China: Shooting itself in the foot in Libya?

By Douglas Herbert

Let's begin with a mea culpa.

Throughout the Libya war, I have rarely missed an opportunity to take Vladimir Putin's (yes, you read that correctly, Putin's, not Medvedev's) Russia to task for its craven failure to support last March's UN Security Resolution 1973 authorizing military action in Libya.

At the same time, I have often given short shrift to China's supporting role as Russia's co-Resolution-basher-in-arms.

I downplayed Beijing's aloof position as part of a broader policy of not getting mixed up in a far-away democratic revolution that could raise awkward questions about China's own repressive ways.   

Russia is now engaged in a delicate diplomatic pas-de-deux with Libya's National Transitional Council. It's belatedly gone from snubbing the once-rebel leadership, to sounding them out, to formally recognising them as Libya's legitimate rulers.

China is laboring to follow suit - but it's making a hash of things, and perhaps digging itself a deeper hole in the process.

At a recent press conference, a foreign ministry official said China "respects the choice of the Libyan people and values the important status and role of the Libyan NTC in resolving the Libyan issue."

Documents in a trash bin

After hedging its bets until the eleventh hour - no scratch that, make that twelfth hour - China's sudden newfound respect for the democratic aspirations of Libya's once-silent majority smacks of craven (yes, that word again) hypocrisy.

For it turns out that China's "respect for the choice of the Libyan people and values" was no match for the opportunism of several state-controlled Chinese arms companies.

A reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail unearthed documents in a trash bin in a Tripoli neighborhood indicating that Beijing offered to sell $200 million worth of rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles and portable surface-to-air missiles...to Gaddafi's government.

Libyan security officials reportedly made what's been described as a shopping trip to Beijing in mid-July. The Chinese companies are said to have proposed delivering the arms through third-party countries such as Algeria or South Africa, with whom China has done business in the past.

All of this at a time when Beijing had formally endorsed UN Resolution 1970 calling for an arms embargo, and vowed to uphold a policy of strict neutrality. 

Of course, in China's sprawling bureaucracy, it's not unthinkable - actually, it's highly likely - that one part of the state apparatus (in this case, the arms manufacturers) could act with a mind of its own, in the absence of the state's approval or prior knowledge. 

Russia, hardly a paragon of good ethical foreign policy, says its support of the Libyan weapons embargo cost a Russian state-run arms supplier $4 billion worth of lost contracts.

Moscow also suspended its military contacts with Libya - a stance it failed to take during NATO's 1999 campaign to halt an assault by Serbian forces on ethnic Abanians in Kosovo. (At the time, Russia, and China, reportedly offered the Serbian forces of then-President Slobodan Milosevic arms, fighters and tactical advice.)

But...France armed the rebels

China apologists may be tempted to ask what's so wrong with Beijing supplying arms to Gaddafi when NATO and its allies were ferrying arms to the rebel camp? France acknowledged that it had dropped weapons to rebel fighters in Libya's western mountains.

But this is to ignore the fact that UN Resolution 1970 - the one imposing the arms embargo - referred explicitly to the Libyan Republic (of Muammar Gaddafi), and not to the rebels.

So these arms drops were not, in strictly legal terms, in contravention of international law.

So what's the upshot of China's double-dealing in Libya? Should we even pretend to be indignant given that  Beijing has made no bones about seeking lucrative business opportunities wherever they beckon in Africa and the Middle East or beyond - and putting political considerations second?

As my colleague, Eric Olander, tweeted on Monday, even Washington now seems to realise that its influence is being eclipsed in Africa by China.

Russia the nemesis

While this is a sign of fast-changing geopolitical times, China may find itself at a disadvantage in the short term as it jockeys for a share of Libya's potentially booming oil business.

Russia looms as a nemesis in this battle for petrodollars, and a possible beneficiary of greater good will on the part of Libya's new government given Moscow's just-in-time about-face.

Of course, China is a juggernaut in the new global economy that few can resist - or at least resist at their own peril. A major question going ahead is not whether China will insinuate its way back into a New Libya's good graces - but under what terms.

If Libya lives up to the democratic aspirations of its new (transitional) leadership, as outlined at last week's Friends of Libya conference in Paris, then the next generation of Libyans will want to work with the Chinese as equal partners - and under terms that ensure real jobs and opportunities for the Libyan people.

FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Editor, Douglas Herbert, cut his journalistic teeth as a print reporter in Russia in the topsy-turvy early 90s, after the Communist collapse. Over a 20-year career, including a long stint at CNN in New York and London, Douglas has covered topics ranging from Arctic oil spills to Arab uprisings. This blog is about the world as seen through Douglas’s Paris prism. It’s also about the things Doug might have added after his producer said, “Wrap”. Follow Doug on Twitter @dougF24.

Confessions of a Typomaniac

By SIMON GARFIELD

Of all the truly calamitous afflictions of the modern world, typomania is one of the most alarming and least understood. It was first diagnosed by the German designer Erik Spiekermann as a condition peculiar to the font-obsessed, and it has one common symptom: an inability to walk past a sign (or pick up a book or a menu) without needing to identify the typeface. Sometimes font freaks find this task easy, and they move on; and sometimes their entire day is wrecked until they nail it.

This week saw a flare-up of fontroversies with the news that New York's street signs were getting a reprieve from a 2018 deadline requiring the replacement of their iconic all-capitals format with a combination of capitals and lowercase. There will now be a more relaxed approach, the change occurring merely when the signs wear out. But the debate rages on: Are lowercase letters really safer in traffic (studies say they're easier to read at speed) than capitals?

