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James Yu of the press division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office gives Taiwan's position on the Hong Kong students demand for free elections. He says the protests clearly show of "One Counry, Two Systems," does not work and Beijing cannot keep its promises.

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The number of countries visa free entry is the wrong way to give passport rankings as learning from other countries and cultures, learning about their scientific advances and manner of thinking is key to the huge changes that happened in Asia- in first Japan by 1900, South Korea and Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, by 1960's, China by 1990's and India by 2010- as the people of these countries interacted with Europe and the US. Interaction with Europe and the US is key for Asian nations.  This happened even earlier as Americans by 1880's interacted with Europe through ship voyages across the Atlantic in 7 days. This brought knowledge of scientific advances and ways of thinking from Europe to the US accelerating pace of industrialization in the agricultural economy in the US in the 19th century.  In 2025 the visa free access for US and EU to some of the advanced Asian nations, Japan and China is key to bringing back knowledge of scientific and other advances to the US and EU.  India and China should be compared. At Munich and other German EU airports China has the kind of visa free and fast track entry that does not exist either for the US or India. The writer experienced this on a recent visit in 2025 with a US passport denied entry to the fast track lane reserved for Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other travelers. India's bureaucracy, and US's lethargy, and the sheer lack of serious effort comparable to China and Japan in getting fast easy access to EU is to blame , particularly for the travelers who are most likely to gain from such interactions, the educated middle class and business people of India and the US. One could go so far as to say that one of the keys to China's advances is its ties to Germany and Hamburg and entry ports in Netherlands to the EU. EU is the source of technologies and of scientific knowledge freely available to China 1990-2025. For this to happen advanced logistics and ship- port building had to take place. India must do the same and much faster than anything that happened before 2025 at a pace as fast as China's if it is to reach it's potential in the world economy alongside the US and EU. ...

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Mark Landler of NYT provides the background of the relationship with China and Taiwan during the Reagan administration. Reagan criticized the decision to abrogate recognition of Taiwan as a candidate and in 1982 pushed for Six Assurances, one of which was the assertion that the U.S. did not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Mr. Trump told a news channel that he doesn't see why the U.S. is bound by a One China policy, and that this would have to be part of a deal that included trade, and solving problems related to North Korea, and the South China Sea island fortifications. 

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A Taiwan based correspondent of BBC News reflects on how China has changed during the Singles day 11.11 on November 11. This is a huge promotion event for online retailer Alibaba. It was originally a day used by male college students without girlfriends, showing with the 11 their desire to have relationships. Alibaba has used it as a promotional day for online sales with discounts of 30% or more. About halfway though the day sales were larger than 2016 sales on Nov. 11.  Many retailers from different countries took part. and the sales reached $25 billion. Many people used it to buy household supplies for 6 months using the discounts, or apparel and clothing which could be delivered to their home. The old ideas of frugality are now replaced with a willingness to try new ways to live in a different period.  Use of mobile phones for ordering is widespread as a new urban middle class in China shifts to a materialist culture of buying on credit.

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Acer faces large inventories and a competitive market with declining prices in the PC market. Acer's CEO J.T. Wang expects a loss in 2011, as a result of inventory adjustments, lower demand for notebook PC's, and a slower economy. Second quarter revenues were down 32%, and Acer shows a loss of 6.8 billion New Taiwan dollars ($US 234 million) for the second quarter. Acer has lost sales and market share to competitors. It now comes in fourth after H-P, Dell, Lenovo. The inventory reductions by competitors has created turmoil in PC markets. Another problem Acer faces is on its Ultrabook, a new ultrathin notebook. The Ultrabook to be introduced in September 2011 is to be priced at US$799 to US$1,199. HSBC analyst Jenny Lai is skeptical about the price, and sees a price closer to $700 for the product to make a dent in the market. This will put more pressure on Acer's margins. The Apple iPad and iPhone have reduced the demand for notebooks and created a new dynamic in the market. H-P CEO Apotheker made the decision for H-P to exit the PC and tablet business this week because of the required investment for a continuous stream of new products and low margins....

