Dick Eastman
The Truth Hound

When Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller met with Zhou Enlai in China in 1973—just after President Richard Nixon had visited China establishing official relations—an understanding was reached whereby the U.S. would supply industrial capital and know-how to China.

In return Kissinger-connected corporations would gain the monopolistic advantage of low-cost labor production which could outcompete all U.S. domestic industry.

The comparative advantage gained was being able to hire Chinese laborers who were ready to work hard at exceedingly low cost—with no drugs, no alcohol, a strong work ethic, no unions, no paid benefits and weak environmental standards. And with such a large labor pool, burned out workers could simply be replaced. This gave the Rockefeller/Kissinger corporations a major edge over their domestic U.S. competitors who had to pay relatively high wages, high regulation costs, deal with union strikes and collective bargaining etc.

Of course, the American consumer did not see greatly lowered prices commensurate with such greatly lowered labor costs. The $19.99 plastic action-figure toy marketed with a Hollywood movie still cost $19.99 even though it cost $12 to $15 to produce in the U.S. but less than $2.00 per copy to produce in China and transport to America’s West Coast container ports for distribution throughout America.

The consumer paid pretty much the old prices but the corporations split the monopoly profit with China’s Princelings since it did not take much of a lowering of prices to drive high-wage, high-benefit, contracted-labor domestic corporations out of business (not to mention the environmental and workplace safety regulations with which domestic companies were saddled).  Then, Wal-Mart became a near-monopoly retailer that increased and reinforced the widespread selling of these off-shore manufactures.

Thus, America’s domestic producers were not simply being bested on one or another area of production; they were being bested across the entire spectrum of manufactured goods that American buy. It was anticipated that these domestic firms would fail, and their failure was hastened by the banks maintaining a deflationary domestic economy in the U.S. throughout the post Rockefeller-Kissinger-Zhou buildup of China and the degrading of American domestic manufacturing.

Remember, the entire money supply of the U.S. is borrowed—that is, the money co-created with a debt of an even bigger amount (principal plus compound interest) that must in due course be returned to the lender. But money in the domestic economy was going to multinational corporations and to China, while also going to taxes to pay on the national debt that resulted [NOTE: Due to U.S. industrial depletion, federal revenue receipts as well as the tax-take of state and local governments, shrunk, resulting in greater government borrowing and therefore greater public debts—TRUTH HOUND note].  And of course, compound interest was attached to that debt.

Rockefeller and Kissinger were (and to some extent still are) at war with middle-class America—with intelligent, self-supporting, self-respecting, ambitious, industrious citizens who always pose the greatest threat in the form of populist politics to the bankers and their Bank-of-England/East-India-Company/Rothschild monetary and trade system, the very system that Rockefeller and Kissinger were representing and expanding when they visited Zhou Enlai.

So here we are in 2016 and newly elected President Donald J. Trump says he intends to place a tariff on goods imported from China, while the media decries the tariff proposal as a violation of “long-standing liberal free-trade policies.”

One more thing in defense of who I believe was a great president and a warning for the new one.

Richard Nixon opened China believing in peaceful co-existence and the fact that if given time for a fair comparison of how free-enterprise and representative government functions in contrast to the communist planned economy, that the U.S. model would win out over a system where each receives what the state deems he needs and where work is ordered by the state.

But of course Kissinger and Rockefeller instigated the Watergate coup against Nixon—a frame-up with John Dean and Kissinger as the real “Deep Throats” by my deductions from public information—so that the Rockefeller/Kissinger plans for China’s industrialization and America’s deindustrialization could proceed unopposed, as it certainly did after Nixon resigned to avoid a constitutional crisis that would hinder the proper working of government.

Nixon should have fought them because they were about to take a financial axe to this country as soon as Nixon was gone.  When Nixon was gone, they first robbed the middle-class of their savings with banker Paul Volcker’s “QE” (quantitative easing) bond purchases at the New York Federal Reserve branch. Then, when that was accomplished, America’s savings-and-loans were cast into crisis (because they had been taking in money short-term at 3% and lending long-term at 6%). This helped force the deregulation of banking to Rockefeller advantage—after which Volcker moved to become Federal Reserve Chairman in control of the discount rate. With that lever of power that sets the interest-rate framework of the nation, Volcker inaugurated the tight-money (deflation) policy that has persisted to this day, making it very hard for firms to invest in automation to combat the cost advantage of Chinese subsistence labor.

