Ghosts of Communism in Asia

Journalist Michael Totten considers the history of Vietnam.

3 Notes on Asia

One:  "Big Yellow Duck Creator Brings Giant White Rabbit to Taiwan"

Two: Starting a Letter with "Dear Kung Fu Panda ..." 

Three: Mooncake industry eclipsed by Chinese corruption crackdown 

HE SAID XI SAID: Dangerous Brinkmanship in China’s Air Defense Zone

OK, I admit it: I first decided to link this story because I thought the headline was so clever.  Still, we would do well to keep an eye on the increasingly tense jockeying for position in East Asia:

Ships belonging to the various players in Asia’s game of thrones have been menacing, tailing, and ramming one another in the seas around China ... Now, things have taken an even more dangerous turn: China and Japan have started to do the same with aircraft.

Golden Eagles Are A Girl's Best Friend

Diamonds, schmiamonds!

PSA: Godwin's Law Does Apply Internationally

In this spat between the Philippines and China, the Filipinos went Godwin first.

Quote of the Day: China's Anti-Japanese Agitprop

Hmmm:

"The CCP may not want a conflict with Japan, but it's been telling Chinese youth for 20+ years that Japan is greatly responsible for the '100 years of humiliation.' So now the CCP is stuck; they have to be tough on Japan—even if they don't want to be—because their citizens demand it. The CCP has created an anti-Japanese frankenstein at home that has to be placated. They have to ride the anti-Japanese tiger their education/propaganda has created, or risk a domestic backlash."

Life Imitates Star Trek in the South China Sea

Expansionist China tells its neighbors that resistance is futile.

High Noon in the Himalayas: the China-India Faceoff

Not good.

Philippines and Japanese Rearmament

WWII history or not, Manila appears to be absolutely fine with the idea.  Everybody's interested in counterbalancing China. Remember this?  WWII was 60+ years ago.  Manila is worrying about right now.

Free Advice: Hey, Beijing, Bullying Is Not a Foreign Policy

In terms of looking at China's foreign policy, consider these also the quotes of the day:

“Chinese assertion has backfired,” says Andrew Carr, an expert on Asia-Pacific security at the Australian National University in Canberra.

“They don’t see the connection between upping the tempo on the maritime operations and the fact that so many countries in the region are moving towards the very counter-containment strategies Beijing doesn’t want,” says Michael Green, former Asia director at the National Security Council ...

Seriously, what do you say about a course of action that makes Japanese rearmament look great even to Japan's neighbors?

Is the Chinese Communist Party Doomed?

Professor Minxin Pei has a question: Is the CCP doomed?  It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.  Still, here's a thought - change or die:

The answer to the question of how a one-party regime can manage its own political transformation to save itself is more interesting and complicated. 

Essentially, there are two paths for such regimes: the Soviet route to certain self-destruction, and the Taiwan-Mexican route to self-renewal and transformation.

Hong Kong: Less Corruption Under British Rule?

Well, DUH.

Weird "Analysis" of the Day on the US and China

I haven't time to go into this at length, so I'll just post it  and see what you have to say about this author who says (a) war between the US and China is "inevitable," and (b) it'll be all our fault.

(OK, I will say this: it takes two to tango, pal.  The guy even admits that China's the one who refuses to back down. His sensationalist analysis is full of holes. Hey, wanna say something about China's cyberwar on everybody? Its reach into Africa for resources? Its ... Oh, never mind. I won't even bother with his mangling of Asian history.)  

A while back, Harvard prof Niall Ferguson did say something about the rivalry between the US and China, but Ferguson's take is a bit more ... measured.  I on reflex dislike "analyses" that use words like "inevitable." Frankly, if I were you, I'd pay some real attention to how other Asian nations are responding to China; see Japan, for instance.  You want real analysis about security issues and notes on China and the Pacific region?  Read Dignified Rant.

China: Not Very Neighborly?

Here's a thought:

A quick tour of China's borders suggests friction with the United States is a symptom, not a cause. China faces numerous troubles with its neighbors — many of the problems exacerbated by Beijing's muscle-flexing and claims of regional hegemony.

South Korea Condemns North Korea Over Torpedo Attack

Things heat up on the Korean peninsula. More from Dignified Rant.

Race, Ethnicity, and Identity Politics in South Korea

Here's a little lesson for all the bubbleheaded multiculturalists who haven't an actual clue about other peoples and nations. I've run into plenty of folks who don't know anything about "Asia" other than the it's "cool and exotic." Things are way more complicated than that.

Here's a case study of identity politics in South Korea, where mixed-blood children are facing some problems fitting into Korean society. And by "mixed-blood" I'm talking about, for instance, half-Korean/half-Vietnamese.

OK, to be perfectly frank here: there is a perceived social-ethnic-regional hierarchy in Asia. I'll just leave it at that before I offend even more people by telling you what groups (and groups-within-groups) rank where. Some groups are very hostile to "outsiders," and sometimes the racism/ethnic-ism can be pretty vicious. The most cursory glance at history will tell you that the continent is soaked with yellow-on-yellow violence (where shades of yellow, actual and metaphorical, matter). At other times, the prejudices are less blatant but still present in different degrees, such as whispers ("She married a . . . Malay" ) and glances and things like "My folks would rather me marry a white guy before a Japanese." There was a kerfuffle some years ago when a family acquaintance married someone with an aboriginal background, for instance.

