Category: New Cold War

Academic witch hunt: US arrests Chinese scientists in dangerous escalation

This episode of The China Report, hosted by KJ Noh in collaboration with Pivot to Peace, focuses on the recent arrest of two Chinese researchers from the University of Michigan on US federal charges of ‘agroterrorism’. The scientists, Yunqing Jian and Chengxuan Han, are accused of smuggling biological materials into the country – fusarium graminearum, a plant fungus – without permits. Prosecutors allege these could pose a grave threat to US crops, but plant pathology experts say the fungus is already widespread in the United States, is not on any official list of dangerous pathogens, and that the researchers’ work aimed to mitigate its effects, not cause harm.

The discussion brings together three guests: Linda Wan, a University of Michigan alumna and Code Pink organiser; Julie Tang, retired judge and co-founder of Pivot to Peace; and Bob McMurray, local resident and Michigan graduate. Linda Wan, who has been helping to organise protests and petitions in defence of the scientists, frames the case as part of a broader pattern of fear-mongering and xenophobia toward China and Chinese people.

Julie Tang calls the prosecution a clear case of overcharging – padding the main allegation with lesser counts to pressure a plea deal – and situates it within the racist McCarthyite China Initiative, introduced under the first Trump presidency, which investigated hundreds of Chinese scientists in order to whip up anti-China hysteria.

Bob McMurray notes that this case follows a standard playbook for manufacturing consent for both cold and hot wars. The arrests are part of an escalating pattern of propaganda, legal overreach and racial tropes aimed at building public support for confrontation with China. This is damaging to US-China relations, to the Asian-American community, to scientific progress, and to the prospects for peace.

Trump’s tariffs against Latin America: part of a global battle

In the following Morning Star article, Francisco Domínguez (Secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign and member of Friends of Socialist China’s Britain committee) situates Donald Trump’s escalating tariff war against Latin America within a broader US imperial strategy to block the emergence of a multipolar world — particularly one shaped by China’s growing influence.

While Trump’s tariffs and other coercive economic measures often appear chaotic, their underlying goal is to “slow down, reduce and if possible, eliminate altogether” China’s alternative vision of global order, based on solidarity and mutually beneficial cooperation rather than “weaponisation of the dollar, economic sanctions or military aggression.”

Washington views the increasingly close relationship between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and China as intolerable. China has become South America’s main trading partner and Central America’s second largest, expanding beyond raw materials into infrastructure, electric vehicles, telecommunications and renewable energy. Thus China is helping the countries of the region to break out of centuries of underdevelopment imposed by North America and Europe.

Francisco argues that the US–China relationship is often misrepresented as an inevitable conflict between superpowers (a ‘Thucydides Trap’), when in reality it reflects “two different conceptions of how to organise the global economy.” The US insists on a zero-sum model that creates winners in the developed North and losers in the Global South; China promotes a model based on multipolarity, sovereignty and common prosperity.

The article concludes: “The US considers itself the ‘indispensable nation’ which has always engaged in zero-sum games whose outcome produces winners (the US and its economically developed accomplices) and losers (the vast majority of humanity who reside in the global South). Trump’s tariffs intend to keep it that way, while Latin America’s orientation towards Asia, China and the Brics is correctly pushing in the opposite direction: to a fairer, multipolar world.”

Francisco elaborates on these points in a recent interview on the Global Majority for Peace podcast, which we embed below the article.

Trump’s threat of imposing a crippling 50 per cent tariff on all Brazilian imports to the United States took everyone by surprise, especially, considering the US enjoys a trade surplus with the South American giant (surplus it has enjoyed since 2007). Lula made it clear that Brazil would reciprocate in kind.

Trump tariffs against Brazil are in line with his overall policy of applying tariffs on all countries in the world. Under Trump US imperialism seeks to establish a global system that it suits itself such that it can impose or change any rule any time it wants and attack any country it dislikes.

As with many other global institutions, Trump, following in the footsteps of previous US administrations, is prepared to run roughshod over World Trade Organisation rules that US imperialism itself was central in establishing in 1995.

Thus, his attack on Mexico is not surprising either, country with which it has a substantial trade deficit caused by its southern neighbour’s incorporation into US supply chain arrangements ever since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The US has had a trade deficit with Mexico ever since 1995, exactly one year after Nafta.

To Trump’s chagrin, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has vigorously defended her country’s sovereignty and has skilfully navigated US provocations.

To the charge of Mexico being a drug-trafficking hub, she has pointed out to US negotiators that the “the US itself harbours cartels, is the largest narcotic consumer market, exports the majority of armaments used by drug barons and hosts money-laundering banks.” She has also resolutely refused the deployment of US troops on Mexican soil.

Continue reading Trump’s tariffs against Latin America: part of a global battle

Hawaiian independence party resists US war drive against China

The following is an interview by People’s Dispatch with Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua, of the Hawaiian independence party Hui Aloha ʻĀina (Hawaiian Patriotic League).

Kawena spoke to People’s Dispatch ahead of the People’s Summit for Korea, which took place in New York City, July 25-26.

“Our nations are caught in the middle,” of the massive US escalation in aggression towards China, said Kawena, who is the Political Education Chair for Hui Aloha ʻĀina. The party was founded in 1893 to resist the US occupation of Hawai’i. He says that the US drive towards war can in fact present “a major opportunity to start building, not just with ourselves in Hawai’i, but also with our Pacific comrades, neighbors, and cousins, to start fighting back… Our ocean is the frontline in this Cold War between China and the United States.”

Referring to the deleterious effect on his country of the escalating US confrontation with China, he adds: “Now as the military pivots towards confrontation with China, it’s also at the same time trying to extend and even expand its control of Hawaiian land through new land acquisitions, through the retention of current leases that are expiring.”

He also links the struggle of his people to that of the Palestinians:

“Israel cannot exist without the support of the United States. One of the ways that they offer support in addition to the military and stuff they get is training and military exercise involvement through the United States. RIMPAC is a great example of that. The largest military wargames that take place in the entire region, the largest naval war games on the planet, they’re called the Rim of the Pacific exercises. And yet Israel is always invited and always takes part… Contrary to whatever Zionist expansionist belief, Israel doesn’t have a Pacific coast. They have no tie to the region and yet are involved in this.”

Peoples Dispatch: What is the significance of anti-imperialism to the independence movement in Hawai’i?

Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua: US violence against the rest of the world is funneled through the Pacific. Not just Hawai’i, but Guam, and the Micronesian nations like Marshall Islands and Palau, as well as the Philippines. These end up becoming launching points for US imperialism. We’re operating both as a frontline and behind enemy lines, because the US military’s presence within our region is so massive.

The Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) is the largest military command on the planet. The US is pouring more and more resources into the Pacific every day. They’re moving more troops into the Pacific, more military equipment, and more weapons. This offers us an opportunity in the Pacific battle against that, because there are so many new weaknesses in their logistics supply chains that are being unveiled, and they’re starting to stretch themselves thin.

Military recruitment has been down for years at this point. It’s not going to go back up anytime soon, unless the US institutes a mandatory draft. We’re watching the fraying at the edges of this military apparatus.

Especially in Hawai’i, you’re starting to see the tide turn against this. The military has never been more unpopular, then maybe when they first invaded and took over, and the poisoning of the water via the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility.

Continue reading Hawaiian independence party resists US war drive against China

Jean-Luc Mélenchon discusses China with Tariq Ali

The following is an extensive interview with the French left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon that was conducted by Tariq Ali, the veteran writer and activist, and that was originally published on Sidecar, the blog published by New Left Review.

In their wide-ranging discussion Mélenchon makes a number of important comments about China – to which he has consistently advocated a position of friendship – which are especially significant coming from probably the most important leader of the contemporary European left.

