I am completely at a loss as to why the UK should seek to join in with the US in considering China an enemy, and in looking to build up military forces in the Pacific to oppose China.
In what sense are Chinese interests opposed to British interests? I am not sure when I last bought something which wasn’t maufactured in China. To my astonishment that even applies to our second hand Volvo, and it also applies to this laptop.
I have stated this before but it is worth restating:
I cannot readily think of any example in history, of a state which achieved the level of economic dominance China has now achieved, that did not seek to use its economic muscle to finance military acquisition of territory to increase its economic resources.
In that respect China is vastly more pacific than the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain or any other formerly prominent power.
Ask yourself this simple question. How many overseas military bases does the USA have? And how many overseas military bases does China have?
Depending on what you count, the United States has between 750 and 1100 overseas military bases. China has between 6 and 9.
The last military aggression by China was its takeover of Tibet in 1951 and 1959. Since that date, we have seen the United States invade with massive destruction Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
The United States has also been involved in sponsoring numerous military coups, including military support to the overthrow of literally dozens of governments, many of them democratically elected. It has destroyed numerous countries by proxy, Libya being the most recent example.
China has simply no record, for over 60 years, of attacking and invading other countries.
The anti-Chinese military posture adopted by the leaders of US, UK and Australia as they pour astonishing amounts of public money into the corrupt military industrial complex to build pointless nuclear submarines, appears a deliberate attempt to create military tension with China.
Sunak recited the tired neoliberal roll call of enemies, condemning: “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, China’s growing assertiveness, and destabilising behaviour of Iran and North Korea”.
What precisely are Iran and China doing, that makes them our enemy?
This article is not about Iran, but plainly western sanctions have held back the economic and societal development of that highly talented nation and have simply entrenched its theological regime.
Their purpose is not to improve Iran but to maintain a situation where Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran does not. If accompanied by an effort to disarm the rogue state of Israel, they might make more sense.
On China, in what does its “assertiveness” consist that makes it necessary to view it as a military enemy? China has constructed some military bases by artificially extending small islands. That is perfectly legal behaviour. The territory is Chinese.
As the United States has numerous bases in the region on other people’s territory, I truly struggle to see where the objection lies to Chinese bases on Chinese territory.
China has made claims which are controversial for maritime jurisdiction around these artificial islands – and I would argue wrong under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. But they are no more controversial than a great many other UNCLOS claims, for example the UK’s behaviour over Rockall.
China has made, for example, no attempt to militarily enforce a 200 mile exclusive economic zone arising from its artificial islands, whatever it has said. Its claim to a 12 mile territorial sea is I think valid.
Similarly, the United States has objected to pronouncements from China that appear contrary to UNCLOS on passage through straits, but again this is no different from a variety of such disputes worldwide. The United States and others have repeatedly asserted, and practised, their right of free passage, and met no military resistance from China.
So is that it? Is that what Chinese “aggression” amounts to, some UNCLOS disputes?
Aah, we are told, but what about Taiwan?
To which the only reply is, what about Taiwan? Taiwan is a part of China which separated off under the nationalist government after the Civil War. Taiwan does not claim not to be Chinese territory.
In fact – and this is far too little understood in the West because our media does not tell you – the government of Taiwan still claims to be the legitimate government of all of China.
The government of Taiwan supports reunification just as much as the government of China, the only difference being who would be in charge.
The dispute with Taiwan is therefore an unresolved Chinese civil war, not an independent state menaced by China. As a civil war the entire world away from us, it is very hard to understand why we have an interest in supporting one side rather than the other.
Peaceful resolution is of course preferable. But it is not our conflict.
There is no evidence whatsoever that China has any intention of invading anywhere else in the China Seas or the Pacific. Not Singapore, not Japan and least of all Australia. That is almost as fantastic as the ludicrous idea that the UK must be defended from Russian invasion.
If China wanted, it could simply buy 100% of every public listed company in Australia, without even noticing a dent in China’s dollar reserves.
Which of course brings us to the real dispute, which is economic and about soft power. China has massively increased its influence abroad, by trade, investment, loans and manufacture. China is now the dominant economic power, and it can only be a matter of time before the dollar ceases to be the world’s reserve currency.
China has chosen this method of economic expansion and prosperity over territorial acquisition or military control of resources.
That may be to do with Confucian versus Western thought. Or it may just be the government in Beijing is smarter than Western governments. But growing Chinese economic dominance does not appear to me a reversible process in the coming century.
To react to China’s growing economic power by increasing western military power is hopeless. It is harder to think of a more stupid example of lashing out in blind anger. It is a it like peeing on your carpet because the neighbours are too noisy.
Aah, but you ask. What about human rights? What about the Uighurs?
I have a large amount of sympathy. China was an Imperial power in the great age of formal imperialism, and the Uighurs were colonised by China. Unfortunately the Chinese have followed the West’s “War on Terror” playbook in exploiting Islamophobia to clamp down on Uighur culture and autonomy.
I very much hope that this reduces, and that freedom of speech improves in general across China.
But let nobody claim that human rights genuinely has any part to play in who the Western military industrial complex treats as an enemy and who it treats as an ally. I know it does not, because that is the precise issue on which I was sacked as an Ambassador.
The abominable suffering of the children of Yemen and Palestine also cries out against any pretence that Western policy, and above all choice of ally, is human rights based.
China is treated as an enemy because the United States has been forced to contemplate the mortality of its economic dominance.
China is treated as an enemy because that is a chance for the political and capitalist classes to make yet more super profits from the military industrial complex.
But China is not our enemy. Only atavism and xenophobia make it so.
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Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and I think Indonesia all dispute ownership of the islands China has extended and made into bases.
I consider it a minor threat to stability as the East Sea [official Vietnamese name for the South China Sea] is a vital shipping lane. They have also caused ecological damage to the reefs and seabed. People have died because of China’s behaviour.
I do, however, agree that this is pretty small beer compared to what the US, UK and I suppose other Imperial and former Imperial powers get up to without so much as a mention in the MSM…
China does not want to use force to shape the world and has other stronger options to do so. China is rising…like it or not. Opposition from the West including Australia is founded in white supremacy and that as China gains they must lose.
China despite its many problems is doing well in some ways. The last aggressive use of force was Vietnam in 1979 and before that Tibet – neither excusable but when set against what the US has done in the over 50 years since hardly comparable. Even the Korean war involvement is misunderstood [I like to say disunderstood as it is a wilful misunderstanding].
Anyway – another important topic.
The Biden administration has told the Chinese in no uncertain terms that the USA is going to remain the dominant power in China’s part of the world. Therefore people in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia etc can sleep easy. They are peoples who of course have had cause to be very grateful the US crossed the Pacific to establish its dominance in their countries.
