US pushes ‘rule-based disorder’ Latest set of sanctions targeting the chip industry will do no one any good, certainly not the US itself

First posted in Asia Times. Upon becoming president of the United States, Joe Biden immediately set forth to promote “rule-based international order,” ostensibly for the world community, but the message was really intended for China. The “world order,” according to Biden, was for Beijing to conduct its foreign affairs in line with Washington’s expectations. Now into the second year of his regime, it has become increasingly clear that Biden’s idea of order is actually disorder and is causing chaos not only in the world but especially to the American economy. The latest example is the most recent series of sanctions and embargoes forbidding sales of semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment to China. Up to now, China has been far and away the largest buyer for semiconductor processing equipment and is the major market for advanced chips designed by such Silicon Valley companies as Nvidia and made by such foundries as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The ban seeks all the members of the semiconductor industry, foreign and domestic, to go cold turkey and stop doing business with China. Heretofore, the industry has been a prime example of a virtuous circle created by globalization. In simplified terms, we can say that innovations in chip designs for new uses are created in Silicon Valley, fabricated by foundries in Taiwan and South Korea, and then shipped to China to assemble into devices and final products, which are then sold around the world. Companies engaged in making fabrication and processing equipment kept pushing the boundaries of their technology and collaborated with the foundries to produce the next generation of advanced chips. The equipment companies were not just in the US but also in Japan and the Netherlands. Everyone wins in a virtuous circle In a virtuous circle, everybody does what he does best and contributes to a supply chain at the most cost-effective efficiency. Everybody wins in such a circle. By breaking up the circle, everybody loses. South Korean foundries such as Samsung sell 40% of their output to China, including foundries they operate inside China. China represents around 30% of sales for semiconductor fabrication equipment from American companies such as Applied Materials and Lam Research. China is also the most important market for ASML, the Netherlands-based company that is in essence the only maker of advanced lithographic machines. Despite the just-imposed ban, the company has continued to increase its local hire in China to support its sales and technical services. Every member of the circle now faces a perplexing dilemma: Do they obey the Washington edict at the expense of their financial interests and companies’ futures? Or do they pay a lot of money to lawyers and lobbyists to plead on their behalf and secure certain dispensations that would allow their continuing to do business with China, perhaps at a more subdued level? Or do they find questionable routes and intermediaries to continue their sales to China? Or can they flat out defy Washington? In theory, their lost sales to China would be replaced by the expansion of a new and growing US market, as foreign companies such as TSMC and Samsung are enticed or coerced into building new fabs in the US. The challenge is whether other members of the circle can survive long enough while waiting for the new capacities in America to make up the immediate shortfall around the world. Furthermore, there are serious concerns and doubts as to whether new fabs could actually happen in the US. The cost of defying Washington’s order will be high, but the industry can already see that the cost of yielding to Biden’s sanctions makes no sense given the devastating consequences. TSMC obediently gave up on serving Huawei, its most important customer, under orders from Donald Trump’s White House more than two years ago. Now it apparently has given up on the rest of the China market in exchange for locating fabs in the US. Since then, the market capitalization of the company has declined by half from its peak. Washington offers losing propositions Washington doesn’t offer any incentives or rewards, just threats and intimidation if they are not obeyed. This is what a hegemon does, but increasingly the world is disenchanted and not convinced South Korea is the latest to feel the sting that goes with being a loyal American ally. Washington expected the Koreans to give up their huge markets in China, and the reward was for their president to face a rude and very public brushoff when he greeted Biden at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York recently. According to K J Noh, who understands the Korean language, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol cursed in the foulest terms at the way he was treated. Hard to blame him though. Biden is asking his country commit economic seppuku but acted like Yoon was some Asian scumbag – another gaffe that the White House staff will have to repair. The European Union has also learned that there is no upside in being a groupie of American foreign policy. By joining the US in supporting the Ukrainians and sanctioning Russia in the Ukrainian war, the EU is facing a bleak cold winter with a shortfall of fuel to heat homes and fire the boilers that the German industries will need to keep operating. Facing record-breaking inflation, the people in the EU are becoming restless and beginning to agitate and question the reasons for antagonizing Russia and bringing economic misery on to themselves. Shortly before the UNGA, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization concluded its annual conference, held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Under China’s leadership, the SCO welcomed Iran and Belarus as new members, with a long list of other nations applying to join, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others. The SCO now accounts for half of the world’s population and more than 25% of global GDP. Non-aligned countries find the SCO increasingly attractive as an antidote to American unilateralism. Geopolitical rivals such as India and Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and Iran can leave their contentions outside and join the organization to work on trade and economic cooperation, and collaborate on combating terrorism. Unlike the American led groups of nations, political or military alliances are specifically excluded within the SCO. There are, by the way, no nations waiting to join the US alliance to contain China. As I observed in June, the US approach to recruiting others to join in an alliance to contain China is a faltering strategy that will lead to America’s self-destruction. Biden’s insistence on decoupling China from the semiconductor supply chain is another step in that direction. Another step to self-destruction Washington seems not to have anticipated China’s likely response to the latest sanctions. Its semiconductor industry is redoubling its efforts and investments to develop technical advances that would replace the chips and fab equipment that have been cut off by the American sanctions. China has the raw technical manpower graduating from their colleges and universities every year and has recruited senior engineers and fabrication technologists – Asia Times called them godfathers – from Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to advise on the technical and management direction. News from China already indicates that they are making breakthroughs getting around the American embargoes. Even American analysts say that the trade barriers are doomed to fail. In the long run, the Biden sanctions will help China create its own independent semiconductor industry and leave the currently established providers out in the cold. When and if China decides to retaliate in full, it has the wherewithal to inflict pain in kind. China’s CATL is the world’s largest producer of lithium batteries for electric vehicles. The company has announced plans to build a US$7 billion plant in Hungary to serve European automakers. Its plans for North America are on hold since Nancy Pelosi’s jaunt to Taipei. China also has a virtual stranglehold on the world supply of rare earth minerals, some crucial in strategic military applications, and can elect to restrict sales to the US. Most recently, the Pentagon was aghast to find that the engine of the F-35 fighter depends on rare-earth magnets made in China. This latest “discovery” shows the deep integration of the two major economies and the difficulty of disentangling and decoupling the two. It also can show the destructive power of paranoia in Washington. The wise old gnomes in the bowels of the Pentagon probably wouldn’t suggest tearing apart all the existing F-35s to remove the magnets from China, but could certainly see this matter as another “urgent” reason to increase the defense budget greatly in order to develop a domestic replacement. The hostile drumbeats from Washington reverberate within the echo chamber for the benefit of the handful of allies sitting inside, seemingly unaware of the ongoing peaceful cooperation between China and the rest of the world. It’s hard to know when the American people will say enough is enough and vote for a thorough reform of how Washington makes friends instead of enemies.

