US issues warnings over China plan for military bases in Kenya! Overseas military bases: USA has 750. China has 2. 美國就中國在肯尼亞建軍事基地的計劃發出警告！ 海外軍事基地：美國有750個，中國有2個 by By BRIAN NGUGI, November 5 2021
Summary China opened its first military base in Djibouti in 2017, with the latter’s location on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean.
Chinese Navy marines are deployed at the Djibouti base, along with armoured vehicles and artillery support.
The warning shot comes amid an arms race between China and the US hinged on nuclear stockpiles with big implications for the military power balance.
The US has raised the alarm over alleged plans by China to establish a military base in Kenya and extend its grip beyond economic and investment ties.
It claimed that the planned base in Kenya is part of China’s pursuit of a global military logistics network to counter the existing interests of superpower nations, including the US.
China opened its first military base in Djibouti in 2017, with the latter’s location on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean fuelling concerns in India that it would become another of Beijing’s “string of pearls” military alliances and assets, including Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, ringing India.
It is China’s first overseas naval base, though Beijing officially describes it as a logistics facility.
Chinese Navy marines are deployed at the Djibouti base, along with armoured vehicles and artillery support.
“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] has likely considered a number of countries, including…Kenya as locations for PLA [The People’s Liberation Army] facilities,” said the Pentagon (US Department of Defence) in its annual report to the US Congress seen by the Business Daily.
“A global PLA military logistics network and PLA military facilities could both interfere with US military operations and support offensive operations against the United States as the PRC’s global military objectives evolve.”
The warning shot comes amid an arms race between China and the US hinged on nuclear stockpiles with big implications for the military power balance.
US military planners say China is expanding its nuclear forces and bases to limit America’s options in case of conflict.
By setting up a base in Kenya, Washington warned that Beijing wants to boost its military and economic influence over Kenya and other countries in Africa.
“The PRC is seeking to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distances,” said Pentagon.
China invests huge amounts of resources in its efforts to project power.
This mainly happens through investments or direct control of key ports, airports or other infrastructure as well as promoting stronger political and diplomatic relations.
Nairobi and Washington, alongside its former colonial master Britain, have strong military engagements.
The US, for instance, has a military base in Manda Bay, Lamu while the UK has a similar base in Nanyuki.
In July, the UK renewed its multi-billion shilling defence pact that allows its troops to continue training at Nanyuki.
The new Joe Biden administration early this year also announced the deployment of American special troops to Kenya to help in counter-terrorism efforts.
China’s reported military ambitions come amid its plans to implement the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative that aims to further trade with African countries.
China has been funding billions of shillings worth of infrastructure in Kenya via debt under the initiative, including the standard gauge railway between Nairobi and Mombasa.
The initiative was first announced in 2013 and is a signature foreign and economic policy launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The US has, however, been increasingly vocal in urging Kenya to be wary of heavy borrowing for the projects, warning that the East African nation could be saddled with unpayable debts to Beijing for the projects built largely with Chinese labour.
The Kenyan military has remained mum over the alleged Beijing plans to set up an outpost which the US first made last year. The Kenyan military did not respond by press time Thursday to a request by the Business Daily for comment about the latest report.
But China has dismissed the claims as false.
“The information mentioned…is totally false,” Xueqing Huang, the Chief of Information and Public Affairs Section for the Embassy of China in Kenya, told the Business Daily earlier in an e-mailed response.
“Their (Pentagon) latest report is just the same as the previous fact-neglecting and bias-brimming.”
Beijing’s goal, the US report said, is eventually to leverage its new military might to achieve its foreign policy objectives and to assert itself globally.
Previously, other analysts have pointed to China’s military base in Djibouti as signalling Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions overseas.
Horace Lim: Australia is much closer to Pakistan than we think but Pakistan can call itself China’s #1 export partner, something that Australia deliberately gave up thanks to Turnbull, Abbott, Morrison etc…
Come celebrate the return of live music-making with Stanford Philharmonia this Sunday, November 7, at 2:30pm in Bing Concert Hall! The concert will feature violin soloists Roger Xia ’24 and Richard Cheung ’24 performing Symphonie Concertante in G Major by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Joshua Chang ’21 conducting the rarely heard Septet for Wind Instruments by Charles Koechlin, and works by Mozart, Haydn, and Britten. Please join us if you can.
PROGRAM: W. A. MOZART Symphony No. 26 in E-flat Major CHEVALIER DE SAINT-GEORGES Symphonie Concertante in G Major, Op. 13 – with violin soloists Roger Xia ’24 and Richard Cheung ’24 JOSEPH HAYDN Symphony No. 97 in C Major CHARLES KOECHLIN Septet for Wind Instruments – conducted by Joshua Chang ’21 BENJAMIN BRITTEN Simple Symphony
Paul Phillips Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies Associate Professor of Music Stanford University
Huffpost San Francisco: Why billionaires received pandemic stimulus checks? DID BILLIONAIRES REALLY NEED STIMULUS CHECKS?
Ira Rennert, worth $3.7 billion according to Forbes, did not appear to need the stimulus check offered by Congress as emergency assistance to Americans during the coronavirus pandemic. But because the eligibility was based on income on tax returns, some billionaires and ultra-wealthy people received the taxpayer-funded assistance — just because of the way the tax system is set up.
US should ‘stay very far away’ from physically confronting China over Taiwan: Singapore Defence Minister – Ng Eng Hen 新加坡國防部長: 美國應該“遠離”在台灣問題上與中國進行對抗
Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen (right) speaking with moderator Professor Joseph Samuel Nye Jr at the 12th Aspen Security Forum in Washington DC on Nov 4, 2021.
SINGAPORE: The United States should “stay very far away” from engaging in physical confrontation with China over Taiwan, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said, adding that “miscalculations can occur”.
Dr Ng made those comments following his keynote speech on Singapore’s perspectives on US and China at the 12th Aspen Security Forum in Washington DC on Thursday (Nov 4).
The forum is an annual security and foreign policy conference involving leaders and key players in the defence community.
The session with Dr Ng was moderated by Aspen Strategy Group co-chair Professor Joseph Samuel Nye Jr, who had asked if the minister was concerned about how the US was “handling the Taiwan question”.
“Taiwan goes to the heart of the political legitimacy of the leader, of the party and it’s a deep red line. I can think of no scenario (in) which there are winners if there is actual physical confrontation over Taiwan,” Dr Ng said.
“So, I would advise us to stay very far away from that.”
“ALL SIDES LOSE” Speaking to reporters after his speech on Thursday, Dr Ng reiterated that “all sides lose” if there is physical confrontation over Taiwan.
“Not only US and China. Southeast Asia will be in turmoil, I think the rest of the world too,” he said.
Beyond the issue of Taiwan, Dr Ng said the US’ current “preoccupation with China is at a heightened level” not seen in his decade as defence minister.
The US sees China’s progress as a rising power and feels the need to reinvigorate its economy, Dr Ng said.
“I think that’s that’s wonderful, how America needs to compete in science and technology, in infrastructure, in economic leadership,” he said.
Dr Ng said in his keynote speech that Singapore and other Southeast Asian nations have benefited from the influence of both the US and China, highlighting how the US has provided a stabilising security presence while China has powered Asia’s economic growth.
“So to Singapore and the ASEAN countries, my Prime Minister has said none of the countries want to choose (between US and China),” he said.
“Why should I choose? Both have benefitted me and there is a strategic rivalry. Can this strategic rivalry continue with me continuing to still benefit from both countries?”
The Decline and Decline of the American Empire. Richard Ooi: If China wins, humanity might be saved! Therefore China must be stopped! 美利堅帝國的衰落。 Richard Ooi：如果中國贏了，人類可能會被拯救！ 所以中國必須停止！
The U.S. moral superiority complex is accelerating its decline 美國道德優越感正在加速其衰落 by Laura Ruggeri, November 3 2021
Soon after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist and Deep State insider, remarked “The reversals in Afghanistan are confounding for a Biden national security team that has rarely known personal failure (…) These are America’s best and brightest, who came to the messy endgame of the Afghanistan war with spotless résumés.”
Though his criticism of the national security team is understandably guarded, anyone taking a dispassionate look at the establishment liberals who are deemed America’s “best and brightest” in Washington circles would reach the conclusion that they are stronger on slogans than substance, which leads to a disconnect between ideas and implementation, and lack overseas experience: there is only one career diplomat in a senior position on the National Security Council, the director for Africa.
Their ability to display ideological cohesion at the expense of a reflexive process of dialogical thinking is remarkable but not surprising: establishment liberals do see themselves as the centre of political enlightenment. If they appear vainglorious and self-righteous it is because they are part of a power structure that produces and perpetuates these character traits. Those who entertain the possibility of failure are side-lined as bearers of bad news, the centre-stage is reserved for those who project confidence and a sense of moral superiority. As to considering opposing viewpoints, that is entirely optional.
In the same Washington Post article Ignatius observed “Failure can shatter the trust and consensus of any team, and that’s a danger now for the Biden White House. This group has been extraordinarily close and congenial during Biden’s first seven months. But you can already see the first cracks in Fortress Biden.”
Are these the kind of cracks that appear when reality hits delusions, when ‘what is’ collides with ‘what ought to be’, when military logic makes a dent in the fairy tale of a benign power successfully exporting “freedom, democracy and human rights”?
Trained for hybrid warfare, Biden’s aides were suddenly dealing with a conventional military crisis and looked out of their depth. As we have seen, managing a retreat and putting a spin on it require a completely different set of skills.
There is no doubt that the optics of one of the greatest foreign policy disaster in American history damaged the reputation of the U.S. both at home and overseas and that’s why we should expect new and more aggressive initiatives to harden American soft power and tighten control of the narrative through underhand methods.
Carefully crafted narratives are crucial for the U.S. because it is selling the world a failed model of development. Trumpeting it as inclusive, gender equal, green and sustainable is like putting lipstick on a pig, it looks grotesque. Managing perceptions, denigrating alternative civilizational and economic models, and demonizing the competition is no longer working, an increasingly large segment of the world population is developing stronger antibodies to the virus of American propaganda. That’s why traditional soft-power tools — trade, legal standards, technology — are increasingly being used to coerce rather than convince.
After the Afghanistan disaster former French ambassador to Israel, U.N. and U.S. Gérard Araud shared his dismay on Twitter: “The absence of self-examination in the West is seen elsewhere with disbelief. Wars waged by the West have recently cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians for no result and we still lecture the world about values. Do you have any idea about how we are seen abroad?”
If even allies are growing tired of America’s preaching, guess how it is going down in the rest of the world.
At the end of August, when U.S. allies were weighing what the shambolic, badly-coordinated retreat means for Western power and influence, Biden delivered a speech in which he explained “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It is about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.”
His statement signalled the intention to extricate the U.S. army from a war that had exhausted itself, politically, militarily and epistemically, but didn’t suggest that the U.S. will renounce its imperialistic ambitions. In the last twenty years there have been tectonic shifts: cyber, biological, information, cognitive and economic warfare are changing the way wars are being fought. Putting boots on the ground is no longer the best nor the only option to subjugate an adversary.
The reconfiguration of the geopolitical landscape and rapidly changing power relations also required a reassessment of priorities. Now that all eyes are on the Asia-Pacific region the question is whether Biden’s team is the best fit for the challenges U.S. power is facing.
Biden’s closest aides never learned the fundamentals of realpolitik, they hold the belief that liberal values are universally valid and the use of force (rebranded “humanitarian interventionism”) morally motivated. They never doubted that the Western model would conquer the world because they grew up at the end of the Cold War, a time that was indeed characterized by a “unipolar moment”. This period is well and truly over and the Western liberal order in its present form is a fraying system.
While the U.S. allocated resources to the destruction and destabilization of sovereign countries, and ignored the widening income gap at home, their main competitor, China, lifted millions of its citizens out of poverty and kept building state-of-the-art infrastructure at home and abroad, that is projects that make a tangible difference in people’s livelihoods. No wonder concealing the truth has become a matter of national security.
Democrats openly admit their intent to co-opt Silicon Valley to police political discourse and silence the bearers of inconvenient truths. They effectively sowed the seeds for a future where everything and everyone can be(come) a national-security threat. Glenn Greenwald revealed that Congressional Democrats have summoned the CEO’s of Google, Facebook and Twitter four times in the last year to demand they censor more political speech. They explicitly threatened the companies with legal and regulatory reprisals if they did not start censoring more. Pulling the plug on dissenting opinions and de-platforming people who challenge the dominant discourse makes a mockery of free speech, one of the rights that the U.S. claims to be defending when it selectively condemns alleged violations of human rights in other countries. Increasing censorship is also an indication that control of the narrative both at home and overseas has become vital for the U.S.
The conviction that “for America, our interests are our values and our values are our interests’’, one of the tenets of NeoCons, has been revamped by the liberal Left to aggressively promote a different kind of values and causes. A sort of symbolic capital that would allow the U.S. to maintain dominance as rights defender while its own constitutional rights are being eroded at home. Moral grandstanding can only compound the hypocrisy, but that is not stopping liberal totalitarians who are trading off freedom of speech for a child’s right to gender self-identification or for a binding gender or race quota on corporate boards.
History shows that declining empires tend to produce incompetent, self-delusional and divisive leaders who unwittingly accelerate the inevitable fall. That’s exactly what seems to be happening now. Not only the radical liberalism embraced by the Biden administration and Western elite has already antagonized millions of Americans leading to social and political polarization, it is also antagonizing foreign leaders, including the leaders of allied countries such as Hungary and Turkey who are being labelled as ‘authoritarian’. As the U.S. system of alliances is becoming increasingly fragile, dogmatic progressives in the current administration look more and more like Aesop’s donkey in a pottery shop, or a bull in a China shop, if you prefer.
The current National Security Council (NSC) is staffed with advisers who are the product of the kind of groupthink that has long been dominant in Anglo-American universities, those madrassas of the liberal Left where debate is stifled by ideological purges. The opinions and worldviews that are shaped and reinforced in these echo chambers are disseminated and amplified by the media and other industries. Countless careers depend on exporting simulacra of freedom, democracy and human rights, not only because these “experts” have internalized a conviction that these immaterial goods possess an intrinsic moral value, but also because the US has little else to offer the world and leverage on, unless you count assured mutual destruction as leverage.
A case in point is the Summit for Democracy that Biden will convene in virtual mode on December 9–10, 2021, while a second meeting will take place a year later. The plan is to bring together over 100 leaders from selected governments (some of the choices have already stirred controversy among democracy advocates) plus various NGOs, activists (regime change actors) and corporations to “rally the nations of the world in defence of democracy globally” and “push back authoritarianism’s advance”, “address and fight corruption”, “advance respect for human rights”.
Though this initiative is mainly a way to strengthen ideological cohesion among allies by appealing to “common values” and conjuring up yet another global threat, namely “authoritarianism”, it effectively divides the international community into two Cold War-style blocks, friends and foes. On one side countries that earned a seal of approval for toeing the line and therefore deserve to be labelled “democratic”; on the other side a basket of deplorables that refuse to recognize the superiority of the U.S. model of governance and civilizing mission. Basically, the politically correct version of neocolonialism.
The Summit for Democracy will take place against the backdrop of AUKUS, the new Anglo-Saxon alliance that effectively joins NATO to the Asia-Pacific through Britain. What is clearly intended as an alliance against China severely damages regional peace and stability, intensifies the arms race, and jeopardizes international efforts against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
On one hand the U.S. is flexing its military muscle, on the other hand is flexing the ideological muscle that, in the intentions of the Summit organizers, will provide the impetus to renew and strengthen the liberal international order that has served U.S. interests since the end of WW2.
The Summit for Democracy may have a higher profile convener than similar events held in the past but its premise sounds just as tone-deaf and over-ambitious. Take for example The Copenhagen Summit for Democracy that was organized in May by the “Alliance of Democracies”, a foundation set up by former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2017. Its objective was to create a Copenhagen Charter, modelled on the Atlantic Charter, having a Clause 5 similar to NATO’s Article 5, whereby “a state coming under economic attack or facing arbitrary detentions of its citizens due to its democratic or human rights stance could ask for unified support including retaliatory measures of fellow democracies.” This and other creative proposals included in the Copenhagen Charter will likely be rehashed at the Summit to be opened by Biden in December.
Rasmussen too can boast a spotless resume as cheerleader for U.S. global leadership, and that might explain why he seems trapped in a time warp and blind to the actual state of that leadership. If the reader needs further confirmation of Rasmussen’s complicated relationship with reality, here is an excerpt from an article titled ‘The Right Lessons From Afghanistan’ that he wrote for Foreign Affairs a few weeks after the Afghanistan fiasco, “The world should not draw the wrong lessons from Afghanistan. This fiasco was far from inevitable. It would also compound the folly if the world’s developed democracies stopped supporting the quest for freedom and democracy in authoritarian states and war-torn countries. That includes Afghanistan, where the United States and its partners should lend their support to the ongoing resistance efforts to oppose the Taliban.” We all know what happened to those “resistance efforts”, but Rasmussen won’t let reality get in the way of his illusions.
It is unlikely the Summit for Democracy will achieve the unspoken objective of creating an Alliance of Democracies that could bypass the U.N. Security Council. But it is undeniable that international law has long been under attack and is incrementally replaced with the Atlanticist concept of a “rules-based international system”, which does not have any specific rules but allows the West to violate international law under the pretext of advancing liberal ideals and exporting democracy.
It’s expected that USAID will be called to play a major role at the summit. USAID under Samantha Powers has a seat in the NSC and has been tasked with the mission to “modernize democracy assistance across the board”. This includes “supporting governments to strengthen their cybersecurity, counter disinformation and helping democratic actors defend themselves against digital surveillance, censorship, and repression.” In typical Orwellian doublespeak the U.S. is seeking help by claiming to help. With a military budget already stretched over the limit, enlisting foreign actors (both state and non-state) to do its bidding in the information and cognitive warfare becomes imperative.
NED, USAID, USAGM, “philanthropic” organizations like Open Society Foundations and the Omidyar Network have long been grooming and bankrolling journalists, activists, politicians, various types of influencers and community leaders. Their job is to paint a negative picture of China, Russia and any country resisting U.S. diktats. In Africa, just to mention one of many examples, “independent” journalists are paid to investigate Chinese companies that are involved in mining, construction, energy, infrastructure, loans and environment and portray them as causing harm to communities, environment and workers.
At the beginning of October, Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled a new partnership with the OECD in Paris: the overt goal was to combat corruption and promote “high-quality” infrastructure. But the partnership is part of a broader effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The U.S. has also appealed to the G7 and QUAD to provide the financial muscle for its Build Back Better World initiative (BW3), a rehash of Trump’s Blue Dot Network. Since the U.S. and its partners cannot respond to BRI symmetrically — they are unable to match China dollar for dollar, project for project — they are relying on virtue-signalling both as a marketing and bullying tactic. According to this initiative, infrastructure building in developing countries should comply with a certification scheme and lending rules set by the U.S. and its partners, rules that are cloaked in the familiar jargon of social and environmental sustainability, gender equality, and anti-corruption.
In case the competition with China in Asia, Europe and Africa does turn into open confrontation, the U.S. could use the BW3 to increase pressure on investment funds, global financial institutions and insurance companies to discriminate against projects that don’t meet standards set by the U.S. in return for concessions and sweeteners. When Western companies cannot compete fairly with Chinese ones, they can always rely on friendly officials in Washington to rewrite the rules of the game in their favour.
American policymakers seem unable to abandon a Cold War mentality that is essentially utopian in expectations, legalistic in concept, moralistic in the demands it places on others, and self-righteous. Some analysts believe that the source of the problem might be the force of public opinion, deemed emotional, moralistic and binary, the old “Us vs Them.”
Classical international relations theorists have long held the assumption that American public opinion has moralistic tendencies: for liberal idealists the moral foundation of public opinion, mobilized by norm entrepreneurs, opens up the possibility of positive moral action, whereas for realists, the public’s moralism is one of the main reasons why foreign policymaking should be insulated from the pressures of public opinion.
However it is myopic to conceive of public opinion and policymaking as separate entities when in fact they are both shaped by the interests of powerful elites. Public opinion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it is swayed by new and old media that are often controlled by the same interest groups and corporations that fund the think tanks and foundations influencing U.S. foreign policy.
For instance, not only was the collusion and revolving door between government and the tech industry a feature of the Obama administration, it characterizes the Biden administration as well. The transnational interests of these elite groups are usually cloaked in a progressive, inclusive, democratic rhetoric to make their narrow agenda appear big enough so that unsuspecting ordinary people may want to claim ownership and subscribe to it. Corporate interests and national interest are a tangled web no longer subjected to public scrutiny since national level democracy has been hollowed out. When the trilemma of democracy, state, and market becomes irreconcilable, global market players call the shots without democracy or state being able to control them, oversee unceasing technological innovation (including artificial intelligence) or curb the excessive financialization of the economy.
Though U.S. attempts at nation-building result in chaos and misery for local populations, Americans haven’t given up on trying to remake the world in their own distorted image by aggressively promoting their worldviews, exporting a simulacrum of democracy and politicizing human rights issues.
They reject true multilateralism by trying to dominate the international organizations that were created to further cooperation and harmonize national interests. For the corporate donors of both the Democratic and Republican Party other countries’ national interests are a relic of the past that should be done away with. And indeed national interests would hardly be compatible with a world order led by the U.S. in partnership with global stakeholders (global corporations, NGOs, think-tanks, governments, academic institutions, charities, etc.)
These global stakeholders and their political representatives effectively want to replace the modern international system of sovereign states that is enshrined in the United Nations Charter. Under this system, commonly referred to as Westphalian system, states exist within recognised borders, their sovereignty is recognised by others and principles of non-interference are clearly spelled out. Since this model doesn’t allow the government of one nation to impose legislation in another, the U.S. loudly promotes the idea of global governance, under which a global public-private partnership is allowed to create policy initiatives that affect people in every country as national governments implement the recommended policies. Typically this occurs via an intermediary policy distributor, such as the IMF, World Bank, WHO, but many international organizations now play a similar role.
In the Biden administration we see a dangerous convergence of the national security establishment and Silicon Valley tech giants. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines both worked for WestExec, the consulting firm that Blinken cofounded with Michèle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defence under President Obama. Google hired WestExec to help them land Department of Defense contracts. Google’s former Chief Executive Eric Schmidt made personnel recommendations for appointments to the Department of Defense. Schmidt himself was appointed to lead a government panel on artificial intelligence. At least 16 foreign policy positions are occupied by CNAS alumni. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is a bipartisan think tank that receives large contributions directly from defence contractors, Big Tech, U.S. finance giants.
These donors spend considerable resources shaping the intellectual environment, academic research and symposia in order to build consensus around their agenda. The Biden administration also features dozens of officials hailing from the Center for American Progress (CAP), a think tank set up by John Podesta, a longtime Clintonworld staple, with George Soros’ generous contribution. The ties between Open Society Foundations (OSF) and CAP are so strong that Patrick Gaspard, the former head of OSF, was nominated president and CEO of CAP.
When government becomes the expression of global corporate interests and channels the belief system of a small, privileged elite it can be hard to tell who is leading who, who is really making policy and setting national security strategies and goals.
Biden’s national security team is the product of this corrupt system. Its members may tone down the “freedom, democracy and human rights” rhetoric if it gets in the way of achieving a particular strategic goal, but they won’t abandon it because it has proven to be effective in providing a legitimating frame and moral justification to U.S. hegemony.
If we look at the Roman empire we see how one constant theme was “expand or die”. Expansion isn’t only to be intended as territorial or military. Expanding influence, alliances, the use of Latin, the spread of Roman laws, currency, standards, culture and religion all contributed to the cohesion of the Empire. Given the current constraints to U.S. ambitions — namely the strategic partnership between China and Russia, BRI, the more assertive role played by regional powers, nervousness and conflicting interests among U.S. allies and a large budget deficit — the room for expansion has been considerably reduced. Thus the U.S. is doubling its efforts in areas where it still has room for maneuver.
Biden’s slogan “America is Back” sought to reassure allies but cannot hide the fact that the emperor is naked. Advertisers, politicians and psyops planners are continuously manipulating people into changing their perceptions of reality and making choices that ultimately do not benefit them. But no matter how hard the power-knowledge regimes of Western intellectual production work to conceal the decline, the West no longer dominates the world and the values it advocates are not unanimous, far from it. Labelling governments that don’t embrace liberal values and U.S. standards as “autocratic regimes” is just foolish sloganeering and doesn’t take into account the changing balance of power on the ground. The world is evolving toward a multipolar system and the U.S. had better take notice of it. Those serving in the NSC are still imagining a world that no longer exists, one where America has the power to force other countries into doing its bidding. The current ideological approach blinds pragmatic thinking, thus impeding discussions and negotiations.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Someone should tell the Biden team.
Those never been to China last 5 years, badmouthing China using fake news by CIA, military industrial complex and racist (Asian included) participate in US’s crimes against humanity in the name of God is laughable. 過去5年從未去過中國的人，聽信中情局、軍工企業和種族主義者（包括亞洲人）利用假新聞詆毀中國，還以上帝的名義參與美國的危害人類罪，這是可笑的.
Johnson Choi Biz 