US COLD WAR
AGAINST CHINA NEWSLETTER #3,
March 11, 2021
COMPILED BY
DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
CONTENTS
THREATENED HOT WAR
POLITICAL CONFLICT: NEW COLD WAR
ECONOMIC CONFLICT
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICT
TECHNOLOGICAL CONFLICT
MEDIA CONFLICT
PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES TO CONFLICT
TEXTS
THREATENED HOT WAR
Biden’s first directive to the war
machine. Mronline.org (2-17-21).
In his first presidential visit to the Pentagon
yesterday, Joe Biden announced the creation of an anti-China task force. | more…
Biden’s
first directive to the war machine
Originally
published: Liberation by Patricia Gorky (February 11, 2021)
Posted Feb 16, 2021 by Eds.
In his
first presidential visit to the Pentagon yesterday, Joe Biden announced the
creation of an anti-China task force. This team will review the Pentagon’s
policy towards the country in areas such as strategy, technology, military and
diplomacy with neighboring countries. During the visit Biden pledged to “meet
the China challenge … and win the competition of the future.”
Career
politician and long-time Biden aide Ely Ratner has been tapped to lead the task
force targeting China. Ratner has continually advocated for bipartisan
aggression against China in his roles at the pro-war Center for New American
Security, the State Department, and elsewhere.
In 2017
Ratner described China’s calls for non-conflict, mutual respect and win-win
cooperation with the United States as a “festering concept.” Ratner wrote in
the influential journal Foreign Policy:
Enough is enough. Senior Trump administration officials should
make it a top priority to dispense with this concept as soon as possible, first
by politely and privately asking Beijing to refrain from using it, and then, if
necessary, by publicly denouncing it. The longer they wait to do this, the
harder and more awkward it will get.
MORE https://mronline.org/2021/02/16/bidens-first-directive-to-the-war-machine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bidens-first-directive-to-the-war-machine&utm_source=MR+Email+List&utm_campaign=76b06601a9-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_MRONLINE_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f879628ac-76b06601a9-295821469&mc_cid=76b06601a9&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
US to build anti-China missile network along first island
chain
Exclusive:
Indo-Pacific Command requests to double spending in fiscal 2022
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will
bolster its conventional deterrence against China, establishing a network of
precision-strike missiles along the so-called first island chain as part of
$27.4 billion in spending to be considered for the Indo-Pacific theater over
the next six years, Nikkei has learned.
They form the core proposals of the Pacific Deterrence
Initiative that the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has submitted to Congress and
Nikkei has reviewed.
"The greatest danger to the future of the United States
continues to be an erosion of conventional deterrence," the document said.
"Without a valid and convincing conventional deterrent, China is
emboldened to take action in the region and globally to supplant U.S.
interests. As the Indo-Pacific's military balance becomes more unfavorable, the
U.S. accumulates additional risk that may embolden adversaries to unilaterally
attempt to change the status quo."
Specifically, it called for "the fielding of an Integrated
Joint Force with precision-strike networks west of the International Date Line
along the first island chain, integrated air missile defense in the second
island chain, and a distributed force posture that provides the ability to
preserve stability, and if needed, dispense and sustain combat operations for
extended periods."
The first island chain consists of a group of islands including
Taiwan, Okinawa and the Philippines, which China sees as the first line of
defense. Beijing's "anti-access/area denial" strategy seeks to push
American forces out of the East and South China seas within the first island
chain. …continued: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/US-to-build-anti-China-missile-network-along-first-island-chain
POLITICAL CONFLICT: NEW COLD WAR
The U.S. vs China:
Asia’s New Cold War? by Jude Woodward reviewed by Sean
Ledwith. Mronline.org
(6-3-20).
The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has slammed into the
global system with almost the same impact we might expect from an asteroid
strike. All aspects of economic, cultural and political activity on the planet
have been devastated and disrupted in ways that seemed unimaginable just a few
months ago. | more…
“China 2020: An Introduction” by John Bellamy
Foster.
October 2020 (Volume 72, Number 5)The Editors (October 4, 2020)
The
hybrid US war against China:
political, technological, financial, military.
The
US War Party in the US multinational corporations and wealthy interests.
And
“one of the biggest U.S. military buildups in history, with the Trump
administration requesting a $705 military ‘defense’ budget for the fiscal year
2021, directed explicitly against China and Russia.”
