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No one will doubt that the ability of a national leader is extremely important for the nation to be led. History has shown us many great leaders were responsible for transforming their countries. Granted, hindsight we may pinpoint and connect the circumstances that offered opportunities to the leaders to perform great deeds that historians can give credits to their leadership. However, even hindsight, historians or educators can not answer explicitly how the great leaders become great leaders as they develop in their careers. The root of this puzzling question is really how great leaders are groomed to be leaders? Is there such a process of leadership grooming? One may point out that there are many programs in education and society at large devoted to leadership training, but they are general characteristics of leadership involving people skill, 
persuasion ability, oratorical talents, logical thinking and charismatic manners etc etc. These leadership qualities are important to lead to a successful career but are they sufficient in qualifying a leader to take the top national leadership position to become a great leader? I am afraid that the answer is negative since we find that in the history, there were many political leaders who possessed the above leadership qualities but never became a great leader particularly when we focused on the top national leadership, say the Presidency of a country.
 
The top national leadership is very critical in the modern world where not only the domestic issues of a country are complex and pressing but also its international affairs are intrigue with serious short fuse as well as long term impacts. Therefore, regardless what government system, a democracy, a Royal rule or an authoritarian administration, there is a common issue: How can the nation assure a great leader is groomed to take the top leadership position? In the process of grooming, one hopes that more leaders are groomed peacefully with smooth outcome even though ultimately only one leader will ascend to the top position. One also hopes that the grooming process will continue to groom the next generation of top leader for succession. In this column, we attempt to examine this critical issue of grooming of the top leadership using the United States and China as examples with reference to the career paths of President Trump and President Xi.
 
In the United States, the Constitution guarantees that all citizens born in the United States are qualified to run for the President of the U.S. Thus in theory, there are numerous life journeys one may take in education, social engagement and career path to prepare oneself for running for the top leadership position. The campaign and election of the Presidency and other elected positions in the career serve as an important grooming process since the candidates in campaigns and elections are forced to think and deal with domestic and foreign issues. If the elected offices give the candidates opportunities to develop policies and/or execute programs, that experience adds to the grooming process preparing the candidate with aspiration for the top leadership position valuable legislative, administrative and executive ability.
 
The above described grooming process is never rigid, nor transparent to the general public except when the candidate is running for a national office. In hindsight, we can examine backwards of the U.S. Presidency from Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton to realize that their paths to Presidency surely didnot follow a rigorous nor common grooming process. This fact has a strong correlation to how great a President they may become except there is an element of surprise, “on-job learning”, which may enhance the President’s performance.
 
In China, its Constitution allows a one party governing system hence the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been in control of the government for the past seventy years. The top leadership position of the country is served by the top leadership holder of the party. Therefore, the responsibility of grooming of the top leader falls on the CCP. In the past 70 years, from Chairman Mao to President Xi today, the grooming process of the top leadership has been gradually transformed to assure a peaceful process resulting in smooth succession, more so in the last two decades. This grooming process for leadership in CCP is quite transparent contrary to what Western observers tend to believe. The first step although may not have to begin at a young age is to qualify to become a CCP member. The party tends to give the labor class (workers and farmers) and the offspring of distinguished party members a little preference (in a way similar to Harvard Kennedy School giving poor black minority and offspring of distinguished alumni a preference). Once becomes a CCP party member, the rigorous grooming process applies.
 
The CCP grooming process is rigorous and competitive both in education track and career track. Young party members are usually assigned to the lowest level or poorest areas （village） or most challenging positions as public servant or professional of a trained field. Educationally, one can compete to get advanced studies earning degrees, career wise to get promoted to bigger responsibilities, typically from village to town, city, province and metropolis in that sequence. The assignment depends on past performance and new knowledge and new skills to be gained with an objective to challenge the Party member’s full potential. Xi Jin Ping’s career path is a typical example, serving from the bottom, promoted step by step to be designated as successor for Hu JinTao. The grooming process may seem to be opaque to Western observers but Chinese people even nonparty members can track the top performers easily even pepper them with gossips.
 
Xi was designated as successor to Hu in 2007 CCP Party Congress (CPC) to take the leadership on 2012. The CCP Party Democracy works in Chinese style - reaching consensus through meetings, debates, and negotiations so that the final vote will appear to be harmonious and unanimous. The final step for Xi to take over the top position took many months of negotiation to materialize prior to the 18th CPC. At this year’s 19th CPC, Xi supposed to name his successor but he didn’t, most likely because a consensus could not be reached. There are many speculative reports about the power shuffle at the 19th CPC. Xi being a strong leader with excellent performance obviously has to name a strong capable leader to continue the long term plans laid out in the 19th CPC. I wouldn’t be surprised that the grooming is extended a couple of years to assure a right top leader is selected among all groomed candidates.
 
