New Cold War Archives - Page 12 of 16 - Friends of Socialist China

The world needs cooperation, not cold war

We are pleased to republish the following statement, issued recently by the CPUSA Peace & Solidarity Commission and the International Department.

What the world needs is peaceful international relations, equality, global cooperation, and development

What is needed above all in the world today is cooperation among all nations to address existential threats to humanity and indeed life on earth. What is needed now is for all nations to abide by the UN Charter, to join the Treaty to Ban Nuclear Weapons, to honor other nuclear weapons treaties, and to pivot national budgets to dismantling and eliminating nuclear weapons. What is needed above all is immediate action to prevent tectonic environmental shifts. All nations must act together to prevent the observable climate calamities from getting far worse and to seek out solutions to material energy needs that benefit all humankind while protecting the health of the planet. What is needed now is global collaboration to significantly reduce the pandemic through immediate universal access to vaccines and medicines. Making the world safe and humanity healthy should top the priority list of all nations. In particular, the two countries with the biggest economies and biggest impact on earth, the United States and China, along with their partners and allies have the responsibility to cooperate to these ends.

The CPUSA welcomes the joint statement by China and the U.S. on climate cooperation and demands its urgent, practical implementation and extension to other critical domains. Such offers of cooperation have to be deepened, widened, and urgently acted upon.

Beijing Winter Olympics boycott is the product of imperial jealousy

In this article, first published on CGTN, Danny Haiphong traces the motivation of the ‘diplomatic boycott’ of the Beijing Winter Olympics being carried out by the US and a handful of its allies. Danny observes that the boycott – like the overall New Cold War of which it is a part – is intended to further to central objectives: to undermine China’s accomplishments and to deflect from the shortcomings of the political and economic system prevailing in the major capitalist countries.

In a few weeks, athletes from across the globe will compete in the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. The Games come amid a challenging period for the world. COVID-19 continues to contribute to greater economic and social instability. Militarism and climate change threaten the future of humanity. Instead of facing these challenges head on, some countries such as the United States have chosen to politicize the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The politicization of the Olympics has taken many forms but the most significant is the U.S.-led “diplomatic boycott” of the Games announced early last month, which was justified on the basis of fraudulent and unproven claims of human rights violations in China. Organizations such as the World Uygur Congress and Students for a Free Tibet, both of which receive funding from the National Endowment for Democracy linked with the Central Intelligence Agency, are leading forces in the boycott campaign. The effort has also received bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, with several Western countries following Joe Biden’s lead. In a blatant act of hypocrisy, 18 U.S. officials applied for visas with plans to visit Beijing during the Games shortly after the announced “diplomatic boycott.”

China’s solidarity with Tonga and the islands of the Pacific

The eruption of an underwater volcano off the South Pacific island nation of Tonga has triggered a humanitarian crisis, cutting the country off from the outside world and damaging vital connectivity and infrastructure. This once again demonstrates the vulnerability of small island states in particular, faced with the challenges of overcoming centuries of colonial rule, developing their national economies and facing the existential threat of climate change. This useful article, which we reproduce from Global Times, notes that China has pledged all possible support and assistance to Tonga, both now and in the future. China, it further notes, is prepared to cooperate with all other countries in this endeavour and does not wish to see the South Pacific as an arena for any new Cold War. The island nations, it notes, “are not the backyard of the US and its allies”.

The massive eruption of an underwater volcano off Tonga, which triggered tsunami waves to hit the Pacific island nation and other locations in the Pacific, has become a focus of global headlines.

Tonga is in need of emergency aid, and China said it is willing to help. On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Ministry said that China is ready to provide every possible support and assistance to Tonga.

We hope those who see Tonga as a battlefield with China, such as the US and its allies, could work together with China to provide help to the Pacific island nation.

While the danger of the Tongan volcano erupting again remaining largely unknown, videos posted on social media and various news reports so far suggest that the eruption has caused serious damages to the island nation. For instance, Tonga’s submarine cable connectivity to the outside world has been offline since Saturday due to the earthquake caused by the volcanic eruption.

