A Leopard Cannot Change Its Spots

 

A good friend in Sydney once called all the way to suggest that I should write something about the injustice of the US towards the long-suffering Cubans. Cuba has not been on my radar all along, save for knowing that recently Trump has been trying to think of reasons to destabilise Cuba.

However, the headlines carried in most of today’s mainstream media say it is time for me to write something about the Cuba-US relationship.

CNN’s headline screams: “Raúl Castro indicted in a prosecution that has been in the works for 3 decades.”

It is an old story. Castro is already 94 years old. In 1996, more than 30 years ago, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes – belonging to a group of Cuban exiles in Miami – in the waterway between the Caribbean island nation and the US state of Florida, killing all four on board. Castro was Cuba’s armed forces minister at that time. It led to the US tightening sanctions against his brother Fidel Castro’s regime, plunging the island into severe economic hardship marked by blackouts, food shortages and fuel scarcity.

The Cubans maintain that the incident occurred over their airspace. The movement “Brothers to the Rescue” posed a threat to national security because of its repeated air incursions.

The indictment is likely to trigger a sharp escalation in tensions between Washington and Havana. The Trump administration is applying the same playbook used against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. By establishing a formal criminal indictment against Cuba's senior leadership, Washington has effectively created what it views as a legal basis for aggressive intervention or even a potential takeover. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche underscored this by saying the US expects Castro to appear in a US courtroom “by his own will or by another way.”

Regardless, the move probably extinguishes any remaining hope for diplomatic normalization between the two countries. The indictment comes as Cuba is already enduring its worst economic crisis in six decades, and intensifying pressure could push the island towards a major humanitarian emergency. Yet in the US, anti-Castro and Cuban-American exile communities in South Florida are celebrating what they see as a 30-year-delayed act of justice for the four pilots killed in 1996. But are they condemning their compatriots to further misery?

All for the sake of the mid-term elections?

How badly are the Cubans already suffering today?
Economically, Cuba is in its worst condition since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This is not merely a period of low growth but a systemic breakdown affecting electricity, transport, food supply, healthcare, and daily life.

It is said that Cuba’s economy has contracted another 5% in 2025 alone, after years of stagnation and decline. Since 2020, total contraction may exceed 15%. Inflation has devastated purchasing power. Official inflation was about 14%, but estimates for basic necessities are far higher, with some placing food inflation at around 70%.

Blackouts are routine because Cuba lacks fuel and its Soviet-era power plants are deteriorating badly. In some regions, outages reportedly last 12–16 hours daily. Food, medicine, and fuel shortages are severe, while public transportation has periodically collapsed in Havana because diesel simply was not available. Tourism, once a major hard-currency earner, has also not fully recovered after COVID and worsening sanctions.

Cuba is experiencing a major demographic exodus as well. Roughly 1.5 million people are estimated to have left over five years – enormous for a country of only about 11 million people.

Externally:

• The long-standing US embargo remains a major constraint.
• The Trump administration has tightened sanctions again, including measures targeting shipping, finance, and fuel flows.
• Venezuela, which once supplied subsidised oil, is no longer able to support Cuba at previous levels.

Internally:

• Cuba’s economy suffers from chronic low productivity, over-centralisation, currency distortions, weak incentives, and decaying infrastructure.

The country is exhausted!

Are the current Cuban leaders a corrupt lot?
There are allegations of corruption, privilege, and opaque wealth among parts of Cuba’s ruling elite. However, the situation differs from the openly oligarchic systems seen elsewhere.

Under Fidel Castro and later Raúl Castro, the Cuban state officially promoted egalitarianism and anti-corruption discipline. Compared with many Latin American countries, Cuba historically had relatively low levels of visible street-level corruption in areas such as policing or tax administration. The state also maintained harsh penalties for officials accused of graft.

However, like everywhere else, senior political and military circles enjoy privileges inaccessible to ordinary Cubans – special stores, better housing, imported goods, private transportation, and foreign currency access. The military conglomerate GAESA – historically linked to Raúl Castro’s inner circle – also controls large sectors of the economy, including tourism, retail, ports, hotels, and remittances. Corruption scandals periodically emerge, usually involving mid-level managers, customs officials, or state enterprises, though top leaders are rarely implicated publicly.

One notable episode was the 1989 case involving General Arnaldo Ochoa, a decorated military hero executed after being convicted on drug trafficking and corruption charges.

Economic hardship has naturally intensified public resentment towards elite privilege.

However, unlike some post-Soviet or authoritarian states, there is little hard public evidence that Cuba’s top leaders personally possess enormous offshore wealth on the scale associated with oligarchic regimes elsewhere.

The “Latin American” disease
The racist in me loves to generalise about cultural weaknesses. I have only been to South America once, many years ago. I visited Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil. I thought I sensed a great degree of lethargy in these Latin American countries.

They never seemed in a hurry to change, hence my coining of this “disease.”

While Russia and China have evolved with their own brands of Communism, Cuba still appears trapped in inertia and reluctant to embrace reform on the same scale. The reasons are political fear, ideological rigidity, geography, and the structure of the Cuban state itself.

Deng Xiaoping launched China’s “reform and opening up” from 1978 onward, and post-Soviet Russia moved toward a market economy. Cuba, by contrast, only introduced limited reforms over the years – small private businesses, farmers’ markets, tourism partnerships, dollar shops, foreign investment zones, legalisation of some private restaurants and rentals, and more recently, legal recognition of small and medium enterprises.

Even though Cuba admires aspects of the Chinese and Vietnamese models, it never went nearly far enough. The leadership has long feared that large-scale economic liberalisation could eventually undermine political control. Yet the economy itself is structurally weak, heavily dependent on tourism, remittances, nickel exports, and imported fuel and food. Decades of US sanctions and financial restrictions have further compounded these weaknesses.

