Tag Archives: China

Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, August 13, 2018

China's situation isn't getting easier. Taiwan now has tested a new missile, boasting ability to fire within China's mainland, being capable of destroying military targets on both land and sea. This is no laughing matter. On the economic front, Beijing has a hard-headed counterpart in the White House, Donald Trump. He shows no indication of backing down on any front, including Beijing. Now, China is going after Muslims.

While it can be politically incorrect for the West to pursue terrorists if they are Muslim, China doesn't have that problem. Military states rarely do, which is one advantage China has over the West. Terror cells may be in hot water since China is on high alert in all directions. If Taiwan were to create trouble on its eastern coast, Beijing would not want more trouble from its western borders. So, any earlier preemptive action from Beijing is likely to be westward, toward Muslim nations. Those Muslim areas could be in greater danger than Taiwan.

Taiwanese have been busy, though. When anyone uses the "Taiwan, China" format, Taiwanese go berserk. That's raising a lot of attention about a little island in the Pacific which now has missiles capable of attacking China. These are interesting times.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, August 6, 2018

Apple sales are up in China, which creates a problem on two fronts. First, the doomsayers were wrong about tariffs crashing economies. If the tariffs aren't making a difference according to the globalist economists, then why did they object? They're the "experts", after all. Shouldn't they have foreseen that tariffs wouldn't matter? The second problematic front is that an American company's success seems to be a problem for the Chinese.

Apple doesn't filter and censor content from personal users, but Chinese state-media outlets seem to think it should. Even though Apple proved that China is good for business, someone had to find fault. Good news just won't do these days.

So, now it's Apple vs China rather than Apple in China. It seems Apple was also duped by the globalist economists into vesting one fifth of its sales in a relationship that wasn't going to last. Watch. This looks like a preemptive step to take action against Apple, who would do well to start pulling out of China before its assets get appropriated for the benefit of the Chinese people.

The swelling trade war between the US and China isn't going away. Dating back to the Opium Wars, the West will push and push as long as most of the money flows downhill into China. While China compares tariffs, Trump balances cash flow.

More importantly, China could be entering another "danger zone" of its own. Painting Trump as an enemy in China's own newspapers could inspire dissidents within China that they have support from the US. The best response for China's own stability would be to report that Trump's tariffs were intended to help China's economy more than the US. That would be more likely to promote unity among the Chinese people. But, the state didn't think of that before press time and the newspapers can't be recalled, even when owned by the state.

China is, indeed calm, just as it claims. There should be no question that China believes the flow of money into China is fair. Chinese don't want to be unfair, after all. China should only have favorable trade because China deserves it. Beigjing isn't out to hurt anyone, unless they are denied the extra favor that the world owes to China. So, don't let the Western press convince you that China is more of a monster than it actually is. We can all be monsters at times.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 30, 2018

The "China miracle" was nothing more than smoke and mirrors as big companies of the West took advantage of Chinese people seeking a living and Western consumers seeking lower prices. Everyone lost. There was no "miracle".

The fad for cutting costs and quick investment returns nickeled and dimed away quality, eventually pushing bean counters to fall in love with China's underpaid labor force. When China opened for business in 1978, the shipments rolled in. Wealth wasn't made, it was only rearranged. A large shipping freighter made a large wake, some sunbathers had to move their towels on the beach when the wave wrecked the sand castles, and the global economist footsie-frat claimed that the sea levels had permanently risen.

Perhaps the label was wishful thinking, perhaps it was a malicious deception, but it wasn't Chinese propaganda; it was globalist propaganda. China's "growing economy" was fueled by an exchange between a planned economy and the free markets of the world. Whatever wave came, it would lower, eventually balance out, and could never have endured any more than spilled crude oil mixes with wildlife on the beach.

The mainstream Western press kept reporting on the "Chinese miracle", encouraging Beijing that China's new economy was here to stay. Western globalist economists should have known better, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but China is paying the price of the inevitable. Eventually, either the Western economies would collapse—then the one-way flow of cash into China would stop as it did after the opium wars—or a Donald Trump would come along and stop the flow before it got that far. But, it wasn't going to last. The biggest victim of the bean-counter coupon-clipper culture of the West is China. And, making victims reaps nothing more than ill will.

