THE ABOMINABLE CENTER In the waning days of the American Presidential campaign, former Governor George Romney has moved toward the center by adjusting his fluid positions. The recent Conservative Party gathering in the UK had Prime Minister Cameron doing a soft-shoe dance trying to straddle the center of his party’s increasingly fractious factions. He might have had the sympathy of former Governor Romney who had sailed far right during the increasingly fractious primary campaign In both cases the Party leaders were following conventional wisdom. The middle is where the deciding vote is in all but a runaway election. The Abominable Center. Abominable because in the USA the country is saddled with a breakdown in the core concept of compromise in the political system. Democrats should neither complain nor cheer; it could just as easily by their party that plays the blocking game. Both sides with great help from a sophisticated use of legislative rules have perfected the art of gridlock. In the UK PM Cameron’s problem is not only with a gradual descent in popularity, the resulting sharks who always circle the center of power see a vulnerable PM and move in to push and pull the PM in their direction. Short of that they will eat him. The center once worked. The center worked when there was a soto voce understanding that you give it your all defending or attacking policy and legislation. When positions have been established and two or more sides recognize the arguments have gone as far as they can go, there was – more often than not – compromise. The negotiating rhythm was understood and accepted. Signals of willingness to compromise were not difficult to give. “Run it up the flagpole” was a common expression that is heard less frequently now. More often than not the song in the House of Representatives is “never”. Forget the issue, forget the merits, and forget the comity. “Never” There is only victory and defeat. In wartime that is a concept that last worked in WW II, and later in Nicaragua and Grenada. One great victory and two nonsensical wars. Increasingly military commanders go to great lengths to avoid what might be their natural inclination: fight. Fighting gets you nowhere is the lesson of the last 50 years. And fighting between the political parties is even less productive thanks to hardened positions. That leaves the center unattainable, because to get there you need compromise. Thus the Abominable Center. The result is that for Mr. Romney, whatever his real position, no one believes him anymore in any of his positions. The President has fudged so often, twisted this way and that in an effort to straddle the middle, he has little credibility and has left behind the promise that got him to the White House. And still the candidates race to the middle in the closing days of the campaign. Conundrum. Is there any other choice? Political suicide by standing on principle and speaking truth is not inviting when you throw away a billion dollars of OPM (other people’s money) who count on you to win. Yet there may be truths that are worth the risk. Had President Obama countered Governor Romney’s attack on the mishandling of the Libyan terrorist attack by saying: “We handled that poorly Governor. There were mistakes made. I take responsibility, but I assure you I was more upset than you are and I will stay that way until I can report to the American people exactly what went wrong and why and how we intend to keep it from happening again. But I can also assure you that one thing I have learned in my first four years, in a government with xxx departments and xxxxxxx workers; there are no perfect days. I don’t ever have a perfect day, perhaps you day, but I like President Truman’s approach: When I make a mistake, I recognize it and make decision to correct the mistake and keep it from happening again.” You smile. You dismiss the naïveté. You may value the idealism but you laugh at the thought of ever hearing this from any office holder. Senior executives have learned this lesson. The best of them handle their pechees in exactly this manner. They standup before we the howling mob of journalists, and admit error, take responsibility and say what they intend to do about it…including resignation when the error warrants it. The time wasted on Libya is not an honor to the four who lost their lives. The discussion continues to be a petty political game without a principle at its core, other than “if you lose, I win”. There are issues that may worth a win0lose approach, if there is a hope for compromise at the other end. Gun control, equality in all respects, racism (that no one mentions but remains alive and sick), gender issues, health, education. It is hardly a short list. But in that now-crowded middle there is a muddle, a meaningless muddle because neither candidate stands above the fray. No one believes the candidates because they do not have the courage of their claimed humanity, their flawed perfection. How many examples of personal courage are needed before politicians generally (there are sporadic examples) dismiss their attackers by saying: “You are right, I/we blew that one. Not my finest hour, but here is what I learned and why it won’t happen again.” None of this would poll well. Would focus groups buy it? We may never know because the “professionals” who shape and guide these campaigns have even less courage than the candidates. Go ahead, run the negative ads if you remain convinced they work so well, and likely they do with your vaunted base that delights in eviscerating the other side. But when you debate show your humanity, it will so shock the opposition that you might win a close one.

