as he photographed the attack from the roof of the neighboring Chinese embassy. China has deepening relationships with Syria and Iran.

China's plan to send a large contingent of peacekeeping troops to war-torn Lebanon--as many as 1,000, according to French President Jacques Chirac--is causing concern among some Israeli analysts, who see China as an increasingly meddlesome power in the Middle East.

The criticism contrasts sharply with Israel's history of supplying China with advanced military technology and arms.

Around 200 Chinese engineers already work for the United Nations in Lebanon clearing mines and unexploded ordnance. But the UN peacekeeping force is being expanded to uphold a shaky truce between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese proxy of China's Shiite Islamist ally, Iran.

There is growing evidence that Iran is resupplying Hezbollah with weapons through China's Arab ally, Syria, and Stalinist vassal, North Korea.

The United States hopes China will act as a moderating influence at this week's 14th summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement, which groups 116 developing nations, including America's avowed enemies--North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and the host of the conclave, Communist Cuba.

China has observer status at the meeting, which will be held in Havana, from September 11-16.

The awful irony of an America-bashing hate fest commencing just 90 miles from Florida on the five-year anniversary of the worst-ever attacks on American soil--the Al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed 3,000 people--will not be lost on Washington.

Recalling Cold War-era conferences, the gathering is expected to feature fiery, anti-American speeches. Iran's Hitlerian monster-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Venezuela's wannabe tropical Mussolini, Hugo Chavez, are likely to be stars at the event, which will probably endorse Iran's thinly disguised nuclear weapons development program. Chavez, who is responsible for strengthening Cuba's command economy, plans to use the meeting to lobby for Venezuela's bid for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Chavez recently visited Iran and received a medal from the Holocaust-denying, America-hating Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel; and Iran is investing over $9 billion in Venezuela. The Venezuelan leader has also expressed support for Syria, offering to send soldiers to Damascus in the event of war with Israel, and Stalinist North Korea, which may be preparing an underground test of a nuclear bomb and further missile tests as a followup act to its provocative July 4 launches. Chavez has said he intends to visit North Korea; but Beijing, our sources say, sees the trip as a public relations disaster.

Cuba's dying dictator Fidel Castro was scheduled to host a dinner on Friday for heads of delegations. But he is probably too weak to attend. In July, the 80-year-old Castro turned over power to his younger brother, Raul, after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery for what some analysts suspect is terminal cancer.

The Non-Aligned Movement was founded in 1961 by Third World leaders, including India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser and Indonesia's Achmad Sukarno, under the aegis of Yugoslavia's Josip Tito. The organization claimed that it wanted to avoid alignment with either the US or the Soviet Union. But the movement made a mockery of neutrality, tilting toward Moscow in all important matters. Egypt, under Nasser, was a Soviet client state that attempted to unify the Arab world against "US imperialism."

By 1979, the movement's orientation was crystal clear. Its purpose, as stated in the Havana Declaration of 1979, is to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, Zionism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact, the Non-Aligned Movement seemed destined for history's dustbin. But the grouping has had a bit of a resurgence of late, as Iran and other Axis of Evil states have sought to help revive it as both a counterweight to US power and influence and a pressure group against Israel. This week's summit will probably condemn the Jewish State for its bombing of Lebanon during this summer's war with Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese proxy.

The US hope is that China is sufficiently embarrassed by its deepening relationships with Iran, Syria, and Venezuela--and support for North Korea, which depends on Beijing for most of its food and fuel--to play a positive role at the Havana meeting.

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France is abuzz with rumors of secret diplomacy between the US and Iran.

In a country where politics and intrigue are as closely associated as wine and cheese, analysts are reading into apparent attempts by the United States to reach an 11th-hour diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear dispute.

The French speculate that there is more to the decision to grant a visa to former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami for an unrestricted US visit than meets the eye. Analysts assert this is the reason US President George W. Bush told the Wall Street Journal that he personally approved the controversial move, which many Republican politicians have sharply criticized, citing as his reason an interest in "learning more about the Iranian government, how they think, what people think within the government."

With China and Russia firmly committed to blocking meaningful sanctions against Iran at the United Nations Security Council, say the French, the Bush administration is signaling a willingness to find a face-saving compromise--for both Washington and Tehran--over the seemingly insurmountable issue of uranium enrichment.

Bush said Iran should not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon; however, he expressed hope that Tehran could be persuaded to abandon ambitions for nuclear weapons through diplomatic means.

