China, Taiwan, U.S.

 

“Top Gun” is who we in the United States used to be. Brash, brazen, honest, true, risk-taking, hyper-competent, and lovers of…the same. And adventure, romance, excellence, liberty, and tradition.

Now? Not so much. In fact, we dance to whatever tune Communist China is playing…even though they are bad songs, and our dancing is craven and repulsive. Most American companies, such as the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Hollywood movie studios, will do anything in their attempt to be granted full access to the vast Chinese market. China knows this. That is why the NBA, hyper-focused on every human rights issue in the U.S., never says anything about the very Chinese child labor that makes most of the shoes its athletes wear. Nor does it emit a peep about the CCP’s affinity for removing the organs of Uyghurs, against their will, and selling them to the highest bidder. But, hey, some of these things just slip through your hands, right? Who among us is perfect?

On the other hand-- and for the aforementioned reason-- when the CCP now tells an American company to do something, it nearly always complies.

In that vein, China demanded that the producers of Top Gun: Maverick, a sequel to Top Gun, remove the Taiwanese and Japanese flag patches from the protagonist’s jacket and other promotional material. The producers originally complied……but then restored the patches. Perhaps there is a God.

A healthier, younger America might have told China to bugger off long ago. Especially one not run by a doddering old fool beholden to the CCP through cash donations. The studio and its producers ultimately did the right thing, but should have added several more Taiwans to Tom Cruise’s jacket. And told the Chicoms there would be a multiple Taiwans-- and Japans, too-- on his jacket for Top Gun III.

The U.S. should inform those in the Chinese Communist government that, if they don’t stop propping up Russia, aiding Iran and North Korea, sending spy ballons over us, stealing our technology, buying up our farmland, sending young military-age males across our southern border, and generally antagonizing us, we will make certain that all maps and atlases produced henceforth will show an island named Taiwan every 500 or so bleeping miles across the bleeping globe. And let them know that, should they so much as threaten even one of them, we will immediately go all Sun-Tzu on them.

Period. (时期).