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Editor's Note: Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu's Chinese roots has attracted much attention after his financial shenanigans came to light. But New America Media commentator George Koo says Hsu's story is really an age-old American story. George Koo is an international business consultant and occasional contributor to New America Media. Confidence man Norman Hsu drew the attention of the media on an otherwise slow summer by living the American dream and following the American way. He did this by giving away lots of other people’s money to politicians. Until his unsavory past came to light, he was touted as a master...

Mr Howard said the deal would bring the two countries closer Australian Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed suggestions that a security declaration with Japan could strain ties with China. Mr Howard is set to sign the ground-breaking deal during a four-day visit to Japan which begins on Sunday. The agreement is thought to include co-operation on terrorism, peacekeeping and disaster relief. Australia has been looking to exert more influence in Asia, in terms of business as well as regional security. Full details of the pact have not been revealed but it is expected to include plans for greater...

After more than 60 years of silence, World War II's most enduring and horrible secret is being nudged into the light of day. One by one the participants, white-haired and mildmannered, line up to tell their dreadful stories before they die. Akira Makino is a frail widower living near Osaka in Japan. His only unusual habit is to regularly visit an obscure little town in the southern Philippines, where he gives clothes to poor children and has set up war memorials. Mr Makino was stationed there during the war. What he never told anybody, including his wife, was that during...

AP , TOKYO Monday, Jul 03, 2006,Page 1 A Chinese ship defied warnings from Japan's coast guard and conducted a marine survey in waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea yesterday. The ship was spotted about 24km southwest of the craggy islets that lie between Okinawa and Taiwan in the East China Sea while conducting unreported surveys, violating a bilateral accord that requires advance notice, Coast Guard spokesman Takatoshi Nagasaki said. The island chain, called Diaoyutais in Chinese and Senkaku in Japanese, is surrounded by rich fishing grounds and is regularly visited by nationalists from both sides. The...

China should pump up its military spending to safeguard national security because of the danger of Taiwan declaring independence, a government think-tank academic said yesterday. China does not spend enough money on defence, considering the rapid growth of its economy, the official China News Service quoted Mr Hu Angang, director of the Centre for China Studies at the prestigious Qinghua University, as saying. Mr Hu said: 'China should further increase the percentage of national defence spending, given the fact that China has not been truly unified and faces the possible danger of Taiwan's independence.' China's military spending was officially about...

Australia has done well, but Asia needs a posse, not just a lonely sheriff ___ Another week, another failing Pacific state: Australia must be wearying of the troubles in its backyard. This time it is Timor-Leste, or East Timor as it was until recently known. On May 25th John Howard, Australia's prime minister, ordered 150 soldiers to be sent to his tiny neighbour, a half-island that broke away from Indonesia in 1999 after 24 years of brutal occupation and has been chaotically misgoverned ever since. Its latest troubles (see article) have been caused by the mutiny of close to half...

The [Australian] federal Industry Minister says the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate will have a greater impact on greenhouse gases than the Kyoto Protocol. The partnership brings together Australia, Japan, China, India, South Korea and the United States. Ian Macfarlane says Australia's decision to join the partnership will prove to be a far better move than signing the Kyoto accord. "The reality is new technology will deliver three times the savings in greenhouse gas as the Kyoto Protocol will," he said. "Things like geosequistations, solar energy, better utilisation of the newer technologies that are going to see more...

Clean energy projects aimed at halving greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century will be financed as part of an international agreement signed by Australia yesterday. The American-led partnership is a challenge to the Kyoto Protocol, promising co-operation with developing countries and increased use of new technologies to reduce global warming. The agreement - covering the United States, China, India, Australia, Japan and South Korea - set out a new agenda identifying mutual interest and commercial benefit as keys to a cleaner environment. The details will be negotiated at a meeting in Adelaide in November. The ministerial meeting...

Why Japan needs our friendship THREE dramatic stories in Tokyo's newspapers this week paint the picture of Japan's present extraordinary flux and why the Japan-Australia strategic partnership is set to deepen. "Wu snubbed Koizumi," blared The Japan Times. It recounted the incredible incident of China's Vice-Premier Wu Yi, who first asked for a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, then cancelled at the last minute and went home in a huff. At first Chinese officials, with their scrupulous regard for the truth, said this was because of urgent business at home. Later they said it was because of insensitive...

FOREIGN POLICY Magazine of January/February 2005, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has an engaging piece of correspondence on China and the future of US-China relations between Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Dr John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. It's titled, "Clash of the Titans." The Brzezinski-Mearsheimer dialogue (see below), makes some interesting points such as: Mearsheimer: "China is likely to try to dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere". "An increasingly powerful China is likely to try to push the United States out of...

