Over at her site Heather’s Homilies, reader Heather Hastie has a long (4000-word) but thoughtful, informative, and well-researched post on the issue of North Korea, the ineffectiveness of sanctions against that state (the world’s most repressive, in my view), and the need for the U.S. to keep good relations with China, our one go-between with North Korea. As you probably know, even before he becomes President, Donald Trump is already mucking about in international politics by cozying up to Taiwan and angering China. He’s a loose cannon. While Heather thinks the moral thing to do is to side with Taiwan against China, she emphasizes that things are more complicated than that.
At any rate, I recommend you visit her site and read the post: “The North Korea problem and why we need China“.
“While Heather thinks the moral thing to do is to side with Taiwan against China, she emphasizes that things are more complicated than that.”
No argument here, but I do worry that Trump does not fully grasp why Taiwan is complicated. That worries me very much.
What mischief has Boss Tweet been up to today?
I highly recommend Heather’s piece…scary as it is.
After work and tonight, I very much want to read this, Ms Hastie, of yours.
Just this morning’s npr & DSM Register headline announces that Iowa’s current (& [toooo ] longest – running – evah !) governor, himself repeatedly stating in past weeks thus, “O no. Not China. I wanna keep living in the Great State of Iowa, my seven grandchildren after all, ya’ know ! My darling wife loves it here in Iowa. I have wonderful and awesome things, in The Works !, to still get done for Iowans ! blah.blah. — blah.blah.blah., was offered AND has accepted the United States ambassadorship to China !
Good – Frickin’ G R I E F ! At the least: so much for darling wives and / or some several grandkiddos !
Blue
NK is so tragic. Unfortunately doing things like “They are an attempt to starve the Kim regime of foreign cash” often just hurts the every day people, not their politicians and princes.
OK, my devil’s advocate hat is on (mostly as it’s cocked at an angle):
The nuclear determent dance has been going on for many a year, an activity that feels normal to people over the age of twenty-five. It’s a familiar paradigm as it has been with us for so long. Hillary knows the dance steps, while Trump despite being way over the age of 25, thinks that it’s just meaningless movement. Instead his perennial focus is carving profit out of an enormous debt load (He quipped recently that he is the King of Debt, and that he is). If you owe the bank a million, the bank owns you, if you owe a billion to the bank, you own the bank. Commerce is what civilises. You don’t bomb a country with which you trade.
Trump does a dance though and it involves sidestepping obstacles to grab that golden ring dangling in front of him. One moment he is backing Taiwan, another he will ask if it some kind of Chinese dumpling. Nothing he says is meaningful in itself except only in the machiavellian sense of bringing him closer to the reward of personal power and wealth. Supposedly the tide lifts all boats. However if the world actually improves because of Trump embracing a different paradigm, it will be mostly luck. World, are you feeling lucky?
I see bias here. Trump is, we read, doing the *morally right thing* but find reasons why this rebounds to his discredit.