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Category: China

  • AUKUS Exists To Manage The Risks Created By Its Existence

    Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

    ❖

    “NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence,” Professor Richard Sakwa once wrote in an attempt to articulate the absurdity of the military alliance’s provocative nature on the world stage. At some point Australians must wake up to the fact that this is equally true of AUKUS: we’re told the military alliance exists for our protection, but its very existence makes us less safe.

    As former prime minister Paul Keating recently observed in the Australian Financial Review, this government’s justification for the AUKUS alliance and the obscenely expensive nuclear submarine deal that goes with it has been all over the map, first claiming that it’s to protect our own shores from a Chinese attack, then pivoting to claiming it’s to protect sea lanes from being blocked off by China after Keating dismantled the first claim at the National Press Club two weeks ago.

    One thing Canberra has struggled to do is to explain exactly why China would launch an unprovoked attack on Australia or its shipping routes; the former couldn’t yield any benefit that would outweigh the immense cost even if it succeeded, and the latter is absurd because open trade routes are what makes China an economic superpower in the first place.

    Luckily for us, the Pentagon pets cited in the Australian media’s recent propaganda blitz to promote war with China explained precisely what the argument is on Canberra’s behalf. They say Australia would be at risk of being attacked by China because the US wants to use Australia to attack China.

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    Day 2 of the @age @smh fear campaign. Predictions by a group of experts, most with connections to the defence industry funded @ASPI_orghttps://t.co/Hs243LhC3R

    — Greg Barns SC (@BarnsGreg) March 8, 2023

    In Part Two of the infamous joint “Red Alert” war propaganda series by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, imperial spinmeisters Peter Hartcher and Matthew Knott wrote the following:

    But why would China use its limited resources to attack Australia instead of focusing solely on seizing Taiwan? Because of the strategically crucial role Australia is expected to play for the United States in the conflict.

     

    “Our geography means we are a southern base for the Americans for what comes next,” Ryan says. “That’s how they’re seeing us. They want our geography. They want us to build bases for several hundred thousand Americans in due course like in World War II.”

     

    Jennings says Americans would defend Taiwan by fighting from bases in Australia.

     

    “America has a strategy called dispersal, which means when there’s a hint of a crisis, the Air Force gets out of Guam, the marines get out of Okinawa. Why? Because they know there is a high chance they will be obliterated. Where do they come? They come here. One risk our government is very concerned about is the phone rings, and it’s the US President asking for 150,000 Americans to be in the Northern Territory by next Tuesday.”

     

    Ryan says as many as 200,000 US troops could descend on northern Australia.

    Interestingly, the article also contains a rare acknowledgement in the mainstream press that the presence of the American surveillance base Pine Gap makes Australia a legitimate target for ICBMs:

    “Distance is no longer equivalent to safety from our strategic perspective,” he says. In the first three days of a war, he says Beijing would be tempted to target Australian military bases with a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile attack to minimise our usefulness in the conflict.

     

    “If China seriously wants to go after Taiwan in a military sense, the only way they can really contemplate quick success is to pre-emptively attack those assets that might be a threat to them. That means Pine Gap goes,” he says, referring to the top secret US-Australian base in the Northern Territory that the US uses to detect nuclear missile launches.

    In their haste to make the case for more militarism and brinkmanship, these war propagandists admit what’s long been obvious to anyone paying attention: that the only thing putting Australia in danger from China is its alliances and agreements with the United States. The difference between them and normal human beings is that they see no problem with this.

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    Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating’s scathing assessment of AUKUS has drawn out other Labor heavyweights to question the defense pact.https://t.co/eYBXmB94vn

    — Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) March 25, 2023

    Other empire lackeys have been making similar admissions. In a recent article by Foreign Policy, Lowy Institute think tanker Sam Roggeveen is quoted as saying the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal will make it “almost impossible” for Australia to avoid getting entangled in a war between the US and China:

    “When you build a weapon system that is almost specifically designed to operate thousands of kilometers to our north, and which is perfectly suited to fighting a military campaign against China,” he said, “then at the final moment when the call comes from the White House—‘Will you take part in this war, or won’t you?’—it will be very difficult, almost impossible, for Australia to say no.”

    The only way China attacks Australia is if Australia’s role as a US military asset makes us a target when the US attacks China, possibly over Taiwan or some other internal issue that’s nobody’s business but the Chinese. We’re told we’re allied with the US to protect ourselves, but that “protection” reminds me of an old joke by Willie Barcena:

    “My homeboy Tito was always trying to get me to join a gang. Tito, with two black eyes, arm in a sling, and crutches, saying, ‘Hey, Willie, why don’t you join the gang? You get protection!’”

    This obvious point gets flipped upside-down by those desperate to manufacture consent for militarism and empire, as we saw on a recent episode of ABC’s Q+A where South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas called Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John an “isolationist” (my God I hate that word) for questioning AUKUS and said if we’re attacked it’s because we didn’t travel rapidly enough along this self-destructive trajectory.

    “Do you worry because of the AUKUS deal, because of South Australia’s role in this, do you believe South Australia becomes a target?” Malinauskas was asked by host Stan Grant.

    “No,” Malinauskas said. “Because if Australia becomes a target, that speaks to the fact that we haven’t been making the decisions that we should’ve a long time ago to ensure that we don’t become a target, and the best way to do that is to improve our defence posture.”

    Of course this is bullshit. AUKUS has nothing to do with “defence”. You don’t need long-range submarines to defend Australia’s easily-defended shores, you need long-range submarines to attack China. Australia’s “defence posture” is an attack posture.

    Keating expanded on this point in the aforementioned National Press Club appearance, suggesting that the real plan for those nuclear submarines is to take out China’s nuclear-armed submarines to cripple their “second strike capability”, i.e. to allow the US to win a nuclear war with China. Keating gave the following comments after arguing that many short-range submarines are a much better way to defend Australia’s coast than a few vastly more expensive long-range nuclear submarines:

    “That’s the better defense policy for Australia than joining with the Americans up there in the shallow waters of the Chinese coast, trying to knock out — see look, you know this, Phil, or you may know this — the Chinese, in the air-sea battle plan they had eight or ten years ago, is whether they could knock out all the Chinese nuclear weapons in one strike. And people doubt that this could happen, you know, you can find the sites and knock them out.

     

    “So what big states do is they have submarines in deep water that carry the same nuclear weapons that are not subject to a strike — it’s called a second-strike capability. What the Americans are trying to do is deny the Chinese a second-strike capability, and we’d be the mugs up there helping them. We’ll be up there saying Oh no, we’ll put our boats into jeopardy in the shallow waters of China.”

    So stop babbling about AUKUS having anything to do with defending Australia or its shipping lanes, or defending anything at all besides the US empire’s last desperate hopes of securing unipolar planetary hegemony.

    AUKUS is not a defence partnership because it’s got nothing to do with defence, and it’s also not a defence partnership because it is not a “partnership”. It’s the US empire driving Australia to its doom, to nobody’s benefit but the US empire.

    AUKUS exists to manage the risks created by its existence, and the same is true of ANZUS and all the other ways our nation has become knit into the workings of the US war machine. If we’re being told that our entanglements with the US war machine will make it almost impossible for us to avoid entering into a horrific war that will destroy our country, then the obvious conclusion is that we must disentangle ourselves from it immediately.

    The problem is not that Australia’s corrupt media are saying our nation will have to follow the US into war with China, the problem is that they’re almost certainly correct. The Australian media aren’t criminal in telling us the US is going to drag us into a war of unimaginable horror; that’s just telling the truth. No, the Australian media are criminal for telling us that we just need to accept that and get comfortable with the idea.

    No. Absolutely not. This war cannot happen. Must not happen. We cannot go to war with a nuclear-armed country that also happens to be propping up our economy as our number one trading partner. We need to shred whatever alliances need to be shredded, enrage whatever powers we need to enrage, kick the US troops out of this country, get ourselves out of the Commonwealth while we’re at it, bring Assange home where he belongs, and become a real nation.

    ________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    Featured image by Caitlin Johnstone.

  • GBAD in Asia-Pacific

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought the need to protect their forces with ground based air defence into sharp perspective The importance of ground-based air defence (GBAD) has been brought into sharp relief by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At time of writing (early January), Ukraine claimed to have shot down 281 Russian aircraft, 266 […]

    The post GBAD in Asia-Pacific appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • West’s Uneven Response to Human Rights Crimes Exposes Broken Global System: Amnesty



    Hypocrisy and humanity’s failure to “unite around consistently applied human rights and universal values” expose a system unfit to tackle global crises, according to a report published by Amnesty International on Monday, the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    “The West’s robust response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine contrasts sharply with a deplorable lack of meaningful action on grave violations by some of their allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt,” Amnesty said in an introduction to its annual global human rights report.

    “As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turns 75, Amnesty International insists that a rules-based international system must be founded on human rights and applied to everyone, everywhere,” the group asserted.

    Amnesty continued:

    Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 unleashed numerous war crimes, generated a global energy and food crisis, and sought to further disrupt a weak multilateral system. It also laid bare the hypocrisy of Western states that reacted forcefully to the Kremlin’s aggression but condoned or were complicit in grave violations committed elsewhere…

    Double standards and inadequate responses to human rights abuses taking place around the world fuelled impunity and instability, including deafening silence on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, inaction on Egypt, and the refusal to confront Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.

    The report also highlights China’s use of strong-arm tactics to suppress international action on crimes against humanity it has committed, as well as the failure of global and regional institutions—hamstrung by the self-interest of their members—to respond adequately to conflicts killing thousands of people including in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Yemen.

    “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a chilling example of what can happen when states think they can flout international law and violate human rights without consequences,” Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard said in a statement.

    “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created 75 years ago, out of the ashes of the Second World War. At its core is the universal recognition that all people have rights and fundamental freedoms,” she added. “While global power dynamics are in chaos, human rights cannot be lost in the fray. They should guide the world as it navigates an increasingly volatile and dangerous environment. We must not wait for the world to burn again.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Why We Must Stop a New Cold War Before It’s Too Late



    Relations between the United States and China are spiraling dangerously downward, and neither side seems able to reverse the trend. Yet it is imperative that the world’s two biggest economies find a modus vivendi if the peace of the planet is to be preserved.

    Consider the recent contretemps between the U.S. and China over a Chinese balloon that drifted over the United States. The rift caused acrimonious accusations by both sides and a cancellation of the Secretary of State’s visit to China, which had been designed to tamp down tensions.

    China’s first reaction was a public regret, only later to be followed by more belligerent language. Wouldn’t it have been better if President Biden had taken China’s expression of regret and ignored the later, harsher responses? Wouldn’t it have been better if the secretary of state’s visits had gone forward?

    That’s what President Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis six decades ago when the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev sent an emotional message suggesting that, rather than “doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war…let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let’s take measures to untie the knot.” The very next day, Russia upped the ante with a much harsher message demanding that American missiles in Turkey be removed.

    Kennedy ignored the second message and replied to the first. In due course, the Soviet missiles were removed from Cuba and the American missiles from Turkey, although the latter was not officially part of the deal.

    How much better it would have been if the Secretary of State Blinken had gone ahead with his mission, met with his counterpart in China, and made an effort to reduce the tensions between China and the United States instead of accelerating them.

    When I looked up the purpose of the new House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, I found the following:

    The Select Committee “is committed to working on a bipartisan basis to build a consensus on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and develop a plan of action to defend the American people, our economy and our values.”

    No one is denying that there is serious competition between the United States and China, but does it justify such a defensive crouch? Wouldn’t it have been better to form a committee that would also develop a plan of action so that the two major competing powers can avoid conflict?

    Although the growing antagonism between the United States and China has not grown to the level of the Cuban Missile Crisis, nevertheless it presents the greatest danger to the world today. Much has been written about the “Thucydides Trap,” Graham Allison’s warning that all too often in history the tension between a rising power and an established power results in war, as it did between Sparta and Athens in 431 BC, and German and Great Britain in the early 21th Century.

    It is imperative that cooler heads in China and the United States work to defuse tensions. The prospect of nuclear war that so terrified the world in the fifties and sixties has lost some of its emotional punch. The historian Christopher Clark writes that Europe’s leaders in 1914 knew that a general European war would be massively destructive, but did they really feel it? He posits that in the 1950s and 60s decision makers and the general public not only understood the dangers of nuclear war, but viscerally felt it. Today that visceral fear has fallen away among younger generations.

    China is not without blame for the growing confrontation between the United States and China. Under President Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has reasserted its dominant role over the economy and returned China to a more Maoist centralized state with aggressive and at times bullying diplomacy and military actions in the South China Sea and in the Himalayas. But that said, a drumbeat of anti-Chinese rhetoric from the Western powers only enables China’s hardliners and handicaps those in China who would seek a less belligerent accommodation with the West.

