Equation
Lieutenant General
If that were true, than how come the US has been trying to ban Chinese high tech telecommunications operators like Huawei and ZTE?
World News Thread & Breaking News!!
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If that were true, than how come the US has been trying to ban Chinese high tech telecommunications operators like Huawei and ZTE?
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I've seen something interesting happen twice in the last week in the news media websites. The NYTimes had posted an article called "China Dream, Apple Nightmare." The article was about a new trend in China where Western companies are being scrutinized from a consumer point of view. I recently mentioned in this forum a Chinese TV show to that effect. Well apparently this incensed someone at the New York Times like it was unfair that another country bash another country's products like that was unheard of. I caught the article soon after it was posted on the NYTimes website. A couple hours later it was removed and cannot be found on their website anymore. I bookmarked the link so I can read people's comments but it now directs you to another story. The article has disappeared. See for yourself and look at the web address.
Today on the home page of Yahoo there's was an Associated Press article I've been seeing for a good part of the day on top of their news about the B-2 bomber flying over South Korea. What made this one different from other articles on the subject was the title and the article says it was a message to China as well. That article now seems to have disappeared too.
It's the internet so I'm sure those articles are out there somewhere in some form but not easily found. But what the two have in common are the articles could have been written by people who write the most ignorant posts in the their comments section. How outlandish that China bashes another countries products like Apple? Like the West doesn't do that for every single product made in China? The article was in denial or pure stupidity that the writer didn't realize the hypocrisy. What comments I got read that were posted on that article before it disappear pointed to that fact. Now to the B-2 article... It basically gloated about the Chinese embassy bombing in Yugoslavia as if the B-2 flying over South Korea was a big "FU" to China reminding them of it. What probably was the reason why they pulled the article is because it basically said their sources at the Pentagon said the Chinese embassy bombing was intentional and not accidental or a mistake because the Chinese were helping Serbia during the Kosovo War. That's basically admitting to an act of war. And we know how many sees or hears something from the news media, it has to be true, right? The author of the article was so blinded by sticking it to the Chinese that he or she just had the US admit to committing an act of war on China.
The Associated Press is probably the mother of all news media. I read that if other news outlets don't see the Associated Press write about whatever, they don't either. The New York Times is almost up there too. That's why when you read any newspaper these days more than half of the articles comes from these few pillar news outlet like the Associated Press New York Times, Washington Post,... And they wonder why they're dying and hate the internet and bloggers. Their level of writing has sunk to that level so if they died like people say is happening... like would anyone feel the difference?
Today on the home page of Yahoo there's was an Associated Press article I've been seeing for a good part of the day on top of their news about the B-2 bomber flying over South Korea. What made this one different from other articles on the subject was the title and the article says it was a message to China as well. That article now seems to have disappeared too.
It's the internet so I'm sure those articles are out there somewhere in some form but not easily found. But what the two have in common are the articles could have been written by people who write the most ignorant posts in the their comments section. How outlandish that China bashes another countries products like Apple? Like the West doesn't do that for every single product made in China? The article was in denial or pure stupidity that the writer didn't realize the hypocrisy. What comments I got read that were posted on that article before it disappear pointed to that fact. Now to the B-2 article... It basically gloated about the Chinese embassy bombing in Yugoslavia as if the B-2 flying over South Korea was a big "FU" to China reminding them of it. What probably was the reason why they pulled the article is because it basically said their sources at the Pentagon said the Chinese embassy bombing was intentional and not accidental or a mistake because the Chinese were helping Serbia during the Kosovo War. That's basically admitting to an act of war. And we know how many sees or hears something from the news media, it has to be true, right? The author of the article was so blinded by sticking it to the Chinese that he or she just had the US admit to committing an act of war on China.
The Associated Press is probably the mother of all news media. I read that if other news outlets don't see the Associated Press write about whatever, they don't either. The New York Times is almost up there too. That's why when you read any newspaper these days more than half of the articles comes from these few pillar news outlet like the Associated Press New York Times, Washington Post,... And they wonder why they're dying and hate the internet and bloggers. Their level of writing has sunk to that level so if they died like people say is happening... like would anyone feel the difference?
Equation
Lieutenant General
Here's an interesting article saying that US companies are to blame for "training and harnessing" Chinese hackers. It's kinda like blaming the ski mask and gun producers for providing the tools for all the bank robbery.
"This episode could occur at any of the many U.S. corporate facilities in China. It highlights an underreported feature of recent cyberattacks: Much of China’s hacking power was Made by the U.S.A.
