President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law a bill that urges China to resume talks with the Dalai Lama or his representatives to arrive at a “negotiated agreement on Tibet” as he reiterated that the measure did not represent a change in U.S. policy.
“I share the Congress’s bipartisan commitment to advancing the human rights of Tibetans and supporting efforts to preserve their distinct linguistic, cultural and religious heritage,” Biden said in a July 12 statement.
In his statement, Biden said that the Resolve Tibet Act does not change U.S. policy recognizing the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, and Chinese provinces with large Tibetan populations as part of the People’s Republic of China.
But supporters said it is still an important measure because it adds pressure on Chinese leaders to grant greater autonomy to these areas.
“All people should have the right to live in peace and decide their own future. But the people of Tibet have not had those freedoms for more than 70 years. We just took an important step toward changing that,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon and a co-sponsor of the bill, said.
In 2002, Chinese and Tibetan representatives held talks over a governance framework in the TAR.
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader for most Tibetan Buddhists, has called for “genuine” autonomy for Tibet, an approach that accepts the region’s status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedoms and strengthened language rights, which are already supposed to be protected under China’s constitution.
But the talks ground to a halt in 2010. Since then, there has been no formal dialogue between the two sides. Critics say in the interim China has increased its efforts to force Tibetans to assimilate into the majority Han culture through the use of boarding schools that promote the use of Mandarin and by prohibiting the worship of the Dalai Lama.
Senate Bill 138 passes in the U.S. House of Representatives 391-26 on June 12, 2024, in Washington. (C-SPAN)
The president signed the Tibet bill into law just days after Tibetans and well-wishers worldwide celebrated the Dalai Lama’s 89th birthday on July 6. The Dalai Lama underwent successful knee surgery on June 28 in New York. He remains in the United States as he recovers.
China on Saturday expressed opposition to the measure.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it “violates the U.S. government’s long-held position and commitments and the basic norms governing international relations, grossly interferes in China’s domestic affairs, undermines China’s interest, and sends a severely wrong signal to the ‘Tibet independence’ forces.”
U.S. support for Tibet
U.S. lawmakers and Tibetan leaders, including Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the democratically elected head of the Central Tibetan Administration, a Tibetan government in exile, welcomed the move.
Penpa Tsering said on Saturday that the news “fills me with renewed hope.” He said the Resolve Tibet Act into law solidifies the U.S.’s commitment to a negotiated solution to the Tibet-China conflict.
Tencho Gyatso, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, called the measure “a clarion call to support Tibet’s peaceful struggle for human rights and democratic freedoms.”
In addition to promoting talks between Chinese and Tibetan leaders, the Resolve Tibet Act directs State Department officials to work to counter Chinese government disinformation about Tibet. It also affirms the State Department’s role to encourage China to address the Tibetan people’s aspirations regarding their distinct identity.
In June, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told RFA that Tibet remains a purely internal matter of China and that no “external forces” had the right to interfere.
“We urge the U.S. side to cease using Tibet-related issues to interfere in China’s internal affairs and to avoid actions that could harm Tibet’s development and stability,” Liu Pengyu said.
“The U.S. should not provide a platform for ‘Tibetan independence’ forces to engage in anti-China separatist activities. China will take all necessary measures to defend its interests,” he said.
Chinese forces invaded Tibet in 1950 and have controlled the territory ever since. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India amid a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
Since then, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through the suppression of dissent and policies undermining Tibetan culture and language.
“The Tibetans are willing; the People’s Republic of China should come to the table,” Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat and a key supporter of the bill, said after Biden signed the legislation.
Additional reporting by Tenzin Dickyi, Dorjee Damdul and Dickey Kundol. Edited by Kalden Lodoe and Jim Snyder.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tenzin Pema and Tashi Wangchuk for RFA Tibetan.
Still a great place to visit, but no longer a land of opportunity for aspiring expatriates — that seems to be the international verdict on China these days.
Since the lifting of stringent COVID-19 restrictions in late 2022, the Chinese government has stepped up efforts to attract more foreign nationals back to China to work and study, offering a slew of visa-free entry schemes, cheaper visas and tax incentives in recent months.
Premier Li Qiang has pledged to rebuild the country’s brand as an investment destination, even as his boss Xi Jinping continues to emphasize a domestic economy that is no longer reliant on exports.
China issued just 711,000 residence permits to foreigners last year, a fall of 15% from 2019, according to figures from the National Immigration Administration cited in the Wall Street Journal on March 18. Permits issued to foreigners living in cosmopolitan Shanghai fell from around 70,000 in 2020 to 50,000 in 2022.
A group of foreign tourists visit the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, July 31, 2013. (Andy Wong/AP)
The number of short-term visitors has plummeted by around two-thirds over the same period, the report said.
Meanwhile, the number of U.S. students in China has dwindled to just 700 – down from 15,000 six or seven years ago, U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns told a seminar at the Brookings Institution in December 2023.
Some universities have been upgrading their facilities in a bid to attract more foreign students, prompting an angry online backlash for the Nanchang Hangkong University earlier this year after the school allocated 140 million yuan for a dormitory upgrade that wasn’t extended to domestic students.
An alumnus of Qingdao University in Shandong who gave only the pseudonym John for fear of reprisals told RFA Mandarin that the special treatment offered to foreign students is part of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s outreach and influence operations, known as the United Front.
“Every university has a program for foreign students because of the United Front mindset,” John said. “While foreign students get high subsidies and scholarships, Chinese students by contrast have to take out loans to go to school, and many can’t go to university because they can’t afford the tuition.”
While some foreigners are clearly traveling to China following the end of pandemic restrictions, many are unwilling to stay there long term, interviewees told RFA Mandarin.
Another barrier is an atmosphere of mistrust that has seen market research and other industry consultancy work criminalized as a threat to “national security,” dampening investor confidence and leading to fewer opportunities with foreign companies.
A foreigner walks out of an exit at the arrival hall of the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, March 14, 2023. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
“Short term, I felt very comfortable … I didn’t feel like my rights were necessarily infringed upon, but I was also very cognizant of the fact that I was coming back to the U.S.,” U.S. national Chloe Ross Bohn, 23, who recently completed a year-long exchange program at Nanjing University, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.
“If I was living there long term, the I guess sudden changes and the lack of transparency from the government would make me nervous,” said Ross Bohn, who said she fully enjoyed her time in China as “a guest,” however.
“I think it’s easy to be a guest in another country and follow rules regardless of my opinions about those rules for one year,” she said. “For five plus years, I think that would be a very difficult situation for me.”
Ross Bohn may not be the only one who feels that way.
Souring business sentiment
The American Chamber of Commerce in China found in a recent business report that “business sentiment has continued to deteriorate,” and that just 33% of companies said staff would be willing to relocate to China.
Just 52% of companies said they are optimistic about doing business in China over the next five years, the lowest level of optimism reported since the AmCham Shanghai Annual China Business Report was first introduced in 1999.
Meanwhile, “concern over future Chinese commercial policies” was a factor for 48% of the 325 companies who responded to the survey, the report said.
Italian national and Shanghai resident Susan Rui, who gave only a pseudonym for fear of reprisals, said that while there has been a visible increase in foreign tourists in the city in recent months, many shops and restaurants have closed in the city’s Jing’an district, once home to large numbers of expatriates.
The apartment she currently rents came with much of the furniture and fittings intact, because its previous occupant, a German national, left China in a hurry to escape the restrictions of the zero-COVID policy.
It’s not just Americans who remain unimpressed by attempts to get them to live and work in China long term.
A foreigner waits on his bicycle as people on bicycles are ordered to stop for identification check at a checkpoint along a street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 4, 2023. (Andy Wong/AP)
Uzbekistan national Rakhmonberdi Khajiev is currently studying computer science at Beijing Institute of Technology. He arrived in 2019, only to be plunged into the lockdowns, travel bans and compulsory daily testing and quarantine of the zero-COVID policy.
While Khajiev maintains a positive view of China, and plans to take a master’s degree there too, he has no plans to stay beyond his studies.
“My parents [run] a local shop … and they sell clothing stuff for women,” he said. “Most of the things that they sell actually are imported from China.”
“I always wanted to study abroad, and they were like, if you go to China, maybe you could also like, learn the language and help us out with our business,” he said.
Future fears
But he is pessimistic about any employment prospects after graduation.
“It’s kind of hard to break into tech [here],” he said. “There’s … a lot of competition going on, even among the Chinese citizens. As a foreigner, it’s kind of hard to get a job because you have to compete with them as well.”
Then there’s the language barrier.
“I might be good at conversations but still when it comes to terminologies and tech stuff, I’m not that still good,” Khajiev said, adding that it’s not always easy to get sponsorship for a work visa either.
Russian and Chinese national flags flutter in the wind at Tiananmen Gate, in Beijing, May 16, 2024. (Andy Wong/AP)
A 26-year-old Russian woman who gave only the single name Olya said she enjoyed her recent trip to China in May, but wouldn’t want to live there due to the threat of military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
“I went to China to have some new experiences, and I got it,” she said. The food is great, and there are many cultural and historical attractions to visit.”
She would like to go back and see some more, but said it was hard to see herself living there.
“Everyone in the world knows that China and Taiwan have quite tense relations,” Olya said. “When you are from one country that has quite aggressive relationships with their neighbors, you don’t want to go to another country where there is a possibility of anything going on in the nearest future.”
“You want to go to some very, very safe place,” she said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Additional reporting by Li Yaqian.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Stacy Hsu and Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
North Korea has ordered the return of workers who were dispatched to China to earn money for the regime, a document obtained by Radio Free Asia shows.
Experts told RFA that the order is intended to bring back women in their 30s who missed out on getting married because they were stuck in China during the pandemic. The typical age in North Korea for women to be married is around 26, according to the South Korea-based media outlet Daily NK, which cited a study by the South Korean Ministry of Unification.
The orders, which are believed to have been issued in May and June, were sent out to embassies and consulates in China. The repatriation should be “thoroughly executed without any conditions or excuses,” the announcement states.
The women now being called home likely put off marriage to accept their overseas assignments, which are a crucial economic resource for the country that is under heavy international economic sanctions. These jobs typically last only a year or two, but those sent prior to the pandemic have now been abroad for more than four years.
Two waitresses dressed in traditional Korean costumes stand in front of a North Korean restaurant in Dandong, China, July 30, 2018. (Philip Wen/Reuters)
J.M. Missionary Union, a South Korean organization that executes rescue missions for North Korean escapees in China, said many of the women likely work in North Korea-themed restaurants.
These restaurants are often staffed by women who in addition to serving food pull double duty as singers and dancers to entertain diners.
The repatriation effort is part of the country’s plans to encourage more marriages to counter the country’s declining birthrate, Cho Han Bum, a researcher at the South Korea-based Korea Institute for National Unification, told RFA Korean.
“There is a problem raised within North Korea that female workers dispatched overseas missed their marriageable age,” Cho said. “This is why Kim Jong Un attended the FifthNational Meeting of Mothers at the end of last year.”
At that meeting, Kim Jong Un was brought to tears as he pleaded with North Korea’s women to have more children.
South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper reported this week that the Chinese government had requested all North Korean workers return home, suggesting it was designed to show Beijing’s unhappiness at Pyongyang’s effort to forge closer ties with Russia.
However, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied it had made the request.
“China and North Korea are neighbors connected by mountains and water and have always maintained traditional friendly and cooperative relations,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a news conference.
He equated reports of a deterioration of Sino-North Korean relations as a fiction. “I hope they don’t write news like it is a novel,” Lin said.
Seo Jae-pyoung, head of the Seoul-based Association of the North Korean Defectors, told RFA, that China does not want to be seen as openly violating U.N. sanctions barring North Koreans from working abroad, because penalties for doing so could damage its own poor economy.
North Korea’s desire to swap some of its older workers with younger replacements could draw unwanted attention to the practice, he said.
“China is in the position that all North Korean workers should leave first,” he said. “So, it appears that a ‘battle of wits’ is going on between them.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Jim Snyder.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mok Yongjae, Kim Jieun and Son Hyemin for RFA Korean.
Britain’s new ruling party has pledged a thorough audit of U.K.-China relations to establish a clearer long-term China policy, including its dealings with Beijing over the South China Sea and Taiwan, but analysts say little change is likely in the near future.
Keir Starmer’s Labour party won a landslide victory in last week’s general election, ending 14 years of Conservative government.
U.K. policy has been that it “takes no sides in the sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea, but we oppose any activity that undermines or threatens U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) authority – including attempts to legitimise incompatible maritime claims,” in the words of Anne-Marie Trevelyan, minister of state for Indo-Pacific under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Trevelyan reiterated that London’s commitment to the UNCLOS was “unwavering” as it played a leading role in setting the legal framework for the U.K.’s maritime activities.
“It’s a standard position on upholding international law, freedom of navigation and the rules-based order,” said Ian Storey, fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, “This is not going to change.”
However, with China’s increased assertiveness and growing military might, upholding those principles in distant waters will be a challenge. Furthermore, there are Britain’s own interests in economics, security and geopolitics to be considered.
In 2021, the British government announced an overhaul in its foreign policy – Global Britain in a Competitive Age – which emphasized a “tilt to the Indo-Pacific” that, following in the footsteps of the U.S., promised a bolder strategic presence in the region where China is looming large. In 2022, Britain released a new National Strategy for Maritime Security, with one of the main focuses being the South China Sea.
The United Kingdom’s carrier strike group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth, and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces joined with U.S. Navy carrier strike groups led by flagships USS Ronald Reagan and USS Carl Vinson to conduct multiple carrier strike group operations in the Philippine Sea, Oct. 3, 2021. (U.S. Navy)
Yet there has not been any major British deployment in the region since 2021, and the Royal Navy did not send a warship to take part in the ongoing U.S.-led RIMPAC – the world’s largest international maritime exercise.
It remains unclear how Britain will pursue its maritime ambitions in the Asia-Pacific, especially when overall policy towards China has been deemed inconsistent.
‘Clear steer’ in dealing with China
Labour’s promise to conduct both a defense review and an audit of China policy “leaves many questions unanswered,” said Gray Sergeant, research fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, a British think tank.
“Initially, Labour was skeptical about the ’tilt to the Indo-Pacific’, however, they have supported measures which have stepped up Britain’s defense role in the region,” Sergeant told RFA.
