NATO vs EU Expansion

There was a leading article by a Martin Iven's in today's 'Sunday Times' arguing that "Russia needs to be given clear red lines."1 The article is well balanced and, despite the immediate impression that it might make, it is well thought out. He contends that the Russians have won in Georgia and it is now the European Union rather than NATO that Tblissi should turn to while contending that this should also hold true for the Ukraine and goes on to say that the Baltic States are a member of both NATO and the EU and as such are entitled to our security guarantees.2 There is a lot of "Realpolitik" behind a strategy like this and although the EU is not a defence organisation it is sensible to assume that Russia would think at least twice before attacking any EU country. Indeed, there would be obvious benefits for Russia in cooperating with that EU. Of course, it already, goes without saying that any aggression by Russia towards the Baltic States, which are members of both NATO and the EU would be "va banque" in the extreme. Russia has in a sense been given a clear red lines and those lines didn't extend to a Georgia that is neither an EU nor an NATO member. The EU by opening its arms to both Georgia and the Ukraine could could shape Russia's attitude and , perhaps, ultimately draw Russia into a fair and equal strategic partnership. Howeve, it doesn't look as if that is something that the United States actually wants. The interests of the European Union and the United States are not always the same and the evidence would seem to suggest that they might become even more estranged in the not too distant future.
1 'The Sunday Times', August 31, 2008 p17
2 Ibid

Obama and Change

Possibly my position on Obama is obvious because of my not having discussed the Democratic Presidential candidate at any length, if at all. My opinion that Obama will change nothing substantial when it comes to American foreign policy might, therefore, be indicated by my silence on his campaign and, yes, that is my opinion. If we are looking for any real evidence of this we should look past his grandioise speech of a couple of nights ago and go back to his speech in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on June 4th when he said, ""....and as president I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security."1 Moreover, in the same speech, he himself more or less says that here at least there can be no dissession when it comes to support for Israel for he continues; "That is a commitment that both John McCain and I share, because support for Israel in this country goes beyond party."2 When it comes to American foreign policy there are certain areas where the "change" that Obama is screaming about won't and cannot happen. There are just certain things that cannot change and while he might bring a more conciliatory tone and a less obvious "gung ho" attitude to his office at the end of the day the United States is not going to pack up its bags and walk away from Central Asia, it is not going to leave Afghanistan and, although Obama is making noises to the contrary, there will be a continued presence in Iraq for some time. In short, the geopolitical interests of America dictate that no real change is possible and with Iran, Georgia and the Ukraine all potential areas of conflict Mr Obama might, indeed, be the American Commander in Chief during a conflict the likes of which we haven't seen since 1945.
1 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432
2 ibid

Journeys

China sort of met England today; the buses were on strike all day and like, well, everyone at the university like knows and there is me walking past the bus stop and there are like twelve Chinese students standing there. Now, of course, they might all have been unaware of the strike but my tendency is to think that the whole concept was outside of their thought processes. Anyway, off I went, walkie walkies, down to Uxbridge tube station, onto the metropolitian line and chug, chug, rumble, rumble into the big smoke a procedure that took longer than I expected because on arriving at Baker Street, or was it the stop before Baker Street, anyway, it doesn't matter because before getting to my destination, there was me sitting in the train and it doubled back and started going north again, so off I got at the next stop, changed trains onto the district line and started going south again.
The trip to London is always worth it though; the Beijing dumplings in my favourite little Chinese restaurant, the coffee in the 'Bar Italia', the bookshops and the city continues to atone for the hot air, huff, puff and bluff, the spin and ineffeciency that are all a part of the 'Blighty' package. The tube trip is an experience even after the slightly better "S-Bahn" and considerably better "U-Bahn" back home in Germany and when compared to the "D" trains and modern undergrounds in China ..... well there is just no comparison. We are, of course, reminded that the London underground is over a hundred years old and they are but is there not even here a suggestion that the future belongs to China?
My reading is not telling me anything new and if the suggestion above has some truth in it, there are, nevertheless, still factors, which indicate that it is not all going to be plain sailing; urban discontent can be controlled but what will happen when the 900 million or so peasants decide that enough is enough? Of course, the CCP has already made tentative efforts to tackle this problem and there was the much publicised doing away with certain taxes a couple of years ago and the promise to send all the little kiddies to school who couldn't afford to go. However, promises made in Beijing might not always reflect the reality outside the cities and with little buerocrats and party officials in the wee towns and villages, police and the like, all looking for ways to get back their lost income, a law won't be implemented or a new tax will be invented or there will be fines for this, that and the next thing; we might still get our revolution in the countryside and then there is the environment and, with the last vestiges of dirt leaving my lungs after my eighteen months, this might be a whooping great problem not only for China but for all of us. "que serra, serra, whatever will be, will be....." and the future is, indeed, not ours to see!

There Comes a Crisis

Today's headline in the 'Guardian', "Europe must stand up to Russia says UK"1, doesn't indicate that it is an altruistic "Blighty" lending "Uncle Sam" a helping hand. No, Britain profits greatly from its "special relationship", from its own geopolitical presence in Central Asia, and doesn't hesitate in declaring its hand. Meanwhile, the Germans, less quick to condemn Russia, adopt a very different approach; on opening my webmail this evening I was confronted with an article where Michael Glos, the German "Wirtschaftsminister", proposes building up national gas reserves as an insurance against Russian supplies of gas being interrupted in the event of a political crisis.2 The one country does nothing to calm the situation and, to some extent, pours oil on the fire in the Caucauses and the other holds back in its criticism of Russia, while already thinking about how to insure itself against against being too dependent on Russian gas.
As far as the crisis itself is concerned there is another slant on it, which begs reading and I suggest that those of you who are interested in some sort of credible anti-thesis to the thesis that is being banded about in the West, look at http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Caucasus_War/caucasus_war.html
It is all a trifle frightening actually!
1 'The Guardian', Thursday, 28 August 2008
2 http://wirtschaft.t-online.de/c/16/02/87/44/16028744.html

Democracy in China

It was with some interest that I read a rather naive article on China, "Democracy in China: Fact or Fiction?" by a Thomas Riggens; the url has been given at the bottom of this post. I say naive because of the silly conclusion where he says, "My own view is that the party is still committed to the socialist project (or why fear a Gorbachev), which is inherently democratic, and that the level of democratic rights is steadily increasing for the people of China: the increase being directly proportional to the material well being of the population and the ability of the CPC and its leadership to build a society committed to socialist construction." What poppycock, the party is largely concerned with holding onto power and developing mechanisms to hold onto this power and while a show might be made of "being more democratic", "more open" etc in Beijing, the very nature of the party ensures that the reality on the ground will be very different. A reality, which sees very real abuses of position and very real oppression. The party in my opinion was never particularly interested in a socialist project or if it was, the country and the party were never ready for that socialist experiment. If there is a general law in history, it might be the history of human stupidity. If there is a general law in Chinese history, post and pre-1949, it is the history of man's abuse of man. Today in China some 900 million people, or about 65% of the population, are second class citizens in their own country; the rural population and the migrant workers have either no or very few rights. To suggest that there is equality even in front of that one institution that should be above legislative control, namely, the law, is a nonsense. The government in Beijing might make noises, might try to address a situation that can get out of control and threaten the very centre of power, might publicly, on occassion, even take the side of the underdog. However, the size of China along with centralised rule means that the local party bosses in the provinces cannot be brought under control and that they are in fact the product of a political system that ensures that they continue to abuse their power without being accountable to anyone and, very often, without being noticed in Beijing.

There is growing dissent and voices are making themselves heard. There is a struggle going on. However, this is not a struggle that will necessarily be won. The party is still firmly entrenched in power and it is not voluntarily going to give up that power. The party is not interested in socialist ideals and, indeed, it might very well be that it never really was. The evidence would seem to suggest that first and foremost it was always about power and as we all know, if power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Having said that, there are a lot of good people in the Chinese Communist Party but the only conclusion for them has to be that if China is to develop into a society where all of the citizens have rights, there must be a gradual sharing of power and ultimately a transition to a truely democratic society. Perhaps, if this happens, there might ultimately be that transition to a real socialist democracy.

England is becoming a treat because of the number of books that you can access and consume here. Today, I finished Philip Pan's book and then went out and bought Ma Jian's 'Beijing Coma', Rob Gifford's 'China Road' and Mark Leonard's 'What Does China Think?'

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/04/democracy-in-china-fact-of-fiction/

Brave New World

Another sort of nothing day in Uxbridge, West London. Nothing to write home about, nothing happening, nothing to do in the evening after the shops close at 6 p.m. and the cafes at seven; heaven it's not in 'Blighty' "old bean" indeed, tongue in cheek, it is all a little bit obscene, well it could be into the pub, a coca cola and some "Blighty" grub and then off to Tesco or Sainsbury for a bit of shopping ...... http://www.wwitv.com/ is a great site; a wee bit of nostalgia had me watching the news on Scottish television and then here was me discovering that they show all of this Scottish stuff that you can watch online and I ended up watching this programme called "High Times" and it sort of made me realise why I left the place all those years ago. Jesus, thair heids ur full a mince; a Glasgow party, http://video.stv.tv/bc/catchup-hightimes-20080828-ep06-pt02/ . Aye, yer being in society determines yer consciousness!
On a slightly more serious note the media informs us that it is all becoming, well, serious, in Georgia. They are goose stepping in the Ukraine, while Moscow ups the stakes and talks about recognising Abkhazian and South Ossetian aspirations to break away from Tblissi and George Bush is talking about the territorial integrity of Georgia, American ships are in the Black Sea, Russians soldiers are still in the streets of Georgia's main port, Poti. Shouldn't be invading sovereign countries, should they? The Russians, I mean! Difficult, of course, for the West to moralise but we could exclude them from the G8 and that will have them worried, I think not and just how important is that little club without China, Brazil and India, anyway?
The aim was to finish "Out of Mao's Shadow" this evening, and if brave souls such as those portrayed in that book can shape not only the China but also the India and the Russia that we are going to have to deal with then the world will be a better place. We might help them gain the ascendency if we stop our moralising and hypocritical two-facedness.

The Olympics

The headline in the 'Süddeutsche Zeitung'; "Zum Abscheid ein Lob für China" (At the end of the games, praise for China).1 The IOC President Jacques Rogge praised the games and expressed his belief that China, through the games, has made certain progress in other, in my opinion, much more important areas. The legacy of the games has still to be assessed and I won't be jumping the gun on this one. Nevertheless, I have this sort of feeling that Mr Rogge doesn't know his arse from his elbow. The games we are told are to be free of politics, yet, Mr Rogge's comments express the sort of political support that the powers that be in Beijing seek. He would have done well had he concentrated on the successful organisation of the games or had he even confined himself to his statement that, "the world has learned about China, and China has learned about the world, I believe this is something that will have positive effects for the long term.”2 The question might be asked, what has the world learned about China? The world has learned that they can organise, that the people are friendly, that there is a certain optimism at large. The world has learned precisely what Beijing wanted the world to learn. As to the games themselves; some 5,000 tests produced less than ten positive results and one certain sprinter has shown an improved performance of the type unseen since the good old days of Flo-Jo and Ben Johnson. All in all, what a farce!
1 'Süddeutsche Zeitung', Monday 25 August front page
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/sports/olympics/25china.html?hp

China and Environmental Pollution

Possibly, probably, CCTV will be feeding the Chinese public with pictures of their very successful olympics for the next four years at least and it remains to be seen how, if at all, the olympics might have changed China. Certainly, one restraint on the country's development has been removed; the factories in and around Beijing will have to catch up with missed production and it might be literally full steam ahead for unrestricted growth and a return at least to the pre-olympic smog levels that beset the capital and some three weeks or so after leaving China my bronchaitis is still clearing up.

The trip to Salzburg didn't materialise because of the amount of traffic on the "Autobahn" and instead it was off to Bad Tolz, Weilheim, Ammersee and back home and it was in Bad Tolz that I coughed up a lot of the rubbish that had been lying around in my chest since China. A process that began in Uxbridge in England was accelerated in deepest Upper Bavaria and a part of the world where you really feel that you are breathing in the cleanest of air. There are a lot of things pulling on me to return to China and to cultivate a more sincere interest in the place when I do. However, one thing that is restraining me is the quality of the air there and at no time have I been more conscious of this than I was today in Bad Tolz.

