New Cold War Archives - Page 15 of 15 - Friends of Socialist China

Jude Woodward: Understanding the New Cold War

We are republishing this valuable interview of Jude Woodward about her book ‘The US vs China: Asia’s new Cold War?’ The book provides a timely, thorough and accessible path to understanding the US-China confrontation. It has only become more relevant since its publication in 2017.

The interview was conducted in 2019 by the Workers Party of Belgium and can be read in that organisation’s journal Solidaire in French and Dutch. The English translation was first published in Socialist Action on 26 August 2021.

The United States and China are engaged in a fierce trade war. Could this ultimately lead to an armed conflict between the two great powers? One thing is certain in any case: relations between China and the United States will dominate international politics for decades to come.

What drives China, and what are the US goals? China is often presented as a great emerging expansionist power that wants to break the hegemony of the United States. However, this picture is at the very least one-sided and too simple. These issues were recently the subject of a book, “The US vs China – Asia’s new Cold War?” Solidarity spoke with its author, Jude Woodward.

Where did you get the idea for this book?

Jude Woodward. As a teacher, I spent much time in China. There, I was struck by the totally different outlook on the tensions between China and the United States. So I found it useful to write this book.

You are critical of the way the Western press presents China. Why?

Jude Woodward. The Western press portrays China as an aggressive emerging power that wants to take over the world, even though there is no evidence of it. China is very clear on its objectives: by 2049, the year of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, it wants to become a “moderately developed” country, like Portugal or Greece. Today, China’s GNP per capita is about one-fifth that of the United States. The country has already been able to drastically reduce poverty, but it still remains relatively poor. And it will last a long time before that changes. This is why China is above all focused on its internal development, not on world domination.

In the introduction to your book, you explain that China and the United States have two totally different views of the world order. What makes them different?

Jude Woodward. The United States sees itself as the guardian of a stable world order, and the only one that can guarantee that stability. It is therefore crucial for the United States to remain the greatest power in the world. However, through its size and economic growth, China may eventually become as strong or even stronger than the United States. This obviously threatens American hegemony. In China’s vision, there should not be a single great power that determines what happens in the world, but a multipolar world order in which countries, powerful and less powerful, decide together. China does not accept that the United States is the only power in the world. Which is not the same as: China wants to become the only other great world power.

The United States fears the rise of China. You explain that it started under Obama, who launched the “pivot to Asia” strategy in his foreign policy.

Jude Woodward. In 2008, all Western countries were plunged into crisis, not China. In the years after the crisis, China grew much faster than Western countries. Obama realized that if he did nothing in the short term to stop China, it would be too late. One of the major initiatives that Obama has taken in this regard is the negotiation of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with Asian countries. Only China was not involved. He wanted to link China’s neighboring countries to the United States.

Trump has withdrawn from the TPP. Did he not play China’s game in this way?

Jude Woodward. Inside the United States, there was already much opposition to the TPP. Some felt that Obama was making too many concessions to partner countries. Hillary Clinton had also said that she would cancel this treaty if she was elected president. The withdrawal from the treaty was certainly not intended to help China, although it certainly took a lot of pressure off that country. Trump’s approach is one-sided: he wants to counter China, and all other countries must follow him down that road. But he doesn’t try to convince other countries, nor does he offer them any advantages. This is a big difference from Obama’s approach. The similarity between them is their desire to stop China’s advance. So this is not unique to Trump, there is a consensus across the entire American establishment about it. However, this same establishment dreads Trump’s actions. The criticism is no longer so much about his attitude towards China, but about the way he treats the allies of the United States. For example, his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has not been appreciated at all.

Is Trump’s Approach to Stop China Successful?

Jude Woodward. A fundamental element of its policy is the introduction of tariffs on Chinese products. But ultimately these taxes fall on the backs of American consumers. If you put tariffs on washing machines made in China, of course, that raises their price. The danger for Trump is that it will lower his popularity. But he announced his decision with so much boast that he can hardly reverse it. There is considerable turnover in the White House, but the people who stay there are hardliners who continue to want these tariffs in place. And they most likely will get it.

From a trade war to a real war?

The caption of your book is “The New Cold War?” “. Why?

Jude Woodward. First of all, I would like to say that this is a cold war because there is currently no hot war (laughs). But there are also a lot of similarities to the Cold War. The United States has greatly increased its military presence around China. They are also trying to convince several neighbouring countries of China to choose sides and come into conflict with China, for example over territories south of the China Sea. They try to isolate China internationally, they impose tariffs on Chinese products, they carry out constant propaganda against China in the media by accusations of espionage, hacking, cyber warfare, all without much. evidence. Isolate China, make it a pariah state, exert military pressure, exclude the country from world trade… These are all tactics that were used during the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

After all, is the current situation not entirely comparable with that of the Cold War?

