China... The New World Leader.

Is the United States still in the business of promoting and protecting human rights around the globe? Do we still do that kind of thing?

The Board of Immigration Appeals has reversed an immigration judge's decision to grant Xiaodong Li religious asylum. This past August, a panel of three judges from the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Board of Immigration’s ruling stating that Mr. Li was seeking asylum for disregarding Chinese law.

What is hard to understand about religion in China is that the government states that there is religious freedom; but there is a tremendous amount of documentation that proves otherwise. Furthermore, Chinese religious organizations have to be registered with the government. If your church, or group, isn’t registered, then you are breaking Chinese law. There are only two “Christian” organizations that are recognized in China. The immigration judge who ruled in favor of Mr. Li stated that religious registration is "simply an institutional form of persecution". Is it or is it not? Where will the United States stand on this? Does China violate human rights? If so, will anyone try to stop them?

As I tried to answer my questions today I didn’t find any real answers. Instead I had caused myself to think about even more questions. My biggest question:

Is the U.S. afraid of China and why?

From what I can tell, China seems to be much like having a stubborn elephant in your bed. You can’t push it out of your bed. You can’t make it roll over and make room so you can sleep in your bed; and you can’t beg it to get out of your bed. With this kind of behavior your only option then is to let it do what it wants to do, in your own house, in your own bed, forcing you to sleep on the floor or the couch. Where did the United Nations and the U.S. put their chair and whip? Is that darn elephant lying on top of them? Why is China allowed to do the things that it does?

Is it due to China’s overwhelming economic growth that it seems that this elephant is allowed to lumber anywhere she chooses? China’s economy has grown 8% annually, on average, since 1978.

Or is it because the Chinese Yuan no longer has ties to the U.S. dollar? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the United States? (I think that this means we will be paying more for the “Made in China” stuff and that our interest rates could go up. But I’m not sure.)

China approved the Kyoto treaty, but they don’t have to do anything that the treaty says. Why?

Seven of the world’s ten most polluted cities are in China and less than 10% of their sewage receives treatment. I never did see an elephant pick up after itself.

China is the second largest consumer of oil in the world second only to the United States. Are we trying to protect our fossil fuel assets?

The estimate as of July, 2005, is that there are 1,306,313,812 people in China. (Yes, that’s over a billion.) Many of us forget that China is also a Communist state. Is this an issue for the U.S.?

Is it the outsourcing of American jobs to China?

China has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I hope that’s good news because they currently have 9 nuclear reactors and another 2 are to come online soon. Taiwan has 6 nuclear reactors and 2 more under construction. That’s a lot of uranium that has to be delivered and monitored.

China is not party to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) but they have made an agreement to comply with its policies? Is this binding? How many weapons are they making? Where are these weapons going? Does anybody know?

So the elephant walks along the path, goes where it wants to go, does what it wants to do; and everything in its way must either move out of the way or be stepped upon. Is this how it is supposed to be?

*~*~

I went out to mow my yard today and I discovered that the sole was coming off of my “yard work” tennis shoes. I have had these shoes for quite some time and I was dismayed by the fact that they were falling apart. I went ahead and put them on and disregarded the sole that was coming loose. “It’s just a small spot and it won’t be a problem”, I thought to myself. Before I had finished mowing the front yard there was this flapping annoyance from that loose sole and it was about to completely fall off of my shoe.

Now, I have a few choices here:

I could cut the offending flap off and continue to use the shoe until I walk through the sole.

I could try to glue the flap back onto the shoe and see if it holds up.

I could ignore the flap and take a chance on tripping and falling.

I could relegate another pair of tennis shoes in my closet to being my ‘new’ yard work shoes;

or I could choose to view the situation as a “challenge” and come up with some other unique ideas to deal with the situation.

However, I really think that the wise thing to do is not to ignore the problem or pretend that it isn’t a problem at all.

In regards to China, it is suggested that we have a challenge and not a threat. You can read about “The China Challenge” and see what you think about it.

Is the China Challenge about being politically correct?

Is the China Challenge an attempt to lull us into believing there isn’t a problem therefore ignoring any potential problems or situation(s)?

I still have a few more questions but I’ll save them for…

later...