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As tensions remain high in the region, Taiwan Air Force pilots were seen rushing to F-16V jets as part of drills simulating the interception of an incursion into the disputed island’s defense zone.
F-16V fighter jets perform an elephant walk
during an annual New Year's drill in Chiayi, Chinese Taipei, on January
5, 2022. (Photo by Reuters)
Taiwan's air force
has conducted a drill simulating a war situation to show the self-ruled
island's combat readiness amid heightened tensions with Beijing.
The exercises were carried out at a base in the southern city of
Chiayi on Wednesday, where Taiwanese jets took off into the sky as part
of a three-day drill to show off the self-governed island's military
prowess ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday at the end of this month.
Flight crews rushed to ready aircraft as an alarm sounded before
takeoff at the base, home to US-made F-16 fighter jets, which frequently
scrambles jets to intercept Chinese planes.
Major Yen Hsiang-sheng told reporters that with the very high
frequency of Chinese planes entering Taipei's self-designated
air defense identification zone (ADIZ), "pilots from our wing are very
experienced and have dealt with almost all types of their aircraft."
The latest development comes as tensions among Chinese Taipei, China,
and the United States have been at their highest in decades.
China has been flying fighter jets close to Chinese Taipei while the
US has reportedly had troops deployed in the territory for the past year
for alleged training purposes.
China flew 150 planes over Taipei's self-designated air defense
identification zone in the first five days of October. Taipei's defense
ministry described the show of force as an "incursion."
Last month, President Joe Biden said the US would come to Taipei's
aid if it were to come under attack from China, claiming it had a
commitment to defend the self-ruled island. China blasted the statement,
accusing Washington of meddling in Chinese internal affairs.
China has sovereignty over Chinese Taipei, and under the "One China"
policy, almost all world countries recognize that sovereignty. The US,
too, recognizes Chinese sovereignty over the island but has long courted
Taipei in defiance of Beijing.
The United States, which backs Taipei's secessionist president, also
continues to sell weapons to the island in violation of its own stated
policy.
China has in the past said its military exercises near Chinese Taipei
are a "solemn warning" to secessionist factions in the self-ruled
island and their foreign backers, particularly the United States.
Beijing has also warned Taipei against making moves
toward independence, saying it will take "drastic measures" if the
self-governed island crosses red lines.
Beijing has accused Washington of exhibiting “paranoid delusion” and “Cold War mentality,” after the US Senate passed a new bill aimed at bolstering the position of American tech in competing with China.
The foreign affairs committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, blasted the new US legislation on Wednesday, accusing Washington of seeking to undermine the country’s “legitimate right to development through technology and economic decoupling.”
The legislation is “full of Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice,” and the Chinese parliament is voicing “strong indignation and resolute opposition” to it, the committee said in a statement carried by China’s state media.
The bill shows that the paranoid delusion of egoism has distorted the original intention of innovation and competition.
The new legislation, officially known as the US Innovation and Competition Act, was passed by the Senate on Tuesday. The bill, which has become one of the largest industrial bills in the US history, received broad bipartisan support, getting passed 68-31. After scoring the Senate’s approval, the bill is now heading into the House of Representatives.
The bill authorizes around $190 billion to strengthen US technology and research, as well as some $54 billion to increase production and research into semiconductors and other telecommunications equipment.
“If we do nothing, our days as the dominant superpower may be ending. We don’t mean to let those days end on our watch. We don’t mean to see America become a middling nation in this century,” one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, stated.
Apart from giving a big boost to American research and development, the legislation also contains a wide range of explicit anti-China provisions. Namely, it bans the downloading of Chinese social media app TikTok on government-issued devices, as well as blocking the procurement of drones manufactured by companies linked to the Chinese government.
The legislation also delves into matters rather remotely related to big tech, such as enabling Taiwanese diplomats and military to display the island’s flags and wear uniforms while conducting official business in the US. Taiwan is regarded by Beijing as an integral part of the country, and China has repeatedly accused Washington of meddling in its internal affairs and violating the so-called ‘one China’ policy.
China says
some “political forces” in the United States have taken bilateral
relations hostage and are pushing the world’s two biggest economies
towards “a new Cold War.”
Speaking
on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing Sunday,
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Wu said “a political virus is spreading in
the United States” which is “using every opportunity to attack and
smear China.”
Wang
said China has no intention to either change or replace the U.S.,
and that the U.S. should abandon its “wishful thinking of changing
China and stopping 1.4 billion people in their historic march toward
modernization.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks to reporters via
video link at a news conference held on the sidelines of the National
People's Congress (NPC), from the Great Hall of the People in Beijing,
China, May 24, 2020.
The
Trump administration has clashed with Beijing over a range of issues in
recent months, including trade, technology, and the coronavirus
pandemic, with President Donald Trump himself alleging the virus escaped
from a lab in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus was first
detected late last year.
