Sunday, October 29, 2017

Here's what happened when Trump invited reporters' kids in costume into the Oval Office - CBS News

Here's what happened when Trump invited reporters' kids in costume into the Oval Office
Last Updated Oct 27, 2017
President Trump invited the White House press corps' children in costume into the Oval Office for a photo and some candy on Friday, and the interaction that ensued was classic Trump.
"I cannot believe the media produced such beautiful children," joked the president, who has regular spats with the "fake news" media. "How the media did this, I don't know."
The children, dressed as everything from witches to a unicorn with purple hair, circled the desk slowly, at the president's urging, surrounded by cameras. "Do you know who they are? They're the friendly media, that's the press."
Noticing a small girl looking forlorn, he said, "Are you crying? Come here, sweetheart," ushering the child closer to the desk.
When one of the young girls commented that the frightened girl Mr. Trump had comforted was Japanese, Mr. Trump responded, "She's Japanese? Beautiful, she's Japanese — I'm going to be in Japan in two weeks."
As he moved on and started handing out bags of Hershey's kisses, he commented to one child, "Well you have no weight problems – that's the good news, right? So you take out whatever you need. If you want some for your friends, take it. We have plenty."
Trump inspired Halloween costumes
The great divide — the media war over Trump
He also jokingly asked how the press treats them.
"So, how does the press treat you?" he said, to laughs from the adults in the room. "I bet you get treated by the press better than anybody in the world. Right? Huh? I think so."
"Well, congratulations, folks," he told the parents. "You did a good job. You did a good job. Here, you did a good job. I wouldn't say you've done very well here," he added, pointing to himself, "but really beautiful children.

The 14 ‘upholds’ of China’s ‘new era’ of socialism have something missing: human rights - Hong Kong Free Press

