Xi Jinping’s visit to Central Asia this week sheds a light on his country’s efforts to increase its sway in the vast, resource-rich region once considered Russia’s domain.
As Xi Jinping, China’s leader, visited Central Asian countries this week, he stepped off planes to rousing performances by rows of dancers, musicians and ceremonial guards. Uzbekistan’s leader called him “the greatest statesman,” Chinese state media declared, while the leader of Turkmenistan praised his “wise leadership.” They draped him in medals.
For Beijing, the pomp and fanfare that greeted Mr. Xi, as well as the effusive rhetoric of his counterparts, served to show that China is not isolated despite coming under pressure from the United States and much of the West for its human rights violations and threats to Taiwan. Such messaging by China’s propaganda apparatus carries more urgency as Mr. Xi prepares to extend his power and elevate his authority at a Communist Party congress next month.
In the narrative presented by Beijing, Mr. Xi is the reliable global leader that other countries look to for support in a world made turbulent by American hegemony. Even Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s autocratic leader, seemed almost deferential in his meeting with Mr. Xi on Thursday, acknowledging that China had “questions and concerns” about Russia’s war in Ukraine. …
But the pageantry also demonstrated China’s growing sway in Central Asia — a vast, resource-rich region of mountains and steppe once considered Russia’s domain, where great powers have long vied for influence.
In Mr. Xi’s meetings with several Central Asian leaders, they were quoted as using phrases and political slogans coined by the Chinese Communist Party, praising him for “building a moderately prosperous society” and advancing toward China’s “great rejuvenation.” Mr. Xi was described by his counterparts as “the core” of his country, for instance, and the single person responsible for China’s successes — a narrative Beijing has intensified in recent months.
“The words from the president of Uzbekistan are exactly like the local governors in China use when they have the chance to praise the current leader — they use that script,” said Peidong Sun, a Cornell University associate professor of contemporary Chinese social and cultural history.
The image China’s propaganda outlets are cultivating is partly an exaggeration. Uzbekistan’s leader, in presenting Mr. Xi with an award, had expressed respect for him “as a statesman,” according to the president’s website, and not “the greatest statesman.” Many Central Asian nations welcome Chinese investment but are wary of becoming dependent on Beijing. In countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, people share linguistic, cultural and in some cases family ties with groups in Xinjiang, a region in China’s far west. Many have been concerned about the vast crackdown there that has ensnared Central Asian people.
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But China’s extensive reach in the region has reshaped the landscape in undeniable ways.
Beijing has long seen Central Asia as a critical frontier for the country’s trade expansion, energy security, ethnic stability and military defense. China has built railroads, highways and energy pipelines and expanded educational exchanges throughout the region. …
Underlining Russia’s increasing international isolation a day after China’s leader refrained from offering full-throated support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India told President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday that it is no time for war.
Speaking on the sidelines of a regional security summit in Uzbekistan, Mr. Modi said the world was grappling with major challenges, including food and energy crises that were hitting developing countries especially hard.
“I know that today’s era is not of war,” he said. “Today we will get a chance to discuss how we can move forward on the path of peace in the coming days.”
The tone of the meeting was friendly, with both leaders referring to their long shared history. Before Mr. Modi made his comments, Mr. Putin said he understood India’s concerns about the war in Ukraine.
“I know your position on the conflict in Ukraine, your concerns that you constantly express. We will do our best to stop this as soon as possible,” he said. “Only, unfortunately, the opposing side, the leadership of Ukraine, announced its abandonment of the negotiation process,” he added. …
Don’t forget our new friend Cai Xia — who explains how Xi Jinping is more than a bit of a half wit (as in incompetent — think crazy lock downs). I always gave a lot of credit for the Chinese economic miracle to Xi — assuming he had a lot to do with it because he was on top. ‘Fraid not.
PS. Is it possible to have a separate conversation blog on Bear — one where you can’t just paste competing copies other people’s op-eds? Cannot really have a conversation when your two lines are buried between six New York Times editorials.
I tried to do both links the same way — cut and pasting the address line — I don’t know why they come out different ways — the Xi link came out as just colored text the previous time I copied the link to Open Thread a few days ago. ???
Use the link on the left to copy and paste into a comment. The one on the right removes the link. I believe you will find it in your comment place and above the comment.
You have to draw across the word with your cursor to place a link for that word. It should show blue
President Biden has once again warned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia against using unconventional or nuclear weapons to try to turn the tide of the war in Moscow’s favor, saying that such an action would “change the face of war unlike anything since World War II.”
