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Category: China

  • Dealing with a ‘bloody messy’ world – the urgent foreign policy challenges facing NZ

    ANALYSIS: By Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato

    Since Jacinda Ardern described the state of world affairs as “bloody messy” earlier this year there have been few, if any, signs of improvement. Ukraine, China, nuclear proliferation and the lasting impacts of a global pandemic all present urgent, unresolved challenges.

    For a small country in an increasingly lawless world this is both dangerous and confronting.

    Without the military or economic scale to influence events directly, New Zealand relies on its voice and ability to persuade.

    But by placing its faith in a rules-based order and United Nations processes, New Zealand also has to work with — and sometimes around — highly imperfect systems. In some areas of international law and policy the machinery is failing. It’s unclear what the next best step might be.

    Given these uncertainties, then, where has New Zealand done well on the international stage, and where might it need to find a louder voice or more constructive proposals?

    Confronting Russia
    Strength and clarity have been most evident in New Zealand’s response to the Russian attack on Ukraine. There has been no hint of joining the abstainers or waverers at crucial UN votes condemning Russia’s actions.

    While it can be argued New Zealand could do more in terms of sanctions and support for the Ukrainian military, the government has made good use of the available international forums.

    Joining the International Court of Justice case against “Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law” and supporting the International Criminal Court investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine are both excellent initiatives.

    Unfortunately, similar avenues have been blocked when it comes to other critical issues New Zealand has a vested interest in seeing resolved properly.

    China and human rights
    This has been especially apparent in the debate about human rights abuses in China, and allegations of genocide made by some countries over the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

    New Zealand and some other countries correctly avoided using the word “genocide”, which has a precise legal meaning best applied by UN experts, not domestic politicians. Instead, the government called on China to provide meaningful and unfettered access to UN and other independent observers.

    While not perfect, the visit went ahead. The eventual report by outgoing UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet concluded that China had committed serious human rights violations, which could amount to crimes against humanity.

    This should have forced the international community to act. Instead, 19 countries voted with China to block a debate at the UN Human Rights Council (17 wanted the debate, 11 abstained). The upshot was that China succeeded in driving the issue into a diplomatic dead-end.

    Allowing an organisation designed to protect victims to be controlled by alleged perpetrators isn’t something New Zealand should accept. The government should make it a diplomatic priority to become a member of the council, and it should use every opportunity to speak out and keep the issue in the global spotlight.

    Arms control
    Elsewhere, New Zealand’s foreign policy can arguably be found wanting — most evidently, perhaps, in the area of nuclear arms regulation.

    Advocating for the complete prohibition of all nuclear weapons, as the prime minister did at the UN in September, might be inspiring and also good domestic politics, but it doesn’t make the world safer.

    With the risk of nuclear conflagration at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis, a better immediate goal would be improving the regulation, rather than prohibition, of nuclear weapons. This would entail convincing nuclear states to take their weapons off “hair-trigger alert”.

    The other goals should be the adoption of a no-first-use policy by all nuclear powers (only China has made such a commitment so far), and a push for regional arms control in the Indo-Pacific to rein in India, Pakistan and China.

    Pandemic preparedness
    Finally, there is the danger of vital law and policy not just failing, but not even being born. This is the case with the World Health Organisation’s so-called “pandemic treaty”, designed to better prevent, prepare for and respond to the next global pandemic.

    New Zealand set out some admirable goals in its submission in April, but these have been watered down or are missing from the first working draft of the proposed agreement.

    This shouldn’t be accepted lightly given the lessons of the past two-and-a-half years. Transparency by governments, a precautionary approach and the meaningful involvement of non-state actors will be essential.

    Similarly, improved oversight of the 59 laboratories spread across 23 countries that work with the most dangerous pathogens is critical. Currently, only a quarter of these labs score highly on safety. The proposed treaty does little to demand the kind of biosecurity protocols and robust regulatory systems required to better protect present and future generations.

    As with the other urgent and difficult issues mentioned here, New Zealand’s future is directly connected to what happens elsewhere in the world. The challenge now is to keep adapting to this changing global order while being an effective voice for reason and the rule of law.The Conversation

    Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  • The Self-Licking Boot Of US Militarism

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    A new Bloomberg article titled “‘Sloppy’ US Talk on China’s Threat Worries Some Skeptical Experts” discusses the dangerous cycle in which pressures in the US political establishment to continually escalate hostilities with Beijing provokes responses that are then falsely interpreted as Chinese aggression.

    Bloomberg’s Iain Marlow writes:

    The hawkish narrative “limits room for maneuver in a crisis,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Any effort to defuse tension could be characterized as “conciliatory or not tough enough,” he said.

     

    China has been consistent on Taiwan and there’s little public evidence to suggest it’s sped up the timeline to take Taiwan, said a former senior US official who worked on China policy but asked not to be identified.

     

    The former official said the hawkish tone in DC has contributed to a cycle where the US makes the first move, interprets Chinese reactions as a provocation, and then escalates further.

    Bloomberg quotes Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund, who says this cycle of self-reinforcing escalation could “end up provoking the war that we seek to deter.”

    We just saw this same self-perpetuating cycle of military escalation exemplified against North Korea, where tensions have again been flaring after a long pause. The US and South Korea initiated a provocative military drill designed to menace the DPRK, Pyongyang responded by launching missiles in its own show of strength, and the Pentagon announced an extension of the drills in response to that response.

    Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp explains:

    The US and South Korea are extending massive aerial war games after North Korea put on a massive show of force in response to the drills.

     

    Washington and Seoul started their Vigilant Storm exercises on Monday, which were initially scheduled to run 24 hours a day for five days. This year’s Vigilant Storm is the largest-ever iteration of the drills, involving nearly 100 American warplanes and 140 South Korean aircraft, and about 1,600 planned sorties.

     

    Pyongyang made it clear it would respond to the Vigilant Storm drills, and it launched 23 missiles on Wednesday, which is said to be the most North Korea has fired in a single day. North Korea also fired over 100 artillery rounds on the same day and launched six more missiles on Thursday.

     

    Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the extension of Vigilant Storm after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup. “I’ve consulted with Minister Lee and we’ve decided to extend Vigilant Storm, which is our long-scheduled combined training exercise, to further bolster our readiness and interoperability,” Austin said.

    “So they launch these war games, provoke a bunch of North Korean missile launches and then say they have to extend the war games because of the missile launches,” tweeted DeCamp.

    DeCamp quotes another DPRK official who warns that the extension of the US-ROK war games may provoke further escalations, saying “The irresponsible decision of the US and South Korea is shoving the present situation, caused by provocative military acts of the allied forces, to an uncontrollable phase.”

    We’ve been seeing this same cycle repeated year after year: US military expansionism and aggression in a given part of the world receives pushback from the people who live there, and the US responds to that pushback with more military expansionism and aggression. The official narrative is that the US is responding to unprovoked aggressions from the other side, conveniently omitting its own antecedent aggressions and provocations — a manipulation tactic the western media are always happy to facilitate.

    In reality it’s not hard to determine who the aggressor is when one party is flying to the other side of the planet to menace the borders and security interests of the other, especially when ramping up militarism in more and more parts of the world facilitates both the US military-industrial complex and the unipolarist objectives of US empire managers. But because the US empire has the most sophisticated narrative control system ever devised, enough people in enough places that matter swallow the official story despite its self-evident absurdity.

    A system which perpetuates and exacerbates itself while pretending to solve the problems it creates is often called a self-licking ice cream cone. Because that type of system is promoted by those serving the most powerful and belligerent power structure on earth, one might call US militarism a self-licking boot.

    We’ve been watching the self-licking boot of US militarism exemplified for decades in the “war on terror” scam, where US military interventionism destabilizes geostrategically crucial parts of the world and makes the locals who’ve suffered under US bombings want to harm their persecutors, and the response is to ramp up military expansionism in those parts of the world in the name of fighting terrorists and protecting US troops.

    We been watching it in Ukraine, where US aggressions provoked an invasion by a government the US empire has long targeted for destruction, and that invasion is now being used to advance longstanding US strategic objectives while continually expanding US military involvement in the region.

    And we’ll be sure to see more and more of it as the US accelerates toward global conflict on two fronts simultaneously while mainstream media pundits cheer it on, despite all available evidence indicating that we are witnessing something profoundly stupid and crazy. The US will continue ramping up aggressions against Moscow and Beijing, those governments will respond, and we will be told that the US must respond to these outrageous provocations by ramping up aggressions.

    Repeat ad nauseum.

    Lick, lick.

    _______________

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

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • CASC to showcase new CH-806 loitering munition at Airshow China 2022

    China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) will be using the 2022 edition of Airshow China, scheduled to be held from 8-13 November in Zhuhai to showcase a new loitering munition variant of its Cai Hong (Rainbow) CH-806 Small Long-Endurance Reconnaissance UAV. Developed by CASC subsidiary China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics (CAAA, also known as […]

    The post CASC to showcase new CH-806 loitering munition at Airshow China 2022 appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • You’re Doing Great And Your Voice Makes A Difference

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    2022 is an insane year to be a critic of the empire. People are being censored for disputing official narratives about a war. Those who aren’t censored are being mobbed by astroturf trolling operations. A frenetic propaganda push is turning our friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances into brainwashed empire automatons who despise our heretical rejection of official imperial doctrine about Russia and Ukraine.

    And this is just a quick note to say thank you for holding the line anyway, and to note that your opposition to nuclear brinkmanship, US warmongering and propaganda makes a difference.

    If our rulers did not require the consent of the public, they would not work so hard to manufacture that consent. While the empire managers work hard to keep us from noticing that there a whole lot more of us than there are of them, this is a reality that our rulers are at all times acutely aware of. It gives them nightmares to contemplate the possibility of people growing tired of being impoverished and endangered by the economic warfare and nuclear brinkmanship our rulers are inflicting upon us in order to advance their unipolarist agendas of global domination. They are never not afraid of the possibility that we might begin to collectively push back in large numbers.

    That is why we are being continually inundated by ever-rising levels of propaganda, censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulations and empire trolls. And that’s why there are increasing artificially created pressures to shun, silence and shut down anyone who speaks out against the madness we are witnessing.

    As the US-centralized empire ramps up cold war aggressions against not one but two powerful nations in China and Russia, manipulating public thought at mass scale to go along with those reckless and costly aggressions becomes more and more essential. What that means is that anyone who is voicing opposition to those agendas is a significant thorn in the side of the power structure that’s advancing them.

    As I keep repeating, all positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. Whether you’re talking about positive changes in individual behavior or collective behavior, it always arises from an increase in awareness of something where there previously was less awareness. Self-destructive behavior patterns change when the individual becomes more conscious of the internal forces which drive them. Social injustices change when the collective becomes more conscious of how unwholesome they are. Abuses of power change when investigative journalism and whistleblowers bring awareness to those abuses.

    By vocally opposing the madness our world is descending into, you are helping to expand consciousness. To whatever extent you draw more attention and awareness to the lies, manipulations and malfeasance that is being inflicted upon our world in facilitation of the agendas of oligarchy and empire, you are expanding consciousness by that much. You are bringing collective human behavior that much closer to real change, whether you’re talking to people in person, making videos, holding demonstrations, distributing pamphlets, tweeting, blogging, spray painting the truth on an overpass or yelling it at a street corner.

    Which is why you meet up with so much opposition when you do. Just as there are forces within us which resist being seen in order to remain unconscious, there are forces in the world which work to shut down attempts to shine the light of truth on them. That’s all you’re ever meeting up with when people try to stop you from speaking out, and it deserves no more respect than that.

    So keep speaking. Keep pushing for a sane and peaceful world. You’re doing great, and your voice makes a difference, and don’t you dare let anyone tell you otherwise. If our voices made no difference, the most powerful people in the world wouldn’t be trying to shut us down.

    _________________

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

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • The China Model of Modernization

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • CPC 20th National Congress outcomes
    • The China model of modernization
    • World’s first perennial rice variety
    • Hope for Chinese women’s football

    The post The China Model of Modernization first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Europe named among wildlife criminals that are looting Africa’s waters

    The ocean is in crisis. Global warming is taking a severe toll on the ocean, as are plastics and agricultural pollution. Fishing, or more specifically overfishing, is also ravaging the ocean. According to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), over 35% of fish populations face extraction at unsustainable levels.

    Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing contributes to overfishing. The Pew Trusts reported that around one in every five fish is caught illegally. A recent report has dug into the question of who is behind the practice.

    The Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) asserts that companies from European nations are among the top offenders. Moreover, it says that IUU vessels are excessively targeting African waters, where millions of people are dependent on small-scale fishing for food and livelihoods.

    Extensive analysis of IUU fishing

    The FTC is a global network of civil society organisations. The network released its report, titled Fishy networks: uncovering the companies and individuals behind illegal fishing globally, on 26 October. FTC said that its findings are the result of the “most extensive analysis of IUU fishing cases to date”.

    The report asserted that almost half of the industrial and semi-industrial vessels it identified target Africa. This is the case with West Africa in particular, it said, with 40% operating there. The FTC named 10 top companies allegedly involved in IUU fishing. It highlighted that these companies:

    own 23.7 percent of total vessels involved in IUU fishing for which the beneficial owners were identified

    Beneficial ownership means the ultimate owner or controller of a company or asset. The companies include Spain’s Albacora SA, a tuna giant, along with eight Chinese companies and one from Panama.

    In its research, FTC found almost a thousand industrial and semi-industrial fishing vessels between 2010 and May 2022 that were reported to be operating illegally. Overall, 54.7% of those detected carried flags for Asian countries. Additionally, 16.1% had flags for Latin American countries, 13.5% for African countries, and 12.8% for European nations, including the UK.

