Presidential election time in the US may be the season for China-bashing, but it was no less astonishing that such fiery attacks on Beijing this time could come from Democrats, with that party's candidates for the nomination seemingly in a competition to out-hawk each other.
The level of rhetoric was so aggressive and uncompromising that the Republican candidates will be hard-pressed to match it.
For some time the received wisdom has been that the open-ended Iraq War would so dispirit the US public that eventually the very thought of antagonizing China over Taiwanese sovereignty would be political suicide. Instead, at best, the US military would be called on by pro-Taiwan elements in the US government to maintain the line that peace in the Pacific demands that Taiwan stay under Taiwanese control.
In this scenario China would have had the upper hand. But thanks to problems with the safety of food, medical and other exports and its inability to accommodate US objections to the yuan's exchange rate, China may have forfeited this potential advantage forever.
Even more astonishing than the Democrats' new-found bile this week was further evidence that Chinese officials consider the US dollar a potential hostage to its foreign reserves. This development, together with the fact that China will not allow the Beijing Olympic Games to loosen social and political controls, should set off alarms for US strategists.
In 2005, when Chinese Major General Zhu Chenghu (
But the same most certainly cannot be said about Xia Bin (
The most pressing concern, then, is the stupidity of a Chinese government that would induce a collapse of the greenback for political reasons. That this scenario has been so publicly and brazenly aired by experts who have Beijing's ear is ample evidence of the unpredictability -- to put it politely -- of the Chinese government on this issue.
For all the US government has said and done about reinforcing the security of the homeland against the terrorist threat, and for all of the hand-wringing that has accompanied illegal immigration and building fences on a desert border, the grim reality is that Americans are under increasing -- and increasingly acknowledged -- threat from a China that can say "go to hell."
It is this threat, not the generally limited impact of terror cells, that has the potential to hit every American where it hurts the most. The frightening thing is that China appears to revel in a situation in which it is portrayed as powerful enough to hurt people on whom it relies for growth and accumulating wealth.
No matter how much reform it may undertake, the Chinese government is proving itself incapable of shaking historical grudges -- and more than capable of repositioning those grudges from the enemies of the past to enemies of the future.
So the question must be asked: How many warnings on Chinese aggression must the US government receive before it talks and acts like it is dealing with a hostile power?
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
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