In Praise of China - What's really happening in China?
China, China Governance, China Human Rights, tibet china, Uncategorized, USA vs China

China USA Human Rights

China, USA and Human Rights

human rightsUN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was voted into existence on December 10, 1948 so that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

We must judge a country’s human rights record by what it does and not what it aspires to do or says it’s doing because fictitious and distorted ‘human rights’ stories abound. In the list of Articles below I assign one point to the country with the better performance in that category and I have taken pains to be unfair. I judge the USA harshly because it convened the United Nations, wrote its human rights charter, signed it, became fabulously rich and powerful and has been lecturing the world on human rights for 70 years. China, on the other hand, comes from a different ethical tradition (collective punishment was vital) and is vast, diverse, poor and under constant threat and attack by wealthy, powerful countries.

Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. [Blacks. Indians.]. CHINA +1 

Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. [Muslims in USA]. CHINA +1

Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. [Invasions are US state policy]. CHINA +1

Purportedly to compel Saddam Hussein’s government to give up its weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the UN imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, which lasted until the 2003 invasion. The sanctions regime was enforced by the US and Britain which took the toughest line on compliance. “No country had ever been subjected to more comprehensive economic sanctions by the United Nations than Iraq,” notes Hans Von Sponeck, the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, in his 2006 book A Different Kind of War. Communicable diseases in the 1980s not considered public health hazards, such as measles, polio, cholera, typhoid, marasmus and kwashiorkor, reappeared on epidemic scales.” In 1999 the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimated that over 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died because of a lack of medication, food or safe water supplies. More..

Article 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms. [Florida fruit pickers. Louisiana prison workers]. CHINA +1

Some of America’s most vulnerable workers are victims of modern-day slavery, and the government knows it. What’s worse: These workers are protecting U.S. military and economic interests – but the U.S. isn’t protecting them. In its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released Friday, the State Department acknowledged that trafficking and forced labor still exist in America. The report includes several examples: abuse of third-country nationals trafficked to work on military bases, migrant domestic workers subjected to forced labor by diplomats and international organization personnel, and temporary guest workers in a variety of industries forced to work under horrifying conditions with nowhere to turn. More..

Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. [Torture is US state policy] CHINA +1

Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. [Guantanamo] CHINA +1

Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. [Bank CEOs. Blacks.] CHINA +1

Article 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law. [Mortgage foreclosures; poor, incarcerated & massacred Blacks] CHINA +1

Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. [US authorities regularly practice all three].CHINA +1

Article 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him. [Bradley Manning] CHINA +1

Article 11. (1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. [Unless he’s Black or we want to assassinate him by drone]. (2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. [US has 24×7 surveillance of all citizens] CHINA +1

Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. [Secret, no-fly list]. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. [Edward Snowdon]. CHINA +1

Article 14. (1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. [except Edward Snowdon]. (2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations. [Julian Assange]. CHINA +1

Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.Article 16. (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17. (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property [illegal foreclosures]. CHINA +1

Article 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. [Unless you’re Muslim]. CHINA +1

Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. [Unless you’re a whistle-blower].

Article 20. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. [Hahahaha]. (2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21. (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. [If you have $800 million]. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. [Only people funded by oligarchs may enter our elections]. CHINA +1

Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. [US cops shoot 1,000 unarmed people each year]. CHINA +1

Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. [Unless you’re poor or black]. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. [If you can live with dignity on $7.25/hour]. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. [Our trade unions have been deliberately destroyed]. CHINA +1

Article 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay. [Chinese get 3 weeks paid, mandatory vacation. We get none]. CHINA +1

Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. [Just kidding]. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. [Ask poor, working mothers about this]. CHINA +1

Article 26. (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.[Chinese kids better educated than ours]. (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. CHINA +1

Article 27. (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits. (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author. [Patents] CHINA +1

Article 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. [Unless we want to bomb, invade or assassinate you]. CHINA +1

Article 29. (1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.  (3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. [Except the USA invading other countries and destroying them]. CHINA +1

What do YOU think?

June 22, 2016by wpengine
China, China Human Rights, corruption china, Hong Kong, tibet china, Uncategorized, USA vs China

European Human Rights & China

Von Rompuy Human Rights Inspector in China

Von Rompuy Human Rights Inspector in China

Strangely, this post is mostly about European Human Rights & China. China’s human rights record is slightly better than the USA’s – though neither is a paragon of virtue– and that China has drawn ahead of the US since the death of Mao. Most of the accusations against China are either total fabrications like the so-called Tiananmen “massacre” or gross distortions. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Reagan’s Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and a committed, right wing Capitalist. Here’s his take on this week’s “Human Rights Reports” from the US Government (Here’s China’s):

The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst–Israel. But this doesn’t hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.

