A major investment pact between China and the European Union, which wrapped up negotiations on the deal this week, has sparked concerns that it will give the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) a free pass on human rights and labor standards,… Read More ›
Xi Jinping
Claim: China’s Covid-19 recovery is not green enough
In September, the Chinese province of Hubei – where the first outbreak of Covid-19 occurred – announced 90 billion yuan (about US$14 billion) of investment in the coal, electricity, oil and gas sectors over the next three years. Provincial bosses described… Read More ›
America needs Joe Biden to face the grim facts about China
Joe Biden’s not in the White House yet, but Beijing is already targeting his circle — even those close to them. Let’s hope that pushes the next president to rethink his out-of-date approach to the Communist colossus. China plays a… Read More ›
U.S.-China relations haven’t been this toxic since Vietnam
U.S.-China relations have been on a generally downward trajectory since it became apparent during the later Obama years that America’s longstanding policy of diplomatic and economic engagement had failed to bring China around to embrace democratic institutions or accept the… Read More ›
Biden likely won’t reverse Trump’s trade war against China
President Trump’s slash-and-burn rhetoric against China may have brought few lasting economic benefits so far, but it has succeeded in one fundamental way: No administration can now afford to play nice with the United States’ biggest rival. Trump made hostility… Read More ›
Why Trump will blame China for a Biden victory
President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud and conspiracies against him are dominating right-wing media as his supporters attempt to come to terms with an almost certain election defeat. But while the president and his fans are struggling to… Read More ›
Xi Jinping’s Napolean moment – beginning of the end for China
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), was a French military leader and emperor. Napoleon rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (1789-1799) at a very rapid rate. He seized political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état and… Read More ›
China and Russia: An alliance of convenience or trust?
After years of rivalry and mutual suspicion, the China-Russia relationship has been ameliorated by strong economic, military, and political ties. In 1969, limited but intense clashes between the USSR and China mushroomed the hostility and mistrust till the mid-1980s. It… Read More ›
China’s Communist Party is a threat to the world, says former elite insider
Cai Xia is no stranger to defying expectations. During her years at the Chinese Communist Party’s top training center and think tank, the outspoken professor had surprised many with her liberal ideas and support for democratic reform. More recently, she… Read More ›
US president’s ultimate challenge: stable relations with China
How to handle China and how to maintain America’s position ahead of its economic rival in the global pecking order is a major issue in the 2020 US presidential election. Both candidates – the incumbent Republican Donald Trump and the… Read More ›
2025 End Game – Xi’s China is mirroring Nazi Germany
This is a chronological presentation of the events that led to World War II. It would be incredible to note that there are uncanny similarities between those events, and the events presently taking place in and around China. Our assessment… Read More ›
Why is Xi Jinping pitting China against the world?
Xi Jinping has stifled dissent at home and is increasingly willing for China to assert itself abroad. Earlier this week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping held a rare meeting in Beijing with business leaders. Admitting that the Covid-19 pandemic had a… Read More ›
US considers travel ban on millions of Chinese Communist Party members
The US is reportedly considering imposing travel restrictions on Chinese Communist party members amid a deepening row, with president Donald Trump saying further sanctions were possible and Beijing vowing retaliation. A draft presidential proclamation would revoke visas for members of… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, June 8, 2020
If China thinks that the poll numbers looking low or that the unrest in America means the Xi doctrine has a widening path on the road ahead, they should think again. But, being Confucian Communist, that’s hard. Trump actually may… Read More ›
Angela Merkel urges Chinese transparency over coronavirus
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday joined a growing chorus of countries demanding China tell the truth about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak. Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Merkel called for the Communist Chinese government to be as transparent… Read More ›
Caught in a superpower struggle: the inside story of the WHO’s response to coronavirus
When a pandemic strikes, the world’s leading experts convene – physically or virtually – in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization. It is called the “strategic health operations centre”, or SHOC,… Read More ›
