6th Sep 2022

America's War on China

China does not want a war with the US. The US, however, is continually provoking China by using Taiwan as its scapegoat. The US Navy announced that two warships will be traveling through the Taiwan Strait. The reasoning? The military aims to demonstrate freedom of movement through international waters. In other words, they deliberately want to anger China.

APNews: Malaysia’s Mahathir says...

"U.S. Seeking To Provoke War In Taiwan" 

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused the U.S. of trying to provoke a war in Taiwan.

“China has allowed Taiwan to remain by itself. No problem. They didn’t invade. If they wanted to invade, they could have invaded. They didn’t. But America is provoking (them) so that there can be a war, so that the Chinese will make the mistake of trying to occupy Taiwan,” the 97-year-old Mahathir said. 

Nancy Pelosi began the subtle attack on China when she visited Taiwan and disregarded warnings from every intelligence agency. China repeatedly warned America not to interfere in its One China policy. Yet, Pelosi said she wants Taiwan to liberate Taiwan.

“We take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy,” Pelosi said. “We cannot stand by as the CCP proceeds to threaten Taiwan — and democracy itself,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Our congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom.”

ArmstrongEconomics: Our models warn that geopolitical tensions will rise going into 2023. China is selling off US debt, which is another sign of coming geopolitical problems.

Bribed by the US, Taiwan is beginning to provoke China and its One China policy. The Ministry of National Defense (MND) has reported that they will begin to shoot down Chinese drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

The MND said that it plans to invest in anti-drone defense systems over the next four years to the tune of $141 million. There have been 23 drone spottings in Taiwan since Pelosi’s reckless visit. It should be worth noting that Taiwan donated 800 carpet bomber drones and 860 combat drones to Ukraine to combat Russia.

Taiwan Shoots Down Chinese Drone, Warns Of Counterattack If China Intrudes Into Territorial Waters

IBTimes: In the first such incident, Taiwan on Thursday shot down a civilian drone over the waters of Lion Islet island in the Kinmen area that lies just a few kilometers from mainland China. The action by Taiwanese forces comes after Taipei warned it would counterattack if China intrudes into the country's territorial waters and is expected to ratchet up tensions across the strait.

Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang on Friday called the response "appropriate" and said China should exercise restraint.

Taiwanese troops fired on three Chinese drones that intruded over three different islands in Kinmen County, a day after they fired warning shots at Chinese drones over Dadan, Erdan and Shi Islet islands.

U.S. angers China with potential $1.1 billion arms sale to Taiwan 

Reuters: The U.S. State Department has approved a potential $1.1 billion sale of military equipment to Taiwan, including 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, with China threatening to take counter measures.

The sale includes Sidewinder missiles, which can be used for air-to-air and surface-attack missions, at a cost of some $85.6 million, Harpoon anti-ship missiles at an estimated $355 million cost and support for Taiwan's surveillance radar program for an estimated $665.4 million, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said.

Media Ignores Aggressive U.S. Maritime Action in South China Sea 

CovertAction: There been almost no coverage of U.S.-led naval maritime exercises in the South China Sea at the same time multi-millionaire Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was visiting Taiwan.

Consider what is being said, as well as what is totally omitted, in the U.S. coverage of China’s naval action around Taiwan.

The U.S. naval command RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific Amphibious Assault Training) was carrying out maneuvers involving 170 aircraft, 38 ships, 4 submarines, and 25,000 military personnel from all the G7 countries.

Some 19 other Asia Pacific countries were pulled in for symbolic participation. RIMPAC is the world’s largest international maritime exercise.

This aggressive maritime action took place from June 29 to August 4. In other words, it was going on as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was visiting Taiwan. 

The shaping of information is all-pervasive. Whether it is FOX News, CNN, AP, The New York Times or The Washington Post, the multibillion-dollar media are part of and totally intertwined with U.S. military industries.

They collaborate in hiding U.S. war plans and provocations.

They also neglect the history which suggests that the U.S. has never had the best interests of the Taiwanese people at heart.

The U.S. government has never been a protector of Taiwan. The U.S. Navy was the first country to attack Taiwan with a warship in 1867. The U.S. Navy supported Japan in invading Taiwan in 1874. The U.S. government sold weapons to Japan during the Sino-Japanese War, leading to China’s defeat and forcing China to cede Taiwan to Japan in 1895. 

