re: #35 freetoken

One of tonight’s more troubling headlines:

Chinese Court Sentences US Geologist to 8 Years

There’s a lot that could be written about this story, and perhaps if I have time I’ll write up a Pages entry.

In the transition from a US-dominated world to a multi-polar world we will be faced with less influence in all manner of situations. This is the way of the world, and something from which we Americans have often been shielded overseas by our super-power status. Sure, drug traffickers and such usually face harsh treatment in many of the worlds’ courts, but in this case it was a business man arranging the sale of a database to one of the world’s premier petroleum industry service companies (IHS.)

Recommend reading the whole article.

FT-

I agree with your basic thesis, but jeez, what was he thinking trying to transfer a database of strategic petroleum capacity in China to an American company? We just rounded up a bunch of Russians trying to do the same kind of Industrial Espionage here.