Chinese military issues warning to US
Samizdat | July 19, 2022
The foreign and defense ministries in Beijing issued harsh statements on Monday condemning the Biden administration’s approval of a new US arms sale to Taiwan. The deal is worth an estimated $108 million and includes armored vehicle parts and technical assistance.
Beijing “demands” that the United States “immediately withdraw the above-mentioned arms sales plan to Taiwan,” as well as halt all other arms deals and cut military ties with the island, said Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Tan Kefei. “Otherwise, the US side will be solely responsible for undermining the relationship between China and the US and the two militaries and the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”
“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army will take all necessary measures to firmly defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and resolutely thwart any form of external interference and separatist attempts for ‘Taiwan independence’,” the colonel added.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin echoed this sentiment, saying that Washington’s arms supplies “gravely undermine China’s sovereignty and security interests, and severely harm China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“China will continue to take resolute and strong measures to firmly defend its sovereignty and security interests,” Wang added.
The Pentagon revealed on Friday that the US State Department had greenlit the transaction, which is valued at up to $108 million. It has yet to receive congressional approval, however. The military aid package will include parts for tanks and other combat vehicles, as well as technical and logistical support services provided by the US government and its contractors, in order to enhance the Taiwanese military’s interoperability with American forces and other allies, according to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed China’s concerns, claiming later on Monday that the US has certain obligations to supply Taiwan with the necessary means to “defend itself.”
“Under the Taiwan Relations Act, we make available to Taiwan defense articles and services necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability. This is something that successive administrations have done. It is entirely consistent with our One China policy,” said Price.
Taiwan has been ruled by the nationalists who fled to the island in 1949 after losing the civil war on the Chinese mainland. Beijing considers the island of 23.5 million a part of its own territory, under the One China policy.
China has recently increased its maritime and aerial military activity around the island, saying that this was needed to deter “collusion activities” between “Taiwan independence forces” and the US government.
While agreeing with the One China policy on paper, Washington maintains strong unofficial ties with Taipei, selling weapons to the island and tacitly encouraging its push for sovereignty. Beijing has repeatedly decried such contacts as provocations and as meddling in China’s internal affairs.
Big Smartphone is watching you
By Edward Fitzgibbon | TCW Defending Freedom | July 18, 2022
YOU may have noticed that it’s impossible to walk down a city street and not see smartphones everywhere. The interminable fiddling, the addictive near-impossibility for most people of not taking them everywhere they go. While recognising the dazzling technological ingenuity of these slimline contraptions, I’ve come to see them for what I truly believe them to be: an increasing threat to our freedom.
This claim is not made lightly, and I’ve never been a Luddite about modern technology.
It’s not what they are that is the danger, but what they will become, and what they will be used for.
You’ll probably recall the harrowing, nightmarish scenes in Shanghai, with the hazmat-suited, violent, robot-like police. And what’s the other thing you’ll notice? Almost every protester is waving a smartphone, apparently impotently, at the utterly indifferent zombies of the CCP.
The Chinese authorities clearly feel that they have nothing to fear from having their ghastly activities filmed by their unfortunate citizens, or for those terrible scenes to be broadcast to the world. And how are the people of Shanghai (and other places) controlled, in a manner unpleasantly reminiscent of social insects? Smartphones.
The unconcealed intention of the WEF globalist totalitarians is to impose a digital ID surveillance state which no one can evade and from which no one can escape.
The obvious addictiveness of smartphones, and their ubiquity, makes them the ideal tool for control and oppression.
The so-called ‘Vaccine Passport’ is a euphemism for what will be, and is intended to be, a Slave’s Passport on the Chinese model. If you have difficulty believing that this might be true, peruse the list of information about you that a ‘passport’ (supposedly containing a record of your jabs and boosters) will contain: all manner of personal details, including your political views, who you associate with, your criminal record and your private medical details. It’s precisely the same list the CCP use to control their citizens’ lives down to the last detail. Simply put, if you don’t comply to the last jot and tittle with the government, you are excluded from society, shunned, shamed and increasingly unable to buy essential supplies, even food. Like the people in Shanghai.
Is this all too far-fetched for you? Slightly older readers might like to try a thought experiment: recall that life continued well enough before smartphones came into all-too-common use. It really did.
Don’t make the dangerously naive assumption that ‘this is Britain and Shanghai could never happen here’. Your addiction to your smartphone could end up trapping you and, through your compliance, all of us, in the nightmare vision of a totalitarian world that Schwab, Gates, the WEF and the WHO have long planned and are assiduously cultivating, step by step.
Your smartphone is nothing less than the shackle that will imprison you, irrevocably, in the Great Reset. Have the courage to dump it.
Beijing citizens criticize Covid surveillance devices
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | July 17, 2022
Some residents of Beijing are pushing back against a Covid tracking device they are required to wear on their wristbands. Anyone returning to Tiantongyuan, a residential district in northern Beijing, is required to wear the device all day for seven days.
The device records someone’s temperature every five minutes. According to China Daily, the device’s corresponding app has access to the phone’s microphone, location, and camera.
Those forced to wear the device have raised concerns about how it monitors the location and what is done with the data collected. The development of the device was a collaboration between the government and Beijing Microchip Sensing Technology, which is backed by China’s tech giant Tencent.