My friend and former colleagues from our CBS News days Robbie Vorhaus sold his successful PR company and now enjoys the challenge of commentary that often appears on the Huffington Report. Robbie recently sent me the following contribution (with a link to the full text). He was clearly moved by the rhetoric at both nominating conventions. So was I. Here's Robbie's contribution and my response. cheers peter Good Morning, Peter, After watching both political conventions, I thought it would take real guts, and garner real votes, to give this speech: Click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-vorhaus/say-this-and-ill-vote-for_b_1855463.html Here are is an excerpt of what I wrote in the HuffingtonPost: Dear President Obama and/or Governor Romney: I will vote for you, and work tirelessly in support of your campaign, if you were to say this: Dear friend and fellow co-occupant of our glorious planet, and citizen of the great United States of America, My opponent is a good man with honorable intentions. I respect him, and I encourage you to do the same. He, like us, loves his family, is devoted to a higher power, cherishes his liberties, and is a powerful advocate for democracy and the values we as Americans hold dear. Although our ultimate goal is very similar, our ideas, plans, strategy, and tactics to deliver those results differ. Allow me this opportunity to now discuss with you my specific, straightforward, constructive, and attainable action plan, which I, along with my team, believe will achieve measurable results in the areas of the economy, health care, our national debt, education, taxes, government reform, energy and the environment, social security, homeland security and defense, the current state of politics, immigration, woman's issues, crime and justice, campaign finance, endowments to the arts, and other important issues influencing our national, international, and global success and sustainability. Then, on the morning of November 7, 2012, the day after the election, regardless who wins this race for the most humbling job in the world, the president of the United States, we will work together to heal our divisions, inspire all Americans to join together, and despite any differences, as our founding fathers wrote, "form a more perfect union." Would you like hearing a speech like this, too? As always, I love hearing your thoughts, or if you want others to see, leave your comments under the post. Hope to see you soon and all the best, Robbie On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 8:48 AM, peter m herford wrote: 1. You have to stop smoking those funny cigarettes! 2. Your suggested speech reminds me of a great routine the comedian/ad guy of 30-40 years ago did around the recording of a new soap commercial. "Bloopers soap is real good." That was it. A radio ad. The announcer reads it and it sounds fine. Click from the control room. "Ah the client would like you to hit the product a little bit harder." "OK, take two." "BLOOPERS soap is real good." Click from the control room. "Ah, the client thinks it might help if you added "soap" to the juice you put behind BLOOPERS." "Sure, here goes: 'BLOOPERS SOAP is real good." You get the point, the final take has the announcer screaming into the mike. The client loved it. Now the serious part. I don't like your suggested speech because it does just what the US doesn't need: you obscure the differences under a veil of politesse. Bill Clinton had a good line when he said: I don't have to hate the opposition to disagree with them." The worst of the right wing hates anyone who disagrees with them. As the shrink would say: Get that out on the table and deal with it. The USA has a lot of anger inside. Yes, much of it can be attributed to tense economic times (made more tense by vicious rhetoric). But politesse only makes it worse. From Passive-Aggressive to taking to the guns, the solution is not found by papering over the anger. Nail the SOB who opposes you with facts. Not fudged facts, but facts that will stand up to scrutiny. Not "if my opponent gets his/her way then the consequences will be.." But a graph like this: "40% of the USA is undereducated and illiterate. 20% of Americans are absolutely illiterate, can't read or write; the highest rate in the developed world by far. 20% of Americans are functionally illiterate. Can't read a simple how-to manual (and who writes those monstrosities anyway?). Guess what folks. That evil Communist Fidel Castro took an island of illiterates and has achieved 99% literacy. It will take (research the figure) to give the USA what it has lost, the best free secondary ed system in the world. And I emphasize free. I don't want any child missing the first step on the ladder to success because his parents cannot afford it." I have sections on public transportation, infrastructure, to say nothing of health care, and the defense budget that go the same way. Not "my system is better than your system" (Read length of penis.) But the bold facts, day after day, each day a new reality and what I will do about it, and how much it will cost and what you the voter will sacrifice. Its called social responsibility. various gods teach it, yet instead we fight religious wars. OK, I think benevolent authoritarianism is worth a try. One of two outcomes. Election by acclamation, defeat by acclamation. In the latter case there is a solution: its called Canada, which ain't perfect but a damned site better in public policy Climate tends to suck though. Cheers peter

