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China warns neighbors against repeat of ‘Ukraine tragedy’ in Southeast Asia

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
Press TV – September 4, 2023

China says Southeast Asian countries must be cautious about being used as geopolitical pawns by foreign players sowing discord in the region for their own gain.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a recent video address at a think-tank conference hosted by the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia in Jakarta that the Southeast Asian states must refrain from following in the footsteps of Ukraine and should not allow themselves to be used by “external forces.”

“The crisis in Ukraine has sounded the alarm for mankind, and similar tragedies must not be staged in Asia,” the top Chinese diplomat said. “We must promote regional security through dialogue and cooperation and oppose seeking absolute security at the expense of other countries.”

Wang warned of a “backstage manipulator,” apparently referring to the United States, which is fanning the flames of controversy over the South China Sea territorial dispute. “This black hand hiding behind the scenes must be exposed.”

“China is always willing to work with relevant countries to properly resolve differences through dialogue and seek effective ways to control the maritime situation.”

The Pentagon has sought to forge closer military ties with those countries in the region that have territorial disputes with China.

The Philippines, for instance, agreed earlier this year to allow US forces to use four additional bases in the country. Beijing warned that Manila was binding itself to a “chariot of geopolitical strife.”

China and its neighbors must work together to safeguard the “hard-won peace” in the region by properly managing differences, Wang said.

The Chinese diplomat predicted that foreign efforts to spur conflict in the South China Sea won’t succeed.

“We should abandon the Cold War mentality and oppose zero-sum games, keeping the region away from geopolitical calculations, and not become pawns in the great power competition,” Wang said.

Relations between China and the United States have deteriorated in recent years amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising tensions over Washington’s constant meddling in Taiwan.

Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of various military provocations in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere across the region.

September 4, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Indonesia rubbishes Pentagon’s ‘joint statement’ on China and Russia

RT | September 1, 2023

Indonesia’s military chief has denied issuing any shared statements with his US counterpart during a visit to Washington last week, after the Pentagon published a “joint” press release attributed to Jakarta which criticized Moscow and Beijing.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said the US statement does not reflect his country’s positions, stating that Indonesia seeks friendly relations with both Russia and China.

“There is no joint statement and no press conference. What is important for me to underline is that our relationship with China is very good. We respect each other, we already have mutual understanding. I conveyed that in the US,” he said, adding “We are close friends with China, we respect America, and we seek friendship with Russia.”

The official went on to announce plans to visit Beijing and Moscow in the coming months, voicing hopes that Jakarta could serve as a “bridge” between rival states.

The Pentagon missive, published on August 24 was titled ‘United States DoD and Indonesia MoD Joint Press Statement’ and took on a different tone. It claimed that both the US and Indonesia “shared the view that the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea are inconsistent with international law.” It also went on to “jointly” condemn Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, demanding a “complete and unconditional withdrawal” of Russian forces.

Though Indonesia’s Defense Ministry noted Subianto’s meetings with Pentagon head Lloyd Austin, it made no mention of any joint statement with Washington, and offered no comments about Russia or China.

Beijing was quick to jump on the American statement, with China’s embassy in Jakarta claiming the remarks had not been approved by Indonesian officials beforehand.

“We’re informed by the Indonesian side that what the US side described is not true. In fact, no such content can be found in the press release by the Indonesian side at the same meeting,” the embassy told reporters last weekend, slamming US efforts to “to sow discord and stir up trouble.”

During Subianto’s trip to the US, the two countries agreed to boost military cooperation, including joint war games and additional US weapons sales. The Pentagon further said Washington would help Jakarta’s military modernization drive, proposing “fighter aircraft upgrades, new multi-role fighter aircraft, and additional fixed and rotary wing transport aircraft,” among other gear.

Highlighting the growing military ties, Indonesian officials announced a deal to purchase 24 Sikorsky S-70M Black Hawk transport helicopters from US arms giant Lockheed Martin last week, soon after signing a major contract with Boeing for two-dozen F-15 fighter jets. Jakarta is working to revamp its air fleet, which currently operates systems from several different countries, including both US- and Russian-made fighter jets.

