Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 11:31AM The Chinese may be helping the States, but can they help themselves? The view from Beijing is a tea party hell-bent on global leadership, but if the government can't give up its moribund socialist movement, America might be riding solo well after Obama.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:58AM ARTICLE: Leaders' mortality may sway Iraq's health, by Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum, April 17, 2009
Solid piece from Michael Rubin on how important the elderly Talabani and Sistani are to Iraq's stability.
(Thanks: Dan Hare)
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:54AM POST: Al Qaeda in Iraq leader reportedly arrested amid spike in bombings, By Tom A. Peter, Christian Science Monitor Global News Blog, 04.23.09
No surprise here, except to those who thought we'd somehow resurrect a stable Iraq while shutting down all Iranian attempts at connectivity.
Given how well the nascent republic is performing in Iraq, I'd say Iran's got more to be worried about than Iraq.
(Thanks: ROVER Fixer)
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:46AM ARTICLE: Inside the Taliban's 'grave error', By Carol Grisanti and Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News World Blog, April 24, 2009
Amidst all the media reports about Pakistan's cluelessness and indecision, you hope the reporting here is accurate.
(Thanks: Jeff Jennings)
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 3:38AM ARTICLE: One apartment to the other, AP, April 28, 2009
An old theme for me, going back to a day spent at Central Command's Tampa HQ staring at a giant wall map and talking seams: when driven out of southwest Asia, the radical Salafi heads NE into Central Asia (harder) or SW into east Africa (arguably easier).
While it's easy to over hype the radical threat in Africa, attention must be paid. After all, this is why we created Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa years ago and why CJTF-HOA became the template for Africa Command.
(Thanks:Jeff Jennings)
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:49AM Tom got an email from TED. Here's the lead:
In just a few weeks time, we'll launch the TED Open Translation Project, which will allow every talk on TED.com to be translated into any language, by volunteers worldwide. We're completely thrilled by the potential of this project to spread your talk -- and ideas -- beyond the English-speaking world.
At launch, the site will include more than 250 translations, representing at least 30 languages, completed by more than 100 volunteers translators. Once the program goes live, we expect those numbers to quickly swell. So before we launch, we wanted to give you an opportunity to translate your own talk, if that's of interest.
* If you're bilingual, we'd love you to translate your own talk. (You're the best person for the job).
* If you have multi-lingual colleagues or students; friends or family - You might want to ask them to translate your talk. Their knowledge of -- and investment in -- your work make them ideal candidates, even if they have no formal translation skills.
Our system makes it relatively simple to translate a talk; we provide an approved English transcript, a simple online interface for line-by-line translation, and tips for a quality translation.
Exciting opportunity here. If you're interested in translating Tom's TED talk into another language, email me for more details.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:31AM INNOVATION: "How P&G Plans To Clean Up: CEO A.G. Lafley is fully focused on pushing growth even as markets are shrinking around the globe," interview with Roger O. Crockett, BusinessWeek, 13 April 2009.
The company is one of the great innovators in American business history, and thus is naturally a company to watch in the current situation.
American companies are not letting up on R&D, having learned the lesson in past downturns that a lot of great products tend to emerge and separate winners from losers in the follow-on boom.
P&G, under its current CEO, seems especially committed in this regard to developing new products for the bottom of the economic pyramid, where most of the corp's best growth has been recorded in recent years.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:29AM CHINA: "As Factories Fail, So Does Business Law: The chaotic collapse of companies in China erodes the trust that keeps commerce moving," by Dexter Roberts, BusinessWeek, 13 April 2009.
300,000 factories closed last year in China, and when they fail, they simply beggar off any contractual commitments to other facilities and to their own labor, fueling the boom in legal actions in Chinese courts.
The big loser? Business trust, something China never had in abundance to begin with.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 2:27AM UNITED STATES: "Populism: Will there be blood? The revival of American populism is partly synthetic, but mostly real," The Economist, 28 March 2009.
Why it's hard to tell:
It is hard to answer this question in a country in which anger is a form of entertainment and where the political parties have turned partisanship into a fine art.
Buddy, you said a mouthful.
85% of Americans say big business has too much influence on politics, reflecting society's long-standing preference (since the end of the Cold War, really) to cast big, soulless corporations as their preferred villains.
The populism of America at the end of the 19th century featured people worried about a prolonged ag depression putting large segments of the population at risk to the voracious appetites of Wall Street types, yielding a land of "tramps and millionaires." We got a repurposing of such popular anger by FDR during the Great Depression, but nothing really since, especially after cultural populism, promulgated by the Boomers, edged out economic populism in the 1960s.
Neat little history, there.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:40AM ARTICLE: US promotes Iran in energy market, By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times Online, Apr 28, 2009
An interesting, if rather breathless speculation on perceived revitalization of America's energy diplomacy in the Caspian under Obama, with Iran being a prime target/beneficiary.
Further indications that engagement with Iran will be a key Obama goal.
(Thanks: farzanehmohajer)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:37AM ARTICLE: Allies Copy U.S. Navy Smart-Power Strategy, By David Axe, World Politics Review, 24 Apr 2009
ARTICLE: Distant horizons, The Economist, Apr 23rd 2009
Further evidence of the influential legacy of my friend and Enterra exec retired Admiral Harry Ulrich, who ran Africa maritime for NATO and spearheaded these ideas with Mullen.
Good stuff the Chinese Navy, in a smarter world would be emulating.
(Thanks: Matthew Garcia)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 3:35AM ARTICLE: Taiwan says China banks could enter domestic market, Reuters, Apr 27, 2009
Another good sign in PRC-Taiwan economic integration.
