Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter: Here Comes China. You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
Further selections and editorial and geopolitical commentary by Amarynth.
Geopolitics
The expectation expressed by Russia and China is that the US is no longer stable and is becoming dysfunctional and a bigger problem than what is worth to prop up. A retreat, a crash, or a type of retrenchment from the world is imminent.
Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev co-chaired the 16th round of strategic security consultations on Tuesday, which is a high-level meeting focusing on strategic cooperation in confronting both regional and global security and geopolitical threats.
Quote: China and Russia held a new round of strategic security consultations on Tuesday in Moscow, and during the frequent interactions between the two major powers in recent months, the world has showed a dangerous trend of disorder or tensions in some regions, including the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Western Pacific, due to global strategic shifts made by the US,
Quote: So Beijing and Moscow must keep close coordination to handle the upcoming situation, including how to establish a new order to replace the US-dominated one once the latter gets totally dysfunctional, Yang Jin said.
Quote: Chinese analysts said that the recent change has been generally caused by the decline of US hegemony, and not only will the US pressure and hostility push China and Russia to stand closer, the decline in Washington’s strength and influence in some regions will also make Beijing and Moscow consider how to figure out new regional order to stabilize the situation and protect their interests after the US pullout.
The similar remarks made by China and Russia toward the US is a clear signal to the world that the US hegemony will no longer be tolerated, and the world order dominated by the US and its allies is unable to keep stability in many regions, and this kind of order is causing more tensions and conflicts, said Chinese experts.
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224481.shtml
Weapons and nukes
We understand at the Saker Blog, that Russia has the weapons complexes and the ability to defend itself even in this climate of withdrawal from the many weapons treaties. (The US has agreed to extend the New START Treaty)
We also know that the US tried to force China to attend Nuclear Proliferation or Reduction talks with the US, up to the point of staging a meeting to pretend that China did not turn up. China of course had actually declined the invitation, but reading the western media you will not know this. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-rejects-new-us-invite-to-join-nuclear-talks
We accepted that China had not done a major weapons build-out up to now, and if they did, it was muted.
This may be changing in front of our eyes.
China urged the increase of sea-based nuclear deterrents amid US intensified strategic threat – https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224773.shtml
My post published on Chinese social media: As the US is crazily implementing containment strategy toward China, China must intensify building its nuclear deterrence. Here is the translation. pic.twitter.com/shJHXUJ5FX
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) May 28, 2021
Those that follow China and its news closely understand that if Hu Xijin says something like this, or writes a column such as this, the build-out of a Chinese nuclear deterrence is in full swing.
In the midst of these happenings, Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon papers leaked another top secret document. One that he had worked on, and kept secret for 50 years. Parts of it were obtainable but not the full document. He drops a powerful warning of the present threat of nuclear war with Russia and China.
Daniel Ellsberg: This Month We Must Discuss If We Should Go to Nuclear War Over Taiwan, Ukraine or Syria
“Celebrated whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, … now age 90, used the occasion of the April 30-May 1 commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his release of the Pentagon Papers, organized by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, to reveal that John Foster Dulles had proposed in 1958 that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend to the President that a nuclear exchange with China be launched in the Taiwan Straits, even though that would mean that Taiwan and its people would be wiped out, for the sole geopolitical purpose of maintaining the United States “position” in the world.
And
“The 1958 Taiwan Straits Crisis, A Documented History,” Ellsberg quoted Dulles’s message to the meeting: “Nothing seems worth a world war … until you looked at the effect of not standing up to its challenge.” The RAND study explained that “the issue then was, would we, as the joint chiefs, recommend the use of nuclear weapons to defend Quemoy, and Matsu, and Taiwan, and possibly use seven- to ten-kiloton weapons with the expectation that … the Soviets would respond and would hit Taiwan.”
Finally:
“Let them try to jail me for disclosing this still-top secret fact today,” Ellsberg declared, adding that he was revealing the secret because, “I have no doubt whatever, that that discussion is going on in the Pentagon right now…. This is the month we have to be discussing the issue, in public, of whether we should go to nuclear war over Taiwan, or Ukraine, or Syria.”
The Grayzone published a summary: https://thegrayzone.com/2021/05/27/eisenhower-military-chiefs-nuclear-war-china-classified-taiwan-strait/
“Although the circumstances surrounding the U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan have changed dramatically since that stage of the Cold War, the 1958 Taiwan crisis provides a sobering lesson as the US military gears up for a new military confrontation with China.”
Of course the western and specifically the US provocative and unintelligent statements via their media containment complex continue. It is what Andrei Martyanov calls “a very acute case of a bipolar disorder .
Pentagon Special Forces nominee says US should ‘strongly consider’ training Taiwanese guerillas against ‘Chinese invasion’
Whether it is Taiwan, or Xinjiang or Hong Kong or any other area where propaganda can be manufactured, the US mighty Wurlitzer continues.
Sidebar: Anyone that wants to follow the Xinjiang issue more closely can go and catch up with Daniel Dumbrill, specifically two videos:
The Real Potential for a Future Genocide in Xinjiang
and a short follow-up, where he compares and contrasts the Xinjiang sitution with Libya.
Libya Destroyed & ETIM (Xinjiang Terrorism)
https://www.youtube.com/c/DanielDumbrill/videos
This is then the summary of the situation today:
- Ellsberg warns that the same talks that happened 50 years ago to possibly strike China with nuclear weapons is no doubt happening in the Pentagon today.
- Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev states that Russia and China must coordinate in order to establish a new order to replace the US-domination, once the latter gets totally dysfunctional.
Given the stature of Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev, I would consider the above some of the most significant moves in the world today. There are those who reason that as the US-dominated world order gets more dysfunctional, the urge for them to use nuclear weapons will become stronger. I will leave this here for you to make up your own mind and comment on what you see.
Moves around SARS–CoV-2 and its progeny Covid-19 and more leaks
There is also the major US accusation that Covid-19 was a lab leak and China is responsible. Yet China has no history of creating these kinds of bioweapons (if indeed it was created as such) but the US has a rich history of creating and using such weapons.
The acceleration of blaming China with respect to the virus is proportional to the financial and economic collapse of the west.
What west fails to understand is demonising China won't prevent its own collapse.
— The Sirius Report (@thesiriusreport) May 29, 2021
So why do we always say that Americans are effectively the most brainwashed people in the world? Take a look at what happened to information similar to the Daniel Elsberg Pentagon Papers Leak and his current leak of nuclear planning against China even to the point of demolishing and sacrificing Taiwan.
Godfree Roberts took a specific document and updated and annotated it for clarity. This is called The ISC (Needham) Report. Published at the height of the Korean War, it validated claims by North Korea and China that the US had launched bacteriological warfare (biological warfare, BW) attacks against both troops and civilian targets in those two countries over a period of several months in 1952.
The Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China (the ISC report)
The cleaned up, updated and annotated version is available for Kindle on Amazon for a small amount here. ,
And a free copy (not very readable) is available here
If you wonder why the Americans have not seen this, or have not known about it, this will give you all the information.
Jeffrey Kaye says:
Do you wonder why China is asking serious questions?
Beijing called on the US to explain a respiratory disease outbreak in northern Virginia in July, 2019 and a large-scale outbreak of e-cigarette disease in Wisconsin. “When will the US release detailed data and information on relevant cases to the international community? The United States owes an explanation to the international community.” Read full article →
Can you imagine what will happen if China is kinetically attacked? A big part of the US industrial base is now in China. The US would be attacking its own sources of food, commodities, and its own supply chain. Looking at Elsberg’s ‘warning’ is this not a spectacular example of insane short-term thinking?
To end this section, taking the previous summary and adding one point, it looks like this:
- Ellsberg warns that the same talks that happened 50 years ago to possibly strike China with nuclear weapons is no doubt happening in the Pentagon today. Is the Ellsberg warning more serious than what we think?
- Yang Jiechi and Nikolai Patrushev states that Russia and China must coordinate in order to establish a new order to replace the US-dominated one, once the latter gets totally dysfunctional.
- The US has clearly and unequivocally used bioweapons (even excluding Vietnam), in the past, and hidden this.
Conclusion: Unfortunately the mindset has not changed and the actions have not changed since the time described in both the Ellsberg report, or the reveals of the Needham report. This is currently the danger and is what we mean by doubling-down.
Following on from the last China Sitrep, we have banking news, a cute helicopter and drone soccer.
E-Hang’s electric VT-30 travels 300km in 100 minutes. With eight propellers, two fixed wings, and a propeller at the rear, it achieves a balance of hybrid lift and push, so needs no runway. Its tri-redundant, fly-by-wire controls can be flexibly altered for multiple modes, implying a much higher safety level for the aircraft. Read full article →
Chinese scientists set a new world record of achieving a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in the latest experiment on Friday, a key step toward the test running of a fusion reactor. Read full article →
China dominates consumer and commercial drones globally, and 369 exhibitors showcased 2,000 drone products in Shenzen this week. Mini drones the size of a wristwatch hovered next to cargo drones like four-seater planes. Kids played 3v3 drone soccer before a crowd of adoring parents. Read full article →
(They also say they need a million drone pilots!)
The Maglev trains are just running faster: A groundbreaking ceremony launched a 620 mph maglev test line. The train uses superconducting magnetic levitation to disengage from the ground to eliminate frictional drag and a near-vacuum internal duct lines to dramatically reduce air resistance to achieve its speed. Read full article →
European BRI Rail Freight rose 100% in 2020. Austria’s Rail Cargo Group (RCG) transported 70,000 TEUs across BRI routes and, compared to 2019, doubled its Eurasian volumes and reached an all-time high of 700 trains running on these routes, This year, the company aims to run 1,000 freight trains. Read full article →
China ramped up its Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and set up clearing banks at all major offshore yuan trading hubs, like Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and Frankfurt. The CIPS clearing system operates during work hours of financial markets in every time zone. Read full article from our favorite Pekingologist →
Historical piece from the 2ndWW: The secret deportations: how Britain betrayed the Chinese men who served the country in the war
During the second world war, Chinese merchant seamen helped keep Britain fed, fuelled and safe – and many gave their lives doing so. But from late 1945, hundreds of them who had settled in Liverpool suddenly disappeared. Now their children are piecing together the truth
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/may/25/chinese-merchant-seamen-liverpool-deportations
This is but a fraction of what I gleaned from the Here Comes China newsletter. If you want to learn about the Chinese world, get Godfree’s newsletter here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
“The expectation expressed by Russia and China is that the US is no longer stable and is becoming dysfunctional and a bigger problem than what is worth to prop up. A retreat, a crash, or a type of retrenchment from the world is imminent.”
This is exactly what’s going on with the AngloZIONIST Empire. For over 500 years now, Europeans have been ranging around the planet displacing indigenous cultures on every continent (except Antarctica), stealing their land and resources, and engaging in all manner of ethnic cleansing and genocide. It’s about time that the rest of the world rises up and says, no more! It’s totally understandable that Russia and China both understand that “a retreat, a crash, or a type of retrenchment from the world is imminent.”
More than that, though, these “chosen ones” are not about to just go quietly into that dark night like empires of the past. Zionism is a death cult that looks to bring the rest of the world with it into oblivion. And, they have lots of nukes with which to do that. It will be up to China and Russia to edge them from center stage without giving them the excuse to bring it all down. Remember, Russia and China play chess. The Empire plays Russian roulette.
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
Vineet D Menachery1, Boyd L Yount Jr1, Kari Debbink1,2, Sudhakar Agnihothram3, Lisa E Gralinski1, Jessica A Plante1, Rachel L Graham1, Trevor Scobey1, Xing-Yi Ge4, Eric F Donaldson1, Scott H Randell5,6, Antonio Lanzavecchia7, Wayne A Marasco8,9, Zhengli-Li Shi4 & Ralph S Baric1,2
1Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. 2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. 3National Center for Toxicological Research, Food and Drug Administration, Jefferson, Arkansas, USA. 4Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China. 5Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. 6Cystic Fibrosis Center, Marsico Lung Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. 7Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Bellinzona Institute of Microbiology, Zurich, Switzerland. 8Department of Cancer Immunology and AIDS, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 9Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Correspondence should be addressed to R.S.B. (rbaric@email.unc.edu) or V.D.M. (vineet@email.unc.edu).
VOLUME 21 | NUMBER 12 | DECEMBER 2015 nature medicine
WVI and UNC … read the paper, work was done at Wuhan, and that was the center of the outbreak. Is this hard to figure out?
Question is: who was behind it and why? Based on past performance alone, the fact that the usual suspects are now pointing once again at the Chinese tells me all I need to know. Not to mention the fact that it was loose on the US east coast as early as the fall of 2019 under the mysterious guise of “unprecedented vaping afflictions,” which of course conveniently disappeared shortly thereafter. No doubt in my mind who engineered and profited from this mess, nor is there any doubt that we’ve seen the last of it. This party’s just getting started!
Lol, UNC, Harvard Medical School, etc etc myst all be tools of the CCP. Yeah.
Dear Deranged American, I think you have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. None of those U$ research institutions are tools of the Chinese Communist Party. Dr.Fauci simply thought the Chinese would not understand what “gain of function” meant. So the CCP held that stick the right way: use that U$ money and skilled manpower from Harvard Med School, UNC etc as a tool to learn what Dr.Fauci’s Frankenstein Virus Lab at Fort Detrick had been up to.
The CCP might well take a leaf out of President Putin’s book and ask all those U$ bioweapons specialists working at Wuhan, “Do you think we are idiots?”
No, not hard to figure out.
That paper on humanizing bat viruses (and ultimately weaponizing them against humans) is authored by scientists with 10 different affiliations. Of those 10 affiliations, 9 are not Wuhan. Of those 9 scientists who had non-Chinese affiliations, 8 were affiliated to research institutions in the U$A. And the work on “gain of function” (transforming bat viruses so they can attack humans) was funded by U$ virus czar Fauci. Dr.Fauci Frankenstein used to head viral research in U$ Biowarfare Laboratory at Fort Detrick, until public pressure caused the place to be closed down for carelessness in handling dangerous pathogens. Fauci’s Frankenstein Virus Lab was then “outsourced” to Wuhan.
I’ve been saying it ever since the Con-19 scam was launched. That virus came from Fort Detrick in Virginia, U$A. The same Fort Detrick that released anthrax spores in the U$A during the Gulf War.
Nailed it.
“I’ve been saying it ever since the Con-19 scam was launched.”
If it’s a Con-19 scam then it doesn’t matter if it came from Fort Detrick or my old Granny’s kitchen – something that kills 80.5 YO with 2.7 co-morbid conditions (i.e.those about to die of anything) is natural.
The scam is that so many, including yourself, believe it is a real health problem.
This oversight takes your focus off the actual problem – the Global Mafia, not the imaginary Western or Eastern factions thereof.
It’s more of a mental health problem than a physical one. But that’s probably just as damaging in the long run. This has effectively pre-conditioned the sheeple to accept lockdowns, mandatory vaxes, and draconian social controls under the guise of mystery diseases which may or may not even be 100% real. My guess is a more lethal version will be coming in the near future to alter the calculation even further.
Readers who like natural lifestyles and want to know how Chinese live in countryside will surely enjoy the series of videos by Liziqi (李子柒):
Extremely beautiful, addictive and popular videos:
Peanut and melon seeds, dried meat, dried fruit, snowflake cake – snacks for Spring Festival
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWMIPukvdsQ
Full Moon, Fragrance of Ripe Rice, Farmers Busy Harvesting Crops | Liziqi Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSDMTIe90AY
Go through the whole winter with spicy veggies with bean curd paste in a hotpot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhkE3e7lT_g
Tea is more than a drink, but a lifestyle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KfvUCKxCts
During the farming season, drink some homemade beer together for cool and appetite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXIW5lm_Pgk
Congee with pickled mustard plant stem and plum blossom pastries, a simple home-cooked breakfast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBJ38DBFuw
ENJOY !!!
If this guy couldn’t do it in 58, I doubt he’ll succeed today.
Today, I drove by the Veterans cemetery in Killeen, TX. It was so full the people were parking in the roads across the highway to go to that cemetery full of new dead. This cemetery is a product of the 2000s, not old ground in Arlington, the dirt turned here is fresh. You better believe that the hate is growing. America continues to sacrifice its best to the alter of greed. Russia and China only have themselves to fear. Be strong and humble toward one another and you will unite the east and the west.
Go back to the last Saker article: Palestine:Hamas defeats Israel (please-anyone) and read my last tread concerning your comments. (response early this morning 5/31/21)
Removed. No attacking other commenters.
When I was on a school exchange to a village in Reinhessen West Germany in 1955 the villagers showed me a field with Colorado beetle which they said the Americans had dropped on them during the war.
Brother Jeffery Kaye has a “twitter” whatever… https://twitter.com/jeff_kaye He digs up quite a few fissures in the tapestry of total bullchit…
such as this gem> Jeffrey Kaye
@jeff_kaye
·
May 30
“Army Col. Robert Heinl wrote in Armed Forces Journal, “…our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, w/indiv units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers & NCOs, drug-ridden, & dispirited…near mutinous.”
Jeff’s a bit out of the overton window – but well you know, he’s a good man.
I listen.
(I assure y’all that’s a true story)
Not even the the most rabid anti-China talk accuses China of deliberately releasing covid. Reading a few scientific papers though it does seem likely this virus was lab manufactured, and of course the most likely lab was where the major outbreak occurred, the same lab confirmed to be studying bat modified gain of function corona viruses. Of interest is that it was sponsored by the US and Dr Fauci. The complaint isn’t that there was an accident, but that this was covered up and information buried that may have helped the initial response. Knowing personally the Asian obsession with face this is not unlikely.
Likewise too the Chinese should question any outbreak they believe started in the US, although superficially this seems to have sparse evidence.
Also of interest is that China stated that if Australia foolishly got involved with a defense of Taiwan, then the Chinese would target the country with intermediate missiles. A similar comparison would be Turkey threatening Russia that if it was involved with helping Syria stop an Turkish invasion (of lands they believe theirs) then Turkey would strike Moscow with missiles. I would suggest again that China is either not the pacifist so many believe or they need to seriously work on their diplomatic skills. Are Chinese people wanting wars? Of course not. But as Goebbels pointed out the people never are, it requires governments that do to manipulate nationalistic anger.
Gravel Rash says: “Reading a few scientific papers though it does seem likely this virus was lab manufactured, ”
No it is not. There is never agreement among scientists that it is lab manufactured.
Gravel Rash says: “the most likely lab was where the major outbreak occurred”
No, there is NO proof that the virus was manufactured in Wuhan labs. Given the over 200 labs US military has – many located in poor third world countries with little civilian supervision, and given history of US in bioweapon uses, research and accidents, it is more likely if it is a leak, it came from US labs.
Gravel Rash says: “any outbreak they believe started in the US, although superficially this seems to have sparse evidence.”
You neglect to note the reasons for the sparse evidence in US was because of failures in testing for Covid-19 in the early days, and huge coverup by US government (e.g. congressional meeting was held in close door).
Gravel Rash says: “Also of interest is that China stated that if Australia foolishly got involved with a defense of Taiwan, then the Chinese would target the country with intermediate missiles. A similar comparison would be Turkey threatening Russia that if it was involved with helping Syria stop an Turkish invasion”
No it is not similar. Taiwan is part of China – both China and Taiwan Constitutions agree, and UN and most of the 200 members agree the “one China” policy. So for Australia to be involved in China’s CIVIL WAR is an act of war, and China has the right to self-defense. Turkey never claims Syria, and nobody ever agree that Syria to be part of Turkey.
Gravel Rash says: ” it requires governments that do to manipulate nationalistic anger.”
Go read Chinese government official statements, they never try to manipulate any anger. They are almost always responsive, reactive and defensive in tone, substance and explanatory in styles.
Here’s a simple question for the Aussies and all others about Taiwan belonging to China.
If Chiang Kai-shek had won the civil war in 1949, would Taiwan be an independent nation or just part of China?
The Communists won the Civil War. Taiwan is part of China. The Daiyou Islands, given to the Japanese in the late 50s to administer (to stir the trouble with China vs Japan) belong to China because they belong to Taiwan.
The US has created the controversy and feeds it today with weapons and propaganda.
The notion that Taiwan will be protected by US troops is ludicrous. And the Aussies should keep their nose out of the issue.
The issue isn’t about China being pacifist or not. Nor is it necessary for the CCP to stir up nationalistic anger.
The vast majority of Chinese (95%+) react instantly about Taiwan. They would support whatever action it required to hold Taiwan from separating away from China.