Jude Woodward. Effectively. China is much stronger today than the Soviet Union in its day. China is strongly integrated into the world trade and economy. The Soviet Union was more self-centred and traded almost exclusively within Comecon. It is much more difficult for the United States to pit countries against China today than it was in the days of the Soviet Union. For many countries, China is an important trading partner. And they won’t easily give up on that.

You explain that between the United States and China, the confrontation is already taking place on all fronts. Can this lead to a real war?

Jude Woodward. There is certainly a group within the US military that is convinced that there will be war with China. The American general who was in charge of American troops in Europe declared that war between China and the United States was inevitable in the next fifteen years. We also know that the new US defence strategy, announced early last year, no longer prioritises military spending on war on terror – the war on terrorism – but on confrontation with China. The United States is certainly thinking about a war with China and how it can win it. But whether this war will actually take place is another question. A real war would be extremely devastating, both for the United States and for China. So that’s not the most likely prospect, but you never know. The war will sometimes be colder or hotter, but the risk of a real war does exist.

China’s success story continues. Why has China become essential? What are the greatest domestic achievements?

Jude Woodward. The most important factor is of course the role of the state in the economy. It invests heavily in railways, high speed trains, housing, … These investments are, along with state enterprises, the most important factors in China’s economic success. Whenever the economy seems to be doing worse, the government steps in to stimulate it through investment. What Western countries never do. They under-invest, rely on the private sector, but if the private sector fails, nothing happens. This is not the way to stimulate growth at times when things are not doing so well. But in order to do that, you have to have state-owned enterprises. China has control over its banks, which the West does not, because it is ideologically opposed.

The United States wants China to pursue a neoliberal policy as well.

Jude Woodward. Absolutely. And in fact, it’s quite ironic. The whole theory is that you have to have a neoliberal economic policy because, it is said, state intervention does not work. We must let the invisible hand of the market do. Since the West is so convinced that a state-run economy cannot work, we are told every two years in the press that the Chinese economy is heading for a crisis. Not so much because it is, but just because, theoretically, under neoliberalism, this is how it should be.

Are Western Politics Pushing Russia Into China’s Arms?

Jude Woodward. It certainly has been. For example, the conflict in Ukraine was fueled by the intervention of the West. Western economic sanctions are pushing Russia into China’s arms. Some poke fun at Trump, but his policy towards Russia enjoys strong support within part of the establishment. Trump is trying to draw Russia to the side of the United States to have a stronger position against China. But, given the complex situation in the Middle East, Iran, and Central Asia, the majority of the establishment does not support collaboration with Russia.

What is the role of the countries located in the South China Sea, such as Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam?

Jude Woodward. Japan is the United States’ greatest ally in Asia. The United States has encouraged Japan to rearm, develop its military capabilities and put pressure on China. But even Japan does not want to directly enter into conflict with China. Trade relations with China are too important for that. Asian countries do not want war at their doorstep. They also see what it has given to the Middle East: destabilization, incredible chaos and all the problems that come with it. So it is very difficult for the United States to convince them to go to confrontation with China. China is not a threat to them either. This is not the perception of Asian countries, despite all the Western media claims about an expansionist and aggressive China. On the other hand, they don’t want to break with the United States either, so they try to position themselves somewhere in the center.

One of the criticisms of China is that it also makes deals with reactionary regimes. What do you think ?

Jude Woodward. China sticks very strictly to its principle of non-intervention. This does not mean that it supports reactionary regimes. For China, regimes cannot be changed through external military interventions. This is something that the people of the country concerned must deliver for themselves. What China is doing is giving very specific support to what it calls progressive regimes. For example, it supported Venezuela and it has good relations with Cuba.

The New Silk Road

The Chinese government wants to connect the Eurasian countries with a new big project called “Belt and Road Initiative” or the new Silk Road. The new Silk Road consists of a road, rail, maritime network … It is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever. At least 68 countries are affected, which account for around 65% of the world’s population. Jude Woodward: “It’s first and foremost an economic project, but of course there is also a political aspect to it. The new Silk Road will link Europe to China. EU countries therefore have every interest in staying out of the conflict between the United States and China. “

The English edition of The US vs China: Asia’s new Cold War? is published by Manchester University Press.

Webinar debunks ‘China lab leak’ theory

We are pleased to republish the excerpts from a Workers World livestream, which took place on 19 August 2021, devoted to debunking the so-called ‘lab leak’ anti-China conspiracy theory. The video is also embedded below.

Lee Siu Hin: I was in China in January 2020, when there was a new outbreak from unknown sources causing pneumonia in Wuhan, a city in central China. At that time, no one knew exactly what it was. China called formally on the World Health Organization to acknowledge that it was COVID-19 in February. No one had done so officially before that. It’s common knowledge and scientific fact.