After 70 years of ties, China and Indonesia have a fruitful, complicated relationship
Freelance writer Sylvie Tanaga, 33, has been learning Mandarin since she was a little girl – but her first lessons were held secretly in a church in Bandung, as Indonesias second president, Suharto, had for decades banned Chinese Indonesians from… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, April 6, 2020
The pneumoniavirus is having a detrimental effect on China. While Xi Jinping kicks China’s economy into full swing, the rest of the world is on full alert. Manufacturing moves home—whether to or from China. Countries seek alternate supply sourcing. Taiwan… Read More ›
Coronavirus drives the U.S. and China deeper Into global power struggle
Many experts warn that an international health and economic crisis calls for more cooperation, not confrontation, between Washington and Beijing. When President Trump took the podium at the White House briefing room one afternoon last week, his prepared remarks included… Read More ›
Photo shows “corona” crossed out and replaced with “Chinese” in Trump’s briefing notes
President Trump’s notes from Thursday’s coronavirus briefing show someone crossed out the word “Corona” in coronavirus and replaced it with the word “Chinese.” This picture captured by Washington Post Photographer Jabin Botsford, comes as Trump has stepped up his efforts to scapegoat China for… Read More ›
Coronavirus outbreak tests China’s president Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping is surely having the worst 2020 of any major international leader to date. Much of this can be put down to the knock-on effects of the COVID-19 outbreak in the city of Wuhan and Xi’s belated attempts to… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, March 2, 2020
Wuhan 2019-nCoV will not end the world. But, it is throwing the world into panic. The long-time NIAID director steps out of lock with the president and gives a sobering warning about how viruses actually spread. Bad as the truth… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, February 17, 2020
The 2019-nCoV Wuhan virus isn’t doing any good for Xi Jinping’s public trust. Dissidents inside China are silenced and their social media accounts scrubbed. Joshua Wong issues a call to arms from Hong Kong. Taiwan closes its border and plans… Read More ›
China says Xi Jinping is directing its Wuhan coronavirus response, but he’s nowhere to be seen
Since he first intervened in the Wuhan coronavirus crisis in late January, ordering “all-out efforts” to contain its spread, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been personally directing the country’s response. At least, that’s what state media has been repeatedly emphasizing… Read More ›
Rulers for life? How Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi are posing a challenge to the West
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have established themselves as the world’s most powerful authoritarian leaders in decades. Now it looks like they want to hang on to those roles indefinitely. Putin’s sudden announcement this week of constitutional changes… Read More ›
What Americans don’t understand about China’s power
Chinese leaders stretching back to Deng Xiaoping have often thought in terms of decades. A decade encompasses two of China’s famous five-year plans, and it’s a long-enough period to notice real changes in a country’s trajectory. As it happens, I… Read More ›
Hong Kong faced ‘grimmest and most complex year’ since handover, China’s Xi says
Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his support for Hong Kong‘s embattled leader on Monday even as he declared that the former British colony has faced its “grimmest and most complex year” since its return to China. Xi praised Hong Kong… Read More ›
Be sceptical of Trump’s new trade deal with China
As with so many assertions from President Trump, skepticism is in order about his announcement Friday of a “phase one” trade deal with China. Start with the seemingly straightforward issue of exactly what Mr. Trump got in return for reducing… Read More ›
‘Dictators’: Europe is waking up to threats from China, defence experts say
China’s attempt to gain economic influence in Europe poses major strategic threats to American allies, according to defense officials, including one on the front lines of NATO. “We really need to be careful that, as well, China would not be… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, November 11, 2019
Hong Kong has presented the world with the ethical question of confronting bullies. Say there is a bully at school who quietly eats whosever lunch he wants, stealing anyone’s homework he wants, until one day someone says something and the… Read More ›
Xi Jinping warns that attempts to divide China will end with ‘crushed bodies and shattered bones’
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said that any attempts to drive a wedge between China and its territories will “end in crushed bodies and shattered bones.” Xi made the remarks during a state visit to Nepal on Sunday. “Anyone… 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 ›
How long can China’s workers tolerate China’s dictator?
