The recent machinations of China against Japan are unsettling. Can it be possible that the Communist dictators in Beijing don't recognize the irony of China telling Japan it "must face up to its past"? As perhaps the most brutal regime on the face of the earth over the past 50 years, China is hardly in a position to throw stones at anyone.
I certainly don't sympathize with Japan, and believe strongly that just as Germany must never forget its heinous genocide during the Holocaust, Japan must continue to eschew its imperialist designs and brutality of the past.
But complaints by China about textbooks in Japan minimizing Japan's role in World War II are hypocritical, at best. One can only imagine the lies and deceit woven into the fabric of brainwashing taking place in Chinese textbooks in schools every single day. It is probably true that China brainwashes and lies to more children on any given day than all of the world's other children over the past 50 years combined.
Nor does China stop with textbooks. It lies in its captive media about communism, about China and its own sordid history, including its invasion and eugenics policy in Tibet, kidnapping the Panchen Lama and replacing him with a handpicked puppet, oppression and aggression against Taiwan and the vicious lie known as the "one China" policy, to fulfill the plan to destroy Taiwan's democracy and its culture -- the very existence of which demonstrates the comparative failure and weakness of communism.
Then there is China's facilitation of wars by brutal communist dictators in Vietnam, and Korea, support of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and of North Korea's dictators, father and son, guilty of murdering hundreds of thousands, and starving millions.
What about China's totalitarian oppression of all free speech, religious worship outside its Communist-policed churches and the flow of all information from the outside world?
Compared to the surreal 1984-like communist dictatorship in China, Japan is a relatively free, open and democratic society which contributes to the world, not threatens it every single day, as does China.
Of course we must ensure Japan is reminded it must remain vigilant against the rise of imperialism. But China's complaints are empty, coming from the world's worst communist dictatorship, with a long history of death and destruction, and denial of even the most basic human rights, even against its own people.
When a group of thousands of "protesters" take to the streets of Shanghai to protest against Japan, I see thousands of hired thugs demonstrating as a means of taking the spotlight off China's brutal regime.
In fact, the louder China complains about Japan, the clearer the warning against becoming too close to China becomes. This could be you, if you allow China to blackmail you over the years. If you disappoint brutal communist dictators, they will stop at nothing to destroy you.
Unless the world wakes up to this very disturbing policy at the very heart of China's global plans, before too long, China's blackmail today will become tomorrow's rule of law.
Lee Long-hwa
United States
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS