Video: What is whole process democracy in China? Documentary | Inside China: A Discovery Tour. Join us as we seek to better understand this frequently misrepresented country! 中國的全過程民主是什麼？ 紀錄片 | 中國內部：探索之旅。 加入我們，努力更好地了解這個經常被誤傳的國家！
https://youtu.be/YxMnzw1zLH8
Observer: America’s role of guarantor of democracy based on flimsy grounds 美国民主制度存在严重缺陷（国际论坛）肯尼思·哈蒙德 By Professor Ken Hammond | People’s Daily Dec 14, 2021
American President Joe Biden convened a cyber “Democracy Summit” with leaders of a number of other countries on December 9 and 10, though the list of invitees was carefully constructed to include countries friendly to the United States and to exclude countries which in the eyes of American political elites do not accommodate US interests.
The gathering’s true intent was to shore up America’s role as the sole planetary superpower and attempt to perpetuate its ability to impose its own “rules-based order” on global society. America’s claim to be the guarantor of democracy is based on rather flimsy grounds.
Recent events have highlighted the deep and ongoing inequalities within the US, with racism, gender issues, and worsening poverty and economic decline marginalizing the voices of millions of citizens. Efforts to exclude people of color from exercising their voting rights have been spreading, along with an overall discrediting of the legitimacy of the electoral process.
But the equation of a two-party electoral system with democracy in America is itself an exercise in wishful thinking. The domination of national and state governments by the two mainstream parties has no place in the original constitution. The revolving door of majority and minority roles in the government means that each party can simply blame the other for the persistent problems plaguing the country. Neither party ever has to accept full responsibility for its performance in government.
The electoral process itself is warped and distorted by the power of money. Campaigning for national or state offices requires vast sums of cash, either as the personal wealth of candidates, or coming from wealthy individuals or corporations seeking to protect and promote their own interests. This is why so many members of Congress are themselves millionaires. Money buys control over information, sometimes directly, but also through the relentless presentation of the existing order of things as the only possible way of carrying on political and economic life.
Through the mass news media, online information, as well as the constant messaging of radio, television, movies and other kinds of “entertainment,” the consciousness of the American voter is shaped to accept the powers that be as the sole option to “represent” them. Efforts to bring about true social change, to create a just and equitable society, are dismissed as idealist fantasies. Cynicism and passivity are the real basis of the power of the system.
Other societies, though, have sought ways to promote and protect the interests of ordinary people in ways that go beyond the simple acting out of brief electoral moments. In China, for example, a wide variety of mechanisms are in place to enable people to articulate their needs and interests, not only on the days of formal elections, but whenever they feel the need to do so. China’s system of democratic consultation is very different from that of the United States, but should not be dismissed or misrepresented in the West.
Biden’s “Democracy Summit” holds up the American way as the only way, which reflects the long history of the US seeking to reshape the world in its own image, for its own interests. But other peoples have their own cultures, their own ways of doing things. America would do well to respect the rights of peoples to decide the form of government under which they choose to live, and to organize their political affairs in ways which suit their own ideas and beliefs.
The economic and political affairs of the world are being reshaped in ways which are bringing about a multicentric order, one within which the United States will no longer be the dominant power. American elites have become accustomed to telling people all over the planet how to run their lives, and to using the economic and military power of the U.S. to enforce their will when other countries fail to toe the American line. But this era is fading. American politicians fear the loss of power, and the possible consequences of having to operate in a world where those they have oppressed and exploited for their own profits now have an increasingly significant voice in global affairs. Biden’s efforts to weaponize “democracy” are part of this rearguard action to try to hold on to American hegemonic power.
Rather than posturing about the superiority of a system which is in fact deeply flawed, and which in reality serves the interests of the already wealthy and powerful, American leaders, and the American people, should be seeking ways to work with people around the world, on their own terms, to find paths to a better future, a more just and equitable world which we can all build together. Hope is better than fear, peace is better than war.
(The author is Professor of History and Academic Department Head in the Department of History at New Mexico State University.)
