China And the Zombies Of The Past
Christopher Black
The hybrid war, being conducted against China by the United States and its gaggle of puppet states from the UK to Canada to Australia, has entered a new phase.
The first stage involved the massive shift of US air and naval forces to the Pacific and constant provocations against China in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait. The second stage was the creation of disinformation about China’s treatment of minority groups, especially in Tibet and west China.
That this propaganda campaign has been carried out by nations such as the US, Canada and Australia who have the worst human rights records in the world with respect to their indigenous peoples, subjected to centuries of cultural and physical genocide by those governments, and who refuse to protect their minority peoples from physical attacks and discrimination despite their human rights laws, shocks the conscience of any objective observer.
But not content with that, the propaganda was extended to China’s economic development, its international trade, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, its Silk and Belt Road Initiative, its development bank, and other facilities and trade initiatives, through which China is accused of trying to control the world; an accusation made by the very nation that threatens economic embargo or worse, nuclear annihilation, to anyone, friend or foe, who resists its attempt to control the world.
The fourth phase is the US attempt to degrade the Chinese economy with punitive “tariffs,” essentially an embargo on Chinese goods. That the objective is not better trade deals but to bring China to its knees is the fact that the negative effect of these tariffs on American consumers, farmers and manufacturers is considered secondary to the principal objective.
Last year it moved to a fifth phase, the kidnapping and illegal detention of Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of China’s leading technology company Huawei, in synchronicity with a massive campaign by the USA to force its puppets to drop any dealings with that company. Meng Wanzhou is still held against her will in Canada on US orders. Chinese have been harassed in the US, Australia and Canada.
The latest phase in this hybrid warfare is the insurrection being provoked by the US, UK, Canada and the rest in Hong Kong, using tactics designed to provoke China into suppressing the rioters with force to amplify the anti-Chinese propaganda, or pushing the “protestors” into declaring Hong Kong independent of China and then using force to support them.
Mitch McConnell, an important US senator implicitly threatened just such a scenario in a statement on August 12th stating that the US is warning China not to block the protests and that if they are suppressed trouble will follow.
In other words, the US is claiming that it will protect the thugs in black shirts, the shirts of fascists. This new phase is very dangerous, as the Chinese government has time and again stated, and has to be handled with intelligence and the strength of the Chinese people.
There is now abundant evidence that the UK and US are the black hand behind the events in Hong Kong.
When the Hong Kong Bar association joined in the protests the west claimed that even the lawyers were supporting the protests in an attempt to bring justice to the people. But the leaders of that association are all either UK lawyers or members of law firms based in London, such as Jimmy Chan, head of the so-called Human Civil Rights Front, formed in 2002 with the objective of breaking Honk Kong away from China, such as Kevin Lam, a partner in another London based law firm, and Steve Kwok and Alvin Yeung, members of the anti-China Civic Party who are going to meet with US officials next week.
Kwok has called for the independence of Hong Kong in other visits, some sponsored by the US National Security Council and has called for the US to invoke its Hong Kong Policy Act, which, among other things mandates the US president to issue an order suspending its treatment of Hong Kong as a separate territory in trade matters. The effect of this would be to damage China’s overall trade since a lot of its revenue comes through Hong Kong. The president can invoke the Act if it decides that Hong Kong “is not sufficiently autonomous to justify it being treated separately from China.”
In tandem with Kwok’s call for the use of that Act, US Senator Ted Cruz has filed a Bill titled the Hong Kong Revaluation Act requiring the president to report on “how China exploits Hong Kong to circumvent the laws of the United States.”
But it seems the anti-Chinese propaganda campaign is not having the effect they hoped. The New York Times ran a piece on August 13 stating, “China is waging a disinformation war against the protestors.” Embarrassed by US consular officials being caught red-handed meeting with protest leaders in a hotel in Hong Kong last week and blatant statements of support for the protestors from the US, Canada and UK as well attempts to treat Hong Kong as an independent state, the US intelligence services have now been forced to try to counter China’s accounts of the facts by declaring anything China says as disinformation.
The US and UK objectives are revealed in this statement from the article,
Hong Kong, which Britain returned to Chinese rule in 1997, remains outside China’s firewall, and thus is sitting along one of the world’s most profound online divides. Preserving the city’s freedom to live without the mainland’s controls has become one of the causes now motivating the protests.”
This statement flies in the face of the Basic Law, expressing the agreement between the UK and China when the UK finally agreed to leave Hong Kong. We need to be aware of what the Basic Law says. Promulgated in April 4 1990 but put into effect on July 1, 1997, the date of the hand over of the territory to China, the Preamble states:
Hong Kong has been part of the territory of China since ancient times; it was occupied by Britain after the Opium War in 1840. On 19 December 1984, the Chinese and British Governments signed the Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong, affirming that the Government of the People’s Republic of China will resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong with effect from 1 July 1997, thus fulfilling the long-cherished common aspiration of the Chinese people for the recovery of Hong Kong.
Upholding national unity and territorial integrity, maintaining the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, and taking account of its history and realities, the People’s Republic of China has decided that upon China’s resumption of the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong, a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will be established in accordance with the provisions of Article 31 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, and that under the principle of “one country, two systems”, the socialist system and policies will not be practised in Hong Kong. The basic policies of the People’s Republic of China regarding Hong Kong have been elaborated by the Chinese Government in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
In accordance with the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, the National People’s Congress hereby enacts the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, prescribing the systems to be practised in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, in order to ensure the implementation of the basic policies of the People’s Republic of China regarding Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a part of China. That is the essential fact set out in the Basic Law agreed to by the UK as well as China. It is an administrative region of China. It is not an independent state and never was when Britain seized it through force and occupied it.
So the claim that the protestors are trying to preserve something that never existed, freedom from China’s control, since Hong Kong is subject to China’s control, is bogus. The fact that China permitted Hong Kong to retain its capitalist system confirms this. The fact that China can impose socialism 50 years after or sooner if certain conditions are met, also confirms this.
The pretexts for the riots, the first being a proposed extradition law between the mainland and Hong Kong which is similar to those that exist between provinces in Canada and states in the USA, the second being the claim that China’s insistence on its sovereignty over the territory somehow overrides the limited autonomy granted Hong Kong and threatens that autonomy, are without any foundation.
One could easily split Canada into pieces based on such bogus arguments or again split up the USA, or even the UK as London sees its rule of Ireland, Wales and Scotland being challenged by nationalist groups. And we know very well what violent protests will bring in swift suppression of such forces if the central governments feel threatened, especially by the violence we see used by the blackshirts in Hong Kong.
We saw what happened in Spain when the Catalans attempted to split from Spain. The leaders of the movement are now in exile. We saw what the US is capable of against demonstrators when it shot them down at Kent State when students were demonstrating peacefully. These things are not forgotten. We know how the British will react to renewed attempts for a united Ireland.
China is facing attacks on several fronts at once and it will require wisdom, endurance and the strength of the Chinese people to defend their revolution and rid themselves of colonial and imperialist domination, once and for all. Those who carry British and American flags in the protests in Hong Kong, reveal who they are. They are not the future of China. They are the living embodiment of a dead history and dead ideas, zombies of the past.
First published 14 August, 2019 at New Eastern Outlook.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook.
