The chairman of the President Barack Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, praised China this morning on CBS:
"China is changing," said CBS host Charlie Rose. "It may be being stabilized as we speak. What does that mean for China and what does it mean for the United States? Should it change expectations?"
"It is good for China," said Immelt. "To a certain extent, Charlie, 11 percent is unsustainable. You end up getting too much stimulus or a misallocation of resources. They are much better off working on a more consumer-based economy, less dependent on exports. The one thing that actually works, state run communism a bit– may not be your cup of tea, but their government works."
A report in the Chinese state-run Xinhua outlet claims that President Barack Obama congratulated Xi Jinping on his "election" to be the top Communist in China. Jinping will be the next president of China, and now controls the Chinese military.
During Monday night’s presidential debate, the candidates beat their breasts vying to be tougher on China. Barack Obama pointed to his accomplishments, while Mitt Romney attacked the president for being afraid to label China a currency manipulator. The amount of time devoted to America’s largest creditor and potential enemy shows that managing the relationship with China is critical for whoever sits in the Oval Office.
Of the books I have read about China, The Corpse Walker, which I reviewed for THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is one of my favorites. Written by Liao Yiwu, The CorpseWalker contains stories about the strange mix of people Liao met while traveling around China and serving time in jail for writing and recording a poem commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen massacre.
The blind, barefoot lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, imprisoned for exposing the morally repugnant practice of forced abortion and sterilization, just evaded one of the world’s most sophisticated state police.
Allen West created an apparent controversy when he stated at a Florida event, "I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democratic Party that are members of the Communist Party." Democrats decried West's comment--and even the Communist Party USA slammed the Florida congressman.
Former network television host Tom Brokaw will be appearing on the Chinese Communist channel later tonight, according to a press release from China Central Television. The Communist channel bears the ironic acronym CCTV, which in other contexts usually stands for “closed-circuit television.”
The Wall Street Journal Asia has published an editorial arguing that the process for “electing” Hong Kong’s next chief executive reflects the erosion of the “one country, two systems” principle that was supposed to allow Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and ultimately full democracy.
Kiev One of the world’s last Communist regimes may be about to unravel. But unlike the 1989-1991 fall of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact puppet states in Central and Eastern Europe, the collapse of North Korea could have far-reaching and destructive aftershocks. Moreover, there is little evidence that any of the major powers that will be affected are prepared for—or even want to acknowledge the possibility of—what comes next.
Senator Mark Kirk is pushing for the U.S. to engage in deeper strategic cooperation with China on drugs, terrorism, and Afghanistan. Speaking yesterday at the Foreign Policy Initiative’s annual conference at the Newseum, the Illinois Republican argued that the U.S. should build a supply line to Afghanistan through Urumqi, Xinjiang, the area known to its Uyghur and other Muslim inhabitants as East Turkistan.
On July 23, two high-speed trains collided on an elevated track near the Chinese city of Wenzhou, killing at least 39 people and injuring several hundred. In the days since the crash, shock and sympathy have turned to outrage as the Chinese government's propagandistic, face-saving response to the tragedy has run headlong into the increasingly wired and cynical Chinese public.
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