Are the guys who run the CD website the most incompetent, lazy faux journalists who ever lived? It’s hard to think otherwise (despite their famous high standards for accepting only the most scholarly and erudite reader-contributed articles).

Posted by Martyn.

This map clearly shows the areas claimed by Beijing and Tokyo and the location of the Chunxiao field.

In a rare show of military assertiveness, five Chinese PLA Navy vessels took position near the controversial Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea last Friday morning. The fleet consisted of a “7,940-ton Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyer, two 1,702-ton Jianghu I-class missile frigates, a 23,000-ton replenishment vessel and a 6,000-ton missile observation support ship”. Previously, Chinese PLA Navy vessels have only occasionally sailed into Japanese waters. The last incursion a few months ago ended with a quiet Chinese apology to Japan. Therefore, this current deployment is, by far, the largest display of China’s recently acquired blue water navy since military exercises in 1996 in the Taiwan Strait resulted in two US aircraft carriers being sent to the area. This great Howard French article presents an ominous picture.

The warships appeared two days before a general election in Japan, whose results could greatly influence relations between Asia’s two great powers, and weeks before China is scheduled to start producing gas in the area, despite strong Japanese protests.

Until Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi diverted Japanese voters’ attention away from Japan’s deteriorating relationship with China, the focus for several months had been on the increasing diplomatic, military and economic rivalry with China — much of it taking place in the waters between the countries. Both Japan and China are determined to wield a strong hand in the oil-rich seas and strategic shipping lanes that lie between them.

“It is like the 1930s again, when the central Pacific became a vital concern to both the United States and Japan, whose navy was expanding,” said Adm. Lang Ning-li, who until his recent retirement was Taiwan’s director of naval intelligence. “That means there could be conflict between China and Japan, which both see these seas as vital and can’t share this space.”

The territorial spat between China and Japan started in late 2003 when both governments stated their intention develop oil and gas resources in the East China Sea. China and Japan disagree wildly over the location of the maritime border between the two countries. Japan defines it as a line marking the equal distance between the two nations. China claims its sovereignty extends right to the edge of the large continental shelf, encompassing Taiwan and almost extending to Okinawa. The Chunxiao gas field borders the disputed area and Japan suspects that Chinese oil and gas fields would siphon off resources from the Japanese side. Tokyo also worries that the oceanographic data collected by Beijing would give the PLA Navy a strong advantage in any future submarine warfare. According to this Chinese source, Beijing also intends to refuse any further talks on the issue. However, the implications of this Chinese show of strength, potentially at least, extend far beyond the Chunxiao gas field:

Security experts from China, Japan, Taiwan and the United States say that all the elements are in place for a showdown over Taiwan between Beijing and Tokyo. No one is predicting war, but Taiwan poses a permanent and unpredictable potential crisis. The United States has a close alliance with Japan, security commitments with Taiwan and a complex relationship with China that mixes rivalry with extensive economic ties.

For America, whose support of either Japan or China has historically tipped the balance in the region, the implications are enormous. The recent statement by a Chinese general that his country would use nuclear weapons against the United States if the U.S. military intervened in a conflict over Taiwan was a sharp reminder that Taiwan’s fate remains one of the region’s biggest flash points. Many analysts argue that such confrontation, verbal or otherwise, could lead to a regional arms race culminating in a nuclear Japan.

Japan imports all of its oil, and because much of it passes through the seas surrounding Taiwan, it believes that its survival is dependent on keeping those seas stable. Chinese control of Taiwan could hurt Japan’s access to oil, Japan fears.

China usually accepts no compromise on its various territorial claims, most notably over the entire South China Sea. To date, China has flatly refused to work towards any kind of permanent settlement over controversial issues such as sovereignty over the Spratly Islands (or Nansha Islands as they are called in China). The disagreements have simply been postponed and replaced with a series of economic cooperation agreements and promises from all sides to resolve the dispute peacefully. Beijing has also all but banned the subject at ASEAN meetings. However, in the past China was always careful to avoid outright confrontation, especially confrontation involving the PLA Navy. Recent purchases from Russia have substantially increased China’s ability to protect its power in the South China Sea. The question is: to what extent is China prepared to use it?

