thecatapult.in is a new blog focusing on the matters concerning the Indian national interests, strategy and the affairs of the State.
The First Post today is about the Chinese side war gaming a scenario on the Tibetan plateau and the border with India in case of a (planned?!) steady deterioriation of relations leading to war with India after the conclusion of the Beijing Olympics.
Besides Tibet, two other important stories to watch while gauging Beijing’s newly discovered bent for openness and transparency are closely tied to the disaster in Sichuan. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has launched a probe into the disproportionately large number of schoolchildren who were killed when their schools collapsed on them while other nearby buildings withstood the shock of the quake. If shoddy construction was involved, officials have vowed to punish those responsible.
Angry, grieving parents who have lost children are screaming for justice, but an honest and full investigation could lead to high places in Communist Party officialdom in the province. Its seems likely that so-called “tofu” construction was commonplace in the building of schools and that private contractors colluded with government officials to skimp on essential materials such as steel and concrete and pocket the savings. If these corrupt officials are truly brought to book for their malfeasance, that would be a major breakthrough in the country’s battle against graft. But beware the scapegoat: this investigation could turn out like a lot of others – punishing a few for the widespread practice of many.
The same is true of the central government’s pledge that all local and foreign donations to quake victims, which have surpassed 40 billion yuan (US$5.8 billion), will be strictly accounted for. This promise comes after numerous reports on the Internet of donated goods intended for quake victims winding up on sale in shops or in the possession of people not affected by the quake. Venal officials are allegedly selling items such as tents and rice by the truckload. If this is true, how many of these culprits, the latest symbols of China’s endemic corruption, will pay for their crimes?
Finally, of course, there are the Olympic Games and the 30,000 foreign reporters who will descend on the country to cover not just the athletes but also anything else of interest they can find. They will want to interview ordinary citizens and ask Chinese leaders tough questions about corruption and democratic reform. They have been promised great freedom. Let’s see if Beijing can deliver on that promise.
In the end, however, it will not be until the grand Olympic stage is packed away and the eyes of the world have turned elsewhere that any clear sense of China’s future as a budding civil society will become clear. [link]
Filed under Freedom of Speech & Information, International Communism, PRC
In the socialist worker’s paradise of China, the rich and the priviliged have the de-facto right to bear more than one children inspite of the official One-Child policy.Whereas women from the poorer sections of society have to endure forced and most often botched abortions even at later stages of their pregnancies so that the local “officials” can meet the ‘annual targets’ for population growth set for that particular county by the central government in Beijing.
In recent years, more and more affluent people and social celebrities have born a second or third child. Based on a report by China’s Xinhuanet, Mou Weiyong, vice director of Liaoning Provincial Commission of Population and Family Planning, said that out of those who have more than one child, the number of people with high incomes is on a dramatic increase; most of them are private enterprise owners or self-employed.
According to Zhong Liyan, director of the Bureau of Population and Family Planning in Heping District, Shenyang City, the privileged and celebrities bear more than one child for two main reasons. First, they want a boy to inherit the estate; second, they want to keep the only child from feeling lonely.
China’s government agents at all levels will be punished according to party discipline or be discharge from public employment once they fail to adhere to the one-child policy. But no effective measures have been taken to stop the rich and celebrities from bearing more than one child.
Filed under International Communism, Liberal Extremists, PRC
The people who get variously excited about the desirability of a so called India-Russia-China Axis should wake up and smell the coffee. The Chinese regime is nobody’s friend.It is a selfish, egotistic, arrogant and paranoid thug bent on getting its own way by hook or crook.
It is like we all know by now is involved in anti-Indian activities upto its ears, plus terrorising and torturing of its own citizens, picking fights with all its neighbours such as Japan, Phillipines, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea. It is stridently anti-American ofcourse even though it needs American wallets to buy its cheap, shoddy goods produced by forced prison labour or workers forced to work in slavish conditions without any rights to form labour unions to fight for their cause. It is also deeply involved in an organ harvesting scam selling organs of prisoners executed without a proper trial( Hello! Amnesty, HRW, UN, anyone listening?).
And what about Russia? Well China long had a boundary dispute with Russia, which it found in its interest to “solve” in 1997. But it was always clear to everyone that the Chinese regime greedily eyes the vast expanses of the sparsely populated Russian Far east rich in natural resources and ofcourse more land for its exploding population to settle.
The Chinese government’s paranoia has reached such a crescendo that it is now seeing enemies behind every curtain, under every bed, inside every book and even in innocous search engine terms such as “Mao Zedong”, “Zhu Ronji” and even the “Chinese government” itself.
