Beware China's Inroads into the Atlantic

From trade deals to bases, Beijing is taking advantage of Washington's diminished presence.

By Michael Rubin


In 1971, the Bamboo Curtain fractured as an American ping pong team entered China, becoming the first official American delegation to visit China in more than twenty years. 

Contrary to popular wisdom, it was not the team’s visit that led to the breakthrough, however. 

In White House Years, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that the iconic moment did not initiate relations but followed months of secret diplomacy. 

The Chinese communist government had murdered tens of millions of its own citizens and fought U.S. troops directly on the Korean Peninsula less than two decades before, but the prerogatives of realism were at play. 

The growing Soviet threat gave the United States and the People’s Republic of China a common interest.
Sino-American relations developed across administrations. 

Jimmy Carter formally recognized the People’s Republic—withdrawing formal recognition from the Republic of China in Taiwan in the process. 

Over subsequent years, trade with China increased exponentially. 

The United States even provided China with dual-use technology and welcomed Chinese observers to watch operations aboard U.S. aircraft carriers.
Perhaps in hindsight, the Nixon administration’s outreach to China was not a good thing. 

Today, China is more a military threat than a force for peace. 

It is now clear that Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw China’s tremendous economic growth, was less a reformer than an enabler for Xi Jinping’s militancy and the Chinese communist party’s revisionist quest to fundamentally remake the post-World War II order.
Most U.S. threat assessments focus on Chinese aggression in its neighborhood. 

Could China invade Taiwan? 

How much farther will China push in the South China Sea? 

Could China’s claim to the Senkaku Islands lead to conflict with Japan? 

Could China flip traditional Western allies Philippines, Thailand, or even Turkey? 

Could a China-Pakistan axis provoke conflict with India? 

What does the Belt and Road initiative mean for Central Asia and the Indian Ocean basin? 

The Pentagon also worries about direct Chinese asymmetric leaps such as hypersonic missiles, anti-satellite missiles, and carrier killer missiles.
A legacy of both the Obama and Trump administrations may be collectively letting America’s guard down in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean. 

It was during the Obama administration that China flipped many Latin American countries from Taiwan’s camp into China’s. 

China now operates ports at either end of the Panama Canal and may convert a former U.S. Air Force base into another port. 

In December 2018, Xi visited the Canal to inaugurate new locks. 

Chinese leverage over the Canal will tremendously impede the ability of U.S. ships and submarines to transit to the Pacific during a crisis.
The Obama administration for a bevy of bureaucratic and budgetary—rather than strategic reasons—has largely abandoned Lajes Field in the Azores, an archipelago approximately 1,000 miles from the coast of Portugal and 2500 miles from the East Coast of the United States. 

According to a September 20, 2016, letter sent by Rep. Devin Nunes, at the time chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to then-Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter:
Several high-ranking Chinese officials have visited the Azores in recent years, and I now understand that China has sent a delegation there of nearly twenty officials, all fluent in Portuguese, on a several weeks-long fact-finding expedition, to culminate in a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. 

The Chinese delegation is in negotiations to expand China’s investments and its overall presence on the islands, including in the shipping port on Terceira, and they have also expressed interest in using the runway at Lajes Field.
Nunes was not engaged in hyperbole. 

When I traveled around Terceira, one of the larger islands in the Azores, taxi drivers, shopkeepers, and hoteliers were still talking about the Chinese visit, as well as port developments.
Beijing is also lengthening the main airport’s runway and building a port in São Tomé and Príncipe, an island nation off Africa’s west coast. 

China is also reaching out to Cape Verde, another African island nation, which has recently joined Beijing’s Belt-and-Road initiative.
From 1951 until 2006, the United States stationed up to five thousand men at Naval Air Station Keflavik, which was also a major anti-submarine warfare center to monitor Soviet submarines seeking to enter the North Atlantic. 

While the Navy is returning P-8A Poseidon submarine hunters to Iceland—perhaps an acknowledgment of the George W. Bush administration’s shortsightedness in shuttering it in the first place, the U.S. presence remains a shadow of its former self. 