The US State Department’s “human rights report” focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making–China, the country selected for the role of Washington’s new Cold War enemy.

Hillary Clinton, another in a long line of unqualified Secretaries of State, informed “governments around the world: we are watching, and we are holding you accountable,” only we are not holding ourselves accountable or Washington’s allies like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the NATO puppets.

Hillary also made it “clear to citizens and activists everywhere: You are not alone. We are standing with you,” only not with protesters at the Chicago NATO summit or with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, or anywhere else in the US where there are protests. (ref)

The State Department stands with the protesters funded by the US in the countries whose governments the US wishes to overthrow. Protesters in the US stand alone as do the occupied Palestinians who apparently have no human rights to their homes, lands, olive groves, or lives. Read more…

 

Glenn Greenwald writes: Drone filmmaker denied visa. Muhammad Danish Qasim is a Pakistani student at Iqra University’s Media Science and is also a filmmaker. This year, Qasim released a short film entitled The Other Side, a 20-minute narrative that “revolves around the idea of assessing social, psychological and economical effects of drones on the people in tribal areas of Pakistan.” A two-minute video trailer of the film is embedded below. The Express Tribune provided this summary of the film, including an interview with Qasim:

The Other Side revolves around a school-going child in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan. The child’s neighborhood gets bombed after the people of the region are suspected for some notorious activities. He ends up losing all of his loved ones during the bombing and later becomes part of an established terrorists group who exploit his loss and innocence for their own interests.
On the reasons for picking such a sensitive topic, the film-maker said, “Most of the films being made right now are based on social issues, so we picked up an issue of international importance which is the abrogation of our national space by foreign countries.”
When asked how this film on terrorism will be different from all the others that have been released since 9/11, he said, “The film takes the audience very close to the damage caused by drone attacks. I have tried my best to connect all the dots that lead to a drone attack and have shot the prevailing aftermath of such attacks in a very realistic and raw manner.”

In particular, “the film identifies the problems faced by families who have become victims of drone missiles, and it unearths the line of action which terrorist groups adopt to use victimised families for their vested interests.” In other words, it depicts the tragedy of civilian deaths, and documents how those deaths are then successfully exploited by actual Terrorists for recruitment purposes. [Continue reading…]

The next time you see or hear an accusation about “human rights” in China, ask yourself this:  In China’s 3,000 year history, when has its people’s human rights been better?

You’ve probably guessed the answer: never.  China’s human rights have reached their highest level in 3,000 years and are steadily improving.  New laws are being debated and passed.  Police are being trained, judges schooled, prosecutors curbed, officials warned and jailed.

Specifically, China’s minorities (usually the worst-treated group in any country) are enjoying unprecedented freedom, prosperity, and privileges that Han Chinese can only dream about, like unlimited family size and access to higher education.  Unlike Australia’s Aborigines, America’s Native Americans, Europe’s Romany, Japan’s Ainu, India’s Naxalites…the list goes on.  Meanwhile, Americans’ human rights have been heading in the opposite direction.  In the past ten years the United States has made it “legal” for its government to

  1. Spy on its own people secretly.
  2. If you see the government spying you may not warn the subject.
  3. Arrest its own people secretly.  If you see the arrest you may not tell anyone.
  4. Imprison its own people indefinitely, without trial (Bradley Manning)
  5. Torture its own people (and anyyone else) secretly
  6. Kill its own people secretly, without trial (Anwar al-Awlaki)
  7. Attack any country, regardless of threat, and kill uncounted civilians. Iraq, Pakistan.)

In contrast, here’s a report on China’s human rights you may have missed, from the EU Observer:

EU officials more Nuanced on Human Rights After Trips to China. ANDREW RETTMAN

BRUSSELS – Recent trips to China by Catherine Ashton and Herman Van Rompuy have helped them to see human rights from a Chinese point of view, China’s EU ambassador has said.  The ambassador, Song Zhe, told journalists in Brussels on Friday (8 July) that some EU diplomats tend to “lecture” China on values.

“It has been 400 years since world power shifted from east to west and during this time people in Europe have developed a habit of viewing things from above and lecturing others,” he said.  He blamed the problem on lack of knowledge, saying Chinese society has come along in leaps and bounds in terms of people’s rights to economic development and rights to education even if it falls short in other areas.

Asked if EU foreign relations chief Ashton and EU Council President Van Rompuy take a hard line on values, Song answered that extensive visits by the top officials, in 2010 and in May this year, have seen them take a more nuanced approach.  “Ashton and other political figures from the EU, even ordinary people who have been to China and have seen the situation on the ground, the progress we’ve made, hold a more positive view of what China has achieved,” he said.  The ambassador zoomed in on two anecdotes.

