|
「中、美關係」 -- 開欄文
|
瀏覽7,424 ｜回應31｜推薦1 |
|
《中美爭霸烽火後的文化意識》小評
|
|
|
推薦2 |
|
|
|
0. 前言
由於我是個「唯物論」者，我把汪沛教授大作標題中所用的心理學概念「原型」(請見本欄上一篇)，改為我習慣的社會學概念「文化意識」。
汪教授的主要研究範圍是心理學和儒家哲學，談論政治議題難免近於「表層分析」；例如，如果她把川普二次入主白宮的重要原因之一歸於「英雄崇拜」，則見識未免欠深入；其思考過程更難稱周全。
其次，汪教授第四段更有些論述牽強之譏；因為，實行民主制度的眾多國家中，那一個沒有「選舉週期」？又有誰的文宣不求「割喉割到斷」？
以下對汪教授其它觀點略表淺見；還請看官們不吝賜較。
1. 分析與評論
1.1 中國的家庭倫理
我曾經評論過：中國過去的「禮教之防」或「敬老尊賢」等等，都需要從家庭結構或社會組織整層面來理解；否則，中國社會就有偽善或人格分裂之嫌。例如，中國畫有「爬灰」一詞；李世民兵非第一個，也不是最後一個以謀殺手段上位的皇帝；後世史家對他或朱棣用了「春秋之筆」來撻伐嗎？
換句話說，道德固然是「弱者限制強者的工具」，但它是把雙面刃；更多的時候，道德也是「強者限制弱者的工具」。「禮教之防」或「敬老尊賢」並不能完全從「道德價值」層面來理解，它們最大的「功能」在維持社會的穩定運作。它們在中國的突出「地位」，則必須從中國「大家庭」和「眾多人口」這些社會結構的角度來理解。
以歐洲社會來說，「初夜權」和「貞操鎖」兩者並存，也必須從社會結構角度，而不是道德價值角度才能「理解」。
1.2 美國的政治亂象
1) 這一方面我也曾表達過一些看法；例如，美國過去能在全世界巧取豪奪，以及其科技的遙遙領先，是美國社會中、低層老百姓能被大財團餵熟的重要因素。當這兩項優勢消失或減弱後，美國大財團餵不熟的美國社會中、低層老百姓時，溫順良民也就變成反撲的白眼狼了。
2) 其他文化和社會層面的因素，以下兩篇文章雖然不夠完備深入，也都各有所見與講出個道理；對此議題有興趣的朋友可以參考看看：「萬能政府」概念是個神話(該欄2025/12/03)，以及維護自由主義的歧路(該欄2023/12/25)。
2. 結論
汪教授從心理或文化層面談討中、美政治的差異，是一個有趣的課題，應該也是一個值得努力的方向。不過，討論政治議題還是得使用政治學、經濟學、和社會學三個領域的理論做為基本分析工具；否則，多少會有「霧裏看花」甚至於「削足適履」的遺憾。
本文於 修改第 3 次
|
|
中美爭霸烽火後的文化意識 -- Bella Pei Wang
|
|
|
推薦2 |
|
|
|
Beneath the US-China rivalry lies a battle of outdated archetypes
The American Hero vs The Chinese Father
Bella Pei Wang, 11/24/25
Editor’s Notes：The US-China rivalry runs deeper than trade wars and military posturing—it’s a clash of archetypes. America worships the Hero: the lone warrior chasing glory, battling rivals, and turning politics into spectacle. China, by contrast, venerates the Father: the steady ruler who prizes order, care and stability. Chinese philosopher Bella Pei Wang argues that these ancient archetypes still shape power in both societies—and that their excesses drive both nations’ dysfunction. To escape the cycle of conquest and control, she says, the world’s superpowers must rediscover a neglected force in politics: the feminine values of intuition and cooperation.
The rivalry between the United States and China is not only about economic and military strength. It is also rooted in contrasting leadership styles. This contrast can be seen as a confrontation between two archetypes, described by the psychologist Carl Jung: the Hero and the Father. The United States tends to generate Hero-type leaders, while China leans toward Father-type leadership.
Ancient Greek culture offers a vivid source narrative: in the Iliad, Achilles represents the Hero archetype—seeking glory through war—while Hector represents the Father archetype—centered on family, city, and duty. The tension between kleos (everlasting fame) and nostos (return to home and family) is embedded in the epic tradition, giving priority to the Hero paradigm in the West. By contrast, shaped by Confucian tradition, China elevates the “ruler-father” ideal, built around humaneness, order, and care.
These archetypes are not all-or-nothing. American political culture has sometimes produced father-like features, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats, and President Obama manifested eloquence and intellectual brilliance above all else (though perhaps his most popular achievement was the killing of Bin Laden). In the Chinese case, the self-proclaimed First Emperor Qin Shihuang (259–210 BCE) embodied the Hero archetype by virtue of success in war. Chairman Mao did the same, but his power was subsequently legitimized by such popular sayings as “My father and my mother are not as dear to me as Chairman Mao,” which better fit the Father archetype. In short, such counter-archetypes to the mainstream political cultures of China and the US are rarely sufficient for long-lasting legitimacy in the eyes of their respective populations.
The US electoral system—its four-year cycles and midterms—pushes leaders to emphasize personal excellence, seek attention, and chase accomplishments, reinforcing a structural preference for the Hero archetype. Intense two-party conflict and online mutual defamation revive the mythic script of the “hero-versus-dragon” battle: when leaders over-identify with the Hero archetype, they may project rivals as “dragons” that must be defeated to prove their heroic identity, thereby justifying hardline actions. Policymaking can drift toward extremes to mark clear differences from opponents, as in the aggressive tariffs and immigration measures brought in by President Trump. Psychologically, arrogant blindness may appear, with leaders denying limits and dismissing reasonable advice. Relatedly, there is the puer aeternus (eternal boy) tendency: those who over-identify with the heroic journey often resist ending their moment of glory and struggle to face departure and mortality, which can delay leadership transitions.