China, meanwhile, is cultivating Iceland by trading business and finance for diplomatic inroads into the Arctic.
Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a trip to Greenland as he returned to Washington to handle the growing Iran crisis. 

His plans to restore a U.S. diplomatic presence in Greenland are wise, however, given how China is contesting the world’s largest non-continental island which, while an autonomous Danish territory, is physiographically part of North America. 

The distance between the Greenlandic capital Nuuk and Washington, DC is just two thousand miles, less than the distance between Beijing and New Delhi.

In October 2018, the Danish Institute for International Studies issued a paper on growing Chinese interests in Greenland, including on rare earth mineral mining. 

Yang Jiang, its author, noted that while Greenlandic authorities often dealt directly with Chinese companies rather than the Chinese government, “the Chinese companies always align themselves with Chinese government policy, irrespective of whether they are state-owned or private.” 

A January 2018 Chinese white paper on Arctic policy made clear that China was unhappy with the status quo and sought to be a major Arctic stakeholder as China expanded its shipping routes and mineral exploitation. 

The possibility that China would encourage Greenlandic independence—not withstanding its opposition to a similar right for Taiwan, Tibet, or Xinjiang—remains a topic of discussion in Chinese strategic and think tank circles.
In isolation, China’s actions in the Atlantic might appear innocent. 

Taken together, it appears that China seeks wholesale entry into the North Atlantic, a region that American policymakers have long believed immune from Chinese ambitions or interest. 

China may not seek formal bases in the region but, given how its companies often build commercial port and airfields to military specification, strategists in Beijing may at a minimum seek to disrupt U.S. operations in America’s own backyard. 

Xi and senior Chinese officials must find it reassuring that a decade of successive U.S. administrations are making it easy for China to get its Atlantic foothold.

China’s growing influence in Latin America is a threat to our way of life

• In countries just a few hundred miles away China is taking every opportunity it can to gain influence and exert control.
• Latin America is the new battleground in the greatest geopolitical conflict of our time.

By Rick Scott

Chinese Cosco Shipping Rose container ship sails the newly inaugurated Cocoli locks, during the visit of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, in the Panama Canal, on December 3, 2018.

Last month I traveled to Panama, Colombia and Argentina. 

The purpose of my trip was to get an update on the fight for freedom and liberty in Venezuela, to highlight the important economic relationships between Latin America and my state of Florida and to continue building on the progress made to stop narco-trafficking.
On all of those fronts we made important progress and had great conversations about the future.
I came away with another impression that I, quite honestly, hadn’t expected. 

But it’s one that is stark and unmistakable. 

All across Latin America, we’re seeing the creeping influence of China in our hemisphere.
We know that China is a bad actor. 

China is not our friend. 

China sees the United States as its global adversary and is taking the steps necessary to win the great power conflict of the 21st Century.
We know they’ve been stealing our technology and our intellectual property. 

We know they manipulate their currency. 

We know they’ve been developing bases in the South China Sea. 

We know they’ve flooded the United States with dangerous fentanyl. 

We know their state sponsored technology companies like ZTE and Huawei have been accused of fraud, violating the Iran sanctions and stealing intellectual property. 

We know China consistently violates human rights. 

We know that China suppresses freedom of speech.
We know what China is. 

And yet, how many Americans realize that in countries just a few thousand miles (and in some cases a few hundred miles) away, China is taking every opportunity it can to gain influence and exert control. 

Latin America is the new battleground in the greatest geopolitical conflict of our time.
In Panama, the Chinese government is building its own port in Colon to exert more control over international trade between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres and drive out competition. 

Street restaurants in Panama have menus in English, Spanish and – you guessed it – Chinese.
Meanwhile, Colombia is experiencing a mass-influx of refugees from Venezuela. 

Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro’s policies are not only causing the deaths of thousands of his own people, he’s also created a refugee crisis with millions of Venezuelans fleeing his brutal regime. Most have gone to Colombia, which is struggling to keep up with the migration.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping knows what Maduro is doing to his own people. 