The Picture was taken in Bad Tolz today.

China and Historical Development

Sometimes, if only in some ways, you can get to know a place better when you leave it and my reading of, "Out of Mao's Shadow"at least confirms an opinion that I voiced in an earlier blog when I said that China in its development will be confronted with those things that have confronted capitalist development elsewhere. Parallels with the Dickensian, Manchester, Capitalism of the nineteenth century are not wholly misplaced and if we are looking at workers history, there is a continuity between the Tolpuddle struggles of 1831/32 and the struggle of the workers in Liaoyang in China's north eastern industrial heartland in 2003.1There was to be no immediate success for the struggle at Tolpuddle and so it was too with the struggle in Liaoyang. However, if history does teach us a lesson it is that the struggle goes on. During my time in China it was not only my lack of language that meant that I remained in a sort of privileged ghetto unaware of what was really going on. My own embourgeoisement has meant that I am 'a priori' more concerned with the world created by Starbucks, Costa Coffee, the wireless internet and that means that reading a book is invariably required if I am to become aware of the bigger picture and with the bigger picture dawning on me fragments of the other China comes to mind; the people begging as we made our way back to our boat near the "Ghost Town" on the Yangzte, those people, once proud farmers and workers, who are forced to sell whatever they can to eek out a living and then the arrogance of those ex-pats of the crudest half education, the petite burgeioise sort who would find it difficult even to retain that status back home, who dismiss them as peasants and worse, much worse, the arrogance of their own compatriots towards them.

Fürstenfeldbruck is another world, of course, a world where nobody goes hungry and where the supermarkets are crammed full of lots and lots of nice things that people can generally afford. The good "machiato" is cheaper than it is in England and, yes, cheaper than it is China and, while England is not quite moving as fast as China one does get the feeling here in Upper Bavaria that nothing has really changed or is really changing but, maybe, that will be different when the Chinese buy their first village as a tourist attraction for those like the party officials and factory bosses who got rich quick at the expense of the workers. There might even be some entertainment for me to be had as a seventy something year old watching some rich Chinese and their German lawyers taking on the locals here.

1 Philip Pan "Out of Mao's Shadow; The Struggle for the Soul of a New China", pp113-146

The picture shows is of the table where I was sitting in the cafe in the well stocked supermarket in Fürstenfeldbruck, supping my coffee, reading my book and chewing the cud.

Uxbridge to Fürstenfeldbruck

The U2 bus from my front door to Heathrow Airport goes around all these wee windy streets but it still gets you there in about twenty five minutes and the rest was a dawdle, except for the fact that the airport authorities were blocking one flight path to Munich and our captain had to get in touch with ground control in Frankfurt and take a sort of detour but all in all it was just hunky-dory and we got into a wet rainy Munich only about thirty minutes late or so.
On the plane I continued being engrossed in Philip Pan's book, the one I mentioned in yesterday's post, and it is just a pity that the people in the West who would seize on the heroic stories he is portraying, the people who would make political capital out of them, are of exactly same ilk as the red rubbish that was at the forefront of the "anti-rightest" campaign and the Cultural Revolution. Still, Lin Zhao and others do give hope that the struggle for China's soul is not lost. One wonders, where is the West's conscience?
The journey from the Munich Airport to Fürstenfeldbruck takes about the same time as the journey from the centre of London to Uxbridge but on drawing into the centre of Munich you notice what a provincial town Munich in fact is. Not the masses at Marienplatz that you find at either Leicester Square or People's Square. Not the hustle and bustle of a London or Shanghai. Tomorrow I am off to the Chiropodist and I am looking forward to the couple of days at home, far from the madding crowds.

Ramblings

The trip into London today was pleasant enough; there were the obligatory visits to the Bar Italia in Soho and the usual bookshops and then there was a little walk up to the LSE and a visit to the bookshop there and the question whether as an ex-student of the school, I get a discount on books and I don't and the selections in Blackwells and Foyles are better anyway and at least as cheap so I took myself back up to Blackwells, where I bought, "Out of Mao's Shadow" by Philip Pan and having started to read it on the way home, it looks as if it is going to be a good read and good is not an adjective I can apply to the London transport system and that is a pity because there are times when you are walking about parts of London and thinking that this must be one of the best cities in the world and it might be were it not for the fact that you .... well, you have to get home and on the way home the train didn't even make it to Raynors Lane where I normally change for Uxbridge but only to South Harrow where we all had to walk down the steps under the tunnel and onto the next platform and wait for a train, which, fortunately, came quite quickly and I would have been happy enough but the train stopped at Hillingdon and we all had to walk down through a tunnel and wait for a bus to Uxbridge. Anyway, I got home, so here I am but living in London for anything more than the few weeks that I am here, don't think so somehow and, apart from anything else, the prices, oh the prices, my god! Three pounds for the coffee in the Bar Italia and then the return trip, with all that jumping on and off of trains too, cost about eight pounds and really to be honest I don't know how your working class manages but then I suppose they only jump on and off of trains once in a blue moon, unless, of course, it is necessary to do so to get to work and they won't be indulging in a cup of cappucinno in the Bar Italia and they read those free newspapers like "London Life" that are distributed in front of all the tube stations and that end up strewn all over the seats on the train. They, your working class, don't read books, do they?

The picture above was taken in Trafalgar Square, in what would be one of the best cities in the world, if it were not for the fact, that you have to get home. The big telly in the square is showing the olympics and I don't know if it is there when the olympics are not on.

