Sullivan-Xi Meeting Won’t Improve US-China Relations
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 29.08.2024
On Wednesday, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited China, meeting with President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking Chinese officials. The meeting is expected to be followed up with a call between Xi and US President Joe Biden in the coming weeks.
The meeting was reported as an attempt to improve relations between the world’s two largest economies and militaries, but is unlikely to move the needle in any perceptible way, scholar, journalist and geopolitical analyst specializing in the Asia-Pacific KJ Noh told Sputnik’s Political Misfits.
“I don’t think it’s really in the cards. If you look at the Chinese readouts [of the meeting], they essentially focus on the Chinese desire to get along with the United States. Their point is [that] we can’t be enemies and cooperate. [The US has] to make a decision,” Noh began. “They always come back to the Bali agreements, even the ‘Five Nos’ – no Cold War, no hot war, no regime change, no block forming, no support of secession… They want the US to affirm that. And the Chinese explicitly mentioned that in their readout. The US [readout] does not mention that.”
Despite occasional public overtures by the United States, its actions have been consistently aimed at limiting China’s growth and influence. The United States saw itself fit to insert itself in territorial disputes in the South China Sea. It has also supported Chinese separatists in Taiwan, held military drills in the region, flown spy planes right on China’s borders, and stationed troops just a mile off of China’s coast.
Then there is the economic warfare. “If you recall, when they initially rolled out these [micro]chip sanctions, [influential think tanks] crowed that they had essentially destroyed China’s economy. They said they had China in a four-point chokehold and they were strangling with intent to kill, that this was a declaration of war. They never walked back those statements,” explained Koh. “Jake Sullivan emphasized in the readout that the US will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technology from being used to undermine national security, that means they’re going to continue the tech war against China.”
Despite the United States’ hand-wringing about national security and election interference, Koh suspects the real reason for the tech war, particularly on Chinese tech giants Huawei and ByteDance, is to maintain the US “monopoly control over the backbone of the internet and social media companies for geostrategic reasons.”
Huawei is the world’s largest supplier of telecommunication equipment that makes up the backbone of the internet, like routers and servers. ByteDance owns TikTok, one of the most popular and fastest-growing social media platforms, boasting 170 million users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide.
The upcoming call between Xi and Biden will be to let China know that if Harris wins in November, the Harris administration is “essentially going to keep our policies as is.”
“I think they want to position themselves as a better alternative than [former US President Donald] Trump who the Chinese are weary about because he’s so unpredictable despite his kind of transactional neo-mercantile approach to China,” explained Koh. “But what we do have to note is anything that Trump did in terms of escalating against China, the Biden administration has maintained and then took it up several notches. All you have to do is look at the tariffs [and] you’ll see that the Biden administration has been much, much, much worse.”
Koh speculated that Sullivan wanted to stabilize relations between the countries before the election but afterward “the escalation against China will continue.”
“Right before this meeting, there was a massive high-level delegation of DPP Taiwan separatist officials who came to the United States. Right after this meeting is over, there will be further meetings with high-level separatists. And so, there’s always this doubled-edged message that the US is sending.”
So from a Chinese perspective, there are no good choices in November, Noh contended. “I don’t think they’re making plans for either administration. The Chinese outlook is just literally the long term. They believe that if they can avoid war, and if they can avoid nuclear war, then eventually, things will stabilize and the United States will hopefully find a modus vivendi.”
How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself?
By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 29.08.2024
As China rises, Asia rises with it. The Southeast Asian state of the Philippines stood to rise alongside the rest of the region until relatively recently as the United States successfully convinces the Philippines to do otherwise.
Before the current administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office, China was working with the Philippines to build badly needed modern infrastructure. Now, rather than working and trading together with China, the Philippines is pointing missiles at China. It has “invited” the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial master, to build new military facilities across its territory, using semantics and legal loopholes to sidestep the Philippines own constitution and undermine its sovereignty in the process.
Instead of rising with the rest of Asia, the Philippines continues to escalate toward a conflict that could set the entire region back decades or more.
Just as the United States politically captured Ukraine in Eastern Europe in 2014 and transformed it into a geopolitical battering ram against neighboring Russia at the expense of Ukraine’s population, economy, sovereignty, and possibly even its existence, it is repeating the same process with the Philippines vis-à-vis China.
How has the United States convinced a nation of over 115 million people to forego economic progress and development in exchange for an escalating confrontation with its own largest trade partner? What are the mechanisms Washington uses to convince an entire nation to race toward conflict and self-destruction?
A Vast Network of Propaganda
There is growing awareness of the means by which the US interferes politically in targeted nations through the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and adjacent organizations, agencies, and foundations, compromising a nation’s leadership and reshaping national policies to serve Washington at the expense of the targeted nation.
The NED does this through targeting every aspect of a nation-state, from its political system, to academia, from its courts and legal system to a nation’s information space.
Philippine information space, like many nations around the globe, has been targeted by a vast media network built up by the US government as well as corporate money funneled through intermediaries including foundations and endowments, to poison the Philippine people not only against China specifically, but against the Philippines’ own best interests in general.
