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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Aug 12, 2022 4:37 pm

China Gives America a Taste of its Own Geopolitics
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 10, 2022
Brian Berletic

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Under the US’ own one China policy, Washington recognizes there is only one China, that Taiwan is a part of China, and that there is only one government of China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing. Despite this, the US undermines Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan by treating the island as a de facto nation and the Republic of China in Taipei as its de facto legitimate government.

This culminated most recently in the visit by US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan against Beijing’s warnings and has predictably triggered what many analysts in the West are considering the “Fourth Strait Crisis” in which tensions between the US-backed regime in Taipei and the legitimate government of China have escalated to near-conflict levels.

Also as predicted, with the continual rise of Chinese economic and military power, the US’ own maxim of “might makes right” has boomeranged around and now threatens the very status quo Washington was abusing to incrementally infringe on Chinese sovereignty.

Chinese Military Might Seeks to Make Taiwan Question Right

In the wake of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, massive Chinese military drills were launched including a de facto air and sea blockade of the island as well as simulated assaults on Taiwan’s military infrastructure around Taipei and its southern Tainan and Kaohsiung regions. What was first dismissed as a “tantrum” by an “embarrassed Beijing” is quickly shaping into a much more deliberate and complex reaction meant to reshape both the status of the Taiwan Strait as well as the status of Taiwan itself.

US representatives appear to believe that the recent exercises are only the beginning of what is an incremental process of implementing greater and permanent control over Taiwan by Being. A Guardian article titled, “China resumes military drills off Taiwan after shelving US talks,” would note:

The US defence department policy chief, Colin Kahl, said the Pentagon had not changed the assessment given last year by the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, that China was unlikely to invade Taiwan in the next two years. However, Kahl said Beijing was trying to “salami-slice their way into a new status quo”.

“A lot has been made of the missile strikes but really it’s the activities in the strait itself, the sheer number of maritime and air assets that are crossing over this de facto centre line, creeping closer to Taiwan shores, where it’s clear that Beijing is trying to create a kind of new normal,” he said.


The article would also note that the recent exercises demonstrate China’s growing abilities. The article claimed:

Timothy Heath, a defence researcher at the Rand Corporation, said China’s drills over the past few days showed the PLA was strengthening its ability to carry out a blockade.

“A blockade could be executed alone or in conjunction with other military options such as missile barrages or an invasion of Taiwan,” he said.


Indeed, China has one of the largest and most capable missile arsenals in the world even according to Western experts.

The US-based government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in a China Power paper titled, “How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?,” would explain:

As part of sweeping efforts to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China has developed one of the most powerful land-based conventional missile arsenals in the world.

Chinese missiles combined with formidable air and sea defenses make up its anti-access, area denial capabilities, capabilities advanced enough to prevent the United States from intervening should Beijing choose to fully resolve this crisis of Washington’s making.

China is Pushing Back, But How Far?

It is now a matter of waiting to see just how far Beijing is willing to go down each respective path; economically, politically, and militarily. If China’s recent Global Times article, “PLA extends ‘Taiwan encirclement’ exercises with anti-submarine warfare, showcases unrivaled area denial capability; ‘drills will not stop until reunification’,” is any indication, Beijing is prepared to go all the way.

International law favors Beijing’s stance on Taiwan versus decades of US-sponsored separatism done in full violation of both Washington’s own bilateral agreements with Beijing and in violation of international law. Decades of US military aggression, meddling, and subversion around the globe have now, ironically, played into the hands of Beijing who can easily cite US actions to justify virtually any level of force it feels is necessary in pursuit of defending its own sovereignty in regards to Taiwan.

Many contributors to and supporters of Washington’s strategy of belligerence toward China are attempting to dissuade Beijing from its current apparent course of action, understanding just how permanently Beijing could settle the “Taiwan question” if it commits fully at this time. They are doing so through “warnings” that any attempt to change the current “status quo” regarding Taiwan and the waters around it could be “disastrous” for Beijing.

A recent article by David Uren, an Australian economic writer and a senior fellow at the anti-China “Australian Strategic Policy Initiative” (ASPI) in a recent op-ed titled, “A blockade of Taiwan would cripple China’s economy,” would claim:

If a real Chinese blockade were challenged by the United States and the Taiwan Strait were designated a war zone, trade finance and insurance would evaporate for all shipping in the area.

Any real-life disruption of the sea lanes to the east and west of Taiwan would have a crippling effect on China’s own economy, since its major ports of Shanghai, Dalian, Tianjin and others are dependent on passage through waters near Taiwan.


Yet, as the op-ed also grudgingly admits, it would not be only China’s economy that suffered, but also Australia’s, Europe’s, and it stands to reason America’s as well.

There is one option that appears to escape the “top” Western “thinkers” and “analysts” when it comes to Taiwan, finally and fully upholding the West’s own agreed upon one China policies. Indeed, if the US and its allies simply made good on their own bilateral agreements with China, respecting its sovereignty over Taiwan, and stopped the artificial propping up of the regime in Taipei, this whole crisis and the potential war it may lead to would resolve itself.

Yet as US-led meddling in Ukraine has proven, the West is not capable of respecting international law or its own bilateral agreements with the rest of the world, making conflict all but inevitable. Russia for its part was fully prepared for the conflict that finally resulted after decades of abuse by the West, leaving a relatively unprepared West to suffer the consequences of its own belligerent actions. Only time will tell if China is likewise prepared and whether or not the West is as eager or able to weather yet another crisis of its own creation.



As tensions continue to rise between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan, it is important to keep track of the undercurrent of propaganda the US uses to shape public perception regarding China in the first place. Continued efforts by the US to use organizations like the UN in its propaganda war against China includes an upcoming report regarding Xinjiang, China meant to undermine a recent visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the region.

References:

BBC – Why is there tension between China and the Uighurs? (2014): https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-c

AP – AP Exclusive: Uighurs fighting in Syria take aim at China: https://apnews.com/article/syria-ap-t

AP – Terror & tourism: Xinjiang eases its grip, but fear remains: https://apnews.com/article/coronaviru

Reuters – EXCLUSIVE China seeks to stop UN rights chief from releasing Xinjiang report – document: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/e

US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act Builds on Work of NED Grantees: https://www.ned.org/uyghur-human-righ

US NED – Xinjiang/East Turkestan (China) 2021: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/xinji



https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... opolitics/

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PLA to regularly patrol Taiwan region
By ZHANG ZHIHAO | China Daily | Updated: 2022-08-11 07:10

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A warplane of the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) conducts operations around the Taiwan Island, Aug 4, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Eastern Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army will organize regular combat patrols in the Taiwan region and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity after successfully completing its recent training exercises around Taiwan, Senior Colonel Shi Yi, a spokesman for the theater command, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The recent military drills in the seas and airspace around Taiwan have achieved their mission objectives and effectively tested the theater command's joint combat capability, he said.

The theater command will keep a close eye on the situation in the Taiwan Straits and continue its military training and war preparation efforts, he added. At the same time, it will organize regular "combat readiness patrols" in the region, Shi said.

The PLA has conducted a series of live-fire exercises this month in the wake of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island on Aug 2. Over the past week, dozens of ballistic missiles and long-range rockets were fired at targets around Taiwan, while more than 100 aircraft and over 10 destroyers and frigates participated in the exercises.

Some of the PLA's top military hardware, such as the J-20 stealth fighter jet and the DF-17 hypersonic ballistic missile, saw action in the recent exercises. Analysts said the exercises had essentially encircled the island, given their unprecedented intensity and scale.

The Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Wednesday that the PLA's exercises around Taiwan serve as a powerful deterrence to Taiwan separatist forces and foreign interference. "They are justified and necessary actions to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity," said Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, a ministry spokesman.

Tan said the exercises were open, transparent and professional, and were conducted in accordance with domestic and international laws and practices. Pelosi's visit to the island blatantly challenged and undermined China's core interests and severely damaged peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits, he said.

The island's Democratic Progressive Party has pursued its separatist agenda by colluding with foreign powers, disregarded the safety of Taiwan people and pushed Taiwan into the chasm of calamity. "It will be pinned to history's wall of shame," he said.

Tan said the process of reunification is unstoppable, and the momentum and opportunity for solving the Taiwan question have always been in the hands of those that support national reunification.

"For the well-being of the Taiwan people, we are willing to exercise utmost sincerity and effort to pursue the prospect of peaceful reunification, but the PLA will leave no room for Taiwan separatist forces and foreign powers to achieve their goals," he said.

Now, cross-Straits relations are once again at a crossroads and Taiwan authorities must make the right choice, Tan added.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 717f5.html

Chinese envoy addresses risks at Ukraine nuclear facilities
By MINLU ZHANG at the United Nations | China Daily Global | Updated: 2022-08-12 09:04

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A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine Aug 4, 2022. [Photo/Agencies]

A Chinese ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday reiterated his concerns over the safety and security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine, calling for efforts to minimize the possibility of the leakage of radioactive materials.

"China has been closely following the issue of the safety and security of nuclear facilities in Ukraine and is deeply concerned by the recent shelling on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, said at a UN Security Council Briefing on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Zhang said according to the information obtained by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Ukraine's nuclear regulator, the shelling did not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety, and the radiation level remained normal.

"Nevertheless, the shelling did cause damage to the physical integrity of the plant, its safety and security system, power supply and personnel safety, which sounded a nuclear alarm to the international community," he said.

Ukraine and Russia have exchanged accusations over strikes on the plant in southern Ukraine, which is one of the largest atomic power complexes in Europe and generates a quarter of Ukraine's electricity. It has been under the control of Russian forces since March and has been the scene of military strikes in recent days.

"The safety and security of nuclear sites must not be subjected to trial and error," said Zhang. If a large-scale accident were to occur at Zaporizhzhia, the consequences would be even more devastating than that of the Fukushima nuclear accident, according to Zhang.

The leakage of massive quantities of radioactive materials caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the resulting nuclear-contaminated water have far-reaching consequences for the marine environment, food safety and human health, thereby sparking widespread concern, he said. "China does not want to see the same risks playing out again."

"We call on the parties concerned to exercise restraint, act with caution, refrain from any action that may compromise nuclear safety and security, and spare no effort to minimize the possibility of accidents," the envoy said.

"China always supposes the IAEA's active role in promoting nuclear safety and security and performing its safeguard duties in strict accordance with its mandate," said Zhang.

In Thursday's meeting, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the IAEA called for a cessation of military activity around the plant. He referred to the situation as "a grave hour" and said that IAEA inspectors must be allowed to examine the complex "as soon as possible".

Zhang said he hopes the existing obstacles can be cleared as soon as possible for Grossi and the IAEA team of experts to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant and that they will be able to conduct their work without impediment.

The security risks posed by the conflict to nuclear facilities are looming large throughout the Ukraine crisis, said Zhang. "Only by defusing the situation and restoring peace at an early date, can we fundamentally remove nuclear risks, reduce misjudgment, and avoid accidents.

"Once again, we call on all parties concerned to resume negotiations as early as possible, seek a solution to the Ukraine crisis in a cool-headed and rational fashion, address each other's legitimate security concerns, and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, so as to achieve common security," he said.

As shelling continued near the site, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said he was "gravely concerned" the hostilities might lead to a disaster.

"I have appealed to all concerned to exercise common sense and reason and not to undertake any actions that might endanger the physical integrity, safety or security of the nuclear plant," he said in a statement.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 71c15.html
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed Aug 17, 2022 5:36 pm

Reunification just a matter of how, when
By Adrian Ho | China Daily Global | Updated: 2022-08-15 09:19

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Photo taken on July 21, 2019 shows the Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taipei, China's Taiwan. [Photo/Xinhua]

The provocative stunt of United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plus the covert and overt support for "Taiwan independence "forces, can only expose the US' double-handed political tricks in breaking international law and norms. However, it cannot stop the Chinese will for reunification of the island with the mainland.

China's reunification has never been a yes or no decision, but rather a choice about course and timing.

Though Pelosi's visit to Taiwan was not the first time a House speaker visited the island, it was by far the severest breaking of US agreements to China, which justifies China's strong responses with live military drills.

When then House speaker Newt Gingrich likewise went to Taiwan 25 years ago, he went to Beijing first and China tolerated Gingrich's visit, even dismissing it as a one-time occurrence with little historical significance.

This time, China voiced its opposition from the very beginning, and China is right to regard Pelosi's visit as "a serious violation of the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques" that "seriously infringes on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity", as the Foreign Ministry put it.

Pelosi's justifications for why she considered that setting foot on the island was a sensible decision are formulaic. She intends to demonstrate to US President Joe Biden that Congress can exert its own foreign policy authority without depending on the White House, while simultaneously avoiding appearing pliable on China. Her claim of support to Taiwan as a regional ally goes against international norms. None of these factors is compelling enough to legitimize burgeoning Taiwan Straits tensions. Pelosi was unnecessarily provocative.

When the US Congress introduced the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979, it reflected congressional opposition to then US president Jimmy Carter's intention to establish relations with China and sever connections with authorities in Taiwan. But the "one-China" policy was maintained for more than four decades, contributing to global stability, until Pelosi's visit implicitly challenged it. A subdued form of brinkmanship was demonstrated by Biden's response to Pelosi's visit.

For decades, the one-China policy has been a significant and respected national policy that is acknowledged by the majority of countries around the world.

Pelosi's visit has intensified the US-China relationship. The US has its own domestic challenges to resolve, so provocation of China is a deliberate attempt to add fuel to the fire, endangering global stability.

China has stood firm on the one-China principle and will not make any compromise or concession on it. In 1971, the US affirmed to China the new principles that it would follow with regard to the Taiwan question. They include that the US would acknowledge that there is only one China, and Taiwan is a part of China, and that the US would not support movements for "Taiwan independence". When then president Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, he reaffirmed those principles to Premier Zhou Enlai, and hence came about the Shanghai Communique, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news conference on Aug 3.

The entire world is cognizant of which country is violating its own agreements, causing commotion and acting unilaterally to alter the status quo of international peace. According to international law, China is fully entitled to utilize all means required to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

China's objective of establishing national reunification between its Taiwan island and the Chinese mainland will not be thwarted under any circumstances. If provocative actions like Pelosi's visit to the island to challenge China's tolerance continue, Washington will soon realize how abysmally its attempts will backfire.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 72253.html

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China’s Growing Military Might
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on AUGUST 15, 2022
Brian Berletic

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What many in the West at first dismissed as a tantrum thrown by Beijing over the unauthorized visit of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan appears instead to be a carefully thought-out strategy designed to incrementally reassert Chinese sovereignty over the island territory. Beijing’s ability to do this is underwritten by the nation’s growing military might.

Through a unique and powerful missile arsenal to a capable and growing air force, navy, and ground force, China has created the means through which to reverse decades of injustice, encroachment, and encirclement by the West against the Chinese people and their territory. Even Western analysts and military experts admit that China’s military capabilities have grown to world-class levels. These capabilities will be key to achieving and defending Chinese sovereignty now and into the future, through deterrence if possible, or through force if necessary.

The Long Sword: China’s Missile Force

Throughout human history weapons have been used to give a fighting force a greater reach than their adversaries. Be it sword, spear, or arrow, those with the longest and most effective reach often dominate the battlefield. On today’s battlefield, this reach is achieved through missiles.

China’s modern missile forces are the largest and most capable on Earth according to even Western analysts. Through a combination of long, medium, intermediate, and short range missiles as well as a variety of cruise missiles, China has the ability to hit targets near and far.

The US government and arms industry-funded Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) through its “China Power” project wrote a paper titled, “How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?,” which admitted:

Conventionally armed (non-nuclear) missiles have become an increasingly important component of military power. They can be employed to deter threats or project power hundreds or thousands of kilometers away. As part of sweeping efforts to modernize the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China has developed one of the most powerful land-based conventional missile arsenals in the world.

The same paper would also admit:

According to the US Department of Defense (DoD), China’s missile forces in 2000 “were generally of short range and modest accuracy.” In the years since then, China has developed the world’s “largest and most diverse” arsenal of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles.

The PLA Rocket Force, which maintains and operates China’s land-based conventional and nuclear missiles, has fielded multiple new missile systems over the last several years. Many of these missiles are capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear payloads.


The paper describes cruise missiles able to hit land targets anywhere on potential battlefields like Taiwan, carrier-killer missiles reportedly able to target and destroy US carrier groups, and hypersonic missiles that can penetrate the most advanced Western missile defense systems. Even without the ability to penetrate Western missile defenses, the sheer number of Chinese missiles could saturate and overwhelm them.

China’s missile forces have been built up specifically to keep the United States and its allies from building up military forces along its periphery and thus threaten Chinese territorial integrity. Together with Chinese air defenses and anti-ship systems, China has assembled formidable anti-access, area denial (A2AD) capabilities that would prevent US military forces from even reaching Chinese targets let alone engaging them.

It is also worth noting that China has developed significantly capable multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) in the form of its Type PCL191. It fires more rockets than its US counterparts, fires them further, and with at least as much accuracy guided by China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

A Business Insider article titled, “China’s new rocket launcher system is its most powerful ever, and it’s looming over the Taiwan Strait,” would note:

The system is capable of firing eight 370 mm rockets a distance of 350 km or two 750 mm ballistic missiles 500 km.

This means that China’s MLRS capabilities can reach any location in or around Taiwan from the mainland. In fact the bulk of any potential Chinese military operation regarding Taiwan and potential US intervention can be carried out from the mainland with China’s extensive and capable missile and rocket forces.

The Shield: Chinese A2AD

Russian military operations in Ukraine have been defined by Russia’s own long range fires as well as A2AD. It’s premier S-400 air defense system exists at the top of an ecosystem of other shorter range air defenses that when networked and layered make the air space they protect virtually impenetrable. Together with long range strike weapons like artillery and short-range ballistic missiles like the Iskander, there is nowhere for Ukrainian forces to hide and certainly no way for them to advance into Russia positions. By moving these capabilities forward, Russia has been incrementally securing territory from the regime in Kiev.

Not only has China emulated many tactics and strategies from Russia, it has also outright purchased the best the Russian Federation has to offer. Between 2018-2020 China purchased two regiments of Russia’s S-400 systems. China also produces a wide variety of its own air defense systems based on the Russian S-300, Russia’s Tor system, as well as systems incorporating certain aspects of the US Patriot missile system.

While Chinese air defenses have not been put to the test like their Russian counterparts, it stands to reason they would perform with similar efficiency and prevent US forces and other potential interlopers from entering Chinese airspace let alone cause damage within it.

The Dagger: Chinese Airpower

The People’s Liberation Army Airforce employs hundreds of modern warplanes including the Chengdu J-10, the Shenyang J-11 and J-16, as well as scores of its newest warplane, the Chengdu J-20.

As with Chinese air defenses, Chinese airpower has been heavily influenced by Russian military aviation. Over the years in addition to its own warplanes, China has purchased a number of advanced Russian warplanes including the SU-27, SU-30, and most recently, the SU-35 according to the Diplomat in its 2019 article, “Russia Offers China Another Batch of Su-35 Fighter Jets.”

While China’s airforce has not seen combat, the fact that it possesses a large number of Russian warplanes hints they will perform in a similar manner to Russian airpower as demonstrated in Syria from 2015 onward and now in military operations in Ukraine.

The warplanes themselves are merely platforms for advanced avionics and weapons, the latter of which is a central factor defining the success of any nation’s airforce. The US government and arms industry-funded International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in a paper titled, “Chinese and Russian air-launched weapons: a test for Western air dominance,” would note the advancements of Chinese air-to-air missiles (AAMs) stating:

The extent of Chinese progress in the air-to-air guided-weapons arena was apparent with the introduction of the PL-10 AAM. This weapon provided a marked improvement in performance over the previous generation of short-range missiles operated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and its development has placed China among the handful of nations with a defence-industrial base capable of producing such a weapon.

The paper would also note:

China is also developing a very-long-range AAM intended to be used to attack high-value targets such as tanker, airborne early-warning, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft. Furthermore, Beijing appears to be pursuing two or more configurations of rocket-ramjet AAMs.

By the early to mid-2020s, China will clearly have a broader – and far more capable – range of air-to-air weapons to complement the combat aircraft that are now in development. These will likely force the US and its regional allies to re-examine not only their tactics, techniques and procedures, but also the direction of their own combat-aerospace development programmes.


Chinese airpower when coupled together with its formidable A2AD capabilities creates a modern day sword and shield able to take on virtually any threat.

Other Critical Factors

One area in which the US still dominates is through its submarine fleet. While China possesses a large number of submarines with improving capabilities, the US is still thought to have an advantage in this field. US submarines could disrupt cross-strait shipping as well as threaten Chinese ground targets with submarine-launched cruise missiles.

US submarines would be one of the few platforms able to potentially breach Chinese A2AD capabilities. Because modern submarine warfare is rare, it is difficult to draw from recent examples to predict possible outcomes regarding submarine warfare between the US and China and is a critical factor that only time will fully reveal.

Chinese media, cyber and space-based military capabilities would also be critical in any potential conflict and are areas the US clearly understands parity is nearly reached with its own capabilities or has already been reached.

Other critical factors that would come into play during the most likely conflicts China faces would be the capabilities of its ground forces. Chinese tanks and armored vehicles have been developed through lessons learned from Russian platforms and are admittedly on par with their Western counterparts in terms of fire control, armor, and countermeasures against anti-tank missiles. Chinese artillery also follows the Russian model, a model proving itself deadly and effective in Ukraine.

Underwriting all of these capabilities is China’s massive industrial base. Western experts including those at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in a paper titled, “The Return of Industrial Warfare,” would note that the West has fallen behind Russia in this regard.

The paper claims:

This situation is especially critical because behind the Russian invasion stands the world’s manufacturing capital – China. As the US begins to expend more and more of its stockpiles to keep Ukraine in the war, China has yet to provide any meaningful military assistance to Russia. The West must assume that China will not allow Russia to be defeated, especially due to a lack of ammunition. If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must first radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime.

If it is true that the West lags behind Russia in terms of its military industrial production, it is many times more true in regards to China. While the RUSI paper admits this is a problem the West must rectify, it is unlikely able to. Whatever steps the West takes to improve its military industrial capacity, both Russia and China will not only match such steps but ensure they remain far ahead of them.

Even should US capabilities match those of China, the fact that it is provoking a conflict halfway around the world particularly in regards to Taiwan puts it at a disadvantage logistically. It is a fight the US holds multiple disadvantages in and a fight the US should not be picking in the first place.

China has carefully for decades cultivated its military capabilities to defend China from foreign aggression, subjugation, and the humiliation associated with it, all of which the Chinese people have suffered at the hands of Western powers in the past.

With the US military itself admitting Chinese military capabilities are in some ways reaching parity with US military capabilities and in other areas surpassing them, the notion of the US using military force with impunity in or around Chinese territory has significantly diminished. In fact, the desperate, reckless urgency that has taken hold of Washington in recent years in regards to China and Washington’s growing inability to “contain” it is at the center of US provocations like Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan.

It will now be a matter of Beijing managing additional and increasingly desperate provocations by the US against China to defend Chinese national security while avoiding a potentially destructive conflict with the United States. The most logical decision Washington could make is to adopt a multipolar mindset allowing it to peacefully coexist alongside China and other nations rather than its current continued attempts to assert itself above all other nations.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2022/08/ ... ary-might/

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Can We Please Have an Adult Conversation About China?
VIJAY PRASHAD AUGUST 16, 2022

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Wang Bingxiu of the Shuanglang Farmer Painting Club (Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, China), Untitled, 2018. Photo: Tricontinental.

By Vijay Prashad – Aug 11, 2022

As the US legislative leader Nancy Pelosi swept into Taipei, people around the world held their breath. Her visit was an act of provocation. In December 1978, the US government – following a United Nations General Assembly decision in 1971 – recognised the People’s Republic of China, setting aside its previous treaty obligations to Taiwan. Despite this, US President Jimmy Carter signed the Taiwan Relations Act (1979), which allowed US officials to maintain intimate contact with Taiwan, including through the sale of weapons. This decision is noteworthy as Taiwan was under martial law from 1949 to 1987, requiring a regular weapons supplier.

Pelosi’s journey to Taipei was part of the US’s ongoing provocation of China. This campaign includes former President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’, former President Donald Trump’s ‘trade war’, the creation of security partnerships, the Quad and AUKUS, and the gradual transformation of NATO into an instrument against China. This agenda continues with President Joe Biden’s assessment that China must be weakened since it is the ‘only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge’ to the US-dominated world system.

China did not use its military power to prevent Pelosi and other US congressional leaders from travelling to Taipei. But, when they left, the Chinese government announced that it would halt eight key areas of cooperation with the US, including cancelling military exchanges and suspending civil cooperation on a range of issues, such as climate change. That is what Pelosi’s trip accomplished: more confrontation, less cooperation.

Indeed, anyone who stands for greater cooperation with China is vilified in the Western media as well as in Western-allied media from the Global South as an ‘agent’ of China or a promoter of ‘disinformation’. I responded to some of these allegations in South Africa’s The Sunday Times on 7 August 2022. The remainder of this newsletter reproduces that article.

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Ghazi Ahmet (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China), Muqam, 1984.

A new kind of madness is seeping into global political discourse, a poisonous fog that suffocates reason. This fog, which has long marinated in old, ugly ideas of white supremacy and Western superiority, is clouding our ideas of humanity. The general malady that ensues is a deep suspicion and hatred of China, not just of its current leadership or even the Chinese political system, but hatred of the entire country and of Chinese civilisation – hatred of just about anything to do with China.

This madness has made it impossible to have an adult conversation about China. Words and phrases such as ‘authoritarian’ and ‘genocide’ are thrown around with no care to ascertain facts. China is a country of 1.4 billion people, an ancient civilisation that suffered, as much of the Global South did, a century of humiliation, in this case from the British-inflicted Opium Wars (which began in 1839) until the 1949 Chinese Revolution, when leader Mao Zedong deliberately announced that the Chinese people had stood up. Since then, Chinese society has been deeply transformed by utilising its social wealth to address the age-old problems of hunger, illiteracy, despondency, and patriarchy. As with all social experiments, there have been great problems, but these are to be expected from any collective human action. Rather than seeing China for both its successes and contradictions, this madness of our times seeks to reduce China to an Orientalist caricature – an authoritarian state with a genocidal agenda that seeks global domination.

This madness has a definite point of origin in the United States, whose ruling elites are greatly threatened by the advances of the Chinese people – particularly in robotics, telecommunications, high-speed rail, and computer technology. These advances pose an existential threat to the advantages long enjoyed by Western corporations, who have benefited from centuries of colonialism and the straitjacket of intellectual property laws. Fear of its own fragility and the integration of Europe into Eurasian economic developments has led the West to launch an information war against China.

This ideological tidal wave is overwhelming our ability to have serious, balanced conversations about China’s role in the world. Western countries with a long history of brutal colonialism in Africa, for instance, now regularly decry what they call Chinese colonialism in Africa without any acknowledgment of their own past or the entrenched French and US military presence across the continent. Accusations of ‘genocide’ are always directed at the darker peoples of the world – whether in Darfur or in Xinjiang – but never at the US, whose illegal war on Iraq alone resulted in the deaths of over a million people. The International Criminal Court, steeped in Eurocentrism, indicts one African leader after another for crimes against humanity but has never indicted a Western leader for their endless wars of aggression.

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Dedron (Tibet Autonomous Region, China), Untitled, 2013.

The fog of this New Cold War is enveloping us today. Recently, in the Daily Maverick and the Mail & Guardian, I was accused of promoting ‘Chinese and Russian propaganda’ and having close links to the Chinese party-state. What is the basis of these claims?

Firstly, elements in Western intelligence attempt to brand any dissent against the Western assault on China as disinformation and propaganda. For instance, my December 2021 report from Uganda debunked the false claim that a Chinese loan to the country sought to take over its only international airport as part of a malicious ‘debt trap project’ – a narrative that has also been repeatedly debunked by leading US scholars. Through conversations with Ugandan government officials and public statements by Minister of Finance Matia Kasaija, I found, however, that the deal was poorly understood by the state but that there was no question of the seizure of Entebbe International Airport. Despite the fact that Bloomberg’s entire story on this loan was built on a lie, they were not tarred with the slur of ‘carrying water for Washington’. That is the power of the information war.

Secondly, there is a claim about my alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party based on the simple fact that I engage with Chinese intellectuals and have an unpaid post at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University, a prominent think tank based in Beijing. Yet, many of the South African publications that have made these outrageous claims are principally funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Soros took the name of his foundation from Karl Popper’s book, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), in which Popper developed the principle of ‘unlimited tolerance’. Popper argued for maximum dialogue and that opinions against one’s own should be countered ‘by rational argument’. Where are the rational arguments here, in a smear campaign that says dialogue with Chinese intellectuals is somehow off-limits but conversation with US government officials is perfectly acceptable? What level of civilisational apartheid is being produced here, where liberals in South Africa are promoting a ‘clash of civilisations’ rather than a ‘dialogue between civilisations’?

Countries in the Global South can learn a great deal from China’s experiments with socialism. Its eradication of extreme poverty during the pandemic – an accomplishment celebrated by the United Nations – can teach us how to tackle similar obstinate facts in our own countries (which is why Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research produced a detailed study about the techniques that China employed to achieve this feat). No country in the world is perfect, and none is above criticism. But to develop a paranoid attitude towards one country and to attempt to isolate it is socially dangerous. Walls need to be knocked down, not built up. The US is provoking a conflict due to its own anxieties about China’s economic advances: we should not be drawn in as useful idiots. We need to have an adult conversation about China, not one imposed upon us by powerful interests that are not our own.

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Yang Guangqi of the Shuanglang Farmer Painting Club (Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, China), Untitled, 2018.

https://orinocotribune.com/can-we-pleas ... out-china/
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:56 pm

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Why the People’s Republic of China embraced Paul Robeson
The below article by Gao Yunxiang (Professor of History at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada and author of the critically acclaimed Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century, published last year) is a fascinating and detailed account of the special relations between the Chinese revolution and the great African-American singer, actor and Marxist Paul Robeson (1898-1976), which date from the 1930s and which still resonate today. Professor Gao describes this as “part of the history that connects Black internationalism with the experiences of Chinese and Chinese American people.”

She explains that the Chinese love for Robeson “derives most of all from his role in globalising the future national anthem of the People’s Republic of China.” Introduced to it in November 1940, for Robeson, its lyrics “expressed the determination of the world’s oppressed, in their struggle for liberation.” In November 1941, he recorded it in an album together with the Chinese People’s Chorus, which had been organised by members of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, an important working-class organisation in New York City’s Chinatown. Soong Qingling, widow of China’s first president Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and later Honorary President of the People’s Republic of China, described Robeson as the “voice of the people of all lands.”

However, Robeson’s connections to the struggles and aspirations of the Chinese people date back to at least 1935, when he met in London with Mei Lanfang, considered the father of modern Peking Opera, who was returning from three weeks of successful appearances in the Soviet Union.

On October 1 1949, when Chairman Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Robeson sang the national anthem on the streets of Harlem and cabled his congratulations to the Chinese leader. Despite vicious persecution, he stood firm when Chinese forces entered the Korean war. Mutual support between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would, he insisted, be the “great truth” in their shared journey to freedom. It was only logical for Chinese volunteers to come to “the aid of the heroic Korean people.”

The article also highlights how the 1940 film ‘The Proud Valley’, starring Robeson and set in the mining communities of South Wales, was shown in China in the 1950s as well as his participation in mass China friendship activities in Britain after the US authorities were forced to restore his passport.

Whilst this article contains a couple of assertions towards its conclusion with which the editors of this website do not agree, we republish it because the fascinating and moving historical material it presents needs to be made known to the widest possible audience.

The article was originally carried by Australia’s Aeon Newsletter.
Several times in recent years, Chinese broadcasters have aired shows that feature Paul Robeson (1898-1976), one of the most popular African American singers and actors of his era and a well-known civil rights activist. China National Radio and various channels of the widely influential China Central TV showcased Robeson on programmes in 2009, 2012 and 2021 narrating China’s resistance to foreign military aggressions. This is a remarkable amount of coverage in Chinese media for an American who died decades ago. Though not widely known in the United States, the relationship between Robeson and China continues to resonate in China today. It’s part of the history that connects Black internationalism with the experiences of Chinese and Chinese American people. Robeson was one of the most important figures in an alliance between Maoist China and politically radical African Americans.

The Chinese love for Robeson derives most of all from his role in globalising the future national anthem of the People’s Republic of China. In November 1940, in New York City, Robeson received a phone call from the Chinese writer and philosopher Lin Yutang. Lin asked Robeson to meet a recent arrival from China: Liu Liangmo, a prolific journalist, talented musician and Christian activist. Within half an hour, Robeson was in Lin’s apartment for the meeting. In his numerous articles published in Chinese-language periodicals, Liu recalled Robeson ‘beaming over me with his friendly smile and his giant hands firmly holding mine’. The two became fast friends.

Robeson enquired about the mass singing movement that Liu had initiated in China. Liu told him about the new genre of Chinese fighting and folk songs he had helped to invent for war mobilisation, singing some examples. Robeson’s favourite was the signature piece ‘Chee Lai!’ or ‘March of the Volunteers’ because, as he explained, its lyric ‘Arise, Ye who refuse to be bond slaves!’ expressed the determination of the world’s oppressed, in their struggle for liberation. Listening intently to Liu’s rendition of the song, Robeson wrote down some notes, and left with a copy of the lyrics. On a starry night weeks later, Liu attended an outdoor Robeson concert at Lewisohn Stadium on the campus of the City College of New York. Robeson sang many Black spirituals and songs of national battles against fascism; then he announced: ‘I am going to sing a Chinese fighting song tonight in honour of the Chinese people, and that song is “Chee Lai!”’ Robeson, Liu recalled, sang in perfect Chinese.

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Cover of the album Chee Lai! recorded by Paul Robeson, Liu Liangmo and the Chinese People’s Chorus for Keynote Records in 1941

In November 1941, Robeson, Liu and the Chinese People’s Chorus – which Liu had organised among members of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, a labour union, in New York City’s Chinatown – recorded an album with Keynote Records entitled Chee Lai! Songs of New China. Liu’s liner notes for the album tell that he saw the collaboration as ‘a strong token of solidarity between the Chinese and the Negro People’. Robeson’s notes read:

Chee Lai! (Arise!) is on the lips of millions of Chinese today, a sort of unofficial anthem, I am told, typifying the unconquerable spirit of this people. It is a pleasure and a privilege to sing both this song of modern composition and the old folk songs to which a nation in struggle has put new words.

Madame Sun Yat-sen, the Leftist sister of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, China’s contemporary first lady, praised Robeson as ‘the voice of the people of all lands’ and ‘our own Liu Liang-mo, who has taught a nation of soldiers, guerrillas, farmers, and road builders to sing while they toil and fight.’ Madame Sun added that she hoped the album of songs ‘that blend the harmonies of East and West [would] be another bond between free peoples.’ The New York Times lauded the album as one of the year’s best, and it quickly became popular around the world.

Throughout the 1940s and ’50s, Robeson reprised ‘Chee Lai!’ at his numerous concerts in North America and Europe, and the song became part of Western life. Hollywood filmmakers adopted ‘Chee Lai!’ as the theme song of the MGM film Dragon Seed (1944), starring Katharine Hepburn and derived from the Nobel laureate Pearl S Buck’s bestselling novel about China’s war of resistance against Japan. The US Army Air Force Orchestra played the tune at the start and end of a film produced by the US state department, Why We Fight: The Battle of China (1944), directed by Frank Capra.

Robeson and Liu’s collaborations were part of Robeson’s alliances with sojourning Leftist Chinese artists. Among those Robeson befriended were Buck, the novelist and gatekeeper of China matters in the US; Anna May Wong, a renowned Chinese American actress; Madame Sun Yat-sen; and Mei Lanfang, China’s most prominent opera singer. The man the Chinese state media would call the ‘Black King of Songs’ and Mei – the ‘King of Peking Opera’ – had met in London in 1935. Mei arrived there in May, after a successful three weeks of appearances in Moscow and Leningrad with Hu Die (Butterfly Wu) – voted China’s ‘Movie Queen’ by fans in 1933. Robeson was in London acting in Stevedore (1934), a play about Black-white labour unity that had been produced in New York City.

Now established as a fearless and reliable friend of China, Robeson became political poison in the US

Robeson’s adoption of the song ‘Chee Lai!’ into his repertoire led to a closer relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China. In 1949, following their victory over the Nationalists, the victorious CCP made ‘Chee Lai!’ China’s national anthem. On 1 October, celebrating the announcement of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Robeson sang ‘Chee Lai!’ on the streets of Harlem. He telegrammed Mao Zedong to congratulate the new regime: ‘We celebrate the birth of the People’s Republic of China, because it is a great force in the struggles for world peace and human freedom.’ The People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency, the mouthpieces of the CCP, published Robeson’s telegram. Now established as a fearless and reliable friend of China, Robeson became political poison in the US.

On 20 April 1949, Robeson had told the World Congress of Partisans of Peace in Paris that it was ‘unthinkable that American Negroes would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet Union.’ Jackie Robinson, the African American baseball star whom Robeson had helped integrate into the game, condemned Robeson’s statement. But the African American intellectual and civil rights activist W E B Du Bois stood firmly by Robeson, as he recalled in his Autobiography (1968):

Robeson said that his people wanted Peace and ‘would never fight the Soviet Union.’ I joined with the thousands in wild acclaim.

This, for America, was his crime. He might hate anybody. He might join in murder around the world. But for him to declare that he loved the Soviet Union and would not join in war against it – that was the highest crime that the United States recognised … Yet has Paul Robeson kept his soul and stood his ground. Still he loves and honours the Soviet Union. Still he has hope for America. Still he asserts his faith in God.


The People’s Daily condemned Robinson and defended Robeson. It reported Robeson’s speech, highlighting the standing ovation the star received from the 2,000 attendees including the Nobel Laureate and nuclear scientist Frédéric Joliot-Curie and Pablo Picasso, a friend of Robeson’s.

Robeson’s ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Soviet Union attracted protests in the US. In August 1949, during the Peekskill riots in New York state, Right-wing mobs attacked a public concert where Robeson was due to sing. Soon, the US State Department cancelled Robeson’s passport, stalling his career. Meanwhile, following its rough birth amid the intensifying Cold War tensions, the nascent PRC confronted a superpower with nuclear weapons in the Korean War.

In his writings and speeches and in Chinese state media, Robeson and the PRC lent each other unyielding support. Robeson announced that the communist regimes’ mutual support would be the ‘great truth’ in their shared journey to freedom. Thus, it was only logical for the Chinese volunteers to come to ‘the aid of the heroic Korean people,’ Robeson insisted. He firmly believed that China’s involvement in the Korean War was essential to defend hard-earned ‘freedom, dignity, and security’ on behalf of millions in Asia. The People’s Daily cited a national poll in the US showing majority support for ending the Korean War immediately, and credited Robeson and Du Bois with influencing this trend in public opinion.

As news of the Peekskill riots rolled around the world, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China National Association of Musicians issued a joint public letter to console Robeson and express ‘our extraordinary wrath and firm protest against the crimes of American fascist bandits attacking the concerts of “the Black King of Songs”.’ The letter read: ‘We send our brotherly consolation to Robeson from the East afar, and warmly welcome him to liberated China.’

The narrative on ‘the Black King of Songs’ in China changed, from exoticised entertainer to heroic role model

Throughout the 1950s, the PRC promoted Robeson as a heroic revolutionary model to inspire the socialist citizens of China. Robeson shared this high standing with a few other foreigners, including the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Marie Curie; the Vietnamese Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh; the legendary Canadian doctor Norman Bethune; and Lu Xun, the father of China’s modern literature. Robeson was the only Black person accorded such a high honour, and this fact revolutionised the image of Black people in China and became a milestone in Sino-African relations.

Robeson enabled the CCP to make a contrast with US democracy’s system of Jim Crow racism that kept millions of Black Americans living under apartheid. Encouraged to accept Robeson as a heroic revolutionary model, the masses in PRC were bombarded with publicity materials about him. Robeson was reintroduced as ‘the Black King of Songs’ who ‘embodied the perfect marriage between art and politics’ for the oppressed masses in the world. His old friend Liu Liangmo wrote an article called ‘Paul Robeson: The People’s Singer’ that circulated across China and American Chinatowns in 1949 and 1950. After a decade promoting the causes of China to African Americans in the US, Liu had just returned to China to serve as a high-level cultural official. He pioneered hailing Black American greatness to the Chinese people. His article on Robeson, composed months before the establishment of the PRC, changed the mainstream narrative on ‘the Black King of Songs’ within China, from exoticised entertainer to a heroic role model. Following Liu’s piece, Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World (1946) – Shirley Graham Du Bois’s biography of Robeson – was translated into Chinese. To instil long-lasting messages, some Chinese publications in 1949 targeted children with cartoon series. Collections of Robeson’s songs, called ‘Black spirituals’ with lyrics in both English and Chinese and simplified musical notes, became accessible to the general public.

In the mid-20th century, Robeson grew into an icon of internationalism and socialist values. Chinese writers acclaimed the physical features of ‘the Black King of Songs’, highlighting his skin colour in discussions of his art and politics. The People’s Daily exclaimed: ‘As long as we have Robeson, Black music’s contribution to world culture is self-explanatory.’ In the same newspaper, the editor Yuan Shuipai’s poetry narrating the Peekskill riots said: ‘Robeson’s dark face shines, and Robeson’s songs ring.’ That title of the biography Paul Robeson: Citizen of the World highlights his internationalism. Covers of all the publications on Robeson were dominated by a dark background indicating his race, into which his face blurred, with Chinese characters in blood red symbolising his Leftism.

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The cover of the Chinese translation of Paul Robeson’s self-published memoir Here I Stand (1958)

Film also contributed to Robeson’s popularity as a hero in China. During the Republic of China period (1912-49), representation of Black people was dominated by stereotypical ‘primitive’ athletic and musical personas, and commercialised exoticism. The mainstream media rarely covered Black celebrities but they did feature Robeson. His best-known film, The Emperor Jones (1933), was screened in Shanghai’s theatres. Invoking the tragic Chinese historical hero Xiang Yu, the film was translated as End of the King. The Shanghai Daily, perhaps the most popular contemporary periodical, ran an advertisement promoting the film as a ‘Lifetime Masterpiece by Paul Robeson’. The ad featured a couplet summarising Xiang Yu’s defeat.

PRC filmmakers also participated in the transcontinental collaboration of the noted Joris Ivens documentary The Song of the Rivers (1954). Portraying Robeson as the symbol of global proletarian solidarity, the film illustrates the shared destinies and hopes of workers by the Volga, the Mississippi, the Nile, the Yangtze, the Amazon and the Ganges rivers. The Shanghai Film Studio immediately translated it into Chinese. While the new regime generally rejected Hollywood and European films, a British film starring Robeson – The Proud Valley (1940), about an American seaman who joins a mining community in South Wales, sharing their passions and struggles – was brought to Chinese audiences around 1956, and was well received. Featuring a still from the movie, in 1959 the People’s Daily reported that Chinese audiences celebrated Robeson’s 61st birthday with a viewing.

The Proud Valley featured the muscular and bare-chested Robeson as a miner struggling in a labour dispute, and provided China’s socialist citizens with a model of masculinity. The ‘naked manhood of Paul Robeson’, of which ‘some white folk are frightened,’ as W E B Du Bois had previously noted, was not new in China. Nie Er, the talented composer of ‘Chee Lai!’, had impersonated a Black miner in the film The Glory of Motherhood (1933), sometimes translated as The Light of Maternal Instinct. Nie proudly distributed to friends autographed stills of himself, half-naked and painted dark, imitating Robeson.

Robeson had sung ‘Chee Lai!’ to narrate the people’s suffering and struggle in the dark ‘old China’

The PRC also used Robeson’s athletic body to highlight the distinction between ‘abnormal’ and corrupt commercialised professional sports – in both capitalist countries and the colonial treaty ports of the ‘old China’ – and socialist sports for the wellbeing of the citizenry and the nation. Chinese media justified Robeson’s brief career as a professional athlete as a necessity for a good family man who was ‘pressured by heavier obligations after his marriage’. And it applauded him for comprehending that the capitalist owners ran their stadiums and teams like stores, exploiting athletes and putting their lives at risk for profits. His biographers noted that US businessmen attempted to lure Robeson into highly racialised and controversial professional boxing by promising him the title ‘King of Boxing’ and great wealth, but Robeson flatly refused.

