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THE MCCAIN NEGATIVE WORDCLOUDWords Not in McCain’s Tech Policy | blog |social network | collaboration | hyperlink | democracy | google | wikipedia | open access | open source | standards | gnu | linux | | BitTorrent | anonymity | facebook | wiki | free speech | games | comcast | media concentration | media | lolcats |

Even if we ignore the cultural, social, and democratic aspects of the Net, even if we consider the Net to be nothing but a way to move content to “consumers” (his word), McCain still gets it wrong. There’s nothing in his policy about encouraging the free flow of ideas. Instead, when McCain thinks about ideas, he thinks about how to increase the walls around them by cracking down on “pirates” and ensuring ” fair rewards to intellectual property” (which, technically speaking, I think isn’t even English). Ideas and culture are, to John McCain, business commodities. He totally misses the dramatic and startling success of the Web in generating new value via open access to ideas and cultural products. The two candidates’ visions of the Internet could not be clearer. We can have a national LAN designed first and foremost to benefit business, and delivered to passive consumers for whom the Net is a type of cable TV. Or, we can have an Internet that is of the people, by the people, for the people. Is it going to be our Internet or theirs?

“Senator McCain’s technology plan doesn’t put Americans first—it is a rehash of tax breaks and giveaways to the big corporations and their lobbyists who advise the McCain campaign. This plan won’t do enough for hardworking Americans who are still waiting for competitive and affordable broadband service at their homes and businesses. It won’t do enough to ensure a free and open Internet that guarantees freedom of speech. It won’t do anything to ensure that we use technology to bring transparency to government and free Washington from the grip of lobbyists and special interests. Senator McCain’s plan would continue George Bush’s neglect of this critical sector and relegate America’s communications infrastructure to second-class status. That’s not acceptable,” said William Kennard, Former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission.

Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress. Frontpage of sample CRS report, RL31555: China and Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Missiles: Policy Issues, dated January 7, 2009. A full listing of reports is available here.

The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to the financial collapse.

The Federation of American Scientists, in pushing for the reports to be made public, stated that the "CRS is Congress' Brain and it's useful for the public to be plugged into it,"[2]. While Wired magazine called their concealment "The biggest Congressional scandal of the digital age"[3]. Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO.

As I said, I'm all for information transparency and uncensored internet access. However a lasting progress in political reform comes from inside of a country, not from external pressure. Many Americans seem to believe in the external pressure they place on other countries; this might be a main cause of the problems with the US foreign policy. Looking at history – Americans have been in numerous countries trying to impose an order through external influence, how successful has this been?

Peter Scheer's effort to have WTO sanctions imposed based on Beijing's internet censorship, and the hearings that will be held tomorrow in Washington DC.

In an interview last week, Powell asserts that issues like Network Neutrality in Obama’s agenda are “in the weeds,” because “[a] lot of the FCC’s issues aren’t ‘president of the United States’ issues.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Reasonable minds can differ over the right policies to preserve the open Internet, promote next-generation broadband, safeguard online privacy, and create a connected digital democracy. Supporters of Obama (like me) can think he made a mistake in his handling of the FISA telecom immunity legislation (as I do). The absolute worst approach is to label these as insignificant technical matters that the President need not address. That’s been the mindset, with disastrous results, the past eight years. As chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, John McCain was exposed to a wide range of tech policy issues. On the other hand, he admits he’s “computer illiterate.” Ask yourself how you’d feel about working for a corporation where the CEO doesn’t know how to use a computer. No matter how smart, someone who can’t open a web page, type a letter on a word processor, or compose an email message, is going to be fundamentally out of touch with the daily experience of every member of the knowledge economy.

