Clinton personally called China - Embassy Files

[kgnu_fan]

Source: OWNI France English version

17:31 Clinton personally called China

According to reports by Hong-Kong-based television RTHK, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally called her Chinese counterpart. This is significant, since none of the other communications that have been reported involved the highest diplomatic figure in America. It might point at severe revelations about US-China relationships.


OWNI has launched its own live-blog to cover the 'Embassy Files' release:

Read more: http://owni.fr/2010/11/27/wikileaks-statelogs-diplomatic-assange-application-insurance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Owni+%28Owni%29

---

Tracking down what is going on....

[dipsydoodle]

1. Great link that one.

:thumbsup:

[Lars77]

15. Yeah thanks, seems like these people are In The Know. nt

[pinto]

2. Prudent call, I would think, given the state of events on the Korean Peninsula.

:thumbsup:

[onehandle]

3. Condi would have called Exxon. nt

[bongbong]

13. Condi's conversation with Exxon

"What are your orders, sir?"

[drm604]

4. Not to downplay the importance of this,

but it's not correct that none of the other reported communications involved Clinton. Wikileaks has claimed that Clinton has briefed Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd.

http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7955759623053312

[kgnu_fan]

7. Yes, Australia is one of our "allies" and China is not. That is the point.

Except, China is our customer and our creditor...

[Posteritatis]

8. As odd as it may seem, the US maintains diplomatic relations with China too.

Major powers occasionally deign to speak to each other even when they aren't "allies." Geopolitics is nowhere near as simplistic as people like to think it is.

[kgnu_fan]

12. It is not odd. Significant that US had to do this with China. US is not "the" super power anymore.

US needs cooperation from other countries now. US can not bullying around. Bullying needs to stop. Needs to learn to get along...

Remember what John Bolton once said?

Bolton spoke at an event called "The Global Structures Convocation" on February 3, 1994, in New York. The tape was released in March by Citizens for Global Solutions. He said, "The United States makes the U.N. work when it wants it to work, and that is exactly the way it should be, because the only question, the only question for the United States is what is in our national interest. And if you don’t like that, I’m sorry, but that is the fact."

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/8/2/veteran_un_reporter_john_bolton_is

Now what does Bolton say?

"I’m afraid this is only about discrediting the US. And I’m afraid it’ll succeed."

18:28 Former ambassadors warn of serious damages

Over at the BBC, John Bolton, the former US Ambassador to the UN, warns of serious consequences of such leaks. In the past, revelation of confidential diplomatic material caused huge problems that took decades to calm down. For him, diplomacy is about handling murky business and no alternative exist.

http://owni.fr/2010/11/27/wikileaks-statelogs-diplomatic-assange-application-insurance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Owni+%28Owni%29

[liberation]

19. "I’m afraid this is only about discrediting the US. And I’m afraid it’ll succeed."

The level of demagogy of these people is simply astounding.

I won't put it past them to start accusing Asange, in the near future, of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians during the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[qazplm]

10. we are as crucial to their economy

as they are to ours.

[kgnu_fan]

25. Only for urban dwelling elite. Not for regular workers in China

<snip>
...Bearing it in mind, we can see that there is indeed a global shift of power, though not the one that occupies center stage: a further shift from the global work force to transnational capital, sharply escalating during the neoliberal years. The cost is substantial, including working people in the US, starving peasants in India, and millions of protesting workers in China, where labor share in national income is declining even more rapidly than in most of the world.
<snip>

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20100408.htm
Madison: Radical Intellectual-retrospective. 4-8-10

[Lucinda]

5. Can I get some clarification?

I haven't been following the news...other than the original strike against S Korea so I'm not getting the significance of this...can anyone help? I assumed that we would have spoken with China, so I'm a little lost.

[Posteritatis]

6. I imagine a lot of things are going to be taken out of context for the next while. (nt)

[drm604]

9. Wikileaks

This is about the impending release of classified diplomatic communications by Wikileaks.

http://rthk.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20101128/news_20101128_56_715877.htm

The U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has spoken with the Chinese government about the expected release of classified cables by the Wikileaks website. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed that Mrs Clinton spoke by phone with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. He did not provide details.

[jamiefoxer]

14. wow...

and here we thought it was responsible world leaders meeting together to discuss NK's tantrum attack.

Turns out Hillary is doing damage control for all the bullshit behind the scenes things we do against China.

Typical....

[herbm]

11. Thank you!

[Gman]

16. If this leak is what I think it is, it is over the line

and is criminal espionage. Yeah, I think anything and everything should be revealed about Iraq and even Afghanistan for obvious reasons. Technically these leaks are criminal espionage. But Iraq/Afghanistan leaks are about wars run by war criminals. Leaking US intelligence about other things is over the line and wrong.

[kgnu_fan]

17. Delete -- followed your wisdom, Posteritatis!

[Posteritatis]

18. It probably wouldn't hurt to see the contents before describing them. (nt)

[liberation]

20. So you don't know what the leak is, yet you already know it is wrong...

... who needs to have facts and truth, when you have narrative and arbitrary standards. Right?

[Gman]

26. Based on news report descriptions of the information

and the reaction of officials, specifically Hillary calling her counterpart in China, I said, "If this leak is what I think it is, it is over the line". You should read the entire post, think, then post.

[JDPriestly]

21. I hope you are wrong, but I fear you may be right, Gman.

Not every bit of gossip and discussion of personalities and strategies should be made public knowledge.

I cannot believe that anyone would have been granted access to this much secret data or handed this much data. I suspect that someone stole this data, that someone simply hacked their way into it. There is just too much data to be an inside job.

Does our government classify far too much stuff and very often for the wrong reason? Yes.

Do I support more openness and less secrecy in government? Yes.

But some secrecy (arguably less than we now have) is definitely necessary.

First, it is necessary in order to enable open discussion among responsible people in our government. Second, some of it really is necessary for national security.

I have read some of the stories about espionage in WWII. Without secrecy, we could not have won that war. Of course, secrecy is too extreme today, but releasing so many files is probably not a good solution to that problem.

[Gman]

22. All very true

This is still a dangerous world and secrets are often necessary. Not to cover war crimes, not to spy on our own people, and not to keep some corporation from losing something secret that screws everyone (e.g. BP and the oil spill). But there are a lot of dangerous people out there that we can't let know what we're doing. And there's a lot of people that are asses, but they represent their country that we have to be nice to them for our own sake and security even though it may be a bit nauseating. Stuff like this doesn't need to be public knowledge.

[thunder rising]

23. Real sensitive communications are NOT in emails that just anybody can decode. So my guess

is that it's more about American Exceptionalism and hubris

[bemildred]

24. Right, the Mighty Wurlitzer could lose audience share.

But I think that horse has already left the barn.

[Gman]

27. But the decoding of emails so that not anybody can read them narrows the possibilities

of who did this that had the ability to decode them. Again, if the documents are exposing war crimes by war criminals, I say post everything everywhere. Hopefully it will be used as evidence to convict the war criminals where they can die in prison. If it's more than just that and harmful to national security, the real national security issues, then it's wrong. Not the secrets that keep corporations from enriching shareholders with the sweat of 6 year olds working in sweat shops through international deals, but the real things that keep us safe and make the world a safer place.

[thunder rising]

28. Enough with the meta ... it's done

[Bodhi BloodWave]

29. why not have the same attitude about the war and such then

Its done, why are people so hung up about it :p

:sarcasm: