Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 14, 2018

Disassembling nuke sites prior to meeting Trump may seem like a "save of face" for Kim Jong-Un, but it's actually a statement of Trump's influence. If Trump wasn't an influence, then Kim wouldn't be doing what Trump has been demanding for a long time. No doubt, North Korea and its pro-Communist supporters in the Liberal media will twist this into "Trump not making a difference" from Trump getting what he wanted even before a meeting.

The comparison from history would be a feudal lord quickly accomplishing everything his king asked before his next royal visit. To say the king didn't make a difference would be just plain ignorant. We should expect as much.

But, Trump wants it that way. The more Trump has his name on the Korean reunification, the more China's desperate thirst for "respect" will sting. China wants everything to look like everything everywhere was China's idea, or else throw a temper tantrum. Trump's low-key silence will deny the "fight fix" and the semi-centennial tantrum will have to wait a little longer.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, May 7, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d1Loi7sh1I

This was week of talk. A delegation from Washington went to talk with China. Trump talked about talking nice while talking. Economic talking heads are talking about the talks and everybody's talking about it. Once the delegation that went to Beijing to talk gets back, they will talk with Trump. Warren Buffet even had some things to talk about.

Trump's delegation to Beijing was indeed an olive branch. It spelled out "the line" in the sand, toured it, explained, it, discussed it, explored it, and made that line very, very clear. To quote Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox, "Mr. Wayne didn't want you to think that he was deliberately wasting your time." But, the line is not the least bit likely to be respected.

China will ignore everything the US delegation explained and forewarned, but they will never be surprised when Trump does exactly what the delegation said he would, though they may act like it. More importantly, the list of expectations shows how well Trump knows China and Chinese methods of doing "business".

Words like "retaliate" and "oppose" often surface with disfavor, as well as the US clearly being wise to the tactic of unofficially using backdoor channels to unofficially impose other restrictions to get what one wants. And, the US maintains its position on the "301" trade notice that China is non-market economy, specifically that China is to drop the matter completely and withdraw its appeals on the matter with the WTO.

There is no wiggle room in the US demands and those demands strongly demonstrate that Trump knows exactly the kinds of things Chins is likely to do. In essence the list of demands forbids exactly what China is most likely to do in the near future.

By contrast, China's demands are mainly that the US back off on its recent action; that's all. Consider the argument going around from pro-China stories about the trade "imbalance"—especially that US' service and consulting help to narrow the "trade deficit". The list of Chinese demands don't account for this or ask that they be calculated in the "trade deficit".

The mere demands, in themselves, tell us that China does not know what is about to happen in Washington and that Trump knows all to well—probably better than any of his advisers in the White House—what will happen in Beijing. China is in great danger.

Surprises are coming, somewhere. That's how history always plays out. No war ends without the unexpected and there's always a joker or two hiding in the deck. The surprises will likely include special and disputed territories, such as Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as well as international public opinion and some sector of trade or international protocol not yet considered or discussed by anyone—they will surprise everyone. That "surprise sector" could include ocean boundaries or specific products often traded. It could also be an act of God, such as an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami. But, we have no idea except that any intermediate history student should anticipate at least two surprises before the current cloud passes in the greater storm.

China looks at the US the way the poor working class looked at the aristocracy in Russia. Beijing thinks they are demanding "what is their right". Remember, this is akin to "Opium War III", started by a trade imbalance. China demands that the money and "tax payable by way of free technology" continue to flow net into China; the US demands things like "equal" and "fair" in the flow. That is rhetoric from the Opium War prelude. If that war resurfaces, the "English" speaking country won't be Britain, though Britain still has a dog in the fight: Hong Kong is not to be changed for fifty years, yet this week Hong Kong military youth groups—comparable to Boy Scouts—rejected Chinese requests that they march according to PLA marching steps—meaning that China tried to make a change and Hong Kong could become a target for punitive action from China. Hence, Hong Kong is "fair play" in everyone's opinion, including public opinion about everyone in the game.