Not
for containment, since China’s economy already global, but to break the Chinese
Communist Party and its state ownership of corporations, banks, and land,
China’s “ecological civilization.”
This special issue of Monthly Review,
“China 2020,” is the product of a long period of cooperation with critical
Chinese Marxist scholars. This has resulted in an extensive series of articles
on contemporary Chinese social and economic relations since 2012, to which most
of the authors in the present issue have previously contributed. It takes on a
special significance due to the growing conflict between the United States and
China, making critical Marxist analysis in this area all the more
important. | more… mronline.org (10-7-20).
U.S. State Department accusation of China
‘genocide’ relied on data abuse and baseless claims by far-right
ideologue. Mronline.org (3-2-21).
The
Trump and Biden administrations have relied on the work of a right-wing
religious extremist, Adrian Zenz, for their “genocide” accusation against
China. A close review of Zenz’s research reveals flagrant data abuse and
outright falsehoods. | more… http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/21/c_139756971.htm
With Cold War
Language, Pompeo Defines Plan For ‘Totalitarian’ China
By Katie Bo Williams, Defense One. Popular
Resistance.org (7-28-20). In a major
foreign policy speech on U.S.-China relations, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo cast ratcheted-up tensions with Beijing in Cold War terms, announcing
that Washington would seek to change Beijing’s behavior and stopping just short
of calling for regime change. He described Beijing — and
Chinese President Xi Jinping — as a generational threat to “free
democracies around the world,” a totalitarian and hegemonic regime that must
not be treated like a normal nation. Riffing on President Ronald Reagan’s
famous “trust but verify” dictum about the Soviet Union, he said that when it
comes to... -more-
|
NYT’s China syndrome. Mronline.org (2-2-21)
Imagine a parallel world where the U.S. brought Covid under
control in two months, while China still struggled with it, a year and hundreds
of thousands of deaths later. | more…
Casualties of
the Old Cold War should inform opposition to U.S.’ New Cold War against China. mronline.org
(1-22-21).
The U.S. share of the global economy has
shrunk dramatically since 1960. On the other hand, China is on pace
to surpass the U.S. in GOP terms in 2030. | more… 
Biden
nominees call for tough stance on China during confirmation hearings. mronline.org
(1-22-21).
During Tuesday’s confirmation hearings before
the Senate, nominees for positions in Joe Biden’s cabinet expressed their
support for a tough stance on China. | more…
“What about China?” and the threat to US–Russian nuclear arms control. Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists.
The Trump administration
has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of
bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The consequences may
last far beyond the Trump presidency. Read in the Bulletin magazine.
China – A Marxist Analysis. Mronline.org (12-29-20).
Vijay on China: A Marxist Analysis
| more…
Chinese diplomat
warns U.S. against pushing to ‘brink of a new Cold War’. The
Washington Post. (25 May 2020)
The Scholarly Debate over China’s Ecology
MONTHLY REVIEW by
(Mar 01, 2021)
https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/mr-072-10-2021-03_0/
Topics: Climate Change , Ecology , Imperialism
In September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping astonished the
world by unexpectedly declaring that China would peak its carbon emissions
before 2030 and reach zero net carbon emissions (carbon neutrality) before
2060. Given that China’s carbon emissions, currently making up 28 percent of
the world total, exceed those of the United States and the European Union
combined, this was big news for anyone concerned with the environmental future
of humanity. This was particularly the case since China is well known for
reaching its environmental targets ahead of time (Barbara Finamore, “What China’s Plan for Net-Zero
Emissions by 2060 Means for the Climate,” Guardian, October 5, 2020; “Climate Change: How China Can
Achieve Its Pledge of Zero Emissions,” Financial Times, November 2, 2020).
However, some skepticism
in this area is warranted. Local governments and industry executives will
continue to try to find ways to bypass the national environmental agenda. China
remains the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter (though it is only
forty-seventh in emissions per capita, while the United States is the first
among those countries with significant population). China’s air in urban areas
and its inland waters remain severely polluted.