China’s
proposed security law for Hong Kong is the latest flashpoint between
the two sides, which critics say threatens Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous
status.
Internal memo says China should prepare for “worst case scenario” of “armed conflict” with USA, according to Reuters
A leaked Chinese memo recommends the country prepare for a
“worst-case” scenario of “armed confrontation” with the United States
amid global backlash over the coronavirus pandemic, according to
Reuters.
Chinese leaders are concerned about anti-China
sentiment spreading across the globe as controversy grows over China’s
handling of the coronavirus during the outbreak’s early stages, but it’s
unknown if the memo reported by Reuters currently reflects the
sentiment of Beijing or if it’s intended to put the country on a war
footing.
“An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a
rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that
could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people
familiar with the paper told Reuters,” the outlet reported,
stating that it didn’t see the memo directly. “The report, presented
early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing
leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China
sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown,
the sources said.”
It is known that the US and China have both stepped up military activity
in the disputed South China Sea over the past few days, with both the
USS Bunker Hill and the USS Barry sailing near islands claimed by China
and several other countries.
And the Czech Republic installed signs
informing their Chinese tourists of the events of the 1989 Tiananmen
Square protests, and to put this into context, China has spent the past
several decades censoring all information on the ’89 protests involving
‘Tank Man’ that an entire generation of Chinese citizens have grown up completely unaware the protests ever happened.
“China’s early coverup of the outbreak – including silencing
and/or disappearing whistleblowing doctors and journalists, lying about
the transmissibility of the virus while hoarding personal protective
equipment (PPE), quarantining Wuhan domestically while allowing
international travel and using the World Health Organization to run
cover – has drawn global scorn as COVID has infected over 3.5 million
and killed nearly 250,000 in five months,” Zero Hedge reported.
The West’s wish to pin the blame on China (and probably the bill
too) for the Covid-19 pandemic has been reportedly incarnated in a
15-page dossier compiled by intelligence agencies, which has now leaked,
according to reports.
The document, described by the Australian newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, was prepared by “concerned Western governments.”
The publication mentions that the Five Eyes intelligence agencies are
investigating China, pointing to the United States, Australia, New
Zealand, Canada and the UK.
The authors of the research found some
pretty strange ways to paint China’s response to the outbreak in a
negative and even sinister way. For instance, despite a presumed
requirement for brevity in such a short paper it refers to a study which
claimed the killer coronavirus had been created in a lab.
The scientific community’s consensus says otherwise, while US
intelligence is on the record agreeing with this position. The study
itself has been withdrawn because there was no direct proof to support
the theory, as its author Botao Xiao acknowledged. But the ‘China
dossier’ found a warm spot for a mention, it appears.
A large
portion of the document is apparently dedicated to the Wuhan Institute
of Virology and one of its top researchers, Shi Zhengli, who has a long
and distinguished career of studying SARS-like coronaviruses and bats as
their natural reservoirs. It seems the dossier is not interested in the
database of bat-related viruses she helped create but rather in the
claim that the Covid-19 pandemic started as a leak from her lab.
The
dossier points to the so-called gain-of-function research that Dr. Shi
was involved in. Such studies are aimed at identifying possible
mutations in infectious agents that may occur naturally and makes them
much more dangerous to humans. Creating stems with such mutations in the
lab allows to prepare for a possible outbreak, though whether such
research is worth the risk of accidental release or even bioterrorism
attacks has been subject to much debate.
In the contents of the dossier however the implications seem clear:
what if China lost control of one of its dangerous samples and then did
everything it could to cover it up? The alleged obfuscation seems to be
the main focus of the damning document. It claims Beijing was engaged in
“suppression and destruction of evidence” including by
disinfecting the food market believed to be the ground zero of the
Covid-19 pandemic. China is also accused of hypocrisy because it imposed
a ban on internal travel from the Hubei province while arguing against a
ban on international flights.
“Millions of people leave Wuhan after the outbreak and before Beijing locks down the city on January 23,” the newspaper cited the document as saying. “Thousands
fly overseas. Throughout February, Beijing presses the US, Italy,
India, Australia, Southeast Asian neighbours and others not to protect
themselves via travel restrictions, even as the PRC imposes severe
restrictions at home.”
A Senior Intelligence Source tells me there is agreement among most of the 17 Intelligence agencies that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab. The source stressed that the release is believed to be a MISTAKE, and was not intentional.
The leaked dossier is yet to be made public for independent scrutiny.
But the dramatic tone of the quotes in the Telegraph and the far-fetched
implications indicate that it is along the lines of infamous
intelligence assessments and media leaks by anonymous officials, which
have been the staple of Western foreign policy for decades. Remember how
Saddam Hussein secretly obtained yellowcake uranium and was ready to
strike Europe with his missiles in 45 minutes? Or the Russian bots that
swayed the 2016 election with memes? If true, we can expect many
‘revelations’ in months to come.