Andrea Lungu, a Romanian political researcher (President of the Romanian Institute for the Study of the Asia Pacific, RSIAP), specializing on Chinese politics, recently published an article, Xi Jinping Has Quietly Chosen His Own Successor, in Foreign Policy (FP, 10-20-2017), speculating the Chongqing Communist Party Secretary, Chen Min-Er, to be Xi’s favored successor.  I am more leaning to my analysis that Xi and his party leaders simply need to add a couple of years to the grooming process to pick the final choice to assure successful continuity. In comparison, the lack of a rigorous grooming process for the top US leader puts a challenge to the elected US President to organize an experienced team to assist him and to learn quickly on the job.
 

 
Nanking Massacre is one of the most, if not The Most, atrocious war crime ever happened in one city. More than 300,000 people were slaughtered during six weeks of killing, raping, looting and burning. Nanking was the capital of Republic of China. Japan, recognizing that the Qing Court was weak and corrupt, joined the Western Powers to invade China. In the first Sino-Japan war (1894-1895), Japan defeated China and forced her to cede Taiwan (and huge reparation payment and other demands) to Japan. Since then, Japan continued her ambition to conquer China as evidenced by first challenging Russia’s interest in China. Japan won the Japan-Russia War in 1904-1905 which took place in China’s Manchuria and Yellow Sea. U.S. President Ted Roosevelt brokered a peace treaty between Russia and Japan at the expense of China. Russia recognized Korea (Protectorate of China) as part of the Japanese sphere of influence and agreed to evacuate from Manchuria (China’s territory), eventually led to the annexation of Korea by Japan in 1910.  When the Chinese revolution finally toppled Qing and established a republic nation in 1911, Japan began more openly and aggressively executing a plan to conquer China before she could get strong. Japan started encroachment and invasion of the northeastern part of China eventually seized the entire Manchuria in 1931 and set up a puppet government in 1932 despite of a condemnation by the League of Nations. Japan then withdrew from League of Nations the following year.
 
While Chinese people began resisting Japanese aggression, Japan initiated her ambitious plan to take over the entire China within a year. The Japanese Imperial Army was moving from Manchuria south bound towards Nanking, China’s new capital for the Republic. The Chinese army, despite of poor equipment compared to the well suited-up Japanese soldiers, put up a good fight. From Battle of Shanghai to Battle of Nanking, the resistance was very strong and heroic and the Japanese military could not move forward fast as planned. When the Japanese army finally took over Nanking, they launched a horrible massacre as their way of revenging the Chinese resistance and purposely creating fear to deter future Chinese resistance. The infamous Nanking Massacre was recognized by the U.N. and was entered into its war memorial and historical records. Sadly to all Chinese that to this day, Japan shamelessly does not acknowledge and accept the responsibility of this war crime.
 
China designated December 13th as the Memorial Day for Nanking Massacre. This year is its 80th anniversary. China has as usual held a solemn national memorial service in Nanking, a larger scale this year well attended by many civilian and military officials including President Xi Jinping and international dignitaries from many foreign countries. Most notably, the Ambassador of South Korea, Noh Young-min, a well-known lawyer, attended this memorial service in Nanking thus missing to greet his President, Moon Jae-in, arriving in Beijing for a State visit which was interpreted as that President Moon regarded the attendance of the Nanking Memorial Service being more important a duty for his Ambassador than greeting him at Beijing airport. One recalls that President Moon had invited the comfort women to attend the State dinner for President Trump a month ago in Seoul, obviously to remind the U.S. President that Koreans would never forget and wishing Americans would also face honestly the Japanese atrocious war crimes committed in Asia against Asians and Americans during WW II.
 
There is a Memorial Museum of the Nanking Massacre in Nanking where artifacts, photos, videos and documents about the Nanking Massacre were exhibited. The records, in addition to the merciless bombing of civilians, including the  tossing of babies in the air as soldiers’ piercing targets for their bayonets, contests of soldiers to kill unarmed civilians in an Olympic competition style for hours to reward the fastest killer soldier, most graphic pictures of raping of women, under aged, pregnant and even senior, and their brutal murder after being raped, looting, burning, etc, etc. The memorial museum has a tremendous impact on its visitors making them leaving in tears, thoroughly horrified. Some conscientious Japanese visitors could not believe that the Japanese soldiers behaved worse than beasts. Sadly to these Japanese, their government continues to deny the Nanking Massacre ever happened and earnestly advises the Japanese citizens not to visit the museum. The Chinese, Koreans, Philippines, Indochinese and all Asians would rather forget the nightmare of Japanese Army’s brutality if only Japan would sincerely apologize for its war crimes, show remorse and vow to say it would never happen again. Sadly to all humankind, the Japanese citizens could not make their government to accept Justice to return its citizens the true dignity and honor by yielding to Truth and Justice in admitting its war crimes.
 
