horse of george

Three dovetailing [well, to me they dovetail] China stories: the successful and politically pointed test of an anti-ballistic missile system by China [pointed because it came right after US congress ok'd sale of Patriot missile batteries to Taiwan] even though China [and Russia] have maintained for years that such technology is bad and should not be pursued and have bitched and complained about and lobbied hard against America's attempts to perfect the technology but now, surprise surprise, we see they've obviously been working on the technology themselves all along; Google calling foul on China for cyber attack - which Google seems to be inferring was gov't sponsored - that not only attempted to hack gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents and their sympathizers around the world but also attempted to pilfer protected intellectual property, namely source codes - Google is threatening to pull out of the Chinese market [possibly only as a business tactic] unless China agrees to liberalize censorship restrictions and I'm guessing commit to greater transparency when it comes to following the rule of law viz intellectual property rights etc etc [although one assumes that's more of an issue for the WTO to take up]; and a story on China's attempt to cultivate a commercial jet industry and the failure of their burgeoning industrial might to master the sophisticated manufacturing and engineering skills required to develop such a business and how Boeing and Airbus are reluctant to help out because they don't trust China viz respecting rights regarding proprietary technology - but fears also that China will push ahead anyway and heavily subsidize a domestic airline industry regardless of the planes not being equal to foreign brands and how this may lead to one of two things - a viscous trade war, or Boeing and Airbus waiving their concerns so as not to lose out on the huge Chinese market - ie the West compromising its security by selling off its technological know how because it just can't say no to the profits waiting to be had in China [profits that assume that China just won't play nice until technology firmly in hand and then squeeze Boeing and Airbus out anyway by offering huge incentives for Chinese carriers to buy Chinese built jets no matter if the quality matches or even comes close to matching the foreign competition - the moral of the story being, one of the morals of the story being China having so much confidence in the allure, the siren song of its vast market that it will feel it can bend or abuse or exploit to its own advantage the rules governing fair business practices in the free but benighted West as much as it bloody well wants to and the West will foolishly comply until the point where it's too late and we're in too deep and have no choice but to comply].

So, the Google thing. This from an article in FP by one Jordan Calinoff:

In a country well-known for copying and mass-producing the ideas and products of other countries, from automobiles to movies, a new economic tool has been invented: an insidious, uniquely 21st-century form of protectionism. 

There have been many conflicting opinions regarding Google's China move - Google continues to claim it's all about them taking the high road, they wanted to give China a chance to play nice, they reluctantly but with all good intentions agreed to censor their search engine in hopes of this being a first step towards a more enlightened middle kingdom but China chose to stab them in the back and so they're doing the noble thing and walking away. Seems not a lot of people are buying this. Some wonder if Google actually thinks it can by applying pressure get a better deal in China; some think Google was on its way out anyway and was just looking to mine some excellent PR out of it; some think the hack on the source code was worse than Google is letting on and it caused them to realize they were being played for suckers by the Chinese - the human rights angle is just a nice cover story. The article quoted above falls into the latter opinion but takes it much further - in short, that China is engaged in a concerted and deliberate effort to lure businesses to China, copy or outright steal their intellectual property - in this case software applications, internet utilities and services - and then force the originating companies out of its marketplace so the state can then dominate, not only as a money making machine but also as an organ of control over the population - you enjoy the fruits of the tree of freedom by pilfering the tree - why go to the bother of growing one yourself, especially since they only seem to grow in democratic soil. The author is right, it's insidious, and if true the West is insane to be applauding Google for its noble gesture.

Given that, and it's how I essentially see it - China got what they wanted out of Google and are happy to see them go and will not fret the bad press - Google got played and is milking 'human rights' in order to get something positive out of their gamble - given that, needs no explanation then to see how the commercial jet industry story dovetails with this, maybe spice it up with some national security concerns tossed in - and of course will be interesting to see if stories like these feed a growing or impending or nascent backlash against China's unfair practices by multi-national corporations who may start to fear just what kind of beast is being created in China with their help - the potential profits are seductive, but what are the odds China will overplay its hand or make some other consequential miscalculation? - and let's not forget a popular uprising by voters in the West whose angst politicos will have no choice but to attend to.

As for the BMD test, well... sauce for the goose, as they say - although let me add that it relates well to two points I'm fond of making: one, that those who clamour for a dramatic reduction or outright abolition of nuclear arms are insane - you will never be able to trust your opponents enough to make such a thing possible - never - and there will never be any technology that can guarantee compliance and compliance would absolutely need to be guaranteed - so Obama and his no nukes cohorts really need to shut up on that issue - nukes will only decline or disappear when they are made irrelevant or ineffective by some other development in military or defense technology - and so; two, for those who contend nukes make large scale war, especially between great powers, obsolete - you guys are making way too broad of an assumption - given the history of the species it's much more likely that we will develop a workable and efficient defense or counter measure against nukes that will make them largely ineffectual or at least relatively so than that competing powers will no longer feel compelled to go to war.Which is not to suggest that such wars are inevitable but rather to say that it's a grave error to make sweeping predictions regarding some future state of affairs. The example of the long bow is often used: competing powers could not predict its rise, predict the dramatic effect it would have, predict that efforts to ban it would prove delusional nor predict that all predictions would be rendered meaningless anyway by the advent of gunpowder and finely bored iron and steel. The nuclear bomb is not the last float in the parade - unless of course it does turn out to be the means by which we destroy ourselves, so...