Ex-Aussie PM Calls Quad ‘Piece of Strategic Nonsense’
Samizdat – 12.10.2022
The Quad was officially launched in 2007 but suspended in 2008 after Australia pulled out of the US-led grouping over concerns expressed by China. The grouping was revived in 2017, a year after the US announced its ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’. Beijing has labelled the Quad ‘Asian NATO’, accusing Washington of inciting tensions in the region.
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has slammed the US-led Quad grouping as “illegitimate” and a “strategic piece of nonsense,” as he advised Canberra to not be a part of the US-led efforts to “ring-fence” China.
The Quad, which comprises Australia, India, Japan and the US, says that its official goal is to maintain a “free and open Indo-Pacific region”.
“We shouldn’t be stringing together the US, Japan, India and Australia to try to contain China,” Keating, a senior party colleague of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, said on Wednesday.
Keating argued that that Beijing’s “ambitions are in the west, not the east,” as he underlined the inroads made by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in regions outside Asia. “Everywhere between Wuhan and Istanbul, in the next 30 years, will have a huge Chinese influence.”
Keating pointed out that the BRI has already financed infrastructure projects in the Baltic states as well as in former Soviet countries.
The multi-trillion-dollar BRI initiative was launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 and strives to connect east Asia with Europe and beyond through connectivity and infrastructure projects. As of March 2022, a total of 147 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, South America as well as North America have been members of the Beijing-backed global initiative.
Keating also reckoned that the era of US “supremacy” as the pre-eminent global power has already passed.
“This idea that the US is an exceptional power… they have God’s ear and proselytizing democracy was fine in the 20th century. The 20th century was owned by the US. The 21st century belongs to someone else,” stated Keating.
He also expressed doubts whether the US would come to the help of Taiwan if Beijing went ahead with the re-unification of the island with the mainland through military means.
Beijing has doubled down on its commitment to “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland following the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei in August. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that reunifying Taiwan is part of China’s goal to achieve “national rejuvenation”.
“China would see every amphibious vessel coming towards the United States, whether it is San Diego or Honolulu. They would see them and sink them,” the former Australian PM claimed, suggesting that the chances of an American “victory” in such a scenario would be “nil”.
Keating advised the Australian government not to get involved in the “geopolitical conflict” around Taiwan.
“We should be no more interested in the political system of Taiwan than Vietnam and Kazakhstan,” argued Keating.
Has AUKUS nuclear submarine deal stalled?
With a deal that threatens non-proliferation, Australia is now yet another focal point of US-China tensions.
By Uriel Araujo | October 10, 2022
According to recent reports, an amendment proposed by AUKUS (Australia, UK and the US) countries to legitimize their nuclear submarine cooperation is being curbed by Chinese diplomatic efforts. The $122.4 billion dollars deal reached in September 2021 had been announced as the core component of this new strategic partnership.
AUKUS, the security pact between these three Anglo-Saxon countries to counter China, was announced in September 2021, and has been controversial from the very start. Together with the QUAD, it has certainly increased tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.
In this context, Australian authorities in Canberra plan to acquire at least eight nuclear submarines, thereby possibly making the Indo-Pacific state the first one in the Southern Hemisphere to possess such vessels, as well as the first country that is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to do so other than the five recognized weapon states, namely the US, Russia, China, UK, and France. According to the International Atomic Energy (IAE) Rafael Grossi, these submarines will be fuelled by “highly enriched uranium”, so they could be weapons-grade or close to it. Beijing’s Permanent Mission, in a position paper sent to the IAE last month, emphasized the fact that the “AUKUS partnership involves the illegal transfer of nuclear weapon materials, making it essentially an act of nuclear proliferation.”
The AUKUS countries in turn argue that the NPT allows marine nuclear propulsion as long as the proper arrangements are made with the Agency. However, in this case, nuclear material will be transferred to rather than produced by Australia itself. China disagrees with the AUKUS’ stance, arguing that the IAE is in fact overstepping its mandate. Beijing has called for an “inter-governmental” process to examine the issue at hand.
This is a complicated matter: when nuclear submarines are at sea, their fuel is not within the reach of the IAE’s inspectors and there is no way to keep track of the nuclear material. The agency’s director himself, Rafael Grossi, has told the BBC the AUKUS submarine deal would be “very tricky” for nuclear inspectors.