One of the people that received the wristband was Dahongmao, a tech blogger who shared his experience with the device on social media.
“If this bracelet can connect to the internet, it definitely can record my movements and it’s almost like wearing electronic handcuffs. I don’t want to wear it,” he said.
“The issuer said it’s a requirement from higher up and that I shouldn’t make it difficult for her. I said I would not want to make it difficult for her but she could tell those above her that I won’t wear it. If you insist that I wear it, you’ll have to come up with the documents that prove that it’s a Beijing government requirement and that this is not some unlicensed company trying to make a profit.”
China Daily and South China Morning Post were separately told by a Beijing COVID-19 hotline that the use of the devices was at the discretion of the residential community.
Earlier this week, Hong Kong announced it would roll out tracking bracelets to enforce its mandatory one-week home isolation.
Iran’s petrochemical output capacity to rise by 54% in 2025
Press TV – July 14, 2022
Iran will increase its production capacity for petrochemical products by more than a half in the next three years as the country moves ahead with plans to increase added value in its petroleum sector.
A Thursday report by the official IRNA news agency said Iran will launch a total of 35 new petrochemical plants by 2025 to increase the output capacity in the sector by 54% to 140 million metric tons per annum (mtpa).
It said petrochemical output capacity in Iran had increased by 7% in the calendar year to March 2022 to reach nearly 91 million mtpa thanks to the completion of seven new petrochemical projects across the country.
Iran’s sales of petrochemicals, including exports to other countries, also rose by 4.4% in the calendar year to late March with government figures showing that exports proceeds from the sector reached nearly $12.5 billion over that period.
Iran has relied on petrochemicals as a major source of earning hard currency in recent years as the country has been facing a series of tough American sanctions targeting its direct exports of crude oil.
China has been the top customer of Iranian petrochemical shipments in recent years while exports to countries in the region have also surged since the United States imposed its sanctions on Iran in 2018.
The expansion of the Iranian petrochemical sector has also led to a significant rise in the number of jobs in the country. Estimates suggest the number of direct jobs in the sector is more than 920,000 compared with a total of 107,000 direct jobs registered in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry in Iran.
Hong Kong unveils Covid quarantine bracelets
Samizdat | July 13, 2022
Hong Kong is set to introduce electronic tracking bracelets for citizens who decide to quarantine at home after testing positive for Covid-19, the health chief has announced. Violators of the isolation rules face hefty fines and possibly even jail time.
The territory’s secretary for health, Lo Chung-mau, announced the move during a Monday press briefing, saying the bracelets are meant to stop infected people from spreading the illness further and will operate on the ‘Leave Home Safe’ app rolled out last year.
“We have to make sure that home isolation is more precise while being humane,” Lo said, adding that the trackers will be introduced on Friday.
Breaching Hong Kong’s quarantine order could result in fines up to $3,200 and a maximum of six months behind bars. Individuals who are able to isolate at home must do so for two weeks, though will be allowed to leave if they test negative for two days in a row and have their first pair of vaccine doses.
While the territory previously required overseas arrivals to use bracelets with unique QR codes to check in and account for their movements, the gadgets were later replaced with genuine tracking tech. The system is set to be expanded, though the government has not said what type of bracelet it will use for the latest initiative.
The health secretary also noted that Hong Kong will implement a color-coded system similar to the one in place in mainland China, which labels different levels of infection risk as yellow or red. Those with the red designation will face heavy restrictions on their movement, including outright bans on entering public venues, while yellow entails lesser limits.
However, the city’s recently inaugurated chief executive, John Lee, has since stressed that the traffic light system would only apply to “a specific and small number of people,” but nonetheless argued that Hong Kong needs “some identification method” to distinguish citizens with active infections from those quarantining as a precaution.
Local officials continue to warn that Hong Kong’s Covid-19 outbreak remains “very serious,” urging residents to minimize travel and observe social distancing rules, which were just extended for another two weeks on Tuesday.
The Department of Health said it recorded 2,558 new local coronavirus cases on Tuesday, as well as another 211 infections among travelers from abroad. It did not offer a daily update for fatalities, but noted the territory had tallied 9,420 deaths in total throughout the pandemic, most of them occurring this year.
WHO Wants To Run the World?
By Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster, Michael Baker | Brownstone Institute | July 11, 2022
In Geneva in late May at the 75th meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), amendments to its International Health Regulations (IHRs) were debated and voted upon. If passed, they would grant the WHO the right to exert unconscionable pressure on countries to accept the WHO’s authority and health policy actions if the WHO decides that there is a public health threat that might spread beyond a country’s borders.
As Ramesh Thakur, the second man at the UN for years, noted, the amendments would mean “the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers and budgets will depend on outbreaks of pandemics, the more the better.”
This is the first clear instance of a globalist coup attempt. It would subvert national sovereignty worldwide by putting real power into the hands of an international group of bureaucrats. It has long been suspected that the authoritarian elites arisen during covid times would try to strengthen their positions by undermining nation states, and the this 75th jamboree is the first solid evidence of this being true.
What an opportunity then to see who is in the conspiring club. Who drafted the amendments? What was in them? Which individuals supported them or spoke out against them?
WHO were the conspirators?
