学習性無力感

2012年12月14日には、気の狂ったナイフを振り回す男は河南省、中国でChenpeng村の小学校の外に立っていた、と警察は彼を圧倒する前に、24人を刺しました。被害者のすべてが、23人の子供と（攻撃者がもともとナイフを盗んだ人から）1高齢者の女性は最終的に回復しました。その音のいずれかがおなじみていますか？サンディフック悲劇は、時間後に同じ日に発生しました。 （コネチカットで20対河南省では0）の死者数の格差はすでに過去4年間で上に述べてきました。これは、ポリシーが暴力的な爆発の影響を軽減できることを示しています。中国はナイフ銃乱射を持っている唯一のアジアの状態ではありません。日本、韓国、台湾およびその他の国は、あまりにもそれらを体験します。 Chenpengでの攻撃者は、銃器へのアクセス権を持っていなかったので、彼はナイフを使用していました。これら銃乱射を防止する難不可能であるが、異なるポリシーの選択と、それらを軽減することができます。

Learned Helplessness

On December 14, 2012, a crazed knife wielding man stood outside Chenpeng Village Primary School in Henan Province, China, and stabbed 24 people before the police overpowered him.  All of the victims, 23 children and 1 elderly woman (from whom the attacker originally stole the knives) eventually recovered.  Does any of that sound familiar?  The Sandy Hook tragedy occurred on the same date, hours later.  The disparity of death toll (0 in Henan versus 20 in Connecticut) has already been remarked upon in the past four years.   It shows that policy can mitigate the effects of violent outbursts.  China is not the only Asian state to have knife-rampages.  Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries experience them too.  The attacker in Chenpeng did not have access to a firearm, so he used knives.  It is difficult-to-impossible to prevent these rampages, but with different policy choices, they can be mitigated. 

A few weeks ago I announced that this blog was going to have weekly updates.  I apologize for not following through on that.  I haven’t given up, and I intend to keep writing here. 

So, on to today’s subject: changes in Chinese population control laws.  It is now legal for Chinese couples to have up to two children without special permission or pain of punishment.  A seemingly simple change speaks volumes about China.  If you remember, the Communist Party first announced plans for this round of reforms two years ago at the Party Congress that also anointed Xi Jinping as paramount leader.  In that post, I mentioned that Chinese Communist Party reformers like to work slowly, carefully and very deliberately.  And here we are, two years after they first announced it, the government of China relaxed the birth control laws.  The announcement made a lot of waves, and raised a lot of questions about it’s actual significance to China. 

Next Verse, Same as the First

              There is a noticeable tendency for tensions between Pyongyang and Seoul to flare up in the spring.  Last year North Korea sealed the border, closed factories in the Kaesong Industrial Zone and denounced US-ROKA exercises as a provocation.  Said military exercises occur every year.  Two years ago, North Korea announced it would resume nuclear tests, and the US Navy dispatched Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington to South Korea in response.  Well, last week, on Sunday March 30, North Korea fired artillery into the ocean, over the armistice line, and the Southern Navy responded in kind.  Then on Monday March 31 the South Korean Defense Ministry announced they had recovered a crashed North Korean drone.  These events are nothing new, but later in the week Prime Minister of Japan Abe Shinzo ordered the Marine Self-Defense Force to patrol the Sea of Japan with an AEGIS-equipped destroyer and shoot down any North Korean missiles bringing a new factor into the mix: the Japanese might actually do something.  Previously, Japan was the least powerful party interested in the tension on the Korean peninsula.  However, if the Japanese were to actually shoot down a North Korean device the rest of the region would have to take them more seriously.

Let's Do the Tension Tango

On February 20 2014, the Financial Times reported that a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) officer, speaking to FT anonymously, said that China is training for a “short, sharp war” with Japan and its allies (which include Australia and India).  On February 23, 2014, the New York Times reported on the US-Japan Iron Fist exercise at Camp Pendleton, as if it was something entirely new.  Iron Fist occurs every year, yet, this year, the Times ran the headline “In Japan’s Drill with the U.S., a Message for Beijing.”

America's Bear Run

A few weeks ago, the Japanese Foreign Ministry announced that the JSDF would shoot down any aircraft traveling within its airspace without permission.  Last weekend, China published a new map of its East China Sea Air-Defense Zone, which includes the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu island chain.  Every country has an air-defense zone, that is the territory within which they begin tracking aircraft, and often extends over the territory of other countries.  It does not normally imply any territorial claims, but in the case of the East China Sea the announcement aroused a passionate response.  Two days ago the USAF conducted a fly-through of the Chinese defense zone with a pair of B-52 bombers.  The B-52s refused to identify themselves to China’s air traffic control who tracked the planes and apparently identified them anyway.  Then China clarified its policy; the PLA would respond to incursion according to the threat it presents.  The PLA appears to have accurately determined the B-52s were on a mission to see what happens.  It’s akin to a Soviet-NATO game called “Bear Runs.”

China's Reforms

Two big stories came out of Asia last week: the typhoon and China’s plans for reforms.  I will write a post about the typhoon soon.  I want to wait and see what information comes in from the Philippines as the country and the world has a chance to take in what has happened.  For now, we’re going to start with China’s upcoming reforms.  We can take this seriously.  The People’s Republic of China has a history of making policy changes.