White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

How to Steal the Sea, Chinese Style

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In history, countries have sought to increase their territory by bribery, chicanery, coercion and outright force of arms. But while many have sought to dominate the seas, from the Greek city states to the mighty British Empire, none has ever, in effect, tried to take over an ocean or a sea as its own.
But that is what China is actively doing in the ocean south of the mainland: the South China Sea. Bit by bit, it is establishing hegemony over this most important sea where the littoral states — China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam — have territorial claims.
The importance of the South China Sea is hard to overestimate. Some of the most vital international sea lanes traverse it; it is one of the great fishing areas; and the ocean bed, near land, has large reserves of oil and gas. No wonder everyone wants a piece of it — and China wants all of it.
Historically China has laid claim to a majority of the sea and adheres to a map or line — known as the nine-dash map, the U-shape line or the nine-dotted line — that cedes most of the ocean area and all of the island land to it. The nine-dash map is a provocation at best and a blueprint for annexation at worst.
The mechanism for China’s filching of one of the great seas of the world is control of the three island archipelagos, the Paracel, Spratly and Pratas islands, and several other smaller outcroppings, as well as the seamounts, called the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal. Between them, they consist of about 250 small islands, atolls, keys, shoals, sandbars and reefs. Very few of these are habitable or have indigenous people. Some are permanently submerged, and many are only exposed at low tide.
Yet if China can claim title to them, it can use them to extend its hegemony into the area around them. First, it can claim the standard 12 miles of territorial waters around each land mass and it also can claim an economic zone of influence of 200 miles from the most dubious “island.” Ergo, China can connect the dots and grab a large chunk of the South China Sea.
China is reclaiming land – actually building a new artificial island — in the disputed Spratly Islands. The two-mile-long island will have an airfield that, China’s foreign ministry claims, will be used for air-sea operations. The other claimants, think otherwise, especially Vietnam. The United States has called for China to halt the island project.
China has been both stealthy and obvious about its strategy. It has increased its trade with the claimants; and in some cases has made generous contributions to their infrastructure development, but not in the South China Sea. In its maritime provocations, China has been careful to use its coast guard, not its navy, as it extends its grasp on the archipelagos, and inches forward to total domination of anything that looks like land in the waters off its southern coast.
The Philippines has sought international legal redress under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty which the United States has not ratified, limiting its legal maneuvering, according to Barry Nolan of the Boston Forum, a policy analysis group that has studied the South China Sea crisis this year. China denies the legitimacy of international law in what is says is an internal matter.
To my mind, we are seeing is a new kind of imperialism from China, a gradual annexation of whatever it wants; quiet aggression, just short of war but relentless. This is China’s modus operandi in Southeast Asia, Africa and other places. It squeezes gently and then with greater strength, like a lethal constrictor snake.
Southeast Asian countries are arming, but China’s naval forces are growing faster. Also, it has the cash and the people to do what it wants. The U.S. “pivot to Asia” has done little to reassure China’s neighbors. Their nervousness is compounded by the ease with which Russia was able to annex Crimea and is proceeding into Eastern Ukraine unchecked. What’s to stop China grabbing some useless islands, and then a whole sea?
The ancient concept of oceans as commons is under threat. The Chinese dragon walks and swims. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

The Media-Pollster Axis Stole the Election

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Politics is the hot ticket in journalism these days. Young reporters long to cover Capitol Hill, when once they longed for the exotic life of the foreign correspondent. “Timbuktu or bust” has become “Washington or fail.” Journalism's stars today are those who can reel off the precincts of Iowa or the hobbies of senators, not the wonders of rural Sri Lanka.

Yet the passion for politics that has seized the Washington press corps and those who want to join it across the country has not been reflected in the public – not, at any rate, by the abysmally low national turnout of 36. 3 percent on Nov. 4, arguably one of the most important midterm elections in a long time.

It was the lowest voter turnout in 72 years: a seeming monument to voter apathy. Certainly not the sign of a seething, unhappy electorate which believes the bums should be thrown out because the country is on the wrong track. That may be so, but you wouldn't know it from the voter turnout.

The voter turnout wasn't large enough for anyone to claim that the country has veered to the right, or that the victors have a mandate. Yet we know President Obama is held in low esteem, although not as low as the risible contempt in which Congress is held.

