The International Herald Tribune, the global edition of the New York Times, last week issued the following bizarre apology to top leaders of the government of Singapore:

In 1994, Philip Bowring, a contributor to the International Herald Tribune’s op-ed page, agreed as part of an undertaking with the leaders of the government of Singapore that he would not say or imply that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had attained his position through nepotism practiced by his father Lee Kuan Yew. In a February 15, 2010, article, Mr. Bowring nonetheless included these two men in a list of Asian political dynasties, which may have been understood by readers to infer that the younger Mr. Lee did not achieve his position through merit. We wish to state clearly that this inference was not intended. We apologize to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong for any distress or embarrassment caused by any breach of the undertaking and the article.

What the apology doesn't say, but an article published last week by the New York Times does, is that the  company that publishes both papers paid $114,000 to the Singapore leaders to settle a libel suit out of court and had the article in question removed from the Web, according to the leaders' attorney. Hmmm.

Of course, it's impossible to unpublish things online these days, and the paper's strange apology has only attracted more attention to the fact that the current prime minister of Singapore happens to be the son of its former prime minister. Reporters Without Borders used the episode to fire off a harsh letter to Prime Minister Lee highlighting all the various ways his government inhibits press freedoms, and the apology even raised Henry Blodget's ethical hackles.

The offending paragraph, which ran under the headline "Are political dynasties good or bad?," appears to be this one:

The list of Asian countries with governments headed by the offspring or
spouses of former leaders is striking: Pakistan has Prime Minister Asif Ali
Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, herself the daughter of the executed
former leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bangladesh has Sheikh Hasina, daughter of
the murdered first prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In Malaysia,
Prime Minister Najib Razak is the son of the second prime minister, Abdul
Razak. Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong is Lee Kuan Yew's son. In North Korea,
Kim Il-sung's son Kim Jong-il commands party, army and country and waiting
in the wings is his son Kim Jong-un. 

Nasty company, but libel? Give me a break. "Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong is Lee Kuan Yew's son" is a factual statement.

So the question is: Why did the Times Company apologize? Why not just tell Singapore to stuff it? How many newspapers and ads does the IHT sell there anyway?

Nothing's confirmed yet, but this does not sound good: 

A South Korean navy ship with about 100 personnel on board is sinking off the west coast near North Korea, possibly due to a torpedo attack, reports say.

The ship was sinking near Baengnyeong island, Yonhap news agency quoted navy officials as saying.

It also said another South Korean ship had fired shots toward an unidentified ship in the North. The involvement of North Korea has not been confirmed.

North Korea threatened the South with "unprecedented nuclear strikes" this morning over reports that Soeul was preparing for instability in the North. Such threats are hardly unusual, but if North Korea is indeed behind the sinking, that would be the biggest escalation of the conflict in years. With more reports of economic distress and internal strife coming out of the Hermit Kingdom, Kim Jong Il may have bargained that it was time to pick an international fight.

Thailand's red-shirt protesters not only made good on their threat to pour gallons of their own blood on Bangkok's Government House on Tuesday, they followed it up today by hurling more human blood at Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva's home today. The Red Cross has complained that the tactic is not only wasteful but dangerous in a country with a fairly high AIDS rate, but it's certainly succeeded in drawing attention to their cause. The only thing is, most people, including many Thais, have no idea what it all means.

The Guardian's Jon Henley looked into it:

There appear, however, to be relatively few examples of blood being poured as a form of modern political protest. That's what it plainly is, though, for those leading Thailand's pro-Thaksin demonstrations – even if they're not entirely certain why. Nattawut Saikur, one Red leader, said the blood showed the movement's "commitment in calling for democracy", and was an "important curse ritual". If Abhisit refuses to step down, Saikur added, "even though he does not have blood on his hands, his feet will be bloodied with our curses".Another Red leader, Veera Musikapong, said the gesture was "a sacrificial offering . . . to show our love for the nation, to show our sincerity". A third, Somsak Janprasert, told AFP: "This is a very symbolic way to express that our blood, the people's blood, is power."

Experts on Thai culture and beliefs appear no less nonplussed: as SP Somtow, a Thai author and composer, relates on his entertaining and informative blog (somtow.org) that a recent televised debate between an authoritative panel of "Thailand's leading astrologers and magicians" failed completely to arrive at any meaningful conclusion as to the efficacy – or, indeed, the meaning – of the blood-spattering ceremonies, beyond observing that many Red supporters come from "the superstitious north".

