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Hungary warns of ‘knockout blow’ to EU economy

Hungarian Trade and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. © Omer Taha Cetin/Getty Images
RT | October 21, 2023

The EU should pursue cooperation with China and Asia as a whole, which have already become more competitive than the bloc in economic terms, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

Speaking at an informal meeting of EU trade ministers in Valencia on Friday, Szijjarto emphasized that the global economy has turned upside down over the past few years, resulting in a fall in the bloc’s economic position, which Brussels is making worse with its indiscriminate sanctions policies. He reiterated that recent sanctions against Russia and the drive to abandon Russian energy “shot the European economy first in the foot and then in the knee.”

“Today we pay four times as much for gas in Europe as Americans do at home and three times as much for electricity as people pay in China,” he pointed out, noting that while distancing itself from Russia has already caused problems, doing the same with China would be even more destructive for the EU economy.

Szijjarto noted that China has already surpassed the EU in terms of gross domestic product (GDP): its share of global GDP jumped from 9% in 2010 to the current 18%, while the EU’s share dropped from 22% to 17%.

“The overall structure of the world economy is being transformed, and this great transformation also means that the West’s automatic competitive advantage has ended. The Eastern world has strengthened significantly, they have at the very least caught up with the Western world from a financial and technological point of view, while they have always been ahead of us in terms of human resources,” he stated. Szijjarto added that the Eastern and Western economies are more strongly interdependent nowadays than ever before, and said the EU should not shy away from this trend.

“Whether we like it or not, it’s a fact. Whoever denies all this can cause very serious damage to the European economy,” he warned.

Szijjarto noted that the basis of the EU’s economic growth previously lay in the combination of advanced Western technologies and cheap Russian energy, but this line of cooperation has now been severed.

“Unfortunately, there are Western Europeans… who strive to cut off economic cooperation between Europe and China in the same way. If this were to happen, it would practically be a knockout blow to the European economy. That is why we are against any effort to isolate the Chinese and European economies from each other,” he stated.

The minister said the consequences of such actions would be especially felt by the European automotive industry, which relies on Chinese suppliers.

“This would practically suffocate the car industry. And if we strangle the European car industry, we will destroy the European economy,” he declared.

“Everyone in the economy understands this, but Western European politicians don’t want to see the reality, they don’t want to hear the facts, but rather they politicize out of ideology and anger.”

The EU relationship with China has been strained over the past several years, with Brussels viewing Beijing as an economic rival, and each side increasingly unhappy with the other’s policies.

October 21, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

The EU has discredited itself in the Israel-Palestine conflict

By Timur Fomenko | RT | October 20, 2023

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s showboating in support of Israel in the current Middle East conflict has reportedly provoked a backlash from EU lawmakers and diplomats.

When the Israel-Gaza war broke out just over a week ago, von der Leyen made the decision to offer unconditional support to West Jerusalem rather than urge for calm or mediation, having Israel’s flag projected onto the European Commission headquarters and paying a visit to Israel herself. She clearly did so out of an inclination to appear in line with the US. But her actions have aged poorly as reports of civilian deaths and humanitarian disaster in the besieged Gaza Strip continue to mount.

Anyone familiar with von der Leyen knows that she is an unapologetic neoconservative and transatlanticist who is single-handedly undermining the autonomy, respect, and foreign policy stature of the EU by actively working to make the bloc subordinate to the US in multiple areas, all while attempting to showcase herself as a true regional leader. If the EU sees itself in a fundamental competition with China and Russia, there could not be a worse advert to the rest of the world than her leadership, and her Israel blunders may be her most damaging decisions yet.

Von der Leyen’s foreign policy legacy involves dragging the EU into several confrontations it could have done without. This week, she is heading to Washington DC to try to forge a deal on steel and aluminum trade targeted at China, but that will ultimately result in throwing the EU market under the bus, again. Other acts have included backing the American position on Ukraine and striving for full escalation of the war there, promoting energy decoupling with Russia, as well as inventing the term “de-risking” with China and seeking to undermine the bloc’s lucrative relationship with Beijing. Throughout this, she has been repeatedly eager to pull large sums of money out of thin air and propose fantasy projects which amount to little more than posturing, and which her office alone is not even able to authorize.

For example, that includes offering Belarus billions if it goes ahead with a US-backed regime change, or inventing numerous “infrastructure” schemes to compete with China, such as the Global Gateway, among other things. She has thus repeatedly used the stature of her office to follow American objectives and try to shape the continent without establishing any kind of due consensus. Almost immediately after the war in Gaza broke out, the European Commission announced all EU aid to Palestine would be frozen. Regardless of what you think of Hamas, with hindsight that decision now appears spiteful, reactionary and inhumane, which tells you how fast the Commission was to jump to the American position of unconditional support for Israel.

But this time there is a widespread feeling it has gone too far. Rather than allowing Europe to have staked out a moderate position on the Gaza conflict, even if it would not be too sympathetic to Palestine, the decision was essentially outsourced to the US, discrediting the EU and only serving to contribute to the growing backlash starting to emerge among Muslim communities in response to the conflict. For countries such as France, this is disastrous. This hurts the EU’s image across the Islamic world and the Global South by seemingly siding with the oppressors.

Soon enough, a series of embarrassing U-turns followed, including the reinstatement of aid, combined with tweets in Arabic, but the damage had already been done, because Israel has long been given the green light to pursue unparalleled destruction in Gaza, at seemingly whatever the cost. In doing so, von der Leyen has in fact undermined, in yet another way, the bloc’s ability to present itself as a serious and comprehensive political actor. She seems to have no love for the idea that the EU should have strategic autonomy and be capable of calibrating its own interests and place in the world, and would prefer that it instead be a simple parrot of the US.

