When you are both the biggest and strongest bully on the block, you can get away with just about anything as long as you follow one simple rule: Don't try to take on the entire block at once.
Mike Pompeo has decided to ignore that one simple rule.
The Nimitz and Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike groups are currently in the South China Sea carrying out the Orwellian-named Freedom of Navigation Operations.
Meanwhile, Congress is preparing to draw a line in the sand.
The Trump administration's policy of all-stick/no-carrot continues to fail.
This time with Iran.
Let's look at three American corporations with significant influence in our society which expanded various parts of their business into China. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was the first fast food franchise to enter China. Google has made two attempts to enter the high tech market in China and exited. Nike first saw China as a source of cheap labor and later a major market for sales.
Morning, this is not a cheery diary today. I thought I was done writing about China, but changes in current events keep happening fast.
The first phase of coronavirus infections are on an upswing as lockdowns in the United States are easing. Nearly half of US states seeing an uptrend in new US cases, and 10 seeing 7-day averages climb to their highest levels since the beginning of the crisis. This is not the second wave. A second wave will happen after we have reestablished a new normal and Covid-19 cases are naturally diminished for a while.
Moving past what I consider the first hurdle necessary to successfully address treatment and prevention. Healthcare providers fearing their patients. The current interviews and videos of health care professional do not show the same level of fear in their eyes.
We are getting closer to the stage of considering it like any other other contagious illness. Take appropriate precautions to avoid catching, early treatment and protocol to follow as seriousness of the condition increases in a patient.
A Look at China Part Seven
My intent in the series was to provide basic knowledge to start understanding China and our ongoing relationship with Chinese governments and its people. The story did not begin with the opening of China by Nixon and will not end in our times. Military leaders, policy makers and intelligence services have deep sources of knowledge on China. Most politicians appear to have the same misconceptions as the general public about mysterious China and try to describe China in sound bites.
Maochun Yu, historian teaching at Annapolis provides the best description I have read or heard on Chinese Studies in the United States during a 2015 panel discussion.
(full video 100 min. section on China Studies 38.07 to 40.55)
A Look at China Part Six
Trade has defined the progress of Western civilization around the world. Measuring trade, negotiating treaties and trying to achieve the best deal has not changed.
A Look at China Part Five
I came across this passage yesterday while reading a book on the Southern United States discussing the aftermath of the Yamassee War (1715—1718).
"In the meantime. the British authorities began political steps to prevent the rise of any future tribal confederacies that might threaten their trading empire. In essence the English determined to follow the old rule of divide and conquer. They would forment discord among tribes by pitting Indian against Indian. Inparticular the Carolinians would sustain a Creek-Cherokee feud. "This makes the matter of great weight to us,' explained on colonist, "how to hold both as our friends, and assist them in cutting one another's throats. This is the game we intend to play."
Tribes of the Southern Woodlands
Three great powers of Europe England, France and Spain were carving up North America and the American Indian tribes. Our founding fathers grabbed the prize from the Europeans. The next century Western powers moved onto China.
A Look at China Part Four
China's Century of Humiliation is generally considered from the first British Opium War to Mao Zedong declaring its end in 1949 with the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Chiang Kai-shek considered the end in 1945 after the defeat of Japan and China's place among the Big Four in the victorious Allies of World War II. Chiang Kai-shek had regained control of the the concessions made to the French after the Boxer Rebellion. United Kingdom and the United States had given up Extraterritorial jurisdiction.
A Look at China Part Three
Following the movement of Christians in China shows the potential of cross influences of Western and Eastern Culture over the millinea. General population may not have been aware of the two civilizations, but the awareness of religious, merchants and political leaders is a different story.
Christianity may have been in China as early as the first century.
The alleged visit to China of Thomas is mentioned in the books and church traditions of Saint Thomas Christians in India (Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Syro-Malabar rites) who, for a part, claim descent from the early Christians evangelized by Thomas the Apostle in AD 52. For example, it is found in the Malayalam ballad Thomas Ramban Pattu (The Song of the Lord Thomas) with the earliest manuscript being from the 17th century. The sources clearly have Thomas coming to India, then to China, and back to India, where he died.
Last week I wrote a semi-serious essay concerning the reason for all the anti-China propaganda lately. I was surprised to see people internalize the question.
Your opposition to the rule or policies of the Communist Party of China is irrelevant to TPTB.
A Look at China Part Two
"What essences of "cultivation" can we absorb from traditional Chinese culture?"
Professor Lou Yulie, Peking University replied
Studying Confucianism, he learned the courage to do things,
Studying Buddhism, he learned to let it go
Studying Daoism, he learned he learned how to view the world.
More than was true of the Soviet Union, China's collusion with U.S. capitalism is overt. PRESCOTT BUSH JR. is the acknowledged "Rainmaker" of China. Our rapatious capitalists love dictatorships, love oppressed, desperate labor, love U.S. loan guarantees.
https://excellentrap.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/china-the-bush-family-midd...
I've been puzzled by the amount of anti-China propaganda, until I read this.
A Look at China Part One
Morning. Over the next few weeks I am going to share some of my thoughts and readings on China. It is one of the few places in the world not colonized by a Western power. Our growing antagonism towards China is part of a longer cycle of admiration and disdain for the Chinese culture that has played out for centuries.
