Biden is creating a special center within CIA for China. Xi Jinping is irate. Biden knows China almost as well as Trump. He met with Chinese officials as Vice President. While Trump played a “good cop” routine on China, Biden… Read More ›
Trade
China looking at expropriating foreign-held tech shares
Those foreigners who hold shares in Chinese tech companies are being warned that all is not well. It is China expert Gordon Chang who explained at Gatestone Institute, where he is a distinguished senior fellow and a member of the… Read More ›
China-EU investment deal: ‘landmark’ treaty greeted with a shrug by underwhelmed analysts
The China-EU investment deal agreed to in principle on Wednesday has been greeted with a shrug by economists, with some questioning whether an under-pressure European Commission has oversold a deal that will not significantly move the needle in economic terms…. Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, December 28, 2020
Anymore, it’s not only bad news about China, but continued action in both military and trade. The pressure Washington puts on Beijing keeps finding new ways to keep turning up. Sanctions continue to increase. Military attention rises. And, Japan puts… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, December 7, 2020
A date which will live in infamy, 79 years ago. The Chinese warned the Japanese not to attack America for fear of waking a sleeping giant. Now, the Chinese are speeding against their own advice. The move will likely be… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, May 4, 2020
America is furious, both of them. Conservatives are fed up with restrictions against a virus that has no symptoms. Liberals are fed up with Conservatives not entering panic mode with them. If you don’t believe in God, you will believe… Read More ›
US military researchers call for use of privateers against China
The United States should encourage the use of privateers to fight Chinese aggression at sea, according to a pair of articles in magazine produced by the US Naval Institute. The reports – titled “Unleash the Privateers!” and “US Privateering Is… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, January 6, 2020
The West has been at odds with the Far East for centuries. It began before the Opium Wars, laws and treaties were made and broken, but the issues remain the same old same old. Chinese stare down their noses at… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, October 14, 2019
You can’t bring a pot to boil forever. While the conventional narrative for Hong Kong warns, “Retribution is coming,” a better understanding would be, “The Chinese are coming if Hong Kong doesn’t level up.” The protests must either “level up”… Read More ›
‘I will not accept a bad deal’: Trump’s China trade rhetoric turns harsh at UN
U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a stinging rebuke to China’s trade practices on Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly, saying he would not accept a “bad deal” in U.S.-China trade negotiations. Four days after deputy U.S. and Chinese negotiators… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, September 16, 2019
China is running into one of the problems of Communism; once the government controls a company, what that company buys is fair game in treaty negotiations. China’s government owns a lot of Chinese companies. The world already knows this, but… Read More ›
Africa News explains why Africa will choose Huawei
Africanews’ June 6 article “Why Africa will choose Beijing in ongoing US-China trade war” provides valuable information to support my May 22 comment here that Africans have a decisive role in shaping Huawei’s global future. “… Much of the continent’s… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 1, 2019
The Korean DMZ is the hottest new place to socialize! Dear Leaders charge to the border to shake hands. Presidents line up early to get a good spot. Few diplomatic maneuvers or promises on trade can compete with the political… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, June 10, 2019
Chinese rhetoric spiked over recent weeks. They made threats. Trump made threats. They made more threats. Trump and Xi are BFF, just like Xi and Putin, but Xi and Putin are BFF-er. Now, we move toward quiet action. If China… Read More ›
US-China ‘trade’ war, if not ended soon, may spill over to ‘finance’
“On the international monetary front, the key problem was the acute dollar shortage in post-war Europe … In the effort to reconstruct a viable Western Europe, the United States conceded degrees of protection and discrimination in trade that were incompatible… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, May 13, 2019
Trump knew the Chinese all along, all too well. The “trade war” never risked creating a real war; the “trade war” was a ploy the whole time—part of an elaborate scheme to provoke the Chinese into striking too soon. He… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, February 18, 2019
Google’s negligence with Taiwanese military secrets certainly put Taiwan on the map—and it may list Google among the utilities. Being made into a public utility by force is a mild settlement for de facto espionage. Taiwanese military tech is also… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, February 11, 2019
Trump fell a few dots shy of declaring all out war against China in his State of the Union address. He spoke kindly of China, then brought back Cold War era talk of “defeating Communism”. He also said he wanted… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, December 31, 2018
China and the US—more specifically Xi and Trump—are talking more and more about talking more and more about trade. China has drafted legislation to propose making China a fair country to outsiders. What a great proposed Christmas gift, just before… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, December 10, 2018
The “Huawei arrest” sends yet another a irritatingly mixed message to China. China believes that a “strong response” concerning Taiwan will convince the US to back away from support for Taiwan. Conveniently for China, the recent provincial elections in Taiwan… Read More ›
The Soybean Trade Triangle: Argentina, China and U.S.
