Trump and the Taiwan Gambit

By Peter Koenig

June 19, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -   Taiwan has become a new “eastern pivot” for Donald Trump. Against all international laws and UN charters, he is approaching Taiwan, as indicating to the world that regardless of the established world rules which make Beijing, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), the official and legitimate Authority of China, with Taiwan being a part of China – the self-styled emperor, Mr. Trump, pretends he prefers dealing with Taiwan as an independent country. By doing so, he intends to invite others to do likewise. Trump wants to make Taiwan an ‘ally’ – dreaming of setting up a US base on the island, thus further encircling China. It is the old game, divide to reign. But he can’t be as ignorant as to believe it will actually work. It’s just one more thing to annoy PRC. Frankly – seen from a step back, it looks more like attempting to dump one of those primitive Trumpish ‘diplomatic’ bombshells on PRC’s back. – Provoking the Dragon?

Dragons can be lethal, especially if exposed to nonstop strings of insults and debasement, attacks, and threats, sanctioned with trade wars, subjecting US$ 200 billion worth of Chinese exports into the US with 25% import tax, and, mind you, Trump just issued a new threat –raising the ante to US$ 300 billion, in case China refuses to attend the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan on 28-20 June 2019. Can you imagine – the insolence, ordering President Xi to attend the G20 summit?!? The man has indeed no manners, diplomatic or otherwise.

Trump further bragged on Monday, 10 June, that  China will make a deal with the United States “because they’re going to have to.” – And what would be the deal? He never explained. He added that “China has lost trillions of dollars since he, Trump, was elected president”.– Imagine this impunity in recklessness! – Well – surely, President Xi Jinping will not be duped or blackmailed by joker Trump.

On another front, Trump threatened Mexican’s new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, AMLO for short, with a 5% tariff on Mexican agricultural exports to the United States, if illegal immigration to the US would not stop. AMLO approached President Trump with an open letter, saying that he seeks peace and not confrontation, dialogue not war, and that AMLO’s government will do whatever is in its power to stop illegal migration to the US.

He stated, correctly, that a trade war would do more harm than good to both nations. – Trump then dropped the threat, with worldwide publicity, to make sure his ‘goodness’ is recognized the world over. However, just a few days ago, Trump threatened Mexico again with the 5% tax, in case AMLO’s promise doesn’t hold and poor Mexicans keep illegally crossing the border into the great Promised Land (no, not Israel, but the western extension of Israel).

Of course, this tariff has nothing to do with trade. It is punishment, a sheer demonstration of supremacy. And – never mind, Trump probably doesn’t understand that California’s agriculture thrives on the low-wage illegal Mexican and Central American immigrants.

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It is nevertheless amazing that the (western) world stands by and dares say NOTHING. The threats of sanctions seem to be effective. Anybody, or any nation that refuses to go along with Washington’s thuggish criminal behavior may be subject to punishment, be it by trade and / or financial sanctions, or outright military intervention. There is no international law, no rules of the community of nations, no political common sense that is respected by Trump and his handlers, and the world is afraid. Even though so far most of the threats have amounted to nothing more than ridiculous blabber and saber rattling.

More threats were thrown at Iran, with more sanctions and economic strangulations if Iran doesn’t “behave” – actually there are hardly any explanations given what “good vs. bad behavior” would mean for the US, other than Washington’s repeated empty accusations of Iran being a nuclear threat, disregarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or nuclear deal signed in 2015, freeing Iran of any further accusation of wanting to become a nuclear power (which, by the way was a farce in the first place – the subject for another essay).

This so-called nuclear deal was signed by the 5 UN Security Council members, including the US. But as we know, under pressure from Netanyahu, Trump reneged last year from the deal – and since then horrendous sanctions of economic strangulations and foreign asset confiscations – outright theft, in clear text – were imposed by the US on Iran, with ongoing pressure on the EU to do likewise. According to Trump – and his two minion mouth-pieces, Pompeo and Bolton – more are to come.

To that, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, stated that Iran will not be blackmailed and added the philosophical observation that Trumps economic wars around the globe will eventually backfire. Well, yes. Trump’s reckless playing with tariffs, sanctions and other punishments around the globe will eventually drive everybody away from dealing and trading with the US, including away from the western monetary system. It’s the silver lining of the dark-dark US cloud. It’s economics 101.

Propelled by German business interests (but at the same time limited by Washington [and Brussels] on what he is allowed to say), German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, visited Iran a few days ago to seek a compromise for Germany and other EU members to still hold on to the Nuclear Deal, because Germany’s economy wants to deal with Iran, yet, seeking concessions from Iran that may assuage Washington. But Iran’s Foreign Minister, Zarif, didn’t fall for it. The meeting ended in nothing. Good so, because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that any ally (except Israel) could do to change the Bully’s mind on Iran.

