High Weirdness And International Intrigue: Thanks, China!

Uh, Has Anyone Seen China’s Next Leader?  Gawker has the short version:

Nobody would bat an eye if U.S. Vice President Joe Biden went missing for more than a week. We'd all assume he was on an epic ayahuasca trip and he'd be back when he got it out of his system. But when Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping goes missing, people freak out. He's presumed to be the next leader of China, slated to take over as chief of the Communist Party in just a few weeks. But he hasn't been seen in public or heard from since September 1st. *ominous music*


Speculation has grown this week as the 59-year-old Jinping mysteriously missed a series of high-profile meetings with foreign officials, including Hillary Clinton and the prime minister of Denmark. You do not stand up the prime minister of Denmark unless something has gone terribly wrong, right?

Chinese officials say nothing's amiss but refuse to give even a hint of Jinping's whereabouts. (The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman dismissed foreign journalists' queries about whether Jinping was alive with the answer, "I hope you will raise serious questions.")

Inevitably, rumors on Chinese microblogs and in the foreign media have swirled. Including:

Jinping is recuperating from a minor heart attack.

Jinping is recuperating after pulling a muscle in his back while swimming or playing soccer.

Jinping was critically injured in a staged car accident when political enemies tried to assassinate him.

As you can see, explanations range from the banal to the shit-your-pants-in-fear. So if anyone sees Jinping, please tell him millions of Chinese citizens and a good portion of the international community are looking for him.

I'm sure he'll show up soon.  His clone should be almost ready for harvest, and has probably already developed the ability to speak!

Why Turkey won't go to war with Syria

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet to understand the new deal struck between Russia and the US.  When you put it that way..  Analysis by Pepe Escobar.  Al Jazeera.  Excerpts:

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan never saw it coming.



He knew he was in trouble when the Pentagon leaked that the Turkish Phantom RF-4E shot down last week by Syrian anti-aircraft artillery happened off the Syrian coastline, directly contradicting Erdogan's account, who claimed it happened in international air space.


And it got worse; Moscow, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, offered "objective radar data" as proof.


There was not much to do except change the subject. That's when Ankara introduced a de facto buffer zone of four miles (6.4km) along the Syrian-Turkish border - now enforced by F-16s taking off from NATO's Incirlik base at regular intervals.


Ankara also dispatched tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery to the 500 mile (800km) border, right after Erdogan effectively branded Syria "a hostile state".


What next? Shock and awe? Hold your (neo-Ottoman) horses.
Lord Balfour, I presume?
The immediate future of Syria was designed in Geneva recently, in one more of those absurdist "international community" plays when the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council's Qatar and Kuwait sat down to devise a "peaceful solution" for the Syrian drama, even though most of them are reportedly weaponising the opposition to Damascus.



One would be excused to believe it was all back to the Balfour Declaration days, when foreign powers would decide the fate of a country without the merest consultation of its people, who, by the way, never asked them to do it on their behalf.


Anyway, in a nutshell: there won't be a NATO war on Syria - at least for now. Beyond the fact that Lavrov routinely eats US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for breakfast, Russia wins - for now.
Predictably, Moscow won't force regime change on Assad; it fears the follow-up to be the absolute collapse of Syrian state machinery, with cataclysmic consequences. Washington's position boils down to accepting a very weak, but not necessarily out, Assad.


The problem is the interpretation of "mutual consent", on which a "transitional government" in Syria would be based - the vague formulation that emerged in Geneva. For the Obama administration, this means Assad has to go. For Moscow - and, crucially, for Beijing - this means the transition must include Assad.


Expect major fireworks dancing around the interpretation. Because a case can be made that the new "no-fly zone" over Libya - turned by NATO into a 30,000-sortie bombing campaign - will become Syria's "transitional government", based on "mutual consent".


One thing is certain: nothing happens before the US presidential election in November. This means that for the next five months or so Moscow will be trying to extract some sort of "transitional government" from the bickering Syrian players. Afterwards, all bets are off. A Washington under Mitt Romney may well order NATO to attack in early 2013.


A case can be made that a Putin-Obama or US-Russia deal may have been reached even before Geneva.


Russia has eased up on NATO in Afghanistan. Then there was the highly choreographed move of the US offering a formal apology and Pakistan duly accepting it - thus reopening NATO's supply routes to Afghanistan.


