US COLD WAR AGAINST CHINA NEWSLETTER #3,

March 11, 2021

COMPILED BY DICK BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

CONTENTS

THREATENED HOT WAR

POLITICAL CONFLICT: NEW COLD WAR

ECONOMIC CONFLICT

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICT

TECHNOLOGICAL CONFLICT

MEDIA CONFLICT

PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES TO CONFLICT

TEXTS

THREATENED HOT WAR

Biden’s first directive to the war machine.  Mronline.org (2-17-21).  

In his first presidential visit to the Pentagon yesterday, Joe Biden announced the creation of an anti-China task force.  | more…

Biden’s first directive to the war machine

Originally published: Liberation by Patricia Gorky (February 11, 2021)   

Posted Feb 16, 2021 by Eds.

In his first presidential visit to the Pentagon yesterday, Joe Biden announced the creation of an anti-China task force. This team will review the Pentagon’s policy towards the country in areas such as strategy, technology, military and diplomacy with neighboring countries. During the visit Biden pledged to “meet the China challenge … and win the competition of the future.”

Career politician and long-time Biden aide Ely Ratner has been tapped to lead the task force targeting China. Ratner has continually advocated for bipartisan aggression against China in his roles at the pro-war Center for New American Security, the State Department, and elsewhere.

In 2017 Ratner described China’s calls for non-conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation with the United States as a “festering concept.” Ratner wrote in the influential journal Foreign Policy:

Enough is enough. Senior Trump administration officials should make it a top priority to dispense with this concept as soon as possible, first by politely and privately asking Beijing to refrain from using it, and then, if necessary, by publicly denouncing it. The longer they wait to do this, the harder and more awkward it will get.  MORE   https://mronline.org/2021/02/16/bidens-first-directive-to-the-war-machine/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bidens-first-directive-to-the-war-machine&utm_source=MR+Email+List&utm_campaign=76b06601a9-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_MRONLINE_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4f879628ac-76b06601a9-295821469&mc_cid=76b06601a9&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e

US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain

Exclusive: Indo-Pacific Command requests to double spending in fiscal 2022

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/US-to-build-anti-China-missile-network-along-first-island-chain

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. will bolster its conventional deterrence against China, establishing a network of precision-strike missiles along the so-called first island chain as part of $27.4 billion in spending to be considered for the Indo-Pacific theater over the next six years, Nikkei has learned.

They form the core proposals of the Pacific Deterrence Initiative that the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has submitted to Congress and Nikkei has reviewed.

"The greatest danger to the future of the United States continues to be an erosion of conventional deterrence," the document said. "Without a valid and convincing conventional deterrent, China is emboldened to take action in the region and globally to supplant U.S. interests. As the Indo-Pacific's military balance becomes more unfavorable, the U.S. accumulates additional risk that may embolden adversaries to unilaterally attempt to change the status quo."

Specifically, it called for "the fielding of an Integrated Joint Force with precision-strike networks west of the International Date Line along the first island chain, integrated air missile defense in the second island chain, and a distributed force posture that provides the ability to preserve stability, and if needed, dispense and sustain combat operations for extended periods."

The first island chain consists of a group of islands including Taiwan, Okinawa and the Philippines, which China sees as the first line of defense. Beijing's "anti-access/area denial" strategy seeks to push American forces out of the East and South China seas within the first island chain. …continued: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Indo-Pacific/US-to-build-anti-China-missile-network-along-first-island-chain

POLITICAL CONFLICT:  NEW COLD WAR

The U.S. vs China: Asia’s New Cold War? by Jude Woodward reviewed by Sean Ledwith.  Mronline.org (6-3-20).

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has slammed into the global system with almost the same impact we might expect from an asteroid strike. All aspects of economic, cultural and political activity on the planet have been devastated and disrupted in ways that seemed unimaginable just a few months ago.  | more…      

“China 2020: An Introduction” by John Bellamy Foster.

October 2020 (Volume 72, Number 5)The Editors (October 4, 2020)

The hybrid US war against China: political, technological, financial, military.

The US War Party in the US multinational corporations and wealthy interests.

