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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 13, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

Forget Japanese waters, headlines worry about North Korea and Hawaii. South Korea has their own two cents to add over the assassination of Kim Jong-un’s half brother at Kuala Lumpur International. China says that North Korea and the US are like two trains headed on a collision course. China has a kind of “plan” to bring the US and North Korea together, but the US won’t make concessions for obeying a UN resolution and there is no mention of China cutting off its supply. It seems China wants to be the “great reconciler”, but the rift is too far between East and West. Japan’s answer is to strike first.

Taiwan may be able to make its own response. This week, the US handed off two Perry-class frigates to Taiwan. Taiwanese naval officers will learn how to operate the frigates from the US Navy and the ships should set sail in May. This is a very interesting development since President-elect Trump received a phone call from President Tsai, and since the US still has yet to deliver on several military sales, especially F-16s, that closed during the terms of former Presidents Obama and Ma.

China’s response to events this week is two-fold. An editorial with a persuasive tone appeared in China’s state-run Global Times, arguing that India would help itself more if it cooperated with Chinese strategies rather than Japanese and US strategies. Xi Jinping also underlined and emphasized China’s great need to catch up on technology. This comes in the wake of the coming American Lockheed Martin F-35 “Lightning II” fighter jet and the US Navy’s new electromagnetically trajected railgun. China’s response is both telling and predicting.

While China has made advances, both in approaching Tomahawk cruise missile technology and in nearing the completion of its first home made aircraft carrier (reverse engineered from a Soviet era carrier), China still feels claustrophobic. Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and India, not to mention the distant-yet-present US are all naval forces too close to China’s back yard. Xi feels the “squeeze”. China is in a tight spot.

President Xi also revisited his long-standing mission of countering squander and corruption within the Communist Party. By underlining the points he did, he seems to be vying for equity and credit. Doesn’t China’s leader have enough credibility or does Xi know something the West doesn’t? Regardlessly, the greater wild card is India. China believes that India is on the fence and is open to persuasion—and China is correct. Soon, India will feel its own squeeze. The question, then, will be whether India feels inclined to side with China rather than forces farther to its east or if India will decide to reverse engineer Western technology write persuasive editorials of its own.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 6, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

China took the bait once again. Whether independence for Hong Kong and Taiwan would be better or worse, that independence becomes more likely every time the topic even comes up, no matter how much dissent the idea receives. Within China’s borders, the “all press is good press” principle may seem to work differently, but when China makes statements to the world beyond China’s press control, gravity and tides operate in a way that may seem foreign to Beijing. This week, China’s premiere stated the intention of having Taiwan return to Chinese control.

For better or worse, if China hopes to acquire Taiwan and keep Hong Kong, the most likely path to success is to never even mention, respond to, or otherwise acknowledge the subject in public—not ever. But, Chinese officials just can’t stop talking about it. So, for better or worse, while Taiwanese independence has seemed a likelihood with the US involved—and now all the more with Trump—the near impossibility of Hong Kong breaking away from China is being made less of an impossibility… for better or worse.

It’s not as if East Asia has a lack of problems. North Korea made its own headlines this week. It fired a missile into Japanese waters. Tokyo wasn’t happy. And, after Kim Jong-un’s half-brother was murdered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, North Korea’s ambassador made some statements, Malaysia objected, and now the visa-exempt program with North Korea has been given the boot, along with North Korea’s ambassador.

The US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is making a tour sail with some Philippines cabinet members. Though everyone and his cat claims this is not a show of force, a show of force would not be without arguable reason. The largest active military in the world, which has neither declared victory nor defeat in any war, will soon have two aircraft carries. As China’s second aircraft carrier nears completion, videos have been released diagramming its basic construction. From the video, this first Chinese-made carrier was seemingly “reverse engineered” from China’s Soviet-made diesel-powered Liaoning, initially purchased to become a “floating casino”. Irony often accompanies poetry.

