The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions (Part I)

[Et Soh]

The P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on May 13, 2020. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)


China’s Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction Against the World


Bradley A. Thayer

December 22, 2021

Epoch Times Commentary

Audio PDF

Nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons were considered weapons of mass destruction (WMD) during the Cold War. Later, radiological weapons were generally considered to be another form of WMD.

Each of these weapons had a horrific effect: they could kill large numbers of people and so norms prohibiting their use were established and have mostly held. Nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, and biological weapons not used since the Japanese military’s Unit 731 employed them in China against civilians and other allied prisoners of war during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

While chemical weapons were used in Syria’s civil war, there has not been widespread use of chemicals or toxins in interstate warfare since World War I and Italy’s employment in Ethiopia in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War from 1935 to 1936. Despite allegations of their use and their considerable stockpiles, WMD were not used by the superpowers during the Cold War or after.

Each of these examples was conscious and deliberate employment by a state. But the world should also consider the effect of covert or inadvertent use of WMD, or employment due to negligence and, thus, a violation of a state’s duty to police its territory and its responsibility for what occurs within its borders.
These forms of WMD use should also be prohibited with the strongest sanctions enacted if the norm is violated. It is time to update the world’s understanding of WMD to acknowledge that WMD have been employed de facto and without repercussions. One example of this was the 1979 anthrax leak from a military research facility in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Soviet Union. Over 66 Soviet citizens were killed by their own government and scores more made ill. The Soviets were never held to account for this inadvertent WMD use. Nor were they for another, more infamous case—the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The legacy of which remains.

Despite common perception, WMDs are being used now against the United States by China. Beijing has conducted a current and far more disastrous use of WMD than the United States’ Soviet enemy.

Opioid Epidemic


First, the opioid epidemic has killed and disrupted the lives of tens of millions in the United States alone. Rather than an epidemic, it should be considered a chemical weapons attack. Precursor chemicals are shipped from China to the cartels to Mexico to be transported into the United States and around the world. The Chinese regime, firms, and the cartels should be held to account for employment of WMD. Immediate sanctions and other punishments should be employed against them and China itself for its unwillingness to police its territory, govern its export, and thus provide implicit approval of WMD use against America.


U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Otay Mesa commercial facility seized more than 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine, fentanyl powder, fentanyl pills, and heroin on Oct. 9, 2020. (DEA)

COVID-19


Second, the COVID-19 pandemic is a case of covert or inadvertent use of WMD by the Chinese regime against its own citizens, the United States, and the rest of the world. Thus far, over 5 million people have died, millions have lasting health effects from the virus, tens of millions more have been made ill, and there has been major and sustained disruption to people’s lives, wellbeing, mental health, safety, education, and employment. Profound and lasting political, psychological, physiological, and economic effects also must be factored into account.

The Chinese regime has gotten away with two major uses of WMD with catastrophic effects on the world without penalty or even acknowledgment of WMD employment. Such use compels sanctions and sterner measures to punish Beijing and to deter future use. Regrettably, this has not happened due to the absence of awareness and the concern by many with an interest in China that these actions not be recognized for what they are.

The unwillingness to perceive the Chinese regime’s actions as WMD employment allows the continuation of the business as usual approach toward the regime by its supporters around the world, in the American elite, including on Wall Street, the U.S. political system, and the media.

To acknowledge communist China’s use of WMD would compel the recognition that it is the world’s most dangerous regime due to its intent and capabilities, as well as the world’s greatest violator of international law and norms.

To address this, much needs to be accomplished. Three steps must be taken forthwith.

First, the global media must call them for what they are: WMD attacks against civilians. This stark fact must be repeated until the world identifies these as WMD attacks that require a response.

Second, rather than focusing solely on nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons use, the norm of WMD effect and consequence must be adopted by governments, inter-governmental organizations like the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations, and China held to account by them for its use of WMD. If a state releases a pandemic by design or not, it has employed a WMD against the world, and so is culpable for the consequences and must be punished to deter future use.

Third, the U.S. government should call the attacks as WMD and trigger the full force of the government to combat the consequences of both attacks. The opioid WMD attack should be treated with equivalent energy of response as the COVID-19 WMD attack. Sanctions must be imposed upon the regime for their use against the United States and reparations made to the world’s victims. Compensation from Chinese assets in the United States and globally would be a start. The prohibition of investment in China by U.S. or other entities would be a second step. Banning Chinese entities from U.S. financial or other markets would be a third.

Strong measures are needed as not sanctioning Beijing for its WMD violations encourages it to continue its actions and to break additional norms, including against nuclear use. The Chinese regime owes the world compensation and the international community is going to have to compel payment of the debt.

Bradley A. Thayer is a founding member of the Committee on Present Danger China and is the co-author of “How China Sees the World: Han-Centrism and the Balance of Power in International Politics.”



https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas...d_4170557.html

[Et Soh]

A Chinese yuan currency sign with two arrows through it, pictured outside a bank branch in Shanghai on August 13, 2015. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

The Risks of CCP China’s Digital Yuan Are Understated: Part I

J.G Collins
December 21, 2021
Epoch Times Commentary AudioPDF


This is the first of a two-part article articulating the risks of CCP China’s new digital yuan, the e-CNY.