  China’s economy is a stunted giantPeter ZhangBrookesNews.ComMonday 21 March 2005 Many American conservatives pay a great deal of attention to China’s military ambitions and potential — and so they should. But to do so while ignoring China’s economic situation is to show poor judgement. Beijing fully understands, even if most of these conservatives do not, that to successfully wage full-scale war against a highly advanced economy requires an economy at a similar stage of development. When several years ago Jiang Zemin stated that we “should focus our limited funds on cutting-edge areas of military science and technology” he certainly...

On April 14, an unusual joint hearing was held by the House International Relations and Armed Services committees. At issue were the national security and foreign policy implications of possible European Union arms exports to China. The clear concern of the assembled members of Congress was the enhanced threat from China to U.S. and allied forces if it gained advanced European weapons technology. Yet, two officials from the Bush administration made very odd remarks in favor of a "strong" China. Peter W. Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, said: "The United States seeks a strong, prosperous and transforming...

Australia's $20bn Asian arms race AUSTRALIA will spend an additional $20 billion on defence to keep the nation ahead of emerging Asian rivals. Treasurer Peter Costello said the huge boost to defence spending would take place over a decade. In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald Sun - and as leadership tensions simmered - he intimated the nation's security would be his major concern if he became prime minister. "I am very much focused on defence, and strategy is very much part of it," Mr Costello said. Mr Costello said the Australian Defence Force would receive more than $20...

Australia wants to join a new grouping of Asian nations, but it is balking at a prerequisite that it first sign a non-aggression pact. Prime Minister John Howard's government worries such a move could impact Australia's alliance with Washington. Later this year, Malaysia will host an inaugural East Asia Summit, which will bring together the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Japan, South Korea and India. Australia and New Zealand are also eager to take part, but while the latter has expressed its willingness to meet the requirement of signing the pact,...

Pentagon official: China not a future challenge but 'a problem here and now' East-Asia-Intel.com, April 19, 2005 A senior Pentagon official told Congress last week that China's military power is growing. "We have watched as China's armed forces have progressed rapidly," said Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs. Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs U.S. Department of Defense Rodman noted that the threat from China is not only a future challenge but "a problem here and now." Double-digit percentage rate increases in military spending for the past 15 have sped up China's military buildup, Rodman...

WASHINGTON: In a recent poll of Australians conducted by the Lowy Institute in Sydney, 69 percent of those surveyed had "positive feelings" towards China, while only 58 percent had such sentiment for Australia's staunch ally, the United States.

This has been a rough first quarter for ASEAN. Following the devastating tsunami on the eve of the new year, the first few months of 2005 have seen new challenges confronting the regional grouping. The ten ASEAN members are currently bracing for a possible diplomatic crisis should Myanmar's chairmanship next year cause the region's Western partners to boycott the 2006 ASEAN meeting. Earlier, on the bilateral front, Thailand and Malaysia had their ties ruffled by a public spat following accusations by Bangkok that Kuala Lumpur was supporting southern Thai separatists -- charges the Malaysians denied. Differences have also emerged between...

Escalating tension with China, violently illustrated by renewed anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai and other big cities at the weekend, is increasing pressure on Tokyo to expand its military capabilities and back a deepening strategic alliance with the US reaching from east Asia to the Gulf. Japan's pacifist postwar constitution restricts its armed forces to self-defence. About 50,000 US troops in Okinawa and other bases guarantee the country's security in return for a $5bn (£2.6bn) Japanese cash contribution. But defence analysts say the perceived Chinese threat, a more assertive, nationalistic Japanese mindset, and Washington's wish to use Japan as a command...

TAIWAN'S coastguard has accused a Chinese spy ship of intruding into waters around the island before being shepherded away by Taiwanese navy vessels. The incident occurred amid growing tensions between Taiwan and China after the Chinese parliament recently passed an anti-secession law aimed at the island off the southeastern Chinese coast. “The ship sailed away after it was approached by naval and coastguard ships,'' a coastguard official told AFP. The United Daily News said the Chinese vessel, the Xue Long, was first spotted off the island on Sunday, prompting the navy to send frigates to follow it closely. Military...

The real 'China threat'By Chalmers Johnson I recall 40 years ago, when I was a new professor working in the field of Chinese and Japanese international relations, that Edwin O Reischauer once commented, "The great payoff from our victory of 1945 was a permanently disarmed Japan." Born in Japan and a Japanese historian at Harvard, Reischauer served as US ambassador to Tokyo in the administrations of presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W Bush, the United States has been doing everything...