Cicero's Songs

There are several ways you can take a front row view of the daily battles in Cyber space. The Norse Platform displays about 1% of the attacks that go on across the Internet every day. It should be a firm resolve of all Internet users to disinfect their system as often as practical. It also speaks volumes about the current state of global politics. Mind you watching the attacks- mostly from China against the USA- is strangely compelling, as you can see here .    Those are real attacks and real damage is cause each time.

I have recently visited China. It was not, strictly speaking, my first trip to the Middle Kingdom, since I visited Shenzhen last year and have visited Hong Kong twice before. However, it was certainly the first time to visit the heartland of China- Ningbo in the Yangtze delta and Beijing. I had always felt somewhat reluctant to visit an officially still Communist state, since Soviet Socialism remains in my mind the moral equal of National Socialism. Both systems embody a contempt for the individual, whether that contempt is manifest as race hatred or class hatred is rather beside the point. Of course I was aware that Deng Xiaoping had ended the most egregious repression, and have written on this blog that the arrest of the Gang of Four was an act of liberation in its way as powerful as the fall of the Berlin wall. Nevertheless I had rather ambivalent feelings as I boarded the flight to Beijing. The first thing to say about China is that it is now in many ways a highly advanced countr...

"Japan needs to be taught a lesson" Thus opened a conversation with a significant figure in China. A successful businessman with global interests and an international outlook, yet such sentiments are now a commonplace in modern China. With some justification, the Chinese point to their history as a non colonial power to suggest that their country is not aggressive, yet that is increasingly not the way that China's neighbours see it. The country, whether the People's Republic or simply the Republic of China (Taiwan), has disputes with more or less all of its neighbours. Whether it is territorial claims in the South China Sea, which challenge Vietnam, the Philippines, and even Brunei and Malaysia, or the land borders with India, or of course the growing tension with Japan over islands in the East China Sea, the Chinese are newly assertive and even- say their critics- aggressive. A growing problem is that increasingly the Chinese do not regard the US alliance with ...

I have been travelling so, as usual, blogging is light. In fact I am currently in Hong Kong- my first trip out of Europe for some years, and my first back to this region in over 16 years. The ant hill of Hong Kong is a contrast to the calming silence of unpolluted Estonia. In fact it is what Estonia does not have that makes it a richer place than this city, where money making is the only imperative. Estonia does not have grey skies and pollution, it has crystal clear blue skies and Tallinn has the cleanest air of any capital city in the world. Estonia does not have people, it has silence and unspoiled nature. Estonia does not have congestion but it does have the first complete network of electric car charging points.  A few days ago I went over the border to Shenzhen- and whatever Hong Kong is, Shenzhen is now more: more people- over ten million- more pollution, more industry. Shenzhen is not even the biggest city in Guangdong Province, that dubious honour goes to the capital, ...

The American Constitution is a practical document, not holy writ as so many Americans might have you believe. It has its fair share of holes- as was most recently shown in 2000 when despite a popular victory of over a million votes, Vice President Al Gore was defeated by George W Bush in highly controversial circumstances . However in its practical way is sets a regular round of elections, with the election date being the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The 2012 election is thus due on Tuesday 6th November. It is an election in many states for the Senate, and in all states for the House of Representatives, on the ballot are innumerable state offices, from to sheriff to comptroller, to district attorney. Of course this is a leap year, and as a result the top of the ballot is reserved for the election of the President and Vice President of the United States- the two most senior officials of the Republic. OK, so its an important election, and it is also a close one......

A long hiatus from blogging, although there has been much to write about. I was travelling across Europe at ground level, for a change, of which more in later blogs.  One of the countries I travelled through was Germany, where despite the marvellous array of beautiful landscapes and quirky towns and villages with centuries of history to chose from, sooner or later one comes up against the appalling 12 years of Nazi rule. In the beautiful abbey of Quedlinburg we find that the sinister and creepy Heinrich Himmler expelled the church to build an absurd and horrible SS shrine around the grave of Henry the Fowler- the first king of East Frankia- that is proto-Germany, rather than West Frankia, which was proto-France. In Bamberg, an equally beautiful world heritage site, we find the "Bamberg Knight", the supposed archetype of the Aryan man- though to my eyes a rather effete looking piece .  Nazism was a kind of death cult, and the symbolism of death's head and the glorifi...

A major characteristic of the Great Recession is the way that chronic and long-term problems finally lead to an acute crisis. The public sector profligacy in Greece or the high debt position of Italy are the consequence of decades of policy mismanagement. The US deficit is the result of long term political deadlock, while in the UK and Ireland the roots of the crisis lie in an obsession with property, rather than production, as the key to wealth. Policy mistakes, misallocation of capital, unfunded pensions, poor productivity have been festering for decades. It is only now that the pressure that these put on economies finally leads to crisis. We have, up until now, mainly seen the crisis hit the Western world. The United States still faces a political struggle to control its deficit as the parties refuse to compromise and, as with much else in the political discourse of the USA enters instead into an arid discussion on matters of the constitution. Yet Business America has coped better...