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The fake news MSM touted a crowd size of 1.7 million in Hong Kong over the weekend.
More fantasy. This is a quarter of the HK population.
See this for a rational example of an accurate Hong Kong crowd estimation that doesn’t defy a fundamental law of physics (the Pauli exclusion principle) or basic arithmetic/mathematics (packing density and area), as opposed to the MSM’s lazy contempt for the intelligence of their viewers/readers. MSM estimate: 1.7m. Estimate closer to the real number: 115,000, still 13,000 lower than that of the HK police.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/08/which-hong-kong-protest-size-estimate-is-right.html#more
Riposte to the ignorant white-racist ‘Boot Hill’ and his know-nothing sub-fascistic slagging of the Australian Aborigines: What Oz Euro-whities actually OWE to the Aborigines, in effin’ spades:
“So the claim that the protestors are trying to preserve something that never existed, freedom from China’s control, since Hong Kong is subject to China’s control, is bogus” ???
Really? Isn’t Crimea subject to Ukraines control? Judging by your extensive writings (which I agree with for the most part) on the Ukraine war I would say you absolutely supported Crimeas right to a referendum and succesion, even though historically they never had any independence, sounds bogus to me.
I suppose HK doesn’t get the same rights in your view as it doesn’t fit your frothing rabid anti American narrative. (which I will fairly add, is not unreasonable)
My point is I believe that in this case the majority of HK doesn’t want to become like the mainland, and that is more significant than the US interference/interests.
Give them a referendum and just ignore it if it goes the “wrong” way. Same as the UK.
Bollocks, you are clearly trolling & or CLUELESS as I suspected ! When you speak ANY one of all the foreign languages involved, having WORKED within their culture PROFESSIONALLY and when you have answered my very SIMPLE questions to you below, get back to me !
I live on the NATZO frontline in the West on the ‘Dreiländereck’ of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, within the Border Zone, on the Silk Road and my brother and his family still live on the NATZO frontline in the East and operate out of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing & Wuhan … you are fucking clueless pal, and imho, you’ve been drafted in as backup for your bosses’ (WHB) blatant failures & incompetence at convincing and disturbing these intelligent discussions here, which include direct first hand experience of the Ukraine & MH17 events, on that night, when I happened to be working with 4 computers simultaneously, monitoring many various angles …
Whether you like it or NOT , Russia will have her Black Sea Port and you are a complete fucking ignorant moron of the highest order & calibre if you even think
or suggest otherwise !
So: Tell me just one foreign language that you speak and have worked with, understanding their culture! and NO, French doesn’t count, I learnt that as a child and you sound childish, trying to make yourself sound important, like you know something … well prove it, son, coz’ as far as i’m concerned you are just another FUKUS AGENT of idiots,
on the wrong side of history !
You have left the building. Was this an article on intellectual expansion through language? Are u going to even discuss the points at hand?
I always leave the building when people can’t answer a variety of very simple questions, wholly pertinent, (like what do you know personally professionally), not hearsay and mainstream media ‘hit-lines’ of pure ego & self interest >>> you are wholly intellectually INCAPABLE of addressing ANY of the critical points, ostensibly beginning with the fact that you have ground zero understanding and respect for others’ cultures, because you’ve never even taken the time to understand “Man O To”,
(that’s Farsi for ‘me & you’), let alone others … clearly, you don’t even know your true self, let alone others notions for life.
Oh, and the article is all about the various arts of communicating positions & stance, just in case you forgot to even try to comprehend your mother tongue. So far, you’ve only spouted BS that others have wholly falsely informed you of: for example about Hong Kong, or the Ukraine & Crimea and you are so stupid, naive and arrogant in your ignorance, that you are in full denial of the CIA’s and the EU’s involvement in destabilising the Ukraine, in a pathetic effort to cover your ignorance, make a stance & distract from their collective political & Corporate FASCIST Censorship problems, @home.
You obviously know nothing about China & Hong Kong, nor the Ukraine nor Crimea and the Slavic nations. So, once again, for the last time, answer the fucking question, what do you know professionally in any sense, that is relevant ?
Just scrap the SAR, unilaterally-
The Yanks have done that with several treaties, so why shouldn’t China?
Why isn’t Macao rioting? They are Cantonese as well are they not?
davemass-ively sound comment 😉
Yes, the logic of the WSWS position on the Hong Kong riots is bizarre to say the least. But opportunism tends to do that, even if the opportunism itself is commonplace and isn’t so bizarre. For actual Marxists, China remains a deformed workers state despite significant and increasingly dangerous capitalist inroads initiated by Deng Xiaoping. This means defending China from imperialist attack and internal counterrevolution and building a party inside China to lead a political (not social) revolution to establish organs of workers democracy (eg, soviets).
For WSWS, China ceased being a workers state “since the restoration of capitalism in China during the 1970s”. Parenthetically, one might ask, when was the Chinese state apparatus dismantled in a counterrevolution and replaced by another based on defending the institution of private property (as happened with the restoration of capitalism in the USSR)? But that mystery is a discussion for another day.
The WSWS position on China is perfectly compatible with the late departed State Department socialists of the ISO and other ‘third-campists’ like the SWP in the UK and various offshoots, except WSWS isn’t quite yet ready to go the whole hog and side with the imperialists, as did the third campists for decades in every major conflict, and as they will continue to do.
To avoid that, WSWS instead are forced engage in further mental gymnastics (with pike) to make black white and white black in denying reality:
“Trump’s comments [about HK and his urging Xi to speak directly with protesters] are a further sign of the anxiety in the ruling class globally about the protest movement in Hong Kong and its potential to feed into similar discontent internationally over deepening social inequality and attacks on fundamental democratic rights.”
and this:
“In backing the regime, the US president is not acting alone.”
[see: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/16/hong-a16.html
]
Really? The ‘ruling class globally’ actually is backing these colour-revolution protests to the hilt, as expressed through their MSM, universally, ‘globally’. And as pointed out well by the author of the article here and many commenters, the NED, USAID et al. have backed the protest leaders and their organisations for years. Everyone also knows the protest leaders have been actively collaborating their US godfather prior to and during the protests. Yet none of this, let alone the term ‘colour revolution’, is mentioned in the WSWS piece on Hong Kong.
It should be noted that the WSWS’s position on China has close parallels with its position on trade unions. To WSWS, trade unions simply represent an arm of the bosses rather than workers defensive organisations that happen to be saddled with sell-out leaderships acting in the interests of the bosses. This distinction is important and means that bourgeois state intervention into trade union affairs — never supported by Marxists — is unopposed by WSWS. The ‘solution’ for WSWS is syndicalism, for workers to substitute trade unions with ‘workplace and factory committees’ rather than fight within the unions to oust their sell-out leaders. For the most recent example, read this latest from WSWS regarding the court case against rampant corruption inside the UAW leadership [see: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/17/auto-a17.html
].
If you deny that trade unions have any legitimacy, if you deny that a workers state is one, then you give free rein to the bourgeoisie in rolling back any gains of the working class. But to maintain a semblance of ‘leftism’ to cover up such opportunism you need to do some rather savage violence to reality, as the WSWS is doing.
Since 1949 China has been in the crosshairs of US imperialism to restore capitalism there, and this article outlines well the various stratagems devised by the US imperialists and its followers for that. Very likely you’ll not find such on the WSWS website, especially regarding China or Hong Kong.