And “one of the biggest U.S. military buildups in history, with the Trump administration requesting a $705 military ‘defense’ budget for the fiscal year 2021, directed explicitly against China and Russia.” 

Not for containment, since China’s economy already global, but to break the Chinese Communist Party and its state ownership of corporations, banks, and land, China’s “ecological civilization.”

This special issue of Monthly Review, “China 2020,” is the product of a long period of cooperation with critical Chinese Marxist scholars. This has resulted in an extensive series of articles on contemporary Chinese social and economic relations since 2012, to which most of the authors in the present issue have previously contributed. It takes on a special significance due to the growing conflict between the United States and China, making critical Marxist analysis in this area all the more important. | more… mronline.org (10-7-20).

U.S. State Department accusation of China ‘genocide’ relied on data abuse and baseless claims by far-right ideologue.  Mronline.org (3-2-21).

The Trump and Biden administrations have relied on the work of a right-wing religious extremist, Adrian Zenz, for their “genocide” accusation against China. A close review of Zenz’s research reveals flagrant data abuse and outright falsehoods.  | more…     http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/21/c_139756971.htm 

With Cold War Language, Pompeo Defines Plan For ‘Totalitarian’ China

By Katie Bo Williams, Defense One. Popular Resistance.org (7-28-20).   In a major foreign policy speech on U.S.-China relations, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cast ratcheted-up tensions with Beijing in Cold War terms, announcing that Washington would seek to change Beijing’s behavior and stopping just short of calling for regime change.  He described Beijing — and Chinese President Xi Jinping — as a generational threat to “free democracies around the world,” a totalitarian and hegemonic regime that must not be treated like a normal nation. Riffing on President Ronald Reagan’s famous “trust but verify” dictum about the Soviet Union, he said that when it comes to... -more-

NYT’s China syndrome.  Mronline.org (2-2-21)

Imagine a parallel world where the U.S. brought Covid under control in two months, while China still struggled with it, a year and hundreds of thousands of deaths later.  | more…

Casualties of the Old Cold War should inform opposition to U.S.’ New Cold War against China.  mronline.org(1-22-21).

The U.S. share of the global economy has shrunk dramatically since 1960. On the other hand, China is on pace to surpass the U.S. in GOP terms in 2030.   | more…    

Biden nominees call for tough stance on China during confirmation hearings.  mronline.org(1-22-21).

During Tuesday’s confirmation hearings before the Senate, nominees for positions in Joe Biden’s cabinet expressed their support for a tough stance on China.  | more…   

“What about China?” and the threat to US–Russian nuclear arms control.   Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Trump administration has consistently used fear of China to undermine nearly five decades of bipartisan consensus on US–Russian nuclear arms control. The consequences may last far beyond the Trump presidency. Read in the Bulletin magazine.

China – A Marxist Analysis.  Mronline.org (12-29-20).

Vijay on China: A Marxist Analysis  | more…

Chinese diplomat warns U.S. against pushing to ‘brink of a new Cold War’.  The Washington Post. (25 May 2020)

The Scholarly Debate over China’s Ecology

NOTES FROM THE EDITORS

MONTHLY REVIEW by The Editors (March 2021).

(Mar 01, 2021)

https://monthlyreview.org/2021/03/01/mr-072-10-2021-03_0/

Topics: Climate Change , Ecology , Imperialism

 In September 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping astonished the world by unexpectedly declaring that China would peak its carbon emissions before 2030 and reach zero net carbon emissions (carbon neutrality) before 2060. Given that China’s carbon emissions, currently making up 28 percent of the world total, exceed those of the United States and the European Union combined, this was big news for anyone concerned with the environmental future of humanity. This was particularly the case since China is well known for reaching its environmental targets ahead of time (Barbara Finamore, “What China’s Plan for Net-Zero Emissions by 2060 Means for the Climate,” Guardian, October 5, 2020; “Climate Change: How China Can Achieve Its Pledge of Zero Emissions,” Financial Times, November 2, 2020).

However, some skepticism in this area is warranted. Local governments and industry executives will continue to try to find ways to bypass the national environmental agenda. China remains the world’s biggest carbon dioxide emitter (though it is only forty-seventh in emissions per capita, while the United States is the first among those countries with significant population). China’s air in urban areas and its inland waters remain severely polluted.