Still, in the historically brief period of a decade, Beijing has
engineered a major shift in trends. China has achieved world-record reductions
in air pollution, while also rapidly improving the water quality of its lakes
and rivers (Michael Marshall, “China’s Cuts to Air Pollution May
Have Saved 150,000 Lives Each Year,” New
Scientist, October 22, 2020; Ting Ma et al., “China’s Improving Inland Surface Water Quality Since 2003,” Science Advances 6, no. 1 [2020]). The country has
made the creation of an “ecological civilization” a top priority, incorporating
it into its Constitution, while officially acknowledging that this will require
some slowing of economic growth. It is now the world leader in the development
and implementation of solar and wind energy. It currently has one out of every
three of the world’s solar panels and wind turbines, nearly half of all the
electric passenger vehicles, 98 percent of the electric buses, and 99 percent
of all electric two wheelers. After growing 10 percent per year on average from
2002 to 2012, China’s coal consumption leveled off for a few years (though it
was to rise again later as a result of its stimulus in response to the Global
Financial Crisis). According to Climate Action Tracker, “it is possible that
China’s [carbon] emissions already peaked in 2019,” though this may turn out to
be too optimistic. Yet, China is on track to reach its 2030 goal, which
requires a 60 to 65 percent drop in carbon intensity compared to 2005 (Climate
Action Tracker, “China: Country Summary,”
December 2020 update; “China’s Xi Targets Steeper Cut
in Carbon Intensity by 2030,” Reuters, December
12, 2020).
China also backed off from plans for the full industrialization
of rural agriculture in response to resistance from the Rural Reconstruction
Movement and others, preserving an essential element of an environmental future
(John Cobb interviewed by Andre Vltchek, China and Ecological Civilization [Badak
Merah, 2019], 22). Xi’s “Beautiful China” initiative has expanded China’s
environmental goals to take into account aesthetic elements and the “harmonious
coexistence between man and nature” (“CPC Incorporates ‘Beautiful
China’ into Two-Stage Development Plan,” China Daily, October 18, 2017). China’s Fourteenth
Five-Year Plan, to be released in March 2021, will give much higher priority to
the environment, accelerating these trends and establishing new environmental
requirements, particularly with respect to coal consumption and carbon
emissions.
These developments have resulted in accolades from hard-pressed
environmentalists and scientists who see in Xi’s China a possible ray of hope
in the current planetary emergency. For example, Barbara Finamore, senior
strategic director for Asia of the National Resource Defense Council, wrote an
important book entitled Will China Save the Planet? (Polity,
2018). Other key works include John Cobb’s China and Ecological
Civilization, as well as Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro’s China Goes Green (Polity, 2020). Leading
climatologists such as James Hansen and Michael E. Mann have increasingly
turned to China as the last best hope for humanity with respect to controlling
climate change (James Hansen, “China and the Barbarians: Part
I,” 2010; James Hansen, “Wanning Workshop + Beijing
Chart + Year-End Comments,” December 29, 2015; Michael E. Mann and
Lee R. Kump, Dire Predictions [D. K.
Publishing, 2015]).
Nevertheless, over the last year, a number of Western
ecosocialists have turned to condemning China’s ecological trajectory. By far
the most important work in this respect is Richard Smith’s China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse (Pluto,
2020). Smith is a founding member of System Change Not Climate Change and
an MR author. In China’s Engine of Environmental
Collapse, Smith pulls out all the stops in criticizing China on the
environment. China is characterized, he says, by “blind denialism” with respect
to the environment and is the chief force destroying the planet. Its
“Stalinist-capitalist” system is “suicidal” and inherently more destructive of
the Earth System than what he calls “normal capitalism.” China is presented as
an “Environmental Rogue State” and the Chinese Communist Party is destined for
“the dustbin of history.” Smith claims to utilize a “Marxist mode of production
theorization,” but instead relies on out-of-date statistics, the charge that
the current Chinese leadership is characterized by “sociopathic behavior,” and
the notion that China is unique in the extent of its accumulation drive. Under
“normal capitalism,” as in the West, we are told, environmental limits are
imposed in part by the drive for profits. If profits decline, so does economic
expansion and ecological destruction. In the case of China’s “iron-fisted
dictatorship,” in contrast, it is the accumulation of wealth at the top that is
the real driver of economic expansion, not mere profitability (apparently the
Western ruling class under “normal capitalism” is not driven by a desire to
accumulate wealth under all circumstances!), making China much more dangerous
to the world environment (Smith, China’s Engine of Environmental
Collapse, vi–vii, xii–xiii, 87–91, 183-–94).
