Russia should get jacked about the Arctic

Found here: Assessment units (AUs) in the Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal (CARA) color-coded by assessed probability of the presence of at least one undiscovered oil and/or gas field with recoverable resources greater than 50 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE). Probabilities for AUs are based on the entire area of the AU, including any parts south of the Arctic Circle.

COMMENT: "Russia has reasons to turn up the heat in the Arctic," by Charles Emmerson, Financial Times, 16 April 2010.

Emmerson says that if there is one country that will shape the future of the Arctic, it is Russia, because it's interests are real and substantial and Moscow's hungry for success.

Plus, Russia's got the history and the bodies that put Canada to shame. Murmansk alone holds 3X the population of Canadians who live inside the Circle.

Key geographic reality: Russia's rivers flow north, so opening up the Europe-Asia water link opens up Russia's interior and ends Moscow's great geopolitical weakness, being its inability to unite its western and eastern halves.

So the Arctic becomes Russia's key focus for new energy reserves as its current land-based one decline.

Emmerson is no alarmist. He's not predicting war or anything like it, just a lot of diplomacy and negotiations and lawyers. His main point is that Russian's interests should be taken very seriously.

You want an axis? Check out the ones based on real trade

WORLD NEWS: "Brazil Courts Chinese Business," by Paulo Prada and John Lyons, Wall Street Journal, 14 April 2010.

Russia-Venezuela is presented as THE compellingly scary "axis" in LATAM--a direct challenge to the U.S.

I myself am more impressed by the rising Brazil-China economic bond. According to the chart, it's about $36B in 2-way trade.

As far as I can find, the 2-way on Venezuela and Russia amounts to just under a billion, with virtually all of it one-way from Russia:

Trade volume between the two oil-and-gas rich countries reached 957.8 million U.S. dollars in 2008, with the Russian exports to Venezuela standing at 957.4 million dollars.

Those numbers don't include the $5B in arms that Russia plans to sell Chavez over the coming years, meaning the one-way flow will only grow in its imbalance and be largely constituted in arms.

So let's say Russia's sending about $1-2B a year to Venezuela in arms every year, with Venezuela sending nothing back. Meanwhile, Brazil exports $20B-plus to China and China sends back $16B-plus.

Which relationship strikes you as more profound? Strategic? Sustainable?

Frontier markets start beating emerging markets

PERSONAL BUSINESS: "Money report: Frontier plays," by Shiyin Chen and Michael Patterson, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 19 April 2010.

Stocks in frontier markets are beating stocks in emerging markets "by the most in almost five years." Frontier indices rose an average of 11%, outpacing the emerging (i.e., BRIC) indices by nine percentage points. The earnings estimates for BRIC companies still outpace those of frontier economies, but what I think we're seeing here is growing market realization that the emerging nations' commodity draw on frontier economies will be both large and sustained, thus the higher level of expectations for the latter's companies.

Regulatory arbitrage

NEW BUSINESS: "The Wall Street Reform Fight We Really Need," by Paul M. Barrett, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 19 April 2010.

The key judgment:

Without global standards on capital and liquidity, Wall Street would set one jurisdiction against another in a game of regulatory arbitrage.

In effect, a clash of rule-sets triggered--perhaps--by our assumption that our proposed new rules would find worldwide emulation.

I would expect Europe to have tighter rules, America the looser ones, and that the rest of the world will effectively exploit the differences.

That emerging global middle class keeps drawing more attention

MARKETPLACE: "Brands Bet on Indonesia as Spending Booms," by Patrick Barta, Wall Street Journal, 8 April 2010.

COMPANIES | INTERNATIONAL: "France Telecom eyes Africa and Middle East for growth: Five-year plan to double revenues," by Ben Hall, Financial Times, 9 April 2010.

Indonesia attracts attention because, lo and behold, it's a front-runner when it comes to Asia's expanding middle-class consumption.

People thought Indonesia was important when it exported oil, but that supply function is nothing compared to the global attraction created by this new demand function.

