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Not the kind of title that you would expect from me, eh?
I woke up on Wednesday and found this article posted all over my LinkedIN feed. It’s from ZeroHedge, and discusses famine, starvation, disunity, sadness, in the evil gloom that lies under the shadow of the evil Chinese communist regime. The article goes to great lengths to describe a hopeless population, upset but powerless, to deal with on-going famine and the massive corruption of the CCP regime.
Here’s the article…
2022 03 11 15 59
Well, I own a home in Shenzhen, and live across the bay from it. Everyday, I’m here, either looking at Shenzhen, or visiting it.
That’s what happens when you live next to a big city. You do know it’s population is 14 million people. That’s easily three times the size of New York City.
My relatives who live “on the island” (Long Island) feel the same way about “THE City” (New York).
Anyways. I live next door to Shenzhen, and own homes in Shenzhen. I visit it often, and I live right across the bay. From my living room, I can see the gleaming skyscrapers and glimmering light off the water.
I live in the Shenzhen region.
I live in the very place this article is written about.
It is now March. The same date and time when the article was written.
The purpose of this article is to present videos to show what life is like in Shenzhen, and the neighboring areas under the evil repressive Chinese communist regime. Especially, and most notably, at the time that this article was written and published.
I think videos do better than some text written by a moron who doesn’t even realize that it doesn’t even snow in Shenzhen. Never has. Never will. It’s a fucking tropical area. Sheech!
Snow?
Blizzard? Give me a break!
Shenzhen?
It’s tropical.
When was the last time it snowed in Hawaii? Sheech!
So I went and took videos all week to illustrate what it is like in the Shenzhen – Zhuhai area; my home.
We start with food. After all, that’s what the article is all about. It’s about a lack of food, resulting in starvation, followed by famine.
Food
There is no famine.
No starvation anywhere in China. And certainly NOT in Shenzhen.
I swear, Western “news reports” have morphed into fantasy / science fiction episodes with very little resemblance to reality. I am convinced that they are handed a bullet-list of bad things to say about China, and then write a fantasy narrative based upon the bad things.
It’s got to be exactly that.
No other explanation is possible. Not even remotely.
Who is doing this? It must be the people, or entities, that pay them. Either a government, or an NGO aligned “fake” pseudo organization. It must be. It takes time, and effort to write these articles. They just don’t magically appear out of the air.
I took all of these videos the SAME WEEK that this “news” report wrote about starvation in the Shenzhen / China area. I filmed in different middle-class restaurants throughout this general region. (You can tell by the different dishes and tablecloths.) None of these meals were overly expensive. Just typical middle-class Chinese fare.
Since I don’t eat at Fast Food, you won’t see any videos of the fast food franchises that are big here in China. Sorry, but it’s not my thing. I tend to eat at home, and then go out once or twice a day to a nice, reasonably priced restaurant. So I didn’t change my routine. Just filmed the food to show that there is no starvation, nor famine.
Pork with peppers and bitter melon. Very delicious. I ate this in one of the many local malls. Sorry for the noise, it like the rest of China, are filled with many people enjoying their time eating delicious food. video 26MB
Very Spicy Beef. Here’s a different restaurant. This one specializes in beef. Very delicious. video 31MB
Chinese Sloppy Joe and a fine wide noodle salad. All so very delicious. You can see why I have gained so much weight since I moved to China, eh? video 35MB
Stuffed Baozi with vegetables. Very delicious. I love the meat versions, especially the pork version. This was particularly delicious. video 53MB
Some Chinese vegetarian food. All good and healthy. Tasty too, but you know guys, I do love my meats. LOL. video 42MB
Handmade noodles with peanuts. Very, very delicious. I think most of my American readership would love these food dishes. Too bad you cannot get them out in the States. Just here in China. video 36MB
Guys. You DO KNOW, that if there were REAL famine and REAL starvation, you would not see meals like this anywhere. In a nation with a population of 1.4 billion people, you would be overwhelmed.
Even posting pictures on the (so called anonymous) internet would get you targeted. In China, no one is isolated, and no one is alone. We are all connected together.
Toys – Legos
Here are some videos that I took in a toy store. These are Chinese Lego’s. Same lovely Lego brand, only marketed to the Chinese. Interesting cultural differences, eh?
Military Lego kits. If I were still a boy, I would really enjoy playing with these Legos. Especially the DF-41, and the J-20. video 31MB
Chinese Harbin Ice Festival. There are all sorts of fascinating Chinese-themed Legos for the local markets. And of course, since the Chinese have so many things to celebrate, the diversity of the products are pretty intriguing. video 30MB
Starving girls in Shenzhen
All of these girls live in Shenzhen. According to my untrained eyes, these girls don’t look like they are starving, unhappy or desirous of regime change for democracy™. I guess that I am not so good at picking out starving, hungry waifs like the BBC, FOX “news” and CNN are.
But what do I know? I only live here, and I have never seen anyone starve. And I’ve been living here or nearly twenty years.
But I am not a qualified “journalist”. I guess that to qualify, you must accept money from a Western government, and then write to their narrative. There are many who have “sold their souls” for some gold coins and baubles. It has generated a small cottege industry. Don’t you know.
No one is starving.
I think much of it has to do with the fact that the Chinese government believe that food is a natural Right, and makes sure that it is plentiful and cheap. This is considered a REAL Right.
Not the psuedo “Rights” like the United States has. You know a Right with exceptions…
Freedom of Speech… controlled by the FCC, and Tech-oligarchy.
Right to bear arms… restricted by the government agency ATF.
Ninth Amendment… restricted by the FDA, FCC, NSA, and many, many others.
Tenth amendment…dead. A worthless, meaningless, phrase.
China believes that a fundamental Right is FUNDAMENTAL.
Of course, you’d never hear about that in the Western “news”. In that for-profit cesspool, everything comes at a price. It’s a land with a million tiny hands in your wallet.
Let’s look at the starving waifs yearning for freedom™ and democracy™…
And here’s the second gal. Love that fine tan dress. I like how it moves. You can tell that she’s hungry. After all, look at the sad and forlorn expression on her face.
Here’s a girl being sexy in the kitchen. Sorry that you can only see her backside. But I guess you might think that she is starving because she is not obese like so many American women. But that’s just cultural. The Chinese eat far better, healthier, and have far less stress than their American counterparts. video 5MB
Here’s another girl. She’s considered to be fat. In China, due to the diet, and perhaps genetics, the fat tends to go to the chest area, not to the stomach. As us, Americans and Europeans must deal with. I really think that the fact that GMOs are banned in China has a lot to do with it. video 2MB
This woman has great posture. I really cannot see the kind of starvation that resembles hunger like I saw when I lived in Pennsylvania. There, at that time, people couldn’t afford food, and with the collapse of the steel industry, many had to make due. They would fish, and eat rabbit, and other things to keep their bellies full. I’m not seeing it in China. Sorry. video 6MB
Elementary / kindergarten teacher. I suppose that this girl is borderline starving. You can tell by her sunken ass-cheeks and lack of stomach.
She reminds me of the many friends that I made when I first arrived in China. Many girls. Many dates. Many fun times.
But I must tell you, we all ate very well, and no one was starving. video 1.5MB
Life in Shenzhen / Nanshan / Zhuhai
Various “home” videos taken by myself. All in Shenzhen, and Zhuhai. All that I took with my fine four-year-old Huawei cellphone camera, with DouXing editing and music. Enjoy…
A view of the Shenzhen-Zhuhai-HK-Macao bridge. It’s that long bridge in the background. video 11MB
At the ferry port from Shenzhen to Zhuhai. This view is taken on the second floor of the Shenzhen side, where you go to the kiosks to get your tickets. video 11MB
One of our photo shoots. This was taken a few months ago. For you newbies, yea MM does photoshoots. It’s all a part of the affirmation campaigns along with thought direction for manifested reality, don’t you know.
Anyways, do these people look like they are starving and desirous for democracy™ and freedom™? video 26MB
Eating dinner in a small local restaurant at night. Friends, and family. That’s little mm playing with the cell phone. Oh, I’m so bad. Don’t worry, it was for less than 20 minutes. video 44MB
Here’s what it is like riding a bus at night. Do these people look like they are ready to revolt against the evil CCP regime? Sheech! You have got to be an idiot to believe the anti-China narrative. video 65MB
Prekindergarten education. Learning starts at two years old in China. Then there’s kindergarten, followed by elementary school, and military training, and into the pipe with middle school and upwards. video 45MB
What it is like on the streets. After all, the picture that is being sent to millions of people is snowy winter Shenzhen filled with unhappy and starving Chinese. So what’s the real story? video 2MB
Conclusion
Most “news” out of the collective West (in this case referring to China) are nothing more than made-up, fabricated lies. Lies that have no resemblance to the truth.
It’s a well-funded (to 5 billion dollars) effort (by the United States federal budget) to demonize China to the point where all Westerners (and most especially Americans) are filled with hate and loathing towards China.
This is for a build up for a major war.
Make no mistake. The USA is on a War-footing. A war, that the United States expects to win. For, after all, everyone knows, that it is exceptional™.
You don’t have to believe me.
But here it is.
This is what it is like. This is what China is like in Early March 2022, while articles on Gab, Zerohedge, Free Republic, and FOX regurgitate the “starving Chinese” lies.
This is the real deal, and no, I am not “brainwashed by the evil CCP”. Sheech! And no, I don’t live in exclusive areas. This is what it is like.
Lower-middle class life.
In Shenzhen / Zhuhai China. Real deal reporting. Real home-made videos. Real experiences. Real thoughts, and real reporting. All for free.
Soak it in and take a good, hard look at what “news” you read. Becuase if one simple thing like this can be distorted and twisted out of reality, what else can be? Eh?
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my China Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
The US is no longer the self-confident colossus that bestrode the world a few decades ago. America in 2022 is a financial, political, economic, military and social basket case, and its UK ally is in the same very leaky boat.
The liberal Anglo world is further disturbed by the situation in Canada, which is now in the critical phase of a historic struggle between the Trudeau regime and a large and well-organised section of the working population.
-UNZ
So I get up this morning, and after my normal routine, I grabbed my cup of coffee and checked my email, and all of that. After I responded to a few tight communications, I then headed towards the “Drudge Report”. It’s a “news” agreggator that collects daily “news” out of the United States. It’s routinely full of bullshit, and it’s one of the reasons why I just don’t read that bullshit any longer. I have a blood pressure issue, and anger just doesn’t help.
Today is day two since the Ukraine started shelling the pro-Russian Ukranian provences in Eastern Ukraine. And Putin and Russia has been very clear. They will not get involved in any of the “baloney” and nonsense out of NATO, the Ukraine and the United States. So they aren’t.
So what does the American “news” report?
Take a look…
Russia has put it’s foot down and stated boldly that there will be no fighting on it’s doorstep. So it sent in peacekeepers to stop the shelling.
That’s hardly an invasion!
But, the US media spins and spins and spins.
…
I don’t know about most of the other subjects, but I do follow the situation inside of China and with Russia. And I can POSITIVELY confirm that almost every American “news” report regarding them are lies. Or, at best detail omitted distortions.
There is no way that Russia wants Kiev. President Putin, and his foreign ministers have repeatedly stated so.
But they DO want [1] nuclear weapons, and [2] fighting off their borders. That’s a fact. It’s a reasonable fact. They also want America, NATO and the Ukraine to follow their treaty signitures.
What’s a document and a treaty is it is not ever being obeyed or followed? It has gotten so bad that I task the reader to find one treaty that the USA has followed to the letter. I cannot find one. And I looked.
The USA (and NATO) makes and breaks treaties at will.
What’s the point of having treaties at all?
You do know what Genghis Khan would do, right?
You do realize, just by looking at the map above, that Russia and China are the inheritors of the Genghis Khan empire. You DO know what that means. Right?
…
As far as American “news” goes…
So where in FUCK do they get the intel?
Conservative talk radio? Here’s from hal Turner that is pushing the “silent war” angle with “stealth invasion by Russia” narrative…
Where do they get this intel?
Oh, excuse me. They got it from un-named experts in the United States. That’s where.
Un-named “experts”
Here’s another…
The Washington Post newspaper is reporting that according to “U.S. Officials, U.S. intelligence intercepted an order given to Russian subordinates that said that they were to proceed with a full-scale attack on Ukraine.”
People, I cannot confirm this intel AT ALL.
According to the Washington Post newspaper:
The Biden administration has been warning of imminent attacks for days. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday said Russian forces “are now poised to strike,” bolstering President Biden’s warning on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “made the decision” to attack Ukraine.
The White House said Biden would convene a rare Sunday meeting of the National Security Council to assess the developing situation in Ukraine.
However, some high-level European officials have expressed frustration that the United States had not shared the intelligence that led it to surmise Russia’s intentions with such certainty.
U.S. intelligence that provided Biden with the confidence to make the assertion came from an order given to Russian subordinates to proceed with a full-scale attack, according to several people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
The United States obtained intelligence on the order as Russian military and security officials were taking steps to implement it, and did so very recently, the people said.
Oh. So it’s automatically truth, eh?
Long time readers of MM know the truth about all this.
Truth is evident in behavior.
Now look people. If you are doing well, if you are successful, and if you are happy and healthy you act that way. You do not lie. You do not apologize for your actions. You do not go around hiding behind others, or making false promises.
You do not.
You don’t.
Why?
Because you don’t NEED to.
It’s like people saying that China is lying or covering things up. Like torture, starvation, etc. etc.
Yada. Yada. Yada.
China, people! It’s a Communist country. They don’t NEED to lie. They tell you the way things are and you deal with it. Simple and painless.
And like China…
You become confident in your success and who you are. You act like Dwayne Johnson. You act like Clint Eastwood. You act like Bruce Willis in “Die Hard”. You become a bit proud and if you made a mistake, you say something like…
"Yea. I made a mistake. Do you have a problem with it?".
Dwayne Johnson (AT THE FAR RIGHT) in one of the movie Jumandi sequels that he starred in.
That’s not the case of losers, children, infants, and those with poor self esteem, or those that have things to hide. They must lie, and distort things.
Like in a “democracy” where the opinions of others determine your role in society and government. You have to lie, and make promises, and cover up truths.
These people, well, they come up with excuses and distortions. They act like Chris Tucker in “Rush Hour”. And when caught in a lie, they tend to ignore what you said or lie about it.
"It was not my fault. Besides, I was right and you are wrong. And what I am telling you, you must believe, and obey or else!"
Chris Tucker in “Rush Hour”.
And that is how human beings act.
…
Using basic human nature as a guide, how would you classify the “news” coming out of the United States today? As that of a healthy and proud nations, or as a losing, dying nation?
The fundamental targets of the NATO warmongers in this crisis are not Donbass, nor even Russia, but Germany, and China’s One Belt, One Road initiative.
They are trying to keep Germany down, and China out; failure to do both means that the US will become an isolated rust-belt island thousands of miles away from the core economic block of the world.The same development also spells the forthcoming end of the dollar as the world’s financial reserve currency, while America’s time as a sole military superpower has already clearly ended.
This is a classic example of the Thucydides’ Trap, the moment when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as the hegemon of the age, a transition which all too often is accompanied by a war of desperation.
-UNZ
The point
To Americans, the elite and the general population alike, wars are things that are fought in other peoples’ countries. Despite the fact that the US hasn’t won a war since the campaign against Japan in 1945, the general view in Washington, in particular, is that there is nothing to fear and plenty to gain from war.-UNZ
I argue that the United States is doing everything that it can to hide the face of it’s true and actual nature.
Not only to it’s citizenry, but also to other nations.
It has been bribing it’s toadies for compliance, and manipulating everyone else. It has also been involved in creeping antagonism at all levels against most every threat whether real or not.
Those in the West call it a “hybrid war”.
I call it what it is actually; the publicly exposed elements of a real, on-going, war. It’s the tip of the icebreg that is never reported.
The anti-China propaganda roars forward…
It’s from Bloomberg. Of course. Screenshot. The article itself isn’t worth your time to read.
I live in China and I didn’t even know there was a scandal. Imagine that!
So are girls, women and mothers “chained” inside of China?
Are you fucking serious?
Do you even know what a Chinese woman looks like?
Chinese girl in black
Most Chinese girls and women look like this. In fact, if your nation allows you to access Douxing, you can watch them all the time. Too bad that it is banned in the United States, Canada, The UK, and Australia. You know, for “national security”. Don’t you know.
The reality of what China is has been so massively distorted that no one in the West knows the truth any more…
This t-shirt *ISN’T* dirty!!
So what is going on inside of China? Well, consider this…
This is exactly what GOOD marketing is about:
Yujian Xiaomian 遇见小面 is a noodles brand that may not be known to all of you (especially abroad), but there’s a lot of marketers and brands can learn from them.
This t-shirt is such a simple idea, but it hits the nail on the head.
What’s everyone’s issue when eating soup noodles? The oil stains.
Happens. Every. Time.
So how do you fix that? They decided to create this limited-edition t-shirt to give out for free to anyone who gets their white t-shirt stained while eating at their store.
(+They also sell on WeChat)
So they’ve taken the MAIN thing that gets people worried and used it as a linchpin for their campaign. Brilliant.
Not only that, but the wordplay on the t-shirt is great too:
It makes clever use of the expression “Jia You” (literally: add oil) which is used figuratively to motivate others, like saying “Come on! You can do it!” and changing it to “add some oil AGAIN”.
The best part is that people expressed very mixed feelings about this online…
Some left comments like “this is gross” or “this makes me want to wash it” – while others thought it was very funny and creative.
BUT – that’s precisely what great marketing is about!
You want to spark conversation!
BE creative, BE divisive, get people expressing polar views – that’s what’s makes this whole thing so fun and engaging.
Yeah.
I kind of like the marketing aspect of this, and it’s unique and a good thought. Though whether or not I’d buy one is unknown. I’m of a different generation, don’t you know, and my tastes and ascetics are somewhere else.
But…
What about the chained up women? What about the horrible plight of the Uighur Muslims? What about the poor oppressed young Chinese yearning™ for freedom™ and democrac™y?
Chinese girl in a cute miniskirt
But, the ignorant, stupid, moronic American screeches… chained Uighurs! Chained Chinese women! Starving people pining away for freedom™ and democracy™!
It’s a REAL *new*, New World Order; its a revised world order.
Why is the United States in such a hysterical hissy-fit? Well, for the last 100 years (probably longer) it’s all be lies, built upon lies, constructed over lies, and now ruled by the best liers and the most corrupt individuals. It’s a “house of cards” that is falling down, and the rest of the world doesn’t want any part of it.
See…
Countries grouped around their most important trading partner.
1990 versus 2020
Chinese girl in a village
And when you point these truths out, there is this period of silence, and then the computerized megaphone yells out the preprogrammed narrative; “‘Merica! It is the best and the brightest! It is the house on the shining hill. Everyone wants to lvie in ‘Merica!”
But some technical folk do see. Maybe not the entire picture, but maybe their little part of it, and see that there are serious clamering bells and alrms a wailing…
China’s 5G Soars Over America’s
In some U.S. cities, it’s slower than the old 4G system. Washington should make it a priority.
At this point, football fans have seen so many ads from AT&T and Verizon claiming to have the fastest and most reliable 5G service on the planet that those without a 5G smartphone might think they are really missing something. Don’t be misled. Unless you are traveling internationally, you won’t enjoy faster speeds with a new 5G-enabled smartphone than you’d get on a 4G phone streaming games from New York, Los Angeles or many other U.S. cities. AT&T’s and Verizon’s new 5G networks are often significantly slower than the 4G networks they replace. America is far behind in almost every dimension of 5G while other nations—including China—race ahead.
America’s average 5G mobile internet speed is roughly 75 megabits per second, which is abysmal. In China’s urban centers 5G phones get average speeds of 300 megabits per second. Though that’s not quite the fastest 5G in the world—South Korea claims that title at over 400 Mbps—it’s still fast enough to download a high-definition movie in two minutes. Mobile internet speed is a central advancement of 5G, which enables a new domain of breakthrough applications with potent economic and national-security implications. American 5G upload speeds are slower than those of many developed countries, including Israel, Singapore and Canada. In Boston, Chicago and New York City, AT&T’s 5G speeds are at least 10% slower than its 4G; in Washington, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, Verizon’s 5G speeds are at least 20% slower than the company’s 4G.
The U.S. also trails China in the global market for 5G-related services. Although American sanctions have hurt Huawei, China’s national champion is still the global leader in supplying 5G infrastructure with 30% of the market, while no U.S. firms sell 5G infrastructure abroad. Strategically significant countries including Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey have installed Huawei infrastructure and are already using it to deliver 5G services.
While Beijing has prioritized broadening its 5G network, Washington has a dysfunctional relationship with the U.S. mobile industry—as typified by the Federal Aviation Administration’s hysterics over the proximity of American airports to 5G services, which operate near scores of airports around the world with no problem. For its part, China has been rapidly allocating the most efficient part of the wireless spectrum, called midband, to 5G service providers. China has deployed at least three times as much midband to 5G providers as the U.S. has. AT&T and Verizon are using the same spectrum bands for both their 4G and 5G networks. As a result, as one industry analyst aptly put it, their 5G networks are “just 4G with sprinkles on it.”
Washington’s dithering has left America well behind China in the race to build 5G infrastructure. Because 5G signals have short wavelengths, reliable service requires proximity to many wireless base stations. China has installed more than one million 5G base stations, while the U.S. has built only 100,000. The American fiber-optic network is also less dense than that of many developed countries like Japan, making it more difficult for mobile operators to deploy these small cell sites.
China’s investment in 5G also dwarfs America’s. The Innovation and Competition Act, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hailed as “the key to preserving America’s position on the world stage as a current and future technological leader in the 21st century,” would authorize $1.5 billion in spending on 5G mobile networks through 2026. China has already spent $50 billion to build out its 5G network and is on track to spend an additional $100 billion on 5G over the next five years.
The pathetic U.S. performance in the 5G race is a sign of America’s larger failure to keep up with China on strategically important technologies. China is also ahead of America in high-tech manufacturing, green energy and many applications of artificial intelligence. On current trajectories, by 2030 it will likely lead the U.S. in the number of semiconductor chips it produces and in applications of biotechnology to defeat diseases like cancer.
In 2019 the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board tried to sound the alarm, stating bluntly: “China is on a track to repeat in 5G what happened with the U.S. in 4G.” The transition from 3G to 4G made possible a previously unimaginable world of mobile computing, smartphones and applications from Google Maps and Uber to Facebook and Instagram. The step up to real 5G speeds will lead to analogous breakthroughs in autonomous vehicles, virtual-reality applications like the metaverse, and other areas that have yet to be invented. Applications abound that could advantage a country’s intelligence agencies and enhance its military capabilities.
It will take far more than an additional $1.5 billion investment from Congress to change this. The Biden administration should make 5G a national priority and take the lead in building digital highways across the country as the government did in creating our national highway system. Otherwise, China will own the 5G future.
Saga of the chained Chinese girl…
Again. You saw what the Drudge Report said…
When you read the AP “report”, there is no evidence. Just an accusation that is repeated and treated like it is fact. Sheech!
AP screenshot.
And you know, it doesn’t look at all like what is really going on…
New Zealand has defied the wrath of its Anglosphere allies to sign a big new trade deal with Beijing
China and New Zealand this week completed the ratification of their upgraded free-trade agreement, which will come into force in April. Although the deal was a long time in the works, it expands the number of tariff-free goods New Zealand is able to export into China, securing what is its largest market and a key source of income for its farmers.