And in case you're wondering: yes, we can tell. This seems to baffle a lot of non-Asians. "He's Japanese. She's Korean. He's Vietnamese. She's Filipino." "You mean you can tell just by looking?" "Well, yeah. You mean you can't?" An addendum: this is more easily done in Asia itself. In the States, sometimes it's a bit harder to tell on sight. In the case of half-Asian/half-Caucasian people, I for one can't tell what the Asian half is.

OK, I'll say it before someone else does. The old joke is basically, "All you guys kind of look alike." *Sigh.*

Quirky Asia Files: Awesome Asian Airports

According to a new survey, Seoul, South Korea, has the world's best airport.

Out of the world's top 10 airports, 6 are in Asia! I give you the top 3:

1. Seoul, South Korea
2. Hong Kong
3. Singapore

Number 4 and the first non-Asian hub on the list is Zurich, which is ranked the best in Europe.

The best North American airport, FYI, is Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas.

Congratulations to all the great airports! Now, for a little humor, I give your the Onion's fake Franz Kafka International Airport. (Its nearest real-life cousin is, I think, the horrendously awful London Heathrow -- from hell's heart I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee! Or not.)

Taiwan: More on the Recession

OK, things are pretty bad in terms of the US economy. Nevertheless, in the grand global scheme of things, things are worse just about everywhere else. Look at Europe . . . and look at the imploding economies of Asia (check out Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and miserable Japan).

I posted previously about Taiwan's economic woes, and the latest set of numbers aren't too good. The unemployment rate is the highest it's been in 6.5 years, and the Taiwan dollar is the lowest it's been in that same timeframe. The exchange rate is now $1 US = $35 Taiwan.

Silver lining in the cloud? I can get more bang for my American buck in Taiwan . . . but I actually can't afford to go back there this summer (in terms both of time and money), so I guess I'm STILL all out of luck.

Oh, I'm depressed! You too? How about a cute pink baby dolphin to cheer us up?

A History Lesson and Nerd Analysis: Japan's Economic Stimulus Attempt of the 1990s

This is from the New York Times. I blurb for thee, O reader, and as usual, I highlight the bits that caught my eye:

Japan’s rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

. . . “It is not enough just to hire workers to dig holes and then fill them in again,” said Toshihiro Ihori, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo. “One lesson from Japan is that public works get the best results when they create something useful for the future.”

In total, Japan spent $6.3 trillion on construction-related public investment between 1991 and September of last year, according to the Cabinet Office. The spending peaked in 1995 and remained high until the early 2000s, when it was cut amid growing concerns about ballooning budget deficits. More recently, the governing Liberal Democratic Party has increased spending again to revive the economy and the party’s own flagging popularity.

In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan’s Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations.

In the United States, it has also led to calls in Congress, particularly by Republicans, not to repeat the errors of Japan’s failed economic stimulus. They argue that it makes more sense to cut taxes, and let people decide how to spend their own money, than for the government to decide how to invest public funds. Japan put more emphasis on increased spending than tax cuts during its slump, but ultimately did reduce consumption taxes to encourage consumer spending as well.

Economists tend to divide into two camps on the question of Japan’s infrastructure spending: those, many of them Americans like Mr. Geithner, who think it did not go far enough; and those, many of them Japanese, who think it was a colossal waste.

Among ordinary Japanese, the spending is widely disparaged for having turned the nation into a public-works-based welfare state and making regional economies dependent on Tokyo for jobs. Much of the blame has fallen on the Liberal Democratic Party, which has long used government spending to grease rural vote-buying machines that help keep the party in power.

. . . Most Japanese economists have tended to take a bleaker view of their nation’s track record, saying that Japan spent more than enough money, but wasted too much of it on roads to nowhere and other unneeded projects.

Dr. Ihori of the University of Tokyo did a survey of public works in the 1990s, concluding that the spending created almost no additional economic growth. Instead of spreading beneficial ripple effects across the economy, he found that the spending actually led to declines in business investment by driving out private investors. He also said job creation was too narrowly focused in the construction industry in rural areas to give much benefit to the overall economy.

He agreed with other critics that the 1990s stimulus failed because too much of it went to roads and bridges, overbuilding this already heavily developed nation. Critics also said decisions on how to spend the money were made behind closed doors by bureaucrats, politicians and the construction industry, and often reflected political considerations more than economic.

Interesting. Very interesting indeed. That last bit about people jockeying for a piece of the political money pie is just too true -- even as here we're watching various and sundry jockeying and lobbying for a piece of yummy Paulson TARP Pie. Instead of Shoofly Pie, we should call it Shoolobbyist Pie.

Of course, I have to give you the usual caveat to take all comparisons with caution since the situations being compared are nevr precisely the same. Even so, I do find it utterly fascinating how many Japanese economists are pessimistic about the entire stimulus scheme, even as various foreign ones seem to think it wasn't SO bad. Hm, it's the Japanese who have to live with the consequences, no?

Chinese New Year: A Photo Gallery

Via Tigerhawk comes the link to this delightful photo gallery of Chinese New Year photos from all around Asia.

Happy Year of the Ox! (And that's no bull.)