Part I details the risks to people and businesses in CCP China.

Part II addresses the geopolitical and geostrategic risks of the digital yuan to other nations and Western-style democracies.



GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence, security, and cyber agency, according to its website, recently warned of the dangers of CCP China’s new digital currency, the e-CNY.
In an interview with the Financial Times the week of Dec. 5, Sir Jeremy Fleming, the GCHQ chief said e-CNY “gives them the ability . . . to be able to exercise control over what is conducted on those digital currencies” and to “surveil transactions.”

Surveillance and Control
In a July white paper from a Peoples’ Bank of China (PBOC) working group tasked to evaluate progress on the e-CNY, the authors talk about “managed anonymity,” an Orwellian phrase that they say “follows the principle of ‘anonymity for small value and traceable for high value.’” Then adds, “it is necessary to guard against the misuse of e-CNY in illegal and criminal activities, such as tele-fraud, internet gambling, money laundering, and tax evasion.” But PBOC has told the foreign Deutsche Banks that transactions between payers and payees can be anonymous.

The PBOC will treat the e-CNY as what economists call “M0” (M-zero), the measure of coin currency, physical paper, and central bank reserves. This is important because, as M0, it will effectively be the equivalent of cash in your pocket or purse. e-CNY will only be able to earn interest if it is deposited in one of CCP China’s state-owned banks.

Given the costs of printing, distributing, and protecting physical cash, one could safely assume that physical currency will ultimately disappear from CCP China, and PBOC cites those costs as a principal reason for adopting e-CNY.

That all seems relatively benign, but one would be naive to not question e-CNY given the CCP’s unrelenting efforts to surveil, control, and limit the freedoms and human rights of the people in China.

The irony of the PBOC advancing a Central Bank Digital Currency (or “CBDC”) is that CCP China already has a number of “private” (or as private as one can be under the jackboot of the CCP) fintech payment platforms like Alipay and WeChatPay.

So why is CCP China being a pathfinder on CBDC, fintech that a number of countries are pursuing? While, incidentally, prohibiting private cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Etherium, etc.

In a word, control.

In China, people will undoubtedly have their social credit scores linked to their spending. The CCP will be able to collect fines and penalties without due process; they’ll simply debit offenders’ e-CNY accounts by accessing their “wallets.” (A wallet is one’s private key code to access cryptos, but one can readily surmise that e-CNY wallets, which will be tied to CCP China-owned banks, won’t be private, despite PBOC assurances to the contrary.)

The e-CNY will also cow companies into submission. While the PBOC says it will “guard against the misuse of e-CNY in illegal and criminal activities,” make no mistake: if your business or the leadership of your business–or perhaps, an employee of your business–offends the CCP, be assured: your business will be denied access to revenues and will be blocked from being able to obtain e-CNY. If e-CNY becomes the predominant currency in CCP China, that means you are out of business unless you can survive in a barter economy.

As with Huawei, e-CNY will give the CCP greater ability to surveil, control, and, when beneficial, silence the Laobaixing or “old 100 names;” the common people of China who suffer under the Party’s obsessive denial of the personal freedoms that people who live in Western-style democracies take for granted.

Our Chinese friends who live under the thumb of the CCP should resist e-CNY by all available means: barter, scrip, or personal credit ledgers at the town or neighborhood level. While doing so will ultimately be hopeless, widespread resistance to e-CNY will help build opposition to the CCP and their fetish to know everything about everyone.

Advocates of freedom and free people around the world would applaud. And it might even make the CCP re-think its obsession.


The Risks of CCP China’s Digital Yuan Are Understated: Part I

[Et Soh]

Blog Entry Tools

1. 
   Arrangement of various world currencies including Chinese yuan, U.S. dollar, Euro, British pound, pictured on Jan. 25, 2011. (Kacper Pempel/Illustration/Reuters)
   
   The Risks of CCP China’s Digital Yuan Are Understated: Part II
   J.G. Collins
   December 22, 2021
   
   
   Epoch Times Commentary Audio PDF
   
   This is the second of a two-part article articulating the risks of CCP China’s new digital yuan, the e-CNY.
   
   Part I details the risk to people and businesses in CCP China.
   
   This Part II addresses the geopolitical and geostrategic risks of the digital yuan to other nations and Western-style democracies.
   
   
   
   
   The power the CCP will exercise from e-CNY that I described in Part I won’t be limited to the borders of CCP China.
   
   There is a bigger, looming, threat, and it’s global.
   
   CCP China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) is intended to spread commercial and geopolitical influence in Central, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as into Europe and the Middle East.
   
   For less developed economies, e-CNY may be a godsend that allows access to payment and banking services, but it’s also a Trojan Horse. While payments can be transferred far more easily in, say, the desolate areas of Afghanistan, they can also be monitored, controlled, and prohibited.
   
   So if the e-CNY becomes the preferred—or only—currency in your remote part of the world where the CCP is engaged in the BRI, it can sanction behavior via the e-CNY. If you or your local community object to seizing farmland for a BRI development, good luck surviving without what may be your only means of paying or receiving money. You’ll be under the same CCP thumb of control as the common Chinese people.
   
   But the larger risk is to the global economy.
   