    After all, China does not seek to overthrow our system of government. The Chinese Communist Party does not seek to export revolution as did the old Soviet Union. It is hard to imagine Cambridge University students becoming traitors as did Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and Donald Maclean in the 1930s for the sake of the Chinese Communist Party.

    As Singapore’s Bilahari Kausikan has pointed out: “Competition within a system cannot by definition be existential because the survival of the system is not at stake. China is the principal beneficiary of the existing system and has no strong incentive to kick over the table and change it in any fundamental way because its own economy rests on the foundation of that system.”

    Americans have always suffered under the delusion that China should become more like the United States. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, American missionaries fanned out across China in an effort to convert the Chinese to Christianity. President Woodrow Wilson was delighted when he discovered that Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, had become a Christian. More recently, when Deng Xiaoping abandoned Maoism for a market economy, Americans concluded that a political liberalization was sure to follow, that China would become more like the United States. It didn’t happen, but is China responsible for this miscalculation and disappointment, or are we?

    It is one thing to deny China technology that could be used militarily, but the bipartisan inflammatory language emanating from the United States is counter- productive to America’s interests and the preservation of peace. China and the United States are drifting, like sleepwalkers, toward confrontation much as Europe did in 1914 which of course resulted in a devastating war nobody wanted.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • The New York Times Is A Disgusting Militarist Smut Rag

    Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

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    I hate The New York Times. Hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. With every fiber of my being, from the depths of my immortal soul.

    The “paper of record” for the most murderous and tyrannical nation on earth, The New York Times has been run by the same family since the late 1800s, during which time it has supported every depraved American war and has reliably dished out propaganda to manufacture consent for the political status quo necessary for the operation of a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by human blood and suffering. It is a plague upon our world, and it should be destroyed, buried, and peed on.

    And I am being charitable.

    Among the latest items of unforgivable militarist smut churned out by the Times is an article titled “An Anxious Asia Arms for a War It Hopes to Prevent,” which freakishly frames the US as just a passive, innocent witness to the US military encirclement of China.

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    Doubts about both China and the U.S. are driving an arms race in the Indo-Pacific — with echoes of World War II and new levels of risk. https://t.co/gl0uQsYspw

    — The New York Times (@nytimes) March 25, 2023

    Times author Damien Cave writes ominously that China’s president Xi Jinping “aims to achieve a ‘national rejuvenation’ that would include displacing the United States as the dominant rule-setter in the region,” as though it makes perfect sense for the US to be the “dominant rule-setter” in the continent of Asia.

    (You see lines like this in The New York Times constantly; earlier this month the Times editorial board bemoaned the fact that “the United States had tried with little success to persuade or compel China to abide by American rules,” like that’s a perfectly sane and normal line to write. Other nations make demands, the US makes “rules”. These people really do begin with the premise that the US government owns the entire world, and then write from there.)

    Watch how Cave then frames the US military encirclement of China as something “China’s neighbors” are doing as a “response” to Xi’s goal of “displacing the United States as the dominant rule-setter in the region”:

    In response, many of China’s neighbors — and the United States — are turning to hard power, accelerating the most significant arms race in Asia since World War II.

     

    On March 13, North Korea launched cruise missiles from a submarine for the first time. The same day, Australia unveiled a $200 billion plan to build nuclear-propelled submarines with America and Britain that would make it only the seventh nation to have them.

     

    Japan, after decades of pacifism, is also gaining offensive capabilities unmatched since the 1940s with U.S. Tomahawk missiles. India has conducted training with Japan and Vietnam. Malaysia is buying South Korean combat aircraft. American officials are trying to amass a giant weapons stockpile in Taiwan to make it a bristling “porcupine” that could head off a Chinese invasion, and the Philippines is planning for expanded runways and ports to host its largest American military presence in decades.

     

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    In its attempts to propagandize Australians into consenting to war with China, Sky News Australia accidentally does the "look how close they put their country to our military bases" meme.pic.twitter.com/1lf2b4p7pH

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 16, 2023

    Notice the glaring contradiction between the narrative that the US is “the dominant rule-setter in the region” and the framing of this encirclement operation as something the US is merely supplying to locals who request it of their own free will. If you acknowledge that the US exerts enough control over those nations to be able to “set rules” for them, then it’s probably a bit nonsensical for you to claim they’re stationing US war machinery because it was their own idea that they chose of their own volition.

    As we discussed recently with regard to Australia, we’ve all seen what the US does to nations which disobey its “rules”. Australia isn’t arming itself against China to protect itself from China, Australia is arming itself against China to protect itself from the United States. The same is true of all the other US assets listed above.

    Just one paragraph after outlining the ways China is being military encircled, Cave then writes that China has “engaged in provocative or dangerous behavior” toward its neighbors:

    In flashpoint after flashpoint over the past year, China’s military has also engaged in provocative or dangerous behavior: deploying a record number of military aircraft to threaten Taiwan, and firing missiles into the waters of Japan’s exclusive economic zone for the first time last August; sending soldiers with spiked batons to dislodge an Indian Army outpost in December, escalating battles over the 2,100-mile border between the two countries; and last month, temporarily blinding the crew of a Filipino patrol boat with a laser, and flying dangerously close to a U.S. Navy plane, part of its aggressive push to claim authority in the South China Sea.

    The US empire asks us to believe many stupid things on a daily basis, but arguably the very stupidest among them right now is the narrative that the number one geopolitical rival to US power is being surrounded by US war machinery defensively.

    The US is surrounding China — a nation on the other side of the planet — with war machinery in a way it would never permit itself to be surrounded for even an instant. One of these nations is the aggressor, and the other is responding defensively to those aggressions. If you can’t tell which is which, it’s because empire propaganda has melted your brain.

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    The US isn't ready-if a war with China were to break out. Perhaps most worrisome: The US cannot manufacture enough precision missiles, a key weapon in any fight. In fact, US would run out of some in about a week. NYT takes a deep look at how this happened https://t.co/aMVAp8OX1W

    — Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) March 24, 2023

    Another recent New York Times article titled “From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles to Feed War Machine,” author Eric Lipton warns urgently that the US isn’t producing enough weaponry to meet its current needs while preparing for war with China.

    “If a large-scale war broke out with China, within about one week the United States would run out of so-called long-range anti-ship missiles, a vital weapon in any engagement with China, according to a series of war-game exercises conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank,” Lipton writes.

    The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is funded by military-industrial complex entities like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and is also directly funded by the US government and its client states, including Taiwan. Lipton makes no mention of this immense conflict of interest.

    The whole article reads like an advertorial for the need to pour more wealth and resources into arms manufacturers, even directly citing statements from war profiteering CSIS funders like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Lipton quotes Lockheed Martin COO Frank St John expressing his deep and solemn concern that the Pentagon might not be meeting its goals in procurement of expensive military equipment, saying, “Any time you see an analysis that says, hey, we might not be prepared to achieve our strategic objectives, that’s concerning.”

    Hey thanks for your concern Frank, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that your company sells the murder machines which meet those strategic objectives. Great journalism, Mr Lipton.

    “The surge in spending is likely to translate in the long run into increased profits at military contractors,” Lipton notes.

    Yeah, no shit.

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    Defense companies give hundreds of thousands of $$ a year to think tanks, who steer foreign policy. Is it any wonder the US gov't is simultaneously flooding billions of $$ of weapons into Ukraine while provoking a potential military confrontation w/China?https://t.co/9n6tJypVBh

    — Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) March 8, 2023

    One of the most freakish and depraved things happening in our society is the way war machine-funded think tanks shape public opinion through the mass media and government without that conflict of interest being disclosed. Profoundly influential outlets like The New York Times routinely cite them as though they are impartial analysts of national security and foreign affairs and not functional PR firms for war profiteers and government agencies.

    If you killed thousands of people and sold their skins for a fortune, the media would correctly call you the worst monster who ever lived. If you kill the same number of people for the same amount of money but do it by lobbying for war and selling the weapons used in that war, the media will call you an industrious job creator.

    It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, for news media outlets to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs. As soon as they do this, they’re guilty of journalistic malpractice. As soon as you find yourself writing anything like “According to my source from the Center for Strategic and International Studies,” you have ceased to function as a journalist and are now functioning as a propagandist. It’s insane that this extremely obvious fact isn’t better understood in western journalism, but we can understand why this point is obfuscated by looking at the power structures it serves.

    Western media are the marketing department of the US-centralized empire, selling war and militarism to the public in the form of nonstop propaganda. And The New York Times is probably the most destructive offender among all of them.

    ____________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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  • In First TikTok, AOC Says Solution Is Not Ban But Strong Privacy Laws



    Amid a national debate over whether Congress should ban TikTok, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Saturday posted her first video on the social media platform to make the case for shifting the focus to broad privacy protections for Americans.

    The New York Democrat’s move follows TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifying before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee as well as rights content creators, privacy advocates, and other progressive lawmakers rallying against a company-specific ban on Capitol Hill earlier this week.

    Supporters of banning TikTok—which experts say would benefit its Big Tech competitors, Google, Meta, and Snap—claim to be concerned that ByteDance, the company behind the video-sharing platform, could share data with the Chinese government.

    Meanwhile, digital rights advocates such as Fight for the Future director Evan Greer have argued that if really policymakers want to protect Americans from the surveillance capitalist business model also embraced by U.S. tech giants, “they should advocate for strong data privacy laws that prevent all companies (including TikTok!) from collecting so much sensitive data about us in the first place, rather than engaging in what amounts to xenophobic showboating that does exactly nothing to protect anyone.”

    Ocasio-Cortez embraced that argument, saying in her inaugural video: “Do I believe TikTok should be banned? No.”

    “I think it’s important to discuss how unprecedented of a move this would be,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “The United States has never before banned a social media company from existence, from operating in our borders, and this is an app that has over 150 million Americans on it.”

    Advocates of banning TikTok “say because of this egregious amount of data harvesting, we should ban this app,” she explains. “However, that doesn’t really address the core of the issue, which is the fact that major social media companies are allowed to collect troves of deeply personal data about you that you don’t know about without really any significant regulation whatsoever.”

    “In fact, the United States is one of the only developed nations in the world that has no significant data or privacy protection laws on the books,” the congresswoman stresses, pointing to the European Union’s legislation as an example. “So to me, the solution here is not to ban an individual company, but to actually protect Americans from this kind of egregious data harvesting that companies can do without your significant ability to say no.”

    “Usually when the United States is proposing a very major move that has something to do with significant risk to national security, one of the first things that happens is that Congress receives a classified briefing,” she notes, adding that no such event has happened. “So why would we be proposing a ban regarding such a significant issue without being clued in on this at all? It just doesn’t feel right to me.”

    The “Squad” member further argues that “we are a government by the people and for the people—and if we want to make a decision as significant as banning TikTok,” any information that could justify such a policy “should be shared with the public.”

    “Our first priority,” Ocasio-Cortez concludes, “should be in protecting your ability to exist without social media companies harvesting and commodifying every single piece of data about you without you and without your consent.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • AUKUS Nuclear Submarines: Accelerating the Sleepwalking to War With China



    The March 13 Biden-Albanese-Sunak summit in San Diego to demonstrate alliance solidarity and to sign the multi-billion AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, US) nuclear submarine deal accelerated the pace of the U.S. and China sleepwalking toward catastrophic war. Compounding the dangers that came with the creation of the alliance in 2021 as part of the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific military buildup, the new deal also adds to the mountain of obstacles blocking the way to the U.S.-Chinese cooperation that is essential if the climate emergency is to be reversed, the world’s nuclear arms races stanched, and if the planet’s two most technologically advanced nations collaborating to prevent pandemics and discover cancer cures.

    The San Diego deal was designed to seal the southern flank of what Chinese President Xi Jinping describes as the West’s “all-round containment, encirclement, and suppression” of China. Initially, the U.S. is to sell Australia three and possibly more nuclear powered and nuclear-capable Virginia class submarines in the 2030s. A decade later the U.S. subs will be augmented with nuclear-powered submarines built by Britain and Australia with advanced U.S. technologies. In addition to deepening dangerous military tensions and provocations across the Indo-Pacific where an accident or miscalculation could trigger World War III. At an estimated cost of $268 to $368 billion, the submarine deal is a massive windfall for the three powers’ military-industrial complexes at the cost of spending for climate resilience and essential human needs. And even before Australia takes command of the most advanced U.S. and British nuclear submarines, Australian harbors will host U.S. and U.K. nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines as that land down under becomes a forward-based repair and maintenance hub for the United States’ seventh fleet.

    To be clear, Beijing is not innocent in this. The new cold war era is defined by a classic Thucydides Trap, the inevitable tensions between rising and declining powers that in most cases—see most recently World War I and World War II—have climaxed with catastrophic conflicts. In this case, with its imperial claims to more than 80% of the resource-rich and strategically vital South China Sea, its occupation of Spratly and Parcel Islands claimed by six other nations, and its military modernization including its nuclear arsenal, China is behaving like most rising great powers.