In 1958, the US Supreme Court ruled that the State Department lacked the authority to deny passports to citizens who refused to sign the affidavit that they were not communists. Robeson immediately secured a new passport. China’s state media celebrated his new freedom to travel as a triumph of justice, peace and democracy. Between 1958 and 1960, the People’s Daily followed Robeson’s whereabouts, lauding his ongoing affection toward China. It reported that the singer paid tribute to the supportive Chinese people by reprising Chinese folk songs, including the classic ‘Over That Faraway Place’, adapted from a Kazakh folk tune, at his Carnegie Hall concert and the British Peace Council gathering in London in 1958. The paper celebrated that Robeson ‘sang for the new China’s 10th birthday’ at a concert in 1959 organised by the Sino-British Friendship Association at the Princes Theatre in London. The People’s Daily also commented that, while Robeson had sung ‘Chee Lai!’ to narrate the people’s suffering and struggle in the dark ‘old China’, he performed romantic folk songs such as ‘Over That Faraway Place’ to reflect the optimism and happiness in the new China. In 1960, Robeson and his wife joined 9,000 people attending the first Chinese Film Festival in London organised by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Robeson commented that, unlike US films, Chinese cinema reflected the feeling of the people.

US officials made sure that Robeson’s passport was ‘not valid for travel to or in communist controlled portions of China[,] Korea [and] Viet-Nam[,] or to or in areas of Albania [and] Hungary.’ So the People’s Daily presented his reunion with Chinese delegates in London to offer a rosy picture of socialist development while the Great Leap Forward unfolded. This radical campaign, which aimed to catch up and surpass industrialisation in Great Britain and the US and to build socialism ‘better, faster, and cheaper’, led to great famine for 20-30 million people.

Robeson already had expansive ideological and artistic visions before he first encountered Leftist Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party. Yet, those contacts powerfully shaped his philosophical, political and personal perceptions of life and the future. China became a joyful extension of his Left-wing views. Robeson had predicted that the communist victory in 1949 made China the model for millions to beat colonialism. He romantically imagined that the coloured world could view the rising China as a ‘new star of the East … pointing the way out from imperialist enslavement to independence and equality. China has shown the way.’

The Leftist legacy of portraying African American figures as the true revolutionaries led the People’s Republic of China to embrace Robeson as a hero and a role model. Robeson’s public support justified the CCP’s involvement in the Korean War and later facilitated its new diplomatic defenders and tactics. As the PRC contested Soviet dominance of world communism and aspired to leadership of the Third World that bound the destinies of China with former agricultural colonies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Robeson’s giant global stature bridged China’s alliance with Africa. Yet, following the Sino-Soviet split in the early 1960s, PRC state media and publishers fell silent on Robeson. His 70th birthday in 1968 slipped by without notice in China, although his previous birthdays were celebrated as state events. Robeson’s position advocating peaceful coexistence for countries with different systems, highly applauded by the PRC during the Korean War, now fell on the wrong side of tensions between the Soviet Union and China.

In 1976, with the end of the radical Maoist years, Robeson remerged as a hero, and he remains popular in China today. Even as China moves from communism to fullscale capitalism, Robeson retains a special place in the nation’s heart. Various state organs including the Soong Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen) Foundation, the China Society for People’s Friendship Studies, and the China Daily organised a tribute on 9 April 2008, marking Robeson’s 110th birthday. His version of ‘Chee Lai!’ was played in the Grand Hall of the People’s Congress in Beijing during Nie Er Music Week in 2009. Robeson is celebrated for globalising China’s national anthem, for his songs that set hearts stirring, for his contributions to the Chinese nation’s liberation – and to the friendship between the people of China and the United States, particularly African Americans. His classic ‘Ol’ Man River’ continues to fascinate the Chinese.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/08/26/w ... l-robeson/

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What the media gets wrong about Taiwan’s place in China
We are pleased to republish the below article by Brendan Devlin, which was originally carried by the Canadian publication Passage.

Brendan sets out some vital contemporary and historical facts with regard to the Taiwan situation as a necessary corrective at a time when the corporate media essentially serve to uncritically amplify the US-led narrative. He shows how China’s 1842 defeat in the first Opium War, waged by British imperialism, set the scene for Japan’s seizure of Taiwan in 1895 and that any idea of partitioning China was solely an imperialist project, as, for example, enunciated by Winston Churchill in 1902, and continues:

Thus, in 1949, there was no split between Taiwan and China. Instead, there were two governments claiming to be the sole legitimate government of all of China. One was based in Beijing and controlled the whole of mainland China, while the other was based in Taipei and controlled Taiwan and a few other small islands. Both governments espoused the One China principle, which holds that there’s only one China and that Taiwan is part of it.”

Brendan explains that the separatist elements that have emerged in Taiwanese politics since the 1990s have throughout been deeply connected to US imperialist strategy, with the US arming and training military forces on the island, regularly sailing warships through the Taiwan Strait, and President Biden openly contradicting his own government’s ostensible policy on several occasions.
United States House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan earlier this month received extensive media coverage across the globe. In North American media, this coverage was framed by self-interested distortions about the history of China and Taiwan.

Most articles briefly explained that China claims Taiwan as its own territory, and then moved on without any further explanation. Some added that Taiwan will “be annexed by force if necessary,” that China opposes visits by foreign governments and/or that China considers relations with Taiwan as an internal matter of sovereignty. Certain articles also briefly and selectively quoted Chinese officials to bolster the above points.

Meanwhile, many articles uncritically included claims that Taiwan is a sovereign country. When discussing China’s response to Pelosi’s visit, an Associated Press (AP) article published at the CBC wrote simply that “Taiwan decried the actions, saying they violate the island’s sovereignty.” The article also quoted the President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-Wen, saying: “We will firmly uphold our nation’s sovereignty and continue to hold the line of defence for democracy.” Both this article and another one from AP published at Global News quoted an official from Taiwan’s Defence Ministry saying the Chinese response to the visit “equals to sealing off Taiwan by air and sea, such an act severely violates our country’s territorial sovereignty.”

Thus, readers are told that China claims Taiwan as its own territory but that many officials in Taiwan claim to be a sovereign nation. These conflicting messages come with little to no historical context. Instead, these articles frame the China-Taiwan relationship in a way that raises several unanswered questions, such as: Why does China claim Taiwan? What’s the history behind this claim? Why are there competing claims over Taiwan’s sovereignty? Why is China willing to go to such lengths to enforce its claims?

In order to answer these questions that journalists seem uninterested in addressing, we first need to get a better understanding of Chinese history.

China And Taiwan: Some Historical Context

This history starts with China’s defeat in the First Opium War in 1842. This marked the beginning of the Century of Humiliation, which, as Michael Zhou writes in the South China Morning Post, consisted of “military defeats, unequal treaties, territorial concessions and social unrest, which roused feelings of humiliation, shame and anger.” During this era, China went from a premier global power to one of the poorest countries in the world, as imperialist forces competed to carve it up into their own spheres of influence, including the British taking Hong Kong.

In 1895 following China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese war, Japan took Taiwan as a colony, holding it until its defeat in the Second World War. In 1902, future Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Winston Churchill captured the mood of many imperialists at the time, stating: “I believe in the ultimate partition of China — I mean ultimate.”

The Century of Humiliation brought about the end of China’s Qing Dynasty, and the Republic of China (ROC) was formed in its place in 1912. The ROC was controlled by the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which began fighting a civil war against the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1927. Throughout the civil war, there were also periods of uneasy cooperation between the two sides, such as in 1937 when Japan began another invasion of China, marking the beginning of China’s part in the Second World War.

Following Japan’s defeat in 1945, the civil war between the CPC and the KMT resumed in full force. The KMT retained control of the ROC, but the CPC had come to hold significant swathes of territory. In 1949, the CPC won the civil war, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded. This marked the end of China’s Century of Humiliation.

At that point, as accurately noted in a Reuters article published in The Globe and Mail, “[KMT leader] Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Republic of China government fled to Taiwan.” Several media articles published in Canadian outlets erroneously claimed that China and Taiwan split after this incident, giving the impression that the KMT established an independent state in Taiwan.

This isn’t the case, as the KMT didn’t secede from the mainland or create its own state. Instead, the KMT continued insisting they were still in control of the sole legitimate government of China: the ROC. They vowed to retake the mainland from the CPC, and received assistance from the U.S. to hold onto the land they had.

Thus, in 1949, there was no split between Taiwan and China. Instead, there were two governments claiming to be the sole legitimate government of all of China. One was based in Beijing and controlled the whole of mainland China, while the other was based in Taipei and controlled Taiwan and a few other small islands.

Both governments espoused the One China principle, which holds that there’s only one China and that Taiwan is part of it. This forced countries around the world to choose between recognizing and establishing formal diplomatic relations with either the PRC or the ROC. Neither the PRC nor the ROC would establish diplomatic relations with a country that recognized the other.

Initially, most of the world opted to recognize the ROC as the legitimate government of China. The tides began shifting in the 1960s when France became the first major Western power to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC. Canada followed in 1970, and China’s seat at the United Nations switched to being held by the PRC in 1971. The U.S. finally recognized the PRC in 1979. Every country that established relations with the PRC had to break formal ties with the ROC and agree to respect the One China policy.

After decades of maintaining a One China policy and helping to isolate the PRC from the world, some ROC governments began unofficially claiming in the 1990s that Taiwan was already an independent country. In 1999, for example, ROC President Lee Teng-hui claimed that the PRC had never held the territory under his government’s control and that the ROC was already sovereign, so there was therefore no need for Taiwan to declare independence. Lee’s KMT government never gave a clear, coherent explanation of this statement or its deviation from years of policy, but clarified it wasn’t a declaration of independence.

Subsequent governments in Taiwan have oscillated between rhetorically claiming the ROC is already independent and maintaining that Taiwan is a part of China. The current government, led by Tsai Ing-Wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, strongly supports the position that Taiwan is already independent as the ROC. However, no ROC government has ever formally declared that Taiwan is an independent, sovereign state, and it hasn’t been recognized as such by other states. Rather, a mere 14 states — Vatican City, Tuvalu, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Paraguay, Palau, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, Eswatini, Belize — have recognized the ROC as the legitimate government of China.

So, to summarize this section: 1) the PRC’s position on Taiwan has been clear, consistent, and known to all since 1949: there’s only one China and Taiwan is a province of China that will be reunified with the mainland; 2) every government that has established relations with China has agreed to adhere to the One China policy; 3) Taiwan has never formally declared independence from China.

With all of this in mind, it’s inaccurate to claim that China has been split since 1949.

China, Taiwan And Modern Imperialism

Even with this historical overview, some may still wonder: Why is China’s claim to Taiwan so important that it’s willing to risk war? Simply put, this isn’t just about history, and Taiwan’s status has serious, present-day implications for China and its population due to United States-led imperialism.

The U.S. currently has China surrounded with military bases. In China’s worst-case scenario, Taiwan could secede and then once again be used to host U.S. military bases, as was the case until 1979. These concerns have been heightened given the U.S.’s rabid anti-China turn over the past several years, as well as its long history of destabilizing and overthrowing governments big and small around the world. Taiwan’s status in relation to the One China policy is the only thing currently ensuring the U.S. can’t place a military base there again.

Beyond being a military asset, Taiwan is the global centre of production of computer chips, making it crucial for global supply chains and the production of electronics by U.S. companies. While in Taiwan, Pelosi had a meeting with the chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation. The visit coincides with American efforts to convince the company to set up a manufacturing base in the U.S. and to stop making advanced chips for Chinese companies. (There was no mention of this in any of the articles I’ve previously mentioned.)

The U.S. has long considered a reunified China to be a threat to its interests in the region. In 1950, U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur famously warned that Taiwan in the hands of the CPC was like an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” that could “checkmate counteroffensive operations by United States Forces based on Okinawa and the Philippines.” Even today, such a key American geopolitical and economic asset as Taiwan coming under the control of Beijing would be a nightmare scenario for the U.S.

Accordingly, the U.S. has been carefully setting the stage for violent conflict over Taiwan in a few ways.

First, the U.S. has been arming and training military forces on the island. Since 2010, the U.S. has announced more than $23 billion USD in arms sales to Taiwan, with $5.1 billion USD in 2020 alone. There’s currently a backlog of an estimated $14 billion USD in military equipment that Taiwan has purchased from the U.S. Moreover, the U.S. admitted last year that a special operations unit and marines have been stationed in Taiwan to train military forces there.

In recent years, the U.S. and its allies have also taken to regularly sailing warships directly through the Taiwan Strait. Focus Taiwan reported in July that “U.S. warships have been making routine, almost monthly passages through the waterway separating Taiwan and China for the past two-plus years.” Last October, U.S. warships were joined by Canadian warships sailing through the Taiwan Strait. U.S. warships escorting Pelosi to Taiwan should be understood in this context.

In this already dangerous situation, U.S. President Joe Biden has been publicly contradicting the government’s policy of strategic ambiguity, whereby the U.S. is intentionally vague about whether it would intervene militarily on Taiwan’s behalf if the mainland uses force to achieve reunification.

In August and October 2021, Biden vowed the U.S. would intervene, but then the White House quickly clarified that this (somehow) didn’t mean there was a change in policy. Biden said the same in May, only for the White House to immediately walk it back once again. These sorts of statements have created an atmosphere of confusion as the U.S. works to further militarize the region, which increases the risk of inciting a regional military conflict that could escalate into a world-threatening one between nuclear powers.

The stakes of the conflict between the U.S. and China over Taiwan are hard to overstate. As corporate media uncritically amplifies the U.S.-led narrative on Taiwan, the public must be equipped with knowledge of the historical and present-day context necessary to push for peace in the Taiwan Strait.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/08/19/w ... -in-china/

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US media hide military threats against China
This insightful article by Sara Flounders, originally published in Workers World, exposes the incredible hypocrisy shown by the ‘free’ media – giving non-stop coverage to China’s allegedly aggressive response to Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit whilst studiously ignoring the RIMPAC maneuvers being carried out at the same time by the US naval command.

Sara notes that the US maintains a constant military presence in the region, and connects this back to the imperialist domination of China, starting with the First Opium War nearly 200 years ago. Just as the Opium Wars were fought to impose British imperial hegemony, so is the current escalation in the Pacific region being carried out in order to impose US imperial hegemony. The difference being that, following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the CPC-led government has been able to “rebuild a strong, united China which is increasingly able to defend its coastal waters and resist US imperialist demands.”

The author points out that the US is conducting a “desperate imperialist strategy to reverse its declining global position”, and is wreaking havoc in the process. Progressive and pro-peace forces worldwide must join hands against this menace.
Consider what is being said, as well as what is totally omitted, in the U.S. coverage of China’s naval action around Taiwan.

The U.S. naval command RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific Amphibious Assault Training) was carrying out maneuvers involving 170 aircraft, 38 ships, four submarines, and 25,000 military personnel from all the G7 imperialist countries. Some 19 other Asia Pacific countries were pulled in for symbolic participation. RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime exercise.

This aggressive maritime action took place from June 29 to Aug. 4. In other words, it was going on as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was visiting Taiwan.

The shaping of information is all pervasive. Whether it is FOX News, CNN, AP, the New York Times or the Washington Post, the multibillion-dollar media are part of and totally intertwined with U.S. military industries. They collaborate in hiding U.S. war plans and provocations.

The role of the corporate media in totally distorting the news on China must be challenged.

China’s right to self-defense
The media coverage of China’s military drills around Taiwan never describe them as self-defense. The media display absolute unity, blocking any mention of China’s right to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Every statement or action taken by China is relentlessly described as “threatening,” “provocative” or “expansionist.” The same words are used again and again in news articles and politicians’ statements.

There is only one accepted political line. The media repeat that China is irrational, paranoid, belligerent, menacing and overreacting.

U.S. actions, even military maneuvers in which thousands of troops employ jet bombers and aircraft carriers, are described as “routine rotations” or normal schedules – that is, If the mainstream media report on them at all.

The Chinese media are always described as state-controlled propaganda. By comparison, the U.S. corporate media are always defined as free and democratic.

This is so relentless that it impacts even social forces who oppose U.S. militarism and endless U.S. wars.

Routine threats by U.S. Navy

RIMPAC is planned and coordinated by the U.S. Navy’s Third Fleet. According to its commander, their massive training is meant to deter escalation by China’s military.

Only part of the Third Fleet is engaged in RIMPAC. The fleet’s total size comes to a combat-ready force of more than 68,000 people, 100 ships and 400 aircraft.

Moving into place as Pelosi visited Taiwan was the even larger U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, the largest of its forward-deployed fleets. At any given time, it amounts to 50 to 70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors and Marines.

The Seventh Fleet is led by the USS Ronald Reagan, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers, nuclear submarines and jet aircraft. This ship has now been joined by aircraft carrier battle groups of the USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt.

It is comparable to a scenario in which Chinese destroyers were to sail into the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Orleans and Houston.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 200 ships/submarines, nearly 1,200 aircraft, and more than 130,000 sailors and civilians. The U.S. Navy maintains 11 carrier strike groups in international waters.

Hiding in plain sight
Isn’t this aggressive and threatening? Yet this vast and deadly armada is hidden in plain sight. It is barely mentioned, but even when hundreds of ships and aircraft are involved, they are described as simply participating in “routine” or “business as usual” exercises.

These continuing assaults are not top news, but they are reported in military news media, such as the Navy Times.

When the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold conducted its third transit through the South China Sea in a week, the Chinese government was prompted to label the move as a provocation. (tinyurl.com/bdfsm7pa)

The U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet has so far this year sent an average of one guided-missile destroyer per month through the Taiwan Strait as a challenge to China. (tinyurl.com/7zhn9t87)

According to the Navy Times, China’s foreign ministry protested: “The U.S. military’s actions have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea, and seriously violated international law and norms governing international relations.”

China’s long-held position is that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China and should work together to seek national reunification.”

The Taiwan Strait is part of the South China Sea, and China has claimed the area as its territorial waters. However, the United States has consistently said that it considers the strait to be international waters.

Freedom of Navigation – imperialist piracy

“Freedom of Navigation” is similar to the grand term “Free Trade.” It is not about freedom. Freedom of Navigation has meant unrestricted U.S., British, French and Japanese access to the looting of China.

Few people in the U.S. are aware of the fact that, more than a century ago, the U.S. Navy sent fleets of armored ships to patrol Chinese rivers and coastal waters.

Special fleets of gunboats of the U.S. Navy and Marines patrolled Chinese rivers up to 1,000 miles inland. They were there to enforce U.S. trade interests and suppress uprisings. Armies of occupation from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan were stationed in Chinese cities.

“Concessions” were forced on China by brutal gunboat diplomacy and enshrined by onerous unequal treaties that made China pay imperialist countries huge indemnities and grant such “concessions” as control of its cities, major ports and largest waterways.

Britain, with U.S. and French participation, fought two Opium Wars in China to enforce its “right” to sell opium. The merchants called this “defending free trade” and “protecting freedom of navigation.”

It was the 1949 victory of the Chinese Communist Party that finally ended these “Freedom of Navigation” invasions into China’s mainland, opening the opportunity to rebuild a strong, united China which is increasingly able to defend its coastal waters and resist U.S. imperialist demands.

The corrupt and defeated former military forces, defending the rights of the old landlord class, withdrew, with U.S. Navy protection, to the island province of Taiwan. This was hardly a democratic process. It was a totally militarized U.S. occupation of the island.

China has held a consistent, well-understood position on its sovereignty and territorial integrity that is recognized internationally in all world bodies. China has repeatedly asserted its right to resolve this unfinished national reunification.

U.S. violates signed agreements

Washington is openly violating three different signed agreements – Joint Communiques it made with China in 1972, 1979 and 1982 – affirming that China is one country and Taiwan is a province of China.

Any focus on these signed agreements of “One China” in the Western media today would expose that the U.S. has broken its promises not to interrupt China’s efforts to reunify the island peacefully.

Once in a while the truth slips in. Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, an English rock band formed in London in 1965, is now on a final U.S. tour titled: “This is not a drill.” In an interview with CNN on August 7, Waters refuted the narrative about Taiwan.

When CNN host Michael Smerconish said in the interview that “China is too busy encircling Taiwan,” Waters immediately said, “They’re not encircling Taiwan, Taiwan is part of China, and that’s been absolutely accepted by the whole of the international community since 1948.” Smerconish tried to interrupt Waters, saying that China is “on the top of the list of human rights offenders.” Waters immediately shot back: “The Chinese didn’t go to Iraq and kill 1 million people in 2003.”



Pelosi and insider trading

The U.S. corporate media are united in hostility to China. At the same time, different media can favor either a Democratic or Republican presidency.

For example, Fox News, guilty of a daily barrage of racist stereotypes against China, was at the forefront of exposing Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, for his multimillion-dollar insider stock trading in a semiconductor firm just before Congress voted to give $52 billion to chip manufacturers in the U.S., called the CHIPS Act.

Despite this scandal and her role as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi met with the chairman of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer and a beneficiary of the U.S. legislation.

TSMC plans to build a $12-billion chip factory in the U.S. The semiconductor industry is a priority for the U.S. “containment” of China. At the same time, the U.S. government is using various sanctions to suppress Chinese high-tech companies and break chip supply chains away from China.

Effort to reverse U.S. corporate decline
Wang Peng, a research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, explained:

“The U.S. is using the CHIPS Act to force companies in countries and regions of key status on the global chip supply and industrial chains to play by U.S. rules, as well as encircling and suppressing chip industries in emerging markets,”

The bill’s requirement is for companies to pick only one of two choices: business ties with China, or subsidies from the U.S. government.

(www.globaltimes.cn/page/202207/1271588.shtml)

The problem U.S. imperialists face is how to force countries in the region to act against their own economic interests.

