The contrast between joyful, buzzy Hong Kong, and its absurdly grim image overseas is startling – especially in the light of the brutal restrictions on free speech emerging in numerous western countries. Richard Cullen reports.

THE RUGBY SEVENS, a combined sports tournament and a huge international party, was underway in front of massive crowds at the new Kai Tak Arena in Hong Kong as I began to write this.

[New Zealand versus Japan at the 2026 Hong Kong Rugby Sevens]

Meanwhile, governments in Australia, Canada, the US and UK, for example, are still posting amber Travel Advisories related to Hong Kong, stressing the need to exercise a “high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws“.

These warnings are less stark than they were several years ago, when they hinted innocent Western visitors to the now grim, communist-shaped SAR might be swiftly whisked away to face a Beijing court prior to being relocated to some sinister Sino-Gulag in the west of China.

[The Hong Kong Sevens is not just a sports event — it is one of the world’s best parties, with the public dressing up as wildly as the performers.]

A constant and rapidly growing stream of Western visitors to both China and Hong Kong put the sword to that over-cooked, spooky narrative by coming, enjoying, and delivering a multiplying stream of positive, personal You-tube rebuttals (see: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/598656).

It is plain that old Sevens visitors to this year’s event and fresh international visitors are singularly delighted to be back. The new Kai Tak stadium is exceptionally good, the food and hospitality are as marvelous as ever, the public transport continuously exceeds expectations and the Weather Gods have been kind. Even following the event on TV, you can feel the splendid positive energy.

Then there is so much to see, generally. Hong Kong’s exceptional, tropical location where countless skyscrapers, extensive mountainous green areas surrounded by harbours, inlets and the South China Sea all work together in this amazing city to deliver vistas found in no other major global metropolis.

[Hong Kong waterfront: Image by Discover Hong Kong]

Moreover, you can even find ways to enjoy very civilized, high density, urban living minus the super-bustling crowds and those Hong Kong drivers who normally consider all pedestrians a baffling menace forever impeding their progress.

[South Horizons, a residential estate on a small island off Hong Kong island. By Wing1990hk – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42551563]

The huge South Horizons residential suburb on Ap Lei Chau is a treat to walk around at any time of the year (apart from mid-typhoon). The footpaths are wide and the sea breezes and views are impressive as are the gardens. Miraculously, it is also one place in Hong Kong where virtually all drivers stop at pedestrian crossings – and drive without rushing. Plus, it now has its own MTR line.

COMPARE WITH ANGLO-JURISDICTIONS

Finally, it is useful to mention how some of the Anglo-jurisdictions noted above naturally avoid stressing to inward visitors to their countries that they need to be far more careful today about speaking out politically due to new sweeping restrictions on what is acceptable expression. And please be very cautious, visitors, about the greatly enlarged scope to proscribe demonstrations, where participation is made illegal.

Ruinous government reactions to the horrific Gaza Genocide most explain this grimly, elevated level of expression suppression. That genocide generated massive levels of protest across these jurisdictions. This particularly infuriated highly influential supporters of Israel. – and Global West governments responded around the world to curtail demonstration rights.

In the UK, the High Court recently ruled that the government’s most extreme ban, classifying the campaign group Palestine Action as a “terror group”, was unlawful and disproportionate. However, the government immediately advised that it would appeal this decision (see: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/13/uk-decision-to-ban-palestine-action-as-terror-group-unlawful-court-says).

[There are things you can say around the world, including in Hong Kong and Mexico (below) that can no longer be said in the UK. By ProtoplasmaKid – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172927415]

In NSW, in Australia, the State Government became determined to act to clamp down on demonstrations after a huge pro-Palestinian march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (see: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clydnvw1dg5o).

More recently, not one but two oppressive new legal restrictions applied to political expression have been struck down by the courts. The Premier of NSW said, directly afterwards, that, regardless of the result: “He still planned to outlaw the contested phrase globalise the intifada but was looking to how a ban in Queensland played out” (see: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/apr/16/nsws-highest-court-strikes-down-anti-protest-law-introduced-in-wake-of-bondi-beach-terror-attack-ntwnfb).

In the US, the crushing of free expression related to Gaza protests was well underway during Biden Administration, but this rush to suppress has been brutally widened and accelerated since President Trump began his second term in office in January 2025 (see: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/30/trump-crackdown-free-speech).

JUST LOOK AT THE FACTS

So, is Hong Kong, today, more measurably spooky than fundamentally engaging – especially compared to certain locations long habituated to advising Hong Kong about political morality?

The outstanding philosopher, Bertrand Russell offers some guidance on how one might respond to this enquiry:

When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe, but look only and surely at what are the facts.

Winston Churchill, more briefly, emphasized that one should:

Look at the facts, because they look at you.

Liz Truss was dumped as leader of the UK Government in 2022 after less than 50 days in office, following her introduction of a widely condemned mini-budget. Donald Trump’s continuous appalling abuses as a world leader are dramatically more egregious than those attributed to Truss. Yet his tenure as US president remains astonishingly secure. History best explains this dismal difference.

In September 2022, Britain’s latest Prime Minister, Liz Truss, set sail brandishing a reckless economic agenda, which swiftly sent stock and bond markets into a tailspin. Before the end of October, 49 days later, she was prime minister no more.

In mid-October, 2022, The Daily Star in London began live-streaming a 60p Tesco iceberg lettuce in the expectation that the lettuce would prove to have a longer shelf-life than the new prime minister. On October 20, 2022, when Truss resigned, the newspaper declared victory for the lettuce. The livestream has now been archived by the British Film Institute (see: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/daily-stars-famous-lettuce-liz-36094044).

By every possibly measure, President Trump actions, from the outset of his second term, brutally eclipse the reckless behaviour of Liz Truss.

In early 2025, serious commentators around the globe were castigating the rash, new American tariff regime. In April last year, The Economist called Trump the world’s “trade-warmonger in chief” and blamed him for destroying “trillions of dollars in shareholder value” (see: https://www.economist.com/business/2025/04/16/the-trade-war-may-reverse-hong-kongs-commercial-decline).

President Trump’s weird, dangerous, impulsive and repugnant behaviour continues to power ahead on multiple fronts. His passionate, real-life war-mongering has swept homicidally around the globe from Latin America to the Middle East. He has convinced the majority of the global population that he now leads the world’s paramount hoodlum democracy (see: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/630683).

And then, on February 28, this year, Trump launched a grotesquely destructive war-of-choice on Iran – in conjunction with and influenced by Israel (see: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html). On day one, the US bombed an Iranian primary school killing over 100 young girls, according to Amnesty International (see: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/usa-iran-those-responsible-for-deadly-and-unlawful-us-strike-on-school-that-killed-over-100-children-must-be-held-accountable/) .

Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago, a prominent political scientist who studies international security affairs, recently argued that Trump has “doomed” the US with his war in Iran - see:

And yet, his White House tenure remains conspicuously durable. How can this be?

In 1763, Britain won the Seven Years’ War but at considerable financial cost. Britain began imposing new taxes, including in its North American colonies, triggering the American Revolutionary War. The British were defeated and the Treaty of Paris in 1783 confirmed the independence of what was to become the United States of America.

The new US Constitution was ratified in 1788. Although this was in many ways a radical constitution it is also a notably derivative constitution because its written structure replicates fundamental provisions of the unwritten British constitution that applied in 1788 during the reign of King George III.

That unwritten British constitution embodied a paramount executive government, ultimately led by the king. The bicameral parliament in Westminster retained its primary, separate function of enacting the laws. Combined with these two fundamental bases of political power was Britain’s judiciary.

This, then, was the pivotal blueprint for the system of separate powers embodied in the US Constitution of 1788 that applies to this day. No new monarchy was created, of course, but the constitution did create a distinct executive government, outside of the legislature, headed by the president. The bicameral US Congress, was established as a separate lawmaking body and the new US Supreme Court headed the separate American judicial system.

Most importantly, the presidential term of office was stipulated in the constitution: Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 states that the executive power shall be vested in a president, who “shall hold his office during the term of four years”. And the US Constitution is extremely difficult to amend.

Following the death of King George III - and bearing in mind Britain’s loss in the American Revolutionary War – the project to transfer all substantial political power from the British Monarchy to the parliament at Westminster intensified. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, this transfer was largely complete.

The now radically revised — but still unwritten — British constitution stipulated, using powerful “constitutional conventions” that, first, the seat of Britain’s executive government would henceforth be within the British parliament. Second, that the government would be headed by the prime minister, who along with all other ministers, must be members of the British parliament. Third, only a prime minister who could command consistent majority support in the lower house, the House of Commons, could retain government.

This fundamental mechanism explains why Liz Truss fell so precipitously from power. Within less than 50 days she had lost the confidence of the parliament, the public and, most significantly, her own Conservative Party. She was swiftly forced to resign as prime minister (see: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/613659).

It is unthinkable that a primary UK leader replicating Trump’s level of continuous damaging and outrageous behavior could survive and thrive, as President Trump does in America.

President Trump’s assured tenure until early 2029 is, thus, sourced in America’s antique constitution, drafted many decades before parliamentary government was fully developed in the UK.

Meanwhile, we have seen an intensifying stream of medical and media commentary that President Trump is mentally unfit for office. The New York Times lately reported how former Trump allies and advisors are now saying he is “insane” (see: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/us/politics/trump-mental-fitness-25th-amendment.html?unlocked_article_code=1.alA.lzaX.Df4usxZ1EhHK&smid=url-share)

This has led to calls to invoke the 25^th Amendment to the US Constitution. This provision allows, inter alia, for the replacement of the president if he is unable to discharge his duties. The central problem is that, in essence, it cannot be applied so long as Donald Trump believes he remains able (see: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/unworkable-amendment).

In other words (drawing on some vivid British imagery) no matter how delusional a presidential lettuce may be, a four-year shelf life is locked in by the constitution. America and the world are presently living with the consequences.

I remember learning in school about China’s two iconic rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. They both flow from west to east and have a source in the mountain ranges of Qinghai Province, on the Tibetan plateau. The (northern) Yellow River extends over 5,400 kilometers before emptying into the Bohai Sea, while the (southern) Yangtze River flows for 6,300 kilometers before entering the East China Sea.

Later I learned about China’s two major, international, south-flowing rivers, which also each have a glacier-fed source within the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The Lancang River becomes the Mekong River (South-East Asia’s most famous river) before flowing into the South China Sea. The Yarlung Tsangpo River, the highest river in the world, eventually becomes the Brahmaputra River (one of India’s primary rivers) before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

Much more recently, I learned about China’s major north-flowing river which eventually empties into the Arctic Ocean. This discovery is, at a fundamental level, a product of the exceptional amateur exploring skills of Mr Hou Zhili (see further below). I am equally indebted to the excellent CGTN (China Global Television Network) English documentary channel, which retold much of Mr Hou’s remarkable story.

Before we review that intrepid journey, it is useful to look at the unique geography underpinning this adventure.

North-West China is a home to or adjacent to a spectacular collection of the foremost mountain ranges on earth. The major mountain systems of central Asia which extend into or border China include: the Himalayas plus the Karakorum, Hindu Kush and Pamir Ranges.

The Tianshan Mountains and the Kunlun Mountains stand, respectively, to the north and south of China’s immense Taklamakan Desert. Further north, also located within the extensive Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is another major elevated range. The Altai Mountains straddle the important border intersection of China, Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.

The Irtysh River (also known as the Ertix River) has its source in northern Xinjiang in the Altai Mountains. Mr Hou’s home, in Fuyun County, is close to the source. For many years he was fascinated by the river – and where it went. The Irtysh, after it flows southwards, out of the Altai Mountains, does something few major rivers in China do: it flows westwards. After around 500 kilometres it enters Kazakhstan.

Meanwhile, on the north side of the Altai Mountains, in Russia, we find the source of another major river, the Ob. The Ob is one of the three immense waterways that traverse the vast area of Siberia from south to north before reaching the Arctic Ocean. The other two rivers are the Yenisei and the Lena. The Ob crosses western Siberia, the Lena negotiates eastern Siberia and the Yenisei separates eastern from western Siberia.

The Irtysh has a total length of over 4,200-kilometers from its source in China until where it joins the Ob (on its left bank) near the Siberian city of Khanty-Mansiysk. It is the longest tributary river in the world.

Khanty-Mansiysk

The Ob River eventually empties into the Gulf of Ob, which connects directly to the Arctic Ocean. This 800 kilometer, narrow gulf is the world longest estuary. The total length of the combined Irtysh-Ob river-system from the source of the Irtysh to the mouth of the Ob is around 5,400 kilometers. After the Yangtze, it ties with the Yellow River as the second longest river system in Asia.

This entire system thus provides direct river access to the Arctic Ocean from China. However, due to the extreme Siberian climate, the Ob is only fully navigable between May and October. This means that any sort of self-powered, continuous journey from source to mouth is inconceivable.

According to a 2018 Xinhua-Net report, Mr Hou first enjoyed journeying with friends, as child, on the Irtysh River, in China, aboard self-made rafts. These experiences ultimately inspired him to conceive of a remarkable venture: kayaking from near his hometown in China to the Arctic mouth of this spectacularly long, north flowing river system (see: https://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-11/23/c_137627200.htm).