From WSJ story

So we are told that "booming jungle outposts" are what's generating all the attention, leading most observers to name Indonesia as the third great coming of Asia's new middle class, after China and India.

The look and feel is right out of the American West: booming coal town that's tripled its population since 2000, with incomes rising rapidly. Samarinda doesn't trip off the tongue like Deadwood, but we're talking the same dynamics.

Packaged food spending in Indonesia--that ultimate in early indicators of a rising middle class--should outpace the growth rate in both India and China through 2011.

240m consumers, a stabilized economy, and a respected, democratically elected government that promotes global connectivity.

One very sexy package, all right.

The second story is just another in the vein of my recent telecom piece, this time with the French following the example of the Indians by heading into the Gap in search of new subscribers.

A huge exercise near the Indian border? Subtle.

WORLD NEWS: "Pakistan plays war games near India," by Farhan Bokhari, Financial Times, 10-11 April 2010.

50k troops right on the border in a month-long exercise.

Well, at least they're spending our billions effectively, practicing major group movements against a highly mechanized opponent.

Stupid is too kind an expression, but waste-fraud-and-abuse fits.

America's real success is a "global century"

OPINION: "It's a Global Century, not an Asian Century," by Guy Sorman, Japan Times, 8 April 2010.

Nifty piece of writing.

The guts:

Yet it is premature to proclaim an Asian Century. Perhaps the coastal areas of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and China's eastern seaboard share some common cultural characteristics and a similar economic strategy. But much of central and western China is mired in poverty; Indonesia belongs to a different world culturally and economically; and India is a very different Asia as well. Nor does Asia cohere politically; parts of it are democratic, other parts are ruled by despots.

Moreover, there is no "Asian" economic system: China's state capitalism does not belong to the same category as the private capitalism practiced in Japan and Korea. India remains largely an agricultural economy, dotted with small business and service-sector dynamism.

Asia also has no decision center, nor coordinating institutions comparable to NATO or the European Union. This is important, because, whereas the West is relatively at peace with itself, Asia is riddled with actual conflicts (within and around Pakistan) and looming ones all around the South China Sea.

Indeed, were the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. military ever to leave Asia, the threat of war would increase, heavily disrupting trade, and Asia's economic dynamism would not survive. It is hard to believe in an Asian Century when Asia's security depends on non-Asian security forces.

Another of Asia's relative weaknesses comes from its poor record on innovation, a fundamental building block of prolonged economic dynamism. Chinese exports (up to now) have contained little added value and a lot of cheap manpower, and the sophisticated products that it does produce, such as smart phones, have been conceived in the West. Japan and South Korea are much more creative, but they still often improve products and services initially invented in the West.

But the buried headline here is that America's efforts to spread globalization is what truly generates the Global Century--disproving the Great Lie that is "American imperialism."

What Leviathan in human history has ever willingly given up so much power? Or sought to enrich and empower individuals the world over? Or sought to enable the rise of competing economic great powers?

The Global Century is the ultimate in Fifth Generation Warfare--when your ultimate victory is obscured by everybody else on the planet seeing their own.

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

His grey eminence returns

BUSINESS DAY: "Viewer Age Rises With Leno Return," by Bill Carter, New York Times, 12 April 2010

.

This is what caught my eye:

. . . while audiences for Mr. Leno have increased more than 50 percent from Mr. O'Brien's average, the median age for "Tonight Show" viewers has jumped more than 10 years, to 56 years old, in the wake of the departure of the host NBC had once designated to be the future of late night.

"Viewers like Jay," said Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at the media buying firm Horizon Media. "Who would have thought he would come back and go right to the top from his first day?" But Mr. Adgate added, "You do notice that jump of 10 years over Conan."

Kiss of death?

Hardly with all those Boomers heading into their golden years.

But 11:30 on the East Coast may be too late . . ..

