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Category: China

  • Taiwan Is A Distraction

    China considers this belligerent approach as a threat to their stated One Country, Two Systems policy as well as a threat to the 1992 consensus. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait reached the consensus in 1992 that “both sides belong to one China and will work together toward national reunification”. It defines the fundamental nature of the cross-Strait relationship and lays the political foundation for its development.

    Taiwan is being used as a casus belli (an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify war) in the very same way that Ukraine was used and is currently used. A war of media, tremendous even brutal propaganda to their own citizens to paint the enemy as evil to justify their own actions, continual accusations using a human rights platform, and doubling down!

    The post Taiwan Is A Distraction appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

  • Interest Rate Hikes Will Not Save Us from Inflation

    Rather than making money harder to get, the U.S. government needs to focus on the other side of the demand vs. supply equation.

    In prescribing cures for inflation, economists rely on the diagnosis of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman: inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon—too much money chasing too few goods. But that equation has three variables: too much money (“demand”) chasing (the “velocity” of spending) too few goods (“supply”). And “orthodox” economists, from Lawrence Summers to the Federal Reserve, seem to be focusing only on the “demand” variable.

    The Fed’s prescription is to suppress demand (borrowing and spending) by raising interest rates. Summers, a  former U.S. Treasury Secretary who presided over the massive post-2008 bank bailouts, is proposing to reduce demand by raising taxes or raising unemployment rates, reducing disposable income and thus people’s ability to spend. But those rather brutal solutions miss the real problem, just as Summers missed the crisis leading up to the 2008-09 crash. As explained in a November 2021 editorial titled “Too Few Goods – The Simple Explanation for October’s Elevated Inflation Rates,” we don’t actually have too much consumer money chasing available goods:

    M2 money supply surged [in 2020] as the Fed pumped out liquidity to replace businesses’ lost sales and households’ lost paychecks. But bank reserves account for nearly half of the cumulative increase since 2020 began, and the vast majority seem to be excess reserves sitting on deposit at Federal Reserve banks and not backing loans. Excluding bank reserves, M2 money supply is now growing more slowly than it did for most of 2015 – 2019, when inflation was mostly below the Fed’s 2% y/y target, much to policymakers’ chagrin. Weak lending also suggests money isn’t doing much “chasing,” a notion underscored by the historically low velocity of money. US personal consumption expenditures—the broadest measure of household spending—have already slowed from a reopening resurgence to rates more akin to the pre-pandemic norm and surveys show many households used stimulus money to repay debt or build savings they may not spend at all. It doesn’t look like there is a mountain of household liquidity waiting to do more chasing from here. [Emphasis added.]

    In March 2022, the Federal Reserve tackled inflation with its traditional tools – raising interest rates and tightening the money supply by selling bonds, pulling dollars out of the economy. But not only have prices not gone down since then, they are going up. As observed in a July 15 article on Seeking Alpha titled “Fed-Induced Recession Looms As Rate Fears Roil All Markets”:

    On Wednesday, the Consumer Price Index came in at a 9.1% annual rate. The higher-than-expected reading puts the CPI at a new 41-year high.

    The biggest contributors to rising consumer prices are the basic necessities of food, fuel, and shelter. As households struggle to make ends meet, they are trimming discretionary spending, burning through savings, and running up credit card balances.

    Businesses are also getting squeezed. On Thursday, the Producer Price Index showed wholesale costs rising at a massive 11.3% year-over-year.

    When their own costs go up, producers must raise the prices of their products to cover those costs, regardless of demand. Less money competing for their products won’t bring producer costs down. It will just drive the companies out of business, as happened in the Great Depression. The Seeking Alpha article concludes:

    … As both businesses and consumers are forced to tighten their belts, a slowdown looms.

    And if the Federal Reserve makes another major policy misstep, then a severe recession and financial crisis may also be coming.

    Recession is already evident. The stock market has lost a cumulative $7 trillion in value this year, while the crypto market has lost $2 trillion since last November. Emerging markets are in even worse straits. According to a July 14 article by Larry McDonald on ZeroHedge, “Emerging and frontier market countries currently owe the IMF over $100 billion. US central banking policy plus a strong USD is vaporizing this capital as we speak.… A quarter-trillion dollars of distressed debt is threatening to drag the developing world into a historic cascade of defaults.”

    Every time the Fed raises rates, borrowing becomes more expensive. That means higher interest costs not only for governments but for borrowers with mortgages, home equity lines of credit, credit cards, student debt and car loans. For both large and small businesses, loans also get pricier.

    To be clear, this is not the same sort of inflation that Paul Volcker was taming in 1980 when he raised the Fed funds rate to 20%. McDonald observes, “In 2021, global debt reached a record $303T, according to the Institute of International Finance .… Volcker was jacking rates into a planet with about $200T LESS debt.” [Emphasis added]

    Volcker was also not dealing with the supply shortages we have today, generated by lockdowns that put more than 100,000 U.S. companies out of business; sanctions and war that cut off global supplies of fuel, food and resources; and farming crises such as that in the Netherlands, generated by overly stringent regulations.

    Higher interest rates don’t alleviate cost/push inflation caused by supply crises; they make it worse. Rather than making money harder to get, the government needs to focus on the supply side of the equation, stimulating local production to bring supply levels up. Rather than Volcker’s solution, what we need is that pioneered by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who pulled us out of similar crises with public banking institutions designed to stimulate infrastructure and development.

    For foreign models, we can look to the infrastructure-funding central banks of Australia, New Zealand and Canada in the first half of the 20th century; and to China, which salvaged the global economy following the 2008 banking crisis with massive infrastructure and development funded through its state-owned development banks.

    China Did It

    In the last 40 years, China has exploded from one of the world’s poorest countries to a global economic powerhouse. Among other notable achievements, from 2008 to 2022 it built 23,500 miles of high-speed rail, at a time when U.S. infrastructure projects were stalled for lack of funding. How did China pull this off? Rather than relying on taxpayer funds or foreign debt, it borrowed from its own banks.

    China has three massive state-owned infrastructure and development banks – the China Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of China, and the Agricultural Development Bank of China. Called “policy banks,” they get their liquidity either (a) directly from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in the form of “Pledged Supplementary Lending,” or (b) by issuing bonds, which have higher credit ratings than commercial bank bonds and are in demand because they can be used as collateral to borrow from the central bank. China’s policy banks are limited to funding certain specific government policies; and these policies are all productive and public-purpose-driven, unlike the short-term private profit-maximization driving Wall Street banks.

    Besides its big state-owned banks, China has an extensive network of local banks, which know their local markets. The PBOC website lists seven tools it can use for adjusting monetary policy, including not just a short-term lending facility like the U.S. Fed’s discount window, but a facility to inject liquidity into banks for medium-term loans, as well as the “pledged supplementary lending” to fund long-term loans from the three policy lenders for specific sectors, including agriculture, small businesses, and shanty town re-development.

    Yet all this stimulus has not driven up Chinese prices. In fact, consumer prices initially fell in 2008 and have hovered around 2% ever since. [See chart below.]

    Prices are creeping up now, as is happening everywhere; but they have reached only 2.5%—far below the 9.7% seen in the U.S. in July.

    Our Forebears Did It Too

    State-owned infrastructure banks are not unique to China. In the United States, a similar model was initiated by Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary. The “American System” of government-issued money and credit was key both to winning the American Revolutionary War and to transforming the nation from a collection of agrarian colonies to an industrial powerhouse. But after the War, the federal government was $70 million in debt, including $44 million from the colonies-turned-states.

    Hamilton solved the debt problem with debt-for-equity swaps. Debt instruments were  accepted in partial payment for stock in the First U.S. Bank. This capital was then leveraged into credit, issued as the first U.S. currency. Loans were based on the fractional reserve model. Hamilton wrote, “It is a well established fact, that Banks in good credit can circulate a far greater sum than the actual quantum of their capital in Gold & Silver.”

    That was also the model of the Bank of England, the financial engine of the colonial oppressors; but there were fundamental differences between the two models. The Bank of the United States (BUS) was designed for public development. The Bank of England (BOE) was intended for private gain. (See Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics by Nancy Spannaus, and Alexander Hamilton: A Biography by Forrest McDonald.)

    The BOE was chartered to fund a national war and was capitalized exclusively by public debt. The government would pay private lenders, who controlled what policies could be funded. Hamilton’s BUS, by contrast, was to be a commercial bank, funding itself by generating credit for infrastructure and development.

    Under Hamilton’s system of “Public Credit,” the primary function of the BUS would be to issue credit to the government and private interests for internal improvements and other economic development. Hamilton said a bank’s function was to generate active capital for agriculture and manufactures, increasing the quantity and quality of labor and industry. The BUS would establish a sovereign currency, a banking system, and a source of credit to build the nation, creating productive wealth, not just financial profit.

    The BUS was chartered for only 20 years, after which it lapsed. When economic hardships and monetary pressures followed, the Second Bank of the United States was founded in 1816 under President John Quincy Adams, basically on the Hamiltonian model. It funded one of the most intense periods of economic progress in history, investing directly in canals, railroads, roads, and coal and iron enterprises; lending money to states and cities engaged in such projects; and managing credit so that it continually flowed into needed productive activities.

    After the Second BUS was shut down, Abraham Lincoln’s government issued Greenbacks (U.S. Notes) directly, funding both the Civil War and extensive infrastructure and development. The National Banking System was also established, under which national banks would be partially capitalized with federal securities.

    An International Movement Is Born

    The American System and its leaders not only allowed the American colonists to break free of British control but inspired an international movement. Other British colonies revolted, including Australia, New Zealand and Canada; and other countries rebelled against the British imperial free-trade doctrines and developed their own infrastructure and manufacturing, including Germany, Ireland, Russia, Japan, India, Mexico, and South America.

    The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), founded in 1911, followed the Hamiltonian model. It was masterminded by an American named King O’Malley, who called Hamilton “the greatest financial man who ever walked the earth.” The CBA funded major national development and Australia’s participation in World War I, simply with national credit issued by the bank.

    In Canada from 1939-74, the government borrowed from its own Bank of Canada, effectively interest-free. Major government projects were funded without increasing the national debt, including aircraft production during and after World War II, education benefits for returning soldiers, family allowances, old age pensions, the Trans-Canada Highway, the St. Lawrence Seaway project, and universal health care for all Canadians.

    Meanwhile in the U.S., we got the Federal Reserve – and the worst banking crisis and economic depression ever in 1929-33. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt then rebuilt the U.S. economy financed through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, again funded on the Hamiltonian model. Initially capitalized with $500 million, from 1932 to 1957 it lent or invested over $40 billion for infrastructure and development of all kinds; funded the New Deal and World War II; and turned a net profit to the government of $690 million.

    Solving Today’s Price Inflation

    That could be done again, assuming the political will. Some pundits predict that the Fed will back off its aggressive interest rate hikes when the carnage from that approach becomes painfully evident, but it seems to be a phase we have to go through to convince policymakers that the Fed’s current tools are not able to curb the price inflation we have today. We need to stimulate local development with a national infrastructure and development bank like China’s; and for that, Congress needs to pass an infrastructure bank bill.

    Four such bills are currently before Congress. Only one, however, is capable of generating the nearly $6 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers says is needed over the next decade for U.S. infrastructure investment. This is HR 3339: The National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2021, which would effectively be self-funded on the American System model – a critical feature given that the federal debt is at record levels. The bank would be capitalized with federal debt acquired in debt-for-equity swaps – federal securities for non-voting bank shares paying a 2% dividend. This capital would then be leveraged at 10 to 1 into low-interest loans, essentially at cost. The bank would be anti-inflationary, by bringing supply up to meet demand; would not require new taxes but would rather increase the tax base, by increasing GDP; and would require only a small Congressional outlay for startup costs, which would quickly be repaid. For more information on HR 3339, see the National Infrastructure Bank Coalition website.

    • This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

    The post Interest Rate Hikes Will Not Save Us from Inflation first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Prasad criticises NZ, Australia over not addressing ‘democratic deficit’ in Pacific region

    RNZ Pacific

    A Fiji political leader is calling out the Australian and New Zealand governments on their “deafening silence” over human rights issues in the region.

    The leader of the opposition National Federation Party, Professor Biman Prasad, has called out the two countries for not acknowledging what he described as “the declining standards” of democracy, governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech issues in some Pacific countries.

    Prasad said the recent 2022 Pacific Islands Leaders’ Forum ended with prime minister Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern refusing to speak up on the decline in the standards of democracy.

    “What concerns me is that the Pacific Forum is an important leaders’ meeting and both Australia and New Zealand are members,” Professor Prasad told RNZ’s Pacific Waves.

    “One would have expected, even to the dislike of some within the forum, at least some mention of how the Pacific Forum is going to deal with declining standards of democracy, good governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech,” he said.

    “[But] no word from leaders, particularly Australia and New Zealand, was a bit concerning.”

    Failed over glaring issues
    The forum leaders’ meeting, he said, failed to address glaring issues, such as:

    • the Fiji government’s spat with the head of the regionally-owned University of the South Pacific;
    • questionable governance practices and attacks on free speech in Solomon Islands;
    • a judiciary under siege in Kiribati;
    • ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua; and
    • the deterioration of decolonisation arrangements in New Caledonia.

    According to Prasad, Albanese and Ardern refused to discuss these in Suva because they feared it would push Pacific nations “further into the arms of China”.

    Such a stance gives credibility to the claim that “Australia and New Zealand are preoccupied with their own strategic interests first, before the interests of Pacific Island countries,” he wrote in a Development Policy Centre blog last week.

    “I can speak about Fiji more specifically. As leader of an opposition political party in Parliament, I experienced first-hand the bullying, the intimidation by this government and the declining standards of democracy, of transparency and accountability,” he said.

    “Fiji continues to behave in the guise of championing climate change around the world that everything is hunky dory in Fiji. It is not and that is why the forum is important.”

    He said “appeasing autocratic leaders” to keep Beijing at bay was unacceptable and the sooner Canberra and Wellington realised appeasement was not the best strategy, the better it would be for the region.

    NZ’s ‘no comment’
    RNZ Pacific contacted both the Australian and New Zealand governments for comment.

    New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it had no comment to make on Professor Prasad’s blog.

    However, a spokesperson for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australia had a long-standing history of supporting work to strengthen regional action in support of human rights.

    “Our focus was on the contributions we can make as a member of the Pacific family, rather than what others may be doing,” it said.

    “Australia will talk to partner governments directly where we have concerns about democracy, transparency and the rule of law.”