If China had any kind of conflict with the West—whether militarily or over trade—the conclusion could require complete surrender of Hong Kong back to British rule—and Hong Kongers wouldn't mind.

In the territorial disputes, Taiwan declaring independence would certainly rock the boat. Research says Taiwanese overwhelmingly view China as unfriendly. So, Taiwanese certainly wouldn't mind making their contribution to making a few waves.

China is already on the bench with the Korean issue. Pyongyang just updated the North clocks to no longer be thirty minutes off, but back in time with the South. Where's China?—exchanging trade demands with the country whose trade blockade preceded the Korean talks.

In all this, Warren Buffet's advice is that China is a good place for the West to invest. We'll see.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 30, 2018

One easy way to understand, at most "anticipate, but at least be unsurprised by developments in Korea and China is the "PDT Symphony Mad Asian Scientist Theorem". This "Mad Scientist" theorem is not fact and likely untrue, but if applied, events somehow make sense. The theorem is as follows.

Let's say there is a mad scientist somewhere in Asia who freely travels between China and North Korea. He studies a very specific niche: civilian control. Over the last sixty years or so, he would have easily observed in North Korea what happens to a society with absolute police state control over a comparatively small population completely isolated from the outside world. Propaganda and behavior are equally managed and controlled by the government there. This hypothetical "mad scientist" would have all the information he needs to understand an Orwellian society in full swing.

Then, let's say, for whatever reason, North Korea is no longer a viable source for his societal studies and experiments—however he manages to implement them. He then goes to China, which seems to be following the same Orwellian methods, but on a population fifty times larger. That is the theorem.

As North Korea stops being the perfect place for the mythical "mad scientist", China suddenly becomes the new laboratory. It's not actually happening that way; it just seems to be. One small example of this is China's new use of facial recognition; police wearing face-recognition glasses, face-recognition police robots looking for bad guys at train stations, and even cameras using face-recognition to crack down on the great threat of J-walking. No question, China is the world's new North Korea, but with tech the Kim Dynasty never dreamed of.

Whatever is going on behind the scenes, this "peace deal" with North Korea is not all that it is purported or reported to be. South Koreans will be led to believe that the new peace will be the result of the new president Moon Jae-in's emphasis on "diplomacy". However much his diplomacy may have in fact helped, it's not just any old kind of diplomacy. Obama also stressed diplomacy and we saw what happened there—or better said what didn't happen. South Korea's president had a special diplomacy, but he hasn't said what made his so diplomatic methods get actual results.

Just as much, Trump's embargo against North Korea also stepped up pressure, something obvious that receives some mention, but not much mention because it's so obvious. The more likely Trump-effected factor in the North Korean deal is China. That you are likely to hear little about from Trump since people who make a difference rarely share all of their trade secrets. Trump is the great deal maker, after all. So, there is no way that we will know what all went on behind the scenes.

What most likely happened was a US implied threat made to China, a simple reveal of US military capability. "China, back off or you're boiled toast, cooked, and well-done." That's what kind of message China must have gotten, one way or another. This is all the more obvious because of China's response, grasping for friends.

Even with all this bravado about playing hardball with the US, China just opened up foreign investments at warp speed. Of course, China loves it when foreign money flows one-way into its markets. It's working with an economic team from the US. And, China is also working on economics with its old, hard-earned enemy India—in the same "bromance" as Xi had with Trump.

The India deal won't work because China always negotiates with a factor of "saving face", an brittle value. If China really wanted India's friendship, it would apologize for all past disputes—whether right or wrong—and permanently surrender all disputed land to India. But, it won't because China isn't demonstrating any change of heart, only a state of desperation.

For China's sake, the decision makers in Beijing must be careful. India is no fool and "desperate" is exactly what India will see. India's president will seek to exploit as much as he can from China, but India is by no means a friend of a nation that wants to be friendly and save face at the same time.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 23, 2018

The US is arming East Asia and disarming North Korea. China is a spectator in the Western game.