There is only one accepted political line. The media repeat that China is irrational, paranoid, belligerent, menacing and overreacting.

U.S. actions, even military maneuvers in which thousands of troops employ jet bombers and aircraft carriers, are described as “routine rotations” or normal schedules—that is, if the mainstream media report on them at all.

The Chinese media are always described as state-controlled propaganda. By comparison, the U.S. corporate media are always defined as free and democratic.

Moving into place as Pelosi visited Taiwan was the even larger U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, the largest of its forward-deployed fleets. At any given time, it amounts to 50 to 70 ships and submarines, 150 aircraft, and more than 27,000 sailors and Marines.

The Seventh Fleet is led by the USS Ronald Reagan, accompanied by guided-missile destroyers, nuclear submarines and jet aircraft. This ship has now been joined by aircraft carrier battle groups of the USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt. 

It is comparable to a scenario in which Chinese destroyers were to sail into the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of New Orleans and Houston.

According to the Navy Times, China’s foreign ministry protested: “The U.S. military’s actions have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined peace and stability in the South China Sea, and seriously violated international law and norms governing international relations.” 

“Freedom of Navigation” is similar to the grand term “Free Trade.” It is not about freedom. Freedom of Navigation has meant unrestricted U.S., British, French and Japanese access to the looting of China.

Britain, with U.S. and French participation, fought two Opium Wars in China to enforce its “right” to sell opium. The merchants called this “defending free trade” and “protecting freedom of navigation.” 

Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, an English rock band formed in London in 1965, is now on a final U.S. tour titled: “This is not a drill.” In an interview with CNN on August 7, Waters refuted the narrative about Taiwan.

When CNN host Michael Smerconish said in the interview that “China is too busy encircling Taiwan,” Waters immediately said, “They’re not encircling Taiwan, Taiwan is part of China, and that’s been absolutely accepted by the whole of the international community since 1948.”

U.S.’s strategy of restructuring and distorting the global economy to serve its own short-term interests of maximizing immediate profits has led to an aggressive U.S. expansion of NATO and provocations in Ukraine. READ MORE: Joe Biden Rides a Green Horse and Harris is Following with him

The immediate threat to U.S. hegemony was the EU trade with Russia of $260 billion a year—10 times its trade with the U.S. The EU has also been the largest investor in Russia.

Breaking this growing economic integration of the EU with Russia, and at an even greater level with China, serves the long-term strategic interests of U.S. corporate domination that have been in place since World War II. 

RAND’s ‘Unthinkable’ war with China

AsiaTimes: A new study by the RAND Corporation for US Army presents questionable assumptions while examining a possible long and severe or short US-China war. In a sinister way,it focuses on the military and economic losses and costs and ignores the tragic impact of such a conflict on the people of these two nations and even those beyond. The study assumesthewar won’t involve other powers, would remain confined to East Asia and no nuclear weapons would be used. It only proves that Pentagon is planning and preparing for a war with China.

RAND recently issued a report on war with China, Thinking the Unthinkable.

Unsurprisingly, all of RAND’s scenarios are pretty sunny, for the simple reason that, with nukes out of the picture, conventional war will be fought and won over the Chinese homeland while the closest US civilians will come to the conflict will be Wolf Blitzer and CNN.

Bear in mind that Mao Zedong rolled the dice against the US in regional conflicts during the Korean and Vietnam War period, when the apparent disparity of forces was a lot greater. That’s the precedent and legacy Xi Jinping will be trying to live up to.

But more importantly, bear in mind that the PRC is a rather shaky multi-ethnic regime and it is not interested in a conventional war probably accompanied by Taiwan independence, the secession of Hong Kong, and insurrection, West-aided or not, in Tibet and Xinjiang.

Therefore, the PRC may find it necessary to threaten escalation to Armageddon to deter the possibility of a “limited” “conventional” US attack that would pose an existential threat to the regime as surely as a nuclear fusillade.

Tactical nuclear war is clearly on the Air Force agenda, not just in its choice of armaments but also in its choice of doctrine. Apparently there is a “nuclear use” war-fighting phase which is, somehow, not “nuclear war,” and that is the sweet spot in which the tactical nukes would be used without, at least in the mind of the Air Force, triggering a strategic launch against the US.

