Biden: It's Okay to Finance China's Military
On January 26, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License No. 1A, which permits Americans to continue acquiring shares in certain companies associated with "Communist Chinese Military Companies," known as CCMCs, until May 27. The previous deadline, set by the Trump administration, was January 28.
The General License delayed a portion of the application of President Trump's landmark Executive Order 13959, issued November 12, 2020.
EO13959 stopped investors, subject to wind-down provisions, from purchasing or possessing shares in any company designated a CCMC. In short, Trump ordered Americans to stop financing China's military, the People's Liberation Army.
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A Principled U.S. Diplomatic Strategy Toward North Korea
President Biden now has an opportunity to set the foundation for a new U.S. approach that advances stability and peace on the Korean Peninsula. To do so, the new administration should guard against getting bogged down in an escalatory ladder with North Korea by initiating an early strategic opening with Pyongyang to test whether a serious diplomatic process can be sustained. The unachievable objective of complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization (CVID) should be dropped in favor of a more realistic step-by-step approach based on an equal commitment to denuclearization and peace. This approach should be backstopped by reinvigorated ties with South Korea and Japan, working with China while maintaining realistic expectations for its support, a streamlined and modernized sanctions regime, and bolstered deterrence of North Korea. Exchanges all the way up the diplomatic ladder from negotiators to leaders will be the only way to make progress.
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America Has A Vast Overseas Military Empire. Does It Still Need It?
For decades, the U.S. has enjoyed global military dominance, an achievement that has underpinned its influence, national security and efforts at promoting democracy.
The Department of Defense spends more than $700 billion a year on weaponry and combat preparedness – more than the next 10 countries combined, according to economic think tank the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Yet today, amid a sea change in security threats, America's military might overseas may be less relevant than it once was, say some security analysts, defense officials and former and active U.S. military service members.
The most urgent threats to the U.S., they say, are increasingly nonmilitary in nature. Among them: cyberattacks; disinformation; China's economic dominance; climate change; and disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, which ravaged the U.S. economy like no event since the Great Depression.
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