    These flags don’t, however, always indicate the country from which a fishing fleet originates. Vessels may fly what are called flags of convenience, where they register to fly a flag of a different nation. 8.76% of the vessels the FTC identified in its analysis used flags of convenience.

    In a comment to the Guardian, Albacora SA said:

    IUU fishing is a very grave matter, which this company takes very seriously. We deny any accusations related to this.

    IUU fishing is robbing nations of income

    IUU fishing encompasses a number of different practices. These include illegal activity, such as operating in contravention of the relevant national and international laws. The term also covers the failure to report fishing activity where necessary. It further refers to vessels fishing in areas beyond the jurisdiction of any individual nation or regional fishing authority, in a manner that violates their country’s conservation responsibilities under international law.

    The practice can, to some extent, involve small-scale fisheries. The FTC report stated that:

    IUU fishing is driven largely by expanding foreign distant water fishing (DWF) fleets from industrialised countries which, having depleted fish stocks in domestic waters, are moving further afield to meet the rising demand for seafood.

    The elicit trade is robbing many poorer nations and regions of income, the report further highlighted. Africa alone is losing out on up to $11.49bn, with West Africa suffering the bulk of those losses. Executive director of the FTC Matti Kohonen said:

    Illegal fishing is a massive industry directly threatening the livelihoods of millions of people across the world, especially [those] living in poor coastal communities in developing countries already affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the impact of climate change

    This can have knock-on effects for other environmental and health issues. A 2016 study highlighted that overfishing by foreign vessels has led to the increased hunting of wildlife in some instances, as communities seek out alternative protein when their fish catches are reduced. This, in turn, can put them at greater risk of contracting zoonotic diseases.

    Transparency is vital

    Some international measures to tackle the problem of IUU fishing are meant to be forthcoming. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), for example, agreed a deal on fishing subsidies in June this year. WTO members still need to ratify the deal, but it would ban subsidies for IUU fishing. It would also ban subsidies for fishing on the high seas, meaning all of the ocean that lies over 200 miles from shores.

    However, China Dialogue Ocean reported that countries failed to reach an agreement on stopping subsidies that “contribute to overfishing and overcapacity”. These subsidies can enable extensive fishing by industrial vessels in distant places, in essence facilitating overfishing.

    Nations have also been negotiating a high seas treaty at the UN that could potentially impact some industrial fishing. Member states have yet to conclude an agreement on this, however, with further negotiation needed.

    The FTC argued that it’s also imperative that countries increase transparency in the fishing industry. Kohonen said FTC’s probe indicated that with few countries requiring ownership information for vessels and licences, their beneficial owners operate with:

    complete impunity, using complex company structures and other schemes to hide their identity and evade prosecution

    The network singled out the US, Europe and Japan for having a particular responsibility to enforce robust registries on vessel ownership. Lakshmi Kumar, from FTC member Global Financial Integrity, pointed out that:

    The US, EU, and Japan together account for over 50% of global seafood consumption and therefore directly contribute to the shocking food insecurity and natural resource depletion that this report highlights.

    We need wholesale change

    IUU is a serious problem that urgently needs resolving. The industry overall desperately requires an overhaul in terms of its practice, governance and regulation.

    Only around 7% of fish populations face extraction at levels below what authorities allege is the maximum they can withstand. This means that most fish populations are extracted at the highest level possible, with many already being fished at much higher levels. And that’s without taking the climate crisis, and the added resilience fish populations need to survive that, into account.

    Nonetheless, as FTC highlighted, authorities don’t even categorise fishing as an extractive industry. This only goes to show how far we are from getting real about our relationship with – and impact on – the ocean.

    Featured image via Adam Vowles / Flickr, cropped to 770×403, licensed under CC BY 2.0

    By Tracy Keeling

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia

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    The US is preparing to station multiple nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in northern Australia in what the mass media are calling a “signal to China,” yet another example of Australia’s forced subservience as a US military/intelligence asset.

    “Having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further,” Becca Wasser from the Centre for New American Security think tank told the ABC.

    “This is a dangerous escalation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s very existence – and by rising military tensions it further destabilises our region,” tweeted Greens Senator David Shoebridge of the incendiary provocation.

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    This is a dangerous escalation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s very existence – and by rising military tensions it further destabilises our region https://t.co/OTSSfV25fJ

    — David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) October 30, 2022

    A new Australian Financial Review article titled “Australia’s alliances in Asia are a tale of two regions” candidly discusses the Biden administration’s recent sanctions geared toward kneecapping the Chinese tech industry in what the author James Curran correctly says “is unambiguously a new cold war.” Curran describes the impossible task Australia has of straddling the ever-widening divide between its number one trading partner China and its number one “security” partner the US, while Washington continually pressures Canberra and ASEAN states toward greater and greater enmity with Beijing.

    “ASEAN countries, as much as Australia, have much at stake in resisting the onset of a bifurcated world,” Curran writes.

    But that bifurcation is being shoved through at breakneck pace, using both hard and soft power measures. Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda, and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland, with a third saying they’d support a war against China over the Solomon Islands.

    A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the “liberal democracies” of the US-centralized power alliance. But what’s interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth’s population, with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well.

    “Among the 1.2bn people who inhabit the world’s liberal democracies, three-quarters (75%) now hold a negative view of China, and 87% a negative view of Russia,” the report reads. “However, for the 6.3bn people who live in the rest of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% positively towards Russia.”

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    Fascinating research by the University of Cambridge!

    Whilst in Western liberal democracies (1.2bn people) 75% hold a negative view of China, in the rest of the world (6.3bn people) 70% feel positively towards China. In those countries, China has even overtaken the US!

    Small 🧵 pic.twitter.com/CGF8KtEdis

    — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) October 30, 2022

    The report finds that in the “developing” world, approval of China is higher than approval of the US:

    “For the first time ever, slightly more people in developing countries (62%) are favourable towards China than towards the United States (61%). This is especially so among the 4.6bn people living in countries supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, among whom almost two-thirds hold a positive view of China, compared to just a quarter (27%) in non-participating countries.”

    The report finds that while Russia’s approval has plummeted in the west, it maintains broad support in the east despite the invasion of Ukraine:

    “However, the real terrain of Russia’s international influence lies outside of the West. 75% of respondents in South Asia, 68% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia continue to view the country positively in spite of the events of this year.”

    I first became aware of the Cambridge study via a Twitter thread by Arnaud Bertrand (who is a great follow if you happen to use that demonic app). Bertrand highlights data in the study showing that US-aligned nations’ opinion of China began plummeting not after the Covid outbreak in late 2019, but after 2017 when the US began ramping up its propaganda campaign against Beijing.

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    A puzzling observation in today's world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future.

    Take Biden for instance. His big vision is "democracies vs autocracies". Meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that?

    — Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) October 24, 2022

    Apart from the fact that the USA’s immensely sophisticated propaganda machine naturally focuses primarily on where the world’s wealth and military firepower rests while pushing its global agendas, and apart from the fact that those in Belt and Road Initiative countries apparently believe they benefit from their economic relationships with China, the disparity between the “developed” and “developing” worlds in their perceptions of the US and its enemies may also be partly explained by another thought-provoking Arnaud Bertrand thread, which I will quote in its entirety here:

    A puzzling observation in today’s world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future.

    Take Biden for instance. His big vision is “democracies vs autocracies”. Meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that?

    Contrast this with China: between “national rejuvenation” and “common prosperity” at home and the “global security initiative” as their vision for improved international relations; everyone is very clear on the journey they’re embarked on.

    This is a key, if not the key reason why the “West” has no chance in hell to convince the “rest” to join them.

    There’s simply nothing to join! Except conflict, I guess, but you join a conflict to fight for a vision – for a better world – the conflict itself cannot be the vision!

    This reminds me of what George Kennan, the architect of the cold war, wrote: to win he said that America had to “create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time”

    Does America give this impression today?

    Even in my own country, France. Ask any French person what Macron’s vision for the future of France and the world is, what the grand plan is, and you’ll get very puzzled looks. “Reform the pension system so we have to work longer?”

    The truth is there’s nothing, nada, rien! 

    What we have essentially in the West are political operators. They think their jobs are to get reelected and to attempt to move whatever metrics the electorate cares about: GDP, unemployment, debt levels, CO2 emissions, etc. Actual leaders have gone extinct (or gone East).

    It’s actually quite sad, really speaks to the levels of intellectual decrepitude in the West today. The time of the Enlightenment, the big revolutions is well and truly gone. We’re stuck with our mediocre operators.

    It’s also why this is such a dangerous time. A positive vision brings confidence, it brings hope, it motivates, it makes people look forward to what’s to come. The West has none of that today.

    The future is scary, the dominant feelings are fear and anger.

    And when there’s a lot of fear and anger, these feelings need to be directed somewhere. And our operators certainly don’t want it to be them! So it’s China, Iran, all those “foreigners” who “hate our freedom”.

    Perfect recipe for a very bad conflict…

    Please, don’t get fooled!

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    MUST WATCH: The brilliant Professor Sachs speaks the truth and offers his wisdom and advice for humanity. "The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality."

    Original video: https://t.co/WFZAbS1cPG pic.twitter.com/zhW3IIOXQ6

    — Kimmee Lee (@KimmeeLee2) October 22, 2022

    Bertrand’s musings echo a recent quote by Professor Jeffrey Sachs at the Athens Democracy Forum: “The single biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

    Indeed, we could be striving toward a positive vision for the future, one which seeks “common prosperity” and “improved international relations,” one which works to remedy inequality and address the looming environmental crisis. Instead the world is being bifurcated, split in two, which history tells us is probably an indication that something extremely terrible is on the horizon for our species unless we drastically change course.

    It’s worth keeping all this in mind, as nuclear-capable bombers are deployed to Australia; as NATO weighs moving nuclear weapons to Russia’s border in Finland; as the Biden administration goes all in on economic warfare with China regardless of the consequences; as Russia accuses the US of “lowering the nuclear threshold” by modernizing the arsenal in Europe into “battlefield weapons”; as the Council on Foreign Relations president openly admits that the US is now working to halt China’s rise on the world stage; as China declares its willingness to deepen ties with Russia on all levels.

    We could have such a wonderful, healthy, collaborative world, and it’s being flushed down the toilet because an empire is using its leverage over the wealthiest populations on our planet to work toward dominating all the other populations. This stupid, insane quest to shore up unipolar planetary domination is costing us everything while gaining us nothing, and it’s going to be the poorest and weakest among us who suffer the most as a result.

    ________________

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

    Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

  • The Guardian view on China’s response to dissent: repression, at home and away

    There are growing concerns over Beijing’s attempts to restrict political expression overseas

    Xi Jinping’s leadership of China is now indefinite. No one doubts what his third term will bring: more rigid political controls. The party demands obedience at home. It asserts itself more confidently abroad. A senior official told reporters that Chinese diplomacy would maintain its “fighting spirit”.

    That remark came days after Manchester police said that they were investigating the assault of a Hong Kong activist who had been dragged into the Chinese consulate’s grounds when men from the building disrupted a protest on the street outside. Asked about footage of him pulling the man’s hair the consul general, Zheng Xiyuan, denied attacking anyone but also said it was his “duty”. Police have now said they are investigating the full circumstances, and footage shows another man, apparently from the consulate, also being assaulted. What is beyond question is that the protest was peaceful until the officials came out and tore down a poster, and that China’s chargé d’affaires in London has warned that “[providing] shelter to the Hong Kong independence elements will in the end only bring disaster to Britain”.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Common Prosperity on the Road to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

    “Common prosperity” was mentioned at the 10th meeting of the Central Finance and Economic Committee of the Communist Party on August 17, 2021 where it was stated that it was common AND was an essential requirement of socialism and a key feature of China-style modernization. In that context, President Xi Jinping called for China to “clean up and adjust high income and rectify income distribution.” And, in his recent speech to the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress, Xi said, ”We will steadfastly push for common prosperity. We will improve the system of income distribution… we will increase the income of low income earners and expand the size of the middle income group. We will keep income distribution and the means of accumulating wealth well-regulated.”

    We know that “Common prosperity” has been employed by many Chinese leaders since first used by Mao Zedong in the early 1950s and it appeared as slogan #38 in a series of 65 that were approved and listed in The People’s Daily on September 25, 1953. The slogan urged peasants to strive “for lives of common prosperity.” An article appeared in the People’s Daily on December 12,1953, titled “The Path of Socialism is the Path to Common Prosperity,” clarifying that common prosperity required collective ownership of the resources of production. The following was cited as the goal for Chinese farmers:

    Therefore, the development of mutual aid and cooperatives can only avoid division among peasants and avoid the path of capitalism, but can also enable peasants to achieve common prosperity step by step and finally reach a socialist society.