For decades, U.S.-owned technology giants have set up state-of-the-art factories, laboratories and training programs in China. Their aim was to use a super-cheap, lightly regulated production base to supply Chinese and world markets, and to harness Chinese scientific talent. Greater profits were the top priority, but the companies also claimed that a more computer- and Internet-savvy China would become more peaceful and democratic."
"This episode could occur at any of the many U.S. corporate facilities in China. It highlights an underreported feature of recent cyberattacks: Much of China’s hacking power was Made by the U.S.A.
For decades, U.S.-owned technology giants have set up state-of-the-art factories, laboratories and training programs in China. Their aim was to use a super-cheap, lightly regulated production base to supply Chinese and world markets, and to harness Chinese scientific talent. Greater profits were the top priority, but the companies also claimed that a more computer- and Internet-savvy China would become more peaceful and democratic."
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Basically that's the price you pay for a free and open society. The article is just as dumb as the two I talked about before. What the writer is really saying is everyone stop doing business with China. That's not going to stop China's cyber-army. Look at the supposed cyber attack on South Korea recently. The South Koreans are saying it came from North Korea. Are there any Western companies doing business in North Korea to give them this know-how? So if they want to prevent "passing along" this ability they think is in their control, the US and the West will have to be more closed and paranoid than North Korea is today. Thus the level of innovation in the US will go to zero. That's if you believe in what they say it takes to be innovative aka freedom.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Hope Everyone has their paper mask supply stocked up.
[video=youtube_share;5byDhm-E-YE]http://youtu.be/5byDhm-E-YE[/video]
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
It's amazing how something so plain as day is in front of people's faces yet just calling it something else makes it not the same. It's plain and simple outsourcing by every definition of the term. Yet just because they don't call it outsourcing all of the sudden the jobs that are outsourced they're getting back is a conspiracy against them to make them pay more. What do they think will happen when they get those jobs they recognize as outsourcing back? Higher prices. And they think the Chinese are bunch of mindless automatons blindly following what they leaders tell them?
Equation
Lieutenant General
My prayers and condolences to the dead pilot and his family.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says an American F-16 fighter jet has crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing the U.S. pilot.
NATO said in a statement Thursday that the cause of Wednesday's crash is still being investigated, but initial reporting indicates that there was "no insurgent activity in the area" when the plane went down.
The U.S.-led military coalition did not disclose where the plane crashed.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says an American F-16 fighter jet has crashed in eastern Afghanistan, killing the U.S. pilot.
NATO said in a statement Thursday that the cause of Wednesday's crash is still being investigated, but initial reporting indicates that there was "no insurgent activity in the area" when the plane went down.
The U.S.-led military coalition did not disclose where the plane crashed.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I oftened wondered if China's criminal investigation was a very blunt tool or a surgical instrument. Living in the US you usually don't get that kind of information from the media.
Beijing Flaunts Cross-Border Clout in Search for Drug Lord
By JANE PERLEZ and BREE FENG
BAN MOM, Laos — It was 100 miles downstream from China, on the banks of the Mekong River, where a notorious drug lord slipped ashore in the dusk into the hands of law enforcement.
Security officials from Laos arrested the trafficker, Naw Kham, but the international manhunt that led to his capture was organized in Beijing, by top Chinese government officials intent on making him pay for the killings of 13 Chinese seamen on the river, which has become a major trade route into China.
The bodies of the Chinese, the crew of two cargo boats, were found badly mutilated on the Thai side of the river in early October 2011. The killings, the worst slaughter of Chinese citizens abroad in recent memory, angered the Chinese public. Chinese investigators insist that Mr. Naw Kham was the mastermind of the murders.
China’s search for Mr. Naw Kham, overseen by its powerful Ministry of Public Security, was a hard-nosed display of the government’s political and economic clout across Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, the three countries of Southeast Asia that form the Golden Triangle. The capture shows how China’s law enforcement tentacles reach far beyond its borders into a region now drawn by investment and trade into China’s orbit, and where the United States’ influence is being challenged.
It took six months for China to catch Mr. Naw Kham, a citizen of Myanmar in his 40s, a man of many aliases who was at the center of the booming synthetic drug business in the Golden Triangle, once known for its opium.
What came next was quick: the authorities flew the drug lord from Laos to China, tried him in a provincial court and executed him last month in a highly publicized live television broadcast that captured the proceedings until just moments before he received a lethal injection.
The Chinese hunt for Mr. Naw Kham was methodical and unyielding.
