The US policy of containment is the only policy Biden will allow…..a policy that has been the ‘norm’ for 70 years…..

Blinken compared the China of today with the China of a half century ago, saying it has moved from isolation and poverty to being a global power. He then claims that “China’s transformation . . . was also made possible by the stability and opportunity that the international order provides. Arguably, no country on Earth has benefited more from that than China.” He then accuses China of using its new found power, not to reinforce the international order that made it possible, but to undermine it.

Blinken’s accusation is an old one. It is an incarnation of the theory that Alexander Lukin, Head of International Relations at the HSE University in Moscow, says insinuates that China deceived the West by accepting its help in joining the international trade system and international organizations, making it possible to launch its economic growth, and then reneged on the implied agreement that it would then take its subordinate place, on America’s terms, in the international system under US hegemony.

The assumption behind Blinken’s charge against China is that membership in the international system supposes taking your place under US leadership and that any country that follows an alternative path to the US led path needs to be contained so that it does not challenge the world’s inevitable adoption of the American social, political and economic model and leadership.

Biden’s New China Policy

For the third time, President Joe Biden declared a new U.S. policy toward Taiwan, only to have his officials insist that nothing has changed.

The policies Biden is attempt to enforce are not all that new….

Then there is Taiwan….

While the world is focused on the prolonged war in Ukraine…Taiwan makes a move…..

China has scoffed at comparisons of itself and Taiwan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But that hasn’t eased the fears of Taiwanese residents, who are now taking a step many never expected: getting firearms training. Although gun ownership is strongly regulated in Taiwan, people who’ve never picked up a weapon in their lives are flocking instead to sites that train in how to shoot less-dangerous airsoft guns, devices that fire off nonmetallic projectiles. “More and more people are coming to take part,” Max Chiang, the CEO of Polar Light, a combat skills training firm in Taipei, tells Reuters. He adds that signups for lessons in how to shoot airsofts have almost quadrupled since the war in Ukraine started in February. The news agency notes that “many of the movements and tactics involved” in shooting airsoft guns “resemble combat skills, from shooting posture to aiming.”

Polls have increasingly showed that the people of Taiwan are willing to defend themselves against a Chinese invasion if need be, reports the Los Angeles Times. Some, including retired Adm. Lee Hsi-ming, the former chief of the general staff of Taiwan’s armed forces, are even suggesting that civilians receive combat training and set up a DIY defense force, much like one that Ukraine employs (others say, however, that such a volunteer force isn’t currently feasible). Taiwan does currently have mandatory military service—four months for young men, plus occasional reservist training—but those who’ve been through it say they receive minimal firearms training. “I need to come to these kinds of lessons to actually learn something,” a 26-year-old personal trainer who’s gone through his conscription says of the airsoft gun training he’s now undergoing.

In short, many in Taiwan simply want to be prepared in case China one day tries to use force to sweep Taiwan more fully back into its fold. “I wanted to learn some combat skills,” including skills “to be able to react to any kind of situation,” one Taiwanese man, a tattoo artist, tells Reuters. “I … don’t want to go to war, but in the unfortunate event of this really happening, I will be mentally prepared.” The Taiwanese public is prepping for the worst in other ways as well, stocking up on food, batteries, and other emergency supplies, purchasing pepper spray, and rigging their homes with alarm systems. “Think about how you can help yourself and others survive,” one councilman candidate says.

(antiwar.com)

This slow boil will soon erupt into a major conflict if we are not careful…..

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”