Of course, if she took into greater consideration the interests and positions of member states it would be less of a problem. But she does not and instead essentially serves as a completely disruptive force, in practice undermining European diplomacy and preventing the EU from building relations with a wide range of states. In the end, this favors only the US.

October 19, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary PM Orbán meets with Putin in Beijing

BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | OCTOBER 17, 2023

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss ongoing bilateral agreements between the two nations.

The pair were snapped shaking hands in the Chinese capital — the first photographed handshake between Putin and an EU leader since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

Orbán told the Russian president that “Hungary has never sought to confront Russia” and has always and will continue to “pursue the goal of building and expanding the best communication,” reported Russia’s state-run news agency TASS.

“In Europe today, one question is on everyone’s mind: Will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine? For us Hungarians, too, the most important thing is that the flood of refugees, the sanctions, and the fighting in our neighboring country should end,” Orbán posted on X following the meeting.

Budapest has maintained relatively close relations with Moscow and faced the wrath of the European Union for steering its own course through the conflict in Ukraine and refusing to present a united front with other EU leaders.

Orbán’s administration has long opposed the provision of arms to Kyiv, which it claims is prolonging the conflict and increasing the death toll, and has advocated for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks.

The rendezvous exerts further pressure on Brussels, which requires Hungary’s approval for proposed budget reforms in order to unlock further funding for Ukraine.

“Given the fact that in today’s geopolitical conditions the opportunities for maintaining contacts and developing relations are very limited, it can only cause satisfaction that our relations with many European countries are maintained and developed. One of these countries is Hungary,” Putin told Orban.

The meeting was criticized by U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman who accused Orbán of “pleading for business deals” while Russia continues its aggression in Ukraine.

“Hungary’s leader chooses to stand with a man whose forces are responsible for crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and alone among our Allies,” he posted on X.

This interpretation of the meeting was questioned by the Hungarian prime minister’s political director, Balázs Orbán, who claimed that Budapest was “fed up” with Pressman’s “hypocrisy.”

“If the question is who’s doing business with the Russians, the Americans should turn down the volume. They are buying more than twice as much nuclear fuel alone as they used to, and we have a whole list of them,” he added.

“Since your president refuses to talk about ending this war, someone has to,” quipped Koskovics Zoltán, a geopolitical analyst at the Budapest-based Center for Fundamental Rights.

Both leaders arrived in Beijing at the invitation of Chinese President Xi ahead of an international forum on China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Earlier on Tuesday, Orbán met with the Chinese leader to discuss the strengthening of Hungarian-Chinese relations.

“Connectivity instead of decoupling: This is the Hungarian model. Our aim is to strengthen Hungarian-Chinese relations. This is good for Hungary and good for the European economy,” he said in a statement.

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Detente climate poisoned as US congressional report hypes China, Russia’s ‘nuke threats’

By Wang Qi | Global Times | October 13, 2023

Despite a recent climate of detente between China and the US, a US report by a congressionally mandated panel hyped “threats” from China and Russia, urging Washington to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Moscow and Beijing and enhance its already formidable nuclear arsenal.

Analysts said Friday that the report will harm the fragile thawing in relations between China and the US. As the report is likely to be reflected in the future National Defense Authorization Act, it will also poison the global strategic environment for the next decade, they said.

Citing a senior official involved in the report by the Strategic Posture Commission, Reuters said the panel members are worried about “ultimate coordination” between China and Russia, which will get the US into a two-war construct.

The US and its allies must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously, the Strategic Posture Commission said, urging Washington to expand or restructure its nuclear arsenal to tackle the “existential challenge.”

The panel’s vice chair, Jon Kyl, a retired Republican senator, said that the US requires huge defense spending increases, and both the White House and Congress need to tell the US people that higher defense spending is a small price to pay “to hopefully preclude” a possible nuclear war involving the US, China and Russia.

It is very rare that this quasi-official report suggests the need to prepare for simultaneous war with China and Russia, including nuclear deterrence and counterattack, Lü Xiang, a US studies research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.

The report is perhaps the boldest vision from the US strategic community since the Cold War, endorsing the interests of the military-industrial complex, and seeking to influence the US decision-making community, Lü said.

The report came at a time when Beijing-Washington ties showed signs of warming, after a slew of meetings between high-level officials. On Thursday local time, the US accepted China’s invitation to attend the Xiangshan Forum, a top security forum in Beijing this month, according to the media.

This report undoubtedly poisons the current climate of warming ties between China and the US, and will inevitably poison the strategic environment for the next decade, said Lü, noting the report’s recommendations are likely to be embodied in the National Defense Authorization Act, and the US will most likely significantly expand its nuclear forces in the next decade.

It means that the US is going to maximize the “challenges” and then respond to the “worst possibilities it has assumed,” he noted.

Although China has always emphasized an active defense strategy, we must also be prepared for a risky US posture on nuclear weapons, Lü said.

In February, Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, stressed that even though the US has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, it is still investing heavily in upgrading its nuclear triad. The US has been repeatedly hyping up the so-called “China nuclear threat,” only to seek excuses for expanding its own nuclear arsenal and maintaining military hegemony.

In 2020, Fu Cong, then director general of the Department of Arms Control and Disarmament, cited statistics from renowned international think tanks, pointing out that the US nuclear arsenal stands at about 5,800 nuclear warheads, which is almost 20 times that of China’s.

The US report is still asking for more defense spending, but how much more the US economy can afford to raise its defense budget remains doubtful, Lü said.

For fiscal year 2024, the US defense budget request hit another record high of $842 billion, more than the gross domestic product of Saudi Arabia for the entire year of 2021, and 20 percent higher than the combined defense budgets of nine countries, including China, Russia, India, and the UK, According to Xinhua.