September 1, 2023 Posted by | Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Plan For Ending The NATO-Russian Proxy War In Ukraine Is Pragmatic

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | AUGUST 31, 2023

The NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine has been trending towards a stalemate since the beginning of the year after Moscow’s growing edge in the “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” ensured that it won’t be defeated. NATO is unlikely to be defeated either, however, since it’ll probably intervene directly – whether as a whole or via a Polish–led mission that draws in the bloc via Article 5 – to freeze the Line of Contact in the event that Russia achieves a breakthrough and threatens to sweep through Ukraine.

The counteroffensive’s spectacular failure and the subsequently vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine strongly suggest that talks with Russia will resume by year’s end for freezing the conflict. Ahead of that happening, these wartime allies are frenziedly trying to convince their respective people that the other is responsible for this debacle simultaneously with formulating an attractive post-conflict vision of the future. The first is served by their vicious blame game while the second will now be discussed.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now polling third after winning last week’s debate and had earlier attracted enormous media attention for his outspokenness on sensitive issues, just published his “Viable Realism & Revival Doctrine” in an article for The American Conservative. Of relevance to this piece is his plan for ending the NATO-Russian proxy war. Liberal–globalist policymakers and their media allies responded with fury, and it’s not difficult to see why.

Ramaswamy describes the conflict as a “no-win war” that’s needlessly depleted Western stockpiles to China’s benefit. With a view towards more effectively containing the People’s Republic in the Asia-Pacific, he therefore suggests extricating the US from its proxy war with Russia as soon as possible. To that end, he proposes recognizing the new ground realities in Eastern Europe, ending NATO expansion, refusing to admit Ukraine to the bloc, lifting sanctions, and having Europe shoulder the burden for its own security.

The explicit goal is to “get Putin to dump Xi”, and that’s why he says that the quid pro quo is “Russia exiting its military alliance with China.” Ramaswamy is convinced that his plan will “elevate Russia as a strategic check on China’s designs in East Asia” if it’s implemented into practice, but the problem is that no such “military alliance” exists between those two. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to imagine that the US will “get Putin to dump Xi” since they’re good friends and their countries are strategic partners.

Having clarified that, this plan does have its merits. From the Russian side, it ensures that country’s objective national security interests and gives it the chance to rely on the EU for preemptively averting potentially disproportionate economic dependence on China upon the lifting of sanctions. On the home front, Ramaswamy’s plan appeals to the pragmatic policymaking faction whose influence is on the rise as proven by the success over the summer of their policy towards India that was detailed here.

The timing couldn’t have been better. The US is looking for a “face-saving” way to resume peace talks as previously explained, and the rising influence of pragmatic policymakers could lead to them overruling the liberal-globalists’ objections to this, though their rivals could still try to sabotage this. The enormous media attention that Ramaswamy has already generated, not to mention what he’s now receiving as a result of his proposal, could reshape the national discourse on the proxy war’s endgame.

Americans are becoming fatigued with this conflict but no one had yet articulated an attractive post-conflict vision of the future until now. Irrespective of Ramaswamy’s political future, his plan serves to spark a wider conversation at all levels about the pragmatism of compromising with Russia in order to free the US up for more effectively containing China in the Asia-Pacific. This can in turn facilitate the resumption of talks with Russia, especially if it emboldens pragmatic US policymakers.

The vicious blame game between the US and Ukraine over the counteroffensive’s failure leads to the inevitable one over who’s responsible for losing this proxy war, with all of this preceding America’s formulation of an attractive post-conflict vision of the future for its people and policymakers alike. The first dynamic is continually intensifying and making more headlines by the day, while the second is also presently unfolding but mostly in silence, and it’s this dynamic that Ramaswamy’s plan contributes to.

Accepting the impossibility of Russia abandoning its mutually beneficial cooperation with China and acknowledging that lifting the sanctions likely won’t happen either, the rest of his proposals could form the parameters of a potential Russian-American deal for ending their proxy war in Ukraine. That former Soviet Republic wouldn’t join NATO, nor would that bloc expand any further, and the West would de facto recognize the new ground realities in Eastern Europe while the EU bears the burden for its security.

Russia would obviously have to agree to some regional compromises too in that scenario, such as Ukraine’s privileged post-conflict relationship with NATO and the hard security guarantees that the Anglo-American Axis will likely provide, but these could be acceptable if its other interests are met. If there’s any movement in this direction, then it shouldn’t be maliciously spun as Russia conspiring to facilitating the US’ containment of China, but seen for what it truly is: Russia putting its interests first.

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Plan to Flood Pacific With AI-Driven Drones Risks Uncontrollable Escalation With China

By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 30.08.2023

Artificial intelligence can’t be trusted to auto-correct emails, much less make civilization-altering decisions about the use of lethal force, a peace activist told Sputnik on Wednesday. Putting autonomous weapons into high-risk situations only risks triggering a war nobody can back down from.

The US Department of Defense has unveiled a new AI drone program designed to close the gap with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Called “Replicator,” the program aims to introduce thousands of cheap and disposable – “atrittable” in Pentagon parlance – autonomous drones over the next two years.

“Replicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of US military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many,” US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Tuesday at an industry event.

Noting that China’s core advantage is mass – “more ships, more missiles, more people” – Hicks said the US would “counter” the PLA’s mass “with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, and harder to beat.”

Michael Wong, the national vice president of Veterans for Peace, co-chair of the Veterans for Peace China Working Group, and co-founder of Pivot to Peace, a coalition of Chinese and peace communities, told Radio Sputnik that giving AI the power to both trigger and escalate military conflicts “poses a great danger to all of humanity.”

“We should be very concerned. Let me make three main points. First, China does not want an arms race. They’ve spoken at the UN about this and they’re very much against having such a race in the first place. And my second point is, if there is an arms race, if the United States is foolish enough to force it on China, China will win. And my third point is, these AI, sometimes called killer robots, are a danger to all of humanity because they interact with each other, they could conceivably interact with our nuclear systems, and it risks decisions being made by AI without the oversight of humans or controlled by humans that will escalate situations out of control,” he said.

“Zhang Jun, who is the China representative to the UN, spoke at the UN recently, and he urged the UN to lead in advocating for a peaceful use of AI, regulations and rules to control the development of AI and to direct AI for peaceful use, not for weapons. And he felt that standards need to be made to regulate and control AI. And UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres also said that interaction between AI, nuclear weapons, biotechnology, neurotechnology and robotics is deeply alarming,” Wong explained.

“And yes, if China were to have an arms race forced on them on AI, China’s actually slightly more advanced in some ways in AI than we are. They also are able to mass produce things in general much faster than we are. For example, here in California, we’ve been trying for over a decade to build high speed rail just from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We have not been able to do that. China has built thousands of miles of light rail all across the country, networking every major city in China in just about ten years. So in terms of mass producing anything, China will win if we engage in a race with China.”

Wong then pointed out a very practical example of why giving computers such authority is dangerous: they can’t even get things like spell-checking and auto-correcting text right.

“How much trouble do you have with your computer? Would you trust your computer to make life and death decisions for you?” he asked. “You know, I have trouble with my smartphone auto-correcting my email, making mistakes, and making them wrong. Yeah, you know. So do we want autonomous robots, killer robots out there deciding which humans to kill and when and why?”

“And also if two automated nationwide systems are fighting each other, they will be geared and programmed to win, which means that if they can’t win, they will escalate. And that means that escalation could easily spiral out of control. We could end up in a nuclear war. So this is very foolish. There is actually an organization I discovered called Stop Killer Robots dot org. If anybody wants to go to their website, they can get involved.”

For years, the US and its allies have engaged in so-called “freedom of navigation operations” (FONOPS) in which they deliberately flout the territorial claims of other nations that they consider to be “excessive” by sailing US warships through those waters. In the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait, such demonstrations have become commonplace, although China takes them seriously and has at times met FONOPS with a stern response, sending their warships and aircraft to within a few dozen feet of the violating US ship or plane.