Still, in the historically brief period of a decade, Beijing has engineered a major shift in trends. China has achieved world-record reductions in air pollution, while also rapidly improving the water quality of its lakes and rivers (Michael Marshall, “China’s Cuts to Air Pollution May Have Saved 150,000 Lives Each Year,” New Scientist, October 22, 2020; Ting Ma et al., “China’s Improving Inland Surface Water Quality Since 2003,” Science Advances 6, no. 1 [2020]). The country has made the creation of an “ecological civilization” a top priority, incorporating it into its Constitution, while officially acknowledging that this will require some slowing of economic growth. It is now the world leader in the development and implementation of solar and wind energy. It currently has one out of every three of the world’s solar panels and wind turbines, nearly half of all the electric passenger vehicles, 98 percent of the electric buses, and 99 percent of all electric two wheelers. After growing 10 percent per year on average from 2002 to 2012, China’s coal consumption leveled off for a few years (though it was to rise again later as a result of its stimulus in response to the Global Financial Crisis). According to Climate Action Tracker, “it is possible that China’s [carbon] emissions already peaked in 2019,” though this may turn out to be too optimistic. Yet, China is on track to reach its 2030 goal, which requires a 60 to 65 percent drop in carbon intensity compared to 2005 (Climate Action Tracker, “China: Country Summary,” December 2020 update; “China’s Xi Targets Steeper Cut in Carbon Intensity by 2030,” Reuters, December 12, 2020).

China also backed off from plans for the full industrialization of rural agriculture in response to resistance from the Rural Reconstruction Movement and others, preserving an essential element of an environmental future (John Cobb interviewed by Andre Vltchek, China and Ecological Civilization [Badak Merah, 2019], 22). Xi’s “Beautiful China” initiative has expanded China’s environmental goals to take into account aesthetic elements and the “harmonious coexistence between man and nature” (“CPC Incorporates ‘Beautiful China’ into Two-Stage Development Plan,” China Daily, October 18, 2017). China’s Fourteenth Five-Year Plan, to be released in March 2021, will give much higher priority to the environment, accelerating these trends and establishing new environmental requirements, particularly with respect to coal consumption and carbon emissions.

These developments have resulted in accolades from hard-pressed environmentalists and scientists who see in Xi’s China a possible ray of hope in the current planetary emergency. For example, Barbara Finamore, senior strategic director for Asia of the National Resource Defense Council, wrote an important book entitled Will China Save the Planet? (Polity, 2018). Other key works include John Cobb’s China and Ecological Civilization, as well as Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro’s China Goes Green (Polity, 2020). Leading climatologists such as James Hansen and Michael E. Mann have increasingly turned to China as the last best hope for humanity with respect to controlling climate change (James Hansen, “China and the Barbarians: Part I,” 2010; James Hansen, “Wanning Workshop + Beijing Chart + Year-End Comments,” December 29, 2015; Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump, Dire Predictions [D. K. Publishing, 2015]).

Nevertheless, over the last year, a number of Western ecosocialists have turned to condemning China’s ecological trajectory. By far the most important work in this respect is Richard Smith’s China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse (Pluto, 2020). Smith is a founding member of System Change Not Climate Change and an MR author. In China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse, Smith pulls out all the stops in criticizing China on the environment. China is characterized, he says, by “blind denialism” with respect to the environment and is the chief force destroying the planet. Its “Stalinist-capitalist” system is “suicidal” and inherently more destructive of the Earth System than what he calls “normal capitalism.” China is presented as an “Environmental Rogue State” and the Chinese Communist Party is destined for “the dustbin of history.” Smith claims to utilize a “Marxist mode of production theorization,” but instead relies on out-of-date statistics, the charge that the current Chinese leadership is characterized by “sociopathic behavior,” and the notion that China is unique in the extent of its accumulation drive. Under “normal capitalism,” as in the West, we are told, environmental limits are imposed in part by the drive for profits. If profits decline, so does economic expansion and ecological destruction. In the case of China’s “iron-fisted dictatorship,” in contrast, it is the accumulation of wealth at the top that is the real driver of economic expansion, not mere profitability (apparently the Western ruling class under “normal capitalism” is not driven by a desire to accumulate wealth under all circumstances!), making China much more dangerous to the world environment (Smith, China’s Engine of Environmental Collapse, vi–vii, xii–xiii, 87–91, 183-–94).

