Eideard

Xi Jinping talks with local people in the home of Roger and Sarah Lande in Muscatine, Iowa
Kevin E. Schmidt / Pool via AFP – Getty Images

A young, blue-eyed Sarah Lande never thought the polite young man from China, Xi Jinping, sitting at her dining room table in 1985 would go on to become the next president of China. She simply thought of him as a gentle soul with genuine interest in her family’s Iowa roots, sharing a home-cooked meal of pork, beef and locally grown corn.

Wednesday afternoon 27 years later – he returned to the same three-story home on Muscatine’s 2nd Street and walked through the same door, but this time as China’s next president.

“Coming here is really like coming back to home,” Xi told a packed living room of familiar faces he met on his 1985 visit. “You can’t even imagine what a deep impression I had from my visit 27 years ago … because you were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with…”

Xi first visited Muscatine as a provincial official from Iowa’s sister state of Hebei almost three decades ago. Leading a delegation of four other local officials on an educational trip primarily focused on agriculture, Xi and his colleagues toured local farms and businesses as part of an exchange that began with Iowans going to Hebei in 1984. He met then-and current Iowa governor Terry Branstad and more than a dozen other Iowans in Muscatine he now calls his “old friends…”

Clearly, Muscatine also left an indelible impression on Xi. Upon invitation back to Iowa by Governor Branstad, he requested to reunite with each person he met in Muscatine.

Muscatine is the perfect, if coincidental, background to counterbalance Xi’s highly-scripted meetings in Washington. Aesthetically frozen in the 1950s, the town oozes both old-fashioned small-town charm and the harsh reality of post-industrial American economy. Many storefronts and warehouses stand empty in a place that once called itself the “pearl button capital of the world.” Meanwhile, China has opened and expanded exponentially since 1985, into a roaring economy.

RTFA. There is so much real farm country folksiness in the article I won’t do an editorial job on it. The point for me – perhaps because of my decades dealing with Asian businesses bringing products to sell in the United States – is that commerce sets an appropriate stage for individuals and cultures to get to know each other, affect each other in social ways, in business, in study and friendship.

There was a time in American history when some portions of this nation lived as neighbors to the world – by preference. Better we learn to learn from each other – instead of following the night-riders of bigotry into their pride in conquest and conflict.

John Weber on his farm in Dysart, Iowa
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

China is half a world away from the 2,300-acre family farm in east-central Iowa where John Weber and his son plant corn and soybeans. But 62-year-old Weber is among a number of Iowa farmers who are benefiting as rising incomes in China lead to demand for billions of dollars of American farm goods.

“There are huge opportunities,” said Weber, who in addition to his corn and soybean business, markets more than 14,000 hogs a year with a partner. “Absolutely huge.”

This week, a visit by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping to the farm state will underscore the possibilities of the deepening agricultural trade relationship between China and the United States.

Xi, who is expected to replace Hu Jintao as Communist Party chief late this year and then become China’s new president in early 2013, will spend two days in Iowa after meeting President Barack Obama in Washington.

China last year bought $20 billion, or 14 percent, of record U.S. agricultural exports and it is now the largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, while becoming an increasingly important importer of U.S. corn and pork. The farm exports, up from $18.6 billion in 2010, now represent about one fifth of American sales of goods to China and U.S. officials are hoping for a lot more.

Beijing is not only buying food that will go directly to feed its 1.3 billion people but also for feedstuff that is going to the animals raised to meet increasing demand for meat and dairy produce that more Chinese can now afford…

RTFA if you feel you need to be reminded of all the crap reasons raised by xenophobes who would rather choose war over competitive commerce any year.

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Dilma Rousseff and Raul Castro
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Brazil is easing Cuba into the free market economy with a generous package of aid in cash and kind and joint projects that give the Latin American country a pre-eminent position in Havana’s heady mix of communism and experimental capitalism.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff appeared to be in the right place at the right time when she flew into Havana in a spirit of revolutionary camaraderie and clinched deals that secured Brazil’s status as the senior partner in a long-term, multifaceted relationship…

Rousseff followed in the footsteps of populist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva…The “excellent” ties secure Brazil an advantageous position in Cuba’s hugely porous economy, hungry for basic consumer goods, investment and modernization. Economic upgrading in all sectors and a phased end to Cuba’s international isolation offer lucrative opportunities for Brazil’s state and private sectors.