Why we shouldn’t fall for the ‘Chinese influence’ scare at Westminster

We publish below two editorials from the Morning Star (Why we shouldn’t fall for the ‘Chinese influence’ scare at Westminster and China dismisses claims of an agent targeting British MPs) dealing with the absurd recent story about China allegedly buying ‘political influence’ in the British Parliament. The second editorial includes a quote from Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez noting that this escalating reds-under-the-bed narrative is performing the function of repressing individuals and organisations that oppose the West’s reckless New Cold War.

The latest scare over Chinese “influence” at Westminster should be taken with several barrels of salt.

Pointing to the convenience of a national security story being broken at a time when both Downing Street (over “partygate”) and Buckingham Palace (because of Prince Andrew’s increasing vulnerability over sex abuse allegations) could do with distracting the public will invite charges of conspiracy theories.

But the left would be naive to ignore the political role of the intelligence services.

The convention of seeing state institutions which are not party-political as not political at all works to promote the idea that the likes of MI5 are neutral professionals.

Wang Wenbin debunks myths about human rights abuses in Xinjiang

At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference of 14 January 2022, spokesperson Wang Wenbin gave a detailed response to a question from CGTN about recent US legislation penalizing China for alleged human rights abuses against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Wang Wenbin’s response is reproduced below.

For some time now, US politicians, in collusion with some anti-China organizations and individuals, have been unscrupulously spreading and hyping up the lie of “genocide” and “forced labor” in Xinjiang for their ulterior political purpose. Today, I would like to take some time to share with you my experience of debunking lies on Xinjiang and avoid being misled so that you can all see the true face of those who fabricated those lies.

First of all, those who fabricate lies on Xinjiang always camouflage themselves with three cloaks.

The first is the cloak of academic research. They spread rumors in the name of scholars and academic institutions. A typical example is Adrian Zenz. His claim that “900,000 to 1,800,000 people have been systematically held in detention in Xinjiang” comes from a groundless report by Istiqlal TV, a Turkey-based media organization with close ties with extremists. Abdulkadir Yapuquan, leader of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a UN listed terrorist organization, is a regular guest of it. Zenz also claimed that 70 percent of the cotton plantations in Xinjiang in 2019 were harvested by human labor. But fact tells a completely different story: 85 percent of the cotton in Xinjiang is harvested by machine. These facts have proved that Adrian Zenz, a so-called “China expert”, is just a pseudo scholar with no academic integrity at all.

How to satisfy the US Empire: smear the left, demonize China

In this article, first published on The Chronicles of Haiphong, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong responds to David Klion’s latest report in The Nation, which seeks to demonize China and smear the Western anti-imperialist and pro-socialist movement, within a supposedly left-liberal framework. Danny notes correctly: “Real leftists understand that the American Empire is the biggest obstacle in the way of human progress. They don’t ask, ‘what should the Left do about China?’ Rather, they pose the question, ‘How can the Left develop solidarity with China and the Chinese people in the global struggle against imperialism and oppression of all kinds?'”

Many on the so-called “left” view China and the U.S. as equally oppressive and imperialist in character. This is a historic trend dating back to the Cold War which divided the Western left into a variety of camps. One of these camps was the “Neither Washington nor Moscow” consortium of social democrats and liberals who saw the Soviet Union as an imperialist force unworthy of defense from U.S. aggression. Such a position fit neatly into Washington’s larger imperialist designs and provided cover for the ideological onslaught of anti-communism.

A recent report in The Nation demonstrates how the slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow” has been replaced with “Neither Washington nor Beijing.” The author, David Klion, concludes that leftists are currently divided into two camps on the question of China: those “apologists” who prioritize peace and critics of China who prioritize “human rights.” Klion closes with a citation from Lausan, a collective that supposedly supports a “decolonial” framework on Hong Kong yet has routinely characterized any leftist opposition to the Western narrative on China as “fascist” or “tankie.”

