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Posts Tagged ‘China’

Free Trade Is a Human Right – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on December 20, 2022

Free trade, that is, trade not hindered by government oversight, trade agreements, tariffs, or restrictions, is really just commercial freedom. As such, free trade is a human right.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/free-trade-is-a-human-right/

by Laurence M. Vance

Did the United States really give China $309 billion this year? Some conservatives think so.Free trade; that is, trade that is not hindered by government oversight, trade agreements, tariffs, or restrictions, is really just commercial freedom.
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Now, it is certainly true, as conservatives regularly point out, that China is no “people’s republic.” According to the U.S. State Department’s 2021 report on human rights practices in China: “The People’s Republic of China is an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party is the paramount authority,” and “government officials and the security services often committed human rights abuses with impunity.” Government crimes and human rights violations include:

  • arbitrary detention and imprisonment
  • arbitrary or unlawful killings
  • forced disappearances
  • torture
  • harsh and life-threatening prison and detention conditions
  • arbitrary interference with privacy, including pervasive and intrusive technical surveillance and monitoring
  • serious restrictions on free expression, media, and the internet
  • severe restrictions and suppression of religious freedom
  • substantial restrictions on freedom of movement
  • forced sterilization and coerced abortions
  • forced labor
  • substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association
  • punishment of family members for offenses allegedly committed by an individual

But, writes conservative pundit Terence P. Jeffrey for CNS News, “while China continued to inflict these abuses on its own people, it also continued to run up a massive trade deficit with the United States.”

This is a new low for conservatives: associating trade deficits with government human right’s abuses.

Jeffrey reports that the United States ran a one-year bilateral trade deficit with China of $353.493 billion in 2021. According to him, however, things have recently gotten even worse in U.S.-China trade relations. “In the first nine months of 2021 (when the U.S. was on its way to that twelve-month deficit of $353.493 billion), the U.S. ran a trade deficit of $253.507 billion with China,” but “in the first nine months of this year, the U.S. has run a $309.230 billion trade deficit with China.” That is up about 22 percent from the first nine months of 2021. Therefore, according to Jeffrey, the United States should “pressure China to stop its human rights abuses and eliminate the trade imbalance that in the first nine months of this year has resulted in the American people sending a net of $309 billion to a Communist regime.”

There it is again: the association of trade deficits with government human right’s abuses.

Every month, the U.S. Department of Commerce, through the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, releases the latest trade deficit numbers. The United States has a trade surplus with some countries, while with others, it has a trade deficit. Because net imports are typically greater than net exports, the United States usually has an overall trade deficit.

There is so much wrong with the idea represented in that report that the American people sent $309 billion to China during the first three quarters of the year simply because of the trade deficit.

First of all, countries and governments don’t trade, that is, engage in international commerce; only people and businesses do.

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What If Someday Russia and/or China Say “We Have A Gold Backed Currency. Let’s Do Business”

Posted by M. C. on December 12, 2022

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

https://rumble.com/v1zu2dg-what-if-someday-russia-andor-china-say-we-have-a-gold-backed-currency.-lets.html

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New York Times Decides Lockdowns are Actually Draconian and Economically Destructive when China Does Them

Posted by M. C. on November 29, 2022

“Many were fed up with Mr. Xi … and his ‘Zero-Covid’ policy, which continues to disrupt everyday life, hurt livelihoods and isolate the country,” writes the Times in pacific unselfawareness.

https://www.eugyppius.com/p/new-york-time-decides-lockdowns-are?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=268621&post_id=87332402&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

eugyppius

“Right-wing conspiracy theorists with ties to anti-Xi opposition elements spread baseless rumours, deny science, and endanger lives” – strangely not how the New York Times chose to caption this image.

Three years ago, Zero Covid was the aspiration of public health bureaucrats and politicians across the West. Charlatan techbros like Tomas Pueyo appeared on national television to demand nationwide house arrest; leaders like Angela Merkel surrounded themselves with virus-eradicationist modellers and imposed unprecedented months-long closures upon their countries. When protests inevitably broke out, they were violently suppressed; the protesters were slandered as conspiracy theorists and fascists.

The New York Times played a leading role in this long and excruciating charade. In April 2020, they reported that “an informal coalition of influential conservative leaders and groups, some with close connections to the [Trump] White House” was responsible for “quietly working to nurture protests and apply … pressure to overturn state and local orders intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus.” In March 2021, they ran an obnoxious opinion piece about What Happened When Germany’s Far-Right Party Railed Against Lockdowns, which called German protesters “an amorphous mix of conspiracy theorists, shady organizations and outraged citizens” and appeared to accuse the right-populist party Alternativ für Deutschland of opportunism for joining their ranks.

