China has been playing a dangerous game since the end of the Mao Dynasty, and the advent of the reformers.

Not that they had a choice.  The stark reality of China today, like all nations, is a culmination of Geography, Climate, and Politics.

China has been trying to limit population growth, while transforming a largely agrarian society into a modern technological one.

The problem is that they have many decades of work left ahead of them, and time is running short due to the aging of the population, and the costs that will incur to society.

China had 153 million people aged 60 or over by the end of last year, accounting for 11.6 percent of the country’s 1.3 billion population, said Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu at a plenary meeting of the China National Committee on Aging (CNCA) Friday.

While Industrialization has been beneficial for some regions, the workforce is shrinking, with many workers leaving rural provinces to work in Special Economic Zones.  These workers typically leave the parents behind – though they send money back home to support the elders.  This is leading to “aging villages”, where most of the inhabitants subsist off of remittances sent back from their children, and government benefits.

Many smaller factories have moved inland as the government, aiming to spread development more evenly, uses tax breaks and looser pollution
controls to lure enterprises to poorer central provinces from the traditional manufacturing heartland near Hong Kong.

This, in turn, is creating a nascent labor shortage, and increasing the cost of labor for manufacturers.  And while China still enjoys a wage advantage over Mexico, and Latin America in general, that will evaporate over the next few years.

But even as China tries to spread Industry, the shortcuts that made them a manufacturing giant are coming Ho-ome, as Rev. Wright says, To Roost!

Two years of disastrous quality-control breakdowns, from foul fish and lead-tainted toys to poisoned drugs and dairy products, are taking their toll on China’s allure as a manufacturing platform. A new study by supply-chain consulting firm AMR Research found that quality concerns are among the chief reasons U.S. manufacturers are scaling back plans to source more goods from China.

Instead, U.S. companies are looking harder at Mexico and other locales closer to home when exploring where to put new capacity.

China was an attractive place to manufacture because of the tax advantages of the Special Economic Zones, coupled with a low wage work force, and inexpensive transportation costs. 

Today, though, with Transport costs fluctuating wildly, and a steady rise in wages, other issues are accumulating to lessen China’s desirability as a manufacturing locale.

Now, the biggest concerns over China are quality and theft of intellectual property (BusinessWeek.com, 4/27/06). Half of respondents to the survey cited China as the biggest source of “risk” for product quality failure. Fifty-seven percent rated China as the biggest risk of
intellectual-property infringement.

“China is in a league of its own in terms of risks associated with intellectual property and quality,” says Kevin O’Marah, AMR’s chief strategist.

In fact, China ranked highest in 9 of the 15 risk factors. Rising labor costs are still an important factor for businesses, with 35% citing China as the leading source of concern. Other risk categories where China ranked highest included regulatory compliance, commodity price volatility, supply-chain security breaches.

And china has not effectively dealt with issues that are damaging to the image of companies manufacturing there:

Quality problems, rampant piracy (BusinessWeek, 10/2/08), allegations of sweatshop abuses, worker protests, and other factors not only drive up costs but also harm the value of brands and corporate reputations. “Companies are realizing that the fully loaded costs of importing from China are a lot higher than they imagined,” says O’Marah.

But China is running out of time, and skilled manpower to get a handle on these problems.  By encouraging unchecked growth with a near total lack of oversight, they have been left with a nation of factory workers, and a rapidly aging agricultural workforce.  They have serious environmental pollution issues to deal with, and a serious lack of quality controls on food production, piracy, and a myriad of other ills that other societies, with longer transition periods, have dealt with.

Now, with the prospect of a dwindling foreign investment, the question becomes whether China can build up a Middle Class (read: Consumer Class), to support the existing Manufacturing base; while converting from family/village based agriculture to large scale automated agriculture (to feed that middle class); while caring for the increasing number of aged (and no longer productive) citizens.  If not, they are looking at more than just an economic crisis…  The chance that the Communist Party that still runs the country can solve these problems in time is slim to non-existent.

While the first thing that usually comes to mind, to a US Voter, when the words Reparations is heard, is the demand by many for Reparations for Slavery, there are many others who want a piece of the Reparations Pie – meaning money from Uncle Sam, i.e. the American Taxpayer.

One of the newest entries is South Korea.

It seems that, defying all logic, there were civilians casualties in the Korean War.

…the Seoul government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens’ petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51.

Of course, while it is common knowledge that the North Koreans were infiltrating dressed as civilians, and were using civilians for cover, it is apparently the fault of US Forces for not being willing to take casualties in weeding out the commies from the refugees.

And while I have no doubt that many Korean are simply interested in justice and acknowledgement, others are interested in more… tangible forms of apology:

Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.