Japan was hit with deflation too — they were going to provide us with the robots.  THE WHOLE THING WAS A GREAT PLAN AGAINST US, COORDINATED AT EVERY LEVEL, WITH EVERY INSTITUTION, FROM THE NEWS TALKING ABOUT HOW THE LEVERAGED BUY-OUTS OCCURING IN THE DEFLATION WERE MAKING US “LEAN AND MEAN,” WHEN IN FACT THEY WERE TEARING OUT THE GUTS OF AMERICAN PRODUCTION.  And the news media and the economics and business administration courses in colleges sung the praises of international free trade and the “efficiency of markets” nonstop.

I watched it all from a pretty good seat on the sidelines, but of course I was marginalized as just another excess white person who needed to stand aside so that blacks and women could have their fair chance.  And who could argue with that?  So I took to the internet to see what effect I could have simply speaking as a citizen, where I’ve met encountered considerable abuse and ridicule, which certainly makes it unpleasant to try and be the “Paul Revere” awakening the good citizens.

I do wish President Donald Trump the best. But let us make sure that none of the neo-conservatives he is taking into his administration  are really “Kissingers” beholden to Goldman-Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.  Beware of new Watergates.

Washington writer Dick Eastman taught economics at Texas A & M University and also studied the behavorial sciences.

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Hiroyuki Hamada

Fear is a strange thing.  As the war on terror began, the US started dropping bombs on Middle Eastern countries.  They killed tons of people. They literally destroyed countries. And we got this thing called Islamophobia.  They say that people are scared of Muslims.

In 1990, Public Enemy released an album called, “Fear of a Black Planet.”  It was a great album.  I listened to it so many times.  The title track was about people being scared of black people.  I think the meaning is clearer today thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement responding to the police killings, gentrification, mass incarceration, institutionalized racism and so on.  But the tendency has been always with us.

People are scared of black people while black people have been subjected to horrendous mistreatments of police brutality, racism, lynching and slavery.  But it has been the non blacks who are scared.

Today, we have Russophobia.  Smart, respectable people make fun of Russian people as if it’s a duty, a slight bow to the establishment just to make sure that they belong and are being obedient.  The President of the United States says upfront that Russia is weak, small and no one wants anything from them except for oil, gas and arms, and so on.

Capitalism forces the people to play an intricate game of musical chairs in which people fight each other for artificial scarcity.  Any disruptions of their given privileges in the artificial hierarchy enforced by money and violence would freak people out, making them defensive, suspicious and divisive.  I think that is the source of many of our political disputes.  And since they are firmly within the framework of the corporate party domination and devoid of the intention to solve the problem of the wasting hierarchy, they won’t amount to any constructive solution.

For example, people are encouraged to argue about different kinds of health insurance they can have instead of a fully state funded healthcare service for all.  As a result, those who are below in the hierarchy are kicked in the heads and those who are above are kissed in the asses.  The siphoning system ensures the flow of the capital to the 1% at the top.  And from the top comes down the instructions as to who to worship and who to trash.

Capitalism for Dummies. Cagle.com

I believe that it comes down to the fact we have homelessness, racism, sexism, poverty, drug addictions, wars, mass incarceration, gentrification, police killings and other issues of our time in an extraordinary proportion because of capitalism functioning to form the hierarchy and keep accumulating wealth at the top.

The Western nations have been embracing capitalism as a guiding principle of the empire.  I want the world to be peaceful and filled with kindness, sharing and caring among all of us.  I think that sort of stuff should be the guiding principle instead.  I like what Richard Wolff, one of the most prominent economists and thinkers, says about how to change our society from a capitalist one to a truly a democratic one.

He talks about dismantling hierarchical economic structures and bringing them down to the communities and real needs of the people by implementing cooperative ownership of business enterprises.  That way, people become responsible for the economic decisions that are tied to their communities, environment and their real needs.  I think we should all hear what he has to say.  Here is his web site.

