News & commentary by Dave Maxwell. Edited and published by Daniel Riggs.
1. Restoring Taiwan’s Appropriate Place at the World Health Assembly - United States Department of State
2. Opinion | The U.S. Still Has Leverage In Afghanistan. Here’s How to Keep It
3. Biden’s foreign policy of ‘competitive coexistence’
4. Xi versus Biden: how China is beating the US
5. Will deterrence work, when our foes wage war disguised as peace? by Sean McFate
6. [OPINION] Fighting the virus of lies
7. Beijing’s Woke Propaganda War in America
8. US Navy Says Seizes Huge Weapons Cache In Arabian Sea
9. Ransomware attack leads to shutdown of major U.S. pipeline system
10. New U.S. Indo-Pacific chief to visit Japan in second half of May
11. Washington is playing a losing game with China by Chas Freeman
12. Genuine multilateralism, int'l cooperation championed worldwide
13. The US Needs to Impose Costs on China for Its Economic Warfare
14. Deterrent against China: Palau invites U.S. military to build on remote islands
15. 'Conspiracy is hard': Inside the Trump administration's secret plan to kill Qassem Soleimani
16. Leaked documents reveal China’s sinister virus plan
17. 4 Years After an Execution, a Different Man’s DNA Is Found on the Murder Weapon
18. US State Department: We Will Not Normalize Ties With Assad
19. Afghan Pullout Leaves U.S. Looking for Other Places to Station Its Troops
20. Major China Bill Puts Military in a Crunch
1. Restoring Taiwan’s Appropriate Place at the World Health Assembly - United States Department of State
state.gov · by Antony J. Blinken
Looks like we are going to do something with the WHA (and thus the WHO.)
We should remember the history of the WHO. China was a founding member of the WHO. But we know the People's Republic of China did not come into existence until 1948.
When diplomats met to form the United Nations in 1945, one of the things they discussed was setting up a global health organization.
WHO’s Constitution came into force on 7 April 1948 – a date we now celebrate every year as World Health Day.
2. Opinion | The U.S. Still Has Leverage In Afghanistan. Here’s How to Keep It
Politico · by Anne Pforzheimer · May 8, 2021
Conclusion: "Pulling out troops without conditions or remaining “at war” indefinitely are not the only two options; they never were. In our 2009 cable, we pointed out that anti-corruption and long-term development efforts were better investments than more troops. Rather than compound our past errors, the United States must now commit to the goal of stability by preserving our remaining leverage—and using it well."
3.Biden’s foreign policy of ‘competitive coexistence’
ekathimerini.com · by Ian Bremmer · May 8, 2021
Ian Bremmer wins the prize for new foreign policy doctrine name: "competitive coexistence."
4. Xi versus Biden: how China is beating the US
SCMP · by Suzanne Ho
Excerpts: “A strong leader who has both a deep understanding of strategy and a desire to meet the needs of the people comes only once in many generations. Meritocracy allowed Xi to climb up the over the course of decades, by honing his capability and generating support.
Despite the Western media image of Xi, he is one leader who has a clear-eyed view of the path forward for China and the support of his people in securing the future.
On the other hand, America’s political duopoly, at least in the last decade, has resulted in greater polarisation, with its citizens paying the price.
5. Will deterrence work, when our foes wage war disguised as peace?
The Hill · by Sean McFate · May 8, 2021
Politics is war by other means.
Mao: Politics is war without bloodshed and war is politics with bloodshed.
But Sean has coined a brilliant new phrase: "War is becoming a strategic scam." Perhaps this will take a rightful place next to Ike"s: "Military Industrial Complex."
Excerpts: “These “non-war” wars do not bend to the strategic logic of Clausewitz or Thomas Schelling, who prized brute force as the ultimate form of diplomacy (read: “deterrence and war”). Our national security establishment is steeped in these two thinkers. Yet warfare has changed, becoming more Sun Tzu, who valued deception above firepower. You win modern wars not through blitzkrieg, but by manufacturing the fog of war and exploiting it for victory, as our adversaries do. This is strategic deception. Trying to deter it is like trying to win at three-card monte.
War is becoming a strategic scam, and not a contest of brute strength alone. David beats Goliath through trickery, something the U.S. suffered in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet we have not learned. Deterrence is the reasoning of Goliath, but we are surrounded by Davids. To beat them, we must improve our strategic IQ and think beyond a big “shooting war” that may never occur. Rather, we should ask what is “war” today? It’s not our great-grandfather’s war. If war is getting sneakier, we must get sneaky with it. We must learn to scam the scammers — after all, Americans are clever people.
