World's Stupidest President

Donald Trump helps make China great again.
By Richard North Patterson
Xi Jinping arrives in Berlin on July 4 to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

China’s global aspirations should be no surprise.

For centuries, it has seen itself as a civilization apart. 

Inevitably, Western encroachment bred an indelible resentment of nations which, in China’s view, had usurped its rightful place.
Animated by this sense of destiny thwarted, Xi Jinping means to restore Chinese dominance in Asia — exemplified by its construction of artificial islands as military bases in the South China Sea — the better to supplant America as the world’s leading geopolitical power. 

The hope that globalization would create a more benign and democratic China overlooked these deeper impulses.
They are hardly subtle. 

As the regime’s authoritarianism deepens, China undercuts democracy in Hong Kong, rebuilds its military, moves to control the future of Asia, and expands Chinese economic leverage around the globe.
Enter President Trump.
While Trump’s campaign rhetoric targeting China was simplistic, it played economic hardball — requiring American companies to transfer intellectual property in return for access to Chinese markets, acquiring American know-how while limiting our ability to do business. 

But on meeting Xi as president, Trump melted.
Xi’s lever was North Korea. 

Jettisoning all other concerns, Trump imagined that China, reversing established policy, would help divest its client of nuclear weapons. 

As China played him with hints and half measures, Trump mortgaged our overall China policy to a pipe dream based on nothing but his self-concept as a dealmaker.
Trump’s approach was transactional and narcissistic, reflecting the fatal convergence of ignorance and a short attention span. 

Abruptly, he tweeted that his feckless plan “has not worked out” but that “at least I know China tried!”
What China tried was to leave Trump without a viable plan for curtailing a nuclear program which, too soon, will imperil San Francisco.
Nettled, Trump sold arms to Taiwan, sanctioned two Chinese companies that finance North Korea, and dispatched ships for a drive-by in the South China Sea.
But spasms are not policy.
Trump has yet to grasp that China, like Russia, is our strategic adversary. 

This is the classic case of a rising power challenging a dominant one — economically, militarily, and ideologically — starting with Asia. 

That mandates a China policy that is comprehensive, farsighted, and clear.
Yet Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have not even assembled a team competent to formulate a vision that reflects American interests and values. 

Worse, Trump shuns the belief in free trade and democratic institutions, which cement our alliances with countries such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and provide an alternative to an economic order dominated by China.

Swiftly, China’s calculating regime castigated America for its selfishness and irresponsibility, cloaking its own economic self-interest in altruism. 

In Trump’s diplomatic vacuum, China — ironically, a principal consumer and exporter of coal power — is poised to become the world’s leader in advancing clean energy technology.
As Trump looks backward — trumpeting tariffs and promising to resurrect coal — China moves forward. 

As Trump shuns the European Union, China courts it. 

China is now Germany’s principal trading power, a leader in developing cutting-edge automobiles, the mobile Internet, and safer nuclear power. 

According to US News & World Report, China’s top engineering school has surpassed MIT. 

Despite setbacks, China is the world’s largest economy and its biggest export market.
A centerpiece of China’s geopolitical strategy is the “Belt and Road” initiative , an ambitious plan to finance and develop infrastructure and connectivity linking all of Asia to Europe and the Middle East — including an infrastructure bank intended to cement China’s economic leadership throughout the region. 

Its goal is to supplant the world’s existing economic order with one that serves Chinese prosperity and power.
This program, Xi asserts, embodies “economic globalization that is open, inclusive, balanced, and beneficial to all” — including antipoverty programs. 

In stark contrast, Trump grouses that “alliances have not always worked out very well for us,” signaling our economic and diplomatic retreat.
Whatever America’s faults, by tradition we espouse humane and democratic values. 

A Chinese-led world order would be morally impoverished. 

Yet, soon enough, China’s economic power may cause our traditional allies — in Asia and Europe — to turn away. 

Thus will Donald Trump help make China great again.

World's Stupidest President

Trump’s praise for China’s leader was ‘shameful’ coming after the death of the Nobel-winning political prisoner
By Tom Phillips in Beijing

Human rights activists have poured scorn on Donald Trump for showering China’s “terrific” president Xi Jinping with praise just hours after one of the world’s most famous political prisoners died in the custody of Chinese security services.
Speaking in Paris shortly after it was announced that the democracy champion and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo had died, the US president said nothing of the activist’s plight.

Instead, when asked for his personal thoughts on Xi by a Chinese television journalist, Trump replied: “He’s a friend of mine. I have great respect for him … a great leader.
“He’s a very talented man. I think he’s a very good man,” Trump continued at a joint press conference with French president, Emmanuel Macron. 

“He loves China, I can tell you ... He wants to do what’s right for China.”
“President Xi is a terrific guy. I like being with him a lot, and he’s a very special person,” added the US president, who has been trying to forge a partnership with China to tackle North Korea.
Friends of Liu Xiaobo and campaigners slammed the timing and nature of Trump’s comments about Xi, who observers say has overseen the most dramatic crackdown on civil society in decades in a bid to shore up the Communist party’s monopoly on power.
Hu Jia, a veteran activist, said: “I feel so disappointed. Trump has shown so little interest in human rights since he came to power, and sometimes he even shows contempt for human rights issues.”
“Trump did nothing during the G20 summit and now makes these comments in Paris. Is he trying to encourage the dictator? Is his message: ‘What you’ve done can be ignored?’”
“The remarks I’ve heard from Trump leave me feeling cold, even in such a hot, damp summer,” Hu added.
Teng Biao, a human rights lawyer who was forced into exile in the US by Xi’s crackdown, said the west as a whole had failed to stand up to Beijing over Liu Xiaobo’s case and the wider human rights crisis.
“And it is especially shameful that Donald Trump praised Xi Jinping at the moment when Liu Xiaobo was dying,” Teng added. 

“Xi Jinping is so brutal … Xi Jinping is not a respectable leader. He is a brutal dictator.”
Rose Tang, another exiled human rights activist, said Trump’s comments were “incredibly horrific and infuriating”.
“He has no human decency … let alone the tiniest bit of courage to stand up to China, a dictatorship that’s been growing stronger by the day because of appeasement from the west.”
The White House later issued a brief statement which said Trump had been “deeply saddened” by the death of the “courageous advocate” Liu Xiaobo.
However, that statement contained no criticism of the role China’s leaders played in Liu Xiaobo’s ordeal and was far shorter and more restrained than those of other prominent Republicans, including former president George W Bush.
In a statement, Bush said Liu Xiaobo had “dared to dream of a China that respected human rights”. 

“For that he spent much of his life as a political prisoner of conscience. But he never wavered in his quest to advance freedom and democracy.”
Senator John McCain said Liu’s treatment represented “an egregious violation of the fundamental human rights” for which he had battled. 

