A while ago, I wrote about the craziness of the American gun culture. Faced with so much evidence and violence, they continue to advocate more guns as a solution and refused to adopt common-sense regulations to reduce senseless killings. We will never understand them as their form of democracy and first amendment rights seem too alien for us outsiders.
In America, conflict is encouraged and debates can now go violent in these Trumpian times where fake news is anything you do not agree with, even if they are facts that can be proven in court.
Internal politics is sometimes interesting to an outsider like me. They can fight all they want as it is their country. But sometimes their actions affect the rest of the world and the logic is warped with a heavy dose of self-interest.
This week, it is about Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. I see it as totally unnecessary and provocative and only done to serve the interest of a minority. Stepping on a dragon’s tail and not expecting a response is utterly stupid.
China had given multiple warnings about the visit but the Americans continue to poke and fan the anger. Now we will see China’s reaction in full view with the triggering of the 4 days war exercise as a lesson on how they can surround Taiwan and take it over. Six exercise regions around the island plus missiles were fired across the country. There was the use of their most advanced aircraft and supersonic missiles as a show of force.
Biden is now seen as a lame duck president for not having the balls to order Pelosi to postpone her trip. This was just after a one-on-one talk with Xi the week before who was also explicit about the likely consequences of the trip. Then we see the administration scrambling later after the visit to try to contain the situation. Totally unnecessary.
Pelosi was a long-time anti-China hawk since her Tiananmen visit 31 years ago in 1991 as a young congresswoman. Perhaps this urgency of the visit is to cap her political career, being 82 years old now. There could be another political angle to this too. The GOP opposition was unanimous in their support of her trip. Ahead of the Nov midterm elections, this could be a ploy to negate the argument that Democrats were soft on China.
There has been too much China-bashing in recent years from everywhere, encouraged by the Americans. We outsiders can see many one-sided arguments while China’s point of view remain silenced. Yes, both sides are sometimes wrong, but biased reporting is jarring.
America seems to be very threatened by a competing rising superpower and is making all attempts to slow down or stop the inevitable. The use of military power is all they have ever known and here comes the new kid on the block that doesn’t use a single bullet to achieve that aim.
China uses soft power to win over countries while trying to win them over. With initiatives like One Belt One Road, they rely on their recent confidence in building new infrastructure to expand their area of influence. America on the other hand promotes its huge military industry and continue to start conflicts to feed the need for more weapons. Look at Ukraine and the flooding of American weapons to fight Russia. It is boom town Charlie now for companies like Lockheed and others American manufacturers with a flood of new orders even as expiring equipment is being “donated” to Ukraine.
China refuses to condemn Russia and tries to stay neutral, even going to the point to not supplying drones to them. But the continued push by the Americans to press China’s hot button will move them away from positive global initiatives. They have just announced that China will stop all work with America on climate change, military and business cooperation.
With inflation due to the Ukraine war and supply chain bottlenecks, the last thing America should do is to further alienate another global super power partner and flex its muscles when it does not have to. China will now prefer to look inwards to its own economy, rather than depend on overseas demand alone.
It is already working with Russia to try to break away from the overdependence on the US dollar and the Swift financial system by creating an alternative currency like the RMB or a new digital blockchain linked CBDC.
America looks like a mess now. The right-hand does not know want the left is doing. Everyone is jockeying for political power. No wonder Andrew Yang has decided to create a 3rd party called Forward recently. GOP and the Democrats simply cannot and do not want to work together for the common good of the country. They rather talk down or shame the other side instead of doing good for the citizens.
As an interesting aside, with the help of the US after world war 2, Taiwan had marked out their ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone – see map below). If you look at it, you will notice that it encroaches on mainland China, covering cities like Xiamen and Fuzhou. Technically, if China flies its fighter jets in its own area, it will enter into Taiwan’s ADIZ. China recently did try to draw up a more equitable ADIZ but it was not well received.
After Pelosi’s visit, China announced 4 days of a military exercise that covered 6 regions (see the pink boxes on the map below) which surrounded Taiwan as a show of force and what a future invasion would look like. China’s hand was forced as its many warnings fell on deaf ears and it had to react accordingly.
This escalation of tension is totally avoidable. The trip could have been delayed for a while or cancelled. It serves no purpose to further isolate China while the rest of the world is putting pressure on Russia to stop the Ukraine war and try to bring down inflation. There is much downside risk with little to gain. Americans are crazy to want to trigger this new tension.