Speaking in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes” that is scheduled to air on Sunday, Mr. Biden said that the United States’ response would be “consequential,” though he declined to go into detail.
“You think I would tell you if I knew exactly what it would be? Of course I’m not going to tell you. It’ll be consequential,” Mr. Biden said, according to an excerpt from the interview. “They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been. And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.”
His warning was in response to an interviewer’s question, not in light of any newly released intelligence suggesting that the threat had changed.
The leaders of Mr. Putin’s two most consequential strategic partners, India and China, both raised concerns about the war this past week, puncturing the Kremlin’s message that Russia was far from isolated as a result of the war. …
… China’s Chang’e-5 mission in 2020 brought back what the country’s scientists have announced as a new phosphate mineral in columnar crystal, dubbed Changesite-(Y). The mineral contains helium-3, which offers a potential future energy source. It appears China wants to explore this connection further, both with the announcement of three new orbital trips and the Bloombergreport that China hopes to build a moon-based international research station. …
(Nuclear fusion is relatively easy to achieve using Helium-3, which is thought to be much more abundant on the moon than on earth, since it’s a component of the solar wind which has been sending gusts of HE-3 to the moon for a few billion years.)
Unlike Earth, which is protected by its magnetic field, the Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor, since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products. (European Space Agency)
(The solar wind consists of ionized atoms, mostly of hydrogen and helium.)
On Election Day in Shutesbury (about 85 miles west of Boston), population 1,700, voters place their marked ballots into a narrow wooden box on their way out of town hall. With the turn of a crank and a “ding!” of a bell, each ballot gets passed through a wheeled mechanism and falls into a bottom compartment of the box. White numbers on the manual counter tick up by one: The ballot is counted.
So the town’s part-time clerk,Grace Bannasch, was confused when she began getting pummeled with public records requests demandingvoting machine tapes and serial numbers, copies of digital ballots, andfile names, all related to the November 2020 presidential election.
She’s not the only one. Municipal elections officials across Massachusetts have been bombarded with these types of requests, which elections experts and political scientists say stem from supporters of Donald Trump who believe there are documents that will prove widespread election fraud in the 2020 election.
The problem has become so pervasive that it’s caught the attention of Secretary of State William F. Galvin, whose office has contacted Attorney General Maura Healey and is working on a coordinated response.
“They are self-appointed vigilantes who think they are going to go out and protect America,” Galvin said. “It’s a different kind of radicalism. It’s dangerous because we have an ongoing election.”
For local clerks though, the feeling is more bewilderment than brutality.
“I am sitting out here in Western Mass with our hand-crank wooden ballot box and I am thinking, ‘I have no idea what any of these even mean,’” said Bannasch, who serves as the only election official in the town just northwest of Amherst. “Over the last few weeks, I have just gotten so many of these. They have been so demanding and so broad.” …
… Behind the effort, which has been roilinglocal officials nationwide, are high-profile election denierssuch as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and podcaster Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman, who believe Trump, not Joe Biden, is the legitimate winner of the November 2020 presidential election. Lindell, who attended the rally before the Jan. 6 insurrection, told Reuters last year that “I’m never letting the fraud go.”Maras-Lindeman routinely questions the integrity of the election on her blog and podcast, “Tore Says,” and boosted a conspiracy theory about foreign interference, according to The Washington Post’s coverage of an election lawsuit before the Supreme Court.
Clerks say the letters appear to be written using a template. Local clerks are required by law to respond to each request. While most states’ elections are carried out by county-wide or regional elections offices, Massachusetts elections are put on by local city and town clerks — small offices that have been struggling to handle the requests.
Galvin, whose own office as been on the receiving end of dozens of requests, said the most recent coordinated effort stemmed from a template disseminated by Maras-Lindeman, whom Sidney Powell cited as a witness when she asked the Supreme Court to consider overturning Trump’s election loss on behalf of the former president. …
(Geoff Diehl is the Trump-supported GOP candidate for MA guvnah. He last ran against Liz Warren for the US Senate in 2018 and lost 36% to 60%, winning a majority only his home county.)
Will Geoff Diehl, the Donald Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for governor who hasechoed the former president’s bogus claims that the 2020 election was rigged, accept the results of the November election in Massachusetts?
Diehl said in a statement Monday that if he sees problems with the voting process, he will call out the problems and “seek resolution” through legal means.
But “once those means are exhausted, or if there are no such irregularities in the first place, the election is over and its results must be respected according to our democratic tradition,” he said.
