Forum: Are China And The US Headed For War?

Every Monday, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question: Are China And The US Headed For War?

Jeffrey Avalon Friedberg: War?

No.

One thing China is not: is stupid.

China can do much better on its Long March by simply stripping Earth away from the Americans, one sliver at a time, piece by piece, bit by bit.

They can do this in terms of physically taking things, such as our technology, American real estate, or by extending influence, as in Latin America, and actually being welcomed in.

Then, one day, poof! They are the majority—at a pinnacle of the majors—and are in control.

In this non-nuclear manner they can preserve a lot of real estate and personnel. I mean—none of the Chinese leaders want to live underground or in a nuclear cook-oven, am I right?

Right.

In the interim—there’s no rush. And it’s just a game. When the time comes, they can win. And nobody—like maybe the Rooskies—will be able to step in and take over the hand they are playing.

In a nuclear war with the USA they will be degraded militarily, financially, and morally, to a point where they will probably be overthrown by a sea of people who just want to eat....

...And who want to have some fun in life and living.

Rob Miller: To answer this question properly, it's helpful to know something about Chinese history and culture.

China has always been more concerned with keeping the quong fai (foreign devils) out then in expanding it's own territory. That's what the Great Wall was all about. Like Japan, China essentially was a closed society for centuries.

In the 1400s, China had the greatest seagoing fleet in the world, up to 3,500 ships at its peak.  Some of them were five times the size of the ships being built in Europe at the time. But by 1525, all of China's "Treasure Fleet" ships had been destroyed -- burned in their docks or left to rot by the government as the Ming Dynasty entered a 200-year-long period of isolationist slumber.

That ended with the Opium wars of the mid-nineteenth century, referred to quite accurately by the Chinese as 'the years of humiliation. Essentially, the Chinese wanted the very lucrative opium trade the British enjoyed stopped. The British actually went to war in 1839 to force the Chinese to keep importing this poison, and ended up with China ceding the Hong Kong island to Britain as well as 'treaty ports' at Shanghai, Canton, Ningpo (Ningbo), Foochow (Fuzhou), and Amoy. France secured concessions on the same terms as the British, in treaties of 1843 and 1844.

The second Opium War, fought from 1856–1860 actually increased the concessions to Britain and other European countries as well as the amount of the trade in opium. Russia also seized Chinese territory. And the hideous invasion of China by Japan was a major disaster. Aside from the loss of territory, the Japanese committed major atrocities.An untold number of Chinese civilians were literally murdered, whole cities were destroyed, thousands of Chinese young women (as well as Koreans and Filipinas) were kidnapped and forced into prostitution as 'comfort girls' for the Japanese military, and bizarre 'experiments' on human beings were conducted, especially in Manchuria (Manchuko).

My point here is that all this emphasized something to the Chinese...that foreigners were not to be trusted, and neither were China's corrupt governments. Most Americans underestimate the enormous achievement of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in overcoming all this history and opening up China again.

I've been fascinated with Chinese culture for quite some time. In fact, I almost married a delightful Chinese girl who lived in Queens, the only woman I ever seriously considered marrying until I met my beloved. Among other things I learned from my Chinese girlfriend was how to play the Chinese game of Go. Understanding Go is a key to understanding how the Chinese think.

Western tactics are based on chess, which involves 'killing off' your opponent's power pieces, occupying territory on the board and surrounding the king to the point that any move the King makes results in the king's 'death.'

In Go, the idea is to not to occupy territory but to control access to territory, to make your opponent's 'soldiers' useless. There are no power pieces per se.

That's what the Chinese have been doing for some time, with trade agreements and lately, using a strategy of loans to both developing and developed countries like South Africa. It works like this...the Chinese loan money to these countries in exchange for trade concessions, with economically or strategically  beneficial resources as collateral. When the loans (which deliberately have terms very difficult for these countries to meet) are defaulted on, China gets control, sometimes with an additional loan as a sweetener. These are Go tactics.

Are the U.S. and China headed for war? Possible, but I doubt it.

For a quarter of a century, China enjoyed dealing with three of the worst U.S. presidents in history. The corrupt Bill Clinton, who the Chinese bought via a one million dollar loan after he lost the New Hampshire primary via his China connection, his  old friends and campaign donors the Riyadis. And
 then there was the Clueless George W. Bush, and the openly anti-American Barack Hussein Obama.
All of them allowed the Chinese as well as friendly American companies to export jobs wholesale to China while allowing cheap Chinese goods to flood the market. Both Clinton and Obama also cut back hugely on America's military. Clinton even  used heavy Democratic party donor and defense contractor Loral to funnel advanced military technology to the Chinese as fast as he could sign the paperwork. Most military analysts estimate that the Chinese made a Great Leap Forward of at least two decades in military technology during the eight years of Clinton's two terms.

A big part of the recent tension has to do with the fact that  the Chinese, having grown used to pushovers like this are now faces with an entirely different president in Donald J. Trump. The concept of intellectual piracy, copyrights and patents are foreign to the Chinese. They now have a president to deal with who insists on their honoring these precepts, and who is willing to use tariffs and even sanctions to change the unequal trade deals China has enjoyed for years.

What the Chinese are doing now, I think, is circling the wagons. Many of the armaments, like shore to ship missiles are designed to be defensive in nature, and it's worth remembering that China has only engaged in wars on their borders, in places like northern India, Tibet and North Korea. Even their new island fortresses in the China Sea could reasonably be seen as defensive in nature.

I see Xi's new role as emperor ( and I wouldn't call it anything else) and its more recent totalitarian conduct on the home front to be troubling signs, even something of a throwback to the bad old days of the Cultural Revolution, but not necessarily signs of upcoming hostilities. China needs the American market badly, a war would gain them nothing and might even result in domestic turbulence as jobs disappear and domestic supplies of staples increase in price.

Another sign is that Chinese with money have heavily invested here in America, especially in real estate. They understand that if their money's here, the Chinese government can't confiscate it. Remember what I wrote earlier about the basic Chinese skeptical attitude towards their government.

Don Surber:Red China and the USA are in a trade war and have been for 20 years. The Bushes and Clinton allowed Red China to steal technology, manipulate currency, and otherwise wreak havoc with trade.

