“Diasporic Futures: Sinophobia, Techno-Political Strife, and the Politics of Care” November 11-12, 2022 San Francisco, California, USA

The 30th Anniversary Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO) – Call for Papers

Asian American Research Center (AARC) Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies (AAADS) University of California, Berkeley

Present

The 30th Anniversary Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO) 世界海外华人研究学会

Call for Papers

“Diasporic Futures:

Sinophobia, Techno-Political Strife, and the Politics of Care”

DATE: November 11-12, 2022 PLACE: San Francisco, California, USA

Official Languages of the Conference: English, Chinese, and Spanish

We emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic forever changed. The dramatic rise of anti-Chinese animus globally has shaken many diasporic communities to the core. The politicization of “the Chinese virus” has reignited Sinophobia and anti-Chinese racism, causing rampant and random cyber-bullying, verbal assault, and physical violence against Chinese and Chinese-looking people in the U.S. and in many countries throughout the world in magnitude and frequency not seen since the height of the Chinese exclusion period in the 19th century. This, in turn, has heightened social awareness among diasporic Chinese and revitalized political and cultural engagement on an unprecedented scale that crosses generations and national, linguistic, and class boundaries.

At the same time, the competition for economic and technological hegemony between a declining US and a rising China has reached new levels of intensity and, indeed, hostility that is forcing a planetary geopolitical realignment of nation-states that is reminiscent of the Cold War period, leading some political scientists to wonder if China and the U.S. have already reached the inevitable “Thucydides Trap.” This geopolitical. Struggle between the US and China has had dire consequences on ethnic Chinese in the U.S. and across the globe. In an era when China once again is perceived as more threat than opportunity, ethnic Chinese—especially scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs—have come under sweeping government surveillance and overzealous prosecution, undermining global collaboration legitimate international academic exchange and collaboration, and faith in democracy, racial equality, and the very system of justice.

Indeed, since the founding ISSCO conference in November 1992, we have witnessed many sweeping changes that have transformed the conditions of Chinese living in diaspora, including China’s rapid and formidable entry into global economics, the shifting perception of China from being a potential market for the West to an enemy of the West, and the increased emigration from China to different regions of the world, especially Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Oceania. All of this have unfolded within an emergent digital-technological world order that has dramatically transformed our habits of sociality and knowledge production. Indeed, the explosion of globalized media and digital platforms has expanded the possibilities for global communication, transnational meaning-making, and the proliferation of publics. All provide ample encouragement for diasporic cultural creativity and translocal social-political engagement, even as it makes possible the danger of misinformation and ideological manipulation.

Under these circumstances how are diasporic Chinese experiencing and responding to the global pandemic and the international tensions? How are they imaging their possible futures under these changed conditions? What can we learn from previous moments of international engagement and Sinophobia in order to address the widespread uptick of anti-Chinese/anti-Asian hate and systemic racism, more broadly? What established forms and strategies of mutual aid can we modify, adapt, and forward in this current context? What kinds of trans-racial, trans-gender, trans-generational, and transnational collaborations, dialogues, and solidarities must we advance to create a future that is not just sustainable but full of possibilities? What kinds of histories, narratives, and imaginaries must we put forward to build our capacity for resilience, compassion, and care so that we can thrive collectively?

We invite proposals for panels and individual papers that address any of these themes, broadly construed above. Deadline for submitting paper proposals is set for April 24, 2022. The Program Committee of the conference will review the proposals and announce its decisions on May 21, 2022.

A website for the conference with all relevant information regarding the November 11-12, 2022 conference will be set up soon. The current plan is to hold an in-person conference in a hotel in San Francisco. However, if the current pandemic persists in November, we will modify the conference with the aid of technologies. Hopefully, we will have a clearer picture of what to expect during the summer.

In the mean time, please direct all communications to Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang, conference coordinator at lcwang@berkeley.edu.

Prof. Lok Siu, Chair, ISSCO 30th Anniversary Conference & Director of AARC

Prof. L. Ling-chi Wang, Conference Coordinator

Asian American Research Center (AARC), 2420 Bowditch Street #5670, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-5670.

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Hi, Everyone:

Below is a “Call for Papers” and an invitation to take part in an international conference on the future of Chinese Diaspora in November here in San Francisco. The conference will have scholars on the Chinese diaspora and leaders from Chinese communities throughout the world. It will also be an opportunity to share, exchange, and even debate ideas about the status and future of Chinese in countries throughout the world, especially Chinese in the U.S. The total number of Chinese Overseas, by various estimates, is about 50-55 million, distributed among virtually all counties in the world..

The conference will also be the 30th anniversary conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO), a scholarly organization devoted to the teaching and research on the Chinese diaspora. The 2022 conference is being sponsored by both Asian American Research Center (AARC) and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies (AAADS) at UC Berkeley, an institution to which I devoted more than 50 years of service. It will be held at Hotel Kabuki in Japantown, San Francisco, the same hotel, known as Miyako Hotel back November 1992. In fact, ISSCO emerged out of that conference, the first non-government-sponsored international conference after the Cold War and after the 1992 Cross-Strait Consensus (九二共识) between Mainland China and Taiwan. Prior to 1992, scholars of Chinese diaspora from countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain and both sides of the Taiwan Strait could not meet and exchange their shared interest in doing research on the Chinese diaspora because there was no opportunity nor forum through which they could legally and openly confer and exchange their research due to mutual hostility between the two sides and the prohibition of such activities by the governments on both sides. In other words, the 1992 conference was an ice-breaker and the dawn of a new era of research on the Chinese diaspora. Asian American Studies of UC Berkeley was the organizer and sponsor of the conference with the generous support of both the University and the Chinese American community in SF. The conference brought together over 200 scholars from all five continents and both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Free and open scholarly exchange is what ISSCO stands for. Since then, ISSCO has been holding annual conferences with the support of universities and Chinese communities in different countries in the world and in Beijing and Taipei. It also publishes a scholarly journal, Journal of Chinese Overseas (JCO), contributing to a growing body of knowledge of Chinese Overseas throughout the world.

ISSCO conferences are always held under open and respectful atmosphere without political interference. However, as you all know, beginning in 2008, President Barack Obama abruptly changed the relatively balanced and stable policy of engagement and cooperation with China after President Nixon’s historic trip to Beijing in 1972, ushering in a new period of growing tension and belligerence between the two superpowers and causing some scholars and foreign policy experts to conclude that a new Cold War had emerged. President Obama called his new policy, “Pivot to Asia,” which turned out to be an euphemism for the containment of China by political, economic, and military means. His successor, President Donald Trump expanded the Obama policy and heightened the tension with his unilateral declaration of a trade war against China and initiated a series of aggressive internal security policies aimed at creating a domestic consensus around China threat to the U.S. and indiscriminately targeting Chinese businesses, scientists, and students, irrespective of their nationality and citizenship status in the U.S. As expected, China responded in kind with less fanfare. Taking cues from the administration and the U.S. Congress, anti-Chinese and anti-Asian violence quickly spread across the U.S. and in many countries.

This was followed by the sudden appearance of a previously unknown virus, Covid-19, which spread rapidly across China and in many countries across the world. In the U.S., the virus quickly spinned out of control in 2020 and 2021, made worse by Trump’s failure to acknowledge the serious nature of the pandemic and take timely and effective public health measures to control its spread. Not surprisingly the U.S. quickly became No. 1 in the number of people infected, hospitalized, and dead in the world to this date. By any measurement, it was an unprecedented global human tragedy accompanied by a devastating global recession. Worse, after the 2021 election, the country did not return to normalcy. The U.S. became even more polarized and divisive and anti-China and anti-Chinese sentiment even more intense as China became the No. 1 enemy of the U. S. And China and Chinese Americans became convienant scapegoats.

Against this background, the 2020 ISSCO Conference scheduled to take place in Bangkok,Thailand had to be canceled and the 2021 conference had to vastly scaled back and hold its conference online by Zoom. It is our hope that the 2022 conference will take place as planned in San Francisco and the conference will become a platform for exchange of ideas and development of solutions.

I have been asked by Berkeley to volunteer my service in organizing the ISSCO Conference in November as I did in 1992, even though I had retired in 2006. The theme of the conference, “Diasporic Futures: Sinophobia, Techno-Political Strife, and the Politics of Care,” is very timely and familiar to people in this forum. (See the “Call for Papers” below). I want to invite and encourage you to consider attending the conference and presenting your thoughts in papers with scholars and community leaders from throughout the world, and take part in all conference activities in November 10-11, 2022. The registration fee include meals, receptions, and coffee breaks, and conference materials.

I have cut off all my activities and involvements in order to concentrate on planning the conference with the help of my colleagues and volunteers. It will be an important conference. Hopefully, it will help shed light on and help chart the future of Chinese in the diaspora and help make a peaceful and better world.

Ling-chi

NATO’s global history of reaction – NATO is the greatest purveyor of violence and we cannot be silent. By Sara Flounders posted on April 4, 2022

The U.S.-commanded military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO, was founded April 4, 1949. Its initials describe its early geographic reach but obscure NATO’s intent, and how NATO has acted, first from 1949 to 1991, and later from 1991 to the present.

From its founding moment, NATO was an aggressive military apparatus to coordinate the police and military and intelligence apparatus among the ten founding West European member countries(plus U.S. and Canada) under U.S. command. NATO’s past 30 years of steady expansion is tied to its original purpose as an imperialist weapon against the working class.

The 1991 broken promise by Secretary of State Baker, echoed by many other Western politicians, to Soviet Prime Minister Gorbachev that if the reunification of Germany went forward “NATO would expand not one inch to the East” is often quoted today in discussing the encirclement of Russia and the root of the war in Ukraine.

What needs to be understood is why did NATO expand? Why was NATO’s expansion inevitable?

NATO expanded because the capitalist markets expanded. The defeat of socialism in Eastern Europe and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the auctioning off of formerly nationalized public property and industries was only possible with an enforcement organization.

Just as the U.S., as the center of finance capital, is held together by the largest repressive state apparatus, the largest internal police force, and the largest prison system in the world.

NATO’s founding principle was to ensure a strong U.S. military, political and economic presence in Europe. There was no plan to end the U.S. military occupation of Europe. Its stated purpose from its inception was a military alliance against the Soviet Union.

NATO claimed to be a collective security arrangement against Soviet expansion, even though the Soviet Union was hardly expanding. It was devastated by World War II and had suffered the overwhelming majority of the losses in human life (27 million) and in industrial capacity. Over 700 cities and towns lay in total ruin. Refugee camps and rationing dominated daily life.

The border between two social systems

But the fact that the Soviet Union had survived was threatening to the capitalist class.

In all the countries liberated by the Red Army from Nazi Germany’s occupation in Eastern Europe workers organizations were attempting to reorganize society. Only by organizing on a non-capitalist basis could they defend their countries from absorption by Western imperialism.

Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had spoken in Missouri in 1946 denouncing this development and labeling it an Iron Curtain dividing Europe. His speech was a rallying cry to wall off all economic trade and technological assistance to the entire region the Red Army had liberated.

Socialism in Western Europe?

Capitalist domination of Western Europe was in question. What was labeled as Soviet expansion, imminent Soviet invasion, the Red Scare (with a media frenzy that matches today’s against Russia), was the growing influence of workers’ movements in Western Europe.

The organized power of the working class and of Communist parties was rapidly growing in national parliaments, city councils and powerful unions in war-torn Western Europe, especially in Italy and France. Communists had been the largest force in resistance to the Nazis during the years of German occupation.

In Greece the Communist Party, who had led the anti-fascist resistance, was openly contending for state power. From 1945 to 1949, U.S. and British active intervention in the Civil War in Greece, equipping and helping to coordinate the weak rightwing and monarchist forces, was crucial for defeating the Greek workers’ movement.

This Civil War helped convince the West European ruling class to follow the U.S. into a continent-wide military organization of the capitalist class.

A security umbrella for capitalism

NATO was understood as a security umbrella of Western European imperialist countries. It had, from its founding, a consolidated command structure, with the U.S. military on top.

U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), was the commander of this new military alliance. U.S.-commanded NATO and the Marshall Plan of U.S. loans and investment funds together stabilized capitalism in Western Europe and assured U.S. corporate domination.

The pre-World War II industrial capacity of much of the world was in ruins. Military security was the essential glue in Western Europe, binding the economic and political dominance of capitalist rule.

For decades NATO and the CIA operated throughout Western Europe, in tandem with the U.S. State Department, disrupting communist-led unions, financing interventions in elections and even using terror attacks against communists and socialist organizations and against the masses.

Operation Gladio was the codename for this ruthless capitalist subversion in Italy, some of which was revealed by Christian Democrat Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990.

Impact of nuclear stalemate

The second event in 1949 that consolidated the NATO military alliance was the Soviet Union’s detonation of an atomic bomb on Aug. 29, years ahead of what U.S. intelligence predicted. President Harry Truman immediately called for a re-evaluation of U.S. policies, as the U.S. could no longer simply threaten to wipe out Soviet cities without consequences.

NATO absorbed Greece and Turkey in 1952. Turkey’s membership in NATO meant that NATO had military control of the Bosporus Straits – the essential navigational waterway from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea – a choke point for the Soviet ports of Odessa and Sevastopol.

It was only after West Germany’s acceptance into NATO that the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in self-defense. The Soviet leaders saw West Germany’s military and industrial leaders as a continuation of the ruling class that backed the Nazis.

World’s largest military

Although the mass U.S. military during World War II had demobilized by 1949, with NATO U.S. troop presence in Europe tripled by 1950 and reached over 450,000 in 1957. In 1987 U.S. troops surged again to 340,000. (Stars and Stripes, March 15)

Today there are 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe. They are 1/35 of the 3.5 million NATO military force, among its 30 members, with another 2 million reservists and paramilitary forces. But U.S. officers still command this alliance – the largest military force in the world under a single command.

NATO has a permanent, integrated military command structure, composed of both military and civilian personnel from all member states. These forces are trained to follow a strict command structure, use the same equipment and deploy to whatever battlefront the U.S. commanders order them to, including Iraq, and Afghanistan. Each country is forced to pay for the maintenance of their own forces. (shape.nato.int)

Cold War leads to bankruptcy

The Cold War was a relentless war of military expenditures calculated to bankrupt the Soviet Union, which had less wealth and which did not exploit subject nations in the Global South.

According to a NATO report, “The Soviet Union was spending three times as much as the United States on defense with an economy that was one-third the size.” (nato.int) This policy of expanding military costs was enormously profitable to U.S. military industries.

The Soviet Union had to match each U.S./NATO escalation. The 1980 U.S. strategy to deploy nuclear-capable Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe aimed at bankrupting the Soviets.

Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative known as “Star Wars,” called for enormous new military expansion. The Soviet Union, starting in the mid-1980s, devoted 15-17% of its gross national product to military spending.

Concessions, enacted with great U.S. and Western applause by Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the Soviet leader in 1985, led to the complete unraveling and dismemberment of the Soviet Union by 1991.

U.S. victory opens endless war

Instead of the Cold War’s end ushering in the promised era of peace and stability, U.S. imperialism, now dominant, opened a new era of endless war and colonial reconquest. The targets were in Eastern Europe and a collapsed Russia, and in the energy-rich southwestern Asia and North Africa.

The Federal Republic of Germany annexed the German Democratic Republic in 1990 and both populations were absorbed into the NATO Alliance. A new era of open capitalist markets meant that major western corporations seized control of socially owned industries and resources in Eastern Europe and Russia.

Any country resisting complete takeover was targeted. Iraq in 1991 and then Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999 were early victims of colonial style reconquest.

The corporate media bragged about the level of destruction of these modern, developed countries that had high levels of education, health care and infrastructure. But since they were countries that had no weapons capable of matching U.S. bombers they were destroyed with impunity. They were to serve as an example to others.

Pentagon document for world domination

What was in store for the world was discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. establishment.

In a 1992 article in Workers World newspaper, then WWP chairperson Sam Marcy wrote: “On March 8,1992, the New York Times published excerpts from a 46-page secret Pentagon draft document, (written by Paul D. Wolfowitz), that it said was leaked by Pentagon officials. This document is truly extraordinary.

“It asserts complete U.S. world domination in both political and military terms, and threatens any other countries that even ‘aspire’ to a greater role. In other words, the U.S. is to be the sole and exclusive superpower on the face of the planet. It is to exercise its power not only in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, but also on the territory of the former Soviet Union….

“‘Our first objective,’ it states, ‘is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. It is of fundamental importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western defense and security, as well as the channel for U.S. influence and participation in European security affairs.’

“But then it adds: ‘While the United States supports the goal of European integration, we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly the alliance’s integrated command structure.’ The latter, of course, is led by the U.S.” https://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sam92/1992html/s920319.htm

April 4 is a day to remember not only the founding of NATO but the famous condemnation of the Vietnam War made by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1967: “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world is my own government. I cannot be silent.”

NATO is the greatest purveyor of violence and we cannot be silent.

Ching Ming Festival April 5 2022 Chinese Traditional Ancestors Annual Tomb Sweeping to pay respects
語譯: 清明時節一直下雨，過路行人因此心情壞透。碰上放牛的小牧童，問他哪裏有酒店，牧童指向遠處的杏花村 。

Live-cast Apr 5 2022 Singtao San Francisco 9:00am Chinese Americans Identity Issues 直播 – 早上九點 美國加州舊金山星島日報時事觀察集結號 ：華人身份認同問題
主持 ：梁建鋒 Joseph Leung
主講 ：王靈智教授 Professor Ling-chi Wang of UC Berkeley
主講 ：劉文貽律師 Edward Liu, Attorney at Law
https://youtu.be/ZXXMZCxGzJg

Can’t do it without help from US! Russia’s balance of payments surplus could hit a historic high this year, amounting to $200-$300 billion, business news outlet RBC reported on Monday. Economists polled by RBC have predicted record capital inflows into the country.

Video: The fake Xinjiang propaganda used by US to demonize China now being recycled in Ukraine. Why Ukraine’s “Bucha Massacre” Story Isn’t Adding Up, even western medias like Washington Post, Reuters & Guardian disputing it 美國重斯故技使用假新疆宣傳妖魔化中國現在正在烏克蘭片地開花. 為什麼烏克蘭的“布查大屠殺”故事缺乏可信性, 甚至華盛頓郵報、路透社和衛報等西方媒體也對此表示質疑

https://rumble.com/vzolx7-ukraines-bucha-massacre-story-isnt-adding-up.html
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/685949149295080/?d=n

The “Bucha Massacre” is being squarely blamed on Russia before any investigation can take place.

Despite no likelihood of a real investigation taking place, there remains the question of why Russia would occupy and live side-by-side Ukrainians in Bucha but kill them during their otherwise orderly withdrawal?

Or why Ukrainian forces who have tortured and killed prisoners of war, deliberatley used the civilian population as shields during combat, and have nationwide tortured and taped its own civilian population to posts for infractions during the war would not immediately see the population of Bucha as “collaborators” and punish them accordingly.

Asia Times: Blowbacks from Ukraine war will be deadly serious – Rampant inflation, a damaged dollar, and the threat of wider conflict are among the perils awaiting the world 《亞洲時報》：烏克蘭戰爭的反彈將是致命的嚴重——通脹猖獗、美元貶值和更廣泛衝突的威脅是等待世界的危險之一 by George Koo 4-4-2022

As the war in Ukraine rolls into its second month, the fog (of war) is beginning to lift and certain troubling conclusions emerge into view. Ominously, some are consequential threats to the future existence of the world as we know it.

It’s increasingly obvious that the war was provoked by the US and that the US has a vested interest in keeping the conflict going. No members of President Joe Biden’s administration talk about ending the war, only about providing more arms for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and to impose more sanctions on Russia.

Biden has declared that the purpose of levying sanctions on top of sanctions on Russia was to inflict pain on the country to the point that the Russian people will revolt and overthrow President Vladimir Putin from power.

As the world has learned from previous experiences of countries that faced the full fury of American wrath, Cuba, Iran and Venezuela to mention a few, sanctions represent a blunt and non-discriminating instrument of torture. The elites of the target nation might feel some pain but innocent civilians, especially women and children, suffer the most from the deprivations resulting from the sanctions.

Rather than turning the people against their leaders, the external cause of pain can become a rallying focus for their leader and turn the resentment toward the perpetrator. Over time, the victimized people learn to make do with less and stiffen their resolve to stand up to the external bully.

Also, in order for any sanction to become a potent weapon, it needs virtually universal support from the community of nations. Thus US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other senior officials have been scurrying around to hector friend and foe alike into joining the sanctions on Russia.

Most not buying the American sanctions

The response has been a great disappointment to Washington. Brazil, India and South Africa have elected to stand by Russia as fellow members of BRICS. Even Mexico has demurred and not joined the American-led sanctions.

A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, was tactless enough to point out that 140 members of the United Nations have not signed on. In other words, more than half of the world’s population is not joining the sanctions on Russia.

Along with oil and natural gas, Russia is a major supplier of wheat and other agricultural products and fertilizers. Prohibition of Russia from participating in the world market will create shortages and inflationary prices.

Not only does Biden expect his American public willingly to bear the economic pain caused by the collateral impact of his sanctions, he also expects the Europeans to go along, notwithstanding that their cost of living will go through the roof.

The European Union depends on Russia for 40% of its natural gas and 27% of its oil. Germany is especially dependent on Russia as its major supplier of energy. One has to wonder how long the EU will squirm under US unilateral foreign policy.

Rampant inflation will lead to civil unrest and tear the European alliance apart. A weakened Europe unable to get along with Russia would minimize the EU’s claim as one of the poles in a multipolar world. Eliminating the EU as a rival happens to fit the White House design to regain world domination.

Even though Biden admits that sanctions do not deter, he freezes Russia’s international reserves. Then he chooses to accentuate the pressure on Putin by ordering the seizure of private property, such as US$100 million yachts, from selected Russian oligarchs, and removing Russia from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) international financial transfer system, in effect removing Russia from global commerce.

After Biden’s announcement, the value of the ruble plummeted through the floor and the US and its allies crowed in delight. Then Putin declared that he would accept payment only in rubles for the sale of Russian natural gas and oil to “unfriendly” countries. Later, he broadened that to include accepting gold for payment at the exchange rate of 5,000 rubles to one gram of gold.

Trust in the dollar eroding

With the linking of the Russian currency to real assets, the world has a choice on whether to trust the ruble or the full faith and backing of the US government on the value of the dollar. Apparently, confidence in the ruble was quickly restored, as the exchange rate against the dollar bounced back to near pre-war level.

