REFLECTIONS ON wHITE IMPERIALIST REACTION TO CHINESE LEADERSHIP CHANGE

President Hu Jintao at Communist Party Congress 2012

How will China confront next ten years of white imperialist onslaught?

Sukant Chandan
Sons of Malcolm
14 Nov 2012

Here below we can see an overview of the Chinese Communist and State leadership handover by one of the more thinking but right-wing media outlets of the british white power structure.

The west in general on the one hand is not happy at all with outgoing President Hu Jintao leaving the leadership with a clear left-ward rhetoric and strategy:

In a valedictory state of the nation address after a decade in power - called "Firmly march on the path of Socialism" and delivered beneath a huge hammer and sickle - he insisted that "public ownership is the mainstay of the economic system" and warned that the party must "resolutely not follow Western political systems".

The language was peppered with anti-reform code words and pointed references to "Mao Zedong Thought", as well as a warning not to fall into "wicked ways".

And speculates as to the 'reformers' - meaning those who seek to take China in a direction of liberal and western style capitalist reforms (let's call it 'white capitalism', which is very different from East Asian capitalist countries mainly in the role of the state towards the economy) - are being sidelined:


Mr Hu’s speech reflects a complex power-struggle behind the scenes as hardliners - some linked to former leader Jiang Zemin - reassert control, forcing the outgoing leader to change his message.

The ideological manouvering have profound implications as 70pc of top cadres in the party and the Chinese military retire, the most sweeping hand-over of power since the revolution in 1949.

Reformers have been left in deep confusion. The incoming premier Li Keqiang - a Hu protegee - was a key sponsor of the World Bank/DRC report. He offered his "unwavering support" for the findings at the time. It is unclear where he now stands.

As delegates scrutinised the seating arrangements, they spotted at once that leading reformer Wang Yang had been banished to the margins.



President Hu Jintao at the Congress address makes it clear that western-style reforms will create fundamental dangers to anti-imperialist and socialist China. These are quite clear and forthright words from Hu on this issue, which is interesting, however it is far from decided which way the party and state leadership will take China, as the white capitalist oriented leaders have been getting a lot of space in the leadership with the world bank/China development research council, which called for further white capitalist reforms, getting air time in the leadership.

However, to a large extent whatever happens internally to China is not the business of anyone apart from the people of China. From an anti-imperialist internationalist point of view however, China turning towards white capitalism will and does endanger the very nature of he Chinese anti-imperialist state, and China falling in a Arab spring type white imperialist operation would be a major blow to the world struggle for independence against imperialism on a massive historic level.

This again is reported in this article and quotes President Hu on this regard:

Mr Hu - a self-effacing, austere figure known for his theme of "social harmony" - said the growing gap between rich and poor is leading to social contraditions" and warned than unchecked corruption had become a mortal threat.


"If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state. We must thus make unremitting efforts to combat corruption."


Plain words there.

President Hu has also stated previously and correctly that the offensive of white imperialist cultural attack on China is a major and fundamental arena of defending Chinese socialism and anti-imperialism:

"We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond,"

China and allied countries who are under the same onslaught, an onslaught which is probably the most important issue for our peoples to confront, resist and defeat, could easily launch an international campaign and smash this genocidal cultural offensive of white imperialism. But there is no sign whatsoever of this, and one can only but be confused as to why the Chinese leadership would state such a correct thing as Hu has, but seems to do nothing and its own Chinese independence is whittled away every hour and every second by white imperialist cultural offensives.

Interestingly there is very little in terms of China's internationalist strategy apart from importantly quoting Hu in developing China's maritime capability to face white imperialism's "pivot to Asia" which is a military containment police against China:


For geo-strategists, the bombshell was his call to "build China into a maritime power" to match its economic clout. Even clearer was Wu Xiaoguang, a delegate at the congress and the chief designer of China’s first aricraft carrier the Liaoning.

"The number of aircraft carriers a country has is linked with the pursuit of its national interests. What I can tell you is that the Liaoning is only just the beginning," he said.


Hardly a "bomb shell", just a very basic and simple approach to national self defence against the most vicious and violent white imperialist world presence, especially with the usa armed bases developing around the world, nato, etc.

While China is gradually building up its defences, anti-imperialist internationalism is not raised much in the reporting on the Congress, and although China has finally taken elemental steps of anti-imperialism by blocking white imperialism at the united nations on Zimbabwe and now Syria, China along with the rest of the GlobalSouth seems to lack the political will to lead a en effective and victory oriented anti--imperialist approach. The nato operation on Libya and the subsequent brits, yanks, and french recolonisation drive on Africa, as as such the whole GlobalSouth, in indicative of the absence of anti-imperialist political leadership in China and in the general GlobalSouth.

But all in all, China remains perhaps the most important anti-imperialist as well as socialist country for internationalists to support, as not only is it an example of a former colonised country 'standing up' and a marvel to the whole world, but is also the most important, despite its limitations, anti-imperialist country and bulwark in the world.

All in all I would agree with the summation of this Congress and President Hu's leadership of the last ten years with the world of an old brother of mine:

Farewell to Hu Jintao. His decade as premier has seen the People's Republic grow beyond expectations, lives transformed, millions lifted from poverty and a rate of growth and modernisation that has astounded the world and confounded critics. But also many old problems persisted, some deepened, and new ones have developed.

The next generation of leaders have much to live up to, and many deep problems and contradictions of development still to resolve. But China continues of its forward march and Hu will be remembered in balance as a good leader who did good things and helped not only keep Chairman Mao's declaration on the founding of the PRC, that "The Chinese people have stood up" but overseen the Chinese people charging forward with confidence and pride.

And finally, of President Hu himself who said on thurs 08 Nov 2012:

"The Scientific Outlook on Development was proposed by the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2003, against the backdrop of rapid economic growth and a series of problems including excessive consumption of resources, serious environmental pollution and a widening gap between the rich and poor.

The concept has championed people's interests and advocated comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. At the Party' s 17th National Congress, the concept was written into the CPC Constitution.

Over the past ten years, China's economy has risen from the sixth to the second place in the world. Its economic, scientific and technological strength have increased considerably. Its overall national strength and international competitiveness and influence have also been enhanced substantially.

Hu said these historic successes are attributable to the correct guidance of the Party's basic theory, line, program and experience.

The Scientific Outlook on Development was created by integrating Marxism with the reality of contemporary China and with the underlying features of our times, and it fully embodies the Marxist worldview on and methodology for development, he said."


Long live socialist and anti-imperialist China.

For China to play a more assertive socialist and anti-imperialist internationalist role in our world struggle.


related links:
Huey Newton on China
Malcolm X on China
Friends of China

HOW WILL nATO RESPOND TO CHINA, RUSSIA DEVELOPING LINKS WITH AFGHANISTAN?

Afghanistan being admitted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as observers is a positive move for peace in the region. Afghanistan's only chance of any semblance of stability, territorial integrity and people-centred development is for it to escape the clutches of the imperialists and develop positive relations with its regional neighbours.

But this is exactly what nato fears, and nato is frantically trying to cajole and bribe and prepare the Taliban and other factions in Afghanistan for continued war against the SCO countries once nato draws down its occupation by 2014.


The negotiations with the Taliban and nato are, one can be sure, around exactly these issues. The fact that nato has opened a Taliban office in one of the most slavish statelets - Qatar (also host to the yanks biggest military base in the region) - shows the bribery that is taking place towards the Taliban.


It remains to be seen what splits will occur if any amongst the Taliban, perhaps some elements of the Taliban will not want to do the bidding of the west, but if the Arab revolts are anything to go by, one cannot be sure, but on the other hand perhaps the Afghan patriots can prove they are not slaves like so many Arab organisations currently in the nato-managed counterrevolution going on in Libya and Syria today.

At the same time, one can be sure that the SCO countries are also in negotiation with all sections of the Afghan political spectrum, including those who have and are fighting nato, and Russia like nato has a long history of involvement in Afghanistan, and will have learnt all manner of lessons in order to defend Afghanistan and itself for nato aggression and dirty tricks.

In the article below you can already see the imperialist reflex to divide and rule when the article plays up some wishful thinking divisions between the Russians and Chinese on Afghanistan:

"Moscow also has offered generous assistance to rehabilitate Soviet-era dams and power stations and is exploring natural gas exploitation and infrastructure contracts — putting it on a potential collision course with China."

There is no sign for the time being that China and Russia are on any kind of collision course about any issue of politics, let alone Afghanistan. But our side in the Global South should be constantly aware and assertively counteracting divide and rule strategy and tactics of our enemy.

Watch this space, as we may yet see a even more intense re-run of the war in Afghanistan if nato gets its way. On the other hand, one hopes that the SCO and other nations of the Global South can help Afghanistan to fend off the imperialists and finally start nation building.

Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm


Central Asia group admits Afghanistan as observer

[source]

BEIJING –  China, Russia and four Central Asian states granted Afghanistan observer status in their regional group Thursday, moving to consolidate ties with the impoverished, war-torn nation before most foreign combat troops depart by the end of 2014.

Chinese President Hu Jintao announced the plan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's annual summit in Beijing.

Russia and China have long seen the six-nation group as a way to counter U.S. influence in Central Asia, and hope to play a significant role in Afghanistan's future development, especially in economic reconstruction. Granting Afghanistan observer status will strengthen their contacts, something Beijing and Moscow hope will dilute U.S. influence and more closely align Kabul's policies with their own aims.