If the voters didn't come out in large enough numbers to give us a clear reading, how do we know that Obama is on the ropes and that Congress is despised? We know it, without doubt, from the innumerable opinion polls which are now part of the journalistic toolbox.

There is no doubt about the public mood. So why didn't the public vote when there was so much journalistic enthusiasm for the election; when an amazing amount of television time, especially on cable, was given to politics; and when radio goes at politics 24-7?

The paradox may be journalism and its commitment to opinion polls, largely funded by the media. If you know who is going to win the match, why buy a ticket?

The passion in journalism for politics has made politics a victim, robbed it of surprise and tension. I voted without passion because I had a very complete picture of the outcome before I did my civic duty. It was like reading an otherwise gripping who-done-it, when I already knew it was the butler.

The metadata people, like Nate Silver, aren't helping either.

When newspapers are cutting their staffs and budgets are tight, why is political coverage and polling out of Washington thriving? First, it is cheaper to create news than find it. With polls, you scoop the election result. Second, there is a large pot of money for “political issues” advertising that has given rises to a raft of new outlets, forcing old-line media to double down.

Washington politics is no longer a franchise of The Washington Post and The New York Times. It has its own trade press, led by the upstart and well-funded Politico, a big news predator in a school of hungry fish. There is The Hill, Roll Call, National Journal, RealClearPolitics and more than a dozen others, like The Cook Political Report and Talking Points Memo.

It is these new entrants, with their access to instant electronic delivery, that have led the change and fueled the frenzy. They are in danger of becoming the game instead of covering it. They have become more interested in what the polls say than what the politicians say.

On Capitol Hill, members of Congress are in bunker mode. They are afraid to say anything or look a bit tired, distressed or unkempt because these ill-considered words and unflattering images will be flashed across the Internet – there to be retrieved at any time, for all time.

There is a joke around Washington that if a member of Congress breaks wind, Politico will have the story. In this new world, every trifle is recorded and archived. Is this the way to foster statecraft in a dangerous and unforgiving world? Let's poll that question, shall we? — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

A Primer for the New Congress

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Welcome to Washington, new members of Congress. It is a city of museums, statues, self-importance and arcane ways.

After a post-campaign vacation, you will be ready to take on the world — or at least this city — and begin to make things right. You are coming here to cut through the crap, straighten out the mess, to return the peoples’ government to the people.

You are feeling good, even invincible. This sense of euphoria and possibility is normal. It is nothing to be worried about — and it will pass.

As most of the new class is Republican, you are going to stop the rot come what may. No more liberal shenanigans, no more creeping socialism, no more welfare state, no more European-style mollycoddling of the undeserving.

You are going to loosen the shackles on business and watch it rise like a jolly green giant who has shaken off his captors, including the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

Oops! Before we go any further, maybe you should pick a target. EPA and IRS are very unpopular — those two are enough for now.

It goes without saying that you are against Obamacare and that should be repealed, or go unfunded, or be replaced with something. Be careful: it may not be as unpopular with your constituents as it is at the country club.

But do not let things like that worry you. You have been elected to Congress. Hallelujah! Reality will not set in until you get to your first caucus, or you see the lousy office you have been assigned, or you learn that that committee appointment you cherished is not coming your way.

Again, worry not. You are about to make a lot of new friends; really nice people, people who will do anything you ask. They have advice about where to live, whom to hire, what schools to send the little ones to — if you have not already decided to leave them back home, which you may when you find out the cost of housing in Washington.

Anyway, the new friends will help you through the intricacies of being a member of Congress. They will advise you on which forms to fill in, how to get your expense reimbursements. Such helpful people. They will also give you advice on issues that are new to you, like net neutrality, the Law of the Sea, and the reason companies have to move overseas.

Amazingly, they also have tickets to wonderful sports events with local teams: the Redskins (football), the Capitals (hockey), the Nationals (baseball). They also have tickets to cultural events, from plays at the Kennedy Center to exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art. It helps so say you love the arts when you are railing against the National Endowment for the Arts, PBS and NPR.

These new friends are the lobbyists, and they have your number already. They know what you like to drink or eat, and whether you prefer to bike, hike or sail. Everything can be arranged. Trust them. They will also guide you on delicate legislative issues; no pressure, just guidance. And who are you to refuse a friend?

