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For America to be displaced by an Asian people long despised and dismissed with contempt as decadent, feeble, corrupt and inept, is emotionally very difficult to accept. The sense of cultural supremacy of the Americans will make this adjustment most difficult. Lee Kwan Yew
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Huawei and Apple share evenly 88% of China's $600+ smartphone market. Other brands have much smaller market shares, with Xiaomi accounting for 4%, and OPPO, Samsung, and others each having less than 3% market share. Read article →
China Eastern will buy another 100 C919 aircraft in a deal worth $10 billion at list prices, the largest ever order for the jet made by the CAAC. Read article →
Anta, Li-Ning outsell Nike, Adidas since Adidas made allegations about Xinjiang cotton. Anta hit $ 7.8 billion, an 8.8% jump. Li-Ning's $3.7 billion, was up 14.3%; Xtep’s revenue was $1.8 billion, up 30%. Nike’s revenue was $7.2 billion and Adidas’ earned $ 3.4 billion. Read article →
China installed a record 290,000 industrial robots in 2022, 5% up YoY, the largest number of installations in the world, far ahead of all other countries. Read article →
August retail sales grew 4.6% to $527 billion; industrial production rose 4.5% year-on-year, bringing the country closer to its annual growth target. The improvement is due to active government measures like the 25% cut in banks' reserve requirements and the stimulus to foreign investment. Read article →
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The arrival of a fleet of nine trucks in Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, successfully concluded trials of the new international road transport route connecting China, Mongolia, and Russia on Asia Highway 4 after 5 days on the road. This is the second international road transport connection between China, Mongolia, and Russia. The other follows Asia Highway 3. Read article →
China's food trade with the New Silk Road countries has increased 162% since the initiative began. China cooperated on customs inspection and quarantine with 171 countries and signed 400 agreements on access for agricultural and food products. YTD, BRI food trade is $76 billion, up 10.4%YoY. Read article →
100 million tons of soybean imported YTD, a record, and up 10% YoY, with US farmers capturing 40% of the growth; China also sources competitively priced soybeans from Argentina and Brazil, where imports are expected to increase in the coming year, while those from the United States are expected to decline. Read article →
China has access to cheaper labor, energy and capital, efficiencies of scale, vertically integrated ecosystems and a huge domestic market – advantages far better than subsidies. Making a compact EV in China costs $15,000, or 65% of the direct manufacturing cost for an EV in Europe. Li Battery packs cost 33% more in Europe and 24% more in the US. The sales-weighted average price of a battery-electric vehicle in China is $27,000, two-thirds Europe's and under half America's. Read article →
Samsung and SK Hynix must limit capacity expansions in China for 10 years if they want CHIPS Act funding. Advanced processing node expansion in "countries of concern" must stay below 5% while capacity expansion of mature nodes like 28nm and above is limited to 10%. No further investment in advanced-node semiconductor product manufacturing is allowed in China. Read article →
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SOE asset manager China Reform Holdings raised $14 billion from 20 central government-owned enterprises, local governments and private investors to invest in emerging industries and will start operating this year. [Government funds get first look at the best deals, and many return 16%]. Read article →
U.S. financial firms are pushing for greater clarity on proposed new rules curbing U.S. investments in some China technology sectors which they say are too vague and put the onus of compliance on investors. Read article →
Ford/CATL battery partnership kaput? The House of Representatives demanded Ford Motor turn over documents tied to its partnership with Chinese battery company CATL and threatened to call CEO Jim Farley to testify before Congress. Read article →
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China launched its first high-speed rail line that crosses several bays and skims along the Fujian coast, near the Taiwan Strait, above. Read article →
22 liters of water/sq.m. meter of water purified with only solar energy, enough for 10 adults, more than solar steam desalination, and a record for water desalination with solar energy. Traditional reverse osmosis passes seawater through membranes under pressure, an energy-intensive process. 25% 40% of the cost of osmotically desalinated water is for electricity. Read article →
Huawei introduced Kunlun Glass in direct competition with Gorilla Glass. Its Mate 60 Pro has three-layer rear case, including second-generation Kunlun glass, ultra-tough basalt body, and and ultra-durable polyamide fiber that takes impact resistance to a new level. Unlike iPhone 15 Pro Max, its non-titanium spine didn’t break in testing. Read article →
Huawei NearLink: 6x WiFi speed, 60% less energy, 97% less delay, 10x more network connections. Read article →
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How Residents Are Rebuilding Shanghai’s Urban Communities
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21 million fly during Golden Week, which continues through October 6. Imagine everyone in Australia boarding a plane in just over a week. 14,000 domestic flights alone will take off and land each day. Read article →
Asian Games: more athletes than Olympics. There’s little coverage by the western-run global media, and Reuters' headline is hilariously negative. But Asian voices in media and social media are hailing the Hangzhou event as extraordinary -- in particular, the opening ceremony. Read article →
A Jerry Grey lucid moment: Laws in China are different! There’s a very good reason: because people in China are different – this isn’t a racist statement it’s an academically proven fact. Psychologists like Michael Harris Bond, Geerte Hofsted and Alphonso Trompenaars have shown that Chinese people, when responding to the same stimuli as Americans, for example, will respond in a different way. Chinese people are much less individualistic than Americans, slightly less so than Japanese and almost the same as South Koreans. In terms of power distance, the differences are slightly less stark but still noticeable. Explaining what this means in terms of behaviour, is something we don’t think about when we are attempting to impose our norms and our values onto a different group of people with different norms and different values, but is something we should think about when criticising people for acting in a manner we consider “strange”. Read article →
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For years, the Harvard College China Forum brought business moguls to the oak-paneled rooms, including Jack Ma, Lei Jun, Stephen Schwarzman and Ray Dalio. There at the invitation of students, some of whom also happen to be the children of Chinese billionaires, the moneyed classes of the world’s two largest economies would hobnob every year in a lively exchange of ideas, demonstrating wealth’s power to bridge geopolitical rifts. Such scenes are now fewer and far between, thanks to US-China tensions. Only a handful of executives from mainland China came in person this year. As for the elite students who lifted the profile of the China Forum in the past, many are gravitating home. Read article →
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In the article above, FT is not fully accounting for the electrification of China's commercial vehicles, trains & internal shipping. 50% of oil consumption is for transportation. Demand for that will collapse much faster than govt. officials or analysts realize. Internal combustion engine sales will collapse in 2 years and resale values drop to zero. Gasoline demand peaked earlier this year. Sinopec, CNPC & CNOOC are remaking themselves into hydrogen & renewables, but their involvement in oil sector will increasingly be for petrochemicals & diesel export. Think what happens around the world when all those new Chinese petrochemical refineries come online. Read article →
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No property tax on first Zhejiang homes, stiff taxes on the second, and sky-high taxes on third homes. As President Xi said "houses are for living in, not speculation." If it creates more affordable homes in Zhejiang, the policy will likely be rolled out to the country. In a separate poverty alleviation program, the government builds near-free ($150) homes like this for the poorest communities. Read article →
One income, two assurances (food and clothing) and three guarantees (basic medical services, safe housing with drinking water and electricity, and 9 years free compulsory education) summarise China's Targeted Poverty Alleviation (TPA) program. Read article →
Last month, 8,644 violations of the 8-point central regulations were investigated nationwide, and 12,258 individuals were subjected to criticism, education, assistance, or other measures. This included 1 provincial-level and ministerial-level cadre, 72 prefectural-level cadres, and 734 county-level cadres. Read article →
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More athletes at Asian Games than Olympics
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The day before the Asian Games began, India lodged a protest with China after three of its athletes were unable to download the necessary travel documents from an official Chinese website to enter the country, forcing them to withdraw while the rest of their 10-member team went ahead to attend the games. The three female martial artists are from the disputed Himalayan region of Arunachal Pradesh, which India says falls under its jurisdiction but is also claimed by Beijing as South Tibet. Said Indian Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, “Chinese authorities have, in a targeted and premeditated manner, discriminated against some Indian sportspersons from the state of Arunachal Pradesh by denying them accreditation and entry to the 19th Asian Games”. The Foreign Ministry's Máo Níng said, “As the host country, China welcomes to the Games from all countries athletes using legal identification. The Chinese government has never recognized so-called ‘Arunachal.’ The area of Zangnan is Chinese territory,” she added, using the Chinese name for the region. Read more →
"China is pressing countries to boycott a British-organized event at the United Nations in Geneva on media freedom in Hong Kong with the son of a jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a letter showed and four diplomats confirmed on Tuesday.” Read more →
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A 1980s women’s fashion magazine from North Korea
After 1970, North Korea’s economy grew sharply, with per capita nominal GDP increasing from $384 to $836 in 1985, an average yearly increase in the country’s growth rate of up to 25%. By comparison, China reached the landmark of $600 per capita ten years later, in 1995. North Korea’s growth was driven by a surge in urbanisation, the onset of rapid industrialisation and increased demand for Western-inspired products. Rapid growth is accompanied by an increase in life expectancy to 70 years and a sharp reduction in childhood mortality rate to 20%. North Koreans begin to settle in and around the nation’s flourishing capital, Pyongyang and the city’s population expands to 3 million.
As wealth accrued, North Korea imitates the consumer tastes of the West. Magazines from North Korea between the late 1970s and 80s exhibit majestic double-page spreads featuring high-quality textiles and stylish fashion designs, mirroring Western fashion at the time. During the late 1980s, Pyongyang becomes Asia’s fashion capital and, while South Korean textile designs generally imitate those of the West, the influence of Pyongyang on Chinese fashion at this time is unparalleled. In 1984, North Korea donated 7,200 tons of rice, 550,000 yards of cloth and 759 cases of medicine to South Korea following a flood, coinciding with a peak in North Korean grain production at 10 million tons.. Read more →
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China and Syria announced the formation of a strategic partnership as Xí Jìnpíng kicked off a series of diplomatic meetings ahead of the Asian Games. Read more →
How many pandas will be left in US zoos by the end of next year? Zero. China is taking back the pandas it’s lent out for the past 50 years, at a time when its ties with the US are at a historic low. Read more →
Solomon Islands joined the China-backed AIIB days after PM Sogovare snubbed Biden's invitation to a Pacific summit at White House, saying he didn't want any more lectures. Read more →
The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea will hold three-way talks “as soon as possible” to ease Chinese concerns over Washington’s stronger security presence in the region. SK's Lim Soo-suk said the summit would be held at the “earliest mutually convenient time” and Japan’s FM, Yoko Kamikawa, said the three countries shared the need to restart high-level talks, “as soon as possible”. Read more →
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Are China and Russia in a new Cold War?