However, the so-called “lab leak” theory comes from far-right, anti-China neocon warmonger politicians around the Washington D.C. Beltway, notably Senator [Tom] Cotton and the anti-China think tanks and also from the far-right, anti-China cult Epoch Times, the so-called “Falun Gong.” From Day One, they spread the “lab leak” theory. That’s how it started. This is not coming from scientists.

CODEPINK petitions PBS: Stop censoring the truth about China

We are republishing this article from CODEPINK about their petition, with almost 4,000 signatures, demanding that PBS stop censoring the documentary ‘Voices from the Frontlines: China’s War on Poverty.’

By Madison Tang

Last week, on August 12, 2021, CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin, Tighe Barry, Leonardo Flores, and Michelle Ellner delivered over 3,600 signatures from the public to Public Broadcasting Services’ headquarters in Arlington, VA asking them to stop censoring the truth about China.

Much to our disappointment, PBS, a PUBLIC broadcasting service, chose to call the police on these four peace activists members of the public, who were calmly and respectfully representing the opinions of the taxpayers — who fund PBS to the tune of over $26 million annually. The viewers who signed this petition are simply requesting that PBS honor its mission statement and values to “keep citizens informed on world events and cultures,” “express a diversity of perspectives,” and deliver content that is “responsive solely to the needs of the public—not to the interests of funders.”

Does China’s rise really threaten the US?

We’re pleased to republish this article by Dee Knight, member of the DSA International Committee’s Anti-War Subcommittee, about the need for ordinary people in the US to resist a New Cold War that threatens the interests of humanity. It originally appeared in Covert Action magazine on 14 August 2021.

A massive blitz of Western propaganda is behind the escalating U.S. cold war against China.

President Biden and most of the U.S. Congress say China has become a serious threat that must be countered in every way and in every corner of the globe. The U.S.-led cold war against China has escalated quickly and dramatically. President Biden is trying to harness the G7 and NATO to isolate China, and Congress is fast-tracking bills to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative and punish China for alleged human rights violations.

This escalation is not new. Barack Obama launched the U.S. “pivot to Asia.” Now the seas around China bristle with U.S. aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines; missiles and super-bombers are aimed at China from Japan, Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia, with tens of thousands of troops.

A clash of civilizations means a collapse of civilization

We are republishing this important article by Keith Lamb – an expert in China’s international relations – on how the US-led New Cold War is standing in the way of urgently-needed global cooperation to prevent climate breakdown. The article was first published in CGTN on 10 August 2021.

After Donald Trump took office, a new cold war started heating up between China and the United States. Regrettably, U.S. President Joe Biden doesn’t seem predisposed to cooling tensions anytime soon. However, beyond man-made cold wars, which if they turn hot, threaten the collapse of civilization with nuclear weapons, there is another war taking place where the U.S. and China are, or at least should be, the closest of allies.

This war is also man-made but, unlike the cold war, it is a hot one. And it’s getting hotter. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human activity has warmed the earth by 1.1 degrees Celsius since 1850-1900. The IPCC’s new report now believes we need rapid large-scale action to prevent the earth from warming by 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius within the next 20 years. This amount of warming is believed to be a tipping point that, if reached, could lead to climate change spiralling beyond repair.

Eric Li on China’s peaceful rise

Interviewed on RT on 5 August 2021, Eric Li made an important point about how China’s emergence as a great power contrasts with the rise of Britain, the US and others, in that it has not been accompanied by bloodshed, aggression and expansionism.

China put forward this idea of a peaceful rise. This is what has happened. We went from a poor agrarian country to the great industrial powerhouse that China is today in merely two generations… Yet China hasn’t invaded a single country, not a single shot fired. That’s unprecedented in human history… That’s a great accomplishment. But instead of celebrating that accomplishment, we have this hostility from the Western powers. I find it preposterous, unfortunate and disappointing.

Virus blame game infecting ‘Trumpiden’ presidency

We are republishing this article by Radhika Desai, first published on CGTN, about the Biden administration’s continuation of Trump’s hybrid warfare against China.

What are we to make of the fact that after originally opposing Donald Trump’s outrageous allegations about a “lab leak theory,” U.S. President Joe Biden is now pressuring the World Health Organization (WHO) to mount a new inquiry into the origins of COVID-19? The WHO only last March completed a study, which included experts from 10 nations.

Why is he giving new life to the lab leak theory, which he once dismissed and the scientific community still does? Why has Biden also asked the U.S. “intelligence community” to investigate the same matter? Why is he threatening to sue China in U.S. courts on this matter?

