Vladimir Putin recently made comments on the seriousness of global conflicts that can lead to nuclear conflict. Patriots worldwide should pay close attention as the globalists build their dangerous nuclear arsenal.
In stark contrast to attempts in numerous western countries to stifle free speech online, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Internet freedom during a conference...
A prominent Swedish lawmaker asserts that Hungarian billionaire George Soros's influence on European politics and policies make him "one of the most dangerous men,"
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.
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).
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.
Russian President has slammed European leaders for allowing immigrants to “kill, plunder and rape” with impunity.
In an interview with the Financial Times
just ahead of the G20 summit, the Russian leader slammed Western
leaders’ attempt to destroy ‘traditional family values’ and warned that
liberalism was dying: “[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone,” Mr Putin told the newspaper.
Putin added that liberalism conflicted with “the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population,” and criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing millions of refugees to spill into Germany in 2017.
“This liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done.
That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their
rights as migrants have to be protected.”
Dailymail.co.uk
reports: He added: ‘Every crime must have its punishment. The liberal
idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests
of the overwhelming majority of the population.’
The G20 – the countries with the largest and fastest-growing
economies – are meeting in Osaka, Japan today and tomorrow and posed for
the famous ‘family photo’ of world leaders, including Britain’s Theresa
May, China’s Xi Jinping, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman and their
host, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The leaders of the G20 meet in Osaka, Japan.
The first major meeting was between Donald Trump and the Russia’s
leader where the US President hailed their ‘very, very good
relationship’ with Russia’s leader, adding: ‘It’s a great honour to be
with President Putin’.
An extraordinary moment then followed their handshake as Trump told
Putin: ‘Don’t meddle in the election, please,’ with a smile on his face,
turning to grin at the Russian leader.
In sharp contrast, Mr Putin faced a far frostier head-to-head with a
grim-faced Theresa May as the two shook hands this morning. The Prime
Minister is due to demand he takes responsibility for the nerve agent
poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury last year and tell him to hand
over the Novichok assassins sent by the Russian state to kill their
former agent.
Outgoing
British Prime Minister Theresa May looks miserable as she poses for
photo standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mr Putin has reserved special praise for Donald Trump for trying to
stem the flow of migrants and drugs into the US, just before the men met
today.
Vladimir Putin today said British claims that his agents carried
out the Salisbury poisoning are ‘not worth five pounds’ – but justified
attacks on Russian traitors saying: ‘Treason is the gravest crime
possible and must be punished’.
The Russian President will meet Theresa May at the G20 in Russia
today where the Prime Minister will demand he admits to the Novichok
attack and hand over the two spies sent to kill Sergei Skripal last
year.
Mrs May has said her decision to speak to Putin in Osaka is not a
return to ‘business as usual’ with Russia, whose leader today sought to
laugh off claims he ordered the poisoning.
Mr Putin told the Financial Times: ‘Listen, all this fuss about spies
and counterspies, it is not worth serious interstate relations. This
spy story, as we say, it is not worth five kopecks. Or even five pounds,
for that matter’.
But in a chilling admission about how he believes his country should
‘punish’ like Skripal, who was secretly sharing secrets with the
British, he added: ‘Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors
must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way
to do it. But traitors must be punished.’
And in admission that he is willing to take risks to protect his
country, he said: ‘He who doesn’t take risks, never drinks Champagne’.
Earlier Putin said Anglo-Russian relations were beginning to improve
ahead of his face-to-face meeting with Theresa May at this weekend’s G20
summit in Osaka, Japan.
Relations have been rocky since the UK pointed the finger at the
Kremlin for the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March last year.
Mr Putin said: ‘I think Russia and UK are both interested in fully
restoring our relations, at least I hope a few preliminary steps will be
made.’
But in a chilling admission about how he believes his country should
‘punish’ people like Skripal, who was secretly sharing secrets with the
British, he added: ‘Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors
must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way
to do it. But traitors must be punished.’
And in admission that he is willing to take risks to protect his
country, he said: ‘He who doesn’t take risks, never drinks Champagne’.
Trump’s critics have accused him of being too friendly with Putin and
castigated him for failing to publicly confront the Russian leader in
Helsinki over Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
A U.S. special counsel, Robert Mueller, conducted a two-year
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and
whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.
Mueller found that Russia did meddle in the election but that the
Trump campaign did not illegally conspire with Russia to influence the
vote.
In a further attempt to lighten the mood, Trump sought common ground
with Putin at the expense of the journalists who had gathered to catch
the leaders at the outset of their meeting.
President Donald Trump said it was an ‘honor’ to be meeting with the Russian leader
‘Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it. You don’t have this problem in Russia but we do,’ Trump said.
World leaders kicked off one of their most high-stakes G20 meetings
in years Friday, with rows brewing over a bruising US-China trade war
and climate change despite a more conciliatory tone from US President
Donald Trump.
After lashing out at friend and foe alike en route to Osaka in
western Japan for the meeting, Trump appeared in a less combative mood
when meeting fellow world leaders face-to-face.
Fresh from describing traditionally close US ally Germany as
‘delinquent’ for not paying enough into the NATO budget, he was effusive
when meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel.
‘She’s a fantastic person, a fantastic woman and I’m glad to have her as a friend,’ he said.
China is reportedly enrolling military scientists into
western universities to gain intel on areas like “hypersonic missiles
and navigation technology.”
The nation’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) came up with the moniker
“Five Eyes countries” to denote the preferred targets for infiltration
(America, U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), according to a new
report released by a think tank tied to Australia’s defense ministry.
“Dozens of PLA scientists have obscured their military affiliations
to travel to Five Eyes countries and the European Union, including at
least 17 to Australia, where they work in areas such as hypersonic
missiles and navigation technology,” reads
the official report. “Those countries don’t count China as a security
ally but rather treat it as one of their main intelligence adversaries.”
Additionally, the groundbreaking report details how the PLA has
inserted thousands worldwide over the past decade as “students or
visiting scholars” while continuously augmenting their findings as
peer-reviewed literature in “strategic and emerging technology sectors.”
“The PLA has sponsored more than 2,500 military scientists and
engineers to study abroad and has developed relationships with
researchers and institutions across the globe,” reports the think tank.
“Those scientists work in strategic and emerging technology sectors such
as quantum physics, signal processing, cryptography, navigation
technology and autonomous vehicles.”
Moreover, a PLA outlet bluntly describes the intelligence campaign as “picking flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China.”
Correspondingly, China has pursued other continents for different
reasons, specifically Africa, to such a degree that it has been accused
of engaging in a “new colonialism” and even “debt trap” diplomacy due
to the host countries becoming deeply indebted to Chinese lenders.
For example, in early September, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion
to African leaders with “no political strings attached” to expand
China’s “Belt and Road” initiative (BRI) to build ports and other
infrastructure.
BRI could prove to be lucrative for China as the infrastructure
projects will be financed by loans from China’s state-owned banks while
being built by Chinese contractors.
Alternatively, African leaders are historically keen to accept
Chinese offers because they “come without demands for safeguards against
corruption, waste, and environmental damage.”
Liberteon
