Ms Clinton and Foreign Policy

For John, BLUF:  Not to mention the blunder with regard to Libya (no, not about Benghazi, which was down-stream collateral damage).  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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We hear, in the news, about how Mr Donald Trump is a foreign policy neophyte and how accomplished is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But, I am not sure Ms Clinton is prepared to deal with the Regime in China.  Here is a take on China by Ms Claudia Rosett, from Pajama Media.

Tiananmen at 27, and the China Dream

From the Republic of China on Taiwan, freely elected President Tsai Ing-wen tells the People's Republic of China that democracy is nothing to fear: "Democracy is a good and fine thing."

In Beijing, the authorities tighten security and carry out arrests. When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, during a visit to Canada, is questioned by a reporter about China's human rights record, he rejects the question as "irresponsible." He says, "We welcome goodwill suggestions but we reject groundless or unwarranted accusations."

And so we arrive at the 27th anniversary of Tiananmen: June 4, 1989, when China's Communist Party rulers turned the guns of the People's Liberation Army against their own people, to end China's 1989 democratic uprising.

Does it still matter? On many counts, 27 years is a long time. In Beijing, a generation has more than come of age with no firsthand memory of the gunfire, or of the ruts in the streets in the summer of 1989, made by the treads of tanks. Whatever China's one-party rulers could pave over of that uprising, they have long since paved. Outside China, we now read articles such as an anonymously authored piece, published June 3, and apparently written from inside China: "China's Youth Think Tiananmen Was So 1989."

"Does it still matter?"  I suggest it does still matter.  While China is not quite a Stalinist Regime,♠ after all, no exiled Chinese leader has been brutally murdered in Mexico,♥ individual freedoms are snuffed out.  Look at the program to take down all the Crosses on Christian Churches in China.

The Chinese Government doesn't understand the game of government the way we do, or even the way they do in Taiwan.  Another "Reset Button" is not going to do it.♦

To close this out, Senator John McCain said the following on 3 June to a meeting of Southeast Asian nations in Singapore:

The choice for Southeast Asia in the 21st century is not between the United States and China, as some would make it out to be.  Instead it is a choice between two futures—one in which the rules-based order is upheld and its benefits expanded to ever more people in Asia, or a darker future that resembles the past in this region and the world, where might makes right, and bullies set the rules and break them.

The rules-based order has not and will not enforce itself here in Southeast Asia.  Nor can America, despite its great power, achieve this feat alone.  It requires its stakeholders, including the nations of Southeast Asia, to uphold its principles, especially when they are challenged.  America and the world are counting on the nations of Southeast Asia to recommit their power and resolve to upholding this system on which our shared security and prosperity depend.

This idea of a rules-based order applies as well to China.  Who is going to help China live within the rules?

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Nor has it revert to Maoism, with the tens of millions killed to try and create a socialist utopia.
♥  On the other hand, a lot of Mexican municipal officials have been murdered in the last dozen years due to the drug wars ongoing.
♦  Which brings us to Russia.  Does Ms Clinton even know who Alexander Solzhenitsyn is?