When ego takes over

Schadenfreude is a German word which has no equivalent in English. It means ‘pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune’ and perfectly sums up my feeling when I see those with huge egos and full of entitlement make fools of themselves in public.

When the likes of actors, singers or sports personalities say or do something stupid, one can forgive them as is it is generally understood that, to them, any publicity is good publicity. 

Even if they make themselves look like an utter dofus, it is of little consequence to anyone and usually has zero impact on anyone else. By definition of what they do for a living, simply means they are for entertainment purposes only.  

But when a politician allows their arrogance and ego to get the better of them in public it has deeper implications for the rest of us. Although it’s still funny to watch and schadenfreude really kicks in.

Enter KMT Chairman Eric Chu who made the courageous decision recently to do a sit-down  interview with German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW). I’m not sure what he, or his press office, was thinking when they agreed this, but they seemed to assume he would be given the kind of easy ride the local Taiwan media would have given him. 

I guess neither of them bothered to do any research or watch any other recent DW interviews which would have quickly revealed their reporters can be quite feisty and well prepared when questioning politicians. 

Nevertheless, Chu’s minders whipped off the blindfold and sent him tottering into a minefield where he proceeded to step on pretty much every single one. At first, I felt a bit sorry for him as he was clearly out of his depth, but then my schadenfreude sparked-up and I began to enjoy the spectacle. 

Having made his biggest mistake, which was turning up in the first place, it was not long before he was bereft of meaningful answers and lapsed into the waffly style with which he deals with local media, as well as speaking over the interviewer. 

He compounded this with long, rambling and obvious answers, and without really saying anything he struggled through the slow-motion car crash appearance. 

When questioned about the recent NCCU popularity poll putting the KMT on 14 percent versus the DPP at 31.1 percent and the Taipei Mayor's Party on 7.8 percent he reacted with “Don’t give us any wrong information you get from the poll,” going onto say KMT polls show the party rising and confidently forecast “our party will win the election.”

Immediately after, he sensibly decided that it was not going well and like a pilot on a burning aircraft he bailed out with a “thank you, our time is up.’’

I interviewed many politicians and businessmen during my journalistic career and not unreasonably expected them to be as well prepared as I was, and not insult me by waffling or stating the blindingly obvious.

Taiwan Media generally bears little relation to International Media and it is sometimes very obvious that some politicians here really do not understand this. When a boxer climbs into the ring he knows what his opponent is capable of and what the risk is of being beaten senseless.  

Politicians here are generally given a fairly easy ride by the local media who are either on their side, or are not good at formulating questions that really get to the heart of the matter at hand. So you have politicians who feel they can be off-hand with the media, and a media that does not seem to have the authority to hold them properly to account. 

Another background factor evident in this particular interview was the fact the KMT still believes it is the rightful government of Taiwan simply by dint of history and the fact they were in power for so long. In the west the collective noun for such groups is ‘The Establishment’.

This is a term first coined in the 1950s by  British journalist Henry Fairlie, who said, “By the Establishment, I do not only mean the centres of official power, though they are certainly part of it, but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised.

The KMT are very much The Establishment in Taiwan, and are not yet used to being out of power and so unpopular. Given they ruled under martial law from 1949 to 1987 it is no real surprise that actions during those years have left a legacy which considerably underpins the political power they wield in terms of who their rich and influential friends are.

They are no longer top-dog but continue to display an arrogance and ego which seems to make them believe the DPP is just temporary noise that will soon go away.

So I guess this is why they feel they can turn up for an interview so obviously ill-prepared, then try to control the narrative rather than answer questions properly, and then stand up and leave when it does not go their way. 

The other thing to bear in mind is that to turn up for an organisation like DW and make such a hash of it only serves to make Taiwan look foolish abroad, and that is an important issue given the global attention Taiwan is getting at the moment.   

Trotting out tired old platitudes just doesn't cut it. You might be able to get away with it with local media, but when talking to international media you really need something new to say. 

Alternatively, politely decline such interview requests until you feel confident enough, or have something to say, or feel you can think quickly enough on your feet to pull it off. 

Tinkery Tonk...  

My home country is in the shit - literally

You will likely be reading this before the outcome of the UK ruling Conservative Party leadership election on Monday, although the outcome is pretty much assured, with the current Foreign Minister Liz Truss the solid favourite to take over as Prime Minister.

She will take on the seemingly unenviable job of sorting out the dire mess that Britain has become after years of government mis-managment, mainly by the right-wing Conservative party, with a laundry list of damaging policy mis-steps and failures, lies, gaslighting and contempt for the public. All of which prompted the sacking of Prime Minister Boris Johnson who loses his job after this weekend. 

Britain is currently suffering from an acute cost-of-living crisis with inflation running at just over 10 percent in August, the highest in 40 years and also the highest among The Group of Seven (G7) nations. 

A good chunk of this is due to energy prices which have shot up across Europe driven by a spike in demand as countries lifted Covid pandemic lockdowns, compounded by the war in Ukraine as Russian oil and gas exports have been cut back.

But Britain has some unique factors which are making things worse, namely labour shortages as foreign workers left the UK when it pulled out of the European Union (Brexit) and additional taxes on households.

Britain’s debt now stands at just over 100 percent of Gross Domestic Product compared with around 70 percent in 2010 when the current Conservative administration regained power. With a chunk of that due to the now infamous failed Track and Trace system put in place during the pandemic. 

The government blew a colossal 37 billion pounds on the system over two years, which a scathing report by a Westminster spending watchdog described as swallowing up “unimaginable” amounts of taxpayers’ money with no evidence of any measurable difference on the progress of the pandemic. 

Despite this eye-watering spending, track and trace failed in its task of preventing the second and third lockdowns, found a cross-party House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. Committee chair Meg Hillier demanded better control of costs, accusing the government of treating taxpayers “like an ATM machine”.

There are an ongoing series of strikes across Britain by railway, postal, rubbish collectors and even barristers all striking for better pay. As if all this is all not enough, raw-sewage is being pumped in the rivers and surrounding seas due to underinvestment in the now privatised water companies sold off by the Conservative Party government in the late 1980s. There are now fifty beaches in the UK where swimming is banned…Which explains my headline. 

Why am I telling you all this? The reason is that even fully developed nations can find themselves in an awful mess if an electorate allows itself to be duped by unscrupulous  politicians or allows itself to be lied to, blinded by false promises or gives itself up to unthinking political dogma, the so-called ‘red meat’ that politicians throw at the public to gain votes.

This is exactly what has happened in my home country and serves as a warning to other free democracies that career politicians whose main motivation is to gain power and influence, all the trappings of power and influence, a place in the history books, a generous government pension and an easy lucrative job for life hiring themselves out as consultants or speech makers.

There are dozens of examples of this pattern. In this style of life equation, consideration of the living conditions and quality of life of the electorate at large comes a very poor second. The UK is living proof of this with the exit of Boris Johnson who is already churning out opinion pieces for the right-wing press in the UK and lining his own pockets.

Johnson was ultimately undone not by policy disagreements but by his own character failings. When he was elected 32 percent of people thought he would be a good Prime Minister and 32 percent a bad one, 36 percent were undecided. In the latest YouGov Poll 25 percent thought he had done well, 68 percent thought he had done badly, with just seven percent undecided. 

This is in just over the three years he was in power and two years away from a full term in government. Britain has a five year government term compared with Taiwan’s four years.   

There were myriad reasons I decided to leave the country of my birth 25 years ago and  unfortunately my gut feeling about how things were going then, have turned out to be not only  frighteningly accurate, but far worse than I imagined. Politicians with no moral compass were common then, now they seem to have reached plague proportions. 

The unedifying cat-fight between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss for the top UK job exemplifies this, with both hurling promises around which are unaffordable, would damage and already weak economy or are just downright stupid. All they want is the top job and the consequences can go hang.

Pledges to slash taxes by Conservative leadership candidates are unrealistic unless they are matched by spending cuts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said large, permanent tax cuts could add to pressures on the public purse as the economic outlook deteriorates.

Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have promised tax cuts but say their plans are affordable. They are both wrong, lying, or both. It is abundantly clear that all they want is the top job and are both paying lip service to reality in their quest for it.  

I don’t want to sound too cynical, but it’s hard not to be if you take the UK as an example of a democracy gone astray. What worries me is that my adopted country Taiwan has more than its fair share of loose-lipped, over promising, unrealistic and just plain stupid politicians.

Let’s take the Taipei Mayor who in 2014 said he was going to make Taipei surpass Singapore in eight years. Two years later he said it was impossible for Taipei to be like Singapore and that it should be more like the Netherlands. This week the Deputy Taipei Mayor said she would make Zhongxiao East Road like the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

Let’s just let that nonsense sink in for a few seconds…. 

