Is MH370 in Central Asia?

This is the question that Slate is asking.

This thesis hinges on the idea that a large civilian aircraft flew across either Indian or Chinese airspace without either of the militaries noticing.

It would also depend on the aircraft flying close to the Indian-Chinese border, above Tibet, which is a tense and tightly guarded frontier.

Let's just say I am very skeptical.

16/3/14 UPDATE:

No runways in Central Asia were even in range.

Nice job by @WNYC plotting all 634 runways there were apparently in range for #MH370. http://t.co/JRNS7L6JZQ pic.twitter.com/kF9Z0RZnkt
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) March 16, 2014

When the Russian bear farts...

Tim Stanley has a good blogpost in The Telegraph, although I find his use of the phrase "new Cold War" as a lazy shorthand for "a standoff between Russia and America" almost as irritating as misplaced analysis that try to portray the current crisis in Ukraine as some sort of relic from the original Cold War.

His conclusion had a definite Mao Zedong character to it, and I am sure was what set off my train of thought:

Russia is a paper tiger. Why we're wasting time hunting it, I cannot imagine.

The Long Quest for an International Order with Chinese Characteristics

The Long Quest for an International Order with Chinese Characteristics: A Cultural Perspective on Modern China's Foreign Policies Connolly 2013 Pacific Focus Wiley Online Library


I hadn't realised that an article I co-wrote with a former colleague of mine, Joern-Carstern Gottwald, has been published in Pacific Focus.  I think it is currently free to read, so click on the link above if it is your sort of thing.

The IRA and Mao's China: in the press

My piece on the IRA's, in the guise of Seamus Costello, approach to the Mao Zedong's China in 1964 was picked up by Clifford Coonan of The Irish Times, with whom I had an email exchange to expand on some issues before he wrote the piece.

I've just been made aware, however, that The Times also picked up (£) on the story, in what is a pretty garbled and incoherent account, complete with totally made up quotes from me!  (Google has informed me that HuffingtonPost.it ran with The Times story as well.

'Westerners are so convinced China is a dystopian hellscape they’ll share anything that confirms it'

That's the headline in a piece from Quartz.com, which is pretty much the same theme that I wrote about a few months ago.  This time it's the infamous 'video sunset', allegedly set up for the benefit of Beijing's residents who can no longer see the real thing due to the thick pollution.  This is, of course, a load of cobblers.

The photo is actually from a tourism advert for Shandong province, and is part of a 10-second long piece playing on a loop.  But, hey, if I were the photographer who took such a great shot, I would be tempted to put something out there that is going to get it published in many of the world's major news outlets (not that I am saying he did that, you understand, no, no, no...)

 

No, a Chinese man did not 'successfully sue his wife for having ugly children'

 Yesterday, Matt Schiavenza, a writer for The Atlantic tweeted a link to a story of a Chinese man who had successfully sued his wife for having had plastic surgery and later given birth to an 'ugly baby'.  This was a story that had appeared in my Facebook feed before, and at the time I smelt a Kentucky Fried Rat.

5 minutes of googling at the time produced a Reddit thread that cast doubt on the authenticity of the story, pointing to the original source being a 2004 online story on the website of the Pakistani English-language newspaper, The Daily Times.  I pointed this out on Twitter, and it was taken up by James Griffiths, who writes for That's Beijing, who decided to look further into the matter.

The CCP's 70 Year Itch?

Larry Diamond has written a really good article over at The Atlantic on the Chinese Communist Party's future as they approach the 70th anniversary of being in power in 2019.  However, much like Mark Twain, reports of the CCP's death are exaggerated.

For starters, while he is still omnipresent in China, the CCP no longer depends on Mao's 'revolutionary charisma'.  In fact, they repudiated a large chunk of it 40 years ago after the disasters of the Cultural Revolution and the rise of Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic and realist perspectives on governance.

Postman Pat was also a fan of black-and-white cats.
(Photo courtesy of Nic Walker on Flikr)

Secondly, the economy is still performing ok.  Whether that can still be maintained is a matter for debate, but for the time being, despite all the known problems about corruption, pollution etc., the Party is to a large extent continuing to deliver the public goods.

State Department photo of Sec. of State John Kerry meeting Pres. Xi Jinping

Predictions of political crisis in China are as old as the People's Republic itself, and personally I do not see one happening during the tenure of Xi Jinping as President.

Mao and The IRA's Chinese Takeaway

Flag of the People's Republic of China (PRC)

The following is a short article I wrote a couple of years ago after a research trip to the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives in Beijing.  It is based on original research.  For those who may be interested I can provide the original source document archive references.  Attribution requested.

UPDATE: On The Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog Brian Hanley has pointed out that the "Moscow was Rome to them" was one of his and Scott Millar's interviewees talking about Irish communists rather than the IRA.  In my defence, however, I did email Brian Hanley while writing the original article for clarification on a number of points, however I never received a reply.

The Starry Plough

On 16th September 1964 a lone figure knocked at the door of the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Paris. The embassy had only opened earlier that year following President de Gaulle’s decision to break diplomatic relations with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government and establish them with the Communist government in Beijing. The man at the door handed over a letter of introduction to the junior embassy staffer who had answered his knock. The letter was from the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, Cathal Goulding, and requested on his behalf that the letter’s deliverer be received by Ambassador Huang Zhen.