Representative Paul Ryan's speech to the Republican Nominating Convention has many commentators up in arms over playing fast and loose with facts. Amazing. A politician playing fast and loose with facts, and at a moment of highest drama in his political life. Many columns and commentaries point out that it is SOP. Others suggest a turning point in journalism and politics because there are now the tools to instantly correct factual errors or twists. The inflated rhetoric of the political season plus the cacophony of so many voices competing for attention has caused a general inflation of reactions. Politicians routinely lie. They always have and it is tempting to say they always will, but "always" like "never" are words best avoided even in science where the weight of evidence is much more convincing than in politics. My reading of Mr. Ryan was more taken with what I sensed was nervousness and an odd level of verbal discomfort for a man accustomed to campaigns and campaigning. The old-fashioned word is stage fright. He had a bit of stage fright but soldiered on and did his duty. He had me when he juxtaposed President Obama's promise to save the auto industry and its jobs during his first campaign with what Ryan said was what appeared to be the post-election, post-bailout closing of his hometown GM plant. And I should know better. My antenna should have been up and with the internet at my command I could easily have checked this fact. Damned fool, believing a politician - and its not a party-exclusive trait to bend or mutilate facts, or just lie. But then I contented myself with the knowledge that Vice Presidential candidate Ryan was not speaking to me. He was energizing his base and bases are often united in their willingness to believe everything good about their leaders and everything bad about their political foes. The ruckus caused among journalists about "our role" in correcting errors, the range and frequency of comments from citizen commentators is still underway, but it will not last. We will be distracted by Presidential Candidate Romney's "all important" speech, that will be forgotten (unless he makes a mighty gaffe and is bludgeoned with it for the rest of the campaign) when the Democrats have their day next week. In turn both conventions will recede rapidly from attention and memory. The political guns of October will fill the air with salvos of claims and accusations that will reduce Candidate Ryan's fact game to child's play. Every election cycle is proclaimed to be the dirtiest, the most vicious, the lowest, and the cry of will-it-never-end will be heard around the land. Journalists are the ones who will writing this and saying this, again and again. If we don't know better we should. 20th and 21st century campaigns cannot begin to match the viciousness of the earlier days of the Republic. But then we would have to know history to understand the differences. The partisan nature of some cable channels and certain newspapers is decried as if the craft of news had hit new lows. Not by a long shot. When newspapers circulated by the thousands instead of hundreds of thousands and there was no broadcasting; when politicians went from town to town to deliver themselves of political hyperbole, the lies abounded, but they rarely made it from one town to the next. There were no multipliers to turn a misspeak or an outright lie into a national, if not international, kerfuffle. The fact is, thus far, this campaign has been notable for only one reason that characterizes every Presidential campaign in the last two decades: increasingly expensive. There's the rot in the system.

ON THE NY REVIEW OF BOOKS REVIEW of Michael Spence's new book THE FUTURE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

Time I got back to this blog. A colleague recently sent me a piece from the NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, a review of a new book by Michael Spence: THE FUTURE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH. I have only read the excerpts dealing with China in the NY REVIEW piece. But that set me off on a favorite subject that I offer here: I'm not running out to buy this. Spence is fairly typical of the perspective seen through what he knows: the Euro/US filter. He treats China and India as if there were analogies he assumes to western development and development patterns. He asks whether "this time will things be different"? Things have been different from the beginning of China's entry back into the world. One danger traveling academics and others face and almost invariably leads them astray is the view of "modern China" that looks so much like home. So they never stop to think that Beijing and Shanghai are not China. That because the US is a big powerful country they know something about big powerful countries. "Gee its so modern". Yes, but the rice farmer down the road is still plowing with a water buffalo while the high speed train passes nearby, while the farmer pauses to call his wife on his smartphone to tell her "honey, I'll be late for dinner." Right, its all very familiar. Just like home. T'ain't so McGhee. Spence is not so much wrong, he isn't. Much of what he says is correct in an isolated and theoretical way. I will spare you a somnambulant inducing diatribe with a short version. China is doing something no other country on earth has ever done. Every economist will tell you that there is no theory that includes the ability for a country of any size to grow at between 8-10% a year for 30+ years. Remember cycles from econ 101? Not here baby. Does that mean the Chinese are on to a secret new form of economics? Balderdash. They invent as they go. The principle of Party control remains in force. That is as close to a philosophy as they have. Marxism/Leninism be damned. The task is simple. Make sure there are 22 million new jobs every year; that is what China needs to satisfy the turnover, them what gets turned over into the earth and them what retires. That requires 8% growth. Simple formula. The best way to insure the growth is keep as much of the big economy in the hands of the Party; banking, steel, coal, power transportation. Its a command economy behind a scrim that looks a lot like capitalism. Thus far it has worked. Will it keep working? Beats me, and I am convinced it beats them to. They, the top leadership, wakes up every morning thanking someone that they made it through the previous day. Now make a world econ theory out of that with the Spencelike approach to mixing analysis of what has passed (and that can be debated long and hard) to the near-useless attempt to predict future paths. Might as well throw darts at a target you can't see. It depresses me the extent to which the speculators all include the military option fairly high in their agendas. Damned alpha males waving their dicks at each other. Where is it writ we gotta to war or they have to go to war with us? Oh yes, its always happened therefore its gotta happen again? Now there is a deep thinking. Has someone conveniently forgotten where we have come to. Nuke's baby, hydrogen nukes. Like the end of the world if you use that stuff. Get real. The challenge is not to end the world. Ending it is easy. just follow your dick. Further questions?

