Maybe we’ll have to chalk up another point for Hu JIntao, who seems to be stepping back from China’s past non-negotiable and semi-crazed position on the renegade colony of Taiwan.

Gradually and without fanfare, China has substantially softened its stand on Taiwan, according to senior officials and diplomats. President Hu Jintao, they said, has begun to play down China’s long-standing vow to recover the self-ruled island by force if necessary and shifted the focus to preventing any move toward formal independence.

The adjustment, which has become clearer in recent months, has brought China’s policy on the volatile Taiwan issue closer to that of the United States. Washington has long maintained that the island’s half-century-old status quo — independent in fact but not in law — should not be changed until Beijing and Taipei can work out a mutually acceptable peaceful solution.

“Before, we never said ‘status quo,’ ” said a Chinese academic who advises Hu’s government on Taiwan. “Now we say it all the time.”

Officials and diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. One of them, a high-level official, said he had visited Beijing and spoken to Hu privately about Taiwan for several hours. Hu, according to the visitor, said he had no plans to act militarily against Taiwan unless the status quo was changed in a way that risked causing him to “lose face.” That concern reflected the ardor for reunification among many Chinese on the mainland.

Despite continuing propaganda about “liberating” Taiwan, Hu said China’s bottom line was that it would not allow the island to take decisive steps toward legal independence, the visitor recalled. Backing up that resolution, China has deployed nearly 800 medium- and short-range ballistic missiles in southern China, with targets around the Taiwan Strait, and is steadily building its military forces with Taiwan as a principal focus.

If Hu can convince the world that China can actually be rational on this subject, it would be a major coup. It would take a lot of wind out of the “China threat” neo-cons’ sails and help position Hu as a real diplomat as opposed to a wild-eyed ideologue.

They sure do care a lot about face over there. Wouldn’t it thrilling to imagine a China where the people didn’t let “face” get in the way of everything? Wouldn’t it be thrilling if pigs could fly?

The Phantom Menace
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 16, 2006

Over the last few weeks monetary officials have sounded increasingly worried about rising prices. On Wednesday, Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, declared that inflation “is running at a rate that is just too corrosive to be accepted by a virtuous central banker.”

I’m worried too — but not about recent price increases. What worries me, instead, is the Fed’s overreaction to those increases. When it comes to inflation, the main thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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“The Patriot Tax” – I like that idea.

Seeds for a Geo-Green Party
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: June 16, 2006

The recent focus of the Republican-led Congress on divisive diversions, like gay marriage and flag burning, coupled with the unveiling of Unity ’08, an Internet-based third party that plans to select its presidential candidate through online voting, has intensified the chatter that a third party, and maybe even a fourth, will emerge in the 2008 election.

Up to now, though, most of that talk has been about how a third party might galvanize voters, using the Web, rather than what it would actually galvanize them to do. I’d like to toss out an idea in the hopes that some enterprising politician or group of citizens — or Unity ’08 — will develop it. It’s the concept I call “Geo-Green.”

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Really – a total of 10,000 RMB in prizes. Be sure to check it out and nominate your favorites. I suspect their message board could get quite lively once the word is spread. (Once again, The Duck is out of the running- time to recognize some of the newer or less publicized blogs.)

This great post would be a lot funnier (and it’s already very funny) if its implications weren’t so sad. It’s a classic, a totally must-read, as are the comments (as always).

It’s still a hugely important step toward ending the stupid ban on direct flights between the countries, which hurt only the average citizen.

Taiwan and China said Wednesday they’ve agreed to launch direct charter passenger flights between them during major holidays, a key trust-building step toward restoring regular direct flights cut five decades ago amid civil war.

Negotiators have also reached a ”tentative consensus” on allowing Taiwanese companies to use special chartered cargo flights to fly goods and equipment between the two sides, said Joseph Wu, chairman of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council.