The China Daily reported, in 2017, how Mr. Hou, now in his forties, closed his graphic design business in 2012 and applied his exceptional determination, courage, skills and savings to implement this never-before attempted project. He knew, due to that Siberian climatic reality, that he would have to complete this journey in stages (see: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2017-11/13/content_34463483.htm).

In 2014, he paddled 50 kilometers per day to cover the 520-kilometer distance from near the source of the Irtysh to the China-Kazakhstan border. In 2016, Kazakhstan relaxed its visa rules for Chinese visitors and in August of that year, Mr. Hou began the second stage of his epic journey, where he kayaked another 1,500 kilometers, before winter closed in.

In September 2018, Hou completed the third leg of his journey, after rowing for 54 days as he crossed Western Siberia, enduring intense cold, rain and high winds. During this stage, he covered more than 2,000 kilometers and reached the confluence of the Irtysh and Ob Rivers near the far-north, Russian city of Khanty-Mansiysk.

The China Adventure Association confirmed, in 2020, that Mr. Hou completed his extraordinary, marathon journey, successfully reaching the Arctic Circle in the summer of 2019 (see: https://caa1993.org.cn/content/20/831.shtml).

The four stages of this solo trip were, thus, spread over five years. Mr. Hou spent almost 120 days rowing and drifting as he covered the entire length of this extraordinary river system.

He faced and dealt with recurring emergencies, extreme weather conditions - including intense cold - and regular loneliness. He also encountered, as he travelled: exceptional friendship, conspicuous hospitality, outstanding help when badly needed, and a 2 am visit from a curious wild animal.

This is the first time that any solo-person has completed this exacting journey. There were no indicative “earlier footsteps” to follow. Mr Hou has certainly, as the China Adventure Association says, “created a new chapter in rafting history.”

Hou Zhili said he first became fascinated by long-distance rafting after watching a television program in 1986, when still a young boy. The deepest impact of this trip arose, he said, from experiencing: the exceptional warmth of strangers, the extraordinary changing landscape, and a penetrating sense of personal growth. He added that the joy he felt as he overcame extreme challenges: “Is not something to show off to others, but rather something that you are showing to your younger self.”

When this exemplary amateur explorer first crossed into East Kazakhstan from China, a local reporter asked Hou Zhili why had he come. “To meet you,” he replied, “to meet kind people like you.” In the course of completing this epic journey, Mr Hou clearly also proved himself to be an uncommonly effective, informal envoy for China.

Richard Cullen looks at a fascinating new book: Understanding China: Governance, Socio-Economics, Global Influence (by Chandran Nair and others, Routledge, Abingdon, 2026).

Strongly recommended: Richard’s Substack Newsletter: https://substack.com/@richardcullen376919

Routledge in the UK recently published an important new book, authored by Chandran Nair, Jorgen Randers, Jinfeng Zhou and Frederick Charles Dubee, entitled: “Understanding China: Governance, Socio-Economics, Global Influence.”

What the book argues

In the concise introduction, the experienced authors claim that: “There exists a void today in the understanding of China” adding that “almost all the discussions about China and its role in the 21^st century take place along deeply divided ideological lines.”

They are right.

The authors make a particular effort, throughout the book:

• To use robustly informed, fact-checkable, footnoted arguments; and

• To stress an equally open understanding of China’s continuing, challenges, faults and failings placed alongside the story of its exceptional positive achievements.

Thus, they contend that China has:

• Benefitted very greatly from embedding itself within the huge Western-shaped economic-globalization project;

• Relied heavily on learning from others;

• Continued to face serious problems with corruption, deep-rooted nationalism, adverse demographics and structural economic difficulties; and

• Applied significant internal civil and political liberty constraints.

They also note how:

• Chinese authorities are the first to agree that China is not flawless;

• China is neither an enemy nor an infallible paradise;

• China is still maturing as a new superpower;

• Nationalistic narratives are still projected by Beijing – but there is also much truth in their portrayal of China’s often immense struggles over the last two centuries;

• China is a vast, ancient civilization, presently re-establishing its international presence as a primary – non-hegemonic – global power;

• The Chinese government “is steered by a deeply rooted and historically grounded devotion towards its people”; and

• The ruling elite of China is exceptionally committed to maintaining the performance legitimacy of government at all levels (which detailed surveys by American institutes consistently show underpins significant mass popularity).

The understanding-deficit

One way to get a grip on the seriousness of the pivotal problem addressed in the book, is to consider a germane case study.

The Economist is arguably the most prominent, media-based, political-economic opinion leader in the Global West. This flagship outlet is especially well staffed by articulate, highly educated, often multi-lingual correspondents.

Three leading China-focused operatives from The Economist recently returned from a week of high-level discussions in Beijing. This team explained what they had drawn from this visit in an online interview soon after they returned to London (see:

).

See for yourself, but I found, based on the interview, that it was fair to conclude this trio left comfortably convinced that West is best and returned predictably and fluently re-convinced that this remained so.

The Deputy Editor, Ed Carr, argued that, “China is cautious, ageing and hidebound by party ideology,” concluding that we could see a future where America, with its “remarkable ability to reinvent itself” may “embrace upheaval” while “China shuts itself off.” The other three participants around the table nodded in convinced agreement.

Never mind, for now, the shredded cogency of that “remarkable America” perspective following Washington’s latest Iran calamity (see: Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/america-has-lost-arab-world).

But think about this.

China, with four times the American population, has, over the last 50 years, risen from having a GDP that was about 9% the size of the US economy to having an economy that is 67% of the size of the US economy and remains on track to exceed the size of the US economy within a decade (see: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3347863/china-still-track-supplant-us-worlds-no-1-economy-10-years-academic).

Using a PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) measure China’s economy exceeded the size of the US economy more than a decade ago (see: https://insidestory.org.au/china-already-number-one-says-the-imf/).

Then there are those 800 million people that China has, according to the World Bank, lifted out of abject poverty. The influential historian, Adam Tooze, recently concluded that China has, since 1978, produced “the greatest success story in developmental history” (see: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/08/adam-tooze-un-sustainable-development-goals-us-aid-finance-economy/).

Surely this globally unprecedented, massively uplifting national growth could not have been guided and achieved over the last 50 years by a government “hidebound by party ideology”. But the government in Beijing surely cannot have just recently slipped into this sharply identified state of grim “hideboundness.” Never mind, apparently China is just hidebound, and that’s that.

Intelligently applied understanding

Zenal Garcia is an Associate Professor of Security Studies at the US Army War College, who recently published a short, penetrating essay entitled: “Why the West keeps misreading China’s strategy” (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/04/why-the-west-keeps-misreading-chinas-strategy/).

Professor Garcia begins by arguing that:

Western analysis often assumes China operates like the United States. That misreading obscures a more transactional, less entangled approach to global partnerships.

The January 2026 capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the February 2026 decapitation of Iran’s leadership have been frequently framed as strategic losses for China, with Beijing having invested heavily in both regimes. But this framing rests on a flawed assumption – that Beijing approaches international partnerships the same way Washington does, through durable political alignment, reputational commitments and implicit security obligations.

Professor Garcia is a perceptive, unsentimental military analyst working to advance the best interests of the US Army. This introduction shows he is also someone who has applied himself, as one in his position should, to understanding China as it is – and not through a Western lens.

He completes the article in this way:

The events in Venezuela and Iran are not a blow to Chinese interests as Western analysts have framed. By toppling Maduro US President Donald Trump’s administration has arguably relieved Beijing of responsibility for Venezuela’s problems, allowing China to position itself as a more cautious actor in Latin America while Washington faces the aftermath.

Understanding China on its own terms – as a state with different theories of power, institutional preferences and tolerance levels for commitment costs – is the bare minimum of effective strategic competition. Until Washington understands that there is no sense in imputing US logic to China’s strategic worldview, it will keep misreading the board.

Conclusion

The case study above emphasizes:

• The continuing, high-level impact of the understanding-deficit stressed by this critical new book; and

• How it remains an acute problem in the Global West, conspicuously evident within the highly-educated, opinion-shaping leadership zone.

As this new book makes clear, misunderstanding arising out of a primary, widespread lack of knowledge about China shaped by now continual Western recourse to “us vs them” geopolitical narratives is a fundamental concern.

The challenge to better understanding presented by those who are very well educated and worldly-wise – evident above – is patently more serious.

The book’s lead author, Chandran Nair, put it, convincingly, this way in a recent related article:

Only through empirically informed analysis delving into the country’s institutions and people – drawing upon both culturalist and materialist lenses – can the world fully understand China today. China is not a threat.

However, given its size, scale, and vast potential, its rise will inevitably generate challenges. In tackling and resolving these challenges with China, the international community, as a collective, improves and grows. An inter-civilisational dialogue between China and the world is not only an imperative for academics, but critical for world leaders and thinkers striving towards a more peaceful world (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/understanding-china-governance-socio-economics-global-influence/). .

This new book makes a compelling case supporting the need to understand China and it provides a cogent roadmap showing how to approach this crucial task. Unfortunately, too few are paying attention to this appeal.

But perhaps one day we may see an erudite team from the likes of The Economist return from a week’s research in Beijing and talk, in good part, about what (shock horror) the West might learn from China! This would be a measurable sign of progress.

_________________________________

Introduction

Wang, Xiangwei, a leading local commentator, posed a central question following the announcement that Hong Kong is set to formulate its first five-year plan:

“Can a city that has long prided itself on light-touch governance and market reflexes execute a whole-of-society planning process without the institutional muscle, the technical bench, or the political habit of doing so?” (see: https://amchamhk.online/can-hong-kong-adopt-a-five-year-plan/).

This is a fair question. We need to remember, however, that Hong Kong is well-placed to draw on many decades of successful forward planning experience, stretching back to the 1950s.

Moreover, China’s latest Five-Year Plan is being bedded down just as Beijing reconfirms a remarkable, nascent insight George Orwell offered in 1945, when he implicitly wondered if China might develop a rather different perspective on global interaction compared to that favored in the West.

British Hong Kong: A free-market economy underpinned by striking public intervention

The active embrace of free market principles in British Hong Kong after World War II, first celebrated by Professor Milton Friedman around 70 years ago, was eventually given the name “positive non-interventionism” in 1971, by the Hong Kong Financial Secretary, Philip Haddon-Cave (building on the work of his predecessor, John Cowperthwaite). Friedman regularly cited Hong Kong as his favorite economy. He marketed Hong Kong as a type of free market Shangri-La in his 1980 book and TV series, “Free to Choose.”

In fact, massive government intervention in the Hong Kong economy was well underway by the time Friedman first visited.

The initial decision to build high density public rental housing was impelled by a crisis created when a terrible fire devastated a large squatter settlement. This emergency response soon evolved into a well-planned, huge, exemplary public housing project that remains in place today.

Other vital, long-term, planned interventions included the development of Hong Kong’s world class public transit system and new airport, its remarkable educational expansion, its first-world health care infrastructure, and extensive mechanisms for coping with annual weather-crises.

Friedman paid limited heed to these fundamental, interventionist realities as they got in the way of his evangelical free market advocacy. Yet, all this heavily planned intervention crucially buttressed the substantial free-market story he told the world.

Also underpinning this conspicuous success is another factor (largely ignored by Friedman) which continues to ground so much successful planning in the SAR: the indefinite retention, by government, of a core proprietorial interest in all land. This mother of all forward planning initiatives was locked into place by the British in 1842! (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2021/04/hong-kongs-housing-crisis-an-underlying-factor-in-the-2019-riots/).

Orwell and the nature of superpowers

Next, let us consider, with the assistance of George Orwell, how China has evolved (over a very long period) into a different sort of superpower.

In a 1945 essay, shortly after the US dropped two atom bombs on Japan, Orwell argued that all super-states, including America, might well, in future, be “ruled, under one disguise or another, by a self-elected oligarchy” (see: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/you-and-the-atom-bomb/).

Orwell also envisaged, several years prior to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the creation of an East Asian super-state centred on China (which materialized in his most famous novel “!984” as Eastasia).

Orwell did not explicitly turn his mind to whether his visualised, dominant Chinese state might craft a primary growth pathway that broke away from the embedded, imperial Western model. He was, though, critical of the idea that, “politics is essentially the same in all ages”. Orwell remained open to the possibility that a ruling group in a future super-state could perceive that “it will probably stay in power longer if it behaves decently” (see: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/second-thoughts-on-james-burnham/).

China’s socio-political flight-path: then and now

Professor Jeffrey Sachs argues that the avoidance of far-off imperial wars has consistently dominated China’s exceptionally long history (see:

).

Another crucial feature of Chinese civilisation has been the ability — drawing on a vast, high-understanding culture — to work together for the common good. This has been conspicuously apparent over the last five decades, since the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the very grim Cultural Revolution. According to the influential historian, Adam Tooze, China has, since 1978, produced “the greatest success story in developmental history” (see: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/08/adam-tooze-un-sustainable-development-goals-us-aid-finance-economy/).

China first Five-Year Plan (1953-1957) emphasized rapid “smokestack” industrialization, with a primary focus on steel, coal, cement, power generation, machinery production and infrastructure. It was directly modelled on the Soviet central planning approach.

The recently approved 15^th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) exhibits a critical emphasis on advanced technological development and self-reliance. According to the World Economic Forum, it, “signals a new phase of strategic adaptation.” Yet one can still see how this new blueprint is underpinned by all the implemented plans that preceded it.