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U.S. officials are laying claim to the large oceanic area in the central Pacific Ocean that is home to the compact states. They are renewing the economic provisions of the compacts of free association with Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, U.S. officials are insisting that the compacts provide the United States with exclusive control over an area of the central Pacific Ocean that is comparable in size to the United States. “We control essentially the northern half of the Pacific between Hawaii and Philippines,” U.S. special envoy Joseph Yun told Congress in July. Read more →
How will President Biden handle the Ukraine loss? It is likely that the administration will use all four options to make the pain and memory of defeat go away. Declare victory over Russia because Russia was stopped at the border with Poland. Then forget about all the details and consequences and move towards war on China. His options: Redefine 'defeat, victory, failure, success, loss, gain." Its target audience is the American public; nobody outside the Collective West buys it, though. Retroactively Scale Back the Goals & Stakes. Cultivate Amnesia. Attack China. As Biden will have difficulties in winning next year's election he needs some cause to unify the country – a war that he can claim the U.S. will win. Expect hostile naval exchanges with China to follow. Read more →
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U.S. Navy sent drone ships to Western Pacific in first deployment near China. “Two prototype U.S. drone ships have arrived in Japan for their first deployment in the western Pacific, testing surveillance and attack capabilities that the Navy might find useful against China’s larger fleet.” Read more →
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In the new White Paper, A Global Community of Shared Future, we find this paragraph: "There is no iron law that dictates that a rising power will inevitably seek hegemony. This assumption represents typical hegemonic thinking and is grounded in memories of catastrophic wars between hegemonic powers in the past. China has never accepted that once a country becomes strong enough, it will invariably seek hegemony. China understands the lesson of history – that hegemony preludes decline. We pursue development and revitalization through our own efforts, rather than invasion or expansion. And everything we do is for the purpose of providing a better life for our people, all the while creating more development opportunities for the entire world, not in order to supersede or subjugate others". Full Text
Summary by Moritz Rudolf: The Global Community of Shared Future. The new White Paper proposes building “an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world enjoying peace, security & prosperity, turning people's longing for a better life into reality” and begins with Beijing’s assessment of the global situation:
▪️immense and unprecedented crises
▪️existential issue of survival for human civilization
▪️need for sustainable dev. of human civilization
▪️The GCSF narrative assumes the all-encompassing interconnectedness of all peoples, countries & individuals.
The key elements & goals of the GCSF are as follows:
▪️equal partnership
▪️ new security environment
▪️ common development
▪️ inter-civilization exchanges
▪️ ecosystem (that puts Mother Nature and green development first).
Goals: Building a world of
▪️lasting peace through dialogue & consultation
▪️common security for all through joint efforts
▪️common prosperity through win-win coop.
▪️openness & inclusivity through exchanges & mutual learning
▪️green &low-carbon dev that is clean &beautiful
Chapter 1⃣: humanity stands at a crossroad. Can choose between
▪️unity & division
▪️ opening up & closing off
▪️ cooperation & confrontation
The GCSF provides a counternarrative to the
▪️inevitability of rising countries seeking hegemony argument.
▪️ Zero-sum game approach
▪️ Puts the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence front and center
Chapter 2⃣humanity must choose between
▪️Cold War mentality (implicit accusation of the 🇺🇸)
▪️Acting for the common wellbeing of humanity, strengthening solidarity and cooperation, advocating openness and win-win results, and promoting equality and respect. (GCSF)
A GCSF requires 4 components:
1. A new approach to international relations
▪️ The rise of developing states requires global gov. changes.
▪️Global village: interests intertwined, and futures interlocked.
2. New features of global governance
▪️Openness & (ideological) inclusiveness
▪️ Equity & justice (against hegemonism & double standards)
▪️ Harmonious coexistence (room for differences)
▪️ Diversity & mutual learning (different approaches to fundamental questions)
▪️Unity & coop.
3. New prospects for international exchanges
▪️ centrality of sovereign equality
▪️ “true multilateralism”
▪️ fair & just security environment (shared interests)
▪️ common dev.
▪️ inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony
▪️ ecosystem that puts Mother Nature & green dev. first
4. A New vision for building a better world
▪️Peace via dialogue &consultation
▪️ From absolute sec. for one to common security for all
▪️Common prosperity via win-win coop.
▪️Open &inclusive world via exchanges & mutual learning
▪️green &low-carbon dev.
Building a GCSF is China's proposed strategy for reforming & improving the int. governance system.
▪️greater democracy in international relations
▪️ more just and equitable global gov.
▪️ transcends outdated mindsets:
🔹zero-sum game
🔹 power politics
🔹 Cold War confrontations
Chapter 3⃣ describes the GCSF as building on:
▪️ Principle of equity and sovereignty
▪️ international humanitarianism
▪️ four purposes and seven principles established by the UN Charter
▪️ Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence
Other foundations of the GCSF:
▪️ Trad. Chinese culture (e.g., harmony, nations are one community, benevolence, altruism; humans are part of nature)
▪️Global vision of the CPC
▪️Chinese diplomatic traditions
🔹major-country dipl. with Chinese characteristics.
🔹FPPC
🔹3 Worlds
🔹new type of int. rel.
🔹common values of humanity
🔹BRI
🔹3GIs
▪️Other civilizations
🔹ref. to ancient 🇬🇷/African philosophers & 🇮🇳 lit.
Chapter 4⃣ “Direction & Path” proposes 5 elements how the int. community should turn the GCSF vision into reality
1⃣New type of economic globalization
▪️against decoupling & de-risking
▪️impact of AI on the new round of economic globalization and social dev.
2⃣Peaceful dev. path
3⃣New type of int. rel.
▪️built on the principles of mutual respect, equity & justice +mutually beneficial coop.
▪️FPPC
▪️Major countries are key actors
4⃣True multilateralism
▪️ no double standards
▪️China actively participates & leads global gov. system reform
5⃣Common values of humanity (peace, development, equity, justice, democracy & freedom).
▪️Special focus on the need to redefine the term democracy at the international level (critique of the west).
▪️more exchanges & mutual learning among civilizations.
Chapter 5⃣ “🇨🇳's Action and Contribution” lists concrete examples where 🇨🇳 promotes the GCSF:
▪️Regarding the BRI it highlights
🔹Port of Piraeus
🔹Global promotion of Juncao tech.
🔹🇨🇳🇱🇦 Railway & Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway
🔹Qamchiq Tunnel on Angren-Pap Railway line
▪️The white paper summarizes the key elements of the 3 global initiatives
▪️GSI
▪️ GDI
▪️ GCI
Areas where China will push most vigorously for the GCSF narrative to reform the global order
▪️Health
▪️nuclear security
▪️ maritime issues (maritime community of shared future)
▪️ climate (community of life for humanity & nature; community of all life on Earth)
▪️ cybersecurity. Full Text
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Taiwan Youth vs. Taiwan's Constitution
Wei Ling Chua
Recently, street interviews in Taiwan asked young Taiwanese “Do you know the relationship between the Republic of China and Taiwan?”, the reply shocked the interviewer as the majority of the youth in Taiwan didn’t even know their political entity’s official name is the Republic of China (ROC), and that the ROC’s constitution regards the mainland of China and Taiwan being parts of the ROC sovereign territory. For example:
- A street interview in June 2023 asked: “What is the relationship between Taiwan and the ROC?” The reply: “…Enemy…”; The interviewer then asked: “Have you heard of ROC? Do you know where ROC is?” The reply: “The other side of the Taiwan Straits? … I don’t know, I don’t know…” During the interview, almost all interviewees didn’t know the ROC, some later replied: “Taiwan” (with a guessing element after observing the interviewer’s tone).
- A street interview in May 2023 asked: “What is the relationship between Taiwan and the ROC?” The reply: “… looks like the relationship is not too good…”; The interviewer then asked: “According to the ROC constitution, Taiwan sovereignty includes the mainland of China, do you know that?” The reply: “No”.
The above interviews demonstrated the success of the ongoing brainwashing tactics used by the current ruling party (the DPP) in Taiwan province by modifying historical facts in school textbooks in the past 2 decades. One needs just to search under “DDP modify Taiwan history textbook” to learn about the issues. If one uses simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese to search the subject, one will get even more examples and news on the topic of young Taiwanese being heavily brainwashed into believing that they are not a part of the Chinese civilization despite their shared history, culture, tradition, values, food habits, ethnicity, religions, and languages (spoken and written). This reflects the scary effect of what fake news and propaganda could do to divide society and create conflict across the world.
It is important to note that the content of the ROC Constitution is still the same today as before the Nationalist government lost the internal war to the Communist Party and escaped to Taiwan Province in 1949. It is also important to note that all the incoming Taiwan Presidents and MPs have to be sworn in under the Constitution of The ROC before taking office. So, what does the ROC Constitution say about the relation between the mainland of China and Taiwan island? The full text of the ROC’s Constitution is on the current Taiwan (Province) government’s official website. The following points shown that the ROC Constitution includes the entire mainland of China as its sovereign territory:
- Point 4 of the Constitution: The territory of ROC based on its inherent boundaries, cannot be changed without a resolution of the National Assembly.
- Point 6 refers to the design of the ROC flag used since 1928 (which is still in use today across Taiwan Province by whoever is in power);
- Point 26: Outline the number of Representatives based on the population in an area/region for the National Assembly (with special mention of the Mongolia and Tibet regional representatives).