China’s Father archetype grows out of a deep Confucian longing for the benevolent father. The legend of Emperor Shun shows that true filial piety can serve as political qualification: despite an abusive father, Shun remained filial and was chosen by Emperor Yao as successor. The early loss of fathers in the lives of Confucius and Mencius also helped turn the longing for “father” into a political ideal of “ruler-father,” with the Han dynasty’s Classic of Family Reverence extending filial piety toward parents into loyalty toward the ruler. In contemporary political discourse, family metaphors permeate public language: leaders are affectionately called “Grandpa Mao,” “Grandpa Wen,” “Grandpa Jiang,” and “Xi Dada.” The media speaks of “one family under heaven” and says that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait are as close as one family.” For legitimacy, the Chinese Communist Party increasingly draws on ancient traditions to deepen its resonance, translating the family-nation emotional structure into modern political narratives.
The negative sides of the Father archetype are also clear: excessive control suppresses individual freedom and diversity; worship of authority sustains unjust hierarchies; dogmatism turns “traditional wisdom” into ideology that blocks innovation; protectionism, justified by security, produces exclusionary policies that hinder international exchange; and formalism uses ritualized meetings to stabilize positions in the system while wasting time that could solve problems. Unlike the US logic of the hero who refuses to step down, China’s “father does not retire” logic comes from the long-term, irreplaceable role of the father in the family: governance is seen as a continuous household task, so leaders tend to extend their terms or continue to exert influence after formal retirement to guard stability and long-term plans.
At the geopolitical level, the difference between Hero and Father archetypes spills over into both nations’ behavior on the international stage. Hero-type leadership often uses the narrative of external “dragons” to unify domestic politics, create a sense of threat, and justify hard foreign and economic policies. Such discourse serves internal mobilization but can also tilt external policy toward risk and “achievement addiction,” rushing toward bold moves for quick glory. The structure of the two-party electoral system also turns foreign policy into a tool of political differentiation, increasing polarization and confrontational tendencies, often wrapped in the grand language of justice and mission.
By contrast, Father-type leadership tends to value order, stability, and long-term planning. The Confucian tradition does not glorify war and sees it as a necessary evil, emphasizing humane rule as the way to care for the “children of the family-state.” At the same time, the negative sides of the Father archetype can project themselves into international relations: exclusionary policies in the name of protection can produce institutional closure and weaken cross-border exchange and cooperation; hierarchical order and a culture of obedience may reduce flexibility and innovation in external interactions. The “elder brother” metaphor that once described the Soviet Union reflects a tendency to locate countries in family roles, and to treat smaller countries as little brothers in need of care, offering psychological support in the context of patronage-style relations.
These two archetypes interact and amplify each other in the twenty-first century. When leaders over-identify with them, the Jungian process of archetypal inflation sets in: the ego is overwhelmed by archetypal energy, producing grandiosity, paranoia, and messianic fantasies. This not only deepens domestic polarization but also magnifies misreading and miscalculation abroad, risking spirals of hostility, confrontation, and decoupling.
To move beyond the double excess of the Hero and Father archetypes, it is vital to integrate the feminine principle—emotion, intuition, care, cooperation, and nurturing—into leadership. Simply increasing the number of female leaders may not suffice, because in the context of male-dominated norms, women can feel compelled to adopt a harder style. Even so, a higher share of women and broader cultural change can help in reducing corruption, fostering peace-oriented movements, and strengthening community welfare.
More importantly, regardless of gender, leaders need to resist archetypal inflation and recast geopolitical narratives: they ought to shift international relations from a patriarchal frame of “conquest and order” to a communal frame of “connection and care.” Only then can the United States temper its over-Heroization and China moderate its over-Fathering, creating space to de-escalate competition and expand cooperation.
This essay distills ideas discussed in Bella Pei Wang’s paper, “Hero and Father: Contrasting Leadership Styles in the USA-China Rivalry,” published in Society.
Bella Pei Wang is the Assistant Professor, School of Chinese, University of Hong Kong, and co-author of Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World (Princeton University Press).
Related Post:
Africa must create a bloc like the EU to have real global power
Why they killed Gaddafi
Francis Fukuyama warns Trump is not a realist
Progress is humanity's worst idea
Related Videos:
The rise of technofeudalism
After the West
The West versus the Islamic World, with Ali Allawi
Yanis Varoufakis on the end of capitalism
Make China great again: Steve Tsang on Xi Jinping With Steve Tsang
Join the conversation
Sign in to post comments or join now (only takes a moment).
Brian Balke26 November 2025
What is it about the two cultures that encourage the manifestations of these archetypes?
China was a peasant-dominated culture until just recently. Landholdings were small and innovation limited. The imperial center created monuments, but daily life was unchanged. As in Russia, then, modernization was imposed from above by leaders that had access to Western models of industrial activity. In the formerly communist states, the resulting power imbalance centralized decision-making and facilitated totalitarian rule. Even so, however, recognize that Xi cannot displace FoxConn, the Taiwanese conglomerate that dominates Chinese high-tech manufacturing, with its barracks-style living conditions that leave grandmothers to raise the next generation in the hinterland.
The United States, conversely, was built and financed with slaves as human capital. Large-scale commercial agriculture is part of our cultural heritage. The concentration of agriculture means that 98% of us need never engage with the land. We have the opportunity to invest in the creation of our identity. What Trump epitomizes is actually a refusal of self-regulation. We do not choose heroes so much as we choose self-indulgence.
What is common in both systems, of course, is misogyny. Trump won not because he offered a coherent policy vision, but because the alternatives were women.
The author is absolutely right in her conclusion. No stable social order can be sustained without feminine participation.
Want to continue reading?
Get unlimited access to insights from the world's leading thinkers.
Browse our subscription plans and subscribe to read more.
Start Free Trial. Already a subscriber? Log in
本文於 修改第 3 次
|
|
習川會之川要面子習拿裏子 -- Kerry Brown
|
|
|
推薦2 |
|
|
|
Trump Stole the Limelight. But Xi Came Out Looking Stronger
Kerry Brown, 10/31/25
A critic of the returning Lord Macartney delegation from Britain to China in 1793 aptly noted that they had been treated with ceremony, entertained royally, and flattered in excess by Qianlong Emperor—and yet returned empty handed. This must rank as one of the earliest examples of the travails of seeking to do business with China.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump did not quite return empty-handed following a hotly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. He won promises from Beijing that it will clamp down on fentanyl, and in turn pledged to cut the 20% “fentanyl tariff” on all Chinese goods in half. He also won promises from China to buy 12 million metric tons of American soybeans this year. And he managed to get China to lift export controls on rare earths that had caused panic. But the “big beautiful deal” he has been talking up has yet to be signed.
For the salesman in Trump, it made sense to come away from the meeting and declare on Airforce One that “on a scale from zero to 10 ... the meeting was a 12.” The world too needs to be grateful that the two superpowers are talking like adults again, and with a one year trade truce in motion, are starting to take a more pragmatic path. It is also good that Trump has sidelined China hawks, who usually make terrible policy decisions in their perpetual search for a fight.
But the lack of a concrete, overarching deal is still a problem. This is because it shows that China, one of the toughest negotiators in the world, can play this whole process to their time and in their way. The compromises were not, in the end, ones that constituted red lines. Beijing wanted the U.S. to reduce tariffs and to ease trade restrictions. China has also found alternatives to American soybeans it had long purchased in mass and has made huge efforts to ramp up its technological capabilities—a commitment which was restated at the Fourth Plenum last week, and will surely be followed through with its army of qualified scientists.
More significant, Beijing has identified a real weakness in the U.S., and one that it will bring it to the negotiating table. Rare earths are something that China used some years ago in a spat with Japan. This time, on a far broader scale, they have instrumentalized what is close to a monopoly on minerals that are not, confusingly, that rare, but are very hard to mine and process. The U.S. has few other places to look, and would need years to increase its own capacity.
That Xi did not meet Trump until this late in his term is also symbolic. It shows that while the U.S. still has massive strengths, it has to calibrate its time and tempo to the Chinese, not set down unilateral demands. Trump’s berating of China earlier this year has also brought rewards to Xi domestically, too. For decades, Chinese nationalists decried the inability of their leadership to stand up to other world powers. But Xi has, to some extent, shown that China can indeed do this.
China might overplay its hand—that remains a real danger. Sitting with colleagues at a think tank in Beijing on Monday, I was struck by the almost nonchalance over the Trump-Xi meeting. The confidence that it would lead to a reasonable outcome was palpable. In the end, it proved right.
There are still many ways the trade truce can fall apart. But with a U.S. tariff rate now roughly in line with most of its Asian neighbors, the Chinese today must feel that even the worst outcomes they worried about some months back will not come to pass. And that despite all the earlier hard talk from the White House, Trump offers China an historic opportunity to gain status and strength on the international stage.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
本文於 修改第 1 次
|
|
習川會之貿易戰暫時熄火 ---- Ben Werschkul
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
請參考：
Trump’s big concession to Xi is loaded with red flags
Trump Chickens Out When Eyeball to Eyeball With Xi
Trump leaves meeting with China promising a tariff lowering and some near-term stability in the relationship
Ben Werschkul, Washington Correspondent, 10/30/25
President Trump announced Thursday that the US would halve its fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese goods as part of a reset in relations that includes China stepping back from its promise to restrict rare earth mineral exports for a year.
Other parts of the limited agreement Trump outlined after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea include increased purchases of US soybeans, more actions from China on the issue of fentanyl, the suspension of some shipping fees, and a visit by Trump to China now penciled in for next April.
Trump promised that additional details would be forthcoming and told reporters on Thursday that it had been a highly productive meeting, adding that a formal deal would be signed "pretty soon."
The terms outlined are likely to provide markets with a measure of stability in the relationship between the world's two largest economies, at least into next year.
"The deescalation takes the immediate threat of large tariff hikes off the table, removing a key downside risk to the near-term outlook," Capital Economics noted in an analysis Thursday, adding that underlying issues remain unresolved and, as such, "both sides will continue to pursue wider decoupling efforts."
The summit in Busan was the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders of Trump's second term and lasted a little under two hours.
A clear headline for markets was the tariff reduction, with Trump announcing that he would cut the current 20% tariff on China imposed over fentanyl to 10% "effective immediately."
The US has imposed a wide array of tariffs on China, from those 20% fentanyl-specific duties to 34% "reciprocal" tariffs to other sector-specific duties. The Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that the average US tariffs on Chinese exports stood at 57.6% before the meeting.
Trump said the changes mean the new overall rate is about 47%.
Also key was the issue of rare earth minerals. By some estimates, China controls 90% of the world market for processing these precious metals that are crucial to modern electronics.
China rattled global markets recently by announcing plans to restrict their exports. As part of Thursday’s agreement, "they're going to keep those flowing" for at least a year, said Trump trade representative Jamieson Greer.
China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday confirmed some of the terms, such as the lowering of fentanyl tariffs. Chinese state media offered a few additional details and struck an optimistic tone, saying the meeting would allow the two sides to build a "solid foundation for bilateral ties."
Not apparently agreed to in the talks was the closely watched market issue of semiconductors. Trump promised only that China and Nvidia (NVDA) would later talk among themselves about the chipmaker's future access to the country.
"They're going to be discussing that with Nvidia to see whether or not they can do it," Trump said of China, describing his role as that of the "referee" but downplaying the chances of more advanced Blackwell chips being available anytime soon, saying "we’re not talking about the Blackwell."
Also not finalized is TikTok. China’s Commerce Ministry said work to finalize the deal to spin off the app's US business and keep it available for Americans will continue.
There appeared to be little progress on China's relationship with Russia and its role in the war in Ukraine. Trump said he and Xi agreed to "work together" on the issue but added "there's not a lot more we can do" given China's long history of purchasing Russian oil.
Also, according to Trump, "Taiwan never came up."
Other issues saw more immediate attention, with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins confirming even before the meeting that China had renewed purchases of "multiple ships of American soybeans."
That was a top item on Trump's agenda after China recently stopped purchases altogether, hurting the bottom lines of US soybean farmers to the point that it was a situation described by some as a "Farmageddon."
On social media, Trump teased what he said could be new energy purchases from China, saying "a very large scale transaction may take place" around purchasing oil and gas from Alaska.