Wong noted that the Pentagon’s “Replicator” program would increasingly put AI into such flashpoints.

“For Americans to understand how China feels, just imagine if China or Russia were doing freedom of navigation patrols up and down our coast. And when I say freedom of navigation patrols, I’m not even just talking about sending a cruiser or a destroyer through these waters every every few months, I’m talking about entire aircraft carrier battle groups, a whole armada of ships patrolling up and down China’s coast. And that’s very provocative. Just imagine if China or Russia were doing that to us. How would we feel? That would be a very obvious threat. The Americans, when they read the mainstream news, they hear China’s being aggressive, China’s being a threat. China is not on our borders, that China’s not running battle groups up and down our coast. We’re doing it to them,” he said.

“And we say, well, we’re defending our allies in the Pacific. Our allies are not under threat. China’s not threatening Japan. China is not threatening South Korea, China is not even threatening Taiwan.”

We keep saying China intends to invade Taiwan: China’s very clear they’ve been saying the same thing now that they’ve been saying for 50 years, which is ‘We want peaceful reunification with Taiwan eventually, no time frame named, and that we would only consider use of force if Taiwan were to declare independence.’ The United States keeps trying to push that red line. And if you look at polls in Taiwan, the polls always say a majority of people in Taiwan want to maintain the status quo. And the status quo is working for both sides just fine right now. You know, there’s been billions of dollars in trade that goes back and forth each year between the mainland and Taiwan, there’s thousands of tourists and businesspeople that go back and forth every year, the economies are thriving on both sides. The status quo is working just fine. So the United States is the one that keeps pushing the red line and trying to provoke a war just like we did in Ukraine,” Wong said.

“There’s no need for this. The United States basically is trying to stop China from its peaceful economic rise because they don’t want a large segment of the world not being under the thumb of US domination. It’s basically exploitation and imperialism of the Third World, of which China is still a part.”

“The US elite, especially right now, is composed of people who have a very arrogant and unrealistic view of America and the world. They keep introducing new weapons systems into Ukraine and thinking that that’s going to turn the tide of war. And each time they’re proven wrong, because whatever they do, the Russians will counter it,” he said. “And they’re applying that same logic to China, that they can come up with some new gimmick that can somehow defeat China.”

“This magical thinking is very, very dangerous. You know, there’s always been talk about pushing the edge of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, and they’re doing the same thing with China, they’re pushing the edge, constantly, of escalation. They’re introducing new systems, they’re getting more and more desperate and they’re engaging in more and more magical thinking, which is extremely dangerous. And once we have all these AI killer robots running around the planet – because not just China, but, you know, many countries can develop them – we’ll have something that we don’t have control over. It almost looks like the ‘Terminator’ series of movies that Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in.”

August 31, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Will This Man Prevent World War Three?

By Patrick MacFarlane | What They’re Not Tellin’ You | August 28, 2023

In April, Tucker Carlson, the most popular show host in American news media, was unceremoniously fired from Fox News.

He has since taken to the platform “X,” formerly Twitter, to continue publishing his own program.

Last week, during the first Republican primary debates, Tucker posted an exclusive (softball) interview with former President Donald Trump.

The episode received 260 million “impressions” within the first day.

Although an “impression” on Twitter only counts as an appearance in someone’s feed, if only one-tenth of those impressions equated to one view, the viewership would still be 23 million people. In comparison, Tucker’s Fox News program, Tucker Carlson Tonight, averaged 3.25 million viewers in March 2023.

The exclusive interview with Trump was a master stroke by both figures. It allowed Donald Trump to get his message across in a long format without actually muddying himself on the debate stage. Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy played, in effect, the role of Trump’s stand-in, but still won the debate in his own right.

Tucker walked away with incredible numbers, even if not as spectacular as the 230 million impressions would suggest.