- Point 64: About the makeup of representatives for law-making: this point also mentioned the minority population representative with special mention of Mongolia and Tibet regions.
- Point 91: About the makeup of representatives in the Government Supervisory Body: again, Mongolia and Tibet regions are mentioned.
If we search for a map of the ROC, one will notice that the ROC territory in the map includes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) controlled mainland. That means the territory outlined in the Constitution of both the PRC and ROC includes Taiwan province and the Mainland of China. Both documents are the legal foundation of one-China. So:
- Any Western media wording that suggests Taiwan province is not a part of China is without any legal foundation under both the ROC and the PRC Constitutions.
- The Western media and politicians’ ongoing warning that “China is going to invade Taiwan” is preposterous because what they are warning is that China is about to invade itself.
- America named the war between the South and the North (12 April 1861 to 26 May 1865) as the American Civil War revealing the double standard regarding the use of the term “invasion” to describe a possible future China reunification process through military action.
Therefore, the dispute between the PRC and ROC is a yet-to-settled historical event. It is purely a domestic issue between the 2 governments. Former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yao is right to point out in a recent interview that “China sees the Taiwan issue as a matter of historical justice”; he warns the Western powers about the danger of interfering in the reunification process.
Many people did not notice that the territory under the control of today’s ROC includes not only Taiwan Island itself but a number of islands right next to the mainland of the PRC. See the following screenshot map of the ROC(the purple territory in the bottom right-hand corner below is still under the control of the ROC):
One should note that there are islands adjacent to mainland of China:
- Kinmen Islands (or Jinmen Islands in pinyin): The nearest part of the Kinmen group of Islands is just 1.8 km from the PRC (mainland China); it is 210 km from Taiwan Island. Former Chinese World Bank Chief Economist Justin YiFu Lin was a ROC army official stationed in Kinmen Islands. He is the man who in 1979, swam 2130 meters to mainland China to call the PRC home;
- Matsu Islands (or Mazu in Pinyin) The nearest part of this group of islands is 18.5 km away from the Mainland of China and 203 km away from Taiwan Island.
- As for Taiwan Island itself, the nearest part to the mainland is 126 km away.
The above distance information between the ROC-controlled territory and the PRC-controlled mainland tells us a lot about the intention of the PRC government working towards a peaceful reunification:
- If China (PRC) wanted to take those islands right next to the mainland by force, they would have done it a long time ago. There is no reason to doubt the PRC military capability to do so given their ability to force the US-led military coalition back more than 500 km from the China-DPRK border to the 38th parallel and stop the US-led military coalition’s further aggression in the 1950-1953 Korean War;
- Even Taiwan Island (province) itself is so close to the mainland that a modern short-range missile and artillery are good enough to do the job of crippling the island’s economy and forcing a surrender; Contrary to people perception of US military superiority, the current military technological capability of the PLA may be more advanced than the USA.
- Therefore, the ongoing Western media articles and news with headings that suggest China’s pending aggression and possible invasion of Taiwan to justify US/Japan/NATO/Australia/Canada militarism on the Chinese doorstep is nothing more than a smear campaign against China.
The history of Taiwan island’s relation with the Chinese dynasties can be traced back to 230AD. This site (English) and this site (Chinese) provide a detailed Timeline of Taiwan’s relations with the Chinese dynasties beginning as early as the year 230AD: During the 3 kingdoms era, a written record of （沈莹） Shen Ying under the title 《临海水土志》 (direct transaction word by word: “surrounding seas water lands record”) already mentioned the Island of Taiwan. And that is almost 1800 years ago.
The trouble for many people who haven’t researched much about Chinese history is that they may be susceptible to Western media propaganda that portrays China as historically backward compared to the West, hence the ongoing smear campaign that China steals Western technology. So, it may be hard for some people to believe that in 230AD, the Chinese already has the shipping technology to explore islands hundreds of km away in the rough sea. So, it is important for one to note the following facts about the Chinese being far more advance than the West in shipping technology for thousands of years:
- One should note that the compass used by Columbus to “discover” America in 1492 AD was a Chinese-invented compass (between 202 BC – 220 AD during the Han Dynasty);
- 2500 years ago, China not only had a great military strategist Sun Zi (The Art of War) for land battles but also had a navy war strategist (伍子胥) Wu Zi Xu for water battles 《水战兵法》 (direct word by word translation “Water war military strategy”).
One should also take note that before Columbus “discovered” America in 1492 (as if the Indigenous peoples on the continent at that time were not regarded as “human beings” and so, the land has to be “discovered” by a “higher being” from Europe), the Ming Dynasty Navy General Zheng He had already led 7 ocean expeditions traveling the world (1405 to 1433), with “hundreds of huge ships and tens of thousands of sailors and other passengers. More than 60 of the 317 ships on the first voyage were enormous Treasure Ships, sailing vessels over 400 hundred feet long, 160 feet wide, with several decks, 9 masts, 12 sails, and luxurious staterooms complete with balconies.”
It is important to note that, despite such a scale of world voyages, China did not do what Columbus and Captain Cook’s voyages did to the Indigenous population in what would become America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The Ming Dynasty Imperial Voyages led by General Zheng He (a Chinese Muslim) were peaceful in nature.
There is also a well-researched book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World (including America) by Gavin Menzies (a former British Royal Navy Submarine Commanding Officer) who spent 15 years tracing the astonishing voyages of the Ming Dynasty’s fleet, visited over 900 museums across the world, engaged in conversations and correspondence with Universities professors specialized in Asia Study, and reading hundreds of titles in European country’s libraries that mentioned the Chinese voyages. Despite the fact that Gavin’s compelling narrative pulls together ancient maps, precise navigational knowledge, astronomy, and the surviving accounts of Chinese explorers and the later European navigators, and that Gavin’s research also brings to light the artifacts and inscribed stones left behind by the emperor’s fleet, the evidence of the Ming Dynasty’s sunken junks along its route, and ornate votive offerings left by the Chinese sailors wherever they landed, Gavin’s book still discredited by the Western propaganda machine as “fiction” and “controversy”. As a reader of Kevin’s book to the last word, I am convinced by the incontrovertible evidence presented in regard to the Ming Dynasty Imperial Voyages, however, other readers’ opinions are also important. Please read the thousands of reader comments here, here, and here.
So, for those who are interested to know in detail about the 1800 years of history of Taiwan Island’s relation with the Chinese dynasties, please click here (English) and here (Chinese).
One should note that, in July 1894, Japan launched a war of aggression against China. In April 1895, the defeated Qing Dynasty government was forced to cede Taiwan, etc, to Japan in an unequal treaty (Treaty of Shimonoseki in Japanese, also known as Treaty of Maguan in Chinese).
1943 Cairo Declaration (Image of the original document): Signed by President Roosevelt (USA), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek (ROC President), and Prime Minister Churchill (UK) as military allies against the Japanese military aggression. The objective of the Cairo Declaration is to “procure unconditional surrender of Japan,” and that “all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (known as “Taiwan” in Chinese), and … shall be restored to the Republic of China” (The Chinese government at that time).
(Note: It seems that the US government history document website ( https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments ) has removed the Cairo Declaration document)
1945 INT Potsdam Declaration (Image of the original document) Point 8stated: “The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine.” And again, this international treaty was entered into by the US, China, and UK governments, and agreed upon by the Japanese government after the US dropped the 2 atomic bombs on Japan.
Note: the US government history document website shows the full content of this 13-point document including point 8.
So, the above two international documents entered by the US, China, UK, and Japan recognized Taiwan as a part of China, and Japan’s territory is limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine.”
UN Resolution 2758: passed on 25 October 1971: “Recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations” and removed “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (referring to the ROC) from the United Nations.
Since then, as of June 2023, out of the 193 UN member nations, only 12 smaller nations recognize the ROC government, and 181 recognize the PRC government. (Including the US and all other Western governments. This is the condition for establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC.)
As a result, the ROC (in Taiwan) needs the PRC’s approval to get access to any international organizations or institutions such as the Olympics, WHO, etc. The PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan is officially recognized by the UN document and 181 UN member states.
If one searches on the Internet for “台湾 血比水浓” (Taiwanese Blood is Thicker than Water), one will notice that there are millions of articles and news headlines over the decades describing the feeling of the Chinese people in the PRC towards the Chinese people in the ROC (Taiwan Province). They regard people in Taiwan as their brothers and sisters and hope for peaceful reunification.
Since the founding of the PRC, the Chinese leadership (from Mao to Xi) has been working hard toward a peaceful reunification with Taiwan Province. Just to name a few examples as follows:
Example 1:
During the Chinese Revolution, the then Nationalist Party government led by ROC President Chiang Kai-shek killed 6 of Chairman Mao’s relatives including Mao’s beloved wife (Yang Kaihui). In 1957, Chairman Mao wrote a touching poem in remembrance of his late wife with a description of his grief when he heard the news of her murder by the Nationalist government: “bursting into tears like rainwater” (泪飞顿作倾盆雨). Despite such personal grief in losing his loved one, Chairman Mao put the interest of the people and the Chinese nation first: For example:
After China and DPRK won the Korean War against the US-led 16-nation military coalition, there was a perception of Western nations trying to break Taiwan away from the motherland to create two Chinas, like the two Koreas (North and South Korea), and the two Germanys (East and West Germany). To prevent that, in 1956, Mao wrote a personal letter to Chiang Kai-shek, telling him the importance of Taiwan’s geographical position in accessing the Pacific Ocean for the Chinese nation, and urged him to safeguard the interest of the Chinese civilization to maintain the principle of a one-China policy. That is Taiwan province and the mainland as integrated parts of one China. He then raised the idea of negotiation toward a peaceful reunification under the following principles:
- Foreign Powers should be out of Taiwan.
- Taiwan must recognize the Central People’s Government as the only legitimate government of the PRC.
