China looks at what Trump is doing now with Denmark and sends to the US president: “See you in Taiwan”
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Credit line: Daniel Torok/White House/Planet Pix via ZUMA Press Wire / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
An American journalist visited a cemetery in Holland of American soldiers who died to liberate Europe. He saw something he said he will never forget.
Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, said recently, recorded by YouTube: “I was born in 1967 and I grew up with the idea that Nicolae Ceaușescu will rule Romania forever.” Let alone us: we were convinced that we would die and not grasp the end of communism in Romania.
But communism lost, in many ways. It lost human, economic, social, ideational and in terms of relations between countries. But he lost, first of all, in the soul of his own citizens. Who did not believe what was presented to them as a great success.
One of the defeats was just when it seemed that the socialist regime had consolidated. In 1961, the Communists built the Berlin Wall. It was a show of force by the Russians and the Communist German establishment. The US, France and England watched helplessly as West Berlin remained isolated.
Walls were built to protect “your own”, not to keep them prisoners
The symbolism was, however, devastating for all communist regimes. After all, from time immemorial rulers have built walls to protect those within from those without. What leaders put up a wall to keep their people from leaving? And how can a regime claim to be better than the one it competes with, as long as it imprisons its own people behind a wall so they don't run to the “bad guys”?
Then it was clear to everyone that socialism is a prison. And “what people think” weighs enormously. The Cold War was entering another phase. Some gestures by leaders, said historian John Lewis Gaddis, which seem purely symbolic, have enormous power. For better and for worse.
Trump tells Europeans to be afraid
When Donald Trump threatens an ally, the US president tells the people of these countries to be afraid. It is the opposite of what Pope John Paul II did when he visited his country, Poland, which was under a totalitarian regime. The Pope said to them, “Do not be afraid.” It was another pivotal moment. What people feel matters.
We look for all kinds of arguments in the face of what cannot be explained. “It is unthinkable to invade each other”, Greenlandic minister Naaja Nathanielsen said in an interview for the Romanian public. Unthinkable.
Who will have the right to blame China for an invasion of Taiwan?
What Donald Trump is doing also has a pragmatic effect, as the US president likes to present himself. As a direct, pragmatic man.
China's diplomatic restraint projects an image of poise, in premeditated contract with US agitation and unpredictability. But this silence is false. She relays to Trump: “See you in Taiwan. After you destroy all the rules, no one will have the right to ask us not to take Taiwan.”
On that day, what will happen to the USA? An American journalist recently confessed that he had visited one of the great cemeteries in Holland of American soldiers killed by the thousands when they fought for the liberation of Europe. They lost 250,000 people.
A cemetery with many children
The US citizen was amazed that the cemetery was full of people, overwhelmingly Europeans. They were English, Dutch, German, Polish. There were locals and tourists. There were old people, adults, young people, and, above all, a lot of children. He asked at the entrance what was going on.
He was answered: “Since the attitude of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance against Europe began, people come to put a flower and explain to their children that history was different.” It's a backlash, but completely different than one would expect.
As he was leaving, he saw a colorful drawing by a Dutch child placed on the grave of an American soldier. “USA, we love you,” the paper read. Since I haven't heard that, out in the open, he thought.
