Tag Archives: defense policy

A PRC Takeover

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Examiner.com has the tale.

Taiwan’s most popular and independent media organization, Next Media, is about to be sold to China-based tycoon Tsai Eng-Meng, in a deal which would give him and his company (Want Want China Times Group) control of 50% of Taiwan’s entire print news industry.

This would be an ordinary monopolist action by a Republic of China citizen, whose outcome would be subject to RoC law.

However.

The $600 million takeover is not so much a business deal as it is a proxy invasion of Taiwan’s independent press by the Chinese Communist Party.  Eng-Meng, who is Taiwanese himself and holds large financial stakes in China, has been a vocal supporter of unification between communist China and democratic Taiwan.  He is also an ally of Beijing’s communist government.

Objections are flowing, and they center on

the fact that Eng-Meng already has a record of using his existing media empire to promote pro-Beijing bias and censorship in [the RoC].

And

The free people of [the RoC] may be about to lose control over their own press to the Chinese Communist Party, without a shot even being fired.

If that sounds apocryphal, consider that the PRC has had a primary goal of conquering the island nation ever since the Communists won their civil war and the losing side escaped to Taiwan.  This is another step in reaching that goal.

Some Thoughts on Negotiating with Terrorists

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Rick Richman, writing in Commentary Magazine, has some.  He outlines some of the outcomes of such…negotiations:

  1. the barbaric terror war against Israeli civilians, commenced after the first Israeli offer of a state;
  2. the Palestinian rejection of the Clinton Parameters, after Israel formally accepted them;
  3. the Palestinian failure to carry out even Phase I of the three-phase Roadmap;
  4. the transformation of Gaza into Hamastan after Israel withdrew every settler and soldier
  5. the election of Hamas in 2006 and the Hamas coup in 2007;
  6. two rocket wars from Judenrein Gaza, and the continuing prospect of more;
  7. the year-long negotiation in the Annapolis Process that produced still another offer of a state, from which Abbas walked away;
  8. Abbas’s announcement in 2009 that he would do nothing without a construction freeze, followed by his doing nothing after he got one;
  9. the continual “reconciliation” attempts by Abbas with the terrorist group he promised to dismantle;…
  10. the violation of their express Oslo commitments[.]

Richman summarizes the futility of negotiating with terrorists at the outset of his piece:

…four years of the “Palestinian Terror War (mistakenly called the second intifada),”…disabused Israelis of the idea that the Palestinian leadership wanted a deal, and the fact that Arabs have become ever more candid about their ultimate goal, with Mahmoud Abbas telling Egyptian TV “he would never, in a thousand years, recognize a Jewish state.”

Negotiating with terrorists just gets more innocents killed.  Yet our SecDef nominee wants to “engage” with them, saying that Palestinian terrorists are misguided victims.  Our SecState nominee has said folks like al-Assad and the mullahs of Iran can be negotiated with.

On the other hand, there’s this:

A mouse is trying to argue with owls.  The mouse thinks their ways are wrong.  They think the mouse is dinner.

 

h/t Power Line

China’s Aggressiveness, America’s Response

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China recently announced guidelines, effective January 1, for its maritime “police” to board and seize foreign vessels in waters around the Paracel Islands, which are also claimed by Vietnam.

And

Chinese fishing boats ha[ve] cut the cables of [Vietnam’s] seismic survey ship last week.

And

Philippines Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario revealed…that China had communicated its intention to station ships permanently at the Scarborough Shoal….

Never mind that the Republic of the Philippines, with the support of international law, claims this area.

Indeed, the PRC claims, with a straight face, fully two-thirds of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory.

And

Beijing also continues to challenge Japan’s control over the Senkaku Islands….  Chinese maritime surveillance and fisheries vessels loiter outside the 12-mile territorial limit, occasionally crossing inside to force the Japanese coast guard to respond.

The PRC also objects to the US’ rotating token units of Marines through a basing facility in Darwin, Australia.  Such a move is an affront to Chinese sovereignty, you see.

Yet President Barack Obama is bent on gutting American defense capability by $500 billion, beginning next month, despite his own Defense Secretary’s warnings of the consequences.  Which gives new meaning to the phrase “leading from behind.”

Sufficient Reason

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Turkey has officially requested NATO to send them uprated PAC-3 model Patriot missile batteries for deployment along their Syrian border, where al-Assad’s butchery has been spilling across.  I had considered refusing to arm the Turks after they called the Israelis terrorists for the heinous crime of defending themselves against Hamas’ overt terrorist attacks during the just (temporarily) concluded conflict.

Then came this.

The militarization of the Syrian-Turkish border is an alarming signal,” [Russian Foreign Ministry] spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.  “We have different advice for our Turkish colleagues—use their influence with the Syrian opposition to accelerate the start of a political dialogue.

And this:

“…in the military field, what is important is not intentions, but potential.  And when potential increases, the risks grow,” [Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov] said.

If the Russians don’t like a Turkey—which also sits astride the Dardanelles and the Strait of Bospherus—with the wherewithal to defend itself against incursion, then it’s not a bad idea.

NATO should expedite approval and the transfer and deployment of the missile systems.

News Flash

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President Barack Obama has some words of cautious wisdom for the Israelis during Hamas’ renewed terrorist rocket assault from Gaza.

Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory.

If that can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that’s preferable.  It’s not just preferable for the people of Gaza.  It’s also preferable for Israelis, because if Israeli troops are in Gaza, they’re much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded.

Here’s a news flash, Ace, in case you’ve missed the data flowing out of that conflict: the Israelis already are at serious risk of incurring “fatalities or being wounded” from those rockets being fired at civilian targets where children live.  That’s the point of Hamas’ fire.  And the purpose of any military establishment: to protect those civilians and their children, even if those military forces risk “incurring fatalities or being wounded.”

Try to keep up.