Would anyone in their right mind take any of these statements seriously? Or believe them to be possible? Or believe it was necessary to achieve such a state of affairs? It is just politicians throwing ridiculous statements and promises around hoping the electorate will be fooled into voting for them. These are not serious people striving to improve living standards for ordinary people with realistic strategies over the longer term.  

Someone running for Taoyuan has said he will make the government pay for the downpayment for young people to purchase a flat. There are so many holes in such a ridiculous promise I hardly know where to start, plus the government would just tell him to get lost.

It’s just empty words in a cynical attempt to garner votes and empty vessels make the most noise. Vote for such people and you will end up with the kind of mess that ordinary Britons now find themselves in.

Please don’t fall for the kind of nonsense the British people did and don’t think that just because Taiwan is a fully developed and relatively rich country that it could not all go to hell-in-a-handcart if the wrong people gain power.

One of America’s  Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson, statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect and philosopher who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809 once famously said “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”

Britain, stupidly, gave Boris Johnson’s and the Conservate Party an overwhelming victory in 2019 at the height of Brexit fever….and are now deeply unhappy with the result, the country is being damaged and people are suffering. 

Britain’s recent experience is a stark reminder to beware believing the power hungry, the over-promisers, the popularist and the unrealistic. Choose wisely when you vote, your country’s future is in your hands and is depending on you to do the right thing.  

Tinkerty Tonk...

台北市長室徵才

 

Internships available at the Mayor's office

Nursey - Stones, Pots, Kettles and Ditches

According to the Cat, the proverb - People in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones - is exactly the same in Chinese. It is not often English and Chinese proverbs are exactly the same. 

There is another proverb in English which is - The Kettle Calling the Pot Black - which has a similar meaning in as much as... look at how black you might be yourself, before you criticise others.

It was actually good to see the cat laughing at the hole dear old Nursey has dug for herself with her ill-judged attack on the Hsinchu Mayor and the nonsense about his degree. 

(Personally, I blame the Professor and his arse-backwards way of dealing with it, plus the KMT biased establishment of Tai Da swinging into action in a rather pathetic attempt to damage the DPP.) At least, that’s how it looks on the face of it… 

All a bit sad for a University, presumably full of smart people, to manage to make itself look like an establishment puppet. But the likes of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK are part of the UK establishment, so it’s not dissimilar. (See here for my piece on The Establishment)       

The Cat tells me an online friend did all the hard work in terms of digging out the details of the  Naughty Nurse’s own thesis and did the cut-and-paste comparisons. So thanks to Secret Squirrel 2 as it made a change for me not to have to coax an angry Cat down from the ceiling, and see her laughing at this particular political farce instead.

It did bring to mind something that happened in my own career. I’m proud to say I was smart enough to head off the kind of mistake that Nursey has just made. 

I was in the London Reuters Newsroom on the day Germany’s Bundesbank was due to decide on its base lending rates. Tension was high, the markets were waiting, billions would change hands in financial markets..it was a big news flash.

The flash came from most news agencies…Rates Unchanged… Reuters flashed 30 seconds later.. German rates raised. 

Reuters got it right, the rest were wrong. It caused a considerable amount of turmoil in the financial markets and a lot of people lost a lot of money. 

I was part of the team involved in that particular news-break and the next day an excited young Reuters marketing guy came to see me about a full page advert they wanted to put in the Financial Times about how Reuters had got the Bundesbank rate right, and the opposition had got it wrong. 

I turned to my Reuters screen and typed in CORRECTED, and the screen filled up. 

“Mate,” I said. “Next week it will be us…please don’t do this.” 

We are all fallible. Most normal people realise that. Sometimes, perhaps, those who play political games think they are not human, are somehow special or somehow smarter and superior to the rest of us. 

They are not… 

A fall into a ditch makes you wiser… as the old Chinese proverb says.

Sadly, some in the political field are neither wise, or skilled in analytical thinking. 

My late Mother used to say “They don’t have the brains they were born with.” To my mind, that is true  wisdom.

Tinkerty Tonk    

Goldxilocks and the Three Bears

中文在下方

Once upon a time there were three bears... 

There was Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear, who all lived peacefully and happily in the big forest. 