US beneficence in the Phillipines and Vietnam is well known, the latter being the subject of many a celebratory and self-pitying movie. Less well known is US beneficence in Indonesia where in 1966 the CIA (and MI6) worked with General Suharto to murder ~1 million farmers, leftists, labor union leaders, communists and anyone who stood in the way of Western corporations who were exploiting Indonesia’s natural resources — gold, oil, iron, coal, aluminum, timber etc. Suharto went on to rule with an iron fist for 30 years during which American capitalism made trillions of dollars in blood money.
The USA had already established itself long before 1966 as a peculiarly murderous nation (at war for 93% of its entire history) but after Indonesia it went to another level. Its genocidal “Jakarta Method” became central to establishing the global dominance of US capitalism with the CIA mass murdering leftists in 22 countries during the Cold War.
Great in-depth discussion here with Vincent Bevins about how this genocidal “Jakarta Method” became the blueprint to cement US Empire.
CIA Stories: The Jakarta Method (Empire Files, 6 Mar 2023) – YouTube, 1h 7m 20s
“Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and I think Indonesia all dispute ownership of the islands China has extended and made into bases.”
It was so much easier in the C19th. You just sent a warship and lo! that island or archipelago was yours, inalienably and for ever.
To understand why China and Russia are the enemies of the West ,you must understand the geographical conclusions of Sir Halford Mackendrie in his treatise the ‘Heartland Theory’.plagiarised by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his ‘The Grand Chessboard’.
Russia and China bestride the grand landmass of the World Island,containing their great resources of minerals ,energy,water timber etc.
‘He who controls the World Island ,controls the World’.
The British Empire dominated its colonies by controlling the maritime sea routes,via the Meditteranean, Mallacca Straits, Cape Town etc.
The US as a rising Empire after WW2 ,imposed its $ Reserve currency as its toll on world trade and after the dissolution of the Bretton Woods Agreement and the end of the GOLD standard, the Petrodollar toll.
To enforce this Mafia style extortion,the US Navy maintains an 11 Carrier Fleet bases at the maritime choke points,as per the’ Admiral Mahan Doctrine’
It also maintains over 850 Military Bases worldwide to support its Empire.
China and Russia have opted out of the US$ System and have built the New Silk Roads of hi-speed rail ,road and maritime links to Europe and Africa.
These mainly overland routes by-pass the maritime choke points and free Russia. Asia and China from the extortion of the US$.
The occupation of Afghanistan, the war in Syria, the war in Ukraine are all on the Silk Road route from East to West and were intended to disrupt Chinese and Asian trade and escape from $ toll.
Without its ability to ‘dip its beak’ in every world trade the US is a busted flush and its over reliance on Financialisation of its economy has left it a future of chaos and poverty.
The unwinding is painful as it plays its last card in Ukraine.
The idiotic EU and UK will go down with it, unless they turn East and trade with their natural geoghraphical neighbours of the World Island.
A new world is rising in the East of Independent Soveriegn States,trading together peacefully using a combination of their own currencies and a gold/commodity based unit of exchange,still in development stage.
This was once the vision of Europe,before it became a politicised,corporate, ,centralised ,war mongering corrupt entity and puppet of the US.
I read that Chinese culture didn’t make the sharp distinction between humans and nature that was found in Christendom. So might hope they’d develop a more realistic understanding of humans on which to base society, not to mention environmental policy. And apparently evolutionary theory was very influential there. Unfortunately seems that was after their ‘century of humiliation” and they embraced Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” ideas for international competition, along with some of Huxley’s ideas about cooperation meshed with traditional internal harmony. And then industrial communism took over?
They had the famous Peking Man fossil discoveries back then but seems Chinese paleontology has been pushing for the idea that homo sapiens evolved in China despite the overwhelming evidence it was Africa.
I don’t think that “survival of the fittest” means what you think it means. Other than that, interesting points.
That’s not what I think it refers to in Darwinian “natural selection”, it’s what Spencer thought apparently. Get the impression he was a good writer in his time but muddled ideas, like also being a Lamarckian.
Science is never settled, despite what politicians, the ignorant and the corrupt may tell us.
‘Out of Africa’ is the current popular understanding for the origins of mankind, BUT there are competing theories such as China and parallel evolutions in different areas. IMO the evidence for Africa is not so much overwhelming just currently more quantitative! One thing is certain: politics has no place in science.
Went to check the latest on the African theory and coincidentally a top result is
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-asian-studies/article/taiwanese-dna-versus-chinese-dna-genetic-science-and-identity-politics-across-the-taiwan-straits/331549150E4F11C58A9C96BFD6E56C99
Says Chinese molecular anthropologists (genetics) accepted our shared African human origin. But have also been promoting the idea of a Chinese race basically I think. While Taiwan promotes an indigenous island identity.
There is an interesting sounding book coming out called Spyfall that talks about the 2001 crash between a PLAN pilot and and NSA spy plane in 2001 which killed the PLA pilot but also gave the Chinese access to just how much data that the NSA had on them – in 2019, the Chinese said that the extent of this surveillance was the direct reason for their massive increase in military spending (often cited by the west as to why China is a threat).
As to the Islamaphobia you mention regarding the Uigurs, I am not sure that you are correct because by all accounts, other Muslim communities have freedom of religion in China. I also read regarding the Uighur territories that they were a nomadic tribespeople and the lands that they occupied were directly surrounding 3 large watering holes – not the area that they are currently claiming is theirs. The current claims that they make regarding what land is theirs dates back to propaganda during Russian and European colonial expansion when China was forced to set boundaries to its lands (something it had never previously done). Ofc, I have no way of knowing whether this is true as the recording of history seems to vary wildly between countries and is usually written by the victors, eh?
No, you’re not right about Chinese Muslims and Uyghurs. Han Chinese Muslims (the ones who have mosques whose minarets look like pagodas) don’t have freedom of worship. They’re increasingly controlled and under pressure. In much the same way as Chinese Catholics.
The Uyghurs were not uncivilised nomads, rather like any people in a partially desert territory, some were settled inhabitants of the oases, some nomads. In the 9th century there was a grand Uyghur kingdom. I haven’t followed the history later, but there was already a civilisation.
You’re right, that’s what we are told …
If you’re referring to the Han Muslims, it’s true. I followed an affair there, which was not in the western media, and it’s obvious there was/is pressure to be more nationalist.
There was indeed a grand Uyghur khaganate from the mid-700s to 800s which covered the territory that is now part of Mongolia and northern China (Inner Mongolia).
The problem with referring to history to justify a current political stand or agenda is that the people (in this case, the Uyghurs of the Uyghur khaganate) occupied a different area, and one inhabited by other peoples now. There is the possibility that those Uyghurs might not even be the same people as the current Uyghurs, and their actual descendants are some other Turkic group.
