Trump deals with the devil?

Trump is getting cranky with South Korea and demanding joint exercises aimed at the North be scaled back.

I’m going to put that very firmly in my bucket of “I don’t know”. In my trusty “I-don’t-like-it-but-will-wait-and-see” bucket.

It would be foolish to trust anything the North says. Especially anything Kim Jing-un says. Duplicity is their super power. 

Is the armistice really “unstable” as the South’s president Lee Jae Myung says? Gee it’s worked pretty well for over three-quarters of a century. Look at night-time satellite photos of the Korean Peninsula to see who’s done best from it. The price? A super-fortified border and large armed forces kept at the ready. Is that so bad? Would a “peace deal” do anything other than strengthen the North?

An Armistice is what’s discussed as a possible outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war. Where neither side has to admit defeat. It’s a kind of “let’s agree to disagree” pact. And in the meantime let’s stop killing each other. 

Trump threatening a strong and stable ally like South Korea because he’s pissed off they didn’t support him enough in the Iran war?? Cutting off one’s nose, Donald! 

Gabriela Bernal thinks rather more positively, in today’s “Donald Trump’s blunt remarks offer South Korea an opportunity”. 

But we have to remember, there’s pressures to shift South Korea to be closer to China. Trump may be more played than player…

/Snip:

Scaling back the drills should, therefore, not be seen as a blow to South Korea’s security posture but as a potential opportunity to create an opening in a relationship plagued by deep hostility. Reducing the scope of the exercises, along with Trump’s strong rhetoric about the “hostile” message the drills seem to send Pyongyang, is a relatively low-cost goodwill signal that could result in progress towards resuming dialogue. 

 

South Korea’s government has been asking for exactly this kind of opening. On August 15, President Lee Jae Myung used his Liberation Day address to propose talks to formally end the Korean war and to replace what he called the “unstable armistice” system with a durable “peace regime”. He also invited the directly involved parties to set aside mutual threats and discuss practical steps to halt the advance of the North’s nuclear programme.

Why are we interested? Well, this is our backyard. Our typhoons are their typhoons. We’re in the same weather system, for goodness sake! Of course we’re interested. The Korean Peninsula is one of the major global flashpoints.Not just North v South. Also China v America. It’s in the category of existential for us here in Hong Kong. 

Elephants fighting, not good news for mice. 

**********

For Yuks: The Bee has a go at The Donald: “Trump Admits Both Koreas Look The Same To Him”. 

Relax. It’s a joooouke!

Now it’s Foreign Policy by Vox Pop? | China and full-scale,war on Taiwan

A few random thoughts, since here in Hong Kong we’re right next to Taiwan, and worst-case scenario, it’s the flash point of a US-China war. An actual real war between two nuclear superpowers: 

1. We shouldn’t do Foreign Policy by Vox Pop. Just as we shouldn’t do Public Health Policy by Vox Pop. Consent is manufactured. China’s 71% who want to invade Taiwan have been groomed to think that, by a government with “sophisticated means to change public perception”. (Just as we in the west have been groomed in most of our cherished beliefs). Vanishingly few of these 71% would have looked at the geopolitics closely and made up their own minds that “attack Taiwan!” is the way to go.

2. Xi Jinping has pushed “reunification” since he came to power in 2012. He wants to go down in history as the man who “finally united China”. Even though Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC. Which is why I put “reunification” in quotes. It has been self-run for virtually all its history. And its people don’t want to be part of the PRC. Doesn’t the will of the people count?

3. America has reacted too forcefully to the Xi push; that has not been helpful. “Strategic ambiguity” has worked well for 70+ years. Kept the peace. Now, making the US position “clearer” — as the Biden administration has done — makes conflict and war more likely, not less.

4. Australia should not go along with the US line on this. We don’t have to. We should keep pushing/maintaining “strategic ambiguity”. 

