The U.S. - China relation is like a hotpot under fire, the broth is gradually boiling. If you were ever experienced with a hotpot dinner, you would know that your food was what you put into the hotpot. The taste of your food gets the benefit of the broth as well as from what your dinner partner put into the hotpot to cook. So the important thing for sharing a good hotpot dinner is to first agree on a mutually acceptable broth and order your own food components, seafood, meats, tofu, vegetables and species which hopefully are compatible with the food ingredients your partner selected. There are lots of food components that can be cooked in the hotpot appealing to one’s appetite as well as contributing to the flavor of the broth (known as pot bottom) that is continuously developing in flavor during the hotpot dinner. Only in an cooperative way, the partners sharing a hotpot banquet will enjoy a great meal together and often the resulting cooked broth will be so delicious which can be shared and enjoyed by all participants. Furthermore, the tasty remaining  hotpot broth can be saved for next day for cooking a pot of noodles or rice or macaroni serving more people. So the hotpot cuisine is an art of making agreeable choices of compatible broth, food components and species so to produce an enjoyable meal for all. However, if any disagreeable choice was made, the hotpot could be ruined and even possibly cracked open under unattended fire. This “hotpot analogy” of the US-China relation can be understood and appreciated better, if we characterize the past US-China relationship as the starting broth, a very agreeable broth developed through “mutual engagement”, now the broth is being added with too much vinegar (business sanctions), extra soy sauce and salt (tariffs in trade) and hot chilli pepper or jalapeno (weapon race) making the food and broth too sour and too hot to eat. 

There are plenty of commentators discussing the issues and warning the consequences of the souring or not U.S.-China relationship. One of the key factors for the deteriorating U.S. - China Relations is the rapid rise of China with an economic growth rate (GDP) of three to four times of that of the U.S. in the past couple of decades. This fact should not be a reason for the U.S. to take a hostile attitude targeting China (spoiling the broth), rather it should be a motivation factor for the U.S. to investigate why is China able to sustain such a high growth rate. In another word, what is the secret of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) keeping China in a high growth for decades? Many political analysts have studied and compared the political systems in China and the United States. They have tried to pinpoint a causality principle for China’s rapid rise but rarely making sense. Thus the political rhetoric continues on, debating the superiority of  “democracy” versus “authoritarian” system with the argument leaning towards blaming the latter system stealing from the former system through State owned enterprises (SOEs) taking advantages of the free enterprises (NGOs, non-Government owned). In my personal observations, I have come to a conclusion that the above assertion is illogical. Rather, there is a simple causality principle which can explain why the CCP has been a successful achiever. This causality principle is based on a philosophy - “協調， Xie Tiao” for success, that is, the CCP is requiring all its party members to develop and use this high EQ skill. This skill would be regarded more important than having professional knowledge and project management skill, if a party member was ever to serve in the government and to manage a government project. The CCP’s party authority is actually acquired and built on the above coordination and management skills. I shall explain this secret of success of CCP with more details and supporting evidences below.

The word, “Xie Tiao”, has no exact single English word translation. I used the word coordination and management skill above to represent “Xie Tiao”, but one must add a few modifiers to convey its complete meaning. “Xie Tiao is a verb and a noun describing a concept or philosophy which implies “providing assistance and persuasion while coordinating a task or project involving doing a set of actions to obtain consensus and to assure success” in a persistent and patient manner. The above modifiers only explained the word, “Xie Tiao”, as a noun - concept and philosophy, but as a verb - action and process one must use examples and actual cases to explain it. First, the CCP not only teaches its members the concept and philosophy of “Xie Tiao” (noun) with literature and studies but also trains its members the action and process of “Xie Tiao”(verb) by assigning them responsibilities from low level to high level government management jobs (village, county, city, province then national level) in progression and/or government projects (small tasks to billions of dollars projects). The promotions of CCP members are results and success oriented. Therefore, the public service officials in China are extremely effective in obtaining success but appearing not so efficient due to time consuming “Xie Tiao” work, patiently and persistently coordinating across their peer level (horizontally) to get endorsement and cooperation as well as across their stake holders (vertically) to build consensus, approval and support. 

The above explanation can be confirmed by many examples, from small project to big project in CCP’s economic development plans. The prominent cases are the various industrial parks, science and technology parks and economic development zones that have been built from the South and East growing into North and West. These parks and zones were competing for success and success were replicated elsewhere. Another area providing ample evidence of the “Xie Tiao for success” is in the energy domain, from various energy exploration, oil, gas, solar, wind, thermal, methane ice to the now famous Yangtze River hydropower. The Yangtze project is not only a grand engineering project but also an amazing “Xie Tiao” project requiring persuasion and coordination from getting consensus from millions of citizens (simple support to agreeing to be relocated hundreds of miles away) and getting financial and administrative support from all levels of government. There are plenty of other examples such as across State mega-infrastructure project, satellite communication and geo positioning system. The fact hundreds of millions of Chinese are lifted above the poverty level and being elevated towards middle class speaks volume to CCP’s success which can all be traced to the fundamental philosophy: Xie Tiao for success!