Frankly, does Trump seriously believe he possesses all that power over other world leaders? Or is he, Trump, just a convenient lackey of a force much stronger behind him, a force that controls both the Pentagon and, more importantly, the western financial and banking system – the Zionist designed western dollar-based monetary system. This Ponzi scheme has been able for the last 100 years or so – and as we witness, every day more – to usurp the world, holding it hostage, with artificially created economic booms and busts, with economic sanctions, strangulations, confiscation, with the theft of nations’ foreign assets and even their reserve funds, if they don’t bend to the will of the self-proclaimed super power USA.

Yes, it’s a fading super power, but it still has control over its forced allies and vassals – many of whom, by now are sick and tired of their ally-cum-vassal status, as they realize what their losses are. They believed in economic, diplomatic and military privileges, but are gradually awakening to reality. Progressively they see the empire as what it is, a shiny, blustering, preposterous house of cards that may come crashing down at any time. Their anger and courage of Washington’s vassalic allies is slowly raising, and they will eventually break out from their repressive situation. When that happens – and Trump is hastening that moment with his erratic ‘sanction-prone’ behavior around the world – a grand geopolitical shift for the better may take place.

With this partial backdrop of what the globe is facing – Taiwan is just becoming the latest peon in the war for preparation of Washington’s big WAR – dominating China and Russia. Making Taiwan – which is legally and by all international rules part of the PRC – a US ally and vassal, would further close the US power circle around the East Asian space. Trump may believe he is moving closer to ‘checkmate’, dominating the formidable Russia-China alliance.

With all the flattering and roses the leaders of Taiwan may get from Trump, do they realize that their role will just be that of one more enabler to enhance the empire’s dominion and increase the US’s wealth by helping it steal more of the world’s resources?

In the end, Taiwan may just become a mess, a chaotic island with lots of loose ends, with people pulling in different directions, as they realize that their government has been “bought” to give away their partial sovereignty and well-being – and they will raise up.

Taiwan, just look around the world! – The latest example being Sudan. Orchestrated chaos is controlling Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria? – And look what is being planned, so far without success, in Venezuela? – Taiwan will just be another pawn on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s legendary Grand Geopolitical Chessboard.

The US has been fomenting worldwide hostility against China and Russia for the last 100 years, and especially since WWII, intensified by the fake and false Cold War, made possible thanks to an all-western-dominating AngloZionist lie-propaganda machine.

We know about “Russia Gate”, the never-ending bashing of President Putin and Russia. The more subtle US attempts to destabilize China have started soon after China had become fully self-sufficient and autonomous, when she gradually opened her borders to integrate into the world with exports and attracting foreign investments in the 1980’s. The so-called Nixon ‘ouverture’ to China, Nixon’s one-week trip in 1972 to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, was perhaps the first attempt by Washington to use the huge Chinese market for US exports, and at the same time constraining China’s rapid and foreseeable economic growth. Indeed, China grew exponentially and in 1986 gained observer status at GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), a precursor to WTO, and started negotiating membership of the World Trade Center – of which she eventually became a member in 2001.

Trade, Chinese highly competitive exports was then – and is today – a key issue for the US goal of world hegemony. In anticipation or rather to prevent China from becoming a world economic powerhouse, Tiananmen Square protests were introduced in 1989. The leadup to the so-called massacre was a huge false flag. A student protest movement, funded by the US State Department, through the infamous NED (National Endowment for Democracy – an “NGO” specialized in “regime change” operations – see also Venezuela). The 4^thof June crackdown had been prepared months before, guided by the bloody hands of US Secret Services, CIA, NSA, and most probably MI6. The “students” had no common cause for the protest, just a sudden desire for more “freedom”, “reforming the communist party” without citing specifics they wanted reformed.

The 4^thof June 2019 anniversary of the ‘massacre’ 30 years ago, is used by the western media to propagate against Chinese “tyranny”. The news of the massacre was repeated every hour on the hour by almost all radio and TV stations throughout Europe, lest you might forget, and the too-young-to-remember – should learn and be prepared for the coming Chinese monster. That’s the goal of the corporate presstitute. And they may succeed, as sleeping people have no clue of the truth, nor are they interested in abandoning their comfort and facing the inconvenient truth.

Let’s just juxtapose the forced memory of Tiananmen Square with real atrocities being perpetrated by the west, as these lines go to press. Take Yemen, devastated by the west and its proxies, chiefly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with weapons and funding from the US, the UK and France. Yemen is a non-aggressive peaceful country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the last 4 years of this atrocious war, most of them children and women, thousands from cholera and other water and improper hygiene related diseases; two thirds of the population suffer from famine. The related death toll is in the tens of thousands. This is exacerbated by the Red Sea Port of Hudaydah, the gateway for most of Yemen’s imports, being shut by Saudi and Qatari armed forces, so that not even emergency aid enters the country. The UN calls it the largest humanitarian crisis in recent history. – You hardly hear anything in the western news about this western funded and executed atrocious mass killing.