In those days of the Uyghur khaganate, the area that is now Xinjiang or part of it was under the Tibetan empire. It was known as Dzungaria.
The issue was whether the Uyghurs were a civilised people or barbarian nomads (as presented by DC), not where they ruled.
In any case, I don’t think Wiki is necessarily too reliable in this case. There is always a tendency to maximise what the Tibetans were doing, as in the map you cite, because Tibetans are seen as “good” in Western opinion, whereas Uyghurs are seen as “bad”, because they subsequently became Muslim, though they are now “good” because they are portrayed as suffering from the Chinese, even if large numbers became jihadis and joined ISIS (omitted from the Western narrative).
“In what sense are Chinese interests opposed to British interests?”
This is the nub of our problem, what is this thing British interest? I have heard these two words all my life, and no one tells me what they are. We have gone to war to protect these British interests, young men have died for these British interests, but I don’t know what they are. What benefit or share do I get given to me from these British interests?
It is time people started saying ‘stuff your British interests’ for as far as I can see it causes me and my class nothing but problems and strife. British interests seem to be the interests of the few – and we suffer or die for them, and we have no input into being able to change or shape these British interests.
This is the great, eternal tragedy of international relations — how working people everywhere suffer for the vanity, avarice and delusions of “their betters.”
More confirmation this afternoon of the British elite’s toecurling subservience to the US re China. In the course of a US Congressional hearing for TikTok CEO – where he was accused by members of both parties of being a Commie devil – UK parliamentary authorities send out an email saying TikTok is to be banned from all UK parliamentary devices. Nicola’s Scottish government follows suit by banning TikTok from its mobile phones.
There is a single logical endpoint to all this insanity. Will it end up being worth it?
Of course the government wants to ban TikTok, it lets people put up videos critical of the government. i.e. it allows free speech.
“There is a single logical endpoint to all this insanity. Will it end up being worth it?”
Most probably, but only to a very small minority.
Think back over the last 3 years……
Who benefitted from Covid? Big Pharma.
Who benefitted from the Russian sanctions? Oil and gas companies.
Who will benefit from escalation of world aggression? Military equipment manufacturers/suppliers.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what is going on here, but it will depend on how long it takes for the general public to wake up.
“Who benefitted from the Russian sanctions?”
Approx 45 million Ukrainians. That’s got to be worth something.
Here’s the thing. I welcome honesty from people who are prepared to say something like “fuck the Ukrainians – they are not worth 1 pence per therm on my gas bill – let them die, go into exile or into prison camp”.
But the people who construct towers of obfuscation, whataboutery and deflection, just so that they can pretend they have a principled reason for throwing 45 million Ukrainians to the wolves. These people I hold in contempt.
Too feart to say what they really think, even from behind a keyboard.
Not being able to sell gas to (most of) the EU is reducing Russian GDP by 1-2%, John. It might make EU politicians feel better, and companies that supply LNG richer, but it doesn’t actually make much difference to what’s happening in Ukraine. Refusing to buy any refined oil products from India & China might well do, but I doubt the EU will do that.
Forgot to mention that the EU is still buying huge amounts of crude oil direct from Russia but, as of December 2022, it’s only prepared to pay $60 a barrel for it, which is still quite profitable for the Russians. This price cap will be reviewed every two months and set to 5% below the market price.
Not buying gas from Russia increases the cost of heating in winter. Not buying oil from Russia – or refined Russian oil via India & China – doesn’t (except for those with oil-fired boilers), but it does increase the cost of driving. Most of the poorest people in Europe don’t own cars as they can’t afford to, but still like to be able to heat their homes to a reasonable temperature without breaking the bank. Fortunately for them, we’ve generally had a mild winter.
“Approx 45 million Ukrainians. That’s got to be worth something.”
Just how have they benefited, considering that the sanctions have hurt Europe more than Russia?
“I welcome honesty from people who are prepared to say something like “fuck the Ukrainians – they are not worth 1 pence per therm on my gas bill – let them die, go into exile or into prison camp”.
Yes, I would expect you would welcome someone as deluded as yourself. Even bodies like the World bank are admitting that sanctions have hardly hurt the Russian economy, and have affected the war not at all.
“Approx 45 million Ukrainians. That’s got to be worth something.”
I just love this narrative of 45 million Ukrainians, all united as one. All eager to join NATO and EU, all hating Putin, all victims of Golodomor, etc etc.
Using this logic then we can also assume 24 Million Taiwanese are united in hatred of China, and controversially, 5.5 Million Scots are united in hatred of the UK. That’s got to be worth something, yeh, like WW3 !
I love assumptions.
Holodomor, not Golodomor.
Breaking news – the victims of the Holodomor are deid.
“5.5 Million Scots are united in hatred of the UK. That’s got to be worth something, yeh, like WW3 !
I love assumptions.”
You forgot to assume that “UK” forces have to invade Scotland, kill tens of thousands, military and civilians, abduct, rape, torture tens of thousands more, cause billions of pounds worth of damage, and threaten to nuke the place and anybody who tries to help us.
Make that assumption and indeed, 5.5 million Scots will unite in hatred.
At least, I sure hope so. But I am confident Westminster will never be so daft as to try it.
So in effect John Main you’re saying you’re contemptuous of people providing reasoning and detail for their opinions.
You’ve really not thought this through John, again.
Naw.
I’m saying I’m contemptuous of people who diss other people who are putting their lives on the line for their freedom and independence, their families and neighbours, their culture, language and future.
I’m contemptuous of people who would rather see Ukrainians in their graves than offer them some trivial support to fight back.
I’m saying I have some grudging respect for anybody who is prepared to openly say they want to write off Ukraine and its 45 million people, because that will temporarily give them a slightly easier, although still miserable, existence.
You don’t rate the grudging respect, because you don’t have that honesty, so I guess that leaves you in the contemptible group.
Very, very sadly, there are a few like you on the fringes of the Scottish Independence movement. It’s a crying shame.
Maybe there’s some hesitancy to rush to support a country that glorifies Nazis, John.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/ukraine-designates-national-holiday-for-nazi-collaborator/
And this lot are all fine fellows, just a bit misunderstood, right?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/1/who-are-the-azov-regiment
Doubtless you wouldn’t mind a hostile force (your beloved NATO – itself headed in the 1960s by Adolf Heusinger – the Wehrmacht chief of staff under Hitler), complete with nuclear weapons all around your borders.
But maybe the world isn’t quite the simple black & white place you apparently consider it, replete with good Vs evil, heros Vs villains, that you appear to have gathered from your Reader’s Digest level of understanding of it.
Nazis!
You think your deployment of the ‘N’ word wins the argument for you?
