Opinion | India’s Most Oppressed Get Their Revenge – By Meena Kandasamy – The New York Times

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The Bharatiya Janata Party’s rule came with an attack on Dalits and the minorities. Now Dalit leaders are fighting back to defeat the Hindu nationalists.

By Meena Kandasamy

Ms. Kandasamy is a poet and a novelist.

 Dalits, India’s most marginalized people, at a protest in New Delhi last August.CreditSajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Corruption scandals surrounding the Congress Party-led government, promises of inclusive growth and job creation, and calibrated anti-Muslim dog whistles helped Narendra Modi rise to power and become the prime minister of India in 2014.

And there was another factor: The Dalits, India’s most oppressed community, whom the Hindu caste system relegates to the lowest rung, doubled their votes for his Bharatiya Janata Party to 12 percent in 2014 from 6 percent in 2009.

To make up for centuries of violence, discrimination and lack of opportunity, India’s Constitution lays out that political parties can field only Dalit candidates for 84 out of 543 parliamentary seats in general elections. Five years earlier, Mr. Modi’s B.J.P. won 40 of the 84 seats reserved for the Dalits, sending the single largest contingent of Dalit lawmakers to the Parliament.

But neither increased Dalit votes nor the greater number of Dalit lawmakers within the B.J.P.’s ranks helped transform the party’s aggressive, casteist ideology. Mr. Modi’s rule has highlighted the antagonism between his party’s pandering to the dominant upper castes and the radicalism of Dalits fighting for the elimination of caste.”

Source: Opinion | India’s Most Oppressed Get Their Revenge – The New York Times

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Posted in: Bullies and Scoundrels, Civil Rights, India

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In China Some Fear the End of ‘Chimerica’ – The New York Times

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By Li Yuan

“Wu Shichun is one of countless Chinese entrepreneurs who over the past four decades have prospered from access to American customers and money.

Today, as the American government threatens to take that away, the serial entrepreneur and venture capital investor is fundamentally rethinking how he does business.

One of his portfolio companies designs and makes fashion products in China, then sells to American consumers on Amazon.com. Another, a vape device maker, sells most of its products in the United States. The third, which makes metal materials for electronic manufacturers, exports 40 percent of its production there. All three would be hit by new American tariffs.

“From now on I’ll have to invest in companies that focus on the Chinese market,” said Mr. Wu, 42.

“I hope China and the U.S. can find a better way to coexist,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be mutually destructive.””

Source: In China, Some Fear the End of ‘Chimerica’ – The New York Times

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Posted in: China, Trade and Trade Policy, United States

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How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.’s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks – The New York Times

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By Nicole Perlroth, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane

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“Chinese intelligence agents acquired National Security Agency hacking tools and repurposed them in 2016 to attack American allies and private companies in Europe and Asia, a leading cybersecurity firm has discovered. The episode is the latest evidence that the United States has lost control of key parts of its cybersecurity arsenal.

Based on the timing of the attacks and clues in the computer code, researchers with the firm Symantec believe the Chinese did not steal the code but captured it from an N.S.A. attack on their own computers — like a gunslinger who grabs an enemy’s rifle and starts blasting away.

The Chinese action shows how proliferating cyberconflict is creating a digital wild West with few rules or certainties, and how difficult it is for the United States to keep track of the malware it uses to break into foreign networks and attack adversaries’ infrastructure.

The losses have touched off a debate within the intelligence community over whether the United States should continue to develop some of the world’s most high-tech, stealthy cyberweapons if it is unable to keep them under lock and key.”

Source: How Chinese Spies Got the N.S.A.’s Hacking Tools, and Used Them for Attacks – The New York Times

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Posted in: China, Espionage & Soft Power

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Trump’s Trade War Threat Poses Problems for China and Investors – The New York Times

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By Keith Bradsher and Ana Swanson

“The prospect of a wider trade war between the United States and China sent global financial markets whipsawing on Monday and could force Beijing to make difficult decisions if it hopes to preserve its nascent economic recovery.

President Trump upended what appeared to be steady progress toward reaching a trade pact after he threatened on Sunday to impose still more tariffs on Chinese-made goods unless Beijing moves closer to a deal. Liu He, the Chinese vice premier overseeing economic policy and Beijing’s lead trade negotiator, had been set to travel to Washington for talks scheduled for Wednesday that were widely seen as the potential last round before reaching a trade deal.

Source: Trump’s Trade War Threat Poses Problems for China and Investors – The New York Times

David Lindsay:  Good piece. Here are two top comments I endorse.

Baltimore 16
Adrian MI

Please, if you must quote Mr. Trump’s tweets, immediately bracket them with corrective disclaimers. Tariffs ARE NOT paid to the US Treasury. They are paid by the consumer in the form of a higher purchase price, whether buying parts for assembly in the US or the finished goods. The costs are not directly borne by China, except the demand for Chinese products drops due to the increased price. I’m sure people read the tweets and assume it’s a statement of fact.

