George Friedman
A few weeks ago, I cited the dismissal of nine senior generals from the People’s Liberation Army by Chinese President Xi Jinping as potential evidence that Xi’s health was deteriorating – as had been rumored in Chinese and, in time, global media. I had considered that the emergence of Xi’s health issues might have been a justification for removing him from office and that the generals were ousted to block the coup. In a country as opaque as China, things like this can be indicative of major internal crises.
Subsequent developments suggest something very different. The purge of the generals was followed by the unexplained dismissal of senior admirals in the Chinese navy. If they were sacked because of their suspected participation in a coup, that means the conspiracy would be so widespread that it would be impossible to keep secret. This is difficult to imagine, as is the degree of carelessness military leaders would demonstrate in talking too much about a coup. And a military that loses most of its senior commanders in a short time is not going to be effective in the event of war.
My new theory is that the purges relate to changes in China’s Taiwan policy. Last week, the U.S. embassy invited Cheng Li-wun, the leader of the opposition Kuomintang political party, to visit Washington. Some consider her to be pro-China, while others see her as merely less hostile than the governing party to China. The United States has supported the Democratic Progressive Party-led government, which is committed to independence rather than accommodation with China, and is generally seen as more U.S.-friendly. Its stance toward Beijing is somewhere between wary and hostile. That makes a visit by the leader of the Kuomintang very interesting – doubly so since Taiwan’s president hasn’t been to the U.S. since his scheduled meeting in July was scrapped.
The invitation came after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Xi, from which some other interesting things emerged. Trump has demanded that nations not buy Russian oil on pain of significant tariff increases. Usually, China would have rejected that demand, but this time, it didn’t – not exactly. Though Beijing did not publicly say it would comply, two of the country’s largest oil companies announced they would stop buying Russian oil. So while there was not a total boycott on Russian oil purchases, there was a significant reduction. Whether the companies honor the pledge is less important than the fact that Beijing has publicly let it be known that it will meet Washington’s demands.
No comments:
Post a Comment