LAW & CRIME OPINION POLITICS & PROTEST
The 14 ‘upholds’ of China’s ‘new era’ of socialism have something missing: human rights
29 October 2017 Sharon Hom
After months of opaque internal Party power struggles leading up to the 19th Party Congress, core leader (核心领导), President Xi Jinping, appears to have successfully consolidated power, emerging as an all-powerful emperor to fulfill the people’s aspirations and to lead China boldly forward in a new era to take its rightful place at “the center of the world stage.”
Through military personnel changes and the appointment of loyalists onto the Politburo and its Standing Committee, with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想) enshrined in the party constitution, Xi now controls China’s armed forces, influences the highest governing bodies of the party and country, and has established China’s guiding ideology through the middle of the 21st century.
mao xi jinping
Placed within its ideological lineage and relative significance (equal to Mao Zedong Thought, perhaps higher than Deng Xiaoping Theory, and clearly more significant than both the Theory of Three Represents and the Scientific Outlook on Development), Xi Jinping Thought aims to provide a comprehensive policy to realize the China Dream of national rejuvenation. The 14 points—or in the Chinese media locution, 14 points that must be upheld (坚持)—can be loosely organized into three categories:
Development: The “people”, nature, and a global shared future
Adopt a new vision for development (坚持新发展理念)
Commit to a people-centered approach (坚持以人民为中心)
Ensure and improve living standards through development (坚持在发展中保障和改善民主)
Ensure harmony between people and nature (坚持人与自然和谐共生)
Promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind (坚持推动构建人类命运共同体)
Security: Everything is a potential or existing security threat
Pursue a holistic approach to national security (坚持总体国家安全观)
Uphold absolute Party leadership over the people’s forces (坚持党对人民军队的绝对领导)
Uphold the principle of “one country, two systems” and promoting national reunification (坚持”一国两制”和推进祖国统一)
Law: Not rule of law, but govern the country by law
Ensure Party leadership over all work (坚持党对一切工作的领导)
Continue to comprehensively deepen reform (坚持全面深化改革)
Exercise full and rigorous governance over the Party (坚持全面从严治党)
See that the people run the country (坚持人民当家作主)
Ensure every dimension of governance is law-based (坚持全面依法治国)
Uphold core socialist values (坚持社会主义核心价值体系)
China faces complex social, environmental, and economic challenges, including the “key contradiction” of inequitable and unsustainable development (clearly identified and prioritized by the Party). Instead of effectively addressing these challenges, China’s new guiding ideology poses serious risks of exacerbating already serious human rights, rule of law, and governance problems.
First, despite the invocation of a people-centered approach, the development-related upholds are not intended to empower people, or protect the citizens’ rights to participate in policy decisions that affect them and their communities.
In recent UN sessions at the General Assembly and at the Human Rights Council, China has made clear its rejection of a rights-based framework, a framework that is critical to sustainable and equitable development. In fact, China’s “new vision of development” has been asserted for some time, especially to block international scrutiny or criticism of its human rights progress.
In China’s “new era,” a political elite still heads an authoritarian government that controls the dreams and aspirations of over 1.3 billion people under top-down dictated political projects. To borrow a phrase from Yu Hua, the “people” are still “nothing more than a shell company, utilized by different eras to position different products in the marketplace.” The current product? The China Dream.
The realization of the China Dream, the rejuvenation of the nation, will also have regional and global effects, in particular where China’s development model is already being exported through its soft power initiatives and through aid, development, economic, and military packages. Official assurances published by Xinhua News Agency that China will “never seek hegemony or engage in expansion” are unconvincing.
For example, the One Belt, One Road Initiative stretches across 60 countries, involving to date $500 billion in infrastructure and loans, and $14.5 billion in direct investment. In the face of such a major expansionist project, countries eager to be part of this “new Silk Road,” are willing to accept the social, environmental, and economic costs of contributing to a China-dominated future, and are even willing to mortgage their futures to help build it.
Second, the “holistic security” approach is not a new approach for a new era, but rather is a continuation of policies to ensure stability (read: comprehensive social control), unified correct thinking, and national unity through ideological propaganda to instill and demand complete loyalty to the party from the media, educators, lawyers, and the general population.
Alternative visions and views, even if peacefully expressed—for example, Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08—come at great risk and tragic human cost. Upholding the “absolute Party leadership over the people’s forces” ensures the military power to back up this holistic security approach.
The comprehensive approach to security is also implemented through a raft of restrictive national security-related legislation promulgated over the past few years, regulating cyberspace, cybersecurity, counter-terrorism, religious and cultural practices of ethnic groups, and foreign NGOs. It is given teeth through criminal prosecutions of peaceful expression for incitement or subversion.
These laws and regulations are deployed to punish any voice that refuses to be “harmonized,” individual peaceful expression, and other exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, including the right to hold and impart opinions and views—even, or especially satirical and humorous ones—and linguistic, cultural, and religious rights.
Through China’s national security lens, these exercises of protected rights are treated as potential or existing threats to the national security, honour, and reputation of the country, that is, actions that threaten the Party’s authoritarian hold on power.
“One Country, Two Systems” is specifically mentioned in the 14 Upholds, but is tied to promotion of national reunification (another shot over the bow of Taiwan). But Hong Kong’s autonomy under upholding the principle of One Country, Two Systems appears to be more and more at risk of being gutted by “interpretations” of the Basic Law and local interference.
In an effort to send a firm but warm message during the handover anniversary this year, President Xi told the Hong Kong people, “Believe in yourself, believe in Hong Kong, and believe in the country.” But under this “new era” approach to security, this probably means, “Believe in me, President Xi. Believe my social media image as a leader in touch with ordinary people, who takes taxis and eats steamed buns (包子), a champion fighting the rampant corruption so hated by the common people (老百姓).” And the red line was clear: no independence talk will be tolerated.
Finally, governing the country by law: For some time, either intentionally or not, “rule of law” and “govern the country by law” were interchangeably used in translation and interpretation at the UN and in bilateral discussions. This translation slippage masked what is now clear. China is an outlier when it comes to its legal system.
Despite the old ideological chestnut being repeated—people are masters of the country—this is only a fiction for the “democratic dictatorship” of the CPC. That every dimension of governance is law based, is also not reassuring in light of the terrible human holocaust that led to the creation of the modern human rights system. The road to fascism was paved by law and wrapped in legality. So governing by law will not ensure that people’s rights, human dignity and freedom will be protected.
human rights
Although there is no single universal definition of “rule of law,” the principle is at the heart of the international human rights system. It refers to a “principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards.”
When the Party exercises leadership over all work and demands the complete loyalty of the judges, lawyers, and prosecutors; when the Party not only calls all the shots, but remains above and outside the law, even if a pending “supervision law” replaces the current double detention (双规) system; when there are no independent mechanisms to ensure official accountability, then governing the country by law is simply governing by authoritarian rule.
Looking ahead, consolidating power is not the same as maintaining and exercising power responsibly to benefit the people. While Xi appears to have effectively consolidated his power, the internal machinations, power struggles, and negotiations cannot be cost-free. Certainly, in the anti-corruption campaign, among the targeted tigers and flies, there may now lie future enemies.
To maintain power, the leaders must solve actual problems, which is not a strong part of the DNA of the CPC. The tried and failed method of the CPC to address problems—control, censorship, and propaganda— will not work in the short or long term, even if labeled and welcomed as new.
For a truly effective approach to sustainable and equitable development, ensuring true security and stability, and building accountable governance, civil society—individuals, NGOs, and independent media—must be able to meaningfully contribute and participate in creating, monitoring, and promoting the solutions. Now, that would be a truly new vision, one in line with international standards and China’s obligations.