“It is very unlikely such advances will be reversed, the question is whether a Labour government will be inclined to build on these steps if, as it seems, attention is focused on enhancing the U.K.’s role in European security,” the analyst said.
Another China expert, veteran diplomat Charles Parton, said that in the past Labour “has not said things which indicate that its China policy will be different from that of the Conservatives.”
“But the latter’s strategy was never articulated, for which they came in for justified criticism,” said Parton, senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “The pressure now is on Labour to give a clear steer and to ensure consistent implementation across the various government departments whose interests involve dealing with China.”
The Conservative government recognized China as a “systemic challenge”’ that it sought to counter with a three-stranded strategy of “‘protect, align, engage.” Labour’s new foreign secretary, David Lammy, proposed a similar “three Cs” (compete, challenge, cooperate) in dealing with China.
“That signals continuity,” said Gray Sergeant. “The question is which of these three strands will take precedence?”
The analyst noted that Lammy put particular emphasis on cooperation and engagement, and seemed keen on more ministers visiting China, which was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner in 2023, according to the U.K. Department for Business and Trade.
Some activists, like Luke de Pulford from the U.K. Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said that the new British government was likely to champion trade over thorny issues that would cause discord.
“Labour needs to deliver on the economy and is scared that upsetting Beijing would jeopardize that goal,” de Pulford wrote in a recent opinion piece.
“Ministerial ambition, parliamentary trench warfare, media outrage or unavoidable circumstantial change can all shift policy, but outside of a serious escalation in the South China Sea, I don’t see it happening,” the human rights activist wrote.
But another activist said that Labour’s manifesto made clear “their intention to bring a long-term and strategic approach to managing relations with China.”
“This could lead to a more robust stance on human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, and increased support for Taiwan’s autonomy,” said Simon Cheng, a Hong Kong democracy activist in London.
“However, we must watch closely how these words translate into actions,” Cheng warned.
What does China say?
China has been closely following developments in U.K. politics, with Premier Li Qiang sending a congratulatory message to Starmer almost immediately after he became Britain’s prime minister on July 5.
Li said that China and Britain were both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and cooperation between them “not only serves the interests of the two countries, but also is conducive to the unity of the international community in addressing global challenges.”
Keir Starmer, then U.K. Shadow Brexit Secretary, in a meeting with former Taiwanese vice president Chen Chien-jen in Taipei on Oct. 1, 2018. (Taiwan Presidential Office)
Starmer, as a member of parliament and shadow Brexit secretary, visited Taiwan in 2016 and 2018 to lobby against the death penalty. Observers say it’s very rare that any top British leader has had an experience of Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province that must be reunited with the mainland.
While the issue of Taiwan has not emerged in bilateral interactions, British politicians in the past have angered China over their statements about Hong Kong and the South China Sea.
A Foreign Office spokesperson’s statement criticizing the “unsafe and escalatory tactics deployed by Chinese vessels” against the Philippines in the South China Sea earned a rebuke from Chinese diplomats in London, who said they “firmly oppose and strongly condemn the groundless accusation made by the U.K., and have lodged stern representations with the U.K. side on this.”
China maintains that almost all of the disputed South China Sea and its islands belong to it. China refused to accept a 2016 arbitral ruling that rejected all its claims in the South China Sea but it recognized that Britain’s stance of not taking sides in the South China Sea issue had changed.
Before 2016, the U.K. did not have a clear-cut South China Sea policy, wrote Chinese analyst Liu Jin in the China International Studies magazine.
Liu argued that Britain’s change in policy, as well as its stance in the South China Sea, were largely influenced by the United States.
“However, due to the security situation in its home waters, inadequacy of main surface combatants, and pressure of the defense budget, the U.K. will find it hard to expand the scale of Asia-Pacific navigation,” he said, adding that London also lacks the willingness to step up provocation against China.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Authorities in Hong Kong are probing allegations that mainland Chinese students are using fake academic credentials to enroll in a prestigious MBA program, sparking fears of falling standards in the city, whose officials are keen to attract migrants from mainland China in the wake of a mass wave of emigration.
As many as 30 applicants to the University of Hong Kong Business School have been found to have used fake documents supplied by a higher education agency, some of them for American universities, Business School Dean Cai Hongbin told the financial news site Caixin in a recent interview.
“As fraudulent academic qualifications seriously affect student admission by local higher education institutions and Hong Kong’s hard-earned international reputation, the [government] and all sectors of the Hong Kong community deeply resent such acts and have zero tolerance towards the matter,” Hong Kong’s Secretary for Education Christine Choi told the city’s legislature in a recent statement.
While police arrested a man and a woman on June 26 and July 3 on suspicion of using fake documents, the university is now asking students to resubmit their academic qualifications, as HKU Business School Dean Cai warned that the fake degrees were mostly found in applications that used a “guaranteed admission” service from an academic agency.
At least 30 students are believed to have used fake documents as part of the “guaranteed admission” service that costs applicants 500,000 yuan apiece, Cai told Caixin.
“Their ability to make fake academic qualifications is astonishing,” the July 4 article quoted Cai as saying. “The University of Hong Kong has carried out spot checks as part of this review of academic qualifications.”
Cai said many of the fake documents weren’t distinguishable from the genuine article, right down to letterhead, envelope, paper quality and other details.
An online search for the keyword “guaranteed admission” in Chinese found several companies offering such services, including a website called Gabroad, which offers “Guaranteed admissions to Top 20 schools” including Harvard, claiming a 100% success rate.
The same site also offers such services for universities in Hong Kong, including the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Full refunds are offered to anyone who isn’t offered a place, regardless of grades and test scores.
Falsifying or supplying fraudulent academic qualifications carries a maximum jail term of 14 years in Hong Kong.
Any violations will result in “decisive disciplinary action” against the students concerned, including expulsion, while offenders will also likely be prosecuted, Choi said in a June 26 written reply to the Legislative Council.
Education and immigration
The HKU Business School is a highly competitive school, receiving more than 24,000 for taught postgraduate programs in 2023, and only awarding places to 2,600 of them, according to Caixin.
All masters students at the school are now being required to resubmit undergraduate degree certificates, transcripts and other materials, the article said.
Year-long taught masters are particularly sought after by mainland students, because they are a quick way to secure the right to remain in the city for at least a year and look for work, offering a pathway to permanent residency.
Hong Kong’s Chuhai College of Higher Education, which once struggled to recruit enough bachelor’s degree students to balance the books, had more than 1,500 students in September 2023 after launching a range of taught, one-year masters courses and promoting them aggressively on mainland social media platforms like Xiaohongshu, according to an investigation by RFA Cantonese.
“Chuhai College in Hong Kong is known as a master’s mill, because a lot of middle-class people from mainland China come here to take a one-year master’s … during which they can get a Hong Kong ID card for their kids,” according to one video circulating on Xiaohongshu in recent weeks.
“A lot of influencers and agents promote the college as a one-stop shop for education and immigration,” the video says.
While Chuhai College once had close ties with the government of Taiwan, it has recently repackaged itself as a “red” school, setting up a research institute to study ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s influence and infrastructure program known as the Belt and Road.
University of Hong Kong Business School Dean Cai Hongbin is seen in an undated photo. (University of Hong Kong)
Taiwanese national security researcher Shih Chien-yu said he once worked as a lecturer at Chuhai College for many years, and confirmed that it has a reputation for not being too picky about who gets admitted.
“Chuhai College doesn’t check very carefully whether applicants meet admission criteria,” Shih told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “There is strict training and guidelines regarding assessment of student performance, but I don’t think it gets implemented in accordance with those standards.”
Chuhai College is now on track to upgrade to university status, if it can attract similar numbers of students next academic year.
The College hadn’t responded to inquiries about its strategy or admissions policies by the time of writing.
However, a statement on its website says the school “has always followed the principles of fair selection, transparent procedures and merit-based admissions when recruiting for both undergraduate and master’s courses.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
Yogi Berra, famous as a baseball catcher and a wandering philosopher, is credited with the statement, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Uncle Sam, famous for initiating endless wars and philosophizing about democracy and human rights follows Yogi’s pronouncement in only one direction ─ the road to war.
The endless wars, one in almost every year of the American Republic, are shadowed by words of peace, democracy, and human rights. Happening far from U.S. soil, their effects are more visual than visceral, appearing as images on a television screen. The larger post-World War II conflagrations, those that followed the “war to end all wars,” in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have not permanently resolved the issues that promoted the wars. From their littered battlefields remain the old contestants and from an embittered landscape new contestants emerge to oppose the U.S. “world order.” The U.S. intelligence community said, “it views four countries as posing the main national security challenges in the coming year: China, followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea.” Each challenge has a fork in the road. Each fork taken is leading to war.
China
“China increasingly is a near-peer competitor, challenging the United States in multiple arenas — especially economically, militarily, and technologically — and is pushing to change global norms,” says a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Interpretation ─ China has disrupted the United States’ world hegemony and military superiority. Only the U.S. is allowed to have hegemony and the military superiority that assures the hegemony.
Foreign Policy (FP) magazine’s article, “How Primed for War Is China,” goes further: “The likelihood of war with China may be the single-most important question in international affairs today.”
If China uses military force against Taiwan or another target in the Western Pacific, the result could be war with the United States—a fight between two nuclear-armed giants brawling for hegemony in that region and the wider world. If China attacked amid ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the world would be consumed by interlocking conflicts across Eurasia’s key regions, a global conflagration unlike anything since World War II. How worried should we be?
No worry about that. Beijing will not pursue war. Why would it? It is winning and winners have no need to go to war. The concern is that the continuous trashing will lead the PRC to trash its treasury holdings that finance U.S. trade debt (already started), use reserves to purchase huge chunks of United States assets, diminish its hefty agricultural imports from Yankee farms, and enforce its ban of exports of rare earth extraction and separation technologies (China produces 60 percent of the world’s rare earth materials and processes nearly 90 percent). The U.S. should worry that, by not cooperating, the Red Dragon may decide it is better not to bother with Washington and use its overwhelming industrial power, with which the U.S. cannot compete, to sink the U.S. economy.
China does not chide the U.S. about its urban blight, mass shootings, drug problem, riots in Black neighborhoods, enforcing the Caribbean as an American lake, campus revolution, and media control by special interests. However, U.S. administrations insist on being involved in China’s internal affairs — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, South China Sea, Belt and Road, Uyghurs — and never shows how this involvement benefits the U.S. people.
U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs has not changed anything! The United States is determined to halt China’s progress to economic dominance and to no avail. China will continue to do what China wants to do. With an industrious, capable, and educated population, which is four times the size of the U.S. population, arable land 75 percent of that of the U.S. (295,220,748 arable acres compared to 389,767,633 arable acres), and a multiple of resources that the world needs, China, by default will eventually emerge, if it has not already, as the world’s economic superpower.
What does the U.S. expect from its STOP the unstoppable China policy? Where can its rhetoric and aggressive actions lead but to confrontation? The only worthwhile confrontation is America confronting itself. The party is over and it’s time to call it a day, a new day and a new America ─ not going to war to protect its interests but resting comfortably by sharing its interests.
Russia
Western politicos responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s comment, “The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century,” with boisterous laughter. Go to Ukraine and observe the tragedy and learn that Putin’s remark has been too lightly regarded. It’s not a matter of right and wrong. It’s a matter of life and death. The nation, which made the greatest contribution in defeating Nazi Germany and endured the most physical and mental losses, suffered the most territorial, social, and economic forfeitures in post-World War II.
From a Russian perspective, Crimea had been a vital part of Russia since the time of Catherine the Great ─ a warm water port and outlet to the Black Sea. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s attachment of Crimea to The Ukraine Republic was an administrative move, and as long as Ukraine allowed Russia free entry to Crimea, Moscow did not seek annexation. To the Russia government of year 2014, the Euromaidan Revolution changed the arrangement. Putin easily rationalized annexing a Ukraine region whose population was 2/3 Russian, considered a part of Russia, and was under attack by Ukrainian nationalists.
Maintaining Ukraine in the Russian orbit, or at least, preventing it from becoming a NATO ally, was a natural position for any Russian government, a mini Monroe Doctrine that neutralizes bordering nations and impedes foreign intrusions. Change in Ukraine’s status forecast a change in Russia’s position, a certain prediction of war. Ukraine and Russia were soul mates; their parting was a trauma that could only be erased by seizure of the Maiden after the Euromaidan.
Ukraine has lost the war; at least they cannot win, but don’t tell anybody. Its forces are defeated and depleted and cannot mount an offensive against the capably defended Russian captured territory. Its people and economy will continue to suffer and soldiers will die in the small battles that will continue and continue. Ukraine’s hope is having Putin leave by a coup, voluntarily, or involuntarily and having a new Russian administration that is compliant with Zelensky’s expectations. The former is possible; the latter is not possible. Russian military will not allow its sacrifices to be reversed.
For Ukrainians, it is a “zero sum” battle; they can only lose and cannot dictate how much they lose. A truce is impeded by Putin’s ambition to incorporate Odessa into Russia and link Russia through captured Ukraine territory to Moldova’s breakaway Republic of Transnistria, which the Russian president expects will become a Russian satellite, similar to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This leaves Ukraine with two choices: (1) Forget the European Union, forget NATO, and remain a nation loosely allied with Russia, or (2) Solicit support from the United States and Europe and eventually start a World War that destroys everybody.
As of July 8, 2024, Ukraine and United States are headed for the latter fork in the road. After entering into war, the contestants find no way, except to end it with a more punishing war. That cannot happen. Russians crossing the Dnieper River and capturing Odessa is also unlikely. The visions of the presidents of Russia and Ukraine clash with reality. Their visions and their presence are the impediments to resolving the conflict. Both must retire to their palatial homes and write their memoirs. A world tour featuring the two in a debate is a promising You Tube event.
Commentators characterized the Soviet Union as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. After it became scrambled eggs, Russia’s characterization became simplified; no matter what Putin’s Russia does, it is viewed as a cold, icy, and heartless land that preys on its neighbors and causes misery to the world. Apply a little warmth, defrost the ice, and Russia has another appearance.
