Malaysia’s ex-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who supposedly retired completely from politics and took up a completely legitimate position in state-owned disappointment car company, attacks former henchwoman, Rafidah Aziz, who is now heading the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

The main crux of the issue is that Mahathir feels that the government is opening up the industry to foreign competitors thus crushing his pet project slowly. Read also from Paul Tan.

UPDATE: Forgot to link to this too - Jeff Ooi’s analysis on how the media is handling Mahathir’s press conference. I almost pity the mainstream media here, so confused about which side to support.

A sexual revolution is unfolding in the hermit kingdom, with the result being an increase in the number of North Korean army babes.:

In the past, it was considered ideal for women to get married around the age of 25 (as it used to be in Japan), and single women at the age of 30 were considered losers in the matrimonial sweepstakes. But the changing role of women in society around the world seems to have had an impact in North Korea, too, despite its relative isolation. Interviews with recent defectors reveal the women in that country are getting fed up with the men. By tradition, Korean women were supposed to unconditionally obey and respect their husbands, but that’s going by the wayside now, as it has most everywhere else. North Korean divorce laws and procedures are said to be complicated, and even repeated physical abuse is not grounds for divorce.

The ministry says that as a result, greater numbers of women are instead joining the army and using that as a springboard for membership in the Korean Workers’ Party (the only party in town), just as membership applications from the men are declining. The overall total of women in the army is estimated to have reached 15%

In non-adjusted terms, India is the top target for terrorists, Sepia Mutiny notes:

Harper’s magazine, July 2005, reports a horrific statistic: 44% of fatal or wounding terrorist attacks last year took place in India, only 32% in Iraq. Israel isn’t even close, nor Sri Lanka. But with the prevalence of large car bombs in Iraq, that country may have a higher body count. Macabre, I know, but sometime it’s to our benefit that India’s still a handicraft country.
Keeping that in mind, six terrorists were killed in Ayodhya today after storming the infamous temple complex with assault rifles and grenades.

Nitin’s 16th weekly blogside view of the Indian economy is up.
.

Interesting…

In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. The husband’s lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired.

The recently noted exodus of prostitutes from South Korea, following the domestic crackdown on the sex industry, is not without a dark side. Reports from CSR Asia and the Asian Sex Gazette remind us that prostitutes (even ones who voluntarily enter the trade) are easily exploited.

In February, it emerged that an organization sold 38 women to brothels in Australia, New Zealand and Canada in conditions of virtual bonded labor. Police say the organization would advance the women millions of won they had to pay back at 60 percent interest and forced them to pay medical expenses for diseases contracted on the job. The women had to sign up to a "code of conduct" that fined them US$300 for arguing with customers and US$50 for showing up a minute late to work.

Here is an excerpt from Billmon’s post today on the China syndrome:

But there really are some things that money can’t buy, and a group
of congressmen in the grips of a xenophobic frenzy is one of them. When
the House passed a nonbinding resolution last Thursday accusing Cnooc
of being a front for the evil Dr. Fu Manchu (well, not in so many
words, but that was the gist) it was by a vote of 398 to 15 — proving
that when it comes to pandering to fear and paranoia, bipartisanship
still lives.

Regular readers know I’m no fan of the state capitalists
in power in Beijing. But the anti-Chinese rhetoric now filling the
Capitol dome with hot air doesn’t have anything to do with anything
that matters — at least, not to anyone who isn’t a Chevron or Unocal
shareholder.

The number of American jobs conceivably at risk in the Unocal deal
is trivial. Blocking it wouldn’t stop the flood of sweatshop and/or
slaveshop goods entering the United States. It wouldn’t free Tibet, or
force Beijing to lift a finger to respect the U.N. Declaration of Human
Rights. And it wouldn’t do squat to resolve the huge and growing
financial imbalances created by China’s stubborn insistence on pegging
its currency to the dollar. It could even make them more dangerous — as we shall see.

It’s completely insane (or utterly craven, or both) to obsess over
the $18.5 billion purchase of a second-tier oil company, when China is
buying up roughly that same amount in U.S. Treasury and agency
securities every quarter. China’s stockpile
of Treasuries ($235 billion at the end of April) already equals almost
12% of all U.S. debt in foreign hands, and is growing nearly twice as
fast as the global total. And that’s using the Treasury’s own figures, which probably undercount.
Add in securities held through third parties, such as offshore banks,
and China could easily be holding close to $300 billion in America’s
national debt — second only to Japan. And unlike Japan, nearly all of
China’s Treasury holdings are in the hands of the Chinese government.

If the dipsticks in Congress really had national security
threats on their minds, they’d probably be worrying about that one –
not the risk that ownership of Unocal might allow China to tamper with
the U.S. oil supply in time of war. If that nightmarish scenario ever
were to unfold, the problem of seizing and securing Unocal’s
energy-producing assets would be trivial compared to the havoc that war
would create in the global financial markets and the U.S. economy.

Go read the whole thing.

A new indigenous television network is going live in Taiwan:

Aboriginal groups have often felt marginalised by mainstream society. But they hope the new 24-hour television channel - iTV or the Indigenous Television Network - will be a chance for others to hear their voice, both at home and overseas.
The station will collaborate with other indigenous television networks around the world, including those in the US and Canada.
The channel shows a mix of news, entertainment, and
documentaries, giving the island’s aboriginals their own access to the
mainstream media for the first time."There’s a diversity of cultures in Taiwan," said Walis
Peilin, who heads the Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples, and
is a member of the Tayal tribe.
"The indigenous people of Taiwan should also have the
right to access the power of the media and pass on our unique culture
and languages."
"But we hope all different groups in Taiwan can support this station, and respect different ideas and each other," he said.

(more…)

A prostitute’s biography has exposed links between authorities in India’s Kerala state and the sex trade. Link via Asian Sex Gazette (article worksafe, but porn ads on site).:

Fifty-one-year-old Nalini Jameela’s autobiography exposes like never before how deeply politicians and senior officials in the "progressive" state - which tops welfare and literacy charts - are involved in a flourishing sex racket.
It was at the state’s cultural capital of Thrissur that a 25-year-old Nalini was initiated into prostitution.
A police jeep had taken her and friend Rosa, a veteran in the trade by then, to Ramanilayam - a government guest house and political beehive - to serve a senior police officer and a politician.

While this doesn’t reflect well on India’s government, the expose does have a silver lining: Jameela’s book has smashed the sales record previously held by a ‘Marxist scholar’

At the Economist’s View, Mark Thoma looks at the increasingly bombastic rhetoric over CNOOC’s bid for Unocal. Piquing his interest is this quote from a Washington Post item:

… the quest for Unocal and other foreign companies is being construed by some as a sign of diversification.  "We invest too much in U.S. federal bonds, and they don’t make us much money," said Pan Rui, a professor at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "Now we’re learning to invest more wisely, to try to invest in American companies and industries."

Curzon has noticed yet another addition to Pyongyang’s finest comedic moments:

North Korea is very scary. Their rhetoric is very funny.

North Korea’s official media on Monday suggested Japan should be excluded from future multilateral talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program, which have been stalled since the last round was held in June last year.
“The nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula is not a matter for such an insincere and clumsy political dwarf as Japan to deal with,” the Minju Joson daily was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo.

Phatic Communion has today started a Monday China-watch page. It’s a welcome addition to a good blog. The initial post - an argument that China and Japan risk war over energy, nationalism and offshore energy resources - seems to be a touch over-the-top.

Even if Americans can’t stomach the idea of going to war over  resources, it would appear that China and Japan have another focus. Chinese citizens, already irate over Japanese revisionism  are treated to a barrage of nationalistic encomiums about China’s growing economic influence in the world, and oil is needed to run that engine. Japan fears the explosive growth in China’s economy. Japan continues to steam ahead on plans to drill in the East China Sea, angering China, and is losing to China in the search for oil abroad.
The East China Sea may become the tipping point between these two nations, and, if so, between China and Japan’s most ardent supporter, the U.S.

