Fibers are starting to snap and the solutions brought by governments always include adding more tension to the frayed rope.
China heads more toward Maoism. A nation headed at warp speed into its past already has its future known.
Taiwan wrestles with itself, seeking endorsement and recognition from other nations while chaotic governance at home makes its next election uncertain. But, two things grow stronger every day in Taiwan: military and resolve. That’s a problem for some countries, one in particular.
If Taiwan isn’t the last straw, Korea could be. North Korea launched a missile for the first time in a long time. That wouldn’t have happened without backing.
The de facto consensus among the US, China, and everyone caught in between is simple: Make the rope snap ASAP by piling on as much load as possible. Even the strategy to improve Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program comes in the form of complaint. The F-35s are ready to go. A dance floor will magically appear in the Pacific once Washington finishes playing with the bubble wrap.
America’s government has finally cracked the code on China. They know how to get under China’s skin. They had an idea before, but the algorithm—the precise frequency of activation—needed fine-tuning. And, of course, China made it all too easy to know that the code had been cracked. The sale of 60 F-16V’s to Taiwan—inferior in both number and, supposedly, technology—wasn’t even made official. Still, China couldn’t wait to announce to the world exactly the kind of insignificance that it found irritating above all previous attempts.
With this new and tested knowledge, we can expect the US to do more, and to do so more subtly. America will stand calmly, smiling. China will fume more every day, seemingly for no reason. At last, the Chinese will be so overwhelmed with rage that they will strike before military wisdom advises.
The sad, but poetic, part is that no warnings, not even reading this article, not even a spy exposing some kind of “provocation plot” or whatnot would be able to deter China from this fate. For, China loves respect above all else. Those who hunger for respect are easy to provoke and anyone provoked is under complete control of the provocateur. And, Chinese culture doesn’t know how to change or even listen.
But, there is another factor that blinded China to the American tactics. A nation with a one-child policy won’t have as much experience in sibling rivalry. America doesn’t have such a policy. Americans learn from childhood how to get under some else’s skin—especially when that someone else is the known playground bully who needs to be provoked to a brawl and sent to the principle’s office before getting any older, and bigger.
The die has been cast. The fate of the American-Chinese war has already been determined: China strikes; China loses; China loses more. Now, it’s just a matter of watching how the specifics play out on our road to the foreseen.
Drama and theatrics! The US might be in a position to enforce the Magnitsky Act against China. Now, like Taiwan before, the US is taking the pot shots. It compares to Tony Stark’s Iron Man tossing rocks at a tank to provoke the tank before obliterating the tank.
Talk of talks about trade with China while focusing on more military money for what Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan calls “China, China, China”—that’s not an effort to make peace with a country that wants it, but an effort to irritate a not-so-closet adversary into justifying a retaliatory victory. China will see the US as two-faced, never figuring out that the US is intentionally getting under Beijing’s skin because the Chinese don’t know how easily irritable their view of themselves makes them.
Then, there’s Korea. In a retelling from The Godfather III, we might say that Kim wouldn’t do this without backing. By rumbling about nuking up again, Kim is flexing muscles that shouldn’t be flexed—but only would be flexed if someone, say like Xi Jinping, were whispering support in his ear. More is going on than even Trump may be revealing, even if Kim’s rumblings are all for show. If tensions rise between the US and Northern Korea, China would be the likely backstage culprit. That would mean that tension in the Koreas would justify US action against China—yet another tank rock to toss.
Then, we have “melo-theatrics” worse than “damn lies”: statistics.
If Trump’s poll numbers were to suddenly plummet, nothing would bring them back like a victory against evermore unpopular China—now at 41% in America. That makes Trump, 47% as of Tuesday, more popular than China. If House Democrats were to take action against Trump, that might encourage China that he would not be able to sustain action against China—when actually a victorious action against China would bring up his popularity to make him politically immune to House Democrats. The freedom and opinion -driven dynamics of American politics eludes Chinese strategists, another front on which Beijing is likely to miscalculate.
If Trump’s popularity were to slip just before a conflict with China, it could have been intentional—as a means to provoke China into thinking that China is stronger against the US than it is. But, China will never figure it out, like the cat chasing the laser pen’s dot—they never figure it out.
The conclusion of the current media analysis of Trump is clear: the Democrats and media sing in unison. Their song is one of contradiction—that Obama’s routine use of executive authority and the Clinton’s scandals should have been ignored—but not Trump, who uses executive authority to obey the Constitution to defend the nation’s borders when Congress will not. His dedication to obey the Constitution is his crime, the lesser-than Obama-Clinton scandals are just the means of punishing him for doing what is right.
At a time when America’s enemies make threats, the people have a president who won’t play the “surrender” role expected by the “great surrenderers” of society. The Russianewsgategate fiasco is about to hit the fan and spray mud all over the Left. Media criticism of the president’s speech at CPAC makes no sense. He celebrates heroes, explains the inside baseball of trade, listens to the wisdom of our military’s generals, and gave the microphone to a young man who was punched in the face for his beliefs. The news media is being seen more and more for the villain it is—and the people know all about it.
Google’s negligence with Taiwanese military secrets certainly put Taiwan on the map—and it may list Google among the utilities. Being made into a public utility by force is a mild settlement for de facto espionage.
Taiwanese military tech is also growing. At an expo in Abu Dhabi, Taiwan hopes to sell its own tech to the Middle East; including its own supersonic anti-ship missiles. If China’s tech were so supreme, China would be courting the patronage of Middle Eastern states. Credibility is often in the money.
While trade talks drag on and on—and on and on—even the Leftist press supports President Trump in standing against China. Ah, yes—the one thing China hates about the West most of all: elections. Nothing could guarantee a sitting president’s re-election like a war against the self-polluted giant who ate America’s jobs. America’s ping-pong game of “talk and smack” with China continues. Wait until the US cozies up to Taiwan even more—with the Google spill being a perfect excuse—after the Huawei CFO suspect gets extradited to the US.
Trump fell a few dots shy of declaring all out war against China in his State of the Union address. He spoke kindly of China, then brought back Cold War era talk of “defeating Communism”. He also said he wanted China to have to play by the same rules as Russia and the US where nuclear missiles are concerned. The Chinese won’t like that because they genuinely believe they are better than everyone else.
China’s ancient, recently best-kept-secret, aspiration of saturating the world with the “Han” bloodline is in full swing. The recent spotlight has been the Han migration that threatens to dilute and eventually eliminate Uyghurs from the Xinjiang Uyghur “autonomous region” in China—one of many “provinces under protest” that reject forced assimilation into China’s bossy political ideology—an ideology Trump threatened in announcing his goal that China come down to the lowly level of having to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Then, there was military defense. Trump’s speech was patriotic. He celebrated “American exceptionalism” and the US’s role in helping save people in other countries from tyranny. Some call it a “messiah complex”. Some call it “American charity”. Whatever it was, Trump stirred the hearts of Americans to remember their roots of militarily helping those in need, announcing massive military investment, and reviving America’s old war on Communism.
The US is already preparing for war with China—in the old fashioned, soft, “humble” way, according to its Christendom roots of Chivalry. Without the pomp and parade, China’s imperialistic culture may not even notice. But, war drums are sounding on the horizon. Trump’s trade talks are either an irritant or a stall tactic—probably both.