   One can easily imagine the CCP eventually pushing OPEC and individual oil-producing nations to price their oil in e-CNY and bypass the petrodollar, which has been a critical element of U.S. economic power and foreign policy for nearly half a century. Since many of the countries with which the United States has had disputes, and for which it has imposed sanctions, sit atop oceans of oil, the e-CNY would be an attractive incentive for them to price their oil in CNY.
   
   Most oil-producing nations, including most OPEC nations, price their oil in U.S. dollars (USD).
   
   Consequently, nearly every country keeps USD reserves for oil payments and to otherwise participate in the U.S. economy. But those dollars aren’t sitting in a vault; they’re recycled back to the United States as investments, often in U.S. Treasury securities. They help fund our exorbitant deficits and debt. (Even CCP China funds our debt, returning the USD we use to pay for their exports back to the USA as Treasurys, real estate, and equity investments.)
   
   Were the CCP to succeed in undermining the petrodollar, it would likely significantly reduce the demand for USD and increase demand for CNY. Instead of the USD being the world’s reserve currency, a position it has held since 1944, it would fall back to be among one of several “reserve” currencies, including the euro, the CNY, and the JPY. Theoretically, having achieved an advanced standing as a reserve currency, it’s possible—even likely—that CCP China could then further consolidate CNY’s status by setting the prices for rare earths or even its everyday exports of things like toys, computers, etc. in CNY. (To give you a peek at the world where multiple currencies reign alongside the USD, when President Obama’s then-novice treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, said in 2009 that he was open to a basket of currencies replacing the USD as the world’s reserve currency, the dollar tumbled in moments before Treasury walked Geithner’s comments back.)
   
   If a good portion of global USD demand disappears because oil starts to be priced in e-CNY, and CCP China further capitalizes from there on its standing as a leading world reserve currency, the United States would have to raise its interest rates to lure foreign investment in our debt securities or, perhaps, devalue the dollar, which would significantly boost inflation.
   
   Finally, from a geostrategic perspective, the rise of the e-CNY as a reserve currency would allow countries subject to sanctions by the USA or international institutions, like Nato, the EU, or the U.N., to avoid them.
   
   That’s because those sanctions are usually administered by SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, based in Brussels. It’s how funds move around the world. But e-CNY allows anyone with an internet connection to transfer value. The world’s ability to affect the plans of bad actors—often friendly with CCP China—would be significantly hindered, and national and global security risks increased.
   
   Beware
   CCP China hopes to introduce the e-CNY as an international currency during the Winter Olympics this coming February.
   
   Three U.S. senators have requested the U.S. Olympic Committee to prohibit U.S. Olympic Team members from using it, drawing a rebuke from CCP China authorities. The free Western-style democracies that have joined the diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics should follow the senators’ request, as should the U.S. Olympic Committee: Do not submit to pressure, or accept the convenience, of using the e-CNY during the Olympics; avoid it entirely.
   
   If that cannot be done (i.e., if the only payment option in the Olympic Village is e-CNY), then Olympians should be provided single-use telephones by their respective national Olympic committees, loaded with an e-CNY per diem, to be used exclusively for e-CNY spending. The phones should then be returned to the committees and destroyed at the end of the Olympics to prohibit further CCP surveillance of the athletes.
   
   Fighting Back
   Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve, Congress, and President Joe Biden should move with all deliberate speed to finalize an e-USD that can compete head-to-head with the e-CNY. Research has been underway between the Fed and MIT, but that should be addressed with the same urgency of the Space Race or the Missile Gap of the early 1960s.
   
   The United States also needs to get a handle on its deficits by cutting the costs of government, eliminating lucrative—and blatantly unfair—tax loopholes, such as the tax treatment of carried interest and the home mortgage interest deduction (which only a handful of other countries permit).
   
   It is vital for the United States economy and for our national security that we continue as the global currency hegemon, whether that be in greenbacks, bank accounts, or a USD CBDC. The United States should lead Nato, in partnership with the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, and the other Western-style democracies to contain the spread of e-CNY.
   
   Our future—and the future of the free world—depends on it.
   
   The Risks of CCP China’s Digital Yuan Are Understated: Part II

[Et Soh]

Chinese leader Xi Jinping poses with African leaders, including Malawi’s President Arthur Peter Mutharika (2nd row, 2nd right), during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, China, on Sept. 3, 2018. (How Hwee Young/AFP/Getty Images)


China Now Controls Africa



John Mac Ghlionn

December 23, 2021

Epoch Times Commentary Audio PDF

When we think of colonialism, we tend to think of men like Christopher Columbus and Charles Du Gaulle; and countries like France, Portugal, and Spain. In other words, we tend to think of colonialism in the past tense, as something that occurred long, long ago.

Today, however, millions of people across the globe still live under colonial rule. Some will scratch their heads and ask how? But, it’s important to note, colonialism looks a little different today. It’s less explicit, less violent, and less obvious.

In Africa, let’s call it “colonialism with Chinese characteristics.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is busy constructing bridges, ports, roads, and state-of-the-art facilities in Africa. These projects come with a significant price, and that price is freedom.



Of the 54 countries in Africa, 45 have already signed up to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This year, Congo became the 45th African member. Shortly after signing on the dotted line, the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa entered into an “unconscionable” mining deal with Beijing. Congo is the world’s leading producer of minerals like metal, cobalt, and copper. Sadly, the Chinese regime now controls the country’s mining industry.

The BRI saddles members with unimaginable levels of debt. In November, The Diplomat’s Mercy Kuo warned that, ever since the BRI was launched back in 2013, “China has outspent the U.S. on a more than 2-to-1 basis.” However, it “has done so with debt rather than aid, maintaining a 31-to-1 ratio of loans to grants.”

To compound matters, Kuo found “that the average [recipient] government is now underreporting its actual and potential repayment obligations to China by an amount equivalent to 5.8 percent of its GDP.”

Not surprisingly, a number of BRI participant countries are experiencing a sense of “buyer’s remorse.” Why wouldn’t they? More than one-third of BRI infrastructure projects have “encountered major implementation problems—such as corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental hazards, and public protests,” noted Kuo. Moreover, “project suspensions and cancellations are on the rise.”

Kuo’s findings are backed up by a recent study carried out by AidData, a research lab at the College of William and Mary’s Global Research Institute. According to Bradley Parks, AidData’s executive director and a co-author of the report, unreported debts alone “are worth approximately $385 billion.” The hidden debt problem, he warned, is likely to get considerably worse.

What does all of this mean for Africa? In short, nothing good.

Take Equatorial Guinea, for example, a country heavily indebted to Beijing. The CCP is currently attempting to build its first permanent military base in the West African country, according to American intelligence reports. The small nation, home to just 1.4 million people, has an abundance of offshore oil reserves—a fact not lost on the CCP. According to Maj. Gen. Andrew Rohling, the new base will allow China to establish “naval presence on the Atlantic” and directly compete with the United States.

Even countries not signed up to the BRI cannot avoid the ominous shadow of the CCP. China has invested in 52 out of the 54 African countries; 49 of the 54 countries (more than 90 percent) have signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Beijing. These MoUs are the equivalent of entering into a Faustian bargain. By accepting large sums of money from Beijing, African countries have allowed the CCP to enter their backyards and exploit their resources.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping inspects a military honor guard during his official state visit at the Union Building in Pretoria, South Africa, on July 24, 2018. (Phill Magakoe/AFP/Getty Images)


Who Controls the Money Controls the Future


China’s investments in Africa are strategic. Going forward, to do business with Beijing, one will have little option but to use e-CNY, China’s new digital currency.

Last year, Huawei unveiled the Mate 40, a smartphone that comes with a pre-installed e-wallet that uses China’s digital currency. Soon after the unveiling, the CCP started putting the phones in the hands of millions of Africans.

As researchers at the Lowy Institute noted, it appears that China’s “secondary focus may very well be Africa—with an eye towards disrupting the global financial system.”

Is the CCP using Africa, the world’s fastest growing continent, to reshape the international balance of power? The answer appears to be yes. Not only is Africa the world’s fastest-growing continent, it’s the youngest; 60 percent of Africa’s population is under the age of 25.

In recent years, the Nigerian capital of Lagos, home to the fastest growing economy in Africa, has seen an influx of Chinese investments. The two countries enjoy an apparently unbreakable bond (although Nigeria is heavily indebted to Beijing), with China now looking to establish banks in the megacity. What is occurring in Nigeria should be seen as an attempt to control the entire financial narrative across the entire continent of Africa.

Not only is the CCP reshaping the financial narrative, it’s also reshaping the military one. According to a recent report, titled “China’s military education and Commonwealth countries,” several African nations, including Ghana and Tanzania, have opened CCP-sponsored, “politico-military schools.” These establishments, according to analysts Radomir Tylecote and Henri Rossano, should be understood in the context of Beijing’s growing efforts to gain even greater levels of control over developing countries. Not surprisingly, as the report shows, a large number of the countries participating in these programs are also members of China’s BRI.


A Continent Conquered


In less than a decade, China has essentially conquered a continent of 1.2 billion people, a continent with an abundance of natural resources, including diamonds, sugar, salt, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, and cocoa beans.

As the colonization of an entire continent was occurring, the United States and the European Union simply sat back and did nothing. One can’t help but feel that their latest projects, the ‘Build Back Better’ and Global Gateway initiatives, are destined to fail. The CCP has an eight-year head start on Washington and Brussels, with the majority of African countries heavily indebted to Beijing.
The sad fact is this: Even if African countries want to leave the BRI, many of them can’t.

If in doubt, let me point you in the direction of Uganda, a country whose debt stands at $18 billion, almost 50 percent of its GDP. The country owes most of this debt to China. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni recently sent a delegation to Beijing to renegotiate the outstanding debt. However, as Nigeria’s Punch Newspaper reported, “the request was turned down,” with the CCP refusing “to allow any alteration in the original terms of the loan agreement.” What does this mean for the East African nation? It’s likely that the Ugandan government will have to “forfeit the Entebbe International Airport”—the country’s only airport.

China’s “financial assistance” is little more than predatory lending, with collateral in case of loan default coming in many forms, including international airports. What we are witnessing is death by a thousand cuts—an entire continent being swallowed up by the communists in Beijing. Considering Xi Jinping recently promised to invest another $10 billion in Africa over the next three years, expect the Chinese assault to continue.