Asked by Ali about the significance of the recent conflict between Iran and Israel, and specifically the role played by the United States, Mélenchon responds:

“We must try to understand the rationale of these Western states. It’s not simply that Trump is crazy or that the Europeans are cowards; maybe they are those things, but what they are doing is nonetheless based on a long-term plan, one that has failed in the past but is now in the process of being realized. The plan is, first, to reorganize the entire Middle East to secure access to oil for the countries of the Global North; and, second, to create the conditions for war with China.”

This theme is further developed in the two men’s conversation, with Tariq Ali positing:

“You mentioned that the second part of America’s plan is conflict with China. A lot of liberals and left-liberals are now finally recoiling from the events in Middle East and saying that our real target should be China. But what they don’t realize is that the real target is China, because, as you say, if the United States controls all the region’s oil – as it would if Iran were to fall – then they would control the flow of this basic commodity. They could force Beijing to beg for it, which would help to keep it in check. So the US strategy in the Middle East might seem completely crazy – and it is crazy on various levels – but there is also a deep logic behind it: that it’s better to fight China in this way than to go to war with it. This has already started to create huge problems across the East. I noticed that the leaders of Japan nor South Korea, two countries that have major US military bases, abruptly cancelled plans to attend the NATO summit in June.”

Mélenchon replies: “The conflict between the US and China is over trade and resource networks, and in some respects the Chinese have already won, because they produce almost everything the world consumes. They have no interest in fighting a war because they are already satisfied with their global influence. Yet this is both a strength and a weakness. When 90% of Iranian oil goes to China, for instance, blocking the Strait of Hormuz would cut off crucial supply chains and bring a large part of Chinese production to a halt. So China is vulnerable on that front. You are right to say that some in the West would prefer a cold war to a hot war, encirclement and containment rather than direct conflict. But these are nuances, and in reality it is easy to move from one to the other. One of [former US President] Biden’s top economic advisors said that there is no ‘commercial solution’ to the problem of competition with China, which means there can only be a military one.

“The point about Japan and Korea is also significant. Not only them, but also many other powers in the region, are now strengthening ties with China. Vietnam was supposed to be in the US bloc, but they’ve signed agreements with the Chinese. So has India, despite the tensions between the two countries. The backdrop here is that, throughout much of Asia, capitalism is still defined by dynamic forces of trade and production, whereas in the US it has assumed a predatory and tributary character.”

He recalls that: “I once had an interesting conversation with a Chinese leader. When I said to him that China was flooding the European market with its overproduction of electric cars, he replied, ‘Mr. Mélenchon, do you think there are too many electric cars in the world?’ Of course I had to answer ‘no’. Then he said: ‘We’re not forcing you to buy our products; it’s up to you whether you want to purchase them.’ Here was a Communist explaining to me the benefits of free trade.

Continue reading Jean-Luc Mélenchon discusses China with Tariq Ali

Black Agenda Report at the Belt and Road Journalism Forum in China

In the following report for Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley reflects on her participation in the 2025 Belt and Road Journalists Forum in Jiangxi, China, representing the only US-based outlet at the event. The forum brought together 100 media professionals from across the globe, fostering cross-cultural understanding and promoting dialogue through journalism.

Margaret highlights how the forum offered historical and cultural context, particularly through Jiangxi’s significance in Chinese revolutionary history, as the site of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army and the starting point of the Long March.

While Western media fixates on bizarre anti-China narratives like the “spy balloon” episode, China continues to grow economically and improve the living conditions of its people.

While the corporate media inundate the public with tall tales of spy balloons and claims that China is making nefarious purchases of U.S. farmland, that nation forges ahead in spite of futile U.S. efforts to diminish its economic prowess.

The forum’s theme—“Promoting Civilisations Dialogue and Global Modernization with Power of Journalists”—underscored the importance of accurate, context-rich reporting, especially in an era when corporate media serves state interests and contributes to public misinformation. Margaret critiques mainstream journalism for failing to investigate or challenge official narratives, instead functioning as “a public relations arm for the state and the ruling class.”

The article concludes that independent outlets like Black Agenda Report play a crucial role in countering imperialist narratives. Exposure to countries like China is essential for journalists who seek truth over propaganda. Participation in the forum affirms the value of BAR’s principled, anti-imperialist perspective.

The 2025 Belt and Road Journalists Forum in China was an opportunity for Black Agenda Report to join an international group of journalists working to promote meaningful dialogue on world issues.

The invitation extended to Black Agenda Report to participate in the 2025 Belt and Road Journalists Forum , held in the cities of Nanchang, Jingdezhen, and Ganzhou in Jiangxi province China, was a testament to our 19 year history of providing “news, commentary, and analysis from a Black left perspective.“ Our work is appreciated nationally and internationally, and this columnist attended the Forum along with 100 media representatives from around the world. The Forum is a venue for journalists from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nations, but Black Agenda Report was also included, the only outlet participating from the United States. 

While the people of the U.S. are subjected to an endless stream of dangerous anti-China war propaganda, the Forum provided participants with the historical and cultural context needed to understand China’s history through the lens of the Jiangxi province region. The city Jiangdezhen has been an important center in the creation of ceramics, the porcelain that came to be known as china, for 1,000 years, and from which it was traded internationally on the original Silk Road. The People’s Liberation Army was founded in Jiangxi and in 1934, the Long March of the Communist Party of China (CPC) began in Jiangxi. The Long March was a strategic retreat from the Kuomintang forces and it allowed the CPC to live to fight on for many years, through the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, known in this country as World War II, and to eventually establish the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

While the corporate media inundate the public with tall tales of spy balloons and claims that China is making nefarious purchases of U.S. farmland, that nation forges ahead in spite of futile U.S. efforts to diminish its economic prowess. Donald Trump’s ever changing tariff policies resulted in China imposing tariffs of its own and buying soy beans from Brazil and beef from Australia when those commodities had long been a part of agricultural trade between the two countries. Joe Biden’s attempt to stop China’s access to computer chip production resulted in new innovations like DeepSeek, which created a model for Artificial Intelligence that surpassed ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost.

China’s rise as an economic power has thrown the United States into panic and counterproductive decision making. Artificial Intelligence is not the only example of futile efforts to keep China down. The first Trump administration imposed high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, such as BYD, which stands for Build Your Dream. BYD cars are the biggest sellers in China and can be seen alongside U.S. cars on the streets of Beijing and Nanchang. But it was Joe Biden who imposed 100% tariffs on this popular brand and handed off this prohibition to Donald Trump’s second administration. In the meantime, U.S. consumers are deprived of a product they would want, and Detroit automakers have nothing to offer except state protected mediocrity. Trump’s wild indecision on tariffs is an indicator that the U.S. is lost as it tries to do what it cannot, make China a subservient power.

The Forum theme, “Promoting Civilizations Dialogue and Global Modernization with Power of Journalists,” is one that should be of interest to every person calling themselves a journalist. There cannot be information sharing without dialogue but in the U.S., true journalism, providing investigation and analysis, was always at the mercy of the powerful and has now completely devolved into little more than being a public relations arm for the state and for the ruling class. Corporate news gathering at present rarely yields very much that the people need to know, and coverage of China is emblematic of that downward trend. 

In 2023, when a Chinese weather balloon was blown off course, the Biden administration declared it to be a spy balloon and predictably, all of the leading broadcast and print media dutifully followed along and used the same language which emanated from the white house press office. While Joe Biden bragged about shooting the balloon down, there was little follow up reporting on the finding that the balloon was just what China said it was, a weather balloon that went off course. 

Unlike corporate media outlets, Black Agenda Report and other independent media outlets understand that China is, in fact, an ancient civilization, and like all other nations, a sovereign one with rights under international law that ought to be respected. Bullying with tariff threats and a plethora of accusations of wrongdoing should not be taken seriously and must be seen as part of a larger but failed effort to maintain U.S. hegemony. 