It's crucial to keep in mind that Pakistan is an observer and inevitable future full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) - run by China and Russia, both BRICS members highly interested in seeing the US and NATO out of Afghanistan for good.


The "price" paid by Washington is, of course, to go easy on Damascus - at least for now. There is not much Erdogan can do about it; he really was not in the loop.

The Turkey/Syria/Iran media drumbeat has calmed down, for now.  The media coverage just kind of vaporized, yeah?  I was wrong about the back channel triangle of Tel Aviv, Ankara, and Damascus.  If there were communications, they didn't matter:  It's still all about Washington, Moscow, and Beijing's interests.  So, while the Syrian civil war continues to escalate, the international players will remain in stasis until November, and that includes Turkey.

Speaking Of Global Powderkegs..

Guest Post: Pakistan And India To Go To War Over Water?  Zero Hedge.  Excerpts:

A peaceful and stable Pakistan is integral to western efforts to pacify Afghanistan, but Islamabad’s obsessions with its giant eastern neighbor may render such issues moot.



Since partition in 1947, Pakistan and India have fought four armed conflicts, in 1947, 1965, 1971 (which led to the establishment of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan) and the 1999 Kargil clash.


With the exception of the 1971 conflict, which involved rising tensions in East Pakistan, the others have all involved issues arising from control of Kashmir.


But now a rising new element of discord threatens to precipitate a new armed clash between southern Asia’s two nuclear powers – water.


Lahore’s “The Nation’ newspaper on Sunday published an editorial entitled, “War with India inevitable: Nizami,” the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust Chairman, Majid Nizami, asked his fellow citizens to prepare for a war with India over water issues. Nizami told those attending the “Pakistan-India relations; Our rulers- new wishes” session at Aiwan-e-Karkunan Tehrik-e-Pakistan, which he chaired, “Indian hostilities and conspiracies against the country will never end until she is taught a lesson.”


While The Nation is a conservative daily, part of the Nawa-i-Waqt publishing group, with a circulation of roughly 20,000, it has a website, and what’s more, close ties to Pakistan’s highest military circles, so Nizami’s comments should hardly be rejected out of hand.
And:
At issue are Pakistan’s concerns over India’s ongoing construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River. Islamabad is concerned that the 45 megawatt, 190-foot tall Nimoo-Bazgo concrete dam 44 megawatt Chutak hydroelectric power project will reduce the Indus River’s flow towards Pakistan, as they are capable of storing up to 4.23 billion cubic feet of water, violating the terms of the bilateral 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The Indus, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir, is crucial to both India and Pakistan, but is currently experiencing water flows down 30 percent from its normal levels. The Indus is Pakistan's primary freshwater source, on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends. According to a number of Pakistani agriculture and water experts, the nation is heading towards a massive water shortage in the next couple of years due to insufficient water management practices and storage capacity, which will be exacerbated by the twin Indian hydroelectric projects, as they will further diminish the Indus’ flow.



So, if push comes to shove, who’s got Pakistan’s back?

China.


During the Boao Forum for Asia, on China’s southern Hainan island on 1 April, Pakistan and China agreed to support each other “in all circumstances” and vowed to uphold their sovereignty and territorial integrity at all costs. Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani told Chinese Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang, “China’s friend is our friend, and China’s enemy is ours,” adding Pakistan considers China’s security as its own security and supports China’s position on Taiwan, Tibet and Xinqiang. Li replied that China would support Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in every situation, telling Gilani, “No matter what changes take place at international level, we will uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”


It might be noted here that in October 1962, coinciding with the Cuban missile crisis, India and China fought a brief but bitter war along their disputed Himalayan border.


Fifty years later, China and India have yet to resolve their border issues over Kashmir and China continues to claim most of India's Arunachal Pradesh to the base of the Himalayas in the absence of any definitive treaty delineating the border. Kashmir remains the site of the world's largest and most militarized territorial dispute with portions under the de facto administration of China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas).


No guesses therefore as to whom Beijing might back should Pakistani-Indian tensions continue to rise.


Seriously:  Can't anyone fucking get along?  As Rage Against The Machine so eloquently states..  "There'll be no shelter here;  The front line is everywhere.."  So..  Fuck Diplomacy:  Let's Rock.