My confession seems to have struck a responsive chord

I also had a conversation with Cyrus Janssen on his YouTube channel. I have received many more reader responses than usual on my essay on Asia Times. I have decided to post selected inputs from my readers. Ifay Chang Tue, Aug 23, 9:17 AM (1 day ago) I echo with you as a Republican, seeing the hypocritic bipartisan bickering that is degrading the U.S.. Ifay Bob Dickerson Tue, Aug 23, 9:29 AM (1 day ago) Wonderful, George. Very moving and so honest. Peace and love to you. If you need me, I’ll be there for you. Peter Li Tue, Aug 23, 9:42 AM (1 day ago) Thanks George. You have said exactly what’s in my heart and a sense of frustration and exasperation. America has changed so much since we first came in the 40s and 50s. Alas… Peter William Fuller Tue, Aug 23, 9:51 AM (1 day ago) Hi George, From one 84 year old to another, well done! Like you, I could not be more worried about our country, its relations with China, and the risks to our democracy. With best wishes, Bill Ivy Chang Tue, Aug 23, 9:58 AM (1 day ago) George, I'm an immigrant, like you, and agree with your writing. You make the Chinese in the U.S. proud. Lillian Sing Tue, Aug 23, 10:39 AM (1 day ago) George, I tilt my hat to you over and over again. Once again, your writing touched my heart and soul. 很佩服你！ You share the same experience as so many of us, CA, who came to the US with hope and aspiration. Yes, US has been good to us. I became a judge when there were no female AA women judges in No. CA . It was a dream come true. But, alas, I see over and over again, how US has missed opportunities to be the great country and now has taken steps that will endanger all of us. CA is no longer welcome here. We are viewed with suspicious and the entire CA community is accused of posing a "whole of society threat against the US." Like you, I feel betrayed, disappointed and the necessity to speak out. Lillian Nancy M. Lee Tue, Aug 23, 10:47 AM (1 day ago) George: I could not have agreed with you more. It echoes precisely my feeling. When I came to this country in 1960, America was at its best. It has since come down and deteriorated year by year. Instead of using the tax money to build our country, it has spent the money around the globe to start wars. Thank you for writing this excellent article. I am sending your article to all my non-asian friends. Best, Nancy Anthony Ng Aug 23, 2022, 11:14 AM (1 day ago) Dear George: Thank you for sharing. Profound analysis! I resonated so much with what you wrote and got to know you better. Indeed, honesty is such a lonely word in politics. What could we do as part of the solution? I would love to hear more from you. Could we chat at your convenience? Blessings, Anthony C. Ng Robert Kapp Tue, Aug 23, 1:12 PM (1 day ago) I knew we had things in common: I ran "Americans Abroad for McCarthy" in London in 1968, when I was a graduate student just out of nine months of Ph.D. research in Chiang Kai-shek's Taiwan. But not Laurelhurst: the first thing someone at the UW said to me when we moved to Seattle in 1973 and I joined the UW faculty was, "Of course you'll live in Laurelhurst...." Uh-uh. We bought a houseboat for $12k instead. I never did quite meld with the Laurelhurstians on campus. Best wishes. B. Phil Cunningham Tue, Aug 23, 1:26 PM (1 day ago) Hi George, I liked reading your personal story, helps put your pieces in perspective. You have a lot of wisdom, hard-earn lessons and longitude in your views on things. Funny on the Shakespeare thing. Cornell Press asked me to read a thesis and book proposal by a Chinese scholar about Shakespeare in China; it was quite good! I've got a piece coming out in SCMP this week about decline in number of Chinese students, using Cornell as example. Next piece is about the almost complete zeroing out of US students in China. Phil Maeley Tom Aug 23, 2022, 1:57 PM (1 day ago) Your article was nothing short of "outstanding" and distributing it to my network. Thank you George mirandahsue@gmail.com Tue, Aug 23, 2:50 PM (1 day ago) George Your disclosure of personal experience is deeply appreciated by myself And this is a very acceptable article to share with all My friends disregard their political outlook nor their “ distorted “ ( a big majority of them , unfortunately Views or perception of China These are fir those who lived in the west ( US Canada England Australia or even Hong Kong and yes HK and Taiwan) Your personal experience is indisputable including your criticism and disappointment with US politicians ! Money talk it’s not like one would like to think Democracy is Peoples Talk ( we are all damaged by the Western Politician Talk ) leaving many of us feeling so helpless and hopeless 😩 Miranda Hsiung Fei Lee Tue, Aug 23, 2:54 PM (1 day ago) Dear George: Very well said. Your article of "Confessions of a Disgruntled Chinese American" resonances with me very much. I first came to the US in 1961. The America in the early 60's was different from how or what it is today. Many of the things you mentioned were not on the surface back then. The military and defense industry complex brings misery to the people around the world as well as Americans at home. It is hard to reverse the ' one-dollar-one-vote system' we have today back to the ' one-man-one-vote system' it is supposed to be. But it is the only chance that America will survive another two hundreds years without collapsing. There has to be a way to turn the American policy from outward expansionism to paying attention of domestic issues. Washington needs to look after the well being of the 99% instead of what happens in Ukraine or Taiwan Strait. Most Americans do not understand international politics. Hopefully, they know what it means to have food on the table and the roof over their head. H. F. L. Ling-Chi WANG Tue, Aug 23, 3:48 PM (1 day ago) Hi, George: What an inspiring confession! There are so many striking similarities between your experience and mine, from being born in the same year and raised on the same tiny island of beautiful Gulangyu (鼓浪屿), 3 sq. Km., to coming to America for education and opportunity to becoming engaged in American civic life, and finally, to becoming disillusioned and disgruntled in our sunset years. Reading your confession is like reading my own memoir except you write, as usual, with such flair and eloquence, I could not possibly match. It is quite incredible that we should finally, in a fortunate stroke of serendipity, meet in San Francisco a few years ago when we were active in the fight to win freedom and justice for Dr. Wen Ho Lee. Dr. Wen Ho Lee won his freedom on September 13, 2000. Sadly and outrageously, 22 years later, we, Chinese Americans today, have all become Wen Ho Lee because of American ignorance, racial prejudice, and hostility. Thanks for sharing your experience. Keep writing because the U.S. needs your perspective and voice! Ling-chi henrystang@aol.com Aug 23, 2022, 3:58 PM (1 day ago) With great grandiloquence, par excellence. Henry Richard King Tue, Aug 23, 4:40 PM (1 day ago) Dear George: Thank you for sharing your story with me. We are the same age. But I came when I was already 14. I did well in school but not at your level. While my math was fine I still struggled with my English and therefore did not get into Bronx Science. Instead I attended Lincoln Park Honor School. I wanted to go to Cornell but did not have the money. I worked at a Jewish resort and managed to save $ 1,100, a nice sum but it was short of the $ 2,000 needed. If I knew then what I know now, I could have borrowed, got a scholarship or worked at a frat house for my room and board. I went to CCNY which was known as poorman's Harvard. At that time more than 90% of the students were Jewish. I hated it. Ironically, my son Bentley would one day go to and graduate from Cornell. Of course he did not have to work a single day to pay for his tuition. But isn't that what we all work for: To give a better life for our kids? Since there were few of us then, there was not the hysteria of Asian, namely Chinese, students taking over the top colleges. Affirmative actions were then not that evident. These days I don't know what it would take for our kids and grandchildren to get into an Ivy or MIT? China was then Red China and for the most part not on the radar screen. Even as recent as the late 70s and early 80s it was Japan that was the threat. Japan bashing was in full swing. Japan folded and has never recovered. China is a different and more tough nut to crack. As you pointed out, the head of the FBI shamelessly bragged about targeting ethnic Chinese. I worked in the defense industry, something I would not do today. I wonder what would happen if all ethnic Chinese were to boycott the defense industry. It would collapse. With China's rising, we Chinese-Americans will increasingly face tough times ahead. Richard James Hsue Tue, Aug 23, 5:34 PM (1 day ago) Thank you George for the personal experience spoken from the heart. It is an experience that is probably widely shared amongst not only Chinese Americans but also amongst Chinese canadians, Chinese Australians etc. I am really happy to see it being told. I sent it out to my HK highschool classmates, many of whom emigrated to the U.S., Canada and the U.K. James Shirley Kinoshita 6:51 AM (16 hours ago) George Interesting op-ed. I also served on the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission and has experienced a lot of opportunities and rewards as an American. In my case, I’ve had the added blessing of being born in US Territory of Hawaiii, see my home state become a state. I’m surprised you use the term “Heaven..” since I believe you are not a believer in this concept. Shirley

Confessions of a disgruntled Chinese-American. Heaven help any aspiring leader who wants to correct America’s problems at home and campaign on what the US needs to fix.

First posted on Asia Times. I am proud to be an 84-year-old Chinese-American: proud of my Chinese heritage and at one time proud to be an American. My friends frequently ask me why I am so critical of our government. I tell them that as a citizen, I have a right and duty to criticize when I see my country heading in the wrong direction. It has not always been like this. One of my proudest moments was when I became a naturalized citizen many years ago. To be an American was something to be proud of and look forward to. I thought I was enjoying a charmed life and living in the best of two worlds. Before I immigrated to America, I lived in China for my first 11 years, a country devastated by war with Japan. But I had the good fortune of living in a remote area of China that never saw one Japanese soldier. Thus I didn’t have to witness the many unspeakable acts of atrocity committed by the Japanese military. When my mom, my sisters and I joined my dad in Seattle, he was a graduate student on a very limited income. We lived in the university housing project where each duplex was modestly better than a Quonset hut. But we lived within the district of one of the best elementary schools in town. At Laurelhurst Elementary, my classmates, mostly from well-to-do families, helped me learn English as quickly as I could absorb it. A friend gave me helmet and shoulder pads and I quickly learned to play football. At no time did I feel the sting of racism. My welcome to America was all cookies and cream. I graduated at the top of my senior class and received a scholarship and part-time job on campus to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By the time I became a young father raising a family in New Jersey, I was the supervisor of a materials-testing laboratory. My company encouraged me to complete my doctoral studies by giving me leave and financial support. I was living my American dream. I even participated in exercising American democracy by becoming a grassroots worker campaigning for delegates going to the Democratic National Convention to cast their votes for Eugene McCarthy as the party’s presidential nominee. But watching the 1968 Chicago convention on national TV, I was appalled and outraged. Mayor Richard Daley’s police force was supposed to maintain law and order. Instead, they were instigators of violence and chaos, clubbing the protesters outside the convention. I wrote a letter to the Newark Evening News, a major daily in New Jersey, expressing my indignation. To my surprise, my letter was published. That encouragement caused me to think that expressing my opinion could make a difference. After I moved my family to California, I continued to participate in civic affairs and local politics. I was the campaign manager for two friends running for the city council – at different times. One won and the other did not. When my city decided to establish a “Human Relations Commission,” I was appointed to the first one. One of my commendations read: “His service demonstrates his commitment to the community and the desire to promote the fullest participation of all members of the community.” When Mike Honda decided to run for Congress and asked for my help, I was happy to help because he was an honorable and genuine human being with a generous heart. He won on his first try and when we met for lunch to celebrate, he told me that his first task at hand was to raise a lot of money for his campaign war chest so that potential opponents would think twice about running to unseat him. His revelation surprised me but also drove home to me the realization that money had taken control of our democracy. Fast-forward to today, and I keep asking myself, “Why has my country fallen so low?” We can’t seem to keep up with other developed countries that are our peers. We unfailingly acknowledge the importance of education as critical to the future of our children, but we only talk and don’t do anything about it. The quality of education depends on the average household income in the local area where the school is located. Children from the city ghettoes hardly ever get a decent education and thus start out in life with a disadvantage that many are not equipped to overcome. In some parts of our country teaching creationism has the same legitimacy as teaching science and mathematics. Some Americans still believe that our Earth is 6,000 years old. Ignorance is regarded as a badge of honor. Thou shalt not commit perjury “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” I may have learned the oath from the long-running TV serial Perry Mason, but I came to understand that honesty and being truthful were among the foundational principles that made America great. Today, public figures of any and all stripes tell lies and do not even bat an eyelash. They violate every statute of the constitution as if the laws of the land do not apply to them. There is no sense of honor and right or wrong or even any hint of shame. Our two major political parties battle for control of the federal government and Congress. They devote virtually all of their energy and attention to outmaneuvering the other side just to gain an edge. Getting re-elected and retaining their seats in Congress have highest priority unless it’s to unseat someone from the other party. Pettiness reigns and national interest is rarely on the table. My e-mail inbox is filled daily with solicitations from candidates running for public office asking me for a campaign contribution. People I have never heard of, running for the House or Senate or governor from a state far from California, and they don’t ever ask what issues I support. They simply presume that I care about their getting elected. They just want my money. If I can write a big check, they will come running again and again. If I don’t write checks but can “bundle” a lot of checks from other contributors into a bagful, I will be regarded as a person of influence. America’s democracy is all about money and it takes more and more to enter the fray. Thoughtful and capable politicians are getting out. Our roads and bridges are dilapidated, college and university tuition has been rising beyond most household budgets, women are denied the right to decide what’s good for their health, and schoolchildren are regularly slaughtered in mass shootings. These are just a few indicators of what’s wrong with America. Heaven help any aspiring leader who wants to correct the problems at home and campaign on what America needs to fix. Such a candidate won’t get financial sponsors and won’t get nominated, much less win any election. Incumbents will not risk their chances of re-election by tackling these knotty issues and are very adept at kicking the can down the road. Anti-China chorus The one sure-fire way to political success is to demonize China and attack China as our adversary, an easy adversary accepted by both parties. In the process, every ethnic Asian in America becomes a prospective target of hate crime, because “all Asians look alike.” To add fuel to the fire, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation even boasted about the many cases of investigation opened daily on Chinese-Americans employed in American universities and research organizations. He never talks about the disproportionate number of cases that were dismissed or dropped because of lack of evidence or the FBI’s haste to accuse. He doesn’t acknowledge the financial ruin suffered by the innocent victims because of the cost of their legal defense and their having to deal with careers in tatters. A senator from Arkansas even suggested that students from China should not be allowed to come to the US for further studies in science and engineering but only on Shakespeare. Indeed, because of arbitrary prosecutions, random violence from hate crimes and uncertain treatment on granting of visas, enrollment from China has already dropped substantially. There is nothing to suggest that this trend is likely to reverse. Heretofore, Chinese-Americans have contributed far more than their pro rata would indicate. They come to America as part of China’s cream of the crop, already well trained and prepared to contribute with diligence and motivation. If they stop coming, it will be America’s loss. Meanwhile, Washington is investing all its energy on pushing China’s head under water, all the while not doing anything to solve the social and economic ills rooted within our country. China will continue to work around the American embargoes and sanctions and surpass the US with one technological advance after another. It already has taken the lead in many technical disciplines, Shakespearean scholarship not being among them.