Go back to the question I proffered. Taiwan would be China if the other side had won. The Daiyou Islands would be China’s too.
The Aussies are mere ‘footstools’ of the US. They still imagine the Vietnam war finished last year. They are very much involved in their own isolation. With thousands of miles of superb coastline they are more concerned with onshore winds than gender differences or Biden’s fast disappearing cognitive awareness. All in all I really don’t blame them.
Please answer this: How many Koreas are there?
@Gravel Rash: “Knowing personally the Asian obsession with face”
Sounds to me like a parody of the dialogue in Captain America comic books from WW2.
As per Larchmonter445 “Climate Change is elite ideology, not a solution to the world’s problems”.
Ah Ah Ah…
“Climate change is not a solution to the world’s problems” !
________________
Geopolitics revolves around national economic might and during the historical era of Modernity economic might was always procured by capital and the products and services that it offers. These products and services generate the national income which allow a nation to spend on bettering its peoples’ lives and/or on military means to submit other nations or to defend from such submission.
One thing is clear. The West, over the last 200 years, has been selling the most advanced products and this gained it the largest national incomes. The West decided not to share the wealth with its citizens but to invest in military means to submit other nations. And it worked. The West was hegemonic for all this time.
But things have suddenly turned lately.
China is now at the core of the factory of the world. It is at the core of the East-Asian supply-chain. And no East-Asian country would dare detach itself from this chain because its national economy would immediately collapse. I mean, at the exception of ideological bull-dogs like Australia, everyone recognizes the hard reality that dominates the Geopolitical scene of this 1st half of the 21th century.
After it had lost the Yeltsin opportunity of a near infinite supply of energy and resources the West abruptly awoke to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from its shores to East-Asia and it got enraged as Trump so well demonstrated for the whole world to see. But the fact is that the empire has lost its clothes :
— by all accounts its GDP is largely inflated and the reality is that it could be half the size of what is announced officially (see hedonic adjustments)
— production is no longer its core activity. Financial shenanigans are now what accounts for the bulk of its GDP.
— technologically the US has fallen from its pedestal and has now to reckon with the emergence of China as a technological leader. This explains why the US is now panicking and literally copying Chinese political economics while drafting new legislation ordering the state to invest 150 billion in the technological development of its national champions…
— GDP growth over the last 40 years was generated exclusively by the injection of new money in the form of new debts. During the last year US total debt increased by one third the size of GDP ! . This is not just unsustainable it is pushing the can down the road until a reckoning is imposed by the facts…
— the incomes of the 99% have been stagnating and even sinking for at least 50% of them and this explains the sheer social misery that litters the land of the free
— in the meantime the cohesion of the USA has been tanking and today US society is completely atomized as was so well demonstrated during its handling of Covid-19. Societal atomization means that the country is now unable to act as one unity. Each time it wants to undertake something the country shreds itself into multiple pieces going their own directions all at once. This is the best recipe to lose a war… the military knows that darn well and it wants to avoid that price !
So what we observe today is much noise and theater but very little really consequent actions. But observers of the Geopolitical scene make a whole lot of this theater… The fact is that the US military is not inclined to commit suicide. And so we discover that through various concomitant statements the US lately announced it is abandoning any possibility of direct defense of Taiwan. The article is unfortunately in French.
___________
We are entering in the early stages of the Western recognition of the new realities on the ground. It will, without any doubt, take some time for the dust to settle but the outcome is now unavoidable for the following reasons :
1. By all accounts the shift of the economy world is irreversible and will further amplify going forward
2. The West does no longer have what it takes financially, nor societally, to set up an independent supply-chain. In other words it is forced to compose with East-Asia and more particularly with China.
3. By all accounts China’s economy is soon going to pass the size of the US economy in dollar terms and it will pass the combined West soon thereafter.
4. The internationalist wing, among Western big capital holders, wants to share in the profits generated by the Juggernaut China and by East-Asia. It is thus no longer going to sit passively when a Western political servant has a mental breakdown. Diplomacy will thus be forced to make a come-back soon. In the meantime a last ditch propaganda effort is being made by the nationalist wing among big capital holders to try to cover China under a thick layer of dirt. But facts are necessarily going to emerge that will soon turn the tables on them.
5. If it were not for “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” in the near future China’s economy should reach multiple times the size of the combined Western economies.
