Category: Taiwan

Chiang Kai-shek’s Great-Grandson’s Election Win Means Much To Taiwan’s Future

Ms. Cat

Chiang Kai-shek’s Great-Grandson’s Election Win Means Much To Taiwan’s Future

But there is much more to the win of the young (43) Chiang and his Chinese Nationalist (KMT) Party over the candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Even before he has taken office at city hall, Chiang is being promoted as the next president of Taiwan when incumbent Tsai Ing-wen must by law step down in 2024.

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Where most of the KMT embrace the “one nation, two systems” policy that opponents fear will lead to Taiwan being absorbed by China, young Chiang in January, 2020 denounced the policy and embraced the stance of President Tsai that China must recognize the independence of Taiwan and the values of freedom and democracy held dear by Taiwanese.

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Chiang-Wan-an’s grandfather, Chiang Ching-kuo, served as Taiwan’s president from 1978 to 1988.* The lawmaker’s father John Chiang is a past vice premier and foreign minister of Taiwan.

*Related (Notes for Myself):

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U.S. and NATO scramble to arm Ukraine and refill their own arsenals

Ms. Cat

Either this narrative about weapon stockpiles, being depleted, is part of the information war or Russia is demilitarizing NATO!?!

U.S. and NATO scramble to arm Ukraine and refill their own arsenals

In Ukraine, the kind of European war thought inconceivable is chewing up the modest stockpiles of artillery, ammunition and air defenses of what some in NATO call Europe’s “bonsai armies,” after the tiny Japanese trees. Even the mighty United States has only limited stocks of the weapons the Ukrainians want and need, and Washington is unwilling to divert key weapons from delicate regions like Taiwan and Korea, where China and North Korea are constantly testing the limits.

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So the West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells

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There are even discussions about NATO investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of Soviet-caliber 152-mm and 122-mm shells for Ukraine’s still largely Soviet-era artillery armory.

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The European Union has approved €3.1 billion ($3.2 billion) to repay member states for what they provide to Ukraine, but that fund, the [ironically-named] European Peace Facility, is nearly 90 percent depleted.

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Smaller countries have exhausted their potential, another NATO official said, with 20 of its 30 members “pretty tapped out.” But the remaining 10 can still provide more, he suggested, especially larger allies. That would include France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has advised the alliance — including, pointedly, Germany — that NATO guidelines requiring members to keep stockpiles should not be a pretext to limit arms exports to Ukraine. But it is also true that Germany and France, like the United States, want to calibrate the weapons Ukraine gets, to prevent escalation and direct attacks on Russia.

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Washington is also looking at older, cheaper alternatives like giving Ukraine anti-tank TOW missiles, which are in plentiful supply, instead of Javelins, and Hawk surface-to-air missiles instead of newer versions. But officials are increasingly pushing Ukraine to be more efficient and not, for example, fire a missile that costs $150,000 at a drone that costs $20,000.

Anti-China Protests in Thailand: Who is Behind them & Why? Searching for Asia’s “Zelensky”

Ms. Cat

Nov 22, 2022 – As the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine destroys a nation and destabilizes a region, similar meddling that preceded the 2014 coup in Kiev is unfolding across Southeast Asia and in particular, in Thailand.

Who is the “Zelensky” of Thailand? Documented evidence exposes the Thai opposition as a product of years of US interference all in a bid to pivot Thailand aways from its largest economic and trade partner – China – and transform it into a belligerent proxy against Beijing on Washington’s behalf.

References:

Anti-China Protests in Thailand: Who is Behind them & Why? Searching for Asia’s “Zelensky” (Odysee) via The New Atlas

Previously:

Thailand: US-backed Opposition’s Violence Intimidates Critics, Paves Way for Regime Change

Who are the Ukrainian integral nationalists?

Ms. Cat1 Comment

Who knows the history of the Ukrainian “integral nationalists”, “Nazis” according to the terminology of the Kremlin? It begins during the First World War, continues during the Second, the Cold War and continues today in modern Ukraine. Many documents have been destroyed and modern Ukraine forbids under penalty of imprisonment to mention their crimes. The fact remains that these people massacred at least four million of their compatriots and conceived the architecture of the Final Solution, that is, the murder of millions of people because of their real or supposed membership in the Jewish or Gypsy communities of Europe.

Who are the Ukrainian integral nationalists?
The oath of loyalty to Führer Adolf Hitler by members of the OUN.
Machine translation by Yandex.

H/T: THE NEW DARK AGE

Previously:

Nazism in eastern Europe (and the US)

Notes for self:

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Philippines: Our Foreign Policy on China Is Clear, But Is It to The United States?

Ms. Cat

The chief architect of Philippine foreign policy is the President.

It appears that the sitting President has been somewhat slow in defining it but certainly he knows that buck of responsibility stops with him.

Our Foreign Policy on China Is Clear, But Is It to The United States?

Related:

Are Freedom of Navigation Operations and Innocent Passage Really the Same?

U.S. destroyer challenges China’s claims in South China Sea

Kamala Harris Heads to Philippines to Pick a Fight With China

Macron rejects ‘confrontation’ as he relaunches Asia strategy

Ms. Cat

Macron rejects ‘confrontation’ as he relaunches Asia strategy

“We don’t believe in hegemony, we don’t believe in confrontation, we believe in stability,” Macron said.

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Macron said a coordinated response was needed to tackle the overlapping crises facing the international community — from climate change to economic turmoil triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment,” he said.

“How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers.”

The Indo-Pacific Strategy doesn’t sound as innocent as Macron makes it out to be:

The new US Indo-Pacific Strategy document released in February has two interesting components, one overt and one covert. The document overtly declares the US is an “Indo-Pacific power.” Covertly, its aim is to “tighten the noose around China.” Arguably, minus the military might, China’s nearly a decade-long “Belt and Road Initiative” cannot be perceived as a grand national strategy aimed at controlling Eurasia or the Asia Pacific or any region for that matter. Yet the BRI is mythologized into such a geostrategic game-changer that it has rattled the US and its allies in the Asia Pacific. The BRI, at best, is nothing more than a mere geopolitical overland and maritime “chessboard” based on trade and investment.

BRI and the ‘Indo-Pacific’ Strategy: Geopolitical vs. Geostrategic