Brazil will invest $640 million in a $900 million modernization of the Mariel container port, west of Havana, led by the Brazilian firm Odebrecht.

Brazil is also giving Cuba $400 million in credits for food imports and investing $200 million in modernizing Cuban agriculture. Rousseff pledged Cuba a long-term commitment to help its economic regeneration…

Brazilian interest in the modernization of Cuban sugar industry is linked to Brazilian plans to promote its pioneering production of cane-derived ethanol, which has led to most new cars in Brazil being fitted with flex-fuel technology to run on ethanol or gasoline or a mixture of both.

The port modernization program also fits in with Brazil’s plan to forge fruitful partnerships that will benefit its aim of making its exports of both commodities and manufactured goods more competitive in the international markets.

Cubans say they need the Mariel port to be ready for expanded trade with the United States, whenever the U.S. embargo is lifted. The embargo, begun in 1960, is the longest on record.

Bravo!

Now, which will provide long-lasting trade and commercial relationships? Efforts like this from Brazil or the usual capitulation to Gusano voters in Florida by Congressional politicians?

Iowa Soybean Association members at a port on the Po River

In October 1984, Iowa’s governor, Terry Branstad, made his first trip to China. He and his wife flew to Beijing and took an old steamer train about 200 miles southwest to Shijiazhuang, a city in the Hebei province…

Local government officials greeted the Branstads with flowers and a band. One member of the welcoming committee was a young man who would eventually ascend to the ranks of China’s top leadership, Xi Jinping. Currently China’s vice president, Xi is widely expected to succeed President Hu Jintao, who is set to step down next year.

“The friendships you build, you never know when it might pay off in the future,” said Brandstad, who has stayed in touch with Xi over the years. “Treat everybody well. You never know when they might someday be very important.”

Will someone please engrave this on bronze plaques to be placed on the desks of each of our Congress-critters!

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“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing
. . . after they’ve tried everything else.” – Winston Churchill

Denmark earns the biggest share of its national revenue from producing windmills and other clean technologies, the United States is rapidly expanding its clean-tech sector, but no country can match China’s pace of growth, according to a new report obtained by The Associated Press.

China’s production of green technologies has grown by a remarkable 77 per cent a year, according to the report, which was commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature…

Denmark, a longtime leader in wind energy, derives 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product from renewable energy technology and energy efficiency, or about $9.4 billion, the report said.

China is the largest producer in money terms, earning more than $64 billion, or 1.4 percent of its gross domestic product.

The U.S. ranks 17 in the production of clean technologies with 0.3 percent of GDP, or $45 billion, but those industries have been expanding at a rate of 28 percent per year since 2008.

“The U.S. is growing substantially, so it seems the policy of (President Barack) Obama is working,” Pols said. But the U.S. cannot compare with China, he said.

“When you speak to the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue. It’s just a fact of life. While we debate climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, the debate is passed in China,” Pols said. “For them it’s implementation. It’s a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector…”

Following Denmark and China, other countries in the top five clean-tech producers, in terms of percentage of GDP, are Germany, Brazil and Lithuania, the report said.

The understanding derived from science and the role of science in commerce and economics plays a leading role in most of the nations achieving success in advancing Green sectors in their economy. Hackneyed Cold War rationales for a lagging American economy remain nothing more than that – excuses for politics that haven’t made it to the Age of Reason much less the 21st Century.

I’d be surprised if even two terms of a White House committed to several venues of modernizing American commerce achieves much – with Congress, our schools and a national culture that relies as much upon the “common sense” of prayer books over scientific study. The culture of the fast buck in oil and other imports doesn’t lend much impetus to creativity in the marketplace.

The Chinese president has resisted US arguments about why China should let its currency strengthen, saying the dollar-based international currency system is a “product of the past”.

However, Hu Jintao admitted that it would take a long time to make China’s yuan (RMB) a world currency.

“China has made important contribution to the world economy in terms of total economic output and trade, and the RMB has played a role in the world economic development,” he told two US newspapers in a written interview ahead of his visit to the US next week. “But making the RMB an international currency will be a fairly long process…”

Hu said arguments that allowing the yuan to appreciate would curb inflation are too simplistic, adding that China is fighting inflation with a range of policies including interest-rate increases.