Nah.
Holding the ‘F’ word, Fascist, in reserve are you? Soz, but that doesn’t work either when deployed against grown ups.
You almost have my sympathy – how it must eat at you that the new Russian imperialist project is on sovereign Ukrainian territory, killing, raping, imprisoning, destroying and torturing. Burying kids under mounds of rubble. Lining up civilians and machine gunning them into mass graves. Disappearing those “trouble makers” who celebrate their own language and culture. How can anybody, no matter how warped, make a justifiable case for these atrocities?
Yet still, for reasons known only to you, you have to try to justify them.
So you almost have my sympathy. Almost.
If anyone believes that the 1932-1933 famine in the USSR was caused by Stalin, who do they blame for the famines of 1922 and 1892?
You seen to hate a lot John.
You’re also very pompously presumptuous and know nothing about me but I’ll tell you for free im not part of any Scottish independence scene at all.
Keep shouting at the passing cars though.
John, I wouldn’t care about Ukrainian spelling of names. Being Russian, I write in Russian.
Why wouldn’t you care about Ukrainian spelling, or English spelling, given that this is an English language blog?
I don’t speak or read Russian. I can read your post, so I know you are not writing in Russian.
I have no way of knowing if you really are Russian. But if you are, your president has made a big mistake. Your country has been led down a wrong path. It’s not too late to reverse.
“Putin must reverse his politics 360 degrees”, as Annalena Baerbock said? Heh-heh, John.
You Britts have always been champions in hypocrisy. Who else could cry for poor Poles suppressed by Russian Tzar, at the same time blowing Sepoys from cannons? You’ve always sided with the stronger party and won, but maybe you made mistake this time?
“Why wouldn’t you care about Ukrainian spelling, or English spelling, given that this is an English language blog?”
The English for “Holodomor” is “Great Famine” and that is how it was referred to in the past by those writing in English.
I agree with your comment below and I am English. Attitudes here are total hypocrisy. People say stand with Ukraine but have zero skin in the game themselves. Then they ignore issues like US troops illegally occupying Syria and the hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Middle East over the past thirty years by Anglo American wars of choice. U.K. media is also just pure propaganda but most people do not realise or question.
@ John Main
Are you referring to people who passed by on the other side when a US-Ukronazi coup overthrew democracy in 2014?
Interestingly, they are always referred to as “Ukrainian people” etc, though they were a well-organized group of young men with good fighting skills. And somebody had to pay for their food etc since they began “protesting” 4 months before the coup. The miners from the East could ill-afford their “anti-maidan” because they had to work to provide for their families.
John Main, I’m not sure that “the Ukrainians” are as monolithic in their interests as your assertion implies. Much mischief is hidden in such elisions.
FG: “Who benefitted from Covid? Big Pharma.”
You could also ask who benefited from the lunatics pushing Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine et cetera as a prophylactic against Covid?
A: Big Pharma.
They don’t give that stuff away for free, you know.
By the way that huckster Malone, despite taking (or claiming to take) Ivermectin regularly, got covid anyway. A number of high-profile advocates for it died. Malone claimed that maybe he didn’t get the dosage quite right ?
“You could also ask who benefited from the lunatics pushing Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine et cetera as a prophylactic against Covid?”
Hydroxychloroquine is a generic drug, so, although Big Pharma will make some money selling it, they will only make a fraction of what they would be making selling a drug still under patent. AFAICS, hydroxychloroquine was supposed to be a treatment for, not a prophylactic against COVID. In fact it is one of the remarkable about the COVID epidemic that so little effort was expended on finding a treatment for it, compared to that expended on the “vaccine” that turned out only to be a palliative.
There is absolutely nothing unusual about concentrating on hygiene and a vaccine against a pandemic. Treatment is always best when it attacks the root of the problem, and in this case the root of the problem is being infected. Vaccination ensures less people are infected. Causal treatment of viral infections is a relatively new thing anyway, which is why researchers are still wildly experimenting with substances such as Ivermectin. I guess it was clear from the beginning that the only thing necessary to do w.r.t. COVID-antivirals was trying out all the existing antivirals against COVID. Targeted antivirals aren’t really a thing (yet), and developing a new antiviral is a far bigger and slower project than developing a new vaccine.
There seem to be a number of unusual things related to COVID. It takes more knowledge than I have to judge whether these are suspicious. The extreme levels of expert bashing during the pandemic seem to have caused enormous levels of group think and ranks-closing among the experts (not conducive to open-ended scientific research), so it will take a few years until we get reliable judgements of what happened and what exactly went wrong. (I think it’s hard to argue that everything went right.)
What I find suspicious is the unquestioned universal concentration on the spike protein when developing the Western vaccines, and the speed with which the Chinese developed a conventional vaccine (so not concentrating on the spike protein). This looks as if either the Chinese had a half-finished vaccine, or some people with non-public knowledge or with specific financial interests other than combating the pandemic worldwide were steering things in certain reactions in the West. Possibly both. Or it could just have been very opinionated people in positions of power preventing wider approaches. Or simply the effect of different regulatory regimes.
—
[ Mod: A reminder to all that this thread concerns political attitudes towards China. Anyone with follow-up comments about Covid should post them in the discussion forum. ]
The Republic of China on Taiwan still claims the original territory of the Republic of China with the exception of Outer Mongolia. According to its constitution, to change the territory of the Republic of China, it needs 1/4 of the members of Taiwan’s parliament to initiate the proposal, 3/4 of the parliament for a quorum, and a 3/4 majority to pass, after which there must be a referendum within 6 months. These are high barriers to secession, but it doesn’t end there, because the People’s Republic of China has its own Anti-Secession Law that would require it to go to war to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty in the event that Taiwan were to secede. So, in effect, Taiwan is not free to renounce its claim to the mainland, even if the democratically elected government of Taiwan would very much like to do so.
“The Republic of China on Taiwan still claims the original territory of the Republic of China with the exception of Outer Mongolia.”
Don’t you mean Inner Mongolia? AFAIK, Outer Mongolia is now the state that is Mongolia and was part of the USSR.
No, I mean Outer Mongolia. Outer Mongolia became “independent” under Soviet tutelage in the 1920s, but was not recognised as independent by the Republic of China until 1946 (after arm twisting by Stalin). The ROC rescinded that recognition in 1953, and as Taiwan continued to claim Outer Mongolia as part of their territory until 2002.
How can the government in Taiwan be democratically elected, if no-one on the mainland can vote in its elections?
It’s probably as democratically elected as most other “democratically elected” governments.
The government on Taiwan is democratically elected by the people under the jurisdiction of the Republic of China, which basically means Taiwan and some small outlying islands.