Seriously, though, with aging becoming THE dominate social trend, I expect media favorites will age alongside their audiences, meaning Leno's future may be a lot more bright--not to mention steady--than anticipated by the industry wags.

Ignatius sees the foreign policy sausage factory coming into shape under Obama

OP-ED: "President Obama's 'regular order,'" by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 15 April 2010.

The best case made yet for Obama's team working well:

You could make a similar argument that Obama has been going through his foreign policy checklist since taking office, to adjust policies that he thinks were badly out of date: improve U.S. image in the world, check; "reset" relations with Russia by dropping an ill-considered plan for missile defense, check; improve relations with Pakistan so the United States has a viable exit strategy from Afghanistan, check; encourage India-Pakistan dialogue, check; try to engage Iran so that we'll be credible in requesting tough sanctions later, check; create an American peace plan for the Middle East, half-check but still working on it.

All these policies have moved through a well-managed NSC. There's the "adult" group of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Bob Gates and national security adviser Jim Jones; they see eye to eye on most issues. Beneath them are the policy processors, led by Tom Donilon, the deputy national security adviser, and his de facto boss, Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff.

As he imposes regular order, Obama is trying to fix what he saw as President George W. Bush's disorderly process. During Bush's second term, he personalized policy, making secure videoconference calls with leaders in Kabul or Baghdad, without always making sure the nuts and bolts were fastened. Bush's first-term NSC was pure chaos, with Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld refusing to play in the interagency process, and Vice President Dick Cheney running what amounted to a parallel NSC staff. No wonder foreign policy got so messy.

Obama's danger is that he tries to do too much: He's an ambitious if also tidy man, who never saw an initiative he didn't like. But at least he has evolved a coherent, well-run NSC structure to keep most -- if not all -- of the balls in the air.

As a means for pushing through policies, I guess I could side with Ignatius's analysis.

What I don't yet see from this bunch is any larger vision that I want to attach myself to. I don't want a terror-centric national security strategy. I don't want to reduce the barriers to threshold for entry into great-power war. I don't want to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and MAD in favor of missile defense and using ICBMs to deliver strikes.

But I am heartened to see the sausage-making process being organized and optimized.

And I do like Obama so far on China, after which all else pales.

As for Af-Pak, I see a disengagement strategy of the ass-covering sort, but not the regionalization of the solution, which others (Russia, India, China, Iran, Pakistan) are all working on their own--in the absence of any clear leadership from me.

So yes, a quiet and efficient team, but a bit care-take-ish and too dreamily focused on this no-nukes-world dream.

[thanks to Vacation Lane Group]

Starbucks: "I've got nowhere else to go!"

Found here

MARKETPLACE: "Starbucks Plans Big Expansion in China: Chief Executive Says Coffee Giant Has Turned Its Fortunes Around, Is Eager to Crack Markets in India and Vietnam," by Mariko Sanchanta, Wall Street Journal, 14 April 2010.

Outside of the United States, Starbucks' overseas presence is concentrated heavily in the Old Core (Canada, Japan and UK constitute the top three). So when it comes to future expansion, as the chart below indicates, it's pretty much all New Core on the agenda: China, Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, Philippines and Thailand.

The CEO also indicates that Vietnam and India are teed up for rapid expansion.

Starbucks has searched for new areas of growth following a deep retrenchment in the U.S. during the past year, which involved Starbucks closing hundreds of underperforming stores . . ..

Starbucks has more than 11k outlets in the U.S., but only 376 in China (compared to 878 in next-door Japan), so naturally expansion in China is viewed as the company's primary future goal.

The key? Business intelligence that helps Starbucks figure out how best to tap into the largely unbranded rising Asian youth and their disposable income--as in, whatever it takes to get them into the store.

Sudan: Exhibit #1 in the Sino-American limited liability partnership

Found here

ARTICLE: "Sudan's Growth Buoys a Leader Reviled Elsewhere," by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times, 14 April 2010.

The opening:

From the highway, this farming village looks like yet another poor, mud-walled settlement baking in the stupefying heat.

