China

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blindpig
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 03, 2023 3:52 pm

NATO tricks require high vigilance
By WANG XU/ZHAO JIA | China Daily | Updated: 2023-02-02 07:12

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Flags fly outside NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, November 16, 2022. [Photo/Agencies]
Western military bloc chief's Asia visit seen as hyping up Cold War mentality

Beijing urged NATO on Wednesday not to clamor about the "China threat" and instigate regional confrontation, as the Western military alliance's chief sought to expand the bloc's sphere of influence in Asia.

"The Asia-Pacific is not a battlefield for geopolitical competition and bloc confrontation, and the Cold War mentality is not welcome in the region," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a daily news conference.

The remarks came as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg concluded a four-day trip to South Korea and Japan, during which he hyped up the so-called China threat and Cold War mentality while calling Seoul and Tokyo to increase armaments and step into the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"They need the weapons, that's the reality," Stoltenberg said at the Chey Institute for Advanced Studies in Seoul.

In response, Mao said NATO's moves require high vigilance among countries in the region as the bloc claims its regional defensive alliance position remains unchanged, though it has continuously broken traditional defense zones and scopes, and continues to grow military and security ties with Asia-Pacific countries.

Noting that China has always been an upholder of peace and stability in the region and beyond, Mao said China actively facilitates peace talks and promotes de-escalation on hot spot issues.

"NATO should carefully reflect upon the role it has played in safeguarding the security of Europe," she said.

Firm rebuttal

Mao also rebutted a joint statement issued by Stoltenberg and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Tuesday regarding Russia's growing military cooperation with China, saying that the parties concerned should not hype the so-called China threat.

Japan's moves in the military and security spheres have always drawn high attention from its Asian neighbors and the international community, she said.

"Japan should earnestly learn the lessons of history, stick to a path of peaceful development, and not do things that undermine the mutual trust of countries in the region, as well as harm the peace and stability of the region."

Stoltenberg's trip is not just unwelcomed in Asia, but also in Europe.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic criticized the visit on Monday. "I see that the chief of NATO is in South Korea and Japan," he said. "He does not represent me and my country there. It is not a NATO area, but it is in the neighborhood of China. It has nothing to do with Croatia."

Shigeki Nagayama, a law professor at Tokai University in Japan, said the Japanese government's welcoming of NATO's involvement in the Asia-Pacific region is to enhance its own defense capability, and will only bring new factors of instability to the Asia-Pacific.

Yoichi Komori, an emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo, said the United States and NATO are using Japan as a shield in case of conflict.

"That's what the US and NATO want," Komori said. "That's very dangerous for Japan to give full play to its self-defense forces in East Asia, which is also contrary to Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan. We, as the people, must not allow it."

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... ac64d.html

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U.S. Marines open new base on Guam to prepare for future war with China
Originally published: Antiwar.com on January 26, 2023 by Dave DeCamp (more by Antiwar.com) (Posted Jan 30, 2023)

The U.S. Marine Corps on Thursday formally opened a new military base in the U.S. territory of Guam as part of Washington’s military buildup in the Asia Pacific that is aimed at China.

The base is still under construction but will eventually house 5,000 U.S. Marines, likely by the end of 2024. According to The Wall Street Journal, the purpose of the base is to prepare for a potential war with China in the islands of the western Pacific Ocean.

David Berger, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said that U.S. Marines would be the first to be deployed in the event of a war with China. “We don’t want to fight to get to the fight. We want to already be inside, so if there’s a conflict, the stand-in forces are already forward,” he said.

The Marine Corps has been revamping to better prepare for war with China by creating units that are more mobile and can quickly move around islands in the region. The U.S. is deploying one of these units, known as a Marine Littoral Regiment, to Okinawa by 2025, which will be armed with anti-ship missiles.

According to Kyodo News, the new base in Guam will host 4,000 U.S. Marines that will be transferred from Okinawa. The U.S. and Japan agreed to reduce the military burden on Okinawa, which hosts over 70% of U.S. bases in Japan, over local opposition to the U.S. presence. But the plans to deploy the Marine Littoral Regiment further entrenches the military presence in the Okinawa prefecture.

There is also local opposition to the expansion of the U.S. military presence in Guam, as Kyodo reported anti-base demonstrators protested against the opening of the new Marines Corps facility. An activist said that the military buildup will make Guam “a target for a war that we didn’t want to be part of.”

https://mronline.org/2023/01/30/u-s-mar ... ith-china/

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The Chinese path to modernization provides a reference for other developing countries
The following article, which was originally carried by China Daily, was a keynote speech delivered by Justin Yifu Lin at the Third Think-Tanks Forum on National Governance in Developing Countries. Originally from Taiwan Province, Lin is one of China’s leading economists. Currently the Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics and Honorable Dean of the National School of Development at Peking University, he was Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World Bank, 2008-2012.

Noting how modernization was initiated by the West so as to shift from a traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial one, Lin notes that China’s modernization is a socialist modernization under the leadership of the Communist Party. It therefore combines features common to those of modernization as undertaken by the western countries along with its own unique features. These latter include the modernization of a huge population, of common prosperity for all, of harmony between humanity and nature, and of peaceful development.

Having summarized the key features of Chinese-style modernization, as first elaborated by President Xi Jinping, Lin advances the idea that governments in developing countries should facilitate industrial development, based on the country’s comparative advantage. “An efficient economy,” he notes, “could create wealth rapidly, and fair income distribution could lay a solid foundation for common prosperity.”

Whilst China’s development not only generates wealth for itself, but also brings more development opportunities to other countries, thereby promoting global peaceful development, “the practices have shown that there is barely any developing country that has achieved modernization by following the Western path. The few developing countries that have realized modernization did not copy the Western model.”

“Copying the Western model of modernization is the result of a wrong perception of modernization. According to Marx’s historical materialism, what Western nations possess, what they are good at doing, and what matters to them are all determined by their economic bases… In comparison, the Chinese path to modernization provides a reference for other developing countries that are exploring their own paths to modernization.”
Modernization is an important historical process that was initiated by the West since the Age of Discovery in the 15th century, especially after the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. It features a shift from the traditional agricultural society to a modern industrial one, rapidly developing science and technology and booming the economy with increasingly improved livelihoods. The modernization which first started in a few Western countries spread all over the world, becoming the common aspiration of people in all countries. Chinese modernization is socialist modernization under the leadership of the Communist Party of China. It contains elements that are common to the modernization of Western countries, and also boasts features unique to the Chinese context.

Chinese modernization is modernization of a huge population. If China achieves modernization and becomes a high-income country, it will more than double the percentage of the world’s population living in high-income economies from the current 16 percent to 34 percent.

Chinese modernization is modernization of common prosperity for all. While Western modernization has created huge amounts of wealth after the Industrial Revolution, the process has also resulted in growing polarization between the rich and the poor.

Chinese modernization is modernization of both material and cultural-ethical advancement. While enormous material wealth was generated in the process of Western modernization, the cultural-ethical life lagged behind. China aims to fundamentally solve the problem.

Chinese modernization is modernization featuring harmony between humanity and nature. The West has inflicted great damage to nature during its modernization, a tragedy China tries to avoid on its road to modernization.

Chinese modernization is modernization of peaceful development. China will not tread the old path of war, colonization and plunder taken by Western countries.

Then, how can China achieve modernization with the above-mentioned five characteristics?

In my view, except the first characteristic — the huge population — which is the historical legacy of the nation, all the four other characteristics of Chinese modernization are the results of the pursuit of development by the CPC.

According to the dialectical materialism view of the world, material is primary. Therefore, governments in developing countries should play a facilitating role in the development of industries in a market economy based on the country’s comparative advantages, which are determined by the endowment structure — the material base of the country — at a given point of time and changeable over time.

Developing the economy based on comparative advantages can help realize both efficiency and fairness in the primary distribution of income. An efficient economy could create wealth rapidly, and fair income distribution could lay a solid foundation for common prosperity. Moreover, developing the economy based on comparative advantages can help increase the government’s tax revenues, and as a result, the government will have more financial resources to support vulnerable groups, reduce wealth gaps among regions, and solve other issues in the process of redistribution. The government could also encourage charity and public welfare activities through tax incentives (third distribution) to promote common prosperity.

When common prosperity is achieved, a society will have a solid material foundation to promote cultural-ethical progress. Development in line with comparative advantages will lead to common prosperity. The people will then have more aspirations for a better life, such as a sound natural environment. If a country develops based on comparative advantages, enterprises will be variable, and have greater willingness to use green technologies in production. As such, a coexistence between humanity and nature can be realized.

Instead of plundering the wealth of other nations, China has been developing its economy based on comparative advantages, and by tapping the resources of both domestic and international markets and competing in an open, fair global economic environment. Therefore, China’s development not only generates wealth for itself, but also brings more development opportunities to other countries by opening to them its huge market, thus promoting the peaceful development of the world.

Modernization is the common pursuit of all mankind. In the past, it was widely believed that the only path to modernization was the one undertaken by Western countries. But the practices after World War II have shown that there is barely any developing country that has achieved modernization by following the Western path. The few developing countries that have realized modernization did not copy the Western model.

After World War II, all countries have been pursuing modernization. However, the gap between developing countries and a few developed Western countries has widened over the years. The Eight-Nation Alliance that invaded China in 1900 were the most powerful nations at the time, accounting for 50.4 percent of the global economy measured in purchasing power parity terms.

A century later, the Eight-Nation Alliance turned into the G8 — with the Austro-Hungarian Empire replaced by Canada. In 2000, the G8 represented 47 percent of the global economy on PPP terms, only 3.4 percentage points lower than the figure of 1900. In other words, after a century of catching up with these eight most industrialized countries, all the other countries’ weight in the global economy gained by only 3.4 percentage points.

In addition, the population in the industrialized countries has been growing at a slower pace than in the developing world, and as a result, the gap of per capita GDP between the developing world and the developed world has been growing. The majority of developing countries have not achieved modernization or joined the ranks of developed countries, and people living in these countries have become poorer relative to their counterparts in developed countries.

Why have most developing countries failed to achieve modernization? We used to believe that the only path to modernization was that taken by the West, and most developing nations have chosen to follow this path. Copying the Western model of modernization is the result of a wrong perception of modernization. According to Marx’s historical materialism, what Western nations possess, what they are good at doing, and what matters to them are all determined by their economic bases. Developing countries that don’t have the same economic bases as those of the Western developed countries are doomed to fail in their pursuit of modernization by copying the Western model.

In comparison, the Chinese path to modernization provides a reference for other developing countries that are exploring their own paths to modernization. China’s experiences have proved that developing countries should cultivate industries based on their comparative advantages, that is what they can do well based on what they have (their endowments), and properly handle the relation between an efficient market and an effective government so as to achieve stable and rapid development in the long run.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/02/01/t ... countries/

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Martin Jacques: China embraces new post-Covid era while the West lives in the past
China’s adjustment of its policies for dealing with Covid-19 have led to considerable debate, including among friends of China. In this context, we are republishing this article by Martin Jacques, author of ‘When China rules the world’, which originally appeared in Global Times.

Martin does not shy away from controversy and his article suggests that China’s new policies to deal with Covid are part of a pattern that, in his view, also includes adjustments to both economic and foreign policies.
When China announced on December 7 that it was abandoning most of its COVID controls, it took the West by surprise. It never expected such a dramatic shift. Many had speculated that a crackdown would follow the protests against the COVID controls. There was no sign of it. There was a tsunami of predictions that there would be a huge death toll, 1 million, perhaps many millions. It is too early to say how many there might be. At the weekend, the latest official figures indicated around 60,000 so far, no doubt with many more to come.

The Western reaction to China’s move has emphasized the negative. This is not surprising. Ever since January 2020, the West has sought to denigrate China’s approach to COVID-19, a strategy of distraction designed to divert attention from how well China handled COVID-19 in 2020-2021 and how abysmally the West performed. More than any other issue, COVID-19 served to poison the relationship between China and the West. It became inextricably bound up with the so-called new Cold War. The West is finding it difficult to come to terms with China’s emerging post-COVID strategy because its mindset is still rooted in the COVID era, as illustrated by the speed with which many countries chose to impose new requirements on Chinese travelers.

There are growing signs that China’s abandonment of its COVID controls is the first act in a major shift of policy. The West has been slow to grasp the economic implications of China’s opening up. The term opening up, of course, is synonymous with China’s rise after 1978: COVID-19, alas, became all too symbolic of its opposite, closing down and partial isolation. Once more China is now opening up and the effects will be huge. Its growth rate in 2023 is likely to be in excess of 5 percent; its enormous domestic market is returning to growth as Chinese consumers start spending again; global tourism will receive a huge boost; blocked supply lines will be freed; Chinese entrepreneurs can once more travel the world in search of new business. China has long been the engine of global growth. It can now resume that role in a post-COVID context.

Important policy shifts are underway. There is a commitment to reboot the property market. The strict regulation of big tech, the other major economic driver, looks as if it is reaching its end. China’s economy suffered greatly during the pandemic, partly because of lockdowns and partly as a result of a weakened commitment to economic growth. China cannot afford to continue along this path if it is to realize its ambitions for the future. We can expect a new emphasis on economic growth. And there are wider signs of new thinking beyond the economy. When Qin Gang, the new Chinese foreign minister, was ambassador to the US, he sought to find common ground with the US, to find bridges, to acknowledge the country’s singular historical achievements. This is a far cry from wolf warrior diplomacy. The world should not be surprised if China seeks to emphasize areas of agreement and in the process offer a more benign face of China to the world in the post-COVID era.

This would be a far cry from those dispiriting years when COVID-19 dominated everyone’s thinking, governments and individuals alike. There is as yet not much sign that the West is ready for such a rather different Chinese approach. Indeed, the West has baked into its thinking on China that the latter is unbending and dogmatically committed to a particular course. That, of course, ignores the flexibility China has shown on major issues over a long period of history, most notably in the extraordinary historical shift from Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping. China’s decision to abandon the dynamic zero-COVID policy in December similarly speaks to this kind of flexibility. Do not believe too much in your own propaganda: it can be thoroughly misleading.

There is a deeper reason why the West finds it difficult to think afresh in the post-COVID era. The West is in long-term historical decline, and this tends to engender a hardening of the intellectual arteries, an inclination to think fondly of the past and prefer familiar ways of thinking. There are two factors that reinforce this. The Western economic outlook is dominated by concerns about inflation and the need for strongly deflationary and anti-growth policies. While Europe, for the first time since 1945, finds itself at war in the Ukraine.

It is time for the West to rethink. China’s decision to abandon its dynamic zero-COVID policy means that – barring the emergence of another dangerous variant – the world can now move into a new post-COVID era. There are strong signs that China is embracing this. In contrast, the West is behind the curve, still living in a COVID-dominated era of international relations.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/01/30/m ... -the-past/

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Is the trip of the secretary general of NATO aimed to instigate the creation of the Asian version of NATO?
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on February 2, 2023 by Kim Hoon (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Feb 03, 2023)

It was reported that the secretary general of NATO embarked upon his trip to South Korea and Japan.

The high-ranking chief of the military organization which turned Ukraine into a theatre of proxy war is flying into the Asia-Pacific region of the eastern hemisphere across the sea and land, which is not even part of its operational sphere. This fact itself gives rise to concern.

It is well known that NATO has long made persistent attempts to expand its sphere of influence, limited to European defense, to the Asia-Pacific region, which rose to be the strategic center of the world.

NATO stages bilateral and multilateral joint military exercises under various titles by introducing armed forces of its member states, including aircraft carriers and fighters, under the pretext of opposing the so-called “change of status quo by force”. It is also mulling extending its influence to the Asia-Pacific region by expanding and strengthening cooperation with such exclusive security allies as AUKUS, Quad and Five Eyes.

In particular, NATO has put unprecedented spurs to the strengthening of bilateral relations with South Korea and Japan in recent years, regarding them as a key link in realizing its ambition for hegemony.

This is proved by the fact that the chairman of the military committee of NATO visited South Korea and Japan, respectively in April and June last year, to discuss closer partnership and military cooperation and, at the end of June, South Korea and Japan participated in the NATO summit in Madrid of Spain for the first time ever.

Meanwhile, in May last year, the Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence under NATO registered South Korea as its full memberو and in October a delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was dispatched to South Korea to discuss the strengthening of bilateral cooperation.

South Korea signed a huge sales contract for arms including heavy tanks, self-propelled guns, and fighters valued at tens of billions of U.S. dollars with Poland, a member state of NATO, and Japan agreed to jointly develop the next generation fighters with Britain and Italy. This clearly proves to what extent NATO’s sinister intention to use South Korea and Japan for expanding its influence has reached.

NATO, which specified Russia as the “greatest and direct threat” and China as a “systematic challenge” in its new “strategic concept” last year, is now openly stretching its long arm to South Korea and Japan. Its aim is quite clear.

It is the general orientation sought by the U.S.-led NATO to cook up an Asian version of NATO to serve the maintenance of its hegemonic position and order in collusion with its vassal forces.

Over the recent worrying moves of NATO, it is quite natural that countries in the region have warned that NATO seeks to apply the method of collective confrontation in Asia-Pacific, which had already been used in Europe, and South Korea and Japan should not introduce NATO forces into the Asia-Pacific region.

It is as clear as noonday that the secretary general of NATO flying to south Korea and Japan, at a time when the Ukrainian crisis has entered a new critical stage with the U.S. and Western decision on supplying tanks, will shore up the “theory of threat from China” to emphasize again the need to build Asian version of NATO and put pressure on them for their passive military support to Ukraine.

Thus, it’s only a matter of time before the military hardware of South Korea and Japan flowing into NATO is seen in the Ukrainian battlefield.

South Korea and Japan trying to attend to their own business by inviting unbidden guests to the region should be well aware that they are getting closer to the extreme security crisis, far from defusing security uneasiness.

It will be nothing good if NATO, a synonym for war and confrontation, puts its military boots on the region.

The trip of the NATO secretary general to South Korea and Japan is a prelude to confrontation and war as it brings the dark clouds of a “new Cold War” to the Asia-Pacific region.

Regional countries and the international community should remain highly vigilant against the frequent footsteps of NATO toward Asia-Pacific.

https://mronline.org/2023/02/03/is-the- ... n-of-nato/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 04, 2023 2:48 pm

Char prevails!
February 4, 10:43

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Yesterday, the United States attempted to shoot down an unbridled Chinese balloon, which continues its unscheduled inspection of American nuclear facilities. Pentagon sources say attempts to shoot down the balloon ended in failure. The ball continues its inspection. Biden refused to answer questions from journalists trying to find out when the Pentagon would deign to shoot down a "spy balloon" flying over American nuclear facilities.

(Video at link.)

China at the level of the PRC Foreign Ministry has officially rejected American claims about the violation of US sovereignty. The story is increasingly reminiscent of the episode with Rust. Trumpists scream that all this is the result of Biden's total incompetence, which ruined the national defense - on the one hand, the United States cannot protect the border with Mexico from the onslaught of migrants, and on the other hand, they cannot protect the sky from China. But if you choose Trump, then everything will work out right away (no)

In general, we can state that China responded asymmetrically to Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. It turned out beautiful.

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https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8147861.html

Google Translator

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Time to prick 'spy balloon' trick
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-02-03 15:51

Editor's note: Pentagon has said it is tracking a suspected Chinese spy balloon that has been spotted over the country's airspace in recent days. Four experts shared their views on the incident with China Daily. Excerpts follow:

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An American flag waves outside the US Department of Justice Building in Washington, Dec 15, 2020. [Photo/Agencies]

More of a 'political balloon'

This morning Fox News said that a suspected Chinese spy balloon was hovering "over Montana", where there are "sensitive US ballistic missile assets".

CNN has posted the same story, saying that Pentagon has full custody of this "suspected Chinese surveillance balloon" and that "we have communicated the seriousness with which we take the issue".

So far, this story has been catchy enough to get "retired generals" and "patriotic young men" in the US interested.

However, it seems to me that this is not a media event, but rather a political balloon from Washington to maneuver the domestic audience before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives on his widely-expected first visit to China.

Like the news about high-ranking generals lately talking about a war with China by 2025, this news seeks to alarm US citizens that the threat from China is not remote, but everywhere and in everyday life. The US military is fully prepared and is ready to confront China.

At a time when Sino-US diplomatic exchanges are being arranged, Washington hawks are getting in the way. For those who profit from Sino-US problems, the prospect of improving bilateral relations is definitely not a good sign.
But we shall not let their tricks succeed.

Accusation not credible

Although some Pentagon officials claim that they have confirmed that the spy balloon belongs to China, doubts persist.

As we all know, satellite reconnaissance technology has made great progress in recent years. It's hard to imagine any big country in the world will be clumsy enough to rush spy balloons into the airspace of other countries when it owns reconnaissance satellites.

What's more, it's too early to judge whether the balloon is for military, or a meteorological observation purpose or if it was a scientific research balloon that lost its way.

The US government hyped up the Chinese spy balloon threat without fully gathering relevant information. This will only aggravate the US citizen's aversion for and distrust of China. This is not only irresponsible but also not conducive to the improvement and development of Sino-US relations.

In an era full of advanced technologies, including man-made satellites, common sense and a professional perspective will tell anyone that a "spy balloon" is a ridiculous assumption. The Pentagon's accusation is nothing but a story to play up the "China threat theory".

Ratcheting up tensions with China is a card that the US has played to add bargaining chips before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's widely-expected visit to China, and a popular tactic of the US government for benefits.

The US still adopts a Cold War mentality against China. Washington has established alliances, such as the AUKUS, to contain China, and the "China threat theory" was used as an excuse to enhance US-centered alliances.

Besides, US intelligence agencies need foreign threats — real or made-up — to benefit from.

But the Biden administration should realize that China-bashing is akin to playing with fire. The tactics to win support at home by inciting hatred will also make the US society more divided.

No evidence, no accusation

The US should refrain from accusing China without sufficient evidence.

Back in 2013, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden had exposed that the US' PRISM surveillance program had spied on its own citizens and European officials and a number of world leaders.

Hope the balloon case indicates the US is willing to communicate with China on this issue. Communication should continue, but the farce should stop.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... accda.html

Wang Yi blasts airship hype in phone talk with Blinken
By ZHANG YUNBI | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-02-04 10:01

Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi held a phone talk with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday evening on handling an unintended incident, saying Beijing does not accept "any groundless speculation or hype".