John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of the New York Post, Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, National Review, The Spectator US, and other respectable outlets. He is also a psychosocial specialist, with a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation.



https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-...a_4165363.html


eReading:



Red Dragon Menacing (III) – On CCP’s All-Out Aggression Against Humanity(4)PDF(preview)(5.03M);ePub(7.66M);MOBI(5.37M)

[Gunny]

So, anyone besides me notice this bot was silent for quite awhile until Cruella Deville triggered his reaction to traffic that has nothing to do with what's going on?

[Et Soh]

Is the Chinese Communist Party Orchestrating the New Global Wave of COVID-19 Lockdowns?

Counterpunch
Trevor Loudon

Cities across the world are now undergoing a new wave of lockdowns due to the coronavirus. But are these new—and in some cases draconian—lockdown policies actually a result of the Chinese regime using its network of communist parties, politicians, and scientists to orchestrate the whole thing?

Using Britain as an example, Trevor Loudon exposes how the Communist Party of China uses lockdowns.

[jimnyc]

So, anyone besides me notice this bot was silent for quite awhile until Cruella Deville triggered his reaction to traffic that has nothing to do with what's going on?

I am not so sure this one is a bot, although could very well be using software to auto-post somehow. I think it's someone with an obsession, that is also obsessed with his own writing and thinks he is a great author, but is delusional. When he makes these posts he goes around and posts them on as many boards as possible, and mainly gets ignored everywhere. This leads to the thoughts of a bot, but still not sure yet.

[Gunny]

I am not so sure this one is a bot, although could very well be using software to auto-post somehow. I think it's someone with an obsession, that is also obsessed with his own writing and thinks he is a great author, but is delusional. When he makes these posts he goes around and posts them on as many boards as possible, and mainly gets ignored everywhere. This leads to the thoughts of a bot, but still not sure yet.

To clarify: I didn't mean "bot" literally. IIRC, this clown came out of his closet one time to display a rather nasty persona. I don't use it nor have I looked for it, but isn't there a "toy" on here (board) where you are notified if someone responds to your thread/posts? I was thinking more along those lines.

I wonder does this guy think anyone actually reads his novels? (No offense to anyone that does ) I see a whole page of scribble with each post and the topic better at least catch my attention or I'm not bothering.

[Et Soh]

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (4nd-L) meets with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (3nd-R) at the Great Hall of the People on in Beijing, China, on March 20, 2017. (Lintao Zhang/Pool/Getty Images)


How Israel, a Close Ally of the US, Became a Close Ally of China


John Mac Ghlionn

December 27, 2021

Epoch Times Commentary
Audio PDF

The United States and Israel appear to be close allies. However, things aren’t always as they seem. As Israel cozies up to China, that once “unbreakable bond” between the United States and Israel looks increasingly fragile.

In 1948, the United States became the first country to officially recognize the new State of Israel; seven decades on, the Trump administration made history by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. According to the U.S. Department of State, “Israel has no greater friend than the United States.” The two countries’ unbreakable bond “has never been stronger,” or so we’re told.

Can Beijing sever the bond once and for all?

In a speech, delivered in 2017, Benjamin Netanyahu, then the most important man in Israel, waxed lyrical about a “marriage made in heaven.” The politician was not speaking about his wife, nor was he speaking about the United States. He was speaking about Israel’s marriage to China. A marriage of convenience rather than love, no doubt. A marriage nonetheless.



Xi Jinping also has as a soft spot for Israel and Isaac Herzog, the country’s president. Xi recently invited Herzog to visit Beijing next year, to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of normal diplomatic ties between the two countries. The marriage, it appears, is growing stronger by the day.

According to research published by the RAND corporation, an American think tank, since 2000, China and Israel have started to form stronger relations. From diplomacy to trade, infrastructure to research, China continues to invest heavily in Israel. Chinese tourists now flock to Israel in record numbers, according to the BBC.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, is not really interested in seeing the sights; it’s far more interested in seeing the science. More specifically, it’s interested in seeing Israel’s advanced technology, as the RAND paper revealed.


Chinese Vice Chair Wang Qishan during his tour with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Israeli Innovation Summit in Jerusalem on Oct. 24, 2018. (Ariel Schalit/AFP/Getty Images)

Why is Israel interested in China? Again, according to RAND, this interest stems from the Israeli government’s desire to “expand its diplomatic and economic ties with the world’s fastest growing major economy.” Israel’s leaders wish to diversify the country’s “export markets and investments,” even though China firmly supports Iran, a country that would love nothing more than to see Israel wiped off the face of the planet.

Earlier this year, Beijing signed a 25-year strategic agreement with Tehran. How can a friend of Iran also be a friend of Israel? Then again, how can a friend of the United States (Israel) be a friend of China?

The second question can be answered with one word: money. Today, the bilateral trade relationship between Beijing and Jerusalem is worth $10 billion. Twenty-eight years ago, it was worth just $50 million.

All Eyes on Technology


The quickly developing field of quantum computing, according to tech experts, will have “far-reaching” and potentially “disruptive” influences. In the United States, there are genuine fears that the CCP will use quantum technology to steal sensitive data from its citizens as well as various branches of government.