The amendments on the table at the May WHA meeting had been transmitted to the WHO by the US Department of Health and Human Services on January 18, circulated by WHO to its member states (‘States Parties’) on January 20 and formally introduced to the WHA on April 12.
The proposals, according to an announcement on January 26, were co-sponsored by 19 countries plus the European Union. Even if some co-sponsors had little direct involvement in drafting them, they all would have approved in principle the overarching goal of tightening up the WHO’s authority over member states in the face of a public health event.
Loyce Pace, the HHS’s Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs – the leading US official nominally responsible for the proposed amendments – arrived at the Biden administration fresh from a stint as executive director of an advocacy organization called the Global Health Council.
That council receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its members include Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, Abbott Labs, and Johnson & Johnson. You get the idea. Via one of the foxes-turned-chicken-guard, it appears the HHS ‘worked closely’ on these amendments with large pharmaceutical companies, who will be chomping at the bit for a more proactive (read: profitable) response to any public health emergency, real or imagined.
So the conspiring club consists primarily of the US government and its Western allies in lockstep with Big Pharma, and they are looking to undermine both the sovereignty of their own governments and that of other countries, presumably with the idea that the Western elites would do the running.
What was in them? A blizzard of acronyms and euphemisms
To understand what the US proposed at the WHA, we need first to understand how things have worked in the WHO to this point.
The IHRs in their current form have been in force as international law since June 2007. Among other things, they impose requirements on countries to detect, report and respond to ‘public health events of international concern,’ or PHEICs. The WHO Director-General consults with the state where a possible public health event has occurred, and within 48 hours they are meant to come to a mutual agreement on whether or not it actually is a PHEIC, whether or not it needs to be announced to the world as such, and what counter-measures, if any, should be taken. It’s essentially an early-warning system on major health crises. This is a good thing if it’s run by people you can trust and if it has checks and balances to rein in expansionary tendencies.
The proposed amendments would greatly strengthen the power of the WHO relative to this baseline, in a number of ways.
First, they lower the threshold for the WHO to declare a public health emergency by empowering its Regional Directors to declare a ‘public health event of regional concern’ (PHERC, italics ours) and for the WHO to put out a new thing called an ‘intermediate public health alert.’
Second, they permit the WHO to consider allegations about a public health event from non-official sources, meaning sources other than the government of the state concerned, and allow that government only 24 hours to confirm the allegations and a further 24 hours to accept the WHO’s offer of ‘collaboration.’
Collaboration is essentially a euphemism for on-site assessment by teams of WHO investigators, and concomitant pressure at the whim of WHO personnel to enact potentially far-reaching measures such as lockdowns, movement restrictions, school closures, consumption of medicines, administration of vaccines and any or all of the other social, economic, and health paraphernalia that we have come to associate with the covid circus.
Should the state’s government acceptance of the WHO’s ‘offer’ not be forthcoming, the WHO is empowered to disclose the information it has to the other 194 WHO countries, while continuing to pressure the state to yield to the WHO’s invitation to ‘collaborate.’ A non-collaborating country would risk becoming a pariah.
Third, the proposal includes a new Chapter IV, which would establish a ‘Compliance Committee’ consisting of six government-appointed experts from each WHO region tasked with permanently nosing around to ensure the member states are complying with IHR regulations.
There are more crossings-out of the existing IHR language and new language added in, but the flavour of what the US-led alliance is shooting for is a WHO that can unilaterally decide whether there is a problem and what to do about it, and can isolate countries that disagree.
Compliant WHO member states could act as a supporting cast in the isolation effort, through the distribution of their own health budgets and their ‘health-related’ policies, which would include travel and trade restrictions. The WHO would become a kind of command-and-control center for globalist agendas, pushing the produce of (Western) Big Pharma.
Why and how would this work?
We learned during covid times why it would make sense that the US and its allies are insisting on these amendments.
Lowering the bar for declaring a global (or regional) public health threat triggers a huge opportunity for Western pharmaceutical companies. As legal experts have observed: “WHO emergency declarations can trigger the fast-track development and subsequent global distribution and administration of unlicensed investigational diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
This is done via the WHO’s Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EULP). The introduction of an ‘intermediate public health alert’ in particular will also further incentivise the pharmaceutical industry’s move to activate domestic fast-track emergency trial protocols as well as for advance purchase, production and stockpile agreements with governments before the existence of a concrete health threat to the world’s population has been detected, as is already the case under WHO’s EULP via the procedures developed for a ‘pre-public health emergency phase’.”
You can bet that the WHO ‘expert teams’ sent in to make on-the-ground assessments, under the banner of ‘collaboration’ with the host country experiencing the health event, will be chock-a-block with operatives from the CDC and who knows what other Western agencies, all poking around potentially sensitive facilities that a host government might justifiably claim a sovereign right to keep to itself. Likewise with the ‘Compliance Committee’ proposed by the US under the new Chapter IV of the IHRs: its government-appointed members have an open-ended brief, enshrined in international law, to be busybodies.
In layman’s terms, the WHO would be turned into an international thug, with its member states offered the role of backyard gang members.
As a bonus for Western elites, the proposals are a sneaky form of rewriting history. By cementing authority within an international organisation to determine the existence of public health crises and direct potentially draconian emergency responses, Western governments would get to enshrine and legitimise their own extreme responses to the covid outbreak, as we have pointed out previously. Their backsides would thereby be given some protection from legal challenges.