"Progress in US-China trade talks today marks an undeniably positive step," noted Louise Loo, the head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics, and "sets the stage for deeper, more predictable engagement heading into 2026."
But she was quick to note that "the détente is fragile given the high risk of policy missteps and mutual misreadings."
That larger takeaway from the gathering with China — which capped off an Asian swing that took President Trump from Malaysia to Japan to South Korea and also saw the president threaten minutes before meeting with Xi to resume US nuclear testing for the first time in decades — was some stability in the relationship.
"We have a deal," Trump declared Thursday before offering a reminder that "every year we'll renegotiate the deal."
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
本文於 修改第 4 次
|
|
習近平和川普兩強互別苗頭 -- Katrina Northrop/Cate Cadell
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
且拭目以待今天兩強會面的結果。以川普過去的行徑看，任何結果或協議不過是白紙一張、閒話一句、或狗屁一聲。
Confident Xi to meet Trump at tenuous time in U.S.-China trade war
Katrina Northrop/Cate Cadell, The Washington Post, 10/29/25
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies will meet Thursday, just days after the Trump administration declared it had brokered a tentative tariff truce, in an encounter that could soothe fears - at least temporarily - about the consequential U.S.-China relationship veering painfully off course.
For Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the meeting will be vindication that Beijing’s use of economic coercion to gain an edge over Washington is effective - especially because the vague deal outlined by U.S. trade envoys over the weekend represents little more than a return to the status quo before Trump came back to the Oval Office in January.
“The Chinese ‘escalate to de-escalate’ model worked to get them what they wanted,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, who was in Beijing this month for talks on security issues.
“They want the U.S. to learn humility, and they want the U.S. to understand who holds the upper hand here. There’s quite a bit of arrogance involved,” she added.
Xi and President Donald Trump are set to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea on Thursday - their first in-person meeting in Trump’s second term - following months of trade brinkmanship. It reached a zenith this month when Beijing announced sweeping export restrictions on crucial raw materials needed to make smartphones, fighter jets and more.
Ahead of the meeting, negotiators on Sunday announced a preliminary agreement that the Trump administration said would see Beijing defer restrictions on rare-earth minerals - measures poised to harm the U.S. economy - and avert the additional 100 percent tariffs that Trump had threatened to impose on imports from China.
The rare-earth controls, as announced, would extend Beijing’s reach beyond its borders by requiring approval for foreign entities shipping goods containing trace amounts of Chinese raw materials, mirroring U.S. semiconductor policies that include similar extraterritorial measures.
These sweeping restrictions would affect almost every country, and took governments and analysts alike by surprise because of their potentially enormous impact on the global economy.
Xi’s willingness to unveil such momentous measures underscore his confidence on the world stage and increasing willingness to play hardball with Trump, experts in Beijing and Washington say.
This assertive posturing has only been bolstered by events that have cemented Xi’s status as China’s most powerful leader in decades, said Jonathan Czin, a former CIA expert on China who is now at the Brookings Institution.
“He is feeling large and in charge in this moment,” Czin said.
Xi just presided over a major Communist Party meeting to set China’s policy direction for the next five years, hosted aligned world leaders for a display of military might at a parade in September, and tightened his grip on the military with yet another purge of senior defense officers.
Trump, by contrast, will arrive in South Korea with Washington hobbled by a month-long government shutdown, Czin said - a split-screen moment that is probably feeding Xi’s sense of leverage and China’s narrative that the United States’ dominance is faltering.
“There’s going to be a really jarring juxtaposition just in terms of visuals,” Czin said. “It’s just going to feed the PRC propaganda that they are the stable stewards of the international system,” he said, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China.
Still, both Beijing and Washington seem to want to stabilize relations, as evidenced by the negotiations in Malaysia this past weekend.
After those talks, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Chinese officials had agreed to defer rare-earth restrictions by a year and resume purchases of U.S. soybeans. China accounted for half - or $12.6 billion - of American soybean exports last year but has stopped buying the U.S. beans in retaliation for tariffs.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote on social media that China’s “commitment to make substantial purchases of U.S. soybeans brings the market BACK into balance and secures years of prosperity for American producers.”
Bessent also said the two leaders may “consummate” a deal to sell the U.S. operations of TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app that is under threat of a U.S. ban.
Chinese officials were far less direct about the contents of any agreement, but also projected optimism.
China is “willing to work with the U.S. side to promote positive outcomes,” foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a news conference Wednesday, specifically noting that Beijing is open to further cooperation on the issue of fentanyl.
Beijing kept under wraps any concessions the U.S. side may have offered and did not confirm that it had deferred the rare-earth controls.
“We are seeing a fairly positive outcome, and both sides believe the negotiations are constructive and beneficial for further progress” said Zhou Mi, a trade expert at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, a think tank affiliated with China’s Ministry of Commerce.
However, he urged caution: Many details are not yet public, including whether a possible deferral would apply to restrictions that have already been implemented.
It’s been a rocky ride for the world’s two largest economies since Trump returned to the White House in January.
Tit-for-tat levies ballooned into the triple digits in the spring before officials brokered a temporary reprieve in May. Since then, Washington has lashed out with high-tech export controls and port fees on Chinese ships, while Beijing has investigated U.S. companies for antitrust violations and tightened its hold over rare earths.
Henry Huiyao Wang, founder of the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing think tank, said that the latest rare-earth controls are merely a response to U.S. actions against China and show that Beijing is adopting Washington’s playbook.
“It’s exactly the same logic that U.S. has been using for eight years,” Wang said. “For the first time the U.S. was on the receiving end of that, and then they suddenly realized how ridiculous that can be.”
The question of what Beijing may have demanded in exchange for easing rare‑earth restrictions looms large.
Beijing is probably looking for a tariff reduction, as well as a rollback of port fees and - most crucially - U.S. technology export controls that have targeted China’s artificial intelligence and defense industries, experts say. In addition to loosening rare-earth controls, China could offer more soybean purchases and cooperation on stemming the global flow of fentanyl, which Trump has accused Beijing of facilitating.