Do not get dizzy with this triangular trading game. Bloomberg reported on Nov 27 that “Argentina replaces China as (the) biggest US soybean buyer”, compared with “none in the same year-ago period, USDA data show …” On the other hand,… Read More ›
Clause 32 of the USMCA is another big victory over China for Trump
The ‘Clause 32’ in the latest USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) masterminded by President Trump, according to Neil MacDonald (a Canadian analyst), specifies that “… if Canada wants a trade deal with China, it has to notify the Americans about any negotiations,… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, October 8, 2018
China’s political, socioeconomic worldview is that of a zero-sum game. It has played its socioeconomic game that way for decades. Now, it must empty its reserve coffers to keep its zero-sum game strategy from sinking too fast. This means that… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, October 1, 2018
When China cancelled a meeting in Washington, the Chinese thought they were sending a message; Washington thought they wouldn’t be sending any more messages at all. The Chinese government wants mutual respect, trade that results in equal numbers, and that… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, September 17, 2018
The US is not sending a contingency of Marines to Taiwan to protect it’s envoy. This announcement came after reports that the US had such plans. After discussing the non-existence of the plans for deployment, the State Department also discussed… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, September 10, 2018
Right or wrong, the US-China tariff war was always coming. Stupid American companies flew into the campfire of Chinese manufacturing like moths into a flame. China was smart inasmuch as they did not become dependent on the outsourced labor, which… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 30, 2018
The “China miracle” was nothing more than smoke and mirrors as big companies of the West took advantage of Chinese people seeking a living and Western consumers seeking lower prices. Everyone lost. There was no “miracle”. The fad for cutting… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 23, 2018
Central planning has only so much room for slight of hand tricks to keep up its sleeve. When the going gets tough, everyone goes home. For China, that means devaluing its currency, a complaint Trump has long lobbed against the… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 16, 2018
Global trade has become too congested and inbred. Enemies make vital weapons parts for each other—well, enemies of the US make vital weapons parts for the US, but don’t return the favor. Western companies outsourced to developing markets, then were… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 9, 2018
China is reaching out to the world. It doesn’t want tariffs imposed by the US. President Xi Jinping likely feels betrayed by the man who was so kind to him previously, President of the United States Donald Trump. The Western… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, June 18, 2018
Trump has stopped military exercises near North Korea, but he has not initiated any plans to withdraw troops. His reason for stopping the exercises is that they are provocative and expensive. He has a point: If the heads of state… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, June 4, 2018
North Korea inches further and further toward talks with the US. China fears this. If Kim Jong-Un get in the same room as the man who wrote The Art of the Deal, North Korea could become a stronger ally to… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, May 21, 2018
Talk only went so far this week. I looks as if North Korea might not be dismantling its nukes, but hiding them, then threatening to close talks when exposed for this, then threatening to cancel the summit for some other… Read More ›
‘China Threat’ helps make Trump a great president
Further to the Pew Research’s 2014 finding that “…The ‘China threat’ in particular looms large in many American minds”, a new study finds that “trade and China”, alongside “immigration”, carried heavy weight in having Donald Trump elected as the President… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, May 7, 2018
This was week of talk. A delegation from Washington went to talk with China. Trump talked about talking nice while talking. Economic talking heads are talking about the talks and everybody’s talking about it. Once the delegation that went to… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 9, 2018