The SCO also recommitted itself to closer security and economic ties and to combating drug trafficking, extremism and terrorism.

"All the member states should implement the agreement on striking the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Hu told other leaders at a morning session. "We should establish and improve a system of cooperation in security and take coordinative actions to narrow the space of activities of the three forces, get rid of drug deals and other organized cross-border criminal activities."

Afghanistan, whose president, Hamid Karzai, attended the summit, joins India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as SCO observer states. The group also admitted Turkey as one of its three dialogue partners.

Granting observer status aims to strengthen "political, economic and civilian cooperation between the SCO states and Afghanistan," Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told reporters.

Underscoring China's growing economic dominance in Central Asia, Hu opened the summit by saying China would offer a $10 billion loan to support economic development and cooperation among SCO member states. No details were immediately given on how the money would be used.

Despite the warming political ties, the SCO has yet to declare a unified strategy on Afghanistan and shows little sign of filling the void left by the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces.

Already, Russia and fellow SCO member nations Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are doing their part to ensure an orderly NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, having agreed to allow the reverse transport of alliance equipment after Pakistan shut down southern supply routes six months ago.

The fourth Central Asian member of the SCO is Tajikistan.

The NATO pullout will also prompt the end of military operations out of Kyrgyzstan's Manas air base, fulfilling China and Russia's oft-stated opposition to a permanent U.S. presence in Central Asia.

While the SCO's security plans in Afghanistan remain unclear, economic outreach looks set to lead the way.

Firms from China — the world's second-largest economy — already have moved into Afghanistan, where officials hope that vast untapped mineral deposits will help offset the loss of foreign aid once foreign troops withdraw. China shares a small stretch of border with Afghanistan.

The U.S. Defense Department has estimated the value of Afghanistan's mineral reserves at $1 trillion. Other estimates have pegged it at $3 trillion or more.

In December, China's state-owned National Petroleum Corp. signed a deal allowing it to become the first foreign company to exploit Afghanistan's oil and natural gas reserves. That comes three years after the China Metallurgical Construction Co. signed a contract to develop the Aynak copper mine in Logar province. Beijing's $3.5 billion stake in the mine is the largest foreign investment in Afghanistan.

China's government has also helped train and equip some security units and government offices, invested in infrastructure, healthcare and education, and offered scholarships to Afghan students.

Russia, which lost nearly 15,000 troops in its disastrous 1979-1989 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, appears keen to recover some of its lost influence there. A key concern for Moscow is stemming the flow of heroin into Russia, to be met by increased intelligence work in the country and bolstered border security in surrounding states.

Moscow also has offered generous assistance to rehabilitate Soviet-era dams and power stations and is exploring natural gas exploitation and infrastructure contracts — putting it on a potential collision course with China.

THE RISE OF A NON-eMPIRE EURASIA - THE SHANGHAI COOPERATION ORGANISATION

China summit seen as counterpunch to US moves

[source]

BEIJING – Will an international summit hosted by China that includes major “movers and shakers” in Asia, including Iran, Russia, India and Afghanistan, lead to an eastern version of NATO?

“Absolutely not,” Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told NBC News.

Cheng was speaking at a media event as some 16 heads of state and top officials, representing more than half of the world’s population, have gathered as members, observers and dialogue partners of the innocuous-sounding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an economic and anti-terrorist security bloc initiated by China and Russia in 2001.

The meeting comes as China’s rising profile has raised questions about a possible power struggle between the U.S. and Beijing, with the recent Asia tour of U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta highlighting America’s effort to strengthen military alliances and partnerships in the region.

And as a sign of efforts to dilute U.S. influence, the summit granted observer status to Afghanistan on Thursday, a move should position China and the bloc to cultivate ties and play a greater role in the impoverished war-torn country even before NATO ends its military mission by 2014.

Already, Chinese firms have moved into Afghanistan, with designs on the country’s untapped trillion-dollar mineral and energy resources.

Granting observer status and inviting Afghan President Hamid Karzai will help to strengthen “political, economic and civilian cooperation between the SCO states and Afghanistan,” said Cheng at the media event.


“No military alliance” but…

When NBC News asked Cheng if the Shanghai Cooperation Organization would become an “eastern NATO” or a military alliance in the future, he very firmly downplayed the possibility.

“The main purpose is politics, economics and security and under no circumstances will the SCO become a military organization,” he said..

“But I personally think that, as the international environment becomes more complex, the SCO should enhance its cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), for the sake of peace and stability in Central Asia,” he added.

It’s extremely rare for Chinese senior diplomats to offer their personal views to foreign media, and Cheng’s pronouncements may be China’s trial-balloon for new security thinking.

The Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which China is not a member, is a defense alliance formed in 1992 by Russia and former Soviet Republics, which Russia has been trying to reinvigorate in recent years, with stronger military contingents to counter the “eastward expansion of NATO,” among other threats.

By using the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a vehicle to coordinate closely with the Collective Security Treaty Organization, China may be hoping to benefit from stronger military ties with Russia, while avoiding the pitfalls of a formal military alignment.

“It is my personal view,” Vice-Minister Cheng emphasized to NBC News, “but I will try to push for it."

“The peace and stability of Central Asia is related to China’s core interests, we will not allow the unrest in West Asia and North Africa to spread to Central Asia,” he said, referring to the threat of Arab-style upheavals.


America should not worry

“I don’t think America should worry about China’s Central Asia strategy,” said Professor Shi Yinhong, a leading international affairs expert at Renmin University, one of China’s top research institutions.

“There is no possibility for SCO to become a formal military alliance like NATO, but there can be greater security cooperation among SCO’s member-countries,” he told NBC News.

Nonetheless, Shi conceded there are “some elements" of counter-balancing strategy in China’s latest moves.

“China has neither the stomach nor the power to confront America’s strategic advantage in East
Asia, but China has the capability to improve cooperation in Central Asia,” he said.

“China’s difficulty in East Asia is a motivation for China to do good diplomacy in Central Asia, otherwise things will become very difficult for China,” he explained.

INDIA WONT GO ALONG WITH uSA ON CHINA, BUT STILL THERE ARE OUTSTANDING ISSUES

Chinese experts say India will not ally with US against Beijing

[source]

BEIJING: Chinese analysts say that US efforts to make India part of its alliance against China will not succeed India pursued independent foreign policy focusing on its national interests.

US defence secretary Leon Panetta's visit to New Delhi is as part of Washington's efforts to make it part of alliance against Beijing but India's interest lie with Beijing, Wang Dehua, a specialist on South Asia studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies said.

"It seems that the US is sparing no efforts in forging a semi-circle of alliance against China from the South" as Panetta has attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore and afterward visited Vietnam and India, Wang, a specialist on South Asia told state-run Global Times which carried an article highlighting Panetta's visit to New Delhi.

"But India has its own agenda in the region," Wang said noting that India wants to be independent in making its own foreign policies while maximising its national interests.

"For example, India has refrained from becoming deeply involved in the South China Sea rows because it viewed any friction with China as being against its fundamental national interests," Wang said.

"India's interests lie in wider economic and cultural cooperation with China. This is China's opportunity to break up the US intention to contain China," Wang said.

Recent write-ups in the Chinese media were consistent with expectations that India would remain independent.

Another article in the Chinese version of the Global Times said that China should would work to improve bilateral ties with "clear goals" to strengthen friendship taking into consideration New Delhi's independent foreign policy and its recent decision to pull out of South China Sea oil blocks exploration.

"For a long time, India has not figured as an important centre of Chinese foreign policy and China has not decided on a clear goal in its India policy", the write up published in Huanqiu Shibao, the Chinese version of the hardline Global Times daily run by the ruling Communist Party of China, (CPC) said two days ago.

"Now, the activity of the Indian military in the Indian Ocean has increased and the Indian Navy is also sailing more and more towards the east, lack of mutual trust may lead to both sides adopting a mistaken strategy. China should have clear strategic goals towards India", it said.

INDIA REFUSES MILITARY ALLIANCE WITH uSA

CNTV

Prior to his visit to Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was in India seeking a stronger defense partnership. India however has not obliged. Going with the non-alignment policy that the country has followed for decades, India says discussions are the only way forward.

When Leon Panetta call calling to New Delhi, everyone knew this won't be easy for India. With years of defense relationship, which has been mired by suspicion because of Pakistan, everyone wondered if India would bite the bullet of having a defense partnership with US in the Asia Pacific but that was not to be. Leon Panetta though made the reason for his visit to India very clear.

Leon Panetta, US Defense Secretary, said, "Today, we have growing economic, social and diplomatic ties that benefit both of our nations, but for this relationship to truly provide security for this region and for the world, we will need to deepen our defense and security cooperation. This is why I have come to India."

India was the last country on Leon Panetta's Asia trip. At the start of the trip he had promised to enhance US presence in the Asia Pacific region. The change in strategy is being seen as an effort by United States to counter China’s dominance in the region but India has long resisted any military cooperation. Even if US and India are on the way warmer than earlier, but India is not ready for an alliance.

India is part of United States strategic shift towards Asia Pacific but India is treading every step cautiously and sticking with its non-alignment policy. Despite no agreement on a defense alliance, Leon Panetta said India's role in security in Asia is important and this includes Afghanistan.

Leon Panetta also said, "I urge India's leaders to continue with additional support to Afghanistan through trade, investment, reconstruction and help for Afghan security forces"

Leon Panetta met the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan singh, National security adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and defense minister AK Antony. Talks include defense issues and also remain of US troops killed in air crashes over north-eastern India during World War II. It was last year when US president Barack Obama called Asia-pacific region a top priorirty in its security policy but this trip was putting that policy into practice.

uSA STANDS WITH PHILIPPINES IN RIFT WITH CHINA

The usa has made it publicly clear it is stepping up its containment and regime change war policies in relation to China for some months now. China is working on developing positive and mutually beneficial relations with its Asian neighbours, this is not however proceeding as well as it should in all places. Of particular concern are Sino-Vietnamese relations, although Vietnam has seen China being its historical coloniser, the socialist nature of both countries, and their shared experience of imperialist aggression should provide some of the basis for a strategic unity. This is not yet quite happening. The Phillipines on the other hand is an old reactionary ally of the usa, and important to its hegemonic strategy.

Sukant Chandan, Friends of China


Obama Expresses Support for Philippines in China Rift

[source]

WASHINGTON - A festering quarrel that began over rare coral, giant clams and sharks in a distant sea made its way to the Oval Office on Friday, as President Benigno S. Aquino III of the Philippines sought the backing of President Obama in a maritime dispute with China.

The Philippines and China have been locked in a tense standoff for two months over rights to a triangular cluster of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea known as Scarborough Shoal. While Mr. Aquino said he did not want to drag the United States into the conflict, he clearly hoped for Mr. Obama's diplomatic support.

And he got it, if obliquely, on Friday. Mr. Obama told reporters after the meeting with Mr. Aquino that the United States and the Philippines would "consult closely together" as part of "the announced pivot by the United States back to Asia," which he said should serve as a reminder that "in fact, the United States considers itself, and is, a Pacific power."

Mr. Obama did not mention China or the standoff at Scarborough Shoal, but he said that he and Mr. Aquino discussed the need for "a strong set of international norms and rules governing maritime disputes in the region."

Still, his message was aimed at China, which has asserted sweeping claims over the South China Sea, touching off disputes with several other countries that border the sea. The Obama administration has countered China's muscle-flexing by shoring up alliances with old partners like the Philippines and Australia and cultivating ties with new ones like Myanmar.

In the case of the Philippines, that has included American help in upgrading aging military equipment to improve its ability to defend itself, as well as a Philippine agreement to allow more American troops and ships to rotate through the country, though not to re-establish Americans bases there.

But critics of any United States' military presence said they feared the Friday meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Aquino would lead to the stationing of American forces in the Philippines without the formal opening of a base. "Aquino is single-handedly reversing the gains from the removal of the U.S. military bases 20 years ago," Renato Reyes, secretary general of the left-leaning group Bayan Muna, said in a statement on Friday. "His foreign policy allows the permanent and continuing presence of U.S. troops all over the country."

The last United States military base in the Philippines closed in 1992, but Walden Bello, a Philippines congressman, said the current military agreement between the two countries has a lot of loopholes. "The Americans are allowed joint exercises, but they are in a state of constant exercise," he said. "We have rotating American forces on a permanent basis."

Mr. Aquino also received an expression of support from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a lunch on Friday. She reiterated that the United States had an interest in the "maintenance of peace and stability" and "freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea. She encouraged Mr. Aquino to resolve the dispute with Beijing peacefully, and she warned that the United States would oppose "the use of force or coercion."

After steering clear of the issue for years, the United States has recently urged China and its neighbors to work out a mechanism for resolving disputes over the sea. Beijing has rejected American involvement, saying, in the words of Gen. Ma Xiaotian, the deputy chief of general staff of the People's Liberation Army, that "the South China issue is not America's business."

Mr. Aquino - the son of a former Philippine president, Corazon C. Aquino, and the slain opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. - thanked Mr. Obama for his expression of support. On Thursday, Mr. Aquino told an audience that the Philippine government was engaged in a dialogue with China to find a way to resolve the dispute. "It is not our intention to embroil the United States in a military intervention in our region," he said.

The dispute could put the United States in an awkward position, because of the mutual defense treaty it has maintained with the Philippines for 60 years. But American officials said that neither side was likely to invoke the treaty in this case because Manila's confrontation with Beijing is over disputed territory.

Bonnie Glaser, an expert in Asian security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Philippine officials were not happy with the mixed signals they got from Washington in a recent meeting of the two countries' defense and foreign ministers.

Some experts said that whatever the legitimacy of its claims, the Philippines was to blame for provoking the standoff. It started when the Philippines sent a frigate to board Chinese fishing boats near the shoal, which is called Panatag in the Philippines and Huangyan in China. Philippine officials said they found illegally harvested corals, clams and live sharks on the boats. China then sent two surveillance ships.

"We could have a long-term problem with China in the South China Sea," said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former adviser to Mr. Obama on China policy. "The Filipinos did not contribute to solving the long-term problem by falling into a short-term confrontation with the Chinese, in a bid to quickly resolve an unresolvable territorial issue."

The immediate threat of conflict has ebbed with both sides pulling back their ships. Still, Mr. Aquino's visit was a reminder that countries in the region will increasingly turn to America to help them face down China.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who just returned from a tour of Southeast Asia, told reporters that the Philippine military needed help to defend the country's waters because it has been focused on fighting a radical insurgency. "We think that they need some of that, particularly in maritime security," he said.

CHINESE NEWS SITE SLAPS DOWN uSA MISSILE DEFENCE PLANS IN ASIA

China in no mood for usa war moves against it
Sukant Chandan,
Friends of China

A great and even militant anti-imperialist piece from the official Chinese news site Global Times on the renewed usa plans to encircle China under the pretence of a 'missile defence shield' against north Korea and Iran.

This article pulls few punches. It states clearly that China should assertively oppose these new aggressive plas, and that there will be grim consequences for those the usa and the nations supporting the missile plans.

The piece criticises "the pessimistic view" from those who state that China can do little against usa plans. While it makes clear that China does not want this escalation "but it will have to deal with it if the arms race happens." The kind of self-defensive fighting talk that inspired Malcolm X and the Black Panthers to see socialist China as a vanguard struggle against white supremacy and empire.

One can feel a moment of breathing space for the Global South after the veto at the UNSC by China and Russia on Syria. From the time of the no fly zone resolution against Libya at the UNSC a year ago the Global South has been subject to a massive offensive for recolonisation of the Global South, with provocations across the continents. With China and especially Russia making it clear to the empire that they will not allow Syria to fall, the western war machine has been forced to slow down for a short while.

Russia and China have allowed the Global South, including themselves, a bit of space to develop as fast as they can their defence capabilities against empire's provocations for the defence of themselves and each other. It should always be  remembered that until empire is a museum piece, there is only one language that empire truly understands, and that is force and strategies for defensive liberation war which will defeat it.

It is pieces like this from Global Times that helps to give leadership to oppose the empire's war plans for a major part of the planet. It is this type of open anti-imperialist defence approach which will raise peoples and nations militancy to a more effective strategy of defending them/ourselves. Russia has done relatively well to counter the usa's missile defence plans in europe against it, but all observers no well that it was the 2008 conflict with Georgia that was the most real and meaningful message to nato and the usa that Russia will not be treated like a fool. China is most likely getting lessons from our Russian friends on this score.

Like Russia, China is being forced into this situation also by the usa, and all those who believe in peace for our peoples will stand with China unconditionally in this confrontation.



US missile shield fosters Asian arms race 

Global Times

The US has announced that it is seeking to build a missile defense system in Asia and the Middle East, following a similar step in Europe.

This will no doubt create disturbance and tension in the region, as it has in Europe. Japan, South Korea and Australia, which are invited to join the system, must seriously ponder the consequences.

North Korea and Iran are named by Washington as the targets of the missile defense system, though it is clear the real targets are China and Russia. China should firmly oppose it.

This is not a fresh idea for the White House. The concept was raised during the Clinton administration. The impact it brings today is much worse than back then.

China needs to assess what long-term damage this system will impose on China's strategic security. The system will be deployed on the soil of Japan, South Korea and Australia. It is widely agreed that China has little chance to stop it. The pessimistic view holds that China can do nothing about it.

But China can balance out the system's impact. North Korea's plan to launch a satellite next month has been used by Washington to install a missile defense system. It is a wise move. China can copy it and upgrade its nuclear weapon capability due to the possible threats posed by the US system. Specifically, China can improve its nuclear weapons in both quantity and quality as well as develop offensive nuclear-powered submarines. China's ballistic missiles should be able to break the interception capability of the US system.

Among the nuclear powers, China has the smallest number of nuclear weapons. It is also the only country to make a 'no first use' commitment. Installing a missile defense system in Asia disrespects China's nuclear policy.

The US is seeking to shift the regional balance. A strong response from China should be expected. An overarching missile defense system would force China to change its long-held nuclear policy.

If Japan, South Korea and Australia join the system, a vicious arms race in Asia may follow.

It is not what China wants to see, but it will have to deal with it if the arms race happens.

The US is creating waves in Asia. The region may see more conflicts intensify in the future. China should make utmost efforts to prevent it, but prepare for the worst.