The agreement comes despite the growing tensions between Beijing, the United States and its allies, with Washington seeking to put the brakes on China’s expanding economic ties with its allies, in a view towards strategic containment.
This has led to claims that New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes Anglosphere intelligence alliance involving Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, has not been sufficiently ‘loyal’ to their agenda. Jacinda Ardern’s more cautious approach towards Beijing, as opposed to the absolutely relentless hostility to China seen in neighboring Australia, has seen her country mocked as ‘New Xi-land.’
So why is New Zealand acting differently to its partners when it comes to Beijing? And will the pressure to get it to take America’s side succeed?
New Zealand, for many reasons, is a country which is fundamentally different from the other Anglosphere nations; its world outlook is more moderate, less elitist and more progressive. While the other three countries, Australia, Canada and the United States, were once British colonies established through the near total, unapologetic destruction of indigenous inhabitants in the name of Anglo-Protestant settler supremacy, New Zealand was established as more of a compromise between the British and the native Māori population. The Maori were not entirely displaced, but instead remained a cultural and political force within the country.
In recent years, Maori culture has in fact been on the ascendency in New Zealand and unlike its Anglophone counterparts, the nation’s broader identity has absorbed it. This means that in foreign relations, New Zealand is less inclined towards the zealous imperialist and supremacist mindset seen in Washington, Canberra, London and Ottawa.
Wellington is considerably more peaceful and less contentious in its outlook, which in turn influences its attitude towards Beijing. As a nation of just five million people which relies significantly on agricultural exports, China’s market of 1.4 billion hungry mouths represents a trade bonanza that is simply not matched anywhere else in the world. Why, in such circumstances, should New Zealand subscribe to an aggressive anti-China agenda?
Yet for all intents and purposes New Zealand does, on paper, effectively take a side as part of the US-led security order in the Pacific, even if it is not considered a leading player or part of concentrated groups such as ‘The Quad’ strategic security grouping of the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
Whilst British and Australian media outlets are quick to accuse Ardern’s New Zealand of being subservient to China owing to trade, this is misleading. One may note that New Zealand has banned Huawei from its 5G networks, that it still engages in naval military drills against China in areas such as the South China Sea, still puts its name to anti-China statements pursued at the United Nations and elsewhere, and so on. But, significantly, this is done in a non-aggressive, discrete and non-confrontational way.
It might be said that Wellington ‘follows’ the US agenda in its own moderate way, but does not attempt to lead or put its head above the pack needlessly. For example, New Zealand has somewhat embraced the Xinjiang-focused human rights discourse, but has notably avoided the ‘genocide’ accusation as pushed by the most aggressive Anglosphere politicians. Likewise, when the AUKUS deal to provide nuclear submarines for Australia was declared last year, Ardern announced such subs would be banned from its waters as part of its anti-nuclear stance.
These distinctions remind us that New Zealand’s foreign policy is not ‘pro-China’ as such, but a careful balancing act not to frame itself as an explicit enemy to Beijing in the way Australia has done, a move that resulted in China banning numerous exports from that country throughout 2020 and 2021. New Zealand, were it to follow suit, arguably has far more to lose as a much smaller nation.
Yet this also alludes to the underlying reality: that Wellington is part of an economic order which increasingly revolves around China, albeit while simultaneously being part of the US-led security order. Whilst these conflicting modes of existence have caused more discomfort in Australia, owing to its much stronger sense of Anglophone exceptionalism and historical embrace of ‘yellow peril’ rhetoric, New Zealand seems to be deftly riding out the balance.
The upgraded trade agreement with Beijing illustrates this existence isn’t going to change anytime soon. Wellington is also part of the 15-member Asia-Pacific Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that also incorporates China and commenced this year.
While talk of diversification in international trade is often thrown around, this is superficial and easier said than done, for there are no other markets the size of China’s. This is something that the US and some of its closer allies have been unwilling to face: Beijing is and will continue to be the economic heart of an entire region by the realities of size, geography and economics. No amount of denial can change that, however much America wishes it, as set out in its “Indo-Pacific” strategy.
This might mark one final distinction between Wellington and the rest of the Five Eyes states. Whilst the others are in denial, hostile towards a changing world where China is rising, and frantically trying to assemble strategies based on nostalgia or past glories, New Zealand, while still technically on their side, is more pragmatic and realistic about it all. It has not switched allegiances, yet it has few qualms or anxiety or hesitation about integrating and trading with China to its own benefit.
…
But, you know, those who have the money, and who have travelled, do know what is going on inside of China.
There’s a ton-load of bullshit on all American platforms. And they are subtle. Most Americans wouldn’t catch the lies.
This one, I caught today on LinkedIN…
But it’s NOT.
Apple is NOT the most popular smartphone in China. It’s not even number four.
Thanks to President Trump, and a rising patriotism thoughtout China, it’s not even number four. It’s way, way down the list, and maybe it was (iPhone) tops in China in 2015, it is no longer.
As long as the anti-China narrative continues, the Chinese interest in buying American products will continue it’s long slide towards ZERO.
Chinese girl visiting Korea
Korea is a beautiful place, and they are Han race, just like the Han Chinese. In fact, many Chinese live inside of Korea. they work there, and live fine productive lives there. This one gal here is an attractive lass (one of my favorites) that lives there. Her videos makes me want to hop on a plane and visit.
Exiled Chinese businessman Guo Wengui filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday night, days after a New York court ordered him to pay $134 million to a creditor for moving a yacht out of U.S. waters to prevent it from debt collection.
Guo, a real-estate developer also known as Miles Kwok, said he fled China in 2014 after learning a state security official linked to him was the subject of a corruption investigation. Beijing later said it was pursuing Guo on a slew of criminal charges, allegations the businessman has denied.
Guo has since lived in New York City and amassed a large following, particularly among Chinese Americans, by painting himself as a mega-rich dissident and freedom fighter who is trying to take down China’s ruling Communist Party. He had an estimated net worth of $1.1 billion in 2015, and the Fifth Avenue penthouse he lived in was worth $68 million.
The Chapter 11 filing indicates that Guo is seeking debt relief and to stop all collection efforts against him pending a reorganization of his finances. He declared that he now owned less than $100,000 of assets but owed dozens of creditors to the tune of $100 million to $500 million.
Guo said his debts came from “litigation expenses, claims, and judgments,” and included a list of entities that were in legal disputes with him.
Guo has become an influential player in the conservative media world in the U.S. after he allied with Steve Bannon, former President Donald Trump’s adviser. He’s an investor and active user of Gettr, a pro-Trump Twitter alternative that claims to be free of “cancel culture.”
Guo’s popular video streams regularly lash out at not only Chinese officials but also other pro-democracy activists from China. He has been promoting false information about the pandemic and called COVID-19 vaccines part of a conspiracy concocted by the Chinese Communist Party.
A 2021 report by network analysis company Graphika found that Guo is at the center of a vast social media network which amplifies online disinformation and promotes real-world harassment campaigns participated by his fans. Guo denies encouraging anyone to participate in harassment.
Guo’s bankruptcy attorney, William Baldiga, did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
The 15-room Manhattan condo on the 18th floor in the Sherry-Netherland hotel, where Guo has lived for years, is now on sale for $45 million, about $23 million less than it was bought for in 2015.
Last week, a New York judge ruled that Guo arranged for a boat called the Lady May to leave New York waters for the Bahamas to shield it from debt collection. Guo, who has maintained he doesn’t own the yacht, was ordered to pay $134 million to a creditor.
Bannon was arrested on the same boat in 2020 on unrelated federal charges.
Last year, three media companies tied to Guo agreed to pay $539 million, without admitting wrongdoing, to settle charges that the companies illegally sold cryptocurrencies.
Here is how to understand China
Bruce Lee explains how China does things. Not just in Covid, Kung Fu, but in education, energy, trade, and military.
To truly understand what all these hate-filled articles are all about, one must divorce themselves from the “reporting on a comment, reported by another, that suggests that maybe XXXX happened”, to actually seeing what is going on via video, and first-hand observations.
Chinese girl outside a local store
Here is a Chinese girl outside of a typical small town store. This is a pretty much typical scene throughout China. She has the same hair color that MM has, don’t you know. Therefore, there is an immediate affinity for this gal. Though, I must tell you all, seriously… she’s much prettier than I am.
The race for advanced weaponry has been one-upped with the stride in fusion reactor technology that places a Chinese tokamak ahead of other nations as a crucial future development.
China, despite the claims of the US, is now way ahead in arms and energy research crucial to lead countries as pre-eminent powers exceeding the American lead.
A self-contained sun or ‘Tokamak’ will be providing power for China, with inner temperatures as high as 120 million degrees.
China advances with the power of its artificial sun
Experts say that Beijing’s push to advance technology has enabled the development of fusion power in a compact casing. Advanced countries are racing to beat China to pursue cutting-edge scientific developments, reported the Sun UK.
The artificial sun breakthrough will cement the lead of the Communist Party in a power-hungry world. Fusion can power with safe non-lethal energy that is clean and renewable, the holy grail which the west wants to have.
Research to contain the immense heat as a source of power for the earth and the sun at its core. Compared to fission, it offers more options since the atomic age started in the 1950s, cited Techno Trendz.
The goal is for the contestants in this race to get the most wins to complete a fully functional Tokamak. The rat race to see the finish line is what western and eastern powers are gunning for.
The recent announcement that the Chinese Tokamak started up as a next-generation fusion reactor that burned with the heat of a star for 20 minutes, the longest time on record.
What is shown to the western allies is that Beijing might be at a tipping point that will be a sign of Chinese dominance of fusion technology.
According to two analysts, Thomas Corbett and Peter Singer, who have agreed that the drive for China to push for advancement is more than the west ever thought possible.
In Defense One, they stressed all success in research and development is all in China, and they are strides that exceeded expectations.
Achieving an internal temperature of plasma heat of 120 million Celsius for about 20 seconds in 2021. Compared to the sun with an interior heat of 27 million is less hot than the quasi-sun at 120 million degrees.
China’s Tokamak can replace limited oil supply at wartime
Any country that perfects the Tokamak will have all the energy it needs to be steady and clean. The energy shortages of the past will be rare, for example, the EU gas and oil crises, remarked Dr. Daniel Jassa by the Bulletin Of Atomic Scientists.
China’s Experiential Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is on trial to sustain longer operation times. For the record, the funds for the development is has reached £700 million is a lot, but Beijing is still putting in money, unlike the west.
One consideration to develop the Tokamak is that it can replace the endangered oil supply at wartime, with 14.3 million barrels a day being threatened. It assures fewer power supply problems.
Economic development will benefit from it and fuel development faster. China sees what it means to have it when faced with old powers like the US and Europe.
The Chinese Tokamak is the peak of advanced fusion reactor technology, giving it a quantum leap over the west.
Chinese girl in her car
But the Chinese are chained up! And the food in the Olympics was so bad that the people howled and tore at their hair in frustration!
So says the British tabloids…
I just cannot tell you how many times that I have experienced this scene. See. It’s just like in America, or Australia or the UK. We all are the same, you know. It’s only our societies that are different.
The emergence of hypersonic weapons has forced nations to look for countermeasures. Japan has reportedly decided to develop “railguns” in the face of emerging hypersonic threats and it is not the only country to do so.
A railgun is an electromagnetic weapon capable of firing projectiles at Mach 7 — seven times the speed of sound — and is said to be capable of destroying ships, missiles, and planes. But on the flip side, the fast-moving projectile and its high-voltage electric current could produce irreversible wear on the rail or inner wall, lowering the gun’s lifespan and accuracy.
Now, China appears to have found answers to some of the issues plaguing railguns. Wang Xiaohe, a researcher at the China Huayin Ordnance Test Centre in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, claims that the country’s researchers have come up with some viable solutions in recent years, reported SCMP.
China’s railgun program has to go through a number of certification processes before it can be used in future battles. Wang and his colleagues emphasized that the volume and intensity of these tests would considerably exceed any previous tests, stating that a significant number of shots would have to be fired “nonstop at top energy levels” to uncover and address issues.
China’s railgun program is not new. In 2018, some images emerged on social media showing a large, previously unknown weapon placed on the Type 072III-class landing ship, Haiyang Shan.
The possibility of a ship-mounted railgun was mentioned by a verified Weibo account belonging to a retired Chinese navy officer. He said that a project to build a ship-mounted railgun had been authorized years ago, possibly with the help of the Beijing Institute of Technology and a China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation institute.
Does US Have Railguns?
Last July, the Pentagon declared that it had put a halt to its railgun program in order to free up resources for hypersonic weapon research. Aside from financial limitations, one of the main reasons was the need to replace a gun barrel after 20 shots due to wear and other problems.
The United States has been a pioneer in the development of railguns. It is said an American inventor had suggested the use of rail cannon to shell Havana from the coast of Florida during the Spanish-American War in the late nineteenth century. The Pentagon initiated the modern US railgun program during the Cold War period.
After decades of development and more than 1,000 rounds of tests, US researchers accomplished a variety of technological and engineering advancements that expanded the weapon’s operational range to over 100 nautical miles with bullets soaring at seven times the speed of sound.
However, the issue with the weapon is that its range would still expose American warships to enemy fire. This might be fatal in the face of an opponent (China) capable of deploying sophisticated missiles.
Wang claimed that research in the United States and other nations had benefited Chinese researchers a lot. China is using liquid metal in the rail to reduce wear. Chinese scientists also employed some of the models used by American railgun experts to simulate and analyze the occurrence of damage.
However, Chinese railgun had some unique designs that had never been seen before, Wang added. The Chinese design, unlike most railguns, would not have an additional mechanism attached to the muzzle to suppress an electric flash. To attain more consistent performance with minimal damage, it would employ a special coating technology.
In 2018, China undertook the world’s first live open-sea test with a railgun placed on a warship. A 25kg (55lbs) projectile was reportedly propelled to Mach 7.3 and hit a target 250 kilometers away with the prototype weapon. Chinese scientists are also working on hypersonic missiles that could be launched from a railgun and could search for targets, the report said.
China claims to have developed heat-seeking hypersonic missiles ahead of the United States, which could be used to attack aircraft carriers and moving vehicles. However, hypersonic weapons are expensive to operate. Railguns, according to the Chinese navy, might help defend the country’s shore due to its unrivaled firing range.
The plan is to add railgun interceptors to the existing missile defense system. Japan is also considering long-range missiles that would allow it to fire projectiles from afar. The three mechanisms would combine to provide a three-tier deterrent.
A total of 6.5 billion yen ($56 million) has been set out in the fiscal 2022 budget for the development of prototypes of military-use railgun technology. The system ought to be operational in the second part of the 2020s.
Moreover, the Japanese Defense Ministry will begin full-scale research and development of high-power microwave (HPM) weapons in the fiscal year 2022, which begins in April, according to Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. The news comes days after Chinese media reported that the country is working on laser weaponry for the J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth aircraft.
“The ministry plans to work on a prototype over the next five years and has earmarked 7.2 billion yen [US$62.5 million] in next year’s budget plan for that purpose,” officials told Japanese newspaper, Yomiuri Shimbun.
Japan’s Foray Into Railgun Domain
Last Month, it was reported that Japan has decided to develop an electromagnetic weapon system to intercept enemy hypersonic missiles. The decision to develop “railguns” came as Tokyo considers how to deal with the threat posed by hypersonic weapons from its neighbors such as China, North Korea, and Russia.
The rest of the world is getting angry at the USA
Oh, but NOT reported to Americans, don’t you know. Never report this stuff to Americans. They cannot handle the truth. Keep them living in fear and anger.
Oh yeah. She’s typical. You will notice that there are flowers and trees lining the road. This is normal. China respects the people and provides everyone a nice place to live in. Especially in industrial areas like this one.
An interview with Strategy Analytics
Tuesday 13 July 21
China consumes about 70% of global semiconductor production. But the country’s plans to mass produce 14 nm chips next year within the country is likely to make China the biggest semiconductor supplier globally.
A sudden surge in demand for electronics during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented shortage of semiconductor chips worldwide.
Right from gaming consoles, laptops and desktop to even digital thermometers have been faced with an acute chip shortage due to a sudden increase in demand, bringing to fore the importance of self-sufficiency in semiconductor manufacturing.
China is taking a lead in addressing the global shortage of chips by accelerating the development and manufacturing of 14 nm chips, which are expected to go into mass production in the country in 2022.
While China is the world’s biggest consumer of semiconductors, a large part of that demand has been met through imports so far. However, the country is making rapid strides in becoming self-reliant and developing a strong ecosystem of semiconductor design and manufacturing.
China has a lot of work to do…
Chinese girl in a brown top
Is she sreeching and crying about being chained up?
I really like this girl. I like the brown and tan theme that seems to be her “thing”. It goes great with the rose sofa that she is sitting upon.
On the edge of the Gobi Desert, at a place called Wuwei, China will soon test a safe, inexpensive nuclear energy, that will not need water to cool nuclear fuel rods nor uranium.
This experimental nuclear reactor uses thorium as a fuel and experts believe that China will be the first country to have a chance to commercialize the technology, German website Spektrum.de reported.
The reactor is unusual in that it has molten salts circulating inside it instead of water.
It has the potential to produce nuclear energy that is relatively safe and cheap, while also generating a much smaller amount of very long-lived radioactive waste than conventional reactors.
Operated by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), the reactor is designed to generate just two megawatts of thermal energy — enough to supply up to 1,000 households.
If the experiments are successful, however, China hopes to build a reactor with a capacity of 373 megawatts by 2030, which could supply hundreds of thousands of households with electricity.
According to the government of Gansu Province, construction was to be completed by early September and a trial run is slated later this month.
What exactly is thorium and why is it important?
A weakly radioactive, silvery metal that occurs naturally in rocks and is currently rarely used industrially, it is a by-product of the growing rare earth mining industry in China and is therefore an attractive alternative to imported uranium.
“Thorium is much more abundant than uranium, so using it would be a very useful technology for the next 50 or 100 years when uranium reserves run out,” said Lyndon Edwards, a nuclear engineer with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization in Sydney.
The reactor type is one of the “perfect technologies” that should help China achieve its goal of zero carbon emissions by around 2050, says energy modeler Jiang Kejun from the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing.
The naturally occurring isotope thorium-232 cannot be fissioned, but when irradiated in a reactor it absorbs neutrons and forms uranium-233, a fissile material that generates heat.
Thorium has been tested as a fuel in other types of nuclear reactors in countries such as the US, Germany, and the UK, and is part of a nuclear program in India.
So far, however, it has not proven to be cost-effective because its extraction is more expensive than uranium and, unlike some naturally occurring uranium isotopes, it has to be converted into a fissile material.
Some researchers advocate thorium as a fuel because they believe that its waste products are less weapons-grade than uranium, making it safer and greener.
Unlike the uranium currently used in nuclear power plants, burning thorium does not create plutonium, a highly toxic chemical element.
There’s another advantage — this type of reactor does not need to be built near watercourses, since the molten salts themselves “serve as a coolant, unlike conventional uranium power plants that need huge amounts of water to cool their reactors.”
As a result, the reactors can be installed in isolated and arid regions… like the Gobi Desert.
Compared to light water reactors in conventional nuclear power plants, molten salt reactors, also known as molten salt reactors, work at significantly higher temperatures.
The result: You can generate electricity much more efficiently, says Charles Forsberg, a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.
According to Nature.com, China’s reactor will use fluoride-based salts, which melt into a colourless, transparent liquid when heated to about 450 ºC. The salt acts as a coolant to transport heat from the reactor core.
In addition, rather than solid fuel rods, molten-salt reactors also use the liquid salt as a substrate for the fuel, such as thorium, to be directly dissolved into the core.
Molten-salt reactors are considered to be relatively safe because the fuel is already dissolved in liquid and they operate at lower pressures than do conventional nuclear reactors, which reduces the risk of explosive meltdowns.
However, some critics say the feasibility of molten-salt reactors remains questionable as it creates further technical problems.
“At very high temperatures, the salt can corrode the reactor’s structures, which need to be protected in some manner,” said Jean-Claude Garnier, head of France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
When China starts up its pilot reactor, it will be the first molten salt reactor to have been in operation since 1969. At that time, US researchers shut down their reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
It will also be the first liquid salt reactor to run on thorium.
China’s reactor will be “a test bed to do a lot of learning,” says Forsberg, from analysing corrosion to characterizing the radionucleotide composition of the mixture as it circulates.
“We are going to learn so much new science,” agrees Simon Middleburgh, a nuclear materials scientist at Bangor University, UK. “If they would let me, I’d be on the first plane there.”
Molten-salt reactors are just one of many advanced nuclear technologies China is currently investing in.
In 2002, an intergovernmental forum identified six promising reactor technologies to fast-track by 2030, including reactors cooled by lead or sodium liquids. China has programs for all of them.
Some of these reactor types could replace coal-fuelled power plants, says David Fishman, a project manager at the Lantau Group energy consultancy in Hong Kong.
“As China cruises towards carbon neutrality, it could pull out [power plant] boilers and retrofit them with nuclear reactors.”
But even if China ends up claiming victory, they should not rejoice too quickly, said Francesco D’Auria, nuclear reactor technology specialist at the University of Pisa: “The problem with corrosive products is that you don’t realize their damage until five to 10 years after.”
If it is successful, series production could start as early as 2030, officials said.
Chinese girl at the piano
But… But…
China abuses it’s people, the American “news” reports say…
This gal is one of those girls that posts a lot of modeling photos on her DouXing. I can see why; she’s cute, attractive all in a small package. Her dress, don’t you know, fits her like a glove.
Used to be “LAME” when I was a kid: When I saw this video my initial reaction was just wow – look how far we’ve come.
Not just in terms of marketing through the metaverse (can’t believe that’s a real sentence) and what that could entail once fully developed, but also just as a country.
To me, campaigns like these emphasise the importance + relevance of the Guochao (national pride/identity) trend.
When I was younger, you would try to avoid brands like Anta or Li-ning at ALL COSTS – tell your parents that you would get bullied if you wore their shoes to school. But those days are over!
These brands are coming in strong, and even taking advantage of the fact that brands like theirs used to be looked down upon (even by locals) for being Chinese.
They’re now playing up the fact that they’re home-made and can represent their country in a positive way.
Back to the metaverse – this is clearly just a vision / interpretation of how these experiences could look in the future. A lot of the stuff in this video isn’t possible yet. Everyone talks about the metaverse, but few understand it!
I think the first business to crack how to incorporate movement sensors / the appropriate hardware will see huge success in the coming years.
The digital yuan will connect with Hong Kong’s FPS mobile payment system making payments between Mainland and HK easy for the little guy!
This is big because it shows once again how all of the e-CNY’s cross-border activity will be focused on Hong Kong, and that the future is here now!
The link between the e-CNY and HK’s FPS system provides our first real example of how the e-CNY can be used to link retail payment systems.
FPS or “faster payment system” is Hong Kong’s new retail RTGS payment system which already handles some HK$ 5.2 bn daily. Hong Kong is China’s fourth largest trading partner and besides tourism there is a ton of e-commerce and SME trade with neighboring Guangdong. So this will potentially be a big help to many!
But if you really want to see where this tie-up is going look at Singapore!
e-CNY mobile cross border payments will be modeled after Singapore’s. Singapore’s mobile real-time payment system “PayNow” has connections with instant payment systems in India, Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia. (Did I miss any?) These systems make remittances and e-commerce a breeze.
It won’t be long after the national launch of the e-CNY before it will have similar connectivity within the region. With the e-CNY making e-commerce a breeze throughout the region.
Understand that this will be a seamless experience. As these e-CNY payments are part of existing mobile payment systems like FPS in Hong Kong, e-commerce sites, retailers, and restaurants won’t have to do anything to accept and convert e-CNY payments. It will be a major benefit to SMEs within the region and Alibaba will get more business than ever!
It’s important to note that Hong Kong’s position as the leading international e-CNY center has been set in stone by the PBOC.
This is one of two critical projects that the PBOC is bringing to Hong Kong. Never forget that the PBOC and the HKMA are building mBridge the first dedicated global CBDC transfer system that will go into production this year.
What we don’t yet know is how the e-CNY payments will be handled by the banks setting up the system. Hong Kong users won’t have e-CNY UTXO style digital wallets so there will have to be a special link built to connect e-CNY tokens with accounts of FPS users. I’m curious to see how they do it.
Here’s what’s going to happen. The PBOC is going to call other central banks in the region and say: “Hi we want to connect your retail RTGS system with e-CNY.” What country will say no given China’s commercial ties within the region?
That’s just one way the e-CNY revolution will start and before long you’ll see it on mobile payment apps throughout the region.
The future is here, most have no clue.
Hong Kong sets stage for e-CNY use, to launch pilot ‘soon after Spring Festival’
The pilot will strengthen Hong Kong’s role as an international offshore yuan trading centre, HKMA’s Eddie Yue says
‘Restaurants and other shops in Lan Kwai Fong will like to join the test, because the e-CNY is the future of payments’: Allan Zeman
Hong Kong will soon roll out a pilot scheme for the use of the digital yuan – or e-CNY – in the city for shopping and dining, making the special administrative region the first offshore city to use this digital currency outside mainland China.
“The pilot testing of e-CNY will be an important move for Hong Kong to strengthen its role as an international offshore yuan trading centre,” Eddie Yue Wai-man, CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city’s de facto central bank, said on Monday in a regular monthly financial affairs panel meeting of the Legislative Council.
He did not give the exact launch date but said: “It will launch soon after the Spring Festival.” According to Chinese tradition, this period ends on the 15th day of Lunar New Year, which falls on February 15 this year.
The HKMA has been testing the use of the digital yuan since March last year, with some bank staff using Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System (FPS) electronic payments platform to transfer Hong Kong dollars into e-CNY wallets. Under the pilot, the HKMA and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will select certain mainland visitors and other individuals to use e-CNY at select shops and restaurants in Hong Kong, while Hongkongers who live in mainland Chinese Greater Bay Area cities will also be able to use the digital currency instead of two separate e-wallets previously.
Those who want to use the digital yuan will need to download e-CNY wallets, which will link up with Hong Kong’s FPS, to top up and make payments. The FPS had 9.6 million registered users at the end of last year, and the average number of daily transactions rose 90 per cent year on year to 670,000 in 2021.
Lawmakers welcomed the pilot, which Yue said would initially focus on retail payments before being expanded to cover wholesale transactions at a later stage.
The digital yuan is currently being used in the mainland cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xian, Qingdao and Dalian, as well as Beijing and Winter Olympics venues outside the capital.
The number of e-CNY users nearly doubled to 261 million last December from 140 million just two months earlier, said Zou Lan, head of financial markets at the PBOC. The surge came before the central bank launched its official e-CNY wallet app for public download in January.
Allan Zeman, the founder and chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Holdings and its namesake nightlife district in Hong Kong’s Central, said he would like to see his shops and restaurants join the e-CNY pilot scheme.
“Of course, restaurants and other shops in Lan Kwai Fong will like to join the test, because the e-CNY is the future of payments. No one uses cash in mainland China. Hong Kong will need to catch up and develop digital payments systems to attract more tourists,” Zeman told the Post.
The pilot will come at a time when few mainland tourists are visiting Hong Kong because of strict quarantine rules amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of inbound tourist arrivals plummeting by 98 per cent to 81,950 in the first 11 months of last year, from 3.56 million in the same period in 2020.
Zeman, however, said it would be good to start the pilot at a low time to make sure the system works well, so that it is ready for the influx of tourists once the border with mainland China reopens.
The pilot has also been well received by Hongkongers living in mainland Chinese Greater Bay Area cities.
“I welcome the pilot test of e-CNY, as it is a practical means to accelerate the integration of people living in the Greater Bay Area,” said Wilson Chow, partner and global TMT leader at accounting firm PwC. Chow has lived in Shenzhen since 2003.
“Many people including myself currently use two mobile wallets – one denominated in the yuan and the other in Hong Kong dollars – to make payments for retail consumption undertaken in mainland China and Hong Kong. With the use of one e-CNY wallet across the Greater Bay Area, it would make mobile payments more convenient,” he said.
The e-CNY is operated via a secured blockchain system governed by the PBOC, so people need not have any security concerns, Chow added.
The authority was also in discussions with banks about helping small and medium enterprises hit hard hit by the fifth wave of the pandemic, Yue said on Monday.
Thin and stacked Chinese girl in brown
But what of the Chained women?
Normally, for the longest time, I shied away from very thin girls. Now I know better. Everyone has these great attributes that lie under the skin in places that you just cannot see. Look at her. Look at her eyebrows. Lovely.
Anyways, this girl is the kind of happy and pleasant person that I wouldn’t mind spending a dinner with. Maybe a nice light fish with some tasty vegitables and then perhaps a nice tea afterwards. Or maybe more.
In a nice white dress while she is in the car. As I get older, I really, I mean REALLY, appreciate a fine nice patterned dress. There are so many, so so many styles and color and patterns. And OMG, the gals look so fine in them.
I’ll bet that you all didn’t know that Chinese people have average and normal lives. Lives that did not include chains, whippings, and torture…
I do like this model, and the clothes that she models has appeal. They are thin, light and nicely tailored. I suspect they are some kind of polyester blend. All in all, it’s really nice to look at and watch. Notice the air conditioner behind her. This very common inside of China.
You can bet that the photographer is standing nearby with one or two grips. When I go on a photoshoot, there’s literially from ten to twenty other people there with us. Sometimes there’s an entire buffet laid out so that we can snack during the shoot. They’ve got these large light umbrellas, and strobe generators, as well as all sorts of props.
Food spread.
But I will tell you that the table of food is the most delicious part of the shoot.
She’s in a lime colored top and she isn’t in matching chains!
Oh, my goodness! Jeeze! Louise! She’s quite the stunner, don’t you think. By the way, this is what the interiors of what houses in China look like. Not like those squalor hovels that the American “news” provides the illusion of.
I often get a shit load of bullshit comments. Most I do not post. But I did post this one, and here’s an excerpt…
“All MAJesticmembers, are service to others sentience.”
–I doubt that far more than I doubt your story.
Don’t understand why, eh? Cannot understand why it is IMPERITIVE that The Domain only employ STO sentience? Obviously knows nothing about the nature of sentience and consciousness manifestation and sorting procedures.
Be the Rufus, as this fine upstanding African-American man so clearly defines.
It is difficult for me, being an American by birth, living inside of China. I read the American “news”. I follow the “American “politics”. Yet, I also see things with my own eyes first hand. And there is such a very profound difference between what is being reported “in the news” and what is actually going on.
Most Americans believe that China is a failed throw-back to old-world dictatorships and that the Chinese are just brainwashed. But thats wrong. It’s actually the other way around.
Meanwhile, China is plowing forward. It’s citizens are happy and doing well, and the entire world is adapting to the new power realignments.
…
But not America. And not Americans.
They are being a steady stream of lies and bullshit; designed for fear, terror and anger.
All the anger is directed to various targets. Whether by race, social economic targets, or foreign powers.
Thus making Americans, themselves, a very fearful and angry group of people.
…
I really need to trim down my American “news” feeds. I just cannot take the lies any longer. It’s not that good for my health don’t you know, and if someone wants to convince me that the United States is worth saving, please tell me.
As I see it from here, the most humaine thing to happen for the world and for the American people is to have everyone and everything associated with the United States government to simply die off and go away.
You would think.
And, you know, if you have been paying attention, the rest of the world has been reorganizing for a NEW; “New World Order”. Nope. It’s the the George Bush NWO. It’s something different.
It’s one where it is one where either [1] the United States sits it out, or [2] is the minor “player” that it deserves to be. A kind of “back water” off in its own hemisphere.
…
But America is fighting against the tide. It cannot be that stupid, you would think. There are many intelligent and capable people inside the United States. It is true. It’s just that they are not in leadership roles. They have been displaced for ideological reasons.
So, a redirection of interests and activity is seemingly not happening. They are pushing and pushing and pushing for WAR!
The rest of the world endured. It listened. It bid it’s time. And now the sand in the hourglass ran out.
Russia put it’s paw down. China stands right next to it.
What’s next?
Guess. It’s not what the American oligarchy thinks. “Some far away war while the American leadership enjoys safe haven from the conflict that it starts.” Nope.
I’m sticking with a fruitful and positive Asia. One that is serious. One that is STO sentience, and one that will launch a new beginning to end this fucking, freaking out turmoil set upon humanity by the rude, crude and evil clustered inside their enclaves in the United States.
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Above Photo: Digging youselves out from under all the lies and bullshit.
Are you getting tired of this geo-political stuff? I sure am.
Sorry to keep bringing it up, but these are historical times that we are living in. It’s exciting, dangerous, fearful and exciting. It’s new, novel and strange. And also everything in between. So please forgive me this latest article.
Ok already!
The United States is a shambles and it’s falling apart. Just die off, and leave me alone.
Will you? Please?
"...Making thing worst, western fake democracy produce low quality, corrupt, and know no consequences politicians who care for no one except their own personal wellbeing."
This article continues with a selction of snapshots of the world relate to the United States. We discuss the rise of Asia, of course. We discuss the fall of the United States. And we also discuss the strange, strange behaviors that it seems to be taking on.
We do this instead of talking about things that matter. Like cats, cheese, wine, and cars. Sheech!
We start with this article.
Where the author is stunned that the American “leadership” and their minions / toadies believe that wars can and will be fought on the same basis as was done one hundred years ago. Let me tell youse guys something, the world is a far different place today.
Yesterday, the press secretary of the Foreign Ministry, Mariya Zakharova, made such a post on FB.
"A request to the US and British disinformation media Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Sun, etc. - announce the schedule of our "invasions" for the coming year. I would like to plan a vacation."
Here, in the flood of “any day now”, “any hour now” is this churning out nonsesne about Russia invading the Ukraine. Not one is discussing the “why, in the Hell woud they want to do such an idiotic thing?”
And you know, you DO know, that the Internet is an erasible whiteboard. Things come and then in a few years they are gone. Poof! Well, here’s what I am talking about for all youse guys who are reading this in 2030.
Two months of “any day now”. From December 2021 to February 2022. Just about every major headline was about “The Ukraine”. For me, it was a welcome respite from the “any day now China will invade Taiwan” nonsense.
But still, it is tiring…
Um. Sure.
What ever you say Jake.
Here’s another. Thousands of these bullshit articles. All clogging up my media feeds.
Invasion 1 am on Monday.
There are literally thousands of these kinds of articles and they are flooding my feed just like the Anti-China narrative doused me back last year.
All lies.
All distortions.
All fearmongering. All bullshit.
Here’s on at 3am on Wednesday.
The days come and go. The times come and go.
The lies just plow forward.
It’s all been bullshit.
It’s all shrilling nonsense.
Who are these editors? Jane LGBQ diversity-hire; spending time at a nail salon, or a perpetual evil sociopath without a brain, just doing what they are told by some kind of Reptilian evil overlord?
Which pretty much makes people scratch their heads and wonder. Like this article points out…
Next part.
I’m scratching my noggin, don’t you know.
Here’s a bunch of articles that pretty round out the massive and timultious changes that the world is going through right now. If you live inside of the United States, you will probably be only aware of eight out of the ten articles. And you know why, right?
The infernal danger is that Washington and London are pushing Europe and the world towards the abyss of a nuclear with Russia.
The Anglo-Americans are running a modern-day reworking of Operation Overlord, the June 1944 military invasion plan billed to liberate Western Europe from Nazi Germany.
This time around, the billed objective is to “liberate” the European Union from its “tyrannical” dependency on Russian natural gas.
In reality, the unspoken objective is to maintain U.S. tyrannical control over Europe.
That control is essential for upholding American hegemony and global power.
The ultimate price is economic devastation and even war for Europe which the “noble” American hegemon is all too willing for its peons to pay.
This week, U.S. President Joe Biden showed off his overlord status when he arrogantly spoke for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a White House press conference.
Biden was asked about the fate of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in the hypothetical event of an invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Biden didn’t skip a beat to consult with the German leader. He peremptorily asserted the gas project would be terminated.
“There will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” said Biden without hesitation. “We will bring an end to it.”
The American president was asked how this could be done given that the functioning of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is nominally under the control of Germany, not the United States.
“We will — I promise you, we’ll be able to do it,” asserted Biden without so much as a hint of seeking any kind of agreement from the German chancellor.
The assuredness of Washington’s presumed ability to over-ride European sovereignty was a revealing and disturbing display of American imperial arrogance.
It was also an excruciating display of American contempt for supposed European “allies”. Scholz, Germany, Europe, was made to look like a nonentity by Biden.
Washington and London have led the ramping up of geopolitical tensions with relentless accusations that Russia is about to invade Ukraine and jeopardize European security.
From the way the Anglo-American propaganda has contrived it, one would think that the scenario is a re-run of Nazi aggression threatening Europe for which they alone are the noble defenders.
Putin is Hitler, the Kremlin is the Third Reich, and diplomacy is appeasement, so the preposterous propaganda goes.
Moscow has repeatedly said it has no intention to invade Ukraine and that in fact it is Russia that is being threatened by the U.S.-led NATO military alliance after year-on-year expansion of the bloc all the way to Russia’s borders.
Ratcheting up the tensions further, Washington and London are demanding that Europe must adopt draconian sanctions against Moscow including the commitment to abandon the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
That pipeline took five years and a €10-billion investment to complete despite constant American objections.
The crisis over Ukraine contrived by Washington and its British flunkey have ensured that the gas supply has been suspended for the past six months despite an energy crunch in Europe.
What the Anglo-American overlords want to see finally is the entire gas project being scrapped. That’s the end-game even if it means European households freezing from un-payable gas bills.
The American overlords don’t care.
That’s why the Americans and the Brits are doing their best to scupper any diplomatic effort to calm the inordinate crisis with Russia over Ukraine.
Hence, Washington and London are funneling weapons to Ukraine and deploying paratroopers to Eastern Europe in a reckless bid to escalate the confrontation.
While visiting the White House this week, Chancellor Scholz was peppered with petulant demands to explicitly state that the Nord Stream 2 project would be axed “if Russia invaded Ukraine”.
Scholz refused to state that, although in an apparent attempt to offer a sop he claimed that Germany and the United States were united in their resolve.
There is a palpable peeved sense among the Americans and British that Berlin is not being sufficiently hostile towards Russia.
Likewise, when French President Emmanuel Macron went to Moscow this week for diplomatic talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin there was also an unmistakable sense of rancor from Washington and London that their militaristic “unanimity” was being undermined.
There’s little doubt that Berlin and Paris know that the Anglo-American bravado is a cynical provocation that is “nobly” signing a suicide note on behalf of Europe in the event of a war with Russia.
Macron’s bitter experience of France being shafted last year by the U.S., Britain and Australia over the €50 billion AUKUS submarine contract has probably helped engender a bit of healthy skepticism too. He’s also got an eye on French presidential elections in April.
The bottomline is that Washington wants to sabotage the strategic partnership between Europe and Russia for energy trade and the general normalization of relations. The objectives are maintaining U.S. hegemony, selling its own more expensive gas to Europe and of course endless sales of weapons for NATO members in a perennially agitated state of insecurity. The Brits as ever are in it for ingratiating with Uncle Sam and serving their usual function of being the geopolitical butler to U.S. imperial power.
Energy analysts know that Germany and Europe cannot survive economically without Russia gas, which accounts for at least 40 percent of the continent’s consumption. Even Biden at the White House press conference could not pretend that the U.S. was able replace Russia’s supply. If Russia’s gas trade to Europe was to be disrupted by conflict or deeper sanctions the repercussions for the European Union’s economies would be devastating. There is no way that Germany, France and the EU could survive without Russian oil and gas. For the U.S. and Britain to demand that Berlin make definitive statements about cancelling Nord Stream 2 is a form of coercion and blackmail. Operation Overlord II.
But the infernal danger is that Washington and London are pushing Europe and the world towards the abyss of a nuclear with Russia. That’s how demonic the failing Anglo-American imperium is.
…
So, we start off realizing that the entire “song and dance” about the “War in the Ukraine” is to scare Europe into compliance wiht the United States, and stop Germany from trading with Russia (and China).
It’s not successful.
So why is the United States doing this?
Well. It needs a war. It REALLY needs a war.
Every single state, all 50 of them, have enormous military-industrial factories cherning out bombs, guns, and battle gear. They employ millions of people, and without a war, there will be layoffs. And layoff right now, in this economic condition would be devistating.
What economic condition you might ask?
Article 2
The USA is a real fiasco. Sorry to say.
Make sure that your larder is well stocked and that you are part of your community. And when you have a change, just go to the local diner and eat a nice fine pie. Not that it’s the end of the world or anything like that, but rather to enjoy the little things in life.
Delicious cherry pie. Oh, and don’t forget a nice HOT cup of fresh brewed coffee to go with it.
5 New Numbers That Prove That America’s Horrifying Inflation Crisis Is Getting Even Worse
If you are less than 40 years old, you have never seen inflation like this in the United States. Despite all the warnings, our politicians in Washington just kept borrowing and spending trillions upon trillions of dollars that we did not have. And despite all the warnings, the Federal Reserve just kept pumping trillions of fresh dollars into the financial system. Now we have a giant mess on our hands, and anyone that believes that this is going to be easily fixed is simply being delusional.
Of course most Americans weren’t going to start paying attention to all of this until it started to affect them personally.
Now it is affecting all of us personally, and there are millions of people out there that are becoming increasingly frustrated about the current state of affairs.
Unfortunately, this crisis appears to be just in the early stages. The following are 5 numbers that indicate that the inflation crisis in the United States continues to get even worse…
#1 The producer price index has risen at a rate of 9.7 percent over the previous 12 months. According to CNBC, that is close to a brand new record…
The producer price index, which measures final demand goods and services, increased 1% for the month, against the Dow Jones estimate for 0.5%. Over the past 12 months the gauge rose an unadjusted 9.7%, close to a record in data going back to 2010.
Last week we learned that the consumer price index has risen by 7.5 percent over the previous 12 months. Of course if the consumer price index was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the real number would actually be more than double the official number that we were just given.
#2Truck trailer prices in January 2022 were 29.6 percent higher than they were in January 2021…
A shortage of parts and labor has sent the prices of truck trailers through the roof.Truck trailer prices jumped 3.1 percent in January, data from the Department of Labor showed Tuesday. That followed a 3.8 percent increase in December. Compared with 12-months ago, trailer prices are up 29.6 percent, by far the biggest one-year jump in records going back to 1980.
#3 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is telling us that the price of used vehicles rose by an astounding 40.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022…
According to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday, the consumer price index for used cars and trucks jumped up by 40.5% from January 2021 to January 2022. That means within a year, the average price of used cars and trucks for urban consumers has gone up by 40.5%.
#4 You may have noticed that you are paying a lot more at the pump these days. If you can believe it, the price of gasoline has actually shot up 40.8 percentsince Joe Biden first entered the White House…
Between January 2021 and January 2022–President Joe Biden’s first year in office–the price of unleaded gasoline increased 40.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That is adding to the cost of both building a new home and remodeling an older one. The National Association of Home Builders estimated the recent price jump added more than $18,600 to the price of a newly built home. It also added nearly $7,300 to the cost of the average new multifamily home, which translates into households paying $67 a month more to rent a new apartment.
Ouch.
I sure wouldn’t want to be trying to build a new home in this environment.
Pressure has been building on the Federal Reserve to take action, and it is being anticipated that the “geniuses” at the Federal Reserve could raise interest rates by 50 basis points next month…
The hot inflation readings led financial markets to price in a better-than-even chance of a 50 basis points interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month.Inflation is running well above the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target. Economists are expecting as many as seven rate hikes this year.
Just recently, a reader sent me an email which pointed out that we shouldn’t have a system where an unelected group of bureaucrats gets together and determines what our interest rates are going to be.
And he is exactly right.
In a free market system, interest rates would be determined by the free market.
But we don’t have a free market system anymore.
In fact, we haven’t had one for a long time.
Of course when it comes to the economy, the guy in the White House is going to get more of the credit or more of the blame for what is going on than anyone else.
And a brand new poll that was just released has Joe Biden’s approval rating sitting at just 34 percent…
The president’s approval rating nationally sits around 40 percent, according to several tracking averages, but a new CIVIQS poll showed it sitting at 34 percent from the 165,786 respondents surveyed.
That is a shockingly bad number, and what should alarm Democrats even more is how bad Biden’s numbers are in the most important swing states…
Swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all voted narrowly blue in the 2020 election, but the new poll shows their approval of Biden sits in the low 30 percentages.
Arizona has the biggest split with 32 percent approval to 61 percent disapproval. Georgia sits in second with 31 percent approval to 59 percent disapproval; Pennsylvania’s split is 36 percent to 57 percent; Michigan is 33 percent to 59 percent; and Wisconsin has 36 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval of Biden.
Unfortunately, Biden isn’t going to resign no matter how low his numbers go.
That means that we are going to have at least three more years of either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris running the country.
So we shouldn’t expect any dramatic policy shifts from Washington.
And the “geniuses” at the Fed are undoubtedly going to find even more ways to really mess things up. They are the ones that are more responsible than anyone else for getting us into this mess, and now many Americans are desperately hoping that they can get us out of it.
If you are waiting for them to fix the economy, you are going to be waiting a really, really long time.
I have been warning for years that the decisions that were being made would have severe consequences, and now those consequences have started to arrive.
We are on a road to national ruin, and those that are running things are even more blind than those that they are supposed to be leading.
…
Ok so the United States has high inflation. So what?
It’s more than just the price of food and a decrease in the standard of living. It’s a total collapse of everything and a President that is a bumbling puppet. The Americans are distraught, frustrated, and are waking up that they do not like the govnerment that they have right now, and thus a war of distraction is really needed…
For those of you who are unawares, the United States has been pushing and pushing for a war in the Ukraine, and Russia and the Ukraine said No.
They continued. And still nothing happened.
Now today, President Biden is declaring a “victory” by “forcing” Russia to back down and not invade the Ukraine. Silly. Can’t they see that the United States is now the laughingstock for the entire world?
Article 3
Yes, the United States is acting like a colleciton of ignoarant, mentally deranged jackasses, and has lost all global respect, but you are not part of the USA leadership. So don’t fret. No one, and I do mean NO ONE, is blaming the American people for the faults of the USA federal government. Instead they blame the fact the United States is trapped in an obsolete model of governance that has been taken over by evil and corrput wealthy individuals.