Shortly after publishing his book, Smith published an article in Foreign Policy, the leading U.S. neoliberal-imperialist journal, which in the last few years has taken on the role as perhaps the foremost organ for the promotion of the New Cold War on China. Here he argued that China’s environmental depredations can be traced to the fact that “the Communist Party runs a totalitarian police state that ruthlessly suppresses all resistance to the party agenda,” leading to the “eco-suicidal ambitions of their rulers” (Richard Smith, “The Chinese Communist Party Is an Environmental Catastrophe,” Foreign Policy, July 27, 2020). More recently, he has claimed that China’s activation of new coal-fired plants, in its attempt to recover quickly from the COVID-19 crisis, reflects the duplicity of its environmental plans (Richard Smith, “Climate Arsonist Xi Jinping,” System Change Not Climate Change, November 22, 2020). Some of Smith’s ecosocialist concerns of course make sense. A high growth economy attempting to reduce carbon emissions and other types of environmental damage simply through ecological modernization is going to run into enormous obstacles. Nevertheless, while the West talks about a Green New Deal but fails to implement it anywhere, China’s current drive to create an ecological civilization appears, at the very least, to be a Green New Deal on stilts.

Smith is not the only ecosocialist to argue that China is the world’s arsonist. He has found a strong supporter in the noted ecosocialist journalist and essayist Gabriel Levy. In two articles (“China: Xi Jinping’s Coal Stokes the Climate Fire,” The Ecologist, January 22, 2021; “China and the ‘Left’: What Planet Are These People On?,” People and Nature, January 15, 2021), Levy promotes Smith’s book and attacks MR editor John Bellamy Foster for his comments on China and the environment, criticizing Foster to promote Smith’s and his own views. Thus, Levy censures Foster for saying (in “On Fire This Time,” Monthly Review, November 2019) that China “is one of the most polluted and resource-hungry countries in the world, while its carbon emissions are so massive as to themselves constitute a global-scale problem. Nevertheless, China has done more than any other country thus far to develop alternative-energy technologies geared to the creation of what is officially referred to as an ecological civilization.” Apparently, such a comment by Foster is insufficiently critical of China, though the facts themselves as presented are not questioned.

Levy goes on to condemn Foster for observing, in another article, “The Earth System Crisis and Industrial Civilization” (International Critical Thought, December 2017), that China is the site of “the massive promotion of wind and solar technology.” In that article, Foster wrote: “China stands today paradoxically at a kind of turning point of its own, which will have an enormous impact on the world as a whole: it is known worldwide for some of the most serious forms of environmental damage on earth, while at the same time no country seems to be accelerating so rapidly into the new world of alternative energy.” Quoting a truncated version of this sentence in which he removed the whole question of a possible “turning point” in China’s relation to the environment, Levy charged Foster, on the basis of this sentence, with providing a “hollow” perspective that downplayed China’s actual world-scale environmental damage—ignoring that this had been referred to in the sentence itself. With respect to still another article by Foster (originally written in June 2015 for China’s People’s Daily, the English-language version of which was published in the China Daily on June 11 and posted on the following day on MR Online under the title “Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China”), Levy chastises him for writing that “there is no doubt that the Chinese leadership has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development.” Levy fails to mention, however, that Foster went on in the following paragraph to say—in an article intended for a general Chinese readership—that a continuing 7 percent economic growth rate, the mechanization of farms in rural areas, the undermining of the social ownership of land, and hyper-urbanization—all then part of Chinese planning—were inconsistent with the building of an ecological civilization. Foster also referred there to China’s weak enforcement of its environmental laws. (This paragraph was removed from the People’s Daily article by the Chinese editors, but it was retained in the China Daily and MR Online version.)