Iran
Ponder and ponder, why is the U.S. eager to assist Israel and act aggressively toward Iran? What has Iran done to the U.S. or anybody? The US wants Iran to eschew nuclear and ballistic weapons, but the provocative approach indicates other purposes — completely alienate Iran, destroy its military capability, and bring Tehran to collapse and submission. Accomplishing the far-reaching goals will not affect the average American, increase US defense posture, or diminish the continuous battering of the helpless faces of the Middle East. The strategy mostly pleases Israel and Saudi Arabia, who have engineered it, share major responsibility for the Middle East turmoil, and are using mighty America to subdue the principal antagonist to their malicious activities.
Although Iran has not sent a single soldier cross its borders to invade another nation and has insufficient military power to contest a United States’ reprisal, the Islamic republic is accused of trying to conquer the entire Middle East. Because rebellions from oppressed Shi’a factions occur in Bahrain and Yemen, Iran is accused of using surrogates to extend their power ─ guilt by association. Because Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah have extended friendship (who does not want to have friends), Iran, who cannot even sell its pistachio nuts to these nations, is accused of controlling them.
Iran is an independent nation with its own concepts for governing. The Islamic Republic might not be a huggable nation, but compared to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, it is a model democracy and a theocratic lightweight. Except for isolate incidents, Iran has never attacked anyone, doesn’t indicate it intends to attack anyone, and doesn’t have the capability to wage war against a major nation.
Defined as Iran, the world’s greatest sponsor of terrorism, the Iranian government has not been involved in terrorist acts against the United States, or proven to have engaged in international terrorism. There have been some accusations concerning one incident in Argentina, one in the U.S. and a few in Europe against dissidents who cause havoc in Iran, but these have been isolated incidents. Two accusations go back thirty to forty years, and none are associated with a particular organization.
If the US honestly wants to have Iran promise never to be a warring nation, it would approach the issues with a question, “What will it take for you (Iran) never to pursue weapons of mass destruction?” Assuredly, the response would include provisions that require the U.S. to no longer assist the despotic Saudi Kingdom in its oppression of minorities and opposition, in its export of terrorists, and interference in Yemen. The response would propose that the U.S. eliminate financial, military and cooperative support to Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands, oppressive conditions imposed on Palestinians, and daily killings of Palestinian people, and combat Israel’s expansionist plans.
The correct question soliciting a formative response and leading to decisive US actions resolves two situations and benefits the U.S. — fear of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction is relieved and the Middle East is pointed in a direction that achieves justice, peace, and stability for its peoples. The road to war is a tool for Israel’s objectives. The U.S. continues on that road, willingly sacrificing Americans for the benefit of the Zionist state. Tyranny and treason in the American government and the American people either are not observant or just don’t care.
Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK)
Nowhere and seemingly everywhere, North Korea stands at a fork in the road. The small and unimportant state that wants to be left alone and remain uncontaminated by global germs, is constantly pushed into responding to military maneuvers at its border, threats of annihilation, and insults to its leaders and nation. From United States’ actions and press coverage, North Korea assumes the world stage as a dynamic and mighty nation and exerts a power that forces respect and response. How can a nation, constantly described as an insular and “hermit kingdom,” cast a shadow that reaches 5000 miles to the United States mainland and speak with a voice that generates a worldwide listening audience?
The world faces a contemporary DPRK, a DPRK that enters the third decade of the 21st century with a changed perspective from the DPRK that entered the century. Rehashing of old grievances, reciting past DPRK policies that caused horrific happenings to its people, and purposeful misunderstanding of contemporary North Korea lead to misdirected policies and unwarranted problems. Purposeful misunderstanding comes from exaggerations of negative actions, from not proving these negative actions, from evaluating actions from agendas and opinions and not from facts, from selecting and guessing the facts, and from approaching matters from different perspectives and consciences.
Instead of heading away from North Korea, the U.S. speeds toward a confrontation and North Korea makes preparations — developing nuclear weapons and delivery systems and signing a mutual defense pact with Russia. The U.S. State department paves the road to war and, as a favor to its antagonist, induces it to develop the offensive and defensive capabilities to wage the war. Apparently, the U.S. defense department has orders not to attack the DPRK before it has ICBMs and warheads that can demolish the U.S. Unlike Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, let’s make this a fair fight.
North and South Vietnam have only one problem ─ U.S. interference in their internal affairs. Stop the joint maneuvers and remove the U.S. troops and the North and South will learn how to get along and realize they must get along. If they do not find friendship and engage in hostilities, they will resolve the issue in a way that badly affects both and does not affect the U.S. Why internationalize an issue that is national and can be contained? Why make the U.S. land subjected to possible attack because two miscreants cannot behave?
North Korea might go down in history as the nation that awakened the world to the consequences of global saber rattling. It has shown that the nuclear world can become one big poker game, in which a challenge to a bluff can be an ‘all win’ and ‘all lose’ proposition. Which gambler is willing to play that game when an ‘all win’ doesn’t add much more to what the gambler already has, and an ‘all lose’ means leaving the person with nothing? The odds greatly favor America, but the wager return is not worth taking the bet, despite the odds. Keep it sweet and simple, let the Koreans settle their problems, and we will see doves flying over the Korean peninsula.
The Road to War
The U.S. does not develop foreign policies from facts and reality; they are developed from made-up stories that fit agendas. Those who guide the agendas solicit support from the population by providing narratives that rile the American public and define its enemies. This diversion from facts and truth is responsible for the counterproductive wars fought by the U.S., for Middle East turmoil, for a world confronted with terrorism, and for the contemporary horrors in Ukraine and Gaza. U.S. foreign policy is not the cause of all the problems, but it intensifies them and rarely solves any of them.
Because violence and military challenges are being used to resolve the escalating conflicts throughout the globe, should not more simplified and less aggressive approaches be surveyed and determined if they can serve to resolve the world conflagrations. Features of that determination modify current U.S. thinking:
(1) Rather than concluding nations want to confront U.S. military power, realize nations fear military power and desire peaceful relations with the powerful United States.
(2) Rather than attempting to steer adversaries to a lose position, steer them to a beneficial position.
(3) Rather than denying nations the basic requirements for survival, assist their populations in times of need.
(4) Rather than provoking nations to military buildup and action, assuage them into feeling comfortable and not threatened.
(5) Rather than challenging by military threat, show willingness to negotiate to a mutually agreed solution.
(6) Rather than interfering in domestic disputes, recognize the sovereign rights of all nations to solve their own problems.
(7) Rather than relying on incomplete information, purposeful myths, and misinterpretations, learn to understand the vagaries and seemingly irrational attitudes of sovereign nations whose cultures produce different mindsets.
Recent elections in the United Kingdom indicate a shift from adventurism to attention with domestic problems. The Labor Party win over a Conservative government that perceived Ukraine as fighting its war and the election advances of the far right National Rally and the far-left Unbowed Parties in France show a trend away from war. A win by Donald Trump, whose principal attraction is his supra-nationalist antiwar policy, will emphasize that trend and indicate that the most disliked of two disliked is due to the abhorrence to war.
From ever war to war no more.
A pleasant thought
that U.S. administrations thwart.
All roads still lead to war.
Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) subsidiary Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) has revealed its J-31B Shen Fei/Gyrfalcon combat aircraft in a new computer-generated video showcasing its fighter portfolio in early July. The company did not disclose further details of this particular variant of the J-31 development, which was first made known to the public in […]
Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) subsidiary Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) has revealed its J-31B Shen Fei/Gyrfalcon combat aircraft in a new computer-generated video showcasing its fighter portfolio in early July. The company did not disclose further details of this particular variant of the J-31 development, which was first made known to the public in […]
China is a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through its support for the country’s defense industry, says a statement issued by the 32 NATO members at a summit in Washington on Wednesday.
The Chinese and Russian militaries meanwhile held joint military exercises in western Belarus – a staunch ally of Moscow – close to the border with NATO member Poland, but Beijing publicly denied that the exercises were aimed at this week’s NATO summit in Washington.
Speaking on the first full day of the 75th anniversary summit of NATO at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Russia was on a “wartime footing” and looking to its authoritarian allies to provide resources for its war in Ukraine.
Russian marines take their position during Russia-Belarus military drills at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground in Belarus In this photo made from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Feb. 19, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
“They’re significantly ramping up their production of weapons, munitions and vehicles, and they’re doing it with the help of China, North Korea and Iran,” Biden said at the opening, calling on the NATO members to similarly increase defense spending to keep up.
“We cannot allow the alliance to fall behind,” he said, before asking the gathered press to leave the room so the summit could start.
In a joint statement later issued by the 32 NATO member states, the alliance called for Beijing to stop enabling Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine by providing the inputs its military needs to produce weapons and hardware amid otherwise tight U.S.-led trade sanctions.
“The PRC has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called no-limits partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base,” the NATO statement says, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
“This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbours and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort.”
The statement also promises the establishment of a joint NATO training center in Poland, which also shares its eastern border with Ukraine.
It’s not the first time accusations about Chinese support for Russia’s military industrial base have been made by NATO countries.
Ahead of a trip to Beijing in April, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China of “fueling” the war in Ukraine through a “supply of inputs” required by Russia’s defense industry, such as machine tools, microchips and dual-use goods with military uses.
At a panel event at the summit on Wednesday, Blinken put precise numbers on the claim, saying “70% of the machine tools” and “90% of the microelectronics” arriving in Russia were coming from China.
Educators search for salvageable items inside a kindergarten destroyed by a missile strike, in Kyiv, July 10, 2024. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP)
“We’ve seen a massive buildup of its weaponry over the last year and a half – tanks, missiles, munitions,” he said. “That’s the product of a defense industrial base being fueled by China. As a result, European allies understand the challenge posed by China to Europe’s security.”
China, for its part, has not denied the claims, but has insisted it “has every right to normal economic and trade cooperation” with Russia.
Drills in Belarus
At a press briefing in Beijing earlier Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian appealed for NATO to stay in its lane as an alliance between Europe and North American countries.
“China’s position on NATO is consistent,” Lin said. “We firmly oppose NATO acting beyond its characterization as a regional defensive alliance, inserting itself into the Asia-Pacific to incite confrontation and rivalry, and disrupting the prosperity and stability in this region.”
Lin also denied that China’s ongoing military training with Russia’s military in Belarus was related to the NATO summit, saying it was part of a deal inked last week when Belarus became the latest member of a Central Asia-focussed regional group led by Russia and Beijing.
“The joint army training is part of the annual cooperation plan between China and Belarus,” he said. “It is normal military exchange and cooperation between China and Belarus and within international law and common practices, and it’s not directed at any particular country.”
Tanks move during the Union Courage-2022 Russia-Belarus military drills at the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground in Belarus, Feb. 19, 2022. (Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr/AP)
Yet against Beijing’s appeals for NATO to keep its focus solely on the Atlantic, the pact’s leaders have welcomed allies across Asia and the Pacific as observers this year, noting Russia’s expansion of its footprint through a reliance on China and North Korea to supply its war effort.
Attending this year’s summit are Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who are each attending for the third year in a row, as well as Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.
‘A stake in our success’
NATO leaders have been unapologetic about expanding the alliance’s footprint to Asia by including longtime Western allies at summits.
At the opening of the summit on Tuesday night, Biden had said NATO had become history’s most successful military alliance because it had always adapted to the times since its founding with 12 members.
“We did [adapt], evolving our strategy to stay ahead of threats, reaching out to new partners to increase our effectiveness,” Biden said, pointing to non-NATO observers at the summit. “Here with us today are countries from the Indo-Pacific region. They’re here because they have a stake in our success, and we have a stake in theirs.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also noted how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tying together continents and giving allies outside of Europe and North America a stake in NATO’s affairs.
“Our security is interlinked because Iran, North Korea and China are the main enablers of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived at the summit Wednesday morning.
Rescuers, volunteers and medical workers, some in bloodied uniforms clean up the rubble and search for victims after a Russian missile hit the country’s main children hospital Okhmadit, in Kyiv, Ukraine, July 8, 2024. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
At a panel event at the summit hosted by Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe, Stoltenberg said that Iran and North Korea’s help to Russia was important but was dwarfed by China’s support.
“China is the main enabler,” Stoltenberg told the panel. “They are delivering the tools, the dual-use equipment, the microelectronics, everything Russia needs to build the missiles, the bombs, the aircrafts, and all the other systems that they use against Ukraine.”
An inflection in Europe-China ties could soon arrive, he added.
“If China continues, they cannot have it both ways,” he said. “They cannot … have a kind of normal relationship with NATO allies in North America and Europe, and then fuel a war in Europe that constitutes the biggest challenge to our security since the Second World War.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
On June 26th, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability sat down for a Congressional Hearing titled, “Defending America from the Chinese Communist Party’s Political Warfare.” This was one of many Congressional hearings aimed at tackling the “China threat.”
As a general premise, I didn’t have a lot of hope for the hearing. Language is crucial, and the title says it all: any action by the US is merely “defense” against acts of political warfare committed by China. And still, I was disappointed. Not only was it filled with racist, paranoid rhetoric, but it was supremely unjust, lacking any level of self-awareness, and almost certainly operated solely as an agenda-pushing cover for whatever act of warfare our government sought to commit next.
Three witnesses took to the stands. The first was Erik Bethel, a finance professional selected to represent the US at the World Bank. He was followed by Mary Kissel, Former Senior Advisor to the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Third was James E. Fanell, the Former Director of Intelligence and Information Operations for the US Pacific Fleet and current Government Fellow.
Big people with big titles. That is the usual order of things: a few “experts” are selected to “teach” members of Congress about complex subjects they may lack background in. The Committee of Oversight and Accountability certainly lacks China expertise. Representative Lisa McClain spent ten years working for American Express before she was elected to represent the state of Michigan. Chairman James Comer was a Kentucky farmer. Representative Paul Gosar was a dentist in Arizona. Marjorie Taylor Green was a part-time CrossFit gym coach. Many of them have never traveled to China, let alone held a productive conversation with a member of China’s government.
Their lack of expertise didn’t stop them from sounding their opinions. I listened carefully, hoping to give them the benefit of the doubt. It was a fruitless endeavor.
Representative McClain spoke about her district: “In Michigan, we have the Gotion plant… We have a Chinese-owned company and the only spot they can figure out that is feasible for them to build is next to a university and next to a military base. Anybody think that’s a coincidence?”
