Beijing'sArms and Oil Interests in Africa

By Ian Taylor

If current trends continue, China will become a major player in Africa and one that may both challenge traditional Western interests and offer an alternative reading of democracy and human rights that may not benefit the average African. Growing Chinese activity on the continent thus merits particular attention by the United States and other Western countries.

Certainly, Africa’s economic involvement in Africa is rapidly increasing. Since 2000 more than 40 agreements have been signed between Beijing and African countries, and trade has doubled to more than $20 billion between 2000 and the end of 2004. In fact, according to testimony given before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in July 2005, by the end of 2005 China is widely expected to emerge as Africa’s third most important trading partner after the United States and France and ahead of the United Kingdom.

This is a remarkable development given the pace and timeframe within which this has occurred.
Beijing’s economic interest in Africa is based on three factors. First, Beijing asserts that the macroeconomic situation in Africa is taking a favorable turn. This analysis is based on the belief that African countries have adopted a set of active measures to push forward the pace of privatization, open to international trade, and reform their economies. China believes this affords great opportunities to Chinese companies.

Second, Chinese manufacturers and shopkeepers believe that the types of goods they produce and sell have immense potential in Africa. They believe that the economy in Africa is not yet as developed as in Western nations and consumers are perceived to be more receptive to the type of inexpensive products that China typically produces. Third, the Chinese government and business look to secure access to Africa’s abundant natural resources, particularly crude oil, nonferrous metals, and fisheries.

Indeed, China’s rapidly developing oil requirements have helped propel Sino-African trade in recent years. In 1993, China became a net importer of oil and China is projected to rely on imports for 45 percent of its oil use by 2010 (Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy).

As a result, China has been faithfully developing linkages with oil-rich countries in Africa such as Angola, Nigeria and Sudan. Since around 1995 China has begun an “outwardlooking oil economy” policy. This is for primarily economic reasons, as the average production cost of Chinese onshore oil is very expensive compared to African or Middle Eastern oil. As a result, Chinese oil companies now have a presence in places as diverse as Canada, Peru, and Sudan. One way by which this policy has been cemented is to use what China refers to as “special relationships.” Arms sales are one part of this policy and also help offset costs. China’s economic interests in Africa have been manifest through increased joint ventures, Chinese investment, and economic interaction. An emphasis on trade and economic affairs now dominates Sino-African relations and China’s trade with Africa is growing speedily. Traditionally, Sino- African trade has been vastly unbalanced in China’s favor, and although African exports have recently risen (due almost entirely to oil imports from Africa), the trade balance is still
firmly dominated by China. Low-quality cheap household products flood African markets, discouraging indigenous African manufacturing.

This somewhat negative aspect of the relationship is arguably worsened by China’s sale of arms to the continent. China is currently the world’s fifth-largest arms supplier, and the Chinese government hopes to turn the country’s arms industry into a top global player by 2020. This has not only taken on the guise of providing military supplies and weaponry to the continent, but has also involved an active participation in actual conflicts. Remarkably, such involvement has passed with relatively little international attention.

The classic example of Beijing’s weapons exporting policy in Africa is China’s involvement in Sudan’s long-running civil war, which has claimed nearly two million lives so far. China has pursued a policy that is entirely based on narrow economic interests and has been keen to supply the Sudanese government with fighter aircraft and an assortment of weaponry. Apart from the profits accrued from these arms sales, the policy helps consolidate and protect Chinese investment in Sudan’s oil reserves. Reliable reports from Aviation Week & Space Technology say that Sudan has obtained 34 new fighter jets from China, and that the Sudan air force is equipped with $100 million worth of Shenyang fighter planes, including a dozen supersonic F-7 jets [1].

The motivation for such supplies is simple. The state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) owns the largest share (i.e. 40 percent) in Sudan’s largest oil venture. The Sino-Sudanese oilfield project covers 50,000 square miles in the southern non-Muslim region of the country and is expected to produce 15 million tons of crude oil annually.

With proven reserves of 220 million tons, the project is among the largest China has undertaken overseas. At the same time, Sudanese government forces, armed with Chinese weapons, have used Chinese facilities as a base from which to attack and dislodge southerners in the vicinity of the new oil fields.

According to Lam Akol, former Transportation Minister (a southerner who temporarily served in the government during a period of reconciliation), helicopter gunships deployed in attacks on civilians are Chinese-made and are based at airstrips controlled by Chinese oil companies. Such
a statement confirms findings from the charity World Vision who spoke to survivors of such attacks, as well as government military deserters (The Washington Post, December 23, 2004). A Christian Aid report in 2001 noted that CNPC's oil roads and airstrips were used to conduct bombing raids on southern Sudanese villages and hospitals. The charity accused the Chinese, through their activities in Sudan, of being complicit in scorched earth policies. China, for its part, has deployed its “alternative” reading of human rights to block United Nations action against Sudan and has consistently opposed any intervention by the United Nations with regard to Khartoum’s affairs.

China has also provided military training in Equatorial Guinea and Chinese specialists in heavy military equipment have been sent to the country, presumably in order to sell such weapons to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for oil. Equatorial Guinea appears the perfect customer: climbing oil prices have granted the country extra finances and, possibly concerned to defend their oil wells from Nigeria and Cameroon, Malabo has turned to China for military weapons and training.

China provides weapons to other parts of Africa, often during times of conflict. According to the Congressional Research Service, Chinese exports to Africa made up 10 percent of total conventional arms transfers to Africa between 1996 and 2003. While Ethiopia and Eritrea were edging toward war, Chinese corporations transferred a substantial share of US$1 billion in weapons dispatched to both countries between 1998 and 2000.

In 1995 a Chinese ship carrying 152 tons of ammunition and light weapons was refused permission to unload in Tanzania as the cargo was destined for the Tutsi-dominated army of
Burundi (Agence France-Presse, May 3, 1995). And at least thirteen covert shipments of weapons by China were delivered to Dar-es-Salaam, with the final destinations mislabeled and
the weapons disguised as agricultural equipment. These were almost certainly destined for the war-torn Great Lakes region (Overseas Development Institute, May 1998).

More recently, Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe ordered 12 FC1 fighter jets from China as well as 100 military vehicles in late 2004, China’s most advanced military aircraft
order from an African nation that was worth $200 million.

According to the Commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, this move enraged South Africa, with many political analysts fearing that such transfers
could spark an arms race in southern Africa (testimony given before House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, July 28, 2005). Previously, it was widely reported
that Chinese small arms were exchanged for eight tons of Zimbabwean elephant ivory in May 2000.

Turning to politics, a key aspect of China’s policies toward the continent that attracts certain African leaders’ support is its stance on “non-interference in domestic affairs.” Beijing consistently casts talk of democracy and human rights as a tool of neo-imperialism and demands that internal matters remain outside the concern of external actors. Central to this is the assertion by China that all countries have the right to choose their own definition of human rights. Beijing has gone so far as to state that good governance conditionalities, which include discussion of democracy and human rights, constitute a violation of the human rights of the receiving country. It is axiomatic that such a stance grants the rulers of each country the right to define their own version of “human rights” and also, how such rights should be protected (or
not, as the case may be). China rarely attaches any political strings to its assistance to Africa. This has opened up space for China to deal quite profitably with some of the more heinous regimes on the continent. It is no coincidence, for example, that Sudan and Zimbabwe now play host to a very large Chinese economic presence. In short, by advancing the theme of non-interference in domestic affairs and promoting a culturally relativist notion of human rights, China has been able to appeal to numerous African leaders. At the same time it secures African support for Beijing whenever China’s own human rights record is put under the spotlight in forums such as the United Nations.

What benefits might Africa expect from Chinese expansion on the continent? Currently, China's somewhat cavalier stance toward arms sales and its disregard for norms surrounding democracy and human rights is troubling. There is a very real danger that Beijing’s supposed “non-political” stance merely masks its bottom line: the chase for profits and oil.

Unmoved by ideological concerns and without fear of political consequences, the Chinese government seems willing to deliver arms to and conduct business with African despots.
Curiously, Beijing does not seem to realize that political instability, a lack of accountability and a continent awash with arms sabotages the long-term possibilities of a sustained Sino-African partnership. For such reasons, the West needs to closely watch China’s expansion into the African continent.

Notes
1. See also Daniel L. Byman and Roger Cliff; China's Arms Sales: Motivations and Implications; The RAND Corporation, 1999.

Ian Taylor is an Associate Professor in the School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Hu Boosts Power as He Scrambles to Maintain Social Stability

By Willy Lam

Even assuming that recent reports about President Hu Jintao’s intention to “rehabilitate the reputation” of the late Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief Hu Yaobang are true, this seems yet another instance of the Chinese supremo’s well-disguised Machiavellianism. Evidence abounds that the 62 year-old CCP General Secretary and commander-in-chief is continuing to harass cadres and scholars close to another deceased CCP chieftain, Zhao Ziyang, who, like Hu Yaobang, lost power because of his ultra-liberal ideology. President Hu's apparent plans to burnish the memory of Hu Yaobang, a former mentor of his, are geared toward consolidating his alreadysubstantial hold over the reins of power.

Beijing this past month has been rife with speculation that Hu has approved a public ceremony next month to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of Hu Yaobang, who played a key role in rectifying many of the ‘leftist’ or Maoist aberrations of the 1960’s and 1970’s. President Hu, who headed the Communist Youth League (CYL) in the mid-1980s, partly owed his rise to the late Hu, an early leader of the League. Given that the latter was fired by late patriarch Deng Xiaoping in January 1987 for displaying excessively "bourgeois-liberal" tendencies, there are also rumors in Beijing that President Hu’s apparent decision to honor his mentor represents a desire to conciliate the CCP’s marginalized ‘rightist’ or liberal faction.

Political sources in the capital said, however, that President Hu might want to heap posthumous praise on Hu Yaobang merely to garner additional support from the vast CYL network. After all, since becoming party boss at the 16th Party Congress of 2002, Hu has promoted tens of ex-CYL officials to senior party and government posts.

The sources added there was no reason to believe that Hu, who has repeatedly eulogized Chairman Mao, wanted to be associated with the liberal and pro-West ideas of either Hu Yaobang or Zhao. They added that the Hu-led Politburo was still adamant about containing the possible impact of the death of Zhao in January this year. Zhao, who took over the party leadership from comrade-in-arms Hu Yaobang in early 1987, was deposed after the Tiannamen Square massacre for showing sympathy to the student demonstrators.

