Prior to North Korea’s underground nuclear bomb test on Sunday, Pyongyang on Tuesday last week fired a ballistic missile over Japan’s Hokkaido island, which flew 2,700km before breaking up over the Pacific Ocean.
If Pyongyang had instead fired the missile over Kyushu island, it would have touched down about 500km from the US territory of Guam.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was clearly saying that his threat to fire missiles at Guam is not just empty rhetoric.
Developing and launching missiles requires a lot of money, and the rapid improvements in North Korea’s missile technology suggests that someone is helping.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) efforts in this regard have not gone unnoticed, and to give himself cover, he has also implicated Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Aug. 5, the UN Security Council voted for heavier sanctions against North Korea.
However, China and Russia voted in favor. China once again tricked the US: If Beijing implemented these sanctions, Pyongyang would not be able to continue to provoke Washington.
Allowing Kim to do so permits Xi to build momentum ahead of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 19th National Congress, and diverts public attention away from high-level power struggles and the domestic financial crisis.
Regarding the crisis, two important events recently occurred. First, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of General Staff General Fang Fenghui (房峰輝) resigned and is under investigation, while Shi Luze (史魯澤), second in command of the PLA’s Central Theater Command, which covers Beijing, reportedly has been arrested and is being investigated.
After five years in power, Xi still has not been able to eradicate former president Jiang Zemin’s (江澤民) influence over the army, since Xi lacks army connections.
Second, China’s wealthiest man, billionaire Wang Jianlin (王健林), and his family have been barred from leaving China.
Wang’s and Xi’s families are closely connected, which demonstrates two problems.
First, high-ranking CCP politicians cannot be simplistically assigned to either the Xi or the Jiang camp due to an intricate network of interest groups, which are constantly entangled in disputes with one another.
Second, the domestic financial crisis is worse than most outsiders realize. Xi therefore has not hesitated to act against businesspeople who have colluded with high-ranking party officials to get so wealthy that they can stand up to the government.
Xi also has economic motives: Blocking wealthy businesspeople from moving capital out of the country could help alleviate China’s financial crisis.
In July, China’s National Financial Working Conference established the State Council Committee for Stable Financial Development. However, if this does not halt Xi’s “fat wallet diplomacy,” the nation’s financial crisis will deepen.
Of course, allowing Kim to provoke the US is calculated.
US President Donald Trump’s team is in chaos because of domestic race-relation problems, and Washington will have difficulty taking any meaningful action against Pyongyang — the response so far has been limited to a telephone call with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Second, before Trump’s planned visit to Beijing later this year, it does not matter what Pyongyang does, as Trump has placed his hopes on a second meeting with Xi.
If Trump does not unveil some genuinely tough measures, Xi will have won this latest round of high-stakes poker.
Paul Lin is a media commentator
Translated by Edward Jones
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, people have been asking if Taiwan is the next Ukraine. At a G7 meeting of national leaders in January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Taiwan “could be the next Ukraine” if Chinese aggression is not checked. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if Russia is not defeated, then “today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.” China does not like this rhetoric. Its diplomats ask people to stop saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” However, the rhetoric and stated ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Taiwan shows strong parallels with