As the US messily closes its 20-year war in Afghanistan, it has quickly pivoted and attempted to rally international support around its anti-China campaign. Its allies should be wary. 隨著美國在阿富汗結束長達 20 年的戰爭一團糟，它迅速轉向並試圖圍繞其反華運動爭取國際支持。 它的盟友應該保持警惕.

US never ending war machines – The United States’ recent failures in war and fighting racism should serve as a warning to its allies. As the US messily closes its 20-year war in Afghanistan, it has quickly pivoted and attempted to rally international support around its anti-China campaign. Its allies should be wary. September 11, 2021 by Charles Xu

On May 26, 2021, President Joe Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to produce “analysis of the origins of COVID-19” within 90 days. This move followed weeks of speculation surrounding the claim that the virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory, usually identified as the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Having rightly rejected this claim for more than a year as a Trumpian conspiracy theory, centrist and liberal commentators in the West have breathed new life into the “lab leak” hypothesis, taking cues from allegations and claims made by US state leaders and corporate media. Meanwhile, Facebook and other social media giants reversed their censorship of lab-leak disinformation almost overnight, impelled by a tawdry mix of insinuations from unnamed US intelligence sources and vague allegations of impropriety relating to the World Health Organization’s investigation into the origins of the pandemic earlier this year.

Right on schedule, the nation’s finest intelligence analysts delivered their report to the White House on August 24 and released an unclassified summary three days later. The once hotly anticipated story landed like a damp squib and was buried by the regular news cycle in less than a day. In part, this was due to the inconclusive nature of the findings: four intelligence community (IC) elements and the National Intelligence Council assessed “with low confidence” that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from “natural exposure,” another IC element leaned “with moderate confidence” toward lab leak, and three others did not commit either way, though they naturally all agreed that “Beijing… continues to hinder the global investigation, resist sharing information and blame other countries, including the United States.” But what really doomed the report to oblivion was a signal failure of US intelligence—and the entire imperial apparatus—on a far grander scale: the utter rout of the United States’ puppet regime in Afghanistan by the Taliban, who in 10 days captured every provincial capital (save one), including Kabul.

One underexplored throughline linking both events is Biden’s fraught though largely earnest attempts to restore the traditionally multilateral basis of the US empire, drawing a sharp distinction with his predecessor Donald Trump. While Trump dramatically withdrew the United States from the WHO at the height of a global pandemic in 2020, alleging an entirely illusory pro-China bias, one of Biden’s first acts in office was to rejoin the organization. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus duly celebrated the restoration of US funding by contradicting the WHO mission’s own assessment, as part of a joint study with China, that “introduction through a laboratory incident was considered to be an extremely unlikely pathway.”

Biden’s penchant for pursuing the new cold war through multilateral channels has continued in his engagement with the G7 and NATO. Trump famously denigrated both forums and delighted in alienating the United States’ sub-imperial vassals. Biden has, meanwhile, used these summits to great effect as ostensibly internationalist window dressing for the military encirclement of China. In June, a NATO Brussels Summit Communiqué for the first time identified “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour” as “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security.” In the months since, Britain, France, and even Germany have launched performative naval incursions into the South China Sea—almost the antipodal opposite of the alliance’s ostensible remit in the North Atlantic.

Biden and the Democrats’ response to the domestic surge in anti-Asian racism, effectively delinking it rhetorically from their imperial aggression against China, has followed a similar logic. Gone are the days of presidential bombast over the “China virus” and the “Kung Flu.” Instead, after the Atlanta spa shootings of March 16, the Democrats worked overtime to identify Trump and his loyalists as the unique locus of violent anti-Asian animus. They extended the promise of full inclusion into American society and protection from isolated acts of vigilante terror—a promise somehow underwritten by a violently racist policing system and conditioned on mawkish displays of loyalty to the imperial project. The United States’ selective incorporation of the Asian and particularly Chinese diaspora, in exchange for Asian Americans’ active collusion in the relentless demonization by the United States of their countries of origin, has ample historical precedent. That Biden signed the (predictably hyper-carceral) COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act on May 20, 2021, mere days before ordering his intelligence apparatus to fan the flames of sinophobic hate by promoting the lab-leak myth, is testament to the inestimable hypocrisy of liberal “anti-racism.”

No figure in the Biden administration so thoroughly embodies the hollowness of such politics as Kamala Harris, an infamously vindictive ex-prosecutor now feted as the first Black and Asian vice president. Coincidentally or not, she too found herself playing an awkwardly timed bit part in the hybrid war on China as her government’s imperial designs in Afghanistan hurtled to their ignoble denouement. While the humbled US military shambolically evacuated the one remaining piece of Afghan territory it controlled after a 20-year war—making sure to commit some parting war crimes for long-suffering civilians to remember it by—Harris was tasked with enlisting Singapore and Vietnam into the United States’ machinations in the South China Sea. Vietnam at least did not take the bait, instead reaffirming its historic ties to the People’s Republic of China as a fellow socialist state.

All that said, the most spectacular failure of the United States’ return to traditional alliance structures is undoubtedly the Afghanistan withdrawal itself. The irony is inescapable: Joe Biden, who staked so much on multilateralism and a clean reputational break with his predecessor, has infuriated his “coalition partners” by honoring Trump’s unilateral commitment to end 20 years of brutal military occupation. Extraordinarily, the United States has arm-twisted its Western allies into accepting the unmitigated defeat of a common imperial project, which it initiated, gravely harming its relations with its allies in the process.

Already, of course, the US and its allies are undermining the prospects for lasting peace by threatening the new Afghan government with debilitating sanctions and fearmongering about a new “Taliban-Pakistan-China” axis. This confluence of events has not gone unnoticed in China, where Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointedly urged the US to “work with the international community to provide Afghanistan with urgently-needed economic, livelihood, and humanitarian assistance” while condemning “the so-called investigation report on COVID-19 origins produced by the US intelligence community” on a call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In the fevered imaginations of US war planners and their media sycophants, the empire’s greatest ideological, civilizational, and racial enemies of the last century—communism, Islamist jihadism, and a rising China—seem to be fusing into one. Hopefully, recent events have taught the United States’ prospective partners to think twice before following them once more unto the breach.

Charles Xu is a member of the Qiao Collective and of the No Cold War collective.

Dr. Nayvin Gordon: THE NEW YORK TIMES TELLS CHINA TO STOP PROTECTING THEIR PEOPLE, & LET COVID-19 SICKEN AND KILL MILLIONS

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/09/11/18844854.php

(This a response to the NYT Yanzhong Huang Op-ed)

The New York Times Tells China to Stop Protecting Their People, & Let Covid-19 Sicken and by Nayvin Gordon gordonnayvin@yahoo.com Saturday Sep 11th, 2021 7:57 PM

Eradicating Covid-19 is possible with ZeroCovid strategy that puts people before profits – THE NEW YORK TIMES TELLS CHINA TO STOP PROTECTING THEIR PEOPLE, & LET COVID-19 SICKEN AND KILL MILLIONS

For almost two years now, Taiwan, New Zealand, and China have had a successful Zero Covid-19 national policy to eliminate Covid-19 from their populations. With this strict public health policy in place, and over nine months before the production of any vaccine, over one billion people have been kept free from the ravages of the pandemic. Occasional outbreaks, generally due to the virus entering from another country, have been snuffed out.

Rational people, who value public health and life, above all, would understand that protecting these Zero Covid-19 countries requires rapidly extending Zero Covid-19 policy to the entire world, so as to eliminate the virus from the human population. Tragically, a major newspaper in the U.S., which is one of the most Covid-19 infected countries in the world, is advocating an END to Zero Covid-19 policy, and recommends that we allow the virus to continue to spread its disease and death throughout the world’s population. The New York Times opinion/editorial title on 9/9/21 is entitled: “China Needs a New Coved Strategy”. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/opinion/China-covid-pandemic-delta.html

Why would a newspaper advocate ending A POLICY THAT IS WORKING? Why would the think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, for whom the author works, WANT THE PANDEMIC TO CONTINUE?