    Recall then, that in the 1970s and 1980s, Deng Xiaoping promoted reform and opening or gaige kaifeng and this meant “letting some get rich first” and others would be pulled along and enjoy common prosperity later. He said “from many aspects, right now we are merely implementing what Mao Zedong already put out, but unable to do himself.” In keeping with this admonition, Deng stressed that “the nature of socialism is to emancipate productive forces, develop productive forces, abolish exploitation, elimination, polarization and finally achieve common prosperity.” Continuity was there even though some Western China-watchers found it incongruous and chose to ignore it. In any event, Ken Hammond adroitly sums up three decades of reforms and opening to the outside as follows:

    China had largely subordinated itself to the interests the global bourgeoisie, in order  to gain access to state- of-the-art productive technologies, and to accumulate capital through the production of export goods. The overall goal was to use mechanisms of the marketplace to develop the productive economy,with the CPC playing a guiding role and with the ultimate goal of reaching a level of social wealth which allows for the beginnings of new forms of social distribution, an initial step on the path to true socialism. 1

    Simultaneously, expanding material wealth through state capitalism generated major structural contradictions that have yet to be resolved. As GNP grew 9.3 percent per year from 1979-1994, China also became one of the the most unequal societies on earth. In both 2003 and again in 2007, the CPC seemed determined to modify this course. But in 2012, private companies accounted for 70 percent of China’s GNP and the top 20 percent of China’s population owned 70 percent of the total wealth.

    n 2017, Xi said that that a new era of common prosperity had begun and those ”left behind” would make solid progress by 2035 and become part of a “great modern society 2050.“ Further, at that date, inequality should be “narrowed to a reasonable range” although the gaps have not been fleshed out. At the 2002 World Economic Forum, Xi spelled out that “The common prosperity we desire is not egalitarianism. To use an analogy, we will first make the pie bigger, and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangements. As a rising tide lifts all boats, everyone will get a fair share of development, and development gains will benefit all our people in a more substantial and equitable way.” Beyond that, little was spelled out although Xi warned against ”slipping into the trap of welfarism that feeds the lazy.” 2

    China has admirably succeeded in eradicating extreme poverty among impoverished rural residents although some 600 million people still live on $154 a month. For example, there is a major disparity between rural and urban areas. Further, China has 607 billionaires, secondly only to the United States. This is 87 fewer than last year and Forbes reports that China’s billionaires are some $500 billion poorer than last year and worth $1.96 trillion to $2.5 trillion in 2021.3  A series of regulatory reforms wiped out over $1 trillion in market value for Chinese-linked firms, mostly in the high-tech sector. It’s notable that outside investors are still looking for opportunities but shifting to the Chinese domestic business sector. For example, Goldman Sachs recently came up with a 50-stock ”common prosperity” basket, presumably connected to domestic needs and demands.

    A recent program on CGTN, a news channel based in Beijing and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, may help in further discerning the future. The show’s panelists opined that common prosperity was about providing a “level playing field” and opportunities for poor people to “get ahead.” Echoing Xi, it’s not about scaring rich people with a social engineering project that would retard growth and “create common poverty.” It’s not a Robin Hood scheme of “robbing the rich to give to the poor.” Another important component is “encouraging” philanthropy, including the provision of tax incentives for rich people to donate money to common prosperity fund. TenCent’s ponying up of 100 billion yuan was cited as an example. 4

    Another possibly more explicit clue about the future occurred in August of last year: Li Guangman, a little-known blogger and retired editor of a marginal state-owned newspaper, wrote an incendiary essay on the need for radical reform in China. Li had authored over a thousand mostly ignored pieces but this one, entitled “Everyone Can Sense That A Profound Transformation Is Underway,” was quickly picked up and embraced by neo-Maoists and then by at least eight major Central Party state media sites, including The People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV television broadcasting.

    Li characterized the ongoing regulatory reforms as part of a “profound revolution” that “re-prioritizes socialism over capitalism.” After listing some of the punitive actions taken against tech executives and others, Li wrote “This change will wash away all the dust and the capital market will no longer be a paradise for capitalists to grow rich overnight. The red has returned, the heroes have returned, and the grit and valor have returned.” And then this seemingly ominous warning: “All those who block this people-centered change will be discarded.” I haven’t seen recent references to Li’s essay although I may have missed them. Was this a one-off by a frustrated, old school Maoist or a piece sanctioned by and/or coordinated by elements with the party for their own purposes? 5

    In the past, when talk has arisen about income adjustments, pro-market types and liberals have come to the defense of markets and the need to reassure foreign investors who might be tempted to flee. It’s also reasonable to assume there are powerful and privileged elements within China, including higher levels within the party — those advantaged by inequality — who are opposed to Xi’s initiatives. Personally, I find it both baffling and dismaying that some “socialist friends of China” are quick to label anyone raising this subject as a China-basher, someone doing Washington’s dirty work. In response, this quote from Samir Amin in 2013 remains acutely on point:

    …beginning in 1990 with the opening to private initiative, a new more powerful right began to make its appearance.  It should not be reduced to “businessmen” who have succeeded and made (sometimes colossal) fortunes, strengthened by their clientele — including state and party officials, who mix control with collusion, and even corruption. This success, as always, encourages support for rightist ideas in the educated middle classes. It is in this sense that growing inequality — even if it has nothing in common with inequality characteristic of other countries in the South — is a major political danger, the vehicle for the spread of rightist ideas, depoliticization and naive illusions.((Amin, op.cit.p. 28.))

    How this plays out behind closed doors is impossible to detect although the outcome of the recent party congress would indicate a consensus regarding Xi’s position.

    Further, I would be remiss not mention one important caveat regarding the challenging context for realizing Xi’s program: that is, the primary existential threat to China is U.S.-led imperialist aggression and Washington’s renewal of the Cold War. Emblematic of this behavior is Washington’s sanctions program which aims to use “choke points” to impede Chinese access to cutting edge chip capabilities. In his 2022 NPC report (not in the speech) Xi warned of external threats to “blackmail, contain, blockade, and exert maximum pressure on China.” The extent to which the need to prioritize national security may hobble progress toward realizing common prosperity cannot be discounted.

    Finally, it’s indisputable that what China has achieved on the long road to a possible socialist future is nothing short of spectacular and my reading of the available evidence suggests that from Mao to Xi continuity exists in the quest for common prosperity. Today, Xi is determined to correct the contradictions arising from using state capitalism to accumulate sufficient social wealth. The praxis of liberation is a continuing struggle with an uncertain future but it’s reasonable to assume that serious efforts are underway to give further concrete meaning to social, economic and cultural “common prosperity.”

    1. “Ten crises: The political economy of China’s development,” by Wen Tiejun, November 30, 2021, n.p.  Amin asserted that any society intent on liberating itself from historical capitalism and beginning the long journey to socialism/communism must pass through this preliminary phase. See Amin, Ibid. p. 20.
    2. Chen Tong, “Decoding the Common Prosperity: What is China’s Common Prosperity? Why Zhejiang?” 05-September-2022.
    3. Forbes, April 5, 2020.
    4. “How to Understand ‘common prosperity’ of China, CGTN, August 21, 2021. CGTN produced a ten-part series on common prosperity. See, CGTN, Sneak Preview: Road to Common Prosperity, 28-August-2022.
    5. A full translation can be found at Cindy Carter and Alex Yo, China Digital Times, August 21, 2021.For an on-going list of the crackdowns, see “Tracking all the…” China’s Red New Deal,” September 9, 2021.
    The post Common Prosperity on the Road to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Advocating World War Three Is Just Mainstream Punditry Now

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    Mainstream punditry in the latter half of 2022 is rife with op-eds arguing that the US needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they always frame it as though this would be something that happens to the US, as though its own actions would have nothing to do with it. As though it would not be the direct result of the US-centralized empire continually accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to its inability to relinquish its goal of total unipolar planetary domination.

    The latest example of this trend is an article titled “Could America Win a New World War? — What It Would Take to Defeat Both China and Russia” published by Foreign Affairs, a magazine that is owned and operated by the supremely influential think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

    “The United States and its allies must plan for how to simultaneously win wars in Asia and Europe, as unpalatable as the prospect may seem,” writes the article’s author Thomas G Mahnken, adding that in some ways “the United States and its allies will have an advantage in any simultaneous war” in those two continents.

    But Mahnken doesn’t claim a world war against Russia and China would be a walk in the park; he also argues that in order to win such a war the US will need to — you guessed it — drastically increase its military spending.

    “The United States clearly needs to increase its defense manufacturing capacity and speed,” Mahnken writes. “In the short term, that involves adding shifts to existing factories. With more time, it involves expanding factories and opening new production lines. To do both, Congress will have to act now to allocate more money to increase manufacturing.”

    But exploding US weapons spending is still inadequate, Mahnken argues, saying that “the United States should work with its allies to increase their military production and the size of their weapons and munitions stockpiles” as well.

    Mahnken says this world war could be sparked “if China initiated a military operation to take Taiwan, forcing the United States and its allies to respond,” as though there would be no other options on the table besides launching into nuclear age World War Three to defend an island next to the Chinese mainland that calls itself the Republic of China. He writes that “Moscow, meanwhile, could decide that with the United States bogged down in the western Pacific, it could get away with invading more of Europe,” demonstrating the bizarre Schrödinger’s cat western propaganda paradox that Putin is always simultaneously (A) getting destroyed and humiliated in Ukraine and (B) on the cusp of waging hot war with NATO.

    Again, this is just the latest in an increasingly common genre of mainstream western punditry.

    In “The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wags his finger at Democrats who think aggressions against Russia should be prioritized and Republicans who think that military and financial attention should be devoted to China, arguing porque no los dos?

    In “Could The U.S. Military Fight Russia And China At The Same Time?“, 19FortyFive’s Robert Farley answers in the affirmative, writing that “the immense fighting power of the US armed forces would not be inordinately strained by the need to wage war in both theaters” and concluding that “the United States can fight both Russia and China at once… for a while, and with the help of some friends.”

    In “Can the US Take on China, Iran and Russia All at Once?” Bloomberg’s Hal Brands answers that it would be very difficult and recommends escalating in Ukraine and Taiwan and selling Israel more advanced weaponry to get a step ahead of Russia, China and Iran respectively.

    In “International Relations Theory Suggests Great-Power War Is Coming,” the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig writes for Foreign Policy that a global democracies-versus-autocracies showdown is coming “with the United States and its status quo-oriented democratic allies in NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on one side and the revisionist autocracies of China, Russia, and Iran on the other,” and that aspiring foreign policy experts should adjust their expectations accordingly.

    When they’re not arguing that World War Three is coming and we must all prepare to fight it and win, they’re arguing that a global conflict is already upon us and we must begin acting like it, as in last month’s New Yorker piece “What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?”

    These Beltway swamp monster pontifications are directed not just at the general public but at government policymakers and strategists as well, and it should disturb us all that their audiences are being encouraged to view a global conflict of unspeakable horror like it’s some kind of natural disaster that people don’t have any control over.

    Every measure should be taken to avoid a world war in the nuclear age. If it looks like that’s where we’re headed, the answer is not to ramp up weapons production and create entire industries dedicated to making it happen, the answer is diplomacy, de-escalation and detente. These pundits frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably be accompanied by an explosion of violence and human suffering, when in reality we’d only wind up there as a result of decisions that were made by thinking human beings on both sides.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no omnipotent deity decreeing from on high that we must live in a world where governments brandish armageddon weapons at each other and humanity must either submit to Washington or resign itself to cataclysmic violence of planetary consequence. We could just have a world where the peoples of all nations get along with each other and work together toward the common good rather than working to dominate and subjugate each other.

    As Jeffrey Sachs recently put it, “The single biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

    We could have a world where our energy and resources go toward increasing human thriving and learning to collaborate with this fragile biosphere we evolved in. Where all our scientific innovation is directed toward making this planet a better place to live instead of channeling it into getting rich and finding new ways to explode human bodies. Where our old models of competition and exploitation give way to systems of collaboration and care. Where poverty, toil and misery gradually move from accepted norms of human existence to dimly remembered historical record.

    Instead we’re getting a world where we’re being hammered harder and harder with propaganda encouraging us to accept global conflict as an unavoidable reality, where politicians who voice even the mildest support for diplomacy are shouted down and demonized until they bow to the gods of war, where nuclear brinkmanship is framed as safety and de-escalation is branded as reckless endangerment.

    We don’t have to submit to this. We don’t have to keep sleepwalking into dystopia and armageddon to the beat of manipulative sociopaths. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we’ve got a whole lot more at stake here than they do.

    We can have a healthy world. We’ve just got to want it badly enough. They work so hard to manufacture our consent because, ultimately, they absolutely do require it.

    ______________

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

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    This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.

  • Western Media Smear President Xi’s “Aggressive China” As CIA Front Holds Secessionist Summit in Taiwan

    President Xi Jinping’s re-election for a record-breaking third term as China’s leader was promptly ambushed by Western media smears.

    Xi becomes the first Chinese leader since Chairman Mao to hold three terms in office after he was re-elected by delegates at the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing last weekend.

    Western media rushed to predict that China would become more autocratic and repressive, without providing any substantiation for its lurid claims, and while ignoring the phenomenal economic and developmental successes of the People’s Republic under Xi during the past decade.

    The U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations cited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which predicted that China would become “more assertive and aggressive” in its foreign relations over the next five years.

    The BBC ran a particularly scurrilous hit piece by its veteran anti-China apparatchik, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, which alleged that President Xi’s policies are “creating the hostile world that he claims he is defending against”.

    Quoting Susan Shirk, a “China expert” dredged up from the Bill Clinton administration in the 1990s, the BBC accused China of “self-encirclement”, “picking fights” with neighboring countries, “ramping up tensions with Taiwan” and “taking on America and trying to run it out of Asia”.

    “It is a kind of self-encirclement that Chinese foreign policy has produced,” the so-called China expert obligingly commented for the BBC.

    The negative focus on China’s government sounds absurdly misplaced coming from U.S. and British media whose own nations are assailed with political crises over governance. Polls show unprecedented numbers of American citizens losing faith in their political parties and election system. In Britain, the country is reeling from the sacking of a third prime minister in as many years.

    But what’s asinine about the smears against Xi purportedly turning China into a more aggressive power is that they turn reality on its head.