Today’s crisis is pushing Cuba towards reform anyway, though only in a hesitant and piecemeal fashion. Private businesses are growing, inequality is widening, informal dollarisation is expanding, and limited capitalism is increasingly tolerated. But the leadership still appears trapped between two fears:

• fear that reforming too slowly will collapse the economy, and
• fear that reforming too quickly will collapse the political system.

Havana may simply have waited too long. By the time deeper reforms became unavoidable, the country’s infrastructure, demographics, and productive base had already deteriorated severely.

Russia and China’s helping hands
Russia has helped, but far less than many Cubans hoped. After the Ukraine war began, Moscow spoke about reviving Soviet-era ties with Havana through investments in sugar, energy, transport, and tourism. Yet many projects have stalled because Russia itself is under heavy economic and military pressure.

Russia has supplied some oil shipments, wheat, credit arrangements and tourism income, but this is nowhere near the scale of Soviet-era subsidies during the Cold War. Russia simply lacks both the resources and strategic bandwidth to rescue Cuba economically.

China, meanwhile, has become more important. Rather than providing open-ended subsidies, Beijing appears focused on strategic infrastructure and targeted assistance. The most significant involvement is in energy, with China financing and helping build dozens of solar parks while also modernising parts of Cuba’s electrical grid and telecommunications systems.

China has also extended loans, increased trade, supplied industrial equipment, and expanded Belt and Road cooperation with Cuba. But unlike the USSR during the ideological Cold War, modern China behaves far more commercially and pragmatically. It does not appear willing to pour in unlimited subsidies without meaningful reforms and repayment prospects.

Chinese support may help stabilise Cuba’s electricity supply, but it is probably insufficient on its own to reverse the island’s broader economic decline. Neither Russia nor China appears prepared to underwrite the Cuban economy indefinitely.

The hostility between the US and Cuba is historical. The two peoples themselves are not natural enemies.

The US naval base at Guantánamo Bay
The US still maintains the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. There was never any permanent transfer of sovereignty. Cuba technically retains ultimate sovereignty over the territory, but the United States obtained perpetual control and use of the area under agreements imposed after the Spanish–American War.

The story begins in 1898. During Cuba’s war of independence against Spain, the US intervened militarily after the explosion of the battleship USS Maine in Havana harbour. Spain was quickly defeated, and Cuba formally ceased being a Spanish colony.

Although Cuba became nominally independent in 1902, the US occupied the island militarily for several years and exercised enormous influence over the new republic.

A crucial mechanism was the Platt Amendment, which Washington forced Cuba to incorporate into its constitution as a condition for ending the occupation. The amendment gave the US broad rights to intervene in Cuban affairs and authorised it to obtain naval stations in Cuba.

Under this pressure, Cuba signed the 1903 Cuban–American Treaty, leasing Guantánamo Bay to the United States for use as a naval and coaling station.

Under the arrangement, the US obtained “complete jurisdiction and control” over the area. And Cuba was supposed to retain ultimate sovereignty in a formal legal sense. But the lease was effectively perpetual unless both governments (meaning the US!) agreed to terminate it. (The annual rent was originally set at USD2,000 in gold coins, later adjusted to about USD4,000 per year.)

After Fidel Castro came to power, the Cuban government declared the treaty illegitimate, arguing that it had been imposed under coercion during a period of overwhelming US domination.

Since 1959, Cuba has repeatedly demanded the return of Guantánamo. Of course, the US has refused, insisting the treaty remains legally valid. Cuba reportedly cashes almost none of the annual rent cheques sent by Washington, treating them as symbolic evidence of an invalid arrangement. (Fidel Castro once claimed that only one cheque had ever been accidentally deposited shortly after the revolution.)

Today, the base remains strategically important to the US. It is the country’s oldest overseas naval base. After the September 11 attacks, part of it became globally controversial as the site of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp for terrorism suspects.

To many Cubans and much of Latin America, Guantánamo remains a lingering symbol of an era when the US dominated Caribbean affairs. To Washington, it remains a lawful treaty-based military installation of strategic value.

A leopard cannot change its spots
The US is determined to vassalise Cuba, much like what it is attempting to do to Venezuela and Panama. To Trump, this may appear the perfect moment, with Cuba’s backer Russia weakened economically and militarily.

After the Xi-Trump summit in Beijing a couple of days ago, one might have expected Trump to show some humility. But true to the saying, a leopard cannot change its spots: he has quickly returned to bullying and threatening those he sees as weaker parties. And today, it is Cuba.

While the world discusses the deals that may or may not have been struck in Beijing, Xi probably understands that agreements with Trump are fundamentally transactional and temporary. Trump wants to show American voters that he has extracted concessions from China, but once the mid-term elections are over, Washington will likely revert to imposing fresh sanctions and restrictions. Indeed, the US has just announced the indictment of four major Chinese container manufacturers and several executives for allegedly “conspiring to restrict production and fix prices during and after the COVID-era supply chain crisis.” What a joke.

Trump even brought Jensen Huang to Beijing to encourage China to buy Nvidia chips. Yet almost immediately afterwards, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was again signalling that Washington had no intention of fully lifting semiconductor restrictions on China. He indicated that only lower-tier or specially modified Nvidia chips might be sold to selected Chinese firms under strict conditions. This Epstein pal still wants to have the cake and eat it too. China does not need these chips. (One wonders why none of Huawei’s bosses attended the state banquet.)

Why is Xi still humouring Trump?
I suspect Xi also believes Trump is one of the greatest gifts the American people have delivered to China. Chinese netizens nicknamed him “川建国” (Chuān Jiànguó) – combining “Trump” (川普, Chuānpǔ) with “nation builder” (建国, jiànguó) – humorously suggesting that Trump’s actions have unintentionally accelerated China’s rise. And perhaps Xi sees these gestures in Beijing as only a small price to pay.

The perception that “China is an enemy” has become so deeply rooted across both sides of the American political divide that Beijing probably cannot afford another Joe Biden at this point. Trump may simply be viewed as the lesser evil.

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The Xi-Trump Summit, What Next?

 

An AI-generated fake, nonetheless, not entirely false

On the surface, the recent summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in Beijing did not appear to have produced much.

There was no public communique or any joint statement after all the closed-door meetings.

Nonetheless, Xi and Trump’s opening addresses and their speeches at the state banquet were widely reported.

For the opening addresses, Xi cautioned the danger of the Thucydides trap and need for world powers to work together for the better good of humanity. He also warned that the Taiwan issue was “the most important issue” in China-US relations. And if Taiwan were mishandled, the two countries could face “clashes and even conflicts.” Xi also stressed that China’s development was “compatible with making America great again,” an apparent attempt to frame Chinese growth as complementary rather than threatening to US interests.

Trump, in the public portions of the meeting and afterwards, emphasized expanding US access to Chinese markets and coordination regarding Iran and keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.

At the state banquet, Xi described US-China relations as the most important bilateral relationship in the world and toasted the bright future of China-US relations. Trump, in return, called the relationship one of the most consequential relationships in world history. He also invited Xi and Peng Liyuan to visit the White House in September. Interestingly, he also mentioned the statue of Kung-tze in US’s Supreme Court building and the role the US helped to establish Tsinghua University.

Any tangible outcome?

China’s core interest to meet with Trump is to solicit US’s undertaking not to interfere with whatever they wish to do with Taiwan. Taiwan is China’s. Period.

Trump desperately needs China to do a couple of things to avert his declining popularity which appears to foretell heavy losses for the Republican in the coming mid-term elections, amongst them – the war in Iran, the availability of rare earth elements, the Treasury bonds, and anger of the US farmers and the Chinese “boycott” of its semiconductor chips.

(And ironically even though the US are on the begging end, its Treasury and Commerce Secretaries were still busy introducing all sorts of sanctions days before the summit.)

Has any quid pro quo been achieved?
On the surface, not really. Trump was quite tongue-tight when asked about the Taiwan demand from China. But judging from what the US side has scored, Trump must have given Xi some degree of assurances.

Both sides publicly agreed to continue a more “constructive” and “strategically stable” relationship, after a very turbulent 2025 marked by tariff escalation and tensions over Taiwan. China especially emphasised this language.

On trade and investment mechanisms, both governments appear to have agreed in principle to establish some form of councils for trade and investment discussions – essentially institutional channels to manage disputes and coordinate commerce.

Third is on agricultural trade reopening. This is probably the most substantive practical outcome so far for Trump. China signaled tariff reductions on some US agricultural products. China resumed or expanded purchases of US soybeans, wheat and sorghum. Registrations for hundreds of US beef plants were also renewed or approved. Reuters reported that both sides reached preliminary understandings on tariff reductions and non-tariff barriers affecting agriculture.

The Trump side claimed China would make major purchases of Boeing aircraft, US agricultural goods and energy products.

The two countries will also hold continued dialogue on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Trump claimed Xi agreed Iran should reopen or keep open the Strait of Hormuz. China’s public statements were much more cautious and avoided endorsing the US position directly. Still, both sides evidently coordinated diplomatically on the issue.

Much of this is about announced intentions, rather than binding agreements.

Demeanours speak volumes
Throughout the visit, Xi hosted Trump and his team with great dignity and confidence. The talk about Trump being snubbed deliberately because Xi was not at the airport to receive him was all nonsense. For the entire post-1949 history of the People’s Republic, I believe no top Chinese leader has personally gone to the airport to receive a visiting foreign head of state or government. Trump was received by Vice President Han Zheng, which was the appropriate protocol.

This time around, Xi played tourist guide to Trump at the Temple of Heaven and walked Trump around Zhongnanhai, which is the enclave for top Chinese leaders.

Two things may be worth mentioning – One, Marco Rubio’s appearance despite sanction by China, and two, Pete Hegseth’s taut face when being introduced to Xi during the welcoming ceremony. The former simply reflected China’s pragmatic way of handling foreign affairs, and the latter, a typical western kurang ajar’s attitude. As for many in Trump’s delegation, it was a case of Liu Lao-lao seeing the China for the first time.

As for Trump, he did behave well. But his anxiousness is subtly written all over his face.

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Trust is still lacking
Behind all the smiles, America’s paranoia about China remains difficult to overcome. The picture above may be fake, but it is true that members of the US delegation accompanying Trump were instructed to discard all China-issued items — badges, lapel pins, credentials, commemorative items, gifts and souvenirs — before boarding Air Force One. The mistrust is evident. To an East Asian like me, it comes across simply as an act of insensitivity.

Xi obviously knows this: No sooner had Air Force One become airborne, there is a danger that Trump would do a U-turn on everything that he had undertaken to Xi. But I suspect Xi is nonchalant about it. China does not need the US that much; it is the US that needs China to halt its decline.

 

About the statue of Kung-tze (Kongzi) at US’s Supreme Court Building
During the state banquet given by Xi to Trump, the former mentioned a statue on the eastern pediment of the building of the US Court. At the very center of the sculptural group are three great historical “lawgivers” carved side by side: from left to right, Confucius, Moses, and the ancient Greek lawgiver Solon. The significance of the statue of Confucius can mainly be understood from the following perspectives.

The designer of the pediment sculptures, sculptor Hermon Atkins MacNeil, clearly explained the concept behind his work. He believed that “law is an element of civilisation, and American law naturally inherits or derives from earlier civilisations.” Thus, the sculptural group was intended to show that American law and civilisation did not emerge out of nowhere, but drew inspiration from much older civilisations.

The choice of Confucius, Moses, and Solon was meant to represent the three great sources of civilisation: Eastern civilisation, Hebrew civilisation, and ancient Greek civilisation. By placing these three figures at the centre, the designer sought to convey that the American legal tradition is rooted in the oldest foundations of human civilisation.

Trump mentioned this during a state banquet speech in order to highlight the long-standing cultural ties between China and the US. At the time, he also cited historical details — for example, that the American founding father Benjamin Franklin had once published excerpts of the “Sayings of Confucius” in a newspaper — as evidence of the influence of Chinese culture on early American political thought.

It is worth noting that, in the official context of the US Supreme Court, Confucius is identified as a “lawgiver.” This differs from the more familiar Chinese understanding of him as the “Great Sage and Teacher.” Sinologists have suggested that this reflects how American designers of the time viewed Confucius: as a symbolic representative of Chinese civilisation and a model of morality and social order.

And the US help in the establishment of Tsinghua University...
Trump also touched on the US help in the establishment of the university. President Trump's recent remarks reference a specific and historically significant chapter in US-China relations: the use of returned Boxer Indemnity funds to establish what is now Tsinghua University.

The original source of funding is directly tied to a complex and painful period in Chinese history, i.e., the Boxer Rebellion and the Boxer Indemnity. In 1900, known as the 庚子年 (Gengzi year), this anti-foreign movement occurred in China but was soon suppressed by an eight-nation alliance, including the US. The conflict ended with the Qing Dynasty being forced to sign the 1901 Boxer Protocol (part of the 辛丑条约) and a crippling reparation of 450 million taels of silver (over 980 million taels with interest) was imposed on China over 39 years as punishment.

The US share amounted to over $24 million (7.4% of the total)

US officials came to believe that the amount demanded from China was "excessive". American missionary and educator Arthur Henderson Smith suggested to President Theodore Roosevelt that the surplus funds be used to educate Chinese students in the US. This idea was supported by others who urged that educating China's future leaders would yield significant "spiritual and commercial" influence for the US.

The Qing ambassador to the US actively lobbied the US government for the remission, stressing the powerful positive impact such an act of goodwill would have.

The culmination of these efforts was President Theodore Roosevelt signing a congressional resolution in 1908 to return the surplus of approximately $11.6 million to China, to be used specifically for educating Chinese students in America.

With this dedicated fund, the Qing government established a plan to select and prepare students for study in the US.

A school named Tsinghua College was built near the former royal garden in 1911. It was meant to serve as a preparatory school to send students to the US. It continued to evolve. After the Xinhai Revolution of 1912, it was renamed Tsinghua School. It later added a university section in 1925 and a research institute for Chinese studies. Finally, in 1928, it was officially renamed National Tsinghua University.

The founding of Tsinghua is not a simple story of charity. The "indemnity" itself originated from a war and an unequal treaty, making Tsinghua what many of its early scholars called a "monument to national humiliation". Nonetheless, the return of the funds did help to see a generation of China's top intellectual talent, producing leaders who would drive the country's modernization. None of the other members of the Alliance showed any sympathy.

The funding of Tsinghua is an undeniable fact of history, and as Trump noted, it establishes a tangible, century-old link between the U.S. and a top Chinese institution, a connection other presidents like George W. Bush have also referenced.

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China and Taiwan Reunification – Now or Never

 

时机 (Shí jī) – The Right Moment for Action!

When Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and relocated his Republic of China (ROC) government there in 1949, he intended it as a temporary base from which to recapture mainland China. Taiwan was to him part of China.

Mao Zedong likewise planned to expel Chiang from what he saw as the last piece of China yet to be liberated. Unfortunately, his attempt was thwarted by the difficult conditions of the Taiwan Strait and China’s subsequent involvement in the Korean War.

In the years that followed, Taiwan prospered while China stagnated. There was no way China could do anything about Taiwan, even during Deng Xiaoping’s transformative years. Taiwanese people enjoyed a higher quality of life and greater international respect. Even their military was far more advanced than China’s. Reunification was an alien concept to them.

Nonetheless, both sides were happy to live under the consensus reached in 1992, which carried the understanding that China and Taiwan are one people and despite their political differences, they could work together economically and culturally. This understanding held even during the presidency of Chen Shui-bian of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

China’s rise and changing sentiments
Things began to change after Xi Jinping came to power. China quickly became the world’s second largest economy, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. By the time COVID-19 broke out, China was already being seen as near-peer competitor to the US in both scientific and military capability.

COVID-19 and the Hong Kong protests in 2020 did grave damage to China’s global image. However, among many Chinese worldwide, feelings shifted differently. Seeing how China managed the pandemic and realizing the Hong Kong unrest as externally influenced, a stronger sense of cultural pride emerged.

Now many Chinese share a common view: politically, the divide may be deep, but Taiwan is still historically and culturally part of a greater China. There is potential for mutual benefit under a broader framework.

However, instead of working with China for the promotion of mutual good, Tsai Ing-wen doubled down on distancing Taiwan from China. And now Lai Ching-te is going to all out to accelerate it. This may be the last straw.

Reunification – by force if necessary – is now a non-negotiable mission for China’s leadership.

A narrowing window
Militarily, China has the capability to bring Taiwan under its control within weeks. Yet it has hesitated, not wanting a war that would result in heavy loss of Chinese life and severe economic disruption on both sides of the Strait. Also, Donald Trump is too wild a card to call.

But the situation is different today. This might just be the Goldilocks moment.

First, the US is stuck deep in the soft sands of the Middle East. Its support for Ukraine and Israel has strained its resources. Its ability to replenish military stockpiles is constrained, including by shortages of rare earth elements, supply of which is hugely monopolized by China. Peter Hegseth does not know how to fight a war. His generals and soldiers are quite demoralized, knowing that they were fighting for wrong causes. (His attitude and amateurism are indeed shocking to them.) Hardly any of its aircraft carrier battle groups are really ready for war; many are under repair for that matter. At the same time, its economy under Auntie Bessent is also showing signs of great stress.

But to me, the more concerning threat is from Japan.

Under Sanae Takaichi, Japan is reviving its ugly militarism. It is actively shaping a narrative in Southeast Asian that China is aggressive and must be contained. Some leaders in the region may be susceptible to this messaging. (Japan committed atrocities, but they were invariably on the local Chinese population. Natives did not quite suffer in Japanese hands.) It is now trying to arm the Philippines and deploying missiles on islands that face China. It even says that it has sufficient materials to make 5,000 nuclear bombs.

The way to stop this madness is to remove the core source of this tension, namely, Taiwan. It must be brought back to China’s fold NOW. Once this is achieved, Japan’s threat will be neutralized. And the US will be a distant country to worry about.

However, once this window is passed, the prospect of bringing back Taiwan will become more and more remote.

Historical Context

The cultural revolution years
The Cultural Revolution initiated by Mao, lasted roughly from 1966 until his death in 1976. It was a period of intense upheaval. Daily life was dominated by ideological pressure and political campaigns. Public struggle sessions were common, and people lived in fear of being labelled “counter-revolutionary”. Many were pressured to denounce friends, colleagues and even family members.

Students formed Red Guards, targeting intellectuals and officials while destroying temples, books, artworks (“Four Olds” campaign). Cities, especially Beijing and Shanghai, saw waves of factional violence; normal governance essentially broke down.

Schools and universities were shut for years. A whole generation lost formal education (“lost generation”). Intellectual work was devalued; manual labour was glorified. Urban youth were later sent to the countryside in the “Down to the Countryside Movement”. Millions forced to live and work as peasants in often harsh rural conditions. Xi was a case in point.

Families were torn apart and trust in society eroded deeply.

During this period, Taiwan became an important education destination for many overseas Chinese, especially from Southeast Asia. Many brought back Taiwanese brides.

However, the replacement of the Taiwan-based Republic of China (ROC) by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legitimate government of China in the United Nations on 25 October 1971 was largely welcomed by overseas Chinese. To them, Mainland China – their ancestral home where few could visit at that time – was still the sole legitimate entity to represent China, not Taiwan. Nonetheless, in their heart, Taiwan was a part of their concept of China.

Reform and opening up
After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping shifted away from ideological campaigns and moved toward economic development, pragmatism, and modernization. China gradually allowed market mechanisms alongside state planning, opened to foreign trade and investment, created Special Economic Zones (SEZs) like Shenzhen and encouraged private farming and small businesses.

Then came the 1989 TianAn-men incident.  

A word about this incident: The internal pressures within the USSR was already intensifying and its control over its satellite states had begun to unravel. The Communist world appeared to yearn for democracy.

Hu Yaobang died in April that year. He was seen by many students as a symbol of pollical reform and openness. Mourning gatherings in Tiananmen Square evolved into broader calls for less corruption, more transparency and some degree of political reform. 

Reform-minded figures like Zhao Ziyang favoured negotiation, whereas hardliners pushed for restoring order by force. Ultimately, paramount leader Deng Xiaoping backed a crackdown. Martial law was declared in May 1989. Hundreds might have died in the incident. 

With the help of western press, the incident shaped strong negative perceptions of China’s political system.

The question is: Was the country ready for liberal democracy then? And if the reformists had succeeded, would China be become what it is today.

I am more inclined to say that without Deng’s wisdom, China’s might have broken up like Soviet Union in no time.

Fortunately, China continued economic reforms regardless.

Economic take-off
From 1978 to around 2010, China experienced one of the fastest sustained growth periods in modern history, with annual GDP growth of around 9-10%. Export surged, urbanization accelerated and China joined the WTO in 2001.

China overtook the US in GDP (PPP terms) in 2014. Western analysts have often reminded us that PPP GDP reflects domestic purchasing power, not international financial strength, but in truth, nominal GDP counts only if a country has BOP or USD-debt concerns, which are not issues for China. (In nominal terms, US is about $32-22 trillion and China, about $20-21 trillion and the gap does not appear closing even though it is obvious for all to see that the illusional state of the US economy. As long as the world is beholden to the USD obligations, USD will continue to undermine the truth of its true value.)

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Taiwan’s Political Evolution
With China back on economic track, semi-official representatives from both China and Taiwan met in Hong Kong and reached this tacit understanding called 1992 Consensus. It was a political formulation to facilitate cross-strait dialogue.  Deng was still the paramount leader of China then. (The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China was Jiang Zemin.) Taiwan was headed by Lee Teng-hui.

Lee Teng-hui was succeeded by Democratic Progressive Party’s Chen Shui-bian in 2000, who ended decades of rule by the Kuomintang (KMT). His ascension led to more tensions with Beijing, as Chen was associated with a stronger Taiwan identity stance. He was a separatist through and through.

Chen Shui-bian left office under a cloud and was later tried and convicted on corruption-related charges. He was succeeded by Kuomintang (KMT)’s Ma Ying-jeou who took office in 2008. Ma advocated closer economic ties with mainland China and reduced tensions during his tenure.

Unfortunately, many Taiwanese felt overdependent on China economically and concerns grew about political influence from Beijing. This created fertile ground for DPP. The “Sunflower Student Movement” was a turning point; students occupied Taiwan’s legislature to oppose a trade pact with China. It reflected broader anxiety over transparency and sovereignty and energized a younger, politically active generation. The movement significantly weakened the KMT’s credibility and boosted DPP momentum.

Identity shift in Taiwan began; a growing share of people, especially among younger voters, began identifying as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese”.

Taiwan was ripe to swing against KMT and Tsai Ing-wen Tsai Ing-wen won the 2016 presidential election. However, she was not quite popular, but luck was on her side. Protests broke out in Hong Kong in 2020. Many in Taiwan saw “one country, two systems” as no longer credible. The protests – instigated by people like Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong with the keep hands of CIA and MI5 – reinforced fears about Beijing’s intentions, even though the issue that had prompted the Hong Kong protest was a legacy one and had had little to do with mainland China. Tsai, despite her mediocre performance, was re-elected for a second term.

But everybody knows that her claim that she had a PhD from the London School of Economics was bogus. Lai Ching-te was not a particularly strong candidate in 2024. However, the inability for KMT and TPP to field a common candidate landed him the job. (TPP’s Ko Wei-je must now be regretting his misplaced ambition and is now starring a jail time of 17 years over seemingly minor misuse of political donation issues. Lai is hell-bent to take Taiwan independent, though not in public pronouncements.

Old perceptions
China has always been demonized by the western and pro-west media as aggressive and intimidating. The situations in Tibet and Xinjiang have been distorted and the public, who do not go beyond superficial reports, largely bought these media’s “concentration camps” narratives. The Chinese did little to correct perceptions. Most of their ambassadors were not articulate enough to explain to local audiences.

The behaviours of many local Chinese in China’s tourist spots also irked many – indiscriminate spitting, tendency to rush out to enter shuttle buses at the gates even after doing a queue, smoking in non-smoking areas. The uncouth behaviours of some Chinese tourists and their lack of understanding of general etiquette expectations continue to make Chinese look very low-end in the eyes of the world.

Certainly few Taiwanese want to identity themselves as "Chinese" under these circumstances!

Fifty years of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan did convince local Taiwanese of the "superiority" of Japan’s sense of benevolence and social order. Locally born Taiwanese naturally harbour more affinity toward Japan than China. I remember my wife and I had to look after my son’s PhD partner when she was visiting Kuala Lumpur. She is Taiwanese and we asked if she had any boyfriend and her reply was that her father wanted her to marry a Japanese, hence the narrowness of her choice!

Perceptions of many locally born Taiwanese towards KMT was also marred by the KMT’s White Terror reign – roughly from 1949 to 1987, when Taiwan was under martial law. An estimated 140,000 people were imprisoned for political reasons and several thousand were executed. The martial law was lifted in 1987 under Chiang Ching-kuo; however, the period left deep psychological and political scars, and a strong discomfort towards KMT and mainland China, especially by the younger generation.

However, with China’s visa-free and unrestrictive visits to tourists regardless of where they come from, and the state’s constant exhortations, we should see less of this ugliness appearing.

Conclusion

China is today seen by many, including European countries, as more dependable and politically more stable and mature than the US under Trump. Many count on it to grow. Trump on the other hand has shown to even allies that it is a law unto itself and tolerates no dissent. Its flip-flops are causing havoc economically everywhere.

Trump’s true colour has long been known to the world; however, it is his unstinting support of Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and his role in the war in Iran, which is essentially his brand of Zionist Christianity, that have shattered the last iota of hope that the world has on US. There is only one nation that can check the US today, and it is China. Nevertheless, because of years of bad press and self-inflictions, China still has miles and miles of difficult roads to overcome foreign prejudices. However, given the wisdom of its present leadership, it should prevail.

KMT’s Cheng Li-wen has emerged as a forceful China-friendly Taiwanese leader. I understand sentiments in Taiwan are fast changing. People are more receptive to live with China as a people. Notwithstanding, China should not wait. This is the time to act!

Once the fait accompli is achieved, all obstacles will just melt away, and a new equilibrium will appear.

End 

Postscript 4 May:

I was dismayed by what I saw yesterday on China’s state-owned CCTV-13 channel.

It was commemorating May 3 — the 80th anniversary of the opening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, the judicial process that tried and punished Japanese war criminals after World War II. The proceedings lasted over two and a half years and spanned 818 sessions. In the end, 25 Class-A war criminals were convicted: seven — including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo — were sentenced to death by hanging, while 16 received life imprisonment.

The tribunal comprised judges and prosecutors from 11 Allied nations: Australia, Canada, China, France, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The channel also carried footage of protests in Japan against Sanae Takaichi and her push to revive militarism.

What concerns me is China’s apparent delusion that the world still strongly aligns with it over Japan’s wartime atrocities. With the possible exception of Russia, most of the former Allied nations no longer attach the same feeling to these historical grievances.

As for the protests shown, the level of support appeared unconvincing. The real Japan today is solidly behind Takaichi.

A feature report on the same day by Phoenix Television carried a starker warning: Be very wary of Japan — recalling how it invaded Qing China and destroyed its navy, despite having significantly smaller forces. A fanatical Japan can act beyond logic!

China would do well to reassess this perception.

Top of Form

 

The Re-emergence of Militarism in Japan: Ironically Welcomed by Some of Its Former Victims

 

As much of the world was preoccupied with the war involving Iran, the Japanese destroyer JS Ikazuchi (雷) transited the Taiwan Strait on April 17, taking nearly 14 hours to complete the passage.

The date was striking. It marked the anniversary of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (马关条约 – Mǎguān Tiáoyuē), signed on April 17, 1895, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War and led to Taiwan being ceded to Japan. From Beijing’s perspective, the symbolism could hardly have gone unnoticed.

Why, then, has Sanae Takaichi adopted such a bold posture, despite Japan’s obvious military limitations in any direct confrontation with China? Apart from Lai Ching-te and Ferdinand Marcos Jr., many of Japan’s neighbours must be asking the same question.

My answer is straightforward: Takaichi appears determined to push Japan further away from post-war pacifism and toward a more assertive, militarised national posture.

Japan’s economic stagnation may not be incidental to this shift; it may be part of the reason for it. In her view, China is the central strategic challenge, and deterrence requires confrontation – political, military, economic, and psychological. She seems to believe that, if tensions were ever to escalate into open conflict, Japan would not stand alone. She also appears to assume that much of the region would quietly support its stance.

Even within her first months in office, she has begun steering Japan in a more openly strategic direction. She is pressing to revise Article 9 of the constitution – the clause renouncing war – so that Japan’s military can be more explicitly recognised and granted a broader defensive role. She is also promoting higher defence spending, pushing it toward 2% of GDP, accelerating military modernisation, and strengthening Japan’s counterstrike capabilities.

Japan has also moved to ease restrictions on overseas arms exports, a step that could support countries such as the Philippines and help build an Asia-Pacific defence network less dependent on China.

All of this points in one direction: Japan is repositioning itself to counter China’s growing power in East Asia.

Takaichi has also refused to retract her suggestion that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could amount to an “existential crisis” for Japan, despite pressure from Beijing.

Her economic policy reflects the same strategic logic. She favours reducing dependence on Chinese supply chains, especially in critical materials such as rare earths; tightening the screening of foreign investments and land acquisitions in sensitive sectors; and strengthening domestic resilience in areas such as energy, advanced technology, and semiconductors.

Diplomatically, she has adopted a more confrontational line toward Beijing, accusing China of coercion and aggressive behaviour, while at the same time expanding Japan’s internal security and intelligence capacity in response to concerns about Chinese influence and activity.

Taken together, these measures amount to one of the most significant shifts in Japan’s China policy since the end of the Second World War. Takaichi’s Japan no longer treats China merely as a difficult neighbour, but as a strategic rival of the highest order.

Takaichi also belongs to a generation with no personal memory of war. Born in 1961, she carries none of the direct burden of wartime experience. For many younger Japanese, the atrocities of the 1930s and 1940s belong to a distant historical past rather than a living moral inheritance. In that sense, Takaichi represents more than a policy shift: she reflects a broader desire among some Japanese to see their country stand tall again, militarily as well as economically.

Some historical and cultural background helps explain why this matters.

Shinto, Buddhism, and national identity

Although Shinto and Buddhism are fundamentally different in origin and worldview, they have long coexisted and intertwined in Japanese life.

Shinto is indigenous to Japan. It has no founder and no single sacred text. Buddhism, by contrast, arrived through China and Korea. Shinto centres on kami – spirits or deities associated with nature, place, and ancestry – and treats the world as sacred and continuous. Its emphasis is on purity, ritual, and harmony. Buddhism focuses more on impermanence, suffering, and the path toward liberation.

In practice, the two traditions have often merged rather than competed. This blending, known as Shinbutsu-shūgō, became a defining feature of Japanese religious life. Even today, it is common for a Japanese person to visit a Shinto shrine at the New Year, hold a Shinto wedding, and have a Buddhist funeral.

Shinto is therefore not merely a religion in the narrow sense. It is also bound up with memory, identity, ancestry, and place.

From sacred land to national myth

One of Shinto’s most politically potent ideas is that Japan is a special land of the kami, and that the emperor stands in a sacred lineage linked to the sun goddess Amaterasu. In times of national consolidation and expansion, this belief could be – and eventually was – transformed into political doctrine.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Japanese state formalised these ideas into State Shinto, which promoted emperor worship, loyalty, sacrifice, and national unity. This became one of the ideological pillars of Japan’s pre-1945 nationalism and militarism. After the war, State Shinto was abolished, the emperor was stripped of divinity, and religion was formally separated from the state.

Yet historical beliefs do not vanish simply because legal structures change. The emotional and cultural residues often remain.

Beginning under Shinzo Abe, Japan’s foreign policy acquired a more openly nationalistic tone. Under Takaichi, that tendency appears to be sharpening further. Although she has not visited Yasukuni Shrine, the site remains a potent symbol of Japan’s unresolved relationship with its wartime past.

There is also the enduring cultural legacy of Bushidō – the “Way of the Warrior” – which prizes loyalty, honour, endurance, self-discipline, and readiness for sacrifice. Though often romanticised, Bushidō still echoes in Japanese corporate culture, martial traditions, and certain narratives of national character.

The Samurai legacy

The roots of Bushidō lie in the rise of the samurai, who emerged between roughly the 8th and 12th centuries as provincial warriors serving local elites. As the imperial court in Kyoto weakened, power flowed outward to armed regional clans.

The decisive shift came after the Genpei War (1180–1185), when the Minamoto defeated the Taira. Minamoto no Yoritomo established the first shogunate, inaugurating a political order in which warriors became the governing class.

Japan then entered centuries of military rule. Samurai served daimyo, and warfare became a recurrent feature of political life, particularly during the Sengoku period (roughly 1467–1615), when central authority fractured and rival lords fought for supremacy.

That era ended only with reunification under Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finally Tokugawa Ieyasu, whose victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 cleared the way for the Tokugawa shogunate and more than two centuries of relative peace.

