Does China's Moon Landing Matter?

“Does China’s Moon Landing Matter?” was the title of a clip on Fox News as a panel of faux space experts bandied about the rhetorical question for around three minutes before coming up with a totally inane conclusion, obvious and not worth repeating here.

Vacuous drivel was not the way others regarded this event. “This is a very big deal indeed,” says lunar scientist Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. “Landing on the moon is not something easily attained—it requires precision maneuvering, tracking, computation and engineering. It is a delicate task and the Chinese success reflects a mature, evolving and capable program.”

After two fly-by missions to the moon, China was successful on its first attempt for a soft landing on the moon surface. They then launched the rover from the lander to roam and explore a part of moon that had not been visited by the Russians or Americans, predecessors who have also landed on the moon.

Space.com, the website that focuses on all matters relating to space exploration, listed China’s Chang’e-3 mission as the latest on the list of most marvelous moon missions from human kind.

"This is a great day for lunar science and exploration, with the first successful soft landing on the surface of the Moon since the Soviet Union did it in 1976," said Clive Neal, a leading lunar scientist from University of Notre Dame.

Not everyone was as effusive. The New Zealand’s Conservative Party leader, Colin Craig, joined the inevitable chorus of conspiracy doubters and publicly questioned whether the moon landing really took place.

While most of world sent their congratulatory messages to Beijing, NASA was conspicuously quiet. "What we have here is a situation where politics is certainly inhibiting good scientific cooperation and discovery because the NASA mission people are not allowed to communicate bilaterally with their Chinese counterparts," Neal said.

Congressman Frank Wolf has been the direct cause for NASA’s silence. Wolf is well known for his rabid anti China posture and because he chairs the House committee with funding authority over NASA, he runs NASA as if the agency is his personal fiefdom. (He also practiced vicious racial profiling against ethnic Chinese that worked as NASA contractors.) He enacted into law in 2011 that specifically forbad NASA from any contact with China’s counterparts, much less any semblance of joint cooperation.

Wolf’s “activism” has turned what should have been a platform for international scientific cooperation into another petty issue of politics. Even Russia and the U.S., heretofore rivals in the space race, have been able to conduct joint space research in the International Space Station, but China was specifically not invited to be among the 14 member nations.

However, instead of China on the outside looking in, soon it will be other nations looking to be invited by China to participate in their explorations. Both the US and Russia are cutting back their financial commitment for space research just when China has plans firmly in place to move forward.

Already, the European Space Agency has become a partner of China’s space agency by providing their deep space tracking stations to track and help monitor Chang'e 3’s lunar descent.  When Chang’e landing succeeded, the crew at Darmstadt Germany broke out in celebration along with their colleagues in Beijing.

Just about the only other nation contemplating an on-going space exploration program is India. On paper, India will put a man on the moon by 2020, about 4 years ahead of China. But that’s on paper, China has already accomplished landing an unmanned spacecraft and dispatching a rover while nada for India. 

After Beijing successfully staged the 2008 Olympics, India aspired to do the same kind of hosting with the 2010 Commonwealth Games, except the outcome became a scandal ridden embarrassment. Some of the vendors even had trouble getting their equipment out of India as the organizers wanted to hold on to scoreboards and other appliances of value for ransom.

Going forward, whether India will deliver remains to be seen but certainly China will continue to ignite the earthling’s imagination as they continue their program for space exploration. What we won’t remember will be the buffoons on Fox, or alleged national leader like Colin Craig of New Zealand and the obstructionist like Frank Wolf.

The Case of Su Haiping vs. The United States

I have frequently written about Chinese Americans victimized due to racial profiling by American law enforcement agencies. Dr. Su Haiping was one such victim. As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, his case has finally come to trial after nearly 6 years. Some of the proceedings in court has been reported by the World Journal, the national daily in Chinese, and I have provided a translation below.

Court Case on (violation of) Privacy Rights Opens, Su Haiping Asking $5.2 Million Compensation.

Lawyers for UCSC agriculture scientist Su Haiping on December 6 accuse US government of invasion of his rights to privacy, pointing out that after FBI concluded that Su represent security risk, the management of NASA Ames reveal the findings to Su’s co-workers and at the same time took away Su’s access to Ames Research Center. (Thus) causing heavy damage to Su’s professional reputation and his psychological wellbeing. Representative for the plaintiff is asking compensation of $5.2 miillion from the federal government.