The refusniks: Developing countries
The proposals were pushed primarily by Western countries: the US was joined by Australia, the UK and the EU in arguing for passage. The resistance was led by developing countries who saw it as a colonialist ambush in which their ability to set policy and respond to health threats in a manner commensurate with their domestic situations would be overridden.
Brazil reportedly went so far as to threaten to withdraw from the WHO, and the African group of almost 50 countries, along with India, argued that the amendments were being rushed through without adequate consultation. Russia, China and Iran also objected.
Failure on the first try, but the US and its allies in the West will get more shots to push it through.
How do we expect them to do this? Well, when a proposal gets bogged down inside a giant bureaucratic machine like the WHO, the inevitable response is to set up committees to work in the background and circle back with a new set of proposals to be presented at a future meeting. True to form, a ‘working group’ and ‘expert committee’ are being assembled to accept member state proposals on IHR reform by the end of September this year. These will be ‘sifted through’ and reports will be prepared for review by the WHO’s executive board in January next year. The objective is to have a fresh set of proposals on the table when the WHA convenes for the 77th time in 2024.
Not all was lost
Salvaging something from the fact that the WHA failed to get a consensus around its biggest agenda item, the US and its allies got a small victory on the point of when they can try again – though in their desperation they needed to violate the IHRs’ own rules to accomplish it. Article 55 of the IHRs states unambiguously that a four-month notice period is required for any amendments.
In this instance, revised amendments were presented on May 24, the same day that the first lot were rejected. These were discussed, further amended on May 27 and then adopted on the same day. The approved amendments halve the two-year period for any (further) approved amendments to the IHRs to take effect. (The IHRs that came into force in 2007 were agreed to in 2005 – but under the new resolution, anything agreed to in 2024 would come into effect in 2025 rather than 2026.)
Yet, what was achieved in terms of fast-tracking the force of new amendments was lost in slow-tracking their implementation. Nations would have up to 12 months – double the previous suggestion of six months – to implement any IHR amendments that newly enter into force of law.
State of play
Where is all this going?
If the WHO takes the reins on decisions about what constitutes a health crisis, and can pressure every country into a one-size-fits-all set of responses that it, the WHO, also determines, that’s bad enough. But what about if its invitation to ‘collaborate’ with countries is backed up with teeth, such as sanctions against those who demur? And what about if it then broadens the definition of ‘public health’ by, for example, declaring that climate change falls under that definition? Or racism? Or discrimination against LBTQIA+ people? The possibilities thereby opened up for running the world are endless.
A global ‘health’ empire would bring huge harms to humanity, but a lot of power and money is pushing for it. Don’t think it can’t happen.
Paul Frijters is a Professor of Wellbeing Economics at the London School of Economics: from 2016 through November 2019 at the Center for Economic Performance, thereafter at the Department of Social Policy
Biden is Right… Inflation Crisis Is Not Inevitable, So End the Reckless U.S.-Led Warmongering
Strategic Culture Foundation | July 8, 2022
It’s rare for Strategic Culture Foundation to find itself in agreement with pronouncements made by American President Joe Biden. This week, Biden asserted once again that economic inflation and recession hitting the American economy are “not inevitable”. He is correct – at least in part. Although not for reasons that he would ever admit.
Of course, Biden is trying to obscure the grim reality of economic crisis that is afflicting not just the American economy but also the European Union. Inflation of living costs for ordinary citizens in the U.S. and EU are at record highs not seen in decades. There is a sense of calamity in social conditions from mass poverty amid grotesque super-rich inequality. A major input to the general inflation is the soaring price of energy.
The global impact is causing food prices to escalate putting millions of people at risk of hunger, especially in Africa and other low-income nations.
The impending crisis is on an unprecedented scale. Yet, it is not inevitable. But what is making it unavoidable is the warmongering policy of the U.S. and its European NATO allies towards Russia and China. This week saw outlandish American and British efforts to label China along with Russia as an existential threat to “global peace”. The bitter irony of these two rogue Western states casting aspersions on any other nation is too much for words.
The world is being thrown into chaos, insecurity and uncertainty by reckless stoking of war in Ukraine by the Western powers who are funneling tens of billions of dollars-worth of military weapons to that country. This week saw US-supplied HIMARS artillery hitting cities in the Donbass breakaway republics. Where are the Western efforts to mediate a diplomatic end to that war? There are none. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated this week that Moscow would like to find a long-term peaceful settlement. The harsh and despicable truth is that the U.S. and its Western allies are incapable of seeking a political solution. They are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian.
Blaming Russia for that conflict is a fallacy. The war has been deliberately stoked by the United States and its NATO accomplices as part of their geopolitical objective of subjugating Russia and China to their hegemonic agenda.
Western sanctions against Russia have created a global energy crisis that is boomeranging on the economies of the United States and Europe as well as the wider world. Biden is trying to scapegoat Moscow for imposing price hikes and taxes on his nation. The reality is it is his administration and its European lackeys who are imposing hardships on their own citizens from a madcap policy of warmongering.