While inflation in China hit a 28-month high in November, Hu told the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post that prices were “on the whole moderate and controllable…We have the confidence, conditions and ability to stabilise the overall price level,” he said…

On other issues, Hu struck an upbeat tone about ties with the US. “We should abandon the zero-sum Cold War mentality,” he said and “respect each other’s choice of development path.”

The president suggested co-operation with the US in areas like new energy sources, clean energy, infrastructure development, aviation and space…

The Chinese leader, who is expected to step down as president and general secretary of China’s Communist Party in 2012, arrives on Wednesday in Washington for his first and last state visit.

I chose this article from Al Jazeera deliberately to offer folks a middle-of-the-road view from outside the United States and most Western yes-men. Certainly, the content of the interview isn’t altered; but, presentation is still linked to American domestic politics – and that includes foreign policy.

The Washington Post article is somewhat neutral. The NY Times reflects their policy of being as hawkish as any Cold Warrior when it comes to economic and commercial challenges to the United States.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

She makes fun, in private, of the way he walks and talks, of his rapid, jerky gestures and facial grimaces. He mocks her deliberation, her reluctance, her matronly caution. She has compared him to Mr. Bean and to the French comic Louis de Funès, with his curly hair and large nose. He sometimes calls her La Boche, the offensive French version of “Kraut,” and goes out of his way to give her an embrace and a double-cheeked kiss in the French fashion, the kind of contact that he knows very well, aides say, she cannot stand.

While the agonies of the European Union — sovereign defaults, deficits and bubbles — unfold like a great wonk drama, at their core is something more intimate: the fractured tale of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. They have been photographed across Europe giving the appearance of happy partnership. They are the best hope Europe has for continued unity. But they do not like each other at all.

As with any couple in trouble, economic difficulty has added to the strain. Two years ago, at the beginning of the crisis, Sarkozy burst out in public, saying, “France is acting, while Germany is only thinking about it!” Later, before a European Union meeting in Brussels on the Greek bailout, the French president was in a rage at his inability to persuade Merkel to do more for that country. After yelling at the E.U.’s president, Herman Van Rompuy, he threatened to boycott the meeting, muttering, according to French officials, “The Germans haven’t changed.” Later, when Sarkozy took camera crews in with him to a meeting, Merkel insisted they leave and, aides said, told Sarkozy, “I won’t let you do this to me.”

So it is not an easy relationship. But they know that they need to keep going for the sake of the kids — that is, for the sake of Europe. They have instructed their top foreign-policy advisers, Jean-David Levitte and Christoph Heusgen, both consummate diplomats, to make the relationship function. Some of the symbolism is a stretch — joint cabinet meetings, ceremonies at the Arc de Triomphe and the Berlin Wall. But there is an extraordinarily close coordination between the two staffs, and before every major European Union summit meeting, Sarkozy and Merkel hash out a joint position to take to the other 25 member states. This isn’t very democratic; it probably isn’t very pleasant either. Yet if the European Union is to function, Sarkozy and Merkel have to get along.

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Apple announced on Wednesday a cornucopia of new hardware and software: sleek iPods, a brand new Internet-enabled video streaming device and new versions of its iOS software and iTunes 10. However, the most impressive to me by far was Ping, the music-only social network that Apple is opening up its 160 million existing iTunes users.

No, I’m not blown away by the 160 million number. What I’m impressed by is the thinking behind Ping…

From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about:

* movies we see
* music we listen to
* books we are reading

These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes. It makes perfect sense for a music service to be social…

Ping…can tell me who my friends think are cool and the top 10 favorites of people in my social graph. Some of my friends are famous deejays. Others just have eclectic musical tastes. They can collectively sift through over 10 million songs and help with the discovery of music. This social-powered discovery is part of the biggest theme of our times: serendipity…

My belief has only been affirmed by growth in the amount of data available. With 12 million songs and 250,000 apps, the best way for Apple to enhance the iTunes store – aka its shopping experience — is through the use of social. Back in 2007, I argued that social networking was merely a feature that had to be embedded into applications to enhance their value. Apple has done a great job of that, but it’s also gone one step further, not only by adding a social networking layer to iTunes, but by meshing it with its commerce engine, the iTunes Store. And it’s made this experience available on both the desktop and its devices…

Like Apple, Amazon too has a lot more data about its customers and their behaviors and could create a compelling discovery experience. I believe with tens of thousands of products in its store, the retail giant needs to figure out ways to surface content and other offerings smartly.