LIFE IN SHANTOU

From a message sent to a prospective faculty member coming to China and Shantou for the first:

I live in Shantou and have for the past eight years.
The opportunity to be part of the founding and building of a J school built on the model of a combination of practical and theoretical training is what brought me here.

I recruited my colleague Peter Arnett away from the shot and shell of Baghdad and Kabul. He came to put his toe into the teaching waters and has stayed for the past four years. That is one endorsement.

I am biased because I have been part of the creation of this department.
The challenges are great. I do not know what experience you have had teaching or in the BBC's tradition: "training". I expect given your previous position you have had training opportunities with non-native English speakers. The challenge is magnified here. The English level of students varies from fairly fluent to barely able to understand. Chinese students have to achieve a level of English comprehension that permits them to take the classes taught by the foreigners. That said, teaching means careful use of non-jargon English, patience, and lowered expectations. The first job is teaching critical thinking because the Chinese education system has been top-down for centuries. Students have likely never spoken in class, never asked a question, or been asked a question. The "enlightenment" we bring precedes the content of what we teach. The reward is to see students liberated from the lecture format cannot be understated.

Five years ago we started the first Convergence Lab in China run by two Malaysian Chinese who are among the most adept multi-media-skilled journalists I have ever known.

You may know I am a "recovering journalist". I have attached a resume that puts me in perspective.

Family: The apartments on campus are comfortable and built to the Chinese version of a western standard. There are 2 and 3 bedroom apartments on this green, attractive campus. Kitchens include all but ovens that are not a part of Chinese cuisine. Washing machine included; clothes are air-dryed in China. A manufacturer of dryers would be bankrupt within a week. The apartments have balconies with built-in drying racks.

The U is a 25 minute bus/taxi ride from the heart of Shantou where we have the "benefits" of Lotus and Walmart supercenters. My own bias goes to Chinese food. I could happily survive on nothing but and indeed become homesick for my Chinese diet when I am out of the country. There are "canteens" on campus with super-inexpensive food aimed at students (faculty use included). The Academic Campus Center is our hotel. Excellent facilities, including a good but overpriced restaurant. The East Gate is a village just outside the campus that caters to students. a dozen restaurants and as many little shops with excellent inexpensive local food and basic necessities. Fresh fruit and veggie stands aplenty on and just off campus (wthin a short walk of the4 apartments).

Chauzhou is the name of the region. The cuisine is noted throughout China. The local dialect is a foreign language that even Mandarin and Cantonese speakers cannot understand. The climate is subtropical which means fresh food year-around. We are on a river delta and the sea which means fish, fish and more fish. For my palette it is heaven. Food prices have escalated but that is by Chinese standards. Food and other costs here are very low compared to UK or North American standards. The airport (a new airport will open soon) has growing traffic every quarter with connections worldwide through Guangzhou or Hong Kong. Direct flights to Shanghai, Beijing and many other Chinese cities. Flights in China, particularly with advanced purchase, are still relatively cheap. We are 45 minutes by air from Hong Kong, the flight, classified "international" is pricey. I take the bus on a beautIful four hour trip to Shenzen, cross the border and onto commuter rail into HK. Its a 5-6 hour trip door to door, but comfortable first class bus seating and cheap (about 20 pounds). High speed rail is coming. Within 18-24 months it should be operational. That will cut the Shenzen trip to 2 hours, Xiamen to the North will be about an hour.

I do not speak the language either, nor will I.
The choice was simple. It would take me 2-3 years of full time study to manage Mandarin. Not well enough to teach, but well enough for light conversation. Then another year to learn 2-3000 characters to read a daily newspaper. I came here to teach and help build this institution. That was my choice. That said, if your hard drive memory still works well, Mandarin lessons are available, tutoring can be arranged at low rates. Your son can definitely learn the language within a year. I have American friends in Beijing who dropped their two then 9 and 11 year-old daughters into a Chinese school "cold turkey". They hated it at first and then ran with the challenge. Within 9 months their Mandarin was fluent and they are now bi-cultural in the best sense of the word.

Shantou is what I call the "real China" as opposed to the mega, world-class cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Those cities have more in common with London, Frankfurt, New York and Sao Paulo.
Shantou is not a beautiful city despite its location by the sea/river delta. It is a growing city (name me one in China that isn't). A typical history: A former fishing "village" of 50,000 now about 4 million. As Swatow it was the center of contraband and piracy in the South China sea. It kept the "tradition" and was among the most corrupt cities in China until a decade or so ago when a clean-up occurred. It is one of the original special economic zones; the only one with a descending GDP (that tells you the level of corruption). The city is now growing rapidly and benefitting from the high cost of labor in the southern half of Guangdong Province. Expats are still relatively rare, but there is a lot of in and out traffic from Spain, Italy, Russia, India to the local textile and toy plants. Shantou is said to be the cheap brassiere capitol of the world. Also other light textiles, toys are big, light tools, and a long tradition of ceramics (see Peter Arnett's vast collection). In short no heavy industry. That translates into good air quality by Chinese standards. Hot summers (when there is no school) spring and fall are delights with daytime in the 20s and low 30s with cool evenings. Winter tends to low teens or high single digits. Rain season and dry season. The dry outnumbers the rain by a good deal but to keep you a-tuned to Southern England there can be periods of 2-3 weeks of cloud. Conversly there can be the same 2-3 weeks of bright and tanning sun, Yes, high humidity.

ASSESSING THE BUSH PRESIDENCY

An assessment of the Bush Presidency written for a new Chinese magazine
pmh


George Bush will leave office as the least popular President in history, tied with President Harry Truman whose administration went on to be re-assessed as among the better examples of political and executive leadership. It is doubtful that President Bush will benefit from a similar reassessment.

The President inherited an economy in surplus, high employment, and a country with a reservoir of prestige around the world. Peace is always relative to the dozens of wars that never seem to end; but the US was not party to any significant conflict in January of 2001 when the new President took the oath of office. The first 100 days of the Bush Presidency were benign, so much so that it takes research to recall what happened.

The President lists his accomplishments as increasing US labor productivity to the highest levels in the world. The war on terrorism leads all accomplishments by the President’s own assessment. Low unemployment (5.4% his first year in office); the education initiative called No Child Left Behind; and the appointment of what President Bush called good judges. An assessment of the President’s judicial appointments over eight years reveals a federal judiciary that is the most conservative in US history, a legacy that will indeed pass into the distant future.
The passage of the Patriot Act was a plus that, according to the President smoothed the way toward better intelligence gathering during these dangerous times. Opponents say the Patriot Act was the first in a series of initiatives that weakened the civil and individual liberties that are the foundation of the US Constitution.
It is worthwhile noting that other than the war on terrorism, there were no foreign policy initiatives or objectives cited in this list.
The President’s critics point to the fact that while the federal budget was increasing at record rates the President did cut many items. 39 million dollars were cut for US libraries. 35 million dollars were cut in a program to provide pediatric training to doctors. Funds for research into renewable energy were cut by 50%, the White house Office for Women’s Health Initiatives was closed.
Most characteristically, the Bush administration systematically reduced government regulation. This met Republican orthodoxy that says less government is good government. In example after example, Secretaries of federal departments (Ministers) were appointed with the task of reducing the role of their ministries in every corner of American life. Having their raison d’etre either reduced or eliminated demoralized government bureaucracies. Many of those appointed to run government departments either lacked expertise in their responsibilities or had been active enemies of their departments during their private careers.
Despite all these steps, the size of the federal bureaucracy grew to record levels.

The President’s first term, and some say the world was changed on September 11, 2001.

The administration went on a war footing and plunged into a series of policies that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, two ongoing wars with little prospect that either would end soon, if ever, and a world anxious as never before in recent history to be rid of an American administration.
What happened?