China’s mission to the UN in Vienna has also bluntly described AUKUS’ plans as nuclear proliferation under a naval nuclear propulsion “cover”. Ambassador Wang Qun, Chinese Permanent Representative to the UN accused the AUKUS states of “double standard” in a September 19 interview.
American-Chinese tensions are already too high over the issue of Taiwan and to add fuel to the fire, Beijing perceives the US-led AUKUS plans as the West pushing its sea frontiers against China by weaponizing its ally Australia with nuclear submarines. To make matters worse, under the current arrangements the fleet would be a US-controlled squadron. Given the ongoing American “dual containment” policy, Beijing’s concerns do make a lot of sense.
Chen Hong, president of the Chinese Association of Australian Studies and also a director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University, has even warned that by playing a part in this, Canberra could be sacrificing its own national security for the sake of other countries’ national interests.
In July, two Chinese think-thanks (China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and China Institute of Nuclear Industry Strategy) had already warned that the AUKUS submarine project could set a “dangerous precedent” and thus threaten non-proliferation in a lengthy report called “A Dangerous Conspiracy: The Nuclear Proliferation Risk of the Nuclear-powered Submarines Collaboration in the Context of AUKUS.”
According to the document, if the US and the UK have their way, nuclear states will for the very first time be transferring weapons-grade nuclear material to a non-nuclear state (Australia). Such a precedent, it warns, “ferments potential risks and hazards in multiple aspects such as nuclear security, arms race in nuclear submarines and missile technology proliferation, with a profound negative impact on global strategic balance and stability.” The report also controversially evokes the possibility that Canberra might actually be intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, given its historical pursuit of the technology since the 1950s.
Meanwhile, Rob Wittman and Donald Norcross, two members of the US House Armed Services Committee, in a Wilson Center discussion on southeast Asia and the Pacific, have urged Australians to work closely with the US to master nuclear technology.
Anthony Moretti, a Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership Professor at the Robert Morris University argues that there is a loophole in the NPT which would allow Canberra to acknowledge to the IEA that it has acquired nuclear materials and then simply refuse to allow any inspections validating its procedures. This would be the only way for Australia to go ahead with the AUKUS deal under the current framework, but the problem is the dangerous precedent it would set, as mentioned above. It is quite hard to imagine how Beijing could possibly allow such development.
In his recent book titled “Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena”, retired Australian army intelligence officer, Clinton Fernandes makes the convincing point that Canberra’s defense strategy has been built around a “structural dependence” on the US, which leaves it unable to defend itself in any scenario other than “in the context of the US Alliance.”
Australia has been called the “coup capital” of the so-called democratic world and the American influence on the country over the years has a lot to do with this. Washington has also controlled Canberra’s foreign policy for decades, as exemplified by the infamous Anglo-American coup that “dismissed” Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Right now, the island-country has become yet another focal point of tensions between great powers.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
FBI and CISA tell people to flag “misinformation” to social media platforms
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | October 8, 2022
The FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have put out a warning about foreign actors pushing 2022 midterm election “misinformation,” encouraging people to flag “disinformation” to social media platforms.
“If appropriate, make use of in-platform tools offered by social media companies for reporting elections related disinformation,” the report, released by CISA reads.
We obtained a copy of the report for you here.
The FBI has warned about election-related disinformation being promoted by operatives for the Chinese and Russian governments ahead of the midterm elections in November.
The disinformation involves amplifying conversations that Americans are already having on social media, not creating new content, an official from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force told the press.
The FBI is currently being sued for withholding records of communications with Facebook about the Hunter Biden laptop story during the last presidential election.
In an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that before the 2020 election, the FBI warned Facebook about Russian propaganda.
“The background here is that the FBI came to us – some folks on our team – and was like, ‘Hey, just so you know, you should be on high alert. We thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election, we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump that’s similar to that,’” he said.
The FBI did not explicitly mention the laptop story but Facebook thought the story fit the pattern that the federal agency described and decided to limit the reach of the story.
The Russian influence operations are, according to the report, more substantial compared to China. However, China has been accused of “Russian-style influence activities” by leveraging the political divisions in the US. The FBI official noted that Facebook recently deleted accounts allegedly created by Chinese operatives that shared memes mocking Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and President Joe Biden.
