Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter: Here Comes China. You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
Further selections and editorial commentary by Amarynth.
Space News
The Zhurong rover touched down May 15 on Mars and signaled ground control 320 million kilometers away. After diagnostic tests, it will spend 90 days exploring and analyzing the area, climate, magnetic field and subsurface. The Tianwen-1 orbiter is changing its trajectory so Zhurong can transmit high-resolution photos. Read full article $→
“The mission is very ambitious. They plan to do, in one go, three steps NASA took several decades to achieve: getting into orbit, landing on the surface and then driving a rover around,” said Roberto Orosei, from the Institute for Radioastronomy in Bologna, Italy. Other space milestones this past year include the final BeiDou GPS satellite and the first of 11 launches to build a Space Station. Read full article →
Update from RT this morning: “China’s Mars rover rolls off landing platform, joining US robots patrolling Red Planet”
https://www.rt.com/news/524522-chinese-rover-rolls-platform/
The Tianhe core module cabin of China’s space station project has completed in-orbit performance checks, including rendezvous and docking, life support systems for astronauts and robotic arms, as well as a series of space application equipment examinations. Read full article →
The kids are enjoying the space news:
A Chinese teacher demonstrated rocket launch using drink bottles. Interesting and lively. China’s Mars rover Zhurong landed on the Red Planet on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/2sjHxL0t89
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) May 17, 2021
At $23 billion, China is the world’s largest ice cream market. Competitors include Mengniu Dairy, Yili, Guanming, and Sanyuan, along with foreign giants like Nestlé and Unilever. US ice cream sales average $7 billion annually. Read full article →
A record 9.09 million university students will graduate this year and Vice Premier Sun Chunlan says, “Go to central and western regions where the country needs you” (and where there are 1.4 available jobs per graduate). Read full article →
The EU’s goods trade surged in Q1 and China remained its top trade partner, with imports and exports both increasing 20% YoY. The US followed, with both imports and exports shrinking. Read full article $→
US importers paid 90% of tariff costs on Chinese goods, or 18.5% more for Chinese products subject to the 20% tariff. Chinese exporters receive 1.5% less for the same product. Read full article $→
US exports to China of wine, cotton, log timber and wood have increased over the past year after Beijing blocked those products from Australia. The US is prioritising its own economic interests over its ally’s, despite Antony Blinken’s promise that Washington would not leave Australia to face ‘economic coercion’ from Beijing. Read full article $→
Supplies of Russian agricultural products to China increased by 17.6% in Q1. Trade turnover reached $40.207 billion, 20% higher YoY. The two aim to double 2021 trade to $200 billion. Read full article $→
Presidents Xi and Putin launched construction on four nuclear reactors made with Russian technology: two reactors each in Jiangsu and Liaoning Provinces, set to begin 2026 – 2028. They will be powered by Rosatom’s 3G pressurized water reactor technology at a cost of $1.7 billion per site. Read full article $→
US Encirclement of China: A Progress Report
We will post this long-read article by Brian Berletic in full as the New Eastern Outlook site has been down for a number of days.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing are not merely the recent results of former US President Donald Trump’s time in office – but rather just the latest chapter in US efforts to contain China that stretch back decades.
Indeed, US foreign policy has for decades admittedly aimed at encircling and containing China’s rise and maintaining primacy over the Indo-Pacific region.
The “Pentagon Papers” leaked in 1969 would admit in regards to the ongoing US war against Vietnam that:
…the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.
The papers also admitted that China, “looms as a major power threatening to undercut [American] importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against [America].
The papers also made it clear that there were (and still are), “three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China: (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.”
Since then, it is clear that from the continued US military presence in both Japan and South Korea, the now two decades-long US occupation of Afghanistan on both Pakistan’s and China’s borders, and the emergence of the so-called “Milk Tea Alliance” aimed at overthrowing Southeast Asian governments friendly with China and replacing them with US-backed client regimes – this policy to contain China endures up to today.
Assessing US activity along these three fronts reveals the progress and setbacks Washington faces – and various dangers to global peace and stability Washington’s continued belligerence pose.
The Japan-Korea Front
Military.com in their article, “Here’s What It Costs to Keep US Troops in Japan and South Korea,” reports:
In all, more than 80,000 US troops are deployed to Japan and South Korea. In Japan alone, the US maintains more than 55,000 deployed troops — the largest forward-deployed US force anywhere in the world.
The article notes that according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the US spent “$34 billion to maintain military presences in Japan and South Korea between 2016 and 2019.”
The article cites the GAO providing an explanation as to why this massive US military presence is maintained in East Asia:
“…US forces help strengthen alliances, promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region, provide quick response to emergencies and are essential for US national security.”
“Alliances” that are “strengthened” by the physical presence of what are essentially occupying US forces suggests the “alliance” is hardly voluntary and claims of promoting a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” is highly subjective – begging the question of to whom the Indo-Pacific is “free and open” to.
And as US power wanes both regionally in the Indo-Pacific as well as globally, Washington has placed increasing pressure on both Japan and South Korea to not only help shoulder this financial burden, but to also become more proactive within Washington’s containment strategy toward China.
Japan is one of three other nations (the US itself, Australia, and India) drafted into the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – also know as the “Quad.”
Rather than the US solely depending on its own military forces based within Japanese territory or supported by its Japan-based forces, Japan’s military along with India’s and Australia’s are also being recruited to take part in military exercises and operations in and around the South China Sea.
India’s inclusion in the Quad also fits well into the US 3-front strategy that made up Washington’s containment policy toward China as early as the 1960s.
The India-Pakistan Front
In addition to recruiting India into the Quad alliance, the US helps encourage escalation through political support and media campaigning of India’s various territorial disputes with China.
The US also targets Pakistan’s close and ongoing relationship with China – including the support of armed insurgents in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
Recently, a bombing at a hotel in Quetta, Baluchistan appears to have targeted China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Ambassador Nong Rong.
The BBC in its article, “Pakistan hotel bomb: Deadly blast hits luxury venue in Quetta,” would claim:
Initial reports had suggested the target was China’s ambassador.
Ambassador Nong Rong is understood to be in Quetta but was not present at the hotel at the time of the attack on Wednesday.
The article also noted:
Balochistan province, near the Afghan border, is home to several armed groups, including separatists.
Separatists in the region want independence from the rest of Pakistan and accuse the government and China of exploiting Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s poorest provinces, for its gas and mineral wealth.
Absent from the BBC’s reporting is the extensive and open support the US government has provided these separatists over the years and how – clearly – this is more than just a local uprising against perceived injustice, but yet another example of armed conflict-by-proxy waged by Washington against China.
As far back as 2011 publications like The National Interest in articles like, “Free Baluchistan” would openly advocate expanding US support for separatism in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.
The article was written by the late Selig Harrison – who was a senior fellow at the US-based corporate-financier funded Center for International Policy – and would claim:
Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve US strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.
Of course, “Islamist forces” is a euphemism for US-Persian Gulf state sponsored militants used to both fight Western proxy wars as well as serve as a pretext for Western intervention. Citing “Islamist forces” in Baluchistan, Pakistan clearly serves as an example of the latter.
In addition to op-eds published by influential policy think tanks, US legislators like US Representative Dana Rohrabacher had proposed resolutions such as (emphasis added),
“US House of Representatives Concurrent Resolution 104 (112th): Expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan, currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country.”
There is also funding provided to adjacent, political groups supporting separatism in Baluchistan, Pakistan as listed by the US government’s own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website under “Pakistan.” Organizations like the “Association for Integrated Development Balochistan” are funded by the US government and used to mobilize people politically, constituting clear interference by the US in Pakistan’s internal political affairs.
The Gwadar Port project is a key juncture within China’s growing global network of infrastructure projects as part of its One Belt, One Road initiative. The US clearly opposes China’s rise and has articulated robust strategies to counter it; everything up to and including open war as seen in the Pentagon Papers regarding the Vietnam War.
The recent bombing in Baluchistan, Pakistan demonstrates that this strategy continues in regards to utilizing local militants to target Chinese-Pakistani cooperation and is one part of the much wider, region-wide strategy of encircling and containing China.
The Southeast Asia Front
Of course the US war against Vietnam was part of a wider effort to reassert Western primacy over Southeast Asia and deny the region from fueling China’s inevitable rise.
The US having lost the war and almost completely retreating from the Southeast Asia region saw Southeast Asia itself repair relations amongst themselves and with China.
Today, the nations of Southeast Asia count China as their largest trade partner, investor, a key partner in infrastructure development, a key supplier for the region’s armed forces, as well as providing the majority of tourism arrivals throughout the region. For countries like Thailand, more tourists arrive from China than from all Western nations combined.
Because existing governments in Southeast Asia have nothing to benefit from by participating in American belligerence toward China, the US has found it necessary to cultivate and attempt to install into power various client regimes. This has been an ongoing process since the Vietnam War.
The US has targeted each nation individually for years. In 2009 and 2010, US-backed opposition leader-in-exile Thaksin Shinawatra deployed his “red shirt” protesters in back-to-back riots – the latter of which included some 300 armed militants and culminated in city-wide arson across Bangkok and the death of over 90 police, soldiers, protesters, and bystanders.
In 2018, US-backed opposition groups took power in Malaysia after the US poured millions of dollars for over a decade in building up the opposition.
Daniel Twining of the US National Endowment for Democracy subsidiary – the International Republican Institute – admitted during a talk (starting at 56 minutes) by the Center for Strategic and International Studies that same year that:
…for 15 years working with NED resources, we worked to strengthen Malaysian opposition parties and guess what happened two months ago after 61 years? They won.
He would elaborate on how the NED’s network played a direct role in placing US-backed opposition figures into power within the Malaysian government, stating:
I visited and I was sitting there with many of the leaders the new leaders of this government, many of whom were just our partners we had been working with for 15 years and one of the most senior of them who’s now one of the people running the government said to me, ‘gosh IRI you never gave up on us even when we were ready to give up on ourselves.’
Far from “promoting freedom” in Malaysia – Twining would make clear the ultimate objective of interfering in Malaysia’s internal political affairs was to serve US interests not only in regards to Malaysia, but in regards to the entire region and specifically toward encircling and containing China.
Twining would boast:
…guess what one of the first steps the new government took? It froze Chinese infrastructure investments.
And that:
[Malaysia] is not a hugely pro-American country. It’s probably never going to be an actual US ally, but this is going to redound to our benefit, and and that’s an example of the long game.
It is a pattern that has repeated itself in Myanmar over the decades with NED money building a parallel political system within the nation and eventually leading to Aung San Suu Kyi and her US-backed National League for Democracy (NLD) party taking power in 2016.
For Myanmar, so deep and extensive is US backing for opposition groups there that elections virtually guarantee US-backed candidates win every single time. The US National Endowment for Democracy’s own website alone lists over 80 programs and organizations receiving US government money for everything from election polling and building up political parties, to funding media networks and “environmental” groups used to block Chinese-initiated infrastructure projects.
The move by Myanmar’s military in February this year, ousting Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the NLD was meant to correct this.
However, in addition to backing political groups protesting in the streets, the US has – for many decades – backed and armed ethnic rebels across the country. These rebels have now linked up with the US-backed NLD and are repeating US-backed regime change tactics used against the Arab World in 2011 in nations like Libya, Yemen, and Syria – including explicit calls for “international intervention.”
A US-Engineered “Asia Spring”
Just as the US did during the 2011 “Arab Spring” – the US State Department, in a bid to create synergies across various regime change campaigns in Asia, has introduced the “Milk Tea Alliance” to transform individual US-backed regime change efforts in Asia into a region-wide crisis.
The BBC itself admits in articles like, “Milk Tea Alliance: Twitter creates emoji for pro-democracy activists,” that:
The alliance has brought together anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong and Taiwan with pro-democracy campaigners in Thailand and Myanmar.
Omitted from the BBC’s coverage of the “Milk Tea Alliance” (intentionally) is the actual common denominators that unite it – US funding through fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy and a unifying hatred of China based exclusively on talking points pushed by the US State Department itself.
Circling back to the Pentagon Papers and recalling the coordinated, regional campaign the US sought to encircle China with – we can then look at more recent US government policy papers like the “Indo-Pacific Framework” published in the White House archives from the Trump administration.
The policy paper’s first bullet point asks:
How to maintain US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity?
The paper also discusses information campaigns designed to “educate” the world about “China’s coercive behaviour and influence operations around the globe.” These campaigns have materialized in a propaganda war fabricating accusations of “Chinese genocide” in Xinjiang, China, claims that Chinese telecom company Huawei is a global security threat, and that China – not the US – is the single largest threat to global peace and stability today.
In reality US policy aimed at encircling China is predicated upon Washington’s desire to continue its own decades-long impunity upon the global stage and the continuation of all the wars, humanitarian crises, and abuses that have stemmed from it.
Understanding the full scope of Washington’s “competition” with China helps unlock the confusion surrounding unfolding individual crises like the trade war, the ongoing violence and turmoil in Myanmar, bombings in southwest Pakistan, students mobs in Thailand, riots in Hong Kong, and attempts by the US to transform the South China Sea into an international conflict.
Understanding that these events are all connected – then assessing the success or failure of US efforts gives us a clearer picture of the overall success Washington in encircling China. It also gives governments and regional blocs a clearer picture of how to manage policy in protecting against US subversion that threatens national, regional, and global peace and stability.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhua) — China’s State Council Information Office on Friday issued a white paper on the peaceful liberation of Tibet and its development over the past seven decades.
The white paper, titled “Tibet Since 1951: Liberation, Development and Prosperity,” reviewed Tibet’s history and achievements, and presented a true and panoramic picture of the new socialist Tibet.
You may Download the Full Text or read this very interesting document here: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-05/21/c_139959978.htm
It consists of the following:
Foreword
I. Tibet Before the Peaceful Liberation
II. Peaceful Liberation
III. Historic Changes in Society
IV. Rapid Development of Various Undertakings
V. A Complete Victory over Poverty
VI. Protection and Development of Traditional Culture
VII. Remarkable Results in Ethnic and Religious Work
VIII. Solid Environmental Safety Barriers
IX. Resolutely Safeguarding National Unity and Social Stability
X. Embarking on a New Journey in the New Era
Conclusion
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
Brilliant and ground-breaking by the Chinese, but the most significant thing is another proof that being run by big corporations will never get anything anywhere – other than just money and ego syphoning.
A Chinese rover on Mars. The near elimination of poverty. Compare China today to thirty years ago.
US elites must be wetting their pants – they must know they have no chance against a determined China they are pissing off and making more determined.
Dumbing down Math should really be a fantastic help to young US intellects. America is truly Exceptional. No need for Science, Math, Engineering. Just master getting your latte correctly sweetened and flavored with pumpkin and follow Instagram trends.
Chinese aren’t even competing with the US. They are just doing their thing, pursuing their goals.
Like how Russian military-industry produced the best planes, artillery and missile defenses and then added hypersonic missiles all by following their own standards, not competing.
The US thinks through deep ideological filters, the Dems with Liberal Social Justice dogmas, the Republicans through the paranoid neo-conservative hegemony.
America was warned that the path of development was incorrect and dangerous by Eisenhower in 1960. Sixty-two years later they are getting their asses kicked by Russia and China in the most vital of technologies and product developments.
Likewise, the self-immolation of American culture is the anti-thesis of Chinese and Russian cultures. Without culture no nation can succeed. The US is unraveling in decadence, addictions, self-loathing and deviance.
And by the way, I heard that California universities are dropping their SAT and ACT requirements. I surmise that is to give academically challenged people a chance to go to college. (Am I missing something here?)
about to elect a tranvestite as california governor. what can go wrong
yeah, who’s paying for all this?
My brother is a professor of mathematics that told me that even before 2020 the study of mathematics in the US was in free-fall but starting in 2020 it has collapsed (and its looks like it’s right out of 1984). There are reports that the same is happening in medical schools (would anyone go to a woke doctor?). The American zeitgeist has veered into never-never land like marching morons off the edge of a cliff.
And they did it all without the theft of colonialism.
The US figured that a war with China will solve their problem. They think that they are still ahead militarily speaking. So strike while they yet have a chance to stop China from overtaking the US.
But Brutus also thought the same of Augustus. His defeat indicated that it is foolhardy for a declining power to fight a rising power. The US should have done so in 2001. So the military option is now gone. Unless the US wants to risk a costly and humiliating defeat.
Loved the water bottle rocket launch! The U.S. has only ever launched a single stage water bottle – perhaps the degree of technology separation applies to Chinese space technology as well.
China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world, 3,500 years of written history. And, even 3,500 years ago China’s civilization was old! Compared to that, the AngloZionist Empire is just a blip on the historical screen. Yet they consider themselves chosen by their warrior god to range around the planet, displacing indigenous people, stealing their land and resources, and engaging in ethnic cleansing. It’s about time that the rest of the world rises up and says, no more!
The new Belt and Road Initiative’s stated objectives are “to construct a unified large market and make full use of both international and domestic markets, through cultural exchange and integration, to enhance mutual understanding and trust of member nations, resulting in an innovative pattern of capital inflows, talent pools, and technology databases.” How different from the AZE’s objectives of domination and exploitation. Only problem is, the Empire has nukes, lots of them.
The only reason the Empire has nukes in the first place is because of the Samson Option. Describing the Sampson Option, Israeli poet Itamar Yaoz-Kest wrote, “And yet, there is a right reserved only to us Jews (if indeed any human on Earth has this right): to be destroyed and to take the weary and sated world with us into non-existence, along with its wondrous libraries and heart-stirring tunes – just so, after we descend to the grave, while the ground emits radioactive rays to all four winds…”
I’m pretty sure, Apartheid Israhell is bluffing on the Sampson option. I mean, these Zionist Jews lie with such ease, you’d think that hell spat them out to be great ambassadors for the lying Devil… o wait, hell actually does. My bad.
I still ‘think’ that they barely have a couple of nukes. I may be wrong, but pretending you do is less expensive to achieve and maintain.
Whether they’re bluffing or not, Likud in Israel is bent on continuing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. They have 50 million crazy Christian Zionists in the USA who are fully behind them on that. Trump’s “spiritual” advisor, Pastor John Hagee, said recently that an IDF spokesman had assured him during a briefing that all deaths in Gaza were the result of Hamas rocket misfires – “It’s the terrorists that are killing their own people!”
These crazies have a collective hard-on for Armageddon and the dominionists in the US military have access to hundreds of nukes. May Heaven save us all from the wrath of the dominionists and the chosenites.
It is Tamil civilization that is oldest with 50, 000 years of recorded history. Tamils, the only root race survived today, all else are sub races or hybrids. Of course, the corruptors of natural order, will never acknowledge to this fact.
Australian first peoples. 80,000 years give or take a few.
The aborigines of Australia invented the boomerang, a weapon that comes back to haunt the aggressor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars#:~:text=The%20burning%20of%20books%20and,Huang%20of%20the%20Qin%20dynasty. — China does not have 3500 years of written history.
Totally correct, it’s probably more than 5,000 years of written hiistory: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/oldest-ever-chinese-writing-discovered-shanghai-00645
Oldest known pottery in the world discovered in Hunan as well: https://vannessstudios.com/worlds-oldest-known-ceramics/
Chinese civilization is arguably the oldest in the world, but is almost certainly the most contiguous.
Ancient origins is a crackpot site.
In any case, a bunch of unintelligible markings don’t constitute written history. What books of history does China have today which predate the great book burning?
Nobody is denying that people were living in China more than 3500 years ago. But there is no written records from the oldest periods of Chinese history, like the works of Herodotus and al-Tabari, because the Ch’in dynasty, burned all the works of history in a systematic effort to cement their power, by cutting the people’s line to their past.
The Ch’in are considered the first dynasty of Imperial China. The country was not called China before circa 221 BC. The English name for “China” itself is derived from Middle Persian (Chin چین).
@ Anonymous,
Because some anonymous … person … says something does not make it a fact and you posit an opinion without links.
https://www.veteranstodayarchives.com/2011/12/09/the-incarnations-of-china/
Note the author, you ignore the Xi’an, you ignore Huang Di, you ignore history.