MORE ON THE INTERNAL CHALLENGES FOR CHINESE SOCIALISM

The struggle in China: Capitalist crisis versus planning


[source]


The following is Part 2 of a series on the leadership struggle in China.

As contradictions mount in the global capitalist economy, they are reflected in China. The factional struggle in the Chinese leadership can only be understood as a struggle over which way to go forward and how to contain and resolve the mounting economic and social contradictions arising out of capitalist development.

The Chinese economy has been growing on a dual basis. First, it is based on centrally planned guidance designed to develop the productive forces and the material foundations for a society encompassing 1.3 billion people. However, since the victory of Deng Xiaoping and the “capitalist road” faction in 1978, planning has been increasingly based on the central government fostering and attempting to manage capitalism and the capitalist market as the means for national development.

The central government, through control of interest rates, credit, taxation and vast state-owned enterprises, both guides the economy toward broad economic and social goals and fosters capitalist development. The latter means class exploitation, inequality and corruption. The present political struggle is over which side of this contradiction to strengthen.

This complex subject will be discussed at length in subsequent articles. But suffice it to say that the so-called “reform” groupings in China — with the enthusiastic support of world imperialism and global finance capital — want to move away from state intervention, planning and central guidance and go further toward turning the fate of China over to the capitalist market, both internally and externally.

In our last article we covered the fact that Bo Xilai was summarily ousted from his post as Chinese Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing. This was a blow against the growing forces in the CCP and throughout China who want to combine the use of the capitalist market with social and economic planning and state intervention in order to deal with growing inequality and who emphasize the needs of the masses. In Bo’s case, this economic orientation was combined with a popular attempt to revive Maoist culture and socialist values.

In China today, the concept of planned guidance of the broad direction of the economy and its various sectors is a drastic modification from the direct economic planning initiated after the triumph of the great Chinese Revolution in 1949. At the same time, it is an attempt to retain the planning principle as the fundamental framework guiding the overall development of the Chinese economy.

Consider just some of the goals and objectives outlined by the 12th Five Year Plan for 2011-2015, and the antagonism between planning and the anarchy of the capitalist market becomes utterly transparent. This plan was developed beginning in October 2010 and was approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2011.

The government is planning to devote 4 trillion renminbi ($158.7 billion) to the development of seven Strategic Emerging Industries: biotechnology, new energy, high-end manufacturing equipment, energy conservation and environmental protection, clean-energy vehicles and next-generation internet technology. (APCO worldwide, Dec. 10, 2010)

An article in the March 4, 2011, New York Times detailed the plan’s goals, including:

* A 19.1 percent cut in the amount of energy used per unit of economic growth and a rapid expansion of the service economy.

* Building a national nanotechnology research center, 50 engineering centers, 32 national engineering laboratories and 56 other labs focusing on technologies like digital television and high-speed internet.

* Laying 621,000 miles of new fiber-optic cable and adding 35 million new broadband ports for a total of 223 million.

* A cap on total energy use, especially limiting the burning of coal.

* The development of well-equipped statistical and monitoring systems to gauge greenhouse gas emissions.

* Accelerated construction of sewage treatment plants, the retrofitting of coal-fired power plants with pollution controls, and the continuation of a pilot project to develop low-carbon cities.

In the previous period the state had opened 3,100 miles of new railroads and 74,600 miles of highways, completed 230,000 sports and fitness projects for rural residents, and built or renovated 891 hospitals and 1,228 health clinics.

In the realm of social welfare, the broad goals are to increase consumption from 35 percent of the gross domestic product to between 50 percent and 55 percent by increasing minimum wages, health care services and social welfare payments of various kinds.

Of course, it goes without saying that under a genuinely socialist government, workers would have their fundamental economic rights guaranteed as political rights. But those rights were largely overturned by the reforms that developed in China after 1978. Instead, in the environment of the capitalist market — with its mountains of corruption of government and party officials — the welfare of the workers and peasants has to be built up slowly and painfully through an uphill battle, which happens only through the intervention of the state. (More on this in future articles.)

Whether or not the government achieves the precise goals set out is not the issue. The point is that such sweeping social and economic goals could not possibly be handed over to profit-driven capitalists and the anarchy of the commodity market. The bosses would seek the highest rate of profit. They would never voluntarily raise wages, improve working conditions, build hospitals, clinics, rural fitness centers or anything that did not bring a profit.

China’s response to 2008-09 world capitalist crisis

To grasp the seriousness of the proposals to further limit planning and intervention by the state, it is only necessary to consider what happened during the world capitalist financial and economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, when the global crisis of capitalist overproduction and the financial collapse invaded China.

More than 20 million workers lost their jobs, mainly in manufacturing and predominantly in coastal provinces such as Guangdong, where special economic zones had been set up so imperialist corporations, companies from Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea, and other exploiters could take advantage of low-wage migrant labor flooding in from the rural interior.

During this period production of world capitalism dropped more than it had in 70 years. Tens of millions of workers worldwide were thrown onto unemployment lines. Most of them are still there. Bankruptcy followed bankruptcy, and the capitalist system has still not recovered.

What happened in China? When the crisis hit, China’s central planners went into motion. Plans drafted as far back as 2003 to go into effect in future years were pushed forward and implemented.

Nicholas Lardy, a bourgeois China expert from the prestigious Peterson Institute for International Economics, describes how consumption in China actually grew during the crisis of 2008-09, wages went up, and the government created enough jobs to compensate for the layoffs caused by the global crisis:

“In a year in which GDP expansion [in China] was the slowest in almost a decade, how could consumption growth in 2009 have been so strong in relative terms? How could this happen at a time when employment in export-oriented industries was collapsing, with a survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture reporting the loss of 20 million jobs in export manufacturing centers along the southeast coast, notably in Guangdong Province? The relatively strong growth of consumption in 2009 is explained by several factors. First, the boom in investment, particularly in construction activities, appears to have generated additional employment sufficient to offset a very large portion of the job losses in the export sector. For the year as a whole the Chinese economy created 11.02 million jobs in urban areas, very nearly matching the 11.13 million urban jobs created in 2008.

“Second, while the growth of employment slowed slightly, wages continued to rise. In nominal terms wages in the formal sector rose 12 percent, a few percentage points below the average of the previous five years (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2010f, 131). In real terms the increase was almost 13 percent. Third, the government continued its programs of increasing payments to those drawing pensions and raising transfer payments to China's lowest-income residents. Monthly pension payments for enterprise retirees increased by RMB120, or 10 percent, in January 2009, substantially more than the 5.9 percent increase in consumer prices in 2008. This raised the total payments to retirees by about RMB75 billion. The Ministry of Civil Affairs raised transfer payments to about 70 million of China's lowest-income citizens by a third, for an increase of RMB20 billion in 2009 (Ministry of Civil Affairs 2010).” (“Sustaining China's Economic Growth after the Global Financial Crisis,” Kindle Locations 664-666, Peterson Institute for International Economics)

The Ministry of Railroads introduced eight specific plans, to be completed in 2020, to be implemented in the crisis. The World Bank called it “perhaps the biggest single planned program of passenger rail investment there has ever been in one country.” In addition, ultra-high-voltage grid projects were undertaken, among other advances.

The lesson is that while the anarchy of production of world capitalism invaded China, the rational and meticulously developed plans drawn up for social use overcame the anarchy of the capitalist market. This not only protected the masses from a protracted, massive unemployment crisis, but it actually continued the process of raising the standard of living during a time when hundreds of millions of workers throughout the entire capitalist world were left helpless and traumatized by the crisis of capitalist overproduction.

In Marxist terms the principle of planning, established by the Chinese socialist revolution of 1949 — even though it has been watered down to the practice of “guidance” — overcame what Marx called the law of labor value, the very law that governs the operation of capitalism itself. The Chinese leaders were compelled, and had the capability, to use rational planning based on satisfying human need to overcome the disaster brought about by their own policy of relying on the world capitalist market.

To be continued.

Goldstein is the author of “Low-Wage Capitalism” (2008) and “Capitalism at a Dead End” (2012) published by World View Forum. Both books as well as his articles and speeches can be found at lowwagecapitalism.com.

CHINA'S INTERNAL CONTRADICTIONS, & HOW THE WORLD BANK/IMF ARE PUSHING FOR AN END TO SOCIALISM IN CHINA

The ouster of Bo
A critical moment in China


[source]

It is now world news that Bo Xilai, a high-ranking member of the 25-member Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, has been removed from his key post as Party Secretary of the important Chongqing branch of the CCP.

This move comes as the CCP is preparing to choose a new leadership this fall. Bo had been widely regarded as a clear candidate for the nine-member standing committee of the Politburo. That is now out. This is the first open breach in the Chinese CCP leadership in two decades.

Bo was known for trying to revive the culture of Mao Zedong through many public programs. He emphasized state intervention in the economy and advocated planning for massive low-income housing projects for migrant workers and others, as well as fighting to reduce inequality in general.

Bo has also been known for a fierce anti-corruption campaign in which the masses were encouraged to point out corrupt officials and gangsters. Several thousand people were arrested, among them business people, and many were sent to jail. The highest police official in Chongqing was executed during the anti-corruption campaign.

