The FBI is now investigating ACORN. Given the dozen or more states that have now have reported issues of significant irregularities in voting registration, that seems entirely appropriate.
But let’s put the Barack Obama-ACORN connection aside for a moment. Unless we want to go down the road of third-world banana republics, it behooves both parties to put an end to voting shenanigans. Neither side wants a victory to besmirched by fraud, and neither side wants to risk losses due to fraud. Unfortunately, motor voter registration and a timid Bush Department of Justice (which refused to proceed with its legal obligation to clean up the voter rolls) have created the potential for havoc and mischief. Post-election, it seems that grown-ups (are there any?) would be well advised to set up a commission– with some former attorneys general and maybe a president or two on board–to figure out how to clean up the rolls and prevent fraud.
Perhaps without a looming presidential election, common sense can prevail.
not gonna happen…
mds123, maybe you’re right, but it’s something that we need to think about. And if it did happen, it would not be the first time. In times of geopolitical stress, just about anything can occur.
Good, let them cancel each other out so that we can have only Pakistan, Iran, and Venezuela to worry about. However we all know that the reason we worry about the latter three is because of the backing from these two (China and Russia) powers.
…with respect, gordon, it’s surely possible that ‘hot’ conflicts will emerge between russia and china but, really, to what end…?
china (stupidly & illegally) forced down a US plane at the very beginning of the bush administration in an act far more egregious…and let’s not even go into KAL107….
…what the russians did was stupid…the chinese are correct to be outraged…but the costs to both nations [on every dimension imaginable!] are so high and their economies so vulnerable to (further) shock that i’m confident that both nations will be taking not one, not two but at least three steps back from any brinks in their vicinity…
…you step forward during ‘geopoitical stress’ when there are real threats [as in the wake of 9/11] not incredibly stupid choices – as in KAL 007 or this…
Ah, Schadenfreude!
But, to get down to establishing the facts, every Russian naval vessel, including those assigned to the Ministry of the Interior, is equipped with electro-optical director systems; i.e., gun fire control systems with a built in video camera (sometimes including low-light TV and/or imaging infrared). These, in turn, acre connected to video recorders. If the incident occurred as the Russians say it did, then there will be a video record which will verify their story. If not. . . well, you know how unreliable Russian electronic systems can be.
I find it hard to believe that any freighter, even the most modern, could outrun a frigate or corvette. Cargo ships as a rule manage no more than 2025 knots, while a Russian frigate or corvette can do upwards of 35 knots. It should therefore have been no problem to overhaul the Chinese ship and force it to turn around by crossing its bow. At that point, the Russian ships would have been close enough to hail the Chinese captain with loudspeakers.
Overall, one gets the impression that the mindset that led to KAL-007 is alive and well in the Russian Far East.
Steven, rival aggressors rarely cancel each other out. More often they compete with each other and run over bystanders in the process. At the very least both Russia and China will be tempted to see who can pump up our enemies the most.
P.S. We could try our hand at divide-and-conquer, but I doubt this WH has that skill set.
This is actually a fairly serious incident, particularly the Russian reaction. The photo of this ship (provided by the Russians) shows it to be relatively poorly maintained and of moderate size. It’s not a big fish in the maritime world. It was riding so high it probably had little cargo, and most likely unloaded a cargo of second-hand goods (cars, home appliances, electronics) in Nakhodka, the main commercial port at Vladivostok. Chinese freighters with flags of convenience, transporting such goods in and out of Asian ports, is the most common phenomenon there is.
Leaving port “without notifying the authorities,” as the Russians described it, is code for leaving without paying somebody — which might have been the port authority collecting straightfoward fees, or might have been what we would think of as a local crime syndicate, that extracts “protection” fees from small shippers.
In either case, we should be watchful for a trend. Chinese shippers have had no reason to try to avoid port fees, even “extra” ones, until recently. The economic downturn is bound to be cutting into their profits. Those who will feel those cuts first are the ships’ crews.
If the Russian maritime border guard really fired 500 rounds at the New Star, that was serious overkill. It suggests to me that this isn’t the first time a freighter has tried to skip port in the last few months. We can bet the Russians will do what they have to to send the message that it doesn’t pay.