Yesterday, RT reported that Tucker Carlson has “strongly” requested a meeting with Vladimir Putin, ostensibly to publish as an episode of his new program.

With all these developments, an attempt to decode the former Fox News host’s real role in the media landscape is akin to cracking a modern-day enigma.

Many laud Tucker as a rogue voice, fighting the establishment, using a microphone as a holy scepter.

It cannot be denied that on some critical issues like opposing escalation over Ukraine, Tucker Carlson’s voice is vitally important. But, Tucker Carlson has his own interests, and a background that does not suggest he is some populist hero, or an antiwar dove (of critical importance, he certainly is not on China).

That said, it would be immensely valuable for the West to see an intimate and honest one-on-one interview between Vladimir Putin and Western news media—one that was not intent on painting Putin as the new Hitler.

Maybe Tucker Carlson, though imperfect, is the figure best positioned to do it?

When America’s Commander-in-Chief, Joe Biden, still has not spoken with Putin since the February 2022 invasion, its puzzling that the job defaults to the United States’ most popular current events news host.

Exactly what does that mean—and what will come of it?

August 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Fleeting Mirage of Imagined Supremacy

By William Schryver – imetatronink – August 25, 2023

The United States pretty much had its way in the world from 1991 to 2014. But now the empire’s strength is severely depleted and fatally overextended, whereas the military and industrial capacity of its increasingly allied adversaries is ascendant, and in aggregate, greatly exceeds that of the empire and its compliant vassals.

Perhaps most importantly, the ability of the US to inflict severe economic and financial damage on countries who defy “the rules-based international order” has been rendered effectively impotent by the collaborative countermeasures developed and resolutely employed by Russia, China, Iran, India, Brazil … the list goes on, and is lengthening at an accelerating pace.

And, even as US sanctions power has dramatically waned, its capability to maintain a potent military presence in dozens of strategic “hot spots” around the world has become illusory. Yes, the American military ostentatiously maintains many hundreds of bases dotting the planet, but that simply underscores the extreme degree to which US military power is diluted.

The purported ability of the US military to “project power anywhere on the globe at a moment’s notice” is a meaningless fantasy in the context of anything more than launching a few dozen cruise missiles at a target in a country that lacks the capacity to shoot back.

This is the incontrovertible mathematical reality: to assemble a force sufficient to wage war against Russia, China, or Iran would require the US to effectively abandon every major military base on the planet.

Were they permitted, without opposing interdiction, to concentrate a million combat effectives (they wouldn’t be, of course), it would require at least a full year to stage such a force in the theater of operations.

A “combined-arms” force adequate to make war against Russia, China, or Iran would necessarily constitute the greatest concentration of American military power since the Second World War, with the longest and most vulnerable supply lines ever seen in the history of warfare — choke-points that would be potently contested by what almost certainly would be the combined naval and long-range strike-missile capabilities of Russia, China, and Iran.

But, for the sake of argument, let us imagine a fully equipped American combined-arms force could be miraculously materialized in eastern Europe, or the South China Sea, or the Persian Gulf.

As multitudes of observant and discerning military officers and analysts around the world have now come to see: the US could only sustain high-intensity industrial-scale warfare for 6 – 8 weeks, at most, until severe losses, munitions exhaustion, and broad-spectrum logistical breakdowns compelled them to cease operations.

This reality was little recognized and poorly understood prior to February 2022. But the war in Ukraine has exposed key US military shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and revealed the shocking logistical and industrial debility of what many across the globe still imagined to be “The Greatest Military in Human History” and the peerless industrial production might of the legendary “Arsenal of Democracy”.

By unfounded reputation, and “on paper”, as they say, the United States appears to possess the most powerful military on the planet. But there is a vast difference between perceived power and the actual ability to project power and sustain power against the adversaries the US military must now face and defeat in order to prevent or even meaningfully delay the end of American global hegemony.

August 26, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

China bars seafood from Japan

RT | August 24, 2023

Chinese customs authorities announced on Thursday an immediate ban on imports of all seafood from Japan as Tokyo begins a contentious release of treated radioactive wastewater from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.