Concerned citizen commented 6 hours ago

Concerned citizen
Lake Frederick VA

As Trump manipulates the stock market with his comments, now is the time to investigate whether he or his friends are profiting from advance knowledge of his tweets

McGloin commented 6 hours ago

McGloin
Brooklyn
Times Pick

Trump does not understand how the Chinese think and does not understand how they keep winning. The main concern of the Chinese leadership is to avoid public embarrassment (“save face”). Trump thinks that publicly embarrassing them (“making them lose face”) is going to make them do what he wants them to do. It’s not going to work. The Chinese are telling him in negotiations (according to this article) that they will do what he wants, but it can’t be done through the legislature because it will be too embarrassing, so he publicly demands that it be done through the legislature. The Chinese don’t have a trade surplus because of tariffs. The Chinese have a trade surplus because they pick winners and they back them with public money, investing in new technologies, often stolen from America. If America invested in the technologies that we invented, like solar power, we would dominate the fields that we invented. But for decades, Republicans (and the centrist Democrats that compromise with them) have refused to “pick winners and losers,” letting the Chinese government pick winners, them, and losers, us. Notice none of this involves embarrassing public attacks on public officials. It is all done subtly. While the USA is spending trillions attacking countries around the world, the Chinese are quietly going around the world investing in third world countries, while the Party of Trump insists that investing in foreign countries is a waste of money. Learn from the Chinese

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Posted in: China, Trade and Trade Policy, Trade and Trade Policy

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Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’ – By Motoko Rich – The New York Times

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Motoko Rich

By Motoko Rich

日本語で読む

“There has been an emperor in Japan for more than 15 centuries, making the Chrysanthemum Throne the world’s oldest continuous monarchy. On Tuesday, the emperor stepped down, yielding to his eldest son in the first abdication in 200 years. This is the family’s story.

We know him as Akihito, the emperor of Japan, a gentle figure who championed peace in a nation devastated by war. But she called him Jimmy.

It was the autumn of 1946, a year after the end of the Second World War, and he was a 12-year-old boy, the crown prince of a defeated land, sitting in an unheated classroom on the outskirts of Tokyo. There, a new American teacher insisted on a more prosaic name for his highness. His father, the wartime emperor, Hirohito, had been revered as a god, but she made clear he never would be.

“In this class, your name is Jimmy,” declared the teacher, Elizabeth Gray Vining, a 44-year-old librarian and children’s book author from Philadelphia.

“No,” Akihito swiftly replied. “I am Prince.””

Source: Japan Would Make Akihito Emperor, but She Called Him ‘Jimmy’ – The New York Times

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Posted in: Japan, Life Leadership and Sprituality

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 – The New York Times

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In Ecuador, cameras across the country send footage to monitoring centers to be examined by police and domestic intelligence. The surveillance system’s origin: China.

By Paul Mozur, Jonah M. Kessel and Melissa Chan

QUITO, Ecuador — The squat gray building in Ecuador’s capital commands a sweeping view of the city’s sparkling sprawl, from the high-rises at the base of the Andean valley to the pastel neighborhoods that spill up its mountainsides.

The police who work inside are looking elsewhere. They spend their days poring over computer screens, watching footage that comes in from 4,300 cameras across the country.

The high-powered cameras send what they see to 16 monitoring centers in Ecuador that employ more than 3,000 people. Armed with joysticks, the police control the cameras and scan the streets for drug deals, muggings and murders. If they spy something, they zoom in.

This voyeur’s paradise is made with technology from what is fast becoming the global capital of surveillance: China.”

Source: Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State – The New York Times

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Posted in: Africa, China, Civil Rights, Intelligence, Law and Order, South America

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Opinion | The Richest Man in China Is Wrong. 12-Hour Days Are No ‘Blessing.’ – The New York Times

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Bryce Covert

By Bryce Covert

Contributing Opinion Writer

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CreditIrene Rinaldi

 

 “Jack Ma, the richest man in China and founder of the e-commerce company Alibaba, is a big fan of extreme overwork. He recently praised China’s “996” practice, so called because it refers to those who put in 12-hour days — 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. — six days a week. This “is not a problem,” he said in a recent blog post, instead calling it a “blessing.”

The response from others in China was swift. “If all enterprises enforce a 996 schedule, no one will have children,” one person argued on the same platform. “Did you ever think about the elderly at home who need care, the children who need company?” It even prompted a response from Chinese state media, which reminded everyone, “The mandatory enforcement of 996 overtime culture not only reflects the arrogance of business managers, but also is unfair and impractical.”

Managers who think like Mr. Ma can be found the world over. Here at home, Elon Musk, a co-founder of Tesla, has argued that “nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” Uber reportedly used to use the internal mantra “Work smarter, harder and longer.” (It’s now just “smarter” and “harder.”) The company has also rebranded second jobs as clever “side hustles.” WeWork decorates its co-working spaces with phrases like, “Don’t stop when you’re tired, stop when you are done.” Other tech and business gurus try to sell us on “toil glamour.” “

Source: Opinion | The Richest Man in China Is Wrong. 12-Hour Days Are No ‘Blessing.’ – The New York Times

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Posted in: Business and Finance, China, Civil Rights, Labor Relations

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China Experiences a Fracking Boom- and All the Problems That Go With It – The New York Times

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By Steven Lee Myers

“GAOSHAN, China — The first earthquake struck this small farming village in Sichuan Province before dawn on Feb. 24. There were two more the next day.

Sichuan is naturally prone to earthquakes, including a major one in 2008 that killed nearly 70,000 people, but to the rattled villagers of Gaoshan, the cause of these tremors was human-made.

“The drilling,” Yu Zhenghua said as she tearfully surveyed her damaged home, still officially uninhabitable five days later.

The drilling Ms. Yu referred to was hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The technology, which has revolutionized the production of natural gas and oil in the United States, has created a boom in China, too, and with it many of the controversies that have dogged the practice elsewhere.

In the hours after the quakes, thousands of residents converged outside the main government building in Rong County to protest widespread fracking in the rolling hills and valleys here now yellowing with the flowering of rapeseed.

A shale gas drilling station in Rong County. In the last decade, the China National Petroleum Corporation alone has invested $4 billion in fracking shale gas in the Sichuan Basin.CreditGilles Sabrie for The New York Times
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A shale gas drilling station in Rong County. In the last decade, the China National Petroleum Corporation alone has invested $4 billion in fracking shale gas in the Sichuan Basin.CreditGilles Sabrie for The New York Times

The protesters jostled with security guards along a sliding metal gate and dispersed only after officials announced they had suspended fracking operations of a regional subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, the country’s largest oil and gas producer.”

Source: China Experiences a Fracking Boom, and All the Problems That Go With It – The New York Times

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Posted in: Business and Finance, China, Climate Change, Environment

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Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Emulate WeChat. Can It? – By Li Yuan – The New York Times

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By Li Yuan

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“SAN FRANCISCO — As Mark Zuckerberg begins shifting Facebook to private messaging and away from public sharing and open conversations, the vision he has sketched out for the future of social networking already exists — just not in the United States.

Instead, it is a reality in China through a messaging app called WeChat.

Developed by the Chinese internet giant Tencent in 2011, WeChat lets people message each other via one-on-one texts, audio or video calls. Users can also form groups of as many as 500 people on WeChat to discuss and debate the issues of the day.

While Facebook users constantly see ads in their News Feeds, WeChat users only see one or two ads a day in their Moment feeds. That’s because WeChat isn’t dependent on advertising for making money. It has a mobile payments system that has been widely adopted in China, which allows people to shop, play games, pay utility bills and order meal deliveries all from within the app. WeChat gets a commission from many of these services.

“WeChat has shown definitively that private messaging, especially the small groups, is the future,” said Jeffrey Towson, a professor of investment at Peking University. “It is the uber utility of business and life. It has shown the path.” “

Source: Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Emulate WeChat. Can It? – The New York Times

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Posted in: China, Information Technology, Journalism, Media and Social Media

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Opinion | America the Cowardly Bully – By Paul Krugman – The New York Times

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Paul Krugman

By Paul Krugman

Opinion Columnist

Image.  President Trump’s trade belligerence has done lasting damage to America’s reputation.CreditCreditPete Marovich for The New York Times

“This is the way the trade war ends. Not with a bang but with empty bombast.

According to multiple news organizations, the U.S. and China are close to a deal that would effectively end trade hostilities. Under the reported deal, America would remove most of the tariffs it imposed last year. China, for its part, would end its retaliatory tariffs, make some changes to its investment and competition policies and direct state enterprises to buy specified amounts of U.S. agricultural and energy products.

The Trump administration will, of course, trumpet the deal as a triumph. In reality, however, it’s much ado about nothing much.

As described, the deal would do little to address real complaints about Chinese policy, which mainly involve China’s systematic expropriation of intellectual property. Nor would it do much to address Donald Trump’s pet although misguided peeve, the imbalance in U.S.-China trade. Basically, Trump will have backed down.

If this is the story, it will repeat what we saw on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump denounced as the “worst trade deal ever made.” In the end, what Trump negotiated — the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement, or U.S.M.C.A. — was very similar to the previous status quo. Trade experts I know, when not referring to it as the Village People agreement, call it “Nafta 0.8”: fundamentally the same as Nafta, but a bit worse.”

Source: Opinion | America the Cowardly Bully – The New York Times

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Posted in: Trade and Trade Policy, Trade and Trade Policy

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