Daddy Bear was very rich and powerful and came from a part of the forest far away. 

He thought he was the most powerful in the whole forest, although it was full of other big and unfriendly animals. Some, nearly as powerful as he was.  

Mummy Bear was tiny in comparison, but Daddy Bear loved her very much. Although she had done well in life, she never really had a lot of money and had somewhat of a troubled past. But she was very feisty and always stood up to bullies. 

Baby Bear was called Democracy and try as he might, he could not help being constantly bullied and was forced to stand up for himself. Although he was only quite young in Bear years, having been born in 1987 and really didn’t know how to behave. He could sometimes be very naughty and not know his left from his right. 

Although Daddy Bear was rich and powerful, Mummy Bear worked very hard and was up early every day preparing special porridge with her secret added ingredient, microchips, which were very hot. She made the secret ingredient in a shed in the garden and she knew how good they were for Baby Bear and would make him grow big and strong.

The day after Daddy Bear’s Auntie Pelosi left from her visit, Baby Bear came down for breakfast. He sat down and tasted his porridge. “Yikes Mother,” he cried. “This is way too hot. I’d say there are around 70 percent of all the microchips in the forest in this. I think we should all go out for a walk and let it cool down.”

So Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear all went for a walk in the forest while their microchip porridge cooled down, unaware that Auntie Pelosi had been gossiping on her way home from her visit. 

Meanwhile, Goldxilocks, who lived nearby in the forest, had heard of Auntie Pelosi’s visit and, despite warnings from her mother not to wander into the forest and make trouble, sneaked out of her house to see what was happening.

Goldxilocks arrived at the Bear’s cottage but found the door locked. But Goldxilocks was cunning and tricky and hacked a hole in the shutter and peeked in. She saw no one was home. 

She had some little forest friends with her who helped her get into the house. These were odd and nasty little creatures who lived with the Bears and, indeed, lived off of them, but were nevertheless willing to help Goldxilocks get into the house.

When Goldxilocks saw the microchip porridge she jumped for joy. She had wanted some microchip porridge for such a long time but had always struggled to make it properly and it never tasted right. 

She sat down and tried Daddy Bear’s porridge. “Yuck, too lumpy,” she said, because Daddy Bear preferred his porridge made with low grade and common microchips. 

Then she tried Mummy Bear’s porridge. “Humm, this is not bad but it is still too lumpy because while it has high-grade microchips, it also has low grade and common microchips.

Then she tried Baby Bear’s porridge. “Yummy,” she exclaimed. “This one is just right as it has loads of high grade microchips.” 

Goldxilocks looked around the Bear’s house and thought she might like to sit down. She saw Daddy Bear’s rocking-chair by the fire and thought she would try it. Little did she know that this was Daddy Bear’s very special chair which he sat in to work out how much trade he would do with the rest of the forest when he sold the things he had gathered in the forest and how much he would charge for them. 

As Goldxilock rocked back and forth in the trade chair there was a loud ‘crack’ and the chair broke. But Goldxilocks was very selfish and was now very sleepy and went upstairs to find somewhere to sleep. 

She could not sleep in Daddy Bear’s bed as it was too big and it made her feel nervous to lie on it. Mummy Bear’s bed was comfortable, but a little small. So she decided to lie on Mummy Bear’s bed and rest her feet on Baby Bear’s bed…that would do nicely.

Soon she was fast asleep dreaming of loads and loads of lovely microchip porridge when she heard the door downstairs open.

“Who’s been eating our porridge? The Bears cried. “And who’s broken my special trading chair,” yelled Daddy Bear. 

Daddy Bear rushed upstairs and saw Goldxilocks in bed. “Get out of my house,” he shouted. “And never come back.”

Goldxilocks ran back home and was roundly told off by her Mother (ie. the rest of the right thinking world) and sent to bed with no supper. 

Hopefully…

The end.

Tinktery Tonk...

很久很久以前森林裡住了三隻熊... 有熊爸爸、熊媽媽和熊寶寶，他們在大森林裡和平快樂地生活著。

熊爸爸非常富有強大，來自森林遙遠的一方。他認為他是整個森林中最強大的，儘管在那裡到處都是不友好的大動物，有些甚至幾乎和他一樣強大。

熊媽媽比較小，熊爸爸卻很愛她。 雖然生活過得不錯，但她熊媽媽從來沒有真正擁有過很多錢，也有過幾分坎坷的過去。 她一點也不畏懼強勢，面對霸凌者總是挺直腰桿。

熊寶寶的名字叫 Democracy，無論他多麼努力，他還是不斷地被欺負，被迫為自己挺身而出。 1987年出生的熊寶寶在熊界算是很年輕，言行舉止有些不穩，他有時很調皮，有時也會左右不分。

熊爸爸雖然有錢有勢，但熊媽媽卻很努力，每天早早起來，用她的秘方晶片 (microchips) 做熱騰騰的粥。 她在花園一角的棚子裡烹製了這種秘方粥，她知道這對熊寶寶很有幫助，會讓他長得又大又壯。

熊爸爸的阿姨裴洛西離開後的第二天，熊寶寶下樓來吃早餐。 他坐下來，嚐了一口他的粥。  “哎呀，媽媽，”他喊道。  “這太燙了。 我想這片森林裡大約有 70% 的晶片都在這裡吧？ 我覺得我們都應該出去散散步，讓這個粥冷一下。”

於是，熊爸爸、熊媽媽和熊寶寶利用等待晶片粥冷卻的時間到森林裡去散散步，他們不知道其實裴洛西阿姨在她回家路上，還去了別的地方跟人閒聊。

因此住在森林附近被寵壞了的 Goldxilocks (註：原名為Goldilocks) 也聽說裴洛西阿姨的來訪，儘管她的母親警告她不要走進森林找麻煩，她還是偷偷溜出去看熱鬧。

Goldxilocks 到達熊家發現門鎖著，但狡猾的她在百葉窗上挖了一個洞往裡偷看，發現家裡沒有人，然後她有一些在森林裡的伙伴幫她進到三隻熊的家。這些奇怪而討厭的小動物雖然在森林裡和熊一起生活，但仍然願意幫助 Goldxilocks 進入房子。

看到晶片粥時，Goldxilocks 高興得跳了起來。 長時間以來，她一直想要吃晶片粥，但不管再怎麼努力，味道從來沒有好過。

她坐下來嚐了熊爸爸的粥。  “哎呀，太粗糙了，”她說。因為熊爸爸比較喜歡吃不精緻的食物。

然後她試了熊媽媽的粥。  嗯，這個還不錯，但是還是不夠細緻，因為晶片粥的材料有各種規格。

然後她吃了一口熊寶寶的粥。  “好吃，”她叫道。  “這個恰到好處，因為裡面是大量的高級晶片。”

吃過粥現在 Goldxilocks 想要坐下來了，她環顧四周，在火爐邊看到熊爸爸的搖椅。 她不知道這是非常特別的椅子，熊爸爸坐在上面計算他在森林裡收集的東西，要和森林的其他人做多少交易，以及他會收取多少費用。

Goldxilock 在交易椅上來回搖晃，忽然間發出一聲巨響，椅子壞了。 但是 Goldxilocks 是個很自私的人，她才不管，因為想睡了就上樓找地方睡覺。

熊爸爸的床太大了，躺在上面讓她感到緊張。 熊媽媽的床很舒服，就是有點小。 所以她決定躺在熊媽媽的床上，把腳放在熊寶寶的床上……這樣就好了。

當她聽到樓下的門打開時，她正夢見一大堆可愛的晶片粥。

“誰偷吃了我們的晶片粥？” 一家人在廚房大喊！  “誰弄壞了我的特殊交易椅，”熊爸爸氣壞了。

熊爸爸衝上樓，看到床上的 Goldxilocks。  “滾出我的房子，”他喊道。  “而且永遠不要再回來。”

Goldxilocks 慌慌張張跑回家，並被她的母親（正確思維世界的其他人）訓斥了一頓，沒有晚飯可以吃就被送進房間睡覺了。

結束。

Tinkerty Tonk… 掰掰。

The US and Asia - and Taiwan

There is a phrase in English ‘A Hostage to Fortune’ which means an undertaking or remark that is regarded as unwise because it invites trouble or could prove difficult to live up to.

As a journalist, I’ve always regarded making big predictions in opinion columns as unwise and making myself a Hostage to Fortune, because it’s easy to be proved wrong. 

That caveat out of the way, as a concerned resident I do feel the need to write down my thoughts on the latest shenanigans in - and indeed around - Taiwan. I also want to do this as I’m frankly embarrassed by much of the Media’s take on the Pelosi visit.