Keith Lamb: Joint world powers’ statement on nuclear war must be backed up by action

This article by Keith Lamb, republished from CGTN, examines the recent joint statement by China, Britain, France, the US and Russia of their shared determination to avoid nuclear conflict. While this is certainly a positive development, Lamb points out that in a geopolitical context of imperialism, hegemonism, unilateralism and war, the danger of nuclear conflict remains ever-present. He calls on the other nuclear powers to follow China’s lead in adopting a no-first-use policy, and in working towards a multipolar system of international relations based on peace, equality, mutual respect, and sovereign development.

The recent joint statement by China, Britain, France, the U.S. and Russia affirming that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought… [and] as long as they continue to exist – should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war” is certainly a step in the right direction, by the five nuclear-weapon states.

However, as tensions heat up in Ukraine and the U.S. continues to ignite a new cold war, with China, concrete actions need to back up this lofty language and the historical context of the brutality of atomic weapons must be laid clear so that the states who have the power to reign peace onto the world can take stock and set the correct course for their future actions.

Historically, only the U.S. has ever used the atomic bomb which killed up to an estimated 300,000 primarily old, women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Tragically if we believe the likes of General Dwight D. Eisenhower or Admiral William D. Leahy then Japan was already defeated and the atomic option was unnecessary. Thus, the brutal atomic option was more a geopolitical lesson for the USSR.

Elias Jabbour: Boycotts, hypocrisy and the organic intellectuals of imperialism

In this important article for CGTN, Elias Jabbour discusses the so-called ‘diplomatic boycott’ by some Western countries of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, explaining that the boycott forms part of a set of behaviours and slanders that are designed to delegitimise China’s government and to prepare public opinion in the West for further attacks on China. He notes that, sadly, some pseudo-Marxist intellectuals in Europe and North America are participating in this imperialist Cold War project.

It was early December when breaking news took the political and diplomatic circles around the world by surprise: the United States has declared a so-called “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

According to U.S. government spokeswoman Jen Psaki, the country would not treat the Olympics as something normal given the “atrocities” in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. As expected, England and Canada announced something similar later. Same posture Australia. Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth?

Since then, EU countries have been pressured to take a similar stance, but for the time being, only Belgium has followed this lead, and in Latin America, there are no signs in this direction. As symbolic as this act can be, it is interesting to note the degree of isolation of U.S. imperialism in countless initiatives.

We must read this attitude in different ways. This “boycott,” although isolated and almost symbolic, is serious. The U.S. doubles its bet on the proliferation of lies for political purposes with a view to delegitimizing the government of the People’s Republic of China in the international community while continuing yet another colonial war.

Let us be under no illusion. What the U.S. plots against China is a colonial war with the purpose of subjugating the country to an order based on violence, blind obedience and punitive wars, applied to those who dare to leave the radar of imperialism’s control. As for the accusations of “genocide” in Xinjiang, the facts show that what we are seeing is an old policy, very similar to what was used by the Nazi propaganda machine. A simple survey is enough to demonstrate that, in reality, these charges are fallacies.

For example, one of the accusations is that China has a policy of mass sterilization, which would have seen the Xinjiang Uygur’s population falling from 15.5 births per thousand to 2.5 per thousand. However, according to the seventh national census report released in May, the Han population growth rate was 4.93 percent, while China’s ethnic minority population increased by 10.26 percent compared to 2010.

Specifically, the population of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang has grown by 14.27 percent in that same period. It is also good to remember that the birth control policies implemented in the early 1980s were not applied to Chinese ethnic minorities.

Another lie concerns the alleged “cultural genocide” preventing Uygur Muslims from freely practicing their religion, including restrictions on the use of their typical clothes and violation of mosques.