It will come as little surprise, then, to find out that Israel, China’s new best friend, is one of the leaders in quantum tech.

According to a recent Bloomberg Innovation Index, Israel, a country with the same population as New York City, is now the seventh most innovative nation in the world. The United States, it’s important to note, is no longer in the top 10. In Silicon Wadi, Israel’s version of Silicon Valley, more than 5,000 different companies can be found, many of them dedicated to all things tech. Of the 18 countries in the Middle East, Israel boasts the largest number of start-ups per capita. A number of these start-ups carry out research in the areas of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and quantum computing—a fact that is not lost on the CCP.

Since 2019, according to a recent Physics Today report, the number of Israeli firms working in quantum tech has “surged from 5 to 30,” with the “Israeli army, air force, and intelligence community” forming the “backbone” of the burgeoning industry.

As the Rand report warned, the CCP’s investment in Israeli technology “could lead to leaks of sensitive technology and cyberespionage.”

Don’t be surprised if the CCP uses Israel’s quantum knowledge to attack its American foes. After all, Israeli spyware has already been used to target U.S. officials, and Beijing appears to have Jerusalem in its proverbial back pocket.

As Neville Teller, an expert on Middle Eastern politics, recently wrote, the question for the Israeli government “is how far it should go in embracing China as a business partner, given American suspicions about China’s true motives. Are all such Chinese investments pieces in a vast jigsaw designed to secure China’s unassailable political and economic global supremacy?”

The answer to that question, Mr Teller, is a resounding yes.

Israel, a country that acts as a bridge between three different continents—Asia, Africa, and Europe—appears to be a key component in Beijing’s plans for world domination. One imagines that the CCP won’t stop until it destroys that “unbreakable bond” between Israel and the United States. Will it succeed? Only time will tell.



John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. His work has been published by the likes of the New York Post, Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, National Review, The Spectator US, and other respectable outlets. He is also a psychosocial specialist, with a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation.





https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-is...a_4173534.html

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To clarify: I didn't mean "bot" literally. IIRC, this clown came out of his closet one time to display a rather nasty persona. I don't use it nor have I looked for it, but isn't there a "toy" on here (board) where you are notified if someone responds to your thread/posts? I was thinking more along those lines.

I wonder does this guy think anyone actually reads his novels? (No offense to anyone that does ) I see a whole page of scribble with each post and the topic better at least catch my attention or I'm not bothering.

I know people like this in Cuba. I don't blame them for being upset. When a person and/or their relatives are forced to figuratively eat shit sandwiches on a regular basis, being upset like that and wanting to tell as many people as possible is understandable.

I suspect that his posting style is rooted in a deficient understanding of English.

Where is this dude posting from?

He kind of reminds me of Gustavo Diaz, a dude that works for a Home Depot in Alabama that runs DolarToday, a site that specializes in on the street exchange rates for the Venezuelan Bolivar and chronicles the abuses of the Chavistas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DolarT...20in%20Alabama.


https://dolartoday.com/

Its president is Gustavo Diaz, a Home Depot salesman in Alabama.^[5] According to BBC Mundo, DolarToday was founded as "a form of protest against a dictatorship increasingly committed to silence and intimidate the media in Venezuela."^[6] Up until today, the company's website publishes criticisms about the Maduro administration which the founder states "are selected by the site’s writers based in Venezuela".^[1][2]

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Anders Corr on Communist China’s Reported $275 Billion Deal with Apple and the Road to Global Tyranny

American Thought Leaders
JAN JEKIELEK


“Whether it’s academia, our politics, our economics—people are being compromised.”

In this episode, we sit down with Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, columnist for The Epoch Times, and author of the book, “The Concentration of Power.” We discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged $275 billion secret deal with Apple in 2016, and growing threats of global tyranny.

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This post is a test.

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A Chinese missile frigate Yuncheng launches an anti-ship missile during a military exercise in the waters near south China’s Hainan Island and Paracel Islands on July 8, 2016. (Zha Chunming/Xinhua via AP)


US Should Sanction China for Jamming and Laser Attacks on Pilots


Economic sanctions would send the right message



Anders Corr

December 28, 2021

Epoch Times News Analysis
Audio
PDF

The Chinese military is building stronger electronic warfare facilities in the South China Sea.

Rapidly expanding Chinese electronic warfare (EW) facilities were revealed by the Center For Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Dec. 17. The facilities, near Mumian on China’s Hainan Island, are in the South China Sea region close to Vietnam.

The facilities serve as protection for the strategic island, on which are based nuclear submarines and future planned aircraft carriers for global power projection. The placement of the facilities near the eastern coast of the island helps Beijing electronically dominate the entire Gulf of Tonkin, located between China and Vietnam, as well as the northern half of Vietnam’s coastline.

“The Mumian facility is home to satellite tracking and communication (SATCOM) platforms and appears to possess systems that could be used in EW,” according to the CSIS authors, who are part of the think tank’s China Power Project and iDeas Lab.