Shortly after publishing his book, Smith published an article
in Foreign Policy, the leading U.S. neoliberal-imperialist
journal, which in the last few years has taken on the role as perhaps the
foremost organ for the promotion of the New Cold War on China. Here he argued
that China’s environmental depredations can be traced to the fact that “the
Communist Party runs a totalitarian police state that ruthlessly suppresses all
resistance to the party agenda,” leading to the “eco-suicidal ambitions of
their rulers” (Richard Smith, “The Chinese Communist Party Is an Environmental
Catastrophe,” Foreign Policy, July 27, 2020).
More recently, he has claimed that China’s activation of new coal-fired plants,
in its attempt to recover quickly from the COVID-19 crisis, reflects the
duplicity of its environmental plans (Richard Smith, “Climate Arsonist Xi Jinping,”
System Change Not Climate Change, November 22, 2020). Some of Smith’s
ecosocialist concerns of course make sense. A high growth economy attempting to
reduce carbon emissions and other types of environmental damage simply through
ecological modernization is going to run into enormous obstacles. Nevertheless,
while the West talks about a Green New Deal but fails to implement it anywhere,
China’s current drive to create an ecological civilization appears, at the very
least, to be a Green New Deal on stilts.
Smith is not the only ecosocialist to argue that China is the
world’s arsonist. He has found a strong supporter in the noted ecosocialist
journalist and essayist Gabriel Levy. In two articles (“China: Xi Jinping’s Coal Stokes
the Climate Fire,” The Ecologist,
January 22, 2021; “China and the ‘Left’: What
Planet Are These People On?,” People and Nature,
January 15, 2021), Levy promotes Smith’s book and attacks MR editor John Bellamy Foster for his comments on
China and the environment, criticizing Foster to promote Smith’s and his own
views. Thus, Levy censures Foster for saying (in “On Fire This Time,” Monthly Review,
November 2019) that China “is one of the most polluted and resource-hungry
countries in the world, while its carbon emissions are so massive as to
themselves constitute a global-scale problem. Nevertheless, China has done more
than any other country thus far to develop alternative-energy technologies
geared to the creation of what is officially referred to as an ecological civilization.” Apparently, such a comment by
Foster is insufficiently critical of China, though the facts themselves as
presented are not questioned.
Levy goes on to condemn Foster for observing, in another
article, “The Earth System Crisis and Industrial Civilization” (International Critical Thought, December 2017), that
China is the site of “the massive promotion of wind and solar technology.” In
that article, Foster wrote: “China stands today paradoxically at a kind of
turning point of its own, which will have an enormous impact on the world as a
whole: it is known worldwide for some of the most serious forms of
environmental damage on earth, while at the same time no country seems to be
accelerating so rapidly into the new world of alternative energy.” Quoting a
truncated version of this sentence in which he removed the whole question of a
possible “turning point” in China’s relation to the environment, Levy charged
Foster, on the basis of this sentence, with providing a “hollow” perspective
that downplayed China’s actual world-scale environmental damage—ignoring that
this had been referred to in the sentence itself. With respect to still another
article by Foster (originally written in June 2015 for China’s People’s Daily, the English-language version of which
was published in the China Daily on
June 11 and posted on the following day on MR Online under the title “Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China”), Levy
chastises him for writing that “there is no doubt that the Chinese leadership
has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development.” Levy fails
to mention, however, that Foster went on in the following paragraph to say—in
an article intended for a general Chinese readership—that a continuing 7
percent economic growth rate, the mechanization of farms in rural areas, the
undermining of the social ownership of land, and hyper-urbanization—all then
part of Chinese planning—were inconsistent with the building of an ecological
civilization. Foster also referred there to China’s weak enforcement of its
environmental laws. (This paragraph was removed from the People’s Daily article by the Chinese editors, but
it was retained in the China Daily and
MR Online version.)
Indeed, Foster’s various statements, quoted above and criticized
by Levy, focus on basic facts recognized by all close observers of China’s
environmental conditions. To acknowledge some of China’s remarkable ecological
accomplishments is not thereby to set aside the very serious problems it faces
in this respect, particularly in freeing itself from its dependence on coal.
Moreover, there are valid questions about how far it is possible to go with an
ecological modernization strategy, even in a postrevolutionary society like
China, one which is neither entirely capitalist nor entirely socialist. Such
strategies can only be effective in the end as part of a wider ecological
revolution that alters the mode of production itself. As Lau Kin Chi, writing
in “A Subaltern Perspective on China’s Ecological Crisis” (Monthly Review, October 2018) has explained, there are
huge struggles taking place with respect to the environment in China.