However, Xinjiang has more than 24,000 mosques, an average of 530 Muslims per mosque. This number is more than double the total number of existing mosques in the U.S., Britain, Germany and France. On the other side, in the name of “democracy” and “human rights,” U.S. soldiers looted relics from the Historical Museum of Baghdad in 2003.

For that, it is clear that this “boycott” is not supported by data, but by lies and a sea of hypocrisy. The deep contradictions of U.S. society, which was born under the combination of slave labor and reactionary ideologies that support theses such as “indispensable nation,” “manifest destiny” and “New Canaan,” are known by many.

The human rights situation is dire to the point that a 2021 national poll by researcher John Zogby found that 46 percent of the U.S. population believed that a future civil war was likely, another 43 percent thought it was unlikely and 11 percent were unsure.

War seemed more likely for young people (53 percent) than for older ones (31 percent), and for those residing in the South (49 percent) and Central/Great Lakes region (48 percent) compared to those in the East (39 percent).

Meanwhile, a real disaster is taking place in the country with the death of more than 817,000 people by COVID-19. Right-wing ideologies twist the minds of about half of the country’s population by spreading scientific denial, racism and hate crimes against blacks, Latinos and other minorities.

Finally, the new feature of this attempt of a “diplomatic boycott” is the strong resurgence of intellectuals within the so-called progressive camp at the service of the demoralization of socialist experiences.

This was something very common during the Cold War, and was usually due to the co-option, by imperialism, of European Marxist intellectuals, that were induced to criticize the former Soviet Union. Now, there are figures like the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, signatory of a petition pressing the French government to “boycott” the Winter Olympics.

The cultural war against China involves the mobilization of “intellectuals” to criticize China. History repeats itself, but now as farce.

Have you been lied to about Xinjiang, human rights − and China?

This statement from the International Action Center thoroughly dismantles US-led imperialist propaganda about alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and exposes how these are being leveraged to build public support for a reckless and aggressive anti-China strategy that offers nothing to ordinary people in the West.

Claiming that it is acting in defense of human rights, the U.S. tries to cover its own criminal record on internal human rights violations and its record of endless wars, assassinations, coups and devastating sanctions by making charges and targeting other countries.

Propaganda fuels U.S. wars

The “2021 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” issued April 9 by Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, labeled China as “the greatest threat to the United States.” Numerous other reports and official statements claim Washington must prepare an intensifying level of U.S. intelligence operations, cyberattacks and investment in military technology to counter China.

The U.S. military has encircled China. With joint Democratic and Republican Party backing, the U.S. has imposed economic sanctions, an onerous trade war and canceled cultural exchanges and visas for tens of thousands of Chinese students. This campaign is cynically justified as a defense of human rights.

Slanders about China’s treatment of Uyghurs are aimed at bolstering the military-industrial complex

Interviewed by Jacquie Luqman for Sputnik’s By Any Means Necessary radio show, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez discusses the US’s new Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Washington Post’s ‘smoking gun’ report linking Huawei to surveillance technology in Xinjiang. The full radio show can be found here.

"The Biden administration is showing clearly that it's not interested in peace and multipolarity; it's not willing to prioritise working together on climate change and pandemics. The attempt to put a stop to China's rise comes first." @agent_of_change

📺 https://t.co/4W6mrFqNyN pic.twitter.com/xAbVqitLUU
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 21, 2021

Keith Lamb: Phoney ‘Uygur Tribunal’ seeks to build public support for anti-China strategy

Below we republish an article by Keith Lamb in CGTN about the so-called Uygur Tribunal and its value for the imperialist powers in building public support for the US-led New Cold War on China. The author points out that millions of people in the West were deceived by the lies about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, or Muammar Gaddafi’s use of rape as a weapon of war, and therefore tacitly lent their support to the horrific and criminal wars waged against Iraq and Libya.

The sham “independent” Uygur Tribunal (UT), funded by the U.S. government through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), recently declared that China is committing genocide in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This is despite “witnesses” changing and exaggerating their tales when seeking asylum; despite the main “academic” papers being funded by the military-industrial complex and the U.S., and despite the “evidence” being found full of inconsistencies and circular referencing.

