Prelude to Conflict: Asia, December 29

Prelude to Conflict: Asia, December 29

Taiwan hit headlines again this week. More popular than New York, London, and Paris for New Years Eve. Home to a just-finished military head quarters after an 18-year construction project. An ever unpopular President facing oil-food scandal bribery allegations. And, now, object of all China’s military fears, as obviously false Chinese media propaganda tells.

Taipei is more popular than Beijing and opposition party mayors are more popular than Taiwan’s failing president. Communist and KMT-Nationalist rage with jealousy. Ma was China’s only hope to secure Taiwan and, thus, the Pacific. Now that corruption and unpopularity are surfacing like a beached whale, Beijing’s boy is no longer an asset in the hostile takeover of Taiwan, 50th largest nation in the world, 2014.

Chinese media openly and flagrantly speaks of invading Taiwan. This shameless self-exposure could possibly be the last straw after HK’s “defeated” Umbrella’s rained much needed light on Beijing’s deafness. The world can no longer avoid the obvious: Beijing avoided the military option to take over Taiwan, not because they wanted peace, which they don’t, but because they know Taiwan is militarily and geographically unbreakable.  · · · →

Prelude to Conflict: Asia, December 22

Prelude to Conflict: Asia, December 22

China made two well-crafted blunders which Beijing likely considers a success. China called for US arms sales to Taiwan to cease, then Xi went to Macau where democracy supporters could protest him more directly at the second inauguration of Macau’s CEO. Macau’s protest was reportedly led by Jason Chao (周庭希).

Japan removed the most at-risk fuel rods from Fukushima, a preventative measure. Jack Ma (马云), the Chinese businessman with an “American dream” who founded Alibaba, gave counter-intuitive wisdom to Taiwanese—the kind of ideas one would expect from Americans, but not from old guard Mandarin-speaking business owners.

Taiwan now has approval from Obama to purchase four US Perry-class frigates, sparking China’s formal complaint. Perhaps Beijing overlooked the fact that their complaint grants the US expanded permission to file future formal complaints with China. Taiwan is also building a lighthouse on the disputed “Itu Aba” Taiping Island (太平島) adjacent to a runway which is being engineered for military air support.  · · · →