In the audience, the new summer Hillterns listened with rapt attention.
“I’m not much for coincidences,” McClain continued. “We talk about, well it’s gonna create jobs. Jobs for who? I’m very concerned, and I’m not much for coincidences.”
She was talking about the plans to build a new plant in Michigan for electric vehicle components under the company Gotion, which has headquarters in Shanghai. The plan is speculated to bring thousands of jobs to the area, with wages about 150% of the current average. McClain, having no substance on which to defend her opposition to the plant, instead decided to speculate on its geographic location, implying the company is purposefully building near a university and military installation. Clearly, the plant is a spy base for the Chinese government, as surely as any 18 to 26-year-old Chinese immigrant is an undercover Chinese soldier sent to wreak havoc upon our country– all baseless, unfounded claims that promote Asian American hate and shift public perception to support anti-China policies.
The military base she’s talking about is Camp Grayling, which is actually over 100 miles away from Big Rapids, where the EV plant will be built. As for the proximity to Ferris State University, the relevance of that statement is questionable. There are around 77 colleges and universities in the entire state– 198 if you include community colleges and trade schools. It would be difficult not to build near one. But that’s beside the point. This is merely one example of the outlandish and absurd claims made in the hearing, backed by anecdotal and unreliable “evidence” based on feelings and a strange paranoia that anything with links to China has malicious intentions.
In response to McClain’s statements, Mary Kissel said, “Let’s not give them too much credit as long-term thinkers. Let’s remember they almost destroyed their country several times over.” The words were spoken derisively, reaffirming my suspicion that Ms. Kissel boasts severe negative prejudices towards China and Chinese people. She continued to cite the Cultural Revolution, the debt crisis, and “etcetera.” In truth, the US is a mere baby in comparison to China’s 5,000 years of history. As for Ms. Kissel’s claims, to say Chinese people nearly destroyed their country is misleading and tinged with a disturbing colonialistic self-superiority that the West does everything better.
Ms. Kissel also stated her opinion of how China operates: “China is a party state. The function of China is not to better the interests of the Chinese people– it is to promote, strengthen, and expand the power and influence, and reach of the Chinese Communist Party.”
I challenge this claim, not just for its wrongful absolutism, but because China has repeatedly shown immense interest in improving the everyday lives of its citizens. China is unparalleled in its developmental growth aimed at providing infrastructure and opportunities to the people. Housing, public transportation, health care, and education are all convenient and affordable. The average retirement age is 54 years old. Over the past few decades, the government has been working ceaselessly to eradicate extreme poverty with tremendous success. Over 800 million people have been taken out of poverty and afforded a better quality of life. Not only that, but China continues to emphasize the importance of green energy in building a sustainable future. Shenzhen, one of the country’s biggest high-tech cities, has even switched over all public transportation to electric vehicles. This isn’t pro-China propaganda, it’s simply fact.
Along with forged criticism of China’s internal dynamics and history, the hearing also challenged China’s position when it comes to the US.
The overall goal of China, Ms. Kissel proclaimed, is to “upend our way of life and to dominate and change our way of life.” They are “committed to destroy(ing) us.”
At first glance, it sounds absurd that an individual so ostensibly high up on the policy advisory hierarchy would make such a condemnatory and extreme claim. But considering that Ms. Kissel served under Mike Pompeo during Donald Trump’s presidential term, it is not so surprising. It was not an administration known for its truth-telling.
First and foremost, China has no plans to destroy the United States. We can easily cipher this through both statement and action. To claim otherwise is false and promotes a dangerous narrative that guides our policy-makers down a one-way path to war.
Erik Bethel’s claim that “China is encircling us” is also highly deceptive. Adversely, it is the US that has encircled China with over 300 military bases and countless troops. China has no military bases in the entire Western hemisphere. There is no “encircling” occurring.
Former US Representative Tom Malinowski criticized China for trying to make the US “look bad to the rest of the world.” This is, at best, overwhelmingly hypocritical. Just recently it was uncovered that the US launched a secret anti-vax operation in the Philippines during the deadliest months of the COVID-19 pandemic to undermine China’s influence in the region. According to a senior US military official, “We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
As the hearing drew on, the claims grew more and more unhinged.
“They’re teaming up with the Mexican drug cartels and they’re killing Americans,” Congressman Fallon told everyone, backing his claim that China is killing nearly as many Americans per day as died during WW2.
“They know how many paperclips you all are using in the Longworth building,” Representative Tim Burchett said, reminiscing on a Mike Pompeo quote.
“What if they were to develop some kind of biological entity that can, say, wipe out females of child-bearing ages or something?” Burchett queried.
“If you’re using this app (Tiktok), they can listen to you,” Another added.
“We should do the opposite of what China wants us to do,” Malinowski put forth as a general solution.
“We need to construct not just a defensive strategy, but an offensive strategy,” Ms. Kissel spoke decisively. Twice it was mentioned that her last name rhymes with missile– nominative determinism perhaps.
It was as if the hearing took lines straight out of an SNL skit. It’s unfathomable that these are the people sitting in our Congressional hearing rooms, talking about war. These are the people voting on legislation that could propel us into a conflict with China that would bring death and destruction to millions, and most likely end in nuclear catastrophe or total destruction of the planet.
Our politicians, although ignorant and lacking expertise, are willing cogs in the war machine. They bring the most anti-China and pro-military witnesses to the stands to reaffirm their own paranoid delusions about an all-knowing, all-hateful “other” across the sea that seeks to destroy everything bright and beautiful about the world. This is happening on a weekly basis.
The truth is that it is not China gearing up for war, but our very own government. Our politicians are pumping billions of dollars into hyper-militarizing the Asia Pacific and writing it off as “deterrence.” They’re spouting lies and fear-inducing narratives at Congressional hearings in a bid to garner support for anti-China legislation. These stories are trickling down through the media and infecting the minds of the general public, priming the US military for its next conquest. Why? Because the US is self-interested and directed solely by its desire to maintain global hegemony, even at the expense of all others. China is not a threat because it’s threatening our security– China is a threat because it’s successful.
Tucked securely in their offices, our politicians will sign bill after bill funding proxy conflicts around the world, but they will never know the many hideous faces of war. They’ll point fingers and make accusations, but they will never turn the mirror around to acknowledge their own hypocrisies. They’ll stand there saluting when bodies come home in boxes and claim it was for the greater good, but they will never face the consequences of their actions– they will never be forced to die for another’s deceptions.
Nine years after the mass arrest of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers in a nationwide police operation, the authorities are now including lawyers in Hong Kong in their politically motivated prosecutions, according to a statement from dozens of rights groups.
“Human rights lawyers defend the full spectrum of civil society,” the Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said in a statement that was also signed by more than 60 other rights organizations.
“They accompany and empower the most vulnerable against land evictions, discrimination, health scandals, or extralegal detention,” it said. “They embody the promise of rule of law and hold the government accountable.”
“They ensure that no one is left behind,” the statement said, marking the arrests, detention and harassment of more than 300 rights lawyers, public interest law firm staff and rights activists across China starting on July 9, 2015.
Since that operation, the authorities haven’t let up, and have now extended the crackdown to Hong Kong, despite promising to maintain the city’s traditional freedoms and judicial independence, the groups said.
“We are … concerned that the Hong Kong authorities are following a similar path,” the rights groups, which included the New York-based Human Rights Watch and PEN America, said, citing the cases of rights lawyers Chow Hang-tung, Albert Ho and Margaret Ng, who are all behind bars awaiting trial on “national security” charges.
And in mainland China, many of the lawyers who were targeted have since had their business licenses revoked, preventing them from earning a living, while many served lengthy jail terms for “subversion,” often after years in incommunicado, pretrial detention.
‘Huge turning point’
“The July 9, 2015, crackdown was a huge turning point in my life,” Wang Quanzhang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Monday. “My career as a lawyer was interrupted.”
Even after their release from prison, rights attorneys and their families are still harassed by the authorities, often subjected to repeated evictions and the denial of educational opportunities for their children.
Anti-Chinese Communist Party activists rally for the immediate release of Human Rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng on the 5th anniversary of his arrest, in front of the Chinese Consulate, Aug. 13, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP)
“The power of the state infiltrated our family, affected our lives, and distorted them,” Wang said. “Following my release, I have been constantly forced to move house, forced out of Beijing, and my kid has been forced out of school.”
“This has been disastrous, and caused no end of trouble. We can’t live normal lives like other people,” he said, adding that he has taken some comfort from international voices of support, although they may be powerless to change the outcome for him and his family.
Rights lawyers in China have defended Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong Kongers, members of religious minorities and the LGBTQ+ community, feminists, journalists and political dissidents, the statement from the rights groups said.
While acquittals are highly unlikely, independently minded defense attorneys once played a huge role in bringing such cases to international attention.
They have largely now been replaced in the criminal justice system by government-appointed lawyers who are barred from speaking to the media, according to the statement, which was also signed by the International Campaign for Tibet and the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
Vulnerable to torture
Rights lawyers are also vulnerable to torture during detention, the statement said, citing the cases of lawyer-turned-dissident Xu Zhiyong, rights attorney Ding Jiaxi and rights lawyer Chang Weiping.
“We remain deeply concerned at the Chinese government’s increasing use of exit bans to impede human rights lawyers and activists from leaving the country, sometimes to visit a critically ill relative,” the statement said, citing the cases of Li Heping and Tang Jitian.
Forced evictions are also affecting lawyers’ families, the statement said, citing 13 forced evictions of rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang and his family since his release from prison in November 2022.
A human rights lawyer who asked to use the pseudonym Lu Qiang for fear of reprisals said that while not all human rights attorneys have been treated as badly as Wang, many remain under surveillance to this day.
“They haven’t let up on the surveillance in nine years,” Lu said. “You could say it’s everywhere — once they stopped me near the embassy district and the police told me to get in their car, then drove me back two hours to my home. They’re still secretly watching us.”
“Even if we’re not in a smaller prison, we’re still in a big prison.”
Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Pinjian said the point of marking the 2015 crackdown was to acknowledge the huge price paid by rights lawyers and their families.
“The July 9, 2015, incident tore away the veil so people could see the totalitarian government for what it is,” Yu said. “Since then, it has been tough being a human rights lawyer.”
“There’s a high price to pay for speaking out against injustice.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
Chinese censors have pulled the plug on a movie about two homeless children who take care of each other.
“Due to issues in post-production, we are withdrawing ‘Wild Child’ from release on July 10,” the producers said in a public statement dated July 3, adding that full refunds will be issued. “We would like to convey our sincerest apologies to colleagues in movie theaters and all of our audience.”
“Keep growing up well!” the statement said. “We’ll be back, pinky swear!”
The movie’s apparent axing comes as the ruling Chinese Communist Party calls on creative industries to produce more content lauding its achievements and offering up “positive energy” to audiences.
The party’s censors operate behind the scenes, reviewing movies in production and sometimes making compulsory changes during the editing process.
The complete withdrawal of a film is seldom explained publicly, while producers and directors are unlikely to be outspoken about the reasons because their livelihoods depend on government approval.
“Wild Child” had been among a group of wholesome family films scheduled to coincide with the summer holidays, and had been listed as the No. 2 movie that people most want to see by the ticket-sales platform Taopiaopiao, according to screenshots posted in an article by government-backed news site The Paper.
Projected total box office was reported by the platform at more than 500 million yuan (US$68 million), with pre-sales already running at around 5 million (US$687,000) when the movie was pulled.
Publicity material for “Wild Child,” directed by Yin Ruoxin and withdrawn ahead of its scheduled release on July 10. (Social media screenshots)
Australia-based writer Yuan Hongbing said the decision likely came down straight from the desk of Cai Qi, the member of China’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee who handles propaganda.
“According to our information, Cai Qi was the one who said that this movie didn’t conform to the main theme of encouraging young people and teenagers to grow and thrive in a positive way,” Yuan told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday.
“[He thought] it would also mislead people into having a negative view of life in today’s China, so he stopped it from being screened.”
An orphan’s life
The theatrical trailer for the movie by director Yin Ruoxin was still available on Netease on Thursday.
It shows a pair of lovable orphans, one a teenager and the other much younger, snatching leftover food from restaurant tables, stealing fruit from street stalls and cruising around town in a bicycle rickshaw with a dilapidated sofa strapped to it.
“They have no mom or dad, and get by on food that others leave behind,” says the voice over. “If there’s no food, they steal bananas, but this time they get into trouble, and think they’re in for a beating. But the stall-holder turns a blind eye.”
The younger child is broken out of a cage by the older, and tries his best to take care of him, but they’re not related to each other, the narrator says.
The trailer contains scenes of bullying, an incident with a noose and other forms of physical assault by other kids, prompting the older child to round up the bullies and steal all of their cash at sword-point. The pair are homeless, bedding down at night on exposed concrete, with nothing but a sheet of cardboard to lie on.
Later, a Dickensian-style beggar king feeds and houses the children, sending the older ones in his gang to steal badges from flashy cars like Mercedes Benz from an underground carpark and paying them very little in return. The pair eventually wind up living in an abandoned apartment building without external help.
‘Cares about human life’
Taiwanese political commentator Tseng Chien-yuen said the movie was based on true stories of children who struggle to survive on the streets of Chinese cities.
“Society needs to be reminded at all times that there is room for improvement,” Tseng said. “That’s how progress is made.”
“This movie cares about human life, and wants its audience to share in that compassion,” he said.
Some social media comments expressed disappointment that they would now not be able to see the film, which was listed among top search terms on Sina Weibo around 8.00 a.m. Taipei time on Thursday.
“Sounds like a heartwarming movie,” user @Thinking_about_it_makes_me_fat commented, while another comment said the movie reminded them of street kids they had seen in the southern cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
“Movies can tear aside the veil between the haves and have-nots, and make the upper classes feel uncomfortable,” the user wrote.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
A stocktake of internet-facing systems will be carried out across the federal government over the next 12 months as part of a new directive designed to weed out vulnerable technologies and foreign interference risks. New frameworks for public servants will also be introduced to plug supply chain and ownership risks in technology procurements to protect…
The Philippines and Japan signed a defense pact Monday that will allow troops to be deployed in each other’s country, a landmark agreement seen as a counterweight to China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.
The Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) was signed by Philippine Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Manila at a ceremony witnessed by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Japan’s foreign and defense ministers are in the city for “two-plus-two” meetings with their Philippine counterparts.
The RAA serves as a framework for security operations and training between the two nations, including joint military drills and maritime patrols in the parts of the South China Sea claimed by Beijing but within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Japan has pursued similar agreements with a handful of countries, such as the United Kingdom andAustralia, but this is a first in Asia.
It also signifies the first time Japanese troops will be allowed to return to Philippine soil since the Imperial army’s occupation during World War II.
Speaking after the signing, Kamikawa hailed the pact as a great achievement that would help “maintain and strengthen a free and open international order based on the rule of law.”
Teodoro said the deal was a step forward for the region and would add another layer to bilateral and defense relations. It would also help create a “global architecture which will ensure sustainable peace and stability in our area,” he said.
Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations were strategically important for Japan, as they situated at a key junction of its sea-lanes.
He added Japan was keen to deepen trilateral and quadrilateral ties, with the Philippines, United States and Australia.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo (left) and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro (right) meet with their Japanese counterparts in Manila on July 8, 2024. (Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews)
The signing of the RAA comes amid escalating tensions between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea.
On June 17, Philippine officials said China Coast Guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms during a resupply mission to an outpost on Second Thomas Shoal.
One Filipino sailor lost a finger in the clash, the third such encounter this year in which Philippine personnel have been hurt.
Earlier on Monday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo thanked Japan for standing by the Philippines in its maritime dispute with China.
He also praised Tokyo for supporting the rules-based international order, including a 2016 international arbitration ruling that found China had violated Manila’s sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone.
“Our meeting today is an auspicious time for frank and candid discussions on issues of utmost importance to both our nations in an increasingly diverse dynamic geopolitical environment,” Manalo said during the two-plus-two meetings.
Chester Cabalza, president of Philippine-based think tank International Development and Security Cooperation, said the defense deal was “groundbreaking” and would serve as a counterweight to China in the region.
“The significance of the military pact enlivens the agility and deterrence of Manila with the quantum leap support of a strategic and technologically advanced neighbor like Japan,” Cabalza told RFA affiliate BenarNews.
Don McLain Gill, a political analyst at the international studies department of De La Salle University, said the agreement would act as an independent stabilizing force. At the same time, it would be compatible with U.S. efforts to form a network of alliances in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Japan has played a significant role in crafting a more robust framework for Manila-Tokyo ties, and Japan has also demonstrated its steadfast commitment in being the Philippines’ major economic and defense partner,” he said.
“In a scenario where the U.S. may dial down its support for Manila, our partnership with Japan is likely to remain steadfast and consistent.”
Manila has a similar deal with Washington, the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, which sets the terms under which American military personnel can operate on Philippine soil.
The U.S. now has access to nine military bases across the archipelago and has pledged U.S. $100 million for upgrades.
Jojo Riñoza and Gerard Carreon contributed to this report from Manila.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.
If the pen is mightier than the sword, then an army of journalists has assembled in Fiji’s capital to discuss the state and future of the industry in the region.
The three-day Pacific Media Conference 2024 on July 4-6 is organised and hosted by the University of the South Pacific, in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA) and Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), with more than 50 speakers from 11 countries.
A keynote speaker and veteran journalist Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report, says the conference is crucial.
“It’s quite a trailblazer in many respects, because this is probably the first conference of its kind where it’s blended industry journalists all around the region, plus media academics that have been analysing and critiquing the media and so on.
“So to have this joining forces like this . . . it’s really quite a momentous conference.”
Dr Robie is a distinguished author, journalist and media educator and was recognised last month as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for his contribution to journalism and education in New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region for more than 50 years.
Speaking to William Terite on Radio 531pi’s Pacific Mornings, Dr Robie said the conference was a way to bolster solidarity to others in the industry and address common challenges.
“In many Pacific countries a lot of their fledgling institutions, and essentially, politicians, have no understanding of media generally, and have a tendency to crack down on media when they have half a chance.
“So it’s partly to get a much better image of journalism and how important journalism is in democracy and development in many countries in the Pacific.”
Journalists at the Pacific Media Conference 2024 in Suva. Image: PMN News/Justin Latif
Turning the page for media The conference theme is “Navigating challenges and shaping futures in Pacific media research and practice”.
In April last year, Fiji revoked media laws that restricted media content. PMN chief-of-news Justin Latif is attending the conference, and said Fijian media were in celebration-mode, saying “democracy has returned to Fiji”.
“They talked about how such a conference had happened under previous regimes, basically the police and army would have had a presence there and would have been just noting names and checking up that nothing was said that was anti-government.”
Latif said regional journalists showed a deep sense of purpose and drive.
“People do see their roles as a calling, and so often are willing to take less pay and harder conditions,” he said.
“They see their job as building their nation and being part of helping strengthen the country, and so it’s probably quite different if you were to get a group of journalists together in New Zealand, they probably wouldn’t have quite the same sense of that kind of fervour for the role in terms of what it can mean for the country.”
The Pacific Journalism Review, a journal examining media issues and communication in the region, celebrated its 30-year anniversary. It has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and is regularly cited by scholars.
Asia Pacific Report editor Dr David Robie (left) with Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad at the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review at the 2024 Pacific Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Del Abcede/APMN
Global tussle for Pacific attention The United States is one of the main funders of the conference, and there are representatives from some Asia-Pacific countries such as Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Latif said China’s involvement in Pacific media was openly questioned by the US deputy chief of mission, John Gregory.
“He gave a very detailed breakdown of all the ways that China are influencing elections: using Facebook to spread misinformation to try and basically encourage the three Pacific nations who still support or maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, how they’re trying to influence those nations to have a regime change, and it was quite shocking information about the lengths that China is going to, or that the State Department believed China is going to.”
The United States in putting investment into journalism in the Pacific, said Latif, sending 13 journalists from Fiji to the US for exchanges.
“There is a clear US agenda here about wanting the media to be strengthened and to be supported so that they can have a strong foothold in the Pacific, because the influence of China is definitely being felt.”
A bold, future vision for Pacific media Dr Robie has described the current state of news media in the Pacific as “precarious”, and warned some nations can be susceptible to “geopolitics and the influences of other countries”.
“We’ve got China trying to encourage media organisations to be very much under an authoritarian wing, taking journalists across to China . . . but now we’re getting a lot more competition from Australia and the US and so on, upping the game, putting more money into training, influencing, whereas for many years they didn’t care too much about the media in the region.
“Journalists very often feel like they’re the meat in the sandwich in the competition between many countries, and it’s not good for the region generally.”
Dr Robie has worked across the Pacific, including five years as head of journalism at the University of Papua New Guinea, and then as the coordinator of the journalism programme at USP.
He encouraged Pacific media to continue upholding democratic values while holding leaders to account.
“Most media organisations in the Pacific are quite small and vulnerable in the sense that they’ve got small teams, limited resources, and it’s always a struggle, to be honest, and things are probably the toughest they’ve been for a while.
“Pacific countries and media need to stand up tall and strong themselves, be very clear about what they want and to stand up for it, and not be overshadowed by the influence of major countries.”
Today, the United States is leading the world’s largest multinational maritime war exercise from occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i. 25,000 personnel from 29 nations, including NATO allies and other strategic partners, are participating in the Rim of the Pacific, or RIMPAC, under the command of the US Pacific Fleet, a major component of the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).
With RIMPAC now underway, the lands and waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands are being intensively bombed and shelled as participating forces practice amphibious landings and urban combat training, and the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) find their sovereignty once again violated after more than 130 years of colonization by the US.
RIMPAC aims to fortify the colonization and militarization of the Pacific, ensuring the security of the West’s imperialist agenda against the rise of China and other threats to the US-led capitalist system.
In the interest of advancing a political education around the history and purpose of INDOPACOM as part of U.S. militarism, the Solidarity Network for the Black Alliance for Peace has published this comprehensive Fact Sheet on INDOPACOM.
WHAT IS INDOPACOM?
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, is one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s eleven unified combatant commands that together span the globe. INDOPACOM’s area of responsibility (AOR) covers half of the earth’s surface, stretching from California to India’s western border, and from Antarctica to the North Pole. INDOPACOM claims 38 nations within its AOR, which together comprise over half of the world’s population. Its AOR includes the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, while also encompassing small island nations, such as Diego Garcia, Guam, Palau, and Samoa, all of which are under some form of U.S. colonial occupation. INDOPACOM comprises multiple components and sub-unified commands. They include U.S. Forces Korea, U.S. Forces Japan, U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, and U.S. Army Pacific.
According to INDOPACOM, this large and diverse area is optimal terrain to implement its “combat credible deterrence strategy.” This includes an estimated 366 bases and installations across 16 nations–more than any other command structure due to large concentrations in Guam, Hawai’i, Japan, Korea, and Okinawa. Many of the military installations strategically surround China and major trade routes.
Headquartered at Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i, INDOPACOM claims to enhance stability and ensure “a free and open Indo-Pacific” through military and economic partnerships with countries in the region. Nonetheless, it also claims to advance “U.S. national security objectives while protecting national interests.” INDOPACOM states its mission is to build a combat-ready force “capable of denying its adversaries sustained air and sea dominance.”
THE HISTORY OF INDOPACOM
INDOPACOM is the U.S. military’s oldest and largest combatant command. It is the result of a merger between three commands–Far East Command, Pacific Command and Alaskan Command–which were established after World War II in 1947. The first commander of the Far East Command, General Douglas MacArthur, was tasked with “carrying out occupation duties of Korea, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, the Bonin Islands, the Philippines and the Mariana Islands.” From the end of WWII to 1958, the U.S. military conducted 67 nuclear tests throughout the Marshall Islands under “Operation Crossroads.” It conducted another 36 nuclear detonations at Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll in 1962 under “Operation Dominic,” which permanently destroyed the natural biomes.
Against the backdrop of the Korean War, the key predecessor to INDOPACOM, Pacific Command, was primarily oriented toward combat operations in Korea and later, the Philippines. The ongoing Korean War has resulted in millions of casualties as well as the demarcation of North and South Korea since 1953. By 1957, Pacific Command saw a major expansion and strategic reorientation of its AOR, absorbing the Far East Command and most of the Alaskan Command. Camp H.M. Smith of occupied Honolulu, Hawai’i was selected as the new headquarters because the U.S. Fleet Marine Force, Pacific, the largest maritime invasion force in the world, was already located there.
Throughout the U.S. war on Vietnam, Pacific Command controlled all U.S. military forces, including South Vietnamese assets, and operations within the country. Leading both the U.S. Pacific Air Forces and Pacific Fleet, Pacific Command’s brutal campaigns resulted in some of the most egregious atrocities, such as the My Lai massacre in 1968. Pacific Command’s operations also included some of the heaviest aerial bombardments, like “Operation Rolling Thunder.” In its numerous campaigns, which also included “Operation Bolo,” “Linebacker I and II”, “Ranch Hand,” and “Arc Lightdropping,” Pacific Command dropped over 5 million tons of bombs and at least 11 million gallons of the highly corrosive herbicide known as “Agent Orange” on Southeast Asia. Pacific Command was also responsible for covert bombing operations targeting Cambodia and Laos during the war, dropping over 2.5 million tons of bombs through “Operation Menu.”
Pacific Command saw subsequent alterations to its AOR after U.S. forces fled Vietnam in 1973. Responsibility for Afghanistan and Pakistan was delegated to US Central Command after its inauguration in 1983, while Pacific Command assumed new responsibility for China and North Korea that same year. U.S. Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield respectively oversaw territorial expansions to Pacific Command’s AOR in 1989 and 2002, into INDOPACOM’s current formation.
INDOPACOM NOW
The United States continues to view the Asia-Pacific region as pivotal to the pursuit of its material interests, emphasizing that the region is home to some of the largest and fastest-growing economies and militaries. The Obama administration’s 2011 “Pivot to Asia” marked a stronger push by Pacific Command for confrontation not only with China but any nation or movement that poses a threat to U.S. hegemony in the region.
In 2018, Pacific Command was rebranded to Indo-Pacific Command, or INDOPACOM, as it is known today. This move was meant to recognize the strategic importance of India, following heightened aggression toward China during the Obama and Trump presidencies. INDOPACOM regularly conducts joint naval training exercises in the South China Sea with countries like Japan and Australia in clear violation of international law and even secretly stationed U.S. special-operations and support forces in Taiwan since 2021.
Massive military exercises like the largest international maritime warfare training, the “Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC),” and others like “Cape North” and Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center trainings occur frequently in occupied Hawai’i and Guam, without the consent of the Indigenous populations. In 2023, INDOPACOM carried out new iterations of its“Talisman Sabre” exercise in Australia and its “Super Garuda Shield” exercise in Indonesia. These exercises involved tens of thousands of military personnel from 13 and 19 nations, respectively, including the Pacific island nations of Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Tonga for the first time.
INDOPACOM’s major military partners in the Asia-Pacific region include Japan and South Korea. The U.S. military holds significant leverage over each nation’s armed forces via agreements undergirding the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and U.S. Forces Japan (USFJ), essentially commanding additional joint military structures with their own distinct mission, vision, and objectives in support of INDOPACOM. USFK continues to prevent reunification in Korea as part of its mission to “defend the Republic of Korea,” while USFJ remains committed to the colonial occupation of Okinawa as part of its mission of “provid[ing] a ready and lethal capability…in support of the U.S.-Japan Alliance.”
BAP AGAINST INDOPACOM
INDOPACOM works to extend U.S. military influence throughout the Asia-Pacific region and to promote the militarism and violence required to fulfill the material interests of the U.S. ruling class. By portraying China as a global bogeyman, INDOPACOM serves to obfuscate the indigeneity and legitimacy of liberation movements like those occurring on the occupied islands of Guam, Hawai’i, Okinawa, and Samoa, as well as nearly every other nation across the region from Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines. INDOPACOM’s aggressive role in the region serves to create the very instability it uses to justify its own existence and mask the responsibility of U.S. officials provoking new wars.
