In the first half of this year, the US economy shrank, contracted, got smaller. That is two quarters of contraction which clearly puts the US in a technical recession. Although, the Democratic party are desperately trying to redefine what a “recession” is.
In contrast with all the supposed difficulties of the Shanghai lock-down in the second quarter, the Chinese economy did NOT shrink. It’s true that it barely grew, but grow it did.
As for the rest of China, well, in the first quarter China’s economy grew at a bit over 4% if memory serves.
Time for some perspective. The United States is shrinking. While China is growing.
And what about inflation?
China continues to keep inflation in the realm of 2%. The US was at 9.1% for June (the last month available at this time of writing).
This was in the region of 7% for a long, long time before it took a turn for the worse during the last few months!
- United States- recession and inflation.
- China- growth and stable prices.
Of course China has <6000 deaths due to Covid. The US has well over 1 million.
In the Western media China always does badly in the PREDICTIONS. But in REALITY China always does better than the US.
I attribute this to many things, but in this case, it is the end results which matter.
Taiwan as a distraction
From HERE
By Amarynth for the Saker Blog
The current hot war of words regarding Nancy Pelosi’s announced visit to Taiwan is reaching a dangerous nexus and threatening to spill over into military action.
China considers this belligerent approach as a threat to their stated One Country, Two Systems policy as well as a threat to the 1992 consensus. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait reached the consensus in 1992 that “both sides belong to one China and will work together toward national reunification”. It defines the fundamental nature of the cross-Strait relationship and lays the political foundation for its development.
Taiwan is being used as a casus belli (an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify war) in the very same way that Ukraine was used and is currently used. A war of media, tremendous even brutal propaganda to their own citizens to paint the enemy as evil to justify their own actions, continual accusations using a human rights platform, and doubling down! We see fantastical accusations that Huawei equipment sitting atop poles is spying on the US, China is infiltrating the US Fed, and in professional statements and documentation, China is the second biggest enemy of the US. The latest are threats to attempt to impose sanctions on Russian oil supplies to China.
The trajectory is exactly the same toward China, using Taiwan as the hot button, as what we observed during the run-up to the Russia SMO with the Ukraine as the hot button. It is:
blatant and intentional provocation and total denial of International Law.
Another point of convergence is that while professing ‘support for Taiwan’ (the very same as for the Ukraine), they are actually harming Taiwan (the very same as for the Ukraine).
A short history of the current dangerous brouhaha is:
- Nanci Pelosi announced a visit to Taiwan in April, and China said NO! Pelosi developed Covid.
- During May, June and July, timeframe, the US announced a 5th sale of weapons to Taiwan and China delivered strong demarch on the US to cancel this. There was also a continual stream of US dignitaries and ex-dignataries e.g., Pompeo, visiting Taiwan in some or other professional capacity
- Pelosi announced a new visit to Taiwan in August,
The Chinese are not simply saying no, they have handed this matter to their Military. Whereas their foreign office spokesperson comments, we now get the commentary from the Chinese military spokesperson.
Our army will not sit idly by if U.S. House Speaker Pelosi visits Taiwan, will take decisive measures to curb foreign interference – Chinese Defense Ministry The Taiwan question is the most important of China’s core interests. Safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity is the bounden responsibility of every Chinese, and no one, force or country should dream of separating Taiwan from China – Chinese SC & FM Wang Yi:
- The latest is that US President Biden & China’s Xi Jinping will hold bilateral talks today amid this crisis because the Chinese see this as a direct assault on One Country, Two Systems, as well as the 1992 consensus between China and Taiwan.
If Pelosi tries to visit Taiwan, the Chinese will respond militarily.
Asked to comment on a recent Financial Times report which suggested Beijing would respond military should the speaker of the House visit Taiwan, China’s government confirmed the contents as true.
“We are seriously prepared,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in regards to the article. “If the US side is bent on going its own way, China will take strong measures to resolutely respond and counteract. The United States should be held responsible for any serious consequences,” the official added.
We do not know what kind of military response, but at the moment, the American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group, including a guided missile destroyer and a guided missile cruiser, set out from Singapore on Monday heading northeast towards the South China Sea, according to ship-tracking information provided by Beijing-based think tank the South China Sea Strategic Probing Initiative. The US military has not disclosed its final destination, but the route would bring the carrier group to the Taiwan Strait if it continues in the same direction.
The US administration fears that China could introduce a no-fly zone over Taiwan ahead of a possible visit by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to the island to disrupt the plans of the American side – CNN
These provocations are a threat to the whole world, as are the provocations to Russia. Yet, the US and its cronies have failed to overthrow Hong Kong, they have failed to create an economic disaster in Xinjiang to destabilize this crossroad on the Belt and Road, and they failed in the Tibet Autonomous Region which is now a thriving region with no abject poverty or slave ownership of serfs and with protected religious and social mores, they failed the Trump trade war, and they will fail in Taiwan. They are failing in Latin America, they are even failing in Panama to safeguard their neoliberal democratic ‘free world’.
While failing everywhere, they live in virtual reality and most seriously believe that the world belongs to them.
“China will not allow “sanctimonious preaching” or bullying from foreign forces, and anyone who tries “will find themselves on a collision course with a steel wall forged by 1.4 billion people”. Xi Jinping:
Taiwan is a distraction and a belated and hopeless but dangerous attempt at ongoing relevance from the US.
Caitlin Johnstone epitomized their dilemma:
Russia: Don’t cross our red lines in Ukraine or we’ll take action. US politicians: They’re bluffing. Cross those red lines. *Russia invades.* China: Don’t cross our red lines in Taiwan or we’ll take action. US politicians: They’re bluffing. Cross those red lines. *****
We wait to see the outcome and it will be China’s national reunification with its recalcitrant province on China’s terms, not imposed terms. Bear in mind that Taiwan is not a candidate currently for independence. The current government does not dare to call for a referendum as 75% roughly of Taiwanese will vote for remaining with the Chinese mainland.
