Editor’s note for Tuesday, December 15, 2020

My thoughts today:

“Pound for pound, Taiwan is the most important place in the world” is the title of a new opinion piece in the New York Times by Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Sharma argues that the “new Cold War, between the United States and China, is increasingly focused on access to just one industry in one place: computer chips made in Taiwan.”

He’s far from the first to notice the global importance of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, and the role it will play in U.S.-China relations. It’s worth noting that a Morgan Stanley man used — without explanation or caveat — the term “new Cold War.”

The Chinese foreign ministry is proudly defending its “wolf warrior” diplomacy. Spokesperson Huà Chūnyíng 华春莹 last week asked (English, Chinese) of those who use the “wolf warrior” label: “Do they think that China has no choice but the silence of the lambs while they are unscrupulously lashing out at the country with trumped-up charges?”

And yesterday, state broadcaster CGTN produced this montage titled “A look back at the Ministry of Chinese Foreign Affairs spokespersons’ remarks in 2020” which consists entirely of the spokespeople strongly denouncing foreign critics. There are some choice phrases in there!  

Our word of the day is make a living by concocting anti-China rumors and slandering China (以炮制反华谣言、诽谤中国为生 yǐ páozhì fǎnhuá yáoyán, fěibàng zhōngguó wéi shēng.)

Need gifts for sinophiles? The China Project has you covered with our holiday gift list (delivery to the U.S. only for now).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief