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Category: China

  • FRSO Leader Sydney Loving Reflects On How China Is Building Socialism

    Fight Back! sat down with Sydney Loving, a participant in the 2025 Friends of Socialist China delegation, which recently returned from a ten-day visit across five cities in China. From revolutionary bases to high-tech cities and green development, the delegation witnessed firsthand the power of socialism to uplift the lives of the people. Loving is a member of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

    Fight Back!: How did you go to China? What was the purpose of the trip?

    Sydney Loving: The delegation was organized by Friends of Socialist China, a political project aiming to strengthen understanding and support for China on the basis of solidarity and truth.

    The post FRSO Leader Sydney Loving Reflects On How China Is Building Socialism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Eighty years after the U.S. Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki Are We on the Verge of Another Nuclear War?

    Eighty years ago, the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are now nine nuclear-armed nations, many in military confrontation with one another. It is quite remarkable that there has not been another nuclear war. How can this be explained?

    Some say the absence of another nuclear war proves that nuclear “deterrence” is working, and to some extent, that is true. These nations are rightfully afraid of a nuclear conflagration that could obliterate their societies and even destroy all life on planet Earth.  With escalating military confrontations today – even the possibility of a World War – how long can “deterrence” work?

    “So Far, So Good…”

    “So far, so good” is probably the faintly hopeful refrain heard from many who feel helpless to undo the nuclear danger. This is reminiscent of the cartoon of the man falling from the top of a building. As he passes each descending floor, he proclaims, “So far, so good….”

    In reality, a fair amount of luck has helped humanity avert nuclear catastrophe until now. We came very close during the “Cuban Missile Crisis.” A political officer on a Russian submarine that was out of communication and uncertain if a nuclear war had already begun, called off a missile launch at the last minute. Another Russian military technician, suspicious of an errant radar reading that appeared to show incoming US missiles, called off another imminent nuclear strike. It could just as easily have gone the other way.

    Many experts worry that it will be an accidental nuclear launch that ends us. This is all the more concerning as Artificial Intelligence is applied to nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, decreasing the decision-making time to split seconds, and removing human oversight. What could go wrong?

    Never Again?

    2025 also marks eighty years from the end of World War II and the defeat of the German fascists by Russia, the United States, and the European Allies. Eighty years since Russian and US troops liberated thousands of skeletal prisoners from German concentration camps, much to the horror of the world, which reacted with calls of “Never Again!”

    But wait, don’t we have concentration camps now in the U.S.? Isn’t that why ICE now has a larger budget than any branch of the military, and larger than the entire current Federal prison system? They are building concentration camps for undocumented workers, whom they demonize as “murderers,” “rapists,” “gang members,” and “terrorists.” The vast majority of immigrants who have already been violently taken from their jobs and families, imprisoned and deported, have no criminal records whatsoever, and are productive, respected members of their communities.

    Authoritarianism with distinct overtones of white supremacy is on the rise once again, while craven European politicians clamor for war with Russia and more military spending. What could go wrong?

    Israel, purportedly a safe haven for the persecuted Jewish people – a “land without a people for a people without a land” – is escalating its blatant genocide in Gaza. The images of intentionally starved Palestinian men, women, and children conjure images of emaciated prisoners – mostly Jews – in World War II concentration camps.

    Israel Wages Genocide While Threatening Its Neighbors with Nuclear Weapons

    Israel is also a nuclear power, although it has long been considered impolite to say so. The United States helped Israel gain nuclear technology and has helped to shield Israel from any nuclear accountability. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Its nuclear arsenal is not inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which the U.S. weaponized to support its rationale for war against Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The IAEA announced a resolution critical of Iran’s nuclear program on Thursday, June 12, the day before Israel’s attack on Iran. Coincidence? Probably not. Like so many other international bodies, the IAEA has been subverted to serve U.S. and Israeli war aims.

    Unlike Iran, Israel actually has nuclear weapons. Will they use them against Iran? The Israeli government of rightwing extremists has already shown us the depths of depravity they are willing to go. Furthermore, all their Arab neighbors know Israel is the only nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East.

    Daniel Ellsberg, author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, reminded us that “Nuclear weapons are used every day. They are like a gun you point at somebody’s head.”

    Aside from “luck,” it has been nuclear arms treaties that have held nuclear war in check. In recent years, however, the U.S. has shredded most of these treaties and missed many opportunities for peace:

    • Reagan rejected President Gorbachev’s offer for both countries to eliminate all their nuclear weapons if the U.S. would stop deployment of a “Star Wars” missile defense system in space.
    • President Clinton refused President Putin’s offer to cut our massive nuclear arsenals to 1,500 bombs and to call on all of the other nuclear-armed states to negotiate the elimination of all nuclear weapons, in exchange for the US not placing missile sites in Romania.
    • President George W. Bush walked out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and put a missile base in Romania. President Trump placed another missile base in Poland.
    • President Bush in 2008 and President Obama in 2014 blocked any discussion of Russian and Chinese proposals for a space weapons ban in the consensus-bound UN Committee for Disarmament in Geneva.
    • President Obama rejected President Putin’s offer to negotiate a treaty to ban cyber war.
    • President Trump pulled the US out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
    • President Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal and placed sanctions on Iran.
    • From President Clinton through President Trump, the US has never ratified the 1992 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Russia ratified.
      [Reference: Veterans For Peace Nuclear Posture Review.]

    Taken in their totality, these U.S. moves constitute an attempt to gain nuclear superiority, including the possibility of launching a first-strike nuclear attack. Pulling out of the ABM and INF treaties, in particular, indicates U.S. intentions to threaten Russia with nuclear war.

    Is it any wonder that Russia, faced with the prospect of the U.S./NATO troops and nuclear weapons systems stationed on its border with Ukraine, felt compelled to take military action? Now Russia is stuck in a bloody war that has been constantly escalated by the U.S., which has rejected multiple opportunities for peace talks since the war began. Russia asked for neutrality for Ukraine and respect for the rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking populations. Over one million casualties later (both sides), the bloody trench-and-drone war drags on, not because of Russian intransigence, but because of the aggressive U.S. policy of “full-spectrum dominance” in every corner of the globe.

    Drone Attack on Russia’s Strategic Bombers Tempted Nuclear War

    On June 1 of this year, a U.S.-supported Ukrainian drone attack on nuclear bombers in Russia almost triggered a nuclear war. According to a Russian general who spoke with former CIA geopolitical analyst Larry Johnson, the world was even closer to nuclear war than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russian bombers were openly visible on the tarmac, in accordance with the New START Treaty, which is designed to prevent a nuclear-first strike by either Russia or the U.S. This last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the U.S. and Russia is due to expire this coming February. But it has already been drone-bombed.

    News Flash! President Trump just posted on his Truth Social account that he is sending two nuclear-armed submarines closer to Russia. Why? Because he didn’t like something that Russia’s Dmitri Medvedev said on social media. What? Trump is scoring pissing points by playing with nuclear weapons? A narcissistic psychopath has his hand on the nuclear button. This is all the more reason to push for an end to the president’s sole authority to launch a nuclear war.

    To round out this bleak report, we must at least mention that the U.S. is planning for war against China. The United States is openly planning to wage a war against China – some say as soon as 2027. Why? Because China’s remarkable revolution from extreme poverty to becoming a prosperous global powerhouse is something that the U.S. ruling class (or “deep state”) will not accept. So China will not be attacked because of its military aggression. Even as the U.S. wages perpetual war on multiple countries, China has not been at war with anybody in this century. U.S. complaints about Taiwan are nothing more than an excuse, a trigger for the war that U.S. leaders are determined to wage, at all costs.

    The Pentagon Is Planning a Nuclear First-Strike Against China

    The Pentagon has figured out that it cannot win a conventional war against China, however. It is planning to use nuclear weapons – an overwhelming first strike or possibly only “tactical nuclear weapons,” those cute little guys that are several times more powerful than what was dropped on Hiroshima.

    U.S. war planners recently asked Australia and Japan to declare what military resources they will bring to bear in a war against China. And get this… The U.S. held talks with Japan, of all nations, to discuss how they will coordinate their efforts after a nuclear strike on China. Among the issues they discussed were how to manage public opinion after a nuclear war.

    So if you think I am pointing the finger at the U.S. as the “bad guy” who is mostly responsible for the prospect of a civilization-ending nuclear war, then you are reading correctly. To put it bluntly, the problem is U.S. imperialism. The waning U.S. empire, desperate to maintain and expand its hegemony, is the elephant in the room. It is buttressed by a very large and powerful Military Industrial Complex (MIC), the one that President Eisenhower warned us about – now on steroids. Ray McGovern of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a former CIA analyst himself, has expanded the MIC acronym to MICIMATT (Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Academia Think-Tanks). Yes, they are all complicit, not just with genocide in Palestine, but with militarizing and destroying the world. We peace-loving people have our work cut out for us. We are up against a lot.

    There is a lot of money to be made from war and militarism. And Politicians learn the advantages of justifying war and funding the war machine. The ever-growing Pentagon budget has ballooned to over One Trillion Dollars under Trump, money that will be redirected from the social security net that is being systematically shredded. Spending on nuclear weapons “modernization” alone will cost $100 billion in just the next year (from the budgets of the Pentagon and the Department of Energy).

    “The End Is Near”

    For decades, peace activists, scientists, and others have been warning us about the “growing danger of nuclear war.” Those sounding the nuclear alarm have been treated like the proverbial fanatic with the sign, “The End Is Near,” or like Chicken Little – “the sky is falling.” It is mostly by dumb luck, however, that we have not all perished in a nuclear Armageddon already. The guard rails have been removed, with the U.S. abrogation of nuclear arms deals. There are very few “adults in the room,” certainly not in the U.S., where Neocons who love Israel but hate Iran and Russia have seized the helm. It will take a miracle and a lot of activism to avoid utter disaster in the relatively near future.

    Many people are already experiencing disaster, what with wars, genocide, extreme poverty, starvation, and the climate crisis – the fruits of corporate greed and militarism. Many people also suffer from the poison of the entire nuclear cycle. There are 15,000 abandoned uranium mines in the western U.S., many of them on First Nations lands. Radiation contaminates the water, the air, the land, and the people, who suffer from many cancers and radiation-related diseases.