The current Chinese name for China is Zhongguo (中国), not China. Previous names were dynastic based as per Wang Fei Fei comment here and confirmed by my Chinese born spouse: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-ancient-name-for-China-1?share=1
So, the Qin (Chin) dynasty got its name from Persia. Brilliant!
The whole point of the analogy is that the AngloZionist Empire is just a blip on the historical screen, not to start a debate about which world culture came first. Yet the Empire still presumes that somehow they were chosen by God to displace indigenous cultures all around the planet and steal their land and resources. If you don’t believe that just ask any Native American or any Palestinian.
The encirclement of China is as ridiculous and senseless as the encirclement of Iran.
Encirclement for what? In this missile era, they’re just providing healthy targets to the ones they’re targeting.
encirclement works if the attacker is the stronger party…
encirclement does not work if the attacker is/has become weak and hubris…
they become suicidal – sending their boys and line them up for china to freely conduct shooting practice in their backyard
they can b!tch about ‘freedom of navigation’ but thats a UScongress/MIC-made law, not the International Law, which shows who is the trouble maker lawless party.
same deal w aircraft carrier – great if who they want to threaten does not shoot back
be well be safe
Encirclement is, today, only a psycho-propagandish antic. Trench warfare is passe. Deploying and digging-in with war resources in a circle around an imaginary enemy is frivolous because your enemy can certainly lop destructions above and across that circle onto your own territories. Yeah, your short-range (and thus cheaper?) war toys get to cause more damages in enemy infrastructures, but by then it’s a life and death situation and how do buildings massively falling matter? Your enemy’s war toys will cause the same in your domain, only a little later, you can take that to the bank.
But the encirclement does achieve one thing: it ties the nodes on that circle tightly to your whims and dictates. They become the war frontline; they become dependent on your strategic whims; they become your pitiful lackeys on a tight leash. That I believe is the perpetual benefit the empire is really after. Besides that, encirclement/containment are notions invaluable to war game simulations and propaganda enrichments that paper tigers love to employ.
To be blunt, encirclement gives the US military/intel complex a reason for being and acces to almost unlimited funds from a passive and militantly ignorant public dazed and confused by the tunes of the “Mighty Wurlitzer.”
Amarynth,
You are doing a great job with these Chinese Info digests. Excellent and valuable distillations.
Thank you.
Thanks Larchmonter445. I enjoy doing them as well.
@Amarynth
I will echo LM445. These articles are excellent and educational.
Cheers!
You fellows are too kind. Thanks Jack, from you, it is high praise.
Ditto. Good stuff, and thanks.
One of the greatest man of our time, Yuan Longping [袁隆平], passed away today.
Yuan had single-handedly helped to feed millions or even billions of poor people in the world with his works on hybrid rice. On the last few days of his life, Yuan was working on hybrid rice that can grow on salt-water land. A humble, selfless, relentless and tireless giant that will forever live in the hearts of all peoples. CGTN video:
“He has helped China work a great wonder — feeding nearly one-fifth of the world’s population with less than nine percent of the world’s total land. Join for the special program to bid farewell to the father of hybrid rice, the man who brought millions out of starvation, the man who devoted over 50 years of his life to scientific research and changed the world with hybrid rice.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W32JFCAvvuI
Rest in peace.
一路走好
@DDan: “One of the greatest man of our time, Yuan Longping”
Helped to feed 20% of the world’s population on less than 10% of the world’s land.
“And whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would do more for the world than the whole race of politicians put together.” — Jonathan Swift
I fear you are right. His impact has reached Rice production in West Africa easily. CGTN did great show on him recently – a giant.
Would Russia be able to make up for Australia’s timber exports. I always had this vision of Siberia being an endless forest, not that I want to destroy frontiers.
1. My knowledge of geography may be lacking.
2. Even if Russia has forest lumber to spare, is she lacking manpower to harvest it in a responsible manner?
(time to encourage immigration of good people to improve demographics)
“Would Russia be able to make up for Australia’s timber exports”? Hahaha! Just say when! If not Russia, South East Asia has plenty and better timber!