Immediately after the killings of the sailors, the Chinese government invited senior officials from the three countries that form the Golden Triangle to Beijing.
There, it pressured the countries to participate in Chinese-led river patrols, intended to ensure security for the river trade. Meng Jianzhu, who was China’s minister for public security, flew to Myanmar to meet with President Thein Sein, and Wen Jiabao, then China’s prime minister, spoke by telephone to his Thai counterpart, Yingluck Shinawatra, to urge her cooperation.
It fell to Liu Yuejin, leader of the antinarcotics bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, to coordinate the three-country search. Like the F.B.I., the ministry operates more than 20 liaison offices in places around the world, including the United States.
Mr. Liu took up temporary headquarters at Guan Lei, on the Mekong River in southern Yunnan Province, and sent Chinese officers to the three capitals to work as liaisons with local officials. He was in touch with these officers every day, Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Naw Kham proved to be a formidable target.
He had operatives within the Burmese and Thai armies and the Laotian security forces, according to an Asian official who works in the Golden Triangle and who spoke of the delicate case on the condition of anonymity. To counter Mr. Naw Kham’s web of protection, China was able to rely on contacts developed over the past decade from the training of more than 1,500 police officers in Southeast Asia, the official said.
China also had an array of informers — “flip-flops,” the official said — from among the increasing number of Chinese petty traders and businessmen in the region.
“He had his people, we had our people,” acknowledged Mr. Liu in a rare interview with a foreign reporter in his office in Beijing.
The Chinese were so intent on catching up with Mr. Naw Kham that security forces considered using a drone to kill him.
The drone idea was eventually abandoned even as Mr. Naw Kham outfoxed his pursuers in Myanmar’s mountainous jungles, said Mr. Liu, a precise man with a photograph of himself at a Mao heritage site on his office wall.
The Chinese news media reported that Mr. Liu’s superiors had ordered that Mr. Naw Kham be captured alive. Mr. Liu, whose antinarcotics bureau runs a fleet of unarmed drones for surveillance in China’s border areas, insisted that the idea was shelved because of legal restraints.
“China using unmanned aircraft would have met with problems,” he said. “My initial reaction was that this was not realistic because this relates to international and sovereignty issues.”
But China had another asset, on the ground. In northern Laos, 10 miles south of where Mr. Naw Kham would eventually be arrested, a lavish Chinese-owned casino called the Kings Roman, decorated with statues of larger-than-life Roman figures and a huge crown affixed to its roof, operates in a special economic zone run by Chinese businessmen on the edge of the Mekong.
The complex feels like a Chinese enclave: street signs are in Chinese, and Chinese currency, the renminbi, is favored over the Laotian kip. The casino offers stretch limousines for its customers, and a caged tiger to pet. It maintains its own Chinese security force, which probably played a role in the search for Mr. Naw Kham, the Asian official said.
In the beginning, the Chinese had no idea of Mr. Naw Kham’s whereabouts, and did not know on which side of the river he was hiding, Mr. Liu said. Gradually, they began picking up his tracks.
In December 2011, they learned he was in northern Laos. “Naw Kham had many friends, including in the local police,” Mr. Liu said. “His friends would alert him and protect him, and local officials would delay operations by leading us down the wrong road, literally.”
With the help of his supporters in Laos, Mr. Naw Kham evaded the Chinese and at night escaped across the river to Myanmar. “Under Lao norms, law enforcement activity is not done after dark,” Mr. Liu said wryly.
Once back in Myanmar, Mr. Naw Kham shuttled between hiding places in the mountains around the district of Tachilek, a center for the manufacture of methamphetamine. The factory-made drug has overtaken opium as the most lucrative product in the Golden Triangle, and antinarcotics officials say it was central to Mr. Naw Kham’s empire.
One of the links between Mr. Naw Kham and the two boats with the 13 Chinese seamen involved 920,000 methamphetamine pills, with an estimated value of $6 million, on board, according to the Thai police.
The Chinese authorities say the drugs were planted on the boats. Some Thai authorities contend that Mr. Naw Kham knew the boats were laden with drugs and sent his men to punish the crews for not paying protection money as they sailed from China into Thai waters.
Other Thai officials say that nine members of an elite Thai military unit were also involved in the killings of the Chinese seamen. Mr. Liu said that he agreed with that assessment, and that the nine Thai soldiers should be prosecuted.
The factories for making the methamphetamine pills are hidden throughout the mountainous terrain of Shan State in Myanmar, an area Mr. Naw Kham knew instinctively, Mr. Liu said.
In February and March 2012, the Chinese investigators missed him twice. But each time the Chinese closed in, they swept up supporters, increasing the chances they would flush him out, Mr. Liu said.
“There were gunfights where people were captured or killed, others were frightened off, and so he had fewer and fewer people around him,” Mr. Liu said.
As Mr. Naw Kham’s security net evaporated in Myanmar, the Chinese learned that he planned to escape across the Mekong River to Laos in a small boat, Mr. Liu said. The Laotians were alerted. “This time we didn’t have to persuade the Lao to act,” he said.
Mr. Naw Kham landed on the muddy banks with two associates. The Laotian police captured him as he tried to flee, Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu denied having his own men on the spot, but it was almost certain that Chinese agents were on hand, the Asian official said.
For China, the arrest was a substantial victory, said Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, and an author of the book “Cashing In Across the Golden Triangle.”
“The capture of Naw Kham sends a message that no group or state is going to be allowed to mess around with China on the Mekong River,” Mr. Chambers said. “Everyone now knows the top dog on the Mekong is China.”
In some ways, China’s operation to scoop up the drug lord echoed Gen. John J. Pershing’s endeavor to capture Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader who in 1916 killed 18 Americans in New Mexico, Mr. Chambers said.
At the time, President Woodrow Wilson wanted to demonstrate that under the Monroe Doctrine, the United States was the power in Mexico, and that a popular folk hero would not be permitted to challenge it.
“China has its own Monroe Doctrine in the region, and this is the Pancho Villa case of the Mekong,” Mr. Chambers said.
But there were two distinctions.
“No. 1, the Chinese caught Naw Kham,” Mr. Chambers said, alluding to Pancho Villa’s skill in dodging General Pershing’s army. “And No. 2, for smart diplomacy, they gave the credit to Laos.”
Beijing Flaunts Cross-Border Clout in Search for Drug Lord
By JANE PERLEZ and BREE FENG
BAN MOM, Laos — It was 100 miles downstream from China, on the banks of the Mekong River, where a notorious drug lord slipped ashore in the dusk into the hands of law enforcement.
Security officials from Laos arrested the trafficker, Naw Kham, but the international manhunt that led to his capture was organized in Beijing, by top Chinese government officials intent on making him pay for the killings of 13 Chinese seamen on the river, which has become a major trade route into China.
The bodies of the Chinese, the crew of two cargo boats, were found badly mutilated on the Thai side of the river in early October 2011. The killings, the worst slaughter of Chinese citizens abroad in recent memory, angered the Chinese public. Chinese investigators insist that Mr. Naw Kham was the mastermind of the murders.
China’s search for Mr. Naw Kham, overseen by its powerful Ministry of Public Security, was a hard-nosed display of the government’s political and economic clout across Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, the three countries of Southeast Asia that form the Golden Triangle. The capture shows how China’s law enforcement tentacles reach far beyond its borders into a region now drawn by investment and trade into China’s orbit, and where the United States’ influence is being challenged.
It took six months for China to catch Mr. Naw Kham, a citizen of Myanmar in his 40s, a man of many aliases who was at the center of the booming synthetic drug business in the Golden Triangle, once known for its opium.
What came next was quick: the authorities flew the drug lord from Laos to China, tried him in a provincial court and executed him last month in a highly publicized live television broadcast that captured the proceedings until just moments before he received a lethal injection.
The Chinese hunt for Mr. Naw Kham was methodical and unyielding.
Immediately after the killings of the sailors, the Chinese government invited senior officials from the three countries that form the Golden Triangle to Beijing.
There, it pressured the countries to participate in Chinese-led river patrols, intended to ensure security for the river trade. Meng Jianzhu, who was China’s minister for public security, flew to Myanmar to meet with President Thein Sein, and Wen Jiabao, then China’s prime minister, spoke by telephone to his Thai counterpart, Yingluck Shinawatra, to urge her cooperation.
It fell to Liu Yuejin, leader of the antinarcotics bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, to coordinate the three-country search. Like the F.B.I., the ministry operates more than 20 liaison offices in places around the world, including the United States.
Mr. Liu took up temporary headquarters at Guan Lei, on the Mekong River in southern Yunnan Province, and sent Chinese officers to the three capitals to work as liaisons with local officials. He was in touch with these officers every day, Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Naw Kham proved to be a formidable target.