“Ashton visited a small village, a very normal elementary school. Despite poverty in the region, the school was well equipped – this illustrates that despite economic difficulties the local authorities attach great importance to education, that the Chinese government is working to ensure that everybody gains access to education.”

When Van Rompuy visited a former disaster zone in the Sichuan province “what surprised him was the nice line-up of buildings in the area, with no sign of the [2008] earthquake.”
For its part, Human Rights Watch reports that China is currently undergoing the worst wave of repression in its modern history, with systematic censorship of free media, brutal crackdowns on ethnic minorities and hundreds of dissidents disappearing into so-called “black jails.” [Human Rights Watch ignores the USA’s much more serious offences.–Ed.]

Song noted that China is “far from perfect. There is huge room for improvement and a long way to go.” He repeated the often-heard line that his country should not be measured by Western standards because it is going through unique economic and social changes which are “unprecedented in world history” in terms of their speed. “We don’t speak of a Chinese model because we are still in an experimental phase. We’re still learning. Our model is constantly taking in new ingredients from the EU and US models.”

In an insight into how Beijing sees international relations, Song defended China’s opposition to an EU-sponsored draft UN Security Council resolution condemning mass killings in Syria. “The principle we uphold is to respect the will of the country to choose its own path of development,” he said.

CIA medical staff gave specifications on how to torture post-9/11 detainees

CIA medical personnel acknowledged that placing detainees in small boxes barely large enough to fit their bodies inside was not “particularly effective”, but they still provided guidance permitting interrogators to continue using the so-called “confinement boxes” for hours on end. Sensitive agency documents, declassified on Tuesday, provide a new level of detail on the intimate involvement of its medical staff during its post-9/11 torture program. Officials assigned to the Office of Medical Staff (OMS) provided precise specifications for enforcing sleep deprivation, limiting the caloric intake of detainees’ food, and the proper positions for waterboarding, as outlined in a 2004 document providing “guidelines on medical and psychological support” for torture. More…

China’s Human Rights? Who can judge?

June 22, 2016by wpengine
Uncategorized

XI JINPING: CHINESE MANDELA?

XI JINPING: CHINESE MANDELA?

XI JINPING

XI JINPING

I would put him in the Nelson Mandela class of persons. A person with enormous emotional stability who does not allow his personal misfortunes or sufferings affect his judgment. In other words, he is impressive.–Lee Kwan Yew, Founder of Singapore.

China’s greatest contribution to the human race is to keep its 1.3 billion people from hunger. China doesn’t export Revolution; China doesn’t export hunger and poverty; China doesn’t come and cause you headaches. What more is there to be said?–Xi Jinping, Future President of China.

Hu Jintao, China’s current president, was recognized early for his humility. Xi Jinping has been recognized all his life for his honesty. Both are engineers, both are enormously competetent.

Xi Jinping’s credentials are impeccable.  His father was a Revolutionary hero who was imprisoned for supporting more democracy in China.  Jinping himself was exiled to a hut in one of China’s poorest villages for 7 bitter years.  That’s what Lee Kwan Yu was talking about: he does not allow his personal misfortunes or sufferings affect his judgment..  When asked about this experience later, Xi recalled it saying, “…it was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion…”.

Undiscouraged, he joined the Communist Party (in 1974, while his father was still in jail) and rose through its ranks. Xi joined the People’s Liberation Army and worked as a secretary to the then-defense minister while on active duty at the powerful Central Military Commission.  This insight into China’s military will stand him in good stead as president.

Xi studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing from 1975-9 and then served a long stint as a Party official in poor rural areas of Hebei, the northern province that surrounds Beijing. (He recently returned for a visit and was apparently horrified at how little difference the Government’s programs had made).  From the mid-1980s, Xi shifted to the export powerhouse provinces and cities on China’s southeastern coast. In quick succession he rose to the top of the government in Fujian, then Zhejiang province, becoming Communist Party secretary there in 2002.

In 2007, he was named party secretary in Shanghai, sent in to mop up after his predecessor was jailed and disgraced in a massive scandal over misuse of the city’s social security funds. After a short stint in Shanghai, in the fall of 2007, Xi was elevated to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party Central, ranking 6th on the elite nine-member group that rules China.

He was appointed China’s vice-president in March 2008. In October 2010, he added an important political title seen as a strong indication that he will succeed Hu: Vice Chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.  American leaders who have met Xi describe him as a man of “immense competence”. is XI JINPING: CHINESE MANDELA?

