From Kevin Hall, Bank owner disputes money-laundering allegations, McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau, May 17, 2007:
"In the next couple of years, the Bank was periodically contacted by other U.S. government agents and we cooperated in their inquiries," Au said in a statement to the Treasury first published by China Matters, an Internet blog.
The full texts of the petition from Delta Asia Group and Stanley Au’s supporting personal statement to the U.S. Treasury Department requesting that its rule against Banco Delta Asia be rescinded, and an analysis of the key points involved, can be found in the post Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia by clicking on this link.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Benedict's Travels
The American media is waking up to the fact that the Eurocentric Pope Benedict has a Third World problem...
...and a Middle East problem.
...and an Asia problem.
...as China Matters readers already knew.
via Tapped’s Adele Stan, we learn that the Pope alienated some Brazilians:
HONEY, I SHRUNK THE CHURCH. It seems as if Pope Benedict XVI is really out to prove his philosophy that he's willing to accept a smaller, but more loyal flock for the Roman Catholic Church. Among the loyalty tests -- aside from the traditionally misogynist stands against women in the priesthood and reproductive rights for women -- one rarely discussed appears to have roiled to the surface: acceptance of Western civilization and culture as superior to all others.
Yesterday, as his Brazilian sojourn drew to a close... reports Raymond Colitt of Reuters, [Benedict said]:
[Brazil's indigenous people] had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity, he said.
... Particularly telling is reaction of Brazilian Indians who are Catholic, as well as the priests who minister to them. "The Pope doesn't understand the reality of the Indians here, his statement was wrong and indefensible," Father Paulo Suess, who runs the Brazilian church's advocacy group for the indigenous, told Colitt. "I too was upset."
Thanks the convoluted character of Catholic doctrine and Benedict’s penchant for high-minded hairsplitting, it’s a bit difficult to tease out the Pope’s point.
The bottom line is that Benedict regards attempts to understand and acknowledge and reconcile what the indigenous people lost in that whole bloody genocide, forced conversion, and slavery fracas with the Conquistadors in South America as deluded carping by liberation-theology types who should be grateful that their once-pagan ancestors are not broiling in eternal hellfire.
So, thank you Christian Europe! for the wafers and wine that allowed this Godforsaken land to realize its destiny as a Christian continent.
An unsentimental farewell to whatever was going on here before the guns-germs-and-steel action!
And stop trying to put that pre-Columbian toothpaste back into the tube!
The Utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal Church, would not be a step forward: indeed, it would be a step back. In reality, it would be a retreat towards a stage in history anchored in the past." (quoted in comments to Stan's post)
That kind of condescending dismissal is at the heart of Benedict's thought--and his problems as Pope.
Pope Benedict is quite the expert on the futility of non-Catholic spiritual exercises, as is clear in my post from 2006 riffing on the Pope’s notorious remark equating Buddhism with masturbation.
The post provides background on the Pope's travails in Brazil by exploring his clash-of-civilizations view of European Catholicism as the bulwark of the true faith against assaults by secularists, Freudians, and those brown and yellow people whose traditional cultures and philosophies offer only barren ground for Christianity.
It provides an interesting perspective on why the guy who previously headed the Inquisition might be better equipped to shrink the church to a core of true believers, than grow it by addressing Catholicism’s philosophical and historical relationship to other faiths.
I recall some rough handling from a commenter or two in the Peking Duck thread. My response at the time is included at the end of the post.
Pope Benedict and the Buddhism/Masturbation Controversy
originally posted September 26, 2006
Pope Benedict’s recent scuffle with Islam, including his non-apology—characterized by Middle East observer Abu Aardvark as “that time-honored classic ‘I'm sorry that you got angry when I called you fat’” dodge--- has highlighted his confrontational stance toward other faiths.
A column by Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian makes a case for his hostility toward Judaism and Buddhism as well.
In the process, Bunting retails the notorious statement made by Benedict while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, purportedly equating Buddhism with masturbation.
Buddhist Channel reported that the full quote, delivered in an interview with L’Expresse in 1997, went like this:
"If Buddhism is attractive, it's only because it suggests that by belonging to it you can touch the infinite, and you can have joy without concrete religious obligations,'' Ratzinger said. ``It's spiritually self-indulgent eroticism.''
Other outlets cut Cardinal Ratzinger some slack, opining that “auto-erotisme”, the term used in the original article, could more accurately translated at “self-love” or “narcissism”.
Actually, auto-eroticism is an English-language term coined by the sexologist Havelock Ellis to describe mental or physical sexual activity not directed toward a sexual partner. It was later picked up by Freud. Cardinal Ratzinger knows his Freud. He considers Freud an originator of the secular spirit he detests, and entitled one of his major pronouncements on the decadence of Europe “Europe and its Discontents”—a play on Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents.
In this case, I assume Cardinal Ratzinger employed auto-eroticism as a term of art, using a modern term for the sinful, non-reproductive sexuality abhorred by the church to condemn a kind of shallow spiritual gratification that he considers futile, degenerate, and dangerous to the soul.
So, although the Pope was not referring to Buddhists as masturbators, they can find little consolation in the awareness that what he really meant is that he was dismissing their spiritual exercises as pathetic and contemptible.
In any event, Benedict’s hostility toward non-Catholic faiths is a matter of public record. Religions that have felt the lash of his disapproval include Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Anglicanism.
In 2000, the National Catholic Reporter published a list of Cardinal Ratzinger’s greatest hits, including a money quote from the same L’Expresse interview:
"In the 1950s someone said that the undoing of the Catholic church in the 20th century wouldn't come from Marxism but from Buddhism. They were right."
Reportedly, at the time Cardinal Ratzinger was incensed that there were allegedly more Frenchmen studying to be Buddhist monks than Benedictine monks.
As the Catholic Church’s top doctrine cop—running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a.k.a. the Inquisition--he also ordered a German Benedictine monk, Willigis Jager, a.k.a Zen master Ko-un Roshi, to cease and desist from all public statements and activities promoting dialogue between Catholics and Buddhists.
Beyond strict demands for doctrinal conformity and acknowledgement of the Catholic Church’s unique role as interlocutor between humanity and the one true God, Pope Benedict’s worldview is apparently militantly Euro-centric. Europe, in the Pope’s view, is a creation of Catholicism and the implication is that Catholicism without Europe cannot survive.
There was speculation that Cardinal Ratzinger chose his papal title not to commemorate Pope Benedict XV, but to honor St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictine order and is credited with saving Catholicism from extinction in the European Dark Ages.
The Pope considers Europe to be Catholicism’s home turf, under assault from alien faiths and lazy tendencies toward syncretism (literally “Cretan towns forming an alliance” according to my Webster’s, but figuratively speaking a meaningless mishmash).
Islam at the gates of Europe is Pope Benedict’s particular bugbear.
The Pope’s perspective—in which Catholicism is inextricably bound to its European matrix—has a creepy clash-of-civilization vibe and his recent statements criticizing Islam were undoubtedly a conscious “stay outta my yard” challenge to the demographic, social, and political encroachment of Islam into Europe.
In the lament on decadent, faithless Europe that he coauthored—Without Roots—Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:
At the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems hollow, as if it were internally paralyzed by a failure of its circulatory system that is endangering its life, subjecting it to transplants that erase its identity. At the same time as its sustaining spiritual forces have collapsed, a growing decline in its ethnicity is also taking place.
Hmmm…”a growing decline in its ethnicity”. I don’t think he’s referring to a shortage of good Vietnamese restaurants in Rome.
Pared to the bone, the Pope’s attitudes look a lot like racism cloaked in theology.
Reuters reported on an interview Cardinal Ratzinger gave to Le Figaro in 2004:
Joseph Ratzinger... has said Muslim but secular Turkey should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations rather than the EU, which has Christian roots. In an interview last year for France's Le Figaro Magazine, Ratzinger, then doctrinal head of the Roman Catholic Church, said Turkey had always been "in permanent contrast to Europe" and that linking it to Europe would be a mistake.
If Pope Benedict is going to be busy re-fighting the crusades in Europe and the Middle East and reliving the glories of the Inquisition, he’s not going to have a lot of interest and energy in dealing with Buddhism except as a competitor for the hearts, minds, and souls of the parfit knights of his Caucasian Round Table.
Indeed, since he is wrapped up in his theory that European civilization is uniquely Catholic, he seems ready to write off the rest of the world—at least those parts with “great cultural protagonists”, as he termed them, such as East Asia and South Asia--as spheres that are innately Buddhist , Muslim, or Hindu.
It will be interesting to see how the Roman Catholic Church fares in China under Benedict’s reign.
Comments:
Some commenters on Peking Duck made the point that it’s understandable that the Pope should have the right to speak his mind. And if he believes that Buddhists are (doctrinal) jerk-offs, well, free speech doesn’t stop at the Inquisitor’s door.
A few thoughts.
The Pope believes his is the one true faith, qualitatively different from all others.
That’s his right, even his duty. It’s the cornerstone of his faith.
He can also trash other religions, not only as inferior in doctrine and rigor but also false paths to salvation.
No problem.
But he’s also the head of a religion that claims not only to profess the true Word of God, but also to serve as God’s instrument on earth, and provide the means of human salvation that is not only unique but universal (“Catholic).
It’s a test of his leadership—and God-given duties as Pope—to put points on the board for the Catholic Church worldwide, and not just in the European homeland.
Pope John Paul II, who shared many of Cardinal Ratzinger’s views including, presumably, revulsion at Buddhism, understood that his job was to condone inter-faith dialogue so that the Catholic Church could claim to encompass the good points of other religions and at the same time assert its superiority in the critical matters of revealed truth and salvation.
Benedict XVI, on the other hand, appears to have made the dubious decision that other religions have to be discredited en toto so that Catholicism is the last faith standing.
It’s an understandable position for an Inquisitor to take.
It’s the necessary stand for the leader of an embattled sect, which is how Pope Benedict sometimes appears to regard himself.
But it is not a viable position for the leader of a global church that considers itself not only unique in truth but infinite in its understanding and universal in its scope.
Tearing every other religion (and for good measure, secular humanism) to their foundations so that the deluded turn to the true faith would be a tough job even if the Savior appeared in person to do the job. For fallible men and a fragile church to attempt it by themselves is simply beyond their capacity.
So instead of engaging in a multi-millennial argument with Islam, Buddhism, and every other religion that won’t be decided until the true God shows up to settle accounts, I think the interests of the Catholic Church and the world would be better served if Pope Benedict decided his faith could be most effectively protected and propagated by looking for good in the hearts of Buddhists, Muslims -- instead of making remarks easily construed as deriding them and their religions.
...and a Middle East problem.
...and an Asia problem.
...as China Matters readers already knew.
via Tapped’s Adele Stan, we learn that the Pope alienated some Brazilians:
HONEY, I SHRUNK THE CHURCH. It seems as if Pope Benedict XVI is really out to prove his philosophy that he's willing to accept a smaller, but more loyal flock for the Roman Catholic Church. Among the loyalty tests -- aside from the traditionally misogynist stands against women in the priesthood and reproductive rights for women -- one rarely discussed appears to have roiled to the surface: acceptance of Western civilization and culture as superior to all others.
Yesterday, as his Brazilian sojourn drew to a close... reports Raymond Colitt of Reuters, [Benedict said]:
[Brazil's indigenous people] had welcomed the arrival of European priests at the time of the conquest as they were "silently longing" for Christianity, he said.
... Particularly telling is reaction of Brazilian Indians who are Catholic, as well as the priests who minister to them. "The Pope doesn't understand the reality of the Indians here, his statement was wrong and indefensible," Father Paulo Suess, who runs the Brazilian church's advocacy group for the indigenous, told Colitt. "I too was upset."
Thanks the convoluted character of Catholic doctrine and Benedict’s penchant for high-minded hairsplitting, it’s a bit difficult to tease out the Pope’s point.
The bottom line is that Benedict regards attempts to understand and acknowledge and reconcile what the indigenous people lost in that whole bloody genocide, forced conversion, and slavery fracas with the Conquistadors in South America as deluded carping by liberation-theology types who should be grateful that their once-pagan ancestors are not broiling in eternal hellfire.
So, thank you Christian Europe! for the wafers and wine that allowed this Godforsaken land to realize its destiny as a Christian continent.
An unsentimental farewell to whatever was going on here before the guns-germs-and-steel action!
And stop trying to put that pre-Columbian toothpaste back into the tube!
The Utopia of going back to breathe life into the pre-Columbus religions, separating them from Christ and from the universal Church, would not be a step forward: indeed, it would be a step back. In reality, it would be a retreat towards a stage in history anchored in the past." (quoted in comments to Stan's post)
That kind of condescending dismissal is at the heart of Benedict's thought--and his problems as Pope.
Pope Benedict is quite the expert on the futility of non-Catholic spiritual exercises, as is clear in my post from 2006 riffing on the Pope’s notorious remark equating Buddhism with masturbation.
The post provides background on the Pope's travails in Brazil by exploring his clash-of-civilizations view of European Catholicism as the bulwark of the true faith against assaults by secularists, Freudians, and those brown and yellow people whose traditional cultures and philosophies offer only barren ground for Christianity.
It provides an interesting perspective on why the guy who previously headed the Inquisition might be better equipped to shrink the church to a core of true believers, than grow it by addressing Catholicism’s philosophical and historical relationship to other faiths.
I recall some rough handling from a commenter or two in the Peking Duck thread. My response at the time is included at the end of the post.
Pope Benedict and the Buddhism/Masturbation Controversy
originally posted September 26, 2006
Pope Benedict’s recent scuffle with Islam, including his non-apology—characterized by Middle East observer Abu Aardvark as “that time-honored classic ‘I'm sorry that you got angry when I called you fat’” dodge--- has highlighted his confrontational stance toward other faiths.
A column by Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian makes a case for his hostility toward Judaism and Buddhism as well.
In the process, Bunting retails the notorious statement made by Benedict while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, purportedly equating Buddhism with masturbation.
Buddhist Channel reported that the full quote, delivered in an interview with L’Expresse in 1997, went like this:
"If Buddhism is attractive, it's only because it suggests that by belonging to it you can touch the infinite, and you can have joy without concrete religious obligations,'' Ratzinger said. ``It's spiritually self-indulgent eroticism.''