He had operatives within the Burmese and Thai armies and the Laotian security forces, according to an Asian official who works in the Golden Triangle and who spoke of the delicate case on the condition of anonymity. To counter Mr. Naw Kham’s web of protection, China was able to rely on contacts developed over the past decade from the training of more than 1,500 police officers in Southeast Asia, the official said.
China also had an array of informers — “flip-flops,” the official said — from among the increasing number of Chinese petty traders and businessmen in the region.
“He had his people, we had our people,” acknowledged Mr. Liu in a rare interview with a foreign reporter in his office in Beijing.
The Chinese were so intent on catching up with Mr. Naw Kham that security forces considered using a drone to kill him.
The drone idea was eventually abandoned even as Mr. Naw Kham outfoxed his pursuers in Myanmar’s mountainous jungles, said Mr. Liu, a precise man with a photograph of himself at a Mao heritage site on his office wall.
The Chinese news media reported that Mr. Liu’s superiors had ordered that Mr. Naw Kham be captured alive. Mr. Liu, whose antinarcotics bureau runs a fleet of unarmed drones for surveillance in China’s border areas, insisted that the idea was shelved because of legal restraints.
“China using unmanned aircraft would have met with problems,” he said. “My initial reaction was that this was not realistic because this relates to international and sovereignty issues.”
But China had another asset, on the ground. In northern Laos, 10 miles south of where Mr. Naw Kham would eventually be arrested, a lavish Chinese-owned casino called the Kings Roman, decorated with statues of larger-than-life Roman figures and a huge crown affixed to its roof, operates in a special economic zone run by Chinese businessmen on the edge of the Mekong.
The complex feels like a Chinese enclave: street signs are in Chinese, and Chinese currency, the renminbi, is favored over the Laotian kip. The casino offers stretch limousines for its customers, and a caged tiger to pet. It maintains its own Chinese security force, which probably played a role in the search for Mr. Naw Kham, the Asian official said.
In the beginning, the Chinese had no idea of Mr. Naw Kham’s whereabouts, and did not know on which side of the river he was hiding, Mr. Liu said. Gradually, they began picking up his tracks.
In December 2011, they learned he was in northern Laos. “Naw Kham had many friends, including in the local police,” Mr. Liu said. “His friends would alert him and protect him, and local officials would delay operations by leading us down the wrong road, literally.”
With the help of his supporters in Laos, Mr. Naw Kham evaded the Chinese and at night escaped across the river to Myanmar. “Under Lao norms, law enforcement activity is not done after dark,” Mr. Liu said wryly.
Once back in Myanmar, Mr. Naw Kham shuttled between hiding places in the mountains around the district of Tachilek, a center for the manufacture of methamphetamine. The factory-made drug has overtaken opium as the most lucrative product in the Golden Triangle, and antinarcotics officials say it was central to Mr. Naw Kham’s empire.
One of the links between Mr. Naw Kham and the two boats with the 13 Chinese seamen involved 920,000 methamphetamine pills, with an estimated value of $6 million, on board, according to the Thai police.
The Chinese authorities say the drugs were planted on the boats. Some Thai authorities contend that Mr. Naw Kham knew the boats were laden with drugs and sent his men to punish the crews for not paying protection money as they sailed from China into Thai waters.
Other Thai officials say that nine members of an elite Thai military unit were also involved in the killings of the Chinese seamen. Mr. Liu said that he agreed with that assessment, and that the nine Thai soldiers should be prosecuted.
The factories for making the methamphetamine pills are hidden throughout the mountainous terrain of Shan State in Myanmar, an area Mr. Naw Kham knew instinctively, Mr. Liu said.
In February and March 2012, the Chinese investigators missed him twice. But each time the Chinese closed in, they swept up supporters, increasing the chances they would flush him out, Mr. Liu said.
“There were gunfights where people were captured or killed, others were frightened off, and so he had fewer and fewer people around him,” Mr. Liu said.
As Mr. Naw Kham’s security net evaporated in Myanmar, the Chinese learned that he planned to escape across the Mekong River to Laos in a small boat, Mr. Liu said. The Laotians were alerted. “This time we didn’t have to persuade the Lao to act,” he said.
Mr. Naw Kham landed on the muddy banks with two associates. The Laotian police captured him as he tried to flee, Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu denied having his own men on the spot, but it was almost certain that Chinese agents were on hand, the Asian official said.
For China, the arrest was a substantial victory, said Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, and an author of the book “Cashing In Across the Golden Triangle.”