The Federation of American Scientists provided a useful analysis of the Pentagon’s tilt toward nuclear use as a regional deterrent i.e. not just for homeland-to-homeland mutual assured destruction scenarios. I would speculate that these scenarios involve threatening the PRC with nuclear devastation if it threatens a nuclear attack on Japan.

And I wonder what they were smoking in RAND-land, when it came to reassurance for Taiwan and Japan. 

NationalInterest: Meanwhile, in July 2021, an official Chinese Communist Party video channel with close ties to the People’s Liberation Army posted a propaganda video in which it threatened:

"When we liberate Taiwan, if Japan dares to intervene by force, even if it deploys only one soldier, one plane and one ship … we will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time … We’ll join forces with Russia and North Korea. Three arrows (countries) shoot together to hit the Japanese mainland thoroughly and in full depth."

If the United States continues its high-risk policy of military brinkmanship with Russia and China, the outcome, however unthinkable, might be an Armageddon that results in the end of our nation.

Biden Administration Continues Trump’s Trade Wars with China 

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai is expected to begin talking with Chinese counterparts in the near future, according to the Administration officials. They said, “Our objective is not to escalate trade tensions or double down on the previous administration’s flawed strategy. [But] we have to have a strategy that deals with China as it is, rather than as we wish it to be.”

The officials said “all options are on the table” for President Joe Biden, including further tariffs on China.

The Trump Administration slapped tariffs on about $350 billion of Chinese-made goods, almost all of Beijing’s exports to the US. To date, American importers have paid more than $106 billion in duties. The average rate of the levy is 19% — more than six times higher than in 2018.

China-US decoupling gushes out

Against the backdrop of escalating US-China tensions, five of China’s biggest state-owned companies announced their intent to delist from the New York Stock Exchange – PetroChina Co Ltd, China Life Insurance Co, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, Aluminum Corp of China and Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co, which represent more than US$300 billion in market cap.

At work here primarily is greater scrutiny of Chinese companies listed in the United States that the American regulators are insisting on since the congressional legislation passed in 2020 during former president Donald Trump’s administration in this direction.

Interestingly, the 2020 US legislation also includes a push to delist US-listed companies by changing audit rules. The US Securities and Exchange Commission had put 159 Chinese concept stock companies (companies that operate in China) on its delisting watch list as of the end of July.

Meanwhile, the Taiwan situation looms large. In the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei on August 2-3, Chinese commentaries have threatened “serious wide-ranging implications for bilateral ties, including in economic fields” – citing for example the decision by China’s leading electric-vehicle battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co to put on hold its plans to announce a multibillion-dollar plant in North America.

Kurt Campbell, the coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in US President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, said we will continue to fly, sail and operate where international law allows, consistent with our long-standing commitment to freedom of navigation, and that includes conducting standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks.”

“Color Revolution” in Hong Kong and U.S. “Hybrid War” against China 

The US is the only country in the present-day world that has carried out “hybrid wars” and is capable of creating “color revolutions.” For many years, the US has been openly waging a “hybrid war” against Russia. The most important point in the National Security Strategy published by the Trump administration at the end of 2017 is designating both China as well as Russia as “revisionist power[s]” that “challenge US power, influences and interests.” This once again confirms an undeniable reality: the US is already engaging in a “hybrid war” against China.

Canada arrests Huawei exec at US request, extradition seen

FOXNews: Canadian authorities arrested the chief financial officer of Huawei at the request of the U.S., which is investigating whether the telecommunications giant violated U.S. trade sanctions. A bail hearing for Meng Wanzhou was set for Friday, according to the Vancouver Sun.

ChinaUSFocus: What happened in Hong Kong was a textbook case of a “color revolution,” behind which the United States government provided support through organizational and planning assistance — all of which is self-evident. 

QiaoCollective: If twenty years ago someone had predicted a color revolution in Hong Kong, most political analysts would have laughed. Not because color revolutions are laughable — their tragic consequences can hardly be laughed off — but because they tend to occur in target states with weak governance at the periphery of transnational networks. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is one of the top 3 global financial hubs, following New York and London, and right at the centre of those networks.

Though Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, didn’t apparently fit the profile of a weak target ripe for regime change, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and other notorious sponsors of color revolutions had already set their eyes on the territory even before 1997, when its sovereignty returned to China. As China’s economic growth rates made the headlines in the 1990s, “China’s threat” arguments started to appear in the U.S. mainstream media and foreign affairs analysts began to cast China as the “new red peril”, a potential challenge to the U.S.’ global supremacy.

