Shadow Land

February 21, 2010

It seems that students in China may be modeling themselves after a Jackie Chan movie and playing catch-me if you can.  Harking back to a piece I wrote about Google being hacked, more evidence has been revealed that the real perpetrators may be high school students.

Now, the New York Times says, “the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.”

The NSA traced some of the attacks to servers in Taiwan.  Then a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has also led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at a vocational school in east China’s Shandong Province. Last week, in another hacking incident, the trail led through China to Germany where that other attack originated.

What is most disturbing is the knee jerk reaction that took place when shortly after Google went public with its accusations against China without evidence, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton challenged the Chinese in a speech on Internet censors, suggesting China’s efforts to control open access to the Internet were in effect an information-age Berlin Wall.

This is not the way to build trust with other governments. The wise thing to do would have been to wait until all the evidence was in before deciding who was guilty. It’s also interesting to know that this vocational school is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and Google’s competitor.

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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.

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3 Comments | America, China, education, government, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Holding a Vital Key to Humanity’s Future

February 20, 2010

China controls the production to several vital, rare earth elements, and is the only country today that produces europium, dysprosium and terbium. Why are these rare elements important to humanity’s future?

Europium is a rare, critical chemical that makes the red color for television monitors and energy-efficient LED light bulbs, and lanthanum is a primary component of the nickel-metal hydride battery in Toyota’s popular hybrid car, Prius.

Toyota Prius

Deposits of these rare elements exist in other countries, but only China had the foresight, thanks to engineers, who are also among the rulers of China, that supported building the mining and refining industries capable of processing these materials. The leaders saw the future and acted.

If other countries like America do not support mining and refining these minerals soon, the supply may vanish since China is developing energy efficient industries and products that will stay in China.

One example is China’s wind production efforts to generate energy that could consume all the available neodymium production and leave nothing for the rest of the world’s booming wind industry.

Discover Greenpeace in China

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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.

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5 Comments | America, business, China, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Teahouse in Shanghai

February 20, 2010

This is where I like to shop when I’m in Shanghai.

It isn't crowded yet

The Huxinting Teahouse has been around for awhile.  Nice place to stop and have a cup of tea.  Go early.  It gets crowded.

famous Shanghai tea house on the water

This area in Shanghai around the Huxinting Teahouse is a good place to shop. Do not pay asking price. Be willing to bargain.  Start low and meet in the middle. Don’t be too cheap either.

Shopping before it gets crowded.

 The following video gives you a musical tour of the sights of Shanghai’s Old District including Yu Yuan Garden and Huxinting Tea House.

For more about Shanghai, also see:
Shanghai
Shanghai’s History & Culture
Shanghai Huangpu River Tour
Eating Gourmet in Shanghai
Chinese Pavilion, Shanghai World Expo

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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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, economy, tourism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Wheezing for Profits

February 20, 2010

Thomas L. Friedman wrote in an OP-ED column for the New York Times, “China, of course, understands that (about Global warming), which is why it is investing heavily in clean-tech, efficiency and high-speed rail. It sees the future trends and is betting on them. Indeed, I suspect China is quietly laughing at us right now.”

It is obvious from Friedman’s OP-Ed piece that there is a benefit when Chinese engineers run the country instead of lawyers, accountants, corporate CEO’s with next quarter’s profits in mind, lobbyists, professional politicians and people like Rush Limbaugh, who confuses his ditto heads with bogus opinions.

If China’s engineers and scientists are laughing, it is because of the American fools that preach that carbon emissions are not the cause of global warming as if they are fighting a crusade against the infidel while ignoring all the other reasons why oil and coal are bad.

coal burning power plant - how would you like to breath this?

Let’s examine some other reasons why carbon emissions are not good and why humans should wean themselves from this dirty source of energy as quickly as possible.

1. Living near a freeway is not healthy
2. Carbon emissions and asthma
3. Dirty power from coal
4. Ocean acidification
5. Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

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

Because of China’s Return

February 19, 2010

I just read Facing up to China, The Economist, February 6th-12th, 2010, and I thought, “Who is the fool (sorry) person who wrote this?”

a) a neo-conservative
b) a Nazi sympathizer
c)  a believer in nation building using the military to shoot anyone that stand in the way
d)  a throwback to the age of imperialism (maybe a born again 19th century citizen of the defunct British, French, Spanish or German Empires)
e) all of the above

If the majority of Americans agreed with the opinion stated in this piece, why the masquerade that we actually care about human life? We should declare that America is the last Imperial Empire that serves corporations spanning the globe looting for profit.

Like Alexander the Great, Americans knew how to win wars once. During World War II, we firebombed cities in Germany and Japan roasting tens of thousands of non-combatant civilians nightly. In one final blow, we dropped nuclear bombs on Japan killing hundreds of thousands in two blasts ending that war. Along the way, we’d send a strong message to the world that we own it or at least the credit card companies and banks that own our government does. The last two sentences in “Facing Up to China” were the only ones that made sense.

The answer to the multiple-choice question is (e).

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

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