Bo was removed after an incident in which the subsequent police chief of Chongqing, Wang Lijun, who worked with Bo in a widely celebrated anti-corruption campaign, fled Chongqing on Feb. 6 to the U.S. Consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu and asked for political asylum.

According to Chinese government and party sources, Wang claimed to have documents incriminating Bo. Wang was taken from the consulate, and is now being held in Beijing.

There has been much speculation about Bo and Wang and what happened. Much has been alleged about Bo’s flamboyant personal style, his ambition, a factional struggle within the leadership for position and so on. Perhaps all these factors played some role in his ouster.

But one thing is clear. The imperialists have all taken a position against Bo, and are overjoyed to see his downfall.

To be sure, there is no evidence that Bo was trying to abandon the reliance on capitalism in China’s development that followed the death of Mao. On the contrary, his outlook is fully within the general framework of using capitalism and foreign investment to grow the economy in Chongqing. But within that framework, he emphasized the so-called “third hand,” the need for the state to play a significant role in the economy, to ensure the well-being of the masses and to reduce inequality as a matter of priority.

Effect of global capitalist crisis

It is important to put this struggle in the broader context of the global capitalist crisis and its effect on the Chinese economy and on the political and factional struggle inside China.

The economic crisis in the capitalist world has undermined in a very fundamental way the argument that China should bank its fate and future on capitalist development and the capitalist world market as a foundational strategy.

The collapse in 2007-2009 of the world capitalist financial system and the global market, the ensuing mass unemployment, the wild speculation, the overproduction, the economic dislocation, the flood of bankruptcies, the gyrations of the stock markets and the continuing threats on the horizon must haunt all of China’s leaders and give ammunition to all those who oppose the further unleashing of capitalism in China.

The imperialists and the more pro-capitalist forces in the CCP and the state know this. So they have rushed to fortify their position in the face of the monumental evidence of the failure of capitalism and its dangerous effects in China during 2008 and 2009.

They made their moves just as China’s legislative body was preparing to consider and approve various plans and when the subject of future leadership was under private discussion.

It is significant that the World Bank presented a 448-page document just in time for the 18th National People’s Congress last month, entitled “China 2030.” What makes the public presentation of this document so ominous is that it was co-authored by the Development Research Center of the State Council, the top executive body in China. Liu He, who worked on the document and who meets regularly with U.S. officials, is an adviser to the standing committee of the Politburo who has argued publicly that foreign pressure should be used to push capitalist reforms in China.

To underscore the collaborative nature of the document, the subtitle is “Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society.” The term “Harmonious Society” is the slogan of China’s present leaders, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

The world was treated to a video circulated online in February that showed Du Jianguo, editor of an environmental magazine in China, disrupting a press conference by World Bank President Robert Zoellick as Zoellick was unveiling his document. In front of the world press, Du stood up and denounced the document as “unconstitutional,” saying it would “subvert the basic economic system of socialism.” Before he was pushed off the platform by security, Du called the bankers’ document “poison” aimed at capturing China’s markets for international capitalists. (Wall Street Journal, Feb. 23)

World Bank’s attempt to promote counterrevolution

This document is part of the background to the factional struggle in China. It represents a firmer and more dangerous nexus between imperialism and the so-called “reform” faction, the more aggressive pro-capitalist faction, in China.

The Executive Summary of the document reads:

“First, implement structural reforms to strengthen the foundations for a market based economy by redefining the role of government, reforming and restructuring state enterprises and banks, developing the private sector, promoting competition, and deepening reforms in the land, labor, and financial markets. As an economy approaches the technology frontier and exhausts the potential for acquiring and applying technology from abroad, the role of government and its relationship to markets and the private sector needs to change fundamentally. While providing relatively fewer ‘tangible’ public goods and services directly, the government will need to provide more intangible public goods and services like systems, rules, and policies, which increase production efficiency, promote competition, facilitate specialization, enhance the efficiency of resource allocation, protect the environment, and reduce risks and uncertainties.

“In the enterprise sector, the focus will need to be further reforms of state enterprises (including measures to recalibrate the role of public resources, introduce modern corporate governance practices including separating ownership from management, and implement gradual ownership diversification where necessary), private sector development and fewer barriers to entry and exit, and increased competition in all sectors, including in strategic and pillar industries. In the financial sector, it would require commercializing the banking system, gradually allowing interest rates to be set by market forces, deepening the capital market, and developing the legal and supervisory infrastructure to ensure financial stability and build the credible foundations for the internationalization of China’s financial sector.”

In other words, the World Bank, with the collaboration of the Development Research Center of the State Council, is recommending that state enterprises be reduced to dispensers of state services and advice, withdraw from the production of infrastructure, steel, energy and other “tangible goods,” and leave that to private capitalists. They further recommend that the banking system be integrated with world imperialist finance capital and that state planning be reduced to a nullity.

In short, they advocate the destruction of the very socialist structures that hold Chinese society together and that have enabled it to withstand the most severe capitalist crisis since World War II.

For a representative of the highest state body to help draft such a counterrevolutionary document, publicly associate his name with it and urge its adoption shows the degeneration of key sections of the highest leadership and, within the broader state apparatus, highlights the pernicious influence of unleashed capitalism in China.

This explains the urgent disruption of Zoellick’s press conference and the push-back that is coming from various quarters in China. This is not to say that the viewpoint represented by the World Bank document will be victorious. There are many forces in China, including the workers and peasants, who would strongly resist any attempt to fully implement this program.

Christine LaGarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, also chose the moment of the National People’s Congress to issue a statement in high praise of China’s economy. This was undoubtedly coordinated with the World Bank presentation of “China 2030.”

The severity of the struggle over the future of China also broke out in the open at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

“A group of Chinese speakers warned in stringent tones on Friday morning [Jan. 27] in Davos that the country’s free-market reform is stalled, and China is sliding backwards towards greater state control of the economy.

“Hu Shuli, editor of Caixin Magazine and widely recognized leader of China’s ‘reform’ faction, launched a breakfast forum by identifying delayed economic reform as one of the two key risks for the Chinese economy going forward, alongside the weakening exports in the wake of the euro-zone crisis.” (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 27) Other Chinese participants agreed.

The world capitalist crisis has brought this struggle on at a crucial time of change in the Chinese leadership. The ouster and public humiliation of Bo, which brought this struggle to light, can best be understood in terms of a struggle over dangerously deepening capitalist reforms. With or without Bo, this serious struggle will continue.

For those who believe that there has been a complete restoration of capitalism in China, this whole matter may seem to be of little importance. But to the workers and peasants of China and to the rest of the world, the question of stopping the further advance of the counterrevolution is of supreme importance.

To be continued.

CHINESE MEDIA MAKES CLEAR EMPIRE HAS NO RIGHT TO LECTURE SYRIA OR ANYONE

Top China paper criticizes Clinton over Syria

BEIJING (source) - China's main official newspaper Monday described U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's criticisms of Beijing's stance on Syria "super arrogant" and argued that, after the Iraq war, the United States has no right to speak for Arab people.

The People's Daily, the top newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, gave China's first public answer to Clinton's comments Friday, when she called the Chinese and Russian veto of a U.N. resolution on Syria "despicable.

China's response in the People's Daily was equally vehement.

"The United States' motive in parading as a 'protector' of the Arab peoples is not difficult to imagine. The problem is, what moral basis does it have for this patronizing and egotistical super-arrogance and self-confidence?," said a commentary in the paper that cited the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"Even now, violence continues unabated in Iraq, and ordinary people enjoy no security. This alone is enough for us to draw a huge question mark over the sincerity and efficacy of U.S. policy," it said.

The spreading bloodshed in Syria, where government forces have been bombarding neighborhoods held by opposition forces, has turned into a broader test pitting Western powers against China and Russia over how forcefully the world should intervene in civil turmoil.

Beijing and Moscow are traditionally resistant to international intervention in domestic upheavals, and Russia has close ties with the Syrian government.

"They are setting themselves not only against the Syrian people but also the entire Arab awakening," Clinton said of China and Russia, which have resisted Western and Arab calls to push Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.

On February 5, China and Russia used their veto power as permanent members of the U.N Security Council to stymie a proposed resolution backing an Arab plan pressing Assad to step down. As well, China and Russia both refused to attend a "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunis Friday, when Western and Arab nations sought to escalate pressure on Assad.

The commentary in the People's Daily repeated China's argument that its unwillingness to take sides in Syria's conflict best reflected the interests of that country's people.

"It is disturbing that as it fully enters into Syria's domestic turmoil, the United States has never seriously considered how to end this calamity quickly and at a minimal cost to the Syrian people," said the newspaper.

"While U.S. foreign policy claims the moral high ground by trumpeting 'democracy' and 'freedom', Washington is also constantly flinging epithets at Russia and China," it said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also warned the West against backing military intervention in Syria. Clinton has indicated there is no enthusiasm in Washington for war.

The People's Daily commentary was published under the pen name "Zhong Sheng," meaning "Voice of China," which is often used to give the paper's view on foreign policy issues.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has yet to respond to Clinton's criticisms and the outcome of the meeting on Syria in Tunis, where powerful Gulf Arab countries demanded more forceful intervention against Assad.

