Monthly Archives: March 2024

A Clear Demonstration

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Michigan’s Progressive-Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed, in the name of the State of Michigan, a deal with Gotion Inc, a subsidiary of Gotion High Tech Co Ltd which is headquartered in the People’s Republic of China. Gotion Hi Tech is not only subject to PRC national security law that requires domestic companies to provide information the intelligence community “requests” in whatever nation that information might reside, it has open and direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party. From that, Gotion Inc, the party to that Whitmer deal, has those same ties and PRC-legal obligations.

The problem is this. The Gotion-Whitmer deal is for a Gotion battery factory to be built at least in part in the Michigan township of Green Charter. Green Charter has demurred from being used for that deal, and in response, Gotion has filed suit…against Green Charter. Chuck Thelen, Gotion’s Vice President Gotion Global, North America Manufacturing Center:

It’s unfortunate that Gotion has had to resort to litigation to get the township to comply with their obligations under the agreement[.]

This, despite that Gotion’s beef is with Michigan and the Governor’s Office as the signatories of the overall agreement, which presumed to commit the Township to it. Green Charter isn’t the jurisdiction with any contractual obligations here.

It’s true enough that a prior Township board of supervisors had negotiated an agreement with Gotion, but that was done against the will of the Township residents. They ran a recall that tossed every one of those board members and installed a board amenable to the requirements of its collective bosses, those residents. That move rendered the prior agreement nonexistent.

This is a clear, dispositive demonstration, then, of the People’s Republic of China’s cultural mindset and that of Gotion’s managers. Government is in charge and subjects must obey. 一切都在國家之內，沒有什麼是國家之外的，也沒有什麼是反對國家的. Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State (hat tip to Benito Mussolini, who originated the maxim).

A Quote…

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…from a couple of centuries ago, by a man with whom some folks might still be familiar today. Edmund Burke was speaking, here, about the then newly done French Revolution.

They were possessed with a spirit of proselytism in the most fanatical degree, – and from thence, by an easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means. What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act might be wrought by a longer process through the medium of opinion. To command that option, the first step is to establish a dominion over those who direct it. They contrived to possess themselves, with great method and perseverance, of all avenues to literary fame. Many of them, indeed, stood high in the ranks of literature and science. The world had done them justice, and in favor of general talents forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. This was true liberality, which they returned by endeavoring to confine the reputation of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers.
–Edmund Burke

Sounds like an apt description of what’s going on today in our own nation.

 

h/t Ricochet, whose poster first had much the same thought.

This is Why

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None of the Gaza Strip is secure until all of it is secure. Israel’s IDF had to go back into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and re-clear it, months after it had done so the first time early in its response to Hamas’ war of extermination that it had begun against Israel.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said that

senior Hamas militants had re-entered the hospital and were using it to direct attacks against Israel.

Even this time, the IDF was at pains to warn the civilians present that an operation was imminent and they should leave, and they were at equal pains to protect the patients and their doctors who could not leave.

Further,

The raid on the hospital shows how Hamas militants have, according to the Israeli military, returned to places that had already been cleared by Israeli troops in northern Gaza, posing a challenge for Israel even as its forces continue operations it says are aimed at rooting out the group in the south.

This also is an illustration of one of the outcomes stemming from the difficulty of and failure to completely destroy the terrorists’ tunnel system.

Again: none of the Gaza Strip is secure until all of it is secure, and all of Hamas is destroyed. This is why Israel must enter Rafah, and Khirbat al-Adas, and Al Qarya as Suwaydiya, and al Bayuk, and all of the rest of the area in southern Gaza Strip not yet cleared of the terrorists, even for a first time.

This is what Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden is actively trying to prevent Israel from achieving with his constant demands for Israel to agree a ceasefire with the Hamas terrorists. Any ceasefire that eases pressure on the terrorists will only facilitate their effort and ability to regroup and refit. Hamas’ ability to regroup and refit in a previously cleared facility in Gaza City while under fire in an active war amply demonstrates this.

Biden isn’t the Only One

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On the matter of the Republic of China’s ability to defeat a People’s Republic of China invasion, Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden isn’t the only US President who’s been terrified of offending the PRC too badly. The RoC has long sought to buy offensive, and long-range weapons from the US, even concluding some deals that a variety of US administrations have failed to deliver on. Instead, in the main,

[f]or more than a decade, US officials have encouraged Taiwan to invest in small, relatively cheap weapons such as shoulder-fired missiles, drones, and sea mines. The goal would be to bring a Chinese amphibious invasion force to a halt at close range with thousands of small strikes.
Such asymmetrical warfare is a favorite tactic of guerrillas and weaker nations facing big rivals.

I-Chung Lai, an ex-government foreign-affairs official, has the right of it:

The asymmetrical approach advocated by some people would put the whole of Taiwan into a meat grinder[.]

Defensive weaponry optimized for asymmetrical warfare are, indeed, critical items for a small nation’s ability to defend against a large nation’s invasion.

But. But, but, but. Defense only permanently surrenders the tactical and strategic initiative and is ultimate defeat. A much better defense is a strong offense. The RoC needs those far reaching and offensive weapons in order to have a serious chance of defeating—not merely resisting—a PRC invasion, and to do so without turning the fight into a bloody morass that bleeds the Republic dry while only injuring the invader.

The RoC desperately needs those offensive weapons as well as the defensive ones, and the Biden administration has an excellent opportunity to learn the lessons of Ukraine and kowtowing to Putin’s threats by slow-walking and outright withholding the long-range and offensive weapons Ukraine has needed for the last 2+ years. The Biden administration needs to put an end to the pattern of multiple administrations kowtowing to the PRC’s threats and send to the RoC the long-range and offensive weapons, along with the defensive weapons. it needs actually to defeat a PRC invasion attempt.

There is legitimate concern that the RoC can’t afford both the offensive and defensive weapons, or the offensive weapons in useful numbers. That’s what lend-lease programs and outright loans are for.

A Thought on Interest Rates

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The Wall Street Journal is speculating on when the Fed might start lowering its benchmark interest rates, speculating further that the Fed might be worrying about whether it’s time and whether leaving its rates where they are might spark a recession. (I was one of those worrying about a recession starting up over the last year or year-and-a-half, and still, but maybe the Fed’s worry is as overblown as mine.)

Early in the article, the WSJ has this:

The central bank will keep its benchmark interest-rate target at a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, a 23-year high….

I’m not sure that’s a useful baseline. The first 20, or so, years of that period are when the Fed was artificially suppressing interest rates.

5.25%-5.5% benchmark rates actually are, long-term, reasonably consistent with a 2% inflation rate.

Maybe it’s time for the Fed to cry “Enough” and go back to the sidelines. Nothing more is needed; let the market fluctuate as it will. Rates already are within the historical fluctuation range that didn’t need Fed interference intervention.