    This week sees the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) holding a summit for “world democracy” in Taiwan. The event is being attended by over 300 activists and policymakers from some 70 nations to “promote freedom” and other virtue-signaling causes.

    The NED describes itself as a “non-governmental organization” even though it is bankrolled by the U.S. government and works closely with the Central Intelligence Agency. As American author, the late William Blum pointed out, the NED took over the CIA’s covert roles in the 1980s because it was more politically palatable given the agency’s notoriety for fomenting deadly coups and assassinations.

    Taiwan is officially recognized under international law as an integral part of China, albeit having an estranged relationship since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The One China Policy is recognized legally by the United Nations and by most governments including the United States since the late 1970s.

    Washington nevertheless maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” whereby it proclaims to support Taiwan’s defense from China’s ambitions to incorporate the island territory under Beijing’s sovereign authority.

    President Joe Biden has stretched this duplicity to breaking point by declaring on four occasions since he took office in January 2021 that the US would intervene militarily to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the Chinese mainland. Despite subsequent White House denials, Biden’s utterances are a flagrant violation of the One China Policy and a brazen attack on Chinese sovereignty.

    Since the strategic Pivot to Asia in 2011 taken by the Barack Obama administration, Washington has ramped up arms sales to Taiwan. The flow of arms and covert stationing of U.S. military trainers to Taiwan continued under Trump and now Biden.

    The calculated signals from Washington are promoting a more secessionist political climate in Taiwan, which feels emboldened that it has America’s backing to declare independence from China. Beijing has repeatedly warned against U.S. incitement in its backyard.

    When Democrat House of Representatives Leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August, the incident infuriated Beijing to mount massive military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. For a few days, it looked as if an invasion could take place.

    Since President Xi was first elected in 2013, he has strongly asserted China’s historic right to rule over Taiwan, preferably by peaceful means but also through force of arms if necessary. He repeated that aim during a keynote address to the 20th Congress.

    Any reasonable observer can see that Beijing’s resolve is being cynically provoked by Washington’s interference in China’s internal affairs with regard to Taiwan’s sovereign status. Arming the island to the teeth with American missiles and thumbing noses at Beijing with pro-separatist political delegations would be not tolerated in the slightest if the shoe were on the other foot. Indeed, the U.S. would have gone to war against China already in a reverse scenario.

    For the Western media to make out that Xi is taking China in a more aggressive direction is a ludicrous distortion that conceals who is the real aggressor – the United States and its NATO partners who relentlessly accuse Beijing of expansionism. The only “expansionism” China is engaging in is building mutual trade and commerce with other nations through its global Belt and Road Initiative.

    The National Endowment for Democracy [read “Destabilization”], the CIA’s very own Trojan horse, is this week calling on “activists” in Taiwan to overthrow autocracy. It is a veritable call to arms by the CIA conducted on Chinese sovereign territory.

    Not only that, the NED summit declares that Taiwan and Ukraine are “two major frontlines of the struggle for democracy”.

    NED was a major driver of the coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014 which ushered in a fascist anti-Russia regime in Kiev and which led to the current war with Russia. The Americans are blatantly using the same playbook for Taiwan.

    And yet China and President Xi are being smeared as the aggressors!

    Beijing might be better taking Taiwan now – once and for all – before it festers anymore under American influence.

    As Russia is finding out, to its cost, delaying the disease can lead to more fatal conditions.

    The post Western Media Smear President Xi’s “Aggressive China” As CIA Front Holds Secessionist Summit in Taiwan first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Xi Jingping Wins Third Term Amid Deteriorating US-China Relations

    Chinese President Xi Jinping has begun a historic third term, cementing his place as the country’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. The Chinese Communist Party confirmed Xi’s third five-year term at a party congress in Beijing this week, elevating more Xi allies to top roles and demoting some who were seen as potential rivals. Under Xi, China has taken a much stronger role in economic management, as well as a “zero COVID” policy that has imposed severe restrictions in an effort to control outbreaks during the pandemic. He has also overseen a growing surveillance state to silence dissent and target ethnic minorities including Uyghurs. “In the past 10 years since Xi came to power, the horrendous human rights violations Xi Jinping committed was just striking. And now he’s going to have another five years at least,” says Yaqiu Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. We also speak with Johns Hopkins University professor Ho-fung Hung, who says characterizing the U.S.-China rivalry as a “new Cold War” is misleading, saying the countries are instead engaged in an “inter-capitalist competition” over economic dominance within China and elsewhere in the world.

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We begin today’s show looking at China where Xi Jinping has begun a historic third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party. The decision came over the weekend during the Party’s congress which is held every five years. There was also a major shakeup of the seven member Politburo Standing Committee which is China’s most powerful political body. China’s premier Li Keqiang, longtime rival to Xi, was demoted while four Xi loyalists were promoted. The Party’s top official in Shanghai, Li Qiang, appears set to become China’s new premier. He is a close ally of Xi. He oversaw the harsh COVID crackdown in Shanghai that lasted months.

    Perhaps the most dramatic moment of the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress came when former President Hu Jintao was abruptly escorted out of the closing ceremony. He had been sitting right next to Xi Jinping when two men came to escort him from his seat. Some analysts speculated the move was an assertion of Xi’s dominance. Chinese state media later said it was because the former leader was not feeling well.

    We turn now to look more closely at the future of China as Xi Jinping begins a third term. Under Xi, China has continued a decades-long effort to eradicate extreme poverty. Some 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty over the past four decades in what UN Secretary General António Guterres has called “the greatest anti-poverty achievement in history.” But Xi has also overseen a growing surveillance state to silence dissent and target ethnic minorities, including the Uyghurs. And Xi’s third term comes at a time of growing tension between the U.S. and China over Taiwan and other issues.

    We go now to two guests. Yaqiu Wang is Senior China Researcher at Human Rights Watch. She is in New York. And in Baltimore, Maryland, we are joined by Ho-fung Hung, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His books include Clash of Empires: From ‘Chimerica’ to the ‘New Cold War’ and The China Boom: Why China Will Not Rule the World. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Thanks so much for joining us. Professor Ho-fung Hung, let’s begin with you. Talk about the significance of what happened this weekend. Talk about who Xi Jinping is and how his policies have changed over the years.

    HO-FUNG HUNG: My pleasure to be here. Thank you. What happened over the weekend is very significant, though we actually expected it to come for a while, because in 2018 Xi Jinping managed to abolish the two five-year term limit of the Chinese presidents. That is kind of a term limit that Deng Xiaoping led to impose in the Chinese Constitution in the 1980s, because after the Cultural Revolution, Deng and the Communist Party leaders think that it is not good to have lifelong leader; it is good to have check and balance within the party. Xi Jinping managed to take away this term limit, so that not like his predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, who each served two five-year terms as president of China, Xi can now theoretically serve unlimited term, until he dies, and he can be a lifelong leader of China.

    This kind of abolition of the term limit as a legacy of the Deng Xiaoping era is significant. It was done in 2018 but people didn’t believe that all the party elite will let him actually do it to have another, the third, five-year term, but he managed to do it. He has just proven over the weekend that he managed to do it. Not only that, but also he managed to put all of his own loyalties, absolute loyalties, in the Politburo Standing Committee. So the people from other factions, for example, some people who [inaudible] to be in the Politburo Standing Committee or the Politburo who belong to the Hu Jintao, the previous president faction, were not there. So it seems that in the next five years at least, Xi Jinping will establish his own absolute personal control of everything in China without much check and balance within the party.

    AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what happened this weekend. Do you think that was deliberately staged to remove the former leader sitting next to Xi Jinping, as a message that he was consolidating his power? Or in fact do you think it is what China said, what the government said, that he wasn’t feeling well?

    HO-FUNG HUNG: In these kind of carefully choreographed rituals of the Communist Party, it is unimaginable that this is kind of an accident or incident that is totally out of nowhere. Of course there is a possibility that he actually felt unwell, but now more video footage emerged from the Spanish and the Singaporean TV showing what happened before former President Hu Jintao was escorted away from the Congress, and it didn’t seem like he is unwell at all. It appears in the video footage that he tried to open a folder with some documents and Li Zhanshu, who is sitting next to him, tried to prevent him from looking at the document and seized the folder, and then Xi Jinping called somebody to come and take him away. Initially, he appeared to be reluctant to leave. Then the guards and the person behind Hu Jintao seems to be using some kind of force to take him away and then he eventually left the Congress reluctantly. After he decided to leave, and he walked quite fast, and then he can walk on his own, and it didn’t seem to me that he is actually really feeling unwell. I don’t think it is the real reason that he left.

    Then, why Xi Jinping called somebody to escort him or even really forcefully take him away from the Congress? I think Xi Jinping’s move is carefully considered and calculated to show that he can do whatever he wants, and he can even take out a former president from the Congress in front of the camera. Of course people are speculating, and I think it is reasonable to suppose so, that Hu Jintao might not be very happy about the so-called election result of the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee without any of his loyalties there, and Xi Jinping might worry that he might give a face or not raising hands or not clapping hands in the final section, so it is a possibility that Xi Jinping deliberately asked somebody to take him out to prevent this embarrassment.

    AMY GOODMAN: Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch, your response to what has taken place and the significance of Xi Jinping beginning this historic third term?

    YAQIU WANG: Well, I think we expected this to happen because in 2018, the term limit for the president was eliminated, but it was still a very depressing moment because it became a fact. I talked to friends and families back in China; people were depressed. Because in the past ten years since Xi came to power, the horrendous human rights violations Xi committed was just striking. And now he’s going to have another five years, at least. I think people are expecting things can go worse, so people were quite depressed. At the same time, people now are very angry with the zero-COVID policy. People are protesting in China. A guy in Beijing posted a banner on a bridge and people responded to that. So on the one hand, I see people are unhappy and depressed. On the other hand, I see people are waking up, and they want to say, “I want freedom. I want human rights. I want to decide how I am governed by my government.”

    AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ho-fung Hung, Xi’s human rights record, what that means and your assessment of his role and the effect he has had on the Chinese people? And your response to the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres talking about this what he called monumental taking on—largest anti-poverty program in history?

    HO-FUNG HUNG: Definitely Xi Jinping, like his predecessor Hu Jintao, is kind of a brutal repressor of human rights. It’s not that human rights violations started with Xi Jinping. Actually in the Jiang Zemin era, in the Hu Jintao era, we already see a lot of crackdowns in the Han majority area and also the non-Han minority regions. But Xi just raised it to a new level as we now are very much aware of. What happened to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, it is happening under Xi Jinping’s watch.

    So in terms of the repression of human rights, the Communist Party, whether it is collective leadership or it is a one-man dictatorship, it has been pretty much the same. What Xi Jinping brought in something new compared to the Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin era is that he even cracked down brutally on his allies, his other elite within the Communist Party. Because after Xi Jinping became the president, he launched an anti-corruption campaign. Then many elites, even senior officials and private business people, disappeared or mysteriously commit suicide or taken to jail under the name of anticorruption campaign. Maybe people would see that it is not exactly anti-corruption campaign; it is more like a purge. In China nowadays, not only dissidents and minorities are afraid, but also some elites and middle-class.

    Also Xi Jinping doubled down on expanding the state sectors, state companies, and making private companies and foreign companies’ life more difficult in making money in China and keeping their wealth and jeopardizing their private property as well. In the next five years at the very least, this kind of draconian policy that I’d call some kind of a North Koreanization of China politics and economy, is going to double down and is going to get even worse.

    AMY GOODMAN: Yaqiu Wang, the significance of Li Qiang? A longtime rival to Xi, he is demoted, while his loyalist Li Qiang looks like he is about to be China’s new premier. You mentioned the crackdown in Shanghai but talk about the significance of the COVID crackdown, what it actually felt and looked like in this massive city.

    YAQIU WANG: It lasted from April to June, for two months that a city of 20 million people are confined to their homes. As a result, people had huge difficulties to have food delivered to them and access to hospitals. I’ve heard stories from people whose parents had a heart attack or other emergency and they could not leave their apartment complex, or even if they managed to leave their apartment complex, they couldn’t actually get into the hospital. So there are people who died as a result of the lack of access to hospital facilities. Then there were the people who had no food. Then there were the people who lost their jobs and they couldn’t pay to get food delivered. So the human rights violations associated with this draconian lockdown was massive. Then it ended, and the people say Li Qiang, the Party secretary of Shanghai, is ultimately responsible for this, and now this guy was promoted. So we can see Xi is rewarding people who were loyal to his policy rather than rewarding people who are good for the public.

    AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ho-fung Hung, relations with China are, if not at an all-time low, extremely bad right now. I am wondering if you can comment on what is taking place. In one of the pieces you wrote, you said the dynamics of U.S.-China rivalry is an inter-imperial rivalry driven by inter-capitalist competition. Competition for the world market could soon turn into intensifying clashes of spheres of influence and even war. So you’re not talking about the difference of ideologies. In fact you’re talking about a similar capitalist ideology.

    HO-FUNG HUNG: Yes, indeed. I myself am not not quite supportive of the framing of the U.S.-China rivalry as a new Cold War. It is a catchphrase used a lot of time nowadays, indicating that the difference between China and U.S. is fundamentally ideological and political. I think of course that this difference is real. It’s very true; there’s a large difference. But it is not a necessary and sufficient conditions that lead to this rivalry between the U.S. and China today. Because right after the 1989 massacre, human rights is already a huge concern about China in the discussion in the U.S., and many people are already very unhappy about what is going on in China with regard to human rights. And Tibet, Xinjiang. It is an old problem, in the 1990s, but in the 1990s, U.S.-China relations get more and more harmonious regardless of this human rights difference and political system difference.

    What is different now in comparison to the 1990s and 2000s is that back in the 1990s and 2000s, transnational corporations, American corporations, they are very happy making money in China. They have a good time in China, and so they don’t care about human rights, they don’t care about labor rights, they don’t care about all kind of political difference between U.S. and China. But so far as they are making big money, they are finding it very profitable in China, so they lobby the U.S. government, the U.S. Congress, to have a more amicable and harmonious relation with China. Whenever there is a concern about labor rights, human rights violation in China, in the Congress, they will lobby against those bills, in the 1990s and 2000s. So the U.S. corporations have been kind of ambassadors of the Chinese government to soften U.S. policy on China, even though geopolitically and in terms of human rights, political system, and ideology, there is already a vast difference.

    What happened around 2010 is that the China economy started to lose steam. Their economic pie no longer expanded that fast. Then the U.S. corporation market share in China started to stagnate or even decline, because the Chinese government is helping the Chinese state enterprise and Chinese private enterprise to expand the market share in China and around the world in the Belt and Road countries, at the expense of U.S. corporations. So it is the turning point.

    U.S. corporations rarely individually voiced their concerns about this business environment in China. Of course there’s also other problems like intellectual property theft and unfair competition and unfair enforcement of regulations, so on and so forth. They don’t voice this concern individually but in the survey, the anonymous survey conducted by for example American Chamber of Commerce in China, and US-China Business Council and all these kinds of business associations in the U.S. all show the American business in China situation is deteriorating. They are looking for diversifying their investment, and they are no longer eager to lobby in the names of Chinese interests.

    This is why the geopolitical difference between U.S. and China, human rights and political difference between U.S. and China can now prevail and influence largely the direction of U.S.-China policy. Fundamentally, it is a kind of inter-capitalist competition between U.S. corporations and China corporations in the Chinese market and in the Belt and Road and all the developing countries’ markets that lead to this deterioration of U.S.-China relations.

    AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to the flashpoint, Taiwan. During his opening address at the Communist Party Congress, Xi Jinping lauded his government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, addressed the economy, China’s military and foreign policy. He also praised Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong, claiming Hong Kong shifted from chaos to governance. President Xi also addressed the issue of Taiwan, which has become this flashpoint between China and the U.S.

    PRESIDENT XI JINPING: [translated] The resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese ourselves to decide. We insist on striving for the prospect of peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and with the greatest effort. However, we are not committed to abandoning the use of force and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures.

    AMY GOODMAN: Yaqiu Wang, your response?

    YAQIU WANG: I think yes, it is obvious that there’s more aggressive rhetoric coming from the Chinese government on the Taiwan issue, and I know people in Taiwan are nervous. But at the same time, I see people in Taiwan, they are very protective of the freedom, of the human rights they have, and they organize themselves together and they want to maintain that freedom. They are alert of the situation and they are active in pushing back the kind of pressure coming from China. Also I’m seeing that governments around the world including the U.S. government are also doing more to support the vibrant democracy in Taiwan. So yes, China has become more aggressive, there is more hostile rhetoric. But at the same time, I also see more pushback from Taiwan and the democracies around the world.

    AMY GOODMAN: Professor Ho-fung Hung, your response?

    HO-FUNG HUNG: Yes, actually I think there are two sides of the question. On the one hand, China is closing closer to using military force to forcefully take Taiwan, on the one hand because the Zero-COVID policy, and many things it did, that Beijing did, over Hong Kong, show that it is no longer a regime that prioritize economic growth and economic prosperity. They prioritize national security and control, absolute control of the Communists Party. Even when it comes to sacrificing the economy, they will do it. So on that regard, that Beijing has less restraint when it decides to attack Taiwan.

    But on the other hand, I think the immediate military threat is not there yet. Because you look at, for example, Russia’s military action against, invasion against Ukraine, there is a path, from the Russian foreign intervention and overseas military deployment in Georgia in 2008, Syria, and also Ukraine in 2014. So these dictators’ logic is that they try a smaller-scale intervention, and if they succeed, they get more confident, more confident, and then full-scale invasion.

    And you look at China; if the leadership is still rational, they will look back to their military history and they will find that the last time China fought a war overseas was 1979 against Vietnam. And the last time China actually have a serious military mobilization of its military, of its army, is 1989, which is against its own people. So China has not actually used the military against any overseas target for decades, so I don’t think it will easily jump from zero to an all-out invasion of Taiwan.

    But I think that Beijing might try to talk up the military rhetoric, the threat, and also might even do some limited military action to take some outlying islands of Taiwan, or some South China Sea Taiwan now controlled by the Taiwan government, as a kind of a threat, or even a partial blockade of Taiwan, to create a kind of tense situation to influence the Taiwan election, to influence what Taiwan people might want to elect for. If Beijing managed to get some of its allies or even its agents elected in Taiwan through election, then the pro-Beijing government can sign agreement with Beijing and do a lot of things that U.S. cannot find a reason to intervene or to deter.

    But I’m confident that the Taiwan people is very clear what is going on and they have a will and they have the capacity to defend their vibrant democracy, which is kind of a miracle, and it is why Beijing finds that Taiwan is a thorn on its back, because it is an ethnic Chinese democracy, and a liberal society which is very vibrant. It shows that actually democracy can work in Chinese society, which actually contradicts Beijing’s propaganda that actually democracy is not suitable for Chinese people. So I am confident that the Taiwan people will have the will and capacity and alertness to defend itself.

    AMY GOODMAN: Ho-fung Hung, we want to thank you for being with us, Sociology Professor at Johns Hopkins University. And thank you so much to Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch. When we come back, midterms are less than two weeks away. Democrats are facing tight races. We’ll speak with former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and author Mark Green about their project Winning America and the new report “Crushing the GOP, 2022.” Stay with us.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Failure to investigate UK imports linked to forced Uyghur labour unlawful, court told

    World Uyghur Forum brings high court challenge against government agencies over Xinjiang cotton imports

    UK government agencies have broken the law by not investigating the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced Uyghur labourers in China, the high court has heard.

    The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is challenging the home secretary, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency (NCA), claiming a failure or refusal to investigate imports from Xinjiang, allegedly home to 380 internment camps, was unlawful.

    Continue reading…

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

  • What is China’s Political System?

    The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China is currently taking place and Dongsheng will be publishing a series of videos in order to better understand this political event. China is at the center of the world’s economy and geopolitics, however little is known about its internal politics.

    So, what is China’s political system? Is it really a dictatorship like the Western media claims?

    The post What is China’s Political System? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • 20th CPC National Congress Report

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • 20th CPC National Congress report
    • China’s EV battery supplies to the US
    • Rice growing in salty, alkaline soil
    • Physical growth of rural children in a decade

    The post 20th CPC National Congress Report first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • China using influencers to whitewash human rights abuses, report finds

    Social media videos by people from the Uyghur community are part of a sophisticated propaganda campaign, thinktank says

    The Chinese Communist party is using social media influencers from troubled regions like Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia to whitewash human rights abuses through an increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign, a report has claimed.

    The report published on Thursday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), described the videos by “frontier influencers” as a growing part of Beijing’s “propaganda arsenal”.

    Continue reading…

  • The Most Powerful Weapon The West Gave Ukraine: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

    Listen to a reading of this article:

    ❖

    It’s pretty wild how the US is sending armored vehicles to Haiti to help quash the exact sort of uprising it’s been actively trying to create in places like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Hong Kong.

    ❖

    The Pentagon is seeking sweeping new powers in preparation for a war with China, the Senate NDAA bill increases proposed military aid to Taiwan from 4.5 to 10 billion dollars, and Tony Blinken is claiming without evidence that Beijing has greatly accelerated its plans to annex Taiwan. This is all as aggressions continue to ramp up against Russia. They really are doing this thing.

    ❖

     

    So it looks like this is what we’ll be doing for the foreseeable future: calling to escalate the war in Ukraine, facilitating the escalation of the war in Ukraine, and then screaming with shock and outrage when the war in Ukraine escalates. That seems to be what we’ve got planned.

    ❖

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    That's because the threat perception doesn't come from geography but from propaganda. Americans are the single most propagandized population on earth. https://t.co/ATBWPt4OXF

    — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 18, 2022

    ❖

    “Maybe my government is actually in the wrong here and is just lying and manipulating to advance its own interests?” should be a much more common thought. It’s a line of inquiry that should be taught to schoolchildren. It is by design that it doesn’t occur to people more often.

    ❖

    The most powerful weapon the west has given Ukraine is not the HIMARS, it’s the US propaganda machine.

    ❖

    The only people who support western proxy warfare in Ukraine are those who deny the extensively documented ways the western empire has provoked, sustained, manipulated and exploited this war. You can only support what’s being done by lying and/or being lied to.

    ❖

    “Calling for de-escalation actually causes escalation” is the single dumbest empire bro talking point yet to emerge from this war.

    ❖

    Still laughing about how liberals just spent months amplifying and celebrating a trolling operation founded by a literal Nazi.

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

    NAFO founder Kamil Dyszewski (@Kama_Kamilia) is an antisemitic gamer from Poland pic.twitter.com/q5YPmDOFYZ

    — Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) October 14, 2022

    ❖

    If nuclear war erupts it won’t matter whose fault it was. It won’t matter who started it. It won’t matter whether Moscow had legitimate claim to Zaporizhzhia. All that will matter is that it happened. There will be no adjudicating responsibility after the fact. We won’t be here.

    The time to turn away from the trajectory toward nuclear war is now, not later. It’s bizarre how many people I get telling me “Well if nuclear war happens it’ll be Putin’s fault,” like that will be any comfort to them as they hug their family close and wait for a horrific death.

    There’s just so much sloppy thinking about the actual end of the world. People aren’t looking directly at this thing and thinking rigorously about what it would mean. What it would entail. This is understandable; it’s a terrible thing to contemplate. But we do urgently need to.

    People don’t seem to get that nuclear annihilation is the one mistake we could make that we can’t ever fix. There’s this unquestioned assumption that if it happened there’d be some kind of course correction afterward, but there won’t be. No one will be here to do it. No takesies backsies.

    People can’t imagine their own absence. That’s why we make up stories about life after death. It’s also why we’re having a hard time squarely facing the prospect of an Earth with no humans on it. People still assume human inventions like “fault” and “blame” will remain after us.

    People kill themselves by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge a lot. The few survivors all say that the first thought they had upon free fall was instant regret. They realize in an instant that every problem they have can be solved except for the one they have just given themselves. Imagine having that thought, but it’s all life on Earth that we’ve killed. That’s what nuclear holocaust is. A moment of instant terrible regret followed by the blackness of the void.

    ❖

    During the Cuban Missile Crisis the top news story every day was how that whole Cuban Missile Crisis situation is going. During the nuclear brinkmanship crisis of 2022 the top news stories are about Kanye, Trump and Alex Jones. We are sleepwalking toward a cliff’s edge.

    ❖

    A sane society would chase off anyone who advocated nuclear brinkmanship and drive them out of human civilization. In our society we give them punditry gigs on mainstream media platforms and lucrative jobs at influential think tanks.

    ❖

    There are people among us who dress up their personal suicidal ideations as a world-weary, humble knowing that humans are shit and we need to die. I call these omnicidal ideations, and they are not noble or humble, they are monstrous and at odds with all of life on earth. If you can’t want to live for yourself, then live for your dog. Live for the ladybugs. Live for all the innocents that don’t deserve any of this.

    ❖

    This is all completely unnecessary. There’s nothing inscribed upon the fabric of reality saying states need to be waving armageddon weapons at each other. There’s no valid reason not to lay aside these games of global conquest and collaborate together toward a healthy coexistence on this planet.

    We could have such a beautiful world. All the energy we pour into competition and conquest could go toward innovation that benefits us all, making sure everyone has enough, eliminating human suffering and the need for human toil. We’re trading heaven on earth for elite ego games.

    There’s no valid reason we can’t move from models of competition and domination to models of collaboration and care. Collaboration with each other; care for each other. Collaboration with our ecosystem; care for our ecosystem. We’re throwing it away in exchange for senseless misery and peril.

    ___________________

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

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  • The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow

    The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.

    A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with France and Russia per se. It focused mostly on China’s growing economic role and political partnerships on the African continent. For example, Beijing’s decision to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 signaled China’s major geopolitical move, by translating its economic influence in the region to political influence, backed by military presence.

    China remains committed to its Africa strategy. Beijing has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 12 years, consecutively, with total bilateral trade between China and Africa, in 2021, reaching $254.3 billion, according to recent data released by the General Administration of Customs of China.

    The United States, along with its western allies, have been aware of, and warning against China’s growing clout in Africa. The establishment of US AFRICOM in 2007 was rightly understood to be a countering measure to China’s influence. Since then, and arguably before, talks of a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ abounded, with new players, including China, Russia, even Turkiye, entering the fray.

    The Russia-Ukraine war, however, has altered geopolitical dynamics in Africa, as it highlighted the Russian-French rivalry on the continent, as opposed to the Chinese-American competition there.

    Though Russia has been present in African politics for years, the war – thus the need for stable allies at the United Nations and elsewhere – accelerated Moscow’s charm offensive. In July, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, fortifying Russia’s diplomatic relations with African leaders.

    “We know that the African colleagues do not approve of the undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites .. to impose a unipolar world order to the international community,” Lavrov said. His words were met with agreement.