“Of course the U.S. government should pay compensation. It’s the U.S. military’s fault,” said survivor Cho Kook-won, 78, who says he lost four family members among hundreds of refugees suffocated, burned andshot to death in a U.S. Air Force napalm attack on their cave shelter south of Seoul in 1951.

I have no doubt that there are many such incidences from the Korean War.  And Vietnam.  And World War I & II.  And the Spanish-American and Mexican wars, and the war of 1812, and the revolution.

I am also certain that such incidences can be documented (or told in folklore) of every war going back to the first conflicts in the Fertile Cresecent between the early city states, thousands of years ago.

But let’s take a second, and look at South Korea today:

1. Population of more than 48 Million
2. Seoul, the capital city, is the 2nd largest city in the world.
3. The South Korean economy is the 4th largest in Asia, and 13th largest in the world, with a GDP of $1.2 Trillion.
4. South Korea is the largest ship builder in the world, and the third largest steel producer.

How about North Korea, whose government would have ruled the South, had the US not intervened?

1. Population approximately 23 million population, with periodic bouts of starvation.
2. GDP of approx $40B.
3. Rules by a totalitarian regime, with little or no outside contact.

(facts above from various sources including CIA Factbook)

Considering the vastly different lives lead by citizens of North and South Korea, I think that we can be forgiven for feeling that we have already paid compensation in the blood of 36,516 dead; 92,134 wounded, and 8,176 MIA US Citizen Soldiers.

We did NOT start the Korean War – NorthKorea did, with the support of the Soviet Union.  We DID save the South Korean from lives of desperation and poverty, lived by their brethren in the North.

I’m not suggesting they should thank us, but maybe they could be a little more understanding.

NOTE:  For full disclosure, I have spent several years in South Korea, and have a large extended family there.  I have a tremendous affinity for the people, culture, and history of the region. 

But it is about time the South Korean’s grew up, in a geo-political sense, andmatched their economic maturity with political maturity.

They need to stop holding Candle Light Vigils about importation of US Beef, and start holding them for the plight of North Koreans starving to death because of their government.

And they might comes to terms with Japan over some useless rocks in the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea, as the Koreans call it), instead of using the disagreement over which nationality of seagull nests there as an excuse for a pissing contest with their former Colonial masters.

Peter Davies reports at Blogger News Network, that Chinese troops are backing up Robert Mugabe in his quest to to remain Dictator of what is left of Zimbabwe.

Recent headlines have focused on the “cargo of death” shipped from China to Zimbabwe last week, but in an even more sinister development, Chinese troops have been seen on the streets of a Zimbabwe town… (Daily Mail)  Chinese and North Korean troops were also in evidence alongside Mugabe’s own troops when he attended a rally in Harare recently.  I believe the Chinese and North Korean troops are now needed to stiffen Zimbabwean military support for Mugabe.  There are increasing signs that not all the police, or the military, are still willing to enforce Mugabe’s murderous rule. 

More from the Daily Mail:

Zimbabwe and China have close military ties involving equipment and training.

 Three years ago, Mugabe signed extensive trade pacts with the Chinese as part of his Look East policy – forced on him after he was ostracised by western governments over alleged humans abuses.

The deal gave the Chinese mineral and trade concessions in exchange for economic help – mirroring other deals Beijing has signed with regimes all over Africa.

Yes, this is the same China that just sent a cargo ship full of military hardware to Mugabe that includes:

…nearly 3 million rounds of ammunition for small arms and AK-47s, about 3,500 mortars and mortar launchers, as well as 1,500 rockets for rocket-propelled grenades.

Mr. Davies sums it up nicely:

A Zimbabwean newspaper publisher, Trevor Ncube, (now living in South Africa) was quoted as saying “If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have come and taken their place.” 

Hope they are nicer to the Zimbabweans that they have been to the Tibetans. 

But this shouldn’t have any effect on he Olympics in Beijing, which is all the Chinese Government really cares about – publicly.

I had hope that Benazir Bhutto would prove to be a moderating influence on Pakistan, and would come to some kind of power sharing agreement with President Musharraf, to combat the Islamic Fundamentalists in the nation, and provide a beacon of hope to the Muslim world.  Sadly, that will never come to pass.  I had considered what, exactly, to say on this, and found a link from LGF to a piece by Pamela Bone in the Australian that said it all:

Bhutto was murdered because to her enemies she was Westernised, a traitor to her culture and an American stooge. She was murdered because she had vowed to bring secularism and democracy to Pakistan. She was murdered because she was all these things, and a woman.

“I know I am a symbol of what the so-called jihadists, Taliban and al-Qa’ida, most fear,” she wrote in her autobiography, Daughter of the East. “I am a female political leader fighting to bring modernity, communication, education and technology to Pakistan.”

Yes, fear is the right word. The fear of women, of women’s freedom, and most of all, of women’s sexuality, runs through Islamism. It is a large part of Islamist hatred of the West. “The issue of women is not marginal,” writes the Dutch scholar Ian Buruma. “It lies at the heart of Islamic occidentalism (anti-Westernism).”