What China’s Taiwan white paper is saying - This important document is intended to remind the West that China will not budge on its position on Taiwan

This was first posted in Asia Times. By flying to Asia and landing in Taipei, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, disregarded the “one China” principle and the fact that Taiwan is a province of China. Pelosi stepped over China’s red line. And, as promised, China responded by holding live-fire drills all around the island for the first time in the history of cross-Strait relations. The military exercises by the People’s Liberation Army prompted the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to sail away from the waters of Taiwan. This made it abundantly clear to the people in Taiwan that while the United States wants to encourage Taipei to start a war with the mainland, Taiwan would have to fight the PLA by itself. Seeing these developments, the collective wisdom of the people in Taiwan as reflected by the media is to conclude that to declare independence and break away from China would be suicidal. The US Congress and President Joe Biden’s administration, however, have continued to test China’s resolve and attempt to push the red line. Since the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) normalized relations in 1979, Congress has enacted a series of legislation to weaken the bilateral agreement progressively as expressed by three communiqués. The first communiqué was agreed in 1972 when then-US president Richard Nixon went to China. Each communiqué stating that Taiwan is a part of China was signed by both Washington and Beijing and is binding on both parties. Unlike these joint agreements, the US government arrogantly presumes that any law enacted by its Congress is unilaterally binding on China as well. In response to this American arrogance, the State Council Information Office in Beijing has issued a white paper on the “Taiwan Question and the Cause of China’s Reunification in the New Era.” This important document is obviously intended to remind the West that China will not budge on its position on Taiwan. First of all, the paper reiterates that Taiwan is part of China, that reunification is inevitable, that the way reunification will take place is a matter between Taiwan and the mainland, and that Beijing will brook no outside interference. This is a re-statement of the red line about Taiwan that has never changed but is now stated in no uncertain terms. Second, the white paper reviewed Taiwan’s place throughout the history of China. The terms of Japan’s unconditional surrender at the end of World War II mandated the return of Taiwan to China after 50 years of Japanese occupation. At present, 181 countries including the US recognize the PRC as the legal government of China and that Taiwan is part of one China. Advantages of being part of China Some people in Taiwan may not fully appreciate the intertwined cross-Strait economic relationship. If so, they should read the white paper and understand the advantages of Taiwan being a part of the national economy. As just one of the indicators, Taiwanese businesses have over the years invested more than US$71 billion in more than 1.2 million projects on the mainland – not to mention an annual trade surplus of $170 billion that Taiwan enjoys with the mainland. From 1980 to 2021, the mainland’s economy grew three times as fast as Taiwan’s and has become the second-largest in the world, and is soon to overtake the US to become No 1. China has become a major power not only economically but in science and technology and in military prowess. As more people in Taiwan come to understand China’s place in the world, they will appreciate being a part of China. Winding through Congress is the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, which according to its sponsors will promote the security of Taiwan, ensures regional stability and threatens China with broad economic sanctions. But the consequences of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan showed that such an act will do just the opposite: The island will become less secure and the region less stable. As we have also seen from the Ukraine war, the US sanctions imposed on Russia backfired badly, causing worldwide food shortages, rising energy prices and overall inflation, and solidified the ruble’s place among the world’s major currencies. Any attempted sanctions on China would inflict blows to the US economy many times more serious than the sanctions on Russia. One only need look at the foolhardy tariff war waged by former US president Donald Trump and continued by Biden. The American consumer had to pay a higher price for goods made in China because of the tariffs, and the trade surplus by China only increased rather than reduced. For Washington to threaten China with sanctions is meaningless if not just stupid. Moreover, the white paper has reasserted China’s red line on Taiwan, leaving no room for ambiguity or equivocation. This is a matter of sovereignty for China. The Chinese do not make empty threats. They will view stepping over the line as an act of war. No independence without US support Taiwan’s ruling pro-independence (taidu) faction would not be so foolish as to declare independence without US support. If the US does show support, then China will most likely strike at the US naval ships first and take them out of action. Without American military presence, the taidu faction will become irrelevant and negotiations between Taiwan and the mainland for a peaceful reunification can begin.

Damage from Pelosi’s Asia tour awaits final tally - Besides worsening US and Taiwanese relations with China, her trip made the semiconductor conundrum even more complicated

This was first posted on Asia Times. Nancy Pelosi came and left. Some in Taiwan called her visit a part of her graduation trip. A tad condescending, perhaps, but they meant it was her last hurrah. After the forthcoming midterm election in the US, her Democratic Party is expected to lose control of the House of Representatives and she will no longer be the Speaker. She had to make her grand tour, fully paid for by taxpayers, while she could. The immediate consequences are clear. Step over Beijing’s red line and you can expect China to react as it promised. Some hotheads were disappointed that People’s Liberation Army (PLA) fighter jets did not shoot down Pelosi’s plane. However, by exercising live-fire exercises in seven regions surrounding the island of Taiwan, China was saying not only that the “median line” in the Taiwan Strait does not exist, but that it can enter Taiwan’s waters any time it wants, anywhere it wants, and fire at any target it wants. Pelosi’s provocation had given China the necessary cause. The PLA fired missiles from the mainland over the width of Taiwan that landed on the opposite side of the island facing the Pacific, the potential area where US naval vessels would lurk if they were there to defend Taiwan. They weren’t. The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan had already hightailed out of danger and sailed for Japan. No wish to waste Patriot missiles The Taipei government explained that the air-raid alarms remained silent because it did not want to panic the populace unduly. It did not fire at missiles incoming from the mainland because it did not want to waste expensive Patriots on missiles that were going to land harmlessly in the sea. A poll taken shortly after Pelosi’s visit found that 9% of Taiwanese people remain convinced that the US military will be around to defend them. The world will be waiting to see if US carriers will resume patrolling the South China Sea and if the PLA will challenge the American version of “freedom of navigation” in the body of water that China considers its own. Pelosi’s meeting in Taipei also revealed why South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol declined to meet her. Over lunch in Taipei, Pelosi urged Morris Chang, founder and former chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), to locate some of its fabrication plants outside of Taiwan, specifically to complete its new site in Arizona and perhaps establish a presence in Japan. Chang’s polite reply to Pelosi was that building semiconductor fabs in different locations is not economically or technically practical. An American citizen, Chang did not say that he did not think the US has the needed skilled personnel, which he had said on other occasions. Strong-arming South Korea Pelosi’s mission in Seoul was to pressure Samsung and other chip makers in Korea to join TSMC and move their fabs to the US. Her selling point was to take advantage of the US$52 billion in the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America) Act as a financial incentive for such a move to the US. The conundrum for the Korean chip makers is that the US would expect them to take sides, that is, the American subsidy would require them to stop supplying chips to China. While China represents only 10% of TSMC’s market, the Korean fabs sell 60% of their output to China. Giving up 60% of their business to comply with the American embargo would be a real dilemma for South Korea. While the Korean government is stalling on making a commitment to Washington, Yoon’s avoiding seeing Pelosi was a diplomatic way to avoid being put on the spot, at least for the short term. A less diplomatic view was that meeting with Pelosi was not in South Korea’s national interest. Washington’s method of denying China access to semiconductor technology has been excruciating for the entire spectrum of players in the chip industry. TSMC was the first to feel the pain when former US president Donald Trump’s administration ordered it to stop providing advanced chips to Huawei, ZTE and others. China used to be a major customer, accounting for more than 20% of TSMC’s sales. Now. according to the current chairman and chief executive officer, Mark Liu, the figure is around 10%. The Dutch company ASML is the world’s leading maker of lithography machines essential in making semiconductors. Its most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) system sells for more than $150 million per unit, and the company is forbidden to sell to China. Now Washington is asking the Netherlands to forbid export of an older generation of deep ultraviolet (DUV) machines to China. Last year, ASML sold $2.78 billion worth of this product line to China, accounting for 14.7% of the company’s total sales. Embargo painful for US company too Lam Research based in Silicon Valley is one of world’s major supplier of equipment for semiconductor fabrication, with annual revenue just under $20 billion. Based on its latest quarterly report, China accounts for 31% of its sales while the US accounts for 8%. Undoubtedly, Lam management is agonizing on how to plead for an exemption from President Joe Biden’s administration so the company will not have to commit corporate seppuku. Washington’s determination to decouple from China is shortsighted and reflects what lawyers know about technology, which is not much. For many years, the US has underinvested in semiconductor manufacturing while China has done just the opposite. The $52 billion in the CHIPS Act is too little and too late. Asking companies to withstand self-inflicted pain and act against their own self-interest is unfortunately a case of Washington being an implacable bully. To survive, the victims will have to find ways around American exceptionalism. Already there are reports appearing to indicate that China is coping, American sanctions and embargoes notwithstanding. See for example two recent discussions, here and here. Could China embargo EV battery? Another development associated with Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan that seems to have escaped mainstream media’s attention is the Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) putting on hold its plan to build a plant in the US until the dust settles from her tour. CATL is the world’s largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and the owner of world-leading battery technology. Vehicles using its battery pack can go more than 965 kilometers per charge. Its current battery offers four main advantages: safety, long lifespan, high energy, and fast charging ability. The founder and chairman of CATL, Robin Zeng, has a PhD in condensed-matter physics. In an interview, he indicated that his company has two groundbreaking batteries under development ready for imminent market introduction. As of May this year, CATL had the largest market share in China’s EV battery market of 45.85%, and as of 2021, it had a global market share of 32.6%. CATL had been looking at potential sites in the US states of South Carolina and Kentucky to build an EV battery plant to supply Ford and BMW. It’s probably unlikely, but Beijing could decide to reply in kind and deny America’s access to China’s advanced technology and order CATL to abort plans to invest in the US. Or, on the other hand, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could express concerns that a Chinese battery under the hood could be used as a listening device to spy for China, the same logic he expressed on subway cars from China.