Fair objective intelligent constructive comment, Stephen: thanks and may I add that I always look forward to reading your contributions …
Thank you Tim. By the way, this excellent piece just appeared in Grayzone. It’s the best article so far on the main players in Hong Kong.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/17/hong-kong-protest-washington-nativism-violence/
Thanks for that link, Stephen: the ‘Sponge’ has been squeezed and lobbed into the deep end and I’ll be swimming in that article shortly, already in my browser of choice, ready to mop the brow, stifled by humidity …
Have a fine day,
Regards,
Tim
Excellent deductions and information Stephen.. Here is another brilliant insightful article, to add to yours.
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/06/10/hong-kongs-umbrella-revolution-redux-washington-tries-to-destabilise-china-again/
Reality check: the present Off-Guardian would be “offed” within a day under censorship the CPC censorship regime.
Fights are not always simply binary the “Good” vs the “bad”. During WWII five different warriors struggled with each other and happily the two worst got the most damage (Hitler and Stalin). Mao survived to wreck China for a few decades, crippled Roosevelt lost control of the US Deep State and Churchill nicely lost his empire.
Imagine Stalin attacking Hitler first or Mao losing in China, or Roosevelt getting suddenly healthy and powerful….
You have to ask yourself why they bother. This type of hybrid warfare against a non-enemy, not even a potential threat, seems an enormous waste of resources that makes no sense unless its seen through the lens of a version of the “Great Game”** where it exists merely for the sake of existing. The only explanation must be that there are so many jobs dependent on it that it can’t stop even if it had to because the people involved wouldn’t let it.
From a historical perspective the game is a losing proposition., the best that could be hoped for is a stalemate for a period of time. From a social and economic perspective its a huge waste of resources, resources that could be funneled into improving the lot of billions and stabilizing our existence on this planet (because unlike the Victorians we just don’t have the luxury of regarding the Earth’s resources as infinite). For just these reasons we all have to push back against the puerps because as we all know, “The Best Way To Win Is To Not Play”.
(Competition between societies should be no different that competition between sports teams. Being top dog just means that everyone’s out to best you. The only way to stay on top is to continually up your game — its not a real competition if you resort hobbling the competition or manipulating the rules so you always win. Competition is what drives human progress, without it we will just stagnate and decline.)
(**See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game )
People doing pretty well at ignoring the ‘Bonney’ troll(s) now. Keep it up folks! Strangle the trolls with shunning: careful application of DR. DADE’s medicine: Don’t Read. Don’t Answer Don’t Engage. Scroll past his/her/their input un-glanced. Dead easy to do, I assure y’all. Surest way to strangle them – especially the paid shit-stirring, lying crooks operated by Tel Aviv central. ‘Bonneys’, every one of them. Only worthy of prompt strangulation.
Regarding the – apparent – volunteer half-wit troll named ‘Boot Hill, John Pilger, at his website, has plenty of sober realism and hard facts about the plight of the Australian Aboriginals, to counter the sort of quarter-millimetre-deep, factually-challenged (let’s call it that), toxic, racist rubbish that BH is pushing. Recommended.
I echo you about not engaging with the trolls in any way – just ignore their comment. Regards this new one, Boot Hill, the level of openly racist bigotry in Australia is a real eye opener.
I’ve lived here bit over 15 years, and the hatred directed at Aboriginal people as well as Muslims and Sudanese is quite blatant. After the Christchurch massacre (I’m from Christchurch) and after Jacinda Ardern had donned the hijab in solidarity, I had a guy come up to me and go “your bitch Prime Ministers a muzzie, she wears the burkha”.
The vile views Boot Hill expresses here are fairly common in Aussie, especially away from the large cities. You’ve probably seen John Pilger’s documentary Utopia?
Film is called Utopia by John Pilger.
To the eternal shame of 5 Eyes fascists and slave traders everywhere.
Apologies on behalf of vimeo. Utopia, full film, now on youtube….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gYCNWpJuVRQ
¡No pasarán!
Wow, did this guy just compare human rights abuses in the west to China? Where millions are held indefinitely for their religious beliefs, churches are torn down, outlawed and replaced with pictures of Xi Jing Pooh, bibles burned. If Jewish people were being persecuted like Muslims are in western china we would have invaded already. Writing a book with a gay sex scene is 10 years in prison, people are literally tagged, marked and scored on their dedication to the PRC. China is absolutely the greatest threat to humanity and democratic freedom on the planet, akin to the fourth reich. Honk Kong may be supported by the west, but the motivation is based on the legitimate terror of losing all of their freedoms and human rights, as they will. Anyone supporting this government will be on the wrong side of history. This is not in support of all the atrocities that the US, Australia and Canada has perpetrated, but they support freedom of speech, movement, religion and sexuality. How dare someone get to use and enjoy all the freedoms of the west and point fingers at HK to say they should give theirs up, I guess whoever wrote this believes the world would have been better off run by Russia or China, bah.
“If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her”
‘Wow, did this guy just compare human rights abuses in the west to China? ‘ – I think he was refering to the fact settlers from Europe colonised lands belonging to indiginous populations by the use of violence and force (and on a mass scale).
This power was consolidated by decades of slavery allied to a racist culture developed to rationalise these abuses.
At the moment millions (in Britain) have been impoverished by class war aka austerity providing further proof, if proof were needed that the groups like the public school elite or corpocracy are perfectly content to shit on their own citizens.
So lets not pretend that amoral states like Britain, the US or Australia can claim any form of moral authority given their imperial legacy or propensity for economic and military force if weaker countries make the same mistakes as the aborigines or native Americans.
Which is entirely irrevelant to the here and now. You cannot justify repression now, by referencing what those long dead did to each other.
The problem is juxtaposing the US as any kind of moral entity against which the actions of China, or ideed any other demonised nation can be judged: Russia, Iran, Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Palestine, all the usual suspects.
The US is the worlds leading terror state, long time ally of despots and in its current guise teetering on the brink of outright fascism, a development that may well supplant the form of corporate cryptofascism that has long defined its internal culture as well the nature of the relationship with all of the other countries it seeks to trample on.
Trump is the catalyst who brought these simmering forces right out into the open, and Americans, those forgotten by Obama, forgotten by Hillary and forgotten by Bill love him for it, even if it means screwing themselves and the rest of the world over.
The devil is in the detail Harry: notice the purpose of the ‘Inception’ music soundtrack to this piece of propaganda by M.M., whose voice, I could listen to no more, after 1:59, I switched off, because …
This is the music employed & ‘dubbed’ over “The Great Dictator”, speech by Charlie Chaplin, after so many years of silent movies, the man spoke profoundly, & eloquently: which coincidentally is a speech that I posted, just yesterday in a reply without comment to ‘Nottheonly1’, after much consideration from myself on which version, of the many versions to publish, under ‘NTO1’s comment under the following article, to which Vexarb subsequently comments & reflects upon.
The reason I point you towards this very subliminal direction in direction, is that I wish for all readers to fully grasp the wholly scientific relationship between, ‘PHYSIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY’ in marketing today, with Hollywood backing from its’ ‘INCEPTION’ ! Just like the BBC, my friend …
Military Intelligence ‘Detail’ of societal manipulations, tendering the emotions !