WHO guidelines for sex education recommend that children aged 0-4 be taught about “masturbation” and “gender identity.”
The World Health Organization’s ‘Standards for Sexuality Education in
Europe: A framework for policymakers, educational and health
authorities and specialists’, advises children be taught about sexually pleasuring themselves and transgenderism before they’ve even fully learned to talk.
The WHO advises that children aged 0-4 are given “information about
enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s body… masturbation.”
Toddlers are also to be encouraged to “gain an awareness of gender identity” and given “the right to explore gender identities.”
In the ages 4-6 bracket, educators are urged to “give information
about same-sex relationships” and “help children develop respect for
different norms regarding sexuality.”
Social media networks are removing material and banning people who criticize the World’s Health Organization’s guidelines.
Given that the global health body is pushing such sickness onto
toddlers, the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw funding is
looking better every day.
Having tumbled yesterday on the first set of headlines reporting on the Trump administration's plans to seek 'COVID reparations' amid accusations of Chinese 'meddling' in the US election (obviously not in
favor of Trump), the Chinese yuan legged dramatically lower in this
evening's illiquid session which sees most of Asia closed for May Day,
after Bloomberg reports that Trump is exploring blocking a
government retirement fund from investing in Chinese equities considered
a national security risk.
Trump made his initial threats from the Rose Garden at the White
House Monday after he was pressed by a reporter over a German newspaper
report suggesting that China should be issued a $160 billion invoice for
the impact on Europe's economy.
"We have ways of doing things a lot easier than that," Trump told the coronavirus press briefing. "Germany’s
looking at things, and we’re looking at things, and we’re talking about
a lot more money than Germany’s talking about."
"We haven’t determined the final amount yet. It’s very substantial," Trump added, suggesting it would be significantly more than the $160 billion floated in German media.
Asked whether he was considering the use of tariffs or even a debt
write-offs for China (something which Larry Kudlow vehemently rejected
earlier on Thursday), Trump would not offer specifics.
“There are many things I can do,” he said. “We’re looking for what happened.”
Since then various plans have been proposed, but Trump escalated the war of words further, during an Oval Office interview with Reuters published Wednesday night, saying that he thinks that China is determined to see him lose the November election
based on Beijing’s response to the coronavirus, and that he is
considering various ways to punish the Chinese government which he he
again blamed for allowing the virus to spread across the world.
"China will do anything they can to have me lose this race," Trump
said in the interview and said he was looking at different options in
terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he
said.
Which was quickly followed by denials from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, saying that China has no interest in interfering in internal U.S. affairs
(unless of course that 'affair' involves investigating the origin of
COVID-19). China hopes some people in U.S. won’t drag country into its
internal processes, Geng said.
And tonight, Bloomberg reports that, after months of pressure from
concerned lawmakers, according to a person familiar with the internal
deliberations, the Trump admin is planning an executive order to
block a 2017 decision that The Thrift Savings Plan, the federal
government’s retirement savings fund, would transfer a massive $50
billion to an international fund which would mirror the MSCI All-Country
World Index.
The issue being China's addition to the index, and thus the fund
being forced to allocate significant capital to the Chinese stock
markets, at a time when the gloves between the two nations are clearly
off.
Needless to say, the optics of the US halting capital from entering
China would be staggering and could result in a reversion of China-bound
capital flows across all Western countries until the current war of
words between Trump and Xi rages. The only problem is that, as we noted
yesterday, this particular war of words could last a long time, since
there is no longer any impetus to kiss and make up, and if anything,
Trump will only escalate the anti-China sentiment into the election (and
after), to keep pounding that the collapse resulting from the
coronavirus pandemic is not his fault, but rather's Beijing, even as
China pursues a mirror image approach, blaming the US for launching the
pandemic.
The most obvious market reaction for now is in Offshore Yuan which
has collapsed in the last two days, extending losses tonight...
Source: Bloomberg
Bloomberg reports that Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, applauded reports of the move in a statement Thursday.
“It’s outrageous that five unelected bureaucrats appointed by the
previous administration have ignored bipartisan calls from Congress to
reverse this short-sighted decision, and I applaud President Trump for
directing his administration to take swift action preventing this from
going forward,” he said.
We would expect China to be furious at this discussion and wonder
what they will do to stall this move - one suggestion, given the
weakness in US equity futures overnight, is to push volatility back into
US markets - to shake the faith in the dramatic market rebound (that
The Fed enabled).
Both right wings of the US war party are hostile toward sovereign independent states that are free from its imperial control.
It’s notably true for nations with enormous hydrocarbon resources
like Iran and Venezuela — what the US seeks control over for added
ability to dominate other countries.
Most of all, it’s true for powerful nations like China and Russia, able to challenge US hegemonic aims effectively.
Russia’s super-weapons, exceeding the best in the West, made it the world’s dominant military power.
China’s growing economic, industrial, technological, and political
power most concerns US policymakers because of the country’s increasing
preeminence on the world stage at the expense of America in decline.
In their eyes, China is public enemy No. 1. Are both countries on a collision course for confrontation?
A rupture in political relations could follow the Trump regime’s trade war.
It’s exacerbated by unacceptable Pentagon incursions close to and in
Chinese waters, and now falsely blaming Beijing for spreading COVID-19
outbreaks to shift responsibility from US failures to deal with the
public health crisis effectively.
Intense China bashing affects US public opinion. A February Gallup
poll showed two-thirds of Americans view Beijing mostly or very
unfavorably — a 20 point decline from 2018.
A March poll by the organization showed nearly half of US respondents view China as a “critical threat.”
A new Pew Research poll showed two-thirds of Americans view China unfavorably. When Trump took office, it was 47%.
According to Asia Society’s director Orville Shell, “(i)t’s hardly surprising.”
“It’s now just about the only thing in Washington that Republicans
and (Dems) agree on…(They) have a much more skeptical view of China’s
intentions” — ignoring their own.
Negative US public opinion toward China shows propaganda works as intended.
According to former US National Security Council member Douglas Paal,
proposed congressional legislation calls for greater get tough on China
policies.
It’s an election issue. Congressional members and aspirants believe that publicly bashing China is a way to gain voter support.
Bilateral relations are likely to worsen ahead, including in the
aftermath of US November elections — heightening the risk of
confrontation by accident or design.
The outlook ahead is unsettling at best, a matter of great concern if bilateral relations continue deteriorating.
A rupture will be harmful to both countries. The US is China’s largest export market. It’s a major market for US exports.
According to the St. Louis Fed, agricultural products, aircraft, motor vehicles, and microchips are the top US exports to China.
The country is the world’s leading source of low-cost goods for the
US and many other nations. It’s a major buyer of US Treasuries.
In response to growing contentious relations with the US, China began
developing internal consumer-led growth years ago, including for
services — to be less dependent on exports for future growth, especially
to the West.
Has Russiagate shifted to Chinagate? US anti-China Cold War poses the risk of turning hot.
Is mutual trust beyond repair short-or-longer-term?
The issue goes way beyond Trump and GOP hardliners. If Biden succeeds
DJT as president in January, Sino/US relations are unlikely to improve.
Given the current trend, they’re more likely to further deteriorate.
Obama’s 2013 Asia pivot aimed to reassert America’s East Pacific
presence by advancing its military footprint in a part of the world
where it doesn’t belong.
It aims to challenge and counter China growing preeminence on the
world stage, while checking Russia in its far east at the same time.
Containment has been US policy throughout the post-WW II period, targeting nations able to challenge its hegemonic aims.
Cold War politics rages on multiple fronts, mainly against China and
Russia — in the Middle East against Iran, in Latin America against
Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
It’s what the scourge of Washington’s imperial agenda is all about, risking endless wars by hot and other means.
US imperial overreach threatens everyone everywhere.
What’s unthinkable is possible, the risk of military confrontation
with China and/or Russia that could go nuclear if pushed too far.
*
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
China has "tripled presence on Facebook and Twitter in recent months"
China has reportedly “tripled presence on Facebook and Twitter in
recent months” as it struggles to control Coronavirus narratives on the
internet as fingers have been pointed at them after their response to
the Covid-19 outbreak.
The world’s second biggest economy has reportedly bought up U.S. ads
to promote disinformation campaigns which have been likened to Russia by
the Wall Street Journal.
The efforts include ad
purchases on Facebook Inc. FB 0.52% promoting the English-language arms
of Chinese state-media outlets, as well as posts there and on Twitter
Inc.’s TWTR -0.32% platform that in some cases disparage U.S. efforts to
fight the global pandemic, the researchers say.
From mid-February until early March, social-media sites linked to
Chinese state media posted more than 3,300 times a day, triple the
normal rate, according to Recorded Future, a Somerville, Mass.-based
cybersecurity consulting firm. Those outlets were principally active on
Facebook and Twitter, the research showed.
China has tripled its presence on Facebook and Twitter in recent months, researchers say, to spread messages that can incite doubt about basic facts and sometimes promote fictitious claims https://t.co/IEZDaL6vfQ
The effort to buy up social media ads was in an effort to shape the
Western world’s opinion over China’s involvement in the Hong Kong
protests which were eclipsed by the coronavirus outbreak.