As always, there is probably a lot going on that we never hear about through Western media.
Gordon,
Moscow and Beijing have a centuries-old rivalry in NE Asia (Didn’t they fight a war in the late 1700s?), but I have a hard time seeing this leading of itself to more shooting between them. However, even with their recent cooperation against us, I think this incident shows Russia’s sensitivity toward long-term Chinese designs on Siberia. Call it one more mark in the ledger each keeps about the other, to be recalled if they need a foreign enemy and we’re not handy.
“If the Russian maritime border guard really fired 500 rounds at the New Star, that was serious overkill.”
Or really bad aim. Or defective ammunition. Given that the standard armament on a Sov. . . I mean, Russian corvette is either a 76mm or 57mm rapid fire gun, after 500 rounds there should be nothing left but debris and an oil slick.
Has anyone posted video of this incident, yet?
“Leaving port “without notifying the authorities,” as the Russians described it, is code for leaving without paying somebody — which might have been the port authority collecting straightfoward fees, or might have been what we would think of as a local crime syndicate, that extracts “protection” fees from small shippers.”
I’m seriously leaning toward the latter.
8,9,10: Hope that Dr. Chang reads yours and may think abt giving up on the dragon-bear dreck in favor of considering the implications of the inevitable conflicts between China and Russia.
Perhaps “James Bond” was on the ship — escaping Russia with the “secret codes” for World Domination ™.
Or some such.
Stuart Koehl — yep, I’m leaning toward the latter too. Petty syndicate crime is a long-time pattern of the Russian Far East. Involvement in it by the maritime border guard is not atypical.
As you pointed out, it would have been child’s play for a Russian border guard ship to corral New Star and make her turn around. That the ships fired so many rounds at her (and if you’ve seen her picture, available at several websites, you know how pathetic she looked, in maritime terms) — the extensive ammo expenditure tells me this was more than merely a means to get her to heave to.
Russia’s maritime border guard has gotten much more of a daily workout over the last 20 years than the navy. These guys aren’t asleep at the wheel, or out of practice. If they really fired 500 rounds, they meant to.
mds123, not all conflicts are “hot,” of course.
Stuart Koehl, you wrote: “Overall, one gets the impression that the mindset that led to KAL-007 is alive and well in the Russian Far East.” Yep, that about sums it up.
Seth Halpern: “We could try our hand at divide-and-conquer.” We did reasonably well at this in the Cold War by siding with China, but after the fall of the Soviet Union we forgot to stop playing the game. As a result, we helped China’s one-party state solidify itself. This mistake could have horrible consequences if the Communist Party does not fall from power soon.
Tom Paine, your’s is the best explanation I’ve read so far. Thanks.
J.E. Dyer, you wrote: “If they really fired 500 rounds, they meant to.” Yes. The incident will really get interesting if China’s hot-headed netizens decide to make an issue of this and thereby force Beijing to take a tough stance against Moscow. After all, Chinese lives were lost.
“After all, Chinese lives were lost.”
Which, apparently, matters only if those lives are taken by foreigners.
Gordon — it interests me particularly because I suspect this little drama occurred incident to an attempt by the Chinese cargo ship’s crew at cost-saving. I anticipate that a lot of seemingly small income flows in every part of the world will be jeopardized more and more in the coming months. A ship’s crew wanting to evade port “fees” that weren’t a big deal a year ago is just one example of the bite of a bad economy. The last thing everyone will run out of is ammo, unfortunately. We should probably look for more such developments. And be concerned over what governments may do about them.
The Russian “authorities” who were spurned by the Chinese ship wanted to send a message, and they certainly did. Do you think they had authorization from Moscow, or was this a crime syndicate operating without authorization? If the latter, how will Moscow respond?
Not to change the subject, but Gordon, I’d be interested sometime in knowing your thoughts on Chinese fur farms. I’m not by any means an animal rights activist, but this video on the practices at one such fur farm is one of the most horrific things I’ve seen in a long time: http://www.peta.org/feat/chineseFurFarms/index.asp
Yes, I know, it’s PETA, and I don’t want to sound like a flaming lib, but presumably even conservatives can stand for basic standards of humane treatment. China’s response to the criticism the video brought about was basically to brush it off and blame it on westerners who buy fur.