The answers come back to September 11, an economic policy that counted on theory that is increasingly discredited and an ability to ignore warning signs. September 11 shook the confidence of a country that had never before suffered an attack on its continental soil. The President was challenged to demonstrate leadership and control at a time of fear and confusion. The Bush administration chose the path of least resistance: find a scapegoat. An effective public relations campaign oiled by what we now know to be lies, convinced a nation that wanted answers and action that Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein was, if not the cause of the September 11 attacks, complicit and removable. The elusive Osama Bin Laden would have been a more useful target. However the deep valleys and caves of mountainous Afghanistan and the bordering friendly (to Bin Laden) regions of Pakistan made the leader of the Al Queda movement impossible to find. Enter Sadam Hussein and enter the Iraq war.

There were at least four things wrong with the Iraq war.

1. The United States was already at war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was the first and logical target of military action in the wake of the 9/11 attacks just a month before. The US Army and a small group of supporting states, barely enough to call the war an “allied effort”, were quickly bogged down by terrain that was more vertical than flat and the political realities of a country that was more fiefdoms of competing war lords than a nation. The history of foreign attempts at conquest or control of Afghanistan was littered with the remains of small and mighty nations; most recently Russia defeated after years of ineffectual combat against indigenous forces that seem to rule all modern warfare. In fact, US aid had hastened Russia’s defeat, aid that had flowed to the same forces now lined up against the United States. Here too the deadly irony of modern real-politique left an American administration without evident strategies to deal with the complexities of modern warfare.
2. We now know that the Iraq War was undertaken by the Bush administration against the advice of its senior military leaders among the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Contrary to the perception of many people, senior military commanders, particularly those with combat experience, do not want to go to war. They prefer high levels of preparedness and training to warfare. And the last thing any military wants is to have to fight two wars at the same time. But the warnings were ignored by what now appear to be the political imperatives of an administration that saw war as a policy that would pull a nation together traumatized by an attack on its national virility.
3. The Bush Administration failed to gain a credible level of international support for the war against Sadam Hussein. Most of the founding nations of the European Union see war as a policy of last resort. In their view the Bush administration was rushing to war. The US found few allies; in fact US warplanes were denied transit rights across the skies of some European nations. An old world that reveres the deliberative process of diplomacy was face to face with an administration that seemed to be following the American frontier spirit of “shoot first and ask questions later.” The then American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld divided nations further when he referred to the fact that French and German leaders both opposed the war as coming from “old Europe.”
4. The American media is generally viewed as having been cowed into submission during the immediate 9/11 period. The Bush Administration had successfully promoted the need for patriotic support during dangerous times when the specter of terrorism lurked everywhere. Times of war were not times when there was tolerance for dissent. The often-contrary media seemed to fall in line with national unity that supported the Bush Administration. The results were a press that seemed to fear the backlash inherent in the art of investigative journalism; and media management that found “going along” with the political climate of support for the President was better than appearing to stand in opposition.
The watchdog aspect of the American system of journalism fell asleep.

It was clear that fear was an instrument of the Bush policy at home and abroad. Aggressiveness against real and perceived enemies abroad, and a reliance on fear of foreign attack to rally support at home. The cost of the twin policies was increasing alienation from former allies, and heightened tension in the United States. Domestic tension produced a political divide that was acerbic in language between Democrats and Republicans at a level older politicians said they had never before experienced.
Politicians who have to stand for political office every few years have a tendency to see the world in terms of being “with me or against me”. This black and white view complicates the ability to compromise. The art of compromise was not the chosen art of the Republican administration. “You’re with us or you are against us” was increasingly seen as US policy around the world. To make matters worse, the administration did not seem to care about the answer.
No small measure of this policy was attributed to Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Congressman from the sparsely populated state of Wyoming where the American-western spirit of independence was more pronounced than in Texas that had given President Bush his cowboy image. Thus two cowboys in the White House egging each other along. No one in the Administration had the prestige or power to stand up to these two leaders; least of all Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice whose principal role was to travel the world trying to explain US foreign policy to leaders who were increasingly alienated by a world power that no longer consulted former and potential allies but rather appeared to mandate support “or else”.

The American economy remained robust at the beginning of the second term of the Bush Presidency despite record budget deficits, a government that had grown larger than any government in America’s history, and a balance of payments deficit that set records every month. None of these conditions are unusual in wartime, but cracks were beginning to show that were the precursors of a near fatal economic earthquake.

