Tag: China

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defense & war international affairs

Trump & Taiwan

“China Issues Donald Trump a Warning Over Taiwan,” Newsweek headlined Billal Rahman’s recent article.

For the last five years, I havecounseled that the U.S. must either withdraw from Southeast Asia or convince the Chinese regime that we and our allies are willing to stand up to them, militarily.

How will President Trump respond in a second term?

Arguing that “the United States … is always America first,” a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office recently needled: “Taiwan at any time may turn from a pawn to a discarded child.” 

However, Lyle Goldstein with Defense Priorities notes that “During Trump’s last four years there was quite a robust stance in favor of defending Taiwan …” While Al Jazeera headlined a recent story, “Trump signals hard line on China with hawkish cabinet picks.”

Still, “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Trump said back in June.* 

“[T]hey want protection,” he told Joe Rogan last month. “The mob makes you pay money, right?  But with these countries that we protect, I got hundreds of billions of dollars from NATO countries that were never paying us.”

Mr. Trump did successfully prod NATO countries into putting more money into their militaries. That seems to be his gambit with Taiwan.

And maybe it’s working. 

“Taiwan is considering a massive $15 billion military package,” Fox News is reporting, “in a show to the incoming Trump administration that it is serious about defending itself against the threat posed by China.”

Plus, as The Epoch Times illuminates, “A coalition of the willing is already emerging.” Countries in Europe and Asia are increasingly coming together and standing up against Chinese bullying of Taiwan.

As we await the second Trump administration.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Trump also charged that Taiwan “stole” our computer chip business. True, in the same sense that Shohei Ohtani stole 57 bases for the LA Dodgers last season.

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The Beam in Microsoft’s Eye

mote, China, Microsoft, eye, war, computers, technology

Microsoft has just published a pretty good update on the cyber-​threat landscape, Digital Defense Report 2024. 

The report comprehensively describes the recent prolific activity of state-​affiliated hackers all over the world, primarily those affiliated with China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

In the case of China, we have a series of “Typhoon”-named cyberattacks: Raspberry Typhoon, Flax Typhoon, and Granite Typhoon, to name a few, that “have intensively targeted entities associated with IT, military, and government interests around the South China Sea.”

The toll of cyberattacks in the U.S. — all kinds from all sources — has been extensive. In the recent year, “389 healthcare institutions were successfully hit by ransomware,” resulting in closures and medical delays.

The report is also about what we’ve been doing to defend ourselves: not enough. The authors say that although better cybersecurity is important, we also need “government action” that makes it costlier for states to launch these attacks.

We need something else, too. We need companies like Microsoft to abstain from helping adversary states to cyberattack us.

At Breitbart, Lucas Nolan reports that Microsoft has been maintaining close ties with the Chinese Academy of Sciences for over a decade. Among the details of a lengthy indictment, Nolan offers a list of publications coauthored by Microsoft and CAS researchers “in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, computer vision, and even cybersecurity.”

Why help China gain knowledge that can be used to hurt us?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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‘Meat on the Table’

Xi Jinping, China, South China Sea, fishing boats, Taiwan

“Vietnamese newspaper Tien Phong reported that 40 individuals from foreign ships thrashed the fishermen aboard the Vietnamese ship with iron pipes and stole their fishing gear,” relayed The Eur-​Asian Times. Four fishermen were seriously injured, three had broken limbs.

At the time of that September 29th report, the vessels that attacked the fishing boat were only identified as “foreign.” But everyone knew which country was responsible.

Only the Chinazis, as Hong Kongers call those atop the Chinese Communist Party, behave with such brutality and callous disregard for the rights of others. The boats involved turned out to be part of China’s Maritime Safety Administration.

“Safety”?

Well, safe for Chinese exploitation of the entire South China Sea (SCS), 90 percent of which the genocidal totalitarian regime claims as its own and is now actively policing — without regard to international law or the rights of the Vietnamese, Filipinos, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians and others.

After arbitration between the Philippines and China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, an international court ruled in 2016 that China’s SCS claims were without any foundation. Obviously China continues to ignore the international court — and with increasing force.

“[T]he Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippine Navy clashed at sea and in the air a whopping six times in August over key areas of the SCS,” noted a story in The National Interest, adding that five of the six incidents occurred in Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. The sixth was in international waters. None took place anywhere close to China.

Without a military alliance with the United States “China would basically consider you as a meat on the table,” explained Professor Renato Cruz De Castro of De La Salle University in Manila,

“China would simply subjugate you,” the professor continued, “whether you appease China or challenge China.”

This stark reality now drives even Vietnam to seek help from the United States … as the world lurches closer to World War III.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: After putting this commentary to bed, news broke last night that China’s military is encircling Taiwan in a military exercise practicing an invasion and/​or blockade of the democratic island nation.