The houses are low-slung and built from dun-colored bricks, and during the hot hours of the day, the only earthly creatures brave enough to step outside are fly-covered donkeys.

But inside the homes, children watch satellite TV. They also have electricity, water, ceiling fans, DVD players and even air-conditioners -- a small miracle here -- wedged into the mud walls.

In the span of a generation, which neatly coincides with the 21 years President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has been in charge, the people of Tabga, like millions of other Sudanese in certain areas, have become living proof of an economic transformation.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Sudan's gross domestic product has nearly tripled since Mr. Bashir took power. Much of that growth has happened in the past decade or so since Sudan began exporting oil, propelling the nation's "longest and strongest growth episode since independence" in 1956, a recent World Bank report said.

As Sudan continues voting this week in the first multiparty election in decades, it is precisely the fruits of this expansion -- more schools, more roads, more hospitals, more opportunity -- that explain why so many voters are eager to re-elect Mr. Bashir, who is suspected of war crimes and is often perceived as a villain in the West.

Sudan has always been my prime example of the Sino-American limited liability partnership inside the Gap: We have our pol-mil concerns; China has its resource needs. Take away China's influence and we have a far worse situation, no question, primarily because we have little-to-no-intention of doing anything about anything bad going on inside Sudan, so if there's no Chinese, it's just a bad situation made far worse.

China limits our liability--as it were, just in a less headlining fashion than Sinopec's contracts in northern and southern Iraq and China's big investment in the copper mine in Afghanistan.

But get used to reading about this dynamic: the solution set for most failing states--the lucky ones with resources--will involve a Chinese economic intervention, with or without a U.S. security equivalent.

[thanks to WPR's Media Roundup]

Think I know what I'm going to do on the blog

Thanks for all the ideas.

Got a recommendation from somebody who's wisely advised me in the past (a reader with a technical background), and he suggested a platform/host package that I am exploring already, with the Wordpress/Blue combo as the backup.

I will look to take advantage of the company's 14-day free trial in early May and see what I can set up new/export from here. The exporting is just the blog, by and large. I plan to go through and redo all the sites pages, tossing dead links, rationalizing content, etc.

I am already getting psyched to start. I love such a housecleaning and God knows I'm due.

Looking for ideas/advice on what to do the with the blog

With Sean now gone and me running everything, I've wanted to get a firm grip on things. Problem is, my host pretty much sucks, according to Sean. So if I want to redesign anything or clean up pages/add new ones (meaning regular web pages outside of blog entries, where I keep links, etc), Sean's advice was to move somewhere else in terms of host and platform.

I have until the end of October on my current host contract, so no hurry, but I need some education on the subject. I made my own pages and sites for years starting in the late 1990s (i.e. ages ago!), but this is my first time operating a blog platform, and the way Sean was forced to jerry-rig the set-up for regular web pages is just too messy for me to master.

For the record, I use Moveable Type (Movable Type Pro version 4.31-en with: Community Pack 1.63, Professional Pack 1.3) at a host known as 2mhost.com.

So the questions are:

1) Which platform and host would I be better served moving to? (I am not looking for the near-cheapest because I've already had it and it shows);

2) How to migrate the current archive? (I am not averse to hours of boring, painstaking labor, because it's my stuff). Or, if that's too hard, how to simply freeze-dry this one and move on (10,000 posts is such a round number, I could see simply throwing the past on CDs and starting over); and finally,

3) Who is willing to advise me as I proceed?

Since I don't ask anybody for money for the site, I think it's fair to ask for help now, as readers have been kind enough to offer that in the past.

Default position is to do nothing. I am willing to buy any program I need in the short-run to make a new situation work (something reasonably-user friendly to make web pages), but would like a blog host that provides that capacity. Moveable Type's 5.0 version supposedly does that, but Sean, through experience, is convinced these guys offer no support service whatsoever, so if's I'm going to upgrade to something robust and pay for it as a business expense, I want it to be good and the providers to be responsive.