Abe's To-Do List Divides Japan After Election Win: Q&A - Bloomberg

Abe's To-Do List Divides Japan After Election Win: Q&A
By Isabel Reynolds
October 27, 2017
Fresh from his third straight general election victory, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe must refocus on two overarching challenges: Dealing with North Korea and adapting Japan’s economy to its aging and shrinking population. Tackling those issues will involve decisions that look set to divide voters, less than a year before a party leadership election in which Abe is likely to face competition from other members of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Any missteps could jeopardize Abe’s chances of retaining the leadership and becoming Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.
1. What’s the strategy on North Korea?
In August and September, North Korea fired missiles that flew over Japan. Abe, 63, has vowed to step up diplomatic efforts to pressure Kim Jong Un’s regime over its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Abe has kept security ties with the U.S. on track by building a close personal relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is set to visit Japan next month. But relations with China remain chilly. Abe hopes to meet President Xi Jinping in Vietnam in November.
2. What’s in store for the economy?
Abe said he called the election to test public opinion on his plan to divert some of the revenue from a planned 2019 sales tax hike to reducing the costs of education for families. Hiking the tax to 8 percent from 5 percent in 2014 sparked a recession -- and Abe has twice balked at a second increase to 10 percent. By publicly earmarking some of the cash for families, he has made it more difficult to reverse course without angering a large proportion of the electorate. But going ahead won’t be popular either: A poll published by the Yomiuri newspaper on Oct. 25 found 37 percent of respondents said the tax should not be raised. The remainder were divided on how revenues should be spent, with some wanting Japan to repay its debt, which is about 220 percent of gross domestic product. The plan to fund education costs from the sales tax would mean putting off a target for achieving fiscal balance.
3. How is Abenomics going?
During the election campaign, Abe vowed to speed up Abenomics -- his program for defeating the deflation that has long dogged Japan’s economy. However, he gave few details, instead emphasizing the improvements in employment and corporate profits since he took office in 2012. Much of that progress can be attributed to the ultra-easy monetary policy introduced under Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. Abe must decide whether to keep Kuroda in place when his term runs out in April. Also on the positive side, the economy is enjoying its longest expansion since 2006.
4. What is Abe planning for the workforce?
He has promised "working-style reforms," a mixed bag of proposals including one aimed at improving productivity by compelling firms to hold down overtime. Then there’s the "white-collar exemption" that would allow highly paid professionals to be compensated for results rather than hours worked. In a Nikkei newspaper poll in August, that policy was supported by 43 percent of respondents and opposed by 35 percent. Strict limits on overtime could burden firms with an unmanageable amount of paperwork, ultimately reducing employment, according to Robby Feldman, senior advisor at Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities Co Ltd.
5. What else does Abe plan?
For the first time, his party campaigned on changing Japan’s pacifist constitution as one of its main policy pledges. While his coalition retained the two-thirds majority needed to pass an amendment that would pave the way for a stronger military, it is unclear whether an agreement can be reached on the wording of any revision. While Abe has vowed to reach out to opposition parties to seek a consensus, negotiations would be time-consuming. And, despite the threat from North Korea, opinion polls show the electorate remains deeply divided over any change to the war-renouncing Article 9.