China Daily reports: For National Reunification we are willing to go to war.
Here are some actual historical facts from Nathan Rich:
Finally, Russia and China will coordinate actions. Today in Uzbekistan:
China Sanctions Nancy Pelosi; Refused Entry into China and Taiwan
Reports are coming in from Asia as of 4:09 AM eastern US Time, claiming that the People’s Republic of China has “Sanctioned” U.S. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The reports also claim that as a result of being Sanctioned, Pelosi is DENIED ENTRY into China and into Taiwan.
These reports are coming from media persons on the ground inside Asia, but their media outlets have yet to report these claims.
Pelosi departed the United States on Saturday, allegedly aboard a U.S. Air Force C-40 transport aircraft, which allegedly7 had TWO fighter jets as escort.
The plane was tracked across the continental U.S., out into the Pacific, and then landed in Hawaii to refuel.
Pelosi’s office tweeted a statement from her:
Later that same aircraft took off from Hawaii, but tracking of it was then BLOCKED, claiming the plane was no longer being tracked because of engine trouble . . . which is a complete non-sequitur; it made no sense at all.
As of 4:09 AM EDT Sunday, it is not known where Speaker Pelosi’s plane is, or if has perhaps landed elsewhere in Asia, as her itinerary did mention stops in Singapore, Malaysia and elsewhere for this trip.
Why the US Speaker of the House is engaging in foreign travel is also a mystery. Generally, that’s why the U.S. has a Secretary of State.
More details as they become available.
UPDATE 9:17 AM EDT —
It turns out that when Pelosi’s aircraft developed engine trouble and it’s tracking was turned off, it returned to Hawaii. Pelosi spent the night there.
This morning, the plane took off from Hawaii out westward into the Pacific. At this hour 9:18 AM EDT, it is landing at Guam.
For what it’s worth
Getting Reports that Pelosi WILL Land in Taiwan this week . . .
There are now NEW reports, **claiming** US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, will land in Taiwan sometime this week.
No “official” word on this, but the reports are going around and getting louder.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) staged military exercises and published propaganda videos of various weapons, including an alleged “aircraft carrier killer,” on Sunday and Monday in anticipation of Pelosi (D-CA) arriving in Asia and potentially visiting Taiwan.
Pelosi landed in Singapore on Monday and has since met with its president and prime minister, bringing along a congressional delegation. Pelosi’s office confirmed the delegation would also visit Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. Rumors for weeks have indicated that Pelosi had long been considering a surprise stop in the sovereign, democratic nation of Taiwan – defying the Chinese Communist Party, which claims Taiwan as a rogue “province” and dismisses its government as an illegitimate separatist entity.
Most striking about China’s public remarks about Pelosi visiting Taiwan, and that visit being a major incident against which China will respond, was China’s statement “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
That particular statement is of very troubling history; China has only uttered that statement to another country THREE times in its history:
The first time in 1962 just prior to its border war with India;
The second time in 1979 just before it invaded Vietnam, and;
two days ago . . . to the USA
US Military: Extraordinary Activity
The United States military is already on the move, perhaps in relation to China’s ominous message.
The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier Strike Group is now moving into position near Taiwan, as shown on its travel map below:
Moreover, inside the continental United States, as of 1:49 PM eastern US time on August 1, 2022, ALL (every single one) of the planes shown on the FlightRadar24 map below, are US military aircraft over the Continental USA.
That’s an awful lot of movement. Rather unusual.
Perhaps they are preparing for . . . something . . . .
PLA not to sit idly by if Pelosi visits Taiwan: Chinese spokesperson
From HERE
BEIJING, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) — China on Monday once again warned the United States that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will not sit idly by if U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian made the warning at a daily news briefing.
China has repeatedly stated to the United States its grave concern over the issue and the solemn position of resolutely opposing Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and stressed the severe consequences if Pelosi visits Taiwan, Zhao said.
“The will of the people cannot be defied, and those who play with fire will perish by it,” Zhao said. “It is believed the U.S. side is fully aware of China’s strong and clear message.”
China is closely following the itinerary of Pelosi, Zhao said. “A visit to Taiwan by her would constitute a gross interference in China’s internal affairs, seriously undermine China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, wantonly trample on the one-China principle, greatly threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, severely undermine China-U.S. relations, and lead to a very serious situation and grave consequences.”
China once again warns the U.S. side that China is on high alert, the PLA will never sit idly by, and will surely take resolute and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, Zhao said.
The United States should strictly abide by the one-China principle and the stipulations in the three China-U.S. joint communiques, honor U.S. President Joe Biden’s commitment that the United States does not support “Taiwan independence,” and not arrange for Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the spokesperson added.
White House Says Speaker Pelosi has the right to visit Taiwan: Taiwan Cancels All Troops Leave “Prepare for war”
Just moments ago, the White House officially confirmed the American position that the Speaker of the House “has the right to visit Taiwan.”
Routine Diplomatic practice for decades has been that if an official from any country wishes to visit Taiwan, they must get permission from Beijing, then fly into Beijing, then fly to Taiwan. That decades-old practice is being ignored, and Taiwan is being treated by the USA as if Beijing no longer matters.
Beijing seems ready to show the US, and the world, they actually do matter . . . .
Video of the White House spokesman saying it:
Taiwan Cancels all Military Leave
Taiwanese defense officials have canceled the leave of soldiers and officers “to immediately prepare” for the chance of war in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Asia this week, according to local reports.
