The rise of China as a world power and potential peer of the United States is set to define geopolitics in the 21st century. This seismic change led the Obama administration to initiate its so-called pivot to Asia. It led Donald Trump to make American competition with China one of his main campaign themes and later caused him to launch a trade war.

American primacists fear the rise of China, worrying that the U.S. will find it more difficult to impose its will (or at least attempt to) across the globe and to meddle and interfere with a myriad of issues that have no real bearing on America’s national security. On the other side of the divide, there are non-interventionists who seem to believe that the only threat China poses to the U.S. is the possibility that Beijing’s actions might trigger American warmongering.

Primacists certainly shouldn’t fear a hard military threat from China. Thanks to our superior geostrategic positioning, the odds of Beijing ever projecting as much power as Washington is almost nil. At the same time, the non-interventionists are wrong to underestimate the threat that Chinese power poses to the American way of life. One needn’t be a hawk or a card-carrying member of “the blob” to see this threat.

A rose-colored view of Chinese economic power is dismissive of what this power is actually capable of. John Tamny, director of the Center for Economic Freedom at FreedomWorks, argues that the Chinese love America and that our economic relationship is beneficial to both parties. According to Tamny, any American fear of China is merely the result of demonization by politicians. Similarly, economist Barry Brownstein has argued at the Foundation for Economic Education, one of America’s oldest classically liberal think tanks, that concerns about China can be overcome by both “love” and economic interdependence. To his credit, he acknowledges that economic interdependence failed to stop Imperial Germany and the UK from entering the First World War on opposite sides. But he brushes that aside by suggesting that we “make the economic interdependence between the U.S. and China so thick that war between the U.S. and China is no more imaginable than war between Ohio and Iowa.”

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/hawks-and-noninterventionists-are-both-getting-china-wrong/

MEANWHILE, THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY LOOMS THICK:

Hong Kong, the Treaty of Nanjing Returns

by Manlio Dinucci

Clearly, some young people in Hong Kong have adopted British culture - after the handover to China of their special province. They do not know the history of their country and what they owe to the Peoples’ Republic of China. For their great grandparents, London had brought only misery and desolation, causing the collapse of the Middle Kingdom.

The "Opium Wars" represent the paradigm of British colonialism: London did not seek to dominate the Chinese population politically, but exclusively to exploit it economically. To impose drug use, Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, waged two wars that caused several million deaths.

Hundreds of young Chinese, in front of the British Consulate in Hong Kong, sing the God Save the Queen and shout "Great Britain Saves Hong Kong", a rally call in London by 130 parliamentarians who ask that British citizenship be given to residents of the former colony. In this way, Britain is emerging in world public opinion, particularly among young people, as a guarantor of legality and human rights. To do this, History is erased.

It is therefore necessary, before any other consideration, to know the historical episodes which, in the first half of the 19th century, brought the Chinese territory of Hong Kong under British rule.

To penetrate China, then ruled by the Qing dynasty, Britain resorted to the distribution of opium, which it shipped by sea from India where it held the monopoly. The drug market spread rapidly in the country, causing serious economic, physical, moral and social damage that provoked the reaction of the Chinese authorities. But when they confiscated stored opium in Canton and burned it, the British troops occupied this city and other coastal cities with the first Opium War, forcing China to sign the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842.

In Article 3 it states: "As it is obviously necessary and desirable for British subjects to have ports for their ships and their stores, China will forever cede the island of Hong Kong to Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain. and her heirs ". In Article 6 the Treaty stipulates: "Since Her Britannic Majesty’s Government was obliged to send an expeditionary force to obtain compensation for the damage caused by the Chinese authorities’ violent and unjust procedure, China agrees to pay to Her British Majesty the sum of $ 12 million for expenses incurred.

The Nanking Treaty is the first of the unequal treaties by which the European powers (Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and Italy), Tsarist Russia, Japan and the United States secured in China, by the force of arms, a series of privileges: the cession of Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1843, the sharp reduction of taxes on foreign goods (at a time when European governments were erecting customs barriers to protect their industries), the opening of the main ports to foreign vessels and the right to have urban areas under their own administration ("concessions") exempted from Chinese authority.

In 1898 Great Britain annexed the Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong and the so-called News Territories, conceded by China to be "rented" for 99 years.

The widespread dissatisfaction with these impositions exploded towards the end of the 19th century in a popular revolt - that of the Boxers - against which intervened an international expeditionary force of 16,000 men under British command, in which Italy also participated (and France, NdT).

Landed in Tianjin (T’ien Tsin) in August 1900, the force sacked Beijing and other cities, destroying many villages and massacring the population. Later, Britain took control of Tibet in 1903, while Czarist Russia and Japan shared Manchuria in 1907.