An official from the FBI’s Cyber Division said no hacking campaigns are targeting the midterms. However, the bureau is “concerned that malicious actors could seek to spread or amplify false or exaggerated claims of compromises to election infrastructure. The official added that “It’s important for all Americans to understand that claims of cyber compromises will not prevent them from being able to vote.”
Russian hypersonic missiles superior to anything NATO has: Le Figaro
Samizdat – 02.10.2022
Russian hypersonic missile systems are more advanced than anything being fielded by the North Atlantic Alliance today, France’s Le Figaro has reported, echoing sentiments expressed by Russia’s president in a speech last week.
The French newspaper characterized Russia’s hypersonic weaponry as its main strategic asset, capable of flying at incredible speeds and maneuvering while in flight. It pointed specifically to the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle – a weapon deployable as a part of a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) payload aboard Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“In this specific area, Russia is indeed one step ahead of its NATO adversaries,” the Gaullist newspaper conceded. The paper added that Russia and China proceeded to develop hypersonic missiles in response to NATO’s efforts to construct a missile defense shield.
“Russia undoubtedly has more modern weapons than the NATO countries. The United States has lagged behind in the field of hypersonic missiles, and Moscow’s nuclear arsenal is being replenished with more powerful and destructive projectiles,” Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the Moscow-based Franco-Russian Observatory, said.
In his speech announcing partial mobilization last month, Vladimir Putin accused Western officials of discussing “the possibility and admissibility of using weapons mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”
“I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff,” Putin said.
The Russian president unveiled five new strategic weapons in a speech to lawmakers in 2018, among them the Kinzhal and the Avangard, plus the Poseidon nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed drone submarine, and the 9M730 Burevestnik (‘Petrel’) nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile.
The Chinese military also possesses hypersonic weapons. In August, Russian-Indian defense joint venture BrahMos announced that it may create a hypersonic missile by 2027 or 2028. North and South Korea, France, Japan, Australia and India are also researching the cutting-edge class of weaponry.
The Pentagon has tasked US defense contractors with developing at least six hypersonic weapons designs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and DARPA’s Operational Fires program, but to date none have been fielded. The US military has also pitched laser and dust-firing flak guns meant to defeat Russian and Chinese hypersonics, as well as the use of stratospheric balloons to monitor and track their launch.
Russia got a head start on its hypersonics program thanks to Soviet-era research in the field starting in the early 2000s, after the Bush administration unilaterally scrapped of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty – a 1972 Soviet-US agreement which placed severe limitations on the creation of anti-ballistic missile defenses and intended to stop the arms race.
Russia’s military doctrine forbids nuclear weapons from being used unless the country is targeted by enemy nuclear attack first, or a conventional attack so severe that it is deemed to threaten the existence of the state. The United States does not place such restrictions on its nukes, and “reserves the right to use” them on a preemptive basis, even against non-nuclear armed adversaries.
Kamala Harris’ visit to Tokyo aims to destroy Sino-Japanese relations
By Ahmed Adel | September 29, 2022
US Vice President Kamala Harris is on a trip to Japan and South Korea, her first visit to Japan and her second to Asia since taking office early last year. Ahead of the US midterm elections in November, Harris has increased her attacks on China, something she has not stopped doing since arriving in Japan on September 26 for the state funeral of assassinated former leader Shinzo Abe.
During a meeting in Tokyo on September 26, the American Vice President and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait. A White House statement described Beijing’s actions in the Taiwan Strait as “aggressive and irresponsible provocations.”
Meanwhile, a series of visits to Taiwan by senior US officials and the increased US supply of weapons to the island have heightened tension in the region. It is evident that China’s actions are only a response against US-instigated provocations.
With these statements, the US has increased propaganda and support for actions against China. There is growing Western desire to erode the “One China” principle and Japan is increasingly participating in these actions. For Beijing, it is not just a matter of military exercises, warships passing through the Taiwan Strait and arms shipments to Taiwan, but an intensification of Western propaganda to put psychological pressure on China and normalise the idea of an independent Taiwan.
The gradual erosion of the “One China” principle is evident. Most of Asia is well aware of the American falsehoods, but this is influencing its partners in the West and Japan to the idea of an independent Taiwan.