China warned early Monday that its military would not “sit idly by” if the House speaker visits Taiwan during her trip this week, echoing similar comments from Chinese President Xi Jinping last week that the United States should not “play with fire.” Pelosi is expected to stop in Taiwan during her visit this week, although the island is not listed on her itinerary.
“Her stature as the No. 3 U.S. official means a trip would be highly sensitive,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters Monday. “As to what measures, let’s wait and see whether she insists on this visit.”
If Pelosi travels to Taiwan, she’ll be the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the island since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich made the trip in 1997. It’s not clear when Pelosi will arrive in Taiwan, but the House speaker is expected to stay there overnight, officials told CNN.
UPDATE 2:20 PM EDT —
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to visit Taiwan as part of her tour of Asia, according to a senior Taiwanese government official and a US official, despite warnings from Biden administration officials, who are worried about China’s response to such a high-profile visit.
The stop — the first for a US House speaker in 25 years — is not currently on Pelosi’s public itinerary and comes at a time when US-China relations are already at a low point.
The Taiwanese official added that she is expected to stay in Taiwan overnight. It is unclear when exactly Pelosi will land in Taipei….
China again warns of ‘serious consequences’ over Pelosi’s potential Taiwan visit
From HERE
China will take firm and strong countermeasures to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Monday, warning that the Chinese military will not sit back if U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visits Taiwan.
His remarks came amid the high tensions across the Taiwan Straits. Pelosi’s Asia trip schedule, announced on Sunday, includes Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan with no mention of Taiwan.
“The Chinese side has repeatedly made clear to the U.S. side our serious concern over Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan and our firm opposition to the visit,” Zhao told a regular news briefing.
“We are fully prepared for any eventuality,” he said, adding that it is the U.S. that has been distorting and hollowing out the one-China principle and making irresponsible remarks on the Taiwan question.
China demands that the United States honor the promise of President Joe Biden that it would not support “Taiwan independence” and should not arrange Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, he stressed.
During his phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, Biden reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the one-China policy.
Policing the World Is a Full-Time Job
Every leader and top official now in power in the so-called Western World seems to have forgotten that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 as an alliance that was ostensibly defensive in nature, intended to counter the expansion of Soviet style communism in Europe.
That role continued to be the raison d’etre of the organization until communist governments themselves collapsed in both Russia and in the Eastern European states that collectively made up the Warsaw Pact during the 1990s. After that point, NATO no longer had any reason to exist at all as the alleged military threat posed by the Kremlin and its allies vanished virtually overnight.
But clever politicians were quick to put the alliance on life support instead of simply dismantling it.
Lacking the threat posed by the Warsaw Pact, NATO was forced to come up with other reasons to maintain military forces at levels that could quickly be enhanced and placed on a wartime footing. Washington and London took the lead in this, citing the now shopworn defense of a “rules based international order” as well as of “democracy” and “freedom.”
And fortunately for the national defense industries and the generals, it soon proved possible to find new enemies that provided justification for additional military spending.
The first major engagement outside the obligations defined by the original treaty took place in Europe to be sure, but it was in the Balkans where of NATO during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force. The war ended after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on December 14th 1995. Peace negotiations were finalized a week later but fighting resumed between Kosovo and Serbia in the following year, which led to another NATO intervention that eventually ended with the restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy and the deployment of NATO forces, which bombed the Serbs to compel their compliance with a draft cease fire agreement.
NATO also played a role improbably enough in the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, which was justified by claiming that an Afghanistan free to set its own course would become a hotbed of terrorism which would inevitably impact on the United States and Europe. It was a paper-thin argument, but it was the best they could come up with at the time and it also eventually involved soldiers from additional friendly countries like Australia.
As we have subsequently seen, however, it was all an argument without merit as Afghanistan became a money pit and a graveyard for thousands of locals and foreign soldiers. It is now again in the hands of the Taliban after a bungled withdrawal of US forces and the collapse of the puppet government in Kabul that Washington had installed.
Turn the clock forward to the present. As everyone but President Joe Biden has recognized, the United States and NATO are currently engaged in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which many observers already believe has some of the attributes of World War III. As Russia neither threatened nor attacked any NATO member state, the argument that the response in arming and training Ukraine was defensive was rendered irrelevant. Nor can it be credibly be claimed that Russia is a haven for terrorists, quite the contrary. Nevertheless, Biden has stated that the US will be in the fight on behalf of Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” Does he mean years, and all done without a declaration of war by Congress as required by the US Constitution?
And more appears to be coming. Joe Biden, during last week’s trip to Israel, made clear that the United States is “prepared to use all elements of its national power” to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and has signed a pledge with the Israeli government to commit itself to do so.
If Biden presses the argument that Iran is an international threat due to its impending development of nuclear weapons, will he appeal to NATO to support a joint military option to disarm it? I believe he just might do that.
And he might just want to consider how the entire set-up and framing of the issue by Israel is somewhat of a trap. Israel considers Iran’s current nuclear program to be intended to create a weapon, which “they continue to develop,” and there are plenty in the US Congress who would agree with that.
So, if Iran is clearly creating a thermonuclear device, the time to strike is now, isn’t it? And bear in mind how the US/Israeli campaign to condemn is multifaceted. Shortly before the meetings held by Biden and his crew with the Israelis, US government sources set the stage for what was to come by going on the offensive regarding reports that Iran may be selling highly capable offensive drones to Russia for use in Ukraine as well as subsequent claims coming out of Washington that the Iranians are seeking to assassinate senior US officials in revenge for the killing of Revolutionary Guards General Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. One wonders why they waited so long and why the White House has chosen to publicize these stories at this point.