Part of this vast network are so-called “fact-checking” projects the US government together with the largest names in Western media as well as US-based tech giants like Google uses to paradoxically reinforce US government disinformation and attack and undermine people and organizations working to inform the public – including the Philippine public – of what the US is really doing and why.
In the Philippines, this network includes PressOne. Its “fact-checking” activities have repeatedly targeted those exposing US interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs and undermining Philippine sovereignty.
PressOne has falsely “fact-checked” claims regarding the building of US military bases across the Philippines using semantics to argue that while the US is certainly building military facilities for its own use in the Philippines, technically the Philippines retains ownership over these facilities.
PressOne outright lied claiming, “President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. has denied that the facilities were intended to be military bases.” The Reuters report PressOne cites does not deny the facilities are indeed military bases, it simply claims the bases are not meant for “offensive action” against any country – another example of semantics.
In another example, PressOne conducted a smear against this author citing US and Philippine government claims, as well as through the use of a number of logical fallacies including guilt by association.
PressOne’s task is to convince those reading its content that a US-led effort to transform the Philippines into a Ukraine-style proxy against its largest trading partner, China, is not taking place, but if it were, it is somehow in the Philippines’ best interests.
It should then come as no surprise that PressOne’s “fact-checking” activities are the result of US government funding to stand-up such projects. At the bottom of each “fact-check” article on PressOne it claims, “PressOne.PH is a verified signatory of the Code of Principles of the International Fact -Checking Network (IFCN) at Poynter.”
Poynter in turn discloses it is funded by the US government through the NED along with corporate-funded foundations connected to the Omidyar Network as well as the Google News Initiative, itself a partner of the US State Department as well as other US-allied governments.
All of this, in turn, is part of an influence operation targeting China the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars on every year.
Funding Disinformation Hundreds of Millions a Year
In 2021 the US Congress introduced the “Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence Act.” It, along with other legislation and funds, seeks to spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year to, “counter the malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party globally.”
In practice, however, such legislation only seeks to reinforce the US’ actual malign influence.
As Reuters revealed earlier this year in an investigative report, “Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic,” the US government“aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China.” Reuters, quoting a senior US military official, wrote, “we weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
The same Reuters report admitted that, far from an isolated instance, the US has a myriad of such programs run out of “psychological operations” centers engaged in systematic propaganda. Thus, while the US government was certainly “countering” China, it wasn’t because China was wielding “malign influence,” it was because China was undermining America’s own malign influence.
A Long-Run Policy to Contain China
In addition to lying about public health, the US seeks to convince the Philippine public to give up trade, economic development, and infrastructure projects with China and instead invest public funds into military spending ahead of what will likely be a Ukraine-style proxy war against China.
The centerpiece of Washington’s political capture and exploitation of the Philippines is the “Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement” (EDCA) it uses to build military facilities across Philippine territory it uses to base troops, equipment, weapons, and ammunition. The facilities contribute toward a wider regional strategy of militarily encircling and containing China, a foreign policy objective pursued by Washington since the end of World War 2.
Published by the US State Department’s own Office of the Historian is a 1965 memorandum from then US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to then US President Lyndon B. Johnson titled, “Courses of Action in Vietnam” which admitted that US military operations in Southeast Asia only“made sense” if they were “in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China.” The same memorandum identified 3 fronts along which the US sought to contain China, including East Asia, Pakistan and India, as well as Southeast Asia where the Philippines is located.
Today, this policy of encirclement continues through mechanisms like the EDCA. Despite clearly running in contradiction to the Philippine people’s best interests, the well-funded propaganda campaign the US runs worldwide including in the Philippines (including the above mentioned PressOne) is attempting to convince the Philippine people that China is a threat, that the Philippines’ former colonial masters are their“allies,” and that buying US weapons and fighting Washington’s wars alongside US troops is the path forward toward a brighter future.
Considering the pile of ashes and bones the US is transforming Ukraine into even as this same process gains momentum in the Philippines, it is clear that along this path, there is no future at all for the Philippines. This unfortunate transformation and the deep socio-political scars it is creating within the Philippines serves as yet another warning about the importance of treating a nation’s information space as it does its physical domains and the importance of protecting this domain as well or better than a nation protects its land borders, shores, and air space. Only time will tell if other nations heed this warning, or simply follow Ukraine and the Philippines into self-destruction.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.
US Military Escort for Philippine Ships in South China Sea ‘Reasonable Option’ – Admiral
Sputnik – 27.08.2024
WASHINGTON – The US military said Tuesday that it is “an entirely reasonable option” for it to accompany Philippine vessels during resupply missions in the disputed South China Sea region, US media reported.
“Certainly within the context of consultations, every option between two sovereign nations in terms of our mutual defense — escort of one vessel to the other is an entirely reasonable option within our Mutual Defense Treaty,” Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Romeo Brawner said his country’s armed forces would escort the ships when they could and “seek other options when we are already constrained from doing it ourselves.” He added that the Philippines also cooperated with countries other than the US.
Their comments followed a collision between Philippine and Chinese ships near the disputed Sabina Shoal on Sunday, amid recurring clashes.
The territorial affiliation of a number of islands and reefs in the South China Sea has been the subject of disputes between China, the Philippines and several other Asia-Pacific countries for decades. Significant oil and gas reserves have been discovered on the continental shelf of those islands, including the Paracel Islands, Thitu Island, Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands, with the Whitson Reef being part.
Tale of two pipelines… Europe loses, China gains from Russia’s strategic gas supply
Strategic Culture Foundation | August 23, 2024
The Power of Siberia pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to China were back in the news this week, as was the ill-fated Nord Stream pipeline, the Russian-European counterpart.
First, it was announced the Power of Siberia 2 was on track for completion this year. When operational, the new pipeline will augment existing trans-Siberian delivery to China, bringing the total gas supply from Russia to 100 billion cubic meters per year.
That awesome gas supply figure is significant. For not too long ago it was projected that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines would have a combined capacity to deliver 100 bcm to Europe. Alas, that energy project was sabotaged in September 2022 when the gas pipes were blown up on the Baltic seabed. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and other writers have provided the most compelling account of the sabotage. It was carried out by American military and CIA operatives with the approval of President Joe Biden. See our weekly editorial published on September 30, 2022, days after the incident in which we outlined strong evidence inculpating Washington.
It was an audacious act of international state terrorism carried out by the Americans to destroy the decades-old energy trade between Russia and Europe. In particular, Germany’s postwar economic prowess was powered by relatively cheap and abundant Russian hydrocarbons. Now, the United States has stepped in as a supplier of much more expensive Liquefied Natural Gas to Europe.
Incredibly, no serious investigation has been carried out by European states to find the culprit. Russia, which was the main owner of the multi-billion euro project, has offered to cooperate with European states to investigate the blast, but all of Moscow’s offers have been rebuffed.
You could hardly make this criminal farce up. For years, the Americans enviously griped about Russia being the strategic energy supplier to Europe. With the escalation of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the Americans and their European NATO lackeys had a convenient pretext for blowing up the Nord Stream pipes.
The net result is that Germany’s economy – once the powerhouse of the European Union – has been dragged to its knees from the loss of its vital energy input from Russia. Germany is teetering on recession and its famed export-led industries are no longer competitive.
Yet despite this blatant crime, the political establishments in Germany and other countries directly affected by the Nord Stream vandalism – Sweden and Denmark – remain pathetically beholden to Washington. Two years after a huge transgression against Europe and Russia by the obvious culprit, the European authorities have dissembled and procrastinated.
Last week, Germany issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver whom it claims was involved in the undersea attack. This is a variant of previous claims in the American media that the Nord Stream sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian operatives. This narrative is absurd and an obvious distraction from the real story. There is no way that such a difficult operation could have been achieved by a bunch of amateurs. The Nord Stream sabotage required state-level expertise. The Americans also had an imperative motive – to force their way into the lucrative European energy market.
All of this is a tragicomedy. Russia’s fair and advantageous services have been perversely spurned by Europeans under the malign spell of American overseers. The European governments and media can’t even muster the courage or independence to conduct a proper investigation into the wanton destruction of their economies.
However, Russia has not been deterred or undermined. Far from it, unlike Germany and other recession-hit European states, Russia is growing at a robust rate. A large part of the benefit stems from the Russian energy trade now being directed to Asia.
China is gaining where Europe lost. The expanding Power of Siberia projects represent the loss of Nord Stream.
The foolishness of the European political class is stunning. By slavishly following the self-serving American hegemonic policy, the Europeans have fueled a war in Ukraine, the biggest war on the continent since World War Two. This conflict threatens to devastate the European Union.
The stupid European leaders have shot their countries in the foot. Instead of embracing a mutual partnership with Russia, they have opted for the American agenda of confrontation for which they are paying dearly with economic and political ruination.
European citizens know that their interests have been betrayed by elitist leaders who are in hock to American overlords.
There is a tangible sense of poetic justice. Russia’s strategic energy resources – the most prodigious on Earth – are fueling the expansion of an Eurasian economic juggernaut and the multipolar paradigm. This is leading to the accelerated demise of Western unipolar dominance.
The Americans and Europeans fret about the rise of China and Eurasia and how they will not be able to compete economically. A large part of the Western demise is caused by its own foul play and duplicity.
The tale of two pipelines, the Power of Siberia and Nord Stream, speaks volumes.
Taiwan’s Local Administration Embarks on Military Buildup Incited by US Hawks
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 24.08.2024
Taiwan’s local authorities proposed increasing the island’s defense spending to a record NT$647 billion ($20.2 billion) next year, an increase of 7.7% from 2023 that accounts for 2.45% of estimated GDP in 2025.
The defense spending hike, proposed by the island’s local leader, Lai Ching Te, is the continuation of a trend set by his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. During her tenure between 2016 and 2024, Tsai pushed through seven consecutive increases, almost doubling the island’s defense budget.
The US is forcing the island to step up its military spending, citing an alleged “threat” of China’s “invasion.” China considers the island as its inalienable territory.
While the US had stayed deliberately ambiguous in its vows to defend the island since 1979, the Trump and Biden administrations appeared to voice nothing short of clear deterrence commitments.
The Taiwan Enhancement Resilience Act (TERA), signed by President Biden on 23 December 2022, authorized $2 billion of annual military grant assistance to the island from 2023 to 2027. The US even attempted to designate the island a “major non-NATO ally.”
In April 2024, the US authorized another $8 billion in military aid for Taiwan and other allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. US weapons are now directly transferred from the Pentagon stockpiles to the island under the Presidential Drawdown Authority.
Over the past several years, Taiwan has, in particular, acquired 108 General Dynamics’ M1A2T Abrams tanks ($2.2 billion), 66 Lockheed Martin’s F-16V fighter jets ($8 billion) and 29 M142 HIMARS systems ($1.06 billion) from the US. US Big Five arm-makers have boasted of increased profits stemming from the US-driven tensions in Europe, Middle East and Asia-Pacific.
China strongly opposes Washington’s push for Taiwan’s militarization, saying this “sends a wrong signal to the Taiwan separatist forces.”
Beijing has ‘no intention’ of nuclear arms race with US – foreign ministry
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning speaks to reporters in Beijing on February 22, 2024. © Johannes Neudecker / picture alliance / Getty Images
RT | August 22, 2024
Washington’s fear-mongering over China’s nuclear arsenal is completely unfounded, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said. Her comment came after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that US President Joe Biden had quietly updated the Nuclear Employment Guidance, refocusing its aim against China.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mao said that Beijing was “gravely concerned” with the report. “The US has called China a ‘nuclear threat’ and used it as a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament,” she said.
Mao added that the size of China’s nuclear arsenal was “by no means on the same level with the US,” stressing that Beijing “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.” China has “no intention to engage in any form of arms race” with other states, she stated.
“It is the US who is the primary source of nuclear threats and strategic risks in the world,” the spokeswoman argued.
In 2023, the Pentagon estimated that China will double its stockpile of operational nuclear warheads to over 1,000 by 2030. The US currently has 5,550 warheads, while Russia has 6,255, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The White House has downplayed China’s concerns, with spokesman Sean Savett describing the change in nuclear strategy as a routine update that was “not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.” US officials, however, have repeatedly described Beijing as “a challenge” to world peace and accused it of economic and military coercion in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing, in turn, blamed the US for the ongoing tensions, urging Washington to abandon the “Cold-War mentality.”
U.S. military base in Bangladesh at the heart of a revolution
By Steven Sahiounie | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 21, 2024
Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has a shocking accusation against the U.S. On August 12, while in exile in India, she told the Economic Times, “I could have remained in power if I had surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal. I beseech to the people of my land, ‘Please do not be manipulated by radicals’.”
Hasina resigned on August 5 after weeks of violent street protests by students angry at a law which awards government civil service jobs. The protests began in June 2024 after the Supreme Court reinstated a 30% quota for descendants of the freedom fighters who won the independence for the country in 1971 after fighting against Pakistan with the help of an Indian military intervention. The students felt they were facing an unfair system and would have limited opportunity for a job based on their educational qualifications, instead of ancestry.
On July 15, Dhaka University students were protesting and calling for quota reforms, when suddenly they were attacked by individuals with sticks and clubs. Similar attacks began elsewhere and rumors circulated that it was a group affiliated with the ruling Awami League.
Some believe the group who began the violence was paid mercenaries employed by a foreign country. Street protesters who were met by a brutal crackdown were the western media description of the March 2011 uprising in Syria. However, the media failed to report that the protesters were armed and even on the first day of violence 60 Syrian police were killed. The question is in cases like Bangladesh: was this a grass-roots uprising, or a carefully staged event by outside interests?
By July 18, 32 deaths were reported, and on July 19, there were 75 deaths. The internet was shut down, and more than 300 were killed in less than 10 days, with thousands injured.
Some call the Bangladeshi uprising the ‘Gen Z revolution’, while others dub it the ‘Monsoon revolution’. But, experts are not yet united in a source of the initial violent attack on student protesters.
Hasina had won her fourth consecutive term in the January 7 elections, which the U.S. State Department called ‘not free or fair’. Regional powerhouses, India and China, rushed to congratulate the 76-year-old incumbent.
Hasina had held the peace in a country since 2009 while facing Radical Islamic threats. Targeting Bangladeshi Hindus was never the message or the intent of the student movement, according to some student activists.
The Jamaat-e-Islami has never won a parliamentary majority in Bangladesh’s 53-year history, but it has periodically allied with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Jamaat, as the party is widely known, was banned on August 1, when Hasina blamed the two opposition parties for the deaths during the anti-quota protests.
Muhammad Yunus, a respected economist and Nobel Laureate, accepted the post of chief adviser in a transitional government until elections are held. He said he will seek to restore order as his first concern.