During the memorial service, there is a ritual of striking a set of giant bronze bells making a solemn sound resonating in everyone’s ear. This sound surely would touch everyone’s heart, making everyone feeling sad and enduring pain, but it should also strike everyone’s mind, making everyone reflecting history and reminiscing real truth, honor and humanity. When I heard this sound on TV, tears welled in my eyes, but the bells also sounded like alarms. The bells are reminding every Chinese (except a few pro-Japan Taiwanese politicians) to think about national pride and to draw lessons from the Nanking Massacre. Forgiving one’s enemies and peace loving with one’s neighbors are only right when one’s neighbor is respecting the sovereignty of neighboring country, accepting true history and regretting its aggressions and war crimes. If they don’t, one must be alarmed with fear and preparedness that history may repeat again. Will Japan attack China again? Why doesn’t Japan accept the responsibility of its war crimes in China? Why does Japan want to revise its post-WW II Pacifist Constitution to allow Japanese Army to attack others? Why does Japan want to strengthen more its already strong military forces, carriers, submarines, air forces and armies? Why does Japan want to hold tight with the world’s strongest nation, the U.S., with mutual defense treaty? Just for self-defense or a more devious motive? Is the U.S. being used or the other way around? These questions resonate with the alarming bell!
 
A documentary film of the 80th Memorial of Nanking Massacre has been shown on the U.S. TV History Channel 9AM, on 12-13-2017, hopefully it will be rebroadcast again and again or be made available on demand for American citizens to watch. Like the bell sound, the documentary strikes an alarm in our minds. Is it that simple, North Korea’s nuclear threat is a hostile act directed towards Japan and South Korea so that the U.S. must defend them? Causality in fear, hatred and revenge is traceable in history and historical facts. South Korea seems to begin to reflect on history. Japan must reflect honestly! The U.S. must also reflect on history to understand the causality of Asian ‘pain’, if she really wants to play a role in balancing the rising powers of Asia for the purpose of peace. The rising of large nations like China and India is inevitable, the competition must be played fairly. Japan survived the WW II in better industrial and economic conditions than any other Asian nation but it is fair other nations now caught up. The U.S. must not side with Japan ignoring Justice and should never allow the horrible history to repeat again..
 

 
A recent event, which has shocked the island of Taiwan, cannot go unnoticed not only by all Taiwan people and oversea Chinese with emotional and political roots in Taiwan but also by Americans and the U.S. Administration. In particular, Susan Thornton, a career Foreign Service officer, who has just been nominated by President Trump as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. In an acting position before confirmation she would have to deal with this shocking event immediately.
 
The island of Taiwan has been touted more so than Japan as a democratic society clearly nurtured, groomed and benefitted by the U.S. support over the past seven decades post WW II. The ideological principles of the U.S. and its foreign policies, consequentially its global prestige, have hinged on Taiwan’s success story of being a democratic and lawful government. Yet, the horrible event happened on Dec 19th, capturing four young and ranking party members of the New Party, a small political party in Taiwan promoting peaceful reunification with Mainland China, without due and proper judicial process using a broad national security law, has so much similarity to the Gestapo’s terror actions during WW II or KGB’s power in the Soviet Union. It is scary to the citizens of Taiwan and shocking to all Chinese overseas. How dare the current administration in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), to make an about-face political transformation violating citizens’ freedom, human rights and democratic governance, which the island has established in the past several decades?
 
Why is the December 19th episode so scary? Imaging that you are a young man, Mr. Hou Han-Tieng, aspired to join a political party serving as a youth group director in the New Party, a party of only a few thousand members in Taiwan promoting peaceful reunification with Mainland China, then in the morning, 6:30AM, you were yanked out of bed by a dozen black clothed people who demanded to search your rooms by producing two conflicting sermons (to appear on December 19th 8:30AM), one from the judicial unit requiring a signature of a court judge (but it had no such signature) and one from the investigation unit of the executive branch, both demanding the youth to be present for questioning as a “witness” at the same time but different locations. Naturally, the young man was shocked and confused why so many officers tricked his mother to open the door and swarmed into their apartment at 6:30AM before the time specified by the ‘sermons’ which he never received nor given a chance to respond in the first place. Then he was taken away with his frightened mother standing there helplessly. Later she appeared on a TV interview in tears.
 