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The poor decisions made by former CEO, Mark Hurd, leading to underinvestment in research and development and lack of funding for H-P Labs, leave H-P in a weaker position. The cuts were lauded at the time by the financial media but left the company with weaker technological capabilities. The distractions since 2005, with changing CEO's and lack of proper direction in the company, a weak board of directors, a large bureaucracy and inefficient sales force, and the emergence of low cost competitors from Taiwan, are hurting H-P's performance and capabilities. Meg Whitman, the current CEO, plans another round of layoffs, following the layoffs under Hurd. About 30,000 of 324,000 existing employees will be retired or laid off. H-P generated only $1.7 billion in net earnign on sales of $127 billion in fiscal 2011. In smartphones, cloud computing services and tablet computers, H-P has either stumbled or still struggles to develop clear winners.

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This report in WSJ says 4 months before becoming China's president in 2012 Xi Jinping issued a Communist party directive as head of the party committee overseeing the former British colony. The directive cautioned officials about a growing separatist sentiment in Hong Kong. It said "we must dare to struggle and be good at fighting," a retired official describes as Xi's approach. Another facet of Xi's views on Hong Kong are that his father as a party leader for the southern province of Guangdong in 1978 to 1980 near Hong Kong was the first after the Cultural Revolution to set up ties between the mainland and the British colony of Hong Kong. China was experimenting with a different model for the economy and Xi's father set up the early links with Hong Kong so that the flow of economic refugees from mainland China to Hong Kong could be reduced and the gap in living standards could be narrowed. He set up the first "Special Economic Zone" and met delegations to start the Sino-British talks on Hong Kong's future. Xi Jinping grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. His father Xi Zhongzun, was jailed in 1962 in internal party struggles, and his family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution that started in 1966. The Cultural Revolution that went on till 1976 ironically was an attempt to stamp out possible capitalist or imperialist influences from the colonial period and the opium wars with Britain. He was later rehabilitated under premier Deng. During the turmoil Xi with some difficulty was admitted to University after spending some years in the countryside. His father remained loyal to the ideals of the Chinese Revolution even though he had suffered from the internal party struggles, an experience remains a strong memory for Xi Jinping. It is as if the period is seen as a period of experimentation and failure for the party not for its ideals of China rising from the colonial period after its failure to engage with the world before the colonial period leading to backwardness. The unity of the country had to be maintained bringing Hong Kong and possibly Taiwan together with the mainland. Rejuvenation was happening and stability was essential for Chia to grow and emerge into the "China Dream" a word coined by Xi for its emergence in the community of nations as an equal to western powers after the colonial period of oppression and cultural backwardness. In this way he is different than other leaders before him who followed premier Deng who started the experimentation with markets and economic structures. The leader preceding him was party secretary in Tibet with a prime minister who was an engineer working on public projects, in sharp contrast to Xi who had the the sense of authority from seeing different phases of Communist party experimentation in his early years. The Bo Xi Lai incident during the transition before 2012 also influenced Xi. This was an attempt similar possibly to the attempt by Lin Piao under Mao to subvert Communist Party leadership into a new direction bringing China under Soviet influence after the break by Mao. Bo Xi Lai, a party secretary for an interior less developed region Chongqing, who rose from being Mayor of Dalien to governor of Liaoning province. Bo Xi Lai attempted to subvert the process operating since the Cultural Revolution of leadership by consensus within the party ensuring stability and continuity needed for development and pushing the trauma of the Cultural Revolution out of memory. He did this by seeking high party office for his own ambitions not for the party and China's interests that guided leaders after the Cultural Revolution. This incident and the period of two decades of growth of market economy had led to growing corruption and Xi was convinced that "corruption would doom the Communist Party and the State" and the resulting instability was bad for China. During this period in 2012 Xi Jinping said that it was necessary to remove "tigers and flies" who could endanger the party's ideals and the future growth and stability of the country.  About 10,000 party officials were removed for corruption, and the rule of Politburo Standing Committee immunity (PSC) of the party operating after the Cultural Revolution was removed. The PSC is the body that at the top of the organization structure that runs China. On Hong Kong Xi now believes that the problem is best tackled by the Hong Kong government not by intervening from Beijing. There is increasing perception in Beijing and Hong Kong that the local government, business leaders have messed things up, by getting into the habit of telling Beijing planners what they wanted to hear, and failing to communicate with the 7 million people of Hong Kong. These leaders are also in a bind because Xi believes that Beijing exercized "overall governance authority" over Hong Kong. A 2014 government white paper warns against "confused or lopsided perceptions" of Hong Kong's status, saying that its partial autonomy comes "solely from the authorization of the central leadership."     ...