The Forum presented a series of seminars and roundtable discussions on topics such as presenting cross cultural narratives, the challenges of authentic news gathering in the age of Artificial Intelligence, and regional focuses on Europe and on Latin America. Discussions were supplemented by tours to historic and cultural sites in Jiangxi. Participants came away with greater appreciation of China as a nation and of their own work, which can be used to benefit the people of the world or which can also be a tool of parties whose goal is to keep the people in a state of misinformation. Unfortunately, this dynamic applies to most U.S. reporting, which is useful only in keeping the public in a state of hostility towards China, viewing it as an “adversary” which must be bested at every turn.

The reality is far different, and even for those who see themselves as living up to journalistic ethics, can become taken in by false narratives when they are repeated often enough. In-person visits are a necessity in preventing the repetition of harmful tropes that are used to manipulate opinion when factual reporting is needed and should be the standard for the profession.

Black Agenda Report has always been dedicated to analyzing the world from an anti-imperialist perspective, an objective that demands not just good information gathering but also exposure to nations like China, whose history requires study and analysis, and whose present day trajectory requires rejection of what most so-called journalists present, the repetition of fake news.

This site strives to be one that is respected nationally and internationally. Participation in the Belt and Road Journalists Forum is an indication that our work is held in high regard. It does not matter if large corporate outlets do not produce the same news that Black Agenda Report presents. In fact, that difference is proof of our standing as journalists.

British Defence Secretary threatens war with China

Britain’s  Defence Minister, the largely and justifiably unknown John Healey, has made an extraordinary threat to go to war with China over the question of Taiwan, an island province that Britain legally recognises – not least according to the bilateral agreement concluded in 1972 between the two countries that elevated their diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level – as part of China.

Speaking on board the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier, after it had docked in the north Australian port of Darwin, where it is to join the United States and other countries in the warmongering Talisman Sabre exercises largely aimed at China, Healey was asked by the right wing Telegraph newspaper, “what the UK is doing to help countries like Taiwan to prepare for potential escalation from China, Mr Healey said: ‘If we have to fight, as we have done in the past, Australia and the UK are nations that will fight together. We exercise together and by exercising together and being more ready to fight, we deter better together.’”

The HMS Prince of Wales is on a nine-month deployment to the Pacific region and is widely expected to sail through the Taiwan Strait around upcoming visits to Japan and South Korea. Already, the Royal Navy provocatively sailed the HMS Spey warship through China’s Taiwan Strait on June 18. It was the first such incident in four years.

Never one to miss out on a free trip, David Lammy, Britain’s equally preposterous Foreign Secretary, accompanied Healey. He has previously said that the UK plans to conduct more so-called “freedom of navigation operations” in the Taiwan Strait.

Further underlining the gravity of the situation, the Labour supporting Mirror newspaper noted:

“In April, Keir Starmer met the crew onboard HMS Prince of Wales during an overnight stay ahead of their voyage. The PM said the mission showed the UK’s ‘leadership on global issues and security and defence’.

“‘We all know that the world is more uncertain than it felt a few months or years before – we’re in a new era,’ Mr Starmer said at the time. ‘We are sending a clear message of strength to our adversaries, and a message of unity and purpose to our allies.’”

As with most, if not all, members of the current British government, it is difficult to fathom whether Healey’s outburst represents blood-curdling bellicosity, strategic myopia, rank ignorance and stupidity, gross irresponsibility, or just plain inexperience. However, the smart money is likely to be on any combination of all of the above.

In an editorial response, the Morning Star noted that: “British troops will be engaged in provocative manoeuvres viewed by Beijing as part of Washington’s bid to encircle it militarily. That is itself part of a wider US strategy to derail China’s rise… That is the overarching war game in which Operation Talisman Sabre takes place. Britain should have no part in it.”

China’s Global Times was more hard-hitting, noting that: “Chinese observers slammed the blatant remarks over China’s internal affair, saying it was a show of residual British colonial mentality.”

It added: “Observers also pointed out that, amid warming China-Australia relations highlighted by the Australian Prime Minister’s successful July visit to China, the British defence official’s remarks attempt to place Canberra in a difficult position. Full alignment with the UK and the US is not a wise choice.”

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London was direct and to the point:

“If the said report is true, I am sure the UK official will regret having said that. China will never allow anyone to separate Taiwan from China in any way. Nor will China allow any external forces, the UK and Australia included, to undermine our efforts for complete reunification.”

Earlier, on July 25, the spokesperson responded to Foreign Secretary Lammy and Yvette Cooper, the tinpot totalitarian Home Secretary, having issued a joint statement making unwarranted comments on the law enforcement action taken by the Hong Kong SAR police against anti-China disruptors who have fled abroad:

“Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong, and Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs. China urges the UK to abandon its colonial mentality, stop interfering in Hong Kong affairs, cease meddling in China’s internal affairs, stop shielding criminals, and refrain from going further down the wrong path.”

Prior to Healey’s outburst, on 25 July 2025, the Chinese Embassy in the UK held a reception celebrating the 98th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army of China. Ambassador Zheng Zeguang pointed out in his speech that this year marks the 80th anniversary of the recovery of Taiwan. Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China’s territory since ancient times. Both the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, issued by major victorious nations of WWII, including China and the UK, stated in explicit terms that Taiwan is a territory that Japan had stolen from the Chinese, and shall be restored to China. All these instruments have confirmed China’s sovereignty over Taiwan and formed an important part of the post-WWII international order. 

The Ambassador further emphasised that the Chinese people and their armed forces will never allow anyone to separate Taiwan from China in any way. Nor will they allow any external forces to undermine their efforts for complete reunification. All countries having diplomatic ties with China must properly handle Taiwan-related issues, which is key to the smooth development of bilateral relations with China.

Zheng Zeguang also noted that this year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. More than 80 years ago, the peoples of China and the UK fought valiantly against fascist aggression on the main Eastern Front and the European battlefield, making enormous contributions to the global victory against fascism. China’s fight was the earliest to begin, and the longest-lasting. The Chinese people suffered the most significant human and material losses before ultimately defeating Japanese aggressors.

Ambassador Zheng emphasised that it should never be forgotten that China and the UK were allies and fought shoulder to shoulder during the war. That part of history has left behind many touching stories of solidarity and mutual support in the flames of war. In 1942, Chinese fishermen from Zhoushan risked their own lives under Japanese gunfire to save 384 British prisoners of war on board Lisbon Maru, which was mistakenly torpedoed by a US submarine. Also in 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force successfully rescued British troops besieged by the Japanese army in Myanmar. In 1938, George Hogg, a young Briton, travelled thousands of miles to China, where he established schools, aided orphaned children and gave his life for the Chinese people’s righteous cause. We should remember history, honour those fallen heroes, cherish peace and strive for a better future.

The reception was attended by nearly 300 guests.

In characteristically pugilistic terms, George Galloway responded to Healey in his MOATS (Mother of all Talk Shows) broadcast.

Denouncing his remarks as madness, George noted that Britain, a bankrupt and broken country that has given billions to the ‘thief of Kiev’ and spends millions on reconnaissance flights to facilitate the Gaza genocide, was now threatening China with war. Referring to the 1949 Amethyst Incident, George recalled that the last time Britain had ‘sailed a gunboat up the Yangzi [river]’, the Chinese had sunk it. And China is now a far more powerful country than it was 76 years ago.

Noting the contempt shown for democracy, as highlighted by the fact that Britain’s rubber stamp parliament had not even been consulted or informed, George addressed Healey: “You little runt are threatening China with war.” A man who had never heard a shot fired in anger in his miserable life was threatening a war to be waged at the expense of the British people “and with the blood of your sons and daughters.”

Continue reading British Defence Secretary threatens war with China

US Congressman claims young people’s rejection of Israeli war crimes is a Chinese plot

We are pleased to republish the following article by Alex Lo, which addresses one of the latest anti-China smears emanating from US political circles.

Democrat Congressman Jared Moskowitz says that China is following the ‘Nazi playbook’ by using TikTok to ‘brainwash’ American youth. Alex Lo writes:

“China has been accused of doing many nefarious things in the United States, but deliberately spreading anti-semitism?