He knows that he’s intentionally starving them, that he’s using Cuban security forces to harass dissidents and beat children in the streets. 

Xi doesn’t care. 

China is a willing participant in Maduro’s genocide.
China continues to prop up the Maduro regime, along with Cuba, Russia and Iran. 

Why? 

It’s pretty simple. 

Venezuela, before the tyranny of Hugo Chavez and Maduro, was an economic hub with huge reserves of oil and other natural resources. 

It can become that again and China wants in on the ground floor.
Even after the revelations of their dubious dealings, Maduro announced that Venezuela would make major investments in Huawei and ZTE despite not being able to even feed his own people. 

China’s support for Maduro is already paying off for them.
Almost 3,000 miles due south of Bogota, in Argentina, China is set to build a nuclear facility after signing an agreement with President Mauricio Macri. 

The deal includes a $10 billion loan from China.
Make no mistake. 

This is not by accident. 

Everything China does is on purpose. 

And right now, under our very noses, its purpose is to gain a foothold in Latin America by any means necessary, even if it means propping up ruthless dictators.
Politicians too rarely look at anything besides what’s directly in front of them. 

It’s hard for them to look beyond next week, let alone beyond the next election. 

So, I’ll say something that very few people are willing to say. 

The so-called trade war with China is causing some pain in our country right now.
I believe some short-term pain is worth it if we’re taking real steps to combat the greatest geopolitical foe we have. 

If we take a stand against China now, American businesses and American consumers will come out on top. 

Our manufacturing sector will be stronger. 

America will export more products. 

Our trade secrets will be protected. 

The average American consumer will benefit.
If we don’t face this threat head-on right now, we will still face it eventually. 

But if we wait, we’ll be in a much weaker position than we are now. 

China will just continue to walk all over us.
I think President Donald Trump is doing the right thing by standing up to China now. 

But there’s another step that we can all take to stem the tide of China’s growing influence in Latin America and around the world – support American businesses.
American taxpayers are funding China’s aggression every day. 

Every time we buy a product “made in China” we are putting another dollar into the pocket of the people stealing our technology, denying their people basic human rights and supporting genocide in Venezuela. 

It’s time to take a stand.
In my state, we take immense pride in products “Made in Florida.” 

It’s a driving force that led to our incredible economic turnaround. 

A return to this pride in home-grown businesses and products ensures America remains strong as the undisputed leader of the global economy.
I’m committed to supporting American businesses over Chinese products. 

I hope you’ll join me.
Washington politicians have let this happen. 

They’re too concerned with short-term political success and have ignored the long-term threats to our way of life. 

It needs to end, and it needs to end now.

Panama the new flashpoint in China's growing presence in Latin America

A spat over the site of China’s embassy has underlined the strategic value of the canal – through which two-thirds of ships to or from the US pass
By Mat Youkee in Panama City

Jutting four kilometres into the Pacific, the Amador causeway islands separate the concrete and glass skyline of Panama City from the entrance to the Panama Canal. 

Jutting four kilometres into the Pacific, the Amador causeway islands separate the concrete and glass skyline of Panama City from the soaring iron arch of the Bridge of the Americas – under which 40 cargo ships pass each day en route to or from the Panama Canal.
Linked to the mainland by a slender causeway, these strategic outcrops are home to a handful of derelict buildings once used to house US military personnel.
But they have become a new flashpoint in the global rivalry between Beijing and Washington, as the US struggles to develop a coherent strategy to deal with China’s rising influence in Latin America.

China’s plans to build a new embassy on the islands were derailed after US officials pressured the government of Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, to withdraw its offer of a four-hectare plot, according to senior Panamanian and diplomatic sources.
“Of course there was pushback from the US: they weren’t going to allow a huge Chinese flag next to the entrance to the canal,” a diplomatic source told the Guardian. 

“But local pressure was also important. Handing over that land to the Chinese would have been a hugely unpopular move by the Varela government.”
Panama’s government has insisted that the decision was based on security and environmental concerns.
But a previous plan to build a new Chinese embassy in the traditional diplomatic district of Panama City was also blocked by objections from Washington, and Beijing has now established a temporary mission in an office block.
The incident may prove to be a pyrrhic victory for Washington, however. 

This weekend, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping arrives in Panama for a visit aimed at cementing ties with the Central American nation.
It will be the first such visit by a senior Chinese figure since Panama cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan to open formal relations with Beijing in June 2017.
Since then, the two countries have signed 28 diplomatic and investment agreements, a $500m renminbi-denominated “Panda” bond is expected before the end of the year and Chinese contractors have won major contracts for a port, convention centre and a new bridge over the canal.
The growth of Chinese investment and influence in the country has been the source of growing unease in Washington.

President Juan Carlos Varela, left, and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, talk at the presidential palace in Panama City. 

In July, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, ended a visit to Panama with the warning that “when China comes calling, it’s not always to the good of your citizens”. 

He added that state-run Chinese firms operated with political, rather than market-driven motives.
Xi’s visit comes amid an escalating trade war between China and the US, which has highlighted Panama’s strategic importance as a pinch-point of world commerce.
Two-thirds of ships to or from the US pass through the Panama Canal – which was an unincorporated territory of the US between 1903 and 1979 and was home to dozens of American military installations.
“Recent rhetoric from Washington suggests the US has not accepted that the canal has shifted from being a military asset to a commercial one,” said Eddie Tapiero, a competitive intelligence specialist for the Panama Canal Authority and author of a new book on China-Panama relations. 

Negotiations for a free trade agreement between China and Panama are at an advanced stage; Panamanian officials say the country can benefit from its growing role as a regional logistics hub, build its exports to China and protect local farmers.
“We will become the gateway for Chinese goods into Latin America,” the trade minister, Augusto Arosemena, told the Guardian. 

“I think Panama will be an example of how smaller countries can negotiate with China.”
Meanwhile, the US has been caught flatfooted: diplomats were unaware of Varela’s decision to establish ties with Beijing until hours before its announcement and the state department has yet to name a replacement for John Feeley, who stood down as ambassador in March.

In recent years, Beijing has shown growing interest in strategic infrastructure projects in the region: Chinese companies are involved in a project to build a rival interoceanic canal through Nicaragua and investigated the option of a “dry canal” railroad linking Colombia’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts.
Some Panamanians are also wary of Bejing’s intentions, said Euclides Tapia, a professor of international relations at the University of Panama. 

“The Chinese are here for the long term – and they’ve come for the canal,” he said.

Chinese Peril

U.S. Recalls Top Diplomats From Latin America as Worries Rise Over China’s Influence

By Edward Wong

Jean Manes, ambassador to El Salvador, is one of three diplomats in Latin America who have been recalled to Washington.

WASHINGTON — The United States has recalled three chiefs of mission from Latin American nations that cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of recognizing China.
The move comes as American officials have expressed growing unease over China’s rising influence in the region.
The diplomats, who represent the United States in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama, will meet with leaders in Washington “to discuss ways in which the United States can support strong, independent, democratic institutions throughout Central America and the Caribbean,” a spokeswoman for the State Department, Heather Nauert, said in a written statement on Friday.
For decades, Taiwan and China have competed for recognition. 

In 1979, the United States switched its support and officially established sovereign relations with China, and many other countries followed. 

But Washington has supported any decisions by nations to continue recognizing Taiwan, a self-governing island that China wants to bring under Communist Party rule.
In recent years, China has had success in courting Taiwan’s diplomatic partners. 

Only 17 nations recognize Taiwan; outside the Vatican and Swaziland, they are all islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean or countries in Latin America.
American officials have expressed growing concern over the shift. 

The United States sells arms to Taiwan and maintains a diplomatic presence there, called the American Institute in Taiwan, now housed in a new $250 million compound. 

American officials see Taiwan’s de facto independence as an important hedge against Chinese dominance in the Asia-Pacific region — what the United States now calls the Indo-Pacific as it tries to strengthen ties with South Asian nations to balance against China.
Last month, El Salvador severed ties with Taiwan, prompting the White House to accuse China of “apparent interference” in El Salvador’s domestic politics. 

American officials fear that the four nations in Central America that still recognize Taiwan — Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua — could soon follow. 

Last May, Burkina Faso switched recognition to China, leaving Swaziland as the lone holdout in Africa.
In June 2017, Panama cut ties with Taiwan, which surprised the United States government. 

The American ambassador to Panama at the time, John Feeley, said he learned about the switch from the president, Juan Carlos Varela, only an hour or so before Varela announced it, and only because he had called Varela to discuss an unrelated matter.
Mr. Feeley, who left his post in March and is now a consultant for Univision, said in an interview on Saturday that the recall of top American diplomats was significant.
The diplomats returning to Washington are Robin Bernstein, ambassador to the Dominican Republic; Jean Manes, ambassador to El Salvador; and Roxanne Cabral, the chargé d’affaires in Panama. 

A State Department official said they would return to their posts by Sept. 14.

Wang Yi, center, China’s foreign minister, and Hugo Martinez, right, El Salvador’s foreign minister, at a conference in Santiago, Chile. Last month, El Salvador severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of recognizing China.

The move “is an appropriate and serious signal by the U.S. government to those three countries and to the Chinese government that it is now reviewing the implications of the diplomatic switch and is worried that U.S. interests could be jeopardized,” Mr. Feeley said.
“My sense is that they will be most focused on the issue of industrial and commercial espionage and the possibility of Beijing using its embassies to expand that activity in those countries and the Caribbean Basin,” he added.
China is now the world’s second-largest economy and is expected to overtake the United States as the largest one in 10 to 15 years.
It is difficult for any nation, especially a small one, to decide not to recognize the sovereignty of China.
China and Taiwan have long engaged in what some observers call “checkbook diplomacy” to woo countries by offering aid or other incentives. 

China’s financial packages have increased in recent years, especially as it has promoted infrastructure projects abroad and related loans and contracts as part of what it calls its Belt and Road Initiative.
Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican ambassador to China, said on Saturday that the recall was “heavy handed.” 

The United States should not be surprised as Latin American governments push back against American requests, he added, when President Trump has continued to alienate the people of Latin America.
“Trump has openly and systematically offended Latin American countries and their people,” Mr. Guajardo wrote in an email. 

“He labels us as rapists and criminals, has never traveled to the region as president, has deported and separated families, and threatened to cut all sort of aid. China comes with an offer of friendship and economic development (albeit one that I don’t think will pan out). Why the surprise?”
The United States has yet to fill some ambassador posts in the region, including those in Mexico and Panama, Mr. Guajardo noted, whereas China has assigned ambassadors in all Latin American nations with which it has diplomatic relations.
“Save a few countries in Latin America, the region as a whole has a historical preference for the U.S. as the main ally,” he said.

“This changed when Trump assumed the presidency. It was his call, his choice, to turn away from the region.”
China has grown more strident over the issue of Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen, a strong critic of Beijing, became president of Taiwan in May 2016. 

Chinese officials have worked to erase any recognition by corporations of Taiwan’s sovereignty. 

For example, they successfully pressured international airlines this summer, including those in the United States, to list just “Taipei,” a city designation, in their booking systems rather than phrases that included “Taiwan,” as was the case for decades.
Last month, Ms. Tsai made state visits to Belize and Paraguay to try to strengthen ties with those nations.

How Venezuela Became China’s Money Pit

Beijing is throwing good money after bad to the Latin American producer, but it has its reasons.
By Spencer Jakab

Oil facilities on Lake Maracaibo in Lagunillas, Venezuela in May. 

The world oil market is notoriously quick to react to headlines, but a seemingly significant one last week from the owner of the world’s largest reserves didn’t cause so much as a blip.
According to reports, all from Venezuelan authorities, the China Development Bank earlier this month pledged either $250 million or $5 billion “in favor of the increasing and strengthening of the country’s oil production.”
That Venezuela’s major industry needs “increasing and strengthening” is beyond question. 