And the US and NATO are also getting involved with China’s geopolitical policies, on a path that Beijing is warning is extremely hypocritical and which might lead to armed conflict. The signs that the Chinese might be targeted by NATO, possibly over the Taiwan independence issue, came following a stark warning by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken delivered at the NATO summit in Madrid at the end of June. Blinken accused China of “seeking to undermine the rules-based international order,” the same type of critique recently leveled against Russia and Iran. Blinken’s comment was elaborated on by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who observed how “China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan … monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation.”
Stoltenberg’s indictment of China was followed by a NATO issued “strategic concept” document last that declared for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance, alongside a primary “threat” coming from Russia. The document copied Blinken’s language, citing “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.”
Finally, the US and British governments collaborated to condemn China as the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.” The declaration came in a July 6th joint news conference in London, where Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, and Ken McCallum, director general of Britain’s MI5, accused China, like Russia, of interfering in US and UK elections. Wray also warned the business leaders in the audience that the Chinese government has been “set on stealing your technology, whatever it is that makes your industry tick, and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian initially responded a few days after the NATO summit, observing that the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the US self-interest,” adding that “[Washington]observes international rules only as it sees fit.” Addressing the issue of the role of NATO specifically, Zhao accused Blinken of using NATO to “hype up competition with China and stoke group confrontation.” He added that “The history of NATO is one about creating conflicts and waging wars…arbitrarily launching wars and killing innocent civilians, even to this day. Facts have proven that it isn’t China that poses a systemic challenge to NATO, and instead it is NATO that brings a looming systemic challenge to world peace and security. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, [NATO] has not yet abandoned its thinking and practice of creating ‘enemies’ … It is NATO that is creating problems around the world.”
China has a point. What NATO is threatening is war, as it is a military alliance. The Chinese appear to understand that NATO is the world’s largest military bureaucracy which has developed since 1991 an overriding institutional commitment to ensuring its permanent existence, if not expansion, even after it has clearly outlived its own usefulness. So Beijing might justifiably wonder, how does China – on the other side of the globe – fit into NATO’s historic “defensive” mission? How are Chinese troops or missiles now threatening Europe or the US in ways they weren’t before? How are the Americans and Europeans suddenly under military threat coming from China?
The Chinese appear to understand that if there is no threat to “defend” against, then a threat must be manufactured, and that is precisely what we are seeing vis-à-vis Russia, China, Iran and even Venezuela. Washington has become addicted to war and NATO is the chosen tool to give those wars the patina of legitimacy. To launch those conflicts requires either inventing an imaginary threat, or, as in the case of Russia, provoking the very threat the “defensive” bureaucracy was designed to deter or thwart. All indications are that NATO – now embracing 30 countries – is doing both and the results could easily be disastrous for all parties involved. Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard particularly abhors the cynical recklessness of the Biden Administration driving the process, explaining how “The reality is, President Biden, members of Congress, leaders in our country, the wealthy, they will have a safe place to be in the event of a nuclear war that they are behind causing while the rest of us in America and Russia, people around the world, will be decimated from this event.”
Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges has also defined the unthinkable that is at stake, and it is past time for Americans and Europeans to take note and stop the madness.
Hedges opines that “The massive expansion of NATO, not only in Eastern and Central Europe but the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and Asia, presages endless war and a potential nuclear holocaust.”
One might also note that New Yorkers are now being informed about what to do if there is a nuclear attack.
Yes, that is precisely the problem – we have an administration in Washington that should be protecting the people living in this country, not setting up scenarios that might lead to their slaughter.
Will someone please point that out to Joe Biden?
Will the West’s Suicide Bring World Peace?
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In The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski speculated about the American unipolar hegemon’s ultimate geostrategic nightmare: “a new ‘antihegemonic’ coalition, formed around the three powers with the greatest geopolitical stake in reducing America’s primacy in Eurasia.” Those three powers, of course, are Russia, China, and Iran. Such a development, Brzezinski observed, would “bring together the world’s leading Slavic power, the world’s most militant Islamic power, and the world’s most populated and powerful Asian power, thereby creating a potent coalition.”
Such an alliance would require “a renewal of the bilateral Sino-Russian connection, capitalizing on the resentment among the political elites of both states over the emergence of America as the only global superpower.” That seemed unlikely when Brzezinski was writing in 1997 because, as he put it, such a coalition could only develop if the US were stupid enough to antagonize all three nations simultaneously.
Brzezinski should have known never to underestimate the stupidity of American foreign policy elites. As I write this in late July 2022 (Dhu’l-Hijjah 1443 AH) the neocon-led west is committing strategic suicide by doing exactly what Brzezinski warned against: not just antagonizing, but massively antagonizing Russia, China, and Iran all at once. The inevitable result will be the collapse of American pretensions to global leadership, sooner rather than later.
The US under Donald Trump blew up whatever shred of credibility it had with Tehran by tearing up the JCPOA and assassinating Gen. Qassem Soleimani after luring him to Baghdad with a fake peace offer. Moving the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem/al-Quds, deeming Israeli land-theft legitimate, and sponsoring the anti-Iran anti-Palestine Shaitan Accords (misnamed the “Abraham Accords” in a horrific insult to sayyidna Ibrahim alaihi as-salaam) was just the icing on the cake. After those actions, Iran had no choice but to face the reality that the US is, as the Russians say, non-agreement-capable.
Around the same time the US attacked Wuhan with COVID-19, inadvertently (?) unleashing a global pandemic. This came on the heels of suspected American bio-attacks on China in 2017 and 2018 that decimated the Chinese meat supply in the midst of Trump’s red-hot trade war. Immediately after exploding out of Wuhan, COVID suspiciously jumped 3600 miles to Qom, disproportionately infecting Iran’s political and clerical leadership just weeks after the US had murdered Gen. Soleimani. The Rahbar, Imam Sayyid Ali Khamenei all but accused the US of perpetrating a biological attack, and Iran formally complained to the United Nations.
