My latest in @USNIProceedings.
"Keep the Steel in the First Island Chain."
"By knotting and splicing the frayed strands of each alliance, the United States can turn the rope of shared security into the chain it needs to be."
🇺🇸🇯🇵🇰🇷🇵🇭🇹🇼🪖
https://t.co/qI2d9eUK7t
Resounding sentiment from #Taiwan supporting their sovereignty, and a clear rejection of capitulation to #China.
#KMT chairwoman Cheng's pro-China campaigning is a gift to the #DPP that keeps on giving. 🇹🇼
🇹🇼’s MAC released the latest poll
• 79.7% disagree 👎 “one country, two systems”
• 72.6% agree 👍 “ROC (Taiwan) and PRC (China) are not subordinate to each other”
• 88.6% agree 👍 “the future of Taiwan must be jointly decided by 23 million people (Taiwanese).
• 71.9% agree 👍 the government to increase the national defense budget and strengthen self-defense.
https://t.co/5JDMIUKaIH
This is not new, but it is not common knowledge among #Taiwan and #China watchers.
Amplifying it now emphasizes that #Taiwan has more relationships than the world tends to acknowledge, and undermines #China's narrative warfare. 🇹🇼 🇸🇬 🪖
https://t.co/TUKl5Mi7d2
Hold on, hold on, let's correct this for you:
"Most #CCP members today say that Deng Xiaoping was vindicated by how well the #CCP has developed. I doubt the #CCP would be as powerful if the students weren't murdered and suppressed by the #CCP."
@SecRubio Most Chinese people today say that Deng Xiaoping was vindicated by how well China has developed. I doubt China would be as prosperous or powerful if the students got their way.
On China’s dominance in critical mineral supply chains:
🇹🇼 @TECRO_USA Ambassador Alexander Tah-Ray Yui says “Critical minerals is not something that is unsolvable.”
What’s needed is the political will among countries to find a solution, he tells @ACScowcroft’s @Mister_G_2.
Three men were buried under a landslide in China...
They're inside a car when it happened, and miraculously still have a mobile phone connection.
The first man made a phone call to the police:
"I'm a good citizen and husband, please come save us!"
The police tell him they will come for them in 24 hours
The second man made a phone call to the army:
"Comrade, I served the country as you do, please get me out of here!"
The soldier tell him they will come for them in 12 hours
The final man made a phone call to someone, and made a whisper which the other two man can't hear
Within an hour, the men were dug out and rescued
A group of police officers walk up to the weary men and ask,
"Alright, which one of you said Taiwan is a country?"
"Responding to Rickover’s critique that the officer-heavy faculty was academically weak, it set out to attract and retain prominent civilian scholars... and, ultimately, became an elite academic institution itself."
@USNIProceedings
https://t.co/53HHDyY27F
🇹🇼 @TECRO_USA Ambassador Alexander Tah-Ray Yui: “When we watch Star Trek, we root for Captain Kirk and his crew,” because there’s some “common values that we cherish.”
“When Xi Jinping’s watching Star Trek, he’s probably identifying himself with the Borgs,” he laughs.
President Lai 🇹🇼 is spot on.
The #CCP has dismantled the culture and prosperity of every country that #China has annexed. The #PRC is an existential threat to the free world.
Supporting #Taiwan's sovereignty by honoring the Taiwan Relations Act is a critical #US interest. 🇺🇸
One might say she is acting as a ... 'de facto' agent...
I'll be here all week!
(this is a deep cut joke about #Taiwan's international relations as a consequence of derecognition... de facto independence, de facto embassies, etc..).
Anyways, Taiwan is a country. 🇹🇼
Yes, of course she is acting as Beijing's agent.
The Constitution of the ROC -- imposed at gunpoint and enforced by PRC's threats of violence -- does not make China and Taiwan one country.
On May 28, 1963, Chen Chih-hsiung 陳智雄 became the first activist executed by the KMT for advocating Taiwan independence
Guards chopped his feet and pierced his cheeks to silence him
Still, his final shout was: 台灣獨立萬歲 (Long live Taiwan independence!)
You are confused on two accounts. First, ethics is what separates us from the Nazis or today’s terrorists. Ethics is what ensures we are an Army worthy of our Constitution not just armed thugs. Second, we teach ethics when we teach the Army Values and we practice ethical behavior in daily life at home station, when we are training in the field or at CTCs and when we are deployed and in combat. It is an integral part of everything we do. You can never think about ethics and practice ethical behavior too much, only too little.
Two simple concepts easy to understand, challenging to sustain over time in combat. Anyone can train a unit to engage the enemy, that’s easy. Training them to act ethically while engaged in the emotional hell that is combat is far more difficult. Senior Army leaders understand this, which is why they are senior Army leaders.
The military spends years hardening bodies and sharpening minds for combat. It spends almost nothing preparing warfighters for the moment their values collide with the reality of war. https://t.co/vVkOMCObLY
There is no #ethos without #ethics.
Read this @WarOnTheRocks article discussing the operational importance of ethics and doctrine for the U.S. military. 🇺🇸🪖
https://t.co/iDRnPXp3gO
This is nonsense but it's going to become more and more common over the next few years as an important component of PRC anti-US and anti-Taiwan agitation. Like all such propaganda, it creates a bubble world in which only the US and China exist and Tokyo and Manila do not.