Chinese businesses resist eviction from developers. Does this remind anyone else of Deadwood? [a la Barnett’s old point]

NYTimes:

On Tuesday afternoon, Ma Zhaoxu, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a news conference that “foreign enterprises in China need to adhere to China’s laws and regulations, respect the interests of the general public and cultural traditions, and shoulder corresponding responsibilities. Google is no exception.”

Are companies like Google really incompatible with China’s cultural traditions and the interests of the Chinese public? The answer has profound consequences.

Nicholas Consonery offers a useful counterpoint to Robert Fogel’s prediction that the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion in 2040, representing 40% of global GDP.

Beyond the cogent challenges that Consonery raises, Fogel only considers aggregate levels of college graduates, not quality. As Minxin Pei has argued, when one compares quality of engineering majors graduated from Chinese, Indian and American universities the balance is much more equal.

Fogel dismisses any potential deviations from his forecast in a single paragraph:

Of course, China faces its own demographic nightmares, and skeptics point to many obstacles that could derail the Chinese bullet train over the next 30 years: rising income inequality, potential social unrest, territorial disputes, fuel scarcity, water shortages, environmental pollution, and a still-rickety banking system. Although the critics have a point, these concerns are no secret to China’s leaders; in recent years, Beijing has proven quite adept in tackling problems it has set out to address. Moreover, history seems to be moving in the right direction for China. The most tumultuous local dispute, over Taiwan’s sovereignty, now appears to be headed toward a resolution. And at home, the government’s increasing sensitivity to public opinion, combined with improving living standards, has resulted in a level of popular confidence in the government that, in my opinion, makes major political instability unlikely.

This is assertion, not analysis.

Happy New Year, folks. The year’s off to a bang for me, hence the radio silence.

While this is hardly unique (most countries pay the ransom), it does contradict the initial claims that the PLAN would launch a rescue operation.

Also, the $4 million reportedly paid in ransom seems high for a coal freighter. Anyone have any good data on the ransoms paid for other ships of similar sizes or cargos? A simple media aggregation database would satisfy a first cut.

I hope my Christian readership had a peaceful Christmas and that everyone has a terrific start to 2010. I’m still on holiday/battery recharge. Catch you all in the future.

A man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because if you indulge this passion on some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.
— Plutarch

The Christian principle of forgiveness as a strategic asset.

Brooks’ op-ed made me think of this today because it eloquently summarized the paradox at the center of of working in national security: the tension between love and evil.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

-Alan Kay

For some reason I thought of an assessment I heard regarding the difference between Grant and the host of other Union generals who didn’t succeed. The gist was this: other generals were terrified of what Lee was going to do to them and became paralyzed. Grant, on the other hand, remained focused on what he was going to do to Lee.

This brings us to the idea of shaping - proactively affecting events instead of passively sitting back and trying to predict what will happen. A phase that new go players pass through is not realizing that they can deliberately shape the flow of a large handicap game - the stronger player makes moves to complicate things, trusting that the weaker player will not be able to read the board position and will therefore make mistakes that the stronger player can exploit. The breakthrough for the weaker player is to recognize when discretion is the better part of valor and consolidate gains instead of fighting the stronger player’s game.

John Lee has an excellent article over at WPR that brings together many data that illustrate the challenges faced by continued Chinese growth. Inefficient capital allocation, state-owned-industry-centered growth and lack of support among the lower classes all confront the CCP with structural challenges that will become harder and harder to deal with as the demographic consequences of the one child policy develop.

This is an excellent synthesis of several themes that I have discussed here in the past, including Chinese lending and mass protests .

Lee’s conclusion:

It is time to seriously consider the contingency of what it might mean for the United States if, instead of continuing its rise, China becomes increasingly overwhelmed and distracted by its core weaknesses.

To extend Bruce Schneier’s critique of movie-plot homeland security threats to the real of future war scenarios, I offer CDR Kraska’s article in the latest Orbis [pdf]. In this 2015 scenario:

• China sinks our carrier.
• The USN is completely unprepared while the PLAN is primed and ready.
• China closes the Panama Canal.
• We can’t even get through the Suez Canal.
• Elements of our own population turn against us without any countervailing rallies in support of the government and the military.
• No Asian regional power believes us that a missile hit our carrier.

If you script the U.S. as a completely passive actor, then all sorts of terrible things can happen.

[H/T Ricks]