In Beijing, China’s General Administration of Civil Aviation said the rivals agreed ”on the framework of chartered flights for festivals and special cases,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The announcement was a major development for the two sides, whose relations are usually characterized by bickering over abstract sovereignty disputes. Although they’ve allowed chartered passenger flights before, the service has been inconsistent and limited to the Lunar New Year — the biggest Chinese holiday.

The new charter flights would serve four annual holidays: Lunar Chinese New Year, Tomb Sweeping Day, the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid Autumn Festival, said Wu, Taiwan’s top official for China policy. Practical arrangements still have to be worked out, but he expected holiday flights would begin for the Mid Autumn Festival, which falls on Oct. 6 this year.

Great news. Maybe something good will yet come out of Chen Sui Bian’s rule.

Great comeback, Tom.

G.M. – Again

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: June 14, 2006

On May 31 I wrote a column accusing General Motors of acting irresponsibly by offering unlimited gasoline at $1.99 a gallon for one year to anyone who buys certain of its midsize sedans, big S.U.V.’s or gas-guzzling Hummers in California or Florida. At a time when we are at war in the Middle East, with an enemy who is indirectly financed by our energy purchases, it seems to me that every American, and every American company, has an obligation to reduce oil consumption. No one should be making a huge gas-guzzling Hummer, and no one should be driving one, and no one — certainly not G.M. — should be subsidizing people to drive them.

After the May 31 column appeared, G.M.’s vice president for global communications, Steven J. Harris, and his colleagues denounced my argument in a formal statement and on G.M.’s corporate blog. This is an important issue, so let me respond to their response.

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This long article is a good primer on the state of media censorship in the PRC.

China’s continuous media censorship and a recent apparent upgrade of controls have led to widespread condemnation from media organizations around the world.

There have been a number of recent announcements calling for boycotts and protests against China’s censorship combined with condemnation of western firms that cooperate with the Chinese government. The UK’s National Union of Journalists has called for a boycott of Yahoo.com’s products and services, following the company’s cooperation with Chinese authorities on the arrest and imprisonment of Chinese journalist Shi Tao.

The NUJ’s 40,000 members have been using Yahoo for mailing lists and the union decided that because Yahoo was handing over information leading to the arrest and prosecution of journalists, they would boycott the company…

According the NUJ’s release, besides Shi Tao, several other Chinese journalists have been arrested after Yahoo provided information to authorities to help identify dissidents. Jiang Lijun was sentenced to four years in November 2003 after Yahoo provided information that helped identify him. He was sentenced for writing articles that called the Chinese government “autocratic” and said that he favored a western-style democracy, the NUJ said. Another Chinese citizen Li Zhi was sentenced to eight years for discussing pro-democracy issues in a web forum and for emailing pro-democracy campaigners, according to the NUJ.

The most frequently heard response – and one that, ironically, was repeated by Hao Wu himself, who is mentioned in the article – is that it’s mainly outsiders who care about the censorship, and most Chinese couldn’t care less. True, just as most people everywhere don’t really care about much else than their own needs and wants. And censorship is relatively low on most Chinese citizens’ Needs & Wants List. For most Westerners, on the other hand, who were raised from day one believing freedom of speech is just about our most important guaranteed right, the reaction to censorship is predictably more extreme and indignant. But I’ve seen plenty of evidence that plenty of people in China do care about the censorship, many caring about it enough to risk going to prison. (Just today, a reader in China spoke out about this subjecton this site.) I agree with Hao Wu’s key point that ultimately it’s the Chinese who will have to work this issue out, but I also think it’s healthy for the Western media to “go ga-ga” over the issue, just as they have “gone ga-ga” over Hao Wu’s own imprisonment. The world has to know this kind of thing is happening in China if people are to understand what China really is. (At the same time we have to understand that this is not the only thing China is about, and that there have been some incredible changes and improvements there, as this blog often strives to point out. There are no simple explanations for what China is or what it stands for.)

Link via CDT.

Update: Looking back at the rambling nature of that final long paragraph, I offer you all my heartfelt apologies.