The US COVID bio-attack on Wuhan and Qom was presumably designed to be blamed on China in order to foster anti-Chinese hysteria and trigger the supply-chain decoupling that would be necessary during the lead-up to military escalation. Though elements of China’s leadership dropped many hints that they knew the score, Beijing apparently calculated that playing coy as the pandemic “returned to sender” was wiser than launching formal accusations and sparking domestic outrage that could force a premature hot war.
While angering China and Iran with such reckless mistreatment, the US would have been well-advised to play nice with Russia. Instead, the neocons did the exact opposite: They orchestrated the 2022 war on Russia through Ukraine. After installing a neocon-run puppet government in the 2014 Maidan coup, the US built a huge NATO-armed-and-trained “Ukrainian” army—and, in early 2022, sent it to attack the Donbass and Crimea. Russia’s pleas to respect the Minsk Accords and negotiate limits on NATO expansion were brutally rebuffed as US-Ukrainian biological warfare labs on Russia’s borders ramped up their suspicious activities. All of this was intended to trigger a pre-emptive Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it succeeded.
To win its proxy war on Russia, the US needs to isolate Moscow. To that end it slapped sanctions on Russian energy, banking, and raw materials. Washington’s obsequious European vassals meekly obeyed, depriving themselves of Russian natural gas and thereby committing economic suicide. But most of the world is defying the sanctions, and China and Iran are leading the way. As the US propaganda service Radio Free Europe recently whined, “China’s growing appetite for discounted Russian oil has made it the leading financier of the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine by giving Moscow a reliable revenue source that blunts the impact of tough Western sanctions against its economy.” (Why would China kowtow to US orders even as Biden breaks with US policy and announces his readiness to go to war with China over Taiwan, which the US has officially deemed a province of China for half a century?)
Meanwhile the Rahbar of Iran brought Russian President Putin and Turkish President Erdogan to Tehran on July 19 to plan the eviction of the US from Syria while forging a Eurasian partnership that will eventually see all three nations working with China to build an alternative non-US-authorized trade and security order. According to al-Jazeera “The two leaders (Imam Khamenei and Putin) also reportedly discussed bilateral relations and gradually removing the US dollar from bilateral trade.” By accelerating the erosion of the dollar as global reserve currency, Russia and Iran, along with China and other Eurasian partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, will undercut Washington’s ability to print the unlimited currency it uses to finance its military occupation of much of the world.
Also at the Tehran conference, Russia announced its investment of $40 billion in developing Iranian gas and oil fields, while the two leaders jointly agreed to proceed with plans for enlarging Russia-Iran-China joint military exercises (which are already happening around the world including in Latin America, Washington’s “Monroe Doctrine” backyard). The multipolar alliance’s move into Central and South America has been facilitated by a wave of left-wing election victories empowering Latin leaders who never much cared for US dominance of their half of the hemisphere.
And even as Turkey was joining Russia and Iran in Tehran in a pointed rebuke to Biden’s visits to Tel Aviv and Riyadh, Pakistan’s Imran Khan won a smashing election victory in Punjab, signaling the Pakistani people’s refusal to accept the US-IMF coup that deposed Khan in April. Other Central Asian nations are also leaning toward the new multipolar axis based on the Russia-China-Iran tripartite alliance.
These developments, together with Russia’s victory over the US in Ukraine, suggest that the “new American century” has ended 78 years early. The boundless arrogance of America’s neocons, who seized power in their 9/11/2001 coup d’état and proceeded to squander America’s soft and hard power in a series of ill-advised adventures, has created the very nightmare scenario that all serious strategic thinkers, including Brzezinski, had insisted on avoiding at all costs.
Ironically, the Americans may be inadvertently preparing the groundwork for world peace even as they blunderingly bestride the globe waging bloody, counterproductive wars. By forcing Eurasia to unite both commercially and militarily, the US may have accidentally created the conditions for a more stable world order. Eurasia, after all, is the center of the “grand chessboard” and ground zero in the competition for land and resources that tends to erupt into war. As Eurasian nations band together into an anti-American alliance, they may be forging enduring ties that will eventually facilitate the emergence of more peaceful world bound by economic, intellectual, and spiritual exchange rather than military competition and plunder.
Is Taiwan’s Independence Worth War?
When a man knows he is about to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully, said Dr. Samuel Johnson.
If there is any benefit to be realized from the collision between China and the U.S. over Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s proposed trip to Taiwan, it is this: America needs to reflect long and hard upon what it is we will fight China to defend in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
China, after all, is a nuclear-weapons nation with a manufacturing base larger than our own, an economy equal to our own, a population four times ours and fleets of warships larger in number than the U.S. Navy.
An air-naval-and-missile war in the Western Pacific and East Asia would be no cakewalk.
A massive barrage of anti-ship and hypersonic missiles launched by China could cripple and conceivably sink the U.S. carrier Ronald Reagan now in the South China Sea. The Reagan carries a crew of thousands of sailors almost as numerous as the U.S. casualty lists from both Pearl Harbor and 9/11, the worst attacks in and on the U.S. outside of such Civil War battles as Gettysburg and Antietam.
What in East Asia or the Western Pacific would justify such losses?
What would justify such risks?
Since President Richard Nixon’s trip to China, and President Jimmy Carter’s abrogation of the mutual defense treaty with the Republic of China on Taiwan in 1979, the U.S. is not obligated to come to the defense of Taiwan against China, which claims that island the size of Maryland as “part of China.”
Our military posture has been one of “strategic ambiguity.” We will not commit to go to war to defend Taiwan, nor will we take the war option off the table if Taiwan is attacked.
But if the U.S. went to war to defend Taiwan, what would it mean?