Possible theories, Somtow says, include the Cambodian "which states that pouring blood on the headquarters of the government is a Cambodian plot to ensure the return of Thaksin"; the Astrologers, propounded by the chairperson of the Thai astrology society, which holds that blood-spilling is "simple sympathetic magic in order to gain victory, and the sort of thing anyone would do under the circumstances"; and the Historical, which seems based on the legend that the 16th-century Thai king Naresuan once ordered his army to capture and behead the Khmer king Satha so he could "use his victim's blood to wash his feet in".

Personally, I think they're just trying to capitalize on the vampire trend.

Time magazine's cover current package is the third of their annual “10 Ideas” issues; this time it’s forward-oriented, focused on "10 Ideas That Will Shape the Next Ten Years." One of those is a piece on the U.S.-China relationship by yours truly: “The Indispensable Axis: Their frenemy-ship will shape the decade.”  

Every concept need some catchy jargon, right? A year ago we heard a lot in Washington about the "G-2," the notion that an expanded bilateral relationship between Washington and Beijing might steer the world. Well, there's certainly a lot less of that talk lately. Not only because heightened tensions between the two countries on myriad fronts have since taken the shine off the idea, but also because the notion of grand pooh-bahs from the U.S. and China hashing out the world order in grand summits was always a bit starry-eyed anyway. Last year, Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal of the Council on Foreign Relations sliced and diced that notion in a very smart Foreign Affairs article, "The G-2 Mirage." (Summary: "A heightened bilateral relationship may not be possible for China and the United States, as the two countries have mismatched interests and values. Washington should embrace a more flexible and multilateral approach.")

It's telling that one of the strongest proponents of the "G-2" concept has been former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose vision of how two superpowers get along (or don't) was shaped by the Cold War. But we aren't really back to the U.S.S.R. Although Soviet-era memories and defensive reflexes are apparently never far from the thoughts of Washington and foreign-policy elites (in his New York Times column, Tom Friedman is lately fond of billing China's expanding green-tech manufacturing sector as the "New Sputnik," tapping into latent anxieties on Capitol Hill), we aren't headed for a new Cold War. The U.S. and China are far too mutually dependent and economically intertwined -- a notion that's been widely explored in recent books and already birthed its own jargon, from Niall Ferguson's "Chimerica" to Zachary Karabell's "Superfusion."

So if we aren't going to see future smoke-filled summits on par with Yalta or SALT negotiations in which the leaders of two superpowers decide the world's fate -- nor a cozy alliance resembling the United States' "special relationship" with Britain -- what will we see? With apologies to Madeleine Albright, who declared the United States as "the indispensable nation," here's how I frame the next decade of the U.S.-China indispensable axis: 

There is no precedent for this unique evolving relationship, one in which the two sides will both compete and cooperate, perhaps simultaneously, as they shape and support a global system they can benefit from.

In some ways, this axis might resemble the fluidity of the G-8, the group of industrialized countries that cooperate on economic issues where they share interests but go their separate ways on issues where they don't. Washington and Beijing will increasingly be the 800-lb. gorillas in multilateral architectures like the G-20 or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation while developing a shifting bilateral relationship, working together closely on some issues and hampering each other's unilateral actions on others.

The good folks at Time, bless 'em, shortened this in the headline to: "frenemy-ship."

The Heritage Foundation has pulled together a fascinating study of Chinese investment -- showing (with really nice charts and maps!) just where all of those yuan are heading overseas.

A few things to note, plus one question....

• Sub-Saharan Africa is the biggest single region for investment for the Chinese. (Plus, $36.4 billion is a lot of investment in a region whose total GDP is $744 billion.)
• China spends the most money in Africa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The resource-rich country is one of the very few on Earth whose economy has actually shrunk in the past 20 years (due to a brutal civil war). 
• For every dollar of U.S. investment, China spends 51 cents in Iran.  
• China invests nearly twice as much in west Asia as in east Asia -- a testament to its need for resources, more so than products.
• China spends more in Australia than any other single country.
• Why is China spending so much in Greece? Shipping?

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a great story on the "My Way" murders in the karaoke-obsessed Philippines. The Times story noted that over the past decade, at least half a dozen people have died just after (or while!) performing the Sinatra tune, ginning up a local legend and landing the story on the NYT's most-read box, a rarity for an international affairs piece.

I looked back at some English-language Filipino news sources, where stories about the "My Way" murders and Filipino karaoke culture abound. A 2002 Philippine Daily Inquirer piece entitled "Rage Against the Machine," for instance, reads: "'My Way' still holds the record for sending the most number of local singers on their way to their Maker. I just read from our Metro pages last week that another fellow got knifed to death that way....Maybe the suspect objected violently to the way his [duet] partner carried his part? Maybe he felt being drunk was not an excuse?...Extreme aesthetics."