Nevertheless, despite all of the inevitable contradictions, China stands out in
the present planetary emergency in having a leadership that has advanced an
ambitious vision of ecological civilization with the strong support of the
Chinese population, incorporating this directly into its five-year plans.
Paraphrasing C. Wright Mills on Cuba (Listen, Yankee!), we
do not worry about China’s struggle to create an ecological civilization. We
worry with it.
ECONOMIC CONFLICT
“China 2020: An Introduction.” John Bellamy Foster in Monthly Review (10-7-20)
Trade
and tensions between the U.S. and China.
Mronline.org (8-4-20)
Why
America’s economic war on China is failing. Monthly
Review (10-8-20)
Trade and tensions between the U.S. and China. Mronline.org (8-4-20)
The Donald Trump administration uses every mechanism to cut
China out of the global supply chain, but nothing seems to be working as a
resolute China is unwilling to back down and dismantle its technological gains.
| more…
|
The end of engagement. Mronline.org (10-18-20)
In November of 1967, just months before
announcing his entrance into the 1968 presidential race, Richard Nixon outlined
in Foreign Affairs what would become a north star for Washington’s orientation
towards China
U.S.-China relations: Beijing slams State Department
report ‘concocted by Cold War fossils’. Mronline.org (11-26-20).
China has described a U.S. report on how
Washington should confront and contain Beijing as having been “concocted by
Cold War fossils” who are destined to be “swept into the garbage dump of
history”. | more…
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICT
Sinophobia Inc:
Understanding the anti-China Industrial complex. Mronline.org
(9-27-20).
Take a deep dive into the inner workings of Sinophobia Inc. to
learn how to see through the media machine. | more…
Qiao Collective on challenging U.S. aggression on
China, the role of the Western left.
Mronline.org (12-13-20).
On the domestic front, the U.S. propaganda
machine mostly works instead to position China as this great, menacing oriental
Other. We’ve seen this during the COVID-19 pandemic in Trump’s rhetoric about
the “China virus” and in Biden’s attempts at one-upmanship. | more…
TECH CONFLICT
Freedom Rider: TikTok and the War on China. Mronline.org (8-14-20)
Every
charge that Trump and his minions make against Chinese companies is true for US
corporations, which have been spying on Americans and the rest of the world for
decades. | more…
Corporate Media’s leaked Chinese documents confirm
China didn’t hide COVID-19. Mronline.org (1-24-21).
Several reports on China’s response to the COVID-19
pandemic came out late last year, based on what U.S. outlets like CNN, the New
York Times and ProPublica claimed to be leaked Chinese documents. Although
these reports implied that China was responsible for how bad the pandemic has
been because of its downplaying of numbers and […] | more…
With U.S.
support, Taiwan planted deception about warning World Health Org of COVID. Posted Jul 20, 2020 by Ajit Singh. Originally published: The Grayzone (July 17, 2020).
mronline.org
(7-21-20).
Viruses & imperialism.
Mronline.org (6-12-20).
Despite conspiracy theories, there is no
evidence whatsoever that the virus was manufactured in or escaped from a
laboratory, in China or anywhere else. Such accusations ignore how easy viral
transmission can be when other factors come into play. | more…
China tech
ban mirrors 1980s attempts to destroy Japanese
competition. mronline.org
(1-22-21).
In the 1980s, the U.S. imposed a 100% tariff on
virtually all Japanese electronics and forced Tokyo to sign a one-sided trade
deal that reserved much of its domestic semiconductor sector for American
companies. | more…
|
China is speeding up its plutonium recycling
programs. BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS. Nonproliferation
experts in the West are raising concerns about China's plutonium recycling
programs. Beijing needs to become more transparent, including a resumption of
timely reporting on its civilian stockpile. Read in the Bulletin magazine. |
MEDIA CONFLICT
Scientists on WHO mission to Wuhan accuse media of
biased reportage.
Mronline.org (2-17-21).
The U.S. government and many media outlets have queried WHO
findings that do not corroborate theories promoted by Washington, such as the
virus escaping from a Chinese laboratory. | more…
|
|
PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES TO CONFLICT
Webinar
& Statement – Launching Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy –
January 27
|
10:23
AM (4 hours ago) |
|
||
|
||||
Friends,
With my colleague Michael
Klare, I am excited to announce the launching of the Committee for a SANE
U.S.-China Policy. Our goal is to help
avert a new Cold War by promoting peaceful, mutually beneficial solutions to
divisive issues in U.S.-China relations.