Oil output crashed below a three-decade low to 1.34 million barrels a day last month. 

That is a million less than just three years ago and 2 million below the level when Hugo Chávez took power in 1999.
Chávismo clearly has been very bad for Venezuela’s oil production. 

Until recently it was very good for China, however, and its twin goals of expanding its influence and satisfying its need for oil. 

A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies stated earlier this year that “China’s influence in Latin America is neither transparent nor market-oriented.”
But China clearly miscalculated in Venezuela, where it is now throwing good money after bad. 

The CSIS tallies $55 billion in energy-related loans alone that it has extended. 

Unable to come up with hard currency to service them, Venezuela has been paying in discounted barrels of oil but struggled even to do that after prices collapsed in 2014. 

China offered a “grace period” on some loans.
At one point when prices were higher and its oil industry less decrepit, Venezuela was sending China 600,000 barrels a day, according to Russ Dallen, the chief executive of Caracas Capital Markets, who has done extensive work untangling Venezuela’s opaque finances. 

He estimated that has brought the balance down to about $20 to $23 billion, plus another $3 billion to $4 billion owed to Russian oil company Rosneft.
The cash drain from these enormous debts may have exacerbated the decline in output, and there is scant chance that China’s latest infusion will do much to arrest the fall. 

Hence the market’s shrug at the news. 

But why does cash keep flowing in?
Part of it is the potential equity value of that bad debt. 

Chinese and Russian companies have been given valuable hydrocarbon concessions—in some cases including properties expropriated from Western firms such as Exxon Mobil . 

While past loans are a disaster, China and Russia now have investments to protect. 

Disbursing more modest, targeted sums makes sense.
Venezuela needs that cash. 

Right now it only can sell about 500,000 barrels a day for hard currency.
For those interested in the short-term impact on the oil market, new loans should be viewed as a way to protect the status quo. 

They make an outright collapse in output through internal unrest less likely, but they probably won’t arrest the decline either.

China’s encroachment into Latin America

The Beijing regime seeks to undercut traditional American influence in the hemisphere
By James A. Lyons and Richard D. Fisher Jr.

Linas Garsys

China’s June 14 poaching of Panama, helping it to switch diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China, belies a growing campaign by Beijing to seek greater economic and strategic influence in Latin America at the expense of the United States.
For too long the policy mandarins at the State Department have avoided ascribing hostile intent to China’s growing economic and political clout in Latin America. 

In the main, China places a priority on strengthening Latin America’s anti-democrats and is using its growing economic power in the region to expand its strategic options.
In poaching Panama, Beijing made two power plays. 

First Beijing increased the diplomatic isolation of democratic Taiwan, which it ultimately seeks to destroy to help displace American power in Asia. 

Also, having long dominated the Panama Canal via commercial control and after establishing diplomatic relations, Beijing urged Panama to join its vast $1 trillion “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative from China to Europe, which would give this program a global projection.
Long-standing management of the Panama Canal by Chinese companies, and Chinese corporate purchase of one Panamanian port, is now complimented by Chinese commercial investment in 10 more Latin American waterborne or landbridge “canal” projects. 

While some of these projects may be too grandiose to succeed, what matters is that China is seeking to achieve a position of economic and then political primacy in Latin America. 

It should be a matter of deep concern that China could deny the U.S. Navy access to the Panama Canal, and then also deny access to the future canals being built by Chinese companies.
China’s anti-democratic bent in Latin America is further proven by its decisive economic support for Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro regime. 

Hundreds of Chinese-made Norinco VN-4 armored cars protect Mr. Maduro’s police thugs killing Venezuelans protesting his socialist basket-case policies. 

China has also become the strongest ally of Cuba’s Castro family dictatorship and a growing source for its economic support.
China has sought to translate its economic-political clout into strategic gains. 

Late in the past decade, China began courting Argentina’s military, and by early 2015 was on the verge of offering the regime of Christina Fernandez the start of a rearmament program that could have enabled a second war with Britain over the Falkland Islands. 

By early 2015, China was offering Argentina modern, fourth-generation Chengdu J-10B combat aircraft, modern frigates and co-production of wheeled armored vehicles.
Since early in this decade, China has been marketing deadly short-range ballistic missiles to Latin America. 

Just last April, China marketed one of its most modern unmanned combat aerial vehicles, the Chengdu Wing Loong-2, at an airshow in Mexico City.
While the Argentine arms deals cooled off after the October 2015 election of President Mauricio Macri, China maintains control of a space tracking and control base in Argentina’s Neuquen Province. 

This deep Southern Hemisphere facility will allow China’s People’s Liberation Army to better control future military-space assets it requires to attack U.S. space systems, which could happen in the opening phase of a Chinese attack against Taiwan.
This drives home the point, America cannot ignore China’s aggression against its democratic allies and friends, including Taiwan. 

Washington can and should play a more active role in lauding Taiwan’s democratic example and encouraging Latin states to sustain a vibrant relationship with Taipei, even if it is “unofficial,” as does the United States.

Washington must also make clear to its Latin friends that allowing China to threaten freedom in Taiwan, and to sustain cruel dictatorships in Venezuela and Cuba, ultimately also threatens their freedom. 

The Trump administration should consider translating the Pentagon’s annual report on China’s military growth into many languages, including Spanish, to enable a wider public understanding of China’s threats to freedom.
Like previous administrations, the Trump administration is seeking to gain China’s decisive support in containing North Korea’s now-imminent nuclear missile threats. 

But for 25 years, Trump’s predecessors watched as China refused to reverse deep support for North Korea, even its missile programs, as it worked increasingly to undermine U.S. security interests on the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea.
Washington has little choice but to push back harder against Chinese belligerence in Asia if it wants to maintain its alliances and influence. 

In this hemisphere, the U.S. will have to formulate a new hard line against China’s strategic ambitions. 

This must be done now before China acquires its planned global military projection forces of aircraft carrier battle groups and large heavy-lift transport aircraft, which it could use to intimidate and to suppress Latin America’s still-fragile democracies.

Beijing Pathetic Monologue: China repeats call to block President Tsai's transit in US.

Tsai Ing-wen will visit Houston and San Francisco on her way to and from Latin America

By Nandini Krishnamoorthy

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen (pictured speaking to US President Donald Trump at her office in Taipei, Taiwan) might meet Trump in January during her trip to three Central American nations
Taiwan announced its President Tsai Ing-wen's itinerary for US where she will transit through Houston and San Francisco on her way to visit allies in Latin America in January, her office said on Friday (30 December). 

The announcement has prompted Beijing to repeat calls to the US to block Tsai's stopover.
Tsai will arrive in Houston on 7 January and leave the following day. 

On her way back, after visiting Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador, she will visit San Francisco on 13 January, presidential office spokesman Alex Huang told daily news briefing.
Tsai's office denied commenting on whether she would be meeting President Donald Trump's transition team while she is in the US. 

However, the US mission in the self-governing island, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), said her visit would be "private and unofficial".
"President Tsai's transit through the United States is based on long-standing US practice and is consistent with the unofficial nature of our relations with Taiwan," Alys Spensley, acting AIT spokeswoman, told Reuters.
The already troubled China-US ties were further strained following Tsai's phone call to Trump earlier this month that resulted in Beijing in casting doubt on the incoming president and his administration's commitment to 'one China' principle.
China's Foreign Ministry repeated calls to stop Tsai from transiting through America and warned the US to not send any "wrong signals to Taiwan independence forces".
"We think everyone is very clear on her real intentions," Reuters cited the ministry as saying, without explaining.
Speaking to the members of parliament on Friday (30 December), Xi Jinping stressed the communist country would make "unremitting efforts" at unification and development of peaceful ties across the Taiwan Strait, Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Tsai assured on Saturday (31 December) that her country will remain "calm" when dealing with issues concerning China, however, she warned of uncertainties in 2017 that could test Taiwan's national security team.