According to media reports, a Chinese unmanned airship has been spotted in airspace above the United States.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday the vessel is a civilian airship from China used for research, mainly meteorological purposes. It deviated far from its planned course due to Westerlies and its limited self-steering capability.

As Wang talked to Blinken, "the two sides communicated on how to deal with the incident in a calm and professional manner," according to a statement released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Saturday.

Wang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, said China is a country living up to its responsibilities and has always strictly abided by international law.

"We do not accept any groundless speculation or hype," he said.

In the face of an unexpected situation, what both sides should do is to compose themselves, communicate in a timely manner, avoid misjudgment and manage differences, he added.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... ace58.html

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‘He Who Controls the Discourse Organises the World.’ How China Resists the Information Hegemony of the West
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 3, 2023
Ivan Zuenko

The current process of rapid transformation of the post-bipolar world can be traced in different planes. One of them is a change in approaches to the information support of the foreign policy of the leading powers. China has been at the forefront here.

For a long time, it was expected that after China’s integration with the global economy and the increase in the living standards of the population, a liberalisation of the regime would inevitably follow the “Eastern European scenario.” When it became clear that Beijing did not intend to abandon sovereign development, the focus of Western perceptions shifted towards alarmism. With the start of the “trade war” and the Sino-American “decoupling,” the West has turned this positioning of China as a threat into a real geopolitical weapon.

China itself was one of the first to realise that it is impossible to win in a game on a foreign field according to someone else’s rules. Now it is trying not so much to succeed in a competition with an opponent who rewrites these rules on the fly, but to defend the opportunity to play its own way. “Rules” are the socio-political discourse that on a global scale is still being constructed primarily in the United States. As long as most of the world looks at China and all China’s actions on the world stage through the eyes of the West, the stability of the system built in the PRC will always be in jeopardy.

The “end of history” era: passion for “soft power”

Meanwhile, this was not always the case. China began to return to the world stage as a serious player only during the late 1980s and early 90s, after a decade of “cultural revolution” and its first years of economic reforms. That was the time of the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the bipolar system and the triumph of the Western socio-economic structure, way of life and culture in the broadest sense of the word. It was impossible to resist the temptation to copy it all.

China did not resist, although the events of June 1989, when the Beijing authorities expressed their “dissenting opinion” on the “pro-democracy people’s movement,” complicated political contacts with Western countries. Nevertheless, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, China was rapidly Westernising and adopting not only technologies, but also meanings, which was assisted by the creation of a global information and cultural space (thanks to satellite television, and later the Internet) and the globalisation of the elite.

At the level of political concepts, there was also an active borrowing of Western achievements. During this period, the concept of “soft power” came into fashion. This idea dated back to the works of Joseph Nye and explained the success of the United States on the world stage in terms of the attractiveness of American mass culture and everyday life.

Chinese intellectuals tried to combine the approaches of “soft power” and China’s cultural legacy, which is thousands of years old, firmly convinced of its greatness. The resulting construct — “cultural soft power” — became the basis for China’s outward movement for a couple of decades.

With the help of “cultural soft power” China tried to increase its attractiveness in the eyes of foreigners and thereby facilitate the promotion of Chinese capital abroad, as well as the solution of foreign policy problems using non-military methods. It was for this that Confucius Institutes were opened all over the world, and millions of renminbi were spent on scholarship programs, press tours, internships, the Olympics and world exhibitions.

However, by the late 2000s and early 2010s, it became clear that “cultural soft power” was not working as efficiently as Beijing would have liked. Contrary to the “end of history” feeling that characterised the 1990s, rivalry on the world stage has not disappeared. China, which skilfully took advantage of the openness of the West, but did not exchange its sovereignty for high positions in Western ratings, was increasingly perceived as a threat. The more Chinese efforts were made to promote their “cultural soft power” abroad, the more active and dirty the counter-efforts from the United States became.

As early as 2008, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, Western media reports of anti-Chinese “free Tibet” and Falun Dafa sect protests overshadowed news about the preparation of the Chinese capital for the grand sports festival. What in the case of the United States was called “investment and technology transfer” in the case of China was labelled “expansion and neo-colonialism.” Later, while all of Facebook was praying for Italy, which had suffered heavy losses due to Covid-19, the Chinese were looked upon as lepers, their eating habits were criticised, and some American politicians even went as far as to demand billions of dollars in compensation from China.

It became clear that as long as the West decides who is “bad” and who is “good”, things couldn’t be otherwise. Despite the fact that the gap in socio-economic development between the former colonial powers and the Global South was shrinking, the overall dominance of the West remained. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon, Chinese intellectuals turned to the search for new forms of information support for foreign policy.

The era of the “crumbling world”: the search for “discursive power”

Paradoxically, the answer was again found in the West. The ideas of Michel Foucault (1925-1984) and other post-structuralists about discourse as a system of meanings embedded in information, and about the realisation of power through control over discourse, fell on fertile Chinese soil.

True, the Chinese treated the creative heritage of Europeans quite freely. “Discourse is power”, “discourse is the power that people need to fight for”, and “he who controls the discourse organises the world”, these quotes come to us from Chinese works on the theory of discourse; they vaguely resemble what Foucault and his colleagues wrote about.

Moreover, Chinese intellectuals have expanded the limits of the concept as much as possible, which in their interpretation began to cover such issues as technological standards and moral principles. In all these areas, it is necessary to develop and strengthen Chinese discursive power (话语权 huayuquan, which can also be translated as “the right to vote”). Only then will it be possible to speak with the West on an equal footing and resist the West’s discursive hegemony. Moreover, this is true both in neighbouring countries and in China itself, which is also experiencing the power of Western information influence.

It must be said that the Chinese were not the first to challenge the West in the formation of meanings. One can recall the Qatari Al-Jazeera TV channel or the activities of the Russian RT media corporation (by the way, both are the subject of close attention of Chinese scholars, and the Chinese scientific database CNKI contains dozens of academic articles devoted to the analysis of their discursive influence).

At the same time, it was the Chinese, perhaps, who most accurately formulated the request to oppose Western discourse as an existential task, and began to most systematically implement the concept of discursive power. It is no coincidence that it is in China that the concepts of “discourse” and “discourse system” are included in the reports of the country’s leadership — they were voiced at the recent 20th Congress of the ruling Communist Party. Perhaps nowhere else in the world do they pay such attention to these concepts.

At the same time, China is still at the beginning of a difficult path and makes many mistakes. An attempt to “cosplay” the assertive and peremptory style of Western speakers on the social media (so-called “wolf warrior diplomacy”) often plays against China. Foreign policy concepts, which include the idea of a “Community with a Common Destiny for Humanity” and the Belt and Road Initiative, seem confusing and often meaningless to foreigners. An attempt to experiment with digitalisation tools has yielded scandal with the introduction of the “social credit system”. The image of China as a country with a well-thought-out and long-term development strategy has been undermined by the three-year Covid-19 saga — the Chinese have not been able to convincingly explain to the world both their persistence in pursuing a policy of “zero tolerance” and the landslide removal of all restrictions.

At the same time, we cannot say that China hasn’t enjoyed any success at all. Discursive power is the ability to impose on another the language that describes realities, and this takes time. The Chinese are promoting the concept of a “new era” (in fact, this is the period since 2012, when Xi Jinping came to power) — and now headlines in the Russian media about a “new era of Russian-Chinese relations” are already appearing. Such expressions as “Chinese dream” and “Belt and Road” have firmly entered the expert lexicon — we use them, often without even thinking about their origin and meaning.

Another example is the term “Near-Arctic State” (近北极国家 jin beiji guojia). Its advancement in the world arena, along with the concept that the Arctic is the common property of mankind, and not just of the Arctic powers, is a good case study of what “discursive power” is, and how it is applied in practice. Roughly speaking, if we keep repeating that China is a near-Arctic state, in 10-20 years no one will question why a country as far from the North Pole as China would interfere in Arctic affairs.

Thus, the current stage in the development of international relations is happening amid the “crumbling” of the world order, which was established for a short, by historical standards, period of a couple of decades, around the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. But “crumbling” involves the creation of new, load-bearing structures; the formation of new, alternative “discursive realities” is one of them.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/ ... -the-west/

As US Proxy War Rages Against Russia, US Seeks War with China by 2025
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 3, 2023



Today we talk about the latest unfolding in Ukraine as well as US plans for war with China by 2025 including a recent CSIS “war game” regarding a “Chinese invasion of Taiwan.”

References:

CSIS – The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan: https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-b

CSIS – Corporate Sponsors: https://www.csis.org/about/financial-

Andrei Martyanov – Fake Science And War (Andrei on political science): https://youtu.be/-mN7h_q8SBA

George Galloway – Has the Effect of Economic Sanctions on Russia been Zero? (with Mark Sleboda): https://youtu.be/vSNYRCCRyeM?t=1762

The New Atlas – Russian-Chinese Ties vs. US Aggression w/ Carl Zha & Mark Sleboda: https://youtu.be/ALE6S_MmVew

The New Atlas – China’s Taiwan Military Option – How and Why? (Chinese Weapon Systems): https://youtu.be/mI-sdLEcEyw

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/ ... a-by-2025/

*****

Here's what we know about the suspected Chinese spy balloon
By CNN Staff

A suspected Chinese surveillance balloon in the skies over the continental United States has sparked national security concerns, adding to already tense diplomatic relations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has responded by postponing his highly anticipated trip to China, saying Friday that the high-altitude balloon entering US airspace had “created the conditions that undermine the purpose of the trip.”

Blinken dubbed it an “irresponsible act." China, meanwhile, denies the balloon is involved in any kind of espionage, claiming it is a "civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes" that has been blown off course.

Here's what we know so far:

Where it's headed: The balloon could exit the east coast of the United States as early as Saturday morning, based off a NOAA weather model. Two US defense officials have told CNN the balloon is expected to reach the East Coast and then pass out to sea in the southeast, near the Carolinas. US officials had said previously that the flight path of the balloon, first spotted over Montana on Thursday, could potentially take it over a “number of sensitive sites” and they were taking steps to “protect against foreign intelligence collection.”
The US has not ruled out shooting it down: US President Joe Biden and national security team officials have discussed options including shooting the balloon down, according to a senior administration official. Earlier, the military had advised against shooting down the balloon due to the risk of falling debris, but the situation could change as the balloon moves towards the East Coast.
About the balloon: The substructure beneath the Chinese spy balloon, believed by officials to be the steering and surveillance apparatus, is roughly the length of three city buses.
China’s response: China claims the balloon is a civilian research vessel that has been blown off course. A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry described the situation Saturday as an "accident." It was "entirely an unexpected situation caused by force majeure," the spokesperson said, referring to a legal term which means "great force," and out of their control.
Second suspected spy balloon: The Pentagon said Friday evening that another Chinese spy balloon had been spotted above Latin America. It is unclear exactly where the balloon is over the continent – but a US official tells CNN it does not appear to be currently heading to the United States.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ ... ml?tab=all

What fun!

I think Boris nailed it, even if not true it oughta be...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 06, 2023 2:48 pm

China protests US' shooting down civilian airship
By Zhang Yunbi | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-02-05 09:45

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A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, US, Feb 1, 2023. [Photo/Agencies]

Beijing "expresses its strong dissatisfaction and protest over the use of armed force by the US side" to attack a civilian unmanned airship from China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in statement issued on Sunday.

A Chinese unmanned airship was spotted in the airspace above the United States earlier this week before Washington claimed it shot down the airship on Saturday.

The Foreign Ministry said in its statement that China, after completing verification, "has informed the US side multiple times the airship is for civilian use and it entered the US due to force majeure, constituting a completely unintended situation".

China has clearly requested the US handle the situation properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner, the ministry said.

The Pentagon's spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Thursday the airship "does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground".

"Under such a circumstance, the US side's persistence in using armed force is an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice," the statement said.

China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the enterprise concerned while reserving its right to make further necessary responses, it added.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... acf40.html

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Chinese Spy Balloon Over the US: An Aerospace Expert Explains How the Balloons Work and What They Can See
Posted on February 5, 2023 by Conor Gallagher
By Iain Boyd, professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. Originally published at The Conversation.

The U.S. military shot down what U.S. officials called a Chinese surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, 2023. Officials said that the U.S. Navy planned to recover the debris, which is in shallow water.

The U.S. and Canada tracked the balloon as it crossed the Aleutian Islands, passed over Western Canada and entered U.S. airspace over Idaho. Officials of the U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Feb. 2, 2023, that the military was tracking the balloon as it flew over the continental U.S. at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, including over Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. The base houses the 341st Missile Wing, which operates nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.


The next day, Chinese officials acknowledged that the balloon was theirs but denied it was intended for spying or meant to enter U.S. airspace. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the balloon’s incursion led him to cancel his trip to Beijing. He had been scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Feb. 5 and 6.

The Pentagon has reported that a second suspected Chinese balloon was seen over Latin America. On Feb. 4, officials told reporters that a third Chinese surveillance balloon was operating somewhere else in the world, and that the balloons are part of a Chinese military surveillance program.

Monitoring an adversary from a balloon dates back to 1794, when the French used a hot air balloon to track Austrian and Dutch troops in the Battle of Fleurus. We asked aerospace engineer Iain Boyd of the University of Colorado Boulder to explain how spy balloons work and why anyone would use one in the 21st century.

What is a spy balloon?

A spy balloon is literally a gas-filled balloon that is flying quite high in the sky, more or less where we fly commercial airplanes. It has some sophisticated cameras and imaging technology on it, and it’s pointing all of those instruments down at the ground. It’s collecting information through photography and other imaging of whatever is going on down on the ground below it.Why would someone want to use a spy balloon instead of just using spy satellites?

Satellites are the preferred method of spying from overhead. Spy satellites are above us today, typically at one of two different types of orbit.

The first is called low Earth orbit, and, as the name suggests, those satellites are relatively close to the ground. But they’re still several hundred miles above us. For imaging and taking photographs, the closer you are to something, the more clearly you can see it, and this applies to spying as well. The satellites that are in low Earth orbit have the advantage that they’re closer to the Earth so they’re able to see things more clearly than satellites that are farther away.

The disadvantage these low Earth orbit satellites have is that they are continually moving around the Earth. It takes them about 90 minutes to do one orbit around the Earth. That turns out to be pretty fast in terms of taking clear photographs of what’s going on below.

The second type of satellite orbit is called geosynchronous orbit, and that’s much farther away. It has the disadvantage that it’s harder to see things clearly when you’re very, very far away. But they have the advantage of what we call persistence, allowing satellites to capture images continuously. In those orbits, you’re essentially overlooking the exact same piece of ground on the Earth’s surface all the time because the satellite moves in exactly the same way the earth rotates – it rotates at the exact same speed.A balloon in some ways gets the best of those. These balloons are much, much closer to the ground than any of the satellites, so they can see even more clearly. And then, of course, balloons are moving, but they’re moving relatively slowly, so they also have a degree of persistence. However, spying is not usually done these days with balloons because they are a relatively easy target and are not completely controllable.

What types of surveillance are spy balloons capable of?

I don’t know what’s on this particular spy balloon, but it’s likely to be different kinds of cameras collecting different types of information.

These days, imaging is conducted across different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Humans see in a certain range of this spectrum, the visible spectrum. And so if you have a camera and you take a photograph of your dog, that’s a visible photograph. That’s one of the things spy aircraft do. They take regular photographs, although they have very good zoom capabilities to be able to magnify what they’re seeing quite a lot.

But you can also gather different kinds of information in other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Another fairly well-known one is infrared. If it’s nighttime, a camera operating in the visible part of the spectrum is not going to show you anything. It’s all going to be dark. But an infrared camera can pick up things from heat in the dark.

How do these balloons navigate?

Most of these balloons literally go where the wind blows. There can be a little bit of navigation, but there are certainly not people aboard them. They are at the mercy of whatever the weather is. They sometimes have guiding apparatus on them that change a balloon’s altitude to catch winds going in particular directions. According to reports, U.S. officials said the Chinese surveillance balloon had propellers to help steer it. If this is confirmed, it means that its operator would have much more control over the path of the balloon.

What are the limits to a nation’s airspace? At what altitude does it become space and anybody’s right to be there?

There is an internationally accepted boundary called the Kármán Line at 62 miles (100 kilometers) altitude. This balloon is well below that, so it is absolutely, definitely in U.S. airspace.

Which countries are known to be using spy balloons?

The Pentagon has had programs over the last few decades studying what can be done with balloons that couldn’t be done in the past. Maybe they’re bigger, maybe they can go higher in the atmosphere so they’re more difficult to shoot down or disable. Maybe they could be more persistent.

The broad interest in this incident illustrates its unusual nature. Few people would expect any country to be actively using spy balloons these days.

The U.S. flew many balloons over the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s, and those were eventually replaced by the high-altitude spy airplanes, the U-2s, and they were subsequently replaced by satellites.I’m sure a number of countries around the world have periodically gone back to reevaluate: Are there other things we could do now with balloons that we couldn’t do before? Do they close some gaps we have from satellites and airplanes?

What does that say about the nature of this balloon, which China confirmed is theirs?

China has complained for many years about the U.S. spying on China through satellites, through ships. And China is also well known for engaging in somewhat provocative behavior, like in the South China Sea, sailing close to other nations’ boundaries and saber-rattling. I think it falls into that category.

The balloon doesn’t pose any real threat to the U.S. I think sometimes China is just experimenting to see how far they can push things. This isn’t really very advanced technology. It’s not serving any real military purpose. I think it’s much more likely some kind of political message.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02 ... n-see.html

************

CHINESE BALLOON DETONATION — SHOCK WAVE HITS US ALLIES IN AUSTRALIA, SCRAMBLES THE BRAINS OF PRIME MINISTER PIMP, FOREIGN MINISTER WRONG, DEFENCE MINISTER SNARLS

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

In the war of the worlds which the US insists its allies fight on their territories in Asia and in Europe, the flight of the Chinese balloon demonstrates the reverse of the propaganda message on who in this war is strong; who is weak; who will prevail; who will survive.

Suppose the balloon payload now being secretly salvaged from the seabed off South Carolina is empty; or suppose it’s weather surveillance sensors; or suppose it’s spyware – we will never know which for certain — the Chinese have proved they can float, they have floated a “civilian unmanned airship”, as the official Beijing statement calls it, across the breadth of Canada and the United States. By accident or under direction and direct remote control, this Chinese “threat” has prevailed in enemy airspace, uncontested, for a full week, January 28 to February 4.

Even before detonation, China’s airship has inflicted multiple shock waves on US officials, their Canadian and Australian allies, and destroyed the warfighting confidence they need for the battlefields of the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the Ukraine. The “force majeure” which the official Chinese statement explains to have been the reason for the balloon’s flight is indeed the force, legally as well as strategically, which has proved to be the superior one.

Listen to the fresh evidence and hear the shoot-down of the propaganda, as Mike Ryan leads the discussion on TNT Radio from Brisbane, Australia, starting at Minute 14:

Image
Source: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/

For the exact words of the Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong (Wrong) in misrepresenting the international law and in defence of the “responsible” shoot-down, click to read. Wong was wrong on international law when force majeure has been declared; check the international law here.

For the Foreign Minister’s claim that the proposed Voice referendum for First Nations and aboriginal Australians will ensure they “have a say…in matters that affect them [in National Cabinet where] First Ministers, all First Ministers, Liberal and Labor, have backed in The Voice. It shows what you can do when you take the politics out of it”, read the full transcript here.

For the contradictions between Paragraph 2 and Paragraph 3 of the proposed referendum, read the wording, according to Prime Minister Pimp.

Image
Here is the Victoria State Constitution giving aboriginals rights and powers which the referendum would supersede and take away.

And the Victorian Supreme Court judgement of December 2020 which defended those rights against an attempt by the state government to violate them.

Image
Source: http://classic.austlii.edu.au

For a look into the state, bank and corporate money-bags which pay for the propaganda issued by the Lowy Institute, click here.

http://johnhelmer.net/chinese-balloon-d ... more-70622

************

NYT Plants False Claims Over China's Balloon Communication

The New York Times carries a weird 'news analysis' by its somewhat neoconned White House and national security correspondent David Sanger about the recent Chinese weather ballon incident. Sanger asserts that China has failed to communicate on the issue:

[Beyond the made-for-cable-news spectacle, the entire incident also speaks volumes about how little Washington and Beijing communicate, almost 22 years after the collision of an American spy plane and a Chinese fighter about 70 miles off the coast of Hainan Island led both sides to vow that they would improve their crisis management.
...
This was hardly a life-threatening crisis. But the fact that Chinese officials, realizing that the balloon had been spotted, did not call to work out a way to deal with it was revealing.
That kind of problem was supposed to be resolved after the 2001 collision of an EP-3 spy plane and a Chinese fighter that brought down both planes. For days after that incident, President George W. Bush could not get Chinese leaders on the phone. Efforts by the secretary of state at the time, Gen. Colin Powell, also failed. “It made you wonder what might happen in a deeper crisis,” General Powell said later.

Afterward, hotlines were set up, and promises made about better communications. Clearly, those failed. When the balloon was shot down, China issued a statement saying “for the United States to insist on using armed forces is clearly an excessive reaction.”


One wonders how Sanger can assert a lack of communication when the Chinese side insists with evidence that it in fact communicated a lot . As the Global Times writes:

The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed strong dissatisfaction and protested against the US' use of force to shoot down a Chinese civilian unmanned airship, urging the US to properly handle the incident.
The Chinese side has verified the situation and communicated with the US side multiple times, saying the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace was due to force majeure and the incident was totally an accident, the ministry said.


The Chinese foreign ministry asserts similar:

China strongly disapproves of and protests against the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force. The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the US due to force majeure was totally unexpected. The Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner.
So China in fact had communicated with the U.S. and discussed the issue.


Its claim that the ballon went unexpectedly off course is by the way completely correct. The U.S. had long tracked the ballon over Alaska and Canada and was equally surprised when it suddenly turned south:

Another U.S. official said intelligence agencies began tracking the balloon several days ago, not long after it had left China and began its controlled drift toward the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The official said American trackers continued to monitor the balloon as it progressed through Canada toward the continental United States, and were surprised when it crossed over into American airspace.

