1/07/2022

Biden & Jan. 6 riots | Jan. 7, 2022

 

President Biden on January 6th U.S. Capitol Attack Anniversary (FULL REMARKS)
Jan 6, 2022
President Biden speaks on the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He delivers his remarks in Statuary Hall in the Capitol. Included in his remarks: "The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle...because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our constitution. He can't accept he lost." "He's not just a former president. He's a defeated former president." "You can't love your country only when you win." "I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today. But I will not shrink from it either. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy."
Remarks By President Biden To Mark One Year Since The January 6th Deadly Assault On The U.S. Capitol

JANUARY 06, 2022SPEECHES AND REMARKS

THE PRESIDENT:  Madam Vice President, my fellow Americans: To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked — simply attacked.  The will of the people was under assault.  The Constitution — our Constitution — faced the gravest of threats.

Outnumbered and in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard, and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law.

Our democracy held.  We the people endured.  And we the people prevailed.

For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol.

But they failed.  They failed.

And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.

I’m speaking to you today from Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol.  This is where the House of Representatives met for 50 years in the decades leading up to the Civil War.  This is — on this floor is where a young congressman of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, sat at desk 191. 

Above him — above us, over that door leading into the Rotunda — is a sculpture depicting Clio, the muse of history.  In her hands, an open book in which she records the events taking place in this chamber below.

Clio stood watch over this hall one year ago today, as she has for more than 200 years.  She recorded what took place.  The real history.  The real facts.  The real truth.  The facts
and the truth that Vice President Harris just shared and that you and I and the whole world saw with our own eyes.

The Bible tells us that we shall know the truth, and the truth shall make us free.  We shall know the truth.

Well, here is the God’s truth about January 6th, 2021:

Close your eyes.  Go back to that day.  What do you see? Rioters rampaging, waving for the first time inside this Capitol a Confederate flag that symbolized the cause to destroy America, to rip us apart.

Even during the Civil War, that never, ever happened.  But it happened here in 2021...     
more
JANUARY 6, 2022 | PART OF PRES. BIDEN & VICE PRES. HARRIS SPEAK ON JAN. 6 ANNIVERSARY
President Biden and Vice President Harris on January 6 Anniversary
​President Biden and Vice President Harris spoke from Statuary Hall on the one year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. Vice President Harris spoke of the “fragility” and strength of democracy. President Biden said former President Donald Trump “has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election” and that his predecessor “can’t accept he lost.” 

JANUARY 6, 2022
​White House Daily Briefing
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki held a briefing on the Biden administration’s legislative agenda. She answered several questions on President Biden’s speech from earlier in the day marking the first anniversary of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Other topics discussed during the briefing were on voting rights legislation, support for Senate rule changes, and the U.S. Postal Service’s request for a temporary exemption to the government’s vaccine mandate. 

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, January 6, 2022

JANUARY 06, 2022PRESS BRIEFINGS
 
MS. PSAKI: Hi, everyone.
 
Q  Hi. Good afternoon.
 
MS. PSAKI: Good afternoon. Okay, I have nothing for you at the top.
 
Darlene, why don’t you kick us off?
 
Q  Thank you. That’s so unusual. So unlike you. (Laughs.)
 
MS. PSAKI: I know. (Laughs.) I do — I do like to load you up with updates, so stay tuned for the next briefing.
 
Q  So, I have one question on the speech and then two other topics I wanted to get to.
 
But often when we ask President Biden about Donald Trump, he will tell us, you know, he’s not thinking about the former president, he doesn’t want to talk to him. So, obviously, he had to think about him in order to deliver that forceful speech today. So I’m just wondering why he didn’t deliver this kind of speech before today — six months ago, a month after the insurrection, or whatever.
 
And also, since we are barreling toward an election this year, will he resurrect some of the themes that he sounded this morning?
 
MS. PSAKI: Sure. Well, let me first say, to remind you all, that the President launched his campaign on the idea that the former president posed a unique threat to the soul of our country, and he made that point throughout the campaign and over the last year in office.
 
I wouldn’t say — or we would argue the point that he ever shied away from making clear that form- — that his predecessor, former President Trump, was a threat to democracy, posed a threat to democracy throughout the course of his presidency — and that was a root reason why President Biden ran for office.
 
I would say, in terms of looking forward, you know, you all heard him make a very passionate case today — the fact that we are at an inflection point; the fact that in order to protect our democracy, to preserve it moving forward, there’s more that we need to do.
 
And I talked with him about this after the speech today, and he made very clear that the risk we have here at — at stake here is our democracy, is burying what happened on January 6th, is not taking action — not just in words but in action — to protect people’s fundamental rights.
 
You will obviously hear him speak next Tuesday about voting rights — something he touched on very briefly today — because he will be giving this speech next Tuesday, and you will hear him making the case about the fact that we are at an inflection point, there’s more that we need to do, and we need to do everything we can to ensure the dark day in our history that happened one year ago today is not buried...     more
 Biden condemns Trump as a threat to democracy in speech marking one year since January 6 attack

Jan. 7 - ..But the President's blistering speech nonetheless confronted Trump's election lies and post-presidency behavior, accusing him of spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election, refusing to accept defeat and holding him accountable for inciting a violent mob of his supporters to storm the US Capitol.

"A former President of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country's interest and America's interest," Biden said.

Biden again emphasized the core message of his 2020 presidential campaign and the reason why he ran against Trump: "We are in a battle for the soul of America."

The President warned democracy and the "promise of America" is at risk and called on the American public to "stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy."

He called for protecting voting rights across the nation and blasted Trump and his supporters for attempting to "suppress your vote and subvert our elections."


"It's wrong. It's undemocratic. And frankly it's un-American," Biden said...    quoted from CNN Politics


​U.S. Puts Thorniest Ukraine Issue Off the Table in Russia Talks

Jan. 7 - ...Putin regularly raises what he describes as the risk the U.S. will park nuclear weapons closer to his borders, even as he’s boasted that Russia possesses a new generation of hypersonic missiles capable of evading NATO defenses. U.S. and NATO officials have repeatedly said they view the alliance as defensive in nature. 

His rhetoric has increased since 2019, when the U.S. pulled out of a Cold War-era pact with Russia that barred the deployment of ground-based ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers -- either nuclear or conventional. 


The Trump White House cited what it called long-time violations by Russia for the withdrawal.

Several current and former U.S. and European officials familiar with America’s strategy for the talks acknowledge it’s fraught with risk and may not work. But, according to those officials, the two sides are so badly at odds over Ukraine, with so little chance of resolving that issue anytime soon, that they need to look elsewhere for potential progress or at least to buy time.

Either way, the Geneva talks will set the tone for the broader meetings that follow. Alongside the bilateral U.S.-Russia discussions -- seen by Moscow as the most important -- there will be a meeting of the NATO-Russia council in Brussels next week, then a conversation in Vienna within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe framework.

The current U.S. assessment is that Russia would need about 10 days to complete preparations for an invasion, should Putin decide to act. That has officials looking at a window from mid-January to the end of February as a potential crunch time. 

According to a Ukrainian military map compiled around the New Year and seen by Bloomberg News, Russia now has 52 battalion tactical groups in close proximity to Ukraine. Russia has also developed capabilities to deploy more units in a short period of time, from one to two weeks, the Ukrainian assessment shows...     quoted from BNN Bloomberg

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Ukraine’s Army Is Underfunded and Not Ready to Stop an Invasion
Why Russia-Ukraine Tensions Are So Hard to Defuse: QuickTake



Putin's one-two punch European strategy to defeat America

​Jan. 6 - On Jan. 9, the Biden administration will begin negotiations in Geneva over the “Putin Ultimatum,” two sets of demands presented to the U.S. and NATO. If accepted, they would destroy 30 years of post-Cold War European security policy while opening the path to Russian Empire 3.0 — the latest imperial iteration after the Romanoffs and the Soviets.

Russia’s irridentist push is the most serious challenge to the U.S. presence in Europe and to the Atlantic Alliance since the Berlin crises of the 1940s and 1960s. The Kremlin wants to reverse 30 years of post-Cold War peace and 75 years of relative stability in Europe following the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany, guaranteed by the 1975 Helsinki Accords and the 1990 Paris Declaration.

Moscow’s anti-status quo verve could lead to a Cuban missile crisis-style escalation, with unpredictable consequences. The Biden administration and NATO allies should pay close attention to the Kremlin’s threats — and be fully prepared to deter potential aggression.

The dual goal of Putin’s ultimatum is to emasculate NATO, creating a geo-strategic space to swallow Belarus and possibly Ukraine, while denying the alliance options to oppose Russian imperial rebuilding. Moscow is doing this simultaneously with Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan, threatening to open two far-flung fronts against the U.S., in Europe and the Pacific...     more


No, You Should Not Try to Get Omicron

Jan. 6 - But even if Omicron is on the whole milder than other variants, it will still be catastrophic for some people. On Jan. 3 alone, more than 1,400 people in the U.S. died from COVID-19 and more than 100,000 were hospitalized with the virus. Unvaccinated, elderly and medically vulnerable people are at the highest risk, but there’s no 100% guarantee for anyone. There’s also no way to know if you’re exposing yourself to the Omicron variant versus the still-circulating and more-severe Delta variant, since consumer tests do not differentiate between different strains...     more

12/31/2021

COViD, Biden & Putin | Dec. 31, 2021

 Joe Biden, American voters on different pages when it comes to COVID


​New Rasmussen poll: voters increasingly fear worst of pandemic isn’t over but they’re ready to move on from restrictions any way

Dec. 31 - As the pandemic enters its third year in the midst of another soaring outbreak, the American people and their president are on different pages of this non-fiction horror story.


Joe Biden prematurely declared the virus defeated in July, but Americans are increasingly convinced the worst of a pandemic that has already killed 800,000 citizens lies ahead.

Biden and his COVID sidekick, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also are preaching to cancel indoor New Year’s parties and to mask up as the Omicron variant speeds across the country on the same path as its Delta variant predecessor a few months back.

But the American people are signaling they want to move on from such restrictions, returning to life as normal while cognizant of the risks.

In other words, they’re tired of the big government lockdowns and flip-flopping advice and increasingly trust themselves to navigate the peril that lies ahead.

Those are the messages inherent in the latest polling from Scott Rasmussen unveiled this week, which found just 27% of voters now believe that the worst of the pandemic is behind us. The December figure is a stunning 29-point decline from Americans' peak optimism in May, Rasmussen said.

Nearly half of America – 46% to be exact -- now believes COVID-19’s worst wrath is yet to come...     more
'We're Prepared': Biden Speaks With Governors About Covid Response Efforts
Dec 28, 2021
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Biden discuss Ukraine tensions with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Dec 31, 2021


Background Press Call by a Senior Administration Official on President Biden’s Call with President Putin of the Russian Federation

DECEMBER 30, 2021PRESS BRIEFINGSVia Teleconference


MODERATOR:  Thank you.  Good evening, everyone.  And thanks for joining us.  A reminder that this call will be on background, attributed to a “senior administration official,” and the contents are going to be embargoed until the conclusion of the call.

We will have an official readout of the call out shortly, attributed to Jen Psaki.  But for now, we’ll go ahead and begin the background portion of our readout.

Our speaker today is going to be [senior administration official]. 
[Senior administration official], over to you.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL:  Thanks very much.  And thanks, everybody. 

So while this call took place at the government of Russia’s request, it’s consistent with our view that head of state engagements, particularly between these two countries, and particularly going into the intensive period of diplomacy that is to come, not next week but the week after, is appropriate and the best way of moving forward on the very serious situation that we face.

The tone of the conversation between the two presidents was serious and substantive.  They each framed their positions as they’ve done in previous calls and also as they have done publicly.

President Biden laid out two paths, two aspects of the U.S. approach that will really depend on Russia’s actions in the period ahead.  One is a path of diplomacy leading toward a de-escalation of the situation, and the other is a path that’s more focused on deterrence, including serious costs and consequences should Russia choose to proceed with a further invasion of Ukraine. 

And those costs include economic costs, include adjustments and augmentations of NATO force posture in Allied countries, and include additional assistance to Ukraine to enable it to further defend itself and its territory, as we’ve laid out previously.

The leaders agreed to the sequence of Strategic Stability Dialogue starting on the 9th and 10th in Geneva, a NATO-Russia Council conversation on the 12th, and an OSCE meeting on the 13th.  They both discussed the importance of pragmatic, results-oriented diplomacy.  And I think President Biden very much saw this call as seeking to set the conditions for that.


President Biden was very clear that the United States will be operating on the principle of “nothing about you without you”: no conversations about issues that are of ultimate concern to our partners and allies without the full consultation and participation of our partners and allies — which President Putin said that he understood.

Both leaders acknowledged that there were likely to be areas where we could make meaningful progress as well as areas where agreements may be impossible, and that the upcoming talks would determine more precisely the contours of each of those categories.  That’s what diplomacy is.  That’s what negotiations are for...     more
3 Key Takeaways From Joe Biden's Phone Call With Vladimir Putin

​Dec. 30 -...Russia has in recent weeks asked NATO to refuse membership to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union. The country has also instructed the U.S. and allied countries to remove or reduce their military support for Ukraine.

​On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State 
Antony Blinken spoke with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone. After the call, Zelensky tweeted that the U.S. said it will provide "full" support against "Russian aggression"...

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President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speak today amid tensions over Ukraine
Dec 31, 2021
Biden, Putin to talk Thursday amid heightened tensions over Ukraine

It's the leaders' second call this month as Russia menaces its neighbor.


Dec. 30 - President Joe Biden will speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday -- their second conversation this month amid heightened fears of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.


The call, which the Biden administration said comes at Putin's request, is the latest effort to defuse those tensions diplomatically.


But tens of thousands of Russian troops remain near Ukraine's borders, and bellicose rhetoric from Russian officials and state propaganda have Western officials on edge still.


The U.S. and European allies have threatened unprecedented economic penalties for Moscow if it attacks Ukraine, nearly eight years after its forces seized the Crimean Peninsula and sparked a war in Ukraine's eastern provinces known as Donbas.


Sanctions and other penalties have not brought that conflict to an end, with approximately 14,000 people killed and Russian-led separatists still fighting Ukrainian forces. U.S. officials say it's unclear if Putin has decided to attack again in an all-out invasion, but Biden has already made clear U.S. forces will not come to Kyiv's aid on the battlefield.


Instead, the Biden administration is hoping deterrence and diplomacy will stop Putin. A senior administration official said they "cannot speak to why the Russian side has requested the call," but added both leaders believe there is "genuine value in direct leader to leader engagement."


"I think we are at a moment of crisis and have been for some weeks now given the Russian build-up and that it will take a high level of engagement to address this and to try to find a path of de-escalation," the official told reporters Wednesday...     more

12/24/2021

Russian President Putin | Dec. 24, 2021

 DECEMBER 23, 2021

​Russian President Putin Holds Year-End News Conference
Russian President Vladimir Putin held his annual year-end news conference in Moscow, which lasted just under four hours. During this almost 90-minute portion, he answered a wide range of questions on the economy, relations with China and Belarus, the Olympics, his political future, and the situation in Ukraine. On whether he would guarantee no military actions against Ukraine, he inferred it was the U.S. and NATO being the aggressors against Russia. He went on to say Russia is not a threat to anyone, and if "you want guarantees from me, you should come up with guarantees, right now, immediately, and not to keep talking about this for decades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds annual press conference |
​Latest World English News

​ Dec 23, 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding an annual press conference. The focus primarily will be on the Russia-Ukraine border conflict and crackdown against political opponents and media.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has wound up his annual end-of-year press conference, having taken questions on the Kremlin’s policy positions at home and abroad, amid strained relations with the West, high rates of Covid-19 deaths and pressure on a range of domestic political issues.
NATO, China, anti-vaxxers: Putin wraps up 2021 with a major press-conference


Russian leader set out his opinion on everything from conflict with NATO to the anti-vaxx movement.

Date published on Dec. 24, 2021

Talks with NATO

Last week, Moscow issued a series of proposals to both Washington and NATO as part of a bid to seek assurances that the US-led military bloc will not expand closer to its borders. The demands include written guarantees that the ambitions of Ukrainian politicians to join will not be realized, with the Kremlin having long described the prospect of Western troops and hardware being deployed to the former Soviet Republic as a red line.

Just a day before, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that talks would soon take place between Russian officials and American diplomats, as early as January next year. However, Putin insisted, meetings alone would not be seen as enough. “We don’t care about negotiations, we want results,” the President blasted. “Not an inch to the East they told us in the 1990s, and look what happened – they cheated us, vehemently and blatantly.”

“Now they’re saying that they will have Ukraine as well. This means they will deploy their weapons there, even if it's not officially part of NATO,” he went on. According to the Russian leader, it is now up to the US-led bloc to come up with guarantees “immediately,” instead of continuously talking about it “for decades.”     more

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​Russian President Vladimir Putin claims NATO lied to Moscow when it pledged not to expand eastwards.
China will end US dominance – Putin
Beijing is on the cusp of overtaking America as the powerhouse of global trade, the Russian president has argued.

Dec. 24 - Within the next three decades, China will surpass the US in every aspect of its economy, Vladimir Putin said, predicting that America will lose its position of dominance in finance and trade.

​Speaking to journalists at his annual end-of-year press conference on Thursday, Putin pointed out that “today, China’s economy is already larger than America’s in terms of purchasing power parity.” According to him, “by 2035-2050, it will have surpassed it and China will become the leading economy in the world according to all metrics.”

However, the Russian president continued, the West is working to undermine the world’s most populous nation and strangle its growth. The US-led boycott of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing purportedly over human rights abuses is an attempt to make sure China “cannot raise its head” above its competitors, he added.


Putin blasted the decision as “unacceptable and erroneous,” and an “attempt to restrain the development of the People’s Republic of China.” Washington announced the decision over concerns for the safety of tennis player Peng Shuai, who disappeared from public for several weeks after accusing former vice premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. The Women’s Tennis Association has suspended all tournaments in the East Asian nation in response.

Earlier this month, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks via video link amid escalating tensions between the two nations and the West. In the wake of the discussions, the Kremlin revealed that the pair had agreed to develop a shared financial system to reduce reliance on US-dominated platforms. The move appears to be a response to a series of warnings that Western nations could push to disconnect Russia from the Brussels-based SWIFT financial system as a form of sanction.

During the press conference on Thursday, Putin said China is his country’s number-one partner, adding that “we have very trusting relations and it helps us build good business ties as well.”
“We are cooperating in the field of security. The Chinese Army is equipped to a significant extent with the world’s most advanced weapons systems. We are even developing certain high-tech weapons together,” the Russian leader added.

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Kremlin reveals new independent Russian-Chinese financial systems



美雇佣兵欲在乌使用化武?普京:俄无处可退 将强硬回击 20211222 |
《今日关注》CCTV中文国际
 Dec 23, 2021 
US Senator thanks Taiwan for voting against pork import ban

US Senator from Iowa Chuck Grassley has thanked Taiwanese voters for rejecting a proposal to reinstate restrictions on pork imports that would have affected US pork. 

In January, Taiwan’s ruling party lifted a ban on importing pork treated with the leanness-enhancing additive ractopamine, much of which is produced in the US. In a referendum last Saturday, voters were asked whether the government should reinstate the ban. The measure failed to pass. 

Had the measure passed, it would have dealt a blow to the US-Taiwan trade relationship. 

​Grassley Tweeted “Taiwanese people rejected [a] referendum that [would] [have] overturned [President] Tsai’s move [to] allow imports of quality US pork into Taiwan. [Thank you to the] Taiwanese [government] & [citizens] for your friendship. I look [forward] to expanded trade.”
Meanwhile, US Iowa Representative Ashley Hinson also Tweeted that Taiwan is a “partner in democracy & continues to be a strong export market for Iowa pork producers.”

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Taiwan: A capable partner that deserves a closer relationship with emerging Europe


Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the senior United States senator from Iowa, having held the seat since 1981. He is in his seventh Senate term, having first been elected in 1980.
A member of the Republican Party, Grassley served eight terms in the Iowa House of Representatives (1959–1975) and three terms in the United States House of Representatives (1975–1981). He has served three stints as Senate Finance Committee chairman during periods of Republican Senate majority.[1][2] When Orrin Hatch's Senate term ended on January 3, 2019 following his retirement, Grassley became the most senior Republican in the Senate, and he served as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2019 to 2021.[3][4]
During his four decades in the Senate, Grassley has chaired the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Narcotics Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Senate Aging Committee.


查爾斯·歐內斯特·「查克」·葛雷斯利(英語:Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley;1933年9月17日),是一位美國共和黨政治人物,自1981年擔任艾奧瓦州美國參議院議員,前任美國參議院臨時議長。在此以前,他曾於1975年到1981年出任艾奧瓦州美國眾議院議員[1],以及於1959年到1974年出任艾奥瓦州众议院議員[2]。2020年11月17日,葛雷斯利的COVID-19病毒檢測呈陽性[3]

US and Japanese forces sail in formation in the Philippine Sea during multinational military exercises in 2018. 

US and Japan draw up joint military plan in case of Taiwan emergency – report

US would set up bases from a Japanese island to Taiwan and deploy troops, with Japan providing logistical support, Kyodo reports

Date published on Dec. 24, 2021

Japanese and US armed forces have drawn up a draft plan for a joint operation for a possible Taiwan emergency, Japan’s Kyodo news agency has reported, amid increased tensions between the island and China.

​Under the plan, the US marine corps would set up temporary bases on the Nansei island chain stretching from Kyushu – one of the four main islands of Japan – to Taiwan at the initial stage of a Taiwan emergency and would deploy troops, Kyodo said on Thursday, citing unnamed Japanese government sources.


Japanese armed forces would provide logistical support in such areas as ammunition and fuel supplies, it said.

​Japan, a former colonial ruler of Taiwan, and the US would likely reach an agreement to start formulating an official plan at a “2+2” meeting of foreign and defence ministers early next year, the news agency said.

Japanese defence ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own “sacred” territory and in the past two years has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure to assert its sovereignty claims, fuelling anger in Taipei and deep concern in Washington.

Taiwan’s government says it wants peace, but will defend itself if needed.

In October, Japan’s government signalled a more assertive position on China’s aggressive posture towards self-ruled Taiwan, suggesting it would consider options and prepare for “various scenarios”, while reaffirming close US ties.

Earlier this month, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said Japan and the US could not stand by if China attacked Taiwan.

US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have long said that given the tens of thousands of troops the US has in Japan and its proximity to Taiwan, Japan would likely have to play an important role in any Taiwan emergency.

Japan is host to major US military bases, including on the southern island of Okinawa, a short flight from Taiwan, which would be crucial for any US support during a Chinese attack.

The US, like most countries in the world, recognises China over Taiwan, in line with Beijing’s “one China” policy. But Washington is the island’s biggest arms supplier and ally and is obliged by law to help it defend itself.

As we approach the end of the year in Taiwan, we have a small favour to ask. We’d like to thank you for putting your trust in our journalism this year - and invite you to join the million-plus people in 180 countries who have recently taken the step to support us financially, keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent.

In 2021, this support sustained investigative work into offshore wealth, spyware, sexual harassment, labour abuse, environmental plunder, crony coronavirus contracts, and Big Tech.

The new year, like all new years, will hopefully herald a fresh sense of cautious optimism, and there is certainly much for us to focus on in 2022 - a volley of elections, myriad economic challenges, the next round in the struggle against the pandemic and a World Cup.

With no shareholders or billionaire owner, we can set our own agenda and provide trustworthy journalism that’s free from commercial and political influence, offering a counterweight to the spread of misinformation. When it’s never mattered more, we can investigate and challenge without fear or favour.     more

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