The weasels who call this free trade are traitors. Let's look at the facts. For every $1 we sell in goods to China, we buy $4 worth of their goods. We are a thoroughbred running against a plow horse and losing because we are hobbled by environmental, labor, and other regulations.

Consider coal mining. The nation's coal mines recorded 15 deaths last year, including eight in West Virginia.

According to Xinhua, the number of deaths in 2017 in China's coal sector was 375.

We finally have a president who is a master of negotiating and an astute student of Sun Tzu. Scot Adams of Dilbert fame calls President Donald John Trump a wizard. Everything you know about President Trump through the media is a lie because he throws them off scent every step of the way.

The Chinese cannot fathom him. They are communists, a sheeplike people with great credentials but no intellectual curiosity. Their ideology requires a conformity that would be amusing if not for the deaths of tens of milions in the name of their religion. Muslims are nowhere near as bloody.

President Trump is an entrepreneur who thinks outside of the box. He lives to negotiate. He already has plucked the Korean Peninsula from Red China. Korea has been a protectorate of China going back 1,400 years although the Japanese held it from 1910 to 1945. (You could say World War II began before World War I.)

There is no doubt that Kim Jong Un is on our side. He is dismantling his nuke program. Compare how healthy and alert the last three hostages Kim gave us compared to the condition of Otto Warmbier. Something happened between June 2017 and May 2018 that turned Kim around. Just what, we can only guess at. Why, we know. President Trump flipped Kim, likely on a personal level as he did with Kanye West.

The answer to your question is yes, we are in a war -- a trade war - and we have turned the tide. Chairman Xi should surrender now while his economy is damaged but still alive.

Iran is on deck, and Russia needs to clean up its act.

Meanwhile, the European Union wants to cut a deal. Mexico is cutting a deal. Japan and South Korea have made their deals.

While he is doing all this, President Trump also has to deal with a witch hunt, work on immigration, and get his judges and justices confirmed.

He still finds time to golf on weekends.

Doug Hagin:Very doubtful. Not anytime soon anyway. And our currently having a strong president is a large deterrent to China. Another reason 2020 is so important.

David Schuler: here's more than one answer to that question. The first answer is that we've been at war with China for at least the last 20 years and maybe as long as the last 70 years. For the last several decades American companies, looking at a market of a billion prospective customers with dollars signs in their eyes, have convinced the politicians of both political parties that we're not. You need only look at the precipitous drop in U. S. manufacturing employment after the admission of China to the WTO, pictured below:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=kRPz

to recognize that as nothing short of economic warfare. Additionally, if you take the various pronouncements of Chinese officials on trade and foreign policy it is quite clear that they view them as zero-sum games, transactions with one winner and one loser.

The other answer is that we need not be headed for war with China. It would be a choice not an inevitability. If the Chinese leadership realized just how deadly war with the U. S. could be for them and everything and everybody they know, there would be no chance of war. But there are so many saber-rattlers on both sides of the relationship I think there is a genuine danger of war with China.

Laura Rambeau Lee: Yes, it appears China’s goal is to draw us into a war and we better be prepared. We are late in realizing just how great a threat China is to the west and the free world. We must secure our alliances and assure them we will be there to fight with them to oppose this existential threat. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

 Well, there it is!

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This Story Could Affect You More Than Anything You'll Read Today

 

The most important and far reaching story out there today is naturally the one you're not hearing about. And it has the potential to affect you personally a great deal more than 90% of what's in the headlines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored a major win.He has finally succeeded in making a large deal with China to supply the Chinese with natural gas and oil - in a non-dollar contract.

As part of the agreement, the Bank of China (BOC) just signed a non-dollar agreement with VTB, one of Russia’s largest commercial bank to allow VTB and BOC to pay each in their domestic currency, removing the need for energy trading to be conducted in US dollars and a big step towards undermining the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency, something that's been true since the post WWII Bretton-Woods Agreement.

Putin's deal with China was held up for a long time simply because of price haggling.Gazprom, Russia's nationally owned energy company is anticipating that its average export price on gas this year will be around $10.62 per million Btu. The Chinese will be getting it at a substantial discount, around $10 per million Btu. Since the gas China now imports from Myanmar and Central Asia costs the Chinese about $10.15 per million Btu,the deal makes sense for them. In fact, it makes so much sense for them that they're willing to invest an estimated $25 billion to finance infrastructure costs to take in the estimated 38 billion cubic meters per year the Chinese have contracted to import from Russia, 20% of Russia's total output.The pipelines involved are scheduled to be completed by 2018.

And they'll be dealing in rubles and renminbi, not dollars...which makes the deal sanctions-proof, gives Russia a badly needed dose of hard currency, and allows Putin to thumb his nose at any EU threats of finding other sources of energy as a result of the Situation in Ukraine. And when it goes through, it accomplishes something Putin has been working to accomplish for years, bypassing the U.S. dollar as the medium for energy trades.

How does this effect you? Let's look at what that last sentence really means.

Because the U.S. dollar is the medium in which energy trades are calculated, the price of these commodities is linked to the value of the dollar, and the oil producing countries in essence import our inflation...they simply raise their prices to cover it, which also affects the prices of other commodities they import, like foodstuffs and western manufactured goods. The secret behind our relationship with the Saudis and the Gulf Emirates is that for years, they have successfully fended off efforts by Russia, Venezuela and the Iranians to ditch this arrangement.

While it's not entirely ditched yet, this is a major breach, and a lot of other OPEC members and customers will probably gleefully walk through it, depending on the strength of their currency and their need to import energy.

Since the value of anything depends on demand, how much people want or need to own it, the potential loss of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency weakens the dollar. As this trend continues, the inflation we've been importing will now start to come home to roost as foreign manufactured items like the cheap goods we've learned to love made in China are going to cost more. So will food, and interest rates.

Your paycheck and your retirement dollars will not stretch as far either, your savings and 401Ks will be negatively impacted and travel will be likely more expensive than it already is.