At the meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister, Kamala Harris reaffirmed the US commitment to Japan’s security, but in return, Washington wants Tokyo to be more active in containing China. Washington’s main aim is to disrupt the process of improving Sino-Japanese relations. The US is counting on Japan’s help to incite tensions with China.
It is recalled that the provocative actions against China by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who visited Taiwan for the second time this year on September 26, also failed to bring the desired results, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin. On his first trip in early March, Pompeo was awarded Taiwan’s highest award for his contributions in promoting Taiwan-US relations. To express his “deep gratitude”, the American politician described Taiwan as a “great nation” with a developed democracy.
However, his second visit was even more provocative as he announced that Taiwan “doesn’t need to declare independence because it already is an independent country.” This statement prompted the Chinese Foreign Ministry to say in a statement that Pompeo’s calculations will not materialise, describing him as “a former politician of diminished credibility who staged these stunts for personal political gains.”
Adding to insult, Pompeo said in Taiwan: “China’s aggressive conduct, diplomatically, militarily, economically … have changed this region. And it brought those who prefer peace and commerce even more closely together. If we want a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century, the century which Xi Jinping dreams of, the old paradigm of blind engagement must end.”
It has not been unnoticed that the 50th anniversary of Sino-Japanese relations, marked on September 29, has been darkened due to differences over Taiwan. Beijing is becoming increasingly wary of Tokyo as it forges closer ties with Taiwan amid growing tensions, which Harris’ visit only provokes further.
According to Japan Times, an official from a Chinese group for bilateral friendship, who was also involved in commemorative events in 2012 for the 40th anniversary of bilateral relations, pointed to the absence of momentum in celebrating the 50th anniversary. The official said that Chinese people feel betrayed by Japan over Taiwan.
When Beijing and Tokyo normalised ties in 1972, Japan said that it understood and respected the notion that Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. The Global Times, the English mouthpiece of the Chinese government, said this month that Japan “tends to turn its back” on the promise it made 50 years ago.
Japan will be “able to create favourable conditions for the bilateral relations” only by keeping its promise, the Global Times also said.
However, there is little indication that Tokyo wants to deescalate tense relations with Beijing, and rather, it is more likely that things will become worse before they become better, especially following Harris’ visit to Japan and Pompeo emboldening Taiwan towards independence rather than unification with mainland China.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
US Hard at Work Preparing Taiwan for War with China
By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 26.09.2022
The years leading up to World War I and World War II are often referred to by historians as “diplomatic fever,” because of active mobilization of several powers around the world in both overt and covert alliances. However, such activity was not aimed at preventing conflict, but solely at strengthening their position ahead of the impending war which was their goal all along.
Unfortunately, something similar can be seen in US behavior of late, both in terms of “joining forces” on Washington’s possible European battlefront against Russia, and in the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) in confronting China. US recent policies and actions – on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party Congress – have been characterized by the creation of anti-Chinese blocs, unprecedented large-scale exercises in the APAC and close to Chinese borders, and various provocations.
After a provocative visit to Taiwan by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August, the situation around the island, as well as relations between China and the US in general, escalated. China, which considers the island one of its provinces, condemned the visit, seeing it as support by the United States for Taiwanese separatism.
In the interest of containing China, the White House is provoking tensions around the island of Taiwan, blatantly violating the One China principle, which the Americans once accepted as one of the main conditions for normalizing US-China relations. In pursuing the the anti-China strategy, during August alone four delegations with representatives from the US political establishment at various levels travelled to Taiwan. Apparently in coordination with Washington, a number of European Union political delegations also paid provocative visits to Taiwan and showed support for Beijing’s opponents on the island.
Simultaneously with the political anti-Beijing demarches, immediately after Nancy Pelosi’s visit, Chinese territorial waters in the Taiwan Strait began to be violated more frequently by US naval vessels under the pretext of freedom of navigation. On August 27, for example, two US naval vessels, the missile cruisers USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville, made a demonstrative and provocative passage through the Taiwan Strait, which the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly opposed. To thwart any further provocation by the US, China’s Army has been put on high alert, according to Shi Yi, an official of the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). On August 28, Taiwan’s Armed Forces recorded the sighting of 23 PLA aircraft and eight PLA ships in sea and airspace near Taiwan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian commented on Washington’s provocation on August 29. “US naval vessels flying the flag of freedom of navigation are carrying out a show of force. This is not a commitment to freedom of navigation, but a provocation against it and deliberate harm to peace and stability in the region. The Chinese side again calls on the US to stop emasculating, diluting and perverting the One China principle, strictly respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other countries and basic international norms on non-interference in the internal affairs of states, and effectively implement the provisions of the three Chinese-US joint communiqués.”