According to a Beijing source close to Zhao’s relatives, state-security and police officers last month delivered tough messages to ten-odd retired cadres and scholars who had worked under Zhao. The Zhao supporters were warned that they must not take part in public events about sensitive issues such as political reform and “Zhao Ziyang’s political legacy,” including holding conferences, publishing books, or giving interviews to the Hong Kong and foreign media.

The source said Hu aides such as Politburo member in charge of security, Luo Gan, are keen to stop the publication of a manuscript reportedly written by Zhao’s old friend and qigong doctor, Zong Fengming. This compilation of a dozen or so conversations between Zhao and Zong on topics including ideological liberalization is deemed by Zhao supporters as the late liberal leader’s “last political legacy.” “Luo suspects that one or more copies of the Zong manuscript may have been smuggled to Hong Kong and abroad,” the source said.

“Luo’s state-security personnel are pulling out the stops to prevent the book’s publication.” It is significant that Zhao’s former associates were warned specifically not to write forewords or other essays to accompany the Zong book. At the same time, security units under Luo and Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang have stepped up surveillance over elements of civil society, including NGOs, the mass media, professional groupings, and semiprivate research institutes—especially those that support political reform or have received funding from American and European foundations. Since the spring, state-security and police units have detained or harassed perhaps a dozen lawyers who were active in helping workers, farmers, or small businessmen fight for their labor or property rights.

For example, famous lawyer Zhu Jiuhu, counsel for private investors who owned numerous small oil and natural-gas fields in northern Shaanxi Province, was locked up in early summer. These Shaaxi investors have lost a few billion yuan worth of funds because their oilfields—which had received authorization from the provincial and national authorities in the mid-1990s—were suddenly declared to be state-owned by central government departments last year. As of early this month, more than 100 lawyers and law professors had written a petition to CCP headquarters asking that Zhu be released.

Irrespective of whether Hu is successful in maintaining socio-political stability and in suppressing calls for political liberalization, the wily politician has been largely able to buttress his position as the new core of the 4th Generation Leadership. In just one year after ex-president Jiang Zemin left his last position of power—the chairmanship of the Party Central Military Commission—Hu has been able to exert control over remaining members of the so-called Jiang or Shanghai Faction. Although there are still four Politburo Standing Committee members who used to be loyal to Jiang, they have either crossed over to the Hu camp, or been rendered unable to stage any challenge against the new supremo.

The most clear-cut example is Vice President Zeng Qinghong, a former Shanghai party vice secretary who used to be the right-hand man and top strategist for Jiang. Zeng is supposed to be the head of the Shanghai Faction after Jiang’s retirement in September 2004. Yet it is clear that the vice president no longer holds any important portfolio. He now merely performs routine state functions, such as attending ceremonies or anniversaries. Last month, for example, he was in Xinjiang to observe the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Government. He was also due to be in Hong Kong this month to be guest of honor at the opening of the Hong Kong Disneyland. Moreover, while Zeng was also an important adviser to Jiang on military affairs—particularly in regard to the appointment of PLA officers—Hu as new CMC chief has totally cut Zeng out of defense-related matters. Even foreign affairs powers of Zeng, who used to be active in diplomacy relating to Japan and Korea, have been curtailed.

Other close followers of Jiang in the Politburo Standing Committee, such as NPC chairman Wu Bangguo and Executive Vice-Premier Huang Ju, have also crossed over to the dominant camp led by Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao.

It is fair to say that Hu only faces discontents—and some opposition—from PLA officers. Since the spring, there have been several cases of disgruntled PLA officers and soldiers holding demonstrations, mainly to demand better living conditions and better retirement benefits. And the CMC Office last month took the unusual step of issuing a circular forbidding PLA personnel to take part in demonstrations, petitions, or other forms of protest. It is thus clear that as the new commander-in-chief, Hu has to do more to win over the support of both the top brass and the rank and file. The president and commander-in-chief is expected to award the PLA a bigger budget increase in 2006 to pay for development of weapons, purchase of Russian hardware, and improve the livelihood and retirement benefits of PLA personnel.

While it seems certain that Hu's predominant position will remain unchallenged for a long time, the president has been accused by his opponents of spending too much time on grooming and promoting members of his own CYL faction to the top. A number of his recent appointments have drawn criticism, including the transfer of former Henan party secretary Li Keqiang to the major northeastern province of Liaoning, and promotion of former Shandong vice-party secretary Wu Aiying, 54, as Minister of Justice.

A fastrising star, 49 year-old Li, who had worked under Hu in the CYL, was transferred from agricultural Henan to industrial Liaoning as part of a process to groom him for a Politburo position. Yet Li’s performance in Henan was considered lackluster: there were major industrial accidents in the relatively backward province. And even worse, Henan was hit by an alarming spread of AIDS among villagers who had to sell blood to make ends meet. Wu, like Li, is a long-time affiliate of the CYL faction. Yet the female cadre has had no training in the law whatsoever. Her filling such an important post as justice minister has cast doubt on Hu’s commitment of “running the administration according to law.”

Perhaps taking a leaf from Mao’s book, Hu seems intent to play traditional factional politics to his best advantage. Not unlike the Great Helmsman, the relatively young president is adept at using the official media to foster a larger-thanlife persona. Thus, a well-spun public event marking Hu Yaobang’s 90th birthday could help endear Hu to China’s disgruntled intelligentsia. And the president’s public relations specialists have also been asked to use TV footage about his on-going trip to North America to enhance his status as international statesman.

Willy Wo-Lap Lam is a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation as well as a Hong Kong-based journalist and analyst.

The Military Writings of Liu Yazhou

Liu Yazhou (??洲), a 53 year-old PLA general, erstwhile novelist, and rising political star, has published a series of frequent and provocative essays in China over the last few years to considerable acclaim—and controversy. In a regime where political expression is strictly limited, and where discussion of political issues may be construed as “revealing state secrets,” for someone to speak with establishment credentials and without censorship can be a startling indication of policy
discussion and change.

Liu’s essays violate many taboos and restrictions, covering a wide range of topics such as strategy, geopolitics, the nature of war and conflict, and China’s relations with Taiwan,
Japan, and the United States. His underlying theme is unvarnished distress with corruption and conformity, and a plea for accelerated political reform to remedy China’s ills. While laced with reverent quotations from top Chinese leaders, Liu’s writings can be construed as indirect and direct criticisms of their policies. These arguments have dazzled as well as upset his readers; supporters praise his boldness and insight, and detractors condemn his alleged militarism and
demagoguery.

A son-in-law of the late Chinese president Li Xiannian, Liu is a “princeling” (privileged offspring of a high official) who was promoted quickly and is now Deputy Political Commissar and a Lieutenant General in the PLA Air Force. He has traveled extensively overseas, including a term as a visiting professor at Stanford University, and is one of the few PLA officials to have visited Taiwan.

Liu’s first big splash was an essay on the October 1949 Jinmen battle circulated on the Internet last year, when tensions between China and Taiwan prompted hawks in Beijing to urge a military showdown, putting enormous pressure on the civilian leadership [1]. Liu reviewed the lessons of the Jinmen debacle, in which a PLA invasion was routed by Guomindang forces, with the loss of more than 9,000 troops.

He attributes the devastating loss to complacency, along with poor planning and command.
According to Liu, history threatened to repeat itself in the late 1990s when hardline officials argued that Taiwan must be fought and that victory was certain. Disclosing a previously unseen Jiang Zemin quote—“A war in the Taiwan Strait is inevitable” (“Lessons of the Jinmen Battle”)—without providing the context, he argues that the lessons of Jinmen must be heeded, especially because the Taiwan issue is now internationalized and considerably more complicated.

In an essay entitled “The Grand National Strategy,” likely written in 2001, Liu repudiates the idea of taking advantage of the September 11 aftermath to conquer Taiwan with an overpowering attack [2]. Taiwan should not be the focus of China’s strategy: the more the Chinese fixate on it, he argues, the more they will be manipulated by the U.S. and Taiwan. This obsession has provided Washington with undue leverage over Beijing for the last half century.
In the same essay, Liu privileges diplomacy over fighting, and suggests that China can effectively engage Taiwan by exploiting Taiwan’s multi-party system. China can deal with not only with the Democratic Progressive Party, but also with other political forces, a view that may have contributed to Hu Jintao’s decision to invite Guomindang leader Lin Chan and James Soong of the People First Party to visit China in April/May of this year.

His appeals for moderation notwithstanding, Liu’s discourses on strategy reveal that he is a nationalist as well as a realist. His ‘dream’ is to have a strong army and country. “The sole purpose of power is to pursue even greater power,” and “national interest should forever be the highest principle of our action,” he writes in “Faith and Morality.” [3] Balanceof- power and divide-and-rule tactics seem to be his guiding principles.

The projection of Chinese influence in international affairs should be specifically calibrated to the West in general and United States in particular, Liu argues. Citing Huntington’s thesis on the clash of civilizations, Liu views the alleged clash between the West and the Muslim world as a great opportunity. He argues in “The Grand National Strategy” that China’s improved relations with Muslim countries are an excellent move, since China “should do what the West fears.” In a moment of great exuberance, Liu maintains that China should have an outlet to the Indian Ocean, what he terms “China’s new boundary.”

Liu is more ambivalent about Sino-U.S. relations. While he acknowledges that the United States, as the world’s dominant power, will inevitably pursue policies that antagonize China, he believes America realizes that the forces for bilateral cooperation are greater than conflict. U.S. leaders would never instigate a full-fledged military confrontation. The United States is to be regarded as neither a wholesale enemy nor an ally.

Militarily, he urges Chinese leaders to learn from U.S. innovations in the military and its recruitment system. China’s military strategy is obsolete, he says in “Faith and Morality,” as its experts today still strategize of a “people’s war” of “luring the enemy into a trap.” It is a ‘tragedy’ that in China, from the top to the bottom, “those who are intelligent do not make policy, those who make policy are not intelligent.”

Indeed, as a Lieutenant General with a primarily civilian background, Liu emphasizes the important role of the military. Intervention during the Tiananmen crisis of 1989 stabilized the regime, he asserts in “Faith and Morality,” and the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979 contributed greatly to reforms.