"And in order for diplomacy to work, it's important to hear voices other than current (Iranian) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's," Bush said.

Iran refuses to halt enrichment--a key component in the nuclear bomb-making process--as a precondition for more talks. But sources in Paris say Iran could still agree to a scheme for meeting its nuclear fuel enrichment needs on Russian--or Chinese--soil. The Russians have proposed such an arrangement on the grounds that it would guarantee supplies for Tehran's nuclear power program, while reassuring the international community that none of the uranium can be secretly used to produce bombs. China could be inclined to share the enrichment to neutralize concerns over its deepening relationship with Islamist Iran and demonstrate to US and world opinion that it has indeed become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system, as called for by the US State Department.

Conceding that a US-Iranian deal along the above lines may seem like a remote possibility to many Americans, analysts in the City of Light say Tehran could agree to it (a) if Iran already has nuclear warheads, as some experts strongly suspect, and (b) if Iran can harness its new Arak heavy water plant to make bombs through an alternative method that uses plutonium.

Iran, which is skilled at taking tactical advantage of every opportunity to negotiate ... and negotiate ... could also accept the foreign enrichment proposals as a basis of still more negotiations, while agreeing to a temporary or partial suspension of enrichment in an effort to continue its successful stalling strategy. There is widespread agreement in the West that the mullahocracy has been buying time to build bombs, but intense disagreement over how close the country is to actually having one.

And, in a novel twist, some French analysts suggest that the US, for all its tough talk, has for all practical purposes ruled out a military option against Iran and may even be resigned to living with an Iranian nuclear power over the long run (particularly if Tehran never takes the extra step of actually testing a nuclear weapon) in the hope that the Islamist regime will eventually be replaced by a democracy. The changing US position, the French say, pointing to US willingness to abide a nuclear North Korea--an avowed Stalinist enemy--and a nuclear Pakistan--a shaky Muslim ally in the war against Islamist terror--partly explains why President Jacques Chirac said last Thursday that France is determined to maintain an up-to-date nuclear deterrent because, as he put it, no country's position is secure in today's world.

"In an uncertain world, confronted by constantly developing threats, nuclear dissuasion guarantees our vital interests," Chirac said during a visit to the Center for Simulating Nuclear Weapons Tests at Bruyeres-le-Chatel, south of Paris. "For this, our strategic arsenal must, through its flexibility and reactivity, constantly adapt itself."

Chirac added: "These stakes are crucial for the future, for France's future. One must remain extremely vigilant."

In January, during a visit to a French nuclear submarine base, the French president raised eyebrows in Washington when he threatened to use nuclear weapons against any country that carried out a terrorist attack against France. Even after 9/11, President Bush did not threaten to use nuclear weapons.

Chirac also expanded the definition of France's vital interests in January, saying for the first time that he would consider using nuclear arms to protect strategic supply lines and in the defense of allies.

A French president threatening nuclear war against his country's enemies while America's so-called cowboy president wants to learn more about a nuclear-arming foe? It seems the apocryphal Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," is coming true. In fact, the times are way more than interesting; they are downright bizarre.

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CHINA: The country observed a low-key remembrance day for Mao Zedong, who died 30 years ago Saturday.

The government did not hold any official events to mark the anniversary. Chinese leaders clearly wanted to avoid stirring up bitter memories about Mao's 27-year rule, which was responsible for claiming tens of millions of lives.

Chinese state-run newspapers largely ignored the anniversary. The only front-page article appeared in the English-language China Daily, which is mostly aimed at foreigners. The article discussed Mao's legacy, but relied on the comments of foreign academics rather than Chinese scholars.

The only public sign of remembrance for the Great Helmsman was in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where thousands of visitors lined up at the Mao Zedong Mausoleum to see his body and pay their respects. Security was tight, as expected.

Beijing also held a private concert Friday in Mao's honor inside the Great Hall of the People.

The Chinese government officially discourages public debate about Mao. The official line is that his achievements were 70 percent good, 30 percent bad.

NORTH KOREA: South Korea and the European Union called on North Korea to return to the negotiating table as soon as possible. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun discussed the nuclear standoff with EU officials in a meeting Saturday in Helsinki. Roh is visiting the Finnish capital for a two-day Asia-Europe summit that begins Sunday.