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The title says it all. The Jobs bank the United Autoworkers trade union in the US setup in GM in 1984 threatened American automaker GM's very survival in 2006. It put workers who were not needed at GM in a jobs bank. It basically meant the idled workers -many of them close to retirement -would stay there till they retired doing nothing collecting full salary. As Mohandas Gandhi had done for India in Hind Swaraj in 1910, the American labor movement needs to look at itself in the mirror if labor is to find its way into a world of dignity and fairness in wages that Mr.Biden truly seeks for American workers.   It was setup when GM had 45% of the US market and 415,000 workers. By 2006 113,000 workers were not needed with GM having lost marketshare to Japanese makers and the Jobs bank was costing GM about $10 million a week, half a billion a year threatening its survival. The Labor movement and the UAW union did nothing to fight its own membership and set it on the right course in union with management, putting at risk the very foundation that labor had put in place since Wilson, FDR and Truman for  fairness in wages and working conditions. Jeremy Peters tells the story in the NYT. That it was recent as 2006 and shows how much had gone wrong with the labor movement and the failure of its leaders to do the right thing. The Jobs Bank says NYT was intended to prevent manufacturers from shifting manufacturing overseas, instead it did just that by undermining confidence in unions and the American labor movement, and in American workers. Two crippling wars initiated by Republicans Bush and continued by Democrat Obama, disinvestment in American manufacturing, companies like Apple shifting their entire manufacturing through outshoring to Taiwan and China, the 2009 crisis from deregulation of American banks, led to the loss of not one, but two decades for America. In today's news a modest $2 in minimum wage increase from $15 to $17 over 3 years is all that New York governor Kathy Hochul could get- even though Assembly Democrats were asking for more- to give American workers and families a fair wage to meet the cost of living crisis.  ...

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Typical of so much of what is written about the World Health Organization and its role in the pandemic, this podcast in the WSJ fails to quickly convey the critical function of the WHO as an early warning system the world has depended on, including China. The H1N1 epidemic originated in Mexico. Asian countries including China and India depended on very quick response from the country where the epidemic originated  in allowing entry into the affected area for experts from advanced countries such as the U.S. The global response was then coordinated across countries quickly with complete transparency. The head of China's CDC himself faced a problem with transparency with the provincial authorites in Wuhan. 1.    Fundamentally this quick entry was denied the U.S. Request by U.S. to China was made on Jan. 6 for U.S. team to go to Wuhan, quick permission was denied and given only about 6 weeks later on Feb 16. This delay is the crux of the problem for the U.S.. Taiwan confirmed human to human transmission on Jan. 1, the WHO was saying this was not clear as late as Jan. 14. These costly delays are what the U.S.  letter is about.  The head of the CDC China Gao Fu called Dr. Redfield head of CDC in the U.S. on the next day after he suspected Wuhan provincial authorites were vague about what was happening. Gao Fu was alarmed when scanning the internet on December 30, 2019, about rumors of a vaguely worded lung disease in internal memos of Wuhan. He called Wuhan authorites and was not getting clear answers on that day, then deciding on December 31 to send his own team to Wuhan, as reported in German magazine Der Spiegel- Hackenbroch, Zand, 05/20/2020.  Der Spiegel says in its special report on the early period in Wuhan that Gao Fu was so alarmed about what was happening enough to be in tears in his series of calls with Dr. Redfield in the immediate days that followed. The date was shortly after the GAO Fu sent the team to Wuhan, December 31 and New Years Day 2020, as reported in Der Spiegel. See the link to Lyrarc gist of Der Spiegel's "A Failed Deception: The Early Days of the Coronavirus in Wuhan."  2.  President Trump points out the standards of the WHO- in the concluding point of his letter to WHO- when a three time prime minister of Norway, Gro Brundtland was head of the WHO during the SARS crisis of 2003. She acted quickly and decisively and no time was lost. It is this failure of the early warning system under the new president of the WHO after 2017 Dr. Tedros that alarms the U.S.  with about 100,000 deaths.  3.  This failure it can now be said was partly a result of a election in 2017 for the position of WHO president which was flawed. This was the first time a WHO head, an important position was put up for an election. The Executive Board was responsible for this appointment since the founding of the WHO as part of the UN, based in Geneva, Switzerland, after World War II. This system worked. The election was clearly a bad process for appointing the president of the WHO which should be done entirely on the capabilities of the person holding this position not on a flawed voting process. It is flawed because India and Bangladesh hit by a cyclone during the coronavirus have suffered greatly, as have other countries, but had only 2 votes for 1.5 billion people, when Barbados (385,000 population) and Laos (7 million) which had less than one  hundredth the population had the same number of votes. The U.S. had one vote. The election resulted in lobbying and a process in which many candidates stayed away because they simply would not go through such a process. The position was too important to the world- most of the advanced countries had forgotten about the danger of epidemics to let this happen by 2017, as shown in the way the austerity years led to cancellation of the preparations for pandemic in France and Britain. The austerity years and neglect of public health during these tech boom years in the western world made it possible for this to happen. 3.   Along with the 1 month ultimatum action is already being taken to restore the effectiveness of the importance of the Executive Board. The head of the health ministry in India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, has been appointed the new chairman of the Executive Board on May 22. This restores the voice of billions of people in Asia in the process, and brings the major countries with the greatest risk in a pandemic into the decision process for tackling the pandemic, this includes the rest of the world.     ...