Reports and gossip about the latest North Korean promise to disarm ensnared many in the media. The South Korean Kumbaya singing President Moon Jae-in was quick to give his "peace in our time" report that North Korea has promised to disarm, with the connotatively-added meaning of "shortly after his election". Trump Tweeted that disarming is great, "yuge" news, then the mainstream media ripped on Trump for an unverified report, particularly PBS. (Why does PBS still receive tax dollar money?) Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was more cautions about North Korean false promises, proving himself the most sober in the room.

Japan is looking into a stealthy F-22 F-35 hybrid from Lockheed Martin, in order to deter impedance from "Chinese" and "Russian" jets in its air defense zone. Taiwan is also looking at Patriot missile defense systems. The increased military talk in China's backyard, particularly about China,  surmounts to the dogs fighting over who gets to eat the pheasant.

China is making so many flybys around Taiwan that scrambling jets over air defense zone approaches is a strain on the Taiwanese military budget. Taiwan might end up sending China a bill, likely by way of military money from the US and US tariffs on not yet mentioned Chinese goods. Also look for new Taiwan-favored trade deficits with the US in amounts similar to the cost of scrambling jets every few days.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 16, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh3tAKE5Swg

The war with China is becoming the war with Russia and China, it's economic, it's culminating, and Britain is double-involved.

Since the strike on Syria, Russia is angry and thumping the drums. They promised retaliation before. After, they really promised really retaliation next time. It almost seems that Trump is testing Russian and Chinese leadership—and North Korea and Republican and Democrat—and has called their bluff. That's coming at the US via Europe. But, Germany is also taking rhetorical shots at China, bringing Europe back into the Pacific conflict.

Britain is in contemplating trade talks with Taiwan. The UK is already involved in the Pacific conflict with Hong Kong's exit status—that China will have no involvement in Hong Kong matters for fifty years as a condition of Hong Kong not being British. With Britain "friending" up to Taiwan, we see more involvement from the Crown.

But, the main fuel in the Pacific conflict is economics. US sanctions are successfully driving Kim to the table; China is eager to work with Japan before a Kim-Trump talk disarms the North. So, the US sanctions are also driving China and Japan to do at least something.

Then, there's China's own economics. Germany is angry about Chinese investments in Europe. More news stories this week talk of Chinese using money as a hostile takeover tool in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. China's ability to stand against a US trade war goes back to US Treasury bonds and the direct devaluing of China's own currency. While different "experts" have differing opinions, money is the talk—everywhere.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 9, 2018

China has been a source of great change.

Taiwan has received a license from the United States to build its own submarines. Wang, a legislature who sits on the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee said that friendliness from the US is the highest it has ever been. Japan just commissioned its first marine force since WWII. 1,500 troops are ready, specifically to repel invasion of Japan's islands. Thanks to China's inspiration and initiative, many nations in the region are also making their contribution to peace and stability in Pacific Asia.

The US is re-evaluating trade with China. While much is just talk, Trump maintains friendly rhetoric. The shakeup with trade will force countries to reinvent and reevaluate trade policy. While a looming "trade war" remains the talk of many so-called "experts", the long-term benefit will be the overall rebirth of trade throughout the world. Everyone will need to rethink trade. Any kind of thinking is good, especially in these times.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 2, 2018

China and the US have fixed their rudders on a ramming course. The only remaining question will be over whose hull is stronger.

The "yuge" US trade deficit with China is purported to be $375B USD. Bloomberg was sure to point out that the figure is inflated, some way or another. Xinhua news reports that a more accurate figure is a mere $298B USD deficit. Trump sent a "Section 301" notice of unfair trade tactics to China along with $50–60B USD in tariffs, depending on which news source you read. Trump also asked China to reduce the deficit by a whopping $100B USD and China says that the US is being unfair, placing tariffs on US food.

Asian markets are up, but a Caixin market index—something like a DOW Jones average in China—isn't up as much as hoped. Everyone has an opinion on what all that means.