What has ‘champion of democracy’ wrought? Nancy Pelosi’s welcome to Taiwan was far from unanimous, and her ‘support for human rights’ is in question in her home city

First posted in Asia Times. This first of three on Pelosi's trip to Taiwan. Despite earnest counsel from many quarters against going to Taiwan, including threatening warnings of dire consequences from Beijing, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, insisted on making the trip. She landed in Taipei in pitch-black conditions near midnight on Tuesday. Her plane landed on the little-used Songshan Airport close to the Taipei city center. The runway and other lights on the ground were lowered just in case. Her flight path from Malaysia took an exaggerated circular route over Indonesia and then around the east coast of the Philippines and landed in Taipei from the east. Thus she completely avoided China’s airspace over the South China Sea and the Chinese coastline. Her flight took significantly longer than if she had simply flown directly by line of sight from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei. Apparently, an exact replica of the military aircraft did take off from KL hours earlier and flew directly to Taipei. We have to wonder how that crew must have felt as a decoy to test the resolve of China’s People’s Liberation Army. American fighter jets took off from the carrier USS Ronald Reagan to provide escort service with the help midair-fueling tankers, needed to extend the fighters’ limited range. As Pelosi’s plane approach Taiwan airspace, Taiwan-based jets took over the escort service. Happily, Pelosi’s plane landed without incident. So, other than burnishing her credentials as a champion of democracy and human rights – subject to further discussion later – what has her tour accomplished? Well, President Tsai Ing-wen awarded Pelosi with the Order of Propitious Clouds, Taiwan’s highest civilian order. And the award came with a pretty turquoise sash worn across the body as if she were Miss California. In fact, the pro-Democratic Progressive Party faction of the Taiwan media gushed enthusiastically over the beauty of Pelosi when she was young, repeatedly showing a photo of her standing with then-president John F Kennedy, who was giving her an appreciative ogle. Other members of the Taiwan media were less complimentary and flattering. One commentator observed that Pelosi promised more security for Taiwan. Yet as a result of her visit, the tension across the Strait has heightened, and now people in Taiwan face frequent fighter-jet incursions from the mainland. Taiwan has become less secure. Another said that the cross-Strait problems should have been left to the two sides to resolve and not commandeered by the US. Now, he lamented, “We have been reduced to a chess piece between two great powers.” Yet another asked the rhetorical question: “Can Taiwan become the next Ukraine?” Heretofore, we have been secure and peaceful and faced no risk of war across the Strait, he said. But the Western media are pushing Taiwan to the front line of conflict. The response from the mainland was for its customs authority to announce suspension of imports from Taiwan encompassing more than 3,000 products, most of which are foodstuffs and agricultural goods. The announcement came on the eve of Pelosi’s arrival and will likely incur heavy losses and put a dent in the trade surplus Taiwan normally enjoys. Pelosi throws the party, Taiwan foots the bill Tsai’s government is supposed to have realized the possible consequential fallout of heavy economic losses and had quietly asked Pelosi if she could consider not coming, but to no avail. It’s not as if Pelosi was unaware of the potential damage and negative consequences of her visit. On the eve of her departure from the US, voters in her own congressional district demonstrated in front of her office asking her not to visit Taiwan. She also elicited vocal protest in Taipei after her arrival. One sign read, “War Speaker Pelosi get out of Taipei.” Laotaipo, “old woman,” is one of the nicer name-callings for her. Less kind, some thought of the US military transport as her personal broom to fly into Taipei. China’s show of displeasure came with the announced live-fire drills commencing shortly after Pelosi’s departure for South Korea. The drills will in essence surround the entire island and threaten Taiwan in every direction. Pelosi’s visit has given China an excuse to do a practice run for a potential future invasion. No wonder Republican members of Congress, while enthusiastically encouraging her and voicing their support for her trip to Taiwan, all found reasons to stay home and not join her. Only former secretary of state Mike Pompeo volunteered to make it a bipartisan tour, but apparently no one cared for his company. One final measure of the popularity of Pelosi’s foray to Taiwan is South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol informing her that he is on vacation and can’t take the time to see her. Since being elected president, it took less than three months for Yoon’s popularity to drop below 30%. He could see the reaction Pelosi got from Taiwan and saw no upside for him to meet with her. Pelosi has represented the city of San Francisco in Congress for well over three decades. During this time, she has risen in seniority to become the Speaker of the House, two steps from the presidency. She has also taken on the mantle as a champion of democracy and human rights. In her more than 30 years of public service, we have seen the institution of democracy in America erode and deteriorate to the point of gridlock and impasse. True, it would not be fair to blame it all on her. It took many petty politicians to make the mess that we Americans are in, but she is one of them. During her term of office, the blight of her district has worsened every year. San Francisco has become the major city with the worst homeless problem in all of the US. The sidewalks, doorways and public areas are just gross beyond description. Nancy Pelosi apparently cares about human rights as far away as China but not much in San Francisco.

Open letter to Nancy Pelosi - If you step over the red line China has laid down, it can’t back down and not react

Watch Cyrus Janssen discuss the letter. https://rumble.com/v1e8ilj-nancy-pelosi-visit-taiwan-broke-us-promise-on-one-china-policy.html Dear Nancy, In 1991, you were a member of the Congressional party invited to Beijing as guests of the Chinese government. There you held a well-planned “impromptu” press conference in Tiananmen Square where you unfurled a banner proclaiming “Human Rights in China.” A group of members of the western media patiently waited for you to break off from your official host and show up. That was just simply brilliant. The show-and-tell established your credentials as a human rights advocate. As a newly elected member of Congress, the publicity certainly didn’t hurt your chances of getting re-elected. Of course, the Chinese government probably regarded your breach of protocol as rude and uncouth, but hey, that was their problem. Now rumors have it that you are planning to visit Taiwan in August. A lot has changed since your trip to China more than 30 years ago. The Taiwan media are all in a tizzy asking each other, “Who invited Nancy Pelosi? After all, Taiwan isn’t some American offshore possession that Nancy can come and go as she pleases.” To paraphrase one of the commentators, “Doesn’t she understand that we can’t stand the excitement and tension of her visit?” “Most people of Taiwan,” he continues, “like the relations with the mainland just the way it is. Peaceful, stable, quiet and we sell a lot of our stuff across the Taiwan Straits, to the tune of over $100 billion in surplus every year.” Some say that you are visiting Taiwan to encourage the Taipei government to start a fight with the mainland. The people of Taiwan have seen how the U.S. has been helping Ukraine in their fight with Russia and they don’t want any part of that setup. Before the Ukraine war, around 60% of the people of Taiwan were sure that the American soldiers would join the fight in their defense. Now that number has fallen to around 30%. Maybe the publicity of your visit to Taiwan, daring the Peoples’ Republic of China to respond, will help your party in the midterm November election. However, you are now the Speaker of the House and two steps away from the presidency. Like it or not, your actions represent the official position of our country. If you step over the red line China has laid down, it can’t back down and not react. We don’t know what their response will be but it will be dangerous—potentially explosive, in fact. As a loyal American, I humbly ask for your careful consideration for the sake of world peace and your personal safety. Best person regards, George Koo The writer of this letter is a retired business consultant, resides in California and is deeply worried about the future of America.