Taiwan’s annual exports to China come to $126.2 billion, almost double its exports to the U.S. of $65.9 billion. South Korea’s exports to China, at $132.5 billion, far outweigh the $74.4 billion to the U.S. Japan’s exports to China come to $163.8 billion, compared to only $135.9 billion in exports to the U.S.

In order to force high-tech companies to decouple from the People’s Republic of China, U.S. imperialism needs a political/military crisis with China. Every U.S. plan for sanctions on China starts with a manufactured crisis over Taiwan.

U.S. imperialism’s strategy of restructuring and distorting the global economy to serve its own short-term interests of maximizing immediate profits has led to an aggressive U.S. expansion of NATO and provocations in Ukraine.

The immediate threat to U.S. hegemony was the EU trade with Russia of $260 billion a year — 10 times its trade with the U.S. The EU has also been the largest investor in Russia. Breaking this growing economic integration of the EU with Russia, and at an even greater level with China, serves the long-term strategic interests of U.S. corporate domination that have been in place since World War II.

In 2021 China’s GDP was roughly 10 times larger than Russia’s. China is the world’s top trading economy and the number-one exporter of manufactured goods. It is in an increasingly strong position to resist U.S. demands.

The desperate imperialist strategy to reverse the declining global position of the U.S. will be far more disruptive to the global economy.

This information on U.S. provocations must be dragged into the daylight by all the forces determined to prevent another imperialist war.

The role of the U.S. corporate media is to make imperialist threats seem palatable and entirely reasonable. This is possible only by blocking all past history of U.S. wars while using racism to smear and demonize China’s legitimate, reasonable and lawful responses and countermeasures,

Taiwanese rapper and anti-imperialist commentator Zhong Xiangyu explains: “The U.S. government has never been a protector of Taiwan. The U.S. Navy was the first country to attack Taiwan with a warship in 1867. The U.S. Navy supported Japan in invading Taiwan in 1874. The U.S. government sold weapons to Japan during the Sino-Japanese War, leading to China’s defeat and forcing China to cede Taiwan to Japan in 1895.

“Today Taiwan separatism is not true independence. It just means serving U.S. interests in a hegemonic, unequal relationship.”



https://socialistchina.org/2022/08/19/u ... nst-china/

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China forgives 23 loans for 17 African countries, expands ‘win-win’ trade and infrastructure projects
By Ben Norton (Posted Aug 22, 2022)

Originally published: Multipolarista on August 20, 2022 (more by Multipolarista)

The Chinese government has announced that it is forgiving 23 interest-free loans for 17 African nations, while pledging to deepen its collaboration with the continent.

This is in addition to China’s cancellation of more than $3.4 billion in debt and restructuring of around $15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019.

While Beijing has a repeated history of forgiving loans like this, Western governments have made baseless, politically motivated accusations that China uses “debt-trap diplomacy” in the Global South.

The United States has turned Africa into a battleground in its new cold war on China and Russia. And Washington has weaponized dubious claims of Chinese “debt traps” to try to demonize Beijing for its substantial infrastructure projects on the continent.

For its part, China has pushed back against the U.S. new cold war.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting with leaders from various African countries and the African Union on August 18.

In the conference, Wang condemned the West’s “zero-sum Cold War mentality.” He instead proposed a model based on “multi-party cooperation” with Africa that brings “win-win results” for all sides.

“What Africa would welcome is mutually beneficial cooperation for the greater well-being of the people, not major-country rivalry for geopolitical gains,” he said.

Wang revealed that Beijing will support the African Union in its efforts to join the G20.

The foreign minister also announced that “China will waive the 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries that had matured by the end of 2021.”


Beijing pledged to strengthen trade with Africa, and has made agreements with 12 countries on the continent to remove tariffs for 98% of the products they export to China, increasing the competitiveness of African goods.

Wang said Beijing will continue to provide food, economic, and military aid to Africa, while offering assistance in the fight against covid-19.

Emphasizing the importance of “development cooperation,” China offered billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure projects as “a strong boost to Africa’s industrialization process.”

Africa plays an important role in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure project aimed at interconnecting the Global South and moving the center of the world economy back east.

“In the face of the various forms of hegemonic and bullying practices, China and Africa have stood with each other shoulder to shoulder,” Wang stressed, calling to “safeguard international fairness and justice.”


U.S. diplomats visit Africa, pressure it to cut ties with China and Russia

China’s comments and promises to deepen “mutually beneficial cooperation” with Africa could hardly have been any more different from those made by top U.S. diplomats.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, visited Uganda and Ghana in the first week of August. There, she threatened the continent, telling African nations they cannot do trade with Russia, or they will be violating Western sanctions.

Thomas-Greenfield warned in Uganda,

As for sanctions that we have on Russia–for example, oil sanctions–if a country decides to engage with Russia where there are sanctions, then they are breaking those sanctions; they’re breaking our sanctions and in some cases they’re breaking UN sanctions with other countries, and we caution countries not to break those sanctions because then, if they do, they stand the chance of having actions taken against them for breaking those sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken subsequently visited South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda from August 7 to 11, as part of a trip aimed at weakening Africa’s relations with China and Russia.


‘The Chinese “debt trap” is a myth’
One of Washington’s most powerful weapons in its information war on China is its evidence-free accusations that Beijing is supposedly trapping African nations in debt.

Yet as Multipolarista previously reported in an analysis of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, Western governments, financial institutions, banks, and vulture funds are responsible for the vast majority of debt that Global South countries are trapped in.

The UK government’s own state media outlet BBC investigated allegations of “debt trap diplomacy” in Sri Lanka and reluctantly concluded that they are false.

“The truth is that many independent experts say that we should be wary of the Chinese debt trap narrative, and we’ve found quite a lot of evidence here in Sri Lanka which contradicts it,” BBC reporter Ben Chu said in a dispatch.


Similarly, mainstream academics at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School acknowledged in Washington’s establishment magazine The Atlantic that “the Chinese ‘debt trap’ is a myth.”

Scholar Deborah Brautigam wrote that the U.S. government-sponsored narrative is “a lie, and a powerful one.”

“Our research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country,” she added.

Brautigam found that, between 2000 and 2019, China cancelled more than $3.4 billion and restructured or refinanced around $15 billion of debt in Africa, renegotiating at least 26 individual loans.

This past debt forgiveness is in addition to the 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries that Beijing has announced it will pardon.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/22/china-f ... -projects/

Where can I get me one of them "debt traps"?

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China's industrial performance continues recovery, despite marginal profits decline
Xinhua | Updated: 2022-08-27 16:03

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A mechanical arm is in operation at an automobile manufacturing factory in Qingzhou, Shandong province, Aug 27, 2022. [Photo/IC]

BEIJING -- China's industrial performance has continued its recovery momentum, even though industrial profits edged down as a result of multiple factors, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Saturday.

Major industrial firms, each with annual business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about $2.92 million), saw their profits fall 1.1 percent year on year in the first seven months of 2022, to reach 4.89 trillion yuan, data from the NBS showed.

The combined revenues of these firms sustained a faster growth pace during the period, rising 8.8 percent year on year to 76.57 trillion yuan.

A total of 16 out of 41 major industries saw growth in profits in the January-July period, and 14 of them reported growth of over 5 percent.

NBS senior statistician Zhu Hong highlighted the recovery of the equipment manufacturing industry and the uptick of industrial profits of the automobile manufacturing sector, as supply and production chains are resuming, and pro-consumption policies such as the car purchase tax cuts are taking effect.

In July, the profits of the equipment manufacturing industry increased 6.8 percent year on year, up 2.7 percentage points compared with the growth registered in June and rebounding for three consecutive months.

Automobile manufacturing was one of the industries that saw the fastest profit growth, reporting a sharp profit surge of 77.8 percent in July, up 30.1 percentage points from June.

As China took stronger steps to ensure the energy supply, the expansion of the coal and crude oil output, as well as energy production, has driven up the profit growth of related industries, according to Zhu.

From January to July, profits of the coal mining sector jumped 1.05 times from the same period last year, which contributed 10.3-percentage-point growth to the profits of major industrial firms.

The raw material manufacturing industry weighs the most heavily on overall industrial profits, Zhu said. In the first seven months, the profits of the industry plunged 21.6 percent year on year, expanding by 7.6 percentage points compared with the drop in the first half.

More efforts are needed to consolidate the recovery, said Zhu, citing reasons including relatively higher costs for businesses, softening market demand in certain sectors, increasing operating pressure, as well as a more complex global landscape.

For the next stage, Zhu highlighted the importance of ensuring the smooth operation of production and supply chains, expanding effective investment, boosting consumer demand, and strengthening support for enterprises, to create more favorable conditions for the sustained and steady recovery of the industrial economy.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 74967.html
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Aug 29, 2022 2:26 pm

Unmasked: The face of the real debt trap maker
By CHEN YINGQUN | China Daily | Updated: 2022-08-29 07:39

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An aerial view of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge and railway project in Louhajang, about 40 kilometers from Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, in June. [Photo/Agencies]

China is often accused by the US and others of exploitative behavior in developing countries but the facts point to the true source of the problem: the West

The United States and other Western countries often accuse China of leading developing countries into so-called debt traps, but studies show that if anyone is creating such traps it is Western countries and financial institutions, analysts say.

In an opinion piece in The New York Times on Aug 16 the Sri Lankan writer Indrajit Samarajiva said his country's economic and political collapse had largely been the result of Western debt traps.

Western media have accused China of luring Sri Lanka into a debt trap, he said, "but from where I'm standing, ultimate blame lies with the Western-dominated neoliberal system that keeps developing countries in a form of debt-fueled colonization".

And despite Western claims of Chinese predatory lending, only 10 to 20 percent of Sri Lanka's foreign debt is owed to China, Samarajiva said, noting that most is "owed to the United States and European financial institutions or Western allies like Japan".

"We died in a largely Western debt trap," Samarajiva said.

Ehizuelen Michael Mitchell Omoruyi, executive director of the Center for Nigerian Studies at the Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, said that in Africa in recent decades China has made many commitments to cancel the debts of borrowing countries.

This month China announced that it will waive 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries that had matured by the end of last year.

"For countries that have failed to pay their debts in a timely manner, China has offered a variety of debt restructuring options to help African countries tide over their difficulties, rather than using asset seizures and other means to require borrowers to pay off their debts," Omoruyi said.

He cited a report of the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University that said China restructured or refinanced about $15 billion of African debt between 2000 and 2019, without asset seizures that countries such as the US have criticized when they talk of debt traps.

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Construction workers fix light poles on a section of a construction site of the Nairobi Expressway Project along Mombasa road in January. [Photo/Agencies]
"While some contractual provisions call for arbitration against the borrowing country in the event of failure to repay the debt in a timely manner, there is no evidence that China has actually resorted to court enforcement of payments or the use of penalty rates," Omoruyi said.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund urged the G20 to establish a Debt Service Suspension Initiative. Since it entered into force in May 2020, countries eligible for the debt moratorium, most in Africa, had taken part in the initiative before it expired at the end of last year.

Those involved in the initiative have shown a diversity of creditors in recent decades, Omoruyi said. Overall, borrowing has been mainly from Paris Club official creditors as well as private banks and multilateral institutions, and China.

In 2020 China was the most significant debt relief country in this initiative. It suspended $5.7 billion in debt payments, contributing to more than half of the total global debt moratorium. Through this action, 45 percent of debts owned by the poorest countries to China were suspended. In contrast, the United Kingdom suspended no payments on its commercial loans and recovered $3.2 billion in debt from countries that applied for the debt standstill initiative.

Omoruyi said: "China is being blamed by the West for allegedly doing exactly what some Western financial institutions have been doing for decades: providing unsustainable loans to nations in need to further plunge them into debt, weaken state capacity and open up national economies to international investors (primarily from Western countries)."

China seeks to differentiate itself from the prescriptive and hierarchical approach of other external actors by emphasizing political equality and mutual benefit, he said.

"As such, Belt and Road Initiative finances are not a debt trap that nations may fall into, but through the BRI finances African nations are getting out of the trap of no development."

A report issued by Tsinghua University in Beijing this month said that from 2023 to 2025 African countries will enter a bond repayment peak with hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds maturing, and they face default risks, affecting dozens of low and middle-income bond-issuing countries, because of the "reckless operations" of large European and US investment institutions in Africa.

Tang Xiaoyang, a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said the US subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 coupled with the European debt crisis, had led to the diversion of large amounts of private financial capital from the West to developing countries. Such funds, when the economies are facing downward pressure, could be problematic.

"At that time, capital that did not find a growth point in Western countries hoped to grow from developing countries, so they greatly encouraged developing countries to issue bonds and profited from them."

The report found that in just 12 years after 2008, the stock of sovereign bonds (mainly Eurobonds) of all low- and middle-income countries rose nearly 400 percent to $1.74 trillion in 2020, accounting for more than 50 percent of these countries' external debt.

"This is the first time they have issued bonds, so they are inexperienced, and under such circumstances they feel that everything is very good when the economy is on the rise," Tang said. "I borrow more money, but I did not expect the economy to fall, and the prices of resources and commodities have dropped."

Issuing bonds has helped solve some short-term problems for some developing countries that have vulnerable economic structures and lack financial risk management experience, but it may be difficult to deal with the adverse impacts of a global economic downturn.

The report, Reality Check: Falsehoods in US Perceptions of China, issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China in June, said that the so-called Chinese debt trap is a narrative that the US and some other Western countries use to defame and smear China and disrupt its collaboration with other developing countries. An article in The Atlantic in the US last year said the debt-trap narrative is a lie some Western politicians have fabricated, and a powerful one at that.

Western capital constitutes the largest creditor of developing countries. According to recent World Bank figures on international debt, 28.8 percent of Africa's outstanding external debt is owed to multilateral financial institutions and 41.8 percent to commercial creditors mainly composed of Western financial institutions. These two types of institutions together hold nearly three-quarters of the debt, making them Africa's primary creditors.

The debt issue is, in essence, a development issue, the report said, and the key to resolving it is in ensuring that the loans deliver real benefits, the report said.

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Yuan Wanfu, project manager for the East Ring Road expansion project in Nairobi, examines an engineering drawing at a construction site in April. [Photo/Xinhua]
According to preliminary figures, between 2000 and 2020 China helped African countries build more than 13,000 kilometers of roads and railways and more than 80 large-scale power facilities, funded more than 130 medical facilities, 45 sports venues and more than 170 schools, and trained more than 160,000 professionals across various fields in Africa.

The Nairobi Expressway project built by Chinese companies in Kenya through a public-private partnership has created more than 6,000 local jobs and benefited more than 200 subcontractors and several hundred local suppliers. The Kenyan government speaks highly of the project, commending it as an important manifestation of mutually beneficial collaboration between Kenya and China, the report said.

China also attaches great importance to the debt sustainability of projects. In 2017 it signed the Guiding Principles on Financing the Development of the Belt and Road with 26 countries taking part in the BRI. In 2019 China unveiled the Debt Sustainability Framework for Participating Countries of the Belt and Road Initiative. The framework, based on the debt situation and the repayment ability of debtor countries, and following the principles of equal-footed consultation, compliance with laws and regulations, openness and transparency, aims to strengthen monitoring and assessment of the economic, social and livelihood benefits of the projects, and channels sovereign loans into areas with high yields, to ensure the long-term returns of the projects. China has also endeavored to reduce the burdens of debtor countries.

Mostak Ahamed Galib, director of cross-cultural communication and the BRI research center at Wuhan University of Technology, said Western countries are making groundless accusations of China creating a debt trap.

There are two main ways for developing countries to obtain international help, he said, one being technical assistance and the other financial assistance. In terms of technical assistance, China is leading in international engineering, procurement and construction contracting projects.

"About seven to eight of the top 10 companies listed by the Engineering News Record, widely considered as the most authoritative academic research and ranking in the field of engineering and construction, over the past 10 years are Chinese companies," he said.

"So it is not surprising that there are more opportunities for Chinese companies when it comes to engineering contracts."

It is also worth noting that when Chinese companies conduct international projects they usually bring in local companies as subcontractors to work with them so the local company can gain experience and technologies to take part in big projects and then be able to gradually undertake big projects themselves, he said.

Financial assistance usually includes grants, soft loans, commercial loans and hybrid loans. Apart from grants, on which interest is not paid, other loans require recipient countries to pay a certain rate of interest and repay the loan within a certain time. However, no matter what kind of loan agreement is signed, it is fully based on mutual negotiation between the lender and the borrower, and there is no possibility of a so-called debt trap and deliberate deception.

To those who accuse China of engaging in colonialism based on debtors being unable to repay loans, Galib said that is also a smear.

"In port construction, for example, if the debtor countries find themselves unable to repay the loan on schedule, the port may be carried out within a certain time in the lease. This is not colonialism but is similar to a commonly seen project contracting model switching from the build and transfer mode to the build, operate and transfer mode."

Those leveling the debt trap allegation deliberately ignore the fact that a lot of China's lending is in the form of grants or soft loans, Galib said.

"China itself is still a developing country, but there is debt relief for other borrowers who cannot repay on time."

The Belt and Road Initiative is not creating debt traps but opportunities for collaboration and development, he said. Countries involved should seize opportunities the BRI provides to improve their infrastructure construction, strive to become industrial and commercial centers in the region, and use the convenience of connectivity to improve their economic and trade levels and people's living standards.

He cited the China-built Padma Multipurpose Bridge in his country, Bangladesh, which opened to the public in June, cutting travel times from parts of the southwest of the country to the capital Dhaka from seven to eight hours to as little as 10 minutes.

The bridge is expected to raise Bangladesh's GDP by more than 1 percent a year, benefiting about 30 million people in 21 southwestern districts of the country, the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a think tank in Dhaka, said.

For Clayton Hazvinei Vhumbunu, a research fellow in International Relations at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, figures are more eloquent than Western talk of debt traps.

He cited a report last month by Debt Justice in the UK based on computations from the World Bank International Debt Statistics Database revealing that just 12 percent of African governments' external debt is owed to Chinese lenders, and 39 percent is owed to multilateral institutions, while 35 percent is owed to private lenders, excluding Chinese private creditors.

The Debt Justice calculations also show that the average interest rate on private sector loans is 5 percent, compared with 2.7 percent on loans from Chinese public and private lenders.

"Progressive discussions on the African development and debt discourse should transcend beyond narrow arguments on debt relief, debt restructuring, debt forgiveness, debt cancellations, debt swaps or debt haircuts," Vhumbunu said. "Rather, the focus and emphasis should be on how African countries can adopt strategic socioeconomic development models that sustainably transform their economies into industrialized, modernized and prosperous countries."

Xinhua contributed to this story.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 74a52.html
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:23 pm

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OHCHR report on Xinjiang is a patchwork of disinformation and Cold War propaganda
Just three months ago, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet was subjected to relentless criticism in the West when, having visited Xinjiang, she failed to find evidence supporting the hysterical slander about a genocide against Uyghur Muslims. It is very unfortunate that she has, just hours before the end of her tenure, succumbed to US pressure and released a deeply flawed report which relies on a handful of submissions from dubious sources, and which contains insinuations rather than substantive charges.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin described the report well, as “a patchwork of disinformation that serves as a political tool for the US and some Western forces to use Xinjiang to contain China.” Wang noted that 60 countries have sent letters to the UN High Commissioner opposing the release of the report. “They are the mainstream of the international community”.

We reproduce below an article from the Global Times summing up the Chinese response to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
China on Thursday denounced a so-called UN human rights report on China’s Xinjiang region as completely invalid and a political tool serving the US and some Western forces to contain China, and said that it proved the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has descended into the accomplice of the US and some Western forces against developing countries.

In response to the so-called “assessment of human rights concerns” in China’s Xinjiang released by the OHCHR on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin told a press conference on Thursday that the so-called assessment is a patchwork of disinformation and a political tool serving the US and some Western forces to contain China by using the Xinjiang topic.

Such a “report” seriously violates the mandate of the OHCHR, infringing on the non-political and objective principles. It once again proved that the OHCHR has descended into an enforcer and accomplice of the US and some Western forces against the developing countries, Wang Wenbin said.

The spokesperson noted that even the report did not dare hype groundless topics of “genocide,” “forced labor” or “forced sterilization” – which were previously hyped by the US and some Western forces. Wang Wenbin said that this also showed that the lie of the century made by the US and the some Western forces on China’s Xinjiang has bankrupted.

Analysts also pointed out that the “assessment” is neither objective nor professional and it is totally made to cater for the anti-China forces’ needs to further hype the topics on China’s Xinjiang region.

The report downplays how badly the Xinjiang region had suffered from terrorism and extremism – this is unfair and cannot fully represent the situation in the region. Any government in the world should take responsibility in fighting against terrorism to protect local residents, Wang Jiang, an expert at the Institute of China’s Borderland Studies at Zhejiang Normal University, told the Global Times.

Moreover, the “report” was based on testimony from 40 interviewees. Wang Jiang said that such a small number is not enough to be used as samples to jump to a serious conclusion against a country on human rights, and the identities of these interviewees remain questionable given the previous false accusations made by so-called victims.

China’s Foreign Ministry and Xinjiang regional government had exposed many liars who frequently appeared on Western media as “victims” from Xinjiang region. The US-backed World Uyghur Congress and other anti-China forces have also been found to be busy fabricating sensational stories of so-called victims which were later found to be self-contradictory and full of holes.

Wang Jiang also pointed out the words “likely” or “highly likely” or “may” were frequently used in the “assessment.” Such dubious language is not appropriate for a report by a UN organization to accuse a sovereign country, and it should also know that Western media will turn “highly likely” into “certainly” in their reports, and have actually done so.

Without solid surveys, such a “report” made by the OHCHR is highly irresponsible, analysts said, noting that it is also another vivid example of how the office has been manipulated by the US and the some Western forces to attack other countries.

Residents in Xinjiang have the final say on the human rights situation. The Xinjiang region has enjoyed economic developments with local residents living a happy and stable life in recent years. Some residents in Xinjiang region, religious figures, and former trainees from the vocational and training centers in Xinjiang have sent letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to share their own stories, Wang Wenbin said on Thursday.

Foreign diplomats and visitors who visited the Xinjiang region also pointed out that the real Xinjiang is opposite to what the Western media have described. More than 60 countries also send letters to the UN High Commissioner to oppose the release of the fake report, Wang Wenbin said.

