John Batchelor writes on his blog:
Kim is dying. How soon is the question, and what happens while he is dying and afterward is the question. Spoke to Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal at Seoul, Gordon Chang, author, “Showdown,” as well as Leslie Hook, Asia Wall Street Journal at Hong Kong, and Eugene Tang, Bloomberg at Beijing, and most importantly, B. Raman, Indian intelligence.
The pancreatic cancer story has credibility, said Ramstad, because it originated with Seoul all new cable report in Beijing. The Beijing cadre gave it to Seoul. Why? B. Raman allowed the the Beijing regime is unstable, and that the missteps in Urumqi, the panic of Hu rushing to Beijing from Italy, the sudden release of news on Kim, all point to fractiousness and indecision in the ruling Politburo.
Gordon Chang often comments that we don’t have a North Korean problem, we have a China problem.
Eugene Tang reported that the sitrep in Urumqi is “quiet but tense” that there are varying reports of casualties, that thousands remain detained, that the party boss Wang has announced there will be extreme measures taken to solve the crisis and enforce the law.
Raman mentioned the solutions could follow those forced on Tibet and Lhasa last year, 2008. Including internal deportation, re-education camps, executions, communication blackout, journalism blackout, domestic spying and more. Leslie Hook agreed that the Beijing cadre is conflicted, acting unusually panicky, leaning on strong measures like a crutch.
How this connects to the Kim dying story is that the Beijing cadre is overwhelmed by internal conflicts in the Politburo and cannot focus on Kim.
Kim Appeasement
The story is that the race is between Kim dying and the Obama administration appeasing a dying Kim. Which side wins? I am told the Obama administration will not move without Beijing moving first. But what is there to wait for if the Beijing cadre is unstable, indecisive, distracted? And how does Kim’s death make for stability in North Asia? Logic suggests just the opposite.
The most threatening report on the Urumqi crisis that I heard Sunday 12 was from Nury Turkel, former director of Uyghur American Association, from Washington, who told me that he had not been able to reach his parents in Kashgar for six days. This means that telephone communication with Xinjiang (East Turkistan) is down on purpose, and that it is not just Urumqi that is cut off by the party boss Wang.
This resembles the way the Beijing cadre cut off Lhasa and all of Tibet after the Lhasa uprising in winter 2008. It points to the likelihood that there are extreme measures coming against the Uyghur people. PM Erdogan of Turkey called the Beijing actions in Urumqi “genocide.” The police and military presence in Urumqi is said to be dominating. Thousands are in jail. I asked my professional panel if the Han Chinese men pictured with clubs in their hands on the street in last week’s Reuters video would be arrested. No one could be certain. Watching for reports.