The Saint Martin Island is a stretch of land spreading across merely three square kilometers in the northeastern part of the Bay of Bengal, and is the focus of the U.S. military who seek to increase their presence in Southeast Asia as a balance against China.
On May 28, China praised Hasina for her decision to deny permission for a foreign military base, commending it as a reflection of the Bangladeshi people’s strong national spirit and commitment to independence.
Without naming any country, Hasina had said that she was offered a hassle-free re-election in the January 7 polls if she allowed a foreign country to build an airbase inside Bangladeshi territory.
“If I allowed a certain country to build an airbase in Bangladesh, then I would have had no problem,” Hasina told The Daily Star newspaper.
Bangladesh was formerly East Pakistan, becoming a part of Pakistan in 1947, when British India was divided into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Bangladesh was founded in 1971 after winning a war of independence. On August 15, 1975, a military coup took over, and Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, was assassinated along with most of his family members.
The U.S. State Department, aided by the CIA, have a long history of political meddling in foreign countries. Examples are the 2003 ‘regime change’ invasion of Iraq, and in the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ we saw the U.S. attack Libya to overthrow the government, the U.S. support of the ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria who were Al Qaeda terrorists, and the U.S. manipulated election in Egypt which installed a Muslim Brotherhood member as President. The American Lila Jaafar received a 5 year prison sentence for her manipulation of the Egyptian election, but Hillary Clinton evacuated her from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo before she could serve her prison sentence, and she is now the Director of the Peace Corps with a White House office.
The U.S. often uses sectarian issues and strife to accomplish their goals abroad. After the Islamists in Bangladesh drove out Hasina, reports of attacks on Hindu temples and businesses circulated on mainstream Indian TV channels.
Hindus, Muslim-majority Bangladesh’s largest religious minority, comprise around 8% of the country’s nearly 170 million population. They have traditionally supported Hasina’s party, the Awami League, which put them at odds with the student rioters.
In the week after Hasina’s ouster, there were at least 200 attacks against Hindus and other religious minorities across the country, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, a minority rights group.
The police have also sustained casualties in their ranks, proving the protesters were armed as well, and went on a weeklong strike after Hasina fled to India.
Dhaka-based Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies said they believe inclusivity and plurality are important principles as Bangladesh navigates a post-Hasina era. Those exact words: inclusivity and plurality are current ‘buzz-words’ used in Washington, DC. based political and security groups.
Hasina is credited with doing a good job balancing Bangladesh’s relations with regional powers. She had a special relationship with India, but she also increased economic and defense ties with China.
In March 2023, Hasina inaugurated a $1.21 billion China-built submarine based at Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar off the Bay of Bengal coast.
On May 28, China praised Hasina for refusing to permit a foreign air base. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said, “China has noted Prime Minister Hasina’s speech, which reflects the national spirit of the Bangladeshi people to be independent and not afraid of external pressure.”
Mao said some countries seek their own selfish interests, openly trade other countries’ elections, brutally interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, undermine regional security and stability, and fully expose their hegemonic, bullying nature.
China has invested over U.S.D 25 billion in various projects in Bangladesh, next highest after Pakistan in the South Asian region, who also steadily enhanced defense ties with Bangladesh supplying a host of military equipment, including battle tanks, naval frigates, missile boats besides fighter jets.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hasina had long ignored the democratic backsliding in each other’s countries to forge close ties, and bilateral trade increased with Indian corporations striking major deals
“I also congratulate the people of Bangladesh for the successful conduct of elections. We are committed to further strengthen our enduring and people-centric partnership with Bangladesh,” Modi said in a post on X in January.
Mainstream Indian news outlets, which often serve as mouthpieces for Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, have been focused on a Bangladeshi Islamist party. “What is Jamaat-e-Islami? The Pakistan-backed political party that brought down Sheikh Hasina’s govt,” read one headline. “Jamaat may take control in Bangladesh,” read another, quoting a senior member of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Some critics claimed India “covertly” helped Hasina win the election, while others said New Delhi used its influence to tone down U.S. and European criticisms of the Bangladeshi vote.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP party came to power in 2014, and Modi’s commitment to a Hindu rashtra, or Hindu nation, while turning its back on secularism has undermined a core Indian foreign policy principle.
In 2019, the Modi government passed controversial citizenship laws that were criticized as anti-Muslim. The BJP’s strident anti-migrant rhetoric sees hardline party members often railing against Muslim “infiltrators” with Indian Home Minister Amit Shah infamously calling Bangladeshi migrants “termites” during an election rally in West Bengal.
The revolution to oust a long-serving leader, who kept the Muslim majority and the Hindu minority in a peaceful coexistence, has opened a new chapter for Bangladesh society. Will this prove to be a destabilizing period in which the Islamic party, Jamaat, holds sway over the society? Will the secular history of Bangladesh be forgotten? The final question will be, when will the new U.S. military base be opened on Saint Martin Island?
Chinese Scientists Propose Magnetic Launcher on Moon to Send Resources to Earth – Reports
Sputnik – 18.08.2024
BEIJING – Chinese scientists proposed building a magnetic launcher on the Moon, which could become an cost-effective way to deliver resources mined on the lunar surface to Earth, and, in addition, part of the Russian-Chinese lunar station project, Chinese media reported on Sunday.
According to the publication, scientists from the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering suggest that the magnetic levitation installation will work on the same principle as the hammer throw in athletics, but the rotation at increasing speed will be carried out before a cargo capsule is sent to Earth.
Scientists are convinced that, due to the unique environmental conditions on the Moon, such as high vacuum and low gravity, payloads can be sent twice a day, and the cost of such transportation will be about 10% of the cost of existing methods.
“The system’s technical readiness is relatively high. Since it consumes only electricity and does not require any propellant, it will be relatively small in scale and straightforward to implement,” the scientists said in their paper.
They also noted that the main task will be the extraction of helium-3 to help solve the problem of the energy crisis on Earth. The project, in their opinion, will also contribute to the development of space mining technologies, heavy launch vehicles and artificial intelligence.
The proposed launch system will use a 50-meter-long rotating arm and a high-temperature superconducting engine to launch capsules with mined resources. Ten minutes after launch, the rotation speed of the arm will reach the second cosmic velocity of the Moon of 2.4 kilometers per second and about one-sixth of the second cosmic velocity of Earth — and put it on the correct trajectory for returning to Earth.
The system is designed to last at least 20 years, but it will weigh about 80 tonnes, so before it can be delivered to the Moon, it will be necessary to wait for the start of operation of the Chinese super-heavy launch vehicle, the publication said.
The team working on the project suggested that it could be part of a proposed joint Russian-Chinese project to build a research station at the south pole of the Moon by 2035.
The intergovernmental Russian-Chinese agreement on the joint creation of the International Scientific Lunar Station (ISLS) was signed on November 25, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law ratifying the agreement on June 12, 2024, and it entered into force on July 18. The document was published on July 25. It indicates that the station will be created in three phases and will receive modules both on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite and in its orbit. During the third phase, it is planned not only to study and develop the Moon, but also to assist other countries in landing on the Moon. The implementation dates for each of the phases are not yet mentioned.
Hate influencer VOA ‘aims to sow discord between China, India amid improving ties’
By Liu Xuanzun | Global Times | August 13, 2024
Chinese experts on Tuesday slammed a recent report by the Chinese language version of the Voice of America (VOA) on India’s newly debuted light tank, saying that the US media is seeking to sow discord between China and India amid a recent recovery in relations by hyping the threat of military confrontation which has been subsiding for years.
VOA reported on Monday that India’s Zorawar light tank, designed for high altitude operations, will be deployed along the China-India borders “amid continued tensions.”
Calling it a game changer, the report hyped India’s new tank and its capabilities, and how it can rival its Chinese counterpart, the Type 15.
The first reports on the debut of the Zorawar light tank were published by Indian media in early July, which, although mentioning China as well, noted that the new Indian tank will not be ready before 2027, a key detail that was ignored by VOA.
Recently, relations between China and India have been recovering, with the two sides having held the 30th Meeting of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on China-India Border Affairs in late July.
It has been more than four years since the Galwan Valley clash of 2020, and since then the two countries have held multiple rounds of border talks on different levels in both military and diplomatic channels, having seen de-escalation and disengagement in multiple points of contact, a Beijing-based military expert who requested not to be named told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The US media’s hype on military confrontation along the China-India border is unprofessional, and it exposes the US’ mentality of wanting to sow discord amid improving China-India ties, the expert added.
From a military point of view, China has commissioned and actually deployed the Type 15 light tank since 2019, while India’s new tank will have to wait until at least 2027, the expert said, noting that India’s defense industry has a history of issues such as delays, cost rises and technical problems.
Subliminal Message from Beijing to Washington amidst the War Drums
By Lama El Horr – New Eastern Outlook – 12.08.2024
Anger is a pyromaniac. Under its influence, we tend to provoke a reaction from our adversary, which serves as fuel to fan the flames, thus increasing the legitimacy of the angry inferno. The method is convenient for practicing accusatory inversion and making the one reacting to aggression the instigator of hell.
Today, Washington is angry. The object of this anger is China’s spectacular rise to power, which is increasingly shaking the foundations and legitimacy of US domination of the world. This American anger desperately needs pretexts to both justify and intensify hostilities against Beijing. The United States is therefore seeking to provoke a violent reaction from its main geopolitical rival: China.
So far, this American strategy of one-upmanship has had the opposite effect to that intended. Whether in Beijing’s immediate vicinity, in the Middle East, Africa or Europe, American pressure against China and its partners has reinforced Beijing’s pacifist vocation, to the point of making it a key diplomatic player in the resolution of the world’s most acute crises. Much to the chagrin of Washington’s thirst for fire.