China's Xi Jinping opens ‘New Era’ for country and the world - BBC News

China's Xi Jinping opens ‘New Era’ for country and the world
Carrie Gracie
China editor
25 October 2017
China's new leadership line-up was the last scene to play in the carefully scripted drama of the Communist Party Congress. Yet again Xi Jinping defied convention.
Halfway through one Party chief's decade in power, a leader-in-waiting would normally appear in a red carpet ceremony at the Great Hall of the People.
But the men beside Mr Xi were all in their 60s, too old to be an heir.
Breaking the mould on the succession, as with so much else, is part of the Chinese president's New Era, as he has termed it.
But don't imagine that now the Congress is over, you can forget about Mr Xi's New Era.
In the clash of political civilisations, he has put China on the offensive.
In his three-and-a-half hour speech to Congress, he set out a vision not just for the five years ahead but for 30, and talked of a socialist model which provides, "a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence".
At home China is already a surveillance state accelerating its ability to listen to every call and track every face, online posting, movement and purchase. Expect it now to export not just the governance model but the cyber weapons to make that work.
How Chinese authorities censor your thoughts
Charting China's 'great purge' under Xi
The thoughts of Chairman Xi
Mr Xi wants China's socialism to be a model for others to follow
Gone is the insistence that China must hide its light under a bushel and be a modest player abroad. Mr Xi told Congress that China must be a "great power" with a first class military "built to fight".
Winning hearts and minds
But the president's New Era doesn't rely solely on hard power.
Over the past four decades China has built a market economy under a one party state. Now Mr Xi hopes to correct its flaws to deliver his citizens a better quality of life.
He dreams of an innovative powerhouse driven by well educated citizens with unshakeable faith in the superiority of their system. His speech to Congress promised more control of the internet to "oppose and resist the whole range of erroneous viewpoints".
But he hopes to win the battle for hearts and minds even earlier and his education minister said schoolchildren would soon begin to study "'Xi Thought'".
The full slogan is "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era". Behind the rhetoric, this means an enormous centralisation of power for Xi and his Party over China's economy and society.
'Xi thought' puts Xi Jinping (left) on par with Mao Zedong
Who is China's President Xi Jinping?
What's on the agenda at the Communist Party Congress?
Analysis: Xi Jinping's speech spells power
Official media have dwelled on the "lies" of western democracy and the failures of capitalism, a system "swamped by crisis and chaos". In the words of one commentary by state news agency Xinhua, "The wealth gap widens, the working class suffers, and the society remains divided".
In absolute GDP, the United States may still be the world's largest economy, but President Trump has withdrawn American leadership on free trade and climate change and Xi's China has neatly stepped into the gap.
A future global leader?
Mr Xi talks about guiding the international community "towards a more just and rational new world order". The latest Pew opinion survey across 37 countries suggests more people now trust the Chinese leader to do the right thing than the American one.
On its current trajectory, the Chinese economy will overtake the US some time in the next decade to become the world's largest.
Critics dismiss the challenge of the China model, predicting that rigid politics will cramp innovation and growth will succumb to market distortions. Certainly most countries that make it to the world's rich club go democratic first.
Media captionWhat can and can't you say in China?
But China has always seen itself as exceptional by virtue of its scale, its history and its culture. Xi Jinping says China's road to a great nation will be "different from that of traditional great powers". He is no keener to adopt what he sees as American values than the US is to adopt Chinese ones.
Cementing control
Several things follow from this control mission. Firstly, the values of liberal democracy are by definition the enemy. The appeal of free media, independent judiciary and pluralistic civil society are discredited wherever possible. In fact, since Mr Xi came to power, public discussion of these values has become taboo in China.
By contrast, Mr Xi is expanding his formal and informal control network through Communist Party cells. They now operate not just in domestic companies but in more than two thirds of foreign invested ones on Chinese soil. All foreign economic engagement in China is increasingly on the Party's terms, permitted only in sectors and at a pace which is designed to meet China's interests rather than those of its trading partners.
And for those partners, the debate over how to respond is likely to become more polarised in this New Era.
Mr Xi's admirers will insist that China's ruling party deserves credit for pulling many millions of its citizens out of poverty and point out that at nearly 7% Chinese growth is one of the engines of the global economy.
Mr Xi wants China centre stage in a new world order
His detractors will argue that his Party deserves little credit for an economic miracle won by the hard work and ingenuity of the Chinese people despite its rulers rather than because of them. Some will even point to the rise of Hitler and Stalin as lessons in the cost of not confronting dictatorships.
'Awesome China'?
Four trillion dollars in foreign reserves, and control over the fastest growing consumer market in the world, give Xi Jinping powerful weapons to influence this debate.
Even as the Communist Party unveiled its new leadership on Wednesday, it excluded several major western news organisations from the ceremony.
Officially no reason was given for barring the BBC, Financial Times, Economist, New York Times and Guardian, but unofficially journalists were told that their reporting was to blame. Another sign of Xi's determination to control the message at home and abroad.
As Mr Xi declares China ready "to move towards centre stage in the world", it's not clear whether his mission to control will help or hinder him.
For his public the slogan of the moment is not "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics For a New Era". It is the far simpler "awesome China" in red and gold on banners, bicycle wheels and social media posts.
Few would deny that China is awesome. But exactly how is in the eye of the beholder. For many Chinese patriots, "awesome China" signals pride. For many outsiders it means admiration. But for others there's an undercurrent of ambivalence and even fear.