As I hoped, Katrina delivered a wake-up call to America’s media, making them far more willing to challenge the Federal government and point out its lies in so many words, instead of sheepishly offering different sides of the story and letting readers figure things out. That’s not journalism. When a blatant and intentionally misleading lie has been told, there aren’t two sides to what happened. The only story is that a lie was told, and when the media skirt around such malfeasances, it only encourages more lying.

Today the WaPo did an amazing thing: It actually said a senior administration official lied to them in spreading the meme that Louisiana Gov. Blanco delayed declaring a state of emergency in New Orleans. And they take full blame, and they don’t dasnce around what happened.

The Washington Post, like many news organizations, says it is trying to crack down on the use of anonymous sources. But the paper allowed a “senior administration official” to spin the story of the slow response to Katrina — with a claim that turned out to be false.

On Sept. 4, the paper cited the “senior Bush official” as saying that as of the day before, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco “still had not declared a state of emergency.” As The Post noted in a correction, Blanco, a Democrat, had declared a state of emergency on Aug. 26.

Liberal bloggers have unloaded on The Post. Wrote Arianna Huffington: “Why were the Post reporters so willing to blindly accept the words of an administration official who obviously had a partisan agenda — and to grant the official anonymity?”

Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz calls the incident “a bad mistake” that happened right on deadline. “We all feel bad about that,” he says. “We should not have printed the information as background information, and it should have been checked. We fell down on the desk.”

Imagine how coverage of the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, the Medicare bill, the Plame scandal – imagine how much better off we’d be if the media had been this diligent then, and blasted high-ranking officials who lied to them. I’m not saying the media have morphed from attack poodles into dobermans, but with examples like this and coverage of Katrina, we’ve seen the beginning of a real shift. They have a long way to go, and with so many reporters savoring their rock-star status as television talking heads, tempted by big speaking fees and corporate graft, I realize change can only go so far. But it’s nice, for once, to report that things are getting better and to see the media emerging from the long night of the Bush media manipulation.

Link via TPM.

Update: I like the way Atrios defines his vision of serious journalism:

I mean that the collective news media has to display the kind of outrage and hard-hitting continuous coverage they normally reserve for blow jobs and missing white women and presidential criticism by the Dixie Chicks.

Atrios also points out a less positive aspect of the WaPo story, and he’s right.

The earlier one filled up in record time.

I had my first experience with the CCP blacking out sections of CNN stories that cut too close to home back in 2003, and it was a shock – the screen simply went black until the embarrassing part of the story ended. Will at Imagethief has an excellent post on another variation on this theme; this time the victim is a CNN commercial. I think Imagethief is emerging as the best English language blog in the mainland and I recommend it as the first-stop in your daily browsing.

I was going to write a long post on a great article in today’s NYT Magazine on whether Osama Bin Laden is winning or losing the “war on terror.” Will beat me too it; be sure to read his post, and even more important, check out the massive article. Then come back and tell me the war on terror as carried out by Bush has been a good, productive, successful enterprise.

Was Yahoo under legal constraints to hand over information on now-imprisoned jopurnalist Shi Tao to China’s secret police? Chinese Law Prof Blog says “No.”

In a news release dated Sept. 6, Reporters Without Borders has criticized Yahoo! because Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. (hereinafter “Yahoo HK”) “provided China’s state security authorities with details that helped to identify and convict” journalist Shi Tao….

This post is not going to examine the merits of the case against Shi. What I want to discuss is an interesting sentence in the news release, where it says, “[T]he company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate . . . . But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations?” According to a Reuters report, Yahoo! did indeed subsequently make precisely this claim in a statement emailed to Reuters by Yahoo HK:

“Just like any other global company, Yahoo! must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based,” Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters by the firm’s Hong Kong arm.