The cause of the surprising turn last week was a polar vortex over Canada that also brought a cold snap to the north-east:

We know the feeling when winter digs its heels in, and we get endless days below seasonal. When this happens, the jet stream becomes highly amplified with blocking mechanisms to trap the cold.
We often look to Greenland for strong blocking, but that wasn’t the case. The lobe of the stratospheric polar vortex was free to swing readily across Eastern Canada but then made a swift exit. A ridge of high pressure filled in behind, causing temperatures to rise as fast as they fell.


Image

Such unusual weather patterns happen every once a while but are difficult to predict:

The one certainty this winter is a stretched polar vortex (PV) that favors a cold pattern east of the Rockies in North America. Another stretched PV is happening this week, with the cold arriving this weekend in the Northeastern US. But otherwise, the more lasting impact will be widespread cold to Canada and the Central and Western US. But much uncertainty surrounds this event and subsequent events so my best advice continues to be “the trend is your friend”.

The balloon was on an easterly course over northwest Canada when it was hit by exceptional winds blowing south.

Image

That it was only last week's freak weather event that pushed the balloon across the U.S. makes it unlikely that it was intended to spy on U.S. proper.

China also said that it fired the man responsible for the incident though that claim is probably not fully believable:

Chinese state media on Saturday announced that the head of the country’s weather service was relieved of his duty, in a move seen by some analysts as an attempt to shore up Beijing’s position that the high-altitude balloon was of civilian nature mainly for meteorological purposes.
Zhuang Guotai was the head of China Meteorological Administration until Friday, but his departure from that post was not unexpected. In late January, Zhuang was elected the head of the western Gansu province’s People’s Political Consultative Committee, the provincial political advisory body.


The whole incident clearly happened by accident and was blown up by the Biden administration for political purposes:

However, a day earlier, on Friday, the White House abruptly announced the postponement of a major two-day visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken (during which he was expected to meet President Xi Jinping.)

Biden took these extreme steps despite China’s plea that this was “entirely an unexpected situation caused by force majeure and the facts are very clear” and Beijing, in fact, even expressed “regret” (which is tantamount to an amende honorable, as the French would say.)

Furthermore, there was even a conversation on Friday between Blinken and Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. Beijing’s readout noted that the two top officials “communicated with each other on how to deal with a chance occurrence in a calm and professional manner.”

The initial Chinese Foreign Ministry press releases (here and here) were in a manifestly conciliatory spirit. But Blinken chose to do some grandstanding and took a tough posturing calling it “an irresponsible act and a clear violation of US sovereignty and international law that undermined the purpose” of his forthcoming trip to Beijing.


The purpose of Blinken's planned China trip was to look for some way to split the China-Russia axis. But a recent visit by the deputy of the Chinese foreign minister to Russia had already shown that any such attempts would fail:

Evidently, the Biden Administration realised that one main objective of Blinken’s trip to Beijing — ie., to weaken the Sino-Russian axis — was going to be a non-starter. The US’ sustained efforts to turn the Ukraine conflict as a tool to sabotage China-Russia relations have failed spectacularly. The economic and military ties between Beijing and Moscow are only growing stronger. President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to Russia in spring heralds the steady upward trajectory of in the “no limits” partnership.

The planned bullying of China by a visiting Blinken was shown to be useless and that was the real reason for announcing that no such trip would take place and for blowing up the balloon:

The balloon affair can be regarded as a defining moment. It exposes that while China was approaching Blinken’s visit in good faith with the purpose of finding constructive ways forward, Washington didn’t view things the same way. That said, Beijing was under no illusions, either.

The NYT's false assertion that China failed to communicate during the balloon affair must be seen as part of Blinken's maneuver to push for more hostility towards China. "If they failed to talk they must be guilty of something." But China did in fact talk and it is the U.S. that is sabotaging the relations between the two countries.

Posted by b on February 6, 2023 at 12:26 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/n ... .html#more
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 07, 2023 2:53 pm

WHO HAS BEEN UNMANNED? THE BALLOON’S-EYE EVIDENCE OF THE COLLAPSE OF US MISSILE DEFENCE, MILITARY AND POLITICAL WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY AGAINST RUSSIA, CHINA – OR OF WHITE HOUSE LYING FROM THE START

Image

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

If the US Government, including the President and the Pentagon, have been telling the truth, the Chinese balloon incursion over US territory for a week has proved to be one of the most effective spy missions ever attempted against US air and missile defences in recent memory.

If the Chinese Government has been telling the truth, and the balloon was nothing more than a “civilian unmanned airship” out of control due to force majeure, the outcome is exactly the same. It is also the same outcome if the Chinese have been lying, and the balloon was a military intelligence operation.

And if US officials have been lying, concealing what they knew and when they knew what they have publicly announced about the balloon’s mission, the conclusion remains the same: the balloon has exposed fundamental warfighting weaknesses of the US against both Russia and China to its enemies; and equally to the US allies on the Ukrainian battlefield, in Japan, Korea, Canada and Australia to see for themselves.

The public record is slow to materialize of what exactly happened when the giant balloon entered the airspace between the Russian Kurile Islands and the American Aleutian Islands; then entered US territorial waters making landfall over Alaska, then Canada, then the US again. The published maps available in the US media have all been distorted by projections and estimates based on meteorological data and sightings reported to the press by people on the ground.

The precise data of the flight path, speed, electronic signals to and from the airship, and evidence of control (or lack of control) over its operations are military secrets – US, Chinese, Russian. Opening them up is not necessary, however, to reach several conclusions. For the time being, and failing more evidence and more proof, what follows is a handful of certainties joined by the balance of probabilities.

That is the test for US juries to convict in cases of fraud.

The first certainty is that the balloon was detected by US military and civilian trackers well before it reached US territorial waters off the Aleutian Islands (Alaska).

Image

The civilian evidence can be found in the Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for airfields on the Aleutians and related locations, including military bases on the Alaskan mainland.

The NOTAM evidence can be searched here. These records reveal detection on January 26 and warning to pilots of a volcanic eruption on the Russian Kurile Islands almost 3,000 kilometres to the west across the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. Applying this decoder of the NOTAM acronyms, it can be seen that the balloon warnings available to civilian air controllers in Alaska and pilots flying in the region did not start until January 29. On that day this NOTAM was published:

Image

It was followed by another NOTAM on January 31:

Image

Aviation and air control experts should be able to clarify whether these NOTAMs refer to the movement of the balloon. If they don’t, then the questions arise for the Federal Aaviation Administration (FAA) and its regional staff in Alaska – was the balloon detected at 60,000 feet from January 28? Were NOTAM warnings issued to airmen? If not, why not?

The maps published to date reveal why it is improbable for the FAA not to have detected the balloon and issued warnings.

Image
Source: https://www.statista.com/

The Washington Post reporting suggests the balloon was over water, US territorial water, for least 24 hours and up to 48 hours, from the first sighting on January 28. From this it can be concluded that it was well within range of detection, as well as interdiction, from Fort Greely, a strategic US missile interception base. Its mission has been publicly declared to be the detection of hostile attacks from North Korea, China or Russia. To safeguard Fort Greely and serve as tactical air support against an attacker moving as slowly as the Chinese balloon, the Elmendorf Air Force Base is close by.

The first shoot-down opportunity over water which presented itself to the Pentagon, its Northern Command, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was not on February 4, off the South Carolina coast, but much earlier, between January 28 and 31, in the Bering Sea north of the Aleutian island chain. If there were NOTAMs warning civilian aircraft operators at the time around Adak Airport, on Adak Island, had the US military trackers already confirmed the balloon and its payload were not hostile? If there was no detection, did both civilian and military tracking fail? If there was military detection, but no civilian detection, why was this information withheld? If both military and civilian detection systems confirmed the balloon and its Chinese origin, when exactly were the Chinese authorities informed? Did the Chinese Government officially reply to the US aviation notices with a force majeure declaration at that time – and was its receipt at NORAD, transferred to the Pentagon, and relayed to the White House and State Department enough to convince US officials in Washington that there was no hostile intent; no Chinese spy operation;, no military threat? Are the answers to these questions concealed from public disclosure because of the political infighting which developed in Washington as the balloon flight continued?

Image
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/

This Washington Post map and text confirms there was concealment by US officials at the start.

Time reported differently. The magazine quoted the NORAD commander as making a statement which implied the balloon had not been detected by the military trackers, and that it was far from the first balloon to be missed. “General Glen VanHerck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), confirmed Monday [January 30] the Chinese government previously sent surveillance balloons above the U.S. that went undetected. ‘Every day as a NORAD commander, it’s my responsibility to detect threats to North America,’ he said at a briefing. ‘I will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that’s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.’” The general was not saying the Chinese balloons had gone undetected, but that the military threat went undetected. That may be because NORAD had already gathered the evidence that there had been no espionage or other threat from the balloons.

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Source: https://time.com/

General VanHerck became more precise in his public statements on February 4, when he claimed credit for shooting down the balloon off the South Carolina coast – at the opposite end of the continental US which it’s vanHerck’s mission to guard. “’At the direction of the President of the United States and with the full support of the Government of Canada, “, the general announced, “United States fighter aircraft under U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) authority successfully brought down the PRC’s high altitude surveillance balloon at 2:39 p.m. EST, Feb. 4, 2023. In accordance with the President’s direction, the military brought down the balloon within sovereign U.S. airspace and over U.S. territorial waters to protect civilians while maximizing our ability to recover the payload… I am proud of the exceptional professionalism the NORAD and USNORTHCOM team displayed throughout this operation, and the dedication they bring every day to defending our homelands.”


VanHerck (right) had been silent on January 28-29. On January 30, however, he announced, also with operational pride, that his forces had completed Operation NOBLE DEFENDER in which coordinated US and Canadian forces had practised surveillance, detection, interception, and interdiction of hostile air attacks from the Arctic. The exercise also included this interception: “To conclude the period of operations, NORAD fighters exercised an intercept of a U.S. Strategic Command B-52 representing a threat platform to demonstrate the command’s ability to conduct globally integrated layered defense. NORAD CF-18s escorted the U.S. bomber as it was transiting through northern Canada and the central United States.”

If US officials, including VanHerck, have been telling the truth, they managed to detect and intercept a hostile nuclear bomber, but at the same time they missed a foreign drone, a “surveillance balloon” reported to be 200 feet (91 metres) tall with a payload weighing at least one tonne.

The New York Times has confirmed that the NORAD trackers had detected the balloon over the Bering Sea as it approached the Aleutians. The newspaper’s Pentagon sources were reported as confirming the trackers knew, or thought they knew, that the balloon was under control. “Saturday, Jan. 28. The spy balloon starts a controlled drift into American territory, entering Alaskan airspace near the Aleutian Islands. At first it appears to trackers at United States Northern Command to be just another one of China’s light probes around the edges of America’s defensive borders. Monday, Jan. 30. By the end of the day, it has exited American territory and is over Canada, officials say, carrying its solar panels that power its propulsion and its cameras and surveillance equipment.”

The newspaper omitted to say what the US trackers knew for the two days between January 28 and 30. The Times then reported that on Tuesday, January 31, “the balloon re-enters the United States over Idaho, to the surprise of officials at Northern Command as well as at the Pentagon…Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, alerts President Biden. The president asks for military options, including the immediate destruction of the aircraft. Mr. Biden also orders that no activities or sensitive unencrypted communications would be conducted in the path of the balloon.”

If these US officials were telling the truth to the newspaper, they were admitting the Chinese had succeeded in a three to four-day hostile incursion, taking the US early-warning systems and anti-ballistic missile protection forces entirely by surprise. This length of time – 72 hours to 96 hours – represents an interval long enough, hypothetically, for the new generation of Russian hypersonic missiles to destroy all the western-based and midwestern land-based nuclear missile bases, roughly half the urban area of the US, and possibly the eastern half as well. Is this conceivable?

If not, then the alternative probability is that there was no US surprise – the balloon had been verified as posing no military threat; and that the generals and the White House have been concealing the evidence and lying from beginning to end.

Were VanHerck, Milley, and President Joseph Biden lying or telling the truth when they claimed they did not shoot down the balloon sooner, while it was crossing the US landmass, because they wanted “to protect civilians while maximizing our ability to recover the payload”?

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CNN recorded Biden as claiming after the shoot-down that he had ordered it on February 1, but Pentagon officials “told me – let’s wait to the safest place to do it.”

The maps and media reports of the flight path of the balloon reveal that it crossed areas which the US military routinely use to test missile interceptors, and where the risk of falling missile debris on people is negligible; this is because the population densities – in Alaska, for example, or Canada’s Yukon – range from 1.3 people per square kilometre to 0.1. Was the risk of a shoot-down in those areas that a civilian might come across the balloon debris and reveal it publicly to the press? Was the Bering Sea seabed off the Aleutians significantly deeper and colder (frozen) than the Atlantic off South Carolina, and so more problematic for recovery in secret? Or was the reason for delay because Generals VanHerck and Milley, NORAD, and the assembled technical intelligence officers of the National Security Agency and others briefing the president in the National Security Council had concluded the balloon was not operating spyware, and not a threat to the US?

If this was the reason for delay – and even if it wasn’t the reason — the delay itself has presented the two enemy powers against which it is US policy to go to war – China and Russia – with an exceptional display of collapse between the military and intelligence operations of the US Government and the political staffs of the White House and State Department, and then their loss of nerve.

US media reporting confirms the timing of Biden’s shoot-down decision was calculated to neutralize the Republicans in Congress, and turn the episode around in order to damage the re-election threat from ex-President Donald Trump. According to the Republican Party version of the truth, the Democrats are now lying that similar balloon incidents had occurred during the Trump administration. According to Trump’s last Defense Secretary Mark Esper , he was “surprised…I don’t ever recall somebody coming into my office or reading anything that the Chinese had a surveillance balloon above the United States.” By “surveillance, Esper meant espionage, not meteorology.

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Source: https://edition.cnn.com/

John Bolton (pictured above), the former national security adviser under Trump, implied the Democrats are now lying. “Did the Biden administration invent a time machine? What is the basis of this new detection?… The very fact, if it is a fact, that the Chinese tried this before, should have alerted us and should have caused us to take action before the balloon crossed into American sovereign territory.” Bolton meant the obvious – if it had been the truth that NORAD had detected a hostile threat from the balloon, the order to shoot it down should have been executed between January 28 and 30, over the Bering Sea.

Bolton is a candidate for the 2024 presidential election himself. In his announcement last month, he claimed he would be running “primarily on the basis that we need a much stronger foreign policy.”

If Bolton and Trump’s generals had been ignoring stray meteorological balloons from China, without discovering their spyware and China’s hostile intent, then the interception and destruction of the “civilian unmanned airship” is turning out to be nothing more than a domestic dogfight. Biden unmanned.

http://johnhelmer.net/who-has-been-unma ... more-70631

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China makes protest over US shooting down airship
By MO JINGXI | China Daily | Updated: 2023-02-07 00:20

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A balloon flies in the sky over Billings, Montana, US, Feb 1, 2023. [Photo/Agencies]

China has strongly protested the United States' overreaction to the entry of a Chinese unmanned civilian airship into US airspace, saying that Washington's handling of the incident was a test of its sincerity in stabilizing and improving bilateral ties as well as its approach to crises.

Vice-Foreign Minister Xie Feng made "a stern demarche" with the US embassy in China on Sunday after Washington shot down the airship, which China had confirmed to be a civilian airship for research purposes that had deviated far from its planned course.

"China has already stated that it is completely an unexpected and accidental incident caused by force majeure. But the US turned a deaf ear and insisted on indiscriminate use of force against the civilian airship that was about to leave the US," Xie said.

The US obviously overreacted, and seriously violated the spirit of international law and international practice, he said.

Xie said that the Chinese government is closely following the development of the situation, will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and reserves the right to make further necessary responses.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Monday that China has been communicating with the US and demanded that it appropriately deal with the situation in a calm and professional way.

"We hope the US will work with China to properly handle our differences, avoid miscalculation and misunderstanding, and refrain from harming our mutual trust," she said.

Mao also confirmed that another balloon, spotted over Latin America, was an unmanned civilian airship from China on a test flight that severely deviated from its course and accidentally entered Latin American and Caribbean airspace.

"As a responsible country, China always strictly abides by international law and has briefed related countries about the situation in order to properly handle it. The airship poses no threat to any country, and all parties said they understand it," she said.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said the nation supports dialogue to peacefully resolve conflicts. It also condemned the attack by the United States on the Chinese airship that exhibited a technical malfunction and "did not pose any military or physical threat".

Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon analyst, told Russian news agency Sputnik that the incident had given Washington the pretext it needs to feed anti-China hysteria amid tectonic shifts being witnessed in the global geopolitical and economic order.

Speaking on CNN, Philip Mudd, a former Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, said "we twisted ourselves around a balloon for days in Washington DC".

"Look, if the Chinese want to collect photos of America, you could get to Google Earth; you could get a Chinese secret satellite if they want to intercept communications. They could do it with satellites," he said.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... ad38e.html

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What’s the significance of the ‘spy balloon’ incident?
February 7, 2023 Gary Wilson

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Protesters rally outside Philippine military headquarters.

While an alleged “spy balloon” dominates the news, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was just in the Philippines to announce the expansion of U.S. bases in anticipation of war with China over Taiwan.

On Feb. 2, General Austin spoke at a news conference at the Philippine military headquarters in Manila. U.S. troops, ships, and aircraft will be stationed in nine military bases in the Philippines, including a base on the Philippines’ most northern island, about 118 miles from Taiwan. This puts the U.S. military in place for a rapid operation in Taiwan.

“This is a big deal,” Austin said. “This is a very big deal.”

Outside the Philippine military headquarters, dozens of protesters opposed to the U.S. military occupation rallied with chants of “U.S. troops out now” and “Down with U.S. imperialism.”

As to the weather balloon, what is significant is not its presence. There have been three or more other times in the last few years that Chinese weather balloons have flown over the U.S., but none of them were reported in the news at the time.

This time the Pentagon announced the balloon’s presence “on an espionage mission.” The Pentagon managed the daily news reports, not the White House or the State Department. The generals were in charge. It was war propaganda.

All the news coverage in the U.S. called it a spy craft, never a weather research balloon, as China said.

According to a Politico report, Defense Secretary Austin, U.S. Northern Command Chief Gen. Glen VanHerck, and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley were in charge, giving orders (called “recommendations” in the report) to the White House and the State Department as well as dictating the news reports.

One result was that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his trip to Beijing for high-level diplomatic talks, which was to be the first secretary of state visit since Michael Pompeo’s belligerent confrontation in October 2018.

Blinken’s trip had become a focus of war hawks in Congress. Republican senators led by Marco Rubio from Florida signed an open letter to Blinken demanding that the trip be a confrontation with China, particularly focusing on Taiwan.

Signers of the letter, in addition to Rubio, were Senators Chuck Grassley, Bill Cassidy, Eric Schmitt, Dan Sullivan, Kevin Cramer, Ted Budd, Rick Scott, Marsha Blackburn, Lindsey Graham, Shelley Moore Capito, Pete Ricketts, John Hoeven, and Bill Hagerty.

Not that the Biden administration hasn’t followed or even escalated the anti-China policies of the Trump administration. In December, Biden approved $180 million in arms to Taiwan. Biden extended the ban on telecommunications equipment from China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE. And the Biden administration instituted comprehensive restrictions on selling semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment to China.

Marine general says war

The Pentagon has been aggressively raising the threat levels.

In a memo dated Feb. 1 but leaked several days earlier, a four-star Air Force general instructed units under his command to begin concrete preparations for war with China that he predicted would come by 2025. Gen. Mike Minihan heads the U.S. Air Mobility Command.

Minihan’s memo seems to echo Air Force General Jack Ripper, a character from the 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove” who orders his command wing to launch a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

Minihan lays out a nine-point plan as “preparation for the next fight.”

“I hope I am wrong,” he commented after the memo was made public. “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

Michael McCaul, the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the most powerful figure in the House on foreign policy, said on Fox News: “I hope he’s wrong as well. I think he’s right, though, unfortunately.”

That’s a war threat.

Japan and Australia

On Jan. 13, Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, met with Biden at the White House, the New York Times reports, “to work together to transform Japan into a potent military power to help counterbalance China and to bolster the alliance between the two nations so that it becomes the linchpin for their security interests in Asia.”

Washington and Tokyo are deliberately undermining the basis for diplomatic ties with China — the One China policy recognizing Beijing as the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

“We have to protect Taiwan,” Japan’s deputy defense minister, Yasuhide Nakayama, said in 2021.

Japan had seized Taiwan in 1895, the beginning of Japan’s colonial empire in Asia.

The U.S. has secured military alliances with Japan and the Philippines that makes a north-south arc around Taiwan. A third treaty ally, Australia, is being equipped with nuclear-powered submarines by the U.S. and Britain to operate in the South China Sea. “Attack submarines are a big deal, and they send a big message,” the New York Times reported when the fleet of submarines were announced in 2021.

Today, the U.S. is the primary armaments manufacturer and exporter worldwide. Almost 40% of all armaments production in the world is in the U.S. The military industry is the core of manufacturing in the U.S., estimated to be more than 60% of all industrial production and supply in this country.

The military escalation against China was begun by the Trump administration. It should not be forgotten that Donald Trump was, first and foremost, an operative of the military-industrial complex. His cabinet and staff came from Raytheon and Boeing, as well as a slew of U.S. Army officers – generals and colonels. U.S. military expansion increased under Trump.

Trump was the “cheerleader for U.S. arms exports.” He touted it as “making America great.” The New York Times cheered, too, saying that Trump had revived manufacturing in the U.S.

The weapons industry, of course, directly arms the military for the purpose of expansion and conquest of the world. But arms exports are another way to conquer. A country that adopts U.S. weapons and equipment puts itself under the control of the U.S. systems.

The industrial half of the military-industrial complex drives the arms buildup. It is they who are most in need of expanding the military. The military expansion is the expansion of business.

General Carl Von Clausewitz famously said: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” And politics is concentrated economics, as V.I. Lenin pointed out. The politics producing this war buildup are the economic interests of big business.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... -incident/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 08, 2023 2:32 pm

China Balloon is Pretext for US Provocation
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 08 Feb 2023

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The Shenzhou-13 crew returned from China's space station in 2022. (Photo: Xinhua)

An errant balloon from China sent the U.S. into a frenzy of fear and hatred. The president, congress, and corporate media all made sure that a harmless incident was viewed in the worst light possible.