CHINA—The phrase “Chinese government” has been censored on China’s official Web sites. If one searches for “central government of the People’s Republic of China” on the Best Tone 114 Web site (China Telecom’s Internet phone service and information platform), one gets: “Sensitive phrase: [we] can only provide news search service.” An Internet user from China told the reporter that even “Mao Zedong” is listed as “illegal information” in some of China’s search engines.
On the Best Tone 114 Web site, not only is “central government of the People’s Republic of China” censored, but “democracy” and “National People’s Congress” are also sensitive information. Zhou Guoqiang, an Internet user from Beijing, said he often comes across such disconcerting situations.
Zhou said, “When you search ‘Mao Zedong,’ ‘Zhu Rongji’ [China’s previous premier], and ‘Wen Jiabao’ [China’s current premier], many Internet search engines will tell you these are illegal phrases. Some chat Web sites won’t even let you key in these phrases.”
One would like to ask the Indian diplomatic establishment that is so keen on pursuing the so called “Confidence Building measures” with the “Chinese Government” that what kind of confidence building process can one establish with such a paranoid bunch of tyrants and mass murderers who are so afraid of their own shadows.
Fang Jue, a commentator on China issues who currently resides in the U.S., said, “Censoring the phrase ‘Chinese government’ tells people that government control over the media is way too much. Internet control in China blocks all phrases that can possibly lead the people to ponder democracy, freedom, and human rights. The range of control is going too far. They are blocking every neutral phrase that relates to politics.”
The Chinese Communist government merrily goes on torturing and murdering its own citizens with utmost glee while the leftist mainstream media and the “enlightened intellectuals” prefer to look the other way and pretend as if nothing is out of place.
The most “favourite” torture techniques reportedly being practised by the Chinese authorities at present ranges from Burning to Electric Shock to Severe beatings to Sexual Abuse of Illegally detained inmates.
And as of now the Human Rights Mafia is maintaining a deathly silence on this. They are currently busy “protecting” the “Human and legal Rights” of Terrorists, Tyrants and murderers.
And this is the same paranoid Chinese Government which is sought to be appeased by our diplomatic and political establishment.
I agree that how the Chinese government treats or mistreats ill-treats its own people is its internal affair and we as outsiders have no say in the matter and also this should not affect our stance in our bilateral negotiations which should be based solely on our own national interests.
But what we have to keep in mind is that the current regime in Beijing is one of the most paranoid, tyrannical, egotistical, genocidal, maniacal regimes in the History of China. This regime is a freak of nature and does not represent the Chinese people in anyway. It was founded by the Soviet intelligence agencies and funded by it in its initial years. It cheated, murdered, lied and defrauded its way into power and since then it has kept itself there by means of practising sheer terror on the Chinese people. It later got its “respectability” by means of its official hagiographers such as Time Magazine who make sure to put China on its Cover and write sugar puff stories on it, in atleast 50 issues per year.
The bottomline is that we have to keep in mind that we are dealing with an abnormal regime. It lies, cheats and does anything to get its way. We have to be eternally vigilant and make sure that we safeguard our own national interests zealously against this maniac to the north.
We have a long icy winter ahead of us and the sooner we admit this reality to ourselves and stop living in our own make believe “panchsheel” world the better.
p.s- Also read the Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party.
November 29, 2006 12:56 IST- A senior Indian intelligence official has expressed concern over what he described as the “dramatic increase” in Chinese attempts to woo Indian politicians and business leaders with gifts, some of them “phenomenally lavish.”
Reacting to a story in Businessworld magazine, which refers to Chinese attempts to buy influence in India, the Indian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said while this is nothing new, what is of concern is the sudden and dramatic increase in the number of “influential Indians” being tapped by the Chinese.
Politicians in India’s northeastern states and West Bengal(hint!) are among the recipients of Chinese largesse, he said.
This is a very, very serious matter indeed that should be dealt with an iron hand. We all know how money hungry our politicians and bureaucrats are. They will take money from anyone without bothering to find out what their agenda really is even if that agenda conflicts with their own!. Well that is if they really have such an agenda of their own in the first place except make MONEY, MONEY and more MONEY.
The recipients of these gifts “spanned the political spectrum”, the official said, expressing his “serious worry over this alarming trend, which has increased in leaps and bounds over the past three or four years.”
Indian leaders known to be sympathetic to the Tibetan cause are also being targeted, he claimed.