This was probably inevitable, given the ridiculous policy of 'quantitative easing' and the huge amount of the $18 trillion debt and climbing President Obama and his team have run up. There's a part of me that thinks this might have been deliberate on the Obama Regime's part, seeking to weaken our currency deliberately to pay back these funds in cheaper dollar. No nation in history has ever managed it, and the ones that have tried did damage to their economy and their standard of living it took decades to recover from,if they were able to recover at all. Ask the Argentinians some time about how well that worked out for them.

Finally, if more countries abandon the dollar as a reserve currency, the U.S. will have lost a huge weapon, one we used successfully on al-Qaeda during the Bush Administration. No longer will we be able to say to foreign countries that if they do business with terrorist groups or a country we wish to impose sanctions on that U.S. banks will be barred from doing business with them,honoring letters of credit or handing their transactions.

That will still mean something because of the size of the American market, but nowhere near as much as it does with the dollar as the world's reserve currency. And losing that strategic weapon could affect Americans in a negative way in the future as well.

Spy Vs. Spy...US And China In Major Confrontation

China has summoned U.S. Ambassador Max Baucus ( you remember, the guy who admitted in his confirmation hearings he didn't know much about China) over criminal charges the U.S. government filed against five Chinese military officers, accusing them of hacking into American nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade secrets.

Formally 'summoning' the ambassador of a foreign country is a fairly serious diplomatic step, signifying major displeasure and designed as a message to the diplomat's country that all is definitely not well.

The fact that Baucus was summoned by the assistant foreign minister, Zheng Zeguang rather than the foreign minister Wang Yi is another message from the face conscious Chinese:

Zheng "protested" the actions by the United States, saying the indictment had seriously harmed relations between both countries, the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website.

Zheng told Baucus that depending on the development of the situation, China "will take further action on the so-called charges by the United States".

It was the first criminal hacking charge that the United States has filed against specific foreign officials, and follows a steady increase in public criticism and private confrontation, including at a summit last year between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Zheng also accused the United States of being 'overbearing' and 'hypocritical', which is probably a pretty fair statement given what's come out about the Obama Administration's spying on other nations and even world leaders as well as its own citizens.

China's defense ministry also followed up with a fairly blunt statement denying the accusations and demanding that the charges be dropped.

China has also made its displeasure felt by suspending its cooperation with a joint group working on cyber-security.

The reality is that this was yet another abysmally stupid move by the Obama Administration, although at least no one appears to have gotten killed because of it - yet.

Is China spying on the U.S.? Undoubtedly. Are we spying on them? Of course we are. Great powers, even allies let alone enemies have used spies in all likelihood since the tribal days of the old Stone Age.
It's simply how things have been done for thousands of years.

The normal procedure for most nations when such spies are found out is simply to expel them from the country if they're foreigners or try them under espionage laws if they're citizens of the host country. And it happens all the time, under the euphemism of this or that military attache or diplomat being 'reassigned' or declared 'persona non grata' for whatever reason, or simply by having a foreign national's visa revoked.

Criminal charges, especially against foreign nationals of a nation we're not at war with, who are not in U.S. custody and whom China is certainly not going to extradite is an amateur and futile move that simply ratchets up tension for no good reason. It's especially a bad move when thanks to the debt the Obama Administration has racked up in 5 years, China now holds $1.27 trillion of our U.S. Treasury bonds and is our biggest foreign creditor.

Perhaps someone in the Obama regime will realize how stupid and futile this is and it will be allowed to fade away. One can always hope.

Malaysian PM: "Flight 370 Crashed With No Survivors" ( And What They're Not Telling You)

 

Today, Malaya's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced in a press conference today that said that he was briefed by Britain's Air Accident Investigations Branch on data from Inmarsat, the satellite company that provided data used in the search for the missing plane. It showed that Flight 370's last position was in the Indian Ocean, due west of Perth, Australia.

"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites,'' Mr. Najib said. "It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, Flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

A text from the airline to the victim's families put it this way: “We deeply regret that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH370 has been lost and that none of those on board have survived.”

Given the fuel capacity, the chances are that they're correct, although as yet no wreckage or debris has been found. And, as Prime Minister Razak himself said, there are still numerous questions about what happened.

The one thing that's clear is how little we know, but that's largely because we're looking not at the facts we know for sure and how they might fit together.

I recently received an e-mail from one of my sources that, combined with a few other known facts, gives us a fairly plausible line of inquiry to follow.

That this was an attempted hijacking of some sort is pretty obvious by now. As I wrote previously, For a modern airliner to simply disappear like this is almost unheard of, because of the modern tracking technology involved. Aside from the routine radar and satellite tracking, every airliner contains a flight recorder and a transponder which emit electronic signals, as well as an emergency location beacon, a highly durable electronic signaling device to enable an airliner to be quickly located if something unexpected occurs.

Apparently, the transponder which identifies the flight and provides heading and altitude data was deliberately switched off shortly after that last known last radio contact with the jet, when co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid said "all right, good night," to air traffic controllers.

This is totally against procedure. Someone did it for a reason, and that person had to have been in the cockpit at that exact time, which means it was either co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid, the pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah or an unknown third party.

Not only that, but later on, someone in the cockpit turned off the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). This system sends out electronic pings to satellites and continued to do so after Flight 370 disappeared from the air traffic controller's radar. That's how we know the plane changed course and headed west. If it wasn't turned off, it would have continued to send out signals no matter where the plane was - in the air or on the ground. The last contact came from Thai military radar at 2:15 AM local time.

There are also other signals, from the radar altimeter and weather radar. These could also have been disabled, but a prudent pilot wouldn't have done so, first because they came in handy in certain situations and second because while they send out signals, they're difficult to distinguish from other planes if Flight 370 was on established commercial flight paths. Think of a bunch of cars on the highway at night. They all have their headlights on, but it's hard to pick out an individual auto on a highway, as opposed to one car on a small street at night. There's also the fact that various governments might not want to necessarily reveal any signals they got from these sources because it could reveal their electronic intel collection methods.

My friend Sara Noble over at the Independent Sentinel has a piece worth reading that draws on a story from the UK Independent that the plane slipped under Pakistani radar and is sitting somewhere under Taliban control, covered by radar-absorbent camouflage netting. It could be, although a 777-200 requires a runway length of 3,300 to 5,000 feet or so (1,000 to 1,500 meters) at least to land under most conditions. That's between over half a mile and almost a mile in length, and a decent landing field that covert might have been hard to find but not impossible - unless the Taliban either had help or we're not talking about the Taliban at all. Or even a landing, since as I originally thought, Flight 370 succumbed to a 'work accident' and crashed en route to wherever it was headed.

