Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-24-2009

[andrewducker]

• Alzheimer's risk inversely correlated with cancer risk
  (tags: health cancer alzheimers)
• How China wrecked the Copenhagen deal
  (tags: china politics environment climate globalwarming climatechange copenhagen obama)

Comments

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

"However, Professor Clive Ballard, of the Alzheimer's Society, said the existence of one of the diseases could mask the symptoms of the other and affect diagnosis.

"More research is needed to establish categorically if this link exists."

I was going to make a slightly tasteless comment about people with one condition not being able to notice the other (due to either lack of self-awareness or side-effects of cancer drugs) but that says it a lot more nicely.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I suspect data-mining. The findings only seem to fully apply to white people looks really fishy.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

About the China thing; there's more going on here than "nasty China wrecks everything out of selfishness/spite". Chinese diplomacy, from everything I've heard, works very differently to Western diplomacy, and Copenhagan was organised entirely around the Western model of diplomacy - that is to say, big conversations around tables with important heads of state.

There are a whole bunch of reasons why this is incompatible with how China does diplomacy but important among them is that with China, everything should be ironed out before hand in face-to-face 2-3 person conversations between people with long histories and good relations - this means that nobody has to lose face at the big public "negotiation". No Chinese diplomat is going to compromise in public like that!

I would expect that running the negotiations in a Western style was insulting to China, who take that kind of public insult very seriously. No wonder they sent lesser officials, who prevaricated - it both paid back the insult and avoided losing face. This is absolutely basic diplomacy as far as China is concerned and they were probably astonished/amused that the West fell over itself in disarray at this basic tactic.

Since China is a major world power, especially so in conversations about climate, it only makes sense to structure any future negotiations in a way which fits historical/current Chinese diplomatic practice. And it's not only "good sense" - it's fundamental politeness.

Of course this isn't the whole picture, and China does have strong motives to stall negotiations anyway, and yes, I'm painting with a broad brush.

But it's an angle not covered by any of the commentators I've seen bring up the events in that link and I think it's dishonest for them not to include it.

[andrewducker]

Trying to seal deals behind closed doors in advance of this massive meeting was never going to happen - and is massively against the spirit of open negotiation which Copenhagen is supposed to be about. China may be used to doing diplomacy that way, but I really, really hope they aren't allowed to get away with it.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

> I really, really hope they aren't allowed to get away with it.

I don't think you get it. The West doesn't get to tell China what to do any more. Actually, The West hasn't been able to tell China what to do for a while, it just hasn't really noticed before because it hasn't had anything important enough to tell China (apart from little things like, y'know, human rights).

So The West is going to have to get used to doing things in a way which includes China, rather than the, "You can do this our way or not at all" approach it's had in the past.

There were ways that could have been done. Boundaries could have been discussed behind doors with China - some proposals sounded out, an accord established regarding how far they might be prepared to go.

It's not about us accomodating China any more. China has accumulated enough power on the world stage that the game has fundamentally changed. Increasingly, it is going to be the West that gets left behind if it doesn't learn to engage with China in a way which works for the Chinese government. China may choose to accomodate us, or it may choose to do its own thing.

And all of this is just on a practical level. In my opinion, an even bigger consideration is just - let's stop painting this kind of conference white. So much of the coverage has been, "The Chinese spoiled it!" or "The Africans walked out". The Chinese were insulted and refused to lose face, and many of the nations from the Southern hemisphere held a protest because they were getting utterly screwed by the rich Northern, Western nations.

[andrewducker]

I haven't seen it painted white by anyone - I've heard complaints about The Danes, The Americans, The Chinese and numerous other groups.

China _is_ massive, but its economy is still only third largest, and still only 1/3 of the USA's. Yes, they need to be accomodated diplomatically, but I'm not going to criticize their behaviour any less than I'd criticize any other country's.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it painted white by anyone - I've heard complaints about The Danes, The Americans, The Chinese and numerous other groups.

This is complicated and I'm not sure how to put it well. It's not about who is complained about and who isn't - because, sure, there's lots to complain about regarding many of the parties at the table.

It's about how those complaints are put, and how accurately they attribute the motives of the people they are about. This Chinese example is a great one - it says that the Chinese were obstructive but doesn't even touch on the idea that actually as far as the Chinese were concerned, the West were rude, thoughtless and clumsy. The Chinese acted in a completely normal way - for China. They just turned off their "pretend to be Western" compatibility mode - and you could argue it's about time the West learned a China-compatible mode.

Yes, they need to be accomodated diplomatically, but I'm not going to criticize their behaviour any less than I'd criticize any other country's.

I'm not so sure economy is the right measure to go by here. A lot of that huge USA economy is going to buy Chinese goods. Balance of trade is a better measure, foreign holdings another good one, who has the actual silver and gold bars is another. A lot of those put - as far as I understand the picture - China in a very dominant position, and it only seems to be becoming more so.

Besides this has nothing to do with me saying China should be criticised "less". Just, it should be criticised in a well-informed way which takes into account the reasons for its behaviour and acknowledges the extent to which they are the result of provocation/ignorance from the West.

[andrewducker]

I agree that understanding of the Chinese methods is necessary. But I still think that those methods are _wrong_. I object to opacity whenever I see it - and that it's a traditional manner of working for China doesn't make it any better in my eyes.

I do agree about China and trade - they do have a lot of power there. But that's quite new in some ways - the last twenty years. It still remains to be seen how sustainable it is, and how compatible it is with their current form of government. It's going to be fascinating to see both the external and internal changes over the next twenty years.