Celil Case and Chinese MFA

I think that the reason the Chinese MFA has refused to acknowledge Celil's citizenship is because the MFA is a weaker actor in China than the Security Ministry and associated Party agencies. Celil's transfer from Uzbekistan probably did not involve the MFA. So if the MFA is powerless in this matter, they have no choice but to claim the Vienna Convention does not apply because they cannot deliver consular access to us as the Security people just ignore the MFA. My conclusion: we should no longer focus so much on the Chinese MFA. Under Gotlieb we figured this out with regard to the US State Department. Similar principle applies with regard to China.

Comment to a Friend about Chinese Request to Albania to Extradite 5 Uighurs Released from Guantanamo Bay

Evidently all Uighurs are considered by CCP as supporting "terrorism" to some extent. The Chinese authorities will probably claim the "evidence" against them cannot be made public for reasons of national security. But the Chinese Government would surely have provided this evidence to the US investigators at Guantanamo. If there was any basis for the Chinese Government's allegation that these 5 men are terrorists, the Americans would not have released them from custody to "freedom" in Albania. So they have a strong case for UNHCR Convention refugee status on the basis of "fear of political persecution" if repatiated to China.

Would North Korea Use Nuclear Missiles to Reap Terrible Destruction on Japan, China or the USA?

North Korea's recent missile tests suggest that at present the DPRK would probably not be able reap destruction on neighbouring countries with nuclear weaponry. But presumably sooner or later the DPRK will have this capability. But while many countries have the capability, none make use of it due to the horrendous risk of escalation into a full-blown nuclear war. The rather dilatory response of the global community to the stream of bellicose utterances pouring out of the Government in Pyongyang, suggests that most people do not think that these threats are real.

The other evening I had a chat with my Uncle Patrick Greaves over supper at the Swiss Chalet at the corner of Bathurst and Bloor in Toronto. His memory is that a major factor that informed the unpreparedness of the United States for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the racist assumption on the part of many in the West that it was inconceivable that Japanese pilots and aircraft could possibly be of a level comparable to that of European 'planes and military pilots. There may be some parallel with the dismissive Western attitude toward the DPRK today. Moreover my Uncle speculates that if Germany had had a nuclear bomb when Adolph Hitler was holed up in his Berlin bunker in 1945 that Hitler would likely have ordered its use and that the German military would have followed this order. Presumably the same might well turn out to be true of Kim Jong Il when his time comes.