    Australia will be contributing up to A$7.7 million (NZ$8.6 million] over the next four-and-a-half years to support the Pacific Community in implementing the Human Rights and Social Development Division Business Plan to strengthen human rights in the region.

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

  • The Good Food Accelerator Program Brings $10 Million In Solutions to China’s Food System

    bao
    3 Mins Read

    Over the next three years, DayDayCook and Brinc will invest $10 million in 45 food tech companies working to address global food sustainability, specifically bringing game-changing tech to Asia’s food systems.

    Applications are now being accepted for the next cohort of the Good Food Accelerator Program led by venture accelerator Brinc and content-to-commerce culinary platform, DayDayCook. Green Queen’s founder Sonalie Figueiras will serve as an advisor.

    The program is focused on addressing food security issues across China and Asia across several key areas including alternative protein, functional and novel ingredients, sustainable packaging, food supply chain innovation, and AgriTech consumer solutions.

    China’s food system

    China in particular plays a critical role in the global food system. It supplies 20 percent of the world’s food and is home to seven percent of all farmland. The country has struggled to keep up with demands in recent decades, though; grain consumption has increased from 125 million tons in 1975 to more than 420 million tons in recent years. Despite the boom in production, more than 150 million people in the country are classified as malnourished.

    Courtesy Beyond Meat

    Climate change is only expected to complicate the situation further as drought conditions could see crop yield losses for corn, wheat, and rice, of eight percent by 2030.

    Alternative protein is expected to play a significant role in Asia’s future where meat consumption is on the rise as people migrate from villages into cities for higher-paying jobs. The country is already facing a meat deficit, which is expected to grow to 53 million tons by 2030. According to think tank Good Food Institute APAC, the year-on-year investments in alternative protein grew by 92 percent between 2020 and 2021.

    “China’s five-year agricultural development plan sets out an agenda to establish a sustainable food supply system nationwide,” Manav Gupta, founder and CEO of Brinc, said in a statement. “Brinc’s Food Tech accelerator expertise, investor and mentor network along with DayDayCook’s wide reach, commercial network and distribution reach in Mainland China will take us a bold step closer towards attaining this goal.”

    Tech-forward solutions

    The program is focused on assisting food tech companies with commercial launches across Asia, in both online and offline markets. Brinc and DayDayCook say their combined network of food corporations, hospitality groups, and investors will help accelerate the market readiness for the cohort brands.

    “Addressing deep-rooted inefficiencies in our regional and global food systems, creating a sustainable food supply chain, plus tackling food security issues all in all help mitigate against the growing effects of climate change—which is the need of the hour and our lifetimes,” said Gupta.

    OmniPork in McDonald’s Hong Kong | Courtesy

    “The Good Food Accelerator Program’s mission is to build a leading food tech ecosystem in Hong Kong,” Norma Chu, founder and CEO of DayDayCook, said.

    “By sourcing innovative startups from the Greater Bay Area, Southeast Asia and areas beyond, the program will make a global splash as it carries out Hong Kong’s ambition of transforming into a key innovation hub for food tech talents worldwide.”

    The minimum investment ticket is $200,000, and qualifying companies also have access to the companies’ network of later-stage investors and assistance for follow-on funding.

    The post The Good Food Accelerator Program Brings $10 Million In Solutions to China’s Food System appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • ‘Stay vigilant’, Guam governor warns over China’s Pacific intrusion

    By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Tumon, Guam

    Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero has expressed support for the Federated States of Micronesia’s move to oppose China’s proposed “action plan” for the Pacific island states, advising island governments to be vigilant against the communist nation’s attempts to control domestic affairs.

    “Guam stands with you and your effort to minimise China’s efforts to control Pacific governments, assets and resources,” Leon Guerrero said in a July 19 letter to FSM President David Panuelo.

    “With respect to your concerns and warnings relating to China’s proposals to address climate change, I take notice. We should remain vigilant and focused on this most pressing issue,” she added.

    On May 27, Panuelo wrote to Pacific island state leaders to dissuade them from signing on to Beijing’s proposed China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision and the China-Pacific Island Countries Five Year Action Plan on Common Development (2022-2026).

    At first glance, Panuelo said, the documents contained terms that were “attractive to many of us, perhaps all of us.”

    “They speak of democracy and equity and freedom and justice, and compare and contrast these ideas with concepts that we, as Pacific Islands, would want to align ourselves with, such as sustainable development, tackling climate change, and economic growth,” Panuelo said.

    However, he said the fine print revealed concerning details indicating China’s intention “to acquire access and control of our region, with the result being the fracturing of regional peace, security, and stability, all while in the name of accomplishing precisely that task”.

    China pact rejected by 10 nations
    While China has managed to seal a security agreement with the Solomon Islands, 10 Pacific island nations have eventually rejected Beijing’s “sustainable development” proposal.

    Leon Guerrero said she agreed with Panuelo “that the US needs to increase its assistance to its island territories in the Pacific.”

    “To that end, my administration will continue its work on pursuing climate change assistance and environmental justice advocacy for our islands,” she told the FSM leader.

    The FSM, which is freely associated with the United States, has adopted a “friend to all and an enemy to none” foreign policy.

    Torn between two superpowers, the FSM treads cautiously to define its relationship with China and the United States.

    “My country is the only sovereign Pacific island country in the world that has both a great friendship with China as well as an enduring partnership, demonstrated by our Compact of Free Association, with the United States,” Panuelo wrote in his letter.

    “We have ceaselessly advocated for joint China-US cooperation on tackling climate change and we have ceaselessly advocated for joint China-US promotion of peace and harmony in our Blue Pacific Continent. My country’s unique context, I believe, compels me to speak,” he said.

    ‘Unique relationships’
    Leon Guerrero said she recognised the FSM’s “unique relationships” with the United States and China.

    “The perspectives you and your diplomats have developed while navigating between these two superpowers are valuable, especially as we chart a course on partnering with them for the good of our islands while exercising reasonable precautions.

    “In fostering good relations. I appreciate your insights and perspectives shared with our Pacific brothers and sisters,” the Guam governor told Panuelo.

    As a US territory dubbed as “the tip of the spear,” Leon Guerrero said Guam played a role in homeland security.

    “The island of Guam is in the midst of the largest peacetime military buildup in US history, so we also have a perspective to share,” the governor said.

    “We see firsthand the urgency the US is exerting to showcase its military force and willingness to keep Pacific sea lanes open for peaceful free-flowing trade among nations.”

    Mar-Vic Cagurangan is editor-in-chief of the Pacific Island Times. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The War “Diplomat”: How Borrell, the West Lost the “Global Battle of Narratives”

    In a blog entry, reflecting on the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia on July 7-8, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, seems to have accepted the painful truth that the West is losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”.

    “The global battle of narratives is in full swing and, for now, we are not winning,” Borrell admitted. The solution: “As the EU, we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda,” the EU’s top diplomat added.

    Borrell’s piece is a testimony to the very erroneous logic that led to the so-called ‘battle of narratives’ to be lost in the first place.

    Borrell starts by reassuring his readers that, despite the fact that many countries in the Global South refuse to join the West’s sanctions on Russia, “everybody agrees”, though in “abstract terms”, on the “need for multilateralism and defending principles such as territorial sovereignty”.

    The immediate impression that such a statement gives is that the West is the global vanguard of multilateralism and territorial sovereignty. The opposite is true. The US-western military interventions in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and many other regions around the world have largely taken place without international consent and without any regard for the sovereignty of nations. In the case of the NATO war on Libya, a massively destructive military campaign was initiated based on the intentional misinterpretation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973, which called for the use of “all means necessary to protect civilians”.

    Borrell, like other western diplomats, conveniently omits the West’s repeated – and ongoing – interventions in the affairs of other nations, while painting the Russian-Ukraine war as the starkest example of “blatant violations of international law, contravening the basic tenets of the UN Charter and endangering the global economic recovery” .

    Would Borrell employ such strong language to depict the numerous ongoing war crimes in parts of the world involving European countries or their allies? For example, France’s despicable war record in Mali? Or, even more obvious, the 75-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine?

    When addressing “food and energy security”, Borrell lamented that many in the G20 have bought into the “propaganda and lies coming from the Kremlin” regarding the actual cause of the food crisis. He concluded that it is not the EU but “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine that is dramatically aggravating the food crisis.”

    Again, Borrell was selective with his logic. While naturally, a war between two countries that contribute a large share of the world’s basic food supplies will detrimentally impact food security, Borrell made no mention that the thousands of sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow have disrupted the supply chain of many critical products, raw material and basic food items.

    When the West imposed those sanctions, it only thought of its national interests, erroneously centered around defeating Russia. Neither the people of Sri Lanka, Somalia, Lebanon, nor, frankly, Ukraine were relevant factors in the West’s decision.

    Borrell, whose job as a diplomat suggests that he should be investing in diplomacy to resolve conflicts, has repeatedly called for widening the scope of war on Russia, insisting that the war can only be “won on the battlefield”. Such statements were made with western interests in mind, despite the obvious devastating consequences that Borrell’s battlefield would have on the rest of the world.

    Still, Borrell had the audacity to chastise G20 members for behaving in ways that seemed, to him, focused solely on their national interests. “The hard truth is that national interests often outweigh general commitments to bigger ideals,” he wrote. If defeating Russia is central to Borrell’s and the EU’s “bigger ideals”, why should the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, embrace the West’s self-serving priorities?

    Borrell also needs to be reminded that the West’s “global battle of narratives” had been lost well before February 24. Much of the Global South rightly sees the West’s interests at odds with its own. This seemingly cynical view is an outcome of decades – in fact, hundreds of years – of real experiences, starting with colonialism and ending, presently, with the routine military and political interventions.

    Borrell speaks of ‘bigger ideals’, as if the West is the only morally mature entity that is capable of thinking about rights and wrongs in a selfless, detached manner. In addition to there being no evidence to support Borrell’s claim, such condescending language, itself an expression of cultural arrogance, makes it impossible for non-western countries to accept, or even engage, with the West regarding the morality of its politics.

    Borrell, for example, accuses Russia of a “deliberate attempt to use food as a weapon against the most vulnerable countries in the world, especially in Africa”. Even if we accept this problematic premise as a morally driven position, how can Borrell justify the West’s sanctions that have effectively starved many people in “vulnerable countries” around the world?

    Perhaps, Afghans are the most vulnerable people in the world today, thanks to 20 years of a devastating US/NATO war which has killed and maimed tens of thousands. Though the US and its western allies were forced out of Afghanistan last August, billions of dollars of Afghan money are illegally frozen in Western bank accounts, pushing the whole country to the brink of starvation. Why can Borrell not apply his ‘bigger ideals’ in this particular scenario, demanding immediate unfreezing of Afghan money?

    In truth, Borrell, the EU, NATO and the West are not only losing the global battle of narratives, they have never won it in the first place. Winning or losing that battle never mattered to Western leaders in the past, because the Global South was hardly considered when the West made its unilateral decisions regarding war, military invasions or economic sanctions.

    The Global South matters now, simply because the West is no longer determining all political outcomes, as was often the case. Russia, China, India and others are now relevant, because they can collectively balance out the skewed global order that has been dominated by Borrell and his likes for far too long.

    The post The War “Diplomat”: How Borrell, the West Lost the “Global Battle of Narratives” first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Drew Pavlou says he is victim of ‘orchestrated campaign’ after arrest over false ‘bomb threat’

    Human rights leaders report receiving emails from account purporting to be from Pavlou in recent days after campaigner’s arrest in London

    Australian activist Drew Pavlou has said he was the victim of an “orchestrated campaign” before his arrest over a false “bomb threat” after it emerged that human rights leaders and politicians have been receiving emails from an account purporting to be him in recent days.

    Pavlou was arrested after a “small peaceful human rights protest” outside the Chinese embassy in London, where he intended to glue his hand to the outside of the embassy building.

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

  • Australian activist Drew Pavlou arrested in London but denies sending Chinese embassy bomb threat

    Pavlou says the emailed threat was intended to frame him after he staged a peaceful protest carrying a Uyghur flag outside the embassy

    Australian activist Drew Pavlou has been arrested in the UK over a false “bomb threat” delivered to the Chinese embassy in London that he claims came from a fake email address designed to frame him.

    Pavlou said the “absurd” email claimed he would blow up the embassy over Beijing’s oppression of its Uyghur Muslim minority, but that it was confected by the embassy in order to have him arrested.

    Continue reading…

  • Underground Bunkers for Relief amid Global Heatwave

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • Heat wave and underground bunkers
    • Nigeria’s China-financed deep-water port
    • Easing bank credit for indebted developers
    • “Positive dramas” and public participation

    The post Underground Bunkers for Relief amid Global Heatwave first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • “Fortress Mentality” Among US Leaders Has Trapped Us in a Cycle of Militarism

    Mainstream media and politics routinely assume that the United States is a well-meaning global giant, striving to keep dangerous adversaries at bay. So, it was just another day at the imperial office on July 19 when FBI Director Christopher Wray declared: “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart. The Chinese are trying to manage our decline, and the Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”

    Such statements harmonize with the prevailing soundscape. The standard script asserts that the United States is powerful and besieged — mighty but always menaced — the world’s leading light yet beset by hostile nations and other sinister forces aiming to undermine the USA’s rightful dominance of the globe.

    A fortress mindset feeds the U.S. government’s huge “defense” budget — which is higher than the military budgets of the next 10 countries combined — while the Pentagon maintains about 750 military bases overseas. But victimology is among Washington’s official poses, in sync with a core belief that the United States is at the center of the world’s importance and must therefore police the world to the best of its capacity.

    In recent decades, U.S. military power has faced new challenges to retain unipolar leverage over the planet in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. (Heavy is Uncle Sam’s head that wears the crown.) Along with the fresh challenges came incentives to update the political lexicon for rationalizing red-white-and-blue militarism.

    Ever since Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the motto its bigtime national debut in February 1998 on NBC’s “Today Show”, efforts to portray the U.S. as an “indispensable nation” became familiar rhetoric — or at least a renewed conceptual frame — for U.S. interventionism. “If we have to use force,” she said, “it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us.”

    In 2022, such verbiage would easily fit onto teleprompters at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The appeal of such words has never waned among mass media and officials in Washington, as the United States simultaneously touts itself as the main virtuous star on the world stage and a country simply trying to protect itself from malevolence.

    Consider FBI Director Wray’s rhetoric about official enemies:

    “The Russians are trying to get us to tear ourselves apart.”

    This theme remains an establishment favorite. It dodges the grim realities of U.S. society — completely unrelated to Russia — such as longstanding and ongoing conflicts due to racism, misogyny, income inequality, corporate power, oligarchy, and other structural injustices. The right-wing menace to human decency and democracy in the United States is homegrown, as the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol made chillingly clear.

    This month, while the horrific and unjustified Russian war in Ukraine has continued, the United States has persisted with massive shipments of weapons to the Ukrainian government. Meanwhile, official interest in genuine diplomacy has been somewhere between scant and nonexistent. One of the few stirrings toward rationality from Capitol Hill came early this month when Rep. Ro Khanna told The Washington Post: “People don’t want to see a resigned attitude that this is just going to go on as long as it’s going to go on. What is the plan on the diplomatic front?” Several weeks later, the Biden administration is still indicating no interest in any such plan.

    “The Chinese are trying to manage our decline.”

    Leaders in Washington don’t want the sun to set on the U.S. empire, but China and many other nations have other ideas. This week, news of Nancy Pelosi’s intention to visit Taiwan in August was greeted with cheers from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which wrote that she deserved “kudos” for planning “what would be the first trip to the island democracy by a House Speaker in 25 years.”

    At midweek, President Biden expressed concern about the planned trip, saying: “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.” However, his team’s overall approach is confrontational, risking a potentially catastrophic war with nuclear-armed China. Despite dire warnings from many analysts, the U.S. geopolitical stance toward China is reflexively and dangerously zero-sum.

    “The Iranians are trying to get us to go away.”

    Iran’s government adhered to the nuclear deal enacted in 2015, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). But the Trump administration pulled out of the pact. Rather than swiftly move to rejoin it, the Biden administration has dithered and thrown roadblocks.

    Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Antony Blinken disingenuously announced: “We are imposing sanctions on Iranian petroleum and petrochemical producers, transporters, and front companies. Absent a commitment from Iran to return to the JCPOA, an outcome we continue to pursue, we will keep using our authorities to target Iran’s exports of energy products.”

    In response, Quincy Institute Executive Vice President Trita Parsi tweeted: “Biden is continuing and embracing Trump’s max pressure policy, while expecting a different result. All of this could have been avoided if Biden just returned to the JCPOA via Exe order” — with an executive order, as he did to reverse President Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization.

    What continues — with countless instances of repetition compulsion — is the proclaimed vision of the United States of America leading the charge against the world’s badness. Beneath the veneer of goodness, however, systematic hypocrisy and opportunistic cruelty persist on a massive scale.

    A case in point is Biden’s recent journey to the Middle East: The presidential trip’s prominent features included fist-bumping with a Saudi monarch whose government has caused a quarter-million deaths and vast misery with its war on Yemen, and voicing fervent support for the Israeli government as it continues to impose apartheid on the Palestinian people.

    Leaders of the U.S. government never tire of reasserting their commitment to human rights and democracy. At the same time, they insist that an inexhaustible supply of adversaries is bent on harming the United States, which must not run away from forceful engagement with the world. But the actual U.S. agenda is to run the world.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • ‘Doorstops’ at the Pacific Forum – why no tough questions on West Papua?

    By Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie

    A lively 43sec video clip surfaced during last week’s Pacific Islands Forum in the Fiji capital of Suva — the first live leaders’ forum in three years since Tuvalu, due to the covid pandemic.

    Posted on Twitter by Guardian Australia’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons it showed the doorstopping of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare by a melee of mainly Australian journalists.

    The aloof Sogavare was being tracked over questions about security and China’s possible military designs for the Melanesian nation.

    A doorstop on security and China greets Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare
    A doorstop on security and China greets Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (in blue short) at the Pacific islands Forum in Suva last week. Image: Twitter screenshot

    But Lyons made a comment directed more at questioning journalists themselves about their newsgathering style:

    “Australian media attempt to get a response from PM Sogavare, who has refused to answer questions from international media since the signing of the China security deal, on his way to a bilateral with PM Albanese. He stayed smilingly silent.”

    Prominent Samoan journalist, columnist and member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) gender council Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson picked up the thread, saying: “Let’s talk western journalism vs Pacific doorstop approaches.”

    Lagipoiva highlighted for her followers the fact that “the journos engaged in this approach are all white”. She continued:

    ‘A respect thing’
    “We don’t really do this in the Pacific to PI leaders. it’s a respect thing. However there is merit to this approach.”

    A “confrontational” approach isn’t generally practised in the Pacific – “in Samoa, doorstops are still respectful.”

    But she admitted that Pacific journalists sometimes “leaned” on western journalists to ask the hard questions when PI leaders would “disregard local journalists”.

    “Even though this approach is very jarring”, she added, “it is also a necessary tactic to hold Pacific island leaders accountable.”

    So here is the rub. Where were the hard questions in Suva — whether “western or Pacific-style” — about West Papua and Indonesian human rights abuses against a Melanesian neighbour? Surely here was a prime case in favour of doorstopping with a fresh outbreak of violations by Indonesian security forces – an estimated 21,000 troops are now deployed in Papua and West Papua provinces — in the news coinciding with the Forum unfolding on July 11-14.

    In her wrap about the Forum in The Guardian, Lyons wrote about how smiles and unity in Suva – “with the notable exception of Kiribati” – were masking the tough questions being shelved for another day.

    “Take coal. This will inevitably be a sticking point between Pacific countries and Australia, but apparently did not come up at all in discussions,” she wrote.

    “The other conversation that has been put off is China.

    “Pacific leaders have demonstrated in recent months how important the Pacific Islands Forum bloc is when negotiating with the superpower.”

    Forum ‘failed moral obligation’
    In a column in DevPolicy Blog this week, Fiji opposition National Federation Party (NFP) leader and former University of the South Pacific economics professor Dr Biman Prasad criticised forum leaders — and particularly Australia and New Zealand — over the “deafening silence” about declining standards of democracy and governance.

    While acknowledging that an emphasis on the climate crisis was necessary and welcome, he said: “Human rights – including freedom of speech – underpin all other rights, and it is unfortunate that that this Forum failed in its moral obligation to send out a strong message of its commitment to upholding these rights.”

    Back to West Papua, arguably the most explosive security issue confronting the Pacific and yet inexplicably virtually ignored by the Australian and New Zealand governments and news media.

    Fiji Women's Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali and fellow activists at the Morning Star flag raising in solidarity with West Papua
    Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali and fellow activists at the Morning Star flag raising in solidarity with West Papua in Suva last week. Image: APR screenshot FV

    In Suva, it was left to non-government organisations and advocacy groups such as the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) and the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) to carry the Morning Star of resistance — as West Papua’s banned flag is named.

    The Fiji women’s advocacy group condemned their government and host Prime Minister Bainimarama for remaining silent over the human rights violations in West Papua, saying that women and girls were “suffering twofold” due to the increased militarisation of the two provinces of Papua and West Papuan by the “cruel Indonesian government”.

    Spokesperson Joe Collins of the Sydney-based AWPA said the Fiji Forum was a “missed opportunity” to help people who were suffering at the hands of Jakarta actions.

    “It’s very important that West Papua appears to be making progress,” he said, particularly in this Melanesian region which had the support of Pacific people.

    Intensified violence in Papua
    The day after the Forum ended, Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan highlighted in an interview with FijiVillage how 100,000 people had been displaced due to intensified violence in the “land of Papua”.

    Pacific Conference of Churches general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan … “significant displacement of the indigenous Papuans has been noted by United Nations experts.” Image: FijiVillage

    He said the increasing number of casualties of West Papuans was hard to determine because no humanitarian agencies, NGOs or journalists were allowed to enter the region and report on the humanitarian crisis.

    Reverend Bhagwan also stressed that covid-19 and climate change reminded Pacific people that there needed to be an “expanded concept of security” that included human security and humanitarian assistance.

    In London, the Indonesian human rights advocacy group Tapol expressed “deep sorrow” over the recent events coinciding with the Forum, and condemned the escalating violence by Jakarta’s security forces and the retaliation by resistance groups.

    Tapol cited “the destruction and repressive actions of the security forces at the Paniai Regent’s Office (Kantor Bupati Paniai) that caused the death of one person and the injury of others on July 5″.

    It also condemned the “shootings and unlawful killings’ of at least 11 civilians reportedly carried out by armed groups in Nduga on July 16.

    “Acts of violence against civilians, when they lead to deaths — whoever is responsible — should be condemned,” Tapol said.

    “We call on these two incidents to be investigated in an impartial, independent, appropriate and comprehensive manner by those who have the authority and competency to do so.”

  • India-Russia-Iran: Eurasia’s new transportation powerhouses

    No longer just an ‘alternative route’ on a drawing board, the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) is paying dividends in a time of global crisis. And Moscow, Tehran and New Delhi are now leading players in the Eurasian competition for transportation routes.

    Photo Credit: The Cradle

    Tectonic shifts continue to rage through the world system with nation-states quickly recognizing that the “great game” as it has been played since the establishment of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the wake of the second World War, is over.

    But empires never disappear without a fight, and the Anglo-American one is no exception, overplaying its hand, threatening and bluffing its way, right to the end.

    End of an order

    It seems no matter how many sanctions the west imposes on Russia, the victims most affected are western civilians. Indeed, the severity of this political blunder is such that the nations of the trans-Atlantic are heading towards the greatest self-induced food and energy crisis in history.

    While the representatives of the “liberal rules-based international order” continue on their trajectory to crush all nations that refuse to play by those rules, a much saner paradigm has come to light in recent months that promises to transform the global order entirely.

    The multipolar solution

    Here we see the alternative security-financial order which has arisen in the form of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. As recently as 30 June at the 10th St Petersburg International Legal Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin described this emerging new multipolar order as:

    A multipolar system of international relations is now being formed. It is an irreversible process; it is happening before our eyes and is objective in nature. The position of Russia and many other countries is that this democratic, more just world order should be built on the basis of mutual respect and trust, and, of course, on the generally accepted principles of international law and the UN Charter.

    Since the inevitable cancellation of western trade with Russia after the Ukraine conflict erupted in February, Putin has increasingly made clear that the strategic re-orientation of Moscow’s economic ties from east to west had to make a dramatically new emphasis on north to south and north to east relations not only for Russia’s survival, but for the survival of all Eurasia.

    Among the top strategic focuses of this re-orientation is the long overdue International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC).

    On this game-changing mega-project, Putin said last month during the plenary session of the 25th St Petersburg International Economic Forum:

    To help companies from other countries develop logistical and cooperation ties, we are working to improve transport corridors, increase the capacity of railways, trans-shipment capacity at ports in the Arctic, and in the eastern, southern and other parts of the country, including in the Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins – they will become the most important section of the North-South Corridor, which will provide stable connectivity with the Middle East and Southern Asia. We expect freight traffic along this route to begin growing steadily in the near future.

    The INSTC’s Phoenix Moment

    Until recently, the primary trade route for goods passing from India to Europe has been the maritime shipping corridor passing through the Bab El-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, via the highly bottle-necked Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean and onward to Europe via ports and rail/road corridors.

    Following this western-dominated route, average transit times take about 40 days to reach ports of Northern Europe or Russia. Geopolitical realities of the western technocratic obsession with global governance have made this NATO-controlled route more than a little unreliable.

    The International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC)

    Despite being far from complete, goods moving across the INSTC from India to Russia have already finished their journey 14 days sooner than their Suez-bound counterparts while also seeing a whopping 30 percent reduction in total shipping costs.

    These figures are expected to fall further as the project progresses. Most importantly, the INSTC would also provide a new basis for international win-win cooperation much more in harmony with the spirit of geo-economics unveiled by China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.

    Cooperation not competition

    Originally agreed upon by Russia, Iran and India in September 2000, the INSTC only began moving in earnest in 2002 – albeit much more slowly than its architects had hoped.

    This 7,200 km multimodal mega-project involves integrating several Eurasian nations directly or indirectly with rail, roads and shipping corridors into a united and tight-knit web of interdependency. Along each artery, opportunities to build energy projects, mining, and high tech special economic zones (SEZs) will abound, giving each participating nation the economic power to lift their people out of poverty, increase their stability and their national power to chart their own destinies.

    Beyond the founding three nations, the other 10 states who have signed onto this project over the years include Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Syria and even Ukraine (although this last member may not remain on board for long). In recent months, India has officially invited Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to join too.

    While western think tanks and geopolitical analysts attempt to frame the INSTC as an opponent to China’s BRI, the reality is that both systems are extremely synergistic on multiple levels.

    China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

    Unlike the west’s speculation-driven bubble economy, both the BRI and INSTC define economic value and self-interest around improving the productivity and living standards of the real economy. While short term thinking predominates in the myopic London-Wall Street paradigm, the BRI and INSTC investment strategies are driven by long-term thinking and mutual self-interest.

    It is no small irony that such policies once animated the best traditions of the west before the rot of unipolar thinking took over and the west lost its moral compass.

    An integrated alternative

    The INSTC’s two major bookends are the productive zone of Mumbai in India’s Southeast region of Gujarat and the northern-most Arctic port of Lavna in Russia’s Kola Peninsula of Murmansk.

    This is not only the first port constructed by Russia in decades, but when completed, will be one of the world’s largest commercial ports with an expected capacity to process 80 million tons of goods by 2030.

    The Lavna Port is an integral part of Russia’s Arctic and Far East Development vision and is a central piece to Russia’s current Comprehensive Plan for Modernization and Expansion of Main Infrastructure and its Northern Sea Route which is expected to see a five-fold increase of Arctic freight traffic over the coming years. These projects are integrally linked to China’s Polar Silk Road.

    Between these bookends, the INSTC moves freight from India into Iran’s Port of Bandar Abbas where it is loaded onto double-tracked rail to the Iranian city of Bafq and then to Tehran before coming to the Anzali Port on the southern Caspian Sea.

    ‘Be like water’

    Because the INSTC is based on a flexible design concept capable of adapting to a changing geopolitical environment (very much like the BRI), there are a multitude of connecting lines that branch off the main North-South artery before goods make it to the Caspian Sea.

    These include an eastern and western corridor branching off from the city of Bafq towards Turkey and thence Europe via the Bosporus and also eastward from Tehran to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and thereafter into Urumqi in China.

    Railway is still relevant

    From the Anzali Port in the north of Iran, goods may travel by the Caspian Sea towards Russia’s Astrakhan Port where it is then loaded onto trains and trucks for transport to Moscow, St Petersburg and Murmansk. Inversely goods may also travel over land to Azerbaijan where the 35 km Iran Rasht-Caspian railway is currently under construction with 11 km completed as of this writing.

    Once completed, the line will connect the Port of Anzali with Azerbaijan’s Baku, offering goods a chance to either continue onwards to Russia or westward toward Europe. A Tehran-Baku rail route already exists.

