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BACKGROUND BOOKS:
- JIWEI CI, THE DIALECTIC OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION: FROM UTOPIANISM TO HEDONISM
- ETHAN GUTMANN, LOSING THE NEW CHINA: A STORY OF AMERICAN COMMERCE, DESIRE AND BETRAYAL
- REINHARD DRIFTE, JAPAN'S SECURITY RELATIONS WITH CHINA
When the safety valve blows
The riots in China highlight the dangers of using nationalism as an outlet for growing popular frustration
Isabel Hilton
Friday April 15, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1460245,00.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
The student demonstrators set off from Haidian, the university quarter of Beijing. They chanted anti-Japanese slogans and handed out leaflets to the crowd. Onlookers were moved to join them, and when the demonstration turned violent, the students were treated as nationalist heroes.
The year was 1919, the occasion the discovery that, under a secret agreement with the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, the former German concessions in China would not revert to Beijing but be handed to Japan. Last weekend, students set off again from Haidian shouting anti-Japanese slogans. The demonstration ended with a violent attack on the Japanese embassy. Anti-Japanese resentment spilled over the next day into the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and in Shanghai two Japanese students were beaten up. The rising tensions of east Asia have spilled on to the streets.
There is a direct historical line between the students of 1919 and those of last weekend. In 1919, China was weak and humiliated, Japan an ascendant power that would soon invade and brutally occupy much of China. After Japan's defeat in 1945 there was no apology for the appalling slaughter of civilians in Nanjing, the germ warfare experiments or the sexual crimes against Chinese women. Japanese textbooks have continued to give a partial and one-sided account, but China - no saint when it comes to historical accuracy - did not protest. Under Mao, the history of the relationship was papered over in a show of friendship.
If the resentment is now back on the streets, it is because China's rise is shifting the geopolitical tectonic plates, offering a direct challenge to Japan's economic dominance of east Asia and to the strategic dominance the US has enjoyed, with its major ally Japan, since 1945. In the East China Sea, China and Japan have been facing each other off over fossil fuel reserves in 14,000 square miles of disputed waters. China has been drilling for gas in an area that Japan claims, and this week Japan announced to Chinese protests that it would license oil and gas drilling in the same waters.
Then there is the military dimension: the rapid modernisation of China's armed forces means that the long-standing judgment that China could not mount a successful invasion of Taiwan is no longer a reliable guide to the future. The US is bound by treaty to defend Taiwan and could once rely on the moral support of the region. But as the US loses influence, Japan is increasingly exposed as its most reliable military ally- one that the US is encouraging to develop a more robust military profile.
In the longer game of influence, China is gaining ground. While the Bush administration has been preoccupied with Iraq, China has been steadily expanding its clout in Asia. In Australia, South Korea and Thailand it is the dominant economic and strategic partner, and is securing its own trading relationships by building networks in which it will be central - the Boao Forum, for instance, is the Chinese answer to Davos but the invitees are overwhelmingly Asian. Beijing is the moving spirit behind the first east Asian summit, scheduled for Kuala Lumpur later this year. The US is not included. It is an influence that China will certainly use in the future. The proposition, for instance, that Japan be given a permanent seat on the UN security council has been greeted with thinly disguised scorn by China.
But there is a paradox in this jostling for position. If China, Japan and the US are competing for predominance, it is also true that each is dependent on the others to a degree unprecedented in history. Last year, Japan overtook the US as China's biggest trade partner. China needs the huge volumes of machinery and technology that are imported from Japan to feed industrial expansion. Japan needs the high levels of trade with China to keep its economy out of recession. China needs the US markets to feed its export-led boom, and the US is dependent on Beijing continuing to buy and hold Washington's mounting foreign debt. Major conflict would be serious for all three.
Why then, did China ratchet up the tension with last weekend's government-sponsored demonstration in Beijing? One answer lies in China's achilles heel - its internal weakness. Nationalism is the last shred of Maoist ideology for a ruling party that has abandoned its socialist roots. Since the party allows no political challenge, nationalism is also the only safe political outlet for new generations. To divert the political frustration of young Chinese on to Japan may seem like a safety valve for a ruling group nervous of the growing political frustrations of its population.
