Cold War II

[Freegrass]

Watch the south china sea!



BOOM!

Who's allowing him to do this verbal attack on China?
This was prepared...

[Freegrass]

And MSNBC just ignores this shit?

Yes, it is a Trump diversion, but FUCKIN' HELL MAN!!!!!
THIS WAS SERIOUS SHIT FROM AN AMERICANNOT PRESIDENT!!!!!

No global power change in history has occurred without a major conflict...

So here we go...

This isn't just a diversion people!!!
THIS WAS A PREPARED SPEECH!!!!
This was not Trump lunacy!
It's American lunacy!!!!

OMG!!!
Racism is the diversion... 

[Freegrass]

Watch the South China Sea!
WE'RE GOING TO WAR!!!

[Freegrass]

Look at his face! You can see he's enjoying it... He knows what's coming...

And on MSNBC they are completely silent about it...

This was not Trump!
This was POTUS!

[blumenkraft]

Not worth the watch IMHO.

But here is a meme for y'all.

[Freegrass]

Not worth the watch IMHO.

But here is a meme for y'all.

So you're trapped in the diversion?

[blumenkraft]

I don't know what you mean, FG.

This is just another 10 minutes of Trump talking bullshit. It's boring, cringy, and listening to him makes me sick.

[Freegrass]

I'm watching it again, and he said he's breaking ties with Hong Kong. Do you have any idea what that means? This is serious shit dude! This speech will be shown to kids many years from now...

[Freegrass]

Our actions will be strong, our actions will be "meaningful" he says at one point about Hong Kong. That means "we're gonna kick your fukin' ass China!" But in a way like a real POTUS would say it...

Don't get distracted by the idiot in chief dude!
It's his job to distract!!! 

[gerontocrat]

Nothing there to say here cometh the hot war, but yes, plenty to say the chill in the air is more pronounced - the inevitable cold war approaches.

[Freegrass]

It looks like it's already started...

The US Navy once again challenged Chinese claims in the South China Sea Thursday, sailing the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Mustin near the Paracel Islands.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/28/politics/us-navy-south-china-sea/index.html

[Freegrass]

US warship challenges restrictions near disputed islands in South China Sea

WASHINGTON — The guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin conducted a freedom-of-navigation operation in the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea on Thursday to challenge restrictions set by three nearby countries, according to the Navy.

The Mustin was challenging claims by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam that require military vessels to seek permission or provide advanced notification to travel through the territorial sea under “innocent passage," Cmdr. Reann Mommsen, a spokeswoman for 7th Fleet, said in a statement.

China claims sovereignty over the Paracel Islands and has occupied them since 1974, according to the CIA World Factbook. However, ownership of the islands is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. China has set up military facilities on the islands, such as airfields and outposts, which has raised alarms from the United States about the growing militarization of the region.

The Navy said innocent passage is a right under international law and prior notification is not required.

“By engaging in innocent passage without giving prior notification to or asking permission from any of the claimants, the United States challenged the unlawful restrictions imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam,” Mommsen said in the statement. “The United States demonstrated that innocent passage may not be subject to such restrictions.”

Ships in the 7th Fleet area of operations regularly conduct freedom-of-navigation and presence operations in the South China Sea. The shipping routes in the region are vital to global commerce and an estimated $3.4 trillion in trade passed through the South China Sea in 2016, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

The Pentagon's 2018 National Defense Strategy has shifted the military’s focus from counterterrorism operations to “great power competition” with China and Russia. The economic policies of China and its militarization of the South China Sea and Russia’s efforts to undermine NATO and its nuclear arsenal are major concerns for the U.S. military, according to the National Defense Strategy.

The Mustin was also challenging China’s claim of “straight baselines” around the Paracel Islands, which gives them claim to more water and zoning than they are entitled to under international law, according to the statement.

The U.N.’s 1982 Law of the Sea states that territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles or 13.8 miles from the baseline or land of a coastal state.

https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/us-warship-challenges-restrictions-near-disputed-islands-in-south-china-sea-1.631621

[Freegrass]

And while all this is happening in the South China Sea, MSNBC finds it necessary to put that clip on a loop for 2 days in a row now - where we see one black man die horribly and unjust - when most of the 100.000 Americans who already died from corona were also mostly colored...

You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time!

[Freegrass]

Watching "The Five" on Fucks News now, and when MSNBC and FNC agree, WATCH OUT!

What don't they want us to talk about?

[vox_mundi]

Watch the South China Sea!
WE'RE GOING TO WAR!!!

... Ships in the 7th Fleet area of operations regularly conduct freedom-of-navigation and presence operations in the South China Sea.

We visit there every month. It's routine Kabuki theater.

May 1, 2020 “This week the United States conducted two successful freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/us-china-step-activities-south-china-sea-amid-covid-19-pandemic

USS Montgomery and Cesar Chavez represent the third time the U.S. Navy visited West Capella, Poling said. Gabrielle Giffords operated near West Cappella a week earlier. In late April, guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG-52) sailed with the Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Parramatta (FFG-154) before joining the amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA-6) and guided-missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG-52) to conduct combined exercises in the area.

---------------------

South China Sea: US Littoral Combat Ship Conducts Freedom of Navigation Operation
https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/south-china-sea-us-littoral-combat-ship-conducts-freedom-of-navigation-operation/

On January 25, a U.S. Navy warship carried out a freedom of navigation operation near a feature occupied by China in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The operation was carried out by USS Montgomery, an Independence-class littoral combat ship.

In 2019, the U.S. Navy conducted at least eight FONOPs that were publicly reported. Not all such operations have been reported

[Freegrass]

We visit there every month. It's routine Kabuki theater.

True... But have you ever heard a POTUS say he's breaking ties with Hong Kong?

The consequences of these words are ginormous! And should not be underestimated...

[Freegrass]

Not a single question about breaking ties with Hong Kong... Are all these reporters idiots?

[Freegrass]

I just went through four and a half hours of CNN after the speech, and besides 2 minutes right after Trump's Hong Kong speech, nothing about China on CNN...


So CNN, MSNBC, and Fucks news are all in unison that the wrongful death of one black man is the headline for the coming days. There was a pathetic interview with the second worst democratic presidential candidate in US history, but also he never mentioned the fact that COVID-19 was more deadly for black people than police... (debatable)

This shit is bad! Can you see it? Or is it just me?

[Freegrass]

Why US-China military confrontation risk is highest in the South China Sea

The US and China have danced around each other for years in the South China Sea, which is a key thoroughfare for global shipping and trade.

PHILIP J. HEIJMANS 28 May, 2020

Singapore: As China and the U.S. trade barbs over everything from trade to Covid-19 to Hong Kong, the two powers are at greater risk of careering into physical confrontation. And nowhere are their warships and fighter jets coming as close to each other, with as much frequency, as the South China Sea.

A military conflict would probably be devastating for both. There are no signs that either side actually wants one. Still, in times of high tension, miscalculations can have unintended consequences.

In the first four months of the year the U.S. Navy conducted four freedom of navigation operations, known as FONOPS, in the South China Sea, which is criss-crossed by competing claims by nations including China, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia. That puts it on track to surpass last year’s total of eight. At the same time, as China emerged from the worst of the coronavirus outbreak, its Navy steamed back out of port in Hainan and resumed drills in the area.

It’s a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between the militaries of two countries with a history of near-misses. With President Donald Trump months from an election, and President Xi Jinping rattling nationalistic cages at home to distract from a wounded economy, the mood is less conducive to the careful diplomacy needed to defuse a standoff at sea. Xi used an address Tuesday to delegates at the National People’s Congress in Beijing to again warn the military to strengthen war preparations.

“While a premeditated armed conflict between China and the U.S. is a remote possibility, we see their military assets operating in greater regularity and at higher intensity in the same maritime domain,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “The interactions of these rival assets in the area would create chances of miscalculation and misjudgment leading to inadvertent or accidental use of force, which is thus potentially incendiary and could result in escalation. This is a risk we can’t discount.”

The U.S. and China have been dancing around each other in the South China Sea for years. While the U.S. is not a territorial claimant, the waters are a key thoroughfare for global shipping and trade, rich in fish and with large but mostly unproven energy deposits. The U.S. has supported some smaller states against China’s increased military presence in the area, including its move to build airstrips and land strategic hardware on rocky outcrops and low-lying reefs. Beijing has also in recent times deployed coast-guard vessels decked out with the same level of armory as a standard navy ship to escort its fishing fleets.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper spoke in December of his intention to prioritize the deployment of U.S. forces to the Asia-Pacific region from other areas in the face of growing competition with China. Covid-19 saw exercises scaled down or canceled and the sidelining of aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt in Guam after hundreds of crew members tested positive for the disease (it has now returned to sea). Still, there remain flashpoints.

Deputy assistant secretary of defense for Southeast Asia, Reed Werner, last week warned of a “very worrisome” trendline during an interview with Fox News, accusing China of the “harassment” of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer U.S.S. Mustin while it patrolled the South China Sea. He also cited at least nine instances of Chinese fighter jets doing the same to U.S. reconnaissance aircraft.

In an effort to bolster its defense capacity in airspace over the disputed waters, China’s Defense Ministry has said it would formally declare an air defense identification zone after years of attempting — mostly unsuccessfully — to force planes from other nations flying in the area to change their course. I’s unclear, though, when this might actually happen.

The U.S. Navy also recently engaged in a standoff with Chinese vessels after twice sending warships on presence operations off the coast of Malaysia, where Chinese ships were shadowing a Malaysian state-contracted drill ship exploring two potentially lucrative energy blocks claimed by both countries. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Bill Merz said in a statement in mid-May that the U.S. had done so in support of “allies and partners in the lawful pursuit of their economic interests.”

China’s foreign ministry said at the time its survey ship was “conducting normal activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction” and called the situation “basically stable.” On Sunday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused “non-regional countries” of “flexing their muscles” in an effort to sow discord between China and Southeast Asian nations.