The US has a wealth of experience in conducting political attacks against other countries. In May 2010, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis published an academic thesis by New York University economist Daniel Berger and Harvard University economist Nathan Nunn, among others, titled “Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade During the Cold War.” According to the article, during the Cold War (1947-1989), at least 50 countries in the world had suffered political intervention by the CIA — the successful coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954) and Chile (1973) that are often discussed were just the best known ones. The techniques of CIA political intervention operations were extremely extensive, including: selecting, training, supporting, and changing leaders of foreign countries; providing pro-US regimes with secret support; providing funds and special expertise for domestic political movements in other countries; and financing various secret organizations and student groups, the purpose of which was to seek strategic advantage and commercial interests.

In 1989, near the end of the Cold War, the US Marine Corps Gazette published a signed article by William Lind, which assumed the next generation of wars — or “fourth-generation wars” — will be “more fluid, decentralized, and asymmetrical.” Tactics such as psychological operations using the mainstream media to conduct information intervention will become important means of war, and “television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions.” The spread of large-scale anti-government movements will result in the blurring of the line between “civilians” and “troops.”

Agents of Chaos: The U.S. Seeded a Color Revolution in Hong Kong 

Recent US interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela, and Iran all used the “hybrid war” theory. It was through these new facts that scholars in other countries have come to better understand the US theory of “hybrid war,” including “color revolution” strategies.

The essential theory of “color revolution” originated from US author Edwards Bernays’ 1928 book “Propaganda,” which for the first time put forward the idea of “social psychology control.” The US business community is very familiar with the book, as it is also a classical theoretical work for modern marketing techniques. “Color revolution” is peculiar in that, with the intervention of state apparatus, it may give social psychology control the power to be used as an instrument.

Although two decades ago the trade war hadn’t broken out yet, anyone looking at the bigger, geopolitical picture could see black clouds gathering.

Anyone familiar with color revolutions would have recognized the pattern that was already emerging in campaigns aimed at discrediting both the central and Hong Kong government. The process of ideological subversion is always underpinned by a slow penetration into the institutions of a target country, fractious opposition parties magically form a united front, a small army of local volunteers and foreign agents co-operate to promote what is touted as ‘civic action’, a network of foundations and NGOs mushrooms to receive millions of dollars, new media outlets appear.

The ideological seeds of color revolutions are sown long before anti-government movements organize mass demonstrations and engage in violent confrontations with the police.

In order to understand U.S.-sponsored regime-change we should acknowledge culture and theory as crucial weapons in the overall arsenal deployed to perpetuate U.S. interests around the world and conceive a cultural defense system capable of identifying danger and neutralizing it. Letting a foreign power occupy the field of cultural production, dominate public discourse, and frame the narrative is tantamount to giving a burglar in your home a guest pass. And that is exactly what the Hong Kong government did for over twenty years. 

2014 Umbrella Movement and 2019 Riots that Rocked Hong Kong 

It’s not a mere coincidence that in 1980s the CIA took a keen interest in French postmodernism and deemed it the best defense against Marxism. After all, a narrative that questions the distinction between facts and opinions, truth and fiction and regards reason with skepticism perfectly suits the interests of a country that successfully peddles fiction to the farthest reaches of the world thanks to its education, media and entertainment industries. The absurd and yet convincing portrayal of the U.S. as a bastion of freedom, democracy and human rights is testament to the power of these industries.

Most worryingly, these concepts serve as empty containers, which can be filled with any content deemed useful to disguise U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. began laying the brickwork for a color revolution in Hong Kong even before the 1997 handover: NED funding for Hong Kong-based groups dates back to 1994 and was described as “consistent” by Louisa Greve, who was vice president of programs for Asia, the Middle East and North Africa until 2017. Its first strategic objective was to prevent the enactment of a national security law (Article 23) in Hong Kong, as this would effectively make the activities of NED and other foreign-funded organizations illegal.

So, why did so many people take to the streets to oppose Article 23, even if it had no impact on their lives, didn’t infringe on their freedom of expression and assembly? Why did the legal sector, including the Bar Association and Law professors, so vehemently denounced a law that is standard in many jurisdictions, including the most liberal and democratic societies?

