So Wimbledon has banned Russian and Belarussian players from the tournament.  This is just crazy, quoting Novak Djokovic.  This from a country that has invaded other countries all over the world, occupied them for more than a century, committing unaccountable number of crimes against humanity.  The athletes are not making decisions for their national governments.  Daniil Medvedev has no influence on Putin and yet the number two player in the world will not be able to play along with half a dozen men and half dozen women from those two countries who maybe seeded if they were allowed to play.

I can almost understand kicking Russia out of the World Cup.  But even that is hypocritical.  Saudi Arabia just qualified and they been bombing Yemen and causing way more civilian casualties than Russia in Ukraine.  But the UK, like the U.S., is still happy to sell arms to Saudi Arabia.  Individual athletes should not be banned, period.  But then the UK is most hypocritical, as I learned from Hong Kong.  Their press will be happy to ask Eileen Gu, representing China, about the Peng Shuai's alleged assault.  But they would not ask British athletes to comment about Prince Andrew molesting underage women.

Britain is becoming less and less relevant in the world anyway.  From being the most powerful country in the world, it is now just a lapdog of the U.S.  Boris Johnson is a clown.  Tony Blair kissed George Bush's butt and took Britain into a war over fake WMDs.  For that he gets knighted.  Isn't invading a country under false pretenses is what Putin is being accused of now?  But of course, Iraq is much more dangerous to the UK than NATO being in Ukraine to Russia, right?

 Due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, people and organizations have directed anger at Russian people and entities.  Some are head turning such as Russia being kicked out of the World Cup qualification.  Some are silly such as the European Tree of the Year contest eliminating Russian trees from consideration.  Some are sad culturally such as banning Russian ballets performances.  In San Diego a restaurant selling food from the former Soviet Republics have been targeted by crank calls that have become more and more vicious even though the owner is ethnically Armenian.

Besides sanctions, which every government officials are calling for, there are also calls for banning anything or anyone Russian in this country.  Some have called for kicking out every Russian student in this country.  Of course, most Americans can't tell who is Russian.  I, for example, thought that all the foreign dance pros in DWTS are Russians.  In reality, a lot of them are Ukrainians.  As the restaurant owner above noted, even Russians who escaped from the former USSR, can be targets today.

I understand the problems Russians face in this country.  But I think it would be much worse for Asian Americans if China gets into a conflict with the U.S.  Russia is a geopolitical enemy of the U.S. like China is.  But China is also a economic competitor.  There is also the matter of racial discrimination against Chinese throughout history.  There are also a lot more Asian businesses in the U.S. than Russian businesses.  Chinese restaurants will be boycotted and vandalized for sure.  It is also much easier to tell Asians from Whites than Russians from other Whites.  So we will certainly be attacked more.  This will be true of all Asian Americans and not just Chinese Americans.

 More than one month into the war in Ukraine, there are many lessons we should have learned.  I don't even know where to begin.  Today I will talk about the lessons that can be transferred to the China-Taiwan situation and see how that goes.

Even before Russia started the invasion, there were already people saying that Russia cannot be allowed to succeed or else China will do the same to Taiwan.  To me the lesson is that if you are truly worried about war then you should listen to your enemy about the line that you cannot cross.  Ukraine was the line NATO cannot cross, according to Russia.  So why did NATO keep courting Ukraine?  China has said that Taiwan declaring independence is the red line so we definitely cannot encourage Taiwan to cross that line.

There are hawks in the U.S. who want to push Taiwan into declaring independence and draw China into war now before China gets even stronger in the future.  That is just insane.  There are only a few percent of people in Taiwan who want independence now.   Overwhelming majority want the status quo right now.  China has no intention to take over Taiwan by force.  China is making money in Taiwan and many Taiwanese are making money and living on the Mainland.  So war is a lose, lose situation for both sides.  So why should the U.S. mettle?

Some pundits said that Russian's invasion of Ukraine should make Taiwan more worried about China and be more on the side of the U.S. than before.  Sure,  seeing the arms support NATO is giving Ukraine, Taiwan can buy more arms from the U.S. over the objection of China.  But Taiwan should also realize that no NATO troops are fighting for Ukraine.  If the U.S. and its allies will not send troops to fight for an independent European nation, what makes Taiwan think that they will send troops to an Asian island that they recognize as being part of China?  Taiwan should realize that the Americans will not come to save it.   The U.S. want to get China into a quagmire and slow its rise.  But to encourage Taiwan to declare independence, it means America does not care about the survival of Taiwan at all.

Western media often paint China and Russia as the same.  But since China's last "war" against Vietnam in 1979, Russia has fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia and now Ukraine.  The U.S. has fought in Iraq twice, Afghanistan and Syria among others.  We even invaded Grenada, which is no threat to us.  Russia claims to be threatened by NATO bases in Poland, Hungary etc.  But there are numerous U.S. bases in Japan, Korea and the Philippines near China.  American fleets are constantly patrolling near China's coast.  But when China builds a few airstrips on uninhabited islands in the Pacific, it is considered a threat to world peace?

Truth is, Russia, China and the U.S. are not military threat to each other.  Each can destroy the world with their nuclear weapons.  So there is no reason for one to attack the other two.  That is why this war in Ukraine is so unnecessary.  Even if NATO nuclear missiles are in Ukraine, it is not more of a threat to Russia than the missiles are in Poland.  Russia can also destroy Europe from anywhere.  China knows that the U.S. can hit China even if their missiles are not in Japan or Korea.  But the U.S. also knows that China can destroy Hawaii and cities on the West Coast, if not most of the U.S.  All the posturing do not make anyone more safe.  They can only cause mistakes that lead to conflicts.  So let us not cross any lines and start WWIII.