Anyway, our prospect for the future, if we keep the same trajectory, is not good.  For one thing, more of us will become unnecessary as workers as the new technologies replace us.

The question we must ask is:  should anybody exclusively own ideas or technologies that stem from generations of accomplishments belonging to the whole fields of science, biology, agriculture, architecture, politics, physics, psychology, medicine and so on?  If the powerful few monopolized those, isn’t that a form of a colonization?

I think those ideas should be our collective assets that we can all benefit from, just as the resources from the planet should belong to all of us and human rights should be for all of us.  Well, obviously, considering the path of our “civilization” it will have to be quite a change.  But are we ready to give up everything?

You see, the “owners” of the nations don’t seem to really need people that much already.  Think about what they’ve done to countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. They call them failed states.  They steal resources from them and build military bases out of them but they don’t really seem to show an urgent need to turn them into viable economies with labor forces, markets and so on.

They do sell them weapons so that violence stays the solutions, which of course ensures superiority of the US as the world’s only super power.  According to a document published by the United States Army War College, implementation of such a denigrating scheme against major cities across the globe as “inescapable” at some point in the future.

In short, our lives today are getting cheaper and cheaper.  

This, along with the need to squeeze people harder to produce profits according to the demand of the stock holders, is reflected in the general decline of the economic well being of the people.  The tendency can be observed in the general willingness of the ruling class to deprive human rights on many levels.  Perhaps, they feel that they can afford to deprive education, healthcare, housing and so on from the people, since less people are needed for their factories.

Is it just for the rich and powerful to monopolize enormous profits generated by robots, artificial intelligence and biotechnologies which are the culminations of our achievements as a species?

The answer should be obvious.  The changing dynamics in the economic structure must accompany necessary changes to ensure human rights and integrity of the environment for all life forms.  Those who have the grip on the collective assets knew what has been going on all along.  That’s why the western nations have been obsessed with destroying so many nations which called themselves socialists or communists.

I believe it has been the time for a while to stop seeing such a topic as an ideological issue.  We must see it as a fact with numerous evidences with countless instances to prove that what we embrace as the system is a direct descendant of a feudalism.  And it is killing our species as well as others while accelerating the catastrophe of the climate change.  It is imperative that we the human species come to a collective realization to bring about a structural change to do away with a system with capitalism as a driving force.

But please allow me to get back to the topic of fear; we have a Russophobia cultivated by the western nations today.  Hundreds of the Western military bases that surround Russia keep reinforcing their military powers while economic and political sanctions are enforced against Russia.  It is obvious that the country is targeted for western exploitation and subjugation.  The demonization of its leader comes as a package.

As President Obama stated, Russia might not be as strong as the Western coalition with only 1/13 of the military budget of the NATO forces, however, Russia is a fully nuclear armed nation.

Regarding nuclear weapons, I know something as someone who grew up in Japan.  Unfortunately, regrettably, the history seems to indicate that the nuclear weapons which were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very effective in incorporating imperial Japan into the Western empire.

After enduring sacrifices forced upon its people with enormous death toll, dropping of nuclear bombs and fire bombings on the major cities, Japan had become a vital part of the Western imperial projects against Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and nations across the globe including the ones Imperial Japan had violated and subjugated.  Those people in the US establishment certainly remember the result as a promising one.  The $1 trillion project to renew the nuclear arsenal in the US clearly substantiates its willingness to keep such an option on the table.

But of course, no degree of a capitalist imperative or a deranged desire to rule over the planet would convince anyone with a common sense in picking a fight with a nuclear armed country which has been subjected to numerous invasions only to prove itself to be a formidable contender.

But of course, we are talking about those who joke about drone killings, laugh at the brutal death of the Libyan leader or managed to declare that it was worth it to kill half million Iraqi children before the country become a killing field for the Islamic State.

I don’t really know how the current momentum against Russia will eventually materialize.  It might just turn out to be a way to contain options for the upcoming Republican president Donald Trump who has been expressing a reluctance to demonize Russia.

Sarah Sole portrait of Hillary Clinton: Rolling Stone Magazine.

Or, the momentum will be shifted against China–another nuclear armed nation.  After all, It was the Obama administration with Hillary Clinton’s initiative to shift its strategic emphasis to the pacific to put pressure against China militarily and economically.

But in any case, frankly speaking, I just think it is just outrageous and unbearable that we live under the hegemony of the warring empire. Everything seems to be built with lies.  And they are forcefully backed by 17 spy agencies and 1000 military bases.

It makes me feel dirty and violated just to talk about the allegation of Russians intervening in US politics. I mean, the US overthrows governments.  OVERTHROWS them!

It’s been lying to destroy so many governments that there is even a term for it–regime change.  And the allegation of the Russian intervention comes from the lying central–CIA, FBI and so on, which has assisted the US interventions of 81 elections in foreign countries.  So this baseless allegation against Russia is the excuse for the intervention against Russia and the allegation is coming from the people who intervene in foreign governments by deadly force.  So, this is basically a thief pointing a gun to your head telling you that the victim is the thief.

We can’t do this any more.  Yes, it is scary. But we must face the fact that the real fear is not coming from Russia, Trump, Muslims, Blacks or anyone who gets in the way of the empire but it is coming from the empire itself.  It is OK to imagine a different tomorrow.

In fact we must.

***

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21st Century Wire says…

According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, [China] “is ready to protect its interests“. This is not only a statement towards bellicose North Korea and their recent spate of ‘activity’, but as a warning to the United States. Smoke is billowing forth from the nose of the Dragon, and that’s not good for anyone.

Even Russia who has seen it’s relations with the West at considerable Cold War levels, has calling upon Washington and Seoul to ‘reconsider its decision’.

More on this report from RT…

(Image – Yonhap/AFP; Protesters and police on April 26, 2017 as equipment enter a deployment site in Seongju)

RT

Beijing has called for an immediate stop to the deployment of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to South Korea and is ready to protect its interests, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Continue this report at RT

READ MORE CHINA NEWS AT:  21st Century Wire CHINA Files

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Professor Francis Boyle

It is the Unlimited Imperialists along the line of Alexander, Rome, Napoleon and Hitler who are now in charge of conducting American foreign policy…

Historically this latest eruption of American militarism at the start of the 21st Century is akin to that of America opening the 20th Century by means of the U.S.-instigated Spanish-American War in 1898. Then the Republican administration of President William McKinley stole their colonial empire from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a near genocidal war against the Filipino people; while at the same time illegally annexing the Kingdom of Hawaii and subjecting the Native Hawaiian people (who call themselves the Kanaka Maoli) to genocidal conditions.

Additionally, McKinley’s military and colonial expansion into the Pacific was also designed to secure America’s economic exploitation of China pursuant to the euphemistic rubric of the “open door” policy. But over the next four decades America’s aggressive presence, policies, and practices in the so-called “Pacific” Ocean would ineluctably pave the way for Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and thus America’s precipitation into the ongoing Second World War.

Today a century later the serial imperial aggressions launched, waged, and menaced by the neoconservative Republican Bush Junior administration then the neoliberal Democratic Obama administration and now the reactionary Trump administration threaten to set off World War III.

By shamelessly exploiting the terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001, the Bush Junior administration set forth to steal a hydrocarbon empire from the Muslim States and Peoples of Color living in Central Asia and the Middle East and Africa under the bogus pretexts of:

1:  Fighting a war against “international terrorism” or “Islamic fundamentalism”; and/or

2:  eliminating weapons of mass destruction; and/or

3:  the promotion of democracy; and/or

4:  self-styled humanitarian intervention and its avatar “responsibility to protect” (R2P).

Only this time the geopolitical stakes are infinitely greater than they were a century ago: control and domination of the world’s hydrocarbon resources and thus the very fundaments and energizers of the global economic system – oil and gas. The Bush Junior/ Obama administrations targeted the remaining hydrocarbon reserves of Africa, Latin America (e.g., the Pentagon’s reactivization of the U.S. Fourth Fleet in 2008), and Southeast Asia for further conquest and domination, together with the strategic choke-points at sea and on land required for their transportation (e.g., Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti). Today the U.S. Fourth Fleet threatens oil-rich Venezuela and Ecuador for sure along with Cuba.

Toward accomplishing that first objective, in 2007 the neoconservative Bush Junior administration announced the establishment of the U.S. Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) in order to better control, dominate, steal, and exploit both the natural resources and the variegated peoples of the continent of Africa, the very cradle of our human species.

In 2011 Libya and the Libyans proved to be the first victims to succumb to AFRICOM under the neoliberal Obama administration, thus demonstrating the truly bi-partisan and non-partisan nature of U.S. imperial foreign policy decision-making. Let us put aside as beyond the scope of this paper the American conquest, extermination, and ethnic cleansing of the Indians from off the face of the continent of North America. Since America’s instigation of the Spanish-American War in 1898, U.S. foreign policy decision-making has been alternatively conducted by reactionary imperialists, conservative imperialists, and liberal imperialists for the past 119 years and counting.

Trump is just another White Racist Iron Fist for Judeo-Christian U.S. Imperialism and Capitalism smashing all over the world. Trump forthrightly and proudly admitted that the United States is in the Middle East in order to steal their oil. At least he was honest about it. Unlike his predecessors who lied about the matter going back to President George Bush Sr. with his War for Persian Gulf oil against Iraq in 1991. Just recently, President Trump publicly threatened illegal U.S. military intervention against oil-rich Venezuela. Q.E.D.

This world-girdling burst of U.S. imperialism at the start of humankind’s new millennium is what my teacher, mentor, and friend the late, great Professor Hans Morgenthau denominated “unlimited imperialism” in his seminal book Politics Among Nations 52-53 (4th ed. 1968):

“The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Hitler. They all have in common an urge toward expansion which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the confines of the political world. This urge will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination–a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror’s lust for power. It is, as we shall see, exactly the lack of moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic policies of this kind….”

Since September 11, 2001, it is the Unlimited Imperialists along the lines of Alexander, Rome, Napoleon, and Hitler who have been in charge of conducting American foreign policy decision-making. The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like twin Swords of Damocles over the heads of all humanity.

After September 11, 2001 the people of the world witnessed successive governments in the United States that have demonstrated little respect for fundamental considerations of international law, human rights, and the United States Constitution. Instead, the world has watched a comprehensive and malicious assault upon the integrity of the international and domestic legal orders by gangs of men and women who are thoroughly Machiavellian in their perception of international relations and in their conduct of both foreign affairs and American domestic policy.

Even more seriously, in many instances specific components of the U.S. government’s foreign policies constitute ongoing criminal activity under well-recognized principles of both international law and United States domestic law, and in particular the Nuremberg Charter (1945), the Nuremberg Judgment (1946), and the Nuremberg Principles (1950), as well as the Pentagon’s own U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 on The Law of Land Warfare, which applies to the President himself as Commander-in-Chief of United States Armed Forces under Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution.

US army in Syria (Source: Inside Syria Media Center)

Depending on the substantive issues involved, these international and domestic crimes typically include but are not limited to the Nuremberg offences of “crimes against peace”—e.g., Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, and their longstanding threatened war of aggression against Iran. Their criminal responsibility also concerns crimes against humanity and war crimes as well as grave breaches of the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the 1907 Hague Regulations on land warfare: torture, enforced disappearances, assassinations, murders, kidnappings, extraordinary renditions, “shock and awe,” depleted uranium, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, drone strikes, etc.

Furthermore, various officials of the United States government have committed numerous inchoate crimes incidental to these substantive offences that under the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956) are international crimes in their own right: planning, and preparation, solicitation, incitement, conspiracy, complicity, attempt, aiding and abetting, etc. Of course the terrible irony of today’s situation is that seven decades ago at Nuremberg the U.S. government participated in the prosecution, punishment, and execution of Nazi government officials for committing some of the same types of heinous international crimes that these officials of the United States government currently inflict upon Peoples of Color all over the world.

To be sure, I personally oppose the imposition of capital punishment upon any human being for any reason no matter how monstrous their crimes, whether they be Saddam Hussein, Bush Junior, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump.

According to basic principles of international criminal law set forth in paragraph 501 of U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10, all high level civilian officials and military officers in the U.S. government who either knew or should have known that soldiers or civilians under their control (such as the C.I.A. or mercenary contractors), committed or were about to commit international crimes and failed to take the measures necessary to stop them, or to punish them, or both, are likewise personally responsible for the commission of international crimes.

This category of officialdom who actually knew or should have known of the commission of these international crimes under their jurisdiction and failed to do anything about them include at the very top of America’s criminal chain-of-command the President, the Vice-President, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A. Director, National Security Advisor and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff along with the appropriate Regional Commanders-in-Chiefs, especially for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and now U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Nuremberg Defendants (Source: news.dm)

These U.S. government officials and their immediate subordinates are responsible for the commission of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes as specified by the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles as well as by U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 of 1956.

Today in international legal terms, the United States government itself should now be viewed as constituting an ongoing criminal conspiracy under international criminal law in violation of the Nuremberg Charter, the Nuremberg Judgment, and the Nuremberg Principles, because of its formulation and undertaking of serial wars of aggression, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that are legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany.

As a consequence, American citizens possess the basic right under international law and the United States domestic law, including the U.S. Constitution, to engage in acts of civil resistance designed to prevent, impede, thwart, or terminate ongoing criminal activities perpetrated by U.S. government officials in their conduct of foreign affairs policies and military operations purported to relate to “defense” and “counter-terrorism.”

They are the terrorists! They terrorize the entire world!

For that very reason, large numbers of American citizens have decided to act on their own cognizance by means of civil resistance in order to demand that U.S. government officials adhere to basic principles of international law, of U.S. domestic law, and of the U.S. Constitution in their conduct of foreign affairs and military operations. Mistakenly, however, such actions have been defined to constitute classic instances of “civil disobedience” as historically practiced in the United States. And the conventional status quo admonition by the U.S. power elite and its sycophantic news media for those who knowingly engage in “civil disobedience” has always been that they must meekly accept their punishment for having performed a prima facie breach of the positive laws as a demonstration of their good faith and moral commitment.

Nothing could be further from the truth! Today’s civil resisters are the sheriffs! The U.S. government officials are the outlaws!

Here I would like to suggest a different way of thinking about civil resistance activities that are specifically designed to thwart, prevent, or impede ongoing criminal activity by officials of the U.S. government under well‑recognized principles of international and U.S. domestic law. Such civil resistance activities represent the last constitutional avenue open to the American people to preserve their democratic form of government with its historical commitment to the rule of law and human rights.

Civil resistance is the last hope Americans have to prevent the U.S. government from moving even farther down the paths of lawless violence in Africa, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, military interventionism into Latin America, and nuclear confrontation with Pakistan, North Korea, Russia, and China.

Such measures of “civil resistance” must not be confused with, and indeed must be carefully distinguished from, acts of “civil disobedience” as traditionally defined. In today’s civil resistance cases, what we witness are American citizens attempting to prevent the ongoing commission of international and domestic crimes under well-recognized principles of international law and U.S. domestic law. This is a phenomenon essentially different from the classic civil disobedience cases of the 1950s and 1960s where incredibly courageous African Americans and their supporters were conscientiously violating domestic laws for the express purpose of changing them. By contrast, today’s civil resisters are acting for the express purpose of upholding the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, human rights, and international law. Applying the term “civil disobedience” to such civil resistors mistakenly presumes their guilt and thus perversely exonerates the U.S. government criminals.

Civil resistors disobeyed nothing, but to the contrary obeyed international law and the United States Constitution. By contrast, U.S. government officials grossly violated fundamental principles of international law as well as U.S. criminal law and thus committed international crimes and U.S. domestic crimes as well as impeachable violations of the United States Constitution. The civil resistors are the sheriffs enforcing international law, U.S. criminal law and the U.S. Constitution against the criminals working for the U.S. government!

Today the American people must reaffirm their commitment to the Nuremberg Charter, Judgment, and Principles by holding their government officials fully accountable under international law and U.S. domestic law for the commission of such grievous international and domestic crimes. They must not permit any aspect of their foreign affairs and defense policies to be conducted by acknowledged “war criminals” according to the U.S. government’s own official definition of that term as set forth in U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 (1956), the U.S. War Crimes Act, the Geneva Conventions, and the Hague Regulations, inter alia.

The American people must insist upon the impeachment, dismissal, resignation, indictment, conviction, and long-term incarceration of all U.S. government officials guilty of such heinous international and domestic crimes. If not so restrained by civil resistance, the U.S. government could very well precipitate a Third World War. That is precisely what American civil resisters are doing today!

The future of American foreign policy and the peace of the world lie in the hands of American citizens—not the bureaucrats, legislators, judges, lobbyists, think-tankers, professors, and self-styled experts who inhibit Washington, D.C., New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hyde Park/Chicago, Illinois. Civil resistance is the way to go!

This is our Nuremberg Moment now! Thank you.

***

Professor Francis A. Boyle is an international law expert and served as Legal Advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat on the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, as well as to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations from 1991 to 1993, where he drafted the Palestinian counter-offer to the now defunct Oslo Agreement. His books include “ Palestine, Palestinians and International Law” (2003), and “ The Palestinian Right of Return under International Law” (2010).

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This weekend North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced he will ‘suspend’ his nuclear and missile tests with immediate effect and will shut down his main nuclear testing site.

The announcement came one week before Kim is set to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in in advance of next month’s much-anticipated summit with President Trump.

However, there is still no clarity on what both sides actually want, and what the US is willing to do in the interests of regional and international peace. Thus far, both Trump and Moon have said that North Korea will “denuclearize,” but there is still no clear definition of what that term actually means.

“North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site,” Trump tweeted shortly after the announcement from Pyongyang. “This is very good news for North Korea and the World — big progress! Look forward to our Summit.”

Writer Daniel Larison from The American Conservative writes that if the U.S. and its allies aren’t prepared to make an “extraordinarily generous offer” to North Korea, it’s likely nothing good will come from the Trump and Kim summit –  a sign of unrealistic goals for diplomacy.

In addition, the Trump Administration is prosecuting a risky trade war with its number one global creditor, China. Certainly, any peace treaty between North and South Korea might be viewed as a precursor to unification on the peninsula – which would mean the US would have to exit its 70 year military-industrial cash cow and dollar sink in the DMZ. Will the hawks in DC really allow it? How will Chinese leader Xi Jin Ping react to Washington should Trump and his neoconservative advisors try to skew negotiations in order to gain a military or geopolitical advantage over Beijing?

Will these key elements hamper progress in the run-up to the upcoming summit?

Larison writes:

The U.S. and Japan released a joint statement calling on North Korea to give up not only its nuclear weapons, but also to abandon all “weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.” TAC contributor Harry Kazianis responded to the statement earlier today:

“#NorthKorea needs to abandon all weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.” -U.S.-Japan Summit readout. There is no way Kim agrees to that, unless #China somehow gurantees its security and gives massive amounts of economic aid. This is going to end badly.

— Harry Kazianis (@GrecianFormula) April 20, 2018

As the inter-Korean summit approaches and the Trump-Kim meeting draws closer, the gap between the U.S. and North Korean positions does not appear to have narrowed at all. If anything, the demands from the U.S. and Japan have increased and become even more unrealistic than they already were. Instead of moderating demands and tempering expectations about what North Korea is willing to give up, the Trump administration and the Abe government are doing just the opposite. This may succeed in reassuring Japan that the U.S. isn’t going to make a deal that Tokyo can’t accept, but it practically guarantees that no agreement can be reached with North Korea.

If Trump goes to the summit thinking that North Korea is going to agree to any of this, he has been misled and will be setting himself up for failure. If the U.S. and its allies aren’t prepared to make an extraordinarily generous offer in return, it is likely that nothing good will come from the meeting between Trump and Kim.

The danger is that the hard-liners around Trump will exploit a summit failure as an excuse to ratchet up tensions and push for military action and he will be more inclined to listen to them.

***

READ MORE KOREA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire North Korea Files

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This is the big elephant in the room. When will environmentalists and green journalists take a break from climate change and start addressing clear and present threats like nuclear waste?

Newsweek

Toxic waste produced by one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters will be dumped into the sea, according to the head of the Japanese company tasked with cleaning up the radioactive mess, despite protests from local fishermen.

Takashi Kawamura, chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), told foreign media that nearly 777,000 tons of water tainted with tritium, a byproduct of the nuclear process that is notoriously difficult to filter out of water, will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean as part of a multibillion-dollar recovery effort following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. That year, an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, killing more than 15,000 people and leading to a series of meltdowns at the TEPCO-owned Fukushima No. 1, or Daiichi, nuclear power plant, causing it to spew radiation that has plagued the region ever since.

