Category: international affairs

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deficits and debt international affairs

Billions and Billions

China, gold, national debt, foreign policy

While we were going about our business, and maybe even soaking in some summer sunshine, the “US National Debt,” as the federal government’s explicit financial obligation is called, passed the $37 trillion mark. 

As if to mark the occasion, the Chinese government unloaded a whopping eight billion, two hundred million dollars worth of U.S. Treasuries onto the market.

It’s a lot of money.

It’s a lot of debt.

And now China no longer holds it. 

Thus they are not quite as invested in our future.

Is that scary?

Well, everything about our federal debt load should scare us. If we are placid and unperturbed now, how many extra billions and trillions would it take to shake us?

If you are especially concerned about world stability, it might make sense to comfort you with this . . . interesting . . . piece of information: China still holds over $750 billion in United States debt.

A more important piece of information might be what the Chinese central bank has been replacing the U.S. debt with: gold.

Lots of gold.

About 200,000 kilograms of gold!

Nicholas Nassim Taleb, author of The Black Swan, insists that “a single asset has overtaken the US dollar’s position as the world’s de facto reserve currency.” That asset is gold.

We aren’t on the gold standard, but it looks like we may be falling backwards into something like one.

It makes me wonder if there is still gold in Fort Knox . . . and just how much. 

Mr. Trump? 

Congress? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war international affairs

A Unique Style

Donald Trump

Some pro-Trumpers embrace the President on the idea that “a businessman can apply common business sense to out-of-control government.” 

Though government could use more such sense, not less, overall I’m not very impressed with this argument because in key ways government is nothing like business.

Government lacks the salient standard of profit and loss. 

Therefore, people trying to apply decent standards are at a disadvantage. The feedback mechanism just doesn’t seem to work in favor of responsibility. Accountability is especially hard when those who must hold bureaucrats and politicians accountable are tempted to get in on the racket.

Which is why so much of politics is B.S.

And if politics is mostly B.S., then maybe putting a B.S.er in charge isn’t such a crazy idea after all.

Did Mr. Trump just prove himself in this manner?

Less than two days after bombing three Iranian nuclear sites, he abruptly announces a cease fire between Israel and Iran, with a promise of peace.

Almost every politician is a narcissist, and Trump wears that diagnosis on his sleeve. He plays one on TV 24/7. Still, it might be . . . B.S. Narcissists don’t conspire to produce peace behind the scenes.

Trump is something else. He may be a B.S.er on most subjects, but perhaps he thinks that the only way to play a B.S. system is to out-B.S. it at every move.

He may have just proven the wisdom of his unique method.

We’ll see. We all hope for peace, though, right?

Right?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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defense & war international affairs

Still a Big Advantage

allies, South China Sea, China, CCP, defense, foreign policy, war

In all the talk of America First — and of the United States as the indispensable nation — we Americans sometimes forget this doesn’t mean “America Alone.” 

“Ultimately, a strong, resolute, and capable network of allies and partners is our key strategic advantage,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently informed the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “China envies what we have together. And it sees what we can collectively bring to bear on defense.”

Hegseth was speaking directly to Indo-Pacific allies, whom he reminded: “it’s up to all of us to ensure that we live up to that potential by investing” to “quickly upgrade [our] own defenses.”

Our alliances of free nations in Europe and Asia constitute a huge edge against a bullying, totalitarian China.

My entire life, these past six decades, Big Daddy America was by far the biggest, best military on the block. Still is the best. But it’s no longer the biggest: China now has a bigger navy, much greater shipbuilding capacity, and many more soldiers in uniform. Technological and other strategic advantages have been diminished as well.

The defense secretary acknowledged that — after “a lot of ongoing conversations with our military leadership in the Indo-Pacific” — “there is something to be said for the fact that China calculates the possibility and does not appreciate the presence of other countries . . . as part of the dynamics or decision-making process, and, if that is reflected in their calculus, then that’s useful.”

We cannot afford to squander our “ally advantage.” We need each other.

This is Comon Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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China, No

Hegseth

“China’s behavior towards its neighbors and the world is a wake-up call,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth warned at last weekend’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. “We cannot look away, and we cannot ignore it.” 

“Hegseth throws down gauntlet to China” was how Newsweek headlined its story on the Defense Secretary’s “assertive policy address” at Asia’s “premier defense summit.”

“We will stand with you and work alongside you to deter Chinese aggression,” the Secretary pledged to Asian allies. Moreover, he declared that, as a first step, “the Department of Defense is prioritizing forward-postured, combat credible forces in the Western Pacific to deter by denial along the first and second island chains.”

“Hegseth described Chinese coercion and aggression against Taiwan and the South China Sea more clearly than any prior U.S. defense secretary,” offered Bonnie Glaser, managing director, of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program. 

Today is June Fourth, 36 years to the day that the People’s Liberation Army rolled tanks into Tiananmen Square, firing on and killing students and other peaceful protesters. Had the George H.W. Bush administration delivered a stronger message to China back then, maybe Hegseth wouldn’t be required to restate President Trump’s insistence that China not be allowed “to invade Taiwan on his watch.”