Indeed, Foster’s various statements, quoted above and criticized by Levy, focus on basic facts recognized by all close observers of China’s environmental conditions. To acknowledge some of China’s remarkable ecological accomplishments is not thereby to set aside the very serious problems it faces in this respect, particularly in freeing itself from its dependence on coal. Moreover, there are valid questions about how far it is possible to go with an ecological modernization strategy, even in a postrevolutionary society like China, one which is neither entirely capitalist nor entirely socialist. Such strategies can only be effective in the end as part of a wider ecological revolution that alters the mode of production itself. As Lau Kin Chi, writing in “A Subaltern Perspective on China’s Ecological Crisis” (Monthly Review, October 2018) has explained, there are huge struggles taking place with respect to the environment in China. Nevertheless, despite all of the inevitable contradictions, China stands out in the present planetary emergency in having a leadership that has advanced an ambitious vision of ecological civilization with the strong support of the Chinese population, incorporating this directly into its five-year plans. Paraphrasing C. Wright Mills on Cuba (Listen, Yankee!), we do not worry about China’s struggle to create an ecological civilization. We worry with it.

ECONOMIC CONFLICT

“China 2020: An Introduction.”  John Bellamy Foster in Monthly Review (10-7-20)

Trade and tensions between the U.S. and China.  Mronline.org (8-4-20)

Why America’s economic war on China is failing. Monthly Review (10-8-20)

Trade and tensions between the U.S. and China.  Mronline.org (8-4-20)

The Donald Trump administration uses every mechanism to cut China out of the global supply chain, but nothing seems to be working as a resolute China is unwilling to back down and dismantle its technological gains.  | more…

The end of engagement.  Mronline.org (10-18-20)

In November of 1967, just months before announcing his entrance into the 1968 presidential race, Richard Nixon outlined in Foreign Affairs what would become a north star for Washington’s orientation towards China

U.S.-China relations: Beijing slams State Department report ‘concocted by Cold War fossils’.  Mronline.org (11-26-20).

China has described a U.S. report on how Washington should confront and contain Beijing as having been “concocted by Cold War fossils” who are destined to be “swept into the garbage dump of history”.  | more…

PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFLICT

Sinophobia Inc: Understanding the anti-China Industrial complex. Mronline.org (9-27-20).

Take a deep dive into the inner workings of Sinophobia Inc. to learn how to see through the media machine.  | more…

Qiao Collective on challenging U.S. aggression on China, the role of the Western left.  Mronline.org (12-13-20).

On the domestic front, the U.S. propaganda machine mostly works instead to position China as this great, menacing oriental Other. We’ve seen this during the COVID-19 pandemic in Trump’s rhetoric about the “China virus” and in Biden’s attempts at one-upmanship.  | more…

TECH CONFLICT

Freedom Rider: TikTok and the War on China.  Mronline.org (8-14-20)

Every charge that Trump and his minions make against Chinese companies is true for US corporations, which have been spying on Americans and the rest of the world for decades.  | more…

Corporate Media’s leaked Chinese documents confirm China didn’t hide COVID-19. Mronline.org (1-24-21).

Several reports on China’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic came out late last year, based on what U.S. outlets like CNN, the New York Times and ProPublica claimed to be leaked Chinese documents. Although these reports implied that China was responsible for how bad the pandemic has been because of its downplaying of numbers and […]  | more…   

With U.S. support, Taiwan planted deception about warning World Health Org of COVID.   Posted Jul 20, 2020 by Ajit Singh.   Originally published: The Grayzone (July 17, 2020).mronline.org(7-21-20).
Viruses & imperialism.  Mronline.org (6-12-20).

Despite conspiracy theories, there is no evidence whatsoever that the virus was manufactured in or escaped from a laboratory, in China or anywhere else. Such accusations ignore how easy viral transmission can be when other factors come into play.  | more…

China tech ban mirrors 1980s attempts to destroy Japanese
competition.    mronline.org(1-22-21).

In the 1980s, the U.S. imposed a 100% tariff on virtually all Japanese electronics and forced Tokyo to sign a one-sided trade deal that reserved much of its domestic semiconductor sector for American companies.  | more…     

MEDIA CONFLICT

Scientists on WHO mission to Wuhan accuse media of biased reportage.  Mronline.org (2-17-21).

