Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Taiwan again on September 26 after his visit to Taiwan in March.
His itinerary is to participate in the "Global Taiwan Business Forum" on September 27, attend the annual meeting of the World Federation of Taiwan Chambers of Commerce on September 28, and visit some Taiwanese companies.
During this period, he also met with Taiwan's Vice President Lai Ching-de.
After the climax of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, "visiting Taiwan" has obviously become a must-have for some Western anti-China and anti-communist politicians.
The picture shows Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-de (fourth from left) posted a photo on Facebook on September 27, with former US Secretary of State Pompeo (third from left) standing beside him.
(Facebook @chingte)
More than just defenders of American interests
Pompeo went to Taiwan twice this year for three most important purposes: first, to use the Taiwan issue to create an image of so-called confrontation with power in order to participate in the next US presidential election; second, to win more chips for the Republican Party in the mid-term elections The third is to bless the DPP with "common values" so that it can win the "nine-in-one" local elections at the end of the year.
Of course, every time he comes to Taiwan, he will get a lot of appearance fees.
When Pompeo and his wife visited Taiwan in March, there were public reports that he asked Taiwan for $150,000 for speaking fees.
This time, I went to Taiwan again and accepted the "invitation" of the DPP to give a speech at the Global Taiwanese Business Forum, which is bound to be a lot of speech income.
In order to completely turn over in local elections, the DPP authorities have already increased the budget for inviting "foreign guests" to visit Taiwan. Pompeo is a former secretary of state and may run for the next US president, making the DPP full of imagine.
The combination of politics and capital is an important part of the "democracy and freedom" that the West publicly proclaims.
There are media reports in Taiwan that Pompeo cheers for the Taiwan authorities. He will not just charge speech fees. He will definitely ask for more returns, such as asking the Taiwan authorities to invest in the "retirement fund" and "labor retirement fund" managed by the Taiwan authorities. Its private companies, etc.
When Pompeo visited Taiwan in March, he had hoped that Taiwan would invest in a company related to him.
When former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Tsai Ing-wen at the Taiwan Presidential Palace on March 3, he said that both Taiwan and the United States are determined to safeguard freedom from offense, "I also believe that during President Tsai's term, we will not watch Others will trample on this desire for freedom. The United States will always stand with Taiwan.” (Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Presidential Office)
"Democracy and Authoritarianism" or "Democracy and Governance"
It is undeniable that Pompeo does have a strong motive to safeguard the interests of the United States.
However, his ability to use Taiwan as an entry point to leverage political and economic dividends lies in his anti-China manipulation in the ideological field.
While Pompeo, as an outgoing official, continues to grab the dividends of ideological confrontation, Trump's successor, Joe Biden, has made the cause of ideological control of China even greater after taking office.
In March 2021, at his first press conference after taking office, Biden announced that the world is now facing "a contest between democracy and authoritarianism", and "we have to prove that democracy works".
In December 2021, Biden convened an online "democracy summit" with the participation of more than 100 countries, declaring that the world is at an "inflection point" in the contest between democracy and autocracy.
When Biden delivered a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2022, he again talked about the contest of democratic autocracy.
The narrative that defines the Sino-US game as "democracy versus authoritarianism" is a new rhetoric after Biden took office.
The intention is to use undemocratic one stick to overthrow the Chinese system, and to use undemocraticism to put China on the opposite side of the United States and the West.
Under such narrative logic, the West, whose interests are increasingly divided, seems to have achieved unity, and China seems to be nailed to the pillar of shame.
The picture shows U.S. President Biden speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 2022.
The United Nations General Assembly is held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA.
(AP)
Facts will eventually prove that defending American-style democracy by attacking China is just the wishful thinking of Pompeo and Biden.
Behind the institutional anxiety in the United States is the crisis of American-style democracy, which is not brought about by the rise of China, but an endogenous problem.
The United States and other Western countries have long been careful to maintain the dominant position of interests established since the colonial period and the Cold War, but they have just ignored their own governance capabilities, and the so-called democratic freedom has not been continuously developed and improved.
The Japanese-American political scientist Francis Fukuyama once declared that democratic freedom is "the end of history".
But recently Fukuyama had to retract the "end of history" theory. He published an article "Why Democracy Performs So Badly" in the American Journal of Democracy earlier this year, saying that Western society is forming a perception that in recent years global democracy Poor national performance starts in the most developed and successful democracies.
Fukuyama's remarks represent that at least the academic circles of American society have begun to have a certain clear understanding.
Nowadays, politicians use various sanctions, rumors and smears against China to attract the attention of voters, and continue to create the illusion that a great country like the United States has no governance problems of its own, and will only be deceitful tricks and the emperor’s in the end. new clothes.
How can the Sino-US struggle get out of the logic of democracy against authoritarianism?
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