- Both the Nationalist Party and the Communist Party must uphold the principle of a one-China policy.
- Chiang Kai-Shek will enjoy a special privileged status once Taiwan is unified with the mainland.
- Once unified, besides Foreign Affairs and Defence, Chiang Kai-Shek will retain the power of administering Taiwan in all other aspects such as the power for the appointment of officials and their removal in Taiwan, the treasury in Taiwan, and Chiang is allowed to keep his arm forces, and the central government will fund the development of Taiwan.
- Once unified, both sides will stop covert operations and propaganda against each other and will not do anything to damage the relationship of both political parties.
In the letter, Mao also enclosed a photo of Chiang’s ancestor’s grave in China, telling him that they are well maintained. (Photo below):
Unfortunately, for Chiang, it was a hard decision.
Chiang died in 1975; to this day, his coffin is still not buried. According to his son Chiang Jing-guo’s Diary: Chiang wished to be buried on the mainland: at Nanjing, Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Zijin Mountain, Zhengqi Pavilion. Therefore, they are waiting for the day when the political climate is such that Chiang can be so interred.
Example 2:
In 1981, the PRC spelled out a 9 points policy toward peaceful reunificationunder a One-China policy (below is a translation from the Chinese text):
- The Communist Party and the Nationalist Party can negotiate on an equal footing.
- The two parties reached an agreement on postal, commercial, air, family visits, tourism, and academic, culture, and sports exchanges.
- After reunification, Taiwan can retain the military and enjoy special autonomy as a special administrative region.
- Taiwan’s society, economic system, way of life, and economic and cultural relations with other foreign countries remain unchanged; private property, houses, land, business ownership, legal inheritance rights, and foreign investment are inviolable.
- Political leaders in Taiwan can serve as leaders of the national political institutions and participate in national management.
- When Taiwan’s local finances are in difficulty, the central government can subsidize them at its discretion.
- Taiwanese who wish to return to the mainland to live are guaranteed to make proper arrangements, come and go freely, and not be discriminated against.
- Welcome Taiwanese businesses’ investment in the mainland, their legal rights and profits are guaranteed.
- People and organizations from all walks of life in Taiwan are welcome to provide unified suggestions and discuss state affairs together.
Has any other nation in world history ever gone to such lengths, patience, inclusiveness, and generosity in pursuing peaceful reunification with an offer like this? The PRC government has always believed that given time, it would be able to develop China into a better and better society and would eventually unify with every heart and mind in Taiwan.
Of course, the Western media will never tell the world the above generous 9 points offered to Taiwan for peaceful reunification. They will only tell the world China is bullying Taiwan.
Example 3:
After years of negotiations, in 1992, the PRC Communist Party and the ROC Nationalist Party reach an agreement in Singapore to deepen the exchange of people between both sides. Both Parties agree to the principles of One China, and any other issues can be negotiated with flexibility. The term used for such a historic agreement is “1992 Consensus.”
Example 4:
In order to win the hearts and minds of the brothers and sisters in Taiwan province, the PRC has been very generous to Taiwan’s farmers and businesses and allowed Taiwan to enjoy an enormous trade surplus of up to $104.68 billion a year. About 44% of Taiwan’s exports go to mainland China. Without the PRC’s economic support, Taiwan’s economy would likely have fallen into a negative GDP like most parts of the Western world.
Again, the Western mass media is uninterested in reporting the above trade statistics.
Example 5:
The ROC-controlled Kinmen (Jinmen) Islands with a rising population and water shortage problem. Between 2006 and 2022, the population of the Jinmen Islands increased from 76,000 to 141,500. To help the brothers and sisters in Jinmen solve their water problem, the PRC government invested heavily over a period of 22 years in infrastructure to lay an underground and undersea pipeline to deliver water from the mainland to the islands. And sell the water to the islands at a subsidized price of 9.89 Taiwan dollars per unit of water, which is cheaper than the charges per unit of water supplied by the local authority on the islands.
Again, the Western media won’t report news like this. They will only keep spreading the message to the world: “China bullies Taiwan” and “China is going to invade Taiwan”.
Example 6:
Like the US, after decades of political infighting, corruption, and incompetency in managing the economy and infrastructure upgrade, Taiwan suffered a series of issues including an electricity shortage that requires rationing from area to area. So, Power Rationing Information is made available for residents to check when their area power will be cut off and for how long. Such a situation has been the new normal for several years already. It has badly affected business activities and damaged foreign investment. As a result, Taiwan’s youth unemployment rate has been consistently above 10%. And nearly 60% of the Taiwanese working overseas went to China. A report in 2017 by TVBS Taiwan showed that: over a period of 35 years, Taiwan startup wages remained almost the same, 70% of Taiwan youth refused to be trapped by low wages and wished to start their own business in order to make more money. Forbes Magazine reported the issue: “Workers in Taiwan are struggling. They took home an average of $1,510 per month in 2016, according to Taiwan’s National Development Council, which is low for an industrialized Asian economy that has developed a lot like Singapore and South Korea over the decades.”
In response to such low wages and employment problems faced by Taiwanese youth, Chairman Xi canceled the work permit requirement for Taiwanese people to seek employment on the mainland.
In fact, as early as 2016, The China People’s Congress had already set up an RMB40 billion fund, to help facilitate Taiwan Youth intent on setting up their own business in China.
Again, the Western mass media is uninterested in this kind of news. They will keep telling the world that China is bullying Taiwan.
Example 7:
There are too many stories of the PRC government (from Chairman Mao to Chairman Xi) extending goodwill to the Taiwanese people and awaiting eventual peaceful reunification. It is impossible to list them all. So, just to provide a couple more examples below:
- Whenever an overseas emergency happens, such as an outbreak of war, the Chinese embassies and military will immediately evacuate all Chinese citizens, including any Taiwanese who apply to the PRC with a Taiwan Compatriot ID document. Click here for a few dozen short news and videos.
- Any Taiwanese who run into trouble while overseas can easily seek help from any of the Chinese embassies in the respective country. Several Taiwanese friends I met, while I was working in Eastern Europe based in Hungary in the 1990s, told me that the PRC embassy staff are more helpful than the ROC commercial office representative.
In 2022, China released a White Paper titled “The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era” (Here is the full text In English and Chinese). It is a bit lengthy but worth reading. The policy document outlines the intention to reintegrate Taiwan by all possible peaceful means, and the many benefits Taiwan people will enjoy in the process, including all the tax revenue collected in Taiwan will be used solely for the social well-being of the Taiwanese people and the economic development of Taiwan.
China is a country with a very long history of peace culture. Examples:
- Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir said: “We always say, we have had China as a neighbour for 2000 years, we were never conquered by them. But the Europeans came in 1509, and in two years, they conquered Malaysia.”
- East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta defended China’s role as a growing strategic and economic power in Asia-Pacific in the National Press Club of Australia (2022), arguing: “China has hardly ever invaded other countries and was unlikely to do so in the future.”
- Indonesia’s Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto said in Singapore (2022) during an interview with Aljazeera: “But China has also helped us. China has also defended us, and China is now a very close partner with Indonesia. And actually, China has always been the leading civilization in Asia. Many of our sultans, kings, our princes in those days would marry princesses from China. We have hundreds of years of relationship.”
The above 3 positive comments about China are from leaders of three of China’s neighbouring countries in Asia. Their country’s experience with China since ancient times tells a lot about the peaceful nature of China. The question here is: will Latin American countries, African countries, other Asian countries, and Middle Eastern countries, say the same about their country’s experience with the US and Europe? Or perhaps, will European countries within Europe say the same about their own neighbouring countries within Europe?
The reality is that: Western imperialism is not dead after the 2 World Wars; in particular, the USA has always been a troublemaker for the rest of the world. The following examples should provide us with a good picture of how the US is threatening peace in Asia, and its main target since 2008 is China:
During the 2008 GFC, US Secretary of Finance Henry Paulson visited China almost every month to seek help to stabilize the dollar’s status as a reserve currency. As a result, China bought almost an extra $600b in US Treasury debts in 2008, which accounted for over half the total issued by the US government to bail out the too-big-to-fail banks and the US economy that year.
Once the US economy stabilized, the world stopped dumping the dollar due to China injected $600b confidence in US treasury debts, the only positive thing China received from America in return for its support of the US economy is an open praise from Henry Paulson in the New York Times on 22 Oct 2008 “Thanking China’s cooperation in easing the Financial Crisis“.
Since then, in 2010, Obama said in Australia: “If over 1 billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now, then all of us are in for a very miserable time. The planet just can’t sustain it.”
In 2011, an opinion piece in the New York Times suggested that Obama “should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United State-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.” Years later, a Wikileaks leaked email revealed the then Secretary of States Hillary Clinton wanted to discuss ditching Taiwan in exchange for China to erase US debts.
In 2013, a Jimmy Kimmel Live show on ABC asked some kids what to do about the $1.3 trillion of debts the US owes to China, a very young boy suggested that “The US kill everyone in China instead of repaying its debts.”
In 2021, Joe Biden said in a press conference: “China wants to become the most wealthy, powerful country but it’s ‘not gonna happen on my watch’.”
In 2023, under the excuse of an imaginary “China threat” and to “Protect Taiwan from China invasion”, US politicians proposed a series of bipartisan bills aiming to restrict how China can use its money, restricting China’s rights in International Financial Institutions, and a plan to confiscate China’s sovereign fund and Chinese citizens’ overseas bank accounts and assets like the way the US and Europe did to the Russians in 2022.
Please click the following links for detail of their proposed “looting” bills:
- H.R.554, the “Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act of 2023”, sponsored by Rep. French Hill.
- H.R.510, the “Chinese Currency Accountability Act of 2023,” sponsored by Rep. Warren David.
- H.R.839, the “China Exchange Rate Transparency Act of 2023,” sponsored by Rep. Dan Meuser.
- H.R.803, the “Protect Taiwan Act,” sponsored by Rep Frank Lucas.