Trump seems to be looking for a quick deal, eyeing a political win in the form of agricultural agreements ahead of the midterm elections, which could result in hefty concessions to Beijing, according to former senior U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
One potential concession could be a downgrading of U.S. support for Taiwan, the self-governing island that China views as a renegade province and threatens to take by force, analysts and former officials say.
“There is a real chance that the president is contemplating adjusting U.S. policy toward Taiwan,” one of the former U.S. officials said. “He appears to accept the idea that … smaller places around big countries have to kind of accept their realities.”
Many experts agree that economic issues are likely to be far higher on the agenda Thursday, and Rubio dismissed concerns over the weekend that Trump would walk away from Taipei for a trade deal.
Xi’s more assertive and politically confident approach has been noticed in Washington.
“I am struck by the level of Chinese confidence,” one of the former senior U.S. officials said. It is “really off the charts, and I think they feel like they’ve cracked the code. With President Trump, you have to be hard-line.”
Trump, meanwhile, has recently softened his stance on several China policy issues, including allowing certain AI chips to be sold to China, dissuading Taiwan’s president from a U.S. visit this summer and nixing $400 million in military aid to Taiwan. China opposes U.S. military support for Taiwan, which it claims as its own territory.
“The story of the six months leading up to this is that they have extracted some meaningful concessions from the U.S.,” Czin said.
But the picture isn’t entirely positive for Xi.
Though China has been able to manage the blow of U.S. tariffs better than many expected - in part by directing exports to regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa - a trade war threatens to exacerbate China’s persistent economic slump, which has contributed to high youth unemployment and sagging consumer confidence.
The rare-earths gambit could also backfire diplomatically, especially because the export controls apply to countries across the world. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a speech last week, for instance, criticized the controls and vowed to reduce China’s chokehold on the raw materials.
Even with the recent burst of high-level diplomacy, the expectations are low for a fundamental improvement in the U.S.-China relationship. Underlying disagreements on defense, human rights and technology issues threaten to disrupt any détente.
“The current China-U.S. relationship is more like risk management,” said Ren Yi, a politically connected writer in Beijing who uses the moniker “Chairman Rabbit.” “A more pragmatic goal is to prevent the situation from worsening. … In this context, no bad news is good news.”
Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report.
Related Content
Through pet sketches, she tells the stories of former federal workers
What it was like to fly into Hurricane Melissa’s eye
Consumer prices in September rise to a pace not seen since January
Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.
本文於 修改第 1 次
|
|
習、川會之熱面孔貼冷屁股 --- Didi Tang
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
寄望美國老大哥(爸爸？)來拯救台灣的傻B們可以夢醒了。不過，有句俗話怎麼說來著？對了，好像是：「叫不醒裝睡的人」；還是：「叫不醒該死的鬼」？
Trump's pursuit of meeting with Chinese leader reveals the complex web of US-China relations
DIDI TANG, 08/06/25
WASHINGTON (AP) — China, the adversary. China, the friend? These days, maybe a bit of both.
From easing export controls to reportedly blocking the Taiwanese president's plans to travel through the United States, President Donald Trump is raising eyebrows in Washington that he might offer concessions that could hurt U.S. interests in his quest to meet, and reach a deal with, the Chinese leader.
There is no firm plan for Trump to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. But it's widely believed that the men must meet in person, likely in the fall, for the two governments to ink a trade deal, and some are worried that Xi is leveraging Donald Trump's desire for more giveaways.
"The summit mismatch is real. There’s a clear gap between Trump’s eagerness for a face-to-face with Xi and Beijing’s reluctance to engage," said Craig Singleton, senior director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
There are concerns that Trump may throttle back on export controls or investment curbs to preserve summit prospects, Singleton said, warning the risk “isn't just in giving away too much” but also "in letting Beijing set the tempo.”
China-U.S. relations have pinballed often since Washington established relations with communist-led Beijing in 1979. They've hit highs and lows — the latter in the aftermath of the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, after a 2001 incident involving a U.S. spy plane, during the COVID pandemic and right now. Both countries have struggled to understand each other, which has sometimes gotten in the way of deeper partnerships.
And this time around, there's a wild card: the anything-might-happen second presidency of Trump.
Disputes often accompany potential US-China leader meetings
Efforts by a U.S. president to meet the head of the authoritarian Chinese government have often met with partisan outcries — which happened when former President Joe Biden hosted Xi in California in 2023. But Trump's case is peculiar, partly because he is willing to break with conventional political restraints to make deals and partly because his own party has grown hawkish towards China over national security.
“With President Trump, everything seems to be open for negotiation, and there are few if any red lines,” said Gabriel Wildau, managing director of the global consultancy Teneo. “The hawks worry that if Trump gets into a room with Xi, he will agree to extraordinary concessions, especially if he believes that a big, beautiful deal is within reach.”
While most Republican lawmakers have not voiced their concerns openly, Democrats are vocal in their opposition. "President Trump is giving away the farm to Xi just so he can save face and reach a nonsensical trade deal with Beijing that will hurt American families economically," said Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
On Tuesday, Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the Trump administration “has not wavered — and will never waver — in safeguarding our national and economic security to put America first.”
“The administration continues to have productive conversations with China to address longstanding unfair trade practices,” Desai said, adding that export controls on cutting-edge technology and many tariffs remain in place.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, after his latest round of trade negotiations with the Chinese in July, told CNBC that the team was “very careful to keep trade and national security separate.” And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, appearing on Fox News Radio, said the U.S. remains “as committed as ever to our partners ... in places like Taiwan” but also spoke of the strategic need to keep trade ties with China steady.
“In the end, we have two big, the two largest economies in the world,” Rubio said. “An all-out trade conflict between the U.S. and China, I think the U.S. would benefit from it in some ways, but the world would be hurt by it."
There's worry over Taiwan
Taiwan is concerned that the self-governing island could be “trade-able” when Trump seeks a deal with Beijing, said Jason Hsu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former legislator in Taiwan. “Our concern is that, will any of the trade deals lead to concession on political support for Taiwan?" Hsu said, citing the case last month where the White House allegedly blocked a request for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te to transit through the United States.
The U.S. maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan and has always allowed such transits in the past. Experts are worried that the Trump administration is setting a bad precedent, and Democrats have seized on it to criticize Trump.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on China, called the move “both a sharp break from precedent and another example of the Trump administration caving to China in hopes of reaching a trade deal." He said the policy decision “sends a dangerous signal” that Taiwan’s democracy is negotiable.
Hsu said Taiwan fears that Trump could be coerced or compelled to support the one-China principle, as espoused by Beijing, that acknowledges Beijing's sovereignty claim over the island. There are also concerns that Trump might utter anything in support of “unification." That was a request Beijing raised with the Biden administration, though it failed to get a positive response.
Now, it's upon Taiwan to persuade Trump to think of the island as “an economic partner rather than something that he can trade when he negotiates with China,” Hsu said, suggesting that Taiwan step up defense commitments, increase energy procurement, open its market to U.S. companies and invest more in the U.S.
But Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, said Trump is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act, a domestic law that obligates the U.S. to maintain an unofficial relationship with the island and provides it with sufficient hardware to deter any invasion by China.
“He can dial the (U.S.-Taiwan) relationship up and down," Sun said, "but he can’t remove the relationship.”
Export controls have been instituted, to mixed results
In April, the White House, citing national security, announced it would restrict sales of Nvidia’s H20 computer chips to China. The ban was lifted about three months later, when the two governments had climbed down from sky-high tariffs and harsh trade restrictions.
The decision upset both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on China, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to stress that the U.S. cannot let the Chinese Communist Party “use American chips to train AI models that will power its military, censor its people, and undercut American innovation.”
In Stockholm, Bessent pushed back at the concern that national security might be compromised. “We are very diligent,” Bessent said, adding there's an interagency process that involves the National Security Council and the Defense Department for decisions.
“There's nothing that's being exchanged for anything,” Bessent said. Addressing H20 chips specifically, Bessent said they “are well down" Nvidia's "technology chips stack.” U.S. companies are banned from selling their most advanced chips to China.
That might not be persuasive enough.
Teneo's Wildau said China hawks are most worried that the H20 decision could be the beginning of a series of moves to roll back export controls from the Biden era, which were once considered “permanent and non-negotiable.”
本文於 修改第 5 次
|
|
川瘋看來還沒完全瘋 --- Alec Schemmel
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
在報導此訊息外媒中，我特別選了「對台友善」狐狸電視的評論；以免一些死不要臉的綠營五毛黨說我惡意：造謠、中傷、為匪張目、打擊民心士氣、破懷台美友好關係等等。
請參考：
* 賴清德欲過境美國遭拒？台灣外交部否認
* 金融時報：賴清德總統得知美方不允許過境紐約後決定取消8月出訪
* US Blocked Taiwan President From NY Stopover After China Intervened: Report
Trump's reported snub of Taiwan president spurs concerns over deference to China
Alec Schemme, 07/29/25
The Trump administration is reportedly blocking Taiwan's president from stopping over in New York City, en route to a diplomatic meeting in Central America, following pressure from China.
The Financial Times reported Monday that the administration has denied Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te the opportunity to stop over in New York City during a planned trip to Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize — all countries that recognize Taiwan as its own independent country.
However, on Monday, the office of the president in Taiwan released a statement indicating that Lai "currently has no plans to go on an overseas visit," according to Taiwan-state media. A source familiar with the matter at the State Department confirmed that no formal travel plans for President Lai have been announced.
"In consideration of the ongoing rehabilitation efforts in southern Taiwan following a recent typhoon and regional developments including the United States' tariffs, the president currently has no plans to go on an overseas visit," the statement from President Lai said.
According to the Financial Times, which spoke with unnamed sources said to be intimately familiar with the alleged trip, Lai's decision not to travel came after he was informed that he would not be able to stop in New York City on his way to Central America.
Lai's trip was also reportedly supposed to include a stop in Dallas, but it is unclear if the Trump administration was also planning to bar Lai from stopping there as well, according to the Financial Times.
U.S.-Taiwan solidarity has long included symbolic gestures — but critics suggest that the Trump administration may be undermining that relationship in a bid to engage China on trade.
The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. However, a State Department source familiar with the matter indicated that the Trump administration continues to be committed to the government's long-standing one China policy, rooted in the Taiwan Relations Act, joint diplomatic agreements with China and longstanding pledges crafted by the government in regard to Taiwan and China.
Despite being in line with longstanding government policy, the move still garnered criticism from some Asia policy experts and critics of Trump.
Lyle Morris, a senior fellow on foreign policy and national security at the Asia Society's Center for China Analysis, said the "first concrete move" under Trump's second term regarding Taiwan is "a cause for concern."
"The assumption is this decision was made in the context of ongoing US-China trade negotiations and a possible Trump-Xi meeting," Morris said on X. "Still, not a good sign for enduring US-Taiwan relations."
"Denying President Lai a transit is a deeply concerning break with bipartisan precedent and sends a reckless signal to Beijing that our partnership with Taiwan is on the negotiating table," added Democrat Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., in a post on X following the news about President Lai's alleged travel.
"American leadership is now seen as deeply unreliable, with Trump’s fits and starts with Ukraine, NATO allies, and other key partners. I urge President Trump to reverse course and do what presidents of both parties have done and allow a transit, and ask my colleagues in Congress to join me in that call."
News of the Trump administration's decision to prohibit the Taiwanese president from stopping in New York City comes as the president is reportedly feeling out a potential trip to Beijing himself, alongside major U.S. CEOs. Nothing so far has been set in stone regarding Trump's trip, however.
相關閱讀：
Taiwan Envoy Urges Congressional Action, Warns Of Rising China Threat After Meeting Lawmakers
Pillsbury: Trump To Hold ‘Tense’ Trade Talks With China
本文於 修改第 1 次
|
|
習近平、川普終於電話會談 – K. Liptak/S. McCarthy
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
Trump and Xi hold long-awaited trade call
Kevin Liptak and Simone McCarthy, CNN, 06/05/25
Washington/Hong Kong CNN — President Donald Trump emerged Thursday from a long-awaited 90-minute telephone call with President Xi Jinping of China encouraged that ongoing trade tensions could soon be resolved.