The People's Republic of China has a space program. They have a space station where they deploy their taikonauts. China has satellites orbiting the earth. Yet despite these advances, we are told that this same country would send a balloon, visible to the naked eye, to spy on the United States. The more logical explanation is just what the Chinese said: a balloon conducting meteorological research was blown off course. There have been several previous instances of such equipment flying in or near U.S. territory .

The mixture of hysteria whipped up by the Biden administration and their mouthpieces in corporate media were fodder for jokes and internet memes. However, U.S. actions which created this incident are part of a pattern of provocations and dangerously amateurish diplomacy.

Joe Biden began his term in office by attempting to bully Beijing. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with their Chinese counterparts in early 2021 and proceeded to insult them very publicly . The interaction was so bad that Yang Jiechie, Director of the Central Commission on Foreign Affairs, felt compelled to say, “Well, I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols.” Relations between the two nations have gone steadily downhill ever since.

The Biden administration is now using the same failed playbook it used against Russia and hoping to somehow snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with China. They hope to find or create a provocation that will result in congressional and public support for sanctions or even military action. But their Ukraine policy should be jettisoned instead of copied elsewhere. In instigating Russia to act in Ukraine, Biden succeeded in severing relations between Russia and EU nations, and ended their natural gas sales, to the detriment of Europe. But Russia prepared for sanctions while the Biden team engaged in wishful thinking. Remember when he said the sanctions would, “turn the ruble to rubble?” Ukraine suffers from this miscalculation more than any other country and the U.S. is left to commit desperate acts, such as its probable involvement in the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines. Their fantasy foreign policy consists of escalating tensions for the sake of doing so.

The same people who fanatically believe that the U.S. can subjugate the whole world look for every opportunity to worsen an already bad relationship with China. Even a weather balloon can become a pretext for war with another nuclear armed nation. Turning Taiwan into the new Ukraine, a weapon to be used against a country which has been declared an adversary, is still part of their plans. That is why former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was given support for a Taiwan trip, despite the fact that the U.S. claims to continue following the one China policy.

There is no logical explanation for such a frenzy of speculation about a balloon with scientific equipment attached. Well, there is a twisted logic in the decision to shoot down a balloon that was on its way out to sea. China must be seen as the enemy, and the administration wouldn’t let a small thing like a balloon straying off course go to waste.

Enter the corporate media, the handmaiden of the U.S. state. It isn’t surprising that Fox News would call the balloon a “communist eye in the sky.” But Fox was joined by outlets which are supposedly of a higher quality. The New York Times refers to the balloon as a spy balloon, relying only on the word of the administration. The gray lady, the paper of record, seems unable to find anyone who can do impartial research on balloons that gather scientific information, preferring to instead be a cheerleader for reckless policies. Calling it a balloon without qualifiers must be forbidden by the Times style guide.

So far, no members of congress have expressed skepticism or warned against the overreaction to the balloon being shot down. Instead, the manufactured hysteria is bipartisan. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell opined, “We should not have let the People’s Republic of China make a mockery of our airspace.” Democratic Senator and Majority Leader Charles Schumer was no better as he said, “I strongly condemn President Xi’s brazen incursion into American airspace, and I commend President Biden’s leadership in taking down the Chinese balloon over water to ensure safety for all Americans. Now we can collect the equipment and analyze the technology used by the CCP.” Never mind that there is no CCP. The supposed acronym is nonexistent. If they are referring to the Communist Party of China they ought to say CPC. But who cares about accuracy when there is hysteria in need of fomenting.

We can’t be surprised about “Asian hate” or a warmongering public. These sentiments start at the top with presidents, congress, and supposedly reputable media. Despite any alleged differences they join together at the opportune moment to spread fear or use nonsense for already ridiculous and dangerous purposes.

The U.S. is amateurish and bumbling, even when trying to start a fight. When Blinken announced he had canceled a visit to China, the Chinese foreign ministry pointed out that nothing had been confirmed. They apologized for the unintentional event and for good measure said of Blinken’s dramatic cancellation, “In fact, neither side has ever announced that there would be a visit. It is a matter for the US to make its latest announcement.”

Biden may want to turn a balloon into a new Ukraine. He should remember that the U.S. may be powerful enough to shoot one out of the sky, but it isn’t smart enough to deal with a nation acting with intelligence and maturity.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/china ... rovocation

Global Economic Forecast Reveals the Perils of U.S. Addiction to War
Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor 08 Feb 2023

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Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping to Riyadh December 8, 2022. (Photo: Bandar Al-Jaloud / AFP via Getty Images)

The U.S. has declared China to be an adversary, but its economic prowess cannot be eclipsed by a nation that is addicted to provocation and war making.

This article was originally published in CGTN .

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has updated its global economic outlook for the current year and the predictions for the West remain grim. U.S. economic growth is set to slow to just 1.4 percent in 2023. The situation is worse in Europe, where leading EU countries will experience near zero growth. The IMF cited high interest rates in the U.S., as well as the economic shocks of the Ukraine crisis as reasons for the West's economic slowdown. Nonetheless, this only tells a part of the story.

Economic growth is determined by much more than momentary shifts in the world situation. Inflation, wage stagnation and slow growth are not givens, even in difficult times. If this were the case, the IMF's projected growth rates for China and the U.S. would be the same or similar. Yet, China is predicted to grow about four to five times faster than the U.S. in 2023.

What would explain the difference in projected economic growth between the two countries? An often-overlooked reason is their divergent approaches to world affairs. China's global vision is undergirded by the principles of win-win cooperation and non-interference in the affairs of other nations.

Trade between China and Russia has risen by the month despite the windfall of the Ukraine crisis. Arab nations have also reaffirmed their commitment to economic cooperation with China during the historic China-Arab States Summit held in Riyadh in December 2022.

China is recognized as a leader in helping the world navigate a moment of historic change. China hosted the BRICS Summit in 2022 for the third time, with Global South nations such as Argentina, Iran, and Saudi Arabia expressing serious interest in joining the group many international observers believe is laying the economic foundations for a multipolar world. Following the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping held major diplomatic exchanges in Beijing with top leadership from Vietnam and Cuba.

Chinese leadership also set an example for diplomacy at the G20 and APEC meetings. Perhaps most critically, China has expressed keen interest in following up on Xi Jinping's conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden at the G20 Summit with good-faith efforts to bring U.S.-China relations back to a more stable and positive direction for both parties and the world at large.

China's record of fostering cooperation with nations around the world has been crucial in its pursuit of economic prosperity. Peace and prosperity are inseparable phenomena. China's commitment to mutually beneficial economic exchange makes it a trustworthy partner in difficult times. Nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia have looked to China for assistance in addressing their critical infrastructure needs. China providing such help is demonstrated in projects including the Sino-Laos high-speed railway and Turkey's recently unveiled high-speed rail connecting Istanbul to the city's international airport.

In contrast to China, Washington's approach to world affairs is guided by an addiction to military conflicts. War is profitable for the elite corporate interests that dominate politics in the U.S. since it maintains and expands U.S. hegemony. Since the Ukraine crisis began in February 2022, the U.S. has delivered tens of billions of dollars' worth of weaponry to Ukraine. A recent leaked memo from the U.S. Air Force revealed possible preparations for a war against China in 2025.

War is both a drag on economic prosperity and internal political stability. Increased weapons sales, sanctions, and war plans do nothing to alleviate internal economic problems. Persistent inflation, massive interest rate hikes, and declining living standards require a commitment from political leadership to the betterment of the people. When that commitment is spurned, political chicanery is inevitable. Leaders in both U.S. political parties thus find themselves spending an inordinate amount of time and resources scapegoating China to deflect attention from their own failures.

The U.S. has spent the first month of 2023 satisfying its addiction to war. China stands on the opposite path, injecting a semblance of stability in a period of massive global turbulence. Still, the perils of the U.S.'s addiction to war are set to become more painful as the year goes on.

Peace is not simply a value worth adopting but an essential principle for helping humanity overcome what may appear at first sight as insurmountable economic and political challenges. Unfortunately, the forces that govern the U.S. have already demonstrated that they've chosen hegemony and aggression over the peaceful global environment necessary to right the economic ship.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/globa ... iction-war

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US-China Trade Hits Record Despite Decoupling Rhetoric

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Image representing U.S.-China trade. | Photo: Twitter/ @SundayMailZim

Published 8 February 2023 (2 hours 24 minutes ago)

Decoupling isn't yet happening in any significant way, not by a long shot, and isn't likely to, Foreign Policy magazine said.

Newly released U.S. official data showed that goods trade between the United States and China hit a record US$690.6 billion in 2022, indicating robust trade growth amid bilateral tensions and decoupling rhetoric.

The U.S. Commerce Department data, which are not adjusted for inflation, showed that goods exports to China increased by US$2.4 billion to US$153.8 billion and imports increased by US$31.8 billion to US$536.8 billion.

The data showed that despite U.S. government's decisions to impose tariffs and export controls and some politicians' rhetoric to decouple from China, trade growth between the two major economies remains robust.

Bilateral trade relations have reached a low point since 2018, when former U.S. President Donald Trump launched a trade war with China, unilaterally imposing tariffs on over US$300 billion worth of Chinese goods. Since taking office, current President Joe Biden has not yet made a decision to scrap any Trump-era tariffs.

William Reinsch, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying that the latest data showed that "consumers have minds of their own."

"At the market level, we're still doing a lot of business... The macro relationship hasn't changed that much; we're still trading a lot," said Reinsch, who also served as the under-secretary of commerce for export administration during the Clinton administration.

Decoupling isn't yet happening in any significant way, not by a long shot, and isn't likely to, Foreign Policy magazine said. It quoted U.S. business insiders as saying that the U.S.-China economic relationship remains profound and is growing deeper in many sectors, and that a decoupling will undercut U.S. global competitiveness.

"The bottom line is that exports to China help a range of industries across the United States stay profitable and competitive... They also support American jobs, from the tourism industry, to farmers and ranchers in Iowa, to chipmakers in Oregon, and to innovative drugmakers in North Carolina," said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC).

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0002.html

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US Surrounds China With War Machinery While Freaking Out About Balloons

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In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in US airspace on Thursday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken cancelled his scheduled diplomatic visit to China after the detection of the balloon. The mass media have been covering the story with breathless excitement. China hawk pundits have been pounding the war drums all day on any platform they can get to and accusing the Biden administration of not responding aggressively enough to the incident.

“The important thing that the American people need to understand, and what we are going to try to expose in a bipartisan fashion on this committee, is that the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party is not just a distant threat in East Asia, or a threat to Taiwan,” House China Select Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher told Fox News on Friday. “It is a threat right here at home. It is a threat to American sovereignty, and it is a threat to the Midwest — in places like those that I live in.”

“A big Chinese balloon in the sky and millions of Chinese TikTok balloons on our phones,” tweeted Senator Mitt Romney. “Let’s shut them all down.”


China’s foreign ministry says the balloon is indeed from China but is “civilian in nature, used for meteorological and other scientific research,” and was simply blown far off course. This could of course be untrue — all major governments spy on each other constantly and China is no exception — but the Pentagon’s own assessment is that the balloon “does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.”

So everyone’s losing their minds over a balloon that in all probability would be mostly worthless for spying, even while everyone knows the US spies on China at every possible opportunity. US officials have complained to the press that American spies are having a much harder time conducting operations and recruiting assets in China than they used to because of measures the Chinese government has taken to thwart them, and in 2001 a US spy plane caused a major international incident when it collided with a Chinese military jet on China’s coastline, killing the pilot.

The US considers it its sovereign right to spy on any nation it chooses, and the average American tends more or less to see it the same way. This is highlighted in controversies around domestic versus foreign surveillance, for example; Americans were outraged over the Edward Snowden revelations not because spy agencies were conducting surveillance, but because they were conducting surveillance on American citizens. It’s just taken as a given that spying on foreigners is fine, so it’s a bit silly to react melodramatically when foreigners return the favor.

As Jake Werner explains for Responsible Statecraft:

Foreign surveillance of sensitive U.S. sites is not a new phenomenon. “It’s been a fact of life since the dawn of the nuclear age, and with the advent of satellite surveillance systems, it long ago became an everyday occurrence,” as my colleague and former CIA analyst George Beebe puts it.

U.S. surveillance of foreign countries is likewise quite common. Indeed, great powers gathering intelligence on each other is one of the more banal and universal facts of international relations. Major countries even spy on their own allies, as when U.S. intelligence bugged the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Typically, even when such surveillance is directed against the United States by a rival power, it does not threaten the safety of Americans and it poses manageable risks to sites where secrecy is of the utmost importance. However — in the context of rapidly increasing U.S.–China tensions — foreseeable incidents like these can quickly balloon into dangerous confrontations.


Now let’s contrast all this with another news story that’s getting a lot less attention.

In an article titled “US secures deal on Philippines bases to complete arc around China,” the BBC reports that the empire will be adding even more installations to the already impressive military noose it has been constructing around the PRC.

“The US has secured access to four additional military bases in the Philippines – a key bit of real estate which would offer a front seat to monitor the Chinese in the South China Sea and around Taiwan,” writes the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. “With the deal, Washington has stitched the gap in the arc of US alliances stretching from South Korea and Japan in the north to Australia in the south. The missing link had been the Philippines, which borders two of the biggest potential flashpoints – Taiwan and the South China Sea.”

“The US hasn’t said where the new bases are but three of them could be on Luzon, an island on the northern edge of the Philippines, the only large piece of land close to Taiwan – if you don’t count China,” writes Wingfield-Hayes.

The BBC provides a helpful illustration to show how the US is completing its military encirclement, courtesy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines:

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The US empire has been surrounding China with military bases and war machinery for many years, in ways Washington would never tolerate China doing in the nations and waters surrounding the United States. There is no question that the US is the aggressor in this increasingly hostile standoff between major powers. Yet we’re all meant to be freaking out about a balloon.

Ask me to show you how the US has been aggressing against China I can show you all the well-documented ways in which the US is encircling China with weapons of war. Ask an empire apologist to show you how China is aggressing against the US and they’ll start babbling about TikTok and balloons.

These things are not equal. Maybe Americans should stop watching out for hostile foreign threats and start looking a little closer to home.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/02/04 ... -balloons/

*****

China Rejects "Shoot First, Talk Later" Attitude

Here is demonstration of typically childish-arrogant behavior of the U.S. government towards foreign countries.

China Isn’t Ready to Pick Up Phone After Balloon Incident
Chinese officials rejected a request from the U.S. defense secretary to speak with his counterpart after an American fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon.


The Pentagon said on Tuesday that China had rejected a request from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to speak with his Chinese counterpart on Saturday soon after an American fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina.
That statement by the Pentagon immediately raises a question. Why hadn't the U.S. defense secretary called the Chinese defense minister before shooting down the Chinese weather ballon?

The U.S. apparently detected the balloon on January 29 when it was over the Aleutian Islands. Austin could have called his Chinese counterpart anytime in the seven days between that detection and the time the decision was taken to shot it down:

“We believe in the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and the P.R.C. in order to responsibly manage the relationship,” Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in an emailed statement, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “Lines between our militaries are particularly important in moments like this.”
It was not to be. “Unfortunately,” General Ryder said, “the P.R.C. has declined our request” to arrange a call with Wei Fenghe, the Chinese defense minister.


The purpose of high level lines of communication between military and political leaders is to prevent that crises happen or, if one has happen incidentally, to prevent their escalation.

Before the shot down the Chinese defense minister Wei Fenghe likely would have taken that call. But the U.S. decided to shoot first and to talk later. That was and is inappropriate.

On January 29 the Chinese weather balloon was drifting westward over Alaska and Canada. There was no expectation that it would cross into the United States. But an unusual low pressure formation over east Canada eventually caused that. Low pressure areas in the northern hemisphere turn counter-clockwise. High pressure areas turn clockwise. The unusually strong low pressure zone over east Canada pushed arctic air masses south through Canada and then south west to west to New England. This phenomenon, on February 1 and 2, caused a cold snap in east Canada and the northeast of the U.S.. But the wind also caused the 200 feet high balloon to turn south.

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Picture the coldest Canadian night imaginable. What did you think of it? Clear skies? Calm winds? A deep snowpack? This cold snap had none of these ingredients align because this type of cold is different. Meet advection cold.
The cold air wasn’t developed on location. The imported cold was fed south by a strong low and the trajectory of the polar vortex. The polar vortex was swirling near Hudson Bay and was slingshotted south by favourable atmospheric dynamics.

The cold air wrapped around a developing low, lifting across Labrador. Not just any cold air, either -- the stratospheric polar vortex mixed down in what’s known as a tropopause fold and occurs near the core of a jet stream.


A wind and pressure map from February 3 shows the then already waning low pressure area in the upper right. The red arrow shows the balloon's course.

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Both the cold snap and the balloon's turn were surprising. The jet stream would usually have prevent both from happening. But this time the low pressure area proved to be stronger if only for a short moment. It is the reason why the balloon ended up crossing the U.S.

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Source: Wikipedia - bigger

There was no way the balloon could have been steered against the prevailing wind. Here is a CBS meteorologist, who had used NOAA software to predicted the course of the ballon, confirming that fact:

Ed Russo @EdRussoWX - 11:37 UTC · Feb 4, 2023
Replying to @soonersfan2022
The balloon is flying at the height of the jet stream. The jet stream winds will steer the balloon… even a simple rudder won’t be a match for the 200+ mph upper level winds.


By no means could China have planned the balloon's course. Any allegations that the balloon was being 'steered' and intentionally crossed U.S. missile fields and military bases to 'spy' on those are thereby bogus. China has some 300 satellites in the earth's orbit. It does not need balloons to take aerial pictures of static missile silos in the mid-west U.S.

The NYT also writes:

China has insisted that the electronics-laden machine was simply a weather balloon that had drifted off course.

The balloon debris has not been recovered yet. Based on what fact is the NYT then claiming that it the balloon was an 'electronics-laden machine'?

China is not happy that the Biden administration is hyperventilating over the incident. But it will keep its calm:

Different political forces within the US, including President Joe Biden and the Republican Party, are still hyping up the incident of a Chinese civilian unmanned airship in the US media in order to gain political interests ahead of the annual State of the Union address, rather than making efforts to cool down the matter.
Chinese experts said on Tuesday that it shows that the chaotic, messy and sick political situation in Washington means that China-US tensions are unlikely to ease in the near future. It also proves that the Biden administration is incapable of setting so-called guardrails for bilateral ties under the complex situation within the US.

China will keep calm and observe what the US does next, and whether Biden creates conditions for engagement or Washington allows bilateral ties to keep worsening, China is ready to handle any possible moves by the US, experts noted.


Austin's attempts to call his Chinese counterpart AFTER the shit happened is seen as an attempt to additionally insult the Chinese government.

Austin will not be given a chance to do that.

Posted by b on February 8, 2023 at 14:34 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/c ... .html#more
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:41 pm

Why the US Seeks War with China by 2025
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 8, 2023
Brian Berletic

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In recent weeks there has been a build-up of talk regarding a US war with China. Not because of any actual provocation from Beijing, but instead because of a collective resignation to its supposed inevitability.

This is best illustrated by comments made by US Air Force General Michael Minihan. In TIME Magazine’s article, “U.S. General’s Prediction of War With China ‘in 2025’ Risks Turning Worst Fears Into Reality,” General Minihan is quoted as saying:

“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.”

The article goes on to claim:

“I hope I am wrong,” Minihan, who heads the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, wrote in an internal memo, which circulated on social media, to the leadership of its 110,000 members. Chinese President Xi Jinping, he explains, “secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. United States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.”

Yet nothing General Minihan says explains why the United States itself would conceivably find itself at war with the United States. Instead, General Minihan is more or less admitting that the US will go to war with China over Chinese actions regarding Taiwan. In fact, the article goes on to admit:

Minihan’s comments are merely the most immediate of a worrying, emerging consensus that the U.S. and China are destined to clash over Taiwan, the self-ruling island of 23 million that Beijing claims as its sovereign territory.

A clash between the United States and China over Taiwan would be the result of the United States willfully going to war with China over a matter the United States officially recognizes as China’s internal political affairs.

The current US State Department’s website regarding “U.S. Relations With Taiwan” admits that officially, “we do not support Taiwan independence.”

If the US does not support Taiwan independence then by extension the US acknowledges Taiwan is not independent and therefore Washington, officially, recognizes Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan. This is what defines the “One China” policy Washington and virtually every other nation on Earth has agreed to in order to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China in Beijing.

At a time when Washington regularly lectures Moscow about “violating sovereignty,” Washington’s stance toward Beijing and Taiwan should be a simple matter of respecting Chinese sovereignty. Yet it is not because of the double-game the United States plays both internationally and with China specifically.

Washington’s Deliberate Provocations

TIME Magazine and other Western media publications attempt to depict Beijing as the aggressor, omitting any discussion of either the “One China” policy or the US State Department’s own official declaration of supposedly upholding it.

Instead, Western audiences are led to believe that Taiwan somehow is independent and that Beijing is “bullying” it. The inevitable clash between the US and China is supposedly driven by America’s desire to “stand up” for Taiwan and its inferred sovereignty. In reality, a potential clash between the US and China would be the result of Washington once again violating the sovereignty of another nation thousands of miles from its own shores.

Washington’s double game of officially recognizing Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan while openly and deliberately trampling that sovereignty is best illustrated by former US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan utilizing an official US Air Force aircraft against the protests of Beijing. Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan is only one of many made by US representatives who openly use visits like this in an attempt to goad Beijing.

While the US claims American officials can travel “anywhere” they want and don’t need approval from Beijing to do so regarding Taiwan, this clearly contradicts what is written even on the US State Department’s own official website. But provocative diplomatic activity essentially encouraging separatism in Taiwan is by far the mildest of America’s provocations.

Looking at any map of US military deployments in the “Indo-Pacific” region reveals China as virtually surrounded by the US military by way of South Korea, mainland Japan, Okinawa, and with new basing agreements in the works with Manila, potentially the Philippines as well.

This puts US troops, naval assets, and hundreds of warplanes within striking distance of China, including Taiwan from north, east, and potentially the south.

