US-China sign trade deals

Cool, now we're set to FedEx our Dells and Lenovos to China, and their company will take care of the phone calls. Sweet.
I foresee more of these types of meetings...
BTW brew day coming up soon if you want to get involved. Let me know and you can come by and learn a little something. Beer is great, and you can make it, cheap.
Check out this label I made for the APA I'm bottling soon. (cheap, I know, but I take every chance I get to pump my political views)


Hope you guys are all well, I sure am.

Edit:
Noam Chomsky interviewed by citizen radio. You might want to skip through to the interview, there is a bunch of banter in there, some good, some unnecessary. This one is shorter than the others that I've posted. Peace!

Also interview with Tariq Ali. Mucho coolo

Henny, Caffeine, Green, Nicotine?

So just how are we going to pay back our massive debts to China? I figure we can just sell them some weapons, we're good at making those. Wouldn't it be funny if, once again, we were selling (or giving) weapons to the very groups that intend to use them against us/our interests?
No, it wouldn't be funny.

National Geographic - 21st-Century Slaves

Saw this a bit ago and forgot to post it. There was something on RawStory about the topic yesterday I think.

I, uh, yea.

Illegal immigrants sue Arizona rancher for $32M for "civil rights violations" centered around him holding them at gunpoint when he found them TRESpassing through his ranch. You guys and gals should read this article. This is pretty sad, but I have to assume there's no way they'll get a thing. The guy has turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants over the last 10 years. Wow...

Dallas folks turn in guns for $50 grocery cards. Justification from sheriff's dept? Now those guns won't be in houses for kids to make mistakes with and, "they might have been used in a crime in the future." Who here blames the pen for bad grammar? There are better ways to avoid those things that don't result in a loss of people's ability to defend themselves from harm. Great.

AH WTF!

China's All Seeing Eye

Interesting article. I'll keep an eye out for this while I'm in Beijing. The funny thing is, the more people that I talk to the less they actually seem to know about the world. So I can see how this would be easy to implement. All they knew is: China - Good Boosch - Bad.

Chinahhhh

I still can't see the blog, which sucks because this is completely one sided. Next week I think I can get to a place where I can see it. Hopefully.

China is boring me right now. Chen laoshi sprung this whole teaching adventure upon us suddenly. I sort of knew about it, but I didn't think it would last two weeks. The Mexican students who are here knew nothing about it. Most of them barely even speak English. I've been here in Hongzhou for about 9 days now and I really hate that I'm not with the rest of my group. We got split up into 8 or 9 schools, and I am with an asian guy, Jamie, and two Mexican girls, Prescilla and Tania. I'm pretty sure I'm the only white guy to come around these parts in a while, or at least that is how everybody looks at me. Staring is not rude in China.

The school is straight, but Chinese customs are strange for guests. They won't let me do anything for myself except for teach, and for that they never criticize me. So I decided to have a little bit of fun and teach some good ol' U.S. slang. The children now know such phrases as "sup, holla, whats happenin', not a thang, no biggie, peace out", and my personal favorite "roll out". The teachers here are obsessed with talking about me getting a girlfriend, so no matter what I do, it always comes back to me increasing or decreasing my chances of getting a girlfriend. Shaving my beard was a definite decrease for me. They plan cool activities for us to do during the day so I got to go pick my own green tea in a green tea farm, paint Chinese caligraphy, and learn taiji.

This Sunday was interesting because I was invited to the headmasters house for lunch. There isn't much to talk about with a guy who doesn't speak English, in a room with two Mexicans, one guy who barely knows any spoken Chinese, and a guy who looks Chinese but (surprisingly to them) doesn't know the language. There was a lot of pointing and motions, but eventually we just gave up and ate. I tried my first pig ear! It honestly tasted pretty good. Well homeboy kept filling my bowl up with beer so I kept downing them, and I was fairly drunk by the end of lunch. I had nothing on Jamie who has really never drank before, but didn't want to be rude and ignore the perpetual refills. Well we ended up at a teachers house to watch a movie after coffee, and her husband's parents made us some dinner. I got to try my first fried chicken foot (not leg) and stewed turtle (he was all there). I ended up playing with my food for a little while because it looked like some voodoo session, and I think I offended her parents. Oh well. On the subject of strange food, I also tried cow tendon on Saturday. Not recommended.

We finally get to meet up on Friday and be a big American group again. I'm feeling a little sick, but I hope it isn't anything serious. Today we had to stand up in front of the whole school, which consists of about 1,500 people total, and scream silly English phrases. They got the idea from some Canadian guy on T.V. who teaches English. "Crazy English" as they called it, is when the guy screams into the T.V. and expects people to repeat after him on the other line. So after the freaky communist national anthem ceremony, we got up there and yelled phrases such as "I can do it!" and "one world, one dream" into the microphone. I honestly had to bite my tounge to keep from laughing the whole time. I hope these people don't actually take me serious.

Well, thats China. There really isn't anything happening here, except that I read a lot and make fun of the Chinese people a lot through e-mail. Otherwise, I'm just counting down the days until I return to beautiful, smoggy Suzhou and continue my language studies. I finished "The Party's Over" and am scared shitless about what is happening. I've got all sorts of plans for when I get back, but that seems like so far from now that I feel helpless. I hope you guys (and girl) are enjoying your summer, I wouldn't know. Peace.

China Update #1

So I haven't really gotten a chance to get on the blog because the school computer won't let me. The coffee shop would but I haven't been in Suzhou for a few days. Not that any of you understand that.