But it is a dangerous strategy, as subsequent events demonstrated. Rage lies just below the surface in China - a rage that breaks out in daily unreported incidents as disaffected citizens forcibly complain about their lot. The example of one government-sanctioned demonstration inspires others to try their luck. Before you know it, other resentments have exploded and the cities are restless. China can shut off the diplomatic provocation to Japan at will. Far more difficult is to shut off popular discontent.
isabel.hilton@guardian.co.uk
Chinese village protest turns into riot of thousands
Jonathan Watts in Jiangsu province, China
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1457243,00.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Reports that two elderly women were killed during a protest against factory pollution have sparked a bloody riot by thousands of villagers in eastern China.
Several dozen police officers were injured, five seriously, during the clashes in Huankantou village, Zhejiang province, on Sunday. It was the latest of several recent violent demonstrations, of a kind that poses an increasingly serious threat to China's stability.
The two protesters were said to have been killed when officials tried to disperse 200 elderly women who had kept a two-week vigil outside a chemical factory that they blamed for ruined crops and deformities in new-born babies.
Witnesses claimed that police and construction officials from the Dongyang city government were reckless in their attempt to pull down the demonstrators' bamboo shelters and arrest the women.
"They were run over by police cars," one villager told Reuters.
The Dongyang government denies that anyone was killed, saying that was a rumour spread by people with "ulterior motives".
But it acknowledged a rampage by a huge mob of villagers who smashed their way into a school where the police and officials were holed up.
"They were attacked with rocks, cudgels and choppers by thousands of people and more than 30 were hurt and taken to hospital, five in serious condition," a city statement said.
In an attempt to restore order, 3,000 riot police officers were dispatched to the area later in the day. Villagers smashed the windows of 50 of their buses before the police regained control with teargas, clubs and shields.
"People were throwing rocks ... it was chaotic and many people got injured," a witness told Agence France Press.
The authorities imposed a news blackout and journalists trying to enter the area were detained by the police.
The elderly women at the centre of the disturbance were opposed to a plan to build a second chemical factory at the Huashi industrial estate. Their banner read: "Give me back my land. Save my children and grandchildren."
Violent demonstrations are becoming increasingly hard to suppress in a country where economic growth has exacerbated frustration at corruption, environmental destruction and the growing gap between rich and poor.
Government statistics say the number of protests grew by 15% last year to 58,000, with more than 3 million people taking part. In many provincial capitals, roadblocks occur more than once a week. Over the weekend, anti-Japanese demonstrators held rallies in three cities, including Beijing where the windows of the Japanese embassy were smashed.
Last November, at least one person died when tens of thousands of farmers in Sichuan marched against a dam project that will make 100,000 people homeless; and the month before, rioters in Chongqing burned police cars after rumours of corruption.
The Most Important Thing You Don't Know About "Peak Oil"
By Steven Lagavulin
March 16, 2005
http://deconsumption.typepad.com/deconsumption/2005/03/the_most_import.html
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
"When nothing happens for a long time, people begin to assume that nothing ever happens. But, sooner or later, something always happens." -- Steven Lagavulin
There's an aspect to the concept of "Peak Oil" which I don't believe is sufficiently grasped by people following the subject. It's the understanding that the most dangerous aspect we face is not really the state of the resource itself--the actual "Peak" dates or depletion rates, or any of the physical realities of oil supply/demand--but rather the reaction in the oil markets upon realization that the issue no longer even important.
For instance, a few days ago I referenced the article GlobalCorp, because I felt Michael C. Ruppert did a fantastic job 'connecting the dots' of world/political events occurring over just the past few months. What he showed is that, regardless of whether Peak Oil has any reality to it or not, what is important now is that the powers of the world are absolutely steering the course of the planet by this star. As such, the events now destined to unfold over just the next year or so are acquiring a momentum of their own, setting us on an intractable course of global conflict and warfare. This is the reality, as I see it, of what is happening right now, regardless of when any theoretical "Peak Year" may have been reached.
