School Bully

China shows its true colors, and Ukraine shoots itself in the foot

The Mask Slips off

As someone who has suffered through degrading episodes of gaslighting and contempt, there is no one on earth whom I hate more than a bully. And in international affairs, the ultimate bully is the People’s Republic of China. With territorial disputes and aggressive misconduct, China has found a way to alienate the very neighbors it supposedly seeks to befriend and earn its permanent place on this author’s naughty list of nations. While Taiwan, whose mere existence Beijing denies, is the main target of China’s bullying, the latest victim of this aggressive behavior is none other than America’s closest ally in the region: Japan.

A couple of weeks ago, new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, fresh off her successful bilateral summits with the ever-unpredictable Donald Trump and Xi Jinping provoked a diplomatic earthquake by crossing China’s reddest of red lines: the Taiwan question. During a parliamentary meeting on November 7, Takaichi warned that a so-called Taiwan Emergency, as a theoretical invasion of the island is known in Japan, would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” and necessitate the use of force by Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, likely in conjunction with the United States. While previous Japanese leaders have tiptoed around the Taiwan question with evasive diplomatic language, Takaichi marked new ground with her explicit commitment towards military action. For Japan, a resource-poor island nation dependent on safe navigation in the seas around Taiwan for continued prosperity, Takaichi was merely stating the obvious. Indeed, her remarks were no blunder.

A veteran of Japanese politics since the 1990s, Sanae Takaichi is a protégé of the late and revered Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe, who was gunned down in 2022, made it his life’s work to restore Japan’s status as a world power freed from the US-imposed constitutional restrictions on Japanese military power. Albeit this time, Abe envisioned Japan as a world power committed to upholding international law and global stability, not blazing a trail of horror and ruin across Asia (though China claims otherwise.) Takaichi is committed to upholding her mentor Shinzo Abe’s vision, including supporting the defense of Taiwan in an emergency, and she deserves the full support of the United States. And unlike other Western leaders, Takaichi is still enjoying her political honeymoon and would certainly have reservations about caving to a bully like China.

And here is where my blood begins to boil.

The reaction of Chinese officials has been among the most vile one can imagine in the modern world. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian, a so-called “diplomat” with a history of undiplomatic insults, posted on social media that “the filthy head that recklessly intrudes must be sliced off without a moment’s hesitation.” Japan responded to Xue’s violent insult by summoning the Chinese Ambassador to the Japanese foreign ministry, an expression of disgust in international diplomacy, over the “extremely inappropriate statements made by Xue. Instead of punishing Xue Jian for his violent threats against Takaichi, Beijing pushed the knife deeper into Japan’s back by defending his coarse language as a “personal comment” directed at Takaichi’s “dangerous remarks that attempt to separate Taiwan from China” and publishing menacing articles on Chinese-language state media. Japan has thus suffered China’s classic Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, a form of “diplomacy” both coarse and menacing encompassing insults, threats, and all-around rude behavior.

The purpose of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy? Frighten and intimidate rivals into knowing their place as eternal subordinates of the Middle Kingdom.

Now the conflict has escalated to mutual travel warnings and even military posturing, mainly on the part of who else, but Beijing. Despite Tokyo’s attempts to end the diplomatic crisis, the People’s Republic of China’s bully mentality ensures that Japan has no chance of a short-term thaw without a humiliating capitulation that would likely destroy Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s reputation. While a military conflict, let alone a serious Chinese covert special op to assassinate Takaichi through beheading or other more grisly methods, is blessedly not on the horizon anytime soon, this episode is a raw reflection of how low Beijing will stoop to show not only Japan but the United States and the World who is boss and who needs to just shut up and obey. While China has every right to acknowledge atrocities committed by Japan against its people nearly a century ago, it does not have any right to strut around in the most rude and aggressive manner while demanding vassalage.

I can only hope Washington understands of the appalling extent of China’s school bully-like Wolf Warrior Diplomacy and their threat to basic diplomatic decency.

Caught in the Cookie Jar

You have to feel for Ukraine. Nearly four years of the worst war in Europe since 1945, thousands of Ukrainians dead or disabled, a series of crippling blackouts and yet its government just can’t help but stealing what little money Ukraine has left. And yet, not even four months after the Ukrainian government attempted to wreck the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the scandal that provoked the fracas in the first place has finally come to a head, or shall we say, to the John. In a July essay, this author mentioned the name Timur Mindich, a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizen and business partner from the days when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedic entertainer rather than a wartime leader. Now that NABU has completed its investigation into Mindich’s embezzlement scheme with the Ukrainian energy company Energoatom, the rot at the highest level of the Ukrainian state has been exposed.

NABU’s findings, codenamed Operation Midas, read like an episode of American Greed: Ukrainian Edition. While Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been under daily bombardment, Mindich’s (who conveniently fled the country as prosecutors closed in) cronies were caught discussing in detail exactly how funds intended to restore this infrastructure would instead be laundered into a Swiss bank account to purchase a luxury property there. Meanwhile, back in Kyiv, NABU’s raid discovered bags of cash and even a literal golden toilet in Timur Mindich’s apartment. Such misconduct is classic fiddling while Rome burns. I suppose it won’t be long before a Bugatti and inventory of cocaine and prostitutes are discovered as well. The scandal has not spared other Ukrainian officials, including Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk and Justice Minister Herman Halushchenko, who have both since resigned. Though unlike with our bully friend Xue Jian, no one literally called for either official’s decapitation.

For Zelensky, the scandal sinks his once awe-inspiring reputation from bad to worse. While the president has not been directly implicated in Timur Mindich’s looting of Energoatom, the pair’s longstanding relationship in the words of a Ukrainian intelligence officer, is a “blow of atomic-bomb proportions.” After all, Zelensky had a birthday party in that very Kyiv apartment encapsulating the scheme. Regardless of how Operation Midas turns out, the noose around Volodymyr Zelensky and his embattled country is tightening. Vladimir Putin has staked his life and career on total victory in the war and reportedly believes that eventually Ukraine will collapse and Russia will be victorious.

As for the West, it is obvious the Trump Administration has given up entirely on any notion of a Ukrainian military victory. And Europe? Well, I believe you all know in which direction that once grand continent is headed. While European leaders still proclaim the illusion of outright victory, even they must be privately aware of their taxpayers’ outrage at such abuses of power in Kyiv. Even Poland, where support for Ukraine is declining, is aware of Ukraine’s ticking clock. Again, while I have nothing but admiration for the bravery and heartbreak for the suffering of the Ukrainian people, their corrupt government is unfortunately doing to them nothing less than a tragic disservice.