Rising tensions and nationalism over energy… certainly! But economic integration, the size of Japan’s self-defense force, and Japan’s pacifist constitution would likely deter any adventurism on either side.

Malaysia, the moderate Muslim nation, had one of its state’s Islamic enforcement forces raid the commune of a sect it considers “deviationist”, arresting 21 men. What did they do? Bomb a nightclub? Behead a Thai? Nope.

Muhammad Ramli said the police inspector was based in Perak. He said four of the followers would be charged under Section 14 (B) of the Syariah Criminal Offence Enactment (Takzir) 2001 for possessing documents which humiliated Islamic teachings. If convicted, they could be fined up to RM3,000 or jailed up to two years, or both.

They are still searching for its leader, Ayah Pin, who, after grabbing headlines at Malaysia’s best-selling English daily for the second day in a row, remains defiant. The last time, Ayah Pin made headlines for a teapot. Seriously.

Lisa points out an LA Times item on a slowdown in Dongguan.:

Is it the natural maturation of an industrial region, or signs of trouble ahead for China’s economic miracle? The Los Angeles Times reports today on the slow-down of growth in Dongguan, where thousands of foreign businessmen, mostly Taiwanese, had helped to create a Pearl River manufacturing export powerhouse:

This
year Dongguan’s minimum wage jumped more than 27%. Even with the
increase, employers are struggling with worker shortages. Government
inspectors are making the rounds at factories, enforcing work-hour
rules and pension contributions that officials paid little attention to
in the past. Electricity is in short supply, as is fuel.

These conditions, along with rising tensions with the West and Japan,
have led many Taiwanese businessmen to invest instead in places like
Vietnam.Moreover:  After four years of booming growth,
foreign direct investments into China have flattened this year. That
signals the waning of massive capital inflows, particularly in the
electronics sector, that followed China’s ascension to the World Trade
Organization in 2001.

Imagethief looks at the behavior of technology companies in China and feels betrayed.:

Where do you want to go today? asked Microsoft, suggesting that it could be anywhere you want, and never hinting that they might choose to keep some destinations off limits. Any time, any place, any device, they said, but not any word, they neglected to add.
Do no evil, lectured Google. The first line of their mission statement: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Universally accessible. That’s a nice idea. I wonder if it would work, now that we know Dan Gilmore was wrong all those years ago.
Our culture drives us to set high standards for corporate integrity and to give back by using our resources for a positive global impact, says Cisco, in explaining their corporate citizenship. But some parts of the globe are impacted more positively than others.
As a spin-doctor for technology companies I have written words like these myself. I, above all people, should be cynical about them. But I always carried that core of idealism with me. The Internet would be different, I thought to myself, and the people who had founded technology companies, many of them from my cohort, would somehow bring a different set of values than business had previously known. These were the companies of my generation. I had forgotten the core of greed and shallowness that lurked behind the technology industry’s evangelical mask in the terrible years of 1999 and 2000, when we all piously awaited the digital Rapture.
It was foolish, of course.

Jakartass reports that superheros are returning to Indonesia, lord knows the country needs them.:

"Gundala
wears a black costume, while Flash wears red. Flash moves as fast as
lightning while Gundala is only as fast as a typhoon, but he can fire
lightning while Flash cannot."\
"It
ended because I was lured by another comic project to depict the glory
of then president Soeharto. Me and some other artists and comic
creators in Yogyakarta thought we would be rich after the project,"
Hasmi said.

Jing at Those Who Dare offers a new assessment on whether China is a fascist state. The answer, probably, but the CPC aren’t the Nazis.:

Modern China, although an imperfect fit, does in most fashions classify as a nascent fascist state under Mussolini’s definitions, however whether or not this label has any significant relevance is unclear. For most people, fascism conjures the looming specter of Nazi Germany, yet of course there exists certain attributes that differentiates fascism from Nazism. History has shown the existence and surprising longevity of fascist and corporatist states that have been neither expansionist or particularly aggressive. Those axis powers that took up arms during World War 2 were all colonial powers and the conflict was in part still fueled by the residual legacy of the First World War. Other fascist states in both Europe and Latin American were neutral and uninvolved proving that the simple adulation of military prowess does not necessarily lead to the external exercise of it. If China is a fascist state, it is at present a relatively benign manifestation and not a particularly grave threat to the established liberal democratic order.