🙂 😉 – feel the Groove & the connectivity ? ! Click & scroll 🙂
https://off-guardian.org/2019/08/16/inside-the-submissive-void/
The article is terrific and big compliment >>> Greg Maybury.
Agreed: I would have preferred Michael Moores monologue without the music because the content stands up on its own in my opinion.
I linked to the speech because is a precis of the central message in his film ‘Farenheit 11/9’ which, for those who haven’t seen it, begins by asking – ‘how the fuck did that happen’ – ie Trump being elected president.
The film’s pivotal moment occurs during the Flint water crises: a crises engineered by Michigans’ corrupt governor, Rick Synder, so as to benefit big business.
Flint’s unsafe water is predominantly consumed by poor black families.
Obama is summoned to Michigan and it is first assumed that he is there to fight on their behalf.
In fact he’s not: Obama sides with the corporations.
In front of a packed audience he asks for a glass of Flint water then drinks it signifying its supposed safety despite toxicology reports highlighting the fact it contains raised levels of lead.
Obama’s utter indifference to their concerns symbolises which side the loyalties of the liberal elite are on should any conflict arise between their rich sponors and poor voters who support them.
Of course those who study politics had long ago worked out that Obama was a smooth talking phony but for the trusting citizens of Flint that moment in the film was like a kick in the teeth – the film cuts to despondant supporters (now ex-supporterss) saying ‘I’ll never vote for him again’.
In Moores thesis the vote for Trump is thus a massive a fuck you and a manifestation of the disillusionment felt toward the liberal elite over their inability to engage with the interests of anyone who does not belong to the upper tiers of the income distribution curve.
oh and one last thing Harry, note carefully the final high frequency ‘squelch’ over & out & a specifically audible finale, that moves to ‘Cut’, for extra stunning effect in brain-waves & thought processing of the physical kind, with a view to emphasis of the psychological subliminal ‘training’, in play: which makes Uriah Heap & Black Sabbath look like novices, in terms of carefully & heavily orchestrated refinement . . . (chuckle) 😉
“The US is the worlds leading terror state”?
You are in the context of this argument inferring you would rather live in China. The US is a corporate communist state, it is run as all Western civilizations under control of banks, financial giants and captains of industry. They have destroyed countless nations, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lybia, Yemen, Honduras and more, mostly i
the name of money and power. They have murdered Millions and Millions of innocent people in the last century alone. Anyone in here that thinks that, Imperial Japan, Germany, The Soviet Union or China, given the opportunity would have consolidated power through less violent means literally lives in a fluff cloud filled with rainbows and unicorns. The fake war on terror, drugs, indigenous genocide, countless wars, slavery are all atrocious facets of American history, none of which change the fact that right now America is still a beacon of freedom and individualism compared to China.
I would much rather live in China than the USA, because the USA is not only the biggest backer of terrorism and drug distribution and everything-everything that is wrong in this world today, but also the USA has the HIGHEST number of PEOPLE INCARCERATED >>> in prison, pal !
You really are so stupid with your trolling that you are in full denial of the facts and just throwing straw men & straw dogs, as the most simple projection & transference and ‘look over there’ tactics & strategy, that will not wash, in these circles @OffG’suss & riddle me this one …
The state of California just turned in a $6 BILLION profit on their prison systems, for what they call ‘Justice’ (so far removed!): is this the future that you want, where we just lock everybody up who even just dares to think differently about the 50,000 homeless in L.A. ? Personally, due to highly uneducated & poorly nourished lost souls like yours, I’m seriously considering moving to China, just to get away from the typical capitalist mentality, like yours, frankly! And one place I will never consider moving to is the UK & USA ! and unfortunately France now as well… coz’ these Fascist Nations have only one goal in mind and that is their FUKUS game of cultural genocide ! Not that you have ANY experience of other cultures,
apparently !
Oh & Jack, just in case you don’t understand English or French (it certainly appears), for the street expression in your neck of the woods, where bears shit, what you do is called “GASLIGHTING” … and may I respectfully suggest that you take a lighter and hold it right up your bum, next time you fart 😉 and don’t forget to ignite … 🙂
I’m by no means disillusioned to the fact of how America, Britain or any western power has attained or maintains their contol and power. The colonial acts of our forefathers have no bearing in comparing our current regimes. I’m simply stating that the level of control exerted on peoples free will within these countries and China are literally not even close.
China is a worksheet to absolute totalitarian dissolution of individualism and freedom. Like another commenter stated none of us would even be having this conversation in China.
People that have lived under regimes like dictator Xi and worse, can appreciate the freedoms that clearly are so easily traded for indignant self righteousness.
SO TELL US HOW YOU KNOW ?
BRING IT ON !!!
FINALLY STAND UP & BECOME MAN !
Chinese society — a very old culture — has always included a lot of minorities. It also values harmony and stability. Any attempt to cause friction or instability will get push back. It won’t be because of religion per se but any attempt to use religion as a wedge to promote disunity will be countered.
Hong Kong was a British colony for many years under the terms of a lease. During this time there was no democracy in the colony, it was ruled from London (although, obviously, like any other municipal district it would have had a lot of local control over its day to day activities). Since it reverted back to China at the end of the lease the colony has been semi-autonomous, retaining a lot of local control but part of the PRC.
We hear a lot about “Freedom and Democracy” but mostly from people who don’t understand what it means, its just a slogan. Typically “Democracy” means that you get to hold elections where you’re required to elect the correct politicians, typically carefully selected and vetted representatives of the ruling elite. (Failure to do this will result in “consequences” — look around you.) “Freedom” is also relative. You may recall the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors from some years ago, people who were quite legitimately (IMHO) protesting the way the financial system not only dominated peoples’ lives but appeared to be corrupt. These people didn’t do much except camp out to make their point, there was no organized vandalism or throwing of petrol bombs. That didn’t stop them from being swept away by the forces of Law and Order “with extreme prejudice”. Same with the Yellow Vest protestors in France — they’ve been having running battles with the police for months now. The Hong Kong government has been quite soft with the protestors so far so I’d guess that if it follows ‘color revolution’ practice the protestors will ratchet up the demands and the violence until something useful comes out of it. (They are what used to be known in the trade as “Useful Idiots” but I expeect they’re looking for a Green Card out of it when the whole lot falls in a heap.)
(I should also remark that HK has a justice system based on British practice while China is more Napoleonic in how it conducts criminal proceedings. These differences are often seized up to show how bad ‘they’ are ….. but they’re actually similar to those used in Scotland.)
Freedom and Democracy can be very abstract and even deceiving terms as our elected (carefully vetted bots) don’t even have control over the most significant policy decisions, monetary policy. Freedom of speech, mobility, sexuality, religion(for purpose of faith, which in itself is a threat to PRC), these are clealy evident in a persons day to day existence. Being assigned a social score based on who you choose to socialize with, your faith, how much time you spend reading official propaganda, if you put recycling in the wrong bin, if you jaywalk, being rewarded for turning on your neighbours, friends and family. Then restricting your ability to be part of society, publicly shaming non conformist based on your score, this is the wet dream of a authoritarian dictatorship. It is a project of human control that goes way beyond freedom or democratic or human rights, these are clearly evident erosions of more than just slogans or intangible concepts.
