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Coming Soon from CounterPunch Books Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order! Today's Stories April 5, 2005 Gary Leupp Bombing the Malwayia Minaret   April 4, 2005 Kevin Zeese Liberals and Neocons for a Draft Paul Craig Roberts American Rot: When Opposing Voices Do Not Oppose Larry Birns / Sarah Schaffer Bush's Arms Sales Hypocrisy Karyn Strickler Blood on Ice: Seal Pup Slaughter on the St. Lawrence Joshua Frank The Minuteman Project: Paramilitaries on the Border Michael Dickinson It's Too Late Now for John Paul II to Repent Surendra R. Devkota Ending the Deadlock in Nepal Derrick O'Keefe Haiti, Yesterday and Today: an Interview with Laura Flynn Uri Avnery Djinn in the Box Website of the Day Libby, Montana: America's Most Toxic Town?   April 2 / 3, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Death, Depression and Prozac Jeffrey St. Clair Trippwired Stan Goff A Trojan Jackass for the Anti-War Movement John Ross How to Change the World Without Taking Power Saul Landau Guns, Vitamins and God Robert Creeley Goodbye Mike Roselle Riding Shotgun with Woody Harrelson Joshua Frank Dead Wrong Intelligence Fred Gardner The Obvious Green Issue Greg Moses Photo ID Movement as White Privilege Fran Quigley The Economics of Global Poverty: an Interview with Jeffrey Sachs Kurt Nimmo The Strange Allure of Paul Wolfowitz Nicole Colson Pentagon Greenlights Murder in Iraq Chris Genovali Killing Grizzlies for Fun Alan Farago Dirty Water and Land Speculators in the Florida Keys Lawrence Reichard The M-19 and the Siege of Bogota Ben Tripp Civilization and War Avantika Regmi Chaos in Nepal Lee Sustar Off the Script in Kyrgyzstan Ron Jacobs Death of a Revolutionary: Vermont Loses an Honest Man Dave Lindorff The Black Arrow: a Review Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Curtis, Louise, Engel and Albert Website of the Day O2 Collective: No Breathing Tube Required     April 1, 2005 Tom Barry Michael Chertoff: Legal Storm Trooper Rahul Mahajan WMD Commission: Yet Another Intelligence Failure Charlie Cray / Jim Vallette Dancing with Wolfowitz Dave Lindorff News Media Anguish Over Schiavo's Death Zeynep Toufe The Terri Schiavo Success Story Suzan Mazur Pension Funds and the Price of Oil Michael Dickinson Shut Your Mouth or Go to Prison! Stan Cox Iraq Reconstruction Funds Invested on Wall Street Ra Ravishankar Et Tu, George? Daniel Wolff Patti Scialfa's Conversation with America   March 31, 2005 Sharon Smith Leftwing Apologists for the Occupation Ron Jacobs Rounding Out Iraq's History Tariq Ali British Elections: Punish the Warmongers Michael Dickinson Cartoon Capers: Turkey's War on Political Cartoonists Kanak Mani Dixit The Struggle for Nepal's Future Mitchell Zimmerman The Bizarre Legal Philosophy of Justice Janice Rogers Brown Xuan-Trang Ho Guatemala and CAFTA: Return to the Bad Old Days? Dave Zirin Pay the Damn Players! Joe Bageant In Praise of Holy Madness Jeff Halper The End of a Viable Palestinian State Website of the Day Free Nepal     March 30, 2005 Gary Leupp Curing Those People of Their Hatred: Condi's Pitch for a "Different Kind" of Middle East Ralph Nader / Kevin Zeese Report on Iraq Intelligence Failure: No One to Blame Chase Madar Wolfowitz's Career Move: From Failed Warrior to Humanitarian Banker Toni Solo Bush in Latin America Jackie Corr Blessed are the Rich: George Bush's Montana Visit Ahmad Faruqui Much Ado About F-16s Mike Roselle Refuting Dave Foreman: Days of Whine and Posers Jude Wanniski America's Gunboat Diplomacy Francis A. Boyle Why You Should Boo Illinois Jeffrey St. Clair Downwinders be Damned Website of the Day Help! Nicaraguan Workers Are Being Poisoned   March 29, 2005 Ralph Nader Is the End of the Iraq War / Occupation Near? Gary Leupp Terri Schiavo's Death and the Birth of an "Elected" Iraqi Government Sonia Cardenas A Pandora's Box of Abuses: the Geneva Trap Stew Albert Take Back the Life Force! Mark Weisbrot Owning Up to the "Ownership Society" Dave Lindorff China's Report on Human Rights in US is No Cariacture Carl G. Estabrook The Subversive Commandments     March 28, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Sgrena Sets the Record Straight: "There was No Checkpoint; No Self-Defense" Sonali Kolhatkar Forgetting Afghanistan...Again Sasha Kramer The UN's Betrayal of Haiti Kevin Zeese Don't Just Blame the Democrats Tom Stephens Sacred Law; Traditional Wisdom: Environmental Justice and Indigenous Peoples Dr. Teresa Whitehurst We're Walking Into a Trap Newton Garver Reflections on Bolivia Paul Craig Roberts A Bail Out Draft for a Cakewalk War? Website of the Day Stumped? Ask a Librarian, 24/7     March 26 / 27, 2005 Gary Leupp God's Imperialists Peter Linebaugh To Render, to Impeach, to Habeas Corpus Marc Robert A European Student's Experience at Columbia University Laura Carlsen The Threesome in Crawford: Summit as Traveling Stage Show Saul Landau / Puja Patel The Price of Privatized "Development" Dave Foreman Nature's Crisis Fred Gardner Will San Francisco Pander to the Prohibitionists? Jennifer Matsui