China is Japan’s biggest importer of fish, having purchased $496 million worth in 2022. It has also imported $370 million worth of crustaceans and mollusks – such as crabs and scallops – last year, data tracked by the Japanese statistics office shows.

Apart from Japan, China also purchases seafood from other countries including Ecuador, Russia, and Canada.

China had previously banned food imports from ten Japanese prefectures around the Fukushima plant, while earlier this week Hong Kong announced a ban on seafood imports from those same prefectures.

Earlier this week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced plans to discharge around 1.3 million metric tons of treated wastewater, equivalent in volume to about 500 Olympic-size swimming pools, from Fukushima.

The Japanese authorities scheduled the discharge of the treated water into the Pacific Ocean for 1pm Tokyo time on Thursday, according to state-owned electricity firm TEPCO, adding that the weather and sea conditions were suitable.

Beijing has blasted the plan as “extremely selfish and irresponsible.” The Chinese customs agency said the suspension of imports was intended to prevent radioactive contamination risks.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant experienced a catastrophic meltdown after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami in 2011. It was the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

August 24, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

Xi Says BRICS States Should Step Up as Mediators in Pressing Issues

Sputnik – 23.08.2023

BEIJING – BRICS member states should proactively offer their mediation services for pressing issues and promote their political resolution, Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping stated on Wednesday.

“We should support each other on the issues of interest for each of us, strengthen coordination on main international and regional issues, actively mediate in resolving pressing issues and promote political settlement,” Xi said at a plenary session of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

The Chinese chairman also called on fellow BRICS leaders to stand against economic coercion and focus on common development through cooperation.
“We should expand political cooperation, strengthen ties in security, while maintaining peace and stability,” Xi added.

BRICS — the group uniting the world’s largest developing economies, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — is holding its annual top-level summit in Johannesburg from Tuesday to Thursday.

August 23, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

China Ready to Stand Against Foreign Interference Together With Iran

Sputnik -21.08.2023

BEIJING – China is ready to work with Iran to jointly resist outside interference and protect the interests of Beijing and Tehran, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday.

“China is willing to work with Iran to continue to firmly support each other on issues related to the core interests of each side, jointly resist external interference and counter unilateral harassment, protect the sovereignty, security and development interests of China and Iran, uphold the common interests of developing countries and international impartiality and justice,” Wang said in a telephone conversation with his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian.

The parties also discussed issues of common interest, including cooperation within the BRICS framework.

August 21, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Sino-Belarussian strategic alliance and Eurasian security

By Drago Bosnic | August 17, 2023

Greater Eurasia has the capacity to become the world’s most powerful geopolitical entity, particularly when it comes to the combined might of the countries in this massive region, be it in terms of economy, human and natural resources, military, population, high-tech, etc. And while there might be many diverging interests between various Eurasian powers, the effort to build a geopolitically discernible Greater Eurasia that will be more in line with the overall global power shift is well underway. Still, it’s important to note that the region needs an even more robust military cooperation framework that will be a true analog to NATO. Even separately, the most powerful Eurasian militaries are an insurmountable obstacle for the belligerent alliance, as evidenced by NATO’s inability to defeat Russia, despite a nominal “defense” budget that is several dozen times greater than Moscow’s.

On the other hand, a united Greater Eurasia would be a truly unbeatable force, one that the belligerent alliance would be unable to match even if it somehow managed to double in size, which is partially what the US-led political West is trying to accomplish by pushing NATO to global proportions. A big part of this effort is its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, critically important for China and its ever-growing exports, the lifeline of its gigantic economy. In part to strengthen cooperation with its Eurasian partners, and in part to show the political West that it can easily reach the heart of Europe, Beijing is building even closer ties with Belarus. This is continually reciprocated by Minsk, which is also keen on greater integration with allied countries. Namely, General Li Shangfu, the Chinese National Defense Minister since March, arrived in Belarus on August 16 for a three-day official visit.

General Shangfu was greeted by his Belarussian counterpart Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin at the Minsk National Airport. The Chinese Defense Minister flew from Russia, where he took part in the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security held in Kubinka, in the Moscow oblast (region). Although Shangfu and Khrenin already met once at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s Defense Ministers meeting in late April, this was the first high-profile visit related to the growing Sino-Belarussian military cooperation in the past five years. The two defense ministers are expected to map out the enhanced cooperation framework for the near future and exchange views on their respective security concerns. The visit comes on the heels of neighboring Poland’s announcement that it would significantly strengthen and expand its military presence in border areas with Belarus.

For years, Minsk has been raising concerns about the ever-growing expansion of NATO’s offensive potential on Belarus’ borders with Lithuania and Poland. And indeed, the belligerent alliance keeps conducting its crawling aggression against both Moscow and Minsk, particularly by using the pretext of supposedly “protecting” the so-called Suwalki Gap, a sparsely populated, albeit strategically important area situated on the border of Lithuania and Poland. For this reason, Belarus has significantly strengthened its armed forces. In addition (and perhaps even more importantly), Minsk has also drastically expanded its already very close cooperation with Russia, particularly since 2020, when Belarus was faced with repeated destabilization attempts, with NATO hoping to conduct yet another Maidan-like coup in the country and snatching it for “Barbarossa 2.0” purposes.

The drastically strengthened military ties with Moscow were primarily demonstrated by having multiple large air defense, tactical ballistic missile and fighter jet units redeployed from the Russian Far East to bases all across Belarus. However, by far the most important move for bolstering Minsk’s strategic security was the deployment of Moscow’s nuclear weapons in Belarus, as well as the implementation of the nuclear sharing agreement that would allow the country to use these weapons in case of a direct NATO attack. And yet, Minsk still wants to expand its cooperation with other Eurasian powers, which is why it hosted the Chinese National Defense Minister. China and Belarus established close defense cooperation in the early 1990s, as Minsk managed to not only keep most (if not all) of its Soviet-era military-industrial potential intact, but also significantly expand and modernize it.

This turned Belarus into one of the most prominent defense suppliers to Beijing, as China at the time was still working on modernizing both its own military industry and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army). This fruitful cooperation resulted in several joint projects, such as the very capable “Polonez” 300 mm MLRS (multiple launch rocket system), comparable to similar Russian long-range rocket artillery/tactical missile systems such as the legendary BM-30 “Smerch” and its recent modern iteration designated as “Tornado-S”. The development of this Sino-Belarussian MLRS also marked the very first time that Chinese rocket and missile technologies were transferred to a European country. An upgraded version called “Polonez-M” has an increased range of just under 300 km, as well as a higher share of domestic components to ease logistics and drive down costs. It can also fire the improved Chinese A-300 missiles.

Having such domestically developed capabilities is certainly a boon for a relatively small country like Belarus. It serves not only as a way to bolster the country’s security, but also its robust military industry, and thus, its economy as well. Beijing is particularly important in this regard, as it’s Minsk’s main trading partner, with Chinese goods, services and technologies being of crucial importance to allow Belarus to weather the storm of a combined Western sanctions warfare and subversion attempts.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

August 17, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Iran Ramps Up Oil, Gas Production, Exports as Western Sanctions Fail

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 16.08.2023

Washington’s years-long effort to bring Iran’s oil exports down “to zero” has failed to bear fruit, with fresh restrictions put in place by the Biden administration last fall to “severely restrict” the Islamic Republic’s crude sales culminating in the nation’s exports to its biggest customer hitting a decade-long high.

Iran has announced plans to further ramp up the creation and implementation of new oil and gas projects as the Middle Eastern nation projects its biggest bump in sales to energy-hungry China since 2013.

Sixty-seven oil and gas projects currently in development worth the equivalent of $15 billion will be put into operation before the end of the current Iranian calendar year in March 2024, First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has announced.

Sixteen additional projects, worth an additional $21 billion, continue to be developed, according to Mokhber’s figures.

