Calendars were mostly created according to astrology by observing the changes in solar and/or lunar system (the Moon orbiting around the Earth and the Earth orbiting around the Sun) and making correlations with the seasonal changes on Earth. The Western calendar is based on the solar system, that is the Earth is orbiting around the Sun for approximately 365 days in a year whereas the Eastern calendar is based on the lunar system with twelve cycles of the full moon in about 354 days. The lunar calendar used by the Chinese and followed by many other Asian countries is one of the oldest calendars based on a sixty-year cycle（matching 天干10), 甲乙丙丁戊己庚辛壬葵，with 地支 （12），子、丑、寅、卯、辰、巳、午、未、申、酉、戌、亥，also represented by the twelve animals, 鼠、牛、虎、兔、龙、蛇、马、羊、猴、鸡,狗、猪 or rat, ox, Tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig, making a 60-year cycle, 一甲子)
 
In this Lunar New Year, 癸卯（癸兔）年, new year day occurs on Sunday, January 22nd, 2023. the year of rabbit is expected to be a good year since the rabbit represents wisdom and power, diligence and endurance. Chinese folks believe that the year of rabbit is a blessed year since the rabbit is a lucky animal. In Asia, many countries (Korea, Singapore, Mongolia and Vietnam for example) use the Chinese lunar calendar. The Japanese used the Chinese lunar calendar also. The lunar calendar was introduced from China, via the Korean Peninsula, in 604. But Japan switched to the Solar calendar in 1872 as a part of the effort to copy and learn from the West. In Vietnam, its calendar is essentially the same as the Chinese lunar calendar, except it does not use rabbit, instead it uses the cat symbol. There are a few explanations for this change, one is that the Chinese used to call the rabbit year, 卯兔年, 卯sounds like 貓（mao) which means cat. Some also said, in ancient days, Vietnam did not have rabbits, thus the calendar adopted the cat instead. So today, in Vietnam, its lunar calendar has a cat in place of a rabbit. The infamous Vietnam war started in 1955 was finally ended in 1975, a year of rabbit or cat in Vietnam calendar.
 
As we reflected on the past year, we could not help but worry about the future. First, the Russian-Ukraine war started nearly one year ago, had caused devastating consequences, not only to the two countries engaged in the war but also impacted Europe and the entire world through its effect on energy shortage and supply chain breakage worldwide. We certainly hope that the war will end in the year of the rabbit. In addition, we hope that the U.S. and China will resolve their conflict in the year of the rabbit. The trade war between the two countries is hurting each other and the technology sanctions and competition leading to separate supply chains are dragging the world into a recession. We hope that world leaders will realize that a hostile competitive world will never bring prosperity to the world as a collaborative world will bring mutual benefits. We hope that the trip Mr. Blinken will make to Chin in the New Year of Rabbit will start the new year with a productive agenda leading the rabbit year to a prosperous year for the world.
 
Before the arrival of rabbit year, one unusual international news grabbed the author’s attention. Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand prime minister announced that she would step down on Feb 7th and would not seek Re-election in the country’s election later this year.
As reported by Natasha Frost, “In a tearful announcement in the New Zealand city of Napier, where Ms. Ardern’s Labour Party was hosting its summer caucus retreat, she said she did not feel emotionally equipped to complete another term.” This news is sharp contrast to the political news about the Executive Yuan Premier Su Zhen Chang of Taiwan who is still shamelessly trying to hang on to his position despite the overwhelming voice from the people, media and his own party calling for his resignation. Premier Su had a miserable performance in his six years of tenure, most notably his poor management of the COVID pandemic, combative manners at inquiries in the legislative Yuan, and devastating failure in his party’s local election last year resulting in an extremely low approval rating. Instead of voluntarily resigning (taking responsibility for the above failures), Su is still wiggling to hang on to his job.
 
In contrast, Jacinda Ardern has a high job approval rating and excellent performance in her economic and foreign policies. Notably, in her dealings with China, she acted entirely independently for the best interest of New Zealand, a sharp contrast to the former Prime Minister of Australia, Morrison. Chris Hipkins was elected as labor party leader replacing Ardern. New Zealand is one of the Five-eye Alliance with the U.S., U.K,, Canada and Australia, but she has not followed the U.S, and U.K. in their anti-China ideology. We hope that Ardern’s resignation is entirely due to her personal decision not influenced or pressured by the U.S. The track record of the U.S. in interfering with other countries domestic politics cannot help people being suspicious when good leaders resign. We hope that Hipkins will maintain New Zealand’s current policies which obviously have received New Zealanders’ approvals.
 