The U.S. government and many media outlets have queried WHO findings that do not corroborate theories promoted by Washington, such as the virus escaping from a Chinese laboratory. | more… 

PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES TO CONFLICT

Webinar & Statement – Launching Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy– January 27

Friends,

With my colleague Michael Klare, I am excited to announce the launching of the Committee for a SANE U.S.-China Policy. Our goal is to help avert a new Cold War by promoting peaceful, mutually beneficial solutions to divisive issues in U.S.-China relations.  [DIPLOMACY NOT WAR]

On Wednesday January 27^th at 4:00 PM (EST), the Committee will host its FIRST WEBINAR: “Biden and China: Challenges & Opportunities,” featuring Committee co-founder Michael Klare, Rachel Esplin Odell of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Prof. Zhiqun Zhu of Bucknell University.

Click here to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1Fyq2BB6Tg2QvqMHkImINg

That same day the Committee will publicly launch our Statement that detailing the dangers of a new Cold War and identifying steps that can be taken to avert it.  Among its original signers are Noam Chomsky, Catherine Lutz, Richard Falk, Adele Simmons, Zia Mian, Barbara Wein, Daniel Ellsberg, Salih Booker, Michael Christ, and Miriam Pemberton.  A full list of original of signers and an opportunity to add your name can be found on our web page, saneuschinapolicy.org 

This site also contains resources on divisive issues in U.S.-China relations, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and technology, the U.S.-China-Japan triangle, and nuclear weapons and arms control.

Our Mission Statement below gives a more complete description of our commitments.

Please join us in learning about and working for a SANE U.S.-China policy. 

Joseph
OUR MISSION

With information and advocacy, the Committee for a SANE U.S. China Policy works to prevent U.S.-Chinese military conflict, reduce the militarization of U.S.-Chinese tensions, and encourage mutually beneficial diplomacy. We intend to show how forces in both China and the United States are contributing to a dynamic of ever-increasing mutual suspicion and hostility; likewise, we will emphasize the need for cooperative efforts by both countries to overcome outstanding differences, such as over Taiwan and the South China Sea. We further aim to show that U.S.-China cooperation is essential to overcome such global challenges as climate change and lethal pandemics.

Our initial goal is to circulate our Statement widely and solicit additional signatures to it, from as broad a cross-section of the population as possible. With funds collected from those who sign, we plan to place the Statement in major journals and newspapers. 

We also seek to inform debate and discussion on divisive issues in U.S.-China relations by commissioning position papers on mutually beneficial, non-military solutions to outstanding problems such as Taiwan, technology, arms control, and the South China Sea, and publicize these as widely as possible – including via webinars, public lectures and panels. In addition, we will urge members of Congress to hold public hearings on these issues and encourage them to include participation by those who advocate constructive, peaceful solutions. Wherever possible, we hope to join with organizations in pursuing these activities.

We will also encourage transnational dialogue on problem issues in U.S.-China relations involving non-governmental experts from China, the United States, and other nations in the Indo-Pacific region. In time, such “Track-2” diplomacy could be supplemented by “Track 1.5” diplomacy, involving retired government officials and others with links to those in power.

How to Derail the U.S. Rush Toward War with China? Two Peace Activists Suggest An Answer

By Jeremy Kuzmarov on Jan 30, 2021

Two U.S. peace researchers, Michael T. Klare, professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, and Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee, have launched a new organization, the Committee for a SANE U.S.-China policy that seeks to counter the U.S. drive to war with China. At the launching webinar on […]

The post How to Derail the U.S. Rush Toward War with China? Two Peace Activists Suggest An Answer appeared first on CovertAction Magazine.

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Katrina vanden Heuvel.   “We need a broad, transpartisan debate on how to engage with China before it’s too late.”  Washington Post (August 11, 2020 at 8:02 a.m. EDT).

The cold war with China is on. In a bellicose speech last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo resuscitated the rhetoric of the 20th-century Cold War: “If we want to have a free 21st century and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done,” he said. “The free world must triumph over this new tyranny.”

The Trump administration’s 2017 National Security Strategy elevated China and Russia to primary national security threats. It labeled China a “revisionist” power that seeks “to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests” while “attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” There is transpartisan support for confrontation with China, but the United States ought to consider alternatives to this posture before it is too late.