“That’s the claim made by Democrat Congressman Jared Moskowitz in an official hearing. You have to admit facts-free China criticism in the US gets more inventive by the day.”

Moskowitz said: “This is not going well for Jews right now, and it isn’t getting better. We have not yet peaked… We are losing the youth of this country. We are losing them on TikTok, which is owned by a foreign country… The Chinese plan is to get us angry and divisive. And the Chinese plan is to start with the easiest plan possible, and that is us.”

Alex’s retort is clear and to the point: “There is a simple reason why many American youth are becoming critical of Israel – they read the news.”

Writing on July 6, he cites a number of reports published since the start of June including:

  • “Israeli air strike kills Gaza hospital director along with his family – Israeli attacks have killed 70 healthcare workers over the past 50 days.”
  • “Israeli forces kill 112 Palestinians in Gaza over 24 hours – At least 16 were reported killed while seeking aid.”
  • “Israel has demolished 1,000 Palestinian homes in West Bank camps since January”.

Others he cites were reported by Associated Press, the Financial Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He concludes:

“Anti-semitism has been a scourge responsible for some of the worst horrors in history and remains a problem today. But by committing genocide, Israel is making itself a pariah state.”

Alex Lo is a regular columnist for Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post since 2012. A journalist for 25 years, he has worked for various publications in Hong Kong and Toronto, Canada, as a news reporter and editor. He has also lectured in journalism at the University of Hong Kong.

The article was originally published in the South China Morning Post and is reproduced with the kind permission of the author.

China has been accused of doing many nefarious things in the United States, but deliberately spreading antisemitism?

That’s the claim made by Democrat Congressman Jared Moskowitz in an official hearing. You have to admit facts-free China criticism in the US gets more inventive by the day.

Beijing has been criticised for allowing antisemitic content without online censorship within China, and TikTok has been accused – the big reason it faces being banned – of platforming antisemitic criticism of Israel in the US. But equating the two explicitly is pretty new.

“This is not going well for Jews right now, and it isn’t getting better. We have not yet peaked,” Moskowitz said.

“We are losing the youth of this country. We are losing them on TikTok, which is owned by a foreign country that the president has now extended beyond what the law has allowed.”

He was referring to Donald Trump’s repeated extension of the deadline for a total ban or a forced sale of TikTok required by US law.

Moskowitz continues: “I don’t want TikTok to go away but I want it to get out of the hands of the Chinese. They are doing the Nazi playbook. They are dividing us. They are funding. They don’t need to do it with B2 bombers.

“That’s not what the Chinese plan is. The Chinese plan is to get us fighting among ourselves. The Chinese plan is to get us angry and divisive. And the Chinese plan is to start with the easiest plan possible, and that is us. Until we stop this ‘who did what to who’ stuff, we are not going to solve this.

“Jews are losing their usual allies. Those allies that we’ve had for decades and decades, groups that Jews have stood up for, we are losing them by the moment, especially among young people.

“This [congressional] hearing ain’t gonna fix s***. This is a virus that is spreading; until we are serious about what’s going on online and the brainwashing of our kids, this is going to get worse and more people are going to die in this country.”

There is a simple reason why many American youth are becoming critical of Israel – they read the news. Here are some reports since the start of June:

“Israeli air strike kills Gaza hospital director along with his family – Israeli attacks have killed 70 healthcare workers over the past 50 days.”

“Israeli forces kill 112 Palestinians in Gaza over 24 hours – At least 16 were reported killed while seeking aid.”

“Israel has demolished 1,000 Palestinian homes in West Bank camps since January”.

“UN report accuses global corporations of profiting from Gaza genocide.”

“Gazans survive among unexploded bombs – ‘Uninhabitable’ according to the US government, the Gaza Strip is strewn with undetonated explosives.”

“Hundreds of Palestinian families flee West Bank camp ahead of Israeli demolition orders.”

“West Bank town becomes ‘big prison’ as Israel fences it in”.

This one is from Haaretz, a leading liberal Israeli newspaper, so it’s not fake news: “‘It’s a killing field’: IDF aoldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.”

This one is from the Associated Press, so it’s not fake news either: “US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza”.

This news summary is from +972, an Israeli online news magazine: “Near-daily Israeli massacres at food distribution sites have killed over 400 Palestinians in the past month alone. Survivors describe stepping over corpses to get their hands on a bag of flour: ‘What choice do we have?’”

This is an investigative report by the Financial Times about a leading global firm, Boston Consulting Group: “BCG modelled plan to ‘relocate’ Palestinians from Gaza – Consulting firm had multimillion-dollar role in contentious new aid scheme for shattered enclave”.

Antisemitism has been a scourge responsible for some of the worst horrors in history and remains a problem today. But by committing genocide, Israel is making itself a pariah state.

Interview: Lessons from China

The video below features a discussion between KJ Noh and Carlos Martinez, originally aired on BreakThrough News on 9 July 2025, about China’s development and its role in the world.

KJ and Carlos discuss the recent Friends of Socialist China delegation to China; the US and China’s contrasting visions for the world (‘clash of civilisations’ vs the Global Civilisation Initiative); living standards in China and the West; increasing poverty, repression, racism and xenophobia in Britain and the US; the reasons for US hostility towards China; China’s world-historic successes in tackling extreme poverty and building renewable energy and advanced infrastructure; the relationship between capital and political power in China and the West; and the relationship between the US-Israeli criminal war on Iran and the ongoing campaign to encircle and contain the People’s Republic of China.

NATO backs the anti-China war drive – Diane Abbott

In the following article, which was originally published by the Morning Star, Diane Abbott sounds a warning that, “Europe is acquiescing in Trump’s manoeuvrings – where Europe takes over the US forever war in Ukraine while Washington gets ready for a future fight with China. And it’s working people who will be left paying the price.”

Noting that the recent NATO Summit saw members commit to spending five percent of GDP on “defence”, Diane explains: “This is more than we were spending during the Gulf war and much more than when this country was waging war on Iraq and Afghanistan. We have not seen such a rapid expansion of military spending in this country since the beginning of the second world war.”

Explaining what lies behind this, she writes: “The US president described the outcome of the Nato summit as ‘a great victory.’ For once, he was telling the truth. It was a great personal victory for him and for the US war machine.

“Trump’s plan, as he said himself, is to ‘un-unite’ Russia and China, so that he can pursue a confrontation with the latter. All of his recent manoeuvrings in imposing tariffs on the world have clearly had that as a central objective, including trying to dictate that other countries are not allowed to trade with China, under threat of even more tariffs.

“Europe’s role in all this is to replace the US resources (under the Nato banner) in Europe that are being used to fight Russia. Those US resources can then be freed up and redeployed to south-east Asia and the coming fight with China.”

She notes that one exception to this policy is the Socialist government in Spain led by Pedro Sánchez. “He is no left-wing firebrand and verbally he makes all the warmongers’ noises about the threats we face and the need for a military upgrade and reform. The essential difference is that he refuses to fund Trump’s war machine and argues that the current level of 2.1 per cent of GDP in the military is quite sufficient. Actions are more important than rhetoric.”

She exposes NATO’s warmongering record: “Despite widespread claims to the contrary, it is not as if the NATO members have a record of demonstrating peaceful intent. NATO was part of the aggression against Serbia, Afghanistan and Libya. Currently, its members have been helping the Israeli genocide, bombing Yemen, installing terrorists in Syria and fighting a nuclear-armed Russia. The latest illegal act is the bombing of Iran. As much-discussed scenarios for the start of World War III go, that is almost the complete set.”

Finally, she clearly draws the link between imperialist war abroad and attacks on the working class at home:

“From the government’s perspective, very large welfare and other cuts are necessary to deliver on the promises to increase the military budget. The war drive and the austerity drive go hand-in-hand. But the sheer scale of the planned rise in the MoD [Ministry of Defence] budget means that austerity, in a number of forms, will go much wider and deeper than it has already. We must be prepared to fight them both.”