美国民主制度存在严重缺陷（国际论坛）肯尼思·哈蒙德 《 人民日报 》（ 2021年12月14日 第 17 版）
美国民主制度存在严重缺陷，这一制度事实上只服务于富人和强者的利益。美国政府将“民主”武器化，是为了维持其霸权地位
美国自称是“民主的守护者”，但这一说辞根本站不住脚。美国国内发生的一系列事件，凸显美国种族和性别不平等根深蒂固、贫富差距日益扩大等社会问题。美国把有色人种排除在合法选民之外的做法不断蔓延，选举过程的合法性遭到广泛质疑。
美国将本国的两党制与民主等同起来，这本身就是一厢情愿的想法。在美国政府中，两党轮流执政，这意味着每一个政党都可以简单地将困扰该国的问题归咎于对方，两党都不必为自己在政府中的表现承担全部责任。
美国民主制度存在严重缺陷，这一制度事实上只服务于富人和强者的利益。在美国，选举过程被金钱扭曲。竞选联邦或州一级公职，需要大量的资金，这些资金要么来自候选人的个人财富，要么来自寻求保护和促进自身利益的富有个人或公司。这就是为什么那么多国会议员本身就是百万富翁。金钱还可以实现对信息的控制，美国的新闻媒体主要由富有的利益集团、大型媒体公司和受惠于富有捐助者的政客控制。利益集团通过媒体不断传递有利于他们的信息，来塑造美国的政治经济秩序。美国选民只能被动地接受所谓的“民选代表”做出的这一切安排。一些想要实现真正的社会变革、建设一个公正和平等社会的努力，则被视为幻想而被抛弃。
和美国形成对比的是，其他国家不断寻求方法来促进和保护普通民众的利益，而不仅仅是在短暂的选举时刻采取简单的行动。例如，中国有各种各样的制度保障人们能够表达他们的需求和利益。西方不应轻视或歪曲这种制度。美国把自身的民主模式作为世界唯一的出路，反映出美国为了自己的利益，以自身模式塑造世界的历史文化。然而，每个国家都有自己的文化传统和行事方式。美国应该尊重各国人民自主选择发展道路的权利，尊重各国人民以适合自身的方式组织政治事务的权利。
当前，世界政治经济秩序面临深刻调整，世界多极化趋势深入发展。美国政治精英们习惯于告诉世界各地的人们，他们该如何管理自己的生活，美国还利用其经济和军事力量打压或威慑那些被其视为异己的国家。美国政客害怕失去权力，害怕其他国家在全球事务中有越来越重要的话语权。美国政府将“民主”武器化的做法，是美国试图维持其霸权地位行动的一部分。
希望终将战胜恐惧，和平是人类的共同愿望。美国应该在相互尊重的基础上与其他国家合作，共同寻找通往更美好未来的道路，共同建设一个更加公平、公正的世界。
（作者为美国新墨西哥州立大学历史学教授）
Video: NYT, CNN, BBC…will not report to expose NED HK’s activities, more weapons cache found in HK from US 紐約時報、CNN、BBC…不會報導揭露美國民主基金會在香港的顛覆活動，在香港發現更多來自美國的武器藏匿處.
https://vimeo.com/656863396
https://youtu.be/gWacvAYutaM
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/621446815745314/?d=n
Gun was in parcel from US: Investigators now have long list of bombs, guns and other weapons found in the city, but it’s a story that never makes the international news cycles 槍是從美國寄來的包裹：調查人員現在在該市發現的炸彈、槍支和其他武器清單上有一長串，但這是一個永遠不會成為國際新聞循環的故事
Video: she is smart, articulate, charismatic, takes NYT’s Paul Mozur’s attempt to entrap her and flips it to her advantage / Li Jingjing: I’m being targeted by The New York Times! Here’s what I want to say 她很聰明，善於表達，有魅力，利用紐約時報的 Paul Mozur 試圖誘捕她的企圖，並將其轉化為她的優勢 / 我被紐約時報盯上了！ 這是我想說的…
https://vimeo.com/656851492
https://youtu.be/2j9nesuNHi4
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/621427125747283/?d=n
In a latest article on The New York Times, they mentioned my YouTube channel and put several of my videos in it. What did their reporter ask me? Why are they targeting my account? Why are they not interested in putting my comments in their article? And why did I decide to post contents on my personal YouTube channel? The answers are all in this video. 在紐約時報的一篇最新文章中，他們提到了我的 YouTube 頻道並將我的幾個視頻放入其中。 他們的記者問我什麼？ 他們為什麼要針對我的帳戶？ 為什麼他們對把我的評論放在他們的文章中不感興趣？ 為什麼我決定在我的個人 YouTube 頻道上發佈內容？ 答案都在這個視頻裡
In the names of fake freedom democracy human rights and and rules of laws / US habitually violates human rights, sovereignty of other countries 以虛假的自由民主人權和法律規則的名義/美國習慣性地侵犯他國的人權和主權by Gong Luping Dec 13 2021
After the 9/11 terror attacks, the US embarked on a mission in the name of anti-terrorism to subvert or weaken administrations that were not pro-US or opposed the US. This created a power vacuum in these countries, leading to constant internal struggles, political instability and difficulties in maintaining security conditions. Terrorist forces not only failed to be contained, but seized the opportunity to grow bigger and spread globally.
The US government has a tradition of habitually violating other countries’ sovereignty. As is known to all, the Iraq War, launched under the excuse of anti-terrorism during the George W. Bush administration, was never authorized by the UN. The US dodged the UN Security Council and unilaterally carried out military strikes against Iraq on the grounds that Iraq hid weapons of mass destruction and secretly supported terrorists. However, after more than seven years, the US never found the so-called weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Washington ended the war on the grounds that the Saddam administration had already destroyed related documents and evidence.