The deadly Covid-19, which China failed to contain or act
transparently, has left a trail of destruction in its wake; tens of
thousands have died from the coronavirus as well as paralyzing global
economics.
Since the end of 2018, China has bought up over 200 social media
ads–a third of which have been purchased in the past few months.
Researchers indicated China’s intentions acting in accordance with a
form of social consciousness damage control, after the general consensus
on the internet points to blaming China for the global pandemic
currently placing billions around the world on lockdown.
Several stories have emerged worsening China’s diplomatic image as
several countries report faulty PPE to combat the spread of the
Covid-19. The White House reported on face masks donated to Beijing from Italy being forcefully sold back as the Mediterranean country struggles to tackle the pandemic.
Last Year, Silicon Valley was reportedly colluding with China in the
creation of an extra-legal social credit system as individual freedoms
are trounced in order to contain the coronavirus.
Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warns that a
catastrophic conflict between America and China that will be “worse than
world wars” is inevitable unless the two sides sort out their
differences.
Kissinger made the comments at an event hosted by the National Committee on US China Relations in New York last night.
“We are in a difficult period now. I am confident the leaders on both
sides will realise the future of the world depends on the two sides
working out solutions and managing the inevitable difficulties,” said
Kissinger.
A permanent conflict between Washington And Beijing would be unwinnable and lead to “catastrophic outcome,” he added.
“It’s no longer possible to think that one side can dominate the
other…it will be worse than the world wars that ruined European
civilisation,” said Kissinger.
The U.S. and China have been embroiled in a trade war since President
Trump began imposing tariffs on thousands of Chinese-made products in a
bid to end unfair trading practices.
The "worst case" trade war scenario was avoided in Osaka on Saturday when Trump agreed to restart trade talks with Xi, holding off new tariffs on Chinese exports, and signaling a pause in the trade hostilities between the world’s two largest economies; Trump added that while existing tariffs would remain in place the
US president eased restrictions on Huawei as part of what is now the
second ceasefire between the two superpowers in two months, removing an
immediate threat looming over the global economy even as a lasting peace
remains elusive.
"We had a very good meeting with President Xi of China, excellent, I
would say excellent, as good as it was going to be," he said. "We
discussed a lot of things and we're right back on track and we'll see
what happens", Trump told reporters after an 80-minute meeting with
Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit of leaders of
the G-20 major economies in Osaka, western Japan.
“We’re holding back on tariffs and they’re going to buy farm products,” he said vaguely at a news conference, without giving any details of China’s future agricultural product purchases. “If
we make a deal, it will be a very historic event.” He gave no timeline
for what he called a complex deal but said he was not in a rush. “I want
to get it right.”
Whereas Trump and top admin officials alleged that Beijing had
reneged on provisions of a tentative trade deal, it was not immediately
clear if Xi agreed to return to previous agreements as part of the new
truce.
Trump, however, did relent on one of the major sticking points, saying U.S. firms would be allowed to sell components to Huawei, the
world’s biggest telecom network gear maker, where there was no national
security problem. The president said the U.S. commerce department would
meet in the next few days on whether to take it off a list of firms
banned from buying components and technology from U.S. companies without
government approval.
"I like our companies selling things to other people, so I allowed
that to happen," Trump said. “We’re talking about equipment where
there’s no great national security problem with it.” In recent months,
the Trump administration has been lobbying allies around the world not
to buy Huawei equipment, which the U.S. says could be used for Chinese
espionage.
Huawei was delighted by the news on its verified Twitter account:
“U-turn? Donald Trump suggests he would allow #Huawei to once again
purchase U.S. technology!”
Predictably, China also welcomed the step. “If the U.S. does what it
says, then of course, we welcome it,” said Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese
foreign ministry’s envoy for G20 affairs.
Trump said he had not yet decided how to allow U.S. companies to
continue selling to Huawei or whether to remove the tech giant from the
Commerce Department’s entity list. He said he would meet with advisors
next week to determine how to proceed.
U.S. microchip makers also applauded the move. “We are encouraged the
talks are restarting and additional tariffs are on hold and we look
forward to getting more detail on the president’s remarks on Huawei,”
John Neuffer, president of the U.S. Semiconductor Association, said in a
statement. Recently, Broadcom warned of a broad slowdown in demand as a
result of Huawei sanctions and slashed its revenue forecast.
And yet, it was not clear how long the exemption would last. Trump
said he had agreed with Xi to wait until the very end of trade talks to
resolve broader issues around Huawei, including Washington’s lobbying
campaign against allies buying its 5G equipment.
“Huawei is a complicated situation,” Trump said. “We’re leaving Huawei toward the end. We’ll see where we go with a trade agreement.”
The concession will likely draw criticism in Washington where
national security hawks have urged Trump not to ease any pressure
against Huawei. The company has long been the target of concern at the
Pentagon and intelligence agencies in part over what the U.S. claims are
its close ties to the Chinese military.
