Tag Archives: China

Mar 25 2014

China shields North Korea from reports, citing them “divorced from reality.”

Having not posted recently, I figured this was as good a topic as any to cover…

The People’s Republic of China, through its representative in China’s Mission in Geneva, said of a UN Report on Human Rights abuses in North Korea; that the reports of Human Rights abuses in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are “divorced from reality,” placing themselves in the way as a shield to the atrocities reported of North Korea, particularly their prison camps.

The report itself, made by a panel of jurists commissioned by the United Nations, specifically pointed to reports from political prison camps; and indeed, by those fortunate few who have escaped and are able to give eyewitness [and, further, often physical evidence] accounts to the regimes tactics of political imprisonment.

The government of the DPRK has stated that the reports are “a fabrication by hostile forces,” the standard-issue rhetoric when North Korea speaks in relation to critical statements made of it.

By Beijing’s willful “shielding” of North Korea’s human rights abuses, it makes one wonder if they may not take further action to shield their ally — and how far they may go to do so.

Further Reading:
– UN Report on North Korean Human Rights

Apollo 11 on the Moon
Dec 14 2013

Chinese rover successfully lands on moon…

Chang'e-3

Chang’e-3

Today, the People’s Republic of China became the third nation in human history to successfully land on the moon, behind the United States and the former Soviet Union.

The Chang’e-3 spacecraft, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan, PRC on 01 December, just two weeks ago, will soon release the Yutu (“Jade Rabbit“) rover, a six wheeled scientific vehicle that contains an imaging sensor array, a telescope, an ultraviolet sensor and arms that can dig into the lunar soil up to 90 feet.  With a planned mission of three months, hopes are that the solar powered vehicle will live well beyond it’s life expectancy and mission time, much like other rovers have done.

Further, the next phase of the CNSA’s lunar program, Chang’e-5 is set to not only soft-land also, but has a stated objective to return to Earth with lunar soil samples, with a projected launch date of 2020.

Coming a long way since it first put a Chinese cosmonaut into space for the first time just ten years ago, the Chinese National Space Administration has clearly made leaps and bounds in putting the flag of it’s nation on another celestial body in a soft landing.

During the first EVA of Apollo 17, Eugene Cern...

Harrison Schmitt with the American flag and the Earth,400 000km away.

The last soft landing on the moon was by the Soviet Union’s Luna 24, which occurred in August 1976.  This mission was the third Soviet lunar expedition to successfully return lunar soil samples to Earth.  Four years before, Apollo 17 was the last manned exploration of the Moon, made up of Professor (and future United States Senator) Harrison Schmitt, and Navy Captain Eugene Cernan, known as “the Last Man on the Moon,” when his mission left the lunar surface exactly 41 years ago today, funny enough, when the Lunar Module ascended to meet the CSM at 10:54PM UTC.

“Sometimes, I catch myself looking up to the Moon and I wonder, when are we going back, and when will that be?”
— Captain James Lovell, USN (Retired)
Commander, Apollo 13

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Oct 19 2013

China’s call for a “De-Americanized” Future?

317b5967cf5b1b4ca8849bfa3f7f89e52a4d4aeeWhile this would, no doubt, be disastrous for the American economy, which is vastly based on the “full faith and credit of the United States government” of the United States dollar — could China’s own less-than-impartial statement that the future of the world should be “de-Americanized” have a point?

Partisan infighting in Congress, on top of massive trade deficits with China and Japan (among others) are threatening the faith the world has in the US government’s ability to pay the debts it has already racked up — even in simple interest payments on Treasury Bills and other things.

While there’s yet been a default on any obligation of the United States, if partisan gridlock doesn’t change in Washington, could it be an inevitable future?

Those on the right say our borrowing to fund the government and to pay our obligations say this is an unsustainable model do have a point.  Borrowing forever with no intention to fix it will only result in a catastrophic failure — sooner or later.

However, liberal economics specifically state that when the economy is in a recession, or otherwise growing at an anemic rate, that it is the government’s duty to pump money into the economy to ensure that consumer confidence remains high and that people spend — particularly during problems like high unemployment or lower consumer confidence, the two silver bullets to economic futures.  When people are scared (fiscally speaking) they withhold money; and not spending money grinds the economy to a halt.  Very effectively.

Are both goals mutually exclusive?  I don’t think so.