In China, reduced to a colonial or semi-colonial state, Hong Kong became the main door of exchange based on the plunder of resources and slave labour exploitation of the population. A huge mass of Chinese are forced to emigrate mainly to the United States, Australia and South-East Asia, where they are subjected to similar conditions of exploitation and discrimination.

A question arises spontaneously: Which history books are young people who ask Britain to "save Hong Kong" studying?

Manlio Dinucci

Translation 

Roger Lagassé

Source 

Il Manifesto (Italy)

Read all:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article207723.html

A curfew is in effect in the Iraqi capital Baghdad after a second day of clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces.

The restrictions will remain in place until further notice. Curfews had already been declared in three other cities as protests over lack of jobs, poor services and corruption escalated.

The violence has left at least seven people dead and hundreds wounded.

Social media platforms and internet access have been blocked in some areas.

The nationwide protests, which appear to lack any organised leadership, are the largest since Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi took office a year ago.

Blaming unnamed "rioters" for the unrest, the government vowed to address protesters' concerns.

In a statement, Mr Abdul Mahdi said "all vehicles and individuals are totally forbidden to move" in Baghdad from 05:00 (02:00 GMT) on Thursday.

Travellers to and from the city's airport, ambulances, government employees in hospitals, electricity, and water departments, and religious pilgrims were exempt from the curfew.

Restrictions had already been imposed in the southern cities of Nasiriya, Amara and Hilla.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49909774

Read from top.

Thousands of people in Catalonia have rallied in support of the region's independence from Spain for a second day, leading to clashes with police.

Fires were started and protesters attempted to storm government offices in Barcelona, the regional capital.

It follows the sentencing on Monday of nine Catalan separatist leaders. 

A spokesperson for Catalonia's regional government, Meritxell Budó, said they sympathised and understood the anger of the protesters.

Meanwhile, Spanish authorities say they are investigating who is co-ordinating the disruption.

Protesters have reportedly been using an app known as Tsunami Democratic, which directs them to protest sites in Catalan cities. 

• Violent clashes as Spain jails Catalan separatists
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In Barcelona, riot police fired tear gas and charged a crowd of protesters who were trying to access government buildings. 

There were three arrests, and local media reported that nine people had been treated by medical services. 

Protests were also reported in the Catalan cities of Girona and Tarragona.

Pro-independence leaders - who control the Catalan regional government - say they will keep pushing for a new referendum on secession from Spain. 

The protests began after nine Catalan independence leaders were handed jail sentences of between nine and 13 years by Spain's Supreme Court on Monday. 

The separatists were convicted of sedition over their role in an independence referendum in 2017, which Spain said was illegal.

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50064106

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Watching the news over the last week, one would be convinced that the world has devolved into a series of flashpoints, with corrupt governments across the political spectrum facing the wrath of their enraged citizens. To be fair, that’s not far from the truth.

Four continents have seen anti-government demonstrations over the last week, many of them sparked by seemingly innocuous taxes or changes to the law. In Lebanon, protesters have set Beirut ablaze in response to a proposed fee of 20 cents per day on internet voice calls, dubbed the “WhatsApp tax.”Chileans set metro stations on fire following a $1.17 increase in public transport fares, and the streets of Ecuador are filled with rubble after a planned removal of fuel subsidies triggered mass unrest.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/471443-protests-spread-worldwide-response-/

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Protests are roiling cities across the world as fed-up citizens take to the streets to vent their grievances — both peacefully and violently — about economic conditions, government corruption and crippling tax hikes. 

Hong Kong has been gripped by more than 20 weeks of violent clashes — while in Barcelona, old wounds have reopened as protesters once again demand Catalonia be recognized as a country separate from Spain.

Lebanon, meanwhile, appears to be on the brink of disastrous civil unrest again.

Here’s a look at some of the flareups.

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2019/10/21/protests-rock-the-globe-as-fed-up-citizens...

Read from top.

It’s the panic that keeps on giving.

#ToiletPaperEmergency or the great #ToiletPaperApocalypse, as it has been dubbed on Twitter, has already rolled out hundreds of memes, witty asides as well as documented the madness of people stockpiling the toilet essential.

In the real world it has led to Australian toilet paper manufacturers ramping up production to keep up with demand from people fearful of coronavirus.

One newspaper has gone one step further by printing extra pages in its editions to help out those who have been … caught short.

On Thursday the NT News, the Darwin-based newspaper with a national reputation for its headlines and antics, printed a special eight-page insert that can be cut into toilet paper.

Its editor, Matt Williams, told Guardian Australia the paper was selling well and was “certainly not a crappy edition”.

“We are a newspaper known around the world who understands the needs of our readers,” he said. “Territorians … are in great need of toilet paper right now so we had to deliver what they needed.”

The stunt comes after supermarkets including Coles and Woolworths have been besieged by shoppers clearing their shelves of loo paper and hand sanitiser.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/mar/05/australian-newspaper-print...

We've been ahead of the game for a long time... See toon at top (first published about ten years ago).