… I would think that this is some anti-US spoof, based on listening to the most discredited cliches about the USA and the kind of people who run it. It had everything, frantic flagwaving, hilarious hyperbole, Biden trying to look like Dubya who, himself, was always squinting his yes à la John Wayne hoping to look like some Sheriff at OK Corral. It also had all the mantric repetition of mind-numbing concepts like “democracy” and “freedom”, etc.
The best part was when Biden raised his voice and sternly looked at the screen.
I am sure that Putin hid under his bed, to hug a pillow and sob in abject terror before The Great American Sheriff!
Here is the deal. It’s not just Biden who is brain dead. Its also the collective “Biden”: all the do is “traffic in hot air” as Lavrov aptly mentioned it today. What we heard tonight is not just the rambling of a senile, delusional, narcissist. What we heard was the voice of the US deep state: that is what they “think” and this is how they “think”.
It does not really matter anymore how/why such individuals as Clinton, Dubya, Obama, Trump or Biden came to power or what they promised. What matters is that these are the type of folks who run the USA (well, not them personally, of course, but the interests they represent). The same kind of non-entities run the UK, by the way, just in a even more pompous and ridiculous way.
The clueless fellow below, ladies and gentlemen, is the current Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in history, this is the Leader of the Free World and his so-called “values” are shared by millions worldwide. Or so he thinks (maybe).
Here is a scary thought: there is a good chance that the next clown in the White House might even be worse! There is zero chance that anybody who could fix this awful mess will be “elected”. If the past is the best indicator for the future, then we must realize that there is only one way this will ever end: in ridicule, violence and infamy.
That also fully applies to Ze and his “European Banderastan”.
Does anybody still doubt the outcome of this abject slo-mo train wreck?
Yes?
What’s next?
Once this fiasco dies down, the focus with be a war in Taiwan “any day now”. It’s all so silly and so very predictable. I just don’t know when. A few days or a few months, but as sure as the sun rises, a “war” in Taiwan will be next on the United States agenda.
It’s all so very predictable.
It makes me yearn to chill out with a cat, drink a fine relaxing drink and eat something delicious. You know, like this…
Needs a little salt me thinks.
It makes me yearn for a simpler time, and a simpler lifestyle.
It makes me yearn for a time when a man would work, then go home, eat a great home cooked meal of pot roast and mashed potatoes, and drink his cocktail.
A delicious pot roast.
Good times. Times of substance.
City tour bus, San Francisco, California, 1956
Times when a cup of coffee costs ten cents, and was about double the cost of a five cent newspaper. Good times.
Times when there were real, goodness to gracious, families.
Times when the “news” actually reported events, and not based their operations off of payments from the government.
But that’s all changed.
And it changed into something much worse. But do not fear, it’s still changing and still evolving. There are still “adults in the room”, and many of them live in Asia. And they have a plan…
“Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and lobal Sustainable Development” 4 February 2022. (English) (Russian).
This document is the grand strategic manifesto of a new world order and there is much more to be said about it than what follows. I believe that 4 February 2022 will be remembered as the proclamation of a new disposition of world power and relationships.
It is a truly new order of things, not the old “new world order” which was based on US supremacy. And it is most certainly not the so-called Rules-Based International Order in which one side makes up the rules, breaks them when it wants to and orders everyone else to obey. (A perfect example of the mutability of the “rules” is that gay rights are very important in Russia but not at all in Washington’s new “major ally” of Qatar.)
The Russian-Chinese document speaks much of “democracy” but it’s a different vision than the one common in the West. The West today is focussed on the process of democracy – was the voting up to acceptable standards?
Did the opposition have a fair chance? were there enough candidates? was the advertising even-handed? were “administrative resources” used to shift the vote? and like questions.
Now it may well be that fifty or sixty years ago concentrating on the process of democracy was appropriate but it is very questionable whether it is today. This one graph, showing the relationship between productivity and wages and compensation shows that all is not well. Up until the late 1970s, the two curves kept step with each other – the “rising tide” was indeed lifting all boats. Afterwards, however, they diverge until today there is a considerable gap between the two “Productivity has grown 3.5x as much as pay”.
The rising tide is floating only a few super yachts.
The Russian-Chinese document speaks of the results of democracy.
The sides believe that democracy is a means of citizens’ participation in the government of their country with the view to improving the well-being of population and implementing the principle of popular government.
Note the purpose: “improving the well-being of population”. Whatever one may say about the process of the governance of China or Russia, no one can doubt that the well-being of the population has mightily improved in both countries.
We shall see for the future how this holds up but the document describes a different approach to democracy: don’t concentrate on the process and assume the results will follow – which they are not doing in the USA in particular and the West in general – but instead never mind the process, ask whether the are results desirable? Throughout the document – fifty times – we see the word “development” (“развитие” in the Russian version).
The sides believe that peace, development and cooperation lie at the core of the modern international system.
A world in which everyone has a chance to get rich. And who can doubt that the government in Beijing knows how to do that? We will see, in the coming world competition of ideas, which approach is more attractive and successful.
A second theme, repeated throughout the document is that all countries are equal and they have their own ways of doing things, it is their right to do this, no one may preach to them and no one may interfere with them.
The sides call for the establishment of a new kind of relationship between world powers on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and mutually beneficial cooperation.
This is what might be called a descriptive take on the world rather than the prescriptive take more common in the West. To explain what I mean, let us consider Soviet-Polish relations.
Poland suffered terribly, losing 20-25% of its population and was liberated by the Soviet Army after immense destruction. Stalin then designed a Poland which, for the first time in its long history, included all of the historical Polish lands and no irredentist minorities.
Then imposed the blessing – or so Moscow saw it – of socialism and transformed Poland into a loyal ally of the USSR. Except that, the moment it became clear that the tanks weren’t coming, Poland quit the alliance, threw off socialism and turned to NATO and the EU.
All the “fraternal, socialist, ally” rhetoric turned out to be empty declarations of people compelled to say them.
In other words, the lesson is that you can’t change a country except temporarily by force or very slowly over a very long time. Moscow has learned this lesson.
Hence my use of the world “descriptive” – countries, quite simply, are what they are and outsiders can’t change them; therefore outsiders have to live with them.
It’s that simple: the prescriptive notion – we have the truth and you should follow it (we must make Beijing follow the “US-led liberal international order”) simply can’t be done.
Therefore, the emphasis throughout the document that countries are as they are and are to be treated as equals is firmly based on reality. You can’t make a particular country go along with your notions of propriety but you still have to deal with it: treat it as it is.
The West has long lost sight of this despite its numerous failures of prescription: even if the Western ideas actually were “better”, you can’t bomb Afghans into accepting them.
Therefore, this position in the document is quite simply realistic and practical.
They then regarded themselves as a pattern for others to follow – a pattern that others should follow – and the USSR imposed that pattern on many of its neighbours.
Both Beijing and Moscow have learned that exceptionalism is a route to failure. Therefore, what I am calling a “descriptive” approach to world variety is the result of the failure of trying a prescriptive approach.
This is not, therefore, a point of view adopted to gull people into acquiescence, it is one that is based on cold, bitter experience. It is a lesson that Washington has not yet learned: exceptionalism is a road to a blind alley, as Putin put it a quarter century ago.
It is, in fact, something the West should remember: “Westphalianism” is the principle of cuius regio, eius religio adopted after Europeans had torn themselves apart trying to impose religion on each other.
Not uniformity, but variety. The China-Russia manifesto is rooted on a truth that not only they, but Europe as a whole, have learned the hard way.
The Chinese-Russia relationship is described as follows:
They reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ”forbidden“ areas of cooperation, strengthening of bilateral strategic cooperation is neither aimed against third countries nor affected by the changing international environment and circumstantial changes in third countries.
Time will show just what is meant by this but it is clear that it is a relationship both deep and wide.
A complete commonality of interest which is not uniformity of interest. (It will be amusing to watch Western “experts” fail to get that distinction.) And not one to be easily split apart as some naïve people in Washington think. They trust each other and neither trusts Washington.
Finally, the new world order that they are calling for is described as:
The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation. The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers, when the weak fall prey to the strong. The sides intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations…
A new world order for all, not just those who accept “the better way”.
I would expect, as details are filled in at the “strategic” and “operational” level, that this “grand strategic vision” will prove to be widely attractive across the globe. Washington and its allies will, no doubt, concentrate on the many criticisms of its behaviour, but the manifesto is positive in tone.
People are attracted to success and the West doesn’t project that any more.
Remember who you are and whence you came from. It’s important. We all have to keep grounded as the world changes around us.
Don’t get caught up in all the bullshit.
Never forget who you are.
Firefighters in Princeton, New Jersey, 1956
Never forget who you are and where you came from.
We are all unique and we are all special. We really are. We all have stories to tell. Some are fun, some are cute. Some are romantic, and some are terribly embarrassing. But, you know, that’s life.
Don’t worry, though.
There’s always wine, and cheese.
Article 4
Here we take a look at what the Chinese government is economically. In this next article, they call it “Red Capitalism” as there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world. As such it deserves a study, as it is truly very efficient, and a light-year improvement over the best of the West.
This paper is mainly about the Chinese economy, but includes discussion of the Russian and United States (US) economies in order to provide a clearer explanation.
Comparisons
The Chinese economy is the largest in the world according to the latest CIA Fact Book, based on the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) method.
The CIA claims that the PPP is a better method to use than the nominal method (GDP) based on conversion to US dollars.
Many analysts and politicians still use the nominal method, however, which shows the US in first place and China second. (As it is their preference. They msut keep America lookign great and perfect; the “shining house on the hill”.)
China has been continually careful to claim only second place, presumably as part of its long-term strategic decision to keep its head down and not make unnecessary waves.
Second place also fits better with the significantly lower per-capita income in China and the Chinese aim to keep the status of a “developing country” for purposes of climate change response and funding.
Economic Systems
There are many labels used to describe the various economic systems around the world, most ending in “ism.”
Different authors use the same label to describe different systems, making it hard to understand what they are really referring to in real life.
In reality, most economies appear to be a mixture of various systems, as these are defined in the dictionary.
The Chinese economy is no exception.
So for the purpose of this article, it is simply called “Red Capitalism” for want of a better term.
Red Capitalism is an amalgam of many different systems combined with the so-called “Chinese characteristics.”
The first section of this article provides background information about how the various economic systems are defined by Webster’s. These definitions can be kept in mind while reading the rest of the article.
The second section describes the rivalry between two different methods of explaining and managing a national economy, using either engineering or economics, and how this rivalry plays out in practice. The discussion also touches upon issues with computer models and simulations.
The third section deals with booms and busts. These economic and financial events are a notorious problem that seems to defy a long-term solution. Even the cause(s) of economic and financial instability are lacking any agreement. Some suggested readings are provided for those who wish to delve further into the topic.
The fourth section mentions some aspects of national security which are important for analysis, such as culture and economics. The importance of these two factors in the demise of the USSR is touched upon, and whether China can avoid a similar fate.
The fifth section covers competition and monopoly in China and the US, and how the two countries have tried to deal with these issues. It incorporates many of the topics addressed in the preceding sections and applies them to the evolving situation.
Finally, a sixth concluding section points out some of the difficulties in describing a national economy using the common “isms.” National economies contain elements of various systems, as well as varieties within systems. China is no exception.
I. ECONOMIC “ISMS”
A great deal of discussion in various media concerns differing economic structures, including capitalism and socialism.
The problem with these discussions is that these terms are not defined and other types of economic organization, such as mercantilism and imperialism, are overlooked. For example, there are state capitalism, finance capitalism, crony capitalism, and numerous others.
To assure that both readers and authors were clear about what structure was being addressed, for example, the first page of such articles or books could provide a detailed definition of which capitalism is being discussed.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that capitalism is composed of private ownership and private investment decisions, and that prices, production, and distribution are determined by the market.
But there need to be much more detailed descriptions in view of the many different varieties of capitalism.
As for socialism, there is a similar problem of variety.
The dictionary states that socialism is the government ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. That is a start, but what if it is control, but not ownership? Or vice versa?
What about market socialism as promoted by the Swedes versus command socialism theoretically practiced in the USSR?
We could even invent a few new terms: Bankers’ capitalism and bankers’ socialism for a start.
After all, China claims to be socialist but has a central bank and numerous other banks, as do most other countries, including the US. China appears to be following the same economic advice as the US, leading to the same asset bubbles and too-big-to-fail enterprises.
As another example, the dictionary defines mercantilism as the attempt to increase the power and monetary wealth of a nation by government regulation of the economy, usually trying to accumulate gold and promoting a favorable balance of trade.
Mercantilism also supports manufacturing and agricultural development, as well as foreign trading monopolies. The campaign for “Made in China 2025” may be partly viewed in this light.
It is a national strategic plan along the lines of industrial policy to promote manufacturing.
According to some reports, China is the number one gold-producing nation in the world and all the gold produced is purchased by the Chinese government. Imperialism is defined as extending the dominion of a nation by territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other territory.
Imperialism and mercantilism support each other, especially in terms of foreign trade, protecting domestic manufacturing and collecting gold and other rare commodities.
Communism is defined in one version as “a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.” This definition requires considerable finesse when talking about the Chinese Communist Party.
II. ENGINEERING VS ECONOMICS
Chairman Mao eventually found that he had a problem in keeping control of Chinese politics due to the development of wealthier businessmen and the growing size of the market economy.
His solution was an attempt to return to some of the features of the wartime economy.
These included a semi-drafting of civilians into the army, where they were housed in barracks, clothed in uniform outfits, put on work details in the countryside, fed in the mess hall, and moved about on public transportation.
This was in line with Mao’s experience as a general commanding the Red Army for many years during the civil war in China. This is wartime mobilization, where the generals decide on the final outputs of the economy and the engineers work out the methods to achieve such results.
During war, the civilians are put on rationing and the central plan determines which and what civilian goods will be produced and distributed.
Sort of like Henry Ford’s old adage concerning the some of the Model T cars : “Any customer can have a car painted any colour [sic] so long as it is black.”
Of course, rationing soon becomes unpopular in peacetime.
Mao’s death created a crisis in the Communist Party, with the so-called “Gang of Four” trying to continue his policies, while other officials, led by Deng Xiaoping, called for a different system.
In this system, the economists are supposed to work out the methods to achieve results.
This system could be described as part “market” and part “market socialism” and part “socialism.”
The market part involved privately owned factories and stores producing and selling civilian goods to the public.
The market socialism part involved the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) using army-owned factories to produce civilian goods for sale to the public.
In the socialism part, the PLA-owned factories continued to produce weapons for the military.
The engineering vs economics issue came up in the West at the time of the 1972 Club of Rome report, The Limits to Growth.
This document was based on computer simulations of economic growth which were very pessimistic.
The book was very popular around the world, and it and subsequent reports have been extremely influential in the debates over global warming, climate change, and other policy issues.
The critics, however, claimed the report was based on simplistic scenarios and amateur scholarship.
In essence, the critics said that the report was produced by engineers trying to model the economy without understanding economics.
In addition, the critics pointed out that the computer models did not take into account the changes in price that would come about with scarcity.
The criticism did not seem to deter the Club of Rome in its efforts to remake the world.
Perhaps the members had more confidence in engineers practicing economics, than in economists practicing engineering.
In any event, the same controversy continues to this day concerning the degree to which public policy should rely on computer simulations and models that are sensitive to a few key assumptions.
Computer simulations are well known always to be subject to the “garbage in, garbage out” phenomena, but less well known is that even with good input data, the output can be drastically different with just a few little tweaks in the assumptions.
III. MONEY & CREDIT
China has a problem with asset bubbles and potential busts, as does the US.
China has “ghost cities” and other investments that are symptomatic of malinvestment and too much easy credit.
In the US it was the ill-considered financial enthusiasms of the roaring twenties, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble, and now the so-called “everything bubble” that have led to recessions and depressions.
There have been scholarly attempts to explain why these episodes keep happening. For example, 100% Money by professor Irving Fisher back in the 1930’s, detailed the problems with fractional reserve banking.
Fisher wrote this with the benefit of hindsight after losing his fortune in the Great Depression.
The book, however, fell on deaf ears.
Much later, in 1983, another book on the subject was published, The Mystery of Banking by Murray N. Rothbard. It had no better success.
In 2016, the former head of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, wrote a book called The End of Alchemy, about the same problem and proposed some solutions.
Nothing much was done.
The gist of these books is that fractional reserve banking is inherently unstable.
Yet this is the system used all over the world.
The national security agencies of China, the US, Russia, and others might benefit from some serious study of these books and the issues with money and banking that they explain, as these issues may be more likely to determine their nations’ economic fate.
In the US, other isolated prophets have explained the mistakes in money and banking policies, yet, again, nothing much has been done, resulting in potentially grim future prospects.
If these books are correct in their analyses of the situation, then the first country to adopt a proper solution would gain significant advantages over other countries.
IV. NATIONAL SECURITY
National security studies and analyses spend a lot of time and effort on competing weapon systems, elections, coups, revolutions, as well as on culture, space, cyber, energy, and psychological warfare.
The studies appear to spend much less effort on education and economic security issues.
Out of all these types of warfare, the USSR turned out to be grossly deficient in two important areas: Culture and economics.
Western commercial culture was simply more attractive to the Soviet public than what they had at home.
As more and more Soviets learned about the difference, the more trouble Moscow had in getting the public to believe in the Soviet system.
The question is whether China will experience the same problem.
It appears that China has plenty of Western commercial culture and its own adaptations, as well as conducting a re-invigoration of its traditional culture that goes back thousands of years.
This may help to immunize China against this aspect of the Soviet problem.
As for economics, the USSR followed a less desirable path.
There are many competing schools of thought concerning what happened, but a basic view is that the planned sector of the USSR economy got into a fight with the unplanned sector and they knocked each other out.
The USSR was not able to come up with a solution to the command vs. market problem that worked.
China studied the USSR disaster and decided to follow a different path.
V. COMPETITION & MONOPOLY
It appears that China is ahead of the US in realizing that certain policies favored by the oligarchs could be dangerous to the economy and the State.
However late to take action, China has recently cracked down on the chiefs of many giant enterprises in a move to curtail their power and influence.
They were beginning to rival the authority of the Communist Party.
There is always a potential for oligarchs to find common cause with oligarchs in other parts of the world and joining in schemes such as the New World Order, thus possibly escaping control by the national governments.
This power struggle in China will have ramifications throughout the world.
In the US, it is not even a struggle—the oligarchs are generally considered to be on the top of the heap and nothing much is even considered in the way of curtailing their power.
Considering former President Trump’s experience with them, they are way ahead in the power game and are also alleged to be behind the curtain as far as President Biden is concerned.
In the past, the US came up with the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act in order to help control monopoly power.
President Theodore Roosevelt campaigned as a trust-buster and the laws were used to break up the Standard Oil Company.
Later on when President Franklin Roosevelt was in office, the US instituted the Glass-Steagall Act to address problems which were said to have contributed to the Great Depression.
The act separated commercial banking from investment banking.
At that time, brokerage houses were a separate feature of the US economy.
These laws were also used to break up some of the concentration in the telephone industry.
However, things went into reverse during the President Clinton era, when the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed and banks could combine all forms of banking and brokerage into a single enterprise.
It was not surprising when the resulting conglomerates grew so large that they were termed “too big to fail” and had to be bailed out by the government.
In addition, the anti-trust laws did not seem very useful in controlling the very large tech companies of recent times.
Thus to call the US a “capitalist” or “free market” economy is not very helpful since the economy has had very different features at different times, as well as differing degrees of competition.
Thus a question in analyzing the Chinese economy might be to ask if China has the equivalent of the Sherman, Clayton, and Glass-Seagall Acts, and are they actually used or enforced?
Does China have other laws and regulations that promote competition or manage monopolies in the public interest?
When the Chinese first opened up the economy after Mao, there was relatively little in the way of funding for the military to pay for modernization.
The solution was to allow the military to go into producing civilian goods for sale to the public and then keep the profits to help pay for military goods.
Analysts would need to research whether the military eventually stopped producing its own weapons and purchased them from commercial industrial companies.
How is the military-industrial complex actually structured in modern China?
Who owns the armaments factories?
More recently in China, the central government has encouraged the military to get out of the civilian goods business and stick to the military side.
Again, much more detail is needed in order to comment on the Chinese economic system than to only use the generic terms “capitalism” and “socialism.”
It is even more ineffective to toss about the word “communism.”
Another example of the difficulty in pasting labels on different economies: In Russia it appears that the armament-producing factories and companies are owned by the government.
In early US times, the military arsenals and navy shipyards were also owned by the government.
Pretty much the embodiment of “socialism” in both cases.
Now, however, weapons in the US are produced in factories owned by private or non-government companies.
However, there seems to be very little real or practical competition in much of the US military-industrial complex, so maybe it would be better described as part “mercantilist” or with some other term?
Some experts have claimed that the US has already lost the arms race with Russia, so perhaps the US should try a different tack and return to having the military set up its own factories to produce the exotic weapons needed to compete with Russia?
The US has approximately six arsenals currently operating, but they do not produce the types of weapons that are made in Russia.
Would this partial return to a variety of “socialism” help the generals to get the weapons they really want, instead of the weapons that produce the most profits?
The US Army went back a century to find a design for its latest uniform, maybe the army could consider a return to the old-fashioned arsenals of a century ago.
VI. CONCLUSION
Any discussion of “isms” such as capitalism and socialism cannot shed much light unless more rigorous and detailed definitions are employed, since both “isms” have many varieties.
In addition, any serious discussion should address the extent to which mercantilism and imperialism are part of the mix.
All this gets very complex very rapidly, so it is not surprising that such is seldom done.
In addition, there is little evidence of any current investigation concerning the command versus market issue in national economies, despite its historical importance in China and Russia.
The problems with computer modeling and simulation are well known, but continue to arise in studies of economic growth, climate change, and spread of disease.
This difficulty has serious implications for China as the nation is faced with vast disagreement between engineers and economists in designing computer simulation models.
Finally, the “skeleton in the closet” that almost no one wants to address is the design of the money and credit system for a nation.
Such a look would impinge on the currently politically correct belief in the proper role and nature of commercial banks, investment banks, and central banks.
It is interesting from a national security standpoint that China has seemingly adopted much of the US and UK system of banking, despite centuries of having panics, booms and busts, recessions and depressions in the latter countries.
“Red Capitalism” is an amalgam of many “isms,” with Chinese characteristics. So far, it appears to be relatively successful, certainly more so than the system employed in India.
However, one can see the same maladies creeping into China that currently beset the US: Malinvestment, stock market excesses, interest rate manipulation, real estate speculation, and increasing concentration of wealth.
The question for the world is which country will be the first to find and implement a cure for these maladies.
…
The point herein is that anyone who refers to China as a “regime”, and that possesses a “Communist” for of governance DOES NOT UNDERSTAND modern, contemporaneous China and their article and opinions whould be ignored as noise of the ignorant.
You can quote me on that.
A rainy evening in New York’s Times Square under the neon lights of the “Black Widow” marquee.
Article 5
Now, that we know that China has developed and improving on their greatly improved model of governance, and has aligned with the Russian powerhouse, what of the United States? Is it just sitting by the sidelines, or is it in great distress, as the “house of cards” collapses all around it?
Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survivial — even in the degenerate halls of government….
Clusterfuck Nation
If the ads on the Superbowl each year are like a Rorschach test for the nation’s mental condition, then this year’s ad-roll was a cavalcade of frantic hallucinations suggesting a near-complete detachment from reality for an audience of ADD-disabled cell phone slaves locked into a Big Tech induced consensus trance. You could barely tell what these advertisers were trying to sell in their commercials, the psychotic dazzle of half-second jump-cuts was so ferocious. One interesting note, though: people of non-color (PONCs) seem to have been magically sucked out of the universe. There, that fixed things for everybody else.
