CHINA: U.S.-China relations in modern history

By Ed Hornick, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* President Obama and Chinese leader meet ahead of nuclear summit

* China and U.S. have had rocky relationship over human rights, Taiwan and communism

* Countries have cooperated recently on climate change and North Korea

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama and Chinese leader Hu Jintao are meeting Monday about nuclear security and other issues. The meeting comes as part of a two-day summit on how to better safeguard nuclear weapons materials and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.

Here's a look at some highs and lows in the sometimes rocky relationship between the U.S. and China.

Highs

• President Richard Nixon sought to improve relations with China in the late 1960s. Observers say a big reason behind the move was to rally the Chinese against the Soviet Union's encroaching power.

Nixon's historic 1972 visit to China, many say, helped improve relations with the communist country.

• China supported the U.S. during the Gulf War in 1991 by deciding not to use its veto power in the U.N. Security Council on the use of force toward Iraq -- and voiced its opposition to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

• China and the U.S. have worked together recently in opposing North Korea's nuclear ambitions; China has highlighted its opposition to the country withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and fears that its nuclear arsenal could threaten the region.

• In November, Obama made a stop in China during his four-nation tour of Asia, meeting with leaders including Hu. After their talks, the two spoke of a common vision of shared responsibilities and economic opportunities.

Months later, China and the U.S. teamed up to fight climate change and create clean energy. Both leaders said their nations would cooperate to advance technologies and work toward a global agreement on reducing carbon emissions.

Lows

• The U.S. instituted a "containment" policy toward communist superpowers China and the Soviet Union for their involvement in the Korean War in the 1950s.

The countries' providing of support and resources for the North Koreans strained relations with the U.S. It also put an apparent freeze on diplomatic relations with China for nearly 20 years.

• In 1989, China's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square drew widespread ire from world leaders, including President George H.W. Bush.

• China's often-criticized human rights record, from religious rights to the treatment of political dissidents, has been a source of tension between the two countries throughout the years.

• In April 2001, a U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane made an emergency landing in China after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet, which was en route to intercept the American plane.

Although the incident was deemed accidental, concerns were raised that the U.S. was threatening the country, a point the U.S. fought.

JAPAN: Japan's quirky pop trio Chatmonchy

Clockwise from upper left: the cover of the new Broken Social Scene record, Chatmonchy, Mulatu Astatke and Rafter Roberts.

April 13, 2010

San Diego-based producer Rafter Roberts has worked with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Fiery Furnaces and Rocket From the Crypt. But he's also known for his own solo work, and is about to release his fourth album under the name Rafter. We've got a preview cut on this edition of All Songs Considered. Also on the program: the Canadian supergroup Broken Social Scene, a deluxe reissue from the electro-pop group Passion Pit, the strangely named Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt, Japan's quirky pop trio Chatmonchy and Ethiopian jazz artist Mulatu Astatke.

JAPAN: For Japanese Women, The Past Is The Latest Fad

April 13, 2010

by Anthony Kuhn

Japanese model Anne, daughter of actor Ken Watanabe, appears in a 2007 Chanel show in Tokyo. Anne has carved out a niche for herself writing and speaking about history and history buffs. Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

TRANSCRIPT

In Japan, the number of female visitors to shogun castles, samurai battle re-enactments and history bookstores has recently increased. Observers attribute this to the rise of the "history girls" — a new urban subculture that some believe signals a kind of empowerment for female Japanese hobbyists.

One of the more public faces of the history girls, or reki-jo, is a fashion model named Anne. She's the daughter of actor Ken Watanabe, and she goes by one name. She's carved out a niche for herself writing and speaking about history and history buffs.

Reki-jo all have their favorite historical periods and characters. Speaking in a Tokyo cafe, Anne says hers is the Shinsengumi, the elite swordsmen of Japan's last shogun, or military ruler.

"The Shinsengumi is popular among Japanese girls because its members are all young, in their teens to early 30s," Anne says. "They changed Japan. The interesting part of their era is that we can see some photos of them, so we can imagine them better and feel closer to them. This history gives courage to young people today."

In TV dramas, the Shinsengumi are all played by popular, young male actors.

The reki-jo idolize these historical figures like rock stars.