6. The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity is the convergence of the following series of complex factors :
— the multiple side-effects of Modernity are converging toward each other and starting to unleash all kinds of feed-back loops that are accelerating the die-off of life on earth. Many biologists, and complex-systems analysts, are warning that humanity’s activities are approaching a threshold after which the world natural systems will shift one after another outside of the bandwidth of life. Climate change is but one among this multitude of side-effects…
— the present shift of the economy-world outside, of the realm of the Western civilization, is unleashing a mental breakdown on the West. And it will be extremely difficult for it to regain its composure and face the facts that are responsible for what is transforming into a real predicament for humanity.
— the predicament of humanity is that to survive it has to abandon its present societal paradigm (the reason that is at work within capital) and adopt a new one (the reason that is at work within life). I’m publishing a brick-size book on this particular subject within the following weeks under the title “The continuum of the cultural field” which basically explains that human free-will is largely an illusion that forces on us the axioms of our civilization and our societal worldview. The question that immediately arises is “how are we possibly going to change our societal paradigm” ?
Laodan, interesting synthesis which addresses two points of view that are usually espoused separately: 1. China good, EU$A bad. 2. Environmental mismanagement is not the main issue.
“How are we going to change the principles of our society” ?
I believe it will come about by evolution in the Noosphere — the world of ideas, which is a significant part of the Anthropocene Era that the Zoosphere is going through. I remember a biologist telling me that evolutionary adaptation to changed conditions usually came about via the emergence of some insignificant little creature which had been too rare to detect in the previous fossil record. Optimistically I believe beneficial changes will be brought to our social structure by increasing dominance of a few Memes (Meme: a transmissible social principle, the mental equivalent of a gene) which have hitherto played a relatively insignificant role in politics. Memes such as:
Don’t Lie. Don’t Kill. Don’t steal. Don’t Lust for other peoples’ goods. Honour the Creator. Love your fellow creatures. Seek the Truth. Etc.
Don’t Lie. Don’t Kill. Don’t steal. Don’t Lust for other peoples’ goods. Honour the Creator. Love your fellow creatures. Seek the Truth. Etc.
LOL! All memes which the hypocritical west has long purported to embrace. But I think you’re onto something here Dr.
The 1958 nuke China over Taiwan project was really quite amazing. The Pentagon wasn’t even ‘defending’ Taiwan, they wanted to do it over small islands held by the Chiang Kai-shek regime just 5 miles from mainland China. A classic bully move, ‘I have the right to punch you because you let your shadow touch me!’
——————————————————————————————————————
decoupling from U.S. economy just how does the world break its dollar habit?
The most clear explanation I ever heard as to why the dollar maintains its global status is really quite straightforward, the U.S. trade deficit. USD’s are constantly filling everyone’s foreign exchange reserve, so almost everyone has these extra dollars to use for trading between themselves.
Sow how does one get rid of this gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe?
1. Buying treasuries – no, that is investing directly in the USD.
2. Buying assets in the U.S. – no, same problem as 1, you have assets valued in USD and something the U.S. govt can seize from you.
3. Buying assets in other countries – dang, you just gave them a boatload of dollars, that stuff is like dark matter.
4. Buy hard assets in the U.S. and ship it back to China – this is your best bet, buy gold, silver, platinum, or any hard asset and ship it to your vaults, now does the U.S. let you do that?
One thing remains unclear to me: Why does nobody ask the Taiwanese people whether they want autonomy or be part of the PRC? Self-determination is still part of international law, isn’t it? What is it that China doesn’t understand? Or are they the same kind of powerplayer as the US, who conveniently also never follow law if it doesn’t suit them like with Crimea, Abkhazia, Ossetia, etc.
I’m wondering the same thing. I more or less understand the recent history between China and Taiwan but if the people of Taiwan want to be independent, it’s a matter of self-determination. The US has no need to be involved one way or the other. Without political or military support from the US, Taiwan would have to negotiate with China or China might very well invade. Not cool, but it remains a regional matter that’s been blown out of proportion because the US has had its eyes on China for a very long time already.
Taiwan does not want autonomy. If you look at history, Taiwan thinks it is the leader of China. It wants the whole China.
It didn’t work for Catalonia