In this as in many other matters – pandemic policy, economic policy and, above all, on waging a new Cold War on China – after straining every nerve to appear different from its predecessor, the Biden administration appears to be merging with its predecessor into a single “Trumpiden” presidency. The only differences are style: Motor mouth Trump vs. the inarticulately mumbling Biden.

Martin Jacques: There should be an international investigation into why the West failed so disastrously containing Covid

We are republishing this important analysis by Martin Jacques, writing in Global Times, about the West’s reversion to a colonial mentality in its attitude to China.

Covid-19 arrived three years after the anti-China crusade began. From the outset the virus was infused with Cold War politics. Imagine if the first case of COVID-19 had occurred at the end of 2012 rather than the end of 2019. Many things would have been the same, but one would have been different. At the end of 2012, relations between China and the US were relatively benign; by 2019 we were in a different world. The new occupant of the White House took every opportunity to attack, denigrate and undermine China.

From January onwards a tsunami of abuse was directed at China. It was accused of secrecy and a cover-up. And to this day it has never ceased. China could do no right. It received zero compassion even when it was struggling on its own against the virus in the first three months. If this had been 2012, it would not have been like this. There would have been criticism of China, but also dialogue and cooperation. Now there was none, just abuse. COVID-19 became the symbol and bearer of a new cold war and the breakdown of the US-China relationship.

Corporate media joins the anti-vaxxers when it comes to Chinese- and Russian-made vaccines

We are republishing this important analysis by Alan Macleod about the West’s dangerous and hypocritical disinformation campaign against Chinese and Russian Covid vaccines. The article first appeared in MintPress News on 27 July 2021.

WASHINGTON — “Hundreds of Thai medical workers infected despite Sinovac vaccinations,” ran Reuters’ bombshell headline earlier this month. The report detailed how 618 Thai medical workers inoculated with the Chinese COVID vaccine have become infected anyway, leading to one death. As is common with such an influential newswire, Reuters’ story was picked up across the world by hundreds of publications, including The Washington Post, Yahoo! News and The New York Post.

Yet the article also notes that over 677,000 Thai medical workers have received the dose, meaning that more than 99.9% of those vaccinated have not developed COVID-19 — a fact that flies in the face of the headline’s implications. A large majority of news consumers do not read past the title, meaning that they were given the false impression that Sinovac is ineffective.

Being fully vaccinated does not offer complete protection from COVID-19. In late June, CNBC noted that well over 4,000 vaccinated Americans had been hospitalized with the virus, including 750 who died. Yet Reuters spun the news into an opportunity to spread distrust of Sinovac in Thailand, which is currently living through a rapid and unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases.

WHO probe into lab leak theory strengthens imperialism at the expense of cooperation

We are republishing this article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong, which originally appeared on CGTN, on US-led attempts to revive the ‘lab leak’ theory and where these fit into the overall pattern of international relations.

China’s opposition to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) plan to base phase-two research into the origins of COVID-19 on the lab leak theory was met with harsh criticism in the United States. Jen Psaki , White House Press Secretary for U.S. President said the administration was “deeply disappointed.” For China and much of the world, the feeling of disappointment is mutual. The proposed WHO probe into the lab leak theory threatens to strengthen the hand of imperialism at the expense of global cooperation.

Biden’s enthusiasm for “multilateralism” led some to believe that he would enhance the cause of peace. However, the Biden administration has followed a longstanding trend of imperialism in U.S. foreign policy. Since World War II, the United States has wielded economic hegemony through its disproportionate influence over multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. These institutions have leveraged aid to enrich U.S. corporate shareholders and impoverish Asian, African, and Latin American nations seeking a way out of centuries of colonial underdevelopment.

The WHO has not been immune to the influence of U.S. imperialism. Direct contributions from member nations only cover about 20 percent of operating costs. That means 80 percent of the WHO’s funding comes from other, mainly private, sources; the second largest donor being the U.S.-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Critics of the WHO have cited the pressures placed on the Global South nations to privatize their health systems to the benefit of the U.S. private health sector. Donald Trump’s decision to remove the U.S. from the WHO greatly hindered the global fight against COVID-19 but did not negate the fact that the U.S. has used its influence over multilateral institutions as a form of soft power.

It is no coincidence that the WHO probe comes at the same time that Biden announced an end-of-August deadline for his own intelligence-driven probe into the lab leak theory. Biden reentered the WHO upon his first 90 days in office and has since paid back funds withheld by the Trump administration. The Biden administration views the WHO as a valuable tool in the U.S. ongoing New Cold War against China. Rather than engaging with China as equals in the fight against the pandemic, Biden has chosen to weaponize the WHO for imperialist aims.

Richard Wolff on China’s rise to global prominence

We are republishing this very interesting interview with Marxist economist Richard Wolff in Beijing Review, in which he discusses the reasons behind China’s economic success and the motivations for the US-led New Cold War.