    The U.S. Exploded 67 Nuclear Bombs in the Marshall Islands

    Then there are the “downwinders” who suffer from the radiation of nuclear bomb testing. Or worse. The Marshall Islands were devastated by nuclear bomb testing. From 1946 to 1958, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear bombs on this island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  To add insult to injury, their islands are now “sinking” from global warming and rising seas. Many Marshallese, unable to grow food on radiated land and unable to eat the fish from radiated waters, have been allowed to live in the U.S., without citizenship or security, and denied healthcare by many states. There is no cancer treatment facility in the Marshall Islands, and no VA facility for its many veterans of the U.S. military.

    We will end this disturbing nuclear tour on a positive note. It has to do with the Marshall Islands. In 1958, four Quaker peace activists bought a sailboat and announced to the world their intention to sail from Los Angeles 4,000 miles into the nuclear test zone in the Marshall Islands to stop U.S. nuclear testing. They were led by Albert Bigelow, a World War II Navy Commander who resigned his commission in protest of the U.S. nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    The Golden Rule Crew Tried to Stop U.S. Nuclear Testing

    Halfway through the voyage, when Bigelow and his intrepid crew pulled into Honolulu, they were arrested and thrown in jail, and the Coast Guard seized their boat, named Golden Rule. They never made it to the Marshall Islands. Still, they succeeded in bringing worldwide attention to the danger of radiation that was floating all over the globe, even getting into mothers’ milk. Opposition to nuclear testing led to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1962, signed by President Kennedy and the leaders of Russia and the UK. The treaty banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in the water, and in space. Only underground tests were permitted.  These days, most nuclear testing is done using computer simulations.

    The remarkable saga of the Golden Rule continued. The 34-foot ketch was sold and sailed as a pleasure boat by several families to the South Pacific and the Caribbean. Somehow, in 2010, it was found in Humboldt Bay in northern California – a derelict boat that had sunk in a gale and had a big hole in its side.  Some locals dragged the beat-up boat onto the beach and planned to make a bonfire of it. When someone discovered the boat’s legacy, however, local members of Veterans For Peace rescued it and decided to restore it to its original glory.

    In June of 2015, after five years of dedicated volunteer labor by veterans, Quakers, and boat lovers, the Golden Rule splashed back into the waters of Humboldt Bay and began sailing up and down the west coast from British Columbia to Mexico (Ensenada), then to Hawai’i and all around the Hawaiian islands. Back to California, trucked to Minneapolis, sailed down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, to Cuba, and up the East Coast to Toronto and back to Chicago, a 12-month voyage with a total of 102 port stops.  At every stop, the Golden Rule and its crew were welcomed excitedly by local peace and environmental activists as well as by state and local officials. Nobody wants a nuclear war!

    The Golden Rule Is Sailing Around San Francisco Bay

    The historic Golden Rule ­peace boat sailed last week from its homeport in Humboldt Bay to San Francisco Bay, where it will spend the month of August educating the public about the “growing danger of nuclear war,” and the importance of supporting the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The Treaty, supported by an overwhelming majority of countries, went into force in January 2021. It prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging, or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities.

    Peace at Home, Peace Abroad!

    The Golden Rule is a national project of Veterans For Peace, a 40-year-old organization dedicated to exposing the true costs of war, restraining our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations, and ridding the world of nuclear weapons. At its recent national convention, veterans from U.S. wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and recent deployments made a united call for opposition to the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and for resistance to racist ICE attacks in our communities. While calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the Golden Rule will be echoing these urgent cries for “Peace at Home, Peace Abroad.”

    The post Eighty years after the U.S. Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki Are We on the Verge of Another Nuclear War? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Are We On The Verge Of Another Nuclear War?

    Eighty years ago, the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are now nine nuclear-armed nations, many in military confrontation with one another. It is quite remarkable that there has not been another nuclear war. How can this be explained?

    Some say the absence of another nuclear war proves that nuclear “deterrence” is working, and to some extent that is true. These nations are rightfully afraid of a nuclear conflagration which could obliterate their societies, and even destroy all life on planet Earth.  With escalating military confrontations today – even the possibility of a World War – how long can “deterrence” work?

    The post Are We On The Verge Of Another Nuclear War? appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Marshall Islands president warns of threat to Pacific Islands Forum unity

    By Giff Johnson, Marshall Islands Journal editor/RNZ Pacific correspondent

    Leaders of the three Pacific nations with diplomatic ties to Taiwan are united in a message to the Pacific Islands Forum that the premier regional body must not allow non-member countries to dictate Forum policies — a reference to the China-Taiwan geopolitical debate.

    Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, in remarks to the opening of Parliament in Majuro yesterday, joined leaders from Tuvalu and Palau in strongly worded comments putting the region on notice that the future unity and stability of the Forum hangs in the balance of decisions that are made for next month’s Forum leaders’ meeting in the Solomon Islands.

    This is just three years since the organisation pulled back from the brink of splintering.

    Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu are among the 12 countries globally that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

    At issue is next month’s annual meeting of leaders being hosted by Solomon Islands, which is closely allied to China, and the concern that the Solomon Islands will choose to limit or prevent Taiwan’s engagement in the Forum, despite it being a major donor partner to the three island nations as well as a donor to the Forum Secretariat.

    President Surangel Whipps Jr
    President Surangel Whipps Jr . . . diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Richard Brooks/RNZ Pacific

    China worked to marginalise Taiwan and its international relationships including getting the Forum to eliminate a reference to Taiwan in last year’s Forum leaders’ communique after leaders had agreed on the text.

    “I believe firmly that the Forum belongs to its members, not countries that are non-members,” said President Heine yesterday in Parliament’s opening ceremony. “And non-members should not be allowed to dictate how our premier regional organisation conducts its business.”

    Heine continued: “We witnessed at the Forum in Tonga how China, a world superpower, interfered to change the language of the Forum Communique, the communiqué of our Pacific Leaders . . . If the practice of interference in the affairs of the Forum becomes the norm, then I question our nation’s membership in the organisation.”

    She cited the position of the three Taiwan allies in the Pacific in support of Taiwan participation at next month’s Forum.

    Tuvalu's Prime Minister Feleti Teo
    Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo . . . also has diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Ludovic Marin/RNZ Pacific:

    “There should not be any debate on the issue since Taiwan has been a Forum development partner since 1993,” Heine said.

    Heine also mentioned that there was an “ongoing review of the regional architecture of the Forum” and its many agencies “to ensure that their deliverables are on target, and inter-agency conflicts are minimised.”

    The President said during this review of the Forum and its agencies, “it is critical that the question of Taiwan’s participation in Forum meetings is settled once and for all to safeguard equity and sovereignty of member governments.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Marshall Islands president warns of threat to Pacific Islands Forum unity

    By Giff Johnson, Marshall Islands Journal editor/RNZ Pacific correspondent

    Leaders of the three Pacific nations with diplomatic ties to Taiwan are united in a message to the Pacific Islands Forum that the premier regional body must not allow non-member countries to dictate Forum policies — a reference to the China-Taiwan geopolitical debate.

    Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, in remarks to the opening of Parliament in Majuro yesterday, joined leaders from Tuvalu and Palau in strongly worded comments putting the region on notice that the future unity and stability of the Forum hangs in the balance of decisions that are made for next month’s Forum leaders’ meeting in the Solomon Islands.

    This is just three years since the organisation pulled back from the brink of splintering.

    Marshall Islands, Palau and Tuvalu are among the 12 countries globally that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

    At issue is next month’s annual meeting of leaders being hosted by Solomon Islands, which is closely allied to China, and the concern that the Solomon Islands will choose to limit or prevent Taiwan’s engagement in the Forum, despite it being a major donor partner to the three island nations as well as a donor to the Forum Secretariat.

    President Surangel Whipps Jr
    President Surangel Whipps Jr . . . diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Richard Brooks/RNZ Pacific

    China worked to marginalise Taiwan and its international relationships including getting the Forum to eliminate a reference to Taiwan in last year’s Forum leaders’ communique after leaders had agreed on the text.

    “I believe firmly that the Forum belongs to its members, not countries that are non-members,” said President Heine yesterday in Parliament’s opening ceremony. “And non-members should not be allowed to dictate how our premier regional organisation conducts its business.”

    Heine continued: “We witnessed at the Forum in Tonga how China, a world superpower, interfered to change the language of the Forum Communique, the communiqué of our Pacific Leaders . . . If the practice of interference in the affairs of the Forum becomes the norm, then I question our nation’s membership in the organisation.”

    She cited the position of the three Taiwan allies in the Pacific in support of Taiwan participation at next month’s Forum.

    Tuvalu's Prime Minister Feleti Teo
    Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Feleti Teo . . . also has diplomatic ties to Taiwan. Image: Ludovic Marin/RNZ Pacific:

    “There should not be any debate on the issue since Taiwan has been a Forum development partner since 1993,” Heine said.

    Heine also mentioned that there was an “ongoing review of the regional architecture of the Forum” and its many agencies “to ensure that their deliverables are on target, and inter-agency conflicts are minimised.”

    The President said during this review of the Forum and its agencies, “it is critical that the question of Taiwan’s participation in Forum meetings is settled once and for all to safeguard equity and sovereignty of member governments.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Philippines, India conduct joint exercises in South China Sea

    Indian and Philippine naval crews sailed together for the first time in the South China Sea, officials said on Monday, one of several joint exercises the Philippine navy has held to counter China’s far-reaching maritime claims.

    The two-day joint sail included three Indian ships. It began on Sunday, a day before Philippine Prime Minister Ferdinand Marcos left for a five-day state visit to New Delhi that will include talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    Before departing, Marcos lauded the two countries’ “shared values” and “steadfastness in upholding international maritime law.”

    China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a critical shipping route that’s also partially claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, despite an international arbitration court in 2016 ruling that its assertions had “no legal basis.” Beijing did not accept the ruling.

    A spokesperson for China’s military on Monday said that Chinese ships had conducted patrols in the South China Sea during the same period as the joint exercises. The spokesperson said those patrols were “routine,” but said that the joint exercises “disrupted regional peace and stability.”