In the United States, such “Xie Tiao for success” breaks down often across interest groups and geographic regions; the high speed rail project from North to South California dragging on over ten years is a pitiful example. China now has over one hundred thousand miles of “gao tie 高鐵“ in a grid covering the entire China. The “Xie Tiao” philosophy or skills work in China; will it work outside of China? I personally am anxious to see the success of the “One Belt and One Road” or “Belt and Road Initiative”. The early results do show some success but also some set backs. We shall watch the progress in BRI and see whether the “Xie Tiao” philosophy can be universally accepted.



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The protests in Hong Kong (HK) against the extradition bill started on March 31st, 2019 and evolved into a massive movement in June involving as many as half million people walking on the streets demonstrating. Up to now, the unrest in HK has been over 200 days changing from a growing peaceful mass movement to a shrinking but violent protest more like riots than demonstration. In the past near seven months of unrest, the HK mass and organic media have revealed a lot of hidden issues in HK beyond the mere concern of the extradition bill. They are: 1. Hong Kong’s severe wealth gap and deficient housing supply problem in the extremely crammed and expensive city created a large unhappy population struggling under diminishing economic opportunities. 2. Hong Kong’s colonial education system, left unchanged since its return to China, produced generations of youth with a false HK pride unable to face the reality of HK losing its competiveness to her neighboring Shenzhen. 3. HK’s Judicial System filled with judges with dual citizenship (UK’s and HK’s) acting leniently towards arrested protest0rs and thus emboldened them. 4. HK’s Media owned and controlled by the conglomerates and owned produced inflammatory reporting causing mistrust between the HK people and their government. 5. The external influence (foreign powers, Western media and high concentration of international spies in HK) supported the demonstrations and the violent riots turning the HK unrest into a challenge to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) one country two systems practice.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HK HR&D Act) of 2019 is a bipartisan American legislation directing various US departments to assess whether political developments in HK justify changing HK's unique treatment under the U.S. law. The original HK HR&D Act consists of five main points: (1) reaffirm the principles set forth in the US-HK Policy Act of 1992 (established prior to HK’s return to China); (2) support the democratic aspirations of the people of HK; (3) urge China's government to uphold its commitments to HK; (4) support the establishment by 2017 of a democratic option to nominate and elect the Chief Executive of HK, and the establishment by 2020 of democratic elections for all members of the HK Legislative Council; and (5) support freedom of the press. Since HK’s return to China in 1997, China has practiced its one country two system policy letting HK people governing HK with HK’s legislative Council elected and the executive head elected by the council. HK has a three branch (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) government system governed by its Basic Law, HK’s Constitution, which was approved by the National People’s Congress in 1990 prior to HK’s return to China in 1997. In fact, the CCP has not only kept its promise of letting HKers managing HK but also helped HK developing a healthy economy under law and order. 

In the U.S., the people or their two political parties often have a strong opposing view on a political or social issue, for example, on the acceptance of illegal immigrants or granting them voting rights. HK people also often have opposing views on legislations, modification of election methods and/or the policy and performance of their Chief Executive. Currently, HK enjoys complete economic freedom and is politically self-governed by the HK people under her Basic Laws with her legislators half (35) directly elected by the geographic district residents and the other 35 elected indirectly. Her Chief Executive is elected by 1200 election commissioners – an electoral college. Like many countries and political systems, there are opposing political factions in HK, some favor a gradually evolving political system but satisfied with the one country and two systems, some favor a fast changing pace to a general suffrage system electing all officials directly and yet some favor to make HK independent of China (like re-secession) which is obviously unrealistic as California seeking independence from the U.S. With a history of colonial occupation, HK has been dominated by a few families (for instance, 90+% land of HK are owned by four families) and the elites employed by the wealthy families (many of them are British citizens). HK’s demonstrations on various issues are not always for the benefit of the people, for example, on immigration laws (the wealthy who need labor and the politicians who need votes have different views from the common citizens’ views) and the current controversial extradition bill (a threat to international spies living in HK but actually beneficial to law and order).