    Despite its calls for “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security” and for others to honor the United Nations, it is not adverse to seizing others’ maritime territories or violating international law to create a buffer zone or to revise, if not revolutionize, the rules of the road. But Xi had a point in decrying U.S. encirclement and containment. Building on the Obama-era U.S. Pivot to Asia, the Biden administration has deepened and expanded its alliances with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia; expanded its military bases in Guam; and deepened military cooperation with India via the QUAD (U.S., Japan, Australia and India) collaboration.

    My friend, the Australian peace and anti-bases movement leader Hannah Middleton, was unsparing in her opposition to AUKUS deal, writing that “Prime Minister Albanese and Defence Minister Marles, like their predecessors Morrison and Dutton, are now exposed as traitors and agents of a foreign power. They are willing to sacrifice Australia’s economy, to risk massive military and civilian casualties for the United States to retain dominance, economically and militarily in the Indo-Pacific. They are prepared to risk WW3 and the possibility of it going nuclear with devastating worldwide consequences?”

    Looking back at history, it is worth recalling that with its 1898 conquests of the Philippines, Guam, and Samoa and the annexation of Hawaii, the United States launched its Asia-Pacific empire. Unlike the war to defeat Nazi Germany, the Pacific theater of World War II was an imperial competition between Japan, the U.S., and Britain. Japan lost. Britannia no longer ruled the waves. And the Pacific Ocean became an “American Lake,” patrolled by the U.S. Seventh Fleet, and reinforced by hundreds of U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Guam, and other U.S. protectorates. This guaranteed U.S. access to East Asian markets and labor along with the implicit threat that U.S. naval and air power could enforce blockades and strangle rival economies, especially China’s.

    Beginning with the sacrifice of 60,000 Australian lives in the futility of WWI, the dispatch of troops to fight in the Korean War, and its brutal complicity in Washington’s Indochina War, the Australian government has long served as Anglo-America’s poodle. Its hosting of the Pine Gap intelligence base has given Australia a role in U.S. preparations for fighting a nuclear war. And the expansion of Holt Naval base in Perth and the permanent deployment of thousands of U.S. marines in Darwin (both in northern Australia) reinforce U.S. control of the strategically vital Malacca Strait, with their presence also challenging Chinese ambitions in the Indian Ocean.

    Now comes AUKUS to reinforce U.S. Indo-Pacific hegemony. In addition to augmenting U.S. and Japanese military plans to bottle up the Chinese Navy within the first island chain, AUKUS begins to harness Australia into the first stage of a possible and certainly catastrophic war for Taiwan. In anticipation of a possible Chinese blockade of what Beijing perceives as its renegade province, U.S. war planners anticipate that the PLA will establish a naval blockade around Taiwan in the tradition of siege warfare. The Pentagon’s answer? Breaking the blockade with its and its allies’ submarine supremacy. (To calm Chinese fears the Australian government denies that it has yet to commit to defend Taiwan in case of war.)

    AUKUS is the latest iteration of U.S. campaigning to maintain military supremacy to reinforce its declining Indo-Pacific hegemony. In response to the 1996 Taiwan crisis, when President Clinton dispatched two U.S. aircraft carrier fleets through the Taiwan Strait (and terrifying Chinese leadership as a result), Beijing has invested heavily in building a 21st military and laid its unjust claim to more than 80% of the South China/West Philippine Sea thus challenging U.S. Pacific hegemony, and built a Navy as it competes for control of the Inner Island Chain. The U.S. response has been a redoubled campaign to “contain” China, augmenting U.S. fire and economic power with expanded and deepened alliances.

    First came Obama’s “Pivot to Asia,” the commitment to deploy 60% of U.S. naval and air power in what is now called the Indo-Pacific region, then Trump’s China-bashing, provocative assaults on the (Taiwan-related) One China Policy and “Freedom of Navigation” forays in territorially disputed waters. Now the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy is targeted primarily against China.

    There are also questions and a debate about the nuclear implications of the deal. The three allies insist that while the submarines will be nuclear-powered, they will not be nuclear-armed, and Australia’s foreign minister claims that the navies of a “number of other countries” have nuclear-powered submarines. Missing from that claim is that the number is five, and that those five nations are the P-5 nuclear weapons states.

    Beijing is not having it, claiming that the deal violates the “object and purpose” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that it violates the NPT’s requirement that exchange of nuclear equipment be only “for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.” There are also fears that the AUKUS submarine precedent will inspire other nations to field nuclear-powered submarines, thereby increasing the likelihood of nuclear weapons proliferation. And, as the renowned physicist Frank Von Hipple report reminds us, nuclear-powered submarines are designed for one purpose: attack.

    However, as the Quincy Institute reports, in 1972 a “submarine loophole” was inserted into the NPT. The deployment of these extraordinarily deadly and dangerous war machines may not violate international law. But they do severely undermine the chances that we can escape what Australian Ambassador Kevin Rudd describes as “the avoidable war.”

    As Hannah Middleton’s writing indicates, the AUKUS submarine deal has not been unanimously welcomed in Australia. Citing the monumental cost of the deal, former Australian Prime Minister Keating has termed the agreement “the worst deal in all history.”

    The Australian peace movement is mobilizing to block implementation of the deal, focusing on the dangers of ratcheting up tensions with China, the submarines’ staggering costs, and the need to pursue common security diplomacy across the Asia Pacific. We in the U.S. are also called to oppose AUKUS and the submarine deal, to begin finding ways to act in solidarity with our Australian partners. And, rather than sleepwalk into World War III, we would do well to at least test China’s commitments to common security by prioritizing diplomacy instead of thoughtlessly and dogmatically pursuing the chimera of military domination.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • China Denounces US TikTok Ban Threat as “xenophobic witch hunt,” Firmly Opposes Possible Forced Sale

    WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 23: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 23, 2023 in Washington, DC. The hearing was a rare opportunity for lawmakers to question the leader of the short-form social media video app about the company’s relationship with its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and how they handle users’ sensitive personal data. Some local, state and federal government agencies have been banning use of TikTok by employees, citing concerns about national security (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

    The US’ TikTok hearing is politically manipulated to cover its real purpose of robbing the profitable firm from China, which reflects the US’ mounting hegemony and bullying against firms with Chinese background, experts said on Friday, noting the US witch-hunting against TikTok portends US’ technological innovation is going downhill and the political farce against a tiny app has seriously shattered the US values of fair competition and its credibility.

    The US House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on Thursday (US time) titled, “TikTok: How Congress can safeguard American data privacy and protect children from online harms.”

    While US lawmakers acted like they are pursuing a solution on how to ensure data security, the hearing turned out to be a political show that was designed to smear an international firm that has Chinese background and cover up its real purpose of stealing the firm from its Chinese parent, experts said.

    Whether it ends up “killing” TikTok or forcibly taking the child out of its parent ByteDance’s arms, it is one of the ugliest scenes of the 21st century in high-tech competition, they said. “Your platform should be banned,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said as she started the hearing, claiming that the app has ties with Chinese government.

    During the roughly five-hour  hearing, CEO Shou Zi Chew’s attempts to illustrate TikTok’s business operations were frequently interrupted. His requests to elaborate on concerns of members of US Congress were also blocked.

    Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denounced the US’ move on Friday, saying the US is adopting the presumption of guilt and engaging in an unreasonable crackdown against TikTok without any proof.

    “We noted that some US lawmaker has said that to seek a TikTok ban is a ‘xenophobic witch hunt’,” she said, urging the US to respect the market economy and fair competition rules, stop the unreasonable crackdown on foreign firms and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for other countries’ firms in the US.

    The Chinese government places high importance on protecting data privacy and security according to laws. China has never and will never ask firms or individuals to violate local laws to collect or provide data and information stored within other countries’ borders, Mao stressed.

    The latest hearing followed reports that the Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok if its China-based parent company ByteDance doesn’t divest its stakes in the popular video app.

    It is another dark scene in Washington’s struggle for US supremacy, the US’ barbaric act only underscores that US values of fair competition, freedom of speech and inclusiveness are gradually disappearing and instead xenophobia is rising, experts said, noting that the US government lacks confidence in competing with China.

    Even more ironic is that rather than finding a solution to problems brought about by the negative impact of US social problems on children such as suicide, self-harm and drug abuse, US lawmakers are instead faulting the company, Li Yong, deputy chairman of the Expert Committee of the China Association of International Trade, told the Global Times on Friday.

    “The hearing was hegemonic and bullying against a private firm,” Li said, noting that it’s common for American politicians to put unwarranted labels on entities with Chinese background by fabricating excuses.

    “While the US has always paraded itself as a rules-based market economy, they don’t really have any objective rules. All the rules are selected and serve American political elites’ interests and US hegemony,” Li said.

    The US’ forced sale of TikTok is shameless robbery of a profitable firm from China, he said, noting that the US is increasingly politicizing an innovative app that has enriched the digital life of American people and benefited a lot of micro businesses in the US.

    “TikTok itself is not available in the Chinese mainland, we’re headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, and we have 7,000 employees in the US today,” Chew said in his opening remarks.

    Dismissing Chew’s testimony, US officials have stepped up their fight against TikTok. Speaking at a separate House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday TikTok should be “ended one way or another,” adding that he did not know if it would be sufficient for TikTok to be divested from its Chinese parent company, CNN reported.

    The high-profile hearing also attracted wide attention from netizens who called US Congress members arrogant, ridiculous and ignorant.

    “Not a single one of them has made an argument that makes a lick of sense,” an American net user posted on Twitter. “By his logic every other social media app should be banned,” posted another netizen.

    The topic “TikTok CEO attending US hearing” became trending on China’s Twitter-like social media Sina Weibo, generating nearly 5 million views.

    “I feel sorry for what Chew endured at the hearing. American politicians weren’t so arrogant and aggressive at Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook hearing. It seems all the lawmakers are bullying Chew,” a Chinese netizen posted on Sina Weibo.

    While Chew was grilled in Washington, Apple CEO Tim Cook was met with cheers and applause at an Apple store in Beijing on Friday, prompting Chinese netizens to compare the “so-called free market” in the US and “real free market” in China.

    The Biden administration’s so-called “national security” narrative has also caused widespread speculation among TikTok users, scholars and researchers.

    A TikTok sale would be “completely irrelevant to any of the alleged ‘national security’ threats” and go against “every free market principle and norm” of the state department’s internet freedom principles, the Guardian reported, citing Karim Farhat, a researcher with the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech.

    NBC News reported on Thursday that a 19-year-old Harvard freshman named Aidan Kohn-Murphy, who used TikTok to rally support for Biden in 2020, is now trying to use the app to stop Biden from killing the platform.

    “If they went ahead with banning TikTok, it would feel like a slap in the face to a lot of young Americans,” he said. “Democrats don’t understand the political consequences this would have.”

    Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

    Sinister move doomed

    By forcing the sale of TikTok, the Biden administration is aiming to repeat its takeover of French power company Alstom and its torment on Japanese chip firm Toshiba, but the US’ sinister move is doomed to meet challenges, given similar roadblocks faced by Trump three years ago, experts said.

    “The Biden administration will find it hard to completely ban TikTok, as the app has a large user base of more than 150 million in the US,” Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times.

    It’s an even more complicated issue for the US to take over TikTok, as a possible deal should also be in compliance with Chinese laws, he said. Experts said the Chinese government may step in to block the sale of TikTok.

    “The Chinese side is firmly opposed to the forced sale or divestiture of TikTok,” Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting said on Thursday.

    Exports of Chinese technology must be subject to administrative licensing procedures in accordance with Chinese laws, and the Chinese government is legally bound to make a decision, she reiterated.

    In August 2020, China’s Ministry of Commerce revised its restrictions on technology exports, including personalized content recommendations based on data analysis and a number of other technologies such as AI algorithms, which is widely considered as China’s countermeasures against US’ forced sale of TikTok then.

    Back in 2020, then president Donald Trump and his administration sought to remove TikTok from app stores and force ByteDance to sell off its US assets. US courts blocked the order, concluding that banning the app would likely restrict the “personal communications” and sharing of “informational materials” by TikTok users.

    In addition, the Washington Post reportedly worked with a privacy researcher to look under the hood at TikTok in 2020, concluding that the app does not appear to collect any more data than typical mainstream social network platforms in the US.

    “From the US’ groundless crackdown on Huawei to targeting TikTok citing the so-called ‘national security,’ American politicians have not had a comprehensive ‘blueprint’ for their moves, it’s all politically motivated,” Xiang said, referring to reports saying Biden is seeking a second presidential term.

    On Thursday, the US put an additional 14 Chinese companies to a red flag list, forcing US exporters to conduct greater due diligence before shipping goods to them, mainly technology and solar firms.