Continuing to escalate the situation around Taiwan, US authorities in early September announced their intention to sell $1.1 billion worth of weapons and military equipment to Taiwan.
At the same time, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved a bill on September 14 that would provide for a comprehensive expansion of support to Taiwan, including military support. As well as imposing sanctions on Beijing under the pretext of seeking to preserve stability in the Asia-Pacific region, said the Committee’s senior Republican, Jim Risch, commenting on the vote. In essence, this initiative by US lawmakers seeks to revise US policy towards Taiwan and, by extension, mainland China. The bill would make Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally” of the United States, increasing its military aid (not just defensive but also offensive weapons, including missiles) to $4.5 billion over the next four years, making it the largest recipient after Israel, Egypt and Ukraine. China has already said that, if passed, the new bill would come as a shock to US-China relations. And China’s Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, told Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in a meeting on August 23 that Chinese-US relations would be severed if the law went into effect.
Covering up his aggressive policy towards China with the alleged possibility of a Chinese “invasion” of Taiwan, US President Joe Biden assured in an interview with CBS that the US military would stand up to defend Taiwan.
However, by pushing China into military action, the US, Bloomberg estimates, could find itself in a terrible position in the event of a conflict with China within months or even weeks of the outbreak of hostilities. Pentagon arsenals are empty because of significant arms deliveries to Kiev. And China’s Army today is very technically equipped. Defending Taiwan will therefore be very costly, with the United States having to pay a prohibitive price in both personnel and equipment.
The US Navy is now poorly prepared, inferior in numbers to the Chinese, and US naval bases are underprepared, former US Navy Rear Admiral Charles Williams pointed out in an article for The Hill. Furthermore, the US can no longer act on two fronts; against Russia and China at the same time.
The Times also warns that the United States would suffer heavy losses and take years to recover from an open conflict with the PRC, citing analysis by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. In particular, its analysts predict that the US will lose a significant portion of its fleet and some 900 combat aircraft defending Taiwan against China.
In confronting China, regional allies are unlikely to help the US, and even Germany, which intends, according to remarks made in early September by Inspector General of the Bundeswehr General Eberhard Zorn, to “increase its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region to contain China.”
Despite these provocative actions by Washington and Taipei’s push for military action, the PRC government has reaffirmed its determination to pursue national reunification with Taiwan. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning reiterated the other day that the Taiwan issue is strictly an internal Chinese matter and the US has no right to interfere in it.
From Suicide to Dead and Buried… Germany Now Provokes China
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 23, 2022
Not content with committing its nation to economic suicide from deteriorating Russian relations, the German government now wants to bury the corpse by sabotaging trade relations with China.
Robert Habeck, Germany’s trade minister, has riled Beijing by telling a G7 summit last week that Berlin was aiming to adopt a new China policy to “reduce economic dependency”. Habeck said Germany would strive to take tougher controls over Chinese foreign investment and move away from German reliance on China for key commodities such as semiconductors, batteries and other electronics.
Sounding tough in front of other Western members of the G7 forum (a redundant elite club if ever there was one), Habeck said, “the naivety towards China is over”. He said that trade relations would no longer be viewed in isolation from alleged human rights violations and other international concerns, presumably meaning China’s alleged hostility towards Taiwan.
Beijing slammed Habeck’s remarks and retorted that he was the one who is being “naive” in seeking to damage mutually beneficial bilateral relations.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz doubled down on the provocation at the weekend when he was asked about China’s position on Taiwan. Scholz implied that Beijing was the hostile party in recent tensions over the breakaway island territory. He cautioned China: “It is important that we ban violence from international relations.”