The stark reality is that most of our politicians and bureaucrats are not really politically aware. The only thinking they are good in is intriguing and jockeying to get into positions of power so that they can make MONEY. that’s it, as simple as that. They have no strong belief systems. None of them believe in anything or any cause that they will be willing to die for except becoming a minister or a chief secretary and make more MONEY.
This scenario sets them up for manipulation by foreign powers and special interest groups who use money as a mere tool to realise their own objectives.
Added to that some of these ‘worthies’ might even be under active blackmail by Chinese intelligence agencies with photos and videos of them in compromising positions with women that might have been planted to seduce them during their so called “study tours” or “get acquainted” tours to China.A standard operating procedure since ancient times with intelligence agencies called the ‘Honeytrap’. Such idiots will be virtual slaves to their handlers in Beijing.
While most of the gifts involve large sums of money and other incentives, leaders are also invited to China, ostensibly on lecture and “get acquainted” tours, and “treated like royalty there,” the official said.
The Mitrokhin archives revealed how the Soviet agencies bought Indian politicians and bureaucrats with tons of cash. The Americans do it all the time too and most certainly every other middling power, arms dealers, MNCs, NGOs etc… are involved too.
So much for a so called “rising future power” if its entire establishment is up for sale to anyone with bags of cash. Even to foreign powers and special interest groups with an anti-Indian agenda.
The Indian Comrades rolled the red carpet with lots of joy for their master from Beijing hoping that he would pat their backs for being such nice puppies.But they were in for a rude shock. The master told them point blank to dump their outdated policies and adopt a ‘more pragmatic approach’ in this era of globalisation.
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 22: Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday had a word of advice for India’s Communist leaders — adopt a ‘more pragmatic’ approach, as this is the era of globalisation that provides immense scope for economic prosperity.
Globalisation provides scope for economic prosperity, and a “more pragmatic and positive approach” must be adopted by the Left to develop infrastructure and the economy, he told the leaders.
And he made sure to really rub it in if the message he had for them hadn’t yet entered their thick skulls.
Hu asked the Left leaders to play a more active role in states where they are in power and invited them to China to gain a first-hand experience of progress made by the Communist nation.
Contrary to popular perception the Chinese media has been covering Hu Jintao’s visit to India quite extensively.Infact right at this moment this visit is splashed on the front page of both China Daily website and the People’s daily website with links to special features. But then our defeatist minded Indian media and so called “intellectuals” who suffer from a inferiority complex carried over from colonial days simply don’t want to believe that we are a big power now. Perhaps this is the inferiority complex in the collective mindset of our country’s so called ‘elite classes’ that the Chinese diplomacy is trying to capitalise on with its mindgames and stubborness.
The Op-eds carried by the Chinese newspapers are mostly rhetoric without much substance.They harp on the same predictable lines of how both China and India are great ancient civilisations, how they are the most populous countries in the world, their booming economies, rising trade, year of friendship etc… etc… But they seem to have skirted the hot button issues like the border problem, Tibet, China’s subversive help to the Pakistani nuclear program, its plans to divert the Brahmaputra river or even the latest instance of the Chinese envoy’s foot and mouth disease.
Filed under India, India and the World, International Politics, Media, PRC
Tibet is the key– Brahma Chellaney, Phayul.com dt 20/11/2006
What’s ripe for settlement– Claude Arpi, Rediff.com dt 20/11/2006
Will India repeat the mistakes of 1962?– Claude Arpi, Rediff.com dt 17/11/2006
Why I will protest Hu Jintao’s visit– Tenzin Choeying, Rediff.com dt 17/11/2006
Tackling the mandarins – P Stobdan, Hindustan Times dt 16/11/2006
What Hu won’t do in Delhi– Anil Athale, Rediff.com dt 16/11/2006
Why China Claims Arunachal Pradesh– Ramananda Sengupta, Rediff.com dt 16/11/2006
Who is Hu Jintao? – B Raman, Rediff.com dt 15/11/2006
‘Autocratic China becoming arrogant’– Brahma Chellaney, The Times of India dt 15/11/2006
Why I remain wary of China– B Raman, Rediff.com dt 14/11/2006
We’ve forgotten the past. China hasn’t- B Raman, Rediff.com dt 13/11/2006
China’s economic growth is not just ‘economic growth’– Arun Shourie, Indian Express dt 08/11/2006
To race China, first let’s get our feet off the brakes– Arun Shourie, Indian Express dt 07/11/2006
The State Of the Oldest Nation 