    Additionally, Azerbaijan and Iran are currently collaborating on a vast $2 billion rail line connecting the 175 km Qazvin-Rasht railway which began operations in 2019 with a strategic rail line connecting Iran’s Rasht port on the Caspian to the Bandar Abbas Complex in the south (to be completed in 2025). Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Ghasemi described this project in January 2022 saying:

    Iran’s goal is to connect to the Caucasus, Russia, and European countries. For this purpose, the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway is in the spotlight. During the Iranian president’s visit to Russia, discussions were conducted in this regard, and construction of the railway line is expected to begin soon with the allocation of needed funds.

    In recent months, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has lobbied to incorporate the joint Iran-India built Chabahar Port into the INSTC which will likely occur since another 628 km rail line from the port to the Iranian city of Zahedan is currently under construction.

    Once completed, goods will easily move onward to the city of Bafq. While some critics have suggested that the Chabahar Port is antagonistic to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, Iranian officials have constantly referred to it as Chabahar’s twin sister.

    Since 2014, a vast rail and transportation complex has grown around the co-signers of the Ashkabat Agreement (launched in 2011 and upgraded several times over the past decade). These rail networks include the 917.5 km Iran-Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan route launched in 2014, and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan rail/energy project launched in 2016 which is currently seeing extensions that could easily go into Pakistan.

    In December 2021, the 6540 km Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran) recommenced operations after a decade of inaction. This route cuts the conventional sea transit route time of 21 days by half. Discussions are already underway to extend the line from Pakistan into China’s Xinjiang Province linking the INSTC ever more closely into the BRI on yet another front.

    Islamabad to Istanbul rail line (via Iran)

    Finally, June 2022 saw the long-awaited unveiling of the 6108 km Kazakhstan-Iran-Turkey rail line which provides an alternative route to the under-developed Middle Corridor. Celebrating the inaugural 12 day voyage of cargo, Kazakhstan’s President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev stated: “Today, we welcomed the container train, which left Kazakhstan a week ago. Then it will go to Turkey. This is a significant event, given the difficult geopolitical conditions.”

    Despite the fact that the INSTC is over 20 years old, global geopolitical dynamics, regime change wars, and ongoing economic warfare against Iran, Syria and other US target states did much to harm the sort of stable geopolitical climate needed to emit large scale credit requisite for long term projects like this to succeed.

    Caspian Summit Security breakthroughs

    As proof that necessity truly is the mother of invention, the systemic meltdown of the entire post-WW2 edifice has forced reality to take precedence over the smaller-minded concerns that kept the diverse nations of Sir Halford John Mackinder’s “World Island” from cooperating. Among these points of endless conflict and stagnation which has upset great economic potential over the course of three decades, the Caspian zone stands out.

    It is in this oil and natural gas rich hub that the five Caspian littoral states (Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) have found a power to break through on multi-level security, economic and diplomatic agreements throughout the June 29-30, 2022 Sixth Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

    This summit placed a high priority on the INSTC with the region becoming both a north-south and east-west transportation hub. Most importantly, the leaders of the five littoral states made their final communique center around the region’s security since it is obvious that divide-to-conquer tactics will be deployed using every tool in the asymmetrical warfare tool basket going forward.

    Chief among the agreed-upon principles were indivisible security, mutual cooperation, military cooperation, respect for national sovereignty, and non-interference. Most importantly, the banning of foreign military from the land and waters of the Caspian states was firmly established.

    While no final agreement was reached over the disputed ownership of resources within the base of the Caspian, the stage was set for harmonization of partner states’ security doctrines, a healthy environment was established for the second Caspian Economic Summit which will take place in Autumn of this year and which will hopefully resolve many of the disputes pertaining to Caspian resource ownership.

    Although geopolitical storms continue to intensify, it is increasingly clear that only the multipolar ship of state has demonstrated the competence to navigate the hostile seas, while the sinking unipolar ship of fools has a ruptured hull held together by little more than chewing gum and heavy doses of delusion.

    • First published in The Cradle

    The post India-Russia-Iran: Eurasia’s new transportation powerhouses first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Australia and New Zealand’s ‘deafening silence’ on Pacific democracy and human rights

    ANALYSIS: By Biman Chand Prasad in Suva

    The Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting has ended and what is intriguing is the deafening silence on declining standards of democracy, governance, human rights, media freedom and freedom of speech issues, despite the serious and arguably worsening situation in some regional countries.

    The emphasis on climate change is necessary and welcome. However, to deal effectively with climate adaptation and build climate-resilient infrastructure, countries have to mobilise large amounts of resources.

    Whether these resources are effectively used will depend on standards of governance, transparency and accountability. Without these, efforts to deal with the climate change emergency will be fraught with difficulties and wastage of resources.

    In any case, not everything can be reduced to climate change, which too often becomes a convenient way of avoiding other hard issues and diverting attention from domestic issues. And we do have other important pressing issues, such as media rights and freedom of expression, that deserve a hearing at the highest levels of this august body, but these were conveniently swept under the “sensitive topic” carpet, or so it seems.

    Human rights — including freedom of speech — underpin all other rights, and it is unfortunate that this Forum failed in its moral obligation to send out a strong message of its commitment to upholding these rights.

    Australia and New Zealand are regarded as the doyens of human rights and media freedom in the region, and their leaders’ presence at the Forum presented an opportunity to send a strong signal to member countries about the sanctity of these values — but the moment passed without any statement.

    Anthony Albanese and Jacinda Ardern could have taken the initiative and spoken out about these issues of their own accord, but they didn’t, thus giving some credence to voices that claim that when it comes to the Forum, Australia and New Zealand are preoccupied with their own strategic interests first, and the interests of Pacific Island countries second.

    Avoiding ‘unpalatable topics’
    Towards this end, the two leaders from the Western world seemed at pains to avoid topics deemed unpalatable to their Pacific Island counterparts, seemingly over fears of pushing them further into the arms of China.

    This includes an apparent fear of upsetting Fiji, which has had a draconian and punitive Media Act in place since 2010. There are also concerns in Fiji about the independence of important offices, such as the Electoral Commission, which are especially pressing in an election year.

    The Fiji government is also denying the rights of thousands of tertiary students to access good quality education by withholding more than FJ$80 million (NZ$50 million) in grants to the University of the South Pacific.

    Reportedly, during the meetings last week only the Prime Minister of Samoa, Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, called on the Fiji government to release the grant.

    Australia and New Zealand’s silence has given rise to criticism that they are practising the politics of convenience rather than principle and have lost moral ground in the Pacific region.

    Appeasing autocratic leaders in our region as a strategy against China is not only unconscionable, it is also short-sighted and counterproductive.

    A restrictive and undemocratic environment, where the media are suppressed and the people are denied a voice, is advantageous for China. It is thus in Australia and New Zealand’s best interests to fight against such trends by being vocal about them, instead of silent.

    Appeasement not best strategy
    The sooner Australia and New Zealand realise that appeasement is not the best strategy, the better it will be for them and for the region. If we are vuvale (one family) as Australia says, then we should look at our collective interest, rather than individual interests only.

    Unfortunately, the Forum Secretariat chose not to invite the parliamentary opposition leaders in Fiji to any of the meeting’s events, even though they represent a sizable proportion of the country’s population.

    This was another missed opportunity to get a fuller picture of the situation in Fiji instead of the official version only. It leads to a partial and poor understanding of what is happening, which is hardly the basis for sound decision-making.

    As leaders of democracies, Australia and New Zealand need to move away from a self-centred approach, and adopt a more conscientious, long-term outlook in the region.

    As it stands, in their preoccupation with and fear of China they seem to be losing sight of the goal. Australia and New Zealand should never compromise on governance and human rights and freedom of speech, the building blocks of democracy in the region.

    Dr Biman Prasad is an adjunct professor at James Cook University and Punjabi University, and is currently a Member of Parliament and leader of the National Federation Party in Fiji. He is a former professor of economics and dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of the South Pacific. This article was first published by DevPolicy Blog and is republished under a Creative Commons licence.

  • Cuba and China strengthen relations

    Cuba and China have recently agreed to expand and strengthen relations, reports Ian Ellis-Jones.

  • Digital toolbox needed to counter Pacific ‘hotspot of misinformation’

    ANALYSIS: By Romitesh Kant

    A shortage of resources and investment from major digital platforms has left the Pacific region battling a campaign of misinformation and under-moderation.

    Word spreads fast through the “coconut wireless”, the informal gossip network across Pacific Islanders’ social media.

    But when such rapid proliferation is spreading false or misleading news, it becomes a problem that requires resourcing and commitment to solve.

    The Pacific is currently a global hotspot for misinformation.

    The ability of Pacific island countries and territories to respond to “infodemic” risks online has been exposed by the covid-19 pandemic.

    Misinformation about the pandemic has persisted online, despite efforts by Pacific governments, civil societies, citizens, media organisations, and institutions to counter it.

    The Pacific presently has the smallest percentage of their population using the internet and social media compared with the rest of the world.

    Internet difficult, costly
    Internet provision is made more difficult and costly in the Pacific due to the region’s unique geographic features. A lack of high-capacity cables and other technical infrastructure has also held back Pacific connectivity.

    New undersea cables are arriving in the region, such as the Australian-financed Coral Sea Cable, connecting Sydney to Port Moresby and Honiara, ending decades of reliance on slow and expensive satellite connections.

    These cables, along with other planned reforms and upgrades, are expected to increase the number of mobile internet users in the Pacific by about 11 percent annually between 2018 and 2025, according to estimates by industry groups.

    Health workers offering Covid-19 vaccinations in Tonga.
    Health workers in Tonga offering to chat and answer questions about the covid-19 vaccine. Image: Tonga Ministry of Health

    More access has rapidly changed how government officials communicate with the public and shifted perceptions of politics.

    Both Kiribati and Vanuatu broadcast their national election results live on Facebook.

    In Kiribati, the 9400-member Kiribati election 2020 group posted photos of handwritten vote totals. In Vanuatu, the national broadcaster streamed the entire ballot-counting process on Facebook Live.

    Sparked by the rollout of mobile broadband across Papua New Guinea, hundreds of thousands of citizens now read the latest news and monitor happenings in Port Moresby through blogs and Facebook groups filled with lengthy discussions and heated calls to action.

    Flipside over access
    The flipside to such access is that false online rumours and scams directly targeting Pacific people have spread rapidly through Facebook groups and closed messaging applications.

    Rising internet access may be exacerbating the problem of child sexual exploitation online.

    In some regions of Papua New Guinea, hate speech, harassment, and harmful rumours can sometimes lead to actual acts of violence.

    Local politicians in the Pacific are starting to recognise the potential of social media, but unethical online influence techniques can go undetected if proper transparency measures and safeguards are not implemented.

    Facebook, for one, has implemented its transparency systems to curb hidden manipulation of its advertising features for partisan ends.

    Journalists and investigators in dozens of larger markets use these tools to reveal voter manipulation, but most Pacific island nations are yet to adopt them.

    The lack of transparency makes it very difficult for observers to track what political actors are saying online, especially as Facebook’s advertising system allows different messages to be targeted to different parts of the population.

    Fake Facebook accounts
    Social media companies make little effort to reach out to Pacific leaders, which may explain why so few public figures in the region use the “verified” badges that are useful in helping distinguish official accounts from personal ones.

    Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape found that out the hard way — fake Facebook and Twitter accounts were created in his name, and his lack of verification made the real profile harder for users to distinguish.

    Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape at the 76th UN General Assembly
    Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told the 76th UN General Assembly more international efforts are needed to combat misinformation online. Image: UN

    Some governments have threatened to completely block social media to curb the spread of content they deem immoral, harmful, or destructive to established norms and values.

    Nauru’s government blocked Facebook from 2015 to 2018, and Papua New Guinea and Samoa hinted at blocking the platform multiple times over the past few years.

    In 2019, Tonga considered a ban on Facebook to prevent slander against the monarchy.

    Social media bans are rarely implemented, and face fierce opposition from free speech advocates and users.

    The frequency with which such measures are proposed in the Pacific reflects a sobering reality: communities in the region often lack the protections that communities elsewhere in the world rely on to address harmful content and abuse on social media.

    Rule-breaking content
    Current systems for moderating content on social media are not effective in the Pacific. These systems rely on algorithms that flag rule-breaking content in multiple languages, human reviewers who make determinations on flagged material, users who voluntarily report content violating the rules, and legal requests from law enforcement officials.

    Social media platforms do not prioritise hiring from the Pacific region, where there are comparatively fewer people. They do not invest in developing language-specific algorithms for languages like Tongan, Bislama, or Chuukese, which have a smaller user base.

    Despite the growing importance of third-party fact-checking partnerships, no Pacific Island country is home to a dedicated fact-checking team.

    All claims in Australia and the Pacific islands are referred to the Australian Associated Press’s fact-checking unit. Pacific social media users are missing out on one of the few tools that global social media companies use to strengthen information ecosystems due to the lack of a robust local fact-checking organisation.

    All signs point to an increase in the dangers posed by false and misleading information in the months and years ahead, as both state and non-state actors attempt to steer online discourse in service of their strategic goals.

    Politically-motivated domestic and foreign actors (or proxies) regularly attempt to manipulate online platforms and social media worldwide. These efforts are highly diverse, always in flux, and frequently related to more extensive political or national interests.

    At least one organised effort to spread false information online about the West Papuan conflict has already occurred in the Pacific.

    Dangers posed
    External pressures and crises will amplify the dangers posed by these campaigns, as they did during the covid-19 pandemic when an excess of data and a lack of apparent credibility and fact checking allowed rumours to spread unchecked.

    Rising tensions between the developed world and China add to the already complex political situation, and the narrative tug-of-war for influence among significant powers on Covid-19 is likely to continue.

    There is a risk that online misinformation from foreign media will increase due to this competition for narrative dominance, leaving countries in the region vulnerable to influence operations that target online discourse, media, and communities.

    More robust local capacity (outside of government) to identify problematic content and bad actors online is necessary for the region to recover from Covid-19 and respond to future crises.

    This includes better coordination among regional institutions and governments, increased engagement between social media companies and Pacific leaders, and more thorough reporting of online problems.

    Foreseeing and preparing for future potential threats to health and safety is something that leaders can do now.