So let's take this to the next step. Who might have wanted to hijack this particular Boeing 777-200? And why?

While the use of Flight 370 as a terrorist weapon is certainly possible, 9/11 showed that it was just as easy to hijack a plane filled with highly combustible jet fuel, smash it into something and cause a great deal of damage and death. So I rate the motive of hijacking the plane for use as a flying bomb unlikely. Moreover, if the plane did land and is being converted into a terrorist weapon, it might not make it to target since every military in the region is watching for it and the minute it surfaces it will likely attract something like a HellFire missile fairly quickly.

So let's look further at what other reason there might have been to hijack Flight 370,and who might have been involved.

We know that this plane was originally bound for China and was loaded with Chinese nationals.We also know that the pilot (and possibly the co-pilot) were fanatic devotees of Anwar Ibrahim, a hard line Islamist with major ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and who was endorsed when he ran for prime minister in Malaysia by none other than Brotherhood leader Sheikh Youseff Qaradawi. Ibrahim lost the election and was later jailed for 5 years for sodomizing one of his aides (homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia) which infuriated his supporters.

I've already said why I believe  hijacking Flight 370 for use as a 'flying bomb' is unlikely. The only way that could have happened is with Pakistan's connivance (the idea of a Boeing 777-200 'slipping under Pakistani radar' is ridiculous), which is certainly possible if somewhat unlikely. But if the plane wasn't hijacked for use as a terrorist bomb, what was the motive for doing it?

Again, remember that Flight 370's passengers were primarily Chinese.

Most of you will be unaware of the low level jihad being waged in Western China by the Uighers, Chinese Muslims who  seek to establish a sharia state  and who have committed a number of terrorist attacks against Han Chinese nationals.

Given the Islamist orientation of the pilot and co-pilot, I feel fairly certain that the idea here was to fly to Pakistan and ransom the plane and the passengers to China for cash, either to support the Uigher jihad or other Islamist causes. The ransom demanded could easily have been in the tens of millions.

What ultimately happened to Flight 370? Pure speculation on my part, but when the truth comes out if it ever does, I think we'll find that one of these scenarios occurred:

(A) The plane was unable to land as planned and crashed where the authorities are saying it did or somewhere else,either from lack of fuel or from a 'work accident' in midair.

(B) The plane landed successfully, the ransom demands were submitted and the Chinese refused to deal. So the plane was destroyed and the passengers killed, either on the ground or in the air.

(C) The announcement of the crash was a hoax designed to take the spotlight off this story, because ransom negotiations are continuing.

If scenarios B or C are the way things went down, the motivation of the authorities to simply treat this as a mysterious crash and move on are obvious.

My thanks to the Warlord for providing a needed missing piece here.

Michelle Obama And Her Entourage Living It Up In China - On Your Money

As you may know, First Lady Michelle Obama is in China on yet another vacation paid for by the American tax payers.

The First Lady, her mother, and her daughters are staying in the presidential suite at the Westin Beijing Chaoyang, a 3,445-square-foot suite designed with the ultimate luxury in mind that costs a whopping $8,350 a night.

 

Ah, but that's just for the Obamas. An assortment of her retainers and Chicago and DC hangers on have additional rooms in the hotel, and the Secret Service and lower level help have an entire floor booked.

Mrs. Obama's previous luxury romp in Spain cost close to half a million of your tax dollars, and according to the UK Daily Mail, Judicial Watch reports that it cost more than $11 million for President and Mrs. Obama to travel to Africa for Nelson Mandela's memorial service in December, where the president and his wife and their entourage were in Africa for less than 13 hours. This week-long China trip will come with a heavy tab, what with the increased flying time to Beijing, the five star accommodations and meals and all the additional security.The entire spectacle amounts to over 70 people getting a luxury trip to China on the American taxpayers for what is essentially a tourist excursion with no official business involved at all - yet it's being billed as an 'official trip.'

Yep, real warriors for the middle class! There's a quaint expression that comes to mind here, but I digress.

The Ultimate Scam - A Year's Worth Of Free Food And Drink For The Price Of An Airline Ticket

 

I have to admit, the sheer ingenuity of this tickled me.

A Chinese man successfully used a single First Class plane ticket to eat and drink for free for a year.

His strategy? Ridiculously simple....book, eat and repeat.

Once he found out that the voucher on his first class ticket entitled him to partake in the VIP amenities at China’s Xi’an Airport which included a free meal at the lounge, he simply flashed the ticket, feasted on dishes which included a full buffet and ”Western food”. And then, instead of leaving through the gate,he just re-booked his flight for the next day!

According to the newspaper, staff members from China Eastern Airlines finally realized that the itinerary for one ticket had been postponed hundreds of times. So they began to investigate.

But once our friend realized that the game was over, he simply canceled his ticket, got a full refund, and left.

The airline told the media the company had no way to stop such a “rare act.”

Nor was there really anything they could do, really. The man was a First class ticket holder, really and he was entitled to eat at the VIP lounge..and there's really no way to prove that he changed his flight over 300 times just to chow down at China Eastern Airlines' expense.

So what we have here is the perfect crime, a year's worth of free food and drink that cost nothing except the price of a First Class airplane ticket..which was cashed in for a full refund!

I'm going to have to avoid using the old cliche about there being no such thing as a free lunch.

Obama's New Pick For Ambassador - "I'm No Real Expert On China"

'But,on the other hand, I'm a well connected Democrat senator who's retiring and knows where a few bodies are buried, so....'

Unbelievable, even in the amateur hour that is our current White House.

One of the most important ambassadorships in the world, and they want to send appoint someone with no diplomatic experience whatsoever, whose knowledge of foreign policy in general is not his strong point and who admits he knows nothing about China, where he's supposed to negotiate with the Chinese and represent our interest.

Not only is this rank stupidity, but it's an open insult to the flag and the people of the United States by the current occupant of the Oval Office.