A recent article by Caitlin Johnstone addressed the issue of who is the real enemy. China hardly got a mention. Johnstone is Australian so was speaking of who Australia’s enemies were. She recounted the visit of the US official Mearshimer who threatened that the USA could turn Oz into another Cuba if it didn’t tow the line on US foreign policy.
Countries like Venezuela have experienced this. Their choices are poverty because of US sanctions or poverty because their wealth is stripped away by US corporations.
What the western European world has just begun to recognise is that there is a choice for the downtrodden. They can now choose to be the vassal of China. The western response is of course their traditional one, start a war.
Unless its another Mearsheimer, he was not a US official at that time, and I’m pretty sure he never has been (He’s advised, but been out of favour in Washington for decades). Caitlin knows who he is, so is unlikely to have claimed anything else. What he is is a major realist international relations scholar, specialising in (and author of major recent texts on) great power politics. In his lecture he was telling Australians what would happen, based on his theories. And so far he is being proven exactly right. He usually is when dealing with US/UK/Western driven events; I suspect if we survive to the multipolar world China, Russia, the rest of Brics, and much of the rest of the world are hoping for, that will rise above his theories, which will turn out to have been descriptions of what happens in a world dominated by a particular type of European, then Anglo-American oligarchy.
I have seen enough of Mearsheimer at this point to view him as a good guy, who genuinely wishes things worked differently than he believes they do, something well captured in the title of one of his more recent books: “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”.
I think highly of Caitlin J too, btw.
The move to a multi-polar world is gathering pace as China becomes more assertive on the international arena. China is upgrading non-Western institutions, such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to set the agenda for the world in areas such as finance and technology, energy and climate, and, not least, international security.
This while American dominion has avalanched to a place it cannot recover despite efforts to push allies into new pacts to expand it’s presence yet fails to strengthen US foundations that have decayed and fallen into a pit of irrelevance.
Craig, you’ve asked a rational question but there is no rational answer to it. The answer is irrational, this is power for the sake of the power, and nothing else matters. Human rights, democracy, freedoms, Uyghurs-Shmuyghurs and so on, this is just BS for the masses; it is all about power and control. A strong and independent China can’t be controlled, therefore, it poses a threat to the US power and becomes an enemy. “Why do you have to climb Everest?” Mallory was asked. “Because it is there!” “Why China has become an enemy?” you are asking. “Because it is there!” And it is the same story with Russia.
“In fact – and this is far too little understood in the West because our media does not tell you – the government of Taiwan still claims to be the legitimate government of all of China.”
This is not something highly original. The situation with North and South Vietnam was the same.
The arguments that I have read so far on this post suggest overwhelmingly that it would be far better for the UK and its people to make friends with China than to make it an enemy. It only needs political will.
There isn’t a scintilla of political opposition to this drive to war with China. Even the Greens are on board.
You can bet the public will soon match the politicians in Sinophobia and hunger for war, for as Malcom X observed:
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. That’s because they control the minds of the masses. The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
“You can bet the public will soon match the politicians in Sinophobia and hunger for war”
“If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
Which is the more likely then, China invading Taiwan, or Taiwan invading China?
See the recent assimilation of Hong Kong into the Chinese polity, despite the promised freedoms and different policies that China promised to maintain and protect not that long ago.
Which is the oppressor and which the oppressed? Are you claiming Hong Kong is oppressing the rest of China, but the newspapers are making us side with Hong Kong? Why is the west hoaching with Hong Kong refugees, while there are no Chinese refugees?
Maybes Malcolm X wasn’t as smart as you think!
“Which is the more likely then, China invading Taiwan, or Taiwan invading China?”
When Germany was reunified, did West Germany invade East Germany, or vice versa?
Clever!
Did the two Germany’s wish to unify?
Soz, I retract. You’re not clever at all.
“Did the two Germany’s wish to unify?”
Exactly, and apart from general omniscience, how do you know that, at some point in the future, Taiwan won’t want to rejoin the rest of China?
The septics have been using Hong Kong as a bridgehead against China for decades.
Hey, welcome to the discussion Dawg. Now you’re here, why don’t you tell us what is the single most compelling piece of evidence that you’ve seen that convinces you that the “Uyghur genocide” is real?
I appreciate this is a waste of time and that not even a signed confession by Xi himself would serve to convince but here goes anyway.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/09/asia/china-uyghurs-xinjiang-genocide-report-intl-hnk/index.html
Incidentally this Chinese ‘peace plan’ is nothing of the sort. It’s just a list of 12 principles, A plan will lay down what needs to be done to achieve these.
If Putin is as supportive of the ‘plan’ as he claims he could adhere to items 1 and 6 immediately by withdrawing his forces and stopping the attacks on civilian infrastructure.
Reaaaaly Piers?
CNN and the Newlines Institute a Washington think tank full of red fang military types and spooks?
Must do better Piers.
There is no point arguing with Pears, his mind is closed to reason, he cannot see the wood for the trees. Hating China is part of the great plan, the main thrust is the same as the argument put forward for the Iraq war, as articulated here by Dick Cheney* :https://www.theonion.com/what-i-got-right-about-the-iraq-war-1850249194. It is all a front for the continuation of the support for the arms industry, the existing power structure and US hegemony.
* not the real Dick Cheney.
No doubt its peace deal between Iran and Saudi is just a confidence trick too. More proof of the urgent need to confront China.
“I appreciate this is a waste of time and that not even a signed confession by Xi himself would serve to convince but here goes anyway.”
“I appreciate this is a bit of propaganda which will be immediately dismissed as such, so I just thought I’d throw in a cheap jibe to back it up.”
There, fixed it for you.
C’mon, get with the programme. Russia sees itself as as a victim of aggression too, along with the Ukranians, so other actors suspected of involvement will have to pick some numbers too for there to be peace. Isn’t that obvious to you yet?
As our host has mentioned before it should be mankind itself that profits and flourishes.
Pears, I know this is hard for you to understand when you’re staring at the issue through the impenetrable lead-lined blinkers of ignorance-based hatred, but I’ll give it another try.
I’m not asking you for links to reports. I’m asking you to tell me what is the single most compelling piece of evidence that you have seen that convinces you that the “Uyghur genocide” is real. That report that you’ve linked to for example. It must be full of mountains of compelling evidence. So just point me to the single most compelling item, in your humble opinion.
David
Be generous. Genocide is being thrown around to amplify their point, but that’s only because Dawg, Pears and co are so concerned for the human rights of Uighurs. Perhaps even as much as the fine people of the US Congress are.
Predictable responses aimed at the sources rather than the content and even the tired old ‘fixed that for you’ meme being trotted out.
Predictable responses to highly dubious content.