Su’s invasion of privacy case occurred in 2008, at the time when he was working as one of expert analysts for UCSC’s University Affiliated Research Center. The principal source of funding was from NASA. At the time, Su had already been working at the Ames Research Center for nearly 3 years.

Government attorney countered that the difficulty of determining the invasion of a person’s privacy is very high, because such cases involves under what circumstances, to whom and what was said. According to court documents, defendant denied invasion of Su’s rights to privacy. Furthermore, the government attorney believes that disclosures by FBI and NASA were not very harmful to Su, because even though he can no longer go to Ames to work, he remained employed by UCSC.

Su’s case began in July of 2007 when he filled personal information on e-QIP for the purpose of getting NASA approval for facility entry in 2008. After submitting to NSA, he received the entry pass in January 2008 uneventfully. According to Su’s attorney, e-QIP was a new tool used by the government to check on staff after 9-11.

Michael Reedy, Su’s attorney, pointed out that NASA never obtained Su’s permission before turning over the completed e-QIP form to FBI. Defense objected and Davila, the presiding judge, ruled that the hearing does not include the e-QIP matter.

Beginning February 2008, FBI agent Sherman Kwok along with NASA personnel interviewed Su twice, both times in a windowless room at the (Ames) research center.

On March 21, 2008, Su went to Oakland to undertake a FBI administered lie detector test. Su was distraught after the test. According to court documents, FBI agent Kwok told Su that the lie detector results were not good, but there were no means to do a retest. The results were sent on to NASA.

According to Su’s testimony on December 5, June 24 2008 was a unforgettable day in his memory. On that day, Robert Dolci, head of NASA Ames security gave Su a letter signed by Dolci. The letter stated that according to results of investigations, the center considers Su a security risk to NASA’s intellectual property and thus is revoking his access to Ames research center (and the right to work there).

Fading American Expectation and Exceptionalism

Since the financial tsunami of 2008, I have been monitoring the bilateral currency swap agreements that China has entered into. According to the most recent report, China has 24 such agreements in place, the recent agreements with EU and UK are probably the most significant.

Most significant because EU represents a major portion of global economic activity, second only to the US and because UK is unabashedly and proactively going after opportunities associated with becoming a swap center for Renminbi (along with Hong Kong and Singapore) and bending over backwards to entice Chinese investments into UK.

There was a time when UK was the leading economic power of the world--you know, when the sun never set on the British empire. The pound sterling was at the time the world's reserve currency of choice. That was then.

Since then America has overtaken UK and became a superpower and after the collapse of USSR, the world's only superpower. The dollar has replaced the pound as the reserve currency.

Despite the fact that the financial collapse of 2008 was caused by American greed on Wall Street, the dollar was still considered the safest currency to have and hold. Foreign money piling into the US did its part in keeping the interest rate of US Treasury bills low.

Since that time, however, the US Congress has twice threatened to renege on the national debt which would in effect render the foreign holdings of US Treasury bills worthless. Each time, Congress kept the world watching with abated breath and backed off as the clock was about to strike midnight.

Congress has not offered a permanent fix to the circus revolving around the fiscal budget and debt ceiling but merely kicked the can down the street with yet another deadline looming on December 13. Some wags have suggested that Congress lacked sense of humor and did not select February 2, Ground Hog's Day, for the deadline.

Watching the US fiddle with the prospect of default is no joking matter but the world clearly appreciated that Washington has become one big joke.

As Wall Street Journal, among others, have pointed out, Asian countries in particular are now busy doing their own side deals in bilateral currency swaps to avoid additional dollar exposure. The most prominent next to China has been South Korea. They have been cutting one deal after another with their major trading partners. Their central banker said Korea is following China's lead.

The worldwide trend is obvious to anyone except members of Congress. American exceptionalism is fraying along with the declining desirability of the dollar. When enough countries decide holding on to the dollar is too risky, the American dollar will cease to be the reserve currency of choice.

When China is courageous enough to make the Renminbi freely convertible, the appeal of the dollar could take a quantum dump. When the world ceases to want dollars for their rainy days, the value of the dollar will go kaput. The American taxpayers will rue that day but it will be too late to throw the rascals out of Washington. The damage would be beyond repair.

Does Shutdown Presage Global Meltdown?

An edited version appeared in New America Media.

The mightiest democracy in the world has grounded to a screeching halt by the tyranny of few.

Somehow the Tea Party members, roughly 10% of the House, were able to hold the Speaker of the House of Representative hostage and force him into an impasse with the White House.