Geopolitics and a Stranger in a Strange Land

The one pound fifty for 'The Financial Times' is not a reader friendly price, although I am sure that most of the readers of that paper don't think on those terms. Still, with 'The Guardian' and the other "quality" papers selling for about eighty pence that one pound fifty is sort of prohibitive, I mean one pound twenty alright and maybe even one pound forty but when you get to one pound fifty ............... well! Still, I bought the paper today because I do think it is good journalism and I was beginning to grow weary of the daily 'Guardian' diet.
Georgia is off of the front pages but the papers are still giving extensive coverage to the Russian pullout or not pullout and in the 'FT today the pullout and metamorphosed into a pullback.1 The Russians are in the area to stay and one wonders to what extent conflict is inevitable in the Caucasus. More important, however, is the situation in the Ukraine. There the Russian lease agreement with Kiev for the Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol expires in 2017 and what are the odds against Moscow refusing to remove the fleet. That along with potential support for Russian separatists in the Crimea could be the source of a conflict that might make the conflict in Georgia seem like a harmless sideshow.
The good thing about returning to the United Kingdom is that I no longer feel a part of it. Being an observer, how wonderful! Alright I have the passport, the Scottish accent and the national insurance number, but I really do feel that I am on the outside looking in and one thing you would have to say in all honesty, well there is a little word that rymes with Brit and you might want to use the quantifier "full of" ......... The caramel wafers and the wine gums are great though and it was rather pleasant on saturday walking through Chelsea and on Friday I am off home to Munich and Fuerstenfelfburck and the quality of Chelsea for a fraction of the price.
1 'The Financial Times', August 20, 2008, p6

Castles in the Air

The call to my sister and news of her working for six pounds an hour and the poor don't really get much richer, the bluff and hype from people of the crudest half education that I am confronted with; England does, indeed, flatter to deceive and it is not a kick in the arse off of Berlisconi's Italy in the business of selling castles in the air. One is reminded of a speech Niel Kinnock once gave to the Labour Party Congress, where he ranted on about how you could no longer talk about taking the worker out of his misery when that worker had a video recorder as well as annual holidays on the Costa del Sol and now its Costa Coffee and cafe latte, cappuccino, MP3 players, latest mobile telephone and up to your eyeballs in debt, the "panem et circenses" has taken on a new dimension and one could wallow in the bliss that ignorance affords us and sup one's coffee in contentment if it were not for the fact, that the Costa closes at seven p.m.
Georgia has disappeared from the front page of 'the Guardian' and there is a surrealness about life in Uxbridge. In a sense I am standing at a distance observing and the opening scene of '1984' comes to mind when the citizens of Oceania scream out in support of their leader Emmanuel Goldstein and the "always" war against East Asia. Maybe there isn't a place called Georgia and maybe the Russians didn't really invade it but then maybe I am just very tired and it is time to go to bed and anyway the article on Madonna at fifty, the search for Mandy or the girl with the big tits on page three is more important anyway.

London Yesterday and News from Georgia Today

After a very pleasant weekend during which I discovered that London with a "je ne sais quoi", a sort of "dolce vita", sauntering down Earls Court Road into Fulham Road up to Stamford Bridge for a taste of the match day atmosphere, watching a first half demonstration of Chelsea performing the beautiful game in a nearby cafe cum bar before taking myself down the Kings Road to Sloane Square and on home with the tube, it was into Uxbridge this evening at half past six in the evening only to discover that the bookshop in the High Street closes at six p.m., that the cafes all close at seven p.m. and that for the want of something to do you are forced into a pub or a supermarket and it was raining this evening and the sun had its hat on all day yesterday. England is so fickle, it flatters to deceive and Uxbridge this evening was light years away from Stamford Bridge yesterday.
'The Guardian' informs us, "Russia warned: withdraw from Georgia,or else"1 and the West we are told is united and Putin must be shaking in his boots. United my arse and, at least, Angela Merkel will be thinking along the lines of her more illustrious predecessor, Otto von Bismark, who once declared that the whole of the Balkans are not worth the bones of one single Pomeranian grenadier. When in chewing the cud Angie will come to the conclusion that the Cacausus are not worth the bones of one single German soldier, despite her backing Georgia's aspirations to join NATO and her calling for the Russians to withdraw competely. The Russians have bitten and their bite and not the West's bark is what counts. Putin has demonstrated his own penchant for Bismarkian "Realpolitik" and all the resolutions passed by NATO will not determine the great issues of the day but rather blood and iron. South Ossetia and Abkazia have been lost, NATO is not united and there is very little action the United States can take.
1 'The Guardian', Monday 18th August 2008

Seeing Famous People in London

Anyway, wanna the grate things aboot livin in London is ye get tae see sum faemis peeple. Thair wuz me walkin doon Earls Court Road the day and a sort a cut intae a wee side street and headed fur Fulham Road and who did a see walking in front a me? That grate German fitba playir, Michael Ballack walkin way wanna his team mates; Didier Drogbha a think! A only think it was Drogbha because he didna huv his name oan the back a his shirt but a know he's injured and this guy wuz limpin as well. Mind ye Michael didna look very fit either; maybe it's aw the crap English food these lads eat when they get tae England. Wan thing is fur sure, a widdnae pay any ow these two dumplins aw that money that that Russian fella is gein them.

The picture was taken without the knowledge of the two fitba players thats why it is a wee bit blurred.

The Press in England

It is the press in England that continues to amaze; the audacity, the nerve, the verve, the cheek!There was this guy called Andrew Malone writing absolute drivel about Africans who live in Beijing and others being rounded up and being interned for the duration of the Olympic Games and then linking his report to the 1936 Olympics when the Nazis did the same thing and sent people to camps that bore the slogan "Arbeit macht Frei" above the gate. Now Dachau, which was opened in 1933, did bear this slogan but there is no evidence to suggest that the Nazis were particularly active in sending people there or anywhere else prior to the Olympics. Moreover, the effect of this slogan is not lost on Malone even if he is uninformed and ignorant, the antithesis of the investigative journalist. Most people who have been confronted with the slogan "Arbeit macht Frei" will automatically think of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Nazi death camps. The reader of the 'Daily Mail' is to equate the actions of the regime in Beijing with the worst excesses of the holocaust. This is what is wanted! Mr Malone knows nothing about China and he knows nothing about the Third Reich and he has now parcelled his "nothing" in bias and drivel and passed it on to the great discerning British public. However, Mr Malone is only one of a number of "Journalists" writing drivel for the 'Daily Mail' and it even gets to their sports reporters. Not content just to celebrate a British gold medal in cycling the paper had to report in an article that really shows the paper for the xenophobic, chauvanistic rag that it is, that, "the conceited French were run ragged."1
Now it is time for me to draw a parallel with Nazi Germany; the 'Daily Mail', 'Sun', 'Star', 'Mirror' and a few others would be on a par with the Amman press if it were not for the fact that the prose, at least, in the German press were a lot better than the badly written drivel that is the British publics lot. Of course, 'Blighty' does have 'The Guardian', 'The Financial Times' and a couple of other decent papers and there is the foreign press and media such as http://www.democracynow.org/ . However, what does your average Brit read, how does he or she think? Ask Mr Malone, he knows!
1 'The Daily Mail', Saturday 16th August 208, p118