    This image released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines on Aug. 4, 2025, shows the joint India-Philippines naval exercise in the South China Sea.
    This image released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines on Aug. 4, 2025, shows the joint India-Philippines naval exercise in the South China Sea.
    (Armed Forces of the Philippines via X)

    The Philippines has pressed its claims over the disputed waterway in recent months, enacting new laws, pushing for a maritime code of conduct, and considering new international lawsuits. Since 2023, it has conducted joint exercises with partners including the U.S., Japan, Australia, France and Canada.

    This year, Manila and Beijing have expressed their quarrel in the physical world — with each country’s coast guard unfurling a flag on a contested sandbank in April — and in cyberspace, jousting over a Google Maps update labeling part of the waterway the “West Philippine Sea.”

    Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • 59th Session of the Human Rights Council: what NGOs thought of the session

    At the 59th Human Rights Council session, civil society organisations share reflections on key outcomes and highlight gaps in addressing crucial issues and situations. Full written version below.

    We join others who have expressed grave concern about the UN’s financial situation throughout the session. We deplore that we are in this position primarily due to the failure of some States to pay their assessed contributions in full and on time. We regret that this crisis is currently affecting the Council’s ability to deliver its mandate. Today, UN Member States are sending a clear message that human rights and their implementation are optional and not inalienable. We call on all States to pay their dues to the UN in full and without delay, both now and in future years, and strengthen the human rights pillar of the UN by substantially increasing its regular budget. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/united-nations/]

    We welcome the Council’s decision to renew, once more, the Mandate of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, following a call from more than 1,259 organisations from 157 countries and territories.  While the mandate was supported by the overwhelming majority of Council members, we regret that a mandate focusing on core human rights issues such as freedom from violence and discrimination was once again put for a vote.

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on civil society space. The resolution acknowledges important civil society initiatives such as Declaration +25 and addresses key and emerging trends such as strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), the phenomenon of transnational repression, and foreign funding legislation, as well as other restrictive legislation including counter-terrorism legislation. We regret, however, that language on transnational repression has been weakened throughout the negotiations and does not take a step forward in terms of defining the phenomenon and its patterns. ..

    We welcome the adoption of the resolution on human rights and climate change in relation to climate finance. As acknowledged by the resolution, climate finance is a tool for addressing climate change and it is also important for the enjoyment of human rights when finance prioritises equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes. … We also regret that, notwithstanding the support expressed by numerous delegations, this resolution is blatantly silent in recognising the positive, important, legitimate and vital role that environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) play in the promotion and protection of human rights and the environment, particularly in the context of climate change. As recognised by the HRC resolution 40/11, EHRDs are one of the most exposed and at risk around the world. The Inter-American Court on Human Rights has recently ruled in its Advisory Opinion on “Climate Emergency and Human Rights” that EHRDs play a fundamental role due to the urgency, gravity and complexity to address the climate emergency. We will not have climate justice without consulting, listening and including EHRDs in climate actions and initiatives, including this annual resolution.

    We express our support for a new strong resolution on the safety of journalists, adopted by consensus and co-sponsored by over 70 countries from all world regions, signalling a renewed international commitment to prevent, protect and remedy all human rights violations against journalists. The resolution becomes the first across the UN to recommend a range of concrete, specific measures to

    It is concerning that the Council could not find consensus on the resolution on access to medicines, vaccines and other health products. States should acknowledge that intellectual property rights can be a barrier for access to health products, especially in public health emergencies and should act with a view to finding human-rights compliant solutions. States should further ensure that the benefits of scientific progress is available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality to all people, without discrimination. 

    We welcome the resolution on new and emerging digital technologies and human rights. The resolution reaffirms the need for human rights due diligence and impact assessments throughout the life cycle of new and emerging digital technologies, and crucially calls upon States to refrain from or cease the use of artificial intelligence applications that are impossible to operate in compliance with international human rights law. The resolution importantly mandates OHCHR to expand its work on UN system-wide promotion, coordination, and coherence on matters related to human rights in new and emerging digital technologies.

    We welcome the rejection by the Council of an unprecedented, harmful draft resolution (L.1/Rev.1) presented in bad faith by Eritrea to discontinue the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. The voting result (25 against, 4 in favour) is clear and will deter similar initiatives to terminate mandates. The Pandora’s Box remains closed for now. We welcome the adoption of resolution L.7, which extends the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and enables continued scrutiny of Eritrea‘s dire human rights situation.

    We welcome the adoption by consensus of the resolution on the situation of human rights of Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar—a strong signal of the Council’s continued prioritization of their plight. As violence between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army escalates, Rohingya face renewed existential threats. We recognize the efforts made to align the resolution closer to the evolving situation on the ground, including its recognition of the role of Arakan Army along with the Myanmar military in perpetuating violence and targeting Rohingya. We also welcome the resolution’s acknowledgment of the worsening humanitarian crisis due to dwindling aid that is driving more Rohingya to risk dangerous journeys by sea. The call for protection of Rohingya across borders and respect for non-refoulement is vital. We support the resolution’s emphasis on accountability and reparations as prerequisites for safe, voluntary, and dignified return of Rohingya refugees. However, we regret its failure to call for an end to arms and jet fuel sale and transfers that continue to fuel ongoing violence.

    We emphasize the vital role of investigative mechanisms and, in the context of the UN’s liquidity crisis, we urge all those involved, including the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner, to allocate sufficient resources for these mechanisms to operate. All UN Member States must pay their dues in full and on time. As the conflict in Sudan, now in its third year, shows no sign of abating, resulting in the world’s largest displacement crisis and egregious atrocities against civilians, the work of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) should continue. At HRC60, extending its mandate will be a priority. 

    We continue to deplore this Council’s exceptionalism towards serious human rights violations in China, including crimes against humanity. In his global update to this Council session, High Commissioner Türk indicated he remains ‘concerned about lack of progress on much-needed legal reform to ensure compliance with international human rights law’ and ‘regret[s] that there has not yet been a resolution to the individual cases [the OHCHR has] raised]’. It is imperative that the Council take action commensurate with the gravity of UN findings, by establishing a monitoring and reporting mechanism on China as repeatedly urged by over 40 UN experts since 2020. We urge China to genuinely engage with the UN human rights system to enact meaningful reform, and ensure all individuals and peoples enjoy their human rights, on the basis of recommendations from the OHCHR Xinjiang report, UN Treaty Bodies, and UN Special Procedures.

    This Council’s continued silence on the human rights crisis in Egypt remains of major concern.  The human rights situation in Egypt is worse than at any point in its modern history and continues to deteriorate.  During its UPR process, Egypt rejected or dismissed as “already implemented” recommendations related to serious human rights violations 134 times.  In particular, Egypt either rejected or dismissed recommendations to release political prisoners and end arbitrary arrests 12 times, to stop attacks against independent civil society and journalists 19 times, and to end torture and ill-treatment 6 times. The goverment also refused to ensure accountability for those who have committed torture and other human rights violations 7 times, and rejected or dismissed recommendations to halt violance and discrimination against women, minorities and members of the LGBT+ community 25 times, including repeatedly rejecting calls to criminalize marital rape, as well as forced virginity and anal exams.  In this context, action by the HRC to address these violations is as important as ever. 

    Watch the video of the statement below: 

    Signatories:

    1. African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS)
    2. Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
    3. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
    4. CIVICUS
    5. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)
    6. Franciscans International 
    7. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
    8. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
    9. World Uyghur Congress (WUC)

    https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/hrc59-civil-society-presents-key-takeaways-from-the-session/?mc_cid=561653a6d3&mc_eid=d1945ebb90

    https://www.fidh.org/en/international-advocacy/united-nations/human-rights-council/key-outcomes-of-the-59th-human-rights-council-session-progress-and

    https://www.civicus.org/index.php/fr/medias-ressources/112-news/7777-key-highlights-civicus-at-59th-session-of-the-un-human-rights-council

    This post was originally published on Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards.

  • Defending Asian skies

    The rapid proliferation of long-range threats such as ballistic and cruise missiles, loitering munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles in the Asia-Pacific region has prompted development of a range of indigenous countermeasures. This threat environment is demonstrated in the region’s perceived need for stronger air defence capabilities to protect national interests and assert territorial claims. Indeed, […]

    The post Defending Asian skies appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • ‘Right to choose’ key to Cook Islands-NZ relationship, says Peters

    By Teuila Fuatai, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    New Zealand’s foreign minister says Cook Islanders are free to choose whether their country continues in free association with New Zealand.

    Winston Peters made the comment at a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the constitution of the Cook Islands in Auckland today.

    Peters attended the community event hosted by the Upokina Taoro (East Cook Island Community Group) as part of an official contingent of MPs. Minister for Pacific Peoples Shane Reti and Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni also attended.

    “We may not be perfect, but we’ve never wavered from our responsibilities wherever they lay,” Peters said.

    “For six decades, we have stood by ready to support the Cook Islands economic and social development, while never losing sight of the fact that our financial support comes from the taxes of hard working New Zealanders,”

    This week’s anniversary comes at a time of increasing tension between the two nations.

    At the heart of that are four agreements between the Cook Islands and China, which Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown signed in February.

    NZ funding halted
    The New Zealand government said it should have been consulted over the agreements, but Brown disagreed.

    The diplomatic disagreement has resulted in New Zealand halting $18.2 million in funding to the Cook Islands, which is a realm country of New Zealand.

    Under that arrangement — implemented in 1965 — the country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides some assistance with foreign affairs, disaster relief and defence.

    Peters today said the “beating heart” of the Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship was the “right to choose”.

    “Cook Islanders are free to choose where to live, how to live, and to worship whichever God they wish.”

    After his formal address, Peters was asked by media about the rift between the governments of the Cooks Islands and New Zealand.

    ‘Carefully crafted’
    He referred back to his “carefully crafted” speech which he said showed “precisely what the New Zealand position is now”.

    Brown has previously said that if New Zealand could not afford to fund the country’s national infrastructure investment plan – billed at $650 million — the Cook Islands would need to look elsewhere.

    Brown also said in at the time that funding the development needs of the Cook Islands was a major motivator in signing the agreements with China.