From the above series of behaviours and statements made by two US Presidents, a Secretary of State, a very young boy, the US media, and 4 politicians who sponsored anti-China bills, it is hard not to come to the conclusion about the ungrateful nature of Americans. It would appear to me that the robber DNA is deep in the blood and bone of many people in the US society (I hate to generalize my comment unless someone can convince me that the above-named series of behaviours within the US society are merely coincident!).
Let’s put aside the various issues from a reported 2012 US plan to deploy 60% of the US Navy fleet to the Asia Pacific by 2020, and the 2011 Obama Pacific Pivot with a secret plan to start a war against China by 2030 with a coalition of nations to militarily control commercial shipment to and from China via the South China seas to limit China freedom to trade with the rest of the world, and should China resist, the US-led military coalition would begin to attack China.
John Pilger, an award-winning journalist produced a 2 hours documentarywith detail of US military bases around China, and how the US may plan to start a war with China.
In 2017, US Admiral Scott Swift assured everyone he was ready to follow President Trump’s orders to launch a nuclear missile against China.
In 2022, former US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien suggested destroying Taiwan’s semiconductor factories rather than letting them fall into China’s hands.
In 2023, US talk show host Garland Nixon wrote on Twitter that White House insiders said that US President Joe Biden had warned about a plan for “the destruction of Taiwan,” when asked if there could be any greater disaster than the Ukraine crisis.
There are endless US military activities and arrangements targeting China in recent years. Just to list a few more examples below:
- While the Western media and politicians keep telling the world that the PLA is increasingly aggressive against Western countries’ (military) freedom of navigation in the South and East China Seas, a recent report by the US Department of Defence revealed that “the US has conducted around 120 military exercises a year with allies and partners in the region.” Ironically, such statistics of US military aggression on China’s doorstep failed to attract the interest of the Western Media.
- In 2021, Australia reached a deal with US and UK on a $386b nuclear submarine deal with China as their target.
- In 2022, US Defense Secretary Austin announced that: “The US is at a pivotal point with China and needs military strength to ensure that American values, not Beijing’s, set global norms in the 21st century.” He then talked about the need to align the US budget as never before to the China Challenge. He then mentioned a $1.2 trillion estimated cost as part of a major nuclear triad overhaul underway by the Congressional Budget Office.
One should note that such an additional budget for military expenses is on top of the fact that the US military already spent more than the next 10 countries combined.
- In July 2023, USS Kentucky, a US nuclear submarine (capable of firing nuclear ballistic missiles) suddenly arrived in Busan, South Korea.
- Again, in July 2023, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg pushed to increase ties with Asia with the intention to form an Asia NATO alliance. Former Australia PM Paul Keating labelled Stoltenberg a ‘supreme fool’ and ‘an accident on its way to happen’.
To justify NATO’s intention to set up its military presence in Asia, NATO engaged in a series of smeared campaigns against an imaginary China’s threats based on NATO’s own past behaviours across the world. The latest smear campaign was in the NATO Vilnius Summit Communique. As a result, China’s Permanent Representative to the UN refuted NATO’s false accusations against China, and challenges NATO if it can make the same claims as China on the following 6 points:
- China has never invaded other countries.
- China has never engaged in proxy wars.
- China has never carried out military operations around the world.
- China did not threaten other countries with force.
- China did not export ideology.
- China did not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs.
The reality is that the US initiated an all-out hostility against China after China help the US out of the 2008 GFC. Examples:
- Obama’s Pacific Pivot;
- Obama’s TPP to Exclude China from International Trade;
- Trump and Biden all-out trade Wars.
- Trump and Biden all-out technological wars.
- US military deployments, and military activities surrounding China. Despite the US already having 313 of its 750 worldwide military bases surrounding China, the US continued to expand by another 4 recently via the Philippines with 3 of them close to Taiwan.
Despite the past US administrations (1972, 1979, 1982) entering into 3 Joint Communique with China Over the Taiwan question (The One-China agreements), the US politicians have over the years through their own acts, brutally violate all the written agreements with China re the One-China Policy. The latest developments are the worst:
In July 2023, US House passed an amendment to National Defense Authorization Act to ban Pentagon maps from depicting Taiwan and its major outlying islands, Kinmen, Penghu, Mazudao, Wuchudao, and Ludao (etc) as part of China. (Here is the content of the original amendment bill).
Below is just a quick list of examples of US violating all its signed One-China documents with China to provoke a war over Taiwan:
- In 2021, Taiwan English News reported the news of “Pentagon doubled the number of US troops in Taiwan”,
- In 2022, VOA (Chinese news) reported that the US has again increased the number of its military personnel in Taiwan. The intention is to help to coordinate both militaries in a possible future war with China.
- In April 2023, US lawmaker, Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul pledged to help provide training for Taiwan’s armed forces and to speed up the delivery of weapons.
- In July 2023, it was widely reported in Taiwan that the U.S. wants Taiwan to set up a P4 Biological Laboratory. Yahoo Chinese News pointed out that Taiwan Chinese newspaper (联合报) is the first to break the detail of the Biological Weapons Lab story. Taiwan CTI TV news reported the detail that the Lab is to test biological weapons using Chinese DNA as “the DNA of the Taiwan population can represent Chinese DNA.” Not surprisingly: the Western media is very much silent on this kind of news despite the fact that the US State Department later denied the Taiwanese report that the US asked Taiwan to develop weaponized biological agents.
- Perhaps to justify a possible pre-emptive war against China under the Bush Doctrine in the foreseeable future, the US Congress passed a $500m anti-China propaganda bill in February 2022. How much of this $500m goes to brainwashing Taiwanese?
In a recent interview, Jeffrey Sachs describes a series of US actions against China as a “Path to War With China”
The trouble with Western forms of so-called democracy is that to win an election, one needs to build an election war chest. That is to seek political donations in return for favours when one is in a position of power. It usually involves an under-the-table deal between politicians and their donors. As a result, corporate donors, billionaires, foreign cash, and foreign powers could easily penetrate domestic politics.
Since the beginning of Taiwan having a Western form of election, dark money, corruption, bribery, and scandals news become a part of the social norm within the Taiwanese political circle. If we search for the name of any DPP senior politicians (especially Ministers and Prime Ministers) with the term “Dark-Money”, “corruption”, or “scandals”, one should notice almost no innocent people in the system. As Western media usually self-censored negative news linked to the Pro-independent party, so, the best way to search for such news is to search in the Chinese language. For examples:
- Search in Chinese for corruption of the Current Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen;
- Search her deputy (the coming DPP presidential candidate) Lai Ching-te;
Corruption and democracy often go hand in hand. Here are some hyperlinks to examples of how the US interferes in foreign elections:
Those who follow the Taiwan issue via the Taiwan media should notice that, while those Taiwan politicians ally with the US foreign policy and campaign for independence, most of their family members (including themselves) already have US or other Western countries’ citizenship, bank accounts, and assets. For examples,
- A report in Taiwan media in 2015 revealed that half of the current Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen family members with foreign citizenship;
- As for the Vice President (the coming DPP presidential candidate) 赖清德 (Lai Ching-te) son and grandson were American citizens;
The irony is that, while these pro-independent politicians eagerly ally with the US to provoke war with the PRC by promoting Taiwan independence, their family members have on the other hand migrated overseas at the same time. This is a bit like President Zelensky acting in the interest of the USA, and allowing the entire Ukraine to be bombed and destroyed, because, according to OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project): “Zelensky and his inner circle have unexplained $ billions overseas.”
In fact, during Taiwan’s military exercises, one of their programs is on how the president could safely escape if a war breaks out (Of course, whenever the Taiwan media reported such escape details, the Ministry of Defense will deny it.)
The tragedy for the average Taiwanese people is that the island economy was already damaged before such a war would begin. According to a recent Financial Times report: “‘People are nervous’: Taiwan’s wealthy shelter money overseas in fear of China conflict.” The same thing happened to foreign companies in Taiwan with “half of the foreign companies in Taiwan making contingency plans due to evacuations and supply chain disruptions concerns.” The latest Taiwan GDP is down 3.02%.
The reality in Taiwan is that many young people refuse to join the army, and the DPP government is having a problem recruiting new soldiers. As a result:
- The DPP government decided to extend the existing soldiers serving time by an additional year.
- In June 2023, Taiwan amend the military recruitment regulation to include recruits from Hong Kong and Macao people working and living in Taiwan.
- Again, in June, the DPP government reportedly worked with the Ministry of Education to impose a 3 + 1 university program. That is 3 years of study plus a year of military training.
In February 2023, Jinmen Island local lawmakers voted to declare Jinmen a non-military zone, and Jinmen governor Li Zhufeng (李炷烽) suggests using Jinmen Island as a pilot program for the One Country Two Systems and expanding gradually thereafter.
Professor John V. Wash in a recent article titled “Arming Taiwan is an Insane Provocation” cited a hyperlink to a 2022 polling that showed that an overwhelming majority (82.1%) of Taiwanese now would like to preserve the status quo with only 5.3% wanting immediate independence.”
In July 2023, Hungary Prime Minister Orban observed that “Beijing managed to develop as much in 30 years as other countries in 200 years. Therefore, they can claim their “place under the sun”. However, Washington does not accept that quick development, the fact that China preceded them in many sectors… As a result, a clash between the two world powers is inevitable…. War is not inevitable, but the USA does not accept that it has become the world’s second most powerful nation, Orbán added.”
An article on Education Monitor News rightly pointed out that “The Greatest Threat to the USA is not China, but Peace.”
In 2014, the New York Times put up an article titled ‘The Lack of Major Wars may be Hurting Economic Growth.’
One should bear in mind that the USA was created on the foundation of invasion, massacre, looting, and enslavement of others. Not a single thing the US possesses today is through peaceful means including every inch of its current territory.