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Trump’s Tariff Question

China, trade, war, tariffs, economy

If Donald Trump fails to re-​take the White House in November (and then for real in early 2025), his legacy may quickly devolve into a matter for historians, not live politics. After people calm down and the culture war stuff recedes (once again, if allowed by events), what will be left to argue over are a half-​dozen major issues, which include war, mass migration … and tariffs.

Tariffs have long been Mr. Trump’s major hobby horse; he gets excited about 100 percent levies. The whole business about the “bloodbath” quote was his insistence that American auto industry will be destroyed if Trump himself doesn’t get the chance to erect ultra-​high tariffs against automobiles from Mexico.

Trump looks at tariffs on foreign goods as harming foreign nations and helping us, the Americans.

But it is worth noting that economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo onward have regarded tariffs as chiefly harming consumers within the country that erects them. 

At Reason you can read Veronique de Rugy make the classic free-​trade case, anew, in “No, Trump-​Style Tariffs Do Not Grow the Economy.” If Frédéric Bastiat didn’t convince you, maybe de Rugy will.

But something’s missing. Surrounding Trump’s talk against free trade in general and China in particular there was always another element that neither Bastiat nor de Rugy emphasize: free-​trading with China helps Chinese and Americans, sure; gotcha — but it also helps the Chinese state, and its ruling Communist Party. 

“Trump is an avowed restrictionist on both immigration and trade,” de Rugy writes. But both unchecked immigration and free trade present problems not economic so much as political. It’s about real bloodbaths, actual warfare, not metaphorical ones.

Even if Trump misdiagnosed the domestic economy, he saw problems with China perhaps more clearly than anyone else.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Home of the Brave

South China Sea, China, Taiwan, war

Another incident of China’s militarized coast guard ramming a Filipino vessel in the South China Sea hundreds of miles from China … this time with 60 Minutes on board. 

We are headed toward World War III. People deserve the truth from those who pretend to lead.

Years ago, I would have advocated bringing our troops home. Today, I think it’s too late. A military pullout by the United States would be disastrous for both Asia and us. And anything less will require standing up to China. Now or later.

Not to mention that ending the U.S. role in Asia is not even being discussed. 

Which means that U.S. assets in the region will eventually be attacked. Already we see the harassment of Taiwan and the bullying of the Philippines and others in the South China Sea. The U.S. has treaty commitments to fight for Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — plus, through the Taiwan Relations Act, we have pledged to help Taiwan stay free.

I would therefore call for spending more on the military. On weapons of war. On military capabilities half a world away. (Hard to believe it myself.) And I would prepare the country for the horrific possibility of war.

I think that is the only way to back China down from its aggressions against just about every neighbor as well as the rule-​based international order and, ultimately, us. 

The best news on this front is that the U.S. is not having to beg and plead for support for an alliance to check China or to go it alone:

  • Germany just sent warships through the Taiwan Strait for the first time in two decades. 
  • Taiwan has nearly doubled its defense spending. 
  • Japan is doubling its military spending and mending relationships in the region to form closer alliances. 
  • The Philippines has given the U.S. four bases in strategic territory.
  • Even Vietnam has befriended the U.S. 

Why? All fear China. 

Right now what the world needs is an alliance of the free. And a leader … to be very brave.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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Breaking Taiwan?

Donald Trump, Taiwan, China

“Would you defend Taiwan against China?” Bloomberg News recently inquired of former President Donald Trump.

After mentioning his great “respect” for the Taiwanese — though complaining that the nation “did take about 100% of our chip business” — the Republican nominee responded: “I think Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything. Taiwan is 9,500 miles away. It’s 68 miles away from China. A slight advantage …”

Indeed. But the Nazis and Imperial Japan once flaunted the same geographicadvantage. And note that the Japanese island of Yonaguni is closest to the big island of Taiwan.

Taiwan is much freer than China. And, accordingly, richer per capita … because the Taiwanese do give us (and the world) something: computer chip manufacturing, especially high-​end chips. An important commodity. The Chinese government encourages and facilitates the stealing of our intellectual property; Taiwan companies just kicked our butts in the marketplace. 

“Cool to the idea of the U.S. protecting Taiwan,” was how Nancy Cook, Bloomberg’s senior national political correspondent, not unreasonably characterized Mr. Trump’s comments. Still, Trump may have been simply negotiating up Taiwan’s military commitment, much as he did to NATO countries in his first term. 

Of course, “Taiwan has been paying for its own defense,” says the State Department. 

Taiwan has “consistently been one of the biggest buyers of U.S. weapons,” argues Michael McCaul (R‑Texas), acknowledging that Trump “is right that U.S. allies should” pony up “in their own defense.”

Lastly, is the United States like an “insurance company”?

Well, it’s certainly a breakable world. But the idea is to prevent more breakage, not pay out after a disaster. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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