(Thanks: wnblair)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:49AM EDITORIAL: "The G-20 summit: London calling; trade is collapsing and protectionism is on the rise. Time for the G20 to get going," The Economist, 28 March 2009.
BRIEFING: "Globalisation and trade: The nuts and bolts come apart; As global demand contracts, trade is slumping and protectionism rising," The Economist, 28 March 2009.
The WTO's predicted drop in global trade this year would be the worst since WWII (9%, compared to the WB's 6% prediction).
But here's why that number is a bit of a statistical inflation:
The collapse is partly due to globalisation. The days are gone when something was made in one country and exported. Products now contain parts from all over the world. Trade statistics look at value, not value-added, so they include a lot of double counting as parts move across borders and back. When the economy shrinks, trade will shrink faster.
A South Korean economist cited in the briefing refers to this phenom as "vertical specialization," as countries specialize not so much in final products "as in steps in the process of production."
Upside being that when growth resumes, trade will rebound faster than normal.
This is the answer I was missing when quizzed on this point by Hugh Hewitt recently. I gave the right answer (yes, the drop is highly tied to globalization's networked connectivity and thus it is likely to recover faster than expected), but this is a sharper expression of the same.
Still, as the Economist complains, such interdependency is a "thin reed" when it comes to preventing rising protectionism, and with enough of these somewhat hidden efforts, "global supply chains will break down."
And here comes the real warning: "If that happens, they will not be rebuilt for many years."
This message was part of the mag's admonitions to the G20 going in, a big one on the list being, finish the damn Doha round.
Protectionism is limited by loads of international agreements and the reality of global supply chains, but protectionism, the mag points out in the briefing, has gotten far more sophisticated (i.e., non-tariff) in recent years.
The best global antidote? Again, most experts cite restarting and finishing the Doha Round of the WTO, perhaps as a "crisis round" that elicits a cease-fire on subtle protectionist measures.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:47AM ARTICLE: China turns to Buddhism to calm Tibet, Taiwan tensions,
By Lucy Hornby, Reuters, March 28, 2009
China will become amazingly religious this century, as it goes back to mixing spiritualism and political rule, something it did for thousands of years.
(Thanks: Louis Heberlein)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:45AM ARTICLE: Last Man Standing, by Tyler Cowen, The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2009
Very sensible and worth reading. Provides way too much detail on Euro banking and the Asia treatment is a toss-off, but the basic line on the U.S. Is counter-intuitive (to your average American) and thus most worthy right now.
Gist line:
In the terminology of financial economics, the United States is, relatively speaking, a countercyclical asset. Its not that America profits from bad times or war but that we have a relatively greater capacity to limit our losses and eventually bounce back. We are built to fail, so to ­speak.
As always, it is the flexibility of our rules and the strength of our institutions that make us different.
(Thanks: jarrod myrick)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:42AM OP-ED: Look to Brasilia, Not Beijing , By BRUCE GILLEY, Wall Street Journal, APRIL 7, 2009
Interesting description of diplomatic cooperation among India, Brazil and South Africa. The proposed "threat" to China's aspirations is a weak sell, but I guess the guy felt the need for some tension in the piece. It is hardly a zero-sum dynamic at work--please.
(Thanks: Ram Narayanan)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 2:40AM FRONT PAGE: "Oil-Rich Arab State Pushes Nuclear Bid With U.S. Help," by Jay Solomon and Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal, 2 April 2009.
Blogged this one earlier. Map on jump page caught my eye: Shows all the nuclear-energy states in world and, with the sole exception of Pakistan (and aspirant UAE), they are all Core.
Reality? Part of shrinking the Gap will involve spreading and sharing the technology of nuclear energy--plain and simple.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 4:07AM Delayed flight out of Chicago but I got into new Beijing airport in time to make dinner with host, director of international relations institute at Tsinghua U, Prof. Yan Xueton, who's been my go-to guy on translating and publishing my books here. We have great long talk that closes the restaurant, despite my inability to sleep on the plane. He reports that PNM's first printing sold out (I've been signing student copies) and that second printing likely. BFA will be out perhaps as early as July.
Yesterday I tour Olympic Village and Palace of Prince Gong with old friend who always hosts me. Also have long meet with seniors of China Reform Forum at their new HQ.
Last night was two hour (75 brief and 45 Q&A) with 100-plus students at Tsinghua. Every questioner got advanced proof copy of GP (I had a bunch left over). For some reason, I get super-turned on by this audience and gave a great performance, just about losing my voice. I was simply thrilled with response, one of those nights you never forget.
Today are two more events (seminar with students and recorded dialogue with Dr. Yan). Tomorrow is speech to execs of Sinopec.
As always, jam packed sked, but no other way to go.
Storm performing well, although everything slows dramatically during biz hours in terms of connectivity--serious wireless bandwidth issues.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 3:34AM FRONT PAGE: "Ill From Food? Investigations Vary by State," by Gardiner Harris, New York Times, 20 April 2009.
Everybody wants tighter regulation schemes given the globalization of the food and beverage industries, but no great effort or vision yet on harmonizing the existing patchwork of systems state by state:
Right now, uncovering which foods have been contaminated is left to a patchwork of more than 3,000 [!!!!!!] federal, state and local health departments that are, for the most part, poorly financed, poorly trained and disconnected, officials said.
Today, the average food item travels, in aggregate, 1500 miles from farm to dinner table. With climate change, I see that mileage increasing dramatically on a global basis, meaning food will replace energy as the most expansive and vulnerable global commodity network in the 21st century.
And we are clearly not ready for that future.