The Black Alliance for Peace stands against the influence and power of INDOPACOM, and the ever-increasing militarization of the region. Informed by the Black Radical Peace Tradition, we understand that peace is not the absence of conflict, but the achievement, by popular struggle and self-defense, of a world liberated from nuclear armament and proliferation, unjust war, and global white supremacy. As referenced in our Principles of Unity, BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire–one based on war, aggression and exploitation–to the domestic war against poor and working-class African/Black people in the United States.
In a 3 July interview, judge Andrew Napolitano asked the University of Chicago political scientist, John Mearsheimer: “Why would the United States be putting missiles in the Philippines but to be provocative toward China?”
Mearsheimer: “I don’t think that the United States is trying to be provocative. I think what the United States is interested to do, doing is improving its deterrence capability in East Asia. The fact is that if you put the United States up against China in East Asia, and if you include the United States’ allies with the United States, right, you are up against a very formidable adversary. China is effectively a giant aircraft carrier. It has thousands and thousands of missiles, and the United States feels that it is at something of a disadvantage, and for that reason it is increasing its missile capability and other capabilities in Asia as well.”
If China were to put missiles in Cuba and Mexico, then that is not provocative? The US should have no problem because China is only improving its deterrence, yes? What is good for the goose is also good for the gander, no?
And why does Mearsheimer resort to using US government propaganda by referring to China as an “adversary”? Does China call the US an adversary? Is China looking for confrontation with the US?
If China is “effectively a giant aircraft carrier,” then is not the US also effectively a giant aircraft carrier? It is obvious that Mearsheimer is taking a page from the US propaganda booklet on the threat of China, in this case a militaristic threat. Mearsheimer, however, avoids referring to China as a “threat.”
The question raised by Mearsheimer and left unanswered is whether China is a militaristic adversary? China, for its part, publicly eschews militarism and seeks peaceful relations.
Mearsheimer: “We pushed the Russians and the Chinese closer together which makes no sense at all.”
Even if there were no United States, it is extremely rational for Russia and China to form a friendly and close relationship. They are neighbors. They are well suited to be trade partners. It is a win-win relationship that China and Russia seek from trading partners. No push was needed from the US, although US belligerence assuredly was another point in favor of a deepening Russia-China rapprochement.
Mearsheimer: I am one of a number of people who would defend Taiwan if China attacked it because I think Taiwan is of great strategic importance.
Isn’t the US aircraft carrier known as Israel considered of great strategic importance because of its location amid the Middle Eastern oil patch? Yet Mearsheimer says there is no geopolitical benefit from US support of Israel. In fact, the professor says Israel is an albatross around the US neck. What, then, is the great strategic importance Mearsheimer sees in Taiwan? It hardly seems sufficient to just state that his view is realist. In Mearsheimer’s mind moralism does not factor in.
The US has signed on to the One China Policy. Ergo, realistically, Taiwan is de jure a province of one China.
*****
When coming across analysis expressed by personalities, whether they be professors, news anchors, or lay persons consider how these persons support their views. Ipse Dixit refers to the logical fallacy of making unsubstantiated assertions. It is arguably more difficult to substantiate one’s arguments in an interview, but to merely state that something is realist is hardly compelling, especially when that realism seems rooted in opinion. Question everything.
Jardy Ndombasi (DRC), Soulèvement populaire et souveraineté (‘Popular Uprising and Sovereignty’), 2024.
On 20 June, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemned the attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ‘in the strongest terms’. In its press statement, the UNSC wrote that these attacks – by both the DRC’s armed forces and various rebel groups supported by neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda – ‘are worsening the volatile security and stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the region and further exacerbating the current humanitarian situation’. Five days later, on 25 June, the United Nations peacekeeping force in eastern DRC withdrew, in accordance with a December 2023 UNSC resolution that pledged both to provide security for the DRC’s general elections on 20 December and to begin to gradually withdraw the peacekeeping force from the country.
Meanwhile, the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels continue to push steadily into the eastern provinces of the DRC, where there has been an active conflict since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Over the course of three decades, there has rarely been lasting peace despite several peace accords (most notably the 1999 Lusaka Agreement, the 2002 Pretoria Agreement, the 2002 Luanda Agreement, and the 2003 Sun City Agreement). The total death toll is very poorly recorded, but by all indications, over six million people have been killed. The intractability of the violence in the eastern DRC has led to a sense of hopelessness about the possibility of permanently ending the carnage. This is accompanied by an ignorance of the politics of this conflict and its deep roots both in the colonial history of the Great Lakes region and the fight over raw materials that are key for the electronic age.
Monsembula Nzaaba Richard or ‘Monzari’ (DRC), L’Aube de la résistance Congolaise (‘Dawn of the Congolese Resistance’), 2024.
To make sense of this conflict, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research partnered with the Centre Culturel Andrée Blouin, the Centre for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa (CERECK), and Likambo Ya Mabele (‘Land Sovereignty Movement’) to produce a powerful new dossier, The Congolese Fight For Their Own Wealth. Eight years ago, we assembled a team to study the ongoing war, with a particular emphasis on imperialism and the resource theft that has plagued this part of Africa for the past century. The colonisation of the Congo came alongside the theft of the region’s labour, rubber, ivory, and minerals in the 1800s under the rule of Belgium’s King Leopold II. Multinational corporations continue this criminal legacy today by stealing minerals and metals that are essential to the growing digital and ‘green’ economy. This resource wealth is what draws the war into the country. As we show in the dossier, the DRC is one of the richest countries in the world, its untapped mineral reserves alone worth $24 trillion. Yet, at the same time, 74.6% of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day, with one in six Congolese people living in extreme poverty. What accounts for this poverty in a country with so much wealth?
Drawing from archival research and interviews with miners, the dossier shows that the core problem is that the Congolese people do not control their wealth. They have been fighting against rampant theft not only since the 1958 formation of the Mouvement National Congolais (‘Congolese National Movement’), which sought freedom from Belgium and control over the Congo’s extensive natural resources, but even earlier, through working-class resistance between the 1930s and 1950s. This fight has not been easy, nor has it succeeded: the DRC continues to be dominated by exploitation and oppression at the hands of a powerful Congolese oligarchy and multinational corporations that operate with the permission of the former. Furthermore, the country suffers, on the one hand, from wars of aggression by its neighbours Rwanda and Uganda, aided by proxy militia groups, and, on the other, from interference by multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that enforce neoliberal policies as a requirement for receiving loans.
Just days before the DRC’s elections in December 2023, the IMF provided a $202.1 million disbursement because it felt confident that whoever won the election would preserve ‘programme objectives, including limiting macroeconomic slippages and continuing implementing the economic reform agenda’. In other words, the IMF believed that it could continue to privatise electricity and draft mining codes that have been overly ‘generous’ to multinational corporations – irrespective of the election results (the word ‘generous’ is from the IMF’s own mission chief for the DRC, Norbert Toé). A pittance from the IMF is able to muffle the call for sovereignty over the DRC’s considerable resources.
M Kadima (DRC), Congo Is Not for Sale, 2024. Reference photograph by John Behets.
The Great Lakes region of Africa has been prevented, on several fronts, from solving the problems that plague it: entrenched neocolonial structures have prevented the construction of well-funded social infrastructure; the extraordinary power of mining companies, until recently largely Australian, European, and North American in origin, have derailed efforts to achieve resource sovereignty; imperial powers have used their money and military power to subordinate the local ruling classes to foreign interests; the weakness of these local ruling classes and their inability to forge a strong patriotic project, such as those attempted by Louis Rwagasore of Burundi and Patrice Lumumba of the DRC (both assassinated by imperial powers in 1961), has hindered regional progress; there is an urgent desire for the creation of such a project that would bring people together around the shared interests of the majority instead of falling prey to ethnic divisions (there are four hundred different ethnic groups in the DRC alone) and tribalism that tear communities apart and weaken their ability to fight for their destiny.
Such a project thrived following the independence of DRC in 1960. In 1966, the government passed a law that allowed it to control all unoccupied land and its attendant minerals. Then in 1973, the DRC’s General Property Law allowed government officials to expropriate land at will. Establishing a project that uses material resources for the betterment of all peoples, rather than stoking ethnic divisions, must again become the central focus. Yet the idea of citizenship in the region remains entangled with ideas of ethnicity that have provoked conflicts along ethnic lines. It was these ideas that led to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The absence of a common project has allowed the enemies of the masses to creep through the cracks and exploit the weaknesses of the people.
Monsembula Nzaaba Richard or ‘Monzari’ (DRC), Aurore Africaine (‘African Aurora’), 2024.
An alphabet soup of political and military fronts – such as the ADFL, FDLR, RCD, and MLC – catapulted the region into resource wars. Reserves of coltan, copper, and gold as well as control over the border roads between the DRC and Uganda that link the eastern DRC to the Kenyan port of Mombasa made these armed groups and a few powerful people very rich. The war was no longer only about the post-colonial consensus, but also about the wealth that could be siphoned off to benefit an international capitalist class that lives far away from Africa’s Great Lakes.
Fascinatingly, it was only when Chinese capital began to contest the companies domiciled in Australia, Europe, and North America that the question of labour rights in the DRC became a great concern for the ‘international community’. Human rights organisations that formerly turned a blind eye to exploitation began to take a great interest in these matters, coining new phrases such as ‘blood coltan’ and ‘blood gold’ to refer to the primary commodities mined by the Chinese and Russian companies that have set up shop in several African countries. Yet, as our dossier – as well as the Wenhua Zonghengissue ‘China-Africa Relations in the Belt and Road Era’ – show, Chinese policy and interests stand in stark contrast to the IMF-driven agenda for the DRC as China seeks to ‘kee[p] mineral and metal processing within the DRC and buil[d] an industrial base for the country’. Furthermore, Chinese firms produce goods that are often made for Global North consumers, an irony that is conveniently ignored in the Western narrative. The international community purports to be concerned with human rights violations but has no interest in the African people’s hopes and dreams; it is driven instead by the interests of the Global North and by the US-led New Cold War.
Young, talented artists spent weeks in the studio coming up with the illustrations featured in the dossier and in this newsletter, the result of a collaboration between our art department and the artists’ collective of the Centre Culturel Andrée Blouin in Kinshasa. Please read our fourth Tricontinental Art Bulletin to learn more about their creative process and watch the video on Artists for Congolese Sovereignty, made by André Ndambi, which introduces the artists’ work.
Monsembula Nzaaba Richard or ‘Monzari’ (DRC), Le peuple a gagné (‘The People Have Won’), 2024.
Reference photograph: Congopresse via Wikimedia.
Our dossier ends with the words of Congolese youth who yearn for land, for a patriotic culture, for critical thinking. These young people were born in war, they were raised in war, and they live in war. And yet, they know that the DRC has enough wealth to let them imagine a world without war, a world of peace and social development that surpasses narrow divisions and unending bloodshed.
The Philippines’ military chief on Thursday demanded that China pay 60 million pesos (US$1 million) in damages incurred during a violent confrontation between its coast guard and Filipino troops in the South China Sea last month.
China Coast Guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms in the June 17 incident near Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin and called Ren’ai Jiao by Beijing.
One Filipino sailor lost a finger in the clash, the third such encounter this year in which Philippine personnel have been hurt on missions to rotate and resupply troops stationed at Second Thomas Shoal.
“I demanded the return of seven firearms that were taken by the Chinese coast guard,” said Gen. Romeo Brawner at a press conference. “They destroyed our equipment and when we estimated the cost of the damage it’s 60 million pesos.”
The compensation does not include the cost of surgery for the Filipino soldier who lost a finger, said Brawner, who outlined his demand for compensation in a letter to Beijing.
Brawner made the comments after a command conference between military officials and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in which security challenges and threats facing the Southeast Asian nation were discussed.
Marcos called for de-escalation of tension with China in the South China Sea, the Philippine military chief said. However, rotation and resupply missions to the BRP Sierra Madre would continue, Brawner added.
On Tuesday, Manila and Beijing agreed to reduce hostilities “without prejudice to their respective positions” at a regular bilateral meeting.
China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in trade passes each year, putting it at odds with the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
In 2016, an international tribunal refuted the legal basis for nearly all of China’s expansive maritime and territorial claims in the waterway. It said that Beijing’s insistence on holding “historic rights” to the waters were inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS.
Beijing has never recognized the 2016 arbitration or its outcome.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.
The complex web of territorial claims in the South China Sea has long been a source of tension between China and several of its Southeast Asian neighbors.
The area is strategically significant due to its rich natural resources, vital shipping lanes, and geopolitical implications. Efforts to resolve the disputes through international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, have had limited success, and the region remains a flashpoint.
Recently, CGTN, the English-language news channel of China’s state-run China Central Television, or CCTV, broadcast a documentary addressing several facets of this complex issue, including the dispute between China and the Philippines.
Screenshot of CGTN documentary “Sovereignty at Stake: A documentary on the South China Sea”.
This program, titled “Sovereignty at Stake: A documentary on the South China Sea”, aims to present China’s historical claim to the region, but it has drawn criticism for potentially misrepresenting key aspects of the dispute.
Below is what AFCL found.
1. Was the South China Sea primarily navigated by China?
The documentary cited Wu Shicun, president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, as saying that excavated material from the sea are clear evidence that in antiquity “for a long time, it was primarily Chinese people who worked in, passed through and used the waters.”
But this is misleading.
“Common sense would tell you that the Chinese weren’t the only ones living off the ocean,” says Li Woteng, a well-known ethnic Chinese expert on the South China Sea dispute who has written several books on the subject.
Li believes that people from what is now modern China were not the only ones who navigated through and fished in the South China Sea, nor even the main ones.
As evidence, he cited a passage from a work by the 18th century Vietnamese scholar Lê Quý Đôn recording Vietnamese fishermen at work near the Paracel Islands – a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea.
Li noted that the passage also recorded a meeting between Vietnamese and Chinese fishermen working together peaceably at the site.
He added the text demonstrates that Chinese fishermen were not the only ones working in the waterway and it was used by mariners from China and many other Asian countries in antiquity.
International waterway
While the passage alone is not enough evidence to infer who entered the South China Sea first, Li believes that it was not China.
It is possible to claim that Chinese fishermen operating along the coastline of China’s southernmost Hainan Island in antiquity were “navigating” or “exploiting” the South China Sea, said Li.
However, Hainan is in the upper, northern tract of the sea, and it would be just as reasonable to infer that all surrounding countries in the region could make similar claims, Li added.