Snoop Dog’s half-time house party — Hollywood’s G-rated version of a BLM riot — heralded a real riot later on in downtown LA after the Rams’ victory. Fans lit-up a metro bus and tagged it with spray-paint. The police moved in… objects were thrown at them. I’m just sorry that Snoop didn’t bring out his friend and sometime co-star Martha Stewart to twerk for the multitudes — while, say, whipping up a pumpkin mousse. That might have brought the country together after all these months of rancor. But, like I said, sorry, PONCs need not apply. Nor did Da Dawg invite onstage my favorite new pop star, Ski Mask the Slump God, composer of the hits “Faucet Failure” and “Foot Fungus.” Maybe next year… if there is a next year….
All this hearty good fellowship marks the journey of our country from a convocation of be-wigged founding fathers wielding quill pens in defense of liberty to a security-and-surveillance state of hebephrenic zombies lurching to a kind of failure that will make the fall of the Roman Empire look like a lawn sale of someone’s dead uncle’s chattels and effects. The drain-pipe beckons… but will America answer that call… or take a different turn?
Things are turning, indeed, out there… out in the truck stops and the households fending off repossession and the small businesses struggling desperately for survival — even in the degenerate halls of government, state-by-state. The armature of Covid-19 tyranny is getting rapidly dismantled by politicians close to running for their very lives. The home-folks have had enough of their insolence and they’re sharpening the tines of their pitchforks. Events also conspire to put the schnitz on the alleged Globalists’ dream of digital tyranny — if there even is such a cabal of Globalists, which I’m not sure about, or just a coterie of feckless hacks swept along by a malefic zeitgeist, Canada’s Justin Trudeau being the poster-boy for that breed.
The timing has gone all awry on them. The Covid-19 hysteria draws to a close against their wishes to drag it on forever. Even the triple-vaccinated are sick of it — and not a few of them are sick because of it. Governments and the corrupt medical establishment won’t touch this info with a stick, but the morticians and insurance execs are hopping up and down about what looks like a supernatural die-off of folks between 18 and 60 generally not susceptible to early death. Kind of worrisome, a little bit. Anybody with half-a-brain left is declining the offer of yet another booster — though Dr. Fauci was still tirelessly selling them last week.
Mainly, though, the window-of-opportunity has closed, in the USA, anyway, for anymore vaccine passport nonsense, and with that goes the dream of roping every last citizen into a corral of total social control, including central bank digital currencies that would turn everyone into a yo-yo to be jerked-around by government.
“Joe Biden” has so far failed to deliver that war with Russia over Ukraine he promised us — which would be like two Craig’s List customers fighting over a twenty-year-old Jeep Wrangler up on blocks with the engine missing. Ukraine president Zelensky is a professional comedian, of course, so one must admire his gag of inviting “Joe Biden” to visit his country, the Gem of Eurasia, “in the coming days,” Mr. Zelensky said, “which will be a powerful signal and contribute to de-escalation.” Plus, all the pierogi and cabbage the US president can eat. All this made National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gnash his teeth for the trouble he has gone to in prepping the sore-beset American people for World War Three.
But Mr. Sullivan has, perhaps, other things to think about. Like… what are all these offstage noises Special Counsel John Durham is making in the grand jury chambers? Something about Hillary Clinton, and the helpmeets surrounding her in the 2016 election (including especially Jake Sullivan), alleged to have fabricated the Russian collusion whopper that deranged the nation for four years and disabled a sitting president. They even managed to enlist the FBI and the CIA in that task. How’d that happen? Could Hillary have been that peevish? Anyway, it looks kind of bad for the National Security Advisor to “Joe Biden” having such an epic political fraud tacked onto his resume, with perhaps an indictment to follow. Standing by on his resignation….
Our NATO allies must be enjoying the rise of natgas prices beyond the level that many middle-class households in Euroland can afford to keep the heat on in the dead middle of winter, since they have to get so much of the stuff from Russia. Maybe jamming Ukraine into NATO, as America’s Deep State has been wishing and hoping to do, wasn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe NATO itself isn’t such a great idea anymore.
If World War Three doesn’t pan out for “JB,” there’s always a global meltdown of financial markets, banks, and currencies waiting in the wings to amuse and distract everybody from the post-Covid call for a long, hard look at what the pandemic was actually about. The story, in all its multiple, gruesome levels, has gotten away from them. So many public officials are standing naked that Washington looks like a nudist colony.
…
Do You Know, In the year 1951, Libya was the world’s poorest country. Gaddafi made it Africa’s most developed country with $150 billion foreign reserves And zero debt. Under Muammar Gaddafi, Libya had one of the world’s strongest currencies.
1 Libyan Dinar equalled $0.82781 in 2011. Gaddafi wanted to give all African countries the Dinar to strengthen their economies. He also had more than 140 Tonnes of Gold and similar amounts in silver which he wanted to distribute across Africa to be used in trading.
▪️Libya under Gaddafi.
-Free health care
-Free Electricity
-Free housing, owning a house was considered a human right in Libya
-Free medicine
-Free Education in the country including for all Libyan students who were studying abroad.
-Free water, he built a river.
-Interest Free loans
-Newly weds received $50,000
-Mothers received $5,000 on birth on child.
-All citizens received a percentage of all oil sales
-Petrol was $ 0.14 per liter
-Government paid 50% of the price of your car
-Unemployed Libyans received the average salary of their profession.
▪️These were the reasons why so many individuals wanted to travel to Libya for greener pastures, but now, reverse is the case. Thanks to America bombing it into dust…
America used to be a land with so much potential. A “melting pot” of cultures, and of freedom. Why, you could have “bunnies” serving men in the open at bars, and massage parlors and no one said anything. Not today. Try that today. It will never happen.
Bunny Girls taking an order in a club restaurant in London, 11th February 1963.
Yeah. Look at those prices!
I jsut cannot control myself. I really must stare hard to see the prices and the food items in the menu.
> The U.S. intelligence briefing included specific reference to next Wednesday, February 16, as a start date for the ground invasion, three officials — based in Washington, London and Ukraine — told POLITICO. <
And 200,000 troops? Yesterday there were only 100,000. How can those have doubled over night?
There is also the question of why.
Why has the Biden administration created an artificial ‘crisis’ about a Russian invasion of Ukraine when such an invasion is neither planned nor likely to happen? Why is it claiming that a Russian invasion of the Ukraine is ‘imminent’ when Russia as well as the Ukraine deny that any will be coming.
Why does it distribute misleading satellite pictures of allegedly deployed tanks when those are directly next to the barracks where they belong? Why does it hype a ‘Russian buildup’ when that is something that is claimed each and every year?
Jack Matlock, the last U.S. ambassador to the USSR, has one answer:
Maybe I am wrong – tragically wrong – but I cannot dismiss the suspicion that we are witnessing an elaborate charade, grossly magnified by prominent elements of the American media, to serve a domestic political end. Facing rising inflation, the ravages of Omicron, blame (for the most part unfair) for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus the failure to get the full support of his own party for the Build Back Better legislation, the Biden administration is staggering under sagging approval ratings just as it gears up for this year’s congressional elections.Since clear "victories" on the domestic woes seem increasingly unlikely, why not fabricate one by posing as if he prevented the invasion of Ukraine by "standing up to Vladimir Putin"?Actually, it seems most likely that President Putin’s goals are what he says they are – and as he has been saying since his speech in Munich in 2007. To simplify and paraphrase, I would sum them up as: "Treat us with at least a modicum of respect. We do not threaten you or your allies, why do you refuse us the security you insist for yourself?"
The authoritative Global Times in an editorial warns that the U.S. is instigating conflict in Ukraine in order to tighten bloc discipline – to corral European States back into the U.S.-led fold. No doubt, China makes the connection that Ukraine provides the perfect pivot for shepherding Europe towards America’s next stage of requiring a united front with the U.S. for the later task of barricading-in China, behind her borders.In play, therefore, are key decisions that will define Europe for the future. On the one hand, (as Pepe Escobar noted some two years ago), “the goal of Russian and Chinese policy is to recruit Germany into a triple alliance locking together the Eurasian land mass à la Mackinder into the greatest geopolitical alliance in history – switching world power in favour of these three great powers, and against Anglo-Saxon sea power”.And on the other hand, NATO was conceived, from the outset, as a means of Anglo-American control over Europe and more precisely for keeping Germany ‘down’, and Russia ‘out’ (in that old axiom of western strategists). Lord Hastings (Lionel Ismay), NATO’s first Secretary General, famously said that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.This mindset lingers on, but the formula has acquired today a greater import, and a new twist: To keep Germany ‘down and price uncompetitive’ versus U.S. goods; to keep Russia ‘out’ from being Europe’s source of cheap energy; and to keep China ‘fenced out’ from EU–U.S. trade. The aim is to contain Europe firmly within America’s narrowly defined economic orbit and compelled to forgo the benefits of Chinese and Russian technology, finance and trade – thus helping towards achieving the aim of barricading China within its borders.
I find both explanations, the domestic one and the foreign policy one, very plausible and a combination of them is the most likely motive behind the plan for is affair.
The Washington Post explains how the campaign was hashed out and directed from the White House. Its headline though is misleading:
Inside the White House preparations for a Russian invasion A “Tiger Team” of administration officials has spent the past several months preparing a clear series of responses, gaming out scenarios from cyberattacks and limited intervention to an invasion of Ukraine.
A more correct headline would have been “Inside the White House preparations of the ‘Russian invasion’ scam”.
Lets look into that:
As fears grow of potential Russian aggression against Ukraine, a “Tiger Team” led by the White House is quietly gaming out how the United States would respond to a range of jarring scenarios, from a limited show of force to a full-scale, mass-casualty invasion.The White House team has staged two multihour tabletop exercises — including one with Cabinet officials — to bring the scenarios to life and assembled a playbook that outlines an array of swift potential responses, starting with Day One and extending through the first two weeks of an envisioned Russian invasion.The effort, senior administration officials said, has not only helped them anticipate possible complications, but has also prompted them to take actions ahead of time, such as exposing Russian information warfare before it’s carried out to blunt its propaganda power.
The team preplanned their daily propaganda releases step by step:
The “Tiger Team” — a term referring to a diverse group of experts who are tackling a specific problem and that suggests alertness and a readiness to pounce — was created after National Security Council officials last October detected troubling signs of a massive Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border.NSC officials readily admit they may be unable to precisely anticipate the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military leaders. But the exercise and robust planning is still worth it, they said.“The reality is that what the Russians may end up doing is not likely to be a 100 percent match for any of these scenarios,” [Jonathan Finer, deputy national security adviser to President Biden,] said. “But the goal is for them to be a close enough facsimile of what they end up doing that the plans are useful in terms of reducing the amount of time we need in order to respond effectively. That’s really the whole goal.”
The ‘massive Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border’ has never happened in real life. Most of the Russian troops are hundreds of miles away from Ukraine.
It was the Washington Post which on October 30 2021 was the first to publish the claims by ‘anonymous officials’ of a ‘Russian buildup’.
(Side remark: The name ‘Tiger team’ or ‘Tiger squad’ was also used for the Saudi group that killed and hacked up a Washington Post opinion writer Jamal Khashoggi. Funny that the Washington Post piece does not mention that fact.)
The Tiger Team was officially born in November, when national security adviser Jake Sullivan asked Alex Bick, the NSC director for strategic planning, to lead a planning effort across multiple agencies. Bick has brought in the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Treasury and Homeland Security, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development to look at a possible humanitarian crisis.The intelligence community is also involved, gaming out various courses of action the Russians might pursue and the risks and advantages of each, officials said.
While the official launch of the ‘Tiger team’ might have been in November it is clear that the whole operation started earlier when the Ukrainians were asked to take part in the sham:
Simon Shuster @Shustry - 8:29 PM · Feb 14, 2022Source close to Zelensky told me the U.S. first warned his team of a Russian invasion last fall, putting the chances at 80%. The Ukrainians didn't buy it, but they saw an opportunity -- "more aid, more attention" -- and played along. Now they have regrets. Too much attention.
The CIA has flown paramilitaries from Ukrainian Nazi groups to the U.S. to train them:
While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there, according to a half-dozen former officials.The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like “cover and move,” intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.
These groups will be the forces to use when the U.S. decides to launch some false flag ‘Russian attacks’ on Ukrainian civilians.
As you watch it consider that every move in this is preplanned:
The playbook itself goes far beyond battlefield scenarios, looking at questions like how to address Ukrainian refugees who might stream into Poland and Romania, how to secure the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, exactly what sort of sanctions to impose on Moscow, and how to fight back against a sophisticated cyberattack.The playbook — which synthesizes nearly three dozen papers and intelligence assessments commissioned by the team from various agencies — has been distributed to the various officials, including military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon.The playbook also considers “second order” consequences, such as Russian retaliation for any penalties.
Those ‘sophisticated cyberattacks’ will most likely come from the National Security Agency which is part of the Pentagon. When the White House will claim that it has evidence of a ‘Russian cyberattack’ on Ukraine, which it is likely to do, keep in mind that anyone who claims to be able to find the real source of such an attack is selling snake oil.
Along the playbook the White House also released disinformation which claims that Russia will use such:
Among the Tiger Team’s top concerns is a Russian effort to promote the false narrative that it is Ukraine, aided by the West, that is preparing to launch an offensive in eastern Ukraine, and that Russia is the victim.In recent weeks, the U.S. government has declassified intelligence about such efforts, including a potential “false flag” plot in which Moscow would stage an explosion that kills ethnic Russians in Ukraine or in Russia itself, and then blame it on Kyiv as a possible pretext for an invasion.
The White House has declassified nothing that anyone was allowed to see. As the NYT correctly remarked:
For all the disclosures, the Biden administration has provided no evidence of the disinformation plots they say they have uncovered.
In December, the Tiger Team held two virtual tabletop exercises to road-test various scenarios and responses. The first brought together deputy secretaries and the second involved Cabinet officials. Biden has reviewed the playbook and was briefed on the results, officials said.“It’s one thing to consider each of these problems — energy, sanctions, military posture — in isolation. It’s quite another to put them all together and execute a plan on all of them,” the NSC official said. “What I saw over the course of this planning exercise was, including at the most senior levels, lightbulbs go on about the way the pieces fit together.”
The plan is integrated enough to allow for aims and achievements in multiple fields.
That is why I believe that both, Matlock and Crooke, are right in their guesses of the motives behind the ‘Russian invasion’ scam.
There are domestic aims and there are foreign policy aims and the pieces of the plan fit them together.
But that is only so if the whole thing does not unravel. In real life no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
Zelensky’s much criticized unwillingness to play his part of the show may just be one of the elements that will let it all fall apart.
Then there is Russia which is always good at creating real surprises. I bet that its security demands and the draft treaties it provided where not foreseen in the playbook. They already succeeded in pressing Biden into concessions the U.S. had previously been unwilling to make. More surprises in different areas will follow. As soon as the Olympics are over China may also come to play a role in this.
Big plans make for big failures.
…
So here we are, eh?
Asia has their shit together and the USA is run by “old dinosaurs” that cannot change as they fear that if they do they will lose everythign and have to accept a new lifestyle. So they ae off threatening war…
…everywhere.
I’ll tell you, it make me yearn for the days when America used to stand for something; when it used to represent something. When families mattered.
When people… mattered.
When pets… mattered.
When food… mattered.
When life, family and friends…mattered.
Where has it gone? Well, I tell you that it’s due to the American leadership. And what evil monsters that they have become. Maybe they would act and behave a little bit differently if they had regular, and normal lifestyles. If they acted and behaved normally, and if they participated within their own open and free communities, instead of living like robber barrons on methamphetamines.
Baseball.
Yeah.
I miss the “good old days”…
When you could pull over and have a picnic without have a police car “investigate” what you are doing…
Article 7
I truly need to spend more time with cats.
I miss Leonardo. He was a good kitty.
What does Russia think about all this?
Tim Kirby
February 15, 2022
No progress can be made until the West either sees the Russians as equals or at least fears them enough to create respect like they did in the Cold War, Tim Kirby writes.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s particular take on politics has created many memes on the Russian Internet. His personal frustrations having to negotiate and deal with the West are very relatable to the Russian masses who also want to normalize relations. His crestfallen yet visibly angered words “F’n Morons” have become the stuff of meme legend throughout Russia, although few realize that it was actually said during discussions with the Saudis and not America or Britain as most would assume. But this statement so resonated with the pure frustration that Russians have been feeling, that the populace just sort of shifted the target of his words to the ultimate source of their dismay that started the Maidan Color Revolution in 2014, which has been spiraling downwards ever since. Foreign Minister Lavrov has proved not to be a one hit wonder and his recent trolling of his British counterpart Liz Truss exploded over the Russian internet. This interesting strange moment in the endless and pointless battle of The West vs. Russia is a real microcosm of the nature of how both sides see themselves and the other and demands a full breakdown.
So the situation looks like this, again an annoyed and worn down Lavrov tried to prove a point about how little the West actually understands about the Ukrainian Crisis with some verbal fencing…
MOSCOW, February 10. /TASS/. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss refused to recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov Regions at talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday, a source close to the negotiations told TASS.After Truss’ statements urging Moscow to move its forces, located on Russia’s soil, away from the border with Ukraine, Lavrov asked his British counterpart if she recognized Russia’s sovereignty over the Voronezh and Rostov Regions.According to the source, Truss insisted that the UK would never recognize Russia’s sovereignty over these regions.
Although the Russian internet was smugly proud of this quippy achievement there is a level of pure honesty in the reaction from the British that most Russians simply are incapable of seeing. The Russians are all laughing at her answer taking it as a literal reaction, but metaphorically she told the God’s honest truth from an Anglo-Saxon perspective.
Truss clearly refused to recognize two regions of Russia as being part of Russia out of willful ignorance. There are fine lines between idiocy, ignorance and willful ignorance, but behind the latter of the three there can often be a very crafty and hateful intelligence. No truth pith-helmeted British colonizer would dare to learn anything about her barbaric adversaries, and in this display of pure willful ignorance she perfectly articulated the view of the West towards Russia – they don’t recognize any of Russia’s concerns, demands, leadership or even statehood as legitimate, nor do they need to justify their positions with facts and knowledge when dealing with Untermenschen.
The reaction of the British Foreign Secretary was an unintended act of pure and total dominance. Can you imagine, just how low she and her colleagues must view the Russians as to be charged with dealing with them and yet know absolutely nothing about their country, their geography and the nature of the Ukrainian Crisis? Discussing a situation that has killed thousands of people yet choosing to learn zero basic information is “alpha-chad” to say the least.
Truss answered like a Roman general forced to lower himself to speaking to unwashed Barbarians, who has zero concern for any details about these subhuman animals and their pathetic pseudoculture. All the Roman needs to know is that the allied Barbarians in Ukraine are right and the enemy ones in Russia are wrong. What town or river is where doesn’t make any difference. This Roman attitude of seeing the world as one of civility vs. barbarity hasn’t gone anywhere, and a true sign of a “civilized person” is having zero knowledge or tolerance for the ways of the backwards.
Although Russians may find tricking Anglo-Saxon counterparts into revealing how ignorant they are as a coping mechanism for losing the Cold War, they forget that the supposedly 80 IQ gender-queer limp-wristed twits on the other side of the line have beaten them time and again. My Russian children, living in Russia, have already asked me numerous LGBT-related questions yet have not once asked anything about Multipolarity, Traditional Values or Orthodox Christianity. Russians may find narcissistic joy in mocking the English-speaking world for being ignorant, but apparently being able to quote Pushkin doesn’t win 21st century info wars now, does it? When you’ve got Hollywood, the entire Mainstream Media, Big Tech and so on, you don’t need to know where anything is on a map. The Anglo-Saxons have plenty of knowledge, they just feel they don’t need to know a damn thing about you Russians. That is the nuance the Russians cannot perceive on their mental radar.
This trolling by Lavrov really shows that the joke is actually on Russia. The Russians continue, after years of failing, to try to reason with those who see them as subhuman animals. Perhaps we are moving towards a Multipolar World due to economics, geography and the West shooting itself in the foot, but as far as cultural/info wars are going if you look at the youth around Moscow you can clearly see who is winning.
Perhaps it is actually Lavrov’s side who is ignorant as to how to deal with the Romans from a Barbarian standpoint, and simply cannot wrap their brains around the fact that no progress can be made until the West either sees the Russians as equals or at least fears them enough to create respect like they did in the Cold War. It would also help if the Russians would wake up to the fact that they are considered Barbarians, the fact that Hitler killed millions of them due to his belief that they are racially inferior, just won’t sink in for some reason.
Russia continues to step on the same rake over and over again by seeing itself as equal to the West and believing that the stress between both sides is caused by some sort of cultural misunderstanding. The real intellectual question the Russians should be asking themselves is by what means could a Germanic Barbarian chief convince a Roman general that they are equals?
How could they make him see the villages and culture of the Rhine as just as human and glorious as Rome? This first step to this particular negotiation is really the necessity for the Russians to hack through layer-upon-layer of Anglo-Saxon cultural superiority that creates the type of willful ignorance displayed unabashedly by Liz Truss. Although it is hard to formulate a winning strategy for this problem, it surely lies in the fact that deep down the Civilized man will always secretly envy the freedom and uncastrated status of the Barbarian, but that is a topic for another day.
…
Behind all the intensifying huffing and puffing of the US in the geopolitical arena. “More than 60% of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in USD – but there are big changes on the horizon … some of the biggest economies on earth have been making agreements with each other to move away from using the USD in international trade (Image: https://lnkd.in/eAP8tF3B) … [this shift is] going to have massive implications for the US economy.
10 reasons why the reign of the dollar as the world reserve currency [may] come to an end:
#1: China And Japan To Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
The 2nd largest economy (China) and 3rd largest economy (Japan) struck a deal [to] use of their own currencies. This was an incredibly important agreement that was virtually totally ignored by the US media. [Read an extract of the BBC in the article].
#2: The BRICS Plan To Use Own Currencies When Trading
A new agreement will promote the use of their own national currencies when trading with each other. [An extract from a news source in India is in the article].
#3: China and Russia Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
[In fact,] Russia and China have been using their own national currencies when trading with each other for more than a year now.
#4: Use Of Chinese Currency Growing In Africa
In 2009, China became Africa’s biggest trading partner, and is aggressively seeking to expand the use of Chinese currency. At this point, approx. 70,000 Chinese companies are using Yuan in cross-border transactions.
#5: China and UAE To Use Own Currencies In Bilateral Trade
– in oil transactions with each other. The UAE is a fairly small player, but this is definitely a threat to the petrodollar system.
#6: India To Use Gold To Buy Oil From Iran
Iran has been one of the most aggressive nations when it comes to moving away from the USD in international trade.
#7: Saudi Arabia Likely to Abandon Use of Petrodollar in Dealings With China
[China] imports the most oil from Saudi Arabia. [They] have teamed up to construct a massive new oil refinery in Saudi.
#8: The UN Continues to Push For A New World Reserve Currency
#9: The IMF Has Been Pushing For A New World Reserve Currency
– published a series of reports calling for the USD to be replaced.
#10: Most Of The Rest Of The World Hates The US
Global sentiment toward the US has dramatically shifted, and this should not be underestimated.
What will happen if the USD’s reign as the world reserve currency comes to an end? It will bring very undesirable changes to the American lifestyle through:
1. massive inflation,
2. high interest rates on mortgages and cars,
3. substantial increases in the cost of food, clothing and gasoline; and
4. a much harder time financing its debt [$30 trillion and counting].
Under the right conditions, a shift in momentum can become a landslide.”
So stop with cruel sanctions and printing of new US dollars to fund senseless wars.
Life in Florida when things were affordable, and people could raise families on a single income without having to ascribe to “systems” and pay “fees” in support of “taxes” all to go to a “government” to generate more “wars of distraction”.
Ford Fairlane, 1956
Article 8
I see all of this as late-stage decay, and the beginnigns of a rebirth. Whether or not it will be catastrophic has yet to be seen, but I do remain hopeful.
As Plato observed, democracy runs through a life cycle from good feelings at having escaped oligarchy to a semi-oligarchic period until it reaches its final stage, narcissistic mob rule under protection by tyrants.
Then the tyrants import diversity to vote against the majority interest so the tyrants can rule, and then the society collapses into a third world ruin.
Modern people, who understand nothing other than human social intentions, thought the cycle did not apply to them, not realizing that it accurately diagnosed the cause/effect relationships that occur as people react to the precedent of equality.
When democracy enters its endgame, the destroyers have a leg up because they have taken over the institutions that formerly worked for the population and are now seeking to destroy that population so the foreigners can enthrone the tyrant.
As some have mentioned, tyranny is rule for its own sake, or people seeking power for their own benefit at the expense of the interests of the society. Tyrants would rather rule over ashes than be normal people in a healthy society.
Liberalization — the political arm of individualism, or the same “me first at the expense of all else” bourgeois pathology that underscores tyranny — creates inversion that eventually destroys the society.
It begins with liberating individuals by relaxing rules. These rules, derived from reality and culture, restrain individuals from selfishness and self-destructive pathologies. When they are removed, selfishness takes over.
After some time, this proves destructive, so people speak out. The inversion begins: the society bans any criticism of some liberalization, since the critics will upend the “progress” toward a Utopia of equality.
The more time passes, the worse things get and the louder the critics whine, so more stuff gets demonized, made taboo, or outright banned until all that is left are terms that praise the system as it is.
Language has become inverted at that point, as has meaning. Nothing can be said but praise of the inevitable march from Enlightenment™ to Communism, and anyone who wants to be allowed to speak in public must affirm that the “arc of history” leads toward this progress.
Eventually, however, this order inverts. The things that people praise become seen as failing or failed. The terms that were once positive become handy shorthand for describing things which do not work so well. The inverted is in turn inverted.
These civilizations die from disinterest in a wave of combined apathy and anarchy. The system sucks, but no one who says this will be allowed to be anything but desperately poor, so the “experts” form an echo chamber that agrees that things are not failing, but better than ever before!
Then things fall apart. Those who thought they were running a successful society start to see that they are running a failure. They rush to implement their tyranny before the population bails out.
Unfortunately for them, however, they think in terms of enemies only when the real threat to them is lack of belief. Conjectural, messianic, and Utopian (CMU) systems like liberalization require people to believe that things are getting better.
When anyone succeeds without them, people realize belatedly that the whole liberalization project was never needed, and life is in fact better without that overhead of management, bureaucracy, administration, regulation, and wealth transfer taxes.
At this point, no one in the real world believes in the system, but those who depend on it — celebrities, media, minorities, government employees, regulations lawyers, and academics — defend it, fooling most of the people for some time.
Then at some point, that time ends, and the average person starts to see the system as the parasite that it always was. They do not oppose it so much as withdraw their support, sort of like how people stopped watching the NFL or Netflix shows.
Those who know that the system sucks but rationalize it so that they can continue to act out positions that were once important (here, we are speaking of post-Buckley “conservatives”) keep trying to explain the bad as good and failing.
People turn away. They turn toward their homes. They cheat aggressively on taxes and buy everything through the black market. They hide any wealth they have, and most importantly, do only a perfunctory job of their work role.
The would-be tyrants, in response to this loss of faith, crack down on those who visibly protest, in doing so revealing how they have been inverted. The defenders of equality and freedom have now become favoritists and authoritarians.
“These blockades are illegal, and if you are still participating the time to go home is now,” Trudeau declared after meeting virtually with leaders of the country’s provinces.Invoking the Emergencies Act would allow the government to declare the Ottawa protest illegal and clear it out by such means as towing vehicles, Wark said. It would also enable the government to make greater use of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal police agency.Over the past weeks, authorities have hesitated to move against the protesters. Local officials cited a lack of police manpower and fears of violence, while provincial and federal authorities disagreed over who had responsibility for quelling the unrest.
If you blow off a summer of burning cities and violence in the name of egalitarian causes, but then crack down on those who merely want you to slow your acceleration of transfer of wealth, power, and status from the naturally talented to the rest of the “equals,” then you reveal that you have been inverted.
The good guys, who made bad=good so that society could liberalize, now have become the bad guys.
Even the numb and slumbering voters realize at this point that now they are in an authoritarian regime. You either obey the dogma and read another “The Conservative Case for Pre-K Transsexual Sodomy” article, or you become an enemy of the State.
Following the collapse of its erswhile allies in freedom with the fall of the Soviet Union, modernity expanded according to precedent, increasing each one of these things through a world financial network known as globalism.
Now it has become clear that this New World Order has collapsed from within as disorder breaks out across the globe:
Looking back at the past 14 years, it is with some consternation that Wolfgang Ischinger “cannot recall a time when there were so many overlapping crises.” That’s a reference to the challenges posed by Iran, China and the evolving Euro-Atlantic security architecture. A long list that could still encompass many other global hot spots.Indeed, the extraordinary profusion of unresolved crises is itself the central topic in this year’s MSR.The report describes a mood of “collective helplessness.” In the same way as ordinary individuals, whole societies can be overcome by a sense that they simply have no answer to the challenges they face.
In other words, people have lost faith in the system and now are reverting to pre-civilization behaviors by acting toward their own personal and civilizational interests without regard to other groups.
This means that not only has democracy failed, but the underlying belief in equality, altruism, pluralism, utilitarianism, and socially-accepted individualism has faded away.
We are seeing a crisis of confidence in that no one is betting on democracy being around much longer. The collapse of American government shows us how little people believe in the goodness of modernity anymore:
In a poll last month, 66 percent of Democrats wanted Clinton questioned, a whopping 22 percentage points higher than how many in her party demanded a probe last October, according to TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (TIPP) research.The amount of Republicans demanding answers is also swelling, rising to 91 percent in January from 80 percent last October. Among the independent crowd, those wanting the former secretary of state probed rose to 74 percent from 65 percent.Clinton, 74, is being accused of hiring a tech term to ‘infiltrate’ servers at Trump Tower and the White House during the 2016 campaign.
Previous generations would have been shocked at this abuse of power, but in the current time, less care for the shared space of civilization seems evident. This seems to be changing.
In particular, for Democrats to know about Clintonian abuses of power — something essentially embargoed by the Left-leaning media and social media — requires them to be reading non-Left leaning sources.
This in turn means that they have already lost faith, even in their own party. The supposedly “good guys” inverted into the “bad guys,” leading people to see this as a systemic problem with the modern system.
…
I’ll tell youse guys. It all makes me yearn for a simpler time…
Playboy-style “bunny girls” serving a customer with a champagne lunch at Paul Raymond’s Bal Tabarin nightclub in Hanover Square, London, 11th February 1963.
Maybe our grandparents and our parents really knew better than us, with all of our new “progressive” ideas on life and relationships. Eh?
I’ll tell you what, they certainly ate better.
Steak Devine.
And they certainly dressed better. Not only the very attractive women…
Stunners!
But men did as well…
In style.
Sigh.
Article 9
One day, maybe twenty years from now, the United States government will rewrite the narrative and concoct some kind of illusion as to what really is going on now. But let this article stand as a reminder of this historical period of time of great change and the threat of great terror.
You may be aware of the fact that things aren’t going very well for the United States, but you may not know that things are going quite well for the Russian Federation.
You may also think that Russia is an evil force that needs to be contained, or that it is ruled by an evil dictator, or any number of such things while the US is a prosperous democracy and a superpower (whatever that means) but this makes no difference.
If you’ve been following recent events, you may be aware that Russia has recently presented the US with something like an ultimatum—demanding that the US provide it with certain security guarantees.
But you will probably be quite surprised to learn that the granting of these security guarantees will be automatic as the US continues to collapse and retreat into its hollowed-out, bankrupt shell, its rout from Afghanistan being by no means its last.
Nor would you be able to appreciate the fact that the security demands are designed to make America’s retreat from Eurasia maximally humiliating: not only will it retreat, but it will retreat because the Russians ordered it to do so.
Once that retreat takes place, Russia will no doubt be immensely, effusively grateful that America has finally faced up to its responsibilities and did the right thing by getting the hell out of Eurasia, gleefully rubbing salt into America’s wounds.
Russia will then joyfully make mincemeat of the Monroe Doctrine, spreading its influence, hand in hand with China, over the American continent, from Argentina to Mexico, leaving the US (whatever remains of it) sulking in its corner eating a pot of glue.
But there is a lot more gratitude that’s due for what’s already transpired. In fact, Russia should be thanking the US for all it’s done to make Russia a winner and the US a loser at every opportunity.
If it was a full scale war, there would not be any picures, cell phones or anything. Russia would be saturation bombing the living Hell out of the Ukraine. And, the NATO forces, and American bases would be under fire as well.
Some people want war so badly. Go to the link (opens in a new tab) and read al the great screeching details about the end-of-the-world, and Russian agression. It’s like a FOX “news” wet dream.
They have no idea what a REAL war is like.
I don’t believe it.
Some glimpses of the future
Let’s take a peek at what the world has in store for all of us if we adapt and embrace the Chinese model…
Spend time with friends and family. Don’t take your cats and dogs for granted. They need you and love you. That is precious, and their thoughts WILL influence your life.
Yes they will.
These are historic times. These are serious times, and these are times of opportunity. Do not allow yourself to be boxed in by the fear-generation mechanisms used to control, but rather rise up from them.
Carve out your own life.
Live it well.
This is a message we need to hear. Gut out the programming, and the rush-rush-rush. Hurry is the enemy of deep work, excellence, health, relationships, and the spiritual life. Period!
Live life well.
And, well, be the best that you can be within it. I beleive in you.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “New Beginnings 3” Index here…
Do you know what I could use right now? Yup. I could use a nice hot bowl of Chili, with thick globs of cheese on top, and a side of crunchy garlic bread. That’s what.
A delicious bowl of chili with Cheese.
And…
What I most like about this chili is substituting nice loaves of garlic bread to eat instead of the standard fare of crackers, goldfish crackers, or Doritos chips. I like nice garlic bread. Call me strange, but that’s what I like.
Delicious garlic bread.
I like to eat it with a nice piping HOT cup of coffee, myself. But you know a icy cold beer, or a nice wine in a normal everyday glass is fine as well.
The point of this is to eat and enjoy.
And what ever you do, turn off the “news”. It’s all lies.
As the United States collapses it is IMPERATIVE that the inmate / serfs are kept ignorant and unaware of the life in the rest of the world. They must still believe that American “democracy” is the best!
Don’t you know!
The Western elites have so successfully numbed their populations, so instilled deep apathy within the masses that even their glibly constructed propaganda has lost all potency.
Their propaganda is so far removed from the lives and concerns of ordinary people that it is only the elites who care about it.
Like the orobouros, the elites produce, consume and finally become their own propaganda.
Regardless, the world moves on ...
Posted by: Arch Bungle
A Comparison
Here’s Image Search for “China”.
Bing search for “China”.
Here’s an image search for “China BBC”
Image search for “China BBC”.
Why…
bottom line - stereotyping china in the worst possible way in the western media is the name of the game.. if people can't pick up this much, we're all in trouble... we went thru this with the msm doing the same with russia, iran and venezuala for how long? now china.. who whudda thunk it? lol..
Posted by: james | Dec 20 2021 18:24 utc | 7
Why so out of touch. Why so focused on discord?
It’s an American government directive.
The West must look to be the leader, and the enemies of the West must be painted in the most horrible images imaginable, and any one who shows the reality MUST be silenced.
In a way, and for what is a rather small and inconsequential event after all, this story is a very nice illustration of the entire western narrative building system in action. Lie, exaggerate the lie, when called on it double down on the lie from another angle, attack strawmen, and then perhaps, months later, admit some version of the facts buried in an inside page with no correction of the original story.
In the meantime, of course, the concept of China as this authoritarian boogieman continues to be implanted and nurtured in the western mind, which is the primary target of all this, to the effect that majorities now view China as the new and forever enemy, against whom we obviously need to spend trillions of dollars preparing for Armageddon, which was the objective all along.
And so, once again, the Times and the rest of the approved media have earned their keep.
Posted by: Caliman | Dec 20 2021
Funding for articles, media and “news” to counter the Chinese positive good stuff…
$7.1b use in Asia include funding a lot of “news” agencies, “dissidents”…. etc. etc. etc.
Your life in Shanghai sucks, okay?!: The West’s push to ban good news about China online
By Andy Boreham
I bet you never knew, before this week, that your life here in China is so miserable.
This week, The New York Times and an Australian think tank released their coordinated reports on foreign “influencers” and the supposed threat they pose.
Their verdict: Any positive news from China must necessarily be fake, funded by the Communist Party of China, and therefore should be labeled as “misinformation.”
The New York Times released a story titled “How Beijing Influences the Influencers,” which was created and strategically released in coordination with a report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a think tank that is largely funded by the arms industry (no, seriously).
Both reports posit foreign influencers in China posting positive and happy content online as agents of the state who need to be stopped at all costs.
Their crimes, according to The New York Times: painting
"...cheery portraits of life as foreigners in China."
They go on:
"Most of the YouTubers have lived in China for years and say their aim is to counter the West's increasingly negative perceptions of the country."
Evil stuff.
The ASPI report mainly focused on foreign influencers who have created content on Xinjiang. I happened to be included in their list because of some videos I made in Xinjiang exploring the ancient city of Kashgar and Urumqi, the regional capital.
They argued that content like mine aims to
"reframe international narratives by displaying a wholly positive image of life in Xinjiang."
But here’s the thing: Neither Xinjiang nor any other part of China deserves to be framed in an overwhelmingly negative light just because the West says so, regardless of all the hideous accusations they make about mass murder, genocide or whatever else.
And just for the record, as someone who has visited Xinjiang, works for Chinese state media and has read all the reports under the sun, I wholeheartedly believe there is no systemic mass murder or genocide going on in Xinjiang.
If I came across anything to make me believe otherwise I wouldn’t be here doing what I do.
If you don't find that attempt by the West to monopolize the "truth" about China, from outside China, to be absolutely terrifying, then you clearly haven't read "1984."
-Andy Boreham
The New York Times particularly took aim at videos like mine that portrayed Xinjiang without couching the entire content in politics, mass murder and genocide.
They attacked videos from a YouTube travel channel called The China Traveler because the videos were fun and colorful, and not covered in blood and filmed using the infamous “BBC gray” filter.
The "BBC Gray filter" is a real thing. They take stills from blogger's you-tube videos and turn the skies grey, turning the green trees grey, and turn the flowers ugly red grey.
In the videos, the host
"raves about the cuisine and interviews locals about how their lives have improved."
Great, sounds just like any other travel video on YouTube.
Oh, but they go on:
"Topics like re-education camps do not come up."
Wow.
Let me re-package what they are expecting of China travel vlogs and put the same requirements on US content, just to show you the level of ludicrous we’re dealing with here.
There's a consistent drum beat here from the U$A's propaganda driven MSM; Try to destroy the reputation of any nation who's seen as a competitor in commerce, or political system.Posted by: vetinLA | Dec 20 2021 19:19 utc | 17
Most average people would concede that the US total messed up their response to COVID-19. Already around 800,000 people have died because of the pandemic. That’s nearly 1 million people – a tragedy in anyone’s eyes.
Using ASPI’s logic, no YouTube travel vlogs about the US should be posted without first detailing the 800,000 who have died unnecessarily from COVID-19.
China, China
Regime, regime.
Tennis player, rape, rape
China, China, regime, regime
This is the narrative tinnitus miracle and it is all that really matters.
Posted by: robin | Dec 20 2021 20:25 utc | 23
Chicago is, in many people’s estimations, a dangerous and lawless place. Innocent people are gunned down on the streets there every single week. Does that mean US travel vloggers visiting the city and profiling its amazing nightlife, art scene, food and people are spreading propaganda and “attempting to change the narrative” if they don’t also talk about the hideous crime rate there? Of course not!
So why do they expect the same from China content?
Basically what The New York Times, ASPI and other Western organs are suggesting with their reports is that any positive news or content coming from China is fake and that it is propaganda.
They want content like mine – which simply showed two beautiful cities in Xinjiang in order to entice other foreigners to go and see the place with their own eyes – to be labeled as “misinformation” and flagged by Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the like.
"Platforms could explore the introduction of specific policies about misleading information,"
the Aussie think tank suggests.
"Such policies could include enforcement measures against violations similar to those that Twitter has implemented for sharing false or misleading information about COVID-19."
If you don’t find that attempt by the West to monopolize the “truth” about China, from outside China, to be absolutely terrifying, then you clearly haven’t read “1984.”
A well funded effort
Just came across this 1.5-minute clip of China’s former ambassador to the US talking about China’s need to pick a careful path in the face of US hostility.
Guess they see that the US is stopping at nothing, sparing no effort, to demonize China at every opportunity, and seem to be aware that this will likely get worse over the next few years.
After all, earlier this year, the US openly announced $1.2 billion for anti-China narrative efforts over the next four years (2022-2026) by the US Agency for Global Media …
The New York Times is one of the media herd leaders, and the establishment news media across the West – including here in Canada – all obediently follow the NYT/WaPo/CNN lead with no questions asked …
Orwell’s Ministry of Truth is well-funded and well-staffed. We will likely be getting even more Two Minutes Hate sessions over the next few years.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Dec 21 2021 3:42 utc | 49
It is purposeful distortions to keep Americans (the West) ignorant.
Here’s an interview with a VOA journalist. VOA is the US governments main propaganda arm that oversees most all “news”. It is funded by the NED, which is turn is funded out of the CIA. Listen and learn. video 60MB
America is a military empire
Toivos | Dec 20 2021 18:09 utc | 5
". . . both of those US national propaganda rags are whipping up support for war against both China and Russia. I do hope that they begin to realize that the US will lose those wars as well before it is too late."
Actually it has nothing to do with winning or losing. The US oligarchy simply demands that millions of working taxpayers continue shoveling their little bits of money to the billionaires, and the fastest and easiest way to get that done is to start wars. They don't care who wins or loses.
Posted by: AntiSpin | Dec 20 2021 20:53 utc | 26
And it is very dangerous and at all levels. Domestically and internationally. This keeps the wealthy in control while the rabble all fight amongst themselves. video 5MB
Anti China or not. You judge.
Face the realities of the world today. Not what you want to see, but what actually exists now today. video 3MB
Americans view war as normal
It is not. No. No. No. It is not normal, it should never be considered normal. video 8MB
I posted a take via The Guardian ( the cross Atlantic NYP) in the open thread.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/12/the-moa-week-in-review-ot-2021-099.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef02942f8f2cb4200c#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef02942f8f2cb4200c
What is revealing about this ‘pushback’ against western propaganda is that it is part of a full spectrum attack on western/nato hagemony that has been well advertised by the Empire killers Russia and China for many months now.
From the initial meetings with the new ‘sane’ Biden administration with the latest NSA and State department apparatchiks to the now very public documents of surrender which have been presented to them.
Of course it is couched in a manner that doesn’t expect an unconditional surrender but it does require it.
What I perceive is that over the last decade the Chinese and Russians played the whipping boys to the economic onslaught from some obscure department of the US state that arbitrarily imposed sanctions and stole money from sovereign states because they could.
It has been Imperial hubris.
The smart humans chose to use that hubris against the perpetrators.
Now as they pretended to cower under that onslaught they not only firmed up their collective military spine but have enrolled many other countries who have been subjected to similar economic actions.
They have set up alternative world banking!
They have also invested heavily and long term without onerous terms that the Workd Bank imposes.
They have given vaccines for pretty much free.
Now they are taking on the major force the West/nato Empire has built into what they believe is a dominant weapon - the power of the ‘blag’ the news & cultural hagemony.
The West/Nato have been allowed to lull into a false sense of that power of Narrative control over populations.
Unfortunately it only works on the West/nato populations who all consume the same monopoly media guff.
Many alternative platforms have been set up and largely free of control.
Except for interference by the Western platforms and their controllers.
It is now moving to a open full spectrum, all frontal counter attack.
The last time it stopped in Berlin by pre agreement. This time ...with a modern China economic and human superpower and all the allies they are daily accumulating it is a done deal.
History may yet still record the Peng Shuai moment as a momentous point in this war of Empires.
Posted by: D.G. | Dec 21 2021 1:23 utc | 43
The BOTTOM LINE
Yes, he spells it out completely. This is the reality. Pure and simple. China has a political system that is determined by real practical results. Not on some nebulous ideal that can never be obtained, measured or implemented.
Enough of this bullshit. Within a few years any accurate reporting of China will be effectively squashed, and zero free press will be permitted. It’s all in the pipe and going to happen.
The methodology for getting around the First Amendment (In the Bill of Rights) is to have all the Social Media Platforms suppress any bloggers reporting on China unless it meets the Government approved narrative.
It’s all the lead up to war, don’t you know.
Of course, by then either [1] the Second civil war will be a raging, or [2] a nuclear exchange will take place. In which even there won’t be much of anyone reading the “news”.
Shee-it!
As I have said earlier in other posts, there are adults “in the room” who have the entire situation at hand. Let the USA isolate itself. Let it try to start a war. let it trash about and thrash, and squirm.
It’s not going to make a difference. It really won’t.
History is clear.
There just isn’t any way to escape the fated programmed obsolesce. There is no escape.
It’s time for me to chill and smunch. I’ll tell you what. Enjoy where you are right now. Enjoy who you are with right now. Enjoy what you have right now. Enjoy the weather, no matter what it is right now.
Right now.
Food, movie, chat with a friend, a coffee, a bike ride, a workout, a park adventure, a beer in a pub, some sex, hanging out with your beloved pet, and a good book. What ever you do, do it right now.
Eat well.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
Well, it is, at least it is not something that I myself would want to do. But that is just me. But I can tell you all something that is important; there are many crafty, clever, and evil people who follow this rule to the letter.
I can include an ex-business partner who only wanted to get into my wife’s pants (or skirt), a couple of work colleagues who would perform run-arounds to disparage me in their pursuit for career growth, and a couple of family members that have an unsavory two-faced attitude about life.
So to best prepare you for these individuals, you must understand how they think and how their ModusOperandi works.
Thus this article…
LAW 14
POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY
JUDGMENT
Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.
OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW
Joseph Duveen was undoubtedly the greatest art dealer of his time—from 1904 to 1940 he almost single-handedly monopolized America’s millionaire art-collecting market. But one prize plum eluded him: the industrialist Andrew Mellon. Before he died, Duveen was determined to make Mellon a client.
Duveen’s friends said this was an impossible dream.
Mellon was a stiff, taciturn man.
