Big Brass Ones

I've been following Ai Weiwei since I read an interview with him about his architectural work on the Olypic stadium back in 2006, it really doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not - his sheer guts and fearlessness are striking. Well, it seems that the goons from the Ministry of State Security have finally got around to noticing that he's not exactly positive about the Chinese government and called him in for a little chat over tea. His response?

"Here’s a few words: Don’t come again to find me, I will not cooperate. If you must come, then bring your instrument of punishment."

ChinaSMACK under denial of service attack

Yes, I know, nothing will make the nationalistic fenqing who most probably pulled this little stunt off happier than seeing the expat-o-sphere whining about it, but this really cooks my goose. There's nothing I hate more than an attempt to censor something which was both fun and totally non-blameworthy by kill-joy dweebs. I had my own little bust-up with an over-sensitive individual earlier this year, his chosen method was to threaten legal action (although, for some reason, never against me), these guys prefer to get their robot computers to bombard the website out of existence, but it adds up to the same thing. Two things to note:

1) DoS is totally not the Chinese government's MO. This has to be a hacker attack.

2) It is impossible to believe that the hackers wouldn't first have tried to get ChinaSMACK blocked by the CCP-run Great Fire Wall if they really wanted to put it out of business. Why is ChinaSMACK still unblocked?

Give the link a try here.

On Yield

As a physics graduate I've been following the discussion on the North Korean explosion over at ArmsControlWonk.com with some interest.First, here's what the North Korean state media had to say:

KCNA Report on One More Successful Underground Nuclear Test
Pyongyang, May 25 (KCNA) -- The Korean Central News Agency released the following report on Monday in connection with one more successful underground nuclear test in the DPRK.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.

The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control and the results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.

The successful nuclear test is greatly inspiring the army and people of the DPRK all out in the 150-day campaign, intensifying the drive for effecting a new revolutionary surge to open the gate to a thriving nation.

The test will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and the region around it with the might of Songun.

Here's two important points - the first from commenter JF:

the equation [for yield Y] is
M = a + b log Y
where a and b are empirically determined constants

for Novaya Zemlya [the Russian testing ground], the eqn would be
M = 4.45 + 0.75 log Y
this gives a yield Y of 2.2 kt

for Nevada Test Site, it would be
M = 3.92 + 0.81 log Y
this gives a Y of 9.2 kt

Nobody has calibrated the North Korean test site and so the empirical constants can only be guessed (or chosen to give the yield you wish to claim)

Which brings us to our second point from Über-wonk Geoffrey Forden - the importance of calculating the yield:

If they had gone with the “fail safe” WWII design [i.e., one with a 20 Kiloton yield], it would probably mean it was too heavy to mount on a missile. They would be making a political bomb that would undoubtedly use a lot of high explosive to ensure it got a good compression of the plutonium pit. The 4 KT bomb, however, might very well fit on a DPRK missile. If they have stayed with this design, it probably indicates that weaponising it is even more important than ensuring a successful test.

Using data from the 1998 India-Pakistan tests a yield of ~4 kilotons has been calculated, which would indicate that this is not a political 'for show' bomb, but another step in developing a bomb capable of being mounted in a long-range missile. Indeed, this is exactly what the North Koreans said they would do after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) issued its resolution after the failed 'satellite' launch earlier this year:

The UNSC should promptly make an apology for having infringed the sovereignty of the DPRK and withdraw all its unreasonable and discriminative "resolutions" and decisions adopted against the DPRK.

This is the only way for it to regain confidence of the UN member nations and fulfill its responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, not serving as a tool for the U.S. highhanded and arbitrary practices any longer.

In case the UNSC does not make an immediate apology, such actions will be taken as:

Firstly, the DPRK will be compelled to take additional self-defensive measures in order to defend its supreme interests.

The measures will include nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Secondly, the DPRK will make a decision to build a light water reactor power plant and start the technological development for ensuring self-production of nuclear fuel as its first process without delay.

[emphasis added]

As Totalwonkerr Joshua Pollack put it: "We are now at one nuclear test and counting."