All ideas welcome. Either leave as comment (indicating whether or not you want it published) or email me directly at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.

I'm not thinking of this as a bad thing or a chore, as I love learning new stuff and I feel like I'll have a better blog now that I'm more hands-on (which, frankly, I dig). So, already searching around, I find myself more attracted to Word Press than Moveable Type (reading sites that cater to Macs), and I'm tempted to run with Blue Host.

One thing I know: it must stay thomaspmbarnett.com (but I'd like the blog to be just that and not require the /weblog suffix). I just got the info from Whois on my domain registration. Plenty to learn after relying on others to do this all these years!

CK Prahalad dies at 69

OBITUARY: "C K Prahalad: Guru of poverty and profit dies at 69," by Chindanand Rajghatta, The Times of India, 18 April 2010.

Sad day:

Internationally renowned management guru Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad, popularly known as CK, died on Friday in San Diego after a brief illness, his family said on Saturday. He was 69.

The man who called attention to the "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" died at the top of his game. A professor at the University of Michigan, Prahalad was considered one of the world's top 10 management thinkers. His theory about the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, is followed by many corporations in emerging markets. He is survived by his wife Gayatri and two children.

I met Prahalad at a Highlands Forum event back in 2005 that was focused on my SysAdmin force concept (in conjunction with then-recent developments within the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of Defense). To my complete surprise and delight, after my brief, he came up to me and said he had read PNM and that he felt like it was a pol-mil version of his ideas (exceedingly generous to me, that, but then he was an enthusiastic and generous person who had the encouraging, mentoring personality that's perfect for a prof). After seeing his talk, I bought his book online over my phone, only to have him send me a signed copy the next week. A very cool guy and a huge thinker. I was really looking forward to seeing him in Cape Town in June at the Fortune/Time/CNN Global Forum.

This is what I said on the blog after meeting Prahalad in 2005, in a post entitled, "Buy This Book!":

Dateline: Highlands Forum XXVI, Antrium 1844, near Taneytown MD, 2 May 2005

Saw brilliant presentation from C.K. Prahalad, author of The Power at the Bottom of the Pyramid, all about how you shrink the Gap and kill poverty through profits.

This presentation/book is full of stunning analysis of how globalization really spreads on a very ground-floor level.

His basic point: most big U.S. companies were built by selling to the poor, not the rich. Singer, for example, built it's whole company on lower classes buying their sewing machines (rich people had seamstresses and tailors), and they did this by pioneering buying on credit (e.g., $5 per month for 20 months).

People being poor isn't the problem, creating the economic connectivity to allow them to buy and sell is.

I bought the book on Amazon five minutes into his brief. Stunning, really. Can't wait to read it.

And yes, once I read the book, I realized what a compliment he had given me at the conference. The book was a huge turning point for me, and really got me moving along the frontier integration thought-line.

I would write a column on him, but I just did one on his ideas for WPR a while back.

Sad day for big thinkers the world over. A personal hero to me. Really feel fortunate to have spent that day with him in the Maryland countryside. Something to treasure, along with the signed book.

Seeing somebody of Prahalad's stature pass (suddenly to me) really makes you think about your career and how you want to be remembered. The man had hugely powerful ideas. He set a very high standard. I will continue to aim for it.

[thanks to Critt Jarvis]

I am a Democrat destined to be appreciated only by Republicans

Find the book here at Amazon

The only three presidential candidates with whom I've actually connected in terms of the vision are all Republicans (Sam Brownback, Rudy Guliani, and--apparently--Mitt Romney). Of course, the closest I ever came to working directly for one was under Cebrowski/Rumsfeld--so another Republican in Bush. My biggest fan in Congress was Mac Thornberry from Texas, another Republican.

There have been Democrats here and there, but none connect like the Republicans do.

I don't have a problem with that. Foreign-policy-wise, I am a Republican. Domestic-policy-wise, I am most definitely a Democrat.