The only certainty is that none will be untouched by China in Mr Xi's New Era.

Massive Russian nuclear war games reported in Arctic - Asian Times

Massive Russian nuclear war games reported in Arctic
Submarines, bombers and mobile launchers involved
By ASIA UNHEDGED
Russia, in a little-noticed move, has carried out a barrage of missile tests across its Arctic territories in what’s described as one of the most massive nuclear missile drills in post-Soviet history.
The Independent Barents Observer reports that Russia’s military fired four ballistic missiles, two in each direction, across the Arctic hemisphere on Thursday evening. The exercises are the latest in what Scandinavian analysts say is a noticeable rise in Russian military activity in a region whose economic importance is growing due to global warming.
The Norway-based news website says two missiles were launched from a Pacific Fleet submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk towards the Chizha test range on the Kanin Peninsula in Arkhangelsk. A Northern Fleet submarine, in another test, is said to have launched another ballistic missile from the Barents Sea. This missile reportedly hit a target in the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East.
A Topol ballistic missile was also launched the same day from Plesetsk in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region, reportedly streaking across the Arctic before its dummy warhead hit a target at the Kura test range in northern Kamchatka Krai in the Russian Far East
Long-range Russian Tu-160 and Tu-95 strategic bombers, as well as Tu-22M bombers are also said to have tested cruise missiles in Kamchatka in the Far East and in Kazakhstan in Central Asia.
Russia’s Defense Ministry acknowledged the tests and said that all were completed successfully.


Russia has accelerated a military buildup in its Arctic region over the last several years. The activity includes the construction of new Arctic bases and the deployment of specialized Arctic military units and equipment, including helicopters, icebreakers and armored vehicles. Moscow is also reportedly developing a new class of nuclear-powered destroyers that can protect its Northern Sea Route.

Waning US influence in Asia on display ahead of Trump visit - Asia Times

Waning US influence in Asia on display ahead of Trump visit
Philippines reserves praise for China, Russia as US defense chief visits
By ASIA UNHEDGED OCTOBER 27, 2017
US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ arrival in the Philippines on Monday could have been an opportunity to showcase America’s importance in the region. But, as NPR writes, the Philippines had somthing else in mind.
Shortly after Mattis’ arrival, In an announcement hailing the end to Manila’s campaign against the ISIS-inspired insurgency in Marawi, Philippine Defense Minister Delfin Negrillo Lorenza decided not to mention Washington’s support for the campaign. Manila’s praise was reserved for Russia and China, both of which provided arms that the Obama administration had withheld due to concerns about Duterte’s drug war.
While the weapons from Beijing and Moscow are insignificant in comparison to the military ties between Washington and Manila, for Duterte it is a way to remind the US that it cannot take its close ties with the Philippines for granted.
In related news, the Washington Post reported that President Trump will not attend the East Asia Summit held in the Philippines on November 14, though Trump will be in the country on the 12th and 13th.
The Philstar confirmed that a bilateral meeting between Trump and Duterte is being arranged for while Trump is there.