On 21 March, the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, embarked on an eight-day foreign tour, which included three countries in the Pacific Ocean (Palau, Nauru and the Marshall Islands). This trip once again refocused our attention on the topic of Taiwan’s role in the “global game of chess”, as the relationship between the two world powers (the United States and China) is shifting towards the “board’s” epicenter.
The visit by the President of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Xi Jinping, to Europe in March was a significant event in world politics for the first half of 2019. The tour began only a week after a routine, but invariably important internal political event, called the Two Sessions, came to an end.
During this gathering, scheduled annual plenary sessions of the China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) and of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (PCC) take place.
No matter what Western media source you would choose to read, you are compelled to come across the rhetorics about the persistent “Chinese aggression,” the notion that has already become the dominant narrative in the US. In fact, American Sinophobes claim that China doesn’t simply pose a military threat to the US, they argue that it represents an existential threat to the American way of life.
In another article, details were given of the North Korean leader’s visit to Vietnam, which mentioned that Kim Jong-un’s special train passed through Chinese territory without making any long stops on the way back to North Korea. Despite earlier predictions, there was no meeting held between the leaders of North Korea and China.
The first summit meeting between US president Donald Trump and North Korean president Kim Jong-Un was held in Singapore in June 2018. After the extraordinary speech by Trump at the United Nations in September 2017 when Trump said that if the United States was forced to defend itself (sic) “we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime” the fact that any meeting at all was held was a minor miracle.
The National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China’s annual meetings have traditionally been used as a platform for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to outline key positions the country has taken in its foreign policy. Entrenched stances are held up and new trends come to light at the same time, which are driven by important changes taking place both within China and in the global political landscape.
Among the inner circles of the American financial oligarchy, some think that North Korea is an existential threat to the hegemony of western capitalism that should be met with nothing but shunning, sanctions and military threats. However, others think the DPRK could be a huge money maker if allowed to open up and join the world economy.
