The New Government of China with Mr Xi as President and Chairman is a different government than that of Mr Hu and his social-engineering paradigm that has now departed.

Mr Xi is a much more savvy politician and his rise to leadership has unified the Chinese army in a way Mr Hu could never do.

China also pretty much has a brand new navy, brand new nuclear attack submarines - a lot of them -that still remain very difficult for the USA to locate at all due to an advanced naval 'sonar doppleganger' technology that the USA can't yet fathom China's main interests are stability on the Korean peninsula and protecting its own interests from attacks/incursions by the USA in strategic DPRK.

Mostly, China is interested in securing its sea lanes and Taiwan and the Daiyu islands, not in Korea, per se. China wants Asia to be free of American ongoing destabilisation.

Meanwhile Russia has a very big presence in the North of Asia and is ramping up its navy and airforce there to secure islands given to Japan, North of Korea, by the USA some years ago.

As for Korea, its territorial bordering and kinship neighbours are China and Russia and neither of these will tolerate any American presence in the north. 

America feels it is dealing with the same Chinese government it was dealing with last year, but Mr Xi, well, he is not like the past at all.

China has mobilised the Peoples Liberation Army in North Eastern China and now moving towards the border with the DPRK, not to invade, but to protect North Korean sovereignty if necessary.

The concern regarding Korea is that it is not unimportant to the world. By its position, and the severe 'tectonic' geo-politics of North Asia, it is the most important place in the world. In comparison, whatever happens in the Middle East doesn't matter at all.

If one place in the Middle East blew up another and was in return blown up, life for most folk in the world would continue as it had...but North Asia is not like that.

Huge populations, massive world wealth, massive weapons, giant armies, massive industrialisation, historically unresolved 'bad blood', severe and competing claims for territory involving Korea, Japan, Russia and China, with the USA somehow feeling it too belongs in that mix as the dominant self-seeking gun-selling policeman of it all.

A conflict in North Asia will involve at least 70% of the world population for many years, and it won't be good for anyone at all. The millions of refugees will also overwhelm the world's capacities.

The USA's easy historical fix of simply invading a country when they are weak and taking their resources doesn't work in North Asia, but they will sell a lot of guns... everyone will sell a lot of guns...and so maybe that is the point.

wishing us all well in these tricky times. north asia needs a unified and independent korea unaligned. this is the only thing that can stabilise north asia. i wish the koreans well in this. it is no one else's battle at all.

North Korea warns US of nuclear attack - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

North Asia is warming up


North Korea warns US of nuclear attack - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

The fall of the social-democratic Labor Party in Australia

These are grim days for the states or provinces of Australia with four of them now abandoning the Labor Party as governments and moving even more to the right. It's what happens when mining companies firmly rule a country. It's a shame, I believe. Not only the loss of the one social-democratic voice in each state but also the way the national Govt, a Labor Party Govt has bent to the will of the mining companies to the extent that they have; becoming a defacto and corrupted entity.