On Monday, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji indicated that Iran had completed energy projects worth over $12 billion over the past year, and that “not a single cent” of the nation’s oil revenues have been blocked by sanctions since the Raisi administration took power in 2021.

Owji said Iran’s oil production has reached 3.19 million barrels per day (bpd), with plans to increase output to 3.3 million bpd before the end of the month, with the production of gas condensates reaching the equivalent of between 700,000 and 800,000 barrels per day.

In a related development, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi said Tuesday that Phase 11 of the massive South Pars gas field owned jointly by Iran and Qatar would become operational in the near future in a ceremony to be attended by President Raisi and Oil Minister Owji. The gigantic Persian Gulf field is estimated to have up to 1,800 trillion cubic feet (51 trillion cubic meters) of gas, plus 50 billion barrels of natural gas condensate, with the energy wealth split between the two countries.

KPLR, a Houston-based commodities analytics firm, calculated this week that Chinese imports of Iranian crude have soared to their highest levels since 2013 in 2023, with the Islamic Republic estimated to export up to 1.5 million barrels per day to the Asian economic giant throughout August – up from an average of 917,000 bpd in exports reported between January and July.

Also this week, Iran’s Plan and Budget Organization chief Davoud Manzour told lawmakers that Iran’s oil revenues have increased by 42 percent since March.
Iran’s National Oil Company expects crude production to reach 3.5 million bpd per day by September – up from a low of just below 2 million bpd in late 2020, at the height of Washington’s attempts to sanction Tehran into submission and bring the country’s energy exports down “to zero.”

The Biden administration’s stated goal of reactivating the Iran nuclear deal has not stopped the White House from ramping up restrictions against the oil-rich nation, with the US Treasury moving to “severely restrict” Iranian energy exports last fall, including by targeting alleged “front companies” set up in China, India and the UAE.

But the sanctions have reportedly failed to work as planned, with energy-hungry nations around the world turning to Iran, Russia and other exporters shunned by Washington and its allies, which slapped restrictions on Russian energy in 2022, resulting in a dramatic spike in global demand and soaring prices.

The US has accompanied efforts to restrict Iranian oil sales with the deployment of additional air power, warships and 3,000 additional Marines to the Gulf in recent weeks, ostensibly in a bid to crack down on Iranian seizures of commercial vessels in neutral waters. Tehran says its crackdown has been aimed at stopping smuggling, and has called on regional nations to ensure Gulf security independently, without the interference of “outsiders” like the United States.

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

China to strengthen military cooperation with Iran

MEMO | August 16, 2023

China is looking to enhance military cooperation with recent fully-fledged member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Iran. 

Speaking at the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security yesterday, China’s Defence Minister Li Shangfu said that Beijing was keen to bolster military ties with Tehran and other SCO members and observer states. 

“We will continue to strengthen the mechanism of security cooperation within the SCO, actively deepen defense collaboration with the organisation’s newest member Iran, as well as Belarus, which will soon become a SCO member,” Russia’s official TASS news agency quoted Li as saying.

The defence minister also emphasised that China is prepared to hold joint drills with other countries and to enhance international cooperation on arms control: “Beijing is ready to hold joint military drills and exercises with all countries, as well as find a larger space to hold drills and strengthen international cooperation in the field of arms control and non-proliferation [of nuclear weapons].”

Last month Iran became the newest member of the SCO, joining China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The SCO Charter outlines the intergovernmental organisation’s commitment to the collective security of member states, especially in regards to” joint counteraction to terrorism, separatism and extremism in all of them manifestations.” 

The Jerusalem Post noted that it was the first time the Islamic Republic has joined a regional pact since its founding in 1979. “This will grant Iran a freer hand to openly trade arms with Russia and China, and other SCO countries, which results in Iran’s expanding its influence and aggression in the region. The West needs to carefully consider the repercussions of this significant strategic development,” the article warned. 

Iranian Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, praised the Moscow conference, saying: “It is a weighty exhibition in which the Islamic Republic of Iran has a good presence in this exhibition with its many companies. Very good topics were raised in the international security conference.”

August 16, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

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