The Plan Shifts

 

This seems to reinforce my suspicion that Ukraine was planned as part of a one-two punch, although I sawthe second blow in April.

I also suggested that the Russian lack of success in Ukraine would now deter the Chinese.

The Coming Holocaust

 

The Economist has published an alarming analysis of the situation of Taiwan.

Apparently, China has established naval dominance in the Eastern Pacific. The proximity of the Chinese mainland ensures air dominance over Taiwan. This dominance cannot be reduced without bombing the Chinese mainland. 

American wargaming now shows the Chinese winning any confrontation with the US over Taiwan.

The Economist, as always, is relatively sanguine about the prospects. Why would China risk upsetting the global applecart so long as the situation for them is improving year over year?

I am less sanguine. If this were their calculus, why march in and take Hong Kong? Why rattle sabres in the South China Sea? Why cross the Zone of Actual Control with India?

It is not clear that things are really improving for China year over year. The calculation in Beijing may be the opposite: that things are likely to collapse unless something is done to reshuffle the deck. 

What is really going on in China in economic terms has never been transparent. We must rely on government reporting on their own performance. It seems likely the figures are fake. The prosperity is real, so long as everyone thinks it is real. But it can pop like a soap bubble.

China is progressively less competitive on their prime advantage, cheap labour. Without that, can they compete with the West on innovation and efficiency? I suspect a centrally-planned society intrinsically cannot. The officials in Beijing see the real accounts, and they may look grim.

This, after all, is the obvious explanation for the rapid rise of Xi Jinping’s totalitarian domestic policies. The government feared unrest. Loosening up failed to save the old Soviet regime in Russia; they were determined to do the opposite. 

The Soviet Union hit a wall and collapsed: this seems to have been because their economy was all smoke and mirrors. Nazi Germany faced the same dilemma: their impressive economic performance towards the end of the 1930s was based on cooking the books and printing money. Hitler had no choice but to invade neighbouring countries and seize assets to meet the next payroll or debt repayment.

Xi’s China may be in the same situation. They may have taken Hong Kong because they needed the assets. They may have been probing for weakness elsewhere.

They may see a pressing need to take Taiwan.

Taiwan is the world’s largest chipmaker. That is an immense asset. China could rule the market in high-tech.

For this reason, taking Taiwan could also change the balance of power globally. According to someone The Economist quotes, losing Taiwan could be “America’s Suez,” the effective end of US dominance.

In other words, the stakes are gigantic, for both China and the US. The stage is perfectly set for a serious, total war; for neither side can easily accept defeat.

And it would probably be a world war. Australia, India, Japan, are also necessarily deeply concerned should China come to dominate. Britain and France have also recently signaled their concern, sending warships to the area. Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Canada, would probably also join an American-led anti-Chinese coalition.

China may bank on the West being too decadent to pull themselves together to resist. And they may be right, Ominously, a poll suggests only 50% of the Taiwanese themselves are prepared to resist if China invades. 

But Hitler made the same calculation in 1939, and turned out to get wrong. Imperial Japan made the same calculation in 1941, and turned out to get wrong.

And we thought COVID was the big problem…

Hong Kong: What We Can Do

There is nothing the rest of the world can do, physically, to help Hong Kong, if China is determined to swallow it. Nevertheless, China’s incursion is a blatant violation of treaty obligations; so it seems something must be done. The world must respond in some way.

The UK is talking about giving Hong Kongers a limited right to residency. Canada too can do this. It seems to me this is an instance in which Canada’s vast open spaces ought to be used in the cause of world freedom; this is, unlike Syria or Somalia, a case of legitimate refugees. This is when we should open our doors and ports.

It is largely so that our resources are available to such legitimate refugees that I oppose the current overall high levels of immigration.

I would strongly support letting in genuine Syrian refugees as well: if we let in only Christians, Yasidis, and other religious minorities. But letting in all comers is rather like letting all Germans emigrate to Canada during the Nazi holocaust: some of them will be genuine refugees, but many of the others will simply be importing the ideology that led to the trouble. And may well be committed to destroying Canada as well. The same for Somalia. As a general principle, aside from toxic ideologies, importing people from a land in civil war is likely to import the civil war.

Genuine refugees are a different matter. They are intrinsically unlikely to maintain strong emotional ties to the land they are fleeing; for them there is no going back. They are likely to commit wholeheartedly to Canadian society. They make ideal immigrants.

Hong Kongers bear no responsibility for their own situation. Moreover, since Hong Kong was until so recently run by Britain, they will have a head start in understanding and adapting to Canadian ways.

I suggest the proviso that they not settle in Vancouver or Toronto; perhaps nowhere in BC, Quebec, or Ontario. Other parts of the country need more people, while in Vancouver and Toronto the housing infrastructure cannot meet the demand. We want to fill our wide open spaces, not further crowd our largest cities. Moreover, spread out, they are more likely to assimilate, rather than create a ghetto. We used to understand that ghettos were a problem.

China is threatening retaliation against Britain for suggesting such a freer immigration policy. Yet simply allowing refugees to come barely counts as punishment for China’s illegal act. One simple further action, however, would. It would cost nothing, directly, and risk no military confrontations.

Simply formally recognize Taiwan. 

Democratic countries everywhere should now formally recognize Taiwan. We should do it all at once, so that China would not be able to retaliate, as they are trying to do with Australia, and threatening to do with Britain. NATO could coordinate on this; the EU could coordinate on it. It is, on top of anything else, simply the right thing to do: Taiwan is indeed independent, functionally, and this is only a recognition of facts on the ground.

It might seem trivial, but we Westerners rarely comprehend how important “face” is in China.

We have no obligation to play along.

Taipei Calling

A lot of folks are upset at Trump for taking a call from the president of Taiwan, considering it either a costly blunder or a reckless act.

I don’t see it.

It is simply not America’s business to carry water for the Chinese regime. An American citizen has the right to talk to anyone he pleases. China’s internal affairs are China’s problem, not America’s.

It is simply showing weakness for an American president-to-be too be overly sensitive to China’s wishes. It implies subservience. If China really wants something so exceptional from the US as a consistent denial of the reality on the ground, they ought to be prepared to give up something significant for it. Chin has not, after all, been behaving terribly well recently from the US point of view, with their encroachments in the South China Sea.

Some are protesting that the move makes no economic sense. China is a crucial trading partner, and holds a huge amount of US debt. Taiwan is, after all, only a small island of 20 million people.

But that cuts both ways. It is servile and defeatist to assume the US needs trade with China more than China needs trade with the US. Why so? Why not bargain hard? Chins holds lots of US debt? Fine—so they can refuse to lend any more. On the other hand, the US could suspend payments on that debt. Now who is worse off?

Looks to me like a savvy move. Projects an image of strength.