Arabs, Southeast Asians traders
Li also highlighted that when discussing sea routes in the South China Sea, known as the Maritime Silk Road, it is important to focus on the voyages made across the open ocean.
One Chinese expedition crossed the isthmus of modern day south Thailand en route to a kingdom in present day India, Li explained, citing a passage from a nearly 2,000-year-old text written during China’s Han Dynasty, which is the oldest surviving record of a Chinese expedition sent through the South China Sea.
The Indian kingdom had previously sent tribute across the South China Sea to the Han rulers, and the Chinese expedition was meant to be a reciprocal diplomatic gesture of respect.
Li added that the Indian kingdom’s initial crossing of the sea is clear evidence that the Maritime Silk Road had already become a major route for East and South Asian societies.
Additionally, these records show that Chinese envoys traveled abroad on foreign ships.
In the following centuries, records note that vessels from Southeast Asia, India and Iran regularly arrived at southern Chinese ports after crossing the South China Sea.
On the other hand, there are only a few accounts before the Tang dynasty (618-907) of Chinese people traveling by sea, and most of these were monks on foreign ships.
Li mentioned that it was only around the Song dynasty (960-1279) that China began producing large numbers of merchant vessels capable of crossing the open ocean.
By this time, Arab and Southeast Asian merchants were already using the South China Sea extensively, creating the well-known maritime trade routes that later famous Chinese explorers, like Zheng He, would follow.
2. Did international treaties stipulate that several disputed archipelagos lie outside the territory of the Philippines?
Regarding the present-day dispute between China and the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal, Wu Shicun from the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said in the documentary that the maritime western boundaries of the Philippines are delineated at 118 degrees east by a series of international treaties.
He added that both disputed shoals lie west of this boundary and therefore do not belong to the Philippines.
This is partly true.
The 1898 Treaty of Paris was signed between the U.S. and Spain following the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898.
The treaty ceded the entirety of the then Spanish controlled Philippines to the U.S. and delineated the eastern range of islands to be handed over as lying between a longitude of 118 degrees east to 127 degrees east.
The later treaty between the U.S. and Britain delineating maritime borders between the then U.S.-controlled Philippines and British- controlled Borneo also marked an approximate longitude of 118 degrees east as the westernmost boundary of the Philippines.
The U.S. State Department has historical records detailing the baseline of the Philippines maritime boundaries. (Screenshot/U.S. Department of State, LIS No. 33 – Philippines Straight Baselines )
However, Li Woteng noted that a clause in the 1900 Treaty of Washington – a followup agreement between the U.S. and Spain which addressed certain unresolved issues in the Treaty of Paris – further stipulated that Spain relinquished all claims to “any and all islands lying outside the lines” noted in the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
Li referred to this as a “pocket” treaty that was meant to ensure that any and all islands belonging to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era would be handed over to the U.S., regardless of whether they were within the boundaries stipulated by the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
This clause was not mentioned by Wu. If the shoals were considered part of the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era, they may have been transferred to U.S. control along with the Philippines.
3. Does China possess more convincing historical evidence than the Philippines?
The documentary criticized the Philippines for using a 200-year-old “unofficial map” from the Spanish colonial era as evidence of its sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal since ancient times. It instead pointed to a 300-year-old Chinese fishermen’s navigation manual as more convincing evidence.
However, this lacks historical context.
While it claims the Chinese fishermen’s navigation manual is “strong evidence” that the disputed islands have been Chinese territory since ancient times, the manual was never officially commissioned by any Chinese government.
In contrast, the so-called unofficial map of the Philippines was created by the Spanish polymath missionary Murillo Velarde at the request of the then governor-general of the Philippines, Valdez Tamon, following an order from the King of Spain in 1733 to draw the first complete scientific map of the Spanish territory.
The map remained the standard chart of the Philippines for a long time after its completion. A digitized version of the map is available on the U.S. Library of Congress website.
Velarde’s map of the Philippines (Screenshot/U.S. Library of Congress website)
Li, an ethnic Chinese expert on the South China Sea, stated that even if China doesn’t recognize the map drawn by Velarde as evidence of Philippine rule over Scarborough Shoal, it at least proves that the Philippines was aware of the shoal at that time.
Expeditions organized by Spain to investigate and survey the island in 1792 and 1800 could also be regarded as evidence of “effective dominion” under international law, Li added.
4. Were China’s claims to the South China Sea unchallenged by the international community?
The documentary noted that an administrative map released by the Republic of China in 1948 that includes several currently disputed islands in the South China Sea within China’s maritime borders went unchallenged by other countries at the time.
The Republic of China, or simply China, was a sovereign state based on mainland China from 1912 to 1949 prior to the government’s relocation to Taiwan, where it continues to be based today.
But this is partly true. While no country directly challenged the map at the time, several countries had already made claims to many of the islands included in the map.
In a 1996 paper by American scholar Daniel Dzurek, focusing on the issue of sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, it was noted that both Japan and France had sent several missions around the islands. France, in particular, claimed sovereignty over several islands in the region – claims that were later disputed by China.
Li believes that the most likely reason no country challenged China’s claims at the time was that nobody knew about them.
While the maps were all published in Chinese-language newspapers, they were not published prominently.
Even if other countries noticed the announcement at the time, they were probably unclear about its significance, Li explained.
“[The Republic of China] did not declare what the eleven-dash line means, and China to this day has not explicitly stated the exact meaning of the nine-dash line,” said Li.
The nine-dash line, referred to as the eleven-dash line by Taiwan, is a set of delineations on various maps that accompanied the claims of China and Taiwan in the South China Sea.
While countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines did not officially dispute China’s claimed sovereign area in the South China Sea as outlined in the map, they have declared sovereignty over particular islands and archipelagos in the region.
For instance, in 1950 the Philippines began to assert its claim to sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, and in 1956, it explicitly claimed sovereignty over them. Additionally, at the 1951 San Francisco Conference, post-independence Vietnam (represented by the Bao Dai regime) also put forward its claim of sovereignty over the Xisha and Spratly Islands.
Therefore, Li believes it is clear that the documentary’s emphasis on the fact that “no countries have objections to the eleven-dash line” is not sufficient evidence to prove there were no disputes over the islands and sea areas.
5. Did the U.S. smear China and attempt to build a military base on the Spratly Islands?
Herman Tiu-Laurel, president of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, said in the documentary that the purpose of the U.S. Myoushuu Project – a Stanford University research project – was to discredit China’s international reputation and establish a joint military base of operations in the Spratly Islands, as part of a first line of island chain bases surrounding China.
But this claim lacks evidence.
While the U.S. and the Philippines announced U.S. military access to four training sites in the Philippines as part of an expansion in bilateral military cooperation in 2023, the Spratly Islands are not included among these sites.
Project Myoushuu is designed to research Chinese tactics used in the South China Sea and document Chinese encroachment in the area.
It is part of the broader Gordian Knot Center at Stanford University, a research center specializing in national security innovation established under the auspices of the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
Project Myoushuu is a Stanford research project focused on documenting Chinese encroachment into the South China Sea. (Screenshot/Gordian Knot Center Website)
AFCL has previously debunked similar claims about U.S. plans to build military bases in the South China Sea.
6. Did international treaties following World War II delegate which country held sovereignty over the South China Sea?
The documentary also claimed that following World War II, the Allies’ decision not to contest China’s control over various islands in the South China Sea was at least a tacit admission of China’s territorial claims over the area.
This claim is highly contestable, with the key point of contention being the wording of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, also known as the Treaty of San Francisco, signed in 1951.
Neither the government of the Republic of China nor the People’s Republic of China were signatories to the treaty.
In the second article of the treaty, Japan renounced any claims to its former imperial territories held before the war, including the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands.
The original wording of the Treaty of Peace with Japan did not specify what countries hold sovereignty over the Spratly Islands or the Paracel Islands. (Screenshot/U.N. website)
However, the treaty itself did not specify or affirm which countries would exercise sovereignty over these territories.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Rita Cheng for Asia Fact Check Lab.
According to CCTV’s latest investigative report, the US troops in Syria have been smuggling local wheat crops out of Syria, using more than 10 trucks every day. To cover the smuggling activity, local checkpoints would stop all passers-by and check their phones to delete any related photos. What’s your comment?
Mao Ning: Once a wheat exporter, Syria now finds around 55 percent of its population facing food insecurity. The US is undeniably responsible for this. The US says it’s there to fight terrorism, but the reality says it’s there to plunder. The US keeps emphasizing human rights, but the reality abounds with US violations of people’s rights to subsistence and life in other countries. The US brands itself as a guardian of democracy, freedom and prosperity, but the reality shows its true identity as a manufacturer of humanitarian crises.
The US needs to earnestly respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, immediately end its illegal military occupation in Syria, stop plundering Syria’s resources, and take concrete actions to make up for the damages done to the Syrian people.
The New York Times‘ op-ed (6/3/24) broke little new ground but arrived at a timely moment for the public debate.
The lab leak theory of Covid-19’s origins has been something of a zombie idea in public discourse, popping up again and again in corporate media despite numerous proclamations that it’s finally been debunked (Conversation, 8/14/22; Atlantic, 3/1/23; LA Times, 6/26/23).
The most recent resuscitation of the theory came in the form of a New York Times guest essay (6/3/24), provocatively headlined “Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in Five Key Points”—and notably published the day of a congressional subcommittee grilling of Dr. Anthony Fauci over, among other things, his supposed role in a lab leak cover-up. The paper further bolstered the theory in the Times’ flagship Morning newsletter (6/14/24), which spotlighted Chan’s op-ed.
The author of the guest essay, Dr. Alina Chan, is a well-known proponent of a lab leak origin for SARS-CoV-2 (MIT Technology Review, 6/25/21). Her biggest claim to fame is probably the 2021 book Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, which she co-authored with London Times science writer Matt Ridley. The book’s case for Covid’s origin in a lab leak was criticized for the evidence—or lack thereof—it presented (New Republic, 12/10/21).
Her guest essay reiterates the book’s arguments. But it also recapitulates the misrepresentation, selective quotation and faulty logic that has characterized so much of the pro—lab leak side of the Covid origin discourse.
Misleading air of authority
Chan’s co-author of Viral, Matt Ridley, is a coal-mine owner who argues that “global warming is good for us.”
Under her byline, the Times identified Chan as a “molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and a co-author of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”
While true, it’s important to note that Chan’s expertise is neither in epidemiology nor virology, but in gene therapy and synthetic biology, meaning she isn’t exactly a subject expert when it comes to the fields most relevant to SARS-CoV-2 research. But that’s far from clear to the average Times reader, for whom such a bio suggests that Chan is an authoritative figure on the subject.
What’s more, the paper produced flashy data visualizations to accompany the piece and help Chan make her case, lending the paper’s institutional credibility to her argument. That same institutional credibility was further invoked by Times columnist Zeynep Tufekci, who shared the article on X the day it was published, proudly stating: “Yes, it’s factchecked. And we now know many outspoken experts opposed to this made similar points in PRIVATE.”
But that credibility is not earned by the quality of the underlying evidence Chan offers.
Lacking critical context
Many of Chan’s arguments aren’t new and have already been discussed in depth in a previous FAIR article (6/28/21), so I’ll be mostly focusing on points not already discussed there.
Near the beginning of the essay, Chan makes multiple dubiously selective references to Shi Zhengli, a WIV scientist at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) who has received copious attention in discussions of a hypothetical escape of Covid from that lab (MIT Technology Review, 2/9/22).
Chan’s theory benefits from selective retelling of a story told more fully by Scientific American (6/1/20).
Chan notes that at the start of the outbreak, Shi “initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory, saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.”
Mentioning this worry to journalists would be a relatively strange thing to do for someone trying to cover up a leak from their lab, which Chan has implied on multipleoccasions that the WIV researchers are doing (MIT Technology Review, 6/25/21, 2/9/22; Boston, 9/9/20). Chan also leaves out the vital context that Shi says that in response to her worry, she went through the lab’s records to check if it could have been the source, and found that it couldn’t have been (Scientific American, 6/1/20):
Meanwhile, she frantically went through her own lab’s records from the past few years to check for any mishandling of experimental materials, especially during disposal. Shi breathed a sigh of relief when the results came back: None of the sequences matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from bat caves. “That really took a load off my mind,” she says. “I had not slept a wink for days.”
At another point, Chan asserts that Shi’s group had published a database containing descriptions of over 22,000 wildlife samples, but that database was taken offline in fall of 2019, around the same time as the pandemic began. The implication is clear: that this action was taken in order to hide the presence of SARS-CoV-2, or a virus close enough to be its predecessor, in WIV custody.
Again, Chan doesn’t mention the reason given, that repeated hacking attempts at the onset of the pandemic led the institute to take their databases offline out of fear that they might be compromised. Nor does she address Shi’s claim that the databases only contained already published material (MIT Technology Review, 2/9/22).
It’s possible Chan believes that these are all lies told in defense of a Chinese coverup, but to not even mention these not-implausible explanations belies a biased and selective presentation.
Schrodinger’s proposal
Chan goes on to argue, “The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with US partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.”
This talking point should be familiar to anyone who has been keeping up with the cyclical resurgences of the lab leak theory over the last few years; a key piece of evidence they point to is a leaked 2018 research proposal by the name of Defuse, which was published three years ago by the Intercept (9/23/21).
The proposal is presented as a damning piece of evidence, with Chan stating that the proposed viruses would have been “shockingly similar to SARS-CoV-2.” She admits that this proposal was rejected by DARPA—in part specifically because it involved modifying viruses in ways that were viewed as overly risky—and never actually received funding. But she still posits that the WIV could have pursued research like it, despite presenting no actual evidence that this ever occurred.
Chan engages in a large amount of conjecture stacking in this section, placing unsubstantiated claim atop unsubstantiated claim to produce an argument that looks compelling at a glance but sits upon a pile of what-ifs.
The entire narrative relies on the assumption that a virus similar enough in structure to have become SARS-CoV-2 was present in the WIV at some point before the pandemic, but Chan never presents anything to substantiate this. None of the known viruses within the WIV’s catalog could have been the progenitor, with even the closest virus there—RaTG13—merely seeming to share a common ancestor.