HAPPY RETURNS TO THE FIRST PREMIER OF MODERN INDEPENDENT AND SOCIALIST CHINA - ZHOU EN LAI

The Chinese people absolutely will not tolerate foreign aggression, nor will they supinely tolerate seeing their neighbours being savagely invaded by imperialists. Whoever attempt to exclude the nearly 500 million Chinese people from the U.N. and whoever set at nought and violate the interests of this one-fourth of mankind in the world ... will certainly break their skulls.
- Zhou En Lai


Chinese People Will not Tolerate Aggression
Zhou En Lai
Oct 1950
[source]



A YEAR HAS ELAPSED since the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. This has been a year of great victories and swift advance for the Chinese people.

We have traversed the past year under conditions of continuous victories in the people's liberation war. The Chinese people's war of liberation, which began in July 1946, had already achieved fundamental victory on the eve of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. But, at that time, the remnant of Kuomintang brigands still occupied the South China area, with Canton as its centre, the South-West China area, with Chungking as its centre, and some islands.

During the past year, the People's Liberation Army liberated all South China and Fukien Province. It later liberated all South-West China—with the exception of Tibet, the Choushan Islands, the Tungshan Islands, and other islands. Our army wiped out 203 entire enemy divisions, consisting of about 2,180,000 men.

The Chinese people have annihilated the American- equipped Kuomintang brigand armies throughout China's mainland and won this enormous victory. What lesson can we learn from this? The most important lesson is: such a big victory can never be an accidental phenomenon of history, but is the necessary outcome of the many revolutionary struggles of the Chinese people during the past century. Such an enormous, swift and thorough victory cannot be conceived apart from the selfless support of millions of people.

China United

This victory of the Chinese people is entirely different from all the "unifications" in China's history. Formerly, there was this and that sort of "unification", but the unifiers were either the oppressors of the people from the start or else became so afterwards. Therefore, they could not achieve real unification, and such unifications could not but collapse after a little while.

Today the first unification of the Chinese people has emerged. The people themselves have become the masters of Chinese soil, and the rule of the reactionaries in China has been irrevocably overthrown.

Since the enemy annihilated by the Chinese people was armed by the U.S. Government, then we can completely affirm that the Chinese people have not only won victory over the enemy at home, but also over the enemy abroad—that is, the imperialist interventionists of the United States. If the American imperialists still want to intervene in and invade China with whatever new means and in whatever new forms, they will then meet with the same defeat that befell the Kuomintang.

The struggle between the Chinese people and the remnant of Kuomintang reactionaries has not yet come to an end. This is because Taiwan, which is occupied by the reactionary remnants, is now under the direct control of the American Navy and Air Force.

The People's Liberation Army is determined to liberate Taiwan from the grip of the American aggressors, and to clear out the lairs of the reactionary brigands of China once and for all. It will be seen that, in the war for the liberation of Taiwan, our strategic position is much better than any enemy's. On our side stands inspired righteousness; our rear is close, vast and consolidated and we are now redoubling our efforts for the final victory. The People's Liberation Army is also determined to march westward to liberate the Tibetan people and defend the frontiers of China. We are willing to undertake peaceful negotiations to bring about this step, which is necessary to the security of our motherland. The patriots in Tibet have expressly welcomed this, and we hope that the local authorities in Tibet will not hesitate in bringing about a peaceful solution to the question. .

Foreign Policy of People's China

The foreign policy of the People's Republic of China has been clearly laid down in the Common Programme passed by the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The Common Programme Stipulates: "The principle of the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China is protection of the independence, freedom, integrity and sovereignty of the country, upholding of lasting international peace and friendly cooperation between the peoples of all countries, and opposition to the imperialist policy of aggression and war."

On the question of establishing diplomatic and trade relations with foreign countries, the Common Programme stipulates: "The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China may, on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect for territory and sovereignty, negotiate with foreign governments which have severed relations with the Kuomintang reactionary clique and which adopt a friendly attitude towards the peoples of China, and may establish diplomatic relations with them." "The People's Republic of China may restore and develop commercial relations with foreign governments and peoples on a basis of equality and mutual benefit." The foreign affairs of the Central People's Government in the past year were conducted in accordance with these basic principles.

Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, seventeen countries have established formal diplomatic relations with our country. They are the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Korea, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Mongolia, Germany, Albania, Burma, India, Viet Nam, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Indonesia. Eight other countries—Pakistan, Britain, Ceylon, Norway, Israel, Afghanistan, Finland and the Netherlands—have also expressed willingness to establish diplomatic relations with our country. Among them, four countries—Britain, Norway, the Netherlands and Finland—are still conducting talks for the establishment of diplomatic relations with our country.

Friendship With U.S.S.R.

The People's Republic of China resolutely sides with the world camp of peace and democracy headed by the Soviet Union and has established the closest fraternal relations with the Soviet Union. During Chairman Mao Tse-tung's visit to the Soviet Union, China and the Soviet Union signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, which is of great world historic significance. Because of this treaty, great peoples of the European and Asiatic continents to the number of nearly 700 million have united in close alliance militarily, economically and culturally, and have thus greatly strengthened the power of the two countries to safeguard themselves against aggression in the east.

Simultaneously with the signing of this treaty, or a little later, China and the Soviet Union further signed the agreements on the Chinese Changchun Railway, Port Arthur and Dairen, the agreement on the granting of credit to the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China, and five other economic and trade agreements.

In these agreements, our great neighbour extends Much generous assistance to China in the period when she is recovering from her war wounds. The whole Chinese people are greatly elated with the signing and implementation of the treaty and agreements between China and the Soviet Union and express their boundless thanks for the friendship extended to them by the leader of the Soviet Union, Generalissimo Stalin, and the Government and people of the Soviet Union.

China has also signed trade contracts and agreements with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Korea. Trade negotiations are under way with Germany and Hungary.

Trade relations have also developed between China and certain capitalist countries. The total amount of China's foreign trade is estimated not only to reach, but to surpass the original plans.

Relations With Capitalist States

The problem of the establishment of diplomatic relations with capitalist countries is more complicated than that of establishing trade relations. Here 1 may mention, especially, our long-drawn-out negotiations with Britain, out of which nothing has yet come. The reason for the fruitlessness of the negotiations is that the British Government has made known its recognition of the People's Republic of China on the one hand, while on the other it agrees to permit the so-called "representatives" of the reactionary rump of the Chinese Kuomintang clique to continue its illegal occupation of China's seat in the United Nations. This makes it difficult to commence formal diplomatic relations between China and Britain. And Britain's extremely unjustifiable and unfriendly attitude toward Chinese residents in Hong Kong and other places cannot fail to draw the serious attention of the Central People's Government.

Throughout the Chinese people's war of liberation, the U.S. Government sided with the enemy of the Chinese people, assisting the Kuomintang reactionaries with all its might in their attacks on the Chinese people. The enmity that the U.S. Government harbours towards the Chinese people has increased since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Despite the just criticisms of the Soviet Union, India, and other countries, the U.S. stubbornly obstructs the representatives of the People's Republic of China from attending the United Nations and its various organs, and shamelessly protects the seat of the so-called "representatives" of the Kuomintang reactionary rump. Similarly, the U.S. debars the Chinese representatives from attending the Allied Council for Japan and plots to exclude China and the Soviet Union in concluding a peace treaty with Japan, in order to rearm Japan and retain America's occupation troops and military bases in Japan.

The U.S. deliberately concocted the assault of the Syngman Rhee gang against the Korean Democratic People's Republic in order to expand its aggression in the East and then, on the pretext of the situation in Korea, despatched its naval and air forces to invade Taiwan, a province of China, and announced that the so-called problem of Taiwan's status should be solved by the American-controlled United Nations. Moreover, time after time, it sent its air force, which is invading Korea, to intrude into the air over the Liaotung Province of China, strafing and bombing, and sent its naval forces which are invading Korea to bombard Chinese merchant shipping on the high seas.

By these frenzied and violent acts of imperialist aggression, the U.S. Government has displayed itself as the most dangerous foe to the People's Republic of China. The U.S. aggressive forces have invaded China's borders and may at any time expand their aggression. MacArthur, Commander-in-Chief of the American aggression against Taiwan and Korea, long ago disclosed the aggressive design of the U.S. Government, and is continuing to invent new excuses for extending its aggression.

Against American Aggression

The Chinese people firmly oppose the aggressive brutalities of America and are determined to liberate Taiwan and other Chinese territory from the clutches of the U.S. aggressors.

The Chinese people have closely followed the situation in Korea since she was invaded by the U.S.A. The Korean people and their People's Army are resolute and valorous. Led by Premier Kim Jr Sen, they have scored remarkable achievements in resisting the American invaders and have won the sympathy and support of people throughout the world. The Korean people can surely overcome their many difficulties and obtain final victory on the principle of persistent, long-term resistance.

The Chinese are peace-loving people. One hundred and twenty million Chinese have already signed their names to the solemn Stockholm Appeal and this signature movement is continuing to develop among the Chinese people. It is obvious that the Chinese people, after liberating the whole territory of their own country, want to rehabilitate and develop their industrial and agricultural production and cultural and educational work in a peaceful environment, free from threats. But if the American aggressors take this as a sign of the weakness of the Chinese people, they will commit the same fatal blunder as the Kuomintang reactionaries.

