Category: Thinking About China

Does China Only Have 10 Years Left Before It Implodes?

Commentary During a recent interview with Joe Rogan, the geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan made a rather stunning comment. China, he said, only has 10 years left. A decade left to do what, exactly? In short, disappear. Due to the country’s ticking demographic time bomb, the ballooning property bubble, anti-lockdown protests, and high unemployment rates among…


Democracy as an Identity in Hong Kong

Commentary Not all Hongkongers celebrate the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to mainland China on July 1. Some prefer the Hong Kong Festival on Jan. 26, the day that marked the beginning of British rule as the British navy landed on Hong Kong island in 1841. The tenth Hong Kong Festival, held this…


The US Marines in Japan: Stiffening Island Defenses

Commentary The U.S. Marines, particularly its presence on Okinawa, has often seemed the bellwether of the Japan-U.S. defense relationship. And it’s usually been problematic. But recently, there was good news involving the Marines. At the “2+2 Meeting” of top Japanese and American defense and foreign affairs officials in Washington on Jan. 11, it was agreed…


The Red Sea Change of Command

Commentary The “new Cold War” is not yet as clearly delineated as Cold War I, but new strategic shapes are definitely emerging. One of those patterns is in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, where the United States and Egypt are being outmaneuvered. Russia, China, and others are gaining traction over arguably the…


Has Policy in Beijing Turned a Corner?

Commentary Authorities in Beijing seem eager to signal a change in policy. They want, or so the signals imply, to take reform beyond the abandonment of zero-COVID, jumpstart China’s still-stalled economy, and also improve strained diplomatic relations with the West. If the change involves a relaxation of the authoritarian, statist trend of recent years, people…


Kevin McCarthy Squares Up Against the ‘World’s Largest Bully’—China

Commentary The People’s Liberation Army flew 34 aircraft near Taiwan on Tuesday and Wednesday. Twenty of them crossed the “median line,” the de facto border running down the Taiwan Strait between China and Taiwan. The Chinese military also sent nine vessels near Taiwan, the island republic that Beijing claims as its own. Global Times, a…


The WEF Wants to Hack Your Brain

Commentary Once an idea reserved for the pages of dystopian sci-fi novels, brain hacking is already here. The elites in Davos appear to be interested in harnessing this technology to further their questionable agenda. At a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) presentation, those in attendance were told that attempts to decode the human brain was…


The Rise and Fall of Communist China: Part 2

Commentary The Chinese regime has been on the rise ever since former President Richard Nixon’s “opening” of China in 1972. Some of the accomplishments of the Chinese—as heavily subsidized by foreign investment over the years—were discussed in part I of this two-part series. The complete reversal of Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy has exposed both the…


Chinese Spy Balloons Over America

Commentary  For much of the Cold War, the Air Defense Command was a significant component of the Air Force. At any one time, hundreds of jet interceptors, many with nuclear missiles, were on alert around the country to take off within minutes to challenge any unknown aircraft attempting to enter the American Air Defense Identification…


Communist China’s Balloons Preview Its Hegemonic Ambitions

Commentary For about three years, China has been using stratospheric balloons to harass our allies and now to violate United States territory, sparking shock among Americans and tragicomic indecision by the Biden administration. But the larger issue is that these balloons signal a new phase in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambition to achieve political-military…