One of the chief reasons for Western audiences to watch Up the Yangtze is its intimate portrayal of the aspirations and anguish of the Chinese citizens depicted in the film. With so much glib reductionism on offer by Western commentators, it is refreshing to hear Chinese voices expressing their own hopes and frustrations.
Ghanaian cocoa, Gabonese iron and Congolese oil have been swapped for construction of dams, allowing Chinese corporations such as Sinohydro to capture the bulk of Africa’s hydropower market. The ‘barter system’ thus enables China to export goods and labour, facilitating for China the opportunity to ‘import’ their recycled project capital in addition to African resources. In the process, China has activated arguably the same ‘Western’ capitalist vehicles of engagement
It can be a peculiar and rather disquieting sensation to type on a laptop these days. As a personal computing device that is more or less portable, a laptop computer becomes an extension of the human being who hauls it about and operates it. The capabilities of the machine are grafted onto the hardware of the user, even as its constant physical presence renders it almost an appendage. How much truer this becomes in the age of the smart phone, which is more capable, more portable, and ever more affixed to the body that uses it.
If the killing of Osama bin Laden were a Hollywood murder mystery, the shootout scene in Abbottabad would be followed by the unveiling of the sponsor who arranged for the al-Qaeda safe house. Is it the Pakistani intelligence officer who appears early in the movie to assure his U.S. counterparts that he is fully committed to bringing bin Laden to justice? Is it the Saudi construction magnate who owes several major favors to the bin Laden family? Or perhaps it’s the U.S. embassy official who, it might turn out, believes that Osama is more useful alive than dead — until finally, he is useful no longer.
In the wake of Obama’s recent tour of Latin America, media reports and commentators claimed that China has been economically outmuscling the United States in the region. The reality, however, is that Beijing’s economic presence has not come at the expense of the United States. Although Washington still maintains an overwhelming edge, its influence is decreasing. This decline will be exacerbated by Obama’s focus on boosting U.S. exports to the region rather than importing more of Latin America’s manufactured goods.
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has let China write its own rules despite his demand that all foreign-owned mining ventures sell majority holdings to black Zimbabweans.
Severing the ties that bind disarmament and nonproliferation is not only bad policy, it’s an offense against common sense.
The Chinese know why the U.S. is bombing Libya but not challenging Bahrain and Yemen: Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and Yemen’s port of Aden provides access to the Red Sea.
Following the vote at the UN Security Council, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States have embarked on military action against Gaddafi’s forces in Libya. They have been careful to include a few Arab states in this new coalition of the willing. But these three countries are the driving force behind the imposition of a no-fly zone and the attacks on the government’s military positions and forces. Yet among the permanent and non-permanent member of the Council who were asked to authorize “all necessary measures” to protect civilians rebelling against the regime, the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India, and China were conspicuously absent.
The real story of why American industry moves to China may never be told in the mainstream media.