As a diversion from my gloom over the Abu Ghraib nightmare, I went to a baseball game this afternoon. Beijing was shutout 4-zip by Tianjin in the Chinese Baseball League, the Middle Kingdom's attempt to solidify professional baseball for the years to come. The level of play is about that of a last place team in a Single A short-season rookie minor league in the states--with some individual exceptions. Beijing has a little second baseman that could probably play at the Double A level with another season under him. But it's baseball, it's fun, and some day there will be real talent coming out of China headed for the MLB. Anyway, a ballyard, any ballyard is special to me, a place of safe harbor where the cares of the world evaporate for a few hours. Baseball has been a very large part of my life, throughout my life. I am just happy to have it here on the other side of the world, where I now make my home
I am now awaiting Donald Rumsfeld's appointment with a congressional grilling live on CNN. But in a brief bit of surfing after a fine meal at a Muslim Chinese restaurant here in Beijing, I came across the story below in The Guardian. Interesting, give the whole piece a good read:
But the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, and the president of the European commission, Romano Prodi, did sign new agreements to boost expanding trade ties and pledged to deepen relations.
Mr Wen, who went to Brussels with a 100-strong delegation, tried but failed to secure an end to the arms embargo imposed after the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.
"We have expressed the hope that the EU will lift its arms embargo and give us the status of a market economy," he said, adding that trade and human rights issues should not be linked.
Mr Prodi said any lifting would have to be agreed to by all 25 EU member states. France and Germany are both keen to sell sophisticated weapons to China, and argue that the issue is now of purely symbolic significance.
EU trade is handled by the commission, but foreign policy proper remains in the hands of national governments - one of the union's peculiarities that its partners find puzzling and frustrating.
Britain, concerned about limits on democracy in Hong Kong, is against ending the embargo. So is the US, which accuses Beijing of backsliding on human rights and says sales could upset the strategic balance in east Asia.
Mr Wen, who is a modernising reformer, has already visited Germany and heads for Italy, Britain and Ireland before returning home next week. China sees a strong EU as a useful political and economic counter-balance to the US.
