Cadence of Conflict: Asia, December 21, 2020

Readers still can’t get a break from bad news of China. More Chinese companies are added to the notorious “entities list”. The WHO sends a team to China, which isn’t exactly wonderful press. China is the biggest military threat. The US Navy along with the Coast Guard must reshape its strategy to protect against the Chinese. Trump even blames the Chinese for a recent cyber attack.

As China continues in headlines as the villain, Taiwan is evermore adorable. The Taiwanese plan to become their own military supplier and submarine maker, not as much dependent on the US. They hope to get so many awesome weapons of their own, other nations will want to buy weapons from the Taiwanese, who can defend themselves against the great China, after all. As if that’s not enough to irritate Beijing, Washington will start calling Taiwan’s not-embassy by “Taiwan” instead of “Taipei Economic and Cultural”.

But, how serious is Taiwan about its own defense? While Washington cozies up to Taiwan with somewhat more, semi-respectful names, America’s envoy to Taiwan is still called “American Institute in Taiwan”. And, as much as Taiwan claims to want technology and good relations with other nations, xenophobic immigration laws are still on the books. Immigrants to Taiwan vs immigrants from Taiwan have a much more difficult path and the ratios are insultingly low. Very few Westerners can contribute to Taiwan’s economy, technology, and goal of English as a second official language with these unchanged restrictions in Taiwan’s immigration policies. Nearly all changes in Taiwan and in Washington go little beyond symbolic.

Washington is mostly talk. Taiwan is too ambivalent to love actually. And, Beijing is easily insulted. The trends aren’t subtle anymore. They used to be five years ago, but they’re just not subtle anymore—quite the opposite.

Read More

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 27, 2020

China is under global attack from all sides. It’s not just the government, but a sizeable portion of the Chinese people who cooperate with that government. We don’t know how many in China are part of the problem or the solution. Reports from China remain silenced and Chinese culture is beaten down and overtly compliant even to tyranny. While Chinese students at Western universities volunteer themselves as mouthpieces for Chinese Communist propaganda, they join the party deemed guilty by the jury of the world.

African governments are in panic about Chinese government gentrification of their own nations. China is seen as the villain who covered up information vital to the EU. Great Britain is fed up with China, claiming the Chinese don’t just lack or hide information, but lie about it. Trump has been warning the world about China since before he was president—arguably that got him elected.

Then again, there’s Taiwan again. Former US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has a petition for Taiwan to be admitted to the WHO. Even in a recent scuffle over some infected Navy sailors who walked around in Taiwanese public, there still are no new person-to-person virus cases in Taiwan 14 days later. The staggering success is largely accredited to Taiwan’s miraculously brilliant and swift handling of the situation. It’s all based on a germ-phobic population, slow and steady sectional school closing protocols, but it started with immediate and utter lockdown against the since-become world villain: China.

Taiwan has foresight. Maybe that’s why China wants Taiwan out of the WHO. And now, the truth isn’t hiding anymore.

Read More

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 20, 2020

Just when we thought China couldn’t make itself more unpopular, China made itself more unpopular. Perhaps it was charity. Perhaps it was delusion. We don’t like thinking bad things about others, especially if we sacrificed our jobs and economies to have our stuff made more cheaply by them. Saying bad things about China was as politically incorrect as blaming the Karan for militants wanting to kill their enemies. Thinking bad things about China made Americans feel almost as guilty as thinking that voting against Obama wasn’t racist. No one wanted to say that China might be up to no good.

Why governments and global economy jockeys supposedly didn’t see it coming remains unexplained. But, all of a sudden, China is global enemy number one. The Western press has been educating the world about Taiwan in almost every Taiwan news story for the past decade. Anybody who is anybody at least asks, “What’s the relationship between China and Taiwan?” To Western taxpayers and voters, no acceptable answer will be in China’s favor. These days, China is damned if it does and more damned if it isn’t.

Governments are paying factories to dump China’s manufacturing. But, that’s not the biggest problem for the Chinese.

No one gives as much money to the World Health Organization as the US, behind that is Bill Gates, then the UK. China is among the smallest donors. So, why is so much Western money being used along the propaganda points of such a puny donor as China? If so much money is being usurped, the US would be obligated to pull the plug. And, that’s what it looks like, especially with the WHO siding with China on the matter of Taiwan. While Taiwan’s exclusion from the WHO indicates bias, Western countries are concerned about the WHO helping cover up what happened in China.