Deng Xiaoping used the war to consolidate his authority vis?-vis the leftist remnants in the party. In the same article,Liu contends that China, by invading Vietnam, signaled the abandonment of “phoney” socialism, and also “avenged and vindicated” (chuqi) the U.S. experience in Southeast Asia.

In return, China’s reforms benefited from subsequent U.S. investment and economic, military, scientific, and technological assistance in a decade-long “honeymoon,” thus ensuring that China would stand firm, even after the worldwide collapse of communism. As in other developing countries, the Chinese military is a force for reform, and modernization without the participation of the military is inconceivable, although Liu does not explain why this should be so.

Toward the Japanese Liu is a nationalist. While his essayspaint Japan as a “fierce” neighbor, he argues that a strong, independent Japan apart from an alliance with the United States would be easier to deal with. In such a case, Japan could act as a buffer, and to that end China would do well to support Japan’s membership as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Last April, however, Liu was angered by Japan’s announcement to begin drilling for oil in disputed areas of the East China Sea. His attempt to convene a conference on Sino-Japanese relations was reportedly prohibited by Hu Jintao. Liu then published an angry manifesto on the Internet, “Military Forum,” co-signed by nine military colleagues bluntly denouncing the Japanese for being haughty, provocative, and bullying [4]. It urged annulment of all treaties that renounced reparations—using a referendum if necessary—and immediate reopening of talks for reparations covering issues such as war crimes, the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, and the textbook and Yasakuni shrine controversies (“Military Forum”).

Liu’s most daring ideas are those championing political reform and decrying corruption, censorship, and China’s “backward” political system. The strategic threat to national security, he argues in “The Grand National Strategy,” comes from within rather than from without. To strengthen the country, it is imperative that China’s leaders introduce political reform, especially when the dynamism of economic growth begins to slow. In an apparent dig at ruling elites, he warns that upholding stability as a primary goal and maintaining the status quo was the root cause of Soviet dissolution. Political reform for Liu requires a democratic yielding of power, a transformation of the people as their own masters, and rigorous methods to make the country prosperous, although, bowing to official orthodoxy, he is careful to concede that reform should include the “consolidation of the CCP’s ruling position” as well.

Democracy, he argues in “Conversation with a Secretary of a County Party Committee,” is a demand, a way of expression, an exchange process, and a way to resolve problems [5]. Rules, fairness, and citizen consciousness, the prerequisites of democracy, all have to be cultivated. Rampant corruption is the greatest political challenge and a dictatorial system based on the monopoly of power is itself fertile ground for corruption. In contrast to Asia’s other rising power, Liu notes that China’s poor are not only deprived of adequate food and clothing but they do not even have the vote.

The oppressed peasantry, Liu continues, which poses the greatest challenge to communist orthodoxy, must be thoroughly liberated and turned into citizens able to engage in active political participation. If political reform is further delayed, revolution from below may occur, he warns in “Conversation.” As a military officer Liu Yazhou’s free airing of provocative views on both foreign and domestic issues, especially his calls for political reform and the freedom of expression, is unprecedented. Though a realist, a nationalist and a hardliner against Japan, Liu’s moderate views contrast sharply with those who still preach “people’s war” or the use of nuclear
weapons. In his calls for new thinking and introspection, Liu represents military young Turks dissatisfied with the civilian leadership’s inability to deal with corruption and social crises. Fears of praetorian intervention in civilian politics may be exaggerated, but the issues Liu raises are
real indeed.

Alfred L. Chan is an associate professor of political science at Huron University College, University of Western Ontario, Canada. He thanks Don Hickerson for editing the manuscript.

Notes

1. Liu Yazhou, “Jinmen zhanyi jiantao” (Lessons of the
Jinmen Battle), April 2004,
http://www.yannan.cn/data/detail.php?id=2882.

2. Liu Yazhou, “Da guoce” (The Grand National Strategy),”
n.d., http://www.yannan.cn/data/detail.php?id=2884.

3. Liu Yazhou, Xinnian yu daode” (Faith and Morality),
January 2, 2005, http://www.yannan.cn/data/detail.
php?id=5840.

4. Liu Yazhou, Peng Guangqian, Liu Hongji, et al., “Junfang
yantaohui: yuren zunwo, bixian zizun: ribenren weihe duiwo
changkuang” (Military Forum: If one expects respect, one
must respect oneself: Why are the Japanese so recklessly
provocative?), April 14, 2005, http://www.qian-ming.net/
gb/viewarticle_gb.aspx?vID=818.

5. Liu Yazhou, “Yu yiwei xianwei shuji de tanhua”
(Conversation with a Secretary of a County Party
Committee), December, 2004, http://www.bjsjs.net/news/
news.php?intNewsId=1304.

China Shuts 2 Web Sites In Internet Crackdown

Associated Press
October 4, 2005 6:02 a.m.

BEIJING -- Chinese authorities have shut down an online discussion forum that reported on anticorruption protests in a village in the country's south as well as a Web site serving ethnic Mongolians, overseas monitors said Tuesday.

China routinely shuts down or blocks Web sites that operate outside of government control, but the issue has received heightened international attention in recent weeks with the publication of new rules aimed at stifling online dissent.

Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-based broadcaster, said an online forum that covered protests in the village of Taishi has been closed. It said the site had been popular among academics, journalists and rights activists.

Residents of Taishi, which is near the manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, had demanded that their village chief be removed from office and investigated for allegations of embezzlement and fraud.

Several villagers were reportedly injured in a clash with police last month when they tried to prevent police from seizing accounting ledgers that they said contained evidence of corruption. Police and local authorities have refused to comment.

The Taishi protest came amid a series of increasingly bold actions by villagers around China to bring attention to grievances ranging from pollution to corruption and illegal land seizures.

Meanwhile, the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders said China had shut down an online forum for ethnic Mongolian students, called www.ehoron.com, for allegedly hosting separatist content. Attempts Tuesday to view the page called up a message that said: "You are not authorized to view this page." The press group said Beijing's controls on ethnic minorities were more restrictive than for the rest of China's population.

It said the government also temporarily closed the Web site of a law firm in China's Inner Mongolia region, called www.monhgal.com. That site could be accessed Tuesday.

China last month issued new rules banning Internet news services from inciting illegal assemblies, marches and demonstrations as well as prohibiting activities on behalf of unauthorized civil groups.

不說日本「打壓」，還出賣主權─從許文龍、台灣漁民到原住民歸還祖靈

台灣日本綜合研究所總編輯 (http://www.japanresearch.org.tw)
李中邦

近來中台、中日、台日這三角關係之間正逢多事之秋，中台間因統獨、「反分裂國家法」、愛台賣台說、連宋訪問大 陸而熱鬧，中日間因日本首相參拜靖國神社、釣魚台主權、東海油氣田也喧嚷數年、關係低迷。可是，原本因台灣政府屈從日本──不爭釣魚台、不爭經濟海域而狀 似“相安無事”的台日關係，也由於宜蘭漁民屢遭日本船艦驅趕、逮捕，台灣討海人認為日方欺人太甚、政府又無能，忍無可忍，遂激揚起反日情緒，再加上立委高 金素梅的迎祖靈活動被日警方攔阻，台灣人民對日的觀感迭起波瀾，當然，台灣「親日派」也會替日本說話，在這交互的糾結中，台灣人民、「親日派」、政府、日 本對台態度等等的真面貌便浮出檯面，正可以讓台灣民眾好好看清楚、好好思量。

　　日本毫不手軟的拿台灣開刀，一般都認為始於捕魚權，其實，如果上溯，許文龍的奇美也該算上一筆。

為何不講許文龍被日本打壓而覺醒？

　 　許文龍3月26日在政府及民進黨、台聯黨、獨派上街遊行抗議大陸制定「反分裂國家法」的同一天，發表震驚社會，支持「一中」、「反分裂國家法」的「退休 感言」，數天後的29日奇美電子即向投審會申請赴大陸設立負責採購液晶電視零組件──背光模組、電源供應器之類的物流公司。看起來許文龍的確好像是為了要 照顧、拓展在大陸鎮江廠等的投資而改變立場。

　　因此，李登輝說，同情許文龍的立場，謂許是為了奇美在中國幾十萬員工的生計才會說出這樣的話。呂副總統認為，那是「他白書」，不是「自白書」。台獨大 老辜寬敏表示失望。民進黨台南縣立委李俊毅罵說，為了企業成長短視近利。日本親台學者慶應大學的小島朋之教授則表示驚訝，說許承認一中「等於對中國豎了白 旗」。

　　許文龍發表「退休感言」後很長一段時間斷絕對外聯繫，真實的原因不明。於是李登輝等人及媒體都圍繞著許的投資大陸作文章。沒別的因素嗎？

　　04年12月初，研發薄型顯示器的日本半導體能源研究所（SEL，神奈川縣厚木市）向東京地方法院申請對西友和音響製造商iriver Japan（アイリバ??ジャパン，東京，千代田區）從10月起開始銷售、裝配了台灣奇美電子（CMO）所製造液晶面板的液晶電視「DURA」27型禁止 進口的假處分，而且於當月15日正式控告西友，謂液晶電視「DURA」27型裡面，奇美電子產製的TFT（薄膜トランジスタ）液晶面板顯示部分的保護電路 侵犯了專利，西友馬上從當天停止銷售，並撤掉遭指控的所有液晶電視。雖然日本半導體能源研究所針對的是西友，但真正打擊到的卻是奇美，無疑的，這對奇美過 去在日本辛苦建立的商譽和企業形象，殺傷力非常大。奇美短期內恐怕極難重返日本市場。

　　過去許文龍在台灣、日本最著名的“標記”就是「親日企業家」和「大力支持台獨企業家」。「親日企業家」──他愛用日語、妻女長住日本，小林善紀的『台 灣論』漫畫出版，許文龍替他辯護：台灣從軍慰安婦是為了「出人頭地」，否定強行擄走、誘騙之說，而且肯定日本的殖民統治台灣。「大力支持台獨企業家」── 台灣很多獨派議員參選，他是幕後的大金主；鄒景雯所撰寫『李登輝執政實錄』曾提到，2000年3月總統大選前夕，許文龍決定支持陳水扁，並以日文寫了一封 長信給李登輝表明心跡，且問李登輝何時要把中華民國變成台灣共和國？