    Russian efforts have been paying dividends, as early as the first votes to condemn Moscow at the United Nations General Assembly, in March and April. Many African nations remained either neutral or voted against measures targeting Russia at the UN.

    South Africa’s position, in particular, was problematic from Washington’s perspective, not only because of the size of the country’s economy, but also because of Pretoria’s political influence and moral authority throughout Africa. Moreover, South Africa is the only African member of the G20.

    In his visit to the US in September, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his country’s neutrality and raised objections to a draft US bill – the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act – that is set to monitor and punish African governments who do not conform to the American line in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

    The West fails to understand, however, that Africa’s slow, but determined shift toward Moscow is not haphazard or accidental.

    The history of the continent’s past and current struggle against western colonialism and neocolonialism is well-known. While the West continues to define its relationship with Africa based on exploitation, Russia is constantly reminding African countries of the Soviet’s legacy on the continent. This is not only apparent in official political discourses by Russian leaders and diplomats, but also in Russian media coverage, which is prioritizing Africa and reminding African nations of their historic solidarity with Moscow.

    Burning French flags and raising Russian ones, however, cannot simply be blamed on Russian supposed economic bribes, clever diplomacy or growing military influence. The readiness of African nations – Mali, Central African Republic and, now, possibly, Burkina Faso – has much more to do with mistrust and resentment of France’s self-serving legacy in Africa, West Africa in particular.

    France has military bases in many parts of Africa and remains an active participant in various military conflicts, which has earned it the reputation of being the continent’s main destabilizing force. Equally important is Paris’s stronghold over the economies of 14 African countries, which are forced to use French currency, the CFA franc and, according to Frederic Ange Toure, writing in Le Journal de l’Afrique, to “centralize 50% of their reserves in the French public treasury”.

    Though many African countries remain neutral in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, a massive geopolitical shift is underway, especially in militarily fragile, impoverished and politically unstable countries that are eager to seek alternatives to French and other western powers. For a country like Mali, shifting allegiances from Paris to Moscow was not exactly a great gamble. Bamako had very little to lose, but much to gain. The same logic applies to other African countries that are fighting extreme poverty, political instability and the threat of militancy, all of which are intrinsically linked.

    Though China remains a powerful newcomer to Africa – a reality that continues to frustrate US policymakers – the more urgent battle, for now, is between Russia and France – the latter experiencing a palpable retreat.

    In a speech last July, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted a “rethink of all our (military) postures on the African continent.” France’s military and foreign policy shift in Africa, however, was not compelled by strategy or vision, but by changing realities over which France has little control. 

    The post The Other Russia-West War: Why Some African Countries are Abandoning Paris, Joining Moscow first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • China’s Xi ramps investment in technology arms race

    China’s president Xi Jinping touted a $626 billion investment in science and technology over the last decade and reaffirmed a national goal of becoming one of the world’s most innovative nations by 2035 during a landmark Communist Party address at the weekend. The renewed commitment to sovereign science, technology and skills comes as the United…

    The post China’s Xi ramps investment in technology arms race appeared first on InnovationAus.com.

  • The most powerful man in China since Mao: Xi Jinping is on the brink of total power

    The Communist party will this week confirm Xi as China’s most powerful leader since Mao. What will his extended term of office mean for the country and for its neighbour Taiwan?

    This week in Beijing, Xi Jinping will preside over one of his country’s great shows of political theatre and seal a long-planned political triumph, consolidating his power and extending his rule.

    The Chinese Communist party is poised to formally hand Xi another five years as party boss, and therefore leader of the country, at a summit that will also move his allies into key roles and elevate the status of his writings on power and government.

    Continue reading…

  • UN Votes against US’ Xinjiang Proposal

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • UN votes against US’ Xinjiang proposal
    • Xinjiang exports to more than 80 countries
    • US policy of semiconductor “chokehold”
    • China moved from 34th to 11th position in the Global Innovation Index

    The post UN Votes against US’ Xinjiang Proposal first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Dissidents in China detained and harassed as Beijing prepares for party congress

    Government critics and activists intimidated by police ahead of Sunday’s Communist party meeting, where Xi Jinping is expected to gain third term

    Chinese authorities have stepped up surveillance and harassment of government critics as part of a crackdown on dissent ahead of the Communist party’s upcoming 20th congress, its key political gathering.

    Since mid-September, numerous activists and petitioners seeking to lobby the government have been detained or put under house arrest across China, while many human rights lawyers have been intimidated, harassed and followed by agents. They say authorities, wary that their criticisms of the government could lead to social discontent and threaten the regime, are pulling out all the stops to silence them ahead of the twice-in-decade event, set to start on Sunday.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Report on the 51st session of the Human Rights Council

    The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) and 12 other NGOs gave a joint assessment of the 51st session of the Human Rights Council which was held from Monday 12 September to Friday 7 October 2022. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/09/20/human-rights-defenders-at-the-51st-session-of-the-un-human-rights-council/]

    We welcome that for the first time, the Council heard from two representatives of directly impacted communities from the podium in the enhanced interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner and the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement: Collette Flanagan of Mothers against Police Brutality (MAPB) whose son was killed by United States‘ police in 2013; and Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International in Brazil. As highlighted in the HC’s report, States are continuing to deny the existence and impact of systemic racism, especially institutional racism. Our view is that States actively protect the interests of police institutions in order to maintain the status quo which is designed to oppress Africans and people of African descent.  We call on States to fully implement the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), to fully cooperate with the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the context of Law Enforcement including accepting country visits, implement the recommendations from their report and the High Commissioner’s Agenda towards Transformative Change for Racial justice and Equality.

    We welcome the ‘from rhetoric to reality: a global call for concrete action against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance’ resolution. The resolution, interalia,  strongly condemns the discriminatory treatment, unlawful deportations, excessive use of force and deaths of African migrants and migrants of African descent, including refugees and asylum-seekers, at the hands of law enforcement officials engaged in migration and border governance. It calls on States to ensure accountability and reparations for human rights violations at borders and to adopt a racial justice approach, including by adopting policies to address structural racism in the management of international migration. It reiterates that the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans and colonialism were grave violations of international law that require States to make reparations proportionate to the harms committed and to ensure that structures in the society that are perpetuating the injustices of the past are transformed, including law enforcement and administration of justice and to dispense reparatory justice to remedy historical racial injustices…..

    We welcome the resolution on the “human rights implications of new and emerging technologies in the military domain” and its request for a study examining these implications. The adoption of the resolution adds to the growing attention that UN human rights mechanisms are paying to the negative human rights impacts of arms, including new technologies that can be weaponised.  It is undoubtable that concerns relating to the military domain should not be seen as only relevant to disarmament fora. In response to comments from some States on whether international humanitarian law (IHL) falls within the remit of HRC, we recall that international human rights law and IHL are complementary and mutually reinforcing, as the HRC itself has reiterated on several occasions in past resolutions. We welcome the inclusion of paragraph on the responsibility to respect human rights of business enterprises, and in this regard, we recall the Information Note by the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights on the Arms Industry (“Responsible business conduct in the arms sector: Ensuring business practice in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights”) published in August 2022. While we welcome the reference in the resolution to the role of human rights defenders and civil society organisations in raising awareness about the human rights impacts of the use of new and emerging technologies in the military domain, we regret that it does not include a specific mention of the risks that the use of these technologies can pose for human rights defenders and civil society organisations.

    We welcome the resolution on arbitrary detention and especially the inclusion of a new paragraph on the necessity to fully implement the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. The resolution recognises the role of HRDs, peaceful protesters, journalists and media workers in safeguarding the prohibition of arbitrary deprivation of liberty and calls upon States to make sure that they are not arbitrarily detained as a result of their activities. We further commend the main sponsor, France, for having rejected any language that could have weakened the resolution, especially on the right to legal assistance.

    We welcome the adoption of the safety of journalists resolution. It has now been a decade since the first resolution on this topic, and the HRC has since created an elaborate and robust set of international standards to protect journalists. This iteration of the resolution adds new strong commitments on multiple new and emerging issues affecting journalists, from strategic lawsuits against public participation to extraterritorial attacks. It also strengthens language on investigations into attacks against journalists, calling on authorities to exhaust lines of enquiry that determine whether such attacks are linked to their journalistic work. We now urge States to implement these commitments to their full extent.

    We welcome the approval by consensus by the Council of the resolution on terrorism and human rights, that has been updated with important paragraphs related to the centrality of the rule of law and human rights to counter terrorism, international human rights obligations in transfers of terrorist suspects, profiling of individuals, detention, the right to a fair trial and other due process guarantees, the right to privacy and freedom of expression, and in relation to children rights and civil society. We regret that paragraphs stemming from security based concerns have increased even though they are unrelated to the competence of the Council to promote human rights.

    We warmly welcome the adoption of the resolution on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation, mandating a Special Rapporteur on Russia for the first time. …The Russian Federation’s growing repressive policies, combined with the country’s exclusion from the Council of Europe – victims of new human rights violations committed by the Russian Federation from 17 September lost protection under the European Convention on Human Rights– and its diplomatic isolation from those States which have been supportive of human rights and civil society in Russia, have made it increasingly difficult for Russian human rights defenders, activists, and civil society organisations to engage with the international community. Russian civil society had been vocal in calling for a Special Rapporteur’s mandate, strongly believing it will help to create a bridge between the United Nations and Russian civil society and the wider general public in Russia at an acute moment of widespread domestic human rights violations, both ensuring their voice is heard at an international level, and that the United Nations can further develop its understanding and analysis of the deterioration in Russia’s domestic human rights situation and the implications that has had – and continues to have – for Russia’s foreign policy decisions.

    We welcome the extension and strengthening of the OHCHR capacity to collect, consolidate, analyse and preserve evidence and information and to develop strategies for future accountability, as well as to extend the mandate for enhanced monitoring and reporting by the OHCHR on Sri Lanka. Given the complete lack of any credible avenues for accountability at the national level, the OHCHR’s Sri Lanka Accountability Project remains the only hope of justice, more than thirteen years after the war, for thousands of victims of war time atrocities and their families.

    We welcome the UN Secretary General’s report on missing people in Syria; and urge States to support and implement the report’s findings, in line with resolution A/HRC/51/L.18 which underscored “the report’s finding that any measure towards addressing the continuing tragedy of missing persons in the Syrian Arab Republic requires a coherent and holistic approach going beyond current efforts, which must be inclusive and centered on victims”. Addressing the issue of missing persons in Syria requires a “new international institution” mandated to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons, to “work in cooperation and complementarity with existing mechanisms”, the body having “a structural element that ensures that victims, survivors and their families […] may participate in a full and meaningful manner in its operationalization and work” as recommended in the study of the Secretary General.

    The Council has taken a vitally important step in renewing the mandate of the Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela and of the reporting mandate of OHCHR for a further two years. In its most recent report, A/HRC/51/43, the Fact-Finding Mission deepened its investigation of alleged crimes against humanity, making clear that alleged perpetrators remain in power. The ongoing accountability drive through the work of the Mission allied with the work of OHCHR, is key to providing victims of violations with hope for justice. It is also key to the prevention of ongoing violations, particularly in the context of upcoming elections, and of encouraging political processes that respect human rights.

    We regret that the Council failed to respond adequately to several human rights situations including Afghanistan, China, Philippines, and Yemen.

    We welcome the extension and strengthening of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan. However, this in no way makes up for the Council’s repeated failure to respond to the calls from Afghan human rights defenders, especially women human rights defenders, and civil society for an independent accountability mechanism with a mandate and resources to investigate the full scope of violations abuses that continue to be committed in Afghanistan by all parties and to preserve evidence of these violations for future accountability. It is particularly concerning that despite the overwhelming evidence of gross violations and abuses in Afghanistan that the Council failed to muster consensus on even the bare minimum.

    We deplore that this Council was unable to endorse the proposal for a debate on Xinjiang, after the UN identified possible crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese government against Uyghurs and Turkic peoples. Dialogue is a pillar of multilateralism, and is fundamental, even on the hardest issues. Despite the leadership of the core group and all 18 States who voted in favour, this Council looked the other way. We strongly condemn the 19 countries who blocked this proposal, and regret all the abstentions that enabled it. We particularly regret that leading OIC States Indonesia and Qatar, as well as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the UAE, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, Sudan, Gabon, Cameroon and Eritrea, decided to abandon Uyghurs and Muslim minorities in China. We command Somalia for being the only Muslim Council member to stand up for Muslim minorities. Uyghur and international human rights groups won’t give up efforts to hold China accountable. We urgently call on current and future Council members to support efforts to prevent the continuation of atrocity crimes in Xinjiang, and uphold this Council’s credibility and moral authority. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2022/10/05/uyghur-issue-at-the-un-human-rights-council-will-there-be-even-a-debate/]

    We are deeply disappointed that despite the High Commissioner’s clear recommendation and demands by victims and their families as well as civil society from the Philippines, the Council has failed to put forward a resolution mandating the High Commissioner to continue monitoring and reporting on the situation, allowing the Philippines to use the rhetoric of cooperation and the UN Joint Programme for Human Rights to window-dress its appalling human rights record without any tangible progress or scrutiny.

    We are dismayed by an Item 10 resolution that will not allow for reporting to the HRC on the human rights situation in Yemen.   Despite a truce that now looks in danger of collapsing, the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Yemen has not ended.  …Lasting peace in Yemen requires a sustained commitment by the international community to ensure accountability and redress for the millions of victims in Yemen. We call on UN member states to give meaning to the pledges they have made and begin to work toward the establishment of an international independent investigative mechanism on Yemen.