We would be risking our own security and possible survival to prevent from being imposed on the island of Taiwan the same regime lately imposed on Hong Kong without any U.S. military resistance.
If Hong Kong, a city of 7 million, can be transferred to the custody and control of Beijing without resistance from the U.S., why should it be worth a major U.S. war with China to prevent that same fate and future from befalling 23 million Taiwanese?
The retort comes instantly.
Allow China to take Taiwan without U.S. resistance, and our treaties to fight for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand become suspect.
Belief in the U.S. commitment to fight for the nations of East Asia and the Western Pacific would dissipate. The entire architecture of Asian defense against Communist China could disintegrate and collapse.
If we allowed Taiwan to be taken by China without intervening, it is argued, the value of U.S. commitments to fight to defend scores of allies in Europe and Asia would visibly depreciate. U.S. credibility would suffer a blow as substantial as the loss of South Vietnam in 1975.
The fall of Saigon was followed by the loss of Laos and Cambodia to communism, the overthrow of the shah, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the strategic transfer of Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Grenada to the Soviet bloc, and the rise of Euro-communism on the Old Continent.
Pelosi’s prospective visit to Taiwan, and the bellicose reaction of Beijing, should raise other relevant questions.
If this should lead to a U.S.-China war, what would we be fighting for? And what would victory look like?
A restoration of the status quo ante? Permanent independence for Taiwan, which would require a new and permanent war guarantee by the U.S. and a new U.S.-Taiwan defense pact?
Would a permanent commitment to fight to defend Taiwan from China be acceptable to an American people weary of commitments and wars?
Again, why would we risk our own peace and security for Taiwan’s freedom and independence, when we would not risk our own peace and security for the freedom or independence of Hong Kong?
And after our victory in the Taiwan Strait, how would we secure indefinitely the independence of that nation of 23 million from a defeated power of 1.4 billion, bitter and bristling at its loss?
After the United States has a victory against China? Seriously? Let me remind you of the Korean war, and the MASSIVE American rout with the enormous causalities taken against poorly armed peasants and farmers. -MM
Consider: China, in this 21st century, has grown massively, both militarily and economically, and in both real and relative terms, at the expense of the United States.
Nor are the growth trends for China, with four times as many people as there are Americans, favorable to the USA.
What guarantees are there that 2025 or 2030 will not bring a more favorable balance of power for China in what is, after all, their continent, not ours?
Unlike in the Cold War, time is not necessarily on the side of the United States and its allies when all three of the nuclear powers in East Asia — China, Russia, North Korea — are hostile to the USA.
Smokey
“my grandmother moved away recently, and one of my cats, Smokey, was very fond of her. They would cuddle together on the couch and watch my grandmas favorite shows.
When she left, Smokey wouldn’t stop looking for her best friend.
She always waited by the door as if she would come back any day. She sleeps in the now guest bedroom every night, and curls up in their spot every day. We’ve tried to make her feel better with new toys and treats, but she is very sad.
She meows at all hours of the night begging for her best friend to come home.
There’s a happy end to this though!
My grandma is coming home for thanksgiving and she will be taking Smokey back with her! We are all very happy she will be with her best friend again!”
Update 2: Thank you everyone for reading! there is good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad. My grandma had to have surgery, and she needs constant doctor visits to make sure she’s still ok. I’m not very good with medical terminology, but I know its bad. Good news is she’s going to stay here, and Smokey is very happy that she doesn’t have to leave her siblings.
CHINA WARNS USA: Will not accept *any* excuse for Pelosi Landing in Taiwan . . .
The People’s Republic of China today explicitly warned the United States against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi trying to travel to Taiwan.
They said “We will not accept any excuses for Nancy Pelosi trying to land in Taiwan, including any kind of emergency. If problems with the plane occur, we will allow landing in Hainan, not Taiwan.”
So the stage is set for actual confrontation.
According to sources in Asia, the Hal Turner Radio Show can report that Nancy Pelosi’s aircraft is scheduled to land in Taipei, Taiwan, at 22:20 Hours local time TONIGHT.
Meanwhile, THREE United States Air Force B-52’s, with their transponders OFF, are presently in Taiwan air space. As of Monday, Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group is in the Philippine Sea after transiting the San Bernardino Strait on Saturday following a port visit to Singapore and operating in the South China Sea. California-based USS Tripoli is in just south of Okinawa. Tripoli has been embarked with up to 20 F-35Bs.
China has just CANCELED all civilian flights into or out of Fujian Province . . . the mainland province directly opposite Taiwan.
China will conduct military drills in some areas of South China Sea Aug. 2-6 and will ban ships from entering the areas.
HAL TURNER ANALYSIS
The Democrats need a big change to prevent carnage at the midterm elections. The so called “defeat of Russia” is simply not happening. It all backfired into economic disaster.
So the thing to make everyone forget the past failures would seem to be a new war with China.
The timing of this situation has all been dictated by Nancy’s trip, which means the US and allies are dictating the timing. China has responded as expected with brinksmanship threats- paraphrasing from memory… “Play with Fire and Die by Fire, We WILL RESPOND MILITARILY, Prepare for war”, etc.
China has put themselves on a path with no turns at this point. Can’t back out now without losing face.
One of the last times the US chose the timing to start a major war was Bush Sr’s 1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraq. Saddam woke up that morning to the largest armada of aircraft and ships imaginable, launched from a huge consortium of the willing allies. 31 years ago. How time flies.
One thing that tends to be the case, from past observations. Whatever you think is the situation is wrong. The fog of war, or whatever you want to call it typically surrounds the opening moves. Silly reports of a half trillion dollar F-35 program being grounded because they “forgot to put the charge into the ejection seats”. Something that supposedly happened in April and is now being broadcast as a headline. Right before a major military engagement. riiiight.
