Category: Thinking About China

Helping Taiwan Defend Itself From China

Commentary The U.S. government is poised to pass a massive $6.5 billion aid bill that will release a torrent of military aid to Taiwan over the next five years. It is a substantial down payment on what could turn out to be decades of future military assistance to the island nation. The bill is critical…


Why Is a CCP-Backed Biotech Firm Operating in Various US Cities?

Commentary President Joe Biden on Sept. 12 launched a new initiative designed to funnel an unspecified amount of cash into the U.S. biotechnology industry. The initiative’s aim is simple: to make the United States more efficient and reduce dependence on communist China in the biotech space. A noble goal, no doubt. However, to beat China, a country that seeks…


Putin Is Now Xi Jinping’s Myrmidon: The Consequences of the SCO Meeting

Commentary The Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s meeting this month in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was notable for two reasons. First, it was Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s first visit outside China since the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, the meeting showed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is subordinate to China. Both are significant and reveal Xi’s growing confidence…


Sacrificing Energy Security on the Altar of Sustainability

Commentary The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have been weaponizing the federal government against their political adversaries since January 2021. Perhaps they seek to turn the U.S. federal bureaucracy into the mirror image of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing that controls every aspect of Chinese society—and one that brooks no political dissent…


RIP, Renminbi

Commentary The Chinese yuan (a.k.a. renminbi) is on pace to drop the most against the U.S. dollar in history as the world’s two biggest economies carve divergent paths in monetary policy. On Sept. 15, it broke the psychologically important 7 yuan to 1 U.S. dollar barrier. The U.S. Federal Reserve is poised to continue its…


A Perfect Storm for a Liquidity Crisis?

Commentary Efforts to curb inflation by central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve (Fed), may well trigger a liquidity crisis in the markets. That’s the assessment of University of Bath researchers, which claims that excessive anti-inflationary policies could create a money shortage within this calendar year. Moreover, it shows that central banks can be a destabilizing…


Though Fearful of China, Southeast Asia Still Prefers to Go It Alone

Commentary When the noted writer and philosopher—and ardent atheist—Voltaire lay dying, a priest was supposed to have attempted a deathbed conversion; but when the priest urged him to renounce Satan, Voltaire replied, “Now is not the time to be making enemies.” I felt a similar experience when I attended a pair of back-to-back conferences last…


Biden’s New Biotech Order

Commentary The Biden administration is boosting biotech. Big time. It’s leveraging $2 billion to turbocharge the bioeconomy in America for a market expected to add tens of trillions of dollars in value over the coming years. “Global industry is on the cusp of an industrial revolution powered by biotechnology,” according to a White House fact…


Mixed Stats Muddy the Waters

Commentary For all the debate over and ambiguity in recent statistics, the U.S. economy can only be described as weak. Economic pessimists claim it is already in recession, pointing to the last two consecutive quarters of declining real gross domestic product (GDP). The White House and members of the Democratic Party are, for obvious political…


9/11, Jan. 6, and the Real Threat to American Freedom

Commentary Every Sept. 11, America is forced to look back at the ghastly experience of that day and remember the trauma we suffered. Recalling it is painful but also necessary. We were united as one, even if only briefly. What brought us together to bear the weight of that still important historical moment? As the…