Security experts familiar with the Malaysian government’s thinking said officials in Kuala Lumpur expressed concern to the U.S. that its presence would only serve to escalate the matter. A spokeswoman for Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment. The U.S. was “clearly sending a signal,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

#USSGabrielleGiffords operated in the southern South China Sea near the drillship #WestCapella on Tuesday, the second time in the past week a #USNavy LCS patrolled there supporting freedom of navigation and overflight: https://t.co/Z68nypCuFP #FreeAndOpenIndoPacific pic.twitter.com/PJ3XDMjtqK

The U.S. Air Force sent two B-1B Lancers on a more than 30-hour round-trip sortie from South Dakota to conduct operations over the South China Sea on April 29, even as it reportedly ended its longtime practice of maintaining a continuous bomber presence in Guam. In an emailed statement, the Air Force said it had “transitioned” to an approach that lets bombers take off from a broader array of overseas locations, making them “operationally unpredictable.”

“I think part of the uptick in U.S. military operations is to make sure that the Chinese don’t miscalculate and think that the United States is unprepared because of the fact that the Theodore Roosevelt has been out of commission sitting in Guam,” said Glaser. “But I also think that it is in response to the increased op-temp by the Chinese.”

There are mechanisms in place to avoid a mishap between the Chinese and U.S. Navy. China, the U.S. and 19 other countries have joined a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea with a standardized protocol of safety procedures. U.S. Navy officials have said they’ve been communicating more closely with the People’s Liberation Army, and that CUES is working.

Still, it does not cover the coast guard or fishing militias, which are increasingly used by China to assert its claims to more than 80% of the South China Sea.

The “problem is that the incidents we observe in the region aren’t ‘unplanned’ — in the lead up to these close encounters the rival naval forces at sea already knew each other to be present and they shadow and monitor each other underway, at visual range,” said Koh from the RSIS in Singapore.

There have been tense moments before. In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. surveillance plane in international airspace, forcing the U.S. aircraft to make an emergency landing in China and the Chinese jet to crash. In 2016, a Chinese naval ship seized a U.S. Navy underwater research drone in international waters, prompting Trump to accuse China of theft. It was later returned.

Most recently, China’s Defense Ministry said its navy followed and expelled a U.S. guided missile destroyer on April 28, saying it had violated Chinese territory. Under Xi’s watch China has refocused its military from land-based troops to air and sea capability. It commissioned more than two dozen new ships in 2016 and 2017, and said last October the development of a second home-made aircraft carrier was making “steady progress” after floating its first in 2017. In just 15 years, China has doubled its supply of launchers and built weapons that have extended the reach of its conventional warheads to cover most of America’s Western Pacific bases.

“I do worry about this situation,” said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “The U.S.-China relationship is in free fall now, pushed by the hardliners from both sides. No doubt, the new Cold War between the two is escalating, and now people begin to worry about the possibility of a hot war, a regional one.”

“Even worse, there is no force to cool them down,” he said. “Nations in Southeast Asia are too small compared to the two great powers.”

The renewed tensions put those smaller Southeast Asian states in a tight spot. Singapore, while not a South China Sea claimant, has long warned against forcing countries to choose a side.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told Vietnam’s National Assembly on May 20 the situation in the South China Sea was becoming “more complicated.” Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported this month that Beijing would “strictly enforce” an annual fishing ban that started on May 1, prompting Vietnam to reject what it called a “unilateral decision.” The Philippines meanwhile has filed diplomatic protests against China’s creation of two new districts in an attempt to administer islands in the waters, its top envoy said.

“Southeast Asia finds itself increasingly in a hardened new Cold War,” said Paul Chambers, special adviser on international affairs at Naresuan University’s Center of Asean Community Studies in Thailand. “The tip of that iceberg is the South China Sea.”- Bloomberg

[Freegrass]

World cannot ignore Chinese aggression in South China Sea
Beijing has been pressuring neighbors and building up fleet strength

James Stavridis
May 30, 2020 08:00 JST

Admiral James Stavridis was 16th Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and 12th Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He spent the bulk of his operational career in the Pacific, including multiple command assignments.

For the past two decades, China's strategy in the South China Sea has been reminiscent of ancient general and strategist Sun Tzu, who said: "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." In this turbulent time, that patience is beginning to change as China, emboldened by the U.S.'s abdication of leadership and by a distracted world, gains in aggression.

Most recently, China has been using its naval forces to pressure the littoral nations, especially Vietnam and the Philippines. A month ago, China sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel, a maneuver that was roundly condemned by the international community.

China is increasing its push against U.S. warships, using aggressive signaling; dangerously close maneuvering; illuminating U.S. ships with fire-control radar, which suggests the imminent launch of weapons; and overflying at very close range.

Given China's relatively successful containment of coronavirus and fast moves to restart its economy, the Chinese are probably in a position to offer economic and soft power incentives to those states around the periphery of the South China Sea.

So what can we deduce from all of this about China's new strategy for consolidating control here?

China claims almost the entire sea, from its coastline out to the "nine-dashed line" it has drawn on the map, as territorial waters. This has enormous international implications because of the oil, natural gas and merchant trade in the region. It has steadfastly maintained its claims despite losing an arbitration in an international court and facing pushback from littoral nations -- notably Vietnam and the Philippines.

The U.S. has mounted a campaign of "freedom of navigation" patrols to challenge China's presumption of sovereignty and its construction of artificial islands throughout the contested waters. But China has been aggressively expanding its fleet of oceangoing warships, increasing its stock of hypersonic "carrier killer" cruise missiles and improving its undersea technology. All of this gives it more confidence in responding to the U.S. patrols.

The strategy is also becoming more aggressive because of China's internal political concerns. As President Xi Jinping attempts to consolidate his power, he needs to keep the growing middle class content, but a slowing economy means another "rallying cry" is necessary. That may well manifest itself in a more nationalistic tone about the South China Sea.

For the rest of the world, the choices are difficult. No one wants to stumble into a full-blown Cold War, or indeed a shooting war, with China. But avoiding this while resisting China's sweeping claims in the South China Sea will require finely tuned economic and diplomatic pressure and military deterrence as well.

That means the U.S. should seek to align the diplomatic condemnation by all the nations of the South China Sea plus Japan, India and Australia.

On the military side, more freedom of navigation patrols by not only the U.S. but other allies will be required -- including leading NATO nations like the U.K. and France, for example.

Another part of the strategy must include economic components of both inducements and sanctions if dangerous behavior continues. Finally, part of this confrontation will occur in the cyber world, and here strong defenses will be necessary as China will likely use that venue to makes its displeasure known.

Sun Tzu was a strong advocate for patient victory, but he also said that "opportunities multiply as they are seized." Beijing seems to be doing just that in the South China Sea.

[Freegrass]

Quiet Diplomacy Or Inaction: Lessons From A Survey Ship Standoff In South China Sea – Analysis

By RFA

When a Chinese survey ship deployed close to a Malaysian-contracted oil exploration vessel in Malaysian waters in mid-April, tensions in the South China Sea went up a notch. United States and Australia sent warships to the area to send a message to China – that Southeast Asian nations should be free to exploit resources off their own coasts.

Yet Malaysia itself kept its counsel. The government scarcely issued a word of protest over China’s actions. And then, a month after the Chinese ship had arrived, the Malaysian-contracted drillship West Capella returned to port, and China’s Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 went on its way.

Experts say Malaysia’s handling of the standoff underscored its preference for low-key handling of such disputes and to avoid damage to its relationship with China – even as it challenges Beijing’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea at the United Nations.

But questions remain about how durable Malaysia’s quiet diplomacy will be in the face of China, a country intent on pressuring Southeast Asian nations that want to tap resources in areas that lie off their coasts. Areas that China, in defiance of international law, claims for itself.

“Malaysia’s approach is to keep its head down in the hope that China will ignore Malaysia’s operations in the South China Sea,” said Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “No, China is on a roll in the [South China Sea] and I don’t expect that it will leave Malaysia’s oil and gas operations alone.”

China has deployed the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 in contentious circumstances before. Last year, it was at the center of a months-long standoff with Vietnam at the disputed Vanguard Bank.

This time, it sailed past Vietnam and entered Malaysian waters on April 15 along with an escort of China Coast Guard (CCG) and maritime militia ships. It then commenced a survey right by the West Capella that had been exploring for oil and gas since December. Vessel tracking software revealed the path of the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8, moving back and forth on horizontal and vertical paths indicative of a survey. Meanwhile, the CCG and Chinese maritime militia vessels sailed right next to the West Capella and its resupply ships.

Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center’s Asia program, said the Hai Yang was probably deployed in response to Malaysia’s increasing assertion of its rights to resources on its continental shelf. Malaysia had submitted a claim for an extended continental shelf to the United Nations in December.

That submission prompted China to issue a protest, stating it still held “historic rights” to the entirety of the South China Sea – including areas within the continental shelf limits of Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. This prompted protests from all those countries. On Tuesday, Indonesia followed suit. Notably it cited a 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in response to a case brought by the Philippines that undermined the legal basis of China’s claims in the South China Sea.

Malaysia monitored China’s survey activity with at least one nearby warship and its coastguard throughout the month, vessel tracking software showed. However, Malaysia made few official statements, and was reluctant to acknowledge the campaign as it unfolded. Officials initially stated the survey “did not break any laws.”

Hiebert said this was indicative of Malaysia’s tendency to solve disputes quietly. “Not saying much about China’s bullying of Malaysian naval or oil exploration vessels seems to be Malaysia’s standard operating procedure,” he said. “Privately, Malaysian officials often say ‘What do you expect us to do? Go to war with China with our small navy? We don’t want to disrupt our critical economic ties.”
But Malaysia’s low-key response drew some negative views at home, and according to Parameswaran “provided room for speculation and criticism and made it seem like it was on the backfoot.”

US Sends Ships, Malaysia Opts for Quiet Diplomacy

China’s intimidation campaign attracted international attention.  The U.S. Navy sent ships to the area on four separate occasions – the first on April 18, as the U.S. and Australia launched a joint naval exercise near the site of China’s survey. The U.S. 7th Fleet also sent littoral combat ships three times, stating that, “The Chinese Communist Party must end its pattern of bullying Southeast Asians out of offshore oil, gas, and fisheries.”

Yet it wasn’t clear that Malaysia welcomed the U.S. presence to the area or invited it. Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein released a statement on April 23 that cautioned both sides and urged restraint: “While international law guarantees the freedom of navigation, the presence of warships and vessels in the South China Sea has the potential to increase tensions that in turn may result in miscalculations which may affect peace, security and stability in the region.” The statement also said that Malaysia was in quiet contact with both sides.