Moreover, this fresh plan is embedded within the framework created by the four pivotal global initiatives announced by China over the last several years: the Global Development Initiative (2021). The Global Security Initiative (2022), the Global Civilizational Initiative (2023), and the Global Governance Initiative (2025).

This set of broad interlocking proposals, with their unwavering, globally inclusive focus is unlike any framework previously generated during the long period of imperially-sourced, Western world leadership.

This comparative actuality was captured in an acute observation by the prominent commentator, Pankaj Mishra, about six months ago. After noting that “there is much that is imperfect about China,” Mishra argued how “China is a very different kind of late modernising power that is setting an example that there are other ways of being a powerful country in the world” (see:

).

Finally, it is helpful to consider some timely observations by Harvard’s Professor Stephen Walt. He recently argued that: “The second Trump administration has been far more disruptive, damaging, and dangerous than most observers – including me - expected, and the tragically inept war with Iran is driving that point home in spades.”

Walt then advised how the White House should remedy this dire focus: “A far-sighted great power will use its power with restraint, adhere to widely held norms whenever possible, recognize that even close allies will have their own agendas, and work to fashion arrangements with others from which all parties benefit” (see: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ripple/2026/03/26/united-states-trump-rogue-state-iran/).

It is fair to wonder if Professor Walt may have had China in mind as he crafted this rectification formula as it essentially summarizes Beijing’s settled, distinctively globalized approach to managing China’s geopolitical interactions.

Conclusion

Looking forward, Beijing clearly expects that its best interests will be served – and mutual benefits will arise- when China positions itself as a fundamental anchoring nation operating within a fully interactive, multi-polar world. This is the promising – and challenging – context within which Hong Kong, Asia’s World City, will need to craft its first five-year plan. This plan will also have to be developed and applied bearing in mind the way it will lay down crucial foundations for five-years plans to follow.

Completing this demanding, multi-faceted task will test the SAR significantly. The positive opportunities are remarkable, however. And the exceptional success of so many past strategic development interventions confirm how adept Hong Kong is when it applies itself assiduously to long-term planning and execution tasks.

This is a mildly revised version of an article originally published in the China Daily on April 12, 2026 (see: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/631846).

This article was first published around two months prior to the latest grotesque outbreak of American-Israeli bombing, mass-slaughter and colossal destruction directed at Iran, in the China Daily, on New Year’s Day, 2026, and shortly before that, by Fridayeveryday (see: https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/626357).

Some argue that, amidst the chaotic carnage President Trump has been orchestrating, with Israel, for months on end, we still need to pay attention to the good which Mr. Trump is achieving. Which reminds me how Adolph Hitler: loved dogs; loathed smoking and tried to stop it; and built the world’s best motorways.

New war and peace

By Richard Cullen

January 1, 2026

The surge in China’s military capacity, especially over the last decade, has been the focus of increasing Western commentary, some of it measured, much of it alarmist. Many alarmists believe it is a truth universally acknowledged that any large nation possessed of a significantly upgraded stockpile of advanced martial equipment will want to use it against others. Which surely confirms that the Global West is, above all, looking in a mirror. Richard Cullen reports.

Comparative bombs and bullets

The United States remains the world’s adamantly dominant military power. America’s massive nuclear, sea, air and personnel assets, some 800 worldwide military bases and annual martial spending (of around US$1 trillion) exceeding that of the next ten countries combined confirm why this is so (link).

Just the (treaty-limited) capacity of constantly cruising, submarine-based American nuclear weaponry is capable of exterminating a third of the total world population within about an hour (link).

However, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has also been advancing the martial capacity of all land, sea, air and space components within the PLA (People’s Liberation Army).

According to a leading US think-tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the PLA has, over the last several decades, greatly modernized itself while transforming from a regional force into a global power. Although ground forces have shrunk from 1.5 million to 1 million since 2014, naval, air, general weaponry and space-based power have all seen striking technology and capacity improvements. China’s military spending, which stood at around 17 percent of US spending in 2012 doubled within 12 years, advancing to 33 percent of US spending in 2024, says the CSIS (link).

China’s current nuclear arsenal comprises 600 active nuclear warheads – compared to 3,700 active nuclear warheads in the US.

In terms of overall warship tonnage, the PLA Navy trails the US Navy significantly but it now has more active battle-force ships, primarily focused on patrolling Chinese coastal seas (link).

Moreover, commercial ship-building capacity typically plays a foundational role in supporting military ship-building.

The CSIS lately noted how China held more than 53 percent of the global market share in the commercial shipbuilding while the United States accounted for only 0.1 percent, adding that: “Just one Chinese firm, the state-owned juggernaut China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), built more commercial vessels by tonnage in 2024 than the entire US shipbuilding industry has built since the end of World War II” (link).

Furthermore, the advanced effectiveness of late model Chinese combat aircraft may have been confirmed in a short clash in May 2025, between Pakistan (using modern Chinese-built aircraft) and India (using modern French-built aircraft), where Pakistan appeared to have a clear upper hand (link).

Two pivotal factors are regularly cited as the primary drivers of this extraordinary growth in PRC military power: never again enduring the century of humiliation suffered by China following its defeat in the First Opium War (1839–42); and completing China’s reunification with Taiwan. In 2023, a report from the American Rand Corporation entitled “Why is China Strengthening its Military? It’s Not All About War” stressed the importance of both these factors, among others (link).

The South China Sea and the Gulf of America

Over the last year, a new, striking Sino-American comparative case study has emerged. It highlights how martial force has been used in very different ways to emphasize particular foreign policy priorities.

Dealing with serious tensions in the South China Sea

Chinese maritime wrangles with its many littoral neighbors bordering the South China Sea (SCS) are often traced back to China’s “Nine Dash Line” asserting sovereignty over certain islands, reefs and shoals in the SCS combined with claims over waters adjacent thereto, natural resource claims and more vague security-jurisdictional (trade route) claims. In fact, this large U-shaped maritime zone is a reduced, PRC claim derived from the larger, “Eleven Dash Line” proclaimed by the ROC (Republic of China) in 1946. The authorities in Taiwan still maintain this wider claim (link).

The most intense, modern maritime confrontations in the SCS have arisen between China and the Philippines. In 2016, a controversial UN Arbitration Panel, at the request of the Philippines, found that there was no historical basis for China to claim rights over all the maritime area within the Nine Dash Line. Both Beijing and Taipei rejected this ruling (link).

Unfriendly, sometimes hostile Sino-Philippines maritime interactions near disputed areas in the SCS have ensued for over a decade. Germany’s DW News recently reported that the most aggressive display of overt force by China during these encounters has been the use of water-cannons (link).

Naturally, the US has swiftly condemned such responses against Filipino vessels in the SCS by China (link).

In 2024, a renowned expert in international law, Professor Tony Carty argued, with respect to encounters like this, that:

“There is absolutely no doubt that this whole dispute is entirely about the Americans trying to make life difficult for the Chinese. The aggression that is building up against China and the scapegoating of China by the whole of the so-called democratic community of the world is appalling” (link).

Bandits of the Caribbean

In early 2025, one of White House’s early, audacious executive acts was to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America (link).

As in the case of the South China Sea, it is helpful to consider some historical (Latin American) background before we look at more recent events.

The highly decorated US Marine Corps Major General, Smedley Butler, delivered a speech in 1933 entitled “War is a Racket” (followed by a book with the same title) where he argued that:

“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it” (link).

Next, consider what is happening today, over 90 years later, in America’s Caribbean backyard (link).

•The US military have already killed over 100 civilians at sea in the Gulf of America (and the Pacific) in 2025.

•This “Southern Spear” military operation is killing alleged “narco-terrorists.”

•Guilt by White House assertion has entirely replaced confirming guilt according to any form of basic due process.

•Interception, arrest and interrogation play no part in this operation.

•White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles revealed President Trump’s desire to pressure Venezuelan President Maduro by “blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle” suggested America’s stated goal of stopping drugs was a cover for regime change effort (link).

•The US military (with the understanding of self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (link) deliberately murdered ship-wrecked survivors struggling for life after an initial attack, explicitly contrary to the US Defence Department’s Law of War Manual (link).

•The US military is now hijacking certain ships leaving Venezuela, complete with oil cargo, while enforcing brazen, coercive American sanctions (link).

•The US is now imposing an illegal naval blockade on Venezuela according to UN experts: A blockade is a prohibited use of military force against another country under the UN Charter (link).

•Backed by a crucial nomination from the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, America helped finagle the (now emphatically discredited) 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, for María Corina Machado, who has long urged unlawful US military intervention in Venezuela (link).

•Following an earlier, failed “gringo intervention” in 2019, reported by Time (link). Ms Machado clearly looks like a fresh, ear-marked candidate committed to enabling the US to govern Venezuela from Washington.

Meanwhile:

•Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, in October 2025, cheered on America’s unforgivable, grotesque complicity in the Gaza genocide boasting that “We are killing all the right people” (link).

•America has started bombing targets in Nigeria related to “Christian genocide” – though recent Islamist attacks on Christian farmers occurred in a different part of Nigeria (link).

•Regular American bombing attacks on Somalia have lately doubled (link).

•The White House has just ramped-up its Greenland-takeover project, never mind that this is a full-frontal political assault on a NATO ally, where the use of force is not ruled out.

•President Trump has announced the US Navy will initially build two new “Trump Class” battleships, falsely said to be “the largest battleships in the history of our country” (link).

•The Atlantic explained the US lacks the capacity, today, to build any such ships, while naming them “Trump’s Vanity Fleet” (link).

•Just after Christmas, flanked by grinning indicted war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Trump flagged yet another, potential major US-Israeli attack on Iran (link) as a follow-up to the earlier, treacherous US-Israeli attack on Iran in June, 2025 (link).

Intensifying Divergence

Smedley Butler’s striking advocacy from the 1930s confirms how the bare-faced use of raw military power against civilians, unproved-combatants and sovereign states malevolently black-hatted by the White House is not something that has just recently materialized.

This American behavior dates back over 200 years: The Munroe Doctrine from 1823 (today repurposed as the “Donroe Doctrine” (link) spelled out that Latin America is a militarily controlled, US sphere of influence off limits to all other powers.

Countless examples of American political intimidation, military incursions and violent regime change have flowed from the doctrine, for example in Guatemala in 1954 (link). And the world has been watching the endless American attempt to crush Cuba for over 60 years, a project that even American allies find inexcusably rotten (link).

Rather more recently, an article in The Harvard Political Review argued, in 2021, that Barack Obama is a war criminal. As President, he ordered 563 drone strikes which killed 3,797 people which included the murder of some 40 people attending a funeral in Pakistan. The article notes that he was not a pioneer in this endeavour but he was an exceptional expansionist. As he was beginning this homicidal project, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (link).

Meanwhile, ever since the extraordinary modern rise of China gained serious traction over 40 years ago, China has studiously avoided any level of warfare involvement remotely comparable to the level relished by the US.

President Jimmy Carter, when he identified the US as the most warlike nation in history, compared this record with that of China. “Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody?” Carter asked. “None!” was the response he gave to his own question, adding that he thought America had: “wasted $3 trillion on military spending, while China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that’s why they’re ahead of us in almost every way” (link).

When we move on to the Gulf of America – South China Sea case study the Sino-American contrast is shockingly clear:

•America’s blood-thirsty, war-mongering pedigree stands behind the wanton use of concentrated, homicidal America military force in Latin America today.

•China’s resort to water cannon usage (naturally condemned by the US) as a maximal response in the South China Sea, confirms Beijing’s desire to minimize violent conflict and avoid open warfare wherever possible.

Despite this startling disparity evident in daily global news bulletins, a recent remarkable article published by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney argued that US actions were “the least likely potential cause of any conflict across the Taiwan Strait” (link).

Conclusion

Smedley Butler, were he alive today, would surely confirm how, more than ever, war remains a huge racket for the US. What, though, can help explain this dangerous, accelerating behaviour?

In fact, instructive indications are evident in some fresh commentary on contrasting American and Chinese approaches across a broad range of policy areas:

•Another article from the Atlantic Council stresses how, in contrast to the US, China’s Five Year Plans enhance long-term “policy consistency, continuity and predictability” (link).

•In an article entitled, “China Responds to Trump’s Revived Monroe Doctrine” the journal Foreign Policy noted how the: “sugar highs of bullying the region’s leaders could lead to adverse consequences, including countries banding together against the United States—and the possibility that China may emerge as a more attractive partner” (link).

•Alex Lo, writing in The South China Morning Post, recently explained, “How Elon Musk and his merry band of billionaires run the United States” while China’s increasing number of billionaires do not pose a similar problem (link).

•In a soon to be published article, Professor Christopher Tang from UCLA argues that: “China is not merely adapting to the existing order – it is reshaping the terms under which global economic power is exercised.”

Fundamentally evident is the contrast between Beijing’s strategically planned, collective, firmly positive, long-term view of the future and Washington’s often chaotic, regularly very violent, backward-gazing quest to reimpose the level of American global hegemony it enjoyed as the Cold War came to an end over 30 years ago.

Consider our case study once more:

•Whatever China’s regional differences may be, Beijing understands that geography is destiny and China and the Philippines, for example, will be living as separate neighbors for the next 100 years and well beyond, hopefully in peace.

•America appears locked within a 200 year time-warp, where it cannot move beyond a continuous, default habit of imposing its will on neighbors by military force or other profoundly coercive means in order to secure a menacing American version of peace.

Finally, there is no question that China’s huge military build-up potentially puts Beijing in a position to impose its will regionally relying on military means, in a manner never before seen in Chinese history.

There is also no question, however, that, unlike the US, the martial imposition of its will remains a measure of last resort for Beijing – including with respect to Taiwan. Its comparative behavior over many centuries and since the rise of China began over 40 years ago both confirm this, according to Professor Jeffrey Sachs (link).

This divergence is unsurprising. For over 40 years, as it has compared itself with the US, China has confirmed the immense benefits of building rather than bombing, on a daily basis (link). Most of the rest of the world comprehends this. It is appalling that the US and too many of its dismal allies have so far failed to do so.

Richard Cullen is an adjunct law professor at the University of Hong Kong and a popular writer on current affairs.

Republishing from FridayEveryday website at https://fridayeveryday.com/war-and-peace/

After watching the recent interview of Tucker Carlson by The Economist one observer argued that:

In the midst of this collective [Western media] moral collapse, Tucker Carlson has become the “conscience” of the media—simply because he possesses just a little more common sense, honesty, and humanity than these utterly hypocritical institutions.

This is a controversial claim about a widely recognized, remarkably informed and articulate, singularly controversial commentator.

In April 2023, the BBC reported, “How Tucker Carlson road a wave of populist outrage” in an extended article which documented his conspicuous, media-career assent, beginning in the 1990s. It was published just as Fox News announced that the network and its biggest star had agreed to part ways. Carlson’s “steady rise and sudden fall” were highlighted, along with, “accusations of racism and misogyny” (see: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65381815).

An article published by The Australian Institute of International Affairs about a year later, denounced a visit by Carlson to Australia as a “paranoid, divisive, and racist propaganda tour” adding that “Carlson and his allies represent the greatest threat global fascism has posed since World War II (see: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/tucker-carlson-takes-putins-propaganda-on-tour-down-under-why-should-australians-be-concerned/).

Many more equally critical reviews can be found online.

Could this person ever be a conscience?

As it happens, in August, 2024, Tucker Carlson conducted an extended interview with Professor Jeffrey Sachs that ran for well over two hours. Amongst other things, it stressed the looming danger of a US war against Iran, acting primarily in the interests of Israel, see:

Soon after, I published a short assessment of this discussion in the Australian online journal Pearls and Irritations. Here is a lightly edited version of that review:

Tucker Carlson and Jeffrey Sachs confirm mainstream Western media mostly a shabby cabaret

Richard Cullen - September 5, 2024

A recent, comprehensive social-media interview has provided an acute reminder of how hard it now is to imagine certain flagship, Western current affairs programs drowning their cherished war-drums in a lead weighted bag and applying themselves to investigating pivotal geopolitical challenges with intelligent thoroughness

The Tucker Carlson Show has just uploaded a remarkable, extended interview where the eponymous host speaks with Professor Jeffrey Sachs. It is entitled: “Trump’s Plan to Stop WWIII, CIA Coups, and Warning of the Next Financial Crisis.”.

The show runs for well over two hours and covers: America’s succession of failed, multi-trillion-dollar wars; the gross, wilful provocations dating back 30 years which have led to the war in Ukraine; the compounding failure of American leadership; and much more.

The program is penetrating and highly watchable. If time is tight, scan-watching works well, too.

Unsurprisingly, the widespread criticism of Carlson as “a dangerous source of misinformation” who holds “extremist views” continues to be forcefully argued.

It is also clear, however, that Carlson has developed and applied a consistent, very powerful critique of:

· America’s embrace of chosen offshore warmongering, contrary to promises President Trump campaigned on; and

· The devastating influence of Israel on White House policy-making.

This, in turn, has energized his censure of the way so many Mainstream Western Media outlets have explicitly or implicitly endorsed these destructive developments.

Carlson’s stance has also confirmed the development of a primary fault line within the American right. He has maintained his position on these issues notwithstanding withering attacks from Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, for example.

Time to return, in conclusion, to that interview with Zanny Minton Beddoes, the editor-in-chief of The Economist. Carlson clearly enjoyed the encounter. So much so that it was regularly hard to tell who was interviewing whom. Carlson was more sure-footed about where he stood and why. He regularly left the editor-in-chief looking like an equivocating apologist for the very powerful Israel-First faction now prominently embedded within so many Global West leadership structures.

How apt, though, is that conscience label? Watch the interview, when you have time, and judge for yourself (Google: carlson economist interview).

According to the Website, Geodata and Rankings, the US and Israel rank within the top five most disliked countries, worldwide, keeping company with China, Russia and North Korea (see: https://www.facebook.com/geodatarankings/posts/20-most-disliked-countries-in-the-world-this-ranking-reflects-global-public-opin/122164344266929913/).

This is despite America and Israel maintaining by far the strongest marketing-propaganda presence globally, insisting to the world that they are beacons of democratic righteousness.

Much more concerning is that fact that the continuous, Israeli-American love of, capacity for and indulgence in actual war-mongering comfortably exceeds that of the rest of the Top 20 most disliked countries combined.

The latest, monstrous embrace of mass homicide and destruction on an industrial scale in Iran – launched by Israel and the US - potently confirms what Professor Jeffrey Sachs has argued for some time, that the grotesque partnership of Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu, poses the gravest threat of nuclear war the world has faced in many decades (see:

) .

In October 2022, I published an article with the online journal, Pearls and Irritations, entitled, “On the Beach” a haunting evocation of nuclear war, which drew heavily on Nevil Shute’s remarkable 1957 novel about the unbending, terminal impact of nuclear war (see: https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/on-the-beach-a-haunting-evocation-of-nuclear-war/).

The New York Times said, after the book’s release, that it created “the most haunting evocation we have of a world dying of radiation after an atomic war.” The Times observed that it was “the most evocative novel on the aftermath of a nuclear war.” More recently, The Economist noted that it was, “still incredibly moving after nearly half a century.”

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) lately advised that the current global stockpile of nuclear warheads exceeds 12,000 – down from 70,000 warheads at the height of the Cold War. The US and Russia retain the bulk of this arsenal. Israel is estimated to have 90 warheads. All users can deliver these warheads much more precisely than was the case 60 years ago.

Right now, unhappily, seems the right time to re-circulate the article below. Shute’s novel, better than anything else I have read, tells everyone what an unstoppable obliterating horror story is promised by nuclear war.

You can watch the movie-trailer for the film On the Beach here:

On The Beach” a haunting evocation of nuclear war

October, 2022

by

Richard Cullen

Professor Emeritus Richard Falk, from Princeton University, argues that, “nuclear dangers have become more salient than at any time at least in this century”. More than sixty years ago the outstanding novelist, Nevil Shute, accentuated the same profound hazard in his most considered work, “On the Beach”.

Nevil Shute was well established as a leading British Novelist before he migrated to Australia, after the war, in 1950. He settled, with his family, in Langwarrin, near the south-east Melbourne suburb of Frankston. He died, after a stroke, in Melbourne in 1960.

Shute was an aeronautical engineer by training and also an accomplished pilot. His novels regularly display an uncommon reliance on lucidly explained, relevant technical detail. This approach, which is engaging and informing yet rarely alienating, adds a remarkable, realistic grounding to much of his work

His first published novel, Marazan appeared in 1926. Shute subsequently published over 20 books. Their highly readable, creative narratives resulted in a number of them being adapted for the screen including A Town Like Alice and The Far Country.

Shute’s best-known work, On the Beach, which I have just finished reading for the first time, was originally published in 1957.

It became a major Hollywood film, directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins, in 1959. The book – and the film – are set in Melbourne as it awaits the arrival of unstoppable clouds of deadly radiation migrating around the globe following a terrible, short, major nuclear war in the Northern Hemisphere. The apocalyptic tale is set, by Shute, about six years into the then future. The book was filmed again in 2000.

The first filming produced a memorable quotation attributed to the spirited Ava Gardner: “On the Beach is a story about the end of the world and Melbourne sure is the right place to film it”. There is a credible narrative that an Australian journalist, Neil Jillett, created the quote as he wrote up an imaginary interview with Ms Gardner.

Though much awaited, the film was not a great success. Despite the potent Hollywood treatment and publicity, viewers discovered that what was on the screen was a rationally examined, truly man-made horror story about the end of life on earth. This was not what most patrons were looking for.

The book has a much more British-Australian feel. It is significantly better than the film in depicting how relentlessly and comprehensively gruesome large scale nuclear war would be. The New York Times said that the book created “the most haunting evocation we have of a world dying of radiation after an atomic war.”. The Times observed that it was “the most evocative novel on the aftermath of a nuclear war”. More recently, The Economist noted that it was, “still incredibly moving after nearly half a century.”

Indeed, the novel stands up very well. And it will retain its relevance over the long-term, I expect, provided the current spasms of war-making madness do not precipitate an updated but similarly comprehensive elimination of life on earth.

One thing Shute managed particularly well was conveying the deep, steady collective change of mood that unfolded. That shared understanding of all essentially going-together is, eventually and overwhelmingly, simply there. And it is not there for macabre effect – but to touch on deep aspects of collective human understanding as Shute understood this.

The book is pivotally shrewd on the dangers of proliferation, the dismal aspects of media debate- even then – and the massively destructive failures of leadership. It is regularly and aptly poignant but never mawkish: lessons are attempted to indicate how to face the unfaceable with abiding humanity.

Tom Plate lucidly argued, very recently, in an article in the South China Morning Post, how the US not just Russia has helped bring the world closer to nuclear war. He notes, acutely, how, The unseemly primal lust with which Washington by proxy jumped into a regional crisis and made it into an increasingly global one stunned many.

Plate draws on the extensive, germane analysis of Richard Falk, now 91 and emeritus professor of international law at Princeton University. In doing so, Plate concludes that, while China and Russia are no saints when it comes to using simplistic binary images, it is the US “which has parleyed its international brand of American exceptionalism into a preposterous permanent innocence”.

The title of Shute’s book is based on a passage from The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot:

In the last of meeting places

We grope together

And avoid speech

Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

As it happens, Anthony Daniels (penname, Theodore Dalrymple) a more recent skilled writer (of essays rather than novels) drew the title for a collection of his articles published in 2009, Not with a Bang but a Whimper, from the same source.

Shute’s novel was first published around 5 years before the Cuban Missile Crisis – and 65 years before the current, conspicuous bellicosity.

As I read On the Beach, I felt that I was in the hands of a fine writer who cared deeply about the dark narrative it presented. It leaves an imprint. I am very glad I read it. Falk recently argued, that, “We know what to do [to secure long-term sustainable life for all] but we do not know how to get it done.” This confirms perhaps the most powerful implicit message, from over sixty years ago, in Shute’s work.

RICHARD CULLEN’S SUBSTACK – AN INTRODUCTION

March 2026

Email: rcullenstack@gmail.com

Richard's Substack

The modern world: how it is shaped and by whom

By Richard Cullen

This synopsis discusses:

· What Claude says;

· How it all began;

· A turning point;

· Why choose Substack; and

· How Substack works;

Sincere thanks to those who have assisted me in launching this Website.

What Claude says

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has ensured that we now live in dramatically changing times. Today one can ask an AI agent what they think of anyone with an online public profile, something previously unthinkable.

Here is a condensed version of the full biography of Richard Cullen provided by Claude, the AI agent developed by Anthropic.

Richard Cullen: A cross-jurisdictional legal scholar bridging East and West

Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the most prolific Western legal academics writing on Hong Kong constitutionalism, Chinese governance, and comparative taxation law.

An active and sometimes controversial public voice

In recent years, Cullen has become a prolific public commentator, writing regularly for China Daily’s Hong Kong edition, Pearls and Irritations (John Menadue’s Australian public policy journal), and Michael West Media. His commentary spans Hong Kong governance, US-China relations, AUKUS, Australian foreign policy, and geopolitics.

His public positions have drawn attention for their sympathetic framing of Beijing’s constitutional prerogatives in Hong Kong. He has argued that sovereign supervision by central government liaison offices is legitimate, defended the 2020 National Security Law as a valid response to the 2019 unrest, and contended that the Chinese Constitution is fundamental to Hong Kong’s Basic Law. At the same time, his peer-reviewed academic work — particularly on weiquan lawyers and media law — demonstrates a scholarly engagement with the tensions and constraints within China’s legal system.

Conclusion

Richard Cullen occupies an unusual niche in international legal academia: an Australian-trained scholar whose career has been defined by sustained, deep engagement with Hong Kong and Chinese law from within. His intellectual range — spanning taxation policy, constitutional theory, media regulation, and human rights lawyering — is anchored by a consistent comparative methodology that draws on his experience practicing and teaching across three jurisdictions. His concept of “Authoritarian Legality” offers a provocative framework for understanding Hong Kong’s governance that challenges conventional Western liberal assumptions, while his empirical work on weiquan lawyers with Hualing Fu has enriched understanding of legal activism in authoritarian contexts. Whether through his seven books, 200-plus publications, or his regular public commentary, Cullen remains one of the most active Western academic voices interpreting Hong Kong and China’s legal trajectories for international audiences.

The well-known Chinese AI agent, DeepSeek offers a similar, detailed biographical perspective, without the emphasis on a sympathetic framing of Beijing’s constitutional prerogatives in Hong Kong.

How it all began

Prior to my arrival to work in the new School of Law at the City University of Hong Kong in late 1991, I lectured in the Faculty of Law at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. I went back to Monash in 1997 to head a law department in the Faculty of Business and Economics. I returned to Hong Kong as a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2006.

I have been writing about Hong Kong, China, Australia and well beyond for over 30 years.

A turning point – part 1

About a decade ago, my writing shifted from having an academic-legal focus to shorter, more general opinion articles. I have now written several hundred, many of which are listed here:

https://muckrack.com/richard-cullen

and here:

https://fridayeveryday.com/author/richard-cullen/

Moving to part-time mode at HKU some years ago partly explains this transition. But it is mainly the product of living through an extended, alarming experience while residing in Hong Kong.

By 2014, it was clear to me that those spearheading Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement had become increasingly zealous and unbending. Notwithstanding the ardent belief in the end of history superiority of Western democracy that underpinned this movement, I formed a view, after considering the evidence, that this development was bad for Hong Kong. I began writing articles arguing why.

In mid-2019, a series of intensely violent political riots – labelled by the rioters and their supporters as pro-democracy protests – gathered momentum. My earlier concerns were confirmed.

US President, Franklin Roosevelt, identified freedom from fear as one of the four fundamental freedoms in January, 1941. Prior to 2019, Hong Kong had been one of the most free, modern large cities globally, in this sense, for over 50 years. For many months, those continuous political riots wrecked this fundamental freedom for millions of people in Hong Kong.

What was worse, the Mainstream Western Media (MWM) insisted - no matter how intense and destructive the political violence became – that these were worthy pro-democracy protests. To this day, they maintain this deceitful narrative.

The global power of the MWM is massive. But when it embraces deceptiveness on this scale, apparently to protect the Western influence which has been globally dominant for several centuries, the scope to explain how this is happening is also exceptionally large (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/an-essential-news-junkies-guide-to-media-terminology/).

Of course, many who have lived through these experiences in Hong Kong over the last decade do not share my view – on the contrary.

However, many other Hong Kong residents do share a similar understanding. I have been continually inspired by those who have also freely written and spoken out in different, often better ways than myself (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/how-not-to-write-about-hong-kong-and-mainland-china/).

Major, radical political changes have been applied by Beijing in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) since 2020. Hong Kong’s characteristic freedom from fear has been restored along with steady growth linked to China’s development and the HKSAR’s refreshed international bridging role.

A turning point – part 2

Immense geopolitical and local challenges face China and Hong Kong but both believe in a future than can be made better by applying educated intelligence, visible collective endeavour and conspicuous diligence. The long-term guiding mantra is let’s go to work compared to let’s go to war in the US-led Global West (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2024/08/shocking-news-china-is-kicking-more-global-goals/).

In the six years since Hong Kong shook off the grave danger posed by the Western-supported insurrection in 2019, terrible wars confirming the unbending durability of that grim maxim have erupted within the West’s recognized sphere of global influence including: the Gaza genocide; the Ukraine war; followed by the monstrously destructive American Israeli attack on Iran where head-of-state assassination was celebrated as cutting-edge statecraft.

In early 2026, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor of The Telegraph, a leading British conservative newspaper, argued that a “shadow third world war” has begun where “the West is disintegrating” as it faces off against “an axis of autocracies.”

At about the same time, in a remarkable report written during yet more terrible Israeli bombing of Beirut, the Senior Editor of The Markaz Review, Lina Mounzer, stressed how we now exist, globally, under an “old, rotten world order.”

Also around the same time, in Australia, commentator Julian Cribb argued convincingly that we presently live in an “Age of Lies.”

A good friend recently observed that: We once lived in a world of half-truths but we have now sunk into a world where quarter-truths dominate.

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I discovered Substack reading the work of others who published there. I found it provided a remarkable, effective way to publish an online Substack Newsletter.

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How the Chinese diaspora paved the way for BRI

By Richard Cullen October 18, 2023

The biggest international trading venture in world history is 10 years old.

But there’s an extraordinary tale behind the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI.

And that’s the story of the exceptional Chinese Diaspora experience, which laid the foundations for the infrastructure project’s success.

This Chinese macro-migration endeavor, individual by individual, long predates the remarkable BRI, which is, today, measurably retracing the diaspora’s pioneering footsteps. Richard Cullen reports.

THIS YEAR, CHINA and the world are witnessing the 10^th anniversary of the inauguration of the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI is not a perfect success story, of course: nothing on this extraordinary scale could be. But the complications, obstacles and deficiencies have been worked-on as they have materialized.

Moreover, its overall positive, public infrastructure achievements, not least in Africa, have been extraordinary – and all secured within the span of a decade.

According to the German online data-gathering platform, Statista:

• 149 countries have joined the BRI (the United Nations has 193 Member States, incidentally).

• The investment in BRI projects across these countries since 2013 now totals around US$1 trillion.

• China’s trade with major BRI countries had grown to almost 30% of all Chinese trade in 2020, doubling in the period since 2015.

Globally, thousands of miles of new roads, plus new railways, bridges, hospitals and schools, for example, have been built under the BRI, especially across the Global South.

Sir Douglas Flint, former HSBC Chairman (pictured) recently said that that BRI was “one of the biggest, if not the biggest, facilitator” of the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and has an “incredibly positive” impact on regional and world development. It is said that the BRI has created over 400,000 jobs and has lifted “nearly 40 million people out of poverty”.

Unsurprisingly, there has been significant rediscovery and discussion, over the last 10 years, of the original, formalized version of the “Silk Road” (across Eurasia) and the “Maritime Silk Road” (reaching out via the South China Sea).

Various scholars have observed how the establishment of each of these dates back over 2,000 years to the expanding trade fostered during China’s Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Eventually these once flourishing trade routes faded away, not least in the wake of the rapid European global expansion (and Euro-imperial colonialism) ushered in by the Age of Discovery, which had begun by the 15^th century.

THE MODERN CHINESE DIASPORA

What I wish to review here are the less-formal but still exceptional, extended global foundations, powered by individual Sino-migratory enterprise, which historically underpin the entire BRI project.

During the height of the importance of the two early Silk Roads just noted, this did not trigger any significant migration of Chinese from China. Trading powers largely stayed within their own geographic locations – and traded.

In fact, as several scholars, including Professor Wang Gungwu and Lynn Pan have explained, it was after the Euro-colonial age gained such traction that Chinese people began migrating in large numbers.

Chinese junk in Borneo.

Many, often facing terrible scarcity and desperately determined, began to perceive: offshore trading prospects; an opportunity to seek a better life; or an opening to provide hard-working, low-cost indentured labour, for example. Indeed, without this Chinese labour it is almost certain that the transcontinental railways in the US and Canada could not have been built so swiftly and effectively (at great human cost).

Chinese women and children in Brunei, c. 1945. (c) Lt A.W. Horner.

Colonizing, European governing and business elites mainly looked favourably on these migration patterns. As Denis Mc Cormack noted in a review of Lynn Pan’s remarkable book, Sons of the Yellow Emperor, new Chinese arrivals were valued for their industriousness, their ability to cope with low-paid hard work and their business acumen – and business connections.

Subsequently, as Lynn Pan explains, local (including European) residents in the destination colonies, became resentful about the competition Chinese immigrants introduced into their societies (by and for the benefit of certain elites). Anti-Chinese immigrations laws in due course followed in the US, Australia, Canada and beyond.

Chinese gold miners (group on the right) working alongside white miners at Auburn Ravine in central California, 1852. Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento, California

According to a UNESCO report from 2021, the total number of Chinese living offshore today (including descendants) is over 60 million – more than the current population of Italy.

TAKE YOUR CIVILIZATION WITH YOU

Several facets of the impact of this very large Chinese diaspora are notable, including: how globally wide-spread it is; and, despite recurrently unpromising and regularly hostile circumstances, how so many Chinese immigrants have, time and again, built fresh success into their lives – and that of their families – in far-off places.

Simon Leys, the renowned Belgian-Australian Sinologist, once observed how the essence of Chinese civilization could best be found in the deeply shared, Confucian-based collective understanding of what being Chinese meant. He contrasted this collective worldview with the European collective view of itself, which relied far more on its embodiment in majestic material constructions (cathedrals and like imposing buildings).

A Chinese friend succinctly summed this up some years ago after his first extended visit to the UK. China, he noted, had a recorded, developed history that was far older than that found in Great Britain. Yet, if you simply considered the buildings in the UK, it looked to be the measurably older civilization.

The Chinese are happy to create buildings, while the British celebrate their oldest ones. Image of Shanghai by Pexels.

It follows from Ley’s understanding, that one reason Chinese have migrated so successfully to so many different countries, is that they can more readily take China with them where ever they go, while commonly maintaining continuing, inter-generational links to the ultimate land of origin. Notwithstanding the turbulent history of China over the last 200 years, it has remained a civilization that is remarkably well grounded. And that grounding endures, as Lynn Pan explains, for so many of the sons (and daughters) of the Yellow Emperor who have migrated far and wide over the last several hundred years.

This 1841 painting shows “Sangleys”, a term for Chinese in the Spanish Philippines.

GO SOUTH YOUNG MAN

Tierra del Fuego (“Land of Fire”) is the name of the archipelago at the very southern tip of South America. It was given this name by Ferdinand Magellan during the extraordinary first European circumnavigation of the Globe, from 1519 – 1522.

It is a place of fierce weather that is divided between Argentina and Chile. Its southern tip lies at 56 degrees south, which is very far south, indeed – around ten degrees closer to the South Pole than New Zealand’s most southerly point on Stewart Island. Tierra del Fuego, despite its remarkable and inhospitable location, is still comparatively well settled. The main city Ushuaia (in Argentina) has a population of over 80,000.

Some years ago, when I was completing some general reading, I was surprised to discover that Ushuaia has had a Chinese restaurant for many decades. I just rechecked this Chinese restaurant situation and, today, three are listed, online. Click here to see them.

The US-based hamburger chain, McDonald’s, is rightly renowned for its remarkable global spread. As of today, I could find no McDonald’s in Tierra del Fuego – and the nearest one looked to be a long way further north in Argentina.

BOX HILL – THEN AND NOW

I recall thinking, when I first discovered this most southerly Chinese restaurant in the world, how it was indicative of the exceptional enterprise of numerous members of that large Chinese diaspora.

And I was recently reminded about this adventurous spirit during a visit to Melbourne.

Australia has weathered the economic turmoil of the last several years comparatively well thanks to its fractious but still robust trading relationship with China. Nevertheless, the economy remains notably subdued compared to five years ago. In one suburban shopping street after another, many premises remain vacant, while the one business-sector growing robustly has been charity shops. These second-hand outlets, now often very large, are mainly run by the goodwill arms of the Salvation Army and other churches, where much labour is voluntary and the stock is donated.

But I did rediscover one suburban area where a distinctive commercial vibrancy was evident.

Over 50 years ago, one of my first jobs in Melbourne was writing for a low-ranked motor magazine. It was run on a shoestring. Our office was a cramped portable shed erected, by arrangement, in the back yard of a printing works in the eastern suburb of Box Hill. The main building housed a primary printing press for the Salvation Army in Melbourne and it was here that “Australian Auto-Sportsman” was printed alongside “The War Cry”.

Box Hill and surrounding eastern suburbs were well populated with industrious members of certain Christian churches, including the Salvation Army, Baptists and Seven Day Adventists. One distinctive feature was that, through the exercise of local council powers (and in keeping with the temperance beliefs of these churches), many of these suburbs were “dry” – no licensed premises were allowed.

Box Hill was named, by 1861, after a town and nearby hill in Surrey in the UK (a pivotal passage in Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, published in 1815, is set at the original Box Hill). Melbourne’s Box Hill lies about 14 kilometres east of the Central Business District (CBD), which hampered its early development. Though, as more public transport connections were established, it began to grow significantly.

Since the turn of this century, the population of Box Hill has almost doubled, with most of that increase coming from mainland China, Hong Kong and Malaysia, along with India and Vietnam. According to recent Census data, by 2021 the majority language spoken at home in Box Hill was Mandarin Chinese or Putonghua (33.9%) ahead of English (32.5%).

This image from the 1960s shows East Asians introducing their foods to the earlier arrivees. Today, the majority language of homes in Box Hill is Mandarin Chinese.

This fairly recent influx of new residents has, within a generation, not only reworked the city demographically but also in developmental terms. A huge, bustling shopping complex with countless Chinese-influenced outlets now sits on top of the completely rebuilt, exceptionally busy, Box Hill suburban railway station. High-rise buildings dot the landscape all around this rail-tram-bus and shopping hub today – including the 36 storey “Sky One”, which is the tallest building outside the CBD. And more are on the way. Compared to the Box Hill where I first came to work over 50 years ago, it is simply unrecognizable.

Box Hill today. Image: HappyWaldo CC BY-SA 4.0

Unsurprisingly, in view of the demographics, Box Hill has been given a name in Chinese. It has been transliterated – in Putonghua-Pinyin – as: Bo Shi Shan. The first two pinyin words sound somewhat like Box and Shan indicates Hill in Chinese. When translated (literally) back into English, however, this designation becomes “PhD or Doctorate Hill”. An auspicious name attractive to new residents and local real estate agents, alike.

Box Hill now radiates an unmistakable vitality. It is distinctly more energized today than so many other suburbs across this city of 5 million people. It is also true that a number of long-term, local Box Hill residents find all this change unsettling, saddening and sometimes jarring. The city they knew 30-40 years ago is no longer there.

CONCLUSION

China has created a huge civilization. One which naturally contains widely differing points of view. But it is also a civilization which is characterized by a remarkable level of high understanding about what priorities apply in order to secure optimal societal organization.

Professor Allinson, formerly based at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, observed, over 30 years ago, that:

One has to genuinely search very hard to find any Western analogue to this [Confucian] emphasis upon family relations as the originating source of ethical values. … If my general theory of at-homeness is correct, then, for the Chinese mind, the family represents a natural extension of oneself. There is no need to prove the priority of the family.”

Various important values proceed from the operating structure of the Chinese family. These include: a stress on self-reliance and self-help (within the family unit); the clearest understanding of the value of hard work; a powerful respect for and commitment to betterment through education (especially for all new generations); a focus on the acquisition of material wealth (within the family) as a hedge against bad fortune; and a clear understanding of the value of thrift. These factors have understandably shaped the Chinese migration experience across many generations.

Over the 200 years plus during which the modern Chinese Diaspora has materialized, China has endured: an extended period of humiliation at the hands of European and Japanese colonizers; the overthrow of the millennial, Chinese Imperial System; an egregiously brutal war waged in China by Japan; and an intense Civil War which culminated in the creation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. Prior to the open-door policy established by 1978, further destructive turmoil unfolded during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Since 1978, however, total GDP in China has risen around 80-fold from US$218 billion to some US$18 trillion. The PRC has lifted over 800 million people out of extreme poverty since 1981 according to the World Bank. China alone was responsible for 75% of total world poverty reduction over the period from 1981 to 2010. In less than 20 years, it is expected that China’s middle class may grow to be more than double the size of the US middle class. This astounding growth, the fastest sustained expansion by a major economy in history, has generated many positive consequences worldwide.

It is within this remarkable growth experience that the BRI has been incubated – prior to being applied globally, since 2013, across the developing world and beyond.

The respected Singaporean diplomat and academic, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, recently concluded that the BRI initiative had been an “outstanding success” by making infrastructure projects happen (with ecological responsibility increasingly stressed) in many different countries, with different cultures and governance systems. China had been generous, he said, noting that infrastructure investment is “one of the best ways to boost economic growth”.

As it happens, when we consider the remarkable long-term consequences of the global pattern of pioneering Chinese migration, we see an advance indication of the potential of the BRI. This macro-migration experience could aptly be described – considering its extended collective impact – as a vast, bottom-up, uncommonly successful, DIY-BRI (Do it Yourself – BRI). The BRI is, today, retracing some exceptional early footsteps.

Richard Cullen is an adjunct law

The untold truth about Taiwan’s real legal position

By Richard Cullen June 28, 2023

The daily Western presentation of Taiwan as a functionally independent nation on the verge of being “invaded” by China flies in the face of the actual facts, as specified by global agreements recognized and codified by people on both sides of the strait.

• China’s governing constitutional instruments specify that the mainland and Taiwan are one country;

• And so does the constitutional document of Taiwan, Republic of China – it ALSO specifies that the two entities are a single, indivisible country;

• To this day, the ROC Constitution ostensibly applies not just to Taiwan but to the whole of China, indicating the Taipei-based government’s control over Tibet and other parts;

• China’s “Nine Dash Line” under which the country claims a large portion of the South China Sea is actually a reduced version of Taiwan’s “Eleven Dash Line”, which Taiwan still applies to the same waters;

• Journalists correctly mention that some countries (193) legally support China while others (13) legally support Taiwan; but they omit the key fact that both groups (read the small print) legally support the principle that mainland China and Taiwan are a single country;

• While some in Taiwan’s DPP openly push for independence, the party would have to rip up or massively amend Taiwan’s own constitutional document to do so.

Professor of Law Richard Cullen reports on the actual legal situation, and how it evolved, to clear up the widely circulated myths about the relationship between mainland China and Taiwan.

AMIDST THE ACUTE geopolitical debate about the status of Taiwan, the clear constitutional consensus that there is One China, which includes Taiwan, is largely overlooked.

We need to examine some key historical developments in order to comprehend how this has come to pass; and why this agreement endures.

It will also become plain, as we investigate these events, why certain parties, today, find this agreed cross-strait fundamental legal perspective to be a notably awkward component of the foundations that lie beneath the acrimonious geopolitical debate.

THREE CENTURIES AGO

Taiwan was formally established as a part of China well over 300 years ago, in 1684, when the Manchu, Qing Dynasty annexed Taiwan, following the Manchu defeat of the Ming Dynasty.

Subsequently, Taiwan was absorbed as a colony within the rapidly emerging new Japanese Empire, as a war prize, after Japan defeated Qing Dynasty China in 1895, in the First Sino-Japanese War.

After the dropping of American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945. One consequence of this surrender was that Japan’s imperial rule over Taiwan was essentially terminated with immediate effect (subject to the completion of handover procedures) in August 1945.

THE RE-OCCUPATION OF TAIWAN ISLAND

By October 1945, the then globally recognized Chinese Government – the Republic of China (ROC) Kuomintang (KMT) Government – began to re-occupy Taiwan. By May, 1947 the KMT had established, in accord with the ROC Constitution, a Province of Taiwan Government in Taipei.

By late 1949, the Communist Party of China (CPC) had defeated the KMT in the Chinese Civil War, which re-commenced in 1945-46, once it was clear that Japan faced defeat in the Second Sino Japanese War (and WW2). The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was established by the CPC on October 1, 1949. The KMT – and, thus, the ROC – meanwhile, retreated to Taiwan.

Staunch American support – including the threat of using atomic weapons against the PRC – helped ensured that the CPC was prevented from taking over Taiwan in the 1950s. But it also became clear that the KMT aim to make China one, again (including Taiwan) under the ROC Constitution, was not going to happen.

THE ROC CONSTITUTION

But what were the origins and fundamental scope of that ROC Constitution?

Following the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the Republic of China was established in 1912, when a Provisional Constitution for the ROC was drawn up. Further Provisional Constitutions were promulgated, including one in 1931. After extensive drafting and debate, the original version of the current ROC Constitution took effect on December 25, 1947, almost two years before the defeat of the KMT in the Chinese Civil War.

Since then, the ROC Constitution has been amended a number of times, but its essential structure has not been altered in the sense that it remains, to this day, a constitution that ostensibly applies not just to Taiwan but to all of China. Given that when this constitution was first applied, the KMT was globally recognized as the government of all of China (including Taiwan), this is not surprising.

TAIWAN’S CONSTITUTION SAYS IT INCLUDES TIBET, FOR EXAMPLE

Thus, within the ROC Constitution, as it currently applies, there are repeated references to the geographical-political constituent parts of China, including Provinces, Mongolian Leagues and Banners and Tibet. Meanwhile, Article 4 states that the territory of the ROC cannot be altered except by resolution of the National Assembly.

In fact, the list of ROC, nominal, territorial disputes with jurisdictions on the Asian mainland (including, Afghanistan, India, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan and the USSR) remained quite extensive for some decades after 1949.

The PRC, meanwhile, resolved most of its continental, international territorial disputes, with India being the key exception. (The PRC negotiated treaties settling these border disputes on behalf of China were typically not recognized as legitimate by the ROC (which maintained Taipei’s claim to represent all of China.))

NINE-DASH LINE IS ‘REDUCED’ VERSION

Both the ROC and the PRC maintain largely overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. Thus, the contested “Nine Dash Line”, which underpins PRC claims to extensive jurisdiction of large parts of the South China Sea is, in fact, a reduced (in favour of Vietnam) version of the earlier ROC, “Eleven Dash Line”, which Taiwan still applies.

Both the PRC and the ROC also strongly contest Japanese control of the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Islands in the East China Sea.

TAIWAN HAD TWO GOVERNMENTS IN TAIPEI

A further indicative aspect of how the ROC Constitution has been applied (within Taiwan controlled territory) since 1949 is that until 1998, the Taiwanese governing system comprised a National Government based in Taipei – and a separate Province of Taiwan Government – with each government essentially having jurisdiction over the same geographical area.

The ROC on Taiwan also once supported a separate, operating but largely nominal Province of Fujian Government, which came into existence due to the KMT maintaining political control over certain small offshore island groups (Kinmen and Matsu) geographically part of Fujian Province on the Mainland. (These islands are located in the Taiwan Strait very close to the Mainland.)

Until late 1971, the claimed but nominal ROC jurisdiction over all of China was widely recognized internationally – and especially by the United Nations. The ROC, representing China, became one of the Five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (holding a veto power), along with Britain, France, the US and the USSR (now Russia).

Eventually the geopolitical tectonic plates shifted, however, and, in late 1971, the United Nations voted by a large margin to stop recognizing the KMT Government in Taiwan as the government of all of China and switch that recognition to the PRC Government based in Beijing.

Subsequently, many countries began to accept that the sole legitimate government of China was based in Beijing, including Australia in 1972 and the US in 1979.

OVERWHELMING MAJORITY

Today, Beijing maintains full diplomatic relations, on this same basis, with the overwhelming majority of UN Member States. The ROC on Taiwan now retains full diplomatic relations with just 12 of the 193 UN Member States – plus the Holy See, which governs Vatican City.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is the current governing party in Taiwan and Tsai Ing-wen is the DPP President of Taiwan. The Voice of America recently confirmed, the DPP favours independence for Taiwan.

THIS IS AWKWARD

Awkwardly, as we have seen above, the ROC Constitution, under which the DPP governs Taiwan, insistently supports the unity of all of China – including Taiwan. Indeed, the ROC Constitution would require massive amendment if it were to be transformed into a constitution which could provide a Basic Law for a constitutionally independent Taiwan. Any such move would, in turn, cross a critically bright, PRC political red-line, triggering plainly foreseeable, grave consequences.

Taiwan’s own constitution, the ROC Constitution, has, thus, created an entrenched, major formal deterrent to any reckless political action aimed at undermining the shared, cross-strait constitutional consensus that there is only One China – including Taiwan.

This has established a thorny underlying, ultimately geopolitical problem for the DPP – and for Washington (along with other China Threat devotees) even as the US continues to play the Taiwan card as part of its massive project to try and contain the rise of China.

ONE CHINA POLICY REMAINS UNIVERSALLY ENDORSED

As for those 13 jurisdictions that still recognize the ROC based in Taiwan as the sole legitimate government of China, it follows that this means they are each a party to the very firm view, embodied in the ROC Constitution, that there is only One China, which includes Taiwan. Therefore, bearing in mind that this is the view shared by all of those many other jurisdictions recognizing Beijing diplomatically, the One China principle continues, in essence, to be universally endorsed.

Although it is most unlikely that the then ROC President, Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT could have envisaged, in 1947, the particular, impulse-controlling – and unifying – influence of the remarkable ROC Constitution over 75 years later, we can surely be thankful that it continues to have this constructive, long-term impact.

Richard Cullen is a Professor of Law at the University of Hong Kong and a popular writer on public affairs.

Being open-minded about China cost me friendships

By Richard Cullen December 10, 2025

Long-term Hong Kong resident Richard Cullen reflects on politics, friendships and the Tai Po fire.

I first arrived to live and work in Hong Kong over 30 years ago. More recently I began to reflect on the way expressing my own political views on Hong Kong and China has reshaped some long-standing friendships. The recent terrible fire in Tai Po helped sharpen this focus.

Introduction

Good friendships are a cherished aspect of every life sensibly lived. Some last a very long time. Others are more short-lived, but are still deeply valued. Such relationships regularly adjust as we grow older, when circumstances change or when we relocate geographically, for example.

At certain times, particular intervening experiences can significantly reshape friendships. A well-known customary, social guideline (sometimes attributed to Mark Twain) anticipates this possibility; it advises that we should “never discuss politics or religion in polite company”.

G. K. Chesterton, on the other hand, advised that he never discussed, “anything else except politics and religion” as, “there is nothing else to discuss” (link here.)

Long before reading Chesterton’s advice, I confess I found politics too absorbing to exclude it from regular conversation.

Politics in Hong Kong- before and after 1997

After arriving in Hong Kong, I discovered an abundance of politics available for discussion. I also discovered how convergence theory heavily shaped such debates.

Bill Clinton was the US President from January 1993 until January 2001. He was a highly influential, primary advocate of convergence theory, which argued that by integrating China into global systems, including the WTO, this would foster gradual political liberalization in China and an eventual convergence with Western-liberal political norms like those outlined in Francis Fukuyama audacious, 1989 “End of History” article (link here.)

In the 1990s, this concept framed most Western interaction with China – and Hong Kong. I was one of many who found this hypothesis persuasive.

When I spoke or participated in seminars and conferences focused on Hong Kong and Chinese politics locally and internationally, I discovered that speakers and participants were mostly in broad (convergence) agreement. Though I also recall thoughtful pushback from certain Chinese participants.

Perspective adjusted

Around 15 years ago, I began to grasp how convergence theory was, in truth, a robustly evangelized, Western crafted view of what the West believed the future held for China. While it prevailed, significant Western academic, government, regulatory and business operatives treated it as indicative of how China would develop, implicitly imagining that this was also how Beijing essentially envisaged China’s own future.

The more I read, the more I began to comprehend how this was an exceptionally curious way of fundamentally framing virtually all aspects of Sino-Western interaction.

I also began to realize how the dogmatic political prescriptions of the pan-democrat opposition in Hong Kong (maddened by the perceived lack of political convergence in the HKSAR) were not just insistently growing; they were also hindering rational discussion of possible political change.

This was particularly evident as the deeply disruptive, 2014 Occupy Central Movement unfolded. Then came the extended, very violent, massive social-upheaval in 2019.

The latter movement swiftly spun-off (in mid-2019) from a series of major, sanctioned political demonstrations. Those most implacably opposed to the HKSAR government – and Beijing – evolved into an openly violent, disloyal opposition, significantly supported by Western operatives (see here.) They sort to upend the prevailing constitutional order, if possible, as they insisted that only their view of correct political structures was admissible (see link.)

The China Threat narrative

As these events unfolded, another primary, Western geopolitical shift revealed itself.

In 2018, The Economist confirmed that wayward Beijing had never accepted the guiding wisdom of that Western convergence theory (see here.) The Global West thus found itself looking for a substitute (Western) grand theory of what China had in mind for its own future.

This new widely embraced Sino-explanatory-scheme, fervently incubated in the US, is the China Threat storyline, sharply summarized by one scholar as a disfiguring narrative that casts China as a “scheming and highly sophisticated hostile foreign entity aiming for global dominance” (see here.) Its most radical advocates favour extreme containment measures (see this link.)

Handily for the marketers of this alarming replacement theory, China acquired a new leader in 2013, Xi, Jinping. The new president was reserved, highly experienced, deeply thoughtful, equally forceful and visibly proficient. Here was someone ready-made to be cast by the Western mainstream media as the personalized embodiment of the China Threat. (see link.)

Most of the resulting, Sino-hostile, Western commentary has pivoted around the artfully marketed, binary choice between white-hatted democracy and black-hatted authoritarianism.

Recently, however, Kishore Mahbubani, a widely respected geopolitical commentator highlighted the way this briskly fashioned, heavily sold dichotomy actively camouflaged the primary, ongoing East-West contest: competence vs dysfunction. Mahbubani, a former President of the UN Security Council, argues that China’s competence confirming, extraordinary rise is based on what he calls its MPH formula (Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty) (See link.)

The Tai Po Fire

The recent lethal, fearfully destructive high-rise fire in Tai Po prompted intense worldwide coverage It also provided a grim reminder of how, largely heedless of the visible personal anguish, many mainstream Western media outlets spotted a first-class, fresh opportunity to advance the bad-Hong-Kong-China storyline by brutally over-politicizing this tragedy (see link).

A central theme in such stories is that there is “mounting public fury” in Hong Kong and the “government is determined to suppress protest.” (see link.)

Talking of suppression, what is a lucidly evident within these same outlets, is a curbing of reports on how much Hong Kong is getting right, responding to the Tai Po fire, in exceptionally difficult circumstances (see link.)

This phenomenon – headlining flaws-in-the-glass – reminded me that, as the extended, massively destructive insurgent rioting unfolded in Hong Kong in 2019, a number of people told me how appalled they were at the response of the Hong Kong Police. Each time I asked them to name me a police force anywhere in the world that could have done better. Each time my question was typically answered with silence.

Of course, the HKSAR Government and institutional responses to the terrible Tai Po fire have not been perfect. But when, instead of comparing Hong Kong to some Perfect Government in the Sky, I tried, seriously (looking past the likes of Hurricane Katrina), to think of any contemporary Global West jurisdiction that had done a better job responding to a catastrophe on this scale, I drew a comprehensive blank.

The raw truth is that catastrophes on this scale present terrible, extraordinary challenges for governments worldwide. Including in Hong Kong.

Refocused writing and responses

The events and realizations outlined above have all steadily influenced my writing. Moreover, there has been so much feverish, sometimes risible China-thumping evident since the elevation of the China Threat storyline, that the allure of responding is almost irresistible. Consider, for example: Western media almost cheering on a projected possible collapse of the Three Gorges Dam (didn’t happen); or keenly anticipated catastrophes at the Beijing Winter Olympics (also didn’t happen) (See link.)

Next, I can see now, how subsequent reactions to this writing have reshaped a number of long-standing friendships.

Around a decade ago, a good friend in the antipodes thoughtfully suggested we should stop corresponding as they disagreed at a basic level with aspects of my writing. Later, another long-time friend told me (rather conclusively) after I began publishing articles in the China Daily, that I was “writing for Pravda” (the leading paper of the Communist Party in the former USSR) – an enterprise which was plainly held in low regard. A series of similar examples followed.

More recently, a good friend was robustly disturbed by an article I shared, written by the pre-eminent Australian Sinologist, Colin Mackerras, that explained the benefits, for Australia, to be found by developing an informed and measured view of China (see link).

The fact that mainstream Western media outlets rarely give space or time to distinguished international commentators like Chas Freeman, Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer is, in my view, an excellent reason to pay more attention to their perspectives. Professor Mearsheimer is particularly convincing when he argues why the Western-dominated unipolar world, led by the US, has come to an end. About two years ago he put it this way: “It’s very important to understand that what’s happened is that the unipolar moment is in the rearview mirror. It’s gone. We are now in a multipolar world” (see link).

Most of the nations comprising the Global West are either still in denial about what Mearsheimer argues or choose not to listen. America is the exemplar in this regard but many other anxious, obedient allies share this outlook.

The pattern I have outlined above, where friendships have been significantly reshaped and sometimes put into cold storage, has certainly not been a source of any pleasure but neither has it been too unsettling (see further below). It did, however, set me thinking about what may link these experiences.

I believe that most of these friends who have moved along share, to a significant degree, an instinctive, sometimes considered view that the best answers as to how the world should be ordered should still predominantly come from the West as they have done for so long (see link). Yet, many sense that the number sharing this view globally is unfortunately shrinking (see link).

The apparent, broad move away from a unipolar world (visible whenever you look beyond the Global West) is heightening apprehension, at an individual level, about the shift from a world plainly dominated by Western jurisdictions for several hundred years to one where this sort of certainty is evidently wobbling. The fact that the chief-wobbler is China, a hugely successful, distinctly non-white and non-Western civilization with thousands of years of continuous history, adds to the sense of alarm (see link.)

My hypothesis, thus, is that some friends find they disagree – often strongly – with aspects of what I have argued over the last decade, because what I write tends to reinforce existing apprehensions. Let me add, that: (a) I clearly believe in what I have written; but (b) it also clearly remains possible that friends who disagree could be right.

Conclusion

As it happens, I can only think of one case where someone was measurably bitter in their parting criticism. In all other cases, personally harsh words have never arisen. Indeed, even where friendships are no longer active, clear memories of those friendships remain exceptionally appreciated.

I should add that in many cases, I have had robust China-related exchanges where disagreements with long-time friends were plain but we remain in regular contact. Moreover, I have established various, very good, new friendships over the period under discussion.

Finally, Thomas Jefferson put it remarkably well, over 200 years ago: “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend” (see link).

Richard Cullen is an adjunct law professor at the University of Hong Kong and a popular writer on current affairs.

To see a list of articles he has written for this outlet, click this phrase.

Image at the top by fridayeveryday.

China news Chinese history Opinion

Japan election: Recycling the past to ruin the future

By Richard Cullen 1 day ago

Nostalgia for your country’s past military adventures is a common tool used by politicians. But when those adventures included the killing of tens of millions of people in neighboring countries and the use of rape as a weapon, that’s different. And when you propose reviving that army, that’s a serious concern for the world. A review of the past 100 years of Japan-China relations is an eye-opening journey that is vital to understand why the plan to revive the Japanese army is a huge issue in East Asia. Richard Cullen reports.

THE WORLD ORDER IS CHANGING

Primary geopolitical shifts are disturbing the longstanding world order. This has been so for over a decade. The resulting discomfort is most acutely felt in the developed world. Certain political leaders in that world have stepped forward – with increasing electoral success – to tell voters across many Global West jurisdictions that they can (somehow) make things be the way they were.Typically, such leaders encourage simmering anger and resentment within a given population, stressing how they recognize this distress and can provide an exceptional locus offering executive solutions to address their shared victimhood. The solutions marketed commonly stress how a return to a brightly visualized, splendidly better past era is within reach. However, that opportunity has to be emphatically (and martially) grasped.

Over the last decade, Donald Trump’s political rise and modus operandi have – repeatedly embellished with horrific levels of military violence –exemplified this process (link). Versions of this species of vehement political evolution were evident, especially in Europe, during the two decades following the end of World War I. Many have argued that the winning Brexit referendum campaign followed a similar pattern (link).

Japan as the victim

Japan, it transpires, first set off down this road around 100 years ago.

Imperial, militarizing Japan proved highly successful in the first comparatively short wars it fought with China (1894–1895) and Russia (1904–1905) acquiring substantial Chinese territory in both cases (link).

Subsequently, Japan’s radical economic and fierce military expansion in East Asia encountered greater pushback, including from the West. It was also badly affected by the global depression, which began in America in 1929. Japan’s initial whirlwind glory thus began to face serious headwinds. By the 1930s, Imperial Japan laid increasing stress its victim status, thereby grounding intense Japanese advocacy stressing how Tokyo must respond drastically to ensure its survival.

The next step was to use the term “survival-threatening situation” (or self-defence) as a pretext to justify Japan’s military invasions across Manchuria and then all of China and later throughout South East Asia and across the Pacific. This naked aggression was boldly framed by Tokyo as vital to protect Japan’s growing offshore conquests and economic interests. It finally steered Japan towards its infamous surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in late 1941, triggering the Pacific war (link).

Pacifist Japan

This ultimately led to Japan’s complete defeat and surrender, in 1945. Given the industrial muscle marshalled by Imperial Japan and the exceptional ferocity of its warmongering, the US imposed a conclusively pacifist postwar constitution on subjugated Japan. Article 9 provides that “Japan permanently renounces war as a sovereign right and the threat or use of force to settle international disputes.” A self-defence force is permitted but Japan is prohibited from maintaining land, sea, and air forces, which could be used to initiate and wage war.

Challenging pacifist Japan: Chapter one

Notwithstanding this constitutional imposition, Japan has struggled, since 1945, to admit its profound, unqualified collective responsibility for the grotesque horrors it imposed on Asian and Pacific neighbors, and especially on China.

The catalogue of atrocities, stretching over several decades, is staggeringly wicked, involving tens of millions of murdered civilians, massive levels of rape and torture combined with enslaved prostitution and the unspeakably evil medical experimentation of Unit 731.

According to the Genocide Education Project, the Rape of Nanjing alone saw around 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers massacred (half the total population) and over 20,000 women raped with most then murdered (link).

Most harrowing to read are first-hand accounts of how systematically sadistic the methods chosen by the Japanese were, in order to terrify the locals in freshly conquered areas (link).

An elite, influential ultra-nationalist minority – previously led by right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (assassinated in 2022) – has long been deeply discontented by the Article 9, constitutional limitation. The extraordinary rise of China is what now most troubles these present-day admirers of Japan’s past imperial victories. These same people presumably also worry about how that ruthless history must shape the way China still regards Japan.

Abe was strongly influenced by his brutal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi known as the “Monster of the Showa Era.” Kishi was imprisoned after the war as a Class A War Criminal suspect and then released by the Americans to become a fervent anti-communist Japanese Prime Minister from 1957 – 1960 (link).

Jake Adelstein, a long-term observer of Japan, noted, last year, how Abe was the grandson of a war criminal, who muzzled the press, bullied broadcasters, and faked statistics (link).

In 2013, the BBC reported how Abe employed his own version of militant nostalgia to boost his aggressive, nationalist electoral appeal. The scheme involved actively provoking Beijing to ramp up claims of a serious threat to a Japan left vulnerable by that humiliating article 9 in the American imposed constitution (link).

Challenging pacifist Japan: Chapter two

The landslide winner in the recent election in Japan, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a long-term protégé of Abe, sees herself as his robust successor (link). Mimicking Abe during the campaign, Takaichi portrayed Japan as a victim living beneath China’s menacing shadow, advocating dramatic and expensive re-militarization in order to restore Japan’s former radiance.

Soon after taking on the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Ms Takaichi stressed that Japan may face a another “survival threatening situation” if Beijing ever used military power to impose a naval blockade on Taiwan. The Mainichi, a leading Japanese daily paper, said that: “Previous administrations had always avoided directly linking the exercise of collective self-defense to a Taiwan contingency” (link).

A recent Reuters report argued that:

By labelling a potential attack by the People’s Liberation Army on the self-ruled island claimed by China as “a situation threatening Japan’s survival”, the prime minister has reinforced Beijing’s concerns over a historical foe with ambitions to remilitarise. …. The phrase uttered in parliament on Wednesday is a legal description introduced in 2015 which, if invoked, allows the premier to deploy the country’s Self-Defense Forces (link).

Takaichi’s deliberate choice of this term, with its belligerent 1930s resonance, was aimed at provoking a harsh response from Beijing and confirming her hardline posture with like-minded LDP members prior to the election she was planning (all of which had worked for Abe). Here was Japan’s first female prime minister speaking to the electorate, casting Tokyo as a confected target and offering her own “Iron Lady” militarized solutions to address their shared victimhood.

William Favre, an historian of modern Japan, recently summarized the essence of her political approach in this way:

“Her language on China is among the toughest of any Japanese leader. She has warned of Beijing’s growing military and economic influence and expressed suspicion toward Chinese diaspora communities in Japan, suggesting they may serve as conduits for espionage—comments that drew domestic backlash for xenophobic undertones but resonated with nationalist audiences” (link).

It significantly helps politicians like Takaichi that Japanese nationalists have, for many decades, effectively enforced the sanitation of wartime, text book narratives used in Japanese schooling (link). Most Japanese voters grow-up with a limited understanding, at most, of the repetitive, grotesquely horrific behaviour of the Japanese military forces during the imperial era.

Challenging pacifist Japan: Chapter three

Takaichi’s most urgent goal is to revise Article 9 of Japan’s 1947 Constitution. Unlike Abe’s reinterpretation in 2015, which permitted collective self-defence, Takaichi seeks a formal amendment to recast the present Japan Self-Defence Forces (JSDF) as an uninhibited, national military force. She argues that only by doing so can Japan normalise its security posture in the era of great-power competition and effectively counter threats from North Korea and China.

This is an ominous project that, inescapably, draws one’s attention to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shinto Shrine. This wartime memorial offers conspicuous, long-term, menacing confirmation of the active evasion of historical responsibility (including, at times, atrocity denial) entrenched within certain Japanese elite sectors.

Imagine if named leading Nazi military figures, such as Goering, Himmler and Rommel, had been enshrined in Cologne Cathedral, after Germany’s surrender in 1945. And, in accord with this arrangement, sympathizers – including current senior German political leaders – could visit to venerate or send tributes.

In fact, in the case of Germany, this is inconceivable given the acute collective understanding of the need to stress continuing atonement for Germany’s monstruous Nazi past and to ensure that that history can never be openly venerated in any way (link).

But in Japan the inconceivable is entirely conceivable. Visitors to the Yasukuni Shrine pay respect, there, to over two million who have fallen fighting for Japan, including over 1,000 convicted war criminals and 14 enshrined class A war criminals.

This ill-famed edifice provides an alarming reminder of the embedded nature of the project to secure a militarist rebirth of Japan. Prior to his assassination, Shinzo Abe visited once whilst Prime Minister and he regularly sent tributes. It is relatively common for senior, serving Japanese politicians to send tributes to this shrine (link).

Sanei Takaichi, Abe’s striking protégé, previously visited the Yasukuni Shrine, including as a government minister.

Conclusion

China remains Japan’s leading trading partner. When combined, Mainland China and Hong Kong, take over 25% of Japanese exports (link). Moreover, according to Australia’s Lowy Institute, Japanese direct and indirect investment in China keep rising (link). On balance, this trading experience has been very good for China- and immensely good for Japan, as most Japanese businessmen will confirm.

However, the extraordinary, wholly peaceful rise of China during the last half-century has, in much of the Global West, fuelled puzzlement, followed by envy leading to intense resentment and even infuriation. Now that dismal pattern is conspicuously evident in Japan.

Thus, although reckless, Takaichi’s recent statement on the Taiwan dispute was plainly deliberate: it was aimed at vexing Beijing and pleasing fellow ultra-conservatives, who want to ramp-up military spending remarkably. It also threw red meat to the powerful posse of influential Washington war-hawks who would, today (like their soulmates in Japan) love to put Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to the sword.

To allow this to happen would be very bad for Japan. First, it would promptly accelerate the degradation of regional trust in Tokyo. Next, and worse still, it would undermine the pivotal project of maintaining peace in Asia (and globally).

Japan’s depraved martial history continues to inform the fevered mindset of certain Japanese elites. These are the people who, today, seek far more weapons to back up amplified use of Japan’s fearsome rising sun war flag. It is incontestable that Japan, Asia and the world need Japan to remain bound by Article 9 – unreformed.

Truth trumps fiction, as Donald trumps expectations

ByRichard CullenFebruary 3, 2026

Evelyn Waugh was an exceptional English novelist. His best political satires were very good. Truth, though, can still outwit the best fiction, says Richard Cullen

A LIVELY SHORT STORY published by Evelyn Waugh in late 1932, entitled “Incident in Azania” discussed events that unfolded on an imaginary, colonial island off the East Coast of Africa. Azania was a joint Anglo-French protectorate, with the British acting as the managing condominium partner (link).

Various British officials and business folk are officiating awkwardly but intensely and continuously, when Prunella Brooks (a typical Waugh female character) arrives in Azania. Prunella is young, beguiling, rather dazzling – and shrewdly self-serving. Local awkwardness and intensity move up a gear, aided by a lift in pink gin consumption.

Lethal banditry is afoot in Azania. Prunella, it transpires, is able to align herself smoothly with this bandit element and – under the eyes of the supervising British elite – organize a “fishy kidnapping” of herself prior to making off with the sizeable ransom, free as a bird, back to England.

This entertaining short satire (like several others) relies on Waugh’s trademark, improbable mix of dim, sharp, blimpish, cunning, enticing, charming and desperate characters in order to sustain the incredible plot and, thus, deliver the critical-comic effect.

Nevertheless, as splendid as Waugh may be, a recent detailed report in the English edition of The Chosun Daily, a conservative paper of record in South Korea, provides convincing evidence that President Trump now has the jump on Waugh when it comes to fabricating extraordinary narratives (link).

The newspaper features a composite photo (above) lately posted by President Trump, himself, on his social media platform, Truth Social. The report explains how this (enhanced) image combines:

• A photo taken in August, 2025, when European leaders visited the White House to discuss a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire; with

• A remarkable, superimposed, background display map showing American flags drawn over Greenland, Canada and Venezuela.

The report further explains how the August photo has been enriched by depicting all those European leaders now “listening intently as Trump explains a plan to incorporate foreign territories”.

Soon after posting the first augmented photo, the president shared “another composite photo of himself [accompanied by J D Vance and Marco Rubio] holding a massive American flag on Greenland soil with a sign reading, ‘Greenland, U.S. Territory from 2026’.” (Below.)

If we did not know better, it would be reasonable to conclude that the fabrication of all this weirdly altered imagery was the work of some beastly foe bent on satirizing the President as a person who combines exceptional vanity with comprehensive moral vacuity.

But we do know better. This is how President Trump normally approaches the world.

Anyone in any doubt about this need only recall how he has populated the Trump administration with a cast of real-life leading characters sufficiently incredible to rival those found in any Waugh story (click image below).

How to explain the West’s curious relationship with Jimmy Lai?

By Richard Cullen

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The lengthy trial of Jimmy Lai Chee-ying on collusion and sedition charges concluded on Dec 15, 2025, with a guilty verdict, about two years after it began. This trial has been followed intensely — and selectively — by many Western commentators and mainstream Western media outlets.

This audacious choose-and-report pattern is unsurprising. It is a technique first developed and applied long ago to empower selective Western responses to and reporting on designated adversaries.

Thus, in February 2016, The Economist candidly described the extreme overnight violence in Kowloon as the Year of the Monkey began as Hong Kong’s “worst outbreak of rioting since the 1960s”. In the next few years, however, the Western grand narrative on Hong Kong underwent a sweeping adjustment. As a consequence, the intensely more violent and damaging, multi-month “black-clad riots” that began in mid-2019, were willfully and continuously sanitized as “pro-democracy protests” by virtually all mainstream Western media outlets. They still are.

A more recent example also comes to mind. After the United States visited a wave of bombing, killing, hijacking, kidnapping, and planned looting on Venezuela, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom waited 16 hours before responding, and then advised that “at the moment, we need to establish the facts”.

About a week after this deadly, illegal American attack, Russia fired an advanced Oreshnik missile at Lviv in Ukraine. This may have been some sort of “demonstration-strike” as the missile apparently carried a non-explosive warhead. This time, the UK found there was zero need “to wait for the facts”, almost immediately expressing anger at the United Nations while calling it a “reckless attack” threatening regional and international security.

There are resonances here with a narrative device employed by Hollywood in early Wild West movies. In these black-and-white films, the heroes and the villains had to be clearly signaled, so the audience could more easily follow the story. A convention developed of having the good guys wear white hats while the bad guys wore black hats.

Several decades ago (when the British still ruled Hong Kong), as Lai’s business and political activities first began to be reported in the West, the commentary was comparatively dispassionate. Lai was, however, never “black-hatted”.

Rather than the judges presiding at the trial, it was the collective team of Western political, legal, and media commentators who prejudged the outcome of the trial as it began in 2023. Never mind the evidence, the white-hatted Lai was anointed in advance to emerge at the trial’s end as an emphatically innocent victim of a deeply prejudicial legal process

Today, when you read or hear Western coverage of Lai’s activities — and especially coverage of his recent, extensive trial — many such stories feel like they are figuratively shouting “white hat, white hat” whenever they indicate Lai and “black hat, black hat” whenever they identify Beijing and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.

This perspective helps explain something that initially puzzled me as the trial of Lai involving the Hong Kong SAR National Security Law got underway. What I found odd was the way weeks of critical testimony against Lai, presented substantially by former colleagues from The Apple Daily newspaper and others who had worked with him, went largely unreported in mainstream Western media outlets.

I conjectured, then, that this was because this testimony was too awkward. Given that these same Western media outlets had long before locked in the white-hatted Lai persona, the smart thing to do at that stage in the trial was to essentially ignore the detailed, incriminating evidence and, as needs be, smother it in gratuitous accusations attacking the trial process.

Rather than the judges presiding at the trial, it was the collective team of Western political, legal, and media commentators who prejudged the outcome of the trial as it began in 2023. Never mind the evidence, the white-hatted Lai was anointed in advance to emerge at the trial’s end as an emphatically innocent victim of a deeply prejudicial legal process.

Yet the evidence against Lai was still starkly there. And it is methodically spelled out in the comprehensive joint judgment of over 800 pages.

Some may conscientiously differ with this view, but I believe that when considered carefully, the evidence was, as the three judges eventually found, compelling. We also need to remember that the trial findings remain subject to appeal.

Meanwhile, the Western white-hat commentary on Lai is intensifying. There is, in fact, a deeper reason that extends well beyond the recent guilty verdict confirming Lai’s criminal behavior, which helps explain this.

Over the past several years, the Western, globalized, political morality template has been exposed as grotesquely compromised.

What many regard as the best humanist values gifted to the world by the Enlightenment have been incinerated in the Middle East. Israel and the US (in tandem and leading their pilot fish Western allies) have created a genocidal sea of blood and utter destruction in Gaza and beyond. The Gaza genocide is to the Global West what the Guernica atrocity was to Nazi Germany and fascist Europe almost 90 years ago, greatly multiplied.

This US-led, bombs-away approach to geopolitical decision-making and score-settling is also evident in Ukraine, where a Russian invasion was triggered by Western provocation. And now the world’s paramount hoodlum democracy is darkly menacing all non-quisling states in Latin America after the attack noted above on Venezuela.

Prominent US commentator Chas Freeman recently observed that if this pattern of appalling behavior spearheaded by the US is not stopped, “we are headed for a second Dark Age”. Ambassador Freeman also noted how the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, “has just warned us that we are in the midst of a breakdown of values that is turning the world into a den of robbers”.

Within this forbidding context, one can see why maintaining an adamantly white-hatted, democracy icon in the form of Jimmy Lai is so important: It provides something for continuing believers in the profoundly damaged Western regime of universal human rights to cling to, as that regime frighteningly crumbles around them.

The author is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law, Hong Kong University.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

SAVING WHAT’S LEFT OF WESTERN LIBERALISM

by

Richard Cullen

_____________________________________________

The geopolitical editor at The Economist, David Rennie, recently completed an interview with Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland where they discussed Mr Stubb’s “plan to save the liberal world order” (see: https://www.economist.com/insider/inside-geopolitics/finlands-president-has-a-plan-to-save-the-liberal-world-order). Here is a brief report card highlighting some of the challenges facing this worthy rescue mission.

We know that the enduring heartland of liberalism is the Western world. So, how does it look today:

· The Global West is led by an Orange Emperor who rashly rules from the Hill Billy White House (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/a-hillbilly-white-house-and-the-wisdom-of-peasants/) with a cabinet featuring a team of money-baron buddies who look like they stepped out of a menacing, satirical political novel (https://fridayeveryday.com/truth-trumps-fiction-as-trump-trumps-expectations/).

· That remarkable leader is in charge of what is now the world’s paramount hoodlum democracy, as it swaggers from one side of the globe to the other, transcendentally bombing, killing and destroying on an extraordinary scale while also applying homicidal levels of economic strangulation to its anointed foes (and certain allies, if needs be) (see: https://fridayeveryday.com/transcendental-banditry/).

· Meanwhile, the US and most of its pilot-fish muchachos have teamed up with an extremely violent terrorist state in the Middle East, to embrace and fuel the Gaza genocide so that, for the rest of the world - beyond their sinister Western-bubble - Gaza looks as emblematically wicked as Guernica in 1937 but many times worse (see: https://www.nationofchange.org/2025/08/29/from-guernica-to-gaza/).

· And, most recently, we have heard a powerful argument from the US Secretary of State explaining to the Global South how the white man’s burden remains a primary Western responsibility (see: https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/02/17/more-shockingly-honest-confessions-from-the-empire-managers/). .

Unhelpfully for Mr Stubb and The Economist, all this enduring, massively destructive, homicidal Western adventurism continues to be heavily marketed as advancing democracy, punishing human rights abuses and crushing repression (see: https://johnmenadue.com/post/2026/02/time-for-non-western-nations-to-shun-the-western-worlds-economic-forum/).

Good luck to President Stubb who clearly still believes the patient is not beyond saving.