Other outlets cut Cardinal Ratzinger some slack, opining that “auto-erotisme”, the term used in the original article, could more accurately translated at “self-love” or “narcissism”.
Actually, auto-eroticism is an English-language term coined by the sexologist Havelock Ellis to describe mental or physical sexual activity not directed toward a sexual partner. It was later picked up by Freud. Cardinal Ratzinger knows his Freud. He considers Freud an originator of the secular spirit he detests, and entitled one of his major pronouncements on the decadence of Europe “Europe and its Discontents”—a play on Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents.
In this case, I assume Cardinal Ratzinger employed auto-eroticism as a term of art, using a modern term for the sinful, non-reproductive sexuality abhorred by the church to condemn a kind of shallow spiritual gratification that he considers futile, degenerate, and dangerous to the soul.
So, although the Pope was not referring to Buddhists as masturbators, they can find little consolation in the awareness that what he really meant is that he was dismissing their spiritual exercises as pathetic and contemptible.
In any event, Benedict’s hostility toward non-Catholic faiths is a matter of public record. Religions that have felt the lash of his disapproval include Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Anglicanism.
In 2000, the National Catholic Reporter published a list of Cardinal Ratzinger’s greatest hits, including a money quote from the same L’Expresse interview:
"In the 1950s someone said that the undoing of the Catholic church in the 20th century wouldn't come from Marxism but from Buddhism. They were right."
Reportedly, at the time Cardinal Ratzinger was incensed that there were allegedly more Frenchmen studying to be Buddhist monks than Benedictine monks.
As the Catholic Church’s top doctrine cop—running the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a.k.a. the Inquisition--he also ordered a German Benedictine monk, Willigis Jager, a.k.a Zen master Ko-un Roshi, to cease and desist from all public statements and activities promoting dialogue between Catholics and Buddhists.
Beyond strict demands for doctrinal conformity and acknowledgement of the Catholic Church’s unique role as interlocutor between humanity and the one true God, Pope Benedict’s worldview is apparently militantly Euro-centric. Europe, in the Pope’s view, is a creation of Catholicism and the implication is that Catholicism without Europe cannot survive.
There was speculation that Cardinal Ratzinger chose his papal title not to commemorate Pope Benedict XV, but to honor St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictine order and is credited with saving Catholicism from extinction in the European Dark Ages.
The Pope considers Europe to be Catholicism’s home turf, under assault from alien faiths and lazy tendencies toward syncretism (literally “Cretan towns forming an alliance” according to my Webster’s, but figuratively speaking a meaningless mishmash).
Islam at the gates of Europe is Pope Benedict’s particular bugbear.
The Pope’s perspective—in which Catholicism is inextricably bound to its European matrix—has a creepy clash-of-civilization vibe and his recent statements criticizing Islam were undoubtedly a conscious “stay outta my yard” challenge to the demographic, social, and political encroachment of Islam into Europe.
In the lament on decadent, faithless Europe that he coauthored—Without Roots—Cardinal Ratzinger wrote:
At the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems hollow, as if it were internally paralyzed by a failure of its circulatory system that is endangering its life, subjecting it to transplants that erase its identity. At the same time as its sustaining spiritual forces have collapsed, a growing decline in its ethnicity is also taking place.
Hmmm…”a growing decline in its ethnicity”. I don’t think he’s referring to a shortage of good Vietnamese restaurants in Rome.
Pared to the bone, the Pope’s attitudes look a lot like racism cloaked in theology.
Reuters reported on an interview Cardinal Ratzinger gave to Le Figaro in 2004:
Joseph Ratzinger... has said Muslim but secular Turkey should seek its future in an association of Islamic nations rather than the EU, which has Christian roots. In an interview last year for France's Le Figaro Magazine, Ratzinger, then doctrinal head of the Roman Catholic Church, said Turkey had always been "in permanent contrast to Europe" and that linking it to Europe would be a mistake.
If Pope Benedict is going to be busy re-fighting the crusades in Europe and the Middle East and reliving the glories of the Inquisition, he’s not going to have a lot of interest and energy in dealing with Buddhism except as a competitor for the hearts, minds, and souls of the parfit knights of his Caucasian Round Table.
Indeed, since he is wrapped up in his theory that European civilization is uniquely Catholic, he seems ready to write off the rest of the world—at least those parts with “great cultural protagonists”, as he termed them, such as East Asia and South Asia--as spheres that are innately Buddhist , Muslim, or Hindu.
It will be interesting to see how the Roman Catholic Church fares in China under Benedict’s reign.
Comments:
Some commenters on Peking Duck made the point that it’s understandable that the Pope should have the right to speak his mind. And if he believes that Buddhists are (doctrinal) jerk-offs, well, free speech doesn’t stop at the Inquisitor’s door.
A few thoughts.
The Pope believes his is the one true faith, qualitatively different from all others.
That’s his right, even his duty. It’s the cornerstone of his faith.
He can also trash other religions, not only as inferior in doctrine and rigor but also false paths to salvation.
No problem.
But he’s also the head of a religion that claims not only to profess the true Word of God, but also to serve as God’s instrument on earth, and provide the means of human salvation that is not only unique but universal (“Catholic).
It’s a test of his leadership—and God-given duties as Pope—to put points on the board for the Catholic Church worldwide, and not just in the European homeland.
Pope John Paul II, who shared many of Cardinal Ratzinger’s views including, presumably, revulsion at Buddhism, understood that his job was to condone inter-faith dialogue so that the Catholic Church could claim to encompass the good points of other religions and at the same time assert its superiority in the critical matters of revealed truth and salvation.
Benedict XVI, on the other hand, appears to have made the dubious decision that other religions have to be discredited en toto so that Catholicism is the last faith standing.
It’s an understandable position for an Inquisitor to take.
It’s the necessary stand for the leader of an embattled sect, which is how Pope Benedict sometimes appears to regard himself.
But it is not a viable position for the leader of a global church that considers itself not only unique in truth but infinite in its understanding and universal in its scope.
Tearing every other religion (and for good measure, secular humanism) to their foundations so that the deluded turn to the true faith would be a tough job even if the Savior appeared in person to do the job. For fallible men and a fragile church to attempt it by themselves is simply beyond their capacity.
So instead of engaging in a multi-millennial argument with Islam, Buddhism, and every other religion that won’t be decided until the true God shows up to settle accounts, I think the interests of the Catholic Church and the world would be better served if Pope Benedict decided his faith could be most effectively protected and propagated by looking for good in the hearts of Buddhists, Muslims -- instead of making remarks easily construed as deriding them and their religions.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia
As sharp-eyed reader David pointed out, the owners of Banco Delta Asia group are petitioning the Treasury Department to rescind its final rule against BDA.
In a China Matters exclusive, I’ve obtained and posted the files for Delta Asia Group’s petition and the personal statement of DAG’s largest shareholder, Stanley Au.
Au’s petition, in particular, provides some interesting detail on BDA’s operations, describing it as a small bank with 8 branches and 150 employees, handling deposits for 40,000 local account holders (about 10% of Macau’s population).