And what's even worse is that as a member of the senatorial club, he's almost sure to be confirmed, just like Chuck Hagel was.

China's Newest City: Detroit?

 

A federal judge has ruled that Detroit's bankruptcy proceedings can move forward, in spite of the attempts at sabotage by the city's all black, all Democrat city council:

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Detroit could proceed into bankruptcy and cut pensions to address its fiscal woes.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes affirmed that the Motor City was indeed insolvent and certified that it could move forward with plans to eliminate nearly $20 billion in debt. Half of that shortfall comes from the city’s defined benefit pension system, which was designed to guarantee workers a portion of their salary for life.

Rhodes said Detroit must provide a pension haircut in order to address the budget deficit.

“It has long been understood that bankruptcy law entails the impairment of contracts,” Rhodes said, while pledging that he “will not lightly or casually exercise power […] to impair pensions.”

Ordinarily, I would have a great deal of sympathy for retirees here. A pension is a contract, and should be honored. In this particular case, I do not, because of the way Detroit's politicians, in collusion with the public employee unions collaborated to create a fiscal disaster.

Detroit's politicians, starting when  five term Mayor Coleman 'I don't know nothin' about no Krugerands' Young took over in the 1970's set out to pillage what was at one time the most prosperous city in America with sweetheart deals  to various cronies, raising the tax base and rewarding the public employee unions with ever more opulent contracts and pension plans ..which in turn fattened their own coffers, either as campaign contributions or outright bribes.

Now that the bankruptcy has been approved,state appointed  Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr can restructure the ridiculous pension plans, and the ruling also allows Orr to restructure the union contracts.

Exactly how Detroit's pension plans got into this state is another reason I have little or no sympathy about their being restructured.

The theory behind pension plans is pretty simple. An employer and its employees contribute funds every month that are invested in certain vehicles like stocks and bonds, with the idea that retiree benefits with be eventually paid out of the profits. It's similar to an old, time tested strategy known as dollar cost averaging - you commit a certain percentage of your earnings to investment, and with even normally competent management, good years average out with not so good years to give you a decent profit on your investment over time.

Once Mayor Young took over as Detroit's first black mayor, Detroit started doing things differently. When the investments did well, instead of leaving them in the fund and re-investing them for further profit, Detroit paid its retirees a 'thirteenth check'. When the investments didn't do so well, that 13th check continued anyway, so there was a constant looting of the pension funds that was largely covered by simply raising taxes or diverting other revenues into it. And the ruling powers in Detroit, including the union bosses had a personal incentive to keep the status quo going, as many of them were dipping directly into the pension funds. That is one of the reasons former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is now a guest of the federal government.

Most of the current retirees voted en masse for politicians like Young and Kilpatrick, quite possibly on racial grounds. And as long as the money kept rolling in, no matter whom it was stolen from, they were content. Now, there's going to be a reckoning because there has to be.

So what does this have to do with China?

As I pointed out before, Detroit's problems are systemic, and are a result of the city's current population and a certain way of thinking. Orr won't be there forever, and the next election will see the current city council or others like them re-elected.

However, there may be change in the air. Forbes reports that Detroit is the fourth most popular destination for Chinese real estate investors:

“While the bankruptcy is viewed as a bad thing elsewhere, it raised the exposure level of Detroit’s real estate market in China,” says Evonne Xu, a Michigan attorney catering to Chinese purchasers. {...}

Chinese shoppers can’t resist a bargain. Where else can you buy a two-story home in the U.S. for $39? China Central Television, the state broadcaster, in March reported that two houses in Detroit cost the same as a pair of leather shoes. No wonder a poster on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like service, asked, “Seven-hundred thousand people, quiet, clean air, no pollution, democracy—what are you waiting for?”

Who says the Chinese are waiting? Dongdu International Group of Shanghai bought, sight unseen, two downtown icons, the David Stott building for $4.2 million and the Detroit Free Press building for $9.4 million, both at auction this September.

Moreover, Chinese purchasers are making bulk purchases of “inexpensive properties”—those selling for $25,000 or less—in the rings surrounding the city center. “They’re banking on the downtown resurgence spiraling out into those rings,” explains Kelly Sweeney of Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel. Mainland parties often buy at tax and foreclosure sales, hold their property, and patiently wait for appreciation.

The Chinese certainly have made an impact on the locals in Detroit. “I have people calling and saying, ‘I’m serious—I wanna buy 100, 200 properties,’ ” said Caroline Chen, a real estate broker in nearby Troy, Michigan, to Quartz.com. “They say ‘We don’t need to see them. Just pick the good ones.’ ” Chen reports that one of her colleagues sold 30 properties to a Chinese investor.

Now this is an interesting development.

Here in my local area, I saw a community that was essentially a largely blue collar and middle class bedroom suburb go through a similar transition, as Chinese immigrants and investors bought up the modestly priced properties, refurbished them and began moving in. A local realtor told me that Chinese firms were actually sending brochures and video tours of properties to potential Chinese buyers overseas.

Here's what happened in the space of less than a decade, as the Chinese became the majority in the city:

The real estate and commercial markets soared because of the new demand, with hundreds of new Chinese-owned businesses opening their doors, totally rejuvenating the moribund downtown sections and providing a vast increase in the tax base, which allowed the city to spend more on development, community programs and services.

The city had never had a huge crime rate, but what crime there was plummeted to almost nothing, and after a few years, the local public schools showed a huge increase in test scores.

Local government had its occasional bits of corruption, but they were very small time, detected promptly and stopped. The city's government mostly remained fiscally prudent and responsible.

With the exception of increased street traffic and occasional language difficulties, the small city simply became a much nicer place to live and work.

Now the city I'm talking about had nothing like Detroit's inherent problems, but the effect that the change in demographics made was pretty noticeable. If the Chinese begin moving into Detroit, I think that MoTown actually has a chance of rejuvenating itself.

Culture matters.

Confrontation Between U.S. And Chinese Navy In International Waters

American and Chinese navy ships apparently played out a game of 'chicken' in international waters.

The USS Cowpens, a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser had a confrontation with elements of the Chinese navy patrolling in the South China Sea near Beijing’s new aircraft carrier Liaoning when the Cowpens was returning from helping out with relief efforts in the Philippines. Bill Gertz reports:

“On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

“This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap.”