中国青年政治学院新闻与传播系主任展江昨日在接受本报采访时表示，这是胡锦涛第一次专门就媒体问题发表讲话，其精神与十七大报告一脉相承，既有中国官方对待媒体的传统观点，也有大量主张开放的元素。 胡锦涛与网友交流 　　展江认为，讲话“开放”最明显之处，就是提及“(媒体)要把体现党的主张和反映人民心声统一起来，把坚持正确导向和通达社情民意统一起来”，现在(导向)和表达民意的地位平等了”。 　　胡锦涛在讲话中专门提到媒体应当“通达社情民意、引导社会热点、疏导公众情绪”。展江认为，这样的表述加之前日胡锦涛与网民在线交流的行动，“实际上肯定了网络民意的合法性”，因为“现在的公众情绪在网络上体现得最为明显，胡锦涛用‘疏导’这样的词语，说明有一个充分尊重的前提。”

Reed Hundt also recalled that the initial plan — one he now thinks may have been naive — was that the U.S. would have total control of the Internet for “the first ten years of its existence,” so that the United States could “establish a paradigm that would win the war of ideas.” Europe, he hoped, would then follow the U.S. lead in Internet-related regulation.

Mr. Hundt, who now works for consultancy McKinsey and frequently contributes to the popular blog Talking Points Memo, is an ardent supporter of Barack Obama and has been advising the Senator and newly- annointed Democratic nominee,  on technology and telecommunications policy. He will be debating Bush 43’s FCC chair, Michael Powell, on June 10 — one of the early proxy battles between Obama and McCain, where the technology policies advocated by the two candidates will be on display.

We hear that Tibetans suffer “demographic aggression” and “cultural genocide”. But we do not hear those terms applied to Spanish and French policies toward the Basque minority. We do not hear those terms applied to the US annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898. And Diego Garcia? In 1973, not so long ago, the UK forcibly deported the entire native Chagossian population from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. People were allowed one suitcase of clothing. Nothing else. Family pets were gassed, then cremated. Complete ethnic cleansing. Complete cultural destruction. Why? In order to build a big US air base. It has been used to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, and soon maybe to bomb Iran and Pakistan. Diego Garcia, with nobody there but Brits and Americans, is also a perfect place for rendition, torture and other illegal actions.

The Chinese Context The Chinese government is responsible for the well-being and security of one-fourth of humanity. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated, not even when done by Buddhist monks. Chinese Civilization was already old when the Egyptians began building pyramids. But the last 200 years have not gone well, what with two Opium Wars forcing China to import drugs, and Europeans seizing coastal ports as a step to complete colonial control, then the Boxer Rebellion, the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, civil war, a brutal invasion and occupation by Japan, more civil war, then Communist consolidation and transformation of society, then Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Such events caused tens of millions of people to die. Thus, China’s recent history has good reasons why social order is a higher priority than individual rights. Race riots and rebellion cannot be tolerated. Considering this context, China’s treatment of its minorities has been exemplary compared to what the Western world has done to its minorities. After thousands of years of Chinese dominance, there still are more than 50 minorities in China. After a few hundred years of European dominance in North and South America, the original minority cultures have been exterminated, damaged, or diminished.

China’s one-child-policy seems oppressive to Westerners, but it has not applied to minorities, only to the Han Chinese. Tibetans can have as many children as they choose. If Han people have more than one child, they are punished. There is a similar preference given to minorities when it comes to admission to universities. For example, Tibetan students enter China’s elite Peking University with lower exam scores than Han Chinese students. China is not a perfect nation, but on matters of minority rights, it has been better than most Western nations. And China achieved this in the historical context of restoring itself and recovering from 200 years of continual crisis and foreign invasion.

The Candidates on U.S. Policy toward China

The firm’s founder, Yan “Jane” Wang Jia, is an IT legend and former beauty queen who has parlayed her business success into political power. Referred to as the “Mother of the Great Firewall of China” by several Chinese IT Web sites, she sits on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which guides political policy in all areas of government and society.


The most interesting thesis is the idea that China could use international law as a weapon, or “lawfare” for short. The authors argue that citizens of democracies increasingly demand that their countries uphold international rules, particularly ones that govern human rights and the conduct of war. Governments are, therefore, constrained by regional or worldwide organizations, such as the European Union, ASEAN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the WTO and the United Nations. The authors argue that China should copy the European model of using international law to pin down the USA: “there are far-sighted big powers which have clearly already begun to borrow the power of supra-national, multinational, and non-state players to redouble and expand their own influence.” They think that China could turn the United Nations and regional organizations into an amplifier of the Chinese worldview – discouraging the USA from using its might in campaigns like the Iraq War.