What a difference a few years have made.

China Protests Break Out as Covid Cases Surge and Lockdowns Persist is a lead headline in today’s New York Times: “Strict Covid restrictions are hurting the country’s economy and angering members of the public, who are taking to the streets,” we read in the article that follows. Western anti-lockdown protesters are fascists and conspiracy theorists; Chinese anti-lockdown protesters, on the other hand, are ordinary people who are just fighting the power:

“Lift the lockdown,” the protesters screamed in a city in China’s far west. On the other side of the country, in Shanghai, demonstrators held up sheets of blank white paper, turning them into an implicit but powerful sign of defiance. One protester, who was later detained by the police, was carrying only flowers.

Over the weekend, protests against China’s strict Covid restrictions ricocheted across the country in a rare case of nationwide civil unrest. There had been signs of dissent, but the new wave of anger may pose a bigger challenge for the government.

Some demonstrators went so far as to call for the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, to step down. Many were fed up with Mr. Xi, who in October secured a precedent-defying third term as the party’s general secretary, and his “zero-Covid” policy, which continues to disrupt everyday life, hurt livelihoods and isolate the country.

Western lockdowns were necessary to save lives. Chinese lockdowns are the repressive tactic of an undemocratic regime.

The Chinese government on Monday blamed “forces with ulterior motives” for linking a deadly fire in the western Xinjiang region to strict Covid measures, a key driver as the protests spread across the country.

In much the same way, the New York Times blamed shadowy political actors with ties to Trump for anti-lockdown protests in 2020.

Outside China, the rest of the world has adapted to the virus and is near normalcy. Take soccer’s premier event, the World Cup. Thousands of people from across the globe have assembled in Qatar and are cheering on their teams, shoulder-to-shoulder, without masks, in packed stadiums.

China’s approach won praise during the beginning of the pandemic, and there is no doubt it has saved lives. But now that approach looks increasingly outdated. Almost three years after the coronavirus emerged, the contrast between China and the rest of the world couldn’t be starker.

Emphasis mine, because it’s probably the most amazing line in the whole piece. Here we have America’s foremost propaganda outlet, trying desperately to accuse China of unjust dictatorial repression, for the crime of implementing in a more organised and coherent way the very same Zero Covid policies that Times journalists spent nearly two years supporting. What’s actually wrong with the harsh Chinese lockdowns? Well, say the Times, who can’t say anything else – they’ve become unfashionable.

See the rest here

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We Shouldn’t Destroy Our Economy In The Name of Battling Russia or China

Posted by M. C. on November 23, 2022

The Ron Paul Liberty Report

Neocons, Out-hawking the democrats

https://rumble.com/v1wief0-we-shouldnt-destroy-our-economy-in-the-name-of-battling-russia-or-china.html

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‘Culture Block’ Is Leading to Ukraine Escalation (and risking WWIII) — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on November 16, 2022

Weaponised dysfunctionality was trialled during the recent pandemic. The public was persuaded to accept systemic degradation of the economy. Western leaders regularly have expressed a pleasant surprise at the degree of public compliance achieved during the lockdowns. 

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/11/14/culture-block-is-leading-to-ukraine-escalation-and-risking-wwiii/

Alastair Crooke

Washington’s real interests in Ukraine must be understood not as a war of values but rather as a cruise-missile launched at China, not Russia.

Spot the problem here: First, the EU has lost Russia as a partner, yet the EU insists to maintain trade with China. Two, China, though, must bend to our EU ‘rules’ on how it configures its economy. Thirdly, China too, must accept to be ‘castigated’ by the likes of Olaf Scholtz and Charles Michel for ‘not having put an end to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine’. Fourth, we, the EU, anyway do not intend to depend on you. And fifth, clean up your human rights abuses!

Wow! Well, the initial reaction might be a spell back at the Academy on the art of diplomatic discourse, as being one idea. Nonetheless, the sheer number of non-sequiturs to this stance is startling. Firstly, the rest of the world is not greatly interested in EU leaders’ woke thought-code (the Chinese simply cancelled EU Chief Michel’s proposed speech to a gathering in Beijing). Europe has lost Russia; It will likely lose China. And probably, it will find itself excluded from the colossus, free-trade area unfolding in Eurasia – as the blocs differentiate into separate trading spheres.

Where does this leave that bruited EU ambition to be a global player? … Perhaps the EU’s thought-code culture might be the problem to its ambitions.