Sputnik moment isn’t what it used to be

The first one in 1957 spurred the US on to technological greatness; now, China’s progress spurs stagnation and indolence First posted in Asia Times. When China successfully tested a hypersonic weapon system in October 2021, General Mark A Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this was very close to a “Sputnik moment.” The first Sputnik moment took place on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union surprised Washington by sending aloft the world’s first man-made satellite, called Sputnik 1. All of a sudden, the heretofore assumed technological superiority that Americans thought they had over the Soviets vanished overnight. Public panic fueled by fear and loathing became a national crisis. For the rest of that October, The New York Times talked about the Soviet satellite, on average, in 11 articles every day. The US under president Dwight Eisenhower responded promptly to the Sputnik moment. He ordered the formation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in February 1958 to develop emerging technologies for the military. In July, he signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act to create NASA. Response to Sputnik challenge Congress quickly followed by passing the National Defense Education Act to pour billions of dollars into the American education system and raise the quality and quantity of university graduates in science, mathematics and engineering. By the time the USSR sent Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12, 1961, the US was ready for the space race and set putting man on the moon as the goal. The culmination was the worldwide televised moon landing of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11 in July 1969. DARPA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration generated many noteworthy technological breakthroughs, and many of those were spun off into civilian uses. Some directly or indirectly became home-run investments that nurtured an emerging venture-capital industry. The budget appropriations for the National Science Foundation created by Congress in 1950 were boosted every year to encourage scientific research in academia and research institutes. The 1970s were undoubtedly the golden decade for America. Then-president Richard Nixon went to China in 1972, which later led to normalization of relations between the two countries. The endless war ended in Vietnam. America led in virtually every field of science and technology. The fruit orchards south of San Francisco became the now famous Silicon Valley. The US claimed ownership of most of the top universities in the world. International students all over the world aspire to do postgraduate studies in America. A flood of the best and brightest from China began in the 1990s. US won the rivalry over Soviet Union America had risen to the challenge of the Sputnik moment, and it was easy to be a proud American. The American people celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and looked forward to a forthcoming “peace dividend” with enthusiasm and anticipation. Tragically, the dividend never materialized. Instead, the draft of the Wolfowitz Doctrine in 1992 became the guiding framework for future White House administrations. Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense at the time, was the principal author of the doctrine. As summarized by the documentary program Frontline, the essential points of the doctrine were: The No 1 objective of the US post-Cold War strategy is to prevent the emergence of a rival superpower. Another major objective is to safeguard US interests and promote American values. If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action. The legacy of this doctrine has been America’s unilateral action in Iraq, Libya and many other less publicized overthrows or interference of regimes not to US liking. The price was the loss of millions of innocent lives. “Safeguard our interests and promote American values” are invariably part of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s remarks supporting his justification for the threat of and actual unilateral action. China became the next designated adversary The doctrine needed a rival to warrant actions to “prevent emergence.” The US branded China as its next threat. To justify the American position, it declared a unilateral trade war and accused China of massive intellectual-property theft. And the US increased its military surveillance off the coast of China and justified increasing its naval presence in the South China Sea as based on “freedom of navigation.” A litany of US provocations succeeded in getting China to respond. One result was the hypersonic weapon system. But this was hardly a Sputnik moment. General Milley’s comment was meant to motivate increase budget allocation for weapon development. However, Washington and the mainstream media seem oblivious that the deliberate provocations have created a formidable opponent. Since the US declared China as an adversary, it has surpassed the US in many technical fields. One response was to deny China access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology in order to kneecap its semiconductor industry and cripple its manufacturing that depends on advanced chips. But as David Goldman observed in a recent Asia Times article, “The Biden administration’s belated attempt to suppress China’s semiconductor industry appears to have backfired. China has found workaround technologies that bypass the aging American IP that Washington has embargoed.” By concentrating its national energy and attention on stifling China’s advance, the US has neglected to invest in solutions and remedies that would have raised the well-being of America. We Americans could have raised the living standard of the poor. We could have made universal health care affordable for everyone. We could have repaired our old bridges and highways. We could have strengthened our law and order and made it fair to all regardless of race. We could have invested in our education and in scientific research to ensure our future. We could have done all that and more. Instead, we experienced more than 30 years of stagnation and indolence because of the US determination to rule the world.

Disintegration of unipolar world begins

The only sensible course of action for the US is to collaborate with China and find mutually beneficial outcomes First posted in Asia Times. In April, I was invited to speak about the US-China bilateral relationship. For the title of the speech, I chose, “Pushing China’s head under water won’t make American great again.” Recent developments suggest that an updated title would be, “Pushing China’s head under water will hasten America’s own demise.” There are two reasons for fine-tuning my title. First, the United States’ deliberate tactics to obstruct China’s growth and expansion have failed miserably while inflicting more hardship on Americans. The American people are paying a ghastly price for Washington’s obsession with China. Second, priorities of America’s foreign policy are not making any sense. The most recent example is the announcement by President Joe Biden that the US will contribute $200 billion to the G7 pool of funds to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It’s hard to tell where Biden is going to find the money. Even if all Group of Seven nations contribute their share of funds, it’ll be even harder to figure out to how they can implement BRI-like projects in the developing world. Most probably they would have to subcontract work to China, which knows how to implement it. On top of Biden’s dream of grandeur, he is sending billions’ worth of arms and weapons to Ukraine to prolong the conflict with Russia. Bipartisan approval is easy when it comes to making war. By contrast, to relieve the inflationary pressure on the American domestic economy, Biden is proposing to forgive 18 cents per gallon (4.76 cents per liter) of federal tax on gasoline for the three summer months. Wow. Billions to compete with China and Russia and an 18-cent discount for the American motorist. In California, a gallon of gasoline has gone over $6 ($1.59 a liter). Saving 18 cents per gallon from a fill-up will barely cover the cost of a cup of coffee. In the US, prices of everything are going up; inflation looms. Nay, inflation at 8.8% is already the highest in 40 years. Soon the American motorist won’t even get a cup of coffee from his gas-tax saving. Biden does not deny that Americans are facing inflation. He blames the inflation on Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. He urges the American public to endure this “for as long as it takes” in order to defeat Putin – hardly encouraging words. Of course, most American people are not aware that it has been the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization that baited Putin over the decades into the war with Ukraine. Washington has since congratulated itself for successfully mounting a proxy war – getting Ukrainians to fight the Russians. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even explained that the war meets the objective to wear down the strength of Russia – albeit at the expense of Ukrainian casualties and property. Having successfully pushed Russia into invading Ukraine, NATO celebrated with a summit at the end of June where Sweden and Finland were formally inducted as new members. At the same time as having pushed Russia into a closer relationship with China, the organization accused China of not condemning Russia and therefore not standing with NATO. NATO is afraid of China At this NATO summit, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea were invited as observers, as a signal that NATO’s expansion plans now include the North Pacific. Just to make sure nobody misses that intention, for the first time NATO identified China as a potential adversary and a “systematic challenge.” So, what constitutes China’s threat to the security of NATO members? Apparently it is the fact that China has dominated manufacturing of goods at prices that the West cannot compete with. China’s GDP continues to grow, and that makes NATO members nervous. The West led by the US has repeatedly accused China of violating “rule-based international order.” The most recent action by the Biden White House was to impose sanctions on goods made in Xinjiang, alleging human-rights abuses there. In response, China, on the day after the conclusion of the NATO summit, announced the placement of an entire order for 292 commercial jetliners worth more than $37 billion with Airbus, the European consortium, and none to Boeing, the other major maker. This was a harsh, attention-getting message from China in response to Biden’s endless innuendos and baseless insults and a signal that China is ready to play hardball. All of Beijing’s past diplomacy seems to be misinterpreted by Antony Blinken et al as being soft. The Blinken team in the State Department seem to think they can cherry-pick issues to work with China on the one hand and otherwise castigate Beijing with a recitation of imagined violations of international rules. No more, says Beijing. Boeing recently made a market projection that China’s future demand for passenger jetliners was 8,700 planes worth $1.5 trillion over the next 20 years. If the US is determined to decouple from China, Boeing faces a bleak future in China. China offers EU partnership China’s other message is to the countries in the European Union, many of which are members of NATO. The Airbus order reaffirmed that China can be a major economic partner and poses no threat to the security of the EU. Inflation in the EU is rapidly getting out of control because of the war in Ukraine and the US-imposed sanctions on Russia. If Biden thought he was driving a stake into the heart of Russia’s economy, he miscalculated. Putin turned around and pegged Russia’s energy exports to the ruble. Consequently, the value of the ruble against the euro has reached a seven-year high. The artificial shortage in world oil caused by the US sanctions on Russian oil has not hurt Russia. It makes money selling its oil to China, India and other buyers at higher prices. Concurrently, the US and UK as oil exporters are also making money because of the shortage they created. However, major nations in the EU, especially France, Germany and Italy, are energy importers and they are beginning to question the wisdom of following the US leadership, which seems to work in favor of the US and UK at the expense of the EU. Such doubts were accentuated when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced that his country needs aid to the tune of $5 billion per month to survive and keep operating. On top of refugees, shortages of staples, and inflationary pressures, the EU leaders have to worry as to whether Uncle Sam will pick up the tab or pass it on to the EU. The world is beginning to see the difference between currencies based on assets and the American dollar based on the “full faith and credit” of the US government, in other words, the Federal Reserve’s printing press. Central banks of various countries are beginning to lighten their dollar holdings in favor of other reserve currencies, the most popular being China’s renminbi. According to the International Monetary Fund, the US dollar’s share of total global currency reserves has fallen to its lowest point in more than two decades. To take advantage of the availability of Russian oil at favorable discount, India entered a rupee-to-ruble deal and get around paying in dollars. For the first time, India also bought coal from Russia with the Chinese renminbi. BRICS as another pole While the G7 and then the NATO summit meetings took place in Europe, it was China’s turn to host the BRICS summit, which it did virtually. At the 2022 summit, Beijing invited many non-member countries as observers. Formed in 2009, BRICS consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It is not a military alliance but is meant to promote collaboration for peace, security and global economic development. Compared with the G7, BRICS has three times the population but only about 70% of the G7’s GDP. At the 2022 summit, Argentina and Iran formally applied to join BRICS. Adjusted for purchasing parity, the GDP for BRICS+ would surpass the G7. And there is a proposal afoot to create a new global reserve currency based on a basket of BRICS+ currencies as an alternative to the US dollar. Rather than going around the world collecting military allies and imposing sanctions on countries that do not wish to align with the US, China invites partners to collaborate on mutually beneficial basis. Since it was initiated in 2013, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has launched more than 13,000 projects in 165 countries valued at nearly a trillion dollars. Most of the BRI projects have to do with upgrading badly needed infrastructure, which leads directly to a boost in the recipient country’s economy. There is now a high-speed rail linkage from China through Central Asia to Moscow and on to Rotterdam on the Atlantic coast. Twenty-five out of 31 Latin American countries are participants in the BRI, as is most of Africa. At the just-concluded Group of Twenty summit, the divide between the US-led Western bloc and China, Russia and the non-aligned members of the G20 became quite clear. The summit concluded without the usual group photo of smiling state leaders and no joint declarations expressing optimistic steps for the future. The Biden administration and the US Congress remain convinced that the way to suppress China from making economic progress is to deny it access to American technology and knowhow. As all nations know well from their own development history, among them Japan and the US, borrowing and copying from more advanced nations can only be a beginning. Unless they can build from there and innovate and originate their own breakthroughs, they will always be me-too laggards. Every year, China graduates eight times as many students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) than the US. These human resources power developments in high technology. The more pressure the US exerts to stifle China’s advance, the more determined the Chinese will be to find their own technical advances and skirt around American roadblocks. In some fields, China has caught up with and even surpassed the US. China is already the world leader in electric vehicles and the battery technology for the EVs, in fifth-generation and the future 6G in telecommunications and quantum computing, just to name a few examples. China’s latest aircraft carrier has an electromagnetic catapult system on par with the one on USS Gerald R Ford, the newest US carrier. China has demonstrated a hypersonic missile while US manufacturers are still tinkering with theirs. Despite the US-mounted trade war that “punished” Beijing with tariffs on imports, China has continued to expand exports and the trade surplus with the US has actually grown rather than lessened. The real impact was to raise the cost of living for the American public. The US has wasted a lot of energy and resources trying to suppress China’s rise. It hasn’t worked, and it won’t work in the future. With four times the population, China’s GDP exceeding that of the US is inevitable. If on the other hand the US should succeed in provoking a conflict with China, the Americans will rue that day, and most likely so will the world. Can US and China find common ground? The only sensible course of action is to collaborate with China and find mutually beneficial outcomes. As Asia Times recently urged, “there is a wide field for potential cooperation that would benefit both countries and give the United States more room to back out of the stagflation trap in which it finds itself presently.” On the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Blinken held a five-hour conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. The purpose was to pave the way for a future meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The tone from Blinken was that US would like to restart a friendlier and more positive bilateral dialogue. China’s reply was that this is easy to do. To begin, all the US has to do is to recant all the lies, disavow the nasty rhetoric and stop blackening China. Whether Blinken and Biden will see the wisdom of non-confrontation and choose win-win outcomes in place of zero-sum results remains a question. Maybe we’ll know more after the two leaders meet.

