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Lev Nachman Profile picture
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Jul 22 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
What good is "we were tough on China!" policy when Pottinger watched Trump actively erode American democracy?! What good is humble bragging about your own China hawkishness when you sat by and watched our president use the same authoritarian playbook you claim to fight against?!
Genuinely I do not understand the cognitive dissonance with experts in our circles who celebrate Trump's China/Taiwan foreign policy for making America safer from autocrats while at the same time ignoring how Trump himself used authoritarian means to make the US less democratic.
Pottinger:"Our national security was harmed by Jan 6th..it emboldened our enemies giving them ammunition to feed a narrative that our system of government doesn’t work...I heard from our allies that they were concerned about the health of our democracy"#January6thCommitteeHearing
I appreciate Pottinger acknowledging that this was bad for national security, but It was incredibly inappropriate for Pottinger to refer to this as a close election. That is incorrect, and part of Trump's false narrarative.

This is what I mean by Pottinger was complicit with Trump's authoritarian policies up until January 6th:

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More from @lnachman32

Lev Nachman Profile picture
Jul 19
This tweet led to the most bonkers targeted harrasment I've dealt with in a long time. Now that some time has passed, here's a few of the highlights and unfortunate reactions:
It brought out a corner of conservative deep-green Taiwan twitter who immediately thought that me saying "I don't endorse Abe" meant all Taiwanese people have to hate Abe. I shared this response, but that only made things more bonkers:
Blatent ad-hominem and purposeful misreadings of what I say are pretty common, but unfortunately the mob started tagging and harrassing my new departments and coworkers. I started mass blocking, but unfortuantely that made responders even angrier.
Read 8 tweets
Lev Nachman Profile picture
Mar 5
Scandals leaking from Pompeo's Taiwan visit: one leak shows that TECRO paid him $150,000 for his visit, the second showing he had a major investment agenda on behalf of a company called Anarock👀
Sources:

On the investment agenda:
udn.com/news/story/122…

On the Tecro payment / his full contract (copy/paste the full mandarin url):

cnews.com.tw匯流獨家贊助龐培歐15萬美金來台密件蘇貞昌/

^^Second one the URL requires you to copy paste the Mandarin text
On top of the much more public "press conference" spectacle:

Read 7 tweets
Lev Nachman Profile picture
Mar 4
Whats facinating is he calls for the reocognition of Taiwan as the ROC. I don't think any US politicians who claim to be pro-independence has a nuanced unerstanding on the 華獨/台獨 difference but suddenly he does.

(I am also pretty convinced the DPP wrote this thread for him)
As someone who follows what Pompeo says really closeley, I've never seen him talk this nuanced on anything Taiwan or Chian related ever. Meanwhile, the language used feels straight out of a MOFA tweet.
Could not agree more. He would/will never do this if in a position of power, but he absolutely will take advantage of the chaos it can cause for now. Irresponsible at best.

Read 5 tweets
Lev Nachman Profile picture
Feb 7
🚨New survey data🚨

Why do people in Taiwan want nothing to do with the PRC? Our data shows that what unites Taiwanese people is not a rejection of Chinese culture, but a rejection of the PRC’s political system.

My team's lateset for @BrookingsFP:
brookings.edu/blog/order-fro…
When it comes to culture some interpretet Taiwanese identity in a ethnonationalist way - a full rejection of Chinese culture in favor of a uniquely Taiwanese culture. But we find that most Taiwanese people have a more complex relationship with Chinese culture - even young people!
But when it comes to the PRC as a political system there is far less complexity. People in Taiwan across demographics have very negative opinions of the PRC. Other surveys that show an emphatic rejection of unifcation only confirm: Taiwanese see nothing appealing about the PRC.
Read 6 tweets
Lev Nachman Profile picture
Feb 6
Boston’s “Boycott Beijing 2022” protest organized by local Tibetan, Hong Konger, Uyghur, and Taiwanese diaspora organizations.
Photos from the march. Didn’t run into any Trumpers or tankies today, and everyone was focused on the same message.
Ended with different community representatives giving speeches. Many speakers were also part of the boycott 2008 Beijing Olympic protest, and to hear them compare the varying levels of global attention human rights abuses are getting between the two Olympics is fascinating.
Read 4 tweets
Lev Nachman Profile picture
Feb 4
Xenophobic nationalism does nothing to help Uyghurs
Don't get me wrong, I think the Olympics are morally bankrupt and I'm not watching them. But to see US politicians use aggresive anti-Chinese language to "stick it to Communist China" in the name of Uyghur oppression helps absolutely no one.
Republicans who mind you in the same news cycle endorsed an incredibly anti-democratic inssurection. Its why I find their support for Hong Kong democracy and condemnation of Uyghur oppression to ring hollow.
Read 4 tweets

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