Companies in America believe that tariffs harm the consumer. Some voices argue that the US has a "service" trade surplus with China, but still a deficit overall. Trump argues that trade deficits harm the worker and the overall economy. Basic macro-economic theory would say that workers would afford higher prices with much higher pay.

Trade deficits initiated the Opium Wars with China when China welcomed a one-way flow of silver from Britain for tea, but would not allow the eager Chinese population to import British goods. The Opium Wars ended with surrender of several lands to Britain, including Hong Kong. China's current and main land dispute is over Taiwan. The stage is set for history to repeat and so far it has.

Taiwan is certainly chumming up to the US as China attempts to endear the Taiwanese. Most recently, Taiwan is buying more advanced missiles from the US while two Senators advocate selling F-35s to Taiwan—a sale more likely since Taiwan's current administration is unlikely to set up secret talks with China as the rival party attempted nearly four years ago. China banned Taiwanese movies casting a purportedly pro-independence Taiwanese actor, Lawrence Ko.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 26, 2018

China has out-shined. In the game of power, that's an execution wish. With an aging population, an irritated neighborhood, a loudly whining generation of kids in Hong Kong drawing media attention, and the taste of freedom provided by trade with the outside world, China's Communist party is trouble where the West is concerned.

China's ruling party has not courted support from any territory either under its control or that it aspires to control. Some old school idealists in the retiring generation will support old empire methods, but they aren't the muscle of the future. The gray-head Communists who dye their hair black don't understand what a mess adult children can make when someone takes away their toys because that never happened in China before. Allowing their people to do business with the West injected those Western ideals and China can't go back.

Now, with the massive assertions of power in China, those assertions are about to get stronger. Watch for greater power grabs by the Communist Party. But, even with the power grabs of recent weeks, the rest of the world—including Asia and the West—is on high alert. Russia's only interest in China is to disrupt the rest of the West, not to have a new rival that changes as fast as Beijing does, in its own back yard of all places. These tariffs from the US and Trump signing a pro-military and otherwise Liberal omnibus spending bill from Congress indicate American resolve to halt China in its tracks—at least the Communists.

As for the ongoing "freedom of navigation" sail-bys in the poetically appropriately named Mischief Reef, Britain is also on board, as it were. The US just did another this week with the USS Mustin. China reacted in predictable anger as if on cue.

So, the assault against China's Communism has begun. The West think they can win by using rage to control the "bull in the China shop", as the saying goes. All it would take is one, small Western ship being disrupted by the Chinese and the fury of America's democracy would stand up—with the greatest military budget in history already approved for the next two years.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 19, 2018

Unlike much of the Western press, Pacific Daily Times does not side with governments, political parties, or socio-economic ideologies. The Times only sides with history, that by learning from history much of the future is foreseeable. Foreseeability, based on history, is the only bias at Pacific Daily Times.

Foreseeability is not preference, hopes, or will—good or ill—toward what will happen, only that the future can, to the extent history repeats, be reasonably anticipated. Too many news outlets seem incapable of understanding that predicting outcomes, within reason, is entirely different from hoping for outcomes. Predicting and hoping are nothing alike. Pacific Daily Times is apathetic and indifferent—uncaring and cold-hearted—for how the future unfolds, except that current events only surprise neglectful history students.

Right now, foreseeability in Asia—not what is hoped-for in Asia—points to the waring parties of China. The KMT-Nationalist party and the Chinese Communist Party seem to have a symbiotic relationship. Their fates seem tied like the villain and hero of some comic series, if the hero kills the villain then both die and vice versa. The KMT-Nationalist party imploded on its home field in Taiwan. It was so distracted with "reunification" with China that it neglected the priorities that kept its power. As a result, Taiwan is run by the de facto pro-independence Democratic People's Party. The KMT failed to help its CCP friends across the Taiwan Strait because it was overly obsessed with that friendship.

Now, it seems that the CCP is headed in the same direction. Without fear or favor, only calculating predictability based on the past, it seems we could be looking at the beginning of the end of the CCP. Every party that rises too high tumbles, history has executed this with zero exception and will never accept rivals. History demands that history always be the only victor by making all others history.

Since the founding of the current Chinese government in 1912, which the "Chinese year" commemorates, China has confronted its own shame, which it still confronts to this day. The founder, Sun Yat-sen, was a Christian whose Christianity compelled him to the three pillars of Chinese society: nationalism, democracy, and justice for the people. Though the largest nation, China has never been the most powerful nation. Centuries of "leader power distance" touted oppression as "peace-making" virtue. Some say it worked for China, others say it failed for China. Actually, it was the only thing that happened in China, so there is no basis of contrast to prove definably whether that Chinese power distance ethic succeeded or failed except that it brought China to 1911 where Sun defeated it. While the power distance left in the form of a government "empire", it has neither left the ideology nor the mode of operation in Chinese culture, as repeating history proves once again this month.

Xi Jinping's thinking remains uncertain. What motivates him? We really don't know beyond the evidence that his thinking reflects Mao and traditional pre- Sun Yat-sen power distance. He doesn't want shame for his country and he believes that reclaiming all land from every "old turf war" dispute will make the world think China as worthy of being respected. The rest of the world will decide its own opinion, but Chinese history has its own opinion about Xi.

Xi, as many in China, have loudly declared that they neither import nor export their politics. But, Communism is itself form Europe. Chinese people study English and gladly import Western technology and money while exporting goods to the West. But, most importantly of all, Sun Tzu's Art of War Ch. 8, ss. 12's "five dangerous faults" include: 3. a hasty temper provoked by insult and 4. a delicacy of honor sensitive to shame. Whenever Taiwan hints at "independence" or the US sails through UN-international waters which member China disputes, an explosion of rage and demands plume from Chinese press offices. Then we have the insatiable need for respect, the motive behind China's desire for reunification with many lands, only one of those being Taiwan. Sun Tzu warned against these ideologies nearly a thousand years ago.

China has often misunderstood Christianity. Just as with Confucianism, there is the essential belief and then the government exploitation of it. Most "missionaries" are advancing a government-corporate hybrid, usually known as a "denomination" with an administrative and monetary structure. Jesus did not teach this. Chinese often view Christianity as a religion between God and Man while Confucianism teaches relationship between one Man and another. But, Jesus taught that God and Man is the archetypal relationship guiding the equally important practical application of the relationship between one Man and another. The emphasis on the relationship between God and Man to the exclusion of peer relationships came from European imperial governments misinterpreting the Bible and exploiting people's ignorance of Jesus' true teaching.

The great mystery of how the West gained such power and success without the Confucian-preferred version of an "ordered society" remains in the real Jesus. The founders of America, the Pilgrims, studied the Bible to love God as individuals—free from European government misinterpretation and control of the Bible—so they would love each other. All of this Bible study was done as individuals who loved God and had zero government control.

The mess in the West today, interfering with China along with the rest of the world, is an attempt from old oligarchs trying to reassert their power over a free, Bible-reading people. Xi Jinping is fighting against that same old oligarchy as the American people are. Corptocratic chronyism of the West is a problem everywhere. Xi Jinping is trying his best, with good will, to overcome it. But, he owes more to Sun Tzu's Chinese wisdom and he is trying to overcome ancient evils of the West without first seeking to understand what virtues of the real Bible made the West so strong in the first place. As for whether and how it works out, history will have the last word as it always does.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 12, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMfrJHgqPiw

As talks between Kim and Trump march forward, China is resigned to the new situation at its eastern border and is focusing on other areas, specifically trade. In truth, China's main trade opponent is not the US, but Vietnam.