Should the oil markets themselves begin to 'connect these dots', then all our lives are going to be impacted violently and immediately. The commodity traders for various interested firms live solely by anticipating conditions and events, not by debating them and verifying them. The old mantra is, you "buy the rumor, sell the news". This is the reason you'll never see "Peak Oil" covered by a respected media outlet. Because as soon as it is recognized that for all practical purposes the situation is already upon us, then a fast and vicious "resource grab" will be initiated. The price of oil in the markets will begin to rise dramatically. This will initiate a circular hedging / hording mentality in large end-users, governments, and multi-nationals. This will then have a myriad of devastating effects, but all average Joe Consumer is going to notice is that the price at the pump will experience a brief and dramatic blip upward, gas lines will form for a short time at the corner-stations, and then suddenly the corner gas-stations will go dry altogether...perhaps getting a few sporadic deliveries, but more likely simply for good. Gasoline will not be available to individual drivers, as precedence is given to heating oil, critical government and commercial uses, public transportation, transport of food and goods, etc. How the situation unfolds after that you can imagine just as well as I....
If this scenario sounds over-dramatic, keep in mind that what I'm talking about is a dawning recognition of something that many analysts have already come to realize: that the "oil grab" is in fact already on, that it's not a temporary 'bottleneck' or passing 'shock', and that the losers in this game will not survive. A global game of 'blind man's bluff' is underway, with all the players pleading ignorance of the issue for as long as possible so they can get their pieces in place...all the while anxiously watching for the first itchy-trigger finger that's going to set the whole thing off.
This is the reason I highlighted Michael Ruppert's last article. I believe that just as he is stating, the debate over "Peak Oil" itself is already over. It no longer matters whether it is proven or disproven, because there isn't time left to do either. Events in the world are revealing to us the only truth that matters: that a desperate resource war is emergent, one that will not be won by trade sanctions, blustering, or corporate bargaining. This is the only issue which should now be under scrutiny by those who strive to stay "ahead of the curve". No one questions why the U.S. is occupying the Middle-East: the Administration is there for the oil. But the true gravity of the situation is only scarcely beginning to come to light. The 'markets' have already accepted the long-term "bull market" in oil prices due to increasing demand. What they don't accept yet (or understand) is the mounting "supply" problem. When this begins to dawn on them, and it could absolutely happen as quickly as within the next few months, then seemingly overnight the world will start to come apart at the seams.
Keep in mind that we're not talking about the acceptance of oil depletion among the 'general public'; the individuals comprising 'the oil markets' are people who follow the industry intimately, and who know all the latest news and rumors. They know about (quote/unquote) "Peak Oil". What they have not quite done is to connect all the dots....
The world powers are positioning themselves for war. The war is over who can take the most oil. If you don't recognize this, then I urge you to read over Ruppert's article and get a sense for the types of events and stories which form the "dots" he has been connecting. Then begin paying close attention to world news (not "politics", but real events). Begin to discern what the various strategic actions being taken by the countries of the world indicate. Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe I've misread the situation. Verify everything for yourself.
I also want to very sincerely relate that I am not saying any of this to stir up fear or anxiety in anyone. In truth, nothing about the future can be known with certainty. What I am trying to do is to communicate my own recognition that the time for action is now upon us. We can no longer debate who's right and who's wrong. We can no longer hope for what the next election might bring. We can't assume that somehow a 'gradual transition' will be effected, because it is never going to happen that way. Certainly there will be efforts among the global powers to calm the markets in various ways...perhaps some of these will ameliorate matters. But ultimately, in our own lives, just as on the world stage, whomever does not act now will soon find they have already lost the game.
So what action should be taken? What can anyone do to confront the course of events? Sadly, I don't have the answers. But I am trying to work things out. I believe that the only hope of changing things is by building a consensus among people. This needs to happen very quickly, and it will only happen when people are no longer content to just grumble about things, comfortable in the assumption that nothing is going to happen...at least, not anytime soon...and certainly not today....
Also, those who secretly long for the coming collapse will be in for a shock. The initial oil shortage, when it does come, will certainly be a serious inconvenience, but the events which proceed after that are going to humble us all to the core.
Admittedly, I don't believe that any one of us can voluntarily change events of this magnitude...but I do think we have an obligation to live as though we can.
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When the safety valve blows