Following the talks, Roh and the EU issued a joint statement urging Pyongyang to rejoin the six-party nuclear talks, which were last held in November. The two sides also criticized North Korea's ballistic missile tests in July.

Pyongyang has boycotted the nuclear negotiations to protest US sanctions against North Korean-linked companies. The US has accused the companies of involvement in money laundering for Pyongyang.

TAIWAN: Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in Taiwan's capital, Taipei, on Saturday to demand the resignation of President Chen Shui-bian.

Most demonstrators dressed in red to symbolize their anger toward Chen. Many protesters also gave a "thumbs down" sign as they shouted for Chen to step down.

The main organizer of the protest was Shih Ming-teh, a former chairman of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which is now led by Chen.

Shih is calling for Chen to quit over a series of corruption scandals involving his family and senior officials. Chen denies any wrongdoing.

After marching through Taipei's streets, the protesters began a sit-in near the Presidential Office building, which they plan to continue until next Friday.

Local media estimated the turnout for Saturday's rally at 80,000; but organizers said as many as 200,000 took part. Shih had set a target of 200,000 to 300,000 people for Saturday's protest.

More than 2,000 riot police were on duty to prevent violence during the rally. Police set up barbed-wire barricades to keep the protesters away from government offices.

Nearing the 30th anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong (Saturday, September 9) and the five-year anniversary of the September 11 Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, some thoughts come to mind.

Mass murdering Mao--he was responsible for some 70 million deaths--developed and tested atomic weapons. And he was not shy about his intentions. The Great Helmsman repeatedly made clear that he wanted to wage war against the US and Europe, even if it meant sacrificing "a third of humankind." He even ridiculed Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev for being afraid of a final--nuclear--conflict with "imperialism."

It can be said that while Khrushchev came to his senses and backed away from an atomic showdown and shootout with the US over the 1960s Cuban missile crisis, Mao was only prevented from striking the US with atomic arms by his military's inability to build intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Communist monster had the bombs--and the will to use them--but he lacked the means of delivering them (though he may have ordered his spy boss, Kang Sheng, to develop a contingency plan for a suicidal sneak attack on New York City, involving an atom bomb-carrying counterfeit or hijacked jetliner, as we have reported in the past).

Decades later, another monster had the will, but neither the bombs nor the missiles. So hijacking civilian airliners and crashing them into buildings was the best he could manage. Had the Qaeda killer Osama Binladen been in possession of both missiles capable of reaching the US and nuclear weapons capable of slaughtering tens or hundreds of thousands of innocents, instead of the 3,000 he succeeded in murdering on September 11, he would surely have ordered up an apocalypse.

Five years later, Binladen, while still a serious threat, has been overshadowed by an even bigger monster--the Monster-in-Chief of Radical Islam--Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This creature, like Binladen, has the will to use weapons of mass destruction; but unlike the Saudi fugitive, who, as far as we know, can still only dream of deploying missiles and nukes, Ahmadinejad has rockets capable of striking Europe and Israel as well as Scud missiles that can be launched from seemingly civilian cargo ships. He may even be able to arm the sea-going Scuds with nuclear warheads, according to some analysts; and he is either already in possession of or close to possessing nuclear bombs.

The possibility of Islamist Iran sponsoring multiple, coordinated, cargo ship-based nuclear missile strikes against US coastal cities--launched from foreign-registered vessels with no obvious ties to Tehran--is frighteningly real. There are serious people in places like the Pentagon--which five years ago was hit by an aerial attack few individuals could ever have imagined possible--who lose sleep thinking about such scenarios.

Not for nothing does the so-called Iranian president--a professional terrorist who answers to a secret committee of clerical fascists--make almost daily threats to wipe US ally Israel off the map and defeat--and actually destroy--the US itself. Not for nothing does he admire Hitler while denying the Holocaust and sponsoring viciously anti-Semitic cartoon contests and conferences reminiscent of the Nazi era.

Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad is testing and probing world opinion and Western resolve while warming up for world war.

Which brings us to our appeal. Regardless of our criticisms of the Bush administration for not being tougher on Radical Islam, for not clearly identifying Radical Islam as the enemy after September 11, this is a time for unity--and common sense.

As Newt Gingrich said yesterday in Maine: "We have real enemies and they would like to kill us."

Unfortunately, many prominent Democrats, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, seem to disagree. Like the government of France, which this week lashed out against the basic concept of a war against Islamist terror, the former Presidents, whose administrations appeased and encouraged the rising forces of Radical Islam, and their friends and allies have criticized President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in ways that are certain to encourage America's enemies.

