And I think this Hong Kong move is, among other things, a show of absolute disdain for Trump. Xi may be making a mistake, of course. If he guts Hong Kong's ability to operate with freedom in the world of finance, he will hurt China's efforts to enter and dominate that sphere. But he doesn't necessarily care about that -- not if he's made moves to protect his own position with the "Glorious People's Republic of China" -- by which, of course, is meant, the Communist Party of that over-populated nation.
But here's something bugging me about all of this: Trump has made mention of the need and his own desire to begin testing nuclear weapons once again. Yeah, a stupid idea, a moronic idea and, therefore, in Trump's cult, a brilliant idea. But what if the prompting to do this came from someone in the Administration with Trump's ear, someone with nastier military ambitions for the cult and the nation it has subverted? What I'm saying is that testing a hydrogen bomb at this time might be more than just rattling the nuclear saber for Xi's benefit.
And Xi may back away because of it -- or rattle his own nukes. Mao, the glorified somewhat corpulent murderer who established the Peoples Republic, said, long ago, that his country could easily sustain the loss of 250,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. So the question that sane people might ask, should Xi rattle his nukes at us, is whether Xi subscribes to Mao's belief. A second question that might be asked is whether the Chinese government has made serious preparations in the ensuing years (between Mao and now) to confront, survive, and emerge victorious in the worldwide nuclear rubble of what such a loss of people would entail?
Because we in America have a leader who is absolutely willing to take that gamble.
= new reply since forum marked as read