According to Au, BDA’s business with North Korea developed out of a relationship with Pyongyang’s Daesong Bank and the Foreign Trade Bank of DPRK, and grew to include handling North Korea’s bullion sales—a business that Midland Bank apparently gave up on because the margins were so low. He states that business with North Korea and North Korea-related entities accounted for about 7% of the bank’s total revenues in 2005.
Concerning the notorious allegations that North Korea was using BDA to inject counterfeit currency into the world financial system, Au declares under penalty of perjury that BDA received counterfeit currency from North Korea on one occasion—in 1994.
Au further states that BDA closed accounts for two of the three depositors (believing that the third had unwittingly deposited the funny money), reported the matter to the Macau police, and...
“After the Bank reported this incident to the Macau police, I was contacted by agents of the United States government...they asked a number of questions about the circumstances under which the counterfeit notes came into the Bank’s possession. I cordially answered the questions and asked if their preference was that we should desist from doing business with North Korean entities. They said that they would like us to continue to deal with them, as it was better that we conducted this business rather than another financial entity that might not be so cooperative with the United States."
Unfortunately, Au doesn’t recall the names of the agents he dealt with.
However, he did state that since 1994, “the Bank made the policy decision to send all large value deposits of US dollar bills from North Korean sources to the Hong Kong branch of Republic (which became HSBC) to certify authenticity using its advanced technology. "
Unless the Treasury Department can introduce evidence of significant counterfeit dollar activity handled by BDA since 1994, Au’s statement should cause serious heartburn for the hardline crowd.
The background of the petitions is this:
The final rule against Banco Delta Asia isn’t a law; it’s a rule by a regulatory agency.
Because it’s not a law, there is no evidentiary/due process/transparency hocus-pocus.
The whole process is conducted secretly and unilaterally, which is pretty much the way the government likes it, I’m sure.
Beefs about rules are handled under the Administrative Procedures Act, which was enacted in 1946 to address concerns about the broad range of regulatory, quasi-legal powers wielded by agencies of the executive branch starting with FDR’s New Deal.
Interested parties may petition the relevant agency, in this case the Treasury Department, to review its ruling. Upon receipt of the petition, the Treasury Department can decide to reverse its rule or reject the petition; there’s no requirement to have any kind of hearing, rebut arguments, etc.
If the interested party is dissatisfied with the outcome, it can sue—in this case in district court.
However, the only basis for allowing a lawsuit to proceed is if Treasury abused its regulatory powers, in legal speak if Treasury acted arbitrarily and capriciously, abused its discretion, or otherwise acted not in accordance with the law.
BDA has already filed its petition.
Stanley Au is an “interested party” not just because he’s the majority stockholder in Delta Asia Group, the holding company that owns BDA.
He’s an interested party because the Treasury Department declared that his continued ownership of the bank is the sole reason why the Treasury Department can’t rest easy and accept the improvements that BDA, the government management committee running the bank, the Macau Monetary Authority, and the government of the Macau SAR undertook to improve bank management, tighten financial controls, and pass anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws during the 18 months of the Treasury’s investigation of BDA.
As Treasury put it in the final rule:
Despite any remedial measures and regulatory changes, this historical pattern of disregard by the bank’s management and primary shareholder regarding both the systemic due diligence failures at the bank and the potential use of the bank for illicit purposes, and the resultant likelihood of recidivism...leave us concerned about the potential for the bank to be continued to be used for money laundering and other illicit purposes. [emphasis added—ed.]
Since the 2005-era managers of the bank are long gone and not coming back, that leaves Stanley Au as the only reason why BDA can’t be trusted to be a clean bank.
Obviously, Treasury doesn’t like Stanley Au.
But maybe that’s not a good enough reason to cut his bank off from the U.S. financial system.
Treasury has not taken the step of calling a Stanley Au a criminal banker.
Treasury chose not to classify BDA as a money-laundering bank e.g. a bank that as a matter of conscious policy conducts money-laundering on behalf of illicit actors.
BDA was sanctioned as a bank “of primary money laundering concerns”, one with weak financial controls, instead. The whole point of that designation is to get the bank and the local authorities to tighten controls, which they did.
So Treasury is now trying to use a bait and switch approach, threatening sanctions meant to effect a tightening of financial controls, then, after the controls are tightened, saying that was not enough because the real issue is suspicion of undesirable intent by the bank’s owner.
The interesting (and for Treasury, rather awkward) question of why the Macau Monetary Authority should be judged incapable of preventing recidivism by its most famous or notorious corporate citizen—implying that the real problem is with the Macau government—is begged by the muddled Treasury rule, but never addressed.
Furthermore, how enticing are the temptations of recidivism to Stanley Au?
I don’t think that impartial observers would believe that the potential profits from future illicit North Korean transactions are so great that Au would take the colossal risk of pursuing them while under the scrutiny of new management, a new board, the Macau and Hong Kong monetary authorities, and the U.S. Treasury Department.
In the conclusion of his statement, Au does a convincing job of pointing out that “recidivism” on his part would be little more than professional suicide:
"Successful resolution of the concerns raised by the U.S. government, which have been publicized around the world, has been a matter of greatest importance both to the Bank and to the Government of Macau...I understood that it was of paramount importance, for my own sake, for the Bank’s sake, and for the Government’s sake to make every effort to fully implement commitments made by my Government’s representatives in my bank’s name, while under the scrutiny of the U.S. authorities and the international media. To have done otherwise would have been unthinkable."
The alternate view—one that is probably shared by Stanley Au, the Macau Monetary Authority, China, the UN as it interpreted its sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear, missile, and proliferation networks, and, I suspect a large percentage of the world’s nations—is that legitimate North Korean financial activity does exist, BDA had a right to solicit North Korean accounts and handle North Korean transactions, and Stanley Au should be allowed to run his bank as long as he conforms to the laws of his jurisdiction--and not be used as a political football in Washington's dealings with Pyongyang.
The Delta Asia Group petition observes:
But BDA’s owners and former managers had no reason to know, prior to FinCEN’s September 2005 finding, that the United States now held the view that bank dealings with North Korea must be entirely avoided. Whether for geopolitical reasons or otherwise, the U.S. government chose not to avail itself of any of the formal mechanisms available to it to put banks on notice of this apparent change of policy...Instead it “announced” this new position by singling out for sanction one small Macau bank, apparently hoping to achieve by in terrorem effects what it did not wish to impose by straightforward regulation.
In terms of attempts to get the rule rescinded, the allegation with the most damaging potential is that the Treasury Department never raised its fears of recidivism during its investigation and rule-making process in order to give Au a chance to give a satisfactory response—it announced these concerns for the first time in its final rule and, what's more, made them the central justification for imposing the most onerous "Special Measure Five".
If BDA decides to try to overturn the rule with a lawsuit, this appearance of “arbitrary and capricious action” by the Treasury Department may persuade the judge to let the legal system open the whole North Korean policy/Patriot Act 311 can of worms to determine if evidence or diplomatic strategy drove Treasury’s seemingly flawed, self-contradictory rule on BDA.
If so, damning statements like this one from David Asher, the self-styled architect of Washington’s North Korea initiatives, may persuade a US judge that the burden of proof is on the Treasury Department to substantiate its allegations against BDA in open court—or abandon them:
The Illicit Activities Initiative prominently involved the use of several—the development of the—conceptualization of the use of several of the tools you’re discussing today including USA Patriot Act Section 311. We worked hand in glove with the Treasury Department to apply and plan to apply against North Korea, and after a time of deep research we came to conclude that one of the best spots was in Macau against Banco Delta Asia."
...
“Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing business in North Korea...and we’re not talking about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of millions.”
In a China Matters exclusive, I’ve obtained and posted the files for Delta Asia Group’s petition and the personal statement of DAG’s largest shareholder, Stanley Au.
Au’s petition, in particular, provides some interesting detail on BDA’s operations, describing it as a small bank with 8 branches and 150 employees, handling deposits for 40,000 local account holders (about 10% of Macau’s population).
According to Au, BDA’s business with North Korea developed out of a relationship with Pyongyang’s Daesong Bank and the Foreign Trade Bank of DPRK, and grew to include handling North Korea’s bullion sales—a business that Midland Bank apparently gave up on because the margins were so low. He states that business with North Korea and North Korea-related entities accounted for about 7% of the bank’s total revenues in 2005.
Concerning the notorious allegations that North Korea was using BDA to inject counterfeit currency into the world financial system, Au declares under penalty of perjury that BDA received counterfeit currency from North Korea on one occasion—in 1994.
Au further states that BDA closed accounts for two of the three depositors (believing that the third had unwittingly deposited the funny money), reported the matter to the Macau police, and...
“After the Bank reported this incident to the Macau police, I was contacted by agents of the United States government...they asked a number of questions about the circumstances under which the counterfeit notes came into the Bank’s possession. I cordially answered the questions and asked if their preference was that we should desist from doing business with North Korean entities. They said that they would like us to continue to deal with them, as it was better that we conducted this business rather than another financial entity that might not be so cooperative with the United States."
Unfortunately, Au doesn’t recall the names of the agents he dealt with.
However, he did state that since 1994, “the Bank made the policy decision to send all large value deposits of US dollar bills from North Korean sources to the Hong Kong branch of Republic (which became HSBC) to certify authenticity using its advanced technology. "
Unless the Treasury Department can introduce evidence of significant counterfeit dollar activity handled by BDA since 1994, Au’s statement should cause serious heartburn for the hardline crowd.
The background of the petitions is this:
The final rule against Banco Delta Asia isn’t a law; it’s a rule by a regulatory agency.
Because it’s not a law, there is no evidentiary/due process/transparency hocus-pocus.
The whole process is conducted secretly and unilaterally, which is pretty much the way the government likes it, I’m sure.
Beefs about rules are handled under the Administrative Procedures Act, which was enacted in 1946 to address concerns about the broad range of regulatory, quasi-legal powers wielded by agencies of the executive branch starting with FDR’s New Deal.
Interested parties may petition the relevant agency, in this case the Treasury Department, to review its ruling. Upon receipt of the petition, the Treasury Department can decide to reverse its rule or reject the petition; there’s no requirement to have any kind of hearing, rebut arguments, etc.
If the interested party is dissatisfied with the outcome, it can sue—in this case in district court.
However, the only basis for allowing a lawsuit to proceed is if Treasury abused its regulatory powers, in legal speak if Treasury acted arbitrarily and capriciously, abused its discretion, or otherwise acted not in accordance with the law.
BDA has already filed its petition.
Stanley Au is an “interested party” not just because he’s the majority stockholder in Delta Asia Group, the holding company that owns BDA.
He’s an interested party because the Treasury Department declared that his continued ownership of the bank is the sole reason why the Treasury Department can’t rest easy and accept the improvements that BDA, the government management committee running the bank, the Macau Monetary Authority, and the government of the Macau SAR undertook to improve bank management, tighten financial controls, and pass anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws during the 18 months of the Treasury’s investigation of BDA.
As Treasury put it in the final rule:
Despite any remedial measures and regulatory changes, this historical pattern of disregard by the bank’s management and primary shareholder regarding both the systemic due diligence failures at the bank and the potential use of the bank for illicit purposes, and the resultant likelihood of recidivism...leave us concerned about the potential for the bank to be continued to be used for money laundering and other illicit purposes. [emphasis added—ed.]
Since the 2005-era managers of the bank are long gone and not coming back, that leaves Stanley Au as the only reason why BDA can’t be trusted to be a clean bank.
Obviously, Treasury doesn’t like Stanley Au.
But maybe that’s not a good enough reason to cut his bank off from the U.S. financial system.
Treasury has not taken the step of calling a Stanley Au a criminal banker.
Treasury chose not to classify BDA as a money-laundering bank e.g. a bank that as a matter of conscious policy conducts money-laundering on behalf of illicit actors.
BDA was sanctioned as a bank “of primary money laundering concerns”, one with weak financial controls, instead. The whole point of that designation is to get the bank and the local authorities to tighten controls, which they did.
So Treasury is now trying to use a bait and switch approach, threatening sanctions meant to effect a tightening of financial controls, then, after the controls are tightened, saying that was not enough because the real issue is suspicion of undesirable intent by the bank’s owner.
The interesting (and for Treasury, rather awkward) question of why the Macau Monetary Authority should be judged incapable of preventing recidivism by its most famous or notorious corporate citizen—implying that the real problem is with the Macau government—is begged by the muddled Treasury rule, but never addressed.
Furthermore, how enticing are the temptations of recidivism to Stanley Au?
I don’t think that impartial observers would believe that the potential profits from future illicit North Korean transactions are so great that Au would take the colossal risk of pursuing them while under the scrutiny of new management, a new board, the Macau and Hong Kong monetary authorities, and the U.S. Treasury Department.
In the conclusion of his statement, Au does a convincing job of pointing out that “recidivism” on his part would be little more than professional suicide:
"Successful resolution of the concerns raised by the U.S. government, which have been publicized around the world, has been a matter of greatest importance both to the Bank and to the Government of Macau...I understood that it was of paramount importance, for my own sake, for the Bank’s sake, and for the Government’s sake to make every effort to fully implement commitments made by my Government’s representatives in my bank’s name, while under the scrutiny of the U.S. authorities and the international media. To have done otherwise would have been unthinkable."
The alternate view—one that is probably shared by Stanley Au, the Macau Monetary Authority, China, the UN as it interpreted its sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear, missile, and proliferation networks, and, I suspect a large percentage of the world’s nations—is that legitimate North Korean financial activity does exist, BDA had a right to solicit North Korean accounts and handle North Korean transactions, and Stanley Au should be allowed to run his bank as long as he conforms to the laws of his jurisdiction--and not be used as a political football in Washington's dealings with Pyongyang.
The Delta Asia Group petition observes:
But BDA’s owners and former managers had no reason to know, prior to FinCEN’s September 2005 finding, that the United States now held the view that bank dealings with North Korea must be entirely avoided. Whether for geopolitical reasons or otherwise, the U.S. government chose not to avail itself of any of the formal mechanisms available to it to put banks on notice of this apparent change of policy...Instead it “announced” this new position by singling out for sanction one small Macau bank, apparently hoping to achieve by in terrorem effects what it did not wish to impose by straightforward regulation.