So I guess I'm privately a Democrat and professionally--in terms of my chosen profession--a Republican.

Bottom line: I hate belonging to any group. About the only thing that's maintained my serious loyalty all my life is my Packers--that is a near mystical bond. I also love the U.S. military and working with them. So it's really my wife and kids, a very small number of dear friends, then the Packers, the U.S. military, and then the vast undifferentiated rest-of-the-world. I guess I also love being an American almost as much as I love being myself, primarily because being an American means you don't have to belong to anything besides yourself, so you're completely free to be unique and attach yourself to others and groups as you please. That's why I think so many people in the world idealize this place--the sheer individual freedom to constantly reinvent oneself.

Hmm. I am in a strangely philosophizing mood.

Anyway, here's what Mitt Romney said about me in his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness (like the subtitle). It is definitely his campaign treatise anticipating 2012. As such, I must take him at his word--and more seriously (I will admit to a partiality for anybody who ran Massachusetts as I hope to return the brood to Bean Town someday).

PAGE 79:

Global strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett has written important books on the past and future uses of American soft power. In The Pentagon's New Map and subsequent volumes, Barnett argues that "connecting the gap" to the developed world is the most effective and important of all American initiatives. Barnett is an apostle of soft power, and while his message cannot replace the necessity of a robust military establishment and the willingness to use it when required, the soft-power doctrines he extols should become routine components of the projection of American power abroad.

Happy to see the "subsequent volumes" reference. I do like the trio being viewed as a trilogy.

It's a bit weird to think somebody can just mention the PNM title and "connecting the gap" and expect the reader to follow, but I assume that's a good thing in that it reflects the widespread currency of the idea (i.e., the "reproducible strategic concept").

[thanks to Elmer Humes via Sean Meade]

Gates' memo on Iran was standard stuff, but it does indicate a Pentagon naturally anticipating an emerging reality

FRONT PAGE: "Gates Says U.S. Lacks Strategy To Stymie Iran On Nuclear Capability: Secret 'Wake-Up' Memo Sets Off a Scramble for New Options," by David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, New York Times, 18 April 2010.

NATION: "Gates Says Memo on Iran Was Not Sounding Nuclear Alarm," by Glenn Kessler, New York Times, 19 April 2010.

I believe both stories to be essentially true: Gates was noting the obvious and creating a bit of a wake-up within the establishment regarding thinking/preparation for a nuclear Iran down the road, but it was standard bureaucratic stuff rather than some lightning bolt that sent anybody scrambling.

For now and the foreseeable future (certainly until after the 2012 election, if they can help it), Team Obama has its official word on sanctioning Iran into submission. It's complete BS, but it's the story they're sticking to. But the Pentagon, which obviously has plenty of plans for Iran on the shelf, also needs to be thinking ahead to, and prepping for, the reality of a weaponized Iran nuclear capacity.

Nothing amazing in that dichotomy; just everybody doing their jobs--albeit some rather naively.

Beijing's fears are common across emerging markets

FRONT PAGE: "Beijing prepares shift on renminbi: Currency trading band could be expanded; China lays ground for eventual end to peg," by Jamil Anderlini, Financial Times, 7 April 2010.

THE BATTLE AGAINST INFLATION: "Emerging markets' fears amid recovery: A divergence between advanced economies and Asia and Latin America is likely to grow," by Chris Giles, Financial Times, 7 April 2010.

Lots of conflicting headlines recently about whether or not China will really bend on the yuan, but the majority seem to indicate that the end of the pegging is a "when" and not an "if" question. Although the narrow trade deficit in March gives China the excuse for saying the peg should stay, the domestic inflationary pressures strike most analysts--both inside and out--and sufficient excuse for Beijing to lift the peg and accommodate the West on this issue, especially since most experts agree that a reasonably appreciation of the yuan will have little impact on trade flows.