“The site also likely plays a role in collecting signals intelligence (SIGINT), which includes any intelligence gleaned from intercepting and analyzing foreign signals or communication from satellites, radars, weapons platforms, and other electronic systems,” wrote the authors, Matthew P. Funaiole, Brian Hart, and Joseph S. Bermudez. Mr. Bermudez is a senior fellow for imagery analysis with CSIS.

The revelations about the facilities’ recent expansion are from comparing satellite imagery from 2020 to those taken about a month ago. The facilities have apparently operated, according to satellite imagery, since at least 2018.

That year, news about likely Chinese military electronic and laser attacks on American and Australian planes increased. There was no significant American response, and the laser attacks continued in 2019 and 2020.

The new facilities at Mumian could be used to electronically buttress such attacks on U.S. and allied planes, or for the gathering of intelligence.

“Many assets in the vicinity appear dedicated to gathering communications intelligence (COMINT), a subset of SIGINT that includes the collection of communications between individuals and organizations.”

The latest installations include a SATCOM/COMINT complex with “four dish antennas (three 14 meters wide and one 4 meters wide) for SATCOM and tracking, and at least four tall tower antennas suitable for communications or EW,” according to the report.

“Distributed throughout the enlarged facility are at least 90 vehicles and trailers of various types, including a sizeable number featuring mounted antennas (configured as either a single large antenna or two smaller antennas).”

The Chinese military’s expansion of capabilities on Hainan, including EW, is already having negative effects on American pilots in the South China Sea.

According to Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, “the U.S. quest for electronic intelligence regarding China’s military buildup on Hainan Island was at the center of the April 1, 2001 ‘EP-3 Incident’ in which a Chinese Naval Air Force J-8II fighter collided with a U.S. Navy EP-3 electronic intelligence gathering aircraft. At that moment, China was in the early stages of building a new nuclear missile submarine base at Yalong Bay on Hainan Island.”

U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets multirole fighters and an EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft (2nd R) on board USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) aircraft carrier as it sails in the South China Sea on its way to Singapore on Oct. 16, 2019. (Catherine Lai/AFP via Getty Images)
The Chinese military fully disassembled, and presumably attempted to copy, the EP-3’s electronic intelligence capabilities after it was downed.

“China’s People’s Liberation Army has and will continue to constantly upgrade its electronic intelligence (ELINT) and signals intelligence (SIGNIT) capabilities on Hainan Island due to its overall strategic importance for the power ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party,” wrote Fisher in an email.

“Hainan’s security is crucial for the CCP as it protects most of its nuclear ballistic missile submarines, will soon host multiple aircraft carrier battle groups for global power projection, and the Wencheng Satellite Launch Center on Hainan will be key to CCP power projection ambitions to the Moon and Mars.”

According to Australian reporting, the Chinese claimed in 2018 that a U.S. combat aircraft “lost control” over the South China Sea. The Chinese report said: “All the instruments in the cabin were chaotic. The fighter planes were completely out of control and could not communicate with the outside world, but they did not know what happened.”

Jamie Seidal at news.com.au wrote that China’s “claim appears to relate to a 2018 incident in which [a] US Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt reported jamming of their equipment.”

Instead of public retaliation as a show of strength, the U.S. government apparently just meekly took the blow and allowed American pilots to explain away the aggressive incident.

Pilots “said they were never put in any danger,” according to Seidal.

Grant Newsham, a former U.S. Marines colonel with extensive experience in Asia, commented that the “USA had better get serious about all this—and be ready to hit China hard.”

Newsham said that the Chinese military would “push the limits” just enough “to bother us—and even humiliate us” while disguising and brazenly denying the attack origin.

“Unfortunately, they get away with their denials—or at least we do nothing in response,” he said.

Newsham noted that after the Chinese military wounded American pilots with lasers near Djibouti and over the Pacific in 2018, the United States did nothing. He called this a failure in American strategy.

A former Morgan Stanley banker, Newsham advised a correction to the failure by banning “U.S. investment in China for 6 months, or pull Bank of China’s banking license for a year.”

Newsham is right. China’s military expansion and increasing international influence both depend on its economy. So for the United States and allies to maintain a preponderance of power in the coming century requires the rapid deceleration, with the risk of collapse, of China’s growing economy.

The same strategy has been used through major economic sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

The pin-$#@! economic sanctions on China that America has imposed so far are clearly not doing enough and need to be increased to have the necessary effect.

The United States cannot impose sanctions alone—or else Beijing would simply divert its trade and investments to Europe and the rest of the world, thus isolating the U.S. economy. The sanctions or tariffs must be agreed on a global level. Only the United States, with its powerful military, can lead these global sanctions today.

Anders Corr has a bachelor’s/master’s in political science from Yale University (2001) and a doctorate in government from Harvard University (2008). He is a principal at Corr Analytics Inc., publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, and has conducted extensive research in North America, Europe, and Asia. His latest books are “The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony” (2021) and “Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea” (2018).




https://www.theepochtimes.com/us-sho...s_4181027.html

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If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.

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Security guards is walking in an area that is under restrictions following a recent coronavirus outbreak in Xi’an city, Shaanxi province, China, on Dec. 22, 2021. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)


Omicron Offers an Off-Ramp From Our Failed Pandemic Policy




Jan Jekielek
Senior Editor

December 30, 2021

Epoch Times Commentary Audio PDF

As the COVID-19 pandemic and the Western world’s unprecedented approach to it enters a new phase, with the Omicron variant becoming more prevalent, an opportunity presents itself to effect dramatic and much-needed changes to COVID policy.