    Discussions between officials from both countries regarding the diplomatic disagreement were ongoing.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The CIA Built Hundreds Of Covert Websites

    The CIA didn’t just infiltrate governments; it infiltrated the internet itself. For over a decade, Langley operated a sprawling network of covert websites that served as global spy terminals disguised as harmless blogs, news hubs, and fan pages.

    Beginning in 2004, the CIA established a vast network of at least 885 websites, ranging from Johnny Carson and Star Wars fan pages to online message boards about Rastafari. Spanning 29 languages and targeting at least 36 countries directly, these websites were aimed not only at adversaries such as China, Venezuela, and Russia, but also at allied nations, including France, Italy, and Spain, showing that the United States treats its friends much like its foes.

    The post The CIA Built Hundreds Of Covert Websites appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Nvidia must provide ‘security proofs’ to regain trust: China

    Nvidia must produce “convincing security proofs” to eliminate Chinese users’ worries over security risks in its chips and regain market trust, a commentary published by China’s state-run media People’s Daily said on Friday. Foreign companies must comply with Chinese laws and take security to be a basic prerequisite, said the commentary – titled “Nvidia, how…

    The post Nvidia must provide ‘security proofs’ to regain trust: China appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • The World Divided

    An interesting news report revealed the discovery of a Russian woman and her two young daughters living in a southern India cave. Earth’s inhabitants ponder how they can escape the madness, and this woman found a simple and agreeable solution. She described a close to nature life — swimming in waterfalls, painting, and doing pottery.

    The way the world is going, she and her children might be the precursor of the dwelling habits of the future generations, those who manage to survive the coming nuclear war between the rising bloc of rising nations and decaying bloc of decaying nations, the war between the BRICS and the Pricks.

    The BRICS ─ Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and five new members — have no “biggest BRIC,” each Bric nation relishes its independence and the group is cemented by their distaste for the offensive Pricks. Fortunately, for the BRICS, their entourage contains China, the new superpower that encourages cooperation rather than domination and has initiated a “Belt and Road” that facilitates free trade throughout the world.

    The Pricks — United States, Great Britain, and the European Union — have the United States as their power Prick, which is led by their president, the biggest Prick. In slavish obedience to genocide Israel, the U.S. identifies itself as the Super Prick. This bloc has recently featured severe discord, lack of cooperation, and inauguration of high tariffs that impede global trade. Domination is its focus. with cooperation a temporary means to enable domination.

    For one simple reason, the Pricks are finding it difficult to control and use the BRICS for their personal gain ─ the BRICS have economic dominance.

    Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
    GDP PPP, Int$: 2025

    Coming into 2025, the BRICS have a greater share of the economic pie, six times the population digesting the pie, and are growing in principal categories — GDP/PPP, population, and adherents at a faster rate.

    The Pricks devalue the Brics by claiming they are a loose and uncoordinated confederation, unable to agree on vital issues. Brazil is accused of harassing former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro and may be subjected to sanctions; Russia is led by an irresponsible tyrant and is heavily sanctioned; India gets a pass despite the heavy-handed tactics toward its Muslim community; China is led by a despotic dictator, and South Africa is guilty of genocide toward its white population.

    The Pricks pose themselves as a model of decency and decorum. They have ballot boxes and freedom of speech, which enables their citizens to elect the biggest pricks and then freely criticize their selections by vocal erections. In the U.S. the next presidential election process — fund raising, organization, public relations, the “eye on the prize”— starts shortly after a new president takes office. Winning candidates in elections expend more time and energy in gaining victory and preparing for their next victory than performing their duties during their term in office.

    The economic, social, and political advancements of their principal superpowers, China for the BRICS and the United States for the Pricks, determine the success of the BRICS and the Pricks. A brief examination of each nation’s potential to rise in the firmament or descend into chaos tells the story.

    The Trump administration shows the hidden failures of the United States pluralistic democracy. The past has no continuity; just the opposite, many of the legislations from previous administrations are discarded. and the country, rather than advancing to a progressed new, returns to a rejected old. One example from Understanding AI:

    …. Sen. Hawley asked Donald Trump to cancel a federal loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, an $11 billion transmission line that is supposed to carry electricity from Kansas wind farms to homes in Illinois and Indiana. The proposed line would pass through Hawley’s state of Missouri, annoying farmers whose land would be taken by eminent domain.

    According to the New York Times, Hawley “explained his concerns to the president, who has repeatedly expressed his distaste for wind power, saying he would not permit any new wind projects during his administration.” Trump then called Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who agreed to cancel a federal loan guarantee for the project, throwing its viability into question.

    Impulse overrides soul searching, allegiance to leader is more important than professional education and experience; rash and subjective action replaces careful thought. The America of 2025, with its decaying infrastructure, troubled inner cities, dependence on fossil fuels, continuous problems of crime, drug addiction, health care, and immigration, closely resembles the America of 2010. One big difference ─ adversity and polarization of the population has increased, Americans are at the breaking point with one another. The country, which is rich in resources, has extensive farmland, enjoys suitable and varied climates, and contains an educated and diligent population, is not well managed; it is mismanaged.

    The Xi JInping administration shows the hidden success of China’s people’s democracy. The past has continuity; legislations and plans from previous administrations are massaged and enhanced, and the country, rather than remaining stagnant, advances to a new level. Soul searching from millions of cadres provides suggestions for millions of improvements. All leaders have professional education and experience; careful thought displaces rash and subjective action.

    The China of 2025, with its continually increasing infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, superhighways, high speed trains, and airline routes that link every remote place in China with central cores, with modern building complexes that replace the shanty towns and provide agreeable living space for an aging population and marginalized rural farmers, with its expanded megacities that are considered technology and planning marvels, and with a unified and obedient population ─ no adversity or polarization here ─ has only a fleeting resemblance to the China of 2010.

    Dubbed an engineering marvel, the highly anticipated Raffles City Chongqing project is nearly complete. CapitaLand Group

    Sheltering their deficiencies, the Western democracies shift the critical analysis to public relations stunts that highlight the supposed and exaggerated deficiencies of the Chinese system. The Westerners make no effort to learn and understand the workings of China’s political, social, and economic systems. Fabrications are added to the limited “don’t care to know” and conveyed to the public as authorized knowledge. One example is the “debt trap” verbiage, applied to Chinese lending, which began during Sri Lanka’s first debt crisis and has stuck around as an effective means to vilify the PRC.

    We have the falsehood. Washington Post (WAPO), “This China has a hand in Sri Lanka’s economic calamity,” analysis by Ishaan Tharoor, July 20, 2022:

    One of the major players in Sri Lanka’s calamity is China. Beijing is Sri Lanka’s lone biggest creditor, accounting for some 10 percent of the country’s foreign debt. Between 2000 and 2020, it extended close to $12 billion in loans to the Sri Lankan government, largely for a slate of major infrastructure projects that turned into white elephants — including a costly port facility in the Rajapaksas’ hometown of Hambantota, which was effectively ceded to Chinese control half a decade ago after Sri Lankan authorities recognized they could no longer pay off the loans.

    Examination of the Sri Lanka debt crisis exposes the mendacity and viciousness of the WAPO report. Almost every sentence is spurious; China does not engage in “debt trap diplomacy” and has been one lender who makes financial sacrifices that rescues nations from debilitating borrowing.

    We have the truth. The Atlantic, “The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth,” by Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire, February 6, 2021, had already contradicted WAPO statements.

    Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40 percent of the country’s external debt, put Sirisena’s government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5 percent was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress.

    There was also never a default. Colombo arranged a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and decided to raise much-needed dollars by leasing out the underperforming Hambantota Port to an experienced company—just as the Canadians had recommended. There was not an open tender, and the only two bids came from China Merchants and China Harbor. Sri Lanka chose China Merchants, making it the majority shareholder with a 99-year lease, and used the $1.12 billion cash infusion to bolster its foreign reserves, not to pay off China Eximbank. The China impressed on our minds is not the China that exists.

    The United States moves on fumes, on the energies of its past without renewable energies for an improved future. China moves on constantly reinforced energy, all engines operating at top speed, each day becoming a new future. The Pricks know they will not be able to compete economically with the BRICS. They have a choice of consolidating and working together and maintaining reduced economies, cooperating with the Brics in mutual agreements, or, by the usual United States method, resolving the situation by military action.

    The threat of military force alarms and subdues the BRICS. They may be compelled to yield much in order to save all. China, guided by its Mandate of Heaven, “a political and religious doctrine that justifies the rule of an emperor based on virtue and ability to govern,” and which it has extended to relations between all nations, might do what it did in the fifteenth century. At that time, China was, by far, the leading commercial power in the world, and huge Chinese fleets sailed the world for markets for its surplus products. After meeting the imperial powers of France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands and observing their nefarious methods in subduing the Africa and Indian peoples, stripping them of resources, and forcing upon them the products manufactured from the resources, China scuttled its fleet and went into solitary confinement.

    The reason for Xi Jinping’s self-sufficiency drive is clear. Save the world from nuclear conflagration and let the rest of the world rot. Pricks always lose and always think they have won.

    The post The World Divided first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • China’s Path from Desolation to Modernisation

    In 1954, Mao Zedong said, ‘We cannot deny that we are still unable to produce motor cars. We are still very far away from being industrialised’.

    Mao was speaking to an audience of Chinese industrialists and merchants at a time when the country was desperately poor, its resources stretched by decades of Japanese invasion, civil war with the nationalist Kuomintang, and ongoing US aggression in Korea, where China had intervened in support of the forces of national liberation.

    Yan Jun (China), Work hard to complete the national plan – Build a great socialist motherland, 1954

    Four years later, in 1958, the first Chinese passenger automobile, Dongfeng CA71, rolled off the assembly line of the aptly named state-owned enterprise First Automobile Works in Changchun – a product of China’s first five-year plan. Dongfeng means ‘east wind’ in Mandarin, and, for China, it was a source of national pride. After a century of humiliation, the Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), were able to organise themselves to produce an automotive machine. Dongfeng CA71 was a milestone in the transition from semi-feudal and semi-colonial status to modernity.

    Zhang Wenrui (China),The Dongfeng sedan car, 1959.

