The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday 13 May 2015

Air Date: 
May 13, 2015

JBS sked     Date: 2015-05-13W
 
5/13/15 Hr 1 JBS:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com.  Henry Sokolski, e Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.   Willy Lam, Chinese University of Hong Kong & author, Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression?   Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show. Marc D Rayman, NASA JPL, Chief engineer of Dawn Mission. Ann Marlowe, Hudson Institute.
 
5/13/15 Hr 2 JBS:  Gordon Chang, Forbes.com. Peter Navarro, UC Irvine & documentary, Death by China (Netflix). Bruce E Bechtol, professor at Angelo State University.   Sadanand Dhume, AEI.  Abheek Bhattacharya, WSJ Hong Kong.
 
5/13/15 Hr 3 JBS:  Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times.   Jill Rosenbaum,  NYT Retro Report.  Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View.
 
5/13/15 Hr 4 JBS:  Lee TrimbleBeyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front, by Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield
 
Photo, left: 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com.  Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show.
Hour One
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:   Henry Sokolski, executive director of The Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, in re:  Pres Obama is quietly moving to renew a trade agreement with China: nuclear info sharing. China has already diverted US civil nuclear power info to its nuclear submarine.   Serious violation If it just sits for ninety days, it automatically becomes law. The Administration argues: it’ll improve trade, reduce carbon emissions., and better that the US make money than let another country do so. China is not too good about keeping its treaty or trade agreements. (“They’ll proliferate anyway so why don't we just do business with them.”) First, China wants the best technology which, in this instance, is US. Second, one can demand certain conditions such that, if they don't behave, we cease doing business with them.  DO they need our technology? Yes: France forged major reactors, two in China, and they’ve just suffered huge breakdowns.  As for China and Russia, China intends to compete with Russia, so China wants as much as possible from the US.  Can make naval reactors without us, but best quality for China will be reverse-engineering our technology.  Makes their subs better and quieter. While you can’t safely assume the worst, you can hedge against it.   US reactor will produce 1,000 -2,000 bombs’ worth of Pn per years. Obama Administration has given them advance permission to do that!   http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-quiet-nuclear-deal-with-china-raises-proliferation-concerns/2015/05/10/549e18de-ece3-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block B:  Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and author of the new book, Chinese Politics in the Era of Xi Jinping: Renaissance, Reform, or Retrogression?, in re:  Zhou Yong-kang, accused of corruption, is among those being purged; all was moving along until suddenly his trial was delayed: landmark in the history of Chinese jurisprudence. No member of the Standing Committee has been charged since 1976 – a protection clause begun by Deng Xiao-ping to reduce the incentive to fight to the end and thereby tear the Communist Party apart.    Xi Jin-ping is a Machiavellian figure – good at Party games, has alienated both major Party factions so has to use corruption charges to back them off.  This sort of political purge goes back the 1930s: Mao Tse-tung was good at this.  Xi took on Zhou in the last administration; the trial’s delay is not unusual as Zhou still has supporters in the Party apparatus. He initially cooperated fully to protect his two sons, both of whom now may get the death penalty, so now he recants some of his confessions, says he was tortured . Independent judiciary is unheard-of in China and Xi has full control of the judicial apparatus.  Zhou is e head of the so-called Anti-Corruption [crew].  Was in charge of  a huge security apparatus; he wiretapped top leaders and has lots of potentially incriminating evidence against I and his cronies. 
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Marc D Rayman, NASA JPL, Chief engineer of Dawn Mission, in re:  Ceres, once a dwarf planet (discovered 129 years before Pluto was): look at he gif at the NASA site.  Can see a few small regions where the dark surface is interrupted by very dark spots – the moon reflects 12% of the light – but the mysterious bright spots reflect much more light, like shining beacons to the cosmic seas calling our spacecraft forward to ferret out the mystery.  The many brightest spots are in one 57-mile-wide crater. Europa, the Jupiter moon, showing wheelie marks now said to be salt rising from an internal sea. Don't yet now if Ceres has an internal sea; probably was one some time in the past.  We need to get closer, better pix, and better spectra.  Bright spots probably not ice since it's close enough to the Sun to have the water eventually sublimate into gas, waft into space, and disappear. If it is ice on the surface, it’d have to be relatively fresh.  A qualified yes to whether or not the planet was once alive [?]. Too lightly pocked by asteroid craters to  . . . In store for the balance of the life of Dawn: our lowest altitude will be 230 miles – closer that the ISS is to Earth. We’ll leave the craft in that orbit, fully map the surface, and keep extracting secrets from this dwarf planet for as long as possible; it’ll become an inert monument to human curiosity and creativity. Ceres is the largest of the protoplanets in our Solar System.   We believe Earth was made from bodes like Ceres, whose growth was cut off by Jupiter’s powerful gravity.  . . .  Dawn does not have a gravitometer.
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block D:  Ann Marlowe, Hudson Institute, in re: Migrant crisis: EU plan to strike Libya networks could include ground forces A landing craft transports migrants back to HMS Bulwark after their rescue in the 
Hour Two
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block A:  Peter Navarro, professor at the University of California, Irvine and producer of the documentary Death by China (Netflix),in re:  The TPP would be one of the largest trade deals ever; China is not included. Before we get there, we need TPA to let large trade deals to be voted up or down on fast track at the direction of the White Hose. No one trusts the WH to do this: special interest factors for big corporations at the direct expense of the citizenry.  Lame-duck Dem president in bed with GOP lobbies.    South China Sea: US Navy suddenly pushes back: challenge China’s reclamations in the Spratleys, turning reefs and shoals into large military islands.  Question is, will the Navy get within 12 miles [territorial waters]?  China’s “cabbage strategy”:  white-hulled ships around the Spratleys and Paracels to push fishermen of all nations away from the territory. The chain if islands across the South China Sea can guide ICBMs to the US. Also, if you own a piece of land anywhere, draw a line 200 mi in diameter and claim all the oil and gas underwater.  Next. China will declare an Air Defense Identification Zone and require everyone to get permission to overfly. Abrogation of two centuries of free travel. When the US Navy approaches 200 small, white-hulled vessels, it’ll look as though the US is the bully, not China, so the Pentagon will have to be really careful in managing the matter. China wants the South China Sea to be a Chinese lake, and to become the hegemon of Asia. Thy think they’ll be the world hegemon at the end of the Twentieth Century, that the US is in terminal decline and China can push around the US and India. Chinese arrogance: “it’s the autistic power” in Asia – seems to  be clueless that they’re offending and frightening all their neighbors. This is the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the CCP. Lu Wa-ching was the right-hand man of Deng and laid out the plan: get the South China Sea and East China Sea, then global waters by 2050.  Meanwhile the US is just standing by [sucking its thumb].
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block B:  Bruce E Bechtol, professor at Angelo State University and author of North Korea and Regional Security in the Kim Jong-un Era, in re: North Korea’s recently –appointed defense minister, close friend of he Kim family, is executed in front of an audience of hundreds by antiaircraft guns with shells a half a foot long:  publicly humiliating the family.  South Korea’s natl intell agy says Kim Jong-eun has executed 85 people – probably in truth a lot more, since most executions are secret, or are disappearances.  Probably 400-500 all together, since we’ve seen huge population changes in agencies and departments. Stalin purged generals before the German invasion and reduced his ability to fight Germans when they bashed in. Here, in the DPRK, the purges damage the country and its ability to enter combat; moreover, Kim Jong-eun is now using combat forces for internal security.  Big mistake.  Now it’s not only an unstable regime – it’s much more so than were previous regimes at their same period of leadership.  Did DPRK launch a ballistic missile from a sub?  Looks like yes.  Fired it several  hundred meters – country is well on its way to:   (1)  long-range Gulf-class sub (range of 70 days, thus can hit Hawaii) and (2 ) on its way to an SLBM.   Is farther along in its dvpt than any of us wd have predicted recently. It might be significant that the Defense Minister has just returned from Russia? May have made a careless remark?  Were there a coup, it's the military that’d replace Jong-eun.  Signs of instability in China and DPRK at the same time: economic problems in China mean that China can’t support North Korea, leaving Jong-eun in a pinch.
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block C:  Sadanand Dhume, AEI, in re:   Global Times (under Peoples Daily, thus probably approved by Xi Jin-ping or his aides) published an op-ed today: “People-to-people and cultural exchanges are far from enough . . . due to the Indian elites’s blind arrogance, . . . few Indians can treat Sino-Indian contacts rationally” – wow.  Who writes this stuff in 2015?  China is a one-party-state with  tightly-controlled press; was this timed for Modi’s  arrival in China?  This queers the pitch. A democracy could say that the govt has no control, but not in China. “Dues to historical feuds . .  the two sides have never established real strategic trust. .. .  Modi should no longer visit the disputed border region (. . . and completely stop supporting the Dalai Lama.”  WOW. Indians are inferior! 
