Missile away!
President Bush advanced his plans this week to build a controversial missile defense system in Eastern Europe by winning the unanimous backing of NATO allies and sealing a deal with the Czech Republic to build a radar facility for the system on its soil.
NATO endorses President Bush's plan for missile defense in Europe despite Russia's objections. A nervous Europe goes along. For Moscow, this is a case of deja vu all over again. If you saw the headline, "Russia to U.S.: Drop Missile Defense," you'd be forgiven if you thought someone had left a 1986 newspaper laying around. That's what former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev said to President Ronald Reagan when they met in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 1986. Gorbachev, like Putin today, demanded we drop SDI. Reagan refused.
Bush, even hampered by a Democratic Congress, is making missile defense a reality. We shudder at the prospect of a President Obama scrapping Reagan's dream in favor of his "aggressive personal diplomacy" with Tehran and Moscow. A President Obama would have supported the nuclear freeze and lost the Cold War.
A President McCain, however, would carry on Reagan's grand strategy in dealing with America's enemies -- we win, they lose.
These programs have grown increasingly obsolete since the end of the Cold War. Why? Because there is no imminent, new ballistic missile threat.
The threat from a North Korean or Iranian long-range missile is still largely hypothetical. These missiles still garner a large share of the attention from policy makers, even though they constitute only one -- and the most difficult -- way to deliver nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party's Ma Ying-jeou, center, won in a landslide on Saturday. Ma favors closer relations with mainland China.
The United States policy toward Taiwan is a deceptively confusing one: One China. In theory, that means a free and democratic Taiwan unified with a free and democratic China. In practice, however, the U.S. policy is a delicate diplomatic game in which the United States supports democratic elections on Taiwan but not too much.
Ma Ying-jeou's victory in Taiwan's presidential election Saturday promises to usher in a period of relative calm in the island's turbulent relations with mainland China. Mr. Ma's Kuomintang Party is determined to end the bold and provocative policies that President Chen Shui-bian has pursued toward Beijing over the past eight years. Beijing and Washington will both be relieved to have a government committed to preserving the status quo in the Taiwan Strait rather than pushing the envelope on a transition from de facto to de jure independence.
Today, Beijing can reduce the chances for a crisis that could destabilize the regime’s dream of continued economic growth and peace on its borders. Moreover, China can improve the prospects for long-term stability by rewarding the Taiwan people with some accommodation of their goals.
For example, China can move preemptively and largely symbolically to grant Taiwan international space by allowing its representative to observe the World Health Assembly in May. Beijing can implement a ceasefire in their contest for the allegiance of small states in the Pacific, Africa and Latin America. The Chinese army can halt new deployments opposite Taiwan and reduce the scale and tempo of military exercises. The list of options runs long.
Anti-China protests in Tibet have brought a harsh crackdown.
It was hoped that the prospect of hosting the 2008 Olympics would force China to clean up its human rights act.
In two weeks, China's Olympic celebrations begin with the start of the torch relay. In what can only be described as macabre political theater, the flame — representing the Olympic spirit — is scheduled to be carried through Tibet. I hope all the corporate sponsors of the Beijing Olympics are feeling good about how they decided to spend their advertising dollars.
Civilized countries should boycott the Beijing Olympics. If it is politically impossible to do so at this stage, participating nations, individual athletes and media representatives have a responsibility to publicly and frequently express their concerns about China's human rights record.
If the IOC doesn't move to put pressure on Beijing consistent with its obligations, it risks this Olympics being remembered like the 1936 Games in Berlin. Already, the spirit of the Olympics in Beijing has become associated with the word "genocide," thanks to Stephen Spielberg and the Dalai Lama. Indeed, if the IOC and the rest of the world do not pressure Beijing to stop the crackdown and improve human rights now, a boycott of the Games will widely be seen as justified.
Will his people prevail?
Violence spilled over from Tibet into neighbouring provinces as Tibetan protesters defied a Chinese government crackdown while the Dalai Lama warned that the area faced "cultural genocide" and appealed to the world for help.
1989, the military arrested peaceful protesters and Hu Jintao declared martial law for 14 months. This time around, China's one-party leadership has another incentive to muffle protests: the Olympics. China won the Games after assuring the International Olympic Committee that it would respect human rights. The Tibetan uprising is thus a major embarrassment, all the more so because Beijing has been increasing its heavy-handed control of the province. The Olympics were supposed to be a showcase for Chinese progress. Instead, the government's fear of political dissent and its authoritarian overreaction are showing the world that far too little has changed since Tiananme
ina must hope, and friends of Tibet must fear, that when the Dalai Lama dies, much of the momentum towards Tibet's eventual freedom will die with him. Don't count on it. Tibet will still be a country that is ethnically and culturally very different from China. It's not a question of preserving Tibet's ancient culture; that hangs on in remote villages, but it's mostly gone in Lhasa. It would have changed anyway. Mobile phones and the internet would have undermined Tibet's oppressively religious polity, already being reformed by the current Dalai Lama, just as they are doing to China's version of communism. It's a question of identity. The fact remains that Tibetans feel Tibetan. No amount of economic development will change that. It's also true that China is implacable in its determination to stay put. Only a settlement that allows Tibetans genuine freedoms and economic equality will bring lasting peace. And that means meaningful agreements with the Dalai Lama. Only then will Tibetans begin to trust the Chines
A robust coal mining industry is fueling China's economic growth.
Surprising news from a White House with a reputation for slighting evidence of global climate change: A Bush administration spokesman on Wednesday said the United States would embrace a "binding international agreement" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. But the emphasis is on "international."
"It is highly likely we will establish an economy-wide goal," said James Connaughton, the chairman of the White House's Council on Environmental Quality. "But we are not dogmatic here. If China and India want to do a series of goals that cover most of our emissions, that's acceptable."
So should the United States embark on widespread greenhouse gas reductions? Or are such policies sure-fire economy killers?
Noting the goal, “seriously” stated by the Group of Eight, to cut world CO2 emissions in half by the year 2050, a couple of techies at the Tokyo Institute of Technology sat down with their calculators, and coolly worked out what will be required to meet this goal, on an equal per capita basis, around the planet. The 88 percent is the figure for North America. The Europeans get off relatively easily: they only have to shut down 83 percent of their economy; the Japanese 85 percent.
Only 35 percent of the Chinese economy will have to go. And good news for India, much of which is still living in the Arcadian low-carbon past. The Indians get to gun their carbon emissions by 137 percent over the next four decades.
The BBC focused on three words -- “binding international obligations” -- uttered by Daniel Price, a national security advisor to President George W. Bush. Although it remains unclear what, exactly, this means, it is perhaps telling that such statements could grab headlines around the world. The administration seems eager to clarify what it considers misunderstandings about its position on global warming (namely the general perception that it will stop at nothing to quash or at least cripple any international treaty to protect its industry friends).
The problem here is that there isn’t much new.