    In 2024, First Automobile Works, now known as China FAW Group, sold 3.2 million vehicles – 819 thousand of which were self-owned brands. China is now widely considered to be a leader in the transition from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles – around two thirds of global sales of electric vehicles are in China. The rapid development of China’s automobile sector has been spectacular, but it is part of a much broader story of China’s modernisation set in motion since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

    It is not immediately clear that there is such a thing as a Chinese model for economic development, let alone a ‘Beijing consensus’. Deng Xiaoping’s famous exhortation to ‘cross the river by feeling for the stones’ – said in the context of China’s reform and opening up process – leaves a great deal of ambiguity when trying to understand how China developed in the past decades. China itself is still engaged in deep debates to clarify its modernisation process. Chinese literary critic Li Tuo, in an essay titled ‘On the Experimental Nature of Socialism and the Complexity of China’s Reform and Opening Up’, which is published in latest issue of the international edition of Wenhua Zongheng, argues that before President Xi Jinping’s heralding of a ‘new era’ during the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017, the flagship success stories of the reform and opening up period focused on the successes of private entrepreneurs rather than the ambitious state-led infrastructure projects which could not simply be explained by the profit motive. In 2020, during the 20th National Congress of the CPC, President Xi intervened to offer further clarity, emphasising that, ‘Chinese modernisation is socialist modernisation pursued under the leadership of the Communist Party of China’. This statement does not provide a theory of China’s development; however, it is a significant step in explaining the political foundation and original aspiration of the modernisation process.

    China’s development and the threat it poses to the Global North’s monopoly on technology has given impetus to a growing academic literature on ‘industrial policy’, which attempts to empiricise China’s economic policies. This literature does not adequately engage with President Xi’s assertion that Chinese modernisation is socialist in orientation and led by a Communist Party – instead, it tries to isolate policy from politics.

    Attempts at state-led industrialisation in the Global South are not new. In both Tsarist Russia and Qing dynasty China, there were attempts to initiate modernisation from the top down. Post-independence states such as India, Indonesia, Egypt, and Ghana made valiant efforts to industrialise. But such projects yielded limited results as they were unable to confront the external challenge of imperialism, and the internal social structures that militated against the development of productive forces.

    Xiao Zhenya (China), Take over the brush of polemics, struggle to the end, 1975.

    First, the political elites in the state, who were closely tied to the old society, often failed to do away with the parasitic classes such as the landlord, merchant, and usurer. Second, and closely related to the preceding point, the political elites of these projects grew increasingly distant from the masses, leading to bureaucratisation of the state. Third, the embryonic industrial capitalists who grew in these projects quickly consolidated into rent-seeking interest groups satisfied with consolidating domestic market share rather than competing internationally through innovation. This in turn left them, and the nation, dependent on foreign technology.

    Art created by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

    Meng Jie, a professor at the School of Marxism at Fudan University, Shanghai, has spent decades doing fieldwork on factory floors and local government offices to make sense of China’s economic system. One could say that he is trying to find a pattern to the stones that Deng Xiaoping said to feel for. His essay, ‘Industrial Policy with Chinese Characteristics: The Political Economy of China’s Intermediary Institutions’ (also in the latest issue of Wenhua Zongheng), co-written with Zhang Zibin, draws on both Marxist-Leninist theory and the literature on industrial policy to explain China’s development. The authors emphasise that ‘the CPC relied on the popular demand for independence to seize power, and that political independence was a pre-condition for establishing China’s industrial system’. They argue that it is this historical, social, and political context that helps ensure that, ‘whenever industrial development faces fundamental strategic choices, the CPC’s ideology will guide policies back toward independence’.

    Li Hua (China), Roar!, 1938.

    Indeed, confronted with US-led attempts to curb technological development, through the banning of Chinese telecommunications companies and the control of exports of, and investment in, semiconductors, China has responded by doubling down on efforts to build an independent industrial chain and develop ‘new quality productive forces’.

    In 1933, as the CPC was embroiled in a bloody civil war with the Kuomintang, Chinese poet Lu Xun was invited to contribute to the magazine Modern Woman. He wrote an untitled poem which strongly criticised the nationalist’s repressive campaign against the Chinese people:

    War and floods are nothing new in our land,
    In the desolate village remains but a fisherman.
    When he wakes up from his dream in the dead of night,
    Where is the place to find him a decent   living?

    The post China’s Path from Desolation to Modernisation first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • China’s capabilities advance with SPH and UGV developments

    The strides being made by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in advancing the capabilities of its ground combat force are illustrated by developments in robotic combat vehicles and a new 155mm self-propelled howitzer (SPH) currently undergoing testing. This modernised, next-generation 155mm tracked SPH is destined to enter service in China’s army. Its nomenclature is as […]

    The post China’s capabilities advance with SPH and UGV developments appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Iran Confronts Europe’s Trigger Mechanism With Eurasian Allies

    On 22 July, Tehran hosted a high-level trilateral summit with senior officials from Russia and China to coordinate nuclear and sanctions strategies ahead of Iran’s scheduled negotiations with the European Troika in Istanbul today.

    All three delegations reaffirmed their commitment to maintaining close coordination on the nuclear file and pledged to expand consultations aimed at countering western policies, particularly US-led sanctions.

    The trilateral meeting followed a sharp escalation in nuclear tensions. Just last month, the US and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, prompting Tehran to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    The post Iran Confronts Europe’s Trigger Mechanism With Eurasian Allies appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • China’s Five-Year Plans Democratic, People-Centred And Grounded In Material Reality

    In a wide-ranging interview with Global Times, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez describes China’s Five-Year Plans (FYPs) as democratic, people-centred, and grounded in material reality. He emphasises that China’s success in planning stems from its ability to align governance with popular needs and long-term strategy. “China is known globally for its effective governance and for its record of keeping its promises”, he notes, citing the 13th FYP’s targeted poverty alleviation campaign as a key example of practical planning based on extensive grassroots research.

    Carlos stresses that these plans are not top-down decrees but involve widespread consultation, making them highly democratic and responsive to the needs of the people.

    The post China’s Five-Year Plans Democratic, People-Centred And Grounded In Material Reality appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • China proposes new global AI cooperation organisation

    China has said on Saturday that it wants to create an organisation to foster global cooperation on artificial intelligence, positioning itself as an alternative to the US as the two nations vie for influence over the transformative technology. China wants to help coordinate global efforts to regulate fast-evolving AI technology and share the country’s advances,…

    The post China proposes new global AI cooperation organisation appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.

  • At The Belt And Road Journalism Forum In China

    The invitation extended to Black Agenda Report to participate in the 2025 Belt and Road Journalists Forum , held in the cities of Nanchang, Jingdezhen, and Ganzhou in Jiangxi province China, was a testament to our 19 year history of providing “news, commentary, and analysis from a Black left perspective.“ Our work is appreciated nationally and internationally, and this columnist attended the Forum along with 100 media representatives from around the world. The Forum is a venue for journalists from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations, but Black Agenda Report was also included, the only outlet participating from the United States.

    The post At The Belt And Road Journalism Forum In China appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • The Struggle Against US Imperialism, Nicaragua Is A Model Of Sovereignty

    Today, more and more US government officials, especially those in Donald Trump’s two administrations, have invoked the 200-year-old colonial Monroe Doctrine to claim that Latin America is supposedly Washington’s “backyard”, that the US empire should control it, and that China and Russia cannot have relations with the countries in the region.

    Given that the US government constantly violates the sovereignty of countries in Latin America, it makes perfect sense that several governments in the region have deepened their partnership with China and Russia, because they see that Beijing and Moscow actually respect their independence and have helped them to economically develop, while Washington has only sought to exploit them.

    The post The Struggle Against US Imperialism, Nicaragua Is A Model Of Sovereignty appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • U.S. & China comment on Thailand & Cambodia border fight | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trump’s Latin American Policies Go South

    With the Trump imperium passing the half-year mark, the posture of the US empire is ever clearer. Whether animated by “America First” or globalism, the objective remains “full spectrum dominance.” And now with the neocon capture of the Democrats, there are no guardrails from the so-called opposition party.

    Call it the “new cold war,” the “beginning of World War III,” or – in Trump’s words – “endless war,” this is the era that the world has entered. The US/Zionist war against Iran has paused, but no one has any illusions that it is over. And it won’t likely be resolved until one side decisively and totally prevails. Ditto for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Likely the same with Palestine, where the barbarity of war worsened to genocide. Meanwhile, since Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the empire is building up for war with China.

    In Latin America and the Caribbean, the empire’s war on the world assumes a hybrid form. The carnage is less apparent because the weapons take the form of “soft power” – sanctions, tariffs, and deportations. These can have the same lethal consequences as bombs, only less overt.

    Making the world unsafe for socialism

    Some Western leftists vilify the defensive measures that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua must take to protect themselves from the empire’s regime-change schemes. In contrast, Washington clearly understands that these countries pose “threats of a good example” to the empire. Each subsequent US president, from Obama on, has certified them as “extraordinary threats to US national security.” Accordingly, they are targeted with the harshest coercive measures.

    In this war of attrition, historian Isaac Saney uses the example of Cuba to show how any misstep by the revolutionary government or societal deficiency is exaggerated and weaponized. The empire’s siege, he explains, is not merely an attempt to destabilize the economy but is a deliberate strategy of suffocation. The empire aims to instigate internal discontent, distort people’s perception of the government, and ultimately erode social gains.

    While Cuba is affected the worst by the hybrid war, both Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been damaged. All three countries have seen the “humanitarian parole” for their migrants in the US come to an end. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was also withdrawn for Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The strain of returning migrants, along with cuts in the remittances they had sent (amounting to a quarter of Nicaragua’s GDP), further impacts their respective economies.

    Higher-than-average tariffs are threatened on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan exports to the US, together with severe restrictions on Caracas’s oil exports. Meanwhile, the screws have been tightened on the six-decade US blockade of Cuba with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

    However, all three countries are fighting back. They are forming new trade alliances with China and elsewhere. Providing relief to Cuba, Mexico has supplied oil, and China is installing solar panel farms to address the now-daily power outages. High levels of food security in Venezuela and Nicaragua have strengthened their ability to resist US sanctions, while Caracas successfully defeated one of Washington’s harshest migration measures by securing the release of 252 of its citizens who had been incarcerated in El Salvador’s torturous CECOT prison.

    Venezuela’s US-backed far-right opposition is in disarray. The first Trump administration had recognized the “interim presidency” of Juan Guaidó, followed by the Biden administration declaring Edmundo González the winner of Venezuela’s last presidential election. But the current Trump administration has yet to back González, de facto recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is also reeling from a side-effect of Trump’s harsh treatment of migrants – many are returning voluntarily to a country claimed by the opposition to be “unsafe,” while US Homeland Security has even extolled their home country’s recent achievements. And some of Trump’s prominent Cuban-American supporters are now questioning his “maximum pressure” campaign for going too far.

    Troubled waters for the Pink Tide

    The current progressive wave, the so-called Pink Tide, was initiated by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in 2018. His MORENA Party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by an even greater margin in 2024. Mexico’s first woman president has proven to be perhaps the world’s most dignified and capable sparring partner with the buffoon in the White House, who has threatened tariffs, deportations, military interdictions, and more on his southern neighbor.

    Left-leaning presidents Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia are limited to a single term. Both have faced opposition-aligned legislatures and deep-rooted reactionary power blocs. Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara is favored to advance to the second-round presidential election in November 2025, but will face a challenging final round if the right unifies, as is likely, around an extremist candidate.

    As the first non-rightist in Colombia’s history, Petro has had a tumultuous presidential tenure. He credibly accuses his former foreign minister of colluding with the US to overthrow him. However, the presidency could well revert to the right in the May 2026 elections.

    Boric, Petro, Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in July as the region’s center-left presidents, with an agenda of dealing with Trump, promoting multilateralism, and (we can assume) keeping their distance from the region’s more left-wing governments.

    With shaky popularity ratings, Lula will likely run for reelection in October 2026. As head of the region’s largest economy, Lula plays a world leadership role, chairing three global summits in a year. Yet, with less than a majority legislative backing, Lula has triangulated between Washington and the Global South, often capitulating to US interests (as in his veto of BRICS membership for Nicaragua and Venezuela). Regardless, Trump is threatening Brazil with a crippling 50% export tariff and is blatantly interfering in the trial of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of insurrection. So far, Trump’s actions have backfired, arousing anger among Brazilians. Lula commented that Trump was “not elected to be emperor of the world.”

    In 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro took over a narcostate subservient to Washington and has tried to push the envelope to the left. Being constitutionally restricted to one term, Castro hands the Libre party candidacy in November’s election to former defense minister Rixi Moncada, who faces a tough contest with persistent US interference.

    Bolivia’s ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Party is embroiled in a self-destructive internal conflict between former President Evo Morales and his former protégé and current President, Luis Arce. The energized Bolivian right wing is spoiling for the August 17th presidential election.

    Israeli infiltration accompanies US military penetration

    Analyst Joe Emersberger notes: “Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before.” Defying Washington, the Hague Group met in Colombia for an emergency summit on Gaza to “take collective action grounded in international law.” On July 16, regional states – Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – endorsed the pledge to take measures in support of Palestine, with others likely to follow. Brazil will join South Africa’s ICJ complaint against Israel.

    At the other end of the political spectrum are self-described “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and confederates Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. As well as cozying up to Trump, they devotedly support Israel, which has been instrumental in enabling the most brutal reactionaries in the region. Noboa duly tells Israel’s Netanyahu that they “share the same enemies.”

    In February, the US Southern Command warned: “Time is not on our side.” The perceived danger is “methodical incursion” into our “neighborhood” by both Russia and China. Indeed, China has become the region’s second-largest trading partner after the US, and even right-wing governments are reluctant to jeopardize their relations with Beijing. The empire’s solution is to “redouble our efforts to nest military engagement,” using humanitarian assistance as “an essential soft power tool.”

    Picking up where Biden left off, Trump has furthered US military penetration, notably in Ecuador, Guyana, Brazil, Panama, and Argentina. The pandemic of narcotics trafficking, itself a product of US-induced demand, has been a Trojan Horse for militarist US intervention in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and threatened in Mexico.

    In Panama, President José Mulino’s obeisance to Trump’s ambitions to control the Panama Canal and reduce China’s influence provoked massive protests. Trump’s collaboration in the genocide of Palestinians motivated Petro to declare that Colombia must leave the NATO alliance and keep its distance from “militaries that drop bombs on children.” Colombia had been collaborating with NATO since 2013 and became the only Latin American global partner in 2017.

    Despite Trump’s bluster – what the Financial Times calls “imperial incontinence” – his administration has produced mixed results. While rightist political movements have basked in Trump’s fitful praise, his escalating coercion provokes resentment against Yankee influence. Resistance is growing, with new alliances bypassing Washington. As the empire’s grip tightens, so too does the resolve of those determined to break free from it.

    The post Trump’s Latin American Policies Go South first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • [SAN FRANCISCO EVENT | July 30] The Milk Tea Alliance

    A conversation with Jeffrey Wasserstrom.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • China begins building mega-dam in Tibet

    China has started to build a massive dam on Tibet’s longest river, a move approved by the central government in December despite concerns by India, Bangladesh and Tibetan rights groups about its impacts on residents and the environment.

    The structure is expected to cost more than 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion). Once completed, it would be the world’s largest hydropower dam, generating 300 billion kilowatt-hours of power annually, about three times the power of China’s Three Gorges Dam, Xinhua, a state-run news agency, reported last year. Operations are expected to begin sometime in the 2030s.

    Premier Li Qiang attended a commencement ceremony with other officials in Nyingchi in southeastern Tibet over the weekend.

    Xinhua reported that the electricity generated “will be primarily transmitted to other regions for consumption, while also meeting local power needs in Tibet.”

    (Paul Nelson/RFA)

    The river is known as Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, Brahmaputra in India, and Jamuna in Bangladesh. It flows through all three areas from its origin in the glaciers of western Tibet.

    Climate activist and researcher Manshi Asher told RFA in December that there is “substantial evidence” of negative impacts from hydropower projects in the Himalayas.

    “This project will undoubtedly alter the environmental flows of the river,” Asher said. “The larger the dam, the greater the impact on the river flows.”

    Neeraj Singh Manhas, a special adviser on South Asia at Parley Policy Initiative in South Korea, said in December that the dam could affect agriculture, hydropower generation and drinking water availability in India.

    “Seasonal changes in water discharge could exacerbate floods or intensify droughts downstream, undermining livelihoods and ecosystems,” Manhas said.

    Over the weekend, the Chinese premier said that special emphasis “must be placed on ecological conservation to prevent environmental damage,” according to Xinhua.

    China has built an estimated 22,000 large dams to help fuel decades of rapid industrialization and economic growth — about 40% of the world’s total.

    Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Is the international community finally speaking up about Israel’s Gaza genocide?

    Al Jazeera

    International public opinion continues to turn against Israel for its war on Gaza, with more governments slowly beginning to reflect those voices and increase their own condemnation of the country.

    In the last few weeks, Israeli government ministers have been sanctioned by several Western countries, with the United Kingdom, France and Canada issuing a joint statement condemning the “intolerable” level of “human suffering” in Gaza.

    Last week, a number of countries from the Global South — “The Hague Group” — collectively agreed on a number of measures that they say will “restrain Israel’s assault on the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

    Across the world, and in increasing numbers, the public, politicians and, following an Israeli strike on a Catholic church in Gaza, religious leaders are speaking out against Israel’s killings in Gaza.

    So, are world powers getting any closer to putting enough pressure on Israel for it to stop?

    Here is what we know.

    What is the Hague Group?
    According to its website, the Hague Group is a global bloc of states committed to “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” in defence of international law and solidarity with the people of Palestine.

    Made up of eight nations; South Africa, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia and Senegal, the group has set itself the mission of upholding international law, and safeguarding the principles set out in the Charter of the United Nations, principally “the responsibility of all nations to uphold the inalienable rights, including the right to self-determination, that it enshrines for all peoples”.

    Last week, the Hague Group hosted a meeting of about 30 nations, including China, Spain and Qatar, in the Colombian capital of Bogota. Australia and New Zealand failed to attend in spite of invitations.

    Also attending the meeting was UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who characterised the meeting as “the most significant political development in the past 20 months”.

    Albanese was recently sanctioned by the United States for her criticism of its ally, Israel.

    At the end of the two-day meeting, 12 of the countries in attendance agreed to six measures to limit Israel’s actions in Gaza. Included in those measures were blocks on supplying arms to Israel, a ban on ships transporting weapons and a review of public contracts for any possible links to companies benefiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

    Have any other governments taken action?
    More and more.

    Last Wednesday, Slovenia barred far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering its territory after the wider European Union failed to agree on measures to address charges of widespread human rights abuses against Israel.

    Slovenia’s ban on the two government ministers builds upon earlier sanctions imposed upon Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in June by Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and Norway over their “incitement to violence”.

    The two men have been among the most vocal Israeli ministers in rejecting any compromise in negotiations with Palestinians, and pushing for the Jewish settlement of Gaza, as well as the increased building of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

    In May, the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement describing Israel’s escalation of its campaign against Gaza as “wholly disproportionate” and promising “concrete actions” against Israel if it did not halt its offensive.

    Later that month, the UK followed through on its warning, announcing sanctions on a handful of settler organisations and announcing a “pause” in free trade negotiations with Israel.

    Also in May, Turkiye announced that it would block all trade with Israel until the humanitarian situation in Gaza was resolved.

    South Africa first launched a case for genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice in late December 2023, and has since been supported by other countries, including Colombia, Chile, Spain, Ireland, and Turkiye.

    In January of 2024, the ICJ issued its provisional ruling, finding what it termed a “plausible” case for genocide and instructing Israel to undertake emergency measures, including the provision of the aid that its government has effectively blocked since March of this year.

    What other criticism of Israel has there been?
    Israel’s bombing on Thursday of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, killing three people, drew a rare rebuke from Israel’s most stalwart ally, the United States.

    Following what was reported to be an “angry” phone call from US President Trump after the bombing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement expressing its “deep regret” over the attack. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

    To date, Israel has killed more than 62,000 people in Gaza, the majority women and children.