US strategic circles should clearly understand that if a nuclear war between China, the US and Russia really breaks out, it will be disastrous for the world. Moreover, if the US assumes that a nuclear war will break out, others will look at the US as a participant, which poses risk to the US as well, analysts said.

October 17, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US faces defeat in geopolitical war in Gaza

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 16, 2023 

One hundred years after the Arab Revolt (1916-1918) against the ruling Ottoman Turks amidst the impending defeat of Germany and the Triple Alliance in World War I, another armed uprising by the Arabs has erupted — this time around, against Israeli occupation, in the backdrop of the looming defeat of the United States and NATO in the Ukraine War — presenting a thrilling spectacle of history repeating unabridged. 

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated as a result of the Arab Revolt. Israel too will have to vacate its occupied territories and make space for a state of Palestine, which of course, will be a crushing defeat for the US and marks the end of its global dominance, reminiscent of the Battle of Cambrai in Northern France (1918) where Germans — surrounded, exhausted and with disintegrating morale amidst a deteriorating domestic situation — faced the certainty that the war had been lost, and surrendered.  

The torrential flow of events through the past week is breathtaking, starting with a phone call made by Iran’s President Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday to discuss a common strategy toward the situation following the devastating attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, against Israel on October 7.

Earlier on Tuesday, in a powerful statement, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had emphasised that “From the military and intelligence aspects, this defeat (by Hamas) is irreparable. It is a devastating earthquake. It is unlikely that the (Israeli) usurping regime will be able to use the help of the West to repair the deep impacts that this incident has left on its ruling structures.” (See my blog Iran warns Israel against its apocalyptic war.)

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Raisi’s call to the Crown Prince aimed to “support Palestine and prevent the spread of war in the region. The call was good and promising.” Having forged a broad understanding with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian held a discussion with his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, during which he called upon Islamic and Arab countries to extend their support to the Palestinian people, emphasising the urgency of the situation.

On Thursday, Amir-Abdollahian embarked on a regional tour to Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Qatar through Saturday to coordinate with the various resistance groups. Notably, he met Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha. Amir-Abdollahian told the media that unless Israel stopped its barbaric air strikes on Gaza, an escalation by the Resistance is inevitable and Israel could suffer a “huge earthquake,” as Hezbollah is in a state of readiness to intervene. 

Axios reported on Saturday citing two diplomatic sources that Tehran has delivered a strong message to Tel Aviv via the UN that it will have to intervene if the Israeli aggression on Gaza persists. Simply put, Tehran will not be deterred by the deployment of 2 US aircraft carriers and several warships and fighter jets off the shores of Israel. On Sunday, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan acknowledged that the US couldn’t rule out that Iran might intervene in the conflict.

In the meantime, while Iran was coordinating with the resistance groups on the military front, China and Saudi Arabia shifted gears on the diplomatic track. On Thursday, even as the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was heading for Arab capitals after talks in Tel Aviv, seeking help to get the hostages released by Hamas, China’s Special Envoy on the Middle East Zhai Jun contacted the Deputy Minister for Political Affairs of the Saudi foreign ministry Arabia Saud M. Al-Sati on the Palestine-Israel situation with focus on the Palestine issue and the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, in particular. The contrast couldn’t be sharper. 

On the same day, an extraordinary event took place in the Chinese foreign ministry when the Arab envoys in Beijing sought a group meeting with Special Envoy Zhai to underscore their collective stance that a “very severe” humanitarian crisis has emerged following Israel’s attack on Gaza and “the international community has the responsibility to take immediate actions to ease the tension, promote the resumption of talks for peace, and safeguard the Palestinian people’s lawful national rights.” 

The Arab ambassadors thanked China “for upholding a just position on the Palestinian question … and expressed the hope that China will continue to play a positive and constructive role.” Zhai voiced full understanding that the “top priority is to keep calm and exercise restraint, protect civilians, and provide necessary conditions for relieving the humanitarian crisis.” 

After this extraordinary meeting, the Chinese Foreign Ministry posted on its website at midnight a full-bodied statement by Member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Foreign Minister Wang Yi titled China Stands on the Side of Peace and Human Conscience on the Question of Palestine. This reportedly prompted a call by the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Wang Yi. 

Interestingly, Blinken too called Wang Yi from Riyadh on October 14, where, according to the state department readout, he “reiterated U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself and called for an immediate cessation of Hamas’ attacks and the release of all hostages” and stressed the importance of “discouraging other parties (read Iran and Hezbollah) from entering the conflict.”

Succinctly put, in all these exchanges involving Saudi Arabia — especially, in Blinken’s meetings in Riyadh with Saudi FM and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, while the US focused on the hostage issue, the Saudi side instead turned the attention to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The state department readouts (here and here) bring out the two sides’ divergent priorities. 

Suffice to say, a coordinated Saudi-Iranian strategy backed by China is putting pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire and to de-escalate. The UN’s backing isolates Israel further.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s exit is to be expected but he won’t throw in the towel without a fight. US-Israel ties may come under strain. President Biden is caught in a bind, harking back to Jimmy Carter’s predicament over the Iran hostage crisis in 1980, which ended his bid for a second term as president. Biden is already backtracking. 

Where do things go from here? Clearly, the longer the Israeli assault on Gaza continues, the international condemnation and demand to allow a humanitarian corridor will only intensify. Not only will countries like India which expressed “solidarity” with Israel lose face in the Global South, even Washington’s European allies will be hard-pressed. It remains to be seen whether an invasion of Gaza by Israel is anymore realistic at all. 

Going forward, the Arab-Iran-China axis will raise the plight of Gaza in the UN Security Council unless Israel retracted. Russia has proposed a draft resolution and is insisting on a vote. If the US vetoes the resolution, the UN GA may step in to adopt it. 

Meanwhile, the US project to resuscitate the Abraham Accords loses traction and the plot to undermine the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian rapprochement faces sudden death.

As regards the power dynamic in West Asia, these trends can only work to the advantage of Russia and China, especially if the BRICS were to take a lead role at some point to navigate a Middle East peace process that is no longer the monopoly of the US. This is payback time for Russia. 

The era of petrodollar is ending — and along with that, the US’ global hegemony. The emergent trends, therefore, go a long way to strengthen multipolarity in the world order. 

October 16, 2023 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran asks China to intervene to stop war in Gaza

Press TV – October 15, 2023

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has called on China to intervene to put an end to the ongoing carnage in the Gaza Strip where Israel is carrying out incessant attacks against the civilian population living in the enclave.

In a phone call with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Sunday, Amir-Abdollahian said there is a need for the United Nations to assume its responsibilities with regard to international peace and security amid the ongoing conflict in Palestine.

However, he asked China to use its diplomatic capacity to stop the Israeli regime from attacking civilians in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency said.

The foreign minister described the collective punishment imposed by the Israelis on the Palestinians in Gaza as “unacceptable” while reiterating the need for setting up humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to the people in the enclave.

He warned that there would be no guarantee that the conflict in Gaza would not spiral out of control if the criminal attacks against the civilians in Gaza did not stop.

The phone call between Amir-Abdollahian and Wang came just after Iran’s top diplomat returned from a tour of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Qatar.

Amir-Abdollahian said after meeting leaders of the anti-Israeli resistance groups during his regional tour that the conflict in Gaza would spread to other areas and countries if Israel does not stop its aggressions against the Palestinians.

More than 2,450 people have been killed in nine days of Israeli air strikes and shelling against Gaza, a besieged enclave on the Mediterranean Sea which is home to some 2.3 million people.

The attacks, which have left nearly 10,000 people injured, started last week after the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which is based in Gaza, launched multi-pronged attacks on occupied territories to retaliate against Israeli assaults on Palestinians.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Chinese FM says Israel’s actions go beyond self-defense, calls to avoid collective punishment of Gaza people

By Chen Qingqing | Global Times | October 15, 2023

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi said Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defense, expressing concerns about the escalating Israel-Palestine conflict as Israel ordered one million people from the northern part of Gaza to evacuate within 24 hours as it prepared for a ground assault.

In his phone call with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud on Saturday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China opposes and condemns all acts that harm civilians, as they violate basic human conscience and the fundamental principles of international law.

Israel’s actions go beyond the scope of self-defense. It should heed the calls of the international community and the UN Secretary-General and avoid collective punishment of the people of Gaza, Wang said.

Israel was preparing on Saturday to launch a ground assault in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, after telling Palestinians living in the densely populated territory to flee south toward a closed border with Egypt, Reuters reported.

Israeli national security adviser meanwhile warned Lebanese militant group Hezbollah not to start a war on a second front, threatening the “destruction of Lebanon” if it did, according to the media report.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that the relocation of Gaza residents from the north to the south “is extremely dangerous – and in some cases, simply not possible.”

The Chinese Foreign Minister said all parties should not take any actions that escalate the situation, and instead should return to the negotiation table as soon as possible. China is actively communicating with all parties to push for a ceasefire. The immediate priority is to ensure the safety of civilians, quickly open humanitarian rescue channels, and meet the basic needs of the people of Gaza, Wang said.

China’s special envoy on the Middle East Affairs Zhai Jun will visit relevant countries in the Middle East next week to further strengthen coordination with all parties, he was quoted as saying in media reports on Sunday.

The Israel-Palestine conflict continues to escalate. Armed conflicts have erupted at the Israel-Lebanon and Israel-Syria borders, and the spill-over effects on the regional and international community are spreading, Zhai noted. The international community must remain highly vigilant and collectively manage and control the situation to prevent it from spiraling out of control, he said.

China has always maintained that force is never the solution. Resorting to violence will only lead to a vicious cycle of retribution, creating further obstacles to a political resolution, Zhai noted. And it is imperative to cease fire and violence promptly, cool down the situation, and thus pave the way for a political solution.

Since the onset of this round of conflict, China has been actively communicating and coordinating with relevant parties. China’s special envoy recently had phone conversations with foreign ministers and officials from Palestine, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and others.

They all hope to end the hostilities, condemn acts that harm civilians, and avoid humanitarian disasters. They also hope to restore the Middle East peace process, Zhai revealed.

Currently, several Chinese citizens remain in the Gaza Strip, he said. In recent days, our overseas institutions have maintained close contact with them, providing safety guidance and support, assisting them in moving to the southern part of Gaza, and striving for their early evacuation to safe areas.

So far, four Chinese nationals have been killed, six are receiving treatment in local hospitals, and two are missing in the latest conflict.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

A strategic nightmare sneaks into Washington’s political agenda

Global Times | October 14, 2023

A simultaneous war with China and Russia is a strategic nightmare that sober American strategists such as Henry Kissinger have been warning the US to avoid at all costs, and it is also a topic that some US media outlets have become more and more fond of talking about in recent years. At least from the publicly available information, Washington has never previously addressed it as a formal political agenda, supposedly aware of its seriousness and the terrible risks it carries. But the publication of a report by a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel titled America’s Strategic Posture crossed this “red line” on October 12.

The central point of the 145-page report is that the US must expand its military power, particularly its “nuclear weapons modernization program,” in order to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with China and Russia. Notably, the report diverges completely from the current US national security strategy of winning one conflict while deterring another, and from the Biden administration’s current nuclear policy. It is not a fantasy among the American public, but a serious strategic assessment and recommendation in the service of policymaking.