Here at FP, we wondered how karaoke became so popular in the Philippines in the first place. The sing-along machine is apparently a fixture in bars, clubs, and private homes, and popular even at funerals.  It turns out, that is in part because Filipinos consider karaoke to be a local invention -- though its provenance is a long-standing international dispute.

It all comes down to Daisuke Inoue of Japan and Roberto "Bert" del Rosario of the Philippines. Inoue argues that he built the first karaoke machine and rented it to various bars and clubs in Kobe, Japan, starting around 1971. He coined the phrase "karaoke," which means "empty orchestra" in Japanese -- and never filed for a patent for the invention.  

Del Rosario says he never heard of or saw Inoue's invention. The music-school head says that he created his "Sing Along System" around 1972 and patented the first prototype, under the name "The One Man Combo," in 1975. He alleges that a group of Japanese businesspeople visited his offices, saw his machine, and replicated it in Japan.

"I can rightly claim to be the inventor of the SAS or karaoke because of the international patent ruling that the first person to patent his product is the inventor," del Rosario told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2002, after years of disputing the karaoke machine's origins. "The main reason why I developed the SAS is the fact that Filipinos love to sing."

Remember how I said 2010 would be a rough year for U.S.-China relations?

The first shoe to drop was Google's announcement that the privacy of Chinese human rights activists using its email software had been violated, and that cyberattacks on its servers had been traced to within China. 

Now, China is expressing furious anger over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan -- threatening unprecedented actions in response, including sanctions on U.S. companies, and hinting darkly of a broader unwillingness to cooperate with American diplomatic priorities (read: North Korea and Iran). Military-to-military cooperation between the U.S. and China now seems to be off the table, and deputies-level talks will be suspended.

Truth be told, China hadn't been and probably wouldn't be super helpful on Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs, but the direction the relationship is taking is worrying. In February, President Obama is supposed to meet with the Dalai Lama, and that is sure to provoke further ire in Beijing.

Obama administration officials had been expecting some blowback from the arms sales, and are downplaying China's reaction, but I wonder if even they see Beijing as upping the ante. Is this going to be the usual loud, public show of anger, followed by a return to business as usual? Or is China feeling its strength and looking to demonstrate that it can force the mighty United States to change course?

I detect a bit of arrogance in Beijing right now. Most recently, Colum Lynch reports, China sent a third or fourth-tier diplomat to U.N. discussions over Iran's nuclear program. At the climate talks in Copenhagen in December, not only did China seem to renege on promises it had made earlier, but Premier Wen Jiabao famously snubbed other top world powers by sending his deputy to a high-level meeting (I'm told by one participant that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was especially angry about the slight). This kind of thing may not make headlines, but it shapes other countries' willingness to make concessions and accomodate China's interests at the margins.

China is going to learn sooner or later that the famous line from Spider Man -- "with great power comes great responsibility" -- applies to real-world superpowers as much as it does to fictional superheroes.  Let's just hope it's sooner.

In China, a few dozen mournful souls have begun a candlelight vigil outside Google's Beijing offices.(I'd love to know more about who they are). But for the most part, the debate in China over the higher meaning of Google has been more muted than in the United States, where Google's threatened withdrawl from China has been widely interpretted as a harbinger of worsening US-China relations.

Within China, the Chinese-language state-run media carried relatively cursory coverage of Google's threat to pull out of China, with scant mention of the alleged cyber security breaches. Here's the (translated) barebones text of the Chinese-language Xinhua wire story:

Google announced on January 12^th that it might shutdown Google.cn and withdraw from Chinese market completely.

Google's chief legal officer David Drummond declared the announcement on Google's official blog in the afternoon of the 12^th.Chinese reporter later verified the announcement with Google and Google'scommunication department confirmed Mr. Drummond's posting.

Google indicated that they will discuss with Chineseofficials about those legal issues in the next few weeks.

Google also cancelled its scheduled negotiation with China'sWritten Works Copyright Society on the 12^th afternoon withouttelling why.

(That last line, perhaps, is meant to make Google sound like an especially irresponsible player?)

Meanwhile for the benefit of foreign reporters, China's Foreign Ministry did convene a press conference to state that China's laws are China's laws:

After a day of silence, the Foreign Ministry said that China welcomed foreign Internet companies but that those offering online services must do so “in accordance with the law.” Speaking at a scheduled news conference, Jiang Yu, a ministry spokeswoman, did not address Google’s complaints about censorship and cyberattacks and simply stated that “China’s Internet is open.”