What then is going on? Doesn’t the West pride itself on openness and honesty? If you believe the meta-propaganda then yes; but scanning history the West has inflicted agonizing suffering on the Global South and carrying out these injustices, and covering them up, requires sophisticated dishonesty.

Carlos Martinez: the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is an act of Cold War

On 16 December 2021, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was interviewed on the China Plus radio show ‘World Today’ about the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which has just passed through the US House of Representatives. The full episode can be found here.

Danny Haiphong on the anti-China agenda of Biden’s Summit for Democracy

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong appeared on China News Service to analyze the significance of Biden’s Summit for Democracy. Haiphong connects the Summit to the US’s woes at home and abroad, as well as its clear anti-China agenda.

The show is in Standard Chinese, but Danny’s interview segments are in English with Chinese subtitles.

Danny Haiphong: ‘Uygur Tribunal’ is a misinformation arm of the US’s anti-China agenda

The following article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong, originally published on CGTN, exposes the so-called ‘Uygur Tribunal’ as being totally lacking in credibility and existing for the singular purpose of contributing to the US-led New Cold War against China.

On the same day that the U.S. hosted the first day of its “Summit for Democracy,” the U.K.-based “Uygur Tribunal” released a report alleging that China had committed “crimes against humanity” toward the Uygur ethnic group in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Findings in the report repeated the same allegations against China that have become commonplace in the West over the past several years. The so-called “Uygur Tribunal Chair” Geoffrey Nice presented the report and said that China is both detaining Uygurs in the millions and engaging in “genocide” through the control of births.

Of course, the “Uygur Tribunal” is not an impartial source. The campaign is a project of a U.S. consortium of anti-China think-tanks in charge of spreading propaganda in the name of human rights. In fact, the “Uygur Tribunal” website explains that the World Uygur Congress formally requested Geoffrey Nice to launch the project. The World Uygur Congress received $400,000 in 2020 alone from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a regime change-arm funded by the U.S. Congress and inheritor of the CIA’s numerous campaigns of political interference around the world.

US Peace Council statement against the Cold War on China

We’re pleased to republish this statement by the US Peace Council, issued on 9 December 2021, against the US-led New Cold War on China and against the AUKUS military alliance between the US, Britain and Australia.

The signs of the new cold war with China are everywhere. The political signal comes from the top. President Biden’s Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, tellingly called Renewing America’s Advantages, states: “We must also contend with the reality that the distribution of power across the world is changing, creating new threats. China, in particular, has rapidly become more assertive. It is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”

Competition with China has worked its way into almost every aspect of Biden Administration policy. Biden often justifies his big domestic spending plans for infrastructure, physical and social, by the “need to compete more effectively with China.”

Not yet a year old, the Biden Administration has been mounting provocation after provocation toward People’s China: fresh military aid and political support to Taiwan, intense naval and submarine activity in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, and the Straits of Malacca through which much of China’s oil imports pass; a new U.S. military base on the northwest coast of Australia facing the South China Sea; bogus claims of “Uyghur genocide” in Xinjiang province; ongoing support for separatism and the Dalai Lama in Tibet; not to mention last year’s American NGO-funded “democracy” disruptions in Hong Kong.

Carlos Martinez: the Summit for Democracy is just another excuse for China-bashing

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was recently interviewed by CGTN in relation to Biden’s upcoming Summit for Democracy, which is in reality an attempt to consolidate pro-imperialist forces globally against China and other socialist and progressive countries. This is the second part of the interview (the first part can be found here). The video segment of the interview is embedded below, followed by the text of the report, which is republished from CGTN.

These issues will be explored in detail at our Summit for Socialist Democracy, to be held on Saturday 11 December.

I think to some extent, the political context in the West is that anti-China propaganda, particularly in the U.S., has reached a stage where politicians seem like they are forced to engage in China-bashing. It’s become like a form of populism. The media and politicians have been blaming China for everything- for COVID-19, for unemployment, for declining or slow economic growth.

So Biden feels that he has to prove to people that he’s not going to be soft on China. He made it clear from the start that he planned to continue Trump’s basic policy of hostility towards China. But at the same time, Biden wants to put some kind of distance in people’s minds between himself and Trump. And he’s doing that in two key ways, and both of them sort of feed into the summit.

Carlos Martinez: The Summit for Democracy won’t succeed in propping up US hegemony

Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was recently interviewed by CGTN in relation to Biden’s upcoming Summit for Democracy, which is in reality an attempt to consolidate pro-imperialist forces globally against China and other socialist and progressive countries. A video segment of the interview is embedded below, followed by the text of the report, which is republished from CGTN.

These issues will be explored in detail at our Summit for Socialist Democracy, to be held on Saturday 11 December.

I think the international context is quite sensitive (and) quite fragile. The main reason behind this being the emerging “new cold war,” which is led by the United States and is directed primarily against China. It’s also directed against Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela (and) the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Essentially, all those countries that you can say, they’re unwilling to accept the U.S. vision of international relations, the so-called liberal international order in which the U.S. enjoys more or less unchallenged hegemony. And U.S.-China relations have really deteriorated in recent years, particularly since 2018.

Quote: Wang Wenbin on the US’s brazen misuse of the word ‘democracy’

For too long the US has been using democracy as a cover to flagrantly engage in infiltration and subversion in sovereign countries, impose economic sanctions, cause turmoil and chaos, and wage wars of occupation, bringing disaster to the affected countries and the international community.
The so-called ‘Summit for Democracy’ will not turn Washington into a democratic high ground. It will only expose further the true face of the US as a manipulator and saboteur of democracy in front of the whole world.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin’s Regular Press Conference on December 1, 2021

Biden's 'Summit for Democracy' is nothing short of a farce.

Much better will be our Summit for Socialist Democracy on Saturday 11 December, featuring @LunaOi_VN @CarlosJRonVE @eliasjabbour @hermit_hwarang @SpiritofHo @PanAfrikFem_PhD @RadDesai & more!

👉🏽 https://t.co/q4zuBPYjt4 pic.twitter.com/8c61c1ElLs
— Friends of Socialist China (@socialist_china) December 1, 2021

Danny Haiphong exposes the rank hypocrisy of the so-called Summit for Democracy

Co-editor of Friends of Socialist China Danny Haiphong appeared on By Any Means Necessary with Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman to discuss the upcoming Summit for Democracy led by the Biden Administration. The conversation included an in-depth analysis of the differences between socialist democracy and capitalist democracy in preparation for FoSC’s upcoming Summit for Socialist Democracy. You can register for that here.

Global Times editorial on the inclusion of Taiwan province in Biden’s ‘Summit for Democracy’

This significant editorial from leading Chinese newspaper Global Times warns that the Biden administration is making a dangerous and provocative mistake in inviting the Taiwan authorities to its so-called Summit of Democracies next week. This dangerous escalation on the part of the US lends increased topicality and indeed urgency to our own Summit for Socialist Democracy, to be held on December 11, and which includes Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese, Korean and Venezuelan perspectives among others.

The US Department of State released on Tuesday evening the list of 110 “participants” to the “Summit for Democracy.”

What caught the immediate attention of worldwide media were, first, the island of Taiwan was on the list; second, several countries were missing from the list, not just China and Russia, but also Turkey, a NATO member, Hungary, an EU and NATO member, and Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam from Asia, and all the countries from the Middle East except for Israel and Iraq.

Taiwan being invited was the most eye-catching. In addition to being thankful to the Biden administration, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority immediately announced its representatives to the summit including Audrey Tang Feng, a member of Taiwan’s “executive authority,” and Hsiao Bi-khim, the island of Taiwan’s representative to the US.