5. Strategic Ambiguity worked well and continues to work well for the Korean Peninsula. It’s worked well for Taiwan. It worked well for us here in Hong Kong until 2019, when some hotheads got it into their minds that the way forward was to push for independence. Wrong. 

6. The most correct of the Vox Pop above are the 22% who think China and Taiwan should just keep on keeping on, each with its own system, and not going to war over them. Spot on! Nothing is perfect. This status quo is far better than a war with China. For everyone. For everyone. Far, far better. For everyone. 

“Peace without victory”

That’s the professor Steven Kotkin formula for the Ukraine war. A kind of Korea settlement. An armistice. A DMZ. 

"No crisis ahead: Hong Kong experts agree Covid-19 spike not as serious as fifth wave, no need for harsh measures” | SCMP

Now this is interesting because the Post has spent recent months scaremongering. Every article labelled “Coronavirus Crisis”, stories of an “overwhelmed health care system”, endless reporting of Omicron cases, the death of someone under 85…. Oh, the horror!

And now it’s all fine. Why the change of tone? Maybe some relaxation from up north? Maybe just the press of public opinion which has just had it — we here in Hong Kong being the most locked down and quarantined in the world. China aside.

I always doubted the “hospitalisations crisis”, based on the figures I was able to infer. Now, at last, the Post shows figures that confirm: there’s no hospitalisations crisis. There were always too any people with minor or even no symptoms being hospitalised, using the hospitals as de facto quarantine centres. According to this article, that’s still happening, despite some of our experts telling the government it has to stop. Imagine: you fill the wards with people not at all sick and then cry “hospitalisations crisis”!

Still, there’s no real relaxation. Just not a further tightening. We still have our social distancing rules, dining numbers restrictions, dining curfews,, RAT test rules for everything, vaccine passports rules, tracing rules, testing rules, masking rules, the whole panoply of what’s shown itself ineffective, by comparison with other places who are not  doing all the above — Singapore, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Australia— but who are doing just as well. I watched an AFL Final (Cats v Magpies. Fabulous match!) last Saturday, 80,000+ at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, not a single mask in sight. That’s been going on for months, with no big deal in new infections or deaths per million. We in HK are still freaked out, cancelling cross-country running races and planning a Rugby Sevens in November that’s going to be socially distanced (!) and fully masked up. Food, but no drink. That’ll go well … not.

/Snip: 

When Hong Kong topped 10,000 Covid-19 infections in a single day last week, anxious residents were left wondering how bad the latest surge would be.
Was the city on the brink of seeing overcrowded hospitals and a high death toll and the return of strict pandemic restrictions, just like earlier this year when the fifth wave of infections struck?
Health experts and researchers have told the Post they do not expect anything as dire, emphasising that the current situation was unlike what happened earlier in several ways. Read on…

Meantime … major trade deal signed

15 nations sign Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

Including Australia. The RCEP was helped along by Trump pulling out of the TPP, one of his early major strategic errors. Leaving the ground clear for Beijing intrusion. An own goal. RCEP is the “largest in the world”.

RCEP doesn’t mitigate Australia-China tensions. Which, let’s recall, amount to China bullying Australia for having the temerity to ask: why did China ban local flights out of Wuhan in January, but allow international flights? And: what was the true source of the outbreak? Could we have an international investigation, please? Both fair questions. Which any other country would answer. Xi’s China bullies.

Oh, and Australia complains about malicious interference in its domestic affairs, by Beijing proxies in Oz, via its United Front Work Department. How dare we? 

So Beijing’s hissy fit against Australia continues. Bigger picture being that it will only frighten other counties from closer ties with Beijing. Which it should.

Another report on how Beijing is punishing South Korea because it allowed US THAAD missiles on its soil. Punishes a K-Pop band because it doesn’t parrot its false narrative on the Korean War (“Caused by US Imperialism”).

Xi Jinping’s Beijing regime really is horrid. Everyone must try to disentangle from its horridness.