During the Barack Obama administration, the US led its allies to invade Libya and overthrow the Gaddafi government under the banner of NATO, but never brought peace to Libya. In the “post-Gaddafi era,” various forces in Libya took the opportunity to rise, including the “Islamic State,” an extremist organization which constantly threatens European countries. During an interview with Fox News on April 10, 2016, Obama admitted that the worst mistake of his presidency was a lack of planning for the aftermath of the military intervention in Libya after the toppling of Gaddafi.
After Donald Trump took office, he generally suspected Islamic countries of being “terrorists.” Meanwhile, under the excuse of “anti-terrorism,” he ramped up air bombings on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries, leading to regional turbulence and serious humanitarian disasters. This provided a breeding ground for terrorism. Trump also proposed the “Muslim ban,” arousing opposition and accusations from the international community, the American public and media. They believed the ban seriously violated international human rights standards and the basic rights of Muslims, including freedom of religious belief and personal freedom. In addition to economic sanctions on Iran, the US has long imposed varying degrees of economic pressures on countries such as Russia, North Korea and Venezuela, cutting the link between these countries and the international financial system and interfering in their ideologies. Such unilateral sanctions are a flagrant violation of other countries’ sovereignty.
The US government has a tradition of habitually violating the right to life of citizens of other countries. The US’ anti-terrorism military operations often cause large numbers of civilian casualties. A research report released by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University in 2019 showed that since 2001, the US has spent more than $6.4 trillion in launching wars, and these wars have cost some 801,000 lives, including 312,000 civilian deaths. In a US drone attack in 2018 alone, at least 30 of the casualties were civilians. In addition to the civilian casualties caused by US’ direct military actions, the US government also connives other countries’ killing of civilians in troubled areas. All of these acts show the US’ vicious acts of ignoring the right to life of people from other countries. The civilian casualties caused by the US military in its anti-terrorism military operations are not accidental, but deliberate.
Besides, the US has also arbitrarily shielded war criminals. Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said during a press conference in November 2019 that the US government pardoned three US servicemen accused of war crimes and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was highly concerned about the move. The three cases seriously violated international humanitarian law, including the shooting of civilians and the execution of captured members of armed groups. Facing the exposure and criticism from the UN, domestic US media and opposition party, the US did not produce any statement. These acts show that the US has always ignored other people’s right to life. Anyone can be the US’ target. For the US, the only criterion is its own national interests.
The US has also been habitually violating citizens’ privacy. Various counter-terrorism plans of the US have been infringing upon citizens’ right to privacy. The President’s Surveillance Program launched by the US Department of Homeland Security in October 2001, known by the code name Stellar Wind, was authorized by President George W. Bush as part of the War on Terrorism. It was later transitioned into the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008. According to the confidential documents exposed by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden, American intelligence has not only engaged in extensive internet and phone surveillance against anti-US forces around the globe, it also put American citizens on its soil under surveillance, tapping directly into the servers of nine internet firms, including Facebook, and Google, to track online communication in a surveillance program known as Prism.
The disclosure of the incident sparked a public uproar and prompted Obama to sign the Freedom Act on June 2, 2015 to provide a legal basis for government anti-terrorism surveillance. But the bill still gives the green light to a variety of communications monitoring. For the US’ intelligence agency, it is just another way to continue infringing on the sovereignty and civil rights of other countries. This was still the case during the Trump administration. In fact, in these secret projects, the US has violated citizens’ freedom of association, personal privacy, and freedom of speech, and has seriously infringed upon the sovereignty and civil rights of other countries.
The country has also engaged in habitual violation of the basic human rights of prisoners of war and criminal suspects. In 2004, media outlets’ exposure of the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners by US military forces at the infamous Abu Ghraib, a prison in Iraq, shocked the world. These incidents of prisoner abuse by the US military seriously violated international human rights norms and aroused public outrage across the world. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a mocking tone that the US has shown the world what it means to be a democratic and rule-of-law country. These shameful practices not only violate the provisions of the United Nations Convention against Torture and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also run counter to the universal value of human rights, and make the US government’s image as a “defender of human rights” collapse.
Furthermore, The US has also set up secret overseas prisons, arbitrarily detained criminal suspects without trial and tortured them. According to a report by the Washington Post (WP), the CIA set up secret prisons in countries including Thailand, Afghanistan, the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and some countries in Eastern Europe, which are charged by a handful of officials of the White House, Justice Department and Congress. WP cited sources as saying that more than 100 suspected terrorists have been sent by the CIA into the covert prisons. These people were held in solitary confinement in small cells and were deprived of any legal rights. They were not allowed visits except from officials of the CIA, and the International Red Cross personnel were prohibited from contacting them.