Dear Democrats, you are not forgotten but not well remembered either. Your party lost, and you know what that makes you. For two years you must walk the halls of Congress mumbling about income redistribution; how many successes President Obama actually chalked up, but failed to trumpet; and cursing, under your breath, the presence of money in politics — unless it is union money.

There will also be real pleasure for you in thinking up hateful things to say about the new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and be quoted saying them in social media.

Whatever your party, as your first term wears on, you will get to feel at home on Capitol Hill. You will know how to play the lobbyists, one against the other, and how to discomfort the leadership of your own party. But mostly, you will come to love Big Government. Welcome to the Washington elite. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Europe Faces Winter on the Edge of the Abyss

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BURGENLAND, Austria –There is another world crisis brewing – and one for which President Obama cannot be blamed. The Europeans and have made a mess of things, and now the wolves are at the door.

The first snarling wolf is deflation. Europe’s economies are so weak, so close to recession, that the very real danger of deflation – falling prices – has its economists petrified. It ought also to have its politicians in anguish, but whether it does is less clear.

Europe’s big-driver economy, Germany, as well as France and Italy, are on the edge. The German miracle is ailing, and Berlin may have been writing the wrong prescriptions for the rest of the 18 countries that share the euro as their currency. It has been aided in this effort by the International Monetary Fund.

That prescription, which often seems to harm the patient, as in Greece and Spain, is for austerity – which appears to work better on paper than in the real world. Germany worries about profligate borrowing throughout the European Union. But if the German economy is to escape recession, Chancellor Angela Merkel may have to borrow some money herself and inject it into infrastructure spending to keep Germany competitive and its workers on the job.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has been slow to institute a badly needed program of buying qualified bonds, known as quantitative easing. In the United States, the Federal Reserve, in a program that is now ending, has pumped more than $1 trillion into the economy and helped pull the economy out of recession. But ECB has been timid because it has no clear direction from the European political establishment — pointing up how cumbersome and directionless the European Union structure has become. It has a parliament, which has no power, and is increasingly attracting members who are actually opposed to the European project.

The European Commission has arguably too much power centered in the bureaucracy in Brussels, but no clear direction form its controller, the Council of Ministers. Trouble is the ministers can disagree and veto needed courses of action.

The economic crisis points up the ungovernable nature of Europe and its present institutions. If Washington is gridlocked, Europe is by structures that cannot deal with crisis and what often appear to reflect as many policies as there are members (28) in the EU.

But it is not just the economic wolf that is at Europe’s door. The Russian bear is there, too. Already there is an undeclared war raging in Ukraine.

At the Association of European Journalists' meeting here, a spokesman from the Ukrainian government, who asked not to be identified by name, expressed the sense in Ukraine that it has been betrayed by EU bungling.

“Europe sees Ukraine as its European neighborhood partner. But in Ukraine, the truth is different: Ukraine’s view is that Europe let us down. We are hurt, bleeding. We have been betrayed by a neighbor that, six months ago, we saw as a brotherly nation,” he said.

What was not said was that Europe may freeze this winter if the Putin regime — a growling wolf — wants to punish Ukraine and its neighbors. Europe is hopelessly dependent on Russian gas, which is used mostly for heating. Germany gets 40 percent of its gas from Russia, and Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia get 90 percent. Russian gas makes its way — largely through Ukraine — down into Italy, and even the United Kingdom has some small exposure.

If the gas goes off, Europe freezes and its economies go south in an avalanche. The most hopeful thing for Europe this winter is that with the world oil price falling, Russia’s own fragile economy may dictate that it keeps the gas flowing — but it will force up the price where it can.

Washington, with a new Congress, might want to brace for Europe’s winter of crisis and disaster. If Europe goes into severe recession, can the U.S. economy escape major harm? The new Congress will be on a sharp learning curve. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

The Ben Bradlee I Knew and the Creation of ‘Style’

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Ben Bradlee, who has died at the age of 93, did not so much edit The Washington Post as lead it.
Where other editors of the times would rewrite headlines, cajole reporters and senior editors, and try to put their imprint on everything that they could in the newspaper, that was not Bradlee’s way. His way was to hire the best and leave them to it.
 
Bradlee often left the building before the first edition “came up,” but it was still his Washington Post: a big, successful, hugely influential newspaper with the imprimatur of one man.
 
Bradlee looked, as some wag said, like an international jewel thief; someone you would expect to see in one of those movies set in the south of France that showed off the beauty of the Mediterranean and beauties in bikinis while the hero planned a great jewel heist.
 
I worked for Bradlee for four years and we all, to some degree, venerated our leader. He had real charisma; we not only wanted to please him, but also we wanted to be liked by him.
 
Bradlee was accessible without losing authority; he was all over the newsroom, calling people by their first names and sometimes by their nicknames, without surrendering any of the power of his office. He was an editor who worked more like a movie director rather than the traditionally detached editors I had known in New York and London.
 
The irritation at the paper — and there always is some — was not so much that Bradlee was a different kind of editor, but that he had a habit, in his endless search for talent, of hiring new people and forgetting, or not knowing, the amazing talent already on the payroll. The Post was a magnate for gifted journalists, but once hired, there were only so many plum jobs for them to do. People who expected great things of their time at the paper were frustrated when relegated to a suburban bureau, or obliged to write obituaries for obscure people.
 
Yet we knew we were putting out a very good paper and, in some ways, the best paper in the United States. This lead to a faux rivalry with The New York Times. Unlike today, very few copies of The Times were sold in Washington, and even fewer Washington Posts were sold in New York.
 
Much has been made of Bradlee’s fortitude, along with that of the publisher, Katherine Graham, in standing strong throughout the Watergate investigation that led to President Nixon's registration. But there was another monumental achievement in the swashbuckling Bradlee years: the creation of the Style section of the newspaper.
 
When Style first appeared, sweeping away the old women’s pages, it went off like a bomb in Washington. It was vibrant, rude and brought a kind of writing, most notably by Nicholas von Hoffman, which had never been seen in a major newspaper: pungent, acerbic, and choking on invective. Soon it was imitated in every paper in America.
 
The man who created Style was David Laventhol, who came down from New York to fashion something new in journalism. Laventhol was a newspaper mechanic without equal, but Bradlee was the genius who hired him.
 
When I worked at The Post, I interacted a lot with Bradlee; partly because we enjoyed it, and partly because it was the nature of the work. I knew a lot about newspaper production in the days of hot type and he affected not to. That gave Bradlee the opportunity to exercise one of his most winning traits: disarming candor. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said one frantic election night in the composing room.
 
But when it came to big decisions, Bradlee knew his own mind to the exclusion of the rest of the staff. The nerve center of a newspaper is its editorial conferences — usually, there are two every day. The first conference is to plan the paper; the second is a reality check on what is new, and how the day is shaping up.
 
At these conferences, Bradlee would listen from behind his desk. But when he disagreed with the nine assistant managing editors, and others who needed to be there, he would put his feet on the desk, utter an expletive and cut through fuzzy conversation like a scimitar into soft tissue. As we might say nowadays, he had street smarts. They were invaluable to his editorship and to his charm. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

