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2020-07-31 China-Japan-Koreas
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China Has Squandered Its First Great Opportunity
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[The Atlantic] - The combination of China’s early coronavirus recovery, the catastrophic health and economic situation in the United States, an administration whose "America First" instincts have turned the country inward, and a mostly every-country-for-itself response to the global pandemic has put China in the geopolitical driver’s seat. So far, Beijing has squandered the opportunity in dramatic fashion.
...The list of what China has done to raise doubts and suspicions is long. Last month, Beijing pursued a deadly border standoff with India, crossing the Line of Actual Control and killing some 20 Indian soldiers. It passed a national-security law that effectively ended Hong Kong’s political freedom, violating internationally agreed-upon commitments. When the Australian government expressed mild support for an international inquiry into COVID-19’s origins, China barred and taxed key agricultural imports. Tokyo says that armed Chinese coast-guard vessels have sailed near the Senkaku Islands every day since April, and Beijing warned its citizens against travel to Canada, citing "frequent violent actions" purportedly carried out by law enforcement. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu recently reported an "unprecedented" number of sea and air exercises near the island, and the Chinese air force this month conducted live-fire drills in the South China Sea. No perceived transgression seems too small to elicit a hostile Chinese response: When the Dutch renamed its representative office in Taiwan—from the Netherlands Trade and Investment Office to the Netherlands Office Taipei—China threatened to stop sending medical supplies and to boycott Dutch goods.
If this is what Chinese global leadership looks like, many governments are quickly concluding, count us out.
...Former Indian National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon wrote this month that "it is hard to think of a time since the Cultural Revolution when China’s international prestige and reputation have been lower." That’s a remarkable statement, given the advantages Beijing possessed just a few months ago. Machiavelli said that it’s better to be feared than loved. He didn’t say hated.
...Together, these varying motives suggest that the cliché—offered as recently as last week by Attorney General William Barr—that Beijing thinks in decades and centuries, whereas the West can’t focus beyond the next quarter, is often wrong. Its leaders can be just as daft as anyone else.
The United States, however, should take small comfort in that realization. The underlying dynamics remain: China is pulling out of recession faster than North America and Europe, its military grows stronger each year, and countries in economic doldrums may exit the pandemic more reliant on Chinese capital and markets rather than less so. Chinese leaders believe that the future is theirs, as they pass fractious and declining democracies like the United States on the way up.
America has been lucky that Beijing hasn’t acted with more deftness this time around. The world has experienced a six-month geopolitical vacuum, and China has filled it poorly. What happens next may have less to do with Chinese than American policy. An active, revitalized United States can once again compete effectively with China and resume its role as a global leader. If it does, the past six months could look more like an aberration than a prologue.
Under President Harris - I sorta doubt it? 
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Posted by g(r)omgoru 2020-07-31 01:55||
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Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-07-31 02:51||
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Posted by Dale 2020-07-31 03:36||
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Posted by Clem 2020-07-31 08:56||
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-07-31 11:09||
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Posted by charger 2020-07-31 13:32||
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