New Cold War Archives - Page 10 of 18 - Friends of Socialist China

Xi Jinping meets with Joe Biden in Bali

The meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia, on November 14th attracted huge attention around the world, as a positive outcome could help to halt or even reverse the dangerous slide to confrontation triggered by the US’ initiation of a new cold war.

China reported that the two presidents had a “candid and in-depth exchange of views on issues of strategic importance in China-US relations and on major global and regional issues.

“President Xi pointed out the current state of China-US relations is not in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples and is not what the international community expects. China and the United States need to have a sense of responsibility for history, for the world and for the people, explore the right way to get along with each other in the new era, put the relationship on the right course, and bring it back to the track of healthy and stable growth to the benefit of the two countries and the world as a whole.”

The Chinese leader explained that the policies of his party and government are “open and transparent, with clearly stated and transparent strategic intentions and great continuity and stability.” He further stressed that the Taiwan question “is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations… Anyone that seeks to split Taiwan from China will be violating the fundamental interests of the Chinese nation; the Chinese people will absolutely not let that happen!”

He also pointed out that “the two countries take different paths; while the United States practices capitalism, China practices socialism. Such difference is nothing new and will continue to exist,” adding, “it is in our mutual interest to benefit from each other’s development. It is also in our mutual interest to promote post-COVID global recovery, tackle climate change and resolve regional issues through China-US coordination and cooperation.”

Xi Jinping’s approach to his talk with Biden was exemplary in combining firmness in principle with flexibility and magnanimity in tactics. Given the extreme importance of the relations between China and the United States to the whole of humanity, it is vitally important to understand what China’s leadership is saying in this regard. We are therefore pleased to reproduce China’s official report of the meeting, taken from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China.

On the afternoon of 14 November local time, President Xi Jinping had a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia. The two presidents had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on issues of strategic importance in China-U.S. relations and on major global and regional issues.

President Xi pointed out the current state of China-U.S. relations is not in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples, and is not what the international community expects. China and the United States need to have a sense of responsibility for history, for the world and for the people, explore the right way to get along with each other in the new era, put the relationship on the right course, and bring it back to the track of healthy and stable growth to the benefit of the two countries and the world as a whole.

President Xi expounded on the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and its key outcomes. He pointed out that the domestic and foreign policies of the CPC and the Chinese government are open and transparent, with clearly stated and transparent strategic intentions and great continuity and stability. We are advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization, basing our efforts on the goal of meeting people’s aspirations for a better life, unswervingly pursuing reform and opening-up, and promoting the building of an open global economy. China remains firm in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace, always decides its position and attitude based on the merits of issues, and advocates resolving disputes peacefully through dialogue and consultation. China is committed to deepening and expanding global partnerships, safeguarding the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order underpinned by international law, and building a community with a shared future for mankind. China will stay committed to peaceful development, open development and win-win development, participate in and contribute to global development, and pursue common development with countries across the world.

Arnold August: China’s rise is the West’s main fear

We are pleased to reproduce extracts of the November 13, 2022, edition of Press TV’s show Spotlight on the current South China Sea tensions, with Canadian author/journalist Arnold August and Teheran-based anchor/producer Kaveh Taghvai. August focused on China, the BRICS alternative non-US dollar currency as a very significant challenge to US hegemony, and the US vision for leveraging Taiwan against the People’s Republic of China, much as Ukraine is today being used as a pawn in the US/NATO war against the Russian Federation.

Former First Minister condemns UK government attack on Confucius Institutes in Scotland

Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland and currently the Leader of the Alba Party, has condemned the British government’s announced intention to close Confucius Institutes, describing it as, “the sort of Cold War mentality on display in Westminster which ends in hot wars.”

Salmond added his condemnation to that expressed by his party’s Westminster Leader Neale Hanvey MP. Hanvey noted that: “Westminster’s feud with China undermines and will deeply damage over a century of Sino-Scottish educational relations.”

The first known student from China to study in the UK enrolled to study medicine at Edinburgh University in the 1860s.

Alex Salmond strongly supported friendship and cooperation with China throughout his time as Scotland’s First Minister, 2007-2014. The March 2014 edition of Voice of Friendship, the magazine of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, reported on his November 2013 visit to Beijing, describing him as, “an old friend who visited China successively in the years from 2009-2011.”

On that occasion, Salmond presented State Councillor Yang Jiechi with his government’s document, ‘Scotland’s Strategy for Stronger Engagement with China’.

Reporting his visit to the Confucius Institute Headquarters, Voice of Friendship noted: “Since he took office, Mr. Salmond has attached great importance to carrying out cultural exchanges with China. Right now, Confucius Institutes have been set up in four universities and Confucius Classrooms in 13 primary and secondary schools in Scotland, with a total of 150 schools and institutions teaching Mandarin.”

Mr. Salmond and the Alba party are to be congratulated for sticking to their principled stand in favour of positive and constructive relations with China. We reprint their statement below.

ALBA Party Leader and Former First Minister Alex Salmond has added his condemnation to the UK Government’s attack on Confucius Institutes in Scotland.

Commenting Alex Salmond said:

“This is the sort of Cold War mentality on display by Westminster which ends in hot wars. The Scottish Government should defend these valuable cultural exchanges and oppose any attempts by the UK Government to close them down. We have nothing to fear from talking and exchanging culture. The real danger is from those who wish to divide the world into armed camps and who wish to shut Scotland out from the international community.”

Earlier ALBA Westminster Leader Neale Hanvey MP also reacted to Minister of State for Security Tom Tugendhat MPs announcement that Confucius Institutes in the UK are to close. He said:

“Scotland’s educational links with China have long presented opportunities to increase trade and secure Chinese investment in industry and infrastructure.