Vietnam's main edge in trade will be that it is less expensive. Vietnam is, in many ways, less developed, yet more free to be expressive. Hanoi doesn't sanction the same censorship as Beijing does. Many hard-working Vietnamese are hungry, even desperate for income. A hard-working, uncensored, hungry, less-expensive people will be difficult for China to compete with on many fronts. This is entirely beside any point about political tension between China and Vietnam.

The meeting between Kim and Trump is less-than-satisfactorily explained. Suddenly they want to talk? Some "teamwork" consultant trying to sell a book will likely attribute it all to diplomacy, along with the preemptive speculation that Kim would give up the nukes because he got them. More is going on behind the scenes and if the true story is ever told it may not be told for ten or twenty years.

As for the Western spin about China's constitutional changes, it is all about the party, not about Xi. The humble pig farm worker, Xi Jinping, did not rise to power by publicly trying to serve himself. He has followed Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power to a tee and will continue to do so—that means putting the party first in his public agenda.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 5, 2018

China's changes include finances as well as politics. As the US unrelentingly inches toward absolute denuclearization of North Korea—one way or another—China delays solidarity at the UN. China has no lack of mixed messages in other areas, such as Taiwan.

Stepping up military drills near Taiwan while becoming more economically friendly to Taiwanese isn't exactly something that causes democratic voters to fall in love with a nation without elected official term limits. Some Taiwanese will take advantage of the economic favoritism, but those will probably be the kind of companies run by bosses who have a moderately high turnover rate coupled with complaints about overbearing, old school Asian leadership style. When China suddenly changes colors again, they could lose their companies, all depending on what Chinese "national security interest" needs arise with the sun. That will become an unanticipated economic edge to "isolationist" companies that remain in Taiwan and prefer a "flattened-out" administrative structure. Notwithstanding, experts claim it could all backfire.

Then there is Korea and Vietnam. China won't need to worry about US intervention stealing its customers in North Korea much longer since that customer will soon cease to exist. Calling off a potential meeting between Pyongyang and Washington officials at the Winter Games involved Kim Jong Un's sister being present. It indicates paranoia; Un is evidently concerned about a coup. He should be. Many of his officials had just jumped decades forward in time travel, also called "crossing the border", when they saw the life, joy, happiness, technology, and pleasures of the modern world. Top North Korean brass will pine to return and Un's sister knew they would. Calling off the meeting only alerted the world to Pyongyang feeling threatened.

So much said in a denial. US Congress unanimously passes the "Taiwan Travel Act", essentially allowing every diplomat even up to Trump and Tsai to meet face-to-face, in public, in celebratory AKA "respectful" conditions. But, the US media—always asking for bipartisanship—doesn't care to report the passage of the unanimous bill. That means that the bill may actually accomplish something, and that is why China is furious, depending on the occasion of course.

The US sending 5,000 troops to stop in Vietnam for the first time in 40 years should be more disconcerting to China that the passage of any bill or the blockage of any trade ships with North Korea. Of course, China says that they have no interest disturbing the international status quo and they respect other countries, albiet the "Xi Thought" includes, more importantly than removal of term limits, that the entire world is China's responsibility.

While the West would paint China as a villain, nothing could be farther from the truth. After all, a police officer didn't even need permission to catch a girl falling from the forth floor. Her grandmother had locked herself outside of her own apartment and the key smith scared the girl into climbing out the window. The police officer caught the girl, both were hospitalized. And, of course, ruling party officials from China made sure to visit and congratulate the officer for such quick thinking.

Then, we have Google and Apple courting more favor with China. Maps and Translate are back, with a China-controlled remix, of course. National security is vital. But, therein lies a cloaked warning. China is already under attack by the West. Soon-to-be non-Communist and united Korea, US-Friendly Vietnam, soldiers waiting to flex their muscles in India, diplomatic visits to Taiwan, not to mention the ever pro-US Japan—China is surrounded.

This is dangerous. All that needs to happen is for China to send out its military like King John's Crusade, then Apple and Google will have no opposition re-educating China's population, without soldiers to protect what's happening at home. It would be best for China to refortify and give Apple and Google the boot, but who is the West to give China any suggestion. The West has money and power, so they clearly don't understand.