　　結果，大家的注意力都在「大力支持台獨企業家」轉折的後半段。以許文龍在南台灣企業龍頭的地位，替日本殖民時期壓迫台灣人民，不人道、不平對待的種種 措施辯護，這是“無價的”、“極難得的”，可是日本機構卻公事公辦膺懲許文龍這位「親日企業家」一手創立的奇美。從許的角度來看，會不會覺得寒心？

　　今年2月，許文龍在奇美集團的運動會場上即公開表示，因為有大陸市場需求的興起，奇美才能成為全球最大的ABS工廠，大陸人與台灣人都是同一種人。許 文龍將奇美的成功歸功於大陸，並希望未來強化兩岸的合作關係，跟以往的表現完全不同。大陸是只要不是搞台獨的綠色台商都一概歡迎，中國和日本兩相對照，自 然會有「一推（日本）一拉（中國）」的作用，不是嗎？

　　前述李登輝那些人對許的投資大陸、「退休感言」，爭相發言，同情也好、失望也罷，但對日本機構的修理奇美怎麼不說話呢？

出賣釣魚台主權等於出賣經濟海域、捕魚權等資源

　 　自從6月8日宜蘭縣有5艘漁船遭日本水產廳船艦驅離，引起台灣漁民群起抗議，到6月21日立法院長王金平偕同國防部長李傑及14位立委搭海軍鳳陽艦出海 宣示「護魚」、「釣魚台是我們的」，這事件“初步”是有了一點點效果，不過接下來和日本談「漁權」乃至釣魚台問題，政府是玩真的還是虛晃一招、安撫漁民， 真正棘手的考驗才開始呢。

　　然而，我們還是要說，漁民「一出家門就被日本水產廳或海上保安廳驅趕、扣押、罰錢」的悶氣和日本擴張經濟海域深入台灣近海的事實，是早就存在的。像 03年2月中旬，基隆地區的漁船在釣魚台附近作業，迭遭日本巡防艦（噴水柱等）驅趕或取締拘留，今年2月22日上午，蘇澳籍漁船金福漁66號在琉球群島西 北方，屬於中（中國大陸）日漁業協定議定的「暫定措施水域」作業時，被日本水產廳巡防艇以無登記許可證而在日本專屬經濟區域作業的名義扣押。當時媒體也有 報導，只是「數量少、聲音小」，政府吭都沒吭一聲，還有點怪罪漁民亂闖、惹事的味道，這回若非受害漁民多，全卯火了，恐怕也會落得同樣無聲無息的命運。

　　政府說，台、日重疊的經濟海域，台灣屢屢向日本要求恢復資源共享，已經談判了14次，尚無結果。所謂「尚無結果」，講白了就是日本不甩台灣、不顧台灣 漁民在近海水域捕魚的權利。漁民普遍表示，過去台灣周邊海域魚業資源豐富，鮮少受到日本刁難，去（04）年開始，日本加強取締，台灣漁民的生存空間就越縮 越小了。

　　這不禁令人要問，日本為什麼如此鴨霸？其實答案很簡單，因為台灣政府採取的戰略是要聯合日本對付中國。去（04）年7月下旬，台灣國安會秘書長邱義仁 率領外交、軍事高層及學者（外交部次長高英茂、海基會副秘書長顏萬進、前陸委會副主委陳明通、台灣智庫董事長陳博志、國安諮詢委員陳忠信和林成蔚、民進黨 立委蕭美琴等）前往日本箱根與日方安全情報方面的官員進行秘密且密集的會談，建立情報合作。9月上旬，國安諮詢委員林成蔚又跑了一趟日本，繼續進行安保戰 略對話。顯然的，日本看準台灣需要日本相挺，於是牽扯到台日之間的矛盾或權益，諸如釣魚台、大陸架、漁民漁業權等問題，日本就無視台灣的存在了，連帶的漁 民也遭殃。

　　由於台灣與日本西南列島的諸小島距離不遠，日本用這些小小島嶼作延伸，主張200海浬的專屬經濟區域將台灣全島及附近的海域全都囊刮在內，雖然台灣畫 的200海浬專屬經濟區也將琉球群島的部分畫進來，雙方有頗大的區域是重疊的，看起來似乎彼此都沒吃虧。然而，農委會漁業署提供給漁民參考用的一幅「台日 周邊水域圖」，台日重疊的經濟海域中間有一條日本自行主張的中間線，台灣漁民均認為「太靠近我方，非常不公平」（日本跟中國大陸爭議東海油氣田時，也是片 面主張這種表面上看似公平、其實是佔便宜的中間線）。日本主張中間線以東，不准台灣漁民進入，台灣北面中（大陸）日漁業協定議定的「暫定措施水域」裡，超 出台灣所畫經濟海域的部分，台灣漁民也不可以捕魚，作業空間被壓縮得很小，漁民親身感受「日本根本沒把台灣200海浬經濟海域放在眼裡」。台灣政治領袖常 誇稱台日關係如何如何好，相信涉及權益、生計的漁民們絲毫不會有這種感覺。

　　更有甚者，李登輝所領導的政治勢力欲以出賣釣魚台主權來換跟日本政府“好商量”捕魚權（李登輝02年9月24日接受『沖繩時報』專訪和10月20日在 一項研討會上，接連兩次公開說「釣魚台是日本的領土，台灣只有漁業權」），但出賣了釣魚台，就等於出賣了經濟海域、出賣了漁民的捕魚權和傳統漁場，更遑論 尚待探勘的釣魚台海域豐富的石油、天然氣資源。現在日方好不容易答應願與台灣在7月29日進行第15次漁權談判，陳水扁總統立刻指示，主權和漁權“分開處 理”，這種論調跟李登輝有什麼差別呢？

　　台灣的獨派很喜歡強調台灣是“海洋國家”，以刻意跟中國的“大陸國家”作區隔（忽視大陸海岸線比台灣海岸線還要長、漁民比台灣還要多），既然是“海洋 國家”，為何又不學日本拼命去搶小島、珊瑚礁，擴大經濟海域、大陸架，反而是一遇到日本就棄甲曳兵，連自己政府主張的釣魚台主權、經濟海域都不敢伸張，還 倒過來去附和日本？

與日右翼合作的公視可進靖國，高金素梅迎祖靈不行！

　 　最後一項驚動國際視聽的原住民立委高金素梅率領「高砂義勇隊」遺族前往日本靖國神社，要求迎回祖靈的活動，情形也是雷同。率隊的立委高金素梅一宣布，日 本右翼威脅對她不利的恐嚇信就來了，過程中，政府漠視，駐日單位、特別是東京辦事處是幫日警勸阻，李登輝罵她「頭殼壞去」。整個事件呈現的景象，簡單地說 就是：最正港、最早期的台灣人──原住民遭到部分從大陸來的漢族台灣人結合日本右翼封殺。

　　6月14日在高金素梅一行人車隊到達靖國神社之前就被日本警方攔下，隨行記者也被堵在車內，不准下車採訪、攝影，理由是“日本右翼團體已在靖國神社守 候，避免發生事端”。此間的電視、報紙媒體已多所報導，勿須贅述。這裡姑且不論日警搞錯對象，該防止滋事的對象應是凶悍的右翼團體，卻反過來阻擋高金素梅 一行人；也姑且不論日本是號稱有言論自由、信仰自由的先進國家，竟發生這種剝奪台灣原住民言論、信仰自由的作為。倒是有件對照起高金素梅迎回祖靈團所受待 遇極為諷刺事情，值得大家了解。

　　6月12日──高金素梅迎回祖靈團6月13日出發的前一天，靖國神社裡的靖國會館，有一場由台灣公共電視台、原住民節目企劃的錄影順利完成。

　　出席人士有日本右翼團體曙會（あけぼの?）會長門?朝秀，台灣中央研究院民族學研究所研究助理黃智慧，靖國神社權宮司山口建史，前參議院議員堀江正 夫，報答英靈會經營委員長倉林和男，曙會人員、陸士４８期高橋正二，曙會人員、陸士５7期植田弘，曙會人員、柳澤軍醫夫人柳澤照子，曙會人員鈴木一正等共 9個人。

　　該錄影是以記者會的方式進行，黃智慧負責主持及口譯，公共電視台的記者娃丹（泰雅族）則以中文詢問，由出席人士回答。而娃丹在開場白說：「關於高金素 梅的靖國神社訴訟問題，在台灣有各種報導，內容都很偏頗，因此想要做公正的報導，在高金素梅來日本之際，想聽聽日本方面各位的意見」。

　　訪談中，管理靖國神社的高級職員山口權宮司就高金素梅欲前往靖國神社穿著原住民的服裝、以原住民的儀式祭拜一事表示，「靖國神社是神道，好端端的供奉 著祭祀的英靈」，如果高金素梅當面要求進行5分鐘帶回祖靈魂魄的祭祀儀式，他基於以下理由會峻拒。

　　1. 給（其他）參拜者帶來麻煩。──還沒做怎麼知道會給其他人帶來麻煩，5分鐘而已。

　　2. 妨害靖國神社的信仰。──不准原住民迎祖靈、不准進行原住民儀式難道不是妨害原住民的信仰。

　　3. 帶來這麼多媒體，那只不過是作秀。──日本小泉首相及諸多政界高官前往參拜，有更龐大的媒體跟著則不是作秀、表態？

　　4. 官司訴訟期間，原告向被告抗議是不對的。──如果日本沒有未經遺族同意就逕自供奉高砂義勇隊犧牲者的靈位，就不會多此一樁糾紛。

　　他還強硬地表示，「出身台灣的英靈完全跟日本人一樣被祭祀，以後靖國神社的態度也不會改變」。　

　　而前參議員、戰時為日本第28軍參謀的堀江正夫則是大加介紹高砂義勇軍在新幾內亞多麼善戰，而他似乎忘了日軍使用毒氣殺害原住民的「霧社事件」，也忘 了是因日軍不諳叢林戰，才將「高砂義勇隊」推向最前線為日軍打頭陣。

　　令人不解的是，公視記者娃丹說，台灣的報導內容都偏向一邊，但是該節目請來1914年在朝鮮出生、戰前大阪大學支那語科畢業（即中文系，支那是歧視用 語）、長年自己出錢推動和台灣高砂族的交流活動（邀請少數幾位認同日本的高砂義勇隊員、遺族訪日等）、目前也是日本李登輝之友會理事的門?朝秀及諸多曙會 會員來訪談，立場就公正了嗎？

　　此一錄影的消息，日本『e-mail雜誌』曾做報導，標題為「靖國神社：神社不是作秀的地方」，隻字不提高金素梅迎祖靈團的原由、主張和理念，一味地 說她是來作秀，又暗指高金素梅跟北京有聯繫。很明顯的，該錄影被利用為反制高金素梅的上選題材，也難怪隔兩天日本右翼能嚴陣以待，並迫使日警出手阻擾迎祖 靈活動。

　　原來，和日本右翼合作、讓右翼發聲就可以舒舒服服在靖國會館進行訪談，高金素梅的迎回祖靈則是大門都進不了。

　　許文龍的奇美被日本阻斷市場、台灣漁民被日本阻斷捕漁權、高金素梅的迎祖靈也被日警阻斷等，性質上難道不是一種「打壓」？可以很肯定的說，類似的事， 如果是中國大陸做的話，就是「打壓」，是日本做的，就「不是打壓」──為何台灣媒體、輿論的標準這麼多重？

Asian Countries Gear Up to Tackle Bird-Flu Threat

By NICHOLAS ZAMISKA Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

October 3, 2005; Page A15

Across Asia, governments are slowly gearing up to battle a potential bird-flu outbreak among humans, and their preparedness -- more so than any measures in the West -- could prove critical to preventing a global pandemic.