The Chinese people enthusiastically love peace, but in order to defend peace they never have been and never will be afraid to oppose aggressive war. The Chinese people absolutely will not tolerate foreign aggression, nor will they supinely tolerate seeing their neighbours being savagely invaded by imperialists. Whoever attempt to exclude the nearly 500 million Chinese people from the U.N. and whoever set at nought and violate the interests of this one-fourth of mankind in the world and fancy vainly to solve any Eastern problem directly concerned with China arbitrarily, will certainly break their skulls.

WHY THE WEST WANT REGIME CHANGE IN RUSSIA

Introduction


The following article is an good contribution in the understanding of why the Russian state under the leadership of Putin is such a target for attack, containment and ideally (for imperialism, that is) for regime change. 


The old Soviet Union was probably the most important state for the movements for independence against imperialism, along with the  People's Republic of China. The USSR funded, trained, educated many leading cadres of the anti-colonial and socialist movements across the world right until the last years of its existence in 1991.


The collapse of the Socialist Bloc and the related historic defeat of the world anti-imperialist revolution saw the west lose its head in celebrations, and we saw the rest of the 1990s as a victory march of the empire, with it expressing its world dominance with the concept of the 'New Word Order', and Iraq being crucified with the deaths of millions of Iraqi people and especially children, which in the words of yankee sec of state Albright said the deaths of millions of Iraqis was "worth it".

However, although the Socialist Bloc was smashed, in Russia the army and the intel services from the Soviet era maintained their control of the state, but the progressive socialist policies were lost with the defeat of the Communist Party. However, the CP of the Russian Federation led by Zyuganov remains the second biggest political party in Russia, and pushed for socialist policies and a more assertive anti-imperialist position that even Putin.


After the years under Russian president Yeltsin, the state assets of the old Soviet Union were all sold off with the resultant catastrophe in social conditions of the Russian masses.


Putin represents the more patriotic elements of the Russian elite, who believe in standing up against western hegemony, and in this position it has sucessfully fought off many aggressive moves of imperialism, most clearly illustrated in ostensibly defeating nato over the Georgian conflict in 2008, and turning off the gas to europe in Jan 2009, showing that it has the political will to confront and defeat empire in these battles.


The situation in Syria is also indicative of why imperialism wants the current Russian leadership smashed, it is well know throughout Syria and the wider world, that without Russian diplomatic and ultimately military support, Syria would now be subject to the war and trauma that befell Libya. All commentators state that Russia and China will not fall for the massive media and diplomatic swindle which was the lead up to the implementation of the "no fly zone" on Libya in early 2011. 


Anti-imperialists call for the Russian leadership to increase its current support for the struggle of the Global South against western hegemony, and although one would like to see the leadership of Russia going to a political movement such as the CPRF with its more militant anti-imperialist position and progressive socialist policies, we must at the same time support anti-imperialist unity within Russia. In this regard relations between Putin and Zyuganov and the CPRF look quite cordial despite their differences. Finally, it is fundamentally important for anti-imperialists that in the interests of our peoples and countries of the Global South that Russia and China continue to develop its assertiveness in relation to empire.

Without Russia and China, imperialism would be ravaging a lot more countries across the world that it is currently doing.

Without Russia and China Syria would be destroyed.

Sukant Chanda - Sons of Malcolm/Friends of China



Regime Change in the Russian Federation? 
Why Washington Wants ‘Finito’ with Vladimir Putin

By F. William Engdahl

[source]

Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! or as they said in Egypt last spring, Kefaya--enough!.  Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why. Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower.

On December 8 several days after election results for Russia’s parliamentary elections were announced, showing a sharp drop in popularity for Prime Minister Putin’s United Russia party, Putin accused the United States and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fuelling the Russian opposition protesters and their election protests. Putin stated, “The (US) Secretary of State was quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust even before she received materials from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (the OSCE international election monitors-w.e.) observers.”[1]

Putin went on to claim that Clinton’s premature comments were the necessary signal to the waiting opposition groups that the US Government would back their protests. Clinton’s comments, the seasoned Russian intelligence pro stated, became a “signal for our activists who began active work with the US Department of State.” [2]

Major western media chose either to downplay the Putin statement or to focus almost entirely on the claims of an emerging Russian opposition movement. A little research shows that, if anything, Putin was downplaying the degree of brazen US Government interference into the political processes of  his country. In this case the country is not Tunisia or Yemen or even Egypt. It is the world’s second nuclear superpower, even if it might still be an economic lesser power. Hillary is playing with thermonuclear fire.
Democracy or something else?

No mistake, Putin is not a world champion practitioner of what most consider democracy. His announcement some months back that he and current President Medvedev had agreed to switch jobs after Russia’s March 4 Presidential vote struck even many Russians as crass power politics and backroom deal-making. That being said, what Washington is doing to interfere with that regime change is more than brazen and interventionist. The same Obama Administration which just signed into law measures effectively ripping to shreds the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution for American citizens[3] is posing as world supreme judge of others’ adherence to what they define as democracy.

Let’s examine closely Putin’s charge of US interference in the election process. If we look, we find openly stated in their August 2011 Annual Report that a Washington-based NGO with the innocuous name, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is all over the place inside Russia.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is financing an International Press Center in Moscow where some 80 international NGOs can hold press briefings on whatever they choose. They fund numerous “youth advocacy” and leadership workshops to “help youth engage in political activism.” In fact, officially they spent more than $2,783,000 in 2010 on dozens of such programs across Russia. Spending for 2011 won’t be published until later in 2012. [4]

The NED is also financing key parts of the Russian “independent” polling and election monitoring, a crucial part of being able to claim election fraud. They finance in part the Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties “GOLOS.” According to the NED Annual Report the funds went “to carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections.”[5]

In September, 2011, a few weeks before the December elections the NED financed a Washington invitation-only conference featuring the Russian “independent” polling organization, the Levada Center. According to NED’s own website Levada, another recipient of NED money, [6] had done a series of opinion polls, a standard method used in the West to analyze the feelings of citizens. The polls profiled “the mood of the electorate in the run up to the Duma and presidential elections, perceptions of candidates and parties, and voter confidence in the system of ‘managed democracy’ that has been established over the last decade.”

One of the featured speakers at that Washington conference was Vladimir Kara-Murza, member of the federal council of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”), Russia’s democratic opposition movement. He is also “advisor to Duma opposition leader Boris Nemtsov” according to NED. Another speaker came from the right-wing neo-conservative Hudson Institute. [7]

Nemtsov, one of the most prominent figures of the Putin opposition today is also co-chairman of Solidarnost, a name curiously enough imitated from the Cold War days when the CIA financed the Polish Solidarnosc workers’ opposition of Lech Walesa. More on Nemtsov later.

And on December 15, 2011, again in Washington, just as the series of US-supported protests were being launched against Putin, led by Solidarnost and other organizations, the NED held another conference titled, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference? The featured speaker was Tamirlan Kurbanov, who according to the NED, “most recently served as a program officer at the Moscow office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he was involved in developing and expanding the capacities of political and civic organizations; promoting citizen participation in public life, youth engagement in particular.” [8] The National Democratic Institute is an arm of the NED.


The Shady History of The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Helping youth engage in political activism is precisely what the same NED did in Egypt over the past several years in the lead up to the toppling of Mubarak. The same NED was instrumental by informed accounts in the US-backed “Color Revolutions” in 2003-2004 in Ukraine and Georgia that brought US-backed pro-NATO surrogates to power. The same NED has been active in promoting “human rights” in Myanmar, in Tibet, and China’s oil-rich Xinjiang province. [9]

As careful analysts of the 2004 Ukraine “Orange revolution” and the numerous other US-financed color revolutions discovered, control of polling and ability to dominate international media perceptions, especially major TV such as CNN or BBC is an essential component of the Washington destabilization agenda. The Levada Center would likely be in a crucial position in this regard to issue polls showing discontent with the regime.

By their description, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a “private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Each year, with funding from the US Congress, NED supports more than 1,000 projects of non-governmental groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 90 countries.”[10]

It couldn’t sound more noble or high-minded. However, they prefer to leave out their own true history. In the early 1980’s CIA director Bill Casey convinced President Ronald Reagan to create a plausibly private NGO, the NED, to advance Washington’s global agenda via other means than direct CIA action. It was a part of the process of “privatizing” US intelligence to make their work more “effective.” Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in a Washington Post interview in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”[11] Interesting. The majority of funds for NED come from US taxpayers through Congress. It is in every way, shape and form a US Government intelligence community asset.