What do YOU think?

June 5, 2018by wpengine
Uncategorized

China’s New Silk Road

Here’s the scoop on China’s New Silk Road

Beijing has, for instance, committed $46 billion to a China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that will involve upgrades to pipelines and highways linking western China to Pakistan’s deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea. Gwadar is less than 400 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passageway for oil tankers. That means crude oil sent from Persian Gulf ports to China will soon begin arriving on Chinese soil by pipeline after a drastically curtailed sea journey, resulting in steep savings in time and expense.

•The most visible development has been the transcontinental railway. In 2011, eighty-three freight trains took three weeks to make the seven thousand mile run across six countries. By 2018, four thousand trains carrying $40 billion of goods took twelve days and cost forty percent less. 

•Funded the China-Central Eastern Europe Development Bank, the Silk Road International Bank (SIB) and opened the first Chinese-funded bank on the African continent, in Djibouti. 

•Signed contracts for key routes and ports in 26 member countries and begun construction of forty energy projects, power plants, electricity, oil and gas networks in nineteen BRI countries. 

•Completed cross-border transmission and communications projects in thirty BRI countries and reduced cellphone roaming charges across the region.  

•Opened the $51 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor–two thousand miles of roads, rail lines, pipelines and fiberoptic cables and Started transporting oil and gas directly from the Persian Gulf, bypassing the strategic Malacca Straits, through Pakistan’s new port, Gwadar. Opened three pipelines from Myanmar’s Bay of Bengal, to Kunming in Western China, for which it will pay Myanmar thirteen million dollars in annual right of way fees for transporting oil and gas that will bypass the Malacca Straits and cut delivery time in half. Surveyed Thailand’s isthmus for the Kra Canal, also designed to bypass the vulnerable Malacca Straits. 

•Begun construction of the Pan-Asia Railway Network, whose central line crosses Laos and Thailand to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore while the eastern line runs through Vietnam and Cambodia to Bangkok.  

•Opened the first shipping link between Iran’s Bandar Abbas port and Qinzhou, on the Tonkin Gulf and begun a a freight train service in the reverse direction, 6,000 miles to Tehran, cutting a month off the sea voyage. China and Iran are targeting $600 billion annual trade by 2020–five times the current level of China-U.S. trade. 

•Acquired control of Greece’s Piraeus Port and made it the busiest in the Mediterranean by connecting megaports Haikou, Fujian, Kuala Lumpur, Calcutta, Nairobi and Kenya through Piraeus to logistical nodes throughout Eastern Europe. 

•Established Xiamen as the hub for a rail line to Poland’s new dry port of Terespol, where transcontinental freight trains stop for customs clearance and transfers to the Berlin–Moscow expressway and the Belarus highway connector. 

•Connected BRI rail corridors between China-Mongolia-Russia, China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-Pakistan, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, China-Iran, China-Moscow and China-Indochina Peninsula-Singapore by using cities and industrial parks as ‘cooperation platforms’. 

•Linked ancient ports like Azerbaijan’s Baku to Turkey, Iran, India, Russia, and the E.U. via the Tbilisi-Kars rail line. 

•Began constructing Georgia’s first deep sea port at Anaklia and completed Turkmenistan’s Port for the Silk Road.  

•Began constructing the $15 billion Moscow-Kazan high speed rail line, the first Western leg of a $100 billion HSR line that will connect Moscow and Beijing. 

•Completed the first leg of Africa’s transcontinental, $4 billion electric railway, 466 miles from Djibouti to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while upgrading the railway from Nairobi to the port of Mombasa and constructing a new port at Lamu in Kenya’s north and connecting it with a new rail line.


Cargo trains link China, Germany, June, 2016: A cargo train linking Germany and northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region began operation on Saturday, local authorities said. It takes ten days for the train to reach Germany’s industrial city of Duisburg from Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi over a distance of 8,000 km, during which it goes through Kazakhstan, Russia and Poland, said Xu Yongxin, general manager of the company that undertook the project. The outbound trains transport Xinjiang specialties such as chemical products, tomato sauce and textiles, while the inbound trains bring back food, furniture, mechanical and electrical products, and health products. It is a cargo train route with the shortest distance between China and Europe, which is at least 2,000 km shorter than other similar China-Europe cargo train routes and saves two to three days in time.

In Odyssey for Chinese, Greece Sells Its Fabled Port of Piraeus [Foreign Policy] With the sale, China’s state-owned COSCO aims to turn a once-sleepy port into the “dragon’s head” of OBOR: China’s New Silk Road.

