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Des drones ukrainiens détruisent un musée de Sébastopol

Par : ActuStratpol

defense sebastopolDans la nuit du 10 juin, des drones de type avion des forces armées ukrainiennes ont attaqué Sébastopol. L’un des

L’article Des drones ukrainiens détruisent un musée de Sébastopol est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Frappes massives de drones ukrainiens contre les régions russes

Par : ActuStratpol

La nuit dernière, les forces armées ukrainiennes ont lancé une attaque massive contre des régions russes. Des civils ont été

L’article Frappes massives de drones ukrainiens contre les régions russes est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

La Russie a localisé la production de la plupart des composants pour ses drones

Par : ActuStratpol

Fin 2025, les fabricants russes de composants pour systèmes d’aéronefs sans pilote étaient parvenus à localiser une part importante de

L’article La Russie a localisé la production de la plupart des composants pour ses drones est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Kiev cible avec un drone une résidence de Poutine près de Valdaï

Par : ActuStratpol

drone residence

Donald Trump a confirmé avoir été informé personnellement par le président russe de l’attaque de drone contre la résidence de

L’article Kiev cible avec un drone une résidence de Poutine près de Valdaï est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Pakistan–Indonesia: Renewing a Strategic Partnership for a Shared Future.

Par : amarynth

By Zamir Awan

The official visit of President of the Republic of Indonesia, H.E. Prabowo Subianto, to Islamabad from 8–9 December 2025 marks a defining moment in Pakistan–Indonesia relations. Undertaken at the invitation of Prime Minister H.E. Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, this landmark visit—President Prabowo’s first to Pakistan—coincides with the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The timing could not be more meaningful. At a moment of profound global uncertainty and regional realignment, Islamabad and Jakarta have chosen to reaffirm trust, deepen cooperation, and chart an ambitious path forward grounded in shared values and common aspirations.

Pakistan and Indonesia are not merely long-standing partners; they are nations connected by history, culture, faith, and a shared outlook on global affairs. As the world’s second- and largest Muslim-majority countries by population respectively, both occupy pivotal positions in their regions and carry responsibilities that extend beyond national borders. Their partnership, therefore, holds promise not only for bilateral gains but also for broader regional stability and global cooperation.

A Visit of Symbolism and Substance

President Prabowo’s visit was rich in both symbolism and substance. It followed the last presidential visit from Indonesia in 2018, when President Joko Widodo traveled to Pakistan, and it underscored continuity as well as renewal in bilateral ties. During his stay, President Prabowo held delegation-level talks with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and met President Asif Ali Zardari. He was also called on by the Chief of Army Staff and Chief of Defence Forces, Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, reflecting the comprehensive nature of the engagement and the importance both sides attach to strategic dialogue.

The discussions covered a wide-ranging agenda aimed at strengthening cooperation across multiple sectors, including trade and investment, defence and security, health, information technology, climate change, education, and culture. The signing of seven Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) and agreements during the visit gave concrete expression to shared intent and laid the groundwork for sustained collaboration.

Indonesia and Pakistan: Natural Partners

Indonesia’s global and regional stature makes it a natural and valuable partner for Pakistan. Strategically located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with over 284 million people, and the largest Muslim-majority nation. As a member of the G20, a founding member of ASEAN, and an active participant in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Indonesia plays an influential role in shaping regional and global agendas. Its successful presidency of the G20 in 2022, culminating in the Bali Summit, further highlighted its diplomatic credibility and leadership capacity.

Pakistan, with a population of approximately 250 million, is the world’s fifth most populous country and the second-largest Muslim-majority nation. It occupies a strategic crossroads linking South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and China. As a member of the OIC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and numerous regional and global forums—and as the only Muslim country with nuclear capability—Pakistan brings a unique strategic perspective and considerable potential to any partnership.

These complementary strengths make Pakistan and Indonesia well-positioned to work together in shaping a more balanced, inclusive, and multipolar world order.

From Shared Values to Shared Action

The real strength of Pakistan–Indonesia relations lies in the convergence of values and interests. Both countries have navigated complex political transitions, faced developmental challenges, and demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity. They share a commitment to sovereignty, multilateralism, peaceful coexistence, and socio-economic development. This common ground has fostered mutual understanding and trust over the decades.

The seven MoUs signed during President Prabowo’s visit reflect a pragmatic and forward-looking approach to cooperation. In education, the mutual recognition of higher education degrees and the establishment of scholarship programs for Pakistani students in Indonesia will promote academic exchange, capacity building, and people-to-people connectivity. These initiatives will help nurture a new generation of scholars and professionals familiar with each other’s societies and cultures.

In the health sector, collaboration in healthcare services—including the deployment of Pakistani doctors and medical experts to Indonesia—addresses immediate needs while building long-term institutional linkages. This partnership underscores the shared belief that human development lies at the heart of national progress.

Trade and economic cooperation featured prominently, with agreements aimed at enhancing halal trade and certification and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the size of their domestic markets and their expanding middle classes, Pakistan and Indonesia have much to gain from closer trade ties, joint ventures, and technology sharing. SMEs, in particular, are engines of employment and innovation, and cooperation in this area can yield tangible benefits for ordinary citizens.

Security cooperation, including efforts to combat illicit drug trafficking and enhance law enforcement coordination, reflects shared concerns and responsibilities. By working together to address transnational threats, both countries contribute to regional stability and the safety of their peoples.

Agreements on archives and historical preservation may appear modest at first glance, but they carry deeper significance. Preserving historical records strengthens institutional memory, promotes cultural understanding, and reinforces a shared sense of identity and purpose.

Economic Promise and Strategic Opportunity

Despite strong political ties, economic engagement between Pakistan and Indonesia remains below potential. The renewed momentum generated by President Prabowo’s visit offers an opportunity to address this gap. Both countries possess abundant natural resources, youthful populations, and growing technological capabilities. By pooling resources, sharing expertise, and aligning development strategies, they can accelerate growth and enhance resilience.

Indonesia’s experience in industrial diversification, digital governance, and sustainable development can offer valuable lessons for Pakistan. Conversely, Pakistan’s strengths in agriculture, textiles, human capital, and emerging technology sectors can complement Indonesia’s economic priorities. Joint ventures in energy, infrastructure, and climate adaptation could further deepen cooperation and contribute to shared prosperity.

People-to-People Connectivity: The Foundation of Partnership

Ultimately, the durability of any bilateral relationship rests on people-to-people ties. Cultural exchanges, tourism, academic collaboration, and media engagement help translate diplomatic goodwill into lasting bonds. Pakistan and Indonesia, bound by shared faith and cultural affinities, are well-placed to strengthen these connections.

Enhanced connectivity will also help counter stereotypes and foster mutual respect. As citizens learn more about each other’s histories, aspirations, and challenges, the partnership will gain a human dimension that transcends official agreements.

Looking Ahead with Confidence

The visit of President Prabowo Subianto has injected new energy into Pakistan–Indonesia relations at a time when cooperative diplomacy is urgently needed. It has reaffirmed that trust, dialogue, and collaboration remain powerful tools for addressing shared challenges and seizing common opportunities.

As both nations look to the future, the message is clear: close cooperation is not a choice but a necessity. By leveraging each other’s strengths and supporting one another through challenges, Pakistan and Indonesia can help shape a more peaceful, prosperous, and just regional and global order.

The fruits of this visit will not be measured solely by signed documents, but by the tangible improvements it brings to the lives of ordinary people—through jobs created, skills enhanced, healthcare improved, and horizons expanded. With sustained commitment and mutual respect, the partnership between these two brotherly Muslim countries can become a model of South–Southeast Asian cooperation.

Seventy-five years after establishing diplomatic ties, Pakistan and Indonesia stand ready to write a new chapter—one defined by confidence, collaboration, and a shared destiny.

Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Founding Chair GSRRA, Sinologist, Diplomat, Editor, Analyst, Advisor, Consultant, Researcher at Global South Economic and Trade Cooperation Research Center, and Non-Resident Fellow of CCG. (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

 

Development of hydrogen drones in China

Par : amarynth

Development of hydrogen drones in China

🔻 At the 7th Zhejiang International Intelligent Transportation Industry Exhibition on December 11, it was announced that the Chinese Tianmu Shan-1 drone has set a world record and entered the Guinness Book of Records.

The UAV completed a non-stop flight of 188,605 km on November 16. The duration of the continuous flight was 4 hours, 17 minutes and 55 seconds.

The drone was developed by the Tianmu Laboratory at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It was manufactured by Hangzhou Tianmu Hydrogen Peng Technology. The device has entered mass production. An important feature of the drone is its own hydrogen fuel system: the specific power of the fuel cell is 1500 W/kg, and the hydrogen utilization rate is 97.5%. The body is made of lightweight carbon fiber, and it has a lightweight hydrogen storage system.

📌 Declared characteristics

• wheelbase – 1600 mm
• empty weight – 19 kg
• payload – 6 kg
• flight duration without payload – 4 hours
• control range within direct visibility – 100 km
• operating temperature range: from -40°C to +50°C.

📌 Application areas

• reconnaissance, patrol and monitoring (including pipelines, power lines, highways);
• maritime and island logistics;
• emergency and search and rescue operations in urban environments;
• transportation of small-sized cargo.

Chinese developers noted that they have created a complete line of onboard hydrogen energy systems with a power range from 100 W to 40 kW, as well as a specialized flight control system and a ground station exclusively for hydrogen UAVs.

💾

Q&A with Maria Zakharova on Outlaw US Empire’s New Imperial Policy Guidelines

Par : amarynth

Otherwise known as the National Security Strategy

With thanks to Karl Sanchez at karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium

Maria Zakharova today was asked a few questions by Russian media about the Trump Gang’s newly revealed imperial plans. The Q&A session was actually rather short given the overall vastness of the topic. IMO, it’s essential to compare her answers and POV with those of other analysts. A selection of comments by other Russian officials as reported by Russian media follows.

Question: On December 4, the US President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled yet another and at the same time largely new US National Security Strategy. This time, it seems that the “Strategy” is moving away from the stereotypes and attitudes of previous similar American documents. The first and main question in this regard is: how will its provisions affect U.S. relations with Russia?

Maria Zakharova: In the new version of the US National Security Strategy, we note a number of provisions that indicate a serious rethinking of US foreign policy doctrine, which is especially noticeable in contrast to its previous version in 2022. First of all, attention is drawn to the revision of Washington’s previous bet on hegemony—the document directly states that earlier “the American elites made grave miscalculations” by making “a very erroneous and destructive bet on globalism.” Of course, time will show to what extent the Trump administration will be able to take into account this difficult statement for the United States. Nevertheless, as it seems, at the moment the very recognition of the bankruptcy of the globalist model is indicative.

As we understand it, this basic ideology also defines another key tenet of the Strategy: the call to “put an end to the perception of NATO as an ever-expanding alliance,” together with the task of “preventing such a reality.” In other words, for the first time, the United States is recording, if not a commitment not to expand the alliance, then at least officially questioning its eternally aggressively expansionist dynamics.

It is also important that Russia is mentioned in the document in the context of pan-European security, and there are no calls for systemic containment of our state and increasing economic pressure on us. Nevertheless, without naming Moscow directly, in the new version of the “Strategy”, Washington loudly outlined plans to achieve “energy dominance” by “reducing the influence of adversaries.” Behind these words, one can clearly see the desire to continue ousting Russia from global energy markets by any available means.

Question: What does the Russian Foreign Ministry think about the military-political aspect of the new Strategy and, in particular, the stated goal of achieving strategic stability in relations with us?

Maria Zakharova: Despite the general pragmatic approach to the topic, we are witnessing a number of contradictory points. For example, we did not see any elements in the document that would allow us to understand the American vision of the “post-New START Treaty.” We are referring to the determination of parity in the central quantitative limits of nuclear weapons.

We also consider the provisions on the US Golden Dome global missile defence system to be streamlined. We are still waiting for specifics from the American side regarding the interdependence of strategic offensive and strategic defensive potentials.

Despite the strict upholding of US interests in the strategy, the document makes it possible to search for joint “common ground” with us. True, the likelihood of a change of course in the US national strategy under the next administrations also remains.

Question: It is impossible not to pay attention to the harsh criticism in the document of the liberal elites ruling in Europe for suppressing “undesirable” political forces. The migration policy of Brussels is even characterized as a threat of the civilizational disappearance of Europe. Does this indicate a split in the so-called “collective West”?

Maria Zakharova: As in the case of globalism, it is more about acknowledging the deepening contradictions between the United States and the EU, which culminated in Brussels’ openly sabotage policy with regard to Donald Trump’s peacemaking aspirations on the Ukrainian issue. There is an objective coincidence of Russia’s traditional views and the sensible assessments of the new US leadership on the truly alarming processes taking place in the Old World. In this regard, it remains to be hoped that the new American “Strategy” will have the same sobering effect on the European “party of war” as the recent statements by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin about the absurdity of the European “motivations” for preparing for some kind of “war with Russia.”

At the same time, it is worth emphasizing that certain provisions of the document regarding the Ukrainian crisis lay the foundation for continuing our joint constructive efforts with the Americans to find ways to peacefully resolve the conflict.

Question: How can you assess the thesis about the “revision” of the need for a US military presence in those regions “whose relative importance for American national security has decreased in recent years and decades”?

Maria Zakharova: The thesis reflects the concept of “America First,” but it should hardly be regarded as the United States’ refusal to maintain its military presence abroad, which, in turn, corresponds to another American idea, the so-called “peace by force.” For example, in the passages of the document on the Asia-Pacific region, the presence of conflict language towards the PRC is alarming, as well as calls for all major regional partners to provide the Pentagon with greater access to their ports and “other facilities.”

Question: The Strategy shows a shift in the focus of US foreign policy to the Western Hemisphere. This is stipulated as a “Trump amendment” to the notorious “Monroe Doctrine”. Doesn’t that sound threatening?

Maria Zakharova: The relevant passages sound more like a direct reference to the so-called Roosevelt Amendment, the doctrine of the 26th US President Theodore Roosevelt, who at one time proclaimed Washington’s right to invade Latin America under the pretext of “stabilising the domestic economic situation” of a particular country in the region. This is particularly alarming against the backdrop of the current tensions that the Pentagon is deliberately escalating around Venezuela. We hope that the White House will still be able to refrain from further sliding into a full-scale conflict that threatens to turn into unpredictable consequences for the entire Western Hemisphere. [My Emphasis]

A large amount of optimism was expressed along with a balancing degree of pessimism. The expression “New wine in Old bottles” seems to fit rather well. Overall, the new Imperial plan shows the continuing disdain to obey international law and thus perpetuate its label as the Outlaw US Empire. Recent actions by the Trump Gang show a lack of seriousness when it comes to genuinely negotiating an end to the war the Empire started and has lost in Ukraine—neither Witkoff or Kushner have the legal capabilities to negotiate on behalf of the Empire as they are merely personal emissaries of Donald Trump. That’s why the picture of the meeting’s participants told the real story. Alastair Crooke explained that well today during his chat with Judge Nap.

Russian concern over the escalation in the Empire’s plans toward China are well placed. Russia’s recent message by Ryabkov as reported by TASS to the Trump Gang not to FAFO with Venezuela:

“We express our solidarity with Venezuela, with whom we recently signed a strategic partnership and cooperation agreement,” the deputy foreign minister noted. “We support Venezuela, as it supports us, in many areas. In this hour of trial, we stand shoulder to shoulder with Caracas and the Venezuelan leadership. We hope that the Trump administration will refrain from further escalating the situation toward a full-scale conflict. We urge it to do so,” Ryabkov emphasized.

TASS also reported what Dmitry Medvedev wrote about the Empire’s new stance:

The updated US National Security Strategy signals a readiness to discuss security architecture, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

“This is not a friendly embrace, but a fairly clear signal: the US is ready to discuss security architecture rather than impose endless and meaningless sanctions (although the new restrictions on Russian oil mean a continuation of the previous course),” he wrote on his Max page. [Max is a new social media platform similar in organization to Telegram.]

The security official noted that for the first time in many years, the US document refers to Russia not as a “threat” but as a participant in the dialogue on stability. Medvedev also pointed out that the updated strategy includes a clause on halting NATO expansion and that Ukraine is not mentioned in this context.

“The strategy unexpectedly echoes what we have been saying for over a year: security must be shared and sovereignty respected,” Medvedev emphasized, recalling Russia’s longstanding proposal for negotiations. “Now, a window of opportunity for dialogue has been opened,” he concluded. [My Emphasis]

It appears the two Russians share similar assessments as the plan relates to Russia and that this view is also shared by the Kremlin as revealed by this RT report:

Trump’s policies are “a pretty big turnaround compared to what we had with the previous administrations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin in an interview which aired on Sunday. Peskov warned that the American “deep state” could attempt to undermine Trump’s approach, which is why Russia would “carefully monitor the implementation” of the strategy.

He went on to add that a lot of the changes “actually line up with our own vision.”

“It includes statements against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and maintaining good relations. This is also what Russian President Vladimir Putin is saying,” Peskov said.

He noted that the new NSS offers hope for “constructive work toward a peaceful resolution for Ukraine.” [Italics Original]

I’d call the new plan incremental change mostly towards Russia, not a “big turnaround” because the plan is global, nt just aimed at Russia. It remains hegemonic and not at all in the interests of Humanity. And as some have noted, it’s incomplete as it omits mention of other regions, Africa in particular. Not included in the report’s body was the admission made in the sub-headline:

The American “deep state” could attempt to undermine Trump’s approach, Dmitry Peskov has warned.

TASS’s report on Peskov’s statement noted this:

The Kremlin is going to review the updated US national security strategy in more detail and to analyze its provisions, the press secretary of the Russian President stressed. “Certainly, it should be considered, analyzed in more detail,” Peskov noted.

I’ve yet to read any comprehensive analysis or reply from China to the Empire’s new plot aside from a very short, two-paragraph blurb about trade that can be read here. The region most affected by the altered direction of US Imperialism is the Western Hemisphere where I’ve yet to look for reactions, although we already know what general line will be taken by nations with longstanding histories of resistance to the Outlaw’s actions.

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Global Trade News

Par : AHH

“The genie is out of the bottle. The provocation of a “USV privateer war” on trade routes threatens to collapse global maritime trade.”

By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

The oil tanker Virat has been attacked twice by unmanned boats near the Bosphorus Strait. On one occasion, the ship Kairos was also set on fire. Western media outlets have claimed that the tanker belongs to Russia’s “shadow fleet.” This expands the list of potential suspects. Naturally, Ukraine, which has been waging a long-standing war against the Russian military fleet using unmanned combatants, is at the top of the list. However, it is unlikely that Kiev would have dared to attack merchant ships, especially near one of the world’s most important transportation hubs connecting the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which is controlled by Turkey, without the direct approval of its Western allies. The consequences, both direct and indirect, would have been far-reaching, affecting the entire world. Ukraine may no longer exist, but the unmanned surface vehicle’s (USV) attack on merchant ships could echo for decades, shaping the maritime trade landscape.

So it doesn’t matter whether these USVs belonged to Ukraine or whether the British and Americans decided to use their own or those belonging to a third country. The genie is out of the bottle. And not only because this game can be played by two people.