“The Confucius programme helps promote Scotland’s innovative and creative sector through cultural exchanges and sporting links with China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. These links also promote Scotland as a destination of choice for Chinese tourists – something which pre pandemic delivered 172,000 visits to Scotland from China bringing £142M into the Scottish economy.

“While the Confucius scheme invests £3M in Scotland to foster these bonds between our two countries, this modest investment has generated a fee income of £790 million for our world class Scottish Universities.

“Westminster’s unilateral decision to block this programme takes no account of Scotland and China’s cultural links and will have a devastating impact on the entire Scottish Higher Education system.

“Westminster’s feud with China undermines and will deeply damage over a century of Sino-Scottish educational relations”

The people need a Green New Deal, but imperialism opts for “Better dead than red”

At the recent webinar marking the first anniversary of the International Manifesto Group’s document ‘Through Pluripolarity to Socialism’, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez made a contribution about the ecological crises faced by humanity, comparing the progress (or lack thereof) tackling global warming in the West with that made by China.

Carlos observes that, in spite of the Biden administration’s oft-stated commitment to seriously reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, the US-led proxy war against Russia is having a disastrous environmental impact, leading to an increase in fracking and coal consumption. Meanwhile China is leading the world in renewable energy, electric vehicles and afforestation; and instead of cooperating with China and finding common solutions to common problems, the West instead imposes sanctions on Chinese products that are crucial to green energy supply chains. So, while people in the West might want a Green New Deal, but what they’re actually getting is “better dead than red.”

What I’m going to address in these brief remarks is the question of climate change; how it’s covered in the Manifesto, and the developments that have taken place in the last year since the Manifesto was released.

The Manifesto talks of “an ecological emergency of climate warming, pollution and biodiversity loss, rendering our planet increasingly uninhabitable.” And it points the blame for this situation at neoliberal capitalism, which has “turned everything the earth offers humanity gratis into plunder and profit.”

In terms of what neoliberal capitalism is doing, this analysis – very sad to say – still holds true. Indeed the situation is in many ways worse than it was a year ago, in spite of a great deal of rhetoric and the passing into US law, two months ago, of the Inflation Reduction Act, including climate commitments that Joe Biden considers to be a landmark success of his presidency to date.

It is, unquestionably, the US’s must important set of climate commitments thus far. Unfortunately, that’s not saying very much. It’s still nowhere near the type of unprecedented action the world needs from the US – which, of the major countries, has the highest per capita emissions in the world, and which has contributed a full quarter to global cumulative carbon emissions, in spite of having just four percent of the world’s population.

Even if the US meets its targets under the Inflation Reduction Act – which is doubtful enough – then in five years time it will still be generating significantly less renewable energy than China will generate this year.

But anyway, it’s more fruitful to look at what the US and its allies are actually doing, as opposed to what they say they’re doing or will do.

Most obviously, the US is driving NATO’s proxy war against Russia, which is nothing short of disastrous in environmental terms.

The left should resist the propaganda war against Beijing

The following Morning Star editorial highlights how absurd it is for ordinary people in Britain to blindly accept the dominant anti-China narrative, pointing to the impressive progress China has made in improving people’s lives at a time when Britain has been suffering under a brutal austerity and neoliberal free-market fundamentalism.

For example, while wages have consistently fallen in real terms over the last decade in Britain, in China they have been increasing at a rate of 10 percent per year. Meanwhile, while “China is developing mass rapid transit systems and leading the world in green technology,” Britain is “actively degrading its transport network and subsidising fossil fuel profits.”

The purpose of this relentless propaganda against China is to build public support for the New Cold War. The article concludes: “It is time socialists adopted greater scepticism towards our rulers’ claims about China. They are aimed at enrolling us in the defence of US and British imperialism — and undermining our systemic challenge to capitalism at home.”

Rising prices, falling living standards, a government in turmoil although united around its anti-union, anti-democratic and anti-environment agenda — but at least we don’t live in China.

That’s been the message of an amplifying propaganda discourse against Beijing in the run-up to its 20th Communist Party congress, which opened today.

Read Martin Wolf or Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times, and China’s economic policies are disastrous, even if they have delivered (as Rachman notes) “thousands of miles of new motorways and high-speed rail over the past 20 years” and made “Western executives sigh in envy at China’s ability to plan for the long term.”

British workers, who have endured more than a decade of falling pay, might envy China’s record (average wages have risen at over 10 per cent a year since 2010, leading the median wage to rise from 37,147 yuan in 2010 to 97,379 in 2020, a 162 per cent increase).

Of course, it is from a poorer base. But China’s GDP grew by 120 per cent between 2010 and 2020. So wages have outpaced GDP growth in China, while in Britain wages flatlined even while the economy was growing.

Xi Jinping’s ‘authoritarian turn’: the CPC’s 20th Congress maintains internal stability at a time of multiple global crises

This article by Jenny Clegg, author of China’s Global Strategy: towards a multipolar world, addresses the question of China’s putative ‘authoritarianism’, and in particular the issue of Xi Jinping’s election for a third five-year term as General Secretary of the CPC, which marks a break with the two-term limit introduced in the 1980s.

The author opines that China is opting for continuity and stability, in the face of “complex, unpredictable and fast changing international currents” – in particular the escalating US-led New Cold War – and a crucial shift in the emphasis of China’s economic strategy towards common prosperity and sustainable development.

Jenny writes that Xi’s supposed ‘authoritarian turn’ is “keeping China on a steady course, united in purpose”, whilst continuing to encourage vibrant inner-party democracy and exhaustive debate on key policies. “At a time of growing political chaos as the world’s dominant ruling classes flail about amidst multiple crises, the 20th CPC Congress stands out as an example of orderliness and clarity of direction.”

The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has made headlines in the mainstream media, but hardly because China’s future is of great consequence for the future of the world – rather, all eyes are on Xi Jinping’s continuing into a third 5-year term as Party General Secretary. What an opportunity, so the pundits think, to hype up the New Cold War by contrasting China’s ‘autocratic’ methods of leadership succession against the virtues of the West’s democratic ways.

Xi is being ‘anointed,’ we are told, or ‘crowned’, as China’s leader.

When, from the 1990s, the CPC introduced collective leadership, two-term limits on key posts, and other mechanisms institutionalising leadership selection in order to guard against the re-emergence of personality cults and political upheaval, this was widely welcomed both within China and beyond as a step forward in modernising and democratising the Party. In 2018 however, under Xi’s leadership, the two-term limit was abolished – a major factor in causing Western political elites to give up hope of integrating China into the existing global system under their dominance.

Of course, China’s centralised system has cultural and historical roots going back millennia. However, these traditions were profoundly transformed after 1949 by the CPC’s practice of democratic centralism – of ‘top-down, ‘bottom up’ processes of decision-making. Throughout its history the CPC has nevertheless gone through phases of relative tightening and relaxing of central control.

It is important then to understand why the CPC is once again strengthening its leadership, seeking to consolidate authority under a single leadership figure, at this time. A number of factors are at play.

External conditions

In the first place there are the external conditions to consider. Since 2011 when Obama announced his Asian pivot, the US has increasingly squeezed China using both military and economic pressure not only to block China’s growing global influence – which has extended peacefully through for example the Belt and Road Initiative – but also, going beyond containment, to aggressively enforce technological and economic decoupling. The US has now effectively pledged to do all it can to obstruct China’s further development whilst mobilising all possible global forces and resources in preparation for a war, with Taiwan as the most likely pretext.

Amidst complex, unpredictable and fast changing international currents, the CPC must stay both firm and flexible in order to respond effectively at a time when China is also undergoing huge structural changes.

Why Biden is unleashing a full scale chip war against China

The following article, by Marc Vandepitte and Jan Jonckheere, was originally published in Dutch on De Wereld Morgen. It explains the crucial significance of semiconductor chips to advances in modern technology, and goes on to describe the “chip war” currently being waged by the US government against China. The authors note that this is not the first time the US has attempted to suppress another country’s technological development, but they express significant doubt about the chances of success in this case. “In the past, the US has often succeeded in bringing countries to order and keeping them in line. However, whether it will succeed with China is highly questionable.”

Keith Lamb’s article Blocking China’s semiconductor industry is an attempt to impede the construction of socialism provides useful supplementary reading.

Recently, the US has identified China as its main enemy and is trying to thwart its economic and technological rise. Chips play a key role in this as they are the backbone of economic and military performance in the digital age. Whether the U.S. will succeed in its endeavour is highly questionable.

The key to the future

Technology is the key to the future. It is the basis for military might on the one hand, and economic productivity and a competitive position in the world market on the other.

Until recently, the US had an unassailable, dominant position on both fronts. The White House wants to maintain that hegemony at all costs, but the rise of China threatens to put an end to that.

According to US Presidential Security Adviser Sullivan, “we are facing a competitor that is determined to overtake US technological leadership and willing to devote nearly limitless resources to that goal”.

That is why the US has identified the People’s Republic of China as its main enemy and is trying to thwart the economic and technological ascent of this Asian giant.

Chip War

Semiconductors and chips[1] are particularly targeted. This makes sense, because in the future geopolitical supremacy may increasingly depend on computer chips. Chips are integrated circuits that are pretty much the nervous system of electronic devices.

Until last century, military strength was based on firearms, warships, fighter jets or (nuclear) missiles. In the digital age, chips are the backbone of economic as well as military performance.

According to James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese cybersecurity, “the Pentagon has decided that semiconductors is the hill that they are willing to die on. The sector of semiconductors is the last industry in which the US is leading, and it is the one on which everything else is built”.

In early October 2022, the White House put its money where its mouth is. The Biden administration introduced sweeping export controls that will severely hamper Chinese companies’ attempts to obtain or manufacture advanced computer chips.

Under Trump, US companies were no longer allowed to sell chips to Huawei. Biden has now extended those trade restrictions to more than 40 Chinese companies, including several chip makers. The new measure effectively prohibits any US or non-US company from supplying those Chinese companies with hardware or software whose supply chain includes US technology.

The export restrictions not only target military applications but seek to block the development of China’s technological power by all means available. The strategy is to cut China off from the rest of the world in chip supply chains in order to deny it the opportunity to indigenise its semiconductor industry.

Paul Triolo, China and technology expert describes the new measure as a “major watershed” in US-China relations. “The US has essentially declared war on China’s ability to advance the country’s use of high-performance computing for economic and security gains.”

Conversely, the US is doing all it can to further increase its technological lead. For example, the White House’s National Science and Technology Council has just published a 47-page ‘National Strategy for Advanced Manufacturing’ that includes 11 strategic goals to increase US competitiveness in chips.

Geopolitics aside, the chip industry is also big business. The market capitalization of the largest listed chip firms now exceeds $4,000 billion. China spends more on computer chip imports than on oil.

Quest for allies

Although Biden claims to be eager to work with allies, this chip war is only initiated by the US. Experts admit that if other countries continue to supply China, the restrictions will have little effect. The only consequence then is that US chip companies will miss out on the large Chinese market.

In the past, the US already pressured other countries and regions to stop supplying high-tech products to China. In the case of chips, this mainly involves South Korea, Japan, the Netherlands and the de facto autonomous Chinese province of Taiwan. With the new measure, foreign companies working with US technology are now supposed to act following US restrictions. They must seek US permission on a case-by-case basis.

Of course, foreign countries are not eager to comply with that, because China is a very important if not the most important customer. Samsung, for example, is the world’s largest builder of memory chips. Partly as a result of the new measure, this South Korean company expects 32 percent less revenue. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent these countries will seek and find possible loopholes.

