From the survey of Pew Research, there is no doubt that the image of the U.S. has been tainted downward since the Obama Administration. The current Biden Administration is well aware of that and efforts are being made to restore the reputation of the U.S. However, this process may take a while or may not even possible as the U.S. puts so much energy in battling with China on the world stage in many domains unnecessarily including climate control, international trade, and economic diplomacy. The Chinese leader Xi Jinping, although painted by the West media as an authoritarian leader by his ability to extend his leadership tenure to a third five year term even possibly for life, has indeed made plenty of recognizable achievements to show to the Chinese people and the world. China was able to lift over 800 million citizens above poverty, to become major trading partners with 134 countries in the world, to produce more middle income population (net more than the entire population of the U.S.) and to accelerate technology advances in space, communication (including 5G), energy and transportation benefitting the rapid growth of China in GPD as well as social wealth - improvements in living conditions. China’s rise in the past half century can not be attributed to pure luck nor “stealing” but to her statesmen leading and motivating the Chinese people to work hard and strive.
 
The U.S. became a superpower since WW II and more impressively became the beacon of the world from the 50’s to 70’s. However, from the 80’s onward, the leaders of the U.S. were living off the nation's superpower status and seemed to be concerned only with maintaining such a power status rather than truly elevating the welfare of mankind (some may say even the living conditions of American citizens). The Cold War and the division of the world to two camps based on a superficial ideology (the world is changing but we are stubbornly rigid in legacy beliefs) have retarded the potential progress the world can make. Instead the ideological division created many conflicts and wars for power struggle and maintaining superpower status only. Even though the Soviet Union had collapsed in 1990 under this power struggle, the U.S. did not change her course to focus or care for her citizens’ well-being. In the next three decades, we see the rise of China from a poor third level developing country progressing into a modern great nation deliberately avoiding involvement in the power struggle but focusing on improving her citizens’ living conditions. Today, in contrast, America’s glamorous image with first rate modern infrastructure in the 60-70’s and citizens’ wealth (TV, car and house) have become second rate even compared with a Chinese second tier city. Americans are worried but worry does not solve her problems. We need real American statesmen, statesmen who can inspire us to make America strong again by citing 'I've done it' real examples, not slogans, not in terms of military power or financial packaging but in terms of a real competitive productivity.
 
Where can we find real American statesmen? How can we define them? As a citizen, one can only try to find a statesman among our present political leaders and those presidential candidates aspired to serve as our leaders. Interestingly, there is never a shortage of candidates who want to become our president to lead this country. In both Democrat and Republican parties, we see more than a dozen candidates running for President each time and yet we citizens find it hard to make a selection. Therefore, often two phenomena happen, one, the final winner gets elected by less than half of the votes, and two, the loser refuses to accept defeat and plots a come back immediately. The elected will serve the presidency worried constantly about reelection. The defeated is willing to spend four years to plot a come-back campaign instead of serving the country in a positive way. From a citizen’s point of view, the above politicians are not real American statesmen. A real American statesman should work for the people, do the right thing for the country benefitting the welfare of the citizens. A defeated politician should seek a public servant job demonstrating his or her ability and passion for government service not power. Unfortunately, we rarely find a politician qualifying as a statesman in the above definition.
 
Searching in the past, the author would like to use John Kerry as an example, perhaps not a perfect example, to make my point above clearer. Kerry (born in 1943) was a Democrat nominee for the 2004 presidential election against the incumbent George W. Bush. Kerry was a critic of Bush Administration’s policy and execution of the Iraq war. He advocated a liberal domestic policy. In the end, he lost in a narrow margin both in electoral vote count and popular votes. Kerry was a Yale graduate (1966) and a decorated Vietnam war veteran (1966-68) but turned to be an anti-war activist. He later pursued a law degree (Juris Doctor Boston College 1976) and served as the assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, Massachusetts (1977-79). In 1982, he was elected as the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and in 1984 elected as a Senator representing Massachusetts serving five consecutive terms (1984-2013). In 2013, he was nominated as the Secretary of State and served for the Obama Administration (2013-2017). This appointment was speculated as a political move among democrat leaders to ask Kerry to yield to Hillary Clinton to run for the Presidency in 2016. Obviously, Kerry had accepted the idea that a woman candidate with Clinton’s stature had a better chance to win. Kerry might have thought serving as the Secretary of State could accomplish something significant.
 