    Romitesh Kant is a Fiji PhD scholar at the Australian National University, and a research consultant with more than 10 years’ experience in the fields of governance, civic education and human rights. He is also a contributor to Pacific Journalism Review. This article was originally published on 360info under Creative Commons and RNZ Pacific. It has been republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Russia-China Polar Silk Road Speeds Ahead

    Since China’s Arctic extension of the New Silk Road was first unveiled in a January 2018 white paper, a process of Arctic development has been unleashed which represents one of the most important and under-appreciated developments on Earth. Not only will 10 days be saved by goods moving between China and Europe via the Arctic route, but a new set of civilization building measures are now being unleashed in opposition to the anti-human degrowth program attempting to steer the world into a post-nation state system of de-growth and world government.

    While NATO’s geopolitical unipolarists obsess over global governance and militarization of the Arctic, Eurasian Arctic policy has taken a very different character with an emphasis on economic development and cooperation.

    Of course, Russia has not neglected the military component of its northern military policy, but unlike the west which has no economic vision, Russia’s Arctic military posture is definitively defensive and principally diplomatic. As Foreign Minister Lavrov said at the end of last year’s Arctic Summit in Alaska: “Russia is doing and will do a lot to make sure the Arctic develops as a territory of peace, stability and cooperation.”

    This conjunction of Russia and China’s northern policies around the Polar Silk Road should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the close strategic friendship between both countries since the 2015 announcement of an alliance between the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Belt and Road Initiative. This northern extension of the Maritime Silk Road represents a powerful force to transform the last unexplored frontier on the Earth, converting the Arctic from a geopolitical zone of conflict towards a new paradigm of mutual cooperation and development.

    Putin gave a speech at a recent BRI forum stating:

    the Great Eurasian Partnership and Belt and Road concepts are both rooted in the principles and values that everyone understands: the natural aspiration of nations to live in peace and harmony, benefit from free access to the latest scientific achievements and innovative development, while preserving their culture and unique spiritual identity. In other words, we are united by our strategic, long-term interests.

    Weeks before this speech Russia unveiled a bold plan for Arctic development during the conference Arctic: Territory of Dialogue which has since grown in leaps and bounds. This bold plan ties to the “Great Eurasian Partnership“, not only extending roads, rail and new cities into the Far East, but also extending science and civilization into a terrain long thought totally inhospitable. One of the keystone projects driving this program involves the completion of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) launched as an Indian-Iranian-Russian program in 2002 and which has been given new life in the last several years.

    While the west has not built any new cities in several generations, Russia has announced the construction of five major Arctic cities supporting up to 1 million people each in the coming years with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu leading the plan. Reporting on this program Atle Staalesen wrote in Arctic Today:

    Shoigu sees his masterplan for Siberia as closely connected with the markets in nearby China. But the new cities will also be important for the development of the Arctic, he argues, and makes a reference to the famous 18th Century scientist and writer Mikhail Lomonosov who wrote that “Russian power will grow with Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, […]”. According to Shoigu, Lomonosov did not coincidently connect the Arctic and Siberia. “They should be developed together and not separately,” he underlines, and adds that “the focus on the development of the Siberian region is both timely and reasonable.”

    Typically framed as an “anti-BRI” megaproject by small-minded geopoliticians, the INSTC and BRI are really two sides of the same program and should much rather be seen as a sister program for Eurasian, Southwest Asian and even African industrial growth. The INSTC currently enjoys the cooperation of 12 participating nations and has recently seen its northern extension moved from St Petersburg further north to the port of Lavna in Murmansk, Russia. China’s western “middle corridor” branch of the east-west BRI stretching through Xinjiang also features several rail and road corridors that tie directly into the INSTC not to mention the obvious Arctic far east connections.

    When fully completed, the INSTC will not only circumvent the NATO-controlled zone of the Mediterranean zone via the overly congested Suez canal but will cut approximately 10 days and 40% of the transportation costs off the current Suez route.

    In 2019 China and Russia signed the first scientific cooperation agreement together setting up the “China-Russia Arctic Research Center” as a part of the Polar Silk Road.

    The BRI’s Success So Far

    The Belt and Road Initiative has already won over much of Africa as BRI-connected rail, ports, and other infrastructure are providing a breath of fresh air to nations long held hostage by IMF/World Bank conditionalities.

    Pakistan and much of Southwest Asia are also increasingly on board the BRI through the growing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Twenty Arab states have signed onto the BRI and much of Latin America has also joined with hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure projects.

    The Eurasian Economic Union is now in the final stages of a long planned economic treaty between China and the Russian-led economic block recently outlined by Putin advisor Sergey Glazyev.

    Although both the USA and Canada have been invited to the BRI on many occasions since its 2013 inception, no positive response has been permitted by the NATO-Deep State power structures manipulating the west.

    While China’s activity in the Arctic is only manifesting now, its Arctic Strategy began many years ago.

    The importance of the Arctic Silk Road for China

    China deployed their first Arctic research expedition in 1999, followed by the establishment of their first Arctic research station in Svalbard, Norway in 2004. After years of effort, China achieved a permanent observer seat at the Arctic Council in 2011, and began building icebreakers soon thereafter surpassing Canada and nearly surpassing the USA whose two out-dated ice breakers have passed their shelf life by many years.

    As the Arctic ice caps continue to recede, the Northern Sea Route has become a major focus for China. The fact that shipping time from China’s Port of Dalian to Rotterdam would be cut by 10 days makes this alternative very attractive. Ships sailing from China to Europe must currently follow a transit through the congested Strait of Malacca and the Suez Canal which is 5000 nautical miles longer than the northern route. The opening up of Arctic resources vital for China’s long term outlook is also a major driver in this initiative.

    In preparation for resource development, China and Russia created a Russian Chinese Polar Engineering and Research Center in 2016 to develop capabilities for northern development such as building on permafrost, creating ice resistant platforms, and more durable icebreakers. New technologies needed for enhanced ports, and transportation in the frigid cold was also a focus. China additionally has a 30% stake in the Yamal LNG Project and the ‘Power of Siberia’ 3000 mile Russia-China gas pipeline has become the primary supplier of China’s oil and natural gas needs since it began operations in 2019.

    While western states race to shut down all hydrocarbon-based fuels in a suicidal race to de-carbonize, Russia and China have signed off on a 2600km Power of Siberia 2 which will not only satisfy China’s growth needs for the coming decades, but will easily compensate for the loss of gas sales to Europe as the iron curtain is erected once more. The Yamal Peninsula gas fields which supply the Power of Siberia 2 to China currently only service European needs which will soon change drastically.

    Where the Belt Goes, the Road Follows

    While the Belt and Road features two components (land and sea), the fact is that they are inextricably connected. Rails, ports and other civilization-building practices driven by a belief in scientific and technological progress have given this design a power and flexibility to adapt to every nation’s chosen developmental pathways. This is the mysterious “secret ingredient” to the BRI’s powerful adaptability which boggles the minds of closed-minded geopoliticians who can only think in zero-sum terms.

    Scientific and technological progress, when shaped by the intention to uphold the common good represent UNIVERSAL requirements for human survival and satisfy a creative yearning at the deepest core of all people. Without this commitment to the continual improvement of productive powers of society and quality of life, a society will always be divided by the localized self interest of its parts fighting for their own short term benefits. Such has been the fate of the west as it embarked upon a consumer society driven by a “post-industrial mode of existence” after the assassinations of the 1960s and floating of the US dollar in 1971.

    This concept of the common development of mankind both as a whole and in all of its parts was echoed recently by Xi Jinping who stated:

    China is ready to jointly promote the Belt and Road Initiative with international partners. We hope to create new drivers to power common development through this new platform of international cooperation; and we hope to turn it into a road of peace, prosperity, openness, green development and innovation and a road that brings together different civilizations.

    Over the past decade, the BRI has evolved from a loose, open concept in 2013 to the most ambitious endeavor in human history growing into three primary rail lines, thousands of miles of high speed rail, Arctic and space-based extensions, new industrial corridors, new modes of shaping education policy and especially new modes of executing banking activities unlike anything done in the west.

    Of course, anti-BRI slanders increase with every passing day catering to mainstream normies who are led to believe that China is using “debt-trap diplomacy” or that Russia seeks global domination as soon as it conquers Ukraine.

    Even more scrutinizing conspiracy theorists are led to believe that the Russia-China alliance is just another part of the Great Reset seeking to reduce global population to stupedified cattle status. How this insidious goal will be achieved via the construction of large scale infrastructure projects, mass-technical training, scientific breakthroughs and full spectrum industrial growth is a question which such black pilled cynics fail to think about.

    The post The Russia-China Polar Silk Road Speeds Ahead first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Could Elon Musk’s Starlink program trigger a US war with China?

    China has expressed fears that Musk’s Starlink satellite mega constellation could be used for military purposes by the United States, and is considering potential counter-measures, reports Coral Wynter.

    This post was originally published on Green Left.

  • Pacific leaders call on world to take urgent climate action for island region’s ‘survival’

    By Geraldine Panapasa in Suva

    Climate change remains the single greatest existential threat facing the Blue Pacific, as leaders concluded the biggest diplomatic regional meeting in Suva last week with a plea for the world to take urgent action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.

    While renewed commitments by Australia to reduce its carbon footprint by 43 percent come 2030 and a legislated net zero emission by 2050 were welcomed initiatives, Pacific leaders reiterated calls for rapid, deep and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, adding the region was facing a climate emergency that threatened the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of its people and ecosystems, backed by the latest science and the daily lived realities in Pacific communities.

    PIF chairman and Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said the need was for “more ambitious climate commitments” — actions that would require the world to align its efforts to achieving the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree temperature threshold.

    Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama
    Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama … “That is our ask of Australia. That is our ask of New Zealand, the USA, India, the European Union, China and every other high-emitting country.” Image: Wansolwara

    “We simply cannot settle for anything less than the survival of every Pacific Island country –– and that requires that all high emitting economies implement science-based plans to decisively reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree temperature threshold,” he told journalists at the PIF Secretariat.

    “That requires that we halve global emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. Most urgently, it requires that we end our fossil fuel addiction, including coal,” he said.

    “That is our ask of Australia. That is our ask of New Zealand, the USA, India, the European Union, China and every other high-emitting country.

    “It is also what Fiji asks of ourselves, though our emissions are negligible.”

    Crisis felt in Fiji, Pacific
    Bainimarama said the world faced a global energy crisis that was felt in the Pacific and Fiji.

    While he understood the political realities that existed, planetary realities must take precedence.

    “It will take courage and surely extract some political capital. But if Pacific Island countries can respond to and rebuild after some of the worst storms to ever make landfall in history, advanced economies can surely make the transition to renewables.

    “The benefits will be remarkable. Our region has the potential to become a clean energy superpower if we summon the will to make it happen. That path is no doubt the surest way to an open, resilient, independent, and prosperous Blue Pacific.”

    Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna told Wansolwara ahead of PIF51 that issues such as climate change, oceans, economic development, technology and connectivity as well as people-centered development were key priorities on the talanoa agenda for leaders from PIF’s 18-member countries, including Australia and New Zealand.

    These priorities and the way forward to achieving it are incorporated in the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, a collective ambitious long-term plan to address global and regional geopolitical and development challenges in light of existing and emerging vulnerabilities and constraints.

    Cook Islands is expected to host the next PIF Leaders and related meetings in 2023, the Kingdom of Tonga in 2024 and Solomon Islands in 2025.

    Geraldine Panapasa is editor-in-chief of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme newspaper and website Wansolwara. The USP team is a partner of Asia Pacific Report.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • China Surpasses US in Life Expectancy

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • Protests after Henan bank closures
    • Anti-asteroid radar system
    • Philippine and China-US relations
    • China surpasses US in life expectancy

    The post China Surpasses US in Life Expectancy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West

    The G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, June 26-28, and the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, two days later, were practically useless in terms of providing actual solutions to ongoing global crises – the war in Ukraine, the looming famines, climate change and more. But the two events were important, nonetheless, as they provide a stark example of the impotence of the West, amid the rapidly changing global dynamics.

    As was the case since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, the West attempted to display unity, though it has become repeatedly obvious that no such unity exists. While France, Germany and Italy are paying a heavy price for the energy crisis resulting from the war, Britain’s Boris Johnson is adding fuel to the fire in the hope of making his country relevant on the global stage following the humiliation of Brexit. Meanwhile, the Biden Administration is exploiting the war to restore Washington’s credibility and leadership over NATO – especially following the disastrous term of Donald Trump, which nearly broke up the historic alliance.

    Even the fact that several African countries are becoming vulnerable to famines  – as a result of the disruption of food supplies originating from the Black Sea and the subsequent rising prices – did not seem to perturb the leaders of some of the richest countries in the world. They still insist on not interfering in the global food market, though the skyrocketing prices have already pushed tens of millions of people below the poverty line.

    Though the West had little reserve of credibility to begin with, Western leaders’ current obsession with maintaining thousands of sanctions on Russia, further NATO expansion, dumping yet more ‘lethal weapons’ in Ukraine and sustaining their global hegemony at any cost, have all pushed their credibility standing to a new low.

    From the start of the Ukraine war, the West championed the same ‘moral’ dilemma as that raised by George W. Bush at the start of his so-called ‘war on terror’. “You are either with us or with the terrorist,” he declared in October 2009. But the ongoing Russia-NATO conflict cannot be reduced to simple and self-serving cliches. One can, indeed, want an end to the war, and still oppose US-western unilateralism. The reason that American diktats worked in the past, however, is that, unlike the current geopolitical atmosphere, a few dared oppose Washington’s policies.

    Times have changed. Russia, China, India, along with many other countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are navigating all available spaces to counter the suffocating western dominance. These countries have made it clear that they will not take part in isolating Russia in the service of NATO’s expansionist agenda. To the contrary, they have taken many steps to develop alternatives to the west-dominated global economy, and particularly to the US dollar which, for five decades, has served the role of a commodity, not a currency, per se. The latter has been Washington’s most effective weapon, associated with many US-orchestrated crises, sanctions and, as in the case of Iraq and Venezuela, among others, mass hunger.

    China and others understand that the current conflict is not about Ukraine vs Russia, but about something far more consequential. If Washington and Europe emerge victorious, and if Moscow is pushed back behind the proverbial ‘iron curtain’, Beijing would have no other options but to make painful concessions to the re-emerging west. This, in turn, would place a cap on China’s global economic growth, and would weaken its case regarding the One China policy.

    China is not wrong. Almost immediately following NATO’s limitless military support of Ukraine and the subsequent economic war on Russia, Washington and its allies began threatening China over Taiwan. Many provocative statements, along with military maneuvers and high-level visits by US politicians to Taipei, were meant to underscore US dominance in the Pacific.