Huawei is one of few potent levers we have to make China play fair on trade.
If President @realDonaldTrump backs off, as it appears he is doing, it will dramatically undercut our ability to change China’s unfair trades practices.https://t.co/rja8CDs2T4
By agreeing to weaken restrictions on #Huawei, Trump not only undermined his own government, he undermined the entire argument #Huawei is a real national security threat. #facepalmhttps://t.co/BzuM8QA0Na
In exchange for his Huawei concession, Trump said Xi Jinping had promised to buy “tremendous” amounts of U.S. agricultural products. “We’re
going to give them a list of things we’d like them to buy,” Trump said
at a news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
However, as Bloomberg notes, the first indications the second fragile
truce will collapse soon is that the Chinese official media reports said
only that the U.S. president hopes China will import more American goods as part of the truce, without an actual confirmation it will do so.
For now, however, the second truce, after a similar ceasefire was
announced on December 1 at the Buenos Aires G-20 summit, has been
achieved, offering relief from a nearly year-long trade standoff in
which the countries have slapped tariffs on billions of dollars of each
other’s imports, disrupting global supply lines, roiling markets and
dragging on global economic growth.
In a lengthy statement on the two-way talks, China’s foreign ministry
quoted Xi as telling Trump he hoped the United States could treat
Chinese companies fairly. On the issues of sovereignty and respect, Xi
said that "China must safeguard its core interests."
“China is sincere about continuing negotiations with the
United States ... but negotiations should be equal and show mutual
respect,” the foreign ministry quoted Xi as saying.
Trump had threatened to extend existing tariffs to almost all Chinese
imports into the United States if the meeting brought no progress on
wide-ranging U.S. demands for reforms.
The return to the negotiating table ends a six-week stalemate that has unnerved companies and investors, and
at least temporarily reduces fears that the world’s two largest
economies are headed into a new cold war, which they still are but only
after the current stalemate ends allowing the S&P to rise above
3,000 in the the meantime. Because, as Bloomberg notes, it’s
unclear how they can overcome differences that led to the collapse of a
previous truce reached at the G-20 in November.
* * *
While Trump and Xi were all smiles at their press briefing, the bad
blood between the two leaders behind the scenes is clearly still there.
Xi spent much of the summit’s first day Friday promising to open up the
Chinese economy, and attacking the U.S. (without naming it) for its
attack on the global trading system. As Bloomberg reported, Xi took a
"not-so-subtle swipe" at Trump’s “America first” trade policy in remarks
to African leaders on Friday, warning against “bullying practices” and
adding that “any attempt to put one’s own interests first and undermine
others’ will not win any popularity.” Xi also called out the U.S. over
Huawei and said the G-20 should uphold the “completeness and vitality of
global supply chains.”
For now, however, there is optimism.
“Returning to negotiations is good news for the business community
and breathes some much needed certainty into a slowly deteriorating
relationship,” said Jacob Parker, a vice-president of China operations
at the U.S.-China Business Council. But "now comes the hard work
of finding consensus on the most difficult issues in the relationship,
but with a commitment from the top we’re hopeful this will put the two
sides on a sustained path to resolution,” he said.
Others were more skeptical, and warned the pause - just like the first ceasefire - will not last.
“Even if a truce happens this weekend, a subsequent breakdown of
talks followed by further escalation still seems likely,” Capital
Economics said in a commentary on Friday, quoted by Reuters.
The United States says China has been stealing American intellectual
property for years, forces U.S. firms to share trade secrets as a
condition for doing business in China, and subsidizes state-owned firms
to dominate industries. Meanwhile, China has said the United States is
making unreasonable demands and must also make concessions.
The talks collapsed in May after Washington accused Beijing of
reneging on reform pledges. Trump raised tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200
billion of Chinese goods, and China retaliated with levies on U.S.
imports.
The U.S.-China feud had cast a pall over the two-day G20 gathering,
with leaders pointing to the threat to global growth. In their
communique, the leaders warned of growing risks to the world economy but
stopped short of denouncing protectionism, calling instead for a free,
fair trade environment after talks some members described as difficult.
* * *
Finally, global markets will breathe a sigh of relief on news of the
resumption in U.S.-China trade talks, even as an official deal remains
elusive, and there is no indication of how the two countries will bridge
the most difficult aspect of a feud that has emerged beyond simple
trade and now affects most aspects of US and Chinese life.
The flip-side is that with trade talks back on, the Fed will feel far
less pressure to ease in July, and since in June stocks exploded higher
on hopes that the Fed will cut rates as much as 50bps next month, such a
reversal in US-China relations could potentially prevent Powell from
capitulating, and leave the Fed on hold, an outcome which would lead to a
sharp drop in US capital markets. Indeed, in recent weeks, the S&P
has returned to record highs, treasury yields have tumbled to their
lowest level in years. The Japanese yen, a traditional beneficiary of
flight to quality, has gained, while the U.S. dollar has slipped across
the board, including against China’s yuan.
The Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for both leaders—and for the world.
Despite determined attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously,
President Trump and Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet
at the G-20 gathering in Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of
their agenda. The Trump administration seems determined to wage cold,
possibly even hot, war against the Islamic Republic, while for Moscow,
as emphasized by the Kremlin’s national security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on June 25, “Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of ours.”
Indeed, the importance of Iran (along with China) to Russia can
hardly be overstated. Among other reasons, as the West’s military
alliance encroaches ever more along Russia’s western borders, Iran is a
large, vital non-NATO neighbor. Still more, Teheran has done nothing to
incite Russia’s own millions of Muslim citizens against Moscow. Well
before Trump, powerful forces in Washington have long sought to project
Iran as America’s primary enemy in the Middle East, but for Moscow it is
a necessary “ally and partner.”
In normal political circumstances, Trump and Putin could
probably diminish any potential US-Russian conflict over Iran—and the
one still brewing in Syria as well. But both leaders come to the summit
with related political problems at home. For Trump, they are the
unproven but persistent allegations of “Russiagate.” For Putin, they are
economic.
As I have also previously explained,
while there was fairly traditional “meddling,” there was no “Russian
attack” on the 2016 American presidential election. But for many
mainstream American commentators, including the editorial page editor of The Washington Post,
it is an “obvious truth” and likely to happen again in 2020, adding
ominously that Trump is still “cozying up to the chief perpetrator,
Russian President Vladimir Putin.” A New York Times columnist goes further,
insisting that Russia “helped to throw the election” to Trump. Again,
there is no evidence whatsoever for these allegations. Also consider the
ongoing assault on Attorney General William Barr,
whose current investigation into the origins of “Russiagate” threatens
to conclude that the scandal originated not with Russia but with US
intelligence agencies under President Obama, in particular with the CIA
under John Brennan.
We should therefore not be surprised, despite possible
positive national security results of the Trump-Putin summit in Japan,
if the US president is again widely accused of “treason,” as he so
shamefully was following his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July
2018, and as I protested at that time. Even the Times’
once-dignified columnist pages thundered, “Trump, Treasonous Traitor”
and “Putin’s Lackey,” while senior US senators, Democrat and Republican
alike, did much the same.
Putin’s domestic problem, on the other hand, is economic and
social. Russia’s annual growth rate is barely 2 percent, real wages are
declining, popular protests against officialdom’s historically endemic
corruption are on the rise, and Putin’s approval rating, while still
high, is declining. A public dispute between two of Putin’s advisers has
broken out over what to do. On the one side is Alexei Kudrin, the
leading monetarist who has long warned against using billions of dollars
in Russia’s “rainy day” funds to spur investment and economic growth.
On the other is Sergei Glaziev, a kind of Keynesian, FDR New Dealer who
has no less persistently urged investing these funds in new domestic
infrastructure that would, he argues, result in rapid economic growth.
During his nearly 20 years as Kremlin leader, Putin has generally sided with the “rainy day” monetarists. But on June 20, during his annual television call-in event,
he suddenly, and elliptically, remarked that even Kudrin “has been
drifting towards” Glaziev. Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators
think this means that Putin himself is now “leaning toward Glaziev.” If
so, it is another reason why Putin has no interest in waging cold war
with the United States—why he wants instead, indeed even needs, a
historic, long-term détente.
It seems unlikely that President Trump or any of the
advisers currently around him understand this important struggle—and it
is a struggle—unfolding in the Russian policy elite. But if Trump wants a
major détente (or “cooperation,” as he has termed it) with Russia,
anyone who cares about international security and about the well-being
of the Russian people should support him in this pursuit. Especially at
this moment, when we are told by the director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research that “the risks of the use of nuclear weapons…are higher now than at any time since World War Two.”
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen’s most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.
The Central Bank of Russia reported purchasing 8.5 million troy ounces of gold in January-November 2018. With its 67.6 million ounces of gold Russia is now the world's fifth largest holder behind the US, Germany, France and Italy.
China dropped to sixth place as it reported an increase in gold reserves just once in more than two years – to 59.6 million ounces in December 2018 from 59.2 million ounces in October 2016.
Industry sources told Reuters that Western sanctions against Russia lifted the country’s gold buying to record highs in 2018. One of the reasons Russia's Central Bank was betting on the yellow metal was because it could not be frozen or blacklisted, sources explained.
“It seems that there is an aim to diversify from American assets,” said a source in one of Russia’s gold producers, referring to the Central Bank's holdings.
