On March 17, The Economist published an article entitled “China’s bottom line” that examined three high-ranking Chinese officials’ viewpoints on Taiwan as expressed in talks they gave at the annual session of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) early in March. The three are Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) and top political adviser and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Standing Committee member Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲).
Two US F/A-18 Hornets left Tainan yesterday afternoon, ending a two-day maintenance stop that had pundits going overboard in trying to read the portents and wire agencies trotting out the stale “sure to make Beijing angry” phrase with almost every update. So much malarkey over a blinking engine oil light.
The F/A-18s landed on the airfield that the Tainan Air Force Base shares with the civilian Tainan Airport at 1:19pm on Wednesday after one of the planes’ engine oil pressure warning lights went on and the pilots requested assistance. They left almost exactly 48 hours later after a repair crew from the US Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan flew into Tainan on Thursday evening to fix the problem.