In terms of attempts to get the rule rescinded, the allegation with the most damaging potential is that the Treasury Department never raised its fears of recidivism during its investigation and rule-making process in order to give Au a chance to give a satisfactory response—it announced these concerns for the first time in its final rule and, what's more, made them the central justification for imposing the most onerous "Special Measure Five".
If BDA decides to try to overturn the rule with a lawsuit, this appearance of “arbitrary and capricious action” by the Treasury Department may persuade the judge to let the legal system open the whole North Korean policy/Patriot Act 311 can of worms to determine if evidence or diplomatic strategy drove Treasury’s seemingly flawed, self-contradictory rule on BDA.
If so, damning statements like this one from David Asher, the self-styled architect of Washington’s North Korea initiatives, may persuade a US judge that the burden of proof is on the Treasury Department to substantiate its allegations against BDA in open court—or abandon them:
The Illicit Activities Initiative prominently involved the use of several—the development of the—conceptualization of the use of several of the tools you’re discussing today including USA Patriot Act Section 311. We worked hand in glove with the Treasury Department to apply and plan to apply against North Korea, and after a time of deep research we came to conclude that one of the best spots was in Macau against Banco Delta Asia."
...
“Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing business in North Korea...and we’re not talking about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of millions.”
Saturday, May 12, 2007
This looks like it’s really it...
Commenter David provides the link to a news report indicating that he was right and I was wrong in predicting whether or not a US bank would receive the BDA funds. Congrats Dave, and thanks.
Looks like Washington blinked again and Pyongyang’s “dirty” money is headed for a US bank, rather than to South Korea.
Since it comes from the Washington Times, I guess we can assume the report reflects bleak hardliner despair rather than frothy realist optimism:
The Bush administration has found a U.S. bank willing to accept $25 million in North Korean funds, and officials hope the transfer -- the final hurdle to the closure of the North's main nuclear reactor -- can take place in the next few days, The Washington Times has learned.
...
U.S. officials did not identify the American bank, although they suggested that it is not one of the bigger and more recognizable institutions.
...
"This time, I think we really do have something," [Christopher Hill] said.
As to why it happened:
The highly unusual decision to let North Korean money labeled by the Treasury as "dirty" be deposited in a U.S. bank -- entailing full access to the international financial system -- was made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., officials said.
...
Mr. Paulson is said to have agreed with Miss Rice because he does not want to risk his good relations with Chinese officials.
All in all, a good, credible article courtesy of Nicholas Kralev. From the Washington Times. Who’da thunk it?
Along the way, it indirectly acknowledges China’s central role in advancing the agreement.
There was, however, a paragraph in the report that indicates that there will continue to be a role for blogs that can remember past last week and have the sense to parse administration spin.
The State Department used the issue as leverage to force North Korea to return to the six-party talks late last year after an 18-month boycott.
Gee, I guess that ATOMIC BOMB in Kim Jung Il’s pocket didn’t have anything to do with restarting the talks.
Or that UN resolution.
Or China’s decision to withdraw its diplomatic protection from Kim Jung Il.
And of course, North Korea left the Six Party talks in late 2005 in response to the BDA action, which one might consider the exact opposite of “rejoining” them.
But all in all, some substantive, positive news on the issue is cause for celebration
Looks like Washington blinked again and Pyongyang’s “dirty” money is headed for a US bank, rather than to South Korea.
Since it comes from the Washington Times, I guess we can assume the report reflects bleak hardliner despair rather than frothy realist optimism:
The Bush administration has found a U.S. bank willing to accept $25 million in North Korean funds, and officials hope the transfer -- the final hurdle to the closure of the North's main nuclear reactor -- can take place in the next few days, The Washington Times has learned.
...
U.S. officials did not identify the American bank, although they suggested that it is not one of the bigger and more recognizable institutions.
...
"This time, I think we really do have something," [Christopher Hill] said.
As to why it happened:
The highly unusual decision to let North Korean money labeled by the Treasury as "dirty" be deposited in a U.S. bank -- entailing full access to the international financial system -- was made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., officials said.
...
Mr. Paulson is said to have agreed with Miss Rice because he does not want to risk his good relations with Chinese officials.
All in all, a good, credible article courtesy of Nicholas Kralev. From the Washington Times. Who’da thunk it?
Along the way, it indirectly acknowledges China’s central role in advancing the agreement.
There was, however, a paragraph in the report that indicates that there will continue to be a role for blogs that can remember past last week and have the sense to parse administration spin.
The State Department used the issue as leverage to force North Korea to return to the six-party talks late last year after an 18-month boycott.
Gee, I guess that ATOMIC BOMB in Kim Jung Il’s pocket didn’t have anything to do with restarting the talks.
Or that UN resolution.
Or China’s decision to withdraw its diplomatic protection from Kim Jung Il.
And of course, North Korea left the Six Party talks in late 2005 in response to the BDA action, which one might consider the exact opposite of “rejoining” them.
But all in all, some substantive, positive news on the issue is cause for celebration
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Aaaaaaaaaaargh
I once read a review of the glacial, demanding pace of Robert Bresson’s French films about misery, moral cowardice, and redemption, which described watching them as “taking a whipping when you can see every blow coming”.
That’s how I’m starting to feel about the BDA saga.
Covering it is an exercise in masochism.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling.
Now, to today’s news, starting with an unsubstantiated and apparently incorrect rumor demonstrating that crappy reporting on BDA is not a Western monopoly:
The Macao-based newspaper Aomen Ribao reported Thursday that BDA dispatched a $13 million tranche to several banks in Russia and Italy, and that the transfer would take two to three days. However, the paper did not name any of the foreign banking organizations supposedly participating in the transaction, nor did it specify where the remaining $12 million would go.
A Russian deputy foreign minister was also unable to confirm that the North Korean funds were being transferred to Russia and Italy after being unfrozen by Washington.
"I do not know how reliable that information is," Alexander Losyukov said.
Not very reliable, as a subsequent report, Russian and Italian Banks refuse North Korean Money indicates.
Later on, the Aomen Ribao a.k.a. Macao Daily, retreated and offered a rehash of reporting from AP, the Washington Post, et. al. concerning the bewildering question of What’s Goin’ On? but also offering the interesting nugget I hadn’t seemed elsewhere that SecDef Gates apparently just wants to get this thing over with.
The South Korean media weighs in with a more mainstream version:
U.S. 'to Let American Bank Handle N.Korea's Money'
North Korea’s immediate banking troubles will likely be resolved this week, as chances are high that the U.S. will accept the North’s demand to transfer its assets in Macau to a third country via a U.S. bank. Diplomatic sources on Wednesday said the U.S. is inclined to allow a U.S. bank to play an intermediary role in transferring the recently unfrozen US$25 million. Quoting a U.S. official, AP reported the U.S. Treasury was expected to make a decision by as early as Thursday. The official told the news agency, “The North Koreans want to use an American bank because they think the transaction would help secure their continued access to the global financial system.”
The matter has been delayed because no international bank wanted to touch the money after the Treasury identified some of it as coming from illicit activities.
In Sean McCormack’s press briefing at the State Department, he certainly didn’t rule out the involvement of a US bank.