Elina Noor, an Associate Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, said this was consistent with Malaysia’s stance on disputes in the South China Sea.

“The reality is that Malaysia’s preference has always been to treat the South China Sea dispute out of the public glare and without political posturing,” Noor said.

The West Capella went back to port in the Bay of Brunei on May 12, eight days before its contract was set to expire, and on the same day as the last U.S. naval patrol of the area.

Three days later – the same day as a call between the defense ministers of Malaysia and China — the Hai Yang Di Zhi 8 departed as well, leaving the impression that Malaysia blinked first.

While the area in question remains quiet, China retains a presence elsewhere within Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone. Vessel tracking software on Friday showed a CCG ship numbered 5204 inside the Luconia Shoals in the southernmost part of the Spratly Island chain.

“I don’t think Malaysia’s handling of the West Capella incident changed China’s thinking about operating off Malaysia’s coast,” Hiebert said. “Chinese ships have been lurking off Malaysia’s James Shoal and Luconia Shoals for several years.”

Noor said Malaysia’s stated preference is to continue working through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on negotiations with China for a Code of Conduct (CoC) to regulate behavior in the South China Sea. Those negotiations began in earnest in 2017, and meant to be complete by 2021.

“However, there is little expectation that the CoC will have any teeth or that it will be abided by” even if it was legally binding, Noor said.

Parameswaran said there would likely be more “continuity than change” in Malaysia’s approach to the South China Sea but without a firmer line toward China, “the risk is that the next crisis may be just around the corner.”

[Freegrass]

Did you know that the Malaysian Twin towers (Petronas Towers) are still the tallest twin towers in the world?

They were officially opened on August 31, 1999.

Two years and 11 days later - at the start of a new millenium - we all know what happened then... Americannot lost it's crown... and nobody has a clue... 

Why didn't Americannot build the highest motherfucin' twin towers in the world as a replacement? What happened? That's a very small "Empire State" _(building) now...

Did you ever wonder if Hong Kong joined with China, or did China join with Hong Kong?

Rule Britannia!
Still...

RIP USA!

And no... you're not getting new infrastructure.

[Freegrass]

China's first homegrown aircraft carrier conducting sea trials

BEIJING – China’s Defense Ministry said the navy’s only entirely home-built aircraft is carrying out sea trials to test weapons and equipment and enhance training of the crew.

Ministry spokesperson Ren Guoqiang said Friday the exercises were being conducted as planned, apparently unaffected by the country’s coronavirus outbreak.

The Shandong’s commissioning last year by Chinese President Xi Jinping underscored the country’s rise as a regional naval power at a time of tensions with the U.S. and others over trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

It is the second Chinese aircraft carrier to enter service after the Liaoning, which was originally purchased as a hulk from Ukraine and entirely refurbished.

Both are based on a Soviet design with a ”ski jump” style flight deck for takeoffs rather than the flat decks used by much larger U.S. aircraft carriers. It is powered by a conventional oil-fueled steam turbine power plant, compared to the nuclear fuel American carriers and submarines use.

China is seen as striving to overtake the U.S. as the dominant naval power in Asia and already boasts the world’s largest navy in numbers of vessels.

Beijing says aircraft carriers are needed to protect its coastline and trade routes, but they are also seen as backing up its claims to self-governing Taiwan and the South China Sea.

The highly secretive Chinese military was credited with aiding in the response to the epidemic in the epicenter of Wuhan earlier this year, but no information has been released about cases among military personnel or any change in the armed forces’ readiness status.

The U.S. Navy, in contrast, saw a public controversy over the spread of the coronavirus aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the firing of the aircraft carrier’s skipper in April.

The Roosevelt was operating in the Western Pacific when the first crew members fell sick in late March. About 1,100 crew members eventually tested positive for the cornonavirus and one died. The ship was sidelined on Guam for nearly two months.


China's Shandong aircraft carrier is docked at a naval port in Sanya in southern Hainan Province. China’s Defense Ministry said Friday that the navy’s only entirely home-built aircraft is carrying out sea trials to test weapons and equipment and enhance training of the crew.

[Freegrass]

Britain agrees to return Hong Kong to China

In the Hall of the People in Beijing, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement committing Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. Hong Kong–a small peninsula and group of islands jutting out from China’s Kwangtung province–was leased by China to Great Britain in 1898 for 99 years.

In 1839, in the First Opium War, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference in the country’s economic, social, and political affairs. One of Britain’s first acts of war was to occupy Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. In 1841, China ceded the island to the British with the signing of the Convention of Chuenpi, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, formally ending the First Opium War. At the end of the Second Opium War (1856-1860), China was forced to cede the Kowloon Peninsula, adjacent to Hong Kong Island, along with other area islands.

Britain’s new colony flourished as an East-West trading center and as the commercial gateway and distribution center for southern China. On July 1, 1898, Britain was granted an additional 99 years of rule over the Hong Kong colony under the Second Convention of Peking. Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese from 1941 to 1944 during World War II but remained in British hands throughout the various Chinese political upheavals of the 20th century.

On December 19, 1984, after years of negotiations, British and Chinese leaders signed a formal pact approving the 1997 turnover of the colony in exchange for the formulation of a “one country, two systems” policy by China’s communist government. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the agreement “a landmark in the life of the territory, in the course of Anglo-Chinese relations, and in the history of international diplomacy.” Hu Yaobang, the Chinese Communist Party’s secretary-general, called the signing “a red-letter day, an occasion of great joy” for China’s one billion people.

At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong was peaceably handed over to China in a ceremony attended by numerous international dignitaries, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. A few thousand citizens of Hong Kong protested the turnover, which was otherwise celebratory and peaceful. The chief executive of the new Hong Kong government, Tung Chee Hwa, did enact a policy based upon the concept of one country, two systems, thus preserving Hong Kong’s role as a principal capitalist center in Asia.

[Freegrass]

So in 1984 China joins the rest of the world, around the same time that Thatcher and Reagan introduce neoliberalism. This starts the greatest heist in history of wealth from the middle class.

The draining of America has begun. Clinton makes it possible to rob them even more. Let's give everyone a house, and lots of credit that they can never pay back... And when it all comes crashing down, we just ask them for more money to bail us out. Money we need in China, because there are waaayyy more people in China. North and South America combined only have 1 billion people. Eurasia has 5. Africa 1. But Africa is good! We've been robbing these people for hundreds of years, so let's keep doing that!

The problem is that New York is going to flood. Are we really going to build a new city in America? What about Florida? And California? That place is shaking hard, and will soon become a desert...

South America never really get off the ground, and America will be destroyed by climate change. So let's move America to China! And lets do it while telling people it's all good for them. And when we've finished robbing them, we get the biggest clown we can find elected to stir up some hatred. That'll bring the sheep home! It's been 3000 years... It's time for these good people to find a home after thousands of years of prosecution.

RULE BRITANNIA!

[Freegrass]

What British People in 1776 Really Thought of American Independence

BY CIARA NUGENT, JULY 3, 2018

In the United States, the Fourth of July is time to launch some fireworks and eat some hot dogs in celebration of American independence. But in 1776, when news reached Britain of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the atmosphere was anything but celebratory.

A look through letters from the period, now held in the archives of the U.K.’s Nottingham University, shows that British people were divided about the outbreak of war with what was then their colony—over how bad it was, whose fault it was and what to do about it.

Before the Americans officially declared independence, the British were worried about what King George’s response to the unrest there would be. After all, the Declaration of Independence was not the beginning of the American Revolution; the riot-provoking Stamp Act was passed in 1765, the Boston Tea Party took place in 1773 and the famous “shot heard ’round the world” that is seen as the start of the war was fired in 1775.

One 1775 letter from a group of merchants and traders in the southwestern port city of Bristol sheds light on the economic concerns provoked by the burgeoning revolution. They wrote to the king to express their concern about the “unhappily distracted empires” and urged him to give the American colonists the freedoms they wanted rather than risk a precious trading relationship.

“It is with an affliction not to be expressed and with the most anxious apprehensions for ourselves and our Posterity that we behold the growing distractions in America threaten, unless prevented by the timely interposition of your Majesty’s Wisdom and Goodness, nothing less than a lasting and ruinous Civil War,” they wrote. “We are apprehensive that if the present measures are adhered to, a total alienation of the affections of our fellow subjects in the colonies will ensue, to which affection much more than to a dread of any power, we have been hitherto indebted for the inestimable benefits which we have derived from those establishments. We can foresee no good effects to the commerce or revenues of this kingdom at a future period from any victories which may be obtained by your majesty’s army over desolated provinces and […] people.”

The traders warned the King that “the subsistence of a great part of your kingdom has depended very much on the Honourable and in this instance amicable behaviour of your American subjects. We have in this single city received no less than one million bushels of wheat […].”

While they were confident that “none can profit by the continuance of this war,” the traders remained optimistic that the Americans would stay friendly if the British adopt a more conciliatory approach, despite things having been “carried to unfortunate lengths of hostility on both sides.”

“[Our] fellow subjects in that part of the world are very far from having lost their affection and regard to their mother country or departed from the principles of commercial honour,” they wrote.

Though their optimism might seem misplaced today, at the time it wasn’t completely ridiculous. After all, this was the same year that Americans’ Second Continental Congress sent the crown the Olive Branch Petition, a last-ditch attempt to convince the King to back off so that the British subjects in the colonies could continue to live happily under his rule alongside their counterparts in England.

Other letters, however, give indications that some people had given up hope that the King would give in to the colonists’ requests.

For example, in March of 1775, Chevalier Renaud Boccolari—whose own homeland of France would see a massive anti-monarchical uprising just over a decade later—wrote to peers from Modena, Italy, warning of the “awful despotism [of the English king]” and the “crowd of blind and ugly [people] with whom he has shared his unjust power for some time.

“We still find among us souls who are sensitive to freedom, souls that have not been swallowed by the insulting dominion of priests, the barbarous constriction of the inquisition and the blind, despotic monarchy,” he wrote. But, he felt “every free country should be alarmed” that “in this century everything is tending towards the most illegitimate despotism.”