Estonia is often described as a "City State". It is not really true, after all -territorially- the country is quite large, about the size of Belgium or Denmark. Yet given that half of the 1.3 million population lives in Harju County- the area in and around the capital, Tallinn- it is clear that the country is quite urban and quite concentrated. Yet, away from Tallinn, there are only four cities over 70,000 people, so the rest is small towns, villages, farms and forests. Yet what we mean by a City is now being challenged by the staggering urbanisation taking place in China. There is now a proposal to link four or five already quite large cities around the Pearl River delta in Guangdong Province into a huge "mega-city" of nearly 50 million people . As in so many things, China is emerging as a pioneer. Urbanisation has been identified as something that provides net benefits to city dwellers, yet I for one can help feeling a little nervous about what this headlong dash...

As the result of diplomatic pressure, we are told, the Ambassadors of perhaps 50 countries will not attend the award ceremony to give the Nobel peace prize to Liu Xiaobao. The Chinese are claiming something of a success. It is all rather disappointing, it means that China lines up with some of the very nastiest regimes on the planet. China has refused to let any close relative collect the prize, so for the first time since 1935, when the Nazis prevented Carl von Ossietzky from receiving the prize, the ceremony will not, in fact see the prize actually awarded. That is, in itself a pretty terrible state of affairs. What is even more bitter is the fact that the ideas that Liu Xiabao has been imprisoned for: democracy and pluralism, are actively discussed at the highest level in China- as we know from the recently published memoirs of the late Zhao Ziyang . The Chinese government is lying to its own people when it says that there is little international support for Mr. Liu. It is lying to...

I am in deepest France- La France Profonde- although my journey here was rather hampered by the usual French strike- in this case Air Traffic Controllers. I was only delayed, but plenty of flights from all over Europe into Toulouse had been cancelled. The ostensible reason for this outbreak of radicalisme was a proposal to raise the retirement age in France to 62. Since the de facto retirement age in the UK is already creeping up towards 67, it is hard to feel much sympathy. As BBC radio was quick to point out a couple of days ago: the French already sleep more, work less hours, have longer holidays, and spend more time eating than any other nation in Europe. You might think that this would be a recipe for health and happiness, but the neuroses of the country remain has angst filled as ever. Also they eat more Macdonalds than the Brits, and to be quite frank the standard fare in a French restaurant is more expensive and far less varied than in the UK- the identikit menus are an exe...

Google has announced that they have uncovered a systematic attack on their systems in China, targeting pro-democracy activists . They have therefore renounced their policy of self censorship, the so-called "Chinese firewall", that prevents a Google search showing results that the Chinese Communist Party does not approve of. From the point of view of most users of the web, this will be welcome news, and Google has sustained some withering criticism for its willingness to accommodate the authoritarian regime in Beijing. As for Google itself, they have seen falling market share in China, and although there is a growth opportunity forgone, the costs of withdrawal from the Chinese market are not particularly severe at this point. However, this is the latest in a series of news items from China that suggests that the country could be on the brink of significant upheaval. The Chinese economy is expanding rapidly, to the point where the Chinese monetary authorities are moving to tig...

2008 is the year of the Beijing Olympics, so it seems quite likely that there will be much discussion of China over the coming year. Doubtless, there will be much portentous commentary, especially from US commentators, who have always had a fascination with the only country likely to challenge American hegemony at least in the short run. In the end, I think a new sense of balance will emerge. The supposed threats or challenges of China to the West are also matched by some dramatic weakness. Although the country has become the workshop of the world, the financial system remains astonishingly primitive, and most of all the country's political system dramatically limits its ability to innovate. small and corrupt elites around the intellectually bankrupt Communist party continue to stifle much progress. Increasingly the quality and the cost of Chinese goods are less attractive in the world market. Indeed the United States, after falling back, could be poised to rediscover its own comp...

As the slaughter of a mind blowingly large number of Turkeys proceeds apace in East Suffolk, the prospect of Avian flu in the UK has finally come. Avian flu, though, is not the only dangerous threat emerging from Asia. The economic numbers from China make for some sobering reading. At the moment we are accustoming to viewing China as a great success story- a huge advance has been made across the country in terms of economic prosperity since the reforms of Deng-Xh ouping ended the bloody debacle of Maoism. A gigantic shift in production has moved the industrial production of whole sectors into China. As a result, China has been able to acquire significant reserves. Yet, the Emperor has no clothes. The key to much of the recent growth in China has been the state banking system. Though the free market has extended across much of the country, it has not advanced enough in the Chinese banking system. credit controls are lax, to say the least and with limited bankruptcy procedures there ...