There is a straightforward way out of the abysmal situation. The U.S. and its NATO allies should halt all weapons supplies to the Nazi regime in Kiev. They should also reverse the draconian economic sanctions on Russia. They should pursue diplomatic relations to end the conflict in Ukraine that they have instigated. They should normalize relations with Russia and China instead of relentlessly pushing Cold War-style confrontation.
But that is unlikely to happen under prevailing circumstances. Because the United States and its NATO minions have locked themselves into a deceptive paradigm of hostility. This, in turn, is because of futile ambitions for hegemonic dominance and intrinsic opposition to the emergence of a multipolar world.
Demonizing and antagonizing Russia and China is the real agenda for U.S.-led global imperialism. That criminal policy is covered up with cynical and absurd claims about defending “rules-based order” and democracy in Ukraine, Taiwan and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the Empire of Lies is running out of credibility and false pretexts. What is becoming more and more evident is the awful reality. The U.S.-led collective West is one predicated on warmongering to preserve its waning global power and privileges.
Russia and China have repeatedly appealed for the existence of a multilateral global order that is consistent with the vision of the United Nations that was set up in the aftermath of World War Two. The United States and its imperial surrogates have continually attacked and undermined that vision with unilateral violations of international law and the sovereignty of countless nations. The U.S. avowed “rules-based order” is synonymous with war, war, war. Decades of relentless U.S.-driven wars – albeit under specious guises and pretenses – prove that.
Today we are witnessing the historic endgame playing out. The current war in Ukraine is but one malignant manifestation.
When asked how long Americans (and presumably Europeans) will have to endure economic pain, Biden retorted, “As long as it takes”. As long as it takes for what? To defeat Russia, China and whomever other nation the U.S.-led imperial axis deems necessary to be subjugated? That’s not going to happen. Those days are over.
Russia and China are too strong militarily and economically for the U.S.-led axis to vanquish. The world is being driven to war, potentially a catastrophic one, by American death throes in the face of reality. In the meantime, American, European and other peoples are being assailed with economic misery as a result of this criminal warmongering for the sake of empire. That is, the crumbling, bankrupt empire of U.S.-dominated Western capitalism and its imperial roguery.
The appalling state of world affairs is not inevitable. But due to the depraved and implacable pursuit of hostility towards Russia and China by the U.S. and its servile European elite, the world is – for now at least – held hostage by these psychopathic Western politicians and their corporate paymasters. That, however, is changing as people realize more and more the real nature and perpetrators of their captive condition.
The giant Western charade is no longer sustainable. From European colonialism to American imperialism, the charade has indeed had a long run. Now, though, it is in tatters from its own inherent corruption and lies. The ignominious downfall this week of Boris Johnson, Britain’s clown prime minister, is just a bit-part of the collapsing Western axis of evil. That collapse is inevitable.
Western plan to severely isolate Russia fails
By Lucas Leiroz | July 5, 2022
The Western world has tried to “isolate” and “cancel” Russia, but apparently this plan has failed and Moscow remains absolutely integrated with its major trading and strategic partners. China and India remain willing to cooperate with Russia widely, increasing current levels of bilateral trade. This demonstrates how the current situation in Eastern Europe cannot be resolved by coercive means.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs pledged April 19 that it will strengthen cooperation with Russia, no matter what happens in the international scenario. The message comes in an official statement from the foreign ministry following a meeting held the day before between Chinese deputy MOFA Le Yucheng and Russian ambassador to Beijing Andrey Denisov. The document says:
“No matter how the international situation changes, China will, as always, strengthen strategic coordination with Russia to achieve win-win cooperation, jointly safeguard the common interests of both sides, and promote the building of a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind (…) In the first quarter of this year, the bilateral trade volume between China and Russia reached 38.2 billion US dollars, an increase of nearly 30%, [which] fully demonstrates the great resilience… of cooperation between the two countries”.
Later, commenting on the statement, Ambassador Denisov stated:
“Russia always regards developing relations with China as its diplomatic priority and is ready to further deepen bilateral comprehensive strategic coordination and all-round practical cooperation in the direction set by the two heads of state (…) [Further efforts to strengthen Russia-China ties] will continuously benefit the two peoples.”
Although it is a well-known fact that bilateral relations between Moscow and Beijing have improved substantially in recent years, forming an important axis of economic and diplomatic cooperation, the current message is of enormous importance, as it works as a response to recent US pressure against China. Last month, US President Joe Biden called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and during an hour-long conversation “warned” about the possible “consequences” that would be suffered by Beijing if there was not an immediate end to its economic support for Russia.
Naturally, Xi ignored Biden’s threats and the Chinese foreign ministry maintained its stance of absolute neutrality on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Not mixing political and economic issues is a key point of the Chinese foreign policy tradition and this is exactly what is being applied now. Beijing refuses to maintain positions on any political event outside its strategic environment, which is why it keeps the Russian military operation off the agenda in Beijing-Moscow bilateral relations, continuing to have projects to improve cooperation, independently of such extra-economic issues.
However, it is not only the Chinese who show interest in cooperating with the Russians, ignoring the Western attempts of “cancellation”. Apparently, India is about to announce its highest ever level of trade cooperation with Russia in oil. According to reliable sources quoted by the Economic Times on April 19, state-owned companies in New Delhi are planning to buy as much Russian oil as possible in the short term, considering the expected availability and low prices of the commodity.