During Kerry’s tenure of Secretary of State, he initiated the 2013–2014 Israeli–Palestinian peace talks and negotiated agreements restricting the nuclear program of Iran, including the 2013 Joint Plan of Action and the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Most notably, in 2015, Kerry signed the Paris Agreement on climate change on behalf of the U.S. which was unfortunately reneged by the Trump Administration. Kerry appeared to be a statesman not just an ambitious and opportunistic politician. For the 2020 presidential election, the Democrats were united and determined to defeat Donald Trump who had led a somewhat eccentric, obnoxious and undiplomatic Administration on the world stage. There were many Democrat candidates running against Trump's reelection including Joe Biden (Kerry’s superior in the Obama Administration). Kerry’s decision of not becoming a candidate to satisfy his personal ambition rather being supportive to Joe Biden appeared to be a statesman’s decision. He later volunteered to be the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate knowing that it would be a difficult job to succeed lent him a statesman's image. He humbly approached China for seeking climate cooperation and made a significant progress while the U.S.-China relation was falling off a cliff due to a hostile U.S. anti-China policy. Kerry’s deeds and further progress will most likely go down in history as a shining achievement and evidence for statesmanship.
 
As we look around in the U.S. from election to election, we see more politicians who are more ambitious in winning positions than diligent in serving the public with real deeds. In a word, the political system in the U.S. produces far too many selfish politicians than real statesmen. Politicians start young immersed in the short periodic election processes with little time devoted to real hard work or solid achievements. These politicians cannot become statesmen. Here we take John Kerry as an example, again, he does provide us some food for thoughts. Kerry worked on the Paris Climate Agreement and he understood that climate is a serious global issue affecting all human-kind including Americans. If he could achieve something for the world, it would be more meaningful than becoming a President or Vice President achieving nothing in the end. That is the difference between a statesman and a politician's thinking. The country needs more real Statesmen, not politicians! The voters must raise their expectation on candidates judging on their deeds and motivations, not words or ambitions!,
 


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Editor's Note: 
This piece is part of the Taiwan-U.S. Quarterly Analysis series, which features the original writings of experts from the United States and Taiwan, with the goal of providing a range of perspectives on developments relating to Taiwan .
 
The Economist recently published an article claiming Taiwan as the most dangerous place on Earth. The great attention The Economist has given to China, now Taiwan as a part of China 'problem', does reflect a few things. One, the Economist has always been able to focus on important world issues and magnify their appearances with its research and fine penmanship. Two, the magazine has been lately taking a position on China issue by reporting in more alarming and negative tone about China, including U.S.-China conflicts, Hong Kong civil protests, Xinjiang Uighur genocide, China's economy and now Taiwan. It is no surprise that China and most Chinese people have noticed 'the British manner' and shifted their opinion about The Economist from respectable to a biased publication especially on China issues. Why? No one can tell a full story but a correlation with UK's foreign policy – joining EU to Brexit, embracing China to hugging the U.S. ever so tightly and desperately keeping to avoiding to lose her voice on the world stage – may shed some light.
 
Since 'the most dangerous place' is published, it certainly has caught many foreign affairs researchers, analysts and think tank staffs' attention. Notably Brookings Institute has published a piece of survey work in its series: Taiwan-U.S. Quarterly Analysis (Brookings 1-16-2019) which was authored by Shelly Rigger, Brown Professor and Assistant Dean of Education Policy – political science department, Davidson College, Lev Nachman, post-doctoral research fellow, Harvard Fairbank Center,  Chit Wai John Mok, PhD candidate in sociology at UC Irvine, and  Nathan Kar Ming Chan, PhD candidate of political science at UC Irvine. They followed up The Economists article and a recent survey showing Americans being worried about the threat to Taiwan by actually conducted a survey of 1000 Taiwan residents querying whether or not people on Taiwan share those concerns about imminent military conflict? They felt that the strategic discussion on the potential for conflict should not leave out the crucial voices of Taiwan people in the matter. A noble thought may be, but in reality, the Taiwan people have little to influence the matter, since the threat seems to be created by the new U.S. anti-China policy and Mainland China's response. Taiwan's influence is certainly not from the people but from a pro-US Taiwan government.
 
However, the survey still may be valuable not so much for Taiwan people but more for Americans. First, the survey questions seem to be designed to find the truth of 'fear or not' for American policy makers. (understandable if the survey is funded through government) In my opinion, the survey may be valuable for American citizens. If Americans do understand the real reason for Taiwan's security threat, why Taiwan people are aware but not concerned about the threat and truly believe Americans can influence their government's foreign policy, then the survey result could add information for Americans to urge any policy change by their government, of course, through media and democratic voices. The survey was done on 1000 Taiwan people across a full spectrrum of adults. The questions were simple hence the data can be easily interpreted and understood.
 