It was another red flag being waved by Berlin in China’s face. Scholz doesn’t seem to realize, or doesn’t want to realize, that Taiwan is a sovereign part of China. That is the legal fact of treaties at the United Nations and the internationally accepted One China Policy. It is the United States, Britain, Australia, France and Germany that are increasingly deploying military forces in China’s territorial waters that are causing dangerous tensions and obliging Beijing to take a tougher position on defending its sovereignty, including its rightful claims over Taiwan.
What are the German leaders playing at? The recklessness of their stance and the damage being inflicted on the nation’s economy make you wonder whose interests are they serving. Certainly, it would seem, not the interests of the German population.
Germany, the economic engine of the European Union, is crashing headfirst from its insane sabotage of energy trade with Russia. It reminds you of those slow-motion car crash tests where dummies are flung into the windscreen. Now it’s heading for a Chinese wall.
The self-imposed cutting off of gas supply from Russia is wrecking German industry and plunging the population into a winter of misery of untold poverty and hardship. Many observers including Russian President Vladimir Putin are baffled by the willful embrace of economic suicide that the German government is rushing into.
For decades, the German export-led economy has been driven by a copious supply of low-priced Russian natural gas and oil. The coalition government in Berlin, which took over from Angela Merkel’s administration at the end of last year, has cut off links with Moscow as part of its support for Washington’s policy to isolate Russia. Germany has gone all in to support the U.S.-backed Kiev regime with heavy weapons supplied to Ukraine in a war with Russia.
So much for Scholz’s admonition to China to “ban the use of violence in international relations”. Berlin is fueling the conflict in Ukraine and along with the U.S. and other NATO powers is preventing any diplomatic process to find a peaceful resolution with Russia.
If the death blow to the German economy was not bad enough from the reckless policy toward Russia, now Berlin wants to kill relations with Beijing.
China is Germany’s top trading partner for the past six years. Bilateral trade has grown steadily. This year’s commerce is heading to surpass the 2021 record high of over $240 billion in Chinese-German trade.
With its 1.4 billion population, China is a vital market for Germany’s exporters, especially the all-important auto industry that drives the German economy. Nearly 40 percent of global sales for Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes are in China, spurred by the latter’s phenomenal economic development.
The Berlin government is putting its economic lifeline with China at risk by adopting a policy of wantonly provoking Beijing. In this, the German “leaders” are following Washington’s bidding. They have done this with regard to sabotaging Russian relations. Now they are bent on repeating the folly toward China.
It is notable that Habeck, the German trade minister, is a member of the Greens in the coalition government with Scholz’s Social Democrats. The other senior Green in the coalition is Annalena Baerbock who is the foreign minister. Both of them are pushing an irrational ideological position of damaging Russian and Chinese relations. The Greens want to convert Germany to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. That’s how they justify doing away with Russian hydrocarbons. But the calculation is woefully misplaced. German industries and the wider population need Russian gas to run their factories and heat their homes. The folly of cutting off Russian energy is backfiring big time. The absurdity is that Germany is now going back to dirty fuel from coal in order to desperately fill the power vacuum that has been self-inflicted by Green ideologues.
More than Green ideology, however, is the real underlying ideology of Russophobia and Sinophobia. Habeck and Baerbock are blinded by their subservience to Washington’s transatlantic agenda of dividing Europe from having normal neighborly relations with Russia and China.
Washington’s agenda is to promote U.S. hegemony and its presumed unipolar dominance in international relations. In short, American imperialism.
An extension of that agenda is to incite antagonism toward China. The encirclement of Russia goes hand in hand with the encirclement of China. It is no coincidence that as Washington escalates tensions with Moscow over Ukraine and NATO encroachment, it is also feverishly inciting tensions with China over Taiwan and dubious allegations of human rights violations by Beijing.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration and Congress are pumping weapons into Ukraine and Taiwan in a deliberate and one could say criminal bid to provoke military confrontation. The U.S. capitalist economy needs tensions and conflict to sustain its military-industrial complex, the beating heart of American capitalism.
If Germany’s Chancellor Scholz had any independence of thought, he would be better to remonstrate with Washington over the use of violence in international relations.
But there is no chance of Scholz and his government ever doing that. They are lackeys for Washington and are hopelessly brainwashed with ideological nonsense, Russophobia and Sinophobia.
This winter is already coming with dread for Germany and the wider European population over the policy choice to trash the cornerstone of Russian energy relations. With the further damage to German-Chinese relations, the Berlin political elite are shooting Germany and Europe in the head – twice.