What many people tend to forget is the deeper background and history of a situation, either because they are ignorant of the facts, or because they have an agenda. 

It seems the United States attitude towards Taiwan has been bolstered by circumstance since President Jimmy Carter broke relations with the Republic of China in 1979 and defined officially substantial but non-diplomatic relations between the two.

The relationship was perhaps less important while the US still felt it was the undisputed leader and policeman of the free world as well as being economically head-and-shoulders above everywhere else. 

This pole-position has ebbed away in recent decades as other areas grabbed a larger share of global Gross Domestic Product and caught up with an America which was dogged not only by home grown crises like the 2008 housing crash but also by global events.

Watching the now organised might of the European Union, as well as China and India, catch up with it so strongly in terms of economic strength, must be a concern for the US if they are looking to hold onto their global political clout and influence. 

With economic power ebbing away, it is small wonder they look towards the still unassailable position their huge military affords them to retain global influence. The U.S. Armed Forces are by far the world's most powerful with a budget of around US$700 billion, accounting for around 35 percent of the world's total defence spending and three times its nearest rival.     

Only last Wednesday the Associated Press carried the following lead. “U.S. Senators delivered overwhelming bipartisan approval to NATO membership for Finland and Sweden Wednesday, calling expansion of the Western defensive bloc a “slam-dunk” for U.S. national security and a day of reckoning for Russian President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.”

With the US having the largest number of military personnel of all the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) countries and so, by a long way, having the biggest influence, it is no wonder they described expanded membership as a “slam-dunk”.

That language alone pretty much demonstrates the US wants to retain its political power and authority in the world, and part of that is not just being in better shape to stand up to the likes of Russia, but elsewhere where threats remain.

The Americans have fought two major wars since WWII during the Cold War with the Soviets, obsentibly to stop the spread of communism. The Korean and Vietnamese Wars were aimed primarily at preventing the spread of communism, costing around 95,000 American lives and  well over 300,000 wounded. 

Has the world really changed that much for the United States to have collectively forgotten all those crippled and dead American souls to not fight for democracy and against the spread of communism now? 

Yes, the world has changed. Yes things are different now, but I have to wonder if the fundamentals that existed then have completely disappeared in the minds of ordinary Americans and that of the American Government.  

Also remember the moves by America after World War 2 (WWII) in constructing defensive lines across the Pacific stretching from Japan in the north, through Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines down across East Asia and the Pacific to Australia. This was all done with the possibility of future tensions in mind. Would the US just abandon such a long-standing commitment?

“We envision an Indo-Pacific that is open, connected, prosperous, resilient, and secure—and we are ready to work together with each of you to achieve it,” US President Joe Biden said at the East Asia Summit in October 2021.     

Nearly half the US military are deployed abroad, with around 80,000 American personnel overseas. Japan has 53,700 and South Korea 26,400. South Korea hosts Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US military base, just 65km from Seoul.

Given the history and other recent tensions and worries over the situation in the South China Sea, is it any wonder the authorities in the world’s leading nation are taking a close interest in the perceived threat to Taiwan? This, particularly in the light of Ukraine and the tragedy of the aggression that is happening there. 

I think those who dismiss the Pelosi visit as just the United States trying to face-down another superpower and using Taiwan as a political pawn in some giant diplomatic chess game are not fully considering how the US has behaved in the past in Asia. Its fight against the spread of communism, its championing of democracy and its close relationship with Japan underline America’s commitment to the peace and stability in the Pacific region. 

On the US State Department website under an article headlined ‘U.S. Relations With Japan’ it says “Japan is one of the world’s most successful democracies and largest economies. The U.S.-Japan Alliance is the cornerstone of U.S. security interests in Asia and is fundamental to regional stability and prosperity. The Alliance is based on shared vital interests and values, including: the maintenance of stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”

I do wonder if those who suggest the US is just playing political games, or just trying to score points in an apparently growing Cold-War, or are somehow frightened of another superpower are mis-remembering the huge price America has paid in Asia in the past.

WWII saw America sacrifice 111,606 dead or missing and another 253,142 wounded in the war against Japanese imperialism in the Pacific. That, together with the subsequent wars against the spread of communism and their ongoing and vocal support of Pacific nations is enough to convince me the Pelosi visit is far from them just playing hollow diplomatic games. 

Tinkerty Tonk…