In Ardern’s resignation speech, she said, “I believe that leading a country is the most
privileged job anyone could ever have, but also one of the more challenging,” “You cannot and should not do it unless you have a full tank plus a bit in reserve for those unexpected challenges.”“This has been the most fulfilling five and a half years of my life. I am leaving because with such a privileged job comes a big responsibility.” I am quoting the above speech here for the politicians in Taiwan, so they may understand what real democracy is and what noble political objectives are. We hope that the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan will take the above words to heart and act like a real public servant.




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Sixteen years under the Administration of Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), Germany maintained its steady economy and status of richest big nation in Europe. She was skilled in foreign policy adopting a smooth relationship with the U.S. and a realistic trading partnership with China. During her tenure as Chancellor, she visited China twelve times traveling all over including some underdeveloped regions in southwest China obviously with a long vision for the future. Post WW II, Germany was broken into two, West and East Germany, occupied respectively by the U.S. and Soviet Union with their army. West Germany, under the Marshall plan, with her industrial foundation and industrious people, recovered quickly (>25% GDP growth rate in the '50s and ~18% in '60s) to be no. 3 economy in the world next to the U.S. and the Soviet. During Cold War (1945-1990) the Soviet economy could not keep up, and Japan and later China rose. At the end of the Cold War, the two Germany’s united and became the no. 4 economy after the U.S., China and Japan. Politically, Germany has always been pro-America under the influence of the U.S., partly because the U.S. had always cultivated control of Europe after the war and partly because the U.S. had absorbed many top European elites including many Germans as immigrants to America creating an 'American Dream' for Europeans, especially for youth. Hence, there is a considerable population of German living in the U.S. and a significant attraction of German youth to America. Germany has many political parties, if one party cannot get more than half of the Congressional seats, a multi-party coalition government must be formed. Hence, Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) the current Chancellor must lead a coalition government, except not as united as Merkel's coalition.
 
Merkel’s party, CDU, formed a union with SPD and Christian Social Union in Bavaria, CSU, to form a government. The opposition parties were Alternatives for Germany, AfD, Free Democratic Party, FDP, the Left, and the Greens. Scholz’s 17 cabinet positions were filled by 9 SPD members (including the Chancellor), 5 Greens members (including Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock) and 3 FDP members (including Christian Lindner Minister of Finance) exhibiting far more divisive political views. For example, Habeck and Boerbock both had expressed their views opposing Scholz’s regarding Germany’s China policy and their attachment to the U.S. Post WW II, West Germany owned up to her responsibility of causing the world war and apologized to the world. Germany adopted a multi-party democratic political system devoted to economic recovery. With the U.S. Marshall plan, West Germany recovered quickly and developed a strong pro-America political sentiment while East Germany was suffering under the West’s economic sanction. After the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union collapsed, and East and West Germany got United with a more prosperous future. But on foreign policy, Germany has always been following the U.S., even after France promoted EU, Germany still adhered to a following U.S. foreign policy, perhaps because Germany had always been under US military protection. France, on the other hand, had been more independent in her foreign policy and economic development, however, she would always be echoing the U.S. on ideology – promoting freedom and democracy - since French was proud that she had exported those principles to America.
 
The U.S. depended more on its military strength than economic power to lead the world under the banner of freedom and democracy. The U.S. economy was once 40% of the world economy but now is below 20%. Her major assistance to foreign countries is in maintaining the U.S. military bases, troops, and foreign agents. (50,000 troops, $10,000 per soldier stipend and $40,000 expenses and equipment would easily make $2.5 B. The U.S. has hundreds of foreign military bases.) For the security of Europe (and ease of controlling Europe), the U.S. organized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO established in 1949) to resist the Soviet Union and to tie the West European countries together. NATO may be effective as a collective deterrent to the communist Soviet, but its ever-expanding strategy threatening Russia is neither peacekeeping nor providing real security to Europe. The NATO expansion strategy eventually triggered the Russia-Ukraine war. When Russia invaded Ukraine with the justification of protecting the Russian-speaking Ukrainians and supporting the two states in Eastern Ukraine declared independence, the U.S., EU and NATO were all united in condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine with military aid. As the war prolonged and got serious creating damage and refugees, the U.S. and NATO had no intention to mediate a ceasefire, instead, sanctions on Russia is expanded forcing Russia to control the  energy supply to Europe and trade oil and gas only with Russian Rubles. Then the incidence of bombing the Russia-Europe undersea gas pipeline occurred further creating an energy crisis and severe inflation (The U.S. is the only one benefiting, her liquid gas is shipped to Europe selling with four times the price). With the further bombing of the Crimea bridge, the danger of the conflict is raised to a nuclear war level. The present Europe situation is forcing the leaders of Germany and France to ponder very hard, they must consider acting independently from following the U.S. strategy of confronting both Russia and China, be it the Ukraine war, South China Sea,  or Indo-Pacific policy. Despite his ministers of finance and foreign affairs having given anti-China rhetoric and following the U.S. footsteps of decoupling with China, Chancellor Scholz earnestly organized a team of German enterprise leaders to visit China just before the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. He indeed had obtained a large airbus order. French President, Macron, will be visiting China next year. He also had a private meeting with Xi at G20 in Bali. From what we can learn from the news reports, both sides have expressed concerns about whether EU countries can act independently in foreign affairs. From the above discussion, we may conclude that Germany and France seem to have finally realized that one-way unconditional follow-U.S. foreign policy will actually hurt their own countries. The recent events seem to be evidence that Germany and France have applied a fast brake on their previous U.S.-China foreign policy.
 
In November, G20 and APEC took place in Indonesia and Thailand, respectively. Biden and Xi both attended G20 and held a private meeting for more than three hours. From the news communique, it appears that U.S.-China relations may have thawed a little. Secretary of State Blinken is planning to visit China in the new year to work out crisis avoidance and recovery of cultural exchanges. Examining how Xi and Biden each were welcomed at G20 (more than ten national leaders including Biden tried to have a chance to meet with Xi), the world seems to be showing a big positive change in attitude towards China and Xi's philosophy (prosperity for mankind as a whole). We can sit back and watch what is going to happen in the years ahead!
 



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The following two Chinese quotes are well known to Chinese scholars and peasants alike, influencing their views on patriotism to political science. Many West China Experts fail to appreciate their philosophical meaning on national politics and international relations. These two quotes will be explained as background before discussing the subject matter.
 
“修身，齊家，治國，平天下” is from the book, 禮記-大學， chapter 42 of 49. Meaning: One’s political aspiration should start from grooming one’s (good) character, nourishing (adequately) and managing (peacefully) one’s family, serving and governing (orderly) one’s country then harmonizing (fairly) the world. The chapter has also laid out a disciplined preparation process for grooming a good character: “欲修其身，先正其心, 欲正其心,先诚其意；欲诚其意, 先致其知，致知在格物.” Meaning: To groom one’s character, first conditions one’s heart, before that establishes sincerity, before that acquires knowledge and before that study subject matters.
 
“天下興亡，匹夫有責“ This was originated from Gu Yan Wu, a political philosopher in Qing Dynasty. Its original context means: A rise and fall of a government is the ruler’s responsibility but a rise and fall of a country (world) is everyone’s responsibility (Everyone has a duty). This philosophy elevates everyone’s political conscience. These two quotes have profound philosophical influence on Chinese people deeply from scholars to peasants, shaping the character of the Chinese people as a whole and placing a serious sense of responsibility on political servants and common citizens in facing civil duties, national politics and rise and fall of country.
 
Let’s now turn to the political scenery of the U.S. We cannot fault Harvard, Yale, the like for any problem of our political system since they are the best universities in the world in many disciplines including the political science. They are well endowed with funds, brilliant scholars and intelligent students; they produce many political scientists. However, over the past 250 years, our political system progressed with democracy only significantly in terms of the gender/racial groups and their voting population. Our government is getting bigger but less efficient and more corrupt but less effective. Our Congress is filled with higher education attainment (1.65 college degree) but less government working experience (more mediocre politicians). The quality of our President is not only inferior to their predecessors one or two century ago but also less deserving our votes. No more than 2/3 of voters bother to vote and the winner barely gets half of the 2/3. Our elections are more focused on negative attacks rather than on ‘the good character’, ‘the knowledge’, and ‘the political skills of ‘governing’ and ‘harmonizing’ the world.
 
In our foreign policy, we often see stubborn strategies and reckless tactics. Policy makers seem to believe that we have the best political system, others must follow. We must export our political system. We stubbornly believe that other people should welcome an imposed change. This belief often was hyped by the fact that people in poor country was envious of the American living condition. Hence, we stubbornly use regime change as a solution for relieving ‘suffering people’. But contradictorily, we also firmly believe that people (ruling elites) will never change, hence once we label a country bad, say communist, it will not change except by regime change. This contradictory belief has been the basis of our anti-communist political strategy persistent for decades and centuries.
 