The answer is in the article. “It is time for China to change tack, as the socioeconomic and public health costs now outweigh the benefit.” This logic is consistent with Ex-President Trump who said, “The cure can’t be worse than the disease”. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-recovery.html

This is not the logic of the millions of working people who want their family and friends to stay safe and free from the virus. It is the rationale of a TINY MINORITY in big business and finance. Behind all the fancy words, the New York Times is telling us that Zero Covid-19 policy does absolutely work, BUT it’s bad for profits, so let’s destroy the policy and let Covid-19 infect the world. We must accept “living with not eradicating Covid-19”

Protecting the population is the government’s duty.

During the pandemic, trillions of dollars have gone to Wall Street, BUT it is too costly to pay workers to stay home for five weeks to stop viral transmission. The U.S. government is pouring in $120 billion dollars a month into the financial markets, BUT it is too costly to fund testing and tracing for Covid-19 across the nation. The stock market has doubled its worth and billionaires have doubled their wealth, BUT it is too costly to tax the rich to pay for a public health infrastructure and health care for all.

We must reject this dangerous, inhumane, and deadly policy. Please join us in the struggle to combat Covid-19 with a plan for worldwide Zero Covid-19. https://covidactiongroup.net/ https://www.worldhealthnetwork.global/
9/10/21 Dr. Nayvin Gordon, gordonnayvin [at] yahoo.com

For 9/13/2021 APA Justice meeting: APA Justice, Jeremy, Steve, Nisha/CAPAC, Reps Judy Chu, Grace Meng, Ted Lieu, Gisela/AAJC:

The APA Justice Newsletter Issue #82 stated: There is no clear indication whether DOC/OIG conduct an investigation of this complaints or other complaints involving Asian American employees? If so, it is unclear whether DOC/OGC covered them in the internal review.

Although the 9/3/2021 DOC Office of General Counsel’s Report on the overreach by the Investigation & Threat Management Service (ITMS) did not specify “complaints involving AA employees”, the WaPo writer Shawn Boburg https://archive.ph/K0K4B#selection-967.0-971.39 revealed that ITMS Investigator Christopher Cheung had complained about targeting of Chinese. So I think it is reasonable to infer that the DOC investigative review of ITMS did cover AA employees. (Also, Christopher Cheung should be recognized by the AAPI community for his whistleblowing. Although whistleblowing is supposedly protected, more often than not, its is actually the kiss of death for the whistleblower!)

DOC General Counsel’s Office has concluded that ITMS had conducted investigations and counterintelligence activities far beyond their legal authority. As a result of the investigation, ITMS is being disbanded. I wish to thank all of you involved for helping to end ITMS and its abuses.

Despite this victory for justice within Dept of Commerce, I urge all of you to continue to confront the McCarthyite Red Scare modus operandi that is inherent in the DOJ/Christopher Wray/FBI China Initiative.

The 9/3/2021 DOC Office of General Counsel report revealed that deposed Office of Security Director George Lee had opened investigative cases, with minimal closing of cases. This was criticized in the report. Yet, FBI Director Wray has similarly boasted about the many cases that have been and are being opened by FBI. In his 7/7/2020 presentation to the Hudson Institute, he boasted: We’ve now reached the point where the FBI is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases currently underway across the country, almost half are related to China. And at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.

The 9/10/2021 CAPAC statements regarding Anming Hu include Chair Judy Chu’s bold challenge of the China Initiative: “The trial of Dr. Anming Hu – the first case brought to trial under the flawed China Initiative – is a perfect example of why this problematic initiative must be ended.”

Chair Chu’s strong statement is consistent with the call for AAPI voices to speak out against anti-Asian hate, and not to just suffer in silence. Thank you, Chair Chu. All CAPAC members must speak out vociferously against the targeting of AAPI victims, following the example of Chair Chu.