The Indian attitude sounds absolutely pragmatic and not ideological: faced with the conflict scenario, Indians seek to benefit from the availability of Russian oil, which arises as a consequence of the sanctions applied by the West to prevent the oil from entering the European market. With large quantities available and prices dropping, it is in India’s interest to acquire as many Russian barrels as possible and this is what is about to be done.
Obviously, this was not what the West expected from the Indians. The US has always tried to make its military partnership with India – focused on creating an “anti-China axis” – a kind of hierarchical relationship, in which Indians would automatically obey and align themselves with every decision taken by the Americans. However, despite the pressure in this direction and the constant US threats to cut ties with New Delhi, India remains convinced of defending its interests above all, making it clear that it will continue to cooperate with Russia in terms of both military trade and energy partnership.
It is impossible to look at such news and continue to believe the Western media narrative that “Russia is isolated”. Moscow has lost a part of world trade and even then, not completely, as Western countries have not yet managed to fully break off relations with Russia. On the other hand, it has not only preserved most of the global consumer market in emerging nations but has also boosted its ties with China and India, which indicates great economic support and, even more, the emergence of new intra-BRICS cooperation opportunities.
What all this means is simple to understand: the special military operation in Ukraine will not end through economic pressures, coercive measures and attempts at “cancellation”, but through the Ukrainian willingness to accept the peace terms, which are (as Russia insists) political and military neutrality and recognition of the sovereign republics of Donbass and Russian Crimea. As long as the Ukrainian government is unwilling to do so, Russia seems to continue the operation and have sufficient economic strength to maintain it.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
India, BRICS in cold war conditions
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 2, 2022
The phone conversation on Friday between Prime Minister Modi and Russian President Putin conveyed a big signal, coming on the morrow of the release of the new Strategic Concept by NATO which called Russia the alliance’s “most significant and direct threat.” The readouts from Moscow and New Delhi both highlighted the two leaderships’ determination to carry forward the momentum of economic cooperation despite the western sanctions against Russia. (here and here)
Ironically, the West’s “sanctions from hell” have given a big stimulus to India-Russia bilateral trade, giving it a dynamism that one never suspected would be recaptured in the post-Soviet era.
Friday’s call was agreed upon in the sidelines of the BRICS summit (June 23-24). Curiously, it has come at a time when the Western powers have stepped up their efforts to create discord among the BRICS member countries, and brainwash India, in particular, to join their bandwagon in the new Cold War conditions. India is of course cherrypicking.
But that is understandable at a time when the economy is in “stagflation.” India’s relationship with Russia was the leitmotif of Modi’s visit to Japan in April and three visits to Europe in May as well as his two meetings with US President Biden during this period. In the West’s calculus, China and India are giving what analysts would call “strategic depth” to Russia, which nullifies its frantic efforts to “erase” Russia. Interestingly, the western attempts to create paranoia in the Indian mind about the close ties between Russia and China are no longer having the desired effect of Delhi becoming wary of Russia’s intentions. India sees, on the contrary, great opportunities to tap into Russia’s tilt to Asia-Pacific region for economic partnerships.
Without doubt, India is “balancing” between Washington and Moscow and BRICS summit was a great occasion to monitor that trapeze act. An unabashedly pro-western internet paper from Delhi had predicted that Modi would act as a vigilante for US President Biden, blocking any BRICS statement critical of the US. Whether that was true or not, Modi made a rather anodyne speech at the BRICS summit.
On the other hand, Putin had stated in his speech at the summit that “Considering the complexity of the challenges and threats the international community is facing, and the fact that they transcend borders, we need to come up with collective solutions. BRICS can make a meaningful contribution to these efforts.”
Putin added, “We are confident that today, as never before, the world needs the BRICS countries’ leadership in defining a unifying and positive course for forming a truly multipolar system of interstate relations… we can count on support from many states in Asia, Africa and Latin America, which are seeking to pursue an independent policy.”
In his speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping made an even more direct appeal to the BRICS partners: “Our world today is overshadowed by the dark clouds of Cold War mentality and power politics and beset by constantly emerging traditional and non-traditional security threats. Some countries attempt to expand military alliances to seek absolute security, stoke bloc-based confrontation by coercing other countries into picking sides and pursue unilateral dominance at the expense of others’ rights and interests. If such dangerous trends are allowed to continue, the world will witness even more turbulence and insecurity.
“It is important that BRICS countries support each other on issues concerning core interests, practice true multilateralism, safeguard justice, fairness and solidarity and reject hegemony, bullying and division.”
Frankly, no matter the impressive-looking XIV BRICS Summit Beijing Declaration, the fact remains that the grouping is performing far below its actual potential and one principal reason for this is India’s zero-sum mindset regarding China, which makes it difficult for it to work with China collectively in any regional forum.
However, any apprehension in the Indian mind that China would “dominate” BRICS is unwarranted. Russia undoubtedly occupies a special place in the structure of the BRICS. In fact, BRICS was Moscow’s brainchild and Russia was responsible for launching the format. The first ministerial meeting (in the BRIC format) took place at the suggestion of Putin in September 2006, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York. Thus, the idea of creating BRICS matured in Russia.