J.E. Dyer, you wrote: “The last thing everyone will run out of is ammo, unfortunately. We should probably look for more such developments. And be concerned over what governments may do about them.” I hadn’t thought about this aspect. Thanks for alerting everybody.
The New Star is a Sierra Leone vessel. Therefore the Chinese crew are under the rules of Sierra Leone .
So the only ones to complain to moscow are Sierra Leone authorities.
Ships play the game via cheap licencing fees & substandard quality checks.
My amateur guess is the ship was trying to get out of paying some gratuity.
So it is Sierra Leone vs Russia.
Ahithophel, I suspect the folks in Vladivostok were acting on their own. I don’t know what the Kremlin will do, but my guess is that it will defend the local criminals because the regime in Moscow is . . . well, you know. I am sure Ms. Dyer can give you a much more informed reply.
I’m not an animal-rights activist, but I could not even start the video because Chinese practices are horrific. One of the bad things about studying China is that one becomes desensitized to all sorts of horrible practices–to humans as well as animals. Thanks for raising the issue so that people will know what’s going on.
There was a stolen Russian nuke warhead on that ship.
It was headed to a Seattle port to be placed in the hands of government tyrants to be used in a massive false attack to be followed by total control and martial law.
The Russians SAVED OUR BUTTS !!! …but it was temporary. The Homeland ‘Security’ and CIA monster will just get another one… then it’s goodbye to some American city.
” Almost two decades of economic development have made both the Dragon and the Bear prosperous”
A false parallel…
In case of the “bear” – the USSR/Russia – there were
two decades of economic decline (first gradual, then precipitous)
followed by less than a decade, not of “development”, but merely
of an ephemeral oil-gas boom – now at an end.
Russia’s provocative actions abroad are spasms of a
galvanized corpse. There’s some danger even
in such convulsions, but no long-term policy can be built on them.
Russia has no significant future, economic or geopolitical,
good or bad.
China is totally different: a rising giant with
a three decades’ record of broad-based, extraordinarily
rapid economic development – a serious power
now caught in a serious crisis – which is our crisis as well.
Geopolitically, she is our long-term rival, and an occasional
partner. But her economy is symbiotic with ours.
It is almost as difficult to find something in an American store
not made in China as it is to find something made in Russia…
which is a handy metaphor for the fact that China is important,
for better or worse, and Russia is not.
I’m glad to know someone else was unable to watch that video in the link provided by Ahithophel. The verbal description was enough for me. But thanks, Ahithophel, for highlighting these gruesome practices. More people do need to know about them.
BTW, Ahithophel, I posted an attempted “answer” to your question at one of JRub’s posts today, about the ethical culture of corporate America. I’d characterize it as a response, really, since no one of us is likely to have a comprehensive “answer.” Maybe you’ll see it and have your own thoughts.
#10:
Leaving port “without notifying the authorities,” as the Russians described it, is code for leaving without paying somebody — which might have been [...] a local crime syndicate, that extracts “protection” fees from small shippers.
This makes a lot of sense; however, local crime syndicates got more
integrated in Putin’s Russia, with their top protectors usually in the
FSB (the secret police) or the MVD (ministry of the Interior).
# interesting quite a few posts after my reply & none is admitting its a Sierra Leone boat.
Fly the 3rd world flag of cheap & deceitful convenience -cant expect a 1st world outrage-.
So the Chinese got caught in their own web -cheapskates & cruel people (eg the fur vid) expecting full price reaction .
Logic.
I read Russian. Here’s what seems to be confirmed by press reports and by my own research.
“New Star” brought in a shipment of rice to a russian purchaser from Thailand on Jan. 29th.