We net out the survey conclusions as follows: 1. 57.6% of surveyed do worry war is a distinct possibility, majority of both KMT and DPP (KMT a little higher) party members do worry. 2. Breaking down by age, 55% of younge than 49 and 60% of older than 50 say yes to worry and 26% younger than 39 and 17.5% older than 40 say no. 3. On notice of increasing military activity, 79% see increased, 20% see no change and 1% see decreased military activities. 4. Compared to 5 months ago (December 2020), only 30% say yes to more worried and 5. on the question whether Xi is more likely to take military action to unite Taiwan, 46% say more likely and 45% say probability has not changed. These results show that Taiwan residents are aware of, but do not necessarily worry about immediate military conflict with the PRC.  This confirms with the observation that lives in Taiwan are largely unhindered by the looming threat of war.  This survey also implied that The Economist article, 'Taiwan is the most dangerous place on Earth' may be an exaggeration.
 
This author do agree with some of the common-sense statements made by Rigger et. al. Firstly, the perilous condition in Taiwan is due to two factors: A. PRC is determined to reunify with Taiwan and B. Taiwan people is unwilling to be reunified. However, this situation has lasted more than 70 years under the peaceful reunification principle that PRC has adhered to without placing any time table. Hence the Taiwan Strait situation is not perilous unless Taiwan government pursues independence (which is equivalent to secession, would the U.S. permit Texas or California to secedes?) In fact, the Taiwan people is far from wanting to secede even though the DPP party has been increasing its effort to gain independence. The U.S. signed the three declarations honoring one China is fully aware of the legal and moral ramification of endorsing any Taiwan independence movement. The current U.S. China policy moving away from that commitment is actually the real fundmental reason for creating a perilous condition for Taiwan.
 
Secondly, Rigger et. al. correctly state that some U.S. officials think the Taiwan people are too nonchalant about the Taiwan issue for two reasons: A. The military threat has been over 70 years thus becoming so routine and unnoticeable. B. Taiwan people believe that attacking Taiwan is irrational thus unlikely to happen. In my opinion, these sentiments are reflected in Rigger et. al.'s survey. The perilous condition comes from external influence such as the new U.S. anti-China policy believing that poking China's sore spot Taiwan can pressure China to yield to U.S. demands in trade etc. and from the media such as the Economists, the Wall Street Journal and the like. In fact, Taiwan's media was quite vibrant and was fully aware of the external influence on Taiwan government. Since DPP took power, it began to put an iron clamp on Taiwan media, for example by taking the license away from a TV broadcaster, Zhong Tian, simply because the station was too vocal in exposing the government corruption and irregularities. But to this day, Zhong Tian and many small independent media outfits are still vigorously broadcast their opinions through Internet channels. It is true DPP has a solid group of followers but so did KMT and other openly pro-reunification parties.
 
The American citizens must realize that Taiwan follows the U.S. style democracy where two or more parties can have their solid followers (Just like republicans and Democrats). The U.S. should never interfere or support another regime's political parties just like we don't want the Russians or any other country to influence our political parties. The Taiwan Strait issue is a domestic issue for China, let her solve her own problem whether it would take 75 years or 100 that is not our problem. In the U.S. we do have political scholars advocating leaving Taiwan alone for real U.S. interest. (not for the interest of weapons manufacturers who wants to sell war gears to Taiwan.) I believe that there is another reason why Taiwan people are not so worried about the war; that is, they believe the U.S. will not wage war against China on Taiwan's behalf or on her own behalf. They believe, the two countries have too much to lose in war. Eventually, a competition-Cooperation model is ultimately for the best interest of both countries. Wise man like Kissinger also seem to believe so.
 
Ifay Chang. Ph.D., Inventor, Author, TV Game Show Host and Columnist (www.us-chinaforum.org) as well as serving as Trustee, Somers Central School District.
 

 
Andrew S. Erickson (Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies) and Gabriel Collins (Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.) published an article, “Competition with China Can Save the Planet”, in Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2021, a topic of uttermost importance while the world is increasingly experiencing the power and damage of climate change doing to the Earth planet. The two scholars’ credentials and the promising implication of the title of their FA article caught many people’s attention with positive comments and broad circulation of its content. Indeed, climate change, despite of ‘disbelieving’ counter arguments and slow reactions to its damage to our planet from most developed and developing nations, has finally got its rightful voice in the world media. The world is glad to see the most serious contributors to the climate change problem on carbon emission and various pollution, China making solemn pledge with goals to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the U.S. reversing her climate change policy to re-embrace the serious issue even willing to cooperate with China, the EU remaining firm on her effort to control climate change and Japan being under world media pressure to keep using nuclear energy but improving in safety measures and restraining in disposing radiation contaminated water into the ocean.
 