Al-Qa’ida has made it perfectly clear that its aim is an Islamic caliphate, first in all nominally Muslim countries and ultimately in the whole world. The jihadis would, if they could, impose the same rampant misogyny on women worldwide as was, and still is to a large extent, imposed on the women of Afghanistan.

Could the murder of Bhutto be enough to wake up Western women to the fact that the war being waged by the Islamists is very much about them? Could the modern Left be persuaded that the people who killed Bhutto are the ones we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places across the world? Can we, in our niceness, stop telling ourselves they are justified in their hatred of us?

It’s a great piece, and I recommend reading the whole thing.  The one mistake she makes is:

They can’t win. No one, apart from extremists like themselves, wants the kind of society they envisage. But they could, if the West fails in its determination, win enough to make life very unpleasant for millions of women for a generation or more.

They most certainly CAN win, for several generations, over a great swath of the globe.  It doesn’t matter what people want, if they aren’t going to stand up and fight.

The West as a whole has already failed to confront this evil.  Only the United States is standing against the tide today, despite the best effirts of the Democrat Party, and the American left in general, who are doing their best to beak our will as well. 

It is curious that the very people that claim to support Womens Rights, and Gay Rights, also support the very people that want to kill all the Gays, and make all women slaves.

Courtesy of the BBC:

A Buddhism student, who experienced first-hand the events of the last two weeks at a Buddhist monastery in Burma, describes the recent unrest.

They knew that there is no point in asking the generals for freedom. They knew that they don’t have guns and can’t beat the army. All they wanted to do was show the world what their situation is and that they are prepared to die.

Too bad Burma doesn’t have a Second Amendment.  And for all the Ghandi fans out there, a lesson that Passive Resistance only works on a government that is susceptible to public sentiment.

But when they hear that support for the demonstrations is dwindling and time passes by without help from anyone, they lose hope. They are getting disillusioned and eventually they’ll give up.

Which will make the American left happy.  Then they can get back into the News Cycle, demanding that we abandon the Iraqis to the tender mercies of the Burmese Junta’s spiritual brethern in Iraq.

And, for a parting shot, this from  the Daily Mail:

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.”

And the silence from the American Left remains deafening…

Gateway Pundit has been my main source of info and links on this ongoing example of the cruelty that man is capable of in the pursuit of power over his fellow man.

His latest post quotes Vaclav Havel:

In the coming days – perhaps even hours – the destiny of Burma (also known as Myanmar), and the fates of over 50 million Burmese, will be decided. Today’s crisis has been brewing for many years. But nobody knew with any precision just when open revolt against Burma’s military dictatorship would erupt.

I fear that, with only a few exceptions, most countries have been surprised and caught off guard – once again – by the rapid course that events have taken in Burma. So they seem to be completely unprepared for the crisis and thus at a loss as to what to do.

How many times and in how many places has this now happened? Worse, however, is the number of countries that find it convenient to avert their eyes and ears from the deathly silence with which this Asian country chooses to present itself to the outside world.

In Burma, the power of educated Buddhist monks – people who are unarmed and peace loving by their very nature – has risen up against the military regime. That monks are leading the protests is no great surprise to those who have taken a long-term interest in the situation in Burma.

An overwhelming number of Burma’s Buddhist monks have found it difficult to bear the central and regional governments’ efforts to corrupt their monastic orders, and to misuse the example of the monks’ self-restraint to increase the pressure on other believers. Of course, without universal and coordinated international political, economic, and media support for these brave monks, all development in Burma may quickly be put back nearly 20 years.

My disgust with the lack of action from the world community is without depth.  As I commented;

Havel gives voice to my own disgust with the world’s power structures.

Again, we see the slaughter and oppression of the people, while the world’s leaders and the United Nations wring their hands, and call for someone to “do something”. But these very same leaders fail to support anyone who actually DOES try to stop the oppression, and instead attack them for “imposing their values” on another sovereign nation.

The major excuse this time seems to be that Burma is in the Chinese sphere of influence, so it is up to the Chinese to “do something”. Of course, when one recalls the horror of Tienanmen Square, the likelyhood of that happening pales to insignifigance.

So sorry for the people of Burma. You are Buddhists, not Muslims, so the world doesn’t care. Your dictators do not have Nuclear Weapons or WMDs, so the world will not help you. Your nation is a small backwater in Asia, so your fate is left to the tender mercies of the Butchers in Beijing. Your oppressors are your own countrymen, not evil colonial Eurpoeans, so no one will come to your aid.

And the worst of all is the complete lack of shame our leaders feel, in failing to help our brothers and sisters in their hour of need.

The silence from the Left in this nation on this subject is truly deafening.