Not surprisingly in an election involving President Trump, China posturing has been put to partisan purpose. He has called Joe Biden’s political career a “gift to the Chinese Communist Party.” (Meanwhile, Biden ads charge that on trade and the novel coronavirus, Trump “didn’t get tough” with China but that “he got played.”) Trump’s rhetoric manifests in policy: a U.S.-China military buildup in the South China Sea; efforts to “decouple” economic relations; targeting Huawei, TikTok and WeChat; and blaming Beijing for what the president has called the “China plague,” even demanding that Beijing pay for damage inflicted by the coronavirus. Polls show Americans increasingly consider China a threat.

Some tensions are inevitable given the dynamics of one national power rising, while a long-dominant superpower awakens to the constraints of economic decline and costly overreach. U.S. trade relations with China, constructed by corporations and other businesses eager to profit from cheap labor and lax consumer and environmental protections, have not liberalized the Chinese Communist Party but contributed to undermining U.S. industries and America’s working class. Under Xi, China has asserted its growing power and confidence internally and externally. See: Beijing’s repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province, expansionist claims in the South China Sea, and its stepped-up alternatives to U.S.-dominated international institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the multifaceted Belt and Road Initiative.

Meanwhile, the United States finds itself mired in endless conflicts abroad and burdened by international defense commitments, increasingly decrepit infrastructure and eroded state capacity. Most worrying about the anti-China foreign policy consensus is not its anachronistic rhetoric or inflation of the China threat but the triumphalism with which both the Trump and Biden foreign policy teams are pushing the narrative of a new cold war. MOREhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/11/we-need-broad-transpartisan-debate-how-engage-with-china-before-its-too-late/

Wage war against the philosophy of war

Nov 06, 2020 by Vijay Prashad.  The Tricontinental (November 5, 2020)   |  Imperialism , Marxism , State Repression , War  Global  Newswire  China , coronavirus , COVID-19 , India , pandemic , Tricontinental Newsletter

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

In mid-October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its World Economic Outlook report, which offered some dizzying data. For 2020, the IMF estimates that the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will decline by 4.4%, while in 2021 the global GDP will rise by 5.2%. Stagnation and decline will define the economic activity in both Europe and North America, as well as in large states such as Brazil and India. With a second wave of coronavirus infections in Europe and with the first wave not having been controlled in Brazil, India, and the United States, it appears that these IMF estimates might sink further downwards.

Meanwhile, the data on China is quite astounding. China will account for the absolute majority, namely 51%, of world growth. Based on the IMF numbers, the other contributors to world growth will be mainly Asian economies that have strong trading relations with China, namely South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia. In 2020, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) did not set any growth targets due to the occurrence of the Great Lockdown. However, at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the NDRC head Ning Jizhe said that targets would be set for 2021, although he reiterated that the growth targets would not be merely towards GDP growth but towards ‘a steady improvement in quality’, which means poverty alleviation. After the meeting, Yu Xuejun, deputy head of the National Health Commission, said that the ten million families who fell into poverty due to the coronavirus disruptions have now been lifted out of poverty.

Given the continued disruptions caused by the virus and the uncertainty about a vaccine, it would behove the countries of the world to dial down tensions and expand collaborations. Exchange of information and personnel to break the chain of the infection–organised by the World Health Organisation–would enhance eroded public health systems. Yet, this is exactly what the countries most impacted by the coronavirus–Brazil, India, and the United States–refuse to do (and this is precisely what is being encouraged by the socialist states such as China and Cuba).  MORE

https://mronline.org/2020/11/06/wage-war-against-the-philosophy-of-war/

Climate Crisis and Imperialism: The Unfair Demonization of the East.  Mronline.org (11-6-20).

Last week in the presidential debate, Donald Trump said “Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. It’s filthy. The air is filthy,” when asked about his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord.  | more…    

ANNA FIFIELD.  Chinese diplomat warns U.S. against pushing to ‘brink of a new Cold War’ .  The Washington Post.  25 May 2020. 

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The United States should abandon its “wishful thinking about changing China” and stop pushing the two countries “to the brink of a new Cold War,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday, trying to position Beijing as the grown-up in an increasingly fractious relationship.