On Feb. 8th the purchaser brought a claim to arbitrage court that the shipment is damaged ($330,000 damages) and sought the arrest of the ship until the collateral is posted (usually letter of financial performance from insurer). This is a common procedure in marine trade. The court is given by law 3 days to make the determination during which time the ship is detained. On Feb 10 the court had found the purchaser’s claim lacking proper documentation and guarantees of its own financial performance for further proceedings and left the motion w/o action. On Feb.11 the unloading of rice cargo was resumed and completed. The ship was asking but was not provided with proper clearance to leave port. On Feb. 12 on the instructions from Hong Kong’s owner the ship left the port w/o clearance. On Feb 13 the purchaser provided additional documentation and the motion to arrest was again denied due to lack of proper financial gurantees from the purchaser and still deficient documentation – and due to the fact the ship was no longer in Russian territorial waters. Russian CG gave chase and when demands to stop were ignored, opened gun fire. Ship hull sustained damage below waterline, ship turned back to the port. Because of the damage from firing the ship was taking water. Within 36hrs of heavy weather ship took enough water to become unstable. Crew of 16 transmitted call for help and transferred to two liferafts in view of the CG convoy in heavy weather. Crew from the first raft was able to climb aboard of the Russian CG within one hour. Russians were unable to save crew in the second raft that was swamped by waves, sailors in the raft went hypothermic and were unable to help themselves. Unskilled attemtps to retrieve the raft lasted for hours. They led to the destruction of the raft and loss of sailor bodies at sea.
Russian CG appears unskilled in applying disabing fire and even more unskilled and unsuited for saving lives at sea. They probably wish things didn’t turn out that deadly. PR from officials was badly managed and was a series of lies and retractions. Russians are mostly focusing on their right to apply the force and on captain insubordination and “mistakes” than regretting the consequences and attempting to compensate. Russian incompetence and pride causes Chinese to “loose face”… Perfect match to cause some damage to their relations. Although I do not think it will be long-lasting…
DON’T WORRY FOLKS.
OUR FRIENDLY PRESIDENT (sic) WILL FIX THIS IMMEDIATELY.
Unamerican, you wrote: “So the only ones to complain to moscow are Sierra Leone authorities.” Shipowners also get to complain–as do owners of shipowners. So it is China versus Russia after all.
Sui Juris, thanks for the great detective work on this one.
contra, China also has a grim future. At the moment, it has the world’s fastest slowing economy and a mighty unhappy populace. We all know what this leads to.
Alex, many thanks for adding these facts to the conversation.
Many thanks to Alex for the added information on this. Everything rings true except the analysis that the Russian maritime border guard is hapless or inexperienced. That really has not been the case, even since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, a better phrasing would be ESPECIALLY since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The MBG has been one of the most active armed components of the federal government, particularly with the much higher incidence of commercial shipping in all Russia’s ports.
I still suspect there is more to this than a simple damages claim. It is quite true that they are common, but this incident has the appearance of an excessive use of force to make a point.
I wouldn’t expect Russian press to report this other than the way it seems to, based on Alex’s translation. For my part, this isn’t an essay in Russia-bashing. But characterizing this as mere misfortune or bad aim or whatever is too dismissive. That doesn’t add up; nor is it characteristic of experienced ships’ masters, working for honest shipping companies, to try to break out of port when they are under legal detention for a damages claim. This bears further watching.
“I still suspect there is more to this than a simple damages claim. It is quite true that they are common, but this incident has the appearance of an excessive use of force to make a point.”
To paraphrase Stalin, “Sink one to terrorize a thousand”.
I do think its was most likely was the case about damages. Since the first detrmination of the arbitrage court the ship was no longer detained nor it was arrested. She was free to leave and could not be detained anymore for repeated attempts to bring the claim for the arrest to satisfy damages claim, until the claim was indeed accepted and the ship was actually placed under arrest by the court. I speculate a port captain was “convinced” by business partners to simply delay (no detention was in effect) a clearance paperwork and activities to make time for a second attempt to push the claim through the court. That prompted the ship to leave w/o clearance. Little did they know that the second attempt will not be successful in court either.
I’m not sure I’d give much credit to Russian MBG – these are mostly delapidated ships with very little experience or training to turn around the ship of that size determined to ignore commands. No helicopters, just a gatling gun on the deck. Russian “law” culture makes them talk constantly about opening fire “na porazhenie”/”to destroy” after warning fire, while USCG uses the term “disabling fire” at this stage. So “destroy” they did… And population feeling kinda proud they did their duty…
Strategy Page has a post up on this story that says that the weapon used was a 30 mm auto-cannon which makes the reported 500+ rounds fired a bit more believable. There is also a link in the comments there to a Reuters video report on the incident.