Terri Schiavo: America's Most Desperate Housewife? Dave Lindorff Provoking Iran Dharma Adhikari The Reversal of Democracy in Nepal Joshua Frank The Howard Dean Doctrine Patrick Barr Have Box Cutter, Will Travel: a True Story Christopher Brauchli F-16s to Pakistan Ramzy Baroud Israel's Record is "Not Reassuring" Jackie Corr When the Gov. of Montana Declared Martial Law in Butte Ben Tripp Off with Your Appurtenances! Dr. Susan Block Break a Taboo for Easter: Springtime for Sex and God Mickey Z. How Three Unrelated Books Relate Justin Taylor Beware of "Beware of God" Richard Joseph Cochabamba!: the Water War in Bolivia Poets' Basement Martin, Smith, Ford, Bortz and Albert     March 25, 2005 Scott Richard Lyons Horror and Hope at Red Lake Nation Yoshie Furuhashi No Troops; No Wars Pat Williams How a Town Got Poisoned: Libby, MT and the Labor Movement Mark Engler Remembering Archbishop Romero: 25 Years After His Assassination Rahul Mahajan Culture of Life or Culture of Living Death? Lance Selfa Can the Democrats be Moved to the Left? Ralph Nader Corporate Cyborg: Cal Nurses Take on Schwarzenegger John R. Llewellyn Why Utah's Prosecutors are Soft on Polygamy: a Former Sheriff Speaks Out Jo Guldi Beyond Belief: Holy Week in France   March 24, 2005 Joshua Frank The Selling (Out) of the Antiwar Movement Talli Nauman Vicente and George: Security by Any Other Name Would Smell Sweeter Martin Espada Why I Refused Coke's Money: a Poet Speaks Out About Colombia Dave Lindorff Another Social Security Snow Job Elaine Cassel When Fools Rush In: the Legal Implications of the Schiavo Case Jack McCarthy Jeb Bush's Mob: Snatch, Grab, Insert Tube Jack Random Juxtaposition: Terri Schiavo and the Red Lake Massacre Barbara Ferguson Wolfowitz Dating Muslim Woman and World Bank Employee Suzan Mazur Peak Oil: Debate or Vendetta? Dorreen Yellow Bird Suffering Red Lake Nation Endures the Worst of Days Andrew Wimmer and Mark Chmiel Torture: Old Hat or Open Wound?   March 23, 2005 Patrick Bond A New War? On Wolfowitz's World Bank Mike Whitney Railroading Moussaoui Becky White Why I Hung from a Bridge to Defend the Wild Forests of the Siskiyou Mountains Michael Donnelly Dissecting the Changeling: How the AuCoin Express Was Really Derailed Niranjan Ramakrishnan Remembering Ram Manohar Lohia: the Che of Non-Violence Ashley Smith Bush is What Hypocrisy Looks Like David Swanson The More Bush Talks, the Less Popular Privatization Becomes Derrick O'Keefe Enter Bono, Stage Right Paul A. Moore The Fire This Time: the Bush Bros. Racist Crackdown in Florida Dalton Walker My Reservation Will Never Be the Same Patrick Cockburn The US Frees Iraqi Kidnappers to Become Spies     March 22, 2005 William Blum Anti-Empire Report: Democracy--or is it the US Military--on the March Jim Vallette Cheney's Oil Change at the World Bank Greg Moses A Palm Sunday Chat with Sis Levin John Farley Bush's Culture of Life: Let the Insurance Companies Pull the Plug When the Sick Cost Too Much Ron Jacobs Halt the Anniversary Rallies and Stop the Damn War M. Junaid Alam How the Democratic Party Fosters Conservatism Rep. Cynthia McKinney An Immoral and Illegal War: Destroying Iraq Isn't Enough for Them Dave Lindorff "Saving" Schiavo; Killing the News James Petras Fateful Quadrangle: Cuba and Venezuela Face Off Against the US and Colombia     March 21, 2005 John Walsh In the Bars on the Road to Fayettevile: War Support Paper Thin Werther The Legacy of George Kennan, Chief Architect of the Cold War Mike Stark Where is the "Culture of Life" in Maryland? Time is Running Out for Vernon Evans David Swanson Feeding Tubes for the Third World: Put the Hungry into Comas, Then Feed Them! James T. Phillips Happy Meals: Behind the Grill at a Baltimore Diner Mike Ferner Serving, Refusing, Impeaching Robert Jensen The World Waits for an Answer Paul Craig Roberts A Threat Greater Than Terrorism Stew Albert Vegetable Nation Website of the Day American Press Blotter: Jacko, Terry and Steroids vs. the World     March 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Three-Card Monte and the One-Party State Tom Reeves Exposing the Coming Draft: a Draft by Any Other Name is Still Wrong Saul Landau The Grandchildren of Roy Cohn: the Politics of the Repressed Alan Maass Making Bankruptcy a Life Sentence Ron Jacobs Submit or Else: the Nuclear Demon that Won't Go Awayy David Green The Holocaust Industry Comes to the University of Illinois John Blair Hey, Dick! I'm Still Free: a Blow for Freedom of Speech in Indiana Steve Greenfield The Decline of the Green Party: the Numbers are In Ben Tripp Nature isn't Real Mike Roselle A History of White People in the Conservation Movement Joshua Frank Hope in Red State America: Lessons from the Big Sky Country Mark Weisbrot The World Bank: a Bigger Problem Than Wolfowitz Dave Lindorff Congress on Steroids Sarah Schaffer Lula's Nukes: Bush Bullies Iran, Ignores Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions Warren Hastings Why the Queen Should Chop Off Tony Blair's Head for Treason Poets' Basement Lodge, Albert. Landau, Engel, Davies, Capaccio   March 18, 2005 