Whatever the opening of this new war looks like is will certainly be interesting to watch if you overlook all the death and destruction. Biden obviously has nothing to do with the plans or strategy being a mental vegetable and all.
The Deep State war machine in running the show.
Hard to imagine the “Nothing will happen” scenario at this point, but I suppose anything is possible. Maybe China will try to save face by making some claim about their altruism and desire for world peace. They have been having big problems at home as well from what little I have gleaned from the interwebs. Financial problems, and a population that seems 30 seconds away from a full scale revolution.
May we live in interesting times. The old Chinese curse.
Both sides make public claims about the immense power of their militaries.
As Patton used to say, or I think he did, as I mis-remember and smoosh together his various quotes, something like, “War is the crucible of truth. Truths are reaffirmed, and lies are burned away to ashes.”
Times have changed in the last 31 years.
The US has abused its friendships around the world. Allies have been coerced and manhandled to the point that the great “political capital” that existed for the 2 Iraq wars has been spent and squandered.
Any coalition of the willing against China will be borne not of any love for America but for simple self preservation. A China dominated world would be a lot worse than one dominated by the US, even on our worst day.
Obviously he has never been to China. -MM
I guess we don’t really know who the allies of the US will be in this conflict, but it is safe to say most or all of the following list: Japan, Australia, S. Korea, with some possibility of India, Vietnam, The PI, and a few NATO allies like the UK and France. Russia should have been our ally as well, but Biden has burned that bridge rather completely, which is the reason I have been rather vocal in opposing the doomed Ukraine conflict from the beginning.
UPDATE 8:09 AM EDT —
Taiwan is preparing eight Mirage-2000 fighter jets to escort Nancy Pelosi’s aircraft into Taiwanese airspace.
Meanwhile, China is NOW moving armor into Fujian Province near Xiamen. This video just-in from Fujian Province showing the armor:
Strangely, for some reason, China is also NOW deploying what appear to be artillery onto the Beaches along the Taiwan Strait! The artillery cannot reach Taiwan, cannot shoot down US planes, and there is no actual “invasion” of China planned, so it is not known what China will accomplish with this . . . but it is taking place as seen in the video below:
China shows what the USA can look forward to.
Ashley
THis is Ashley. I was broke , I had bought her cat food with my last few rands , and it was 2 days from pay day. There was no food in the house. I went to bed hungry , and next morning i made her breakfast , and this beautiful creature looked at me , turned around and went out the window. I was thinking , great abandoned by the cat as well , and then i heard a Muffled Rowl. That sound i know , she came jumping through the window with a pigeon she had just caught , and dumped it by my feet. She looked at me and battered her eyes and cleaned herself. It was like she knew i was hungry , so she went and caught me something to eat.
What a beautiful soul …
CHINA DEPLOYS **NUCLEAR** ICBM’S
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is now actively moving nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s) in Fujian Province near Taiwan. These missiles can reach the United States. All this over a confrontation about Speaker Nancy Pelosi entering Taiwan when she was told she could not come, by Beijing.
VIDEO:
The images below are from the roads of Fujian Province, taken today:
The short and sweet of the DF-5B appears below:
NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern wants to visit China to ‘seize new opportunities’
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Crystal Brown
When I was 16, I started dating my first real boyfriend…whom I ended up marrying, then divorcing because that’s what sometimes happens when you marry your first ever boyfriend.
The first time at their home, we pulled up to their old, shabby home in dire need of paint and repairs.
He opens the door and his mom greets us. Hugs him, hugs me.
I felt so awkward. I couldn’t recall ever getting a hug before?
We watched a movie together. Afterwards we decided to run down to the store a mile away to get some snacks & his mom said ‘Be safe! I love you!’
I was awestruck. They say ‘I love you’ every time they leave the house? I couldn’t recall ever being told ‘I love you’. I was 16 years old and never had anyone to ever say the words ‘I Love You’.
They didn’t have much. The house was shabby. They lived paycheck to paycheck. Old clothes. But they were happy. Loving. A family.
They talked about their feelings. They talked about their emotions. They talked through fights, even if they were yelling.
When we married, his parents welcomed me with open arms even though we were young. I was 17 and pregnant. His mom took me in as I was kicked out. Bought my maternity clothes. Took me to doctor appointments. And even through my awkwardness, my crying fits because of hormones & family issues, and the only way I knew how to handle that, was anger…they loved me. They hugged me. They told me they loved me. No matter how awkward I was, no matter how much anger I showed because I didn’t know how to show pain, no matter how hard it was for them…they loved me.
They taught me how to be a good mom. How to be a good person.
Even now, being divorced for 15 years, I still keep in contact with them. I still send Christmas cards and text them. My ex mother in law still calls me ‘her daughter’.
It enabled me to tell my children that I loved them on a daily basis. To tell them how wonderful they are. How they can do anything. To give them hugs nightly, to talk to them, show emotion and teach them to show their emotions.
I’ll forever be grateful. She helped me break the family cycle.
Jimmy Carter on why there is only ONE CHINA
Saddest last words
“The presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet has sentenced you and your family to be shot…” Yakov Yurovsky had loudly announced. He had rehearsed his speech hours before.
The Tsar whose face was blanched with horror and incomprehension, interrupted Yurovsky, “I don’t understand. Read it again…”
After Yurovsky re-read the death sentence, the Tsar turned back to his family, pointedly looking at his sickly son, the Tsarveich Alexei before turning back to the executioners.
The Tsar’s final words was a weak stutter.
“What? What?”
These words are simple but it resonates all of his momentary feelings of horror, terror, and incomprehension. He and his family were blind to their tragic fates.