Quietly, without publicity or much mention in other than the finance pages of newspapers and on financial cable channels, China and Japan had turned into the bankers of the US economy. Between them, Japan and China were buying more than 40% of US debt that financed two wars and an indebted domestic economy. China and Japan together held one and a half trillion dollars in US treasury bonds. What few people seemed to realize or be concerned with was the fact that China and Japan held the keys to the US economy. As long as they bought the rising deficit via T-bills, what some economists saw as a house of cards, remained standing. What was less evident was that this economic hold on the US also served China’s purpose. When Chairman Hu Jintao needed President Bush’s support to calm the independence instincts of the DPP, the former ruling party on Taiwan, President Hu was able to call on an unusual ally.
China had no interest in a war with Taiwan, but the Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, beleaguered by allegations of corruption and increasingly unpopular as he moved toward elections, was fanning the flames of independence in a mirror image of the “fear factor” President Bush was using in the US to keep the support of his own voters.
But the US President recognized his economic and political debt to China and urged the Taiwanese administration in clear and blunt language to cool its ardor. President Hu smiled diplomatically, and the Taiwanese administration got the message and softened its tone.

The Bush Administration’s foreign economic policy toward China was built around a song with a single refrain: “Devalue the Yuan.” China knew the Yuan was undervalued. But China also recognized the advantage of a weak Yuan on the export market. Revaluation was in the cards, but like most Chinese policies it would be carried out on a Chinese timetable, not dictated or even influenced by foreign factors or foreign “advice”. The Bush administration also knew that China would not accelerate a revalued Yuan. Both countries recognized the economic and policy realities in their respective countries.

China has to create 22 million jobs a year to stay even with the demands of the annual inflow of new workers. The Chinese economy has to grow between 8 and 10% a year in order to create those 22 million jobs. Export industries are one of the engines of job creation, hence the under-valued Yuan.
The Bush administration was aware that its two wars and strict adherence to a deregulated economy were creating debt that was spinning out of control. In fact, Republican orthodoxy had collapsed. Government was not smaller; it was bigger at record levels. Budgets were not balanced. They were imbalanced at record levels. Yes, tax cuts, a Republican controlled Congress that overrode weak and fearful Democratic opposition leadership passed the heart of Republican orthodoxy. But tax cuts were effective for the rich while the middle class and the lower economic classes were increasingly aware of the gap between rich and poor. Middle and lower incomes were stagnant or falling.

The administration again sought the path of least resistance: find a scapegoat. In this case China, regularly accused of stealing American manufacturing jobs and undercutting American competitiveness via an undervalued currency.
Chairman Hu Jintao and his administration were gaining experience and sophistication on the world stage. They understood the domestic political needs of an American President. The Chinese Central Government calmly repeated the argument that the Yuan would be revalued gradually on a Chinese timetable, as it has been and continues to be. Beyond that, the Central Government tended to ignore the carping from abroad.

The second term of the Bush Presidency, as many second Presidential terms, suffered. Two wars continued without the kind of clear progress needed to gain popular support. American citizens turned against the war in Iraq and all but forgot the stagnant war in Afghanistan. Isolation and alienation from the world community continued. The President’s support eroded because he was in his final term and had diminishing political power. The Administration’s ineffectiveness was reflected in lower and lower approval ratings from his once-supportive population. World leaders distanced themselves more and more from US policies.

The economic shock that all but destroyed the Bush administration threatened to bring the globalized economy to its knees. A chain reaction set off by mortgages to Americans who could not afford to repay them and banks whose bad debts overwhelmed their balance sheets created the worst economic crisis the world has seen since the 1930s.

Lacking coherent economic policy, The Bush administration offered a band-aid approach to an open wound that threatened to bleed the once highly-regarded American capitalist system. It took British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to announce government policies that brought balance back into the world’s banking system. European leaders followed Mr. Brown’s example; the American President and Congress followed along. But following is not where the Bush Administration began its reign of power. The Administration came in like a lion and reacted forcefully to real and perceived threats. But a disdain for compromise and accommodation left a Presidency isolated from its people, isolated from the world, and in the end isolated from its own party that entered the 2008 election year convinced that it faced the worst defeat in modern American history.