An escalation of tensions meticulously organized by Washington and its allies
Washington’s strategy of escalating tensions aims to target the fulcrums that make the multipolarity advocated by Beijing and Russia a geopolitical reality. Fomenting conflicts involving Beijing’s strategic partners is the path the United States seems to have chosen to curb China’s rise to power and harm its strategic investments.
When Washington allowed Israel to assassinate the Hamas political leader in charge of negotiations, on Iranian soil and in the wake of the Beijing Declaration, the efforts of Chinese diplomacy to unify the Palestinian factions were also targeted. When Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus in defiance of the Vienna Convention, China, which has a strategic partnership with Iran and Syria, was also targeted. When Washington and its allies bomb Yemen to remove any obstacle to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories, China, which worked for the rapprochement between Riyadh and Teheran, then between Riyadh and Sanaa, is also targeted. When the members of the UN Security Council adopt a resolution on the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, and the United States declares that this resolution is non-binding, China, which urges respect for international law and whose strategic interests are threatened by regional insecurity, is also targeted.
The latest developments concerning the Western Sahara bear striking similarities to those in West Asia. As with the Palestinian question, the Western bloc is flouting international law, which enshrines the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination – except that here, it’s the China-Algeria economic partnership, and the Russia-Algeria security partnership, that seem to be in Washington’s sights. And let’s not forget that Algerian gas is supposed to relieve Europeans of anti-Russian sanctions, and that Algeria continues to speak out on behalf of the Palestinian people.
Likely to inflame tensions on North Africa’s western flank, the Western Sahara is a godsend for Washington at a time when Algeria and its southern neighbors (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso) have embarked on a process of decolonizing their development and security model – a process that is about to extend to other countries that have also lived under Western tutelage since independence, such as Chad and Nigeria.
Like Israel against Iran, Ukraine against Moscow or Seoul against Pyongyang, France has been assigned the role of executor of the US strategy to contain China, through the demonization of Algeria. Paris is aided in its mission by the Abraham Accords, concluded between Morocco and Israel under the aegis of the Trump administration, which contribute to reinforcing NATO’s presence in North Africa – in a less brutal manner, for the time being, than in the former Yugoslavia.
This strategy of Atlanticist escalation borders on the grotesque when it comes to Venezuela, a BRICS candidate country and one of the world’s leading oil and gas reserves. After decades of outrages suffered by Caracas – attempted coups d’état, media killing of legitimate leaders, suffocation of the economy by apartheid-style sanctions – the United States has still not achieved its goal: to take control of the country’s strategic resources and install its military bases there. As in the case of Iran, the assistance of Beijing and Moscow was crucial in preventing Venezuela’s collapse.
The Western bloc’s decision to resume the affront of not recognizing the elected president has just been severely thwarted by Beijing and Moscow. Invited to the BRICS Summit to be held in Russia in October, Nicolas Maduro announced that he could entrust the exploitation of his country’s strategic resources to members of this structure. Caracas seems to be warning Washington: if you don’t curb your greed, you run the risk of losing everything.
On China’s doorstep, the outbreak of violence that forced the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh – another BRICS candidate country – raises questions about Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The former head of government’s statements concerning the intentions of “a certain country” to build a military base on the island of Saint Martin in the Bay of Bengal, and also to create a Christian state that would include parts of Bangladesh, Myanmar and even India, offer a reading of events quite distinct from what is being said by the Western media and Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi Nobel Prize winner who has just been entrusted with the head of the interim government.
One power struggle, two world views
Through its leaders, its satellite countries and its megaphone, the mainstream media, the United States strives to portray East-West tensions as a conflict of hierarchy between two models of governance: liberal democracies, synonymous with the West, and autocracies, synonymous with emerging powers. China, on the other hand, offers a different interpretation: the reason for global geopolitical tensions is the questioning of the hierarchy of power in a world where the overwhelming majority of people are challenging American hegemony.
Despite the risk of confrontation it raises, the exacerbation of tensions between Beijing and Washington certainly has one merit: it shows that the two powers have two diametrically opposed conceptions of the world, of their place in it, and of the rules that are supposed to govern relations between states.
Just as it cannot conceive of its own sovereignty without respecting the sovereignty of other states – which implies the primacy of the principle of non-interference and the rejection of any hegemonic power – China also considers that there is an interdependence between its development and that of other nations. This is the founding idea of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, complemented by the vision of a Community of Destiny for Mankind.
This is the bedrock of Chinese political philosophy, in which the notions of development, security and peace are inextricably linked. The BRI and China’s Security, Development and Civilization initiatives are the best illustrations of this concept of civilizational interdependence. In Beijing’s view, we’re all piloting the same ship: it’s up to each and every one of us to be a good pilot, a good teammate and a good visionary, because we’ll have to work collectively to achieve prosperity, and collectively to avoid the pitfalls. The success of such a project depends on keeping the peace on board.
On the contrary, the United States believes that its sovereignty depends on the subordination of other states to its power, and that its continued development depends on obstructing the economic, technological and military independence of other global players. This denial of peoples’ right to self-determination betrays a supremacist conception of power – not inconsistent with imperialist ideology – and logically raises objections throughout the world.
