By Amarynth for the Saker Blog

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ― Buckminster Fuller

My thesis is that this is the best and most reasonable position for a Geo-political watcher and analyst to take, now that we are as a world deeply into both breakdown of single, unlilateral polarity and the changes around such an implosion and the beginnings of the establishment of true multipolarity. Here is an example of obsoleting the existing model:

Some will remember that the empirical hegemon broke the system of artibration of the World Trade Organization by refusing to appoint arbitrators. China is getting around this definitively now, by setting up a regional arbitration center with the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) in Hong Kong to provide more accessible and efficient dispute settlement mechanisms to Asian and African countries. The WTO is being decapitated. (Source, The Sirius Report Source China Xinhua News).

We have never seen what we are seeing today. So, history cannot be taken as a true analog to the move to multi-polarity. We’ve never done this before. The existing models are being obsoleted while new models are being built instead.

A Quick catch up: We had the virtual meeting Biden*/Xi. This is what happened afterward. It is of course a cluster bleep as most hegemonic efforts are these days.

In this virtual meeting, China did not yield a centimeter, held fast to their red lines and the 1992 consensus on Taiwan. Biden* again unambiguously reiterated US acceptance of the One China policy. Although generally accepted that the meeting calmed down some tension, it lasted only as long as the publication of the two respective readouts, which were as different as day is from the night. The US readout quoted US law, specifically their own Taiwan Relations Act to continually attempt to define and control their own relationship with Taiwan, as well as the Chinese relationship with Taiwan, and through that vector, China itself.  Hegemony wants to keep this issue hot.

Immediately the ‘war against the winter Olympics’ started, and calls for a boycott became ubiquitous in the western press. There is a big joke here, as the US with the UK following is making noises about a ‘diplomatic boycott’ (apparently the important people will not attend), and anyone that wants a moment in the press says they will attend or not. But the thing is, most of them were not invited in their professional capacity. The way this works is that the local country puts forward a recommendation for an invitation to their local Olympics committee, which in turn approaches the overarching Olympics committee and host country for an invitation. So, much of the bravado that you see, is cheap pretense from cheap politicians that were never invited, not even put forward by their own countries.  Of course for this one, it’s fertile Mike Pompeo propaganda territory:

The CCP has disappeared reporters writing about Wuhan virus, docs telling the truth about CCP labs, a prof tennis player, Uighurs, Hong Kongers & the head of Interpol. Let’s disappear the Olympics from them & hold it in a place the world can be proud of. #BoycottBeijingOlympics

** A short update on these accusations at the end.

Before moving onto Taiwan which still is the story of the moment, take a look at highlights from Xi Jingping’s speech on the ASEAN-China special summit. With China joining the ASEAN as a full member, the Quad has been denuded of any implicit teeth (or outmaneuvered). These are the highlights:

 

Taiwan, the South China Sea and threatening military action remains the main story of the day, with similarities to the Ukraine and Russia, not in terms of legal issues, but in terms of the pressure points being utilized.  From day to day one cannot decide which theater is more immediately pressing.

For those that are still not sure of the history, this is a blisteringly fast 45-minute short history. Yet, these histories are not short as the civilizations are old. For those that want to dig deeper, there is an 8-hour lecture on Patreon from this same historian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXTZuZWTSPo&t=58s

And if you doubted for one moment that China will reintegrate Taiwan, take a listen at the military posture.

https://imedia-peoplesdaily.pdnews.cn/20211126/ac80f3c647a74d428913d86e2605e598.mp4

And if you think that China is leaving this to stew and brew, you would be mistaken.  The Chinese people asked for ‘punishment’ for the Taiwanese secessionists and now we have this:  Tsai in hot water for allegedly forging doctoral dissertation, credentials of UK’s LSE

China will not be resorting to military action to reunify Taiwan if they can help it.  But the secessionists will receive their ‘punishment’ one by one.  This does not mean that China is not ready for military action, it is just that they do not need to do that.

The Hot Spot Category

Honduras

Honduras, one of the only 15 remaining countries with “diplomatic relations” with the island of Taiwan, held its presidential election on Sunday. Xiomara Castro, presidential candidate for the opposition Libre Party who leads in the latest polls, vowed in September that she would “immediately open diplomatic and commercial relations” with the People’s Republic of China if she wins in November, according to the AFP. Her remarks threw Taiwan authorities into panic and made the US uncomfortable.  The election meddling squad immediately was out in full force, except that the inexorable pink tide in the Latin Americas now know what to expect and they fought for their candidate.

Open your eyes, some western people fond of accusing China of being “coercive.” should take a look at what coercive diplomacy truly looks like: A visiting US delegation made clear to Honduran presidential candidates that the US wants Honduras to maintain its long-standing “diplomatic” relations with the island of Taiwan. Thus Honduras better play its role as the US’ cannon fodder well, no matter who wins the election, by carrying on its ties with Taiwan, an island the US has no “diplomatic” ties with and which is an inalienable part of China’s territory, to stir up trouble for China, a country the US does have diplomatic relations with.  (No, this sentence is not confused, or generated, it truly is the state of affairs and the situation from the entity that now wants to throw a big Democracy party, but cannot get their diplomatic relations straight.