In this case, Britain is unlikely to hope to remain outside the scope of retaliatory actions. It is clear that it is more difficult to use USV to disrupt shipping in the open ocean than in enclosed waters such as the Black, Baltic, Mediterranean, White, Red, Yellow, and Japanese Seas, as well as all Chinese coastal seas. However, the ports of the United Kingdom are within direct reach of USV strikes from the continent and/or from ships and vessels passing through the English Channel. The situation for shipping may be even more dangerous in the classic pirate stronghold of the Caribbean Sea, which borders dozens of countries, many of which are home to both drug cartels and ideological guerrillas.

The threat to American southern ports in the Atlantic is clear.

At the same time, although USVs are more complex than the simplest air drones, they do not require high-tech enterprises for their creation. The problem of guidance, especially at shorter distances, is also solvable. This means that it is not always possible to determine the nationality of a USV that has not exploded, especially if the manufacturer deliberately conceals it.

Almost all strategic global maritime trade routes, no matter how far they extend into the open ocean, eventually pass through bottlenecks like the Bosphorus. Moreover, almost all of these bottlenecks are within the reach of the USV from the coasts of dozens of countries and/or hundreds of ships passing by simultaneously. Only the Northern Sea Route is relatively protected by national means. The rest can be blocked.

The provocation of a “USV privateer war” on trade routes threatens to collapse global maritime trade. This does not require sinking all ships. It is enough to make the threat significant enough to increase insurance premiums, crew salaries, and security costs, as well as delivery times. As a result, significant volumes will be excluded from global trade due to their unprofitability. Additionally, USV can be produced in large quantities (or purchased) and used by dozens of countries against each other. As we know, the greater the demand, the cheaper and easier to use the technology becomes. The first AK-47s were secret and carried in tarpaulin cases, but now the entire world, including the poorest tribes, is using them, and only the lazy ones are not producing them. Finally, the Ukrainian military crisis, as well as the wars between the Houthis and the Saudis and Israel, have demonstrated how easy it is to use high-tech weapons against a third country under the guise of a proxy ally. If Ukraine can launch American and European missiles, which require satellite guidance, at targets deep within Russia, and the Houthis can use hypersonic weapons to attack their enemies, what is stopping Somali pirates or Colombian drug lords from developing similar technologies for the USV?

I want to emphasize that the problem is not that a tanker that could theoretically belong to Russia’s “shadow fleet” was attacked. Russia is primarily a land-based power, and its main trade routes are located within the Eurasian continent and are well-protected. The main targets of the “USV privateer war” may include China, Taiwan, Japan, both Koreas, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, India, the Gulf oil monarchies, Iran, Singapore, Turkey, Indonesia, and countries in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, North Sea, and Baltic regions.

These are either trade competitors of the United States and the United Kingdom, or allies of the United States who are in a leading geopolitical position and are used as a springboard for military and political pressure on the United States’ trade and economic competitors.


In recent years, the West has been losing not only the financial and economic struggle, but also the struggle for control of global trade. The dollar and the euro are losing their positions as the main and auxiliary global currencies and currencies for trade settlements. The yuan, rather than the ruble or the rupee, is actively replacing them. The traditional trade between the West and countries in the Gulf, Latin America, and Southeast Asia is gradually shifting to China. China is also actively expanding its presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, moving through the Greater Middle East.

In all of China’s advancements, maritime trade routes are of utmost importance.

The land-based trans-Eurasian trade routes that connect the continent into a unified economic Greater Eurasia serve as the foundation, but it is the control over maritime trade routes that allows China to build a “fairy-tale castle” of global profitable trade. It is no coincidence that China is building a navy that surpasses the United States in terms of the number of ships and is poised to surpass it in terms of overall combat power. China needs to control the routes that facilitate the sale of its goods. Russia can exist as an autarky, but China will quickly explode from within if its trade is blocked.

During the Ukrainian military crisis, Western UAVs, which were limited in their use in Ukraine, proved to be highly effective in controlling the water area dominated by the enemy’s navy and aviation, as well as in blocking ports and posing a constant threat to military bases. Russian sailors gradually learned to combat the UAV threat, but they were unable to completely eliminate it.

It should be noted that the military fleet, which exercises dominance in a closed water area, has impressive capabilities for combating enemy USVs. However, as mentioned earlier, the threat of USVs in the Black Sea has not been completely eliminated. For the military, repelling attacks is a natural activity. The merchant fleet, on the other hand, is not equipped to handle this task. Any measures taken to enhance the security of commercial ports and the surrounding water area will immediately impact the speed and cost of shipping goods, while the threat of USVs remains high.

The West is not just not afraid of playing a “double game” in the “USV privateer war.” It is provoking this war, deliberately seeking to paralyze global maritime trade.

We can say that this will hit the West itself. It will hit it, but not as hard as we would like. As mentioned above, the West has already lost its trade supremacy to China, and it will only continue to lose ground. However, the rules of geopolitical warfare require us to try to destroy the mechanism that benefits our geopolitical adversary rather than ourselves. During the two World Wars, when maritime trade was an Anglo-Saxon monopoly, Germany attempted to wage war against it using its submarine fleet. The West is now trying to strike a blow to global maritime trade, which is gradually being taken over by China.

We have repeatedly said that the paralysis of Chinese trade will inevitably plunge Beijing into a financial, economic, and then a social and political crisis. The Anglo-Americans have failed to isolate China through legal means, so why not try proxy piracy, since they are already waging a proxy war on land against Russia.

It is clear that we should not expect hundreds of USV attacks on sea routes tomorrow. However, we should not expect them to take decades to organize. As the development of UAV technology during the Ukrainian military crisis has shown, it is possible to transition from isolated attacks to large-scale use in a matter of months (or even a couple of years), which can change the entire dynamics of the conflict and require the development of appropriate countermeasures, which may not always be as quick as desired.

The fact that the incidents involving attacks on merchant ships by the USV occurred in the area of the Bosphorus, a trade route controlled by a NATO country, indicates that the organizers of this provocation are preparing for a global undeclared war on trade routes (similar to the war between English pirates and Spanish transatlantic trade in the 16th to 18th centuries), and they do not intend to tolerate the transfer of control over these routes to their geopolitical opponents. Given that the United States is developing an icebreaker fleet and actively expanding its presence in the Arctic, we should also consider strengthening the security of the Northern Sea Route.

Chinese defense ministry responds intensively to Japan’s dangerous moves

Par : amarynth

‘Should Japan dare to cross red line, it is destined to pay heavy price’

From GT

China’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) on Thursday responded intensively to a series of recent moves by Japan, including the deployment of missiles on Yonaguni Island, the first export of deadly weapons since Japan relaxed arms export controls, and Japan’s initiation of discussions on revising three security-related documents.

Slamming these dangerous moves, MND spokesperson Jiang Bin said at a press conference held on Thursday that should the Japanese side dare to cross the red line and invite trouble to itself, it is destined to pay a heavy price. He added that people around the world, especially those from China and other victimized countries in Asia, will never forget the catastrophe brought by Japanese fascists. The specter of Japanese militarism must never be allowed to haunt the world again.

Recent media reports said that the Japanese government has sold its domestically produced Patriot air-defense missiles to the US. It was the first export of deadly weapons since Japan relaxed controls on arms exports. In addition, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has started discussions on revising its three security documents, including the revision of its three non-nuclear principles and increasing its defense spending.

Commenting on the latest moves, Jiang warned that the international community must be on high alert against Japan’s revisionist attempts to break away from the restraints of its pacifist constitution. The attempts include brazenly expanding its military build-up, drastically increasing its defense budget, expediting the revision of its security policies, relaxing restrictions on weapons exports, and attempting to revoke the three non-nuclear principles. It is even attempting to intervene militarily on the Taiwan question. These moves pose serious threats to regional peace and stability, Jiang said.

Regarding the Japanese side’s plan to station medium-range surface-to-air missiles at Yonaguni Island 110 kilometers east of Taiwan, and responding to Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi’s recent claim that the deployment “will lower the risk of Japan being attacked”, the MND spokesperson said, “Should the Japanese side dare to cross the red line and invite troubles to itself, it is destined to pay a heavy price.”

Jiang noted that this year marks the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s restoration. “Instead of repenting for its war crimes of invading and colonizing Taiwan, Japan is taking an extremely wrong approach by suggesting military intervention in a so-called Taiwan contingency. This dangerous approach will uproot the post-WWII international order, and lead Japan to repeat the mistakes of its militarist past.”

The PLA has strong capabilities and reliable means to defeat any aggressors, Jiang stressed.

The MND also responded to recent claims from a source in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces saying that if the aircraft carrier Fujian takes military action in the Taiwan Straits, “Japanese and US forces will have the capability to sink it.”

In response, Jiang said, “it is nothing but sheer fantasy and an overestimation of one’s own abilities.”

Japan’s recent series of dangerous moves have inflicted severe harm and posed a major threat to peace and stability in the region and beyond, a Chinese expert said.

“Alarmingly, Japan has shown no remorse whatsoever for its aggressive past in World War II; instead, it continues to stir up troubles and revive militarist practices. Furthermore, Japan harbors ambitions to develop nuclear weapons, acquire nuclear-powered equipment, and promote arms exports. The core reason for its ‘recklessness’ is its utter lack of repentance for its WWII aggression,” Song Zhongping, a military affairs expert, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Song warned that if such a country is allowed to revive militarism, it will undoubtedly bring catastrophic consequences to the region and the world at large.

Song believes that China, as a core force for safeguarding regional and global peace, will never tolerate Japan’s dangerous acts. If Japan dares to exacerbate regional unrest and inflict harm on the region, China will resolutely step forward, and take firm and effective measures to crack down on and resolutely curb Japan’s militarist resurgence.

Tensions have boiled between Beijing and Tokyo following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks on the Taiwan question. The comments have sparked widespread public debate and continuous protests within Japan, with prominent politicians and experts voicing open opposition.

In an exclusive interview with the Global Times, Yukiko Kaikita, president of the Kumamoto Chapter of the Women’s Association for Peace and Against Military Expansion, said Takaichi’s remarks constitute blatant interference in China’s internal affairs, and that a large number of Japanese citizens hope she will retract her statements and issue an apology.

“Most importantly, Japan’s core commitment to the world is that we would never again wage war. When World War II ended in 1945, the Japanese people not only enshrined this principle in our constitution but also internalized, from the bottom of their hearts, the conviction that ‘we must never go to war again’,” said Kaikita. “Yet, among Japanese politicians, that conviction gradually faded, as it was replaced by a complete tilt toward the US-Japan security framework. This shift fills us with deep anger.”

Venezuela Sit Rep: the reason for the struggle

Par : AHH

Verily, it is Victory or Martyrdom. 

Venezuelans have a “true sense of belonging to a project worth saving.. This is a project of collective self-emancipation. .. Those who are committed to the Bolivarian revolution assume themselves as subjects of transformation, not as victims. And this is something to be reckoned with.”

Video Description:
“I’m joined by Cira Pasqual Marquina, author and educator at the Pluriversidad Patria Grande and co-host with Chris Gilbert of the Marxist education program and podcast Escuela de Cuadros.
I ask her:

  • how are Venezuelans seeing this buildup?
  • What is the analysis of the regional context?
  • Why is the US doing this now?
  • What the Venezuelan revolution is really about
  • And some speculations for the “day after” the US attack happens”

≈≈≈


Cira Pascual Marquina interviews at Venezuelanalysis.

The Imperialist Offensive is Nothing New for the Bolivarian Revolution’: A Conversation with Ana Maldonado

A Chavista organizer examines the US militarization of the Caribbean and the Bolivarian Revolution’s enduring resistance to imperial aggression.

In recent months, Washington has stepped up its military presence in the Caribbean, sending warships, aircraft, and even a nuclear submarine to waters near Venezuela amid extrajudicial attacks on fishing vessels. For many, this new phase of aggression is all too familiar — part of a decades-long campaign of hybrid warfare designed to undermine Venezuela’s sovereignty.

In this context, Cira Pascual Marquina spoke with Ana Maldonado, a sociologist, international relations coordinator for the Francisco de Miranda Front—a national Chavista movement—and member of the Venezuelan chapter of ALBA Movements. In this interview, Maldonado offers her perspective on how Venezuelans are experiencing the latest imperialist escalation, reflects on the country’s long resistance to hybrid war, and situates the current threat within the broader struggle for sovereignty in Latin America and the Caribbean.

How are the Venezuelan people experiencing this new imperialist escalation?

President Nicolás Maduro has said that in this scenario of maximum pressure, our response must be maximum preparation. At the same time, he has called on us to combine vigilance with calm, to continue our daily lives, and to defend the peace with social justice that has cost us so much to build and preserve.

You can see this clearly in the fact that, even amid the current military escalation, the new school year began normally across the country. More than 20,000 educational institutions opened their doors without disruption, and over six million children and youth returned to class, as they do every year around this time.

While we are indeed facing a serious threat of war, people are also carrying on with their everyday lives and that, in itself, is a victory, since the enemy seeks precisely to disrupt our life.

People abroad are often surprised to learn that daily routines here continue undisturbed and that Venezuelans are not living in a state of panic. How do you explain this?

This is far from our first encounter with imperialist aggression. The tactics may shift, but the strategy remains unchanged: hybrid warfare. For years, US imperialism and its allies have waged a relentless campaign against Venezuela, beginning in earnest in April 2002 with the coup d’état and the people’s heroic counteroffensive that restored democracy. That was followed by the oil sabotage, mercenary incursions, and global media campaigns against our democracy.

After Comandante Chávez passed in 2013, a new and sustained period of aggression began. Initially, they bet that we would fail to hold peaceful elections or that President Maduro would never be elected. The dominant narrative was “Maduro is not Chávez.” With that simplistic argument, they sought to demoralize the Chavista social base, implying that the Bolivarian project would not withstand the loss of the Comandante. Yet we won the elections and, even as we mourned Chávez, the project continued.

But the US and their local agents were determined not to let us go on with our revolution. In 2014, the opposition launched a violent campaign called “La Salida” [The Exit], led by Voluntad Popular and María Corina Machado, the same factions now openly calling for foreign intervention. The following year, the United States took another war-like step: Obama’s 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”

That decree was followed by the 2016 economic strangulation, marked by deliberate shortages aimed at making everyday life unbearable. Ten years later, we remain under a blockade that has killed tens of thousands.

In 2017, the most extreme factions of the opposition returned to the streets with fascist violence, committing atrocities such as the burning alive of a young Black man, Orlando Figuera, targeted simply for looking like a Chavista. More than 100 people were killed during this period of intensified fascist terror.

President Maduro responded by calling for a National Constituent Assembly, once again raising the banner of peace and democracy in the face of fascist violence. People from all sectors, including residents of middle-class neighborhoods whose polling centers had been attacked, were able to vote in peace at the Poliedro de Caracas.

Since then, we’ve lived through multiple phases of hybrid war: Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation as “interim president” in 2019 and the “Battle of the Bridges,” when the opposition attempted to stage a false-flag operation on the Colombian border under the guise of a humanitarian aid effort. That was followed by massive blackouts that left the country in darkness for days and the 2020 Operation Gideon, recently further exposed in a Max Blumenthal interview with its US organizer, Jordan Goudreau, a former Green Beret.

None of these were isolated incidents: they are coordinated fronts in a sustained hybrid war combining political, psychological, economic, and military aggression.

Yet, in each of these moments, the government and the organized pueblo have responded effectively. During the 2019 electrical sabotage, for example, communities mobilized to ensure access to water and basic needs, while Operation Gideon was defeated by the same fisherfolk who are now being attacked in the Southern Caribbean.

So, to return to your original question: yes, people are alert because the threat is real, but we are also seasoned and organized. We know we are capable of defending the Revolution with unity and discipline. We are in a phase of maximum preparation, with millions voluntarily enrolling in the militia and preparing for the defense of the Patria [homeland].

Indeed, people are not only enlisting in the Bolivarian Militia but also preparing collectively. You’ve given us a historical account of the attacks faced by the Bolivarian Revolution over the past 25 years. But as we know, the current military buildup in the Caribbean is not only against Venezuela: it is an attack on the continent. How do you understand its broader implications?

The imperialist onslaught on the Caribbean is nothing new. Haiti, still punished today for its revolution more than two centuries ago, remains under siege. Now, armed gangs tied to the Dominican Republic are also involved. Puerto Rico continues to endure capitalist dispossession, with five million Puerto Ricans now living in the US while barely three million remain on the island. All the while, revolutionary Cuba has faced a brutal blockade for many decades.

However, the recent imperialist military buildup should deeply concern the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, since it signals a shift in Washington’s military policy. Around 10,000 US troops are currently stationed in the Caribbean, mainly in Puerto Rico, to say nothing of the destroyers, nuclear submarine, and air force deployments.

They are not there only to threaten Venezuela; this is the revival of the Monroe Doctrine. As Trump once said, “Why pay for Venezuelan oil, if we can just take it?” That’s how they think about the resources of the continent.

When it comes to Venezuela, beyond seizing our resources, the US also aims to strip away our sovereignty and destroy the example that we represent. If our project succeeds, it will inspire the entire continent. From Canada to Patagonia, people are struggling for liberation, and the Bolivarian Revolution represents a living example of how that can be done.

Attacking Venezuela serves two purposes: to loot our resources and to extinguish the example of participatory democracy. Since 2021, Venezuela has experienced renewed economic growth and the strengthening of its communes and popular power.

That is precisely what Washington wants to halt: they fear that the peoples of Latin America, and even within the United States, will draw inspiration from our experience.

Why the military escalation at this particular moment?

Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” is itself an admission of decline. The US is no longer what it once was, and its elites are desperate to recover lost ground. Yet even within those elites, fractures abound between the neoconservatives, the Zionist zealots, and the MAGA bloc. Their internal contradictions often produce erratic foreign policy decisions.

However, on one point they all agree: war is profitable. The military-industrial complex remains central to sustaining the US economy. So even amid domestic tensions, there is a bipartisan consensus around war as business.

Before the recent attacks on Venezuelan vessels, President Maduro warned that they might attempt to recreate a Gulf of Tonkin incident, because their hunger for war is insatiable. He was right: this aggression is ultimately driven by the economic imperative of feeding the war machine. In a post-Cold War world, it survives through perpetual “hot wars”—and what better front than Venezuela, which is rich in resources and defiant of imperial domination?

Let’s close with Chávez. He declared the Bolivarian Revolution anti-imperialist in 2004, but in truth, it always had a sovereign and anti-imperialist character. Could you reflect on Chávez’s anti-imperialism?

Indeed. The formal declaration came during a historic rally at the Botanical Garden in 2004, but the Revolution was Bolivarian from the start, and Bolívar himself was profoundly anti-imperialist. He warned that the United States seemed “destined by Providence to plague the Americas with misery in the name of liberty.” That same spirit lives in our revolution since day one.

Chávez revived Bolívar’s anti-imperialist legacy as early as 1977, when he created the People’s Army for the Liberation of Venezuela, whose founding document enshrined Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism as guiding principles. Later, in The Blue Book [1991], he outlined the vision of sovereignty and dignity that still guides us. President Maduro calls that text a “historical compass” pointing us steadfastly, no matter how much we have to maneuver, toward our strategic goal: the defense of sovereignty and the rejection of imperial domination.

For us, being anti-imperialist means not only refusing to surrender our resources, but also defending our identity, our dignity, and our very being. The empire’s elites belong nowhere; they want the world to belong to them. We, by contrast, define ourselves by belonging to a land, to a pueblo, and to a history.

That is why even symbolic aggressions, such as the attempt to erase “Bolivarian” from the Republic’s name during the 2002 coup, or mocking us as “venecos” in an attempt to erase our identity, are part of the war.

Bolivarianism and anti-imperialism are also deeply rooted in your organization, the Frente Francisco de Miranda. Can you tell us about it? 

Indeed. In 2003, Fidel and Chávez founded the Frente Francisco de Miranda as a movement of Bolivarian, anti-imperialist social workers. However, anti-imperialism isn’t limited to my organization; it’s in the bloodstream of millions of Venezuelans who have resisted International Monetary Fund impositions since 1989 and continue defending the Bolivarian project today.

To be Chavista is to be anti-imperialist. Chávez was the first Latin American president to recognize Palestine, to support the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and to speak of our historical debt to Haiti. His backing of these and other liberation struggles was not just a matter of words but also about material support. He also linked the defense of Haiti to a history that, for him, didn’t begin with Pétion and Dessalines, but with Hatuey, the first known hero of an anti-colonial Caribbean rebellion.

That is our Chávez—the anti-imperialist Chávez—whose legacy continues to guide us!

≈≈≈

Cira Pascual Marquina is a Political Science professor at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas. She is also co‐producer and co‐host (with Chris Gilbert) of the Marxist education program Escuela de Cuadros. She is actively engaged with grassroots organizations in Venezuela and abroad, and is dedicated, both as a militant and as an investigator, to communal initiatives.

China-Japan relations in the wake of Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan

Par : amarynth

China-Japan relations in the wake of Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan represent “the most dangerous situation in the past several decades,” says a Taiwan-based journalist and political analyst.

China is back to its stance of ‘Never Forget, Never Forgive!’  

Takaichi claimed at a Diet meeting on November 7 that the Chinese mainland’s “use of force on Taiwan” could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. She refused to retract her remarks, which imply the possibility of armed intervention in the Taiwan Straits.

Multiple Chinese ministries and government agencies have condemned the Japanese side’s related moves and remarks, warning that Japan would face a resolute response if it dared to meddle in the Taiwan question.

Japan sent a diplomat immediately.

This suggests that Japan is eager to hold face-to-face talks with China, while Beijing fully understands that, unless Takaichi formally apologizes for and retracts her remarks that crossed China’s red lines, any visit by Japanese officials to China is unlikely to yield substantive results.

While this is going on, China’s Defense Ministry urges the US to halt the despicable act of arming Taiwan island, and to avoid harming ties of two militaries.

Neither is Taiwan quiet. Some 34 groups on the Taiwan island jointly issued a protest statement on Monday to sternly protest the Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous and provocative remarks regarding the Taiwan question, declaring that the people in Taiwan refuse to become sacrifices to Japanese militarism.

These groups, including the Labor Party of Taiwan and the Cross-Straits Peace and Development Forum, said in the protest statement that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi openly declared at the Diet meeting that the Taiwan question could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, to justify Japan’s exercise of the right of collective self-defense and implied military intervention in the Taiwan Straits.

Takaichi’s use of the so-called “Taiwan emergency” to push for a strategic upgrade is not for Taiwan’s benefit, but to legitimize the militarism expansion of Japanese right-wing groups. By elevating the Taiwan question into a matter of “survival-threatening situation” for Japan in her capacity as prime minister, Takaichi is effectively using state power to justify military action, which is a blatant provocation against existing China-Japan agreements and the post-war order, according to the statement.

People’s Daily published a blistering report:

Takaichi’s wrong remarks on Taiwan question are akin to invoking the spirit of militarism. The rhetoric of “a Taiwan contingency is a contingency for Japan” is a dangerous narrative circulating within Japanese political circles, attempting to link China’s national reunification with Japan’s security concerns. Less than a month into her tenure, Takaichi has become the first sitting Japanese prime minister to openly advocate for this dangerous position, connecting it to the potential exercise of collective self-defense. This highlights the dangerous direction of her domestic and foreign policies. Historically, Japan’s militarism has often used the so-called existential crisis as a pretext for external aggression, including justifying the September 18 Incident and provoking the war of aggression against China, which brought tremendous suffering to Asia and the world. Takaichi’s recent use of “existential crisis” as a justification provides ample cause for concern that Japan may be repeating the mistakes of its militaristic past.

Takaichi’s reckless remarks are a blatant provocation to historical justice. Japan bears deep historical responsibility on the Taiwan question. After the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan forcibly seized Taiwan and imposed colonial rule for half a century, committing countless atrocities. In 1945, Japan signed the Instrument of Surrender and formally accepted international legal documents, including the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, which stipulated that Taiwan should be returned to China. China subsequently regained Taiwan, restoring its sovereignty over the territory. This was a triumph of historical justice. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s restoration. Rather than reflecting on its past, Japan has continued to create new tensions over Taiwan.

This interference in China’s internal affairs and provocative actions severely undermine the political foundation of China-Japan relations and challenge the post-WWII international order.

The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, and it is an inviolable red line and bottom line. The question of how to resolve Taiwan and achieve national reunification is a matter for the Chinese people alone, and no external force has the right to interfere. Eighty years ago, the brave Chinese people defeated the Japanese invaders. Today, 80 years later, the determination of the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering. Our will is unbreakable, and our capabilities are far stronger than before. Any attempt to interfere with or obstruct China’s reunification efforts is doomed to failure. We warn Japan that any provocation on the Taiwan question is simply courting trouble!

Japan’s militaristic history is a heavy burden, and the peoples of the world, including the Chinese people, will never forget, nor will they ever forgive it. For the first time, Japan’s leaders have expressed an ambition to militarily intervene in Taiwan, issuing a threat of force against China. Behind this lies the dangerous ambition of Japan’s right-wing forces to break free from the constraints of its pacifist constitution and pursue the status of a “military power.”

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning posted a video on social media platform X on Monday about the 1995 Murayama Statement by former Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, amid widespread criticism following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s erroneous remarks on the Taiwan Straits.

In the accompanying caption, Mao stated, it is “high time to recall the 1995 Murayama Statement, in which then Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama admitted and atoned for Japanese aggression during WWII and offered apology to the victim countries.”

The Chinese English media is full of this story.  Japan stepped on the wrong toe, and there is still pain and anger.

Even the Chinese Education Ministry had something to say.

Following the warning issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Chinese citizens against traveling to Japan in the near future, the Ministry of Education also released an overseas study alert on Sunday, pointing out that there are frequent cases of crimes against Chinese citizens in Japan and advising Chinese students to plan their studies prudently. On the same day, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism also issued a travel notice for Chinese tourists. These warnings have attracted widespread attention, with some outsiders attempting to interpret them as a form of “diplomatic pressure.” However, a rational examination of the current environment of China-Japan relations and the various changes taking place in Japan leads to a clear conclusion: These warnings are based on realistic considerations of the personal safety and basic dignity of its own citizens, and are a necessary measure taken by the Chinese government to fulfill its responsibilities.

China wants a personal apology and a retraction from Takaichi.

Prof. Jian: Secret History #17: Literary Genesis

Par : amarynth

In this Wednesday, November 12th lecture to his Beijing high school students, Professor Jiang explains how the Yahwehist gave birth to the Bible as well as the nation of Israel.

Notes and References: 1. Book of Genesis, Hebrew Bible 2. Book of Kings, Hebrew Bible 3. Book of J by Harold Bloom

The Member States Complicit in genocide: Chris Hedges with Francesca Albanese

Par : amarynth

Transcript
==========

Chris Hedges

Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine, in her latest report, “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” calls out the role 63 nations have in sustaining the Israeli genocide. Albanese, who because of sanctions imposed on her by the Trump administration, had to address the UN General Assembly from the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa, slams what she calls “decades of moral and political failure.”

“Through unlawful actions and deliberate omissions, too many states have harmed, founded and shielded Israel’s militarized apartheid, allowing its settler colonial enterprise to metastasize into genocide, the ultimate crime against the indigenous people of Palestine,” she told the UN.

The genocide, she notes, has diplomatic protection in international “fora meant to preserve peace,” military ties ranging from weapons sales to joint trainings that “fed the genocidal machinery,” the unchallenged weaponization of aid, and trade with entities like the European Union, which had sanctioned Russia over Ukraine yet continued doing business with Israel.

The 24-page report details how the “live-streamed atrocity” is facilitated by third states. She excoriates the United States for providing “diplomatic cover” for Israel, using its veto power at the UN Security Council seven times and controlling ceasefire negotiations. Other Western nations, the report noted, collaborate with abstentions, delays and watered-down draft resolutions, providing Israel with weapons, “even as the evidence of genocide … mounted.”

The report chastised the US Congress for passing a $26.4bn arms package for Israel, although Israel was at the time threatening to invade Rafah in defiance of the Biden administration’s demand that Rafah be spared.

The report also condemns Germany, the second-largest arms exporter to Israel during the genocide, for weapons shipments that include everything from “frigates to torpedoes,” as well as the United Kingdom, which has allegedly flown more than 600 surveillance missions over Gaza since war broke out in October 2023.

At the same time, Arab states have not severed ties with Israel. Egypt, for example, maintained “significant security and economic relations with Israel, including energy cooperation and the closing of the Rafah crossing” during the war.

The Gaza genocide, the report states, “exposed an unprecedented chasm between peoples and their governments, betraying the trust on which global peace and security rest.” Her report coincides with the ceasefire that isn’t. Over 300 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the ceasefire was announced two weeks ago.

The first major ceasefire breach on October 19 led to Israeli air strikes that killed 100 Palestinians and wounded 150 others. Palestinians in Gaza continue to endure daily bombings that obliterate buildings and homes. Shelling and gunfire continue to kill and wound civilians, while drones continue to hover overhead broadcasting ominous threats.

Essential food items, humanitarian aid and medical supplies remain scarce because of the ongoing Israeli siege. And the Israeli army controls more than half of the Gaza Strip, shooting anyone, including families, who come too close to its invisible border known as the yellow line.

Joining me to discuss her report, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the complicity of numerous states in sustaining the genocide in Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on Palestine.

Before we get into the report, let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening in Gaza. It’s just a complete disconnect between what is described by the international community, i.e. a ceasefire, the pace may have slowed down, but nothing’s changed.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, thank you for having me, Chris. I do agree that it seems that there is a complete disconnect between reality and political discourse. Because after the ceasefire, the attention has been forced to shift from Gaza elsewhere.

I do believe, for example, that the increased attention to the catastrophic situation in Sudan, which has been such for years now, all of a sudden is due to the fact that there is a need for, especially from Western countries and the US, Israel and their acolytes to focus on a new emergency.

There is the pretense that there is peace, there is no need to protest anymore because finally, there is peace. There is no peace. I mean, the Palestinians have not seen a day of peace because Israel has continued to fire, to use violence against the Palestinians in Gaza. Over 230 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire, 100 of them in one day in 24 hours, including 50 children.

And starvation continues. Yes, there has been an increase in the number of trucks, but far, far below what is needed with much confusion because it’s very hard to deliver aid. All the more, Israel maintains a control over 50% of the Gaza Strip while the entire Gaza population is amassed in small portions, guarded portions of the territory.

So there is no peace. Meanwhile, while the Security Council seems to be ready to approve a Security Council resolution that will create a non-acronistic form of tutelage, of trusteeship over Palestine, over Gaza, the West Bank is abandoned to the violence and the ethnic cleansing pushed by armed settlers and soldiers while Israel jails continue to fill up with bodies to torture of adults and children alike. This is the reality in the occupied Palestinian territory today and so it makes absolutely no sense where the political discourse is.

Chris Hedges

Two issues about Gaza. One, of course, Israel has seized over 50% or occupies over 50% of Gaza. And as I understand it, they’re not allowing any reconstruction supplies, including cement, in.

Francesca Albanese

This is also my understanding. They have allowed in food, water and some essential materials needed for hospitals, mainly camp hospitals, tents. But anything related to sustainability is prohibited.

There are many food items that are also prohibited because they are considered luxurious. And the question, Chris, is, and this is why I harbor so much frustration these days toward member states because in the case of genocide, you have heard yourself the argument, well, the recalcitrance of certain states to use the genocide framework saying — and it’s pure nonsense from a legal point of view — but saying, well, the International Court of Justice has not concluded that it’s genocide.

Well, it has concluded already that there is a risk of genocide two years ago, in January, 2024. But however, even when the court does conclude on something relevant like in July, 2024, that the occupation is illegal and must be dismantled totally and unconditionally, this should be the starting point of any peace related or forward-looking discussions.

Instead of deliberating how to force Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territory, member states continue to maintain dialogue with Israel as Israel has sovereignty over the territory. See, so it’s completely dystopic, the future they are leading Palestinians out of despair into.

But they are also forcing the popular movement, the global movement that has formed made of young people and workers to stop. Because look at what’s happening in France, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK — any kind of attempt at maintaining the light turned on Palestine from Gaza to the West Bank is assaulted. Protests, conferences, there is a very active assault on anything that concerns Palestine.

So this is why I’m saying we are far, far beyond the mismanagement of the lack of understanding, I mean the negligence in approaching the question of Palestine, it’s active complicity to sustain Israel in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Chris Hedges

Which, as you point out in your report, has been true from the beginning despite a slight change in rhetoric recognizing the two-state solution. The UK did this while only cutting back on shipments by 10%.

But I want to ask before we get into the report, what do you think Israel’s goal is? Is it just to slow-walk the genocide until it can resume it? Is it to create this appalling, uninhabitable, unlivable ghetto? What do you think Israel’s goal is?

Francesca Albanese

I think that now more than ever it is impossible to separate and distinguish the goals of Israel from the goals of the United States. We tend to have a fragmented view of what happens, analyzing for example the relationship between Lebanon and Israel, between Iran and Israel, or between Israel and the Palestinians.

In fact, do, I mean, one of the things that Palestine has made me realize is the meaning of “Greater Israel” because I do believe that what the current leadership in Israel has in mind and it’s supported by many willing or not in the Israeli society, many who are fine with the erasure of the Palestinians.

But there is this idea of Greater Israel and for a long time I have been among those who thought, who were wondering what it is, this “Greater Israel” because of course you look at the map by Israeli leaders in several occasions with this Greater Israel going from the Nile to the Euphrates and you say come on they cannot do that, they cannot occupy Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq.

But then everything changes when you look at it from a non-territorial border expansion perspective. And if you think that in fact domination can be exerted, established, other than by expanding the physical borders and through military occupation, but through domination and financial control, control from outside, power domination, you see that the Greater Israel project has already started and it’s very advanced.

Look at the annihilation of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon. So all those who were historically considered not friends of Israel have been annihilated. And the other Arab countries that remain either do not have the capacity to confront Israel and perish the thought they explored the idea of unity among them or with others. And the others are fine with it.

Ultimately, I think that Greater Israel is the quintessential explanation of the US imperialistic design in that part of the world for which the Palestinians remain a thorn in the side not just for Israel but for the imperialistic project itself because the Palestinians are still there resisting.

They don’t want to go, they don’t want to be tamed, they don’t want to be dominated so they are the last line, the last frontier of resistance, both physically and in the imagination. And therefore, you see, the fierceness against them has scaled up, with the US now getting ready with boots on the ground to get rid of them. This is my interpretation of the general design behind Israel-United States, where Israelis are going to pay a heavy price like many in the region, not just the Palestinians.

Chris Hedges

So you see the imposition of American troops in Gaza as another step forward to the depopulation of Gaza.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, yes, yes, I don’t trust any promise made to the Palestinians either by Israel or by the United States because what I’ve seen over the past two years shows me, demonstrates to all of us in fact, that they don’t care at all about the Palestinians. Otherwise, they would have seen their suffering.

It’s just not like people like us who can really divide their life. Is it pre-genocide? Does it happen to you as well? Are you talking of pre-genocide or after genocide? Because in fact, the beginning of genocide has changed my perception of the world in a way, for me personally, it’s the end of an era of innocence when I really believed that the United Nations were a place where things could still be advanced in the pursuit of peace.

Now I don’t think so, which doesn’t mean that I think that the UN is over, but in order not to be over, in order to make sense to the people, it is to be led by dignity, principles like dignity, equality and freedom for all. And we are absolutely far from that today.

Chris Hedges

And what is it that brought you to this decision? Is it the acceptance of this faux ceasefire on the part of the UN, or was it before this moment?

Francesca Albanese

No, it’s before. It’s before. It’s the fact that for two years most states, primarily in the West, but with the acquiescence of other states in the region have supported the Israeli mantra of self-defense.

Sorry, it was a mantra because again, self-defense has a very, I’m not saying that Israel had no right to protect itself. Of course Israel had suffered a ferocious attack on October 7. Someone say similar to the attacks it had inflicted on the Palestinians. Others say more brutal, say less brutal. It doesn’t matter.

Israel suffered a horrible, violent attack. Israeli civilians suffered a horrible attack on October 7th. But hey, this didn’t give the possibility to Israel to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, meaning the right to wage a war.

This is not legal. And on this I can say I’m surprised by how conservative are member states when it comes to the interpretation of international law, except on this, in the sense that the International Court of Justice has already set the limits of the right of invoking self-defense for member states.

And it can only be done against states where there is a concrete threat that the state will attack which is not the case here. So yes, Israel could defend itself, but not wage a war. And while the war was clearly identifiable more for its crimes than not its tendency to avoid crimes, member states have continued to say nothing and it was very extreme violence against the Palestinians in Gaza but also against the Palestinians in the West Bank. And for two years they’ve not used their power to stop it.

So I’m convinced that in order to have a political shift vis-à-vis Israel, there must be a political shift at the country level, because governments are completely subdued to the dictates of the US. Of course, if the US wanted, this would stop, but the US with this constellation of figures in the government is not going to stop.

And plus look at how the West in particular has contributed to dehumanize the Palestinians. Even today you hear people saying yes, Palestinians have been killed in these numbers because they’ve been used as human shields when the only evidence that they’ve been used as human shields is against Israel because Israel has used Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank and in Gaza alike.

You see Palestinians have returned to be wrapped into this colonial tropism of them being the savages, the barbarians, in a way, they have brought havoc upon themselves. This is the narrative that the West has used toward the Palestinians. And by doing that, it has created, they have created the fertile ground for Israel’s impunity.

Chris Hedges

Let’s talk about the nations that you single out in your report that have continued to sustain the genocide, either through weapons shipments, but also the commercial interests. I think your previous report talked about the money that was being made off of the genocide. Just lay out the extent of that collaboration and to the extent that you can, the sums of money involved.

Francesca Albanese

Yeah, yeah, let me start with introducing generally two components, the military component and the trade and investment ones, which are quite interrelated. And states have, in general, I name 62 states, primarily Western states, but with substantive collaboration of states from the Global South, global majority, including some Arab states.

So they have altogether ignored, obscured and somewhat even profited from Israel’s violations of international law through military and economic channels. So military cooperation through arms trades or intelligence sharing has fueled Israel’s war machine during the occupation, the illegal occupation, and especially during the genocide while the United States and Germany alone have provided about 90% of Israel’s arms export.

At least 26 states have supplied or facilitated the transfer of arms or components, while many others have continued to buy weapons tested on the Palestinians. And this is why in my previous report, the ones looking at the private sector, I was shocked to see how much the Israeli stock exchange had gone up during the genocide.

And this is particularly because of a growth in the military industry. On the other hand, there is the trade and investment sector. Both have sustained and profited from Israel’s economy. Think that between 2023, 2024, actually the end of 2022 and 2024, exports of electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy minerals and what is called the dual-use have totaled almost 500 billion US dollars, helping Israel finance its military occupation.