How many people here ranting about how great China is compared to the west, would go live there? Zero, undoubtedly literally zero.
I’m seriously considering leaving the ignorant barbarous multitudes, with absurd kiddy viewpoints from brainwashing & censorship, for to facilitate Mafia Fascist Rule in the EU & Western nations, inc. Apartheid in Israel, for good: I mean specifically any system that needs to pay for trolls like you to maintain their charades, charades that have compromised the whole of academia & science, cannot be worth saving or contributing to, any more …
My creative knowledge & scientific wisdom, is your loss: so you are,
WRONG AGAIN PAL !
Some of us have had no problem living & working in China & Hong Kong for many many decades, as well as other languages & cultures: and you Jack, are so naive, poorly educated & brainwashed & spouting just junk comments, that demonstrate that you have “Zero, undoubtedly literally zero.” knowledge of what I’m talking about and you also have “Zero, undoubtedly literally zero.”… about what you are talking about !
Oh, and by the way, my brother is thinking of moving back to China as well and a friend from Vancouver is just loving his teachings in China right now,
where respect rules … beginning always within !
What do you respect about yourself and your
daily pathetic inane existence as Troll, Jack ?
Join the discussion. Yeah right. It’s difficult when there are those who don’t want a discussion but simply want to make cheap, usually irrelevant points. This is the premise that they always, and I mean always, start from. 1. There are good countries and there are bad countries. The good countries are the US and its empire – including most importantly Israel. 2. Then there are bad countries – Russia, China, Iran and so forth. It may seem that the good countries include Saudi Arabia, and apartheid Zionist state of Israel, with its proven IDF kid-killers who are occasionally unleashed to ‘mow the grass’ in Gaza as the Zionists would put it. But these are ‘good’ mass murderers and tyrants as opposed to Eurasian types.
This of course represents the Manichean-schizophrenic mindset of the true believer. And there is not much point in arguing with him. The mind-level is frankly breathtakingly infantile and reveals the workings of the subconscious irrationalism of those who never made it to intellectual maturity.
The internal arrangements and workings of sovereign states are, in Billie Holidays words, ‘nobody’s business’ but their own. The objective of diplomacy should be to reduce any tension between these states in order to ensure a PEACEFUL outcome. But hey, that is all out of date and fuddy-duddy; those bad actors – not us of course, them – should be shown the error of their ways, if necessary by military force R2P and the rest. This view is a type of religious cultism which is not open to discussion.
I’d rather watch grass grow than engage to be honest
Hi Jack, (obviously highly unlikely your real name), any chance you’ll be contributing intelligently and knowledgeably, fielding working experience from any profession, to this comments section ?
1) What do you know about China?
2) What is your professional realm(s) of knowledge, that relates … ?
3) Can you speak Mandarin or Cantonese ?
4) Do you have any Chinese family ?
5) Are you happy with your government ?
6) Where do you live ‘happily’ today, in good conscience ?
Your starter for 6, after which I feel confidant I can destroy your pig ignorant arrogant bullshit comment, for which I suspect you were paid: coz’ imho, only a paid moron would write such a dumb fucked up culturally ignorant & insulting comment, specifically most insulting to the author of what is a fine article, from a person who is clearly far wiser and more developed intellectually than you appear to be, ever likely capable of becoming . . .
We’ll see. 🙂 every sucker deserves a fair chance to hang themselves: but, at least you’ve already confirmed one thing for me: you are clueless as to why we have these riots in Hong Kong @present, but I shan’t tell you why yet, until you answer the above questions, first, because it would be pointless wasting time on a potential troll …
when I was in Hong Kong & China long before the handover in ’97’, during the handover and after the handover of various ‘exchanges’ and have a brother who has lived in China for over 35 years and we have much Chinese family … and of course, we study the currency matters in play daily, as a big culturally diverse international family, like checking the strength of the Yuan/RMB and the Hong Kong Dollar, that is still pegged to the US Dollar …
So, get yer’ ‘Ja-Jas / ya-yas’ out and bring it on … who the fuck are you to judge, Jack ?
What the fuck do you know ?
Perfectly fair questions !
Neither can you, but you can simulate it with Google Translate.
China was attacked on August 12 2015, 6 hours after the departure of UK foreign secretary Philip Hammond from Tianjin. The explosion sequence at Tianjin left a crater 100m across. The energy required to do this is measured in kilotons. On August 20 the Chinese banned the import of crab from Anglesey in Wales citing ‘toxic chemicals’ and ‘heavy metals’, a diplomatic way of saying that the Wylfa nuclear power station had been identified as the plutonium source.
Likeliest delivery system was the ‘Taranis’ stealth drone.
Big thanks for this pointer Oliver, for everybody’s benefit: I recall studying and analysing the chain & implications of that horrific & devastating explosion, searching film immediately &&& we can already guess much of the rest, that will be revealed in good time, more conclusively …
You just made my hair stand up, reminding me …
Again thanks and compliment for some serious critical thinking.
Regards,
Tim
Nothing, not one thing you stated has any relevance on this discussion, literally just a vat of insults based on your belief of your vast comprehension of Chinese culture.
“when I was in Hong Kong & China long before the handover in ’97’, during the handover and after the handover of various ‘exchanges’ and have a brother who has lived in China for over 35 years and we have much Chinese family … and of course, we study the currency matters in play daily, as a big culturally diverse international family, like checking the strength of the Yuan/RMB and the Hong Kong Dollar, that is still pegged to the US Dollar …”?????
What does any of this have to do with my beliefs that the current Chinese government (which has pulled more people out of poverty than any government ever, and has accomplished great things) is imprisoning millions of people in reeducation camps and creating a system of governance that in my opinion is absolutely totalitarian.
This is your way of stroking yourself off in the chat group that you are some expert on Chinese people and culture. This is irrelevant, I am from Canada and have many friends from both Hong Kong and China that share these same opinions. The author writes this article as that America, Canada or Australia’s historical atrocities make the current regimes worse that the PRC. Also that what is happening in HK is nothing more than another US wag the dog show and has no organic societal roots to it, which I disagree with.
So I’m assuming you agree with the level of control that the PRC is taking over peoples everyday lives? This has nothing to do with currency or the PBOC or devaluation or the Belt Road, or capatalism vs communism. The question is simply about means of governance.
Only one of us sounds like a pig to me, but I guess thats a consensus that will be determined by the group.
Jack Leon…. F off troll!
Disagreeing with the premise of this article makes me a troll? Mature response
Just spew out all the standard Regime Change talking points.
We now have “millions in concentration camps.”
Perhaps its six million, being turned into soap and lamp shades.
This concern for supposed Moslem grievances is all very touching from countries which have invaded the moslem world slaughtering, starving and immiserating tens of millions and bombing countries back to the Stone Age.
If I was a moslem, I think I’d take my chances with China.
It is not China which has rampaged its way across the planet like Nazi Germany on steroids, currently waging economic warfare against most of the planet and threatening simultaneous wars against Iran, Venezuela, DPRK, Russia, China, and half the other countries in the world.
Hong Kong is just the latest in a long line of Washington Regime Change projects, conceived, planned, directed, bankrolled and orchestrated by the same CIA Front Groups.