Wang Wenbin also noted that nearly 100 countries, including many Muslim countries, also voiced their support to China on its position on the Xinjiang affairs, opposing to use the topic of Xinjiang region to interfere with China’s internal affairs – this is the mainstream of the international community, and the vicious political scheme by the US and some Western forces to contain China by using the Xinjiang topic is doomed to fail.

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 04, 2022 10:19 pm

Von der Leyen's toxic speech against China aims to divide the world
By Chen Weihua | China Daily | Updated: 2022-09-03 09:54

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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. [Photo/Xinhua]

In a Tuesday tweet mourning former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised him for playing a crucial role in ending the Cold War and bringing down the "Iron Curtain".

But what von der Leyen said in her speech at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia on Monday showed that she's bent on triggering a new Cold War and building a wall to bifurcate the world, something that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned against repeatedly.

It was a slanderous speech against China, full of lies and aimed at distracting attention from the serious problems plaguing the European Union member states, including skyrocketing energy prices, high inflation, a looming recession and growing fatigue over the prolonged Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Von der Leyen said: "At the beginning of this year, Russia and China have openly declared a so-called unlimited friendship. And only weeks later, Russia launched its war against Ukraine … The message could not be more explicit."

What she implied is that China has supported Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine from the beginning. Which is a blatant lie. For long China has had good relations with both Russia and Ukraine. And that's why it has been stressing that a country's sovereignty be respected and negotiations conducted to end the conflict.

Some 150 countries, which refused to join the EU and the United States in sanctioning Russia, have said very much the same thing. While fighting climate change requires global solidarity, von der Leyen disagrees with this fact. She tried to undermine the global fight against climate change and derail the green revolution by fear-mongering about China which provides 10 of the 30 critical raw materials needed to produce lithium batteries.

She said: "So we have to avoid falling into the same dependency as with oil and gas. We should not replace old dependencies with new ones. So we must make sure that access to these commodities will not be used to blackmail us."

China is by far the largest investor in and producer of renewable energy in the world, and the largest trading partner of more than 120 countries. If China uses trade as a tool to blackmail other countries, as von der Leyen seems to imply, many countries would have stopped trading with it by now.

Also, China depends on the EU for many high-tech goods, yet Chinese leaders have never fear-mongered about the EU, or alleged that the bloc blackmails China, despite the fact that the EU policy under von der Leyen has been often hijacked by Washington.

Von der Leyen's emphasis on building new ties with reliable, like-minded partners around the world is a euphemism for a new Cold War and aimed at dividing the world into different ideological blocs. It's one of the most vicious anti-China speeches by von der Leyen since becoming the European Commission president in 2019.

She ended her speech on Monday by spreading more lies-that China sets debt traps for other countries through low-standard infrastructure projects and finance-despite experts such as Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a top scholar in the field, refuting such claims.

Besides, von der Leyen claimed the EU will devise a better way to execute infrastructure projects in other economies. But she is yet to show a road, a bridge or a railway built by the EU in Africa, Asia or Latin America.

In fact, less than 600 kilometers southeast of the venue where she delivered the speech on Monday, Croatia's Peljesac Bridge, built by a Chinese company, opened to traffic in July on time despite the huge challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The high-quality work has won praise from the Croatian people and leaders.

While waging her smear campaign against China and spreading disinformation to fool the people in the EU, von der Leyen will never mention solid facts such as the Peljesac Bridge, or many other bridges, roads and railways that have been built by China in Africa, Asia and Latin America and praised by the local people.

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 75bf9.html

UN's Xinjiang report 'coercive diplomacy'

By MINLU ZHANG at the United Nations | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2022-09-03 07:51

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A man picks cotton in Aksu prefecture, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/VCG]

The UN's assessment of human rights in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is an "illegal document and a perverse product of the United States and some other Western forces' coercive diplomacy", said the spokesperson for the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations on Thursday.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, on Wednesday released an assessment of human rights concerns in Xinjiang, which is "an illegal document through and through", said the spokesperson.

The so-called assessment was drafted and released without authorization from the Human Rights Council or consent from the Chinese government, which is a serious violation of OHCHR's mandate, the spokesperson said.

"The assessment is based on the presumption of guilt. It takes the words of a few anti-China separatists as the main source of information, while deliberately ignoring the authoritative information and materials provided by the Chinese government, and therefore has zero credibility."

The assessment distorts China's laws and policies, smears China's efforts against terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang, and diverges significantly from the statement issued by the high commissioner for human rights after her visit to China, the spokesperson added.

"It has seriously tarnished the professionalism and integrity of human rights work and interfered in and undermined international human rights cooperation."

Former UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet, who released Wednesday's assessment, paid a six-day visit to China and its Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in late May.

At the end of her trip, Bachelet-whose term as commissioner ended later on Wednesday-released a statement and said the visit was "an opportunity to hold direct discussions" with China's most senior leaders on human rights, to listen to each other, raise concerns and explore more regular meaningful interactions in the future.

The spokesperson stressed that Wednesday's assessment is "a perverse product of the US and some other Western forces' coercive diplomacy".

The spokesperson said that faced with "coercion" by some individual Western forces toward the high commissioner and the OHCHR, "a few members of the office have bent over backward to comply with their demands".

"Under pressure and interference by some Western forces, the office has been reduced to their accomplice to contain developing countries and a tool to serve Western political interests. Facts have clearly shown that the US and some other Western forces do not care about human rights but only use human rights issues as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries and put their own interests above the interests of others. They have become the biggest saboteur of international rules and order," the spokesperson said, adding that the so-called assessment is "totally inconsistent" with the actual situation in Xinjiang and finds no support.

Xinjiang is a place that once suffered greatly from terrorist attacks. But due to the efforts against terrorism and extremism in accordance with the law, Xinjiang has not had any terrorist incidents in the past five years, and the human rights of people of all ethnic groups have been well protected, said the spokesperson, adding that the people in Xinjiang are in the best position to tell the world what human rights conditions are like there. People who have been to Xinjiang all agree that Xinjiang is "a wonderful land", said the spokesperson.

In recent years, nearly 100 countries have spoken up at the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council every year to support China's position on Xinjiang-related issues. More than 60 countries have sent a co-signed letter to express their concerns over the assessment.

Nearly 1,000 nongovernmental organizations from across the world have written to the high commissioner to express their opposition, said the spokesperson.

"The poorly planned farce by the US and some other Western forces has already been seen through and completely collapsed," said the spokesperson, adding that it is the US and a few other countries that have been bringing trouble and chaos to the world.

"Fabricating the so-called assessment and throwing mud at China cannot cover up the US and some other Western forces' own human rights woes."

http://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/20220 ... 75b73.html

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

Fight against Terrorism and Extremism in Xinjiang: Truth and Facts
Information Office of the People’s Government of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
August 2022
1
Table of Contents
Introduction ………………………………………………………… 1
I. Xinjiang’s fight against terrorism and extremism is both necessary
and just. ……………………………………………………………… 2
1. Terrorist and extremist activities were rampant in Xinjiang. ……… 2
2. People of various ethnic groups in Xinjiang suffered greatly from the
scourge of terrorism and extremism. ………………………………… 8
3. Fighting terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang is a pressing need. … 10
4. Fighting terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang is endorsed and supported
by people of all ethnic groups. ……………………………………… 12
II. Xinjiang’s fight against terrorism and extremism was all along
conducted on the track of the rule of law. ………………………… 17
5. China has a clear-defined legal and policy framework on counter-terrorism and de-radicalization.……………………………………………… 17
6. Xinjiang is always committed to respecting and protecting human rights
in fighting terrorism and extremism. ………………………………… 29
7. Xinjiang handles criminal cases involving terrorism or extremism in a
just manner in strict accordance with law. …………………………… 33
8. The law enforcement agencies and judicial authorities in Xinjiang have
established a strict access system and systematic training mechanism to
2
ensure the professional competency of law enforcement and judicial per
sonnel. ………………………………………………………………… 41
9. Public security institutions in Xinjiang exercise investigative power in
strict accordance with law. …………………………………………… 42
10. The exercise of the power of investigation by Xinjiang’s public security
authorities is subject to the supervision of the whole society. ………… 43
III. Vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang are schools
intended for de-radicalization established in accordance with the law.
………………………………………………………………………… 46
11. Xinjiang carries out vocational education and training in strict compliance with laws. ……………………………………………………… 46
12. Vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang provide courses
in accordance with the law on standard spoken and written Chinese language, law and vocational skills, with a focus on de-radicalization. …… 51
13. Vocational education and training in Xinjiang is in line with internationally accepted principles, concepts and practices. …………………… 55
IV. Vocational education and training in Xinjiang fully respects and
safeguards human rights. …………………………………………… 59
14. The principle of respecting and protecting human rights is fully embodied in the management measures of Xinjiang’s vocational education and
training centers. ……………………………………………………… 60
15. Vocational education and training in Xinjiang has achieved remarkable
results. ………………………………………………………………… 69
16. Trainees have found stable employment and are living a normal life
after graduation. ……………………………………………………… 72
3
17. The de-radicalization efforts of Xinjiang provide useful experience for
the international community to combat and prevent terrorism and extremism.
……………………………………………………………………………74
18. The allegations that “the education and training centers are concentration camps, detaining millions of ethnic people” and that “larger complexes
have been built by Xinjiang authorities to detain more people” are all lies.
……………………………………………………………………………78
19. The so-called “Xinjiang Police Files” is a farce orchestrated and performed by anti-China forces in the US and other Western countries.
……………………………………………………………………………80
20. Education and training in Xinjiang has won extensive understanding,
recognition and support of the international community.…………………83
V. Law-based human rights protection in various areas has leveled up
in Xinjiang. ………………………………………………………………87
21. Xinjiang fully implements the policy of freedom of religious belief
and protects normal religious needs of believers in accordance with law.. …87
22. The livelihood programs named “learning people’s conditions, benefiting people’s lives and rallying people’s support” and the “different ethnicities, one family” activities in Xinjiang have facilitated inter-ethnic
exchange, interaction and integration. ……………………………………93
23. Xinjiang attaches great importance to protecting and developing the
fine traditional cultures of various ethnic groups. ………………………96
24. Xinjiang’s labor and employment policies and endeavors have been
consistent with the international labor and human rights standards and
fulfilled the Xinjiang people’s strong aspiration for a better life.……… 102
25. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Uyghur
population in Xinjiang has maintained a fairly high growth for a long
period and has continued to expand. ………………………………… 107
26. Xinjiang protects the lawful rights and interests of overseas Chinese
nationals and their family members in accordance with law, cares for
and supports the work and life of those living overseas. ……………… 110
27. Installing CCTV cameras in public places in Xinjiang is consistent
with established international practices. ……………………………… 112
28. Xinjiang safeguards the rights to exit and entry of people of all ethnic
groups in accordance with law. ……………………………………… 113
29. Xinjiang protects the freedom of correspondence of people of all ethnic
groups in accordance with law. ……………………………………… 114
Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 117

Conclusion
Facts speak louder than words, and truth is not to be tampered with. Xinjiang’s
counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts have achieved remarkable outcomes.
Taking stock of its practice, we can draw the following conclusions:
(1) Xinjiang adheres to the principle that everyone is equal before the law, and
the accusation that its policy is “based on ethnic discrimination” is groundless.
The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China stipulates that “All ethnic groups of
the People’s Republic of China are equal. The state shall protect the lawful rights and
interests of all ethnic minorities and uphold and promote relations of equality, unity,
mutual assistance and harmony among all ethnic groups. Discrimination against and
oppression of any ethnic group are prohibited; any act that undermines the unity of
ethnic groups or creates divisions among them is prohibited.” The principles and the
spirit of the Constitution are fully embodied in Xinjiang’s fight against terrorism and
extremism, which never targets any particular region, ethnicity or religion, but aims to
realize the equal rights of all ethnic groups. This is the purpose and the goal of Xinjiang’s counter-terrorism and de-radicalization policy. The allegation that the policy is
“formulated based on ethnic discrimination” is untenable, and is a gross distortion and
smear of Xinjiang’s efforts.

(2) The counter-terrorism and de-radicalization efforts in Xinjiang have been
all along conducted on the track of the rule of law, and are by no means the alleged
118
“suppression of ethnic minorities”. Xinjiang’s fight against terrorism and extremism
follows clearly specified legal and policy framework, complies with the spirit of anti-terrorism conventions and documents of the United Nations, and is consistent with
international human rights law. The Constitution and other laws of China as well as
regional laws and regulations of Xinjiang all strictly define the authority and responsibility of the legislative body, the judicial organ and the law enforcement agencies.
These authorities have exercised their legal mandate in strict accordance with the laws
of China and relevant judicial interpretations and under rigorous legal supervision in
accordance with law. The allegations of “massive detention”, “arbitrary detention” and
“abuse of justice” are unfounded.

(3) The vocational education and training centers in Xinjiang are learning
facilities established in accordance with law intended for de-radicalization, and
are by no means the so-called “concentration camps”. The centers mainly teach
the national language, laws and regulations and vocational skills to achieve the goal
of de-radicalization, with the aim of educating and rehabilitating people influenced by
religious extremism and involved in minor crimes or violations of law. The centers put
people first, exercise standardized management, and provide people-centered services,
with no restriction on trainees’ personal freedom, freedom of correspondence or cultural rights. This has been confirmed by the many accounts of graduated trainees. The
groundless allegations that “millions of ethnic minority people are detained”, “male
trainees receive brutal torture and female trainees suffer sexual assault” and “trainees
are subject to mandatory sterilization, removed of their liver and kidney, and abused to
death” are nothing but sensational fake news fabricated by anti-China forces in the US
and the West manipulating several “actors”.

(4) The lawful rights and interests of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang
119
are protected, and there is no such thing as “forced labor”. The various labor rights
and interests of ethnic minority workers from Xinjiang are protected under Chinese
laws. They are free to choose their profession, and decide on where to work and which
job to take of their own will. Their personal freedom has never been restricted, and
their rights and interests in terms of religious belief, ethnic culture and spoken and
written language use have been fully safeguarded. Relevant enterprises have provided
them with favorable working and living conditions, to ensure that they live and work at
ease and their families rest assured. Anti-China forces in the US and the West, however,
have deliberately distorted Xinjiang’s practice of helping ethnic minority people get
stable employment, lifting them out of poverty and increasing their incomes as “forced
labor”. Their aim is to deprive the ethnic minority workers of their right to employment, which amounts to “forced unemployment” and “forced impoverishment”. It is
such attempts that truly infringe upon human rights.

(5) Xinjiang has earnestly safeguarded the human rights of people of all ethnic groups through the combat against terrorism and extremism, and there is no
such thing as “massive violations of rights”. Terrorism and extremism are enemies
for safeguarding human rights. Cracking down on them is a protection, not violation,
of human rights. In the combat against terrorism and extremism, the rights of people
of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, including their right to life and safety, freedom of religious belief, right to labor and employment, right to free entry and exit and freedom
of correspondence have been fully protected. Some international organizations and
foreign officials have turned a blind eye to these facts, but focused instead on the human rights condition of the terrorists and extremists who committed heinous crimes,
willingly serving as their umbrella and spokesperson, and even openly endorsed and
cheered them on. These organizations have pit themselves against justice and human
120
conscience. They have failed to take an objective, fair and just stance expected of them,
and discredited and disgraced themselves.
We call on the international community to be clear-eyed about the truth of the
combat against terrorism and extremism in Xinjiang, and see through the clumsy performances and malicious motives of anti-China forces in the US and the West, who
attempt to use Xinjiang to contain China. The international community needs to make
the right choice between justice and evil, brightness and darkness, and progress and
retrogression.
We suggest that UN human rights agencies and other international organizations
should investigate the human rights disasters caused and numerous crimes committed
by the US and some other Western countries both at home and abroad. It is important
to bring to light the problems in these countries, such as ignoring the life and health
of their people, condoning racial discrimination, persecuting aboriginal inhabitants,
abusing immigrants, bullying and showing hostility to Muslims, and abusing force and
sanctions against other countries and triggering humanitarian crises. These countries
should be urged to compensate the victims of human rights violations.
We encourage people with a just stance from the international community to visit
Xinjiang, so as to see and feel for themselves what Xinjiang is truly like — with economic growth, social stability, better livelihoods, cultural prosperity, ethnic unity and
religious harmony. They will then witness a Xinjiang totally different from the one portrayed by anti-China forces in the US and the West. We are also willing to further share
the realities about Xinjiang so that the world will get to know Xinjiang as it truly is.

http://english.ts.cn/doc/003/526/567/00 ... 1a34c5.pdf
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 05, 2022 1:35 pm

Why China isn’t capitalist
September 5, 2022 Stephen Millies


Image
People stand next to a display commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China on its eve in Shanghai on June 30, 2021.

Wall Street and the Pentagon view the People’s Republic of China as their number one enemy. China is the target of U.S. imperialism’s “Pivot to Asia.”

China’s economy may already be larger than the United States. The American Enterprise Institute―one of the best-known capitalist think tanks ― admits China surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest manufacturer back in 2010.

That’s historically significant. Factories in the United States exceeded Britain’s production in the 1890s.

China is now the “workshop of the world.” In 2021, China built nearly 17 million more motor vehicles than the U.S.

This tremendous economic growth is the result of China’s socialist revolution. It’s not just a matter of China making more than a billion tons of steel a year or having more miles of high-speed rail than the rest of the world.

When Mao Zedong declared “China has stood up” in 1949 and the People’s Republic of China was born, Chinese people lived to be, on average, just 36 years old.

By 2022 life expectancy had more than doubled to reach 77.3 years. That’s a longer lifespan than in the United States.

Despite these tremendous gains, some communists and revolutionaries contend that capitalism has been restored in the People’s Republic of China. They point to the 606 billionaires in China, including 67 in Hong Kong.

The capitalist world market

The People’s Republic of China is entangled in the capitalist world market. Almost $2.5 trillion in foreign direct investment has poured into China since 1992.

This represents millions of Chinese workers being exploited by foreign capitalists. For example, in 2021, General Motors made 2.9 million cars in China.

That’s almost 700,000 more vehicles than it sold in the U.S. Tesla is investing $7.5 billion in its Shanghai “gigafactory.”

Unlike China before liberation, none of this investment is colonial in character. Foreign corporations have to share technology and know-how. Elon Musk ignored California’s safety regulations during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he has to follow Chinese laws.

Mistakes shouldn’t be repeated

Decades ago, many revolutionaries had already considered the Soviet Union to be capitalist.

Mikhail Gorbachev ― who opened the door to capitalist restoration ― didn’t come out of nowhere. He rose in the bureaucracy under both Khrushchev and Brezhnev.

There were hundreds of thousands of Gorbachevs in the Soviet government and Communist Party. They were supporters of Gorbachev’s anti-Marxist “new thinking” that sneered at the class struggle. These elements shared Gorbachev’s illusions about U.S. imperialism and capitalist society in general.

Most of the “oligarchs” came from their ranks. They stole trillions of dollars worth of socialist property that workers and peasant farmers had built over a dozen five-year plans.

Aided the liberation of Angola, Namibia

Yet as late as 1988, Soviet-built MiG-25 jet fighters gave the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola air superiority in the crucial battle of Cuito Cuanavale. A coalition of liberation forces decisively defeated the apartheid army from South Africa, backed by the Pentagon.

These included the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the armed wing of the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO); uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed section of the African National Congress (ANC), and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. Also present were military advisers from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the Soviet Union.

Less than two years after this battle, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison on Feb. 11, 1990.

Apartheid South Africa first invaded the newly independent People’s Republic of Angola in 1975. Africa called, and Cuba answered. Cuban volunteers shed their blood beside their African comrades.

Critics of the Soviet leadership could see for themselves which side of the world the Soviet Union and its allies were on.

It’s been over 30 years since socialism was tragically overthrown in the Soviet Union. This was a greater defeat for workers and oppressed people everywhere than Hitler crushing the German working class.

To have written off Soviet socialism in the decades before Gorbachev rose to power confused revolutionaries. It disarmed communists when the real counter-revolutionary threat appeared.

Socialism vs. COVID

Those that claimed that the Soviet Union was already capitalist 50 or 60 years ago apparently didn’t understand that capitalism can’t function without a huge body of unemployed workers. Frederick Engels, the co-thinker of Karl Marx, called jobless workers the industrial reserve army.

Capitalists know this well. Sam Insull ― whose crooked Midwestern utility empire collapsed in the Great Depression ― declared that “the greatest aid to the efficiency of labor is a long line of men waiting at the gate.” Meaning women and men desperately seeking a job.

But there was no industrial reserve army in the Soviet Union. Instead, the country suffered from a labor shortage.

This was one of the features of Soviet society that made it incompatible with capitalism. The Soviet economy was planned. A state monopoly of foreign trade kept the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank at bay.

In contrast to the Soviet Union, millions of workers in the People’s Republic of China are without a job. The unemployment rate for youth between 16 and 24 years old reached 19.9% in July.

Particularly affected are the record number of 10.75 million college graduates. Before liberation in 1949, there were only 117,000 college students in China.

A big reason for the lack of hiring has been the anti-COVID actions that socialist China took. The capitalist media attacked these absolutely necessary health measures.

Huge cities like Beijing and Shanghai were temporarily closed. Unarmed socialist police in Wuhan delivered meals to people in their homes.

This was a clear contest between capitalism and socialism. In the U.S., 1,046,243 people have died from COVID-19 as of Sept. 1.

Meanwhile, 14,922 people died in the People’s Republic of China, which has over a billion more people than the United States. (China’s total includes 9,701 people who died in the capitalist Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.)

No capitalist government on earth could have done what socialist China did in fighting the pandemic. Banksters and billionaires wouldn’t have allowed it. Profits are more precious than life to billionaires and their media stooges.

John Tyson (chicken billionaire) and other dead-animal capitalists got Trump to issue an executive order keeping the meatpacking plants open and shielding themselves from lawsuits. As a result, over 59,000 meatpacking workers caught the virus, and 269 died.

Kept on a leash

China has a sizeable capitalist class, with 606 billionaires forming its crest. These capitalists are kept on a leash.