When news finally broke that the Americans had, in fact, declared their independence—that they planned on being their own country, no longer part of the British empire—many in the English aristocracy were horrified.

A series of letters received by the third Duke of Portland reveal how opinions differed on the subject.

On July 22, 1776, his wife Dorothy wrote to him from Nottinghamshire that she had “received letters filled with unpleasant news, that from America I trust in God is not true, it really is too shocking.” On Aug. 16 of that year, Baron Rudolph Bentick also wrote from the Netherlands, bemoaning the news and sharing what people in Europe thought.

“As to people’s opinion here of Great Britain’s disputes with America,” he wrote, “the well meaning all agree no doubt that it is a most unhappy business for both countries and probably will prove a mortal blow to the liberties of the people of England.”

He warned that the influence of certain ambassadors might lead the Dutch to take advantage of Britain’s loss, and “prevent this country from acting a part most consistent and honourable to themselves, as well as beneficial to the liberties of Europe. Prudence prevents me from saying any more as this letter is to go by the post.”

Some, though, blamed the British government for what was happening, and willed their leaders to give up and abandon the war with the Americans. On Sept. 7, 1776, Stephen Sayre of Harley Street, London, wrote to the Duke of Portland urging him and others to come to a meeting to figure out how to cut Britain’s losses. “And tho we think America is lost: yet we wish to preserve this country,” he wrote.

And on Oct. 18 1776, the Rt. Honourable Thomas Townshend wrote to the Duke of Portland complaining that “the Government and Majority have drawn us into a war, that in our opinions is unjust in its Principle and ruinous in its consequences.”

As he prepared for a meeting of Parliament, of which he was a longstanding member, Townshend told the Duke the British authorities “by their violence […] have driven the Americans to extremitys.”

“I cannot for one, on any condition, give my assent to any of their measures in the prosecution of it,” he wrote, worrying that many such measures would be proposed at Parliament’s next session. He worried that, despite his point of view “we shall have a difficult task to support the Americans declaring for separation” among the British political establishment.

Townshend dismissed concerns about his letter being read by censors, writing “I have no objection to any one knowing my opinion on this subject.”

Unsurprisingly, others were less sympathetic to the American rebels.

On Dec. 30 1776, one G.B. Brudenell wrote from London, to H.F.C. Pelham-Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle under Lyne, giving news of the capture of Fort Washington by Gen. Howe, who drove the rebel forces from Manhattan, though at great cost.

“It is very melancholy to think,” Brudenell wrote, “that we must sacrifice so many brave lives, in order to put an end, to such an unnatural Rebellion.”

[Freegrass]

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on 11 March 1931 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the son of Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (née Greene; 1909–2012).[18] He is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Murdoch's parents were also born in Melbourne. Keith Murdoch was a war correspondent and later a regional newspaper magnate owning two newspapers in Adelaide, South Australia, and a radio station in a faraway mining town, and chairman of the powerful Herald and Weekly Times group.[5][19]:16

Murdoch attended Geelong Grammar School,[21] where he was co-editor of the school's official journal The Corian and editor of the student journal If Revived.[22][23] He took his school's cricket team to the National Junior Finals. He worked part-time at the Melbourne Herald and was groomed by his father to take over the family business.[5][24] Murdoch studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford in England, where he kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms and came to be known as "Red Rupert". He was a member of the Oxford University Labour Party,[19]:34[24] stood for Secretary of the Labour Club[25] and managed Oxford Student Publications Limited, the publishing house of Cherwell.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch

Political activities in Australia

Murdoch found a political ally in Sir John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as the National Party of Australia), who was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt-Gorton Liberal Party. From the very first issue of The Australian, Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.[33]

After McEwen and Menzies retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it elected[34] on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star[33] newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.[35]

Asked about the 2007 Australian federal election at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard should continue as prime minister, he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors."[36] In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that News Limited was running vendettas against him and his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive".[37] Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as "...more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling climate change] than to lead Australia..." and criticised Rudd's expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 as unnecessary.[38] Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the Daily Telegraph, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator Mungo MacCallum in The Monthly that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such matters as climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial crisis.[39]

Murdoch is a supporter of an Australian republic, having campaigned for one during the 1999 referendum.[40]

....
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.[45] At the end of the Thatcher/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party and its leader, Tony Blair. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a political issue in Britain.[46] This later changed, with The Sun, in its English editions, publicly renouncing the ruling Labour government and lending its support to David Cameron's Conservative Party, which soon afterwards formed a coalition government. In Scotland, where the Tories had suffered a complete annihilation in 1997, the paper began to endorse the Scottish National Party (though not yet its flagship policy of independence), which soon after came to form the first ever outright majority in the proportionally elected Scottish Parliament. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman said in November 2009 that Brown and Murdoch "were in regular communication" and that "there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch".

[Freegrass]

NYC Creates Climate Change Roadmap for Builders: Plan for Rising Seas
The city’s new resilience guidelines map out the expected risks from sea level rise and increasing heat in the decades ahead.

BY NICHOLAS KUSNETZ, MAY 3, 2017

The nation's largest city has a message for the architects and engineers planning the New York of tomorrow: Fortify new buildings against the ravages of climate change or risk rebuilding as global warming worsens.

New guidelines issued last week by the office of New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio are some of the most comprehensive for how builders should protect infrastructure against rising seas, more powerful storms and climbing temperatures. They draw on science published in 2015 by a city panel of experts that estimates rainfall, sea level rise and other climatic shifts expected for the city in the decades ahead.

For now, developers are not required to follow the recommendations, but the plan is for all city agencies to be using the guidelines for new projects by the end of the year, according to Susanne DesRoches, deputy director of infrastructure policy for the mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency.

"We know that the climate is changing, and we want to make sure we're designing our infrastructure for what we know is coming," DesRoches said. The guidelines include specific climate projections for different time frames, and specify how planners should design their projects based on how long the building, bridge or other infrastructure is expected to last.

"What we're asking project teams to do is look at the useful life of the asset they're designing—will it last to the 2050s, will it last to the 2080s?" DesRoches said.

The New York City Panel on Climate Change study was a wake-up call for the coming damage from more frequent and devastating extreme weather. By the 2050s, average temperatures in New York are expected to be 4 to 6 degrees higher, the guidelines state. Each year there may be six heat waves—stretches of three or more days above 90 degrees—compared with an average of two in recent history. All the extra heat will take its toll on a building's infrastructure, stressing air conditioning systems and electrical equipment, warping and expanding materials and causing more frequent blackouts.

In response, the guidelines call for builders to consider more robust backup systems for power outages and to select air conditioning systems designed for higher temperatures. Builders should consider erecting shades over windows, angling edifices to avoid direct sunlight, or incorporating materials that absorb the sun's heat.

By mid-century, if a 100-year storm strikes, it is expected drop more than 12 inches of rain over a 24-hour period, compared to just under 9 inches today. Architects would be wise, the guidelines say, to include a green roof or permeable pavement to help relieve stress on drainage systems.

For sea level rise, the guidelines advise adding 16 inches to what current code requires for structures expected to be in use beyond 2040, and 3 feet for those expected to last the century. It also points to an interactive map created by the city that projects flood hazards into the future and overlays them on city streets.

"If the Flood Hazard Mapper shows that the facility is expected to be inundated by high tides within its useful life or if primary access roads are at risk of inundation," the guidelines state plainly, "consider alternative site options."

The city will spend the rest of the year testing the guidelines on new projects to assess costs and effects before finalizing them, DesRoches said. Even then, only city projects would be required to follow them, though private developers would be encouraged to use them too.

Klaus Jacob, a scientist who studies climate adaptation at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the guidelines are innovative but only a small step toward where the city needs to be.

"The real problem we have is that we still put a lot of investment in low-lying areas, and this is a matter of zoning and land use policy," he said.

Many parts of the city's extensive waterfront continue to attract new luxury residential projects, for example, even though they'll face increased flooding in years to come, Jacob said. But rather than overhauling the city's zoning with an eye to rising seas, the city has been addressing climate adaptation piecemeal, even if the pieces such as these guidelines are commendable, he said.

"I think it's fundamentally a positive step that the city has done this program, there's no doubt about it," Jacob said. "My main problem with this is that a document like that cannot address the big problems."

[Freegrass]

Beijing’s plans for South China Sea air defence identification zone cover Pratas, Paracel and Spratly islands, PLA source says

• Plans for airspace controls over one of the world’s most disputed waterways have been in the pipeline for a decade, military insider says
  
• Despite military build-up in region, Beijing remains wary of upsetting US and Southeast Asian neighbours with announcement of ADIZ, experts say

Minnie Chan, 31 May, 2020

Beijing has been making plans for an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea since 2010, the same year it said it was considering the introduction of similar airspace controls over the East China Sea in a move that was widely criticised around the world, a military insider said.

The proposed ADIZ encompasses the Pratas, Paracel and Spratly island chains in the disputed waterway, according to a source from the People’s Liberation Army, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The plans for the zone were as old as those for the East China Sea ADIZ – which Beijing said it was considering in 2010 and introduced in 2013 – the source said, adding that Chinese authorities were waiting for the right time to announce them.

While Beijing might have been reticent on the subject, Taiwan’s defence ministry said on May 4 that it was aware of the mainland’s plans.

An air defence identification zone is airspace over a typically undisputed area of land or water in which the monitoring and control of aircraft is performed in the interests of national security. While many countries have them, the concept is not defined or regulated by any international treaty or agency.

Military observers said the announcement of China’s second ADIZ would add to its tensions with the United States and could cause irreparable damage to its relations with its Southeast Asian neighbours.

Lu Li-Shih, a former instructor at Taiwan’s Naval Academy in Kaohsiung, said that the construction and development of artificial islands – particularly the airstrips and radar systems built on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs – that had been ongoing for the past several years was all part of Beijing’s ADIZ plan.

“Recent satellite images show that the People’s Liberation Army has deployed KJ-500 airborne early-warning and control aircraft and KQ-200 anti-submarine patrol planes at Fiery Cross Reef,” he said, referring to pictures taken by Israel’s ImageSat International and the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank.

It was also clear that air-conditioned facilities were under construction on the reef, suggesting that fighter jets – which need to be protected from the high temperatures, humidity and salinity in the region – would soon be deployed there too, Lu said.