Twitter is, of course, officially banned in China, but the most tech-savvy Chinese "netizens" have found a way around the Great Firewall to use the micro-blogging service nonetheless. This group is, as Rebecca MacKinnon duly observed, a highly select sampling of Chinese public opinion: "The Chinese Twittersphere -- comprised exclusively of people who aretech savvy enough to know how to get around censorship or they wouldn'tbe there --  is generally cheering the news [that Google won't continue to follow existing censorship rules]."

While noting the selectivity of this group, it's been interesting to follow tweet reactions around the hashtag #Googlecn. China Digital Times has translated some of them here: 

@qhgy RT @Lyooooo: If Google leaves I won’t use Baidu or let my children or grandchildren use it (If I have them) #GoogleCN

@zz4040 Google is a real man #GoogleCN

@Fenng Ten years online has turned me from an optimist into a pessimist #GoogleCN

@mranti Withdrawal of Google means: 1 Scaling the wall is now an essential tool 2 Techies, you should immigrate. Really #GoogleCN

That last tweet is from  Zhao Jing, a prominent political writer and blogger in Beijing who writes in English-language media as Michael Anti. He spoke at length with The New York Times' Andrew Jacobs, explaining why he thought that Google’s pulling out would “set a bad example for thebusiness climate in China and make a joke of the government claims of afree Internet.”

Last month Google's operations in China noticed that a sophisticated hacking operation had illegally attempted to access the records of dozens of targetted Gmail users -- specifically those of prominent human rights activists, based in China, Europe, and the United States. This information, which obviously aroused great concern within the company, wasn't made public until yesterday, when Google announced a significant change in how it would operate in China.

In a press release posted on its web site Tuesday, Google explained that it would cease to comply with China's internet censorship provisions, which had prevented users of China.cn (Google's China web portal, launched in 2006) from accessing "sensitive" sites:

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

On Wednesday late morning Beijing time, Internet users in Beijing and Shanghai reported being able to access -- for the first time -- formerly forbidden images and web links, including photos of 1989 Tiananman Sqaure demonstrations and links to freetibet.org, through Google.cn searches. This led to speculation that Google had already removed filters.

Google's apparent defiant stand -- that it will operate freely within China, or not at all -- quickly launched a heated debate. Many applauded the company' principles; others wondered how much Google really has to lose if it does exit China, given that business there has not met expectations.

Writers on technology web sites, such as Slashdot.org and Techcrunch.com, were quick to point out the company's bottom-line concerns. As Techcrunch technology reporter Sarah Lucy wrote:

I’ll give Google this much: They’re taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view. I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business....

Google’s business was not doing well in China. Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top market share in the country? For one thing, I’d guess that would open them up to shareholder lawsuits. Google is a for-profit, publicly-held company at the end of the day. When I met with Google’s former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, Wired reporter Kim Zetter traces some of the steps Google has taken between when it discovered the cyber attacks and now, both to protect its own employees in China and to warn the international human rights activists targeted.

[A] source who is knowledgeable about the investigation [said] that Google’s decision to disclose the attack on Tuesday was also partly due to a decision made by the other targeted companies to keep the attack under wraps.

“They made a specific decision not to go public,” the source said. “You can either go out [with the information] or not, and for whatever reason, they’ve decided not to [disclose].”

He said Google felt it was important to alert the people who are potentially affected by the attack — the activist community.

Among many looming questions, one key one is: How will Microsoft, Yahoo, and other web portals react? Is Google setting a new precedent?

It's been a rough week for activists, dissidents, and opposition movements of all types across Asia.

On Friday, Christmas Day, the Chinese intellectual Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of "subversion" for his role in writing and promoting the Charter '08 petition for political reform last January. Flouting international criticism and calls for Liu's release, the sentence handed down in a Beijing courtroom is the longest ever for subversion charges.

By Sunday, police in Iran had opened fire into crowds of protestors as authorities sought to snuff out calls for political reform. As my colleague Blake Hounshell pointed out, "killing people on the Shiite holiday of Ashura [was] something even the shah never dared to do."

On Monday, in Vietnam, a country that in recent years has enjoyed somewhat greater religious and political freedoms than China, former amy officer Tran Anh Kim who advocated for democratic reforms, was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison on charges of "subversion." The case is seen as an ominous sign of shrinking space for political discussion in Vietnam. In the coming weeks, four similiar cases will be tried in Vietnam; at least one would-be reformer, human rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, may face the death penalty.