6. [OPINION] Fighting the virus of lies
From a great person, Maria Ressa, whom I am proud to know for the past 2 decades. Wise words.
Excerpts: “The virus of lies is highly contagious. They infect real people, who become impervious to facts. It changes the way they look at the world. They become angrier, more isolated. They distrust everything.
In this environment, the dictator wins, crumbling our democracies from within.
...
So here’s the thing: our problems can’t be solved from the Philippines alone. Again, something I’ve said repeatedly: what’s local is global; and what’s global is local.
...
Inevitably, there is this one moment when power and money chooses – status quo or change: in the Philippines in 1986, it was an elite family’s banner at a protest rally that helped open the floodgates that ousted a dictator. In Indonesia in 1998, months of student protests led nowhere until the business community and the military stepped in, ending nearly 32 years of Suharto.
Those with power and money must choose.
Ask yourselves these questions: Who are you? What do you stand for? What kind of world do you want in the next decade?
7. Beijing’s Woke Propaganda War in America
hoover.org · by Miles Maochun Yu
Excerpts: “On July 13, 1990, the Vice-Consul of Culture, Propaganda, and Exchange in the PRC’s San Francisco Consulate General, who defected to the U.S. in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Massacre, told a Berkeley, California audience about how easy it was for the CCP propagandists like himself to capture American intellectual and social elites to function as the CCP’s proxies in the U.S.:
“The tactic Chinese propagandists use is not really very complicated. It is simple. It is always to work on your ego, on your business interests, on your curiosity, and especially with the Chinese students (in the U.S.), on your patriotism.”
The former CCP propagandist further tellingly disclosed that:
“In the early 1970s when Nixon visited China, his visit was followed by a swarm of China experts from Hong Kong and the West. Surprisingly, these people were the easiest targets of all because they were self-important. They thought they knew everything about China.”
Indeed, since Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, the American elite’s ego, business interests, and curiosity about Chinese culture have supplied fertile ground and ample opportunities for the CCP to create a permanent class of the CCP propaganda proxies in the United States.
But elite capture goes further. Former senior government officials, including cabinet-level figures, routinely defend the CCP’s murderous acts, including the Tiananmen Massacre and other egregious human rights violations. Some of these former officials have even become registered agents for the Beijing regime and its CCP-controlled business interests in the U.S. Many of our leading universities and their talented professors often are coopted by the CCP to voice Beijing’s views in the U.S., masqueraded as research and objective surveys.
8. US Navy Says Seizes Huge Weapons Cache In Arabian Sea
Barron's · by AFP - Agence France Presse
I wonder who is responsible for these weapons? Inquiring minds want to know.
Excerpt: “The statement did not indicate where the vessel may have come from, but said the US Navy's regular patrols in the region "disrupt the transport of illicit cargo that often funds terrorism and unlawful activity".
9. Ransomware attack leads to shutdown of major U.S. pipeline system
Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima, Yeganeh Torbati, and Will Englund
I wonder if these Eastern European criminals have read "Unrestricted Warfare?"
10. New U.S. Indo-Pacific chief to visit Japan in second half of May
japantimes.co.jp · May 9, 2021
Excerpts: “China could invade Taiwan "in the next six years," Davidson told the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Aquilino told senators at a confirmation hearing in the same month, "My opinion is this problem is much closer to us than most think," but he declined to weigh in on Davidson's assessment of the six-year timeframe.
The Japanese government is studying possible responses by the SDF in the event of a military conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan within the strict confines of its national security laws and the war-renouncing Constitution.
11. Washington is playing a losing game with China by Chas Freeman
eastasiaforum.org · by Chas Freeman · May 9, 2021
Excerpts: “The United States should work with China to ease the inevitable transition from dollar hegemony to a multilateral monetary order in ways that preserve American influence; leverage not boycott China’s Belt and Road Initiative to benefit from its opportunities and connectivities; promote cross-Strait negotiations and mutual accommodation rather than China–Taiwan confrontation; and expand consular relations, restore exchanges, and promote Chinese studies to enhance understanding of China.
Doubling down on military competition gives China a reason to up the ante and call the bluff, leading to a mutually impoverishing arms race.
Stoking China’s neighbours’ dependency on the United States rather than helping countries be more self-reliant implicates them in US conflicts of interest with China without addressing their own. They need US diplomatic support more than military backing to work out a stable modus vivendi with China.
US China policy should be part of a new, broader Asia strategy — not the determinant of relations with other Asian nations or the driver of policies in the region. To hold its own with China, the United States must renew its competitive capacity and build a demonstrably better governed, better educated, more egalitarian, more open, more innovative, healthier, and freer society.