On CPC-induced synergy

The first book I ever read about China was The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, presenting the stories of poverty and suffering across the Chinese countryside in the early 20th century. What she described in the book actually didn’t take place too long ago, but when you look at what China has achieved over the past years and then compare it to what Buck wrote about, it makes for an incredible feat.

Since 1949, when the communist revolution succeeded, U.S. foreign aid did not go to China because the latter was a socialist country. U.S. foreign aid was, however, dispatched to every other Third World country across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nevertheless, China has done better economically than every other country that did receive the assistance.

What does that tell us about getting aid from the West? It’s not the path to economic growth, it never was. The reality is that the path to economic growth was not to take aid from the West, but to rely on yourself. The Soviet Union once helped China, before the 1960s, but in general, the Chinese achieved it mostly by themselves. That’s a very powerful message all over the world.

Speech celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC

The following is the main body of a speech delivered by Friends of Socialist China Co-Editor Keith Bennett at a dinner held in West London on Sunday June 27 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

The event was organised and hosted by Third World Solidarity and its Chair, Mushtaq Lasharie, a distinguished political and social activist in Pakistan and Britain. It was attended by a number of prominent members of the Pakistani community in Britain and veteran friends of China from various walks of life.

This coming Thursday, July 1st, marks the Communist Party of China’s centenary.

Whatever your opinions, this is an important occasion. This party has a membership of some 92 million people. Considerably greater than the entire population of the UK. It leads a country of 1.4 billion people. That country is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and is the world’s second largest economy. By some measures it is already the largest economy. Whether it be international financial crisis, pandemic, climate change or regional hotspots, the management and solution of global problems cannot today be considered separate from the role of China.

To take this snapshot of where China is today is to reflect on the extraordinary journey this country has undergone since some 13 people, representing a little over 50 members, met in Shanghai, a city then under the effective control of foreign imperialists, in conditions of great secrecy and danger, to found the communist party.

With a history of some 5,000 years, China is the world’s longest, continuous and recorded civilisation. Its origins are roughly contemporaneous with the Indus Valley civilisation centred on today’s Sindh province in Pakistan. Many of the world’s great inventions, such as printing, the compass, gunpowder (which the Chinese used for fireworks not for military purposes) and countless others originated from China. If one looks at the last twenty centuries of human history, China was the largest economy in the world for about 17 of them. The other biggest economy was that of an obviously pre-partitioned India. Together these civilisations traded with their counterparts as far as Europe along the ancient silk routes that in considerable measure prefigure today’s Belt and Road Initiative.

However, history does not develop in a straight line but according to a process of uneven development.

Western powers, in time followed by Japan, embarked on a process of colonial expansion, dividing the wealth and riches of the world amongst themselves and fuelling their industrial revolutions.

China, in turn, under the rule of feudal dynasties, fell into a period of complacency, stagnation and decline. It was ripe for picking by greedy, rapacious imperialist powers.

Whilst never completely colonised China became a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. Bits of territory were snatched away. Unequal treaties were imposed. Imperialist powers enjoyed extra territorial privileges in major cities and elsewhere. The mass of Chinese people endured unimaginable misery.

Perhaps most criminally of all, British capitalists, organised, for example in the East India Company, forced opium onto the Chinese market, leading to terrible problems of addiction for the Chinese and enormous profits for the British.

When a patriotic Chinese official, Lin Zezu, attempted to stamp out this trade in death the British response was war. In the name of ‘free trade’ of course. Two opium wars resulted in bitter defeats for China, not least the loss of Hong Kong. Those in the Conservative Party, and indeed the Labour Party, who continue to speak of Britain’s supposed ‘responsibilities’ towards the people of Hong Kong should do more to reflect on, and repent for, that shameful history.

Danny Haiphong’s Message to the Peace Movement: Oppose the US-led New Cold War on China!

In this monologue, Danny Haiphong analyzes the importance of opposing the U.S.-led New Cold War on China and offers a summary of the dangerous shift in the U.S.’s orientation toward China over the course of history.

Salute on the Communist Party of China’s 100th Anniversary

We are republishing this useful article from Workers World outlining the history of the Communist Party of China and calling on progressives and anti-war activists in the West to oppose the US-led New Cold War.

Workers World Party, founded in 1959, is a Marxist-Leninist party in the U.S. From its beginning, Workers World has been a staunch supporter of the 1949 Chinese Revolution, with great appreciation for the guiding role of the Communist Party of China in that revolution. As a revolutionary working-class party in the center of world imperialism, we are determined to defend all the gains of our class on a world scale. We intend to make the following essay saluting the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China available to readers in the United States, so we have included some history not widely known in the U.S. that shows the differences between the U.S. and China.