As tensions between the world’s two largest economies mount by the day, Wang used a news conference during the annual piece of political theater known as the National People’s Congress to send a direct message to Washington.

“China has no intention to change, still less replace, the United States,” Wang said before a selected group of journalists. “It’s time for the United States to give up its wishful thinking of changing China and stopping 1.4 billion people in their historic march toward modernization.”

In a nod toward President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who have repeatedly suggested that the ruling Chinese Communist Party is a threat to the world, Wang said American politicians “are taking China-u.s. relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War.”

“This dangerous attempt to turn back the will of history will undo the fruits of decades-long China-u.s. cooperation, dampen America’s own development prospects, and put world stability and prosperity in jeopardy,” Wang said.

The Trump administration labeled China a strategic “competitor” in its first national security strategy, and Beijing and Washington have clashed over a wide array of issues, including trade, technology, human rights and the status of Hong Kong.

Washington views China as a malign force out to reshape the world in its image. Beijing says the United States is trying to contain its ascent to its rightful place as a global superpower.

The conflict has taken on a new dimension with the emergence of the novel coronavirus in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The Trump administration, reeling from more than 96,000 deaths in the

United States, is trying to heap blame for the pandemic entirely on China’s Communist Party.

This includes, most recently, a claim by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro that China “sent hundreds of thousands” of people infected with the virus on planes to “seed” the virus around the world. “They could have kept it in Wuhan, but instead, it became a pandemic,” he told ABC News last week.

On Sunday, national security adviser Robert C. O’brien blasted China for not being transparent about the early spread of the disease.

“The coverup that they did of the virus is going to go down in history along with Chernobyl,” O’brien said on NBC’S “Meet the

Press.” He predicted the United States would develop a coronavirus vaccine before China.

A spokesman for Wang has suggested that American soldiers planted the virus in Wuhan during military games that were held in the city in October.

Wang focused only on the American theories Sunday. He said some U.S. politicians were trying to “stigmatize China.”

“It’s most regrettable that while coronavirus is still out there, a political virus is still spreading in the United States and, jumping at any opportunity to attack and slander China, some politicians ignore the basic facts and make up countless lies and conspiracy theories concerning China,” he said.

The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, reported Sunday that China was “considering punitive countermeasures” against some American politicians leading the efforts to hold it accountable for the virus.

These included Eric Schmitt, the Missouri attorney general who filed a lawsuit against China seeking compensation for the pandemic, and lawmakers including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO.) and Tom Cotton (R-ark.), the paper reported, citing anonymous “sources close to the matter.”

At least four individuals and two entities would be sanctioned by China, according to the paper, which often reflects the foreign policy thinking of the party.

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Xinjiang: A report and resource compilation.  Mronline.org (10-11-20).

In the mid-2010s, China launched far-reaching de-radicalization and economic development programs in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.  more…  https://www.qiaocollective.com/en/education/xinjiang

US COLD WAR AGAINST CHINA #2, May 30, 2020    http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2020/05/omni-china-newsletter-2-may-30-2020.html 

Is This Our Leaders’ Anti-China Problem?  China’s Success Toward an Ecological Civilization.
VIOLENT WAR
  UN vs. Threat or Use of Armed Force (see the final selection below).
  Immense Gap Between US and Chinese Military in Africa.
ECONOMIC WAR
  Shubert, Blaming China.
  NATO and Neoliberalism.
TECH WAR
  Huawei.
  Artificial Intelligence.
  Chinese Aerospace Development.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR
  Pentagon Success.
POLITICAL WAR: COVID-19
  US Conspiracy Mongering.
  China’s Successful Campaign for the World.
  Early Weeks of Pandemic: China Warns World.
  US v UN Effort for Global Ceasefire.
MEDIA WAR
  Shupak, US Corporate Media Spreads Cold War.
  Parodies by Dick
      NADG Reports Reframed.
      China in Gulf of Mexico.
       China in Caribbean.
  US Nationalism, Covid-19, China, and the ADG by DB.

Memory: 1999 US Bombs Chinese Embassy by William Blum.
US has been at war against the Reds a long time. 

END COLD WAR V. CHINA NEWSLETTER #3, 2021