The US Federal government can no longer operate because the political leaders of the two political parties cannot find common ground and agree.

Instead the parties are now feverishly engaged in explaining to the public why the other side is to blame. Nobody has a solution.

Befuddled observers around the world watch in morbid fascination even though they are hard put to explain how or why this can happen to the only superpower still standing.

The US is worse off than Italy: not even a person of Silvio Berlusconi’s ilk is around to bail out the American impasse and avert a government shutdown. (Berlusconi “saved” Italy by not bolting from the ruling coalition.)

The people of Lebanon are saying, “Hey, you Americans come and learn from us, we have gotten along without a functioning government for decades.”

To the Egyptians, this was an aha moment, namely how to get rid of a government without bloodshed.

Other western democracies such as France, Germany and U.K. are congratulating themselves for having the parliamentary form of democracy where the prime minister stays in power so long as a majority of the parliament supports him or her.

When the prime minister no longer has majority support and loses the confidence vote, the government falls. But, unlike the U.S. a minority cannot violate the basic tenet of democracy and shut the government down.

The bloggers in China seem to be having the most fun seizing the shutdown as an opportunity for a twofer.

On the one hand, the bloggers are praising the American civil society to the sky for its ability to go about business as usual, in contrast to China where a shutdown would assuredly lead to chaos and disorder.

On the other, some slyly suggested that a shutdown of the Chinese government wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Tourists visiting the U.S. do not find the shutdown amusing. Many from China left for the US around October 1, China’s national holiday and the beginning of China’s Golden Week.

For many that scrimped for the trip of their lifetime, they will be going home without the customary photos of Yosemite and Statue of Liberty and other popular icons from the land of the free.

The bad taste of disappointed tourists is hardly the only damage to international relations for the U.S.

Because of the shutdown, Obama had to cancel his visit to Malaysia and Philippines and possibly the entire trip to Southeast Asia just to pivot back to Washington—further shaking the confidence of the region in the leadership of the U.S.

In contrast, China’s President Xi Jinping went to Indonesia and became the first foreign leader to address Indonesia’s parliament where he spoke for nearly an hour (and then he went on to Malaysia).  

The Taiwan based Apple Daily made a fuss over one of the phrases Xi used in his speech. He said jilidangjitianxiali, which the English China Daily has translated as, “The interests to be considered should be the interests of all.”

The cause of the excitement is because the same exact phrase used to be one half of the operating motto belonging to Chiang Ch’ing Guo when he succeeded his father, Chiang Kai Shek, and became the second president of Republic of China in Taiwan.

Indonesia would seem to be an unlikely venue to send a coded message to Taiwan. More likely Xi was using a phrase in common usage to emphasize the principle that one should consider the greater good over the narrow interest of a select few.

This, of course, is the very message that the political leaders of the U.S. are ignoring, namely, total focus on their individual agenda and not at all on national interest.

The gridlock continues and the U.S. is expected to hurtle over the fiscal cliff around October 17.  Without a Congress to work with the White House and raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will have to default.

When the world sees the full faith of the U.S. Federal Government as worthless, there will be a worldwide financial Armageddon. Perhaps the crazies in Congress relish the idea of an Armageddon, but no one else will.

The self-inflicted wounds to American prestige will take time to recover. But if the United States actually defaults, the damage will be fatal and the world will never trust the U.S. ever again.

The U.S. Senate Hog Wild over the Chinese Bid for Smithfield Pork

When Shuanghui, China’s largest pork producer, made an offer to buy Smithfield, it should have been a straightforward business transaction. Smithfield is America’s largest pork producer.  By acquiring Smithfield, Shuanghui would be positioned to fill China’s rising demand for more pork.

Chinese living in America have been long familiar with the premium priced Smithfield country ham; the cured meat reminds them of the taste of “Jinhua” ham famous throughout China. Through Shuanghui’s distribution channels, America stands to export a lot of pork to the most dynamic growing market in the world—not incidentally, exporting is an activity encouraged by President Obama for job creation.

What should have been a simple win-win deal is becoming a lot more complicated thanks to Congressional review. As presented at the hearing, the humble bacon has suddenly risen to become an ominous threat capable of imperiling the security of the United States.

According to the testimony of one alleged expert on China, Usha Haley, pork is a strategically important industry for China. Therefore even if heretofore pork consumption is declining in the US, suddenly because the Chinese desires American pork, the US should think hard about denying them access.