For 5,000 years, China was one of the world’s most advanced societies in culture, art and technology. It came under attack in the 18th and 19th centuries from powers whose rapid capitalist development gave them a temporary advantage in military and industrial power. This advantage led to several hundred years of the colonial looting of China and much of East and South Asia. Unequal treaties and military occupation reduced China to a country of staggering poverty, famines, social chaos, enforced underdevelopment and wars.

Most people brought up in the United States know little of the past intervention by the U.S. and other imperialist countries into China. They are unaware that, in the 19th century, armed units from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Japan imposed their will on Chinese cities. The U.S. Navy had fleets of armored ships patrolling Chinese rivers and coastal waters. This most brutal gunboat diplomacy imposed unequal treaties to reinforce their military occupations, while making China pay these imperialist countries huge indemnities. With U.S. participation, Britain unleashed two Opium Wars on China to enforce its “right” to sell opium. They called it “free trade.”

When students mobilized against Chinese rulers who were compliant to the imperialists, they were repressed. A nationalist movement grew. Until 1921, despite the courage of its young participants, they were unable to coalesce into a movement that could mobilize the masses of people — one-quarter of the world at that time — and liberate China.

Online discussion: China and the New Cold War (17 June 2021)

Update: this event is now in the past. You can watch the stream below.

New Hampshire Peace Action is organising an online event on China, US relations with China, and the demonisation of China as a rival to American hegemony. The discussion will be led by Danny Haiphong and Ben Norton.

The event takes place online via Zoom on 17 June 2021 at 7pm US Eastern / 4pm US Pacific / 12am Britain / 7am China. Register on Action Network.

The US is currently engaged in a program to modernize its entire nuclear arsenal. US citizens are told that Russia & China are doing the same. The US foreign policy establishment, through their implementation of the “Great-power competition” doctrine, manifestly situate China to replace the “Global War on Terror” as the next big threat to US national security. Join this discussion to better understand the motives behind US fear-mongering rhetoric towards China and analyze the reality of conditions on the ground.

Danny Haiphong is a Contributing Editor of Black Agenda Report, Co-Host of The Left Lens, and an organizer with No Cold War. He is co-author of American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror and maintains his own blog at patreon.com/dannyhaiphong

Ben Norton is assistant editor of the investigative journalism website The Grayzone. He produces the political podcast and video show Moderate Rebels, which he co-hosts with The Grayzone editor and founder Max Blumenthal. Ben has reported from numerous countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Colombia, and more.

Off the Rails: New Report by Corporate-Funded Think-Tank Reveals How Profit-Driven Motives Drive New Cold War against China

We are republishing this article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong, which originally appeared on Covert Action Magazine on 5 June 2021.

A new report published in Railway Age magazine and written by the Information Technology Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has sounded the alarm about China’s growing high-speed rail sector. The report comes amid escalations in the U.S.’s New Cold War against China, of which technology is a key component.

China is by far the world leader in high-speed rail investment and development, sporting more than 35,000 kilometers (21,700 miles) of high-speed rail, or 68 percent of the world’s total. The ITIF itself admits to China’s rapid success in this sector since its first high-speed rail line was completed in 2008:

Since then, China has opened thousands of kilometers of high-speed lines with speeds ranging from 200 to 350 kph. To do this, China spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the world’s most expensive public-works project since President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System of the 1950s.

The United States might learn from China’s success in investing in high-speed rail and try and emulate it; however, according to the ITIF, China’s high-speed rail policies damage “innovation” by privileging domestic market development and state-owned enterprises over the interests of private, foreign firms primarily residing in the West. China is accused of employing a form of “mercantilism” to manipulate the global market at the expense of the superior capabilities of Western, Japanese, and American investors.

The term “mercantilism” has been used by big business interests in the U.S. and West to portray China’s policy of indigenous development as a high crime against the free market. In fact, the ITIF has been sounding the alarm about China’s prioritization of its own tech sector since 2013.

It lamented that China was no longer keeping its promise “to be a low-cost production platform for foreign multinational corporations (MNCs).” As if the Chinese government’s function was to serve the latter’s needs and not that of its own people.

The ITIF’s latest report focusing on China’s high-speed rail sector comes amid escalating U.S. attacks on China’s tech sector. Most associate this “tech war” with the Trump administration’s sanctions on China’s Huawei Corporation and social media apps such as WeChat and TikTok. However, the Biden administration and its allies have been just as aggressive in their attempts to forestall China’s technological development.

Biden has proclaimed that the U.S. is in a battle against China to “win the 21st century” and has expanded the list of Chinese telecommunications and supercomputing companies on the U.S.’s blacklist. In a recent speech to the UK-funded Chatham House, neo-con hawk and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton passionately claimed that the U.S. is at “the mercy of China” and demanded that the U.S. “take back the means of production.”