Liu Han’s $6 billion stash didn’t prevent him from being executed in 2015. A millionaire (much less a billionaire) has never been executed in the United States.

A handful of banks play a dominant role over the U.S. government. The Communist Party of China runs China’s banks.

The commanding heights of China’s economy are controlled by the Communist Party. While production has stagnated in the imperialist countries, China’s steel production leaped from 400 million tons in 2007 to over a billion tons today.

You can’t explain China’s fantastic economic growth except by admitting there’s some other social system than capitalism in charge.

If socialism had been overthrown in China, there would be no need for a separate regime for capitalist Hong Kong, which has its own currency. China liberated Hong Kong from British colonialism in 1997.

After the Soviet Union was destroyed, Wall Street’s next target was China. But, to many in the military-industrial complex, NATO’s 78 days of bombing Yugoslavia was a poor substitute.

Their frustration was behind the deliberate bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

NATO’s war against Yugoslavia was a class war. Despite all the concessions that Tito had made to imperialism, what remained of Yugoslavia in 1999 was socialist in class character.

Sometimes retreats are absolutely necessary. For example, the Long March was a glorious retreat that saved the Communist Party of China from being destroyed.

Mao Zedong argued for the Red Army to take the Long March to escape encirclement. Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to make a sharp economic retreat in the early 1920s by launching NEP, the New Economic Policy.

Karl Marx contemplated that following a socialist revolution, the working class might have to “buy off the band” of well-to-do elements.

Confronted by world imperialism, the People’s Republic of China has allowed both foreign and domestic capital to flourish. It was a case of bending instead of being broken.

Growth of China’s working class

While the capitalist class has grown in China, much more spectacular has been the growth of the working class.

The Chinese Revolution’s biggest problem was the small number of workers in the country. In 1949, workers were perhaps 1% of the population.

Today the working class in the People’s Republic of China is hundreds of millions strong. Thousands of strikes occur against private capitalists.

Chinese workers credit communism for China’s tremendous advances in health and economic growth. The social weight of the working class has been responsible for China’s extensive reforms in health care and education over the last 20 years.

Those who claim that a counter-revolution has taken place in China should show when this overthrow occurred. Comrade Mao Zedong famously wrote that a revolution is not a dinner party.

A counter-revolution is far bloodier. The events following Mao’s death couldn’t have changed China’s class character.

Just as a rising class needs to smash the state machine of the old ruling class ― as was done in the French and Bolshevik revolutions ― so would a counter-revolution need to smash the apparatus built by the Chinese Revolution. That hasn’t happened.

To claim that the concessions made to capitalists over the last 45 years amount to overthrowing the Chinese Revolution is reformism in reverse.

There are many more chapters to be written in the Chinese Revolution. The working class in the People’s Republic of China ― which includes millions of workers from minority nationalities like the Uyghurs and Tibetans ― will have the last word.

Long live the Chinese Revolution!

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... apitalist/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 07, 2022 4:58 pm

Why is Chinese society divided ahead of the 20th CCP Congress?
September 7, 11:36

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Why is Chinese society divided ahead of the 20th CCP Congress?

By the second half of 2022, the aggravation of contradictions between various strata of Chinese society became clear in China. It is likely that the current situation may have a critical impact on the development of the economy in the international and domestic markets. What decisions on further development and overcoming difficulties will be made by the country's leadership will become clear at the end of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China, which will open on October 16.

Behind the reports of news agencies about the economy and foreign policy of China, the socio-political life of the world's largest power often falls out of sight. But, observing the internal Internet publications of recent months, we can conclude that processes have intensified in China that are very likely to influence politics and change the face of the country in the future.

In 1978, politically wise Deng Xiaoping called on the most enterprising citizens of the country to take the initiative, get rich by honest work and pull the rest of society with them. Dan's formula worked, but the practice of the last twenty years has shown that the real situation developed in a much more complex way than was originally supposed.

For example, some of those who got rich first did not get rich through honest work and legitimate business, and the activities of others did not contribute to the welfare of the whole society. As stated, the emergence of such a situation only reflects the complexity of real life, but does not negate the general validity of the principle "get rich first should help others get rich."

Therefore, four decades after the start of market reforms, it seems that the time has come to correct the principles of the ideological legacy of Deng Xiaoping, because the interests of big business are increasingly running counter to the interests of society. Realizing the complexity of the current situation, the country's leadership, maneuvering between the interests of capital, provides tacit support to the public and gradually begins an attack on those whose interests diverge from the officially declared course of building a society of general welfare and pursuing an independent national policy.

November 2020, when the founder of the well-known Alibaba corporation Ma Yun and his two business partners, Jing Xiandong and Hu Xiaoming, made a number of statements criticizing the financial, and therefore, and the political system of China. Ma's star went down after holding preventive conversations with him and his partners, and for two years now not only nobody knows practically anything about Ma's activities, but they are no longer interested.

The incident with Ma Yun's thoughtless statements was followed by a wave of purges in the ranks of art workers: someone was closed, someone went abroad, someone had to change their stage image and start singing other songs. It is noteworthy that the directives coming from above received wide popular support, and it seems that the public took the initiative into their own hands. For a month now, the controversy around education and traditional values ​​has been going on: there is an urgent need to move away from inflated assessments of the achievements of the West and belittle one's own qualities. Recently, the results of an investigation into the scandal with school textbooks were published, penalties were made for those responsible, textbooks were ordered to be rewritten and corrected.

Anti-government voices at home and abroad have started talking about tightening the screws and attacking the germs of democracy in China, to which representatives of the Chinese authorities, including the country's Foreign Ministry, constantly have to respond.

For example, slightly digressing from the given topic, it can be noted that at the end of August, the epic that lasted for many years with the unwinding of first the “Tibetan” and then the “Uighur issue” failed miserably. As is known, in May of this year, in agreement with the authorities, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet was on a study visit to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, whose task was to clarify the situation with the existence of labor camps in the region, which contain Muslims. Uigur. On August 31, the UN report on what is happening in Xinjiang came out minutes before Bachelet herself resigned from her position, without finding traces of any crimes against Muslims in China.

This, however, was confirmed in early August by the ambassadors of thirty Islamic states, who also visited the rapidly developing and prosperous region. Whether the resignation from the post of commissioner was a coincidence, or someone thought that Bachelet did not complete the task, it is difficult to judge. But it is precisely human rights and the deficit of democracy that have always been the trump card of US policy, with which all presidents without exception have tried and are trying to beat China, which is moving towards economic power.
Now, judging by the events of this year, the United States will have a new topic for attacks: public dissatisfaction with the activities of the large Chinese transnational corporation Lenovo, which Ukraina.ru recently wrote about, is growing in society. Questions to the Lenovo corporation and its CEO Liu Chuanzhi were first publicly voiced by blogger and publicist Sima Nan.

A journalistic investigation into the activities of the corporation for the privatization of state property and the export of capital abroad aroused public outrage, and the activities of the once flagship of Chinese information technology became interested in the relevant state bodies dealing with the leakage of state property.

Reading blogger publications and comments, one does not leave the feeling that it will be difficult to drown out the rising wave of indignation at the activities of not only the Lenovo corporation, but also big capital in general. With some degree of conventionality, we can say that, forty years after the start of market reforms, Chinese society is beginning to be divided into two camps: the patriotic public and the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and pro-Western big business, supported by representatives of the intelligentsia, also of a liberal-pro-Western persuasion, on the other. It is this small but until recently influential part of the Chinese intellectual community, fueled by big capital, who advocates a conciliatory policy towards the US and the West.

One cannot deny the fact that the events around Ukraine and the pressure of the collective West on the Russian Federation did not have a sobering effect on many Chinese. After almost forty years of Western-friendly reporting, educating the youth and intelligentsia to worship everything Western, the behavior of the US and NATO towards Ukraine and Russia has forced the Chinese to reflect and re-evaluate past views. For many, it became clear that it is the liberal-minded part of the intelligentsia that is the conductor of Western interests in the country and often has a very negative impact on the state of public opinion.

Disputes about the role of prominent figures of culture and art in the life of the country not only do not subside, but are also gaining momentum. Last week, it was under pressure from the public that the Chinese Writers' Union withdrew the membership of the daughter of a famous village writer. The statements of the Nobel laureate Mo Yan, who doubted the need to write on patriotic topics, are widely discussed. Many believe that the literary prize was awarded to the writer not for literary talent, but for the fact that in his works he denigrates everything Chinese, writes for the sake of the Western perception of Chinese reality.

All of the above suggests that, following the development of social Internet platforms, and to some extent as an echo of events in Eastern Europe, a rapid increase in the activity of citizens in discussing the accumulated problems and the future of the country began - an unprecedented phenomenon - the Chinese have always preferred to remain silent . Anti-government bloggers and websites hosted in the West, Taiwan or Japan publish analytical materials with forecasts of developments, predict economic difficulties and an intensification of the clan struggle for power on the eve of the CCP Congress, but practically avoid talking about real moods in the country.

And judging by the voiced demands of society and the reaction of the authorities to certain events, discarding pathos, we can talk about a kind of merging of the policy of the state and the aspirations of the people into one whole. As a result, the aggravation of contradictions between the interests of the state and big business is unlikely to have a positive impact on the already tense relations with the West, but it seems to give a further impetus to the development of partnerships with Russia.

(c) A. Rakhmanov

https://ukraina.ru/20220905/1038436205.html (plus a polemical comment by the author https://sinologist.livejournal.com/670178.html on the topic of Western-centric approaches to assessing what is happening in China)

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7846992.html

Google Translator

Here in the West the artist and intellectual are sanctified, at least 'on paper'. So why, through the history of real, existing socialism, have they been such a pain in the ass to the ruling socialist party, even ruling parties aspiring to socialism?

The present is nested in the past. Intellectuals and artists, were they to have any material success whatsoever, necessarily pandered to the ruling class of their epoch and it's ideals. Revolutions will not change many minds dependent upon the pre-revolutionary ideals, much less the potential material loss of patrons. One of those ideals is that individualism is paramount and excuses damn near any transgression. And so goofy women in Russia and dipshits in Cuba are fete'd by the Western press and governments. These clowns are about totally ineffective in their home countries but are supported by various means by the west, not so much because of their effect on their societies but because of their effect on ours. They reinforce the Ruling Idea that West is Best.
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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 09, 2022 5:17 pm

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Bachelet’s “Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in Xinjiang” Risks Discrediting the OHCHR and Politicizing the Human Rights Regime
This article by Casey Ho-yuk Wan, an attorney and independent researcher, provides a rigorous critique of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ recently-released Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the People’s Republic of China.

Casey gives an overview of the contents of the Assessment, noting that it makes no reference to the most serious charge against China – ie that it engaged in a genocide against Uygur people in Xinjiang – and furthermore that its accusations are couched in deliberately ambiguous language, for example “[China’s actions] may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.

The author observes that Chinese voices are near-absent from the source interviews, in particular Chinese NGOs, academics and individuals. The Assessment does however extensively cite US-funded NGOs such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and ideologically-driven anti-communist researchers such as Adrian Zenz. As such, the Assessment suffers from a profound bias. Meanwhile it makes no mention of human rights that the Chinese government has been very actively promoting in Xinjiang: poverty alleviation, development, and safety from terrorist attacks.

Casey makes the crucially important point that the Assessment does not enjoy a mandate from the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council. Through a detailed analysis of voting and statements at the United Nations, he makes it clear that the majority of the world’s countries – and the vast majority of Muslim-majority countries – support China’s position and reject the accusations that have been thrown around by the US and its allies regarding Xinjiang. As such, and given the OHCHR’s relative silence in relation to persistent human rights abuses by the imperialist powers, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Assessment is politically-motived, produced under pressure from the US, and designed to contribute to the escalating New Cold War. One by-product is that the Assessment “will likely weaken the credibility of the OHCHR in the eyes of the Global South”, thereby causing lasting damage to the entire UN-based human rights framework.

The article is fairly long and detailed, but deserves to be thoroughly read.
Introduction

On 31 August 2022, shortly before the tenure of Michelle Bachelet as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released its “Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the People’s Republic of China.”[1]

This write-up is a response to the “Assessment”, which raises serious doubts as to the impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity of the OHCHR’s work with implications for the credibility not merely of the Assessment, but of the OHCHR as a responsible international organ capable of conducting human rights work in a constructive manner while avoiding double standards and politicization. This write-up will also speculate on potential political consequences of the Assessment. In summary, the Assessment risks the discrediting of the OHCHR and the politicization of the global human rights regime the OHCHR is mandated to promote, while likely serving to widen the chasm between the OHCHR and the Global South and to aggravate ongoing and potential international conflicts.

The Contents of the Assessment

It is important to identify what the Assessment has stated. While much has been made by mainstream media of the Assessment’s seeming indictment of China’s crimes against humanity[2], the Assessment cannot be definitely said to be a sort of indictment or supposition of fact. Paragraph 148 of the Assessment provides:

The extent of arbitrary and discriminatory detention of members of Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim groups, pursuant to law and policy, in context of restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.

This sentence is deliberately ambiguous. In particular, the use of the word “may” can take on two different meanings. The sentence could be stating that, given what the OHCHR currently knows, the extent of arbitrary detention likely constitutes crimes against humanity. This interpretation would be strengthened had the sentence been placed in present perfect tense – that the extent of arbitrary detention may have constituted crimes against humanity. Instead, the sentence placed in the present tense gives rise to a second interpretation: that, given the right circumstances, the extent of arbitrary detention could give rise to the level of crimes against humanity. In other words, “may” could imply either a preliminary finding or supposition of fact, or the mere possibility of a fact.

Leaving the sentence ambiguous in this manner seems to serve the purpose of staking out a position but without committing the OHCHR to find one way or the other in regards to China. At any rate, the sentence is by no means a definitive statement of fact that China committed crimes against humanity. The Assessment is also notable for making no mention of genocide, making only a passing reference to slavery, and presenting no definitive finding on forced labor in Xinjiang.

The Assessment limits itself to the evaluation of certain human rights concerns: China’s laws and policies regarding counter-terrorism and extremism; imprisonment and deprivation of liberty (particularly in regards to the vocational education and training centers (VETCs)); conditions and treatment in the VETCs; religious, cultural, and linguistic identity and expression; privacy and freedom of movement; reproductive rights; employment and labor; family separations and enforced disappearances; and intimidations, threats, and reprisals.

A full review of the Assessment is beyond the scope of this write-up. Suffice to say that in each of the areas listed above, the OHCHR found great cause to be concerned, and have definitively concluded that “serious human rights violations have been committed” in Xinjiang that are “characterized by a discriminatory component.”

Concerns Regarding the Assessment

UN General Assembly Resolution 48/141 of 1994 established the post of High Commissioner of Human Rights, who would be “the United Nations official with principal responsibility for United Nations human rights activities under the direction and authority of the Secretary-General; within the framework of the overall competence, authority and decisions of the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the Commission on Human Rights.” Among other responsibilities, the High Commissioner of Human Rights would “promote and protect the effective enjoyment by all of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.”

Resolution 48/141 further emphasized the “need for the promotion and protection of all human rights to be guided by the principles of impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, in the spirit of constructive international dialogue and cooperation…” These principles were reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of 2006, which established the Human Rights Council (HRC) to replace the Commission on Human Rights. Resolution 60/251 further aspired to eliminate “double standards and politicization” of human rights issues. Resolution 48/141 also requires the High Commissioner to “respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and domestic jurisdiction of States”, as well as to recognize that “all human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political and social – are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated” and to “promote and protect the realization of the right to development”.

The Assessment raises serious concerns about the work of the OHCHR, as the Assessment fails to live up to the principles of impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity, risking the proliferation of double standards and politicization in contemporary human rights work.

The Assessment is one-sided, and sets a worrying precedent

The Assessment claims a “rigorous review of documentary material currently available to the Office, with its credibility assessed in accordance with standard human rights methodology.” It pays special attention to the laws, policies, data, and statements of the Government of China, including document leaks by journalists alleged (and accepted by the OHCHR) to be of an official nature. Supplementing the review of documentary material, the OHCHR interviewed 40 individuals with claimed direct and first-hand knowledge of the matter at hand.

However, a review of the 306 footnotes of the Assessment reveals a concerning omission. Citations in the Assessment overwhelmingly consist of Chinese governmental material, “the vast amount of research that has been completed by non-governmental organizations, researchers, journalists and academics over the last years”, and the interviewed individuals. Missing from citations entirely are non-government Chinese material, including material from Chinese non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academics, and individuals. Also missing are Chinese-language sources apart from Chinese governmental materials such as laws and regulations, and mass media reporting.

The Assessment extensively cites non-government organizations outside China. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), the Uyghur Human Rights Project, and the Xinjiang Victims Database are among those NGOs cited by the Assessment. Yet the Assessment fails to cite the work of any Chinese NGO, or any of the exchanges between the OHCHR and Chinese NGOs. Similarly, while the Assessment cites the work of academics such as Adrian Zenz and Magnus Fiskesjö and of experts such as the Special Procedures of the UN, the Assessment cites no Chinese academic or expert.

The absence of citations of Chinese NGOs and academics is perplexing. Bachelet herself reported that she met with “civil society organizations, academics, and community and religious leaders and others” within China during her visit to China in May 2022.[3] Yet, for no reason provided, the Assessment does not consider or cite any of the OHCHR’s exchanges with the aforementioned Chinese actors.

There appears to be nothing barring the Office from citing an exchange with Chinese NGOs, academics, community and religious leaders, or other individuals. Footnote 225 cites an “OHCHR meeting note with media representative” for the proposition that Chinese authorities restricted the freedom of movement of ethnic minorities at roadblocks and checkpoints, including at airports. No explanation is offered as to what constitutes a “meeting note with media representative”, so it is reasonable to interpret the citation using the plain language of the text and conclude that the source is a note made by a OHCHR staff member in the course of an interaction with somebody from the media. If this can pass the OHCHR’s “rigorous review” of a source’s credibility, then there would appear to be no barrier as to the OHCHR’s citation of exchanges had with Chinese NGOs, academics, community and religious leaders, or other individuals. Instead, the OHCHR offers no explanation for this exclusion.

The OHCHR further includes no Chinese-language sources in the Assessment apart from the Government of China’s laws, policies, data, and statements, and news articles from mass media, such as Sina news and Tianshan Net. This has the effect of disconnecting the Assessment (and by extension, the OHCHR) from the full body of Chinese societal discourse. The lack of non-governmental Chinese perspectives cited in the Assessment raises questions of credibility, as it reasonably raises the question as to whether the OHCHR has the capacity or willingness to exhaustively research all sources, not just sources that happen to be more easily accessible to the staff of the OHCHR. Indeed, given that the Assessment claims to be based on monitoring the situation “within existing resources”, the question arises as to why research of non-governmental, non-official Chinese-language sources was not “within existing resources.”

These omissions raise many questions, and two are outlined below in brief.

Paragraph 67 raises the concern that China’s criminal justice system is “marked by overly broad and vague definitions of crimes.” Footnote 153 then remarks that “Chinese criminal law is replete with other wide-ranging and imprecise public security offences”, such as inciting ethnic hatred or discrimination “if the circumstances are serious”, gathering a crowd that disturbs “social order”, or “picking quarrels and causing trouble”, citing the 5th periodic review of China by the UN Committee against Torture (CAT/C/CHN/CO/5).

Paragraph 67 and footnote 153 cite no Chinese-language source or Chinese authority. The Assessment thus appears to assume that there is no credible or reliable legal scholarship or substantive legal or policy discussions in China regarding China’s criminal justice system or criminal law. As such, the Assessment implicitly asserts that the OHCHR is legitimately in the position to conduct the authoritative legal and political analysis of China’s criminal justice system and criminal laws. To say that such conduct is offensive and patronizing, especially after an official OHCHR visit to China in May 2022 included visits with the Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court and Chinese academics[4], would be an understatement. The lack of either capacity or willingness to research or engage Chinese authorities or Chinese-language sources that could provide more context to or background on China’s criminal justice system or criminal laws raises questions as to the adequacy of the Assessment and the work of the OHCHR, and risks violation of the mandate of the OHCHR to promote human rights in a non-selective manner.

Similarly, paragraph 84 raises the concern that China’s anti-extremism policies “explicitly target standard tenets of Islamic religion and practice.” Footnote 195 accompanying paragraph 84 cites only the OHCHR’s interviewees. Footnotes 182 to 212 covering the section of the Assessment concerning “religious, cultural and linguistic identity and expression” cite no NGOs or religious or community leader that the OHCHR may have met in the course of its visit to China in May 2022. Such actors could provide larger contexts or greater understanding with regard to the OHCHR’s concerns. Instead, the OHCHR omits the perspectives of these actors with no explanation, raising questions as to the efficacy of the OHCHR in constructively engaging the Chinese government and Chinese civil society in the promotion of human rights, as the OHCHR has seemingly demonstrated indifference to the results of its visit to China in preparing and finalizing the Assessment. It also raises concerns as to the OHCHR’s commitment to the promotion of human rights in an objective and non-selective manner, given that the OHCHR does not seem capable or willing to harness the facts or positions it has learnt during its trip to China to inform its Assessment.

Despite the already concerning omission of Chinese civil society actors and Chinese-language sources, the Assessment’s lack of citation of normal citizens of Xinjiang may prove to be far more alarming. Bearing in mind that the Assessment claims that it examines the origin, credibility, weight, and reliability of open-source information in line with standard OHCHR methodology, the Assessment cites Shawn W. Zhang’s Medium account for the proposition that the scale of detention in VETCs can be determined through satellite imagery in footnote 139.

Medium accounts are social media blogs that are not subject to any institutional or academic rigor. However, the OHCHR found this particular Medium account as credible, reliable, and with weight in line with standard OHCHR methodology, sufficient to pass the OHCHR’s “rigorous review”.

The question then arises as to why what is essentially the unfiltered voice of a private citizen engaging in analysis of publicly available satellite imagery on social media can be cited by the Assessment, yet the multitudes of unfiltered voices of private citizens of Xinjiang sharing their own viewpoints and experiences on social media cannot.[5] It is of the highest concern that the Assessment privileges the voice of a foreign citizen over the voices of citizens whose human rights the Assessment is supposedly concerned with. In seeking to fulfill its mandate to be a “voice for the voiceless”, the OHCHR in this instance risks silencing the very people at the core of its human rights concerns.