The NED was created during the Reagan Administration to function as a de facto CIA, privatized so as to allow it more freedom of action. NED board members are typically drawn from the Pentagon and US intelligence community. It has included retired NATO General Wesley Clark, the man who led the US bombing of Serbia in 1999. Key figures linked to clandestine CIA actions who served on NED’s board have included Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Henry Cisneros and Elliot Abrams. The Chairman of the NED Board of Directors in 2008 was Vin Weber, founder of the ultraconservative organization, Empower America, and campaign fundraiser for George W. Bush. Current NED chairman is John Bohn, former CEO of the controversial Moody’s rating agency which played a nefarious role in the still-unraveling US mortgage securities collapse. As well today’s NED board includes neo-conservative Bush-era ambassador to Iraq and to Afghanistan, Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad.[12]
Putin’s well-rehearsed opposition

It’s also instructive to look at the leading opposition figures who seem to have stepped forward in Russia in recent days. The current opposition “poster boy” favorite of Russian youth and especially western media is Russian blogger Alexei Navalny whose blog is titled LiveJournal. Navalny has featured prominently as a quasi-martyr of the protest movement after spending 15 days in Putin’s jail for partaking in a banned protest. At a large protest rally on Christmas Day December 25 in Moscow, Navalny, perhaps intoxicated by seeing too many romantic Sergei Eisenstein films of the 1917 Russian Revolution, told the crowd, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and the White House (Russia’s Presidential home-w.e.) right now...”[13]

Western establishment media is infatuated with Navalny. England’s BBC  described Navalny as "arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years," and US Time magazine called him "Russia's Erin Brockovich," a curious reference to the Hollywood film starring Julie Roberts as a researcher and legal activist. However, more relevant is the fact that Navalny went to the elite American East Coast Yale University, also home to the Bush family, where he was a “Yale World Fellow.” [14]

The charismatic Navalny however is also or has been on the payroll of Washington’s regime-destabilizing National Endowment for Democracy (NED). According to a posting on Navalny’s own blog, LiveJournal, he was supported in 2007-2008 by the NED. [15] [16]

Along with Navalny, key actors in the anti-Putin protest movement are centered around Solidarnost which was created in December 2008 by Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and others. Nemtsov is hardly one to protest corruption. According to Business Week Russia of September 23, 2007, Nemtsov introduced Russian banker Boris Brevnov to Gretchen Wilson, a US citizen and an employee of the International Finance Corporation, a financing arm of the World Bank. Wilson and Brevnov married. With the help of Nemtsov Wilson managed to privatize Balakhna Pulp and Paper mill at the giveaway price of just $7 million. The enterprise was sucked dry and then sold to the Wall Street-Swiss investment bank, CS First Boston bank. The annual turnover of the mill was reportedly $250 million. [17]

CS First Boston bank also paid for Nemtsov's trips to the very expensive Davos World Economic Forum. When Nemtsov became a member of the cabinet, his protégé Brevnov was appointed the chairman of the Unified Energy System of Russia JSC. Two years later in 2009 Boris Nemtsov, today’s “Mr anti-corruption,” used his influence reportedly to get Brevnov off the hook for charges of embezzling billions from assets of Unified Energy System. [18]

Nemtsov also took money from jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 1999 when the latter was using his billions to try to buy the Russian parliament or Duma. In 2004 Nemtsov met with exiled billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky in a secret gathering with other exiled Russian tycoons. When Nemtsov was detailed by Russian authorities for allegations of foreign funding of his new political party, “For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption,”  US Senators John McCain and Joe Liberman and Mike Hammer of the Obama National Security Council came to support of Nemtsov. [19]

Nemtsov’s close crony, Vladimir Ryzhkov of Solidarnost is also closely tied to the Swiss Davos circles, even founding a Siberian Davos. According to Russian press accounts from April 2005, Ryzhkov formed a Committee 2008 in 2003 to “draw” funds of the imprisoned Khodorkovsky along with soliciting funds from fugitive oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky and western foundations such as the Soros Foundation. The stated aim of the effort was to rally “democratic” forces against Putin. On May 23, 2011 Ryzhkov, Nemtzov and several others filed to register a new Party of Peoples’ Freedom to ostensibly field a presidential candidate against Putin in 2012.[20]

Another prominent face in the recent anti-Putin rallies is former world chess champion turned right-wing politician, Garry Kasparov, another founder of Solidarnost. Kasparov was identified several years ago as being a board member of a Washington neo-conservative military think-tank. In April 2007, Kasparov admitted he was a board member of the National Security Advisory Council of Center for Security Policy, a "non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security." Inside Russia Kasparov is more infamous for his earlier financial ties to Leonid Nevzlin, former Yukos vice-president and partner of Michael Khodorokvsky. Nevzlin fled to Israel on being charged in Russia on charges of murder and hiring contract killers to eliminate “objectionable people” while Yukos vice-president. [21]

In 2009 Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov met with no less than Barack Obama to discuss Russia’s opposition to Putin at the US President’s personal invitation at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel. Nemtsov had called for Obama to meet with opposition forces in Russia: “If the White House agrees to Putin’s suggestion to speak only with pro-Putin organizations... this will mean that Putin has won, but not only that: Putin will become be assured that Obama is weak,” he said. During the same 2009 US trip Nemtsov was invited to speak at the New York Council on Foreign Relations, perhaps the most influential US foreign policy think-tank. Significantly, not only has the US State Department and US-backed political NGOs such as NED poured millions into building an anti-Putin coalition inside Russia. The President personally has intervened into the process.[22]

Ryzhkov, Nemtzov, Navalty and Putin’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin were all involved in organizing the December 25th Moscow Christmas anti-Putin rally which drew an estimated 120,000.[23]
Why Putin?

The salient question is why Putin at this point? We need not look far for the answer. 

Washington and especially Barack Obama’s Administration don’t give a hoot about whether Russia is democratic or not. Their concern is the obstacle to Washington’s plans for Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet that a Putin Presidency will represent. According to the Russian Constitution, the President of the Russian Federation head of state, supreme commander-in-chief and holder of the highest office in the Russian Federation. He will take direct control of defense and foreign policy.

We must ask what policy? Clearly strong countermeasures against the blatant NATO encirclement of Russia with Washington’s dangerous ballistic missile installations around Russia will be high on Putin’s agenda. Hillary Clinton’s “reset” will be in the dustbin if it is not already. We can also expect a more aggressive use of Russia’s energy card with pipeline diplomacy to deepen economic ties between European NATO members such as Germany, France and Italy, ultimately weakening the EU support for aggressive NATO measures against Russia. We can expect a deepening of Russia’s turn towards Eurasia, especially with China, Iran and perhaps India to firm up the shaky spine of resistance to Washington’s New World Order plans.

It will take more than a few demonstrations in sub-freezing weather in Moscow and St. Petersburg by a gaggle of corrupt or shady opposition figures such as Nemtsov or  Kasparov to derail Russia. What is clear is that Washington is pushing on all fronts—Iran and Syria, where Russia has a vital naval port, on China, now on Russia, and on the Eurozone countries led by Germany. It has the smell of an end-game attempt by a declining superpower.

The United States today is a de facto bankrupt nuclear superpower.  The reserve currency role of the dollar is being challenged as never since Bretton Woods in 1944. That role along with maintaining the United States as the world’s unchallenged military power have been the basis of the American Century hegemony since 1945.

Weakening the role of the dollar in international trade and ultimately as reserve currency, China is now settling trade with Japan in bilateral currencies, side-stepping the dollar. Russia is implementing similar steps with her major trade partners. The primary reason Washington launched a full-scale currency war against the Euro in late 2009 was to preempt a growing threat that China and others would turn away from the dollar to the Euro as reserve currency. That is no small matter. In effect Washington finances its foreign wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere through the fact that China and other trade surplus nations invest their surplus trade dollars in US government Treasury debt. Were that to shift significantly, US interest rates would rise substantially and the financial pressures on Washington would become immense.

Faced with growing erosion of her unchallenged global status as sole superpower, Washington appears now to be turning increasingly to raw military force to hold that. For that to succeed Russia must be neutralized along with China and Iran. This will be the prime agenda of whoever is next US President.  

F. William Engdahl is the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, He may be reached via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

Notes

[1] Alexei Druzhinin, Putin says US encouraging Russian opposition, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 8, 2011
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jonathan Turley, The NDAA's historic assault on American liberty, guardian.co.uk, 2 January 2012, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/02/ndaa-historic-assault-american-liberty.
[4] National Endowment for Democracy, Russia, from NED Annual Report 2010, Washington, DC, published in August 2011, accessed in http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/eurasia/russia.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] NED, Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives, September 14, 2011, accessed in http://ned.org/events/elections-in-russia-polling-and-perspectives.
[8] NED, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference?, December 15, 2011, accessed in http://ned.org/events/youth-activism-in-russia-can-a-new-generation-make-a-difference.
[9] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, 2010, edition. Engdahl press. The book describes in detail the origins of the NED and various US-sponsored “human rights” NGOs and how they have been used to topple regimes not friendly to a larger USA geopolitical agenda.
[10] National Endowment for Democracy, About Us, accessed in www.ned.org.
[11] David Ignatius, Openness is the Secret to Democracy, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September-6 October,1991, 24-25.
[12] F. William Engdahl, Op. Cit., p.50.
[13] Yulia Ponomareva, Navalny and Kudrin boost giant opposition rally, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 25, 2011.
[14] Yale University, Yale World Fellows: Alexey Navalny, 2010, accessed in http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows/fellows/navalny.html.
[15] Alexey Navalny, emails between Navalny and Conatser, accessed in Russian (English summary provided to the author by www.warandpeace.ru) on http://alansalbiev.livejournal.com/28124.html.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Business Week Russia, Boris Nemtsov: Co-chairman of Solidarnost political movement, Business Week Russia, September 23, 2007, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1648.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Russian Mafia.ru, Vladimir Ryzhkov: Co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1713.
[21] Russian Mafia.ru, Garry Kasparov: The leader of United Civil Front, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1518.
[22] The OtherRussia, Obama Will Meet With Russian Opposition, July 3, 2009, accessed in http://www.theotherrussia.org/2009/07/03/obama-will-meet-with-russian-opposition/.
[23] Yulia Ponomareva, op. Cit.