Eating babies and currency manipulators

ABOUT THE April 13, 1995 report in the Daily Telegraph on the promotion of aborted-fetus-eating by the Shenzhen Health Centre, I'm much more dubious--but, again, the debunkings are less than complete. The Snopes report says that "nothing apparently" came of a Frank Wolf demand for an investigation, "leading us to believe" that the story isn't true. You can find a more determined attempt to discredit the story here (http://www.jesus21.com/poppydixon/sex/chinese_eating_fetuses.html) , which I like primarily because it quotes with approval Judie Brown of the American Life League, perhaps the hardest-liner among mainstream anti-abortion activists and a woman this odd site wouldn't touch with a barge pole in any other context.

The story began with an Eastern Express article by the China reporter Bruce Gilley, author of the 1998 "Tiger on the Brink: Jiang Zemin and China's New Elite." A few other newspapers picked up the story, including the Telegraph, but the Internet and e-mail lists were the primary vehicles for its transmission, and it picked up along the way the usual set of confusions, pet peeves, and distortions that computer connectivity has made a daily feature of our lives. (A note to the reader: Don't believe those e-mails you get from the widow of the assassinated finance minister of Bulungi who will split $5 million with you later if only you send her $10,000 now.)

By J. Bottum January 9, 2003
Eating Babies II: Coming Back for Seconds | The Weekly Standard

Blood libel is the practice of accusing one's enemy of eating children. Originally traced to pagans slandering early Christians it quickly adopted the form it would take for the next two thousand years - that of Jews murdering and eating Christian children, primarily for Passover. The practice of blood libel has been revived in the US by Christian conservatives, and is now aimed at their latest enemy, and most promising market: the Chinese.

Beijing, 1995: The Godless Triad
The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was hosted live on the Internet - one of the first of such events
on the Web, and thousands of women the world over logged on. James Dobson, of the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family book and radio empire, covered the event in his August 1995 newsletter titled, Position on United Nations Conference on Women...Dobson quoted a World Magazine article about the Chinese dining on aborted fetuses as evidence of this godless triad.

Painting by John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute

Are Bruce Gilley, Mindy Belz, and Representatives Wolf, Smith,
Ros-Lehtinen, and Souder so unconcerned with their own credibility
that they will repeat any story they hear as long as it furthers their own political agendas, or careers? The vicious practice of blood libel goes back thousands of years. And the commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor goes back even further. Bruce Gilley, Mindy Belz, and Representatives Wolf, Smith, Ros-Lehtinen, and Souder need to be held accountable for the racist slander and libel that they've perpetuated against the Chinese.

By Poppy Dixon, 10.2000
Eating Fetuses: The lurid Christian fantasy of godless Chinese eating "unborn children."

"If some congressman insist on labeling China as a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs on Chinese products, then the China government will find it impossible not to react,"

China warns U.S. that 'trade war' will hurt Americans even more

The popular argument is global imbalances were a major cause of the current global financial crisis. These imbalances were exemplified by a large US trade deficit, which was fuelled by the promotion of cheap Chinese exports though an under-valued Renminbi. If the RMB is suddenly revalued, the argument continues, U.S. imports from China will fall and U.S. exports to China will rise, reducing and perhaps eliminating the U.S. trade deficit.

A closer look, however, shows it is an article of faith held by many, including economists, that the U.S. trade deficit with China and the world will decline following a simple revaluation of China's currency. The large U.S. trade deficit with the world has existed since 1998. Since July 2005, the Renminbi has appreciated more than 20 percent in both nominal and real terms, yet the bilateral trade gap has continued to increase.

Then why do people advocate a Renminbi revaluation? The primary beneficiaries would be those investment banks, private equity investors and hedge funds that have invested in China and in Renminbi-linked instruments elsewhere. They would stand to profit instantly and hugely.

Debt reduction: Chinese currency doesn’t hold answer for U.S.

Update: March 23, 2010. Report accuses U.S. on currency issue via Twitter.
US is the true money meddler By Zhang Monan (China Daily)

Heike

A flier for a prominent Chinese hacker’s presentation on the how-tos and wherefores of hacking, drawing on sources as diverse as Shakespeare, the Diamond Sutra, and … Google. Click through to view FP's exclusive slideshow.

Western media accounts typically overlook freelancers in favor of bluster about the Chinese government. Some pair breathy accounts of cyberwar with images dredged up from 1960s People's Liberation Army propaganda, as if to suggest China has some centrally administered cyberbureau housing an army of professional hackers. Others make improbable or unsubstantiated allegations. Two years ago, a National Journal cover story claimed Chinese hackers were responsible for the 2003 blackout that crippled much of the U.S. Northeast, an event repeated investigations have attributed to domestic negligence.

China's Hacker Army BY MARA HVISTENDAHL

In general, Chinese hackers don't fit the Hollywood stereotype of geeky loner-geniuses in American basements or steely smooth Russian mobsters who design and execute hits, reaping all the benefits, cybersecurity experts say. On the contrary, China's hacker community is a widely dispersed, fragmented chain of digital craftsmen. In Chinese, hackers are known as "heike," or black guests.

"As for Chinese hackers, their overall technological skill isn't as good as American or Russian hackers," Mr. Li said in an email, answering questions from the Wall Street Journal. "However, China has the biggest population of hackers in the world." Noting his own communication with foreign hackers, he added, "I often downloaded hacker software from their sites to compare them with programs I wrote or other Chinese hackers wrote."

People's Republic of Hacking By JAMES T. AREDDY