China has been a source of great change. Taiwan has received a license from the United States to build its own submarines. Wang, a legislature who sits on the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee said that friendliness from the… Read More ›
China to build Kra Canal across Thailand to bypass Malacca Strait
According to The Diplomat’s article “Thailand’s Kra Canal: China’s Way Around the Malacca Strait” on April 6, the 200-year-old dream about the canal might finally become a reality under China’s Belt and Road. The article says, “Most recently, the Thai-Chinese… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, April 2, 2018
China and the US have fixed their rudders on a ramming course. The only remaining question will be over whose hull is stronger. The “yuge” US trade deficit with China is purported to be $375B USD. Bloomberg was sure to… Read More ›
Trump will win the US-China trade war easily
Beijing will accept a new US-China trade deal which is dictated by Trump. The American oilseeds for producing cooking oil, navigational instruments for building cargo vessels (dry bulk or container ships), intermediate producer goods for manufacturing … (see the picture… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, March 12, 2018
As talks between Kim and Trump march forward, China is resigned to the new situation at its eastern border and is focusing on other areas, specifically trade. In truth, China’s main trade opponent is not the US, but Vietnam. Vietnam’s… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, September 25, 2017
China is taking a turn for the better over North Korea’s “Rocket Man”. Stronger sanctions, limits on trade, cutting off oil, halting banking—it was all a wise move on China’s part. At the United Nations, North Korea made no new… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, September 4, 2017
Korea’s situation is amplifying. We know this. North Korea is making more threats than ever with it’s “boy king” on the iron clad throne. We know that military options are 1. relevant and 2. undesirable. The Pentagon consistently barks about… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, February 27, 2017
Americans love flags. The over-sized flag, the “Star Spangled Banner”, was a strategic tool of Fort McHenry at the Battle of Baltimore and the US national anthem itself is named after the flag. If the United States ever truly intended… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, November 21, 2016
With TPP’s immanent floundering in the Pacific, China attempts to step into America’s shoes. But, those are big shoes to fill. As big of a deal as Asia thinks itself to be, any trade deal needs to include the Americas… Read More ›
China must get better on human rights before Canada will sign a trade deal
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to establish closer relations with China but, citing human rights and governance concerns, won’t rush into a free trade agreement with the superpower. Trudeau, in an exclusive interview in Vancouver, struck a cautious tone… Read More ›
China pledges $60 billion in funding support to Africa
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced Friday that the country will pledge a new round of funding support to Africa‘s development, worth $60 billion. Analysts had wondered if the pace of Chinese investment in Africa would slow, particularly in infrastructure projects,… Read More ›
Can China’s consumers save the world economy?
Long the place that makes stuff and doesn’t consume much, China is set to redress the balance. And thus, some say, rescue the troubled global economy. But it’s a stretch to think that Beijing’s plan — shifting the export-driven country… Read More ›
China keen to promote its idea for Asia-Pacific trade pact at Apec in Manila
Beijing will report back on a study for Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific just days after the release of details of a US-led agreement China will seek to push its own vision of an Asia-Pacific trade pact at a… Read More ›
China says it should join TPP, even though it wasn’t invited
China should join at an appropriate time the U.S.-backed regional trade accord the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as its broad aims are in line with China’s own economic reform agenda, an influential Communist Party newspaper said on Sunday. China is not… Read More ›
China warns Britain not to bring up human rights during Xi Jinping’s visit because he would be offended
China provided instructions to the British government ahead of President Xi Jinping‘s state visit to London Oct. 20-23, advising leaders to refrain from raising the issue of human rights. China’s ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, pointed out that good relations… Read More ›
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