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.
MIAMI - MAY 24: A gas tanker passes a Chevron petroleum storage tank at Port Everglades May 24, 2004 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The port is a major petroleum storage and distribution hub for South Florida. U.S. oil prices today rose to within a few cents of a new 21-year record on Monday as traders and analysts doubted whether Saudi Arabia's weekend pledge to raise output was enough to meet demand. U.S. light crude futures settled up $1.79 to $41.72 after climbing as high as $41.82 at midday. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A picture taken 19 October 2007 in Lyon, shows Interpol's building after a press conference of Jean-Michel Louboutin, international police organisation Interpol's Executive director, following the arrest by Interpol of Christopher Paul Neil, a suspected Canadian paedophile, aka "Vico", accused of sexually abusing young boys in Southeast Asia. Christopher Paul Neil, 32, was nabbed in Thailand's third-largest city Nakhon Ratchasima following an unprecedented appeal from international police organisation Interpol for public help in finding him. AFP PHOTO / FRED DUFOUR (Photo credit should read FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)
NABANGA, SUDAN: Uganda's rebel leader, Joseph Kony's second in command, Vincent Otti (C) talks on a communication device as he walks 12 July 2006 through the jungle into a clearing in Nabanga, south Sudan, near the Ugandan and D.R. Congo borders. The venue is to be the stage for a meeting between the mediating south Sudan Government and the infamous Ugandan rebel movement, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) officials in a bid to a truce negotiation. Just a day after peace talks began 19 July 2006 under Sudanese mediation, the Ugandan government flatly rejected demands for a truce from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and said there could be no ceasefire until a full peace settlement is reached. AFP PHOTO/MATT BROWN (Photo credit should read MATT BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - A woman and a young girl young child suffering from severe malnutrition sleep on a bed in the ICU ward at the In-Patient Therapeutic Feeding Centre in the Gwangwe district of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, on September 17, 2016.
Aid agencies have long warned about the risk of food shortages in northeast Nigeria because of the conflict, which has killed at least 20,000 since 2009 and left more than 2.6 million homeless. In July, the United Nations said nearly 250,000 children under five could suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year in Borno state alone and one in five -- some 50,000 -- could die. But despite the huge numbers involved, the situation has received little attention compared with other humanitarian crises around the world -- even within Nigeria. / AFP / STEFAN HEUNIS (Photo credit should read STEFAN HEUNIS/AFP/Getty Images)
This picture taken on April 3, 2017 shows female farmers looking after their families' cows along the Duong river in the northern province of Bac Ninh. / AFP PHOTO / HOANG DINH Nam (Photo credit should read HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)
Brazilian soldiers (Brazil leads a mission of UN peacekeepers here) patrol a camp for survivors of the January 2010 quake in Haiti which killed 250,000 people, on February 28, 2013 in Port-au-Prince. The UN has had a huge mission in Haiti helping the impoverished country with its political strife and the impact the devastating 2010 quake. Hundreds of thousands are still living rough in squalid makeshift camps, and they now face rampant crime, a cholera outbreak and the occasional hurricane. AFP PHOTO/VANDERLEI ALMEIDA (Photo credit should read VANDERLEI ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - Somali security forces patrol the scene of a suicide car bomb blast on August 30, 2016 in Mogadishu.
At least seven people were killed on August 30 when jihadists exploded a suicide car bomb outside a popular hotel close to the presidential palace in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. The Al-Qaeda aligned Shabaab jihadists claimed responsibility for the attack on the SYL hotel which was previously attacked in both February 2016 and January 2015. / AFP / Mohamed ABDIWAHAB (Photo credit should read MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump (R) welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) to the Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Girls rescued by Nigerian soldiers from Islamist militants Boko Haram at Sambisa Forest line up to collect donated clothes at the Malkohi refugee camp in Yola on May 5, 2015. They were among a group of 275 people rescued by the Nigerian military last week and arrived at the camp on May 2. The Nigerian military said it has rescued some 700 women and children in the past weeks. AFP PHOTO / EMMANUEL AREWA (Photo credit should read EMMANUEL AREWA/AFP/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - Police patrol on horseback outide the stadium after the team bus of Borussia Dortmund had some windows broken by an explosion some 10km away from the stadium prior tothe UEFA Champions League 1st leg quarter-final football match BVB Borussia Dortmund v Monaco in Dortmund, western Germany on April 11, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / Odd ANDERSEN (Photo credit should read ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)
This picture taken on December 14, 2012 from China's northeastern city of Dandong, looking across the border, shows a North Korean military officer (R) and a North Korea man (L) standing behind a pile of coal along the banks of the Yalu River in the northeast of the North Korean border town of Siniuju. China is North Korea's biggest trading partner by far, and most of the business passes through Dandong in northeastern China, where lorries piled high with tyres and sacks are processed at the customs post. AFP PHOTO / WANG ZHAO (Photo credit should read WANG ZHAO/AFP/Getty Images)
An Indonesian Sharia police whips a man during a public caning ceremony outside a mosque in Banda Aceh, capital of Aceh province on September 18, 2015. Three women and 14 men arrested for sexual offenses and gambling were caned in front of the mosque in full view of the public following the Friday prayer. Aceh is the only province of Indonesia that is enforcing the Islamic Sharia law and violators are punished by public caning. AFP PHOTO / CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN (Photo credit should read CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 23: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer speaks during a daily briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House January 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. Spicer conducted his first official White House daily briefing to take questions from the members of the White House press corps. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
