Elaine Meinel Supkis
Anxious for access to a potential flock of over a billion people, the Vatican is about to ditch diplomatic relations with Taiwan and replace them with offices for Communist China. Another giant, historic diplomatic moment for the rising Phoenix and flaming Dragon.
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 23, 2006; Page A01HONG KONG, April 22 -- After more than half a century of hostility, China and the Roman Catholic Church have inched within reach of normal relations, a historic shift aimed at improving the lives of 10 million Chinese who regularly practice the faith, according to leaders and analysts on both sides of the divide.
The irregular contacts, often made at meetings in Rome between Vatican diplomats and Chinese Communist Party officials, remain clouded by mutual suspicion, they said. Party elders particularly fear that the church could become a rallying point for anti-government agitation as it did in Eastern Europe.
But the process has overcome a major stumbling block with recent signals from the Vatican that it is willing to break with Taiwan and set up diplomatic relations with Beijing as part of an overall accord guaranteeing the church's role in China.
After the American blunders this week, China continues its global quest to displace Taiwan and insert themselves as the true rulers of the Middle Kingdom. So now they will get the endorsement of the Kingdom of God as well as the Guardians of Mecca. Everywhere, all at once, they are moving rapidly to gain legitimacy and influence. Americans were told by the propaganda dogs of the press that Bush's contemptuous, childish, idiotic as well as plain rude behavior this week weakened Hu. This insane and deliberate misreading of the tea leaves doesn't surprise me.
Just like us running around the globe, in debt to virtually everyone and Uncle Scrooge, screaming that China is cheating us is weakening our status, it makes us look stupid.
And Bush, by definition, makes us stupid. Instead of clever diplomacy which uses subtle methods of gaining goals, we bellow and belch, fart and fight. And like the drunken sot of a leader we follow, we look like someone who belongs in a jail cell, not on parade as a paragon of virtue.
The attempt to embarrass Hu by deliberately letting a protestor into the White House grounds under the guise of a press pass has backfired. Because Bush is famous for not letting any protestors approach him, this looked like a set-up so Bush had to threaten her with prison time which then made HIM look like the evil oppressor! Hu said nothing about her.
So Bush is going to put this lady he deliberately set up, in prison? Gads. What a gentleman he is. And what happened to the right of free speech? Wasn't Bush going to talk about that after Hu left? No? Har.
Bush went to California to crow about what a great guy he is only this bellyflopped. Contra Costa Times:
By Mary Anne Ostrom
KNIGHT RIDDER
President Bush's stop at Cisco Systems in San Jose on Friday to sell his pro-technology agenda went off without a hitch, but a quick visit to Stanford University's Hoover Institution had to be scuttled when about 1,000 student protesters converged on a corner near the Hoover tower.White House spokesman Scott McClellan said because road access was blocked, a meeting between the president and several Hoover fellows was moved to the campus home of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Hoover fellow who organized the gathering. Protesters were elated.
Bush's attempt at embarrassing Hu contines to backfire. Normally, Bush would beat the protestors senseless and then stomp in, sneering. This time, he had to retreat to his bunkermate's playhouse to yap about the New World Order that is flattening workers across the planet. His visit with Cisco is part of the miltary/complex complex relations. Namely, he feeds them and they feed off of the taxpayers and to fund his purchases and keep Cisco sailing, he will go to....um, China, um, for funds. Yeah.
The Chinese at home are very angry with Bush, like myself, they know the entire visit was designed to insult them. Since Bush is an inept idiot, it has been ridiculously easy to retaliate. I have spent a lot of time talking about this incredible diplomatic week because it illustrates exactly how feeble the USA now is. Even when we wave NUKES in the face of a small country one fifth our size or less, it laughs at us. We can't bribe anyone anymore because everyone knows the money is from China and China holds the world's biggest FOREX funds bar none and they intend to wield the power of the purse and will pursue us to the ends of the earth and teach us manners.
Whatever problems China has, they are dwarfed by our own problems. Instead of fixing things here at home so we stop bleeding red ink all over the planet, we want the Chinese to fix us and they shall. In due time.
We won't like it one bit but it will work.
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