The US has also poured billions of dollars’ worth of weapons into Taiwan, just as the US did in Ukraine from 2014 onward. The weapons are clearly intended for a Ukraine-style proxy war with China.

Worst of all is the small but growing presence of US military activity on Taiwan itself.

Even as the US State Department claims it does not support Taiwan independence, in 2021 Voice of America in its article, “US Nearly Doubled Military Personnel Stationed in Taiwan This Year,” admits that not only are there US troops on Taiwan, the number is increasing.

The article explains:

The increase from 20 personnel to 39 between December 31 and September 30 came with little fanfare, but it did coincide with a rare public acknowledgement by President Tsai Ing-wen in October that the U.S. military maintains a small presence in Taiwan.

Active-duty deployments now include 29 Marines as well as two service members from the Army, three from the Navy and five from the Air Force, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Manpower Data Center.


One could only imagine the reaction in Washington if Beijing and a government in, say San Juan, revealed the presence of Chinese forces in Puerto Rico. Yet as is the case in many instances regarding international relations, American “exceptionalism” not only absolves the US from any penalty for blatant violations of another nation’s sovereignty, it transfers the blame to the nation being targeted itself, in this case, China.

Why US War with China by 2025?

Despite serial provocations, Beijing has exercised exemplary patience and restraint. China has invested heavily in its military and is indeed preparing for conflict with the United States, not because it seeks to wage war with the United States but because the United States has placed its military on China’s doorstep, very clearly seeking war with China.

Taiwan’s full reintegration with the rest of China is inevitable. Already its economy is heavily dependent on access to markets across the rest of China. Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity reveals that nearly 50% of all exports from Taiwan go to the rest of China. The rest of China also accounts for the largest amount of imports to the island. Many of these imports are crucial inputs for Taiwan’s semiconductor and electronic component production which constitutes, by far, Taiwan’s largest industry.

Only through Washington’s persistent and extensive interference in Taiwan’s local political affairs has gradual reintegration been suspended. Before the US-backed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in 2016, the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT) party was on track to sign a trade agreement with the mainland that would have increased already extensive economic integration even further.

Ironically, as the US captured Ukraine politically in 2014, it was also backing opposition protests in Taiwan dubbed the “Sunflower Movement,” paving the way for the DPP’s ascent into power 2 years later. Just like the US-installed client regime in Kiev, the DPP immediately set a course for self-destruction, irrationally rolling back ties with the mainland at the expense of the people living on Taiwan.

More recently, local elections in Taiwan saw the DPP fare poorly, serving as an unofficial referendum rejecting the DPP’s separatist platform, the damage it has consistently done to the local economy, and the instability it has created across the strait with the mainland. However, just as was the case in Ukraine where public sentiment sought peace, Washington and its client regime have every intention of overriding that sentiment in Taiwan, and pushing the island closer still to yet another US-engineered proxy war.

It is clear that it is not China rushing for war with the United States, but precisely the other way around. Time, economics, and proximity favor China. In 10 years, China will be economically and militarily stronger while the US will continue its slow decline. At that point the window of opportunity will have closed for the United States to wage any type of military conflict with China and obtain anything close to resembling “victory.”

Some could argue that the window has already closed.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently published the outcome of “wargames” regarding a theoretical Chinese “invasion” of Taiwan in a paper titled, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.”

The paper concludes:

In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years.

Regarding China, it says:

China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule. Victory is therefore not enough. The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.

In essence, the US will suffer unprecedented military losses and Taiwan itself will be scoured clean of its industry and infrastructure. While CSIS claims that the Chinese amphibious landing was successfully foiled in its wargames thus preserving Taiwan’s political existence, the cost is Taiwan’s physical existence.

Both the CSIS paper together with public comments made by the Pentagon about their own classified wargames indicate disparity between the US and China militarily is narrowing quickly. If there is to be a conflict between the US and China, the sooner it takes place the better chance the US has of achieving a favorable outcome. It is therefore the US racing eagerly toward war, not China. China’s military posture reflects the close proximity of US forces to Chinese territory and their obvious intent to menace China in its own territory, not a China expanding its military capabilities to threaten the United States. In fact, the CSIS paper made a specific note about China’s ability to attack the US “homeland.”

The paper claims:

Because the United States will be striking the Chinese homeland, the base case assumes that the U.S. homeland is not a sanctuary. However, the ability of the Chinese to conduct strikes against the U.S. homeland and thereby affect operations in the Western Pacific is extremely limited. A few special forces might infiltrate and attack a small number of high-value targets but not enough to materially affect military operations in the Western Pacific.

Thus, even in a war between the US and China where the US is conducting strikes on Chinese territory, CSIS admits that China has very limited means to likewise strike at the US. This reveals that US policymakers are not concerned about any real threat China poses to the US, but instead to US “interests” thousands of miles from its own shores and, in fact, within the sovereign territory of China itself.

Potential war between the US and China, if it takes place, will merely be the most recent example of US military aggression in pursuit of global hegemony targeting and attempting to undermine another nation’s sovereignty in violation of international law, not as a means to uphold it. As the US often does, the lead up to this potential war sees the US projecting its own menace toward international law, peace and stability onto the very target of US military aggression, in this case China.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/ ... a-by-2025/

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The United States Wants to Make Taiwan the Ukraine of the East: The Sixth Newsletter (2023)

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

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Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 2 February 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines met with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin at Malacañang Palace in Manila, where they agreed to expand the US military presence in the country. In a joint statement, the two governments agreed to ‘announce their plans to accelerate the full implementation of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA)’ and ‘designate four new Agreed Locations in strategic areas of the country’. The EDCA, which was agreed upon in 2014, allows the US to use land in the Philippines for its military activities. It was formulated almost a quarter of a century after US troops vacated their bases in the Philippines – including a massive base at Subic Bay – during the collapse of the USSR.

At that time, the US operated on the assumption that it had triumphed and no longer required the vast structure of military bases it had built up during the Cold War. From the 1990s, the US assembled a new kind of global footprint by integrating the militaries of allied countries as subordinate forces to US military control and building smaller bases to create a much greater reach for its technologically superior airpower. In recent years, the US has been faced with the reality that that its apparent singular power is being challenged economically by several countries, such as China. To contest these challenges, the US began to rebuild its military force structure through its allies and more of these smaller, but no less lethal, base structures. It is likely that three of the four new bases in the Philippines will be on Luzon Island, at the north of the archipelago, which would place the US military within striking distance of Taiwan.

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Su Xiaobai (China), Great Consummation-3, 2008.

For the past fifteen years, the US has pushed its allies – including those organised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – to strengthen their military power while increasing its techno-military power and reach by establishing smaller bases across the world and producing new aircraft and ships with greater territorial reach. This military force was then used in a series of provocative actions against those it perceived as threats to its hegemony, with two key countries, China and Russia, facing the sharp edge of the US spear. At the two ends of Eurasia, the US began to provoke Russia through Ukraine and provoke China through Taiwan. The provocations over Ukraine have now resulted in a war that has been ongoing for a year, while the new US bases in the Philippines are part of an escalation against China, using Taiwan as a battleground.

To make sense of the situation in East Asia, the rest of this newsletter will feature briefing no. 6 from No Cold War, Taiwan Is a Red Line Issue, which is also available for download as a PDF.

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In recent years, Taiwan has become a flashpoint for tensions between the United States and China. The seriousness of the situation was recently underscored on 21 December, when US and Chinese military aircraft came within three metres of each other over the South China Sea.

At the root of this simmering conflict are the countries’ diverging perspectives over Taiwan’s sovereignty. The Chinese position, known as the ‘One China’ principle, is firm: although the mainland and Taiwan have different political systems, they are part of the same country, with sovereignty residing in Beijing. Meanwhile, the US position on Taiwan is far less clear. Despite formally adopting the One China policy, the US maintains extensive ‘unofficial’ relations and military ties with Taiwan. In fact, under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, US law requires Washington to provide arms ‘of a defensive character’ to the island.

The US justifies its ongoing ties with Taiwan by claiming that they are necessary to uphold the island’s ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. But, how valid are these claims?



A Foothold for Influence
To understand the contemporary geopolitical significance of Taiwan, it is necessary to examine Cold War history. Prior to the Chinese Revolution of 1949, China was in the midst of a civil war between the communists and the nationalists, or Kuomintang (KMT) – the latter of which received billions of dollars in military and economic support from Washington. The revolution resulted in the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland, while the defeated KMT forces fled to the island of Taiwan, which had returned to Chinese sovereignty four years earlier, in 1945, following fifty years of Japanese colonial rule. From Taipei, the KMT declared that they were the rightful government-in-exile of all of China under the name of the Republic of China (ROC) – originally founded in 1912 – thereby rejecting the legitimacy of the PRC.

The US military soon followed, establishing the United States Taiwan Defence Command in 1955, deploying nuclear weapons to the island, and occupying it with thousands of US troops until 1979. Far from protecting ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’ in Taiwan, the US instead backed the KMT as it established a dictatorship, including a 38-year-long consecutive period of martial law from 1949–1987. During this time, known as the ‘White Terror’, Taiwanese authorities estimate that 140,000 to 200,000 people were imprisoned or tortured, and 3,000 to 4,000 were executed by the KMT. Washington accepted this brutal repression because Taiwan represented a useful foothold – located just 160 kilometres off the south-eastern coast of the Chinese mainland – that it used to pressure and isolate Beijing from the international community.

From 1949–1971, the US successfully manoeuvred to exclude the PRC from the United Nations by arguing that the ROC administration in Taiwan was the sole legitimate government of the entirety of China. It is important to note that, during this time, neither Taipei nor Washington contended that the island was separate from China, a narrative that is advanced today to allege Taiwan’s ‘independence’. However, these efforts were eventually defeated in 1971, when the UN General Assembly voted to oust the ROC and recognise the PRC as the only legitimate representative of China. Later that decade, in 1979, the US finally normalised relations with the PRC, adopted the One China policy, and ended its formal diplomatic relations with the ROC in Taiwan.

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Chu Weibor (China), Sun in the Heart, 1969.

For Peace in Taiwan, US Interference Must End

Today, the international community has overwhelmingly adopted the One China policy, with only 13 of 193 UN member states recognising the ROC in Taiwan. However, due to the continued provocations of the US in alliance with separatist forces in Taiwan, the island remains a source of international tension and conflict.

The US maintains close military ties with Taiwan through arms sales, military training, advisors, and personnel on the island, as well as repeatedly sailing warships through the narrow Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland. In 2022, Washington pledged $10 billion in military aid to Taiwan. Meanwhile, US congressional delegations regularly travel to Taipei, legitimising notions of separatism, such as a controversial visit by former US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi in August 2022.

Would the US or any other Western country accept a situation where China provided military aid, stationed troops, and offered diplomatic support to separatist forces in part of its internationally recognised territory? The answer, of course, is no.

In November, at the G20 summit in Indonesia, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden held their first in-person meeting since Biden was elected president. At the meeting, Xi strongly reiterated China’s stance on Taiwan, telling Biden that: ‘the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed’. Although Biden responded by stating that the US adheres to the One China policy and that he is ‘not looking for conflict’, just a few months prior, he affirmed in a televised interview that US troops would militarily intervene to ‘defend Taiwan’, if necessary.

It is clear from the US’s track record that Washington is intent on provoking China and disregarding its ‘red line’. In Eastern Europe, a similarly reckless approach, namely the continued expansion of NATO towards Russia’s border, led to the outbreak of war in Ukraine. As progressive forces in Taiwan have declared, ‘to maintain peace in the Taiwan Strait and avoid the scourge of war, it is necessary to stop US interference’.

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Huang Yuxing (China), Trees of Maturity, 2016.

On 31 January, Pope Francis conducted a mass in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with a million people in attendance, where he declared that ‘Political exploitation gave way to an “economic colonialism” that was equally enslaving’. Africa, the Pope said, ‘is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered. Hands off Africa!’. Later that same week, the US and the Philippines – in complete disregard of the pope’s declaration – agreed to build new military bases, completing the encirclement of US-allied bases around China and intensifying US aggression towards the country.

The pope’s cry could very well be ‘Hands off the world’. This of course means no new Cold War, no more provocations.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/taiwan/

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You’re Being LIed to About China – Lee Camp Talks to Jingjing LI
FEBRUARY 9, 2023

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Lee Camp with journalist, host "On The Road" Jingjing LI. Photo: MintPress News.

For the latest episode in our Behind The Headlines series, Lee speaks with Jingjing Li, a journalist and host for China Global Television Network (CGTN). Based in Beijing, Jingjing anchors two popular shows on the network. Today, the pair discuss the topic of how China is presented in U.S. media and whether Americans are receiving a fair representation of the country The conversation delves into the recent events and news stories surrounding China, and how the narrative in the Western media has changed in recent years.

Lee begins by pointing out the stark difference in the news about China that was being reported in the United States a few years ago compared to what is being reported today. A few years ago, there was very little news about the country, and the news that was being reported was largely positive. However, in recent years, the U.S. government has ramped up the new Cold War with China, resulting in an endless flood of negative news stories.

Jingjing discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic became a turning point in U.S.-China relations. Western media heavily criticized China’s lockdown measures in the early days of the pandemic. Yet now they have performed an ideological 180° turn, and are now attacking China for lifting the restrictions too soon. She argues that corporate media can’t seem to make up their minds about what they want. Jingjing was one of the first reporters to head to Wuhan when the city was under lockdown, so she has a unique perspective on the Western media’s coverage of China’s COVID-19 measures.

Another issue that has been at the forefront of tensions between China and the United States is Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has expressed its desire for reunification. Yet, in recent years, a nationalist movement on the island has increasingly pushed for more independence.

The U.S. has a long-standing policy of not formally recognizing Taiwan as a separate country, but has maintained informal relations and offered support for Taiwan’s democracy and security. Recently, the U.S. has increased its support for the Taiwanese government of Tsai Ing-wen, including selling arms to the island nation and sending high-level officials to visit, further straining its relationship with Beijing. This issue is a major point of contention between the two countries and has the potential to escalate into a larger conflict.



https://orinocotribune.com/youre-being- ... ngjing-li/

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Hypocrisy, histrionics and hot air: the US and one Chinese balloon
The following Morning Star editorial analyses the ongoing propaganda blitz in relation to the Chinese weather balloon that drifted over the continental United States. Noting that “both the US parties of the ruling class have been falling over each other to sound more confrontational and shout louder for escalation and more aggression towards China,” the author concludes that this escalating rhetoric signifies US determination to continue pursuing a New Cold War.

The editorial points to the shameless hypocrisy of the US complaining about its sovereignty being violated by China, given “the innumerable very real and outrageous US transgressions against China’s national and territorial sovereignty.” These include “the ring of US bases surrounding China from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East”, as well as the “aggressive manoeuvres of massive US fleets, thousands of miles from the US, in the South China Sea and all across the Pacific.”

The editorial makes a powerful call for the left to oppose the drive to war and to expose the monopoly media offensive against China – “and the racist and anti-communist tropes which characterise it.”
You would have struggled to miss the sensationalist coverage of the Chinese weather balloon which drifted over the continental United States last week, only to be heroically downed by a $400,000 sidewinder missile.

The Chinese government has been clear from the outset that the balloon is from China and is a civilian airship, mainly for meteorological research.

It asserts that the balloon was blown off course and was never intended to pass over the US and that this was an unfortunate accident which should be dealt with sensibly and calmly.

Eager to never let a good crisis go to waste or, in this case, fabricate one out of thin (or perhaps hot? …) air, the US government has responded with hysteria and sabre-rattling of the highest order.

The US military establishment has been feverishly declaring that the very obvious and apparently helpless balloon is a sophisticated spying device and that the “deliberate” act by China amounts to a gross threat to sacrosanct US “national security” and a violation of its territorial sovereignty.

Both the US parties of the ruling class have been falling over each other to sound more confrontational and shout louder for escalation and more aggression towards China.

This is all despite the fact that the balloon is not understood to have posed any risk to civilians or military targets and, as the US itself admitted, the balloon wasn’t capable of any spying that couldn’t already and more easily be done by satellites (begging the question why the Chinese would send it in the first instance).

A similar balloon, which also apparently deviated from its intended course, passed over Latin America and the Caribbean without incident. The Colombian government said it passed harmlessly over their airspace and represented no threat to national security.

The US has gone as far as to cancel a scheduled visit to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, intended to improve relations, in an effort to escalate the issue.

The bellicose US rhetoric is of course in part intended for the domestic US audience, but for those fighting for peace and against imperialism, it is a telling sign of the determination of the United States to pursue its new cold war against China.

It is just as well that China, and other countries around the globe for that matter, has not and does not respond to the innumerable very real and outrageous US transgressions against its national and territorial sovereignty.

Otherwise, it might have something to say about the US “pivot to Asia” and the ring of US bases surrounding China from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East, with the US securing agreement for four brand new bases in the Philippines just last week.

The Chinese could perhaps reasonably object to the aggressive manoeuvres of massive US fleets, thousands of miles from the US, in the South China Sea and all across the Pacific.

And the Chinese people may also be aggrieved by provocative US attempts to challenge Chinese sovereignty in Hong Kong and Taiwan, in defiance of Washington’s own recognition that these are Chinese territory, for example with Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the US armed island just last year and a visit by the new US House Speaker mooted for this year.

If China or any other nation conducted itself as the United States does and has done for decades, the response of the imperialist camp would be very different.

All of this has significant implications for the fight for peace, a multipolar world and against imperialism and as well as for the battle of ideas here in Britain.

The left must oppose the drive to war and the concerted state and monopoly media offensive against China, and the racist and anti-communist tropes which characterise it.

Working people have nothing to gain from the new cold war against China — we have everything to lose.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/02/10/h ... e-balloon/

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Will depopulation sink China?
In the following article, Adnan Akfirat, Chairman of the Turkish-Chinese Business and Development Friendship Association, and a member of our advisory group, analyses the recent demographic changes in China, which see the population not only age but start to fall, with India on course to become the world’s most populous nation this year, if it has not already done so.

Adnan notes that whilst a young population has a positive impact on economic development, it is not the only way to develop. What is really important is to increase labor productivity. He further dissects the media claims that these trends are a harbinger of an economic crisis in China, noting that, “on the contrary, the history of western developed countries has proven that fertility rates tend to decline and the desire for children tends to decrease as societies become wealthier with better living standards.”

He also looks at ways in which China is dealing with this issue, noting that with around 10 million graduates every year, the country’s population advantage is shifting from quantity to quality. With massive investment, China has already surpassed the US in robot density and has the aim to double its robot manufacturing by 2025 compared with 2020.

Adnan concludes: “Since China has developed thanks to socialism, not cheap labor, population decline will not sink China’s economy.”

This article originally appeared in the Turkish daily newspaper Aydinlik.
China has been the most populous country in the world for hundreds of years. In 1750, its population was estimated at 225 million. This was more than a quarter of the world’s population at that time. India, which was not a united country at that time, had a population of about 200 million and was in second place.

India will become the world’s most populous country this year. The UN estimates that India’s population will overtake China’s on April 14, 2023. India’s population this year is expected to be 1 billion 425 million 775 thousand people. (1)

China falls back to second place
China will fall to second place in the world in total population for the first time in more than 60 years, since 1960, when the UN began keeping China’s population records. The population of the People’s Republic of China fell to 1 billion 411 million 800 thousand people last year, while the population growth rate fell to negative. The population growth rate in China this year is minus 0.6 per thousand people.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that deaths outnumbered births in China this year and the total population decreased by 850,000 people. Last year, 9 million 560 thousand babies were born in China. However, this number was 10 million 620 thousand in 2021.

The death rate per thousand people in China was 7.37 per thousand last year. The difference between the birth rate and the death rate per thousand people was 6 per ten thousand. China ended the one-child policy in 2016 and lifted all restrictions in 2021. But birth rates have continued to fall.

As the number of new births falls, China increasingly becomes an aging society. By the end of 2022, China’s population aged over 60 reached 280 million people. The proportion of elderly Chinese reached 18.9 percent. By 2035, this proportion is expected to rise to 30%, or more than 400 million people. China’s working-age population (those between the ages of 16 and 59) totaled 875.56 million by the end of 2022, 62 percent of the population. The number of working-age Chinese peaked a decade ago. By 2050, the country’s median age will be 51.

The average retirement age in China is 54, one of the lowest in the world. There are discussions about raising the retirement age. However, objections and opposition to this view are growing. China’s economic miracle was driven by an increasing proportion of working-age adults compared to children and the elderly from the 1970s to the mid-2000s. With fewer mouths to feed, parents were able to invest more in each child than they otherwise would have been able to.

A young population has a positive impact on economic development, but it is not the only way to develop. What is really important is to increase labor productivity.

Causes of population decline
In China, people are marrying later and having children even later due to longer schooling.

The YuWa Institute for Population Research, a Beijing-based think tank, found that China is one of the most expensive places to raise children, and concluded that it is these economic concerns, rather than the ban, that are the reason why women do not want to have more children.

Women in China prefer to have children at a later age. Since 2000, the average childbearing age in China has increased by three years, from 26 to 29. In all middle-income countries, of which China is a part, the average childbearing age has increased by only one year.

The average age at marriage has also increased in China. According to China’s 2020 census data, the average age of marriage for women increased from 24 in 2010 to 28 in 2020.

China also has one of the highest abortion rates per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49, according to estimates by the Guttmacher Institute.

Another problem is that more people migrate out of China than migrate into China.

In 2021, for example, China experienced a net migration of an estimated 200,000 people. In the early 1990s, about 750,000 people a year were leaving China. (2)

The West’s fascination with China’s population
Some Western media outlets have used China’s declining population growth as a flag to prove that China is “collapsing”. Unfortunately, the Turkish press has joined the chorus. In fact, they have only one argument: “China’s ‘demographic crisis’ means that the economy is faltering and the pace of development is declining.” They cite a long list of figures and calculation methods and come to a single conclusion: China will not overtake the US economically! They reintroduce the fallacy that China is developing with cheap labor.

The New York Times went even further. “China’s Decline Became Undeniable This Week. What Now?”, it headlined, claiming that China will age before it gets richer; that a shrinking population will cause economic decline; and that China’s weakness will spread to the world economy. (3)

On the contrary, the history of Western developed countries has proven that fertility rates tend to decline and the desire for children tends to decrease as societies become wealthier with better living standards.