The US itself recognized that this kind of detention without a legal basis is improper, but still chose to run the system, and then created a justification for it. Many detainees who have not been tried by due process have been detained for more than 10 years and have been subjected to torture including sleep deprivation, waterboarding, prolonged solitary confinement, violent hits on walls and beatings of prisoners on their heads, and death threats. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer, appealed to the US to end a pervasive policy of impunity for crimes of torture committed by US officials. He didn’t receive any response.
Guantanamo Bay prison has been running for nearly 20 years. It’s also where US detainees have been illegally detained, interrogated, and even tortured, some for the whole length of its existence. It has been 20 years in which the concept of torture prohibited by the International Human Rights Convention has been blatantly violated.
The US has habitually threatened staff of various international agencies. The US government’s anti-terrorism policy is oriented toward seeking its own interests and maintaining its hegemonic position. It even goes against the principles and purposes of international law, threatens international institutions, and obstructs relevant judicial investigations and court proceedings. In September 2018 and March 2019, former US national security adviser John Bolton and former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo separately threatened to retaliate with travel bans and asset freezes against those who would have been directly responsible if the International Criminal Court investigated related personnel of the US and its allies. They even threatened to impose economic sanctions against the International Criminal Court.
All of the aforementioned examples and data are evidence that US’ habitual violation of human rights has a long history in a wide and deep scope of areas, and has caused huge damages. The only long-standing criterion is whether its target touches the US’ interests. Such moves are supported by US’ hegemonic thinking, which has resulted in the double standards in US diplomacy: It is on one hand infringing upon other countries’ human rights, while on the other hand targeting other countries under the pretense of protecting human rights.
The author is a current affairs commentator. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
China and Nicaragua: Empire on autopilot loses control over its “Mare Nostrum” 中國和尼加拉瓜：美帝國失去對“母馬諾斯特姆”的控制. 尼加拉瓜決定與中華人民共和國重建外交關係是地緣政治棋盤上的一個小而重要的舉動，標誌著美國對其後院霸權的終結，並損害了盎格魯-撒克遜大國外交政策的兩大教義支柱：天定命運和門羅主義 By Jorge Capelán.
Nicaragua’s decision to reestablish diplomatic relations with Pople’s Republic of China is a small but significant move on the geopolitical chessboard that marks the end of U.S. hegemony over its own backyard and compromises the two doctrinal pillars of the Anglo-Saxon power’s foreign policy: Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
The almost octogenarian President Joe Biden, as if on autopilot, continued to play the game of go with China left to him by his predecessor Donald Trump in this very important region of the world with just some rhetorical tweaking, but without making major changes in the substantive aspects and has paid for it with the loss of its strategic advantage. From now on, and if no gross mistakes are made, the end result is predictable: the loss of US control over its imperial “Mare Nostrum”. No matter how many gunboats Washington threatens with, it can write off its historic power over the Caribbean.
“Nicaragua is destined to become the most important axis [SIC!] of the ‘Belt and Road’ (Initiative) across the Pacific and Atlantic, an emerging center promoting economy, trade, technology and culture between East and West, a beacon representing the great friendship between peoples and symbolizing the pursuit of freedom, prosperity and civilization on behalf of the peoples of the world, and will make an indelible contribution to the future development of human society”, wrote Wang Jing, Executive Chairman of HKND Group, the company in charge of building the Interoceanic Canal, in a congratulatory note to the Government of Nicaragua on December 10.
Jing, formally a “Chinese private businessman”, did nothing to hide the weight of the CCP behind his words when he wrote: “Today is a memorable day for history. Today is the day of triumph for the people of China and Nicaragua. Today is also the day of triumph for peace-loving people all over the world.” This is not the way “business leaders” speak, this is the way those who have the full backing of the State behind them speak.
China today is Latin America’s second largest trading partner (having overtaken the European Union) and the third largest source of foreign investment. It also maintains its productive orientation, in contrast to the Western capitalist powers, weighed down by a speculative dynamic of currency printing without productive backing that restricts the demand for our goods and makes the chains that tie us to the IMF heavier. Traditional allies of the United States in the region, such as Chile and Peru, now depend on Chinese trade and investment.
With a project portfolio of around $94 billion and hundreds of thousands of jobs created, China’s presence in Latin America is far more powerful than the United States will ever be able to offer. In Central America, only Honduras, Guatemala and Belize have not established relations with the Asian giant. Of these, both Honduras and Guatemala have already shown signs of being interested in breaking up with Taiwan. Regardless of their ideological closeness to Washington, the countries of the region are abandoning the dollar — some of them literally, as in the case of El Salvador’s bet on bitcoin.
There is no longer a material incentive that can hold Central American elites obedient to Washington. In this sense, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ offer this week of $1.2 billion in projects for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to supposedly “stem emigration” doesn’t mean much: less than 1% of the GDP of those three countries at current prices. In comparison, Nicaragua’s Grand Interoceanic Canal project, for some $50 billion over 5 years of construction, would generate a considerable spillover of investment to the rest of the countries of the isthmus.
In addition, the same neoliberal model promoted by Washington since the 1990s has intertwined the region productively and commercially. Central America’s electrical grid is interconnected and the destabilization of any of its countries would leave the rest in the dark. The monoculture imposed by Washington’s agribusiness model has made the countries of the so-called “northern triangle” dependent on Nicaraguan exports of agricultural, dairy and meat products. All land traffic of goods in the isthmus must pass through Nicaragua, and destabilizing it would mean asking a good part of the Central American elites to commit harakiri.
Washington may buy politicians and NGOs to act as operators of its interests in the region, but the truth is that it has lost the most important economic levers of its domination. The missing piece of the puzzle has finally fallen into place: Nicaragua.
This change in the correlation of geopolitical forces is not only the work of China, it would not be happening without indigenous processes in the region, and the most important of these is undoubtedly Nicaragua’s nation-building process, which in the last 14 years has gone through its most successful moment in 2 centuries of history. Without a strong and stable Nicaragua in terms of social cohesion, productive infrastructure, health, education, housing, food production, security, ideology, etc., it would be very difficult to give a constructive channel to the serious contradictions that accumulate in a region marked by social injustices and environmental depredation.
Through a constructive and pragmatic policy centered on productive investment and stability, Sandinista Nicaragua has managed to avoid the trap of imperial polarization that plunged the entire region into a bloody war in the 1980s. No one, not even the most feverish minds of the regional ultra-right, can seriously blame Sandinista Nicaragua for the advances of the popular struggles in the region in recent years, such as the victory of LIBRE in the last elections in Honduras or the political awakening of the native peoples in Guatemala. These advances are purely and exclusively the responsibility of the peoples’ struggle and the unsustainable and corrupt neoliberal model imposed on Central America by the United States.
Comandante Daniel Ortega is a master of political timing, which sometimes exasperates his own and strangers. Many friends have long asked us anxiously about the moment when Nicaragua would reestablish relations with China and have seen their wishes fulfilled in extremis with the announcement of the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry last Thursday, December 9. However, those of us who know the country knew that this announcement would be made “at the right time”.
The right time in this case meant the exhaustion of relations with Taiwan. Those relations were inherited from the Somocista dictatorship which had one of its main allies in the Taiwan of the International Anti-Communist League of the Cold War. The revolutionary Nicaragua of the 1980s cut those relations and established them with the People’s Republic of China, but the electoral defeat of 1990 implied a return to the government of the old liberoconservative elites loyal to Washington, which returned them to the old pre-revolutionary order.
Between 1990 and 2006 Taiwanese businessmen engaged in the merciless exploitation of the Nicaraguan labor force in the maquila sector, which was bravely resisted by the unions. Taiwan, eager to maintain one of the few states in the world that gave it recognition, agreed to accept the model of regular labor negotiations proposed by the new Sandinista government, and all the advantages offered by the new climate of stability opened up since the return of Comandante Daniel Ortega to the head of government in January 2007, in exchange for its participation in a series of social projects for the benefit of the people.
A few years later, when the Nicaraguan Government announced the construction of the Grand Interoceanic Canal, it did so as a public-private venture between the Nicaraguan State and a “private” Chinese company, HKND. This did not call into question the status quo of relations with Taiwan. Later, when the US aggressions against Venezuela intensified and there was a revolutionary ebb in Latin America, the canal project had to be put temporarily on standby, although it was never abandoned as it was a strategic plan for the country and for the whole region.
During all those years Taiwanese cooperation continued to arrive in Nicaragua, especially since the events of April 2018 when the United States attempted a failed “color revolution” that was defeated by the people and by the Sandinista Front. Former Taiwanese ambassador Jaime Chin Mu-Wu, personally delivering houses every week to villagers in the popular sectors, became a beloved person of the Nicaraguan people to the point that the Government after suspending its relations with Taiwan last week granted him Nicaraguan citizenship. For those of us who live in Nicaragua, Jaime Chin Mu-Wu’s personal love for our country is beyond doubt.
What put the final nail in the coffin of Nicaragua’s relations with Taiwan was the actions of the United States itself, both in its relations with Nicaragua and in its relations with China. After the resounding defeat of the “soft coup” promoted by Washington against the Sandinista government in 2018, the United States was never able to understand that the correlation of forces within the country turned decisively and massively in favor of the Sandinista Front. Washington’s client coup plotters in 2018 demonstrated to the people that their true intentions were to loot and then sell the country.