    Two main reasons drove the West to further invest in the current confrontational approach against China, at a time where, arguably, it would have been more beneficial to exercise a degree of diplomacy and compromise. First, the West’s fear that Beijing could misinterpret its action as weakness and a form of appeasement; and, second, because the West’s historic relationship with China has always been predicated on intimidation, if not outright humiliation. From the Portuguese occupation of Macau in the 16th century, to the British Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, to Trump’s trade war on China, the West has always viewed China as a subject, not a partner.

    This is precisely why Beijing did not join the chorus of western condemnations of Russia. Though the actual war in Ukraine is of no direct benefit to China, the geopolitical outcomes of the war could be critical to the future of China as a global power.

    While NATO remains insistent on expansion so as to illustrate its durability and unity, it is the alternative world order led by Russia and China that is worthy of serious attention. According to the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Beijing and Moscow are working to further develop the BRICS club of major emerging economies to serve as a counterweight to the G7. The German paper is correct. BRICS’ latest summit on June 23 was designed as a message to the G7 that the West is no longer in the driving seat, and that Russia, China and the Global South are preparing for a long fight against Western dominance.

    In his speech at the BRICS summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed the creation of an “international reserve currency based on the basket of currencies of our countries”. The fact that the ruble alone has managed to survive, in fact flourish, under recent Western sanctions, gives hope that BRICS currencies combined can manage to eventually sideline the US dollar as the world dominant currency.

    Reportedly, it was Chinese President Xi Jinping who requested that the date of the BRICS summit be changed from July 4 to June 23, so that it would not appear to be a response to the G7 summit in Germany. This further underscores how the BRICS are beginning to see themselves as a direct competitor to the G7. The fact that Argentina and Iran are applying for BRICS membership also illustrates that the economic alliance is morphing into a political, in fact geopolitical, entity.

    The global fight ahead is perhaps the most consequential since World War II. While NATO will continue to fight for relevance, Russia, China, and others will invest in various economic, political and even military infrastructures, in the hope of creating a permanent and sustainable counterbalance to Western dominance. The outcome of this conflict is likely to shape the future of humanity.

    The post The Rise of BRICS: The Economic Giant that is Taking on the West first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Climate rivalry between secretive autocracy and corrupted democracy

    COMMENTARY: By Megan Darby, editor of Climate Home News

    When it comes to the world’s two biggest emitters, we are caught between a secretive autocracy and an oversharing corrupted democracy.

    Most media attention is focused on the latter. The United States this week raised hopes of a compromise climate spending bill and quashed it again before you could say “Joe Manchin is a bad-faith actor”.

    Having somebody to blame does not make it any easier to address a system rigged in favour of fossil fuel interests.

    At Climate Home, we bypassed that news cycle (come back to us when you’ve achieved something, America!) and took a longer look at the former.

    Because the fact that so little climate journalism comes out of China at a certain point becomes newsworthy in itself. And once Chloé Farand started asking around, we knew this story’s time had come.

    It has never been easy for journalists and civil society to operate in Xi Jinping’s China. As he looks to secure a third term as president over the coming months, it is harder than ever.

    Beijing’s zero-covid policy is, most sources said, no longer just about public health, but a tool of control at a politically sensitive time. Conferences are cancelled indefinitely and travel restricted. Officials up and down the hierarchy are afraid to speak to the media.

    Out of six China-based climate reporters who spoke to Climate Home for the article, four had left or were preparing to leave the country.

    This is a problem. Not just for the international community, which has an interest in holding China to account for its emissions performance, but for China. In the vacuum, misinformation and Sinophobia flourish.

    From the slivers of news that do emerge, we can see that Chinese experts have much to teach the rest of the world. Ok, so they might want to keep their advantage in mass producing solar panels, but when it comes to smart deployment policy, they have every incentive to share tips.

    Perhaps they could give US climate campaigners, who are in despair right now, some fresh ideas.

  • Bastille Day message: Paris must ‘re-arm in Pacific’, says commander

    RNZ Pacific

    A senior French military commander says France should re-arm in the Pacific and consider restoring its forces to a level of 30 years ago.

    Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey told Tahiti-infos on the eve of Bastille Day that France had to look at going back to being better armed ships with sonars, torpedoes, guns, and missiles.

    Reacting to alarm in the region over the security pact between China and Solomon Islands, Rey said France wanted to be a power of balance amid the rivalry between the United States and China.

    Rey said while nothing had happened yet, there was a risk that China could try to have a military installation in Solomon Islands, although Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has reassured the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva this week that this would not happen.

    Rey said that, if necessary, France opposed illegal actions by China, but maintained a dialogue with it.

    Maintaining ‘a balance’
    The commander said France would continue to maintain a balance by refusing the logic of the two blocs, which could lead to conflict.

    In June, then French Overseas Minister Sébastien Lecornu said two new patrol boats would be deployed this year, one in New Caledonia and one in French Polynesia for what he described as surveillance and sovereignty missions.

    Lecornu also said this year an exercise would be held involving Rafale fighter jets and A400 transport planes.

    He said the challenges posed by geopolitical rivalries in a multi-polar region could only be the subject of an inclusive and multilateral response based on respect for the law.

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

    Georges, a Tahitian volunteer in the French armed forces
    Georges, a Tahitian volunteer in the French armed forces, gears up for the annual Bastille Day parade in Paris yesterday. Image: Tahiti-Infos

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Kiribati ‘cooking something with China’, says ex-Kiribati president

    By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific at the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva

    Former Kiribati President Anote Tong suspects a major agreement is “cooking” between Beijing and Tarawa after the country’s decision to quit the Pacific Islands Forum.

    Kiribati President Taneti Maamau’s “surprise” announcement to abandon its membership from the region’s premier policy and political body at the 51st Forum Leaders’ meeting this week has heightened concerns the Micronesian nation is moving closer to China.

    “I know they are cooking something with China,” Tong, who led the atoll island nation from 2003 to 2016, said.

    “I think it would have started with the reopening of the Phoenix Island Protected Area.”

    The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is the largest designated marine protected area in the world, spanning almost 400,000 sq km in the South Pacific Ocean, midway between Australia and Hawai’i.

    Sources have told RNZ Pacific that a possible deal may include exclusive access to Chinese vessels to the Protected Area.

    Tong believed the move by the Maamau government suggested that it hoped to “gain from being isolated from the region” by striking a deal directly with China.

    ‘Totally unexpected’
    “It’s totally unexpected. I did not think it was in our nature, in our character, to do something quite so radical like that,” he said.

    The Kiribati government is under financial pressure due to the economic impacts of covid-19 and the current drought.

    “I know that the government is in a serious problem with the escalating budget which is not sustainable,” Tong said.

    He said it should not come as a surprise if the government was talking about a deal directly with the Chinese about the Phoenix Islands.

    “I have seen expressions in the past in which the president [Maamau] confirmed China was going to assist in the development of Canton Islands … a former US military base and it was in closer proximity to Hawaii. So, we are very strategically located,” he said.

    “It is the reason why Kiribati may have withdrawn from the Pacific Island Forum.”

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Kiribati President Taneti Maamau
    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Kiribati President Taneti Maamau in May 2022 … Kiribati moving closer to China. Image: RNZ File

    Blamed on China
    Meanwhile, Kiribati’s opposition leader Tessie Lambourne is blaming Kiribati’s decision to withdraw from the Forum on pressure exerted by China.

    The former diplomat told The Guardian she was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by the government’s move.

    Lambourne said she believed the decision was influenced by China, and that the Maamau administration was weak, vulnerable and greatly indebted to Beijing.

    She said someone seemed to be telling the Kiribati government that the country did not need regional solidarity.

    “I’m embarrassed because what we are saying is that we are not in the fold … we are outside,” she told The Guardian.

    “And why are we outside? I think it’s us who keep ourselves out … because we are not engaged or engaging.”

    China brushes off claims
    China, however, has denied allegations that it has anything to do Kiribati’s decision, saying it “does not interfere in the internal affairs of Pacific Islands countries”.

    Kiribati said it did not feel its concerns over the leadership rift had been listened to following the special meeting hosted by the forum chair Fiji in June, and as a consequence it had no other alternative but to leave.

    Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuelo said that while it was not known if China was exerting its influence to force Kiribati out of the forum “we hope to find out soon”.

    Panuelo said there was a lot of work put into the Suva Agreement to achieve a reform package which would see that the forum was “much strengthened”.

    “Our aim is to open the doors and continue to invite Kiribati because when one member is not on board, it is not quite over yet,” he said.

    Tong said he “completely disagrees” with Maamau’s reasoning.

    “I am not so sure that it really provides the justification for the kind of reaction to just withdraw like that,” he said.

    “There should have been a lot of room to manoeuvre the discussions in Suva. There is so much at stake in losing membership of the forum. I cannot imagine how Kiribati would win by having taken that step.”

    Tong also raised concerns about the recent visit by China’s foreign minister to Tarawa.

    “The Chinese foreign minister went through here for a few hours last month and there was a deal signed,” he said.

    “Nobody knows what that deal is. And so that is maybe part of the whole process.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • By making China the Enemy, NATO is threatening World Peace

    As the saying goes, if you only have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The West has the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a self-declared “defensive” military alliance – so any country that refuses its dictates must, by definition, be an offensive military threat.

    That is part of the reason why Nato issued a new “strategic concept” document last week at its summit in Madrid, declaring for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” from Russia.

    Beijing views this new designation as a decisive step by Nato on the path to pronouncing it a “threat” too – echoing the alliance’s escalatory approach towards Moscow over the past decade. In its previous mission statement, issued in 2010, Nato advocated “a true strategic partnership” with Russia.

    According to a report in the New York Times, China would have found itself openly classed as a “threat” last week had it not been for Germany and France. They insisted that the more hostile terminology be watered down so as to avoid harming their trade and technology links with China.

    In response, Beijing accused Nato of “maliciously attacking and smearing” it, and warned that the alliance was “provoking confrontation”. Not unreasonably, Beijing believes Nato has strayed well out of its sphere of supposed “defensive” interest: the North Atlantic.

    Nato was founded in the wake of the Second World War expressly as a bulwark against Soviet expansion into Western Europe. The ensuing Cold War was primarily a territorial and ideological battle for the future of Europe, with the ever-present mutual threat of nuclear annihilation.

    So how, Beijing might justifiably wonder, does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into Nato’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are Americans or Europeans suddenly under threat of military conquest from China?

    Creating enemies

    The current Nato logic reads something like this: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February is proof that the Kremlin has ambitions to recreate its former Soviet empire in Europe. China is growing its military power and has similar imperial designs towards the rival, breakaway state of Taiwan, as well as western Pacific islands. And because Beijing and Moscow are strengthening their strategic ties in the face of western opposition, Nato has to presume that their shared goal is to bring western civilisation crashing down.

    Or as last week’s Nato mission statement proclaimed: “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”

    But if anyone is subverting the “rules-based international order”, a standard the West regularly invokes but never defines, it looks to be Nato itself – or the US, as the hand that wields the Nato hammer.

    That is certainly the way it looks to Beijing. In its response, China argued: “Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [Nato] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is Nato that is creating problems around the world.”

    China has a point. A problem with bureaucracies – and Nato is the world’s largest military bureaucracy – is that they quickly develop an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring their permanent existence, if not expansion. Bureaucracies naturally become powerful lobbies for their own self-preservation, even when they have outlived their usefulness.

    If there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured. That can mean one of two things: either inventing an imaginary threat, or provoking the very threat the bureaucracy was designed to avert or thwart. Signs are that Nato – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both.

    Remember that Nato should have dissolved itself after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. But three decades later, it is bigger and more resource-hungry than ever.

    Against all advice, and in violation of its promises, Nato has refused to maintain a neutral “security buffer” between itself and Russia. Instead, it has been expanding right up to Russia’s borders, including creeping furtively into Ukraine, the gateway through which armies have historically invaded Russia.

    Offensive alliance

    Undoubtedly, Russia has proved itself a genuine threat to the territorial integrity of its neighbour Ukraine by conquering its eastern region – home to a large ethnic Russian community the Kremlin claims to be protecting. But even if we reject Russian President Vladimir Putin’s repeated assertion that Moscow has no larger ambitions, the Russian army’s substantial losses suggest it has scant hope of extending its military reach much further.

    Even if Moscow were hoping to turn its attention next to Poland or the Baltic states, or Nato’s latest recruits of Sweden and Finland, such a move would clearly risk nuclear confrontation. This is perhaps why western audiences hear so much from their politicians and media about Putin being some kind of deranged megalomaniac.

    The claim of a rampant, revived Russian imperialism appears not to be founded in any obvious reality. But it is a very effective way for Nato bureaucrats to justify enlarging their budgets and power, while the arms industries that feed off Nato and are embedded in western capitals substantially increase their profits.

    The impression that this might have been Nato’s blueprint for handling Moscow is only underscored by the way it is now treating China, with even less justification. China has not recently invaded any sovereign territories, unlike the US and its allies, while the only territory it might threaten – Taiwan – is some 12,000 kilometres from the US mainland, and a similarly long distance from most of Europe.

    The argument that the Russian army may defeat Ukraine and then turn its attention towards Poland and Finland at least accords with some kind of geographical possibility, however remote. But the idea that China may invade Taiwan and then direct its military might towards California and Italy is in the realms of preposterous delusion.

    Nato’s new posture towards Beijing brings into question its whole characterisation as a “defensive” alliance. It looks very much to be on the offensive.

    Russian red lines

    Notably, Nato invited to the summit for the first time four states from the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

    The creation of a Nato-allied “Asia-Pacific Four” is doubtless intended to suggest to Beijing parallels with Nato’s gradual recruitment of eastern European states starting in the late 1990s, culminating in its more recent flirting with Ukraine and Georgia, longstanding red lines for Russia.

    Ultimately, Nato’s courting of Russia’s neighbours led to attacks by Moscow first on Georgia and then on Ukraine, conveniently bolstering the “Russian threat” narrative. Might the intention behind similar advances to the “Asia-Pacific Four” be to provoke Beijing into a more aggressive military stance in its own region, in order to justify Nato expanding far beyond the North Atlantic, claiming the entire globe as its backyard?

    There are already clear signs of that. In May, US President Joe Biden vowed that the US – and by implication Nato – would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily if it were attacked. Beijing regards Taiwan, some 200 kilometres off its coast, as Chinese territory.

    Similarly, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called last week for Nato countries to ship advanced weapons to Taiwan, in the same way Nato has been arming Ukraine, to ensure the island has “the defence capability it needs”.

    This echoes Nato’s narrative about its goals in Ukraine: that it is pumping weapons into Ukraine to “defend” the rest of Europe. Now, Nato is casting itself as the guardian of the Asia-Pacific region too.