Dave Zirin The Congressional Urine Testers: Baseball's Theater of the Absurd Richard Thieme The Church Committee Candidate: I was a Victim of the KGB John Walsh Misdirecting the Anti-War Movement David Swanson Hunger Striking for a Living Wage at Georgetown Ben Terrall In the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Confronting Caterpillar in San Leandro David Boyle Just Say "No" to Harvard Dorreen Yellow Bird Coping with Teen Suicide on the Standing Rock Reservation Mokhiber / Weissman Global Bully Goes to Guatemala Greg Moses They Don't Shoot Donkeys...Do They? Website of the Day 800 Protests: Find One Near You   March 17, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Rendered Unto Caesar: the Etymology of Torture Bill Quigley The St. Patrick's Four and the Resistance to the War in Iraq Brian Cloughley Bush's Herds: Willing to Kick Anyone in the Face Gary Bass / Adam Hughes Inside the Bush Budget: Rhetoric vs. Reality Dave Lindorff The Incredible Shrinking Coalition Jude Wanniski Wolfowitz at the World Bank: a Perfect Fit Alexander Billet Irish Republicanism at the Crossroads John Ross Wal-Mart Invades Mexico Website of the Day Campus Resistance   March 16, 2005 Ralph Nader Filling the Congressional Cop-Out Gap: an Idea for Local Peace Activists William Cook Resurrecting the Neo-Con Failures Kevin Zeese Two Years of Occupation: Both US and Iraq are Worse Off Jackie Corr Why is Dick Cheney Laughing? The New Tax Cut Patriotism Alan Maass Bush's Class War Budget David R. Kolker Jailed Without Charges in Haiti Cindy Ellen Hill Speculative Policing in Northern Ireland Paul Craig Roberts America's Has-Been Economy     March 15, 2005 Gary Leupp The Plan is Still on Track Dave Lindorff Free John Walker Lindh! Greg Moses The Fix-It Guys and Their Electoral Filters Hadas Their / Katrina Yeaw Military Recruiters Target Campus Activists Alison Weir Uprising on the Anniversary of Rachel Corrie's Death Matt Koehler A Line in the Ancient Forest: 50 Arrested in Blockade to Save the Siskiyous Evelyn Pringle Labeling Kids Mentally Ill for Profit Harry Browne War and Peace in Ireland     March 14, 2005 Ralph Nader Restarting the Anti-War Movement David Miller Ministry of Defence in the Control Booth: Did the BBC Broadcast Fake News Reports? Stan Cox Look Deeper, Mr. Moyers Mike Roselle Why Women Should Take Over the Environmental Movement David Swanson Nursing Against the Odds: the Workers' View Simona Sharoni To End the War, Listen to Soldiers Dave Lindorff Corporate Surveillance Dorreen Yellow Bird Incidents at Standing Rock: Suicide on the Reservation Tom Barry John Bolton's Baggage Website of the Day Spinwatch     March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price The CIA's Campus Spies Noam Chomsky The Toothpaste Election Laura Carlsen Women's Rights Eroding in Latin America Stan Goff On Revolutionary Optimism: the View from Cumberland Co, NC Valentina Nicoli The Game of Role-Playing and the Ambush of Giuliana Sgrena Michael Leonardi Head Shot: Lifting the Veil on the Sgrena / Calipari Incident Saul Landau / Sarah Anderson Blood Money and the Riggs Bank: Pinochet's Bank Finally Pays Up Joe Bageant It Ain't Easy Being White Manuel García, Jr. The Question of American Guilt Greg Moses Electoral Lessons from Cuyahoga and Harris Counties James J. Brittain Run, Fight or Die in Colombia Ben Tripp Communist Watch Joshua Frank A Red State Paradox: Montana on the Cusp Fred Gardner Pesticides Made Her Sick; Pot Got Her Well Walter Brasch Bush's Horse Killers Ramzy Baroud Reining in Syria on Behalf of Israel Christopher Brauchli Going All the Way for Usurers Michael Donnelly The Humiliation of Les "Timber Toad" AuCoin Ron Jacobs ZAP Comics: Still Kicking US Culture in the Ass Richard Oxman The Eternal Reciprocity of Tears Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Davies, Ford, Louise and Albert   March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Targeting Giuliana Ron Jacobs Making Lebensraum in the Middle East for Tel Aviv's Fears & Washington's Dollars Dave Lindorff America's Magical Kingdom William James Martin Ben Gurion and the Origin of the "Pushing into the Sea" Myth Muqtedar Khan Modi's Operandi: American Business and Genocide Linked Again Kathryn Ledebur Bolivia on the Brink Mike Whitney Saddam's Capture: Just Another Bush Lie? Dave Zirin Neo-McCarthyism Slugs Baseball Website of the Day William Rivers Pitt, Another Hack for the Occupation     March 10, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts So Much for the New Bush Economy John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin and Ashley Smith Vermont Vs. the War Larry Birns The Pathological John Bolton Michael Donnelly The Re-Reinvention of an Oregon Timber Beast Luis Gomez In Bolivia, Reality Changes Once Again Jackie Corr Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund? Uri Avnery Bush's Guru: Natan Sharansky Website of the Day Red Alert in the Siskiyous!     