The 12-member panel that wrote the report was hand-picked by the US Congress from major think tanks and retired defense, security officials and former lawmakers. This report makes us feel that a “strategic nightmare” is sneaking into the US political agenda, but has not drawn due concern and vigilance in Washington, and to a large extent, the American elite group represented by the panel is actively working to make this nightmare come true.

A look at the specific recommendations of this report will send shivers down the spine of those who retain any basic rationality. The report recommends that the US deploy more warheads, and produce more bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear weapons and so on. It also calls on the US to deploy warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and to consider adding road-mobile ICBMs to its arsenal, establishing a third shipyard that can build nuclear-powered ships, etc.

What depths of insanity is the US sinking to? The US’ military spending accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s total defense expenditures, and it has been growing dramatically for several years, with military spending in 2023 reaching $813.3 billion, more than the GDP of most countries, but even that is not enough for these politicians. Such a report full of geopolitical fanaticism and war imagery, whether or not it actually ends up as a “guide” for Washington’s decision-making, is dangerous and needs to be resisted and opposed by all peace-loving countries.

According to some American media, the report ignores the consequences of a nuclear arms race. In fact, the report doesn’t seem to consider this at all and doesn’t suggest any measures other than nuclear expansion to address this issue. In other words, it is a reckless approach. Both China and Russia are nuclear powers, and everyone knows that provoking a confrontation between nuclear powers is a crazy idea. Even promoting a nuclear arms race under the banner of “deterrence” is a disastrous step backward in history. Washington’s political elites, who lived through the Cold War, cannot be unaware of this. However, the fact that such an absurd and off-key report is being presented in all seriousness by the US Congress is both surreal and unsurprising. It is in line with the distorted political atmosphere in Washington today.

The motives behind this exaggeration of threats and creating a warlike atmosphere are highly suspicious. The recent outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict caused a sharp increase in US defense industry stocks, while American defense industry companies have also been the biggest beneficiaries of the long-standing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The military-industrial complex, like a geopolitical monstrosity, parasitically clings to American society, manipulating its every move, pushing Washington step by step to introduce and even prepare for ideas that were once considered “impossible.” The prosperity of the American military-industrial complex is built upon blood and corpses, and carries a primal guilt. Serving the interests of the American military-industrial complex is unethical.

The reality is that such rhetoric is becoming increasingly politically acceptable in today’s Washington. The idea of “preparing for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China,” once a fringe fantasy, has gradually made its way into Washington’s agenda, which is deeply unsettling. If Washington were to adopt even a small portion of the recommendations in this report, the harm and threats it could pose to world peace would be immeasurable and would ultimately backfire on the US itself. There is an old Chinese saying: “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” This is something that is worth Washington’s careful consideration.

October 15, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US must prepare for war with China and Russia – Congress

RT | October 13, 2023

Washington needs to urgently update and expand both its nuclear arsenal and the conventional military in order to face the combined might of Moscow and Beijing, the congressional Strategic Posture Commission argued in its final report published on Thursday.

“The United States and its allies must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously,” the commission said. “The US-led international order and the values it upholds are at risk from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes.”

While the commission has not identified any specific evidence of Russia and China working together, “we worry… there may be ultimate coordination between them in some way, which gets us to this two-war construct,” a senior official involved in the report told Reuters, on condition of anonymity. The current US national security strategy calls for defeating one major adversary while deterring another.

The commission argued that the combined threat from China and Russia will become acute as early as 2027 so “decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared.” The 131 findings and 81 recommendations in the report amount to the need for massive expansion of both the conventional armed forces and the Nuclear Triad.

The report demands more of the B-21 stealth bombers and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. The B-21 is still in development and is expected to enter service by 2027 at the earliest. The first two Columbia-class subs are under construction and are expected in 2030. The US Navy has planned to order 12, to replace the 18 Ohio-class boats currently in service.

“Amid all of the Commission’s recommendations to increase the number of strategic and tactical nuclear systems, there is almost no mention of cost in the entire report,” which “does not seem to acknowledge any limits to defense spending,” the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has said in response.

At a press event announcing the report, the commission’s vice-chair, retired Republican Senator Jon Kyl, argued that higher military spending is a small price to “hopefully preclude” a possible nuclear war and that President Joe Biden and Congress need to “take the case to the American people” to spend more money.

According to FAS, however, the commission’s recommendations are “likely to exacerbate the arms race, further constrict the window for engaging with Russia and China on arms control, and redirect funding away from more proximate priorities.”

The only reason the commission did not argue for an immediate expansion of the US nuclear stockpile “is that the weapons production complex currently does not have the capacity to do so,” FAS noted, adding that there is no need for a nuclear arms race so long as the US has enough submarines to present a credible deterrent to a first strike by an adversary.

October 13, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Biden’s Semiconductor Spat With China Could Backfire, Warn US Chipmakers

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 06.10.2023

As the Biden administration pushes on with efforts to curb China’s technological progress with new restrictions, America’s semiconductor giants are indicating alarm, warning that the US may be shooting itself in the foot, according to a media report.

Amid the semiconductor trade spat with Beijing that Washington launched last year with a plethora of restrictions, and fueled further with new attacks across the past months, America’s semiconductor companies have responded with the unabashed warning that such poorly thought out measures could eviscerate their own businesses. Furthermore, slashing sales to China could wreck the Biden administration’s ambitious plans of building new semiconductor factories on US soil, according to the report, citing scores of industry interviews.

Three global giants in the chip-making industry – Nvidia, Intel and Qualcomm – have reportedly been meeting with officials in the Biden administration, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, along with representatives of an array of think-tanks to press the case for reconsidering additional chip restrictions to China.

