With Beijing successfully pressuring foreign airlines to stop referring to Taiwan as a separate region, and instead show the implication that it is a part of China, the issue of the island’s status is again in the news. I discussed the issue on Monocle radio 24.
I talked about the messy state of U.S. – China-Taiwan relations with Monocle Radio, which asked me about it during a visit to the island by former US Defense Secretary Ash Carter. Here’s what I said:
Making a huge statement about wanting to project military might, China is beginning sea trials of its first home built aircraft carrier, the same week it conducted exercises with its first carrier, a rebuilt Soviet ship bought from Ukraine. The country began a massive modernization program for its military in the 1990s. One catalyst was..
NewsDecoder, a non-profit startup I support aimed at getting millennials involved in the news, asked me write a few lines on China, North Korea and the United States. The original is available here. The complete text is: By David Schlesinger Pity China’s foreign policy leaders. An unpredictable, mercurial, untested, perhaps irrational leader in its neighbor,..
I took part in a new ChinaFile conversation today spinning off the US debt ceiling/government shutdown kerfuffle. The whole conversation is here. My contribution said: “The debt standoff is temporarily over, apocalypse isn’t now and everyone can take a deep breath. For China, its big dance partner, the U.S., is still too big and..