Peter M. Herford
November 3, 2008

The China snowstorms

The general impression created by the reporting from China over the past two weeks has been apocalyptic. Anyone who has ever been isolated, stuck, or lost in a snowstorm, a flood, an earthquake, or other natural disaster knows the hopeless feeling, the powerlessness that nature can impose. The snowstorms and cold that hit China in the past two weeks are no different than similar events  elsewhere in the world. The difference in China, as it aways is, is the impact on a huge population.
More measured reporting beginning today, New Year's Eve in China, is backing away from the apocalyptic picture that has been created.

I am bemused by the fact that news reports seem to forget or ignore the fact that similar circumstances occur every time a part of the US,  Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Africa or Latin America are hit by nature. Power often goes out (it usually takes less time to restore power in the developed world), people die in smaller numbers in smaller countries, transportation systems are disrupted (the early predictions of weeks of outages in China may prove to have been exaggerated).

Yes the snowstorms in China were unusual events, but that is what nature is all about. Averages are made of extremes.

The nasty part is that the government was not prepared. There was no plan (see Katrina). The big difference in China is that the government admitted its lack of preparedness. 

Reports said that news was censored. And yet CCTV television and newspapers in China have been full of reports, images as well as text. The stories have not been as extensive (or as apocalyptic as the foreign press), but the reports were absent 10-20 and 30 years ago were there.

Everything has been on the Internet. The pressure of disclosure from citizen reports, video and still photos has consistently been on the government media. Increasingly, government media bend to those pressures.

Prime Minister Wen Jiaobao and President Hu Jintao both hit the road to meet with people stranded, and suffering. The Prime Minister was prominently displayed with a megaphone at the Guangzhou RR station speaking to a crowd that stretched to 200,000 plus mostly migrant workers who were trying to get home for the Spring Festival/Chinese New Year. Wen Jiaobao had a simple message: "We apologize". The government acknowledged publicly that it was not prepared.

The mantra of all governments caught off guard followed: "...we are now doing everything to put it right." Remember Katrina, the aftermath of which is still playing out two years after the event? Many New Orleanians are still waiting for relief. The US government response has been chaotic, inadequate, and to this day unresolved.
In China 2 million soldiers were thrown into the mess, to shovel snow, to maintain order, and to deliver relief. The mobilization of the Chinese military, which included the movement of massive numbers of soldiers and equipment was accomplished within 48 hours. Trains, planes, etc are now running. 

There is much left to be done, but the difference appears to be that a massive effort is underway to deal with the need to restore electricity to cities, to make sure the flow of coal keeps power plants working, and that the disruption of food and commerce is resolved. The crisis that characterized much of the reporting during the storm has passed. The massive coverage has been reduced to a trickle. We are bored and move on, both the reporters whose worst scenarios did not come to pass and the public whose lives go on.

I am in HK where there is no effect whatsoever, life is normal. My hometown of Shantou about 300 kms up the SE coast of China had lower than normal temperatures but was otherwise been unaffected. This is New Year's eve and celebrations and parades and fireworks are all on track.

The point is perspective, as it always is in daily news reporting. As journalists we are trained to anticipate the worst. Most of us have seen enough natural disasters to understand the individual tragedies they bring, the disruptions that occur. Most of us have also been spun or lied to by authorities who are quick to explain away lack of preparedness or other human failing.

Most of us are also aware of the fact that people living a few hundred yards from a flooded river are unaffected while our pictures may show a world underwater. Most of us are aware of the fact that weather is localized. Even the massive snowstorms in China impacted a relatively small percentage of the country. The personal impact was large because of the size of the population; but on a percentage basis, the numbers are small. This is a difficult concept for reporters and readers and viewers. There are very few places in the world - India and Pakistan are exceptions - where similar reporting challenges take place.

Reporters, particularly foreign reporters are still learning that the scale of all events in China creates a different category of problems and solutions. In the past in China this storm would have created famine and death for millions. Recovery might have taken a decade. This time the immediate impact lasted 36 to 48 hours. This contrast between the China of the past and today's China is a difficult concept for reporters working in their expatriate bureaus in mega-cities and living in apartments that differ little from standards at home. The reporters who do go into the field are limited by experiences that shed little light on nature. Blocked highways can mean that a road trip that normally takes four hours may take 36 hours. These familiar stories to readers and viewers in developed countries are new to Chinese citizens. 

The prism through which many of us have seen this story is a traditional reportorial prism. Yet what seems to have happened in China is that a government admittedly unprepared for an unusually heavy blow from nature, has in the first stages of recovery managed a problem that the richest economy in the world stll has not been able to handle.