Posts tagged ‘politics’

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31/12/2012

# Question: Who did China woo in 2012?

Answer: everybody!
Up to the beginning of the 20th century, China was very reclusive. It deemed itself self-sufficient, not needing anything from anyone else. China in the 21st century seems to have turned itself 180 degrees and is seeking to network and collaborate with everyone.  The list of over 100 countries below has been compiled from on-line articles in China Daily and Xinhua News. They are countries that either sent senior leaders to China or to which China sent senior leaders (often the Prime Minister) in 2012 to discuss and agree collaboration, or with whom China forged or renewed some significant treaty or alliance.

 

In other words, China is not leaving matters to chance but taking proactive action. Maybe the Chinese leaders have read and internalised Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People) or even Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People).

On the other hand, maybe China has heard of the saying: “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” and since everyone can at some time be a friend or a foe, China wants to keep close with everyone.

By the way, if your country is not one of those listed, either I missed an article OR you better start worrying. 

  • December: Mexico, Bolivia, India; New Zealand; USA; Cuba; Kazakhstan; Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Latvia; South Africa; Bahrain; Armenia
  • November: Nepal, Laos, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh; Cambodia; Luxembourg; Russia; Palestine; Spain; Tajikistan; Benin; Surinam; Italy; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Germany
  • October: Colombia; The Netherlands; New Zealand; Maldives; Cambodia; Bangladesh; Philippine; Vietnam; Laos; Poland; Romania; Croatia; Moldavia
  • September: Vietnam, Russia, Singapore; Myanmar; Malaysia; Turkmenistan; Canada; Cambodia, Sudan, Algeria; France
  • August: Bulgaria; Ghana; Taiwan; Indonesia; Brunei; Malaysia; Croatia; Philippines; Egypt; Germany; South Korea; New Zealand; Congo; India; Iran, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Fiji; Montenegro; Cambodia; Burundi
  • July:  Cuba; Slovenia; Israel; South Korea; Malaysia; Niger; South Africa; Egypt; Ivory Coast; Equatorial Guinea; Niger; Nepal
  • June: Belarus; Georgia: Afghanistan; Myanmar; Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Russia; Denmark; Sri Lanka; Belgium; Ethiopia; South Korea; Singapore; Brazil; Congo; Uruguay; Argentina; Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe; Argentina; Poland; Chile;
  • May: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; Taiwan; USA, Arab League, Colombia; Japan, South Korea, Romania, New Zealand, Australia; Croatia; Netherlands; Luxembourg; Brazil; East Timor; Singapore; Kenya; Turkey.
  • April: Kazakhstan, Britain, Cyprus, Brunei, Premier Wen visit: Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Poland; Thailand, Japan, North Korea, Timor-L’este, Colombia, South Sudan, Indonesia, VP Li Keqiang, presumed Premier-to-be, visited: Russia, Hungary, Belgium, EU, Central & East Euro states, Malawi, Malaysia, Zambia, South Korea. 
  • March: Britain, France, Italy, UAE, Albania, Angola, Kenya, Israel, Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, Turkey, Indonesia, South Korea, South Africa, Japan, Cambodia, Taiwan, Ireland, Russia and India. 
  • February: VP Xi Jinping, presumed President-to-be, visited US; Canada, Australia, Turkey; Taiwan; Myanmar.
  • January: Ivory Coast, Pakistan, Germany, Libya, Sudan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan; Vietnam; Chile.

Posted in China alert, Economics, GeoPolitics, Politics, Social & cultural | 7 Comments »

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30/12/2012

* How India treats its women

BBC News: “People have called her Braveheart, Fearless and India’s Daughter, among other things, and sent up a billion prayers for a speedy recovery.

An Indian schoolgirl holds a placard during a prayer ceremony to mourn the death of a 23-year-old gang rape victim, at a school in Ahmadabad, India, Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012.

When the unidentified woman died in a Singapore hospital early on Saturday, the victim of a savage rape on a moving bus in the capital, Delhi, it was time again, many said, to ask: why does India treat its women so badly?