[DIPLOMACY NOT WAR]
On Wednesday January 27th at
4:00 PM (EST), the Committee will host its FIRST WEBINAR: “Biden and
China: Challenges & Opportunities,” featuring Committee co-founder Michael
Klare, Rachel Esplin Odell of the Quincy Institute for Responsible
Statecraft, and Prof. Zhiqun Zhu of Bucknell University.
Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1Fyq2BB6Tg2QvqMHkImINg
That same day the
Committee will publicly launch our Statement that detailing the dangers of a
new Cold War and identifying steps that can be taken to avert it. Among
its original signers are Noam Chomsky, Catherine Lutz, Richard Falk, Adele
Simmons, Zia Mian, Barbara Wein, Daniel Ellsberg, Salih Booker, Michael Christ,
and Miriam Pemberton. A full list of original of signers and an opportunity
to add your name can be found on our web page, saneuschinapolicy.org
This site also contains
resources on divisive issues in U.S.-China relations, including Taiwan, the
South China Sea, trade and technology, the U.S.-China-Japan triangle, and
nuclear weapons and arms control.
Our Mission Statement
below gives a more complete description of our commitments.
Please join us in learning
about and working for a SANE U.S.-China policy.
Joseph
OUR MISSION
With information and
advocacy, the Committee for a SANE U.S. China Policy works to prevent
U.S.-Chinese military conflict, reduce the militarization of U.S.-Chinese
tensions, and encourage mutually beneficial diplomacy. We intend to show how forces
in both China and the United States are contributing to a dynamic of
ever-increasing mutual suspicion and hostility; likewise, we will emphasize the
need for cooperative efforts by both countries to overcome outstanding
differences, such as over Taiwan and the South China Sea. We further aim to
show that U.S.-China cooperation is essential to overcome such global
challenges as climate change and lethal pandemics.
Our initial goal is to
circulate our Statement widely and solicit additional signatures to it, from as
broad a cross-section of the population as possible. With funds collected from
those who sign, we plan to place the Statement in major journals and
newspapers.
We also seek to inform
debate and discussion on divisive issues in U.S.-China relations by
commissioning position papers on mutually beneficial, non-military solutions to
outstanding problems such as Taiwan, technology, arms control, and the South
China Sea, and publicize these as widely as possible – including via webinars,
public lectures and panels. In addition, we will urge members of Congress to
hold public hearings on these issues and encourage them to include
participation by those who advocate constructive, peaceful solutions. Wherever
possible, we hope to join with organizations in pursuing these activities.
We will also encourage
transnational dialogue on problem issues in U.S.-China relations involving
non-governmental experts from China, the United States, and other nations in
the Indo-Pacific region. In time, such “Track-2” diplomacy could be
supplemented by “Track 1.5” diplomacy, involving retired government officials
and others with links to those in power.
How to Derail
the U.S. Rush Toward War with China? Two Peace Activists Suggest An Answer
By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Jan 30, 2021
Two U.S. peace researchers, Michael T. Klare, professor emeritus
of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, and Joseph Gerson of
the American Friends Service Committee, have launched a new organization, the
Committee for a SANE U.S.-China policy that seeks to counter the U.S. drive to
war with China. At the launching webinar on […]
The post How to Derail the U.S. Rush Toward
War with China? Two Peace Activists Suggest An Answer appeared
first on CovertAction Magazine.
Katrina vanden Heuvel. “We
need a broad, transpartisan debate on how to engage with China before it’s too
late.” Washington Post (August 11, 2020 at 8:02 a.m. EDT).
The cold war with China is
on. In a bellicose speech last month,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo resuscitated the rhetoric of the 20th-century
Cold War: “If we want to have a free 21st century and not the Chinese century
of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China
simply won’t get it done,” he said. “The free world must triumph over this new
tyranny.”
The Trump administration’s
2017 National Security Strategy elevated
China and Russia to primary national security threats. It labeled China a
“revisionist” power that seeks “to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values
and interests” while “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”
There is transpartisan support for confrontation with China, but the United
States ought to consider alternatives to this posture before it is too late.
Not surprisingly in an
election involving President Trump, China posturing has been put to partisan
purpose. He has called Joe Biden’s political career a “gift to the Chinese Communist Party.”