March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Dirty Harry's Fear of Flying: Making Love, War and Profits at Boeing Ward Churchill Who's the Terrorist? Robert Fisk Another Species of Cedar: a Half Million Lebanese March for Syria Bernice Powell Jackson No Justice for America's Nuclear Guinea Pigs in the Marshall Islands Mickey Z. The Revolutionary of Potential Art Dave Zirin NHL Says: "Bring On the Scabs!" Michael Donnelly Standing Up to Ecocide in Oregon James Reiss Stopping by Words in Favor of Privatizing Social Security Vijay Prashad Get Modi: a State Terrorist Visits Florida   March 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Syrian Delusion Robert Fisk Lebanon's Nightmare Kurt Nimmo War is Peace: John Bolton to the UN Suzan Mazur Time for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Polygamy? Evelyn Pringle Neil Bush and Crest: Another Profiteering Scheme Giuliana Sgrena My Truth: "The Americans Don't Want You to Return" Elaine Cassel The Appalling Case of Abu Ali     March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Bloodlust in Annapolis: Gov. Ehrlich Wants to Kill Vernon Lee Evans Brian Cloughley More War Crimes John Chuckman The Creature Walks Among Us Mike Whitney Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments Mark Weisbrot Haiti's Torment: Why Are US Human Rights Groups Silent? Fred Gardner The Cannabinoid Messenger Richard Neville The Italian Job Uri Avnery The Next Crusades     March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Arnold vs. the Nurses Gary Leupp What's Happening in Lebanon: an Interview with Fadi Agha, Advisor to President Lahoud Ron Jacobs Lies Military Recruiters Tell Tom Reeves Haiti: One Year After the Coup Jenna Orkin Memories of Kawaggi, Saudi Arabia Tom Barry Negroponte: Intel Czar or Policy Hack? Joshua Frank The Trials of Max Baucus Moshe Adler When Pfizer Came to New London: Corporate Giveways vs. Eminent Domain Jane Stillwater My Jury Questionnaire: "Do You Agree that a Corporation is a Person?" Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline Sfeir Double Standards on S. Africa and Israel: an Open Letter to UNESCO Christopher Brauchli Target: Al Jazeera John Pilger The Fall of Saigon: 30 Years Later Raúl Zibechi Colombia: Militarism and Social Movements David Krieger Saving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Another Blow to the King of Nepal Bhishma Karki Nepal in Twilight Joseph Pietri Murder at the Palace Ben Tripp The Good Old Days Poets' Basement Hassen, Chief Running Late, Wuest, Albert and Collins Website of the Weekend O'Shaughnessy's: All About Medical Pot     March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson Caught in a Cage   March 3, 2005 Pat Williams "Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old" Brian Cloughley Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions Dave Lindorff Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan? Amira Hass Oslo All Over Again Greg Moses In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go? Lynne Landes Exit Poll Madness Nelson P. Valdés Rapture Takes Leftists John Ross Mexico's Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist   March 2, 2005 Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen The "Noble Liars" Attack Syria Mike Roselle The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental Dissent M. Junaid Alam Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism Suzan Mazur Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah Jackson Thoreau Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria" Michael Donnelly No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass Jeffrey St. Clair Uncle Bucky Makes a Killing Website of the Day The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey     March 1, 2005 Scott Richard Lyons Million Dollar Bigotry David Lindorff Stealing Workers' Pensions Patrick Cockburn / David Enders Bloodbath in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Last Poets Recalled Tanya Garcia USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security Joseph Pietri The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black Prince Kona Lowell Woody: Broken in Vietnam Paul Craig Roberts The Coming End of the American Superpower Website of the Day Petition: No US Intervention in Iran                                                     Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

April 5, 2005 US Economic Decline and the Rise of China Riding the Dragon, Soaring on the Eagle By DAN SMITH While they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings. Franklin D. Roosevelt Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Daniel Patrick Moynihan Once upon a time, creditors exacted "a pound of flesh" from those who, having borrowed money at high interest rates, found themselves unable to repay loans on time and in full. John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (EHM), appearing on PBS television's NOW on March 4, 2005, described a modern twist in this vicious circle at the level of nation-states. Since World War II, the United States has deliberately manipulated the economic and political life of developing countries to create a new global imperium based on