False flags from Tiananmen Square, to 9/11, to the Ukraine Maidan, to the sporadic string of terror killings in Europe and the United States, by ISIS / IS Al-Qada and associated groups –  all funded by the empire and it’s proxies and vassals – to the more recent ‘regime change’ or Color Revolution type protests in Hong Kong, the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 and street protests of the last week, with thousands of protesters in the street against a Beijing initiated extradition law to be introduced by Hong Kong’s legislation – are all US / western instigated, funded and guided so as to provoke and destabilize China.  And foremost, demonize China in the eyes of the western world. Most western countries have extradition laws for criminals to be turned over to the jurisdiction of the country where they may have committed the crime. But that’s not mentioned by the corporate lie-propaganda.

These permanent aggressions against the world power China – a world power with a pacific non-expansive life philosophy, could badly backfire. Just imagine, Beijing may eventually get sick and tired of Washington and its vassal-allies meddling in PRC’s internal affairs, could easily repeal Hong Kong’s semi autonomy and incorporate the city fully into the territory of the PRC – complete with Chinese laws, obligations and benefits. As simple as that. What would Washington do? What would the west do? – Scream murder? – Well, they do that already, so it couldn’t be much worse. A military aggression on China? – Hardly. The West wouldn’t dare. Attacking China is attacking Russia. There is a strong alliance between the two countries, one that was made even stronger by several new agreements signed between Presidents Putin and Xi during the recent St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Similar provocations are planned and take place with Taiwan. In April 2019 the US sent two destroyers into the Taiwan Straits, claimed by mainland China as their territorial waters. Germany – which according to their armistice status’ obligation of non-confrontation and non-aggression – is considering sending a war ship to join the US and French warships in an attempt to demonstrate to the world that these are international waters.

What if such provocations, rather than gathering more world recognition of Taipei’s self-styled autonomy, they prompt President Xi Jinping to close in on Taiwan and actually absorb the island as a PRC owned territory? This would just conform to what Taiwan nominally already is since 25 October 1971, when the UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 declared The Peoples Republic of China as the sole legal China.

Switch to another corner of the world with a different but very much connected scenario. Early this morning, 13 June, in the Strait of Oman, about 25 km from the coast of Iran, a Japanese-owned and a Norwegian oil tanker (the owner of which is an old friend of Iran’s) were attacked. Explosions and fire broke out, some seamen were injured, and 44 were actually rescued in the Gulf of Oman by Iranian ships. As of now, it is not clear what happened and who the perpetrators were. Never mind, Pompeo immediately accused Iran for the attacks – and keeps doing so, stating falsely that video evidence – never offered to be seen by the public – showed it was Iran. Why would Iran attack a Japanese oil tanker, while Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is visiting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Thursday, the very day of the attacks, for talks to maintain the treaties of the Nuclear Deal?

World! Let’s face it. Only an idiot will believe that the world is idiotic enough to believe that Iranians are so idiotic as to attack foreign vessels in the Gulf, clients and friends of Iran. If this smells like a false flag – it is a false flag. Carried out by whom? Could be the Saudis, Israel, the Emirates, Mossad, the CIA, MI6… any one of the puppet allies of the emperor.

People, where are we going? – As a result of this incident oil prices rose immediately by up to 4% for fear that worse might happen, namely that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz through which about 25% of the world’s hydrocarbon are shipped. A closure could have oil prices jump to USD$ 200 / barrel or more – and sink the world in the worst recession of recent history. In the meantime, Wall Street bankers, notably Goldman Sachs, who have ample experience with oil price manipulation, are already playing with oil futures which under such a scenario could bring them hundreds of billions while the rest of the world goes belly up.

On another, but very much related topic: Many, especially unaligned countries, are losing trust in the US and especially in the US-dollar. They are quietly switching their reserves to Chinese yuans and / or gold. Trump’s handlers know about it. They may be contemplating as a last resort a new kind of gold standard. Losing out on dollar hegemony is one of the reasons they are pushing The Donald into a trade war with China. The (US) expectation is that a trade war with China would debase the Chinese currency, thereby discredit it and make it unattractive as a reserve money.

Creating a conflict between PRC and Taiwan, might, from a US point of view, have the same effect, degrading the yuan, in addition to bringing other Asian countries on board, those who are themselves worried about their territorial waters, i.e. the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia.

And yet, in an opposite corner of the world, namely in the swamp of Washington, the same Pompeo who just found another reason to increase sanctions on Iran, is utterly upset that his plans in Venezuela didn’t work out, because the stupid opposition cannot unite, cannot be trusted. That would leave only the ‘military option’ on the table – but that military option is too risky with Venezuela being supported by her strong allies, Russia and China.

Friends – what you must be aware of – all the dots of conflicts, wars, threats, harassments, false flags, sanctions and otherwise punishments, lies and lies and lies around the world, are dots that must be connected. Only then you get the Big Picture – and to understand the Big Picture is crucial. It is at once hilarious for the phantasy it portrays and catastrophic for the danger it presents. For the owners of this Big Picture, the Washington Swamp and Israel, it represents the illusion and desire to achieve the US-Pentagon-Banking plan – within the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), a wishful thinking of Full Spectrum Dominance.

This Big Picture is best portrayed by Chris Black’s latest master piece: TThis Outlaw Power: America’s Intent is to Dominate China, Russia and the World –

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^stCentury; TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig  is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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