Biden’s policy toward China is a road to self-destruction

This was first posted in Asia Times. President Joe Biden’s administration appears determined to project the image that United States remains the world’s hegemon regardless of cost or consequences and despite overwhelming developments around the globe that are contrary to such misguided hubris. The American leadership has always rested on the carrot-and-stick approach to rally countries around a unipolar world headed by the US. The carrot is in the form of foreign aid Uncle Sam dangles before a country as reward for joining the American camp. The stick is the threat of economic disengagement and sanctions and the withholding of military protection, thus stripping away that nation’s sense of security. Since the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent quantitative easing by printing billions of dollars to keep the US economy afloat, the economic might and stability of the American monetary system is not what it used to be in the minds of many nations. When the Biden White House unilaterally confiscates foreign reserves owned by other countries but held in the US, such as in the cases of Afghanistan and Russia, the reputation of the US as a fiduciary is in doubt. The full faith in and credit of the US government cease to mean very much to the world. Thus the carrot has dried and withered, and after the 20-year war and debacle in Afghanistan, the stick Uncle Sam carries appears to have shriveled and is not so intimidating. Sending arms but no troops to Ukraine merely confirms America’s preference for war by proxy with little appetite for direct engagement. Bully on the block Yet the Biden team seems oblivious to the erosion of the US stature as the world leader but insists on going around the world approaching each country and demanding that it choose sides and align with the American geopolitical positions. The US has elected to designate China as its adversary for the foreseeable future. For allies and would-be allies to side with the US means they must also regard China as their adversary as well. The American demand places these countries in a dilemma, because regarding China as an adversary is in conflict with their own national interests. China is most likely their most important trading partner and a potential major investor and major supporter in the building infrastructure under the Belt and Road Initiative. China has expressed no interest in displacing the US to become the world hegemon and places no demand or expectation that countries choose sides. Friendship with China does not discourage or preclude friendship with the US. Beijing’s style of international diplomacy makes it easy for countries to get along with China and with the US while demurring from being a fully committed formal member of the American alliance. The Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles this month hosted by President Biden is just the latest indication. Many Latin American countries including Mexico found reasons not to attend. Nothing like throwing a party that used to be a must-show event that nations now decide to bypass. Russia proposes New Group of Eight The Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin suggested recently that the G7 nations – once considered the world’s leading economies – are continuing “to crack under the weight of sanctions imposed against Russia,” obviously referring to the sacrifice of their economic self-interest in order to meet the demands of the US. Most other nations will have nothing to do with the American-imposed sanctions against Russia. From the non-compliant group of nations, Volodin proposes the formation of a “New Group of Eight” as counterweight to the G7. He selects Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran and Turkey as members of NG8. Volodin reasons that this group of eight countries with a combined GDP (measured in purchasing power parity – PPP) is 24.4% larger than that of the G7 nations. Furthermore, the NG8 contains about half of the world’s population and is much more representative of world opinion and interests. Ironically, Russia left the G7 group in 2014 and is now the promoter of NG8. This development can only be attributed to American insistence on remaining on top of a unipolar world, a unipolar world vaporizing Star Trek-style as we speak. The Biden White House seems to think it has succeeded in getting Ukraine to go into war with Russia and is willing to send another $40 billion worth of weapons to Kiev to enable it to fight to the last Ukrainian. They now think that they can persuade Taiwan to do the same, namely, provoke China into conflict. To provoke war with China, the Taipei government would have to declare independence. Washington has been encouraging the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to inch toward that red line, selling the party leaders the idea that the US is ready to go to war with Taiwan. However, a majority of people in Taiwan do not find American assurances credible, do not believe Taiwan can win a proxy war against China, and cannot justify the death and destruction it would entail just to make Washington happy. The people in Taiwan also find it inconceivable that the Chinese would actually attack their own people on Taiwan. China ready to go to war over Taiwan In the meantime, Beijing has invoked the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and declared that the waters of the Taiwan Strait are within the territorial waters of China. Henceforth, any vessels belonging to foreign countries that sail between the mainland and Taiwan and challenge the sovereignty of China will be subject to attack without notice. China is a signatory of UNCLOS while the US is not. Beijing has drawn the red line based on international law. Continued provocation by American officials in Taiwan will put US vessels in the Taiwan Strait in jeopardy. The Beijing expression of its intentions is as stark and unequivocal as it can be. The next move will be up to the Pentagon to see if it is willing to test China’s resolve. There can be no question that China would rather fire on the US Navy than threaten Taiwan with missiles. Heretofore, Biden has depended on creating more money out of thin air to keep the American economy going. Printing money has been so easy that sending $40 billion to Ukraine seems pain-free. Conflict over Taiwan and waters around there, however, would surely lead to a meltdown of the Fed printing press.

Pushing China's head under water won't make America great again

The future of our young generations is at stake. This is a presentation before the Chinese American Association at Rossmoor (CAAR) on April 11, 2022. Introduction begins around the 2 minute mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aCq5tO5eiY

Lessons from an unnecessary war

Edited version first posted in Asia Times. A translated version appeared in the Sing Tao Daily. As Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the Western nations condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for the illegal invasion and the killing and destruction that went with it. “Putin is deranged, Putin is insane, Putin is a killer and he will destroy the world along with Russia,” are just some of the condemnations being heaped on him by the leaders in the West and the mainstream media. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria denounced “Russia’s utterly unprovoked, unjustifiable, immoral invasion of Ukraine.” US Senator Lindsey Graham went so far as to suggest hiring killers to assassinate Putin. Social media along with the mainstream became overloaded with dubious information and fantastical accusations. Some of the cacophony was clearly propaganda from Russia and some from Ukraine amplified by the West. Absent from the commentary of pundits and politicians alike is any semblance of rational reasoning and analysis as to causes and developments that led to the current tragic crisis. An exception would be historian John Mearsheimer, who in an hour-plus lecture given at the University of Chicago back in 2015 explained in some detail how the West continued to ignored Putin’s objections to the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, his lecture has gone viral around the world and been downloaded millions of times. Then this month, Mearsheimer reviewed and updated his views but did not alter his basic position, namely that the US and NATO are to blame for events leading to this disastrous war. His March 2022 talk provided a useful outline of all the provocations by the West starting from 1999. Far from being crazy, Putin as the titular leader of Russia has the responsibility to protect the security of Russia. He has repeatedly objected to NATO’s eastward expansion but was ignored by the US and NATO at every step along the way. Contrary to the impression popularized by the mainstream media, Putin did not precipitate a sudden invasion of Ukraine. For weeks, he amassed troops surrounding Ukraine threatening war as his final warning if the US and allies elected not to pay attention to his demands. Missile crises, then and now If the Americans could not tolerate missiles in Cuba back in 1962 and threatened to go nuclear against the Soviet Union, Putin has asked, how should Russia feel secure with missiles across its border in Ukraine? His question has never been addressed by US President Joe Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They seemed merely to shrug and ask Putin to accept on faith that the US can be trusted never to threaten Russia with missiles next door. After repeatedly reneging on the promise not to expand NATO membership, they are asking a lot from Putin. Biden also dispatched Blinken to contact China’s Foreign Ministry and ask Beijing to intercede and encourage Putin not to invade Ukraine. Blinken seems to have a talent for turning on a dime and suddenly finding China, heretofore an American adversary, into a bosom buddy in times of need. He was politely ignored. Biden’s other counter is to impose sanctions, economically isolate Russia and stop buying oil from Russia. Since the operation of US refineries depends on the heavy crude that Russia can provide, Blinken has had to call on Caracas and offer to do the Venezuelans a big favor and lift crippling sanctions so as to begin buying crude from them. In the meantime, the world price of a barrel of oil has more than tripled. As a producer and supplier of oil, Russia is enjoying windfall oil revenue to soften the economic pains coming from Biden sanctions. Biden tells Americans to suck it up The Biden administration seems to feel that the American public won’t mind gasoline prices going sky-high and that inflation will mean doing without for many American households. He seems confident that the European Union nations will also loyally go along, even though the Europeans will feel the pain of inflation and energy shortages even more than Americans. The world can only marvel at the kind of strategic thinking emanating from Washington. Washington has shown no inclination to find a resolution that would end the conflict and reach a peaceful settlement. Biden’s idea of supporting Ukraine in the war was to proclaim that American soldiers will not fight Russia but will supply as much weaponry as necessary for Ukraine to fight the Russians down to the last Ukrainian standing. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is beginning to see a serious downside to having the US as an ally and seems willing to find a way to a negotiated peace. This is where China can play a constructive role. China has maintained positive diplomatic relations with both Russia and Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin issued a long joint statement on February 4 declaring long-term economic cooperation and commitment to a multipolar world. As for Ukraine, it is a major hub of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and an important trading partner. During this war, China Red Cross has begun to send humanitarian aid to Kiev, and the Ukrainian government has assisted China in rounding up and evacuating Chinese nationals from the conflict zones. China has expressed sympathy to Russia’s objection to NATO’s encroachment but did not support the invasion of Ukraine. China has always stood on the side of respecting the sovereignty of other nations. China for peace, US for war Surely the world can see that while the US sends arms to promote death, destruction and everlasting instability, China sends food and medicine and can be a trusted honest broker for peace and stability. Nevertheless, the road to peace and security will be long and challenging. It will require all the other parties with vested interests, such as EU and NATO members and most important of all the US, not to disrupt and interfere. It will take EU and NATO member nations that value peace and return to economic prosperity, over their allegiance with the US, to overwhelm the American attempts to sabotage the peace process. Blinken is said to have already formulated a Ukrainian government-in-exile, preparing for the day when the country is overrun by Russia. It will be incumbent on all nations in favor of peace to ensure the safety of Zelensky and not let him become a victim of a CIA hit squad. Ukraine war a lesson for Taiwan This war has raised another question that must be answered, about the status of Taiwan. Some mainstream media outlets have actually suggested that China will take advantage of the distraction the conflict has caused in in Europe to invade Taiwan. This proposition is as preposterous and as poorly reasoned as any from the mainstream media. Beijing regards the people of Taiwan as Chinese and as their own kind. The evacuation of Chinese from Ukraine, as an example, included people with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan passports. Mainland China will not launch an invasion unless pushed to a last resort. The last resort would be when the Taipei government declares independence. If Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen falls for American encouragement and steps over the line in the sand, she can count on Uncle Sam to provide all the weapons she needs to fight to the last person in Taiwan. Biden has openly declared that he won’t send any Americans to Ukraine to take on the Russians. He won’t take on China either. It should be obvious that the US is a declining hegemon that can only offer conflict and economic sanctions, while China has no interest in military intervention and can offer economic cooperation and collaboration to anyone. The contrast couldn’t be more clearly seen than in the Ukraine conflict. Another commentary posted in Asia Times on the same day discussed the position by President George H.W. Bush that's relevant to my piece.

Three interviews on the U.S. China bilateral relations by Schiller Institute

The Executive Intelligence Review of the Schiller Institute has archived three interviews conducted in December as below. Each of these interviews dealt with the dire ongoing tension between the United States and China and is a situation most American public is unaware of. The current trajectory verges on a hot war. I hope you will take time to view these interviews and share them with your circle of contacts, and if you feel strongly about the danger facing us that you would call to the attention of your political representatives. Dr. George Koo: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/03/interview-with-dr-george-koo-u-s-confrontation-with-china-is-destroying-the-u-s/ Prof. Justin Yifu Lin: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2021/12/28/interview-china-and-hamiltonian-economics/ Amb. Chas Freeman: https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2021/12/03/eir-interview-with-former-us-ambassador-and-china-expert-chas-freeman/

Chip industry’s virtuous circle made vicious by Biden’s policy- Forcing chip foundries to turn over internal files is a lose-lose proposition

First posted in Asia Times. A report of this posted appeared in China Daily. Chinese version posted in Sing Tao Daily. I commented on this subject in China Economic Net. Same piece also appeared in China Daily. Some years ago, before my retirement, I offered the observation that the semiconductor industry had become a remarkably virtuous circle across the world. As everyone knows, in a virtuous circle, all participants win. True enough, semiconductor technology was discovered and developed in California’s Santa Clara county, south of San Francisco, which is how it became known to the world as “Silicon Valley.” There Intel Corporation pioneered the advances in its microprocessor technology and created the mega personal-computer industry. Other entrepreneurs in the valley soon followed Intel, either to compete with better circuit designs or to develop complementary integrated circuits to expand the use of semiconductors in a multiplicity of applications. Thus the role of semiconductors proliferated into everyday use, and they now serve many essential functions not conceived by the original inventors. A recent example is the dependence on microchips to execute many functions in automobiles. A worldwide shortage of chips for cars has brought the manufacture of autos to a near standstill. The severe economic consequences of this stoppage have given US President Joe Biden’s administration the excuse to take unprecedented action; more on that later in this article. As the industry evolved, the mantra was to design and make every generation of chips faster, cheaper and smaller. The complexity of each generation raised the cost of making them exponentially. Today, the cost of fabricating (the industry’s term for producing chips) the most advanced devices is in the billions of dollars. Soon, companies in the US dropped out of making their own chips because of the escalating capital investment required to keep up. The techno-entrepreneurs concentrated on designing new devices for new applications. All that required was some computer-aided design stations and a group of smart circuit designers. TSMC fills a need Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company saw this developing industry trend and decided to concentrate on fabrication technology and kept committing the capital investments needed to keep up with the advances in process technology. TSMC’s strategy was to serve as everybody’s foundry and offer semiconductor fabrication as a service for a fee. To be credible, it promised strict confidentiality, to protect the client’s trade secrets and never to make its own devices to compete with its customers. The “fabless” companies rushed to Taiwan to take advantage of this win-win business arrangement. As a matter of self-interest, these companies willingly shared their know-how with TSMC to improve the manufacturing process so that TSMC steadily improved its fabrication techniques. The fabless companies received their proprietary chips at reasonable cost in a timely manner without a heavy capital commitment. Very quickly, TSMC became the world’s leading semiconductor foundry service company. Others followed suit and copied the TSMC model, but the Taiwanese company captured more than 50% of world’s chip-foundry business and maintained its grip as the leader of semiconductor manufacturing technology. Companies that have enjoyed great success taking advantage of the TSMC business model include Apple, Nvidia and Huawei. Apple designed proprietary chips for all of its product lines across the board and has them made in third-party foundries, mostly by TSMC. Nvidia is the world leader in designing chips for complex computational tasks such as in computer games, machine learning and artificial-intelligence applications and even for mining cryptocurrencies. TSMC is a major supplier of Nvidia’s chipsets. Huawei relied on TSMC’s advanced fabrication technology to make the Chinese company’s proprietary chips for its smartphones and, of course, for its fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication equipment. US, Taiwan and China form a virtuous circle For a while, this was a virtuous arrangement. Apple took its designs to Taiwan and assembled its chipsets into iPhones, iPads and computers in China and sold them worldwide. Nvidia had its chip designs made in Taiwan and also enjoyed worldwide sales. But then Huawei got too successful and became the world leader in 5G and a major supplier of smartphones. The former Donald Trump administration in the US thought the one way to stop Huawei was to deny it access to TSMC’s foundry services and also to any American-owned semiconductor technology. Trump’s successor Joe Biden has gone a step further by becoming the Godfather of the worldwide semiconductor industry and make an offer the foundries cannot refuse: Turn over your confidential files to the US Department of Commerce (DOC) or else we will stop you from operating. The foundries were given 45 days to comply after the September announcement, and it appears that the leaders, TSMC and Samsung, will comply and others will follow suit. Neither Taipei nor Seoul can stand up to Washington and fight this strong-armed unethical outrage. The US has long envied China’s ability to set industry policies in accordance to national priorities. Apparently, the latest DOC edict is Biden’s attempt to mimic Beijing and favor domestic industry, namely Intel, with policy and financial subsidy. TSMC will lose TSMC’s position in the industry will no doubt be diminished. It will not able to collaborate in the manner it was used to and now will only be able to serve its customers in China with great difficulty, if at all. Its covenants with its customer is in tatters. If TSMC relocates some of its facilities to the US to please Washington, it will face the same set of comparative disadvantages of having to operate in America that caused Intel to fall generations behind. Cutting off China will force that country to accelerate the development of indigenous semiconductor technology. It will be stymied for an interim period but in the end, China will have its own semiconductor production and market. As TSMC loses its luster, skilled management and technical personnel will seek opportunities elsewhere. Some might migrate to the US but more are likely to look for jobs in China, where they will not be penalized for language or cultural disconnect. It’s not at all certain that Intel can catch up to TSMC thanks to Washington’s assistance. Besides policy and financial subsidy, doing so will also require people with motivation and skillsets. In that respect, China far outnumbers the US. Washington seems to think its is playing a win-lose game. It doesn’t seem to appreciate that by cutting China off, American companies will be deprived of access to the largest market in the world. When the world’s semiconductor market is split into two, the halves will be less than the whole. Thus a virtuous circle will become dysfunctional, and everybody will lose.