In a similar vein, footnote 137 cites Nathan Ruser on Twitter. Although this citation is for the limited proposition of “responses by ASPI” to the Government of China’s dispute of the authenticity of imagery used by ASPI, the fact that the OHCHR legitimizes an unfiltered social media account not subject to any institutional or academic rigor as a proper source to dispute positions held by the Chinese government opens the door to further doubts and questions. If Western-based social media accounts are credible and reliable sources according to OHCHR methodology which can rise to the same level as positions advanced by the Chinese government, why then did the Assessment fail to cite similarly-situated Chinese or Western-based social media accounts defending China’s position? Should not the OHCHR also consider similarly-situated accounts and voices to rise to the same level as positions advanced by the UN Special Procedures and the Western-based NGOs, researchers, and journalists cited by the OHCHR in the Assessment? The Assessment fails to clarify a standard and thereby facially risks double standards, which could impeach the credibility of the OHCHR itself.

The OHCHR’s unexplained omission of Chinese authorities and sources from the Assessment sets a worrying precedent. Without explanation, the omission can only imply that non-governmental Chinese and Chinese-language sources do not pass the OHCHR’s “rigorous review”, and thus are not credible or reliable. Unless all non-governmental Chinese and Chinese-language sources truly are unreliable according to the OHCHR’s standards, the more likely explanations are that either the OHCHR lacks the capacity to adequately engage with and monitor non-governmental Chinese and Chinese-language sources, or the OHCHR consciously disregards these sources for unexplained subjective reasons. Either case would raise questions about the OHCHR’s ability to promote human rights in an impartial, objective, and non-selective manner free from double standards, and sets a worrying precedent that selective, one-sided use of sources is permissible. The OHCHR thereby risks silencing entire swaths of global civil society.

The Assessment is not comprehensive, and appears to privilege some rights over others

The Assessment does not adequately cover or appreciate certain factual or historical background of the issues at hand. As a result, the Assessment fails to consider a potentially more complete picture of the human rights situation in Xinjiang by privileging the examination and evaluation of certain rights over others. Privileging certain rights over others would be a violation of the OHCHR’s mandate as provided for in Resolution 48/141, which states that “all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and that as such they should be given the same emphasis.”

For instance, there is a mere paragraph explaining the historical background of violence in Xinjiang. Paragraph 12 paints the period from 1990 to 2016 in broad strokes without elaborating on the actual consequences of the multi-decade period of violence. Assassinations of Uygur religious personnel, violent incidents in which the majority of victims were Uygur[6], and the scale and frequency of violent incidents is neither elucidated nor appreciated.

This background is important for both factual and legal reasons, if an assessment of human rights in Xinjiang, China is to be comprehensive. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that every person has the right to life. General Comment No. 36 (CCPR/C/GC/36), adopted by the Human Rights Committee in 2019, explains that the right to life includes “an obligation for States parties to adopt any appropriate laws or other measures in order to protect life from all reasonably foreseeable threats, including from threats emanating from private persons and entities.” Specifically, “States parties are obliged to take adequate preventive measures in order to protect individuals against reasonably foreseen threats of being murdered or killed by criminals and organized crime or militia groups, including armed or terrorist groups.”

By obscuring the scale, frequency, and nature of violence in Xinjiang during the period from 1990 to 2016 informing Chinese laws and policies under scrutiny, and by obscuring the fact that oftentimes it was Uygurs and other Muslim minorities who were victims of this violence, the OHCHR avoids discussion of the fundamental right to life and the Chinese government’s obligation to take measures to protect life. Indeed, the Assessment makes no substantive discussion of the right to life, and does not assess concerns about China’s anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legal framework and VETC measures in light of China’s responsibility to protect the life of its citizens, among them Uygurs and other Muslim minorities.

If the claim by the Government of China that no terrorist attack has taken place in Xinjiang since 2017 is true, then this could potentially be grounds for a commendation of China’s commitment to the right to life for the citizens of Xinjiang in the certain respect of protecting individuals against reasonably foreseen threats, and should have been evaluated in tandem with other human rights concerns. By avoiding this discussion, the Assessment focuses on the OHCHR’s own concerns to the unjustified exclusion of other considerations, which is unlikely to constitute constructive engagement with China on human rights matter in an impartial, objective, and non-selective manner that respects China’s sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction, consistent with the OHCHR’s mandate.

Similarly, the Assessment makes passing mention of poverty and poverty alleviation, and references to poverty and poverty alleviation are largely limited to stances by the Government of China and raising concerns that poverty alleviation programs by the Government of China “may involve elements of coercion and discrimination on religious and ethnic grounds.” Nowhere in the Assessment is there a substantive discussion about how China’s poverty alleviation may constitute protection of the right to development of Xinjiang citizens.

UN General Assembly Resolution 41/128 confirmed that “the right to development is an inalienable human right and that equality of opportunity for development is a prerogative both of nations and of individuals who make up nations.” The right to development is defined as a person’s right to “enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development”. Resolution 41/128 imposes on States a duty to “formulate appropriate national development policies” aimed at development and based on fair distribution of the benefits of development, and to create “national and international conditions favorable to the realization of the right to development,” among other duties. Additionally, it is a responsibility of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to “promote and protect the realization of the right to development”, as provided for in Resolution 48/141.

The Assessment makes no mention of the right to development. More substantial discussion of China’s poverty alleviation programs as well as discussion of other initiatives and policies such as promotion of entrepreneurship[7], efforts to protect and develop intangible heritages[8], and fostering a favorable foreign trade environment[9], could have provided a fuller picture of the efforts of the Government of China to promote the right to development in Xinjiang.

The Assessment does not engage in these discussions, presenting instead an incomplete and unidimensional picture of China’s poverty alleviation programs in Xinjiang. That the OHCHR would decide to present such is perplexing given the OHCHR’s on-the-ground visit to Xinjiang in May 2022. That the OHCHR is seemingly unable to explain why it chose not to engage in a substantive discussion of the right to development, despite the OHCHR’s mandate to promote and protect the right to development, and draw on its experiences and observations during its visit to Xinjiang, as well as to solicit and cite the opinions of non-governmental Chinese and Chinese-language sources who may be direct witnesses to China’s poverty alleviation programs and its efforts to protect peoples’ rights to development, is concerning. Such a decision raises the question of the OHCHR’s capacity and willingness to fulfill the mandate of constructively engaging with China on human rights matter in an impartial, objective, and non-selective manner respectful of China’s sovereignty and domestic jurisdiction, consistent with the OHCHR’s mandate.

A fuller analysis of the Assessment may reveal further shortcomings in the Assessment to impartially, objectively, and non-selectively review historical context and background, and to address all human rights equally. Perhaps the Assessment necessarily limited its scope to the OHCHR’s concerns as outlined in the Assessment. However, given the political environment of the Assessment (discussed below) and the allegation that China “has committed serious human rights violations”, the failure to fully discuss all rights equally and appreciate all facts relevant thereto is haphazard and reckless at best. At any rate, the OHCHR’s seeming failure to pursue a fuller discussion of the human rights situation in Xinjiang in favor of its own purported concerns raises serious concerns about the OHCHR’s impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectiveness in its promotion of human rights, free from double standards and politicization. The OHCHR also risks failing to recognize that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated and should be given the same emphasis, which would constitute a violation of its own mandate and thus impeach the credibility of the OHCHR and the Assessment.

The Assessment does not appear to enjoy a mandate by the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council

Generally, the High Commissioner for Human Rights prepares country reports like the Assessment pursuant to a General Assembly or Human Rights Council resolution, upon the request of a state, or through some other legal instrument.

For reference, country reports made by the OHCHR during Bachelet’s tenure include:

successive reports on human rights conditions in Ukraine, based on the work of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, initially deployed at the invitation of the Government of Ukraine (see A/HRC/27/75, paras. 7-8)
successive reports on the situation of human rights in Colombia, which are included in the OHCHR’s annual report pursuant to the request of the parties to the “Final Agreement for Ending the Conflict and Building a Stable and Lasting Peace, the peace agreement signed between the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia” (see A/HRC/40/3/Add. 3)
Report of the UN OHCHR on the “Situation of human rights in the Philippines” of 2020 (A/HRC/44/22), which was authorized by UN HRC Resolution 41/2.
Report of the UN OHCHR on the “Situation of human rights in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” of 2021 (A/HRC/47/55), which was authorized by UN HRC Resolution 45/20.
The Assessment provides no such authorization similar to the above. The Assessment provides only, in paragraph 3, that its review on which the Assessment is based was made pursuant to the OHCHR’s “global mandate under General Assembly resolution 48/141 and within existing resources”. In other words, the OHCHR’s authorization for the review of “human rights concerns in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the People’s Republic of China” is merely the general authorization for the OHCHR to “promote and protect the effective enjoyment by all of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights”.[10]

Such a general authorization is not unprecedented. The 2018 OHCHR “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir” similarly offered no basis for authorization of the report except for the general mandate of Resolution 48/141. Be that as it may, the question arises as to competence, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectiveness of the OHCHR when it acts outside the “overall competence, authority and decisions” (emphasis added)of the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, as provided for in Resolution 48/141.

In the Assessment’s case, it is implied that Resolution 48/141 provides adequate authorization for the Assessment due to:

increasing allegations by various civil society groups that members of the Uyghur and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority communities were missing or had disappeared in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China;
the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances reporting a “dramatic” increase in cases from XUAR “with the introduction of ‘re-education’ camps in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region by the Government of China”;
numerous research and investigative reports publishing a diverse range of non-governmental organizations, think-tanks and media outlets – as well as public accounts by victims – alleging arbitrary detention on a broad scale in so-called “camps”, as well as claims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, and forced labour, among others; and
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD) expressing alarm during its review of China’s periodic report in August 2018 over numerous reports of the detention of large numbers of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, under the pretext of countering religious extremism in XUAR.[11]
If such is the case, the OHCHR implies that it is authorized to conduct “monitoring” if there are enough allegations of a given human rights issue by civil society, or that the OHCHR is authorized to conduct monitoring if an issue becomes high-profile enough. It could perhaps also be that the OHCHR is authorized to conduct monitoring because allegations of human rights violations appear to transcend specific incidences to reach a worrying systematic scale. The standard is not in any case clear.

This unclear standard is more worrying given that the OHCHR has displayed a trend of selectively overlooking, among other allegations, alleged war crimes by the United States and its allies. Such allegations are arguably also both many and high-profile, and alleged United States war crimes in Afghanistan appear to transcend specific incidences into a systematic scale[12], yet the OHCHR has failed to make so much as a statement on these concerns, much less authorize “monitoring” and “assessments”.

During her tenure, Bachelet demonstrated that she was not at all averse to warning states of the possibility that their actions may amount to war crimes and urging inquiry or immediate corrective action. On 2 November 2020, she warned the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (Armenia and Azerbaijan) that attacks in populated areas may amount to war crimes. On 13 November 2020, she urged for an immediate inquiry into the alleged killings of civilians in the town of Mai-Kadra in Ethiopia, warning the parties to the conflict (Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front) that the killings could amount to war crimes. On 15 May 2021, Bachelet warned that the indiscriminate firing of missiles by Palestinian armed groups into Israel could amount to war crimes. On 22 April 2022, Bachelet warned that Russian actions in Ukraine could amount to war crimes.

Yet Bachelet was silent regarding alleged war crimes committed by the United States.[13] Bachelet’s seeming silence persisted despite a high-profile armed conflict in Afghanistan to which the United States was a party and to which the United States only ended its engagement in 2021 after 20 years, and despite accusations that the United States was stealing oil from Syria, which, if true, could amount to a war crime as “pillage” under the Rome Statute[14]. Indeed, despite the United States’ high-profile threat to arrest and impose sanctions on judges of the International Criminal Court should they charge any United States soldier who served in Afghanistan with war crimes early in Bachelet’s tenure in September 2018, as far as can be established from a review of the OHCHR website, Bachelet made no statement warning that actions by the United States could amount to war crimes and urging inquiry or immediate corrective action.

This seeming immunity from the scrutiny of the OHCHR appears to extend to certain allies of the United States as well. In March 2020, a shocking video of an Australian Special Air Service soldier killing an unarmed Afghan civilian surfaced, raising concerns of war crimes. As far as can be established from a review of the OHCHR website, Bachelet made no statement warning that Australian actions could amount to war crimes and urging inquiry or immediate corrective action.

Even in matters that are arguably more analogous to the matter at hand (i.e. domestic human rights setbacks in the United States), the OHCHR is comparatively quiet. In the United States context, Bachelet has issued statements criticizing or condemning anti-Semitic incidents (May 2019), conditions of detention of migrants and refugees (July 2019), unilateral sanctions against Venezuela (August 2019), presidential pardons of alleged war criminals (November 2019), the killing of – and suppressing protests in connection with the killing of – George Floyd (May and June 2020), the events on Capitol Hill of 6 January 2021, and the removal of federal protection for the right of abortion (June 2022). These statements were in response to high-profile events, yet these events were, for some reason or another, not sufficient to give rise to OHCHR monitoring or assessments, even though many of these events also attracted criticisms and condemnations from the UN CERD and UN Special Procedures.[15]

That the OHCHR in the past years seemed able only to issue condemnatory statements against the United States in response to high-profile events seems to belie an OHCHR ignorance or overlooking of deeper, systematic human rights concerns, which also have not given rise to OHCHR monitoring or assessments.

For instance, according to the World Prison Brief the United States has the largest prison population in the world, surpassing even China’s second largest prison population in the world. Despite having approximately 4% of the world’s population, it has approximately 20% of the world’s prisoners. The severity of the incarceration crisis in the United States is such that, for China to match the United States’ incarceration rate of 629 incarcerated persons per 100,000 people, the highest in the world and far above China’s (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) rate of 119 incarcerated persons per 100,000 people, China would need to incarcerate approximately 7 million more people. Should this phenomenon be shown to be a systemic concern, this could constitute a violation of the right to liberty as provided for in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, Bachelet and the OHCHR have not called for monitoring or assessment of this situation.

Bachelet and the OHCHR were also silent concerning human rights developments in the United States that were not publicly prominent. The recent Supreme Court case overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the federal protection of abortion rights was high-profile, prompting a statement from the OHCHR. The recent Supreme Court case Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, however, in which the Supreme Court overturned 200 years of United States legal precedent and subjected tribal sovereignty to state sovereignty, instead of respecting the nation-to-nation relationships tribes are entitled to vis-à-vis the United States federal government, was not as high-profile and attracted no comments by Bachelet or the OHCHR.

Castro-Huerta sets a worrying precedent for the future of indigenous peoples in the United States, presenting a very high risk of violation of indigenous peoples’ rights to autonomy and self-government, among other rights enshrined in the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In particular, the subsuming of tribal sovereignty to state sovereignty has historically held a high degree of correlation with violence against, and murder of, indigenous people in the United States, including documented cases of murdered and missing indigenous women.[16] Castro-Huerta threatens serious violations of the rights of indigenous people should its tenets be perpetuated, but this apparently came as no concern to Bachelet or the OHCHR, with concerns of violations of the rights of indigenous people in the United States in general never rising to the level in which the OHCHR calls for monitoring or assessments.

Given the above, it is difficult to determine the standard for authorizing the OHCHR to engage in country reports when it does not have an authorizing Resolution, invitation, or other legal instrument such as a peace treaty. By authorizing itself to undertake this Assessment, the OHCHR cannot but risk a double standard which undermines its credibility. Specifically, the OHCHR risks presenting itself as having resorted to the general provisions of Resolution 48/141 to authorize itself to monitor and issue a condemnatory Assessment of China merely because it was unable to gain the authorization it normally requires from the HRC for such monitoring and assessments, given the strong support for China’s position by the international community of states at the HRC (discussed below).

Without a properly explained standard, the context of an OHCHR unwilling to so much as release a statement on alleged war crimes by the United States and its allies, yet investing significant resources on the matter at hand, raises questions as to the OHCHR’s impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity in the promotion of human rights, free from double standards and politicization. As explained below, this is likely to discredit the OHCHR, especially in the eyes of the Global South, and risks not only calling into question the integrity of the OHCHR but also politicizing the very human rights regime it seeks to promote.

Political Ramifications of the Assessment

Bachelet’s Assessment, with its condemnatory tone, privileging of certain voices and sources, failure to examine all human rights equally, and lacking a HRC mandate, as explained above, fails the principles of impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity and violates the spirit of constructive dialogue. The Assessment is thus likely to present concerns of double standards in and politicization of the OHCHR’s human rights work, placing the OHCHR at odds with a significant contingent of the international community of states, particularly those of the Global South.

Reviewing the dialogue of states on Xinjiang at the HRC is illustrative of the chasm the Assessment threatens to open. Bachelet’s tenure as High Commissioner saw four rounds of competing joint statements regarding Xinjiang at various sessions of the HRC. At each round, the group of countries co-sponsoring statements condemning China regarding Xinjiang were consistently outnumbered by the group of countries co-sponsoring statements supporting China’s position: 50-22 for the 41st session in 2019, 46-27 for the 44th session in 2020, 68-42 for the 47th session in 2021, and 69-47 for the 50th session in 2022.

During the 50th session in 2022, more countries in each region of the world co-sponsored the statement supporting China than the one condemning (Africa 33-2, Americas 9-5, Asia 20-2), except for Europe and Oceania (3-34 and 4-4 respectively). Members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, “the collective voice of the Muslim world”) overwhelmingly co-sponsored the statement supporting China’s position (37-1).

The joint statement in support of China at the 50th session appealed to respect for sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states, opposed politicization of human rights and double standards, and appealed to the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity in human rights work. The joint statement condemning China at the 50th session made no reference to these principles enshrined in UN General Assembly resolutions. It is thus reasonable to interpret the statements of other countries making similar appeals to these principles as tacit support of China’s position, or, at the very least, an appeal to the OHCHR to demonstrate more circumspection. Such countries included OIC members such as Azerbaijan, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Maldives, as well as other developing countries such as Ghana and Vietnam. The Arab League also made a similar appeal.

Ink has been spilled about how many supporters of China’s position have close economic ties with China, particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative. However, this is not convincing as a determinative factor, given China is also the largest trading partner of certain countries condemning it regarding Xinjiang (the United States, Germany, and Australia), while many countries have condemned China despite their own involvement in the Belt and Road Initiative (for example, Italy, Poland, and the Baltic countries).

That the vast majority of Muslim-majority and OIC countries have supported China, in particular those in West Asia and North Africa, is all the more striking given the political turmoil in West Asia. Indeed, whereas the Axis of Resistance (Iran and Syria) has complex and frequently difficult relationships with the Saudi axis (Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which is represented in the UN by the Saudi-backed Government of Yemen) as well as with the Abraham Accords countries and others who have official ties with Israel (Egypt, UAE, Bahrain), all aforementioned countries sans Israel support the Chinese position on this issue. Similarly, while Algeria and Morocco have ceased relations since August 2021, both also support China’s position. What is traditionally thought of as bloc geopolitical gamesmanship thus also is unconvincing as a determinative value.

There thus appears to be a deeper consideration, concern, or misgiving guiding normally opposing Muslim-majority Western Asian and Northern African countries to unite on this issue. Indeed, the foreign ministers of the OIC are on record for commending the “efforts of the People’s Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens” after an OIC delegation visited Xinjiang in January 2019[17], with the OIC maintaining sustained interest in Xinjiang, a delegation most recently visiting the region in August 2022.

Bachelet’s Assessment is plainly at variance with the OIC and the opinions of many Muslim-majority countries. While the OHCHR, more than 80% of whose staff is made up of people from the the United States and other Western countries,[18] claims concern for discrimination against Muslim minorities in China and finds “serious human rights violations” that could rise to the level of crimes against humanity, this is the very opposite of the experience of the majority of delegates from Muslim-majority and OIC countries who have visited Xinjiang. Many of these delegates have found something of value in the Xinjiang experience[19], whereas the OHCHR in its “Assessment” sees only negatives.

There is thus an obvious gap in values and perspectives, which the OHCHR does not seem to endeavor to bridge, despite having no specific authorization from the HRC to pursue this Assessment in the first place. Had the Assessment, among other things, focused on the right to life (a potential concern for Muslim-majority and OIC countries struggling against terrorism, extremism, sectarian violence, and other related issues) and the right to development (a concern of Muslim-majority and OIC countries seeking to pursue development while protecting people’s livelihoods in an equitable way), the OHCHR perhaps could have worked towards bridging that gap. Instead, the OHCHR focuses only on the negatives in its Assessment, not only failing to discuss certain other rights, but also privileging certain voices while depriving others of their voices. This is likely to disturb Global South countries, who may see in the Assessment a disregard both for the principles underlying the very foundations of the HRC, OHCHR, and the global human rights regime the UN seeks to promote, and also a flagrant disregard of the values and perspectives of Global South countries in general.

In recent years, it has often been Muslim-majority countries in West Asia and North Africa who have had to witness and shoulder the consequences of Western interventions in their regions, which are often justified and legitimized using human rights grounds. The all too apparent rift between the stances of these countries and the findings of the Assessment regarding the rights of Muslims in another country cannot but work to strain relations between the OHCHR and these countries. This effect will be especially pronounced given the context of the seeming silence of Bachelet and the OHCHR on the very same Western interventions whose consequences these countries have had to shoulder.

In this light, the Assessment may prove far from constructive, not only in regards to China but also vis-à-vis Muslim-majority countries, particularly in West Asia and North Africa, who may feel wary that the OHCHR strays from its mandate to constructively engage on human rights based on the principles of impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity without double standards and politicization. This will likely weaken the credibility of the OHCHR in the eyes of the Global South, which is not conducive to Global South cooperation with the OHCHR.