Second, BRICS is a “de-ideologised” format. It shows no animus against America although it challenges western hegemony of the international political and economic order. The very fact that the Manmohan Singh government welcomed Putin’s BRIC initiative at a most sensitive juncture when India’s negotiations for a nuclear deal with the US (with eye on Washington’s embargo on technology transfer) speaks for itself.
Moscow conceived the BRICS concept for the strengthening of the formation of a multipolar system of international relations and the growth of economic cooperation — and it has indeed contributed to the birth of a new economic system, based on the equal access of countries to financing and sales markets, a combination of state planning and market economy.
India has a problem to appreciate that the BRICS paradigm does not lie in expanding the capabilities or ambitions of the group’s member countries, but in fostering a qualitative change in the economic development model of the Global South. India’s dog-in-the-manger attitude — sulking and politicising the forum with extraneous issues (primarily to embarrass China) — doesn’t make sense.
Unlike India, China takes BRICS seriously. The Chinese initiative to create a BRICS Vaccine Centre has been under development and the implementation of this project amid the current conditions can be a significant achievement that will bolster the entire format of the association. Ideally, India should cooperate with the project instead of teaming up with its QUAD partners which has turned out to be a wild goose chase.
Again, industrial innovation is slated to be a priority for China’s BRICS Presidency in 2022. Expectations are high that during its presidency, China will come up with a number of breakthrough initiatives. Clearly, now that the construction of the BRICS’ New Development Bank headquarters in Shanghai has finished, new proposals are expected from China on the development of its operations, including possibly an expansion of the number of shareholders of the bank.
Of course, China will promote its own projects, including Belt and Road initiative. But then, China is also putting into the projects the most financial resources. It is high time for India to have a serious reassessment of values within the BRICS framework, and the changing internal balance of power in the grouping in the new Cold War conditions.
BRICS is at the crossroads and this realisation has propelled the concept of a “BRICS+” format to the centerstage of discussions. China’s BRICS chairmanship 2022 witnessed the launch of the extended BRICS+ meeting at the level of Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Participants included Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, Argentina, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Thailand.
During the ministerial, China also announced plans to open up the possibility of developing countries joining the core BRICS grouping. Argentina and Iran have been mentioned as candidates for BRICS expansion. Be that as it may, “BRICS+” is certain to be on the agenda of global governance in times to come.
‘Ridiculous’: Russia dismisses claims of NATO being ‘defensive alliance’
Press TV – July 1, 2022
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the claim of NATO being an exclusively defensive alliance is “ridiculous and disgraceful.”
He made the remarks on Friday while addressing students and teachers at the Belarusian State University, in response to recent statements by a number of NATO members’ officials.
“Recently, a representative of the White House once again reiterated that Russia should not be afraid of NATO and that no one should be afraid of it at all, because NATO is a defensive alliance. But it is already ridiculous to hear adults say such obvious nonsense. I would say, it is simply disgraceful,” Russia’s TASS quoted Lavrov as saying.
Pointing to the history of NATO’s establishment and its confrontation with the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the Soviet Union, he said both the Warsaw Treaty and the Soviet Union are gone but “NATO has moved eastward five times.”
“Who are they defending themselves from then?” he asked rhetorically, adding, “When someone pushes forward, establishes control of territories, and deploys armed forces and military infrastructure there, it is not exactly what is called defense. It’s just the opposite.”
The remarks come as the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid wrapped up on Thursday with the bloc’s decision to strengthen its forces along the eastern flank while also officially inviting Sweden and Finland, which share borders with Russia, to join the alliance.
“NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to any country,” reads part of the declaration of the Summit.
The declaration also named Russia as a “direct threat” to NATO members’ security, noting that the military alliance “does not seek confrontation and poses no threat” to Russia.
At the same time, it went on to threaten to respond in a “united and responsible way” to any threat from Moscow.
‘Joke of the century’
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also rejected the notion of NATO being only a defensive alliance.
“NATO is a ‘defensive’ alliance? Joke of the century,” he tweeted on Friday while also sharing a combination of images portraying NATO’s military intervention in several countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
In a separate tweet, the Chinese official also pointed to the role of the US and its allies in the continuation of the war in Syria and its devastating effects on people’s lives.
“[The] US and its allies continue to fuel the war in Syria. More than 300,000 civilians have died in the conflicts according to UN statistics, 1.5% of Syria’s population,” he wrote on Friday, also sharing a photo of war damages in Syria with a note which read “who is the threat to peace?”
NATO members had also alleged that China poses a “challenge” to the bloc’s “interests, security, and values.”
Speaking in a daily briefing on Thursday, Zhao stressed the futileness of hyping up the so-called “China threat.”
“NATO has extended its reach to the Asia-Pacific region in an attempt to export the Cold War mentality,” he said, urging the bloc to stop making baseless accusations and provocation against China, abandon the outdated Cold War mentality, and stop dangerous acts that disrupt Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
Why G7’s Program for Developing Countries is Still No Match for China’s Belt & Road
Samizdat – 28.06.2022
The G7 on 26 June re-launched its previous Build Back Better World program to provide infrastructure funds to poor and developing nations under a new name, the Global Investment and Infrastructure Partnership. The project aims to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative kicked off by Beijing in 2013.