    Xiang said the US’ unabated crackdowns on international firms including those from China violate international rules, disrupt global industrial and supply chains and harm both sides’ interests and the global economy as a whole.

    Ghost of McCarthyism haunts TikTok Hearing. Cartoon: Carlos Latuff

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Historic Meeting between Xi and Putin

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • Historic meeting between Xi and Putin
    • Hong Kong announces industrial policy for the first time
    • Baidu unveiled its version of ChatGPT

    The post Historic Meeting between Xi and Putin first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Historic Meeting between Xi and Putin

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • Historic meeting between Xi and Putin
    • Hong Kong announces industrial policy for the first time
    • Baidu unveiled its version of ChatGPT

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • New Zealand foreign minister tells China of ‘deep concerns’ over rights abuses and Taiwan

    Nanaia Mahuta visited Beijing this week and says she raised issues including abuses in Xinjiang and the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong

    New Zealand’s foreign minister said she raised concerns about China’s human rights abuses and growing tensions with Taiwan in a meeting with her Chinese counterpart.

    Nanaia Mahuta told the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, of her government’s “deep concerns regarding the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the erosion of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong”, according to a statement issued on Saturday.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • US Progressives Stand Against ‘Xenophobic’ TikTok Ban

    Common Dreams Logo

    This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 23, 2023. It is shared here with permission.

    Civil and digital rights groups this week joined a trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers in opposing bipartisan proposals to ban the social media platform TikTok, arguing that such efforts are rooted in “anti-China” motives and do not adequately address the privacy concerns purportedly behind the legislation.

    The ACLU argues that, if passed, legislation recently introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate “sets the stage for the government to ban TikTok,” which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and is used by more than 1 in 3 Americans. The Senate bill would grant the U.S. Department of Commerce power to prohibit people in the United States from using apps and products made by companies “subject to the jurisdiction of China” and other “foreign adversaries.”

    “The government shouldn’t be able to tell us what social media apps we can and can’t use.”

    ACLU via twitter

    “The government shouldn’t be able to tell us what social media apps we can and can’t use,” the ACLU asserted via Twitter. “We have a right to free speech.”

    In a Wednesday letter led by the free expression advocacy group PEN America, 16 organizations including the ACLU argued that “proposals to ban TikTok risk violating First Amendment rights and setting a dangerous global precedent for the restriction of speech.”

    “More effective, rights-respecting solutions are available and provide a viable alternative to meet the serious concerns raised by TikTok,” the groups contended, pointing to a February proposal by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) to expedite a probe of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States as a possible way “to mitigate security risks without denying users access to the platform.”

    Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) has emerged as the leading congressional voice against banning TikTok, saying Wednesday that he fears the platform is being singled out due in significant part to “xenophobic anti-China rhetoric.”

    “Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok?” Bowman asked in a phone interview with The New York Times while he traveled by train to Washington, D.C. to speak at a #KeepTikTok rally, where content creators, entrepreneurs, users, and activists gathered to defend the platform.

    In his speech, Bowman noted that “TikTok as a platform has created a community and a space for free speech for 150 million Americans and counting,” and is a place where “5 million small businesses are selling their products and services and making a living… at a time when our economy is struggling in so many ways.”

    Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the San Francisco-based digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, concurred with Bowman, tweeting Thursday that “if you think the U.S. needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you don’t care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.”

    Two other House Democrats—Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and California’s Robert Garcia—joined Bowman in addressing Wednesday’s rally.

    In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before his speech, Pocan acknowledged “valid concerns when it comes to social media disinformation and all the rest.”

    “But to say that a single platform is the problem largely because it’s Chinese-owned honestly, I think, borders more on xenophobia than addressing that core issue,” he stressed.

    Garcia, a self-described TikTok “super-consumer,” asserted on MSNBC Thursday morning that “before we ban it, I think we should work on the privacy concerns first.”

    TikTok “speaks to the next generation… LGBTQ+ folks are coming out, people are being educated on topics, I think we need to be a little more thoughtful and not ban TikTok,” the gay lawmaker added.

    Wednesday’s rally came a day before TikTok CEO Zi Chew testified before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, some of whose members expressed open hostility toward the Chinese government.

    “To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and manipulate what you see and exploit for future generations,” said committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

    Chew—who committed to a number of reforms including prioritizing safety for young users, firewall protection for U.S. user data, and greater corporate transparency—took exception to some of the lawmakers’ assertions.

    “I don’t think ownership is the issue here,” he said. “With a lot of respect, American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security.”

    “I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica—just one example,” Chew added, referring to the British political consulting firm that harvested the data of tens of millions of U.S. Facebook users without their consent to aid 2016 Republican campaigns including former President Donald Trump’s.

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • UK must fight for Jimmy Lai’s release, friend of jailed Hongkonger tells MPs

    Apple Daily founder and British national, 75, in jail since 2020 facing charges under national security law

    A close confidant of the jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has called on Britain to do more to secure the 75-year-old’s release.

    Lai, a prominent businessman and founder of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper, has been detained since December 2020. He has been convicted of fraud and faces more serious charges of foreign collusion under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • They’re Rebooting “Axis Of Evil” On The 20th Anniversary Of The Iraq Invasion

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    The western political/media class has suddenly resurrected the phrase “Axis of Evil” in recent days to refer to the increasing intimacy between Russia and China, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

    Famed Iraq War cheerleader Sean Hannity appears to have kicked things off last week, saying on his show that “a new Axis of evil is emerging” between China, Russia and Iran, a slogan that has since been echoed numerous times this week.

    On Tuesday former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told Fox News that Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are “two dictators that have said they are unlimited partners,” asserting that “This is the new Axis of Evil, with Iran being their junior partner.”

    Also on Tuesday Representative Mike Lawler tweeted, “Xi’s meeting with Putin in Moscow is deeply concerning and highlights the growing threats posed by this new axis of evil,” and on Thursday he tweeted, “We are dealing with a new axis of evil and failure to stop Putin in Ukraine will have far-reaching implications as Russia pushes further into Eastern Europe and China moves against Taiwan.”

    On Wednesday The Telegraph published an article titled “Xi and Putin are building a new axis of evil,” which mixes in the phrases “China-Russia axis” and “Beijing-Moscow axis” for good measure.

    Also on Wednesday Representative Brian Mast tweeted “This is the new axis of evil” with a picture of Xi and Putin shaking hands.

    On Thursday British tabloid The Sun published an article titled “WHO’S THE BOSS? Body language experts reveal Putin & Xi’s hidden messages in their ‘axis of evil’ meeting and who REALLY has the power,” with the phrase “axis of evil” appearing nowhere in the actual body of the text.

    The “Axis of Evil” slogan was first made infamous by George W Bush in a jingoistic speech he gave a few months after 9/11, and at the time referred to the nations of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The following year Iraq would be in ruins as the US empire ushered in a new era of worldwide military expansionism and shockingly aggressive interventionism throughout the Middle East.

    Bush (and the speechwriter who helped him coin the phrase, neoconservative war propagandist David Frum) used the word “Axis” to evoke the memory of the Axis powers of World War II who fought against the Allied forces, of which the United States was a part. Western warmongers have an extensive history of comparing every war they want to fight to the second world war, framing whoever their Enemy of the Day happens to be as the new Adolf Hitler, whoever wants to fight him as the new Winston Churchill, and whoever opposes the war as the new Neville Chamberlain.

    The idea is to get everyone thinking in terms of Good Guys versus Bad Guys like children watching a cartoon show, instead of like grown adults engaged in complex analysis of real life as it actually exists. Because the US empire has spent generations framing WWII as a pure Good Guys versus Bad Guys conflict, now propagandists can say that every Pentagon target is Hitler and the US and its allies are the brave heroes who are fighting Hitler.

    And that appears to be the intention behind this recent resurrection of the “Axis of Evil” label: not to recall George W Bush’s hawkish sloganeering on the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, but to recall World War II. This seems likely because we’re also seeing a huge increase in the use of the term “axis” to refer to Russia, China, Iran and sometimes other nations like North Korea, without the fun “of Evil” part.

    Genocide walrus John Bolton has been trying to make “axis” happen for a while now; he used that term to refer to the relationship between Russia and China last month in an interview with The Washington Post, where he also claimed that we are already in “a global war” against those nations. In an interview with The Telegraph earlier this week Bolton referred to “the China-Russia axis,” which he described as having “outriders like Iran and North Korea.”

    On Monday Representative Jamie Raskin tweeted about the “axis of authoritarianism linking Russia, China, and Iran.”

    On Wednesday Representative Lisa McClain tweeted, “Xi and Putin seek a new world order that poses a worrying global threat. The West should be worried about this China-Russia axis and what it means for freedom.”

    (Can I just pause a moment here to note that it’s a bit odd for the other guys to be labeled the “axis” when the US is now aligned with every one of the World War II Axis powers?)

    At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday, committee chairman Michael McCaul shed a bit more light on the worldview driving this perspective in his opening remarks.

    “History shows when you project strength you get peace but when you project weakness it does invite aggression and war; you only need to look back to Neville Chamberlain and Hitler, and really the course of time has proven that axiom,” McCaul said, adding, “We’re starting to see this alliance very similar in my judgement to what we saw in World War Two: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.”

    The problem with McCaul’s thinking, of course, is that he is pretending the US is just some passive witness to the formation of this evil “axis” of hostile nations instead of the singular driving factor behind it. Russia, China, and other unabsorbed governments have all been driven closer and closer together by the hostility of the United States toward all of them, and now they are overcoming some significant differences to rapidly move into increasingly intimate strategic partnerships to protect their national sovereignty from a globe-spanning empire which demands total submission from every government on earth.

    Empire managers have long forecasted the acquisition of post-Soviet Russia as an imperial lackey state which could be weaponized against the new Enemy Number One in China, but instead the exact opposite happened. Hillary Clinton told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in 2021 that as an insider within the US power structure she’d “heard for years that Russia would become more willing to move toward the west, more willing to engage in a positive way with Europe, the UK, the US, because of problems on its border, because of the rise of China.” But that’s not what occurred.

    “We haven’t seen that,” Clinton said. “Instead what we’ve seen is a concerted effort by Putin maybe to hug China more.”

    Perhaps more effort would have been expended winning over Russia’s friendship had this incorrect forecast not been made. If US empire managers had not been so confident that Moscow would come groveling to their feet to kiss the imperial ring, perhaps they would not have felt so comfortable expanding NATO, knocking back Putin’s early gestures of goodwill while administration after administration assured him with its actions that it will accept nothing but total subordinance, and engaging in aggressive brinkmanship on its border.

    But they made a different call, so now we have to listen to cringey cold warriors like Michael McFaul moan about Moscow deciding to go with Beijing instead of Washington.

    “After the collapse of the USSR, a democratic Russia had the chance to be a major, respected European power,” McFaul recently complained on Twitter. “Putin however has pushed Russia a different way, turning Russia (yet again) into a vassal of an Asian autocratic power. Such a wasted opportunity. Oh well.”

    Which is of course just McFaul’s way of saying, “Russia was supposed to be our vassal, not China’s!”

    Really all this fuss is nothing other than the emergence of a multipolar world crashing headlong into the imperial doctrine that US unipolar hegemony must be maintained at all cost. If not for that last bit the US empire ceasing to singularly dominate the planet wouldn’t be much of a problem, but because there’s a zealous belief that all attempts to surpass the United States must be treated as enemy acts of aggression we’re now seeing world powers split into two increasingly hostile alliance groups with more and more talk of hot global conflict.

    This is madness, and it needs to stop.

    _____________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Philippines and US plan biggest ever Balikatan joint op with 17,600 troops

    By Sofia Tomacruz in Manila

    The Philippines and the United States will hold their largest Balikatan exercise this year, with 17,600 troops expected to participate in the annual combined joint exercise next month, says Armed Forces of the Philippines.

    This follows recent an announcement by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that the Philippines was rolling back history to open four new bases “scattered” around the country to US forces after Subic Bay naval base was closed in 1992.

    Balikatan spokesperson Colonel Michael Logico told reporters that about 12,000 US troops and 111 more from the Australian Defence Force would participate in this year’s exercises, along with 5000 Philippine soldiers.

    The exercises, scheduled to take place from April 11 to 28, will be held in areas in Northern Luzon, Palawan, and Antique.

    “This is officially the largest Balikatan exercise,” Logico said.

    The number of troops participating in this year’s exercises is nearly double the 8900 contingent seen in 2022. At the time, Balikatan 2022 had been the “largest-ever” iteration of the exercise.

    A team from Japan was also expected to observe this year’s joint exercises.

    Colonel Logico said Japan would stay as an observer this year because Manila and Tokyo did not have a status of forces agreement.