While dozens of Western countries have been stockpiling antiviral drugs for months now, many countries in Asia have only just begun to seriously wrestle with the threat, even though most experts agree that any pandemic will likely begin in Asia.

In the U.S., the Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to spend somewhere between $6 billion and $10 billion on vaccines and antiviral medicines, according to officials in Congress and the administration. But some experts say much of that could prove useless should an outbreak originate in Asia.

"If we don't stop the fire and put it out, the Tamiflu stocks anybody has -- that Roche could produce in an emergency -- would be futile," said Peter Cordingley, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Manila.

The United Nations health agency, based in Geneva, estimates that it would have three weeks to swoop into the site of a nascent Asian outbreak and distribute hundreds, maybe thousands, of packets of Tamiflu, produced by Roche Holding AG of Switzerland, to try to slow or stem the spread of the disease.

Still, that plan relies on the ability of local health officials across the region to spot the disease and report it quickly -- a huge challenge given problems with health care and a reluctance to disclose information in many countries. The Philippine government, for instance, has no stockpile; China has covered up disease outbreaks in the past; and many countries in the region have scarcely begun planning beyond the first stage of a pandemic.

"What if the bodies are building up at the back of the hospital?" asked Mr. Cordingley. "How do you get the food from the market to the town?"

The deadly strain of avian influenza, known as H5N1, has killed some 60 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia since late 2003. While the vast majority of those cases were likely the result of direct contact with infected poultry, scientists have been warning for years that the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, unleashing a global pandemic that would kill millions.

In Indonesia, where dozens of suspected bird-flu cases in humans and six confirmed deaths from the disease have caught the government off guard, Australia announced it was donating funding for at least 400,000 tablets of Tamiflu to the country. At 10 tablets per person, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said that "currently we have enough supply of medicine" to treat 40,000 people. Indonesian health officials have been reluctant to kill large swaths of infected flocks, despite the WHO's urging to do just that, because the government says it doesn't have enough money to compensate farmers for their birds.

William L. Aldis, the WHO's chief representative in Thailand, said the Thai government is working on what he called a "radical" plan to stockpile a number of bird-flu drugs in preparation for a possible pandemic that would be offered to neighboring countries if an outbreak occurred.
"In that way, even a small, poor country like Laos or Cambodia would have the benefit of a massive supply of drugs to stamp out the epidemic at the source," he said.

In China, the Ministry of Health released a bird-flu preparedness plan last week, and southern Guangdong province -- where severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, first broke out a few years ago -- has already stockpiled 10,000 packets of antiviral drugs, according to a health official, who referred to the pharmaceuticals as "miracle drugs."

The province's health department has also begun organizing supplies of Chinese herbal medicines as a backup. "If the flu did hit Guangdong, the miracle drugs are surely not enough, so we have to rely on traditional medicines too," he said.

Singapore has stockpiled enough Tamiflu for the city-state's health-care workers. And in neighboring Malaysia, a national avian-flu committee has been set up to take measures such as stocking up on antiviral medication, vaccinations and protective gear to tackle a possible outbreak, which the country's health minister estimated would cost 500 million ringgit ($133 million).

The Malaysian government has also directed inspections be stepped up at border checkpoints to stop the smuggling of chickens from neighboring countries to prevent the spread of the disease.
In Japan, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has a plan to stockpile enough doses of Tamiflu for as many as five million people over the next five years, according to health officials in Tokyo, who also said the health ministry has dispatched quarantine experts to Vietnam and Indonesia.

The Japanese government has been quick to cull flocks of birds that may have been exposed to the virus. In June, for instance, an outbreak of bird flu on 31 farms northeast of Tokyo prompted officials to cull some 1.6 million birds. Health inspectors throughout the country regularly test chicken farms for the disease.


1 FURTHER READING • Bush Seeks Funds for Avian-Flu Virus
2 PREVENTING A PANDEMIC See complete coverage
3 of avian flu, including an interactive graphic on the science of the virus
4 and a look back at major flu epidemics

A Closer Look at Avian Flu

By JENNIFER STERLING THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

September 30, 2005 6:57 a.m.

President Bush in September announced the creation of an international partnership aimed at preventing a global outbreak of avian flu, an influenza virus that has jumped from birds to humans and killed about 60 people in Asia. While millions of birds have been killed by the virus or slaughtered by authorities to stem the contagion in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China, Russia and elsewhere, the extent of human infection has been limited by the virus's inability thus far to easily jump from human to human. The World Health Organization classes the current avian flu, specifically the H5N1 strain, in Phase 3 of its six-phase Pandemic Watch. That means the virus is a new subtype but hasn't yet evolved to the point where it could set off a true human pandemic. But U.N. and U.S. health officials warn that bird flu could mutate and spread from person to person, which could lead to a global pandemic that could kill millions. Niranjan Bhat, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says: "It's not a question of if, but when."

Here are answers to some common questions about avian flu and its effects:

Why are health officials warning about an avian-flu pandemic?

The H5N1 strain of the virus already has two of the three pandemic criteria: It can jump from birds to humans, and then can produce a severe, even fatal, illness in humans. If H5N1 becomes highly contagious among humans -- the third pandemic characteristic -- then a world-wide outbreak could become a reality.

Pandemics can traverse the globe in a matter of weeks and last several months, and the CDC's preliminary predictions figure an avian-flu pandemic could kill between 89,000 and 207,000 Americans. Although the CDC says it can't predict when a pandemic might occur, historically, global flu epidemics occur once a generation. It has been almost 40 years since the last one. (See related infographic.)

Most people who have contracted the virus so far were in direct contact with infected birds. Health officials say there have been only a few instances of probable human-to-human transmission, and in all of those cases the virus didn't spread beyond the second person. At this point, Americans don't appear to be at risk unless they go to a country affected by poultry outbreaks and visit a farm or market with infected fowl.

How does avian flu compare with the normal flu?

Bird-flu symptoms in humans so far have included those typically associated with the flu -- fever, cough, sore throat and muscle aches -- but can also be much worse. The victims in Asia have experienced eye infections, pneumonia, severe respiratory diseases that injure the lungs, other life-threatening complications and death. The symptoms may depend on which bird-flu strain a victim is exposed to, but the mortality rate appears to be strong: Of the 115 cases of human infection confirmed by the WHO since 2003, 59 have resulted in death as of Sept. 22, the most recent figure available.

The CDC says it doesn't yet know which sections of the population would be most at risk, but past pandemics have claimed many victims among young, healthy adults, a demographic that ranges beyond the usual candidates of the flu season's most vulnerable: children and the elderly.

Is it safe to keep eating poultry?

The WHO doesn't consider bird flu a food-borne disease, and people probably aren't infected from eating poultry. The danger is for people who handle infected poultry. Eggs and processed poultry products -- refrigerated or frozen carcasses and the products they go into -- shouldn't pose a risk, the WHO says.

What vaccines and drugs are available?

Currently, there is no publicly available vaccine for H5N1. Avian-flu vaccines are undergoing preliminary testing by the U.S. government, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says a Sanofi Pasteur vaccine has shown "safety and ability to generate an immune response" in early trials. But it isn't clear when the testing will be completed. And while Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine unit of Sanofi-Aventis SA, says it plans to have the needed ingredients ready by the end of the year, the government will still have to decide on how many doses a person needs. Then the vaccine would still have to be licensed and the individual doses filled.

Chiron Corp., meanwhile, plans to deliver its vaccine for H5N1 to the government for evaluation by year end. If global health authorities declare an avian-flu pandemic to be in progress, vaccine manufacturers would ramp up production. To ensure a rapid response at the start of a pandemic, the WHO and some governments are creating stockpiles of antiviral drugs used to treat infections. Among the drugs being stored up in the U.S. is Tamiflu, which is already used to treat the seasonal flu viruses. Studies suggest Tamiflu, made by Roche Holdings AG, works against bird flu, the CDC says.

How can I prepare for an outbreak?

The CDC suggests that people get the traditional flu vaccine manufactured each year ahead of the flu season, even though it doesn't offer immunity to H5N1. In part, that's because it is in a person who contracts bird flu when he or she already is infected with a normal flu strain that the avian virus could mutate into one able to leap from human to human. The best measure to protect against the regular flu is hand washing, health officials say. If you're sick, stay at home.

If a pandemic occurs, check the CDC Web site (www.cdc.org) to find out the most recent information. In past epidemics, people rushed to buy face masks but the CDC says there has been no scientific data supporting the theory that these masks decrease the risk of transmission or infection of avian flu.

I'm traveling to a country where there have been reported outbreaks. What precautions should I take?

If you're traveling to countries where there have been cases of bird flu, avoid poultry farms, contact with animals in food markets and any surfaces that appear contaminated with feces from poultry or other animals. Clean your hands often with soap and water or waterless alcohol-based hand-rubs. All foods from poultry, including eggs, should be thoroughly cooked. Tamiflu may not be readily available overseas, and the State Department encourages Americans traveling or living abroad who are interested in obtaining this medication to consult their physician.