While a plan to begin to work down our debt obviously needs to be in place, because consumer confidence still hasn’t fully recovered from The Great Recession, this is where [neo?]liberal economics comes in.  Adaptive economics, in particular.  The economy “running itself,” particularly without any regulation, obviously doesn’t work as much as an authoritarian, centrally planned economy.  A government buffer helps “prop up” the economy, while the wheels of the private sector continue to spin.

It’s a mess, but it’s one we can fix — if we come together and work the problem… and not just point fingers — and America can still be a leader in the world.

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Aug 30 2013

China signals Lunar Landing within Decade…

“…we were done with the moon, ANYWAY — STUPID MOON!”
  — Jon Stewart

In a spot from The Daily Show four years ago, Jon Stewart pokes fun at the fact that India found water on the Moon, that the United States missed in the last forty years of exploration.  “Billions of gallons of it.”

Jon Stewart: “…I didn’t know NASA had a base in India!”
Aasif Mandvi: “THEY DON’T!  This is the Indian Space Research Organization!”

Parody aside, the latest space news is that the People’s Republic of China, the rising super-power directly challenging the United States’ unchallenged military presence on, above or AROUND the world, is now setting it’s sights on a lunar landing.

Launching its own [uninhabited] test space station, designated Tiangong 1 (Heavenly Palace 1) in 2011, the Tiangong Space Program is China’s attempt to place a large, modular space station in orbit by the beginning of the next decade.  From here, Chinese cosmonauts can conduct their own research and development, as well as support it’s own lunar program, free from the stranglehold the United States and it’s allies has had on Space for the last half-century.

China may be coming to space-faring late, compared to the United States, Russia and India, however, let’s look at the current setups: The United States has a minimal space program, with NO current flight ability of it’s own.  Astronauts/Cosmonauts from the United States require the use of launch vehicles and equipment from the Russian Federation (and to a limited point, at this time, private companies such as SpaceX) to reach, resupply or restaff its interests aboard the International Space Station.   Indeed, another sign of the times is the massive cut NASA took from the President’s pen, through Congress, in appropriations.  The Space Shuttle was retired.  The successor to the Space Shuttle, the Apollo-inspired Project Constellation, was cancelled, leaving the United States military and government’s ability to reach out to the stars in limbo for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, this was echoed by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.  “NASA is not going to the Moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime,” he stated.

However, he continued: “…and the reason is, we can only do so many things,”

While he didn’t specifically elaborate, it’s possible that NASA’s future plans could lie elsewhere — specifically, landings on asteroids, or even Mars, in relatively short order.

While the cancellation of the Constellation Project puts a American landing on Mars anytime soon in question, as Orion was designed with the intention of being capable of travelling to both the Moon AND to Mars, will American innovation and the memories of the Space Race of the 1960s embolden American spirit in an even broader space race?

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Apr 22 2013

Why I am a Tibetan Blue Book Holder…

English: Emblem of Tibet, used by the Tibetan ...

Tibet is a very special place.  It’s not only home to the top of the world, it’s got a rich, deep, incredible history, including that of a mainstream branch of Buddhism.  It’s also smack in the center of what will arguably be the future hub of the world: Asia — almost exactly between China and India; the two major commerce centers of the future world.

Tibet was taken over by the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s, following the Chinese civil war, and has since maintained a death grip over the region.  As a province-level government, the Tibet Autonomous Region is managed by a Chairman that is subordinate to the Communist Party of China.  Indeed, any attempt at any form of full autonomy or separation from the PRC has met with the PRC government’s full force to quash.  Pro-independence arguers state that Human Rights abuses commonly associated with China take place in Tibet as much as anywhere else in the authoritarian nation.

Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama (Photo credit: Joi)

I’ve always been a believer in self-determination — in that the people of a region have a right to determine whether or not they are aligned with a government, or not; particularly if the government in question is particularly oppressive or does not hold the best interests of its people in mind.  Knowing China’s repression of civil and political freedoms as well as I do, I decided to financially support the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and accept a Blue Book from their Government.

Similar to that of a passport, the Tibetan Blue Book shows that the holder has officially become a “friend” of the Tibetan government and people, and have pledged to support their cause; as I had when I was invited to become a friend to the Tibetan people.

Lead by the spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the Central Tibetan Administration is effectively the Tibetan government-in-exile, operating out of Himachal Pradesh, India with the 14th Dalai Lama as the Head of State.  The Buddhist philosophy of non-violence and spirituality has always served as a source of inspiration to me — and their political [if none other] oppression at the hands of the Chinese government has always served to me as a reminder of what complacency can do if we allow ourselves to serve the interests of a government, rather than the government serving the interests of US.

I am a Friend of Tibet.

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