    New exercises
    Logico said new exercises to be featured in Balikatan 2023 include cyber defence exercises and live fire exercises at sea. Previous joint exercises, usually held in land-based sites, mostly involved the army and Air Force.
    Rolling back history . . . US military to use four Philippine bases “scattered” around the country for the first time since Subic Bay naval base was closed in 1992.Image: Rappler
    “We are now going to be exercising outside the traditional areas where we’re used to operating on…. We’re exercising in key locations where we are able to utilise all our service components,” Colonel Logico said.

    While the AFP has held live fire exercises at sea on its own, it will be a first for Philippine and US troops jointly.

    The defence assets to be featured include the Philippine Navy’s frigates, the Air Force’s FA-50 jets, and other newly acquired artillery, said Logico. Similar to last year’s exercises, the US is again expected to bring in its High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) and Patriot missile system.

    Exercises this year are aimed at increasing interoperability among the allies’ forces, and will also focus on “maritime defense, coast defense, and maritime domain awareness.”

    Joint exercises between the Philippines and US, along with Australia, come on the heels of the Marcos government’s efforts to bolster security ties with its treaty ally, as well as regional partners, following concerns over China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.

    In February, President Marcos approved the expansion of a key military deal that allows the US military greater access to local bases in the country.

    Days later, the Philippine leader also expressed willingness to strengthen defence ties with Japan, adding he was open to a reciprocal access agreement with the neighboring nation if it would help protect Filipino fishermen and the Philippines’ maritime territory.

    On Tuesday, Colonel Logico said upcoming exercises between the Philippines and its partners were not aimed against any country, including China.

    Colonel Logico said, “We are here to practise, we are here to show that we are combat ready.

    “Every country has the absolute and inalienable right to exercise within our territory, we have the absolute, inalienable right to defend our territory,” he added.

    Republished from Rappler with permission.

  • Ensuring Global Connectivity for Special Forces

    Overcoming the challenge of disrupted communications for special forces operating in contested environments. On 1 September, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) published its ‘UK Space Power’ Joint Doctrine which outlined some of the challenges facing the Armed Forces in terms of vulnerability to space-based Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. As the report described, GPS […]

    The post Ensuring Global Connectivity for Special Forces appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • ‘Like a war zone’: Congress hears of China’s abuses in Xinjiang ‘re-education camps’

    Two women tell of witnessing or experiencing torture and brainwashing, as Republicans and Democrats vow to document ‘genocide’

    Two women who say they experienced and escaped Chinese “re-education camps” have provided first-hand testimony to members of the US Congress, giving harrowing detail while imploring Americans not to look away from what the US has declared a continuing genocide of Muslim ethnic minorities.

    Testifying before a special House committee at the beginning of Ramadan, Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur woman, said that during her nearly three years in internment camps and police stations, prisoners were subjected to 11 hours of “brainwashing education” each day. It included singing patriotic songs and praising the Chinese government before and after meals.

    Continue reading…

  • As UK sets out anti-China strategy, Japan sets up missile base in contested islands

    As the UK set out a new strategy on China, its partner Japan sent troops and missiles to a remote chain of contested islands. The Japanese and British agreed a major fighter jet deal in December. Japan has moved away from its post-war pacifist posture under western pressure.

    Hundreds of Japanese troops are being sent to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa prefecture. CNN reported that this 570-strong unit included a missile capacity. China claims Okinawa Okinawa, and the region is a potential flashpoint for conflict. Furthermore, the US military colonises it heavily, with over 50,000 troops currently stationed there.

    As CNN reported:

    Japan has been ramping up the construction of military bases in Okinawa, the band of 150 islands that curves to the south of Japan’s main islands in the East China Sea.

    The US sees China as a challenger to its global power. One outcome of this is tension over control of the seas around China.

    Integrated review

    The UK’s new Integrated Review update lays out military strategy. Once again, China is a high priority. And, since the last review, UK-Japanese defence relations have deepened.

    Addressing the review, the UK government said:

    The IR Refresh [Integrated Review] also sets out how the UK will adapt our approach on China to deal with the epoch-defining challenge presented by the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly concerning military, financial and diplomatic activity.

    It added:

    The Prime Minister has set the direction across government for a consistent, coherent and robust approach to China, rooted in the national interest and aligned with our allies.

    Additionally, it spelled out specific measures to counter China:

    Doubling funding for a government-wide China Capabilities programme, including investing in Mandarin language training and diplomatic China expertise.

    Entangled defence

    The UK, Japan, and Italy are thrashing out a fighter jet deal. Japan’s post-war pacificist defence policy is being re-written under pressure from the US. Japan is returning to a war footing, and the UK is a part of the transition. Indeed, with Europe in conflict, Japan’s military plans should be of concern to us all. It is only a matter of one misjudged missile, panicking commander or accidental discharge, and the world could be on the brink of a deadly war.

    Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Miki Yoshihito, cropped to 770 x 403, licenced under CC BY 2.0.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Ideology, Autocracy, and Dystopia

    The title of this acutely perceptive memoir is perhaps misleading: the American reader has come to expect lurid, “tell-all” biographies which spare no graphic details of the subject’s debaucheries and scandals. Some such unsavory details are of course revealed, but the author–Mao’s personal physician for the remaining 22 years of Mao’s life (1954-1976)–had a more ambitious purpose in mind: to present a shrewdly insightful character-study of Mao as a man, ideologue and ruler.

    Mao Zedong in Dandong, China 🄯 Photo by Kim Petersen

    The young, likable Dr. Li, chosen by Mao as his physician, eventually became a trusted confidant and witness to the daily travails of the Chairman. And Mao, an insomniac and hypochondriac, required constant attention (although he often enough ignored the doctor’s advice and indulged in health-threatening, even reckless, habits.)

    Dr. Li, who in his first years on the job continued to revere the Great Leader, would only gradually become disillusioned and even shocked by Mao’s detached indifference to the real living conditions of the Chinese people. In the first years, Mao comes across as a calm, generally reasonable and good-humored leader, pragmatic and tolerant in resolving the inevitable disputes and rivalries among his subordinate officials (such as Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping). Dr. Li finds it easy to be open and candid with him–even regarding the intrigues and jealousies of Mao’s neglected wife, Jiang Qing.

    Although Mao, like Lenin, claimed to disapprove of any “cult of personality,” he quickly adopted the traditional Confucian role of the wise Ruler who “is never wrong.”1 Thus, within a few years, he voluntarily relinquished the position of Chairman of the Republic to a rival, Liu Shaoqi, in order to aggrandize his primary role as Party Chairman (wise ruler and guiding ideologue). And like Lenin and Stalin, he had little interest in the rights and needs of actual individuals per se, but rather dealt in collective abstractions (“the peasantry,” or at most, “the people”). (Marx, who had barely any human contact with actual workers, wrote abstractly about the “proletariat-class,” and likewise the intellectual theorist Lenin subsumed real persons into the faceless, abstract “masses.”) Such collective labels would have fateful consequences for millions of real individuals.

    As with all single-party, autocratic regimes, the governing bureaucrats maintained their status, not through demonstrable managerial skill and competence, but through unswerving loyalty to, and agreement with, the Ruler. And Mao personified the limitations of the visionary ideologue, remote from real social and economic facts, who charismatically offers an imaginative goal of pure communitarianism, wherein ordinarily intractable individuals joyfully submerge themselves into an enthusiastic, collective effort to attain economic equality and advancement. (One is reminded of the proto-communist Jean-Jacques Rousseau–a fateful influence on Robespierre–who imagined an ideal republic in which patriotic citizens would willingly submerge themselves into a “general will.”)

    Mao’s dreamed-up conception of a “Great Leap Forward,” in which each village and town across the nation would collectivize their accelerated efforts, thereby dramatically increasing crop yields, proved inefficient and disastrous. But when Mao, on his periodic tours of the country, visited such villages, local officials erected a facade of successful grain-surpluses–so as not to displease him. The collective, nationwide “Leap” also included, bizarrely enough, everyone pitching in to increase steel production by melting discarded iron implements (and such) in backyard smelters–instead of building steel mills! Overall, objective historians, as well as Dr. Li himself, estimate that the “Great Leap” programs resulted in massive famine: the starvation and death of tens of millions. But when more pragmatic officials (economists, agronomists) criticized the plan, they were quickly labeled “bourgeois” counter-revolutionaries (with the usual outcome).

    When popular dissatisfaction and unrest finally climaxed in the Sixties, the revered Leader ruthlessly sidelined political rivals and blamed the government itself (i.e., corrupt bureaucrats) for all the disasters (sound familiar?)–thereby unleashing a violent Cultural Revolution of youthful, fanatically devoted Red Guards determined to purge the society of any suspected “rightists,” “counter-revolutionaries,” or even those maybe backsliding a bit into “bourgeois” tendencies. This movement, at first politically expedient for Mao, soon became uncontrollable and disastrous for national stability and morale.

    Dr. Li’s highly absorbing and factual narrative reveals a megalomaniacal Mao, convinced of his own genius and thus entitled to hedonistic pampering, such as the endless sexual favors elicited from dozens of naive, awestruck young girls (whom, despite Dr. Li’s objections, Mao had no compunction about infecting with his multiple STDs). Like autocrats since time immemorial, Mao became psychologically dependent on the endless luxuries and pleasures provided by an ever-changing coterie of female devotees.

    Nonchalantly indifferent to the deaths of countless millions as a result of his utopian fantasies, Mao is revealed–in Dr. Li’s probing, incisive portrait–to be a sociopathic narcissist, entirely unconcerned with massive human suffering and tragedy. Even when cautioned about the dangers of a possible nuclear war, Mao remained unperturbed: “China has many people…. The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.”2

    1. For an extensive discussion of how Confucianism was modified to rationalize the bureaucratic despotism of the First Emperor of China (221 B.C.E.), see: William C. Manson, “Incipient Chinese Bureaucracy and Its Ideological Rationale: The Confucianism of Hsun Tzu.” Dialectical Anthropology 12:271-284, 1988.
    2. p. 125
    The post Ideology, Autocracy, and Dystopia first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US Officials Really, REALLY Want You To Know The US Is The World’s “Leader”

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    In response to questions he received during a press conference on Monday about Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin cementing a “new era” in strategic partnership between China and Russia, the White House National Security Council’s John Kirby made no fewer than seven assertions that the US is the “leader” of the world.

    Here are excerpts from his comments:

    • “The two countries have grown closer. But they are both countries that chafe and bristle at U.S. leadership around the world.”
    • “And in China’s case in particular, they certainly would like to challenge U.S. leadership around the world.“
    • “But these are not two countries that have, you know, decades-long experience working together and full trust and confidence. It’s a burgeoning of late based on America’s increasing leadership around the world and trying to check that.”
    • “Peter, these are two countries that have long chafed, as I said to Jeff — long chafed at U.S. leadership around the world and the network of alliances and partnerships that we have.”
    • “And we work on those relationships one at a time, because every country on the continent is different, has different needs and different expectations of American leadership.”
    • “That’s the power of American convening leadership. And you don’t see that power out of either Russia or China.”
    • “But one of the reasons why you’re seeing that tightening relationship is because they recognize that they don’t have that strong foundation of international support for what they’re trying to do, which is basically challenge American leadership around the world.”
    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    John Kirby really wants everyone to know that America is in charge of the world. This is from one single press conference. pic.twitter.com/HeE9uGEwrW

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 21, 2023

    The illusory truth effect is a cognitive bias which causes people to mistake something they have heard many times for an established fact, because the way the human brain receives and interprets information tends to draw little or no distinction between repetition and truth. Propagandists and empire managers often take advantage of this glitch in our wetware, which is what’s happening when you see them repeating key phrases over and over again that they want people to believe.

    We saw another repetition of this line recently at an online conference hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, in which the US ambassador to China asserted that Beijing must accept the US as the “leader” of the region China happens to occupy.

    US empire managers are of course getting very assertive about the narrative that they are the world’s “leader” because that self-appointed “leadership” is being challenged by China, and the nations which support it with increasing openness like Russia. Most of the major international news stories of our day are either directly or indirectly related to this dynamic, wherein the US is struggling to secure unipolar planetary domination by thwarting China’s rise and undermining its partners.

    The message they’re putting out is, “This is our world. We’re in charge. Anyone who claims otherwise is freakish and abnormal, and must be opposed.”

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    US Ambassador To China: "We're The Leader" Of The Indo-Pacific

    The way US empire managers talk about "leading" ostensibly sovereign states with ostensibly independent governments shows you they really do think they own the world.https://t.co/obSehF6xZ1

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 2, 2023

    Why do they say the US is the “leader” of the world instead of its “ruler”, anyway? I’m unclear on the difference as practically applied. Is it meant to give us the impression that the US rules the world by democratic vote? That this is something the rest of the world consented to? Because I sure as hell don’t remember voting for it, and we’ve all seen what happens to governments which don’t comply with US “leadership”.