A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China in both Washington and Beijing in both diplomatic and military channels.

The Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time. The carrier had recently sailed from the port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.

According to the officials, the run-in began after a Chinese navy vessel sent a hailing warning and ordered the Cowpens to stop. The cruiser continued on its course and refused the order because it was operating in international waters.

Then a Chinese tank landing ship sailed in front of the Cowpens and stopped, forcing the Cowpens to abruptly change course in what the officials said was a dangerous maneuver.

What to make of this? I see it as China taking new steps in asserting itself in the region, as part and parcel of China's proclaimed air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea,which neither the U.S. or Japan recognize, although both countries have advised domestic airliners to comply.

China's Liaoning, like any other aircraft carrier is pretty heavily guarded, and it may be that some Chinese navy captain simply decided to push the envelope a bit in protecting his carrier.

But what's more likely to my mind is that the Chinese realize that President Obama's 'Asian pivot' is as hollow as his Middle East strategy, and they're making use of it. Remember, the Chinese play Go, not chess, and the idea is to control territory and access rather than aggressively taking pieces off the board.

And it also appears to be the start of a pattern:

The Cowpens incident is the most recent example of Chinese naval aggressiveness toward U.S. ships.

The U.S. intelligence-gathering ship, USNS Impeccable, came under Chinese naval harassment from a China Maritime Surveillance ship, part of Beijing’s quasi-military maritime patrol craft, in June.

During that incident, the Chinese ship warned the Navy ship it was operating illegally despite sailing in international waters. The Chinese demanded that the ship first obtain permission before sailing in the area that was more than 100 miles from China’s coast.

The U.S. military has been stepping up surveillance of China’s naval forces, including the growing submarine fleet, as part of the U.S. policy of rebalancing forces to the Pacific.

Put another way, the Pacific is America's western redoubt, as General Douglas MacArthur presciently said many years ago. Breech it or drive us out and control of the entire Pacific region is up for grabs, with Australia, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast left vulnerable.

This story isn't news today, what with America's domestic discords. But it could very well end up as headlines in the future if this continues.

US And The Philippines Discuss Larger US Military Presence To Restructure Old Alliance

 

The Filipino government, anxious about what they say is increasing Chinese aggression in Philippine-claimed waters in the South China Sea is now in talks with the US about an increased US military presence and help in refurbishing and training its own military.

Filipino Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario sent a letter to the FIlipino congress emphasizing the necessity for American troops to have an “increased rotational presence” will help the country attain a “minimum credible defense” to help the Philippines guard its territory while it works to modernize its own military, something that has not been a priority for quite some time.

The Philippines, a former U.S. colony actually bans foreign troops being permanently based on its soil, something that was directly aimed at the US after the two countries had a falling out in 1991 and forced the U.S. to vacate its two major American bases in the Philippines at Subic and Clark.

A few U.S. troops were allowed back in to help the Filipino military battle Abu Sayaff, the local al-Qaeda affiliate (the Philippines has a large Muslim population, mainly located on the southern island of Mindanao), but this recent call is directed at increasing tension between the Philippines and China.

China claims huge stretches of the South China Sea as its own sovereign territory, and that has led to clashes with not only the Philippines but with Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. The Chinese sent a fleet into the waters of the Spratly Islands, which the Philipines claim as their own sovereign territory just last July, and China has also turned Mischief Reef, which it occupied, into a naval base.

So the Filipino government is once again seeking to base U.S. forces there.

While this is being dubbed as 'temporary' for political reasons, there's no doubt in my mind that the superb harbor at what was a major U.S. base at Subic Bay will once again become a prominent American military asset.

In his famous speech to Congress 62 years ago, General Douglas MacArthur reminded America that the western Pacific is America's maritime redoubt against our enemies. He was entirely correct.

We're seeing this basic truth reaffirmed again, as our ally Japan rebuilds its Navy and the U.S. builds ups its forces in Northern Australia, Guam, the Marianas and the naval fortress of Singapore. Look for the Philippines to be another important link in our Pacific defenses.

This is a much bigger deal than it appears.

Results Of Obama's Bailout -GM To Build New Cadillac Plant - In China

“I said, I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,” he said. “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.

“I don’t want those jobs taking root in places like China, I want those jobs taking root in places like Pueblo,” Obama told a crowd gathered for a campaign rally at the Palace of Agriculture at the Colorado State Fairgrounds here. - President Barack Obama, on the campaign trail 2012

"I've got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." - Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a union Labor Day rally,2012.

The American taxpayer, courtesy of President Barack Obama, bailed out GM. Or more accurately wiped out private equity holders (including a lot of retirees who were holding GM stock and bonds as a big part of their retirement)and gifted the company to the president's  union political allies.

The cost  was actually a lot more than people realize.

The losses alone on the devalued stock the feds are holding came to over $16.6 billion...not counting the $26.4 billion in direct aid that's never been recouped and never will be.

There's also that $45.4 billion dollar tax credit against future profits at the American taxpayer's expense given to them by the Obama Administration that could keep GM tax free for years.GM earned a $7.6 billion 'profit' in 2011 but paid no taxes.

And to make the whole thing even more ironic,  those deluded union workers who cheered what the president and his VP had to say didn't even end up with most of the jobs that were supposedly saved.

GM has just announced that it is enlarging its already sizable car making operation in China to include a big new plant for  Cadillacs.

That's essentially what the American people got for their over $88 billion dollar bailout of GM - a cheap, misleading slogan,  a large payout to union coffers and an increase in China's employment and industrial capacity.

Oh yes, and some poorly designed and downright dangerous electric cars.

China's People's Daily Mocked Over It's New, Phallic Headquarters...

The new Beijing headquarters of China's People's Daily newspaper has come in for a great deal of mockery and government censors are apparently fairly stiff and sore about it.

The People's Daily is the official government mouthpiece..or should I say, tool?

Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter has reportedly been censored heavily after a range of salty tweets.

I personally don't think it's that bad.A fountain at the top would be a nice touch, perhaps. Maybe some nice trees, bushes and shrubs at the bottom?