German industries, businesses and workers are incensed by the stupidity of their so-called government which is more accurately described as a Washington-backed regime in Berlin. Angry protests on the streets witnessed in recent weeks in Germany and elsewhere across Europe against self-inflicted economic misery are but a foretaste of the explosive social unrest brewing.
China warns US about ‘attitude’
Samizdat – September 24, 2022
The US must change its attitude towards China so the two powers can get along on the world stage, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a meeting with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, in New York on Friday.
“China-US relations are at a critical juncture, and it is urgent for both sides to establish a correct way for the two major countries to get along with each other in a responsible attitude towards the world,” Wang told Blinken, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Wang added that by pledging to defend Taiwan, Washington is undermining China’s sovereignty and “sending a very wrong and dangerous signal.”
China considers the self-governing island its territory and opposes any form of foreign diplomatic and military aid to Taipei. “The issue of Taiwan is China’s internal affair, and the US has no right to interfere,” Wang said.
We hope that the US will correct its perception of China … and stop trying to deal with the Chinese from a position of strength.
According to US State Department spokesman Ned Price, Blinken spoke about the need to maintain open lines of communication with Beijing and stressed that Washington is “committed to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, consistent with our longstanding ‘one-China’ policy.”
CNN quoted a senior US official as describing the conversation between Wang and Blinken as “extremely candid, direct, constructive and in-depth.”
Speaking to CBS News last week, President Joe Biden said the US would defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion. However, the White House later clarified that Washington continues to maintain ‘strategic ambiguity’ on the matter.
Last month, China strongly protested the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, who became the highest-ranking US official to make the trip since the 1990s. Beijing retaliated by launching major military drills around the island.
China demands end of US theft of Syrian resources
The Cradle | September 23, 2022
The People’s Republic of China called on the US government to stop the plundering of Syria’s oil resources, in a press statement on 22 September.
“We call on the United States to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, unilaterally lift sanctions, and end the theft of Syria’s national resources,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin in a news briefing.
The call made by the Asian giant comes in light of repeated news that US armed forces have transported oil out of Hasakah governorate to military bases in Iraq.
The Syrian foreign ministry revealed the oil sector has incurred losses of at least $107.1 billion since the start of the US-sponsored war in 2011.
Meanwhile, Syria suffers from a severe energy crisis with repeated blackouts in various parts of the country.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin claimed that “this is not the first time that the United States military has stolen oil from Syria and they seem to be becoming more and more uncontrollable.”
Wenbin also called on the US government to investigate the claims made by Syria’s foreign ministry and compensate the country for any damages.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman highlighted that the US military has used at least 800 tankers in August alone.
“By June 2022, US military’s extraction, smuggling, and illegal transaction of Syrian oil, gas, and mineral resources have brought an estimated $18.2 bln of direct losses on Syria, making Syria’s humanitarian disaster much worse,” he added in his statement.
Wenbin described the situation in Syria relative to other countries such as Libya and Afghanistan, adding that “the rights and lives of the Syrian people are being taken away, instead of being protected.”
Serbia accuses West of double standards
Samizdat – September 22, 2022
Western countries have failed to explain why they have different points of view on Ukraine and Serbia’s territorial integrity, given that they support Kiev in its fight against Russia, but endorsed Kosovo’s independence, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.
In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, the Serbian leader stated that his state respects the territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine, and that many describe the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev as “the first conflict on European soil since WWII.”
He said, however, that the truth about the violation of Serbia’s territorial integrity “is constantly unspoken.”
“We ask for a clear answer to the question I’ve been asking… for years – what is the difference between the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, which was grossly violated,” Vucic said, referring to the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
According to Vucic, Serbia “has never [set] foot” on anybody’s territory, but this “did not prevent the 19 richest NATO countries from attacking a sovereign country without a decision by the UN Security Council.”
He also said that while NATO pledged to respect the full territorial integrity of Serbia, it did not stop many Western countries from unilaterally recognizing the breakaway province of Kosovo in 2008.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Serbian president warned that the world is moving closer to a global war, adding that “the UN has been weakened,” given that the great powers “practically destroyed the UN order over the past several decades.”