Despite these objections, judging by its militaristic headlong rush, the American administration continues to endorse the statement attributed to Caligula: ‘Let them hate me, so long as they fear me!’ Yet today, with the exception of EU members and a handful of other satellite states, the United States no longer commands the fearful respect it once did in the golden age of its omnipotence – despite the increasingly exorbitant budget allocated to its arms industry.
Behind Beijing’s placid posture, a message to Washington
In this explosive geopolitical context, Washington is seeking to drive Beijing up against the wall, by limiting the Asian giant’s choice to two options. Either China persists in avoiding confrontation – in which case Washington will inevitably gain ground – or China sinks into the spiral of American pyromania – in which case Beijing will turn away from its own geopolitical priorities, in favor of those of its rival. In other words, Washington is offering Beijing the choice between capitulation and surrender.
China doesn’t see it that way, and has its sights set on a third way: pacifism without capitulation. Whether it’s Taiwan, the Korean peninsula, tensions in the South China Sea, conflicts between NATO and Russia, or between the US and Iran, China persists in advocating the peaceful resolution of disputes. In support of this position, Beijing has woven a network of inclusive partnerships, as opposed to exclusive military alliances.
Clearly, this pacifist plea reflects the Chinese authorities’ strategic decision to refrain from knee-jerk reactions to Washington’s military provocations. China’s challenge is to break the United States’ militaristic logic, without indulging its strategy of conflagration.
For the time being, Beijing has decided to meet this challenge with silence. A good illustration of this is the conflict in the Middle East and Gaza. China’s silence has prompted the Western bloc to reveal its cards and discredit itself. ‘Freedom’, ‘Human Rights’, ‘Democracy’ and ‘International Law’ are suffering the same carnage as the Palestinian people.
Beijing’s silence also keeps Washington in the dark about the military capabilities of Beijing’s and Moscow’s partners. The extra-judicial assassinations of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian leaders, marked by the seal of international illegality, are the very demonstration of the United States’ frustration at the military calm of its geopolitical adversaries.
Added to this are the uninterrupted requests for membership of the BRICS and the SCO, the hallmarks of the multipolar world. This simple fact means that the tornado of hostilities towards Beijing has not succeeded in diverting the world majority from its aspiration to emancipate itself from the American hegemonic order. Now, if living under the American yoke is intolerable for Iran, Algeria or Venezuela, it’s easy to imagine the degree of irritation the world’s second-largest economy must feel.
But ultimately, as the NATO-Russia conflict has shown, the United States cannot conceive that the deterrent power of its rivals can be applied to itself. It was only by confronting NATO militarily, through Ukraine, that Russia’s deterrent power could be restored. The provocations against Moscow revealed that Washington did not possess all the details of Russia’s military architecture. Today’s outcome of this conflict, revealing the overwhelming superiority of the Russian army, suggests that Moscow, like Beijing and Teheran, had shown unlimited strategic patience before resorting to the military option. Unfortunately, the USA and its NATO allies discovered this at the same time as they discovered Moscow’s firepower.
Today, when Washington seems to be saying: We run the world, and China is part of the world, China seems to be replying, in the manner of Aimé Césaire: Strength is not within us, but above us.
China supports Iran in defending its security, sovereignty: Foreign minister
Press TV – August 11, 2024
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi says Beijing supports Iran in defending its “sovereignty, security and national dignity” amid Tehran’s promise to harshly punish Israel over the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Hamas resistance movement.
In a phone call with Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani on Sunday, Wang repeated Beijing’s denunciation of the Hamas chief’s assassination in Tehran late last month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
He said the strike against Haniyeh had violated Iran’s sovereignty and posed a threat to regional stability.
He added that the killing of Haniyeh had “directly undermined the Gaza ceasefire negotiation process and undermined regional peace and stability.”
Haniyeh was assassinated on July 31, while he was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Haniyeh’s assassination was designed and executed by Israel, with support from the US administration.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned the Israeli regime of a “harsh response” for Haniyeh’s assassination, saying it was the Islamic Republic’s duty to avenge the Palestinian resistance leader’s blood.
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The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – 10th part of the series “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 9, 2016
… In Among The Truthers Kay repeats the core idea of The Volunteer: A Canadian’s Secret Life in the Mossad. As Kay would have it, 9/11 confirms the role of Israel as the West’s primary bulwark against Islamic savagery. In making this case Kay repeats the assertion of Benjamin Netanyahu that 9/11 was good for Israel.
Kay asserts, “Following the attacks supporters of Israel spoke of a silver lining. The war against militant Islam suddenly was a global one. Now the whole world would see and understand the sort of nihilistic hatred that Israelis confront every day.” As Kay sees it, Jews are being enlisted en masse to serve as primary soldiers in a war of civilizations.
He writes, “The Jew was the perfect anti-Islamist, whose zeal and reliability was hard-wired into his political DNA thanks to six decades of Israeli warfare against Islamic terrorists in the Middle East.” … Read full article
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