The unilateral and arbitrary actions of the Biden administration are raising doubts about the reliability of commitments from the US. India is one example. Not even Japan’s offer (as a proxy for the US) of a $43 billion investment over a five-year period can tempt Prime Minister Narendra Modi into joining the sanctions. Instead, Modi is negotiating a rupees-for-rubles deal for Russian oil.

Even before the war in Ukraine, Russia had struck a deal to supply natural gas and oil to China based on the renminbi. Saudi Arabia has also hedged and agreed to sell oil to China on payment of the yuan instead of the dollar.

Biden’s sanctions on Russia clearly drive home the lesson that no sovereign foreign reserve is safe in the hands of banks in the US or the UK, but is subject to seizure at the whim of the those governments.

The American public may not yet fully appreciate that the one consequential blowback of this is a worldwide loss of confidence in the dollar, a currency not pegged to gold or any real asset and the belief that the US remains a safe place to leave one’s money.

If and when the US is no longer perceived to be a safe place to park a country’s foreign reserve or a tycoon’s private wealth, the dollar will cease to be a reserve currency of any value. The dollar not being worth the paper it is printed on will lead to the collapse of the US economy, which can be directly blamed on Biden’s folly.

China works on negotiation to peace

While the mainstream media in the West focused on Putin’s naked incursion into Ukraine, there were some that documented the step-by-step aggression of the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that led to war. The alleged motive for the aggression was to provoke Russia into a war. The war was to bleed and weaken Russia into a pushover state for the US.

Small wonder then that when Blinken asked China to join the sanctions on Russia, he got a polite but blank stare. He must have assumed the Chinese were too stupid to understand that after the collapse of Russia, China would be next in Uncle Sam’s gunsight.

In contrast with Biden’s foreign policy, Chinese President Xi Jinping contacted Putin on the day after the Russian incursion into Ukraine to propose commencing negotiations with Ukraine for a peaceful settlement.

Distinct from the US, the UK and NATO, China has been quietly working with France and Germany to promote a negotiation process that would lead to peace. The most recent meeting held in Istanbul was the fourth in a series of parleys to discuss a ceasefire. As host, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been following and reporting on the progress of the negotiations.

Despite Western media accusations of genocide and war atrocities, Putin has apparently been careful to limit civilian casualties. As former ambassador and US official Chas Freeman has pointed out, the ratio of civilian casualties from the Ukraine conflict to military casualties has been one-tenth of that normally found in a typical war.

Newsweek reported a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst as saying, “I know that the news keeps repeating that Putin is targeting civilians, but there is no evidence that Russia is intentionally doing so. In fact, I’d say that Russian could be killing thousands more civilians if it wanted to.”

Yet Blinken had the temerity of wanting to charge Putin with war crimes without any sense of irony. So far, no one has accused Putin of indiscriminate carpet-bombing, drone strikes on wedding parties or waterboarding of prisoners of war. All are war crimes that Americans could have been charged with but have not.

Another indicator that Putin’s objective in Ukraine was to reach a negotiated settlement was the report that the Russian military had agreed to release the mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Slavutych in exchange for removing arms within the city and for the Russian soldiers to leave. Hardly the action of anyone planning on a long-term occupation.

One media source reported that prior to the breakout of hostilities, Moscow had submitted a draft proposal for a new mutual security treaty between Russia and NATO, with nine articles to be negotiated. But the Biden administration brushed off Russia’s entire proposal as a non-starter, not even a basis for negotiations.

Given the Biden administration’s attitude about extending the conflict for as long as possible, it would be reasonable to speculate, as the two parties approach a peaceful settlement, whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could run the risk of assassination by either a radical Nazi hit squad from within or by an outside CIA sniper.

Kinzhal the dagger

To show Russia is no mere paper tiger, it fired a hypersonic missile, which it calls Kinzhal, from the Black Sea across Ukraine that penetrated and exploded in an underground arms and munition depot in Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine. This depot was supposed to be hardened to resist a direct hit by a nuclear blast.

The Kinzhal, Russian for “dagger,” is an air-to-surface missile that the Russian military claims can travel at more than 10 times the speed of sound and has a range of 1,930 kilometers. One reason for firing the missile was to tell the Pentagon that it had greatly underestimated Russia’s capability.

As the publishers of Asia Times have written (Biden’s living a dangerous fantasy), Putin has repeatedly warned the US that the Russian bear will not be cattle-prodded into a corner but will pre-emptively launch the first nuclear strike if baited.

Apparently, the Biden administration is not ready to back down and lose face. Thus the second consequential blowback from Ukraine is America’s evident willingness to collide with Russia at full tilt, even risking a worldwide nuclear holocaust.

