Papa John’s founder John Schnatter has resigned as chairman of the board.

The company made the announcement late Wednesday, hours after Schnatter apologized for using a racial slur during a conference call in May.

Forbes said Schnatter used the N-word during a media training exercise. When asked how he would distance himself from racist groups, Schnatter reportedly complained that Colonel Sanders never faced a backlash for using the word.

In a statement released by Louisville, Kentucky-based Papa John’s, Schnatter said reports attributing use of “inappropriate and hurtful” language to him were true.

“Regardless of the context, I apologize,” the statement says.

The University of Louisville also said Wednesday that Schnatter resigned from its board of trustees, effective immediately.

Schnatter stepped down as CEO last year after blaming slowing sales growth on the outcry surrounding football players kneeling during the national anthem. He remained chairman of the company he started when he turned a broom closet at his father’s bar into a pizza spot.

Papa John’s shares fell nearly 5 percent Wednesday after the report, closing at $48.33.
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An FBI official will testify Thursday before two House committees investigating allegations of bias in the agency against President Donald Trump.

Counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok worked on Special Council Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and allegations of collusion with Russia until last year, when he was removed after text messages he exchanged with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page were revealed, showing their mutual contempt for Trump.

Strzok and Page were involved in a romantic relationship in 2016, when they were both involved in the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server. President Trump has seized on the Strzok and Page’s texts to denounce the Mueller probe as nothing more than a “witch hunt.”

Strzok will testify Thursday before a joint hearing of the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees, one week after appearing before the panels behind closed doors.

Page also briefly served on Mueller’s investigative team until the revelations of her texts with Strzok. She resigned from the FBI in May. She is facing charges of contempt of Congress after failing to appear Wednesday for private meetings with the Judiciary and Oversight committees.
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As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week, lawmakers from Trump’s Republican Party offer differing accounts of their visit to Moscow. While one U.S. senator called for the U.S. to lift sanctions against Russia, another compared dealing with Moscow to dealing with the mafia. VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine looks at what appears to be a shift among many in the Republican Party, which traditionally has taken a hard line on Russia.
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China’s protests this month over a surge in relations between its rival Taiwan and the United States may prompt eventual retaliation by nervous officials in Beijing, analysts say.

 

The head of the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office said July 8 China “cannot accept” growth in Taiwan-U.S. relations.

 

That comment was a response to the passage Saturday of two U.S. warships through the ocean strait separating Taiwan from China.

 

China resents U.S. support because it sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a country with rights to foreign relations. The United States strong military also adds to concerns among Communist officials as they grapple with ways to bring Taiwan under its flag.

 

Taipei and Washington have been exploring a closer relationship since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last year and Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen took power in 2016.

“After the new governments of the U.S. and Taiwan formed, after Trump and Tsai Ing-wen took office, the situation is definitely one that the Chinese do not want to see,” said Gratiana Jung, a senior political researcher with the Yuanta-Polaris Research Institute think tank in Taipei.

 

Testing China’s patience

On Saturday the United States sailed two warships, the USS Mustin and USS Benfold, through the Taiwan Strait, the Ministry of Defense in Taipei said.

 

The U.S. Navy has sent ships to the same 160 kilometer-wide (100 mile-wide) waterway in the past but this time Taiwan noted it publicly and pledged to “perfect its responsibilities as a regional player.”

The United States may have used this voyage to alert China to the strength of U.S.-Taiwan relations, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank.

 

Washington sees Taiwan as part of its “pearl chain” of allies that support U.S. aims in the Asia Pacific, said Joanna Lei, chief executive officer of the Chunghua 21st Century think tank in Taiwan. One of those aims is containing China’s expansion, experts believe. Other allies include Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

 

Media reports from Washington say the U.S. State Department has requested that the Marines help guard a new de facto embassy compound in Taipei.

A series of decisions by Trump and actions by the U.S. Congress had already grabbed China’s attention.

Legislation signed by Trump in March encourages more senior-level U.S.-Taiwan visits despite opposition from Beijing, for example, and Washington openly opposes Chinese demands that 44 international airlines quit referring online to Taiwan as a “country.”

 

Last year the U.S. government announced a $1.42 billion package of advanced weaponry for Taiwan’s military.

Bristly Chinese reaction

 

China would see a deployment of Marines in Taiwan, even if it is just to defend U.S. property, as a “permanent upgrade” in relations, Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center, a research organization in Honolulu.

 

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Liu Jieyi said in response to the warships that Taiwan should “recognize the true intent” of being played as a “card” by the U.S. government.

 

“Absolutely you don’t want anyone to help the United States play a Taiwan card, hurting the people on both sides and the interests of Taiwanese people,” Liu was quoted saying.

U.S. military support for Taiwan implies aid from Washington if China were to attack Taiwan. But passage of U.S. warships is not Taiwan’s “fault,” said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan.

 “You cannot punish Taiwan for what the U.S. did,” Lee said. “Of course, China doesn’t want Taiwan to get closer to the U.S.”

Some believe Trump is using Taiwan to rattle China into giving concessions on trade as he proposes tariffs against Chinese goods sold in the United States.

 

Follow up by Beijing

 

China will probably follow up by doing more to make Taiwanese youth and business people see the benefits of its roughly $12 trillion economy, Jung said.