12. Genuine multilateralism, int'l cooperation championed worldwide
From a Chinese propaganda outlet.
I am always curious about the country with the 2d largest economy in the world can still described and categorized as a developing country.
Excerpts: “As the largest developing country in the world, China has increased its contributions to achieving the highest reduction in CO2 emissions in the world and will achieve carbon neutrality from carbon peaking in the shortest time in the world's history, said Ayadi.
China has already pledged to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, which is a much shorter time span than those proposed by many developed countries.
"This demonstrates China's commitment to making more contributions to tackling global climate change and building up its image as a responsible major country," she said.
13. The US Needs to Impose Costs on China for Its Economic Warfare
defenseone.com · by Jared Thompson and Anne Fixler
Yes.
The US Needs to Impose Costs on China for Its Economic Warfare
14. Deterrent against China: Palau invites U.S. military to build on remote islands
Excerpts: “China is disadvantaged by America’s 70-year head start in the Pacific since the end of World War II and by Palau’s staunch support for the U.S., Taiwan and democratic Western allies,” a Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst with experience in the Pacific region said in an interview. “On the other hand, the U.S. spent the last two decades forfeiting much of the ‘First Island Chain’ to China.”
That “first chain” in the Pacific includes Taiwan, Okinawa, the Philippines and other islands closest to China on the front line of the struggle for influence in the highly trafficked and highly contested South China and East China Seas, where Beijing and Washington compete to dominate with their strategy and policies.
Palau is in the “Second Island Chain,” closer to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland. It links southern Japan, Guam and islands farther south across the Western Pacific Ocean. Although Palau’s primary interest is its economic survival, analysts say, the stakes are far greater and far
15. 'Conspiracy is hard': Inside the Trump administration's secret plan to kill Qassem Soleimani
news.yahoo.com · by Jack Murphy and Zach Dorfman · May 8, 2021
I continue to be amazed by the amount of information that is allowed to see the light of day (or ink on pages). But I guess I should not be so naive to think that we could keep some secrets.
16. Leaked documents reveal China’s sinister virus plan
news.com.au · by Ria Matthews · May 8, 2021
Of course every biological research laboratory has and probably continues to have such discussions, mostly probably to talk about defense against the threats. But the question is do these discussions and "thinking" actually lead to weapons development. I am in no way excusing or defending Chinese actions or trying to establish a moral relativity relationship. But discussions are one thing, operationalization is another. I tend to be very suspicious of CHina and its capabilities and intentions but we need to continue to investigate.
“I think this is significant because it clearly shows that Chinese scientists were thinking about military application for different strains of the coronavirus and thinking about how it could be deployed,” said Mr Jennings.
17. 4 Years After an Execution, a Different Man’s DNA Is Found on the Murder Weapon
The New York Times · by Heather Murphy · May 7, 2021
This is one of the many reasons why I am opposed to the death penalty. Despite modern science and technology we still make mistakes.
18. US State Department: We Will Not Normalize Ties With Assad
english.aawsat.com · by Washington- Muath al-Amri
19. Afghan Pullout Leaves U.S. Looking for Other Places to Station Its Troops
WSJ · by Vivian Salama and Gordon Lubold
It seems a little late. You would think we should have this sorted out and have put agreements in place before we withdraw our troops.
20. Major China Bill Puts Military in a Crunch
freebeacon.com · by Jack Beyrer · May 8, 2021
Excerpts: “China has increased its military forces in recent months. Beijing commissioned three advanced warships in April, with several more under construction. On Wednesday, multiple reports indicated China is planning to build an airstrip in Kiribati, one of the closest island chains to Hawaii, as well as several other U.S. and allied military installations.
The bill also signals a potential emphasis for the administration: restraining nuclear weapons. Calling for an arms control discussion with China, the bill states the United States and China are not in an arms race even as Beijing stocks up on advanced weaponry. Rep. Don Bacon (R., Neb.) praised much of the bill but said the United States cannot afford to cut defense, especially in the nuclear realm.
"As long as China remains a threat to the U.S. and our allies, we cannot afford to make any cuts to defense, especially to our nuclear triad," Bacon said. "Within our overarching strategic deterrence framework, both extended nuclear and conventional deterrence must be brought to bear if we are to present a credible challenge to the PRC’s hegemonic ambitions."
The bill, which has been praised by the White House, will likely receive a vote from the Senate in May.
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"Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart."
- Ancient Indian Proverb
"Virtue always lasts longer than other qualities, and it always starts from the beginning."
- Immanuel Kant
"Let us therefore set out whole-heatedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in the single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and we are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what fees."
- Seneca