On Tuesday morning, at 10:30 am local time, the first European national to be sentenced to death in China in more than 50 years was executed. Akmal Shaikh had been convicted of drug smuggling. His execution sent a chill throughout the international human rights community. The frantic mercy pleas of relatives, lawyers, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown -- all claiming that his history of mental illness impaired his judgement -- fell on deaf ears in Beijing.

Meanwhile, new details emerged this week about the brutal conditions endured in prison by crusading Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had taken the government to task for fraud. Magnitsky died in prison, after nearly 11 months in detention. Although it is little comfort to those who personally knew Magnitsky, at least the Moscow Public Oversight Commisssion is examining the case.

UPDATE: In response to a couple comments, I wanted to clarify that the British man executed in China was not himself comparable to activists in China, Vietnam, Russia, Iran, or elsewhere adovocating for domestic political reform -- but the concern of the international rights community, and the sight of frustrated but helpless foreign ministers (here Gordon Brown) appealing to Beijing, was in some ways parallel.

He came; he spoke ... he did not conquer. It's unclear how much impact Obama's speech (text here) at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this morning will have in nudging negotiators toward an agreement.

I found the most interesting line of his remarks this one:

Mitigation.  Transparency.  Financing.  It's a clear formula -- one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities"

Here he is picking up a favorite bit of Beijing's own rhetoric, the oft-repeated insistence on "common but differentiated responsibilities."

The original phrase derives from Kyoto, but it's been infused with so much meaning in Beijing -- basically meaning the rich countries should do more, and poor countries less for now -- that one could be forgiven for assuming it was as Chinese as fireworks.

Meantime, the full translated text of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's remarks are here.  

And the FT has linked to a copy of a recent draft of potential agreement here.

Today, Sweden's Noko Jeans is launching a line of designer denim manufactured in North Korea. The company claims that these are the first 1,100 pairs of jeans to ever be produced in North Korea.

One of the founding partners, Rauden Kallstigen, explains the motivation behind their project to produce denim in the "Hermit Kingdom":

"'It was a way for us to contact the country ... Our interest for North Korea goes way back because it's just a black spot on the map."

Despite reservations of supporting the present regime of Kim Jong Il, the Swedes decided to pursue their fashion venture, which has been in the works since 2007. After downing an entire glass of Swedish vodka during a visit to North Korea, these three entreprenuers, with no international fashion or trade experience, and the North Koreans agreed: "There would be jeans."

Noko Jeans are only available in black. The designers claim this is because "blue jeans" are stigmitized in North Korea due to their historic association with American culture. Regardless, jeans have been banned in North Korea for years, according to a recent Associated Press article, making it unlikely for North Koreans to enjoy the newest fashion craze.

Flickr/Cecilie

This afternoon in Shanghai, U.S. President Barack Obama held a townhall-style meeting with university students. It was an event that his staff had worked hard to include on his China trip itinerary. After a brief speech extolling the importance of core values to the success of the United States as a nation and Americans as individuals, Obama took questions from the audience and online.

It has since come to light that not all of the questions came from bonafide students. One questioner was a vice director of daily affairs for the Communist Youth League; another was a young-looking teacher. Obama's answers about Internet freedom weren't heard by most remote audiences because several networks, including CNN, mysteriously cut away for commentary at that moment. The response among expats in China was, by and large, negative -- with many complaining Obama had minced his words, talking for instance of "universal rights" rather than "human rights." If one is looking to be cynical, there's plenty of fodder.

On the other hand, from the point of view of most Chinese I've spoken, these official efforts at censorship might have been silly, or nefarious, but they didn't have much impact. The notion of a president taking questions, not a frequent occurrence in China, was itself the point. The symbolism was more arresting, to them, than the content. "Why does he want to talk to Chinese students?" one 29-year-old Chinese woman asked me, without irony. She was puzzled, impressed, and a bit amused at the spectacle. 

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Chinese President and vocal free speech advocate Hu Jintao vowed to continue safeguarding the rights of foreign media working in China, reports the state-run paper China Daily.

"It is more important than ever before that the media should establish and uphold social responsibilities," Hu said at the World Media Summit. Apparently Hu cares so much about the media doing the right thing that he employs about 30,000 "Internet Police" to discourage everything from negative news to pornography. China's Internet filtering (AKA "The Great Firewall") was especially frustrating for overseas reporters covering the 2008 Olympics in Beijing; the control of the Internet probably has something to do with why Freedom House ranks Chinese media the 181^st least-free out of 195 countries surveyed, tied with Iran and Rwanda.

On the other hand, Hu did say, "The media should uphold the ideas of equality, mutual trust, mutual benefit and common development, and better facilitate exchanges and cooperation."  And if you can't trust friends like these...

Photo: PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images