QUESTION: Thanks. North Korea insisted to have the North Korea funding in BDA be transferred to an American banking institution. Is it agreeable to the United States?
MR. MCCORMACK: They're still working with their bankers and if there's any requirement for an opinion from the Treasury Department as to whether or not this is a transaction that the financial institutions involved would feel comfortable doing, then the Treasury Department will take a look at that and see what it is that they can do.
You can speak to my colleagues over at Treasury as to whether or not they're looking at that or working on anything.
The Treasury Department ain't sayin' nuttin':
But Molly Millerwise, Treasury's spokesperson, denied the report."The U.S. Treasury Department is not aware of any such request from North Korea to use a U.S. bank to transfer funds," she said in an e-mail to Yonhap.
It looks like the South Koreans—who looked like they were going to step up, albeit grudgingly and handle the transaction through their ExIm bank to get the ball rolling—decided to get uninvolved:
Per Yonhap:
Press reports over the weekend said a South Korean bank may serve as an intermediary in delivering US$25 million from Macau to a third country. Some said North Korea initially asked a New York bank to play that role but that was rejected by the U.S.A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not flatly reject either of the possibilities.
He said the use of a South Korean bank "could well end up being a solution," but added "at this point, I wouldn't focus too heavily on it." Asked if a New York bank remains an option, he only said there were a "lot of different options people are looking at."
Maybe Seoul developed qualms because the Treasury Department wasn’t prepared to give an unambiguous assurance to a foreign bank that their credit rating wouldn’t get dinged by handling BDA funds.
Maybe only a US bank can receive an ironclad legal waiver from Treasury that completely sanitizes the BDA remittances and lets them vanish into the world financial system.
According to the Russians:
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, head of the Russian negotiating team at the six-party negotiations with North Korea, said in Beijing that there would be no problem transferring the money if the U.S. guaranteed in writing that no consequences would befall the bank accepting the funds.
Maybe this is just North Korean brinksmanship, trying to squeeze additional concessions out of the United States that it can spin as a return to the international financial system.
But it looks like the problems are genuine.
At least, no banks have stepped up (including any in Japan, which hates the agreement and would love to call a North Korean bluff) and said, Hey, you crazy North Koreans! I’ll take your dirty money!
This is getting pretty tiresome and it seems that somebody should step in and instruct the Treasury Department to stop noodging on this deal.
Am I the only one who’s wondering why our Commander in Chief a.k.a. the Decider a.k.a. the Commander Guy can’t issue an Executive Order instructing the Treasury Department to knock off the BDA funds vendetta so the Six Party show can get on the road?
After all, Patriot Act Section 311 sanctions require a finding that they won’t harm the international financial system.
Surely the boredom and exasperation surrounding this ridiculous transaction rates as sufficiently harmful to pull the plug on the BDA final rule, in part if not in entirety.
That’s how I’m starting to feel about the BDA saga.
Covering it is an exercise in masochism.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling.
Now, to today’s news, starting with an unsubstantiated and apparently incorrect rumor demonstrating that crappy reporting on BDA is not a Western monopoly:
The Macao-based newspaper Aomen Ribao reported Thursday that BDA dispatched a $13 million tranche to several banks in Russia and Italy, and that the transfer would take two to three days. However, the paper did not name any of the foreign banking organizations supposedly participating in the transaction, nor did it specify where the remaining $12 million would go.
A Russian deputy foreign minister was also unable to confirm that the North Korean funds were being transferred to Russia and Italy after being unfrozen by Washington.
"I do not know how reliable that information is," Alexander Losyukov said.
Not very reliable, as a subsequent report, Russian and Italian Banks refuse North Korean Money indicates.
Later on, the Aomen Ribao a.k.a. Macao Daily, retreated and offered a rehash of reporting from AP, the Washington Post, et. al. concerning the bewildering question of What’s Goin’ On? but also offering the interesting nugget I hadn’t seemed elsewhere that SecDef Gates apparently just wants to get this thing over with.
The South Korean media weighs in with a more mainstream version:
U.S. 'to Let American Bank Handle N.Korea's Money'
North Korea’s immediate banking troubles will likely be resolved this week, as chances are high that the U.S. will accept the North’s demand to transfer its assets in Macau to a third country via a U.S. bank. Diplomatic sources on Wednesday said the U.S. is inclined to allow a U.S. bank to play an intermediary role in transferring the recently unfrozen US$25 million. Quoting a U.S. official, AP reported the U.S. Treasury was expected to make a decision by as early as Thursday. The official told the news agency, “The North Koreans want to use an American bank because they think the transaction would help secure their continued access to the global financial system.”
The matter has been delayed because no international bank wanted to touch the money after the Treasury identified some of it as coming from illicit activities.
In Sean McCormack’s press briefing at the State Department, he certainly didn’t rule out the involvement of a US bank.
QUESTION: Thanks. North Korea insisted to have the North Korea funding in BDA be transferred to an American banking institution. Is it agreeable to the United States?
MR. MCCORMACK: They're still working with their bankers and if there's any requirement for an opinion from the Treasury Department as to whether or not this is a transaction that the financial institutions involved would feel comfortable doing, then the Treasury Department will take a look at that and see what it is that they can do.
You can speak to my colleagues over at Treasury as to whether or not they're looking at that or working on anything.
The Treasury Department ain't sayin' nuttin':
But Molly Millerwise, Treasury's spokesperson, denied the report."The U.S. Treasury Department is not aware of any such request from North Korea to use a U.S. bank to transfer funds," she said in an e-mail to Yonhap.
It looks like the South Koreans—who looked like they were going to step up, albeit grudgingly and handle the transaction through their ExIm bank to get the ball rolling—decided to get uninvolved:
Per Yonhap:
Press reports over the weekend said a South Korean bank may serve as an intermediary in delivering US$25 million from Macau to a third country. Some said North Korea initially asked a New York bank to play that role but that was rejected by the U.S.A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not flatly reject either of the possibilities.
He said the use of a South Korean bank "could well end up being a solution," but added "at this point, I wouldn't focus too heavily on it." Asked if a New York bank remains an option, he only said there were a "lot of different options people are looking at."
Maybe Seoul developed qualms because the Treasury Department wasn’t prepared to give an unambiguous assurance to a foreign bank that their credit rating wouldn’t get dinged by handling BDA funds.
Maybe only a US bank can receive an ironclad legal waiver from Treasury that completely sanitizes the BDA remittances and lets them vanish into the world financial system.
According to the Russians:
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, head of the Russian negotiating team at the six-party negotiations with North Korea, said in Beijing that there would be no problem transferring the money if the U.S. guaranteed in writing that no consequences would befall the bank accepting the funds.
Maybe this is just North Korean brinksmanship, trying to squeeze additional concessions out of the United States that it can spin as a return to the international financial system.
But it looks like the problems are genuine.
At least, no banks have stepped up (including any in Japan, which hates the agreement and would love to call a North Korean bluff) and said, Hey, you crazy North Koreans! I’ll take your dirty money!
This is getting pretty tiresome and it seems that somebody should step in and instruct the Treasury Department to stop noodging on this deal.