Female foetuses are aborted and baby girls killed after birth, leading to an an appallingly skewed sex ratio. Many of those who survive face discrimination, prejudice, violence and neglect all their lives, as single or married women.

TrustLaw, a news service run by Thomson Reuters, has ranked India as the worst country in which to be a woman. This in the country where the leader of the ruling party, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, at least three chief ministers, and a number of sports and business icons are women. It is also a country where a generation of newly empowered young women are going out to work in larger numbers than ever before.

But crimes against women are rising too.

With more than 24,000 reported cases in 2011, rape registered a 9.2% rise over the previous year. More than half (54.7%) of the victims were aged between 18 and 30. Most disturbingly, according to police records, the offenders were known to their victims in more than 94% of the cases. Neighbours accounted for a third of the offenders, while parents and other relatives were also involved. Delhi accounted for over 17% of the total number of rape cases in the country.

And it is not rape alone. Police records from 2011 show kidnappings and abductions of women were up 19.4%, women being killed in disputes over dowry payments by 2.7%, torture by 5.4%, molestation by 5.8% and trafficking by an alarming 122% over the previous year.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has estimated that more than 100m women are “missing” worldwide – women who would have been around had they received similar healthcare, medicine and nutrition as men.

New research by economists Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray estimates that in India, more than 2m women are missing in a given year.

The economists found that roughly 12% of the missing women disappear at birth, 25% die in childhood, 18% at the reproductive ages, and 45% at older ages.

They found that women died more from “injuries” in a given year than while giving birth – injuries, they say, “appear to be indicator of violence against women”.

Deaths from fire-related incidents, they say, is a major cause – each year more than 100,000 women are killed by fires in India. The researchers say many cases could be linked to demands over a dowry leading to women being set on fire. Research also found a large number of women died of heart diseases.

These findings point to life-long neglect of women in India. It also proves that a strong preference for sons over daughters – leading to sex selective abortions – is just part of the story.

Clearly, many Indian women face threats to life at every stage – violence, inadequate healthcare, inequality, neglect, bad diet, lack of attention to personal health and well-being.

Analysts say deep-rooted changes in social attitudes are needed to make India’s women more accepted and secure. There is deeply entrenched patriarchy and widespread misogyny in vast swathes of the country, especially in the north. And the state has been found wanting in its protection of women.

Angry citizens believe that politicians, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, are being disingenuous when they promise to toughen laws and speed up the prosecution of rapists and perpetrators of crime against women.

How else, they ask, can political parties in the last five years have fielded candidates for state elections that included 27 candidates who declared they had been charged with rape?

How, they say, can politicians be believed when there are six elected state legislators who have charges of rape against them?

But the renewed protests in Delhi after the woman’s death hold out some hope. Has her death come as an inflexion point in India’s history, which will force the government to enact tougher laws and people to begin seriously thinking about the neglect of women?

It’s early days yet, but one hopes these are the first stirrings of change.”

via BBC News – How India treats its women.

Posted in Gender imbalance, India alert, Inequalities, Social & cultural, Women's rights | 3 Comments »

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30/12/2012

* Xinhua unveils top 10 domestic events of 2012

Xinhua News Agency on Saturday unveiled its list of the year’s 10 most attention-grabbing events in China.

“The events are as follows, in chronological order:

01 China cuts 2012 GDP growth target

At its annual session in March, the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, adopted the government work report, in whichgrowth - Ind vs Ch the country lowered its GDP growth target to 7.5 percent this year after keeping it at around 8 percent for seven consecutive years. The change was made in the face of global turbulence and pressing domestic demand for economic restructuring.

02 Medical reform meets three-year target

The State Council in March issued an implementation plan for reforms in the health and medical care sector in the next three years. According to official statistics, as of the end of 2011 the basic medicare insurance system covered over 1.3 billion people in China, more than 95 percent of the total population, marking the realization of the previous three-year target for the 2009-2011 period to form a universal medicare system.