Diane Abbott is the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington in East London. In 1987, she became the first ever black woman to be elected to the British parliament. She is now the ‘Mother of the House’, the longest continuously serving female member of the House of Commons. Consistently on the left of the party, she served as Shadow Home Secretary during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and subsequently defeated a vicious campaign spearheaded by Keir Starmer to drive her out of the Labour Party.

At the recent Nato summit most member countries committed themselves to a target of spending 5 per cent of GDP on the military budget. This is more than we were spending during the Gulf war and much more than when this country was waging war on Iraq and Afghanistan. We have not seen such a rapid expansion of military spending in this country since the beginning of the second world war.

The consequences for the safety and security of this country will be very grave and there will be very significant, negative consequences for most other areas of government spending as a result. The government plans to shift us to a wartime economy, with all the serious consequences that implies.

The US president described the outcome of the Nato summit as “a great victory.” For once, he was telling the truth. It was a great personal victory for him and for the US war machine.

Continue reading NATO backs the anti-China war drive – Diane Abbott

Iran and the new cold war

The following article by Carlos Martinez, originally published in the Morning Star, argues that the criminal Israeli-US strikes on Iran are not credibly rooted in concerns over the latter’s alleged nuclear weapons program, but rather in its consistent anti-imperialist stance and its far-reaching material support for the cause of Palestinian freedom.

The article also links the attacks to broader geopolitical dynamics, especially Iran’s deepening alliance with China. Since signing a 25-year cooperation agreement with China in 2021, Iran has become integral to the Belt and Road Initiative, in addition to joining BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and emerging as China’s primary trading partner in West Asia.

This growing partnership makes Iran a strategic obstacle to US-led imperialism, especially in the context of the New Cold War against China. Carlos draws parallels with the 1953 coup against Iran’s Prime Minister Mossadegh, orchestrated by the CIA and MI6 to protect Western oil interests in the context of the original Cold War.

Today, the New Cold War, centred on US efforts to encircle and contain the People’s Republic of China, is adding urgency to the US’s bid for regime change in Iran. Iran’s deepening integration into the Belt and Road Initiative, and its close coordination with China and Russia, mark it as a frontline state in the struggle between the Project for a New American Century and the Global Community of Shared Future…

The installation of a US proxy regime in Tehran would be a major blow to the Belt and Road Initiative, and it would potentially compromise China’s energy security, giving the US de facto control over the flow of oil and other resources through the Persian Gulf.

The article concludes by urging Western anti-war movements to oppose this escalating campaign to preserve and expand imperialist hegemony.

There has been a great deal of speculation as to the reasons for the criminal Israeli-US attack on Iran.

The reason proffered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump is that Iran is on the cusp of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and that therefore the forcible dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure is a matter of great urgency.

Obviously, no reasonable person believes this; certainly nobody who remembers Tony Blair’s cynical 2003 claim that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.

After all, Netanyahu first publicly accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons back in 1992 – 33 years ago – when, in a speech to the Knesset as Deputy Foreign Minister, he declared that Iran was three to five years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon and argued for preemptive action.

Netanyahu was later subjected to widespread mockery in September 2012 when, holding up a cartoonish drawing of a bomb during his speech at the UN, he claimed that Iran was 90 percent of the way to the level of uranium enrichment needed for weaponisation.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to deny seeking nuclear weapons and is a longstanding signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The country’s government maintains a strict edict against the development, production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons or indeed any weapons of mass destruction – contrasting rather starkly with Israel, an undeclared nuclear weapons state and non-signatory to the NPT. Furthermore, there has been no credible intelligence validating Netanyahu and Trump’s claims about Iran’s weapons program.

Continue reading Iran and the new cold war

De la contención a la confrontación, del frío al calor: el impulso de EE.UU. hacia la guerra contra China

We are pleased to republish below the Spanish translation, by the progressive Chilean journal El Ciudadano, of Carlos Martinez’s recent article, From containment to confrontation, from cold to hot: the US drive to war on China.

Nos complace republicar a continuación la traducción al español, por parte de la revista progresista chilena El Ciudadano, del reciente artículo de Carlos Martínez, De la contención a la confrontación, del frío al calor: el impulso de EE.UU. hacia la guerra contra China.

La Nueva Guerra Fría no está funcionando

La guerra «fría» liderada por Estados Unidos contra China está fracasando manifiestamente en sus objetivos de suprimir el ascenso de China y debilitar su influencia global.

La economía de China sigue creciendo de manera constante. En términos de paridad de poder adquisitivo (PPA), ya es el más grande del mundo. Su movilización de recursos extraordinarios para salir del subdesarrollo y convertirse en una superpotencia de ciencia y tecnología parece estar dando dividendos sustanciales, con el país estableciendo un claro liderazgo mundial en energía renovable, vehículos eléctricos, telecomunicaciones, fabricación avanzada, construcción de infraestructura y más. Es, con mucho, el líder mundial en el alivio de la pobreza y el desarrollo sostenible. Las sanciones a las exportaciones de semiconductores no han frenado el progreso de China en informática y, de hecho, han tenido un efecto enzimático en su industria nacional de chips. El espectacular éxito del modelo de lenguaje grande R1 de código abierto de DeepSeek indica que Estados Unidos ya no puede dar por sentado su liderazgo en el ámbito digital.

Mientras tanto, los intentos de Occidente de «desacoplarse» de China han dado muy pocos frutos. Si bien un puñado de países imperialistas han prometido eliminar a Huawei de su infraestructura de red, y mientras las sanciones a los vehículos eléctricos chinos significan que los consumidores de Occidente tienen que pagar sumas obscenas por automóviles de calidad inferior, la integración de China y la cooperación mutuamente beneficiosa con el mundo han seguido expandiéndose. China es el mayor socio comercial de aproximadamente dos tercios de los países del mundo. Más de 150 estados se han adherido a la Iniciativa de la Franja y la Ruta. China se encuentra en el centro de los BRICS y de la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghái.Play

Los aranceles de Trump estaban destinados a coaccionar a China para que aceptara los términos comerciales de EE.UU. y obligar a otros países a unirse sin ambigüedades al «campo» económico y geopolítico de Washington, alienando así a China. Nada de eso ha ocurrido. Incluso la Unión Europea, normalmente supina, ha denunciado los aranceles y ha señalado su intención de ampliar el comercio con China.

En resumen, el Proyecto para un Nuevo Siglo Americano no va bien. Zbigniew Brzezinski escribió en su famoso libro El gran tablero de ajedrez: la primacía estadounidense y sus imperativos geoestratégicos (1997) que «el escenario más peligroso sería una gran coalición de China, Rusia y tal vez Irán, una coalición ‘antihegemónica’ unida no por ideología sino por agravios complementarios». Precisamente esa coalición antihegemónica existe, y está uniendo a los países de Asia, África, América Latina, el Caribe y el Pacífico en un proyecto de construcción de un futuro multipolar, lo que plantea un desafío existencial al llamado «orden internacional basado en reglas» basado en los principios del unilateralismo, la guerra, la desestabilización, la coerción y el intercambio desigual.

¿De la guerra fría a la guerra caliente?

Hasta aquí, todo positivo. Pero no hay que olvidar que «la guerra es la continuación de la política por otros medios». Si la política imperialista no está teniendo el efecto deseado, existe un riesgo muy real de que la clase dominante estadounidense y sus secuaces recurran a la guerra abierta en pos de sus ambiciones hegemónicas.

El poder político surge del cañón de una pistola, dijo Mao Zedong. Y aunque el dominio económico de Estados Unidos puede estar disminuyendo, todavía tiene una gran cantidad de armas con las que proyectar poder político. Donald Trump anunció recientemente, sentado junto al genocida maníaco en jefe Benjamin Netanyahu en la Casa Blanca, que el próximo presupuesto de Estados Unidos asignará un billón de dólares récord a las fuerzas armadas. Esto es más de tres veces el gasto militar de China y aproximadamente diez veces el de Rusia. Mientras tanto, Estados Unidos tiene más de 800 bases militares extranjeras, un arsenal de alrededor de 5.500 ojivas nucleares y vastos despliegues de tropas y armas en todo el mundo, cada vez más concentrados en la vecindad de China.

