In a rebel camp along the barren, windswept border between Sudan and Chad, dozens of trucks packed with dreadlocked fighters manning heavy machine guns are lined up.Piled up behind them are ammunition boxes, covered in Chinese symbols -- it's impossible to know exactly where the bullets in the boxes came from but they offer a glimpse of the complex and circuitous routes of the global arms trade.
United Nations investigators have found most of the small arms fueling the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur are Chinese despite an arms ban on a region where tens of thousands have been killed and 2.5 million squat in squalid camps.
"China has been, and continues to be, a major supplier of light weapons to the government of Sudan and many of the neighboring states," said Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, one of four U.N. experts on a panel which recommended 17 players in the Darfur conflict be sanctioned for obstructing peace.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
China's arms business
This is the real Chinese human rights disaster, but don't look for the US, UK, Russia, and France to make a big deal out of it any time soon. The US is the largest supplier. Good business. Bad business to criticize the human rights implications. This is China entering a market that few states want to see ended.
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Certainly as time progresses, China arms manufacturers/dealers will get more creative in the way they include Chinese writings on shipping boxes and other identifiers are attached to arms or other products they wish not to be identified to China. Perhaps they are working on this problem now as we read. It would not surprise me if they already ship items inscribed in English or French or some other language(s).
China will soon become the most power nation in the world. As China slowly adapts to capitalism, there people of China will also acquire more knowledge of democracy and demand it.
Already, the top languages to learn in the world besides English of course are Simple or Standard Chinese and Arabic. Why are public school systems around America still emphasizing Spanish and French?
Lets face it, the arms business is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world, even more than the drug business. To be frank, I was surprised by this fact, myself, because I always thought the drug business was greater in sales, but logical it makes sense why the arms business is the largest or most lucrative.
The arms business includes not just your typical fire arms or small arms but also larger arms like tanks, submarines, rockets, the ammunition especially, and much more. The arms business includes all weapons including the ammunition and or supplies, therefore the logic of China becoming a major supplier of arms to nations elsewhere should not be a surprise.
Most people are not aware that China has been through the decades, investing in African resources particularly the people. When I say people, China would take or allow a certain calculated number of Africans to travel to China to be educated, learn there customs, primarily for the purposes of using those individuals in the future to build larger or stronger human networks of influence in Africa. Obviously with this type of influence, they will be able to accomplish what they desire in exploiting Africa’s resources.
China will be hosting the Olypics also in a couple of years from now. They will use this means to publicize to the world of there greatness, at least on the surface. (Ego) Lets keep our eyes open on China. Soon I might be studying Simple Chinese also. What do you think?
Honestly, I don't see China's rise as an economic power as a problem. It's a little too dear for the West to organize the rules of the market and international trade and cry foul when another nation beats them at their own game. As for human rights and environmental issues, these do concern me. But China lags far behind the US in terms of carbon emissions. They are likely to rise, but it looks unlikely that China would ever produce as much tonnage of greenhouse gases as the US currently does (and historically has).
As for human rights issues, these are still a battle in the West anyway, and are moving in the wrong direction with the current administration. There's no argument to be made there from the vantage of the US.
So what's all the ado about? A kind of economic nationalism. But this gives the lie to the concomitant push for global economic liberalization.
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