The gun is soviet AK-230: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-230
It takes about 15sec. of fire for 500 rounds… They targeted bow first :
http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20090219/000bcdb95f1d0b0718a31e.jpg
(bad aim is obvios on this photo) and moved the fire to the stern next…
I believe it is more likely the gun in question is an AK630, a 30mm close-in weapon system similar to the U.S. Mk.15 Phalanx or Dutch Goalkeeper. It is used primarily against incoming anti-ship missiles or low-flying aircraft, but has a secondary anti-ship role. As the gun has a cyclic rate of fire of 5000 rounds per minute, 500 rounds would equate to ten seconds of continuous firing, or ten one-second bursts. Recognize that these 30mm rounds are extremely powerful, and ten of them hitting in a concentrated area can inflict a huge amount of damage on a ship whose sides consist of an inch of mild steel plate. Ten such bursts could literally rip the ship to shreds.
As I noted earlier, this gun is connected to an electro-optical director, which has video recording capability. If the Russians really used a 30mm cannon–or any gun for that matter–a video record of the encounter exists, and China and the world community should demand its release, uncut and unedited. That will settle, once and for all, what actually happened.
I looked at the picture Alex referenced, and cannot see any evidence of firing whatsoever. Water is seen streaming from two small holes in the bow, but these do not appear to be the result of gunfire, but rather “free-flooding” ports in the bow that allow it to take on water to prevent excessive pitching when the ship is in ballast (not carrying cargo, as shown in this picture). Until we get a complete, unedited video of the encounter, we will not know what happened.
Thanks, Stuart – you may be right and water streaming from the “bulb” may be indeed not a result of a gunfire. It is hard to tell when the photo was taken. Other photos taken with liferafts down show “New Star” listing to the starboard with a pitch to bow.
According to the ship data and photos published in the press (http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1122912) the gun is an older twin barrel AK-230 (2000 rpm) The firing ship (“Primorie”) was built in 1978, with 6-barrel AK-630 entering service in 1976 and after debugging AK-630M in 1979 to Navy. Lowly tug-derived MBG ship (“project 745″ max. speed – 14 knots) was unlikely to get a newest Navy gun at the time…
Certainly would be useful to get guncam data…
#10 Stuart Koehl asks “Has anyone posted a video of this incident, yet”
http://rednecktexan.blogspot.com/
this video is fron china news but the only one I have found
The ship on the far side looks like an icebreaker or buoy tender. The “cruiser” or whatever it is, fires a flare in front of the Chinese ship’s bridge. In the second sequence, the “cruiser” has fallen behind the Chinese ship, which is a strange position from which to try to stop a ship. In the third sequence, there is no audio, and it appears that the Chinese ship has already been attacked and is listing to starboard down by the head–odd again, if they fired into the engine room. I note that there is no video whatsoever of the actual shots being fired, so we can’t see how many or where they hit, or what happened afterwards. In the final sequence, the ship seems to have sunk, leaving only empty life rafts.
The Chinese video is very confusing without subtitles. it shows many pictures of the Russian MGB auxiliary, and its AK230 gun mount–but again, we don’t know which of the two Russian ships actually fired (or if both fired).
The picture of the sinking ship does not, to me, seem to be the same ship on which the Russian fired. The ship in the Chinese video has twin cargo cranes forward, the ship in the Russian video has a single mast. The Chinese ship shows a large cargo crane amidships, but the ship in the Russian video doesn’t have one. The configuration of the superstructure is different too. This leads me to think that the Chinese used stock footage of another freighter sinking, rather than the actual ship going down.
Stuart Koehl, great detective work. Thanks.
Hey, why you guys are so racist nationalistic? What you are seeing is just a tip of the iceberg and then you start enjoying yourselves boasting around.
It’s totally a waste of time, pathetic…
It was riding high? why was it bound for Seattle? and what of the stolen nuke report? I hope hope Russia just save a million people. Clinton runs over 2 days later
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The author is obviously obsessed with the theme of collapse of China. Of course, he is entitled to his opinion just as everyone is to his/her ass*le but no more than that.