    On 10 October 2022 a Blog post of the Universal Rights NGO gave the following quick summary of this session of the Human Rights Council

    With Ms. Michelle Bachelet’s mandate as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights having come to an end on 31 August 2022, and the incoming UN High Commissioner, Mr. Volker Türk, not taking up his official functions until 17 October 2022, Ms. Nada Al-Nashif, opened, as Acting High Commissioner, by presenting a global update on the situation of human rights around the world.

    Four new Special Procedures mandate-holders were appointed to the following mandates: the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance (India), the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (Colombia), the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers (United States of America), and one member of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (from Eastern European States).

    9 expert members were elected to the Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee (from Algeria, Angola, China, Qatar, Slovenia, Spain, Uruguay, Bahamas, Brazil).

    42 texts (39 resolutions, one decision, and one statement by the President) were considered by the Council. This represents a 52% increase in the number of adopted texts compared to one-year prior (HRC48). Of the 41 adopted texts, 30 were adopted by consensus (73%), and 11 by a recorded vote (27%).

    The Council rejected a draft decision to hold a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China by vote (17 votes in favour, 19 against, and 11 abstentions).

    Following the adoption by vote of a draft resolution on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation (17 votes in favour, 6 against, and 24 abstentions), the Council created a new Special Procedure mandate on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation for a period of one year, and requested the mandate holder to make recommendations and to present a comprehensive report to the Council at its 54th session and to the General Assembly at its 78th session, while calling upon the Russian authorities to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur.

    The Council further extended the mandates of 8 thematic Special Procedures (i.e., the Independent Expert on older persons; the Special Rapporteurs on the right to development, on contemporary forms of slavery, on the rights to water and sanitation, on Indigenous Peoples, and on the right to health, as well as the Working Groups on arbitrary detention, and on mercenaries), and 7 country-specific mechanisms (i.e., the Special Rapporteurs on Afghanistan, and on Burundi; the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia; the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the International Team of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Central African Republic; and the mandate of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia).

    25 written amendments were tabled by States ahead of the consideration of texts by the Council but 14 were withdrawn by the main sponsor prior to voting. The remaining 11 amendments were rejected by a vote. Additionally, one oral amendment was brought forward by China during voting proceedings.

    31 of the texts adopted by the Council (79%) had Programme Budget Implications (PBI) and required new appropriations not included in previous Programme Budgets. 

    https://ishr.ch/latest-updates/hrc51-civil-society-presents-key-takeaways-from-human-rights-council/

    https://www.universal-rights.org/urg-human-rights-council-reports/report-on-the-51st-session-of-the-human-rights-council/

  • Ukraine Isn’t the Only Place Nuclear War Could Threaten to Erupt

    Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s recent implicit threat to employ nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its NATO allies continue to arm Ukraine — “This is not a bluff,” he insisted on September 21st — the perils in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict once again hit the headlines. And it’s entirely possible, as ever more powerful U.S. weapons pour into Ukraine and Russian forces suffer yet more defeats, that the Russian president might indeed believe that the season for threats is ending and only the detonation of a nuclear weapon will convince the Western powers to back off. If so, the war in Ukraine could prove historic in the worst sense imaginable — the first conflict since World War II to lead to nuclear devastation.

    But hold on! As it happens, Ukraine isn’t the only place on the planet where a nuclear conflagration could erupt in the near future. Sad to say, around the island of Taiwan — where U.S. and Chinese forces are engaging in ever more provocative military maneuvers — there is also an increasing risk that such moves by both sides could lead to nuclear escalation.

    While neither American nor Chinese officials have explicitly threatened to use such weaponry, both sides have highlighted possible extreme outcomes there. When Joe Biden last spoke with Xi Jinping by telephone on July 29th, the Chinese president warned him against allowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit the island (which she nonetheless did, four days later) or offering any further encouragement to “Taiwan independence forces” there. “Those who play with fire will perish by it,” he assured the American president, an ambiguous warning to be sure, but one that nevertheless left open the possible use of nuclear weapons.

    As if to underscore that point, on September 4th, the day after Pelosi met with senior Taiwanese officials in Taipei, China fired 11 Dongfeng-15 (DF-15) ballistic missiles into the waters around that island. Many Western observers believe that the barrage was meant as a demonstration of Beijing’s ability to attack any U.S. naval vessels that might come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese blockade or invasion of the island. And the DF-15, with a range of 600 miles, is believed capable of delivering not only a conventional payload, but also a nuclear one.

    In the days that followed, China also sent nuclear-capable H-6 heavy bombers across the median line in the Taiwan Strait, a previously respected informal boundary between China and that island. Worse yet, state-owned media displayed images of Dongfeng-17 (DF-17) hypersonic ballistic missiles, also believed capable of carrying nuclear weapons, being moved into positions off Taiwan.

    Washington has not overtly deployed nuclear-capable weaponry in such a brazen fashion near Chinese territory, but it certainly has sent aircraft carriers and guided-missile warships into the area, signaling its ability to launch attacks on the mainland should a war break out. While Pelosi was in Taiwan, for example, the Navy deployed the carrier USS Ronald Reagan with its flotilla of escort vessels in nearby waters. Military officials in both countries are all too aware that should such ships ever attack Chinese territory, those DF-15s and DF-17s would be let loose against them — and, if armed with nuclear warheads, would likely provoke a U.S. nuclear response.

    The implicit message on both sides: a nuclear war might be possible. And although — unlike with Putin’s comments — the American media hasn’t highlighted the way Taiwan might trigger such a conflagration, the potential is all too ominously there.

    “One China” and “Strategic Ambiguity”

    In reality, there’s nothing new about the risk of nuclear war over Taiwan. In both the Taiwan Strait crises of 1954-1955 and 1958, the United States threatened to attack a then-nonnuclear China with such weaponry if it didn’t stop shelling the Taiwanese-controlled islands of Kinmen (Quemoy) and Mazu (Matsu), located off that country’s coast. At the time, Washington had no formal relations with the communist regime on the mainland and recognized the Republic of China (ROC) — as Taiwan calls itself — as the government of all China. In the end, however, U.S. leaders found it advantageous to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in place of the ROC and the risk of a nuclear conflict declined precipitously — until recently.

    Credit the new, increasingly perilous situation to Washington’s changing views of Taiwan’s strategic value to America’s dominant position in the Pacific as it faces the challenge of China’s emergence as a great power. When the U.S. officially recognized the PRC in 1978, it severed its formal diplomatic and military relationship with the ROC, while “acknowledg[ing] the Chinese position that there is but one China and [that] Taiwan is part of China.” That stance — what came to be known as the “One China” policy — has, in fact, underwritten peaceful relations between the two countries (and Taiwan’s autonomy) ever since, by allowing Chinese leaders to believe that the island would, in time, join the mainland.

    Taiwan’s safety and autonomy has also been preserved over the years by another key feature of U.S. policy, known as “strategic ambiguity.” It originated with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, a measure passed in the wake of the U.S. decision to recognize the PRC as the legal government of all China. Under the act, still in effect, the U.S. is empowered to supply Taiwan with “defensive” arms, while maintaining only semi-official ties with its leadership. It also says that Washington would view any Chinese attempt to alter Taiwan’s status through violent means as a matter “of grave concern,” but without explicitly stating that the U.S. will come to Taiwan’s aid if that were to occur. Such official ambiguity helped keep the peace, in part by offering Taiwan’s leadership no guarantee that Washington would back them if they declared independence and China invaded, while giving the leaders of the People’s Republic no assurance that Washington would remain on the sidelines if they did.

    Since 1980, both Democratic and Republican administrations have relied on such strategic ambiguity and the One China policy to guide their peaceful relations with the PRC. Over the years, there have been periods of spiking tensions between Washington and Beijing, with Taiwan’s status a persistent irritant, but never a fundamental breach in relations. And that — consider the irony, if you will — has allowed Taiwan to develop into a modern, prosperous quasi-state, while escaping involvement in a major-power confrontation (in part because it just didn’t figure prominently enough in U.S. strategic thinking).

    From 1980 to 2001, America’s top foreign-policy officials were largely focused on defeating the Soviet Union, dealing with the end of the Cold War, and expanding global trade opportunities. Then, from September 11, 2001, to 2018, their attention was diverted to the Global War on Terror. In the early years of the Trump administration, however, senior military officials began switching their focus from the War on Terror to what they termed “great-power competition,” arguing that facing off against “near-peer” adversaries, namely China and Russia, should be the dominant theme in military planning. And only then did Taiwan acquire a different significance.

    The Pentagon’s new strategic outlook was first spelled out in the National Defense Strategy of February 2018 in this way: “The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term, strategic competition” with China and Russia. (And yes, the emphasis was in the original.) China, in particular, was identified as a vital threat to Washington’s continued global dominance. “As China continues its economic and military ascendance,” the document asserted, “it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”

    An ominous “new Cold War” era had begun.

    Taiwan’s Strategic Significance Rises

    To prevent China from achieving that most feared of all results, “Indo-Pacific regional hegemony,” Pentagon leaders devised a multipronged strategy, combining an enhanced U.S. military presence in the region with beefed-up, ever more militarized ties with America’s allies there. As that 2018 National Defense Strategy put it, “We will strengthen our alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific to a networked security architecture capable of deterring aggression, maintaining stability, and ensuring free access to common domains.” Initially, that “networked security architecture” was only to involve long-term allies like Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Soon enough, however, Taiwan came to be viewed as a crucial part of such an architecture.

    To grasp what this meant, imagine a map of the Western Pacific. In seeking to “contain” China, Washington was relying on a chain of island and peninsular allies stretching from South Korea and Japan to the Philippines and Australia. Japan’s southernmost islands, including Okinawa — the site of major American military bases (and a vigorous local anti-base movement) — do reach all the way into the Philippine Sea. Still, there remains a wide gap between them and Luzon, the northernmost Philippine island. Smack in the middle of that gap lies… yep, you guessed it, Taiwan.

    In the view of the top American military and foreign policy officials, for the United States to successfully prevent China from becoming a major regional power, it would have to bottle up that country’s naval forces within what they began calling “the first island chain” — the string of nations stretching from Japan to the Philippines and Indonesia. For China to thrive, as they saw it, that nation’s navy would have to be able to send its ships past that line of islands and reach deep into the Pacific. You won’t be surprised to learn, then, that solidifying U.S. defenses along that very chain became a top Pentagon priority — and, in that context, Taiwan has, ominously enough, come to be viewed as a crucial piece in the strategic puzzle.

    Last December, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner summed up the Pentagon’s new way of thinking about the island’s geopolitical role when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last December. “Taiwan,” he said, “is located at a critical node within the first island chain, anchoring a network of U.S. allies and partners that is critical to the region’s security and critical to the defense of vital U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific.”

    This new perception of Taiwan’s “critical” significance has led senior policymakers in Washington to reconsider the basics, including their commitment to a One China policy and to strategic ambiguity. While still claiming that One China remains White House policy, President Biden has repeatedly insisted all too unambiguously that the U.S. has an obligation to defend Taiwan if attacked. When asked recently on Sixty Minutes whether “U.S. forces…would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion,” Biden said, without hesitation, “Yes.” The administration has also upgraded its diplomatic ties with the island and promised it billions of dollars’ worth of arms transfers and other forms of military assistance. In essence, such moves constitute a de facto abandonment of “One China” and its replacement with a “one China, one Taiwan” policy.

    Not surprisingly, the Chinese authorities have reacted to such comments and the moves accompanying them with increasing apprehension and anger. As seen from Beijing, they represent the full-scale repudiation of multiple statements acknowledging Taiwan’s indivisible ties to the mainland, as well as a potential military threat of the first order should that island become a formal U.S. ally. For President Xi and his associates, this is simply intolerable.

    “The repeated attempts by the Taiwan authorities to look for U.S. support for their independence agenda as well as the intention of some Americans to use Taiwan to contain China” are deeply troubling, President Xi told Biden during their telephone call in November 2021. “Such moves are extremely dangerous, just like playing with fire. Whoever plays with fire will get burned.”

    Since then, Chinese officials have steadily escalated their rhetoric, threatening war in ever more explicit terms. “If the Taiwanese authorities, emboldened by the United States, keep going down the road for independence,” Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the U.S., typically told NPR in January 2022, “it most likely will involve China and the United States, the two big countries, in military conflict.”

    To demonstrate its seriousness, China has begun conducting regular air and naval exercises in the air- and sea-space surrounding Taiwan. Such maneuvers usually involve the deployment of five or six warships and a dozen or more warplanes, as well as ever greater displays of firepower, clearly with the intention of intimidating the Taiwanese leadership. On August 5th, for example, the Chinese deployed 13 warships and 68 warplanes in areas around Taiwan and two days later, 14 ships and 66 planes.

    Each time, the Taiwanese scramble their own aircraft and deploy coastal defense vessels in response. Accordingly, as China’s maneuvers grow in size and frequency, the risk of an accidental or unintended clash becomes ever more likely. The increasingly frequent deployment of U.S. warships to nearby waters only adds to this explosive mix. Every time an American naval vessel is sent through the Taiwan Strait — something that occurs almost once a month now — China scrambles its own air and sea defenses, producing a comparable risk of unintended violence.

    This was true, for example, when the guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville sailed through that strait on August 28th. According to Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, China’s military “conducted security tracking and monitoring of the U.S. warships’ passage during their whole course and had all movements of the U.S. warships under control.”

    No Barriers to Escalation?

    If it weren’t for the seemingly never-ending war in Ukraine, the dangers of all of this might be far more apparent and deemed far more newsworthy. Unfortunately, at this point, there are no indications that either Beijing or Washington is prepared to scale back its provocative military maneuvers around Taiwan. That means an accidental or unintended clash could occur at any time, possibly triggering a full-scale conflict.