The above scene was just one of four incidences happening in the morning on December 19th. Mr. Wang Bian-Zhong, Chief Press Officer, Mr. Lin Ming-Zheng, Vice Director of Public Relation and Communication and Mr. Chen Si-Dong, Press Secretary of the New Party were all given the same coarse treatment and taken away with no justification, even Mr. Wang’s father was taken away as well. Isn’t this a scary scene to citizens in Taiwan and shocking to all Chinese Americans? From the 1950’s to 1970’s, Taiwan, just recovered from Japanese rule, became the last retreat hold of the Republic of China (ROC governed by KMT party, Kuo Ming Tang) losing to the People’s Republic of China (PRC governed by CCP, Chinese Communist Party) in an internal struggle. Taiwan was ruled under martial law then against the influence of the Communists and die-hard Japanese. It was a period labeled as ‘white terror’, by the current administration controlled by the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party). Since that period, Taiwan has gone through more than three decades of political transformation moving towards a one-person-one-vote democratic governance in which KMT and DPP were the two major political parties competing for governance of Taiwan. In 2016, DPP defeated KMT in the Presidential election and began to emerge as a dominant party steering Taiwan toward independence despite of the majority favoring peaceful reunification and the official position of the U.S.
 
DPP’s about-face political move is marching Taiwan backwards to a scary ‘police state’. The new President, Tsai Yin-wen, first launched a witch hunt over KMT’s cumulated assets over a century. Then she subjected the former President, Ma Ying-Jiu, known as the incorruptible politician in Taiwan, to scores of law suits restricting his freedom to go abroad for speech engagement. Now the horrible incidences of harassing and intimidating the young people and the New Party members happened. One cannot help worrying that the DPP was disguising under the political slogan of ‘maintaining current status quo’ but actually driving Taiwan to be a ‘police state’ similar to the colonial rule during Japanese occupation when the Chinese on the island were ruled as second class citizens. The New Party although small sees the reunification as the ultimate best route for Taiwan to have long-term economic prosperity and peace and its ideology of peaceful reunification does make sense for all people in Taiwan considering Taiwan’s historical and cultural background tied with the Mainland and a huge opportunity to grow with a fast growing Chinese economy. Therefore, the above horrible incidences sanctioned and orchestrated by DPP is absolutely a dangerous action leading Taiwan people to revolt, Mainland China to rescue by force and the U.S. and especially her Chinese Americans to abandon support of Taiwan. 
 
When the U.S. recognized the PRC replacing the ROC in 1979 as the official government of China, the U.S. Congress also passed a ‘Taiwan Relations Act’ under the principle that Taiwan should be peacefully reunited with Mainland China and its transformation towards a democratic governance should be encouraged by the U.S.; it is a noble gesture expressed standing on the high ground of democracy. The fact that the Cross-Strait relation has been peaceful for decades and moving gradually towards reunification (prior to the Tsai’s Administration), has largely been influenced by the Taiwan Relations Act when practiced honestly. Now, Tsai and DPP are not only departing from the spirit of peaceful reunification but also taking a despicable route towards dictatorship, throwing peaceful reunification out of the window. It forces China’s hand to reunite Taiwan on an accelerated time table possibly by force and ties the U.S. hands to support Taiwan for risking supporting a dictatorship and obtaining a reputation of hypocrisy in enacting the Taiwan Relations Act for her selfish military objective never for the interest of peace in Asia.
 
Immediately following the December incidence, the President of Promotion of China’s Peaceful Reunification (in the U.S.), Mr. Shih Xue-Yin, a Taiwan citizen, protested at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles, condemning Taiwan government’s action against the New Party members who had just come to the U.S. attending a conference promoting peaceful reunification; Shih challenged the Taiwan authority to treat him as a criminal if the New Party Members were deemed guilty of criminal act. The President of U.S.-China Forum (a group of Chinese American scholars), Prof. Dr. Victor Chang, also joined Mr. Shih in a press conference expressing his surprise and anger that the Taiwan government dares to move about-face in democracy and to abuse the Justice system to suppress the peaceful reunification effort. Dr. Chang, a Chinese American, requested the Taiwan government to 1. Investigate the December 19th episode immediately and punish the ill-intended officials, 2. Provide clear evidence and open judicial proceedings to exonerate the New Party Members and 3. Offer answers to the public within two weeks. Dr. Wordman endorses the above demands and cannot emphasize enough that the December 19th Episode in Taiwan is a shameful, scary and dangerous act, one will lead to forceful reunification and disappointment in the U.S. since it will embarrass all Chinese and Americans, especially the U.S. government, if they support such a tyrant  administration, the ruling DPP!
 


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