OPPOSING THE DEMONIZATION OF CHINA

I ask all of you, especially CAPAC legislators, to up the ante. AAPI leaders must start speaking out loudly against the baseless anti-China hysteria.

In a 9/3/2021 statement regarding the disbanding of DCC’s Investigation & Threat Management Service (ITMS) CAPAC Members Welcome Decision to Eliminate Rogue Investigative Unit at Commerce Department | Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) (house.gov), Chair Chu allows that “… there are legitimate national security concerns related to China……” https://capac-chu.house.gov/press-release/capac-members-welcome-decision-eliminate-rogue-investigative-unit-commerce-department

As Asian Americans–as all Americans–we need to confront the validity of the hyper-exaggerated China Threat. The 2009 NDAA’s China Strategy called for a coordinated all-of-government effort to combat China’s “malign influence”.

The abuses of DOC’s ITMS and of DOJ’s China Initiative are logical consequences of the presumption of China’s malign influence contained in the 2009 NDAA China Strategy.

What is happening now is similar to what happened during the 1950’s McCarthy era: Sympathy with China is considered subversive. Presentation of favorable facts/information/opinions about China are presumptive of malign influence and subversion.

CAPAC and AAPI leaders should step up and challenge the politically popular and racist China Threat narrative that is all out of proportion to any actual threat. CAPAC and AAPI leaders must jump off, no onto, the politically expedient anti-China hysteria. Domestic anti-Asian hate is collateral damage of anti-China hate.

Sincerely,
Alvin Ja
San Francisco

China’s Ambassador to US Reportedly Asks Biden Administration to ‘Please Shut Up’ in Zoom Call 據報導，中國駐美國大使在視像會議中要求拜登政府“請閉嘴” – Chinese ambassador to the United States Qin Gang speaks at an August 31, 2021, event – Sputnik International, 12.09.2021

China-US relations have degenerated considerably over the past five years, with the countries mired in an economic conflict involving trade, tariffs and technology transfers, and engaged in a diplomatic conflict over issues ranging from Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan to US ‘freedom of navigation’ missions in waters claimed by Beijing.

Qin Gang, China’s recently-appointed ambassador to the United States, has reportedly urged American authorities to keep quiet if the ongoing spat between the two economic superpowers cannot be resolved diplomatically.

“If we cannot resolve our differences, please shut up,” Qin reportedly said in a private Zoom meeting hosted by the National Committee on United States-China Relations, a New York-based nonprofit, late last month.

According to the National Review, which reported on Qin’s alleged remarks on the basis of a source said to be familiar with the exchange, the ambassador made the comments after Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University prof and former Obama-era advisor on China issues at the National Security Council, asked what measures the US and China could take to improve relations.

Before advising US officials to “please shut up,” Qin reportedly asked Washington to stop deliberately exacerbating tensions between the two countries.

The National Review expressed shock over the senior Chinese diplomat’s comments, pointing out that the National Committee on United States-China Relations meeting included senior American China experts including former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and former Clinton and Obama staffer Jack Lew.

Chinese and US officials have not commented publicly on Qin’s alleged remarks in the call.

Qin, a former foreign ministry spokesman and vice minister of foreign affairs, was named China’s ambassador to the US in late July. In comments of the Zoom meeting which were made public earlier, the diplomat blasted leaders in Washington and policy thinkers for approaching the China-US competition as a new “cold war,” saying this was a “misjudgement.”

“The extreme China policy of the previous US administration has caused serious damage to our relations, and such a situation has not changed. It is even continuing,” Qin complained.

Despite initial hopes in the wake of Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential elections that US policy toward China would shift post-Trump, the Democratic president has not publicly sought to alter the relationship with Beijing, demonstratively inviting Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the United States to his inauguration in January, and continuing the multi-trillion dollar trade, tariff and tech transfer wars started by his predecessor. The Biden administration has also leveled accusations against China about “human rights abuses” and “genocide” in the province of Xinjiang, and increased military deployments near the country’s borders, including in the contested East and South China Seas. China rejected the allegations levelled by the US, recalling Washington’s own spotty human rights record, and calling on America to stop meddling in other countries’ internal affairs.