RWB may have accepted Yahoo’s claim too easily. Assuming that Yahoo HK is, as it appears to be, a Hong Kong entity, then it is not generally subject to PRC law. It is, of course, subject to Hong Kong law. But Article 18(1) of the Basic Law, the PRC statute that serves as Hong Kong’s constitution, states: “National laws shall not be applied in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region except for those listed in Annex III to this Law.” Annex III to the Basic Law lists the following laws:

1. Resolution on the Capital, Calendar, National Anthem and National Flag of the People’s Republic of China
2. Resolution on the National Day of the People’s Republic of China
3. Order on the National Emblem of the People’s Republic of China Proclaimed by the Central People’s Government
4. Declaration of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Territorial Sea
5. Nationality Law of the People’s Republic of China
6. Regulations of the People’s Republic of China Concerning Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities

None of these would seem to provide any basis for requiring a Hong Kong company such as Yahoo HK to hand over information to the PRC authorities, and the company has not to my knowledge claimed that any Hong Kong law required it to do so. If Yahoo HK were a wholly-owned subsidiary of a PRC-domiciled company (let’s call it “Yahoo China Parent”), then there would be a plausible case for saying that Yahoo China Parent could be required by the Chinese government to cause its wholly-owned HK subsidiary to do certain things. But since Yahoo HK is listed as a subsidiary of Yahoo!, Inc., the US parent, in the latter’s most recent Form 10-K (Annual Report for 2004, dated March 11, 2005), then it seems that no entity in the chain of control is under PRC jurisdiction and required to comply with PRC law. Whether or not to comply with a request or demand for information becomes just a business decision. [Emphasis added.]

The facts here are complicated and I may have got some wrong. I am opening this post to comments if anyone can add more factual details or legal analysis…

Of course, Yahoo insists they had no choice in the matter, but it seems very few are lining up to defend them. Shi Tao is now going to serve 10 years for leaking a document widely distributed to Chinese newsrooms – innocuous, well-known BS about the need for reporters to help preserve “stability.” I can’t defend Yahoo and suspect from a PR perspective this will haunt them for a long time.

Via CDT.

Update: I appreciate what Rebecca MacKinnon has to say on this topic, especially the PR ramifications.

In Shi Tao’s case, Yahoo! had to be evil in order to be legal.

But as the discussion on my last post reveals, Yahoo! had a choice. It chose to provide an e-mail service hosted on servers based inside China, making itself subject to Chinese legal jurisdiction. It didn’t have to do that. It could have provided a service hosted offshore only. If Shi Tao’s email account had been hosted on servers outside of China, Yahoo! wouldn’t have been legally obligated to hand over his information.

When providing information and communications services in countries where political dissent is illegal, companies like Yahoo! need to ask themselves tough questions about whether they can realistically operate “within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based” while still upholding their ethical values. Assuming they have some. Even if they don’t, they must recognize that helping put dissidents in jail is pretty bad for the corporate image. Is the damage to Yahoo!’s reputation, credibility, and consumer trust really worth whatever money they’re making on that Chinese-language e-mail service?

I don’t think so.

This is one of the most encouraging stories on gays in China I’ve seen to date. Finally, attitudes are changing and younger people are opening their minds to the fact that gays are real people, not diseased freaks. Yes, part of the new liberalized attitude stems from the CCP’s pragmatic concerns about AIDS: It’s the gay groups that focus on AIDS prevention that get official government support. But it’s obvious that in just about every way, life for China’s gays is improving, and not just in the big coastal cities.

As the class got under way, the diminutive teacher standing before an overcrowded lecture hall in this city’s most exclusive university handed out a survey. The first of several multiple-choice questions asked students what their feelings would be if they encountered two male lovers: total acceptance, reluctant, acceptance, rejection or disgust?

As a way of breaking the ice, the teacher, Sun Zhongxin, read aloud some of the answers anonymously. Judging by her sample, most of the 120 or so students said they would reluctantly accept gay lovers in their midst.

The Fudan University class, Introduction to Gay and Lesbian Studies, is the first of its kind ever offered to Chinese undergraduates, and Sun briefly wondered why it was so well attended, before providing her own answer.

“The attitude toward homosexuality in China is changing,” she said. “It is good, but it also makes us feel heavy-hearted. What’s unfortunate about such heavy attendance is that it indicates that many people have never discussed the topic before.”

