John Pomfret 潘文
2.3K posts
John Pomfret 潘文
@JEPomfret
Author of "From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, the CIA and the Making of an Unlikely Alliance" https://t.co/VP8l2HfaiP. Member CFR
Don Lemon and Georgia Fort have been released. But the procedural history now emerging is unusual. Before the arrests, a federal magistrate judge found no probable cause to arrest them. The government appealed anyway. Here’s why that matters—and what it signals more broadly.
NEW: Following the shock announcement of an investigation into Zhang Youxia, we reveal the "serious crimes" alleged in a high-level briefing: a decades-long scheme of "clique-building." bribery and leaking nuclear data to the U.S. W/@ByChunHan wsj.com/world/china/ch… via @WSJ
I find this a very weak argument for an invasion this year. The PLA leadership is in disarray and Xi Jinping getting what he wants from Trump on so many fronts. At the same time, INDOPAC is building very new capabilities with Japan/Philippines/Australia etc. The new KMT leadership is very friendly. Why upset a very positive geopolitical position by destroying Taiwan?
千古罪人！沈崇 她会说流利地道的英语；颇有几分姿色；她是北大女生，地下党员；她主动勾引北平美军，事后诬陷美军强奸她；引发轰动中国的学生运动；蔣介石在社会舆论压力下，逼迫美军撤出中国；直接导致国军内战失利，中国亡于中共之手；她八十年代移民美国，信奉基督教，终身忏悔。她叫沈崇。
It happened last month so the main question is why the news is coming out now.
@JEPomfret I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your point, John. Is there something in this readout that leads you to conclude that this analysis is OBE? mofa.go.jp/na/na1/us/page…
The Takaichi Effect: Why Xi Dialed Trump @Lingling_Wei notes that Xi took the unusual step of initiating a call with Trump — something he refused to do throughout the recent trade war. The timing is no coincidence. The call comes just as Beijing enters what looks to be the opening phase of a long confrontation with Japan under Takaichi. This maneuver from Xi brings to mind an old Chinese saying: 一物降一物 — no matter how powerful a man appears, there is always someone who can keep him in check. In plain English: every man has his master. As someone who has navigated the Chinese bureaucracy, I knows this play instinctively. The real contest isn’t the official seated across from you. The real contest is identifying who actually holds the remote control to his decisions. Sometimes it’s his political patron. Sometimes it’s his wife. Sometimes it’s his kid. And sometimes, it’s the beloved mistress. Once you find the true master, the rest is targeted persuasion. Seen through that lens, Xi looks at Japan and decides the real boss isn’t in Tokyo — it’s in Washington. So as he braces for a long, chilly stretch of strategic hostility with Japan, he reaches for the same bureaucratic playbook he learned inside the system. Old habits die hard; political instincts die even harder. After all, every man is shaped by the system that raised him — and in China’s system, the first rule is simple: you’re not really talking to the right person until you find the person who owns his decisions. That’s why Xi didn’t call Trump during the trade war. He’s calling now — because Japan just picked a leader he knows he finds hard to deal with. How Trump responds will be consequential. It will be a clear signal to every leader watching and wondering whether standing up to China still has backing at Washington.
“A quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”