During the Edo period, samurai increasingly became administrators and scholars rather than battlefield fighters. It was also in this period that Bushidō was more systematically codified.

The practice of seppuku (hara-kiri) – ritual suicide in defence of honour – was closely associated with this ethos. It symbolised a moral world in which loyalty and honour could be valued above life itself.

The Meiji transformation (1868–1912) 

The Meiji Restoration radically transformed Japan. The country modernised at extraordinary speed, adopting Western-style institutions, military structures, and industrial systems. The samurai class was abolished, and the wearing of swords was banned.

Yet the samurai spirit did not disappear. It was absorbed into modern nationalism.

Although seppuku was formally outlawed, it survived as a symbolic gesture of ultimate loyalty or conviction. General Nogi Maresuke committed seppuku in 1912 after Emperor Meiji’s death. At the end of the Second World War, some Japanese officers chose suicide over surrender. In 1970, Yukio Mishima famously performed seppuku after a failed attempt to incite a nationalist military revival.

The samurai vanished as a social class, but not as a psychological and cultural ideal.

Why this still matters

Concern over Japan’s historical memory did not disappear with the post-war settlement. Since the 1980s, critics have repeatedly accused Japan of downplaying or softening its wartime aggression, especially regarding the Nanjing Massacre, the issue of comfort women, and the use of forced labour in Korea and China.

Japan does not use a single state textbook; schools choose from a range of approved texts. Even so, critics argue that descriptions of wartime conduct are often softened. Invasions may be described in euphemistic terms, while atrocities receive limited treatment. By contrast, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki understandably occupy a central place in Japanese public memory, reinforcing an image of Japan as victim as well as aggressor.

There have, of course, been important official statements of remorse. In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged the role of the Japanese military in the coercion of comfort women and expressed “sincere apologies and remorse.”

In 1995, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama explicitly referred to Japan’s “colonial rule and aggression” and the “tremendous damage and suffering” they caused. That remains the clearest and most important official apology Japan has issued.

In 2015, Shinzo Abe reaffirmed previous apologies and spoke of “deep remorse”, though many observers found the language more indirect than Murayama’s.

Emperor Akihito also expressed deep remorse and a desire that the horrors of war never be repeated.

The problem is not the absence of apologies, but the inconsistency of the political culture surrounding them. When later politicians cast doubt on earlier statements, or when senior figures visit Yasukuni Shrine, many in China and Korea conclude that remorse has not been fully internalised. The issue is ultimately one of credibility, continuity, and moral seriousness.

The legacy of Japan’s rise

Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) transformed global perceptions. For the first time in the modern era, an Asian power had decisively defeated a major European empire. The shock was immense.

Japan’s success shattered the myth of European invincibility and gave powerful momentum to the idea that Asia could resist Western domination. Later, this fed into Japan’s vision of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, presented as an Asian bloc free from Western colonial rule.

In reality, the project was less a partnership of equals than a structure of Japanese dominance. Japan needed oil, rubber, iron, and strategic depth. Expansion into East and Southeast Asia was driven not only by ideology but by the logic of empire, resources, and war.

This history matters because it shaped Japanese self-perception. Military success, rapid modernisation, and later economic power all contributed to a sense that Japan was uniquely capable, disciplined, and destined for regional leadership.

China in Japanese strategic imagination

Japan has long studied Chinese civilisation closely. Confucianism, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and classics such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms have all had deep influence in Japan. In some periods, Japanese and Korean engagement with Chinese philosophy has arguably been more systematic than China’s own popular relationship with its classical inheritance.

The first great military confrontation between the Japanese archipelago and a Chinese-ruled empire came under the Yuan, when Kublai Khan attempted to subdue Japan. The invasions failed, in part because of storms later remembered as the Divine Wind, or kamikaze. Over time, this entered Japanese consciousness as a symbol of providential protection.

Japan’s memory of the Second World War has been most selective. Many Japanese did not feel they had been defeated by China, but by the overwhelming industrial and military power of the United States, culminating in the atomic bombings. Meanwhile, modern Japanese views of China were shaped over a long period in which China appeared poor, unstable, divided, and vulnerable.

Japan’s post-war economic resurgence only reinforced this contrast. Under American protection, it became one of the world’s great economic powers. Its industries, brands, and commercial reach gave it confidence and prestige. For decades, many Japanese saw China as backward and dependent, even while Japanese capital and business flowed into the Chinese market.

Although China has since risen dramatically, social perceptions often lag behind geopolitical reality. Many Chinese still seek opportunities in Japan, and large numbers travel there. At the same time, some Japanese continue to draw broad and often unflattering conclusions about China from limited social encounters. Younger Japanese, moreover, tend to orient culturally toward Europe and the United States rather than toward China.

This helps explain why some in Japan find it difficult to accept China as the region’s pre-eminent power. Historical memory, civilisational pride, and modern identity all work against that acceptance.

The danger of misreading China

The central risk, in my view, is that Japanese nationalism may be reviving at precisely the moment when China is least willing to tolerate strategic provocation.

If Takaichi and those around her misread contemporary China as if it were still weak, divided, or psychologically deferential, they may be operating under deeply outdated assumptions. China today sees itself not merely as a nation-state, but as a civilisational power with long historical memory, strategic patience, and growing military capability.

That is why the current trajectory is dangerous. Symbolic gestures, constitutional revision, military normalisation, strategic decoupling, and ideological hardening may each be defensible in isolation.

Taken together, however, they suggest a Japan increasingly willing to test limits that earlier generations were more careful not to touch.

History does not repeat itself mechanically. But nations often return to old instincts in new forms. If that is what is now happening in Japan, the rest of Asia has reason to pay attention.

End