With president Trump now calling for investigations in China about the pneumoniavirus, other problems could come up, such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. China won’t allow that, not even to regain control of all that US money in the WHO. The world won’t have it. Global hatred toward China is only beginning.

Read More

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 13, 2020

The global case against China is marching forward in force. Typically the West doesn’t care about human rights violations—they care, but never enough to do anything until it involves themselves. Two million Uyghurs missing in Xinjiang doesn’t matter to the West. But, if Americans and Europeans are afraid of catching a pneumonia-cold that most people don’t know anyone who died from, but they have to stay home without toilet paper—well, now it’s time for a war. Who do the papers blame?—China.

Anti-Chinese sentiment is no joke. Taiwan is being painted as a key victim. The Chinese Communists are being labeled as the perpetrators of the global pandemic. Even in Israel, even among the anti-Trump American electorate, China is the biggest bad guy ever!

We can argue that China deserves it. We can argue that the West set up China by making China rich in the first place, then causing a fake pandemic. However we chalk it up, the West is coming for China. The saddest part of all comes from the Chinese.

A reporter working for a news company owned by a Chinese general makes a Chinese propaganda speech when “asking a question” to the president. Chinese college students at Western schools march, protest, and even bully, all inline with Chinese Communist propaganda. And, while the West amasses force against China, the Chinese Communists only dig their heels in and feed the forest fire of hate raging against themselves.

Read More

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 9, 2020

Things are fairing worse and worse for China, but better and better for Taiwan.

The KMT-Nationalist party is abandoning its long-standing agreement to cooperate with the Chinese Communists, much how the American Democratic party is abandoning socialism within its ranks. Taiwan’s handling of the 2019-nCoV Wuhan virus is top notch, possibly the best in the world. The irony is that Taiwan is not a member of the WHO, for mere reasons of political pressure from China. The world will interpret Taiwan’s absence from the WHO through the poor response to the virus from WHO members. And the world will, accordingly, blame China not only for the virus, but for the lack of Taiwan’s valued input in the WHO.

This week, when things seemed as though they couldn’t get worse in China, a hotel collapsed, which housed many people being observed for the virus. Not all had been diagnosed, but at least 10 are dead from the collapse.

Interestingly, this does not fair well for Taiwan. The more respect Taiwan earns from the international community, and the more spite China earns from the international community, the more envy will boil and bubble as China froths with rage against Taiwan. China’s government is not functioning with any trace of sobriety. Recent events are pushing the Chinese government over the edge in their ancient desire to invade Taiwan. While that would leave them vulnerable at home and hated even more throughout the world, such things never stopped them before and certainly aren’t stopping them now. Read More

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 10, 2020

The words of US President Trump set an unsettling policy for Communist China: “We’re also getting our allies, finally, to help pay their fair share.” This is far-reaching.

By having multiple nations with multiple militaries operating with appropriate budgets, China faces an enclave of opponents, not just one. There is no single head to decapitate. If you’re in Beijing, sitting in a room filled with Mandarin speakers who agree that they are entitled to make the world their servant, Trump’s words scare you.

While Beijing fights the virus it tried to cover up, Taiwan had recorded 10 deaths from that virus. Yet, China reported 13 in Taiwan, then told the United Nations that China speaks accurately for Taiwan, still arguing that Taiwan should not enter the WHO—even taking offense, still, at any suggestion of entry. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Wu pointed out that the WHO has referred to Taiwan by at least three different names in reporting on China’s Wuhan outbreak. This week, even the US spoke up for Taiwan’s request to join the WHO; China was all the more offended.

The outbreak isn’t fairing well for China’s credibility in governing Hong Kong either. Supermarkets are full of empty shelves.

While China’s central government will continue the playbook strategy of blaming the very local governments it dominates, the central government’s solution to the failure of a centralized government will be to centralize more government. In Confucian Communism, control is the solution to every problem, especially the problems that control causes. So they themselves believe even more than they purport, the reason that China has so many challenges within its vast stretches of land is that it doesn’t have even more land. The Chinese Communists believe that their number one problem is that they don’t control the world.

Read More