A Moral Blindness over the Syrian veto

Russia and China's veto on the UN resolution over Syria at the weekend has been roundly criticized in the West and there are some powerful reactions in the British Press this morning.

Writing in the Guardian,David Hearst says that for Russia and Putin,he says that:

The veto sets Russia on the opposite side of the table from the Arab League; it lifts the international responsibility for failing to staunch the blood flowing in cities like Homs off Barack Obama's shoulders, and assumes that burden itself. And if defecting Syrian soldiers are to be called "armed extremist groups", who exactly are the militias currently running Libya, whom Russia belatedly recognised as a legitimate authority? If Islamists are by their nature extremist, and in Putin's eyes they are, what does that make the elected transitional authority in Tunisia?

Meanwhile the Times' leader this morning calls the decision Moral Blindness

is a monstrous piece of hypocrisy. Both countries acted out of reflexive anti-Western motives. Both were concerned more to protect their interests and their clients than to exercise their global responsibilities for halting violence and maintaining peace. Both spouted inanities about non-interference in domestic affairs while knowingly giving carte blanche to the thugs in Damascus to continue the indiscriminate shelling of cities, the random shooting of civilians and the brutal torture of political opponents

Whilst in the FT,former cabinet minister Malcolm Rifkind and Shashank Joshi write that it is time to support the opposition in Syria

 The diplomatic route is now all but exhausted. Having staked so much on a lost cause, Russia will strive to avoid humiliation. On the other side, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are likely to deepen their co-operation with Turkey to bolster the Free Syrian Army and its notional political leadership. Those who oppose this, invoking the troubling experience of international assistance to the anti-Soviet mujahedeen, must ask themselves whether the status quo is any less likely to result in Syria’s dangerous disintegration.

Did you China has 56 nationalities

The Soviet Union made strenuous efforts to avoid this fate. It identified one hundred different nationalities, each of which on paper had the constitutional right to leave the Soviet Union; but sought to create the image of a happy socialist family in which all these national members were united by ideological belief in a higher, unifying goal. In reality, the "multinational family" was held captive by single-party rule, violent suppression and economic exploitation; not even autonomy was granted.

A warning to the Chinese comes from Li Datong writing over at Open Democracy

Signs of a shift in economic power

You wonder whether the warning by the Chinese to the Americans ovrer their debt levels may be the shape of things to come.

The Chinese demanded that the Obama administration "guarantee the safety" of its $1 trillion in American bonds worried about the spiralling US debt.

China is now the largest holder of American treasury bonds as has enormous leverage over the US economy whilst holding them.If it sold the cost of borrowing would rocket,hardly something that the Obama administration could deal with in the middle of a financial stimulus package.

However does this episode offer a taster of a seismic shift to the Far East and maybe a shot across the bows for the West ahead of G20?

Boris on why the walls aren't tumbling down

It is interesting to read the comments of Boris of the flag waving Boris Johnson in the Telegraph this morning.Recentlty returned from Beijing he writes that

Never in the millennia of the great city’s history has the Chinese capital been so open to foreign influence, for good or ill, and never has there been so dizzying a rate of change. On my supposedly censored hotel television, I had watched, the previous evening, an excellent BBC documentary about the massacre in this same Tiananmen Square

and whilst admitting that things are changing he places a barrier

The bourgeoisie of China shows plenty of interest in money, but not much in multi-party democracy and the joys of a free press. And there are cities in China with many millions of people, whose names you would barely recognise, where you would certainly not see Western joggers in the morning.
China is changing, but in some ways there are still walls against the influence of the West, ancient walls that seem to stretch on forever.

Bush should speak out about Darfur now

George Bush left China in no doubt about his attitude to the country's human rights record when he spoke in Bangkok on his way on the Olympic opening ceremonies.

The US believes the people of China deserve the fundamental liberty that is the natural right of all human beings

," and added

America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists,"

Will he though broach the subject of the Chinese influence in Sudan and in Zimbabwe.

With talk of reconciliation in the latter,it may be off the agenda but certainly not as regards Sudan.

As Time magazine points out

But Bush has made no mention of Darfur, or the Chinese record of arming the genocidal Sudanese regime there. Does this matter? Yes, because Bush himself said he would speak out and quotes him at the 2007 state of the union speech.

We will continue to speak out for the cause of freedom in places like Cuba, Belarus and Burma," Bush announced, "and continue to awaken the conscience of the world to save the people of Darfur."

Apocalyptic views from Beijing

Over at the First Post,with less than a week to go before the start of the Olympics,they consider seven ways in which the Games could go wrong.

Rather apocalyptic but here is the list

1.Huge Infrastructure breakdown

2.Athletes are poisoned by fumes

3.Chinese dissidents spoil the occasion by humiliating the government.

4 The Chinese team does a lot better than any other country

5.Journalists concentrate on other stories rather than the Olympics

6.The world recoils in horror at Chinese habits

7.Mass confusion over doping

Of the seven it may well be No2 that comes the closest to happening.Reports from the Chinese capital today show that the smog problem has not gone away and the authorities are considering moving some of the events away from the Chinese capital.

But the news from the Muslim region of Xinjiang is also worrying where 16 Chinese policeman are reported killed in an attack on a border post.

The region and its Uighur population has suffered at the hands of the central government which has suppressed local moves for autonomy.Earlier in the year 18 Uighurs were killed and a further 17 arrested during a raid on what the Chinese described as a "terrorist training camp" in the Pamir mountains.

The Chinese authorities have claimed that the region was planning terrorist attacks during the games.

The Chinese are hacking us

The Chinese are in our bad books this morning.

The Telegraph carries the story that

Chinese officials are suspected of secretly copying the contents of a US government laptop computer during a visit by Carlos Gutierrez, the American trade secretary.

the paper adds that

The Chinese cyberspies then allegedly tried to use the information to hack into US government computers.
The copying is believed to have occurred when a laptop was left unattended during Mr Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing for trade talks last December.

Meanwhile conspiracy theories abound (via Coffee House) that the Chinese were behind the New York blackout of 2003

The National Journal magazine claims

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

Should he or shouldn't he

Gordon Brown continues to dither over whether or not to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Britain in May.

The first post is reporting that the Prime Minister

is now expected to welcome the controversial Tibetan leader to Downing Street - but only if the current violence in Tibet has died down

.

Brown does of course face a political dilemma coming so soon after his visit to China to foster good economic relations earlier in the year.But what of the government's ethical foriegn policy?

The Chinese are not going to be happy,the same report tells of David Cameron suggesting that he will meet with the spiritual leader,

When Cameron told the Chinese ambassador, Fu Ying, that he intended to meet the Dalai Lama, "She threw a hissy fit," according to a Conservative shadow minister. "It was made pretty clear to David that it would be regarded as highly unhelpful."

Liberal leader Nick Clegg has written to the Prime Minister urging a meeting,

"I have always been a staunch supporter of the rights of the Tibetan people which have been trampled on for far too long by the authorities in Beijing.
"That is why I will be meeting the Dalai Lama when he comes to London in May and I have written to Gordon Brown to urge him to do the same.
"Given the worrying reports of protests and violence in Tibet the Prime Minister must urgently confirm that he will meet with and listen to the Dalai Lama and make the strongest possible representations to the Chinese Government.
"The Chinese government must understand that with the privilege of hosting the Olympic Games comes the responsibility of honouring the highest standards of human rights at home as well as abroad."

The free Tibet campaign have also written to the Prime Minister

with an urgent request that the UK government endorses the Dalai Lama’s call for UN observers to be dispatched immediately to Lhasa. Whilst we appreciate the calls you have already made for restraint, much more action is now needed.