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  • North Korea is ready to nuke, Hong Kong has a new CEO, and China is talking.

  • In fact, China is talking with almost everyone, even Taiwan, as headlines would have us believe.

  • Hong Kong’s new CEO, Carrie Lam, is ostensibly favored by China’s Communist Party.

  • But, all politicians in the special administrative region are vetted by Beijing.

  • The western press is beside themselves with how much control Beijing exerts, regardless

  • of how loyal Lam actually is.

  • Nothing has been proven yet because she hasn’t had a chance to do anything yet.

  • She was just elected.

  • Of course, in the minds of the western press, Beijing is guilty until proven guilty.

  • Hong Kong is self-proclaimed asAsia’s World City”.

  • It is the doorstep of semi-closed China to the open West.

  • What happens in Hong Kong is exactly what Beijing wants the world to see.

  • What Beijing sees as an advertisement the West sees aspublic relations”—for

  • better or worse.

  • Lam is Beijing’s choice as the newposter girl”.

  • While she didn’t get there by being incompetent, the true test of CEO Lam’s leadership will

  • be whether she creates or prevents excuses for western headlines to make China look like

  • a bully.

  • While the West villainizes Beijing, it is becoming more and more clear that China is

  • doing what it thinks best for itself, but doesn’t understand PR with self-governing

  • nations.

  • All this outreachPakistan, New Zealand, India, Cambodia, the US, Taiwanit’s going

  • to backfire with stories like China not allowing a married Australian resident academic to

  • return to Australia.

  • In the mind of the West, the decision is what matters.

  • In the mind of Beijing, the reasons are what matter.

  • China’s President Xi admitted last week, more or less, that China needed to playtech

  • catch-upwith the States.

  • Now, China is investing in US startups to get military technology insight.

  • Smart.

  • The open, free enterprise, private, self-governed sector usually has the best tech.

  • The question Beijing should be concerned with is whether its researchers will hunger for

  • the same inspiring freedom as the companies they seek to glean from.

  • While Beijing hopes to acquire information, they may inadvertently acquire free market

  • ideology.

  • That can be quite unsettling, as if the Pacific doesn’t have enoughwavesalready.

North Korea is ready to nuke, Hong Kong has a new CEO, and China is talking.

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