Tag: Rubio, Marco

Rubio, Once a China Hawk, Strikes Softer Tone to Align With Trump

Media Library

Before he shook hands with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing this past week, Marco Rubio was an official enemy of the Chinese state. As a senator representing Florida, Mr. Rubio was among Mr. Xi’s harshest critics in Washington. He accused the Chinese leader of “crimes against humanity” and of plotting to weaken the United States. Fed up, Mr. Xi’s government placed sanctions on Mr. Rubio in 2020 and banned him from entering the country. So Mr. Rubio, now President Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser, posed…

Paraguay Says It’s Not Abandoning Taiwan. China Has Other Plans.

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There are odd couples. Then there’s Taiwan and Paraguay. The high-tech island nation and its rural, landlocked South American ally sit on opposite sides of the earth. United in 1957 by two military rulers — Chiang Kai-shek and Alfredo Stroessner — driven by anti-Communist fervor, this improbable duo have been inseparable ever since. Today, however, Paraguay finds itself a member of a shrinking global club. China has flexed its economic muscle to force countries, including Paraguay, to break ties with Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory. Paraguay today…

Shein’s I.P.O. Presents Tests on Wall Street and Washington

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Shein aims to win over Wall Street and Washington In filing confidentially for an initial public offering, Shein, the ultrafast-fashion retailer, is showing ambition on two fronts. The company and its underwriters are betting that investors will be more receptive to I.P.O.s, even though high-profile market debuts this fall largely fizzled out. Shein is also testing whether it can endure what’s likely to be an increase in political heat on the China-founded e-commerce giant. The company has cut some of its most prominent ties to China, after drawing pushback from…

Hawks Are Standing in the Way of a New Republican Party

Chin@Strategy

Many of today’s Republicans thus came of age at a time when hawkishness on behalf of liberal values was understood as conservative. Yet the values lying at the foundation of that worldview and shaping our institutions are antithetical to everything conservatives claim to cherish: a ruthless market ideology that puts short-term shareholder gains and the whims of big finance above the demands of the national community; a virulent cultural libertinism that dissolves bonds of family and tradition. What conservatives revile as “woke capital” is just this acidic combination of a…

Congress Passes Ban on Goods From China’s Xinjiang Region

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to approve legislation that would ban the import of a wide array of products made in China’s Xinjiang region in a drive to prevent companies from sourcing goods produced through forced labor by persecuted Muslim minorities. Its passage was a victory for supporters of an aggressive human rights measure that faced a fierce corporate lobbying campaign from businesses that argued it was too onerous and would disrupt global supply chains. The vote sent the measure to President Biden’s desk, where he was…