Modi has spent a year in office, shoring up important allies.  Concern over China’s hegemonic ambitions in the region.  In September, when Xi was in India, the Chinese military intruded into Ladakh at the same moment.  No one in India wants a fight with China; there are those suspicious of China and panda-huggers, but no one wants a fight.  Modi is seen as good on foreign policy – with US, Israel, to some extent China.
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Abheek Bhattacharya, WSJ, in re:  In Chinese car shows, female models are banned: I spent a week last month looking at shiny sports cars and SUVs at the Shanghai auto show, and came away with a few thoughts. When so much else is slowing down, SUV sales in China are holding up. This might last, and one beneficiary is Ford's China partner. Next, thanks to their cheap SUVs, domestic car companies are suddenly outselling the mighty foreigners, though this, I think, won't last. And oh, thanks to Xi Jinping, female car models are no longer allowed at China auto shows -- though, as my colleagues and I discovered, there are ways around that diktat. They were there: called “sales representatives”;  and there were male car models.  Communist morality? XI Jin-ping says Chinese people have lost their way, and he demands a return to a more moral way of living, to leave Ferraris and shark-fin-soup dinners in the rear-view mirror.  Doing best are ”budget SUVs.” Great Wall Motor, an indigenous brand – “we make cheap but fairly durable SUVs.” Eco-Sport also doing well.  Glamour cars: numbers ‘way down (from anticorruption drive – includes watches and expensive liquor). 
While we're on matters of transportation, Chinese airline passenger traffic is also doing well. This, along with cheap oil, bodes well for domestic airlines. In contrast, China's state oil companies are ailing, failing to cut spending as much as low oil prices demand. There are also regulatory clouds over their natural gas operations.
Chinese housing construction -- the heart of the economy -- continues to ail too, a bad sign for construction-machinery bellwether Zoomlion. This is a company I've written about before for its troubling accounting, but now its problem is simply troublingly poor sales. Poor Chinese construction demand for steel, along with rising iron-ore supply, has in turn created a perfect financial storm for Fortescue, the world's largest pure iron-ore miner. This company has been rich fodder for financial commentary. It probably started burning cash in early April. It bought itself another life later in April by issuing debt, but with iron-ore prices collapsing, it can't keep affording these new lives.  Further, investors shouldn't expect Raghuram Rajan to keep cutting rates in India, how commodities trading house Noble Group did a poor job last month defending itself against accounting allegations, and how Honda is not the best Japanese carmaker to bet on these days.
Hour Three
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:  Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Jeb Bush tries to move past Iraq questions  Washington - Jeb Bush has balked twice in recent days at questions about whether, knowing that Iraq didn't have weapons of mass ...  Jeb Bush Needs a Better Answer on Iraq  ;  On the trail, Jeb Bush faces hostile questions about Iraq war  ;  Marco Rubio seems to have changed his mind about the Iraq war  Marco Rubio (R-Florida) seemingly changed his position on the Iraq war on Wednesday.
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: It has been more than three weeks since Hillary Clinton has answered a question from the . . .   The 13 Questions Hillary Clinton Has Answered from the Press
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block C:  Jill Rosenbaum,  NYT Retro Report; in re: Flame-retardants and other chemicals: their discovery, banning, return; damage to infants and children.  Children’s pyjamas.
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block D:   Josh Rogin, Bloomberg View, in re: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-13/assad-is-said-to-be-hiding-chemical-weapons-in-syria   U.S. Says Assad Caught with Sarin. Again.
Hour Four
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block A:  Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front, by Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield (1 of 4)
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block B:  Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front, by Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield (2 of 4)
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front, by Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield (3 of 4)
Wednesday  13 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block D:   Beyond the Call: The True Story of One World War II Pilot's Covert Mission to Rescue POWs on the Eastern Front, by Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield (4 of 4)
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