This is unexpected, the Malaysian government is setting up methadone, needle-exchange and condom-distribution programs to stop the spread of AIDS.

Local AIDS groups and the conservative Malaysian government, led by
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, an Islamic scholar, disagree.
While the government had rejected plans to distribute condoms or
needles, it now argued that dramatic steps were justified because the
AIDS problem had reached a critical level, health officials said.
"When the condition reaches an epidemic level, unconventional methods
are necessary," the health minister, Chua Soi Lek, said in an interview
Sunday. The government argues that the new policies do not violate
Islamic law because in cases of emergency, people can break rules to
survive.
About 15,000 children have already been made orphans by AIDS in
Malaysia, and the country is on the brink of an AIDS epidemic, the
World Health Organization has said.

While I’m open to debate on the efficacy of methadone therapy, that Badawi is willing to push ahead with this is a good sign - particularly as Malaysia’s ruling UMNO coalition was very recently trying to ‘out-Islam‘ the fundamentalist Pas opposition.

China has started court action against a dissident who, among other things, posted lyrics to a punk rock song on the internet. From Taiwan, POTS interviews the writer of those lyrics, Ao Bo, who - along with another member of the band Punk God - is now in exile in Sweden.

FOLLOWING A press release by the organization Human Rights in China
(HRIC) on Jun. 15, it was widely reported that Chinese dissident Zhang
Lin (張林) was being put on trial for subverting state power in China’s
Anhui Province, with evidence against him including lyrics from a punk
rock song he’d quoted on an essay published on the Internet.
Earlier
this week, Ao Bo (敖博), the writer of those lyrics and lead singer of
the band Punk God (盤古), contacted POTS, praising Zhang Lin as “a hero”
and commenting on the cited essay and his relationship with Zhang Lin.
The
essay in question, “Pangu – The Hysterical Ravings of the Chinese
People,” was singled out of the 192 Internet writings described in the
indictment handed down by the Bengbu municipal procuratorate on May 23
of this year, according to HRIC. The lyrics quoted were, “The Yellow
River should run dry, this society should collapse, this system should
be destroyed, this race should become extinct, this country should
perish.”

Simon points to an interview with Chen Xiwen, a vice-minister in charge of agriculture in China, who talks to the SCMP on riots in China. Simon’s full post is here, in which he responds to the vice minister’s main points and comments:

1. Village riots are a sign of democracy. Of
course in most democracies farmers or other aggrieved parties have
easier methods of expressing their problems, such as courts or the
media. In China, apparently, massed riots are the thing. Talk about
democracy with Chinese characteristics.
2. The central leadership quickly responds to farmers’ problems. Which
implies either the central leadership has no idea what’s going in the
countryside and is relying on those who defy the state’s own censors to
hear about it. Talk about communication with Chinese characteristics.
3. Mr Chen lauds the role of the internet and media in reporting on
riots because it allows the central government to respond as in point

2. So are we going to see a massive relaxation in censorship laws
anytime soon? Don’t hold your breath.
4. The protests are an inevitable consequence of the massive social and
economic changes taking place in China. I dare suggest it is just as
likely to be about incompetent and/or corrupt local authorities
fleecing farmers who have no form of redress.

The full SCMP article is reproduced by Howard French and ESWN has a translation of a sections of a Chinese-language version in the Hong Kong press.

Reportage on the threat of the new ‘imperialist China’ has spread to the UK, where the Pub Philsopher sees China’s moves into the Sudan and Zimbabwe (first link in item) as a new attempt to colonize Africa.:

At last,  someone writing in a British newspaper has mentioned China’s imperialist ventures in Africa.  Niall Ferguson,  in the Sunday Telegraph (you need to register but it’s free),  said:

Already, China is
making its presence felt both economically and strategically in - guess
where? - Africa. While Western journalists have been wringing their
hands impotently about the genocide being perpetrated in Darfur, the
Chinese government has done a deal with the Sudanese government to
exploit that country’s oilfields. That says it all. While we indulge
our Victorian urge to give alms to the Africans, Beijing is pumping
black gold.