How could the Civil Human Rights Front, a coalition of NGOs, Christian churches, Trotskyites, small labour unions and opposition parties mobilize hundreds of thousands of people against Article 23? What was the glue that held these disparate groups together?

An irrational fear of China and distrust of its government and institutions might have been contributing factors, as they largely frame the mainstream media narrative about China, but the anti-China sentiment that was cultivated in colonial times could only remain dominant in political, judicial and cultural circles after 1997 thanks to the laissez faire approach of local authorities and the relentless efforts of foreign agents and fifth columnists. Their task was to scupper the One Country Two Systems governance model and contrast any rise of patriotic feelings towards China. If the One Country Two Systems model failed in Hong Kong, the U.S. would also achieve another strategic goal at no cost, because Taiwan wouldn’t be tempted to adopt it in the future.

U.S.-sponsored Color Revolutions

PopularResistance: An NGO called Human Rights in China, was mainly funded by NED and Soros’ Open Society Institute. A Trotskyite ragtag collective called April Fifth Action Group was generally dismissed as a bunch of politically marginal, ridiculous characters better-known for posturing and shouting nonsense into their loudspeakers than their ability to get their point across in a coherent manner. Both groups and the various Christian ones were among the founders of the Civil Human Rights Front, the coalition of NGOs, civic and religious groups, pro-democracy parties that in 2003 mobilized half a million people against Article 23 of the Basic Law. Such a large-scale demonstration, unusual for Hong Kong, was a swarm response to a threat that had been carefully manufactured and amplified by the anti-China forces that formed this front. By now we know that the National Endowment for Democracy, through the Solidarity Center (SC) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) between 1995 and 2013, injected more than $1.9 million into the coffers of this coalition. 

Facts no longer matter, emotion is everything. The swarm pods are no different from an echo-chamber and where they create clusters rational debate becomes impossible.

Le Monde Diplomatique reported in 2008: “The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was created in 1983, ostensibly as a non-profit-making organization to promote human rights and democracy. In 1991 its first president, the historian Allen Weinstein, confessed to The Washington Post: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” 

Through its four core organizations: the American Center for International Labour Solidarity led by the AFL-CIO now known as the Solidarity Center, the Center for International Private Enterprise, led by the US Chamber of Commerce; the National Republican Institute; and the National Democratic Institute, led by leaders of the two big business parties, NED has developed a much more sophisticated regime change operation. NED invests in non-governmental organizations, youth leaders and media to gradually build opposition to the target government. 

Their mission is disruptively subverting democracy and instigating regime change through labor strikes, mass street protests, major media agitprop, and whatever else it takes short of military conflict.

Hong Kong democracy activists were caught on camera meeting with Julie Eadeh the political unit chief of US Consulate General in Hong Kong during the protests.

Exposing the identity of Eadeh greatly upset the United States and resulted in the US calling China a “thuggish regime” for identifying her. Protesters did not understand the concerns they said, since they had met with US officials in DC. Eadeh has been engaged in diplomatic missions across the globe, including “hot spots” from Baghdad to Beirut to Jerusalem to Taipei and Shanghai during her lengthy career with the US State Department.

These protests also seem to be using tactics we have seen in US regime change operations in Ukraine, Venezuela and Nicaragua in recent years. The protests become violent — attack authorities or bystanders — seeking to get the police to respond with violence to video the police and claim they are being violent against protesters.

China’s emergence as a world power threatens Washington’s aim to control other countries, their resources and populations worldwide.

Controlling resource-rich Eurasia, that includes the Middle East, along with Venezuelan world’s largest oil reserves, is a key US aim.

Cyberwar today is what blitzkrieg was to 20th century warfare, involving “irregular modes of conflict, including terror, crime, and militant social activism.”

US war on China by other means aims to marginalize, weaken, contain, and isolate the country — because of its sovereign independence, unwillingness to bend to US interests, and its growing political, economic, financial, and military development.

China has held a consistent, well-understood position on its sovereignty and territorial integrity that is recognized internationally in all world bodies.

Washington is openly violating three different signed agreements—Joint Communiques it made with China in 1972, 1979 and 1982—affirming that China is one country and Taiwan is a province of China. 

The U.S. has broken its promises not to interrupt China’s efforts to reunify the island peacefully.

Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

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