Hey, Pears. I definitely didn’t “aim at your sources rather than your content“. Nor did I “trot out the tired old memes“. I simply invited you to choose, out of the mountain of compelling evidence in that report you’ve linked to, the single item that impressed you the most. I appreciate that overall the cumulative effect must have been overwhelming, but surely there must have been some particular thing that stood out. One that had you shaking your head and muttering to yourself “Boy. This is damning…”
So how about it? Share it with us.
Back in the early 70s, China was to buy British Trident airliners. The US began kicking up a fuss, saying the planes contained Western technologies that the Chinese shouldn’t have access to. As usual, massive pressure was applied and the deal was cancelled. Then, lo and behold, Nixon went off to Beijing and announced a new era of detente, sealed with the sale of Boeing airliners to China. Any self-respecting nation would have said that’s it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But no, the poodle continues to fawn.
China bought 36 Trident airliners the last of which wasn’t withdrawn until 1995. During the 1970s despite pressure from Washington and Moscow the British tried to sell Harriers to the PRC having already sold them a number of RR Spey jet engines.
As an aside RR sold Russia its first jet engines in the late 1940s. The Mig 15 had a ‘Nene’ engine.
“Let nobody claim that human rights genuinely has any part to play in who the Western military industrial complex treats as an enemy and who it treats as an ally. I know it does not, because that is the precise issue on which I was sacked as an Ambassador.”
Yes there cannot be many who better recognise the insincerity of western concern for Muslims in central Asia. This craze of pseudo-empathy for the Uyghur people must feel like a personal affront.
Not many governments are expressing concern about the Palestinians, at least, not to the extent that they’re doing anything about it beyond gently suggesting the Israelis might be a little less genocidal (as convenience allows, naturally).
The whole GWOT was primarily about targeting Muslims as being people who are highly suspect at best, on a worldwide basis.
But then, Israel is an Official Friend, and therefore anything bad can be ignored. An Official Enemy (Iran, North Korea, China, Russia etc.) by contrast, can only do wrong – to loud shrieks of horror from government officials, and their stooges in the corporate and state press.
Indeed Glen ..then YEMEN
Maybes the next time you find yourself shuffling in your stockinged feet, whilst holding your beltless breeks up, balancing your tiny bottles of water on a plastic tray, after a 30-minute wait, you should stop to consider who made, and continues to make this necessary.
Hint: it isn’t the Israelis. I am certain they have no wish whatsoever to kill me, or any other Scot.
That’s the thing about being seen as a “legitimate” target, whether jetting off to Tenerife, or attending an Ariana Grande concert. We develop some sympathy for anybody and everybody who is on our side and against the people who are trying to kill us.
Soz if this is news to you. Maybes get out more in the real world?
The question to always ask if someone is trying to kill you is : “why are they trying to kill me ?”.
In regard to terrorism, You’ll invariably find the hatred leads back to the actions of western governments.
So, in the actual real world I know who is responsible for terrorism and who my friends are and I can sympathise with the motives if not the actions of those not on ‘our side’.
Maybe if your views were based on a deeper understanding of issues rather than the superficial claptrap you constantly repeat you wouldn’t come across as such a knobhead.
Are you sure you are replying to the right post, because your nonsense above has absolutely zero relevance to mine (to which you made the reply, in case you’re still confused).
Perhaps all this nauseatingly servile pro-US/UK/NATO apologia has left you a little unbalanced?
What highly selective nonsense John, again.
You’re completely ignoring the broader history and context.What you posit is so one-sided and myopic I can only assume such studied ignorance on your part is deliberate.
“Hint: it isn’t the Israelis. I am certain they have no wish whatsoever to kill me, or any other Scot.”
Quite wrong. The Samson option says Israeli nuclear weapons are in fact aimed at Europe, as we were told 20 years ago. Just in case we don’t support the last European colony in a possible hour of peril. I’d have to look up the details, which I don’t have time to do now.
was that before or after they hung shot English soldiers into barbed wire fences, Laguerre?
“Hint: it isn’t the Israelis. I am certain they have no wish whatsoever to kill me, or any other Scot.”
No, of course it isn’t, it’s the airline companies. How do I know that? because I would be faced with none of these indignities if I travelled first class.
I dare say the rise of Communist China will take on more significance in the Scottish independence debate going forward, in as far as a key Unionist argument is the idea that the UK “punches above its weight” on the world stage. While many of us see this for the spin doctoring nonsense it is, insofar as it sugar coats the terminal decline of Britain as a world power since 1945, it is nevertheless true that Unionists were able to maintain a pretence of being a major world power, by way of the UK tying itself to the reprehensible US neocons and Israel lobby. However, American decline is now laid bare for all to see and with us being out of the EU, I cannot for the life of me see where the UK can now turn, in order to keep up this charade.
If you need an example of China’s economic power, look at any country in Africa.
And your point is ?
His Point is Valid OK
war & economy:
Pentagon justifies budget increase as only way to keep China under control. In essence they give no real reason why China actually is dangerous:
“Pentagon Leaders Say New Budget Will Help Prepare for War With China
Gen. Milley says the budget is meant to prevent war but ‘prepares us to fight it if necessary”:
https://news.antiwar.com/2023/03/23/pentagon-leaders-say-new-budget-will-help-prepare-for-war-with-china/
A text on how US via IMF et. al. abuses debt by Third World countries to counter Chinese Rust&Belt, as China is the world´s biggest bilateral creditor.
“Interest Rate Hikes and IMF Bailouts: the US Tries to Roll Back Chinese Influence in the Global South”:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/03/interest-rates-hikes-as-geopolitical-weapon-how-the-us-is-trying-to-sideline-china.html
“(…)In recent years, western officials and media have ratcheted up criticism of China’s lending practices, claiming Beijing is putting its boot on the neck of countries, holding back their development, and is seizing assets offered as collateral.
Deborah Bräutigam, the Director of the China Africa Research Initiative at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, has written that this is “ a lie, and a powerful one.” She wrote, “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.”
Even researchers at Chatham House admit there’s nothing nefarious about China’s lending, explaining that it has instead created a debt trap for China. That is becoming more evident as nations are unable to repay, largely due to the economic fallout from the pandemic, the Nato proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, inflation, and rising interest rates.(…)”.
(Already confirmed by Vijay Prashad on Democracy Now past winter, referring to South America and its China policy.)
Logically one of Britain’s highest priorities should be strengthening its economic, political and cultural relations with China. Especially after leaving the EU. Instead it has very abruptly pivoted to an absurdly hostile position. Not only issuing strident condemnations of China but actually sailing thousands of miles to east Asia to militarily provoke it.
Why has Britain started acting so profoundly against its in interests? For the same essential reason Berlin and Brussels have passively accepted the destruction of their critical infrastructure and the slow erasure of European industry. Britain is simply doing what it is told, regardless of whether it benefits or suffers as a result.