“Once the PLA’s fighter jets arrive they can join the early-warning and anti-submarine aircraft in conducting ADIZ patrol operations.”

Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert and retired PLA senior colonel, said that countries normally waited to announce the establishment of an ADIZ until they had the necessary detection equipment, combat capabilities and other infrastructure in place to manage it.

But if there was an opportune time, Beijing might make the announcement sooner, he said.

“Beijing declared the ADIZ in the East China Sea even though the PLA was still incapable of detecting, tracking and expelling intrusive foreign aircraft,” he said.

Another Chinese military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that as well as the preparedness issue, Beijing was aware that the South China Sea was much larger than the East China Sea and would therefore require far resources to patrol.

“Beijing has been hesitant to declare the ADIZ in the South China Sea due to a number of technical, political and diplomatic considerations,” he said.

“But the most practical problem is that the PLA has in the past not had the capability to scramble its fighter jets to expel intrusive foreign aircraft in the South China Sea, which is several times the size of the East China Sea, and the cost to support the ADIZ would be huge.”

It was in 2010 that Chinese authorities told a Japanese delegation visiting Beijing that they were considering establishing the East China Sea ADIZ. According to a 2017 report by the CSIS, Beijing said the matter required discussion as its plans overlapped with Japan’s air defence zone.

The news angered Tokyo, which responded by establishing an ADIZ of its own, encompassing the Senkaku Islands – known as Diaoyu in Mandarin – a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are claimed by Japan, mainland China and Taiwan.

Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing escalated after the former bought the Senkakus from a private owner in September 2012, prompting Beijing to announce its ADIZ in November of the following year.

“China announced the first ADIZ earlier than planned because of the need to assert its sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands,” Li said.

But the move was met with a backlash, with both Japan and the United States denouncing it.

While relations between Japan and China have improved in recent years, tensions between Beijing and Washington have been steadily rising, with the two sides clashing on multiple fronts – from trade and technology, to military and ideological issues.

Their relationship has come under further pressure as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with senior officials trading accusations and insults over their respective handling of the health crisis and the possible origins of the deadly coronavirus.

Last month, US military aircraft, including EP-3E reconnaissance planes and RC-135U strategic bombers, conducted at least nine sorties and patrol operations over the South China Sea, according to the aviation tracking website Aircraft Spots.

While Beijing regards almost all of the sea as its sovereign territory, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei have conflicting claims.

China has sought to build closer ties with its Southeast Asian neighbours in recent years, but Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, said it risked jeopardising them if it announced a South China Sea ADIZ.

“Such a declaration would severely damage China’s relations with Southeast Asian states, which until now have largely acquiesced to China’s assertiveness and provocations, including land reclamation and militarisation of features,” he said.

“But should China declare an ADIZ, they would be forced to choose, not between the US and China, but between their economic relationship with China and their own sovereignty.

[Freegrass]

Seas around Taiwan to be center of military movements: defense analyst

Taipei, May 31 (CNA) The seas around Taiwan, including the Miyako Strait, the Bashi Channel, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea, are expected to become the focus of increased military movements, according to a Taiwanese defense analyst.

Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a senior analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, made the observation in a paper titled "U.S. Strategic Mobility in Deployment to Ensure Regional Security."

In the article, Su said the Indo-Pacific region is facing tensions from the COVID-19 pandemic and China's increased military projection, especially in the South China Sea, where Beijing has built artificial islands, deployed nuclear submarines and announced administrative districts.

With the absence from the region of U.S. carrier strike groups over the past months due to the pandemic, Beijing's policy of militarizing, nuclearizing and domesticalizing the South China Sea has impacted regional security, stability and the strategic nuclear balance, according to Su.

However, the U.S. Navy announced on May 10 that at least six aircraft carriers have returned to action, including the Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Nimitz, Abraham Lincoln and Gerald R. Ford, ending the military vacuum in different regions, Su said.

One thing to watch is how the U.S. adjustments its Indo-Pacific Strategy, Su said, pointing to the shift in rationale from "continuous bomber presence mission" to a "strategically predictable but operationally unpredictable" approach, as indicted in the U.S. 2018 National Defense Strategy.

Some examples of this include the introduction of U.S. B-1B supersonic heavy bombers to the East China Sea and South China Sea in recent months, including one instance on May 8, in which two B-1Bs flew to the South China Sea via the Bashi Channel and the Sulu Sea in a pincer formation, the article noted.

As to traditional military deployments, the U.S. is seeking to strengthen the battle capabilities of its amphibious assault ships and has deployed anti-ship missiles with its army and marines for waterway blockage when necessary, in support of its navy, Su said.

"The U.S. strategic mindset in countering China's air and sea expansions is through exterior-line operations for multi-directional suppressions," Su observed.

"In terms of geostrategy, the U.S. is focusing on waters such as the Miyako Strait, Bashi Channel, East China Sea, South China Sea and Philippine Sea," he said.

Competition for land and sea power will be crucial to international politics and regional security in the post-pandemic period, he added.

(By Matt Yu and Emerson Lim)

Enditem/AW

[igs]

So in 1984 China joins the rest of the world, around the same time that Thatcher and Reagan introduce neoliberalism. This starts the greatest heist in history of wealth from the middle class.

The draining of America has begun. Clinton makes it possible to rob them even more. Let's give everyone a house, and lots of credit that they can never pay back... And when it all comes crashing down, we just ask them for more money to bail us out. Money we need in China, because there are waaayyy more people in China. North and South America combined only have 1 billion people. Eurasia has 5. Africa 1. But Africa is good! We've been robbing these people for hundreds of years, so let's keep doing that!

The problem is that New York is going to flood. Are we really going to build a new city in America? What about Florida? And California? That place is shaking hard, and will soon become a desert...

South America never really get off the ground, and America will be destroyed by climate change. So let's move America to China! And lets do it while telling people it's all good for them. And when we've finished robbing them, we get the biggest clown we can find elected to stir up some hatred. That'll bring the sheep home! It's been 3000 years... It's time for these good people to find a home after thousands of years of prosecution.

RULE BRITANNIA!

You won't have to move America to China, it's sufficent to move power and other assets while letting the hardware to rot where it is.


While I do not see Trump going to war with China like you, I agree with many of your points in general, details do not really matter in the analysis while of course they do matter during activities of various kinds.

[Freegrass]

You won't have to move America to China, it's sufficent to move power and other assets while letting the hardware to rot where it is.

While I do not see Trump going to war with China like you, I agree with many of your points in general, details do not really matter in the analysis while of course they do matter during activities of various kinds.

"Moving America" was of course a figure of speech. It is like you say, just move intangible assets. They'll probably keep America as farmland, but I'm still thinking how they'll destroy their military power. The best way to do this is to bankrupt the nation. But with the US dollar being the global currency (which has also been changing for a while now) it's not easy to break them. I'm curious to see how that'll happen. A new pearl harbor is probably not the right option, as we've gone nuclear since then. And nobody wants a complete collapse I hope...

That's why I've created this thread. Let's keep an eye on this! Because that's where our focus should be.

So many uncertainties still, like how is London going sell a shift toward China away from the colony they lost? And why did they leave the EU now? Why did Gaddafi have to go? Because they needed to open the door for massive African migration that would surely destabilize Europe? Why does Europe need to be destabilized?

If Eurazia is the future, they'll need to move goods from east to west, and then you either need Russia, or Turkey. If Turkey, then you also need Iran... The silk road...

We're living in historic times, but look at antifa! Those are the bad guys now on US brainwash TV... 

[Alexander555]

You have to be crazy to move from the US to China. China is an overpopulated disaster. In the US there is still plenty space. If these globalists don't ruin it completely.

[Freegrass]

You have to be crazy to move from the US to China. China is an overpopulated disaster. In the US there is still plenty space. If these globalists don't ruin it completely.

There are 330 million disobedient Americans, and 1,4 billion obedient Chinese. Where do you think the future is?

[Alexander555]

Not in Asia.

[Freegrass]

Shift From U.S. Dollar As World Reserve Currency Underway – What Will This Mean for America?

Today, more than 60% of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollardollars – but there are big changes on the horizon…Some of the biggest economies on earth have been making agreements with each other to move away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade…[and this shift] is going to have massive implications for the U.S. economy. [Let me explain what is underway.]

March 17, 2020 - Read all

At the moment, the global financial system is centered on the United States but that will not always be the case. The things talked about in this article will not happen overnight, but it is important to note that these changes are picking up steam. Under the right conditions, a shift in momentum can become a landslide or an avalanche.

[Alexander555]

As soon as China will have the next world reserve currency. How do you think the relation with all China's neighbour countries will become. Why do you think China is building all these islands. To have full controle over everything. The rest will be China's slaves. And that want be the problem from the US. They will have the same power as the US has today, and that with some crazy communists.

[Freegrass]

China's Economic Success Proves the Power of Capitalism

Rainer Zitelmann

Between 1958 and 1962, 45 million people starved to death in China as the result of the largest socialist experiment in history. Mao called this experiment the “Great Leap Forward,” but for China it was a disaster.

Today, China is the world's leading export nation, ahead of the United States and Germany. Above all, never before in history have so many people escaped poverty in such a short time as in the past decades in China. According to official World Bank figures, the percentage of extremely poor people in China in 1981 stood at 88.3%. By 2015 only 0.7% of the Chinese population was living in extreme poverty. In this period, the number of poor people in China fell from 878 million to less than ten million.

The Problem With Prevailing Explanations Of China’s Success

It is widely believed that China’s success is based on a uniquely Chinese “third way,” a political and economic model that occupies the ground between capitalism and socialism. According to this interpretation, China is successful because the state continues to play an important role in the Chinese economy. But this interpretation is wrong.

In fact, China’s success provides clear evidence of the power of capitalism. Under Mao, the state had an omnipotent grip over China’s economy. What has happened over the past few decades can be summed up in a few sentences: China has progressively embraced the tenets of free-market economics, introduced private ownership, and gradually reduced the influence of the once all-powerful state over the Chinese economy. That the state still plays a major role today is simply because China is in the midst of a transformation process that began with complete state dominance of the economy.