China is crazy. I am honestly at a loss for words, but I'll try for your sake. I took off at about 9PM on Sunday the 11th and arrived in Shanghai at about 11 PM Tuesday. We arrived at Suzhou shortly after and went for a walk around the city. I was amazed on the bus ride at what now seems normal for me. The smog, the buildings, the people... there is so much of all of that. The bus nearly hit like 200 people on the ride, apparently people getting knocked off bikes and mopeds is not the strange around here. There are far more bikes than cars, and they swarm around the streets constantly.

Suzhou is supposed to be "the Venice of Asia", but only because it has a few canals. I haven't been to Venice, but I can already tell you Suzhou is nothing like it. The city has a few nice gardens around and some old trees, but otherwise it is a bullshit Western-style country like the rest of China. Everywhere you go there are stores full of usless shiney shit that nobody ever needs, and fat white tourists to buy them. There are beggars everywhere (they no longer need a permit) because it is a business to trick Western tourists by carrying your baby around with you. I can tell that China was a great country at one point, and has the industrial capacity to completely own any other country in the world, but has given in to Western capitalism and consumerism. The corporations and businesses here are more aggressive than America. EVERYTHING has an ad on it, I mean everything. Every little nook sells something. If you go in a store to buy a shirt they will say "100 kuai", you say "tai guile" and leave, and they run after you yelling "30!30!30!". There are plenty of sex slaves for any retired, unhappy Australian businessman to satisfy himself with. Our running joke is what the men on the street yell at us, "massage... Massage!.... SEX!!!"

Anyway, from Wednesday to Friday we hung out in Suzhou. The Mexican students arrived and we went out for free drinks for 100 kuai all night (7 kuai: 1 dollar - so a little under $15). The Mexican students are good people. We were talking about bullshit Democracy and bullshit NAFTA the first night. One is English teacher, Juilo, and the other guy, Edwardo, knows real good English. Otherwise, the rest are just kind of chubby girls. Suzhou university is huge, and our student helpers are so funny. They think we are the coolest people in the world. Their names are Brooks, Mandy, and Thomas, better than most English names I've come across, turtle, orange juice, and eleven hahaha.

Shanghai was intense. It is just breathtaking, no pun intended. We went to an ancient garden, which was about the only beautiful thing about Shanghai. Then to a market where you couldn't even turn and every three steps somebody says "watch, bag, rolex?" The Chinese acrobat performance that night was amazing, I honestly had no clue that people could do that with their bodies. The next day we went in a tower and you could just see buildings as far as the smog will let you. It is real hard to describe, you'll just have to see the pictures in a few weeks. For now I am an English teacher in a small (not really) city call Hangzhou, which is right below Shanghai. I would write more, but the other teachers want me to go to my Taichi lesson, so I better bounce. I'll tell you all about the school tomorrow because I have an excessive amount of free time here, which is good. I need time to study, write, and read anyway. Alright folks, be easy.

More China

As I was browsing the Fed stuff I came across CFR stuff, which led me to Foreign Affairs. On the main page is a blurb for an article about China as a hegemonic contender entitled, "Changing China." I thought that was a funny find, having just posted about that issue.

So peep this China graphic from the unpopular Foreign Affairs mag. The graphic should be there until Feb., but I can't access a private page with it, but I wanted to concentrate on the language within it:

"Changing China. As China is rising it is evolving. But how far will its political liberalization go? And can its economic and military power be successfully integrated into the existing liberal international order?"

At least one of the articles within examines China's rising power, and argues that China won't necessarily reinvent the international order, but will fall in line with the international organizations set up by post-war America. It is just a possibility that China won't turn over the International system, but it is definitely possible. The author, John Ikenberry, notes that in order for this to even have a chance, the US must validate these international institutions by complying more with International Organizations, which in turn means abandoning its post-9/11 departure from international cooperation to unilateral action. The US empire will end sooner or later, the question is if its legacy will be impressed on the global system in lasting, formidable, cooperative international groups, or if it will be scorned for its unilateral tyranny. I know CFR is a popular opponent, but Ikenberry's ideas in this article are down (well as far as I've read he's down). The values framed in the constitution are best protected if impressed in these organizations, as they currently are, though the organizations need more teeth... more legitimacy. International Organizations will only be validated once the US falls in with its own premises and orgs. A broad international base will be more apt to contend with challenges to our adopted value system.

China reminds us that they stepped in the ring two decades ago

Danger Room via Aviation Week and Space Technology reports that China's air defense system is gaining potency by employing both cheap and stolen electronic defense parts (courtesy of the United States). For some reason Russia is the measuring stick for technological air defense by an adversary-thank you Reagan- so it is noted that the threat of China's system is much greater than that of the poor, "democratic" Russian system. This serves as a blaring reminder of the relevance of Chinese policy to international affairs.

This essay by Wayne Bert does a good job outlining Organski's power transition theory and China's possible challenge to US hegemony in the future. Organski argues that international order is established not in anarchy, as neo-liberals and realists alike assume, but in a heirarchical structure with one dominant nation that establishes international norms and even sometimes culture (i.e. US and democracy, freedom, international institutions; Britain and industrialization). Organski made a prediction in the '60s that China poses the most likely threat to US dominance and that once China's markets expand they could supersede the US in global dominance. China's markets are predicted to surpass the US by 2020. Not to mention that the US has borrowed billions from China. Yet most international sources of news and scholar neglect this situation, but that will probably change once China is powerful enough to be more boisterous.