China accounts for close to a third of the global semiconductor market, and more than $50 billion in combined annual revenue for Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm.

Leaders of these companies have, thus, been justifiably pointing out that loss of revenue on such a scale could provoke inevitable cuts in jobs, spending, and technology development, affecting US semiconductor hubs located in Ohio, New York, and Arizona.

The chief executives of these companies have warned that Washington’s attacks on Beijing could result in China speeding up the creation of its own independent chip industry.

Thus, they claimed, America’s ill-conceived semiconductor trade war would result Chinese-created chips dominating globally.

“What you risk is spurring the development of an ecosystem that’s led by competitors… And that can have a very negative effect on the US leadership in semiconductors, advanced technology and AI,” Tim Teter, Nvidia’s general counsel, was cited as saying.

Lobbying by these chip giants has brought results, according to cited sources, resulting in both a delay in issuing new restrictions, and a reportedly “narrowed list” of further changes that the Biden administration might potentially embark upon.

After last year’s restrictions stemming from the CHIPS Act signed by Biden, the American companies cited above have sought to “adjust” their businesses, revealed the report.

Thus, Nvidia was forced to come up with a new version of its AI chip, the H100, specifically tailored for China. To ensure compliance with US restrictions, that chip’s performance power was “lowered below the maximum levels allowed”, said the report. Nevertheless, losses grew and when chatter of impending new restrictions surfaced this summer, the chief executives ostensibly set off on more lobbying to Washington. Intel’s Patrick Gelsinger, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm met with White House officials.

“Without orders from Chinese customers, there will be much less need to go ahead with projects such as Intel’s planned factory complex in Ohio,” Gelsinger reportedly told US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Furthermore, the Semiconductor Industry Association was cited as issuing a statement slamming the government’s restrictions as “broad, ambiguous and at times unilateral,” warning they could harm “the industry’s competitiveness”.

“Right now, China represents 25 percent to 30 percent of semiconductor exports. If I have 25 percent to 30 percent less market, I need to build fewer factories… You can’t walk away from 25 to 30 percent and the fastest-growing market in the world and expect that you [continue] funding the [R&D] and the manufacturing cycle that we’ve released… This is strategic to our future; we have to keep funding the [R&D], the manufacturing, etc… Today, we have more than 1,000 companies on the entities list, many of which have nothing to do with national security and nothing to do with security concerns in China,” Gelsinger subsequently said at the Aspen Security Forum in July.

Semiconductor Trade War

It has been slightly more than a year since the Biden administration took its first shot, with the US commerce department prohibiting companies from supplying advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China, and thus taking the trade war that his predecessor Donald Trump had waged against Beijing into the technological sphere.

The restrictions, along with the Washington’s CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, were portrayed as limiting China’s technological prowess. The US government had cited national security concerns, claiming that it was restricting the export of cutting-edge technologies that China could use for military purposes or to enhance its domestic semiconductor capabilities. The Act included more than $52 billion in subsidies for US semiconductor manufacturers. In response, China warned that the industrial policy bill to support the local producers of semiconductors would disrupt global supply chains and hamper international trade.

“The United States said that the Act aims to increase the competitiveness of US technologies and semiconductor production. However, this Act provides huge subsidies to US enterprises producing chips and introduces a differentiated policy of industry support, some provisions of which, among other things, restrict normal investment and trade and economic activities of relevant Chinese enterprises, as well as normal scientific and technical cooperation between China and the US,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin had said.

Beijing reached checkmate by saying it needed to protect its own “national security and interests”, and first sanctioned US semiconductor giant Micron Technology in May, 2023. It then set in place export restrictions on rare earths – including gallium and germanium which are crucial for the world’s electronic chip-making industry. Since China produces upwards of 80 percent of the world’s gallium, and 60 percent of its germanium, experts were quick to predict that it could take “generations” for the US to replace lost Chinese capacity.

In early August, the White House announced that US President Joe Biden signed an executive order that authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to regulate certain US investments into Chinese entities engaged in activities involving national security-sensitive technologies in three sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and certain artificial intelligence systems.

The US has also urged its partners – South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, and the government in Taiwan – to restrict or ban chip sales to China, and to relocate production facilities out of or away from China, such as to Europe or the United States.

China, the largest global semiconductors market, has repeatedly warned that by imposing restrictions on normal trade, the United States will end up harming itself as well as other market players.

“The US measures to restrict chip exports to China violate market rules and lead to fragmentation in the global semiconductors market, which not only harms lawful rights and interests of Chinese companies, but also significantly affects the interests of semiconductors manufacturers throughout the world, including in the US,” China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman He Yadong said in September.

To counter Washington’s restrictions, reports surfaced in September that Beijing was seeking to provide its own semiconductor chip-manufacturing industry with financial support. The People’s Republic of China was described as gearing up to launch a state-backed investment fund to bolster the country’s semiconductor industry.

October 6, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Gang/Counter-gang Operations: Dearlove’s Sleight of Hand and the Wuhan Lab Psyop

By Matthew Ehret | UKColumn | September 26, 2023

Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove’s long-standing role as anti-China provocateur and Zelensky-handler gives us the opportunity to look into the mind of empire and see how our society is being played to acquiesce to an agenda that will ultimately lead to the Third World War.

By adding his voice to those Anglo-American fanatics blaming China for creating Covid–19 in a lab and intentionally spreading it around the world, Sir Richard has demonstrated a classic case of “gang/counter-gang operations” practiced by the British Empire for centuries.

