World View: China Condemns Romney for 'Cold War Mentality'

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:

• Angola sends 37 Chinese gangsters back to China
• Angola’s Chinese-built ghost town
• Germany’s Angela Merkel tries to halt anti-Greece panic
• China condemns Mitt Romney’s ‘Cold War mentality’

Angola sends 37 Chinese gangsters back to China

Angola has extradited 37 Chinese “gangsters” back to China, accused ofextortion, human trafficking, kidnappings, armed robberies and runningprostitution rings. After hearing for most of my life about “the uglyAmericans,” it’s now the turn of the Chinese to be ugly. There aresome 250,000 Chinese migrants working on various construction jobs indifferent countries, according to a BBC report that I heard. Theydon’t mingle much with the local population, so they lead very lonelylives, and they need to be “serviced” (the BBC commentator’s word)with such things as prostitution and gambling. There’s already a lotof organized crime in China itself, and it’s followed the Chineseconstruction workers to Africa. The 37 extradited Chinese are chargedwith various crimes. They allegedly targeted other Chinese,kidnapping businessmen for ransom and sometimes burying victims alive.They lured women to Angola, promising well-paid jobs, but then forcedthem into prostitution. China Daily and BBC

Angola’s Chinese-built ghost town

Just as China’s organized crime is following the Chinese workers toAfrica, so is China’s real estate bubble-induced ghost cities.Kilamba is one of several new ghost cities being built by Chineseconstruction firms around Angola. It spans 5000 hectares (12,355acres), it consists of 750 eight-story apartment buildings, a dozenschools and more than 100 retail units. It was designed to house upto half a million people when complete, but the apartments cost$120-200,000, while the average Angolan earns less than $2 per day.So the apartments are almost all empty and likely to remain so.BBC

Germany’s Angela Merkel tries to halt anti-Greece panic

September is expected to be a crucial month in the euro crisis.Greece has already had two bailouts, and now a third one is beingdiscussed. Over the summer most people realized that that won’t beenough, and in fact that nothing will be enough, and so it’s becomingincreasingly discussed, especially in Germany, that Greece shouldleave the eurozone, and go back to the drachma currency. It’s notthat everyone wants this to happen; it’s that the politicians andbankers are coming to believe that it’s a smaller disaster than thealternative of trying to keep on bailing out Greece.On Sunday, German Chancellor 

Angela Merkel tried to quell thegrowing panic by emphatically stating that Greece must remainin the eurozone: “We are in a very decisive phase in combating the eurodebt crisis. My plea is that everyone weigh their words verycarefully.”

This was two days after Greece’s prime minister Antonis Samaras said: “Toxic statements, from wherever they come, can onlydo damage. Is there any businessman who will make an investmentin euros to get it back in drachmas? The recovery of the economyis of critical importance if we are to achieve ourgoals.”

However, Merkel also said that Greece will not get any further bailoutmoney unless it sticks to its austerity commitments, while Samaras isbegging for a two-year delay in the austerity measures, something thatwould require an additional 22 billion euros in bailout money. So, infact, the two leaders are about as far apart as they can be at thispoint.

There’s been relatively little news about the euro crisis recentlybecause everyone in Europe is on vacation in August. But that shouldbe changing soon, as the crisis enters what Merkel calls a “decisivephase.” . Bloomberg and Deutsche Welle

China condemns Mitt Romney’s ‘Cold War mentality’

According to China’s state-sponsored China Daily: 

By any standard, the US Republican presidentialcandidate Mitt Romney’s China policy, as outlined on his officialcampaign website, is an outdated manifestation of a Cold Warmentality.

It endorses the “China threat” theory and focuses on containingChina’s rise in the Asia-Pacific through bolstering the robust USmilitary presence in the region.

And by stating that the US “should be coordinating with Taiwan todetermine its military needs and supplying them with adequateaircraft and other military platforms”, the Republican challengerhas also gone so far as to provoke China over its sovereignty ofthe island.

So here we have a nation, China, which for well over a decade has beenpreparing a massive military buildup for an attack on the UnitedStates, which has been developing long-range missiles specificallydesigned to attack American cities, which has developed ananti-carrier missile specifically designed to destroy Americanaircraft carriers, which has threatened all of its neighbors in theAsia-Pacific and central Asia with vast military threats designed toconfiscate their land (Hitler’s Lebensraum policy). But every timeanyone points out this massive military buildup, or China’s obviousintention to launch a nuclear missile attack on the United States,they’re called a “war monger” with a Cold War mentality. Be preparedfor peace in our time. China Daily

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