Washington was unable to understand that the comprador oligarchy at its service in Nicaragua no longer controlled the strategic heights of the economy and therefore could not destroy it despite its repeated calls for bosses’ strikes that no one obeyed. Washington failed to realize that between 2018 and 2021 Nicaragua successfully survived, not only the serious economic blow of 2018, which involved the closure of one out of 4 businesses in the country, but also two devastating hurricanes in 2019 and the covid pandemic in 2020, and did all that by improving roads, making more hospitals and generally strengthening the social and productive infrastructure of the country.
Politically, Washington was unable to take note that the Government of Nicaragua was succeeding in its policy of reconciliation with the sectors that were manipulated to participate in the failed coup attempt of 2018 and that it was also strengthening itself institutionally, adopting a series of norms, such as the law on foreign agents and the new anti-money laundering regulations, which effectively shielded the country from any attempt to violate the Constitution. That is why they continued with the same failed coup script, now intensifying it under the name of Operation RAIN or “Responsive Assistance In Nicaragua”. However, by the time they wanted to react, in the second quarter of this year, it was already too late and the Government put some 40 of their operators in prison. Within the real Nicaragua, no one raised a finger in defense of these people because they simply had no backing.
That is when Washington launched its smear operation against the November 7 elections with the help of its Ministry of Colonies, the OAS, and the threat of applying the organization’s Democratic Charter to the country. But Nicaragua never let itself be intimidated because it knows very well that one thing is what governments say in the OAS and quite another what they are willing to do in real terms. Neither Chile, nor Peru, nor Colombia, nor Ecuador would be willing to abandon their free trade agreements, nor their relations in general with Nicaragua. The Sandinista government knew how to read the OAS bluff and announced its withdrawal from that spurious organization, thus giving ai r to the discourse of Mexico and other progressive governments in the region calling for the end of the OAS and its replacement by a revitalized Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC.
Nicaragua’s next step was quite predictable…. In an article published on November 15 we wrote: “the aggressive US policies on Nicaragua will have some foreseeable effects: In the first place, a greater rapprochement of Nicaragua towards Russia and China. With respect to the latter, it would not be strange for Nicaragua to abandon its policy of rapprochement with Taiwan”.
In fact, it was the United States itself that took the decisive step. The intensification of US pressures on Taiwan, and its anti-Nicaraguan blindness, forced the latter to vote against Nicaragua at the session of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration to decide on the inauguration of its headquarters in Managua in an overtly political decision using the US accusations about the November 7 elections as an excuse. This politicization of CABEI, a regional bank whose board does not include the United States and which until then had lent money to a Nicaragua that was and is a punctual payer with budget execution levels far higher than those of any of its neighbors, could not be tolerated.
Such interference was answered by Managua with a depth charge that blew apart both Taiwan’s diplomatic fragility and the falsely democratic discourses of the hypocritical Central American politicians. Turning CABEI into a geopolitical instrument of the United States to harm Nicaragua is an enterprise destined to fail… and to harm the financing sources of their own governments.
With a brief communiqué stating that from now on Nicaragua would only recognize the existence of “only one China”, the People’s Republic, the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry mortally wounded regional hypocrisy, because everyone in Central America knows what kind of privileged partner it will be with the Asian giant and everyone also knows how superficial the praises of its right-wing politicians to the United States can be in the face of massive Chinese investments.
Only 14 states in the world recognize Taiwan. In Central America there are only three left, which may soon be only two if Honduras joins Nicaragua’s decision. In the Caribbean, only St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines remain. Of these, the last three have varying degrees of ties to ALBA, an ally of the People’s Republic of China, and it would not be strange to see those Caribbean countries change alliances in the coming years.
It is no secret that a future Interoceanic Canal through Nicaragua will strengthen both Cuba and Venezuela and allow them to evade the U.S. blockade. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are already in motion and the United States dominated by financial interests and speculators do not seem to be able to reverse the course of events.
Original text in Spanish: https://managuaconamor.blogspot.com/2021/12/china-y-nicaragua-imperio-en-autopiloto.html
New variant, same problem: Joint U.S.-China solidarity book tackles COVID
By Sara Flounders posted on December 10, 2021
The continuing U.S. COVID crisis was predicted in a book published a year ago.
“Capitalism on a Ventilator,” a unique anthology by 50 progressive commentators — written even before the vaccines were rolled out — explained why the much anticipated vaccines alone could not solve the soaring COVID death rate in the U.S.
The rapid global spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, first publicly identified on Nov. 24, raises again earlier warnings that health care for profit is more deadly than the COVID virus itself.
The information in “Capitalism on a Ventilator,” which documented the impact of COVID-19 in China and the U.S., was suppressed in the U.S. within capitalist distribution channels and media networks.
Now U.S. COVID deaths have tripled since the vaccines were released, standing at 780,000 as of Dec. 5, 2021, in a country with a population of 330 million. In China, COVID deaths are still below 5,000 — in a population of 1.4 billion. (coronavirus.jhu.edu/map)
Many of the book’s authors explain that the lack of a coordinated national health plan, the chaotic for-profit approach to testing and the corporate-controlled vaccine development and distribution would continue to have a devastating impact throughout much of the world. These warnings, despite the continuing health catastrophe, are still being ignored.