The Shinsengumi, the elite, young swordsmen of Japan's last shogun, are popular among Japan's history girls. Here is an 1868 picture of a commander of the Shinsengumi.  Hino City Home Museum/AFP via Getty Images

Part Of The Nerdy Comic Book Subculture

Ryo Watanabe (no relation to Anne) is one of the media and marketing entrepreneurs who has helped build the reki-jo phenomenon. He created music, a Web site, TV shows and a bar where they can congregate. Watanabe says that history girls populate both virtual and actual worlds.

"The virtual ones just play games and follow individual characters," Watanabe says. "The real ones start with games, but they also do research, read books and visit historical sites. These are the real history girls."

Anthropologists who study such things say that the reki-jo are actually a kind of otaku, a nerdy sort of fan of Japanese comic books and video games.

Otaku nerds build identities for their favorite characters — choosing, for example, kimonos, hairstyles and weapons — and give their characters attributes: three points for strength and four for charisma.

Patrick Galbraith, a doctoral student at the University of Tokyo and author of The Otaku Encyclopedia, says that the history girls signal the rise of the female otaku. And what do male otaku do?

"They're really kind of focusing on what types of women they're interested in, and they create this kind of fantasy discourse about the female, and they consume these fetishized fantasy images," Galbraith says. "And women also have been doing this for a very long time, but it's always been below the surface."

A Way To Connect

People in Japan increasingly define themselves through the media they consume rather than work, family or school ties. Of course, this is true elsewhere, but Galbraith says the 1990s decline of Japanese corporate culture has pushed the country's hobby culture into the mainstream.

"And so now we are seeing more and more people who are making connections through consumption, through shared media, through shared patterns of social existence," Galbraith says. "And maybe reki-jo is one example of that, because really they are, I think, people who share an interest, but almost nothing else."

On a Wednesday night, the reki-jo head down to Ryo Watanabe's bar to talk about warlords, sieges and assassins. In her metal-studded leather attire, Miyuki Miyamoto is dressed more for a mosh pit than a history seminar. And she's proud of it.

"I like to be called a reki-jo," Miyamoto says. "Ten years ago, I had a negative image as a serious, isolated girl who likes history but has few friends. Now I feel more recognized as one of a group."

Observers say that even in the 19th-century Edo era, Japanese grouped around pop culture experiences as a way of coping with the anonymity and solitude of urban life. Their point: The otaku culture's roots run deep in Japan, and perhaps there's a little otaku in all of us.

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S. KOREA: South Korea To Impose Curfew On Gamers

April 13, 2010

Officials in Seoul have announced a curfew to block young people from playing online games after midnight. The Korea Herald reports the curfew affects about 20 games which are mostly role-play games that suck users into virtual worlds for hours at a time.

TRANSCRIPT

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

And our last word in business today comes from South Korea, which is tackling online video game addiction. The media there have reported shocking tales of gamers who actually died after spending weeks at the computer without a break.

Today's last word: game over - or at least suspended.

Officials in Seoul have announced a curfew to block young people from playing online games after midnight. The Korea Herald newspaper reports the curfew affects about 20 games - mostly role-play games - that suck users into virtual worlds for hours at a time.

And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

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CHINA: Avon Suspends Executives In China In Fraud Probe

April 13, 2010

The president, chief financial officer and another senior executive at Avon's China operation have been put on leave, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company is investigating an alleged bribery scandal. An Avon official in New York also is involved in the probe.

TRANSCRIPT

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

NPR's business starts with the Avon lady's trouble in China.

(Soundbite of music)

INSKEEP: Avon has suspended several key executives from its China operation. The president, chief financial officer, and another senior executive at Avon's China business were sent out on leave, pending a bribery investigation. A company official in New York is also involved in this probe, and the company is looking into alleged overseas trips for Chinese government officials.

The allegations against Avon executives come on the heels of another bribery case involving a foreign company in China. Four executives of the Australian mining firm Rio Tinto are doing jail time.

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RUSSIA & US: Russian Adoption Case Belies Many Happy Adoptions

April 13, 2010

by Eric Weiner

International adoption coverage needs to be re-framed, says commentator and adoptive father Eric Weiner. The number of happy families vastly outnumbers the cases of parents who are unfit for a child.

iStockphoto.com

I've gotten very quick with the remote control these days. I can change channels or hit the mute button in a fraction of a second. You see, I don't want my 5-year-old daughter to hear the adoption news out there, because lately, it seems, it's all bad news. The Russian case, the American missionaries accused of sneaking children out of Haiti — these stories raise questions that I'm not prepared to answer. Not yet, at least.