(Meanwhile, Biden ads charge
that on trade and the novel coronavirus, Trump “didn’t get tough” with China but
that “he got played.”) Trump’s rhetoric manifests in
policy: a U.S.-China military buildup in the South China Sea; efforts to
“decouple” economic relations;
targeting Huawei, TikTok and WeChat; and
blaming Beijing for what the president has called the “China plague,” even
demanding that Beijing pay for damage inflicted by the coronavirus. Polls show
Americans increasingly consider China a threat.
Some tensions are
inevitable given the dynamics of one national power rising, while a
long-dominant superpower awakens to the constraints of economic decline and
costly overreach. U.S. trade relations with China, constructed by corporations
and other businesses eager to profit from cheap labor and lax consumer and
environmental protections, have not liberalized the Chinese Communist Party but
contributed to undermining U.S. industries and America’s working class. Under
Xi, China has asserted its growing power and confidence internally and
externally. See: Beijing’s repression of the Uighurs in
Xinjiang province, expansionist claims in
the South China Sea, and its stepped-up alternatives to
U.S.-dominated international institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank and the multifaceted Belt and Road Initiative.
Meanwhile, the United
States finds itself mired in endless conflicts abroad and burdened by international defense commitments,
increasingly decrepit infrastructure and eroded state capacity. Most worrying
about the anti-China foreign policy consensus is
not its anachronistic rhetoric or
inflation of the China threat but the triumphalism with which both the
Trump and Biden foreign
policy teams are pushing the narrative of a new cold war. MOREhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/11/we-need-broad-transpartisan-debate-how-engage-with-china-before-its-too-late/
Wage war
against the philosophy of war
Nov
06, 2020 by Vijay Prashad. The Tricontinental (November 5, 2020) | Imperialism , Marxism , State Repression , War Global Newswire China , coronavirus , COVID-19 , India , pandemic , Tricontinental
Newsletter
Dear
friends,
Greetings from the desk of
the Tricontinental: Institute for Social
Research.
In mid-October, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World
Economic Outlook report, which
offered some dizzying data. For 2020, the IMF estimates that the global Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) will decline by 4.4%, while in 2021 the global GDP will
rise by 5.2%. Stagnation and decline will define the economic activity in both
Europe and North America, as well as in large states such as Brazil and India.
With a second wave of coronavirus infections in Europe and with the first wave
not having been controlled in Brazil, India, and the United States, it appears
that these IMF estimates might sink further downwards.
Meanwhile, the data on China is quite astounding.
China will account for the absolute majority, namely 51%, of world growth.
Based on the IMF numbers, the other contributors to world growth will be mainly
Asian economies that have strong trading relations with China, namely South
Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia. In 2020, China’s
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) did not set any growth
targets due to the occurrence of the Great Lockdown. However, at the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of China, the NDRC head Ning Jizhe said that
targets would be set for 2021, although he reiterated that the growth targets
would not be merely towards GDP growth but towards ‘a steady improvement in
quality’, which means poverty alleviation. After the meeting, Yu Xuejun, deputy
head of the National Health Commission, said that
the ten million families who fell into poverty due to the coronavirus
disruptions have now been lifted out of poverty.
Given the
continued disruptions caused by the virus and the uncertainty about a vaccine, it would behove the countries of the world
to dial down tensions and expand collaborations. Exchange of information and
personnel to break the chain of the infection–organised by the World Health
Organisation–would enhance eroded public health systems. Yet, this is exactly
what the countries most impacted by the coronavirus–Brazil, India, and the
United States–refuse to do (and this is precisely what is being encouraged by
the socialist states such as China and Cuba).
MORE
https://mronline.org/2020/11/06/wage-war-against-the-philosophy-of-war/
Climate Crisis and Imperialism: The Unfair
Demonization of the East. Mronline.org (11-6-20).
Last week in the presidential debate, Donald
Trump said “Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India.
It’s filthy. The air is filthy,” when asked about his decision to pull out of
the Paris Climate Accord. | more…
ANNA FIFIELD. Chinese diplomat warns U.S. against pushing to ‘brink of a new Cold
War’ . The
Washington Post. 25 May 2020.
ZoomBookmarkSharePrintListenTranslate
The United States should
abandon its “wishful thinking about changing China” and stop pushing the two
countries “to the brink of a new Cold War,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
said Sunday, trying to position Beijing as the grown-up in an increasingly
fractious relationship.