China-US tensions have escalated most significantly over Taiwan, which the People’s Republic considers an integral part of China, amid the consistent deployment of warships in the Taiwan Strait, and perceived US support for the island’s “separatist” authorities. Last month, President Biden’s promised that the United States would come to the defence of Taipei if was attacked by “bad guys,” with his comments prompting Chinese media to accuse him of making “empty” and “reckless” remarks, and to warn that Washington would “have to prepare for much greater storms” in the Taiwan Straits if it did not back away from the president’s position.

Laureates of ‘Nobel Prize of China’ announced, recognized for coronavirus studies and impact on COVID-19 fight by Liu Caiyu, Fan Anqi and Lu Yameng Sep 12 2021

Hong Kong-based scientists Kwok-Yung Yuen and Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris won the prize in life sciences in the 2021 Future Science Prize, dubbed “China’s Nobel Prize,” for their major discoveries of SARS-CoV-1 as the causative agent of the global SARS outbreak in 2003 with impact on combating COVID-19 and emerging infectious diseases, the award organizer announced on Sunday.

The Future Science Prize is a privately funded science honor established by a group of renowned scientists and entrepreneurs in 2016, aiming at recognizing scientific breakthroughs and innovations in China with long-term significance to the world. The prize is given in three categories with $1 million for each award, namely the Life Science Prize, Physical Science Prize and Mathematics and Computer Science Prize.

Yuen, from the University of Hong Kong, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Sunday that “this is one of the most important prizes not just in China but also internationally. I am really honored and grateful to get the recognition of the very eminent scientists of the selection committee for the prize.”

Wang Xiaodong, one of the reviewers of the award, said at Sunday’s press conference that “Chinese scientists were able to quickly identify the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to their contributions.”

When asked how their discoveries affect people’s understanding of the cause of COVID-19, Yuen explained that since he and his team discovered in 2005 that the horseshoe bat was the natural animal reservoir for the ancestral SARS-CoV-1, they believe that SARS-CoV-2 “also went from bats to another mammal(s) before jumping into humans.”

Moreover, SARS-CoV-2 replicates very well in both bat and human intestinal organs, which further supports the bat origin of SARS-CoV-2, he said.

But there are also major differences between the two diseases, Yuen noted, in terms of “disease severity, asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic rates and the ability of the virus to suppress interferon and inflammatory responses.”

As world scientists call for the second phase of the coronavirus origins study, experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention have suggested that investigations should be carried out in countries where horseshoe bats and pangolins reside, those with virus-positive animal data and which supplied Wuhan Huanan seafood market through cold-chain logistics, as more tests and molecular viral research suggest it is possible that the early outbreak in the Huanan market may have been sparked by cold-chain imports.

Jin Dongyan, a professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences at HKU, told the Global Times on Sunday that Yuen and his research team where a group of world-leading researcher are gathered are very valuable to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. “From SARS to COVID-19, the team has been engaged in coronavirus-related basic studies while combing through clinical studies. That working mode contributes the outstanding work of the university to the study of infectious diseases,” Jin said.

China makes breakthrough in high-level radioactive waste disposal technique, achieves milestone in nuclear industry devt by Fan Anqi and Deng Xiaoci Sep 12 2021

China’s first high-level radioactive liquid waste disposal equipment, capable of melting waste into glass, has been officially put into use in Guangyuan, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, on Saturday, making China one of the few countries in the world to have acquired such a technique.

Chinese experts believed that the technique could have been a better option for Japan to dispose the nuclear-contaminated Fukushima wastewater, but Japan “clearly does not want to pay the bill.”

The equipment is a milestone project at the back end of the nuclear industry chain, and is considered a major step forward in the safe and green development of China’s nuclear industry, the Global Times learned from the State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense on Sunday.

Nuclear waste treatment is the final part during the safe use of nuclear energy, of which the most difficult and technically advanced is the treatment of high-level radioactive liquid.

To tackle the challenge, China’s approach is to mix and melt liquid waste with glass materials at a temperature of 1,100 C or higher and then leave it to cool and form into glass, which can effectively and stably contain the radioactive elements inside, thanks to the low leaching and high strength of the glass, read a statement from the administration.

Such an approach to deal with the waste is by far the most advanced method in the world, the statement said. Only the US, France, Germany, and a few others have mastered the technique previously.

The difficulties and core capabilities of such a waste disposal mechanism lie in the consolidation formula with a high inclusive rate and stability to make sure the radioactive materials inside can be safely contained for more than 1,000 years, the statement said.

The project was approved by the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) in 2004 and was designed jointly by China and Germany. The first batch of glass bodies consolidated from radioactive waste were rolled out for evaluation on August 27, and successfully passed the tests with all relevant technical indicators reaching international advanced levels.

The annual waste disposal amount is expected to reach several hundred cubic meters, and the glass produced from the waste will be buried in a repository hundred of meters beneath the ground, realizing the complete isolation of radioactive materials with the biosphere and laying a solid foundation for the safe use of nuclear energy in the future.

In April, the Japanese government made a startling decision to dump nuclear-contaminated Fukushima wastewater into the ocean, claiming the decision “the best option,” a remark that shocked and drawn fury not only from its neighboring countries but also the whole world.

Zhou Yongmao, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who spent over 60 years in nuclear engineering, told the Global Times in a previous exclusive interview that leaving the nuclear wastewater deep underground after solidification is a relatively better option for safety and health concerns, though with higher costs. However, “the Japanese government clearly does not want to pay the bill, preferring to push the risk on to others.”

“China has always attached great importance to radioactive waste management, and it has maintained an open attitude for international cooperation,” the administration said. “China, as a responsible world nuclear power, has strengthened collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency and actively participated in experience exchanges with others.”

Now, China has acquired waste treatment capabilities with high-, medium- and low-level radioactivity. Liu Yongde, chief engineer at CAEA, said that the institute will accelerate the process of radioactive waste disposal to provide sound support for China’s commitment to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.

Chinese Scientists whether American born or immigrants would be foolish to stay in US. Your Chinese heritage automatically made you enemies of US. Hu Anming, a renowned expert in nanotechnology, had all charges against him dropped last week after a US federal judge ruled no reasonable jury could convict him on the evidence presented. In July, US prosecutors were forced to dismiss cases against five other Chinese scientists accused of visa fraud. 中國科學家無論是美國出生的還是移民的，留在美國都是愚蠢的。 你的中國血統自然地讓你成為美國的敵人。 在美國聯邦法官裁定沒有合理的陪審團可以根據所提供的證據對胡安明定罪後，著名納米技術專家胡安明上週撤銷了對他的所有指控。 7 月，美國檢方被迫駁回針對另外五名被控簽證欺詐的中國科學家的案件。

My friend in Australia bought a copy of the Weekend Australian owned by Murdoch’s Newscorp. There were two big opinion pieces depicting China as Australia’s enemy in future wars. Some sections of Australian population and media have gone bonkers! US’s vassal states Australia together with Canada tried to outdo each other for treats, nice puppies. 我在澳大利亞的朋友買了一本默多克新聞集團旗下的《澳大利亞週末》。 有兩大觀點將中國描述為澳大利亞在未來戰爭中的敵人。 澳大利亞人口和媒體的某些部分已經瘋了！ 美國的附庸國澳大利亞和加拿大可愛的小狗試圖超越對方.

Half a century of crimes against humanity – Has US learned its lessons from post-9/11 wars? 美國半個世紀的危害人類罪 – 美國是否從 9/11 後中吸取了教訓 GT staff reporters Sep 11 2021

It has been 20 years after the world was shocked to see two planes struck the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. It was a chaotic scene featuring fire and heavy smoke, the screaming and scattered crowds and people who were dumfounded by the fact that the US – a superpower – was attacked by terrorists on its ground.

This year’s commemoration of September 11 is different as the US just ended the war in Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban – after being overturned by the US three months after 9/11 in 2001 – has taken over Afghanistan, again.

The past few weeks have seen the Western media making rolling reports to mourn victims of the terror attacks and some reflecting on the failures of the US domestic and diplomatic policies in the past two decades.

However, the fierce criticism and the apparent failures of the past two decades have not awakened the US political elites. They refused to learn. And soon they will be looking for a new enemy in a new region, but even bigger failures await them, observers said.

Seeking truth

The US President Joe Biden, heavily criticized for his hasty and disorganized withdrawal from Afghanistan from all fronts, may attempt to use the 20th anniversary of the September 11 to shift the public attention. According to the schedule released by the White House, Biden and his wife are scheduled to visit all three 9/11 memorial sites — ground zero in New York City, the Pentagon and the memorial outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 was forced down — on Saturday.

But nearly 1,800 people, including survivors of 9/11 and family members of the victims, are signing a joint letter asking Biden to not attend the memorial activities if he does not declassify documents related to the terror attacks.

Brett Eagleson was among them. His father Bruce Eagleson, who was on the 17th floor of the South Tower of the WTC, died in the collapse of the building, leaving his family unable to recover his remains even through DNA analysis. After luckily surviving when the planes hit the building, he chose to stay and assist more people to evacuate and was last seen going upstairs to retrieve a walkie-talkie to assist in communication between firefighters and the police.

Sorrow and bitterness have engulfed the better part of the last two decades of Brett’s life, but it’s mostly anger that stands out. The US government’s investigation into the 9/11 attacks has been shrouded in secrecy with detailed reports on one of the most shocking terrorist attacks having never been disclosed.

“We have been fighting for 20 years about the information that our government has always been keeping this information from us,” Brett Eagleson told the Global Times. “We have been fighting for so long; every family is tired and frustrated.”

Brett Eagleson said those 20 years have changed his perception of the US government. “We have seen our government block its own citizens from truth and justice for its own selfish interests and to grow its relationship with Saudi Arabia, and as time goes on, we get further and further away from the truth.”

Finally gathering up the courage to visit Ground Zero, the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan to see the changes in the place 20 years after it was hit by two planes, Mrs Tsou, a 50-year-old Chinese-American living in New York, remained calm but after seeing the smiling Muslim girls with headscarves painted on the fence not far from the square, she sighed with emotion.

“For the past 20 years, the American people have not seen much of the US counter-terrorism measures in Afghanistan and Iraq, but the fear of and discrimination against Muslims and people of color has grown within the US,” she told the Global Times.

Tsou was a software engineer who worked in the north Tower of the WTC. The vacation on September 11 two decades ago saved her life, but more than 30 of her colleagues were wounded or killed in the attack. Tsou quit her job after the 9/11 attacks and has been doing odd jobs at home since then. Rarely has she left the house or have any contact with her former colleagues.

“War is always intertwined with too much self-interest, and 20 years later, the truth about the attacks remains unanswered, and the American people have not been given the answer for ‘why do they hate us,’ but our government has created more conflict and hate in America and all around the world,” Tsou said.

Infographic: Wu Tiantong/Global Times
Infographic: Wu Tiantong/Global Times

War on terror

Like Tsou, a lot of Americans are wondering why the US failed and whether the money and the American lives sacrificed in the war on terror in Afghanistan were worth it. But for many outside the US, the question remains how the world and the US were changed by 9/11.

Harvard University scholar Joseph S. Nye Jr. told the Global Times that “future historians will regard September 11, 2001 as important as Pearl Harbor was on December 7,1941.”

In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush advocated a humble foreign policy and warned against the temptations of nation-building, but after the shock of 9/11, he declared a “Global War on Terror” and invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq, the professor said.

“While the 9/11 attacks killed several thousand Americans, the ‘endless wars’ that the US launched as part of the global war on terror cost much more,” he said.

According to data from the Brown University Costs of War project, over 929,000 people have died in the post-9/11 wars due to direct war violence, and several times as many due to the reverberating effects of war. 38 million people became war refugees and displaced persons. The US is also conducting counterterror activities in 85 countries and the federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over 8 trillion.

All this money and lives invested in the post 9/11 wars under the banner of countering terrorism have not stopped terrorism from spreading globally. It has only caused more confrontations between different civilizations.

The rhetoric of the war on terror generated a geopolitical binary that divided the world into the uncivilized and civilized. Islam was posited as the enemy and the symbol of “the uncivilized world.” Many Muslim populations — including innocent civilians — were viewed as “suspect communities” targeted under the rubric of counterterrorism, Stefanie Kam, associate research fellow from the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told the Global Times via an email.

The old conventional “war on terror” approaches to terrorism – militarized counterterrorism response — focused on short-term gains, rather than long-term gains attuned to the political realities and the social and historical forces on the ground, which was what largely defined the failure of US’ approach to terrorism, Kam said.

Kam thought that the political vacuum engendered in a post-US Afghanistan has the potential to complicate the security landscape by creating breathing space for terrorist groups to consolidate in Afghanistan, and to inspire a wave of foreign fighters — seeking militant training — into Afghanistan. Apart from Islamic extremism, the rise of right-wing extremism is an emerging area of concern for governments in Asia.

“In particular, the Southeast Asian region has seen a recent growth in terrorist attacks by ISIS-inspired, self-radicalized individuals, and the involvement of women, youth and family networks in militancy,” Kam said.

Echoing Kam, global experts have expressed concerns over the spread of terrorism over the past two decades. The fact that the number of terrorist groups in Afghanistan had grown from less than 10 to more than 20 during the US military occupation also indicates the irony of Bush’s words when starting the war.

“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there,” former US President George W Bush told Congress days after the attacks, on September 20, 2001. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

US remains unchanged

For Adnan Akfirat, China Representative of the Patriotic Party (Turkey),it is the US that made an obscure concept of “international terrorism” to justify its occupations and military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria and “cover up its imperialist aggression.”

The US is not fighting against terrorism but using terrorist groups in different regions to play its geopolitical tactics, Akfirat noted.

“With the liberation of Afghanistan, the US had to admit that the ‘Crusade’ it launched since 2001 ended in disappointment and disgrace only 20 years later,” Akfirat said, noting that all these failures could not wake up “the US ruling clique” who still thinks US “will subdue the peoples of the world with its terrible military power. Their class interests compel them to continue this madness.”

Yasir Habib Khan, founder and president of the Institute of International Relations and Media Research in Pakistan, thought that lop-sided war on terror architected by America “is the epitome of complete failure” and it is ironic to see the war under the banner of peace and stability prompted more wars and gave rise to “white supremacy” to which Americans’ lives are subjected to be more insecure and vulnerable.

In the eyes of some Chinese experts, the US debacles for the past 20 years also resulted in wrong policies and miscalculations as the US political elites failed to solve domestic problems on social polarization, rising economic disparities and other issues. Instead, the country focused on scrambling for power and playing geopolitical tactics in suppressing other countries.

The US’ strength and international reputation have been damaged for the past 20 years. Putting huge resources into military actions or “rebuilding” other countries has worsened the overall crisis domestically, including deteriorating political polarization and struggles, the flooding of popularism and racism, confrontations of different classes and people’s losing of recognition of national identity, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.

However, despite all these problems awaiting to be solved, the US hasn’t changed its tactic of seeking enemies to ensure its global status and define its international policies. The US should have coordinated the international community to counter terrorism and extremism after 9/11, but it took unilateral military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria for geopolitical purposes, causing ever-lasting regional chaos, experts said.

After all these years, one would think the US has learned its lesson and can now embark on a journey of solving domestic issues and shifting the focus of its policies. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, the country has its eyes on a new “enemy” – China.

Khan said that 20 years after the September 11, the US should have built a broad-based global mechanism to promote counter-terrorism modalities and it should have snubbed impulsive of protectionism but unfortunately it did nothing. “It did not learn from the past. This makes the future of the world remain volatile.”

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