(Although the election is over, the meddling has not ceased and it is still a touch and go issue in Honduras.  Election stealing is an art and this art can be seen now.)

Lithuania

On November 18, Lithuania, in disregard of China’s strong protest and repeated representations, allowed Taiwan island to set up a “representative office” in the name of Taiwan instead of Taipei, which apparently went against the one-China principle. Lithuania’s move undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on November 18.

China Foreign affairs warned them, and then quickly and immediately downgraded consular relationships to only that of Chargé d’affaires – seriously impacting any Lithuania/China trade.

Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands burst into anti-China rioting and Australia sent troops to help. It is like sending the wolf to guard the henhouse. In an interview with ABC, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the “only issue” behind the conflict was a disagreement over the country’s switch of diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019. “Unfortunately, it is influenced and encouraged by other powers,” he said. “I don’t want to name them, we won’t — but we all know who they are.” “Those are countries that don’t want a relationship with the People’s Republic of China”

On Thailand and Myanmar you may follow Brian Berletic on his Twitter and Youtube channel.

Myanmar would fall into this hot category, yet, it is more complicated so we will leave Myanmar for another time.

The incessant process of gathering supposed cause based issues to get others to fight empire’s fight, is clearly visible. Given the examples of Taiwan, Honduras, Lithuania, the Solomon islands and Myanmar demonstrates a cold war wanting to go hot on some level, on the periphery.

 

With this as a backdrop, we look at the Oh My How Glorious Democracy Summit.

The only way that this makes sense is that the word democracy is spectacularly wrapped up as a gift and offered to a list of invitees in order to shore up and strengthen the supposed allies of the hegemon and possibly recruit a few more. But, on opening that gift, there is nothing inside. I will state now that we are probably looking at a spectacular failure for this initiative, but propped up by meaninglessly spectacular propaganda. The hegemon has few cards left to deal outside of the military sphere. The invitee list contains countries that are non-aligned and belong to the non-aligned group of nations. In addition, some of them are full members of Belt and Road.  The word ‘democracy’ itself as practiced by the west has reached its ‘sell by’ date.

Moon of Alabama calls it the ‘Democracy Circus’

It is a fact that more than half of the world’s media is owned by the US and the strength in propaganda is disproportionately more powerful than almost anyone. Yet China is catching up.

China followed quickly with their description of a people oriented democracy which is not a one size fits all, as well as the slogan, democracy trap of course in opposition to the many accusations of their work in Africa, generally described by the west as a debt trap. They are following through on this and the English Chinese media is full of descriptions of work in various areas of Africa. The Africa coverage is wall to wall at this time. China’s State Council Information Office released a white paper titled China and Africa in the New Era: A Partnership of Equals. Take a look at the infographics.

China has been modest and in their media always described the US as the biggest economy in the world. They never over-hyped their economic growth vis a vis the US. It is thus not a good message for the hegemon if we now see China overtakes US as the richest country in the world, and to boot, from India.

We end with China’s indictment of the western concept of democracy

https://imedia-peoplesdaily.pdnews.cn/20211126/218bd6f5df3a433fb5afdfdbd2236e5a.mp4

From these hot spot countries, as well as the pressure around the Ukraine, one can then start documenting the current destabilization menu of the west as follows:

  • First, the hackneyed phrase of ‘all options are on the table’ is accurate here. It does not state ‘all honest and ethical options’ are on the table and any goon action will suffice.
  • Economic sabotage (Syria’s oil and Afghanistan’s money)
  • Military aggression and threats
  • Attempts at political and social isolation of countries
  • Clear racism most visible toward China
  • Lawlessness (sanctions on the 3rd of the people in the world)
  • Anything is a target and the hegemon tries to appoint leaders for others (Juan Guaidó, NATO coup puppet Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya)
  • Stifle and crush media messaging
  • Supplying lackeys or wannabe lackeys with weapons
  • Using the last gasps of the petrodollar to buy influence https://www.rt.com/russia/541758-oil-giant-accused-us/
  • Employing radical info warriors – https://www.rt.com/russia/541563-western-media-russian-agent/
  • The dark and dirty deeds of CIA types like NED
  • Desperately trying to stand up new alliances AUKUS, QUAD, and Democracy Summit.

And one does worry when at the time of writing, the Swiss Foreign Minister’s airplane gets rerouted to Russia because of technical issues. The Swiss government adopted a brand new China strategy and the minister was due to cover “many areas of Swiss–China cooperation,” including bilateral trade, human rights and multilateral cooperation. https://www.rt.com/russia/541418-swiss-minister-plane-reroute-moscow/. It may just be only a technical fault of course.

To return to the thesis, and the building of a new world while the old is imploding, I ask this question:

So, is the invited list of democracy summit circus attendees a warning to many of those countries, or a real summit?

 

**Needless to say, Pompeo was not invited and is persona non grata in China. And of course, reporters did not disappear and the documents are available and the Professional Tennis Player is in public doing her work and the Uighurs have a faster population growth rate than anyone else in China and the new Head of Interpol has been appointed. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202111/1239993.shtml