Many observers have warned that the Chinese could dominate the field of artificial intelligence. Maybe it will dominate them. The potential impact of technology on the Chinese workforce could be driving Beijing to try again for a U.S. trade deal…. Read More ›
China refutes Trump’s claim it’s the source of fentanyl in the U.S.
China said Tuesday that it’s not the source of the fentanyl that’s killing Americans, contrary to U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent tweets blaming China for the drug deaths. At a briefing for the National Narcotics Control Commission, China reiterated that… Read More ›
Trump says China has blinked in trade war – talks on again
President Donald Trump said Monday that China called to say it wants to go back to the bargaining table and restart trade talks with the United States. Trump says Chinese officials called Washington to urge a return to negotiations after… Read More ›
US Republicans look to punish Chinese leaders over Hong Kong crackdown
Trump hasn’t rushed to condemn China, but behind the scenes, senior administration officials and lawmakers are brainstorming ways to punish China for the clampdown in Hong Kong. President Donald Trump hasn’t exactly gone after China’s chiefs for cracking down on… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, July 22, 2019
In the singing, fake-smiling scenes of Uyghurs in reeducation camps in China, the Chinese expect the world to be swayed to believe they are happy. That’s how Chinese view it with each other—they fake-smile at each other and buy the… 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 ›
The ultimate betrayal of Rodrigo Duterte to the Filipino people and his utter love for China and Xi Jinping
I refer to “Duterte Stands by China, Doubts Own Fishermen in Sea Collision” by Andreo Calonzo published by Bloomberg on June 18th with regard to the indescribable betrayal of the hoodlum from Davao to the Filipino people and his unquestionable… 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 ›
Cadence Column: Asia, April 15, 2019
Events in China are playing out according to the “Pacific Daily Times Symphony Asian Mad Scientist Theorem“. The experimental phase in North Korea is finished and methods are being applied throughout China on a much grander scale. This week, we… Read More ›
Xi Jinping’s global domination dreams hit a wall amid growing backlash against China
With the shock election of anti-globalist Donald Trump to the US presidency still fresh in their minds, international leaders watched with anticipation as Chinese President Xi Jinping stepped up to the podium at Davos in January 2017. Xi’s speech in… 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 3, 2018
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen apologizing after a mid-term defeat at the provincial level will not demonstrate strength on her part, but she shows respect and stability in maintaining her appointees and policy toward China. Having not stood her ground on… Read More ›
China is creating concentration camps in Xinjiang. Here’s how we hold it accountable.
China continues to see the uproar over its creation of concentration camps holding as many as 1 million ethnic Uighurs and others as a public-relations problem. In recent days, the government issued another white paper claiming it is protecting religious… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, November 19, 2018
In Taiwanese politics, a mayor candidate’s comments about his own benefits from drinking honey-lemonade sparked retribution from the medical community. After a lump under his eye went away, apparently from a vegetarian and honey-lemonade diet, he actually said so. A… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, November 12, 2018
Xi Jinping announced yet another new policy for China: Blaming other countries is wrong, each country must deal with its own economic and environmental issues without the problem being someone else’s fault. While this 180° new direction should be welcoming… Read More ›
Western analysts got lost in the Abe-Xi maze, and failed to notice a coming synergy in East Asia
For unknown reasons, many Western political analysts made mistakes in understanding the Washington-Pyongyang relation (e.g. forecasting bloody nose strike, but being shockingly embarrassed by the Trump-Kim Singapore summit), and then the Pyongyang-Beijing relation (portraying a tension, but being surprisingly slapped… Read More ›
Cadence of Conflict: Asia, September 3, 2018
China is in trouble. We don’t know why, but we know the indication: Trump will be absent from ASEAN. He was absent from a funeral this week and his support grew. He was absent from a Republican debate, then he… Read More ›
Cadence Column: Asia, August 20, 2018
The silent war between the Koreas is shifting to family reunions. Families split by the war are having a get-together today in the North. Trump has a deal with Kim Jong Un. Peace is moving forward, and Korean reunification along… Read More ›