 

03 Bo Xilai under investigation; Wang Lijun convicted

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on April 10 decided to suspend Bo Xilai’s membership in the CPC Bo & GuCentral Committee Political Bureau and the CPC Central Committee, as he was suspected of being involved in serious discipline violations in the cases of Wang Lijun and Bogu Kailai. The CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection put him under investigation. Bo was later expelled from the CPC and public office and the case was turned over to prosecutors for investigation.

In August, Bogu Kailai was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for intentional homicide by the Hefei City Intermediate People’s Court in Anhui Province.

In September, Wang Lijun was sentenced to 15 years in prison for bending the law to selfish ends, defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking by the Chengdu City Intermediate People’s Court.

04 China vigorously protects maritime rights

SoChinaSeaIn response to some foreign countries’ actions infringing upon China’s maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea and East China Sea, China has vigorously launched campaigns to protect its legitimate rights.

Since April, China has dispatched government ships and planes to monitor Huangyan Island in the South China Sea.

Five months later, the Chinese government announced the base points and baselines of the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands and their affiliated islets and started continuous patrols in waters around the Diaoyu Islands.

In December, China reiterated its claims in the East China Sea by presenting to the UN Secretariat its Partial Submission Concerning the Outer Limits of the Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles in the East China Sea.

05 China’s first female astronaut participates in successful manned space docking mission

In June, China sent three astronauts, including the country’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang, into space for the nation’s manned Liu Yang, China's first female astronaut, waves during a departure ceremony at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu province, June 16space docking mission.

The three astronauts successfully completed an automatic and a manual docking between the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft and the orbiting Tiangong-1 lab module in space before making a safe return to Earth.

06 Manned submersible sets new national dive record

Chinese submersible breaks 7,000m mark Also in June, China’s manned submersible, the Jiaolong, set a new national dive record after reaching 7,062 meters below sea level during its fifth dive in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

07 First aircraft carrier commissioned

In September, China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, was delivered to the People’s Liberation Army Navy and put into commission after years of refitting and sea trials. Last month, the country successfully conducted flight landing exercises on the aircraft carrier, where the home-grown J-15 fighter jet made its debut in a landing and take-off exercise.

08 New CPC leadership and new targets

Xi & LiThe CPC convened its 18th National Congress between Nov. 8 and 14, when the Party’s new leadership was elected, including Xi Jinping, who was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. The congress also set new targets for the country such as efforts to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

09 Full coverage of pension scheme

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced in November that China’s urban and rural pension insurance systems covered 459 million people at the end of October and that as many as 125 million elderly people receive monthly pensions. The State Council had previously decided to make pension insurance available for everyone in urban and rural areas.

10 New CPC leadership rejects extravagance, bureaucracy

The newly-elected leadership of China’s ruling party has pledged to reject extravagance and reduce bureaucratic visits and meetings, in a bid to win the people’s trust and support.

In a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on Dec. 4, members vowed to shorten meetings and documents, reject bureaucratism in domestic and overseas visits, reduce road closures for official activities and support more practical content in news reports. The leaders also promised to take the lead in putting these requirements into practice.”

via Xinhua unveils top 10 domestic events of 2012 – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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30/12/2012

* Corrupt Chinese Officials Draw Unusual Publicity

Yet more evidence that the new leadership is serious when declaring that corruption must be stopped.

NY Times: ““Something has shifted,” said Zhu Ruifeng, a Beijing journalist who has exposed more than a hundred cases of alleged corruption on his Web site, including the lurid exertions of Mr. Lei. “In the past, it might take 10 days for an official involved in a sex scandal to lose his job. This time he was gone in 66 hours.”

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The Chinese have become largely inured to tales of voracious officials stockpiling luxury apartments, $30,000 Swiss watches or enough stolen cash to buy their mistress a Porsche.

But when images of a bulbous-faced Communist Party functionary in southwest China having sex with an 18-year-old girl spread on the Internet late last month, even the most jaded citizens took note — as did the local party watchdogs who ordered his dismissal.