The Build Back Better World (B3W) program was pompously announced by the club of seven developed nations to counter China’s Belt and Road at the G7 Summit in Cornwall in July 2021. However, little had been heard of the G7’s endeavor since then. In June 2022, the Group of Seven decided to breathe new life into the project.
“So far, America has failed to build momentum on its plan to Build Back a Better World,” says Francesco Sisci, a Beijing-based China expert, author, and columnist. “However, with this new G7 plan, which includes other countries, this momentum could start to be built. It is a question mark. Nobody is sure until things are realized. But you cannot just underestimate and dismiss this plan, because there is a large commitment of many countries with a large economy and this plan could make big sense.”
The G7’s grand design envisages laying a secure sub-sea telecommunications cable that will connect Singapore to France through Egypt and the Horn of Africa; creating a COVID-19 vaccine plant in Senegal; expanding solar projects in Angola, including solar mini-grids and home power grids; and establishing an innovative modular nuclear reactor plant in Romania, among other issues.
The US president pledged to mobilize $200 billion in investments in global infrastructure projects over the next five years. The overall investment, including G7 member states and private capital, is expected to reach $600 billion.
“With two competing plans – size matters, at the end of the day,” says Sisci. “That is, China may be able to immediately finalize a lot of money in a short time in a number of projects. The G7 countries could be slower, but eventually they could build up momentum and they could channel much more money much more effectively, perhaps, in a much larger number of projects which could stifle Chinese projects.”
Sisci suggests that the club of developed capitalist countries “may end up being more effective in many ways [than China], a smaller non-capitalist country.”
“China, but also Russia, by far, don’t have the size, the gravitas to oppose even a divided G7, which is coming together because of this opposition to China or Russia-driven projects,” he notes.
G7 Economic & Geopolitical Hurdles
However, some other observers express skepticism over the ability of the US and G7 to implement the project given record-high inflation and cost of living crisis currently engulfing the states. The US, British and European central banks are struggling to tame skyrocketing inflation by raising interest rates to reduce demand, which is prompting recession fears.
“Washington claims they are going to be sending over $200 billion. But where’s the money coming from and how is it going to be really used?” asks Thomas W. Pauken II, the author of “US vs China: From Trade War to Reciprocal Deal,” a consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs and a geopolitical commentator.
He notes that previously the US Senate voted Biden’s landmark Build Back Better initiative down, and for good reason, as Republican congressmen feared that the Democratic administration’s spending spree would fan inflation and increase an already bloated national debt.
Pauken also expresses bewilderment over the G7’s apparent readiness to embark on the bold international project at a time when the group is involved in the Ukraine crisis with the UK trying to keep the military conflict dragging on. “I mean, it’s laughable that they have to think about [competing with] China at this time when they’re on the brink of a major war in Europe,” the commentator remarks.
Meanwhile, the G7’s Global Investment and Infrastructure Partnership cannot be regarded so far as a viable alternative to the Beijing-led Belt and Road Initiative that has been implemented for slightly less than a decade, according to Pauken.
“First of all, [the G7] actually need[s] to make these projects work,” says the geopolitical commentator. “Other than that solar plant in Angola, I don’t see any of these initiatives really working.”
In particular, China invested almost $59.5 billion in its comprehensive infrastructure project in 2021 alone. When it comes to crucial elements of the project, the West appears to be lagging behind. While the G7 is still considering building a subsea cable linking Europe and Southeast Asia, China kicked off its Digital Silk Road (DSR) almost seven years ago. The DSR’s backbone is the Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE), a 9,300 mile long subsea cable network meant to tie Asia, Africa, and Europe together. The network is designed to transmit over 16Tbps per fibre pair with its Mediterranean section going from Egypt to France having already been laid.
Are Emerging Economies Interested in the G7 Agenda?
There is yet another problem as to how to make these Western projects attractive for Global South nations, the Asia Pacific expert continues. In particular, the G7 has been pushing ahead with a climate change agenda and the plan to cut carbon emissions, which is not relevant for the majority of third-world states which are still reliant on cheaper and more reliable fossil fuels and coal plants, he notes.
“You also have to deal with auditing issues as well as the so-called climate change consultants who go on the ground and on site,” he says. “You have to prove that those infrastructure projects are not causing much of a carbon footprint. But most of the major infrastructure does require a big carbon footprint, especially in the emerging markets, because they don’t have the same equipment or they don’t have the same standards or labor laws as they would have in Western Europe or the US.”
Many emerging economies, including African countries, are beginning to have a growing frustration with the US and Europe, according to Pauken. The reality is that Africans and many of the emerging markets want to focus on economic stuff, he notes. However, when the US officials come in, they’re talking about climate change or gender equity, and this is not as interesting to developing nations, the commentator emphasizes.
“[Developing nations] want help on improving their agricultural production levels and boosting their energy capacity, which the Russians and the Chinese have been doing,” Pauken notes.
Given all of the above, it is unlikely that the G7’s Global Investment and Infrastructure Partnership initiative is going to actually happen, argues the geopolitical commentator.
“They’re rebranding a failed policy, thinking it might work by using new names and new mergers. Last time it was separate between the EU and separate between the US and they somehow think that if you combine the two failed projects into one, that this will somehow succeed. That’s not going to work in the real world,” Pauken concludes.
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Lawrence of Cyberia | March 19, 2010
In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine, in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here.
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