We live in historic times.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 5, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsWh6tDFmoM

China's changes include finances as well as politics. As the US unrelentingly inches toward absolute denuclearization of North Korea—one way or another—China delays solidarity at the UN. China has no lack of mixed messages in other areas, such as Taiwan.

Stepping up military drills near Taiwan while becoming more economically friendly to Taiwanese isn't exactly something that causes democratic voters to fall in love with a nation without elected official term limits. Some Taiwanese will take advantage of the economic favoritism, but those will probably be the kind of companies run by bosses who have a moderately high turnover rate coupled with complaints about overbearing, old school Asian leadership style. When China suddenly changes colors again, they could lose their companies, all depending on what Chinese "national security interest" needs arise with the sun. That will become an unanticipated economic edge to "isolationist" companies that remain in Taiwan and prefer a "flattened-out" administrative structure. Notwithstanding, experts claim it could all backfire.

Then there is Korea and Vietnam. China won't need to worry about US intervention stealing its customers in North Korea much longer since that customer will soon cease to exist. Calling off a potential meeting between Pyongyang and Washington officials at the Winter Games involved Kim Jong Un's sister being present. It indicates paranoia; Un is evidently concerned about a coup. He should be. Many of his officials had just jumped decades forward in time travel, also called "crossing the border", when they saw the life, joy, happiness, technology, and pleasures of the modern world. Top North Korean brass will pine to return and Un's sister knew they would. Calling off the meeting only alerted the world to Pyongyang feeling threatened.

So much said in a denial. US Congress unanimously passes the "Taiwan Travel Act", essentially allowing every diplomat even up to Trump and Tsai to meet face-to-face, in public, in celebratory AKA "respectful" conditions. But, the US media—always asking for bipartisanship—doesn't care to report the passage of the unanimous bill. That means that the bill may actually accomplish something, and that is why China is furious, depending on the occasion of course.

The US sending 5,000 troops to stop in Vietnam for the first time in 40 years should be more disconcerting to China that the passage of any bill or the blockage of any trade ships with North Korea. Of course, China says that they have no interest disturbing the international status quo and they respect other countries, albiet the "Xi Thought" includes, more importantly than removal of term limits, that the entire world is China's responsibility.

While the West would paint China as a villain, nothing could be farther from the truth. After all, a police officer didn't even need permission to catch a girl falling from the forth floor. Her grandmother had locked herself outside of her own apartment and the key smith scared the girl into climbing out the window. The police officer caught the girl, both were hospitalized. And, of course, ruling party officials from China made sure to visit and congratulate the officer for such quick thinking.

Then, we have Google and Apple courting more favor with China. Maps and Translate are back, with a China-controlled remix, of course. National security is vital. But, therein lies a cloaked warning. China is already under attack by the West. Soon-to-be non-Communist and united Korea, US-Friendly Vietnam, soldiers waiting to flex their muscles in India, diplomatic visits to Taiwan, not to mention the ever pro-US Japan—China is surrounded.

This is dangerous. All that needs to happen is for China to send out its military like King John's Crusade, then Apple and Google will have no opposition re-educating China's population, without soldiers to protect what's happening at home. It would be best for China to refortify and give Apple and Google the boot, but who is the West to give China any suggestion. The West has money and power, so they clearly don't understand.

We live in historic times.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 26, 2018

It's hitting the fan. China is homing-up and the US is "posseing" up. CFIUS is expanding its scope and China just required Apple to send its iCloud encryption keys to servers on the mainland. Both moves are more about caution than provocation. The US is stepping up patrols to enforce the trade block on North Korea. China just started the process of amending its Constitution to remove terms limits on its President.

The change to China's Constitution is often mis-portrayed. It affects both the President and Vice President. It does not install a President for life, but simply allows it. More importantly, the Constitution is being updated to include the "Xi Thought", mainly that all ethic groups of China are equal and that helping the entire world is part of China's responsibility.