Continue reading De la contención a la confrontación, del frío al calor: el impulso de EE.UU. hacia la guerra contra China

British government’s Strategic Defence Review hypes war threat against China

The British government published its new “defence” strategy on June 2.

According to a summary carried by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), it “aims to put a ‘stronger, more lethal’ Nato at the forefront of British defence plans as the country boosts its nuclear deterrent, rebuilds munitions and weapons stockpiles and invests billions of pounds into technologically advanced warfare methods.”

Filled with bellicose, Cold War rhetoric, the strategy, as reported by the SCMP:

  • Recommends that Britain should begin discussions with the US and NATO on the “potential benefits and feasibility of enhanced UK participation in NATO’s nuclear mission”. The government wants to achieve this by renewing its existing nuclear deterrent, investing £15 billion (US$20 billion) in its warhead programme.
  • The review is explicit in the need for Britain to play a greater role in nuclear deterrence, as the only European country to assign its nuclear capability to the defence of NATO – something that France does not currently do. The need for stepped-up UK action is driven by “the unprecedented challenge” of the US facing two “near-peer” nuclear powers in Russia and China.
  • With Trident already absorbing much of the UK’s defence expenditure, the policy is likely to be expensive. As well as the investment in nuclear warheads, Britain plans to build as many as 12 new submarines.
  • The study also describes China as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge” while falling short of calling it a threat – in line with the government’s existing approach to the Asian nation. It does warn, however, that the UK is likely to face Chinese technology wherever and with whomever it fights.

Simon Tisdall, foreign affairs commentator for the Guardian newspaper, described the new strategy as escalating the global nuclear arms race and “bringing us closer to Armageddon.”

He writes: “Plans by Keir Starmer’s government to modernise and potentially expand Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal, unveiled in the 2025 strategic defence review (SDR), seriously undermine international non-proliferation efforts… This dangerous path leads in one direction only: towards the normalisation of nuclear warfare.

“These unconscionable proposals are a far cry from the days when Robin Cook, Labour’s foreign secretary from 1997 to 2001, championed unilateral nuclear disarmament and helped scrap the UK’s airdropped gravity bombs. They are a continuation of a redundant, inhuman, immoral, potentially international law-breaking deterrence policy that cash-strapped Britain can ill afford, will struggle to implement at cost and on time, and which perpetuates illusions about its global power status.”

Responding to the review, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Defence rebuked Britain for hyping up the so-called “China threat”. He urged the British side to perceive China in a correct manner and objectively and rationally view China and its military development. “The British side should make more practical efforts to contribute to the growth of relations between the two countries and their militaries.”

In an opinion article, China Military Online wrote:

Continue reading British government’s Strategic Defence Review hypes war threat against China

China is a force for peace and progress, that’s why the world needs China

Friends of Socialist China was among the organisers of a hybrid event in Portland, Oregon (US), held on 22 June 2025, discussing Kyle Ferrana’s important book Why the World Needs China.

In his speech (delivered via Zoom), Carlos Martinez endorsed the central thesis of the book, arguing that China represents a global vision centred around peace, progress and sustainable development; whereas the US and its allies represent a global vision centred around imperialism, hegemony, war, ecocide and chaos.

Discussing recent developments in West Asia, in particular the US-Israeli criminal attacks on Iran and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Carlos highlighted China’s constructive role in the region, including its mediation between Iran and Saudi Arabia and its support for Palestinian unity. He linked the attacks on Iran with the West’s continuing efforts to destabilise China and broader imperialist resistance against a rising multipolar world.

Emphasising the need for global solidarity, Carlos called for building “a global united front composed of the socialist countries, the national liberation movements, the anti-imperialist forces of the Global South, and the progressive forces in the advanced capitalist countries”, for supporting the forces of liberation worldwide, and for supporting the socialist countries – “and particularly China, as the largest and most advanced socialist country, as the country which is at the core of the emerging multipolar system”.

The video of the speech is embedded below, followed by the text.

“Why the World Needs China” is the somewhat provocative title of Kyle’s book.

But in my view the essential correctness of this title is becoming clearer and clearer with every passing day, and specifically with every despicable act of aggression carried out by the United States and its Israeli proxy against the people of Palestine, of Iran, of Yemen and of Lebanon.

As you all know, last night the US military openly joined Israel’s criminal war against Iran, bombing three nuclear facilities. I say “openly joined the war”, because the fact is that the US and its allies been providing weapons, intelligence, logistical support, war propaganda and diplomatic cover from the very beginning – both for this war on Iran and for the genocidal assault on Gaza.

The whole world can increasingly see what the United States and its allies represent, and increasingly the whole world can see what China represents. And these are two vastly different visions of the future of the world, one put forward by the capitalist class in the United States, one put forward by the working class in China.

The US is proposing a Project for a New American Century. This neoconservative notion – originally associated with notorious hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – has become a consensus position in mainstream US politics, adhered to by all administrations, Republican and Democrat alike. It’s a fundamentally hegemonist, imperialist proposal; a proposal for spreading death and destruction for the sake of projecting the US’s domination of the 20th century into the 21st century.

Continue reading China is a force for peace and progress, that’s why the world needs China

China will continue to be a stabilising force for peace and progress

From May 13-14, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD), which works under the direction of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (IDCPC) hosted the Fourth Wanshou Dialogue on Global Security, themed as “Universal Security in a Turbulent World: The Responsibility of Major Countries”. Liu Jianchao, Minister of the IDCPC, attended the event and delivered a keynote speech.

More than 50 international security experts from over 30 countries, including Pino Arlacchi, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Andrey Kortunov, former director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, Benny Octaviar, former head of the Indonesian Military Research Centre, Douglas Bandow, a special assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan and a senior research fellow at the Cato Institute, and Zizi Kodwa, a member of the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress (ANC) and former Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture of South Africa, attended the event.

The participants held in-depth discussions around four topics, namely Pressing Issues of Global Security, The Responsibility of Major Countries Amidst Once in a Century Transformations, Major Country Relations and Security in the Asia Pacific and Pathways to Universal Security.

Friends of Socialist China was invited to participate in the dialogue and we were ably represented by Dr. Jenny Clegg, a Member of our Advisory Group, who is the author of ‘China’s Global Strategy: Towards a Multipolar World’, a Vice President of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) and a leading member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Stop the War Coalition.

We reproduce below Jenny’s report of the event as well as the text of her speech, which was delivered to the panel session on Major Country Relations and Security in the Asia Pacific.

We also reprint the report of the opening session which was originally carried on the IDCPC website.

The CPAPD website carried a brief report on the event as well as a meeting with Peng Qinghua, Vice-Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Labour Outlook also carried an article, based in part on Jenny’s speech.

Continue reading China will continue to be a stabilising force for peace and progress

Hegseth demands Indo-Pacific allies escalate military spending, prepare for war on China

In this article for Struggle La Lucha, Gary Wilson critiques US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue, in which Hegseth urged the US’s regional allies to ramp up military spending in preparation for possible war with China.

Hegseth claimed in his speech that Beijing is preparing to wage war in order to reunite Taiwan Province with the mainland, declaring that “the threat China poses is real, and it could be imminent”. Gary writes:

Hegseth and the Trump administration are attempting to recast China’s efforts to maintain national sovereignty as “aggression,” while portraying US military escalation in China’s immediate periphery as defensive. It’s a textbook example of how imperialism inverts reality.

The article notes that Washington in recent years has been persistently undermining the One China policy, through arms sales, military training, naval patrols, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic efforts that treat Taiwan as an independent state. “All of this raises the stakes deliberately. The US is trying to provoke a response from China, just as it did with Russia over NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. In essence, what Hegseth is demanding is a US military takeover of China’s Taiwan — disguised as ‘defending democracy.'”

