Calls Grow for Trump’s Removal
Top Democrats demand impeachment as White House officials resign after deadly rioting at the U.S. Capitol. For updates, analysis, and global reactions, read our live coverage.
Chinese Media Calls Capitol Riot ‘World Masterpiece’
Instructions sent to reporters emphasized attacking democracy and promoting censorship.
 |
The phrase “beautiful sight to behold” started to trend on Weibo (the Chinese equivalent of Twitter) on Jan. 7—the words originally used by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to describe peaceful Hong Kong protests in June 2019.
China’s state-affiliated media Global Times posted side-by-side photos comparing Hong Kong protesters occupying the city’s Legislative Council in July 2019—a month after Pelosi’s remarks—with Trump supporters invading the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
China’s Communist Youth League also used this phrase when posting photos of rioters storming into the Capitol, describing the tragic moments as a “world masterpiece.” These Weibo posts drew thousands of comments and were retweeted thousands of times.
In the past year, as COVID-19 hit hard on China’s economic growth and political stability, a whole generation has learned to hate foreigners and foreign countries. To be sure, the government has always done its part to breed nationalism. But now a constant stream of 24/7 content supports it, and all opposing voices have been destroyed. When foreign media outlets write about problems in China, they are seen as hostile foreign forces, and when U.S. democracy stumbles, Chinese netizens celebrate.
Reporters were told to write articles to feed into this celebration.
A reporter from Chinese state media shared with me the guidelines she received on how to report the Capitol riot.
A reporter from Chinese state media shared with me the guidelines she received on how to report the Capitol riot.
She was told to focus on how the United States’ global reputation would be damaged and deteriorated in her article, mentioning how world leaders were shocked by this insurrection and were concerned about their alliance with the United States. She was also asked to write on how democracy could be hijacked by a group of uneducated people and how democracy could only be realized when the population is highly educated—and that China’s current education level is not suitable for democracy.
In the morning of Jan. 7, a reporter from Phoenix Media told me that an article published by her team about how social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube had all put restrictions on President Donald Trump’s accounts had spawned a series of online discussions about how Western countries such as the United States “don’t even have freedom of speech.”
These discussions were led by China’s Foreign Ministry and were fueled by a number of pro-Chinese Communist Party bloggers. A large number of Chinese netizens have long been under the impression—picking up cues from right-wing media elsewhere—that there is no real freedom of speech in Western countries. They accuse the Western world of holding double standards when criticizing the Chinese government for blocking website content, monitoring internet access, banning dissent and disagreement, and deleting social media accounts.
The reporter expressed concerns about how people interpreted her article and how that would make it even harder to start any discussion about freedom of speech and human rights in China. She had recently interviewed a few #MeToo victims and felt saddened seeing feminists fighting in an environment where the government’s control over the internet, media, and individual bloggers is tighter than it has been in the past decade—and where patriarchy is resurgent. The violence at the Capitol had aided the Chinese government, she said, by giving it another justification for arguing that control of speech is necessary.
Beijing never misses an opportunity to glorify its governance when liberal democracies are challenged. The violent, ugly, and criminal behavior of the rioters provided Beijing the perfect narrative to claim that censorship is a superior model for governance. That’s a story that China is eager to push as it cracks down on Hong Kong, where 53 pro-democratic politicians and activists were arrested on Wednesday. And while many Chinese netizens are celebrating the so-called failing of U.S. democracy, some are also reflecting on why the United States, known as the “lighthouse of democracy,” is instead leading others into the darkness.
Trump’s Collapse Is Biden’s Triumph
Amid the Capitol chaos, the U.S. president-elect is entering office already empowered, and Trump is now "damaged goods" for 2024.
 |
With Republicans deserting U.S. President Donald Trump in droves and talk of impeachment in the air, President-elect Joe Biden will be sworn in Jan. 20 in a charged atmosphere of desperation, anger and hope that is almost reminiscent of when Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man Biden says he wants to emulate, took office in 1933.
Biden himself appeared to sense his opportunity, delivering a double whammy to Republicans on Thursday, the day after violence engulfed the Capitol building, by announcing Merrick Garland as his nominee for attorney general—the same man whom Senate Majority Leader (soon to be minority leader) Mitch McConnell refused to hold hearings for when President Barack Obama nominated Garland to the Supreme Court.
And in what could be called a screw-you-Donald speech, Biden made plain what the attorney general’s job was—which was not to protect the president. “You won’t work for me,” Biden said. “You are not the president’s or the vice president’s lawyer. Your loyalty is not to me. It’s to the law, the Constitution.”
Meanwhile, as Biden seized the moment to pledge a restoration of American values, the Republican Party appeared to be falling to pieces. According to Charlie Black, a longtime Republican strategist, the events of the last few days have dramatically changed the calculus for 2024.
“Before this happened, people’s expectation was that Trump would get out and immediately announce he was running again. And that with his popularity with the rank and file and money in bank, he would dominate. That no longer will be the case. He’s damaged goods.”
To leave FP’s live coverage and read the rest of this article, click here.
What Could Stop an ‘Unhinged’ U.S. President From Ordering a Nuclear Strike?
Not a lot, it turns out.
Amid a renewed drive to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump after a mob stormed the Capitol building this week, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put out a stunning statement on Friday calling on the U.S. military to look into possible precautions to prevent the commander in chief from military action or ordering a nuclear strike.
The statement, which came on the heels of Pelosi’s second conversation with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in as many days, sent the already-crazed U.S. capital into a tailspin, but it wasn’t immediately clear how the Pentagon responded.
“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people from his unbalanced assault on our country and our democracy,” Pelosi said in a statement that also charged Trump with “dangerous and seditious acts.”
A spokesman for Milley said that Pelosi initiated the phone call and that the top U.S. military official “answered her questions regarding the process of nuclear command authority,” but the spokesman did not offer any further details.
To help answer the questions of what can (and can’t) be done to check the president’s power to order a nuclear strike, Foreign Policy took a look at how a possible decision might be reached.
What can the military and Congress do to stop the president from ordering a strike?
Legally speaking, not much, if anything. Neither Pelosi nor Milley is in the chain of command to make the decision over whether to employ nuclear weapons; that authority rests with Trump and the U.S. defense secretary, who would act together in making such a move. While officials such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees the American nuclear triad, are charged with transmitting orders for the use of those weapons and advise the president on a launch, Trump would not need the agreement of the military or Congress to strike. Asked on Monday by reporters whether he would follow an order from Trump to launch a nuclear weapon against Iran, Stratcom chief Adm. Charles Richard said he would “follow any legal order I am given” and added that the system of nuclear command and control has “served us well for 70 years.”
While experts agree that there’s no way to challenge the president’s authority to order a strike, not everyone is as sure as Richard that it’s a good idea. “The president has sole, unfettered authority to order the use of nuclear weapons with no ‘second vote’ required,” tweeted Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “If you think that’s crazy, I agree with you. But many people being appointed by Biden to national security jobs disagree with us.”
Where is this concern coming from?
It’s not entirely clear. Though the New York Times reported in November 2020 that Trump sought options to strike at Iran’s nuclear program just days after his election loss, the conversations apparently died out, even as the United States sent nuclear-capable bombers to the Middle East around the anniversary of the U.S. drone strike that killed the leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, in January 2020. But Pelosi’s statement comes on the heels of reports that Trump appears increasingly unhinged after the assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, and the speaker also included threats to impeach the commander in chief—now backed by more than 200 members of Congress—if he doesn’t immediately leave office, or if the cabinet decides not to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and remove him.
How quickly could Trump order a strike?
It depends on the scenario. Military aides to the president carry at all times a briefcase with the nuclear launch codes that is popularly known as the “football.” That allows the commander in chief to quickly order a nuclear strike, verified by an identification card held by the White House that confirms to Pentagon officials the order is legitimate. Lewis, the nonproliferation expert, wrote in Foreign Policy in 2016 that the president might have as little as eight minutes to decide whether to strike, though nuclear strike plans laid out by the Pentagon also give the commander in chief the ability to approve a delayed attack or counterattack. Land-based nuclear-tipped missiles can be fired within two minutes of an immediate launch order from the U.S. president, while submarine-launched missiles can fire within 15 minutes, according to the Congressional Research Service.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.