    Has the tide turned internationally?
    Mass public protests against Israel’s war on Gaza have continued around the world for the past 21 months.

    And there are clear signs of growing anger over the brutality of the war and the toll it is taking on Palestinians in Gaza.

    In Western Europe, a survey carried out by the polling company YouGov in June found that net favourability towards Israel had reached its lowest ebb since tracking began.

    A similar poll produced by CNN last week found similar results among the American public, with only 23 percent of respondents agreeing Israel’s actions in Gaza were fully justified, down from 50 percent in October 2023.

    Public anger has also found voice at high-profile public events, including music festivals such as Germany’s Fusion Festival, Poland’s Open’er Festival and the UK’s Glastonbury festival, where both artists and their supporters used their platforms to denounce the war on Gaza.

    Has anything changed in Israel?
    Protests against the war remain small but are growing, with organisations, such as Standing Together, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian activists to protest against the war.

    There has also been a growing number of reservists refusing to show up for duty. In April, the Israeli magazine +972 reported that more than 100,000 reservists had refused to show up for duty, with open letters from within the military protesting against the war growing in number since.

    Will it make any difference?
    Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition has been pursuing its war on Gaza despite its domestic and international unpopularity for some time.

    The government’s most recent proposal, that all of Gaza’s population be confined into what it calls a “humanitarian city”, has been likened to a concentration camp and has been taken by many of its critics as evidence that it no longer cares about either international law or global opinion.

    Internationally, despite its recent criticism of Israel for its bombing of Gaza’s one Catholic church, US support for Israel remains resolute. For many in Israel, the continued support of the US, and President Donald Trump in particular, remains the one diplomatic absolute they can rely upon to weather whatever diplomatic storms their actions in Gaza may provoke.

    In addition to that support, which includes diplomatic guarantees through the use of the US veto in the UN Security Council and military support via its extensive arsenal, is the US use of sanctions against Israel’s critics, such as the International Criminal Court, whose members were sanctioned by the US in June over the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on war crimes charges.

    That means, in the short term, Israel ultimately feels protected as long as it has US support. But as it becomes more of an international pariah, economic and diplomatic isolation may become more difficult to handle.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • How The Global Majority Can Free Itself From US Financial Colonialism

    Industrial capitalism was revolutionary in its fight to free Europe’s economies and parliaments from the hereditary privileges and vested interests that survived from feudalism. To make their manufactures competitive in world markets, industrialists needed to end the land rent paid to Europe’s landed aristocracies, the economic rents extracted by trade monopolies, and interest paid to bankers who played no role in financing industry. These rentier incomes add to the economy’s price structure, raising the living wage and other business expenses, thus eating into profits.

    The post How The Global Majority Can Free Itself From US Financial Colonialism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

    China is a modern superpower, as is the US, but a qualitatively different superpower. The US uses military aggression, coups, and sanctions to impose US corporate interests worldwide. China is a peaceful power that respects national sovereignty, mutual development, and non-interference.

    Despite opposing imperialism, a tendency in the Western left is to recycle Western anti-China narratives that liken Chinese trade relations to Western imperial conduct, as in Sri Lanka and the Congo. Others have written of Chinese investments in the Occupied West Bank, and even criticize China for lack of aid to Cuba – clearly not issues the Western powers have problems with. 

    The post Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

    China is a modern superpower, as is the US, but a qualitatively different superpower. The US uses military aggression, coups, and sanctions to impose US corporate interests worldwide. China is a peaceful power that respects national sovereignty, mutual development, and non-interference.

     Despite opposing imperialism, a tendency in the Western left is to recycle Western anti-China narratives that liken Chinese trade relations to Western imperial conduct, as in Sri Lanka and the Congo. Others have written of Chinese investments in the Occupied West Bank, and even criticize China for lack of aid to Cuba – clearly not issues the Western powers have problems with. 

     The US empire has at least 750 military bases in 80 countries. China has just one, in Djibouti – part of a UN mission against piracy. The US has continued wars against other countries on a non-stop basis, while China has invaded no country nor started any wars in close to half a century. The US instigated over 25 coups and coup attempts in Latin America just between 2000 and 2020. China has sponsored no coup attempts on any government. The US imposes blockades and “sanctions” warfare on at least 39 nations. China imposes no sanctions on anyone. The US regularly launches drone attacks on the people of other countries. China has launched no drone attacks on anyone. China is no imperial superpower, but a peaceful one. 

    China is the outstanding example of a Third World country developing into a superpower despite the West’s centuries-long efforts to torpedo its progress. China engages in “win-win” economic relations with other nations. Its loans and investment are carried out based on equality, consensus and joint benefit, unlike the predatory behavior of the IMF and Western lending institutions. China is helping other countries of the Global South break out of the underdevelopment that colonialism and imperialism have imposed on their countries for 500 years.

    Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role

     At present, over 150 countries have chosen to participate in China’s economic program called the Belt and Road Initiative. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega explained why:

    The People’s Republic of China has brought progress, benefits, development to peoples who were colonized, and later became independent, but who were then subjugated under the boot of the interests of the powers that had colonized them, leaving those peoples in poverty, with people in misery, people going hungry, people in illiteracy, with infant mortality, in Africa, in Asia. And the People’s Republic of China has been developing a policy bringing benefits to developing countries, without setting any conditions… The powers that have been colonialists and neocolonialists, like the US, like Europe… have not stopped being colonialists. They still are neocolonialists. They have not stopped being criminals. They still are criminals. They still are killers. 

    China’s role in helping other countries to develop has been noted by several anti-imperialist leaders. Fidel Castro rejected the notion that China was an imperial power. “China has objectively become the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries. I do not hesitate to say that it is already the main engine of the world economy… The role that China has been playing in the United Nations, including the Security Council, is an important element of balance, progress and safeguard of world peace and stability.” Of the Chinese leader he said, “Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life.”

    Present Cuban President Diaz-Canel also had high praise for Xi Jinping.

    Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez likewise said, “one of the greatest events of the 20th century was the Chinese Revolution.” Chavez considered that an alliance with China constituted a bulwark against imperialism — a “Great Wall against American hegemonism… China is large but it’s not an empire. China doesn’t trample on anyone, it hasn’t invaded anyone, it doesn’t go around dropping bombs on anyone.” 

     Bolivian President Arce said: “We have built bridges of trust between the two countries and maintain a very positive bilateral relationship.” Evo Morales, the former president, said Bolivia and China “maintain a relationship characterized by wide-ranging and diverse cooperation and reciprocity.” China “works in a joined-up way with other countries and benefits the peoples of the world; the opposite to what was imposed on us for decades by the US, where predatory, individualistic and competitive capitalism looted our people’s resources for the benefit of transnational corporations.” “China develops, and helps, invests, without any conditions, just to support our development. China is always ready to cooperate unconditionally.”

     Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared, “Between China and Venezuela there is a model relationship, a model of what should be the relationship between a superpower like China, the great superpower of the 21st century, and an emerging, heroic, revolutionary and socialist country like Venezuela… China has inaugurated a new era of the emergence of non-colonialist, non-imperialist, non-hegemonic superpowers.”

     Former Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa spoke highly of Chinese aid to the Citizens Revolution. China’s assistance is “an example for Latin America and for the rest of the world.”

     Burkina Faso revolutionary President Ibrahim Traoré said Chinese aid was a “testament to a mutually beneficial partnership.”

     Even President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia recently said at the ASEAN summit, “China has consistently defended the interests of developing countries. They consistently oppose oppression, oppose imperialism, oppose colonialism, oppose apartheid, The People’s Republic of China defends liberation struggles in countries that are still oppressed by imperialism and colonialism.” 

     Recent Western Left anti-China Stories

    Yet, despite the testimonies of these anti-imperialist Third World leaders, some progressives still highlight West’s anti-China narratives, such as in Sri Lanka and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

    Sri Lanka

    The China debt-trap myth arose from Sri Lanka’s port Hambantota, that China lent money to the country to build the port, knowing Sri Lanka could not make it viable. This led Sri Lanka to default on the loans, and Beijing demanded the port as collateral. Chatham House and The Atlantic, both organs of the ruling elite, debunked this. First, the Hambantota Port project was not proposed by China, but by Sri Lanka. Second, Sri Lanka’s debt crisis resulted not from Chinese lending, but from Western loans. Third, there was no debt-for-asset swap. Rather, China leased the port for $1.1 billion, money Sri Lanka then used to pay down debts to the West. Chatham House concludes, “Sri Lanka’s debt trap was thus primarily created as a result of domestic policy decisions and was facilitated by Western lending and monetary policy, and not by the policies of the Chinese government.”

     China in Africa

    Liberia’s former minister of public works, W Gyude Moore noted that under European colonialism “there has never been a continental-scale infrastructure building program for Africa’s railways, roads, ports, water filtration plants and power stations…China has built more infrastructure in Africa in two decades than the West has in centuries.”

     At the most recent Forum on China–Africa Cooperation in 2024, 53 of the 54 African countries chose to attend. China pledged $50 billion over the next three years on top of the $40 billion already invested.

     Dee Knight took up the issue of China’s exploitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo propagandized in the book Cobalt Red. He drew on Isabelle Minnon’s report, “Industrial Turn-Around in Congo?” She wrote, “China has responded to the DRC’s need to have partners who invest in industrialization.” The West had bled Congo dry through debts that prevented its development. China brought large-scale investment on a new basis, combining financing for industrial mining and public infrastructure – roads, railroads, dams, health and education facilities.

     Minion stated the result: “After decades of almost non-existent industrial production, the country became and remains the world’s leading producer of cobalt and, by 2023, became the world’s third largest producer of copper.” This “puts an end to the monopoly of certain Western countries and their large companies,” which just plundered the Congo. Furthermore, China cancelled $28 million in interest-free loans, and gave $17 million in support to the DRC.

     During the Covid pandemic, China announced that it also forgave 23 interest-free loans for 17 African nations.  This is in addition to China’s cancellation of more than $3.4 billion in debt and restructured $15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019.

     Chinese investments in Israel

    Chinese trades with Israel, as with all other countries, to establish mutually beneficial economic relations, to counter the US goal of turning countries against China. China’s trade with Israel is qualitatively different from that of the US, Britain, France, Germany and others since China does not export weaponry to Israel used to slaughter Palestinians and peoples in surrounding countries. 