The criticism goes beyond allegations of mismanaging the Iraq war--or even the issue of whether or not the war was a strategic mistake, which is a legitimate subject for honest debate and discussion. Rather, the comments by Carter, Clinton and other appeasement-oriented Democrats strikes like a dagger at the heart of the entire war effort--in Iraq and beyond.

The campaign aims to downgrade and effectively demilitarize the war against Radical Islam, turning it into a mainly defensive police action. Leading Democrats were never really comfortable with the idea of taking the war to the enemy; thus, discontent with Iraq has created an opening for promoting a global retreat under cover of refocusing on homeland security issues--excluding electronic surveillance and other tough anti-terror measures, of course.

More disturbing, Carter and Clinton have suggested that the US itself is partly to blame for the actions of its clerical fascist foes; in the eyes of the ex-Presidents, America's sins include, incredibly, not giving enough foreign aid and failing to fully embrace the (pro-terrorist) United Nations.

The views of the appeasement camp are more or less in line with those of France, the country that raised capitulation and collaboration to the level of religion, or art, in the face of Nazi aggression.

Consider this: France's foreign minister on Wednesday objected to remarks by President Bush comparing Iran and Al Qaeda.

"We cannot accept a war of civilization between a Western bloc and a Muslim bloc," Philippe Douste-Blazy said. "Good and evil are not decreed by the West in this country or that continent."

The next day, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin rejected talk of a "war on terror." Speaking in parliament Thursday, he accused the US of essentially promoting terrorism and extremism in Iraq, reminding his listeners that France opposed the war.

But he also said this: "Against terrorism, what's needed is not a war. It is, as France has done for many years, a determined fight based on vigilance at all times and effective cooperation with our partners. But we will only end this curse if we also fight against injustice, violence and these crises."

Translation: poverty and injustice, for which the US is mainly to blame, cause terrorism.

Voila! It is suddenly so clear! Like America's 1960s New Left/liberal activists and intellectuals, who used "root causes" and "legitimate grievances" to rationalize and justify violent street crime and urban riots--on the theory that poverty causes crime--American and French appeasement advocates have identified the Root Cause of Islamist terror and extremism: America. Their arguments are sure to reinforce the spurious claim that even the 19 hijackers of September 11, even Binladen himself, and the Monster-in-Chief Ahmadinejad and his henchmen, have--you guessed it!--Legitimate Grievances. Against America! But of course....

There is an old saying: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Five years after the worst-ever attacks on American soil, while the war in Iraq still rages and the Islamist enemy plots America's doom, the men who did nothing about that enemy, apart from conducting policies of appeasement, are attempting to rally the American people against ... the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense. Especially the defense secretary. He has become the prime political target. Increasingly, one gets the feeling that the administration's domestic (and foreign) critics are more incensed by the fact that Donald Rumsfeld still has a job than the fact that Binladen and Taliban maniac Mullah Omar are still at large. Listening to some Democrats, one would think that the US was attacked on September 11 by the Republican Party, not Radical Islam.

But that's the real point of the criticism, isn't it? Perfectly aware that what they are doing cannot be justified in wartime, the administration's most zealous critics seek to end the war against Radical Islam by delegitimizing--rather than winning--the conflict. No war, no worries. Anything and everything is fair game in peacetime politics.

It's a sickening strategy. Given the stakes--the survival of America, Israel, Western civilization--the rejectionists, those who argue against the existence of the enemy in the first place--must themselves be rejected. On the eve of the September 11 anniversary, we say: Reject the rejectionists! Just say ... no ... to those who argue that Radical Islam is a myth, that the robed and turbaned tyrants and terrorists of Iran and Hezbollah ... and Hamas and Al Qaeda ... are not, when all is said and done, one and the same. Reject the rejectionists, their steady stream of lies and myths, their misinformation and disinformation, their endless calls for "dialogue" and diplomacy with people who are determined to destroy us.

As Newt Gingrich said, we have real enemies. But, in the words of President Bush, by being "patient, relentless and resolute," we will defeat them.

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Voice of America has published an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government. As a service for our readers, including readers in China, where VOA is blocked, we republish the editorial, which is titled, "Iran and Extremism."