(H/t, Long time Joshua's Army member Louie Louie)

Kerry Attempts To 'Solve' Korea - By Offering Major Missile Concession To China

 

Senator Kerry is turning out to be quite an interesting Secretary of State, as I knew he would be.

Secretary Kerry is in China today in an attempt not to solve the problem of North Korea, but simply to reduce tensions.

Kerry's suggestion? Bribe China by removing our missile defense systems in the region.

The Obama Administration has waged a four year war on our missile defense systems,but you would think that they would have learned something from the recent events in Korea.

Our CIA has already concluded that the Norks have enough technology to attach a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile in compact enough form to make a viable weapon able to threaten our allies and U.S. bases in Japan, South Korea, the western Pacific and possibly even Hawaii or Alaska.

Even worse, the North Koreans would have no problem putting this technology up for sale to the highest bidders.

The Kim regime only survives because of China's enablement. That needs to end, now.

A strong U.S. policy stance would be to tell the Chinese that this state of affairs is unsustainable any longer, that it affects our relationship, and that their assistance is needed to depose the Kim regime and destroy North Korea as a threat, illegal proliferation source and a possible user of nuclear weapons.In exchange, the U.S. could offer to allow China to put in place a regime of its choosing in North Korea to protect its borders, which is China's main interest anyway.

Instead, Kerry's immediate response is to offer to disarm American interests.

Let's take a look at Secretary Kerry's negotiating style:

In Beijing, Mr. Kerry met with the new president,Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi.

Mr. Yang said at a dinner with Mr. Kerry on Saturday night that China was committed to “the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula.” But the Chinese state councilor also stressed that the “issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation.”

To encourage the Chinese to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem, Mr. Kerry said that he had shared “very in-depth” information illustrating the danger of how a nuclear North Korea could promote the proliferation of nuclear arms in Asia and the Middle East.

Mr. Kerry said his aim was to find a way to revive the goals of the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear program, which have been stalled since 2009 when North Korea withdrew. The talks have included North and South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Kerry offered to remove our missile defense batteries, shared “very in-depth” and probably classified information with the Chinese and has a goal of reviving the Six Party talks which have gone absolutely nowhere, and merely resulted in North Korea ending up with oil, food and trade concessions while giving up nothing in return.

In exchange, he got the Chinese to sign on to a vague, a pro forma statement about de-nuclearizing the Korean Peninsula with no concrete actions involved, and even that was qualified with a waffling commitment about how it should only be done “peacefully through dialogue and consultation.”

Secretary Kerry was far more effective at negotiating this sort of thing back in the Vietnam days, when he, Jane Fonda and others met in Paris in 1970 with North Vietnamese diplomats and agents to plot 'political strategy' to sabotage the U.S. war effort at home. As FBI files record, he made a second trip in 1971, accompanied by other members of Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW), a group he was the spokesman and leader of.

Kerry himself admitted that he had made the trips and negotiated with the North Vietnamese and representatives of the 'Provisional Governemnt ( AKA The Viet Cong) in congressional hearings held April 22nd, 1971.





What else would you expect, even forty odd years later?

China To Modernize And Upgrade Pakistan's Reactors, Nuclear Weapons Arsenal

This is the most important news story you'll read today.


China has reached an agreement with Pakistan to construct a third nuclear reactor located at Chashma and to modernize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, including development of a new warhead for Pakistan’s missile arsenal.

According to U.S. intelligence and diplomatic officials, the secret agreement for the Chashma 3 reactor was signed in Beijing during the visit by a delegation from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission from Feb. 15 to 18.

The agreement calls for the state-run China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) to construct a 1,000-megawatt power plant at Chashma, located in the northern province of Punjab, where two earlier Chinese reactors were built.

China’s government last month issued an internal notice to officials within its nuclear establishment and to regional political leaders urging care to avoid any leaks of information about the nuclear sale that Beijing expects will be controversial, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The reactor deal had been in the works for several years and prompted high-level U.S. government efforts to block the sale because of concerns it will boost Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.

The CNNC is China’s main nuclear weapons producer and has been linked in the past to Pakistan’s nuclear arms program by U.S. intelligence agencies. CNNC sold thousands of ring magnets to Pakistan during the 1990s that were used in centrifuges that produced highly enriched uranium for weapons.

According to the Obama Administration, China's actions violate an international accord against proliferation.

In 2004, China joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a voluntary association that seeks international cooperation in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. China agreed at the time not to not to sell additional reactors to Pakistan beyond the two reactors it sold Pakistan earlier, and member states pledge not to sell any nuclear materials to any state not a a member of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA).

Pakistan not only isn't a member, it has a shameful history of aiding and abetting illegal proliferation.

It was AQ Khan who not only created Pakistan's nuclear weapons but set up what amounted to an illegal supermarket in nuclear weapons technology for some of the world's worst actors. Among Khan's customers were Iran, Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and the Pakistanis also acted as brokers for North Korean missile technology.

For the Chinese to provide up to date nuclear hardware for this unstable Muslim nation is incredibly dangerous, short sighted and foolish. Some of that nuclear technology could find its way to the jihadis Pakistan collaborates with like Lashkar e Tiaba or the Taliban and end up sparking a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

And it might not stop there. Have the Chinese forgotten they have their own Muslim insurgency to deal with in Western China with the Uighers - just over the China Pakistan border?

It will be interesting to see what, if anything the Obama Administration does about this.

Turkey's Erdogan: "We Blocked The Inclusion Of Israel In NATO"

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quite open about the matter when talking to reporters on a flight to Budapest, Hungary:

“We, as Turkey, would stop wrong steps [in NATO]. Thus, we saw such steps toward Israel’s inclusion in NATO. We prevented that,” Erdoğan said. “We have our own red lines. For us, to be involved in NATO with Israel is never considerable. To be with such a cruel understanding would conflict with our structure, history and culture.”

Erdogan also spoke about Turkey's 50 year quest to join the EU, saying the union was “hesitant because the members will not be able to do everything they want when Turkey gets in.”

In an interesting sidebar, Turkey has been making noises about ditching NATO to join the Shanghai Cooperative Organization (SCO), which regular members of Joshua's Army will recall me mentioning before.