A less-than-alarming detail
A Wall Street Journal article (6/20/23), cited by Chan, about sick researchers at the Wuhan lab left out the key detail that, according to US intelligence, the researchers had “symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with Covid-19.”
Her point relating to sick scientists is possibly the most dishonest aspect of the entire piece. Chan states that “one alarming detail—leaked to the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former US government officials—is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019.”
If you only read the Journal article (6/20/23) Chan links to, you may be convinced that these cases represent serious evidence. However, the US intelligence report these claims of sick researchers originate from, which has since been made public, clearly shows the weakness of the claim:
While several WIV researchers fell mildly ill in fall 2019, they experienced a range of symptoms consistent with colds or allergies with accompanying symptoms typically not associated with Covid-19, and some of them were confirmed to have been sick with other illnesses unrelated to Covid-19. While some of these researchers had historically conducted research into animal respiratory viruses, we are unable to confirm if any of them handled live viruses in the work they performed prior to falling ill.
So the intelligence community was unable to establish that any of the researchers actually had Covid-19 and in fact collected information that showed they presented with symptoms consistent with colds or allergies and inconsistent with Covid, with some even confirmed to have been sick with unrelated illnesses.
This is something the Times should have caught and addressed during a rudimentary factcheck.
Meanwhile, the WIV denies the allegations, and challenged its accusers to produce the names of its researchers who were Covid-19 vectors. Chan’s “alarming detail” is therefore both unsubstantiated and dependent upon the existence of a coverup at the WIV.
Weighing the evidence
New evidence that the virus originated at the Wuhan wet market (New York Times, 2/27/22) didn’t make Chan any less confident in her theory.
The final stage of Chan’s argument is identifying deficiencies in the zoonotic spillover theory. She maintains that Chinese investigators, believing early on that the outbreak had begun at a central market, had collected data in a biased manner that likely missed cases unlinked to the market.
She links to a letter to the editor in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (3/20/24) that criticized one of the major market-origin papers (Woroby et al, 2021) on the grounds that it suffered from a large degree of location bias. Consistent with Chan’s habit of ignoring arguments contrary to her thesis, she fails to mention the rebuttal produced by one of the paper’s authors, alongside another researcher.
It’s true that the evidence on the spillover side is currently incomplete; however, this isn’t necessarily damning. It took over a year to identify the intermediary hosts of MERS; we still haven’t found the one suspected to exist for HCOV-HKU1, first described in 2004; and finding the natural reservoir from which SARS stemmed was a decade-long endeavor (Scientific American, 6/1/20).
Still, the circumstantial evidence present for zoonotic spillover is strong. Early Covid-19 cases, as well as excess deaths from pneumonia—a metric far less likely to suffer from the potential bias Chan mentions—cluster around the Huannan wet market, not the WIV. Multiple distinct lineages of SARS-CoV-2 were also associated with the wet market, as would be expected if it were in fact the origination point.
In fact, five positive samples were discovered in a single stall that had been known to sell raccoon dogs, one of the animals suspected as a possible intermediate host for SARS-CoV-2 (New York Times, 2/27/22).
As a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence surrounding the origins of SARS-CoV-2, published in the Annual Review of Virology (4/17/24), states in no uncertain terms:
The available data clearly point to a natural zoonotic emergence within, or closely linked to, the Huannan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. There is no direct evidence linking the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 to laboratory work conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
False equivalence
The New York Times‘ David Leonhardt (Morning, 6/14/24) presents evidence and speculation as equally compelling.
Days after the guest essay’s release, the Times featured it in their popular Morning newsletter (6/14/24), under the headline, “Two Covid Theories: Was the Pandemic Started by a Lab Leak or by Natural Transmission? We Look at the Evidence.”
Newsletter writer David Leonhardt situated the debate by explaining that “US officials remain divided” on which theory is more plausible, then presented the issue with scrupulous balance, offering three brief arguments for each theory “to help you decide which you consider more likely.”
But this is complicated, specialized science, not Murder, She Wrote. Agencies like the Energy Department, cited by Leonhardt as endorsing the lab leak theory, do have teams of people with relevant lab and scientific expertise. (Leonhardt does not note, however, that the department has “low confidence” in its conclusion—see FAIR.org, 4/7/23.) But surely, if we’re to talk about where current thought lies on the likely origins of SARS-CoV-2, the most pertinent information to give a lay reader is what people who are experts in viruses and disease outbreaks believe. And the majority of experts in those fields lean strongly in the direction of a zoonotic spillover origin.
In a 2024 survey of 168 global experts in epidemiology, virology and associated specialties, the average estimate that the virus emerged from natural zoonosis was 77%; half the participants estimated that the likelihood of a natural origin was 90% or higher. Just 14% of the experts thought a lab accident was more likely than not the origin. (The survey excluded experts from China as being from a country rated “not free” by the US-funded think tank Freedom House.) Yet Leonhardt left out this crucial information.
The evidence Leonhardt presented for zoonotic spillover involves actual epidemiological data, as well as biological samples showing SARS-CoV-2 was present in the Huannan wet market where live animals susceptible to the virus were being sold.
The evidence presented for the lab leak, on the other hand, is the bare minimum to establish it as even being a possibility, with the strongest point not even being in direct favor of the lab leak, and instead just reestablishing that there are still missing pieces to fully prove a zoonotic spillover origin. These are not equivalent bodies of evidence in any sense of the word.
After presenting these carefully crafted options, Leonhardt suggested the logical conclusion:
Do you find both explanations plausible? I do. As I’ve followed this debate over the past few years, I have gone back and forth about which is more likely. Today, I’m close to 50/50. I have heard similar sentiments from some experts.
This is where the crux of the issue lies: These two scenarios may both be plausible, but the relative evidence of their likelihood is not a coin toss. For some reason, however, the Times seems to want to pretend that this is the case.
Why now?
Former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennett (1843 12/24/23) argued that the Times had “lost its way” in part because it was “slow” to report that “Trump might be right that Covid came from a Chinese lab.”
Why has the Times now chosen to revive the lab leak theory? Perhaps it stems in part from recent accusations that, early in the pandemic, corporate media outlets like the Times were overly dismissive of the lab leak possibility. This sentiment was reflected in a post on X (6/4/24) by Times columnist Nicholos Kristof after Chan’s article was published: “In retrospect, many of us in the journalistic and public health worlds were too dismissive of that possibility when she and others were making the argument in 2020.”
This claim of early “lab leak skepticism” has been brought up as evidence of the Times’ supposed left-wing bias, a false claim publisher A.G. Sulzberger is nevertheless at pains to dispel (FAIR.org, 4/24/24).
It’s hard to deny that the Times‘ Covid coverage has shown a strong animus against China, which has played out in absurd op-eds and news stories like “Has China Done Too Well Against Covid-19?” (1/24/20) and “China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Bind: No Easy Way Out Despite the Cost” (9/7/22). (See FAIR.org, 1/29/21, 9/17/21, 9/9/22.)
Whatever its motive, the paper’s decision to publish an argument for the lab leak theory on the day of Dr. Fauci’s congressional subcommittee testimony—without any contrary op-ed to balance it—was clearly intended to influence the public debate.
The responsibility of the press corps on the issue of Covid origins is to help readers understand in which direction the current scientific evidence points. Instead, it misinformed on the science, validating Republican attempts to turn the serious question of the source of a devastating pandemic into a political football.
ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.
China seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel in waters near the outlying Kinmen islands, Taiwan’s coast guard said on Wednesday, the latest in a recent series of incidents that has raised tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
The coast guard’s deputy director-general, Hsieh Ching-chin, told a press briefing in Taipei that the boat was detained at a location northeast of Kinmen on Tuesday evening.
The Penghu-registered boat Da Jin Man 88 with six crew, most of them Indonesian migrant workers, was fishing for squid outside Taiwan-controlled waters when the Chinese coast guard boarded it and forcibly diverted it to a port in mainland China.
The Taiwanese coast guard dispatched three ships in an attempt to rescue the fishing boat but had to stop to avoid escalating tensions as more Chinese ships approached the scene, the coast guard said earlier.
Kinmen is less than 10 km (6.2 miles) from China’s Fujian province.
Despite some tacit boundaries between the two sides, Chinese and Taiwanese fishermen often operate in the area without problems.
However, as tension rises between Beijing and the government of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te, the presence of Chinese law enforcement vessels around Kinmen has increased.
Beijing noticeably stepped up patrols in the area after an incident in February, when two Chinese fishermen drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard.
China has also announced a unilateral fishing moratorium in the waters it claims.
Hsieh said that China should clarify details surrounding the Da Jin Man 88’s detention. Normally, if caught during fishing bans, fishermen are released after paying a fine.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and the Fisheries Agency are communicating with relevant Chinese authorities to secure the fishing vessel’s release, the Taiwanese coast guard said in a statement.
The island’s defense minister, Wellington Koo, said last month that China was trying to normalize its increased incursions into the waters around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
The Chinese coast guard has reportedly adopted a new model of conducting law enforcement near Kinmen, by expanding its scope and intensity, as well as making it “all-weather enforcement.”
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Chinese-language posts have circulated a claim that the United States issued a level 4 travel alert, the highest level, to its citizens traveling to China after four Americans were attacked there in June.
But the claim is false. The U.S. travel alert for China has remained at level 3, the second highest level, since April.
The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on June 12.
“The United States issued a Level 4 travel warning for the assassination of four citizens in the Chinese Communist Party,” the claim reads in part.
The claim was shared alongside a screenshot of what appears to be a travel warning issued by the U.S. Department of State.
Users on X and Telegram recently claimed that the U.S. issued a level four travel alert to China following an attack on U.S. citizens in Jilin. (Screenshots/X and Telegram)
The claim began to circulate online after four American teachers were assaulted by a man wielding a knife at a park in the Chinese city of Jilin on June 10.
All of the teachers survived the incident and Chinese authorities took the assailant into custody.
U.S. officials expressed concern over the incident, while the Chinese Foreign Ministry commented that the attack “will not affect the normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the US.”
The same screenshot with a similar claim was also shared on X and Telegram.
But the claim is false.
U.S. travel advisory on China
The U.S. Department of State issues four levels of travel alerts to citizens, based on the varying levels of risk in different countries. These alerts range from level 1, advising to “exercise normal precautions,” to level 4, warning “do not travel.”
In April 2024, the U.S. travel advisory for China was updated to level 3, advising citizens to “reconsider travel.” This rating remains in effect.
The most recent revision of the U.S. travel advisory for China was on April 12, 2024, following the passage of new national security legislation in Hong Kong. Several English- and Chinese-language media outlets reported on this change at the time.
The advisory urges U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel” due to the potential for “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” and the “risk of wrongful detentions.”
Old alert
Keyword searches found a screenshot of the U.S. travel advisory shared in social media posts in fact taken from the old alert issued on Jan. 25, 2020.
The purported screenshot of a recent advisory was actually an archived image of an unrelated travel alert to China issued following the outbreak of COVID in January 2020. (Screenshots /Google and U.S. State Department Archives)
The Chinese text seen in the screenshot shows that the alert was issued following the breakout of COVID-19 in the city of Wuhan and advised travelers not to enter Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
Chinese-language posts have circulated a claim that the United States issued a level 4 travel alert, the highest level, to its citizens traveling to China after four Americans were attacked there in June.
But the claim is false. The U.S. travel alert for China has remained at level 3, the second highest level, since April.
The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on June 12.
“The United States issued a Level 4 travel warning for the assassination of four citizens in the Chinese Communist Party,” the claim reads in part.
The claim was shared alongside a screenshot of what appears to be a travel warning issued by the U.S. Department of State.
Users on X and Telegram recently claimed that the U.S. issued a level four travel alert to China following an attack on U.S. citizens in Jilin. (Screenshots/X and Telegram)
The claim began to circulate online after four American teachers were assaulted by a man wielding a knife at a park in the Chinese city of Jilin on June 10.
All of the teachers survived the incident and Chinese authorities took the assailant into custody.
U.S. officials expressed concern over the incident, while the Chinese Foreign Ministry commented that the attack “will not affect the normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the US.”
The same screenshot with a similar claim was also shared on X and Telegram.
But the claim is false.
U.S. travel advisory on China
The U.S. Department of State issues four levels of travel alerts to citizens, based on the varying levels of risk in different countries. These alerts range from level 1, advising to “exercise normal precautions,” to level 4, warning “do not travel.”
In April 2024, the U.S. travel advisory for China was updated to level 3, advising citizens to “reconsider travel.” This rating remains in effect.
The most recent revision of the U.S. travel advisory for China was on April 12, 2024, following the passage of new national security legislation in Hong Kong. Several English- and Chinese-language media outlets reported on this change at the time.
The advisory urges U.S. citizens to “reconsider travel” due to the potential for “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” and the “risk of wrongful detentions.”
Old alert
Keyword searches found a screenshot of the U.S. travel advisory shared in social media posts in fact taken from the old alert issued on Jan. 25, 2020.
The purported screenshot of a recent advisory was actually an archived image of an unrelated travel alert to China issued following the outbreak of COVID in January 2020. (Screenshots /Google and U.S. State Department Archives)
The Chinese text seen in the screenshot shows that the alert was issued following the breakout of COVID-19 in the city of Wuhan and advised travelers not to enter Hubei province, of which Wuhan is capital.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
An international relations lecturer says New Zealand’s framing of China in the perceived Pacific geopolitical struggle is “disingenuous”.
Victoria University of Wellington’s Nanai Anae Dr Iati Iati said one example was the lack of substance behind the notion that China was militarising the Pacific region.
“There are no angels in geopolitical competition,” he said.
“But to frame one country in particular as the devil, that’s disingenuous, especially because the Pacific island countries know that is not the case,” Dr Iati said.
“So unfortunately, New Zealand is caught within this tension between China on one side, and let’s say the Anglo-American Alliance on the other side.”
Massey University associate professor Dr Anna Powles said Pacific leaders had been calling for cooperation in the region which did not undermine Pacific priorities.
However, she said there were clear examples where China had been a “disruptive actor” in the Pacific security sector, particularly in Solomon Islands.
“At the heart of what the Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific countries and scholars are saying is that geopolitics in general is disruptive.
“Therefore, the solutions need to be Pacific led,” Dr Powles added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