In Search of Inspiration

In search of inspiration, coming up for air, call it what you will, I took the tube into London this evening and so "Nelly (that's me) the elephant packed his trunk and said goodbye to the circus, and off he went trumpty, trump on the road to Mandalay" .... well, Leicester Square actually and on the way the train moaned, wheezed, and groaned, wheezed and puffed and panted its way into Acton Town. The girl beside me, an Indian Muslim of the pukkah class, screamed into one mobile phone, while her other mobile phone was intermittently blaring out some music, and there she was screeching in some South Asian tongue that was interpolated with the occassional RP sentence. One of the things that I found difficult living in China was it is too Chinese. Well, what I mean is that even in Shanghai, the country's most cosmopolitan city, 99.5% of the faces are Chinese and London? Well, I am not trying to be funny but of the ten faces in this little section of the tube two were European and that is including my own. Still, variety is the spice of life and better a screaming, screaching Indian girl of the pukkah class than some screaming, screaching white trash but am I beginning the miss the "re nao" of "Zhonghua" that I was so quick to condemn only a few weeks ago?

Getting off at Leicester Square I did the round that I did last week; there was the wee Chinese restaurant at the corner of Soho's Newport Square and Newport Close, sort of where Chinatown, begins, and the best "jiao zi" that I have tasted ever and I have tasted lots of "jiao zi" in China, and then it was off to the Bar Italia and the best cup of cappuccino that you will get outside or inside Italy and then of I went trumpty trump to Foyles and the "biggest bookstore in the world", a perusal of the books and trumpty trump back home and spluttering, a stopping, and a starting and a wheeze wheeze wheeze and the train roled into Acton Town and on.

Arriving in Uxbridge .... well, the British playing continental down in Soho, Chelsea, Hampstead, Knightsbridge etc is sort of alright but in Uxbridge on a Friday night it doesn't quite succeed, but there they are, sitting outside supping their pints, with the police patrolling the street and the wee girls, some with beer bellies, some without, but all of them showing a lot of flesh, singing their songs as they stroll arm and arm up to the nightclub, bouncers on the door, nice if you know one, don't look aggressive and good if you can flash a bit of flesh. If England was as England seems .....................

The read back on the tube was the 'Evening Standard' and Peaches Geldorf is in trouble with her dad for going to LA and marrying a rock star. Weren't we all young once Bob? Then there was the wee go at Ken Livingstone for going to Beijing on a binge at the Chinese government's expense and a report on George Bush warning Russia to stop bullying Georgia and lots more drivel. Now, as I said before, variety is, indeed, the spice of life and if I only had brain washing, mind numbing, tory trash like this to read,1 ..... whatever, there is an all prevading thoughtless, mindless, moron "blighty" that fails to realise that spin and bluff and supports a country that lives on its wits and cons the planet, while invariably adopting the moral high ground and you would have to take your hat off to them because they have been doing it for a long time and they are still getting away with it but wouldn't it be nice if they actually rolled their shirt sleaves up, put on their thinking caps, stopped kidding themselves and the unfortunates elsewhere, who don't have the tools to know that they are being taken to the cleaners?

1 'Evening Standard', Friday 15 August, 2008

The picture above is of the little Chinese restuarant in Soho that serves the best "jiao zi" in the world.

Bush, Blockade, Black Sea Fleet and Brunel

With George Bush warning Russia and the US sending military hardware and "humanitarian aid" to Georgia, President Saakashvili was quick to say that Poti port and Tblissi airport would be controlled by the Americans. At least Washington was quick to deny this. However, with the Ukraine threatening to blockade the Russian Black Sea Fleet it is easy to see where this could all go. The Ukraine and Georgia are both being considered for NATO membership. If they do join NATO, how will Russia react? Irrational heads in Kiev and Tblissi should not be allowed to prevail and it is important that the West sits down and talks to Moscow as an equal. Should this not happen, what is essentially a small regional conflict might ultimately become an international crisis. Both the United States and Russia have to address each others concerns and work sensibly towards a solution for the region. There is a whiff of that mid-summer's day ninety four years ago when in Sarajevo one shot triggered off the Great War of 1914-18.
The new room in Brunel is hunky-dory, the job is a dawdle, little jaunts into Uxbridge is the coming up for air during the week and this weekend I will take myself into the city. England continues to annoy in bits; the iced caramel latte at Costa Coffee is no more than cold coffee poured over ice cubes. Do they not normally crush the ice? However, I am beginning to discover the pleasant side to England too; returning from Tesco yesterday evening I dropped into a normal English pub, ordered my coca cola and watched Standard Liege and Liverpool on the television and afterwards there was a strange sort of deja vu when I got lost walking back to Brunel and there was me walking past all those little, British, houses where there is a sofa and two arm chairs and a big television in 99% of the living rooms. This is England and the donar kebab and fish and chip shops, the Chinese takeaways, and pubs, pubs, pubs, couple of betting shops here and there, cafes close at seven o'clock, Tesco stays open until ten p.m. and, well you can buy a copy of "Der Spiegel" in Uxbridge and could I live here? No, but the summer is "hackable" and a bit more; it could even turn out to be a reasonably nice summer.