China’s solutions to population decline
It is clear that socialist China will not leave the development and prosperity of its people to nature.

Indeed, the number of students in China’s colleges and universities is constantly growing. Chinese higher education institutions produce around 10 million graduates every year. This means that China’s population advantage is shifting from quantity to quality. The CPC’s 20th National Congress emphasized that relying solely on population numbers and remaining in the labor-intensive industrial chain will not be China’s future path.

China has found the most effective and viable solution to the decline of its working-age population. According to the International Federation of Robotics “World Robotics 2022” Report, China has surpassed the US in robot density.

China’s massive investment in industrial robot technology has placed the country at the top of the robot density rankings, surpassing the US for the first time. The number of industrial robots relative to the number of workers in China has reached 322 units per 10,000 workers in the manufacturing industry. Thus, China ranks fifth in the world in terms of the intensity of robot use. The world’s top 5 most automated countries in manufacturing in 2021 are: South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Germany and China.

Marina Bill, President of the International Federation of Robotics, said: “China’s rapid growth shows the strength of its investments so far. There are still many opportunities for automation in China.” (4)

China is by far the world’s fastest growing robot market. The country has the highest number of annual installations and has had the largest stock of working robots every year since 2016.

The Chinese government is not content with this success. According to the action plan published on Thursday, January 19, 2023, China will seek to double its manufacturing robot density by 2025 compared to 2020.

The action plan, jointly published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 16 other relevant departments, stated that a “robotics+” action will be launched to expand the use of robotics.

The use of service and specialized robots will be significantly increased by 2025, and the capacity of the country’s robotics industry to promote high-quality economic and social development will be markedly improved, the plan said.

The plan also lists actions to build a collaborative innovation system for robot production and application and to improve robot application standards. (5)

Since China has developed thanks to socialism, not cheap labor, population decline will not sink China’s economy!

1.https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63957562
2.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... ation/?utm
3.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/opin ... cline.html
4.https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news ... ot-density
5.http://en.qstheory.cn/2023-01/20/c_849697.htm

https://socialistchina.org/2023/02/09/w ... ink-china/

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Foreign Ministry statement on US claim of downing a Chinese unmanned airship
We reprint below an initial statement from China’s Foreign Ministry regarding the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship. The Foreign Ministry expresses its strong disapproval and protest, noting that it had repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and that its entry into US skies was due to force majeure and totally unexpected. China had asked the US to handle matters in a calm, professional and restrained manner, but what the US had done was a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. China, it concluded, reserves the right to make further responses if necessary.

The statement was originally carried on the website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
China strongly disapproves of and protests against the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force. The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the US due to force majeure was totally unexpected. The Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner. The spokesperson of the US Department of Defense also noted that the balloon does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground. Under such circumstances, the US use of force is a clear overreaction and a serious violation of international practice. China will resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the company concerned, and reserves the right to make further responses if necessary.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/02/05/f ... d-airship/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:35 pm

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U.S. ‘balloons’ flew 10 times over China since last year: FM spox
Originally published: Al Mayadeen on February 13, 2023 by Agencies (more by Al Mayadeen) | (Posted Feb 14, 2023)

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin confirmed on Monday, without further detail, that high-altitude balloons originating from the U.S. have flown over Chinese airspace more than 10 times since January last year.

At a media briefing in Beijing, Wang assured that his country’s response to these events was both professionally and responsibly handled.

The briefing comes after a number of ‘balloons’ were launched between the U.S., Canada and China, causing an increase in tensions between Beijing and Washington.

UFOs—China or aliens?
Two days after Canada confirmed that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) shot down an unidentified flying object over Yukon, an airborne object was shot down on Sunday at the command of U.S. President Joe Biden in Lake Huron, Michigan, for security reasons related to the potential surveillance capabilities of the object. The latter object’s nature has yet to be identified.

On Sunday, in light of the shoot-down, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said he “spoke with President Biden,” adding that “Canadian Forces will now recover and analyze the wreckage of the object.”


The U.S. Defense Department confirmed on Friday that a “high-altitude object” was shot down over Alaska after assessing that it could pose a “threat to civilian aircraft.”

On January 28, the first Chinese balloon to be publicly reported was detected over the North American Aerospace Defense Command in Alaska, before it was found floating over missile sites in Montana. Days later, after tracking, the U.S. decided to shoot it down over the South Carolina coast.

While the U.S. has claimed that the balloons are used for spying purposes by Beijing, China said they are used for weather surveillance and they had mistakenly entered U.S. airspace due to a force majeure.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said then that “China… never violated the territory and airspace of any sovereign country,” adding that “some politicians and media in the United States used the (balloon) incident as a pretext to attack and smear China.”

https://mronline.org/2023/02/14/u-s-bal ... r-fm-spox/

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China Says US Has Sent Over 10 High-Altitude Balloons Illegally Into Chinese Airspace Since Last Year
FEBRUARY 13, 2023

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The United States Navy recovers the remains of the Chinese "spy balloon" that was shot down in the jurisdiction of South Carolina. Photo: US Navy EFE - Tyler Thompson US Navy

• Beijing accuses Americans of flying their own devices over China without permission, but the Biden administration rejects the claim
• Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin says it was ‘completely an accident’ that China’s civilian unmanned airship strayed into US airspace

China says high-altitude balloons from the United States have sailed across Chinese airspace without permission more than 10 times since last year, but the Biden administration directly rejects Beijing’s claim.

“It is also common for US balloons to illegally enter the airspace of other countries,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday.

“Since last year alone, US high-altitude balloons have illegally flown over China’s airspace more than 10 times without the approval of relevant Chinese authorities.

“The first thing the US should do is to reflect on itself and change its own way, rather than slander, discredit or incite confrontation.”


This is the first time during the balloon saga that Beijing has accused Washington of deploying balloons over China.

The accusation came almost two weeks into the row over a Chinese balloon shot down over US territory, when Wang was asked about details of US balloons flying over China’s territory.

Asked about that accusation, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said “there is no US surveillance aircraft over China in Chinese airspace”.

“We’re not flying surveillance balloons over China. I’m not aware of any other [surveillance] craft that we’re flying over into Chinese airspace,” he told a press conference on Monday in Washington.

The row over the appearance and shooting down of what the US said was a Chinese surveillance balloon – and China said was one of its unmanned civilian airships – prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to suspend a planned visit to China last week.

Wang said on Monday that it was “completely an accident” that China’s civilian unmanned airship strayed into US airspace by force majeure.

After the US downed three more flying objects – over Alaska on Friday, northern Canada on Saturday and Michigan on Sunday – Beijing reiterated its criticism, with Wang calling the action a strong overreaction.

“The US shooting down of the balloon is completely an abuse of force and an overreaction. We firmly oppose this,” he said.

The US had “abused” its technological advantages to carry out large-scale and “indiscriminate” wiretapping and theft operations against the world, Wang said, adding that it violated the sovereignty and interests of other countries, international law and the basic norms of international relations.

“The United States is the world’s largest espionage habitual criminal and surveillance empire,” Wang said.

He said the United States had sent 657 warships and planes to conduct close-in reconnaissance of China last year.

And in January this year, 64 military planes and ships were discovered by Beijing in the South China Sea, a development that “seriously endangered China’s national security and undermined regional peace and stability”, he said.

Amid the war of words over the balloon, a further unidentified flying object was reported near the Chinese coast.

According to mainland media, the object was detected over waters near Rizhao, a northern Chinese port city in Shandong province close to the Bohai Sea, on Sunday and local authorities said they were ready to shoot it down.

The Qingdao Marine Development Bureau sent a message to fishing boats asking them to stay alert and “avoid risks”, stating the bureau did not have an update on what the object was, media outlets reported.

The sighting coincided with the start of a week-long People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military exercise in the Bohai Strait – an area connecting the Bohai Sea and the northern part of the Yellow Sea, according to a notice issued by maritime safety authorities in Dalian, a port city in the northern province of Liaoning.

One analyst speculated on the source of the unidentified object.

“The balloon is likely to be one flown from South Korea to the North, which happens quite often,” said Zhou Chenming, a researcher from the Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank based in Beijing.

“As far as I know, the balloon is low enough to endanger civilian airlines, so it might be shot down.”


He said the incident had drawn more public attention because of the balloon row with the US.

The balloon saga has intensified the heightened geopolitical tension between China and the US, further aggravating friction in high technology.

On Friday, the US added six Chinese entities to an export blacklist, saying they were linked to Beijing’s suspected “spy balloon” programme.

The entities – including Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology and China Electronics Technology Group Corporation 48th Research Institute – were believed to support “China’s military modernisation efforts, specifically the [PLA] aerospace programmes, including airships and balloons”, the US Commerce Department said.

When asked on Monday about the ban, Wang said Beijing would take countermeasures.

“China is strongly dissatisfied with this and firmly opposes it. China will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies and institutions,” he said.

China has always opposed the US’ “illegal unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction on Chinese institutions, enterprises and individuals,” he said, adding that the US was “hyping up and intensifying [the situation], using this as an excuse to illegally sanction Chinese companies and institutions”.

https://orinocotribune.com/china-says-u ... last-year/

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After Ten Days Of Panicky Hype The Weather Balloon Nonsense Is Finally Buried

Since February 4 I have dismissed the 'Chinese weather balloon' panic:

The paranoid style applies to internal U.S. politics as well as to foreign policies against this or that favorite enemy of that time.

It makes the story below, which otherwise is just laughable, somewhat dangerous.

Furor Over Chinese Spy Balloon Leads to a Diplomatic Crisis
The Pentagon called the object, which has flown from Montana to Kansas, an “intelligence gathering” balloon. Beijing said it was used mainly for weather research and had strayed off course.

As some 80+% of all Pentagon intelligence comes from open sources the 'intelligence gathering' statement may well include a weather research system. Weather research and weather prediction are important for all kinds of military operations. But they are also important for many civil operations from agriculture, food availability prediction to drainage planning in cities.


I pointed out that this was by far not the first Chinese weather balloon that drifted in unexpected directions. That is normal. The winds at the level where such balloons fly are very strong. There is no real way to control their flight path.

It soon became obvious that the balloon which was drifting over Alaska only crossed into the lower United States because a strong low pressure area over west Canada pushed it southward. Still, the media kept hyping the issue until the air force took the balloon down. Things got even worse when the air force in the aftermath started to shot down harmless small research balloons.

Feb 4 - Blinken's Travel Canceling Adds To China Hate
Feb 6 - NYT Plants False Claims Over China's Balloon Communication
Feb 8 - China Rejects "Shoot First, Talk Later" Attitude
Feb 11 - Airforce Spent Millions To Shot Down A Failed U.S. Weather Balloon - Biden Is Happy It Did So
Only now is the whole hype dying down helped by sudden explanations of the obvious.

U.S. tracked China spy balloon from launch on Hainan Island along unusual path - Washington Post

By the time a Chinese spy balloon crossed into American airspace late last month, U.S. military and intelligence agencies had been tracking it for nearly a week, watching as it lifted off from its home base on Hainan Island near China’s south coast.
...
The balloon floated over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands thousands of miles away from Guam, then drifted over Canada, where it encountered strong winds that appear to have pushed the balloon south into the continental United States, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive intelligence. A U.S. fighter jet shot the balloon down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4, a week after it crossed over Alaska.


Yes, that is exactly, as I pointed out, what the low pressure area over west Canada did.

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Meanwhile, the White House on Tuesday said that three other objects shot down over North America in the last week may have posed no national security threat, striking perhaps the clearest distinction yet between those flying anomalies and the suspected spy balloon. John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters that the U.S. intelligence community “will not dismiss as a possibility” that the three craft instead belonged to a commercial organization or research entity and were therefore “benign.”

Oh well, you don't say so ...

The Chinese had explained that their big weather balloon drifted towards North America only after unexpected strong 'westerlies' had pushed it off the expected course. The U.S. is now admitted that they were right.

Around Jan. 24, when the balloon would have been roughly about 1,000 miles south of Japan, model simulations show it began to gain speed and rapidly veer north. This would have been in response to a strong cold front that had unleashed exceptionally frigid air over northern China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Ordinarily, atmospheric steering motions would have kept the balloon on much more of a west to east course, historical weather data shows. However, the intense cold front forced the jet stream and high altitude steering currents to dip south and may have scooped the balloon northward.


Two cold fronts, one over north China and one over west Canada determined the course of the big balloon.

This also dismisses the laughable Pentagon claims that the balloon had propellers and a rudder and was thereby steerable. There is nothing that solar driven propellers can do when a huge object like a 200 feet high ballon is drifting in 200 mph jetstream winds. The whole idea was obviously bonkers. The only way to somewhat steer a balloon is by raising or lowering its altitude until one finds an air current that blows it in the wished for direction. While this will work at an altitude of a few hundred feet there is no real chance to do that in the upper atmosphere.

The three smaller weather or research balloons were only found drifting along after the air force turned down the filters of its radars. But those filters are there for good reasons. A lot of clutter, like a flock of birds, would otherwise come up as alarm.

The U.S. National Weather Service says that it alone launches 75,000 balloons per year. It would be a ridiculous waste to send up fighter planes whenever such a balloon goes up.

The larger Chinese weather balloon was also likely a legit one. Such bigger balloons are build to cross oceans and to measure the upper atmospheric conditions over long distances. That it was blown off course, twice, by unusual weather is a reasonable explanation.

Worse than the Pentagon's lies and panic inducing claims over these issues are the writers and 'journalists' who fall for such hype.

That the U.S. used this 'accidental conflict' with China to call off the planned Blinken visit to Beijing only shows that it its efforts to engage China are not serious.

Posted by b on February 15, 2023 at 12:05 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/a ... .html#more

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Balloon shootout: Pretext for war with China
February 15, 2023 Chris Fry

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White House, Congress and Pentagon whip up war hysteria against Chinese weather balloon. Photo: publicdomainpictures.net

A stealth F22 fighter, costing some $350 million, managed to shoot down its first aircraft on February 4, a large Chinese balloon off the South Carolina coast. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) stated that it was a weather research device and apologized that it inadvertently passed over U.S. territory because of unexpected wind currents.

But the Biden administration, the Congress, and the Pentagon launched a full-scale tirade, accusing China of using balloons to spy on nuclear missile silos, intercept messages, and, most importantly, “violating U.S. sovereignty.” The corporate media has whipped up a frenzied campaign of mass hysteria.

Of course, every country, particularly the U.S., proclaims the right to conduct reconnaissance of other countries’ weapons systems that target them. China has more than 500 satellites circling the planet, which obviously makes balloon surveillance superfluous. But no country conducts more aggressive spying on countries than U.S. imperialism, which it combines with its regime change strategy to overturn governments that it is unable to bend to its will.

One could easily go onto the internet to find the location of the Montana missile base. And no balloon could possibly find the location of any of the nuclear missile-carrying submarines the U.S. has stationed around the world underwater. But global warming is a threat to every nation and its people, large and small. Scientific study of weather conditions in the upper atmosphere is vital to our understanding of the causes and pace of this danger.

The Pentagon and the White House declared that this was a “spy” balloon by noting that it had solar panels and several antennae. Would not a weather balloon carry that same equipment? It should be noted that the government has not released details of the remains of the destroyed balloon. And with the shooting down of two more “mysterious” devices over Alaska and Canada on February 10 and 11, the debris has not yet been found, and the “threat” posed remains a mystery:

As with the object that Mr. Biden ordered shot down near Alaska on Friday, officials said they had yet to determine just what had been blasted out of the sky over the Yukon, which borders Alaska.

On February 12, an F16 fighter jet shot down a fourth unknown “cylindrical object” over Lake Huron.

Congress: Balloon means inflate the war budget to threaten China

With the right-wing takeover of the House of Representatives, imposing budget cutbacks and austerity on the workers and oppressed communities is their top priority. But they are using this balloon incident to make it clear that there will be no reduction in military spending. On the contrary, they now call for massive increases for the war industry, already fattened by the proxy war in Ukraine directed against Russia. As a February 12 article from The Hill reported:

“The entire civilized world should recognize that communist China is probably the greatest threat we’ve ever faced, more severe than Soviet Russia was because of its economic integration into the West,” said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) after receiving a briefing from senior administration officials on the spy balloon. “We should take every step we can to try to reduce our dependency on China [and] try to build stronger military deterrence against them.

“I do not think that we should be talking about cutting the defense budget at all right now. If anything, substantial defense increases,” he said.


So, it is clear that it will be social programs like education, health care, mass transit, housing, even Social Security and Medicare that will be put on the chopping block to feed the war machine.

Biden and Pentagon ramp up military threat against China

Since taking office two years ago, Biden has escalated the trade war against the People’s Republic of China, increasing the rate of inflation imposed on working families. With this new contrived “spy balloon crisis”, Biden has imposed new sanctions on several Chinese companies.

When the balloon’s presence was first announced, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a high-level meeting with Chinese officials that was designed to “reduce tensions” and open “lines of communications.” Instead, the White House chose this moment to send Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to cement a new agreement with the Marcos regime in the Philippines, allowing the Pentagon to use that country’s military bases, particularly those close to the island of Taiwan. As a January 31 Rappler newsletter article explained:

Austin’s visit also seeks to tackle ways to “modernize” the two countries’ 76-year-old alliance to address new and emerging threats, including China’s continued assertion of its expansive claims in the South China Sea.

Similar new military agreements have already been secured with Japan, which for 50 years occupied Taiwan and, in WW2, killed more than 14 million people, mostly civilians. Pentagon generals have let loose a barrage of threatening rhetoric. Air Force General Minihan told his troops to expect war with the PRC to break out in 2025 and that “unrepentant lethality matters most – aim for the head.”

Not to be outdone, an Army major general told a reporter from Military Times on February 9 that:

U.S. treaty allies such as the Philippines, Japan, and Australia, among others, “have shown that they will band together, that they will not stand for aggression from these nations that have decided they want to change the world order out here,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan said.

On February 16, Malaysia Now reported that the U.S., Britain, and Australia are holding intense three-week-long “Red Flag” fighter aircraft drills in the Nevada desert directed against China:

The U.S., Britain and Australia carried out joint air drills on Wednesday over the Nevada desert and beyond as part of an effort to simulate high-end combat operations against Chinese fighter aircraft and air defenses.

U.S. Air Force Colonel Jared J Hutchinson, commander of the 414th Combat Training Squadron that runs Red Flag, said the annual drills were not tied to any recent events. On Saturday, a U.S. fighter jet shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina, hiking tensions.

“[China is] just the pacing challenge that we train so that we’re ready… We think that if we’re ready for China, we’re ready for anybody,” Hutchinson said, citing U.S. policy.


The Detroit News reported on February 12 that the U.S. Navy and Marines are engaging in war drills in the South China Sea:

Beijing – The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are holding joint exercises in the South China Sea at a time of heightened tensions with Beijing over the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

The 7th Fleet based in Japan said Sunday that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been conducting “integrated expeditionary strike force operations” in the South China Sea. It said exercises involving ships, ground forces and aircraft took place Saturday but gave no details on when they began or whether they had ended.

The U.S. military exercises were planned in advance. They come as already tense relations between Washington and Beijing have been exacerbated by a diplomatic row sparked by the balloon, which was shot down last weekend in U.S. airspace off the coast of South Carolina.


In the midst of all of this, it must be remembered that Biden was a supporter of the Bush doctrine of “preemptive strike” and the Iraq war. And the “balloon attacks” narrative should remind all of the Gulf of Tonkin phantom attack, which was used by the Johnson Administration to send in massive numbers of U.S. troops into Vietnam and escalate the war.

U.S. wants war now to head off peace agreement between Taiwan and the PRC

On February 10, the South China Morning Post reported that:

Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang [KMT], should work with Beijing to defend their decades-old political consensus stating that there is only one China, a top mainland leader in charge of cross-strait policy has said.

The comments from Wang Huning, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee – Beijing’s top decision-making panel – and deputy head of the Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, came as he met Andrew Hsia Li-yan, a KMT vice-chairman currently leading a delegation to the mainland.

“On the basis of reinforcing the political foundation of the ‘1992 consensus’ and opposing ‘Taiwan independence’, the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang should deepen political trust, maintain interaction in a constructive manner and strengthen cooperation and exchanges,” Wang told Hsia at Friday’s meeting, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Wang was referring to a broad understanding reached between Communist Party and KMT negotiators in 1992, which stated there is only one China – in defining cross-strait relations. But this consensus was rejected by Tsai Ing-wen, leader of Taiwan’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, when she won the 2016 presidential race. Ties across the Taiwan Strait have deteriorated since then, with Tsai now in the final year of her second and last term.


The article goes on to note the improved chances of the anti-independence KMT party winning the 2024 Taiwan presidential election:

The visit by the KMT delegation, which will also include trips to Shanghai, Chongqing and Chengdu, comes after the KMT scored a notable victory in Taiwan’s local elections last November. The win has boosted hope among KMT supporters that the party would stand a better chance of regaining power in next year’s presidential election. Cross-strait relations had warmed considerably during the eight-year term of Tsai’s predecessor, the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou.

Peace negotiations and a conflict resolution would be great news to the mainland and Taiwan Chinese residents, but it would put a dagger in the heart of U.S. imperialism’s war plans. That is what makes the current period so dangerous.

The U.S. war strategy against the PRC has depended on provoking China to launch a quite justified but costly war to recover its Taiwan province. If the anti-independence KMT party takes power in Taiwan and reopens negotiations with the PRC, then the U.S. “defend independent Taiwan” strategy goes up in smoke.

That is why the Biden administration is trying to find any pretest, even as absurd as a weather balloon, to spark a war with China before the current pro-independence regime in Taiwan is kicked out next year.

The progressive and anti-war movements must be made aware of this danger. The think tank Center for Strategic Studies issued a report on a study of a war scenario:

In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated.

Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years.


Only a strong mass movement, such as the one that sprang up before the U.S. war against Iraq in 2003, can have any hope to help prevent this war from happening.

U.S. imperialism, with the economic and political crises at home and abroad, is in a far weaker position now than it was in 2003. A united, militant movement in the streets can stop this war in its tracks!

Source: Fighting Words

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... ith-china/

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"Iron Triangle" Shanxi
February 15, 16:08

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Shanxi's "Iron Triangle"

Xi Jinping is consolidating power in China in the hands of his fellow countrymen while everyone is watching balloons in the sky over the US. It is in Shaanxi that the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang with the terracotta army is located ...

Among the people from the provinces now in power:

Li Xi is the secretary of the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. He has known Xi since the 1980s, when he was secretary to the CCP leader in Gansu, Li Ziqi, a friend of Xi Jinping's father Xi Zhongxun. Before the 20th CPC Congress, Li was held by another native of Shaanxi -

Zhao Leji - member of the Post Committee of the Politburo of the CPC

Central Committee Zhang Youxia - Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of China (Chairman - Xi himself)

Liu Guozhong - Governor, then Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shaanxi CPC, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee The CCP is coordinating a network organization of people from Shaanxi close to Xi with a lower rank:

Guo Puxiao - Political Commissar of the PLA Air Force

Jiu Qiansheng - Commander of the PLA Strategic Support Force

Zhang Shengmin - Secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Military Commission, Deputy Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC

He Hongjun - Deputy Head of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission

Zhou Jianguo - Commander of the Xinjiang Corps of the People's Armed Police of China

Hao Peng - Secretary of the CPC Party Committee in Liaoning

Lei Fanpei - First Deputy Head of the Office of the Committee of the CPC Central Committee for the Development of Civil-Military Integration

Lu Zhiyuan - Deputy Secretary of the CPC Shandong Province

Qi Yu - Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Together with

Wang Qishan - Vice Chairman of the People's Republic of China and

Yu Zhengsheng - former member of the Post Committee of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Workers' Department of the United Front ( party intelligence)

Xi Jinping forms the so-called. the "iron triangle" of Shaanxi, which is a landmark for high-ranking immigrants from the province.

https://t.me/thehegemonist/2154 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8171924.html

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 28, 2023 2:01 pm

China’s Foreign Ministry on U.S. hegemony and its perils
February 27, 2023 Struggle - La Lucha
From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

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U.S. Hegemony and Its Perils

February 2023

Contents

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force

III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

Introduction

Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around

The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”

Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love.” He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book “America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth,” the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. Three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations, including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollars of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

◆ The hegemony of the U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hikes, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies, such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation, and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”

◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”

V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.

◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.

◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

Conclusion

While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... ts-perils/

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Blinken attacks China for seeking peace in Ukraine
February 25, 2023 Chris Fry

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Taipei’s mayor hosts dinner for delegation from Shanghai.

Unable to intimidate the leadership of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over its balloon being shot down by U.S. Air Force jets along with three other balloons in a missile-firing frenzy, President Biden, through his war hawk Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is now accusing China of “contemplating sending lethal aid” to the Russian Federation.

Speaking to “Meet the Press” on February 9 after meeting with Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in Munich, Blinken arrogantly attacked China for its relations with the Russian Federation while it maintains strict neutrality in the conflict:

“Publicly, they present themselves as a country striving for peace in Ukraine,” he said … “But privately, as I said, we’ve seen already over these past months the provision of nonlethal assistance that does go directly to aiding and abetting Russia’s war effort.”

According to a February 20 article in the New York Times, Blinken then moved on from slander to insinuation:

Over the weekend, the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, indicated that he had evidence that, behind the scenes, Beijing was tilting toward stronger support for Mr. Putin and “considering providing lethal support to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine.”

Of course, Blinken offered no such “evidence.” He then made a veiled threat:

“And I was able to share with him [Wang Yi], as President Biden had shared with President Xi, the serious consequences that would have for our relationship,” Mr. Blinken said.

The U.S. has supplied more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine so far, with more on the way, according to a U.S.A Today February 19 article. This all comes as Biden made a surprise visit to Kiev to ensure that the Ukraine proxies keep fighting and dying for Big Oil’s capture of the EU oil and gas market, as described by Seymour Hersh in his expose of the U.S. secret operation to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines.

The PRC made it absolutely clear that it will not be bullied by Blinken, Biden, or U.S. imperialism as a whole:

“The U.S. is not qualified to give orders to China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular news briefing. “We will never accept U.S. criticism, even coercion and pressure on China-Russia relations.”

Wang said China’s position on Ukraine “can be simply put as promoting peace talks.”

“China will continue to firmly stand on the side of dialogue and peace and play a constructive part in easing the situation,” he said.

China has maintained that the U.S., by its campaign to expand NATO as an open military threat to Russia, bears responsibility for this conflict.

China’s overtures to Taiwan threaten U.S. war plans.

Six members of a high-level delegation from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) arrived at Taipei airport on the island of Taiwan on February 18. They were led by Liu Xiaodong, deputy head of the Shanghai office of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. This is the first visit by PRC officials in three years, according to a February 18 Reuters report.

They were invited to attend the Lantern Festival in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, by the city government. The mayor of Taipei, Chiang Wan-an of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was elected in December as one of many KMT candidates who scored a major victory in local elections across Taiwan.

The KMT, a pro-business and anti-communist political party, nevertheless is anti-Taiwan-independence and has called for a renewal of negotiations with the PRC. This contrasts sharply with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has pushed for independence from China and has received increasing political and military support from U.S. Imperialism, which wants to turn Taiwan into a weapons-filled “porcupine” against the PRC and a center point for a U.S. military campaign against China.

This visit comes just after a visit by a KMT delegation to the PRC earlier in February. The KMT has a very real chance of winning the Taiwan presidential election next year, which would stymie U.S. war plans against China.

Taiwan is the lynchpin of the entire U.S. strategy against the PRC, which seeks to provoke a justified but costly Chinese military attack on Taiwan and thus “justify” a U.S. war against China. That U.S. strategy violates the “One China” policy agreed to by the U.S. in 1979 and which is recognized by nearly every nation on the planet.

Obviously alarmed by this visit, the Pentagon quickly dispatched Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, to Taiwan. He arrived on the same day as the PRC delegation. According to a Bloomberg article this marks the first time a top Pentagon official has made a non-secret trip to Taiwan in three years.

The Bloomberg article continues:

A U.S. congressional delegation led by California Democrat Ro Khanna was also expected to arrive in Taiwan on Saturday in a mission aimed at bolstering economic ties in areas such as semiconductor manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the White House will hold “secret talks” with Taiwan officials in Washington next week, the Financial Times reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and National Security Council secretary-general Wellington Koo will meet through the so-called “special channel” with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, according to the report.

Biden computer chip strategy not popular in Taiwan

On February 17, the corporate magazine Foreign Affairs published an article titled “Taipei Fears Washington Is Weakening Its Silicon Shield.” The article describes a rift between Taiwan’s business community and Washington:

Last December, at the unveiling of a new semiconductor plant in Arizona, U.S. President Joe Biden triumphantly declared that “American manufacturing is back, folks.” Yet to some in attendance, the event was not a cause for celebration.

The Arizona plant belongs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC founder Morris Chang is a revered figure in Taiwan for making the island a technological powerhouse—but he is also one of the most outspoken critics of Biden’s plan to reinvigorate the U.S. semiconductor industry. In recent months, Chang has sounded the alarm that Taiwan’s chip sector is being “hollowed out” at the expense of its security. But unable to resist lush financial incentives and diplomatic pressure from Washington, TSMC and Taiwanese authorities approved the new Arizona plant.

The article asserts that Taiwan’s business leaders see the TSMC’s advanced facility as a “silicon shield” preventing the PRC from occupying the island. But China has always called for negotiations towards a peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status under one China, whereas a November 2021 article from the U.S. Army War College pushed for the White House to “persuade” Taiwan’s leaders to plant explosives around the TSMC plant:

To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.

An automatic mechanism might be designed, which would be triggered once an invasion was confirmed. In addition, Taiwan’s leaders could make it known now they will not allow these industries to fall into the hands of an adversary. The United States and its allies could support this endeavor by announcing plans to give refuge to highly skilled Taiwanese working in this sector, creating contingency plans with Taipei for the rapid evacuation and processing of the human capital that operates the physical semiconductor foundries.

Taiwan’s government officials were forced to tell the island’s legislature that this Pentagon “doomsday proposal” was just “wargaming” and that the international supply chain of parts and equipment for the chip industry was sufficient to deter the PRC from a military attack.

But as seen from last year’s election outcome on the island, residents would appear less than eager to have their homes and workplaces destroyed by Washington’s “scorched earth” policy and their loved ones shipped away. Even Taiwan’s business leaders feel threatened by Washington’s willingness to have their facilities destroyed to endow U.S. high-tech companies gain computer chip hegemony.

No wonder that island residents are increasingly open to restoring comprehensive talks with the PRC. An AFP website article described the visit by the Chinese officials to Taipei:

Officials “exchanged views on municipal issues such as culture, sports and tourism… The Shanghai delegation also said they felt a warm reception,” Taipei’s city government said in a statement on Monday [February 20].

China suspended a host of Taiwanese food and drink shipments in December, escalating a ban on fruit and fish imports imposed after then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Pelosi’s August trip tipped relations between Taipei and Beijing to their lowest point in years, with the People’s Liberation Army staging massive military drills around the island in protest.

Beijing had fostered closer ties with the KMT under Tsai’s pro-China predecessor Ma Ying-jeou and, with Tsai ineligible for another term, the field for the coming presidential race is more open.

Song Tao, head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told Hsia’s delegation the Communist Party was willing to work with the KMT to promote relations based on the shared political foundation of opposing Taiwanese independence, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.

With the possibility of an election defeat of the pro-independence governing party in 2024, the U.S. is desperately searching for some pretext to isolate China and launch a military attack. So far, they have failed, but nonetheless, progressives and anti-war activists must prepare now to muster their forces.

Source: Fighting Words

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/ ... n-ukraine/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:45 pm

China Reboots ‘No Limit’ Partnership with Russia
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 28, 2023
M. K. Bhadrakumar

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met with Member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee Wang Yi, Kremlin, Moscow, February 22, 2023

The ‘butterfly effect’ of the visit by the Member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China and Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee Wang Yi to Moscow on February 21-22 is already discernible. It can influence a much larger complex system still.

The two sides agreed to consolidate and develop the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era and to continue to closely coordinate their foreign policy efforts; the Ukraine crisis situation, which is at a tipping point, has further tilted in Russia’s favour; and, Chinese diplomacy on the post-pandemic rebound is signalling aperiodic long-term behaviour that can generate ‘deterministic chaos’ in Eurasia and Asia-Pacific.

Wang Yi had meetings with the Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev — as coordinators of the mechanism of China-Russia Strategic Security Consultation — and with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian readout said that “The parties praised the current state of Russian-Chinese relations, which continue to expand dynamically in the context of sharp changes in the international arena… They underscored the importance of further strengthening close foreign policy coordination… They also reiterated the futility of attempts by third countries to impede the healthy, dynamic progress of Russian-Chinese relations, to restrain the development of our countries through sanctions and other illegitimate means.”

Wang Yi conveyed to Putin that “Russia-China relationship has stood the test of the drastic changes in the world landscape and become mature and tenacious, standing as firm as Mount Tai… Although crises and chaos often emerge, challenges and opportunities exist at the same time, and this is the dialectics of history.”

He said China is ready to work with Russia “to maintain strategic resolve, deepen political mutual trust, strengthen strategic coordination, expand practical cooperation and defend the legitimate interests of both countries, to play a constructive role in promoting world peace and development.”

Putin expressed “the warmest words of gratitude” to Wang Yi for the booming bilateral trade (which reached US$185 billion last year.) In the conditions under sanctions, for Russia, this is a crucial lifeline. Putin mentioned cooperation in the international arena as particularly important “for stabilising the international situation” and stressed that the Russian side is expecting a visit by President Xi Jinping.

The Ukraine situation figured prominently in Wang Yi’s meting with Lavrov where he dwelt on China’s “vision of the root causes of the Ukraine crisis” and China’s approaches to a political settlement. The Russian readout said Lavrov “commended Beijing’s constructive policy and reaffirmed the high level of proximity of our assessments of this agenda.”

The Chinese readout said Putin and Wang Yi “exchanged in-depth views on the Ukraine issue. Wang Yi appreciated Russia’s reaffirmation of its readiness to solve problems through dialogue and negotiations. China will, as always, uphold an objective and just position and play a constructive role in the political settlement.”

Significantly, a day after Wang Yi returned to Beijing from Moscow, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement titled ‘China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’. Presumably, Wang Yi sensitised the Russian side beforehand, as the foreign ministry in Moscow lost no time on the same day to effusively compliment “our Chinese friends.”

The Chinese statement, couched in principles of neutrality, distinctly tilted in Russia’s favour. The core issues highlighted by Moscow in its December 2021 proposal for dialogue with the NATO and the US (which the latter ignored) find mention in the Chinese statement.

Significantly, the Chinese statement strongly rejected the unilateral sanctions and maximum pressure by the US and EU against Russia and the West’s “long-arm jurisdiction” against other countries. No wonder, the western capitals have taken a dim view of the Chinese statement and see it as loaded in favour of Russia.

The Chinese statement, issued on the first anniversary of the Russian operations in Ukraine, has factored in that the conflict has existential overtones for Moscow and Russia’s defeat is simply unthinkable as that would fundamentally shift the global strategic balance against China. Interestingly, there is a pointed reference in the Chinese readout on Wang Yi’s talks with Patrushev (Russia’s highest-ranking security official) to the effect that “Both sides believed that peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region should be firmly defended and that the introduction of the Cold War mentality, bloc antagonism and ideological confrontation should be opposed.”

The Chinese statement on Ukraine followed the release of two major foreign policy documents in Beijing on successive days. The first one dated February 20 is a frontal attack on the US foreign policies, titled ‘US Hegemony and Its Perils’.

The 4080-word document is a veritable iteration of thoughts and perspectives that are frequently articulated in Putin’s speeches and writings through the past 15-year period since his famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference where the Russian leader spoke on international security problems in a unipolar world characterised by “one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making,” a world in which there is “one master, one sovereign.”

The second document issued in Beijing on February 21 is titled ‘The Global Security Initiative Concept Paper’. In 3580 words, it lays out the guardrails and guiding principles of Chinese foreign policy and stresses the priorities of cooperation in the world community.

Chinese foreign policy is shifting gear. Although the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan problem cannot be compared, Beijing senses that the weakening of Russia is a vital segment of the US strategy to isolate and confront China, and therefore, the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine is going to be profoundly consequential for China. Indeed, a Russian defeat in Ukraine will constitute a severe setback for China too.

Wang Yi’s visit testifies that China is willing to step up solidarity with Russia at a juncture when any residual hopes of improving ties with the US have been dashed and that relationship is in free fall. Wang Yi’s meeting with Biden last week on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference did not go well. Meanwhile, the US officials are reportedly confabulating with Taiwan’s foreign minister and National Security Advisor.

President Biden has rejected any mediatory role for China in Ukraine. All things taken into account, the probability is that China may step up its support for Russia. The big question is whether this would take the form of military help. The CIA director William Burns stated last week that “we’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment. We also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment.”

Yesterday, when asked about US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s warning Sunday that there would be ‘real costs’ for China if it went forward with providing lethal aid to Russia, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning did not give a direct answer. “The US is in no position to point fingers at China-Russia relations. We do not accept coercion or pressure from the US,” she said.

Interestingly, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also chose not to answer a related question as to whether Russia had asked China to provide any equipment for its special military operation.

The forthcoming visit by Xi Jinping to Moscow, likely to take place next month, will be a defining moment. There is a palpable sense of disquiet in the West, as China’s manufacturing capability exceeds that of the US and Europe combined. Russia is deferring the big offensive in Ukraine, pending Xi’s visit.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2023/02/ ... th-russia/

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The Context Of The New Anti-China Campaign

The reactions to yesterday's Moon of Alabama post have demonstrated how easy it is for government propagandists to yank the leash of their subjects.

More than half of comments are about barely informed Covid conspiracies theories. Only few recognized the propaganda item for what it was. The starting point of a new China hate campaign that will divert the public from mass casualties in Ukraine and other issues.

After the Wall Street Journal launched its Sunday leak the New York Times and the Washington Post also jumped onto the train. The Times thankfully does better than the WSJ given the 'low confidence' expressed about the 'intelligence' a prominent position instead of hiding it deep down in its piece:

Lab Leak Most Likely Caused Pandemic, Energy Dept. Says
The conclusion, which was made with “low confidence,” came as America’s intelligence agencies remained divided over the origins of the coronavirus.


The Post is less cautious. It is putting the content into the context of some 'storied team known as Z-Division' without ever explaining what that entity is.

Little-known scientific team behind new assessment on covid-19 origins
Small shift in favor of ‘lab leak’ theory was prompted by new data and group of weapons-lab scientists


The stenographers of various main stream media outlets understood the propaganda hints given to them and were eager to offer their participation in it.

Laura Rozen @lrozen - 20:00 UTC · Feb 27, 2023
(the number of questions at the WH press briefing about a low confidence assessment by two of 18 agencies, disputed by others, also with low confidence, on the origins of covid 19, …strikes me as bizarre. it seems there is so little there there, …)
...
would almost think it would not be worth reporting except as a footnote.


That is certainly correct if it were the real issue. But the context is much wider. The coming weeks will see a larger campaign of China bashing.

As the Post notes:

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines is scheduled to testify at a Senate worldwide threats hearing next week and probably will be asked to address the matter. The House select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic was set to hold a roundtable exploring early covid-19 policy decisions on Tuesday.

There will be more Congress action as the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, a new China bashing House panel, inaugurates today:

The 7 p.m. hearing will feature four witnesses, including former President Donald Trump's national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Trump's former deputy national security adviser and China expert Matthew Pottinger. Tong Yi, who was the secretary to a prominent Chinese dissident and jailed in China for more than two years, and Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, are also set to testify.
Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher, the committee's Republican chairman, told "Face the Nation" on Sunday that the panel plans to highlight the threats the Chinese Communist Party poses to U.S. interests.

"I think the Chinese spy balloon incident illustrates perfectly that this isn't just an over-there problem," the Republican said. "This isn't just a matter of some obscure territorial claim in the East China Sea. This is a right-here-at-home problem."


Mike Gallagher had promised strong action:

To win the new Cold War, we must respond to Chinese aggression with tough policies to strengthen our economy, rebuild our supply chains, speak out for human rights, stand against military aggression, and end the theft of Americans’ personal information, intellectual property, and jobs.
We must recognize that China’s "peaceful rise" was pure fiction and finally confront the CCP with the urgency the threat demands. To do that, House Republicans will establish a Select Committee on China in the new Congress.


The committee itself can not do much about the issues and its attempts to go against China will mostly be diverted into deregulating U.S. environmental protection:

Meanwhile, in 2019, approximately 90% of the world’s rare earth metals, alloys, and permanent magnets were produced in China. The Select Committee will expose our dangerous dependence on China and advance policies to build secure sources for critical supply chains, either in the United States or in partnership with like-minded allies.

A WSJ Opinion piece details what that means:

The U.S. must challenge China’s dominance in producing the refined rare-earth minerals that go into both chips and green energy. But extracting, refining and using our domestic resources—such as the newly discovered 7-square-mile store of rare earths at Sheep Creek, Mont.—will require regulatory certainty and clarity, not the current morass that fosters litigation and deters development. As these pages noted last month, America suffers from a “green-energy mineral lockup.” To compete with China, Congress must unlock them.
Reform is also necessary for less exotic yet no less essential commodities. As S&P Global urged last year in a report on copper and the green-energy transition, America’s “nexus between a politicized regulatory process and the ubiquity of litigation makes it unlikely that efforts to expand copper output in the United States would yield significant increases in domestic supply within the decade. The prospects for any expansions are higher on state and private lands.”


But domestic deregulation is not the only point of the agenda. The U.S. led conflict with China must also transfer into more spending for useless weapons. The further erosion of the U.S. One China policy, which puts China into a militarized zugzwang, will take care of that:

Despite its increasing reliance on military intimidation, Beijing’s calculus for the actual use of force remains heavily political, not military; it is centered on whether or not Washington entirely abrogates its One China Policy and opts for the permanent separation of Taiwan from China.
Such a U.S. move would back Beijing into a corner and compel it to take the huge risk of using force, either to compel Washington to reverse course or to attempt to resolve the Taiwan problem once and for all.


It is not that China has not noticed any of this. The new super aggressive U.S. ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, has done his best to prepare the scene for more conflict:

On February 15, about 350 representatives from Chinese and US political and business sectors attended the AmCham China's annual appreciation dinner where Burns delivered a speech. He criticized China's trade, state-owned enterprises, industry subsidies, cybersecurity and regulation, anti-epidemic measures and human rights policies, and even mentioned the recent unmanned airship incident. His criticism of China caused dissatisfaction among the attendees.
A source familiar with the matter told the Global Times on Thursday that a staff member from AmCham China said that while Burns was delivering the speech, "the atmosphere was extremely embarrassing."


China has learned well how U.S. propaganda works. Unlike some MoA commentators it immediately recognized the issue for what its is:

US hypes old 'lab-leak' theory in new information war operation against China

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the US again gave the "lab-leak" theory a major boost, as its Energy Department, citing "new intelligence" but holding "low confidence" in it, joined the FBI in smearing China.
Reported exclusively by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday, the claim immediately made headlines in major US news outlets. However, its timing and source "only show the low credibility" of the report, analysts said, adding that the new hyping of an old topic is part of the US' political and information warfare with China.
...
One of the WSJ report's authors is Michael R. Gordon, who was behind the "weapons of mass destruction" narrative the US fabricated to justify its invasion of Iraq 20 years ago.

Lü Xiang, research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday that the timing of the hype is not a coincidence, and that the US will not leave COVID out of its "ammunition depot" against China.
...
Being ambiguous and non-official and using media rather than government departments to announce something demonstrated the US' skill in fighting a political war, Lü said.

Hysterical crusades against China have become a signature of the US in our time. To win the competition with China, the US will not let a single chance go by to smear China, whether it is a balloon that has gone astray, a carefully planned "lab-leak" theory, or unfounded weapon supply accusations regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the expert said.


Anti China rhetoric in 'western' media is indeed off the charts.