These have been especially nerve-racking times for Chinese officials who cheat, steal and bribe. Since the local bureaucrat, Lei Zhengfu, became an unwilling celebrity here, a succession of others have been publicly exposed. And despite the usual cries of innocence, most have been removed from office while party investigators sort through their bedrooms and bank accounts.

In the weeks since the Communist Party elevated a new slate of top leaders, the state media, often fed by freelance vigilantes, have been serving up a head-spinning collection of scandals.

Highlights include a deputy district official in Shanxi Province who fathered 10 children with four wives; a prefecture chief from Yunnan with an opium habit who managed to accumulate 23 homes, including 6 in Australia; and a Hunan bureaucrat with $19 million in unexplained assets who once gave his young daughter $32,000 in cash for her birthday.

“The anticorruption storm has begun,” People’s Daily, the party mouthpiece, wrote on its Web site this month.

The flurry of revelations suggests that members of China’s new leadership may be more serious than their predecessors about trying to tame the cronyism, bribery and debauchery that afflict state-run companies and local governments, right down to the outwardly dowdy neighborhood committees that oversee sanitation. Efforts began just days after Xi Jinping, the newly appointed Communist Party chief and China’s incoming president, warned that failing to curb corruption could put the party’s grip on power at risk.””

via Corrupt Chinese Officials Draw Unusual Publicity – NYTimes.com.

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30/12/2012

* Chinese state secrets revealed: Details of leaders’ families

Is this the first signs of China’s ‘glasnost’?

Straits Times: “China’s top two leaders have revealed photographs and details of their families, breaking a long-held taboo where such information is considered a state secret.

A picture taken in 1988 shows a young Mr Xi (above), then the secretary of the&nbsp;Ningde Prefecture Committee of the Communist Party, participating in farm work&nbsp;during a visit to the countryside in Fujian province. -- PHOTO: XINHUA<br />

In a surprise move, clearly aimed at boosting their public support, the official Xinhua news agency released previously unpublished photographs of Communist Party chief Xi Jinping and incoming premier Li Keqiang late on Sunday night.

It also carried lengthy profiles that chronicled their careers from early grassroots days up to their recent activities since taking over the helm of the Communist Party last month.

But what struck observers most was the information on the pair’s families, including what is believed to be the first mention in state media of the name of Mr Xi’s daughter.”

via Chinese state secrets revealed: Details of leaders’ families.

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22/12/2012

* Japan’s Abe to send envoy to China to mend ties

Commonsense and geo-politics wins over parochial politics.  Thank goodness.

Reuters: “Japan’s next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to send senior ruling party member Masahiko Koumura as an envoy to China as early as next month in a bid to repair ties between Asia’s two largest economies, the Nikkei business daily said.

Shinzo Abe, Japan's incoming Prime Minister and the leader of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), attends a meeting at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo December 21, 2012. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Abe, a hardliner who has questioned claims by China and others that Japan’s army forced woman from occupied territories into prostitution during World War II, wants to bolster relations with his nation’s biggest neighbor after anti-Japanese protests there this year, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

Komura will carry a letter from Abe for China’s leaders, the Nikkei said. Komura is a former foreign minister who served as Abe’s defense minister during his first administration in 2007. As head of the Japan-China Friendship Paliamentarians’ Union, the lawmaker is known for his strong ties with China.

During campaigning for the general election that returned his Liberal Democratic Party to power after three years, Abe pledged to take a tough line with China in the dispute over islands in the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

A Chinese boycott of Japanese cars, electronic gadgets and other products earlier this year, however, hurt Japanese companies, while violent anti-Japanese protests damaged some businesses.”

via Japan’s Abe to send envoy to China to mend ties: Nikkei | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/10/05/diaoyu-islands-dispute-hammers-japanese-car-sales-in-china/

Posted in China alert, Economics, Politics, Territorial dispute | Leave a Comment »

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22/12/2012

* Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say

If the new Chinese leadership is serious about improving the lives of its citizens and removing reasons to distrust the Party, this is one area it should concentrate on rather than reducing banquets and other ostentatious spending by officials and senior soldiers. The former affects people directly, the latter only peripherally.  Though eventually both must change.

SCMP: “Land seizures, pollution and labour disputes have been the three main causes of tens of thousands of mass protests in recent years, according to a top think-tank.

490aafb110a4d47642b523fe2fa0f138.jpg

In its 2013 Social Development Blue Book, released on Tuesday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the mainland was experiencing frequent social conflict because “social contradictions were diverse and complex”.

It said there had been more than 100,000 “mass incidents” – the central government’s term for large protests involving more than 100 people – every year in recent years.

Professor Chen Guangjing, editor of this year’s book, said that disputes over land grabs accounted for about half of “mass incidents”, while pollution and labour disputes were responsible for 30 per cent. Other kinds of disputes accounted for the remaining 20 per cent.

“Of the tens of thousands of incidents of rural unrest that occur each year in China, the vast majority of them result from land confiscations and home demolitions for development,” Chen told a news conference in Beijing yesterday.

Late last year, about 1,000 villagers from Wukan, Guangdong, rioted and overthrew corrupt local leaders who had profited from illegal sales of village land.

Chen said environmental concerns were also becoming a main cause of social unrest, as evidenced by a series of grass-roots demonstrations over polluting projects.

More than 20,000 people rallied in Xiamen, Fujian province, in June 2007 to protest against plans to build a chemical plant in the city.

The project was subsequently relocated and the Xiamen backdown sparked similar protests in several mainland cities.

The major cause of labour disputes was salary arrears. There over 120 protests that involved more than 100 workers each in the first eight months of this year.

Chen said courts and labour arbitration tribunals had dealt with 479,000 back-pay cases in the first nine months of this year.

The book says 120 million mainlanders are living under the poverty line – with per capita annual disposable income of less than 2,300 yuan (HK$2,830). The government last year raised the poverty line from the previous level of 1,200 yuan, set in 2008.

Professor Li Peilin, the blue book’s editor-in-chief, said household income growth had lagged far behind gross domestic product growth over the past decade.”

via Land grabs are main cause of mainland protests, experts say | South China Morning Post.

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20/12/2012

* Land acquisition bill deferred till Budget session

The poor landowners in India have to wait a bit longer.

The Hindu: “The controversial Land Acquisition Bill is set for further delay as its consideration was deferred on Tuesday by the Lok Sabha till the next session bowing to the wishes of Opposition members.

Farmers, adivasis, dalits and other communities, whose lives are being impacted by the indiscriminate and blanket use of Land Acquisition Act 1894, on a dharna in New Delhi on Aug. 22, 2012. A file photo: V.Sudershan.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath said the Bill will be taken up for consideration as the first measure in the budget session.

His statement came following pleas by BJP member Rajnath Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav (SP), Basudeb Acharia (CPI-M) and Saugata Roy (TMC) for more time to discuss the provisions of the Bill which will have a wide ranging impact on farmers and industries.

The Bill provides for a fair compensation to land owners in both rural and urban areas with the stipulation that consent of 80 per cent of the people for acquiring land for private industry is necessary.

Despite Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council pushing for the law for long, the Bill has been hanging fire for sometime. It was referred to a GoM in the wake of differences in the Cabinet over certain provisions in the Bill, which has been described by Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh as a balanced one.

The Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 was introduced in Parliament in September last year and was referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee which submitted its recommendations in May.”

via The Hindu : News / National : Land acquisition bill deferred till Budget session.

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10/12/2012

* Uproar in Rajya Sabha over Wal-Mart lobbying disclosure; opposition seeks probe

Retail entry into India; two steps forward, one step back?

Times of India: “The issue of FDI in retail came to haunt the government again in Parliament with a united opposition demanding an inquiry and reply from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on reports of Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entry into the Indian market.