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In a first at Davos World Economic Forum, China's president Xi Jinping uses the 2017 meeting to give a one hour long spirited defense of the world trading system, critical of U.S. president elect Trump's protectionist views without naming him. Xi pointed out that "no one will be winners in a trade war." And went on to add that restricting world trade was like "locking oneself in a dark room, keeping out wind and rain from outside but also light and air." For the first time Jinping stated that China would take the U.S. role of defending the world trading system from attack as needed. On climate change Xi defended the Paris accords, and gave China's commitment to pursue changes regardless of what the U.S. under president Trump does. This follows Chancellor Merkel of Germany's statements on the issue critical of the views of president elect Trump, and taking the lead to defend the world trading system. Xi also pointed out that many of the ills that led to voter discontent in the West were not really from the freeing up of trade but from the pursuit of excessive profit with the financial crisis of 2008.   ...

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Thomas Friedman of the NYT sees a climate change as an area in which Trump has ignored the information of eminent scientists. He sees a weakness of the Trump administration in Trump's putting no importance to briefings by experts from climate change to national security briefings. Friedman sees Russia and hacking as a major issue facing the new Trump administration, including the new hearings in Congress from leading Republicans on the cyberattacks.

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Taiwanese engineer, William Wang, who earlier ran a failed computer monitor company Princeton Graphics, started Vizio in 2003 in Irvine, California. He started Vizio as a low priced brand with a focus on high tech HD sets and a supply chain in Taiwan to make HD sets at lower prices. He negotiated agreements with Foxconn and AmTran Technology giving them equity stakes in Vizio. Costco provided shelf space for the early HD sets. Vizio still manages to make 4% in operating margins on $2 billon in revenue with an efficient supply chain. Wang's insight was that televisions would go the way of PC's where lower prices were the norm. Sony Electronics U.S. Division chief, Stan Glasgow, says it is harder to charge premium prices as technology and improving quality rapidly converge in the television industry, similiar to what is happening in PC's. The story of Vizio at the low end, and S. Korean manufacturer Samsung at the high end, is also the story of the decline of Japanese companies in the television business. In 2010 after seven years Vizio passed Sony to become the second largest television brand in the U.S., with sales of 6 million LCD TV's. This is up from 3.6 million in 2008, according to research firm iSuppli....