massive indebtedness as the basis for exacting many pounds of flesh. Posing as a friendly expert, the EHM advises countries to contract with large U.S. companies to build massive projects financed by loans from international financial organizations, justifying the projects as critical for improving the lives of ordinary citizens. But the loans are so large and the interest rates so high that the money cannot be repaid, and common people's lives get more, not less, desperate. Opposition by individual elected officials in victimized countries can trigger "accidents" (assassinations), and collective rejection or default may trigger military action. According to Perkins, the price for self-preservation, both personal and national, is to fall in behind U.S. "leadership."   Economic Overstretch But this U.S. empire, built on enthralling debtor nations, may itself be in danger from economic overextension. While economists may opine learnedly about the significance (if any) of the U.S. federal debt for fiscal and monetary policy, many non-economist internationalists and ordinary citizens are convinced that the United States is increasingly vulnerable to the pressures and priorities of creditors who see the current administration as a heedless bull-in-a-china-shop recklessly threatening to destroy agreements and institutions that have helped stabilize international relations for several decades. At the risk of statistical numbing, it might be instructive to sample a few U.S. economic facts as documented by Congress and the Treasury Department: * Between January 2001 and July 2004, the portion of the U.S. debt privately held by foreigners rose from 30% to 42%. * Between September 2003 and September 2004, foreigners increased their holdings by $400 billion, from $1.46 trillion to $1.86 trillion-financing virtually the entire $422 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2004. * U.S. Treasury Department statistics through July 2004 reveal that five of the seven top foreign holders of U.S. obligations are Asian, with Japan ($696 billion) and China ($167 billion) in first and second place, respectively. (The other three in Asia, ranked five, six, and seven, are South Korea at $62 billion, Taiwan at $58 billion, and Hong Kong at $50 billion.) * Despite an overall increase in the value of foreign holdings for all of calendar year 2004, December saw a sharp monthly decline in foreign purchases of Treasury bonds and notes. Foreign Central Bank acquisitions nose-dived by two-thirds (from $21 billion to $7 billion) while private foreign purchases plummeted by nearly 75% (from $32.8 billion to $8.4 billion). * Japanese non-Central Bank holdings dropped $3.1 billion (from $714.9 to $711.8 billion) from November to December 2004. South Korea's portion registered a slight decrease. In contrast, the Chinese increased their total holdings by $2.7 billion (from $191.1 billion to $193.8 billion). * In late February 2005, South Korea's Central Bank revealed its intention to "diversify" by straying from the dollar to other currencies-undoubtedly the Euro, which has strengthened over the last few years. These economic realities are noteworthy, because excessive debt can act as a reverse "nuclear deterrent" for a large debtor. That is, a debtor's ability to initiate or avoid action on the global stage is constrained (less "elbow room"), because those who "own" the debt may have priorities that differ from those of the debtor nation, and the creditors may decide to use their economic position to advance their preferred policies or to thwart those of the debtor. When this impasse goes "critical" in the form of "vital national interests," the fallback position is either selective or general violence in an effort to regain-or at a minimum maintain-the debtor nation's empire. Legitimacy Crisis Economic woes in the form of a weak currency, ballooning debt, and unsustainably large trade deficits are not the only indicators of cracks in the empire's edifice. Another in a series of international polls-this one in December 2004-looked at the role of the United States and China in the world. Nearly 23,000 individuals in 22 countries in Asia (6), Europe (8), North and South America (6), the Middle East (1), and Africa (1) were interviewed. * In 14 countries, China is seen as a positive influence on world events by a plurality or majority-with the average across all countries standing at 48%. In contrast, the United States is viewed positively in only six countries and negatively in 15, with the averages being 38% and 4%, respectively. * Among its six regional neighbors, approval for China ranges from 70% in the Philippines to South Korea's 49%, with only Japan lagging at 22%. Significantly, of all of China's neighbors, only Japan (at 35%) registered less than majority support for a more economically powerful China. * Regarding military power, citizens in 17 of the 22 nations said a stronger China would not be a positive development-with the average negative response at 59%. Nonetheless, a clear majority in India (56%) viewed a stronger military