We believed that the Soviet Union would never change, hence we had an anti-Soviet strategy since WW II. The Soviet Union collapsed ironically due to her own change; the people and their leaders changed (in political philosophy). Their change was too abrupt to pump up their economy. But we interpreted their failure as the success of our stubborn strategy. We would then apply regime change to the former Soviet Union states to convert them to 'democracy' by regime change. (Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, etc., are examples.) In fact, people do change, and they will change on their pace if there was no external threat interference. For example, Cuba would change on its own if there was no stubborn anti-Cuba strategy. Since with any dictatorship, a life span is a natural limit before self-evolution or self-change takes place.
 
Example two is the Taiwan government, which has changed simply because China has let Taiwan change by itself. China was too busy transforming herself to interfere with Taiwan’s democratization. But the U.S. would not let Taiwan change by herself to reunify with Mainland China to spoil her first island chain strategy. Hence, under the multi-decade anti-China policy, the Taiwan government (ruled by a new minority pro-independence party) is resisting the natural evolution toward reunification. Only 10% Taiwan citizens are openly pro-mainland because they have gained and experienced benefits from mainland. The large population especially the youth had no experience with Mainland China except being brainwashed by schooling. On the other hand, the 1.4 billion Chinese population in mainland is changing rapidly and influencing their government to keep reforming, simply because their contact with the world through travel stimulated desire for more change. But their demand of change is not what the U.S. envisioned ‘regime change’. Chinese people can appreciate what the CCP government has accomplished for them and has changed. But the U.S. stubbornly label China as an evil communist country despite of its capability of lifting a billion people out of poverty with more people in middle class than Americans. The U.S. proclaims that the CCP government must be changed to let the people live better life; the truth is that they are living better life and improving faster than Americans now. The U.S. anti-China policy only hardens the Chinese government, in turn, the Chinese people, to diminish their friendly relationship with the U.S. The stubborn U.S. anti-China strategy will eventually be realized by the Taiwan people since a 'porcupine state' is never a good idea for Taiwan.
 
Under a stubborn strategy, the tactics can be reckless without careful reflection, reevaluation and rational analysis. The unreasonable treatment of the Huawei Corporation is a sad example of a recklessly selected and hastily executed anti-China trade sanction case. Huawei is a truly employee-owned company doing a great business all over the world on its own, expanding rapidly following the Western rules of entrepreneurship, capitalistic reward for workers, heavy investments in R&D to acquire intellectual properties and strategic development in technology and market expansion. It became one of the fastest growing enterprise in China and in the world making all state enterprises envious of its management and employee performance.
 
The U.S. crudely attacked Huawei. On December 1, 2018, Huawei's board deputy chair Ms. Meng Wanzhou was detained upon arrival at Vancouver International Airport by Canada Border Services Agency officers for questioning for three hours, in connection to a Huawei’s former subsidiary’s sales to Iran. The U.S. also accused without proof that the Huawei’s global mobile network might have ‘Backdoor’ access exposing security concern. The U.S. mandated government to sanction Huawei equipment in U.S. and lobbied her Allie’s, UK and EU, to join the sanction. On Feb. 12, 2020, Huawei denied the charge, saying it's the US government that's been "covertly accessing telecom networks worldwide, spying on other countries.” Eventually Ms. Meng was released on September 24, 2021, but the case has placed a black mark on U.S. Justice.
 
Using entire national resources attacking one private corporation is unprecedented. Huawei took a blow and lost its cellphone business. However, Huawei struggled to survive and came back stronger. The recent report of the cyber attack through 17 nations’ servers as bridge going through Backdoor to snoop for technology secrets by the U.S. on China’s Northwest University had proven that there were no Backdoors on Huawei equipment. Huawei is vindicated and its business will keep on growing. Under the anti-China strategy, the U.S. is luring all segments of semiconductor industry to the U.S. by offering incentives to Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese companies to move to the U.S. Such a plan violates WTO regulation and will fail simply because not enough skilled workers in the U.S.. The U.S. has 58M (2020) projected to 59.5M (2040) age 25-64 work force with tertiary degree, <18% in STEM. Correspondingly China has 48M (2020) projected to 125M (2040). From published data, China has 1.38 million engineering graduates in 2020 (~7x of U.S. = 199,790). So it is safe to say that China will have at least 14x as many engineering and STEM graduates as U.S. by 2040. Therefore, it would make sense to adopt a cooperative competition mode to carve up the semiconductor industry chain than risking China becoming totally self-sufficient to capture the entire industry.




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