Tell Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden about “the freedoms of the west.” Or the hapless inmates of Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo, and the global gulag of concentration camps, torture chambers and secret prisons in scores of countries across the planet, where the Gina Haspels ply their trade of murder and torture on an industrial scale.
The concern for Muslims is not the point, at all, Christians are having their churches destroyed and literally not allowed to congregate as well, just so u know. Also what is happening in western China will likely be introduced to regular Han Chinese. I’m very well aware of the invasion and desecration of muslim countries in the name of a completely BS war on terror, and I was and am a staunch critic of every such campaign, doesn’t mean I support the largest country in the world openly rolling back human rights to the dark ages. If your country arbitrarily decided to imprison hundreds of thousands or millions of citizens for having whats app, or a beard or writing a book with a homosexual scene in it I would hope u would be concerned.
In China you can worship whatever gods you like provided they are not socially harmful or promote violence. But they are rightly suspicious of imported foreign cults that have literally caused the deaths of millions in the past.
Western countries have precious little authority to preach lofty sermons to anybody about human rights. Their records, past and present, are uniformly appalling. China could not hold a candle to them in the oppression stakes.
YOU ARE SO POORLY EDUCATED THAT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHICH IS THE LARGEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD !
RUSSIA >>> NINE TIME ZONES , YOU TROLL ! and before you respond with population numbers, China is not the largest on that front anymore, either, you complete fuckin’ ignoramus !
Get a life & stop trolling ! Start learning, boy …
https://data.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm
You had better be prepared to back up your statements with facts, as opposed to repeating whatever the MSM says.
If millions of people are being arrested and imprisoned for their religious beliefs in China, you should be supporting that statement with links to websites or blogs showing satellite images of the prisons or camps where these people are being held.
If churches and other buildings are being destroyed, you need to show where in China they are being torn down.
It helps to be able to spell the name of China’s current President as well.
It would also help if you didn’t resemble another Canadian-based troll who used to flood Off-Guardian comments threads with comments with the intent to distract attention and disrupt discussion.
Indeed, Jen – apart from that it astonishes me how any rational person can believe the western corpocracy gives a shit about conditions in Hong Kong …….. or Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Syria, or Venezuela, or of course the poor souls (allegedly) surrounded by Gaddafi’s forces in Benghazi, conveniently providing a false pretext for further failed military intervention (thus turning Libya into a failed state riven with slave markets and sectarian violence).
How can anyone take the US seriously when they cannot even provide water that is not a significant health risk to the citizens of Flint (money for bombs, yes, clean water, sadly, no).
At the car plant it was different – once it was known lead polluted water compromised the standard of car components the supply was soon switched back its original source, Lake Huron, rather than the murky Flint river flowing from the taps of predominantly poor communities.
Hong Kong is obviously a proxy for the simmering economic tensions between the US and China and if western media’s primary concern really was the fate of the islanders they would have covered the civil unrest in France in a similar manner rather than pretending that riots were not occuring every week.
Thank You for this explanation of the facts about this situation.
Two days ago I commented on what now appears to be definitely controlled opposition – ‘wsws.org’ – a comment that differed from what You wrote only in phrasing and length. The reason why I commented in the first place was the incessant use by the ‘wsws’ of the term ‘regime’ when addressing China. The finger pointing was sickening and the willful blindness towards the openly fascist policies of the West, especially fascist U.S., did not sit too well with the hypocrites at wsws. Their rabid attack on China and their outrage at the Trump remark of “knowing Xi JinPing well” outed them for what they really are: controlled opposition.
As if the former illegal annexation and subsequent occupation of Hong Kong by the fascist UK would have created a tectonic split separating Hong Kong from the Eurasian plate. By that logic, Russia should have never let go of the GDR, because after all these years it was Russian and no longer German, right?
The problem with the fascists, especially the American fascists is their backing by the population. Indoctrinated, programmed and conditioned for ages and specifically after the end of WWII, the American people cannot see the forest for the trees. Even if they wanted to. Similarly, the being on board of the UK, Canadian and Australian regimes does not bode well. These regimes run by psychopaths of the worst caliber, by religious fanatics and war horny profiteers are the greatest threat to humanity. Above all international laws and above the laws in their own realms, they have created the precursor for a nuclear conflict that can no longer be prevented.
Hong Kong will serve as the starting point for WWIII – by supporting rogue elements, infiltration by five eyes fascists and the continuation of the trade war against China that will leave China no other option than to drop all U.S. treasury bonds and thus cause the dollar to crash. This may well be the intended goal by the Western fascists, since it would give them the reason to end the last pretension for being democracies and implement what they accuse China of.
Humanity has entered the last stage of capitalist degeneration into all out fascism. Few know better where it ends than Germans and Japanese. This time around though, the whole of Europe will be devastated and any survivors won’t remember how the world looked like before.
China must call for an urgent security council session for all that it might be worth. The entirety of humanity must be made aware what is really at stakes here. And lest not forget that China will not be impartial in the Pakistan/India conflict over Kashmir.
All this finger pointing at China but not a word said about what is happening in Honduras as we speak.
https://truthout.org/articles/resistance-in-honduras-marches-on-as-political-prisoner-is-released-on-bail/
also
https://www.mintpressnews.com/honduras-political-prisoner-edwin-espinal-released-us-trained-police-medieval/261374/
I pointed fingers the day Obomba and HRC let Zelaya be outed to turn the country into a failed narco state, this article is about HK.
30 million plus illegal immigrants in the US. Half the country de facto part of Mexico. Uncle Sam has been hoist with his own petard, after his endless cowboy antics and intrigues in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua.
Weren’t you such a good little boy, pointing fingers and forgetting about the corruption within the CIA and their drugs wars, which they fuelled long before HRC & Obama were in the room. Indeed they still fuel drug wars: ever heard of Dilayna Gaytandzhieva and/or Silkway Airlines’ 747’a to & from Transit Hub Azerbaijan, arms flown in for distribution to the terrorists in all directions and drugs out, the return load, to & from Bulgaria, jack ?
This article is about HK and we wish to know what you know, personally about HK or China, for that matter, not hearsay propaganda & old gaslighting !
Alles Klar ? See ?
“….Australia who have the worst human rights records in the world with respect to their indigenous peoples,”
What’s this bollocks that Australia treats its aboriginal people badly??? Are you kidding?? Any human rights violations and the lefty millions would rise up in righteous anger. They get billions, and I mean many billions spent on them, houses built for them, land handed over, the lot. They even get a larger dole than a non-aboriginal person. That’s why lots of white people claim they are aboriginal and get an excellent deal out of the system. Seriously if you are aboriginal in Australia and claim you are oppressed, then its more likely to be the corrupt tribal elders doing it than whitey.
“the lefty millions would rise up in righteous anger”
If only!
“lots of white people claim they are aboriginal ”
With boot polish perhaps?
“With boot polish perhaps”
Bwahahahahaha If only. No, the aboriginals are perfectly white. Its called self-identity politics. You only need a smidgeon of aboriginal blood, perhaps 1/200 and its quite acceptable.
Aren’t you forgetting that in Tasmania the settlers lined up, marched across the island separated from each other by only metres and shot all Aboriginals on sight. Real sweeties they were. I suppose that does not qualify as bad in your view.
Yes there are attempts at redress but genocide, which that was in its most egregious form, is not easy to compensate. Your attitude is disgraceful, if you don’t mind me saying, and speaks volumes, best left unsaid.
And the land handed over (so magnanimously), as you put it? You mean the land taken by force and now handed back in minuscule amounts? That land?
This happened to the ancestors of the current generation of aboriginals. Redress for the practices of the past to be paid to the current generation is an insoluble moral question. Presumably you are in favour of reparations paid to African-Americans for slavery?
How far back to you want to go? Demand reparations from Rome for invading Britain in 60BC?
The point I was trying to make is that aboriginals in Australia are well treated and a lot of government money is spent on their welfare, unlike the Palestinians for example. In Australia, its cool and hip in some government departments to be a white aboriginal.
Do you want the current Australian state and population to roll itself up and hand it all back to the former “owners”? If so, its not practical or desirable, the aboriginals would lose their welfare benefits and access to modern weapons. The world as it is cannot roll itself up and restore the ravages of the past. It would be wonderful if we could go all the way back to the mythical (or real, depending on your religious belief) Cain and Abel and force Cain to make restitution to Abel, if that’s what you want.
It is indeed a very difficult dilemma but you were painting a rosy picture which seemed OTT.
Reparations are appropriate under the circumstances but they should not be resented or boasted about.
Give the whole place back to the Abos and the roos. Could only be an improvement on what there is now.
It’s an open secret, most of the fundings go into the pocket of the government’s contractor/blue-eyed/rich friends.
It’s a British tradition to meticulously plan aid in a way that the publicly intended recipient never receive any penny except what shows in photo shoots for public relations purposes.
Can we tell you, here, to get stuffed?! Sorry, it that’s too harsh, but I am sure you have a thick skin. So, I believe it wouldn’t matter what we say.
Your in the wrong place, Boot, if you think that sort of ignorant redneck fascist rubbish will pass muster here.
Disturbing your echo chamber, was he?
Australia really has a terrible history and a terrible present when it comes to the treatment of its indigenous people. I’m amazed whenever I hear their government blathering on about “human rights”! Not too many human rights for aboriginal Australians with a huge degree of persecution by a white racist police force. Most of the gaols are packed with aboriginals, many there for minor misdemeanors like unpaid parking tickets etc. My guess is that you’re about twenty times more likely to be harrassed by the police if you look aboriginal.
The imprisonment rates for aboriginal australians probably exceeds the internment rates for uyghurs in China on a percapita basis.
1 in 50 Australians have been to prison ? 1 in 6 First Nations people have been to prison
One in 50 Australians living have been to prison. More than 500,000 Australians living have been incarcerated. One in 625 Australians are presently incarcerated. More than one in 6 First Nations Australians living have been to prison.
The first concentration and extermination camp in the modern world was in Tasmania.
Most of the Abos were simply exterminated in the colonial period, like the Redskins in America, or the Darkies in the Belgian Congo.
Abos were gunned down for sport in organised hunting parties, sort of like going after grouse or rabbits. Women laid on picnics to turn it into a fun day out for all the family.
The survivors were so marginalised, destitute and powerless, that it wasn’t worth the bullets to finish off the remainder. They could just be enslaved and treated as a curiosity, like the duck billed platypus.
What an exceptional breed of lowlife degenerates, they love Chinese investments. With the money earned, they want to build military installations to attack China.
This is a 21st century equivalent of the Opium wars. China ought to kick out any consuls that are caught prompting the protest leaders.
The Opium Wars never actually ended my friend: and the financial clout involved in these drug wars of Mafia Fascist Bosses in the West, very much largely including the CIA ( is naturally against the Triads, actually), is why we are seeing so much trouble in Hong Kong, as the Central Banks and Banking systems in the West, are exposed for their Narco-collusion in the banking world, with everybody from El Chapo to the Pope and his convicted pedophile Vatican Bank Treasurer, Cardinal Sinner George Pell, banged up in OZ’, presently, as well …
What is happening in Hong Kong has absolutely nothing to do with extraditions and in fact the extradition case that sparked & ignited the troubles, was likely wholly justified, but, a mere facade and Joshua Wong is quite possibly a lot more than just some CIA trained Spook & Stooge ‘student’, but that will all be revealed in good time.
Meanwhile, I totally agree with your tender of a solution and indeed personally, were I Chinese, I would go much further and ban all the NGO’s in HK, without exception …
CUT THEIR GOOLIES OFF ! & FERTIG 🙂
Thanks Christopher for your takedown of the nefarious machinations by the hegemon to bring China to its knees, all in its flailing and increasingly desperate attempts to remain Top Dog. Almost daily it seems in the Aussie media are stories vilifying and demonising China, while Aussie politicians line up behind the United States in their role as apparatchiks of the Anglo Zionist Empire.
Its completely cringeworthy to see how low Aussie politicians will crawl in their pathetic attempts to suck up to those they obey in Washington, and I might add Tel Aviv also. I’m not even Australian, and I feel embarrassed. And yet, the most irrational thing of all: China is Australia’s largest trading partner. How many billions is the Australian Govt putting at risk, all to play deputy sheriff? A dying Empire is also a very dangerous beast.
This from the Gatestone Institute, a self-described “non-partisan” think tank, which says their aim is to educate the public about things not reported in the Mainstream media. President Nina Rosenwald , VP Naomi Perlman. They are a scary lot and close to John Bolton.
They routinely bash China under the byline of a Chinese name and use Muslim names to bash Muslims. Here is a brief snippet from today.
———-
“America Can Stop China from Dominating Artificial Intelligence–And Should
by Gordon G. Chang • August 17, 2019 at 5:00
The People’s Republic of China, nonetheless, is already an AI powerhouse, and for America to maintain its edge—and to prevent U.S. tech from being used for exceedingly disturbing purposes —Washington should force U.S. companies to end cooperative AI projects in China.
The West should be seriously concerned: whoever wins at AI will both dominate the global economy and field the most destructive conventional military.”
———
Ah yes, who could be so hard-hearted and mean-spirited as to not want the US to have the most destructive military. They then go right into the preposterous Uighur litany a la David Frum. I think they really believe their lunatic ravings. Of course the “exceedingly disturbing purposes” are imaginary.
But it is a mistake to dismiss these neocon sites, barking as they sound.. The evidence that they wield enormous power is there, vide Iraq and Ametican foreign policy in general.
Maybe the offG should consider a regular report on neocon think tanks in the US. They are the mineshaft canary in their own mind but just the swamp gas in mine. If the US is the greatest threat to world peace, then within the US, the neocons are at the top, or bottom, as you see it.
““non-partisan” think tank” – there’s a warning right away.
“their aim is to educate the public about things not reported in the Mainstream media” – ah yes – that old left liberal media distorting the patriotic truth!
Yes, it belongs in the oxymoron Hall of Fame.
What a hypocritical use of liberty and free speech, from a westerner, to criticise those who would seek it from themselves.
“What a hypocritical use of liberty and free speech”
Well – you’d know all about that Billy Boy!
Are you still here? Still, I suppose air is free, even to those who don’t deserve it.
Reported in May 2019, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon declared:
Previousy, Brendan Carr of the Federal Communications Commission said that companies that want access to US markets need to first prove they “share Western values.”