    I’m not one of those who believe a multipolar world will be a wonderful thing, I just recognize that it beats the hell out of the alternative, that being increasingly reckless nuclear brinkmanship to maintain global control. The US has been in charge long enough to make it clear that the world order it dominates can only be maintained by nonstop violence and aggression, with more and more of that violence and aggression being directed toward major nuclear-armed powers. The facts are in and the case is closed: US unipolar hegemony is unsustainable.

    The problem is that the US empire itself does not know this. This horrifying trajectory we’re on toward an Atomic Age world war is the result of the empire’s doctrine that it must maintain unipolar control at all costs crashing into the rise of a multipolar world order.

    It doesn’t need to be this way. There’s no valid reason why the US needs to remain in charge of the world and can’t just let different people in different regions sort out their own affairs like they always did before. There’s no valid reason why governments need to be brandishing armageddon weapons at each other instead of collaborating peacefully in the interest of all humankind. We’re being pushed toward disaster to preserve “American leadership around the world,” and I for one do not consent to this.

    ______________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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  • Imperial visits: US emissaries in the Pacific

    There has been a flurry of visits by United States’ officials to the Pacific over the past year in a bid to shore up imperial hegemony in the region. Binoy Kampmark reports.

  • Pacific needs to sit up and pay close attention to AUKUS, says Dame Meg Taylor

    By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor, and Caleb Fotheringham, RNZ Pacific journalist

    A Pacific elder and former secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum says Pacific leaders need to sit up and pay closer attention to AUKUS and the Indo-Pacific strategy and China’s response to them.

    Speaking from Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Dame Meg Taylor said Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.

    “The issue here is that we should have paid much more attention to the Indo-Pacific strategy as it emerged,” she said.

    “And we were not ever consulted by the countries that are party to that, including some of our own members of the Pacific Island Forum. Then the emergence of AUKUS — Pacific countries were never consulted on this either,” she said.

    US President Joe Biden (C), British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L) hold a press conference during the AUKUS summit on March 13, 2023, at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego California. - AUKUS is a trilateral security pact announced on September 15, 2021, for the Indo-Pacific region. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left), US President Joe Biden (centre) and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hold a press conference during the AUKUS summit at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego California on 13 March 2023. Image: RNZ Pacific/AFP

    Last week in San Diego, the leaders of the United States, the UK and Australia — President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese respectively — formally announced the AUKUS deal.

    It will see the Australian government spending nearly $US250 billion over the next three decades to acquire a fleet of US nuclear submarines with UK tech components — the majority of which will be built in Adelaide — as part of the defence and security pact.

    Its implementation will make Australia one of only seven countries in the world to have nuclear-powered submarines alongside China, France, India, Russia, the UK, and the US.

    “We believe in a world that protects freedom and respects human rights, the rule of law, the independence of sovereign states, and the rules-based international order,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

    “The steps we are announcing today will help us to advance these mutually beneficial objectives in the decades to come,” they said.

    Following the announcement, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wengbin said by going ahead with the pact the US, UK and Australia disregarded the concerns of the international community and have gone further down “the wrong path”.

    “We’ve repeatedly said that the establishment of the so-called AUKUS security partnership between the US, the UK and Australia to promote cooperation on nuclear submarines and other cutting-edge military technologies, is a typical Cold War mentality,” Wang said.

    “It will only exacerbate the arms race, undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, and hurt regional peace and stability,” he said.

    The 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy is the United States’ programme to ” advance our common vision for an Indo-Pacific region that is free and open, connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.”

    Fiji prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka
    Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . Albanese assured him the nuclear submarine deal would not undermine the Treaty of Rarotonga. Image: Fiji Parliament

    The Rarotonga Treaty
    On his return from San Diego, Australia’s Albanese stopped over in Suva where he met his Fijian counterpart Sitiveni Rabuka.

    After the meeting, Rabuka told reporters he supported AUKUS and that Albanese had assured him the nuclear submarine deal would not undermine the Treaty of Rarotonga — to which Australia is a party — that declares the South Pacific a nuclear weapon free zone.

    But an Australian academic said Pacific countries cannot take Canberra at face value when it comes to AUKUS and its committment to the Rarotonga Treaty.

    Dr Matthew Fitzpatrick, a professor in international history at Flinders University in South Australia, said Pacific leaders need to hold Australia accountable to the treaty.

    “Australia and New Zealand have always differed on what that treaty extends to in the sense that for New Zealand, that means more or less that you haven’t had US vessels with nuclear arms [or nuclear powered] permitted into the ports of New Zealand, whereas in Australia, those vessels more or less have been welcomed,” he said.

    Professor Fitzpatrick said Australia had declared that it did not breach it, or it did not breach any of those treaty commitments, but the proof of the pudding would be in the eating.

    “I think it’s something that certainly nations around the Pacific should be very careful and very cautious in taking at face value, what Australia says on those treaty requirements and should ensure that they’re rigorously enforced,” Professor Fitzpatrick said.

    Parties to the Rarotonga Treaty include Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

    Notably absent are three north Pacific countries who have compacts of free association with the United States — Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

    Dame Meg Taylor said Sitiveni Rabuka’s signal of support for AUKUS by no means reflected the positions of other leaders in the region.

    “I think the concern for us is that we in the Pacific, particularly those of us who are signatories to the Treaty of Rarotonga, have always been committed to the fact that we wanted a place to live where there was no proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    “The debate, I think that will emerge within the Pacific is ‘are nuclear submarines weapons’?”

    Self-fulfilling prophecy
    Meanwhile, a geopolitical analyst, Geoffrey Miller who writes for political website Democracy Project, said the deal could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy” for conflict.

    “Indo-Pacific countries all around the region are re-arming and spending more on their militaries,” Miller said.

    Japan approved its biggest military buildup since the Second World War last year and Dr Miller said New Zealand was reviewing its defence policy which would likely lead to more spending.

    “I worry that the AUKUS deal will only make things worse,” he said.

    “The more of these kinds of power projections, and the less dialogue we have, the more likely it is that we are ultimately going to bring about this conflict that we’re all trying to avoid.

    “I think we do need to think about de-escalation even more and let’s not talk ourselves into World War III.”

    Miller said tensions had grown since Russia invaded Ukraine and analysts had changed their view on how likely China was to invade Taiwain.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • The War Drive Against China

    When will this hate-filled nonsense stop? Surveillance balloons treated like evocations of Satan and his card-carrying followers; other innumerable unidentified phenomena that, nonetheless, remain attributable in origin, despite their designation; and then the issue of spying cranes. In the meantime, there has been much finger pointing on the culprit of COVID-19 and the global pandemic. Behold the China Threat, the Sino Monster, the Yellow Terror.

    In this atmosphere, the hawkish disposition of media outlets in a number of countries in shrieking for war is becoming palpable. The Fairfax press in Australia gave a less than admirable example of this in their absurd Red Alert series, crowned by crowing warmongers warning Australia to get ready for the imminent confrontation. The publications were timed to soften the public for the inevitable, scandalous and possibly even treasonous announcement that the Australian government would be spending A$368 billion in local currency on needless submarines against a garishly dressed-up threat backed by ill-motivated allies.

    For days, the Australian press demonstrated a zombie-like adherence to the war line that had been fed by deskbound generals no doubt suffering from piles and deranged civilian strategists desperate to justify their supper. It is a line that always assumes the virtue of war; that going into battle, much like US President Theodore Roosevelt thought, will always outdo the tedium of peace in a haze of phosphorescent glory. It is only in the morgues and the crowded cemeteries that we find a worthy patriotism. Go out and kill, you noble sons and daughters. Do your nation proud, however stupidly.

    The desperation of such a measure is also a reflection of how public opinion rejects the war drive. In a 2022 poll by the Lowy Institute think tank, 51% of Australians said they preferred their country to remain “neutral” in a conflict between the US and China over Taiwan. This was not a bad return, given the repetitious insistence by various Australian government ministers that joining a war with the United States over Taiwan was simply assumed.

    In the US, the Wall Street Journal was also doing much the same thing, plumping for great power competitions that can only end badly, rather than great power cooperation which, when it goes well, spares us the body bags, the funerals and the flag fluttering.

    The introductory note of one article in that Rupert Murdoch-owned organ was not encouraging. “Since 2018, the [US] military has shifted to focus on China and Russia after decades fighting insurgencies, but it still faces challenges to produce weapons and come up with new ways of waging war.”

    The obsession with war scenarios rather than diplomatic ones is hardening. It elevates the game to level pegging with peace overtures. In fact, it goes further, suggesting that such measures are to be frowned upon, if not abandoned in their entirety. Rather than considering discussions with China, for instance, on whether some rules of accommodation and observance can be made, the attitude from Washington and its satellites is one of excoriation, taking issue with any restrictions on the growth of the US defence complex. Acid observations are reserved for the Budget Control Act of 2011, which supposedly “hampered initiatives to transform the military, including on artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous systems and advanced manufacturing.”

    As defence analyst William Hartung writes, the Pentagon has never been short of cash in its pursuits, though it has been more than wasteful, obsessed with maintaining a global military presence spanning 750 bases and 170,000 overseas troops, not to mention the madness of shovelling $2 billion into developing a new generation of nuclear weapons. Far from encouraging deterrence, this is bound to “accelerate a dangerous and costly arms race.”

    The same must be said of AUKUS, the triumvirate alliance that is already terrifying several powers in the Indo-Pacific into joining the regional arms race. Here we see, yet again, the Anglosphere enthralled by protecting their possessions and routes of access, directly or indirectly held.

    In the red mist of war, lucid voices can be found. Singaporean diplomat and foreign policy intellectual Kishore Mahbubani is one to offer a bracing analysis in observing that China is hardly going to undermine the very order that has benefitted it. The Chinese, far from wishing to upend the rules-based system with thuggish glee, saw it as a gift of Western legal engineering. “So the paradox about the world today is that even though the global rules based order is a gift of the west, China embraces it.”

    He also has this to say about the US-China relationship. “China has been around for 5,000 years. The United States has been around for 250 years. And it’s not surprising that a juvenile like the United States would have difficulty dealing with a wiser, older civilisation”.

    Mahbubani, ever wily but also penetratingly sharp, also offers a valuable point: that the notion of a remarkable weapon (the nuclear-propelled submarine is not so much remarkable as cumbersomely draining and costly) must surely come a distant second to the attainment of economic prosperity. “Submarines are stealthy, but trade is stealthier,” he writes with a touch of serene sagacity. Both provide security, in a fashion: the former in terms of raw deterrence; the latter in terms of interdependence – but the kind of security created by trade, he is adamant, “lasts longer”. To date, that realisation seems to have bypassed the AUKUS troika.

    The post The War Drive Against China first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Jimi Biotech Debuts China’s First Cultivated Chicken

    jimi chicken
    3 Mins Read

    The innovation and AI-driven Jimi Biotech has presented the first fully developed cultivated meat in China.

    China-based Jimi Biotech has achieved a major milestone in cultivated meat by developing what it says is the country’s first 100 percent cell-based meat. The product is created entirely from animal cells without any plant scaffolding.

    Zhehou Cao, CEO of Jimi Biotech, says that cultivated meat containing plant scaffolding cannot replicate the taste and product perception of real meat products, making 100 percent cell-based meat a more viable option for consumers looking for a sustainable option without sacrificing taste or texture.

    Cultivated chicken

    The company is working to develop what it calls “new forms” of meat while reducing public health risks and addressing food safety, environmental pollution, and animal welfare problems related to conventional meat production.

    jimi biotech chicken
    Jimi Biotech’s cultivated chicken | Courtesy

    Roosters in Hangzhou provided the cells for the meat. Cao said a sensory evaluation of the product found that the difference in color, smell, and taste comparing conventional chicken with Jimi’s cultivated chicken was minimal, making it a successful first attempt and a viable contender for scaling up, once China greenlights cultivated meat.

    The company says it has managed to reduce the cost of the culture medium to around ¥ 100 ($14), which is only 3 percent of the price of the culture medium on the market.

    Funding the future of sustainable meat

    Prior to the launch, Jimi Biotech completed its second exclusive ¥10 million round of funding ($1.45 million) in the last four months — both led by Shiwei Capital. The funding will be used for research and development as well as the construction of a small pilot plant.

    Weichang Jiang, a partner at Shiwei Capital, praised Jimi Biotech’s rapid progress in core areas such as cell lines and culture media. Jiang also noted that the company’s automation and AI will make the company an efficiency leader in the sector.

    jimi
    Jimi’s cultivated meat | Courtesy

    “Although only three months have passed since the last round of funding, Jimi Biotech has still made significant technological breakthroughs,” Jiang said in a statement. “In addition to the rapid progress in core areas such as cell lines and culture media, we believe that Jimi Biotech’s deep integration of automation and AI into the research and development also reflects the founder’s emphasis on continuously improving research and development efficiency.”

