Tag Archives: foreign policy

Trade Reciprocity

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When the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US refused to approve a deal between the People’s Republic of China’s Ant Financial Services Group and MoneyGram International Inc, wherein the former would acquire the latter, Anjani Trivedi in a Wall Street Journal article lamented the demise of “deal making” between American companies and PRC companies.

Beijing has softened its attitude somewhat recently, relaxing its foreign-investment policies to lure more capital into specific sectors, including financial services. With the CFIUS decision on Ant and MoneyGram, it’s clear such moves aren’t going to be met with much reciprocity.

And

For investors, the takeaway is that the “China bid” that has helped boost global asset prices this century may be gone for good….

Leave aside the artificial hysteria of “gone for good.”  The PRC’s “moves” are empty rhetoric, as their limited nature demonstrate. Further, such “moves” can only be tokens as long as the PRC demands that partnership with Chinese companies; or transfer of technology, including proprietary tech; or PRC-run back doors into foreign business’ software be accepted by the foreign business as the price of doing business in the PRC.  Such “moves” can only be tokens so long as PRC acquisitions of US companies are aimed not at strengthening a business but at “acquiring” US technology.  Such “moves” can only be tokens so long as Chinese companies are arms of the PRC’s government.

There’s nothing with which to reciprocate.

A UN Vote

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Recall that the UN voted strongly to condemn the Trump administration’s decision to move our Embassy to Israel to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.  In a Letter to the Editor of The Wall Street Journal, one letter writer objected to our response to the vote.

America should support other countries’ right to vote their conscience as the US does, whether or not we agree with them.

America does support other countries’ right to vote their conscience, whether or not we agree with them. It’s a two-way street, however. Others, including our letter-writer, need to support America’s right to act in accordance with our conscience—to object to those votes and their outcome, and to act accordingly.

No one—most especially America—moved to prevent those votes from occurring.  Others, though, including our letter-writer, are acting, it seems, to deny our right to respond.

We Can Help

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And we should.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has pledged to step up defense spending to defend the self-ruled island’s sovereignty in the face of China’s growing military assertiveness in the region.

A good start would be to sell missile defense systems to the Republic of China along with modern aircraft—both air defense, like updated F-16s and F-15s, and ground attack, like F-16s and A-10s.

We also should resume sea and air patrols of the Taiwan Strait, something we’ve not done for far too long.

A Caliphate Has Collapsed?

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That’s what Renée Rigdon, Tristan Wyatt, and Karen Leigh would have us believe in their recent Wall Street Journal piece.

It’s true enough that the Daesh—that JV team of ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) estimation—ran through the Iraqi “army” a few years ago, exploded through Syrian territory, and wound up controlling a significant fraction of Iraqi and Syrian land.  Their physical expansion was stopped in the immediacy of the situation only by Iraqi Kurds and the confused and fractious condition of Syria.  It’s also true that under President Donald Trump, a US-refurbished Iraqi army allied with those Kurds and local militias, with the support of an unleashed US-led coalition of air forces, recaptured nearly all of Iraqi territory in very short order while that same coalition of air forces supported a US-led coalition of rebels (albeit of at best dubious provenance) have disinfected most of Daesh-held Syria.

However, it’s naïve to suggest that the Daesh’s “caliphate” has crumbled, as the article’s title claims.  The Daesh, like its forerunner al Qaeda, is a polity that is first and foremost a network entity.  It has physical nodes existing parasitically in a broad swath of nation-states, ranging from western People’s Republic of China through northern Africa.  It has cells throughout Europe and in the United States.  These nodes and cells are connected via the Internet and the world’s cell phone network.

All that’s happened with the physical rollup of the Daesh in Iraq and Syria is that this terrorist polity has been freed from the shackles of geography.  Now our battle must shift to the virtual world; it’s far too soon to cry Victory.

Heads up.  Be very heads up.

Prove They’re Serious

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his satrap, Bashar al Assad, want to hold peace talks in Sochi with a view to ending the fighting in Syria.  At least 40 groups in the al Assad opposition demur and are refusing Putin’s attempt.

“We reject this, and we affirm that Russia is an aggressor that has committed war crimes against Syrians,” the statement signed by 40 rebel groups said. “Russia has not contributed with a single move to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people and it has not pressured the regime it claims it guarantees to move an inch toward any real path toward a resolution.”

These groups would rather continue the UN’s efforts to mediate, even though the UN has been useless futile since its mediation attempt began in 2014.

My suggestion: don’t go running off to the comfort of a resort town as many as 800 miles away from the theater. Putin and his satrap should offer to hold the talks in Idlib or Kobane or Ghouta.  Ghouta even is convenient to al Assad’s capital.

So should the UN’s “negotiators,” come to that, prove they’re serious.