Chinese Embassy Highlights Positive Media Coverage

Washington Post: Chasing the Chinese Dream(10/22/07)

A Growing Number of the World's Emigrants Are Heading East,

Rather Than West, in Search of Safety, Tolerance and Opportunity

By Ariana Eunjung Cha

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 21, 2007; Page A16

YIWU, China -- For more than three years, Khaled Rasheed and his family spent the nights huddled in fear as bombs exploded near their home in Baghdad. Like generations of would-be emigrants before him, he dreamed of a better life elsewhere. But where?

Finding a place that was safe was Rasheed's top priority, but openness to Islam and bright business prospects were also important.

Moatasem Anwar, 29, moved to Yiwu, a trading city about four hours south of Shanghai, after he and his family built up a thriving business in his native Iraq importing Chinese goods. (Photos By Ariana Eunjung Cha -- The Washington Post)

It wasn't long before he settled on a place that had everything he was looking for: China.

For a growing number of the world's emigrants, China -- not the United States -- is the land where opportunities are endless, individual enterprise is rewarded and tolerance is universal.

"In China, life is good for us. For the first time in a long time, my whole family is very happy," said Rasheed, 50, who in February moved with his wife and five children to Yiwu, a trading city about four hours south of Shanghai.

Foreign Lobbying/War and Peace

Some last-minute tips for the next paper here or in other classes:

• Library Databases
• Lexis-Nexis
• CQ Electronic Library
• Interest Groups Page

Colombia update: Bill Clinton has extensive ties. See his other speeches.

Review from 1/30 blog post: Wilson typology of policy arenas. An illustration: In the Dubai ports deal two years ago, Dubai was not able to prevail when the issue went public.

More here on diaspora politics and dual citizenship.

Ike warned about the military-industrial complex:



The complex still exists, but has shrunk since the end of the Cold War.

Groups against administration policy in Iraq:

• Americans Against Escalation in Iraq
• Iraq Veterans Against the War
• United for Peace and Justice
• Code Pink

An example of AAEI tactics:

See Moveon.org's "General Betray-us" ad.

Code Pink at work:

The major groups favoring administration policy in Iraq is Move American Forward.

Opinion on Iraq

"Hard" v. "Soft" Earmarks

The New York Times had an article on Monday about earmarks in which they used a term I had not heard before, hard earmarks and soft earmarks. Hear are some interesting sections from the article:

With great fanfare, Congress adopted strict ethics rules last year requiring members to disclose when they steered federal money to pet projects. But it turns out lawmakers can still secretly direct billions of dollars to favored organizations by making vague requests rather than issuing explicit instructions to government agencies in committee reports and spending bills. That seeming courtesy is the difference between “soft earmarks” and the more insistent “hard earmarks.”

How to spot a soft earmark? Easy. The language is that of a respectful suggestion: A committee “endorses” or notes it “is aware” of deserving programs and “urges” or “recommends” that agencies finance them.

After hard earmarks figured into several Congressional scandals and prompted criticism of wasteful spending from government agencies and watchdog groups, Congress cut back on their number last year and required disclosure of most of them. (There were more than 10,000, costing nearly $20 billion last year, according to the Congressional Research Service.)

But soft earmarks, while not a new phenomenon, have drawn virtually no attention and were not included in the ethics changes — and current ones under consideration — because Congress does not view them as true earmarks.

Their total cost is not known. But the research service found that they amounted to more than $3 billion in one spending bill alone in 2006, out of 13 annual appropriations bills. And the committee that handles the bill, which involves foreign operations, has increasingly converted hard earmarks to soft ones.

Soft earmarks are included in a number of spending measures, but they tend to occur more frequently in spending bills that give money to the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and other foreign aid programs.

Federal agencies are not required to finance soft earmarks. However, officials have traditionally felt obliged to comply with such requests.

“Soft earmarks, while not legally binding, frequently come with an implicit threat: If you don’t take our suggestions, we will give you a hard earmark next,” said Andrew Natsios, former administrator of A.I.D. in the Bush administration.

Foreign Lobbying

With perfect timing, the campaign gives us a vivid example of foreign lobbying:




More detail from The New York Times:

Mr. Penn met with the Colombians in his role as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. He has refused to sever his ties to the company, which also represented Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, and through a subsidiary represented Blackwater Worldwide, the military contractor blamed for numerous civilian deaths in Iraq.

The Japan Foundation is one avenue of foreign influence.

Look here for data on US affiliates of foreign companies.

FEC information on campaign contributions and foreign nationals.

There are restrictions on PAC activity by US subsidiaries of foreign corporations (see link above). But there are plenty of foreign-connected PACs.

An example of direct government lobbying: the Canadian embassy.

APCO issued a response to the Silverstein story.

Procurment Lobbying

Here is a current story about a big fight over a defense contract:

Northrop, which teamed up with Airbus parent EADS to clinch the first stage of the $35 billion program, is facing an official protest from losing bidder Boeing Co and threats from some lawmakers to block funding of the deal.

"We're making our way through them," said Paul Meyer, vice president of Northrop's air mobility systems unit, referring to individual members of Congress. "We are going to be very prevalent and stay focused in front of the press to make sure the facts are always on the table."

Boeing, which was widely expected to win the tanker contract, has faulted the Air Force's decision-making process.

Meanwhile, its congressional supporters -- chiefly from the states of Washington and Kansas, where Boeing has its main plane-making plants -- have accused the Air Force of exporting jobs and endangering national security by awarding the job to the Northrop/EADS team.

The surprise announcement in February sparked a war of words between Boeing and Northrop and their respective supporters, through speeches in Congress, on television and in prominent newspaper ads.

Boeing has protested the award to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is expected to rule on the case by mid-June. Northrop cannot perform any work on the tanker until the GAO rules on the matter.

But even if Boeing's protest fails, Congress has the power to block funding for the deal, which would effectively overturn the contract. That sets up a battle between two politically savvy companies to win hearts and minds in Washington.

Google and the CIA

Google's federal government sales team has recently struck a deal with the intelligence agencies. Google will supply its search technology in hope of making intelligence gathering and analysis more efficient. The search engine is meant to be especially helpful for Intellipedia, an open-source encyclopedia that requires security clearances to see its material.
Google probably competed with many other companies, especially Yahoo, for this opportunity, and one can imagine that lobbyists had a great deal of influence.

Interests Go to Court

• The Supreme Court, interest groups, and the presidential campaign:
  
  
  
  
  

Professor Lofgren joins an amicus brief in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

• Washington Legal Foundation (conservative)
• American Civil Liberties Union (liberal)
• American Center for Law and Justice (conservative)
• NAACP (liberal) and NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• Federalist Society (conservative)
• American Bar Association (liberal)
• American Civil Rights Institute (conservative)
• People for the American Way (liberal)
• Institute for Justice (conservative)
• Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (liberal)