CHINESE WAY OF LIFE

Last month China made headlines around the world for announcing it had built a fully functioning 1,500 room hospital in just five days. This remarkable feat of engineering and logistics was executed in response to a Covid-19 surge in Nangong, a city in Hebei province. It recalled a time earlier in the pandemic, when workers in Wuhan erected a 1,000-bed hospital in a little over a week. Right now, even in the teeth of Coronavirus, China’s energetic builders are not only creating hospitals at breakneck pace, but moving startlingly quickly in the spheres of high speed rail, bridge-building and skyscraper construction. So today we’re putting on our hard hats and asking exactly how does China build so fast? China’s modern economic boom is little short of dazzling. Ballooning national prosperity has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, urbanised its citizenry faster than any other civilisation in human history, and created some pretty awesome infrastructure projects along the way. Not least the world’s largest dam, the world’s biggest airport and a veritable forest of shiny new skyscrapers.

PETER KOENIG—These “green” investments have not even come close to a zero-carbon balance. To the contrary. The production of “green investments” used generally hydrocarbon, which lowers the energy efficiency drastically. This is clearly demonstrated in the low energy efficiency of electric cars, on average 35% to 40%, versus cars using straight petrol or gas-based energy.

Gen. Kao said that Taiwan lost its military advantage in the 1980s and China’s economic boom has led to great advancements in its military strength. He claimed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is no longer the version seen in the 1950s and ’60s and called on “brothers from the three armed services” to show “loyalty and filial piety” to China. He added “the time is right” for generals leading the three branches of Taiwan’s military to “stand up and set things right.” Kao alleged that Taiwan’s “hard-won democracy and freedom have been destroyed by the DPP.”

Kao urged Taiwan’s generals to rise up “for the sake of national righteousness” and to “save the people of Taiwan from turmoil.” In an apparent reference to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Kao said that when “D-Day” arrives, Taiwan’s armed forces “must respond by overthrowing this DPP scam ring in one fell swoop.”

In this video, Keybros dissect the differences between Chinese and Western diplomatic thought. Within the historical context of China’s interactions with the West since the Xin Chou Treaty (Boxer Protocol) of 1901, we analyse the origins and philosophical foundations of Chinese Confucian diplomacy and American foreign policy. In tandem with quotes from contemporary politicians from both countries, e.g. US President Joe Biden and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, we seek to present how Chinese history and humanism has shaped Chinese diplomatic thought; on the other hand, we also lay out our interpretation of Western/American Exceptionalism.

After putting up with nearly four years of relentlessly provocative assaults from the US, China has made a decisive, historic change in its approach to bilateral relations. The two high-level meetings in Anchorage and Tianjin will be seen as watersheds marking Beijing’s genuine pushback to Washington’s trademark bullying — a turn from defensive to full counteroffensive mode.