The Risks of America Doing Too Much in Syria

Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American foreign policy think tank, sat down with Rendezvous's editor Marcus Mabry to talk Syria. Mr. Haass gave a long laundry list of what issues are more important to the United States than the bloodbath in Syria, even as he detailed the risks of that widening conflict.

The Risks of America Doing Too Much in Syria

Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American foreign policy think tank, sat down with Rendezvous's editor Marcus Mabry to talk Syria. Mr. Haass gave a long laundry list of what issues are more important to the United States than the bloodbath in Syria, even as he detailed the risks of that widening conflict.

Protecting American High-End Research as China Rises

BEIJING â€" If the authors of a new book, “Chinese Industrial Espionage,” are right, and China is carrying out one of the greatest intellectual heists of history in its systematic transfer of the advanced research and development of other nations â€" including the West, Japan and elsewhere â€" to China, what can the world do to protect its intellectual property?

As Edward Wong and I reported recently in The New York Times, and I explored further today in a Letter from China about the “whys” of the situation, the authors, William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon and Anna B. Puglisi, who do research for the United States government, write that since the mid-1950s China has engaged in a meticulous campaign to bring the world’s technology to China in ways that are legal, illegal and, mostly, “extralegal,” because they’re hidden from view. The campaign is intended as “a shortcut to development,” they write. One way it’s done is by appealing to the patriotic sentiments of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who study and live abroad to “bring back” their knowledge to serve China.

To readers who may say China’s efforts to gather foreign technology are “normal business practice,” they write: “It is neither ‘normal’ nor ‘business,’ but a state-sponsored assault on foreign invention that includes every dodge and malpractice up to and including espionage â€" then goes beyond espionage through a Gulag of ‘transfer centers’ that ensure the pillage goes into products.”

Importantly to the authors, they caution that while the problem needs to be addressed, it must not be allowed to turn into suspicions of Chinese and Chinese-Americans.

Frank H. Wu, a law school dean and member of the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American advocacy group, agrees.

In our earlier story in The Times, Mr. Wu said, “This is complicated because the facts are messy.” He went on to say, in a telephone interview from California, “On the one hand there is wrongdoing. There are previous cases of corporate espionage, cybersecurity breaches, hacking as well, credible concerns. And it seems clear that the Chinese government is intent on appealing to Chinese on an ethnic basis.”

But he urged Americans to remain fair. “The real question is, how should Americans behave in the face of uncertainty?” he asked.

“If we Americans are true to our ideals it’s always ‘innocent until proven guilty,’” Mr. Wu said. “That’s the bedrock principle. The U.S. wants China to adopt rule of law. At the heart of the rule of law is due process, neutrality and fairness. And the single phrase that captures rule of law is ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ The real question isn’t about China, it’s about America. Will we live up to our ideals? Do we live up to our ideals?”

Daniel Zhu was born in China, studied in the United States and now divides his time between China and the West. He is the founder of Zaptron Systems and president of a California-based overseas Chinese association named by the authors in the book. He said people have the right to bring back their own technologies to China if they want.

In a telephone interview in Beijing, he said: “I do my business and I develop my technology and I sell my products to my customers.” In his field, data mining for the stock market, he is the best, he said. “I don’t need to steal anyone’s technology.”

In their conclusion, the authors, who called the transfer policies “unfair” in written answers to questions, have suggestions how it can be stopped. They warn that the individualism valued by many Americans is a weakness: America must “find ways as a nation to take collective action against the common threat.”

Some suggestions: overall, America needs “a better understanding of the benefits and costs” of having very large numbers of Chinese students studying on its campuses, to stop “possible illicit technology transfers by students,” they write. America’s export control system needs to be reformed. And it needs to get technology transfer and espionage onto the agenda of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the high-level, ongoing talks between China and the United States, they write.

Caution, Not Panic, Over Spread of Middle East Virus

LONDON â€" International health officials have called on medical staff around the world to be on the alert for the spread of a deadly SARS-related virus that was first identified in the Middle East last year.

More than half the 55 people infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, have died in an outbreak that has been mainly confined to Saudi Arabia but with cases documented as far away as Britain and France.

As experts warned of a potential repeat of the SARS outbreak that caused almost 800 deaths worldwide a decade ago, the World Health Organization said all countries needed to ensure health workers were aware of the respiratory virus when dealing with unexplained cases of pneumonia.

Despite the warnings, officials will be eager to avoid what has been described as a media-driven hysteria that accompanied the spread of SARS after it struck South China and Hong Kong in 2002-’03.

The W.H.O. statement followed a visit that officials of the United Nations’ body made last week to Saudi Arabia, which is to host around one million visitors at the height of the year-round Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca next month.

The Saudi health ministry has said that foreign pilgrims with flu-like symptoms will have to undergo tests for the coronavirus when they arrive in the Kingdom.

The Financial Times quoted Salman Rawaf, a public health professor at London’s Imperial College, as saying of the potential threat to pilgrims, “The risk is there. The advice from the World Health Organization is really: wear a mask.”

Foreign governments have not so far issued travel warnings to their citizens. However, the U.S. State Department has urged American Muslims planning to make the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in October to keep up with developments via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The C.D.C. currently advises American travelers to countries in or near the Arabian Peninsula to monitor their health and see a doctor right away if they develop fever and symptoms of lower respiratory illness, such as cough or shortness of breath.

The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia’s neighboring state of Bahrain, which has so far reported no cases of the virus, is meanwhile reported to have told Americans there to take common sense precautions against the virus, such as regular hand-washing and avoiding contact with anyone who appears to be sick.

The positive news from the W.H.O. was that there was no evidence of widespread person-to-person transmission of the virus and that heath workers had suffered a lower level of infection than during the SARS epidemic.

“It could be that improvements in infection control that were made after the outbreak of SARS have made a significant difference,” according to the W.H.O. statement.

Cases have been reported from eight countries in the Middle East and Europe, with several in which the virus has moved from one country to another through travelers.

At the height of the SARS panic a decade ago, officials were criticized for overreacting to a threat that in the end caused relatively few deaths worldwide.

However, some at the time defended their response.

“On the one hand, the level of attention given to SARS seems wildly disproportionate to the scale of the problem itself,” Duncan Watts wrote in Slate, “on the other hand, had it not been for this exaggerated sense of fear, we might have a truly frightening situation on our hands.”

And, as David Quammen cautioned in an Opinion Pages article last month, “Every pandemic begins small.”

Mr. Quammen, who referred to the Saudi Arabian outbreak, wrote, “The first obligation is informed awareness. Early reports arrive from afar, seeming exotic and peripheral, but don’t be fooled. One emergent virus, sooner or later, will be the Next Big One.”

IHT Quick Read: June 12

NEWS Istanbul’s Taksim Square was engulfed in chaos on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning as riot police using tear gas and water cannons forced thousands of protesters from the square, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey struggled to contain a political crisis. Tim Arango, Sebnem Arsu and Ceylan Yeginsu report.

Concern, and even anger, are growing in Europe over the United States’ data collection program and threatening to cloud trade talks and a visit by President Obama. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

In a surprise move that angered labor unions, the Greek government said Tuesday that it was closing down its state-run television and radio broadcaster, idling 2,900 people. Officials described the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation as a “haven of waste.” Liz Alderman reports from Athens.

After a landmark power-sharing accord in April between Kosovo and Serbia, Ethnic Serbs and Albanians are facing changes to law enforcement, schools and courts that will alter daily life. Dan Bilefsky reports.

A mystery letter from China drew international news media coverage and widespread attention to the country’s opaque system of “re-education through labor,” a collection of penal colonies where petty criminals, religious offenders and critics of the government can be given up to four-year sentences by the police without trial. Andrew Jacobs reports from Beijing.

Talks planned for this week between North and South Korea have been called off after a dispute over which delegates the countries would send. Choe Sang-Hun reports from Seoul.

BUSINESS Germany’s conflicted relationship with the euro was on full view at the country’s highest court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday, with arguments portraying recent moves by the European Central Bank either as necessary stability measures or as an unconstitutional plan to transfer German wealth to Southern Europe. Some witnesses pushed for the country to leave the currency union. Jack Ewing reports.

Air traffic controllers in France began a three-day strike to protest European Union plans to accelerate the integration of the region’s fragmented air space. Nicola Clark reports.

After weeks of talks Google completed a deal to buy the Israeli social mapping start-up, which uses a combination of GPS tracking and contributions from its users about road conditions to help drivers navigate. Waze will remain a separate service from Google Maps, at least for now. Vindu Goel reports.