One reason that bashing China has intensified is the fear that its alliance with Russia will make a U.S. defeat in Ukraine inevitable. The recent accusations of China considering weapon deliveries to Russia, a thought crime, was a hint to that. Dima of the Military Summary channel, who is from Belarus, suggested that China could produces ammunition for Russia in his home country to avoid to be punished for it. Lukashenko's current visit to Beijing may well include talks about such a scheme.

There are some delicate non-denials that let me think there is something to it :

Yesterday, when asked about US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s warning Sunday that there would be ‘real costs’ for China if it went forward with providing lethal aid to Russia, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning did not give a direct answer. “The US is in no position to point fingers at China-Russia relations. We do not accept coercion or pressure from the US,” she said.
Interestingly, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also chose not to answer a related question as to whether Russia had asked China to provide any equipment for its special military operation.

The forthcoming visit by Xi Jinping to Moscow, likely to take place next month, will be a defining moment. There is a palpable sense of disquiet in the West, as China’s manufacturing capability exceeds that of the US and Europe combined. Russia is deferring the big offensive in Ukraine, pending Xi’s visit.


Posted by b on February 28, 2023 at 17:56 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/t ... .html#more

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US double standards: A brief rundown
chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2023-02-28 06:40

The US has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests. This timeline shows how the US has brought harm to the international community in doing so.

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http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20230 ... b11dd.html
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:55 pm

US, the Main Nuclear Threat in the World - Chinese Spox


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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. Mar. 3, 2023. | Photo: Twitter/@upholdreality

Published 3 March 2023

"The United States is the world's biggest source of nuclear threat," Mao Ning said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday that the U.S. uses accusations of nuclear threat against China to expand its nuclear arsenal.

During a press conference, Mao Ning said, "The U.S. is the biggest source of nuclear threat in the world. It should carefully rethink its nuclear policy."

In this regard, the Chinese diplomat referred to the U.S. security policy noting that it should "diligently fulfill its special and primary duty to disarm, thus reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security policy, and take meaningful practical measures to alleviate nuclear risks."

Mao said the nuclear threat allegedly posed by China "is a convenient pretext for the U.S. to expand its own nuclear arsenal and maintain its military hegemony."


The diplomat added that the Asian nation follows a defensive nuclear strategy, with its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level necessary for national security.

"We are committed to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and helping the world benefit from nuclear energy as much as possible," the spokeswoman said, noting that China "has strictly complied with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations."

Mao called for maintaining the strategic stability of regional and global peace and security. The diplomat urged the U.S. to take meaningful and practical steps to reduce nuclear risks with a responsible attitude toward nuclear security.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/US- ... -0018.html

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Blinken attacks China for seeking peace in Ukraine
In this insightful article for Fighting Words, Chris Fry summarizes the latest efforts by the Biden administration to slander – and escalate tensions with – China.

The article starts by describing Antony Blinken’s recent accusations that China is sending – or “contemplating sending” – military assistance to Russia. Chris notes the twisted irony of this accusation, given that “the US has supplied more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine so far, with more on the way,” and given that the US government is quite clearly implementing a strategy directed not at bringing about peace or saving Ukrainian lives, but at defeating and weakening the Russian Federation and expanding NATO’s hegemony in Europe.

It is presumably not a coincidence that this accusation is being amplified at a time when China has put forward an important position paper on the Ukraine conflict, calling for the abandoning of Cold War mentality, a resumption of peace talks, and an end to illegal sanctions. China’s peace proposals – grounded firmly in international law and consistent with the principles of the UN Charter – are resonating with governments throughout the world, particularly in the Global South. Therefore the US is doing what it can to tarnish China’s reputation as a responsible power.

Chris also highlights the US’s increasingly desperate attempts to stoke tensions in relation to Taiwan Province. With the anti-independence Kuomintang having scored an important victory in Taiwan’s local elections last year – and having good prospects in next year’s presidential elections – the US is fast-tracking its provocations, which “seek to provoke a justified but costly Chinese military attack on Taiwan and thus ‘justify’ a US war against China.”

China’s response to such provocations has been measured and proportional; as such the US strategy is failing. Nonetheless, notes the author, “progressives and anti-war activists must prepare now to muster their forces.”
Unable to intimidate the leadership of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over its balloon being shot down by U.S. Air Force jets along with three other balloons in a missile-firing frenzy, President Biden, through his war hawk Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is now accusing China of “contemplating sending lethal aid” to the Russian Federation.

Speaking to “Meet the Press” on February 9 after meeting with Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi in Munich, Blinken arrogantly attacked China for its relations with the Russian Federation while it maintains strict neutrality in the conflict:

“Publicly, they present themselves as a country striving for peace in Ukraine,” he said … “But privately, as I said, we’ve seen already over these past months the provision of nonlethal assistance that does go directly to aiding and abetting Russia’s war effort.”

According to a February 20 article in the New York Times. Blinken then moved on from slander to insinuation:

Over the weekend, the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, indicated that he had evidence that, behind the scenes, Beijing was tilting toward stronger support for Mr. Putin and “considering providing lethal support to Russia in its aggression against Ukraine.”

Of course, Blinken offered no such “evidence”. He then made a veiled threat:

“And I was able to share with him [Wang Yi], as President Biden had shared with President Xi, the serious consequences that would have for our relationship,” Mr. Blinken said.

The U.S. has supplied more than $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine so far, with more on the way, according to a USA Today February 19 article. This all comes as Biden made a surprise visit to Kiev to ensure that the Ukraine proxies keep fighting and dying for Big Oil’s capture of the EU oil and gas market, as described by Seymour Hersh in his expose of the U.S. secret operation to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines.

The PRC made it absolutely clear that it will not be bullied by Blinken, Biden or U.S. imperialism as a whole:

[“The U.S. is not qualified to give orders to China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular news briefing. “We will never accept U.S. criticism, even coercion and pressure on China-Russia relations.”

Wang said China’s position on Ukraine “can be simply put as promoting peace talks.”

“China will continue to firmly stand on the side of dialogue and peace and play a constructive part in easing the situation,” he said.


China has maintained that the U.S., by its campaign to expand NATO as an open military threat to Russia, bears responsibility for this conflict.

China’s overtures to Taiwan threaten U.S. war plans.
Six members of a high-level delegation from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) arrived at Taipei airport on the island of Taiwan on February 18. They were led by Liu Xiaodong, deputy head of the Shanghai office of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office. This is the first visit by PRC officials in three years, according to a February 18 Reuters report.

They were invited to attend the Lantern Festival in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, by the city government. The mayor of Taipei, Chiang Wan-an of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), was elected in December as one of many KMT candidates who scored a major victory in local elections across Taiwan.

The KMT, a pro-business and anti-communist political party, nevertheless is anti-Taiwan-independence, and has called for renewal of negotiations with the PRC. This contrasts sharply with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has pushed for independence from China and has received increasing political and military support from U.S. Imperialism, which wants to turn Taiwan into a weapons-filled “porcupine” against the PRC and a center point for a U.S. military campaign against China.

This visit comes just after a visit by a KMT delegation to the PRC earlier in February. The KMT has a very real chance of winning the Taiwan presidential election next year, which would stymie U.S. war plans against China.

Taiwan is the lynchpin of the entire U.S strategy against the PRC, which seeks to provoke a justified but costly Chinese military attack on Taiwan and thus “justify” a U.S. war against China. That U.S. strategy violates the “One China” policy agreed to by the U.S. in 1979 and which is recognized by nearly every nation on the planet.

Obviously alarmed by this visit, the Pentagon quickly dispatched Michael Chase, deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, to Taiwan. He arrived on the same day as the PRC delegation. According to a Bloomberg article this marks the first time a top Pentagon official has made a non-secret trip to Taiwan in three years.

The Bloomberg article continues:

A US congressional delegation led by California Democrat Ro Khanna was also expected to arrive in Taiwan on Saturday, in a mission aimed at bolstering economic ties in areas such as semiconductor manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the White House will hold “secret talks” with Taiwan officials in Washington next week, the Financial Times reported Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and National Security Council secretary-general Wellington Koo will meet through the so-called “special channel” with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, according to the report.


Biden computer chip strategy not popular in Taiwan
On February 17, the corporate magazine Foreign Affairs published an article titled “Taipei Fears Washington Is Weakening Its Silicon Shield.” The article describes a rift between Taiwan’s business community and Washington:

Last December, at the unveiling of a new semiconductor plant in Arizona, U.S. President Joe Biden triumphantly declared that “American manufacturing is back, folks.” Yet to some in attendance, the event was not a cause for celebration.

The Arizona plant belongs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC founder Morris Chang is a revered figure in Taiwan for making the island a technological powerhouse—but he is also one of the most outspoken critics of Biden’s plan to reinvigorate the U.S. semiconductor industry. In recent months, Chang has sounded the alarm that Taiwan’s chip sector is being “hollowed out” at the expense of its security. But unable to resist lush financial incentives and diplomatic pressure from Washington, TSMC and Taiwanese authorities approved the new Arizona plant.


The article asserts that Taiwan’s business leaders see the TSMC’s advanced facility as a “silicon shield” preventing the PRC from occupying the island. But China has always called for negotiations towards a peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s status under one China, whereas a November 2021 article from the U.S. Army War College pushed for the White House to “persuade” Taiwan’s leaders to plant explosives around the TSMC plant:

To start, the United States and Taiwan should lay plans for a targeted scorched-earth strategy that would render Taiwan not just unattractive if ever seized by force, but positively costly to maintain. This could be done most effectively by threatening to destroy facilities belonging to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the most important chipmaker in the world and China’s most important supplier.

An automatic mechanism might be designed, which would be triggered once an invasion was confirmed. In addition, Taiwan’s leaders could make it known now they will not allow these industries to fall into the hands of an adversary. The United States and its allies could support this endeavor by announcing plans to give refuge to highly skilled Taiwanese working in this sector, creating contingency plans with Taipei for the rapid evacuation and processing of the human capital that operates the physical semiconductor foundries.

Taiwan’s government officials were forced to tell the island’s legislature that this Pentagon “doomsday proposal” was just “wargaming”, and that the international supply chain of parts and equipment for the chip industry was sufficient to deter the PRC from a military attack.

But as seen from last year’s election outcome on the island, residents would appear less than eager to have their homes and workplaces destroyed by Washington’s “scorched earth” policy and their loved ones shipped away. Even Taiwan’s business leaders feel threatened by Washington’s willingness to have their facilities destroyed to endow U.S. high tech companies gain computer chip hegemony.

No wonder that island residents are increasingly open to restoring comprehensive talks with the PRC. An AFP website article described the visit by the Chinese officials to Taipei:

Officials “exchanged views on municipal issues such as culture, sports and tourism… The Shanghai delegation also said they felt a warm reception,” Taipei’s city government said in a statement on Monday [February 20].

China suspended a host of Taiwanese food and drink shipments in December, escalating a ban on fruit and fish imports imposed after then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Pelosi’s August trip tipped relations between Taipei and Beijing to their lowest point in years, with the People’s Liberation Army staging massive military drills around the island in protest.

Beijing had fostered closer ties with the KMT under Tsai’s pro-China predecessor Ma Ying-jeou and, with Tsai ineligible for another term, the field for the coming presidential race is more open.

Song Tao, head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told Hsia’s delegation the Communist Party was willing to work with the KMT to promote relations based on the shared political foundation of opposing Taiwanese independence, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.


With the possibility of an election defeat of the pro-independence governing party in 2024, the U.S. is desperately searching for some pretext to isolate China and launch a military attack. So far, they have failed, but nonetheless progressives and anti-war activists must prepare now to muster their forces.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/03/01/b ... n-ukraine/

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Foreign diplomats in China refute Western media’s debt trap hype
Whilst the imperialist countries have ensnared countries of the Global South in ‘debt traps’ for decades, something that the late Cuban communist leader, Fidel Castro drew forceful attention to as far back as the 1980s, they have also in recent years determinedly tried to smear the People’s Republic of China by leveling the very charge of which they have themselves long been guilty. Needless to say, this is strongly refuted by the countries of the Global South themselves as it is without foundation.

The following article, which we reprint from Global Times, reports the views of some senior Beijing-based diplomats, part of a more than hundred person group who recently visited the China Communications Construction Group, a leading Chinese company engaged in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.

According to the diplomats, these projects have improved local livelihoods, created jobs and promoted local economic development.

South African Ambassador Siyabonga C. Cwele noted that infrastructure projects in his country have to go through public tendering and a transparent procurement process with stringent requirements. In his view, Chinese companies tend to be better because they come with financing, skills and innovation and tend to complete projects on time. “What causes debt problems is that projects are not completed on time,” he notes.

Sri Lanka’s Deputy Chief of Mission, K.K. Yoganaadan, remarks: “If you take Sri Lanka’s total debts, only 10 percent is owed to China and 90 percent of our debts are owed to other bilateral partners and multilateral agencies.” Noting that China is already helping and supporting Sri Lanka to resolve its debt problem, he added: “We are very confident and hopeful that these BRI projects will help us improve Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange income and attract more foreign investors.”
Foreign diplomats refuted the “debt trap” hyped by some Western media on Chinese overseas projects, asserting those infrastructure projects have improved local livelihoods, created jobs and promoted local economic development.

Western media hyping the “debt trap” of Chinese projects is “fake news,” Moin ul Haque, Ambassador of Pakistan to China, told the Global Times on Monday. “We don’t subscribe to such a characterization of China-Pakistan cooperation, which is based on our mutual support and respect and win-win,” said Haque.

The interview was conducted during a group visit to China Communications Construction Group (CCCC), one of the major Chinese companies that participates in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The group visit gathered 111 diplomats from embassies and international organizations in China.

Haque noted that BRI and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects have greatly contributed to changing the economic landscape in Pakistan in infrastructure development and industrialization.

Asked about his opinion on Western reports saying China’s projects brought “debt traps” to host countries, Siyabonga C. Cwele, South African Ambassador to China, told the Global Times that “we don’t see it that way. We see it as a win-win situation with China, and with mutual respect.”

Cwele said that the construction of infrastructure projects has to go through public tendering and transparent procurement process in South Africa, and they have stringent requirements.

“Chinese companies tend to be better in project execution in our view, because they come with their financing, skills and innovation, so they tend to complete their projects on time. What causes debt problems is that projects are not completed on time,” said Cwele.

He took two power plants under construction in South Africa as an example – projects that weren’t undertaken by Chinese companies. “Those projects had a lot of problems and cost escalations. That’s what caused problems, because that’s where debt starts.”

Speaking about the so-called “debt trap”, K. K. Yoganaadan, deputy chief of the mission of the Sri Lankan Embassy in China, said: “actually, this is a term that I don’t know who invented. Some interested groups use the term for their own propaganda.”

“If you take Sri Lanka’s total debts, only 10 percent is owed to China and 90 percent of our debts are owed to other bilateral partners and multilateral agencies,” Yoganaadan told the Global Times.

Yoganaadan noted that China is already helping and supporting Sri Lanka in resolving its debt problem, which is appreciated.

“We are very confident and hopeful that these BRI projects will help us improve Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange income and attract more foreign investors,” said Yoganaadan.

“The ‘debt trap’ is not a problem caused by Chinese companies. Solving the debt problem is a process that needs to be negotiated by everyone,” Chen Zhong, vice general manager of CCCC, told the Global Times on Monday.

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that China attaches importance to the debt issue of developing countries and has made positive contributions to easing their debt burdens and promoting sustainable development, in response to the solution of Zambia’s debt problem.Commercial creditors and multilateral financial institutions, which mostly are from the West, account for 70 percent of Zambia’s external debt, according to figures disclosed by Zambia’s Ministry of Finance.”They should shoulder their responsibilities and take stronger action to ease Zambia’s debt burden,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said on Monday.

Diplomats on Monday also said that, apart from current cooperation with China, mostly under the BRI, there is huge room for further cooperation.

According to Pakistani Ambassador to China Haque, in the coming years, the focus will be on industrialization in export-oriented sectors such as automobiles, engineering, goods, mining, petroleum and agricultural modernization.”China is now a leading country and we are focusing on cooperation in technology innovation like artificial intelligence,” said Haque

.South African Ambassador Cwele said that the country is most concerned about infrastructure and green development.”Cooperating with Chinese companies in the field of green development is going to be good,” he said.

According to Cwele, South Africa accounts for about 40 percent of Africa’s industrial output, and it requires modernization and new technologies.

“The key is digitizing our economy. That’s where we hope cooperation with China and Chinese companies will bring win-win results for our people,” said Cwele

.As for Ali Obaid Al Dhaheri, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to China, “areas of science and technology development” will be a direction of future cooperation.”We pay a lot of attention on advancing … the digital economy and in China, you are highly developed in this area. Based on this, I have no doubt it will be a great opportunity to cooperate in the area of technology sharing,” Dhaheri told the Global Times on Monday.

https://socialistchina.org/2023/03/02/f ... trap-hype/

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CHINA LEADS THE WORLD IN CRITICAL AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
3 Mar 2023 , 2:44 pm .

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The report notes that a key area in which China excels is defense and space-related technologies (Photo: Flickr

China leads the world in 37 of the 44 critical and emerging technologies, according to a study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a group of security experts that maintains that the Asian country has now positioned itself as the main scientific and technological superpower in the world.

ASPI's Critical Technology Tracker covers a range of crucial fields spanning defense, space, robotics, energy, environment, biotechnology, artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials, and key areas of quantum science.

The report notes that a key area in which China excels is defense and space-related fields, with particular emphasis on advances in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles.

He noted that in the past five years, China generated 48.49% of the world's high-impact research papers on advanced aircraft engines, including hypersonic ones.

The study, funded by the US State Department, found that the US country often ranked second in the technology race, even though it led the world in research in high-performance computing and quantum computing, as well as vaccines.

The report concludes that Western democracies are losing global technological competition, including the pace of scientific and research progress.

https://misionverdad.com/china-lidera-a ... emergentes

Google Translator

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US Ambassador To China: “We’re The Leader” Of The Indo-Pacific

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A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington’s top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran.

Toward the end of the hour-long discussion, Burns made the very interesting comment that Beijing must accept that the United States is “the leader” in the region and isn’t going anywhere.

“From my perspective sitting here in China looking out at the Indo-Pacific, our American position is stronger than it was five or ten years ago,” Burns said, citing the strength of US alliances, its private sector and its research institutions and big tech companies.

“And I do think that the Chinese now understand that the United States is staying in this region — we’re the leader in this region in many ways,” Burns added emphatically.



The “Indo-Pacific” is a term which has gained a lot of traction in geopolitical discourse in recent years, typically describing the vast multi-continental region between Australia to the south, Asia to the north, Africa to the west, and the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the east. It contains half the Earth’s population, and it very much includes China.

After making the rather audacious claim of being “the leader” of a region which China is a part of but the United States is not, Burns went on to claim the US does not want any kind of confrontation with the Chinese government.

“We want a future of peace with China,” Burns said. “As President Biden makes clear every time he talks about this, we don’t want conflict, but we’re gonna hold our own out here. And I feel optimistic, just concluding my first year as ambassador, about the American position in this country and in this region.”

Again, Burns is saying this from China, so by “in this country” he means in China.

Burns supported the Iraq war and is on record saying that “China is the greatest threat to the security of our country and of the democratic world,” and he was appointed to his current position for a reason. Though especially hawkish and American supremacist, his comments are entirely in alignment with official US foreign policy; here’s an excerpt from a White House strategy published last year titled “Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States“:

The United States is an Indo-Pacific power. The region, stretching from our Pacific coastline to the Indian Ocean, is home to more than half of the world’s people, nearly two-thirds of the world’s economy, and seven of the world’s largest militaries. More members of the U.S. military are based in the region than in any other outside the United States. It supports more than three million American jobs and is the source of nearly $900 billion in foreign direct investment in the United States. In the years ahead, as the region drives as much as two-thirds of global economic growth, its influence will only grow—as will its importance to the United States.



In a quickly changing strategic landscape, we recognize that American interests can only be advanced if we firmly anchor the United States in the Indo-Pacific and strengthen the region itself, alongside our closest allies and partners.



This intensifying American focus is due in part to the fact that the Indo-Pacific faces mounting challenges, particularly from the PRC. The PRC is combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power. The PRC’s coercion and aggression spans the globe, but it is most acute in the Indo-Pacific. From the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the Line of Actual Control with India to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbors in the East and South China Seas, our allies and partners in the region bear much of the cost of the PRC’s harmful behavior. In the process, the PRC is also undermining human rights and international law, including freedom of navigation, as well as other principles that have brought stability and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific.


Our collective efforts over the next decade will determine whether the PRC succeeds in transforming the rules and norms that have benefitted the Indo-Pacific and the world. For our part, the United States is investing in the foundations of our strength at home, aligning our approach with those of our allies and partners abroad, and competing with the PRC to defend the interests and vision for the future that we share with others. We will strengthen the international system, keep it grounded in shared values, and update it to meet 21st-century challenges. Our objective is not to change the PRC but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates, building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favorable to the United States, our allies and partners, and the interests and values we share.


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As we discussed recently, history’s unfolding has shown us that the US empire’s plan to “shape the strategic environment” in which China operates has meant continuing to encircle China with war machinery in ways the US would never permit itself to be encircled. So when men like Joe Biden and Nicholas Burns claim the US does not seek a confrontation with China, what they really mean is that they hope China just sits back without responding to the confrontation the US is already inflicting upon it.

The way US empire managers talk about “leading” ostensibly sovereign states with ostensibly independent governments shows you they really do think they own the world. We see this in news stories like US officials admonishing Brazil for permitting Iran to harbor military ships thousands of miles away from the US coastline, while continually shrieking about China asserting a small sphere of influence over the South China Sea which the US continually transgresses by sailing and flying its own war machinery right through it.

We also see US empire managers claiming ownership of the entire planet in instances like when they drew a “red line” on China providing Russia with military assistance even as the US and its allies pour weapons into Ukraine, or the time Biden said that “everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard,” or the time then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki remarked on the mounting tensions around Ukraine that it is in America’s interest to support “our eastern flank countries”, suggesting that the eastern flank of the United States is eastern Europe and not its own geographic eastern coastline.

They claim ownership over the entire planet while pretending that they do not seek confrontation with the nations they try to subjugate, and interpret any refusal to be subjugated as an unprovoked act of aggression. This is taking our world in a very dangerous direction, and we need to do something to stop it.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2023/03/02 ... o-pacific/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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