Beijing has been willing to allow the Organization of Islamic States to take the lead in weakening the new Human Rights Council. This subtle diplomacy has been devastatingly effective – contributing to a massive fall in US influence: in 1995 the USA won 50.6 percent of the votes in the United Nations general assembly; by 2006, the figure had fallen to just 23.6 percent. On human rights, the results are even more dramatic: China’s win-rate has rocketed from 43 percent to 82 percent, while the USA’s has tumbled from 57 per cent to 22 percent. The New York Times’ UN correspondent James Traub has detected a paradigm shift in the United Nations’ operations: “it’s a truism that the Security Council can function only insofar as the United States lets it. The adage may soon be applied to China as well.” Traub may be right. China’s capacity to influence the United Nations is increasing, and soon we may be complaining about Chinese behavior on big policy issues

Q: Is China an ally or an adversary?A: They're neither. The fact of the matter is, though, they hold the mortgage on our house. This administration, in order to fund a war that shouldn't be being fought and tax cuts that weren't needed for the wealthy--we're now in debt almost a trillion dollars to China. We better end that war, cut those taxes, reduce the deficit and make sure that they no longer own the mortgage on our home.

How would you balance human rights and trade with China? A: I've been pushing, on the Foreign Relations Committee for the last seven years, that we hold China accountable at the United Nations. At the UN, we won't even designate China as a violator of human rights. Now, what's the deal there? We talk about competition in terms of trade. It's capitulation, not competition. Name me another country in the world that we would allow to conduct themselves the way China has, and not call them on the carpet at the UNQ: So you would call them on th carpet?A: Absolutely. Q: You would appoint a UN ambassador who would press for this?A: It's the one way to get China to reform. You can't close your eyes. You can't pretend. It is self-defeating. It's a Hobson's choice we're giving people here.

The fact that the Chinese people think the world loves China helps explain why it is so difficult to persuade Beijing to address human rights and other issues. The Chinese people, after all, see no need for changes to improve the country's image. In contrast, polls have shown that Americans are aware that the United States' image overseas has been badly damaged in recent years, and there is widespread agreement that work must be done to improve that image. In China, the Communist Party controls most of the information to which people have access, and that information does not include material showing how unpopular the country has become.

The people in developed countries who think it was a mistake to award the Olympics to Beijing (43 percent of Americans, vs. 41 percent who told Pew it was the correct decision) are less likely to watch.

Three in four Chinese think the world likes China, while only one in 10 thinks foreigners don't like the country. More than 80 percent believe China takes other countries' interests into account when formulating foreign policy. Just 3 percent think China's economic growth has a negative effect on other countries. Only 1 percent knew a lot about the recall of Chinese products for quality and safety reasons. if ( show_doubleclick_ad && ( adTemplate & INLINE_ARTICLE_AD ) == INLINE_ARTICLE_AD && inlineAdGraf ) { placeAd('ARTICLE',commercialNode,20,'inline=y;',true) ; } Pew's Global Attitudes Survey of public opinion in 24 countries, released in June, makes clear that international opinion toward China is very different from what people in China think it is.

A new piece of information that I have to add at what I have already seen at the other sites, that no one else has covered, is that I recently was sitting in a clients office when their HR person gave us some bad news Anyone born after 1983 can no longer get a Z visa. What struck me about this was that if true this would represent the first real change in policy. After all, working on an F visa was always outside the rules, and even extending a Z visa to rep office employees was a poorly enforced rule… but but restricting Z visas to those older than 25… THAT IS NEW Surely, if true, we are going to see a bunc of China bashing, but where I would like to frame this is that when there were economic downturns in Asia circa 1997 and the US circa 2000, there was almost an immediate visa restriction that came along with it. Leadership looked to save jobs for citizens, and those firms who wanted to import labor had to jump a lot of hurdles to prove that doing so was a last report… .that they could not find someone locally.

When you moved into Taiwan's media market, some people saw it as a vote of no confidence against Hong Kong.You're suggesting it was an insurance policy? That was the intention. I couldn't go to the United States and say: "Can you protect me?" Nobody would care. But I knew Beijing was thinking very much about Taiwan, and that they don't want bad press there. So we built the Taiwan business as leverage. If they do anything to us, our Taiwanese readers will know what happened. And Beijing knows that [should they move against us] we will do everything we can to make them pay on Taiwan.

