作者別: RG21管理者

By Bill Lee

James Comey, the former FBI director fired by Donald Trump, is a unique public figure in America for being reviled by both liberal Democrats and Trumpian Republicans. He’s hated of course by Clinton Democrats for announcing 11 days before the presidential election that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Clinton’s e-mails, thus generating enough adverse publicity against Clinton to tip the election to Trump, or so Clintonites believe. Trumpians hate Comey because he revealed that Trump tried to make him end the FBI’s investigation into Michael Flynn, that, and his subsequent firing, possible causes for obstruction of justice charges against Trump,

So who is James Comey? In his recently published book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, Comey portrays himself as an apolitical civil servant whose only interest is preserving the integrity of the FBI and the values at the core of the American enterprise. He prosecuted Martha Stewart for insider trading because she lied, and resisted the George W. Bush administration’s torture policy because it was inhumane. He announced the reopening of the Clinton e-mail investigation because concealing it would have been unethical.

Comey can be a good story teller. His narratives describing his youth, career as a prosecutor, and defense of the then Attorney General John Ashcroft as he lay seriously ill in a hospital bed from the attempts of Bush administration officials to make him sign an authorization for continuing their torture policy are compelling and read well. He does less well with his sermons about the majesty of the FBI. However, Comey comes across as quite believable. Despite his showmanship, which he himself recognizes, Comey seems like a pleasant, honest fellow, whose accounts of his meetings with Trump are surely more believable than Trump’s denials. There is much to recommend in the book, not the least of which are his descriptions of Trump’s manic, egocentric, stream-of-consciousness discourse. The key theme in the book is leadership, what it is and what it isn’t. Comey makes clear that Trump is the antithesis of a true leader. Comey prides himself on his leadership of the FBI; don’t be surprised if he tries for a run at public office as an independent.

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By Bill Lee

Is a trade war between China and the United States looming? For all his switching  of positions, Donald Trump has been very consistent for decades in decrying America’s trade imbalances, which he views as unfair to America and a lessening of its strength. In the area of tariffs, liberal Democrats are with Trump because the tariffs, presumably, protect American blue-collar workers. Republicans like free, no-tariffs trade. Rather than a battle between liberals and conservatives, though, right-wing nativist and Trump supporter Steve Bannon sees this as a battle between “globalists” and “nationalists.”

The debate now is about which side would win a trade war, the United States or China. Those who claim China would win cite the likely loss of lucrative value-added exports from America to China such as Boeing jets or iphones as well as agricultural products like soybeans and beef. Walmart products like clothing and electrical goods would also become more expensive for hard-pressed American consumers.

Those who claim America would win a trade war with China assert as reasons the great dependence China has on the US market, the fragility of the Chinese economy relative to the US economy, and the greater size of the American economy. Those opposed to those views say that China can simply sell its electronic and other mid-tech goods to developing regions like India, Latin America, and Africa. 

The key point seems to be that China could weather and possibly prevail in a trade war with the US but that it would require a redirection of Chinese exports, which will be feasible in the long run but hard work in the short term. In other words, rather than risk a trade war, China could simply make a few concessions to the United States about its own tariffs on American goods, knowing full well that it will more than make up for any short-term temporary losses in the long term.

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By Bill Lee

It looks as if Japan is giving up the domestic development of its next-generation fighter jet to replace its aging F-15 fighters. Reuters first reported in November last year that the Ministry of Defense was having doubts about domestic development of an F-3 air superiority fighter. It reported that the MOD would delay a decison until 2018 or beyond, which would be the death knell for domestic production since such a project could not be included in the next five-year defense plan starting from 2019.

The dropping of the plan for domestic developmen will be a blow to Japan’s domestic defense industry, particularly to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. There were apparently three options for MOD: develop a 5th-generation fighter domestically, jointly develop a fighter jet with an internatinoal partner, or upgrade the current F-2 fighters. The first option would involve staggering costs (a $40 billion dollar initial price tag) and the technical challenge of developing systems for a next-generation fighter aircraft. Reuters quoted an official as saying, “All we have now is a flying box,” without the necessory weapons and avionics systems. The second option will basically mean reworking an existing foreign, i.e., US or European, fighter plane. The third option is not attractive, given the obvious caps on performance capability.

Japan strongly wanted the F-22 Raptor, which has unparalled stealth and performance capabilities, but the US wouldn’t sell them to Japan. Now that the Chinese have unveilied their J-20 stealth fighter jets, Japan is under pressure to procure high-performance next-generations fighter jets that can ensure air superiority as well as have top-notch anti-ship capabilities.  It looks as if Japan will acquire more F-35As, which have good all-around capabilities, with some STOLV F-35Bs also in the mix.

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By Bill Lee

In his new book, The Art of the Deal, Kim Jong Un will undoubtedly posit this as the first rule for a successful negotiation: In order to ensure victory, negotiate with someone desperate to negotiate.

According to news reports, when the South Korean security officials were briefing President Trump at the White House and relayed Kim Jong Un’s supposed invitation for a meeting, Trump immediately accepted without asking for details, stunning the South Koreans.

Every political leader knows that when things become sticky for them, the best way out is to distract. In Trump’s case, the bad headlines were strangling his presidency, including the failure of son-in-law Jared Kushner to get a top security clearance, the firing of a valuable aide for spousal abuse, and, of course, the simmering scandal of the porn actress, Stormy Daniels.

If Trump, by meeting Kim Jong Un, can, like some idiot savant, bring about an amazing denuclearization of North Korea and peace on the Korean Peninsula, he deserves a second term as president and maybe the Nobel Peace Prize.

But what will he have to give up? The North Korean leaders have always said that they want to negotiate directly with Washington and want a guarantee from the United States that America won’t attack them. That means signing a peace treaty. Concluding a peace treaty would naturally mean establishing diplomatic ties with North Korea, which means recognizing the legitimacy of the Kim dynasty and thus avoiding any interfence in their domestic affairs, such as their human rights abuses.

Trump is likely blissfully unaware of the complexities involved in these negotiations with North Korea, including coordinating the conditions being negotiated with the harsher conditions Trump is demanding for the Iran nuclear deal, which he has called “the worst deal ever.”

With the naming of Mike Pompeo as the new secretary of state, who is very hawkish towards North Korea and Iran, it is even more unlikely that real progress will be made with North Korea, or that a Kim-Trump summit will happen any time soon.

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By Bill Lee

China has apparently decided to go all in on President Xi Jinping with the CPC’s decision to abolish term limits for the president. It is not much of a surprise, though the early timing caught some off guard; however, it is natural the decision would come before Xi enters a lame-duck second term. 

Xi has been masterful in consolidating his power by reforming the military to put control of it in his hands, eliminating rivals through the anti-corruption campaign, stifling dissent and reverting to a conservative-leaning moral education in schools, stimulating nationalist pride by turning coral reefs into military bases in the South China Sea, launching the ambitious One-Belt, One-Road initiative, and getting himself written into the Chinese Constitution. The icing on the cake may have been the ludicrous chaos of the Trump administration, which has made many Chinese see Western liberal democracy, as supposedly exemplified by the United States, as not necessarily the ideal model for governance. 

China is making a big bet, though, on just one man. The allure of an autocratic leader is that, if he is good, such a leader has the power to accomplish a lot. The problem of course is that as the years go by and the leader becomes ossified and inert, there is no easy way, short of a nationwide rebellion, to get rid of him. But if most people, even in the United States, had their druthers about whom they would accept as a leader for life, Donald Trump or Xi Jinping, most I think would pick the latter. 

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Photo by Maria Barina via Flickr