However, as the Chinese economist Zhang Weiying stresses, China’s success in recent years has “not been because of the state, but in spite of the state.” Here are some facts:

Impressed By The Success Of Singapore

For leading Chinese politicians and economists, 1978 marked the beginning of a busy period of foreign travel to bring back valuable economic insights and apply them at home. Chinese delegations made over 20 trips to more than 50 countries including Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Switzerland. The Chinese were especially impressed by the economic successes of other Asian countries. Although barely acknowledged, the economic dynamism of China’s neighboring countries in particular was seen as a role model.

On his visit to Singapore, Deng was impressed by the local economy, which was far more dynamic than the Chinese economy. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and long-time prime minister, remembers: “I had told Deng over dinner in 1978 in Singapore that we, the Singapore Chinese, were the descendants of illiterate landless peasants from Guandong and Fujian in South China … There was nothing that Singapore had done that China could not do, and do better. He stayed silent then. When I read that he had told the Chinese people to do better than Singapore, I knew he had taken up the challenge I quietly tossed to him that night fourteen years earlier.”

However, this newfound enthusiasm for other countries’ economic models did not lead to an instant conversion to capitalism, nor did China immediately ditch its planned economy in favor of a free-market economy. Instead, there was a slow process of transition, starting with tentative efforts to grant public enterprises greater autonomy, that took years, even decades, to mature and relied on bottom-up initiatives as much as on top-down, party-led reforms.

More Private Property, More Liberalized Markets

Long before the official ban on private farming was lifted in 1982, peasant-led initiatives to reintroduce private ownership against socialist doctrine sprang up across China. The outcome was extremely successful: people were no longer starving and agricultural productivity increased rapidly. By 1983, the process of de-collectivizing Chinese agriculture was almost complete. Mao’s great socialist experiment, which had cost so many millions of lives, was over.

Initially, the growth in private ownership across China was driven by increasing numbers of small-scale entrepreneurs setting up businesses, which were only allowed to employ a maximum of seven people. The increasing erosion of this socialist system that exclusively permitted public ownership under the management of a state-run economic planning authority was accelerated by the creation of Special Economic Areas. These were areas where the socialist economic system was suspended and capitalist experiments were permitted. The official proclamation of the market economy at the Fourteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in October 1992—a step that would have been unthinkable only a few years before—proved a milestone on the road to capitalism.

To understand the dynamics of the Chinese reforms, it is crucial to note that the extent to which they were initiated “from above” was only one part of the picture. Many contributing factors happened spontaneously – a triumph of market forces over government policy. Key institutional innovations were instigated, not in the offices of the Politburo, but by countless anonymous agents acting on a local level, and in many cases against the rules.

China’s development in recent decades demonstrates that rising economic growth—even when accompanied by rising inequality—benefits the majority of the population. Hundreds of millions of people in China are far better off today as a direct result of Deng’s motto “let some people get rich first.”

Which Path Will China Take Now?

For all the positive developments China has seen in recent decades, a lot still remains to be done. Although its economic growth was accompanied by an increase in economic freedom, there are still deficits in many areas. China has both a strong need for further reforms and great potential for further improvement and growth. Zhang—who, as well as being an astute analyst of the Chinese economy, has himself contributed significantly to its development—stresses: “China’s reform started with an all-powerful government under the planned economy. The reason China could have sustained economic growth during the process of reform was that the government managed less and the proportion of state-owned enterprises decreased, not the other way around. It was precisely the relaxation of government control that brought about market prices, sole proprietorships, town and village enterprises, private enterprises, foreign enterprises, and other non-state-owned entities.” Taken together, all of this formed the basis for China’s unprecedented economic rise.

As Zhang emphasizes, this process of transformation is far from complete: “Government control over large amounts of resources and excessive intervention into the economy are the direct cause of cronyism between officials and businessmen, are a breeding ground for official corruption, seriously corrupt commercial culture, and damage the market’s rules of the game.” Accordingly, he sees a strong need for further reforms toward marketization, reduction of government control over resources and intervention into the economy, and the establishment of a true rule-of-law society.

Whether or not China will go down that road remains to be seen. The process of reform has never been a smooth and consistent one—rather, it has been marred by frequent setbacks, especially in recent years, when instances of governmental intervention in the economy have set back the reform process. The greatest danger for China is that the Chinese themselves will start to believe what many people in the West already think—that the country has discovered a special “third way” between capitalism and socialism and that economic success has been achieved not in spite of, but because of, the great influence of the state.

[Freegrass]

Confucianism

https://asiasociety.org/education/confucianism

Confucianism is often characterized as a system of social and ethical philosophy rather than a religion. In fact, Confucianism built on an ancient religious foundation to establish the social values, institutions, and transcendent ideals of traditional Chinese society. It was what sociologist Robert Bellah called a "civil religion," the sense of religious identity and common moral understanding at the foundation of a society's central institutions. It is also what a Chinese sociologist called a "diffused religion"; its institutions were not a separate church, but those of society, family, school, and state; its priests were not separate liturgical specialists, but parents, teachers, and officials. Confucianism was part of the Chinese social fabric and way of life; to Confucians, everyday life was the arena of religion.

The founder of Confucianism, Master Kong (Confucius, 551-479 B.C.E.) did not intend to found a new religion, but to interpret and revive the unnamed religion of the Zhou dynasty, under which many people thought the ancient system of religious rule was bankrupt; why couldn't the gods prevent the social upheavals? The burning issue of the day was: If it is not the ancestral and nature spirits, what then is the basis of a stable, unified, and enduring social order? The dominant view of the day, espoused by Realists and Legalists, was that strict law and statecraft were the bases of sound policy. Confucius, however, believed that the basis lay in Zhou religion, in its rituals (li). He interpreted these not as sacrifices asking for the blessings of the gods, but as ceremonies performed by human agents and embodying the civilized and cultured patterns of behavior developed through generations of human wisdom. They embodied, for him, the ethical core of Chinese society. Moreover, Confucius applied the term "ritual" to actions beyond the formal sacrifices and religious ceremonies to include social rituals: courtesies and accepted standards of behavior-- what we today call social mores. He saw these time-honored and traditional rituals as the basis of human civilization, and he felt that only a civilized society could have a stable, unified, and enduring social order.

Thus one side of Confucianism was the affirmation of accepted values and norms of behavior in primary social institutions and basic human relationships. All human relationships involved a set of defined roles and mutual obligations; each participant should understand and conform to his/her proper role. Starting from individual and family, people acting rightly could reform and perfect the society. The blueprint of this process was described in "The Great Learning," a section of the Classic of Rituals:

Only when things are investigated is knowledge extended; only when knowledge is extended are thoughts sincere; only when thoughts are sincere are minds rectified; only when minds are rectified are the characters of persons cultivated; only when character is cultivated are our families regulated; only when families are regulated are states well governed; only when states are well governed is there peace in the world.

Confucius' ethical vision ran against the grain of the legalistic mindset of his day. Only under the Han Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C.E.) did Confucianism become accepted as state ideology and orthodoxy. From that time on the imperial state promoted Confucian values to maintain law, order, and the status quo. In late traditional China, emperors sought to establish village lectures on Confucian moral precepts and to give civic awards to filial sons and chaste wives. The imperial family and other notables sponsored the publication of morality books that encouraged the practice of Confucian values: respect for parents,loyalty to government, and keeping to one's place in society—farmers should remain farmers, and practice the ethics of farming. This side of Confucianism was conservative, and served to bolster established institutions and long-standing social divisions.

There was, however, another side to Confucianism. Confucius not only stressed social rituals (li), but also humaneness (ren). Ren, sometimes translated love or kindness, is not any one virtue, but the source of all virtues. The Chinese character literally represents the relationship between "two persons," or co-humanity—the potential to live together humanely rather than scrapping like birds or beasts. Ren keeps ritual forms from becoming hollow; a ritual performed with ren has not only form, but ethical content; it nurtures the inner character of the person, furthers his/her ethical maturation. Thus if the "outer"side of Confucianism was conformity and acceptance of social roles, the "inner" side was cultivation of conscience and character. Cultivation involved broad education and reflection on one's actions. It was a lifetime commitment to character building carving and polishing the stone of one's character until it was a lustrous gem. Master Kong described his own lifetime:

At fifteen, I set my heart on learning. At thirty, I was firmly established. At forty, I had no more doubts. At fifty, I knew the will of heaven. At sixty, I was ready to listen to it. At seventy, I could follow my heart's desire without transgressing what was right. Analects, 2:4

The inner pole of Confucianism was reformist, idealistic, and spiritual. It generated a high ideal for family interaction: members were to treat each other with love, respect, and consideration for the needs of all. It prescribed a lofty ideal for the state: the ruler was to be a father to his people and look after their basic needs. It required officials to criticize their rulers and refuse to serve the corrupt. This inner and idealist wing spawned a Confucian reformation known in the West as Neo-Confucianism. The movement produced reformers, philanthropists, dedicated teachers and officials, and social philosophers from the eleventh through the nineteenth centuries.

The idealist wing of Confucianism had a religious character. Its ideals were transcendent, not in the sense that they were other worldly (the Confucians were not interested in a far-off heavenly realm), but in the sense of the transcendent ideal—perfection. On the one hand, Confucian values are so closely linked with everyday life that they sometimes seem trivial. Everyday life is so familiar that we do not take its moral content seriously. We are each a friend to someone, or a parent, or certainly the child of a parent. On the other hand, Confucians remind us that the familiar ideals of friendship, parenthood, and filiality are far from trivial; in real life we only rarely attain these ideals. We all too often just go through the motions, too preoccupied to give our full attention to the relationship. If we consistently and wholeheartedly realized our potential to be the very best friend, parent, son, or daughter humanly possible, we would establish a level of caring, of moral excellence,that would approach the utopian. This is Confucian transcendence: to take the actions of everyday life seriously as the arena of moral and spiritual fulfillment.

The outer and inner aspects of Confucianism—its conforming and reforming sides—were in tension throughout Chinese history. Moreover, the tensions between social and political realities and the high-minded moral ideals of the Confucians were an ongoing source of concern for the leaders of this tradition. The dangers of moral sterility and hypocrisy were always present. Confucianism, they knew well, served both as a conservative state orthodoxy and a stimulus for reform. Great Confucians, like religious leaders everywhere, sought periodically to revive and renew the moral, intellectual, and spiritual vigor of the tradition. Until the 1890s, serious-minded Chinese saw Confucianism, despite its failures to realize its ideal society, as the source of hope for China and the core of what it meant to be Chinese.