"Inter Pares"

Mikhail Gorbachev's opinion in today's 'Guardian'1 reflects common sense even when we take into account that both South Ossetian and Georgia are in actual fact being used to further the interests of the United States and Russia for although this is a fact, I would still have to agree with Mr Gorbachev when he says that the interests of Russia do have some legitimacy. In the long term the United States would do well to come to an agreement on South Ossetian and Abkhazia that might be hard to swallow for Tblissi in return for their main interest, the pipeline from Afghanistan to Turkey, being protected. Indeed, it is, perhaps, time for the United States to sit down "inter pares" with both Russia and China and turn its back on the hypocrisy and unilateralism that has been the order of the day under President Bush and his neo-conservative friends in Washington. After the presidential elections in November this will, hopefully, happen and by treating both friends and potential adversaries as equals, Washington will only strengthen its position and deter other countries from flouting international law. More importantly for the United States, however, is the fact that it is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan and if it is to provoke further conflicts elsewhere, we might see the sun setting on the American imperium sooner than expected.
Brunel has become a nicer place since I moved my accommodation away from some young Saudi lads who were hell bent on indulging in just about everything that is "haram" back home. They remind me of a young lad I knew when I taught at Abertay in 2003, who was intent in drinking just about every alcoholic drink under the sun and who, when I met him only one year later in Bahrain was courting a girl, getting ready for the Hadj and drinking nothing stronger than water. No doubt, a similar fate awaits them!
1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/russia.georgia1

News from Brunel

The little things continue to annoy here in England; the going into a university canteen and being expected to pay too much for badly prepared food, the badly prepared course, which foreign students are expected to pay too much money for and the weather. Well, they cannot do much about the weather but I don't know how they manage to continue to con the rest of the world. Have you ever sat down and thought how the British actually get by, I mean, what do they produce? Nevertheless, despite my being slightly peeved, I did get a move into quieter better accommodation and, with me flying to Germany next week for three days, it does look like I will drift through this five week presessional course and on to greater things.
The guns are silent in Georgia and it appears that George Bush might just have made his point; had the Russians continued to advance they may indeed have been dabbling in brinkmanship. Cheney, had his wee dig about a democracy being attacked and despite their not going to be around for much longer they are still there for now and we shouldn't put anything past George and Dick. Do you know, I think they might even have had a go at the Russians and do you know, I think the Russians might even been aware of it.

The Great Game Revisited 2

The first day working at Brunel and it is much of a muchness in the presessional scene, a sort of "deja vu, been there, done it, seen it before", feeling! Still, a routine of sorts is beginning to establish itself and that can only be good, the jobs a bit of a dawdle and well that is because of the "been there, done it, seen it before"; cannot teach an old dog new tricks, can you?

The routine appears to be that I will be going into Uxbridge either on a three minute, sixty pence, bus ride or by taking a fifteen minute walk after finishing teaching every day and, when I get there, there will be a serious reading of the papersbefore I take myself home. Today's reading of the papers saw me concentrate on the events in Georgia and the conclusion would have to be the Vladimir and George are not already having the hoped for chit chat and that Mr Saakashvilli has been brilliantly outplayed by the Russians who are now in Gori the birthplace of 'Uncle Joe' and some fifty miles away from the Georgian capital Tbillisi. Now they are not directly threatening the only non-Russian controlled pipeline from Central Asia and the Caucasus to the West via the Turkish port of Ceyhan but is it not just possible that they could be ready to up the stakes, force Mr Saakashvilli's resignation, and get a government in Tbillsi that they can influence? The evidence would, at least, appear to suggest that the Russians are at last turning the tide of American influence in their backyard.

It is all about the oil, of course, and the portents are, indeed, ominous. The British media are suggesting that Saakashvilli is the real loser but the thousands that have died because of his arrogance and foolishness are the very real losers. Furthermore, having experienced this slap in the face, while at the same time realising the stakes, the Americans might just decide to attack Iran sooner than expected through its proxy Israel.

The map above portrays the situation in Georgia.

The Great Game Revisited 1

The day started off well, being in England, you have the English weather and the English weather is very changeable, so yesterday's rain had disappeared and the sun had its hat on and I took myself down to the square in front of Uxbridge tube station and bought myself the papers, went to Costas, bought myself a big cup of latte and perused the 'Observer' and the 'Mail on Sunday'.
Now as we all know, the 'Mail on Sunday' is read by the wives of the people who run the country and it is not really suitable for a bright boy like me. However, the bias on the situation in Georgia in that one paper in particular caught my eye and I just had to read it and it was all there; "vital pipeline to West threatened by escalating war", "Russian bear goes for West's jugular", "1,100 mile oil pipeline that helps supply the UK"1 ..... the great game refered to in some of my earlier posts is in full swing and with Russia forcing Georgia to withdraw unconditionally from South Ossetia, the bear is there and all the West can do is pin its hopes on diplomacy. However, the real culprit here is Georgia's volatile president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who flaunted international law when he launched the assault on Tskhinvali. This is a man who wants to take his friendship with the West one big step further and join NATO and we can only thank God that the Germans and French put the dampers on that one or else we would already be going to war with Russia.
1 'The Mail on Sunday', August 10, 2008 pp1,4,5

News from London

They really are full of shit in England and there is no free wireless internet connection in Uxbridge or not at least in the twenty or so cafes I went into and I am not going to pay five pounds an hour or ten pounds a day or forty pounds a month for the t-mobile hotspot at starbucks and so it was that I found myself with nothing better to do than jump into the tube and take myself into the west end, knowing that there is a wireless connection in Foyles bookshop, only to find on getting there that the connection is down and it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and off I went all the way back up to Uxbridge and, no doubt, using up all twenty pounds credit on my travel in the process. That is what I mean when I say they are full of shit; they take the money out of your pocket as if they have some sort of divine right to it as if they think, it has no right to be in your pocket. There was the eight pounds plus for the couple of coffees at the Bar Italia the other night, there are the astronomical fares even when you are using a discount card, there are silly three pound tags put on simple sandwiches and there was the wee lad in Foyles today, sticking a tea bag into my cup and asking me for one pound fifty. The money in this job at Brunel University is not bad but I will need it and I am forced to think about Mr Mcawber's advice to David Copperfield, "income £20 year, expenditure £19 19s6d, result: happiness. Income £20 a year, expenditure £20. 0s. 6d., result: Misery." London really is a part of the world where you can just about imagine Frank Lampard's or Michael Ballack's or Dimitri Berbatov's wife coming home and giving the star kicker a heart attack on saying, "I've just done a wee bit of shopping on the Kings Road darling".
The news is being dominated by the situation in Georgia and a showdown, which has been coming for some time. There is a report in the Guardian suggesting that the west would be advised to stay out of the conflict over South Ossetia and I can only agree.1 The hypocrisy of Messrs Bush etc is sickening and his saying that the territorial integrity of Georgia has to be respected just makes you want to puke. Forget the territorial integrity of Serbia when it is convenient but emphasise it in Georgias case when it facilitates your own geopolitical goals. The people of South Ossetia want to join North Ossetia and they do not want to be a part of Georgia and to think this Georgia has been pushing for NATO membership. Of course, had that have happened we might now find ourselves going to war with Russia. The mind boggles and for Russia and the USA it is all about oil as it was in Kosovo. In this case, however, if there is any moral argument it has to be on Moscow's side. No doubt, Washington and Moscow are already having a chit chat.
1 'The Guardian' August 9, 2008, p29.

