East Asia: the new global hotspot?
Kim Jong-un’s North Korea may call for a ‘merciless, sacred, retaliatory war’ against the US imperialists and South Korean ‘puppet warmongers’ it blames for inching the Korean peninsula towards thermonuclear war. But China, despite distancing itself from its communist neighbour’s antics, also feels itself threatened by the US.
In the East and South China Seas, across the Pacific, and even in its relations with India, China feels encircled, whatever successes are achieved by its ‘String of Pearls’ strategy of alliances with countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Is it paranoia or imperialist ambitions that lead China to hack Pentagon computers and build up a carrier fleet? What should we make of Xi Jinping’s talk of his ‘strong-army dream’ and desire for ‘the great revival of the Chinese nation’?
Japanese military posturing over the Senkaku Islands has led its military ally America to call for restraint and cooler heads. But some see the US guarantee of Japan’s security as a potential trigger of world war – analogous to the interlocking alliances that precipitated World War I a hundred years ago. How accurate is it to see conflicts in the East and South China Seas, and nearby, through the lens of the tensions that broke out in 1914? Is Myanmar really a new Serbia? What about the dangers of border skirmishes between India and China? India and Pakistan? And has the friction really gone out of the relationship between China and Taiwan?
Is East Asia really the key cockpit for tomorrow’s major wars? Perhaps saner voices will prevail against the national resentments that characterise China, Japan, America and other states in the region. But what is the exact nature and strength of the different nationalisms at work there, anyway? Does Asia’s arms race reflect rivalry for natural resources, historical resentments, or the simple fact of China’s rise and America’s decline? Could hothead nationalism – whether Japanese, Chinese or North Korean – be the spark that ignites war in the east?
Speakers
Ben Chu economics editor, the Independent; author Chinese Whispers: why everything you’ve heard about China is wrong
Professor Steve Tsang director, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham
James Woudhuysen visiting professor, London South Bank University
Chair: Rob Lyons science and technology director, Academy of Ideas; convenor, IoI Economy Forum
Details in this Sunday Times article are extraordinary but unsurprising: Seems the PUBLIC are seen as a problematic threat to be managed/manipulated. Surely CPS impartiality is compromised by this decision? Read on...
1.6GW total from wind and solar this morning, from a total of ~45GW installed capacity. We're keeping the lights on by burning trees and gas. Nukes and reliance upon interconnectors making up the difference. No chance we can hit Net Zero grid by 2030.
“Mother Nature is in charge, and so we must make sure we adjust”.
Ex-cop Democratic Party mayor, indicted on federal bribery and corruption charges, supported by Trump and critical of antisemitism, tells people to tighten their... throats.
What a mess! https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/02/new-york-water-shortage?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Articles grouped by Tag
Bookmarks
Innovators I like
Robert Furchgott – discovered that nitric oxide transmits signals within the human body
Barry Marshall – showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is the cause of most peptic ulcers, reversing decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid
N Joseph Woodland – co-inventor of the barcode
Jocelyn Bell Burnell – she discovered the first radio pulsars
John Tyndall – the man who worked out why the sky was blue
Rosalind Franklin co-discovered the structure of DNA, with Crick and Watson
Rosalyn Sussman Yallow – development of radioimmunoassay (RIA), a method of quantifying minute amounts of biological substances in the body
Jonas Salk – discovery and development of the first successful polio vaccine
John Waterlow – discovered that lack of body potassium causes altitude sickness. First experiment: on himself
Werner Forssmann – the first man to insert a catheter into a human heart: his own
Bruce Bayer – scientist with Kodak whose invention of a colour filter array enabled digital imaging sensors to capture colour
Yuri Gagarin – first man in space. My piece of fandom: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/10421
Sir Godfrey Hounsfield – inventor, with Robert Ledley, of the CAT scanner
Martin Cooper – inventor of the mobile phone
George Devol – 'father of robotics’ who helped to revolutionise carmaking
Thomas Tuohy – Windscale manager who doused the flames of the 1957 fire
Eugene Polley – TV remote controls
0 comments