The Yunnan Forestry Institute was working on self-sustaining tree farming methods based on the North American model. I’ve lost touch with the program since 2007 so I have no idea if they’ve made progress or dropped the development in favour of others.
The best lumber for building comes from northern or higher elevation terrain where the trees grow slowly, creating a dense and resilient fibre. The equatorial belt grows trees quickly but they tend to be less sturdy due to the speed with which they grow, great for pulp and paper.
There are, of course, exceptions to the above generalities. There are Asian hardwoods that are incredibly dense and strong. I’m sure Russia can supply China with all their timber needs and probably better grade timber at that.
@JackJC. I can assure you that there are lots of Asian (read tropical) hardwoods that are incredibly strong.
Asian hardwoods may grow faster, but depending on the species, they are harder and stronger than temperate hardwoods. They don’t turn out softer just because they grow faster. They grow faster, bigger and taller on average because of DNA, climate, plentiful water all year round and plentiful sun and warm to hot weather all year round – in other words, a 12 month yearly growing season! A few species can grow as tall and big as the California redwoods. E.g. the red Meranti. Some fruit trees (e.g. jack fruit) gives off sparks like flint when I tried to chop it with my axe. Now the jack-fruit tree grows rapidly to about 60 feet in just about 7 years. Yet the wood is very hard!
Virtually all tropical timber are hard woods, some so dense that they sink in the water. They have different degrees of hardness, but all are hardwoods – harder than the pinewoods that I am familar with.
Dear Mr Chow,
Reading comprehension is a wonderful art!
It should be taught everywhere, and pursued by everyone.
Hahaha! For your info, the best wood for paper-pulp is pine wood. Tropical wood can also be pulped, but higher cost because of hardness. The pulp mill I know of which used tropical wood is losing money and now in receivership.
I happened to have chipped my fingers on both temperate and tropical timber.
The link to New Eastern Outlook is not working. It is not a typo by Godfree. I found out myself yesterday before clicking on this piece. I think NEO has gone the way of syrianperspective and many other sites I used to be able to access.
Mod: I tried the link and got the message “Account Disabled by Server Administrator”
This is what I said: “We will post this long-read article by Brian Berletic in full as the New Eastern Outlook site has been down for a number of days.”
So, yes, I left the link in case NEO comes alive again – But the article is posted in full.
Thanks. You are doing great work.
Essentially individualism vs the collective based on the family unit and its results in the current international circumstances.
My aim here is to try and take some complex philosophical ideas and convert them into images that are perhaps more understandable to those who do not have the time or lanquage skills to understand them. A difficult task yet I hope it helps.
https://youtu.be/2IZkxUa9Ops
Here is the acid test of whether or not the U.S. is serious and genuine: China and Pakistan should offer up a treaty along the lines of the following: China will “free” Tibet and Pakistan will “free” Baluchistan upon the date Congress “frees” California, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to form a “Republic of the North” along the lines of Charles Truxillo’s vision. Of course, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll, Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Wake Island, Navassa Island, and anyplace else I might have missed need to be liberated as well.
FIFY: when congress agrees to return alaska to russia.
Here it comes! https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/wuhan-lab-workers-were-so-sick-they-sought-hospitalization-according-us-intelligence
and. . . (everyone i falling for it!)
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/how-hard-will-biden-press-probe-wuhan-knowing-lab-leak-will-require-political-response
As far as i know us intelligence lost their credibility when none of that Sadam’s mass weapon of destruction turned up. It is simple from that point on. Just negate what they claim and that would be closer to the truth.
Vientito, that is a good rule of thumb: If it comes from the same Western source that gave us Con-911 then it’s just another Official Lie, and the opposite is more likely to be true. Saves a lot of researching.
There seems to be a concerted effort to derail China’s economic recovery by the global western oligarchs through hiking the prices of commodities prices, especially raw materials like iron ore.
China seems to be caught unaware this time. But next round should see China stockpiling commodities when prices are low, like during the height of the pandemic last year and releasing from its stockpiles when prices threaten to overheat. This was the same tactic used successfully by the Hegemon to control prices when it was a manufacturing power and dependent on raw materials like for example rubber.