Energy Experts Predict Crisis-Free Winter

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There is something extraordinary happening on Main Street, in the suburban strips, and at country stores: workers are lowering the prices on the signs for gasoline.
Veterans of the energy crisis that began in 1973 and has continued, with perturbations, ever since, are trying to get their heads around this enormous reversal of fortune: there is no energy crisis for any fuel in the United States as winter approaches. That was the message delivered loud and clear at the annual Energy Supply Forum of the United States Energy Association (USEA).
Indeed the main problem, if there is one, is that oversupply is driving down some fuel prices, like for oil and natural gas, which could result in higher prices later as producers curb production.
"Who would have believed it?" asked Barry Worthington, president of USEA.
This year the forum, which has been known to be filled with alarm and foreboding predictions, was full of robust confidence that the nation will breeze through the coming winter, and that consumers will pay less to stay cozy than they have for several winters — but especially the last one. Stocks of gas and oil are plentiful. It is not just that heating oil will be cheaper, nature will also play a part: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts a mild winter.
No one is expecting a repeat of last winter's "Polar Vortex," which brought some big utilities close to being unable to meet customer demand in the extreme cold. Mark McCullough, executive vice president for generating at American Electric Power (AEP), which serves customers in 11 states, described how the giant utility came close to the edge.
This winter, McCullough thinks, things will be fine. But he is less sanguine about the future of AEP and its ability to deliver electricity in 2016 and beyond, if the Environmental Protection Agency holds firm on its proposed rule to curb carbon emissions from coal-fired plants.
AEP, which straddles the Midwest, has the largest coal-fired fleet in the country. McCullough said that his company had just come off extensive efforts with the so-called mercury rule and now was plunged into a very difficult situation.
McCullough was joined by oil producers and refiners in worrying about another proposed rule from the EPA on ozone. Neither the utilities nor the oil producers and refiners feel that the EPA's proposed ozone regulation can be met.
In short, in a buoyant energy world, there are clouds forming. But unlike the last 41 years, these clouds are regulatory rather than resource generated; public policy in their origin, rather than in the scheming of foreign oil cartels. Indeed Robert Strout of BP confidently predicted that in a little more than 20 years, the United States could be energy self-sufficient.
The other problem going forward, in the new time of bounty, is energy infrastructure. The industry needs more pipelines to facilitate the shift from coal to gas; better infrastructure to get the new oil to the right refiners. (Refiners actually favor moving oil by train as well as by pipeline.)
USEA's Worthington, a veteran of energy crises of the past, said ruefully the other thing that might happen is that excessive domestic production and falling prices will lead to a period when producers will stall new production and prices will rise. "Markets do work," he said, commenting on the cycles of the hydrocarbon market.
For now, with international economic activity waning, and hydraulic fracking unlocking oil and gas at an astounding rate, this is a bonus time for the American consumer.
For people like myself, who have spent more than 40 years commenting and reporting on the bleak energy future, this is indeed a time of astonishment. We had heard predictions of doom if China industrialized, expectations of steadily declining U.S. production, and more and more of our wealth being exported to buy energy. Now, if Congress acts, we will be a serious exporter.
This winter of our discontent is made glorious summer by fracking, as Richard III did not quite say. Astonishing! –— For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate

I’ve Got the Old-Guy Cellphone Blues

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I have to face it: like most people of my generation, I am a technological dunce.

In my pocket, there is an electronic miracle in the form of a cellphone. I am told it has enough computing power to plan a moon shot and run a nuclear submarine, or wake me up in the morning, organize my schedule, and provide me with reading material and audio and visual entertainment all day long. Wow!

On a good day, if I have remembered to charge this pocket Einstein, I can make a phone call. I can receive phone calls, too. But that is more problematic because I have to find it and handle it gently, otherwise it disconnects the calls – which leads people to believe that I do not want to speak to them.

Mostly, I would be happier if the phone did not do such extraordinary things, for it has become a reproving presence, mocking and denigrating me because I cannot calculate on it the cost of traffic congestion in the United States or, for that matter, my checking account balance – a truly modest calculation.

Apart from making me feel even more stupid than necessary, the wretched super-device – and I hate to make this accusation – is sneaky. It steals money. It lives in my pocket and helps itself to my money which, metaphorically, also dwells there. Unlike real phones – a dying breed like the necktie – you have to be deliberate about disconnecting a call, or you will continue to be charged for it.

Woe betide you if you take the malicious little bloodsucker out of the country: The fees and charges can cost you as much as your trip. And if you turn on the data roaming to peek at your email, you may want to begin a new life for yourself, wherever you are, because your financial destruction, which this seemingly innocent action will trigger, will probably be complete.

In a simpler time, when I left home in the morning, I needed just my wallet and my keys. Now I need a checklist of devices.

I need a wristwatch, because I forget that I can get the time on my cell phone and other electronic gadgets. Probably I could find out how many days I have left on earth, if I knew which app to download on my cellphone – preferably a free one.

I need an electronic book mostly because I have spent a lot of money getting one – and now I am damned well going to read books, newspapers and magazines on it.

I need the dreaded cellphone because I have become addicted to it. Maybe I can go to cellphone addiction rehab at the Betty Ford Center – if I can afford it, after all the money I have spent on roaming charges.

Of course, I cannot get out the door without a laptop, or some such device, to check my email and my Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts because nobody is going to phone me, despite the fact that everyone in America seems to have a cellphone. This is the Great Cellphone Paradox: The more people have cellphones, the more they prefer email or some version of it.

The cellphone manufacturers will respond by equipping new cellphones with apps for everything on earth, from dealing with in-laws to finding out how much the dude at the next desk really earns. The one thing you will not be able to do with them is, er, make a phone call.

In the meantime, I will have to persevere with typing with my thumbs or move to North Korea. Now if only I could borrow a cellphone, so I could call my cellphone, so I can find it. — For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate