Authored by Richard Ebeling via The Future of Freedom Foundation,
November 7, 2017, marked the one hundredth anniversary of the Russian (or Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia that happened on that date in November 1917, which lead to the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat” and ushered in an epoch of totalitarian tyranny and mass murder both in Russia and in every other country where socialism was put into practice.
As reported first thing this morning, China's President Xi Jinping outlined his vision for the next five years, ushering in a "new era" (a term he repeated 36 times) of development in China, as the Communist Party’s 19th Congress opened in Beijing on Wednesday. During a 3½-hour long speech, Xi said the internal and external situations facing China were undergoing complicated changes which the party needed to address.
Xi Jinping delivered a three and a half-hour speech at the opening of China’s 19th Party Congress, the once in five years mega-Communist Party gathering (previewed here), to herald a ‘new era’ of power (a term he used 36 times), consolidating his position as perhaps the most influential Chinese leader in decades. While he did lay out guidelines to develop China in this ‘new era’, bottom line: Heavy in superlatives, light on specifics.
President Trump has given China six months to prove that it is committed to preventing a nuclear-armed North Korea, and it seems his tolerance for China’s dithering has finally reached its limit. Now that President Xi Jinping has established that his government is unwilling to engage in a meaningful crackdown on its neighbor, the era of using carrots like improving trade relations to coax China into helping solve the “North Korea problem” has ended. It is now time for the stick.
The last few days have seen the unprecedented war of words between China and North Korea escalate dramatically.