“Unfortunately ... this is only the latest example of Communist China’s assault on human rights, democracy and freedom,” McCain added.
Senator Marco Rubio also slammed China’s “shameful treatment of this peaceful hero, who championed the very ideals that are at the foundation of America’s own experiment in self-government”.
Terry Branstad, the new US ambassador to Beijing, also went beyond Trump’s comments, calling on China “to release all prisoners of conscience and to respect the fundamental freedoms of all”.
Teng, the exiled lawyer, said Trump’s fawning over Xi underlined how the world was turning its back on Chinese human rights defenders as they put their country’s economies ahead of their values.
“Western governments feel that for them it is more important to talk [with China] about North Korea or counter-terrorism, or climate change or international business, than human rights,” he said.

World's Stupidest President

Trump's New China Deal May Increase U.S. Trade Deficit
By Gordon G. Chang

Thursday, the U.S. Commerce Department announced the U.S. had reached a trade deal with Beijing. “The first real breakthrough that we’ve had with China in decades” is how Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross described the agreement to Neil Cavuto of Fox Business on Friday.
The new pact could be a “breakthrough,” but it may not constitute progress, at least from the U.S. perspective. 

On the contrary, it might actually increase America’s bulging trade deficit with China.
Last year, that deficit in both goods and services was, according to the Commerce Department, $309.8 billion.
Technically, the new agreement incorporates the “initial results” of the Trump administration’s “100-day action plan” on trade. 

The concept of the plan was announced at the conclusion of the meeting between the American and Chinese presidents at the beginning of last month at Mar-a-Lago.
Under the 10-point plan announced Thursday, Beijing agreed to allow U.S. beef into the country by July 16, the 100th day of the 100-day plan.
Beijing promised to expeditiously process eight U.S. biotechnology product applications.
Foreign businesses from July 16 will be allowed to provide credit ratings, and Beijing will process licenses for credit investigations.
Beijing agreed, by July 16, to issue rules to allow U.S.-owned credit card companies “to begin the licensing process.” 

The agreement calls for Beijing by July 16 to issue to two qualified U.S. financial institutions licenses for bond underwriting and settlement.
Unfortunately, a number of Beijing’s promises in the 10-point plan are essentially pledges not to do something that it should not have been doing in the first place. 

Take the much-publicized agreement on U.S. beef. 

China in 2003 imposed a ban on all U.S. beef because of an isolated case in Washington state of bovine spongiform encephalopathy—mad cow—disease, and, without justification, effectively kept the prohibition in place.
Similarly, China’s credit card promise is essentially a pledge not to continually violate its World Trade Organization obligations. 

Beijing lost a 2012 case on the subject.
What did Ross get that will really benefit the U.S.? 

The beef promise is important, and so may be the promise on credit ratings and investigations. 

With the general tightening of liquidity by the Chinese central bank, creditworthiness has become a pressing issue.
The other promises, however, look like chaff. 

The credit card opening should in theory benefit Visa and MasterCard, but no one thinks either of these giants will make substantial inroads against China’s UnionPay, which by now has grabbed an almost complete monopoly.
With bond defaults beginning to ripple throughout China, it’s not the right time for any institution to underwrite such obligations except perhaps those for the largest state issuers, where the margins are already razor-thin and the business is already locked-up. 

It’s unlikely that any foreign business will make money in Chinese bond underwriting this decade.
It’s not clear, at least at this point, what expedited consideration of biotech applications will mean.
Ross says the deal will increase access to the Chinese market for American liquefied natural gas, but that is not true. 

Perhaps he is talking about undocumented side agreements, but the 10-point plan includes no LNG promise by Beijing. 

On the other side of the ledger, China clearly gained much. 

Washington by July 16 agreed to issue a proposed rule to allow imports of Chinese cooked poultry. Moreover, the Trump administration opened up the U.S. bank market to Chinese institutions, promising to consider their applications on the same basis as others.
In these areas, Chinese players have competitive advantages. 

Therefore, don’t be surprised when Americans begin eating chicken from the world’s No. 1 source of avian flu and start getting cheap credit cards—and cheap credit—from Chinese banks.
It is telling that, on these two important promises of access for Chinese poultry and Chinese banks, Beijing did not agree to reciprocal promises of access for American competitors in China.
“This will help us to bring down the deficit for sure,” Secretary Ross told the media, talking about the 10-point plan. 

“You watch, and you’ll see.”
We will watch because there is nothing “for sure” about trade deficit reduction. 

Ross told Cavuto that things are different this time, that “there’s a new relationship pattern being struck between China and ourselves.” 

“We’re developing personal relationships and personal relationships in Asia in general and in China in particular are of the utmost importance,” he told the Fox Business anchor. 

They’re more important than contracts, Ross assured us.
I hope he’s right about the power of personal relationships because his plan does not address what is fundamentally wrong with the U.S.-China trade relationship. 

Fox News Channel’s Jenna Lee on Friday asked Secretary Ross the most pertinent question, whether the announced plan was a “temporary fix” or a “structural change.”
Ross in response suggested the plan addresses the big issues, and then he told her the administration’s vision is to have agreements with a “one-year time horizon” and then “longer-term deals.” 

There are hundreds of matters to work on, perhaps more than 500, he said to the Washington Post and others.
Washington, D.C.-based trade expert Alan Tonelson is not impressed with the administration’s general approach of tackling the trade deficit issue-by-issue. 

“History clearly teaches that meaningfully opening the markets of determined mercantilist countries like China is virtually impossible using conventional trade diplomacy,” he told me on Saturday. 

“Their governments have created economy-wide systems of protection, and they operate these systems through powerful, secretive bureaucracies that curb imports with informal decisions that are difficult for outsiders even to identify, much less litigate against.” 

These counties can accede to foreign demands and remove certain barriers from time to time, Tonelson notes, “but they remain fully capable of replacing them with others.”
He’s right. 

China over the last decade has been progressively closing off its market, and this trend is now proceeding faster than ever under current supremo Xi Jinping.
No one expected Ross in 34 days to overcome China’s intractable trade posture, but he’s the one who raised expectations with his optimistic assessments Thursday and Friday. 

Now, everyone will be watching monthly trade deficit numbers, as he invited us to do.
Beijing certainly will be watching. 

Chinese official media call the 10-point deal an “early harvest,” and they are right. 

It looks like an early harvest for China.

The Manchurian President

Trump’s Mixed Signals on South China Sea Worry Asian Allies
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea last month. China now has the ability to deploy warplanes and mobile missile launchers on several islands in the region.CreditCenter for Strategic and International Studies, via Digital Globe.

BEIJING — South Korea wants to discuss unease about an American antimissile system on its soil. Taiwan is eager to buy weapons. 

The Philippines hopes to find out whether the United States plans to challenge China in the South China Sea.
Leaders across Asia are looking to Washington for guidance on a variety of pressing diplomatic issues.
But Trump’s erratic approach to policy making and his focus on one issue — North Korea’s nuclear weapons program — are creating anxiety and confusion in the region.
In South Korea, Trump has angered the public with several remarks, including his suggestion that the country, an ally for over six decades, pay for an antimissile system built by the Americans to deter North Korea. 

Moon Jae-in, who was elected president on Tuesday, has vowed to seek a more conciliatory approach with the North, setting up a potential rift with American policy.
In other parts of Asia, including the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, Trump’s willingness to bend to China is fueling worries that the United States will stop trying to counter China’s growing influence in the region.
Washington has been the main critic of China’s efforts to build fortresses atop reefs, rocks and islands in the South China Sea. 

But the Trump administration, wary of angering Beijing, recently decided to suspend patrols of islands and reefs claimed by China. 

“The South China Sea is now China’s lake,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, an emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
Trump’s credibility among Asian allies is now at stake.

He may jeopardize longtime economic and security alliances if he does not show a willingness to look beyond North Korea.
Trump also risks pushing countries in the region closer to Beijing if he does not demonstrate that the United States intends to vigorously challenge China’s territorial claims in the sea.
Trump's lack of assurances to Asian allies and his efforts to please China have created the appearance that his foreign policy is negotiable.

Rex W. Tillerson, center, with Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Washington last week. He has tried to reassure allies that freedom-of-navigation patrols will continue.

Antonio T. Carpio, a Supreme Court justice in the Philippines, said he understood Trump’s focus on North Korea. 

But he said he worried about the “permanent concessions China extracts from Trump.”
“Trump’s emerging transactional foreign policy is not reassuring,” he wrote in an email.
South Korea represents one of the more serious rifts that Trump will confront. 

Mr. Moon rose to power by vowing a conciliatory approach to North Korea, saying efforts by the United States and others to impose strict sanctions had fallen short. 

Trump favors applying maximum pressure on Mr. Kim’s government.
In Taiwan, officials worry that the Trump administration may delay arms sales, including F-35 stealth fighter jets, for fear of inflaming tensions with China. 

China considers Taiwan part of is territory, and it has repeatedly warned the United States against selling weapons to the island.
Trump has already shown a willingness to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip with China. 

Before he took office, he publicly questioned whether the United States should uphold the “One China” policy. 

But he later backed down, apparently in an effort to curry favor with Xi Jinping.
China has used Trump’s first few months in office to reinforce its position in the sea, a vast waterway through which over $5 trillion in trade passes each year. 

China says historical maps show it owns virtually the entire sea, despite overlapping claims by several smaller countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
China now has the ability to deploy warplanes and mobile missile launchers on several islands, according to satellite images provided by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 

It has recently put the finishing touches on airport hangars and radar systems.
Trump’s young administration has sent mixed signals on how it will approach the dispute. 

During the campaign, Trump criticized China’s actions in the sea. 

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has suggested that China should be denied access to the islands it built.
But The New York Times reported last week that top Pentagon officials recently turned down a request for an American warship to sail within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef claimed by the Philippines and China.

Aboard the guided-missile cruiser Chancellorsville in the South China Sea last year. The Pentagon recently rejected a request for an American warship to sail near a reef claimed by both the Philippines and China.

Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said the Trump administration’s decision to halt patrols would send a message that “China’s claims in the sea should be respected and the United States will not challenge that.”
Other countries that claim territory in the sea disagree. 

Many see it as a patriotic mission to defend territory there against China, and they have grown angry over frequent confrontations with Chinese ships.
Diplomats in the region saw hope in President Barack Obama’s talk of sending more American military and economic resources to Asia. 

But they were disappointed as China’s building projects continued unabated.
Trump’s tough talk on China promised a fresh start. 

Tillerson went as far as to say during his confirmation hearing that China’s island-building in the South China Sea was “akin to Russia’s taking of Crimea” and pledged to block access to the islands.
But the administration has yet to follow through. 

And power dynamics are quickly shifting, with the Philippines, once one of America’s strongest allies in the region, publicly distancing itself from the United States and embracing China.
Trump’s credibility in the region has also been hurt by his decision to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that was expected to have significant benefits for Southeast Asia.
China, on the other hand, has promised to double down on its investment in the region. 

“China sees a golden opportunity to step into the vacuum of leadership in the region,” said Alexander L. Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

Chinese Aggressions

No freedom of navigation operations yet: Trump administration wrestles with posturing in the South China Sea
By Christopher Diamond

Since Donald Trump took over as commander in chief, the U.S. Navy has not sailed within 12 miles of China’s man-made islands in the disputed South China Sea. 

But a top U.S. Navy commander in the Pacific says that doesn’t mean Navy ships are reluctant to confront China and exercise the right to sail in international waters, reports Bloomberg.
“We just went through a change in administration,” Pacific Fleet Commander Adm.​ Scott Swift said at a Monday briefing in Singapore. 

“I am not surprised that process has continued in a dialogue as the new administration gets its feet on the ground and determines where would be appropriate to take advantage of these opportunities and where we may want to wait.”
Freedom of navigation operations have not been conducted in the South China Sea since ​Trump took office. 

FONOPS — routine under President Barack Obama — were intended to assert that waters remain open despite a growing Chinese military presence on the disputed islands. 

As the U.S. has put its presence in the disputed territory on hold, China continues to build airstrips on the islands, even launching its first domestically built aircraft carrier last month.
For months, the Navy's leadership has wanted to take a more aggressive stance and test China’s claims in the region. 

The carrier Carl Vinson and its strike group were originally being considered by the Navy for operations in the South China Sea before making news as part of the U.S. response to further nuclear weapon and long-range missile tests by North Korea.
In March, U.S. Pacific Command requested permission for a Navy warship to sail within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea that has been claimed by both China and the Philippines. 

But the March request, as well as two similar requests made in February, were turned down by Pentagon officials without ever making it to the White House, according to The New York Times.
“We just present the opportunities when we have a ship in the area and there is an area of interest,” said Adm.​ Swift, adding that there has been “no change in policy” regarding the territorial disputes.
The lack of action in the region has caught many off guard as it seemed clear that the Trump administration wanted a tough stance toward Beijing.

Then-candidate ​Trump criticized President Obama on the campaign trail for being weak on China in the South China Sea.
During Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s Senate confirmation hearings, he stressed that China needs to be denied access to the islands. 

But China’s actions remain unchallenged as the White House has turned to Beijing for assistance amid growing tensions with North Korea.
An unnamed official from the U.S. Defense Department told The New York Times that they believed a request for ​naval operations within 12 nautical miles of the artificial islands was exactly the kind of thing Trump would be looking for. 

The same official went on to say Defense Secretary​ James Mattis is putting the FONOPS on hold as part of a broader review of “the American security posture around the world.”
The Spratly and Paracel island chains in the South China Sea have been at the center of territorial disputes from 1947. 

In recent years, China, Vietnam and the Philippines have claimed territory in the region, while the United States has allocated significant military resources towards upholding free navigation of the waters.
While it seems clear that the White House is looking to work with Xi Jinping on a range of geopolitical issues, it remains unclear whether the administration will respond to the ongoing territorial disputes.

World's Stupidest President

Trump is mistaken to take a softer line with China over North Korea

• China cannot be trusted to cooperate with US on North Korea
• US instead must assume a larger leadership role in East Asia

By Mike Gallagher

Following Xi Jinping's visit to the United States in early April, there is new hope that China will join efforts to crack down on North Korea's nuclear program. 

While the Chinese have acted to halt North Korean coal imports temporarily and the Trump administration has struck a conciliatory tone with China to gain further cooperation, the United States should be under no illusions that China will readily change its longstanding support of North Korea.
Rather than relying on flattery and accommodation to alter Chinese policy, we should recognize that the path to peace in East Asia runs through increased American leadership. 

The United States must demonstrate that any aggression -- whether emanating from Pyongyang or from Beijing -- will not go unanswered.
For decades, American administrations of both political parties have sought to use China's considerable leverage over North Korea to compel Pyongyang to moderate its behavior. 

While Chinese leaders have at times sounded cooperative, their actions have told a different story. 

Despite constant American efforts to find common ground over reining in North Korea, time and again, Beijing has obfuscated and deflected in the face of unmistakable North Korean aggression. 

Most famously, when North Korea sank a South Korean navy vessel in 2010, China called on both countries to show restraint. 

This moral equivalence between aggressor and victim would have been laughable if the circumstances hadn't been so tragic.
Even today, China has covered for North Korea while feigning otherwise. 

As public attention has focused on China's cessation of coal imports, total Chinese trade with North Korea has grown by more than 37% in the first quarter of 2017, compared with the same period last year. 

Moreover, China's attempted bullying of South Korea over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system demonstrates it is more concerned about limiting America's military capabilities in Asia than it is in reducing risks stemming from Pyongyang's aggression.

South Korea: Mixed messages from the US 

China's defense of North Korea should come as no surprise. 

After all, the two regimes share a foundation of domestic oppression and external aggression. 

Indeed, it is their common interest in overturning the American-backed order in Asia that drives their alliance.
At the end of the World War II, the United States made a conscious decision to play a leading role in Asia and to provide a security umbrella for our friends and allies. 

We took on this role not as a burden, but as an investment in the security and prosperity of the region.
Coupled with our economic and diplomatic engagement, American leadership in Asia helped South Korea, Taiwan and Japan grow into successful and mature democracies that share our desire for a free and stable world. 

Moreover, as economies in the region have grown, American companies and workers have enjoyed the opportunity to sell goods and services to rising middle classes around the world.
However, despite this enormous success, not everyone in Asia is happy with the American-led order. Both China and North Korea dream of a world where autocracies can bully their neighbors while the international community turns a blind eye to domestic oppression. 

That these behaviors come as a pair is no accident.
After all, autocratic regimes often seek to channel their people's frustrations at external adversaries, real or imagined. 

And in the case of North Korea and China, that adversary is the United States. 

Both countries have long deployed propaganda designed to bolster nationalist credentials and enflame anti-American sentiment, and despite periodic changes in temperature, their relationship is ultimately one of alliance.
Indeed, the central policy goals of both North Korea and China are directly at odds with almost a century of American statecraft. 

For Kim Jong Un, this means shattering America's alliances and reunifying the Korean Peninsula under his totalitarian rule. 

For Xi, this means driving American forces and influence outside of the island chain stretching from the Japanese home islands to the Philippines and returning Asia to Chinese political and cultural hegemony.
The alignment of Chinese and North Korean strategic objectives means that Beijing will not readily act to moderate North Korean behavior. 

If the United States is to extract more than empty promises from Chinese leadership, we must first demonstrate our resolve and our enduring commitment to peace and self-determination in the region.

China pumps billions into North Korea 

The good news is that a more secure future is within our grasp -- if we have the willpower. 

First, we must immediately reverse the Obama-era cuts to our military. 

With more resources, we can begin to make good on Donald Trump's goal of a 355-ship Navy, including 12 aircraft carriers. 

Coupled with a stronger military presence in Asia, we will make crystal clear to China that aggression will not be tolerated -- whether it comes from Beijing or Pyongyang.
In the South and East China seas, we must more aggressively challenge Chinese territorial claims. Recent reports suggest that the White House has been avoiding ramping up pressure in the South China Sea as it courts Chinese cooperation on North Korea. 

This is precisely backward. 

A resolute message of strength in disputed seas is far more likely to win cooperation than meek acceptance of Chinese expansionism. 

And on the Korean Peninsula, we must publicly stand up to Xi's attempted intimidation of South Korea. 

Each of these actions will have a mutually reinforcing effect. 

As we rebuild our military, we will be enhancing the effectiveness of our diplomacy.
After all, diplomacy does not occur in a vacuum. 

In any negotiation, the side with the greatest leverage tends to come out on top. 

Investing in our military means increasing our leverage at the international negotiating table. 

And moreover, as our diplomatic resolve strengthens in the South and East China Seas, Xi will be less likely to take aggressive action on the Korean Peninsula.
Critically, we are not in this alone. 

Our allies in the region have an indispensable role to play in helping to promote peace and security. While our bilateral relationships in the region are strong, we must further develop the American, Japanese and South Korean trilateral relationship. 

After all, it is South Korean and Japanese civilians who would bear the brunt of the casualties if war were to erupt with North Korea. 

Our allies intuitively understand the stakes in this mission, and we must stand unwaveringly at their side.
Beyond deterring Chinese aggression, we should also consider economic coercion to influence Chinese policy. 

As we seek to isolate North Korea economically, we should implement sanctions against Chinese individuals and firms that do illicit business with Pyongyang. 

The time for excuses is over. 

Because China accounts for more than 80% of all North Korean trade, it possesses unique leverage over Pyongyang. 

We must harness that leverage to weaken the Kim regime before it is too late and North Korean aggression leads to cataclysm. 

Ultimately, through projecting strength and demonstrating our resolve, we will be far more likely to achieve lasting denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula than we will through pursuing a conciliatory approach with China.
For more than 60 years, American foreign policy in Asia has been a remarkable and bipartisan success story. 

The Asia that emerged with assistance from the United States lifted millions out of poverty. Democracy spread across the region. 

And human rights became a pillar of governance. 

These achievements are worth celebrating -- and defending. 

The United States cannot and must not let oppressive regimes in China and North Korea undermine the triumph of the postwar era.
We must use all of the considerable tools at our disposal to relentlessly and ceaselessly defend the Asia -- and the world -- that we helped to shape. 

If we stand proud and act confidently in service of our interests and our values, we will ensure that the world for which our forefathers fought for will endure long after we are gone.

World's Stupidest President

As Trump woos Xi Jinping, Dalai Lama has to wait on the sidelines
By Ryan Woo and Sanjeev Miglani | BEIJING/NEW DELHI

The Dalai Lama greets U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during the Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize award ceremony in the Capitol in Washington October 6, 2009.

Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama speaks at a press conference after delivering teachings at Yiga Choezin, in Tawang, in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India April 8, 2017.

The Dalai Lama looks up toward the head table, where U.S. President Barack Obama was seated, during the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, February 5, 2015.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (C) walks outside the White House after his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington February 18, 2010.

When Donald Trump was elected in November, the Dalai Lama said he was keen to meet the incoming U.S. president, but since then Trump has cozied up to Xi Jinping, making it less likely the man Beijing deems a separatist will get an invite to the White House anytime soon.
The United States has long recognised Tibet as part of the People's Republic of China, and does not back Tibetan independence. 

But that has not deterred all the recent U.S. presidents before Trump from meeting the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
The United States is widely seen as the last major Western power that has still held meetings with the Dalai Lama despite Beijing's objections that such encounters foment separatism.
In past meetings, the U.S. had consistently voiced support for the protection of human rights of Tibetans in China, and called for formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama and his representatives.
At a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday, China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated that China resolutely opposes any foreign country allowing the Dalai Lama to visit or any foreign official having any form of exchange with him. 

He did not say whether China had specifically requested Trump not meet the Dalai Lama.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman and a White House official referred Reuters to the Dalai Lama's office when asked whether the Tibetan spiritual leader and his representatives had asked for a meeting with Trump and whether any such meetings were planned.
"His Holiness was supposed to go (to the U.S.) in April, but it was postponed," Lobsang Sangay, head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, told Reuters.
That trip has been delayed until June due to a hectic schedule in the preceding months that had left the Dalai Lama physically exhausted, Sangay said, adding that Washington D.C. wouldn't be part of the June itinerary.
The office of the Dalai Lama hasn't reached out to Trump to arrange a meeting yet, he said.
The Dalai Lama is taking a more considered approach with regard to any meeting with Trump, said a source with knowledge of the thinking of the winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
The unpredictable U.S. president upset protocol in December when weeks before being sworn into office he took a telephone call from the leader of self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, only to last week rebuff Taiwanese suggestions of another call.
In the interim, Trump has met and phoned Xi, and says he has built a strong relationship with the Chinese leader.
He called Xi "a friend of mine" who was "doing an amazing job as a leader" in an interview with Reuters last week, and praised him for trying to rein in nuclear-armed North Korea. 

In return, the Chinese president has invited Trump to visit China this year.
In mid-2008, then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met the Dalai Lama, to the anger of Beijing. 

Months later, the British Foreign Secretary at that time David Miliband ditched Britain's near century-long position on Tibet, describing it as an "anachronism", and explicitly recognised Tibet as part of China.
Based on treaties signed at the turn of the 20th century by British-administered India and Tibet, Britain had previously said it would recognise China's "special position" in Tibet on the condition that Tibet was given significant autonomy.

SILENCE FROM TRUMP
Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a "peaceful liberation". 

Nine years later, the Dalai Lama fled to India after an abortive uprising and set up a government in exile, which China does not recognise.
China sees the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist in a monk's robes, even though the Dalai Lama says he wants autonomy for his homeland, not outright independence. 

There have been no formal talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama's representatives since 2010.
China stamps on the religious and cultural rights of Tibetans.

Trump has been silent on Tibetan issues.
"The main change is that the U.S. approach on Tibet seems likely to become more transactional and therefore less consistent," said Robbie Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University.
"It seems set to become more a question of contingency, dependent on how he calculates his relationship with China at any one moment."
Earlier this week, Democratic U.S. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts called for a new U.S. policy towards Tibet to safeguard the identity of the Tibetan people and hold China accountable for human rights abuses.
The Dalai Lama will next week receive a U.S. Congressional delegation led by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi at his base in northern India, his government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration, said on Friday. 

The visit represents a bipartisan gesture of support that is likely to rile Beijing.
The prime minister of the government-in-exile said he is still hopeful that the United States will continue to support Tibetan issues and push for talks between the Dalai Lama's representatives and Beijing.
But he said they were prepared for any upsets.
"We are Buddhists, we believe in impermanence. You just go with your karma and whatever happens, happens, because we have seen the worst, the occupation of our country," said Sangay, who is planning a trip to Washington at the end of May.

The Manchurian President

US is steering clear of South China Sea: Since Trump took power, no freedom of navigation exercises have taken place
By Barbara Starr and Ben Westcott

The Trump administration appears to be easing up on Beijing in the South China Sea, in what is being seen as another concession to China by the new US president who hopes for a solution in North Korea.
Since Trump took office, the sole request by US military to sail a warship close to artificial islands China has built in the contested waters has been turned down by the Pentagon, a senior defense official told CNN Wednesday.
Freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea were regularly authorized by the Obama administration, with US navy vessels sailing within 12 nautical miles of China's artificial islands at least three times in the past year-and-a-half.
The official said the denial -- first reported by the New York Times -- was partly due to an effort inside the Pentagon to turn down the temperature of operations that could be viewed as antagonizing China or North Korea.
Analysts say it's the latest in a series of efforts by Trump to appease China.
China has described the operations as a serious breach of law and an intentional provocation.

Trump backs down on China
The last publicly announced freedom of navigation operation was in October 2016, four months before Trump took power.
Prior to his inauguration, Trump's point man on foreign policy promised stern action in the South China Sea against China's island building and militarization.

South China Sea: Aircraft hangars, radar installed on artificial islands

At his confirmation hearing, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Trump administration might take a more aggressive approach to the South China Sea.
"Building islands and then putting military assets on those islands is akin to Russia's taking of Crimea. It's taking of territory that others lay claim to," Tillerson said in January.
He even hinted that Chinese access to the artificial islands could be restricted by US vessels.
But as relations between Trump and Xi Jinping have improved, the South China Sea has fallen out of the spotlight.
Trump backed down on his pledge to label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, while early in his presidency he quickly agreed to honor the "one China" policy which Beijing considers a necessity.
In the past week, Trump even said he'd call Xi for permission before he spoke to Taiwan's leader over the phone again.

Ceding to China
Mike Chinoy, non-resident senior fellow at the University of Southern California's US China Institute, told CNN that Beijing would be thrilled by the administration's decision to hold off testing China in the South China Sea.
"I think if you're sitting in Beijing you have to be very pleased that Donald Trump is in the White House because he is ceding to China a great deal in terms of clout and advantage," Chinoy said.
"In the meantime, countries in Asia that have wanted substantial American presence to counterbalance the growing clout of China ... are going to calculate that they can't count on the US in the way they did before."
The recalculation has already started for some countries.
At the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leader summit in Manila in April, China scored a major victory when the joint statement seriously watered down the denunciation of its island-building in the South China Sea.
"ASEAN cannot maintain its position in dealing with China... unless the pressure is on China by the maritime powers," Carl Thayer, regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales, told CNN.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told CNN Wednesday that US forces operated in the Asia-Pacific region on a daily basis, "including in the South China Sea."

"All operations are conducted in accordance with international law and demonstrate that the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows," he said.
The Pentagon said the US military will continue with regular freedom of navigation operations but in the future Davis said "these operations will be released publicly in the annual FONOPS report, and not sooner."
This would mark a significant change from the Obama administration which publicly discussed South China Sea operations on a routine basis.

U.S. Stupidest President

North Korea missile test: regime has 'disrespected China', says Donald Trump
The Guardian

An undated file photo released on 24 April by North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows an ‘underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile’ conducted at an undisclosed location. 

Donald Trump has condemned North Korea for “disrespecting the wishes of China” after Pyongyang test-fired a ballistic missile despite rising tensions in the region.
The unsuccessful test comes as the United States pushed for tougher sanctions to curb the country’s nuclear threat. 

Writing on Twitter, Trump said Pyongyang had defied Xi Jinping by going ahead with the launch.
South Korea’s military said the test of the missile took place near Bukchang in South Pyeongan Province early on Saturday morning.
A US government source told the Reuters news agency that initial indications suggested the test was unsuccessful. 

The US military’s Pacific Command said the missile did not leave North Korean territory.
“US Pacific Command detected what we assess was a North Korean missile launch at 10:33am Hawaii time ... The ballistic missile launch occurred near the Pukchang airfield,” Commander Dave Benham said in a statement. 

“The missile did not leave North Korean territory.”
Japan joined in criticism of the test launch, saying it was absolutely unacceptable and a violation of UN resolution. 

Speaking at a press conference in London on Saturday, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzō Abe, said it posed a grave threat to Japan.
“Despite strong warnings by the international community, North Korea today went through its ballistic missile launch. It is a grave threat to our country. This is absolutely not acceptable. We strongly condemn such acts,” Abe said.
Abe called for solidarity from the international community, admitting further North Korean missile tests are “fully conceivable”. 

“We’d like to maintain a close coordination with the United States, our ally, to maintain a high state of alert. We’d like to be water-tight to ensure safety for our citizens,” he said.
A US official said the Trump administration could respond by speeding up its plans for new US sanctions against Pyongyang, including possible measures against specific North Korean and Chinese entities.
“It’s possible that something could be sped up,” the official said of the potential for imposing new unilateral sanctions on North Korea. 

“Something that’s ready to go could be taken from the larger package and expedited.”
The official said the missile launch was the kind of “provocation” that had been anticipated ahead of South Korea’s 9 May election, and that the president could use the test-firing to further press China to do more to rein in North Korea.
The launch comes with tensions high on the Korean peninsula, with this the latest in a series of missile launches by the North and warnings from Trump’s US administration that it was running out of patience.
At the UN security council on Friday, Washington pushed for tougher sanctions to confront the North Korean threat, piling pressure on China to rein in its ally while warning it was keeping military options “on the table”. 

Trump himself of Thursday warned of the prospect of a “major, major conflict” with North Korea.
The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, warned that failure to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile abilities could lead to “catastrophic consequences”, while China and Russia cautioned Washington against threatening military force to solve the problem.
“Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences,” Tillerson said in his first remarks to the council as secretary of state.

The United States was not pushing for regime change and preferred a negotiated solution, but Pyongyang, for its own sake, should dismantle its nuclear and missile programmes, he said.
“The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and it’s only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland,” Tillerson said.
While Tillerson repeated the Trump administration’s position that all options are on the table if Pyongyang persists with its nuclear and missile development, Yi said military threats would not help.
The Russian deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, also said on Friday the use of force would be “completely unacceptable”.

Schumer: Trump Must be Tough on China to Deal with North Korea

"The way to get China to do something is not to be nice to them but is to hit them hard on trade."

By LEIGH ANN CALDWELL

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Donald Trump's first 100 days in office aren't going well and that his posture with China is going to make the situation with North Korea more difficult.
Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea continue to escalate and Trump warned that a "major, major" conflict could erupt over that nation's nuclear ambitions in an interview with Reuters Tuesday.
"The key to winning North Korea is China," Schumer told NBC News in a wide-ranging interview Friday, adding that Trump's cozy position with China won't help it. 

"The way to get China to do something is not to be nice to them but is to hit them hard on trade."
Schumer: 100 Days In, Trump Not a Great Negotiator 
Schumer said that Trump, who has framed himself as a master negotiator, has been a poor negotiator on the world stage.
And after Trump said he would not withdraw from NAFTA without trying to rework some components, Schumer said the free trade agreement can only be improved if he's a good negotiator with Mexico and Canada.
"He's got to be a tough negotiator," Schumer said. 

"If he is anything like he's been with China, nothing much will be accomplished, unfortunately."
Schumer has personal experience negotiating with Trump on the latest round of government funding. Trump backed down from a central campaign promise with this round of government appropriations, saying that he would no longer ask for a down-payment to begin construction for the border wall, an issue that Democrats said they would not support.
But Schumer said that when he talked with Trump on the phone in recent weeks about the funding bill, the president never even brought up the wall.
"He's friendly but he's not — every time he's called me, it has not been on a major subject," Schumer said.
Schumer also responded to Trump's comment to Reuters that he thought being president would be "easier."
"Good morning," Schumer said.
Schumer predicted his party could benefit politically from Trump's presidency. 

"I'll tell you this, if the president continues in the rest of his first two years as he did in these first 100 days, there's even a chance we could take back the Senate."

Chinese Duplicity and American Delusion

China won’t confirm sanctions on North Korea, as US claims
By Associated Press

The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is headed toward the Korean Peninsula for an exercise with South Korea.

BEIJING — China’s foreign ministry on Friday refused to confirm or deny U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion that Beijing has threatened to impose unilateral sanctions on North Korea if it conducts further nuclear tests.
Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated China’s support for U.N. sanctions on the North but repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer when asked at a daily press briefing about what other plans China might be considering.
“As for what kind of actions China will take if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, it is a hypothetical question and there is much speculation about that, so I have no comment on it,” Geng said.
“China firmly opposes any actions that violate the United Nations Security Council resolutions. This position is quite clear,” he said.
China wants North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, but has opposed unilateral sanctions imposed without a U.N. mandate.
Beijing has come under growing U.S. pressure to use its leverage as North Korea’s largest trading partner and main source of food and fuel aid to compel Pyongyang to heed U.N. resolutions.
Tillerson said Thursday that Washington knew China was in communication with the regime in Pyongyang.
“They confirmed to us that they had requested the regime conduct no further nuclear test,” he said on Fox News Channel.
Tillerson said China also told the U.S. that it had informed North Korea “that if they did conduct further nuclear tests, China would be taking sanctions actions on their own.”
Earlier Thursday, the senior U.S. Navy officer overseeing military operations in the Pacific said the crisis with North Korea is at the worst point he’s ever seen, but he declined to compare the situation to the Cuban missile crisis decades ago.

World's Stupidest President

Trump talk about Koreas draws China silence, dispute from Seoul
By Christopher Bodeen and Youkyung Lee

In this Tuesday, April 25, 2017 photo released by the U.S. Navy, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer, left, is underway alongside the Republic of Korea multirole guided-missile destroyer Wang Geon during a bilateral exercise. Wayne E. Meyer was on a scheduled western Pacific deployment with aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. 

BEIJING — Trump's assertions about the Koreas drew silence Friday in Beijing, which refused to confirm it was turning up pressure on North Korea, and consternation in Seoul, which dismissed Donald Trump’s claim that he would get South Korea to renegotiate a trade deal and make it pay for a missile defense system.
South Korea contradicted statements Trump made in an interview Thursday with Reuters news agency in which he also said there is “a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea,” as the North continues to develop nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Regarding the South, Trump said he would fix or end what he called a “horrible” bilateral trade deal, and would make the Asian ally pay $1 billion for the THAAD missile defense system now being deployed in its territory.
Woo Taehee, South Korea’s vice trade minister, said the country had not been notified of any trade renegotiation, and that there have been no working-level talks with the U.S. regarding the 5-year-old trade deal.
Woo said the trade ministry was trying to confirm the details of the media reports on Trump’s remarks. 

He said there have been “no pre-talks” with the U.S. regarding the issue.
The U.S.-South Korea free trade deal is not the only free trade pact that the Trump administration is reconsidering. 

Earlier this week the White House leaked the possibility of the U.S. abandoning the North American Free Trade Agreement. 

Trump called that off hours later, saying he would seek to renegotiate the trade deal with Canada and Mexico and pull out of NAFTA only if he couldn’t secure a favorable deal.
In a separate statement, South Korea’s defense ministry said there is no change in its plan under which the U.S. covers the cost for operating THAAD, now being deployed in the country’s southeast. Under an agreement reached during the administration of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, South Korea offers the land and facilities for THAAD but not the cost of operations, the Defense Ministry said.
The U.S. missile defense system, meant to deter North Korean aggression, has become a thorny issue between South Korea and China, which opposes it because its powerful radars can peer through not only North Korean but Chinese defenses. 

At the same time, Trump has lauded Xi Jinping since their meeting in Florida early this month, expressing confidence that China will try to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went a step further Thursday, saying that China has threatened to impose unilateral sanctions on North Korea if it conducts further nuclear tests. 

Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang would not confirm that Friday.
Geng reiterated China’s support for U.N. sanctions on the North but repeatedly avoided giving a direct answer when asked at a daily news briefing about what other plans China might be considering.
“As for what kind of actions China will take if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, it is a hypothetical question and there is much speculation about that, so I have no comment on it,” Geng said.
“China firmly opposes any actions that violate the United Nations Security Council resolutions. This position is quite clear,” he said.

China wants North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program, but has opposed unilateral sanctions imposed without a U.N. mandate.
Beijing has come under growing U.S. pressure to use its leverage as North Korea’s largest trading partner and main source of food and fuel aid to compel it to heed U.N. resolutions.
Tillerson said Thursday that Washington was aware that China was in communication with the government in Pyongyang.
“They confirmed to us that they had requested the regime conduct no further nuclear test,” he said on Fox News Channel.
Tillerson said China also told the U.S. that it had informed North Korea “that if they did conduct further nuclear tests, China would be taking sanctions actions on their own.”
While Beijing says it backs the U.S. in finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis, it remains unclear what actions it has taken or plans to take beyond those mandated by the U.N.
China in January suspended coal imports from North Korea for the rest of the year, but it did so following the passage of a Security Council resolution capping the North’s coal exports. 

Other economic activity with North Korea remains robust.
Notwithstanding Tillerson’s comments, there’s scant evidence that China’s government has changed policies, said Daniel Sneider, a Korea expert from Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
While China might take actions intended to send a message to North Korea — a recent shortage of gasoline in Pyongyang sparked speculation that China was working behind the scenes — Beijing is firmly opposed to measures that might seriously destabilize the regime, possibly sending refugees across the border into China and placing U.S. and South Korean troops in the North.
“North Korea exists as a client state of China for the sake of China, not us, and because the Chinese don’t want to have the Korean Peninsula dominated by the U.S.,” Sneider said.
“Their main goal is to keep the Americans from doing something crazy and see if they can drag the North Koreans back to the negotiating process where they can reduce the level of tensions.”

Trump's Mongolism Syndrome

How a single Trump sentence enraged South Korea
By Kim Tong-Hyung 

SEOUL, South Korea —  Donald Trump’s apparently offhand comment after meeting with Xi Jinping — that “Korea actually used to be a part of China” — has enraged many South Koreans.
The historically inaccurate sentence from a Wall Street Journal interview bumps up against a raft of historical and political sensitivities in a country where many have long feared Chinese designs on the Korean Peninsula. 

It also feeds neatly into longstanding worries about Seoul’s shrinking role in dealing with its nuclear-armed rival, North Korea.
Ahn Hong-seok, a 22-year-old college student, said that if Trump “is a person capable of becoming a president, I think he should not distort the precious history of another country.”
Many here assume that Xi fed that ahistorical nugget to Trump, who also admitted that after 10 minutes listening to Xi, he realized that Beijing’s influence over North Korea was much less than he had thought.
Here’s why Trump’s comments strike a nerve in South Korea:

WRONG, BUT WHOSE MISTAKE?
It’s unclear whether Trump was quoting Xi or had misunderstood what he was told when he said Korea had been part of China.
It never was, historians outside of China say, although some ancient and medieval kingdoms that occupied the Korean Peninsula offered tributes to Chinese kingdoms to secure protection. 

And for a period during the 13th century, both China and Korea were under the rule of the Mongolian empire.
“Throughout the thousands of years of relations, Korea has never been part of China, and this is a historical fact that is recognized internationally and something no one can deny,” Cho June-hyuck, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Thursday.

HISTORICAL FEUD
Trump stumbled into a long history dispute between the Asian neighbors; specifically, their views over the dominion of ancient kingdoms whose territories stretched from the Korean Peninsula to Manchuria.
South Koreans see these kingdoms as Korean, but China began to claim them as part of its national history in the early 1980s.
At the time, China’s state historians were exploring ways to ideologically support Beijing’s policies governing ethnic minorities, including the large communities of ethnic Koreans in the northeast, experts say.
In the early 2000s, a Chinese government-backed academic project produced a slew of studies arguing that the kingdom of Goguryeo (37 B.C.-A.D. 668) was a Chinese state. 