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Former German chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Steinmeier are singled out for their policies that likely emboldened Russia into its invasion of Ukraine. The DW.com says Merkel's tenure now shows deep seated flaws in leadership with her policies with Russia having gone too far in the other direction and leaving Europe in a vulnerable position. Merkel saw herself as continuing old policies from the period of SPD chancellor Willy Brandt of engaging with Russia, then called the Soviet Union. Yet looking at it closely the policy of Brandt was to reach accomodation with the eastern half of Germany, called the GDR, not to weaken Germany's position. By distancing herself from the US Merkel was in sense out on her own. Consider says DW.com that in 2014 Germany imported 36% of its gas from Moscow, by 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine it was 55%. The SPD under Gerhard Schroeder and Steinmeier following Schroeder share responsibility with Merkel for this dependence.    A similar integration of the German economy with China's economy happened under the 4 term administration of Angela Merkel. This can be seen in the port of Hamburg. This may have similarly emboldened China in its relations with neighbors in the Indo-Pacific region and with Taiwan. German chancellor Scholz is by one report reading Cambridge historian Brendan Simms- "Europe The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present." This historical account of the relations of major European states in the 5 centuries before the present period shows the Balance of Power as critical to the liberty and freedom that Britain and Netherlands as well as other countries were able to keep. Sweden was attacked in 1700 with sign of weakness, Britain faced challenges from France in 1700 and in 1800, and allied with the Hapsburgs and German states to maintain its democracy and way of life. Merkel of CSU and Steinmeier of SPD may have failed to realize this when they ignored the history of Europe. The WSJ report on the miscalculations on the German and French side with Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron show that all these leaders failed to grasp that by leaving the issue unsettled of Ukraine's NATO admission they had created the situation that was bad for both Russia and for Ukraine, creating seeds for serious differences that could lead to future conflict and war. By not respecting and giving room to the lessons of history these leaders in Western Europe have created the conditions for the very opposite of what they intended to do.  ...

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Nokia announced a loss of 929 million euros for the first quarter of 2012. Sales declined from 10.4 billon euros to 7.4 billion euros in the same quarter prior year. The only bright spot for the company is that the Lumia 900 sold throught AT&T has made a successful launch in the U.S. Nokia CEO Elop says the phone is sold out in stores in the U.S. Lumia sales were 2 million in the 1st quarter of 2012, at an average price of 220 euros ($290). Nokia's strategy now is to bring the Lumia line including the lower end Luma 610 phone to Asian markets by June- to China, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia. Nokia's biggest problem is the older Symbian phones, which consumers are passing by and which now have to be discounted rapidly or replaced quickly with the Lumia line. The other related problem is falling margins on basic phones as Chinese competitors discount heavily- basic Nokia phone prices fell 18% to 33 euros ($43) from 40 euros or($52) the prior year. The speed in the drop in business for mobile phones can be guaged from the sales decline of 40% in the 1st quarter from $9.3 billion to $5.6 billion. Things are made worse by the 772 million euro ($1 billion) charge taken for Nokia Siemens Networks, a network joint venture with Siemens. Sales for Nokia Siemens fell 7% in the first quarter to $3.8 billion. Nokia Siemens has 53 contracts to build new mobile networks with Long Term Evolution Technology more than competitors Ericsson and Huawei, according to Nokia Siemens. Everything now depends on the speed with which Nokia can move to its Lumia line across the board, especially in China....

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Retail sales in Vietnam for the first 2 months went up by 21% from same period in 2008, down from 32% growth the prior year, but still holding up. At its height Vietnam's consumer price index went up by 28% in 2008, now its down to 14.8% in February 2009. This gives a big boost to disposable incomes. As a result Vietnam expects growth of 5% a year, according to the IMF. It was 8.4% in 2007, 6.2% in 2008. Vietnam is less dependent on exports and this has helped sustain growth. The inflation shock acted as abigger brake on GDP growth, and now this is easing. And exports were down by 5.1% for the first 2 months, not the steep decline in countries like Taiwan and S. Korea. The Philippines has 30% of growth dependent on exports compared to 70% for Thailand, and it has a steady flow of remittances from workers overseas employed in stable fields like health care and education. These remittances go into disposable income and are spent quickly so they acted as a stabilizer. Indonesia also has a growing domestic market, and is not as dependent on exports. Domestic consumption in both countries should help them see 4% growth according to government estimates for the Phillippines and Indonesia. See the link to Honda motorcycles to observe how the domestic market is continuing to grow for Honda in Indonesia....