And what about the other type news this week, that Central Park has homogenized its signage and now boasts some 1,500 new signs in a face known as Titling Gothic, replacing the eclectic-cum-hodgepodge of signs that used to tell you where you could or couldn't walk, sit or skate? And what do we think of Titling Gothic anyway, bold white on a green background—does it remind you a little of Helvetica, with that square block over the i and the teardrop heart of the a?

The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album used Cooper Black. The font looks best from afar, and the bigger, the better—otherwise, it's hard to read.

The type world has changed immeasurably in the last 20 years. We are now all masters of our font destinies, able to switch emotion with one click from the pull-down menu.

Want something authoritative and trustworthy? Times New Roman and Gill Sans should do you. Too dull? Why not the slightly warmer Georgia, my choice for an all-purpose serif. (What's the difference between serif and sans serif? Oh, come on, now—the former has those little feet and tips at the edges of its letters, while the latter, without them, often appears more modern.)

Or perhaps you're looking for a headline for your school project on Egypt—why not Herculanum? Or a nice fat '60s font for the invite for your college reunion that's going to take everyone back instantly to their carefree beach-bum days—try Cooper Black, as used on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album cover. And then there's the awning of the new toy shop you're opening—Comic Sans, of course. (Just don't try using Comic Sans on your job application, at least not if you're hoping to get employed as anything but a clown.)

And whom can we thank for all this power in our hands? The same man we've been thanking profusely for other things these last few days, Steve Jobs. Shortly after he dropped out of college, Mr. Jobs found that he had the freedom to attend classes on subjects that pleased him rather than bored him. At one of these he discovered the joys of calligraphy and typefaces. He found the experience "beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture," as he once said.

And so when the Mac was born a decade later, Mr. Jobs gave its users something novel, a choice of fonts—everything from Times New Roman to the original Chicago and Venice—a revolutionary act that loosened our dependence on the professional designer. (Whether your nice new printer could cope with them was another matter.)

I first became interested in type when I bought David Bowie's "Hunky Dory" album in my teens. Taking it home on the upper deck of a London bus, I remembered staring intently at the sleeve for clues to what might lie inside. "Hunky Dory" offered its wares in a type called Zipper, a classic bit of buzzy sci-fi text that suggested something spacey and robotic (the songs were actually spacey and vulnerable).

It soon became clear that type was strong stuff, able to confer emotion and mood in the most direct ways. The bus I was riding had its destination letters in less imaginative type, but they were no less functional (they were in the ultra-clear Johnston font that also adorned the London Underground). Like reliable architecture, form followed function: The bus letters had clarity while Bowie's had intrigue.

Once you begin with fonts, they have a habit of drawing you in. You can become a font god pretty soon and annoyingly sure about what works and what doesn't—and why. Fonts surround us every day, the secret glue that guides our lives, so it's handy to comprehend their gentle powers.

Ask the team responsible for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 how important the choice of Gotham (bold, modern, somehow trustworthy) was in its campaign. It was certainly a better choice than Hillary Clinton's use of New Baskerville Bold. What choice was that for a revolutionary voice?

Your choice of font is all about appropriateness and nuance. And of course originality and self-expression. Not to mention being reasonably cool.

So let me offer this bit of font advice: Be adventurous. Don't settle for the default choice, but play around with the pull-down menu until what you have to say matches the way you say it. And then perhaps go online and add to your collection from the many font shops and type bureaus out there.

Fonts are like clothes—an expression of individuality. You don't wear a suit to the baseball game, so don't use a straitjacket on your words. There are more than 100,000 different fonts in digital form, many of them beautiful, elegant and underused. They are the cheapest and simplest form of influential communication that we have. So go on, set them free.

Letters of Introduction

Helvetica is everywhere. Gotham was the font of choice in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign and has since been used by Sarah Palin and several tea-party candidates. Comic Sans, with its soft, rounded letters, is so reviled that it spawned a website: bancomicsans.com. The story of fonts goes back 560 years, to Gutenberg's original letters. Today there are more than 100,000 in digital form, each with its own personality.

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Penguin

European discount airline easyJet chose an old 1920s font, Cooper Black, for its branding.

Cooper Black

European discount airline easyJet chose an old 1920s font, Cooper Black, for its branding. It implies a warm fuzziness, as if to say: "We're one of you! Climb aboard!" Before that, the font's most famous appearance was on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album. The font looks best from afar, and the bigger, the better—otherwise, it's hard to read.

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Penguin

Helvetica is the font of New York's subway system.

Helvetica

Born in Switzerland in 1957, Helvetica is ubiquitous, often found in corporate logos (think American Airlines) and in New York's subway system. It's clean and modern but has enough quirks—like the teardrop belly of the a—to keep a friendly homeliness.

In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface in its signs and catalogs. IKEA before, in Futura.

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal

IKEA after, in Verdana.

Verdana

In 2009, IKEA changed the typeface in its signs and catalogs. Typophiles noticed—and went online with their grievances. IKEA had switched from Futura, linked to 1920s political art movements, to the far more common Verdana, which was created for Microsoft. One common complaint: "so predictable, so dull, so corporate."

—Mr. Garfield is the author of "Just My Type: A Book About Fonts," published this week by Gotham/Penguin.