role for China as a positive development. Negative responses from the remaining regional countries ranged from 79% in Australia to 46% in the Philippines. Equally interesting in light of the European Union's (EU)now-postponed plan to lift its embargo on arms sales to China, is that clear majorities in all five EU countries felt a militarily stronger China would be a negative development. Only Turkey, which has been trying for years to begin the process for EU membership, polled below 50% negative response to a more militarized China. Even those who dismiss "street" polls as mere venting of popular passions or reflections of government propaganda can find little solace in the reality of China's growing influence in Asia. China's Good Neighbor Policy The numerous regional agreements between China and its neighbors indicate that Beijing has succeeded in ameliorating the fears and suspicions of most countries. This is most apparent in China's relationship with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), both mainland and island states. * In November 2002, China and ASEAN concluded the Framework on Economic Cooperation, which, among other provisions, calls for a free-trade zone between China and the original six ASEAN states: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. * ASEAN and China initialed a "Strategic Partnership for Peace and Security" in October 2003, with China also acceding to the terms of ASEAN's "Treaty of Amity and Commerce." * November 2004 saw two important additional steps. One was an agreement to resolve trade disputes, and the second affirmed the intent of all parties to resolve quarrels concerning territory and jurisdiction in the South China Sea without "resorting to the threat or use of force." China has also been shoring up its north and northwestern fronts. The 1996 Shanghai Five (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan) agreement recognized China's drive for reunification (to fully incorporate Macao, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan), paved the way toward resolution of remaining international border disputes among the five, initiated a demilitarizing of common borders, and affirmed the principle of state sovereignty and noninterference in the internal affairs of each country. With the accession of Uzbekistan in 2001, the renamed Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) turned to regional economic arrangements and anti-terrorism concerns. With the declared intention of opposing "terrorism, extremism, and separatism," the SCO provides all six member countries a multinational platform for resisting U.S. calls for political liberalization and greater human rights. Interestingly, India and Pakistan have both signaled an interest in joining the SCO, a bid that current members seem hesitant to approve. Of the six SCO nations, China would have the most to gain from such an expansion, for it would frustrate, to some degree, U.S. attempts to erect a "containment ring" around China. For its part, Beijing is countering these U.S. moves with more active diplomacy in what many might consider U.S. "home turf." * On October 10, 2002, with all of the former Soviet Central Asian republics enrolled in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Partnership for Peace, China formally requested the opening of a "strategic dialogue" with NATO. (In NATO's June 2004 Istanbul summit, the alliance the alliance signaled a potentially closer relationship by declaring that Central Asia and the Caucasus were "strategically important regions.") * After years of effort and despite heavy U.S. pressure on the EU to maintain the ban, China seemed on the brink of persuading the European Union to lift the arms embargo imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. But with enactment of the anti-secession law codifying Beijing's threat to employ force should Taiwan take overt steps toward or declare independence, the EU decided to delay lifting the embargo for at least six months. * For its part, China had said it would not have tried to buy "expensive" and "obsolete" European arms, but U.S. analysts worry that China might get technology such as the EU's Galileo navigation satellite. Tellingly, Australia-the main regional "Western" country and a steadfast U.S. ally-never objected to the lifting of the EU embargo. Canberra wants more information on the EU arms trade "code of conduct" and asks to be notified of any sales by EU countries. (Australia lifted its own embargo in 1992 and is now negotiating terms for providing uranium ore to China's nuclear power industry.) Similarly, Israel and Russia, both of which have a history of military sales to China and imposed no post-Tiananmen embargos, never registered objections despite the sophisticated sales competition that the EU would represent. * China's first-ever deployment of uniformed personnel on a UN peacekeeping mission took place in 2004, when Beijing sent 1,000 riot police to Haiti. * International Business Machine Corp. has sold its personal computer division to the Chinese firm Lenovo Group Ltd., in which the Chinese government has a stake. The sale's finalization is subject to approval by Washington, which was finally given with some restrictions on access by non-U.S. personnel to collocated but unrelated high-tech projects. * In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on March 9, 2005, the head of the U.S. Southern Command noted that Chinese defense officials conducted 20 visits to Latin America and the Caribbean (prompting nine reciprocal visits to Beijing). Several of the visits were to the 11 countries whose U.S. military aid was stopped, because their governments refused to sign agreements that would exempt U.S. personnel from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.   