Bias Against China & Anyone Who Sounds Vaguely Chinese Is Not A Good Look On Liberals

So many racist political cartoons about China on the interwebs it was hard to choose just one.

Admittedly I do not know if it was liberals who flagged my annual subscription fee to Lee Fang's substack (a whopping $60) and put a hold on my credit card with the explanation "Possible Fraudulent Activity Detected." 

What I do know is that no such hold or warning has been triggered by my subscriptions to journalists with last names like Johnstone, Hedges, or even Taibbi.

This happened in the same week that the leader of a Democratic Party-aligned "peace" group in my state commented about an article on NATO I had shared: "The article you linked is incoherent (and look where it is published)."[emphasis mine]

Global Times published the piece on April 7 and included this introduction:

Editor's Note:

April 4, 2024, marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO. As a product of the Cold War, NATO should have been disbanded, but over the years, it has served as a war machine and facilitated US hegemony. The Global Times talked to a number of experts and scholars to reveal how the US exploits NATO to serve its geopolitical purposes and how NATO destabilizes the world, exacerbates nuclear threats and brings confrontation to Asia. 

In the second interview of the series, Global Times (GT) reporter Li Aixin talked to John Pang (Pang), a former Malaysian government official and a senior research fellow at Perak Academy, Malaysia. John said that having set Europe on fire with its aggressive enlargement, NATO proposes to bring their formula to Asia, against a far more powerful opponent - "It's an imbecile proposition."

Yikes! Both interviewer and interviewee have Chinese-sounding names. Who could possibly want to read and consider their opinions on geopolitical realities as the U.S. slouches toward WW3 with China?

Several times in the past week I've seen articles about the U.S. instigating a proxy war in the Pacific using the Philippines as their cat's paw. I've also read analysis from sources we're being trained to consider suspect. Here's a short list:

Aukusing for War: The Real Target Is China  by Dr. Binoy Kampmark, published April 7, 2024 by the Australian Independent Media Network

Snow Job: 15 Years of U.S. Gaslighting in the South China Sea published April 9, 2024 by Peter Lee's China Threat Report (audio version also available there)

Xi Jinping's Thoughts On China's Nuclear Weapons by Gregory Kulacki & Robert Rust, published April 1, 2024 by Union of Concerned Scientists.

That last article debunked a New York Times report claiming that China's leaders 

“are looking to nuclear weapons as not only a defensive shield, but as a potential sword — to intimidate and subjugate adversaries.” [The Union of Concerned Scientists] examined the evidence and found it did not support that claim. 

Actually found a political cartoon about China that isn't racist!

The narrative management strategies employed by liberals around China are extremely familiar, because we have just been through two years of being told that the war in Ukraine started in 2022 all the while being scorned for reading anything published in Russia. 

A thought police officer on a "peace" listserv based in Maine constantly attacks posts that deviate from U.S. State Department talking points while citing sources like the NYT, Washington Post, and CNN as beacons of truth. Uh huh.

Pot calling kettle black cartoon from the New York Times.

We've seen the recent claim that TikTok is being used to manipulate young people into hating Israel's genocide in Gaza, and China is at fault because, as Nancy Pelosi said on camera, if China's government can control the algorithms "we" are in big trouble. A backhanded admission that the U.S. controls the algorithms on Meta products, Twitter/X, YouTube, and search engines like Google.

This kind of bias makes you look stupid, folks. When Chew Shou Zi, CEO of TikTok, was attacked during a hearing in Congress for being Chinese he responded, "No, I'm Singaporean." 

I was embarrassed for my country. 

You should be, too.

 

Australia Gets U.S. Warship Of Its Own -- Yup, You Read That Right

What was U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy so pleased about in this picture? The commissioning of a U.S.-built war ship for Australia to use called the U.S.S. Canberra.

It will be ported in Australia as that is much, much closer to China than any U.S. port. And it is festooned with this symbol of Australia's subservience to the U.S. war machine now doing business as AUKUS:

Does a stars and stripes kangaroo look like a joke to you? You cannot make this stuff up.

A less flashy but probably more egregious violation of Australia's sovereignty is the news that it is slated to become the nuclear waste dump of the AUKUS alliance.

From Crikey originally but it's paywalled, so here's the whole article reposted to MSN.com.

Seeing this news reminded me of an item I saw earlier in the week regarding Australia's unique global position for rocket launches. At think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), U.S. Space Force director of staff Lieutenant-General Nina Armagno told Aussies, "Australia is sitting on a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for our common national security interests."

Two major parts of a shared US–Australia space capability centred on surveillance and tracking of objects in space are now up and running near Exmouth in Western Australia. One is a C-band radar that was based in Antigua and has been relocated to WA, and the other is the Space Surveillance Telescope, originally developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The telescope is run as a joint facility and recently achieved its initial operating capability.

Who funds ASPI? Australia's Department of "Defence" plus plenty of corporate entities that would love to get their hands on some of that gold.

More from ASPI: 

Australia’s growing space industry will almost certainly welcome any moves to expand US–Australia launch collaboration, especially after a NASA rocket blasted off from the Northern Territory in June.

Old war ships and new rocket ships are all part of the massive international arms buildup for U.S. and its vassals, oops allies, to fight China and its strategic partner Russia. 

What does that look like where you live? 

Where I live we'll gather Saturday July 29 at 9:30am to protest the so-called "christening" of a nuclear-capable Aegis Destroyer war ship at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard.

Menacing China with nuclear weapons systems that can be ported in South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, or Australia (and maybe New Zealand?) is the point. Peek below the surface rhetoric and you'll see that's what the war in Ukraine is about -- weakening Russia in advance of hot war with economic rival China.

I talked about much of this on a talk radio show here in Maine this morning (hear the recorded interview here). One of the hosts challenged my belief that building nuclear weapons systems and spreading them all over the world makes people in Maine less safe, not more safe.

What do you think?

Information You Aren't Likely To Read/Hear In Western Media: Pivot To Asia Edition

Source: India and Geopolitics

If imitation is a sincere form of flattery, here is my one-time attempt to imitate my friend JK's terrifically useful mini-digest on Ukraine. Sent via email a few times a week, containing "information you are not likely to read/hear in the Western/U.S. media," its author has identified the need for someone to do something similar for news on the war on China the U.S. is planning aka the Obama-Biden pivot to Asia.

I'm unqualified to take on this project because I don't read Chinese or Japanese beyond the kindergarten level or any other East Asian languages. But, in the spirit of JK's heroic communication efforts around the U.S. war on Russia, here goes.

Item #1

Follow the Puck -- Trends in Geopolitics by SL Kanthan, Indian blogger on "India's role in a multipolar world"  January 31, 2023

(Note from LS: MUST READ! Examines why people in the U.S. believe so many things about China that are demonstrably false.)

Item #2

CSIS advises US to prepare for possible redeployment of tactical nukes to S. Korea by Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent for Hankyore  January 20, 2023

 

Source: CGTN

Item #3

The US-Australia Military Alliance Serves Washington's Interests, Not Ours by Paul Gregoire, Sydney Criminal Lawyers  January 27, 2023

Item #4

War in the Taiwan Strait May Mean War For North, South Korea by Cheong Wook-Sik, Hankoreh Peace Institute  January 31, 2023

 

Item #5

How CNN & BBC trick you about China: Selina Wang and her failed exposé [Length: 11:42] by Andy Boreham, Reports on China  January 30, 2023

 

Item #6

Okinawa Against US-JAPAN Alliance [Length: 12:15] by Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space  February 1, 2023

(Note from LS: MUST WATCH! Discusses how the U.S. with full Japanese cooperation has turned Okinawa into a war base and an obvious target during any conflict with China.)

 

Item #7

Why is Victoria Nuland coming to Sri Lanka? by Shenali D. Waduge, Lankaweb   January 31, 2023

 

Item #8

Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on the International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development

February 4, 2022

(Note from LS: MUST READ. It's a year old and long, but well worth your time to understand reality behind headlines like "China, Russia partner up against West at Olympics summit" by Reuters or "Russia and China unveil a pact against the West" in the New Yorker.)

Pivot To Asia Ramping Up Ominously

Source of map: researchgate.net

The only nation that has hundreds of military bases outside its own borders is about to open a new one. 

A huge new U.S. Marine Corps base on the island of Guam was paid for, in part, by Japan. Why would Japan do this? I read that it was part of a deal during the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia" to get Marines out of Okinawa. Locals there despise the presence of gaijin (foreigners) who rape and kill girls and women, and Okinawans have been struggling for decades to get rid of them.

Why export the misery to Guam? The indigenous population of Okinawa understands all too well what it's like to live under Japanese imperialism. And taxpayers in Japan are by no means on board with ramping up military spending and abandoning Article 9 as the U.S. is demanding. 

Source: "Japan's rearmament is a worrying sign" by Jamil Ragland, CTNewsJunkie

Demonstrations against Japan's remilitarization are common in Tokyo and other Japanese cities these days -- but don't expect to read about it in the U.S. corporate media.

Instead, those who consume corporate media should expect to read more ranting from psychopaths like U.S. Air Force general Michael Minihan. He was in the news this week due to a memo (that the Pentagon disavowed, for what that's worth) urging preparations for war with China which he predicted will be underway by 2025.

He ordered his underlings to practice shooting targets in the head to prepare.

He's been quoted as believing that,

“[W]hen you can kill your enemy, every part of your life is better. Your food tastes better. Your marriage is stronger."

No comment on what we're all imagining about Minihan's marriage.

Meanwhile another ex-Marine, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, shared his examination of the shift in U.S./NATO policy toward east Asia and also the "war-fighting domain" of outer space.

A recent statement by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) head Bill Nelson that the US was in a space race with China, when combined with recent moves by both the US and China to militarize space, could send the US on a policy trajectory that transforms established policy regarding space-based activities as being exclusively exploration-driven in nature, to one where conquest and domination become the dominating factors. 