Now one third of this trade is with the European Union while the rest is complemented by North American countries, the US and Canada, who have free trade agreements with Israel and several Arab states that have continued to deepen economic ties.

Only a few states have marginally reduced trade during the genocide, but in general the indirect commercial flows, including with states that have supposedly no diplomatic relation with Israel, have continued undisturbed.

It’s a very grim picture of the reality. But let me add just one extra element. I do believe that in many respects, the problem is ideological. As I said, there is a tendency to treat Ukraine, for example, vis-a-vis Russia, in a very different fashion than Palestine versus Israel. And this is why I think there is an element of Orientalism that accompanies also the tragedy of the Palestinian people.

Chris Hedges

Talk a little bit about the kinds of weapons that have been shipped to Israel. These are, and we should be clear that, of course, the Palestinians do not have a conventional army, don’t have a navy, they don’t have an air force, they don’t have mechanized units, including tanks, they don’t have artillery, and yet the weapons shipments that are coming in are some of the most sophisticated armaments that are used in a conventional war.

And as a leaked Israeli report, I think it was +972, provided, 83 percent of the people killed in Gaza are civilians.

Francesca Albanese

Yes, yes. First of all, there are two things that are weapons, what is considered conventional weapons and dual-use. And both should have been suspended according to the decision of the International Court of Justice concerning Israel in the Nicaragua v. Germany case.

Meanwhile, there are two things: there is the transfer of weapons directly to Israel, and this includes aircraft, materials to compose the drones, because Israel doesn’t produce anything on its own, it requires components — artillery shells, for example, cannon ammunition, rifles, anti-tank missiles, bombs.

So these are all things that have been provided primarily by the United States. Germany, which is the second largest arms exporter to Israel has supplied a range of weapons from frigates to torpedoes.

And also, and then there is Italy, which has also provided spare parts for bombs and airplanes and the United Kingdom, who has played a key role in providing intelligence. And there is also the question of the U.N. Not everything is easy to track because the United States have traveled… the United States are the prime provider of weapons, also because they are the assembler of the F-35 program.

So there are 17 or 19 countries which cooperate and all of them say, well, you know, I mean, yes, I know that the F-35 is used in Israel, by Israel, but I only contribute to a small part. I only contribute to the wheels. I only contribute to the wings. I only provide these hooks or this engine.

Well, everything is assembled in the US and then sold or transferred or gifted to Israel. And it’s extremely problematic because this is why I say it’s a collective crime, because no one can assume the responsibility on their own but eventually all together they contribute to make this genocide implicating so many countries.

Chris Hedges

So Francesca, Israel is the ninth largest arms exporter in the world. To what extent do those relationships have? I mean, I think one of the largest purchasers of Israeli drones is India. We’ve seen India shift its position vis-a-vis Palestine.

Historically, it’s always stood with the Palestinian people. That’s no longer true under [Narendra] Modi. To what extent do those ties affect the response by the 63 some states that you write about for collaborating with the genocide.

Francesca Albanese

So let me first expand on this. Weapon and military technology sale is a core component of Israel’s economy. And since 2024, it has constituted one third of Israeli exports. And of course, there are two elements connected to this, is that these exports enhances Israel’s manufacturing capacity, but also horribly worsens the life of the Palestinians because Israeli military technology is tested on the Palestinians under occupation or other people under other Israeli related military activities.

Now, the fact that the arms export has increased of nearly 20% during the genocide, doubling toward Europe. And only the trade with Europe accounts for over 50% of Israeli military sales, selling to so many other countries, including in the Global South, the Asia and Pacific states in the Asia-Pacific region account for 23% of the purchase, with India being probably the major. But also 12% of the weapons tested on the Palestinians are purchased by Arab countries under the Abraham Accords. So what does it tell us?

It explains what you were hinting at in the question, the fact that this is also reflected in the political shift toward Israel that has been recorded at the General Assembly level. If you see how some African countries and Asian countries, including India, are behaving vis-a-vis Israel, it’s 180 degrees turn compared to where they were in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

This is because on the one hand, Israel is embedded in the global economy, but also it’s a global economy that is veering toward ultra liberal, I mean, it’s following ultra-liberalist ideologies and therefore capital and wealth and accumulation of resources, including military power comes first.

It’s very sad, but this is the reality. And it’s important to know because this is a long, as I was hinting before, my sense is that this is a long term trajectory that didn’t start on October 7th, 2023. I mean, probably since the end of the Cold War that there has been an increasing globalization of the system where the common denominator is force.

I mean, there is this, not a common denominator, but the unifying factor for many is force, how the monopoly of force that comes with weapons, capital and algorithms. And yeah, this is where the world is going.

Chris Hedges

Well, we’ve seen these weapons systems which of course are tested. They’re sold as bad. say the term is battle tested without naming the Palestinians, but they are sold to Greece to hold back migrants coming from North Africa. They are used along the border in the United States with Mexico.

And it’s not just that these weapons are “battle tested” on the Palestinians and we haven’t even spoken about these huge surveillance systems, but the very methods of control, the way they’re used are exported through military advisors.

Francesca Albanese

Of course, because in fact, the Israeli population is made almost entirely of soldiers. Of course, there are those who do not enlist in the army for religious reasons or because they are contentious objectors, they’re a tiny minority. But the majority of the people of Israelis go through the army.

And then many of them transfer their know-how or what they have been doing into their next career steps. So the fact that Israel, as I was documenting in my previous report, Israel’s startup economy has a huge dark side to the fact that it’s connected to the military industry and to the surveillance industry.

There is a significant body of Israeli citizens who are going around providing advice, intelligence and training in the Global South both to mercenaries and states proper like Morocco. So there is an Israelization and Palestinianization of the international relations or rather of the relations between individuals and states.

And I think the interesting thing, this is why I’m saying Palestine is such a revealer, it’s because, as you say, eventually these tools of control and securitization have concentrated in the hands of those who are fortifying borders at the expense of refugees and migrants.

So it’s really clear what’s happening here. There are oligarchs who are getting richer and richer and more and more protected in their fortresses where the state is providing the fertile ground to have it, but it’s not states that are benefiting from this inequality, because the majority of the people within states, look at the US, but also in Europe, are not benefiting from anything, in fact.

They’re victims. This is why you equally exploit it. This is why I’m saying it’s another degree of suffering, of course, than the Palestinians. But every worker today should draw a lesson from what’s happening to the Palestinians, because the large injustice system is connected and makes all of us connected to what’s happening there.

Chris Hedges

Well, internally as well. I mean, with Sikh farmers who were protesting Modi were out on the roads, suddenly, over their heads were Israeli-made drones dropping tear gas canisters.

Francesca Albanese

Yeah, exactly. Drones are one of the most exported devices from Israel’s technology and they are in use by Frontex to surveil the Mediterranean Sea, as you were saying, the US-Mexican border. But more and more, they’re getting into people’s lives.

Also look at the way certain technologies have been perfected across borders. I remember earlier this summer, this is very anecdotal, I’ve not done research on it, but I knew that we were seeing something quite and horribly revolutionary.

This year, this summer during the protests in Serbia, where students and ordinary citizens were taken to the streets against the government and have been protesting for one year now, people in Serbia. I saw the use of these sound weapons, oxygen-fed weapons.

So there are bombs that produce such a pain in the body who finds itself in the wave that it’s excruciating. And then of course people try to flee, but they also lose senses, et cetera. And I’ve seen this in Serbia.

And now I understand that it’s being used in Gaza as well, where the bomb doesn’t produce fire, it produces a movement of air that causes pain to the body and even to internal organs. It’s incredible. And these are weapons that have been perfected through testing here and there, and Serbia keeps on selling and buying military technology to and from Israel.

Chris Hedges

I just want to close with, I mean, I think your reports, the last two reports in particular, show the complete failure on the part of governments as well as corporations to respond legally in terms of their legal obligations to the genocide. What do we do now? What must be done to quote Lenin?

How, because this, as you have pointed out repeatedly, really presages the complete breakdown of the rule of law. What as citizens must we do?

Francesca Albanese

I think that we have passed the alarm area. I mean, we are really in a critical place and I sense it because instead of correcting itself, the system led by governments is accentuating its authoritarian traits. Think of the repressive measures that the UK government is taking against protesters, against civil society, against journalists standing in solidarity with Palestine, for justice in Palestine.

In France and in Italy at the same time, conferences academic freedom is shrinking and in the same days, conferences of reputable historians and military and legal experts have been cancelled owing to the pressure of the pro-genocide groups, pro-Israel groups in their respective countries. People, including in Germany, are being persecuted, including academics, for their own exercise of free speech.

This tells me that there is very little pretense that Western states, so-called liberal democracies, the most attached to this idea of democracy are ready to defend for real. So in this sense, it’s up to us citizens to be vigilant and to make sure that we do not buy products connected or services connected to the legality of the occupation, the apartheid and the genocide.

And there are various organizations that collect lists of companies and entities, including universities that are connected to this unlawful endeavor. BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] is one, don’t buy into the occupation who profits profundo, but also students associations.

And this is something that has taught me, it’s very touching because it’s really the work of students, faculty members and staff that has mapped what each university does. And I think it gives the possibility to act, everyone in our own domain. Then of course there is a need to speak about Palestine, to make choices about Palestine and not because everything needs to revolve around Palestine, but because Palestine today is a metaphor of our life and where our life is going to go is clearly evident in this.

But also we need to make sure that businesses divest. Either through our purchase power, people have to step away and stop using platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com. I know that Amazon is very convenient, but guys, we might also return to buy books in libraries, ordering books through libraries.

Of course, not all of us can, but many do, many can. On the way to work, buy a book in a library, order a book in a bookstore. We need to reduce our reliance on the tools that have been used, that have been perfected through the slaughter of the Palestinians. And of course, make government accountable. There are lawyers, associations, and jurists who are taking government officials to court, businesses to court. But again, I do not think that there is one strategy that is going to be the winning one.

It’s the plurality of actions from a plurality of actors that is going to produce results and slow down the genocide and then help dismantle the occupation and the apartheid. It’s a long trajectory and the fight has just started.

Chris Hedges

Thank you, Francesca, and I want to thank Thomas [Hedges], Diego [Ramos], Max [Jones] and Sofia [Menemenlis], who produced the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com.

L’armée russe dispose désormais d’une composante dédiée aux drones

Par : ActuStratpol

force drones

force dronesLes forces armées russes ont créé une force de systèmes sans pilote, comme l’a annoncé le 12 novembre le colonel

L’article L’armée russe dispose désormais d’une composante dédiée aux drones est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

America’s in Silent Free Fall

Par : AHH

By Epic Economist.

Video Description:
“The American economy is crashing right now, and it’s worse than most people realize. From banks refusing cash withdrawals to nearly a million jobs lost to automation, from healthcare premiums doubling overnight to stores packed with inventory nobody can afford, the warning signs are everywhere.

In this video, we’re looking at what’s really happening on the ground. Not the official numbers or media spin, but what everyday Americans are experiencing: being interrogated at banks for their own money, losing jobs at profitable companies, watching healthcare become completely unaffordable, and seeing the retail economy grind to a halt.

This isn’t just a recession. Multiple systems are breaking down at once, and most people don’t realize how connected it all is. The crash is already here, the question is whether you’re prepared when it hits your situation directly.”

Act now while still have options:

  • Families need to be extremely selective about spending as every dollar needs to go further in what’s coming
  • If have income, built savings fast
  • If have a job, create backup income streams
  • If have a house, make sure can afford it if your income drops
  • Keep cash accessible
  • Cut unnecessary spending immediately
  • Built relationships locally with people you can count on
  • Learn skills that cannot be automated
  • Face reality; elites behind this government abrogated the social contract and are engaged in uncontrolled demolition

see: our Prepping and Survival Thread

Brian Berletic: Short Memories Regarding Agreement-Incapable America

Par : amarynth

▪Recent US-Chinese talks regarding the array of tariffs, restrictions, sanctions, and other financial, economic, and diplomatic measures the US is trying and failing to use to contain China are almost irrelevant – the US is incapable of upholding its own proposals and agreements, and certainly will not honor any agreements made from a position of weakness;

▪”Progress” emerging from the talks will take the same form of temporary pause/reorganization before the US doubles down on another campaign of attempting to encircle and contain China – both through the above stated measures but also through the military and non-military means of coercion and political capture along China’s periphery and the toppling of governments friends with Beijing (Venezuela among them);

▪When the US has recalibrated its policy of encirclement and containment of China, it will sidestep any agreements it has made and relaunch any and all measures it thinks will undermine China’s rise both within its borders and beyond them;

▪The US doesn’t do “diplomacy,” – instead, what it does is buy time and space to create conditions that may not currently be optimal to achieve its long-term objective – that objective always and continues to be global primacy and the elimination of ALL rivals, adversary and ally alike;

▪Unless this fundamental objective and the interests driving it change (and they aren’t), the only thing about US policy that will change are the ways it attempts to pursue this and NOTHING else.

https://t.me/brianlovethailand/4352

Pepe Escobar: And the Chinese Five-Year caravan strolls on

Par : amarynth

In the global chessboard, Beijing will keep stressing the power of the “multilateral trading system.” As in the absolute opposite of Trump 2.0.

Four days in Beijing. The fourth plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was really something to behold.

Methodology matters. What happened these four days is that delegates debated and then adopted “recommendations” leading to China’s 15th Five-Year Plan. A communique then laid out the basic vectors to be tackled. The full plan will only be known in detail next March, when it will be approved by the notorious Two Sessions in Beijing.

So let’s get straight to the point: this is how China works, meticulously planning everything in advance, with clear targets and meritocratic supervision. The – metaphorical – terminology does allow some leeway: everyone is aware of the “high winds, rough waves and raging storms” ahead – domestically and internationally. But “strategic resolve” won’t waver.

Key vectors for the Beijing leadership include “strengthening agriculture”, “benefiting farmers”, and “achieving rural prosperity” – side by side with progress with “people-centered new urbanization.”

In the global chessboard, Beijing will keep stressing the power of  the “multilateral trading system.” As in the absolute opposite of Trump 2.0.

Major targets for the 15th Five-Year Plan are quite clear. Among them: “advancements in high-quality development”; improving  “scientific and technological self-reliance”; a quite Confucianist “notable cultural and ethical progress across society”; and “strengthening the national security shield.”

In a nutshell: the Chinese leadership’s top priority is to build “a modernized industrial system”. As in a productive – not speculative – mixed economic system driving rural, urban and tech development.

Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi attend the fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in Beijing, capital of China. The 20th Central Committee of the CPC convened its fourth plenary session in Beijing from Monday to Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

Towards an ultra-high-tech “unified national market”

There have been so many practical, graphic examples across China of what has been achieved so far. Last month, I was privileged to see first-hand the socialism with Chinese characteristics surge in terms of sustainable development of Xinjiang . Xinjiang is now an IT hub and a leader in clean energy – exporting to the rest of China.

Then there’s the tech accomplishments of Made in China 2025, launched 10 years ago, and already placing China as tech leader in at least 8 of 10 scientific fields. Plus key programs that many Chinese themselves don’t know about, with particular emphasis on the 973 Program and Project 985.

The 973 Program, launched way back in 1997, is the National Basic Research Program aiming to get a tech/strategic edge in several scientific fields – especially the development of the rare earth minerals industry. The program definitely elevated China to the top in terms of global science competitiviness.

Project 985 was launched in 1998 to develop a select group of top-tier universities to world-class level. Hence the emergence of Tsinghua, Peking, Zhejiang, Fudan and Harbin Institute of Technology, among others, as world leaders in engineering, computer science, robotics, aerospace, including key breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing and green energy. Ivy League and Oxbridge? Forget it: the real deal is Chinese universities.

Another key project is the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor,  connecting nine cities in China’s Yangtze River Delta. These cities contributed nearly 2.2% of global (italics mine) manufacturing value-added only last year. That’s China’s strategic economic planning driving tech progress – in effect.

At a press conference, Central Committee officials pointed to some basics obviously totally ignored by the fragmente West, but not by large sectors of the Global South. Especially the fact that Five-Year Plans are regarded as one of China’s key political advantages.

The formulation of the next plan, as usual in China, includes suggestions from all echelons of society. Market drivers from now on necessarily include computing infrastructure, intelligent driving and smart manufacturing. And predictably, up to 2035, there will be special emphasis on quantum tech, biomanufacturing, hydrogen, nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence and 6G, not to mention AI.

Conceptually, China will focus on its immense domestic market: what is defined as the “unified national market”.

A key emphasis was made on Beijing’s drive to combat “involution”: that is, the intra-industry competition that has caused problems for several Chinese sectors.

On thorny US-China relations, Central Committee officials were adamant: the focus will be on “dialogue and cooperation” rather than “decoupling and fragmentation”. Well, both sides are meeting in Malaysia as we speak, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. Prospects for a wide-ranging trade deal, though, are slim.

How to understand the evolution of the Chinese political system

The key takeaway: the 15th Five-Year Plan will concern the 2026-2030 period. Beijing wants to reinforce everything that was accomplished so far, with a crystal clear long-term focus: achieve what is defined as “socialist modernization” by 2035.

Based on what I personally saw in Xinjiang last month, compared to my previous visits (the last one had been over a decade ago), there is no shadow of a doubt they will do it.

It’s crucial to examine how two top Chinese academics explain the evolution of the Chinese political system. Relevant sections are worth quoting at length:

“While the traditional system was not immune to change, the goal of these changes was to maintain the status quo, preventing ‘revolutionary’ change. After the Han Dynasty, the policy of ‘abolishing all schools of thought and upholding Confucianism alone’ ideologically suppressed any factors that could catalyze major political change. Confucianism became the sole ruling philosophy, and its core purpose was to maintain rule. The modern German philosopher Hegel argued that ‘China has no history.’ Indeed, for thousands of years, from the Qin Shihuang Emperor to the late Qing Dynasty, China experienced only a succession of dynasties, not a change in fundamental institutions. Marx’s concept of the ‘Asiatic mode of production’ aligns with Hegel’s ideas. Chinese scholars such as Jin Guantao also have this in mind when they use the term ‘superstable structure.’ One can argue that this reflects the vitality of the traditional political system, or that China lacked structural change for thousands of years.”

“The current political system is quite different, primarily because the Enlightenment firmly established the concept of progress: that society can progress, and that progress is endless. From Sun Yat-sen’s revolution to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Party and then to the Communist Party, generations of Chinese people have pursued change, sharing the same goal: to transform China and achieve progress. During the modern Enlightenment, the Confucian individual ethic that sustained the old system was subjected to the most radical criticism and attack. However, while the old ethic is no longer viable, various political factions lack a consensus on what the future holds. What kind of change does China need? How should it be pursued? What is the purpose of change? Various political forces hold divergent views.”

What the Chinese Communist Party has done, the two scholars  argue, is in fact quite revolutionary, going for radical change: “This is the socialist revolution it has pursued since its founding, using revolution to overthrow the old regime, thoroughly transform society, and establish an entirely new system. Naturally, this also leads to the various contradictions facing China today, most notably the conflict between traditional Confucian philosophy and Marxism-Leninism. The former is focused on maintaining the status quo or adapting itself for survival, while the latter pursues endless change.”

“Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese Communist Party has accelerated its transformation from a revolutionary party to a ruling party (…). One thing is clear: if a political party governs simply for the sake of governing, it will inevitably decline. This is evident in the history of communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as well as in the historical and current experience of Western political parties that calculate their legitimacy based on votes.”

“After reform and opening up, the Chinese Communist Party redefined its modernity, aiming to achieve the original revolutionary goal of resolving the problem of ‘universal impoverishment.’ However, while redefining modernity, the Party also strived to preserve the ‘revolutionary nature’ of the ruling party (…)  In terms of economic development, GDP-oriented economics played an invaluable role, transforming China’s ‘poverty socialism’ situation in just a few decades. By the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, China had become the world’s second-largest economy and the largest trading nation, with per capita GDP soaring from less than $300 in the early 1980s to $6,000. More importantly, China lifted nearly 700 million people out of absolute poverty.”

The conclusion, though, is inescapable, and it is inherent to the way Beijing is framing its political evolution now: “The Chinese Communist Party needs to redefine its modernity by reaffirming its mission, emphasizing its original aspirations, and reviving its revolutionary nature.”

After all, as the two scholars note, “in China, political parties are the subject of political action, and this action is not simply about survival and development, but about leading national development in all aspects (…) The ruling party must proactively define its own modernity through action, pursuing and achieving its own modernity. By constantly renewing and defining its modernity, the ruling party can maintain its sense of mission in leading social development while constantly renewing itself.”

There could hardly be a sharper summary of why socialism with Chinese characteristics is in a class by itself when it comes to translating political decisions into sustainable development targets. Complement it with Hong Kong billionaire’s Ronnie Chan’s succint analysis on the inevitability of the rise – again – of China.

The counterpoint is China ceasing to be the Pentagon’s key priority. Circus Ringmaster is essentially being forced to concede the global strategic competition to China. Forget about “winning” a tech/trade war on China – especially after the rare earth Sun Tzu move.

Meanwhile, the containment dogs bark while the Chinese Five-Year caravan strolls on.

An Essay by Scott Ritter on a dinner in Russia: Our discussion is drones

Par : amarynth

This by Scott Ritter is an essay that is complimentary to his group of interesting dinner companions.

This is not what I want to highlight, though, but read the piece here:

What I would like to highlight, is this:

The conversation then turned to the reality of the modern battlefield. I asked Apti to comment on President Trump’s assertion that Russia was losing the war. Apti’s response was surprisingly diplomatic, given the absurdity of the assertion. The Hero of the Russian Federation noted that while the situation on the battlefield in the Kursk region might have been somewhat fluid this time last year, today the reality was far different—the front had stabilized, and the Ukrainian forces had been driven out of Russian territory. Moreover, Apti noted, never once—even in the most difficult of times—had the Akhmat Special Forces ever surrendered a position they held to the Ukrainians. To the contrary, the Akhmat Special Forces have been systemically advancing across the breadth of their assigned area of responsibility, whether in Lugansk, Kursk or Belgorod.

When Apti and I first met in person, back in May 2023, we had a very frank and detailed discussion about the art of war, and how the progression of technology had made past practices—including those perfected by the US military in the 1980’s, when I was learning the art of war—obsolete on the modern battlefield. Apti was familiar with my experience as an artillery forward observer and forward air controller, as well as my background in combat intelligence collection. He pointed at me and reiterated the point he had first made back then. “Your experience is no longer viable,” he said. “It has been taken over by drones. It is a completely new kind of war being fought today with Ukraine, one the West is not prepared for.”

We then entered an extended group conversation about drone warfare, and how the Akhmat Special Forces had evolved in this area. “We have the best drone unit in the Russian army,” Apti declared, “which means the best in the world. Our drones are thoroughly integrated into every aspect of our operations.” Apti explained, in general terms, how modern drone warfare was practiced. “Objective control” over the battlefield was maintained on a constant basis, with highly specialized reconnaissance and surveillance drones keeping watch. These drones were supported by mid-level reconnaissance drones, which could respond to any cues provided by the overwatch drones to provide increased resolution and fidelity to any observed activity. And then there was the fire support, provided by a multitude of different drone models which could respond to different target sets at different ranges under varying circumstances. Suffice it to say that hundreds of drones were available to the Akhmat Special Forces daily, and effective and efficient supply lines ensured that the Akhmat Special Forces never lacked resources when it came to drones.

Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov presents his new book to Steven Seagal

Apti was very proud of the men who oversaw his drone operations, praising not only their tactical skills but also their innovation and intellect when it came to the technologies associated with drone operation. He particularly singled out his electronic warfare operators, whom he claimed were the best in the business. One of the reasons for this, Apti maintained, was the quick learning cycle of the Russian military, and the Akhmat Special Forces in particular. Innovation was driven by the needs and experiences of the frontline fighters, and the Russian military and Ministry of Defense were organized and conditioned to turn battlefield innovation into Russian doctrine and procedures, backed by the proper technology and other resources.

The sheer complexity of drone warfare is staggering.  The need for appropriate technology to support this kind of warfare is an unrelenting demand in today’s world.  Here, we can see the necessity for using AI, as the number of decisions that need to be made quickly exceeds the ability of a human.  Drones control drones that control drones:  so this is a new stack of knowledge being constructed.  It happens to fit thematically with a recent conversation with a friend.

Massive drone warfare ‘controlled’ by AI.  This needs to be taken very seriously as there are looming threats from the US modern technology complex, dreaming of taking Taiwan with no boots on the ground, no loss of US men, and in their demented minds, such an easy win or so say the war games.  Rationality is not a strong suit of the US, notes my friend.

It was only about a year ago that I asked a professional on weapons and warfare to explain to me the role that drone warfare plays on the modern battlefield.  The good education that I received then is now partially obsolete within just a year.  It is also not much more than a year since Nat South explained to us in a few well-constructed essays how drones work, how the Russians use them, and where the gaps lie, focusing specifically on maritime unmanned boats: From Nat South at The Lookout – Z, on Drones.

And then we have the lone droner.  We know about the proverbial lone gunman, but soon to come is the proverbial lone droner.  In the current sphere of Late Stage Barbarism, we will see high-level people taken out using this method.  The concept was already used with one of the attempts to take out Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela, by flying a drone right at his head at the podium while he was making a speech.  It was older technology, and he ducked.  These days, that simple strategy will not work.

With the fast rise of robotics in China and the incredible development of military robotics, will we soon see a war fought with robots and drones?  We already have robotic Olympics.  Such a war, compared with other wars, is literally a cheap war.  We saw in Gaza the IDF using cheap small drones, hanging ladders on them stuffed with explosives and dropping that onto buildings and people, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling the percussive and killing power, cheaply.

AI is often written about as a threat to humanity.  Technology is, of course, generally neutral.  It is the application that makes it evil or good.  With AI, drones controlling drones in a stack of functions, and military robotics, we have truly landed in a dystopian reality, and Brain Rot is proceeding.

There is new research indicating that Large AI Language Models, fed by trivial and stupid internet chat, literally suffer from brain rot.  The research is literally called LLM Brain Rot.  These models become stupid and silly, and take on the characteristics of a stupid and foolish audience.  Even when changing the input later, the models repair only slightly and remain dumb.  Foolishness and stupidity are indeed transmissible diseases.  We’re even infecting the software around us.

AIs with brain rot, drones controlling drones controlling more drones, and robotics: It is not only a new multipolarity; the sheer lineaments of our world are being shaken up.   In terms of warfare, it is now clear that the one with the most effective drone technology, AI, and techniques will gain the edge for a win.

 

Top Venture Capitalists tour China, declare Western energy firms “uninvestable” – they cannot compete

Par : amarynth

Inside China Business – Kevin Walmsly

Top VC’s from Western firms and investment banks recently toured Chinese companies in the clean energy industry. After just days, they concluded that China’s advances across the sector make competition impossible, and are pulling funds from Western startups. They hope to focus now on partnership opportunities with Chinese firms who already dominate the technology and manufacturing, and enjoy access to China’s deep supply chains and logistics. But that model will also also prove difficult, as China’s entire economic system is designed to destroy rent-seeking profits.

The hidden message in the names of China’s new military weapons

Par : amarynth

From Nuri Vittachi and published in his always interesting Fridayeveryday.com

IF AN ENEMY ATTACKS, the Chinese will defend their nation with the East Wind, a hurricane of power that will destroy his ship.

Then from the waters will rise a Giant Wave. And from the skies will fall a Sudden Thunderbolt.

If any enemies survive to continue their assault, a Cloud Arrow and a fire dragon will scatter their weapons.

Military nerds like to talk in abbreviations, and at the China parade in Beijing, the JL-1 was revealed, the DF-61 was shown and so on.

That’s fine for the weapons enthusiasts, but is opaque to most people—and the use of short-form names means that a lot of the fascinating Chinese cultural evocations are lost.

So let’s put them back.

For military strategists, the big story about the weapons shown at the recent parade in Tiananmen Square (which means “Gate of Heavenly Peace”) is that China now has a triple-headed nuclear option – as well as launching such weapons from land, it can launch them from the sea and from the air.

The Dongfeng 61, (东风) or East Wind, is a surface-launched missile.

The Jinglei 1, or (惊雷) Thunderbolt, is an air-launched missile.

And the Julang 3, or (巨浪) Giant Wave, is a rocket launched from submarines.

Not all Chinese defense system names are taken from the elements. In recent years, the Chinese have been using a radar/ radio guidance air defence system called the HQ-22—which is actually Hong Qi22, (红旗) meaning Red Banner.

Chinese armsmaker Norinco sells a guided rocket called the BRE8, which also uses the rather more evocative names, including Fire Dragon and King Dragon.

Then China has whole family of multiple rocket launcher systems, which are basically trucks with missile launching batteries on their backs, developed by the Sichuan Academy of Aerospace Technology. The family of systems goes under the name the Weishi, or (卫士) The Guardians in English, sounding a bit like something from Marvel movies.

Meanwhile, different types of bomb made in China also have abbreviations plus evocative names.

The LS series of satellite glide bombs are 雷石, or Thunder Stones. The LT series of laser-guided bombs are 雷霆 or Thunderclaps. Other bombs include the YL, which is 云雷 or Cloud Thunder; and the YJ or 云箭, meaning Cloud Arrow.

Put them all together, and the main theme is clear. If you want to attack China, expect to find yourself in the mother of all storms.

Chinese responses: Rare Earth Export Controls, Port Fees on Chinese vessels, Grabbing Nexperia

Par : amarynth

Rare Earth Export Controls, Port Fees on Chinese vessels, Tariffs, Grabbing Nexperia – summary

We have to note that none of this comes out of the blue.  China has faced only unwillingness from U.S. trade negotiators and a series of what we can only call unfriendly actions, designed to coerce.  The time is over.  What is happening here is a slew of actions by China that confirms what I’ve intuited since the beginning of the tariff onslaught.  If it gets too difficult to trade, there will not be trade.  At this time China seems to be at that point.  They don’t care any longer about trade with the U.S.

The Chinese MOFCOM spokesperson remarked:

Rare Earth Export Controls: Directly aimed at military activity and weapons manufacturing, to better defend world peace and regional stability.

These export controls are directly aimed at weapons manufacturing and are intended to reduce military conflicts and support non-proliferation.

They are not export bans. Licenses for eligible applications will be granted.

China announced these controls before implementing them.

These export controls will support the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains-

China’s national security is mentioned and this is easy to see.  They won’t sell products to those that manufacture weapons intended to threaten China.

Port Fees on Chinese Vessels:  This is a confusing conglomeration of payment for tonnage on Chinese-built vessels, partially Chinese-built vessels, and generally a game of confusion.

MOFCOM states:

Particularly since the China-U.S. economic and trade talks in Madrid in September, the U.S., in just 20 days, has introduced a string of new restrictive measures targeting China. It has put multiple Chinese entities on the Entity List and Special Designated National List; arbitrarily expanded the scope of control over businesses with the Affiliates Rule that affects thousands of Chinese companies; and persisted with the implementation of Section 301 measures targeting China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding industries in disregard of China’s concerns and goodwill. The U.S. actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere of bilateral economic and trade talks, and China is resolutely opposed to them.

The Spokesperson notes that the U.S. has shown a negative attitude and willfully persists in implementing those measures, issuing a notice on October 3 setting out the specific requirements for imposing fees on Chinese vessels.

In response to U.S. actions, China took countermeasures and decided to charge special port fees on U.S.-linked vessels.  China describes these countermeasures as necessary acts of passive defense.

Tariffs:  Willful threats of high tariffs are not the right way to get along with China. … If the U.S. insists on going the wrong way, China will surely take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests.

The MOFCOM Statement:  http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/News/SpokesmansRemarks/art/2025/art_c202dcc0433d476db52b1e7f7fe53926.html

Dutch Grab of Nexperia:  The Dutch government said on Sunday that it has made a “highly exceptional” decision to intervene in Nexperia, a subsidiary of Chinese company Wingtech, citing concerns that it could “pose a risk to Dutch and European economic security.” On September 30, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs issued an administrative order restricting the business decisions of Nexperia and its affiliated entities, effectively depriving Chinese shareholders of their standard control. Wingtech subsequently issued a statement, expressing a strong protest against such discriminatory treatment targeting Chinese-funded enterprises. It is evident to anyone with clear judgment that the Dutch government is seriously harassing a chip company controlled by Chinese enterprises under the pretext of a fabricated “national security” concern.

In the early stages of capitalism, some countries relied on violence and colonial plunder to accumulate primitive capital, even fostering within their own cultures the misguided historical notion that “plunder brings wealth.” In today’s geopolitical context, the Dutch government, under the pretext of “supply chain security,” has imposed excessive interference on Chinese enterprises and then cloaked its asset seizure under a façade of legality – a seamless sequence of actions that inevitably evokes memories of certain dark chapters in this country’s history. It is no wonder that some have wryly observed that

a few Western countries now treat “national security” as a privateering license, a reflection of “colonial genes” awakening in the 21st century.

Global Times editorial:  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202510/1345566.shtml

It is clear from trade numbers that China’s trade is increasing with the rest of the world, while trade with the US is decreasing.  Professor Wolff aptly describes the situation, stating that the trade environment in the US does not encourage trade but rather discourages it.

The decrease is not only in trade numbers.

US treasuries held by China are reducing.

De-dollarization is increasing.

So it is a 3 front wall of pressure, epitomized by footage of U.S. soldiers standing in food distribution lines.

China has chosen an optimum moment to rebalance power.

The tweets and twitters are interesting.  One person says .. Do Your Chrismas Shopping Now, and here is another illustrating the real effect on U.S. Business.

For those of you who think this tradewar is not serious…. pic.twitter.com/Bz0mhnCw5i

— The key to success is documentation. (@VietVantage) October 13, 2025

I must hold to my point that if trade is made too complicated, it will not happen.  As Russia is fighting NATO, China has entered the arena with a view to an economic decapitation strike to put the U.S and the collective West in the place of normal countries without exorbitant privilege.  China clearly feels strong enough now, as evidenced by its actions at the WTO, where, for trade advantages, they are no longer insisting that it is a developing country.

Even trade numbers and reported statistics are difficult these days, as the effect of de-dollarization is not easy to measure.  How do the IMF and World Bank count that which is not there?  Even Africa has now floated its own ratings organization, and Russia and India are doing their business in Yuan.  It is not only ‘that which is not there’, it is also new business being done, and the values are not flowing through the usual channels for statistical reporting.  For myself, I am watching trends and not specifically numbers.  The change in the world is growing massive, and one of those trends is that China is creating its own certification system for commercial aircraft, for example.    This period is truly historical, with comprador countries lacking agency, madly spinning between the new large poles being formed.  One example is that we are seeing more and more media that Turkey is wavering between west and mulitpolarity.

There are some numbers which on the face of it and standing alone, tells the story. In September alone, China’s exports grew by 8.3%, the fastest pace in months.

Shipments to the US fell by 27%. Exports to the EU rose more than 14%, exports to ASEAN nations were up by almost 16%, and exports to Africa rose by 56%.

Direct shipments to the US now make up barely 10% of China’s total exports. The US is learning a harsh, obvious truth that it should have learned a long time ago. The world is bigger than the United States, and the United States is no longer essential.

Hold onto your hats!

Dutch seize Chinese chip maker: Piracy on dry land

Par : amarynth

(Tech Buzz and refer to any major media)

The Dutch government just made an unprecedented move in the global chip wars, seizing control of Nexperia – a Chinese-owned semiconductor company vital to Europe’s auto industry. Using emergency powers under the Goods Availability Act, the Netherlands cited ‘serious governance shortcomings’ as justification for what officials called a ‘highly exceptional’ intervention that sent shockwaves through Asian markets.

I’m not even exaggerating on the piracy. They suspended the Chinese CEO from his position, appointed a non-Chinese director on the board with decisive voting rights and expropriated the company’s shares by placing them under management by a third-party trustee.

All under a law called the “Goods Availability Act” (https://government.nl/latest/news/2025/10/12/minister-of-economic-affairs-invokes-goods-availability-act (https://t.co/qkE6QAQZLn)), which is an emergency wartime legislation designed for things like the requisition of bread or fuel during a foreign invasion. Holland wasn’t being invaded, and Nexperia is operating normally, with chips flowing to European customers exactly as they always have.

The intervention hit markets immediately. Wingtech Technology, Nexperia’s Chinese parent company, plunged its maximum daily limit of 10% on the Shanghai Stock Exchange after the announcement broke Sunday evening. The company’s shares have been under pressure all year as geopolitical tensions mounted.

The Netherlands’ move comes just days after Beijing tightened restrictions on rare earth exports – materials essential for Europe’s automotive industry. It’s the latest salvo in an escalating tech cold war that’s already seen the Netherlands restrict ASML’s advanced chipmaking equipment exports to China.

Thing is, this is not even smart. It undermines Europe’s own semiconductor strategy. Nexperia is one of the all-too-rare successful EU semiconductor companies, headquartered in Holland with 14,000 employees worldwide.

We await the Chinese response. Is it too early to speculate that off-shore Chinese companies will take note and move back? Will the Dutch as a start ever be allowed to buy a rare earth component again? Will chips and semiconductors become a real scarce commodity in western climes?

Dangerous Moment

Par : AHH

… it’s not so easy to escape from a war you started yourself, leaving your allies to fend for themselves.

By Rostislav Ishchenko at Ukraine.ru.

(machine translation)

We are currently facing a moment of truth: either Russia will be able to complete its military operation in Ukraine within the next three to five months with a victory that will be unassailable by even the most ardent domestic skeptics, or the danger of a global confrontation will increase dramatically. On the external front, criticism will always be present, and our achievements will always be subject to discrediting, as there will always be forces seeking revenge and continuing the global confrontation. The format of peace in Ukraine should not leave any chance for foreign revanchists to ignite a new conflict in the next 10-20 years (it is impossible to make realistic plans for a longer period under the current conditions).

Until recently, the pace and direction of the Russian Armed Forces’ offensive indicated their intention, under favorable conditions, to defeat the most combat-ready Ukrainian forces assembled in the area from Kharkov to Pokrovsk and reach the Kherson-Zaporozhye-Dnepropetrovsk-Pavlograd-Kharkov line, with the expectation that a catastrophe on the front and the loss of new territories would make both the Kiev regime and its Western allies more constructive, leading to a peace agreement that would leave Ukraine without Novorossiya and thus severely undermine its demographic and industrial mobilization capabilities. In general, Kiev could lose up to 10 regions that were part of Ukraine in 1991 (Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, which have already become part of Russia, as well as the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, Nikolaiv, and Odesa regions, which still need to be liberated).