"Progress"

You could almost feel their being as proud as punch; the Hub on the university campus was taken over by the Chinese students for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics and it was indeed quite a spectacular but it is all a wee bit like the Italian fella and his 'bella' or, as we say back in Glasgow, all fur coats and no knickers and don't be surprised if they are tearing down and replacing the 'birds nest' in ten or fifteen years time . It's all show ..... well, almost all show and the development in 'Zhonghua' is indeed quite phenomenal, a development that I have personally witnessed on a daily basis. However, having personally witnessed that development I have also seen some of the conflicts real and potential that come with it and some of the more negative consequences too. However, for the time being, the peasants in the field, the factory girls and the other migrant workers with limited rights in the big cities have their "panem et circenses" and for the next couple of weeks, they are at one with their affluent compatriots who are studying abroad; for now there is the desired social harmony. Nevertheless, while the march onwards might seem relentless, spare a thought for those left behind and forget the "Chinese road to Socialism" for capitalism is not kind, there will be no redistribution of wealth.

These are interesting times and those on the gravy train in China will find that their interests lie not with their poorer compatriots but with the middle classes elsewhere. It might just be, therefore, that in the global village the masses of people will ultimately become aware of where their true interests lie.

The picture above was taken in the Hub at Brunel University during the opening ceremony.

Having Nothing to Say, a Bit of the Day

Little rows of little houses, a sprinkling of pubs one called the hub on the campus at the university, latte, not bad, can be had in a cafe where the students from Cathay, earn a few bob through their minimum wage job. This is Brunel and it's more but I don't want to bore. Suffice to say, I enjoyed my day and I might, just might, like my stay in 'Blighty' once so mighty ....

Anyway, lets talk about today and off I went, got the paper, had a read and my breakfast feed, cup of coffee and a sort of toffee covered in chocolate. It was actually a big piece of caramel cake and then up to the International Pathways Centre, talked to the boss, talked about money and that wasn't funny because there was a truth that was quite uncouth and it seems that they won't acccept a P38, what a fate, and I will have to use a P46 and that means I am in a bit of a fix because there will be some tax but, at least it won't be the max and I will get it back, so maybe I should just stay calm and not give a damn because as I said, ...... well, everything is hunky-dory.

The rest of the day was spent doing this, that and the next thing and in the evening there was a wee walk and a talk, with a friend, and down to a typical English pub, very unlike the Hub, where we had some grub and a glass of coke, being on the wagon is no joke, .... I have no more to say, that was my day ...... Goodnight!

The picture above is of the pub very unlike the Hub, which is on the campus.

Another Thought on China and Nationalism

A brief reference back to China and the fact that we can get more or less everything we want there; we have our internet and we have our satellite television, and we have ..... well, we have more or less everything! However, a couple of home truths were sort of rammed home during the course of the day today. This will be the first China post from England!
On arriving back in the room this evening, I decided to watch some of the news on German television and there I was watching a live stream of from NTV and then some documentry stuff from ZDF and it was just like watching television at home and the connection was ever so fast and then there me was this morning having breakfast in a little transport cafe in the centre of Uxbridge and sitting with a hard copy of the Guardian, while munching my saugsages, bacon and egg.
There was an interesting conversation with a Chinese student who works in the cafe on campus and she, and the other Chinese, seem a little concerned about what people think about China. Now I couldn't really give much of a monkeys about the UK or certainly not about what people think about it and I think that this might just be indicative of a healthier relationship to my country, or rather to the passport hold, of course, I hardly define myself through my nationality. Anyway, the girl was nice and after seven years living in England and in possession of that, what the British authorities would perceive to be the most valuable thing in the world, a British passport, she seemed capable of very real criticism. Indeed, so much so that she wanted to criticise the "Zhonghua, Zhonghua, Zhonghuua" attitude of some of the Chinese around; a lot of them have their wee flags in their windows as the olympics apporoach. However, I am not going to look into the nature of that attitude in this post. Suffice to say that it is closer to that that we might have experienced in Germany around about 1933 than in Germany during the last world cup; closer to that that we might find from the petit bourgeoise with all their complexes than that of the person confident in and proud of, what he or she perceives to be, an important part of their own identity.
With China developing the way it is we will, no doubt soon have fast and completely free internet access, and the band played believe it if you like, and we will be able to pick up our hard copy of an international newspaper anywhere and, no doubt, the British transport cafe has already been cloned. One hopes that the Chinese attitude to their own nationality will not have to go through the growing pains of Germany and that a healthy confidence that respects others will develop rather than that meglomania that is born out of a big chip on the shoulder, out of a terrible inferiority complex. It will be interesting to see the Chinese on the university when the olympics begin tomorrow.

Time to Go

It is 5.14 a.m. and I only have some 45 minutes before I take my taxi to the airport, so this will probably be the only opportunity that I will get to write in my blog today, thereby maintaining my "at least" one entry a day since it began.
When I get to London I hope to get the blog more focused and will be concentrating on general global geopolitical issues with some concentration on the Middle East. The time in London will hopefully also be used to use the university libraries. It might be, therefore, that in becoming more focused the entries will be researched in more detail and a bit less frequent than they have been to date and it might also mean that the millions of readers who have been enjoying the light entertaining stuff will find it all a bit too heavy.
Outside the sun is in the process of putting its hat on, four hours sleep seem to be enough, in the background BBC World is spouting out the news in the background and it is now time to get ready and go. With China it has been a sort of love hate relationship but, should I not come back, it is mainly the positives that I will be taking with me.

incompetence and bad driving, noise, noise and a slow internet

My being sort of "China friendly" over the last few weeks has had its reasons; the sense of achievement that this country is feeling at the moment is probably immense and rightly so. Moreover, with apologies to Harald McMillan, they have never had it so good. There are a lot of reasons to be optimistic in China, at least for a lot of people.
Nevertheless, this new found liking on my part has been tempered on a number of occassions today. Firstly, there was me waking up without water this morning although I paid for the water five days ago and then there was me almost getting run over when walking across the road with the traffic light in my favour and having a car almost hit me as he speeded over the zebra crossing at 100 miles per hour and there was me getting into a taxi and having to tell him that I will direct him to where I want to go quite simply because he doesn't know the streets in his one town and then here is me now, sitting here in a starbucks surrounded by Chinese and the Chinese must be the loudest people on the planet; they really do scream at each other and there cannot be any real conversation in that wailing, can there? There really is no concept of private space here and there is also this slow, ridiculously slow, internet connection.
Anyway, it is all over bar the shouting; at 6 a.m. tomorrow I will go to Pudong Airport and fly to London. Whether I come back to China or not remains in the stars and at some time in the next few days I will be obliged to write down my impressions. Writing them down in London isn't a bad idea and maybe when I am there I will forget about the four people sitting in the table next to me, shouting at each other, making a general din and really being quite unaware that there is someone at the table next to them who just doesn't want to have his ear drums ruptured.
Still, I get the impression that I am leaving China closer to where I was round about February or March than to where I was a couple of weeks ago and believe me, it will be wonderful to get back to the superfast internet connection.

Reporting and the Olympics

Perhaps, I am missing the point but, as I have written time and again in this blog, during my time in China I have been able to access more or less everything. Now, that has not always been without its complications and there were times when I have used a proxy and there were times when the connection was slow, slow, slow! Nevertheless, I have been able to access more or less everything so much so it is difficult to justify the "more or less" qualification.
The obsession in the western media where it is continually cried out that China is breaking its promise to allow free access to all information is, therefore, a trifle amusing but also indicative of the very superficial way in which news is discovered, manufactured and reported. One particular report from a Jane Macartney in today's "Times" is particularly revealing, she writes, "Sites related to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is banned by China as an illegal cult, remained off limits. Chinese-language pages linked to dissidents and to the Tibetan government-in-exile were still out of bounds."1 Now I am not sure what promises the Chinese government made but aren't the journalists, all 30,000, who are coming for the Olympic Games supposed to be reporting on the games. Or, is there a sudden surge in interest in the Falun Gong, whose name has already been mentioned in the five weeks prior to the olympics more often than in the five previous years. Anyway, there is Jane and thousands like her, sitting at her keyboard and googling words like, "Falun Gong", "Dalai Lama", "Tibetan government in exile" and crying foul when she finds the pages related to them either opening very slowly or not at all. One actually wonders, how many of the 30,000 journalists (the BBC alone is sending some 400) will actually be reporting on the Olympics.
Finally, has anyone tried to access the Hezbollah's official website recently?
1 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article4438891.ece

Discovering Suzhou

About twenty five years ago, when I was at university in Northern Ireland, I took a friend over to Munich with me. Where we stayed a Studentenheim. The people living there knew me from my having stayed there previously and I began at length to tell them how beautiful the Antrim coast was; well I almost got away with it but my friend had to remind them of the fact that my experience of that part of the world was almost limited to the Anchor Bar and the Montague in Portstewart and Paul's Bar in Portrush. Now, it wasn't quite true but strangely enough there was almost a sort of deja vu today.

This afternoon we met my friend from Qingdao and his wife and son and after our coffees etc in the new Bookworm we went for a walk around an area of Suzhou that I didn't really know and, for the first time, I began to understand why they call it the Venice of the east. There were nice little cobbled streets, there were nice little cafes and pleasant shops and it was, all in all, a very jolly, very interesting and very hunky-dory little amble and after about two hours or so we hopped into a taxi and took ourselves on to and into the other, older, bigger Bookworm where we met my friend from work and his girlfriend.

Well we talked about this, that and the next thing, about "Gott und die Welt", about China, touched on Ireland, mentioned England, Luxembourg came into one of the conversations, drifted into exchanging opinions on our jobs and then started talking about our wee walk and then it dawned on me that I have been in Suzhou for about a year and I would find it much easier to give a tourist a description of some of my favourite drinking holes than I would to give him or her a description of some of those things that would make a tourist want to come to Suzhou. As I prepare to leave Suzhou, I am in the process of discovering a pleasant city away from Harry's Bar, The Blue Marlin and The Shamrock. Still, it is never too late and tomorrow I will sup my coffee in the area where I had my wee walk today.

The picture was taken in Suzhou during my walk today. It is Suzhou and not Venice; in Venice they do, of course, where different hats.

Telling Secrets

One can rest assured that if the US intelligence services do not want something to reach the media, it is more than likely that it won't. Therefore, it is not the news in today's 'New York Times', "Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say"1, per se that surprises me but it is the fact that the information and evidence reached the newspaper through American officials. How convenient it is today for these same officials to forget that the CIA collaborated with Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) to facilitate the Taliban's rise to power. However, the hypocrisy doesn't surprise me and I am more interested in the motives for and consequences of the conclusions that the Americans deemed necessary to make public.
54 people, including the Indian Defence Attache, died in the bombing on July the 7th; confronted with this new evidence from a third party it will be more worrying than interesting to see how the Indian government might react. At the very least this is hardly going help improve an already precarious relationship between the two countries. Of course, the Americans have much more immediate aims; with the ISI under control they will be able to operate on Pakisani soil and in Islamabad they will have a staunch ally that tows the line. Nevertheless, in pursuing this "vabanque" foreign policy they are provoking a confrontation between the civilian government of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and the Pakistani military establishment and this in a country that might very well already be on the edge of civil war, a country that is a nuclear power. Moreover, there might also be a very angry India to contend with. However, there is another factor in the equation for the evidence would seem to suggest that in the ISI the CIA has more than met its match.2 That though, is another story and for the time being, "que serra, serra" and the future is not ours to see!
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/world/asia/01pstan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
2 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/weekinreview/20mazzetti.html?pagewanted=2&ref=asia