Lyn Cockburn, writing for the Edmonton Sun, argues that too much effort is being expended on demonizing China. She proves her point on China not being the source of all ills by bringing attention to a toy recall unrelated to China, and to international incidents that are unrelated to China. Having established that the press is suffering from tunnel vision, she wants more focus on Darfur and less on China.

Problem #1: The toy she discusses in detail is manufactured in China.

Problem #2: Those international incidents involved China.

Problem #3: China in primarily responsible for the lack of action in Darfur.

Problem #4: The editor at the Edmonton Sun seems to have gone missing.

I can infer the last one based on the sad lack of factual correctness in this column.

Lyn Cockburn of the Edmonton Sun has written a column today on the current fashion to blame everything bad on China. She points out that China is not the only country where people make mistakes or do bad things.

Her point is, well, obvious.

At this point, the column seems like filler, but then she tries to make her point by describing an American toy that explodes:

For example, in North America right now, some 80 products - food and toys in particular - have been recalled. This week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned the public not to consume Great Value brand Original Chili with Beans and Hot Chili with Beans for fear of botulism contamination.

And here's but one example of a recall of a dangerous toy, the Sky Rangers Park Flyer Radio Control Airplanes, made in Colorado. The hazard report warns that these toys can explode. The company has received at least 45 reports.

Yet the publicity over China's shoddy products is so pervasive it leads us to believe China is the only country in the world with this problem.

Excellent point. So China makes shoddy, even dangerous, products. But even the Americans can make toys that explode in a child's hand. Except...the Sky Rangers Park Flyer Radio Control Airplanes is not made in Colorado.

The Sky Rangers Park Flyer Radio Control Airplanes is made in China:

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Sky Rangers Park Flyer Radio Control Airplanes

Units: About 21,000

Distributor: Estes-Cox Corp., of Penrose, Colo.

Hazard: The airplanes are launched by hand and can explode near the consumer’s head, posing a risk of temporary hearing loss and injuries to eyes, face and hands.

Sold at: Hobby stores and other retailers nationwide from September 2005 through December 2006 for between $20 and $40.

Manufactured in: China

Good one, Cockburn.

To be fair, she says not enough attention has been paid to Libya and Pakistan as sources of problems. In Libya, there is the issue of the Bulgarian medics accused of injecting children with HIV. Why is no one criticizing the EU talking about normalizing ties with China now that the medics, imprisoned for 8 years, have finally been released?

Good question. The answer is that the normalization was part of the price of getting those people released.

Some news reports referred to the partnership deal between Libya and the European Union as something to "complete a process of normalizing its ties with the West."

Translation: "We've finished torturing these people, so can we talk about getting all sorts of trade benefits from the EU now?"

And what was China doing while these people were still in a Libyan jail? Signing contracts to build pipelines in Libya, taking advantage of the vacuum that existed while the EU refused to do business in Libya.

And if we insist on having a demon to demonize, what's wrong with Pakistan with its tolerance for the Taliban?

There are about 8,500 Chinese working in Pakistan, almost three times the size of Americans in the country. Of these, 3,500 are engineers and technicians assigned to a variety of Sino-Pakistani projects. The remaining 5,000 are engaged in private businesses. China’s investment in Pakistan has jumped to an all-time high of $4 billion. Its companies make up 12% -- 60 of 500 – of all the foreign firms operating in Pakistan. Chinese presence in Pakistan has grown dramatically since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which brought Beijing and Islamabad together to build a naval-cum-commercial port at Gwader, a coastal town in Baluchistan. The Gwadar port alone, where construction began in 2002, employs 500 Chinese engineers and technicians. This growing Chinese presence forces Beijing to go beyond diplomatic niceties to protect its human and non-human interests in Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities never spare any effort to safeguard China’s interests. Soon after the abduction of seven Chinese on June 23, Islamabad decided to lay siege to the Red Mosque, whose radical clerics were behind the sordid affair. On July 2, barely a week after the abduction, the government ordered 15,000 troops around the mosque compound to flush out the militants. On July 4, it arrested the leader of the militants, Maulana Abdul Aziz who, in an ironic twist, is believed to have close relations with Pakistani intelligence agencies. After apprehending the leader, government troops moved to choking off the militants’ supplies of food, water, and power. But as soon as word of the revenge killing of three Chinese on July 8 reached Islamabad, it created a “perfect storm” for Gen. Musharraf. Embarrassed and enraged, he reversed the troops’ strategy and ordered them, on July 10, to mount an all-out assault at the mosque, in which Aziz’s brother and his deputy, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, together with as many as 1,000 people, was killed.

This is not the first time that Musharraf did Beijing’s bidding.

U.S. pressure on Pakistan to clear the region of the Taliban and al-Qaeda has forced Pakistan into an ever-tighter embrace of China. Musharraf's crackdown on the Lal Masjid, a potent symbol of this strategic Sino-Pakistani alignment, also sent a blood-soaked message to religious militants that Chinese interests will remain off-limits. Musharraf is not apologetic about defending Chinese interests in Pakistan and punishing those who dared to harm them.

She wants people to start worrying about Darfur more and China less, and points to the Sky Rangers exploding airplane and Libya and Pakistan as proof that we should stop worrying about China so much. Cockburn seems to think that Darfur is somehow disconnected to China:

But when the demonization of China starts to push the horrific situation in places like Darfur out of the news spotlight, then something's out of whack.

But I thought China was responsible for much of the suffering in Darfur?

Last week Wang Guangya, China's ambassador to the United Nations, made a formal statement on Darfur that calls into question China's claim to be treated as a responsible international player. Mr. Wang began by saying that China wants U.N. peacekeepers to be deployed in Darfur, calling this a "good idea and realistic option," one that should be done "as soon as feasible." But then he went on to explain that China was refusing to support the U.N. resolution calling for such a deployment. Unless China changes its position, the result may well be tens of thousands of civilian deaths.

Mr. Wang argued that China could not support the resolution because Sudan's government was not yet ready to accept U.N. peacekeepers on its soil. But the reason that Sudan is refusing to allow in peacekeepers is that it has faced little international pressure to do so. The United States and its European partners have called upon Sudan to let the U.N. force in. But China, which has enormous leverage over Sudan because of its investment in Sudanese oil fields, has failed to push the Sudanese into accepting the "realistic option" of a U.N. deployment. Indeed, China lobbied hard and successfully to prevent Russia from supporting the peacekeeping resolution, further undermining pressure on Sudan's government to allow in peacekeepers.

At the end of last week's statement, Mr. Wang lamented that the United States and Britain, the two sponsors of the peacekeeping resolution, "have failed to earnestly heed China's sincere efforts." What efforts, precisely? If China really is sincere about its desire to see peacekeepers in Darfur, it should tell its allies in Sudan's government to call off their military offensive and accept U.N. peacekeepers immediately.

Lyn Cockburn, when China is no longer the mired in issues like exploding toys, the propping up of Libyan despots, the manipulation of a key player in the war on Terror, and in the lack of action on African genocides, then China will stop being the centre of attention.

But as far as I can tell, focusing on these issues requires focusing on China, and being very critical of China.

In the mean time, keep cranking out these winning columns. Soon your editor will be back from vacation or will be returned by the aliens who kidnapped him or will be thawed from his cryogenic slumber or whatever. When he does, he might start demanding a modicum of factual accuracy in your writing going forward.

Posted by: Steve Janke at 06:50 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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