The U.S. war on China’s tech sector therefore shares widespread bipartisan support. As this analysis will demonstrate, far from calling for more public investment in the needs of an increasingly destitute U.S. workforce, the ITIF’s new warnings about China’s high-speed rail sector reveal how powerful economic interests are pushing for a new Cold War with China alongside the perpetuation of neoliberal economic policies that prioritize the interests of multi-national corporations.

Return of the Lab Leak Conspiracy Shows Biden is a Democrat with Trumpian Characteristics on China

We are republishing this article by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Danny Haiphong, which originally appeared on Black Agenda Report on 2 June 2021.

Joe Biden has been praised by liberals and even much of the Left as a marked shift from Donald Trump’s erratic and embarrassing presidency. This position takes on a decidedly class dimension whereby elites and their hangers on walk in lockstep with the Biden administration’s political trajectory. Those heaping praise onto Biden ignore his neoliberal approach to domestic economic woes and express complete alignment with his foreign policy priorities.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Biden’s approach to China. National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell declared in late May that the “era of engagement” with China has come to an end. Before entering the Biden administration, Campbell was co-founder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). CNAS is a D.C.-based think-tank which is primarily funded by the State Department and major military contractors such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and BAE systems. In other words, Biden’s “Asia Czar” is the perfect man for the job of escalating the U.S.’s New Cold War against China.

Biden’s approach to China has built upon Trump’s hostile posture in every respect. Biden has increased sanctions on China’s tech sector and his representatives at the State Department have shown an outright disrespect for Chinese diplomats. Biden has further committed to maintaining the U.S military’s presence in the Asia-Pacific while declaring that the 21st century will be a U.S. battle for “democracy” against China’s “autocracy.”

The current administration has been most Trump-like in relation to the propaganda campaign of the U.S.’s New Cold War. Biden has doubled down on unproven claims of “genocide” in Xinjiang. During the eleven-day Israeli assault on Gaza, the U.S. State Department declared without any evidence that Xinjiang was an “open-air prison.” On May 26th, Biden demanded that U.S. intelligence services review a more than year-old claim that COVID-19 was either produced or released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The lab leak conspiracy has resurfaced in recent months after Trump’s former CDC Director Robert Redfield stated that he believed COVID-19 emerged from a lab. Redfield is a renowned Evangelical whose credentials have been subject to scrutiny due to his former relationship with the Americans for a Sound HIV/AIDS Policy (ASAP), a rightwing NGO which led the charge in promoting abstinence-only and other hard-right Christian values as a response to HIV/AIDS.

The lab leak hypothesis has long been debunked as an evidence-free conspiracy with links to the far right. An analysis by FAIR found that corporate media reports utilized quotes from National Endowment for Democracy-funded far right activist Xiao Qiang and a 2018 State Department Cable which mentioned zero concerns of safety hazards as the principal sources to back up the lab leak claim. Tucker Carlson joined in on the fray later in 2020 to platform Yan Li-Meng’s assertion that the virus was created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Li-Meng possesses connections to Steve Bannon and Guo Wengui’s Rule of Law Foundation and her research has been discredited by the Hong Kong university from which she defected.

Now Biden and his top allies such as Dr. Anthony Fauci have given credence to the lab leak conspiracy. Biden’s call for an intelligence investigation comes amid unsourced intelligence reports that claim doctors in Wuhan became ill just prior to the spread of the virus. Similar to Russiagate, U.S. intelligence has run with an entirely unsourced narrative that conveniently pins blame on another country for domestic ills and labels that country a “national security” threat.

Genuine leftists are often called conspiracy theorists for questioning power, making the term itself toxic in political discourse. It is important to remember, however, that conspiracies do exist and that those in power are the ones with the means and the ends to carry them out. The lab leak conspiracy, like Russiagate, has been a key cog in the U.S. propaganda war against China. For more than a year, U.S. officials and media outlets have casted blame and skepticism onto China for the spread of COVID-19. The propaganda has worked. More than half of the U.S. population believes China should pay reparations to the world for the spread of COVID-19 and public opinion of China has reached a new low.

The lab leak conspiracy is an effective psychological operation because it is difficult to imagine evidence that could disprove or prove the claim. When Russia was accused of “hacking” or “influencing” the 2016 election, even the most astute observers of geopolitics tended to fall for the Cold War bait that it was plausible Russia possessed both the desire and capacity to prevent a Hillary Clinton presidency. China’s image in the U.S. psyche as an even more formidable “Yellow Peril” archetype of a communist “dictatorship” to Russia has ensured that majorities of U.S. and Western minds were already primed to believe that the People’s Republic of China was capable of releasing a bioweapon upon the world. Racist characterizations of China in the U.S. corporate media have revived the “Sick Man of Asia” stereotype and given U.S. intelligence all the ammo it needs to lend credence to the lab leak conspiracy.