Calling the conversation “very good,” Trump said in a social media post after the call that follow-up talks would soon be arranged with his economic team, and that he and Xi had invited each other to visit each other’s respective nations.
Trump said the call focused almost entirely on trade, without touching on other geopolitical issues like Iran and Ukraine.
The call “resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It comes after a long period of silence between the leaders, and the discrepancy in how each side was talking — or not talking — about the call ahead of time only underscored a widening gulf between the world’s two largest economies.
Tensions have been rising between the two sides in the weeks after they agreed to a 90-day trade truce last month, which hit pause on their tit-for-tat escalation of tariffs. Trump accused China last week of “violating” the agreement — a charge Beijing has denied, while it accused the US of taking steps to “seriously undermine” that consensus.
In his readout of the Thursday call, Trump singled out the issue of rare earth minerals — which China had placed restrictions on – as an area where he made progress with his counterpart.
“There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products,” Trump wrote.
He said a meeting between the economic teams would occur “shortly” in a location to be determined. And he said the leaders look forward to visiting each other.
“During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing,” Trump wrote.
US officials had signaled in recent days that a call between the two leaders could help jump-start progress in expected upcoming trade talks, which had appeared to stall following the initial truce reached in Geneva.
As CNN reported ahead of Thursday’s call, Chinese officials — who were deeply wary of Trump’s unpredictability and track record of putting foreign leaders in awkward or embarrassing situations — had put off a phone call, according to people familiar, even as Trump stated on multiple occasions this spring that he expected to speak with Xi soon.
The president’s Oval Office ambushes of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa caught the attention of officials in China, those people added, and officials wanted to avoid anything similar, even in a private conversation.
But Trump regards securing a new agreement with Beijing both as a critical component of his broader trade agenda and as a necessary follow-up from his first term, when trade deals with China got derailed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The two leaders are known to have last spoken on January 17, days before Trump’s inauguration. They are navigating a fractious relationship, with recent points of contention stretching beyond their gaping trade imbalance.
Following the Geneva talks last month, US officials had expected China to ease export restrictions on rare earth minerals, which had been imposed in April in retaliation against Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese goods. The minerals are an essential part of everything from iPhones and electric vehicles to big-ticket weapons like F-35 fighter jets and missile systems.
But the restrictions haven’t been lifted, causing intense displeasure inside the Trump administration and prompting a recent series of measures imposed on China, three administration officials told CNN last week.
Beijing, meanwhile, has bristled as Washington warned companies against using AI chips made by China’s national tech champion Huawei, moved to limit critical technology sales to China and announced that the US would “aggressively revoke visas” for Chinese students in the US with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.
This is story has been updated with additional information.
本文於 修改第 1 次
|
|
晶片齟齬導致中、美關係緊張 - Bloomberg News
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
韋布斯特先生顯然是一位蛋頭學者(下文倒數第2段)；川普上任三個月後，他還沒看出此人天賦異稟，其「邏輯」與眾不同？另請參見First Cracks Emerge in US-China Trade Truce。
US-China Tensions Over Chips Risk Hurting Trade Truce, Dialogue
Bloomberg News, 05/21/25
(Bloomberg) — US-China tech tensions are flaring again, with Beijing threatening legal action against anyone enforcing Washington’s restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co.’s chips, casting a shadow over a recent trade truce and efforts to sustain dialogue.
China’s Commerce Ministry said in a Wednesday statement that entities could breach the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law by assisting in the US curbs, without specifying the punishment. The move escalates the tech dispute even as Chinese officials express their wish to improve relations.
The US Commerce Department had warned that using the Huawei semiconductors “anywhere in the world” would violate US export controls before later removing the place reference. China has said the Trump administration’s actions on chips undermined recent trade talks in Geneva.
Wu Xinbo, director at Fudan University’s Center for American Studies in Shanghai, said the amendment suggests continued contact between the two sides, at least at the working level.
“The challenge is how both sides can keep the momentum gained from the Geneva talks,” he said. “I hope there can be high-level talks next month. But nothing’s guaranteed at the moment.”
On the same day of the Chinese warning, Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told new US ambassador to China, David Perdue, that Beijing hopes the US will work together to promote ties.
This followed a meeting the day before between People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng and former US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, now chairman of Warburg Pincus, according to a brief statement from the central bank.
In a separate sitdown between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Asia Society CEO Kyung-wha Kang on Tuesday, China’s top diplomat said China and the US should work toward finding the right way to get along by fostering positive engagement in the Asia-Pacific region first.
The flurry of exchanges comes after high-level talks in Switzerland earlier this month, where both nations agreed to a 90-day pause in some reciprocal tariffs, although substantial levies remain on Chinese imports.
These interactions appear to be part of Beijing’s effort to maintain dialogue while conflicts concerning US curbs on semiconductors and China’s control over critical minerals show little sign of resolution. China’s alleged role in fentanyl’s flow into the US also remains a significant point of contention, with American officials pressing China for greater cooperation.
The simultaneous trade thaw and persistent dispute over access to technology underscore the challenge of resolving the economic conflict between the world’s two largest economies.
“My instinct is that tariffs are on a somewhat independent track from weaponizing supply chains. The logic is different,” said Graham Webster, who leads the DigiChina project at the Stanford University Cyber Policy Center.
Webster suggested that if the countries reach a more comprehensive trade deal, “the tech restrictions on one or both sides will be on the table.”
Most Read from Bloomberg News and Businessweek
* Why Apple Still Hasn’t Cracked AI
* Anthropic Is Trying to Win the AI Race Without Losing Its Soul
* Inside the First Stargate AI Data Center
* Microsoft’s CEO on How AI Will Remake Every Company, Including His
* Cartoon Network’s Last Gasp
* Can Frank Gehry’s ‘Grand LA’ Make Downtown Feel Like a Neighborhood?
