China: No More Mr. Nice Guy

The end of fake 'issues'?

The human rights ‘issue’

President-elect Trump chose Senator Marco Rubio as his Secretary of State despite the fact that, in 2020, China imposed sanctions on Senator Rubio for drafting and sponsoring the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

This week, President Xi warned the G20 away from China’s four red lines: Taiwan, democracy, human rights, China's path and system, and its right to develop. The following day UK PM Keir Starmer, addressing President Xi directly, challenged his human rights record¹ and laid claim to Britain’s ‘shared interest in Hong Kong’.

The trade deficit ‘issue’

Beijing runs a manufactured goods surplus with the US but,says Glenn Luk, but runs trade deficits of $909B primary imports (food, minerals); $241B services (foreign travel/tourism/IP licenses); $386B foreign firms’ profit operating in China; $258B factoryless manufacturing. Subtracting these figures gets us back to the official surplus of $211B, or 1.2% of GDP. Exports’ share of China’s economy is 20%, compared to Australia’s 27% and Germany’s 51%.

But while the supply of fake issues – fake famine issues, fake massacre issues, fake statistics issues – is endless, Beijing’s patience is obviously not.

What if Beijing is fed up?

What if its leaders are as fed up with these taunts as they were in 1951, when they