Am I the only one who’s wondering why our Commander in Chief a.k.a. the Decider a.k.a. the Commander Guy can’t issue an Executive Order instructing the Treasury Department to knock off the BDA funds vendetta so the Six Party show can get on the road?
After all, Patriot Act Section 311 sanctions require a finding that they won’t harm the international financial system.
Surely the boredom and exasperation surrounding this ridiculous transaction rates as sufficiently harmful to pull the plug on the BDA final rule, in part if not in entirety.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
A Step Beyond Melamine
More on the China Pet Food Additives Scandal
It’s refreshing that the New York Times is doing some crackerjack investigative reporting.
It’s rather unique that the reporting concerns a scandal in China, rather than America: China’s role as a serial contaminator of feed additives.
And it’s ironic that it’s a story that the Chinese government is probably less than eager to see covered by any media outlet, let alone America’s most authoritative news outlet, the New York Times.
Today’s entry from the Times’ David Barboza, Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Case, concerns the possible presence of a second contaminate, cyanuric acid in Chinese feed ingredients.
Barboza reports that cyanuric acid, like melamine, was added to feed ingredients to inexpensively increase their perceived protein content (for more on how protein is measured, see this post).
Scientists are speculating that melamine and cyanuric acid, presumed harmless by themselves, may have combined fatally to damage the kidneys of the pets that consumed food laced with the additives.
China Matters’ humble contribution to this story is the information that a compound of melamine and cyanuric acid, melamine cyanurate or MCA (氰尿酸三聚氰胺), is used in the Chinese plastics industry as an anti-oxidant and flame retardant.
Its primary use seems to be in the production of Nylon 6 and Nylon 66, the two polymers used to manufacture nylon tire cord, the material that adds strength to the carcass of the rubber tire.
Shandong province, where the laced material (not even crappy wheat gluten but, according to Barboza, ordinary wheat flour juiced with additives to make it test like higher quality and more expensive gluten--that's a cheap, nasty trick) was probably produced is, for reasons that escape me, big in tire factories.
And it’s also big in production of MCA. MCA is an inorganic compound apparently produced by facilities involved in China’s coastal salt chemical industry, which has many facilities stretching along the shallow coastal plain from Jiangsu to Shandong to Tianjin.
On a list of MCA producers and suppliers that is probably by no means comprehensive over one third of the enterprises are in Shandong or immediately adjacent.
FYI.
It’s refreshing that the New York Times is doing some crackerjack investigative reporting.
It’s rather unique that the reporting concerns a scandal in China, rather than America: China’s role as a serial contaminator of feed additives.
And it’s ironic that it’s a story that the Chinese government is probably less than eager to see covered by any media outlet, let alone America’s most authoritative news outlet, the New York Times.
Today’s entry from the Times’ David Barboza, Another Chemical Emerges in Pet Food Case, concerns the possible presence of a second contaminate, cyanuric acid in Chinese feed ingredients.
Barboza reports that cyanuric acid, like melamine, was added to feed ingredients to inexpensively increase their perceived protein content (for more on how protein is measured, see this post).
Scientists are speculating that melamine and cyanuric acid, presumed harmless by themselves, may have combined fatally to damage the kidneys of the pets that consumed food laced with the additives.
China Matters’ humble contribution to this story is the information that a compound of melamine and cyanuric acid, melamine cyanurate or MCA (氰尿酸三聚氰胺), is used in the Chinese plastics industry as an anti-oxidant and flame retardant.
Its primary use seems to be in the production of Nylon 6 and Nylon 66, the two polymers used to manufacture nylon tire cord, the material that adds strength to the carcass of the rubber tire.
Shandong province, where the laced material (not even crappy wheat gluten but, according to Barboza, ordinary wheat flour juiced with additives to make it test like higher quality and more expensive gluten--that's a cheap, nasty trick) was probably produced is, for reasons that escape me, big in tire factories.
And it’s also big in production of MCA. MCA is an inorganic compound apparently produced by facilities involved in China’s coastal salt chemical industry, which has many facilities stretching along the shallow coastal plain from Jiangsu to Shandong to Tianjin.
On a list of MCA producers and suppliers that is probably by no means comprehensive over one third of the enterprises are in Shandong or immediately adjacent.
FYI.
Sepia Mutiny added to blogroll
When China Matters got named in that “5 blogs that make me think” thingee, I didn’t do anything, mainly because the China blogs I read were all taken already.
However, I do have a list of non-Chinese blogs that make me think, mainly because they provide an inside look on places and people that I know very little about.
One of them is Sepia Mutiny, a blog for the Indian expat community.
It offers a vision of what a great group blog by Chinese writers and accessible to Western readers would look like—if the Chinese writers were Anglophone, informed, thoughtful, and good natured and not embroiled in the Taiwan vs. PRC, Communism vs. democracy, US vs. China, patriotism vs. human rights, spy vs. spy, troll vs. troll censored, monitored, and paranoid state of incipient flamewar that seems to hang over the China blogosphere like a dark cloud sometimes.
As an example of what I mean, look at the 100+ impassioned but reasoned and reasonably collegial comments taking on the incendiary issue, (I’m paraphrasing here) Was Gandhi an anti-semite...or just a dope?
I’m taking this opportunity to add Sepia Mutiny to my blogroll...
...and link to a eye-popping post about an incident on American Airlines where a vigilante passenger walked up behind a distinguished architect, Seth Stein, put him in a headlock, and rifled his belongings because Stein fitted his personal profile of a terrorist: he was brown (actually rich-guy tanned, not Arab-guy swarthy), had used the bathroom, and was carrying an iPod.
Reactions of other passengers and the airline add up to a feel-good story about how individual human decency flourishes even in an atmosphere of government-fostered paranoia—not!
Read the whole thing, Flying While Brown, even Jewish at Sepia Mutiny.
However, I do have a list of non-Chinese blogs that make me think, mainly because they provide an inside look on places and people that I know very little about.
One of them is Sepia Mutiny, a blog for the Indian expat community.
It offers a vision of what a great group blog by Chinese writers and accessible to Western readers would look like—if the Chinese writers were Anglophone, informed, thoughtful, and good natured and not embroiled in the Taiwan vs. PRC, Communism vs. democracy, US vs. China, patriotism vs. human rights, spy vs. spy, troll vs. troll censored, monitored, and paranoid state of incipient flamewar that seems to hang over the China blogosphere like a dark cloud sometimes.
As an example of what I mean, look at the 100+ impassioned but reasoned and reasonably collegial comments taking on the incendiary issue, (I’m paraphrasing here) Was Gandhi an anti-semite...or just a dope?
I’m taking this opportunity to add Sepia Mutiny to my blogroll...
...and link to a eye-popping post about an incident on American Airlines where a vigilante passenger walked up behind a distinguished architect, Seth Stein, put him in a headlock, and rifled his belongings because Stein fitted his personal profile of a terrorist: he was brown (actually rich-guy tanned, not Arab-guy swarthy), had used the bathroom, and was carrying an iPod.
Reactions of other passengers and the airline add up to a feel-good story about how individual human decency flourishes even in an atmosphere of government-fostered paranoia—not!
Read the whole thing, Flying While Brown, even Jewish at Sepia Mutiny.
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