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Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, July 30, 2018

Days after Trump meets with Putin and doesn't mention Snowden, the NSA finds "many issues of non-compliance" in handling data, which was part of Snowden's initial concern. It seems that a way may already be finding its way for Snowden to return to the US in relative peace.

Just after the worldwide worry machine was all in a tizzy about trade wars with the EU, the US and EU have almost all their issues resolved and are working to make things much better than they were before.

The "bug" in Putin's soccer ball is part of an app device from Adidas, not a surveillance device from Russia's FSB.

The "made in China" Trump products either 1. go back to the pre-presidential campaign Trump business in which Trump learned about China up close and personal as a trader himself or 2. are unaffiliated knock-off products made in China to resemble actual Trump campaign products, but Bernie Sanders doesn't know the difference between the real and the knock-off.

Now, the Leftist press is going after SCOTUS nominee Kavanaugh's wife. There is a gross hypocrisy here since the Leftist press didn't go digging through the correspondence of Clinton's mistresses. When Congress did hold an inquiry about Bill's love life through Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, the Leftist press jumped to write it off as "personal". It doesn't seem personal anymore, or is it getting too personal?

The reason for going after Kavanaugh's wife is lack of evidence against Kavanaugh. This goes beyond "grasping at straws". The implosion of the press reached a new public demonstration of insanity this week, so the weeks to come are only likely to get more entertaining.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 23, 2018

Central planning has only so much room for slight of hand tricks to keep up its sleeve. When the going gets tough, everyone goes home. For China, that means devaluing its currency, a complaint Trump has long lobbed against the trade giant.

Maintaining good relations with Apple and almost achieving the manufacturing capability long held by Samsung is quite the accomplishment for the Chinese. Good job. Everyone owes them a hand. China's BOE company hopes to be able to start manufacturing the flexible, "organic" LED displays by 2020.

Devaluing currency as a response to trade tariffs from the US, however, is likely to make those tariffs higher, considering that devaluation of its own currency was one reason Trump argued for tariffs before his election. This, and turning to Africa, means that the international bite is felt. Silicon Valley also has its eyes on Africa, meaning that Apple and China may meet again in Africa, as well as Google. But, doing more of the same things that initiated tariffs is likely to cause more tariffs than tariff problems it alleviates.

China has a hard set of choices ahead and as those choices narrow, the tiger will feel more and more like its been backed against a corner. This path doesn't endure entirely peacefully.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 16, 2018

Global trade has become too congested and inbred. Enemies make vital weapons parts for each other—well, enemies of the US make vital weapons parts for the US, but don't return the favor. Western companies outsourced to developing markets, then were surprised at workplace hazards, loss in consumer trust, and didn't seem to anticipate that by sending jobs overseas they were downsizing their own customers.

The borderless fling wasn't going to last for a myriad of reasons—cultural incohesion being an impossibility for a manufacturing industry in denial, security conflicts of interest being a concern for Western powers. Internationalization is about governments and cultures understanding each other, not forcing cooperation between peoples who haven't yet learned to gel in the daily routines. Companies like Boeing got themselves too entangled in the scene of borderless manufacturing and are now whining and moaning because the inevitable finally happened. This indicates that their "globalist" action plan wasn't based in foresight, but delusional hopes.

Globalism is inevitable, but it won't take the path that the impatient hopefuls dreamed and thereby planned it would. Globalism needs cultural exchange to precede and exceed industrial integration, not vice versa. Boeing through the cart pulled its horse, banked on it, it backfired, and Boeing is now denying blame.

China and Europe, mainly Germany, are headed for the same blend of oil and water. This so-called "trade war" isn't setting well in China's market. Chinese people blame their government. That government doesn't want any misreporting that could even remotely influence the people into thinking that the unrelated trade and stock market could have any kind of direct relationship. The trouble Trump is making for China isn't demonstrated from rumors of censorship within China or its stock market, but in China's attempt for yet another foreseeably incohesive relationship with Germany. China is being smart, Germany is not.