The original HK HR&D Act was established with the principle of promoting freedom and democracy on behalf of the HK people. Today, the HK People has more freedom and democracy than most people in Asia perhaps even more than the U.S. citizens, judging from how HK’s frequent demonstrations are treated. Violent protestors would never be tolerated in the U.S. or U.K., examples are Wall Street or Dunning Street demonstrations. However, the U.S. and U.K. media persistently reported onesidedly favoring the protestors and slanting the HK police. Most people caring about HK, especially Chinese Americans and Chinese Britons, who saw the real video footage of riots or experienced them in person, are furious about the hypocritical behavior of American legislators such as the Cuban American Senator Marco Rubio (one of the main sponsors of the HK HR&D Act) who has become famous for inviting all sorts of dissenters to the Senate to testify slanting China. He sometimes anxiously puts words in the witness’s mouth or hastily makes tweets (recalling his rush to tweet “collapsing German dam in Venezuela causing blackout” - German Dam is actually a reporter’s name who wrote about the blackout in Venezuela). We suspect Rubio’s real motivation is his political ambition. He sees an opportunity of gaining name recognition by being the number one China hater in the Senate. He has only turned to be a China-hater following his loss to Trump in Florida in his 2016 Presidential campaign.

The 2019 HK HR&D Act does not do anything to improve HK’s democracy. Rather, it may destroy HK as a free Financial Center, causing irreparable damage to the world financial system due to a domino effect in the financial world possibly resulting in a world recession. No citizens in the U.S. or U.K. would dare to destroy properties, use self-made bombs, beat-up innocent people and police and immobilize public transportation like HK rioters had done. No one would get away with it like the HK rioters. By passing the new HKHR&D Act, it is essentially endorsing violence, a hypocritical behavior, and it may just backfire to encourage more violence not only in HK and but also in our own homeland. The US-China Forum has just initiated a petition to the White House urging President Trump to reject this 2019 HK HR&D Act. We ask our government to focus on obtaining a trade agreement with China quickly so that the two countries can seek cooperation rather than confrontation. Two great nations striving for excellence bound to have competition. However, only fair and open competition will benefit each country’s economy and promote world prosperity. Agitating and destroying HK may give China a setback but it will also hurt the other countries and the world, in the end hurting the U.S.. 

The above title is a string of confusing words making little sense, but an appropriate title will emerge if we can find answers to the following questions which are the main focus of this article. The questions are:
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1. Should President Trump be impeached as the Democrat controlled Congress initiating an impeachment investigation? Or is the Congress performing a witch-hunt?
2. Was President Trump, in his phone conversation asking the Ukraine President to investigate Hunter, son of Presidential candidate Joe Biden on the possibility of committing corruption in Hunter’s activities in Ukraine, himself committing an impeachable crime or just doing his job investigating a national security matter involving a common citizen? Or is Trump performing a witch-hunt?
3. Did Hunter Biden’s accepting a board position in a Ukraine gas corporation, Burisma Holdings, in 2014 (Burisma was under a corruption investigation but charge was later dropped) and Biden’s visiting Ukraine numerous times promoting anti-corruption message constitute a conflict of interest? Did they know what each other was doing?
4. Did Biden get Ukraine’s top Prosecutor, Shokin, fired so he won’t investigate Burisma, where Hunter Biden was a board member? Or Shokin was fired for not aggressive enough on corruption investigation?
5. Did U.S. Senators ask Ukraine to continue investigating corruption cases probed by the U.S. General Prosecutor Mueller (Mueller investigation of Russiagate)? Was their purpose a witch-hunt?
6. Don’t American citizens have the right to study the facts?  Can American citizens do anything about the dirty politics and/or messy bipartisan democracy?

We citizens should not be fed with any bias or pre-conceived notion to the above questions. We must sort out the media reports from both party camps. Hopefully, after checking the facts, we can describe the Trump-Biden-Ukraine saga with a proper title.

We must first trace back to 2014 with reference to James Risen’s article, “Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch”, NY Times, 12-8-2015. Hunter Biden, 45, Joe Biden’s son, a former Washington lobbyist, joined the Burisma Holdings’ board in April 2014. (Burisma was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, Ukraine’s ecology minister under former President Viktor F. Yanukovych until forced into exile.) That month, in investigating money laundering, British Serious Fraud Office froze London bank accounts containing $23 million, allegedly belonged to Mr. Zlochevsky. The Ukraine prosecutor’s office refused to furnish documents to UK investigation; hence the court unfroze the funds. Cited by Risen, Edward C. Chow, who follows Ukrainian policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the involvement of the vice president’s son with Mr. Zlochevsky’s firm undermined the Obama administration’s anticorruption message in Ukraine. (Ironically, Peter Baker, on 12-8-2015, also published an article in NY Times, “In Ukraine, Joe Biden Pushes a Message of Democracy.” Mr. Chow said, “Now you look at the Hunter Biden situation, and on the one hand you can credit the father for sending the anticorruption message,...., But I think unfortunately it sends the message that a lot of foreign countries want to believe about America, that we are hypocritical about these issues.” Senior Biden’s spokeswoman, Kate Bedingfield, said, Hunter Biden’s business dealings had no impact on his father’s policy positions in connection with Ukraine.