Unlike popular belief, the death of his family was not a fast execution. It was a murderous blood bath. Quick warning, the rest of my answer is going to get detailed about the murder.
As the shooting took place, every single Bolshevik in the room wanted to take a shot at “bloody” Nicholas. Therefore, he was the only family member to receive a quick death.
Just as Tsaritsa Alexandra was crossing herself, she was shot in the skull. Alexandra was the second death.
Dr. Botkin, who was hit twice in the abdomen and crawled toward the Tsar, was fatally shot by Yurovsky. His was the third death.
Alexei, too weak from his illness, didn’t budge as the shooting took place. Still covered in his father’s blood, he was too petrified to move. Yurovsky quickly finished him off with a bullet to the head. Alexei was the fourth death.
When they realized that the daughters were still alive, a second frenzied shooting took place but unbeknownst to the executioners, the daughters had unintentionally made bullet-proof vests by sewing layers of diamonds into their clothes.
After the smoke had cleared, Yurovsky’s men noticed Olga and Tatiana cowering in the dark corner of the basement and clutching tightly to each other. As Yurovsky approached, Tatiana struggled to her feet but was shot in the back of the head. Hers was the fifth death.
Olga, who witnessed her sister’s death, was frantically screaming before being shot in the jaw. Olga was the sixth death.
Anastasia and Maria, who were crouched against a wall, were the last Romanovs alive. The executioners decided to finish them off with bayonets, but the stabs would not go through the layers of jewels. Maria and Anastasia were shot in the head but only Maria died. She was the seventh death.
The maid Demidova awoke after fainting and cried out, “Thank God! I am saved!” Her proclamation was short-lived and she was stabbed with a bayonet. Hers was the eighth death.
Anastasia, the most mythologized of the sisters, had suddenly awoken as she was being carried out. Anastasia cried out and thrashed her arms but was clubbed in the back of the head. She was the last of her family to die.
I’ve always wondered what thoughts run through Tsar Nicholas’s head as he looked back at his family for the last time.
Did a sudden realization dawn on him that he was the cause of his family’s misfortune and tragic end?
Were his last regrets on his inability to protect his family?
Was he preoccupied with thoughts on how to withhold his family’s demise?
We’ll never know. All I could say that after his final words, an unimaginable violence took place that night that shattered innocence and allowed chaos to take its place.
Pelosi Plane has landed in Taiwan! . . . Now, CANNOT TAKE-OFF! – No-Fly Zone
The US Air Force plane carrying Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is now below 18,000 feet in altitude, and is on final approach to Tapei, Taiwan, in direct vioolation of Beijing’s order that she not enter.
Plane is now physically over land, no longer over Pacific Ocean.
Altitude 16,300 feet as of 10:32 AM eastern US time.
As of 10:38 AM Pelosi plane now at 8300 feet altitude. China’s Global Times newspaper says Chinese Air Force fighter jets moving across Taiwan Strait to intercept.
10:39 AM EDT — Plane altitude 6400 feet.
10:40 AM 5600 feet.
5175 feet
4800 feet
Pelosi’s plane safely landed and Pelosi has deplaned.
UPDATE 12:16 PM EDT–
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian made an official statement.
“Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan will be a gross interference in China’s internal affairs, and will lead to very serious events and dire consequences,” Lijian said.
China’s Economy Ministry has stopped HALTED hundreds of food product shipments to Taiwan amid Pelosi visit
China vows ‘targeted military actions’ in response to Pelosi Taiwan visit.
12:28 PM EDT —
Reuters confirms, the Air Space over Taiwan Straits is now closed. China fighter jets are flying all around Taiwan. AIR RAID SIRENS are sounding in southern CHINA:
Chinese military PLA Eastern Theater Command announced it will start military “exercises” in the coming hours around Taiwan Island in response to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
UPDATE 5:04 PM EDT —
China’s military exercises block the air and sea around Taiwan. All of it.
China Central Television announced the start of military exercises in three areas around Taiwan. These maneuvers demonstrate the dissatisfaction of the Chinese ruling party with the actions of the United States, in particular with Pelosi’s statements on “democracy” in Taiwan.
Until the PLA completes the live-fire exercises, Pelosi can’t LEAVE. Her plane can’t take-off else it may “accidentally” be hit by live fire from the “exercises.”
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.
New Beginnings 4.
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I feel you are correct re keeping her on Taiwan, a 3 month military live fire exercise by the PLA will certainly do that. The drums beat louder today…….
Check out my latest video, once You-Tube approves it. HERE.
Thank you Sir.
Our blessings to you and your family, just in case.
DR
Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
I’ll be catching 40 winks with my furry friends… wake me up if something actually happens.
Do you not get tired of the lies? The games?
“Yes!… and we really mean it this time: you’re in real trouble.”
Fucking Kindergarten.
Signed: TheCursed
The US “leadership” is begging for Russia, China – ANYONE – to bomb the US and wipe out our population. We are VERY close to a currency collapse, at which point the general public will be jolted from their decades long slumber and come to realize that EVERYTHING – the entire country – has been stolen. Right in front of their eyes. There’s nothing left. Our leadership is terrified of this moment – of possibly being held accountable – and their solution is to provoke someone (anyone) into nuking us.
There’s one problem. China and Russia don’t actually want to nuke the USA. The Great Plains are the single greatest asset to the planet, and they don’t want to poison them.
Best they’ll do is nuke a few coastal population centers, but other than that, it’s going to be economic warfare.
Expect efforts to provoke a war to continue.
Well if they REALLY want it, all that is need is an EMP airburst pulse… that will wipe out civilians, take much military out weaken country and have US the *citizens* begging for relief… just saying. No need for nukes (though I’d love to see NYC go under or oh, San Fran and parts of Calif…the big one??? Taking out most of California?)