Given that Dmitry Medvedev had been much more radical about the scope of future territorial changes throughout the summer (not excluding the possibility of Ukraine’s complete elimination), Moscow clearly wanted to demonstrate to its “partners” that there was an influential group within the Russian leadership advocating a more aggressive peace plan that would exclude Kyiv from the negotiation process and establish peace directly with those Western countries that were willing to accept it. Ukraine and those Western countries that were unwilling to take a constructive stance would be the ones to pay for the peace.

Judging by the way events unfolded since the meeting in Anchorage, and the careful nature of the Russian leadership’s statements regarding a peaceful resolution, Trump agreed to at least attempt to follow this path. However, it soon became apparent that the United States lacked European allies in its readiness for a compromise peace with Russia. Europe, in general, and its leading countries, in particular, supported Zelensky’s uncompromising stance. After some hesitation, and under serious pressure from American supporters of a hard line on Russia, including several members of his own team, Trump abandoned the idea of a separate peace with Russia and moved on to a “no peace, no war” project, in which the United States does not directly participate in the European crisis, but also does not seek a global compromise with Russia. Washington agreed to sell all types of weapons to its European partners and withdrew from restraining the provocative nature of their policies towards Russia. The principle was “Let Europe fight Russia if they want, and the United States will benefit.”


But it’s not so easy to escape from a war you started yourself, leaving your allies to fend for themselves. The Europeans, taking advantage of the Americans’ statement that they are willing to sell any type of conventional weapons in any quantity, have demanded that Ukraine receive at least several hundred long-range missiles. While the official request is for Tomahawk missiles, it is more likely that Ukraine will receive less powerful but equally long-range missiles of other types. However, the transfer of a certain number of Tomahawks, at least for the purpose of testing them against Russian air defense systems in real large-scale combat operations, is also not ruled out.

The transfer of long-range missiles to Ukraine will raise the question of a Russian response. Despite Moscow’s attempts to avoid another escalation, a response targeting the military infrastructure of countries that have provided missile weapons to the Kiev regime would quickly become inevitable. In this regard, Poland is the most vulnerable country, as it is home to the main hub for the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine, and it is actively involved in lobbying for Kiev’s interests and disrupting any negotiations for a compromise peace with Russia. Additionally, Poland hosts American troops, including the Aegis missile defense system, which could potentially be used for both missile defense and Tomahawk missile launches. In any case, the use of Kalibr, Iskander, or Kinzhal against a NATO military facility on NATO territory would have raised the question of NATO’s response. The situation threatens to spiral out of political control.

Judging by the latest actions of the Russian Armed Forces, Moscow has decided to accelerate the operation to defeat and destroy the most combat-ready units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as much as possible and to give it more profound and decisive goals. This is a kind of response to the deployment of missiles before it takes place, in order to make this provocation meaningless.

Experience tells us that if the transfer of a particular type of weapon has become the subject of public discussion, it means that the Kiev regime will have access to that weapon in the near future. Initially, in a few instances, and then in a more significant number. Therefore, the sooner there is no one to transfer the weapon, the better.

In recent weeks, the Russian Armed Forces have been launching increasingly powerful strikes on Ukraine’s energy and railway infrastructure. As a result, all major Ukrainian cities, from the eastern border to the Dnieper River, have been plunged into darkness. Ukraine has also stated that Russia is attempting to logistically isolate the entire Left Bank region, including the Chernihiv and Sumy regions. This isolation is being carried out both before and during the offensive operation to prevent the enemy from maneuvering forces and resources and transferring reserves and supplies from the rear to the front, or at least to severely limit such capabilities.

Since the Russian Armed Forces are already conducting an offensive operation on the left bank of the Dnieper River with decisive goals, the sharp increase in missile strikes on Ukrainian rear areas should indicate Russia’s attempt to accelerate the pace of the operation without increasing its own losses, by leveraging its advantage in production and the number of missiles and UAVs it has accumulated compared to the collective West supplying Ukraine. Russia’s actions to isolate the combat zone and significantly reduce Ukraine’s ability to promptly repair equipment and produce UAVs in “garage” settings are effective in the short and medium term. Then, if the enemy is still alive, they gradually find ways to overcome the crisis, while their own strike forces are depleted, their reserves need to be replenished, and the intensity of their strikes decreases.

It could be assumed that Moscow is simply trying to speed up the operation to defeat the Kharkov-Donbass group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but the expansion of the geography of attacks on Kiev, Odessa, Chernihiv and Sumy suggests that while maintaining the previous goals of the operation, the maximum program is also considered as a minimum program: in case of successful development of the offensive, expand its geography to the limits of February- March 2022, to reach the Dnieper River along its entire course, if conditions allow, to occupy several strategic bridgeheads (the right bank of the Kherson region, the districts of Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye. Kremenchug and Kiev) and in the face of a full — scale catastrophe of the Ukrainian front, either dictate ultimatum peace terms to the Ukrainian authorities, or continue the pursuit of the APU further (possibly to the western border, but at least to the Zhytomyr-Vinnytsia line, which provides Russia with security from almost all types of non-strategic weapons in service with NATO).

Today, only the complete exclusion of Ukraine from the game on the Western side gives a fairly high, albeit not 100% chance, of avoiding the development of a Russia/NATO missile crisis, which will immediately acquire a partial global character in addition to its European nature. The acceleration of the operation against Ukraine is possible only through the maximum intensification of attacks on the rear: the maximum use of Russia’s air and space superiority, which will serve not only as an effective means of combating the Armed Forces of Ukraine but also as a demonstration and warning to Europeans who wish to wage war against Russia.

The window of opportunity for Russia is not wide open, but it is ajar, and it is into this gap that Russian missiles will have to fly in order to make it a gateway to a victorious world.

A Capsule of Round One Heroics

Par : AHH

A documentary of the missilemen of Iran. “…. the one who finishes a War, is the one claimant of expertise.”

https://x.com/AryJeay/status/1974164482088996971

💠 @Fotros Resistance (Arya – آریا):
Exclusive footages of Iran’s underground missile complexes during the 12-day war.

An IRGC member recalls how they operated inside the deep underground missile tunnels during the 12-day war.

He explains the tunnels were not damaged and everything inside was operational, the only issue was the entrance that sometimes got hit which would delay launches until it’d get dig out.

The tunnels in the footage displays Haj Qassem & Kheybar Shekan missiles.

The IRGC operators says the morale among the IRGC was very high and they did everything to not delay launches.

One of the IRGC members says at one time, an Israeli Hermes drone had hit one of the launchers that caused him to get injured on the spot, but got up and continued working to launch the rest of the missiles.

One of them rejected Israeli ridiculous claims about having bombed Iranian missile capabilities “to dust” and says we’re not even above the ground to bomb us to dust.

Lavrov-Rubio Talks on UNGA Sidelines

Par : amarynth
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met today on the sidelines of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Lavrov discussed the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis during a meeting with Rubio, with both sides confirming their interest in finding peaceful solutions, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Lavrov emphasized Moscow’s readiness to adhere to the course on Ukraine established by the leaders of the countries at the Alaska summit, the ministry added.

Lavrov noted the unacceptability of the schemes promoted by Ukraine and some European countries to prolong the conflict.

Lavrov and Rubio “aligned their clocks” on the complex of bilateral relations, including the restoration of socio-political contacts.

This is from Sputnik.
The RT report says:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held closed-door talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday.

The meeting lasted for just under an hour and revolved primarily around the Ukraine conflict, according to the tight-lipped statements made after the conversation by the two sides. 

“The Secretary reiterated President [Donald] Trump’s call for the killing to stop and the need for Moscow to take meaningful steps toward a durable resolution of the Russia-Ukraine war,” the US Department of State said in a statement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry offered a slightly more detailed readout of the talks, stating that Lavrov and Rubio had agreed to “continue constructive dialogue between the Russian and US foreign ministries” as well as reaffirmed the importance of the “momentum” generated by the Alaska summit for “normalizing bilateral relations.”

“Lavrov emphasized [Moscow’s] readiness to adhere to the line established by the Russian and US leaders in Alaska, including coordinating efforts with the US side to address the root causes of the Ukraine conflict,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the top diplomat called out the “unacceptable schemes promoted by Kiev and some European capitals aimed at prolonging the conflict” during the talks.

The meeting comes on the heels of a sharp change in Trump’s rhetoric on the conflict following a meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky earlier this week. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, the US president said he believes Kiev is “in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back,” with enough support from the EU and NATO. He also branded Russia a “paper tiger,” arguing that it had failed to defeat Ukraine and claiming that Moscow was “in big economic trouble.”

Moscow appeared to brush off the hostile rhetoric, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov jokingly suggesting that Russia was a “real bear” rather than a “paper tiger.” While the country’s economy has been facing certain “problems,” it has largely adapted to the ongoing conflict and withstood the unprecedented Western sanctions, Peskov told Russian business daily RBK on Wednesday.

—

It seems as if Lavrov stood like a bear, keeping their feet to the Alaska fire, and told ’em what’s what.  The faces were grim on leaving the meeting.

The Sirius Report: China Threatens To End U.S. Relations

Par : amarynth

This is a different take on the US – China trade negotiations in Madrid. With this, take a note of Lin Jian’s Press Conference for a practical illustration of the issues discussed.

While Russia has declared that there are no talks ongoing with the US or Ukraine, by definition there is no progress anywhere and Russia is just fine with that, and NATO is de facto at war with Russia,  China follows the same method.  Yes, talk to us, but we beat the drum.

Mao Zedong: Father of Chinese Communism and 20th Century’s Most Influential Leader

Par : amarynth

Jeff J Brown updated the key chapter in his Big Red Book on China, to commemorate the anniversary of Mao Zedong’s death, 9 September 1976.  Mao Zedong: Father of Chinese Communism and 20th Century’s Most Influential Leader.

Updated Chapter

Portrait of Chairman Mao, by Ma Jin (1899-1970). Ink and color on paper, undated. The banners hanging from the red balloons say, “Long live our great leader Mao Zedong” and “Long live the Communist Party of China”. The artist’s note on the right-hand side says, “This painting by Mr. Ma Jin was born during the Cultural Revolution for Chou Xueshi’s mention”.

My arc of awareness has been a long, hard road

In researching my China Trilogy books, while producing many hundreds of articles and podcasts in the interim, and now currently writing my fourth book, Amir&Jeff’s Excellent China Adventure (due out in 2026), I keep coming across what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, when your mind is grappling with two conflicting ideas simultaneously. It causes internal stress, denial and mental compartmentalization, to bury the evidence that goes against one’s beliefs and assumptions. Courageous people take the latter out of the box, study it and correct themselves, which is what this chapter is all about.

On the one hand is Western media and books, describing Mao Zedong as everything from the devil incarnate to the world’s blood thirstiest butcher and on and on. James Corbett, a well-known “liberal”, alternative press guru says that,

Mao was a disgusting, horrible, cruel, perverse person – probably the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world.

As Little Richard would sing, Good Golly Miss Molly. Corbett’s supposed to be an enlightened liberal. Wanna hear what CNN and Fox News have to say? Maybe best to get a rabies vaccine before you do.

Thus, much of the world has all this anti-Mao venom versus President Xi Jinping’s and the Chinese people’s undying pride and loyalty to this same-said person. Whether you love him or hate him, Mao was truly a giant on history’s 20th century stage.

 

Portrait of Chairman Mao, by Wu Zuren (1908-1977) and others. Ink and color on paper, 1962. Standing in a plum orchard, a poem written by Mao Zedong included:

A Poem of Divination-Ode to the Plum Blossom

 A rainstorm ushers in the returning spring,

Flurries of snow welcome a spring arriving.

The steep cliffs are already thick with ice,

There are still beautiful sprays of flower blossoms.

Beautiful yet not wanting of spring,

We only have the spring to announce.

Until the days of bright mountain flowers in full bloom.

She smiles among the branches.

Talk about cognitive dissonance

So, I kept asking myself, if Mao was such a depraved, demonic, diabolical fiend, who brought China to its knees and destroyed his nation’s people – why do the Chinese love him so much? I’ve talked to thousands of Chinese over my 16 years here and lots of them vent their spleen at the Communist Party, the corruption, the hypocrisy, just like Westerners mock their political parties and process. I’ve heard Chinese criticize Deng, Jiang, Hu, China’s post-Mao leaders for all kinds of reasons, too much of this, too little of that. I can find Chinese today who criticize Xi Jinping, but it is usually for him not doing enough to clean up the Party’s corruption, not being “Mao” enough.

Yes, I’ve talked to a handful of Chinese who don’t like Mao. If they are older, they usually suffered during the Cultural Revolution, or they are children whose parents got the short end of the stick. I have an aged friend who was persecuted during Mao’s 1950s Anti-Rightist Campaign. He hates Mao’s guts and will never forgive him.

Mao is here, there, everywhere

But through it all, I can safely say that about 98% of the Chinese I’ve talked to like Mao and what he did for China. His image adorns taxi cabs, like an amulet of St. Christopher, to ward off accidents. He is on walls of privately owned offices, businesses, restaurants – these are private, not government. They are citizens who have decided to show their admiration for the man, on their own. He’s everywhere. How can this be in the face of relentless demonization by Western media, educators, historians and politicians?

 

 Mao Zedong is everywhere you look. Here is a Mao amulet hanging in a tuk-tuk, on the left, watching over the driver. (Image by Jeff J. Brown)

 

Posters of Mao can be found everywhere, especially in the countryside. Here is one that greets you in a small hotel in Sichuan. (Image by Jeff J. Brown)

After doing much research, including sleuthing around museums across China, here is what I found out.

Where it all started

First, you have to understand where China was, when Mao became leader of the new People’s Republic of China. In 1949, China was basically a 19th century hellhole. There was widespread rural starvation, which was endemic over many areas of the country. Twenty-five percent of the adult population was ensnared with opium, morphine and heroin, up to 100 million people. Due to generalized misery, prostitution and child trafficking were rampant, because the people did not have enough money and food to survive. There was almost no industrial capacity in the hands of the Chinese. It was all owned by Western and Japanese colonialists and occupiers. Electricity was a luxury for the vast majority of the citizens, even in many big cities.

Eighty percent of the people could not read or write, a true hallmark of imperial subjugation. Many millions of children died, or were handicapped every year with many diseases, since there was no immunization program. Infrastructure had largely been ignored for 100 years, except for what was useful to Western and Japanese colonialists to bring in hard drugs and haul off all of China’s silver, natural resources and goods. Most tellingly, in 1949, a Chinese citizen could hope to live for an average of only 35 years. Furthermore, for female citizens, women were little more than chattel property and the cruelty of feet binding was still common.

So here was China, which until 1872, was the world’s largest economy and historically one of the most technologically advanced. After unwise policy decisions by the Manchus during the Qing Dynasty, and 100 years of brutal colonial exploitation and war, China had been reduced to a social, economic, political, 19th century basket case. That was the China that Mao Zedong inherited on October 1st, 1949.

 

Flowers, by Jiang Caiping (1934- ). Ink and color on paper, 1963.

No other people in human history have done what the Chinese did 1949-1978

Under the direction of Mao and in only twenty-nine years, 1949-1978, which I call the Mao Era, the Communist Party of China used its centralized authority, organizing human and natural resources to develop China’s industrial and civilian infrastructure, thereby turning China from a 19th century wasteland into a modern, 20th century developing economy.

Mao and the CPC eradicated morphine, heroin, opium use and cultivation; prostitution, child slavery, child trafficking and feet binding in only two years, saving many tens of millions of lives and improving the lives of hundreds of millions more. They also wiped out warlords, organized crime, gangsters, gambling, loan sharking, drugs, gun running and the protection rackets in the same record time. This is unprecedented in such a short period of time, especially with such a vast population. All this alone transformed the lives of the Chinese from misery and exploitation to hope and security.

When Deng Xiaoping took over after Mao’s death in 1976 and started to implement his high-stakes economic and social reforms in 1978, thanks to Mao’s visionary leadership, China already had decent roads connecting most cities and towns on a provincial basis. Furthermore, using local grids and constructing over 10,000 hydroelectric dams (which I’ve seen many times in my travels), over 60% of the people had access to electricity, including remote and low-income rural areas. Incredibly, the nation’s literacy rate reached two-thirds of all the adults and 80% of school aged children, one of the highest levels in developing countries in 1978, and this was done in the world’s most populous country. The Chinese are now virtually 100% literate.

The vast majority of the masses were immunized, including almost all babies at one year of age. Life expectancy skyrocketed from 35 years of age to 65 years of age. It is now 77.81, on par with Eastern European countries. Although still very patriarchal, women’s status was modernized, with many millions becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and administrative and political staff. Women also gained free choice over their bodies for the first time and were offered full pre- and post-maternity and child raising services. To this day, joint bank accounts are not allowed, so that women can be assured of financial freedom.

While the aforementioned, life-changing measures would be any country’s national pride, by a huge margin, that is not all. The long list of statistics in the Appendix at the end of this essay brings into dramatic focus just how successful the Mao Era really was, which is why I always say,

No other national leader has ever done some much for so many people in so little time.

While being blockaded and sanctioned by the Judeo-West

All of this was done, while being totally shut out from the world economy and commerce, from 1949 until the mid-seventies, by the brutal US blockade, like what they’re doing to Cuba. So, Mao and the CPC achieved these dizzying benchmarks without Western technology and financing, and made it happen with the two things China had it spades: labor and brains. It was backbreaking brawn and toiling brains that replaced the Judeo-City of London.

To put all this in proper perspective, during this same timeframe, the United States, which at that time had 50% of the world’s GDP, was the biggest exporter, importer and manufacturer, claiming the world’s biggest banks and financial sector, the world’s largest creditor and smallest debtor (on a per capita basis) and had the US dollar as humanity’s reserve currency – yet America could only outdo Mao’s shut-off Red China by one percentage point per annum, weighing in at 8%.

How many politicians and their parties would like to run on accomplishments like Mao’s? Talk about bringing home the bacon.

With a record like that, now you can appreciate why 98% of the Chinese think that Mao metaphorically walks on water. Not to mention the intangibles, that Mao inspires hard work, dedication, patriotism, teamwork, community and nation building. As well, thanks to Mao, the Chinese are free from Western exploitation and genocide. As stated in China’s constitution, it’s thanks to Mao Zedong that,

…the Chinese people took state power into their own hands and became masters of the country.

Deng Xiaoping stood on the shoulders of Mao Zedong

Next, Westerners need to understand something else very clearly. Without all this impressive, let’s admit it, spectacular social, economic and infrastructural development during the Mao Era, Deng Xiaoping’s daring reforms would have failed – miserably, when he started in 1978.

Just as importantly, without Mao’s inspiration and struggle for the people of China to stand up and be free, after 110 years of Western and Japanese resource extraction and exploitation, Deng’s reforms would have been for the benefit of foreign powers, militaries, the Judeo-City of London, and not for the people of China. Most countries around the world have been consumed and lost their sovereignty to globalization, Western debt, or had their popular governments overthrown by the West, via assassination, rigged elections, false flags, war or psyops and black ops.

Thanks to Mao, the Chinese have been and continue to stand up to Western imperialism, control their destiny and resources, both human and natural. Thus, their opening up to the world is for the benefit of the masses and not Uncle Sam. There are very few non-Western countries that can say this. China is at the top of the list, along with Russia, since Putin was elected in 2000.