Bloomberg News summarized the Trump-Biden-Ukraine story in an article, “Whistle-Blower Fight Puts Focus on Trump Pressure on Ukraine”, by Billy House and Jordan Fabian, 9-20-2019. President Donald Trump and his allies have been promoting allegations that a potential 2020 rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, improperly intervened in the affairs of Ukraine to protect his son, Hunter Biden. A whistle blower in the intelligence community raised concerns about Trump’s interactions with a foreign leader, referencing to Trump’s phone call (7-25-2019) with the new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. According to a rough ‘phonecall’ transcript released on 9-25-2019 (Washington Post), Trump said to Zelensky, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that.” Trump was further implicated that he might have delayed the Ukraine aid in order to pressure Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden. Ukraine denied such pressure. Now, Biden and his allies turned his ‘denial’ defense into a Democrat offense with Impeachment investigation on Trump raising eyebrows worldwide.

Mark A Thiessen, in his article, “Democrats’ double standard on Ukraine”, 9-24-2019 Washington Post, brushing aside whether or not President Trump delayed military aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Ukraine’s president to reopen Hunter Biden’s investigation, raised concerns about other U.S. officials inappropriately threatened jeopardizing aid to Ukraine. According to an CNN report (Sophie Tatum, 5-4-2018), three Democratic senators, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) asked about Ukraine involvement in Robert Mueller probe and wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe and implying that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Were these senators doing their job watching US foreign aid or trying to use foreign country to witch-hunt their political opponents?

James Risen in 2015 would not have known Trump to be the next President, his report went into details about Hunter Biden’s background, George Town and Yale graduate, lawyer and lobbyist before his father became Vice President, received a commission as Public Affairs Officer in 2013, but was discharged in 2014 by the Navy Reserve for using cocaine and then accepted the board position in Burisma of Ukraine. Risen’s article was not a witch-hunt but reflected his concern for possible conflict of interest so did the former US Ambassador, Steven Pifer (served from 1998-2000). “I’ve got to believe that somebody in the Vice President’s office has done some due diligence on this,” said Pifer, “I should say that I hope that has happened. I would hope that they have done some kind of check, because I think the Vice President has done a very good job of sending the anticorruption message in Ukraine, and you would hate to see something like this undercut that message.”

Mark Thiessen in addition to questioning the Democratic Senators for interfering in Ukraine Aid, he also furnished evidence of Joe Biden’s interference with whatever diplomatic motive and his knowledge of his son’s involvement in Ukraine. He cited a Washington Post article, “As Vice President, Biden said Ukraine should increase gas production. Then his son got a job with a Ukrainian gas company.” (Michael Kranish and David L. Stern, 7-22-2019). In 2016, the then Vice President threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine if the government did not fire the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. (Greg Sargent, Washington Post, 9-24-2019) Then Shokin, who was criticized for not taking an aggressive role on anti-corruption while Burisma was under his investigation at the time, was fired and Joe Biden bragged about it (Foreign Affairs Issue Launch, with Former Vice President Joe Biden, speaker, 1-23-2018). Biden could be doing his job to promote anti-corruption in Ukraine with no concern for Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma, however, his denial of not knowing his son’s activities in Ukraine was flatly untrue. (Adam Entous, “Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?”, New Yorker, 7-8/15-2019 Issue) “In December, 2015, as Joe Biden prepared to return to Ukraine, his aides braced for renewed scrutiny of Hunter’s relationship with Burisma. Amos Hochstein, the Obama Administration’s special envoy for energy policy, raised the matter with Biden.” We note that the James Risen article appeared on 12-8-2015.

With the above analysis of the background and critical elements in the Trump-Biden-Ukraine affair, we have obtained answers to our questions and to the central issue: Who is acting with a conflict of interest? Biden may claim that he was executing his diplomatic mission in Ukraine; his son’s activities had no impact on his mission. Trump may claim that he was executing his presidential duty to investigate Hunter Biden’s possible wrong doing in Ukraine regardless who is Hunter’s father. Both Trump and Biden may feel each being witch-hunted by the other, but we see them as dirty politics. The impeachment investigation initiated by the Democrats looks more like bipartisan politics hyped by the 2020 election than fully justified. First, the above cited three Democratic Senators need to explain their interference in Ukraine. The 12 Democratic Senate seats up for re-election and any other Republican held seat for contest as well as the Democratic presidential candidates undergoing primary contest will see different impact brought on by the Impeachment Proceedings. On the other hand, the Impeachment proceedings and news will solidify the Republicans to battle hard against their Democratic opponents in 2020. Therefore, we may change the title of this article to be: ‘Impeach Trump Appears to Be Dirty Politics and Messy Bipartisan Democracy.’ 



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