* Chicago’s O’Hare Airport Seeks Up to $4.3 Billion of Muni Debt
* NJ Transit Makes Deal With Engineers, Ending Three-Day Strike
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
本文於 修改第 4 次
|
|
日本西線能夠無戰事？ - MARI YAMAGUCHI
|
|
|
推薦1 |
|
|
|
山雨欲來風滿樓；有人歡喜有人愁。
Stress and fear roil a tiny, rapidly militarizing Japanese island near Taiwan
MARI YAMAGUCHI, 02/26/25
YONAGUNI (與那國島), Japan (AP) — This tiny island on Japan's western frontier has no chain convenience stores. Nature lovers can dive with hammerhead sharks and watch miniature horses graze on a hill.
But the wooded mountain ranges now carry radar sites. A southern cattle ranch has been replaced with the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force's Camp Yonaguni. Japan and its ally, the United States, hold joint military exercises here. Plans are underway to add a new missile unit and expand a small airport and port.
All of the buildup has cemented the island as a front line in a potential clash over Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island that China claims as its own.
“As a child, I was so proud of this westernmost border island,” said Fumie Kano, an innkeeper on Yonaguni. “But recently, we are repeatedly told this place is dangerous, and I feel so sad.”
The militarization has been especially felt as the island's population shrinks. There are less than 1,500 local residents. Supporters say new servicemembers arriving are needed for the island's safety and struggling economy. Opponents like Kano say the military buildup is damaging the environment, making the island's economy dependent on the military and could provoke an attack.
On the front line
Yonaguni is only 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of Taiwan, around which China has bolstered military activity. Worried about a conflict, Japan has made a “southwestern shift” in its military posture and accelerated defense buildup and spending around the front line.
Missile units for PAC-3 interceptors have been deployed on Yonaguni and nearby Ishigaki and Miyako islands.
Yonaguni residents find themselves at the center of the geopolitical tension. A recent government plan to deploy more missiles, possibly long-range, has caused unease about the future of the island, even among those who initially supported hosting troops.
Kano, a Yonaguni native, recalls that officials and residents once wanted to improve the economy and environment through commercial exchanges with Taiwan by operating direct ferries between the islands. But that was set aside when a plan to host Japanese troops became an easier alternative to gain government subsidies and protection.
Disagreement about the plan has divided the small community. Support for hosting Japanese troops carried in a 2015 referendum; that meant the island's fate would be largely decided by the central government’s security policy.
A year later a 160-member coast watch unit was set up to monitor Chinese military activity, with radars built on Mount Inbi and elsewhere. Now there are about 210 troops, including an electro-warfare unit. Servicemembers and their families account for one-fifth of the island’s total population.
The local economy largely depends on the servicemembers and their families who use local shops, schools and community services.
There's worry on the island about the pace and extent of the militarization, says Kyoko Yamaguchi, a potter. “Everything is pushed through in the name of the Taiwan emergency, and many feel this is too much.”
A nonfatal crash in October of a Japanese army tilt-rotor aircraft Osprey during a joint exercise with the U.S. military on the island also caused apprehension.
Japan and China build their militaries
Japan's air and maritime forces in Okinawa’s prefectural capital of Naha are key to protecting the country's southwestern airspace and territorial waters.
The Naha-based Southwestern Air Defense Force is the busiest of Japan’s four regional air forces. In fiscal 2023, the force was scrambled 401 times, or 60% of the national total of 669, mostly against the Chinese, according to the Defense Ministry.
Rear Adm. Takuhiro Hiragi, commander of Fleet Air Wing 5 of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, says his group's mission is to fly P-3C aircraft over the East China Sea near Okinawa and its remote islands, including Yonaguni, and the Japanese-controlled Senkaku island, which Beijing also claims.
“We have to be mobile, quick and thorough to keep tabs in this region,” Hiragi said, noting the presence of key sea lanes in the area, including those that China uses to navigate the Pacific Ocean. “We watch over their exercises, not only near Taiwan but wherever necessary.”
Defense officials say China has been accelerating its military activities in the area between Taiwan and Yonaguni.
In August, a Chinese Y-9 reconnaissance plane briefly violated Japanese airspace off the southern main island of Kyushu, prompting Japan’s military to scramble fighter jets and warn the plane. A Chinese survey ship separately violated Japanese territorial waters off a southern island days later. In September, the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and two destroyers sailed between Yonaguni and nearby Iriomote, entering a band of water just outside of Japan’s territorial waters.
Growing fear
Yonaguni fisherfolk, who closely monitor foreign vessels, have been among the first to see the growing Chinese military activity.
In 2022, several ballistic missiles China fired as part of an exercise landed off Japan's southwestern waters following then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August. One of them landed just 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Yonaguni while more than 20 local fishing boats were operating.
Though it caused no injuries or damage, the Chinese drills kept fisherfolk from operating for a week, Yonaguni fisheries association chief and town assembly member Shigenori Takenishi said. “It was an extremely dangerous exercise that really made us feel China's potential threat right next to us.”
Fear of a Taiwan war rekindles bitter memories here of the Battle of Okinawa, in which about 200,000 people, nearly half of them civilians, were killed. Historians say the army sacrificed Okinawa to defend Japan’s mainland. Today Okinawa 's main island hosts more than half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan.
"Being at the center of this issue is very stressful for residents," said shopkeeper Takako Ueno. “I don't want people to imagine this beautiful island turning into a battlefield.”
To keep that from happening Yonaguni needs to be fortified, says Mayor Kenichi Itokazu, a military buildup advocate who has campaigned for the deployment of more Japanese troops for decades.
What happens in an emergency?
Some residents feel uneasy about their vulnerability, even amid the military buildup.
A government evacuation plan last year showed moving 120,000 people from five remote islands, including Yonaguni, to Japan's main islands would take at least six days. Some question whether such an evacuation is even possible.
Itokazu, the mayor, wants to build a shelter in the basement of a new town hall and to expand the Higawa port for evacuation by ship, a plan opposed by environmentalists who say there are rare marine species there.
But there's skepticism from some.
“It's absurd,” Kano said of the evacuation plan, because all of Japan would be in danger if Okinawa is dragged into fighting. “I just hope the money will be spent on policies that will help the people in Yonaguni live peacefully.”
Associated Press video journalist Ayaka McGill contributed to this report from Yonaguni.
本文於 修改第 1 次
|
|
|
本城市首頁
看回應文章
等級：8