This infuriated South Korea, where nationalists glorify Goguryeo for its militarism and territorial expansion. 

Seoul launched its own government-backed research project on Goguryeo in 2007.
Some analysts say the argument is more political than historical as Goguryeo existed more than a thousand years before the foundation of modern states in Korea and China.

‘KOREA PASSING’
Several South Korean newspapers mentioned the Chinese claims over Goguryeo as they lashed out at Trump over the comments, and at Xi for feeding Trump Chinese-centric views.
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest newspaper, said China was looking to “tame” South Korea and weaken the traditional alliance between Seoul and Washington in an attempt to expand its regional influence.
Seoul has long worried about losing its voice in international efforts to deal with North Korea’s nuclear threat — something local media have termed “Korea Passing.” 

Seoul and Beijing are also bickering over plans to deploy in South Korea an advanced U.S. missile defense system that China sees as a security threat.
In the meantime, Trump has reportedly settled on a “maximum pressure and engagement” strategy on North Korea, which is mainly about enlisting the help of Beijing to put pressure on Pyongyang.
“It’s highly possible that China will try to solve the problems surrounding the Korean Peninsula based on a hegemonic stance that likens the Koreas to Chinese vassal states,” said the Munhwa Ilbo newspaper on Thursday. 

“If Trump has agreed with this view, you will never know what kind of a deal the two global powers will make over the fate of the Korean Peninsula.”
Insecurities about both China’s and Trump’s intentions in the region will be among the big issues as South Koreans vote next month for their next president.

World's Stupidest President

Trump Confident China Working `Very Hard' to Rein in North Korea

by Margaret Talev and Toluse Olorunnipa

Mongolism Syndrome: Trump Says China Is Working Hard to Rein in North Korea.

Donald Trump said he has “absolute confidence” that Xi Jinping will work “very, very hard” to defuse rising tensions North Korea has stirred through nuclear and missile tests.
Trump, speaking at the White House on Thursday during a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, cited “some very unusual moves” that the Chinese government had “made over the last two or three hours.”
Trump gave no clue what steps he was referring to, although the Nikkei Asian Review reported hours earlier that Beijing may cut crude oil to North Korea if it conducts another test of a nuclear warhead, citing Zhang Liangui, a professor at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School
Trump met earlier this month with Xi and urged him to do more to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. 

Trump said later that he was dialing back his hard-line approach to China on trade because he was convinced of the Chinese leader’s commitment to address the problem.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently has accelerated missile and nuclear tests, heightening concerns over the regime’s efforts to develop a nuclear warhead capable of striking the U.S. 

The Trump administration has warned that it is considering a range of options to stop North Korea from developing the capability, including a preemptive military attack.
Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that while the U.S. is using economic and diplomatic approaches “the sword stands ready.” 

North Korea’s state-run newspaper on Thursday carried a threat by the regime to launch its own “super-mighty preemptive strike” that would devastate U.S. and South Korean forces on the peninsula.
The regime’s most recent ballistic missile launch, conducted last Sunday, failed.
North Korea may have between 10 and 25 nuclear weapons, analysts say, as well as active cyberwarfare capabilities, a biological weapons research program and one of the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpiles. 

The U.S. also must consider implications for its ally South Korea, whose capital of Seoul, with 10 million residents, sits 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of the border, within range of conventional artillery.
As Trump has sought to increase pressure on North Korea, the Pentagon ordered the USS Carl Vinson to head toward Korean waters. 

The aircraft carrier was headed that way after initial confusion about an itinerary that first had it bound for joint exercises with Australia.

World's Stupidest President

Trump says Korea was “part of China”
By Nikhil Sonnad

Is that part of China?

Following his meeting with Xi Jinping, Donald Trump made a shocking admission of ignorance to the Wall Street Journal, on the subject of China and North Korea: “After listening [to Xi] for 10 minutes I realized that…it’s not so easy.” 

Trump has been called out for having his views on such an important geopolitical issue shift dramatically in a matter of minutes. 

He also may not know who rules North Korea.
Right before that line about listening to Xi, though, Trump said something arguably even more shocking. 

He claimed that “Korea actually used to be a part of China.” 

This is a glaring historical inaccuracy that has, somehow, not yet enraged South Korea, which is usually extremely defensive about suggestions that it is lesser than China or has ever been dependent on it.
Trump also made it clear in the interview that when he says Korea “used to be a part of China,” he is talking about the entire Korean Peninsula, not just the North. 

Here’s the full quote:
[Xi] then went into the history of China and Korea. Not North Korea, Korea. And you know, you’re talking about thousands of years …and many wars. And Korea actually used to be a part of China.
“No respectable historian would make such a claim,” said Kyung Moong Hwang, a history professor at the University of Southern California and author of A History of Korea, when I asked him via email to assess Trump’s statement.
We can assume that Trump did not have ideas of his own about this matter of Asian history, and in fact got this notion from Xi. 

But where would Xi have gotten it? 

“It’s possible that Xi said something like this, as such a story has been part of the nationalist history project under the Chinese Communist Party for a couple of decades,” added Hwang.
There are two moments in history that come close. 

The first was under the Han Dynasty, which in the second century BC set up four “commanderies” in the northern part of Korea. 

These, however, were more like British colonial rule in India, and not a formal union of Chinese and Korean territory. 

Still, Chinese researchers have tried to argue that this places Korea within “Chinese local history.”
The extent of China’s Han Dynasty.

The next moment came in 13th century AD, when the Mongol empire’s global domination happened to include both China and Korea. 

After a total of seven campaigns to take Korea, the Mongols succeeded, but “even then, the Mongols controlled China more directly than Korea,” said Hwang. 

Setting aside the controversial question of whether the empire of Mongol invaders counts as “China,” Korea was regardless only a vassal state of the Mongols.
If Xi said “something like this,” though, it is unlikely that he said anything as strong as Korea being “part of China.” 

He could have reasonably said something to the effect of, “Korea was once a part of the same empire as China.” 

That would apply to the Yuan Dynasty, the one set up by the Mongols and ruled by Kublai Khan. 

Or he may have said, “China once ruled Korea,” which could maybe work for the Han Dynasty. Trump could have then interpreted either of those statements as meaning Korea was “part” of China—which would be wrong, of course. 

Or maybe there was a translation issue. 

We’ll probably never know what Xi actually said.
Still, to Hwang’s point, the perception of Korea being part of China has some credibility in the mainland. 

For example, one question on Zhidao—a question-and-answer site akin to Quora—asks (link in Chinese), “Do Koreans know that Korea was once part of China?”
To which the top answerer responds, correctly, “you are mistaken.”