The stories he had heard about the congenial, talkative Duveen rubbed him the wrong way—he had made it clear he had no desire to meet the man.
Yet Duveen told his doubting friends, “Not only will Mellon buy from me but he will buy only from me.”
For several years he tracked his prey, learning the man’s habits, tastes, phobias.
To do this, he secretly put several of Mellon’s staff on his own payroll, worming valuable information out of them.
By the time he moved into action, he knew Mellon about as well as Mellon’s wife did.
In 1921 Mellon was visiting London, and staying in a palatial suite on the third floor of Claridge’s Hotel.
Duveen booked himself into the suite just below Mellon’s, on the second floor.
He had arranged for his valet to befriend Mellon’s valet, and on the fateful day he had chosen to make his move, Mellon’s valet told Duveen’s valet, who told Duveen, that he had just helped Mellon on with his overcoat, and that the industrialist was making his way down the corridor to ring for the lift.
Duveen’s valet hurriedly helped Duveen with his own overcoat.
Seconds later, Duveen entered the lift, and lo and behold, there was Mellon.
“How do you do, Mr. Mellon?” said Duveen, introducing himself. “I am on my way to the National Gallery to look at some pictures.”
How uncanny—that was precisely where Mellon was headed.
And so Duveen was able to accompany his prey to the one location that would ensure his success.
He knew Mellon’s taste inside and out, and while the two men wandered through the museum, he dazzled the magnate with his knowledge.
Once again quite uncannily, they seemed to have remarkably similar tastes.
Mellon was pleasantly surprised: This was not the Duveen he had expected.
The man was charming and agreeable, and clearly had exquisite taste.
When they returned to New York, Mellon visited Duveen’s exclusive gallery and fell in love with the collection.
Everything, surprisingly enough, seemed to be precisely the kind of work he wanted to collect.
For the rest of his life he was Duveen’s best and most generous client.
Interpretation
A man as ambitious and competitive as Joseph Duveen left nothing to chance.
What’s the point of winging it, of just hoping you may be able to charm this or that client?
It’s like shooting ducks blindfolded.
Arm yourself with a little knowledge and your aim improves.
Mellon was the most spectacular of Duveen’s catches, but he spied on many a millionaire.
By secretly putting members of his clients’ household staffs on his own payroll, he would gain constant access to valuable information about their masters’ comings and goings, changes in taste, and other such tidbits of information that would put him a step ahead.
A rival of Duveen’s who wanted to make Henry Frick a client noticed that whenever he visited this wealthy New Yorker, Duveen was there before him, as if he had a sixth sense.
To other dealers Duveen seemed to be everywhere, and to know everything before they did.
His powers discouraged and disheartened them, until many simply gave up going after the wealthy clients who could make a dealer rich.
Such is the power of artful spying: It makes you seem all-powerful, clairvoyant.
Your knowledge of your mark can also make you seem charming, so well can you anticipate his desires.
No one sees the source of your power, and what they cannot see they cannot fight.
Rulers see through spies, as cows through smell, Brahmins through scriptures and the rest of the people through their normal eyes.
Kautilya, Indian philosopher third century B. C.
KEYS TO POWER
In the realm of power, your goal is a degree of control over future events. Part of the problem you face, then, is that people won’t tell you all their thoughts, emotions, and plans.
Controlling what they say, they often keep the most critical parts of their character hidden—their weaknesses, ulterior motives, obsessions.
The result is that you cannot predict their moves, and are constantly in the dark.
The trick is to find a way to probe them, to find out their secrets and hidden intentions, without letting them know what you are up to.
This is not as difficult as you might think.
A friendly front will let you secretly gather information on friends and enemies alike.
Let others consult the horoscope, or read tarot cards: You have more concrete means of seeing into the future.
The most common way of spying is to use other people, as Duveen did. The method is simple, powerful, but risky: You will certainly gather information, but you have little control over the people who are doing the work.
Perhaps they will ineptly reveal your spying, or even secretly turn against you.
It is far better to be the spy yourself, to pose as a friend while secretly gathering information.
The French politician Talleyrand was one of the greatest practitioners of this art.
He had an uncanny ability to worm secrets out of people in polite conversation.
A contemporary of his, Baron de Vitrolles, wrote,
“Wit and grace marked his conversation. He possessed the art of concealing his thoughts or his malice beneath a transparent veil of insinuations, words that imply something more than they express. Only when necessary did he inject his own personality.”
The key here is Talleyrand’s ability to suppress himself in the conversation, to make others talk endlessly about themselves and inadvertently reveal their intentions and plans.
Throughout Talleyrand’s life, people said he was a superb conversationalist—yet he actually said very little.
He never talked about his own ideas; he got others to reveal theirs.
He would organize friendly games of charades for foreign diplomats, social gatherings where, however, he would carefully weigh their words, cajole confidences out of them, and gather information invaluable to his work as France’s foreign minister.
At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) he did his spying in other ways: He would blurt out what seemed to be a secret (actually something he had made up), then watch his listeners’ reactions.
He might tell a gathering of diplomats, for instance, that a reliable source had revealed to him that the czar of Russia was planning to arrest his top general for treason.
By watching the diplomats’ reactions to this made-up story, he would know which ones were most excited by the weakening of the Russian army—perhaps their governments had designs on Russia?
As Baron von Stetten said, “Monsieur Talleyrand fires a pistol into the air to see who will jump out the window.”
If you have reason to suspect that a person is telling you a lie, look as though you believed every word he said. This will give him courage to go on; he will become more vehement in his assertions, and in the end betray himself. Again, if you perceive that a person is trying to conceal something from you, but with only partial success, look as though you did not believe him. The opposition on your part will provoke him into leading out his reserve of truth and bringing the whole force of it to bear upon your incredulity.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER, 1788-1860
During social gatherings and innocuous encounters, pay attention.
This is when people’s guards are down.
By suppressing your own personality, you can make them reveal things.
The brilliance of the maneuver is that they will mistake your interest in them for friendship, so that you not only learn, you make allies.
Nevertheless, you should practice this tactic with caution and care.
If people begin to suspect you are worming secrets out of them under the cover of conversation, they will strictly avoid you.
Emphasize friendly chatter, not valuable information.
Your search for gems of information cannot be too obvious, or your probing questions will reveal more about yourself and your intentions than about the information you hope to find.
A trick to try in spying comes from La Rochefoucauld, who wrote,
“Sincerity is found in very few men, and is often the cleverest of ruses— one is sincere in order to draw out the confidence and secrets of the other.”
By pretending to bare your heart to another person, in other words, you make them more likely to reveal their own secrets.
Give them a false confession and they will give you a real one.
Another trick was identified by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who suggested vehemently contradicting people you’re in conversation with as a way of irritating them, stirring them up so that they lose some of the control over their words.
In their emotional reaction they will reveal all kinds of truths about themselves, truths you can later use against them.
Another method of indirect spying is to test people, to lay little traps that make them reveal things about themselves.
Chosroes II, a notoriously clever seventh-century king of the Persians, had many ways of seeing through his subjects without raising suspicion.
If he noticed, for instance, that two of his courtiers had become particularly friendly, he would call one of them aside and say he had information that the other was a traitor, and would soon be killed.
The king would tell the courtier he trusted him more than anyone, and that he must keep this information secret.
Then he would watch the two men carefully.
If he saw that the second courtier had not changed in his behavior toward the king, he would conclude that the first courtier had kept the secret, and he would quickly promote the man, later taking him aside to confess,
“I meant to kill your friend because of certain information that had reached me, but, when I investigated the matter, I found it was untrue.”
If, on the other hand, the second courtier started to avoid the king, acting aloof and tense, Chosroes would know that the secret had been revealed.
He would ban the second courtier from his court, letting him know that the whole business had only been a test, but that even though the man had done nothing wrong, he could no longer trust him.
The first courtier, however, had revealed a secret, and him Chosroes would ban from his entire kingdom.
It may seem an odd form of spying that reveals not empirical information but a person’s character.
Often, however, it is the best way of solving problems before they arise.
By tempting people into certain acts, you learn about their loyalty, their honesty, and so on.
And this kind of knowledge is often the most valuable of all: Armed with it, you can predict their actions in the future.
Image:
The Third Eye of the Spy. In the land of
the two-eyed, the third eye gives you the omniscience
of a god. You see further than others, and you see deeper into them. Nobody is
safe from the eye but you.
Authority:
Now, the reason a brilliant sovereign and a wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is their foreknowledge of the enemy situation. This “foreknowledge” cannot be elicited from spirits, nor from gods, nor by analogy with past events, nor by astrologic calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation—from spies.
(Sun-tzu, The Art of War, fourth century B.C.)
REVERSAL
Information is critical to power, but just as you spy on other people, you must be prepared for them to spy on you.
One of the most potent weapons in the battle for information, then, is giving out false information.
As Winston Churchill said,
“Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
You must surround yourself with such a bodyguard, so that your truth cannot be penetrated.
By planting the information of your choice, you control the game.
…
In 1944 the Nazis’ rocket-bomb attacks on London suddenly escalated.
Over two thousand V-1 flying bombs fell on the city, killing more than five thousand people and wounding many more.
Somehow, however, the Germans consistently missed their targets.
Bombs that were intended for Tower Bridge, or Piccadilly, would fall well short of the city, landing in the less populated suburbs.
This was because, in fixing their targets, the Germans relied on secret agents they had planted in England.
They did not know that these agents had been discovered, and that in their place, English-controlled agents were feeding them subtly deceptive information.
The bombs would hit farther and farther from their targets every time they fell.
By the end of the campaign they were landing on cows in the country.
By feeding people wrong information, then, you gain a potent advantage.
While spying gives you a third eye, disinformation puts out one of your enemy’s eyes.
A cyclops, he always misses his target.
Conclusion
Do not be a fake friend. What ever advantage that it might provide to you, will be offset by an equal degradation in your other relationships.
Don’t do it.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my “48 Laws of Power” Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
'Murikans are just natural born retards. And arrogant ones at that.
Posted by: Et Tu | Apr 17 2021 18:06 utc | 1
As I have repeatedly stated, the most dangerous propaganda is the propaganda that you want to believe. And it is so very easy to control the narrative when you control all media, and suppress any alternative voices. Which is exactly how the American (and Western) press operates these days.
While I have mentioned these absurd articles in the past, I pretty much assumed that the reader would realize their sheer insanity. But later, when we watched Donald Trump and his cabal of neocon advisors actually believe the echo chamber that they created, it runs shivers down my spine. Just how stupid can people be?
Ai!
They can be pretty darn stupid. Ya!
Well, if all you know is what is presented to you, then you have nothing else to go by. And this is what is presented to you. The following is from BING Image Search.
It’s anti-China article after anti-China article focusing on XinJiang…
Well, if you have no other source of news, and the ONLY news you get is the absurd, then you tend to believe it.
No matter how bat-shit crazy it actually is.
You believe it simply because you have no other source of information.
Why the anti-China propaganda about the Uighur Muslims…
Xinjiang is a major logistics center for China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. Xinjiang is the gateway to Central and West Asia, as well as to European markets.
The Southern Xinjiang Railway runs to the city of Kashgar in China’s far west where it is now connected to Pakistan’s rail network under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a project of the BRI.
The U.S. government is deeply hostile to this vast economic development project and is doing all it can to sabotage China’s plans. This campaign is part of the U.S. military’s “Pivot to Asia,” along with naval threats in the South China Sea and support for separatist movements in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet.
The BRI must be stopped at all costs!
It connects Russia, Iran to China, and thus opens up a direct trade route to Europe that bypasses all naval shipping.
It bypasses all shipping by water.
Shipping that has had the sword ofdamocles on it ever since the USA placed assault carrier battle groups, and hunter-killer submarines there. All as a threat that China must do as America demands; the “rules based order”, or America will destroy all shipping.
The "swordofDamocles" is a modern expression, which to us means a senseofimpendingdoom, thefeeling that there is some catastrophic threat loomingover you.
That's not exactly its original meaning, however. The expression comes to us from the writings of the Roman politician, orator, and philosopherCicero (106-43 BC).
-What Did Cicero MeanbytheSword of Damocles?
So what is this “rules based order”? Why doesn’t China obey?
Well, the “rules based order” is very simple. America makes the rules. You obey them, and the UN is completely ignored.
No U.N. report on Xinjiang
The U.S. and its corporate media charge that the Chinese government has rounded up 1 million people, mainly Uyghurs, into concentration camps. News reports cite the United Nations as their source.
This was disputed in a detailed investigative report by Ben Norton and Ajit Singh titled, “No, the UN did not report China has ‘massive internment camps’ for Uighur Muslims.” (The Grayzone.com, Aug. 23, 2018) They expose how this widely publicized claim is based entirely on unsourced allegations by a single U.S. member, Gay McDougall, on an “independent committee” with an official sounding name: U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that no U.N. body or official has made such a charge against China.
CIA/NED-funded ‘human rights’
After this fraudulent news story received wide coverage, it was followed by “reports” from the Washington-based Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. This group receives most of its funds from U.S. government grants, primarily from the CIA-linked National Endowment for Democracy, a major source of funding for U.S. “regime change” operations around the world.
Here’s a fellow in Washington DC “rubber stamping” the use of a local proxy force to attack China with…
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders shares the same Washington address as Human Rights Watch. The HRW has been a major source of attacks on governments targeted by the U.S., such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Syria and China. The network has long called for sanctions against China.
The CHRD’s sources include Radio Free Asia, a news agency funded for decades by the U.S. government. The World Uighur Congress, another source of sensationalized reports, is also funded by NED. The same U.S. government funding is behind the International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation and the Uyghur American Association.
The authors of the Grayzone article cite years of detailed IRS filing forms to back up their claim. They list millions of dollars in generous government funding — to generate false reports.
This whole network of supposedly impartial civil society groups, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks and news sources operates under the cover of “human rights” to promote sanctions and war.
CIA-funded terror
Central Asia has experienced the worst forms of U.S. military power.
Beginning in 1979, the CIA, operating with the ISI Pakistani Intelligence Service and Saudi money, funded and equipped reactionary Mujahedeen forces in Afghanistan to bring down a revolutionary government there. The U.S. cultivated and promoted extreme religious fanaticism, based in Saudi Arabia, against progressive secular regimes in the region. This reactionary force was also weaponized against the Soviet Union and an anti-imperialist Islamic current represented by the Iranian Revolution.
For four decades, the CIA and secret Pakistan ISI forces in Afghanistan sought to recruit and train Uyghur mercenaries, planning to use them as a future terror force in China. Chechnyans from Russia’s Caucasus region were recruited for the same reason. Both groups were funneled into Syria in the U.S. regime-change operation there. These fanatical religious forces, along with other small ethnic groups, formed the backbone of the Islamic State group (IS) and Al-Qaida.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center bombing, the very forces that U.S. secret operations had helped to create became the enemy.
Uyghurs from Xinjiang were among the Al-Qaida prisoners captured in Afghanistan and held in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo for years without charges. Legal appeals exposed that the Uyghur prisoners were being held there under some of the worst conditions in solitary confinement.
U.S. wars dislocate region
The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and the massive U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 created shockwaves of dislocation. Social progress, education, health care and infrastructure were destroyed. Sectarian and ethnic division was encouraged to divide opposition to U.S. occupations. Despite promises of great progress, the U.S. occupations sowed only destruction.
In this long war, U.S. prisons in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq were notorious. The CIA used “enhanced interrogation” techniques — torture — and secret rendition to Guantanamo, Bagram and the Salt Pit in Afghanistan. These secret prisons have since been the source of many legal suits.
According to U.N. investigations, by 2010 the U.S. held more than 27,000 prisoners in over 100 secret facilities around the world. Searing images and reports of systematic torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq and Bagram airbase in Afghanistan surfaced.
Exposing coverup of war crimes
In July 2010 WikiLeaks published more than 75,000 classified U.S./NATO reports on the war in Afghanistan.
In October of that year, a massive leak of 400,000 military videos, photos and documents exposed, in harrowing detail, torture, summary executions and other war crimes. Army intelligence analyst former Private Chelsea Manning released this damning material to WikiLeaks.
Based on the leaked documents, the U.N. chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, called on U.S. President Barack Obama to order a full investigation of these crimes, including abuse, torture, rape and murder committed against the Iraqi people following the U.S. invasion and occupation.
The leaked reports provided documentary proof of 109,000 deaths — including 66,000 civilians. This is seldom mentioned in the media, in contrast to the highly publicized and unsourced charges now raised against China.
Prosecuting whistle blowers
The CIA’s National Endowment for Democracy pays handsomely for unsourced documents making claims of torture against China, while those who provided documentary proof of U.S. torture have been treated as criminals.
John Kiriakou, who worked for the CIA between 1990 and 2004 and confirmed widespread use of systematic torture, was prosecuted by the Obama administration for revealing classified information and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Chelsea Manning’s release of tens of thousands of government documents confirming torture and abuse, in addition to horrific photos of mass killings, have led to her continued incarceration. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is imprisoned in Britain and faces deportation to the U.S. for his role in disseminating these documents.
Rewriting history
How much of the coverage of Xinjiang is intended to deflect world attention from the continuing crimes of U.S. wars — from Afghanistan to Syria?
In 2014 a Senate CIA Torture Report confirmed that a torture program, called “Detention and Interrogation Program,” had been approved by top U.S. officials. Only a 525-page Executive Summary of its 6,000 pages was released, but it was enough to confirm that the CIA program was far more brutal and extensive than had previously been released.
Mercenaries flood into Syria
The U.S. regime-change effort to overturn the government of Syria funneled more than 100,000 foreign mercenaries and fanatical religious forces into the war. They were well-equipped with advanced weapons, military gear, provisions and paychecks.
One-third of the Syrian population was uprooted in the war. Millions of refugees flooded into Europe and neighboring countries.
Beginning in 2013, thousands of Uyghur fighters were smuggled into Syria to train with the extremist Uyghur group known as the Turkistan Islamic Party. Fighting alongside Al-Qaida and Al-Nusra terror units, these forces played key roles in several battles.
Reuters, Associated Press and Newsweek all reported that up to 5,000 Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghurs from Xinjiang were fighting in various “militant” groups in Syria.
According to Syrian media, a transplanted Uyghur colony transformed the city of al Zanbaka (on the Turkish border) into an entrenched camp of 18,000 people. Many of the Uyghur fighters were smuggled to the Turkish-Syrian border area with their families. Speaking Turkish, rather than Chinese, they relied on the support of the Turkish secret services.
China follows a different path
China is determined to follow a different path in dealing with fanatical groups that are weaponized by religious extremism. China’s action comes after terror attacks and explosives have killed hundreds of civilians in busy shopping areas and crowded train and bus stations since the 1990s.
China has dealt with the problem of religious extremism by setting up large-scale vocational education and training centers. Rather than creating worse underdevelopment through bombing campaigns, it is seeking to engage the population in education, skill development and rapid economic and infrastructure development.
Terrorist attacks in Xinjiang have stopped since the reeducation campaigns began in 2017.
Two worldviews of Xinjiang
In July of 2020, 22 countries, most in Europe plus Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, sent a letter to the U.N. Human Rights Council criticizing China for mass arbitrary detentions and other violations against Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. The statement did not include a single signature from a Muslim-majority state.
Days later, a far larger group of 34 countries — now expanded to 54 from Asia, Africa and Latin America — submitted a letter in defense of China’s policies. These countries expressed their firm support of China’s counterterrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang.
More than a dozen member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the U.N. signed the statement.
A further statement on Oct. 31 to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly explained that a number of diplomats, international organizations, officials and journalists had traveled to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counterterrorism and deradicalization.
“What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the [Western] media,” said the statement.
The Head Scratchers…
Of course, no one is talking about the real “head scratchers”; why [1] American war machine is currently fighting eight wars against Muslims presently, would be wanting to help the Muslims inside of China. Or, [2] that the BRI, which connects Russia, Iran and China together goes right though Xinjiang. Or that [3] all the articles are all aligned with the Western five-eyes dissemination mills.
It’s an onslaught of the ridiculous for the idiotic to believe.
Here’s a work of “science fiction” which is being promoted as a true reality within China.
This is a great read… argumentum ad absurdum on a plate.
There are now so few Uyghurs left in Xinjiang now that they are dressing up Han Chinese to do dance performances for tourists.
Summary of the nonsense article…
Oh what amazing nonsense!
The CCP has run out of money to maintain its concentration camps and is now resorting to other means.
China has now moved on to the final solution.
The aim is to kill ⅔ of the population. About 10 Million people.
The number of Uyghurs detained and presumed dead now already exceeds the number of Jews killed in the holocaust.
In one county 80% of the population has disappeared.
Only 1/3rd of the Uyghur population is being kept alive for proof of life, forced labour, vaccine testing, organ harvesting and biological weapons testing.
Uyghurs in detention are divided for organ harvesting, biological experimentation and other purposes including simple extermination.
The government has gone to great pains to conceal the actual Uyghur population, downplaying the numbers and then gradually adjusting it upwards to conceal the fact that between 6-11 million people are unaccounted for.
They are using chemicals to dispose of the bodies rather than mass graves and destroying all evidence of previous identities.
Uyghur women are subjected to forced sterilizations, forced contraception and forced abortions.
(We already know that…) Females in detention are being routinely gang raped by guards as form of torture.
They are also using school children for vaccine testing.
All Uyghur language, religion and culture in the region is now gone.
The region has become like a deranged Disneyland, with paid actors performing the roles of genuine Uyghurs.
The government initially billeted Han Chinese to learn Uyghurs skills and then sent the Uyghurs themselves to concentration camps
The people you see in Xinjiang tourist attractions, the people you see singing and dancing and playing instruments, are Han Chinese but dressed up like Uyghurs.
Well, it seems that some sanity is returning….
From my email…
Read this….
Why is the West suddenly concerned about Uyghur Muslim ‘genocide’?
A motion by Senator Rex Patrick to label China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority as genocide failed to pass Australia’s Senate on 17 March.
Unusually, this leaves Australia slightly out of step with its main ally, the United States, and fellow “Five Eyes” country Canada, which have both labelled China’s policy in the Xinjiang region as genocide, starting with a declaration by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and reiterated by his successor Antony Blinken.
The drumbeat in Australia against China’s policy continues.
However, as seen in the discussion on the ABC’s 15 April QandA program, when a questioner demanded Australia cut off trade with China over the issue, and a panelist compared China’s policy to Nazi Germany.
So why the sudden prominence of this issue?
The Citizens Party has had more than 30 years of experience in analyzing foreign policy and geopolitical issues.
We have opposed the dangerous lurch towards confrontation with Russia and China, including through proxy regime-change interventions, by the USA and UK and their allies, including Australia.
Elements of the Xinjiang allegations immediately raised suspicions.
Including the sudden concern being expressed for Uyghur Muslims by extreme right-wing US and UK neoconservatives who have spent decades demonising Muslims in their countries.
As well as championing wars that have killed millions of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa.
Another cause for suspicion was the overlap between the “human rights” narrative about Xinjiang, and the similar human rights narratives against Syria and Libya starting in 2011.
Too similar for comfort.
Both of which were accused of atrocities against their own people.
Of course, omitting that the “rebel” groups opposed to those “regimes” were extremist jihadists either aligned with al-Qaeda or actual members of al-Qaeda.
The very terrorist organization blamed for 9/11 that our soldiers are supposedly fighting in Afghanistan.
The Office of the Legal Advisor at the US State Department has recently fueled more suspicion.