    Imagine, then, what a decision by Taiwan to declare full independence or by the Biden administration to abandon the One China policy could mean. China would undoubtedly respond aggressively, perhaps with a naval blockade of the island or even a full-scale invasion. Given the increasingly evident lack of interest among the key parties in compromise, a violent outcome appears ever more likely.

    However such a conflict erupts, it may prove difficult to contain the fighting at a “conventional” level. After all, both sides are wary of another war of attrition like the one unfolding in Ukraine and have instead shaped their military forces for rapid, firepower-intensive combat aimed at securing a decisive victory quickly. For Beijing, this could mean firing hundreds of ballistic missiles at U.S. ships and air bases in the region with the aim of eliminating any American capacity to attack its territory. For Washington, it might mean launching missiles at China’s key ports, air bases, radar stations, and command centers. In either case, the results could prove catastrophic. For the U.S., the loss of its carriers and other warships; for China, the loss of its very capacity to make war. Would leaders of the losing side accept such a situation without resorting to nuclear weapons? No one can say for sure, but the temptation to escalate would undoubtedly be great.

    Unfortunately, at the moment, there are no U.S.-China negotiations under way to resolve the Taiwan question, to prevent unintended clashes in the Taiwan Strait, or to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. In fact, China quite publicly cut off all discussion of bilateral issues, ranging from military affairs to climate change, in the wake of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. So, it’s essential, despite the present focus on escalation risks in Ukraine, to recognize that avoiding a war over Taiwan is no less important — especially given the danger that such a conflict could prove of even greater destructiveness. That’s why it’s so critical that Washington and Beijing put aside their differences long enough to initiate talks focused on preventing such a catastrophe.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • UN vote to ignore human rights abuses in China leaves west in dead end

    Result not to debate its own damning report shows many states are unwilling to take sides in power struggle between China and west

    In a display of raw Chinese political power, the UN has voted to turn its back on a report written by its own human rights commissioner that accused Beijing of serious human rights abuses and possible crimes against humanity in Xinjiang province.

    The 47-strong UN human rights council meeting in Geneva voted on Thursday by 19 to 17 to reject an American-led call for a debate on the report at the next human rights council in spring. Eleven countries abstained. A simple majority was required.

    Continue reading…

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

  • Honiara doesn’t want to be forced to choose sides, says Foreign Minister

    RNZ Pacific

    Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele says the country joined an agreement with the United States only after changes to wording relating to China.

    He said the country did not want to be forced to choose sides, and the Pacific should be seen as a region of peace and cooperation.

    Manele was in Wellington today for an official meeting with his New Zealand counterpart Nanaia Mahuta, and was welcomed to Parliament with a pōwhiri today.

    Solomon Islands has been a central focus in discussions over partnerships and security in the region after it signed a partnership agreement with China in April.

    After a draft of the agreement was leaked in March, New Zealand had described it as “gravely concerning”, but the full text of the final document has never been made public.

    The US has been working to contain China’s growing influence with Pacific countries, and last week brought leaders of 12 Pacific nations to Washington DC for two days with the aim of finalising a new Pacific strategy with a joint declaration of partnership.

    Solomon Islands had initially refused to sign the declaration, which covered 11 areas of cooperation, but later agreed after a requirement for Pacific Island states to consult with each other before signing security deals with regional impacts was removed.

    Decision clarified
    Manele clarified that decision when questioned by reporters this afternoon.

    “In the initial draft there were some references that we were not comfortable with, but then the officials under the discussions and negotiations … were able to find common ground, and then that took us on board, so we signed,” he said.

    Asked what specifically they were uncomfortable with, he confirmed it related to indirect references to China.

    “There was some references that put us in a position that we would have to choose sides, and we don’t want to be placed in a position that we have to choose sides.”

    He said the Solomons’ agreement with China was domestically focused and did not include provision for a military base.

    “My belief … and my hope is this — that the Pacific should be a region of peace, of co-operation and collaboration, and it should not be seen as a region of confrontation, of conflict and of war,” he said.

    “And of course we are guided by the existing regional security arrangements that we have in place — and these are the Biketawa declaration as well as the Boe declaration.

    US re-engagement welcomed
    “We welcome the US re-engagement with the Pacific and we look forward to working with all our partners.”

    After securing its partnership agreement, US officials acknowledged they had let the relationship with Pacific nations “drift” in recent years, and there was more work to do.

    Powhiri for Solomon Islands foreign minister Jeremiah Manele
    A pōwhiri for Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

    Manele said he was “delighted” to be in Aotearoa for the first time in about eight years, after his previous plans to visit two years ago were put on hold by the covid-19 pandemic.

    He thanked New Zealand for support in helping manage and contain the virus, including with vaccines and medical equipment.

    Manele said the discussion between the ministers covered the RSE scheme, the need to review the air services agreement, the 2050 Blue Pacific strategy, and maritime security.

    He was keen to stress the importance of increased flights between New Zealand and Solomon Islands.

    “I think this is important, we are tasking our officials to start a conversation, we’ll be writing formally to the government of New Zealand to review the air services agreement that we have between our two countries,” he said.

    Boost for business, tourism
    “This will not only facilitate the RSE scheme but I hope will also facilitate the movement of investors and business people and general tourism.”

    The country was also hopeful of more diplomatic engagement with New Zealand.

    “Not only at the officials level but also at the ministerial level and at the leaders level, and your Prime Minister has an invitation to my Prime Minister to visit New Zealand in the near future, and my Prime Minister is looking forward to visiting.”

    NZ Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta
    New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta welcomes Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

    Increased engagement would be required, he said, from all Pacific Island Forum partners, including Australia and New Zealand, to tackle climate change in line with the Blue Pacific Continent 2050 strategy agreed at the most recent Forum meeting in Fiji.

    Both Manele and Mahuta highlighted climate change as the greatest threat to security in the region.

    He was to attend a roundtable discussion with New Zealand business leaders this evening.

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

  • Opportunistic interests: The US-Pacific Island Declaration

    If ever there was a blatant statement of realpolitik masquerading as friendliness, the latest United States-Pacific Island declaration must count as one of them, writes Binoy Kampmark.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • The China Coup Dupes

    It all caused a flutter amongst the ignorant and expectant on September 21.  China, it was said, was in the grip of an intriguing internal crisis. Air traffic had dramatically altered, with some 9,583 flights cancelled.  There were talking heads aflame with interest on the latest social media morsel, minute and yet profound.

    The issue of flight cancellations was then spuriously linked to claims that President Xi Jinping had gone absent on his return from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Uzbekistan.  To this could be added two unconnected facts.  General Li Qiaoming, after having occupied his post for five years, was moving on, though where was not certain.  There were also the remarks of a retired centurion, a 105-year-old former politician, who spoke about respecting elders.

    The media rush to tie the string around these events was aggressive.  It involved Gordon Chang, infamous proponent of the “collapse of China” theory, being consulted for expert advice by such outlets as Newsweek.  Chang’s tweets were generously quoted as sagacious observations: “[W]hatever happened inside this #Chinese military during the last three days – evidently something unusual occurred – tells us there is turbulence inside the senior #CCP leadership.”

    Another gem from Chang was the view that much smoke had been detected, suggesting that “there is fire somewhere.  We don’t think there has actually been a coup, but at this point there have been some extremely troubling developments at the top of the Communist Party as well as the top of the People’s Liberation Army, which reports to the party, so something is terribly wrong.”

    From this failed soothsayer, the “decision to cancel 60 per cent of its flights on Wednesday” and a “widely shared video” shared on social media showing “a line of military vehicles up to 80 kilometres long heading into Beijing” were key indicators that something was amiss in the centre of power.

    Going further back the line of disinformation, one finds the channel New Tang Dynasty TV taking interest in the opinions of a dissident Zhao Lanjian, who made much of the flight cancellations.  That particular assessment was always going to be influenced by the fact that New Tang Dynasty is an important platform for the views of the religious group Falun Gong.  The group has, as its primary ambition, the elimination of the Chinese Communist Party.  The network also fanned the disappearance narrative regarding Xi and his apparent house arrest.

    Then came the role of Jennifer Zeng, a New York-based Falun Gong blogger, asking the question whether Xi had been arrested and whether three senior anti-Xi officials had been sentenced to death.  Her efforts, according to The Print, were part of a “sprawling media ecosystem” backed by Falun Gong.

    The rumour mill began to move at giddying speed.  India became the hotspot of dissemination.  The Noida-based Hindi news channel India TV was an avid enthusiast of the coup conspiracy theory.  The Indian politician Subramanian Swamy, with a Twitter following of 10 million, also got busy with tweeting on September 24, wondering about the “rumour” that the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party had “removed Xi from the Party’s in-charge of Army.  Then House arrest followed.”

    By September 26, flights had resumed their merry way, with that occasionally useful tracking site flightradar24 showing a resumption of traffic from the Beijing Daxing International Airport.  But that did not get away from the other fact missed by the starry-eyed coup assessors: that the previous three weeks had also seen high cancellation rates for flights.  These included 60.1 per cent, 69 per cent and 64.1 per cent respectively.

    The evidence supposedly mounted in favour of a coup began to look sketchy and even absurd.  There was no evidence of a military convoy stretching 80km entering the capital, despite the excitement caused by a video purporting to make that claim.  Logically, a British tech company that claims to “tackle” the harms arising from “misleading and deceptive online discourse”, found that the coverage in question related to a military convoy on the move last year.

    Another video claiming to show an explosion that had supposedly taken place in the course of the alleged coup was from 2015, identifiable on Daily Motion and titled “Huge Explosion in Tianjin, China, 200 Tons TNT Equivalent.”  That particular conflagration was distinctly not fictional.  In the course of the explosion, 700 tonnes of sodium cyanide kept at the facilities of Ruihai International Logistic caught fire, leading to 173 fatalities.

    The China Coup episode deserved a good mocking and Georg Fahrion of Der Spiegel was happy to do so. “Today in Beijing,” he noted with chirpy promise, “I investigated the China coup so you don’t have to.  At considerable personal risk, I ventured out to some neuralgic key points in the city.  Disturbing finds.  Brace yourself.”

    Fahrion went on to talk about the main entrance to Zhongnanhai compound, “where the entire central leadership works, including Xi Jinping.”  Mockingly, he tells us that paratroopers of elite grade “have wrested control over the gate, cunningly disguised as the five middle-aged dudes who always stand there.”

    The logic and strength of a lie is its fecund, reproductive power.  Mentioned constantly, reiterated and spread, it grows the legs of truth, and does a merry dance.  Sometimes, that dance is innocent enough; often, it’s not.  When it comes to speculating about coups and plots in such centres of power as China, the implications of getting that wrong are too grave to contemplate.

    The post The China Coup Dupes first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • China is Not Capitalist and it is Not Yet Communist

    There are many western commentators who, apparently in profound dismay that a country which holds up the banner of socialism could be so economically successful, tiresomely deny that China practises socialism and insist that it is instead capitalist.

    Author Jeff Brown wrote that China is “history’s most successful socialist and communist country.”

    This conflation of communism and socialism is common but inaccurate. It fudges that, according to Marxist thought, socialism is an earlier stage in the process of reaching the end goal of communism.

    That writer Ron Leighton asserts in his piece that “China is Capitalist” is rather simplistic. Laissez faire capitalism, neoliberalism, and exploitation of other nations are antithetical to Chinese political-economic practice.

    Dictionary Definitions

    Socialism: “a theory or system of social organization that advocates the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, capital, land, etc., by the community as a whole, usually through a centralized government.”

    Communism: “a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.”

    Capitalism: “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.”

    Is there an extant purely capitalist society? What do hospitals, schools, the fire department, the police, military, etc represent? The fact is that capitalism, because of its proclivity to concentrate wealth in a few hands, could not survive in a society without wealth redistribution.

    The Communist Party of China prioritized pulling all its citizens out of absolute poverty and achieved this in late 2021. What “capitalist” country has achieved this? The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — despite a scorched earth bombardment by the US, climatological disasters suffered, and continuous sanctions against it — has achieved tuition-free education for all, kindergarten through university; free preschool; universal healthcare; full employment; and universal housing. What capitalist countries have achieved this? In fact, my North Korean guide proudly opined that the DPRK was more socialist than China.

    China now strives toward becoming a xiaokang society, a moderately prosperous society — basically a society where almost everyone has attained a middle class level. This is hardly what one would expect to be prioritized under capitalism’s law of the jungle.

    Unhindered, a system of socialism should function without need for capitalism.

    Nonetheless, arguing about whether China is communist or capitalist is futile. China is neither.

    If one wants to know what political-economic system China adheres to then check in with China’s chairman Xi Jinping. He states clearly in his book On the Governance of China that China follows and applies Marxist-Leninism to the Chinese context and that China is currently in the early stage of socialism, what Chinese call Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The “Communist” in the Communist Party of China indicates the end goal, as Xi also makes clear in his book.

    China emphasizes peace, the freedom for each nation to choose a system which best suits it, win-win commerce, and an improved life for people of all nations. It does not seek to impose a political-economic system on others, and it does not emphasize profit over people.

    Sounds quite distant from capitalism.

    The post China is Not Capitalist and it is Not Yet Communist first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • European Demand for Chinese Heaters

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • European demand for Chinese heaters
    • China-Afghanistan corridor trial
    • MBA curricula to incorporate Xi’s ideas
    • Comprehensive education reform

    The post European Demand for Chinese Heaters first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.