The West lost China?

People forget that one of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s biggest PR weapons was Mao Zedong as poster child, back in postwar America. You remember that demagogue, don’t you, who destroyed thousands and thousands of people’s lives, during his maniacal communist witch hunt and pogrom? McCarthy would raise the specter of Mao to Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, taunting them with the line, literally beating them over the head with,

How could you lose China, to Mao and the communists? How are you going to get China back?

Think about that for a moment. You can’t lose something, unless you think that you already owned it in the first place. And you can’t take something back, unless you feel it is something due to you. This was and still is the West’s attitude about China: to be owned and exploited. To this day, China’s economic and political independence is what Washington, London, Paris and Berlin cannot accept, and why they are so committed to overthrowing the Communist Party of China. Instead of a Mao or Xi Jinping, they want to install a Western puppet, like Suharto and Marcos in Indonesia and the Philippines, respectively, as was Russia’s Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, or Zelensky in today’s Ukraine – these and hundreds of other greedy, sycophantic leaders, who were and are willing to let the West come in to rape their people and plunder their resources.

Without Mao’s legacy, that nightmare scenario would have surely already happened a long time ago, as it has in most non-Western countries around the world.

All of this is why Baba Beijing officially says that Mao was right 70% the time and wrong 30% of the time. Now that we’ve looked at the 70% good, let’s take a look at the supposed 30% bad. Like the 70% good, we again have to look at some background and history.

Revolutionaries are everywhere in history

First, Mao was a committed revolutionary, there is no doubt about that. Here are three quotes by him that confirm this:

 Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Revolution is not a dinner party or writing an essay or painting a picture or doing embroidery. It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence, by which one class overthrows the other.

To keep the revolution strong, one person needs to be killed out of every 1,000-2,000 citizens.

For the last quote, in other words, set an example for everybody, by getting rid of someone who is a saboteur.

While at first glance this all may seem bloodthirsty and shocking, it is by far not out of the norm. The French Revolution was a blood affair. Very bloody. The American Revolution was a bloody affair. The Russian Revolution was just as bloody. By necessity, revolution is a mighty battle between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the Judeo-bankers and the citizens, the government tyrants against the oppressed masses.

As an example, here are a few quotes from American luminaries,

Americans can exercise their constitutional right of amending it [the government], or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it. – Abraham Lincoln

In other words, if you can’t make the government work through normal channels, it must be changed by violence.

We must fight, I repeat it sir, we must fight – an appeal to arms! – Patrick Henry

Hmm, this sounds just like Mao to me.

I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! – Patrick Henry

Normally, when you die in action, you kill a few people along the way.

What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned, from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms! The remedy is to set them [the rulers] right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. – Thomas Jefferson

What signifies a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.  – Thomas Jefferson

I hold it that a little rebellion [revolution] now and then is a good thing and is necessary in the political world. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government. – Thomas Jefferson

Again, Mr. Jefferson sounds just like Mao to me, doesn’t he?

That great visionary radical, Thomas Paine said, We have in our power to begin the world over again [revolution].

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government. I cannot be silent. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Of course, pacifist King was killed by his own government, for speaking revolutionary truth to power.

Outside the United States,

A revolution is an idea taken up by bayonets. – Napoléon Bonaparte

Fidel Castro laid it on the line, A revolution is not a bed of roses. Revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.

What Castro meant was that the have-nots of the future are taking what is rightfully theirs from their exploited past.

So, think about this. In a proper historical context, Mao’s vision of violent revolution is not so outrageous and obscene as it seems. In fact, it is very mundane and mainstream. Mao’s problem with the West was that he was not only a committed communist and capitalist hater, but he led China, the world’s most populous, and thanks to him, one of the world’s most powerful countries. The problem with the West was that its capitalists could no longer rape, plunder and pillage China’s people and its vast natural resources.

Now that we know Mao was a bread-and-butter revolutionary, in a long line of proud, principled rebels, East and West, let’s take a look at the two events that tarnished his image and give Western talking heads so much propaganda fodder.

The Great Leap Forward

The first one was the Great Leap Forward. From 1958-61, when Mao and the CPC collectivized land, farmers and agricultural production, as well as massively and successfully increased industrial production and infrastructure across the country.

Studying the statistics in the Appendix below, the West completely denies just how successful was the Great Leap Forward’s industrial and infrastructure gains. During this brief period of mass mobilization and creative frenzy, the Chinese people began large scale production of cars, trucks, tractors, airplanes, military equipment and weapons. With the help of Soviets, the Chinese built hundreds of steel, textile, chemical, machine tool, power generation, coal and metallurgy processing plants, among a number of other sectors. According to Dongping Han, in his highly informative book, The Unknown Cultural Revolution – Life and Change in a Chinese Village (Monthly Review Press, 2008), out of all the industrial projects launched by China from 1949-1964, a jaw dropping two-thirds were started during the Great Leap Forward. During these short three years, 36% of all coal was produced, 30% of all textiles were made and 26% of all the electricity generated, out of the total 29-year Mao Era of 1949-1978!

The Chinese beat the pants off the West during the Great Leap Forward

In fact, the Great Leap Forward’s juggernaut was so spectacular, that its production numbers exceeded by double digits (10-30%) the best three years of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, Germany and Japan, during their massive industrial expansions that preceded China’s.

Yes, the small backyard steel furnaces that were built across the country were wasteful and largely a failure. But when you look at the whole picture of the Great Leap Forward’s staggering industrial success, they were a blip on the graph that Western propaganda took and blew up into a bogus communist policy disaster.

Great Leap infrastructure

The other sector that the West has completely expunged from the truth about the Great Leap Forward is infrastructure development, especially in rural areas. Out of the ten largest reservoirs in existence in China today, nine were built during the Great Leap Forward. Thousands of other large, medium and small sized reservoirs were built for the triple benefit of flood control, irrigation and electricity generation, increasing the national capacity of each of these categories by several magnitudes. Thousands of kilometers of riverbanks were also fortified, to prevent flooding, while millions of wells for drinking water and irrigation were dug across the country.

That boogey-bear called collectivization

The other aspect of the Great Leap Forward that raises a lot of eyebrows in the West is rural collectivization. This is where large groups of people, usually farmers, are moved from their current, traditional or historic homes, to a new area, to develop these previously underdeveloped or unused lands. It is essentially government-organized pioneering and settlement, writ large.

Collectivization does not get a lot of love in the world’s history books. Stalin got the ball rolling in the Soviet Union, 1928-1940. Then Mao rolled up his shirtsleeves in the 1950s. Later, Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Tanzania, among a number of others, took the plunge. From an individual standpoint, it must be difficult and stressful, being uprooted from one’s home and being asked to start a new life in a new area, often with new neighbors.

From a historical standpoint in China, looking back a couple of generations to the 1950s, the long view gives a different perspective. Many thousands of square kilometers of marginal, scrub, waste or desertified lands were transformed into highly productive farmland. Vast tracts of land in Inner Mongolia and Manchuria are now some of the best corn and soybean production areas in the world, and helped feed a rapidly growing population after liberation in 1949.

I have met families who were collectivized. In retrospect, they have no regrets. Yes, they suffered tremendous hardship, but what pioneers don’t? They are proud of what they accomplished, their selfless, patriotic and collective efforts, for the good of their country. I have seen these families wave their arms across the horizon, as corn and soybean disappear into infinity, as well as what has now turned into a prosperous rural town, saying, “We did this, this is what we accomplished”.

It is difficult to imagine being thrown together with not much more than hand tools, some building supplies, in howling, subzero weather. Then, they were pointed to 10,000-100,000 hectares of wasteland, as far as the eye could see, to the horizon and told,

For the love of New China, for the love of the communist revolution, transform this land!

Catastrophic weather almost derailed the whole thing

That would have been difficult in the best of scenarios, but as bad luck would have it, at the same time, much of China was struck with terrible floods, then a 100-year drought. As a result, millions of people died. What China haters do not consider is that even without collectivization, millions of Chinese would have still died, because it was some of the worst droughts and floods in the 20th century.

The Chinese officially say about 16.5 million died, which would be 2.5% of the population. Western historians say somewhere between 18-45 million perished. Let’s take the average of these figures, which comes to 26.5 million and round it up to 30 million, for comparative purposes, so no one can say I’m being biased. In 1958, when the Great Leap Forward started, China’s population was 654,000,000, about half of today’s 1.4 billion. So, 30 million is 4.6% of China’s total population of 654 million. Sounds like a lot, but how does this compare to other tragedies, some in the not-so-distant past?

Great Leap’s losses: a comparative review

For starters, the most important blueprint for all this modern collectivization was US President Andrew Jackson’s 1830 Indian Removal Act, which is brushed over in Western history books, since it helped codify the genocide of 15 million Native Americans, or 90% of their populations. The survivors in America’s collectivized, gulag Indian reservations have been and continue to be a massive failure of ethnic cleansing on a continental scale, for the small percentage who survived Eurmerican extermination. Ditto Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Jewish State.

France lost 5% of its population during World War I, a pointless slaughter between greedy, Western colonialists. Ireland lost 25% of its people during the British legislated Great Potato Genocide 1845-1853, as well as another 25% emigrating to avoid this “legal” extermination. French colonialists in Vietnam, in a terrible drought, intentionally caused two million to starve to death in 1945, which was 9% of the local population. The United States massacred up to 25% of the Filipinos, starting in 1898, when it colonized that island country. More recently, the United States killed 3.3 million Iraqis, 1990-2012, including 750,000 children, the total which represents almost 19% of the population. Way to go Uncle Slaughter, job well done. You have to hand it to Americans. When they institute forced collectivization and genocide, they do it right.

I could keep going on all day about massacres and genocide in Palestine, India, Iran, Asia, Africa, the Americas, Oceania and Europe, during the last 500 years of Eurmerican colonialism, with whopping percentages of the local population decimated every time. The point is, in historical perspective, yes, 2.5% (16.5 million) of the Chinese population lost during the Great Leap Forward period is a tragedy, which Baba Beijing officially accepts. But it is by no means unusual, as an event, nor is its magnitude.

Population boom, finally!

The flip side is, after a century of Western colonization, 1839-1949, during which China’s population only grew 0.7% per year, a total of 128 million over 110 years. In the Mao Era, China’s population grew 57%, 415 million net new citizens from 1949-1978. The Great Leap Forward timeframe saw China lose up to 16.5 million souls, due to cataclysmic weather, but Mao’s policies still increased the overall population by 415,000,000. Again, looking at the statistics in the Appendix below, Baba Beijing’s 70% right-30% wrong assessment of Mao is likely over-critical.

The Chinese have been taking down bad leaders for 5,000 years

Looking back at Chinese history, whenever a ruler lost the Heavenly Mandate and the people felt that their governance was to blame for their suffering, they usually revolted. There is even a popular proverb, “jiegan’erqi”, which means, “grab a (bamboo) stick and rise up in rebellion”. Countless ineffectual or corrupt leaders were overrun by teeming masses of fed-up citizens wielding homemade spears. One of the biggest reasons to overthrow a leader was food shortages and famine. Thus, this brings up a good question: if the Great Leap Forward was such the colossal, communist administrative catastrophe as depicted in the West, then why didn’t the Chinese citizenry do what they have predictably done thousands of times throughout history?

Armed to the teeth, yet no revolt. Why?

And this time, they had a lot more than just bamboo sticks. Due to the Korean War, Taiwan, the CIA in Tibet and all the suicide missions it was sending into the country to create subversion, for the first time in national history, the peasants were well armed, and stayed that way until the early 1980s, when they were confiscated at the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s administration. Machine guns, rifles, pistols, grenades and even mortar rockets were commonplace across the rural countryside, with a village often having 100-200 arms on hand, people’s militias loaded to kill Western imperialists. Yet, armed to the teeth for the first time in Chinese history, they didn’t rise up to overthrow the Communist Party of China.

People like Dongping Han and Mobo Gao, who together wrote The Battle for China’s Past (Pluto Press, 2008), grew up as peasant children during the Great Leap Forward and as adolescents, during the Cultural Revolution. They suggest that not only did the masses not blame the CPC for all the suffering during the Great Leap Forward, but point out that the government went to great extremes to mobilize and transport food from provinces where there were surpluses, to areas that were slammed by the flooding and droughts, saving millions of lives in the process. Yes, there was widespread hunger, but starvation was limited and scattered according to unlucky localized conditions, those with co-morbidities and the very elderly.

There is a valid argument that not only were farmers well-armed and historical rebels, but how could they have so massively built-up rural infrastructure, as well as the country performing the greatest of burst of industrial production in human history, if everyone was starving to death? Han and Gao provide tons of statistics, interviews and real-life experiences to convincingly show that the official number of Great Leap Forward deaths of 16.5 million was at worst, the maximum level.

Frank Dikötter is a well-paid factotum, neoliberal millionaire and pathological liar who has brainwashed the world

The one book that has most framed Westerners’ brainwashing that the Great Leap Forward was a calculated mass murder, is Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958– 62, by Frank Dikötter (2010, Walker & Company). However, after publication, it was pointed out that the photo Dikötter used on the front of the book was not of a child starving during the Great Leap Forward, but of one from Life Magazine, taken during a pre-liberation, 1946 Chinese famine, at the height of the Chinese Civil War. When questioned, he said he could not find any photos of starving people during the Great Leap Forward. Hmm…

The most famous line used in his book quotes Mao Zedong, in 1959 saying,

When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.

According to Dongping Han, when pressed about the source of this quote, Dikötter claimed it was from a confidential source and could not be revealed. In the end, due continuous challenges to his credibility, he finally relented for it to be reviewed by someone in Hong Kong, a professor colleague of Dongping Han’s. Probably illiterate in Chinese, what Dikötter did not realize was that his source was in fact a speech Mao gave on industrial policy, saying that if the country could only meet half of its pharaonic industrial planning goals, then they would prioritize them to get at least 50% of them completed. This strongly suggests that Dikötter was taken advantage of by fellow Chinese-reading commie and Mao haters, who put their zealotry above the truth, or in his ideological zeal, he wrote what he wanted to hear and see.

In sum, did people die during the Great Leap Forward, due to droughts and flooding? Yes. As a result, was there hunger and limited starvation? Yes. Did the masses blame the CPC, rise up and overthrow it? No.

The Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution

The other sociopolitical project that tarnished Mao’s reputation was the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution. There is much international speculation as to why Mao started it. The common Western refrain is that he did it to keep his political rivals off balance and to compensate for the negative aspects of the Great Leap Forward. But, the Chinese say Mao really did want to rid the country of counterrevolutionary elements, who were sabotaging the country (the fascist Japanese and KMT both left behind millions of soldiers and personnel), as well as greatly expand and reform rural education.

Corruption was a cancer that needed to be extirpated

No one can say that Mao had not tried to rid the Party of corrupt, venal cadres. Since 1949, he had launched no fewer than eight campaigns to get rid of them,

1951-52: Three Antis (Sanfan)

1953: New Three Antis (Xinsanfan) and Five Antis (Wufan)

1954: Cadre Rectification (Ganbu Zhengfeng)

1955: Tax Bureau Anti-Corruption (Shuiwu Bumen Fantanwu)

1957: Rectification (Zhengfeng)

1960: Rural Village Three Antis (Nongcun Sanfan)

1964-65: Socialist Education (Siqing)

The people were fed up

Clearly, the same-old-same-old was not working. The whole lot, government and education were corrupt and needed to go. Endless surveys and polls, what was called the Mass Line showed that the people were screaming blue-faced mad to get it cleaned up, go to school and wanted positive change yesterday.

Mao famously was quoted in 1964,

At present you can buy a Party branch secretary for a few packs of cigarettes, not to mention marrying a daughter to him.

In 1966, Mao and the Party sent out work teams, the “official Red Guards”, to meet with the masses and identify the crooks at the local level. However, surviving in a mostly feudal society for 5,000 years, the peasants were conditioned to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. They were pissed and said so, but would not point any fingers at the culprits. Thus, they would not cooperate out of fear, and in fact these official work team Red Guards and local leaders protected each other, while browbeating and threatening the rural folk into silent submission.

Time to clean out the swamp – now

So, the Cultural Revolution was Mao’s exasperated ploy to clean up and clear out the Party, with the help of the citizens, by giving them the authority to stand up, be heard and punish and/or remove the millions of rotten local cadres who were mostly making their lives miserable and poorer. They were the victims of this official abuse, thus they were the ones who could fix the problem. If only they could overcome their fear and feudal subservience, then the crooks could be smoked out, overwhelmed and not able to protect each other and themselves.

Westerners scoff at Mao’s backers supporting the anti-Lin Biao and Confucius campaign, as being frivolous, but they completely miss the point. Mao was giving hundreds of millions of timid, cowered masses the opportunity to stand up and vocally criticize two of the country’s icons, one modern and one ancient. It was a set piece for the people to practice throwing off their feudal mindset and speak with a collective voice of authority and conviction.

Why Confucius? Because at his worst, he was an elitist and a class snob, saying things like,

The masses should be led, but should not be educated. Women and common people are hard to govern.

The infamous struggle about Red Guards fighting each other was thus the official Party ones, who were protecting the crooks and persecuting the citizenry, versus Mao’s people’s “rebel” Red Guards who were punishing the rotten cadres and corrupt educators. Thus, on August 1st, 1966, when Mao published his Letter to the Red Guards of Tsinghua University Middle School, it was in fact a declaration to everyone in the Party, white hats and black hats, that he would guarantee the protection of the do-gooder rebel Red Guards, to root out corrupt officials and educators, and to stand up to the official Red Guards. Mao’s weapon was his authoritative voice of the communist revolution and the People’s Liberation Army, which remained loyal to him and were a force of good. Needless to say, it got messy and was a battle royal: the oppressors versus the oppressed, the elites versus the commoners and to a great extent, urbanites versus country folk.

Human history’s longest running, biggest direct democracy

In fact, there are people who have written books to that effect: millions of peasants in the countryside liked the Cultural Revolution, because it gave them the authority to remove corrupt local Party officials and educators, who were getting too fat and happy and abusing their positions of power. Mao and his allies saw a CPC that was rotten to the core and needed to be taken down not just a notch, but to its collective knees. And that’s exactly what happened, with millions of Party cadres and educators figuratively knocked off their high horses and/or run out of town.

In the end, the Cultural Revolution proved to be the longest and biggest direct democracy in human history.

Education needed to be totally revamped – and was

The other aspect about the Cultural Revolution was Mao’s ardent desire to bring rural education out of the dark ages. After 1949, the education system improved dramatically for urbanites, as well as for illiterate adults who could finally learn to read and write. The argument for the “key school system” superficially made sense: concentrate resources on the best and the brightest in the cities, to help lead the industry, infrastructure and technology revolutions taking place across the country. But for farm folk, the education system changed little after liberation. It was still controlled by urban, intellectual elites, who largely scorned the hundreds of millions of peasants in the countryside. They were also financially corrupt, as every level of education, from kindergarten to high school, required tuition, which the vast majority of farmers could not afford to pay for their children. The Cultural Revolution changed all that.

On May 7, 1966, Mao wrote a letter to his projected successor, Lin Biao, in part saying,

…education should be revolutionized, and the domination of our schools by bourgeois intellectuals should by no means be allowed to continue.

