The China, U.S., Sudanese Triangle of Oil and Death

October 2, 2010

Most of what I hear about China in Sudan from the Western media makes China look bad, because they are supporting Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who has been charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the ICC (International Criminal Court).

After reading an extensive post about this at China Matters, my opinion changed.

I learned that in 2000, President Clinton was opposed to any kind of rapprochement with Sudan and spared no effort to further isolate the African-Arab country at both regional and international levels.

Then G.W. Bush became president and reversed U.S. policy toward Sudan, an oil-rich country.

China Matters reproduced a 2006 post called “The Twisted Triangle” that had a wealth of detail about the Bush administration’s “forgotten” courtship of Omar al-Bashir.

In short, America was competing with China for access to Sudanese oil and the Chinese won the chess game.

Curious, I turned to Western media sources to see what they were currently saying about China in Sudan.

In an August 2010 Reuters piece, China was portrayed as uncooperative.

Then the Telegraph in the UK says that China’s stake in Sudanese oil has made China Mr. al-Bashir’s only friend among the leading powers, while human rights groups have called for an oil embargo on Khartoum.

Without mentioning what President G .W. Bush’s administration did in Sudan, the Telegraph concludes by saying that America formally banned its companies from investing there and European firms avoid the protests that would accompany any involvement with al-Bashir’s militant Muslim regime.

Did America put that ban in place before or after the Bush administration lost the chess game over Sudanese oil to China?

See China’s Oil Hunger Grows

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

4 Comments | America, business, China, Islam, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Foreign Aid to China

October 2, 2010

Global Issues has a post about “Foreign Aid for Development Assistance” and says, “In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their gross national income as official international development aid, annually.

“Since that time, despite billions given each year, rich nations have rarely met their actual promised targets. For example, the US is often the largest donor in dollar terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms of meeting the stated 0.7% target.”

Knowing that there is hunger and poverty in America, I went to Feeding America and learned that in 2008, 49.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households. 

Mississippi was the state with the highest percentage (17.4%) of food insecure households.

With problems at home, why is the U.S. giving away so much money?

At Truth Monk, I learned that Norway gave the most foreign aid (based on a percentage of Gross National Income) to developing countries—about 6 times the U.S. percentage. See the graph.

The reason I was interested in this topic was a post I read at Yahoo News about China rises and rises, yet still gets foreign aid. It seems that China was given about $2.6 billion in 2007-2008 from Japan, Germany, France and Britain.

Japan was China’s biggest donor.

China defended its need for foreign aid because 200 million Chinese live in poverty and there are still huge environmental and energy challenges.

I found it interesting that China provided $1.4 billion in aid to Africa recently and an additional $200 million to flood-hit Pakistan, which means China receives foreign aid and gives some of it to other countries.

Now, stop a moment and look at the list of countries that have been sending foreign aid to China.

Notice anything? 

Starting in 1839 with the first of the two Opium Wars, Britain and France forced opium on the Chinese, and Germany became involved later with the burning of the Summer Palace near Beijing. 

Then Japan caused the horrors of World War II with about 30 million Chinese dead from Japan’s invasion.

Could this foreign aid to China from Japan, Germany, France and Britain be a means of atonement for national sins?

In fact, it seems that China has a big appetite for foreign aid, which is discussed in depth at Foreign Policy.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, China, economy, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Internet Censorship May be Global Soon

October 1, 2010

Before you curse China again for having a Net Nanny, better read this post and access the NPR link.

Russia is the culprit to watch.  According to NPR, every year since 1998, Russia has introduced a resolution at the UN calling for an international agreement to combat what it calls “information terrorism”.


According to this news broadcast, the U.S. is involved too.

NPR recently broadcast a story on this topic, Seeing the Internet as an Information Weapon, which mentions a host of other countries that want global Internet censorship. Click on the NPR link and listen to the story.

Brazil, Chili, and India, are on that list too.  Often, when we read or hear about India, we are reminded “proudly” by the Western media that India is the world’s largest democracy.

These countries, including India, want governments to play a bigger role on the Internet.

China is not the only country that wants to censor the Internet, so why do we only hear about China?

See Google’s China SeeSaw

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

4 Comments | America, China, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Keeping the Rare Earths in China

October 1, 2010

At one time, it must have seemed like a good idea to allow China to process 90% of the earth’s supply for rare earth oxides/metals.

After all, rare earths are dangerous and costly to extract and the extraction methods used in China are highly toxic. The Economist reports that there have been horror stories about poisoned water supplies.

The thinking around the world must have been, “Better that China wrecks its environment than us.”


The Other Side of the Story

These rare earth-based metals are important in manufacturing sophisticated products such as flat-screen monitors, hybrid and electric-car batteries, wind turbines, aerospace alloys and high-tech weapons, which the U.S. needs to fight wars.

Then China became angry when Japan arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain whose trawler collided with a Japanese patrol boat in contested waters.

What China did to force the Japanese to do what China wanted caused the rest of the world to sit up.

China shut off the supply of rare earths to Japan.

A report from Reuters by Julie Gordon says this caused companies that depend on rare earths to struggle to secure a supply. It also woke up the rest of the world—a lesson learned that you don’t keep all the eggs in a basket that you don’t own.

See Hitting Endless Home Runs

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions

Leave a Comment » | business, capitalism, China, Chinese middle class, economy, environment, politics, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Moves Toward Orbit and Beyond

September 30, 2010

The next Star Trek movie may have an all Chinese crew from the CNSA (Chinese National Space Agency), as China becomes the dominate nation in outer space.

The New York Times reports that President Obama called on NASA to cancel the program that was to return humans to the Moon by 2020, which means America will not be starting a space race with China.

In fact, President Obama has called on China and the U.S. to cooperate in outer space. Something no other U.S. President has asked before. When the current International Space Station started construction in 1998, China was not included.

The crippled U.S. space program suggests that America has no choice but to cooperate or else cede the frontier of space to the Chinese.

Senior Chinese space officials recently announced that China could be on the moon by 2022. To reach the moon, plans are to put three different space stations into Earth orbit by 2011, then 2015 and the largest station by 2020, which will lead to the moon. Source: Washington Times.com

It is feasible that China could be on the moon by 2017 and after that, China plans to go where no man or woman has gone before — Mars and Venus. Source: KotZot.com

Shanghaiist.com reports that, “Scientists predict that one of China’s most significant achievements in the 21st century will be to set up a “moon city” using solar energy. The surplus energy will then be transmitted to storage centers back on earth.”

If this works, China’s hunger for electricity may be met without the need for coal burning power plants, which means cleaner air.

Meanwhile, the Arms Control Wonk says that China’s leaders remain silent about the military applications of China’s space programs, which will cause many Sinophobes to lose sleep.

This is ironic, since the Chinese invented multi-stage rockets around the 14th century.

See Adding to Honor in One Lunar Leap

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | America, China, politics, science | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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