Memories of Jiang Ning

Last Wednesday rioting broke out at the Jiang Ning campus of Nanjing University of Astronautics and Aeronautics, where I worked during my first 6 months in China back at the start of 2003. I haven't been back there in years, but the "city management" - the Chengguan, a bunch of uniformed thugs who are supposed to maintain 'order' - don't seem to have changed at all. According to this report the riot started as a result of students who were selling items at the side of the road being beaten by the Chengguan. People in China will be familiar with this kind of event, but to anyone who's wondering:

1) These students will almost certainly not be pro-democracy or anti-government in any serious way. In fact, they're way more pro-government than the average Chinese person is, at least they were when I was there. If this pro-government stance is somewhat brittle, it is as much because the students involved have almost nothing in the way of a meaningful political education as to the nature of their government, doublethink reigns supreme.

2) Things like this often occur without making the news. There were riots outside Nanjing University of Finance and Economics back in 2004 that were not reported anywhere as far as I am aware - it is probably only the approaching 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen square massacre that makes this noteworthy.

3) These students will be motivated by boredom as much as anything else, as stupid as it seems to say this - there literally is nothing to do except study in Jiang Ning. The students there all wished they lived at the city centre campus and are somewhat disgruntled as a result. Many too are three-year students and would rather not be studying, but do so because their parents insist.

4) This has absolutely nothing to do with the 20th anniversary. Very few of the students will be anything but vaguely aware of the events leading up to the massacre, if asked they would probably think it strange that anyone might make that comparison.

"The more things change . . ." (UPDATE)

Back in February I linked to a Times report on the muzzling of a British court that wished to disclose the facts surrounding the torture of Binyam Mohammed by both the current and previous US administrations by threatening to cut off intelligence-sharing. At the time some doubt was voiced by a commenter as to whether the Obama administration really had issued such a warning, well wonder no longer:

If it is determined that HMG [Her majesty's government] is unable to protect the information that we provide to it,even if that inability is caused by its judicial system, we will necessarily have to review with the greatest care the sensitivity of information we can provide in future

In other words: "Shut the hell up otherwise the next time we hear about a terrorist attack that's going to happen in the UK, we might just forget to tell you". This is not to say that the British government is spotless in this, far from it, but when you see how low our so-called "special relationship" with the US has brought us, it really is time we reconsidered how closely we want to work with a government with such low regard for the rule of law.

[Update]: This analysis is also valid -

If I had to guess here -- and it's only a guess -- it seems clear that the British Government does not want these facts disclosed. After all, Mohamed's allegation is that British government agents broke the law by collaborating in his torture. The British Government needs a reason to justify to its High Court concealment of the details of what was done to Mohamed, and being able to point to a "national security harm" from disclosure (i.e., the U.S. is threatening to cease intelligence-sharing) provides that excuse. Since both the British and U.S. Governments obviously prefer that evidence of Mohamed's torture be concealed, it is not difficult to envision the Obama administration happily cooperating (as the Bush administration did) by providing the British with whatever they need to justify ongoing concealment of this evidence (if you need us to say that we'll cut off intelligence-sharing with you in the event of disclosure, here's a letter saying that). In other words, this isn't really a case of the U.S. Government genuinely threatening Britain as much as it is the two governments collaborating to provide the British government with an excuse to justify concealment, on national security grounds, of the facts of Mohamed's torture.

The European Convention on Human Rights places a non-derogatable duty on the British government to protect all citizens and residents from torture, and to punish those who engage in it. Appeal to the Strasbourg Court is very likely to occur as a result of this, and the ruling is unlikely to be favourable to those in power. However, given the time necessary for such a decision to be reached, and high likelihood of a Labour defeat in next year's election, it may be immaterial at least in political terms.