In effect, contradicting the current and former Secretaries of State by finding there’s insufficient evidence to call China’s Xinjiang policy genocide after all.
Original research
The Citizens Party has therefore conducted its own research into the Xinjiang issue, to situate the claims in their fullest historical and geopolitical context.
This research led to an eight-article series in the Citizens Party’s weekly magazine the Australian Alert Service in November 2020–March 2021.
The Citizens Party urges everyone who is concerned about this issue to download and read the whole package.
As the USA, UK and European Union…
—with applause from the Australian government—
…slap sanctions on China for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang…
… and the weighty term “genocide” is thrown around without evidence…
… our series demystifies what is going on in and around Xinjiang, and why.
We expose the Anglo-American sponsorship of “East Turkistan” separatism.
As well as the Anglo-American fostering of radical Islamist terrorism, which hit China hard from the 1990s up to 2014 and prompted tough anti-terror programs.
We detail how al-Qaeda and its successors grew out of US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s program to strike at the Soviet Union’s “soft underbelly” in Central Asia.
He did this, even at the risk of nuclear war, by backing the Afghanistan mujaheddin against Soviet forces in Afghanistan in 1979.
Young ethnic Uyghurs from Xinjiang fought in Afghanistan and received US- and Saudi-funded training in Pakistan;
Some went back home to “destabilise China”.
Which is the exact the words of Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
We also recount the history of “Pan-Turkism” and its activation against Russia and then China after the breakup of the USSR.
The final two articles deal with the decades-long manipulation of the Uyghur diaspora by Anglo-American intelligence agencies.
This also includes those operating under the banner of “human rights”, like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
As with the so-called Captive Nations groups during the Cold War, the diaspora is exploited as a propaganda base.
Not only to destabilize or even fragment the targeted country, but also to set “thought rules” for public opinion and political circles elsewhere.
For example, in the USA or Australia.
Uyghur émigré groups uniformly oppose China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
They do so, even as it raises living standards in Xinjiang, all China and abroad.
Since China has recently been practically the sole engine of world economic growth…
… while cultivating scientific optimism in its education policies and a commitment to promoting classical culture…
… a strategic posture that exploits the Uyghurs of Xinjiang to attack China is insane.
Here are the chapter titles from our report. The first two pages of the Special Report PDF are a full, annotated table of contents.
Part 1. East-West gateway on the Silk Road
Part 2. The Arc of Crisis
Part 3. Xinjiang becomes a target
Part 4. Pan-Turkism
Part 5. The Anglo-American-Saudi promotion of violent jihad
Part 6. ‘Afghan’ jihadist terrorism come to Xinjiang
Parts 7 and 8. The ‘East Turkistan’ narrative
China detaining millions of Uyghurs? Serious problems with claims by US-backed NGO and far-right researcher ‘led by God’ against Beijing
Reprinted as found. All credit to the original author, and please kindly note that it was edited to fit within this venue.
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.
It is legislation which calls for the Donald Trump administration to impose sanctions against China over allegations.
Allegations that Beijing has detained millions of Muslim-majority Uyghurs in the western region of Xinjiang.
To drum up support for the sanctions bill, Western governments and media outlets have portrayed the People’s Republic as a human rights violator on par with Nazi Germany.
Republican Rep. Chris Smith, for instance, denounced the Chinese government for what he called the “mass internment of millions on a scale not seen since the Holocaust,” in “modern-day concentration camps.”
The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region is repeated with increasing frequency.
However, little scrutiny is ever applied.
Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a serious deficiency in data.
The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation.
It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.
As Washington ratchets up pressure on China, Zenz has been lifted out of obscurity and transformed almost overnight into a go-to pundit on Xinjiang.
He has testified before Congress, providing commentary in outlets from the Wall Street Journal to Democracy Now!
As well as delivering expert quotes in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ recent “China Cables” report.
His Twitter bio notes that he is “moving across the Atlantic” from his native Germany.
Before Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal questioned Zenz about his religious “mission,” at a recent event about Xinjiang inside the US Capitol, he had received almost entirely uncritical promotion from Western media.
The Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which first popularized the “millions detained” figure, has also been able to operate without a hint of media scrutiny.
Washington-backed NGO claims millions detained after interviewing eight people
The “millions detained” figure was first popularized by a Washington, DC-based NGO that is backed by the US government, the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD).
In a 2018 report submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination…
… often misrepresented in Western media as a UN-authored report…
… CHRD “estimate[d] that roughly one million members of ethnic Uyghurs have been sent to ‘re-education’ detention camps.
As well as roughly two million have been forced to attend ‘re-education’ programs in Xinjiang.”
According to CHRD, this figure was “[b]ased on interviews and limited data.”
While CHRD states that it interviewed dozens of ethnic Uyghurs in the course of its study, their enormous estimate was ultimately based on interviews with exactly eight Uyghur individuals.
This is all based on this absurdly small sample of research subjects in an area whose total population is 20 million.
The CHRD “extrapolated estimates” that
“at least 10% of villagers […] are being detained in re-education detention camps, and 20% are being forced to attend day/evening re-education camps in the villages or townships, totaling 30% in both types of camps.”
Applying these estimated rates to the entirety of Xinjiang, CHRD arrived at the figures submitted to the UN claiming that one million ethnic Uyghurs have been detained in “re-education detention camps” and two million more have been “forced to attend day/evening re-education sessions”.
“arbitrarily detain[ing] 800,000 to possibly more than two million Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other Muslims in internment camps designed to erase religious and ethnic identities.”
“there [are] no so-called ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang at all. The vocational education and training centers legally operated in Xinjiang aim to help a small number of people affected by terrorist and extremist ideologies and equip them with skills, so that they can be self-reliant and re-integrate into society.”
In its mounting pressure campaign against China, the US is not only relying on CHRD for data; it is directly funding its operations.
Together, the two helped found the World Anti-Communist League that was described by journalist Joe Conason as “the organizational haven for neo-Nazis, fascists, and anti-Semitic extremists from two dozen countries.”
Lev Dobriansky, pictured below with Eisenhower & Reagan, invented Captive Nations Week in 1959, and got Yaroslav Stetsko his first visa to the United States in 1958 against the wishes of the CIA & the State Department. Reagan appointed Dobriansky to be Ambassador to the Bahamas. pic.twitter.com/NmOvsnvNmg
— Moss Robeson (@mossrobeson__) July 19, 2019
Today, Dobriansky’s daughter, Paula, sits on the board of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
A former Reagan and George HW Bush official and signatory of the original Project for a New American Century document, Paula Dobriansky has become a fixture in neoconservative circles on Capitol Hill.
From its office in Washington, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation agitates for regime change from Venezuela to the periphery of China.
Zenz’s politicized research on Xinjiang and Tibet has proven one of this right-wing group’s most effective weapons.
In September of 2018, Zenz wrote an article published in the Central Asian Survey journal concluding that
“Xinjiang’s total re-education internment figure may be estimated at just over one million.”
(A condensed version of the article was initially published by the Jamestown Foundation, a neoconservative think tank founded during the height of the Cold War by Reagan administration personnel with the support of then-CIA Director William J. Casey).
Like the CHRD, Zenz arrived at his estimate “over 1 million” in a dubious manner.
He based it on a single report by Istiqlal TV, a Uyghur exile media organization based in Turkey, which was republished by Newsweek Japan.
Far from an impartial journalistic organization, Istiqlal TV advances the separatist cause while playing host to an assortment of extremist figures.
One such character who often appears on Istiqlal TV is Abdulkadir Yapuquan.
He is a reported leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a separatist group that aims to establish an independent homeland in Xinjiang called East Turkestan.
“2013, thousands of Uighurs… have traveled to Syria to train with the Uighur militant group Turkistan Islamic Party and fight alongside al-Qaida,” with “several hundred join[ing] the Islamic State.”
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) has been among the most recalcitrant forces operating in the Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib province, rejecting all ceasefire efforts while indoctrinating children into militancy.
TIP leadership has called on foreign Muslims to wage jihad in Syria, publishing an online recruitment video in 2018 that celebrated the 9/11 attacks as holy retaliation against a decadent United States awash in homosexuality and sin.
“called for armed jihad not only in China’s autonomous Xinjiang region but all over the world and described China as a nation of savages, worse than the Jews.”
The Istiqlal TV report relied on by Zenz published an unverified table of “re-education detainee figures” allegedly “leaked” by Chinese authorities, totaling 892,000 individuals in 68 Xinjiang counties as of Spring 2018.
(The Uyghur Human Rights Act recently passed by Congress mandates the US Agency for Global Media – the governmental parent of Radio Free Asia – to report on Xinjiang, including “assessments of Chinese propaganda strategies.”)
With his cobbling of questionable sources, Zenz extrapolates an extremely broad estimate
“at anywhere between several hundred thousand and just over one million.”
While admitting that “there is no certainty” to his estimate, he has concluded that it is nevertheless “reasonable to speculate.”
He attempted to evade personal responsibility for the figure’s questionable reliability, however, by stating
“[t]he accuracy of this estimate is of course predicated on the supposed validity of the stated sources.”
As time goes on, Zenz continues to inflate his speculative estimate of Uyghur detainees.
Speaking at an event organized by the US mission in Geneva in March 2019, Zenz stated,
“Although it is speculative it seems appropriate to estimate that up to 1.5 million ethnic minorities [have been detained by China in Xinjiang].”
Zenz bumped up his estimate again in a November 2019 interview with Radio Free Asia, claiming China was detaining 1.8 million people.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Zenz claimed that China has effectively outlawed the practice of Islam in Xinjiang.
“Anyone in Xinjiang who engages in any type of religious practice, anyone who even has a single Koran verse saved on their mobile phone, will be subjected to a brutal process of reeducation without trial,”
He maintained.
These incendiary claims have vaulted Zenz to the status of international “expert” on Xinjiang, earned him invites to testify before US Congress and Canadian Parliament, and to deliver commentary in major US media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Democracy Now!
“[l]inguists, document and Xinjiang experts, including Zenz, who reviewed the documents have expressed confidence in their authenticity.”
Given Zenz’s habit of speculation and the questionable reliability of the lone Istiqlal TV media report he relies on for his estimates, it is troubling that Western governments and media have accepted and promoted his claims without a trace of skepticism.
A closer look at Zenz’s own biases should magnify these concerns, as he is a full-blown evangelical End Timer who appears to be believe that God has sent him on a holy crusade against the People’s Republic of China.
Fundamentalist Christian ‘led by God’ in mission against China, homosexuality, and gender equality
This anodyne-sounding campus is actually the German base of Columbia International University, a US-based evangelical Christian seminary which considers the
Which makes you wonder WHY he would be so concerned about the plight of Muslims. Because according to his own religious belief only “born again” Christians will enter Heaven during the rapture.
“I feel very clearly led by God to do this,” he said. “I can put it that way. I’m not afraid to say that. With Xinjiang, things really changed. It became like a mission, or a ministry.”
Along with his “mission” against China, heavenly guidance has apparently prompted Zenz to denounce homosexuality, gender equality, and the banning of physical punishment against children as threats to Christianity.
Zenz outlined these views in a book he co-authored in 2012, titled Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.
In the tome, Zenz discussed the return of Jesus Christ, the coming wrath of God, and the rise of the Antichrist.
Zenz predicted that the future fall of capitalism will bring to power the Antichrist within a “few decades.”
He identified the force that “will usher the Antichrist into power” as “the economic and financial fall of ‘Babylon,’ with ‘Babylon’ symbolically representing the world’s global economic system (capitalism).”
Along with the fall of capitalism, Zenz also views “postmodern relativism and tolerance thinking” and their apparent promotion of homosexuality, gender equality, and non-violent parenting to be threats to Christianity and “[t]he deceptive, leopard-like power behind the Antichrist.”
“It is very likely that the global persecution of true believers will center on the charge that they promote ‘intolerant views,’” Zenz wrote, “especially related to preaching against homosexuality.”
Zenz argued that “[h]ate crime and anti-discrimination laws will likely play a major role in the suppression of biblical Christianity” and formed part of an “anti-Christian ‘tolerance’ campaign” because they “forbid employers to discriminate based on gender or sexual orientations.”
“The outcome of this process is open rebellion against both God and God-given human authority structures”,
Zenz stated, decrying that
“[r]ising numbers of countries are banning all forms of physical punishment of children, the primary scriptural method for instilling respect for authority in the young generation and protecting them from rebellious tendencies.”
Zenz assures readers that
“true scriptural spanking is loving discipline and not violence.”
“Another important God-given authority structure that Satan is attacking through the postmodern spirit is that of gender authority structures”,
Zenz continued.
“Through notions of gender equality […] the enemy is undermining God’s unique but different role assignments for men and women.”
Given these obscurantist right-wing views, it is not surprising that Zenz’s proclaimed concern for the condition of Muslims in China does not seem to extend to Muslims elsewhere.
A search of Zenz’s Twitter profile returns no tweets concerning the rise of Islamophobia in the West, nor US wars and drone strikes against Muslim-majority countries.
The only Tweet by Zenz concerning Muslims that is unrelated to China is a denial that there is a double standard in how violence is judged when committed by white people compared to Muslims.
‘The End Times is a very fascinating topic’
In his December 10, 2019 testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Adrian Zenz took a victory lap of sorts for Congress’ passage of the Uyghur Human Rights Act the week before which placed new sanctions on the Chinese government.
Citing the bill’s success, he called for opening a new front against China with a US investigation into “involuntary labor in relation to Xinjiang.”
That same day, Zenz also appeared on a panel dedicated to Xinjiang that was hosted by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in the US Capitol Visitor Center.
On hand were Republican heavyweights like Sam Brownback, the ferociously anti-LGBT, anti-abortion former governor of Kansas.
Who is now the current US ambassador-at-large for religious freedom, as well as top staffers of Sen. Marco Rubio, the sponsor of virtually every China sanctions bill to be rubber-stamped by Congress in recent weeks.
During a question-and-answer session, The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal asked Zenz about his fundamentalist religious views and far-right politics.
Zenz did not distance himself from his past statements denouncing gender equality and “tolerance thinking,” or his advocacy for the “scriptural spanking” of children.
Instead, he asserted that there was no inconsistency between those views and the quality of his research on China’s Xinjiang region.
“I do have a diverse background and I have personal connections which I do not believe are inconsistent with my research,”
Zenz responded to Blumenthal.
“I do not support China’s authoritarian methods in any way, and I do believe there’s a God who is bringing judgment in different forms. The End Times is a very fascinating topic, a very complex topic, and I think, very relevant. And I think it’s good to live aware of that.”
Adrian Zenz is considered an expert in DC. His research influenced the Uyghur Human Rights Act that sanctioned China.
But he’s also a Rapture-ready evangelical who says he’s “led by God” against Beijing.
I challenged him on Capitol Hill.
More here: https://t.co/HPJUcHddlepic.twitter.com/czZtxxvXxO
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) December 22, 2019
Moments later, a visibly upset young man rose from his seat to “condemn the tankie Max Blumenthal.”
Unleashing a torrent of insults at Blumenthal, he made no attempt to refute the journalist’s line of questioning.
The rigorously enforced conviction on display in the politically hermetic chambers of the US Capitol also encompasses the whole of Western media, where even purportedly progressive outlets have provided Zenz with an uncritical platform.
From Washington’s halls of power to major newsrooms, few are willing to let inconvenient facts get in the way of a new, undeniably faith-based Cold War crusade.
More…
The Australia Citizens Party produced 8 original fact-based articles (with a lot of useful hyperlinks for researchers) on Xinjiang issues “Xinjiang: China’s Western frontier in the heart of Eurasia”: https://twitter.com/OcastJournalist/status/1383221132560531456
Oh, that first bullshit article… what a fun read. It’s nice to leave reality every now and then and smell the lollypop trees, pet the golden unicorns, and swim in the streams of icy-fresh beer.
But then, there are two more serious, well researched articles that crush the American anti-China narrative. I hope that you all found them enlightening.
It seems that the talks in Alaska were a turning point for china and Russia is also taking its cues from actions verses words moving forward here... the USA is like a runaway train, gone off the rails.... an accident in the process of happening... no one appears in command.... will be interesting to see where this ends up.. the fact china is giving the USA the cold shoulder is long overdue... same deal with Russia giving a similar response... at what point do they say enough is enough?? it looks like we are at, or close to that spot now..
Posted by: james | Apr 17 2021 18:38 utc | 4
What is truly frightening about all this is that there are many people who actually believe this nonsense.
I may be wrong but imho 99% of the work done in China is by Forced Labor!
Prove me wrong!
-13 posted on 10/24/2020, 10:16:25 AM by prophetic
Jeeze! Louise!
Just keep in mind that this noise is all just that…noise as the United States tries to gear up for efforts to destroy the gateway to the BRI; Xinjiang. China knows this.
It’s all the same “song and dance”. Get American all upset about some “evil” and then launch the American military into the region to “save it”.
Yes. Everyone knows. The United States are training terrorists to absolutely create destruction and mayhem in Xinjiang. And they are proud to fund it, and proud to be doing it. And they believe that it will be successful.
Ah.
Not THIS time, bucco.
Because…
China knows that the USA wants to inject military forces into Xinjiang to destabilize it. And this is why they have military forces in place for the American attempts to do so. And whatever proxy forces they establish to do the fighting.
The Chinese Do Not Play.
What do I mean?
Watch this little demonstration of the military in Xinjiang protecting the Uighur’s from the American proxy terrorists…
Check out this most interesting and telling video HERE, if it doesn’t load properly.
Do you want more?
I have more posts in my Uyghurs sub-index under my China index.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Five months before the Kavanaugh nomination hearings, the following (concerning the #MeToo movement) was posted anonymously on LinkedIn. It was posted on June 10th, and within 72 hours it was taken down. Now, not even the Wayback Machine has a record of it. Welcome to modern Internet censorship.
The article reads as truth.
Fundamentally, the #MeToo movement might just be undoing all of the damage that Affirmative Action and HR Harassment Firings have done to men’s ability to work over the last forty years.
Perhaps the pendulum of political correctness is starting to swing in the other direction.
Perhaps, one day, we’ll be returning to a more traditional ordering of things. A world,, indeed, a world where men can bring home the bacon, and support their families to the best of their ability. Meanwhile, the children are raised properly. Taught and nurtured by the mother. As well as taken cared for in a loving and supportive fully functional parental unit.
Maybe…
Congratulations #Metoo…You’ve Made Women Employees Radioactive BY DAVIS M.J. AURINI · June 25, 2018
As a corporate CEO I now have a fiducial duty to avoid hiring women
I was having lunch the other day with my group of fellow CEOs…some current and some former. I asked the question: “Well, who has gotten that visit from the corporate lawyer, advising you to avoid hiring women executives”.
Every one in the group groaned and looked away. The message was clear. They had ALL gotten that visit.
As a corporate CEO, I have an fiduciary and moral obligation to my employees. (It is) NOT to do something stupid that will destroy the company and throw them out into a very hard and dangerous world. The streets of Silicon Valley are full of RVs and campers with homeless former engineers and former managers, many with no health insurance. I am obligated by law and by custom not to add my people to that list.
That’s why I can’t hire women.
Even before #Metoo, hiring women came with a significant risk. I’ve seen several small companies wiped out by some angry ex-employee claiming some sort of sexual harassment. In each and every case, the company leaders honestly tried to prevent the problem, but were wiped out anyway. “$150K just to walk in the front door” says any law firm.
That’s enough to destroy most startups.
As a CEO I have a legal obligation to avoid risk. Because of #MeToo, women walk in the door with the metaphorical equivalent of a suicide bomb strapped to their back. The slightest wrong move, the slightest insult, and BANG. Everybody is dead.
In the past it was just a few women who had this tendency to use lawsuits to destroy. Now in the era of #MeToo, it has become fashionable. Even the not-so-bright receptionist I hire as a temp is on the lookout for her moment of perceived fame.
The Kavanaugh nomination hearings were in September 2018. This was five months after LinkenIN erased this article from their postings. The truth hurts.
As a CEO there is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent a clash, when women are so eager to take offense. Human sexuality is wired into every man and women. Even if I install webcams and watch every single second of every interaction, having training classes, and instill fear in my male employees, there will inevitably be some action that some man will take, maybe on purpose, maybe accidentally, that will cause some woman to take offense and sue.
I am unable to prevent it, just as I can’t prevent someone from passing gas after lunch.
Litigation is the business equivalent of nuclear war. It only destroys. Now every woman walking into my HR department is carrying a nuclear launch button on her sleeve, and is being goaded by their friends to USE IT!
Kavanaugh Accuser Admits She Lied: It Was A “Ploy” & “Tactic” To Get Attention Clearly, the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh were fabricated as there was no evidence and no corroborators to any of the allegations.
Every other employee in that company — male and female — has a mortgage and family expenses, and is looking with fear at that new female hire.
This is what generals call an “asymmetric threat”. I have zero control, almost no preventative measures, and huge, deadly risk.
That leaves me and other smart CEOs with only one solution: stop hiring women.
And that is what’s happening, quickly or slowly, at every small startup all over the country. Will we be sued for not hiring women? Nope. Hard to prove. Penalties actually quite unlikely.
To my granddaughters who are just entering the workforce, and to the many wonderful women who long ago learned to ignore male clumsiness and just get the job done — I can only say how sorry and sad I am to see this.
Unfortunately, you women have been betrayed by a group of radical women who are, to put it bluntly, fools. They are dragging you into a conflict which will leave you burned and the men in your lives burned. Everyone will get burned except the lawyers and the activists who will, as always, sit back and profit from the war they created.
Maybe there will be comments from women telling me “I don’t get it” or “You’ll get sued.” Um, no. I get it just fine. I’m just speaking a harsh truth, that people don’t like. Listen.
Conclusions and Commentary
It is the duty of the officers of a company to protect the company and it’s employees.
That is why there are rules for work-place safety, work-place harassment, and standards of behavior that all employees must abide by. This includes dress codes, behavior at work, and in some companies off-work as well.
Given the outrageous accusations of those in the #MeToo movement, and the enormous legal risks, the situation is clearly a dangerous one.
“This is what generals call an “asymmetric threat”. I have zero control, almost no preventative measures, and huge, deadly risk.”
If there is even the slightest risk of a #MeToo accusation, I would suggest the CEO, Executive Director and owners be cautious. I would suggest proactive steps and action be taken.
After all, according to the mainstream media (whether it is fake news or not) the perception is that there is wide spread sexual harassment in the workplace. This is an advantage that the accuser has, and it places the company at a severe disadvantage.
As such, I would [1] strongly advise against hiring females in the workplace. Certainly for management positions, and even for lower level positions. Females should also [2] be vetted carefully, and their Social Media be checked to assure that their threat level is sufficiently minimized.
Further, [3] I would advise that a legal document be drafted to protect the company and the employees in the event that a female is actually hired. This legal document should be applicable to both males and females.
Indeed, it is an ugly world that we live in. This is one of the harsh consequences of that reality.
It's real. A relative of mine in an exec position was advised to avoid hiring women in the exec ranks and to avoid having any one on one contact with women at all costs. This will greatly hamper the ability for women to advance in companies.
Granted, I'm not shedding much tears... since during my 20+ years in corp world I've witnessed countless women gain promotions (and some over me) by sleeping around. It's more common than many would suspect. These were usually married women as well.
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this
post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss
growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with
the society within communist China. As there are some really stark
differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified
about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that
are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a
personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome
to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
