China is tailgating the United States in an attempt to surpass the US as the world's number one influencer. China promises that their aircraft carrier strike missile will cause more pain than being slapped by a pool noodle! China is actively attempting to expand its borders, including annexing Taiwan, leaving some Taiwanese feeling pistol-whipped. Taiwan is accepting US military support to protect against China’s territorial aggression, but do the people of Taiwan really want US protection? Are US leaders only considering their own subjective social beliefs about freedom and democracy for all? Do the majority of Taiwanese hold these same values? Look what happened to Hong Kong; the citizens stopped resisting and just accepted that they’re apart of China now as they have been seduced by Chinese shopping malls and recent economic developments. Ideology appears not to be the number one value for many people of Chinese descent.

Note: I am not a historian or expert in foreign affairs. What follows is my limited understanding.

What goes around comes around
Give China a break! If you go back far enough, all of this got started with the intervention, annexation, and subjugation of China by Western powers, Russia, and Japan. From 1839–1945, China’s front yard got invaded because China had no navy to protect itself. This refers to China’s century of humiliation. Now China has one of the largest navies and is not going to back down.

Of course, that was a long time ago, ending at the end of World War II. Is dwelling in the past really healthy? Moving forward, do current Chinese citizens even care? Will western powers acknowledge this is a mess caused, at least in part, by their ancestors making business a higher priority than the golden rule?

Taiwan is not Gilligan’s Island
Gilligan’s Island had only a handful of castaways needing to be rescued. Taiwan is an established, highly populated country of nearly 24 million citizens with its own legit government and one of the best healthcare systems in the world.

What justification does China have for annexing Taiwan? Taiwan has not lost control to a drug cartel like Mexico, a terrorist group like Afghanistan and Gaza, a paranoid mafia dictator that attacks imaginary threats like Russia, or a city plagued with chronic conditions like Los Angeles. In the city of Angels, there are 45,000 homeless people living on the streets, over 10,000 car chases a year, robberies, police shootouts, street takeovers, infrastructure thieves, graffiti, hotdog eating contests, free roaming idiots, gay pride parades, and drag queen conventions; most of this is the result of the Democratic 'Let us all be equal' ideology. Taiwan is doing just fine without China!

It is my understanding that Taiwan was formed by the authentic Chinese who escaped China as communism took over. I call them authentic Chinese because the original Chinese government (the Republic of China) fled to Taiwan in 1949 when Russia’s Communism took control of China. Those original mainland Chinese citizens brought their authentic Chinese culture to Taiwan. In other words, Taiwan might, in certain ways, be a more authentic Chinese country than China itself because of China's adoption of communism.

Taiwan's geographical proximity is close to that of China. The territorial basic instinct applies here. See: Basic Instincts. It’s not hard to imagine the psychological effect this can have on some people. There can be a slippery slope of greedy subjective belief (like eating candy) that Taiwan belongs to China simply because it’s close. The inconvenient truth is that proximity should have little to do with it. The leader of China's strategic self-interests and a need to feel more dominant are at play here—another basic instinct! Maybe, if we’re patient, we will learn that China’s leader has a visionary plan and value proposition for a better Taiwan.

If Taiwan possessed a futuristic magical technology or social spell enabling Taiwan to rightfully reassert its governing control over China, would this be better for the future of the Chinese people? Does Taiwan have a better ideology than the Chinese Communist Party? One thing is for sure—many Chinese citizens are currently trying to escape China to South America, then join the caravan of other people from around the world trekking on foot up through central America to the United States. I don’t see Taiwanese citizens trying to cross the US/Mexico border!

Taiwan wants US help but overlooks America’s track record.
The US has an impressive fashion show of jet fighters and other military hardware but less than stellar track record of actually winning wars, especially when you consider the incredible amount of money US leaders throw at problems.

WWII 1941–45: America won! We are awesome! Pat ourselves on the back for the last 70 years. We feel dominant!

Korea 1950–52: The forgotten war that is not officially over. The US reached a stalemate with North Korea. Only half of Korea was saved from a difficult future caused by Russia’s communism.

Vietnam 1960–75: the US attempted to halt communist aggression in Vietnam, but ultimately failed and had to retreat. Did US leaders learn that it takes more than a mighty military to win a war? No! Asian rice farmers are used to hard work and should not be underestimated. The American public was never motivated enough to fight this war.

The US invaded the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada in 1983 to remove a dictator. America won! Confidence boost.

The US invades the little country of Panama in 1989 to remove a dictator. America wins!

The US enforced international waters law regarding a gulf in the Mediterranean Sea bordering the coast of Libya in 1986. America’s Top Gun pilots won! Another confidence boost.

Gulf War in Iraq, 1990–91: America mostly achieved its goal and looked cool doing it! Unlike Vietnam, this time, thanks to President George Bush Sr., Americans praised the soldiers when they came home and started to heal from the Vietnam experience.

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia 1999: America's impressive air power won the war and removed a dictator without the single death of a US soldier. Impressive! Even Russia’s Putin was stunned!

US invades Iraq 2003–2011 to remove a dictator: America won the battle but lost the war. Iran is now in control!

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001–2021 to remove religious dictators. America won the battle but lost the war. The Taliban are in charge again! US leaders underestimated dominance-obsessed religious savages.

The US military is basically a colossal dictator removal tool, communism blocker, and terrorist eradicator system.

Note: One of the reasons communism failed is because it violated the basic instinct for territory. A communist state forbids citizens from owning property. Citizens are forced to live in a commune whereby they share a large apartment building possibly owned by the state government. Also, if a citizen wants to own a business, the state likely has a lot of control over it.

In the west, citizens live more as individuals free from state control, own their own stylish and sometimes unique freestanding houses with individualized landscaping, and some people own their own businesses, relatively free from government control. This gives citizens more creative leeway over their pursuit of happiness (the quest to fulfill the basic instincts of dominance, mate-selection, and territory). It also encourages inventive thinking!

In Russia citizens don’t even own themselves completely. The communist mindset is to look at all citizens as a whole, serving more or less a singular purpose. Therefore, the life and safety of any one individual Russian citizen is of insignificant value and can be sacrificed for the benefit of the state, which is very different than in America. This communist mindset of belittling individual human lives has likely been a bad influence on some of its neighbors like China and North Korea.

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American leaders are probably too star struck and proud of their military hardware to consider alternative problem-solving methods. Some military commanders are at times overly confident due to their life experience of being socialized with a can-do attitude since they first began their military careers as young, impressionable men.

An example of this is a historical documentary I watched some years ago regarding former President John F. Kennedy and the 1961 Bay of Pigs conflict in Cuba. To make a long story short, JFK stopped trusting his military advisors after the Bay of Pigs invasion on the coast of Cuba ended in a humiliating defeat when the US attempted to overthrow the then dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, to prevent Russia’s communism from taking over Cuba. US military leaders underestimated Castro’s spy’s—assisted by Russian intelligence no-doubt! They knew America was coming!

Banking on a brand
Did you know that just about anything can be a brand? How do you feel about a 747? What about Kim Kardashian? The Loch Ness Monster? Antarctica? Ferrari is the most recognized brand in the world! Hello Kitty is perhaps the most loved brand—a brilliant example of simplicity and world-wide acceptance. Maverick is compelling! The US dollar is independent, reliable, and green! Why are so many women drawn to Paris? The Dallas Cowboys are one of the defining icons of Texas, and so are the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders! The Cowboys, the cheerleaders, and even Texas are all brands. All of these are unforgettable examples of emotional hooks that have managed to hypnotize their essence into our lives.

What is a brand? A deeply encoded emotional impression in our memory. For example, we know Disneyland as the happiest place on Earth because that’s what they try to be every single day. Some brands, because of their consistency over our lives, leave us spell-bound, as if their brand has etched a tattoo onto our brain stem; just like Antarctica is consistently cold. A wonderfully practical and efficient property of a great brand is that we can trust it! We don’t have to read the fine print. We know the brand has our interests at heart and will never betray us.

I like Japan! Japan is modern, homogeneous and non-threatening. When I was a kid, I watched TV on a television made in Japan, rode dirt bikes out in the hills with my friend who owned a Yamaha, and today I have owned a Japanese car for the last twenty-two years and will keep it for as long as I can! Japan has branded my brain.