Although since the revolution, the public ideology of the People's Republic has abandoned Confucian teachings, one can say that there is a continuity of form: like Confucianism before it, Maoism teaches a commitment to transforming the world by applying the lessons of a utopian ideology to the actions and institutions of everyday life. This is not to claim that Mao was a "closet Confucian," but to emphasize that the Confucian way was virtually synonymous with the Chinese way.

[Freegrass]

As soon as China will have the next world reserve currency. How do you think the relation with all China's neighbour countries will become. Why do you think China is building all these islands. To have full controle over everything. The rest will be China's slaves. And that want be the problem from the US. They will have the same power as the US has today, and that with some crazy communists.

So those were two articles to refute your claim that the Chinese are "Crazy Communists". It's foolish to underestimate "the enemy". The Chinese culture is incredibly rich, and these people are no idiots!

But it is true that the Chinese are hated by just about everyone in the region. Remember the 1998 killings in Indonesia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Chinese_sentiment

[Freegrass]

You won't have to move America to China, it's sufficent to move power and other assets while letting the hardware to rot where it is.

While I do not see Trump going to war with China like you, I agree with many of your points in general, details do not really matter in the analysis while of course they do matter during activities of various kinds.

"Moving America" was of course a figure of speech. It is like you say, just move intangible assets.

Correction: Many companies did move their production to China. Many times they physically moved their machines. But those days are over now...

[Freegrass]

5 ways the world can stare China down

China is lashing out in Ladakh and South China Sea after Covid blame. It's an established Chinese behaviour to create a new crisis to push the previous one out of sight.

MANISH TEWARI 1 June, 2020

The Chinese leadership has two problems. Staving off an international scientific investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic because it could trigger enormous demands for reparations, and concurrently repair the global damage to its standing.

A democracy would have dealt with it differently. It would have welcomed and cooperated with an inquiry and acknowledged or differed with its findings. It would have leveraged its soft power patiently to slowly undo the image deficit caused. However, China is an authoritarian capitalist oligarchy whose leadership is punch-drunk on hubris.

Creating flash points

The Chinese leadership, therefore, has started lashing out on all sides trying to create strategic and tactical flashpoints to somehow make the – ‘China is responsible for the contagion’ – headline go away.

It has stoked tensions in the South China Sea by unilaterally announcing on 18 April 2020 the establishment of two new administrative structures, prompting the US Navy to launch its fifth freedom of navigation operation in the past five months.

It has belligerently taken on US President Donald Trump and other world leaders who are publicly calling for an ‘origin’ investigation into the Covid-19 epidemic. It has drastically altered its relationship with Hong Kong by partially enacting a new security law that fundamentally transforms the ‘one nation two systems’ paradigm.

It has encroached into Indian territory and, according to an estimate by the former Northern Army Commander, Lt. Gen. H.S. Panag, illegally occupied between 40-60 sq km of Indian territory in the Galwan River area and on the Indian side of Pangong Tso lake in Ladakh. It has also encroached into Indian territory in Naku La in north Sikkim.

Thus, in a short span of one month, China has created a maritime, land-based and a sovereignty flash point, each with short-term eyeball grabbing potential and longer-term  strategic and tactical advantages.

China’s established pattern

This behaviour is not surprising. The Chinese leadership, from 1947 onwards, has always resorted to obfuscation and deception to deflect from its failures and internal crises.

A classical and often un-analysed aspect is the correlation between the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the 1962 War with India. The Great Leap Forward was a five-year plan of forced agricultural collectivisation and rural industrialisation that was instituted by the Chinese Communist Party in 1958 and abandoned in 1961. It occasioned a drastic shrinking of the Chinese economy and was responsible for 30 to 55 million deaths due to starvation, execution, torture, forced labour, and suicide out of harassment. It was the biggest distinct, non-wartime pogrom of mass killing in human history.

It is another matter that the Chinese were able to get the erstwhile Soviet Union on board for the 1962 aggression against India as a quid pro quo for keeping quiet on the Bay of Pigs misadventure by the Soviet leadership. Similarly, the Sino-Vietnam conflict had as much to do with the evolving leadership dynamic within the Chinese Communist Party post the death of Mao Tse Tsung as it did with the situation in Cambodia. Deng Xiaoping assumed the leadership in December 1978 and Chinese troops entered Vietnam in March 1979.

Thus, there is a clearly established pattern to the Chinese behaviour. Create a new crisis to push the previous one out of sight.

Stare China down

Should the Chinese leadership be allowed to get away with it this time around again? The answer is no.

The world needs to stare the Chinese squarely in the eye. There are five things that must be done.

First, the call for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 must be taken to a logical conclusion. Second, Taiwan’s observer status at the World Health Organization (WHO) must be reinstated. Third, China’s disproportionate influence in the institutions of global governance must be substantively diminished through collective action beginning with a summer cleaning of the WHO.

Fourth, the quad between the US, India, Japan and Australia must be formalised to keep the Indo-Pacific free of malefic Chinese influence.

Fifth, the international community must unite to, if necessary, sanction China to keep democracy and liberty alive in Hong Kong.

Modi govt’s border conundrum

That leaves the question of dealing with the border encroachment carried out by China in Ladakh and north Sikkim. There, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government will have to carry the cross alone, keeping the possibility of a China-Pakistan link-up in Sub Sector North in mind.

For starters, the Narendra Modi government must tell India what is really going on. Are Generals Panag and Prakash Menon correct that a ‘Lakshman rekha’ has indeed been breached? If so, what is the extent of the transgression and what does the government intend to do about it?

Unlike the maritime domain, where shared interests are at play, here, India is virtually on its own. However, it holds some cards, for example the Chair of the WHO’s Executive Board, 5G trials for Huawei, activating the Vladivostok-Chennai Maritime Corridor. If the Modi government uses these skilfully, coupled with a patient, sustained but a determined force posture in Ladakh and north Sikkim, India should be just fine.

How Prime Minister Modi must be regretting shelving the 90,000-strong 17th Mountain Strike Corps or the Brahmastra Corps cleared for raising by the Congress-led UPA government in July 2013 especially keeping the Sino-Indian situation in mind. It would have been fully operational by now.

The author is a lawyer, MP and former Union information and broadcasting minister. Views are personal.

[Freegrass]

China’s aggression against India, Hong Kong, US comes from sense of siege on pandemic origin

Given the global backlash and its economy, China will have to learn to live with a multipolar Asia and world rather than seek singular hegemony.

SHYAM SARAN 1 June, 2020

In the past few days, attention has been riveted on the India-China border where a series of stand-offs have taken place between the armed forces of the two countries. In one instance, at the Galwan Valley in Ladakh, China has violated the status quo intruding into territory that is clearly on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control, or LAC. The stand-off there continues even while bilateral mechanisms set up to handle such incidents have been activated.

The eruption of multiple incidents across both the eastern and western sectors of the border within a short time span of a couple of weeks points to higher-level coordination and command. The political intent behind them needs to be understood as also the overall context in which they are taking place.

The political intent is quite simply to put India on the defensive, convey China’s ability to create trouble at the border at will and persuade New Delhi to stay clear of actions by its adversaries, in particular, the US to confront China whether on the coronavirus investigations, the resumption of Taiwan’s observer status at the WHO, and now the extension of China’s national security law to Hong Kong in violation of its commitment to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy for 50 years under the ‘one country two systems’ pledge made in 1997.

This aggressive behaviour is part of a pattern which we are witnessing in the Taiwan Straits and the South China Sea, where similar incidents have been taking place. This is accompanied by what has come to be known as ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ referring to a very popular thriller movie Wolf Warrior 2 (2017), in which Chinese commandos rescue Chinese citizens caught in a violent war in an unnamed African country. The message is — no one messes around with China.

Hubris and insecurity

Chinese diplomats have taken to Twitter and other social media to counter-attack any criticism of its handling of the pandemic, or on any other issue. The language used is often crude and offensive. This kind of overt and even brazen assertiveness is new and appears to have been sanctioned by the Chinese leadership. There is an odd mixture of hubris and acute insecurity behind this posture.

Hubris comes from the perception that China’s only rival, the US, is in terminal decline and retreating from its expansive global role. This is leaving behind a power vacuum that only China, as the world’s second-largest economy and military power is capable of filling. The Covid-19 pandemic may have hit China badly, but it is also the first major economy to begin recovery. This gives it a first-mover advantage while others are still deep in a health-cum-economic crisis. There is an influential section of the leadership that believes China must move quickly to expand its power before other major powers recover. This explains the hardening of position on Hong Kong and Taiwan. The ‘one country two systems’ in Hong Kong is dead and with it, the pretence that the same could be applied for the peaceful unification of Taiwan. The prospect of a forceful takeover of the island is suddenly no longer distant.

Parallel to this overweening ambition is deep insecurity that comes from a sense of siege on the pandemic question. Despite its heavy duty propaganda, China has been unable to dispel the widespread global perception that it had covered up the spread of the virus in the initial stages and allowed it to become a pandemic, causing immense suffering and economic disruption across the world. It has had to acquiesce in a consensus decision at the recent World Health Assembly on the conduct of an independent investigation into the origin and the spread of the virus. Its conclusions may be politically inconvenient.

Stability of the regime

On the economic front, the trade war with the US is bound to intensify, and there is a sense of caution on expanding economic ties with China among European countries and Japan. China has shown its willingness to retaliate with economic measures if it is crossed. We have seen this most recently with Australia, a major trade partner. It may have to live up to this reputation with respect to Canada, where a recent judgment has upheld the US request for the handing over of Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the founder of Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei, in a case involving violation of US sanctions on Iran. This comes at a time when Hong Kong’s special status as an autonomous economic entity, entitled to American trade preferences and less restrictive technology controls, may be lost as the US reacts to the extension of China’s security law to the former British colony.

Hong Kong has played a very significant role as China’s interface to the capitalist world and as a global financial centre. There will be a major setback to China if that status is lost. China has a massive debt overhang of about 300 per cent of its GDP. These economic vulnerabilities lie at the heart of the sense of insecurity because they may undermine regime stability. This is why we also see commentaries counselling restraint and even a return to Deng Xiaoping’s dictum of “taoguang yanghui” or keeping a low key and not seeking leadership.