We can all breathe a little easier now:

Chinese police have admitted to having in custody an activist against the Asian nation’s forced abortion population control policy who has been missing for months. Chen Guangcheng was formerly under house arrest but had been missing without his family or human rights campaigners knowing his whereabouts.

Chen’s wife, Yuan Weijing, confirmed he had been arrested and taken into custody after police officials asked her to sign a document listing the charges against him. They include accusations that he intended to destroy public property and disrupt commerce and transport.

“The charges are groundless,” Yuan told Asia News.

Teng Biao, an attorney helping Chen, said the blind 35 year-old man was “in the hands of county, not national, policeâ€? and “it’s possible he will be tried for these charges.”

The Asia News reports that, according to Teng, Chen was arrested in March along with two of his cousins after enduring several months of house arrest.

Chen is credited with exposing a forced abortion and sterilization scandal in the city of Linyi where 7,000 women had been forcibly aborted or sterilized. Anyone who attempted to flee was apprehended, beaten, and held hostage in city prisons until their relatives came forward and paid large fines for their release.

Chen met with reporters from the Washington Post and Time Magazine and reports of the scandal in Linyi made international headlines.

However, after the meetings, Chen’s freedom was restricted and he was arrested from a hiding place in Beijing by Linyi officials who say he provided “intelligence” to foreigners.

This guys sounds even more dangerous than Hao Wu. Thank God we’re safe again.

Yes, I know, we talked about this recently. Some argued it’s a lot of noise over nothing, that the SCO is one huge and singularly insignifcant gab-fest and that it’ll never amount to a hill of beans. I’m still remaining more or less neutral, because I’m just learning about the SCO and, I suspect, it’s to early to say whether they’re the next big thing or nothing at all. Still, when I see a news article like this, I can’t just dismiss it: these are big players getting together, and the stakes are enormous.

IRAN’S controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is flying to Shanghai tomorrow to take part in a summit that will seal China’s plans to lead an Asian rival to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation – whose meeting has forced the shutdown of much of the city this week – is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and is preparing to expand its membership well beyond the present China, Russia and four strategic central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui refused at a briefing yesterday to disclose the countries that wished to become observers or full members, beyond saying: “A lot of countries in Asia and other continents have applied, demonstrating the SCO is broadening its influence.”

Other leaders who will attend the summit include the presidents of Pakistan and Mongolia – formal observer states, like Iran and India – and Afghanistan.

Most of the members share a huge potential – and, in China’s case, an appetite – for increased energy production. India is sending its Oil and Gas Minister.

In the past, they have also shared a focus on combating Islamist terror. But Iran’s participation in this summit and its eagerness to become a full member appear to point the organisation in a different direction: a corral of countries capable of countering Western influence.

Mr Li, while claiming the organisation was “very transparent”, was unable to disclose items on the agenda. He said he had not been briefed on whether China, Russia and Iran would discuss separately the current international controversy over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “To China, this is one of the most important diplomatic events of this year. The organisation is developing and getting stronger,” he said.

Yeah, I’m sure the SCO is always fully “transparent.” Who is more noted for transparency than Uzbekestan, China and Kazakhstan? (The CCP, model of transparency and openness.) Everything they do, by the way, is in the name of fighting terrorism. It’s a neat trick that my own president started: you can justify virtually anything, and you can stamp literally any document as Top Secret, as long as you do so in the name tof Terrorism. Of course, most of these SCO thugsbigwigs are famous for practicing torture and murder and obscene acts of represion, so watching them come together under the rubric of terrorism should give us all something to laugh about. Except these guys are no laughing matter, and the thought of them ever gaining measurable power is a disturbing one.

Read the article, and don’t miss the opinion of the analyst from Cambridge University’s East Asia Institute. I’m willing to believe the SCO meetings are boring, masturbatory events. I’m less willing to believe they should be dismissed as inconsequential. Boring and pointless though their public meetings may be, treaties are being signed, deals made and lots of oil and gas divvied up. So maybe this group is worth watching.

[Thanks to this once-famous blogger for sending me the link; now, when are you going to update your site?? It’s been months.]