Lessons from Meng Wanzhou case for Joe Biden - The US president should now see the folly of following his predecessor Trump's footsteps on China policy

This was first posted in Asia Times and a Chinese translation appeared in SingTao USA. The sudden release of Meng Wanzhou caught many people by surprise, and a flurry of analysis and speculations has followed since her uneventful arrival in Shenzhen, China. For residents of Sleepy Hollow and others who might wonder what the excitement was all about, it’s time for a refresher review. Shenzhen is the home base for Huawei, China’s and the world’s leading telecommunications company. Meng is the chief financial officer of this giant company and she also happens to be the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, the founder and chairman of Huawei. More than thousand days ago, Meng was detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while in transit at the international airport of Vancouver, British Columbia. The arrest was made at the request of the US Department of Justice, when Donald Trump was president of the United States. The US alleged that Meng had misrepresented Huawei’s business dealings with Iran to HSBC, thus causing the bank to violate US sanctions imposed on Iran. In 2015, the five members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, UK and US) plus Germany had struck a long-term deal with Iran on its nuclear program. The deal was created after much effort by all parties to ensure stability in the Middle East. When Trump became president, he flatly opposed anything Barack Obama, his predecessor, had stood for. Thus he unilaterally reneged on the agreement known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and imposed sanctions on Iran on the pretext that he could get a better deal than the JCPOA. Trump, of course, did not bother to consult with the other five nations that had co-signed the original agreement with Iran. Meng detained on flimsy charges As I summarized the Meng affair nearly a year ago, Washington cobbled together a flimsy set of charges to justify her arrest. Basically, a Chinese citizen doing business with a British bank was accused of violating American sanctions on Iran that neither China nor the UK had anything to do with. Subsequent examination revealed that even those accusations were on shaky grounds. Trump had conned Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, into caving into Washington’s wishes to make the arrest. By taking Ren’s daughter hostage, Trump had hoped to blackmail Ren in some way that only Trump could have dreamed up. Two years after the arrest, it became increasingly obvious that America’s long arm of extraterritorial reach was becoming a source of embarrassment for Washington and Ottawa. The US DOJ then resorted to its usual trick and offered to release Meng if she would plead guilty to a lesser charge. She stood fast and refused. Historically, the American scale of justice has always been tilted in favor of the government. Even when the DOJ is clearly in the wrong, as it was in the case of Wen Ho Lee, he had to plead guilty to computer downloading in violation of laboratory rules in exchange for time served, which was a harsh 10 months of solitary confinement. Recent history is replete with examples of miscarriages of justice meted out by the DOJ against Chinese-Americans. The US government has virtually infinite resources to wear down the hapless accused. But it didn’t work against Meng because she was not American and she had the resources of Huawei and China to back her stance. Biden missed doing the right thing Then Joe Biden became the US president. He could have immediately ordered dropping the American request to extradite Meng and get Trudeau off the hook, and Canada from being the country caught awkwardly in the middle. But Biden did not. He was under the influence of his China team. Whether it was China’s first meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Anchorage, Alaska, or subsequently with visiting Deputy State Secretary Wendy Sherman or with special envoy John Kerry, Beijing’s message remained the same: China would not let the US pick and choose which issues to cooperate on and which issues to compete and confront China on. From Beijing’s point of view, the Biden administration cannot go around the world lying about China’s conduct and recruiting allies to oppose China as if engaged in another cold war, and still expect collaboration on selected global issues. Without mutual respect, there will be no trust nor confidence in each other on doing the right thing. Beijing handed each visiting American envoy a list of demands to be met if Washington wished to repair bilateral relations. Interestingly, as the South China Morning Post reported, John Thornton was a visitor in China for six weeks shortly before the release of Meng. Thornton has a deep China background. He is a professor at Tsinghua University and the chairman of the board of trustees at the Brookings Institution, where the China Center is named after him. Unlike the official envoys from Washington who were not invited to visit Beijing, Thornton met with Vice-Premier Han Zheng in the national capital. They discussed what it would take to resume bilateral talks, and then Thornton was allowed to visit Xinjiang for a week. It’s hard to know the exact role Thornton played in triggering the release of Meng and whether the release represents a real first step toward normalizing relations and the abandonment of Trump’s confrontation with China. The face-saving deal that allowed the DOJ to cancel the extradition request and secure Meng’s release was a device called a deferred prosecution agreement. The agreement did not require any admission of guilt by Meng. Within an hour of Meng’s final release by the Canadian court, she got on a Chinese airliner and flew home to Shenzhen. As a show of the lack of trust and to avoid unpleasant surprises (in case Washington suffered seller’s remorse), the airliner skirted around Alaska airspace when it flew over the Arctic circle. Since Washington insisted on designating China as an adversary, only the Biden White House can decide when and if China should no longer be considered an adversary but a powerful collaborator that the US could work with to resolve all the challenges facing the world. Perhaps a trusted intermediary like Thornton could help persuade Biden that following Trump on China policy has been a road to disaster.

Is China ready to bail out the US in Afghanistan?

First posted in Asia Times. The appalling images of desperate Afghans losing their grip and falling to their death as planes take off from Kabul Airport evokes the memories of the panic evacuation from the rooftop of the American embassy in Saigon some 46 years earlier. This is yet another stain on America’s reputation. To lessen the trauma of the humiliating rush for the emergency exit as seen by world opinion, it will be crucial for President Joe Biden’s administration to arrange for the orderly departure of the Americans remaining in Afghanistan and not leave them stranded. And, just as important, there are tens of thousands of Afghans who have provided loyal services to the Americans forces and have been promised visas to emigrate to the US, and are now waiting for safe passage out of Afghanistan. Not all wishing to depart are gathered in Kabul or at the international airport. Many are simply caught unprepared by the sudden collapse of the US-backed government. Obviously, only with the consent and willing cooperation of the Taliban, now in control of the country, can the remaining Afghans and Americans be assembled and safely conveyed to departing planes. It has been reported that US Secretary of State Tony Blinken contacted his counterparts in Russia and China as the debacle at the Kabul airport was unfolding. What Blinken said to Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, and Wang Yi, foreign minister for China, has not been made public. But if Blinken was hoping to salvage the reputation of the Biden administration, he probably would have had to swallow some of the American hubris and ask for assistance in intervening with the Taliban on America’s behalf. China as intermediary for the US Both China and Russia have kept open their embassies in Afghanistan and maintained diplomatic relations with the Taliban. Just recently, the Taliban even sent a delegation to Beijing to shore up their bilateral relations. The message was that the Taliban would like Afghanistan to become a part of the Belt and Road Initiative and welcome Chinese investments. In turn, China has expressed interest in enlarging its presence but needs to see a secured country and the assurance of the safety of Chinese nationals working in Afghanistan. And, of course, the Taliban should not permit the use of Afghanistan as a staging ground for the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and allow the mostly ethnic Uighur terrorists to enter China and wreak havoc there. It’s no small irony that the world’s mightiest military power cannot exert its will on a tribal Islamic militant group and must rely on a third party to intercede on America’s behalf. Arguably, China is in the best position to persuade the Taliban to ensure safe passage for the people wishing to leave, and thus save Uncle Sam from the lingering embarrassment of a panic-stricken retreat. The war in Afghanistan over 20 years has cost Washington the average of US$300 million per day. Perhaps China might suggest to the Biden administration that the US transfer the savings of some of that daily expenditure to the Taliban as a form of “departure head tax” to facilitate smooth exits. Surely, Afghanistan is merely the latest evidence that the American mission of nation-building around the world and replicating democracies after its own image is nothing more than a fool’s errand and a pipe dream. Follies of nation building Even if the denizens inside the Washington Beltway fail to see the folly of decades of futility, the rest of world is increasingly aware of the risks of signing on to be a US ally. When Washington’s next bumbling leads to another crisis, the American assurance that Uncle Sam has their back will be shown as meaningless. Yet the latest US secretary of the air force, Frank Kendall, wants to refocus American weapons using advanced technology to “scare” China. Can’t even beat the Taliban but still wants to scare China. What is he smoking? In previous commentaries in Asia Times, I have unabashedly promoted the idea that the US needs to find ways to work with China rather seeking to win the unwinnable zero-sum rivalry. Perhaps the folks in Washington are just too focused on building military might and can’t think of any other approach with China. First, it’s important to recognize that China does not want to compete with the US, especially in the development of weapons. Each advance the US makes, China is obliged to match and develop an effective counter. Each effective counter gives the US justification to invest in the next state-of-the-art weapon to kill and destroy. This is an endless march to disaster. Rather than sending soldiers, China sends construction engineers to help countries on the Belt and Road build their infrastructure. The US does not have the resources to compete and should not. China makes friends with its BRI but not at the expense of America. Economic development in the countries that China assist is good for everybody. Afghanistan is just one situation where collaboration with China is beneficial. There are many other global challenges on which the US needs to work with China such as climate change, stopping the Covid epidemic, cyber hacking, counterterrorism, drug and human trafficking and many others. Without mutual trust, the two countries cannot work effectively together. Steps to collaboration with China I would like to propose some sensible steps in the direction of getting along with China. American business leaders have been clamoring for the Biden administration to restart trade negotiations with Beijing and remove the tariffs on imports from China. Biden should begin in all due haste and stop the open wound to American farmers and consumers caused by the tariff war. The detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver has been an embarrassment for Canada and an unwarranted source of tension between China and the US along with Canada. Biden should take the initiative and promptly remove the request for extradition before the presiding Canadian judge dismisses the case. This good-faith gesture would do wonders for the relations among the three countries. Basically, former president Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster to America’s credibility and prestige. Rather than blindly following the policies of his predecessor, Biden needs to order a thorough review and think deeply on what’s really good for America. Rather than trying to persuade the rest of the world to be more like us Americans, we badly need to fix our seriously flawed democracy. We allow politicians to turn vaccinations and wearing a facial mask, which should be a public health issue, into a political issue. Some politicians, including ex-president Trump, treat the US constitution as nothing more than a doormat for their muddy shoes. Are these characteristics of a model democracy worthy of worldwide adoration and respect?