Lets Catch Me Some Fugitives.

Between Monday June 1st (1/6/15) and Thursday June 11th (11/6/15) the 42nd meeting of the Subsidiary Body to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (SB42) took place in Bonn, Germany. Unfortunately I was absolutely no help whatsoever. Between the UK General Election, the Eurovision Song Contest, the UK Queen's Speech and the US attempt at a FIFA coup I ended up getting so tired that I made myself ill. Seriously on Wednesday (10/6/15) and Thursday of last week I was struggling to follow the plot of repeats of "The Simpsons" let alone the news.

However the meeting started in dramatic fashion with the sinking of the Eastern Star cruise ship on the Yangtze River in China with the loss of 440 lives. This touched on several key areas - most notably the Yangtze River itself.

Twice the length of the Mississippi River in the US and almost as long as the Nile River in Africa and the Amazon River in South America the Yangtze is big river in every sense of the term stretching all the way from Tibet in the west of China to the East China Sea in the east of the country. Across this great expanse the Yangtze both impacts on and impacted by the environment that surrounds it. So in agricultural areas it is polluted by the surface run-off of fertilisers and in industrial areas it suffers from the discharge of things like heavy metals. It also of course occasionally floods its surrounding areas and has a constant effect eroding the land around it.

The environmental issue that is probably the most relevant to SB42 though is the Three Gorges Dam which upon completion in 2012 became the World's largest generator of hydro-electric power. However since construction began in 1994 the Three Gorges Dam project has been plagued by accusations of environmental damage including the blocking of silt flow through the river increasing the flood threat down stream and causing the extinction of fish species including the Chinese River Dolphin which is sometimes referred to as the "Baiji" despite it having no connection to the Iraqi town of the same name. Although it started a bit before my time looking back I sort of get the impression that the US has used the Three Gorges Dam as an excuse to rally environmental protest groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth to put pressure on China over other issues.

The Three Gorges Dam is particularly relevent to efforts to combat climate change though because the main source of electricity in the World isn't from oil, natural gas or even coal. Instead it is from hydro-electric power which accounts for around 40% of all electricity. Obviously in our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we would like to increase that figure but to do so would involve building more dams like the Three Gorges project and things like Tidal power projects such as the one the UK recently announced for Swansea Bay. Although these projects will cut greenhouse gas emissions they will obviously have impacts of their own on the environment and those impacts do need to be carefully considered. After all there's not much point in China reducing sea levels if Shanghai gets flooded by the Yangtze anyway.

The second major area the incident touched on was the US' "Pivot Towards the Pacific" policy or "Mission to Contain China" as it's more widely referred to. This really has two prongs; the first being the US removing trade sanctions from unpleasant South-East Asian regimes such as Burma/Myanmar. In this first instance this builds an allegiance between the US and those nations but also drives down wages and working conditions across the entire region - including in China. On Friday (12/6/15) US Congress gave permission for this process to be "Fast Tracked."

The second prong has been for the US to build up the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) into a reckless and rouge state that its neighbours will need the US to protect them from. For example during last year's COP20 Summit the US carried out a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures which they then blamed on the DPRK and by association China. Back April 2014 the Sewol Ferry sank in the Republic of Korea (RoK/South Korea) with the loss of 476 lives. This was largely seen as a protest against the US' policy of encouraging the DPRK to behave increasingly recklessly because if the worst does happen the RoK will be first in the firing line and a lot more then 476 people will be killed.

The third main area the story touched on was the US TV Show "Oz" which seems to have become the script for most things going on in US politics at the moment. Around about the third season Oz starts getting quite silly. For example in one major storyline they start medical trials for this magical ageing drug that can cause the prisoners to age 20 years in a matter of weeks. This is a clumsy device to promote discussion about whether the prison system is merely a way to warehouse offenders until they are too old to re-offend or whether it should make some effort to rehabilitate them.

In another major storyline a Chinese ship full of irregular migrants sinks and all the men aboard are sent to the Oz prison while their asylum claims are processed. At no point does the show attempt to explain why a ship sailing from China would end up sinking on the US' east coast or why the people aboard would be sent to a state rather then a federal prison. Then suddenly a news report in the back ground announces that the US government has agreed with the Chinese government that the men aren't being persecuted and the characters all disappear with no further explanation. This is a bit of a confusing little head-scratcher all around.

As such I think the Yangtze incident was supposed to give the impression that China was panicking because it was struggling to follow what the US was doing - particularly in regard to the Pivot Towards the Pacific. This would then help identify those nations that were also confused by what the US was up to and therefore at risk of falling into the US' sphere of influence. This would be a problem for UNFCCC negotiations because China are very much one of the leaders while the US is very much a hindrance.

For example US President Obama likes to boast about how he recently forced China into a historic deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. People who are familiar with the issue though are well aware that it was more a case of China finally getting the US to agree to do something. For example in the four months since that deal China has actually cuts it's emissions by 5% while Obama has talked, a lot. Obviously peer review and verification are hot topics but as a further example of it's leadership China has reduced the first round of the ex-ante process in an effort to make sure the negotiations meet their looming deadline.

Unfortunately the spanner in the works was the UK who totally panicked and tried to muscle in on the Chinese play first with the June 2nd (2/6/15) Alton Towers Roller-Coaster incident. The actual roller-coaster involved is the "Smiler" which is inspired by a character in the "Saw" horror movies who likes to trap people into vicious and sadistic mind games - a sensation that won't be unfamiliar to many international diplomats. The wait to get the ride re-opened could equally be interpreted as an attempt to match the Chinese efforts to rescue and recover the Eastern Star or a way to raise speculation over whether I'd ever get around to doing any actual work relating to SB42.

The UK also teamed up with their Monarchistic ally the Netherlands to put on the discovery of 68 migrants on a ferry at the Harwich port in Essex UK on June 5th (5/6/15). With 22 of the migrants coming from China this was a very clear reference to the Oz element of the Yangtze incident. 

With Australia and the US also trying to get in on the story I obviously have more to add but I'll do that after the Slovenia V England game or maybe even tomorrow. After all we don't those New York State prison fugitives being caught too soon.

15:30 on 14/6/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 18:50 on 14/6/15 (UK date) go; "82 hits, WTF?!" and add;

Obviously during the rescue and recovery operation for the Eastern Star cruise ship the relatives of the 440 dead crammed the banks of the river and nearby hotels because often although your head may tell you that your loved one is dead your heart needs to see the body before it will accept. Although I think this was just a side-effect of the situation rather then part of the plan these scenes did resemble the relatives of the 152 Chinese citizens aboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 who are still crammed into hotels waiting for news.

This clearly struck a nerve with Australia - the other "Oz." Since March 17th 2014 (17/3/14) Australia has been heading the search for MH370 without much success. In July of 2014 Australia lost 27 of it's citizens when Malaysia Airlines MH17 crashed in similarly mysterious circumstances over Ukraine. The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott immediately blamed Russia for the incident and threatened to "Shirt-front" Russian President Vladimir Putin in retaliation. Although there are clear cultural differences by comparison China's ongoing response to the fruitless search for MH370 has been a picture of quiet restraint.

On June 2nd (2/6/15) professional Australian basketball player Luke Martin is alleged to have attacked Sydney's Lindt Cafe with rocks. The so-called "Sydney Siege" was of course Australia's unconventional response to the COP20 Summit. As such this seems to be a slightly paranoid attempt by Australia to question whether China was criticising them - "throwing rocks" - over their stance on climate change or over their failure to find MH370.

Within the TV Show "Oz" there is a professional basketball character "Jackson Vahue" who has been jailed for rape and sexual assault. Although he was only 11 years old when the character was cast Drake - the Canadian rapper and one-time boyfriend of Rihanna - can, from certain angles resemble Vahue particularly when both have the slightly longer hair. I was not immediately aware of this connection at the time because although Oz is being re-broadcast five nights a week here in the UK rather then watching it nightly I tend to DVR the week's episodes and watch them in one go over the weekend. Due to the Eurovision Song Contest my viewing schedule had got significantly behind the broadcast schedule.

On June 5th (5/6/15) two prisoners tunnelled out of the Clinton Prison in New York State, US leaving behind a particularly racist drawing of a Chinaman alongside the slogan "Have A Nice Day." This was a very clear "F*ck You" to both the prison and to China. Apart from the reference to 2016 Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton the ensuing manhunt caused authorities to shut the Route 374 highway. In the graphic that CNN International broadcast globally this was made to resemble the Yangtze River only on a much smaller scale.

Although this has been dubbed "The Shawshank Jailbreak" the whole thing is a storyline directly out of Oz. At the end of - I think - the third and the start of the fourth seasons two of the prisoners "Miguel Alvarez" and "Agamemnon Busmalis" escape through a tunnel that Busmalis has dug. While Busmalis is very quickly re-captured Alvarez very nearly escapes all the way to Mexico. One of the prisoners in the Clinton escape has a "Mexico Forever" tattoo. Annoyingly I haven't actually seen either of these episodes because my DVR opted not to record them. This provokes lots of discussion about who has been hacking my DVR.

Joyce Mitchell the prisoner worker who is alleged to have aided the Clinton escape could actually be interpreted as one of two characters in Oz. First there is "Claire Howell" a guard who doesn't so much have affairs with various male prisoners as sexually abuses and rapes them. Due to her physical appearance Mitchell could also be mistaken for "Suzanne Fitzgerald" - the mother of "Ryan O'Reily" and a 1960's radical who spends years on the run and comes to the prison to perform community service by teachning music as punishment for killing a police officer in a bombing.

As such the search narrative of the manhunt was intended to reassure US regional allies by giving the impression that the US was zeroing in on China's play while at the same time trying to make life difficult for China with all the references to my watching of cult 1990's TV shows.

I actually think the continuing search makes the US look quite weak but I'm pretty they'll be able to con certain people into thinking that it's all an elaborate bluff.

19:40 on 14/6/15 (UK date).