The Modern Origins of Gang/Counter-gang Operations

British Army officer Frank Kitson (now a nonagenarian, retired at the rank of General) produced an insidious little handbook in 1960 called Gangs and Counter-gangs, based on his work coordinating special operations against the 1955 Mau Mau uprising in Kenya that threatened to break this valuable African country free of British colonialism. Kitson’s handbook was a modern adaption of a centuries-old practice according to the needs of putting down independence and civil rights movements that threatened to undo the age of empires.

During his work in Kenya, Kitson recognized that when outnumbered and faced with organized independence movements, it is just not very effective for thinly spread colonialists to try to put them down by force directly and much wiser to change the rules of the game by sleight of hand. The formula for changing the game is to cultivate one or more opposition groups to whatever force is posing a threat to the empire, and then to cultivate a counter-gang to that opposition group to create a new set of conflicts within your target population (hence the terminology of “gang/counter-gang”).

While the target society becomes polarized by the two warring (yet ultimately controlled) opposition movements, the genuine independence movement simply gets diffused and lost in the chaos.

Describing his insight which would later be put to use in the FBI’s COINTEL program within America soon thereafter, Kitson wrote:

As a result of our informers and pseudo gangs we were getting to know a bit about the future movements of the gangs which was much better than merely analysing past events. We had a long way to go before we could say that we were producing the information that would enable the Security Forces to destroy the Mau Mau in our area […] I began to feel that at last I was on the road which led to the desired goal. [p. 90]

Covid–19’s Anomalous Origins

In late January 2020, with the publication of a report from the Kuzuma School of Biological Sciences, the theory of Covid–19’s natural evolution was first put into serious doubt.

Increasingly doctors working on the front lines in New York such as Dr. Kyle-Sidell began reporting the anomalous behaviour of Covid–19 symptoms as unlike any pneumonia he had ever seen and observed that Covid–19 acted more like some form of high altitude sickness, with ventilators not only useless but resulting in deaths in 9 out of 10 patients (meaning deaths were being artificially provoked by the medical protocols enforced by national governments around the world).

With these growing anomalies, thinking citizens became increasingly concerned by the disturbing matter of the vast Pentagon-controlled bioweapons infrastructure scattered throughout the globe. Bulgarian researcher Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on the Pentagon’s global bioweapons labs—all of which were conducting billions of dollars of secretive research on new and more virulent forms of viruses, with over $50 billion spent on the practice officially ever since Dick Cheney’s Bioshield Act of 2004 was signed into law.

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, China’s foreign Ministry has raised the possibility that the virus came to China via the American team who participated in the Wuhan Military Games in October 2019—an event at which several athletes were hospitalized for Covid-like symptoms. And since Victoria Nuland admitted to America’s operation of more than 40 biolabs in Ukraine alone during her congressional testimony in 2022, both the Russians and Chinese have tried on dozens of occasions to introduce the evidence of these biowarfare facilities to the United Nations Security Council, but to no avail.

On 13 May 2020, the Russian Government directly put into question America’s bioweapons laboratories in Georgia, Ukraine and South Korea, with Sergei Lavrov saying:

These [U.S.] laboratories are densely formed along the perimeter of the borders of the Russian Federation, and, accordingly, next to the borders of the People’s Republic of China.

By referring to the biolaboratories “next to the borders of the People’s Republic of China”, Lavrov was undoubtedly referring to the Jupitr and Centaur biolaboratories in South Korea, built up under the Obama administration in 2013. These have inspired vast public protests by Koreans over the last decade, who are unhappy that weaponized pathogens, and anthrax, have been cooked up in their nation without any national oversight.

A 14 May 2020 editorial in China’s Global Times stated:

The U.S. can’t just claim all reasonable inquiries to its bio-labs as “conspiracy theories,” and when U.S. politicians keep accusing China’s lab in Wuhan as the origin of Covid–19 without providing any evidence, they should respond to the questions on U.S. bio-labs, including the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.

It is tough to dismiss this sort of matter as “conspiracy theory” when North Carolina’s Chapel Hill bioweapons labs went so far as to create a novel coronavirus called SHCO14 designed to jump from bats to humans with USAID/CIA grant money in 2015 and events sponsored by both the Rockefeller Foundation, the CIA and Bill Gates have been using novel coronaviruses in their pandemic scenarios for over a decade [see footnote].

The China Counter-Gang Narrative

When it became evident that the story of the laboratory origins of Covid–19 wasn’t going to disappear on its own, a new counter-narrative was spun which involved embracing the evidence of the laboratory origins while shifting the blame from the hands of Anglo-American intelligence to … China.

Emerging out of the bowels of Oxford’s Henry Jackson Society, the story was concocted early on that the culprit behind this virus’ origins was none other than China, whose BSL–4 laboratory in Wuhan had been conducting research on novel coronaviruses and had received a $3.7 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health from 2014-2019. Is this proof that China caused Covid–19?

Is this even proof that Covid–19 was the murderous killer virus that the Pfizer-funded media let on? Dr Denis Rancourt proved irrefutably that zero all-cause mortality increased until the vaccine was rolled out, with all deaths having been caused either by statistical manipulation or government enforced policies targeting the weakest, and oldest members of society.

Here, the story subdivided itself further, as one group—represented by the likes of Professor Neil Ferguson and Steve Bannon—maintains that the international spread of the virus was done deliberately, with China apparently going so far as to intentionally pack planes full of sick people to contaminate the world (a lie entirely annihilated by Daniel A. Bell on 21 April 2020), and another group—including some well-intentioned like Francis Boyle or the late Dr. Luc Montagnier—which maintain that Covid–19 leaked out of said Wuhan lab … by accident.

No matter what form this sleight of hand has taken, it has been just that: a misdirection designed to ensure that the discussion of the Pentagon’s more than 300 international bioweapons labs would be lost in the chaos. This false debate also helped defuse the danger of any serious investigation into the Pentagon’s program for ethnically targetted pathogens, as outlined in the September 2000 Project for a New American Century report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses.