China-Silk-Road Map8

China-Silk-Road Map

Beijing’s ambitions to build a modern-day “Silk Road” connecting China, Central Asia, and Europe took a big step forward Friday when Chinese state-owned shipping giant COSCO finally sealed a deal to purchase the Greek Port of Piraeus, south of Athens.

For COSCO and for Beijing, it’s a billion-dollar conclusion to a seven-year saga. COSCO, formally known as the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co., took over operations at one part of the Port of Piraeus in 2009, and had long wanted to take ownership of the whole port, one of the biggest in the Mediterranean. But the port’s privatization was put on hold for a year because Greece’s left-wing leadership bitterly opposed earlier plans to do so by the previous government. On Friday, COSCO agreed to acquire control of the port and to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to continue upgrading and modernizing Piraeus.

In classical Greece, the “long walls” connecting Athens to the Port of Piraeus were the city’s lifeline, protecting it from hostile armies and ensuring Athens’ regional supremacy. Today, Piraeus could again be a lifeline for Greece, helping attract billions in foreign investment and turning a backwater into a global hub. Read more on Foreign Policy.

Report: China Europe and the Maritime Silk Road Download

The aim of this report is to assess how the Chinese involvement in ports along the Asia-Europe maritime corridor – from the South China Sea to the Mediterranean Sea – is relevant for the European Union. The Chinese government is currently developing an ambitious programme of maritime infrastructure construction along the main Asia-Europe shipping route. China’s initiative for a so-called ’21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ is aimed at port development in South-East Asia, around the Indian Ocean and in the eastern Mediterranean region. The Chinese leadership publicly presented its initiative for a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in October 2013. Earlier that year China had already launched its Silk Road Economic Belt initiative, which is aimed at infrastructure cooperation in a zone that stretches from Xinjiang (the north-western part of China) to the Baltic Sea. The Chinese government uses the term ‘One Belt, One Road’ to refer to the combination of these two initiatives. Chinese investment in large infrastructure projects constitutes the basis of One Belt, One Road. These projects are financed, constructed, supplied and sometimes operated by Chinese firms that are either state-owned or that otherwise have close relations with the Chinese government.

Map China New Silk Road-EAU

Map China New Silk Road-EAU

The developments described in this report are significant for the European Union. First, China is gradually becoming more influential economically and diplomatically – and eventually geostrategically – in regions close to Europe. Stronger investment and trade relations between China and countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia are increasing China’s stake in regional affairs, as well as the need for these countries to maintain friendly relations with Beijing. For the time being, this process is hardly visible, since China is careful in such regions to keep a low profile in the military and security domain. Second, the Chinese government has an increased ability to influence which routes the trade between China and the EU flows. While this is not a matter of Beijing being able to switch between trade channels on an ad-hoc basis, the Chinese government has a growing leverage over how trajectories develop during the course of several years. The port of Piraeus is a good example:

China’s decision to develop this Greek port has been decisive in creating a new trade link between Central Europe and Asia via Greece and the Balkans. This, in turn, affects intra-EU relations, since it helps the Eastern European economies to move away from their peripheral role within the EU. At the same time, the Chinese infrastructure strategy provides an opportunity to redefine and deepen EU-China relations. Third, in the long term it is likely that transport and supply chain routes involving Asia and Africa will increasingly bypass Europe.

While China will strengthen its already central role in terms of logistics and transportation, Europe will at the same time lose much of the centrality that it long held in these areas. On the other hand, China’s engagement can help economic development in Europe’s neighbourhood, which contributes to stability and can help the EU’s own economic growth.

China’s new initiatives, as discussed in this report, will accelerate the growth of its influence in the maritime domain as well as in Asia, Africa and Europe more broadly. How this affects European interests depends in part on Europe’s response. A proactive approach to closely monitoring and working with China and local actors seems to be the best way to preserve a European role. Such engagement would also allow Europe to support and benefit from economic development in the sectors and regions affected by China’s infrastructure strategy. Download the full report here. 

If any significant portion of this ambitious vision is accomplished, it will alter the logistics of commerce and cultural intercourse between three-fourths of humanity.  It will facilitate multiple forms of communication over an expanse even greater than that ruled by the Great Khan.  The 13th and 14th century Pax Mongolica was — till now — the largest contiguous economic zone in history.  The Mongols used force to unite China, Central Asia, Russia, and much of Western Asia in a single area with multinational governance and no significant barriers to trade, travel, and cultural exchange.  But China’s integration with the lands to its west and south is to rely on peacefully negotiated commerce, trade, investment, and construction, not military coercion or conquest.  And it will leave Westphalian notions of sovereignty intact. Read more from Ambassador Charles Freeman..

May 23, 2018by wpengine
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