The article situates these moves within a broader trend: the US’s global war strategy, including support for war in Ukraine and Israel’s assault on Gaza, all components of the US-led response to the crisis of capitalism. As China’s technological and economic rise challenges US hegemony, Gary warns the US is increasingly willing to risk catastrophic war — including nuclear confrontation — to maintain its dominance.

Listing the numerous ways in which the US is escalating its longstanding campaign of encirclement and containment of China, the article concludes:

The Trump administration is determined to strangle China’s rise — by war if necessary. This is not a defensive strategy. It is a conscious plan to preserve U.S. global supremacy, even if it risks nuclear war.

At the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 31, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered an ultimatum to Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies: Escalate your military spending and prepare for imminent war with China.

Framing China as the aggressor, Hegseth accused Beijing of seeking “hegemony in Asia” and warned that a Chinese move on Taiwan would bring “devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world.” “There’s no reason to sugarcoat it,” he declared. “The threat China poses is real. And it could be imminent.”

Please note that Taiwan is internationally recognized as part of the People’s Republic of China. Under the One China policy, the United States officially acknowledges this. Since the 1970s, the U.S. has agreed not to recognize Taiwan as a separate state. 

So when U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks of preparing for war over Taiwan, what he’s really advocating is: a U.S. military intervention to take away a province of China.

This is akin to China threatening war if the U.S. deployed troops to Long Island, N.Y. or Isle Royale in Lake Superior on Canada’s border. 

Hegseth and the Trump administration are attempting to recast China’s efforts to maintain national sovereignty as “aggression,” while portraying U.S. military escalation in China’s immediate periphery as defensive. It’s a textbook example of how imperialism inverts reality.

Furthermore, the U.S. has systematically undermined the One China framework by increasing arms sales to Taiwan, sending high-level officials to visit the island’s capital, Taipei, stationing American troops and conducting joint military training there, and encouraging Taiwanese political figures who flirt with formal declarations of independence.

In addition to arms sales and military visits, the U.S. has steadily undermined the One China policy through a range of provocative actions. These include expanding intelligence sharing and joint military planning with Taiwan, increasing naval and air patrols near the island, and passing legislation to deepen official ties. The U.S. has also promoted Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, supported the development of its domestic arms industry, and formalized trade agreements that treat Taiwan as a separate entity. Collectively, these moves aim to transform Taiwan into a U.S. military and economic outpost, escalating tensions with China and pushing the region closer to open conflict.

All of this raises the stakes deliberately. The U.S. is trying to provoke a response from China, just as it did with Russia over NATO’s expansion to Ukraine. In essence, what Hegseth is demanding is a U.S. military takeover of China’s Taiwan — disguised as “defending democracy.”

Continue reading Hegseth demands Indo-Pacific allies escalate military spending, prepare for war on China

US imperialism’s New Cold War against China fosters anti-Asian racism at home

The article below by Duncan McFarland and Liu Xuegang argues that US foreign policy – particularly its increasingly hostile stance toward China – has direct and harmful consequences for Chinese and Asian communities in the US.

The authors trace a long history of anti-Asian sentiment linked to US imperialist strategy, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the McCarthyite Cold War propaganda of the 1940s and 50s. In recent years, tensions have escalated sharply under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Trump’s team has declared China a top strategic threat, launched a tariff war, and escalated the state’s attack on Chinese scientists, researchers and students in the US.

The article concludes that US imperialism fosters division and racism at home as it pursues global dominance. It calls for resistance to the New Cold War and urges solidarity with global movements for peace and cooperation.

The international working class does not want war. It is imperative to oppose Cold War 2.0, work for peace, and support initiatives, especially in the Global South and China, for cooperation on global issues such as climate change, pandemics, war, and poverty.

U.S. imperialism divides the world into hostile camps; this is the wrong approach. The people of the world want peace, prosperity, and cooperation. The U.S. policy of hegemony abroad promotes racism at home; the struggle for justice and freedom at home is also a struggle for peace abroad.

This article originally appeared in People’s World. The authors are members of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee, Peace and Solidarity Commission, CPUSA.

U.S. foreign policy can have a great impact on people’s daily lives here at home, and U.S. policy toward China is a prime example. When the U.S. conducts a hostile, anti-China foreign policy, there is increased racism and repression in the Asian and Chinese American communities in the U.S.

On the other hand, when relations with China are good, such as during World War II or the 1980s, mainstream media depicted Chinese Americans as friendly, patriotic, and the “model minority.”

As U.S. imperialism’s new Cold War against China heats up, familiar patterns are repeating themselves under new conditions.

Historical background

The Central Pacific Railroad employed large numbers of Chinese immigrants to build the western half of the Transcontinental Railway, completed in 1869. However, no Chinese workers were invited to the golden spike ceremony at the completion of the project. Especially with the overthrow of Reconstruction, racist attitudes prevailed, and the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed in 1882. This blocked Chinese workers from entering the U.S.; it was the first anti-immigration legislation targeting a specific ethnic group or country of origin.

In 1913, the novel The Insidious Fu Manchu was a hit and became a cultural icon full of racist stereotypes about the ever-lurking, insidious Dr. Fu. But during the 1930s, the U.S. and China became important allies in the Pacific War against Japanese imperialism and aggression.

Continue reading US imperialism’s New Cold War against China fosters anti-Asian racism at home

Socialist China’s role in combating imperialist domination

The following article, written by Betsey Piette for Workers World, highlights socialist China’s growing role in challenging US-led imperialist domination and argues that defending China is essential to the global struggle against capitalism.

Betsey stresses the need to foster internationalist consciousness among workers and young activists, linking domestic struggles with global anti-imperialist movements. She critiques the propaganda that falsely equates China and the US as being equivalent capitalist ‘superpowers’, arguing that this narrative obscures the exploitative and chaotic nature of US capitalism while ignoring China’s remarkable achievements under socialism.

Betsey observes that, despite the US’s escalating campaign of military encirclement and economic warfare, China’s economy continues to expand, living standards continue to improve, and its international cooperation continues to deepen, including with the US’s “traditional allies”.

Betsey asserts that China’s planned economy and state-led development – which have resulted not only in vastly increased living standards for the Chinese people but also in China becoming a science and technology powerhouse – offer an inspiring alternative model to capitalist neoliberalism.

The article concludes by calling for systematic defence of China’s socialist system against US threats of war, warning that economic aggression may escalate into military conflict. China’s is a revolution in motion that must be defended by the global working class.

Despite decades of wars and occupations of countries abroad, the U.S. faces a global challenge it is unable to contain. This challenge is multifaceted, but three things stand out:

One is the relentless resistance of the people of Palestine and West Asia in elevating their struggle for a free Palestine. 

A second is the challenge from socialist China’s resistance to U.S. capitalist domination of the global economy.

The third is a growing awareness among young people that they have no future under capitalism, with its unchecked environmental catastrophes and its ready acceptance of fascist politicians. 

A key challenge for the party and the movements we are part of is how to encourage young activists and workers to develop a more global outlook when it comes to capitalism and imperialism and to see why socialism offers the solution.

Demands are important

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is the most popular demand for Palestine and one that gets the most pushback from the Zionists. This demand doesn’t just raise opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza — it supports the future goal for Palestinians. Demands are important.

As we oppose the threat of imperialist war against China, we need to raise awareness about transformation and resulting gains made by socialism in China.

Imperialist propaganda puts an equal sign between the U.S. and China as “superpowers” — as if they are both capitalist countries. Corporate media pundits and politicians promote the lies that “China is repressive, that their economy is failing, that there is widespread unemployment, no opportunities for young people, etc.” It’s like they are looking in a mirror where what is reflected back are the conditions in the U.S., not China.