North Korea and Taiwan But economics and world image are not the only areas of concern for Washington. There are also the seemingly intractable issues of North Korea and Taiwan, both of which involve the United States as a central protagonist. North Korea's nuclear weapons-anywhere from two to 15, depending on which U.S. intelligence agency is tallying-are not just a U.S. concern. But although Beijing does not want to see either North or South Korea (or an eventually reunited Korea) acquire a nuclear arsenal, it is not as beleaguered by the possibility as is Washington. In fact, Chinese officials have publicly questioned Washington's appraisal of Pyongyang's self-declared status as a nuclear weapons state. Regarding the North Korean "problem," China finds itself uniquely positioned as the only country genuinely able to mediate and facilitate discussions. But as the history of the "six-party talks" illustrates, Chinese envoys have been sorely tested just to keep the deliberations going. For example, on February 10, 2005, North Korea announced it was leaving the talks, which had not been held since August 2004 because of U.S. demands that the North completely dismantle its nuclear program as a precondition for more assistance. After a four-day visit by a senior Chinese government official, the North's leader, Kim Jong Il, was said to be willing to resume the six-party discussions, if Washington showed "trustworthy sincerity." Just what counts as "sincere" remains undefined, but Pyongyang's past demands include written assurance that Washington does not seek regime change, guaranteed aid (including fuel), and conclusion of a peace treaty officially ending the Korean War. U.S. military options are severely restricted by the ongoing war in Iraq, intelligence gaps regarding the location and vulnerability of North Korea's nuclear facilities, and the massive destruction that South Korea (especially Seoul) would sustain in either a preemptive or retaliatory military strike by the North. Nonetheless, rhetoric from the Bush administration aimed both at Kim Jong Il personally and at North Korea as a political entity-e.g., rogue state and "outpost of tyranny"-seems designed to keep the atmosphere roiling and to postpone the next meeting of the six parties indefinitely. Given Washington's approach to negotiations, Chinese leaders may soon interpret the Bush administration's endgame as keeping China's border with North Korea under persistent threat of large-scale migration, should Pyongyang suffer economic meltdown or go to war against the South. This would dovetail with Beijing's perception that many in Washington view China as the emergent great-power competitor that the United States will have to confront early in the 21st century. CIA Director Porter Goss was quite explicit on this theme when he stated that "Beijing's military modernization and military buildup is tilting the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait." Yet of the four modernizations that China is pursuing, military modernization is the lowest priority. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait That said, China does not shirk from the question of Taiwan and military force. With neither Beijing nor Washington blinking, a series of intertwining events over the last 13 months has perceptibly raised tensions in the Taiwan Strait. * In the run-up to the presidential election in March 2004, Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian promised to rewrite the island's Constitution and free it from the "fiction" of being labeled part of China. He also proposed to seek approval of a "process" for independence via a referendum-sidestepping the Constitution-and even placed referenda to carry out the process on the March ballot. Chen was narrowly re-elected; the referenda were not approved. Under U.S. pressure to tone down his rhetoric, Chen then backpedaled on independence in his May 20 inaugural address. * In July 2004, China, which had also castigated Chen during the Taiwan presidential race, conducted extensive military training in the Taiwan Strait while the U.S. exercise "Operation Summer Pulse 04" in the Pacific-a larger drill than usual-was under way. * In the run-up to the December 2004 Taiwanese legislative elections, Chen again promised to move ahead with a 2006 referendum on independence specifying