No Why

Posting in the spirit of "没有为什么", there is something bizarrely magnificent about this video:

Locking Up Mexicans

This story has probably had more coverage that it really deserves, but in case you missed it, there was a recent kerfuffle surrounding the Chinese government's decision to respond to the outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico by placing all Mexican residents in quarantine, including those who have been out of Mexico for many months. All the same, it does tell us something interesting about how these kinds of decisions are made:

1) The complete ineffective nature of this measure hardly needs to be pointed out - any half-decent epidemiologist could have told them. This decision was therefore almost certainly taken without reference to expert advice - of which China could hardly be short.

2) It is hard to believe that the people who were in charge of China's measured, targeted, and scientific response to Bird Flu were in charge of this. This smacks much more of the over-the-top response to SARS - something which came from the very top. It seems likely that this decision was made high up and by a very few people.

3) Measure this also against other areas of Chinese policy making, particularly economic policy in which China has been much praised, and you have the suggestion of isolated groupings within government at the highest level surrounding various ministries which do not communicate. Now, there is nothing that surprising about this as it is found in all governments, but in China it seems particularly acute.

"the greatest people that have ever trod this earth"

Brilliant piece by Atlantic blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates on nationalism, racism, and lazy thinking in the Southern United States. Money quote:

Of course the problem with mental corruption is that it doesn't really respect borders. There's a short step from Farrakhanesque numerology to believing in little green men. Likewise, a group conditioned to, at once, believe that they are "the greatest people that have ever trod this earth," that the stars and bars actually stand for barbecue, NASCAR and rugged individualism, that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, are exactly the sort of people conditioned to believe that man once hunted dinosaurs, that Obama is (all at once) a radical Christian and a closet Muslim, that global warming is a liberal hoax, that a neurogical diagnoses can be done via video-tape. To be sure, history is littered with smart, well-read racists.But they weren't any smarter for it.

One doesn't need to have ever been to the Southern US to know exactly what he is talking about, he is talking about the desire, even amongst intelligent people, to use mental short-cuts whereby all the arguments one is inclined to disagree with the most can be waved into bins where they require no more attention. Intelligence doesn't make you immune to laziness, in fact it can often allow people to invent new ways to deceive themselves.

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

(Photo: An Abu Ghraib detainee who was beaten to death whilst in a 'stress position')

[Update: Rhodo Zeb has a solid round-up of the legal debate - as much as there is anything debatable about torture - over on his blog]

Life and fate -

"Human groupings have one main purpose: to assert everyone's right to be different, to be special, to think, feel, and live in his or her own way. People join together in order to win or defend this right. But this is where a terrible, fateful error is born: the belief that these groupings in the name of a race, a God, a party or a State are the very purpose of life and not simply a means to an end. No! The only true and lasting meaning of the struggle for life lies in the individual, in his modest peculiarities and in his right to those peculiarities."

- Vasily Grossman

What Hillsborough still has to teach us.

The Hillsborough disaster happened a few months before my ninth birthday, as a young Liverpool fan I remember trying to think what it might have been like in the crush at the front of the terrace - and drawing a blank. Even now I still can't really grasp it, nor can I really understand how it happened. All you can do is read the words of those who were at the scene trying to describe their horrifying struggle to survive:

“As soon as I was in the tunnel, I knew there were problems,” Tony said. “There was no going back. Just too many people. I kept telling myself to be calm, not to panic. I knew that if my head went down under the level of the crowd, I wouldn’t come back up. But the pushing just carried on.

“Then I was out of the tunnel. I thought it was over, just for a second. Then I knew it was worse. Much worse.”

People were still trying to force their way through the underpass, believing, like Tony, that the sunlight and terraces meant safety. Instead, horror waited. “I’d been turned around, facing away from the pitch, so I didn’t know what was happening behind the goal. It was hard to breathe and stay upright, but it had gone past the point of struggling and moving. My elbow was jammed into a fella’s neck and he was pleading with me to move it. He kept saying: ‘I can’t breathe, I’m dying.’ But I couldn’t move it. Then he stopped talking. His head went under.”

