Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 4, 2019

The PDT Symphony Asian Mad Scientist Theorem is hard at work—that history unfolds as if a mythical mad scientist has finished societal experimentation on North Korea and has now decided to implement the same principles in China, this time with a seemingly faster canter toward communist calamity. Rather than nukes, China makes noises of sinking US aircraft carriers and invading Taiwan.

The theorem is not truth, but it helps to accurately anticipate how history will unfold, and anticipate it has. It foretold that the mythical “miracle of China” would be exposed for the myth it always was.

The so-called “China miracle” seduced too many. There was no miracle happening inside China. There was no invention, no innovation, no new ideas. Even China’s socioeconomic framework was reverse-engineered from Russian Marxism. Now, government requires itself to be the head of even religion; an Atheist government wants to define the truth for a religion that believes in a God that the government does not. How can that not be a course for calamity?

China gained its money, not from its own human ingenuity—since the Confucian education culture purges all ingenuity inclinations. No, the money came from Americans who would drive half a dollar’s distance in gasoline to save a nickel—thinking that this made sense. It didn’t make sense, it didn’t save cents, but it did make dollars for China. But, now, those dollars are all gone—the dollars China believed in, and the dollars that made Western saps believe in China. The “miracle” was never from China, but from the United States’ innovative, free-thinking, God-fearing economy.

China continues to grab for power—not because it feels powerful. While its economy and international respect have taken a nosedive, China is all the more adamant about “reclaiming” what is China’s ostensibly by rite. The looming invasion of Taiwan won’t happen because China believes it is economically strong enough to win, but that reclaiming Taiwan would solve all other problems to make China economically strong again. China believes China is a poor nation only because it hasn’t yet “retaken” more control of more lands, such as Taiwan—an island that the Communist Party never once controlled.

Even King Belshazzar feared the writing on the wall without understanding it. But, Western saps didn’t fear the writing written in their own economic language. Now, three Canadians are shocked and caught off guard. They should have known better than to put themselves in such peril during our dangerous times. So should the coupon clippers in America’s consumer base have known better. So should the American companies about to watch their investments get “appropriated” have known better.

And, China should have known such a trade war was coming. Lack of reciprocity started the Opium Wars. China should have researched America’s history books for the phrase “Indian giver”, which often described America’s government much more than it described America’s Natives. China should have known that American consumers would respond in wrath when their jobs had been exported from their homes and imported into a country that prohibits free speech and religion. China should have known that a trade war was in the making from the first day that American manufacturers outsourced their labor to the Chinese.

But, the Americans never told China because the Americans were too consumed with their own consumerism.

The obvious has been ignored. Now, the inevitable results are playing out. Whatever course history takes, the results must run their course, but we know it won’t be pretty, not for a while anyway. But, of all the things it never was, it was always foreseeable to those who wanted to look at what was right in front of them.

It takes two to start a war, so everyone should have known the war that was starting because everyone was starting it long, long ago.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, January 28, 2019

The West ramped up rhetoric against China this past week. Even George “Socialist” Soros trashed the Chinese government, yet tried to court favor with the Chinese people. Such an attempt aims to divide government and people. Opinion pieces from renowned news outlets openly accuse China of aggression. We did not see such a harsh tone from the mainstream press in the West even one year ago. Today, it’s becoming commonplace to bash China.

The US sent two Naval vessels through the Taiwan Strait this week. Now, the US is preparing extradition of the Huawei executive currently in Canadian custody. With threats of turning the tariffs back on, it should be more apparent that the US never planned to grant China any of its ambitions in the first place. Not only has the US been playing China like a flute, the Chinese haven’t known—or have they?

Everyone seems to be biding time, both the US and China. China’s main focus has been readying government and military. The US focus seems to have been public sentiment against China. Perhaps both sides have been playing each other, but the US has been making a play of its own—that we can see.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, January 14, 2019

China is preparing for war. It has said so in public. It has demonstrated so with militarization of “Made in China” islands that didn’t exist a decade ago. It has shown intent by showing no sense of limits in cyber-warfare, technology acquisition, and oppression of the press. Facebook and Twitter users are only a “security threat” to those easily threatened.

Unlike China, the United States does not make a habit of announcing its newest military technology to the world. Whatever warfare breaks out between the US and China in the Western Pacific, China’s capabilities will have been known well in advance, but the US will likely employ weapons not yet known to the public. One needs no inside information to forecast as much, only a familiarity with the parts of history that tend to repeat.

But, we are not looking at WWIII, not yet. While the brewing conflict in the Western Pacific will likely involve many countries and islands, Russia is not yet ready for the big one. NATO’s presence in Europe is still too strong and Putin has not had enough time to amass his forces as he would like. Both Russia and the US would want things to quiet down rather quickly. Every effort from the White House to back away from conflicts with Russia suggests that a deal has already been struck with the Kremlin—that an expansionist campaign from China will not receive meaningful Russian help if squashed by the United States.