The Iranian government continues to demonstrate its uncompromising hostility to freedom and stability in the Middle East. Since taking power in 1979, the radical clerical regime has used Iran's resources to fund terrorism and develop weapons of mass destruction.

President George W. Bush says the Iranian regime is responsible for "funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy."

"Hezbollah, the source of the current instability in Lebanon, has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al-Qaida.... It was Hezbollah that was behind the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans. And Saudi Hezbollah was behind the 1996 bombings of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans, an attack conducted by terrorists who we believe were working with Iranian officials."

Iran has rejected a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for it to end its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, which are believed to be related to Iran's covert nuclear weapons program. The UN Security Council said it would adopt appropriate measures, possibly including sanctions. Mr. Bush says the Iranian regime was given "the opportunity to set their nation on a better course."

"Their choice is increasingly isolating the great Iranian nation from the international community, and denying the Iranian people an opportunity for greater economic prosperity. It's time for Iran's leader to make a different choice. And we've made our choice. We'll continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution."

The world's free nations, says Mr. Bush, will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

The Bush administration's decision to allow former Iranian president and phony moderate mullah Mohammed Khatami to conduct a propaganda speaking tour in the United States is only the latest in an astonishingly long series of attempts by US administrations to appease Tehran's robed and turbaned tyrants and terrorists.

Time and again, Washington has talked tough but backed down in the face of Iranian terror and aggression. The Reagan administration, for example, allowed itself to be driven out of Lebanon by an Iranian-sponsored terrorist attack--the 1983 bombing of a US Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American troops. Reagan vowed to make the terrorists pay for their deeds but did nothing.

Similarly, it was during the Clinton administration that Iran--with Chinese assistance--made great strides in its nuclear weapons program.

US efforts to reach out to the Iranian Islamist enemy stretch across nearly three decades. The US moves actually began some two years before the Islamist revolution of 1979, when the regime of the pro-American Shah still had a chance of surviving had it acted swiftly and decisively to crush the rising menace.

Instead, the ailing Iranian king (he was secretly suffering from terminal cancer) gave in to the Carter administration's relentless pressure for reform--at the worst possible time. The Shah's liberalizing moves had the effect of weakening his regime and strengthening his adversaries, a coalition of clerical fascist Shiite Islamists and pro-Soviet Marxists led by the anti-American, antidemocratic, anti-Semitic monster, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini--a man described as a "saint" by President Jimmy Carter's United Nations envoy, Andrew Young.

To make matters worse, the US began a covert dialogue with the Shah's avowed enemies. It was the genesis of a pattern of self-defeating negotiations with an implacable foe.

At the heart of these efforts is the absurd notion that a regime that has intentionally isolated itself internationally can somehow be coaxed into rejoining the community of nations, that a totalitarian system that thrives--depends--on conflict and confrontation can somehow be cajoled into truly reforming itself.

It's utter nonsense, naturally, as history has shown.

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technorati tags: Iran

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The Iranian nuclear standoff is entering a humiliating phase--for the United States.

With Chinese and Russian support and assistance from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Tehran's robed and turbaned tyrants and terrorists are achieving their main aims. They are buying time to build nuclear weapons, though it is very possible, as we have reported, that Iran already has nuclear warheads along with the means to deliver them to Israeli and European targets.

The key to the Iranian strategy is division--i.e. driving a wedge between Washington and its European allies--for purposes of derailing the US-led push for sanctions against the uranium-enriching Islamist power. Iran knows it can count (a) on China and Russia to block meaningful sanctions at the United Nations, and (b) on influential appeasement advocates in the US and Europe, including former US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, to argue that regardless of how frustrating it may seem or feel, the West must continue talking ... and talking ... with the Holocaust-denying, clerical fascist regime that has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and defeat--if not destroy--the US.

The appeasers regard diplomacy as an end, not a means. Negotiating for the sake of negotiating is actually admired.

China is sensitive to--and skilled at exploiting--the appeasement mentality. In its first public comments on Iran since it defied the August 31 UN deadline to halt enrichment, Beijing said Tuesday that it still supported negotiating with Tehran.

"We have consistently stood for the resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through negotiation and dialogue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters at a news conference.

Iran, which is the world's fourth largest oil exporting nation, supplies China with more than 11 percent of its imported oil. The mullahocracy also stands ready to provide oil to North Korea in the event China has to make a show of reducing shipments to its bellicose Stalinist vassal.

Regarding the appeasement camp, Iran is doing a masterful job of running circles around the US. Knowing that Americans and Europeans are suckers for so-called moderates (incredibly, some influential Americans and Brits clung to the myth of Nazi moderates almost to the end of the Second World War), the Iranian regime, with the cooperation of the US State Department, has dispatched the phony moderate mullah Mohammed Khatami (pictured above) to the US. A predecessor to Iranian monster-in-chief Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the killer Khatami was responsible for encouraging--and then crushing--a major student uprising that represented the biggest challenge to Iranian Islamic fascism since the demented Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the pro-US Shah (with Jimmy Carter's help) in 1979. Khatami and his henchmen collaborated in the murder, jailing, and torturing of pro-democracy student leaders.

Which explains the timing of Ahmadinejad's call this week for a purge of reform-minded professors at Iranian universities. The so-called Iranian president (he answers to a secret committee of clerics) needed to reassure the regime's fanatic, violent base that Khatami's US visit is nothing more than a propaganda ploy.

Be that as it may, pro-appeasement Americans--like former presidents Carter and Bill Clinton--and Europeans love Khatami. He is their kind of Islamic fascist. For left/liberal appeasers, after all, style is more important than substance--and Khatami has style, which is why the mainstream media generally treat him with kid gloves, as the old saying goes.

The Financial Times newspaper, for example, quoted Khatami as saying that Tehran's pilot uranium-enrichment program posed no threat to anyone.

"There is nothing of utmost concern," Khatami told the paper. "Having a cascade of 164 centrifuges cannot provide sufficient enriched material for anything, let alone a bomb. It will only help complete the experiments of our engineers. All the problems that we have and they (West) have can be dealt with, and talks with patience without preconditions are accessible."

If that didn't make you vomit, read on. Joining Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other anti-American personalities promoting a pro-Islamist terror group, the Alliance of Civilizations, at the UN, Khatami lashed out at US President George W. Bush, comparing the leader of the free world (admittedly an alien concept to a clerical fascist) to Osama Binladen. (The former Iranian president neglected to mention increasingly credible reports that Binladen and other senior Al Qaeda leaders were given save haven in Iran before and after 9/11). True to form, Khatami blamed the US for bloodshed in the Middle East.

Honestly, we could not make this crap up--and worse is coming. Khatami is due to speak on Sunday at ultra-prestigious Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on ... better grab that barf bag ... the "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence." Sources say Khatami will draw on ideas expressed in Lee Bollinger's book, The Tolerant Society. Bollinger, who is the president of Columbia University, is a zealous proponent of dialogue with Iran and its Islamist allies and proxies.

There is hope, however. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said Tuesday that his state would not provide any security support for Khatami's visit, branding his scheduled speech at Harvard "propaganda."

Romney told reporters that Khatami will not receive a state police escort or any other state help; instead, Federal officials will be held exclusively responsible for the Iranian's security.

The governor condemned the visit "a disgrace to the memory of all Americans who lost their lives at the hands of extremists, especially on the eve of the five-year anniversary of 9/11."

Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, support for sanctions against Iran is ... shrinking. The Europeans, as Beijing and Tehran expected, are inclined to take Iran's counter-offer of "serious negotiations" at face value.

Iran is a major oil provider to the 25-nation European Union.

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Chinese Communist Party intellectuals are attempting to condition world opinion ahead of a possible North Korean nuclear bomb test and new missile launching.

The party propagandists and analysts are spreading the word that the United States is not sincere about negotiating an end to the North Korean nuclear dispute and is instead determined to topple the regime of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il.

Zhang Liangui, an influential analyst who is considered one of Beijing's top North Korea experts, is telling foreign academicians and journalists that if the Bush administration is really serious about a peaceful solution to the North Korean problem, it will follow the example set by the Clinton administration. With ex-President Jimmy Carter as principal negotiator, Clinton agreed to a stunning 1994 appeasement plan under which Pyongyang agreed to end its nuclear program in exchange for fuel, food and a light-water nuclear reactor. The scheme essentially empowered and emboldened North Korea to continue its weapons programs, including the development of long-range missiles capable of striking the US and an arsenal of nuclear bombs.

Zhang has in the past argued that Kim's overthrow would be a disaster for Beijing, resulting in a mass exodus of North Korean refugees, the end of South Korean investment in China, and the elimination of a useful buffer state between China and South Korea, where some 30,000 US troops are stationed.