If you've traveled to an affected area and think you have avian flu, first off, don't panic. Avian flu hasn't appeared in humans in the U.S. or in Europe. But if you're suffering from a respiratory illness accompanied by a fever and have recently returned from one of the countries affected, then seek medical attention and explain where you have been.

For the most up-to-date travel advisories, visit the CDC's travel site at www.cdc.gov/travel.

PREVENTING A PANDEMICSee complete coverage of avian flu, including an interactive graphic on the science of the virus and a look back at major flu epidemics.

China to Tackle GapBetween Rich, Poor

Next 'Five-Year Blueprint' Will Boost Social Services, Address Growing Inequities

By KATHY CHEN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALSeptember 30, 2005; Page A9

BEIJING -- China's Communist Party leaders are set to meet soon to approve a national economic-policy blueprint for the next five years aimed at smoothing uneven development that has fueled unrest around the country.

Members of the party's powerful Central Committee will convene in Beijing from Oct. 8 to Oct. 11, the official Xinhua news agency said. Besides giving the green light to China's next five-year plan covering 2006 to 2010, the meeting may result in some personnel changes that reflect President and party chief Hu Jintao's continued push to consolidate power, according to people familiar with the situation.

Traditionally, China's five-year plans, modeled after the former Soviet Union's, have set specific goals for everything from economic growth to steel production to livestock numbers.

Details of the coming plan haven't been publicly announced. But for the first time, it is being dubbed a "five-year blueprint" instead of a "five-year plan" to reflect the government's step-back approach to managing the economy under a market system. Economists say a main focus of the plan will be to address the growing inequities between China's prosperous coastal regions and its poorer inland and rural regions, where the majority of China's 1.3 billion people live. The plan is expected to shift the emphasis from strong economic-growth rates to the strengthening of social services, like education and health care.

Whether Mr. Hu's government can meet these goals in coming years could be critical for the country to maintain the overall stability that has for the past decade helped it attract record levels of foreign investment, exceeding an estimated $66 billion this year. China's growth rate is expected to surpass 9% this year.

For years, many economists and Chinese officials saw the key to stability simply as maintaining a high-enough growth rate to generate jobs and opportunities; some Chinese could get rich first and others could catch up later. But the increasing numbers of large-scale, violent protests around the country over the past year or two have sparked concern at the top levels of government that more must be done to address the growing wealth gap and surging discontent over such issues as corruption, environmental degradation and soaring educational and health-care costs.

"China has just undergone another cycle of fast economic development," said Fan Jianping, a vice director of the State Information Center, a Beijing-based think tank. "If we do a lot of wrong things amid such fast development, the contradictions will just get bigger."

Economists said a main theme of the five-year blueprint will be a "scientific approach to development" -- focusing on improving people's livelihoods, not just growth; seeking efficient and sustainable development, not blind growth; and ensuring that the benefits of growth are divided among the people, such as through higher taxation of wealthier areas.

After approval by party leaders, the 11th five-year blueprint would require passage by the National People's Congress, China's largely rubber-stamp legislature, during its annual meeting in March.

High-level personnel changes also are in the works, as Mr. Hu continues to consolidate power after taking over from former party head Jiang Zemin three years ago, people familiar with the situation said. It remained unclear, however, whether these changes would be implemented this year or next, when the Communist Party is scheduled to convene a major meeting where personnel changes traditionally would be announced.

One official who could possibly be replaced is Shanghai's Communist Party chief, Chen Liangyu, an ally of Mr. Jiang who is thought to have angered Mr. Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao for failing to toe the line on the central government's effort to cool the sizzling property market, said people familiar with the situation. A district government officer in Shanghai said recent internal meetings in the district government suggested that Mr. Chen would leave in the near term. An official in the general duty office of the Shanghai City government said Thursday, "I have no idea about this matter." The city's party committee news office couldn't be reached Thursday evening.

Candidates who could succeed Mr. Chen are said to include Liu Yandong, a woman who heads the United Front Work Department, the party's arm in charge of coordinating with China's other political parties, ethnic minorities and Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of China; and Zhang Gaoli, the progressive party chief of the northeastern province of Shandong.

The blueprint is expected to promote the development of regional economies around urban centers. Ma Kai, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, which is overseeing the drafting of the plan, told local media in mid-September that such regions could include the Yangtze River Delta, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, the northeastern industrial belt and Chengdu-Chongqing cities in the southwest.

Chen Dongqi, deputy director of the commission's macroeconomy division, has estimated that China's economy would grow 8% to 8.5% most years between 2006 and 2010, but that some quarters might see a lower rate, even around 7%. He said the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing would fuel investment and consumption, revving national growth in the years leading up to the event, but warned that Beijing should prepare fiscal policies to prevent the economy from sliding afterward.

Some officials and economists have criticized the "scientific approach to development" as lacking implementation details, noting that the concept was introduced in 2003 but hasn't yielded much progress so far.

DeLay's Influence Transcends His Title

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Jim VandeHeiWashington Post Staff WritersMonday, October 3, 2005; A01

For the indefinite future, Washington will remain Tom DeLay's capital. Dislodged by a criminal indictment last week from his post as House majority leader, DeLay in his decade of steering the Republican caucus dramatically -- and in many cases inalterably -- changed how power is amassed and used on Capitol Hill and well beyond.

Proteges of the wounded Texan still hold virtually every position of influence in the House, including the office of speaker. DeLay's former staff members are securely in the lobbying offices for many of the largest corporations and business advocacy groups.

But even more than people, DeLay's lasting influence is an ethos. He stood for a view of Washington as a battlefield on which two sides struggle relentlessly, moderates and voices of compromise are pushed to the margins, and the winners presume they have earned the right to punish dissenters and reward their own side with financial and policy favors.

His take-no-prisoners style of fundraising -- in which the classic unstated bargain of access for contributions is made explicitly and without apology -- has been adopted by both parties in Congress, according to lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional scholars. Democrats, likewise, increasingly are trying to emulate DeLay-perfected methods for enforcing caucus discipline -- rewarding lawmakers who follow the dictums of party leaders and seeking retribution against those who do not.

Most of all, DeLay stood for a blurring of the line between lawmakers and lobbyists so that lobbyists are now considered partners of politicians and not merely pleaders -- especially if they once worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers-turned-corporate lobbyists such as Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and aides such as Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, remain among the most influential figures on Capitol Hill -- often more involved than lawmakers in writing policy and plotting political strategy.

For a vivid sign of how what was once considered controversial has gone mainstream, consider the K Street Project. That was the name for a DeLay-inspired campaign -- for which he was chastised by the House ethics committee -- to demand that lobbying firms seeking access hire loyal Republicans. Rather than going underground, the project has gone unabashedly public, with a Web site, http://www.kstreetproject.com , providing news about the latest lobbying vacancies.

"People who have worked for Mr. DeLay become, like other senior Republican staffers, members in good standing of a club and are accepted back by many members [of Congress] and staffers," said Andrew M. Shore, chief of staff of the House Republican Conference. "The idea is that we are a team. What's good for one is good for all; anything to cultivate that team mentality is seen in a positive light."

Usually, staffers-turned-lobbyists lose their cachet when their former bosses retire or lose their jobs. But the DeLay fraternity -- so large that it is called DeLay Inc. -- does not look as if it will suffer the same fate. "Has the value of these people diminished? I would say no," Shore said. "As they transition into the private sector, the benefits are shared by the [Republican] conference. There's a symbiosis between the former staffers and many members of the conference."

None of the tactics used so effectively by DeLay and his allies were invented by them. The Texan's innovation was to systematically institutionalize them within the GOP. It's possible his zeal in these methods could ultimately bring about his downfall.

Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle won a grand jury indictment of DeLay on a charge of conspiring to illegally evade fundraising restrictions. DeLay, still in Congress, has vowed to return to his leadership post after clearing his name at trial -- though his future is shadowed by a tall stack of other legal and political problems. But scholars say his methods are imprinted on Washington like a tattoo. "Even if Boss DeLay leaves, his legacy stays," said James A. Thurber, director of congressional studies at American University.

Part of the reason for this is that DeLay's temporary replacement, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), is a DeLay protege whose rapid rise was spawned by the Texas Republican. So were the careers of almost everyone else in the House Republican leadership, including Rep. Eric I. Cantor of Virginia and Thomas M. Reynolds of New York. They are all social conservatives who support such pro-business policies as deregulation and tax cuts.

The DeLay network is just as formidable in downtown Washington. Former DeLay aides Buckham, Tony Rudy and Karl Gallant form the core of one of Washington's largest and fastest-growing lobbying firms, Alexander Strategy Group. Susan Hirschmann, a former DeLay chief of staff, is a senior member of Williams & Jensen, another major lobbying firm. Congressional aides said that these and other DeLay alumni are part of their "team" and will be welcome in their offices no matter what happens to their old boss.

Speaking of Hirschmann, Mike Stokke, deputy chief of staff to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said, "Having DeLay in her background is a strength; having worked for Tom brings credibility."

There has been no sign that DeLay personally has been active in the K Street Project since he was admonished by the House ethics committee for pressuring the Electronics Industries Alliance to hire a Republican as its president seven years ago. Nonetheless, the project is still going strong; other lawmakers and lobbyists have taken up the cause. Job listings on K Street are still distributed in regularly scheduled meetings held by other GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.). Lobbying executives report that former Republican aides and lawmakers have telephoned them to suggest that their top openings should be filled with loyalists. The K Street Project Web site is run by well-connected conservative Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.

In the House, DeLay enhanced the leadership's role by ending the practice of automatically promoting the most senior lawmakers to committee chairmanships and, instead, choosing loyalists to fill the powerful slots. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) was booted from the chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee at the beginning of the current Congress because he repeatedly bucked DeLay and other GOP leaders on key votes. DeLay also arranged to have the chairmen elected by the committees themselves, whose members he also selected and was thus better able to control.

The same technique is now used in the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who won the authority to select committee members after the 2004 elections increased his majority to 55 seats. "There is only one reason for that change, and it is to punish people," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) told the newspaper Roll Call in November.

Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), an outspoken DeLay critic, has started to crack down on her own members with DeLay-like tactics. After this summer's vote on free trade with Central American nations -- a plan that several House Democrats supported despite her strong objections -- Pelosi summoned Democratic lawmakers to a private meeting and threatened to take away their committee assignments if they did not start voting with party leaders, according to participants.

DeLay's fundraising focus has also permeated Washington. Over the years, DeLay has raised tens of millions of dollars for Republicans through nearly a dozen fundraising entities. Today, no leader of either party or lawmaker with leadership ambitions would even consider not forming at least two such fundraising committees. "DeLay set a new benchmark for fundraising and that's not going to go away," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

DeLay established as common practice the requirement that House GOP incumbents with safe seats collect at least some money for the party as a whole. Chairmen of committees were particularly on the line to raise large sums, Republican aides said. Unless they paid up, their chairmanships were in danger.

In late June, Pelosi adopted a similar tack. She sent a letter warning that Democratic lawmakers who did not raise money for the House campaign committee would be deprived of everything from financial resources to telephone access. "If you are on the team, you have to" pay up, a House Democratic aide said.

Meanwhile, anyone looking for signs of the ongoing influence of DeLay Inc. will find another one today. It's the starting date for Time Warner Inc.'s new vice president for global public policy. The new executive is Tim Berry, former chief of staff to Tom DeLay.

America's conservatives take another blow

Sep 30th 2005

From The Economist print edition

The indictment of Tom DeLay, majority leader of the House of Representatives, may not be the start of a conservative crack-up; but a realignment of the movement that has come to dominate American politics could be in the works

AFP

TOM DELAY is no stranger to excitement. He claims nearly to have been killed during a bout of revolutionary violence in Venezuela, where he lived in his teens. He was asked to leave the first university he attended, and he made a living exterminating bugs before he entered politics. But “the Hammer” has not been able to swat away the swarm of investigators buzzing around him.

On Wednesday September 28th, Mr DeLay was indicted by a grand jury in Texas for alleged breaches of campaign-finance law, and forced to resign, at least temporarily, his position as Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, America’s lower parliamentary chamber. There was much whooping among Democrats, for whom Mr DeLay was a hate figure even before he played a crucial part in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. “I hope his cell is full of cockroaches,” was one of the gentler postings on one leftish blogsite.

Washington, DC, is now engulfed in two debates. The first revolves around how bad a mess Mr DeLay is in; the second is about the extent of the fissures within the conservative movement that currently dominates American politics.

The case against Mr DeLay is less easy to understand than the perjury-about-fellatio charge against Mr Clinton. Along with two political associates, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, he is accused of conspiracy to violate the election code in his home state of Texas. Mr DeLay has a political action committee called Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC). Prosecutors allege that it accepted $155,000 from various companies, and then wrote a cheque for $190,000 to an arm of the Republican National Committee, with instructions to distribute chunks of the stash to individual candidates in Texas. In effect, the indictment argues, TRMPAC enabled the party to get around the ban on corporate donations to individual candidates.

If convicted, Mr DeLay faces up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. But that is far from certain. He has denounced the charges as “one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history”, adding that the district attorney behind the case, Ronnie Earle, was “an unabashed partisan zealot with a well-documented history of launching baseless investigations and indictments against his political enemies”.

Mr Earle is a liberal Democrat who, in 1993, indicted Kay Bailey Hutchison, now the state’s senior Republican senator, on what “The Almanac of American Politics” called “flimsy charges he was forced to drop the first day the case came to court”. Against that, Mr Earle has prosecuted four times as many Democrats as Republicans.

Mr DeLay said that his defence “will not be technical or legalistic; it will be categorical and absolute. I am innocent. Mr Earle and his staff know it. And I will prove it.” He then promised that Republicans would not be deflected from their “bold and aggressive agenda” to do something about petrol prices, state pensions, illegal immigration and fiscal responsibility—issues he vowed would all be tackled in the next few weeks.

That may be a bit optimistic. For one thing, the Republicans will miss Mr DeLay’s vote-whipping skills. He has a startling record of assembling hair-thin majorities for ticklish pieces of legislation, such as on Medicare prescription-drug benefit in 2003. In other words, he is adept at offering the necessary inducements to just enough waverers, but no more.

His case will probably not come to trial for several months, and in the meantime he remains a member of the House of Representatives. His duties as majority leader are to be assumed, for now, by Roy Blunt of Missouri, the House Republican whip, with assistance from David Dreier, a representative from California, and Eric Cantor of Virginia. None is likely to be as forceful as the Hammer.

Mr DeLay’s indictment is not the only ethical problem hampering the Republicans. Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, is being investigated about a stock sale he insists involved no inside information. Karl Rove, President George Bush’s chief strategist, is fighting accusations that he leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent (see Rove profile). On Thursday, the vice-president's influential chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was revealed also to have told a reporter that Ms Plame worked for the CIA. And Mr DeLay’s problems are not limited to Texas: a lobbyist chum of his, Jack Abramoff, has been accused of a variety of dodgy doings involving Indian casinos and influence-peddling.

This accumulation of sleaze has made it harder for the Republicans to push through their agenda, reckons Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, a liberal think-tank. Other pundits are not so sure. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, says Mr DeLay’s indictment will “not have a huge impact” on the Republican legislative programme, “mostly because it was in tatters before”.

That might sound odd. After all, only last November conservatives were preening themselves like peacocks, having won their seventh presidential election in ten contests. Mr Bush ran for his second term on a conservative platform of tax cuts, family values and American power. Marshalled by Mr Rove, millions of activists—anti-tax people, gun people, social conservatives, neo-conservatives and many more—comprehensively outfought their liberal equivalents. Mr Bush won more votes than any candidate in history.

Today the conservative movement is in turmoil. Different types of conservatives are at each other’s throats. Everybody is hurling opprobrium at the president. David Brooks, a conservative columnist on the New York Times, recently declared that he sometimes wonders whether Mr Bush is a Manchurian candidate—sent to discredit conservatism.

The loudest howls are coming from small-government conservatives who are furious with Mr Bush’s loose spending. But business conservatives are furious about his love-affair with the religious right and traditional conservatives are furious about his commitment of blood and treasure to the Iraq war.

These rows are particularly dangerous because they reflect long-standing tensions within the conservative movement:

• Small-government conservatives v big-government conservatives. Mr Bush has embraced all sorts of big-government programmes (from supercharging the Department of Education to creating the huge new Medicare drug entitlement) while trying to keep small-government conservatives on side with tax cuts. But this was a formula for fiscal disaster. It also failed to placate purists who believe that the federal government has no business running schools or pushing pills to pensioners.

• Conservatives of faith v conservatives of doubt. Doubters don’t think that the federal government should interfere in people’s private lives. They don’t want Washington meddling in states’ rights to legalise euthanasia or medical marijuana. Conservatives of faith believe that the federal government should encourage civic virtue. Under Mr Bush they have had the upper hand. The Justice Department has been aggressive in imposing its views on the states. The poster-child of the conservative movement on Capitol Hill at the moment is Senator Rick Santorum, a staunch advocate of family values.

• Insurgent conservatives v establishment conservatives. The conservative movement, rooted in the south and west, has been deeply hostile to Washington. But electoral success has created a Washington-based Republican establishment, which spends its time doling out goodies to its buddies and expanding federal power. Mr Bush has managed this relationship by presenting himself as an anti-Washington Washingtonian: the son of a president who prefers to spend his time in Texas. The insurgent wing seems increasingly unconvinced.

• Business conservatives v religious conservatives. The latter are waiting keenly to see whom Mr Bush appoints next to the Supreme Court. Business conservatives are worried that religious people have already got too much. Mr Bush’s stance on stem-cell research will cost America its competitive edge in biotechnology. Add to this their concerns about Mr Bush’s reckless fiscal policy and you have the making of a business revolt.

• Neo-conservatives v traditional conservatives. The former have an expansive vision of America’s role in the world—a vision that has come to include not just nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq but also the transformation of the Middle East. But traditionalists balk at the hubris of this vision. How can conservatives who believe that government power is fallible rally to the idea of transforming an entire region?

This sort of criticism was once limited to mavericks such as Pat Buchanan. But it is now mainstream. William Buckley, one of the movement’s founders, has declared that the Iraq war was probably a mistake. Before the election, one senior White House figure confided that his biggest worry was not the anti-war left (which always sings the same song) but the possibility that the conservative intellectual elite would turn against the war. The rive droite seems to be turning.

Getty ImagesCan Rove turn it around again?

How bad is this? All successful political parties contain tensions. Look at Britain’s Labour Party—a party of pacifist trade unionists led by a hawkish fan of capitalism. The bigger a political party gets, the bigger the tensions. Politics is the art of managing these tensions—something Mr Bush’s team did brilliantly until this year.

The loss of touch began before Hurricane Katrina. Bungling in Iraq provoked a drumbeat of discontent, with neo-conservatives calling for more troops and traditional conservatives calling for an exit strategy. And the Valerie Plame affair demoralised the White House. It not only threatened Mr Rove’s political career, and is now putting Mr Libby in the spotlight; it also demonstrated how far Mr Bush’s pursuit of the war had alienated much of the Washington establishment (including the CIA and the State Department).

Katrina has been a disaster. Mr Bush’s slow response to the hurricane (it did not help that Mr Rove was in hospital) spoiled his claim to be a can-do president and it unleashed a previously quiescent press.

The Bush machine’s ruthless media management infuriates journalists, but while he was on top they played the game on his terms. Now they are out for revenge. Earlier this year, Newsweek fawned about the “hands-on and detail oriented” president who wants to hear the bad news first. After Katrina it presented a picture of a man who surrounds himself with toadies who are too terrified to warn him of brewing disaster.

Surviving Watergate and Bill Clinton

Predictions of the demise of American conservatism are almost as old as the movement. It survived both Watergate and Bill Clinton. Emmett Tyrell, the editor of the American Spectator, published “The Conservative Crack-up” in 1992. So much of the right’s power lies outside the administration and Congress—in its domination of the intellectual agenda for instance—that it is seldom down for long.

The Democrats show few signs that they have the wind in their sails. Their handling of John Roberts’s nomination to the Supreme Court has been dismal. Neither Harry Reid, the minority leader in the Senate, nor Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, is likely to set the world on fire. Moveon.org types want to drag the party to the left; Clintonistas want to pull it to the centre. America has two dysfunctional parties.

But Mr Bush’s recent problems do raise one important possibility: that of a realignment on the right. The fact that the Bush machine is running out of steam makes it much less likely that he will be able to determine his successor. This creates opportunities for very different sorts of conservatives who are waiting in the wings.