I understand that the police opened a gate which thousands of people piled through so as to relieve the press outside the stadium, and that the fans went as a body into two pens which were already over-crowded thus triggering the disaster. What I can't understand is how the police could have ignored what was going on in the pens, how they could have responded in such an incompetent fashion, and how they could then have doctored their reports to cast their response in a better light. However, this kind of deception by the police is not limited to this incident.

There is something singular about this disaster, it happened, not as a result of a force of nature, or as a result of malice, but as a result of thousands of small decisions made with too little information. The fans who tried to press forward into the grounds had no idea what was going on in the pens because they couldn't see it, once they were far enough into the stadium to become aware of it, it was already too late. From that moment on, the only way in which they could escape what was happening was by doing what they did - by struggling for life with the fences, the police, and with their fellow fans. It seems that many lives were saved by the actions of the fans whilst the police, having sentenced them to death by directing them into the pens, failed to respond.

People aren't usually aware of the safety systems which are designed to keep us safe from the consequences of group behaviour until they fail. Once can drive through a complicated traffic system thousands of times without being aware how the traffic lights, signs, junctions, bypasses etc. all act to minimise accidents whilst maximising traffic flow. However, once a light fails, or a sign goes missing, or an accident causes the delicate balance of the system to go into gridlock, then people become aware of how their individual decisions are channelled in a way that can be to their detriment if done improperly. What seems like a process of entirely free choice is in fact a choice directed along set routes through a system hopefully designed with our safety as its paramount goal.

At Hillsborough, this system consisted of two elements - the design of the stadium, and the reaction of the police and emergency services. As a result of previous deaths incidents at football grounds of rioting and pitch invasions, the stands at Hillsborough were designed to contain the fans in seperated pens from which they could not easily escape. The greatest importance was laid on keeping the fans from breaking through or over the perimeter into the centre of the pitch and thus disrupting the match. The police also had the prevention of rioting as their primary objective, no attempt was made to control the flow of fans towards the stadium, to get them to line up ready for the turnstiles, or to break up the fatally dense crowd which gathered.

Once the crowd had gathered, it seems unlikely that it could have been directed thorough the turnstiles without injury resulting, but the solution chosen by the police officer in charge at the scene triggered a much worse disaster. The obvious way of avoiding it - slowing the entry of fans through the gate and diverting the flow into the flanking pens - was never done. The police had been expecting violence, and responded initially to escaping fans by forcing them back into the stands. As crucial minutes ticked by, and blue-face faced fans breathed their last, they did nothing. Even when they did respond it was in a chaotic fashion which undoubtedly increased the death toll. The emergency plan which had been put in place was never initiated - by the time the officer in charge realised what was going on, it was too late for most of the victims - despite the amount of information he had available to him through CCTV cameras and the reports of his own officers.

The lessons of all this for us seems very clear, especially in light of the financial crisis of the past year -

1) Any complex system dependent on thousands of human decisions can create outcomes which none of those within the system could have wanted.

2) Information and directions should be communicated quickly and clearly to those within the system, no matter how bad the news.

3) Distrust any system which does not have the safety of those within it and around it as its primary concern.

4) Especially distrust any system which tries to contain those within it rather than direct them along productive lines.

5) If necessary, the system itself should be sacrificed to save those within it.

Thankfully football learned these lessons, and the disaster of Hillsborough has not been repeated.

[Update - Saw the memorial service today, where 30,000 people gathered to pay their respects. Seeing a government minister silenced by 30,000 people chanting "Justice for the 96" made me feel indescribably proud. I feel this to be a case similar to that of Derek Bentley - it doesn't matter if a re-opening of the case is too late, some measure of justice needs to be done.]

The ICRC report on torture of detainees.

Damning. The methods used to torture the 14 detainees identified include:

1.3.1 Suffocation by water
1.3.2 Prolonged standing
1.3.3 Beatings by use of a collar
1.3.4 Beating and kicking
1.3.5 Confinement in a box
1.3.6 Prolonged nudity
1.3.7 Sleep deprivation and the use of loud music
1.3.8 Exposure to cold temperature/water
1.3.9 Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles
1.3.10 Threats
1.3.11 Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food

Note that this is not an out-of-the-blue report by a random international pressure group, but a report from one of the world's most respected organisations which was intended to remain secret. It also comes to us supported by the testimony of interrogators, US JAG officers, and the detainees themselves.