My daughter knows she is adopted. My wife and I don't hide that fact, nor do we dwell on it. It's just one more thing, we tell her, that makes her special. Once, we were at an ice cream parlor, and the clerk asked my daughter: "Where are you from, little girl?" "Kazakhstan," she replied proudly. I can still recall the shocked expression on the clerk's face.

Only now is my daughter beginning to understand that we don't look alike, she and I. Coursing through her veins is the blood of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Coursing through my veins is the blood of the Jews of Eastern Europe. It doesn't matter, though. Love trumps genetics. Every time.

There's something mysterious and wonderful about the bond between an adoptive parent and child. For me, that bond jelled as soon as I saw her photo — sent by e-mail from the adoption agency. She had bright eyes and a huge bald head — "Buddha Baby," we called her. Normally I'm not one to believe in fate, but at that moment, I knew, just knew, she was destined to be my daughter.

Eric Weiner, a former reporter for NPR, is author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.  Chuck Berman/Courtesy of Hachette Book Group USA

Adoption is not what you think it is. It is not, as one well-meaning person told me, "an act of mercy." My wife and I did not adopt our daughter to "save" her or to demonstrate our innate goodness. We adopted her because we wanted a child and couldn't have one biologically. That's why we filled out endless reams of paperwork, underwent a background check, spent thousands of dollars we couldn't really afford.

Like our case, the vast majority of international adoptions end happily. Of course, you don't hear those stories. Good news is not news — which is a shame, really, because every time there's an adoption scandal, countries overseas get spooked. Sometimes, they suspend all adoptions, as Russia is reportedly considering now. When that happens, the main victims are the children sitting in orphanages, waiting for parents who may never arrive.

That's what nearly happened to us. At the time, there was a similar case involving a Russian child adopted by an American parent. This parent had allegedly beaten the child to death. It was a terrible story, and Kazakh officials — very much in the Russian orbit — were threatening to suspend all adoptions, including ours. My wife and I spent several tormented weeks holed up in an apartment in the Kazakh city of Almaty, wondering whether we would be allowed to bring our Buddha Baby home.

In the end, cooler heads prevailed and adoptions were allowed to continue. I hope that is what happens now. Meanwhile, I've figured out what I'll say the next time someone tells me that adopting my daughter was an "act of mercy." Yes, I'll reply, it was, and it is we — my wife and I — who are the recipients of that mercy.

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CHINA: Train to Nowhere

Reuters

A decommissioned train sits at the site of China's first nuclear weapons base in Haiyan county, Qinghai province. The train cars now serve as a temporary dormitory.

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SHANGHAI, CHINA: Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower catches fire, no casualties reported

SHANGHAI, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai's symbolic Oriental Pearl Tower caught fire early on Tuesday, but no casualties were reported.

The antenna at the top of the 468-meter television tower caught fire around 2 a.m. and has been put out by firefighters, local police said.

Before the fire there was thunder, which could have triggered the fire . . .

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CHINA: Death toll rises to 36 in Shanxi flooded colliery, 2 still missing

ONE more body was retrieved from a coal mine that was flooded two weeks ago in north China's Shanxi Province, bringing the death toll to 36, rescue headquarters said this morning. Rescuers are searching for two...

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CHINA: Chinese, US presidents meet on bilateral ties, Iranian nuclear issue

CHINESE President Hu Jintao and his US counterpart, Barack Obama, met in Washington yesterday to discuss bilateral relations, the Iranian nuclear issue, the Renminbi (RMB) exchange rate and other matters of common...

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RUSSIA: Russia's bitter harvest

Mariyam Sharipova, one of the two women who carried out the attack in Moscow, is seen in a photo on the cellphone of her mother, Patimat Magomedova.

As the Moscow bombings remind, the simmering insurgency and brutal crackdown in the Caucasus have left a landscape of damaged women, some all too ready to spread their pain to Russia's heartland.

April 13, 2010

By Megan K. Stack, Reporting from Balakhani, Russia

The last time Patimat Magomedova saw her daughter, she was puttering around the house, manicuring her nails and using henna to dye her hair bright red.

It's high time we take care of the garden, the mother remembers Mariyam Sharipova saying that Friday. Let's plant raspberries, cucumbers, greens. And we have to do something about the kitchen, maybe get some pretty new dishes.

By evening, the young woman had vanished from the house in this remote mountain village in the Russian republic of Dagestan. Magomedova didn't see her daughter's face again until . . .

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