If the US does not succeed in knocking Russia back to the Stone Age, then what will Biden do with China?

First, the US can continue to pressure China with the threat of sanctions. However, if sanctions will not cause Russia to bend to America’s will, China is even less likely to feel intimidated.

After the financial crisis of 2008, China could see the shakiness of the dollar – a currency that depended on quantitative easing, that is, on the US Federal Reserve’s printing press running wild – and began to enter currency swap agreements with other countries. A swap agreement allows two trading partners to pay each other in their own currency and not have to settle in dollars. At last count, 40 countries have such agreements in place with China.

Since China has become the leading trading partner of virtually every nation in the world, the US is even less likely to find many interested in joining any American boycott of doing business with China, were the US foolish enough to try.

China counters US sanctions on Xinjiang

But sure enough, the Biden administration has tried, by banning the import of cotton from Xinjiang. In response, China has mandated that all face masks for export must be made with cotton from Xinjiang.

Biden has also forbidden the import of any products made in Xinjiang. In response, China has consolidated all its rare-earth mining companies into one holding company and registered it in Xinjiang.

The US can probably get along without masks from China but will find it a real challenge without rare-earth metals and minerals. There’s a Chinese saying: “For every ploy, there is (always) a counter.”

Second, the skill level of Biden’s team of diplomats is no match for China. When Blinken and company come calling, their message has been a consistent one: Follow our lead or else we will subject you to sanctions beyond your imagination. Nothing subtle or nuanced in their message, nor any offer of incentive to go along, just arrogance.

Chinese diplomats do not go around threatening military action or sanctions. They offer collaboration in the spirit of their Belt and Road Initiative. China’s recent interaction with India comes to mind.

On the eve of a scheduled visit to India by a UK delegation led by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also came calling. The UK group intended to lecture their former colony on the need to join the sanctions against Russia. Instead, the Indian government abruptly canceled the UK visit, but welcomed the visit by Wang.

Wang went to India to indicate that the two nations’ border dispute can be resolved amicably and pale in importance compared with the need to unite and stand up to the hegemony of US/UK/NATO. India, having had a full dose of the Pentagon’s insulting arrogance, listened.

Both Russia and India have tried to integrate with the West and failed. Now it’s time to look east and align with East and Central Asia.

If the threat of sanctions against Beijing rings hollow, could the Biden administration replace Ukraine with Taiwan to push China into war over the island?

Many in the mainstream media have suggested that pushing Russia to invade Ukraine was a dress rehearsal for doing the same with China, namely getting China to invade Taiwan.

Is Taiwan China’s Ukraine?

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and others have suggested that the sure way to provoke China into war was officially to declare recognition of Taiwan as an independent and sovereign nation.

Such a declaration would be to ignore the one-China principle that Taiwan is part of China and would violate China’s sovereignty and international rule and order. Of course, trampling on established international order has never bothered the US. The only order that the US respects is the set of rules set by the US.

For certain, such open support for Taiwan’s independence would raise the tension between the US and China by orders of magnitude. But to light the spark of conflict, Washington would have to persuade Taipei to initiate military hostility.

According to a poll taken in Taiwan recently, after witnessing how the US provoked the Russian incursion into Ukraine and then watched the war on the sidelines, only one-third of Taiwanese are confident they will receive direct US military support in the event of a Chinese invasion. One in six fears they will have to fight alone. This represents a sharp decline by almost half from a survey taken six months earlier.

Hard to imagine that the people in Taiwan would want to see their island turn into another Ukraine.

China also claims to own hypersonic weapons, but we have not seen a demonstration of the capability of its version of a “Chinese dagger.” But we do know that China is developing carriers on high-speed rail to keep its nuclear missiles on the move.

The idea of moving the nukes on China’s high-speed rail network is similar to putting nukes in submarines. Namely, keep them moving to raise the likelihood of surviving a surprise attack and retain the ability to strike back. Unlike Putin, China is not ready to depart from its long-standing policy on “no first use” but will endeavor to keeping its sting potent.

The American public must wake up to full realization that the third consequential blowback is the willingness of the political leaders in Washington to risk nuclear war in order to assert hegemonic superiority over China and the world.

The Chinese have a saying, hui tou shi an (回头是岸), meaning “turn your head to see the shore.” In order to turn America back to the direction of peace, the American voters must be alert to the danger the world is confronting and exercise their rights to vote the rascals out. That means all of them, regardless of their party affiliation, so long as they yearn for war.

We stand at a dangerous junction in history. Let us hope the world will live to see a brighter tomorrow.

George Koo retired from a global advisory services firm where he advised clients on their China strategies and business operations. Educated at MIT, Stevens Institute and Santa Clara University, he is the founder and former managing director of International Strategic Alliances. He is currently a board member of Freschfield’s, a novel green building platform.

Weekly review video – India’s anti-dollar hegemony, de-dollarization accelerates, and US’s China containment QUAD is on the verge of collapse 一周对策 – 印度反美元霸權 – 去美元化加速 – 美國反中聯盟QUAD瀕臨崩解
https://rumble.com/vzmewq-uss-china-containment-quad-is-on-the-verge-of-collapse.html
https://www.facebook.com/100036400039778/posts/685652385991423/?d=n

Germany, EU & 99% Americans are paying high price on US sanction on Russia while the 1% US elites, Military Industrial Complex and Oil Related Companies are laughing to the bank everyday! Aldi (Albrecht Discounters) is a large European food retail chain. It has 10,000 stores in 20 Countries. In the US, Aldi owns Trader Joe’s. They have just announced massive price increases of 20-50% due to the Ukraine war and sanctions on Monday. 德國, 歐盟和99%美國人為美國對俄羅斯的製裁付出了高昂的代價，而1%的美國精英、軍工企業和石油相關公司每天都在向銀行開懷大笑！Aldi 是一家大型的歐洲食品零售連鎖店. 它在20個國家/地區擁有10,000 家門店. 在美國，Aldi 擁有 Trader Joe’s. 由於戰爭和製裁, 他們剛剛宣布週一大幅提高價格20-50% Apr 2 2022

The discounter Aldi is planning massive price increases. Meat, sausage and dairy products should be sold from Monday, April 4th. become “significantly more expensive”, confirmed the group of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ). According to the newspaper, a surcharge of around 30 percent is planned for butter. The companies from Mülheim and Essen justify the price increases with the exploding costs on the producer side, especially for wheat, energy and animal feed in the course of the Ukraine war.

Price jumps that have never happened before
“Due to the situation on the world markets, we will experience jumps in sales prices that have never happened before,” Florian Scholbeck, Managing Director of Communications at Aldi Nord, announced to the WAZ. As the largest German discounter, Aldi is traditionally considered the price leader in the industry. The two sister companies Aldi Süd and Aldi Nord from Mülheim and Essen therefore expect that the entire food retail trade will follow suit.

Aldi does not want to give exact figures. According to WAZ information, however, the group assumes that the purchase prices for groceries could become between 20 and 50 percent more expensive in the next few weeks. The Munich ifo Institute published a survey on Thursday, according to which 94 percent of food retailers in Germany want to increase their prices.

The background is the growing cost pressure on the part of the producers, which Aldi is also feeling. “Wheat and animal feed are currently the number one price drivers for agriculture,” emphasized Erik Döbele, national purchasing manager at Aldi Süd. Ukraine and Russia are important wheat suppliers for the world market. Because of the war, there is currently a lack of supplies. Because feed for the animals is scarce, fewer pigs, cattle and above all chickens are raised.

“There will be no empty shelves”
Despite the tense situation, Aldi warns against scaremongering. “There will be no empty shelves,” says Managing Director Scholbeck. Due to the still disrupted supply chains, there could be temporary bottlenecks for some products. “If toilet paper is missing today, it will be back tomorrow,” says Scholbeck.

However, Aldi does not plan to ration flour or cooking oil. “We are sticking to our principle of selling items in normal household quantities,” explained chief buyer Döbele. The discounter rival Lidl, which has also extended the restriction to canned goods, also relies on this model. “The supply of goods in the branches at Lidl is basically guaranteed. Delivery delays can only occur for individual products,” said the company on request. Lidl did not want to comment on possible price increases.

Aldi is convinced that it is better prepared for the crisis with an uncertain outcome than supermarkets with staff-intensive service counters or hypermarkets with huge sales areas. “Aldi will remain the price leader. Because of their simple structures, discounters are better positioned than full-range retailers. That’s why we won’t have to increase sales prices as much as supermarkets and specialist retailers,” explained Scholbeck.

https://www.rtl.de/cms/massive-preiserhoehungen-bei-aldi-fleisch-wurst-und-milcherzeugnisse-werden-ab-montag-teurer-4946368.html

https://www.rtl.de/cms/massive-preiserhoehungen-bei-aldi-fleisch-wurst-und-milcherzeugnisse-werden-ab-montag-teurer-4946368.html

China Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian mocks US demand: Beijing posted a cartoon suggesting Washington wants to bulldoze Beijing into taking its side on Ukraine 中國外交部發言人趙立堅嘲諷美國要求：北京發布漫畫暗示華盛頓想推倒北京，讓北京站在烏克蘭一邊