The SCO is an organization with goals of becoming the anti-NATO, consisting of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Mongolia have the status of observer states. It focuses on trade, security and military cooperation, energy ( they're working on putting together a gas cartel) and joint development projects. The six member states control 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its population is a quarter of the world's. With observer states included, its affiliates account for half of the earth's population. It also offers an alternative bloc to western democracy and to using the U.S. dollar as reserve currency for energy dealing.

If Turkey were to quit NATO and join, it would be a major realignment of the world's power blocs.

Erdogan first approached the SCO in 2011 and was granted 'dialogue partner' last year. They now want in as a full member, and are dangling quitting NATO (and revealing all of NATO's secrets) as bait.

For Turkey, the pluses are interesting. As Erdogan himself has said, the SCO "is much better, it is much more powerful [than the EU], and we share values with its members."

Those values are essentially non-Democratic, without the sort of commitment to freedom and human rights that characterize some of the other members of NATO.

Turkey also shares Islam with most of the membership.Every one of the members and observer states except Russia, China and India are Muslim, and a number of them are primarily composed of people of Turkic origin with cultural and linguistic heritage in common with the Turks.

The minuses? Turkey would stand to lose a great deal of foreign aid if they switched sides, there are still divisions in the country between Turks who are more Islamist in allegiance and those who still lean more towards the West.And Erdogan has three other issues that get in the way of his joining the SCO.

 First many if the six main members, especially  India, China and Russia are strongly opposed the Islamism Erdogan champions, and in th ecase of the three main members I cited, all have problems with Islamist aggression and terrorism.

Second, Erdogan's support for the insurgents trying to topple Syrian dictator Basher Assad sets him against one major member, Russia and one observer state, Iran.

And third, while Turkey's economy appears robust, it isn't.Inflation is at 6.5% and rising, food prices are soaring, the official unemployment rate is at 9.5% ( which means the real rate is closer to 13 or 14%) and there is a major imploding domestic credit bubble in consumer loans, which Turkey's banks are slamming out at 30% interest and up.Meanwhile exports continue to decline and Turkey's current account deficits is running at about $70 billion a year.

Since a good part of what the SCO is involved with is economic growth and investment, it might be problematic for them to take on a member whose economy could tank and become a drag on the organization, perhaps even a candidate for bailouts.  

According to one of my notorious Little Birdies, China is more or less favorably disposed to letting Turkey in as an observer state at least, while Russia and to a lesser extent India are strongly opposed.

Some horsetrading may go on, and we'll see what develops.

How To Deal With Muslim Hijackers - Chinese Style

Six Muslim Uighers apparently tried to hijack a Chinese airliner bound for the regional capital of Urumqi last Friday:

Just minutes after the flight took off from Hetian, southwest Xinjiang, the men, all aged between 20 and 36, stood up and announced their plans to terrified passengers.

The gang reportedly broke a pair of aluminium crutches and used them to attack passengers while attempting to break into the cockpit, Hou Hanmin, a regional government spokeswoman said.

The Chinese passengers attacked the hijackers, beat two of them to death and tied the rest up with belts.The plane landed safely minutes later, and the surviving Muslim hijackers were turned over to the Chinese authorities. They were reportedly carrying explosives.

Hen Hao!

Greetings To Jews From The Chinese Restaurant Association Of America

A side note for the uninitiated...most Jews have a real love affair with the various kinds of Chinese food year 'round. And for those of the Tribe who don't keep kosher, Chinese food on Christmas Day is something of a ritual, because a number of Chinese restaurants run by non-Christians are open for biz on December 25th!

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The Chinese Agree To Bail Out Eurozone..In Exchange For..

China has cleverly agreed to help the EU out of the pit it dug for itself...but with certain conditions.

They obviously want financial guarantees on their investment. What they also want is in essence a silent veto on criticism or opposition to China's policies, like its opposition to sanctions on Iran, any disagreements with the US or China's currency policy, which artificially undervalues the renminbi to support Chinese exports at the expense of western producers.

If they get that, China could be willing to throw substantial amounts into the EFSF, the EU's bailout fund. Another possibility that's being looked at is a new fund set up under China's auspices in collaboration with the IMF.

French President Sarkozy is already prepared to take China's terms. “Our independence would not be put into question by this,” he said in a television interview. “Why would we not accept that the Chinese had confidence in the eurozone and place a part of their surpluses in our funds or our banks? Would you rather they placed it with the US?”

If President Sarkozy seriously thinks the EU's independence won't be compromised by a deal with the Chinese, he's in for a rude awakening.

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Obama Fried Chicken!!

President Obama's destined to be known for more than his abysmal economic policies, extravagant ways and amateur foreign policy. Finger licken' good!!

And it's not just KFC in China..apparently there's now a whole chain of Obama Fried Chicken shops showing the president posed like Colonel Sanders...including the Colonel's famous String tie.Maybe the president can pick up a little cash doing an endorsement deal, or some commercials, eh?

The linked article speculated that this might be a nose tweaking for the President because of his tariff policies on American-bred chicken, which range from 50 to 100 per cent, which means some Chinese importers paid as much as twice the price for American chicken. If so, that would be a fairly typical Chinese way of ridiculing someone.

And it's not just China. Here's a picture of a fried chicken place in my parent's old neighborhood of Brownsville, in Brooklyn NYC:




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We're Doomed - Joe Biden To Sell Debt Ceiling Deal To China And Japan

Yes, Vice President Biden has been given the job of talking up the new debt ceiling deal to the Chinese and Japan, the two biggest holders of US government debt. No joke.

There are a few possible reasons for sending Dopey out on this sensitive mission. President Obama may have picked this way of telling the Chinese and Japanese that they had better not lean too hard on him or he'll resign and they'll have to have long, rambling conversations with Good Ol' Joe, inhumane treatment that ought to be prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Or the president might have picked Biden because he knows nothing Dopey says is going to make much sense, and our Asian friends will finally just give up trying to understand him, shrug their shoulders and hope for the best.

There's also the possibility that President Obama sold Biden to the Chinese in exchange for a few plasma TVs or 6 month's worth of that wagyu steak the president likes so much.

Anyway you slice it, the idea of Dopey trying to sell anything to anyone, let alone our creditors is tragedy turning into farce.

Un-freaking-believable.

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