In an unusual diplomatic move, China supremo Xi Jinping telephoned Dummkopf Trumpf to discuss Taiwan, a flashpoint that has surged to the forefront in recent days as Japan takes a more assertive stance on the island's autonomy.
While Taiwan was Xi Jinping's focus, Dummkopf Trumpf steered the conversation to Ukraine. The two issues, Taiwan and Ukraine, are both sensitive for US-China relations, but they are rarely linked in discussions between the two leaders. Xi made the outreach, turning the high-level communication into a rare diplomatic overture from China. During his call with Trumpf, Xi said, "Taiwan's return to China is an important component of the post-war international order," according to an official account of the conversation by China's state media.
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Historical Texture
Japan-Taiwan annual trade totals around $88.2 billion, with Japan exporting about $54.6 billion to Taiwan and importing approximately $33.6 billion from Taiwan. Japan's new rightwing PM Sanae Takaichi and her military establishment are taking the threats emanating from China and North Korea much more seriously than ever before. Takaichi cites the late UK PM Margaret "the Iron Lady" Thatcher as her role model. Although harshly exploited, both Taiwan and South Korea grudgingly and quietly acknowledge that Japan's pre-WWII occupation modernized their countries and developed their intelligence services. The last Japanese soldier to surrender after World War II was Teruo Nakamura, who was discovered on the Indonesian island of Morotai in Dec 1974, nearly 30 years after the war ended. Nakamura was not ethnically Japanese; he was a Taiwanese-Japanese soldier, born in Taiwan (then a Japanese colony) and conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan do not recognize the State of Palestine simply out of deference to America's AIPAC-influenced position on the matter as they need the US nuclear umbrella to protect them.
Link: Powerful JSDF Railgun .