No place for hegemony

There are tensions within the Chinese leadership on these issues and how they are resolved will also impact the course of India-China relations. One thing is certain. Even if there is a US retreat from its global role, itself a debatable proposition, China is not yet capable of stepping into its shoes. There is a cluster of major powers that are also expanding their profile in their own regions. Asia itself is a crowded and contested geopolitical space and India is a major player.

China will have to learn to live with a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world rather than seek singular hegemony.

The author is a former Foreign Secretary and is Senior Fellow. CPR. Views are personal.

[Freegrass]

China-India border: Why tensions are rising between the neighbours
By Anbarasan Ethirajan and Vikas Pandey
BBC News, 30 May 2020


The area has become a hotspot in part because of a road India has built

The armies of the world's two most populous nations are locked in a tense face-off high in the Himalayas, which has the potential to escalate as they seek to further their strategic goals.

Officials quoted by the Indian media say thousands of Chinese troops have forced their way into the Galwan valley in Ladakh, in the disputed Kashmir region.

Indian leaders and military strategists have clearly been left stunned.

The reports say that in early May, Chinese forces put up tents, dug trenches and moved heavy equipment several kilometres inside what had been regarded by India as its territory. The move came after India built a road several hundred kilometres long connecting to a high-altitude forward air base which it reactivated in 2008.

The message from China appears clear to observers in Delhi - this is not a routine incursion.

"The situation is serious. The Chinese have come into territory which they themselves accepted as part of India. It has completely changed the status quo," says Ajai Shukla, an Indian military expert who served as a colonel in the army.

China takes a different view, saying it's India which has changed facts on the ground.

Reports in the Indian media said soldiers from the two sides clashed on at least two occasions in Ladakh. Stand-offs are reported in at least three locations: the Galwan valley; Hot Springs; and Pangong lake to the south.



India and China share a border more than 3,440km (2,100 miles) long and have overlapping territorial claims. Their border patrols often bump into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles but both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades.

Their armies - two of the world's largest - come face to face at many points. The poorly demarcated Line of Actual Control (LAC) separates the two sides. Rivers, lakes and snowcaps mean the line separating soldiers can shift and they often come close to confrontation.

The current military tension is not limited to Ladakh. Soldiers from the two sides are also eyeball-to-eyeball in Naku La, on the border between China and the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim. Earlier this month they reportedly came to blows.

And there's a row over a new map put out by Nepal, too, which accuses India of encroaching on its territory by building a road connecting with China.

Why are tensions rising now?

There are several reasons - but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.

"The traditionally peaceful Galwan River has now become a hotspot because it is where the LAC is closest to the new road India has built along the Shyok River to Daulet Beg Oldi (DBO) - the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh," Mr Shukla says.

India's decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.

Chinese state-run media outlet Global Times said categorically: "The Galwan Valley region is Chinese territory, and the local border control situation was very clear."

"According to the Chinese military, India is the one which has forced its way into the Galwan valley. So, India is changing the status quo along the LAC - that has angered the Chinese," says Dr Long Xingchun, president of the Chengdu Institute of World Affairs (CIWA), a think tank.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia programme at the Wilson Center, another think tank, says this face-off is not routine. He adds China's "massive deployment of soldiers is a show of strength".

The road could boost Delhi's capability to move men and material rapidly in case of a conflict.

Differences have been growing in the past year over other areas of policy too.

When India controversially decided to end Jammu and Kashmir's limited autonomy in August last year, it also redrew the region's map.

The new federally-administered Ladakh included Aksai Chin, an area India claims but China controls.

Senior leaders of India's Hindu-nationalist BJP government have also been talking about recapturing Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A strategic road, the Karakoram highway, passes through this area that connects China with its long-term ally Pakistan. Beijing has invested about $60bn (£48bn) in Pakistan's infrastructure - the so-called China Pakistan Economic corridor (CPEC) - as part of its Belt and Road Initiative and the highway is key to transporting goods to and from the southern Pakistani port of Gwadar. The port gives China a foothold in the Arabian Sea.



In addition, China was unhappy when India initially banned all exports of medical and protective equipment to shore up its stocks soon after the coronavirus pandemic started earlier this year.

How dangerous could this get?

"We routinely see both armies crossing the LAC - it's fairly common and such incidents are resolved at the local military level. But this time, the build-up is the largest we have ever seen," says former Indian diplomat P Stobdan, an expert in Ladakh and India-China affairs.

"The stand-off is happening at some strategic areas that are important for India. If Pangong lake is taken, Ladakh can't be defended. If the Chinese military is allowed to settle in the strategic valley of Shyok, then the Nubra valley and even Siachen can be reached."

In what seems to be an intelligence failure, India seems to have been caught off guard again. According to Indian media accounts, the country's soldiers were outnumbered and surrounded when China swiftly diverted men and machines from a military exercise to the border region.

This triggered alarm in Delhi - and India has limited room for manoeuvre. It can either seek to persuade Beijing to withdraw its troops through dialogue or try to remove them by force. Neither is an easy option.

"China is the world's second-largest military power. Technologically it's superior to India. Infrastructure on the other side is very advanced. Financially, China can divert its resources to achieve its military goals, whereas the Indian economy has been struggling in recent years, and the coronavirus crisis has worsened the situation," says Ajai Shukla.

What next?

History holds difficult lessons for India. It suffered a humiliating defeat during the 1962 border conflict with China. India says China occupies 38,000km of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary issues.

China already controls the Aksai Chin area further east of Ladakh and this region, claimed by India, is strategically important for Beijing as it connects its Xinjiang province with western Tibet.

In 2017 India and China were engaged in a similar stand-off lasting more than two months in Doklam plateau, a tri-junction between India, China and Bhutan.

India objected to China building a road in a region claimed by Bhutan. The Chinese stood firm. Within six months, Indian media reported that Beijing had built a permanent all-weather military complex there.

This time, too, talks are seen as the only way forward - both countries have so much to lose in a military conflict.

"China has no intention to escalate tensions and I think India also doesn't want a conflict. But the situation depends on both sides. The Indian government should not be guided by the nationalistic media comments," says Dr Long Xingchun of the CIWA in Chengdu. "Both countries have the ability to solve the dispute through high-level talks."

Chinese media have given hardly any coverage to the border issue, which is being interpreted as a possible signal that a route to talks will be sought.

Pratyush Rao, associate director for South Asia at Control Risks consultancy, says both sides have "a clear interest in prioritising their economic recovery" and avoiding military escalation.

"It is important to recognise that both sides have a creditable record of maintaining relative peace and stability along their disputed border."

[Freegrass]

Hate begets hate... You reap what you sow...
Looks at the disgusting grin on the fascist in chief's face! He's loving it!
Next come the right wing nutcases with guns...
All America needs now is another Ahmaud Arbery...
One black man shot dead on camera by a white supremacist, and there you go...
Let's hope I'm wrong about this!
But I don't think I am...

Good Luck America! This is bad...
Especially when you know that there are 400 million guns laying around in people's homes...

[igs]

They'll probably keep America as farmland, but I'm still thinking how they'll destroy their military power. The best way to do this is to bankrupt the nation.

That's quite interesting because I'm pondering over the very same question since years now and came to the not very specific but perhaps close to future facts, conclusions:


1) The downfall definitely has begun


2) The military power will be the last power to fail them but detoriation of the overall power, i.e, number of weapons and later in the process also quality of the same will go down the river due to budget cuts due to economic disintegration, step by step, field by field, with ups and downs but steadily downwards.


SIMILARLY LIKE THE ARCTIC SEA ICE (not funny of course)


3) I estimate a 150 - 200 years fall to an Italian (ex Roman) level, not linearly but steadily.


4) The starting point of this process was somewhere between the end of the "Gold Standard" and 9/11/2001


5) China will be an intermediary power, it will not be able to maintain peak powers for over 100 years, most probably not even that long. So in my opinione the powers in place will be either yet unkknown (not considered to be that in the future) or it will be some kind of resurrected old power like i.e. Europe or Russia after several ups and downs.


What we do not know is the "lucky punches" either inventions, weaponery and/or future resources that could see to a surprising future power that is not an any radar nowadays, but must be large enough to not be overrun in half a day


Perhaps worth to mention that I've been living in Mainland China for around 9 years not everything is Gold what's glittering there, by far not. IMO the country at the current level becomes more and more vulnerable and once people start to be hungry again things can collapse very quickly.

[Alexander555]

Hate begets hate... You reap what you sow...
Looks at the disgusting grin on the fascist in chief's face! He's loving it!
Next come the right wing nutcases with guns...
All America needs now is another Ahmaud Arbery...
One black man shot dead on camera by a white supremacist, and there you go...
Let's hope I'm wrong about this!
But I don't think I am...

Good Luck America! This is bad...
Especially when you know that there are 400 million guns laying around in people's homes...

In Rwanda they had no guns. And they killed 10 % of the population in just a few weeks. Even in Syria they don't come close to 10 % of the population after 10 years of war and bombing. You just need a big pile of shit and the killings start.

[Alexander555]

In Rwanda they just went from door to door with their sticks and manchettes. Because they had nothing to fear.

[Freegrass]

In Rwanda they just went from door to door with their sticks and manchettes. Because they had nothing to fear.

So true. People don't need much to kill each other. Just an idiot at the top and those who resist...

About the military Igs, maybe America keeps its military power and remains the policeman of the world for the UN? When the USSR collapsed, they kept their nuclear weapons... It's an intriguing question indeed...

Another way is a war. World War Trump... Like what happened to Germany and Japan... They've lost their armies, right? The only problem is that we've got nuclear weapons now, so that'll be tricky...

Anyway... The whole world is about to collapse due to climate change, so I'm not thinking too far ahead. It's just not looking good at this point in time. Big change is coming!

[Freegrass]

So does anyone still believe that those trillions went to the common people? Or to the stock market and the one percent?

Americannots are probably the biggest idiots in human history... They are being robbed blind, and they don't even realize it...

Watch Trump Get Reelected!
FASCISM RULES AGAIN!