Washington especially wants to bring Taiwan along in its isolation strategy. Taiwan accounts for 92 percent of the world’s high-value chips. For China, imports from Taiwan are economically and technologically vital.

It is in the context of this chip war that the provocative visit by Pelosi and other US politicians to the separatist leadership of Taiwan must be viewed. Mid-September, the US Senate approved a bill providing $6.5 billion in direct military aid to the island. Washington is putting pressure on China on several fronts.

Chances of success?

Chips are the main engine of electronics. China itself manufactures about 12 percent of global production. That is by no means enough for its own use. Only one-sixth of what it needs in chips is produced domestically. Moreover, for the time being, it is still unable to produce the most advanced chips.

In other words, in terms of chips, the country is highly dependent on imports. Annually they account for about $400 billion. If that supply were compromised, it would not only mean a very large economic loss, but it would also seriously undermine technological progress. In this sense, chips are considered the Achilles heel of Chinese industry.

To overcome that dependency and catch up with the technological backlog, China is investing more than any other country in this strategic industry. The country has already made serious progress in a number of areas. For example, it has successfully produced a 7 nanometre chip.[2] This puts it only one or two ‘generations’ behind industry leaders in Taiwan and South Korea.

But with these breakthroughs, it will remain dependent on imports of parts from other countries for the time being.[3] It doesn’t have to stay that way. Analysys Mason, a leading consulting firm, says in a recent report that China could be self-sufficient in chips within three to four years.

In any case, the US restrictive strategy will motivate the Chinese government to allocate even more resources and make breakthroughs. Asia Times gives the example of the 2015 blocking of the supply of Intel’s high-end Xeon Phi processors to Chinese supercomputer makers. A year later, Chinese researchers developed those processors themselves.

In the past, the US has often succeeded in bringing countries to order and keeping them in line. However, whether it will succeed with China is highly questionable. By the end of this decade, we will know whether the US attempt to wreck China’s chip industry has succeeded or failed.

Notes:

[1] Semiconductors are electronic components based on semiconductor material. A diode and a transistor are examples of semiconductors. In a sense you can think of semiconductors as the building blocks of chips. Chips are integrated circuits, small in size. They are part of a computer or other electronic devices. In the mainstream media, there is usually no distinction between semiconductors and chips.

[2] The company in question, SMCI, is reportedly now working on even more advanced 5 nanometer chips.

[3] For example, China cannot make advanced semiconductor devices without EUV lithography equipment from ASML (Netherlands) and electronic design automation (EDA) tools from Synopsis and Cadence (US) or Siemens (Germany).

Keith Bennett: Join hands in the struggle for socialism and against imperialist war

At the recent webinar marking the first anniversary of the International Manifesto Group’s document ‘Through Pluripolarity to Socialism’, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Keith Bennett made a speech assessing geopolitical developments since the launch of the manifesto. Keith observes that imperialism’s hasty retreat from Afghanistan has flowed into escalating aggression against both Russia and China, noting that both “NATO’s proxy war against Russia, which it seems determined to fight to the last Ukrainian” and the new Cold War against China have only intensified under the Biden administration.

Keith further states that the international left – albeit in a partial and contradictory way – is embarked on a process of realignment that has significant parallels to the realignment that took place a century ago, when the lines were drawn between those willing to fight against imperialism and those choosing the path of class collaboration. The questions our movement is asking itself are: “Whether to oppose imperialist war wherever it is waged; whether to support all those who fight imperialism, no matter the banner under which that struggle is waged; and whether to give resolute, wholehearted and unqualified support to any and every country, no matter where and no matter how, where our class, the working class, takes power, and sets out on the long and difficult road of building a new society, a socialist society.”

The late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson reputedly said that a week is a long time in politics. Certainly that might seem to be the case for former UK Chancellor Kwesi Kwarteng. The one who turned up in Washington for the annual meeting of the IMF, declaring he wasn’t going anywhere, only to have to leave early to return home for the dubious pleasure of being sacked.

But if a week is a long time in politics, it’s already one year since we launched our Manifesto, Through Pluripolarity to Socialism. Of course, in the broad sweep of human history, a year is far less than a blink of an eye. But perhaps we should reflect more on Lenin’s famous observation that there are periods of years when nothing seems to happen and then there come days into which years are compressed. We seem to be headed more in that direction.

Two things occupied particular attention when we were drafting the Manifesto. One was the global Covid-19 pandemic, the variegated response to it, the contradictions that it had bought to the surface and exacerbated, and the social, economic and political crises it had triggered. The other was the chaotic US, British and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ignominious collapse of the puppet regime they had sought to leave behind.

We noted that the response to Covid-19 on the part of the socialist countries had been exemplary. And that has continued to be the case, whether in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite the fact that the last two named countries have laboured for decades under crippling and asphyxiating sanctions and blockades. China, Vietnam and Cuba have not only carried out exemplary policies at home. They have been providers of much-needed aid, primarily to developing countries, but also to developed countries, in the finest traditions of working-class international solidarity. By being the very first country to introduce lockdown measures, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea registered not a single case of Covid for over two years, and then, thanks to a huge nationwide mobilization, rapidly suppressed the virus when it finally entered the country. As the Manifesto stated:

“No wonder, the ruling Communist Party of China celebrated a proud centenary in July 2021.”

As we meet today, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has opened in Beijing. It will not only set the scene for the next five years of China’s socialist development, but also map out more generically the route from the achievement of a moderately prosperous society and the complete elimination of extreme poverty, achieved just before the first centenary, that of the party, to the realisation of a modern, powerful and prosperous socialist country in all respects by the time the nation marks its second great centenary, that of the founding of the People’s Republic in 2049.

Video: Why has China suddenly become a ‘threat’ to the UK?

In the video embedded below, FoSC co-editor Keith Bennett discusses with George Galloway the recent decision by the British state to designate China as a security threat. Keith points out that this reflects a foreign policy trajectory in Britain of providing unquestioning support to the US; essentially outsourcing its foreign policy to Washington, which, starting with Obama’s Pivot to Asia and then escalating through the Trump and Biden administrations, seems intent on waging a New Cold War to contain China and suppress its rise.

George and Keith both observe that, just a few years ago, Britain and China were enjoying a ‘golden era’ of relations. Britain under the Cameron-Osborne administration was strongly encouraging trade with, and investment from, China. Indeed, Keith points out that British Steel would have gone out of business had it not been acquired by a Chinese company. At that time, the British government was operating on the (correct) basis that good relations with China were positive for the British economy. The idea that China has suddenly become more aggressive or changed its basic policy orientation is absurd: China isn’t sailing gunboats through the Solent; rather Britain is sailing its warships through the Taiwan Strait and forming a nuclear alliance with Australia and the US. British policy-makers have clearly decided, counter to the interests of the British economy, to join in with the US-led hybrid warfare against China. Nothing good will come of this strategy for the British people.

China’s rapid, peaceful rise not a threat to any country

In the following article, China Daily’s EU bureau chief Chen Weihua responds to news reports that British Prime Minister Liz Truss is planning to declare China a “strategic threat” to the United Kingdom. Noting the total lack of evidence in support of such a label, Chen mourns the fact that China-bashing, which “has long been a favorite sport in Washington”, has developed unprecedented popularity in London’s corridors of power.

Chen observes that, behind the West’s rising hostility towards China, there is a certain outrage that China’s rise disrupts the natural order of things, in which the West imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world. Chen writes that China’s rapid rise is seen as threatening because “its ascent has been achieved peacefully, without waging wars, bombing or occupying a foreign country, seizing or colonizing any foreign territory, staging coups or assassinating any foreign leaders.” Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the rise of North America and Western Europe.

The author concludes by calling for a return to sanity; for dialogue, cooperation, exchanges, trade, and an end to the hysterical fearmongering that the British side has adopted in recent years.

This article originally appeared in China Daily.

It was shocking to read British news media reports on Tuesday that the United Kingdom government under Prime Minister Liz Truss is likely to declare China a “threat” to the UK in its new review of the country’s strategic enemies.

The reports quoted Jeremy Fleming, head of the Government Communications Headquarters, or the UK’s intelligence agency, as saying that China’s “great strength combined with fear is driving them into actions that could represent a huge threat to us all”.Fleming even warned parents to think before they allow their kids to use the TikTok app.

Delivering a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute, Fleming said China’s approach to technology dominance puts them against “the whole open, democratic order and the international rules-based system”.

But such allegations are nothing but speculation, lies and fearmongering.

It’s the British government which disregarded its own experts’ recommendation two years ago that Huawei 5G does not pose a national security threat to the UK and chose to kowtow to US pressure to ban Huawei 5G from its 5G network.

Fleming called China’s rise as a “security issue that will define our future”. But does he really believe that countries such as China should be condemned to making shoes and shirts for the West, and never be allowed to catch up or lead the world in technologies?

Truss and China: opening a new war front?

This important article by Jenny Clegg, academic and campaigner with CND and Stop the War Coalition (and member of the Friends of Socialist China advisory group), analyses the foreign policy of the current British government, led by Prime Minister Liz Truss. Jenny notes that Truss is known for her “extreme hawkishness and a highly ideological world view” and has adopted an aggressively anti-China stance, viewing China as a threat to the so-called rules-based international order.

However, Truss and her team are also facing an extremely difficult and complex economic situation, and “questions will surely be raised from the business community as to the wisdom of jeopardising economic ties with the world’s second largest economy.” Jenny writes that at least 150,000 British jobs are connected to economic links with China, and hence it would be prudent for the government to reconsider its alignment with the US-led New Cold War. Certainly ordinary people in Britain have nothing to gain from this adventurism. Jenny concludes that the people of Britain should exert pressure on their government to adopt a sane policy in relation to China: “No way should we allow these extreme reactionaries to march us into a US-led war with China, a war bringing two nuclear-armed states into face-to-face combat.”

This article first appeared in the Morning Star.

Liz Truss, in her first international speech as prime minister at the UN, called on the G7 and “like-minded countries” to join together to limit the influence of “authoritarian aggressors.” Meeting with President Joe Biden later, she clarified her plans “to ensure Britain is fully equipped to tackle the evolving challenge from countries like China and Russia.”

Truss talks of “refreshing” the Integrated Review, which outlines British priorities in diplomacy and defence over the coming decade, to elevate the designation of China in particular from “systemic competitor” to an “acute threat” on a par with Russia.

It is clear she brings to her new role as head of government an extreme hawkishness and a highly ideological world view.

She believes in a “strong and outward-reaching Global Britain,” proposing to boost defence spending from 2 to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 to back this. She has vowed “to push Russia out of the whole of Ukraine” and has called for Nato to “go global” to tackle “worldwide threats.”

In her previous posts as international trade secretary and then foreign secretary, she advanced Britain’s Indo-Pacific tilt promoting military and military-industrial links with the region, and indeed it was she who signed the Aukus pact to supply Australia with the technology to build nuclear submarines aimed at containing China.

Truss views China as a threat to the “rules-based international order,” and calls for the G7 to form an “economic Nato” so as to play an even a greater role in rule-making.

Manufacturing consent for the containment and encirclement of China

The following detailed article by Carlos Martinez explores the escalating propaganda war being waged by the imperialist powers against China. Carlos notes that “propaganda wars can also be war propaganda”, and that the torrent of anti-China slander has a clear purpose of manufacturing broad public consent for the US-led New Cold War.

Carlos shows how the propaganda model described in Herman and Chomsky’s classic work Manufacturing Consent has been updated and enhanced using modern communication techniques, and how it is being applied today against China, in particular in relation to the allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang. Carlos introduces the most frequently-hurled slanders on this topic and debunks them in detail.

The author concludes that this propaganda campaign is serving to “break the bonds of solidarity within the global working class and all those opposed to imperialism”, and that all progressives must resolutely oppose and expose it.

If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. (Malcolm X)

The Western media is waging a systematic and ferocious propaganda war against China. In the court of Western public opinion, China stands accused of an array of terrifying crimes: conducting a genocide against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang; wiping out democracy in Hong Kong; militarising the South China Sea; attempting to impose colonial control over Taiwan; carrying out a land grab in Africa; preventing Tibetans and Inner Mongolians from speaking their languages; spying on the good peoples of the democratic world; and more.

Australian scholar Roland Boer has characterised these accusations as “atrocity propaganda – an old anti-communist and indeed anti-anyone-who-does-not-toe-the-Western-line approach that tries to manufacture a certain image for popular consumption.” Boer observes that this propaganda serves to create an impression of China as a brutal authoritarian dystopia which “can only be a fiction for anyone who actually spends some time in China, let alone lives there.”^[1]

It’s not difficult to understand why China would be subjected to this sort of elaborate disinformation campaign. This media offensive is part of the imperialist world’s ongoing attempts to reverse the Chinese Revolution, to subvert Chinese socialism, to weaken China, to diminish its role in international affairs and, as a result, to undermine the global trajectory towards multipolarity and a future free from hegemonism. As journalist Chen Weihua has pointed out, “the reasons for the intensifying US propaganda war are obvious: Washington views a fast-rising China as a challenge to its primacy around the world.” Furthermore, “the success of a country with a different political system is unacceptable to politicians in Washington.”^[2]

China marks the UN International Day of Peace

Marking the United Nations’ International Day of Peace on September 21, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD) organized a commemorative event in hybrid format, taking as its theme, ‘Acting on the Global Security Initiative to maintain world peace and stability’. Several hundred people from around the world attended, offline and online.

The event was opened with a congratulatory letter sent by Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was read by Liu Jianchao, Minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China.

In his letter, President Xi said that the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation. “At this important historical juncture, I put forward the Global Security Initiative, call on all countries to uphold the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concept, respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and take seriously the legitimate security concerns of all countries.”

This was followed by a keynote speech from Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, delivered via video link. Wang noted that, all countries need to practice mutual respect, enhance solidarity and coordination, respect others’ national security, sovereignty and development interests, and refrain from interfering in others’ internal affairs. “We need to work together to improve global governance, firmly oppose hegemony and bullying, practice true multilateralism, safeguard world peace and stability, and promote the development and prosperity of all countries.”

Why wasn’t the US-Pacific Island Country Summit set up years ago?

In the video embedded below, produced by and originally published on CGTN, FoSC co-editor Carlos Martinez responds to questions about why the US is suddenly showing an interest in the islands of the Pacific, and why the recent US-Pacific Island Country Summit wasn’t held years ago. Carlos notes that the US and the other imperialist powers have almost totally ignored these small nations in the post-colonial era. Their attention has been drawn by a blossoming and mutually-beneficial relationship between the Pacific Island countries and the People’s Republic of China. Of particular concern was the security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, signed in April 2022.

Carlos points out that China has never had a colonial relationship with these countries, but is very willing to provide aid, trade, and investment; furthermore, it works with these countries without attempting to compromise their sovereignty. Unfortunately, this runs counter to the US’s evolving strategy of encircling and containing China.

Transcript

CGTN: Since Joe Biden came to office, the U.S. has put greater focus on the Asia-Pacific. What caused this shift?

Martinez: The difference between Donald Trump and Biden in terms of their approach to the Pacific Islands really reflects the overall difference in their foreign policy. Trump’s motto was “America First.” His administration didn’t really pursue alliances, but talked quite openly about the need to maintain U.S. hegemony.

Now, Biden’s foreign policy is somewhat more sophisticated than Trump’s, but he’s seeking ultimately the same thing as Trump. He’s seeking to consolidate and expand U.S. hegemony, U.S. imperialism, but he wants to do it in a more consensual way. He wants to build an alliance.

CGTN: Beijing in April signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands. In contrast, the country seemed to keep its distance from the U.S., given that the Prime Minister skipped a planned appearance with Wendy Sherman during her Asia Pacific trip in August. How do you explain the contrast between the Solomon Islands’ attitudes toward the U.S. and China?

Martinez: The fact is that in recent decades, the imperialist powers have almost completely ignored the Pacific Island countries. They’ve been left to try and overcome the legacy of a century of colonialism, a century of underdevelopment on their own. Many of these countries suffer terrible poverty, terrible inequality. Many of them struggle with high crime rates, with ethnic tensions. And these problems are largely a product of their colonial history, but the former colonizers don’t apparently feel any sense of responsibility toward them.

China, on the other hand, is a nearby major power. There has never been a colonial relationship with these countries, but it is very willing to provide aid, trade, and investment, that’s very willing to help these countries to develop without compromising their sovereignty. This will make sense for the Solomon Islands and for the other Pacific countries, but it’s the opposite of what the U.S. wants as part of its strategy of China encirclement.

That’s the reason for this kind of sudden flurry of diplomatic activity in the region. That’s the reason for this forthcoming U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit. That’s the reason for the U.S., Australia, Japan, and Britain forming this Partners in the Blue Pacific. These are imperialist powers that are doing everything they can to prevent normal and mutually beneficial relations between China and the Pacific Island countries, the reason being that they insist on the whole region being part of a so-called sphere of influence, in which the people of the region are just sort of humble pawns in the U.S.’s imperial chess game.

CGTN: Why wasn’t the summit set up years ago rather than now?

Martinez: What the summit represents is an example of the cold war mentality. Why has the United States suddenly decided that it cares about its relationship with the islands of the Pacific? The reason is because those islands have increasingly good relations with China, and because China has emerged as a major trading partner of those islands. China is the principal supplier of COVID-19 vaccines to these islands. China’s working very strongly with these countries around climate change issues, which are having a very heavy impact on the islands of the Pacific.

The United States, not wanting to see China having good relations with these countries, suddenly decides that it will have a conference. It will have a summit and it will try and essentially bribe these countries back into the U.S. camp.

The Biden administration is paying much more attention to the Pacific Islands because he wants to incorporate these countries into an anti-China alliance so that they can form another island chain and used potentially to intimidate or to blockade China.

The bigger picture is that the U.S. economy has essentially run out of steam. There’s no question of the U.S. matching the dynamism of the Chinese economy. China has become by far the world leader in new energy, telecommunications, 5G, nanotechnology and several other key areas. Average life expectancy in China has now overtaken that of the U.S. So increasingly, ordinary Chinese people are living longer and living better than their counterparts in the U.S., and the U.S. sees this as a threat and it’s responding to this threat with what I think we should agree is a very dangerous militarization and by resorting to cold war strategies, block-based politics, division, and decoupling.

This runs counter to the interests of the American people. It runs counter to the interest of the Chinese people, and it runs counter to the interest of the people of the world.

Videos: China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific

On Saturday 24 September 2022, we hosted a webinar on the rising aggression of the US and its allies in the Pacific region. There were a number of excellent contributions dealing with issues including the Biden administration’s increased support for Taiwanese separatism; Western power projection in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits; the hysteria surrounding China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands; the AUKUS nuclear pact; and developments in Korea and Japan. The event stream and the individual speeches are embedded below, and can be viewed directly on our YouTube channel.

Event stream: China encirclement and the imperialist build-up in the Pacific

Ken Hammond: Fearing the loss of their global hegemony, US elites are responding with desperation

Ju-Hyun Park: China encirclement not possible without imperialist national oppression of China’s neighbors

Lilian Sing: US geopolitical hostility to China is trickling down and fomenting anti-Asian hate

Sara Flounders: There’s US ruling class consensus around derailing China’s socialist development

Li Peng: The US plays the Taiwan card to undermine China’s development and obstruct reunification

Charles Xu: A “free and open Indo-Pacific” is exactly what imperialist forces have always subverted

Ben Norton: The US is developing plans to overthrow the Chinese government by military means

KJ Noh: The US is already engaged in a multi-faceted hybrid war on China

Zhong Xiangyu: Taiwanese separatism is being leveraged towards the West’s China containment strategy

Keith Bennett: A major conflict between China and the US would be a catastrophe for humanity

Why the US wants to destroy China and Russia: Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega explains

We are very pleased to reproduce this key extract from an important speech by Daniel Ortega, President of revolutionary Nicaragua, with thanks to our friends at Multipolarista. As a multipolar world emerges, Comrade Ortega explains, the US is trying desperately to maintain its hegemony by attempting to destroy the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China and the economies of the European countries.

What harm, Ortega asks, has People’s China done to the United States or to the peoples of the world – to the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa or Asia. What worries them rather is that China is providing benefits to these peoples, so the United States is losing its power to keep them enslaved.

Speaking on the day that US House Speaker Pelosi arrived in Taiwan, Ortega said that he was sure that the Chinese people, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, have the strength, intelligence and experience to formulate the correct response that will further strengthen the People’s Republic and weaken US hegemony.

Amidst all these tumultuous events, the veteran Nicaraguan revolutionary leader points out, a new world is being born, something to which Nicaragua and its people are contributing their little grain of sand every day.

Britain’s participation in US-led New Cold War is shortsighted

In this article for the Global Times, FoSC co-editor Carlos Martinez discusses the change of occupancy in 10 Downing Street and assesses whether Liz Truss is likely to contribute to an improvement of Britain-China relations. Noting that Truss is widely regarded as a “China hawk”, and that she has promised to classify China as a “threat to British national security” for the first time, Carlos concludes that the British ruling class has (for the foreseeable future) settled on an idiotic and self-defeating anti-China policy. This policy will bring no benefit to the British people, and is being carried out for the purpose of demonstrating loyalty to the US in its pursuit of a New Cold War.

It seems a long time ago now that George Osborne and Boris Johnson – then British chancellor and London mayor respectively – spent a week in China on a “charm offensive” to promote strong economic ties between the two countries. Announcing in October 2013 that a Chinese company would help refurbish the Port of London Authority building and that China would be working on Britain’s nuclear energy programme, Johnson commented: “If that isn’t openness to China, I don’t know what is.”

Two years later, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Xi Jinping were photographed relaxing in a pub in South Buckinghamshire, eating fish and chips, drinking pale ale and talking with locals. The mood music was all very uplifting and optimistic, and the scene was set for the development of an increasingly close, symbiotic relationship.

Of course from the British point of view, the motivation for pursuing good relations with China had very little to do with international solidarity or a hitherto-suppressed fondness for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics; rather, the impetus was naked self-interest and economic common sense. Chinese investment, markets and manufacturing prowess were – and are – tremendously important for the British business, which is why Carolyn Fairbairn, former director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, stated in 2020 that in order to protect “future British jobs and prosperity”, Britain “cannot afford to self-isolate from China.”

China’s development an inspiration for people around the world, an alternative to capitalist exploitation

Reproduced below is an important interview with Ken Hammond, professor of East Asian history at the New Mexico State University, originally published in the Global Times. Ken provides a concise and valuable description of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, outlining China’s political trajectory in recent decades, including some of the problems and contradictions emerging from its extraordinary development.