Some experts argue that China does not intend to Westernize or liberalize, but only to modernize. Do you think people in China understand what democracy is and want it?Not at this moment. But anyone who would differentiate between Westernization and modernization is just talking rubbish. Take out the western culture and what else is modern? Nothing. The technology is Western, the trendy culture is Western, all this modernization is Westernization. China is prosperous today because it deals and interacts with the West. No, democracy isn't on normal people's radars yet. China will be open to it only when the economic cycle turns down. And when that happens, China will be in chaos. How so? In other countries, when there is a recession, you have churches, temples, charities, NGOs, civic organizations, unions and other institutions reaching out to help each other. They are shock absorbers. In China, you don't have any of this. Organizations that are not governmental are not allowed. In China, you have two pillars: the market and the government. If the market fails, the government will be dragged down because there is nothing in the middle.

How so? In other countries, when there is a recession, you have churches, temples, charities, NGOs, civic organizations, unions and other institutions reaching out to help each other. They are shock absorbers. In China, you don't have any of this. Organizations that are not governmental are not allowed. In China, you have two pillars: the market and the government. If the market fails, the government will be dragged down because there is nothing in the middle.

Close to 7,000 schools were destroyed in southwestern Sichuan province by Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake, which struck in the afternoon when many students were in class or taking their daily naps.

It is commonly argued that growing economic ties tend to create common interests that will reduce tension between nations (see FT's Alphaville). The enormous amount China has lent to the US -- a total that the US data (which tends to underestimate Chinese holdings) now puts above $1 trillion -- will, according to this view, prevent other sources of conflict from getting out of hand. Alas, relations between creditors and debtors are rarely quite so free of tension. Creditors want to get paid back in full. Debtors would rather pay back at little as possible. Mei Xinyu, a senior researcher under the Chinese commerce ministry writing in a personal capacity for the Shanghai Daily, argues that China needs to put pressure on the US at the Strategic Economic Dialogue to do more defend the dollar. With the dollar at 1.60 against the euro, it isn't hard to see why. Mei goes on to argue that if the US doesn't do more to defend the dollar, it is effectively defaulting on China.

Mei's complaint, in other words, should be directed in part at China's own policy makers. When they bought long-term US dollar-denominated debt they took the risk that the dollar would depreciate over time. They effectively gave the US the option to pay China back in depreciated dollars. What's more, they didn't charge a premium for the option. That was China's own choice. China wanted to keep the RMB down even if that meant over-paying for US assets.

China, for complicated reasons, has decided to lend to the US in US dollars and to lend to Europe in euros and pounds. China's European lending - incidentally -- could prove to be as risky as lending to the US in dollars; SAFE and the CIC are really over paying for euros.

观光传播局原来是台北市新闻处，羊晓东为首任局长（这个机构调整的思路最早就是在小马任内提出的）。台北代表团此行去北京迎娶熊猫，作为选后台湾“名正言顺”派往北京的第一个“使团”，客人们毫无疑问会受到热烈款待。既然是聊非政治的熊猫议题，正在焦头烂额的绿营想必也无心非议了。

据悉，首批获得牌照的视频网站约十家，其中除激动网、优度宽频、光线传媒三家民营视频网站外，其余均为国资背景。值得注意的是，此次牌照获得者，以视频点播形式为主，广为关注的视频分享网站土豆、优酷等未在此列。

千瓦顾问咨询有限公司总经理张隽表示，首批获批名单出炉，并不代表管理部门向视频分享类网站关闭了政策大门。“包括土豆网在内的多数分享视频网站，成立不过两三年，未到申请时限。另外，管理层颁发牌照的初衷，是希望行业健康发展，并不想看到行业优秀企业进入死胡同。”

3月中旬，广电总局对包括土豆网在内的32家视频网站，作出警告处罚，并叫停了25家网站经营视频业务的资格。

Those who think inflation is caused by too little pork rather than too much money are wrong.”

As a result, China and the Gulf are importing a very expansionary US monetary policy at a time when their economies are growing rapidly and inflation rates are picking up.

The US slowdown and associated series of rate cuts have just made the cost of dollar pegs a lot more visible now