a 2008 implementation date, if his party won the December poll. His party lost, but the fact that Chen had reopened the independence question was enough to spur the mainland Chinese to introduce an "anti-secessionist" law at their National People's Congress. * Beijing steadfastly insists that Taiwan and its status are internal concerns of the Chinese people, who need no "assistance" from other countries. The February 20, 2005 joint declaration by the Japanese foreign minister and the U.S. defense secretary that the state of affairs in the Taiwan Strait is a "common strategic objective" was an attack on the unified sovereignty of China, which both the United States and Japan have acceded to under the "one China" policy. * In addition to annual State Department funding of the American Institute of Taiwan-transparently an unofficial embassy-Washington reportedly plans to send military officers to Taiwan as official representatives of the Pentagon. * For years, many in Congress have advocated UN membership for Taiwan, though this status is granted only to legitimate national governments. On February 17, 2005, five members of the House of Representatives introduced legislation demanding that the Bush administration restore full and official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Such a move would embolden Chen Shui-bian, who so far has been dissuaded from declaring Taiwan's independence both by the better judgment of the Taiwanese people and by Beijing's insistence on the island's peaceful reunification with the rest of China. * Washington is trying to force Taiwan to accept and pay for $18 billion in new "defensive" weapons first authorized in April 2001. The adoption of the anti-secessionist law by the mainland's National People's Congress has energized debate in Taiwan's legislature over this U.S. aid package. Beijing reportedly believes that one aim of the Bush administration is to turn China and Japan against each other. But China is now Japan's number one trading partner, and China has opened its doors to Japanese investments. Japan also recognizes China's role in facilitating the six-party talks with North Korea over the latter's purported nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs. At the same time, Japan's expanding cooperation with the United States regarding ship-borne missile defense suggests that Tokyo's concerns over North Korean missiles have broadened to include the 700-800 missiles on China's mainland across from Taiwan. Moreover, the withdrawal of 12,500 U.S. troops from Korea, the repositioning of the remaining forces away from the Demilitarized Zone, statements by the U.S. Pacific Command that the troops left in Korea could be used regionally, and the twin possibilities that the combined UN command in Korea will be dissolved while the United States reconstitutes a corps headquarters in Japan all suggest a fundamental reorientation of Washington's attention in Asia away from the Korean peninsula. This policy shift is reminiscent of the perception drawn from Secretary of State Dean Acheson's January 1950 speech that Korea (and Taiwan) lay outside U.S. defense interests. Although such maneuvering will not tempt Beijing to challenge Washington militarily, China's growing economic and diplomatic presence on the world scene is engendering greater confidence among Chinese leaders. For example, U.S. criticism of China's human rights record was uncharacteristically reciprocated by a spokesperson for China's governing Cabinet who specifically cited accounts of prisoner abuse by U.S. military and civilian personnel at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the foreseeable future, China's economic position vis-à-vis the United States and its role in the North Korean nuclear talks remains key to U.S.-China relations. On the economic front, because China's rapid growth has been fueled by a large surplus of exports over imports in trade with the United States, Beijing is not expected to "pull the plug" on U.S. trade short of looming and inevitable armed conflict resulting from a clear Taiwanese declaration of de jure independence. Beijing would like to regain political control of Taiwan without a fight, and to that end China will continue to enmesh the island in a web of economic relations that Taipei will increasingly be loathe to sacrifice. Like all presidents ever since Richard Nixon "opened" China, George Bush has chosen, after initially hesitating, to try to ride the Chinese dragon--but with spurs on his boots. Having managed to climb on, he cannot get off without the risk of being thrown. For its part, China has decided to soar on the eagle to the sky's limit. Beijing believes that if it can hitch a ride while the eagle economically exhausts itself, China can at last preempt U.S. influence in Asia. As the old song says, "dragons live forever." Col. Daniel Smith, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, is Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public interest and a commentator for Foreign Policy in Focus. He can be reached at: dan@fcnl.org