Then Daniel Slane, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, artfully blackened the Chinese tycoon behind Shuanghui by labeling Mr. Wan Long a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party at the beck and call of the Beijing government. The day after Mr. Slane’s testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee, the Wall Street Journalran a profile on Mr. Wan that supported none of his allegations.

While the per capita American consumption of beef is around 7 times that of per capital Chinese consumption, China’s per capita consumption of pork is roughly 20% higher than in the US. Since China’s population is more than four times greater, the claim that China consumes a lot of pork is not in question. As China’s middle class continues to swell, demand for their favorite meat will only increase.

Hogs in China are raised mostly in small family-owned farms and could never match the productivity of factory farms in the US. Thus demand will continue to exceed domestic supply. That the Chinese hog farmers won’t be swamped by the import of American pork is only because some Chinese consumers prefer the more robust flavor of “free range” pork than the more consistent but blander tasting meat from the US.

There isn’t any question that Smithfield represents the standard that Shuanghui aspires to attain. Without a significant economic comparative advantage, there wouldn’t be any reason for Shuanghui to tender for the American company.

Part of the motivation for acquiring Smithfield would be to learn from the Americans in raising healthier hogs and producing more consistent quality of meats. Even if the Chinese improve their productivity using American technology, why should the US object to having more pork to go around? It’s not as if pork has suddenly become a material for the weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, such a development would be a good thing for the world as a whole. Americans may eat more than that’s good for them, but the rest of the world wouldn’t mind having a bit of meat once in a while. In a world of burgeoning population facing perpetual hunger, for the august members of the US Senate to look at this deal as a zero sum game—where Chinese dietary gain is somehow equated to America’s loss--reflects small minds of petty consequences.

But leave it to the politicians to make a pig of themselves and raise the threat of national security at every imagined shadow even when cast by a dangling ham. “Shuanghui” could be loosely translated from Chinese as “both win.” If Senator Debbie Stabenow and her committee have their way, it seems only a “both party lose” outcome can satisfy their proclivity for xenophobic paranoia.

A version appeared in New America Media and China-US Focus.

There is more to Snowden than the media reports

Asia Times has given the public the first truly extensive and thoughtful analysis of Snowden, the latest NSA whistle blower that captured worldwide attention. Most of us, including me, probably has not heard of previous whistle blowers on the NSA. Author Peter Lee of Asia Times gives you a fascinating look of what happened to previous whistle blowers, Binney, Wiebe and Drake, and how their experiences may have shaped the course of action taken by Snowden.

It's no small irony that this great democracy of the United States encourages the idea, in principle, of whistle blowers to keep abusive government practices in check, but in reality woe unto those that believe in the protection of the American Constitution when they decide to take on the government.

Anyone wishing to understand the degree of dysfunction that afflict the government of United States needs to read the article on the three wise men of NSA.

Just the quote from Snowden is worth the visit, "Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American."

For Chinese Scientists, America is the Land of Opportunity to Go to Jail.

A similar version has been posted on China-US Focus.
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The recently concluded (non)case of the government vs. Dr. Bo Jiang bore a striking resemblance to the scandalous Wen Ho Lee affair that occurred in 1999 and strongly suggests that racial profiling and bigotry is still alive and well, at least in Virginia.

On March 16, Dr. Bo Jiang, a citizen of China boarded a plane at Dulles International bound for Beijing. He was accosted and escorted off the plane by FBI agents, put in jail and charged with lying to the law enforcement officials and possible violations of Arms Export Control Act.

About 7 weeks later, on May 3, the prosecution dropped all charges against Dr. Jiang. But before he was allowed to leave the US for Chengdu China he had to plead to a misdemeanor charge of “misuse of government equipment” in exchange for time already served in jail. The plea was so the government did not have to admit that they made a mistake.

In 1999, Dr. Lee, the then Los Alamos scientist, was accused of being a spy for China by the New York Times, fingered by then Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, thrown into solitary confinement for ten months. Lee was then released with an apology from the presiding judge for prosecutorial misconduct.

In the most recent case, Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) was instrumental in the arrest of Jiang and he was quite proud of his role as the self-appointed spy catcher.  After Jiang’s arrest, the Congressman held a press conference on March 18 and issued a press release in praise of his own role in this affair. 

Wolf is a well-known, long time critic of Peoples’ Republic of China. On March 7, he held a press conference expressing alarm at security violations at NASA-Langley. According to him, anonymous whistleblowers had told him of a Chinese national with unauthorized access to NASA’s secrets.

