America's Future Update on China

Update on Totalitarian Control in China

The "dangan" is a major way that the government of Communist China keeps control over its citizens. The dangan is a file kept in a sealed envelope stamped "top secret," which is stuffed with every type of personal, student and job-experience information, including school grades, test results, evaluations by teachers and fellow students, comments by Communist Party operatives, proof of diploma, and college degree. Everyone in China has a dangan. This irreplaceable record of achievement and failure is made available to government officials and potential employers to judge an individual's worth. The dangan is an absolute requirement for getting a job. If it is lost, no one will hire you. The dangan is a powerful tool of totalitarian control of the people.

It has just come to light that some corrupt local officials have stolen some dangans and then sold them to underachievers seeking new identities who could afford to pay a bribe of $2,500 to $3,600, and even as much as $7,000. There is apparently no remedy for this type of corruption of officialdom. New York Times, 7-27-09.

Update on How China Treats its Children

More than 1,300 children in Communist China's Hunan Province were poisoned by lead pollution from a newly opened and unlicensed manganese smelter. This was the second case of mass lead poisoning during August. Lead poisoning damages the nervous and reproductive systems and can permanently cripple growth and intellectual development. The smelter was allowed to be located within 1,700 feet of a kindergarten and a primary and middle school.

A smelting plant in northern china is blamed for the lead poisoning of nearly all the children (615 out of 731 children who were tested). They tested at ten times the level China considers safe. Several hundred villagers tore down fences and blocked traffic outside the Dongling Lead and Zinc Smelting Company in Shaanxi Province.

China's much praised economic development has dangerously polluted much of its soil, air and waterways. The government routinely pledges to close down polluting industrial operations, but backs down because of the plant's importance to the local economy. New York Times, 8-21-09 and 8-18-09

Update on China's Military

A Pentagon study describes how Communist China is seeking technology and weapons specifically to disrupt the advantage now possessed by U.S. forces. The secrecy surrounding this project creates the potential for miscalculation. China is supplying its armed forces with weapons designed to intimidate and attack Taiwan and to interfere with U.S. naval and air power in that vicinity. China has built up short-range missiles across from Taiwan. Chinese ships shadowed and harassed an American surveillance ship in international waters of the south China Sea.

China has invested in new technologies for cyber and space warfare in addition to sustaining and modernizing its nuclear arsenal. China is also expanding and improving its fleet of submarines and plans to build new aircraft carriers, according to the annual report from the Defense Department to Congress called "Military Power of the Peoples' Republic of China, 2009." Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) says that China's military budget continues a trend of double-digit increases and that questions remain about China's strategic intentions. New York Times 3-26-09