    ‘Economic coercion’

    But in truth, this is not just about competing military threats. There is an additional layer of western self-interest, concealed behind claims of a “defensive” alliance.

    Days before the Nato summit, the G7, a group of the seven leading industrialised nations that form the core of Nato, announced their intention to raise $600bn to invest in developing countries.

    This move wasn’t driven by altruism. The West has been deeply worried by Beijing’s growing influence on the world stage through its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, announced in 2013.

    China is being aggressive, but so far only in exercising soft power. In the coming decades, it plans to invest in the infrastructure of dozens of developing states. More than 140 countries have so far signed up to the initiative.

    China’s aim is to make itself the hub of a global network of new infrastructure projects – from highways and ports to advanced telecommunications – to strengthen its economic trade connections to Africa, the Middle East, Russia and Europe.

    If it succeeds, China will stamp its economic dominance on the globe – and that is what really worries the West, particularly the US and its Nato military bureaucracy. They are labelling this “economic coercion”.

    This week, the heads of the FBI and MI5 – the US and UK’s domestic intelligence services – held an unprecedented joint news conference in London to warn that China was the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security”. Underscoring western priorities, they added that any attack on Taiwan would “represent one of the most horrific business disruptions the world has ever seen”.

    Unilateral aggression

    Back in the Cold War era, Washington was not just, or even primarily, worried about a Soviet military invasion. The nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction meant neither had an interest in direct confrontation.

    Instead, each treated developing nations as pawns in an economic war over resources to be plundered and markets to be controlled. Each side tried to expand its so-called “sphere of influence” over other states and secure a larger slice of the planet’s wealth, in order to fuel its domestic economy and expand its military industries.

    The West’s rhetoric about the Cold War emphasised an ideological battle between western freedoms and Soviet authoritarianism. But whatever significance one attributes to that rhetorical fight, the more important battle for each side was proving to other states the superiority of the economic model that grew out of its ideology.

    In the early Cold War years, it should be recalled, communist parties were frontrunners to win elections in several European states – something that was starkly evident to the drafters of the Nato treaty.

    The US invested so heavily in weapons – today, its military budget exceeds the combined spending of the next nine countries – precisely to strong-arm poorer nations into its camp, and punish those that refused. That task was made easier after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a unipolar world, Washington got to define who would be treated as a friend, and on what terms, and who a foe.

    Nato chiefly served as an alibi for US aggression, adding a veneer of multilateral legitimacy to its largely unilateral militarism.

    Debt slavery

    In reality, the “rules-based international order” comprises a set of US-controlled economic institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, that dictate oppressive terms to increasingly resentful poor countries – often the West’s former colonies – in desperate need of investment. Most have ended up in permanent debt slavery.

    China is offering them an alternative, and in the process it threatens to gradually erode US economic dominance. Russia’s apparent ability to survive the West’s economic sanctions, while those sanctions rebound on western economies, underscores the tenuousness of Washington’s economic primacy.

    More generally, Washington is losing its grip on the global order. The rival BRICS group – of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is preparing to expand by including Iran and Argentina in its power bloc. And both Russia and China, forced into deeper alliance by Nato hostility, have been seeking to overturn the international trading system by decoupling it from the US dollar, the central pillar of Washington’s hegemonic status.

    The recently released “Nato 2030” document stresses the importance of Nato remaining “ready, strong and united for a new era of increased global competition”. Last week’s strategic vision listed China’s sins as seeking “to control key technological and industrial sectors, critical infrastructure, and strategic materials and supply chains”. It added that China “uses its economic leverage to create strategic dependencies and enhance its influence”, as though this was not exactly what the US has been doing for decades.

    Washington’s greatest fear is that, as its economic muscle atrophies, Europe’s vital trading links with China and Russia will see its economic interests – and eventually its ideological loyalties – shift eastwards, rather than stay firmly in the western camp.

    The question is: how far is the US willing to go to stop that? So far, it looks only too ready to drag Nato into a military sequel to the Cold War – and risk pushing the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.

    • First published in Middle East Eye

    The post By making China the Enemy, NATO is threatening World Peace first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • How China’s creeping influence undermines Pacific media freedom

    ANALYSIS: The restrictions on Pacific news media during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent Pacific trip are only the most recent example of a media sector under siege, writes Shailendra Singh.

    For the Pacific news media sector, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent eight-nation South Pacific tour may be over, but it should not be forgotten. The minister and his 20-member “high-level” delegation’s refusal to take local journalists’ questions opened a veritable can of worms that will resonate in Pacific media circles for a while.

    However, Wang’s sulky silence should not be seen as isolated incident but embedded in deeper problems in media freedom and development for the Pacific.

    Besides dealing with their own often hostile national governments and manoeuvring through ever-more restrictive legislation, Pacific media is increasingly having to contend with pressure from foreign elements as well.

    China is the most prominent in this regard, as underscored by Wang’s visit, but there have been other incidents of journalist obstruction involving countries like Indonesia as well.

    What is particularly appalling is how some Pacific governments seem to have cooperated with foreign delegations to stop their national media from asking legitimate questions.

    Fijian journalist Lice Mavono’s account of the extent to which local Fijian officials went to limit journalists’ ability to cover Wang’s visit is highly troubling. In scenes rarely seen before, Wang and Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s joint press conference was apparently managed by Chinese officials, even though it was on Fijian soil.

    When some journalists defied instructions and yelled out their unapproved questions, a Chinese official shouted back at them to stop. One journalist was ordered to leave the room with a minder attempting to escort him out, but fellow journalists intervened.

    Journalists obstructed
    Similar behaviour was witnessed at the Pacific Islands Forum-hosted meeting between Wang and forum Secretary-General Henry Puna, where Chinese officials continued to obstruct journalists even after forum officials intervened on the journalists’ behalf.

    The Chinese officials’ determined efforts indicated that they came well prepared to thwart the media. It also conveyed their disrespect for the premier regional organisation in the Pacific, to the point of defying forum officials’ directives.

    However, what should be most concerning for the region as a whole is the way this episode exposed the apparent ability of Chinese officials to influence, dominate, and even give instructions to local officials.

    This is all the more disturbing as China is ramping up its engagement with Pacific governments. Consequently, longstanding questions about China’s impact on the region’s democratic and media institutions become even more urgent.

    Indeed, just weeks after Wang’s visit, Solomon Islands media reported that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, in an extraordinary gazette, announced that the government would be taking full financial control of the state broadcaster, Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC).

    There are fears that this arrangement — which draw comparisons with the Chinese state-owned broadcaster CCTV — will give the government far more control over SIBC, potentially both editorially and in its day-to-day management.

    This is troubling given Sogavare’s antagonism towards the SIBC, who he has accused of giving more airtime to government critics than to officials. Veteran Solomon Islands journalist Dorothy Wickham condemned the move, stating: “We now don’t have a public broadcaster!”

    Additional steps
    This trend indicates the need for additional steps to strengthen media rights by, among other things, boosting journalist professional capacity. This is simply because good journalists are more aware of and better able to safeguard media rights.

    To this end, one area that clearly needs work is a greater focus on reporting regional events effectively. As major powers jostle for influence, and Pacific politics become ever more interconnected, what happens in one country will increasingly affect others.

    Journalists need to be aware of this and more strongly frame their stories through a regional lens. However, this will not happen without focused and targeted training.

    In this context, media research and development is an oft-overlooked pillar of media freedom. While all kinds of demands are made of Pacific journalists and much is expected of them, there seems to be little regard for their welfare and not much curiosity about what makes them tick.

    To get an idea of how far behind the Pacific is in media research, it is worth considering that there has only been one multi-country survey of Pacific journalists’ demography, professional profiles and ethical beliefs in 30 years.

    This recent, important research yielded valuable data to better understand the health of Pacific media and the capabilities of Pacific journalists.

    For instance, the data indicates that Pacific journalists are more inexperienced and under-qualified than counterparts in the rest of the world. In addition, the Pacific has among the highest rate of journalist attrition due to, among other things, uncompetitive salaries, a feature of small media systems.

    Conditions ignored
    So, while governments make much of biased journalists, they conveniently ignore the working conditions, training, education, and work experience that are needed to increase integrity and performance.

    In other words, the problems in Pacific media are not solely the work of rogue elements in the news media, they are structural in nature. These factors are not helped by draconian legislation which is supposedly intended to ensure fairness, but in fact only further squeezes already restricted journalists.

    This situation underscores the need for further research, which can identify and offer informed solutions to the problems in the sector. Yet, scholarships and fellowships for Pacific media research are as rare as hen’s teeth.

    Furthermore, Wang’s Pacific visit and China’s activities in the region are a wake-up call for regional media as to the urgent need for capacity-building. Any remedial actions should be informed by research and need to consider problems in a holistic manner.

    As we have seen, “band-aid’ solutions at best provide only temporary relief, and at worst misdiagnose the problem.

    This China fiasco is also a reminder to care about Pacific journalists, try to understand them and show concern for their welfare. We should not regard journalists as merely blunt instruments of news reporting.

    Rather, a free and democratic media is the lifeblood of a free and democratic Pacific.

    Dr Shailendra B Singh is the head of journalism at the University of the South Pacific and a research fellow at the Australian National University. This article was first published by ANU’s Asia and the Pacific Policy Society Policy Forum and is republished here with the author’s permission.

  • Fiji police evict two Chinese defence attaches amid Pacific Forum tensions

    Pacific Media Watch newsdesk

    Fiji police have evicted two Chinese defence attaches from a Pacific Islands Forum summit in Suva while US Vice-President Kamala Harris was delivering a virtual address, reports The Guardian Australia.

    Kate Lyons, editor of The Guardian’s Pacific Project, reported that the the men were present at a session of the Forum Fisheries Agency when Harris announced the step-up of US engagement in the region, “believed to be in response to China’s growing influence”.

    According to The Guardian, the officials had been sitting with the media contingent, but one was identified as a Chinese embassy officer by Lice Movono, an independent Fiji journalist who has been covering the forum for the Australian edition of the newspaper.

    “Movono said she ‘recognised him because I’ve interacted with him at least three times already’, including during the visit of the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, to Suva last month, at which journalists were removed from events and blocked from asking questions,” The Guardian report said.

    “‘He was one of the people that was removing us from places and directing other people to remove us,’ she said. ‘So I went over to him and asked: “Are you here as a Chinese embassy official or for Xinhua [Chinese news agency], because this is the media space. And he shook his head as if to indicate that he didn’t speak English”.’

    Movono alerted Fijian protocol officers, who told her to inform Fijian police, who then escorted the two men from the room. They did not answer questions from media, reported The Guardian.

    Diplomatic sources later confirmed that the men were a defence attache and a deputy defence attache from China, and part of the embassy in Fiji, The Guardian said.

    The report highlighted the intense geopolitical rivalry over growing Chinese influence in the region.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pacific Islands Forum ‘on course’ as China issue casts shadow

    By Wata Shaw in Suva

    Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama opened the 51st Pacific Islands Forum leaders meeting yesterday by saying it was setting the course for the future of Pacific regionalism through the 2050 strategy for the blue Pacific continent.

    Meanwhile, in a letter posted on Twitter, Kiribati President Taneti Maamau addressed Forum Secretary-General Henry Puna and informed him Kiribati would pull out completely from the organisation.

    Maamau said Kiribati’s leaving was never meant to undermine the leadership of the Pacific’s premier institution nor was it directed at any member of the Pacific family.

    Former Fiji diplomat and chief executive officer in the Prime Minister’s Office until the December 2006 military takeover, Jioji Kotobalavu, issued a statement saying prime ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand had strongly indicated they wanted the forum leaders to discuss the wider implications to security in the region amid China’s growing presence and influence in its dealings with individual Pacific island countries.

    Chinese ambassador to Fiji Qian Bo said the Pacific had nothing to fear from China and assured their relationship with Pacific island countries would continue to grow “within the framework of strategic partnerships with all countries including Fiji”.

    Wata Shaw is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Global Inflation and China’s Measures to Stabilize Her Economy

    • This article was first published by the International Monetary Institute, China.

    Under normal circumstances inflation occurs when too many monetary units (US-dollars, Euros, Chinese Yuan) chase too few goods. But we are not living in normal times. To the contrary. We are living in an increasingly divided world, not only in political terms – West vs. East / Global North vs. Global South – but also in monetary terms.

    The gradual but ever faster faltering of the US-dollar hegemony, followed by related so-called hard currencies, like the Euro, the British Pound, the Japanese Yen, as well as the Australian and Canadian dollars – is giving eastern currencies, especially the Chinese Yuan and to some extent also the Russian Ruble a thrive towards stability.

    Why is that? For a number of reasons. First, the Chinese Yuan and the Russian Ruble, as well as many other eastern currencies, are backed by their economies and in both cases also by gold. For that reason alone, they have an inherent stability that western fiat currencies – which are based on nothing – do not have.

    A new and coming eastern currency stability mechanism may soon be a basket of some twenty commodities that are widely and universally used, in addition to the strength of the local economy.

    This idea is not new, but has recently been reintroduced by Russia’s Sergei Glazyev.  As of 2021, he is the Commissioner for Integration and Macroeconomics within the Eurasian Economic Commission, the executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union. Sergei Glazyev is also President Putin’s economic advisor.

    It is a clear distinction from western fiat currencies which are based on no solid substance, other than debt creation. In other words, western dollar-based currencies, beginning with the US-dollar itself, are unsustainable pyramid schemes which sooner or later are bound to implode, or at best, gradually collapse.

    What we are witnessing today is a steady decay of western currencies which are currently been artificially propped up by manipulation of interest rates, as well as artificially caused inflation, based on artificially created shortages of food, energy and other commodities. The pretext used for such shortages – totally false indeed – is the Russian-Ukraine war.

    Such shortages, especially food shortages and resulting mass famine, had been planned for over ten years and were already reflected in the 2010 Rockefeller Report. They are being carried out now.

    In today’s (western) world, inflation and monetary (in)stability are manufactured or manipulated. They are being used like “cold war” weapons by the west internally, initiated by the US, to play western currencies against each other and to assure dollar hegemony will continue. To the extent possible and especially through the east-west trade-related interdependency, mostly through the powerhouse China, the west is hoping to also destabilize the economies of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members, especially China.

    China’s western currency reserves amounted in May 2022 to some US$ 3.12 trillion equivalent, at least two thirds of which are in US-dollar denominated assets. Given the Chinese, US, as well as western economies’ trading interrelation, dedollarization remains a challenge for China.