In the now famous May 16 Directive, launching the Cultural Revolution, which Mao helped write, it said,

The task of the Cultural Revolution is to reform the old education system and education philosophy and methodology.

With the advent of this movement, suddenly, every rural child in China was able to go to school, kindergarten through 12th grade (K- 12), for free and with no admissions or advancement tests to hold them back. Villages and communes used their own resources to build and equip schools, K-12, hiring teachers and creating learning materials, pooling together to provide larger middle and high schools for districts and counties.

Dongping Han’s rural Shandong Jimo county was very typical and its statistics before and after the Cultural Revolution are breathtaking. Before 1949, his county of 800,000 people only had two middle schools. In 1966, when the Cultural Revolution started, it still languished, with only eight middle schools, teaching a paltry 1,300 students, for almost a million citizens. In 1949, they only had one high school and in 1966, just two. In 1966, his village of 1,200 people only had four high school graduates. Nationally in 1966, sixty-five percent of all rural schools had no desks and chairs.

By the end of the Cultural Revolution, instead of eight middle schools, his county had 249, a 31-fold increase. High schools skyrocketed from two to 89, a nearly 45-fold enlargement. Tens of thousands of students were graduating from middle and high school (including Dongping Han and Mobo Gao), contributing to the betterment of the local economy, both agricultural and industrial. Every village had at least one primary school. Students had desks, chairs, teachers and learning resources. Tuition-free classes were scheduled to be flexible with the passing of the seasons, so that the crops could be planted, harvested and processed, as well as rural industrial targets being met.

Dongping Han and Mobo Gao are PhD professors at Western universities, thanks to the Cultural Revolution

To say that the Cultural Revolution radically improved the educational foundation of rural China would be a gross understatement. And with real, true universal K-12 across the country, the masses felt politically and socially empowered to take their fates and destinies into their own hands, to finally stand up and be heard.

To this day, knowledgeable people inside and outside China say that the Cultural Revolution has brought long lasting, badly needed changes to the mindset of the Chinese masses. For millennia, even when the Heavenly Mandate was harmonious and peaceful, China’s peasants were often living in a feudal economic system, where they were mostly powerless. Their only recourse was to grab those bamboo sticks when it became intolerable and demand new leaders. Wherever in the world, feudalism institutionalizes society’s hierarchy for the common folk, the masses, to keep their heads down, backs toiling, bellies just full enough and mouths shut. If that sounds a lot like the West these days, you read it here.

Without the Cultural Revolution, China today would be just another balkanized resource whore for the Judeo-West

For Mao, the corrupt CPC cadres leading up to the Cultural Revolution were no better than history’s feudal landlords and masters. To this day, it is argued that that celebrated decade of popular revolt, outrage and people’s direct democracy against the country’s elites has had lasting, beneficial results. After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese lost their feudal serfs’ mentality. They were no longer afraid to take down the fat and the lazy, the rich and the corrupt, to justice. Living here for 16 years and knowing that these days, there are 300-500 daily public protests against the system, in reality, against the CPC, this kind of popular vigilance would never have reached fruition, without the Cultural Revolution’s baptism by populist fire.

Just as Mao Zedong’s amazing socioeconomic miracle from 1949-1978 was critical for Deng Xiaoping’s later reforms to succeed, it can be persuasively argued that the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution was just as necessary for the Chinese people to develop the attitude and sense of social justice needed, to implement these incredible changes and make them happen.

One could even argue that if it weren’t for the crucible of the Cultural Revolution to steel the Party and put its members on notice, it may have already been destined to the same fate as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On August 8th, 1966, Mao and the CPC issued the following proclamation, known today as The Sixteen Points:

Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture and customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavor to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: it must meet head on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society.

At present our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic “authorities” and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and transform education, literature, and art and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system.

The masses of the workers, peasants, soldiers, revolutionary intellectuals, and revolutionary cadres form the main force in this Great Cultural Revolution. Large numbers of revolutionary young people, previously unknown, have become courageous and daring path-breakers. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution now unfolding is a great revolution that touches people to their very soul and constitutes a new stage in the development of the socialist revolution in our country, a deeper and more extensive stage.

Since the Cultural Revolution is a revolution, it inevitably meets with resistance. This resistance comes chiefly from those in authority who have wormed their way into the party and are taking the capitalist road. It also comes from the old force of habit in society. At present, this resistance is still fairly strong and stubborn. However, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is, after all, an irresistible general trend. There is abundant evidence that such resistance will crumble fast once the masses become fully aroused.

Chinese leaders fear their citizens. Westerners fear their leaders

There you have it. This revolutionary declaration offers hope for positive change in China’s future. The leadership should rightfully be fearful of the people, not the other way around; a great definition of effective, participatory democracy. As well, the Chinese people are not going to put up with their leaders turning their proud, independent country into a continent-sized Indonesia or Honduras, letting itself be raped and plundered by Judeo-bankers, corporations and militaries. Thus, the Party had better work its butt off to make sure those who would sell out the communist revolution for a few crumbs of Western empire are rid of, or at least neutralized.

If one looks at the May Fourth Movement from 1917-1921, leading up to the founding of the CPC, and its rallying cry to modernize and throw off the shackles of Western and Japanese imperialism, it can be well argued that it finally succeeded in the Cultural Revolution.

For the Chinese, this has been going on for 5,000 years

The other aspect that is lost to most outsiders concerning the Cultural Revolution was Mao’s sincere belief in continuous revolution. This was based on his and Baba Beijing’s total trust and respect held for the masses, especially the peasants. They did and still do truly believe in the Chinese’s specialness and uniqueness, as the world’s most resilient, most adaptable people on Earth. When looking back on China’s 5,000-year civilization, this devotion to their people is not grounded in egotistical delusions, but in the amazing tapestry of trial, tribulation and triumph, woven in the pages of the country’s history books.

Revolutions always get messy

When Mao did launch the Cultural Revolution, it probably went in directions that he did not think would ever happen. It is safe to say that at times, it got out of control of the leadership, especially when the Red Guards were charged to rid New China of The Four Olds (customs, culture, habits and ideas). This is the famous episode which caused so much of the outrage against adults, teachers, civic leaders, as well as extensive damage to Chinese heritage sites, temples and museums. In the West, it is depicted that this went on for years. In fact, the majority of this vandalism happened during a brief six-week period in the summer of 1966. They did do a lot of damage in such a short period of time and the leadership quickly sent out the People’s Liberation Army to stop it.

It was one of the big reasons that Mao, soon thereafter, sent these city youths into the countryside, for rural education, as a way to neutralize these urban Red Guards, who were out of control. It was a great way to get these overzealous kids, including future presidents Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, out of the cities and take some starch out of them. In fact, it worked like a charm.

Presidents Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao went down to the countryside

This rural education program for city slickers is still highly valued in China. If you ask Xi Jinping, in spite of the hardships and suffering, it was a big success. His seven years living and working with dirt poor peasants helped make him the man he is today. This is a point of view to which I can personally relate. I was a Peace Corps volunteer for 25 months in Tunisia. All of my personal sacrifices living like a peasant in rural Tunisia were life-changing for the better.

 

Cultural Revolution’s economy took a big first-year hickey

Pictured above: even with the 100-year droughts and floods in 1959-1960 and the first year of the Cultural Revolution, China still outpaced the United States, the latter which held all the global cards.

It must be said, the Cultural Revolution set China back economically the first year. Overall, GDP growth slowed to an average of 6% per annum, 1966-1976, after torrid economic growth from 1949-1965, with numbers that make the Deng Era look anemic. Innocents, along with the many more guilty were persecuted, tortured, imprisoned and many died during what the Chinese call their “decade of chaos”. Rural education was going through an amazing renaissance. But instead of learning grammar and math, some urban school children spent time stabbing straw effigies with bamboo spears, and screaming,

Down with Deng Xiaoping! Down with Liu Shaoqi!

The rurals loved the Cultural Revolution, the metropolitans less so

This being the memories of Chinese friends I know, who grew up during such an infamous decade. And then the ultimate mockery of the Cultural Revolution’s name, some schools in China’s urban and town education system shut down for intermittent periods, 1966-67, and many universities were closed up to 1968-1970. Not the best way to advance the cause of New China, even though Western propaganda has conflated this into there being no education for a whole decade across the entire country, which is clearly a big lie. While very popular and largely successful in the countryside compared to the cities, urban people who lived through it tell me the period was a muddled and dispiriting mess for many metropolitan Chinese, even if they kept out of harm’s way. It did not end officially end until Mao’s death, on September 9th, 1976.

Old habits lingered on until Deng Xiaoping kick-started his reforms and opening up in 1978.

Baba Beijing goes Confucist-Daoist-Buddhist and owns up

Baba Beijing officially admits that the Cultural Revolution got out of hand at the beginning, and puts up acceptable figures on the number of people wrongfully persecuted, imprisoned and killed, as well as an inventory of the damage done to cultural heritage sites. Baba Beijing has officially apologized to all the victims. Furthermore, they even instituted a national program to find and return stolen goods to their original owners.

After that burst of angry frenzy against all the bad guys in early 1966, for nine-plus more years, the Cultural Revolution was a huge economic, industrial, scientific, social, educational and agricultural success. This is denied in the West and largely ignored by Baba Beijing, although with Xi Jinping as president since 2012, the criticism and denial of the Deng Era have greatly abated. Textbooks have been updated to reflect this. I think this trend will continue. The productive and technological achievements of the Mao Era need pages to list them all, not to mention there was no corruption, crime, homelessness, hunger (except during the 100-years droughts and floods of 1959-60), inflation, nor unemployment.

Conclusion

Behind the Great Western Firewall, the mainstream media’s coordinated intention is to deliberately focus China’s modern history on only three galvanizing events: the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the fictitious Tiananmen “massacre”, in order to tarnish and discredit its jaw-dropping communist-socialist success. They sure don’t want you to get any ideas that cut into their power and profit off the backs of the people.

But, looking back, this brings the Cultural Revolution into current day perspective.

We know the horrors and misery in pre-liberation, colonial China. The accomplishments, numbers and statistics are bulletproof: in only 29 years, 1949-1978, Mao and the CPC transformed China into a modern, developing, agricultural and industrial powerhouse, proudly self-reliant and without any help from the West. This is more than incredible. In fact, one could say that a second Great Leap Forward was these almost unimaginable socioeconomic gains that the Chinese benefitted from, during the generation of Mao’s leadership.

The Chinese earned rights that Westerners don’t have: freedom, independence and real, participatory people’s democracy

Even more importantly, the Chinese people are continuing to stand proud, independent and free of Western occupation and balkanization. This is what makes Mao’s supposed 30% wrong totally forgivable. Even if he was pegged 10% right/90% wrong, China’s independence alone would be worth the sacrifice. No country can put a price on the freedom of not being a Western whore. Just ask the scores of invaded, occupied and exploited countries around the world about working on their knees, under the boot heel of the West’s phony “democracy” and “free markets”, just to survive. The Chinese lived this humiliation for 110 years.

Post fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall, the Russians were sodomized by the West for a mere ten years. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Nigeria, Ukraine, Palestine and many other countries are still getting the West’s “enslavement program” shoved down their throats. A century or a decade is relative. One day of subjugation and humiliation is too long.

Appendix of statistics

Numerically, Mao and the CPC, from 1949-1978, which is only 29 years, or about one generation,

Economy

Sextupled China’s GDP (+600%), an average of 7% per annum.

Agriculture

Increased China’s grain production 300%, from 100MMT (million metric tons) to 300MMT.

Infrastructure

Increased rail lines by 266%, from 22,677km to 60,367km.

Increased passenger train traffic by 750%, from 102,970,000 passengers to 814,910,000.

Increased rail freight tonnage 2,000%, from 55,890,000MT hauled to 1,101,190,000MT.

Increased the road network 1,000%, from 80,000km to 800,000km.

Postal and telecommunications increased 800%, from 600 million to 48 billion letters, calls, telegrams, etc.

Most of China’s current flood control systems were built during the Mao Era. These include about 85,000 reservoirs of different sizes, which have been constructed in upstream reaches of rivers. Most of them have been built for flood control, integrated with irrigation and power generation. On top of this, a system with 250,000 kilometers of levees built in the middle and downstream reaches of rivers has been constructed, mainly to control floods and protect 34,000 square kilometers of farmland and 400 million people, who live along the rivers. These 100 levees along China’s major rivers take in excessive flood waters. Another important tool to reduce flood disasters is large pumping systems. These have made significant contributions in areas where natural drainage is limited in the flood seasons. These pumps can also be used to suck up and store water that can be used to irrigate land during dry season. They are still working and saving lives to this day. Thank you, Mao Zedong.

From 1949 to 1978, China invested nearly 100 billion yuan (US$14bn) into water infrastructure, which accounted for 6.9% of the national total investment in infrastructure. This investment led to a significant increase in effective irrigated land areas, tripling from 16 million hectares in 1950 to 48.05 million hectares in 1978, equaling a percentage increase from 16% in 1950 to 48% in 1978. They are still feeding the people to this day.

Society

Population increased 57% from 542 million to 956,000,000. From 1840-1949, the population only increased from 413 to 542 million, due to all the Western imposed opium, morphine, heroin addiction and subsequent misery from colonial exploitation and wars.

Nearly doubled life expectancy, from 35 to 65 years.

Doubled caloric intake.

Quadrupled literacy from 20% to 80% in school-age children and more than tripled literacy in adults.

The Mao-Era GINI Index was 0.15, the lowest in any large, modern economy in history. Sweden, after WWII, and at its most socialist had a GINI score of 0.25. All Chinese had jobs, (free) housing, health care, food, clothing and K-to-post-doctoral education, in a crime-free living environment.

Industry

Steel production went from almost zero, which was destroyed during WWII, to 35MMT/year.

Increased gross industrial output forty-fold, 4,000%.

Increased heavy industry ninety-fold, 9,000%.

Increased industry’s contribution to China’s net material product (GDP less services) from 23% percent to 54% percent.

From zero level, in just 29 years, made China the fifth biggest industrial powerhouse on Earth, after the US, Japan, Germany and UK.

The Great Leap Forward gets special mention

Of all the industrial projects launched by China from 1949-1964, a jaw dropping two-thirds were started during the Great Leap Forward. During these short three years, 1958-1960, 36% of all coal was produced, 30% of all textiles were made and 26% of all the electricity generated, out of the total 29-year period of the Mao Era, 1949-1978!

In fact, the Great Leap Forward’s juggernaut was so spectacular, that its production numbers exceeded by double digits (about 10-30%) the best three years of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, Germany and Japan, during their massive industrial expansions that preceded China’s.

To this day, nine of China’s biggest hydroelectric dams were built during the Great Leap Forward. The only one bigger? Three Gorges Dam.

During the Great Leap Forward, the Red Flag Canal was built entirely by hand as an irrigation canal, diverting water from the Zhang River to fields in Linzhou in northern Henan. Completed in 1965, the main channel is 71 kilometers long, winding around the side of a cliff and through 42 tunnels. By hand.

According to the historical record, 1,092 large flood disaster events occurred 206 BC to 1949 in China, averaging once every two years. Since the end of the Great Leap Forward’s massive flooding and droughts, 1959-60, China has had no incidences of hunger to this day.

 

Russian Drones over Poland & latest Russian comment

Par : amarynth

From nowhere comes the news that Polish airspace is full of Russian drones. Airports close, fighter jets are in the air, rhetoric spreads through all major news, while NATO calls for consultations. Photos of ‘downed Russian drones in Poland’ and missile fragments appear.  The NATO Secretary General said fighter jets from four countries were involved in intercepting drones over Poland. According to Tusk, “three or four” drones were shot down.

Belarus stated that it shot down some drones at night, which were diverted from their course by electronic warfare actions.

“During the nighttime mutual exchange of strikes with unmanned aerial vehicles between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, the duty forces and air defense means of the Republic of Belarus constantly tracked drones that lost their course as a result of the electronic warfare measures of the parties.

Some of the lost drones were destroyed by the air defense forces of our country over the territory of the republic.

Through existing channels of interaction, from 23:00 on September 9 to 4:00 on September 10, our duty forces and means exchanged information about the air and radar situation with the duty forces and means of Poland and the Republic of Lithuania. This notified them of the approach of unknown aerial vehicles to the territory of their countries.

This allowed the Polish side to promptly respond to the drone actions by scrambling their duty forces into the air.

To be fair, it should be noted that the Polish side also informed the Belarusian duty combat crews about the approach of unidentified aerial vehicles from the territory of Ukraine to the border of the Republic of Belarus,” the Belarusian Ministry of Defense said.

Fragments of an AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM air-to-air missile were discovered in Poland. The missile was fired either by Dutch F-35s or Polish F-16s during the interception of “stray drones.”

Elena Panina from Russtrat.ru reports:

In the case of the “Russian drones in Poland,” what matters is not what happened — but why.

On the night of September 10, Warsaw reported “repeated” violations of Polish airspace by Russian UAVs and that those which allegedly posed an immediate threat were shot down by Polish air defense forces with NATO allies’ support (fighters, including Dutch F-35s, were scrambled). Airports were closed, debris reportedly hit a residential building in Vyryky, but there were no casualties. The total number of drones is being determined — Polish media mention figures ranging from 8 to 20 drones.

Amid the many statements flowing from Poland and its surroundings, clear outlines of what is happening emerge. It is most likely an element of a higher-order system.

▪ Recently, discussions have intensified in Western circles about the negotiation process between Russia and the USA, which is expected to become a major problem for Euro-globalists. For many in the EU, especially Poland and the Baltic political diaspora in Brussels, the very idea of a “US-Russia deal” is perceived as a threat: Washington might try to “shift” the Ukrainian front onto Europe to focus on China. Therefore, the pro-European Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and figures like the head of EU diplomacy Kaja Kallas have a direct interest in blocking any hint of Moscow-Washington negotiations with a loud incident — particularly in the NATO sphere. This would put Trump “on the spot”: he would have to either ignore the incident, casting doubt on the entire idea of NATO’s “collective security,” or spoil relations with Moscow. Notably, the Polish president Karol Nawrocki, who is not inclined toward Ukrainophilia, has not made any loud statements so far.

The drone incident fits perfectly as such a trigger. It is small in scale: no casualties, no direct strike on a NATO military base. Yet it is quite loud: airport closures, interception by allies, damage to someone’s home. This creates the picture of “Russia violating the sovereignty of a NATO member country,” which will be impossible to ignore in Washington and Brussels.

So far, Tusk has requested consultations through NATO channels under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Although the alliance, as Reuters reported a few hours ago, has already stated that it does not consider the incident an attack by Russia.

▪ Why does this look like an information operation? Similar cases of drone crashes in Poland or Romania previously passed quietly and were interpreted as unintentional accidents. Now the reaction is disproportionately louder: emergency meetings, talk of an “act of aggression,” public pushing of the idea of a “drone wall.” In other words, a technical incident is being turned into a political case designed to complicate any progress toward effective US-Russia negotiations.

Even judging by footage of drones resembling “Gerber” decoys, published by Polish media, the fact that the Russian Armed Forces have no serious intention to attack Poland is obvious. Primarily because Moscow does not need this at all. And if it did — there would not be just 8 drones, but 800.

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No requests from Poland for contacts have been received by the Kremlin; any information about possible appeals is not true, Dmitry Peskov stated.

The press secretary of the Russian president noted that commenting on the incident is not within the Kremlin’s competence, while also noting that the leadership of the EU and NATO accuses Russia of provocations daily.

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