Or talk openly of doing “what the Department of Defense does best — fight and win — decisively.”

“[B]arely a month after the bloodshed in Tiananmen Square,” Ted Galen Carpenter wrote five years ago, “the White House dispatched National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft on a secret trip to Beijing to mend ties. That visit followed an impassioned personal letter that Bush sent to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping” in which the president “came perilously close to kowtowing to a brutal, autocratic regime.”

Contributing to the clear and present danger we face today.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights international affairs

Leave Our Speech Alone

UK, censorship, freedom

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that foreign officials who act to censor U.S. speech on U.S. soil won’t get visas.

They shouldn’t “issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil. . . . [Or] demand that American tech platforms . . . engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States. We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech.”

The policy is the least the U.S. can do to combat despots of even “friendly” countries who target speech in the U.S. or demand that U.S. firms abet local repression.

It would also be reasonable to tie trade agreements to willingness to abstain from censoring U.S. speech and bullying U.S. companies that protect speech and privacy. But a White House report on a recent agreement with the UK says nothing about these matters.

American companies have sometimes withdrawn from foreign markets or offered truncated products rather than cooperate with censorship or surveillance. When Britain demanded a global back door to iPhone encryption, Apple removed an encryption feature from iPhones for users in the UK. Better than rendering the feature useless everywhere in the world.

But it would be better still if a country like the United Kingdom simply agreed to leave us alone. Pretend we’re allies and so forth; pretend that they, too, think freedom is a good thing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ideological culture international affairs

Triumph & Failure

Shen Yun, China, CCP, freedom

“Shen Yun Performing Arts completed its 18th global tour earlier this month,” a May 24th press release informs, “a historic run of 799 shows in 199 cities in 26 countries in front of over a million people.”

This notice, entitled “Triumphant 2025 Shen Yun Season Concludes,” may look like the usual glowing corporate self-congratulatory exercise in unwarranted hype. But it isn’t. “Shen Yun’s eight touring groups and hundreds of performers overcame tornadoes and fires as well as sabotage attempts from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its allies. And yet, not a single performance was missed.”

That is an accomplishment, indeed, for the theater troupe did face back-room political pressure from that great foe of freedom, the CCP.

I had seen several news reports of their troubles. It took a court order, for example, to enforce a venue contract with South Korea’s Kangwon National University. University officials had “greenlit the New York classical Chinese dance company’s application to perform at its Baekryeong Art Center on April 1,” explains The Epoch Times, “only to walk back on the agreement after the Chinese embassy voiced a complaint.” 

The university “stated that its decision to cancel the show had to do with the public interests of the school,” of course. But while“escalating the matter into a ‘diplomatic issue’” obviously loomed large, the center also mentioned the danger from “the roughly 500 Chinese-national students studying at the center who it claimed could stage protests, potentially leading to clashes, should the performance go on as scheduled.”

The Shen Yun Performing Arts organization is made up of many artists who have fled communist China. The communists in China do not like defectors, and their reach is alarming.

Thankfully, in this case, the CCP failed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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government transparency international affairs media and media people national politics & policies

Lying About Killing for Votes

AOC, Gaza, Israel, war

Some foreign policy issues, such as regarding Israel and Palestine, are confusing enough that many of us tend to be wary of sharing our opinions. 

But no matter how reticent we may be, we can agree on this: there should be no outright lying about our positions. 

Mitchell Plitnick is a progressive who is willing to confront this prevarication problem forthrightly. Of the many “disheartening moments” during the last presidential campaign, “few,” he admits, “were quite as deflating as that moment when the ostensibly progressive, leading member of The Squad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood at the podium at the Democratic National Convention and told the audience that then-Vice President Kamala Harris was ‘working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bring the hostages home.’

“We knew she was lying,” Plitnick confesses. “AOC herself knew she was lying. But it was just the message that the crowd — who were more than eager to show their support for the Democrats despite the party’s utter refusal to allow even the most conciliatory and moderate Palestinian voice to be heard — wanted to hear, and they ate it up.”

This willingness of the few to promote a blatant lie, and of the masses to believe it, might be the most disheartening thing about modern politics.

And as for the truth, how do we know Plitnick is right about the prevarications? “The utterly shameless nature of the lie has now been confirmed by no less than nine officials from Joe Biden’s administration and reported on by Israel’s own Channel 13 news program, Hamakor. . . .”

We, the people — pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian and otherwise — may all wish for a ceasefire.

But it’s clear that the last administration wanted nothing to do with it.

And lied about it. For votes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Like a Bad Jankowicz

Nina Jankowicz, Mary Poppins, disinformation

Nina Jankowicz is back.

During the Biden administration, Jankowicz, scourge of “disinformation,” lost her perch as head of an incipient Disinformation Governance Board. 

People learned that the Board existed; were aghast; got it closed.

If only government censorship were always so easy to kill.

