We wouldn’t usually use the term "normal" to evaluate economic platforms, but – as with much of what the top of the Republican ticket have offered – Trump’s own policy prescriptions can only be described with the word that Democrats have used effectively against his party: weird.
Tag: Joe Biden
Does the GOP know that Tsai Ing-wen loves cats?
The only foreign policy insight we can draw so far is that a Trump-Vance White House would balk at defending Taiwan if it were to be attacked by mainland China owing to the fact that a childless woman known for her love of cats – former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen – remains a politically influential figure on the island after governing it for eight years.
Kudos to Pottinger and Gallagher, on at least one point, sort of
There’s one valid criticism of Biden’s China policy that Matt Pottinger and Mike Gallagher skimmed over in a way that shows how, despite keeping a distance from the Republican Party’s authoritarian extremes, they are unable to completely break free. The US must get into CPTPP.
China manages to forge ahead with an addictive app while America tears itself apart
Supporters of the TikTok bill need to ask themselves how an algorithm developed in China came to dominate America’s social media landscape, a question that is getting lost in the political slugfest surrounding the app.
If you understand Biden’s strategy, you know the “dictator” comment was also aimed at Trump
Having stood by his assertion that Xi is a dictator, Biden has solidified the ground he stands on going into the election when he portrays Trump as the same.
Xi arrives for the Republican Party’s transformation into Visigoths
When a political party undergoes such a dramatic transformation, it needs a new name. I suggest “Visigoth Patriot Party”. Trump, Johnson and the movement they represent would love the Germanic link, and there was that whole episode where the Visigoths sacked and looted Rome.
Kick China while it’s down? Lift democracy first.
(Originally published here in the South China Morning Post on October 2, 2023.) “What are things we could do to kick [China] while they’re down?” The question was posed by Randall Schriver, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), during one of the body’s hearings in August, and reflected one that’s probably on [...]
On economic growth and environmental decline
The American right will call this a “woke” conspiracy. Let them. Their message will be lost in the smoke of our burning forests.
With GOP lawmaker’s ‘great mistake’ comment, we see the party isn’t entirely unmoored
Trump’s characterisation of his withdrawal from the TPP as “a great thing for the American worker” was as fallacious as his assertion that the trade war he started with Beijing in 2018 would bring jobs back to the US and cut the country’s trade deficit with China.
Finding the footpath through an incinerated forest
(Originally published here on November 7, 2022 in the South China Morning Post.) No US State Department or National Security Council press briefing is complete these days without an attempt to get confirmation that Joe Biden and Xi Jinping will meet in person as presidents for the first time at the G20 summit in Indonesia this month. [...]
The Wounded Muse 