China is owed everything by the West, but Germany hasn't figured this out yet. China doesn't need to say so because no one tells the obvious. A relationship between China and Germany would rightly favor China, Beijing would have no objection, but Berlin will cry and whine just as much as Boeing, once it all lays flat on the table. And, China will have made the profit.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, July 2, 2018

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ned0x

NBC reported news of recent months to counter news of recent weeks. It wouldn't be the first time NBC had a precarious definition of "news". Intelligence reports about very specific details of possible uranium production were broken as "news" by NBC. Bloomberg and others reported that NBC reported it. Taipei Times reported that Bloomberg reported that NBC reported it. NBC breaking this "older" news made more news than the outdated "news" itself. The whole claim smells smelly. It's likely a ruse, but we'll need about two weeks to know with confidence.

Hong Kongers like to protest so often that they are expected to protest annually. This year, protesters claimed a 50k head turnout; Hong Kong police estimated less than 10k, which would be a record low. Surely neither crowd estimate had any bias or motive to distort the numbers.

Remember, Hong Kong students like to protest more than is deserved. China could do better with counter-PR, but not much can be done when dealing with spoiled students. Don't be roused into hating China by the dwindling spoiled Hong Kongers. Protests are profitable in Hong Kong because they help sell newspapers in a market saturated with so many newspapers that they throw them at pedestrians on the sidewalks. Hong Kong's biggest problem is complacent Christians.

A more genuine problem of concern is the attention Chinese manufacturers are drawing from Western press coverage of Taiwan court rulings. Taiwan makes about 60% of the world's computer components. China wants in on the game and people are being prosecuted in Taiwan for stealing company secrets that would go to China. The biggest element of a case is in place: motive.

Most of the so-called "news" about trade wars are the most obvious. Companies are having problems with trade during a trade war. Really? This is considered news these days. Either that, or it is an obvious attempt to skirt the deeper issues behind the China-US trade war for global economy hopefuls hoping to sway public sentiment by reporting what was all foreseeable.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, Jun 25, 2018

China is facing money problems, as the Western press continues to document in detail. China's economy is largely based on real estate. China's unusual form of communism includes laws that govern economics—especially with real estate, of course—and these laws are unusual in much of the rest of the world. As a result, people in China need to borrow money for things they normally wouldn't borrow money for. The repayment schedules are also strange.

The only way that a real estate business can stay afloat is if the prices of real estate keep rising. The more it rises, the more it needs to rise. Money doesn't fall from trees, but in China it needs to keep falling from somewhere in order to keep this vicious cycle spinning faster and faster. Eventually, the speed of the spinning wheel will exceed the strength of the wheel and it will all fly apart.

Then, we have China's strategy in the South Sea—also involving real estate. The man-made islands are complete. It all happened while the West watched closely and did nothing to stop it. They are heavily fortified and militarized.

Trump reminds the world that we aren't out of the woods yet with North Korea, Democrats misinterpret that as a contradiction—as if one step of progress means it's all over. Japan is ending its drills. The Korean problem is simmering down and Taiwan is escalating.

Now, we have the US strengthening its ties with Taiwan, the linchpin of the Pacific. Diplomats are visiting. Congressmen are calling for Taiwan's membership in sovereign-state-only organizations such as the UN. And, the Taiwan "Independence Party" welcomes US military cooperation.

Why would the US make such a bold move to side with Taiwan? Consider the US president's financial background: real estate. Trump understand's the economic crisis brewing in China. No one has said so, but the pieces line up. The US is positioning Taiwan as the main frontal push against China while the "attack from behind", as it were, is economics.

China is beefing up cyber attacks on Taiwan. US aircraft flying near the man-made islands are being hit by blinding flashes of light from the ground and from "fishing" boats, disrupting aviation. Using lasers such ways is illegal in war as both the US and China have signed agreements to.