    The Federal Reserve – FED

    Despite forecasters’ expectations of a half-a basic point increase, under the pretext of fighting inflation, the FED announced on June 15 the largest interest rate hike in 28 years, namely an increase of three-quarters of a percentage point — the biggest hike since 1994. That follows a quarter-point increase in March and a half-point jump in May. On July 5, 2022, the FED’s base rate was between 1.5% and 1.75%.

    This, the FED said, was a move towards regaining control over soaring consumer prices.

    However, consumer prices were up 8.6% from a year ago. In other words, the FED pretends to fight an 8.6% annual inflation with an interest rate hike of less than 2%. This is unrealistic.

    The real reason for these sudden interest rate increases is to be sought elsewhere. Namely, the gradual but steady loss of the US-dollar’s value in the global monetary market. This has to do with a number of factors, among them the steadily faltering trust in the US economy, but predominantly with Washington’s dollar-based worldwide “sanctioning” of countries that do not conform to US policies, but instead want to preserve their political and economic sovereignty.

    Increasing interest rates is expected to draw investors to dollar denominated assets, at least temporarily; thereby “postponing” the collapse of the US-dollar hegemony.

    The global flow of US-dollars accounts today for between 50% and 60% of all trading currencies in the world. With this quantitative supremacy, plus interest rates increases, the US-dollar may be able to extend her currency domination provisionally – but the fall of the dollar and dollar-related and dependent currencies will undoubtedly follow.

    The result of this FED interest hike can already be seen, in as much as the exchange rate US dollar and Euro is almost 1:1, and the dollar is moving in the same direction vis-à-vis the British Pound.

    The inflation-driven price increases reflect not only rising costs for gasoline and groceries, but also for rent and airfares and a wide range of services.

    Overall, however, the FEDs interest hike, even at a record-level over the past almost 30 years,  does not stop or even brake inflation – which is expected to soon enter the two-digit dimension. The gap between base-interest and inflation is too wide. But it may bring temporarily more stability to the US-dollar.

    What is China doing for their currency’s – the Yuan’s – stability?

    In addition to having already a real economy-based currency, and the prospect of moving towards commodity-based and backed currency, the State Council of China issued at the end of May 2022 a policy package, including 33 measures covering fiscal and financial policies, as well as policies on investment, consumption, food and energy security, industrial and supply chains, and people’s livelihoods. These are some highlights of the package:

    — In finance, China will further enhance value-added tax credit refund policies and quicken its fiscal spending schedule. Local government special bonds issuance and utilization will be accelerated with a service extension. Government financing guarantee policies will be activated and social security premiums deferral and employment support policies will be enhanced;

    — In terms of monetary and financial policies, China encourages delayed repayment of capital and interests on loans for small and medium-sized enterprises, self-employed individuals, truck drivers, and personal housing and consumption loans affected by COVID-19. Inclusive loans to micro and small businesses will be expanded. Real lending rates will be stable with a slight decline, and improvements will be made to the financing efficiency of capital markets;

    — In stabilizing investment and promoting consumption, China will accelerate some approved water conservancy projects and speed up investment on transportation infrastructure, continue to build urban underground pipelines, stabilize and expand private investment, promote the healthy and standardized development of the platform economy, and stimulate purchases of cars and home appliances;

    — Regarding food and energy security, policies on grains profit guarantee for farmers will be intensified. Quality coal will be produced while ensuring safety, environment-friendliness and efficient utilization. In addition, some major [alternative] energy projects will be launched;

    — To stabilize industrial and supply chains, China will reduce utility costs for market entities, gradually reduce and exempt their rent, and help ease the burden on sectors and companies severely affected by the pandemic. Enterprises’ work resumption and smooth transportation and logistics policies will be optimized. More support will be provided to logistics hubs and enterprises. Major foreign-funded projects will be prioritized to attract foreign investments; and

    — As for policies concerning people’s livelihoods, China will implement support policies for housing provident funds, bolster the employment and entrepreneurship of rural migrant population and rural labor, and enhance social security guarantee measures.

    From a Uni-Polar to a Multi-Polar World

    The future points clearly away from a western-dominated unipolar world or One World Order (OWO) to a multi-polar world, that may be based on some strong economic “hubs”, while preserving individual countries’ sovereignty.

    The above policies are to strengthen and stabilize in the long-term the Chinese economy – which will be further enhanced by trade and political association with other related regional economies, like those of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the SCO, as well as further down the road the BRICS+ countries.

    Among the particular socioeconomic achievements that will keep China’s and associated currencies and financial systems stable and apart from the western shortage and inflation-driven economies, is the ASEAN-plus Five world’s largest and most comprehensive free-trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

    The RCEP is a free trade agreement among the Asia-Pacific ASEAN nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The trade deal also includes five non-ASEAN signatories, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and China.

    The RCEP is the world’s largest free trade agreement. It was negotiated during eight years and entered into effect on 1 January 2022. According to a recent UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) study, it represents 30.5% of the world’s GDP. The only other blocs coming close to that are the US-Mexico-Canada agreement – NAFTA (28%) and the EU (17.9%).

    The RCEP is expected to expand quickly, as the 15 countries will likely generate world-embracing dynamics, while at the same time remaining self-contained as a sovereign bloc, meaning trading within and protected from western influences.

    The bloc’s trading currencies will be predominantly the Yuan (a digital yuan primarily for international trade is expected to be rolled out possibly as early as later this year or early 2023), but also local currencies – but not the US-dollar and other western currencies under the dollar hegemony.

    Another element for enhancing eastern financial stability, is the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Earlier this year, Iran applied for BRICS membership. Iran is already a member of the SCO.

    At present, the BRICS represent 40 percent of world population, 25 percent of the global economy, 18 percent of world trade. The BRICS are the fastest growing bloc of countries, contributing some 50% to world economic growth.

    Finally – but not least – is the interrelated Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), initiated by President Xi Jinping in 2013. The BRI is also called the New Silk Road, inspired by the concept of the Silk Road established during the Han Dynasty over 2,000 years ago – an ancient network of trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean via Eurasia for centuries.

    In March 2022, the number of countries that have joined the BRI by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China is 146, plus 32 international organizations. The countries of the BRI are spread across all continents: 43 countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

    The BRI has several trading routes, including maritime routes, connecting countries with transport and other infrastructure links, as well as joint ventures for energy exploitation or industrial production processes, cultural and educational exchanges, and many more country and regional links. It is “Globalization” with Chinese characteristics, where individual autonomies are respected.

    This initiative goes hand in hand with another one, the Global Development Initiative (GDI), announced by President Xi Jinping at the UN General Assembly in 2021.

    GDI complements BRI as a support and cooperation mechanism for large international financial and development bodies, such as the South-South Cooperation Fund, the International Development Association (IDA is part of the World Bank Group), the Asian Development Fund (ADF), and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).

    This eastern, China-based network of mutually enhancing financial institutions, trade agreements, economic policy think tanks – and much more – shield against western attempts to interfere with and destabilize these eastern bloc financial, economic and monetary mechanisms.

    These networks also represent a stronghold for a sound future for an eastern-led socioeconomic development framework – a solid base for a common future in PEACE for mankind.

    The post Global Inflation and China’s Measures to Stabilize Her Economy first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Chinese Group BYD Overtakes Elon Musk’s Tesla

    This week’s News on China in 2 minutes.

    • NATO Summit and China
    • BYD surpasses Tesla in sales
    • Red Building opens a school for politics and ideology
    • China’s ancient poet-celebrity

    The post Chinese Group BYD Overtakes Elon Musk’s Tesla first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The United States Wants to Prevent a Historical Fact: Eurasian Integration

    Max Ernst (Germany), Europe After the Rain, 1940–42.

    Max Ernst (Germany), Europe After the Rain, 1940–42.

    Over the course of the past fifteen years, European countries have found themselves with both great opportunities to seize and complex choices to make. Unsustainable reliance on the United States for trade and investment, as well as the curious distraction of Brexit, led to the steady integration of European countries with Russian energy markets and more uptake of Chinese investment opportunities and its manufacturing prowess.

    Closer linkages between Europe and these two large Asian countries (China and Russia) provoked the US agenda to prevent that integration or delay it. This agenda, now deepened during the recent Group of 7 (G7) meeting in Germany and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in Spain, is creating a dangerous situation for the world.

    Bram Demunter (Belgium), Linking Revelations and Beekeeping, 2019.

    Bram Demunter (Belgium), Linking Revelations and Beekeeping, 2019.

    This goes back to the financial crisis of 2007–08, which was spurred on by the collapse of the US housing market and several key US financial institutions. The crisis signalled to the rest of the world that the US-centred financial system was untrustworthy. The US could not remain the market of last resort for the world’s commodities. G7 countries – which saw themselves as the guardians of the global capitalist system – begged states outside their orbit, such as China and India, to put their surpluses into the Western financial system to prevent its total meltdown. In return for this service, countries outside of the G7 were told that, henceforth, the G20 would be the executive body of the world system and the G7 would gradually disband. Yet, almost twenty years later, the G7 remains in place and has arrogated to itself the role of world leader, with NATO – the Trojan horse of the US – now positioning itself as the world’s policeman.

    Claude Venard (France), Nature Morte au Sacre Coeur (‘Still Life at the Sacred Heart’), 1991.

    Claude Venard (France), Nature Morte au Sacre Coeur (‘Still Life at the Sacred Heart’), 1991.

    NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the organisation will undergo the largest overhaul of its ‘collective deterrence and defence since the Cold War’. The NATO member states, now with the addition of Finland and Sweden, will expand their ‘high readiness forces’ from 40,000 troops to 300,000 who, equipped with a range of lethal weaponry, will ‘be ready to deploy to specific territories on the alliance’s eastern flank’, namely the Russian border. The United Kingdom’s new chief of the general staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, said that these armed forces should prepare to ‘fight and win’ in a war against Russia.

    With the conflict in Ukraine ongoing, it was obvious that NATO would foreground Russia at the Madrid Summit. But the materials produced by NATO made it clear that this was not merely about Ukraine or Russia but about preventing Eurasian integration. China was mentioned for the first time in a NATO document at the 2019 London meeting, in which it was said that the country presented ‘both opportunities and challenges’. By 2021, the tune had changed, and NATO’s Brussels Summit communiqué accused China of ‘systemic challenges to the rules-based international order’. The revised 2022 Strategic Concept accelerates this threatening rhetoric, with accusations that China’s ‘systemic competition… challenge[s] our interests, security, and values and seek[s] to undermine the rules-based international order’.

    Four non-NATO countries – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea (the Asia-Pacific Four) attended the NATO summit for the first time, which drew them closer to the US and NATO’s agenda to put pressure on China. Australia and Japan, along with India and the US, are part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), often called the Asian NATO, whose clear mandate is to constrain China’s partnerships in the Pacific Rim area. The Asia-Pacific Four held a meeting during the summit to discuss military cooperation against China, erasing any doubt about the intentions of NATO and its allies.

    Ma Changli (China), Daqing People, 1964.

    Ma Changli (China), Daqing People, 1964.

    In the wake of the revelations of the 2007–08 financial crisis and the G7’s broken promises, the Chinese adopted two pathways to gain more independence from the US consumer market. First, they improved the domestic Chinese market by increasing social wages, integrating China’s western provinces into the economy, and abolishing absolute poverty. Second, they built trade, development, and financial systems that were not centred around the US. The Chinese participated actively with Brazil, India, Russia, and South Africa to set the BRICS process in motion (2009) and put considerable resources into the Belt and Road Initiative or BRI (2013). China and Russia settled a long-standing border dispute, enhanced their cross-border trade, and developed a strategic collaboration (but, unlike the West, did not formulate a military treaty).

    During this period, Russian energy sales to both China and Europe grew and several European countries joined the BRI, which increased mutual investments between Europe and China. Earlier forms of globalisation in Eurasia were limited by colonialism and the Cold War; this marked the first time in 200 years that integration began to take place on an equitable foundation across the region. Europe’s trade and investment choices were utterly rational, as piped natural gas through Nord Stream 2 was far cheaper and less dangerous than liquified natural gas from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico. Considering the chaotic Brexit situation and difficulties in getting the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership off the ground, much of Europe saw Chinese investment opportunities as far more generous and dependable than other alternatives. In contrast, risk-averse and rent-seeking private equity from Wall Street became less attractive to the European financial sector.

    Europe was drifting inexorably towards Asia, which threatened the basis of the US-dominated economic and political system (also known as the ‘rules-based international order’). In 2018, US President Donald Trump publicly chastised NATO’s Stoltenberg, telling him, ‘we’re protecting Germany. We’re protecting France. We’re protecting all of these countries. And then numerous of these countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia, where they’re paying billions of dollars into the coffers of Russia. …Germany is a captive of Russia… I think it’s very inappropriate’.

    While NATO’s language has turned to threats of war against China and Russia, the G7 has pledged to challenge China-led initiatives by developing the new Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), a $200 billion fund to invest in the Global South. Meanwhile, the leaders at the BRICS summit, held at the same time, offered a sober appraisal of the times, calling for negotiations to end the Ukraine War and measures to be taken to stem the cascading crises experienced by the world’s poor. There was no talk of war from this body which represents 40% of the world’s population, and BRICS’s strength may well grow as Argentina and Iran have applied to join the bloc.

    Jamal Penjweny (Iraq), Iraq Is Flying, 2006–10.

    Jamal Penjweny (Iraq), Iraq Is Flying, 2006–10.

    The US and its allies seek either to remain hegemonic and weaken China and Russia or to erect a new iron curtain around these two countries. Both approaches could lead to a suicidal military conflict. The mood across the Global South is for a more measured acceptance of the reality of Eurasian integration and the emergence of a world order based on national and regional sovereignty and the dignity of all human beings, none of which can be realised through war and division.

    Anticipations of a war at a scale not seen before evokes ‘A Personal Song’ by the Iraqi poet Saadi Yousif (1934–2021), written just before the US started its deadly bombardment of Iraq in 2003:

    Is it Iraq?
    Blessed is the one who said
    I know the road which leads to it;
    Blessed is the one whose lips uttered the four letters:
    Iraq, Iraq, nothing but Iraq.

    Distant missiles will applaud;
    soldiers armed to the teeth will storm us;
    minarets and houses will crumble;
    palm trees will collapse under the bombing;
    the shores will be crowded
    with floating corpses.
    We will seldom see Al-Tahrir Square
    in books of elegies and photographs;
    Restaurants and hotels will be our roadmaps
    and our home in the paradise of shelter:
    McDonald’s
    KFC
    Holiday Inn;
    and we will be drowned
    like your name, O Iraq,
    Iraq, Iraq, nothing but Iraq.

    The post The United States Wants to Prevent a Historical Fact: Eurasian Integration first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.