Whether or not that gets packaged up in something described by officials or in the press as a "grand bargain" isn't important. What is, is that both sides have been able to suitably--and publicly--display their "toughness" while doing no real damage to the bilateral relationship. Plus, with so many emerging markets heading into an inflationary spell, China does not want to be viewed internationally as the odd-man out.

Bottom line: better to have the problem of inflation than too weak a recovery.

When pipelines make for bad neighbors, build one around the problem

CORPORATE NEWS: "Work Begins on Baltic Sea Pipeline," by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Wall Street Journal, 10-11 April 2010.

Medvedev launches the construction of a new nat gas pipeline that links Russia and Germany directly, cutting out the bothersome transit countries known as Ukraine and Belarus by taking a water route.

The danger here is not enough demand materializing over the long haul, as Europe turns to shale and LNG as alternatives to Russian supply.

But, as always, I approve of pipelines of any sort.

China's ever-growing efforts to censor everything

ARTICLE: "China's Censors Tackle and Trip Over the Internet," by Michael Wines, Sharon LaFraniere and Jonathan Ansfield, New York Times, 8 April 2010.

Nice, big piece.

The guts:

This is China's censorship machine, part George Orwell, part Rube Goldberg: an information sieve of staggering breadth and fineness, yet full of holes; run by banks of advanced computers, but also by thousands of Communist Party drudges; highly sophisticated in some ways, remarkably crude in others.

The one constant is its growing importance. Censorship used to be the sleepy province of the Communist Party's central propaganda department, whose main task was to tell editors what and what not to print or broadcast. In the new networked China, censorship is a major growth industry, overseen -- and fought over -- by no fewer than 14 government ministries.

"Press control has really moved to the center of the agenda," said David Bandurski, an analyst at the China Media Project of the University of Hong Kong. "The Internet is the decisive factor there. It's the medium that is changing the game in press control, and the party leaders know this."

Today, China censors everything from the traditional print press to domestic and foreign Internet sites; from cellphone text messages to social networking services; from online chat rooms to blogs, films and e-mail. It even censors online games.

That's not all. Not content merely to block dissonant views, the government increasingly employs agents to peddle its views online, in the guise of impartial bloggers and chat-room denizens.

I will admit, it has a weak Orwellian flavor to it.

The government makes no apologies for what it calls "guiding public opinion." Regulation is crucial, it says, to keep China from sliding into chaos and to preserve the party's monopoly on power.

And the Party will succeed for as long as the public harbors similar fears.

But as the development continues, and individual accomplishment and confidence grows, fewer and fewer people will buy the notion that people the world over can be trusted with free information but somehow the Chinese people are too stupid and incompetent to be allowed the same.

The paternalism here is rank. How long must the Chinese people be treated like children by their government?

We shall see. Because history says that, as income rises, people get fed up with such paternalism--a la South Korea in the mid-1990s.

Are the Chinese people supremely cow-like in some manner unlike the rest of the planet? I see nothing to suggest that in my travels there.

Instead, I see a government very much afraid of its own public, thus it must always know what the public is saying about it.

There is a big difference between such political paranoia and a truly responsive government.

The apartheid argument on Israel

From the BBC

COMMENT: "Even Israel knows there is no future in apartheid," by Mustafa Barghouthi, Financial Times, 6 April 2010.

A clever, compelling argument from a Palestinian.

A lot of this rhetoric is traced back to Olmert's warning (as PM) back in 2007 that, unless the two-state solution was implemented, Israel would end up going down the same isolating path as pre-Mandela South Africa (the "it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic" line was a killer--thus it's quoted time and again).

Then Barghouthi updates the argument:

Apartheid is here. There is one set of Israeli laws applies to Palestinians in the West Bank and another set applied to Jews in the West Bank. Israeli settlers live illegally in beautiful subsidised housing on stolen Palestinian land while we are relegated to smaller and smaller bantustans.

Powerful stuff.

The rest is an argument for a boycott of Israel in the manner of apartheid-era South Africa.

Olmert's warning seems more prescient than ever.