Wolf on March 7 already knew about Jiang but was setting the stage for the drama to come. He did say, “It is my understanding that this Chinese national is affiliated with an institution in China that has been designated as an ‘entity of concern’ by other U.S. government agencies.”

At the March 18 conference, Wolf revealed that Jiang was “trying the leave the country on a one-way ticket.” At the airport, the federal agents had asked what electronic media he had with him. Jiang admitted that he had a cellphone, a memory stick, an external hard drive and a new computer. A search of his luggage found other media items not mentioned by Jiang and that discrepancy too became grounds for suspicion.

At this point, Jiang could have explained that his work visa in the US was expiring and his contract was not being renewed. He bought a one-way ticket back to China because he wasn’t planning to come back. There was nothing sudden about his flight to Beijing.

He could have pointed out that the work he did as a NASA contractor was unrelated to national security and he had no access to data and technology related to national security.

But no one was interested in what the suspect had to say. Fortunately for Jiang, he then got a break. The court appointed Fernando Groene as his defense counsel.  An experienced former federal prosecutor, Gorene accepted the appointment because he was outraged by the injustice of Jiang’s case.

“It’s all about a witch hunt,” he said to the media shortly after taking the case. The mills of justice ground on for a few more weeks before the prosecution confirmed that Jiang had been telling the truth, namely his computers contained no data or files that violated national security regulations.

Groene was quick to praise the prosecution for being fair minded after seeing that they had no case. Of course, this did not mean that Jiang received an apology from Wolf, FBI or anyone representing the federal government.

He experienced first hand the adage, “you can’t fight city hall.” Jiang had to accept a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge for the time served—a misdemeanor of misusing government equipment that most federal employees would also have been found guilty of.

There were, of course, no offers of compensation for his 7 weeks of incarceration or damages to his reputation, dignity and personal privacy.

After the case was over and Jiang had gone back to China, attorney Groene gave additional color surrounding this case.

NASA could hardly ignore the agitation from the Congressman with the power of funding oversight.  In response, NASA had earlier conducted an internal investigation of the allegations against Jiang and found no substantiation. This was duly reported back to Wolf but he would hear none of it.

A dissatisfied Wolf then wrote letters on March 13 to the US Attorney’s office and FBI insisting that they investigate further, leading to the ensuing fiasco

Jiang’s implied sinister connection with an “entity of concern” alluded by Wolf was apparently the school in Chengdu Jiang attended for undergraduate training. Groene pointed out that the Chengdu school had a sister college relationship with the College of William & Mary and the president of William & Mary is none other than Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense in Bush and Obama administrations.

If anyone has violated federal regulations, Groene concluded, it was Congressman Wolf for disclosing confidential personal information on his website.

Groene is a naturalized American citizen from Cuba. He is proud to be an American and grateful to be in the land of opportunities but he is concerned over the erosion of our civil liberties as exemplified by the arbitrary law enforcement action against Jiang.

There are other conclusions to be drawn from this latest case of racial profiling against ethnic Chinese.

Obviously the US does not have enough scientists that can meet the requirements for security clearances and are thus qualified to do work involving national security. To get around this problem, Government agencies such as NASA have been parceling out work that are unrelated to national security to contractors who can hire scientists that do not hold security clearances. This was the case with Jiang, a Chinese citizen without permanent resident status.

Such a separation obviously does not satisfy Congressman Wolf and his ilk and thus Bo Jiang becomes a cautionary tale for any ethnic Chinese scientists working in the US.

Whether it’s in Silicon Valley, universities, government laboratories or major corporations, if you are ethnic Chinese, not only your conduct has to be absolutely law abiding, you also have to stay as far away as possible from being tainted by any hint of wrongdoing. Others might routinely “misuse” government equipment but not you if you’re Chinese.

During the Wen Ho Lee era, John Deutsch was the then head of CIA. He was reprimanded for routinely downloading confidential files to his laptop and regularly taking it home--a clear case of violating government regulations and gross misuse of government equipment. But he was not ethnic Chinese and therefore he did not have to cop a plea nor spend a day in jail.

Contrary to popular myth, justice in America is not blind but is on the side of the government. Even if you are innocent, once arrested you are in trouble. As Wen Ho Lee demonstrated then and Jiang now, downloading while Chinese can be dangerous to your wellbeing.