Please note, Steve Bannon is worshipped by Chinese VOA (Voice of america) listeners/viewers at the same time they worship Jesus Christ in underground churches.
“.. carry British and American flags in the protests in Hong Kong”
Holding “We want our democracy” and “We want our freedom” pacards is an illusion: a tap with running water but not connected to any pipe.
@ Freak Show
All these ”protesters” were recruited by ‘V’ (previously Blackwater) from the Philipines in 2009.
Up to 2 million protestors running amok (in HK) for dodgy cooked up premises.
And our Assange is languishing in jail, suffering alow torture, and no ‘Free Assange’ placard in sight in Sydney.
The brainless in HK haven’t heard of what is happening to Assange, and pretend not to know who is torturing him. They are even raising the disgusting american flag on HK streets. It is a freak show.
And it doesn’t make sense.
Where do you get off, patronising millions of people, whose plight you cannot understand, from your bedsit?
You are what Lenin described as a ‘useful idiot’. Neither side respects you.
We’re confident no one will waste time responding to this blatant attempt to provoke a reaction
What curious champions of free speech you are… You see no contradiction in your free speech stance, whilst promoting countries with no free speech–I would say its only your own free speech you value.
Try running a counter culture and anti government site in the middle kingdom, and see what happens.
The true figure is probably about 200,000.
There are only 7 million in Hong Kong, including old people and new born babies.
The Regime Change Merchants constantly inflate crowd sizes to a ludicrous extent.
When Morsi was overthrown in Egypt, crowd sizes of 30/ 33/ and even 34 million were touted by the MSM, out of a population of 85 million. Impartial sources, using Google Earth and similar systems, gave an estimate of half a million.
Any accounts in the western MSM need to be treated with considerable scepticism.
Events in HK bear a remarkable resemblance to those in the Ukraine Maidan 5 years ago.
Western politicians and diplomats and CIA Front Groups like the NED playing an active part.
Providing money, advice, training, orchestrating demonstrations and riots.
Constantly trying to provoke increasing violence.
Steadily escalating demands that can never be met.
Any concession immediately rejected out of hand.
The aim being regime change and the destabilisation of the rest of China.
Linked to the ongoing military confrontation with China, economic warfare, propaganda, and incitement of Islamic terrorism.
China should reassert control over HK, suppressing riots with all necessary force, expelling subversive foreign politicians and organisations.
If elements in HK are willing to act as tools of hostile foreign powers, they need to accept the consequences of their actions.
@Admin, OffG (whatever you call yourself)
The concept of free speech specifically excludes incitement to violence, and yet, your eagle eyes have completely failed to spot this
in the post above. Strangely, though, you are all over my commentary like a rash..
Yes, like a diaper rash.
If that affects your delicate sensibilities then for heaven’s sake don’t watch any footage of Madrid’s Fascist Boot Boys clubbing down women and old people in Catalonia, Macron’s Goon Squads blinding and maiming demonstrators by the score in Paris, or the Washington Gestapo clubbing and tasering Occupy folk sitting peaceably in the road. Or the IDF kiddie killers blowing off the heads of 9 year olds with British sniper rifles and dum dum bullets.
Where did the ‘Chinese’ (looking) protesters emerge from?
They were recruited from the Philippines in 2009.
2016 Presiden Duerte told US to get out of Philippines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ozcwK2zex4Join the discussion…
2017 President Duerte says US want Philippines to fight China.
They do what they do for their own evil ends.
It makes me ashamed to call myself an Aussie.
Fair Dinkim,
Your fellow Aussies are all being brainwashed and propagandised ready for the war with China, just as they were Korea. You are this year’s patsies.
I bet your History Channels, TV and films are all about your war with Korea?
War with China?
Too late. The economic invasion is done and dusted. We are foreign owned, lock, stock and barrel.
Tens of billions are being spent on submarines and fighter jets to prop up the MIC, as thousands go homeless.
Psychotics rule.
The Five-Eyes mutts are still lying & barking, but the caravan has truly moved on; taking the high road to win-win economic co-operation with the other 190 countries of the world..
Win-win just how? All based, like all the rest of the world’s political economy, on growth and consumption. Driven by the lizard brain. All points to global collapse, of human population right along with the other species and ecosystem we all are winning our way toward. And the billionaires want to export this “system” of terminally cancerous attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to other planets and beyond. Anyone else note the parallels between our human behaviors, conquering and consuming to death and moving on to the next place, and those of the boo-hiss aliens in “Independence Day”?
The US Imperial military mostly exists to assure the supplies of petroleum that it, the largest consumer of petroleum on the planet, needs to keep on waging war and disruption, all just in assuring itself the petroleum it needs to keep this idiotic loop closed.
I’d vote to loose the drone swarms and disseminate the plagues that the militaries of the world have amassed. That, and all the cyber weapons that will take down the vastly interconnected and vastly vulnerable superstructure we homo economi have lashed ourselves to. Better than total nuclear war, less likely to demolish the rest of the ecosphere. Measured by our own best ethics, judged not by who wins but what most of us feel is right, we’ve forfeited the “right” to exist.
This kind of reductionist misanthropy is getting well past its sell-by date. Human beings are part of the evolution of this planet and much that we have done is worthy of respect. Just not all of it. We have as much right to exist as any other evolving creature. We need to persist with the best we can do and let go of the worst is all. That should be the aim all of us strive for.
That may be a less gratifyingly dramatic position, but it’s infinitely more grown up than these tired histrionics.
You don’t actually have to be a misanthropist to draw a similar set of negative conclusions. I hope against hope we’ll snap out of it: but over the last 40 years I’ve watched us accelerate the worst and cannibalise the best …for quarterly shareholder returns that benefit no one (not even the rich).
For all our great achievements: the next decade or so will decide whether we are a viable species or not. It’s a brave economist – or Jay Powell – who will not admit that we are on the cusp of a global recession …of orders of magnitude greater than the GFC.
However it pans out: the chances are that we will refloat the assets of the already super-rich – at the expense of the productive and social welfare economy – and carry on sucking the life out of the planet …killing our co-evolutionary interspecies communities without compunction or compassion.
The only outcome from this is a deferred and greater crisis …and another …and yet another. Carrying out our current set of behaviours only allows one outcome …and it ain’t good. I do not agree we should be defeatist and negative about it …but I can sympathise with those who do.
As for the ‘grown up’ response: when should we start to panic about the blind intentionality of the path we are on? We’ve barely even begun to formulate a Plan B or successor state to the behaviour patterns that are killing our co-evolutionary communities. That ain’t so smart.
Survival of the species may turn out to be more a function of expanding populations like it is with insects, or cells of the immune system. and/or because of space colonization, more than successful cohabitation. Our gossamer thin veneer of civilization, predicted to expand with the abolition of epidemic disease and with attenuation of malnutrition, has done anything but.
You’re right, the time to panic has been upon us for decades. Are we engineered to fail, having to rejig on the fly, cursed with drives which once helped us survive? It is a recurrent dark thought.
I certainly noticed that the behaviour of the aliens in “Independence Day” read like a projection of …no, not “our” behaviour but that of the capitalist system i.e. like a locust swarm depleting every environment it touches.
Chronicles of Riddick has a similar theme. Much better movie than Independence Day as well.