Many in the West will jump to presume Xi is making a grab for power. While it does increase his power, the more accurate interpretation is that Xi's plans go for the long term, specifically after Trump's term. Without this change, Xi would leave office by 2023. China is thinking in terms of long-term, global strategy. That's hardly a "grab", but more of a "waltz".

This is a significant change. Both the US and China clearly mean business. With a shift toward the long-term, and with China publishing its view that the whole world is part of its responsibility, we are in a different political atmosphere than in years past.

continue reading

Standard
Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 12, 2018

There are those who know Asia and those who don't. There are those who know political gaming and those who don't. Last week, Symphony said that China wouldn't compromise in a "Sino-Vatico" deal. This week, a retired bishop in Hong Kong said basically the same thing: That if the pope vetoes Beijing too often, Beijing will tell the world the pope is unreasonable.

The pope is no fool. The Vatican knows to listen to a Hong Kong bishop concerning China. The deal is hotly debated in the Church and by no means unanimously supported as motherhood or apple pie. If the Vatican goes through with this controversial deal with China, then it indicates that the Vatican is counting on a popularity war against China, in which China loses respect, both among Catholics in China and everyone in every economy everywhere else in the world, except of course among Russians who always like a good fight.

If war breaks out between the West and China, and if China loses to a fierce West, China ought hold the Vatican partially responsible for playing the complex popularity mind game which is this deal. This agreement was always a cloaked plan to harm China. It seems that the retired bishop in Hong Kong hasn't figured that out.

The Vatican would have us believe that they haven't figured out China when they actually have things figured out all to well. That's what makes the Vatican arguably the greatest danger to China. No wonder China is so concerned, but still not concerned enough.

Equally concerning, Taiwan is seriously talking about moving their Legislative Yuan and their Executive Yuan offices with it. The new location would be Taichung, the center of Taiwan. That would put the central government seat in two locations and the frequent target of democratic demonstrations between the ideologically conflicted north and south. While this is purported to help connect the central government more closely to local governments—and to provide large, open plazas so that demonstrations don't interrupt local commerce—and to provide for an "earthquake" not disrupting the entire central government, that word "earthquake" carries symbolic meaning without mention. A change of cartography will also date any invasion rehearsals.

More than implicating an airborne "earthquake" from, say, China, promoting democracy demonstrations along with a united island of 23 million are the greater, yet more subtle, messages that may insult some offices on the other side of that Taiwan strait. Few in the West will understand how Taiwan's central government creating a "second seat" could spark the war that the Vatican is already piping the popularity to fuel.

Just as much, there are those who do and do not understand North Korea.  Every time the West is shown media coverage of North Korea, journalistic commentary doesn't know what to say. Look at them, they all clap in unison. Doesn't it look strange? They can't be happy; after all they never stop smiling. It's all fake. And, look at all of the crying at the Kim Jong Il funeral. That's either fake or it's radical support.

The press, wholly unqualified to explain events in Far East Asia, can't help but flaunt their own ignorance.

North Koreans are part of a tightly-controlled, cult-like, nannied-and-mommied play script. They are neither happy nor sad. They are caught in a culture of mass group think. They cry at a Kim funeral because that's what you do, much like taking your shoes off at the door. They cheer in choreographed unison at a sports arena because that's what you do at sports arenas and, more importantly, all cheering is choreographed anyway, right?

They aren't cheering from any obligation. They're like a bunch of Sunday Morning micro-church minions parroting their microcosm lingo because that's the only thing they have ever learned to do. A similar comparison would be to tone-lexical native language speakers—such as Cantonese and Mandarin—trying to use the free-form tone flow of Romance sentences, or asking someone who only reads sheet music to improvise for the first time ever. Singing spontaneously from the heart just isn't something they have ever known. And, all the Western press can do is gawk, but not understand.

It just shows how far we still have to go to get to know each other.

continue reading

Standard