A spokeswoman, Peggy Rose, said that means Diehl, former state lawmaker from Whitman, will accept the results in race against Healey, the attorney general, who has also pledged to accept the results. …
Healey has led Diehl by wide margins in public opinion polls. That’s in part because the Trump brand is toxic in Massachusetts.
The former president remains deeply unpopular in Massachusetts, according to a recent Suffolk University/Boston Globe/NBC10 Boston/Telemundo poll of likely midterm voters. Two-thirds of the 500 likely voters surveyed held an unfavorable view of him, the poll found. Andamong the 17 percent who said they have not made up their mind in the governor’s race, more than half said they hold an unfavorable opinion of Trump. …
In the ‘Great Game’ of Central Asia, China’s Leader Seeks the Advantage
NY Times – Sep 16
Amid Russia’s growing international isolation, India’s leader tells Putin that today is no time for war.
NY Times – Sep 16
Hmmm. Should I point out that the items posted above include no op-eds at all?
Unless you consider the NY Times one large op-ed. They are all news stories.
Of course, I have been criticized for mostly putting up news stories.
Fred:
Maybe we figure you have a brain beyond C & P-ing everything. Sometimes I want to read you, not the news.
I guess you know what they say about opinions.
From out old friend John Quiggin:
Don’t forget our new friend Cai Xia — who explains how Xi Jinping is more than a bit of a half wit (as in incompetent — think crazy lock downs). I always gave a lot of credit for the Chinese economic miracle to Xi — assuming he had a lot to do with it because he was on top. ‘Fraid not.
PS. Is it possible to have a separate conversation blog on Bear — one where you can’t just paste competing copies other people’s op-eds? Cannot really have a conversation when your two lines are buried between six New York Times editorials.
Can China Take Taiwan?
Brookings Institution – Aug 2022
“Why no one really knows.”
43-page PDF
Paraphrasing a certain important document,
“A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they not turn Taiwan into a glowing cinder.”
But Xi might come to believe, that declaration being a fairly recent document by his standards, little heed need be paid to it.
Denis:
Why didn’t you do the second link like the first one (like I just did).
I tried to do both links the same way — cut and pasting the address line — I don’t know why they come out different ways — the Xi link came out as just colored text the previous time I copied the link to Open Thread a few days ago. ???
I just noticed that my link to Cai Xia was buried in the words “New York Times editorial.” How did I ever accomplish that? ???
Try again: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-china-weakness-hubris-paranoia-threaten-future
A must read if you really want to understand what’s going wrong in China today — on almost every issue.
Magic;
You can do the same using “link.” I believe you have the capability as a commenter. I will look later.
Denis:
Use the link on the left to copy and paste into a comment. The one on the right removes the link. I believe you will find it in your comment place and above the comment.
You have to draw across the word with your cursor to place a link for that word. It should show blue
Biden threatens a ‘consequential’ response if Russia turns to unconventional weapons.
NY Times – Sep 17
The fen NYT is a rag.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/image-12.png
Heads up, space cadets!
China Plans Three Moon-Mining Missions After Finding a Potential New Source of Energy
Popular Mechanics – Sep 12
… China’s Chang’e-5 mission in 2020 brought back what the country’s scientists have announced as a new phosphate mineral in columnar crystal, dubbed Changesite-(Y). The mineral contains helium-3, which offers a potential future energy source. It appears China wants to explore this connection further, both with the announcement of three new orbital trips and the Bloomberg report that China hopes to build a moon-based international research station. …
(Nuclear fusion is relatively easy to achieve using Helium-3, which is thought to be much more abundant on the moon than on earth, since it’s a component of the solar wind which has been sending gusts of HE-3 to the moon for a few billion years.)
See also: Moon (2009 movie)
Unlike Earth, which is protected by its magnetic field, the Moon has been bombarded with large quantities of Helium-3 by the solar wind. It is thought that this isotope could provide safer nuclear energy in a fusion reactor, since it is not radioactive and would not produce dangerous waste products. (European Space Agency)
(The solar wind consists of ionized atoms, mostly of hydrogen and helium.)
On overturning the 2020 election…
Massachusetts clerks are getting bombarded with conspiracy-fueled records requests about the 2020 election
Boston Globe – Sep 17
Related…
(Geoff Diehl is the Trump-supported GOP candidate for MA guvnah. He last ran against Liz Warren for the US Senate in 2018 and lost 36% to 60%, winning a majority only his home county.)
After ‘no comment’ sparked controversy, Diehl will accept results of the November election, campaign says
Boston Globe – Sep 19