As much of a non-social being as I am, I see what Om has perceived. Starting with the business opportunity, granting like access to like is socially meaningful as well as commercially beneficial. After all, this is part of how craft-oriented magazines – from Road & Track to Quilting Magazine – built their subscription base.

Cripes, I have a single simple example like those Om mentions in his article: 3Cities. A group I’ve never heard of – Bombay Dub Orchestra – produced this recording a short while back. I never heard of them. But, Om mentioned liking the CD in his personal blog – I listened to a track and bought the CD. Best music purchase in the last year!

Photo from an earlier visit to Hong Kong

Cold War enemies the United States and Vietnam demonstrated their blossoming military relations Sunday as a US nuclear supercarrier floated in waters off the Southeast Asian nation’s coast.

The USS George Washington’s stop, which comes 35 years after the Vietnam War, is officially billed as a commemoration of last month’s 15th anniversary of normalised diplomatic relations between the former foes. But the timing also reflects Washington’s heightened interest in maintaining security and stability in the Asia-Pacific amid tensions following the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which killed 46 sailors. North Korea has been blamed for the attack, but has vehemently denied any involvement.

Last month during an Asian security meeting in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also angered China by unexpectedly calling on the Communist powerhouse to resolve territorial claims with neighbouring Southeast Asian countries over islands in the South China Sea.

China claims the entire sea and the disputed Spratly and Paracel islands over which it exercises complete sovereignty. But Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines also have staked claims on all or some of the territory, which straddles vital shipping lanes, important fishing grounds and is believed rich in oil and natural gas reserves. Clinton announced that the US has a national interest in seeing the claims resolved…

Maybe Hillary thinks Lyndon Johnson made the Gulf of Tonkin part of Texas?

The aircraft carrier’s visit is particularly symbolic as it floats off the coast of central Danang, once the site of a bustling U.S. military base during the Vietnam War, which ended April 30, 1975, when northern communist forces seized control of the US-backed capital of South Vietnam, reuniting the country.

Some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war.

The US is now Vietnam’s top export market and Americans are the country’s No. 1 foreign investor. Two-way trade reached $15.4 billion in 2009.

Of course, if the United States hadn’t been occupied with being the cop of the world – that trade, cooperation and commerce could have started decades ago.

We always forget that VietNam was one of the Asian nations that fought on our side against Japan through World War 2. Even though they were occupied beforehand by France as a colonial “property”.

In its strongest move since the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Obama administration has said that the United States would retain control of all military forces in the South during any conflict with North Korea, which has been widely blamed for the attack on the ship in March that killed 46 sailors…

The decision is somewhat symbolic; the United States was not slated to give up wartime control of South Korean troops until 2012, and the new agreement extends the deadline to 2015. But the agreement allowed Washington and Seoul to take some action after months of struggling for ways to punish the North — and attempt to deter it from further violence — without provoking the country’s erratic leader, Kim Jong-il, to launch new attacks…

Where’s the beef?

In addition, Mr. Obama vowed to seek Congressional ratification for a long-stalled free-trade agreement with South Korea — a possibly risky political move that could please businesses but upset unions and their allies in Congress.

In an apparent attempt to satisfy those groups, the administration said that in exchange for pushing the trade deal forward, Mr. Obama would ask the South to drop restrictions on auto and beef imports; the restrictions have been particularly unpopular with unions…

Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said he would support ratification as long as “the unscientific barriers Korea has erected against American beef” were removed.

Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said he welcomed the decision. “I hope that this process will provide us an opportunity to address market access for autos and beef and increase the value of the trading relationship,” he said.

When either one of these creeps lets some concern for healthcare, unemployment, jobs and education slip past their political radar, pigs will be flying and lobbyists will be out of a job.

Want to save a buck and reduce the deficit – Mr. and Mrs. Tea Party? Bring The Troops Home!