Remember that the Tamils were the first suicide bombers. People forget this everyday. For decades, the usual characters have said “you’ll never beat them miltarily”. Well, they’ve just about been beaten. Maybe there’s still a surprise. I hope not. I really do. But all current evidence says Sri Lanka has this thing won.

And then the West starts bleating about civilians. Not getting it. It is truly awful that anyone used a cluster bomb on a hospital. Truly. No “shit happens in war” can excuse it. But what exactly do Clinton and Milliband think they’re accomplishing with this?

If I were an insurgent leader, the next time I was about to lose, I’d just blow up some civilians and wait for the West to call for a ceasefire.

Also, always gotta love the USG’s fabulous talent for abbreviation and acronym. HUMINT. SIGINT.  CNPAKSDKHFASJDHKASJ. (I made the last one up. Hopefully.).

“For the first time, more vehicles were sold in China last month than in the United States, according to figures from General Motors.”

Later today what I want to check is whether GM produces more cars in the US or China. Now if those two numbers crossed it’d mean the US were bailing out a Chinese company …

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UPDATE : whoops, GM was comparing total vehicle sales in China to passenger sales in the US. Guess they were just trying to make a splashy point. Still doesn’t say much for their market analysis team though.

The CFR has now also rung the alarm bell, though one hopes that the US is far, far more prepared than this report would imply, i.e., its recommendations really should be moot. I mean, if the US has not talked to China about what to do in the event of failed succession, then God help us all.

It should go much further though; the report says that if the NK govt fails, “rapid absorption by South Korea is widely viewed as the inevitable next step”. Anyone who believes the Chinese would let this happen is living in a fantasy world. A US ally, with US troops on its soil, with a border that close to Beijing? Seriously now.

My American friends often tell me that there are institutional contexts which mean we shouldn’t read too much into something like this CFR report. I don’t know, but I sure hope they’re right.

Still no NK envoy from Obama. At least he gave Hu Jintao a courtesy call though. That was nice.

Next, given the massive drops in yield lately, and that I don’t know how active China is going to be in the secondary market, but SAFE may be sitting on some enormous paper profits from its bond holdings over the last couple of years (then again, there are currency movements). I wonder if anyone has crunched the numbers? Would be interesting to see how it compares to the CIC’s well-publicised losses (given the disparities in the size of the equity and debt holdings, my money’s on it well over-compensating)

A last side-point: China has been shifting out of agency debt aggressively. If that continues, it could mean a disconnect in T-bills and agency notes, which would imply mortgage rates in the US remained high, and might motivate more direct Treasury action in housing

There are lots of ‘what ifs’ here. Of course no-one right now seriously thinks they can really beat the US in a conventional war. But plenty of leaders will believe they can inflict enough political damage by killing a sizeable number of soldiers that they can get to the table.  If the US military pursues this path of limiting human damage too much, the unintended consequence may be the paradoxical outcome of much greater death and destruction.

Beware forcing your enemies into desperation.

- The professional vs ideological fissure is alive and well in the PLA

- However they may be easier bedfellows than we might think. Certainly professionalism – particularly in the small things that count – is growing in leaps and bounds

-The combination means the PLA is probably much less likely today than in 1989 to stand aside and not fire (recall in 1989 Deng had to call in special divisions after the usual rank and file were hesitant to fire)

On the one hand, there’s an impressive and growing degree of professionalism: they’re putting in place the basic things and getting them right.  On the other hand there’s still all the ideological baggage and the old modes of thought, replete with empty slogans and vague strategy.  We’ve long known about this professional vs old school tension, but in the White Paper they seem to coexist quite nicely.

On the one hand, many commentators have drawn attention to the evidence of increasing capability. The easiest place to spot this is weapons systems, from increasing proportions of precision guided missiles to nuclear-equipped subs. What’s probably more important, but more subtle, are the ‘software’ elements: the new national information system, the RMB 700mn funding for getting talented people, the increasing size and diversity of training.  Moreover, they’ve cut – if ever so slightly – the time spent on ‘ideological training’.

At the same time, there’s continuous repetition of usual CPC talking-points like the integration with the people, the support of the government, etc. etc. And the ‘ideological training’ is still there in spades.  There’s also all the language about, e.g., terrorists in Tibet and Xinjiang, nasty countries declaring weapons sales to Taiwan in the UN arms register, etc. etc. that are so easy to get picked up by the West (James Fallows has by far the best analysis of this in general, as in here and here and elsewhere)

Where does this all lead? Well, it means the PLA is probably getting more capable more quickly than many expect. However significant numbers of its decision makers will have starkly different views on some basic questions. In the event of success that won’t be a big issue. But it may lead to fissures in case of set-backs (e.g., professional soldiers blaming defeat on the ideologically-inclined and vice versa).

It also means that they’re more likely to step to the government’s aid unless any opposition movement offers a credible economic growth agenda. At smaller size, and more internally concentrated, they aren’t as likely to sympathize immediately with the people. They will have their own clear interests. Remember in 1989 many units refused to fire on demonstrators. I wouldn’t bet on that repeating.

Finally, this document is shot through with a very PRC ‘way of thinking’, from the heavy repetition of key phrases to the reliance on very vague terms.  So both sides within the PRC are first and foremost China-rooted. Don’t count on some kind of ‘international outlook’ emerging.

At the same time, one surprising element of the recent White Paper is how enmeshed the military still is in the economy. In particular, how it gets involved in infrastructure construction: “In the past two years they have put over 14 million workdays and one million vehicles (or machines)/time into [national construction]“.

Now, the point about a stimulus is that you want to spend money. So using free military labour is not very desirable, and you’d expect the local govts to avoid using them. Which means a whole bunch more free time for military personnel. Either the stimulus gets slightly diluted – but onl slightly, you’re still buying all the materials – or the PLA has to find a whole bunch of new training modules, double quick.

It’s a nice reflection of quite how opportunistic and multi-faceted India’s diplomacy has become. There’s been much talk about the US and India, but at the same time the Indians are buying lots of weapons from Russia and supporting the regime in Myanmar, and much else besides. Indeed, their purchases from Russia are becoming very substantial – an aircraft carrier and nuclear submarine among them. It will be interesting – I’m going to try tack down the data – to compare Indian and Chinese purchases from the Russians.