Bethany Allen is a journalist covering China from Taipei. She is the author of Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World. She was previously an assistant editor and contributing reporter at Foreign Policy.
TO GO WITH US-shooting-guns-Australia,FOCUS by Martin Parry
(FILES) This file photo taken on September 8, 1996 shows Norm Legg, a project supervisor with a local security firm, holding up an armalite rifle which is similar to the one used in the Port Arthur massacre and which was handed in for scrap in Melbourne after Australia banned all automatic and semi-automatic rifles in the aftermath of the Port Arthur shooting. When Martin Bryant massacred 35 people with semi-automatic weapons at Port Arthur in 1996, then-Australian prime minister John Howard reacted swiftly by pushing for tough new national gun laws. Within a year gun licences had been tightened, a weapons buy-back was enacted and an amnesty launched for anyone holding illegal arms, moves that took more than 600,000 guns out of action. AFP PHOTO / FILES / William WEST (Photo credit should read WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)
TOKYO, JAPAN - JUNE 15: People protest outside the National Diet on June 15, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Japan's controversial anti-conspiracy bill, to crack down on people planning terrorism and other organised crimes, is under debate in the upper house while there are concerns that it threatens civil rights. Prime Minister Abe's LDP and its allies have a two-thirds majority in both the upper house, and the lower house, where the bill was passed in late May. (Photo by Takashi Aoyama/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 10: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) participates in a Senate Foreign relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, March 10, 2015 in Washington, DC. The committee was hearing from us government officials on the situation in Ukraine. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Panama's Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo (L) shakes hands with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during a joint press briefing after they signed a joint communique agreeing to establish diplomatic relations in Beijing on June 13, 2017.
Panama and China announced June 13 they were establishing diplomatic relations, as the Central American nation became the latest to dump Taiwan for closer ties with the world's second-largest economy. / AFP PHOTO / POOL / GREG BAKER (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Ronald Reagan, commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin, addresses on June 12, 1987 the people of West Berlin at the base of the Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin wall. Due to the amplification system being used, the President's words could also be heard on the Eastern (Communist-controlled) side of the wall. "Tear down this wall!" was the famous command from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism. On Nov. 9-11, 1989, the people of a free Berlin tore down that wall. West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is 2nd-right. AFP PHOTO MIKE SARGENT / AFP / MIKE SARGENT (Photo credit should read MIKE SARGENT/AFP/Getty Images)
Iraqi soldiers display a captured flag of the Islamic State in the Hamam al-Alil area, about 14 kilometres from the southern outskirts of Mosul, on November 7, 2016 after recapturing it from Islamic State (IS) group jihadists during the ongoing operation to retake Mosul.
Iraqi forces retook a key town from the Islamic State group, a crucial objective on the southern front of the offensive to wrest back the city of Mosul.
/ AFP / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit should read AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
A Long March 2F rocket carrying the country's first space laboratory module Tiangong-1 lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on September 29, 2011 in Jiuquan, Gansu province of China. The unmanned Tiangong-1 will stay in orbit for two years and dock with China's Shenzhou-8, -9 and -10 spacecraft for China's eventual goal of establishing a manned space station around 2020.
TO GO WITH INDIA-US-JAPAN-SINGAPORE-AUSTRALIA-MILITARY In this picture taken 07 September 2007, a US F-18 fighter plane takes off from the deck of USS Kitty Hawk (CV63) aircraft carrier in the Bay of Bengal, during the Malabar exercise. A massive peacetime military exercise ended in the Indian Ocean 09 September, as navies from five nations including the United States disengaged from mock battles, officials said. The USS Nimitz, the world's largest supercarrier, had already withdrawn from the Bay of Bengal where besides the United States, navies from Australia, India Japan and Singapore launched the drill on 04 September.The end of the six-day exercises, code named "Operation Malabar" was marked by mock battles involving fighter jets from supercarrier the USS Kitty Hawk and India's aircraft carrier INS Viraat and other strike groups near the strategic Malacca Straits, they said. AFP PHOTO/Deshakalyan CHOWDHURY (Photo credit should read DESHAKALYAN CHOWDHURY/AFP/Getty Images)
Images of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah are seen among scores of Hezbollah and Lebanese national flags being waved by Hezbollah supporters during a ceremony to mark first anniversary of the war with Israel, 14 August 2007. Nasrallah reiterated to a mass rally broadcast live on television that his Shiite group had won a divine victory. "Today is the anniversary of the divine victory," Nasrallah told the thousands of men, women and children who had gathered in an empty lot of Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiyeh controlled by Hezbollah. AFP PHOTO/MARWAN NAAMANI (Photo credit should read MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP/Getty Images)
AYR, SCOTLAND - JULY 30: Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry with his children Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Donald Trump answered questions from the media at a press conference. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
A wounded Syrian girl looks on at a make shift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following shelling and air raids by Syrian government forces on August 22, 2015. At least 20 civilians and wounded or trapped 200 in Douma, a monitoring group said, just six days after regime air strikes killed more than 100 people and sparked international condemnation of one of the bloodiest government attacks in Syria's war. AFP PHOTO / ABD DOUMANY / AFP / ABD DOUMANY (Photo credit should read ABD DOUMANY/AFP/Getty Images)
IN AIR, NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, MD - FEBRUARY 11: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been received by U.S. Military prior to transmission) In this image released by the U.S. Navy courtesy of Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Navy variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35C, conducts a test flight February 11, 2011 over the Chesapeake Bay. Lt. Cmdr. Eric "Magic" Buus flew the F-35C for two hours, checking instruments that will measure structural loads on the airframe during flight maneuvers. The F-35C is distinct from the F-35A and F-35B variants with larger wing surfaces and reinforced landing gear for greater control when operating in the demanding carrier take-off and landing environment. (Photo by U.S. Navy photo courtesy Lockheed Martin via Getty Images)
DRESDEN, GERMANY - FEBRUARY 13: Anti-neo-Nazi activists carry signs showing smarked through swastikas before the creation of a human chain in the city center as a statement against neo-Nazis on the 69th anniversary of the World War II firebombing of the city by the Allies on February 13, 2014 in Dresden, Germany. Neo-Nazis from across Germany have used the anniversary to parade in Dresden in recent years, though a strong, local grass movement against them has prevented their marches and this year led to the cancellation of a neo-Nazi gathering. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 21: (ISRAEL OUT) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks on during a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and Defence Minister Ehud Barak (not pictured), on November 21, 2012 in Jerusalem, Israel. An official ceasfire started at 9pm local time between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement after eight days of conflict resulting in the deaths of over 140 Palestinians, five Israelis and many hundreds injured. (Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte (R) makes a speech during the Philippines-China Trade and Investment Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 20, 2016.
Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pledged to enhance trust and deepen cooperation October 20, Chinese officials said, as Manila's new leader seeks to rebalance his country's diplomacy away from the US. / AFP / POOL / WU HONG (Photo credit should read WU HONG/AFP/Getty Images)