As expected, the world’s most focused attention is on the U.S. and China, because they are not only the largest energy user but also the main producer in carbon emission and other environment-polluting waste. China currently gets 65% of her electricity from burning coal and U.S. 24%, but their total coal consumption is of great concern especially from U.S. per capita consumption point of view. (Note: China’s electricity usage is largely for manufacturing the goods for the world.).This author agrees with the implication of Erickson and Collins’ paper title believing competition (with a good objective and goal) is a good thing for the planet. Humans can achieve better and more marvels under competition. However, after reading through Erickson-Collins article, I am disappointed simply because its content never focused on that implication, rather it is dwelling on a ‘bad marriage story’ regarding the U.S. - China cooperation in climate change. First, the two scholars predict a failure from the U.S. - China cooperation on climate change with no convincing argument and offer a conclusion - Competition with China Can Save the Planet. They selectively disbelieve China’s pledge of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 as a smokescreen with bad intention but giving no convincing supportive facts. Checking historical facts shows that China is more honorable than most big nations when comes to pledges and commitments, from using nuclear weapon, following UN rules and regulations, lifting poverty, dealing with pandemic, protecting environment, and rare animals and organic plants, …The two scholars also selectively spin the Foreign Ministry Spokesperson of China, Zhao Li-Juan’s remarks into a negative argument against China’s seriousness about cooperating with the U.S. on climate change. Zhao said climate change “is closely linked with bilateral relations as a whole.” In other words, China will not compartmentalize climate cooperation if the U.S. maintains a hostile anti-China relation. How can the scholars naively believe that a couple is in court for a divorce proceeding still can cook and share a meal together in the kitchen? It is disappointing that Erickson-Collins article does not match its title by describing how to compete to save the planet rather it takes an ideological position of Biden’s Administration advocating formation of alliance against China and pressure China into unilateral submission. That ‘alliance against China’ advocation by Erickson and Collins has no foundation in climate change science or energy issue, not even in security issue.
 
This author does believe competition in an Olympic spirit is a good thing for the U.S. and China, not only on climate change, energy, economy, technology, … but also on national security and world prosperity. Hence, this column is entitled, ‘Competition between the U.S. and China Can Save the World’. First of all, it is naive to think different countries will have a common agreement on various issues ranging from climate change, commerce, economy, energy, food, military, security, space, technology, etc., all united against China for the interest of the U.S. For the U.S. to form a large enough alliance against China on multiple domains is neither logical nor feasible. China maintains a solid trade relationship with 130 countries and is a low-cost factory of goods for the world (nearly 60%). Why would the world destroy such a factory to harm itself? Especially, the China factory is constantly improving in efficiency and pledging to increase renewable energy usage and to reduce carbon emission? Secondly, let’s look at China’s track record of keeping her promises not only for efficiency and upgrading her technology but also for lifting poverty, creating middle income population and developing renewable and clean energy and conserving environment. China is leading in solar and wind energy, even in the forefront of fusion energy. China has created more hydro-power plants than any other country in order to lower coal burning and converted more deserts into farm and forestry land for environmental reason and food and agriculture production. China has caught up and surpassed the Internet Revolution (in terms of Internet of things and infrastructure/applications). China has entered space research and development, not only single-handedly launched her own space station, landed on the Moon and Mars but also completed her own Beidou geopositioning system particularly useful for ocean navigation and communication. Yes, some of the countries including the U.S. are feeling threatened or pressured, but it is like the Olympic Games, China only entered the games after the PRC Olympic Committee was recognized in 1979, but she has risen to be a top contender for the Olympic medals in the 21st century. Of course, there is pressure on all athletes in the world, but in fair competitions, world records are shattered and new goals are achieved by human, regardless of races or geographic origins. It should be the same in climate change or any other domain, a healthy competition is a good thing, and ultimately, it will save the world. Some may point out that the semiconductor technology sanction the U.S. is waging against China is hurting China manufacturing.

Some may even believe that such sanction may be the throat choke eventually suffocating China to death. The author does not wish that to happen nor believe it will happen for a simple logic reason: If China is choked to collapse, the world is not going to stand in a better state, more likely choked to suffocation as well. Judging on the track record of past three to four decades, China may just be able to develop and complete a totally self-sustained semiconductor technology supply chain in a few years by herself. Furthermore, there may be a good possibility that China will succeed in a new 2-D material breakthrough such as graphene revolution to replace the silicon technology for faster and more power-efficient electronic devices, for electric vehicle, AI, smart phone and computer, etc. In either case, the world will get a huge set back because of the delay or disruption. On the other hand, if the U.S. and China compete in Olympic spirit, more solutions can be developed and shared for human benefits. The world will be saved from its problems, climate change, hunger, environment, economy, ….




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