The US Is Unreliable – Even When It’s Against China

Canada, Taiwan and Hong Kong are learning it's very dangerous to be a pawn of an Empire this fickle

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By now, it has become an undeniable pattern. Those who turn to Washington for help against China have either come up short, or worse. Canada, the Hong Kong opposition and the independence-leaning government of Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan – all have ended with the short end of the stick. When will people ever learn?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power partly by promising improved commercial and economic relations with China. Instead, thanks to an extradition request for the arrest of Huawei’s No 2, Meng Wanzhou, relations between the two countries have plunged to their lowest point in decades, perhaps ever.

Two Canadians have been detained on the mainland, widely assumed to be in retaliation for Meng’s arrest, while Chinese trade restrictions have cost Canadian farmers hundreds of millions.

Given the fact that Canada suffers terribly by honouring its extradition treaty obligations with the United States, you would expect Washington to pull out all the stops to help a faithful ally.

Instead, President Donald Trump has publicly insulted and humiliated Trudeau, and made legally compromising statements about Meng’s case. When Trudeau suggested, not unreasonably, that the US should link the outcome of its trade deal with China to the release of the two Canadians, he didn’t even get a hearing at the White House.

In future, the law enforcement agents of American allies may want to show up late whenever Washington makes an extradition request against a suspect.

As part of its latest anti-China campaign, Washington has been pressuring the World Health Organisation to accept Taiwan as an observer, a status it enjoyed between 2009 and 2016 when Ma Ying-jeou of the mainland-friendly Kuomintang was president.

Then without warning, the White House announced it was not only cutting funding to the WHO, but quitting as a member state. It has thereby effectively removed any influence it might have had to help Taiwan gain observer status.

Hong Kong people have been shocked to learn that Washington plans to revoke the city’s special trade privileges as a separate customs entity, which may mean facing the same tariffs and sanctions as the mainland.

The move involves new US legislation that was widely supported and promoted by the pan-democratic opposition in Hong Kong. Now, it has backfired on them.

If you want to work against China but can’t trust the US, the world is a lonely and dangerous place.

Source: South China Morning Post

6 Comments
  1. chris chuba says

    Vassal states are expendable.

    1. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

      When haven’t they been?

      1. chris chuba says

        In ‘realceardefense.com’ there was an article about how China and the U.S. can avoid the Thucydides trap. It’s a Neocon website and I was struck by how many posters condemned China for having ‘vassal states’. I informed them that it was the U.S. which had vassal states and it got me thinking, what are the primary characteristics of a vassal state. If you throw out the term, name them.

        Vassal state: Does what the master tells them to do, needs are suppressed to the wants of the master, expendable, no real sovereignty, not allowed to leave relationship.

        China: Not one of these attributes applies to N.Korea. N. Korea depends on China but that does not make them a vassal. Vassal states are exploited by their master. The master needs the vassal more than the other way around.

        U.S.: many, but I’ll single out Iraq. Iraq has to beg Pompeo for waivers to be allowed to buy electricity from Iran. Iraq asked U.S. troops to leave and we threatened them with a trade embargo and to seize their own bank accounts. We need Iraq more than Iraq needs us because we want military bases against Iran. Iraq is very expendable.

    2. David Bedford says

      US is an unreliable partner, I’m hoping Australia doesn’t get too close to the US as China is our largest trading partner.

  2. disqus_3BrONUAJno says

    Just wait until China, Russia,and Iran roll out their gold-backed currrencies and refuse to accept transactions with SWIFT.

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