It’s about power and access to resources. The west’s hegemonic hold over the world has let it acquire resources cheaply (or by force) from weaker countries and shift them westward to be refined and produced. An economically strong China makes that much harder to do. Plus, the essential natural resources that make industrial civilization possible are limited and over time they become difficult – and more expensive – to extract. So China is seen as a competitor that can’t be “allowed” to reach its full economic potential because that would put the west at a disadvantage and jeopardize its ability to cheaply access to dwindling resources.
Clausewitz or Sun Tzu or one of those guys said that in warfare the goal is to get the enemy to fight the war on your terms. The US (with its NATO fig leaf) is trying to push and provoke China into a military confrontation it thinks it can win. It did the same with Russia, which unfortunately took the bait and is now stuck fighting a costly land war against NATO in eastern Ukraine.
China’s focus on economic development, its quiet diplomacy with Iran and KSA and actively trying to broker an end to the fighting in Ukraine signals a different approach and one that clearly outs the west as the aggressive imperialist bully it is. If China can keep this up while remaining economically solvent the west will “lose” by default unless it goes full gloves off and mounts a direct military challenge.
By “the west” I of course mean the US and its NATO/EU/AUKUS/Five Eyes vassal states. Were the UK run by competent people it would keep its options open and maintain good relations with China and the US (while steadfastly working to free itself from a “special relationship” where it is very much the junior partner)…but it’s not and it isn’t.
If the past is any indication of how the future will unfold the economic and political instability in the west, the war talk and the aggressive rhetoric directed at China (and Russia) and the indefinite sanctions levelled against them, means a direct “great power” confrontation of some sort is becoming inevitable. The UK and other states foolish enough to think the US will protect them are going to find out that they will be quickly sacrificed if it means the effects of war can be kept on their soil and away from the US “homeland.”
Agree entirely with this. The current hysteria about Tik -Tok is a good example of Chinese owned social media not being “allowed to compete” with the American companies stranglehold and the power that gives.
Since after WWII considerable portions of the US economy are part of the defense industry. Without it the system is seriously endangered.
Between 1945 and the early 1980s altogether 56% of the federal budget went into defense-related industries and the military.
In 1986 e.g. the Reagan administration spent 56 Cents of each Dollar income tax on the military.
Since the mid-1970s spending on military R&D had tripled.
And these expenditures were prospective in nature, as 60% of those 1980s budgets allocated were not spent in the same years.
To quote science historian David Noble on the early 1950s in his “Forces of Production”:
“The decision was made to develop the H-bomb, while aircraft production grew five-fold (along with accelerated missile development), armoured vehicles by four, and militaryrelated electronics, four and a half times. The fiscal 1951 military budget swelled to nearly four times its anticipated size.
(…)
Between 1945 and 1970, the U.S. government expended $1.1 trillion for military purposes, an amount which exceeded the 1967 value of all business and residential structures in the United States.
(…)
between 1945 and 1968, the Department of Defense industrial system had supplied $44 billion of goods and services, exceeding the combined net sales of General Motors, General Electric, Du Pont, and U.S. Steel.
(…)
In 1939, there were 63,000 workers in the aircraft and parts industries
(…)
During the war employment reached an all-time peak of 1,345,000 and then dropped to 237,000 in 1946 (…) by 1954 (…) there were over 8oo,ooo aircraft workers, and the industry had become the country’s largest manufacturing employer.
(…)
the military aircraft production expansion program authorized by the Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act of 1948 resulted in a tripling of output between 1946 and 1949.
(…)”
In his “War Scare of 1948” Frank Kofsky presented in much detail how the Truman administration built up the fictional danger of a Russian attack (the Russian didn´t even have the bomb) to prepare the grounds for this war economy.
German current industry´s muteness on anti-Russian politics by Berlin is due to the fact that its ties and revenues are much higher with the US than Russia.
So, did German (and for that matter London) government make projections of “recalcitrant” what-if scenarios? May be.
Of course I am also conviced these people are seriously void of real vision like the ministry of commerce and enviornment shows and many other segments. And than there is corruption as well as lobbying.
700 German parliamentary delegates are confronted with some 5000 lobbyists in Berlin.
(One major consequence of the parliament moving from Bonn to Berlin.)
And no politician stands a chance to break this up. Those who have tried have mostly disappeared from the public discourse. Punished by their own party.
And since this lobby is US-informed, not Russian everything else is evident.
To act wisely, with 30 years foresight makes no sense from their POV.
In this particular regard the Chinese can actually call themselves “lucky” with their political nomenklatura.
or to put it differently: They could do much worse, I guess, compared with the past.
“The US (with its NATO fig leaf) is trying to push and provoke China into a military confrontation it thinks it can win. It did the same with Russia, which unfortunately took the bait and is now stuck fighting a costly land war against NATO in eastern Ukraine.”
However, all the indications are that the Ukraine war is going to be another one that the US ends up on the losing side. Whether this has any impact on their attitude to China remains to be seen. My guess is that it won’t.
Long term I see a new Iron Curtain forming between Western Europe and the US on the one hand and Russia and China on the other, with all other countries throwing their lot in with one of the two sides and neutrality becoming an increasingly difficult position to maintain.
Call it what you want but it is the deep state/military industrial complex that is the problem.
Basically: Regular western people have of course no issue with China, so where do these warmongering sentiment come from? From the media, and who is pushing China to be a threat? Shady, often anonymous people in the hawkish military/intelligence/lobbying sector.
Last week Trump said that Russia nor China was the problem/enemy but the bureaucratic people at home, ruling in secret.
The other day he came up with a plan to dismantle this shady network:
“Trump to ‘Dismantle Deep State’ with ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission'”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-dismantle-deep-state-truth-reconciliation-commission-1789374
No wonder they went after him…
The above comment by Baalbek (March 25, 2023 at 07:52)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/03/why-would-china-be-an-enemy/comment-page-3/#comment-1036496
together with an earlier one by Mac (March 22, 2023 at 10:19)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/03/why-would-china-be-an-enemy/comment-page-2/#comment-1036259
say it all, really.
The US economy is a tottering house of cards. The global dominance of the dollar has allowed it to function as a kind of Ponzi scheme that impoverishes the nations that supply it, offloading debt that’ll never be repaid in exchange. But that dominance is coming to an end and when it does the US Empire will collapse. Question is, in its death-throws will it precipitate global nuclear war?