I’m not a overt hawk on China. Its moves into Africa are nothing more than a resource grab and are ’strategically’ no more a threat to the west than any other investment. They are also no more imperialist than any foreign investment by any country anywhere.
Still, the CPC’s collaboration with Mugabe, the genocidal regime in Sudan and similar moves in Uzbekistan do nothing for the CPC’s attempts at making itself appear a responsible member of the international community. My worry is not that rogue states are falling under Beijing’s sphere of influence. It is the converse.
What we have is a permanent Security Council member that is quickly becoming more and more beholden to the demands of an array of third-world despots, each of whom are even more  tyrannical than the CPC.

A provocative item by Conagher78 argues against US involvement in a cross-strait conflict between China and Taiwan.:

And as far as alliances go, why not try harder to see to it that China
becomes an ally? The twin prongs of a ready defense (of which I am
still in favor regarding China and everyone else) and engagement were
sufficient to end the Soviets … is it no longer good enough to
encourage freedom and democracy in China? Are conservatives ready to
shrug off the lessons we learned from Ronald Reagan before his body is
even cold? In any event, do we not still have plenty of military assets
in Japan and South Korea? Japan has always been the knife at China’s
belly. The edge is razor sharp thanks to America’s presence on the
island. Sacrificing American lives to retain a position on the island
of Taiwan, so far from the political heart of China in Beijing, is
scarcely worth it.

Some interesting points are raised in the full item. However, while I think an attack on Taiwan by China is highly unlikely, US ambiguity on whether it would defend the island has long been a bulwark against any Chinese attack. I can’t imagine a Chinese assault on Taipei anytime soon - if ever - but a clear statement that the US would NOT defend Taiwan would surely increase risks to the island.

Beyond that, defending Taiwan would be defending democracy. I believe that, more than strategic interests, is the driver of the current US’ alliances with both Taiwan and Israel. That may not be strategically sound, but it is morally correct. If the US is to play a role in unification, it should be - above all - to assure that the democratic gains of Taiwan are respected.

Also at the site, a good fisking of Bill Gertz hyperbolic rantings on China’s imperialist ambitions.

Michael Turton and David at Jujuflop rebut an item posted by ESWN on the weekend. The article scores a few hits, but is negligent in its omission of any KMT responsibility, David argues:

The basic premise ‘The government of Taiwan is MIA’ is actually painfully true. Literally speaking it’s true (one of the 5 branches of government has been inactive for 5 months now), and pragmatically speaking it’s also pretty true (there has been such a deadlock between the KMT-controlled legislature and the DPP-controlled executive that a record low number of pieces of legislation have been passed). This deadlock, caused by an inability of the Greens and Blues to find any middle ground goes to the core of the political problem in Taiwan. However, because it’s a murky issue (with blame on both sides), it doesn’t fit in to the anti-DPP screed which ESWN reproduced.
How can anyone start a paragraph with the sentence The “old ten great projects” included items such as the CKS airport, and not follow up with an analysis of the built-in nepotism of those projects (which were started by CKS’s son)? I doubt the writer noticed the irony. I don’t think anyone would dispute that those ten projects were very beneficial to Taiwan’s development - but you’d have to be incredibly naive to think they didn’t benefit those in power (and their friends) more. Of course, the level of public scrutiny of projects started while the country was under martial law compared to the new projects (started in a fully democratic society) is incomparable.

I am adding a new category to AsiaPundit; "Riot watch."

Reports of rioting in China are not new and I would have a hard time arguing that they are increasing - given that such events were more likely to go unreported in the past. However, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that the reasons for the riots are becoming more diverse.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a riot reportedly caused by an attempt by traffic police to do their jobs. On Saturday there was news of rioting college students protesting high tuition fees and bad cafeteria food. This is on top of the continuing reports of riots by farmers and rural residents.