Any victory or defeat of China would be a first. So, logically, China’s stated ambition for change in the South Sea is, by definition, a gamble. Without history to calculate, with stepped-up rhetoric foreseeably backfiring, the Liaoning and its soon-to-be christened copy did become metaphoric casinos after all, for better or worse.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 27, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

Americans love flags. The over-sized flag, the “Star Spangled Banner”, was a strategic tool of Fort McHenry at the Battle of Baltimore and the US national anthem itself is named after the flag. If the United States ever truly intended to communicate that it believes Beijing seats the rightful government over the island of Taiwan, then Washington DC would have demanded that Taiwan fly the Chinese Communist flag over its own flag, like Hong Kong does. But, it didn’t and they didn’t ask. The test of what Donald Trump thinks about China is not a question of how many times he sees the word “China” on his globe at home, but what flags he accepts flown where.

Is China wise to what’s going on? Perhaps money is making all the difference. China’s PLA Navy is headed for an increased budget. If money was China’s answer, perhaps money tipped-off Beijing in the first place.

According to Obama Treasury rules, China is only 1/3 of a “currency manipulator”, exceeding a $20B trade deficit with the States. The other two rules relate inflation to GDP and official currency purchases to GDP—two things where China plays by a different set of rules than American economics. China “declares” its own currency value, it is not determined by the markets, making what the US refers to as “inflation” irrelevant to China. The second irrelevant Obama rule relates to “official” currency purchases. If only economics were only affected by “official” purchases, many other economic problems would be solved. But, economies are affected by “actual” purchasing, not merely whatever we happen to label as “official” this decade. The Chinese, especially, are experts at looking good “officially” while doing the bulk of their work under the table. Why else would Asians be so focused on cram schools and testing?

Then, there is the task of calculating “GDP” in a heavy back-and-forth trade economy. In 2011, the US slapped tariffs on China-made solar panels, which were made with materials imported from the US, which China also slapped a tariff on. Not only is actual “domestic” product difficult to measure in a “Venn diagram” of overlapping markets, there is also the problem that China’s government behaves like a company itself—benefiting from tariff revenue, thereby triggering another slew of investing and purchasing opportunities. If economics were a pair of glasses, China operates in ultraviolet light that no pair of US lenses can detect.

So, not only were the Obama Treasury “currency manipulator” rules an attempt to measure the light with a wind sensor, Trump gets what Trump wants. If China is destined for the “currency manipulator” list, it will get on that list one way or another, and there is a laundry list of ways that can happen.

But, then, there is North Korea.

While the “experts” lecture the world about how “trade wars” always backfire, China harbors its own trade war with the government in Northern Korea. Kim Jong Un isn’t happy with Beijing and Beijing wants to talk about it with the US.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 20, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

Keeping 70 years of war on the books is not only a bad idea, it is a hazard. That period is longer than copyright laws and ten times longer than debts can be collected and taxes audited. At some point, old debts are better to be sold off to keep the books clear of overdue accounts receivable. China has its reasons to want Taiwan, just as the Taiwanese have their reasons not to want China’s flag flown on their soil. But, keeping the discussion unresolved has resulted in growing opposition, not for Taiwan, but for China.

China’s “One Belt One Road” project in Europe is under investigation for legal compliance. Just the investigation is an insult and, even if it ends in China’s favor, that investigation could be reopened at any point in the future, even after the railroad has been completed. The two main points to note in the deal are that the government of China is negotiating in the manner of a private business entity and that China is consistent in wanting singularity in more areas than just maps.

The US has sent carrier group USS Carl Vinson to what it is calling “routine operations” in China’s backyard. Without 70 years on the books, not so many changes could be so easily chalked up to “routine”. Now, India wants in on the game.

When resisting Beijing control, many will cite Communist States like North Korea or Cuba. People don’t want their country to change in a way that introduces the need to join the government or military in order to have hope of a stable future. Taiwanese see smog in China’s air and feces in China’s streets and they think that more territory would make life even worse on an already strained government.

But, then there is what happened in Hong Kong. Regardless of which side of the issue people are on, media mogul Jimmy Lai, students, police, government, and businesses in Hong Kong saw quite a disturbance in Central during the “Umbrella Movement” occupation. But, Taipei’s “Sunflower Movement” only lasted three weeks and ended voluntarily, not three months only ending by forced eviction. Taiwanese elect whomever they want and they are happy.

Hong Kong’s theater and controversy, on all sides of the biases, can’t happen in Taiwan as the island’s situation now stands. If China’s flag flew over Taiwan’s, that would change and ways of life that are as subtle as they are constant would be up for grabs.

