Tag: China

Excess Death in Australia

As I said even before the mass vaccinations began, the one thing the statisticians can’t hide is the bodies.

Key statistics
– In 2022, there were 59,147 deaths that occurred by 30 April and were registered by 30 June, which is 8,513 (16.8%) more than the historical average.
– In April there were 14,492 deaths, 1,580 (12.2%) above the historical average.

Baseline comparisons
Throughout this report, counts of deaths are compared to an average number of deaths for previous years. In this report, data for 2021 is compared to an average number of deaths recorded over the 5 years from 2015-2019 as was the case in previous publications. Data for 2022 is compared to a baseline comprising the years 2017-2019 and 2021. 2020 is not included in the baseline for 2022 data because it included periods where numbers of deaths were significantly lower than expected. Counts of deaths for 2015-2021 are included in the baseline datacubes of the data downloads section of this report.

These average or baseline counts serve as a proxy for the expected number of deaths, so comparisons against baseline counts can provide an indication of whether mortality is higher or lower than expected in a given year. The minimum and maximum counts are also included to provide an indication of the range of previous counts. Minimums and maximums for any given week can be from any of the years included in the baseline.

Provisional Mortality Statistics Jan-Apr 2022, Australia Bureau of Statistics, 29 July 2022

In other words, now that 96 percent of the Australian adult population has been vaxxed, about 10 percent more people are dying than normal. I would anticipate that when the Australian birth rate information for 2022 is released, it will show a decline of around 20 percent against the average.

At this rate of depopulation, Australia will be peacefully absorbed into China before 2040.

DISCUSS ON SG

Revenge For 500 Years

The historical nexus in which we find ourselves is a significant one, as the Asian powers clearly recognize that this is their first real opportunity in five centuries to restore the power balance that had always previously favored Asia over Europe.

While Europeans in general, and Americans in particular, erroneously tend to believe that their global primacy is inevitable and permanent, the people of Asia a very well aware that their civilizations are much older and they tend to correctly regard the last 500 years as a historical aberration. History did not end and if it is to rhyme, as we are told it does, then it is probably about time for the pendulum to swing back toward the East.

The victory of the Japanese over the Russians in 1905 appears to have presaged the current crisis, even though the foolish decision by the Japanese military to directly challenge the growing US naval power in addition to the declining British Empire was 70 years too early.

China, being more circumspect and far less aggressive than most historical Asian powers – for example, Deng repeatedly refused to invade Cambodia to free it from either the Khmer Rouge or the occupying Vietnamese, and did not approve the very limited invasion that eventually took place without massive pressure from Lew Kwan Yew and other Asian leaders who feared “the Prussians of East Asia” would continue their imperial offensive into other nations if China did not forcibly bring it to a halt – is not about to make the same mistake with regards the West.

All Asian powers in general feel that the world is going through a very important period of development, and the international system is going through a moment of transformation. This transformation is occurring in favor of the Asian powers in general, i.e., China first and foremost, and the main Asian states such as Russia, India, Iran and Turkey. These forces feel that they are witnessing a historical turning point in which they are regaining their civilizational weight and influence on the world which had been lost during the past 500 years.

These (Asian) states are still witnessing disparities, rivalries, and disagreements among them, the frameworks of cooperation between them are still developing and have not yet been crystalized, and part of these main (Asian) forces still have partnerships with the West and we know that. However, all of these states share a feeling that this world is becoming more pluralistic and balanced, and that they are facing a very great historical moment that they can seize to take away from the West a part of its domination and hegemony over them, whose (consequences) were at expense of them and their people.

Therefore, these forces are creating this form of partnership to try to seize this historical moment. This economic, demographic and political transition from West to East is considered by these states a historical opportunity that must be grasped. All of that was evident in the recent war with Ukraine. (For example,) India, despite its close relations with the United States, did not go into conflict with Russia as requested (by the US). Turkey kept its options open, even on the Ukrainian issue. Why? Because these states, as I told you, see that the Asian powers, that Asia, is back at the heart of the international system.

The marginalization of Asia was at the expense of the powers (in this continent) and its people. Therefore, this course is not new, and (its players) have taken advantage of the crisis of the West, the decline of American hegemony, and the rise of Asian powers; and this is still ongoing. As for speed of this path, its transformations may occur faster or may slow down depending on certain events. For example, we are waiting for the results of the war in Ukraine. We are waiting for the prospect of the US-Chinese confrontation, which I believe is the most important event from now until the year 2050. The next 20 or 30 years will determine the fate of the world through a confrontation that will escalate quickly between America and China. This competition and conflict and its consequences will shape the world for decades and centuries to come.

The United States announced in June or at the end of May, in a speech made by Blinken (, the US Secretary of State,), the American approach to confronting China. (Blinken) said four times in his speech “this decisive decade”, which is from 2020 to 2030. All American literature today uses the term: “the decisive decade”. (The US) says that it has the next 10 years (until the end of 2030) to resolve the conflict with China. If it can reverse the trajectories in this time period… In other words, if (the US) can transform the rise of China into a decline, and the decline of the United States into a rise, it has a chance of reclaiming or maintaining its leadership (over the world). However, if it does not succeed to accomplish its goal before 2030, and China continues to rise at the current level and pattern, and America is not able to regain the initiative, (the US) will reach the point of no return and China will become the strongest in the international system. Consequently, all American thinking (today) looks at the world, including the Middle East, with its conflicts and forces, from a Chinese perspective, at the first, second, third and fourth stage, before it gets into any other issues.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is that nothing the US leaders and diplomats do or say is going to cause the other Asian countries to fear China as much as they fear the West. All of the anti-Chinese propaganda about Chinese totalitarianism, communism, and imperial ambitions absolutely pale besides 500 years of Western colonialism. It is the USA, not China, that presently occupies Japan and South Korea. It was the USA, not China, that maintained a massive military presence in the Philippines from 1898 to 1992.

National grievances last a long, long time. Remember, it took more than 500 years for the Spanish to reclaim their conquered lands, but they succeeded in the end and went on to establish one of history’s more glittering empires.

If we are fortunate, globalism will soon lose its death-grip on the nations of the West even as it has lost its control over all of the unoccupied nations of the East. If we are even more fortunate, the nations of the East will learn from the mistakes of the Spanish, the British, and the Americans and eschew the temptations of Empire.

DISCUSS ON SG

Leaving the West Behind

It’s clear that the primary reason for the current desperation of the Prometheans stems from the way they seriously underestimated the Chinese. But the Chinese have turned out to be significantly harder to fool than the Europeans of the West, and now they are demonstrating that they no longer require guidance in order to advance their technology beyond Western levels.

A report by Bloomberg Thursday found that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC). China’s premier chip manufacturer has developed the ability to produce chips to the highest Western standards despite US sanctions that had been designed to prevent such an advance.

According to a report by industry blog Tech Insights, which Bloomberg has confirmed, SMIC has produced Bitcoin mining semiconductors with 7-nanometer technology since last July. The figure represents the size of the transistors involved, and the smaller the figure, the smaller the transistors, and the more transistors that can be fit on a single chip. The more transistors on a chip, the faster and more efficient it will be.

Previously SMIC had only produced chips to a standard of 14-nanometers, and the US government had hoped to prevent any advance beyond that level. In 2020, the US government had banned export of equipment capable of producing 10nm and below level chips to SMIC. Currently the US government is focusing on preventing Dutch supplier ASML from supplying similar machines to SMIC.

Although ASML is already forbidden from selling its most advanced equipment to SMIC, the Biden administration is trying to tighten the ban to include less advanced technologies as well.

Currently Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung can make 7nm semiconductors, while US-based Intel is slated to release its own 7nm chip next year. Currently the most advanced US and European chips are only 12nm.

It is not clear how China has reached this level of technological sophistication. Some have suggested they may have modified their 14nm tooling.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the lights may literally be going out this winter thanks to the reprehensible stupidity of the European leaders who believed the lies of the neocons and agreed to act as the USA’s economic proxy army:

Switzerland has developed an emergency plan in the event of an energy crisis if natural gas and electricity supplies run short, the Basler Zeitung newspaper reported this week.

According to the paper, the Swiss government has been working in tandem with industrial companies for several months on the plan. It includes several steps, ranging from a public awareness campaign with calls for energy saving, such as turning off shop window lights and heaters, to rationing electricity for about 30,000 large energy consumers.

The government also warns of the possibility of power shutdowns in certain areas of the country from four to eight hours a day as a more stringent measure.

As I have repeatedly warned you, we’ll be fortunate if we emerge on the other end of this civilizational catastrophe with interior plumbing. Abandoning the traditions of your fathers, adopting foreign creeds and accepting foreign rulers seldom ends well for any nation.

DISCUSS ON SG

When Losing One War Isn’t Enough

Already on their knees due to NATO’s war on Russia, the leaders of the EU nevertheless appear to be determined to open a second front with China as well.

AFP: The European Parliament Vice President Nicola Beer is visiting Taiwan this week. She said today that Europe must stand firm with Taiwan and avoid turning a blind eye to the mainland’s threats to Taiwan. Do you have any response to these comments?

Zhao Lijian: Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. The one-China principle is a widely recognized basic norm in international relations and the political foundation of China-Europe relations. The European Parliament is an official institution of the European Union. Hence its members and senior officials are expected to abide by the one-China principle. 

Over the past two years, the European Parliament has promulgated multiple Taiwan-related resolutions to support and embolden “Taiwan independence” forces. Such moves have gravely violated the one-China principle and poisoned the atmosphere of China-Europe relations. China firmly opposes all forms of official interactions between the EU side and the Taiwan region. We urge the EU side to earnestly abide by the one-China principle, speak and act with prudence on issues related to Taiwan, and prevent any serious disruption in China-Europe relations. 

It’s not exactly a mystery why China is siding so strongly with Russia and ignoring all the desperate pleas to join the failed economic sanctions. And just in case the European leaders didn’t get the message being sent by multiple members of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the Global Times spelled it out for them.

Chinese Foreign Ministry denounced the European Parliament (EP) on Wednesday for having seriously violating the one-China principle and urged the EU body to stop any forms of official exchanges with China’s Taiwan region.

The responding remarks came after EP’s vice-president Nicola Beer arrived on Taiwan island leading a delegation and kicked off a three-day visit to show support to the secessionists in the island. Taiwan’s secessionist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities hyped the fact that Beer is the first EP official at this level to visit the island in an official capacity.

Upon her arriving, Beer said the EU would not turn a blind eye to “China’s threats” toward the island, as she maintains that “Taiwan’s bloom is Europe’s bloom,” Taiwan-based media reported. Beer is scheduled to meet Taiwan’s regional leader Tsai Ing-wen during the visit.

“Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. The one-China principle is a widely recognized basic norm in international relations and the political foundation of China-Europe relations. The EP is an official institution of the EU. Hence its members and senior officials are expected to abide by the one-China principle,” said Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

Over the past two years, the European Parliament has promulgated multiple Taiwan-related resolutions to support and embolden “Taiwan independence” forces. Such moves have gravely violated the one-China principle and poisoned the atmosphere of China-Europe relations, Wang stressed.

“China firmly opposes all forms of official interactions between the EU side and the Taiwan region,” Wang said, “We urge the EU to earnestly abide by the one-China principle, to speak and act with prudence on issues related to Taiwan, and to prevent any serious disruption in China-Europe relations.”

Zhao Lijian, Foreign Ministry, 19 July 2022

This diplomatic recklessness and retardery is breathtaking. If it weren’t for what we’ve witnessed over the last two years, it would be almost impossible to believe it was real.

DISCUSS ON SG

Unreliable Conclusions

The Global Times explores why Western predictions about China are reliably wrong:

Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute of Fudan University, told the Global Times that Western political scientists or scholars have made a lot of efforts to predict events in the world, but most of time, they failed. “They failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union in the past, and they also failed to predict the rise of China, they couldn’t even predict the rise of Trumpism, and most Western economists failed to predict the financial crisis in 2008.”

There are two main problems with the failure of the West to make correct predictions about China, Zhang said. “First is that they have ideological bias, as they believe China or any other non-Western country will eventually be Westernized as long as it wants to be modernized. Another problem is that Western political science is based on the experience of Western history, so when Western scholars used such ‘science’ to analyze China, a country with an entirely different civilization, they will come to unreliable conclusions most of the time.”

I’d add two more reasons. Third, they rely upon explanatory models rather than predictive models, so their ability to predict anything correctly is minimal. Fourth, they know absolutely nothing about Chinese history, Chinese culture, and Chinese philosophy. Literally nothing. Most of them haven’t read so much as one single Chinese classic or seen a single Chinese movie that doesn’t star Bruce Lee.

This is why I never pay any attention to what any self-appointed China critic says about China. The idea that “China will fail because the Chi-Coms are brutal and mean” is considerably amusing to anyone who has ever read The Outlaws of the Marsh, just to give one example.

China has been around for a long, long time. It will continue to be around for a long, long time to come, which is considerably more than one can reasonably say for most of the invaded and adulterated nations of the West.

DISCUSS ON SG

Fighting on Two Fronts

In the aftermath of the defeat in Afghanistan, it belatedly occured to the neocons that the US military was unable to fight a two-front war against adversaries more capable than Grenada and Iraq.

THE GREATEST risk facing the twenty-first-century United States, short of an outright nuclear attack, is a two-front war involving its strongest military rivals, China and Russia. Such a conflict would entail a scale of national effort and risk unseen in generations, effectively pitting America against the resources of nearly half of the Eurasian landmass. It would stretch and likely exceed the current capabilities of the U.S. military, requiring great sacrifices of the American people with far-reaching consequences for U.S. influence, alliances, and prosperity. Should it escalate into a nuclear confrontation, it could possibly even imperil the country’s very existence.

Given these high stakes, avoiding a two-front war with China and Russia must rank among the foremost objectives of contemporary U.S. grand strategy. Yet the United States has been slow to comprehend this danger, let alone the implications it holds for U.S. policy. So far, Washington’s efforts to grapple with the “simultaneity” problem (as it’s called in Pentagon circles) have been overwhelmingly focused on the military side of the problem. The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) replaced the two-war standard with a laser focus on fighting one major war with America’s most capable adversary—China. In its wake, a debate has erupted among defense intellectuals about how to handle a second-front contingency.

By comparison, there has been much less discussion of how, if at all, U.S. diplomacy should evolve to avert two-front war and, more broadly, alleviate the pressures of strategic simultaneity. While the Trump administration rightly inaugurated a more confrontational approach toward China, this was not accompanied by a rebalancing of diplomatic priorities and resources in other regions to complement the NDS’ justified focus on the Indo-Pacific. Nor does the Biden administration appear to be contemplating a redistribution of strategic focus and resources among regions. This misalignment in the objects of U.S. military and diplomatic power is neither desirable nor sustainable. America will have to limit the number of active rivalries requiring major U.S. military attention, improve the functionality of its existing alliances for offsetting the pressures of simultaneity, or significantly grow defense budgets—or some combination of the three.

In the current budgetary environment, though, the most likely outcome could well be the worst of all worlds—namely, that America will continue to try to overawe all threats without significantly improving the performance of its alliances while reducing real defense spending. Such an approach keeps U.S. power thinly spread and limits Washington’s bandwidth for managing policy tradeoffs among regions. This creates an ideal setting for an increasingly aligned Russia and China to conduct repeated stress tests of U.S. resolve in their respective neighborhoods and, when conditions are ripe, make synchronous grabs for, say, Taiwan and a Baltic state.

Averting such scenarios should not only or primarily be a concern for the U.S. military; it is also the job of U.S. diplomacy. Indeed, diplomacy in its highest form has historically been used for precisely this purpose, as an instrument for rearranging power in space and time to avoid fighting numerous enemies at once. This role—the sequencing of rivalries—should be the central preoccupation of American diplomacy today. Rather than trying to contain Russia and China simultaneously, the United States needs to find a way to stagger its contests with these two powers to ensure that it does not face both at the same time in a war.

So clever! Surely neither the Russians nor the Chinese will figure out this very cunning scheme to first defeat one enemy, than the other! The fact that the neocons STILL didn’t realize, as of August 2021, that China has been actively engaged in unrestricted warfare against the USA since 1999 and that the Russians had been preparing for its special military operation against the NATO-Nazis since at least 2008 means that all of their strategic contemplations were outdated, wildly off-base, and therefore doomed to failure.

What their review of the available options amounts to this: scare the other Asian countries with anti-Chinese rhetoric while convincing Russia to focus its “expansionary” efforts toward Asia rather than Europe by comprehensively defeating Russia in Ukraine by relying more heavily upon European military forces. “To work, the strategy would require the door to [Russian] westward expansion to be slammed—hard.”

Seriously, that was the grand strategic plan. To say that it did not work is not sufficient; it could not have even begun to work given that 11 months later, it can be seen that the first requirement is already a complete failure. Russia defeated Europe without needing to send a single troop onto European soil; the only question is whether the Europeans will surrender before or after their economies completely collapse.