As tensions between the
world’s two largest economies mount by the day, Wang used a news conference
during the annual piece of political theater known as the National People’s
Congress to send a direct message to Washington.
“China has no intention to
change, still less replace, the United States,” Wang said before a selected
group of journalists. “It’s time for the United States to give up its wishful
thinking of changing China and stopping 1.4 billion people in their historic
march toward modernization.”
In a nod toward President
Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who have repeatedly suggested that
the ruling Chinese Communist Party is a threat to the world, Wang said American
politicians “are taking China-u.s. relations hostage and pushing our two
countries to the brink of a new Cold War.”
“This dangerous attempt to
turn back the will of history will undo the fruits of decades-long China-u.s.
cooperation, dampen America’s own development prospects, and put world
stability and prosperity in jeopardy,” Wang said.
The Trump administration
labeled China a strategic “competitor” in its first national security strategy,
and Beijing and Washington have clashed over a wide array of issues, including
trade, technology, human rights and the status of Hong Kong.
Washington views China as
a malign force out to reshape the world in its image. Beijing says the United
States is trying to contain its ascent to its rightful place as a global
superpower.
The conflict has taken on
a new dimension with the emergence of the novel coronavirus in the Chinese city
of Wuhan. The Trump administration, reeling from more than 96,000 deaths in the
United States, is trying
to heap blame for the pandemic entirely on China’s Communist Party.
This includes, most
recently, a claim by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro that China “sent
hundreds of thousands” of people infected with the virus on planes to “seed”
the virus around the world. “They could have kept it in Wuhan, but instead, it
became a pandemic,” he told ABC News last week.
On Sunday, national security
adviser Robert C. O’brien blasted China for not being transparent about the
early spread of the disease.
“The coverup that they did
of the virus is going to go down in history along with Chernobyl,” O’brien said
on NBC’S “Meet the
Press.” He predicted the
United States would develop a coronavirus vaccine before China.
A spokesman for Wang has
suggested that American soldiers planted the virus in Wuhan during military
games that were held in the city in October.
Wang focused only on the
American theories Sunday. He said some U.S. politicians were trying to
“stigmatize China.”
“It’s most regrettable
that while coronavirus is still out there, a political virus is still spreading
in the United States and, jumping at any opportunity to attack and slander China,
some politicians ignore the basic facts and make up countless lies and
conspiracy theories concerning China,” he said.
The Global Times, a
newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, reported Sunday that China was
“considering punitive countermeasures” against some American politicians
leading the efforts to hold it accountable for the virus.
These included Eric
Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general who filed a lawsuit against China
seeking compensation for the pandemic, and lawmakers including Sens. Josh
Hawley (R-MO.) and Tom Cotton (R-ark.), the paper reported, citing anonymous “sources close to the
matter.”
At least four individuals
and two entities would be sanctioned by China, according to the paper, which
often reflects the foreign policy thinking of the party.
Xinjiang: A report and resource
compilation. Mronline.org (10-11-20).
In the mid-2010s, China launched far-reaching
de-radicalization and economic development programs in Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region. more… https://www.qiaocollective.com/en/education/xinjiang
US COLD WAR AGAINST CHINA #2, May 30, 2020 http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2020/05/omni-china-newsletter-2-may-30-2020.html
Is
This Our Leaders’ Anti-China Problem? China’s Success Toward an Ecological
Civilization.
VIOLENT
WAR
UN
vs. Threat or Use of Armed Force (see the final selection below).
Immense
Gap Between US and Chinese Military in Africa.
ECONOMIC
WAR
Shubert, Blaming
China.
NATO
and Neoliberalism.
TECH
WAR
Huawei.
Artificial
Intelligence.
Chinese
Aerospace Development.
PSYCHOLOGICAL
WAR
Pentagon
Success.
POLITICAL
WAR: COVID-19
US
Conspiracy Mongering.
China’s
Successful Campaign for the World.
Early
Weeks of Pandemic: China Warns World.
US
v UN Effort for Global Ceasefire.
MEDIA
WAR
Shupak,
US Corporate Media Spreads Cold War.
Parodies
by Dick
NADG
Reports Reframed.
China
in Gulf of Mexico.
China
in Caribbean.
US
Nationalism, Covid-19, China, and the ADG by DB.
Memory:
1999 US Bombs Chinese Embassy by William Blum.
US has been at war against the Reds a
long time.
END COLD WAR
V. CHINA NEWSLETTER #3, 2021
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