China is also using drones that look like flying birds, but China wasn't the first. This technology has been used before. Interestingly, China has maintained a policy that tech manufactured in China must be shared with China's government. It would be even more interesting to see if any research surfaces on how many patent royalties China might owe for tech used to surveil its own people—surveillance only enabled by tech giants who caved into China's demands. But, due to the Tump administration, all that's coming to a grinding halt. If China wants better tech to spy on its own people, it's going to need to develop that tech on its own.

Those man-made islands in the South Sea were allowed to be built for a reason. Could they have been intended all along to become "booty" that will be "owned" by the West as Hong Kong was after the Opium Wars? Hong Kong just might be included if China is forced into concessions, especially with all the "ra-ra" fuss among spoiled Hong Kong students. The US strategy indicates many lofty "hopefuls" in the queue, should the status quo shift—in what direction no one knows. It seems that the Trump administration has aims much higher than merely settling disputes in Korea.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 18, 2018

Trump has stopped military exercises near North Korea, but he has not initiated any plans to withdraw troops. His reason for stopping the exercises is that they are provocative and expensive. He has a point: If the heads of state are talking then we are less in need of fighting practice in a scenario where heads of state are not talking.

The military exercises with South Korea are expensive and provocative, as Trump explains. Frankly, they should stop. With healthy conversations and progress toward peace already behind us, there won't be a need for those drills any longer. Rehearsal for conflict that might never exist can often provoke the very conflicts we otherwise would not need to prepare for. As for the "expense" defense, few accountants will argue in favor of nickeling and diming away money as fiscally responsible and no one believes that taxpayers' pockets are infinitely deep except pundits with portfolios in public funding.

The Western news is that Trump is wrong, specifically with regard to China that China wins. According to this week's Western news narrative, China wins because of troop withdrawals that haven't happened, because a friend of China will de-nuke, and because over 30k US troops will be free to go home—or go to Taiwan, Mischief Reef, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, or any number of other Pacific island-nations China doesn't get along with.

Economically, China "wins" because manufacturing is leaving China—which must therefore mean that China's innovation and science is the new source of manufacturing elsewhere. Perhaps that includes innovation and science like the Chinese government now trying to track every car with a chip as of 2019. The "Mad Scientist" theorem of the experimental police state research moving from North Korea to China continues to play out.

Just remember with everything: There's more going on than anyone can see. Deals between governments are never fully explained to the public. They shouldn't be. But, as peace develops in one part of the western Pacific, hostilities move around and every pundit seizes opportunity to say, "I was right." No conflict is without news profiteering.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 18, 2018

Trump has stopped military exercises near North Korea, but he has not initiated any plans to withdraw troops. His reason for stopping the exercises is that they are provocative and expensive. He has a point: If the heads of state are talking then we are less in need of fighting practice in a scenario where heads of state are not talking.

The military exercises with South Korea are expensive and provocative, as Trump explains. Frankly, they should stop. With healthy conversations and progress toward peace already behind us, there won't be a need for those drills any longer. Rehearsal for conflict that might never exist can often provoke the very conflicts we otherwise would not need to prepare for. As for the "expense" defense, few accountants will argue in favor of nickeling and diming away money as fiscally responsible and no one believes that taxpayers' pockets are infinitely deep except pundits with portfolios in public funding.

The Western news is that Trump is wrong, specifically with regard to China that China wins. According to this week's Western news narrative, China wins because of troop withdrawals that haven't happened, because a friend of China will de-nuke, and because over 30k US troops will be free to go home—or go to Taiwan, Mischief Reef, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, or any number of other Pacific island-nations China doesn't get along with.

Economically, China "wins" because manufacturing is leaving China—which must therefore mean that China's innovation and science is the new source of manufacturing elsewhere. Perhaps that includes innovation and science like the Chinese government now trying to track every car with a chip as of 2019. The "Mad Scientist" theorem of the experimental police state research moving from North Korea to China continues to play out.

Just remember with everything: There's more going on than anyone can see. Deals between governments are never fully explained to the public. They shouldn't be. But, as peace develops in one part of the western Pacific, hostilities move around and every pundit seizes opportunity to say, "I was right." No conflict is without news profiteering.

