The Chinese Communist government does not have so much a strategy to translate its economic ascendance into global hegemony as several strategies. All of them are brilliantly insidious.

China is not Russia. It differs from Russia in underappreciated ways that transcend its obviously vastly greater population, far-larger economy, and ascendant military.

China is patterning its neocolonialist agenda after both the British Empire of the 19th century (without the pretensions of a Western nation’s paternalistic “burden” of spreading civilization) and the Pacific expansionism of Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of the 1930s and 1940s.

This history might explain why Japan, of all its Asian neighbors, knows all too well what China is up to.  It’s about time the West knows it just as well.

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Russia tries to maintain a finger in every conflict in the Middle East, with President Vladimir Putin seeking to cultivate connections with various parties in multiple quarrels.

Presently, however, the Kremlin’s access is being curtailed: Moscow, for instance, cannot find an entry point into the exploding crisis in Gaza.

Furthermore, Putin clearly disapproves of the removal of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria under pressure from street protests.

Similarly, the Russian head of state opposes the ousting of his Sudanese counterpart, Omar al-Bashir, by military coup.

Moscow has been unable to employ any useful assets to make a difference in all three. The war in Yemen is also beyond Russia’s reach.

Everywhere he looks in the Middle East, Putin finds himself stuck in a tar baby of failure.

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Democrats have grown infuriated by Attorney General William Barr's indifference to their hysteria over the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

Now Democrats are calling for Barr to resign or be impeached for not regurgitating the unproven allegations against Trump.

In other words, Barr acted too much like a federal prosecutor rather than a tabloid reporter trafficking in allegations that did not amount to criminal conduct.

The besmirching of Barr's conduct is surreal.  What accounts for it?  All they are getting is Barr smiling back at them.  So now what, Dems?

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In a recent New York Times  op-ed (5/01), fired FBI Director James Comey was back again preaching to the nation about the dangers of Donald Trump and his capacity to corrupt any top-ranking federal official of lower character than Comey’s own.

Comey seems to have become utterly unhinged by Donald Trump, especially when the president, in his Queens accent, scoffs in the vernacular—quite accurately, given the transgressions of the FBI hierarchy—about “crooked cops.”

What an affront to Comey’s complexity, his subtlety, his sophistication, his feigned Hamlet-like self-doubt—at least as now expressed in his latest incarnation as Twitter’s Kahlil Gibran.

One can say a number of things about the timing of Comey’s latest sermon and his characteristic projection of his own sins on to others.  Here they are.

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As a First Amendment maximalist, I am inclined to reply an automatic "No" to my own headline — should journalists go to jail for spreading their seditious lies?

But a penalty of some kind, indeed a serious one, should certainly be levied for misinforming the public on the most important subject of our day, which has happened repeatedly over the last few years concerning the Russia probe.

And when these prevarications can be shown to have been deliberate, to have been done knowingly, difficult as that may be to prove, the line to sedition may have been crossed.

Thus there is an argument the reporters involved should face legal consequences.  Are they guilty of sedition? Decide for yourselves: read 18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy.

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Former President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder won’t tell the truth when it comes to their redistricting strategy, but here it is: Pick a state, any state, and sue until it’s blue.

They have spent years and millions of dollars selling the false narrative that Democrats draw “fair maps” while any and all Republican-drawn maps are “partisan gerrymanders.”

While rhetorically cute, their primary goal has nothing to do with fighting gerrymandering as they repeatedly claim, but to put redistricting in the hands of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats and lifetime-appointed judges.

Their strategy makes sense.  There are plenty of unelected federal judges presiding over these redistricting cases who will enthusiastically toss out constitutionally drawn maps to help elect more Democrats.  Here’s how to stop this.

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There’s just one flaw in Xi Jinping’s plans for global economic conquest. It’s that China has run out of money. The $8 trillion headline figure for the New Silk Road is romantic fiction.

The Belt and Road – as it has become known since maritime links were added to the original Marco Polo caravan route – is China’s plan of infrastructure development and investments in 152 countries and international organizations.  Yes, 152.

It may have made financial sense when China was running a fat current account surplus. This reached 10% of GDP in the final stages of the export boom from 2004 to 2008.

Today, China’s current account surplus has essentially vanished. The International Monetary Fund thinks it will be 0.5% of GDP this year. It will then go progressively negative through the early 2020s.

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The only thing uglier than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And fear is what’s driving this week’s blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr.

Mr. Barr tolerantly sat through hours of Democrat insults at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday (5/01). His reward for his patience was to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a lawbreaking, dishonest, obstructing hack.

Yet the attorney general delivered the transparency Democrats demanded: He quickly released a lightly redacted report, which portrayed the president in a negative light.

What do Democrats have to object to?  Some of this is frustration, some of this is personal, some of this is bitterness.  But most of it is fear.

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They smeared him, called him a liar and said he should resign. The same Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who tried to assassinate the character of Judge Brett Kavanaugh last year pulled the same stunt on Bill Barr — with the same result.

They failed because, once again, they were throwing mud while shooting blanks.

Despite the Dems’ desperate efforts to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination with false accusations, he is now on the Supreme Court. Barr was obviously prepared for his mud bath and was unflappable in the face of Wednesday’s mean-spirited assault, proving himself to be a rock-solid attorney general.

As he said at his confirmation hearing, “I won’t be bullied,” and he wasn’t.  Now they’ve poked the tiger – very big mistake.

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