Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has adopted “moral clarity” as one of her leading slogans in her quest to gain the Republican nomination for president. This is a key intellectual concept behind the neoconservative movement which reached a peak under the presidency of George W. Bush; it is effectively a coded call to embrace a forever war in pursuit of US global primacy.
A candlelight vigil to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre was held outside Shinjuku Station on June 4, 2023, but unlike last year’s event, the lead role in organizing the memorial was taken by young mainland Chinese instead of Hongkongers.
Western experts and military officials continue to issue dates for a prospective China invasion of Taiwan. The latest such example is a prediction by US Air Force General Mike Minihan that a war will occur between the United States and China over Taiwan in 2025. This was written in a memo which was obtained by the news media.
Germany, led by Social Democratic Party (SDP) Chancellor Olaf Scholz, considers China both an essential economic partner and a “systemic rival.” This seemingly contradictory stance has produced political fractures within the coalition government, but it is part of a pragmatic geopolitical strategy.
Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are calling for increased confrontation with China, and should this party take power in next week’s midterm elections, they may exercise significant influence on US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is defending a trip to mainland China made by party Vice-Chair Andrew Hsia which provoked criticism from within the opposition party itself as well as from the Taiwanese government.
Western nations have recently taken up a mantra that claims they will never allow “changes to the status quo by force,” but when it comes to the dangerous crisis in the Taiwan Strait, it’s not entirely clear that all Western commentators even understand what the diplomatic “status quo” is all about.
As US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi departs for an Asian trip that may include a stop in Taiwan, anti-war voices are sounding the alarm over a visit they say would needlessly provoke China during a time of already heightened global tensions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In what may prove to be an escalating problem in Japan, young Chinese looking for employment in small startups and technology-related firms appear to be facing a wall of suspicion and sometimes outright racism.
The appointment of moderate Yoshimasa Hayashi as Japanese foreign minister has elicited a good deal of discussion in the Chinese news media, with voices on both sides of the Taiwan Strait trying to interpret what it means for the region in an era of heightened tensions.
