China’s Year Of The Doghouse

The Year of the Dog seems to be gnawing at China’s international image with unusual ferocity. In a scathing report this week, Amnesty International accused China of stoking conflicts in Sudan, Burma and Nepal by selling arms to those regimes shunned by the rest of the world.
Striking at the basis of China’s emergence as a principal global player, the London-based human rights watchdog said: “China's arms exports, estimated to be in excess of one billion dollars a year often involve the exchange of weapons for raw materials to fuel the country's rapid economic growth.”
Such interests, according to a separate story by the Inter Press Service, has led China, a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, to block to US efforts to impose economic and military sanctions on recalcitrant countries.
Rejecting the AI report, Beijing insists it has been exporting conventional weapons properly in the light of international rules. Teng Jianqun, a researcher with the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told Xinhua news agency that China has always put its limited arms export under strict control and surveillance.
He noted that China adheres to three principles in arms trade: it should help enhance the self-defense capability of import countries, should not impair regional and global peace, security and stability, and should not be used to interfere with other countries' internal affairs.
Before the ethical dimensions of Chinese arms sales could fully settle in, Apple announced it is investigating a newspaper report that staff in some of its Chinese iPod factories work long hours for low pay and in “slave” conditions.
Britain’s Mail on Sunday newspaper alleged that workers received as little as £27 a month, doing 15-hour shifts making the iconic mp3 player. Employees at the factory lived in dormitories housing 100 people and outsiders were banned, the newspaper said. Apple said it did not tolerate its supplier code of conduct being broken. “Apple is committed to ensuring that working conditions in our supply chain are safe, workers are treated with respect and dignity, and manufacturing processes are environmentally responsible,” the company said in a statement.
Apple added it is investigating the allegations regarding working conditions in the iPod manufacturing plant in China.
Could there be a broader agenda at work here? The collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the world of its principal bogeyman (although some would still say an “inspiration”.)
The new baddies – Baathist Iraq, Iran, North Korea, for instance – couldn’t rise to the level of the Soviet threat that kept the world on its toes. Among many, nostalgia for the Cold War set in deep. In light of subsequent events, many must have wondered, might an Afghanistan Soviet Socialist Republic have done more for regional and even global security?
The idea of a grand alliance of disparate groups behind the demonization of China is not as far-fetched as it sounds. The steep rise in gas prices? Blame the booming Chinese middle class. Criticism of increased military spending on conventional threats in the midst of our new kind of war (on terror)? Point to Taiwan. Economic instability? Ah, those clever currency manipulators in Beijing.
The enduring moral of the Cold War: Make sure you always have someone else you can blame for when things go wrong.