You (the EU) have not thought this through: You are now a dependent appendage of the U.S. economy – a prop to maintaining America’s exalted spot in the global system – at a time when its predatory economic model of money-printing at zero interest has been holed by an iceberg (known as accelerating inflation). American industry needs a captive market in a world that is fast seceding into two separate spheres. You have ‘elected’ to fill that role.

Containing China is America’s explicit goal. And that means blocking the European continent from moving closer to Asia to form the world’s biggest free trade zone. Washington had to stop that (i.e. sabotage Nord Stream) in order to preserve Europe as a captive market, and what remains of dollar ‘privilege’.

As an American dependency, Europe is perceived as having conceded not only economic, but political agency tooSimply put, the EU has lost its cheap-energy business model with the ‘I stand with Ukraine’ woke thought and speech codes, and now finds that it is impotent politically. Why would ‘others’ deal with the courtiers, when they can go directly to the ‘Command’ in Washington?

Furthermore, the culture block the EU adopts prevents it from bringing the Ukraine war to a political end. Rather, what it does is bake-in escalation.

Here is the problem: You bought into liberal America’s notion of a coercive process of induced government dysfunctionality – that is to stay, the state of mass psychosis that any weaponised dysfunctional state of society can produce. And it’s been a success (on its own narrow terms).

The bigger message is that ‘induced dysfunctionality’ marching in lockstep, and using culture block tactics to suppress any dissenting opinions, can and does produce a society that can be ruled over (made compliant through unpleasantness and applied pain) – without having to govern (i.e. make things actually work).

And induced compliance has proved its use for implementing all sorts of other ideological schemes that the public would otherwise never accept.

See the rest here

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The Self-Licking Boot Of US Militarism

Posted by M. C. on November 5, 2022

Caitlin Johnstone

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-self-licking-boot-of-us-militarism?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

In reality it’s not hard to determine who the aggressor is when one party is flying to the other side of the planet to menace the borders and security interests of the other,

A new Bloomberg article titled “‘Sloppy’ US Talk on China’s Threat Worries Some Skeptical Experts” discusses the dangerous cycle in which pressures in the US political establishment to continually escalate hostilities with Beijing provokes responses that are then falsely interpreted as Chinese aggression.

Bloomberg’s Iain Marlow writes:

The hawkish narrative “limits room for maneuver in a crisis,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Any effort to defuse tension could be characterized as “conciliatory or not tough enough,” he said.

China has been consistent on Taiwan and there’s little public evidence to suggest it’s sped up the timeline to take Taiwan, said a former senior US official who worked on China policy but asked not to be identified.

The former official said the hawkish tone in DC has contributed to a cycle where the US makes the first move, interprets Chinese reactions as a provocation, and then escalates further.

Bloomberg quotes Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund, who says this cycle of self-reinforcing escalation could “end up provoking the war that we seek to deter.”

Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

Good article on how the US’s approach to China makes war more likely. “[It’s a] cycle where the US makes the first move, interprets Chinese reactions as a provocation, and then escalates further. [We’ll] end up provoking the war that we seek to deter” bloomberg.comBloomberg – Are you a robot?11:06 PM ∙ Nov 4, 2022416Likes109Retweets

We just saw this same self-perpetuating cycle of military escalation exemplified against North Korea, where tensions have again been flaring after a long pause. The US and South Korea initiated a provocative military drill designed to menace the DPRK, Pyongyang responded by launching missiles in its own show of strength, and the Pentagon announced an extension of the drills in response to that response.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp explains:

The US and South Korea are extending massive aerial war games after North Korea put on a massive show of force in response to the drills.

Washington and Seoul started their Vigilant Storm exercises on Monday, which were initially scheduled to run 24 hours a day for five days. This year’s Vigilant Storm is the largest-ever iteration of the drills, involving nearly 100 American warplanes and 140 South Korean aircraft, and about 1,600 planned sorties.

Pyongyang made it clear it would respond to the Vigilant Storm drills, and it launched 23 missiles on Wednesday, which is said to be the most North Korea has fired in a single day. North Korea also fired over 100 artillery rounds on the same day and launched six more missiles on Thursday.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the extension of Vigilant Storm after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup. “I’ve consulted with Minister Lee and we’ve decided to extend Vigilant Storm, which is our long-scheduled combined training exercise, to further bolster our readiness and interoperability,” Austin said.

“So they launch these war games, provoke a bunch of North Korean missile launches and then say they have to extend the war games because of the missile launches,” tweeted DeCamp.

DeCamp quotes another DPRK official who warns that the extension of the US-ROK war games may provoke further escalations, saying “The irresponsible decision of the US and South Korea is shoving the present situation, caused by provocative military acts of the allied forces, to an uncontrollable phase.”