Continue reading Socialist China’s role in combating imperialist domination

From containment to confrontation, from cold to hot: the US drive to war on China

In the following article, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez argues that the US-led New Cold War against China is failing. Despite extensive efforts to contain China’s rise – through tariffs, sanctions, and attempts at economic decoupling – China continues to grow economically and technologically. It now leads globally in multiple areas including renewable energy, electric vehicles, and advanced manufacturing. Its global reach is expanding, as evidenced by its central role in BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, and its status as the top trading partner for three-quarters of the world’s countries.

The West’s tariffs and sanctions have clearly backfired, invigorating China’s domestic industries rather than weakening them.

However, Carlos warns that the failure of “cold” methods could well provoke a shift toward direct military confrontation. The article identifies Taiwan as the most likely flashpoint, with the US escalating arms sales to the island and increasing its military deployments in the region. In the last two decades, successive US administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, have undermined the One China policy and fanned separatist sentiment, in defiance of international law.

Military preparations, including AUKUS, the rearmament of Japan, and new US bases in the Philippines, reflect a growing bipartisan consensus in Washington in favour of war planning.

This all adds up to accelerating preparations for war with China – a war with the objective of dismantling Chinese socialism, establishing a comprador regime (or set of regimes), privatising China’s economy, rolling back the extraordinary advances of the Chinese working class and peasantry, and replacing common prosperity with common destitution. Needless to say, this would be disastrous not just for the Chinese people but for the entire global working class.

Carlos calls for resolute opposition to this dangerous escalation.

The New Cold War is not working

The US-led ‘cold’ war against China is manifestly failing in its objectives of suppressing China’s rise and weakening its global influence.

China’s economy continues to grow steadily. In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, it is by now the largest in the world. Its mobilisation of extraordinary resources to break out of underdevelopment and become a science and technology superpower appears to be paying substantial dividends, with the country establishing a clear lead globally in renewable energy, electric vehicles, telecommunications, advanced manufacturing, infrastructure construction and more. It is by far the global leader in poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Sanctions on semiconductor exports have not slowed down China’s progress in computing, and indeed have had an enzymatic effect on its domestic chip industry. The spectacular success of DeepSeek’s open-source R1 large language model indicates that the US can no longer take its leadership in the digital realm for granted.

Meanwhile, the West’s attempts to ‘decouple’ from China have yielded precious little fruit. While a handful of imperialist countries have promised to remove Huawei from their network infrastructure, and while sanctions on Chinese electric vehicles mean that consumers in the West have to pay obscene sums for inferior quality cars, China’s integration and mutually-beneficial cooperation with the world has continued to expand. China is the largest trading partner of approximately two-thirds of the world’s countries. Over 150 states are signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative. China lies at the core of BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Trump’s tariffs were meant to coerce China into accepting the US’s trade terms and to force other countries to unambiguously join Washington’s economic and geopolitical ‘camp’, thereby alienating China. Nothing of the sort has taken place. Even the normally supine European Union has denounced the tariffs and signalled its intention to expand trade with China.

In summary, the Project for a New American Century is not going well. Zbigniew Brzezinski famously wrote in his The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) that “the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.” Precisely such an anti-hegemonic coalition exists, and is uniting the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific in a project of building a multipolar future, thereby posing an existential challenge to the so-called ‘rules-based international order’ based on the principles of unilateralism, war, destabilisation, coercion and unequal exchange.

Continue reading From containment to confrontation, from cold to hot: the US drive to war on China

US war on China, a long time coming

The following article by W. T. Whitney Jr, originally published in People’s World, connects the Trump administration’s hostility towards China back to the US-led campaign of containment and encirclement starting in 1949 with the proclamation of the People’s Republic.

While the current state of relations between the two countries is often described as a New Cold War, Whitney points out that it has a significant military component, with 400 US bases surrounding China with ships, missiles and troops. Furthermore, “US allies in the Western Pacific—Japan and South Korea in the North, Australia and Indonesia in the South, and The Philippines and various islands in between—have long hosted U.S. military installations and/or troop deployments. Nuclear-capable planes and vessels are at the ready. US Navy and Air Force units regularly carry out joint training exercises with the militaries of other nations.”

Vast investment is being ploughed into weapons development in the US, and Trump-supporting producers of advanced modern weaponry (such as Peter Thiel) “exert sufficient influence over government decision-making to ensure happy times for the new breed of weapon producers”.

The article concludes with a call for the anti-war movement in the West to step up in its opposition to war on China, and its efforts to build stronger people-to-people links between the West and China:

Will resistance to war against China end up stronger and more effective than earlier anti-war mobilizations in the post-Vietnam War era?  A first step toward resisting would be to build awareness of the reality that war with China may come soon. General knowledge of relevant history should be broadened, with emphasis on how U.S. imperialism works and on its capitalist origins. Anyone standing up for peace and no war ought to be reaching out in solidarity with socialist China.

Despite all the hype about a possible “breakthrough” in the U.S.’ trade war with China due to Trump’s tariff retreats, the reality is that the movement toward an actual war with China accelerates.

The public, focused on troubles currently upending U.S. politics, does not pay much attention to a war that has actually been on the way for decades.

The watershed moment of course came all the way back in 1949 with the victory of China’s socialist revolution. Amid resurgent anti-communism in the United States, accusations flourished of “who ‘lost’ China.”

Loss in U.S. eyes happened in China with the dawning of national independence and promise of social change. In 1946, a year after the Japanese war ended, U.S. Marines, allied with Chinese Nationalist forces, the Kuomintang, were fighting the People’s Liberation Army in Northeast China.

The U.S. government that year was delaying the return home of troops who fought against Japan. Soldier Erwin Marquit, participant in “mutinies” opposing the delay, explained that the U.S. wanted to “keep open the option of intervention by U.S. troops … [to support] the determination of imperialist powers to hold on to their colonies and neocolonies,” China being one of these.

Continue reading US war on China, a long time coming

Trump’s tariffs and the New Cold War on China

The article below is based on a speech by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez to a webinar held by the Black Liberation Alliance on the subject of ‘Trump’s Tariff Wars on the Global South and the New Cold War’, held on 8 May 2025.

Carlos positions the tariff war within the broader US-led New Cold War on China. The tariffs are essentially “a continuation and a deepening of Obama’s so-called Pivot to Asia, designed by Hillary Clinton and first announced in 2011”.

The Trump administration’s justifications for its tariff war – that it will result in re-industrialisation of the US and increase in income – are patent nonsense. “In fact, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent stated openly last month that the objective for the tariffs is to persuade Japan, South Korea and India to participate in a ‘grand encirclement’ strategy to isolate and weaken China.”

Carlos writes that “the US is seeking to punish China for its success in building a modern economy, for developing its sovereignty, and for its refusal to bow down to US hegemony… China’s rise disrupts the whole imperialist system. It gets in the way of the relationship the US wants to have with the rest of the world, whereby it can design the global economic and financial system in its own interests.”

The article observes that the tariff war has no chance of being successful: “The US ruling class wants to isolate China, but actually it will end up isolating itself.” However, with the failure of the tariff war comes the possibility of further dangerous developments:

The obvious concern following on from that is that US imperialism’s next weapon against China may be not be a metaphorical one; that the New Cold War will turn hot. Anti-war movements in the West need to be highly vigilant on that score.

The other speakers on the panel were Radhika Desai (International Manifesto Group), Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report) and Myriam Kane (Black Liberation Alliance).

The first thing to say about the Trump administration’s tariff war is that it is primarily designed to weaken, undermine and isolate the People’s Republic of China.

It’s part of a broader program of “decoupling” from China and a broader New Cold War on China – a system of hybrid warfare incorporating economic measures, diplomatic measures and propaganda measures, along with a significant military component: the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops to the Pacific region; the US military bases in the Philippines, Guam, Okinawa, Japan, South Korea, Australia; the deployment of sophisticated weapons systems to the region; and the various attempts to create some sort of Asian NATO.

Continue reading Trump’s tariffs and the New Cold War on China