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Current responses to China's different posture in international relations obscure the huge investments made by US and European Union business in China that lead to about $1 trillion in exports from China to US and EU in 2021. This could not happen without the hyper investment in China by business in the US and EU that not only neglected manufacturing technologies in the home country but did this on a immense scale that would end up shipping almost the whole of the manufacturing supply chains to China from the US and EU. Done as a carefully planned shift of some manufacturing operations it could have benefitted both China and the US and EU. In what way was this hyper move in pace and scale damaging? China's water, air and land was contaminated at a rapid pace never before seen in history, seen as early as 2005. And the hyper shift by 2015 and in 2020 is now showing the severe effects of climate change with droughts, floods and fires all over the world. The German Environment Ministry today counts the cost at 90 times in the use of coal and fossil fuels over time. On the scale that this massive and fast shift was done of manufacturing to China even more so- a hugely imprudent response of US and EU business management and executives. Instead of tackling and confronting head on the challenging problems of quality control and cost in the 1990's through 2000 and beyond at home, management at Apple and other companies simply shifted all manufacturing to China. The other ill effect of the imprudent response of American business was in the massive and wholesale shift of supply chain to China by offshoring practically the entire manufacturing base. It was to lead to the massive losses that workers, families  and communities in the US and EU that countries could not cope with as it moved on an accelerated hyper level and pace. The result was to lead to intense criticism of China and a level of rancor that has poisoned the relations with China. Some of this counsel to China was given to leaders of the Communist party who had little knowledge of American capitalism operating within constraints of social democracy in 1990. Some of that counsel was self interested given by investment banks to Chinese officials- investment bankers that have now disappeared from view- who themselves lacked an understanding of the social constraints of American and European democracies. It is that rancor that is now leading to China and the US disconnecting the supply chains leading to questions one is certain within China about how this will affect unemployment in China in the years to come. The pandemic simply accelerated this realization on both sides of this untenable situation. Still a trillion dollars in exports are taking place even as the political situation is now totally adrift -as the situation in Taiwan in August 2022 shows- the political and trading relationships at opposite ends and seemingly at war with each other. ...

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Putin takes the first step for Russia to join in discussions for a lasting peace. More than a ceasefire is needed, as many ceasefires have come and gone and the war is now over 15 years old, pausing for a while and then starting again many times. Russia calls for addressing the underlying issues behind the war.  It started with Russian support for Yakunovich 2010-2014 which ended with the Maidan protests in Kviv and Lviv. Russian and Putin strategy at that time was that as long as  a pro-Russian or a person leaning towards Russia with good relations to the West -as existed in some of the former states in Eastern Europe during the 1980's during the Soviet Union such as Poland and GDR- this would be acceptable. The Maidan protest led upheaval thus had a contrary effect which Germany under Merkel and France under Sarkozy and Hollande failed to grasp. Obama judged Russia by its GDP, ignoring its history and relations among European states as one of the major powers in Europe, a technological state with nuclear power. As China shifted away making the integration of Hong Kong and now Taiwan a priority under president Xi, and asserting the virtue of its state run capitalist system over free market capitalism, the fissures began to develop in the system that prevailed after World War II and which survived the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are some of the origins of the war and are also in some of its aspects geopolitical and relate to world peace,, and peace inside nations in general outside the Ukraine war. And here relate to Venezuela Mexico and US inaction in tackling borders and cartels, the US border with Mexico, Syrian war and Syrian refugees entering Germany/Europe, the anti refugee movements in Germany and the EU, refugee crime in US and Europe, all connected in some way to the unsettled borders of the Russian state with US and Western European + Eastern European states in NATO and the EU nearby. And the limiting or removal of Russian influence in Ukraine seen by Russia as unacceptable in regions nearest to Russia that speak Russian. Britain has the virtues of its parliamentary democracy, yet it is far from Russia's borders and it just like the Russian Empire had an Empire in India and a near thing to an Empire in China, as recently as 1950, over history of western colonial empires of 500 years not too long ago. Which means it is good to be starry eyed but the reality in European history since 1400 is of dominant states and colliding or co-existing spheres of influence, mostly co-existing in some balance of different states in the interests of peace and welfare of the people.     ...