This means that the USA has not only lost the narrative, as the EU recently complained, it has lost the initiative as well. The only way the US military can avoid fighting a two-front war against Russia and China is if one of its two enemies refuse to engage with it. And considering the way in which all of the BRICSIA nations are eager to escape the globalist hegemony and the Calvinball rules of the liberal world order, it appears highly unlikely that either of the two major powers will elect to refrain from that engagement.

DISCUSS ON SG

Security = Empire

Russia recently responded to NATO expansion and aggression. Look at the map below and it’s not exactly hard to understand why China and most of the rest of the world has taken Russia’s side against the NATO-Nazis and their Ukrainian proxies.

The Empire That Never Ended cries out as it engages in proxy war against you.

The US has reportedly used a secretive authority called ‘127e’ to launch at least two dozen proxy wars since 2017, according to an article published on Friday by The Intercept. The outlet claims to have obtained never-before-seen documents and spoken to top officials with intimate knowledge of these programs. The Intercept received the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, claiming these papers are the first ever official confirmation that at least 14 so-called ‘127e programs’ were active in the greater Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions as recently as 2020. In total, the Pentagon reportedly launched 23 separate 127e programs across the globe between 2017 and 2020, which cost US taxpayers $310 million.

The program allows the US to arm, train, and provide intelligence to foreign forces. However, unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which focus on building up local capacity in partner countries, 127e “surrogate forces” are expected to follow US orders and conduct Washington-directed missions against US enemies to achieve US goals, essentially serving as the Pentagon’s proxy armies.

DISCUSS ON SG

China Holds the USA Accountable

For all that it makes Americans extremely uncomfortable and quick to cite a panoply of irrelevant tangential facts that don’t excuse their ancestors’ actions, the absolute historical fact is that the European colonists – English and Spanish – committed imperialist genocide against the various American Indian tribes. And China is now utilizing these historical facts to great rhetorical effect to undermine the USA’s false claim to the moral high ground; for all the horrific crimes of the Mao era, at least the Chinese only victimized their own people.

CRI: We noticed that a report from the US Department of the Interior last month said a large number of Native American children died at Indian boarding schools. After that, more and more survivors and their descendants have spoken out and accused the US government of genocide against American Indians. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: We are deeply sympathetic to the tragic experience of the Native American children. Those so-called boarding schools that carried the motto “Kill the Indian, save the man” were in essence crime scenes of the US cultural genocide against Native Americans. What happened at these schools is also important evidence of the racial genocide committed by the US against Native Americans. More and more facts have come to light and shown that the US committed systemic genocide against Native Americans in three dimensions, which has lasted hundreds of years and continues to this day. 

First, the US has committed physical genocide against the Native American population. Statistics show that since its independence in 1776, the US government has launched over 1,500 attacks on Indian tribes to slaughter the Indians. Before the arrival of white settlers in 1492, there were five million Indians, yet the number plummeted to 600,000 by 1800 and only 237,000 in 1900. Among them, more than a dozen tribes, such as the Pequot, Mohegan, and Massachusetts, were completely extinct. The US government also applied forced sterilization to Indians. Between 1930 and 1976, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs forcibly sterilized approximately 70,000 Indian women through the “Indian Health Service program”. In early 1970s, more than 42% of Indian women of childbearing age were sterilized.

Second, the US has committed spiritual and cultural genocide against Native Americans. They have long suffered hostility, discrimination and oblivion. The inter-generational inheritance of indigenous spirits and culture of Native Americans have long been hindered. In the 1870s and ’80s, the US government adopted a policy of “forced assimilation” to obliterate the social fabric and culture of Indian tribes and destroy the ethnic and tribal identity of the Indians. To attain the dual goal of cultural assimilation and taking Indian lands for itself, the US government began with forcing Native American children into the Indian boarding schools, banning them from speaking their native language, wearing their traditional clothes, or carrying out traditional activities. The children also suffered serious abuse and torment. US-based scholar Preston McBride estimates that the total number of deaths could be as high as 40,000, adding that “basically every school had a graveyard.” Even today, the US is still trying to deliberately obliterate the historical memory and information of the indigenous people in education and media reports. According to a report by National Indian Education Association, 87% of state-level US history textbooks do not mention the post-1900 history of indigenous people. 

Third, the US has committed deprivation of the rights of Native Americans. The US has systematically deprived Native Americans and other ethnic minorities of a wide range of their rights, leaving them mired in a crisis of survival and scarcity of rights. A report by the Indian Health Service shows that Native Americans born today have a life expectancy that is 5.5 years less than the national average, and they have the highest infant mortality rate. The suicide rate of Native American adolescents is 1.9 times that of the national average. By June 2022, the COVID-19 mortality rate among Native Americans is about 2.1 times that of the White population. From 1969 to 2009, the US government conducted 928 nuclear tests in the Shoshone tribal region, resulting in nuclear fallout of around 620 kilotons. Cancer incidence rate in Native Americans’ reservations is far higher than other areas. High levels of radioactive substance has been detected in the systems of about a quarter of Navajo women and infants. According to 2018 US Census Data, the poverty rate among Native Americans was 25.4%, far higher than 8.1% among the White population.

Genocide against Native Americans is an original sin of the US that can never be erased. The untold tragedies of Native Americans should never be forgotten. The US government has every reason to admit its crimes of genocide against Native Americans, and offer sincere apologies and repentance to the victims and their descendants. The US government should also credibly make up for the trauma Native Americans are suffering, and seriously face up to grave human rights issues and crimes of racism that exist within the US.

Zhao Lijian, Foreign Ministry, 29 June 2022

Before you react like a Pavlovian dog hearing a dinner bell, please remember this, White American: YOU ARE THE INDIAN NOW.

All of the lies and twisted truths you repeated in order to try to rationalize the sins of the past are now being told to justify your dispossession. The only difference is that the replacement peoples are unlikely to treat your great-great-grandchildren quite as kindly as your great-great-great-grandfather treated some of my ancestors. Imagine the lies and twisted truths that will be accepted as historical fact by the Post-Americans once Americans are a statistical minority similar to the American Indian population today.

Contemplate how many of your Asian and African great-grandchildren will be in my position, with most of their Asian and African peers refusing to believe that they have any European ancestors. After all, they won’t LOOK white…

What is happening today is directly traceable to the sins of the founding fathers and their abominable behavior toward “the merciless Indian Savages”, as the Declaration of Independence described them. Note in particular that the very concept of racism, upon which the entire American population has been condemned and crucified, was specifically coined by an American in order to destroy the American Indian. It is, therefore, both ironic and fitting that “racism” has been the primary weapon utilized in the rhetorical demolition of America.

I don’t remind you of these historical wrongs because I want revenge for my Indian ancestors or because I dream of Chung Kuo. What is done is done, and nothing is going to change that. To the contrary, I remind you of them because I do not wish for the American to go the way of the American Indian.

Perhaps, unlike the American Indian tribes, Americans can put all their ideological and individual differences aside in time to unite against the foreign peoples invading their lands and prevent their replacement. But most likely, as Sitting Bull and the Ghost Dancers learned to their dismay, it is already too late. It may be worth noting, in this regard, that while in 1890, the population of the United States, excluding the Indian and Negro minorities, was around 55 million, the post-1965 foreign population resident in the USA is presently about twice that number.

DISCUSS ON SG

Iron Curtain 2.0

The USA is establishing a military base in Poland and NATO is increasing its high-alert troops from 30,000 to 400,000. It’s probably nothing, right?

America will deploy thousands more troops to Europe along with fighters, air defences and ships, Joe Biden announced today, as NATO reinforces its eastern flank in a new Iron Curtain to protect the continent from Russia.

Joe Biden, speaking at a NATO summit in Madrid today, announced the creation of a new base for the US Fifth Army Corps in Poland – the first permanent American base in the country – along with 3,000 extra soldiers to be sent to Romania and ‘enhanced’ troop rotations for the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Two more squadrons of F-35 fighters will be deployed to the UK, Biden added, along with additional air defence systems for Germany and Italy, and another two destroyers which will be stationed at Rota Naval Station in Spain, bringing the total to six.

Meanwhile NATO formally invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance after Turkey dropped its opposition, and announced it will boost troops on its eastern flank by almost 4,000 compared to March this year.

It comes after alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg yesterday announced NATO’s high-alert force – troops which are not deployed but can be quickly sent into battle in the event of war – is being increased from 40,000 to 300,000.

The question is: how are these 400,000 troops going to be armed when NATO is already running out of ammunition after sending its existing stocks to the Ukrainian military? Too bad the greater part of the manufacturing capabilities of the Arsenal of Democracy was moved to Mexico and China, while the quality of the labor force has declined precipitously since 1940.

Anyhow, this puts the ball squarely in the Sino-Russian court. Even though time is on their side, it might make more sense to get things rolling before NATO actually finishes its mobilization. My guess is that Russia would prefer to let China make the next move and open up the second front before it strikes NATO directly, and it’s not in China’s interest to let Russia get too weakened before it gets involved.

DISCUSS ON SG

The War Spreads to Asia

NATO is attempting to bring Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand into its underpowered alliance:

NATO should stop looking for “imaginary enemies” in the Asia-Pacific and never be allowed to set up a version of the bloc in the region, China’s envoy to the UN has said.

“We firmly oppose certain elements clamoring for NATO’s involvement in the Asia-Pacific, or an Asia-Pacific version of NATO on the back of military alliances,” Zhang Jun said at a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday.

The diplomat’s statement came after Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand were invited for the first time to attend the annual NATO summit, which opened on Tuesday in Madrid, Spain.

John Kirby, a senior White House security official, said last week that the participation of the four nations was not an attempt to forge “an Asian version of NATO,” but “an indication of the linkage of global security between Europe and the Indo-Pacific.”

Translation: they’re not attempting to forge an Asian version of NATO, they’re going to bring their Asian satrapies into NATO.

This is complete nonsense. All four states don’t even begin to counterbalance the military and economic weight of China. But it could be worse; they could have invited the island of Taiwan to join NATO, although I suppose we can’t entirely rule out the possibility that they’ll be dumb enough to do that too.

And China is clearly not happy with NATO’s actions.

As a product of the Cold War and the world’s largest military alliance, NATO has long clung to the outdated security concept and become a tool for certain country to maintain hegemony. NATO’s so-called new Strategic Concept is just “old wine in a new bottle”. It still has not changed the Cold War mentality of creating imaginary enemies and bloc confrontation. We solemnly urge NATO to immediately stop spreading false and provocative statements against China. What NATO should do is to give up the Cold War mentality, zero-sum game mindset and the practice of making enemies, and stop seeking to disrupt Asia and the whole world after it has disrupted Europe.

Zhao Lijian, Foreign Ministry, 28 June 2022

NATO directly caused and continuously strengthened Europe’s security dilemma and the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a manifestation of its disastrous consequences. Facts have proven that the extreme pursuit of absolute security under the name of collective defense will eventually lead to confrontation between camps. In other words, NATO is by no means an antidote to Europe’s security crisis, but poison. If anyone spreads such poison to East Asia, which is called “the oasis of world peace and development,” the behavior is insidious and appalling…  In any case, NATO cannot change the nature of being a military and political bloc. Its very existence poses a threat to world peace and stability.

Asia-Pacific countries should not stand under ‘dangerous wall’ of NATO, Global Times, 29 June 2022

The most significant thing about NATO’s expansion to the South Pacific, other than the fact that the US military is now observably preparing for direct military conflict with both Russia and China at the same time, is that the Philippines were not invited, presumably to avoid the humiliation of having the invitation declined. This suggests that the Philippines are continuing to exit the US orbit and will side with China once the war actually comes to the Pacific.

At the invitation of the Philippine government, Special Representative of President Xi Jinping and Vice President Wang Qishan will lead a delegation to attend the inauguration ceremony of President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos on June 30 in Manila, the Philippines.

CCTV: Could you share the arrangements for Vice President Wang Qishan’s trip to the Philippines and China’s expectation for the trip?

Zhao Lijian: China and the Philippines are close neighbors facing each other across the sea and important cooperation partners. China always sees the Philippines as a priority in its neighborhood diplomacy. With the concerted efforts of both sides, China-Philippines relations have been growing with a sound momentum, delivering tangible benefits to both peoples. Not long ago, President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with President-elect Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos. They reached important common understandings on staying committed to good-neighborliness and friendship and pursuing shared development, which pointed the way forward for bilateral relations.

Vice President Wang Qishan’s upcoming trip to the Philippines as President Xi Jinping’s Special Representative for President Marcos’ inauguration ceremony fully demonstrates the great importance China attaches to the Philippines and bilateral relations. We believe this trip will help both sides to carry forward our friendship, cement mutual trust, expand cooperation, open up broader prospects for bilateral relations, and bring more benefits to both countries and peoples.

So, does anyone still seriously believe all this is just about Ukraine?

DISCUSS ON SG