One possibility is Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York, who combines managerial toughness with social liberalism. But an even more likely one is John McCain. Up until now Mr McCain, a senator, has been popular in the country at large (he wins all head-to-head competitions with Hillary Clinton) but unpopular with the conservative movement. But the right is beginning to warm to him. He has spent his career campaigning against the sort of pork-barrel spending that conservatives are now railing against. And he is soundly conservative on both foreign and fiscal policy. A conservative crack-up may be going too far; but a conservative realignment is definitely in the works.

Lexington: The times they are a changin'. Really

Believe it or not, America is beginning to escape its groundhog decade

Sep 29th 2005 From The Economist print edition

WE'RE told on good authority that history repeats itself, but this is getting ridiculous. The past week has been a giant flashback to the 1960s. On Saturday 100,000 anti-war demonstrators descended on Washington, DC, to chant peacenik slogans and listen to Joan Baez sing “Where have all the flowers gone?” The only thing missing was Abbie Hoffman trying to levitate the Pentagon. And that's not all. PBS broadcast Martin Scorsese's lengthy homage to Bob Dylan, alongside a week of tributes to “the years that shaped a generation” (including a special edition of “Antiques Roadshow”). Both the Rolling Stones and Jane Fonda have dragged their aged limbs on tour.

There have been a few attempts to update things. This time, some anti-war protesters wore T-shirts that read “make levees not war”, while Sir Michael Jagger has penned a song about the evils of neo-conservatism. But for the most part, everybody seems happiest with golden oldies.

Why are the 1960s so difficult to escape? One reason is the sheer size of the baby-boom generation. Giant arboreal slums of boomers now sit at the top of every establishment tree, not least the media. And like all ageing geezers they continue to see the world through the prism of their youths. Listen to Charles Rangel, a black congressman from New York, comparing George Bush to Bull Connor (the notorious white police boss in Birmingham, Alabama); or Jesse Jackson likening the peace protesters to the civil-rights heroine, Rosa Parks; or just about every pundit doing the “Iraq war as Vietnam quagmire” routine.

The other reason why the 1960s are so hard to shake off is that the decade split America down the middle, launching the culture wars that still haunt American politics and redefining America's two great parties. The Democrats became the party of people who regarded the 1960s as an unmitigated good (particularly feminists, blacks and social liberals) while the Republicans regarded the 1960s as an unmitigated evil (particularly white southerners and other “conservatives of the heart”).

This has made for “Groundhog Day” politics. Every election the same arguments appear about draft dodging, the permissive society and so on. Last year, while Iraq burned, American politics fixated on which Swift Boat veteran did what 40 years ago.

Is there really no escape? In fact, last year's election looks like the last hurrah for 1960s politics. John Kerry presumably thought that turning the 2004 election into a referendum on his war service in Vietnam was a slam-dunk, given that he fought heroically while Mr Bush skulked at home. But many voters were less obsessed by the Mekong Delta, and others remembered him as a war protester, not a war hero.

The future of both parties is in the hands of people who want to jettison their 1960s baggage. On the Democrat side, before Mr Kerry reintroduced Vietnam, the Clintonites had spent much of the 1990s distancing themselves from Eugene McCarthy. They demonised black radicals such as Sister Souljah, embraced tough policies on crime and welfare, supported school uniforms and V-chips, and sent American bombers into Bosnia. In her preparation for 2008, Hillary Clinton has taken positions on military force and abortion rights that would have scandalised her younger self. Barack Obama, a possible running mate, is very different from the older black leaders. On the relative merits of liberal and conservative solutions to black poverty—spending more money versus changing the behaviour of the poor—he says: “It's not either/or. It's both/and.”

For their part, the Republicans have been trying to get beyond Richard Nixon's “southern strategy”. Mr Bush has appointed blacks to more senior positions in his administration than any previous president and lavished more attention on wooing black voters. The reason why black Democrats seized on the catastrophe in New Orleans to demonise Mr Bush is not because they really think that he is Bull Connor reincarnated, but because they worry that his strategy of creating a multicultural Republican Party might get somewhere.

The old road is rapidly ageing

More broadly, American society is beginning to make its peace with that divisive decade: it is becoming neither a pro-1960s culture nor an anti-1960s culture but a post-1960s culture. Polls show only 5% of voters objecting to the civil-rights revolution. For all the rage of the culture warriors, most Americans—particularly young ones—put a high premium on “tolerance”. At the same time, they also think that the counter-culture went too far. Very few people decry the nuclear family or urge people to tune in, turn on and drop out.

Society is in a process of repairing itself after the big dislocations of the 1960s, when rates of crime, pre-marital sex and family breakdown began to surge. (The annual number of divorces, for example, more than doubled between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s.) The figures for teenage pregnancy and abortion are both declining. Crime is down (America now has fewer burglaries per head than Canada), and divorce is beginning to drop, particularly among the college-educated, as the children of divorced parents re-embrace the nuclear family. Most young Americans say they believe in God and love their country.

Mr Dylan remains such an iconic figure not because he embodied the 1960s but because, unlike many of his acolytes, he refused to be defined by the decade. Mr Scorsese makes great play about the way the folk protester infuriated his hard-core fans by going electric. But this was only one of the bard's changes. He distanced himself from his protest songs. He got God in a big way. And in his recent memoirs he boasts that his dream was a “nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard.” That's where the flowers went, Joan.

The cauldron boils

A rise in mass action worries the party, prompting more intolerant measures

Sep 29th 2005 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition

AP

THE Chinese government is getting increasingly twitchy about what officials say is a rapid growth in the number and scale of public protests. In its latest bid to quash them, this week it announced a sweeping ban on internet material that incites “illegal demonstrations”. Does China face serious instability? Probably not, for now at least. But in the longer term there are reasons to worry.

Quashing unrest has ever been a priority for the Communist Party. But over the past year or so it has put even more emphasis on tackling “mass incidents” as it calls the protests. These include a wide range of activity, from quiet sit-ins by a handful of people to all-in riots involving thousands. Almost always, they are sparked by local grievances, rather than antipathy to the party's rule. Yet China's most senior police official, Zhou Yongkang, has said that “actively preventing and properly handling” mass incidents was the main task for his Ministry of Public Security this year.

According to Mr Zhou, there were some 74,000 protests last year, involving more than 3.7m people; up from 10,000 in 1994 and 58,000 in 2003. Sun Liping, a Chinese academic, has calculated that demonstrations involving more than 100 people occurred in 337 cities and 1,955 counties in the first 10 months of last year. This amounted to between 120 and 250 such protests daily in urban areas, and 90 to 160 in villages. These figures are likely to be conservative. Chinese officials often try to cover up disturbances in their areas to avoid trouble with their superiors.

Under Mr Zhou's orders, police forces around the country this year have been merging existing anti-riot and counter-terrorist units into new “special police” tasked with responding rapidly to any mass protests that turn “highly confrontational”. Police officials say the existing units were too sluggish, too poorly trained and ill-coordinated to handle the upsurge in disturbances. The special police are to form small “assault squads” to tackle incidents involving violence or terrorism.

Only a few years ago, news of specific incidents seldom filtered out to foreign journalists. Now, thanks partly to a freer flow of information helped by the internet, by mobile telephony and, more rarely, by a slightly less constrained domestic press, hardly a week goes by without some protest coming to light. In June, thousands of people rioted in the town of Chizhou, in the eastern province of Anhui, after an altercation between a wealthy businessman and a cyclist over a minor traffic accident. In August, hundreds clashed with police in a land-related dispute that still simmers in the village of Taishi, in the southern province of Guangdong. Last month, the police in Shanghai detained dozens of people protesting against being evicted from their homes.

In some ways, this unrest makes China look a lot more like a normal developing country than the rigidly controlled system it was until the early 1990s. It is becoming increasingly common to encounter small-scale protests in Chinese cities that only a few years ago would have horrified order-obsessed cadres. An apartment block near your correspondent's home in Beijing has for weeks been scrawled with slogans protesting against the adjacent construction of a petrol station. “We want human rights,” says one. Residents say the police have not interfered, save to warn them not to protest during a big political gathering in the city.

Chinese officials often say that greater social unrest is normal in developing countries with a per capita GDP between $1,000 and $3,000. China's GDP per head surpassed $1,000 in 2003. But this appears to be little consolation. In August last year, President Hu Jintao appointed a high-level team, headed by Mr Zhou, to supervise the handling of protests and petitions. Official sources say Mr Hu dwelt on protests in a speech to party leaders in September 2004 and at the party's annual economic planning meeting in December. Late last year the party issued a document to senior officials telling them how to deal with unrest.

According to these sources, Mr Zhou's speeches are laced with warnings that political dissidents might try to manipulate local protests to put pressure on the party itself. This fear explains why the party has further squeezed non-governmental groups and dissidents in recent months. China Development Brief, a newsletter on Chinese civil society developments, reported that in recent weeks China's secret police had been interviewing staff of Chinese NGOs that receive foreign funding, as well as Chinese staff of foreign NGOs in China, about the purpose of their work. The government has suspended the registration of new international NGOs pending the outcome of these inquiries.

The party's dilemma is that much of the unrest is a product of the rapid economic growth that it is so keen to maintain. The outlook of many urban Chinese has changed profoundly since the 1990s as a result of the privatisation of hitherto heavily state-subsidised housing. Anxious to protect their new assets, property owners have increasingly clashed with developers, and their government backers, who have been trying to cash in on the resulting boom by erecting shopping malls and luxury housing. The expansion of cities has fuelled clashes with peasants whose land is needed for construction.

Some argue that these mostly isolated protests, if handled sensitively, could help China maintain overall stability by providing people with a way of venting frustrations. But Mao Shoulong, at Renmin University of China in Beijing, says the unrest is a sign that China lacks channels for people to air discontent in a more orderly fashion. Widespread corruption and an increasingly conspicuous wealth gap fuel a contempt for officialdom that can easily erupt into the kind of class-based rioting that occurred in Anhui in June.

And should the economy falter, urban China could be faced with the twin dangers of an angry middle class saddled with big mortgage commitments and declining property prices (a problem China has not yet had to face), as well as a big increase in the number of unemployed, who, along with unpaid pensioners, are the main participants in protests in those parts of the country left behind by the current boom. Widespread middle-class discontent, combined with blue-collar dissatisfaction, would be a much bigger threat to stability than China now faces.