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Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 11, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AGJwdVdR5E

The historians and experts are all hysterical about the historic meeting between Trump and Kim. They warn that JFK appeared too week while Nixon's aggression didn't intimidate. No one can win in the eyes of the hindsight expert who sees himself as the smartest guy in the room. But, history has already been made: Trump brought Warmbier home and Kim to the table. No one has done either before as a sitting president.

For the record, former President Bill Clinton did bring home Lisa Ling's younger sister from North Korea under Kim Jong-Il, but he wasn't president at the time and he wasn't dealing with the same leader. Still, Clinton deserves kudos. Presidents Clinton and Trump should have a victory cigar together at some point.

Kim Jong-Un is a kid who has never known the free world. Though there are rumors of him having attended school as a kid in Europe, it would have been just enough to gain an appetite, not an understanding. Donald J. Trump is an old, wealthy man. With talk of a McDonald's and a Trump resort in North Korea being on Kim's wish list, everyone should expect the conversation to be that of the young kid eagerly asking daddy for gifts. Trump's answer will likely be similar to his response to Senator Feinstein, "Sure we can do that..." with the added, "But, those things aren't given by eternally rich countries since no country is eternally rich. Those things are part of a world culture of people coming in and going out, but your father and grandfather wouldn't let people go in or out. If you just let people go in and out, you can get those things yourself without having to ask me."

In all likelihood, no one has ever told those things to Kim Jong-Un before, not even South Korean President Moon who began the current outreach. Everyone has his role. Moon was the charm, Trump may be the evangelist who delivers the good news no one else could. This meeting is not about a hashed-out, jig-sawed "deal"; it's about the only man in the world with both the power and the words to explain life and love to the only man in the world who can't receive those ideas from anyone else.

As Trump and Kim prepare to meet tomorrow, the main news in the Western press about China is China possibly spying on the Trump-Kim summit, that and flashbacks to Nixon and Mao. The rest focuses on the old script of news in China: economics. The SCO summit includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Russia, China, and India. They basically met to agree that they agree. Clearly, China and its neighborhood is solidifying a stark alliance to contrast morphing alliances in the West—and the West's growing alliance with some nations to China's east.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 4, 2018

North Korea inches further and further toward talks with the US. China fears this. If Kim Jong-Un get in the same room as the man who wrote The Art of the Deal, North Korea could become a stronger ally to the US than even South Korea overnight. That would likely lead to a quick reunification of the Korean Peninsula, as well as other shifts in power, even before any alliance might be formalized. But, Trump's deal-making reputation should bring no shocks to what is about to transpire in the Singapore Summit.

Then, there's China, about to be left behind. The hardline crackdown on free speech throughout China won't be without consequence. Symphony has been saying so for years; Albert Ho effectively said the same, quoted in a Bloomberg article dated June 4. Party power is getting brittle. But, the consequences of brutal brittality are rarely explored. So, here goes.

Hong Kong won't shut up anytime soon. The whining, whimpering bratty students of Hong Kong may be wrong to demand rights when freedom was largely handed to them by the British. But, those bratty students sure are drawing a press load of attention to China. That alone should be a heavy factor in logistics calculation. Hong Kong is a megaphone for any anti-China sentiment because the world reads about Hong Kong every day. After all, Hong Kong is "Asia's World City".

But, then there's the problem of cracking down within "China proper", the Mainland governed directly by Beijing, not a SAR like Hong Kong or Macau. If China considers friendly sarcasm to be a threat within China—that means tech companies and hardware manufacturers won't have candid conversations about quality control and competitive design. Once free speech becomes a minefield, people will divert mental resources away from fee and open brainstorming toward making sure that they don't say anything offensive. The key to good brainstorm sessions and innovation is that nothing is off the table and no one is allowed to take offense at anything whatsoever. That's can't happen in China anymore. Bye-bye Western manufacturing paradise. It's only a matter of time before Western outsourcing brands figure it out. One little story, like an innovator being locked up for a tech suggestion because it was interpreted as "opposing to the Party", might plunge Chinese factory stocks into the void below.

"Single-Party Rule" is the key topic now, at least according to Western papers. That's the protest mantra in Hong Kong. It's the talking point of headlines and marches. It is the so-called "problem" as is being presented to the world. The Western press is on a path for reporting a narrative that stirs sentiment for two-party rule in China. Whether it's a typhoon, an earthquake, a solar flare, or some other "act of God", if China suddenly adopts a two-party system, Western newspaper readers will have already been prepped to think it is a good thing.

Then, there's Vietnam, exploring foreign investment "zones". Deserved or unfair, distrust is stirring against China as a place of investment. This will have a double-edged effect in Vietnam. Firstly, Western manufacturing will flock to Vietnam as a way of fleeing the newspaper villain, China. But, with a Communist Party having total rule in Vietnam, Western investors will demand certain assurances before dumping too much money into yet another single-party market. Sooner or later, we could be looking at Vietnam adopting a friendly two-party system as a stronger strategy of competing with China. That will only add to the momentum of change in East Asia.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 28, 2018

The US "disinvited" two countries this week, not only North Korea, but also China from the biannual naval exercises in Hawaii. Both "disinvitations" were a rescinding of a previous invitation after less than friendly saber rattling from the former invitee. Kim Jong Un's loud mouth is widely known, so the North Korean "disinvitation" came as no surprise.

China, specifically, has been pressuring African countries to "dis-recognize" Taiwan in favor of Beijing policy. Additionally, China has been pressuring US companies to follow otherwise unrecognized Chinese maps placing Taiwan under China's political sovereignty, as well as companies from other countries—which Taiwan is not currently under the control of. China sees the request as part of a grand goal of "reunification" and a nostalgic return to the rhapsodic geographical past as the keystone of a socioeconomic strengthening strategy.

The problem from the Western corporate perspective is with the dictionary, not with ideology. China's government does not decide the laws on Taiwan's island currently, not in any way. So, listing Taiwan "under" China would create confusion for Western tourists. But, China is run by Communists who believe that logistics are to be dictated, not recognized. In the land of Communist-Chinese, if tourists would be confused, the solution is to simply make a new law this afternoon outlawing tourists who are confused. So, Beijing doesn't believe the West has any legitimate problem with the policy, but that Western companies are only trying to spite Beijing.

Washington, however, does view the problem as ideological. It would be wrong for Washington to dictate the organizational nomenclature of the Bank of China or Sky News or Spotify. So would be any reciprocal resemblance. Under Trump, Washington is enforcing that ideology globally.

Then, there was yet another snafu among China's man-made islands. The US can't stop making news in Taiwan. A Senator makes an "unexpected" visit. US weapons developers are planning to set up shop in Taiwan. The US and Taiwan have decided that they can't build Taiwanese submarines fast enough. And, the US has decided that Taiwan needs the absolutely best defense to respond to Chinese "saber rattling", not only asymmetric defense. All of this is remarkably irritating and "disrespectful" to China.

China hates few things more than being disrespected.

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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 21, 2018

Talk only went so far this week. I looks as if North Korea might not be dismantling its nukes, but hiding them, then threatening to close talks when exposed for this, then threatening to cancel the summit for some other list of excuses.

The big question on Kim Jong-Un backing out on the talks relates to his recent visits to China. Not that China has made any wild promises, but he feels somewhat confident in getting lippy with the US.

The big lesson was about Moon's emphasis on diplomacy vs Trump's emphasis on teeth. Diplomacy made progress in terms of leading to more diplomacy. But, actual action is a measurement of its own. So far, Trump's action has led to China losing interest in any kind of trade war and Moon's favored diplomacy seems to be leading to an undiplomatic end to diplomacy.

Things aren't over nor have we seen the last surprise. The big news of the week is that China's on the bench. Moon and Trump will meet to discuss Kim having a discussion with them in Singapore. Where's China?—announcing its surrender on trade, reflecting on past meetings with Kim, another player that doesn't really matter.

If Kim doesn't show up, Moon's populist diplomacy will prove to have failed and Trump will have the "political currency" for action against North Korea. Maybe that's what China hopes for in allowing Kim to gain false hopes in something or other—to rationalize a little retaliatory action of its own. But, if military action was China's first preference, Beijing would have already taken it.

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