Zhang is believed to have close ties with Chinese military strategists. The People's Liberation Army--which lost over a million men fighting for North Korea during the Korean War--has a strong relationship with North Korea's armed forces.

The bilateral relationship has traditionally been described as being as close as "lips and teeth." China provides the secretive, Stalinist state with virtually all its fuel and most of its food.

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China's Communist Party rulers have launched a big new propaganda push to rationalize relations with rogue states and avowed adversaries of the United States, including nuclear armed North Korea and nuclear arming--or already armed--Iran.

The new party line boils down to two key concepts: (1) the US, because of its ideologically driven foreign policy and heavy-handed diplomacy, is the principal cause of conflict and disorder in an increasingly complex and dangerous world, and (2) China is a peacefully rising, stabilizing power that seeks to preserve the status quo and promote harmony among nations.

Chinese diplomats and propagandists assert that whereas Washington is prone to confrontation, Beijing is committed to cooperation.

The Chinese line aims to exploit Americans' growing discontent with the Iraq war--and mounting left/liberal criticism of the war against Radical Islam--while weakening Western unity and resolve ahead of (a) a possible North Korean nuclear bomb test and new missile launch, and (b) a showdown between the West and Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.

China, like Russia, is committed to blocking truly tough sanctions against North Korea and Iran at the United Nations Security Council.

Ironically, the Chinese critique of American foreign policy and diplomacy coincides with a decidedly softer approach to China by the Bush administration, as reported on Friday.

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Labor Day weekend, USA....

Recalling an old union folk song, a member of our editorial team Googled the tune's title, "Which Side Are You On?" The search (God bless Google!) produced a staggering 977,000,000 results, with a relevant, informative, and moving website at the very top of the page.

But just below, in prized second place position, there was this: a slick, multimedia marketing site by China's Lenovo, which makes personal computers that many consumers still associate with America's once iconic IBM brand. The China Inc. site appropriates the title of the simple but powerful folk song to persuade people to vote for their notebook computer color preference, black or silver.

A free election--for "classic black" or "sleek titanium." And who said China is anti-democratic?

Now, for those of us who still care about the rights of workers, trivializing a historic union hymn is deeply offensive. But there is something particularly insulting--and ironic--about a Chinese government-controlled company exploiting the title and chorus of a stirring song that pays tribute to labor heroism--specifically, the courageous coal miners of Harlan County, Kentucky, whose 1931 strike inspired generations of union and civil rights activists. Ironic, because booming, authoritarian China is home to the world's deadliest--and most polluting--coal mines and biggest sweat shops. Ruthless exploitation of labor--including tens of millions of impoverished migrant workers who have fled the economically depressed and environmentally degraded countryside for new lives in urban areas--is a mainstay of the regime's "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

And the exploitation does not stop at China's borders. China's rise is responsible for essentially erasing more than a century of organized labor progress in the industrial world, as greedy, globalizing corporate chiefs, investment bankers and fund managers trip over each other in a mad rush to capitalize on once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to profit from an all-out hollowing out of Western economies. Job growth in the Middle Kingdom is incredibly important to these folks; but job loss in Middle America, to them, is a fact of life. In their eyes, there is nothing wrong with forcing American workers to compete with Chinese and other third world workers; pennies per hour is the China price, regardless of the cost, to ordinary Americans. The United States, they say with all-knowing confidence, is, well, destined in coming decades to be poor or, at least, poorer, relative to the rising BRIC countries--Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Especially China, for it is the Chinese Century--get used to it, already!--the multinational bigwigs and bankers--and fawning media moguls--chant over and again.

The anti-labor villains and union-busting goons and scabs of yesteryear could never have imagined such a development: a Communist regime wrecking the world's labor movement. But Communism has always been anti-labor; the dictatorship of the working class, at the end of the day, is a dictatorship of a powerful, privileged elite that claims to speak and work on its behalf. A dictatorship is a dictatorship is a dictatorship....

Which is why, in China, in 2006, there are plenty of Harlan Counties, but no unions to challenge the injustices. There is only the so-called government union--an arm of state control and repression. Writing--or simply singing--the Chinese equivalent of "Which Side Are You On?" can land a Chinese labor or human rights activist in jail, or worse.

Which led us this Labor Day weekend to consider that perhaps it is time, finally, for America's leaders to put a direct question to China's unelected president: Which side are you on, Hu?