It is therefore important to remember the two biggest accomplishments of Russiagate, an intelligence conspiracy Biden supported:

Russiagate gained full support from Democrats for the New Cold War. This included the manufacturing of consent for sanctions, enhanced NATO presence along Russia’s borders, and a more intense campaign of suppression against anti-war journalists and activists.
Russiagate deflected blame for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss onto a foreign power and shielded the Democratic Party for its role in the rise of Donald Trump.

The lab leak conspiracy is serving similar ends in a moment of intense crisis for the United States. A Zero COVID-19 strategy was never implemented in the United States. The U.S.’s failure to contain the pandemic is clearly demonstrated in the more than 500,000 pandemic-related deaths suffered from the virus on U.S. shores. Enthusiasm for an economic “recovery” masks the fact that the U.S.-led capitalist economy continues to shrink amid massive bailouts for speculators and the ever-increasing destitution of the working masses. The lab leak conspiracy deflects blame for these and all other problems onto China.

Yet China is clearly not the problem. China has contained the pandemic and is set to grow more than six percent in the next year. China defeated extreme poverty during a global depression. Its model for state-driven economic development and multipolar international relations has become increasingly attractive to many around the world who find themselves crushed under the weight of the U.S.’s regime of endless war and austerity, especially in the Global South.

That Biden and his administration see China as a threat should come as no surprise. Biden and the Democrats are committed to only one constituency: finance capital. All promises to cancel student loan debt, implement a public option, or reel back Trump’s immigration policies have been broken in service of Biden’s corporate donors. Biden has bombed Syria, fully supported Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, and given a blank check to the Pentagon. Finance capital no longer sees the possibility of a compliant China in the world economy and therefore wants to arrest its development via the military industrial complex.

Biden is thus doing his best Trump impression by urging a U.S. intelligence review into whether the COVID-19 virus has origins in a singular research institute in Wuhan. His deep dive into the lab leak conspiracy validates Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump’s racist epithet that COVID-19 was the “China virus.” The World Health Organization (WHO) has already begun investigating the origins of COVID-19 . Interference from nefarious spooks in U.S. intelligence threatens to undermine future research into the origins of COVID-19.

It shouldn’t have to be said that pandemics fall well outside of the scope of U.S. intelligence. U.S. intelligences have played a key role in deploying chemical and biological weapons in numerous wars on Global South countries such as Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. One of the authors of the Wall Street Journal report that revived the lab leak conspiracy, Michael R. Gordon, was also spreading rumors of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq nearly two decades ago.

Biden is nothing more than a corporate Democrat with Trumpian characteristics. He wasn’t lying when he said that nothing would fundamentally change under his watch. Now that is a conspiracy truly worth our attention.

No Cold War Britain event: China is not our enemy

The British branch of No Cold War is holding a launch event on Wednesday 16 June, 7pm BST (2pm US Eastern, 11am US Pacific), organised in coordination with the Tricontinental Institute. The theme is China is not our enemy, and there’s an excellent list of speakers:

Lowkey, musician and activist
Martin Jacques, author of ‘When China Rules the World’
Jodie Evans, CODEPINK
Kate Hudson, General Secretary of CND
Vijay Prashad, Director of the Tricontinental Institute
Li Jingjing , Chinese journalist
Andrew Murray, Stop the War Coalition
Anna Chen, writer, poet and broadcaster
Ben Chacko, Editor of the Morning Star
Fiona Edwards, No Cold War

You can register for the Zoom event on Eventbrite.

Speakers will address a number of themes and questions including:

The role of Britain as a junior partner in the US’ cold war against China
How the cold war presents a threat to building world peace
The rise of anti-Asian racism that has accompanied the cold war
Why the British government’s increasing belligerence towards China will cause economic harm – losing lots of jobs, trade and investment
How we build a broad movement to stand up to the cold war

Follow @NCWBritain, @nocoldwar and @tri_continental on Twitter for updates.

The ‘lab leak’ theory is a racist trope

The ‘Wuhan lab leak’ theory was devised by the Trump regime to deflect from its failure containing the pandemic and to build hostility towards China.
A World Health Organisation team of 17 international experts concluded it was “extremely unlikely” that Covid emerged from a lab leak.
The WHO team confirmed that Chinese officials and scientists were open and cooperative and gave access to all relevant data.
The countries raising “concerns” about the WHO report are the same countries pushing the New Cold War: US, Britain, Australia, Canada, Japan.
Biden’s proposal for a new US-led investigation is just a variation of Trump’s “kung flu” racism, and serves to deepen anti-Asian hate.
US and British intelligence services have a notorious record of faking
material in order to serve their governments’ imperial interests.