    The debut comes as the Chinese government has explicitly listed cultivated meat as a key area for future food manufacturing in the “14th Five-Year Plan” for National Agricultural Science and Technology Development. The National Food Safety Risk Assessment Center (CFSA) will also establish a special group for cultivated meat this year to study the regulatory framework of cultivated meat in China.

    “China has the largest market for meat and a well-established supply chain system, so we believe that some of the world’s leading cultivated meat enterprises will be Chinese enterprises,” Jiang said. “With the attention of the regulatory agency, the industry is about to enter an important turning point in China.”

    The post Jimi Biotech Debuts China’s First Cultivated Chicken appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Patriotism and Sinophobia

    People such as former US military men like Scott Ritter and Douglas MacGregor provide excellent analysis on the geopolitics and warring in Ukraine. Ritter and McGregor are two Americans apparently able to relay a perspective based on their own take of a situation, a take independent of government pronouncements and home media reports. Nonetheless, despite reporting their government’s involvement in a proxy war and being well aware of US imperialism and war crimes, these men feel the need to profess their love of country. This is despite their country stirring up wars abroad; stealing oil and wheat in Syria; withholding money that belongs to the poor people of Afghanistan; having overthrown or trying to overthrow governments in Ukraine, Venezuela, Iran, Bolivia, Peru, Russia, etc.; leaving Americans without healthcare to fend for themselves as well as the homeless and destitute; carrying out a slow-motion assassination of Julian Assange; forcing Edward Snowden to live in exile; and a war against several other whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, to name a few. So why the need to express an undying love for country?

    One must not be harsh, as one can assume that to not declare an unwavering patriotism would put these independent speakers at risk of a harsh backlash.

    I admire Ritter and MacGregor for their independent streak. (I also appreciate the analysis of former US marine Brian Berletic who does not engage in rah-rah for the United States, but then he is an ex-pat).

    Of course, that an ex-military man can provide excellent military analysis does not mean that views expressed outside one’s bailiwick are equally profound. Such views may even be deserving of criticism or censure.

    In a recent video, MacGregor is interviewed by Stephen Gardner (who displays a large Star and Stripes in the background). MacGregor imparts a perspective that is at odds with that trotted out by his government and the US monopoly media concerning warring in Ukraine.

    However, a final question that Gardner posed to MacGregor was rather revealing in a very negative light.

    Gardner tendentiously asks (around 29:25), “You mentioned that the humane thing would be for the United States to step in and say this war is over; let’s be done. Don’t you feel like China is trying to fill that vacuum, where they are now saying, ‘Oh Saudi Arabia and Iran, there’s a lot of money to be made, let’s broker peace. Russia, Ukraine, hey, the United States is not going to step in; we are going to step in and broker peace.’ Is this one more way for China to try to eclipse the United States on the world stage?”

    What basis does Garner have for posing such a loaded question? Gardner ascribes selfish motives to China’s seeking to broker peace. One assumes that making war is preferable in Garner’s estimation. When has China ever boasted that it aspires to eclipse any country or be top dog? China eschews hegemony, and it consistently states its preference for a multipolar world, a world of peace, and developing win-win relationships with countries. Africans, long pillaged by Europeans and the Anglo diaspora, know this well.

    MacGregor responded well, at first, “Well, first of all, I do not subscribe to the view that China wants to eclipse us.” Fine, but this was immediately and emphatically followed by: “They know they can’t.” This comes across as chest thumping, USA, USA, USA, from a former military man.

    This is followed by a several assertions: “They [China] have serious problems internally, as well.” He opines that China “is too big to do more than it has already done.” He asserts that China’s chairman Xi Jinping wakes everyday wondering how to hold the country together. He does not cite one example to substantiate what he says. Under Xi, China eliminated extreme poverty and it is on the path to moderate prosperity. If only the US could come close to such monumental achievements for its citizenry. China is forging ties with nations from around the world with its Belt and Road initiative. This is what Xi thinks about each day – not the nonsense MacGregor espouses.

    Most disturbingly, MacGregor reveals himself in the video to be a Sinophobe by making all kinds of wild racist assertions; e.g., (at 32:14) “No one in central Asia trusts the Chinese; no one in Asia beyond the China’s borders trusts the Chinese [followed by snickering].”

    “People… are all very concerned about the Chinese… the Chinese do what they have always done, if you leave it on the table, they’ll steal it. That’s what they do; they’ve been doing it for thousands of years.”

    Now replace the word “Chinese” with “Jews” and imagine the torrent of outrage that would flow in the West.

    The post Patriotism and Sinophobia first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Lessons from peace activists – and action is up to the readers

    REVIEW: By Heather Devere

    The aims of Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia as stated by the editor, Valerie Morse, are “to make visible interconnections between social struggles separated by the vast expanse of Te Moana Nui-A-Kiwi [the Pacific Ocean] … to inspire, to enrage and to educate, but most of all, to motivate people to action” (p. 11).

    It is an opportunity to learn from the activists involved in these struggles. Published by the Left of the Equator Press, there are plenty of clues to the radical ideas presented. The frontispiece points out that the publisher is anti-copyright, and the book is “not able to be reproduced for the purpose of profit”, is printed on 100 percent “post consumer recycled paper”, and “bound with a hatred for the State and Capital infused in every page”.

    By their nature, activists take action and do things rather than just speak or write about things, as is the academic tradition, so this is an important, unique, and rare opportunity to learn from their insights, knowledge, and experience.

    Twenty-three contributors representing some of the diverse Peoples of Aotearoa, Australia, China, Hawaii, Japan, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, Tokelau, Tonga, and West Papua offer 13 written chapters, plus poetry, artworks, and a photo essay. The range of topics is extensive too, including the history of the Crusades and the doctrine of discovery, anti-militarist and anti-imperialist movements, land reclamation movements, nuclear resistance and anti-racist movements, solidarity and allyship.

    Both passion and ethics are evident in the stories about involvement in decolonised movements that are “situated in their relevant Indigenous practice” and anti-militarist movements that “actively practice peace making” (p. 11).

    Peace Action tall
    Peace Action … the new book. Image: Left of the Equator

    While their activism is unquestioned, the contributors come with other impressive credentials. Not only do they actively put into practice their strong values, but many are also researchers and scholars. Dr Pounamu Jade Aikman (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Wairere, Tainui, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Te Rangi, Te Arawa and Ngāti Tarāwhai) holds a Fulbright Scholarship from Harvard University. Mengzhu Fu (a 1.5 generation Tauiwi Chinese member of Asians Supporting Tino Rangatiratanga) is doing their PhD research on Indigenous struggles in Aotearoa and Canada-occupied Turtle Islands. Kyle Kajihiro lectures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and is a board member of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic from the Yikwa-Kogoya clan of the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands. Ena Manuireva is an academic and writer who represents the Mā’ohi Nui people of Tahiti. Dr Jae-Eun Noh and Dr Joon-Shik Shin are Korean researchers in Australian universities. Dr Rebekah Jaung, a health researcher, is involved in Korean New Zealanders for a Better Future.

    Several of the authors are working as investigators on the prestigious Marsden project entitled “Matiki Mai Te Hiaroa: #ProtectIhumātao”, a recent successful campaign to reclaim Māori land. These include Professor Jenny Bol Jun Lee-Morgan (Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Te Ahiwaru), Frances Hancock (Irish Pākehā), Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), Qiane Matata-Sipu (Te Waiohua ki te Ahiwaru me te Ākitai, Waikato Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Pikiao), and Pania Newton (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta and Ngāti Maniapoto) who is co-founder and spokesperson for the SOUL/#ProtectIhumātao campaign.

    Others work for climate justice, peace, Indigenous, social justice organisations, and community groups. Jungmin Choi coordinates nonviolence training at World Without War, a South Korean antimilitarist organisation based in Seoul. Mizuki Nakamura, a member of One Love Takae coordinates alternative peace tours in Japan. Tuhi-Ao Bailey (Ngāti Mutunga, Te Ātiawa and Taranaki) is chair of the Parihaka Papakāinga Trust and co-founder of Climate Justice Taranaki.

    Zelda Grimshaw, an artist and activist, helped coordinate the Disrupt Land Forces campaign at a major arts fair in Brisbane. Arama Rata (Ngāruhine, Taranaki and Ngāti Maniapoto) is a researcher for WERO (Working to End Racial Oppression) and Te Kaunoti Hikahika.

    Some are independent writers and artists. Emalani Case is a writer, teacher and aloha ‘āina from Waimea Hawai’i. Tony Fala (who has Tokelauan, Palagi, Samoan, and Tongan ancestry) engages with urban Pacific communities in Tāmaki Makaurau. Marylou Mahe is a decolonial feminist artist from Haouaïlou in the Kanak country of Ajë-Arhö. Tina Ngata (Ngäti Porou) is a researcher, author and an advocate for environmental Indigenous and human rights.

    Jos Wheeler is a director of photography for film and television in Aotearoa.

    Background analysis for this focus on Te Moana Nui A Kiwi, provides information about the concepts of imperial masculinity, infection, ideas from European maritime law Mare Liberum, that saw the sea as belonging to everyone. These ideas steered colonisation and placed shackles, both figuratively and physically, on Indigenous Peoples around the world.

    In the 17th century, Japan occupied the country of Okinawa, now also used as a training base by the US military. European “explorers” had been given “missions” in the 18th century that included converting the people to Christianity and locating useful and profitable resources in far-flung countries such as Aotearoa, Australia, New Caledonia and Tahiti.

    In the 19th century, Hawai’i was subject to US imperialism and militarisation.

    In the 20th century, Western countries were “liberating other nations” and dividing them up between them, such as the US “liberation” of South Korea from Japanese colonial rule. The Dutch prepared West Papua for independence 1960s after colonisation, but a subsequent Indonesian military invasion left the country in a worse predicament.

    However, the resistance from the Indigenous Peoples has been evident from the beginnings of imperialist invasions and militarisation of the Pacific, despite the arbitrary violence that accompanied these. Resistance continues, as the contributors to Peace Action demonstrate, and the contributions reveal the very many faces and facets of non-violent resistance that works towards an eventual peace with justice.

    Resistance has included education, support to help self-sufficiency, medical and legal support, conscientious objection, human rights advocacy, occupation of land, coordinating media coverage, visiting sites of significance, being the voice of the movement, petitions, research, writing, organising and joining peaceful marches, coordinating solidarity groups, making submissions, producing newsletter and community newspapers, relating stories, art exhibitions and installations, visiting churches, schools, universities, conferences, engaging with politicians, exploiting and creating digital platforms, fundraising, putting out calls for donations and hospitality, selling T-shirts and tote bags, awareness-raising events, hosting visitors, making and serving food, bearing witness, musical performances, photographic exhibitions, film screenings, songs on CDs.

    In order to mobilise people, activists have been involved in political engagement, public education, multimedia engagement, legal action, protests, rallies, marches, land and military site occupations, disruption of events, producing food from the land, negotiating treaties and settlements, cultural revitalisation, community networking and voluntary work, local and international solidarity, talanoa, open discussions, radical history teaching, printmaking workshops, vigils, dance parties, mobile kitchens, parades, first aid, building governance capacity, sharing histories, increasing medical knowledge.

    Activist have been prompted to act because of anger, disgust, and fear. The oppressors are likened to big waves, to large octopuses (interestingly also used in racist cartoons to depict Chinese immigrants to Aotearoa), to giants, to a virus, slavers, polluters, destroyers, exploiters, thieves, rapists, mass murderers, war criminals, war profiteers, white supremacists, racists, brutal genocide, ruthless killers, subjugators, fearmongers, demonisers, narcissistic sociopaths, and torturers.

    The resisters often try to “find beauty in the struggle” (Case, p. 70), using imagery of flowers and trees, love, dancing, song, braiding fibers or leis, dolphins, shark deities, flourishing food baskets, fertile gardens, pristine forests, sacred valleys, mother earth, seashells, candlelight, rainbows, rays of the rising sun, friendship, alliance, partners, majestic lowland forests, ploughs, watering seeds, and harvesting crops.

    Collaboration in resistance requires dignity, respect, integrity, providing safe spaces, honesty, openness, hard work without complaint, learning, cultural and spiritual awareness. The importance of coordination, cooperation and commitment are emphasised.

    And readers are made aware of the sustained energy that is needed to follow through on actions.

    The aim of Peace Action is to inspire, enrage, educate and motivate. These chapters will appeal mostly to those already convinced, and this is deliberately so.

    In these narratives, images we have guidance as to what is needed to be an activist. We admire the courage and bravery, we are educated into the multitude of activities that can be undertaken, and the immense amount of work in planning and sustaining action.

    This can serve as a handbook, providing plans of action to follow. Richness and creativity are provided in the fascinating and informative narratives, storytelling, and illustrations.

    I find it difficult to criticise because its goal is clear, there is no pretence that it is something else, and it achieves what it sets out to do. It remains to be seen whether peace action will follow. But that will be up to the readers.

    Dr Heather Devere is former director of practice, National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, and chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN). This review is published in collaboration with Pacific Journalism Review.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • If Putin’s A War Criminal Then What Does That Make Xi Jinping?

    If Putin's A War Criminal Then What Does That Make Xi Jinping?

    As the International Criminal Court i(ICC) imposes a warrant, for the arrest of Russian President Putin, we should perhaps reflect on the nauseating double-standards of that agency. First though, the cited reason for charging him with war crimes – the forced relocation of a reported 1,400 children from their family home in Ukranian or Russian territory (depending on your point-of-view) to Russia. A number of United Nations articles were raised clearly defining such as a gross human rights violation.

    Yet, where has the ICC been while the Chinese Regime has been forcibly removing countless thousands of Uyghur and Tibetan children (including infants) from their family and placing them into indoctrination centers, where they are effectively brainwashed 24/7 into becoming Chinese-speaking model citizens?

    It’s strange how the ICC regards the abuse of some children as deserving of a charge of war-crimes, yet has offered not even a gesture of concern at the harrowing reports of Uyghur and Tibetan cultural and national identity being calculatedly eradicated through a program of cultural genocide which targets children.

    Others may ask why no charges were brought upon former President Bush or the UK’s Tony Blair for the mass slaughter of Iraqis, many civilians; such as those of Fallujah, who were shelled with depleted uranium and white phosphorous weaponry.

    The answer of course is one of hypocrisy, political agenda and the corrosive influence of countries, who while claiming to be defenders-of-freedom care only about furthering their preferred economic and geo-strategic interests.

    This post was originally published on TIBET, ACTIVISM AND INFORMATION.

  • Stop Calling The Iraq War A ‘Mistake’: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

    Reading by Tim Foley:

    ❖

    Stop calling the Iraq War a “mistake”. When you make a mistake, you make changes to ensure that mistake is not repeated. Nobody responsible for that invasion suffered any consequences of any kind, zero policy changes were made, and the unipolarist ideology which led to it has become more entrenched than ever.

    If the invasion of Iraq was a “mistake”, western government officials would be residing in prison cells at The Hague, countless pundits and journalists would now be working behind cash registers in retail shops, and US foreign policy would have undergone a massive, dramatic overhaul. Instead the exact opposite has happened — the western officials who launched the Iraq War are esteemed members of elite society, the pundits and journalists who manufactured consent for it are at the top of their field, and securing US unipolar hegemony by any means necessary is the accepted status quo norm in mainstream politics.

    This is because the Iraq War was not a “mistake”. It was a cold, calculated decision which had precisely the effects it was intended to have: the advancement of western energy interests, greater geostrategic control, and the expansion of the US war machine in key geostrategic regions. Someone who makes a “mistake” doesn’t get everything they always wanted as a result and suffer zero consequences for the damage it caused. That’s what happens to someone who took a deliberate, calculated action in their own interests.

    You can only pretend the Iraq War was a “mistake” if you accept the official reasons for starting it: getting those WMDs, spreading freedom and democracy to those poor Iraqis who we love, and making the Middle East a safer and more peaceful place for everyone. It’s not okay for grown adults in the year 2023 to believe those were the real intentions behind the invasion of Iraq.

    If the invasion of Iraq was a mistake there would have been changes put in place to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. Those changes were never made because they thoroughly intend to do similar things in the future.

    ❖

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Imagine writing this line and thinking it's normal. https://t.co/Z8ngyNWbiX pic.twitter.com/2WGh8CR2xi

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 11, 2023

    ❖

    It’s not a “whataboutism” to say it’s absurd to charge Putin with war crimes without charging George W Bush, it’s a completely devastating argument against the claim being made. If the law doesn’t apply to everyone, then it’s not the law, it’s just corruption. It’s a tool of the powerful.

    It’s hilarious that Putin has been hit with an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court not only on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, but also a few days after the Pentagon intervened to stop the Biden administration from helping the ICC compile evidence of Russian war crimes because it might lead to ICC prosecution of American war crimes.

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Breaking News: The Pentagon is blocking the U.S. from sharing evidence on Russian atrocities in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court, officials said. Military leaders fear setting a precedent that might pave the way for it to prosecute Americans. https://t.co/xnHCjkkZnK

    — The New York Times (@nytimes) March 8, 2023

    ❖

    One of the funniest empire narratives we’re being asked to believe today is that the US is militarily encircling its #1 rival China, on the other side of the planet, defensively.

    ❖

    I hear people say, “I oppose the Chinese GOVERNMENT, not the Chinese PEOPLE!”

    Oh cool, so sort of like the exact same thing literally every warmongering neocon has said about literally every country they wanted to destroy since the turn of the century?

    You’re not making an important or interesting distinction when you say you oppose a foreign government and not it’s people, you’re just painting the same pretty picture over the same ugly agenda as every war slut since 9/11. Shut the hell up.

    ❖

    China should start arming Mexican cartels so they can defend themselves against the coming US invasion. Per the US playbook Washington should have no problem with this.

    class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″>

    Invade Mexico to stop Americans from doing drugs. We know this is a good and sensible idea because we've done bad things in the past. https://t.co/d6N396OiD6

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 13, 2023

    ❖

    I’ve seen people use Marxist-sounding rhetoric to justify NATO expansion and US proxy warfare. I’ve seen people use anti-imperialist jargon to justify encirclement of China. It’s like how people used the Bible to justify racism and other ugly things. Your beliefs don’t matter if your heart’s in the wrong place.

    Reading all the right books and having all the correct concepts won’t protect you from error; only clarity of vision can keep you on the straight and narrow. And that takes hard, dedicated, rigorously honest inner work. No amount of accumulated knowledge will substitute for this.

    We’ve all known people who share what we think of as noble ideological beliefs but are actually garbage human beings once you get to know them. Having the right beliefs won’t make you a better person, and it won’t protect you from applying those beliefs in a very unwholesome way.

    Having all the right political opinions is no substitute for being a good human being. Ticking all the right conceptual boxes is no substitute for psychological health. Reading all the right books is no substitute for real inner work. Concepts are worthless without inner clarity. You’ve got to do the work.

    __________________

    My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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    Featured image via Gerard Van der Leun (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

  • Two Sessions Summary

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • Two Sessions Summary
    • New National Data Office
    • China’s Historical Mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia
    • Modern Feminism in China

    The post Two Sessions Summary first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect

    On 24 February 2023, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a twelve-point plan entitled ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’. This ‘peace plan’, as it has been called, is anchored in the concept of sovereignty, building upon the well-established principles of the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Ten Principles from the Bandung Conference of African and Asian states held in 1955. The plan was released two days after China’s senior diplomat Wang Yi visited Moscow, where he met with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s interest in the plan was confirmed by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov shortly after the visit: ‘Any attempt to produce a plan that would put the [Ukraine] conflict on a peace track deserves attention. We are considering the plan of our Chinese friends with great attention’.

    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the plan hours after it was made public, saying that he would like to meet China’s President Xi Jinping as soon as possible to discuss a potential peace process. France’s President Emmanuel Macron echoed this sentiment, saying that he would visit Beijing in early April. There are many interesting aspects of this plan, notably a call to end all hostilities near nuclear power plants and a pledge by China to help fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. But perhaps the most interesting feature is that a peace plan did not come from any country in the West, but from Beijing.

    When I read ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’, I was reminded of ‘On the Pulse of Morning’, a poem published by Maya Angelou in 1993, the rubble of the Soviet Union before us, the terrible bombardment of Iraq by the United States still producing aftershocks, the tremors felt in Afghanistan and Bosnia. The title of this newsletter, ‘Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect’, sits at the heart of the poem. Angelou wrote alongside the rocks and the trees, those who outlive humans and watch us destroy the world. Two sections of the poem bear repeating:

    Each of you, a bordered country,
    Delicate and strangely made proud,
    Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
    Your armed struggles for profit
    Have left collars of waste upon
    My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
    Yet today I call you to my riverside,
    If you will study war no more. Come,
    Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs
    The Creator gave to me when I and the
    Tree and the rock were one.
    Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
    Brow and when you yet knew you still
    Knew nothing.
    The River sang and sings on.

    …

    History, despite its wrenching pain
    Cannot be unlived, but if faced
    With courage, need not be lived again.

    History cannot be forgotten, but it need not be repeated. That is the message of Angelou’s poem and the message of the study we released last week, Eight Contradictions of the Imperialist ‘Rules-Based Order’.

    In October 2022, Cuba’s Centre for International Policy Research (CIPI) held its 7th Conference on Strategic Studies, which studied the shifts taking place in international relations, with an emphasis on the declining power of the Western states and the emergence of a new confidence in the developing world. There is no doubt that the United States and its allies continue to exercise immense power over the world through military force and control over financial systems. But with the economic rise of several developing countries, with China at their head, a qualitative change can be felt on the world stage. An example of this trend is the ongoing dispute amongst the G20 countries, many of which have refused to line up against Moscow despite pressure by the United States and its European allies to firmly condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine. This change in the geopolitical atmosphere requires precise analysis based on the facts.

    To that end, our latest dossier, Sovereignty, Dignity, and Regionalism in the New International Order (March 2023), produced in collaboration with CIPI, brings together some of the thinking about the emergence of a new global dispensation that will follow the period of US hegemony. The text opens with a foreword by CIPI’s director, José R. Cabañas Rodríguez, who makes the point that the world is already at war, namely a war imposed on much of the world (including Cuba) by the United States and its allies through blockades and economic policies such as sanctions that strangle the possibilities for development. As Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said, coups these days ‘do not need tanks. They achieve the same result with banks’.

    The US is attempting to maintain its position of ‘single master’ through an aggressive military and diplomatic push both in Ukraine and Taiwan, unconcerned about the great destabilisation this has inflicted upon the world. This approach was reflected in US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s admission that ‘We want to see Russia weakened’ and in US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul’s statement that ‘Ukraine today – it’s going to be Taiwan tomorrow’. It is a concern about this destabilisation and the declining fortunes of the West that has led most of the countries in the world to refuse to join efforts to isolate Russia.

    As some of the larger developing countries, such as China, Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia, and South Africa, pivot away from reliance upon the United States and its Western allies, they have begun to discuss a new architecture for a new world order. What is quite clear is that most of these countries – despite great differences in the political traditions of their respective governments – now recognise that the United States ‘rules-based international order’ is no longer able to exercise the authority it once had. The actual movement of history shows that the world order is moving from one anchored by US hegemony to one that is far more regional in character. US policymakers, as part of their fearmongering, suggest that China wants to take over the world, along the grain of the ‘Thucydides Trap’ argument that when a new aspirant to hegemony appears on the scene, it tends to result in war between the emerging power and existing great power. However, this argument is not based on facts.

    Rather than seek to generate additional poles of power – in the mould of the United States – and build a ‘multipolar’ world, developing countries are calling for a world order rooted in the UN Charter as well as strong regional trade and development systems. ‘This new internationalism can only be created – and a period of global Balkanisation avoided’, we write in our latest dossier, ‘by building upon a foundation of mutual respect and strength of regional trade systems, security organisations, and political formations’. Indicators of this new attitude are present in the discussions taking place in the Global South about the war in Ukraine and are reflected in the Chinese plan for peace.

    Our dossier analyses at some length this moment of fragility for US power and its ‘rules-based international order’. We trace the revival of multilateralism and regionalism, which are key concepts of the emerging world order. The growth of regionalism is reflected in the creation of a host of vital regional bodies, from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), alongside increasing regional trade (with the BRICS bloc being a kind of ‘regionalism plus’ for our period). Meanwhile, the emphasis on returning to international institutions for global decision-making, as evidenced by the formation of the Group of Friends in Defence of the UN Charter, for example, illustrates the reinvigorated desire for multilateralism.

    The United States remains a powerful country, but it has not come to terms with the immense changes taking place in the world order. It must temper its belief in its ‘manifest destiny’ and recognise that it is nothing more than another country amongst the 193 members states of the United Nations. The great powers – including the United States – will either find ways to accommodate and cooperate for the common good, or they will all collapse together.

    At the start of the pandemic, the head of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged the countries of the world to be more collaborative and less confrontational, saying that ‘this is the time for solidarity, not stigma’ and repeating, in the years since, that nations must ‘work together across ideological divides to find common solutions to common problems’. These wise words must be heeded.

    The post Birth Again the Dream of Global Peace and Mutual Respect first appeared on Dissident Voice.