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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (37497)	8/27/2003 3:42:41 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

And in response I offer this intriguing little article I found on A19 of the Washington Post this morning, which seems to confirm that China would eventually recognize that Kim Jong Il was dragging Bejing down a path which was not in their national interest: As Talks Begin, China Views North Korea as Risk By John Pomfret Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, August 27, 2003; Page A19 BEIJING, Aug. 27 (Wednesday) -- In the six-nation talks that began here today on the emerging nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, a key dynamic will be the one between China and North Korea. China's government once saw North Korea as a strategic buffer and a friendly communist economy. But Beijing increasingly views Pyongyang and its apparent desire to develop a nuclear weapon as a risk, and officials have all but pleaded with the government of Kim Jong Il to begin reforming the country's moribund economy. Whereas the Chinese once looked at North Korea and saw themselves in the mirror, now businessmen and scholars traveling to North Korea say they feel they have entered a time machine and been transported back to the China of the 1960s. "We used to say we were as close to our North Korean brothers as lips and teeth," said Cui Xiaodong, a Beijing trader who routinely spends months at a time in a hotel in Pyongyang. "But now it's like those people are living on the moon." China and North Korea are still technically allies. China lost 1 million men while fighting for the North in the Korean War. But decades of economic reforms in China and exposure to unprecedented freedoms and Western ideas have turned Chinese society away from the hard-line Stalinism still pursued by North Korea. Although China initially appeared to ignore the crisis, sparked by North Korea's announcement in October that it had a nuclear program, it began to take a more active role this year, starting with Deputy Premier Qian Qichen's trip to Pyongyang in February. Following the collapse of talks involving the United States, North Korea and China in April, Beijing redoubled its efforts, resulting in the three days of meetings scheduled this week among diplomats from South Korea, Russia and Japan, as well as North Korea, China and the United States. No one expects immediate success. Wang Yi, a vice foreign minister who has been the point man for the talks, told China's state-run media Tuesday that he expected the talks would be difficult. "The nuclear issue is very complicated and acute, and it is impossible to solve all problems through one or two discussions. Moreover, other issues may arise during negotiations," Wang said in an interview on state-run TV. Government-backed scholars in Beijing now speak of regime change in North Korea in hopeful terms. The People's Liberation Army, once a staunch ally of the mercurial Kim family, which has run North Korea for more than five decades, now has elaborate plans to deal with the country in case of its collapse, Chinese military sources said. Some Chinese academics have started arguing that North Korea's disappearance would actually not be harmful to China's long-term interests. In one unpublished paper, a specialist on Chinese security, Shi Yinhong, wrote that China could benefit in the long term from North Korea's collapse. South Korea, which would take over, would naturally gravitate toward Beijing and away from Japan and the United States, he wrote. U.S. troops would leave the peninsula and China's influence over northeast Asia would rise. In reports on the North, Chinese officials and scholars have described a bizarre country where no common citizens talked to them and where signs of the sacrifice made by China's troops 50 years ago were wiped from official memory. One leading academic, who returned last week from North Korea and shared his report on condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a desperate country full of people too afraid to talk with, or even have their pictures taken by, a foreigner. One evening, the academic shook free of what he called his ubiquitous government "shepherd" and went to look for normal life in Pyongyang. "I went to the national library," he wrote. "I walked close to a girl who was reading an English book. The pages resembled toilet paper from China 30 years ago. I was deeply moved by her diligence so I greeted her in English. She pretended not to hear me." The academic and other Chinese guests were taken to Panmunjom, the site of the cease-fire that ended the Korean War. Among the signatories that day was Peng Dehuai, the commander of Chinese forces in North Korea. At Panmunjom, the Chinese group asked to visit a small museum on the war. "There were many pictures, documents and real objects of the war led by the ever victorious Gen. Kim Il Sung," the academic wrote. "However, we found nothing about the Chinese volunteer soldiers or Gen. Peng Dehuai." The only bright spot in his trip, the academic wrote, was a change in North Korean thinking. "Thoughts of earning money have found their way deep into the hearts of the North Korean people," he wrote. © 2003 The Washington Post Company ******************************* And of course the Chinese see themselves playing the point men in the economic rehabilitation of N. Korea... Strangely, that might see N. Korea recognizing that reapproachment with the US and S. Korea is their only hope to fend off China.. And I found the recent Russian naval "exercises" extremely interesting, as well... It would seem that all nations recognize that Bush wasn't going to be goaded into bi-lateral relations. It sent a message that Bush wouldn't be responsible for the repercussions that might arise to China and Russia's economy and borders, should they not assist in bringing Kim Jong Il to heel.. But there are lots of eggs thrown up in the air right now, which is exactly what should happening.. The key is to insure that we catch them all without breaking any.. A bi-lateral approach would have only returned everyone back to the previous, precarious, status quo.. Sure, it's a "crisis" but isn't the Chinese symbol for that word equally defined as both danger and opportunity? Hawk

To: TobagoJack who wrote (37497)	8/27/2003 5:52:20 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Jay G372 vs Q410, gloat, gloat, with North Korea about to combine with South Korea in CDMA2000 phragmented photon paradise as per your and my Machiavellian estimations. Japan and China are both rapidly filling with that amazing harmonic synchronicity too, as is India [having just ordered another million or two handsets from Samsung]. Not to mention the USA. A century ago, my grandfather was colonizing Dalian, holidaying in Korea and trying to enrich the region with oil. Foolishly, they threw him out and the Japanese came marauding. A century of poverty and war ensnared the region, with guns still drawn and noocular weapons of mass destruction being seriously talked about and even built. Those things do not make people happier. I shall disarm their fevered brains with the magical cyberphone light sabres of peace, light, harmony, happiness, health, prosperity, longevity, fun and love, bringing them into the 21st century. I hope this time they don't reject my tender loving care and the gengki dama I'm offering them. Notice how the aggressive Americans are seeing their dollar decline while people fearfully hide clutching their Aztec totem against the turmoil, but most of all, people are joining the Q. <N.Korea: Beijing, get off the bus, or I will let loose a refugee flood on you, and when I get really pissed off, I will launch against you.> But I thought China built a Great Wall of China for the specific purpose of avoiding such an onslaught or people from the north. Meanwhile, I'm off to golf at Waitakere, where lots of Koreans are now playing. They seem to have slipped around the Great Wall and the Great Ocean and bingo, here they are. They are very polite, nice people, though they tend to be the ones chopping divots and leaving them for somebody else to repair. I suppose they have servants in Korea or something, so are unaquainted with our peculiar cultural norms here. Their cash flow has certainly helped improve the course quality, but on the other hand, where 4 years ago we had a beautiful Shangrila valley to ourselves, with wood pigeons, fantails, rosellas, tui, rabbits, streams and forests surrounding us, now we have people in front and behind [well, fairly often]. It's still quite nice. However, it's a different planet from this beautiful place, thebridgesrsf.com where I was invited to play by a creator of the first CDMA ASIC. We have only the lush music of nature - Rancho Sante Fe is quite dry. I see that if I'm quick, I can join The Bridges [apply anyway - they'd probably decline my application] for only $325,000 membership fee before it goes up to $350,000. It's tempting. My annual membership here is US$300 [midweek playing only]. I'm not sure if they also have a monthly fee at The Bridges. The toilet was the best I have ever seen. All sorts of cosmetics, shaving equipment and anything one could imagine wanting in the bathroom. Now, I think of the poor in Bombay, in the rain, dark and muddy potholed roads, with mosquitoes and ramshackle slum sheds for houses. A surrealistic sight, which happily improved by day. Somewhat. It still baffles my mind that this state of affairs can still continue after so many thousands of years of effort by all to improve their lot. However, with the advent of CDMA2000 and the demise of the Aztec totem representing a zero-sum game of territoriality and conquest, hierarchy and wealth by confiscation and possession, fraught with population overload, fear and hunger, I expect to see the surrealistic picture transform to idyllic bliss. The world will fill to the strains of beautiful music. Harmony. Peace, fun and love. Meanwhile, I'm off to golf among the music of nature while Koreans north and south, Americans, Japanese and Chinese, seek harmony and nirvana. I think they'll find it. You know where. It's not in heavy metals, whether uranium, plutonium, platinum or gold. Hint = Qommmmmmmmmmmmmm..... Noblesse oblige, Mqurice PS: To help the process, there is a little half Korean, half Canadian boy called Tarken, named after our oldest, who is named after Tarkan, the son of Sezgin Burak, late of Istanbul. Little friends of all the world. As you know, the chasing of girls bears no shame and recognizes no boundaries.