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John J. Tkacik, Jr. is an Adjunct Professor at IWP. He formerly served as Chief of China Analysis at the U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Full bio

China’s ‘South Sea’ maritime claims on ‘dangerous ground’

In 1602, Matteo Ricci (利瑪竇), Jesuit cartographer to the court of the Wan Li (萬曆) Emperor, traced out a great map of the entire world (坤輿萬國全圖) on which he noted that the domain of the “Great Ming” stretched from “the 42nd parallel in the North to the 15th in the South” (自十五度至四十二度). Far south of…

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On Taiwan: A Bushel and “APEC” of “Meaningful Participation”

The 2023 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum “Leaders Meeting” in San Francisco will be a particular challenge because President Joe Biden is obliged to host both Chinese “state chairman” (國家主席) Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Of course, Putin will not attend. He’s very busy and, well, he’s a war criminal. The…

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On Taiwan: The Governor and the Generalissimo

I don’t want to suggest that there currently are any secret undertakings between the Biden Administration and Xi Jinping’s (習近平) regime. I would only caution that secret understandings and clandestine assurances are anathema to America’s principles of diplomacy. President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” demanded “open covenants, openly arrived at, that proceed always frankly and in…

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Qin Gang, Song Tao and ‘Special Agent Diplomacy’

In 1988, young Comrade Qin Gang (秦剛) did not graduate from the China Foreign Affairs University (外交學院), China’s training academy for diplomats. He never attended the Institute. Instead, he graduated from Beijing’s “University of International Relations” (國際關係學院) which, as I recall from early in my diplomatic career, was a campus well-known for its affiliation with…

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“Walking-Back” President Biden’s Taiwan Policy?

In the clandestine services they used to say, “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it is enemy action.” In the diplomatic services, “the fourth time the President of the United States says something, it’s policy.” During a painful post-Afghanistan evacuation interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on August 19, 2021, President Joe…

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