Tag Archives: foreign policy

EU, Great Britain, and Taxes

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Some…suggestions…from continental leaders regarding Great Britain’s departure from the EU and the Exchequer’s suggestions of British corporate tax rate reductions, via The Wall Street Journal:

  • German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble: we can’t have a “race to the bottom, now can we?”

Why not, I ask—what are you so terrified might result from letting those who earned the money keep more of it?

  • Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs: let’s not have any of this “exacerbated(?) fiscal competition between ourselves” nonsense.

I ask—why not?  What’s so terrible about competition, which spurs innovation, holds down costs for the citizenry, limits government power.  Oh, wait….

  • French Finance Minister Michel Sapin: “Whether you’re in the union or yo’’re out, we should all adopt a friendly attitude.” Or else.

So I ask—when are you going to adopt that friendly attitude, M Sapin?

Cut the taxes, guys.  If the continent want to run, screaming, away from the terror of competition, you’ll still have the Irish and the Icelanders with whom to play.  And a whole, wide world outside the European continent and its special snowflakes.

Permanent Court of Arbitration Demurs

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This Hague Court has been hearing the Philippines’ complaint about the People’s Republic of China’s invasion and seizure of the South China Sea, an invasion that occurred at the direct and deliberate expense of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, and other nations rimming this Sea.  It ruled against the PRC, publishing its unanimous ruling last Tuesday.  In its essence, the Court has ruled that the PRC’s Nine-Dash Line, which the PRC used to define the extent of its manufactured historical claim…couldn’t hold water.

China’s claims to historic and economic rights in most of the South China Sea have no legal basis….

And even further,

China [isn’t] entitled to an exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending up to 200 nautical miles from any outcrop in the Spratlys archipelago including the largest, Itu Aba, which is claimed by China but controlled by Taiwan.

The EEZ aspect of the ruling is important in another way, too: it renders the PRC’s terraforming, including its military base building illegal.

This will have implications, too, for the legality of PRC behavior and military buildup in the Paracel Islands off the Vietnamese coast and which are claimed by Vietnam and for PRC occupation efforts in Scarborough Shoal, which are Philippine islands.

With the PRC’s Foreign Minister’s office officially rejecting the Court’s ruling, we now can expect an accelerated military buildup throughout the Sea and more aggressive behavior by the PRC’s navy and air force.

The PRC is Back in the East China Sea

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Over the last month, the PRC has become more aggressive against Japan, especially in the region of Japan’s Senkaku Island group.  More provocatively, the PRC may be beginning to coordinate its aggression with Russia in the region.

In mid-June, PRC fighters threatened Japanese fighters in the airspace around the Senkakus, and a PRC deep sea combat ship sailed directly at the islands while a Russian destroyer approached from a different direction as though the one was going to stage a landing while the other provided cover for the maneuver.

This sort of behavior has been going on for the last couple of years in the South China Sea, now it’s resuming in the East China Sea, and it comes at the backdrop of President Barack Obama’s (D) so-called pivot to Asia, which is proving more and more to be all hat and no cattle.

The PRC is not any friend of Japan.  Nor is it any friend of ours.  These behaviors are purely acquisitive.  We need to get quite a bit firmer, in actual deed, not just chit-chat, or our friends and allies be forced to make their own accommodations with their, and our, enemy.

That’s Our Client State

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Leave them alone.  That’s the People’s Republic of China’s reaction to the US/Republic of Korea agreement to station an anti-missile defense system in the RoK, a setup explicitly designed for defense and deployed in response to northern Korea’s missile and nuclear warhead buildup.

PRC’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang:

We demand the US and South Korea change their attitude.  By agreeing with the US side to deploy this system, South Korea has gotten itself involved in a situation that damages the current balance on the peninsula.

Yeah—the balance the PRC and their client were trying to develop, from which the better to intimidate the RoK and other regional nations.  Because defensive systems are threats, but PRC/northern Korea offensive systems cannot be.

Lu also refused to rule out economic retaliatory measures against the impertinent RoK.  Roughly 25% of the RoK’s exports go to the PRC.  This comes, also, with the PRC’s history of economic retaliation, as it did against Japan when the Japanese successfully disputed the PRC’s attempt to seize Japan’s Senkaku Island group.

Tony Blair Misunderstands

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Great Britain’s Ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair has sensed danger from the Brits’ vote to leave the European Union.

Blair said in a Friday column in The Daily Telegraph that the future of the United Kingdom is at stake as the country faces negotiations on the terms of leaving the European Union.

Of course there’s danger—there always is when a change as large as this is embarked on.  But Great Britain didn’t get to be as great as it was and still is by being timid.  This move is a great opportunity for the nation, much more so than it is a risk, however real that risk is.

Blair also worried:

Britain is dangerously divided, with “profound dismay” felt by many of the 48 percent who wanted to remain in the EU.

He’s missing the other question, though: would Great Britain be any less divided had they voted to Remain?  Not a bit.

Look forward, not backward.