Omicron — not the main danger
On Nov. 24, South Africa announced an extremely contagious new variant, dubbed “omicron,” had been identified. The New York Times reported Dec. 6. that the variant had begun spreading through the U.S. before that announcement. A Manhattan convention event of 53,000 people was the superspreader, undetected due to the slow, uncoordinated testing in the U.S.
Rather than put in place a rapid genomic testing system, the Biden administration blocked all travel from South Africa. But the same omicron variant was quickly identified throughout Europe and in countries bordering the U.S. Scientists in many other countries are testing millions of samples of the COVID virus to spot new mutations, in order to keep tabs on how the virus is evolving and how rapidly it is spreading.
The U.S. racist strategy was to blame an African country for discovering a new variant, through its more conscientious testing. This is similar scapegoating to previous U.S. propaganda blaming China for first alerting the world to the emergence of the COVID virus.
More… More…
The China-U.S. Solidarity Network along with the International Action Center are responsible for the publication of “Capitalism on a Ventilator.” This is a book indispensable to understanding concretely how capitalism will always put profits first and let people, including the most vulnerable, die — while socialist planning can meet the needs and save the lives of a country’s people, especially in the middle of a global pandemic.
“Capitalism on a Ventilator” has been translated into Chinese and will soon be available in print in China. The book is available in English online at
Kobo: tinyurl.com/444abk97 and
World View Forum: tinyurl.com/5n6vp2wy.
Japan has no moral high ground over China by Tom Fowdy 14 Dec, 2021
Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.
News reports of Tokyo’s probable Winter Olympics boycott over human rights were especially crassly timed, coinciding with the anniversary of a Japanese atrocity committed in China in 1937 that still affects the country deeply.
Monday marked the 84th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre, or what is sometimes known as ‘The Rape of Nanjing’, during which Japan’s imperial army was estimated to have killed over 200,000 Chinese people and brutalized many more on seizing the city of that name. The atrocity took place during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in which Japan sought to conquer and occupy all of China.
Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of Chinese history ought to know that the massacre is the single most sensitive and traumatic event for the country in modern times, not least because – from China’s perspective – Japan has not atoned or duly apologized for its atrocities.
Russian Olympic Committee responds to US boycott of Beijing Winter Games Russian Olympic Committee responds to US boycott of Beijing Winter Games
Despite this, on this most sombre of anniversaries, it emerged that Japan was considering joining a diplomatic boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing on the grounds of human rights, alongside the United States and other countries in the Anglosphere.
This is a slap in the face for China on multiple levels, not least because Beijing provided crucial support to Tokyo during this summer’s Olympics. For Japan to take a moral high ground over China on the matter of human rights is seen as undignified, insensitive and arrogant in the wake of such a horrific memory as Nanjing.
After I highlighted on Twitter the hypocrisy of Japan’s stance on human rights, one person replied, stating, “It was 1937.” The logic of that reductive ‘argument’ reflects a familiar theme in Anglophone thinking: that misdemeanours carried out in their name in the past simply don’t matter anymore.
The obvious retort is this: had it been China that had committed such an act long ago, would it now be treated in the same way as Japan? Would its misdeeds be forgotten? Absolutely not. There seems to be a logical fallacy at play here – that the passing of time is somehow equal to the deliverance of justice, because some countries are among the ‘righteous’ ones.
Yet if we applied that logic to, let’s say, the Holocaust, it would be widely – and rightly – condemned as outrageous. Does time undo the severity of the atrocity? Of course it doesn’t. So, why should China simply be told to forget about Nanjing, when – in very much the opposite fashion to what happened with Germany and the Nazis after the war – the offending country has never truly had to face any kind of reckoning for what it did.
When the Empire of Japan surrendered to the United States, the existing imperial regime was simply reincorporated into a new system. The fact that the US had exclusive jurisdiction over Tokyo, did not have to bargain with the Soviet Union in the way it did with Germany, and sought to immediately transform it into a strategic asset to supplement American dominance in Asia explains why Japan largely got a free pass on its wartime barbarity.
And because of that, the wounds the Japanese inflicted on Asia haven’t been able to heal. Whether in Korea or in China, the sentiment is the same. While, in practice, Japan and China have learnt to live with each other – trade between Tokyo and Beijing, for example, is huge – the traumatic experience of events such as Nanjing has left an indelible mark on China’s contemporary national identity.
Why China’s Uyghurs are back in the headlines Why China’s Uyghurs are back in the headlines
The Communist Party prides itself as having participated in the anti-Japanese struggle and restored the sovereignty of the nation against the backdrop of a century of foreign aggression, during which Nanjing was the most horrific atrocity committed on Chinese soil.