Why do I pay attention to these "coulds" when the clear and present danger of Ukraine escalating into a nuclear confrontation grows daily?

Because weakening Russia and overthrowing Putin is the first stage of the neocon plan to take out China as the U.S.'s only feasible economic competitor. 

"Paratroopers take part in a joint military drill among Japan, the US, Britain and Australia at Narashino exercise field in Chiba prefecture on January 8, 2023. Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP/Getty Images"   Source: "'History might repeat itself': Chinese ambassador warns Australia to be wary of Japan", CNN

But the sanctions that were supposed to cripple Russia's economy have instead strengthened it, and boomeranged on the economies of the U.S. and NATO nations.

Early indications are that sanctions on China are having a similar effect: weakening the dollar, and pushing the targeted nation toward more cooperation with others and diversification of its industrial capacity.

Reporting in The Verge:

[Dutch tech manufacturer] ASML CEO Peter Wennink previously told CNBC that China accounted for around 15 percent of the company’s sales in 2022. 

Wennink has said that any restrictions are unlikely to prevent China from building its own versions of the machines eventually. “If they cannot get those machines, they will develop them themselves,” Wennink told Bloomberg. “That will take time, but ultimately they will get there.”

On the Japanese side, the restrictions are expected to impact companies such as Nikon and Tokyo Electron.

As its old ally Germany has suffered under U.S. leadership from helping to conduct war on Russia via Ukraine, I think it's reasonable to expect Japan to suffer from helping its old enemy conduct a proxy war on China via Taiwan.

Certainly Australians as traditional allies of the U.S. military empire are increasingly concerned about being targeted as a consequence of hosting bases and spying outposts on their soil, and of their economy unraveling if their extensive trade with China is disrupted. And some observers have speculated that neighboring New Zealand saw the recent resignation of PM Jacinda Ardern because she had lost the battle for Kiwis to remain neutral and nuclear-free.

In the U.S. we have half a million people unhoused and at risk of freezing to death this winter. We have 1 in 5 children growing up impoverished and hungry, and the federal government tells us there is no money for universal health care, student loan forgiveness, or to house and feed the people. Yet, at $858 billion for 2023, the military budget is at it highest point ever, and ominously increasing every year.

Historically, wars have caused untold suffering for populations who had little to no interest in pursuing them. War profiteers hijacked their governments and raked in profits while their people starved and died. 

Are we doomed to repeat these disasters?

AUKUS Excludes, Angers France And It's Odd Because Acronym Cries Out For An F

Photo of Bush speech program folder source: @JebSprague (graphic overlay by me)

I've been watching with delight the news that rehabilitated (by the corporate media) war criminal President George W. Bush cannot speak in public without being confronted by veterans and their family members.

W's hecklers reported scattered boos but also complimentary responses from the audience and even police. 

Here is video of me shutting down George Bush last night.

The wars he started in the Middle East damaged the lives of so many. He wasted trillions of $ for nothing.

Meanwhile, he’s made tens of millions of $ in speaker fees since leaving office. Sick!pic.twitter.com/RqV7poonAz

— Jeb Sprague (@JebSprague) September 22, 2021

https://t.co/5ohAdxxBJk

— FREE PALESTINE (@MikePrysner) September 20, 2021

When Michelle Obama tells reporters that she and W are on friendly terms because "our values are the same," this must be inconvenient for the blaring narrative that there are huge, HUGE differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. But in the cult of personality surrounding the chief executive office of the U.S., a good smile for the cameras counts as a "value" I guess.

Fawning over the architect of the War on Terror is likely a needed counterweight to the public's vast dillusionment with the war on Afghanistan coming to an end (sort of). 

source: https://socialistchina.org/2021/09/22/aukus-a-dangerous-military-escalation-of-the-new-cold-war/

And the absurdly named AUKUS rises from its ashes.

The "security pact" to menace China in its own backyard has angered France due to the cancellation of a lucrative contract to build submarines for Australia. The Aussies will now purchase U.S.-made nuclear-powered submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons.

The nonsensical aspect of Australian "defence" menacing its chief trading partner is beautifully captured in this clip from the satirical show Utopia.

This is the kind of international relations we in the U.S. get when our Secretary of "Defense" just resigned and cashed out from the board of Raytheon. (And many of the Pentagon brass arrived through the revolving door from other big weapons manufacturers like General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrup Grumann.)

When President Obama announced a "pivot to Asia" he was hampered by having to operate under the auspices of that belligerent alliance, NATO. China is just so inconveniently far from the North Atlantic. (As was Afghanistan. But, 9/11.)

In the intervening years, the U.S. has bullied Japan into dropping its post WW2 commitment to self-defense only and has continuously built up military bases in Okinawa, South Korea, and Australia.

War as a marketing scheme continues to make its purveyors filthy rich.

War as a lived experience continues to produce corpses, orphans, widows, PTSD, starvation, and massive contributions to climate chaos -- our biggest actual security threat.

Maybe this is why the People's Republic of China does not start wars?