The neocon authors of that report — which shaped the entire Bioshield Act of 2004 and strategy behind the Anthrax Attack inside job launched from September-December 2001—wrote (emphasis added):

Combat will likely take place in new dimensions: In space, cyber-space and perhaps the world of microbes […] advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.

Britain

Now, we should not be surprised to find MI6’s very own former director Sir Richard Dearlove to be a loud voice in this anti-China clamor.

This is the same Dearlove who allegedly covered up Princess Diana’s death while director of MI6’s Special Operations from 1994 to 1999, and who oversaw the Yellowcake Dodgy Dossier while director of MI6 in 2002, which justified the launching of the war in Iraq and the conversion of the USA into a Five Eyes-managed surveillance state. This was also the same Sir Richard who later vetted another dodgy dossier created by his former employee Christopher Steele in 2016, designed to overthrow President Trump and usher in a war with Russia.

On 4 June 2020, Dearlove was among the earliest voices to launch the “China-created-Covid-as-a-Bioweapon” narrative, when he opined:

If China ever admits responsibility, will it pay for repairs? I think this will make every country in the world rethink how it sets up its relations with China and how the international community will behave towards Chinese leadership […] Of course, the Chinese must have thought “If we are to suffer a pandemic, perhaps we should not try too hard to warn our competitors, so to speak, that they will suffer from the same disadvantages that we have.

Sir Richard’s comments were timed to coincide with a new University of London peer-reviewed paper entitled A Reconstruction of Historical Etiology of the SARS–CoV–2 Epidemic, which stated that virus sequencing indicated “intentional manipulation”. Where it was relatively foreseeable that most minds would look to the over 300 international biolabs managed by the Pentagon and contractors tied to the Biden syndicate, the British researchers stated that the virus “was probably designed through a Wuhan laboratory experiment to develop ‘high potency chimeric viruses”.

With NATO’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine facing a threatened end with Xi Jinping’s first official call to the stressed Vladimir Zelensky on 25 April 2023, Dearlove wasted no time jumping on a jet and met with the Ukrainian president in order to keep Zelensky in the game plan. After this meeting, Dearlove delivered a speech to the British National Conservative Convention, saying:

The reality is that today we remain confronted with two autocratic polities still focused on the eventual destruction of our value system. The sheer brutality of Putin’s regime leads me to the conclusion that Russia’s DNA is so corrupted that only another revolutionary change may rebalance it.

Dearlove went further in his speech to bring in Chinese villainy and to rally his audience around the British imperial narrative that Zelensky is the greatest freedom fighter of our age, saying:

I am worried when I witness eminent members of our own elite doing the work of our ‘almost enemies’ for them [applause]. Whether it is advocating for Huawei [or] whether it is refusing to publish any serious scientific study that questions the Chinese narrative on the origins of the SARS-COV-2 virus [applause] … or promoting a settlement in the war in war between Russia and Ukraine that ignores the peace conditions laid down by President Zelensky.

Amidst the turmoil and confusion caused by these gang/counter-gang operations radiating noise and polarization across the political and scientific landscape, the reality of the financial collapse looms overhead, as one system sits upon the precipice of collapse and a battle wages over who will control the emergence of the new system.

Will this inevitable new system be based on win-win cooperation, space exploration (as opposed to militarization), new discoveries and long-term infrastructure benefiting all nations and cultures, or will it be an order defined by a 21st-century Anglo-American oligarchy sitting atop an ivory tower as a divided world of chaos and depopulation suffers below?

Note

Philanthrocapitalism, past and present: The Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the setting(s) of the international/global health agenda by Anne-Emanuelle Birn, University of Toronto, 2014, is one useful resource, as is the September 2019 Global Vaccination Summit and October 2019 Event 201.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China and Syria forge ‘strategic partnership’ – leaders

RT | September 22, 2023

Beijing and Damascus announced a new “strategic partnership” during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ongoing visit to China. President Xi Jinping met him in the city of Hangzhou before this week’s launch of the Asian Games, a high-profile international sports event.

Assad is visiting China for the first time since 2004, when he met then-President Hu Jintao. Xi announced the new agreement as he welcomed his guest in the capital of Zhejiang Province on Friday.

The Chinese leader stated that the relationship between the two nations has “withstood the test of international changes” and pledged to maintain them in the face of international “instability and uncertainty.”

The US and its allies have been seeking to oust Assad for over a decade, accusing him of various transgressions during an armed conflict in the country. The bloodshed started in 2011 as mass protests surged against the Syrian government but were soon hijacked by international jihadist organizations. These elements sidelined other anti-government forces, which Western nations touted as “moderate rebels,” as the main threat to Damascus.

Russian intervention in 2015 turned the tide and helped the Syrian Army oust Islamist militants from most of the country. Some portions, where Turkish and American troops or their local allies are present, remain outside Damascus’ control.

The US has imposed crippling unilateral sanctions on Syria, which hamper its ability to reconstruct after this brutal conflict. Xi expressed support for Assad’s efforts to rebuild the nation, keep terrorists in check, and seek a political settlement for the Syrian people.

The Arab League readmitted Syria in May as Damascus seeks to normalize relations with its neighbors. Beijing had facilitated the restoration of diplomatic relations between regional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia, in June. Both nations played significant roles in the Syrian crisis, the former supporting Assad’s government and the latter initially vying for his ouster.

The Syrian president and First Lady Asma Assad arrived in Hangzhou on Thursday. On Saturday, the visiting dignitaries are set to attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games alongside a dozen other foreign guests.

September 22, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

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