While the Assessment may not have substantiated accusations made by Western countries with regards to China, the Assessment will serve as a potent political tool for Western countries against China[20], including by legitimizing Western unilateral coercive measures.[21]

In particular, recommendations in paragraph 152 of the Assessment made to the “business community” are likely to legitimize and justify the United States’ Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act passed earlier this year, which provides for a rebuttable presumption that all goods sourced from Xinjiang was made through forced labor and thus impoundable by US authorities. The Act effectively legalizes a hypothetical full import ban on China, since it will be too difficult for companies to prove that their supply chains in China do not include parts or components from Xinjiang, much less prove the negative that the companies’ supply chain does not involve forced labor in Xinjiang. Whether intended or not, the Assessment will legitimize and justify economic warfare against China and the deprivation of the right to work and to development from Chinese people, including Uygurs, as enshrined in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Resolution 41/128.

Given that the Assessment could all but legitimize unilateral coercive measures by the United States and its allies against China (and thereby de facto legitimizes foreign interference with China’s efforts to protect the rights of its people), it is likely that the working group between China and the OHCHR established during Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang in May 2022 will face uncertain prospects. It will be difficult to foster a relationship with an entity that has worked towards legitimizing hostile actions against a state and its people, including legitimizing the deprivation of rights of that state’s people. In this light, the OHCHR has failed to fulfill its mandate to constructively engage states on human rights matters.

Similarly, the Global South is likely to find even fewer reasons to cooperate with the OHCHR moving forward. For one, China cooperated with the OHCHR, even though the OHCHR had no specific General Assembly or HRC authorization, only to have the OHCHR release a condemnatory Assessment. Second, the Assessment, already lacking General Assembly or HRC authorization, was selective in its selection of sources and analysis of human rights situations, raising serious questions of credibility due to the failure of the OHCHR to adhere to its mandate and promote human rights in an impartial, objective, and non-selective manner. As a result, Global South countries are likely to become more circumspect and defensive in their interactions with the OHCHR and within the HRC, which will contribute to an environment not at all conducive to the promotion of human rights in a non-politicized manner.

In an interview with UN News on 30 August 2022, Bachelet identified “huge polarization on the international level” as a present-day phenomenon unconducive to human rights. Be that as it may, Bachelet did not help address this problem through releasing this Assessment. She has instead accelerated the politicization of the international human rights regime, portending even greater distrust among Global South countries towards the OHCHR and the field of international human rights as promoted by the UN. Despite claiming that she spoke up whether “it’s China or the UK or US”, Bachelet’s track record (and that of the OHCHR in general) is one of selective overlooking of Western atrocities, which is not likely to appeal to the Global South countries who have had to witness the effects of such atrocities, many of whom have decided to support China in the matter at hand.

With the Assessment as issued by the OHCHR riddled with potential issues of bias, non-objectivity, and selectiveness, in seeming defiance of the cooperative steps taken with China, as well as seemingly insensitive to the perspectives and positions of other stakeholders, and in the context of the OHCHR’s de facto blank check for Western atrocities, allowing Western countries to present themselves as paragons in human rights despite egregious alleged atrocities including war crimes, the OHCHR risks discrediting itself with Global South states representing the vast majority of humanity today. Worse, the Assessment is sure to be used to accelerate and sharpen great power competition, with the effect that the OHCHR through the Assessment may have already effectively aligned with one power or bloc of countries over the other, in flagrant violation of its mandate.

In this light, the Assessment’s hedging language can serve only as cold comfort, as the Assessment risks the acceleration of polarization and global conflict while discrediting and delegitimizing the OHCHR, and politicizing the human rights regime it attempts to promote.

[1] It should be noted that the official spelling of Xinjiang’s full name in English is “Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.” It appears that the OHCHR has chosen not to adopt China’s official spelling of its own administrative unit.

This write-up will endeavor to use the official spellings as adopted by the relevant international or national authorities. As such, the official Chinese spelling of “Uygur” will be used.

[2] See headlines such as Reuter’s “U.N. says China may have committed crimes against humanity in Xinjiang.”

[3] Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet after official visit to China, 28 May 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/202 ... r-official.

[4] Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet after official visit to China, 28 May 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/202 ... r-official.

[5] Global Times, “Xinjiang residents upload personal videos to debunk Pompeo’s lies on ‘genocide’”, Global Times, 25 January 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202101/1213911.shtml. 2,402 videos have been compiled as of September 2022, and can be reviewed on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... y48kkgJq5w.

[6] For example, the April 2013 Incident in Serikbuya Town, in which 10 out of 15 civilians deaths were Uygurs, including 3 grassroots community workers who were conducting household visits at the time. CCTV news media brief available at https://news.qq.com/a/20130429/000207.htm.

[7] See, e.g., CGTN, “Xinjiang Development: Locals see rise in entrepreneurship, employment opportunities”, CGTN, 16 December 2021, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-12-16/V ... index.html.

[8] See, e.g., “Xinhua, Tourism helps promote intangible heritage in Xinjiang”, 26 September 2021, http://www.china.org.cn/china/2021-09/2 ... 776401.htm.

[9] See, e.g., Urumqi Customs, 2021年新疆外贸进出口同比增长5.8%实现“十四五”良好开局.

[10] Although, as noted in paragraph 8, the Government of China extended an invitation to the OHCHR for a visit to China, this occurred after the OHCHR began monitoring and assessing the matter at hand.

[11] It is concerning that the Assessment does not give the full context for this UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination meeting. While it cites CERD/C/CHN/CO/14-17, para 40(a), it does not cite the OHCHR’s own press release for the meeting, available at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases ... wsID=23452, which shows that the lone United States attendee at the meeting, Gay McDougall, Committee Co-Rapporteur for China, was the sole committee member to raise the allegations of “internment camps” in Xinjiang.

As a side note, it is also concerning that neither the press release nor CERD/C/CHN/CO/14-17 are cited for positive aspects of China’s human rights progress, including commending China for “creating extraordinary prosperity and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, including in the eight multi-ethnic provinces and regions.” This would speak to China’s efforts to protect its people’s right to development, which the OHCHR is mandated to promote.

[12] See, e.g., Shaharzad Akbar, “Ending the Forever War, But Leaving a Legacy of Impunity in Afghanistan”, Just Security, 30 June 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/77207/endi ... ghanistan/; Chris Hedges, “The dangerous myth of American innocence: Only our enemies commit ‘war crimes’”, Salon, 24 March 2022, https://www.salon.com/2022/03/24/the-my ... ar-crimes/.

[13] Bachelet’s seeming sole statement on United States war crimes is a 19 November 2019 statement delivered by Spokesperson Rupert Colville expressing “concern” over “recent US presidential pardons for three US service members accused of war crimes.” This statement does not address United States war crimes directly, and it certainly does not conclude that the United States committed war crimes in the same manner as the OHCHR’s recent conclusion that China committed “serious human rights violations.”

[14] See Robin Wright, “Trump’s Baffling Plan to Pillage Syria’s Oil, The New Yorker, 30 October 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... syrias-oil; The Cradle News Desk, “Over 200 oil tankers escorted out of Syria by US troops within two days”, The Cradle, 13 August 2022, https://thecradle.co/Article/News/14255.

[15] See, e.g., “UN Committee calls on US to comply with international obligations to tackle racial discrimination”, 15 June 2020, https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2020/06/u ... rimination; “USA: UN experts denounce Supreme Court decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, urge action to mitigate consequences”, 24 June 2022, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases ... -wade-urge.

[16] Mary Kathryn Nagle, “Castro-Huerta decision ‘flips federal Indian law on its head’, Indian Country Today”, https://indiancountrytoday.com/opinion/ ... n-its-head.

[17] Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Resolutions on Muslim Communities and Muslim Minorities in the Non-OIC Member States Adopted by the 46th Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers (OIC/CFM-46/2019/MM/RES/Final), para. 20, 1-2 March 2019.

[18] Zhao Lijian, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Regular Press Conference, 2 September 2022, http://new.fmprc.gov.cn/fyrbt_673021/20 ... 0376.shtml.

[19] See, e.g., Xinhua, “Diplomats from 30 Islamic countries visit Xinjiang”, 7 August 2022, https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/2022 ... 70bc1.html.

[20] See, for instance, the United States’ State Department statement on the Assessment on 1 September 2022, declaring that the Assessment “deepens and reaffirms our grave concern regarding the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity that PRC government authorities are perpetrating”, despite the fact that the Assessment did not substantiate accusations of genocide. https://www.state.gov/un-office-of-the- ... -xinjiang/

[21] “Unilateral coercive measures often refer to economic measures taken by one State to compel a change in policy of another State. The most widely used forms of economic pressure are trade sanctions in the form of embargoes and/or boycotts, and the interruption of financial and investment flows between sender and target countries.” Thematic study of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights, including recommendations on actions aimed at ending such measures (A/HRC/19/33).

Incidentally, the United States and other close partners of the United States including NATO member states, Japan, and the Republic of Korea have consistently opposed HRC resolutions condemning unilateral coercive measures. See Human rights and unilateral coercive measures (A/HRC/RES/27/21); Human rights and unilateral coercive measures (A/HRC/RES/36/10), and; The negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights (A/HRC/RES/40/3).

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Re: China

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:54 pm

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Statement condemning the OHCHR’s ‘Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China’
The following statement has been initiated by Friends of Socialist China. You can add your name as an individual signatory using Google Forms. Once you do so, your name will appear on this page within a few hours. Organizations wishing to add their signatures to this statement should contact us at info@socialistchina.org
We strongly condemn the publication by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of its Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China. In the words of former OHCHR lawyer and human rights expert Alfred de Zayas, this document “should be discarded as propagandistic, biased, and methodologically flawed.”

Based on substandard research methods and biased sources, the Assessment is completely lacking in credibility. It treats arms of the military-industrial complex such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), along with professional anti-communists such as Adrian Zenz, as legitimate sources. Meanwhile the voices of Chinese NGOs, academics and individuals are suppressed, as are the numerous reports of diplomatic trips to Xinjiang – including by representatives of Muslim-majority countries – that have taken place in recent years.

The Assessment pointedly ignores China’s extraordinary progress in promoting the human rights of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang: in relation to poverty alleviation, social welfare, economic development, safety from terrorist attacks, and more. Instead, the document uses deliberately ambiguous language – that China’s actions “may” constitute crimes against humanity – in order to slander the People’s Republic of China whilst maintaining some plausible deniability.

It is highly suspicious that the Assessment makes no mention of then-UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s visit to Xinjiang in May 2022. Having visited a prison and spoken to former trainees at a vocational education and training center; having interacted with civil society organizations, academics, and community and religious leaders; Bachelet found no evidence of crimes against humanity. The numerous conversations she had do not form part of the data set for the Assessment.

What is the reason for the disparity between the OHCHR report and Bachelet’s end-of-mission statement? It is painfully obvious that the OHCHR has come under intense pressure from the US to bolster the credibility of the lurid slanders that have been thrown at China by Western politicians and journalists. Such propaganda forms part of the West’s imperial agenda of undermining China.

The OHCHR Assessment does a profound disservice to the cause of strengthening global human rights cooperation. The report does not enjoy a mandate from the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council, and it runs counter to the wishes and interests of the mainstream of the international community. A joint statement delivered by Cuba at the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in June this year stated its firm opposition to the “politicization of human rights and double standards, or interference in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights”. This statement was signed by 69 countries, the overwhelming majority from the Global South.

Given the OHCHR’s relative silence in relation to persistent human rights abuses by the imperialist powers, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Assessment is politically-motived, produced under pressure from the US, and designed to contribute to a dangerous, escalating New Cold War.

We call on the OHCHR to withdraw its Assessment, and we stand in solidarity with the people of China, subjected to abhorrent and baseless accusations.

(List of signatories at link.)

https://socialistchina.org/2022/09/12/s ... -of-china/

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This is why the Arab world stands firmly with China
This article by Keith Lamb, first published in CGTN on 14 September 2022, describes the friendly relations between China and the Arab world, noting in particular that the Arab states have refused to support the West’s slanderous accusations in relation to human rights in Xinjiang. Indeed, numerous envoys from the League of Arab States have visited Xinjiang and spoken enthusiastically about the development of human rights in the region.

The author notes that imperialist apologists explain the above away on the basis that Arab states are somehow afraid of China; but surely it’s the countries which “committed carnage against the Arab world” that should be feared, not China, which “has not invaded a single Arab state and doesn’t maintain a myriad of military bases.”

Far from carrying out military aggression against the region, China is involved in extensive cooperation, trade and aid. “Where others have bombed, China builds.” The author observes that, last year, Iraq was the number one recipient of Belt and Road financing, receiving $10.5 billion; this sort of engagement compares favorably with the US-led genocidal war on Iraq. Meanwhile China is cooperating extensively with the countries of the region on cutting-edge technology, including in green energy, telecoms and AI. As Keith says, “this is not a new imperialism but a rejection of it.”
Those blinded by the “free” press believe China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is the location of a “genocide” against Chinese Muslims who are simultaneously “enslaved.” In contrast, envoys from the League of Arab States (LAS), who have been to Xinjiang, talk about China’s social and human rights achievements.

Those who screamed for violence against Arab states, including Libya, Iraq, and Syria, in the name of human rights, solve this cognitive dissonance by claiming that the Arab world is afraid of China. However, their delusion is only carried one step further to absurdity as clearly those who committed the carnage against the Arab world are the ones who should be feared.

In contrast, China has not invaded a single Arab state and it doesn’t maintain a myriad of military bases, which blurs the line between cooperation and occupation. If anything, considering the vast military power accumulated in the Middle East, the LAS support for China shows that they, despite lurking threats, will bravely stand up for truth so that “Weapons of Mass Destruction” lies can no longer be leveraged for the tyrants of war.

Instead, a new page of history is turning, which seeks to constrain the unilateral whims of a hegemonic bully. It is China’s peaceful rise and developmental philosophy contrasted with a fading unilateral order of violence, lies, and uneven development that leads the Arab world to stand with China today.

This geopolitical truth is underlined by political reality. The LAS has just adopted a resolution on Sino-Arab relations where it has vowed support for the one-China principle and seeks to strengthen cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Furthermore, the LAS declared its appreciation for China’s diplomatic efforts in supporting Arab causes, such as the Palestine issue and promoting the peaceful settlement of regional crises.

Sino-Arab relations thrived under the trade and diplomatic envoys during the ancient Silk Road era and politically their interests converged with the post-colonial struggle for independence and liberation. Today, both sides dreaming of greater prosperity and independence, seek greater South-South cooperation to overcome the unilateral status quo.

Where others have bombed, China builds. In 2021, Iraq was the top BRI beneficiary receiving $10.5 billion in financing. In addition, Chinese companies are building the Central Business District of Egypt’s new administrative capital east of Cairo. In Saudi Arabia, China has already completed numerous rail projects and is focused on both traditional and green energy cooperation to the tune of billions.

This is not a new imperialism but a rejection of it. This is not about China taking over the hegemonic mantel but rather working together with all civilizations to create a democratic multipolar world.

China does not dictate; it cooperates. Where others seek to control the heights of technology, China seeks to collaborate. This is highlighted by the 2021 Initiative on China-Arab Data Security Cooperation, which increases collaboration on AI, 5G, and internet security, as well as establishes global digital governance.

Others selfishly see the world in zero-sum terms. Rather than join the popular BRI, they combat it through their own institutions. All the while, China goes with the flow by adapting its strategy to the future of humanity, which the Arab civilization is a member of.

Since the launch of the BRI, which all LAS states have signed on to, China-led multilateral banks, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, have established Islamic financing frameworks. In Saudi Arabia, the BRI has merged with the Saudi Vision 2030.

Accordingly, the Chinese Dream of a more democratic world is also an Arabic dream. China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) and China’s Global Security Initiative (GSI) highlight this truth well.

GDI calls for a rejection of old uneven development models driven by unfettered markets, for the whims of capital, which has left the Global South in a losing position. Instead, the priority is placed on a people-centered approach emphasizing even development and equality in globalization that benefits all.

GSI recognizes that local conflicts can have unforeseen disastrous consequences. For example, the destruction of Libya has led to chaos in the Sahel. Consequently, recognizing that we share the same world, multilateral solutions that work together for peaceful settlements must be sought after.

In this new world, the basic principle of non-interference in sovereign affairs is upheld. This is precisely why the LAS immediately spoke out against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to China’s Taiwan region. Indeed, when the Arab world, beset with division and sovereign interference, firmly stands with China, it does so because it stands for its own liberation cause that resists hegemony.

This principle was echoed by Khalil Al-Thawadi, the Assistant Secretary-General of the LAS at the recently held third China-Arab States Forum for Reform and Development, when he called for a concerted effort to reject regional interference in internal Arab affairs while praising China for its comprehensive support.

With bilateral trade standing at $330 billion in 2021, China is the Arab world’s largest trading partner. This economic reality and the myriad of cooperation signals a strengthening of the Sino-Arabic strategic partnership marked by the first Arab-Chinese summit, which is set for December.

With the page of history turning, the Arab world is standing up and speaking out. Others need to take note and get on the same page.

https://socialistchina.org/2022/09/16/t ... ith-china/

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NYT Scolds China for Not ‘Learning to Live’—or Die—With Covid
JIM NAURECKAS


Four and a half million people.

That’s how many Chinese people would have died from Covid-19 had its government taken the same approach to the pandemic that the United States has taken, and gotten the same results.

Instead, China has had 15,000 deaths from Covid—most of these from an outbreak in the spring of 2022 in Hong Kong, which has its own healthcare system.

Meanwhile, the United States has lost more than a million people to Covid since the pandemic began. Deaths currently continue at the rate of about 450 a day, which would add up to roughly 160,000 a year if present trends continue.
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The New York Times (9/7/22) continues to present the Chinese government’s saving millions of lives as an unmitigated disaster.
Clearly China and the United States have very different systems, and what works in one place would not necessarily work in the other. But given the remarkable success that China has had in protecting its population from a deadly and pernicious virus, surely US-based journalists are examining what lessons China has to teach us?

No, not if you work for the New York Times. There you’ll be writing yet another in a series of articles about how China has had the enormous misfortune of avoiding mass death.

“China’s ‘Zero Covid’ Bind: No Easy Way Out Despite the Cost,” is the headline of the latest iteration (9/7/22), written by Vivian Wang. The article begins:

Tens of millions of Chinese confined at home, schools closed, businesses in limbo and whole cities at a standstill. Once again, China is locking down enormous parts of society, trying to completely eradicate Covid in a campaign that grows more anomalous by the day as the rest of the world learns to live with the coronavirus.

But even as the costs of China’s zero-Covid strategy are mounting, Beijing faces a stark reality: It has backed itself into a corner. Three years of its uncompromising, heavy-handed approach of imposing lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing to isolate infections have left it little room, at least in the short term, to change course.

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The New York Times maintains it’s the country with the orange line, not the dark blue one, that has the Covid policy problem.
Nowhere in the article is any comparison of the respective death toll in China and the US. Or any hint that life expectancy in the US has now dropped below that of China—76.1 vs. 77.1 years, respectively (Quartz, 9/1/22)—an acknowledgment that would render ridiculous the Times‘ assertions that that China’s “government has pushed propaganda depicting the virus as having devastated Western countries,” and that President Xi Jinping “has prioritized nationalism over the guidance of scientists.”

But it’s not just the Covid death toll that the Times has to hide in order to make its anti-China spin remotely credible. Much of the piece deals with the hardship supposedly caused by the zero-Covid policy: “The social and economic cost will continue to increase,” insists one of the article’s relatively few sources, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Yanzhong Huang (author of the New York Times op-ed “Has China Done Too Well Against Covid-19?”—12/29/20—which argued that “China’s comparative success now risks hurting the country”).

Wang sure does make the economic situation in China sound grim:

Many Chinese have found ways to cope, even if reluctantly: putting in longer hours to scrape up more money, cutting back on spending. Complaints about a shortage of medical care or food often emerge, but some residents say they support the overarching goal….

Youth unemployment is soaring, small businesses are collapsing and overseas companies are shifting their supply chains elsewhere. A sustained slowdown would undermine the promise of economic growth, long the central pillar of the party’s legitimacy.


But what is the actual cost of China’s Covid success? In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, China’s GDP grew by 2.2%, while the US’s shrank by 3.4%. In 2021, the US economy bounced back, with 5.7% growth—but not as much as China, which grew 8.1%. Projections are for the US to grow by 1.3% in 2022, while China is expected (by Goldman Sachs) to grow 3.0%.

When you add it up, China is expected to be 13.8% richer at the beginning of 2023 than it was when the pandemic began—whereas the US will be just 3.4% better off. So which country’s belts need tightening as a result of its Covid strategy?
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The New York Times (9/7/22) reported that China “suffered from low vaccination rates”—but a glance at the Times‘ own vaccination tracker shows that China in fact has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
The Times similarly had to suppress any comparative numbers to make it seem like China’s vaccination strategy was particularly dangerous:

Buoyed by its early success at containment, the party was slow at first to encourage vaccination, leaving many older Chinese vulnerable….

While other countries prioritized vaccinating the elderly, China made older residents among the last to be eligible, citing concerns about side effects. And it never introduced vaccine passes, perhaps sensitive to public skepticism of its own vaccines.

In late July, about 67% of people aged 60 and above had received a third shot, compared to 72% of the entire population. Medical experts have warned that an uncontrolled outbreak could lead to high numbers of deaths among the elderly, as occurred during a wave this spring in Hong Kong, which also suffered from low vaccination rates.


Go to a helpful page of the New York Times website called “Tracking Coronavirus Vaccinations Around the World,” however, and you’ll find that China isn’t “suffer[ing] from low vaccination rates”; it actually has one of the highest rates of Covid vaccination in the world, with 93% receiving at least one dose and 91% “fully vaccinated.” The latter number compares with 86% in Australia and South Korea, 84% in Canada, 81% in Japan and Brazil, 79% in France, 76% in Britain and Germany—and 67% in the US.

That last number, in China, is treated by the Times as a dangerously low percentage of the elderly to have received booster shots—but in the US, only 41% of those aged 65–74 have received booster shots, along with 42% of those 75 and over—and just 26% from 50–64. Isn’t the US booster rate much more ominous?

Well, yes—and that’s part of the reason that tens of thousands of elderly people will die this year as part of the US’s effort to “learn…to live with the coronavirus.”

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter: @NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.[/i]

https://fair.org/home/nyt-scolds-china- ... ith-covid/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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