Chinese have their reasons for wanting to reclaim Taiwan. Taiwanese have everyone’s way of life in Asia as their reason for wanting the countries to call status quo what it is. Regime change would be a disruption, no matter who makes it.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 13, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

After three weeks, President Trump finally had his phone call with Chinese President Xi. The report is that Trump will uphold the United States’ long-standing “One China” policy, in which China proper and the island of Taiwan are one country and that country’s government seat is in Beijing. The effect is that the United States does not have an “embassy” with Taiwan, but the US has an “institute” and Taiwan an “economic and cultural” office; both are still considered envoys and consulates, offering passport and visa services. While self-important voices in news and politics view the phone call as a phone call, much more is happening beneath the surface, and Beijing may only be partially aware of what all is going on.

Being a Socialist State, China’s government is itself in business, both cooperative and competitive. China’s Communist Party can directly compete with social companies like Facebook, news networks like CNN, web service companies like Google, almost any manufacturer, and, of course not in the least, construction. China’s former business associate and new “boss”, as it were, of America calls all the “important” countries in the world, except China. The delay itself is a message to China like a father telling the disobedient son to wait his turn while everyone else at the dinner table has first choice. To China’s “indirect-implication” culture, it was no less than a smack in the face, no matter how friendly and reportedly positive the phone call was. No doubt China feels this somewhat, though President Xi probably doesn’t take the snub as seriously as he should.

Even allowing State-controlled newspapers, such as Xinhua news, to let three weeks of silence be known merely by reporting the phone call shows that Trump knows how to cut through promulgated gate keeping. Knowing how his old trading partner thinks, Trump knew that Beijing would jump to report the phone call to give President Xi notoriety, forgetting the deeper implication that the phone call didn’t happen for three weeks into Trump’s term. Now, the Chinese people know that Trump didn’t talk to their president until three weeks after taking office, yet he received a phone call from Taipei only days after he was elected—Beijing made sure the people knew that. When trying to control information in one’s own country, that was an oversight. If Beijing were wise to the three-week snub, no newspaper in China would be allowed to report the phone call until two months later, with the comment, “Oh, they are presidents. They talk when it suits them.”

In social battles of implication and indirection, the Chinese have endurance and mastery, but the West has a less frequent and even more subtle way of implication that often eludes the East. It is difficult to recognize deep implication when implication is used on a daily basis for routine communication. Americans trust Trump with China more, now, knowing that he can snub them for three weeks and State-run Xinhua news will consider it a “good first step”.

There are other problems—not being able to quit while so far ahead and declare victory after 70 years of war on the books, the US selling weapons to Taiwan—but the three week snub “trumps” them all. American people have often asked themselves who China thinks they are fooling. After this three-week snub thoroughly reported under the title of a “phone call”, the American people, Democrats and Republicans alike, certainly know who is successfully fooling China.

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In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 6, 2017

Author SymphonyPosted on

Zuckerberg, king of messages and speaker of Mandarin, fails to get China’s main message. China doesn’t want Facebook’s mission. Facebook helps people talk to each other and know what’s going on. With all that’s already going on, China sees information as a serious threat to its goals.

JP Morgan manged to get a deeper foot in China, with a license to loan more money. Perhaps they think there is a market for that. It is unclear whether the reason this made headlines was because JP Morgan got a deal in China, because an American company thought it was safe to get a deal in China, or because there wasn’t much else in the news about China.

With Trump dominating the news, China didn’t help sell too many newspapers. China’s primary headlines this week came after the “Rocket Force” tested its relatively new medium-range DF-16 ballistic missile, which replaces older, shorter range DF-11. It carries up to three warheads, weighs up to one ton, and can deliver a nuclear bomb. It can adjust to strike slow-moving targets and to supposedly evade anti-missile systems like the US Patriot system, though the best kept secret about China’s military is that it is inexperienced in combat, let alone has any history in a conflict with the US.

Trump’s administration made it clearer this week: Head to head, China loses. The US isn’t joking. Trump’s staff understand Chinese culture well, specifically how important “face” is. But, it seems that China still doesn’t understand how determined Irish redheads can be, whether they make loud claims in Beijing’s style or not. Experts pipe in that the US and China can both have a win-win, but they also fail to understand that there is no such thing as win-win in old school Far East.

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