Here is one of the reasons I trust Japan:
Yoshida is a Japanese zipper company that preaches a management principle termed “The Cycle of Goodness.” It holds that “no one prospers unless he renders benefit to others.”

Japan has morally advanced from its dominance and territorial ambitions leading up to World War II.

China as a brand
There is a new Chinese grocery store within walking distance from my home. It’s a convenient location, yet I avoid it because this business might be connected to the Chinese Communist Party or sell products of questionable origin and quality. I have no problem with the Chinese employees who work there; I just won’t buy from them because I cannot trust a Chinese brand. I guess I should say that just thinking about China is a put-off because of the reasons listed below.

But first, it's true that there are some bad companies in good countries. Recently, it was revealed that Volkswagen lied to its consumers about how much pollution their cars really produced. But the German government is not hostile to the United States, and the moral character of Germans as a whole is more or less aligned with Americans. There is just a problem with Volkswagen’s current leadership.

Here is what I have noticed about China:

1. The Chinese government allows Chinese companies to sell toxic products to the United States. For example, I watched a 60-minute investigative story about toxic Chinese floor tiles. They used hidden cameras that revealed the Chinese workers knew they were selling a contaminated product. Not all Chinese companies are bad; many high quality products are manufactured in China.

2. The US has been open to trade with China for 40 years, making China richer and more developed, and in return, the Chinese government has made a great effort to spy on and steal military and commercial technology on a massive scale never before seen in history and appears to be preparing for war against the US.

3. In 2001, there was a collision over the South China Sea between a US Navy EP-3 four-engine signals intelligence airplane with a crew of 24 and a Chinese Air Force J-8 interceptor. The Chinese interceptor crashed into the ocean and the pilot died, while the US Navy plane made an emergency landing on Chinese-owned Hainan Island. Back then, I remember watching the US news reporting that the Chinese news agency (controlled by the Chinese Communist Party) was showing a 3D animation of the US Navy aircraft intentionally bumping into the Chinese interceptor. The Chinese report was a flat-out lie; it would be next to impossible and stupid for the pilots of the large US Navy plane powered by four turboprop engines to risk a prop strike or worse in an attempt to chase after and bump the agile Chinese interceptor. The Chinese interceptor was attempting to pass in front of the US Navy plane to thump them with wake turbulence. Thumping is a fun aerial maneuver used by Russian pilots to intimidate US pilots for many decades; it's an expression of dominance, but Chinese pilots are new at this and are getting way too close. This particular Chinese pilot behaved like a baby shark. Baby sharks are dangerous because they will bite at anything. Adult sharks hang back and gracefully circle until they know for sure that this is real food. The adults don’t waste their precious energy or take unnecessary risks. I’m an aviation buff and know a little about what’s happening up there, but the average Chinese citizen will likely believe the propaganda their state-controlled media tells them.

4. According to reports that I have researched, China puts up a deceptive outward appearance, hides the truth, and brainwashes its citizens with propaganda—that America is the cause of many of China’s ills and struggles. Chinese citizens are not allowed to talk about problems, have an opinion, or criticize Chinese policies or authorities without being fired from their job or taken to jail. Some of these citizens might have good ideas about how to fix local problems, but instead try to migrate to America.

The leader of China is clearly treating the US as the enemy, and is shaping the brand of China into what the people of the world might feel—their brain stem has been tattooed with China’s threats.

What would Confucius think of the leadership in today’s China? Confucius (551-479 BCE), born Kong Qiu, was a Chinese philosopher. Confucius taught personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, sincerity, and a ruler's responsibilities to lead by virtue.

Good for business
The US is very good at innovating new military technology. As I write this, DARPA is probably developing some kind of stealth, hexatronic, multi-phasic, shape-shifting, gamma-emitting, submersible harpoon system with an internal starburst sequencer array and a deployable robotic sonar jammer that can avoid whales and delicate sea creatures, plus meet zero carbon footprint standards.

Historically, the motivation for this ongoing innovation in military technology seems to have been to stop the spread of Russia's communist ideology. Communism is not good for business in general, but it is good for the growth of the well-funded US military industrial complex.