Now this nag, with no prospect of getting a job muzzling people she disagrees with from the Trump administration, is making a nuisance of herself internationally.

She’s preaching to the European Union, which Jonathan Turley calls “the global hub for censorship efforts,”warning that the Trump administration wants “to force EU institutions to roll back regulation like the DSA [Digital Services Act],” which seeks to impose a regime of online censorship.

We want the right to say false things if we’re not trying to defraud anyone. Why? For several reasons, but we often inadvertently say untruths.

We also want the right to say true things. 

When people disagree with each other, both can’t be 100 percent right, but they can both be trying to find the truth. And discourse is often crucial to finding it. Truth doesn’t arrive readymade in the form of secure and impenetrable revelation.

Neglecting all this, censors like Jankowicz and the EU’s mandarins prefer to enforce current government viewpoints and punish contradictions of them that exceed a certain threshold of annoyingness.

They seem unaware of the great fact that even governments (!) can be mistaken.

By the way, if you haven’t listened to Jankowicz warble her censorship rap to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” you really should do so in expiation of whatever sins you may have committed in this life.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs public opinion

An Independent Nation

Taiwan, China, defense, war, foreign policy

Our leaders have been surprisingly expressive in signaling U.S. military support for the defense of Taiwan. 

Ironic, considering that official U.S. policy is dubbed “strategic ambiguity,” meaning we don’t say one way or the other about our defensive intentions for helping the island nation against a regularly threatened and rehearsed-for Chinese invasion or naval blockade. 

Four separate times during his term, however, former President Joe Biden publicly pledged American military help to counter a People’s Republic of China assault on Taiwan. As for the Trump 2.0 Pentagon, weeks ago it leaked (or suffered a leak of) a global defense strategy memo that said preventing a PRC takeover of Taiwan was the “sole pacing scenario” engaging our armed forces. 

Surprising unanimity for the two parties in Washington. But has anyone asked what the American people think?

Well, Humanity for Freedom Foundation conducted a poll, released yesterday.*

Informed that “China claims Taiwan as its own territory,” 82 percent of respondents agreed that “Taiwan is an independent country.” Only 3 percent felt “Taiwan is part of China.”

A 58 percent majority favored full U.S. diplomatic recognition for Taiwan. When it comes to American military defense, a plurality of 39 percent wanted to continue the status quo of not saying (“strategic ambiguity”), while 32 percent of Americans preferred their government make a clear commitment to Taiwan. Only 2 percent supported ending arm sales and adopting a neutral stance.

The above results are thoroughly — and surprisingly — non-partisan, with arch conservatives and far-out progressives finding common ground to defend Asia’s freest society against the world’s most maniacal totalitarian state. 

Could the specter of a future dictated by the Chinese Communist Party be bringing the world closer together?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* In full disclosure, I’m on HFF’s board of directors. As for the national poll, it had 800 respondents, giving the results a 3.5 percent margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level. Full results are here.

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The Great Implosion

population, humanism

Is watching North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un shed earnest tears of sadness a cause for, well, if not jubilation, at least some schadenfreude?

Maybe not in this case: he was listening to a lecture on his country’s population collapse. He was pleading with young women to have more children. North Korea is experiencing negative population growth: well below the “replacement rate.”

An inevitable result of horrific North Korean tyranny?

Well, population decline is almost a universal phenomenon. North Korea’s population rate is alarming, but so is South Korea’s — which is much, much freer. 

And Japan’s, for that matter; and Europe’s.

So what do we make of the population growth alarmists from the 1960s and ’70s? I refer to folks like Paul Erlich, who wrote The Population Bomb, and the “experts” who made up The Club of Rome, with its infamous 1972 report, The Limits of Growth. 

Magnificently bad prophets.

But they had a huge impact — at least on Communist China, which instituted the One Child policy in 1979. Now, that country’s population trend has reversed, with an increasing rate of decline. 

Moreover, there may be a lot less people in China than was boasted of — official government stats admit a 2.08 million person drop from 2022 to 2023, following the previous (and first official) drop of 850,000. We can only guess the actual population, because communists lie. Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, estimates that China’s population was less than 1.28 billion in 2022, not 1.41 billion, with the decline starting in 2018, not 2022.

Ask yourself: how many civilizations have survived a population implosion? 

And for peoples with ponzi-like pension systems, this is even more devastating.

The Chinese are cursed, but so are we — for we all live in interesting times.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Population Trends

  • Canada: 1.33 births per woman (2023).
  • China: 1.0–1.16 births per woman (2023).
  • France: 1.68 births per woman (2024).
  • Germany: 1.46 births per woman (2024).
  • Great Britain: 1.45 births per woman (2023).
  • Japan: 1.26 births per woman (2024).
  • Mexico: 1.80 births per woman (2023).
  • North Korea: Estimates suggest a fertility rate of around 1.8–2.0 (2021), below replacement.
  • South Korea: 0.72 births per woman (2023), the lowest globally.
  • Taiwan: 0.87 births per woman (2023).
  • United States: 1.64 births per woman (2023).

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