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China-Japan-Koreas
Trouble at the Top: Chinese officialdom is in turmoil
2014-05-16
[WeeklyStandard] In little over a year, close to 60 Chinese officials have turned t*ts-up with most of these being suicides. The strong suspicion is that this epidemic of mysterious deaths among China's elite is likely tied to the anticorruption campaign being led by Chinese president and party general secretary Xi Jinping.

As the noose tightens, U.S. intelligence ought to make clear to those Chinese within the government elite that there are safe havens in the West--as long as they are willing to cooperate.
Posted by:Squinty

#7  Vietnam and India have military ties. All this bad behavior by China is driving its neighbors to band together to oppose it.
Posted by: Squinty   2014-05-16 17:03  

#6  Confucius says, when house divided draw attention outwards. :-)

It's a grab for resources, not attention. The costs are trivial, assuming (probably correctly) that Uncle Sam doesn't get involved and start some combination of a trade embargo and a naval war that deposits tens of billions in military hardware on the seabed. Unless Vietnam decides to go to war with China over the rig (by resorting, among other things, to unlimited submarine warfare against Chinese shipping), the cost to China is likely to be minimal. Vietnam just got its first sub in December 2013, so it's unlikely to be doing much more than training.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2014-05-16 16:31  

#5  So then they decided to drop a drilling rig on Vietnam?

Confucius says, when house divided draw attention outwards. :-)
Posted by: Squinty   2014-05-16 12:25  

#4  So then they decided to drop a drilling rig on Vietnam?
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2014-05-16 12:12  

#3  Reportedly one of the problems for the Chinese leadership is that everybody's lied so much about loans, production, figures, corruption and such, that even they have trouble figuring out what's going on. Their fear of a "lost the mandate of heaven" scenario and they start getting even more "peasant revolts" than they are having now, and outside forces taking advantage of the turmoil and moving in on them is real.
Posted by: Pearl Borgia1889   2014-05-16 11:54  

#2  what's that phrase from Sun Tzu? Something about looking weaker and more divided than you really are?
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2014-05-16 08:28  

#1  Now this is a Chinese import I could gladly support.
Posted by: AlanC   2014-05-16 08:15  

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