NATO occupied Kosovo in 1999, after a 78-day bombing campaign against what was then Yugoslavia. The province declared independence in 2008 with Western support. While the US and most of its allies have recognized it, many other countries, including Russia and China, have not.
West might try to damage Russian-Chinese relations using Aigun Treaty issue

By Uriel Araujo | September 22, 2022
Some analysts have been claiming that Beijing is “breaking” with Moscow over the issue of Ukraine. In June this year the Chinese government conducted military drills in its northeastern border with Russia, while Moscow was mostly preoccupied with its own military operations in Ukraine. This event led some Western observers to speculate, albeit there is no evidence, that this could be a sign China has unfinished business in that border area.
The 1858 Treaty of Aigun established much of the modern border between Manchuria (Northeast China) and the Russian Far East. From a Chinese Perspective, especially since the rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1920, it was an “unequal treaty”, having been signed, as it was, when the Chinese Empire was in a weakened state: it gave the neighboring Russian Empire over 600,000 square km from Manchuria.
As a legacy of the 19th and the 20th century, the Eurasian great powers often have border disagreements. Japan historically has variances with Russia over the Kuril islands, for example, as it has with its other “neighbors” China and South Korea as well. India and China notoriously have theirs too, which, by the way, has not stopped both of them from cooperating with one another, as is exemplified by the fact that they have recently withdrawn their troops from the disputed Ladakh region’s border area, thus moving one step towards the Asian century.
Indian-Chinese cooperation in fact is particularly remarkable, considering the former’s position within the QUAD, which is seen by many as a Western anti-Chinese “new NATO”. Yet even amid serious bilateral disagreements, Eurasian states have shown that there is plenty of room for cooperation on a number of levels, and, in the same way, New Delhi has also maintained close ties with Moscow, while getting closer to Washington. The same logic must apply to Sino-Russian cooperation, notwithstanding their differences over the Northeast China-Russian Far East border region.
In 1969, in this very region, near the Amur river, there was a seven-month undeclared military conflict between China and the Soviet Union, shortly after the so-called Sino-Soviet split. After the conflict, the United States sought to strengthen ties with Beijing by secretly sending Henry Kissinger to China for his now famous 1971 meeting with Zhou Enlai, which in turn paved the way for then US President Richard Nixon visiting China and meeting with Mao Zedong the next year. And yet even with the Sino-Soviet split, the two states managed to stabilize their relations in the late seventies.
In the more recent past, on 21 July 2008, then Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, signed in Beijing an additional Sino-Russian Border Line Agreement, thus marking the acceptance of the eastern portion of the Chinese-Russian border’s demarcation.
On February 4, in Beijing, a joint statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping famously declared that the friendship between the two states “has no limits”. Such a statement, somewhat hyperbolic as it may be, in any case, from an American perspective, is quite terrifying as it poses a direct challenge to Washington’s ambitions of maintaining unipolarity.
No friendship is really absolute, but the truth is that Chinese-Russian relations have entered a new era, and Beijing’s trade and investment in the Russian Far East, such as in the Vladivostok Port – Trans-Siberian Railway, must also be seen in this context, as the Belt and Road Initiative investments into the Russian Federation go on. Chris Devonshire-Ellis, publisher of Asia Briefing, writes that both powers view the Heihe-Blagoveshchensk border cities (which sit opposite each other on the Amur River opposing banks) as key strategic development hubs in an access point to the Trans-Siberian railway. That being so, maintaining peace at the border is in the best interests of both Moscow and Beijing, contrary to the wishful thinking of some Western analysts.
In any case, much has been done, in the US-led West, in terms of PR and diplomacy to try to “counter” the “no-limits” friendship concept, and to promote and explore Russian-Chinese points of contention. Thus, in the same way Washington inflates Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments to Putin on Ukraine, it tries to do the same pertaining to Moscow and Beijing and it will certainly try to explore the issue of Manchuria.
Although, under American influence, Japan has changed its stance on Russia partly over the aforementioned Kuril islands, this of course does not in any way mean that China would behave similarly. Chinese-Russian Eurasian strategic interests converge very deeply and both states have sophisticated diplomacy apparatuses to bilaterally pursue collaboration, bilateral disputes apart, while also employing the framework of forums such as the SCO and the BRICS group to coordinate their perspectives together so as to maximize benefits for all.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.