Former President Eisenhower should know. He served in the military during WWI and was a general during WWII. He understood the military because he lived it as it evolved from a small temporary force only used for wartime into a permanent techno-monstrosity serving as a world-wide communism blocker.

Eisenhower warned US citizens in his televised farewell address just before he left office that the military industrial complex was a necessary evil to stop the advances of the Soviet Union.

The US military industrial complex is intertwined with business, citizens with political power, and the economy. In other words, it’s a dangerous mix of conflicts of interest. The military industry grows even when war is not imminent. This can make other countries feel small and motivate them to grow their military so they don’t feel left behind.

I would think most experts would agree—growing a little military can be good for the economy, but engaging in war is bad for the economy.

If it were not for Russia’s communism, the US military would likely be much smaller and not make some leaders in other countries feel small and envious. The failure of communism to help citizens thrive, or more specifically, the inability of past leaders within the Soviet Union to put their ego aside and lead by way of objective thinking—admit that communism has no future and just change—has already caused many generations of Russians to have an inferiority complex. You can see this in how Russians feel the need to make everything large: the largest nuclear power plant, airplane, helicopter, McDonald's, etc. It’s a sign that many Russians feel small.

The US is no Rambo
Unfortunately, some of our highly extroverted leaders in Washington are sometimes foolishly friendly when they visit countries like Taiwan and make idealistic promises that are difficult for America to keep long-term. This is likely diluting Taiwan’s motivation to brainstorm creative solutions on its own!

Many citizens of Taiwan are not preparing for war. Over the years they have become desensitized to Chinese threats. In addition, a certain percentage of Taiwanese voters—voice they wouldn’t mind becoming part of China. Most probably they have been seduced by modern Chinese skyscrapers and instinctively want to belong to a more dominant tribe or establishment. This is one way to fulfill their basic instincts for dominance and territory.

Those types of people who are willing to trade ideology for dominance are dull. Creative people can see the limitations of China! In the US, people are allowed to invent, create, have style, and be individualistic. This opens up a universe of possible ways to fulfill or express the need to feel dominant.


Is the pen always mightier than the sword? It appears Taiwanese leaders are conveniently allowing the US to provide support and protection and maybe not exploring other options or making an effort to brain storm more original ideas about how to defend themselves.

Would China dare attempt an invasion if they faced the Germans? What about the proactive Jews? Enemies surround the Jews in Israel, necessitating their constant readiness! What about the Ukrainians? The Ukrainians say, Bring it on! What about the Taliban in Afghanistan? Russia failed to beat the Taliban in the 1980s! Yes, it’s true that the US supplied the Taliban with weapons, including the stinger missile that shot down many Russian helicopters. However, more recently, the US spent 20 years and billions of dollars trying and failing to beat the Taliban! Does it even occur to Taiwanese leaders to study what makes the Taliban so invincible?

Know what to keep
Sometimes it’s not realistic to be idealistic! Today, the US is not in a position to defend every country against aggressors. Currently, the US is imploding under the weight of its own self-deception regarding conflicting beliefs and world views. Freedom and democracy with too little objective thinking have caused widespread social disfunction. Movies like Blade Runner express a feeling among many that dystopia is just around the corner.

Unlike the jungle country of Vietnam, Taiwan, being an island, plays to the US military’s strengths and would be relatively easy to defend. However, the embarrassment of a US aircraft carrier being sunk would be a major black eye and would give satisfaction to the Chinese leader or those in power who are itching to fulfill their basic instinct for dominance!

[New State] will be mindful of the basic instincts of dominance, mate-selection, and territory when making foreign policy decisions.

[New State] proposes that the US should only protect the freedom to navigate and fly over international waters consistent with international law and prevent those particular Chinese leaders from claiming new territorial waters as their own. Taiwan should defend itself because, to my knowledge, the people of Taiwan have not shown any real ambition (creative vision) to stay independent or willingness to fight without US support.

[New State] proposes a point system that will rate the moral character of countries we do business with and to conduct less and less business with countries of weaker moral character like today’s China because empowering these countries will likely cause future generations of US citizens to pay a price just as we have already done with decades of war in the Middle East to stop oppressors that were empowered by the US in exchange for cheap oil years earlier. In other words, what goes around comes around—doing business with China today likely only benefits current generations but feeds the growth of a future problem.















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