See the rest here

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Biden’s Tech-War “Goes Nuclear”. “Blocking China’s Access to Crucial Semiconductor Technology”

Posted by M. C. on October 22, 2022

“Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday. To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship. Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump.

Aren’t we still recovering from those two mysterious semiconductor factory fires?

Blowback-A CIA speciality

blow·​back | \ ˈblō-ˌbak  \Definition of blowback

an unforeseen and unwanted effect, result, or set of repercussions

https://www.globalresearch.ca/bidens-tech-war-goes-nuclear/5796840

By Mike Whitney

Global Research

“Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday. To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship. Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump. Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month.

With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight – thus cutting off all service [to China]. Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis. This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.”

-Posted at Jordan Schneider’s Twitter account @jordanschnyc from a translated thread at @lidangzzz

The Biden administration intensified its war on China last week when it detonated a thermonuclear bomb at the heart of Beijing’s booming technology industry. In an effort to block China’s access to crucial semiconductor technology, Team Biden announced onerous new export rules aimed at a “comprehensive supply cut-off” of essential semiconductor technology which– according to one analyst– led to an “immediate operations paralysis.” The terror unleashed by the announcement was aptly summarized in a thread posted at Jordan Schneider’s Twitter account from a translated thread at @lidangzzz (See above quote)

Naturally, the Chinese government was blindsided by the draconian new rules which include “all Chinese advanced computing chip design companies”and will undoubtedly “ensure the elimination of all American products and technologies from the entire ecosystem.” The new sanctions regime will likely inflict significant damage on China’s thriving technology industry while causing considerable harm to US partners who were not consulted on the matter. But while the announcement was a complete surprise, it does fit with the much more extensive list of hostile US actions towards China in the last few months. Some of these include:

  1. Multiple US delegations (Nancy Pelosi and other sitting Congressmen) traveled to Taiwan to challenge the One-China policy that has been the cornerstone for normal relations between the two countries for the last 40 years.
  2. Two US warships sail through strait, BBC
  3. US-India maneuvers on the India-China border
  4. The Biden Administration’s persistent determination to provide South Korea with a lethal missile defence system that can be used for offensive purposes and which threatens Chinese security
  5. The relentless strengthening of an “anti-China” coalition
  6. Two U.S. carrier groups conduct exercises in South China Sea
  7. And, now–according to the Financial Times– The EU is being urged to rethink its China policy

While in no way exhaustive, the list should give the reader some sense of the uptick in belligerence that is presently aimed at Beijing. Hectoring China has become a full-time job which is not entirely unexpected as US-China “containment” policy dates back as far as the Cold War. What’s different now –as Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy indicates– is that the US sees itself in the midst of a “great power struggle” in which the primary enemy is China who is regarded as “the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order.” (NSS) In other words, the Biden administration is admitting that we are at war with China and that we must use any means necessary to prevail in that conflict. As foreign policy analyst Andre Damon recently noted, the NSS is not a strategy for the defense of the Republic but a “blueprint for World War 3”.

Indeed, so containment alone will no longer suffice. What is required is increasingly provocative actions that will help to isolate, vilify and, ultimately, weaken China so that it becomes a “responsible stakeholder” in the “rules-based system”. In other words, Biden seeks a compliant vassal who will click his heels and do as he is told.

Sound familiar?

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War With Russia, China, Iran: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Posted by M. C. on September 23, 2022

by Walt Zlotow

antiwar.com

The US is locked in endless proxy war with Russia over Ukraine.

The US is locked in rapid escalation with China leading to possible war over Taiwan.

The US is locked in a collision course with Iran over their imaginary nuclear program that could blow up the Middle East.

I’ve not been as concerned about the world stumbling into nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis, 60 years ago next month. A high school senior then, I worried about being denied a long life. Now, at 77, I fret more about my children and grandkids being denied that privilege.

US world dominance since collapse of the Soviet Union is over, but it doesn’t realize it. Like a wounded animal, the US is lashing out on 3 fronts, none of which may have an ending short of nuclear war, and none of which can resurrect American world dominance.

Once the US falls into to abyss of uncontrolled war, we will be no better off than Humpty Dumpty.

Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.

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Will The United States and NATO Wake Up To What Happened at the Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?

Posted by M. C. on September 22, 2022

By Larry Johnson
Gateway Pundit

I am certain that most Americans do not have a clue what transpired this week at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (aka SCO). It is a clarion call, a defiant declaration, that the countries, which account for over half of the world’s population, are no longer going to defer to the United States. The attendees included Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The speeches by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are especially noteworthy. Both countries put the United States on notice that the United States and NATO will be treated as a sponsor of terrorism because they supply weapons to Ukraine that are being used to attack civilian targets.

I am certain that most Americans do not have a clue what transpired this week at the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (aka SCO). It is a clarion call, a defiant declaration, that the countries, which account for over half of the world’s population, are no longer going to defer to the United States. The attendees included Russia, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The speeches by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are especially noteworthy. Both countries put the United States on notice that the United States and NATO will be treated as a sponsor of terrorism because they supply weapons to Ukraine that are being used to attack civilian targets. You may accuse me of exaggerating because neither Putin nor Xi mention the United States or NATO by name. But the actions of the NATO allies in Ukraine are seen by both Russia and China as acts of terrorism. I am reprinting the salient portions of each speech below.

Russia and China also put the west on notice that Iran is no longer going to be treated as a pariah state. Iran is welcomed emphatically by both Putin and Xi as a member of the SCO. Going forward, this means that Iran will do business with all members of the SCO under the rubric of a new financial order being organized by Russia, China, India and Brazil.

I am sure this is jarring news to the western allies. They have enjoyed the luxury of the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the international reserve currency. It was the Golden Rule at work–those with the gold make the rules. The United States faces a dilemma because it insists on levying international sanctions on any nation or leader who refuses to toe Washington’s line, but the blow back effects of those sanctions are savaging the European economies and will hurt America as well.

China and Russia now realize and affirm that the United States is no longer a reliable, trustworthy partner. They see the United States as a petulant child that, in the past, coerced others by throwing temper tantrums and launching ill-conceived, foolish foreign military operations.

Most important, but not said, the leaders of the SCO realize that Washington is leaderless. Biden is a demented buffoon. Putin demonstrated this in his press conference. He did not have a podium to lean on. He did not have a cheat sheet of journalists that instructed him who to call on. And he spoke intelligently off the cuff. Pay attention to what he says:

President Xi’s speech lays out in detail the future of the SCO:

Under these new conditions, the SCO, as an important constructive force in international and regional affairs, should keep itself well-positioned in the face of changing international dynamics, ride on the trend of the times, strengthen solidarity and cooperation and build a closer SCO community with a shared future.

First, we need to enhance mutual support. We should strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic communication, deepen mutual understanding and political trust, and support each other in our efforts to uphold security and development interests. We should guard against attempts by external forces to instigate “color revolution,” jointly oppose interference in other countries’ internal affairs under any pretext, and hold our future firmly in our own hands.

Second, we need to expand security cooperation. A proverb in Uzbekistan goes to the effect that “With peace, a country enjoys prosperity, just as with rain, the land can flourish.” The Global Security Initiative put forward by China is to address the peace deficit and global security challenges. It calls on all countries to stay true to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture. We welcome all stakeholders to get involved in implementing this initiative.

We should continue to carry out joint anti-terrorism exercises, crack down hard on terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug trafficking as well as cyber and transnational organized crimes; and we should effectively meet the challenges in data security, biosecurity, outer space security and other non-traditional security domains. China is ready to train 2,000 law enforcement personnel for SCO member states in the next five years, and establish a China-SCO base for training counter-terrorism personnel, so as to enhance capacity-building for law enforcement of SCO member states.

Third, we need to deepen practical cooperation. To deliver a better life for people of all countries in the region is our shared goal. The Global Development Initiative launched by China aims to focus global attention on development, foster global development partnership, and achieve more robust, greener and more balanced global development. China is ready to work with all other stakeholders to pursue this initiative in our region to support the sustainable development of regional countries.

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Biden Keeps Pledging Direct US War With China Over Taiwan

Posted by M. C. on September 20, 2022

This Taiwan situation is getting uglier and uglier, much faster than many expected, and the president of the world’s mightiest war machine is either two stupid, too bloodthirsty, too careless or too demented to navigate this situation with the sensitivity it deserves. Things never should have been allowed to get this far, and the US empire is showing us every indication that it intends to take things much, much further.

Caitlin Johnstone

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-keeps-pledging-direct-us-war

The president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers.

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Biden was asked point-blank by CBS News’ Scott Pelley if US forces would defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland.

“Yes, if in fact there was an unprecedented attack,” Biden said.

“After our interview a White House official told us US policy has not changed,” Pelly narrates after the comment. “Officially, the U.S. will not say whether American forces would defend Taiwan. But the commander-in-chief had a view of his own.”

“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, US Forces, US men and women would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?” Pelley asked.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

This is by my count the fourth time the US president has made such remarks in transgression of his government’s standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” on this issue only to have them walked back by administration staff.

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