“Not only are people hiding in the closet,” she concluded, “but the topic itself has been hiding in the closet.”

A class like this would be unremarkable in the US, where many students are quite open about their homosexuality and the curriculum has long included offerings reflecting their interests. But among China’s gay and lesbian population, which may be as large as 48 million by some estimates, the new course is being portrayed as a major advance.

Less than a decade ago, homosexuality was still included under the heading of hooliganism in China’s criminal code, and it was only four years ago that the Chinese Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see gay marriage approved in China before it’s approved in the US. Unfortunately, the mindset that you have to get married still seems to be prevailaing, and I think it’ll be many years, maybe generations, before that changes.

Update A new comment today to this post tells abother side of the story of gays in China.

Clearly this general must be a shill for the irritating liberal echo chamber.

The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states’ initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday.

Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that “arguably” a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard’s 155th Infantry Brigade and Louisiana’s 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq.

“Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear,” said Blum.

Of course, our leaders know better than to swallow this Frenchman-like tripe.

Asked Tuesday about critics who said the commitment of large numbers of troops to the Iraq conflict hindered the military’s response to Hurricane Katrina, Rumsfeld said, “Anyone who’s saying that doesn’t understand the situation.”

Yes, and our leaders at the top have such a deep and total understanding of the situation. That’s why things are going so swimmingly in Iraq, and why the Katrina rescue operations went like clockwork.

Update: While I’m on the topic of Katrina, I have to point out this story, which perhaps constitutes the most shocking, depressing, inexcusable news out of New Orleans yet. And it has nothing to do with the Federal government.

Several of my beloved commenters have been insisting the differences between press freedoms in the US and China are minimal, if they even exist. I, too, was extremely critical this week when my government tried to restrict press coverage of the hunt for bodies of Katrina’s victims in New Orleans, and compared the move to the type of thing I’d expect from China.

But in America there are some dramatic differences: namely, the US media can take the government to court and does so all the time. And they can win. To the commenter who insisted yesterday that US news networks are simply corporate arms of the government, I say read this.

Rather than fight a lawsuit by CNN, the federal government abandoned its effort Saturday to prevent the media from reporting on the recovery of the dead in New Orleans.

Joint Task Force Katrina “has no plans to bar, impede or prevent news media from their news gathering and reporting activities in connection with the deceased Hurricane Katrina victim recovery efforts,” said Col. Christian E. deGraff, representing the task force.

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison issued a temporary restraining order Friday against a “zero access” policy announced earlier in the day by Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who is overseeing the federal relief effort in the city, and Terry Ebbert, the city’s homeland security director.

In explaining the ban, Ebbert said, “we don’t think that’s proper” to let members of the media view the bodies.

The judge was to consider granting a permanent injunction Saturday when the government announced its decision not to fight CNN’s lawsuit.

In an e-mail to CNN staff, CNN News Group President Jim Walton said the network filed the the lawsuit to “prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover” the hurricane victim recovery process.

“As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina’s landfall along the Gulf,” Walton wrote, “CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns.”

Three words that spell the difference between a free people and a police state: Rule of law. Write those words down, bind them between your eyes, tatoo them on your skin, but never forget, until China has rule of law it can make no pretenses of being a free society.

There are so many reasons to be ashamed of being an American in the age of Bush. This comes from Bush’s former chief cheerleader and shrillest proponent of the Iraq war.

Remember the hanging and beating of an Afghan prisoner at Bagram, while his knees were pummeled to a pulp until he died? The second soldier implicated has just been acquitted. The bottom line in the AP story is the following: “No one has been charged with the detainee’s death.” As one of the other soldiers said in a previous investigation: “I just don’t understand how, if we were given training to do this, you can say that we were wrong and should have known better.” The shame deepens. They’re not even scape-goating any more. No one is accountable for the U.S. military torturing someone to death. And, yes, the victim was hooded at the time he was beaten. It’s the American way now.

While I can’t let Sully off the hook for his past blind devotion to all things Bush, I do salute him for having the courage to consider the evidence and revise his analysis. There is a time to flip-flop, and it is often a sign of strength and moral convictionn, not weakness.