Really, Hu Jintao, which side are you on in the global struggle for freedom? Your country's weapons have popped up--and, in the case of Chinese-made and Chinese-designed missiles, plunged down--in all the wrong anti-American places and hands, from your Stalinist vassal, North Korea, to your Holocaust-denying, Islamist ally, Iran, and its Lebanese terror proxy, Hezbollah, from genocidal Sudan to hopelessly corrupt Nigeria.

Seriously, Hu, more and more Americans would like to know where your regime really stands, why your state-owned energy giants and state-owned merchants of death are in bed with Syria and Venezuela--and Communist Cuba--while your Communist Party propagandists and government flacks continue to mutter the mantra, "just business," as if that explains everything.

No kidding, Hu, inquiring minds would like to know ... more ... about your alliance with increasingly authoritarian, oil-rich Russia, your anti-American Shanghai Cooperation Organization, your massive military buildup ... and ominous missile threat to Taiwan ... your xenophobic, anti-Japanese, anti-American front groups, state-owned publishing houses and Internet sites, your crackdown on spiritual and religious groups ... and domestic and foreign media ...your secret trials and secret prisons ... and barbaric harvesting of human organs ... and so much more. Just read our blog; we've been writing about the dark side of China's meteoric ascent, the everyday realities and developments that belie the peacefully rising party line, for nearly a year-and-a-half.

Full disclosure: Giving you the benefit of the doubt, sensitive to the fact that a head of state or diplomat, for better or worse, symbolizes the nation he represents--that a diplomatic affront to a head of state is an affront to his or her country--we were one of the first media sites or blogs to criticize the Bush administration's inept handling of your recent White House visit and summit talks. Though we despise your regime, and said so at the time, we thought China deserved the formal state dinner it sought instead of the working lunch it received, complete with embarrassing gaffes and mishaps. As classically trained political realists, we wanted to give diplomacy every possible chance to succeed; the White House affair seemed to us like an engineered failure.

Back in April, you see, we still had slim hope that things could be turned around, that some way would somehow be found to persuade your government to turn away from supporting the world's leading rogues and avowed enemies of freedom. Before the summer of North Korean missile launches and Iranian proxy missile strikes, before the dramatically escalating nuclear madness that threatens to engulf the earth in catastrophic conflict, we had hope.

It seems that we were wrong, Hu. We're nowadays tempted to argue that for you lunch at the White House--any visit to the White House--is inappropriate, given your policies and track record. In truth, your government wants and craves respect, but it is not respect-worthy. Not when you line up with the worst people on the planet--men like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, and Hugo Chavez--who openly plot America's destruction.

So don't be surprised if in the coming weeks and months, more and more Americans and their elected representatives join in solidarity to ask: Which side are you on, Hu? Really, Hu, which side?

You might try reading the lyrics published below for inspiration. It's the sort of song that makes us proud to be American, determined to defend democracy, hopeful that one day, even your seemingly solid regime shall ... in the words of another activist anthem ... be removed.

Which Side Are You On?
by Florence Reese

Come all of you good workers
Good news to you I'll tell
Of how that good old union
Has come in here to dwell

(Chorus)
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

My daddy was a miner
And I'm a miner's son
And I'll stick with the union
Till every battle's won

They say in Harlan County
There are no neutrals there
You'll either be a union man
Or a thug for J.H. Blair

Oh, workers can you stand it?
Oh, tell me how you can
Will you be a lousy scab
Or will you be a man?

Don't scab for the bosses
Don't listen to their lies
Us poor folks haven't got a chance
Unless we organize

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"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."
-George Orwell (attributed--if he did not say it, he should have)

No holiday for tyranny and terror.

In the United States, Friday saw the start of the long Labor Day weekend, which traditionally marks the end of America's summer vacation season.

It was some summer. Proxy rocket attacks by Islamist Iran on northern Israel and provocative rocket launchings by Stalinist North Korea ... Islamist mass murder in Mumbai ... and foiled Islamist mass murder in the sky ... Venezuela brazenly siding with Iran/Hezbollah, Hamas, and Syria ... and North Korea and Cuba ... while closing big energy deals with supposedly Peacefully Rising China ... Beijing and Moscow drawing closer, committed to blocking meaningful moves against Pyongyang and Tehran at the United Nations ... while the lunatic leaders of the rogue states dream of a world without America ... and Israel ... still the only democracy in the barbarous Middle East.

And everywhere, appeasement is in the air.

What will autumn bring?