While purchases of the precious metal by Russia jumped last year the country continued getting rid of US Treasury securities.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Central Bank reported that it cut the share of the US dollar in the country’s foreign reserves to a historic low, transferring nearly $100 billion into the euro, the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan. The step came as a part of a broader state policy on eliminating reliance on the greenback.
According to sources, the Central Bank has been purchasing a significant portion of Russia's domestic gold production, which is also rising.
The world's third largest gold producer, Russia boosted its 2017 gold output by six percent. Data from Russia's Finance Ministry showed the country produced 8.5 million ounces (265 tons of gold) in January-October 2018. The Russian gold mining sector has nearly doubled its volume of extraction over the last two decades.
Near the United Nations Glass Palace in New York, there is a metallic sculpture entitled “Evil Defeated by Good”, representing Saint George transfixing a dragon with his lance. It was donated by the USSR in 1990 to celebrate the INF Treaty concluded with the USA in 1987, which banned land-based short- and mid-range nuclear missiles (a reach of between 500 and 5,000 km). Symbolically, the body of the dragon is in fact made with pieces of US Pershing-2 ballistic missiles (originally based in West Germany) and Soviet SS-20 missiles (originally based in the USSR).
But the nuclear dragon, which in the sculpture is shown as dying, is now being reborn. Thanks to Italy and other countries of the European Union, which, at the United Nations General Assembly, voted against the resolution presented by Russia on the “Preservation and Implementation of the INF Treaty”, rejected by 46 to 43 with 78 abstentions.
The European Union – of which 21 of its 27 members are part of NATO (including the United Kingdom, which is currently leaving the EU) – has thus taken a uniform stance with the position of NATO, which in turn has taken a uniform stance with that of the United States.
Source: PandoraTV
The Obama administration first, followed by the Trump administration, have accused Russia, without any proof, of experimenting with a missile from the forbidden category, and have announced their intention of withdrawing from the INF Treaty. At the same time, they have launched a programme aimed at renewing the installation of nuclear missiles in Europe to guard against Russia, while others will also be based in the Asia-Pacific region against China.
The Russian representative at the UN has warned that “this constitutes the beginning of a full-blown arms race”. In other words, he warned that if the United States should once again install in Europe nuclear missiles pointed at Russia (as were the Cruise missiles based in Comiso in the 1980’s), Russia would once again install, on its own territory, similar weapons pointed at targets in Europe (but which would be unable to reach the USA).
Ignoring all that, the EU representative at the UNO accused Russia of sabotaging the INF Treaty, and announced the opposition vote by all the countries of the Union because “the resolution presented by Russia avoids the question under discussion”.
Essentially, therefore, the European Union has given the green light to the possible installation of new US missiles in Europe, including Italy.
On a question of this importance, the Conte government, like its predecessors, has abandoned the exercise of national sovereignty and aligned itself with the EU, which, has in turn adopted the position of NATO, under US command. And across the entire political arc, not one voice has been raised to request that it should be the Parliament which decides how to vote at the UNO. And similarly, no voice has been raised in Parliament to request that Italy observe the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires that the USA must withdraw its B61 nuclear bombs from our national territory, and must also abstain from installing here, as from the first half of 2020, the new and even more dangerous B61-12’s.
So this is a new violation of the fundamental constitutional principle that “sovereignty belongs to the people”. And since the politico-media apparatus swaddles Italians in the ignorance of these questions of such vital importance, it is also a violation of our right to information, not only in the sense of the freedom to inform, but also the right to be informed.
We must do this now, or else tomorrow there will be no time to decide – a mid-range ballistic missile can reach and destroy its target with its nuclear warhead in between 6 and 11 minutes.
Trade turnover between Russia and China soared by nearly 30 percent in 2018, reaching a record number of $107.06 billion, according to the latest report released by China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC).
The agency noted that last year Russian imports of Chinese goods increased by 12 percent to $47.98 billion. At the same time, China’s imports from Russia grew by 42.7 percent, reaching $59.08 billion. In December alone, the volume of trade between the neighboring countries reportedly totaled $9.8 billion.
Russia-China trade turnover has grown significantly over recent years. In 2017, mutual trade amounted to $84.07 billion demonstrating a growth of 20.8 percent. In 2016, the trade turnover grew by 2.2 percent in annual terms to $69.52 billion.
Russia became China’s number one partner when it comes to trade growth dynamics, according to the GAC spokesman Li Kuiwen. The spokesman added that China had mostly exported electromechanical goods to Russia, while purchased oil, coal, and wood.
Last week, the Chinese commerce ministry said that mutual trade between the countries in December reached $100 billion for the first time ever. Russia is currently ranked as China’s tenth biggest trade partner. Beijing remained a major importer of Russian produce, accounting for 15 percent of the country’s international trade as of 2017.
Liberteon
