[Sampanviking]

After months of apparently gloomy news on the International front, suddenly and without warning, we wake to a sunny day!

America has backed down over North Korea and the RMB.

In the UN the United States, backed away from "its determination to name North Korea as the aggressor" and settled instead for a Presidential Statement that blamed nobody. This came just a day after the US quietly passed the deadline to name China as a Currency manipulator.

In both instances, the quiet from the "Free media of the West" has been deafening. Both issues have passed without fanfare or media circus despite the high profile of the original campaigns.

Re North Korea

Why is this? Nobody blocks a publicly stated US sponsored UN Resolution without serious comeback. Thwart the US and the entire Western media spin machine will leap into action against you. Dire threats against your Core Interests will be made and advantageous agreements cancelled or simply torn up.

But on this there is nothing!

To find the answer, you no doubt have to look at multiple causes and no doubt that the muscular and co-ordinated responses of China and Russia will have played there part, both in terms of will and demonstrated capability. I also suspect that behind closed doors at the UN China has revealed that it knows far more about the truth than they have let on publicly and have the proof to back it. I would guess that the threat of going public with this and exposing the US as liars would have been to much for the Obama administration and so they had to back down and do so quietly.

Re Currency

Harder to pin down for exact cause and effect, but removing the Peg and the somewhat loaded statement from the Chinese Finance Ministry about not using the Reserves as an Economic WMD probably played their parts.

I also suspect that someone is Washington with brains may have managed to talk to Obama and warn him that the consequences of a trade war with China would hurt the US far more than it would the PRC.


No doubt though; just as we have seen with regard the spy scandal wrecking the most recent US- Russian reset, there are still shadowy figures still looking to cause trouble and will do at every opportunity.

[Roger604]

It does look like China scored a small victory here but the story is surely not over. The US military exercises have not yet begun. The US military will surely infringe on North Korea's sovereignty and most likely China's sovereignty too with these exercises. The question is, will North Korea or China pull the trigger? Or will we just have intense mock combat and aggressive shadowing? North Korea chose the former, will China choose the latter? If China chooses the latter, will there be an accidental munition explosion or collision?

[Bill]

Yea, I was going to say, it's not really a victory when they are setting up for a fight. And the RMB come after china floated it's currency is more like a tie than a actual WIN, but never the less I welcome the development.

[Sampanviking]

Roger604, on Jul 11 2010, 07:01 PM, said:

It does look like China scored a small victory here but the story is surely not over. The US military exercises have not yet begun. The US military will surely infringe on North Korea's sovereignty and most likely China's sovereignty too with these exercises. The question is, will North Korea or China pull the trigger? Or will we just have intense mock combat and aggressive shadowing? North Korea chose the former, will China choose the latter? If China chooses the latter, will there be an accidental munition explosion or collision?

The US's failure to obtain a UN resolution pulls the sting from the exercises as no overt action can be taken against the DPRK with the claim of effective authorisation by the UN. It makes them little more than empty posturings.

[IchiNiSan]

Indeed, victories in some battles are way too early to call off a victory for the whole war. But Sampan is right that we are in the summer, if not yet at least spring.