Global stocks fell sharply after the Bank of Japan stood by its monetary policy and an ambitious target to stoke 2 percent inflation in two years. Hiroko Tabuchi reports.

ARTS Damien Hirst has answered a long-running question in the art world: How many of his spot paintings are there, anyway? Graham Bowley reports.

As the scale and complexity of ambitious installation art continues to grow, so, too, can costs. Which is why installation artists are increasingly turning to crowdfunding. Ella Delany writes in the Special Report: The Art of Collecting.

For those frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining tickets to the Bayreuth Festival, the Hungarian capital’s eighth Wagner season opened with a heartwarming “Meistersinger.” George Loomis reports.

SPORTS  Nelson Mandela realized how sports could help break down barriers that long divided his country, writes Rob Hughes. 

Tiger Woods has won four out of eight tournaments so far this year, but he lacks consistency. He has not won a major title since the 2008 U.S. Open. Jeff Shain reports.

An Airport’s New Life, After Many Dramatic Landings

HONG KONG â€" Jaw dropping. Stomach churning. Scary. Exciting. Dramatic. For airline passengers and crews who flew into Hong Kong’s old airport, at Kai Tak, the approach and landing was, well, probably all of the above.

Certainly, for many it remains to this day one of the most memorable experiences of their visits to this Asian financial hub.

Aircraft approaching Kai Tak would first aim pretty much straight at a mountainside â€" a red-and-white checkerboard was painted on the hillside to guide them â€" and then stage a sharp right turn that would take them toward a runway that jutted dramatically out into the sea.

Anyone seated on the right-hand side of the aircraft got (uncomfortably) close-up views of the crowded streets and rooftops of the Mongkok peninsula below. Anyone below would see the underbellies of the aircraft roaring by above.

The dramatic flights came to an end in July 1998, when Kai Tak was replaced by a much larger airport, at Chek Lap Kok, about 30 kilometers to the west.

Starting Wednesday, almost exactly 15 years after the last plane took off from the iconic airport, Kai Tak is once again receiving passengers - though this time, they will approach from the sea rather than from the air, and at an altogether slower pace.

As I wrote in this article, part of the old runway has been refashioned into a cruise ship terminal capable of receiving the biggest cruise liners in the world.

The new cruise terminal building feels a little like an airport. But for a real flight down memory lane, check out these videos for footage, images and descriptions of the flight approach into Kai Tak.

As for the red-and-white checkerboard - it still exists, somewhat faded and overgrown, in a Hong Kong park.

Do you have memories of flying into and out of Kai Tak Airport? If show, please share them through the comments feature.

An Airport’s New Life, After Many Dramatic Landings

HONG KONG â€" Jaw dropping. Stomach churning. Scary. Exciting. Dramatic. For airline passengers and crews who flew into Hong Kong’s old airport, at Kai Tak, the approach and landing was, well, probably all of the above.

Certainly, for many it remains to this day one of the most memorable experiences of their visits to this Asian financial hub.

Aircraft approaching Kai Tak would first aim pretty much straight at a mountainside â€" a red-and-white checkerboard was painted on the hillside to guide them â€" and then stage a sharp right turn that would take them toward a runway that jutted dramatically out into the sea.

Anyone seated on the right-hand side of the aircraft got (uncomfortably) close-up views of the crowded streets and rooftops of the Mongkok peninsula below. Anyone below would see the underbellies of the aircraft roaring by above.

The dramatic flights came to an end in July 1998, when Kai Tak was replaced by a much larger airport, at Chek Lap Kok, about 30 kilometers to the west.

Starting Wednesday, almost exactly 15 years after the last plane took off from the iconic airport, Kai Tak is once again receiving passengers - though this time, they will approach from the sea rather than from the air, and at an altogether slower pace.

As I wrote in this article, part of the old runway has been refashioned into a cruise ship terminal capable of receiving the biggest cruise liners in the world.

The new cruise terminal building feels a little like an airport. But for a real flight down memory lane, check out these videos for footage, images and descriptions of the flight approach into Kai Tak.

As for the red-and-white checkerboard - it still exists, somewhat faded and overgrown, in a Hong Kong park.

Do you have memories of flying into and out of Kai Tak Airport? If show, please share them through the comments feature.