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Newsbud
Published: 2017-05-10
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaEAmesYrTU
are I am Peter Lee and this is news buds China watch this week Asia on the brink career votes and Kim Julian collects hostages is admiral Harris in China's sites and does the New York times have a stick of dynamite waiting for she Jim paying on the Korean peninsula it looks like everything's in a holding pattern until South Korea elects a new president on may nine
the current favorite moon Gyeon is seen to favor engagement with North Korea less hostility toward China and less bad so it would make sense for North Korea not to heighten tensions with the nuclear test and for China to hold off on any diplomatic moves until moon is in office even the United States which would theoretically want to ratchet up tensions in order to make the case
for the more hawkish and pro American candidates in the race is laying off as of press time the main news was that North Korea had detained another U. S. unfortunate the second professor Kim hawk soon an indication to me that Kim Julian is expecting or hoping for a lengthy negotiation process with the United States and maybe is filling his inventory of hostages so he has enough
to dole out to necessitate and reward multiple U. S. visits while we're waiting for the election shoe to drop this episode of Asia brief behind the paywall discusses why Japan and South Korea can't seem to get along in the anti China partnership promoted by the United States gotta say it the United States needs to look in the mirror and own up to what it did in
San Francisco in nineteen fifty one joint news but and watch shame in San Francisco American betrayal at that nineteen fifty one San Francisco peace conference and the roots of Korean Japanese conflict the most excitement an Asian security affairs this week was provided by a report from Japan's Kyodo news agency that China's ambassador to the U. S. sweetie and kai had offered to back trumps North Korea
play in return for removal of U. S. P. com commander admiral Harry Harris if you need an introduction to admiral Harris watch last week's China watch in which I examine his role in the mystery of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson he's commander of P. com and the biggest deal in Asia ordinarily I would tend to dismiss an anonymous report in a Japanese newspaper claiming to know
what allegedly occurred between the Chinese and the Americans and something that sounds absolutely nuts but these are not ordinary times these are trying times so we can tie has cultivated trump son in law Jared Kushner as a channel to the White House maybe it's way with spit balling with Kushner about getting rid of admiral Harrison maybe Jarrett said well what the heck brother by Donald need
I say it everything is on the table and maybe admiral Harris got wind of it and that's why he withheld the Vinson carrier strike group from Korean waters for a couple weeks to show trump and the Chinese who's boss in the Pacific certainly China doesn't like admiral Harris running the show would pay com there is an attempt to attribute this to racism and prejudice since admiral
Harris is half Japanese the son of an American serviceman and a Japanese war bride but the Chinese have good reasons admiral Harris is very tight with the Japanese and a major player in the joint US Japanese program to gut the pacifist constitution and return the Japanese military to its traditional role of roaming all over Asia and around China's periphery he's also a determined advocate for developing
military relations with India as of anti China counterweight and he is the hockey list of China hawks in fact I believe that Harris was installed as pecan commander as part of a successful rebellion by Pentagon China hawks against supposedly soft on China secretary of defense Chuck Hagel and pecan commander Samuel Locklear in twenty fifteen but no matter how you slice it animal hairs is king of
the China hawks and China hawks are not just Obama era picketers they're also concerned of military personnel who wield enormous influence over trump administration policy so I don't think admiral Harris is going anywhere if anything a call by the Chinese for trump to remove Harris would probably have the reverse effect of making his removal for any reason impossible it's the ultimate endorsement in normal times I
would tend to doubt that China would try to pull such a stupid stunt through its lonely ambassador and I chalk the story up to mischief making by Japan hawks keen to make sure an adequate level of hostility exists between the US and the PRC and between Abdel Harrison China but you know normal times this was also a week for watchful waiting on the miles squawk story
miles Kwok is the Chinese millionaire who is threatening to expose all sorts of corruption at the highest level of the Chinese Communist Party including misdeeds relating to one she shot a crucial ally Sheedy in pink in last week's China watch I speculated the Chinese government is putting massive pressure on outlets around the world not to run quarks allegations and media outlets around the world are debating
whether to pull the trigger on the story and risk massive retaliation in order to break the dam of silence Kwok reached out to the entire Pearcy outlet in Hong Kong apple daily and gave them an interview and a tape recording apparently showing a P. R. C. big week instructing quark to dig up dirt on the family of one Xishan relating to the big money operations of
high non airlines because the big boss she didn't paying wanted to know about it Hainan airlines is not just an airline it's a global conglomerate operating under the name H. and a who's boss man Chun Jen wants it to become one of the world's ten largest companies if it gets there part of the credit goes to George Soros who made a crucial investment in nineteen ninety
five as the company was in danger of going under any may still have a stake in the company if so sources done pretty well over the last two years each and they have been on a global acquisition binge committing forty billion dollars to acquire a large number of properties the recognizable household names include Hilton hotels in which Hainan airlines acquired a twenty five percent stake and
to which a bunk a KA the most messed up bank in the world in which for some reason H. and they bought a four point seven percent stake and on may third it came out that each in a has doubled its torture bonk steak and is now the largest single shareholder in the bank configure questions have been swirling since last year as to whether H. NA
is a product of genius financial engineering or simply a massively corrupt capital flight scare me maybe it's both but if one G. Sean is credibly implicated the H. in a scandal would be a significant embarrassment for Shizhen paying she has staked his rule in large part on stamping out corruption and restoring order to the financial system and irony of ironies one Xishan is the designated point
man in the anti corruption campaign she still has a lot of powerful it relatively low profile opponents in the party and they'd be pretty happy to see the story come out and take some of the edge off she'd in pigs power as to whether the story will come out well maybe later rather than sooner after a mile squawk interview on U. S. government media outlet voice
of America was shockingly truncated V. O. a management put five members of the V. O. a Mandarin staff including its top reporters Sasha boom and Fred Wong on administrative leave it appears heavy pressure was put on V. O. A.'s top management not to let mile squawk lay out his allegations without corroboration or rebuttal the reporters wanted to do their journalism thing and things got extremely unpleasant
now the sanction reporters are darkly hinting that V. O. N. A.'s has been infiltrated by pro PRC elements which I take as a veiled accusation that maybe somebody in the top management of the operation has been supported by the P. R. C. to suppress coverage could get ugly meanwhile I get the impression that the big U. S. outlets that specialize in financial forensics on corrupt P.
R. C. high officials are holding back for the moment as the cost benefit equation is calculated these are stories that are dangerous but sometimes to use that old cliche in danger lies opportunity opportunity in this case is not just the potential to score Pulitzers but also to use the threat of running the stories to push back against P. R. C. restrictions of U. S. media operations
and maybe extract some concessions at the beginning of the Shi Jing ping year in twenty twelve both Bloomberg and The New York Times ran huge exposes on the extensive and opaque holdings by the families of some top Chinese officials the New York times when after one job while the Chinese premier who was on the way out anyway the times ran that story and it's been slapped
around by the Chinese government ever since with harassment of its reporters and its electronic editions never the less the times has persisted and claims to have grown the business of its Chinese addition nicely thank you very much Bloomberg had the temerity to try to go after she Jim pings family the P. R. C. limited it's retaliation for that one time but in the words of somebody
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