“The capture of Naw Kham sends a message that no group or state is going to be allowed to mess around with China on the Mekong River,” Mr. Chambers said. “Everyone now knows the top dog on the Mekong is China.”
In some ways, China’s operation to scoop up the drug lord echoed Gen. John J. Pershing’s endeavor to capture Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader who in 1916 killed 18 Americans in New Mexico, Mr. Chambers said.
At the time, President Woodrow Wilson wanted to demonstrate that under the Monroe Doctrine, the United States was the power in Mexico, and that a popular folk hero would not be permitted to challenge it.
“China has its own Monroe Doctrine in the region, and this is the Pancho Villa case of the Mekong,” Mr. Chambers said.
But there were two distinctions.
“No. 1, the Chinese caught Naw Kham,” Mr. Chambers said, alluding to Pancho Villa’s skill in dodging General Pershing’s army. “And No. 2, for smart diplomacy, they gave the credit to Laos.”
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Interesting piece. I hope China makes a documentary about this case as I sure would love to find out all the details.
I think the article was a good one, but once again fails because it is trying to shoehorn China to fix neatly into pre-existing examples at the expense of all else.
This was less a case of China throwing its weight around to show everyone who is boss and more a reaction to the exceptionally brutal and savage nature of the crime.
Both in terms if the number of people killed and the way they were killed, the attack on the Chinese boats broke all precedent and truly shocked both the Chinese public and leaders. It felt like a message more than a crime because of how excessively brutal it was. In a way, I think Beijing took that as a direct challenge and warning from Knam, and there was simply no way any nation would take that lying down. Had those sailors who were butchered been American, the US would have sent in the marines and drone stuck the crap out of the area. China's response, while robust, still worked within the laws and norms of the host nations, and I think that counts for something.
The shocking nature of the crime demanded a strong response, and more than that, if China did not respond appropriately, it would have been open season on Chinese nationals all over South East Asia.
The article is correct that this operation sent a strong message to criminal lords in the Golden Triangle, and I don't think we will see another case like it in the region, and that is a good thing for China.
The sad fact is, just like Mexico and Columbia, the Golden Triangle countries are entangled in the drug business. And unfortunately, just as American wealth is fuelling the drug trade and drug violence in Latin America, as China gets richer, one of the negative side effects is that it becomes a bigger and more lucrative drugs market, and Chinese money will inevitably fuel the drug trade and drug violence on South East Asia.
Just as America is powerless to eradicate the drug industry in Latin America despite its best efforts, China will also be unable to do much about the drug cartels operating outside its boarders. All China can do is make it beyond doubt that Chinese nationals are not fair game when it comes to drugs violence, just as America has made it clear that harming American citizens carry grave consequences for the drug lords.
It's a suboptimal solution, but its the best anyone has come up with so far.
I think the article was a good one, but once again fails because it is trying to shoehorn China to fix neatly into pre-existing examples at the expense of all else.
This was less a case of China throwing its weight around to show everyone who is boss and more a reaction to the exceptionally brutal and savage nature of the crime.
Both in terms if the number of people killed and the way they were killed, the attack on the Chinese boats broke all precedent and truly shocked both the Chinese public and leaders. It felt like a message more than a crime because of how excessively brutal it was. In a way, I think Beijing took that as a direct challenge and warning from Knam, and there was simply no way any nation would take that lying down. Had those sailors who were butchered been American, the US would have sent in the marines and drone stuck the crap out of the area. China's response, while robust, still worked within the laws and norms of the host nations, and I think that counts for something.
The shocking nature of the crime demanded a strong response, and more than that, if China did not respond appropriately, it would have been open season on Chinese nationals all over South East Asia.
The article is correct that this operation sent a strong message to criminal lords in the Golden Triangle, and I don't think we will see another case like it in the region, and that is a good thing for China.
The sad fact is, just like Mexico and Columbia, the Golden Triangle countries are entangled in the drug business. And unfortunately, just as American wealth is fuelling the drug trade and drug violence in Latin America, as China gets richer, one of the negative side effects is that it becomes a bigger and more lucrative drugs market, and Chinese money will inevitably fuel the drug trade and drug violence on South East Asia.
Just as America is powerless to eradicate the drug industry in Latin America despite its best efforts, China will also be unable to do much about the drug cartels operating outside its boarders. All China can do is make it beyond doubt that Chinese nationals are not fair game when it comes to drugs violence, just as America has made it clear that harming American citizens carry grave consequences for the drug lords.
It's a suboptimal solution, but its the best anyone has come up with so far.
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