Since 2008, China already realized that its kindness towards the US will only be perceived as a weakness. That will only encourage more aggression and greed from the US imperialist rulers. So, the first thing Chairman Xi did after taking office in 2012 is to visit a PLA military base. He openly called upon the PLA to prepare for war and to win the war.
In February 2023, China released a report titled “US Hegemony and Its Perils,” and in May “America’s Coercive Diplomacy and its Harm” outlining the many crimes committed by the US against the world, and that China is no longer interested in accommodating the US crimes and behaviours.
In March 2023, a Chinese government website reported that Chairman Xi Jinping told a group of more than 300 high-ranking government officials that: “History has repeatedly proven that if we seek security through resolve, security will prevail; If we seek security through concessions, security will perish; If we seek development through resolve, development will prosper; If we seek development through compromises, our development will suffer.”
In June 2023, China released The Law on Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China outlining the country’s attitude toward foreign relations, UN Charters, International Laws, and possible counter-action against any hostile foreign policy and behaviours that harms Chinese interest and security.
In July, China called NATO “a trouble-maker”, and issued a warning to NATO: “Beijing doesn’t cause trouble, but is not afraid of trouble”. Days later, the Chinese ambassador to the US issued a direct warning to Washington: “If people violate me, I will hit back.”
So, how long will China continue to tolerate US provocation? How long will China allow the US military to continue to violate its sovereignty in Taiwan? Will China allow the US more time to arm Taiwan like what they did in Ukraine before Putin would no longer tolerate the threats and was forced to take military action? Unz Review
Wei Ling Chua is the author of Democracy: What the West can learn from China and Tiananmen Square “Massacre”? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence
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The Labor of Reinvention:
Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy
Lin Zhang
My primary motive in undertaking this study was to better understand what the concept of entrepreneurship meant to Chinese like my cousin, for whom it was not just a new way to make a living but also a means of self-reinvention. We are witnessing an international effort to rebrand “labor” as “entrepreneurialism.” IT entrepreneurship, in particular, is often celebrated in corporate, policy, and academic discourses for its potential to drive innovation and generate flexible self-employment opportunities for everyone.
The idea is simple: anyone can be an entrepreneur, but it is incumbent upon individuals to reinvent themselves—that is, to leverage their unique backgrounds and social networks to ride the tidal wave of technological progress. Yet, in touting the universal accessibility of entrepreneurship while ignoring the inherent structural unevenness of contemporary global capitalism, advocates are perpetuating the system’s inequalities while offloading the burdens of labor reproduction onto individuals. To aggregate a white middle-class Silicon Valley start-up founder, a Black immigrant Uber driver in London, and a Chinese peasant craftswoman into the category of “tech entrepreneur” is to elide their vastly different class, ethnic, national, racial, and geographic backgrounds and thereby conceal, rather than confront or ameliorate, the structural inequalities that define their disparate access to resources. In idealizing market-based and culturalist solutions, entrepreneurialism seeks in the alliance between developmentalism and culturalism (whether multiculturalism, nationalism, or Confucian familism) solutions to structural problems inherent to global financial capitalism. By calling on individuals, despite their vastly different capacities, to reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs, entrepreneurialism not only legitimizes state and corporate offloading of social responsibilities to “entrepreneurial” individuals (or families) but also seeks to dismiss structural inequalities by resorting to cultural exceptionalism and individual choices.
In this book, I recenter labor in the process of entrepreneurship while also seeking to redefine “labor” in ways that better fit our present context of proliferating entrepreneurialism, mounting inequalities, and global unevenness. My analysis is grounded in the everyday lived experiences of Chinese through an empirical approach that combines ethnography with sociohistorical analysis. This geocolonial- and feminist-informed materialist and substantive theoretical grounding distinguishes my approach from both neoclassical individualistic accounts of capitalism and those based in the subjective theory of value or culturalist approaches.
Instead of endorsing U.S.-centric liberal capitalist universalism (the Washington consensus) or arguing for an alternative premised on Chinese exceptionalism (the so-called China model), my approach was framed by what Arif Dirlik terms the “China paradigm.” Rather than search for an established model to be emulated, I sought to identify a set of “procedural principles” by which global forces have been articulated to local conditions and needs while remaining attentive to “the possibilities and limitations of concrete local circumstances as well as location in the world.”
In the process, I argue that the proliferation of entrepreneurial labor in post-2008 China is the product of a spatiotemporally and culturally specific process in which global elements were incorporated to reinvent both national and individual selves. China, anxious to tackle challenges like technological dependency, growing social inequalities, and slowing economic growth after 2008, has embraced global trends like financialization, platformization, and entrepreneurialization in a bid to facilitate the restructuring of its economy. However, instead of representing a radical break with the past, these global trends have been articulated in the country’s centralized minimalist governance tradition, according to which the Chinese economy is embedded in and made to fit the multipronged national, social, and developmental goals of the Chinese state while also being shaped by the country’s decentralized network of local governments and the continued prominence of the family as a unit of both economic production and social reproduction and protection.
To what extent have China’s efforts toward collective and individual entrepreneurial reinvention helped resolve the multiple crises that have emerged since the late 2000s? The answer is mixed. In contrast to the euphoria for entrepreneurial progress of the corporate/state nexus, the existing labor of entrepreneurial reinvention has unfolded along zigzag trajectories shot through with contradictions. By adopting a financialized approach to entrepreneurializing technonationalism, social equity, and development, the state has repurposed socialist toolkits to effectively mobilize resources and talents and spearheaded the development of strategic industries, all while maintaining centralized command over the process of financialization. However, tensions between its goals of developmentalism, technological independence, and social redistribution, as well as conflicts of interest between central and local authorities, have spawned new forms of financialized risks, rent seeking, and precarity.
In a similar vein, the reinvention of family production through platformization and entrepreneurialization since 2008 has helped energize China’s new digital economy, attenuating the negative effects of the global financial crisis on economic growth and employment and providing marginalized social groups—peasants and peasant workers, disadvantaged urban youth, and women—with new economic opportunities and choices. However, the continued failure to address the crisis of care has intensified contradictions between the valorization of the individualized entrepreneur and the reality that productive and reproductive labor in rural China remains both highly collective and family-based. This has deepened inequalities along gender, class, and geographic lines, as well as between mental and manual laborers.
In following China’s own historical trajectory, the stories in this book can be read as a supplement, if not a modest counterweight, to the proliferation of accounts of China in the English-speaking world since the late 2000s, which reflects my own thinking about the politics of producing knowledge about China for English-speaking readers in an atmosphere of escalating U.S.-China tensions. In the years immediately following the 2008 global crisis there was a boom in Sinocentric stories, generally told from the perspective of Western business and tech leaders, that reimagined the country as a new frontier of technological progress and the world’s newest economic engine. In unpacking romanticized depictions of Shenzhen by American maker advocates, investors, and corporate suits, Silvia Lindtner smartly noted the ways these narratives were colored by “colonial tropes of adventure, frontierism, and of ‘going back in time.’”
Emerging in parallel to these rose-tinted tales was a wave of alarmist accounts of the rising “China threat.” These either tapped into anticommunist sentiments to hype up the CCP’s ambitions for world domination or adopted orientalist tropes to sell essentialist depictions of the country’s economic model. The crest of this wave wasn’t a book but a 2020 tweet sent by Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn proclaiming that “China has a 5,000 year [sic] history of cheating and stealing.” These hawkish depictions of China were given a boost when the Trump administration launched a trade war against the country in 2018, fueling a bipartisan hardening of attitudes.
Yet the underlying narratives that fuel them are nothing new. In explaining Americans’ changing attitudes toward the Cultural Revolution, from that of radical enthusiasm in the 1960s and 1970s to wholesale condemnation since the 1980s, the historians Arif Dirlik and Meisner Maurice highlighted the long history of Euro-American societies freezing non-European cultures in time and refusing “to take history seriously where China is concerned.” The result was a kind of “condescending veneration” born of Westerners’ admiration of “China for its mystifying antiquity combined with a condescending attitude toward Chinese resistance (or inability) to become more like ourselves.”
Such condescension was on vivid display in the recent debate over whether the United States had “failed” in its post-1970s policy of engaging China to make it more like the West. If anything, the latest surge in China bashing in the United States since the late 2010s, like the previous shifts documented by Dirlik and Maurice, is less a specific response to China and more about uniting the United States against a common enemy to paper over domestic divisions, thereby “making America great again.”
As I have shown throughout this book, China has in fact changed significantly since rejoining the capitalist world system in the 1970s. And in many respects, including pursuing financialization, building scientific infrastructure, and promoting IT entrepreneurship, China has closely followed in America’s footsteps. China’s post-2008 reinvention, though it may have had the effect of destabilizing American global hegemony, has mainly been propelled by a desire, if not an anxiety, to overcome its own structural problems and contradictions in the wake of its integration into this same American-led global capitalist system, including technological dependency, overproduction, uneven development, and crises of ecology and care. Yet it is also true that it has maintained a distinct trajectory, one influenced by its imperial, revolutionary, and socialist traditions and conditioned by the country’s geographical limitations and ever-shifting position in the global capitalist world order. By framing the continuities and ruptures that characterize China’s post-2008 labor of entrepreneurial reinvention as the results of an ongoing experiment to articulate global forces to local conditions, this book takes a different approach from narratives of China told from the perspective of the current American-led world order.
This brings me to my second point: the importance of recognizing the spatiotemporally and culturally specific nature of the China paradigm. Being attentive to the specificities of the China paradigm helps us better situate China’s experiences relative to those of other countries at different historical conjunctures without losing sight of the heterogeneity, inequalities, and unevenness that exist within China. By telling three distinct stories of China’s post-2008 reinvention, from urban, rural, and transnational angles, respectively, I have shown how the country’s economic restructuring has produced both winners and losers and demonstrated how national and collective efforts toward reinvention have been experienced differently by variously situated individuals.
I have also sought to highlight the specific ways in which China’s economy is embedded in central-local state politics and family institutions. In doing so, I challenge the state/market antithesis and neoclassical assumptions about the autonomous individual as a rational economic subject. This emphasis on specific Chinese experiences should not be interpreted as an argument for Chinese exceptionalism, nor should it be confounded with efforts, often championed by the Chinese government, to construct an idealized “China model” that can be emulated by other countries. The strong roles played by the state and family in the Chinese economy are not unchanging or culturally essential. Rather, they are products of China’s distinct historical and cultural trajectories and institutional evolution.
With regard to state/market relations, the active role played by the Chinese state in industrial policy hardly makes it an outlier. When now-developed economies such as Britain and the United States were at an early stage in their industrialization, their respective states played a central role in creating and regulating markets—when they weren’t intervening in market activity outright. The United States and other major industrialized economies all leaned heavily on active industrial policies between the 1930s and 1960s, under which the state invested in infrastructure and key industries. For the first few decades after World War II, most industrializing countries, including those in East Asia and Latin America, adopted a similar state-led development model to achieve relatively high and stable growth rates.
Nor is China alone in its reliance on the family as a provider of welfare and an agent in socioeconomic and political reproduction. Similar patterns can be found in other industrialized and industrializing nations in Asia, southern Europe, and Latin America. According to sociologists Theodoros Papadopoulos and Antonio Roumpakis, the continued prominence of family-based labor in these regions should not be seen as symptoms of domestic “rudimentary development” but rather as “outcomes of the ways in which these national political economies were integrated into regional and global economies as (semi-)peripheries.”
The neoliberal shift beginning in the 1970s, characterized by the global hegemony of the Washington consensus and the post–Cold War international expansion of financialized capitalism, led to the ascendancy of neoliberal market fundamentalism worldwide. Yet, although it formed a partial alliance with global neoliberal forces, China’s state-led gradual reintegration into the global capitalist system and its entrenched rural/urban dual economic system not only set it apart from developed nations at the center of the neoliberal world order but also set it on a distinct path relative to many other emerging economies undergoing neoliberalization.
The years following the 2008 global financial crisis represented a watershed moment not only for China but for the entire neoliberal world order, one marked by the rise of entrepreneurialism and the concurrent resurgence, in many national economies, of state power and the “familization” of social risks in the face of proliferating insecurity, instability, and precarity. Decades of financialized global capitalism have wreaked havoc on national economies around the world, and the resulting mix of weak labor protections, high inequality, and debt-financed economic bubbles created the conditions for entrepreneurialism’s rise. In this sense, China’s post-2008 entrepreneurial reinvention, though built on the country’s centralized minimalist tradition and a continuation of its distinct developmental trajectory over the previous decades, is a spatially specific manifestation of a global shift, in which national economies, to overcome global risks and economic instability, have reembedded themselves in state and family institutions. Unfortunately, as historian Jake Warner has observed, anxiety and insecurity at both the popular and elite levels in both countries have made it convenient to blame structural problems of the global system on individual countries, and I would add, on individual groups and persons, in the case of surging racism and exophoria.
As I was putting the finishing touches on this book, the world found itself mired in yet another major crisis, this time triggered by the global Covid-19 pandemic. For months after the new coronavirus was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, international borders were blocked, embassies closed, and international flights canceled as people retreated into their homes and relied on their families for support. This abrupt disruption of our global interconnectedness has forced countries around the world to reprioritize safety, protection, and security over market-based freedoms and to rethink once again an already beleaguered neoliberal policy regime.
Under the dual pressure of the “zero-covid” policy and U.S. sanctions, China rolled out a new developmental strategy known as “dual circulation” in May 2020. The announcement was a response to not just the ongoing pandemic but also escalating geopolitical tensions with the United States as the Trump administration pursued a strategy of economic and political “decoupling.” China’s plan puts greater emphasis on “common prosperity” and the “internal circuit” of the domestic market— which it hopes to stimulate through rural rejuvenation, poverty reduction, investments in “green” technologies, and reregulation of monopolistic digital platforms and overheated industries such as real estate and after-school education—over the increasingly unstable and unpredictable “external circuit” of export and international trade. In this, the dual circulation strategy represents a continuation of the country’s post-2008 entrepreneurial reinvention, which has consistently attached great importance to boosting indigenous innovation and domestic consumption. However, it also further ramps up state intervention in all aspects of social life beyond the economy in the name of national security and social control and protection. Many commentators outside of China have come to view this new political and economic shift as “China’s Red New Deal,” ushering in the nation’s own progressive check on decades of runaway “capitalism with Chinese characteristics.”
Not coincidentally, the Biden administration, despite resistance and blockages from both the GOP and within the Democratic Party, has been pushing forward the “Build Back Better” bill that vows to improve middleclass welfare, combat urgent challenges of climate change, and grow the U.S. economy “from the bottom up and the middle out.” The Senate’s “Innovation and Competition Act” and the House’s updated version of “America COMPETES Act,” which strategically target “China” as a foil to America’s technological competitiveness, quickly garnered bipartisan support.
What this suggests is that despite escalating geopolitical conflicts based on ideological differences, the world’s two biggest economies are in many ways converging as they both seek to bolster the state’s role in economic planning while reemphasizing domestic redistribution and economic security over neoliberal principles like market freedom. As the world moves past the neoliberal “era of small government and unlimited globalization,” China’s post-2008 experiences offer valuable insight into the potential benefits and pitfalls of state-led financialization and technology-driven entrepreneurialization of labor as strategies for dealing with shared problems like technological inter-dependency, slowing growth, and unbalanced and uneven development. The question that will likely haunt us in the years to come is whether the United States and China—the world’s biggest economies—can find a way to coexist peacefully in their respective, converging paths of reinvention.
Excerpted from The Labor of Reinvention: Entrepreneurship in the New Chinese Digital Economy by Lin Zhang. Copyright (c) 2023 Columbia University Press. Amazon,
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The 2023 edition is out and, with it, the new Audible version. Listen and wonder!
It's the only book that explains all three elements of China's success:
- Talent at the Top: Only the brightest, most idealistic people are are admitted to politics–a policy unchanged in 2200 years.
- Data in the Middle: policies are implemented, tracked, and optimized based on terabytes of data. The PRC is the world's largest consumer of public surveys.
- Democracy at the Bottom: ordinary people, all unpaid amateurs, assemble twice a year to check the stats and sign off on new legislation. Policies need a minimum of 66% support to become law. That's why 95% of Chinese say the country is on the right track.
The proof? There are more hungry children, more poor, homeless, drug addicted, and imprisoned people in America than in China.
Why China Leads the World investigates why the epidemic accelerated the change of global leadership from America to China and examines China’s bigger, steadier economy, its science leadership, stronger military, more powerful allies, and wider international support.
Crammed with charts, footnotes, and lengthy quotes, Why China Leads the World is a profoundly disturbing book that helps readers understand the tectonic shift and adapt to this new era–and even thrive in it.
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The size of China's displacement of the world balance is such that the world must find a new balance. It is not possible to pretend that this is just another big player. This is the biggest player in the history of the world. Lee Kuan Yew: The Future of US-China Relations. The Atlantic.
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The Coronavirus accelerated the pace of change of global leadership from America to China. There are now more hungry children, more poor, homeless, drug addicted, and imprisoned people in America than in China.
Suddenly, China's larger, steadier economy, its leadership in science, its stronger military, more powerful allies, and wider international support have handed it a lead that widens every day. Crammed with direct quotes from its movers and shakers, charts, and footnotes, Why China Leads the World tells a remarkable tale, explains a tectonic shift, and helps you adapt to this new era, and even thrive in it.
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If we could just be China for one day we could actually authorize the right decisions. Thomas L. Friedman. The New York Times
300 pages, 27 charts and graphs. $9.99 on Amazon and in bookstores worldwide.
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For decades, Western media have been narrating the same story about China being this brutal “dictatorship” whose people are killed at the hands of the criminal communist regime, giving the Tiananmen Square massacre as a prime example of the brutality of the Chinese government, wherein supposedly scores of students were killed at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army. However, a new book emerged proving that these claims are false and have no foundation to them except for Washington’s aspirations to tarnish the image of the Chinese Communist Party.
Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order, a new book by A. B. Abrams, highlights that there never were any killings in the infamous Tiananmen Square back in 1989 as had been spread by Western propaganda for decades, and it was revealed that the entire affair was but a mere attempt at showing China as the villain in the geopolitical arena. The book underlines that no killings, let alone a massacre as is proclaimed, took place in Tiananmen Square.
How did the U.S. succeed in manipulating the mainstream narrative and have millions upon millions of people believe that China initiated a mass murder of its own people—young college students—crushing them with tanks and shooting them down with machine guns? The answer is simple: the manipulation of public perception through the press. This could be done using media out of context and providing an incomplete version of the truth.
For example, the most infamous piece of media “documenting” the crime to ever exist is a video showing a tank marching onto a person alleged to have been a student, and right as the tank gets close enough to the young man and stops, the video is cut, with there being some text accompanying the video hinting or proclaiming that the tank went on to run over the protester. However, that could not be further from the truth. In reality, other protesters rushed to the scene and accompanied him from there as the tank was standing in place waiting for him to comply and get out of its way.
The book argues that all the acts committed by the United States were in a bid to “justify wars of conquest and exploitation” and generate multi-billion-dollar profits for the notorious military-industrial complex, as reported by CovertAction Magazine.
Abrams highlighted that the Tiananmen Square protests initially took place not as a push for Westernization or the downfall of the Chinese government. Instead, their primary focus was on reinforcing the principles of China’s 1949 Communist Revolution and addressing the issue of corrupt officials who had deviated from Maoist principles.
This movement encompassed not only students but also a significant number of workers, who exhibited a stronger anti-CCP stance. Their collective objective aimed at the establishment of a socialist democracy within the framework of the movement.
The book cited a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that WikiLeaks published in 2016. The leak included reports on the eyewitness account of a Chilean diplomat and his wife who were present when the PLA made it to Tiananmen Square to disperse the protesters. The pair made it in and out of the square numerous times without any harassment and observed no mass firing of weapons into the crowds. They never saw any use of lethal force, to begin with.
Moreover, the book cited former Washington Post Beijing Bureau chief Jay Mathews who, in 1998, admitted that “all verified eyewitness accounts say that the students who remained in the square when troops arrived were allowed to leave peacefully.”
It also cited Reuters correspondent Graham Earnshaw, who spent the night of June 3-4 at the center of Tiananmen Square and reported that most of the students left the square peacefully with the remainder of them being persuaded to do the same.
As is customary, the main source the Western media used to claim that a massacre took place was an anonymous student from Qinghua University making claims to the Hong Kong press, who then made it to the British media.
Still, BBC‘s Beijing correspondent James Miles said there was no massacre.
Western reporting had conveyed the wrong impression and protesters who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations.
The narrative was also completely spun out of proportion, with the perpetrators being painted as the victims of a crime that was never committed in the first place. The book underlined that those who did die in Beijing during the events lost their lives in street battles between the PLA and insurgents far from the square. Reports from the U.S. Department of State underlined that the unarmed PLA officers were attacked with petrol bombs, burning many alive.
Uyghurs, another ‘crime’ China committed
The hoax built around Tiananmen Square was a blueprint for U.S. media campaigns aimed at showing the Chinese government in a bad light, as Washington went on to accuse Beijing of perpetrating a genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province.
The book stressed that the claims about the so-called Uyghur genocide relied on nothing but hardline extremist U.S.-funded anti-China groups. Namely, they were funded by the CIA-affiliated National Endowment for Democracy, which was tasked with carrying out what the notorious spy agency had done alone under the covers for decades.
Amid the claims of Beijing genociding the Uyghurs, the Uyghur population in Xinjiang saw an increase of 25% between 2010 and 2018 instead of the population experiencing a contraction. Even facilities the West claimed to have been “concentration camps” in which Uyghurs were killed en masse and “brainwashed” or “indoctrinated” appeared to have been a logistics park, a regular detention center, and elementary and middle schools.
Xinjiang looks good, safe, and secure, and all the people I spoke with seemed happy about it, former London Metropolitan Police Officer Jerry Grey, who spent a lot of time traveling in Xinjiang, said.
“Uyghurs in China have been growing faster than the majority Han Chinese in part because they weren’t subject to the one-child policy, they have 20,000 mosques built […] Uyghur children can get into top universities easier than Han Chinese, and have halal foods prepared for them in canteens and they have a prayer area on campus,” Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian businessman and Chinese political analyst said.
“Portraying an adversary as committing particularly egregious crimes, especially when one intends to initiate military action or other hostile measures against the adversary, has consistently provided an effective means of moving public and international opinion and justifying [US imperial] actions,” Abrams said in his book.
Yugoslavia
The book also shed light on the U.S. propaganda focused in the 1990s on Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, a socialist who sought to keep Yugoslavia together, accusing him of genocide in Kosovo and elsewhere.
Milosevic, a socialist, aimed to maintain the unity of Yugoslavia and prevent its fragmentation. This effort was driven by his desire to counteract Western nations’ potential expansion of influence and the establishment of U.S. military bases in a strategically vital area.
Interestingly, the most severe instances of ethnic cleansing during the war were actually executed by the Croats through Operation Storm, a plan devised by the CIA.
The Clinton administration additionally provided support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which sought to establish an ethnically homogeneous Albanian state. This endeavor involved targeting Serbs and other minority groups.
Financing from the drug trade played a significant role in sustaining the KLA, leading the State Department to label it a “terrorist organization”. The NATO North Atlantic Council identified the KLA as the primary instigator of violence in Kosovo.
The narrative of genocide and the Serbs running concentration camps once again heavily relied on the testimony of an individual who openly admitted to not witnessing any killings—propagandist reporter Roy Gutman. This account was eventually discredited when a British journalist visited an alleged death camp, discovering that the inmates had voluntarily sought refuge from the nearby conflict in surrounding villages.
Yugoslavia was a highly successful state that united numerous contemporary Baltic nations under the banner of communism, and it met its demise when the United States and NATO waged a war against it, killing hundreds of civilians in the notorious bombing campaign it launched on the country in order to “sow democracy” there.
Syria
The same man who was one of the main reasons behind the collapse of Yugoslavia was almost able to do the same with Syria. Gutman played a major role in another similar war launched over a decade later against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
The propaganda effort pushed by Gutman was similar to the one he peddled earlier, with it including the mass murder of people at the hands of the government without any evidence backing up these claims.
Western media and regimes falsely accused Al-Assad of carrying out attacks with chemical weapons against his own people while the attacks were likely carried out by U.S.-backed terrorists.
Back in November, the Grayzone website published a series of leaks that expose how senior officials of the OPCW censored this explosive finding in the Syrian city of Douma.
In its investigation, the website stated that “in the early days of the OPCW’s investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, expert toxicologists ruled out chlorine gas as the cause of death for more than 40 civilians reported at the scene.”
The Korean War: Another ‘atrocity’
The Korean War, a war peddled by the United States that wound up splitting one people into two, was presented to the public as a “humanitarian intervention” aimed at rescuing the local population from communist forces. To establish this narrative, the Pentagon sponsored a propaganda film, titled The Crime of Korea narrated by Humphrey Bogart. This film falsely attributed atrocities committed by the South Korean government, with U.S. support, to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
This narrative gained traction within the U.S. media and significantly bolstered the perception of the war as “morally justified”. An influential Timemagazine column titled “Barbarity” furthered this perspective by describing a communist massacre in Taejon, which subsequent investigations revealed was actually perpetrated by South Korean troops allied with the U.S.
Charles E. Potter, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Korean Atrocities and appointed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, notorious for McCarthyism, which was responsible for the persecution of anyone even thought to be affiliated with any leftist organization or held any left-wing beliefs, emphasized the inhumane acts committed by U.S. adversaries. He recounted gruesome incidents, such as a “Red Chinese” nurse using garden shears to sever a GI’s toes without anesthesia and American POWs being subjected to torture with bamboo spears and confinement in small iron cages until death, with maggots infesting their eye sockets.
However, the accounts presented by Potter contradicted the testimonies of American and British POWs, who indicated that their treatment by captors was generally decent, although they had to attend lectures on communism.
Meanwhile, U.S.-run POW camps subjected DPRK and Chinese prisoners to severe brutality. These inmates were massacred for singing revolutionary songs and subjected to violent coercion to renounce repatriation to their homelands. This strategy aimed to score Cold War propaganda points by portraying defection to the West as a desire born out of the perceived superiority of its political-economic system.
The campaign of propaganda against the DPRK extended well into the 21st century, with increasingly extravagant made-up tales to portray the country in a negative light. Many of these stories were propagated by DPRK defectors, some of whom were influenced or incentivized by South Korea and possibly the CIA.
Shin Dong-hyuk, a defector, collaborated with Washington Postcorrespondent Blaine Harden to write a highly successful book Escape From Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. However, this account was later revealed to be a fabrication.
Yeonmi Park, another defector, who charges a speaking fee of $12,500 on Western media outlets, even made the ludicrous claim that her friend’s mother was executed for watching a Hollywood movie.
Lee Soon-ok, yet another defector, testified before a House committee in 2004 that she had witnessed Christians being tortured and burned to death in DPRK political prisons. However, the head of the North Korean Defectors’ Association, Chang In-suk, contradicted this, asserting that Lee was never a political prisoner.
Abrams noted that fabricated reports about DPRK state executions of prominent figures often coincided with the surprising reappearance of these supposedly deceased individuals on camera.
In a CNN report from May 2015, it was alleged that DPRK leader Kim Jong Un had ordered the poisoning and killing of his aunt, Kim Kyong Hui. However, Mrs. Kim appeared in public in January 2020, highlighting the inaccuracy of the claim.
Abrams suggested that these false defector testimonies and biased media coverage were embraced in the West due to the “self-gratification” they provided, seemingly affirming the notion of Western superiority over the least Westernized state. Additionally, they often served as justifications for hostile policies, including economic sanctions, against the DPRK.
The book talks about the demonization of the Russian and Vietnamese governments, as well as that of Libya and Iraq in a bid to validate the Gulf War, while also revisiting numerous cases of U.S. propaganda aimed at subverting its foes while giving impetus to itself and its beliefs in a bid to uphold the unipolar system that it has been trying so hard to keep propped up—to no avail. The recounting of the countless crimes committed by the United States comes as no surprise to many as the latter has done so for decades, and continues to do so, exploiting its hold on the media to give itself the moral high ground over its geopolitical enemies. Monthly Review. Amazon.
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The ISC (Needham) Report
The Report of the International Scientific Commission for the Investigation of Facts Concerning Bacteriological Warfare in Korea and China (the ISC report), published at the height of the Korean War, 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 most vilified document of the 20th Century.
The report’s release in September, 1952, brought a withering international attack. It was roundly denounced by American and British politicians of the highest rank, ridiculed by four star generals, accused of fraud by celebrated pundits, misquoted by notable scientists, and scorned by a compliant Western press. Charges were made against the quality and truthfulness of its science. Its “unstated” political agenda was denounced. The ethics of interviewing captured US pilots was excoriated and its authors were publicly flayed as communist dupes. The report was red baited in the US halls of Congress and deemed unpatriotic to read, and therefore went unread and deliberately forgotten over the years, which has been the fate of Korean War history in general. In subsequent decades, volumes placed in American university library collections were quietly and permanently removed from circulation.
When the rare copy came up for auction, it was discretely purchased and disappeared from public view. This critical 67 year old truth commission document from the Korean War was slipping towards oblivion. For these very reasons, historians and truth seekers should exalt the wondrous rebirth of the ISC Report from near extinction with the publication of this new electronic edition. We welcome the sunshine that re-publication brings to a shadowy and suppressed chapter of American Cold War history. (from the introduction by Thomas Powell) 800 pages. $9.99.
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