China approved a list of measures in February making it easier for Taiwanese to work and invest.

 

Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when the losing Nationalists fled to Taiwan and reestablished their government.

The two sides have been separately ruled since then, but China insists on eventual unification despite government opinion polls in Taipei showing that most Taiwanese oppose that outcome.

China may also establish a “line,” possibly through military channels, that Taiwan and the United States should avoid crossing, Lei said. That measure might resemble Beijing’s anti-secession law, she said. The 2005 law authorizes use of force against Taiwan if it declares legal independence from China.

 

“They will draw clear red lines, so that Taiwan understands where the boundaries might be and the U.S. understands what actions might trigger further retaliations or responses,” Lei said.

 
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China refused to take the blame for a setback in North Korea’s path toward denuclearization as bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang went sour during U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit there over the weekend.

Beijing on Tuesday insisted its position on the Korean peninsula issue is consistent and responsible — a rebuttal to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweeted accusation that China “may be exerting negative pressure on a deal because of our posture on Chinese trade.”

Trump’s comments echoed the stance of Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who said Pyongyang’s latest condemnation of the U.S. has “China’s hands all over” it.

“If I were President Trump, I would not let China use North Korea to back me off of the trade dispute,” Graham told the U.S cable news network program Fox News Sunday after North Korean officials called their talks with Pompeo “regrettable” and accused the U.S. of making “gangster-like demands” on denuclearization.

Beijing’s Rebuttal

“This is totally baseless. China’s position on the Korean peninsula is consistent and clear. We will steadfastly play a positive role and make constructive contributions towards pushing for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and peace and stability in the region,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told press briefings repeatedly.

 

Wang Dong, a professor of international studies at Peking University, said China is being scapegoated.

 

“China can’t afford to be the scapegoat. What happened was the Trump administration is divided on its approach toward the procedures of denuclearization. [Pompeo] proposed a hawkish approach [during negotiations], which Pyongyang will never accept. North Korea has made it clear that its principle of step-by-step and simultaneous action has to be abided by,” Wang said, adding that both Washington and Pyongyang need to make compromises to narrow their gaps.

 

The professor urged Trump not to offset his diplomatic efforts after the Singapore summit, saying he should next persuade his hawkish aides to come up with a feasible approach on “full denuclearization” — one that differs from the past complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of North Korea’s nuclear programs.

 

Mixed online reactions

 

Accusations from U.S. politicians, however, have triggered nationalistic sentiment among Chinese netizens.

 

An online reader, who responded to the foreign ministry’s rebuttal, wrote that the United States “has measured the stature of great men by the yardstick of small men” while another reader called the United States “paranoid.”

But one day earlier, the majority of the Chinese audience actually sided with Pompeo and responded negatively to Pyongyang’s reluctance to pick up its pace of denuclearization.

 

On Weibo, China’s twitter-like microblogging platform, one user asked “why is the US — a country so far away — keeping an eye on the North Korea’s denuclearization progress? Where is that responsible nation?”

 

Another Weibo user wrote “decapitation operations should be next carried out. Simple and effective.”

 

Economic gains

 

While China may be genuinely committed to pushing Pyongyang to denuclearize, it’ll inevitably bear the brunt of any back-and-forth from North Korea’s delivery, according to Tsai Tung-Chieh, a professor of international politics at National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, central Taiwan.

 

That’s because Pyongyang can only look to China, currently its major trade partner, for economic gains in exchange for any progress of its denuclearization, the professor said.

 

North Korea leader Kim Jung Un has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Pyongyang in September for National Day celebrations in a bid to strengthen economic ties.

Kim has met Xi twice in the lead-up to his June summit with Trump and the third to brief Xi on the outcome of the talks.

 

“Denuclearization will be next used as a bargaining chip and guarantee for North Korea to negotiate for [future] economic incomes. That is, the North won’t terminate nuclear programs without any economic gains,” Tsai said.

 

After the Singapore summit, Trump may have eroded China’s leverage by directly engaging with Pyongyang, but that doesn’t mean China will be left completely out of the equation, the professor said.

He added that Trump has won the “face” as the peacemaker, but will require China to deliver the “lining” on denuclearization as Beijing has a bigger say in awarding Pyongyang economic gains.

 

And the U.S.-North Korea denuclear dealings will be decoupled from the Sino-U.S. trade fight, according to professor Wang.

 

The Trump administration’s latest announcement to slap tariffs on an extra $200 billion of Chinese imports has sparked an outcry from China, whose commerce ministry said on Wednesday the U.S. move is “unacceptable” and hurts America’s own interests, China and the rest of the world.

A four-party meeting?

Wang, in addition, disagreed that Kim is planning on a second summit with Trump in Switzerland as he said such a summit isn’t in the interests of either country.

 

What Pyongyang really wants is a four-party meeting with South Korea, China and the United States, the professor said.

 

“Pyongyang has more faith in South Korea and China. It remains skeptical of the U.S. To Kim, he will be under a lot of pressure shall he next meet one-on-one with Trump. Instead, he will feel more eased sided by South Korea and China and can certainly leverage the three-to-one advantage to constrain the U.S.” Tsai said.
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