The scarring is so deep that the anniversary of Nanjing has become a time of collective national mourning throughout China. Every time an elderly survivor of the event passes away, it is reported widely by media. For Japan to ignore this and take the moral high ground against China is, by default, an explicit insult to every single Chinese person. It is seen as the perfect illustration of Japan’s lack of remorse for and sensitivity about its imperial legacy, which it has enshrouded in its relationship with the US.
Nonetheless, with the rise of China, many people are hopeful the shift in the balance of power means Japan’s day of self-introspection will not be far away. While once Japan was an economic giant, now China’s economy is three times its size. And the gulf only widens with each passing year. By the end of 2021, it’s predicted China’s GDP will have grown by 8%, while Japan’s will have contracted by 3%. In 2020, China’s grew by 2.1%, while Japan’s fell by 4.59%.
This economic trajectory makes clear why, on the back of such brutal historical experiences, China is so proud of its achievements – and why, on the other hand, Tokyo ultimately fears Beijing.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Video: Joe Biden’s ‘Summit for Shamocracy’ 喬拜登的 “假民主峰會” by George Galloway
https://vimeo.com/656756478
https://youtu.be/dohwt67HhFo
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/621298122426850/?d=n
Editor’s note: The Summit for Democracy held by the Biden administration from December 9 to 10 just reflects the U.S.’s pretense of being a so-called democratic leader. George Galloway, former British MP, shares his views on why this summit is a summit for shamocracy. The views expressed in this video are his and not necessarily those of CGTN.
Democracy, shamocracy. It’s not a summit. It’s an abyss and abyss of utter hypocrisy. I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the idea of Joe Biden holding a summit for democracy. Countries that are ready to be studious puppets (and) footstools for the U.S. empire are present in the Summit for Democracy. Any country that wants to be sovereign and independent and make its own decisions about the direction in which it goes is not wanted on this voyage. They’re disinvited to the (Summit for Democracy). So, we shouldn’t take it too seriously. Not many people in the West are taking it very seriously, either.
It has no substance. It is not receiving any real coverage and publicity in the West, whose governments have never been more incredible. I mean “incredible” in the literal sense of that word. This is a Western world where governments ordered the people to stay indoors, whilst secretly, they hoped, secretly, literally partying the night away in the seat of government itself in 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister, his wife and the factotums around them were kissing each other in a kind of rather elysian orgy under the mistletoe, under the Christmas trees in Downing Street. The hypocrisy of Western power has never been more starkly illustrated (and) demonstrated than this. And so, I really caution your viewers not to imagine that not being invited to the democracy summit of Joe Biden was some kind of insult. In fact, you should wear it as a badge of honor.
The United States is not a “paper tiger,” but it is an old tiger. Many of its teeth have fallen out, and there are new, younger, (and) more virile beasts emerging from the jungle. That was the situation before the democracy summit and remains the situation now. I quoted Chairman Mao, who was quite wrong about the “paper tiger” back in the 1960s. It’s not even a “paper tiger” now in the 2020s, but it is a fading tiger. Let me quote Chairman Mao again, “in the end, a political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” So, by all means, keep your defenses up, because sometimes a fading tiger tries to attack one last time.
I hope that they will not be necessary, but it is necessary to have a proper defensive capability. It is necessary but not sufficient. You have to, also, as you’re doing now with this program of yours, rebut every lie as eloquently as you possibly can, (to) state the truth boldly and in colors that are palatable to the eye of the Western beholder.
As I said, the credibility of the Western governments has never been lower. If I had one message to come from this interview, it’s that. Don’t imagine that Joe Biden, the gerontocratic man who soon will be wandering around the White House in his pajamas, is somehow the leader of the Western world. Don’t imagine that Boris Johnson kind of character that walked out of the pages of Charles Dickens and who might not be still the prime minister in a few weeks from now. Such is his collapsing credibility. Don’t imagine that these people are Olympian warriors atop white horses, leading their united people against China and Russia. Nothing could be farther from the truth than that.
The United States is fighting a losing battle over China. Nicaragua has just broken relations with the Chinese province of Taiwan. Lithuania is now beginning to count the cost. The Australian people, whose government is also beginning to collapse in acrimony and disturbance, (are) paying a high price for playing this foolish (and) childish game with China, which we thought had been banished 50 years ago, in the time of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Donald Trump began them again, and Joe Biden is attempting desperately to refloat this pre-1970s nonsense. But in European countries, it never even goes off the ground.
Interviewer: She Ziyi
Video editor: Feng Ran
Graphic designer: Qu Bo
Managing editors: She Ziyi
Producer: Bi Jianlu
Managing director: Mei Yan
CGTN: Why does China stick to ‘dynamic zero-COVID’ policy? the Chinese mainland has not reported a single death since January, with the death toll unchanged since January at 4,636.
Johnson Choi Biz