It is very noticeable to me that the upsurge in crude anti-Chinese propaganda is issuing largely from establishment centrists. That is Remainer types who boasted long and loud of their rationality, appreciation of experts and excellence and abhorrence of xenophobia. It was also these types who whipped up all the bogus Russiagate hysteria of the past decade and have led the apologia for literal Nazis in Ukraine. These centrist liberals always try and disguise their base instincts – deeply chauvinist, racist and anti-socialist – by affecting to loathe antisemitism and expressing fear of “the Far Right,” a category they reserve for the gauche supporters of Farage and Trump. Reality is they are as fanatically imperialist as any of that latter group and it is their profound hatred of China and Russia that will get us all killed.
Naturally these elements have nothing to say about the attack on democracy and human rights across the channel in France, other than apologia for Macron and the French police.
don´t know about “Fall of Empire” talk and all that.
Yves Smith at naked capitalism pointed out a while ago that the “downfall” of the Sterling needed almost a century and 2 world wars.
So it might not turn out that simple with USD.
But, I am no economist.
p.s. what might become a gamechanger beyond our control is climate change sneaking up on us.
Not content with blowing up the NordStream pipelines the US and Norway, the US will probably blow up Taiwan’s globally important semi-conductor plants which supply 65% of the world with them, if China invades Taiwan. The US is prepared to burn the world to the ground to protect its own interests.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/03/13/us-natsec-advisor-taiwan-semiconductor-china/
Maybe this is why Biden is investing so much taxpayer money into creating semiconductor manufacturing in the US. The private sector doesn’t want to pay for it, but they will need to be protected if the Yanks start getting their war on with China.
glenn_nl
Agreed, the semi-conductors are in just about every modern device. I wonder how the Taiwanese feel about the thought of the US blowing up their prime businesses. Mind you, the US would mine the plants then blow them up without the Taiwanese knowing and then blame China for it; that’s the American way. The blowing up of the NordStreams and the murder of General Suleimani, show that the US will go to just about any lengths to get the upper hand, no matter what the cost.
re: Taiwan semi-conductor factory
facism introduced fiction as a tool of policy-making.
And that´s what we are witnessing now.
Anything has become possible.
Whatever those sick minds consider fit for their goals, regardless of laws, of ethics, of common sense rules, of the greater good of the nations, will be realized unless it threatens their own existence.
So, whereas 1 year ago I would have doubted such a crazy screenplay-like scenario (fiction), I think now it makes all the sense in the world.
However to play ball you need an opponent.
Let’s hope the Chinese have a plan that renders this ineffective.
Who knows, eventually they figure an ongoing conflict in Europe might keep the US too busy so they can´t mess around in Taiwan.
(I know the US plans two front wars. But that´s mere theory after all.)
Sunak condemns “China’s growing assertiveness”.
Indeed. How dare they? They should keep their heads bowed! Nobody could accuse the unquestionably pure and noble, peace and freedom loving Yanks of anything as outrageous as ‘assertiveness’ :
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/china-warns-of-serious-consequences-after-us-sails-a-destroyer-into-disputed-waters
Why, according to the Yanks, this was simply a “freedom of navigation operation” to challenge requirements from all three nations requiring either advance notification or permission before a military vessel sails by.
China then had the unbelievable assertiveness to “solemnly request that the US immediately stop such actions of provocation”.
How dare they! How long can NATO restrain itself under such provocation?
something also needs to be done about this continual Syrian whining about US occupation. belligerent assertiveness is getting out of control everywhere.
China has multiple deals within various countries where products made there for China can also double as bases for the military to go to because these Chinese companies are essentially state-run. So it isn’t 6-9 military bases. Also, you forgot to mention that China has been going through a recession within in the past year.
‘So it isn’t 6-9 military bases’
how many have you calculated?
Moderator.
You slapped my wrists for using different names. Why are you letting Mr Main do the same ?
—
[ Mod: Your assumption that ‘John M.’ is a pseudonym for ‘John Main’ is invalid. ]
“China has multiple deals within various countries where products made there for China can also double as bases for the military to go”
Almost any industrial building can double as a military base. However, being able to be converted to a military base is not the same as being a military base. There is the small matter of the missing military, present and correct on all the 1100 US bases.
A tour de force of liberal chauvinism and imperialism from Simon Tisdall in the Guardian this morning. Mr Tisdall bemoans “attempts from the far right and left .. to discredit US-led interventionism and celebrate the decline of American influence.” He says “the Middle East shows what happens when the US disengages” .. somehow ignoring the grand peace brokered by China between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He then condemns Donald Trump’s “anti-Europe .. America First” sentiment .. while ignoring Biden’s destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.
President Biden we are informed is waging a worldwide “struggle for democracy” which would be endangered were Trump to be reelected. It is Mr Tisdall’s fervent hope therefore that Republicans select a “Reaganesque ‘shining city upon a hill'” hawk who would continue to confront “the terrible twins” Xi and Putin.
Simon Tisdall, The world still needs a policeman. Let’s hope the US doesn’t quit the job.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2023/mar/26/us-world-policeman-american-isolationism?CMP=fb_cif
Craig last year you wrote that you “generally respect” Mr Tisdall. For me he is par exemplar of the people I referenced in my comment of yesterday. How on earth did this character earn your commendation?
“The world still needs a policeman.”
So it may do, but what it has is the US, the geopolitical equivalent of the Kray Twins. Easily confused as mobsters are quite good at stopping other people breaking the law.
Defining interests is not what’s dangerous: pursuing them is. Because eventually they will clash with the interests of others, as is happening between the West and China, a collision that will end in world war.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
I had to laugh at the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Putin, knowing that Blair and Bush two of the worst war criminals on the planet, who are still seen as profits in the Western world, are still swanning around the globe giving speeches. I think a Malaysian court did find them guilty of war crimes, but nothing more happened (MH17?)
I think it’s only African dictators that have stood in the dock, that alone tells us that the ICC isn’t fit for purpose, not just that, the USA reserves the right to invade the ICC if any American or favoured ally personnel find themselves in the dock, only a few years back the ICC attempted to bring US military personnel to justice for war crimes, the US warned the ICC not to do it, it then sanctioned ICC staff, unsurprisingly the ICC backed down.
Recently there has been a big outcry in the West about TikTok, and how it gathers info for the Chinese authorities, which it surely must, something the West has been doing for its governments/security agencies, via Meta, Facebook Twitter etc for years – revealed to us by Edward Snowden and (Prism). Of late the Israelis have been selling a more sophisticated data collection/global positioning software spying device that can be installed far easier on everyone’s phone. I think its called Pegasus, and is produced by the Israeli company NSO.
The toadying of UK and Oz “leaders” (vetted by US State Dept) is amusing, since we all know they’ll be left in the gutter after US policies fail. But then children dream, don’t they?
Because of the social, cultural and economic mess that the neo-liberal capitalist model has brought to the West, it has become necessary for the United States and its satellite vassals to create external threats of some entity; islamic fundamentalism was getting old.