Wednesday, December 6

It could be worse

There are times when setbacks add up and do not respect even the once quiet month of August. The world is experiencing a new escalation of tension caused –as a trigger– by the visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan. And, in the midst of the certain global risk, of the unresolved aftermath of the war on Ukraine, Spain gives birth to new “little terraces of freedom” in the form of an absurd rejection of the energy savings decreed by the Government.

Nancy Pelosi has become the highest-ranking US official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. A full-fledged provocation to China. A flame to fuel when the conflict with Russia over Ukraine is still burning. Beijing has reacted with remarkable virulence this time, deploying military maneuvers around Taiwan, with live fire and even long-range missiles that hampered air and sea space. Announces –undetermined- sanctions against Pelosi and suspends cooperation on various matters with the US. Some important ones such as security, judicial or environment.

The former Formosa, nominally the Republic of China –although only fifteen countries consider it so–, Taiwan, with its ancestral history, is claimed by the People’s Republic of China and it is not the first time that the US has taken part in the dispute. Three major crises followed one another, two in the 1950s and one in 1995 of the last century, as accurately summarizes BBC.

Trump maintained such a rivalry with China that he ate up the land that he came to sign at the end of his term until a decree that forced ByteDance to sell Tik Tok to a US company, because the platform was followed by 100 million Americans, he said. . He didn’t get it. He had to eat it.

Lost the elections and already in injury time, his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo lifted the restrictions on contacts between US officials and their Taiwanese counterparts to annoy China.

It is a commercial and technological war. With a decisive feature: the disputed island is home to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which controls half of the world microprocessor market. Smaller companies add up to give Taiwan two-thirds of that entire world market. If, due to the pandemic and the war, the restrictions on these essential products today caused logistical problems throughout the world, a possible blockade would represent real chaos. We paralyze cereals in Russia and Ukraine, microprocessors from Taiwan. It is a disturbing moment that has worsened.

The information in some large Spanish media is clearly served from the US side. So they talk about “firmness of the United States” and the like. And no, it is a monumental and interested fiasco.

In elDiario.es several journalists tell about the roots of the conflict. That bridge between Ukraine and China in the US attitude was summed up by Olga Rodríguez in May: “In this layout of backyards and distribution of zones of influence, the war in Ukraine is presented as a message to China; as a test, example and warning of what could happen in the Indo-Pacific”.

Pelosi, 82 years old, third authority of the State, justified her visit to Taiwan to support him in the struggle between authoritarianism and democracy, he explained. Yes, in his own country it happens in a worrying way for world stability. Even the clueless President Biden has been concerned about Pelosi’s attitude. Although several times himself has threatened a military response if China “intervened by force” in Taiwan.

Ukraine, China, the Balkans are boiling again… The consequences, categorically warned, included inflation. It is out of control, with a disproportionate rise in prices to which the abuses of the energy companies also undoubtedly contributed. You have to pay for the consequences of the war that is so “patriotic” that it was not wanted to be avoided and many people do not relate facts to consequences. The Russian response of rationing its gas, for example. In addition, climate change came to see us in the form of oppressive heat that has roasted Europe and, of course, Spain. With its consequent problems of drought and what it implies in lack of water for all uses, logically. The denial of reality is so ostentatious and it stings so much in some cases that it provokes altered reactions.

And in the midst of this context arises the Happy Arcadia de Ayuso to oppose the energy saving measures that the Government is implementing like the rest of the Europeans. Madrid announces that it is going to disobey them and its propaganda press applauds. Ayuso even wants to take the decree to the Constitutional Court. He is unbelievable if we did not know the Spanish patio. The manipulations of the right of him unsupportive of him and clumsy. His media servers pointed to the task with relish. They want coal and nuclear. And tripping up the Government of Spain once again, as in the pandemic. It would seem that they act as a team, and not exactly informative and civic. And they often reach the grotesque.

Europe imposes restrictions. Spain too, minors. If someone bothers to read the decree, something that the Government of Madrid does not do, nor that of Murcia, and before which the PP of Feijóo puts itself in profile, you will see some relevant details in the long textyes, much more than a tweet in which to lavish lies and nonsense. Nobody has to tell you what temperature to live at, or what time to turn off the lights in your business. The reduction in gas demand in Spain and Portugal is, after having negotiated it, 7% instead of 15% in the rest of the EU. Spain is not as dependent on Russian gas as other European countries. The decree explains all the percentages and their consequences.

The Government only requires turning off shop windows and public buildings that remain illuminated at night, from 10:00 p.m. onwards, but not street lighting, which is also municipal responsibility. The national right –not the PNV, for example–, the extreme right and its supporting press then enter the campaign aimed at scaring the citizens. “The police and the civil guard warn that insecurity will increase in the streets”, alluding to the helpful “sources of” that does not include specific statements. Antena 3 Noticias, La Razón, ABC and the whole troop. As if all urban roads, cities and towns, residential areas, etc… had shop windows as a means of lighting. And in one of the safest countries in the world, except for the robbery of some of its rulers.

All this disaster could have occurred on a large scale throughout Spain if, after subduing and throwing out Casado, Ayuso had already taken command. It could be worst. Feijóo is actually half swallowed already. It can be worst. Or similar.

But aside from that indignation produced by the immense arbitrariness, whose implantation in Spain they force, is the reality of a world as lost as the one in which we now live. That accumulation of disasters that has dragged on since the pandemic and before, the war and its consequences, the tolerated abuses, already decimating entire societies. In Africa it is being catastrophic. Here, we already see it. And, last but not least, an out-of-control United States lights fuses on its own. It could be worse, it can be. Or not. It must be avoided. The means exist.





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