    Some have written of Chinese business involvement in the occupied West Bank. The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese (which brought US sanctions on her) substantiates one such instance. China’s role contradicts its vote in favor of the 2024 UN General Assembly resolution calling for no trade or investments with Israeli operations in the occupied territories. 

     Yet China worked hard to unite the divided Palestinian resistance with the recent Beijing Declaration. China has continually denounced the US and Israel in Gaza, upholds the Palestinian right to resist occupation, and has never condemned the October 7, 2023 Hamas breakout attack. China is also a participant in the present The Hague Group calling for “concrete measures” against Israel.

     China and Cuba

    Some Western leftists have criticized China for lack of support for Cuba, suffering under a now worsening US blockade. However, China is working to build 55 solar installation complexes there this year, covering Cuba’s daytime shortfall, and another 37 by 2028, for a total of 2,000 megawatts. This aid would meet nearly two-thirds of Cuba’s present-day demand. China has long been a partner of Cuba in terms of trade and investment, participating in the Mariel Special Development Zone, and in projects in the production of medicines, biotechnology and agriculture.

     China, A Superpower that Supports Third World Development

    It is a contradiction that many on the Western left are not supportive of China, given that the US rulers have long called China the primacy threat to imperialist domination. 

    Recognizing the US’s continued economic and military power, if not superiority, China seeks to avoid a major destructive direct confrontation. China counters the US and Western isolation strategy by fostering a world based on cooperation with all countries, even with the US and its close allies. It focuses on obtaining essential resources for its industry and for economic self-sufficiency to fortify itself in self-defense against the US strategy to isolate it economically and politically, and on meeting countries’ desire for its cheaper goods and investments. As the Third World leaders above say, most of China’s foreign loans are not capitalist investments, but government funds that have been used to free countries from the grip of imperialism.

     That has made it impossible for the West to isolate China. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, Chinese investments in schools, roads, railroads, and other needed infrastructure are generally seen as a welcome change from the neglect and underdevelopment imposed by the imperial First World.  

     Consequently, every year China becomes more and more a world power in relation to the imperialist countries.

     China’s significance for the world lies in being a singular example of a Third World country developing despite the West’s goal to thwart its rise. This is a model for other Third World countries that seek to assert their independence of the West and make their own path.

     In this process, China, which just 75 years ago, had an illiteracy rate of 80%, has just ended poverty for 800 million people, which no capitalist group of countries ever accomplished. China has achieved the fastest growth in living standards of any country in the world. It achieved this without invading, massacring, colonizing and looting other countries, but peacefully, without threatening any other people, and in cooperation with them.

     As Daniel Ortega said:

    The self-same ideologues of imperialism state that what worries them is that they see the People’s Republic of China bringing benefits to these Peoples and they feel that there they are losing the power to keep these peoples enslaved…They are upset, outraged, because the People’s Republic of China is making available billions in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America. These are investments for the development of our peoples. They see that as bad for themselves, but why can’t they do the same? Why have they never brought investment with the same conditions that the People’s Republic of China is making available?

    The West, with the US at its head, seeks to maintain so-called “Western civilization,” the rule of the white colonizer over the rest of the world. It regards China and Russia as the two major threats to its continued domination and seeks to disable both. China and Russia are drawn into a struggle, where their continued growth, if not existence, is at stake. The more they can neutralize the West’s goal, the more this is a victory for all the oppressed people of the world.

    The post Revolutionary Third World Leaders Praise China’s World Role first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Is China Leading the Cultivated Meat Innovation Race? A New Patent Analysis Argues the Case

    cultivated meat china
    5 Mins Read

    A leader in green energy and electric vehicles, China is spearheading the protein transition too, with more cultivated meat patent applicants than any other nation.

    Could China be winning the alternative protein innovation race?

    Experts suggest that as the world’s largest consumer of meat, it can only decarbonise if half of its protein supply comes from alternative sources by 2060. And the country is responding to that call, mirroring its advances in green energy, mobility, and artificial intelligence.

    New analysis by the Good Food Institute (GFI) APAC has found that of the top 20 all-time patent applicants for cultivated meat, eight are from China. That’s twice as many as the next on the list, Israel (with four applicants), followed by three each from South Korea and the US.

    “Given that China’s earlier commitments to accelerating clean energy technologies are what ushered in a worldwide shift towards electric vehicles and solar power, China’s heavy involvement in the ‘future food’ sector has the potential to single-handedly drive down global production costs and turn niche products into mainstream staples,” Mirte Gosker, managing director of GFI APAC, told Green Queen.

    “China is strategically positioning itself as a locus of technological innovation, government-funded R&D, and policy leadership that can supercharge Asia’s ascendant ‘future foods’ industry,” she added.

    China tops list of cultivated meat patent families

    lab grown meat patents
    Graphic by Green Queen

    While the US leads in total unique patent applications, thanks mostly to Californian firm Upside Foods’s 143 filings, patent families are a better indicator of where technical innovation is most diverse, according to GFI APAC.

    This is because patent families are collections of applications related to the same invention, while unique patents include individual patents filed for the same invention in multiple jurisdictions. So a higher number of patent families indicates progress on a wider range of scientific fronts.

    The number of patent families is significantly greater from Chinese entities than other markets (totalling 160), with cultivated pork maker Joes Future Food leading the way in China with 25 applications. Globally, it is only surpassed by Upside Foods, which has 43 patent family filings.

    While these patents cover a broad variety of technological innovations, they are all related to animal cell cultivation for food. Specific applications include cell line development, cell culture media development, cell scaffolding for creating particular meat products, or enabling technologies to produce cultivated meat more efficiently, GFI APAC said.

    It’s worth noting that China’s applicants include multiple universities, such as Zhejiang University (21 patent families), Jiangnan University (16), and Ocean University of China (12). This suggests “very strong” government interest and an intentionally collaborative approach to build a national cellular agriculture ecosystem.

    The country’s universities have filed more cultivated meat patents than public institutions in the US and Europe combined. In fact, Asia-Pacific is home to more cultivated meat patents than North America and Europe collectively.

    Asked why China is home to such a high number of patents, Gosker contended: “By mastering the art of making delicious and affordable protein directly from animal cells, China can produce a whole lot more of it, while bolstering its self-sufficiency.”

    cultivated meat patents
    Courtesy: GFI APAC

    Public support for alternative protein ramps up in China

    The patent research comes on the back of a big few months for China’s alternative protein ecosystem. At the annual Two Sessions summit, top government officials called for a deeper integration of strategic emerging industries (which included biomanufacturing), and identified “strengthening IP protections for microbial proteins” as a food system priority.

    In an official notice about China’s agricultural priorities before the summit, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) identified the safety and nutritional efficacy of alternative proteins as a key priority, while research in novel food tech to create the next generation of food was also highlighted.

    And a week later, the No. 1 Central Document (which signals China’s top goals for the upcoming year), underscored the importance of “building a diversified food supply system”, including efforts “to cultivate and develop biological agriculture and explore novel food resources.” The following day, a briefing by MARA featured a call to action to “develop new food resources such as plant-based meat”, according to GFI APAC.

    At the start of the year, the country saw its first alternative protein innovation centre open in Beijing, fuelled by an $11M investment from public and private investors to develop cultivated meat and fermentation-derived proteins.

    lab grown meat china
    Courtesy: Fengtai District Media Integration Center

    And in May, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform released a 2025-27 joint action plan with the Pinggu District Government, marking the capital’s first district-level special policy to advance the green economy. It’s also the first time China has released a government-issued action plan specifically for alternative proteins.

    Further, the national government’s current five-year agriculture plan encourages research in cultivated meat and recombinant proteins, while the bioeconomy development plan aims to advance novel foods. And President Xi Jinping has called for a Grand Food Vision that includes plant-based and microbial protein sources.

    China has additionally formed a new UN working group with its regulatory counterparts in Singapore, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, which centres on the implementation of global guidelines for food safety assessments of cell culture media for cultivated meat production. These will help streamline regulatory review processes and fast-track the market entry of these proteins.

    “One cannot overstate the significance of Asia’s largest economy putting cultivated meat and other novel ingredients at the centre of its national food strategy,” said Gosker.

    “It remains to be seen whether the country’s political leaders will ultimately pull all of the policy and manufacturing levers at their disposal – but staking out a key role in the alt protein sector’s development all but guarantees that if cultivated meat becomes a globally traded commodity, China will join Singapore, South Korea, and other forward-thinking nations in reaping the rewards.”

    The post Is China Leading the Cultivated Meat Innovation Race? A New Patent Analysis Argues the Case appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Taiwan holds annual live-fire, air raid drills that simulate Chinese attack

    Air-raid sirens blared in Taipei and other cities in northern Taiwan on Thursday, part of annual drills testing the country’s response to a potential invasion by China.

    Police stopped personal vehicles and public buses and directed pedestrians into shelters, such as basements and subway stations.

    Some shops and restaurants pulled down shutters and turned off lights, moves aimed to reduce their visibility during a potential nighttime attack.

    The drills also involved simulating wartime aid distribution and a mass-casualty event.

    Video: Taiwan holds its annual military drills, aimed to prepare the country for a potential invasion by China.

    Earlier this week, Taiwanese forces held their largest-ever military drills, which included simulating a response to an amphibious invasion of the Penghu Islands.

    Troops fired Javelin missiles, machine guns and tank rounds at maritime targets.

    Taiwanese forces also conducted maritime drills around the Matsu Islands involving speed boats, drones and mortars. Soldiers fired from rubber speed boats and positions on shore, responding to a simulated “grey zone harassment” of the islands by Chinese Coast Guard and fishing vessels.

    In an early morning drill, Taiwan’s military police used Taipei’s subway system as it simulated the redeployment of troops and supplies.

    Taiwan’s military also practiced securing and defending a major bridge in Taipei. This time they were firing blanks.

    Taiwanese military officials said the Han Kuang drills replicate full combat conditions, including simulated enemy attacks on communications and command systems and a full-blown invasion scenario.

    Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

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  • Taiwan says they’re ready for China invasion — Han Kuang military exercise | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.