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FBI Looks Into Chinese Role in Darfur Site Hack
Amy Bennett writes "This past weekend we discussed an increasing level of attacks online, targeting Tibetan-based NGOs. Now the BBC is reporting that the Save Darfur Coalition has called in the FBI on what appears to be a similar matter. Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a spokesman with the group, doesn't know who is behind the attacks, but he said the IP addresses of the computers that had hacked his organization were from China. Save Darfur has been trying to get China, one of Sudan's largest trading partners, to pressure Sudan's government into stopping the mass killings in Darfur's ongoing civil war. 'Someone in Beijing is trying to send us a message,' Brooks-LaSure said. Probably the same message they're sending by continuing to shut down video sites covering the Tibetan unrest."
I'm not sure how the events in Tibet can exactly reflect all that badly on the Chinese, from what I see on the news a whole bunch of Tibetans have been engaged in racially motivated attacks on Chinese Tibetans and the authorities have quite rightly done what they have to protect all Tibetans from this sort of violence.
All I hear on the news are various western talking heads banging on about Buddism being a religion of perfect peace and how evil China is whilst totally ignoring the facts that Tibet has always been a part of China in the same way Scotland is a part of the UK and the Tibetans are well known for their propensity to engage in warfare and violent conflict ( along with petty theft and slavery ) which they revere as a key part of their heritage and that I have to say doesn't sound all that peaceful to me.
I'd say the Tibetans have a much better PR machine than the Chinese, at least in the West, thanks to the sheer number of useless, ignorant media stars willing to kow tow to the Dali Lama and swallow any line of bullshit he feeds them.
The US Gov loves to use China as a bogeyman to the citizens e.g. "Oh no the chinese will kill us all".
;) ). Printing more USD = USD becomes worth less, the USA thus indirectly "taxes" China and the other countries that hold lots of USD in reserves for trade, or bonds or assets. It's a strange scheme but it's lasting longer than the other previous schemes!
Sure the Chinese Gov is evil etc, but it's maybe only slightly above average in evilness[1] and I doubt they are stupid enough to attack US Gov - it will hurt China a lot too.
After all the USA buys what China makes and pays them in US Dollars. Whenever the USA runs short on dollars it "prints" more (for example by issuing bonds, which China buys
China can NOT afford to confront the USA directly. I bet any Chinese leader that tries to launch nukes at the USA or declare war will end up in serious trouble with the Chinese military top brass _unless_ the USA strikes first or threatens to strike first. Judging from history and current regimes it is more likely that the USA will bomb China before China will bomb USA.
Even the USSR blinked in the Cuban crisis (though if you look it up you will find that the USA put missiles at the USSR's doorstep _first_, the USSR was most certainly a bad guy, but they had valid reason to want to defend themselves from the USA). So the USSR and USA fought proxy wars in Afghanistan and other countries. Instead of killing each other's civilians - they pick some unfortunate country to play their deadly game. The USSR lost.
Similarly, the most China will do is fight a proxy war with the USA.
China is gaining ground in economic and military strength, but the USA spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined. http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp
So one could very well say that China has to keep up its military spending to discourage the US from attacking it, or bullying it.
[1] Plenty of other evil countries in the world, the US Gov ranks as quite evil - just look at how well the US Gov respects democracy in other countries. In the past 100 years the US Gov has overthrown many democratically elected governments around the world. I suspect that the US Gov has overthrown more democractically elected leaders than it has overthrown dictators (it's no surprise many dictators know how to resist "hostile takeovers" since they themselves were installed with the help of the US Gov).