In April last year, the government of the Marshall Islands announced it would be taking nine nations 鈥 China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Britain and the US 鈥 to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague over their possession of nuclear weapons.
China
Australia signed a free trade agreement with China on November 17. The Coalition government and the media praise the agreement, but other groups are concerned about the implications.
More than 85% of Australian exports will be tariff free initially, rising to 93% in four years. Some of these goods are subject to tariffs of up to 40%. On full implementation of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, 95% of Australian exports to China will be tariff free.
United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping of China have signed a bilateral climate agreement.
Much of the US and British media, and many US Democrats, have hailed the deal as a key step forward. Many US Republicans have attacked it as going much too far.
Anything the Republicans attack has to be good. Right? No. In fact it is an appalling deal.
Let's look at the numbers.
As talks between Hong Kong protesters and the Chinese government began on October 21, the region鈥檚 current chief executive C.Y. Leung spoke out against free elections on the grounds that it would empower the poor.
In his first interview with foreign media since the pro-democracy movement began, Leung said that if the public were allowed to nominate any candidate of their choosing, elections would be dominated by the large sector of Hong Kong residents now living in poverty.
The eyes of the world are watching Hong Kong, where masses of people have taken to the streets in defiance of the tear gas of riot police and the threats of the government.
Amid ongoing large protests in support of democratic reforms, Chinese authorities warned of 鈥渃haos鈥 on October 2 if protesters carried through their threat to storm Hong Kong government buildings if the region鈥檚 Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying did not resign, the that day.
China鈥檚 Second Continent: How a million migrants are building a new Empire in Africa Howard W French Knopf Published May 20, 2014 304 pages www.howardwfrench.com In his 2009 film Rethink Afghanistan, director Robert Greenwald suggested that the US should not try to control the world through military means, but by building schools and hospitals in the countries it wishes to invade. Journalist Howard French's book China's Second Continent shows how such a model can work in practice.
Forgotten Voices of Mao's Great Famine, 1958-1962, An Oral History
By Zhou Xun
Yale University Press, 2013
336 pp, $35.00
In his excellent history book Timelines, John Rees has a graph, which in one image sums up the people鈥檚 history contained in Zhou Xun鈥檚 Forgotten Voices. The line showing improvements in life expectancy in China suddenly shows a total reversal, a deep plunge into an abyss and then a quick return to the original curve.
This abyss was Mao Zedong鈥檚 Great Leap Forward.
麻豆传媒 Weekly's Peter Boyle spoke to Kevin Lin, who is doing research for his PhD at the University of Technology Sydney on the labour movement in China, about the background to a new wave of strikes in the country.
China鈥檚 Rise: Strength & Fragility
By Au Loong Yu
Resistance Books, IIRE
Merlin Press, 2012
316 pages
The transformation of the Chinese economy a 20-fold rise in the size of the economy between 1979 and 2010 and huge development of private enterprise has been one of the most significant and remarkable phenomena in recent history.
However, neither the Western media and academia, nor the Chinese regime itself, provide much credible analysis on what is involved in this transformation.
鈥淭here will never be strikes in my company,鈥 Foxconn CEO Guo Taiming once proclaimed. But just last month, 1800 workers struck at two Foxconn factories in China 鈥 following the example of other Foxconn workers in Taiyuan and Chengdu last year.
Foxconn produces cell phones and other products for Apple and others, and owns property worth US$6 billion. It has 1.2 million workers and is the largest sweatshop of ill repute in China.
Chinese leaders are aware that visiting Western leaders will be under some pressure from their domestic constituencies to raise Tibet, human rights and other 鈥渟ensitive鈥 issues.
So a mechanism has been considerately created to cater for this need. It consists of a meaningless piece of theatre otherwise known as the 鈥渙bligatory-behind-closed-doors-human-rights-discussion鈥.
According to the well-worn script, the elected foreign official heads to China on a trade mission, accompanied by a media circus and some high-level trough-snouting capitalists (like Andrew Forrest).
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