Many will be tempted to say that these are not harsh measures, and that the people who were subjected to them deserved everything they got. However, some of those subjected to this treatment have subsequently be released without charge, and the toll which even the mildest of these treatments used in combination over a period of years would take on the human body and psyche is too easy to imagine. That no evidence has ever come forward of useful intelligence ever having been obtained from this treatment goes without saying.

After the "Grass Mud Horse", the "Hairy Cat"?

Saw this photo of sometimes-controversial Chinese blogger Zuola/Zola* with an toy alpaca and a tufted cat. The alpaca's meaning can be easily worked out by anyone familiar with the Chinese blogosphere, or even those outside of it. The tufted cat's meaning, however, can only be worked out if you realise that "Hairy Cat" (多毛猫) is pronounced similarly to the Chinese word for hide-and-seek (躲猫猫), which links it to a recent case of a prisoner's death in a police-run jail, which the police have sought to blame on a game of hide-and-seek gone bad. How did I work this out? Well, I cheated.

Anyone wanting to buy one of these cute cats can go here.

*The security certificate for Zuola's website appears to be out of date, however none of my anti-spyware/virus stuff seems to be lighting up on it.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis does it 'his way'.

Apparently taking his cue from Ol' Blues Eyes himself, Chris Devonshire-Ellis just doesn't seem able to stay retired. Here's the latest from an email that was leaked to me:

I will continue to commute between Mumbai and Beijing with at least one week a month spent in China. In terms of China Government relations, these are in fact fine. I had dinner with the Vice Minister of Commerce just last week.

I advice this personally so as not to get the China blogs tongues wagging over their annoying tendency to comment and pass judgements based on limited actual knowledge, and so you are aware of what in fact is the situation as regards my position in China and with the firm. My colleagues Alberto Vettoretti and Sabrina Zhang remain, as they have since 2007, the Managing Partners for our China practice.

I would ask this is not posted on any blogs or twittered. I share this information with you as a matter of personal courtesy and for the sake of clarity as concerns recent misleading and inaccurate China media attention. I would appreciate your cooperation.

Why then, am I posting this when it is clearly against his wishes? Well, put simply, the guy already said that he had resigned following the brief monetary turmoil sparked by his farcical faked interview with the head of the CBRC. This is now shown to have been a total lie. Just to remind ourselves of what he actually said in his letter of resignation:

Feb. 23 - Chris Devonshire-Ellis, the senior partner of Dezan Shira & Associates and publisher of China Briefing, has resigned from his positions today. He effectively leaves the business he founded 17 years ago in South China and the publishing company that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

“Due to the serious error of judgment I made publishing details of off-the-record meetings with Chinese ministers, I have decided to step down from these roles,” Devonshire-Ellis said. “My responsibilities will be divided up amongst existing partners and our senior personnel. I have enjoyed working with our staff and clients in helping them prosper and succeed in China and I want to thank all those who have helped me over the past 17 years.”

Managing Partner Alberto Vettoretti is now the senior figure for the firm in China, while Sabrina Zhang remains the national tax partner. Andy Scott, managing editor for China Briefing, will be responsible for editorial control.

Devonshire-Ellis leaves Dezan Shira & Associates with nine China offices, 150 personnel, and an international client base. China Briefing continues to publish a monthly magazine in five languages and a popular series of business investment guides to China.

So the guy who resigned just over a month ago never really left. By his own admission his position is unchanged from 2007. He is also claiming that his relations with the Chinese government are 'fine' after they found out that he was publishing faked interviews with high-level officials. My mole also tells me that CDE's little intimate soirée with the vice-minister was in fact a corporate event which hundreds of people were at as part of an organisation which CDE pays $1000 USD per year to stay part of. It now turns out that, rather than accept the blame for his deception, he was just trying to fob people off. It's time that this charade was brought to an end.