The question will concern how many Mainland China military supply installations Russia will allow the US to strike. But, if the US intervenes with Taiwan or razes the artificial islands on Mischief Reef, don’t expect China to receive backup from Russia. Moscow took Crimea with a favorable referendum and no bloodshed. The Kremlin would expect just as much success from Beijing in order to court respect and cooperation. Right now, things don’t look that way. 80% of Taiwanese rejecting reunification with China is a near flip to the support Russia received from Crimeans. Backroom Moscow secretly mocks Beijing, no matter how much money the Chinese pay them. Moscow would be fools if they didn’t.

In the supposed “Chinese invasion plans” for Taiwan, there are multiple phases, including opportunistic retaliation from India. But, those plans fail to anticipate retaliation from the insulted Vietnamese, who also hold a long-standing grudge against China. Then, there is the ancient ethnic spite between China and Japan. Mongolia also has border disputes. Tibet is not the only province that wants to break away. It is doubtful Sun Tzu would have advised an expansion campaign while surrounded by enemies, especially as a mere means of being respected.

It would take a miracle and a half to stay whatever makes the pluming smoke on the horizon of the last decade. But, it won’t last long. No one wants this to drag on. No, like “The Great War” (WWI) set the stage for WWII, the approaching war in the Pacific will set the stage for the big one that comes after.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, December 24, 2018

China detains two Canadians with remark and in the wake of a single Huawei executive’s arrest. Given the surfacing connections the executive’s family had to Mao, China likely views the value of arrested people as equally balanced; the West merely views China as having committed three criminal acts.

Huawei has gotten into more and more trouble the more it has been in the spotlight. Now, Europe even has its doubts. China’s sources of money and influences are drying up more and more.

But, an opinion article from Bloomberg invariably proves that some car makers managed to keep their technology out of the hands of China—mainly by keeping it out of China until it was out of date. Moreover, China has made proposals within its government to allow foreign companies to keep their technology secret. So, that should end any and every doubt about what a wonderful place China is for any and all manufacturing.

On the military side, China is announcing that it is finally pursuing the same quiet submarine technologies that the US, Russia, and India are also pursuing. So, that’s it. The West should give up because, after all, China is going to win.

The US, however, is in a different position. If China were to initiate a conflict with the US, say by attempting to assert control over Taiwan “by force if necessary”, China might not get as much help from its rumored spy partner, Russia. Taiwan is unlike Crimea, which held a referendum with overwhelming favor to return to Russia. And, with the US out of Russian-interested territories, like Syria and Afghanistan, there is little Russia would have to object to in the US following its own law to defend Taiwan, already on the books. A recessed Congress is certainly willing.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 22, 2018

By not labeling China a “currency manipulator”, the US is extending an olive branch to Beijing. But, things aren’t as they seem. On every level, China is reaching—almost grasping—to save face.

This new artificial moon is honest and runs deep in Chinese culture. As part of being the center of the universe, Chinese culture arguably orbits the moon. The Lunar New Year is celebrated far more, in Chinese culture, than the Western calendar New Year. While the Western press tells of the man-made moon from China as a kind of narcissism, it’s genuine and normal interest. The threat is US strategy.

While the US throws olive branch after olive branch, the forest yields other fruit than olives. China is losing money fast. Trump tariffs are gobbling up China’s reserves behind the reserves. No matter how friendly China tries to play at this point, the US will continue to deliver one provocation after another until China retaliates with basic human instinct. It won’t matter how many “encounter codes” China and the US agree to. The US has decided that China is an enemy and has determined to convince the world as much.

This is not the first military provocation campaign from the US. But, if China wins, it would be a first naval victory for China. Calculate the odds.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 8, 2018

China’s political, socioeconomic worldview is that of a zero-sum game. It has played its socioeconomic game that way for decades. Now, it must empty its reserve coffers to keep its zero-sum game strategy from sinking too fast. This means that it can’t use those coffers if a military conflict arose. The United States knows this.

Don’t be fooled. The US strategy is to provoke China into a conflict sooner than it wants. In the Western view, China has shown how it will behave by having shown how it has behaved more and more. This is enough to warrant preemptive agitation for the Western taxpayer. In China’s view, the world has failed to bestow on China what China deserves; because China rightly deserves what it deserves, China can’t lose.

Interpol has now gotten whatever international attention against China’s favor that Hong Kong malcontents did not. With the disappearance of Interpol’s president into China, whoever didn’t care about so-called “Chinese aggression” does now. China’s government thinks they sent a message to the world. They did, but the message received is probably not the message that was intended.

As the Pacific conflict escalates, the US-Taiwan aggravation strategy moves into more military cooperation. “Unprecedented” was the word of the week. And, everyone knows what it means just as much as everyone knows why.

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