When the global pandemic was in its early stages in early 2020, very little was known, and our leaders feared the worst. Some understood, knowing the Chinese communist party’s response to SARS1, that the regime would avoid culpability at all costs, indeed at just about ANY cost, with possibly devastating consequences. Others, facing dubious models touting millions of deaths being brandished about by supposedly eminent scientists, and with the “extreme safety” being demanded by some elements of Western societies, were likewise in a panic. Fear gripped Western societies in a way unseen in generations.

And, coupled with the Chinese regime’s extreme censorship of COVID-related data and workers, coupled with apocalyptic COVID propaganda spread by its mouthpieces and sycophants, it can be argued that the West largely threw out the tried-and-tested traditional pandemic playbook in favor of extreme top-down policies eerily similar to those the Chinese regime was celebrating. Most notably, we locked down our societies, in multiple ways, shuttering businesses and schools, with only “essential” work continuing—something we stuck with despite ample evidence pointing at the dubious nature of these policies. Basic principles of public health went out the window. Instead of fostering robust scientific debate, we censored and vilified contrarian scientists advocating for those principles, such as the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

In our frantic quest to find solutions, we seemingly miraculously developed vaccines to stop the virus, but enamoured by and in our rush to deploy our new miracles, we neglected key safeguards, such as collecting proper safety data. We vilified early clinicians and the therapeutic treatments they were finding success with, pushed vaccines as a panacea only to find that many didn’t want them. Then, we adopted all sorts of tyrannical policies to “encourage” adoption, even for healthy children who are at miniscule risk from the virus. We spend a year and a half breaking up society, chipping away at our most cherished basic rights, and hunkering down into tribal camps, creating a new “unclean” caste, the unvaccinated.



As early as mid-2020, Stanford public health expert Dr. Scott Atlas unambiguously documented using available data that the human cost (in terms of lives) of the lockdown policies was already greater than the human cost of the virus, and this has not changed. Millions missed critical cancer screenings and suicidal ideation in teens skyrocketed—just a tiny part of the cost. A number of studies are showing that adverse events from the new vaccines, notably myocarditis, are more serious and common than has been generally understood. Corporate media, who have largely been cheerleaders in promoting the various questionable policies, are now asking questions about whether, for example, “too many shots might actually harm the body’s ability to fight the coronavirus.” Trillions have been spent for stimulus, and inflation is spiking—people are starting to feel the pain in their pocketbooks, especially the middle and working classes.

The bottom line is, there will be hell to pay. And I can’t help but remember what Governor Ron DeSantis told me when I met him in Florida, trying to understand why he had adopted the unusual, though effective, policies that he had, which we documented in “Desantis: Florida vs. Lockdowns.” He told me: “They will never admit they were wrong.”

Given the magnitude of our failure as a society in dealing with COVID, and the cardinal rule that human beings (but especially politicians) will go to gargantuan lengths to avoid responsibility, I posit that Omicron provides an off-ramp that doesn’t require admission of guilt. We need to halt the highly objectionable COVID policies being employed today, while giving up, for now, the assigning of blame.

Omicron has changed the game. With the preliminary research in, the data appears to show several things:

• Omicron is more contagious than Delta and other variants
• COVID vaccines seem to do little to stop Omicron infection
• Remarkably, there is some evidence that Omicron is breaking through natural immunity from previous variants
• Omicron is much less severe than other variants, with many scientists comparing its symptoms to the common cold
• Omicron is unexpected—its high level of mutation leaves scientists asking questions

Whatever the past reality, the difference in risk from COVID infection between the vaccinated and unvaccinated now appears to be lower than it was with previous variants. Whatever the past reality, the unvaccinated are not more a danger to society than the vaccinated. As the infection goes endemic, many people will get the virus, irrespective of vaccination status or past inflection.

The obsession with asymptomatic testing for COVID can be left behind with heads held high, as can masks. Ignorance of the past power of natural immunity vs. the virus becomes a non-issue at present. And, unlike past variants, Omicron is indeed a bit of an enigma in terms of both its genetics and of how it functions.

In other words, a perfect opportunity to effect a dramatic shift in pandemic policy, for example to policies laid out in the Great Barrington Declaration and past pandemic public health standards. Vaccine mandates can be dropped in an instant, policy can indeed be “left to the states” as President Biden has suggested, and state leaders can also follow in kind.

It’s an opportunity for leaders to use the novel Omicron variant to save face, as an “off ramp” off the current authoritarian and unpopular policy track, enacting policies that will have them celebrated and also work well, helping us start to heal our society. The sooner, the better.

Jan Jekielek is a senior editor with The Epoch Times and host of the show, “American Thought Leaders.” Jan’s career has spanned academia, media, and international human rights work. In 2009 he joined The Epoch Times full time and has served in a variety of roles, including as website chief editor. He is the producer of the award-winning Holocaust documentary film “Finding Manny.”




https://www.theepochtimes.com/omicro...y_4185606.html






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Pandemic Reflection: The Destructive CCP Model
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