2 things

About this article.

  1. Why does every Al Jazeera article about China- or at least those connected in some way or another with ‘security’ (be it “public security” or “defence” or whatever)- have to accompanied by a photo of People’s Armed Police in or near Tiananmen Square? Serious question. I mean, what message are they trying to subtly insinuate into our consciousness of China?
  2. Take a look at the little box divvying up countries’ defence expenditure as a percentage of total global defence spending (figures attributed to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). America wins with a whopping 47.77%, UK comes a very, very, very distant second with 4.83%, France third with 4.61%, then 4.2% followed by China on 4.1%. Of course, these figures are not presented in numerical order, and there could be other countries that should be inserted in the gaps, but still: Do you see why I don’t take any American complaints about China’s defence spending even remotely seriously? Do you see why such complaints send my hypocrisy detector way off the scale and into rehab?
6 Comments on 2 thingsranting, tilting at windmills

About the Author

wangbo

wangbo

A Kiwi teaching English to oil workers in Beijing, studying Chinese in my spare time, married to a beautiful Beijing lass, consuming vast quantities of green tea (usually Xihu Longjing/西湖龙井, if that means anything to you), eating good food (except for when I cook), missing good Kiwi ale, breathing smog, generally living as best I can outside Godzone and having a good time of it.

6 thoughts on “2 things”

  1. Pingback: The Hegemon’s Prerogative « Like Cooking a Small Fish

  2. Appropros of your first point: Richard Spencer on the propagandistic nature of media coverage of the Chinese military and the propagandistic Chinese response to the Pentagon’s criticism of the spending increases — to wit, “publishing a report = interfering in another country’s repairs.” Jackasses all around.

  3. Repairs = affairs. The Chinese response is here. I’m reading the Pentagon report now, and it’s pretty bland laundry list stuff except for the part of the 24 character strategy of Deng Xiaoping, which is interesting.

  4. Cheers, Matthew. Haven’t had time today to explore these issues myself, trying to look up those links now. Your Richard Spencer link is giving me some “bad request” response, but I’ll have another go. Almost wish I didn’t open the China Daily link: The word ‘predictable’ springs to mind for whatever reason. Ah, finally got the Richard Spencer piece (I think)- if it’s his blog you were referring to, it was a good read, can’t say I disagree with any of his points. Coulda done without the comments, but his comment threads seem to be taking the Peking Duck route, unfortunately. The Telegraph article also makes for good reading. Spencer is rapidly becoming one of my favourite journobloggers.

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