Forcing two adjournments in the Rajya Sabha before lunch, members from BJP, CPM, CPI, SP, JD-U, Trinamool Congress, AGP and AIADMK said the measure should be withdrawn as “corruption” has come to fore now because lobbying is illegal in India.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Ravishankar Prasad (BJP) said apprehensions were raised earlier also about Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entering the Indian market, which has now been proved true.

“Wal-Mart has in its lobbying disclosure report to the US Senate said it has spent Rs 125 crore on lobbying and $ 3 million have been spent in 2012 itself for entering the Indian market.

“Lobbying is illegal in India. Lobbying is a kind of bribe. If Wal-Mart has said that hundreds of crores of rupees were spent in India, then it is a kind of bribe. Government should tell who was given this bribe. This raises a question mark on the implementation of FDI in retail,” Prasad said.

He was supported by members from other opposition parties with TMC leader D Bandopadhyay waving a newspaper report and CPM member P Rajeeve asking for an “independent inquiry” into the whole episode alleging that there are some reports saying Wal-Mart invested money even before FEMA was amended.

“This is bribery,” he said as the opposition members shouted slogans in favour of withdrawing FDI.

The opposition was reacting to media report that global retail giant Wal-Mart — waiting for years to open its supermarkets in India — had been lobbying with the US lawmakers since 2008 to facilitate its entry into the highly lucrative Indian market.

via Uproar in Rajya Sabha over Wal-Mart lobbying disclosure; opposition seeks probe – The Times of India.

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10/12/2012

* As China’s clout grows, sea policy proves unfathomable

This analogy is most interesting. One wonders if it is a sign of “the mess China’s foreign policy is” or something much cleverer: like letting Hainan Province appear to be the instigator. If all goes well, central government ratifies the policy and instead of provincial police boats, Chinese naval vessel enter the fray.  But if the uproar continues and grows in both volume and participation well beyond the South China Sea, central government disavows itself and ‘reprimand’s Hainan Province for over stepping its mandate. We will see within the next few weeks which it will be. But I’m not taking any bets!

Reuters: “Imagine if the U.S. state of Hawaii passed a law allowing harbor police to board and seize foreign boats operating up to 1,000 km (600 miles) from Honolulu.

A Chinese marine surveillance ship is seen offshore of Vietnam's central Phu Yen province May 26, 2011 and released by Petrovietnam in this May 29, 2011 file handout photo. REUTERS-Handout-Files

That, in effect, is what happened in China about a week ago. The tropical province of Hainan, home to beachfront resorts and one of China’s largest naval bases, authorized a unit of the police to interdict foreign vessels operating “illegally” in the island’s waters, which, according to China, include much of the heavily disputed South China Sea.

At a time when the global community is looking to the world’s second-biggest economy and a burgeoning superpower for increasing maturity and leadership on the international stage, China’s opaque and disjointed foreign policy process is causing confusion and escalating tensions throughout its backyard.

Vietnam and the Philippines, which claim sovereignty over swathes of the South China Sea along with Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan, have issued verbal protests against the Hainan rules.

India, which jointly conducts some oil exploration with Vietnam in the South China Sea, said last week it was prepared to send navy ships to the region to safeguard its interests. And the United States has publicly asked Beijing for clarification as to what, if anything, the new rules mean — thus far to no avail.

“It is really unclear, I think, to most nations (what the regulations mean),” U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Gary Locke told Reuters last week. “Until we really understand what these things are, there is no way to comment. First we need clarification of the extent, the purpose and the reach of these regulations.”

The fact that a provincial government can unilaterally worsen one of China’s most sensitive diplomatic problems highlights the dysfunctionality, and potential danger, of policymaking in this arena, analysts say.

“It shows what a mess Chinese foreign policy is when it comes to the South China Sea,” said a Western diplomat in China, speaking on condition of anonymity.

According to a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) earlier this year, no fewer than 11 government entities — from the tourism administration to the navy — play a role in the South China Sea. All, the ICG said, have the potential to take action that could cause diplomatic fallout.

via Analysis: As China’s clout grows, sea policy proves unfathomable | Reuters.

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