China used to supply technology to India, but India's now far more advanced than China. They have never supplied anything to Pakistan as far as I'm aware, who was the US client in the region during the Cold War. China also has some major border issues with India, and India has given refuge to a number of Tibetans, which rankles Beijing. They even had a few border skirmishes in the Himalayas back in the 70s or 80s, iirc. India was primarily the Soviet Union's client during the Cold War. They almost certainly have provided all kinds of assistance, including military and technological, to North Korea.
Our sister province in China is Heilongjiang, the NE-most province of China (capital, Harbin, which is also Edmonton's sister city; their second city and actual centre of the oil industry, Daqing, is Calgary's sister city. Heilongjiang, an oil-producing region, is not known for its technology (although it's made recent impressive advances) but I believe a lot of primary resources were sent to North Korea from the Heilongjiang area over the years. Or through Heilongjiang in any case. In an interesting coincidence of "nordicity", Heilongjiang and Alberta are both partnered with Hokkaido, Japan. Which reminds me, if Cousin Bill is listening, but a Hokkaido court has deemed it illegal for bathhouses to exclude foreigners, long a sore spot with foreigners, even those who are Japanese citizens. ObNameDropping: Two anecdotes -- 1. A company I was working for before I got into medical products, a company that's now defunct, made powerful image analysis systems for the interpretation of satellite imagery. It was a kind of AI software and we added special array processors to a VAX 780 to power it, but the real IP was the software, which used "intelligent pixels" and performed various kinds of transforms and filters to it to get all kinds of data. We sold several systems to Wuhan University (in the south, west of Shanghai) who used it to develop a system using LANDSAT V (US), SPOT Image (French) and RADARSAT (Canadian) satellites to make very quick estimates of rice yields in different areas, and also to explore the Xinjiang arid region to the NW, an area populated largely by non-Han peoples such as the Uighers, who are Muslim (this area is also known as East Turkistan, but that's a "non-word" in official Chinese, just as "Tibetan" is and for the same reason). As it says on the website of the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, " In July 1985, Mr. LI Xiannian, President of China, made a state visit to Canada, the first one by the President of China to Canada after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries. President LI Xiannian met with Governor General Jeanne SAUVE and Prime Minister Martin Brian MULRONEY and held talks with them." The position of president is ceremonial, like a governor general here, or the Bundespr�sident in Germany, but he and his entourage toured our plant, as we were doing a lot of business with our company (my colleague, who covered China and East Asia, has even been to Urumqi, the capital of Xiangjiang, near Lon Nor, where China's nuclear testing facility -- their equivalent of Alamogordo, if you will -- one of the few western businessmen to go there at the time). I shook Pres. Li's hand, which means I have personally met someone who was a veteran of the Long March and a confidant of Mao Zedong, so there's only 1 degree of separation between me and Mao. 2. The Vice-Governor (Science) of Heilongjiang came to Edmonton on an official visit before I went on sick leave, a visit I co-hosted (although of course it was my minister, the Minister of Innovation and Science, and the Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations who were the official co-hosts -- Marv and I did all the leg work, though (I've emailed Marv, my co-host counterpart in IIR to get her name and the date of the visit, because I can't remember). It would have been in the summer of 2001, in any case. She was a very nice, unassuming but dignified lady. The first thing Marvin, my colleague at IIR did, when we picked them up at the airport in a big rental van, was stop off on the way downtown at an inobtrusive but good quality Chinese restaurant (a real one, not North American style) because we found out they had all, including the vice-governor (who's the counterpart of a minister), flown economy class on China's national airlines from Beijing to Vancouver without stopover and with no meals served on the flight, and then had taken an additional Air Canada flight from Vancouver which was a late night flight and so likewise did not serve any meals. We ended our trip with the ritual exchange of gifts after a meeting at a fancy restaurant here called Characters (very nouveau up market), and I remember the Vice-Consul from the Chinese consulate-general in Calgary sitting next to my boss, slowly getting drunk on Chinese rocket fuel, which they call liqueur (I think it does double-duty; very efficient that way). It was 80 proof stuff, like commercial vodka or rum, and this fellow (about which I wish I could tell more, but I'm constrained by the Public Service Act of Alberta. There's a story I'm straining to tell, and will tell JWR privately when he's here) kept pushing drinks on my boss, who is LDS. I was sitting right across the table from them, and it was amazing to watch the tact that my boss used to deny drinks. It was the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. I complimented him on it, and he said he'd had lots of practice on trips to China and Japan. It basically consisted of changing the subject. Pronunciation guide: Heilongjiang = HIGH-loong-JYONG Harbin = Ha&bin, equal emphasis on both syllables; & is the Chinese "r" and "l" -- like the Japanese, one sound covers both of these letters in most cases. It's like our "l" except the tongue touches the hard palate very quickly and lightly while making it, and not like an "l" where the tongue touches the teeth. Daqing = dah-TSING Xiangjiang = HSEE-AHN-gahng. Urumqi = (in Mandarin, not the local language) OO-&oom-OO-tsee Uighur, the traditional western spelling, is also spelled Uyghur and there is a separatist movement there, which refers to their "state" as either East Turkistan, or Uyghirstan. Here's more information on their situation: http://www.taklamakan.org/erkin/Press/wpjul298.htm "Uighur" is pronounced more or less like WEE-ghoor, where "gh" is a gutteral like a voiced German "ch". "John W. Redelfs" wrote: > After much pondering, Gary Smith favored us with: > >Although we are still technically better and more skilled, their numbers > >allow them an advantage we don't have. A war with them would end up in > >mass casualties on both sides. And they wouldn't fear using the bomb, > >because the Chinese believe that they would survive a nuclear attack due > >to their sheer mass of people. > > Has China been at all involved in supplying nuclear technology to India, > Pakistan, or North Korea? --JWR > > ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// > /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// > /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// > ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// > -- Marc A. Schindler Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada -- Gateway to the Boreal Parkland �Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on� � Winston Churchill Note: This communication represents the informal personal views of the author solely; its contents do not necessarily reflect those of the author�s employer, nor those of any organization with which the author may be associated. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================