Ken highlights the key themes of the last decade – “The lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty, the ongoing work to suppress corruption and promote a socialist ethical order, the vital struggle to solve environmental problems and address the global concern of climate change, and the program of outreach to other developing countries and people around the world through the BRI and other initiatives” – and discusses how China’s successes have prompted a dangerous and negative response from the US.

Beyond China’s economic rise, Professor Hammond also notes that China’s socialist nature and Marxist orientation constitute a particularly acute challenge to Western ideological hegemony. “Socialism as an alternative to capitalism is seen as a threat, although in fact it offers the only path to social and economic justice, and indeed to saving the planet from ecological catastrophe.”

GT: Last year, you mentioned in an article on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC that under Xi’s leadership, China has not succumbed to the wished-for transformation of its political and economic systems. How do you understand the political and economic systems of China?

Hammond: I see China as working to develop a system of political economy with public, social ownership and control of the basic economic resources of the country, a socialist system in which the wealth produced by working people is distributed based upon the contribution they make through their labor. China is not yet at the point of having reached this, but this is the goal toward which the Party and the government and the people are working. To reach this objective China has chosen to utilize market mechanisms to pursue the rapid development of the economy, raise the overall level of production both in terms of quantity and quality, and enhance the material conditions of life for the people. Great successes have been achieved in these areas.

The process of development, especially with the use of markets, has also generated contradictions and challenges which China has to face, including corruption, increased inequality, and environmental stresses such as pollution and the rising dangers of climate change. These contradictions are recognized and acknowledged, and China is making serious efforts to address them. This, too, is an ongoing process, and the outcome is not predetermined. This is why the leadership of the Party is so critical, to ensure that the original mission of the revolution, the creation of a just, equitable, socialist society, with the eventual goal of a communist system, remains the guiding vision and the practical program.

GT: In the past 10 years, which policy or practice initiated by the CPC impressed you the most?

Hammond: The decade since Xi Jinping assumed the leadership of the Party and the presidency of the PRC has been one of dramatic changes in China. The project of development, the movement toward a system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, has begun to yield significant positive results. The lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of absolute poverty, the ongoing work to suppress corruption and promote a socialist ethical order, the vital struggle to solve environmental problems and address the global concern of climate change, and the program of outreach to other developing countries and people around the world through the BRI and other initiatives, have all achieved important advances. In conjunction with these, China has also been re-emerging as a significant participant in global affairs.

The US is a serial human rights abuser

The following article by Carlos Martinez, written for the Chinese magazine China Today (founded under the name China Reconstructs by Soong Ching-ling in 1952), comments on the recent report issued by the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) entitled U.S. commits serious crimes of violating human rights in the Middle East and beyond. Carlos discusses the irony of the US having such a disastrous human rights record at home and abroad, given that “it so often frames its aggressive foreign policy precisely within a context of human rights.” He further contrasts the US’s record with that of China, concluding that “the West’s attempts to smear China as a human rights abuser – and to portray the U.S. and its allies as upholders of freedom and democracy – are nothing but the hypocritical lies of a collapsing hegemonic world order.”

The latest report from the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), entitled “U.S. commits serious crimes of violating human rights in the Middle East and beyond,” provides a detailed assessment of the United States’ human rights record, particularly in relation to its wars and regime change operations in the Middle East.

Noting that U.S. imperialism has caused “permanent damage and irreparable losses to countries and people in the region,” the report highlights a valuable lesson to be learned by the peoples of the world: that the pervasive Western narrative of democracy and human rights is nothing but a façade, behind which lies hegemony, inequality, cruelty and violence.

A great irony of the U.S.’ record of human rights abuses is that it so often frames its aggressive foreign policy precisely within a context of human rights. For example, in early 2011, journalists and politicians in the West loudly raised their voices about the abuses supposedly being perpetrated by the government of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. They spread numerous stories: that the government was preparing a massacre in Benghazi; that sub-Saharan Africans were being forced to fight for the government; that Gaddafi was instructing pro-government troops to use rape as a weapon of war.

Lowkey and Ben Norton on the end of US hegemony and the rise of BRICS

In this episode of The Watchdog (a MintPress News podcast hosted by British-Iraqi political analyst and hip-hop artist Lowkey), Lowkey interviews Ben Norton about the significance of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in relation to the decline of US-led imperialism and the emergence of a multipolar world.

The two explain the dimensions and purpose of BRICS and the significance of its proposed expansion to include Iran and Argentina, among others. Ben mentions Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, in which Brzezinski urges US policymakers to do everything possible to prevent the possibility of a China-Russia-Iran alliance in opposition to US hegemony. With the growing influence of multilateral organizations of the Global South such as BRICS, the SCO, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and others, Brzezinski’s nightmares are being turned into reality.

Lowkey and Ben discuss the escalating New Cold War, in which the US is forcing countries around the world to pick between “the West or the rest”. The US is surprised to find that many countries are unwilling to align themselves exclusively with the West – they want to continue having mutually-advantageous relations with China and they are refusing to join the unilateral sanctions on Russia. Indeed, for developing countries, China and Russia are better and more reliable partners than the West: they don’t mandate a neoliberal economic model, they don’t force privatisation, they don’t impose crippling debt conditions, and they don’t compromise other countries’ sovereignty.

Ben highlights China’s economic successes under its model of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, noting that with over 40 percent of GDP controlled by state-owned enterprises, the major banks owned by the state, all land owned by the state, and the state closely regulating the overall economy, China is showing the world that neoliberalism is by no means inevitable or indeed desirable.

The two conclude that the New Cold War is very unlikely to work in the US’s favor; that BRICS and others are opening up an important space for sovereign development around the world; that dollar hegemony is under significant threat; and that developing countries in particular stand to benefit a great deal from an emerging multipolarity.

The video is embedded below.