While much progress has been made to clean the area, the company has yet to deal with the water that was used to cool the plant’s damaged reactors, causing it to become tainted with tritium.

“The decision has already been made,” Kawamura claimed, according to The Japan Times.

Tepco wants to release the contaminated water that is being stored in hundreds of tanks at the plant into the ocean. According to Reuters, this is a common practice at functioning nuclear plants.

Kawamura said that he would urge a government task force responsible for the cleanup of the Fukushima site to disclose when its decision on what to do with the water will be made.

“We could have decided much earlier, and that is TEPCO’s responsibility,” he added, according to Reuters.

Despite his claim that the issue has already been decided, Kawamura suggested that TEPCO will wait for the government panel’s final verdict before going ahead and dumping the water.

“We cannot keep going if we do not have the support of the state,” he said, according to The Japan Times.

Continue this story at Newsweek…

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In recent months, we have seen increased military provocations by the US on the edge of China’s territorial waters. More worrying however, if the fact the US are attempting to drag Japan into their geopolitical chess match. In addition to this, British Royal Naval ships have also being used to provoke China in near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea.

All of this is happening amid a backdrop of a new US-led international trade war, in which the Trump Administration is attempting to renegotiate the legacy system of globalization and multilateralism, and into a new phase of nationalist-oriented neomercantilism, and possibly new regional power blocks. For this reason, it’s difficult to know exactly how much of this sabre rattling is part of the the new realignment, and how much represents a genuine American thirst for a new world war.

Regardless, Japan remains the key power-balancer in the East Asia region, and which direction it swings will likely determine to over-arching direction of events. For this reason, it’s important to keep an eye on this recent development (see below).

Southfront reports…

The US and Japan appear to be preparing for a conflict with China over the Senkaku Islands, according to News Corp Australia.

The tiny islands are located between the northern tip of Taiwan and the Japanese home islands and have been under dispute for a while, however they appear to be heating up.

Beijing claims that the islands are part of its historical inheritance. According to the Australian outlet, Chinese fishing boats are continuously performing aggressive incursions, in a way that they appear to be organized as a state militia. The Chinese coast guard was also recently militarized and is seeing tensions in the East China Sea.

Reportedly, Japan and the United States are drawing up battle plans to enable their forces to fight together against any Chinese incursion.

This is reinforced by the on-going military drills aimed at demonstrating the interoperability of Japanese Self Defense Forces with those of the US and Canada. These exercises are the biggest ever that have taken place around Japan. The Keen Sword exercise includes more than 57,000 soldiers, sailors and air force personnel, as well as the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan.

An attack submarine is participating in KS19 with SG7 and JMSDF Sailors. For the submarine force, it is an opportunity to demonstrate how both countries’ submariners would detect, locate, track and engage enemy.#KS19 #KeenSword #Keensword19 @INDOPACOM @USPacificFleet pic.twitter.com/C1pjVRCL6R

— U.S. Forces Japan (@USForcesJapan) November 2, 2018

The Japan Times also cited government sources which claimed that there are on-going discussions to establish a joint response to any “emergency” on or around the Senkaku Islands.

“The plan being drawn up assumes such emergencies as armed Chinese fishermen landing on the islands, and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces needing to be mobilized after the situation exceeds the capacity of the police to respond,” the outlet reported.

“We are here to stabilise, and preserve our capability should it be needed. Exercises like Keen Sword are exactly the kind of thing we need to do,” Rear Admiral Karl Thomas told a media briefing aboard the USS Ronald Reagan with its 90 F-18 Super Hornet strike fighters and 5000 sailors.

“The US-Japan alliance is essential for stability in this region and the wider Indo Pacific,” Japanese Rear Admiral Hiroshi Egawa added.

#KeenSword 19 provides joint and bilateral partners the ability to build trust and increase lethality. #KS19 @USAirForce @USNavy @bouei_saigai @jmsdf_pao_eng https://t.co/kj1Iupe5eR pic.twitter.com/eTeMQoBcWD

— PACAF (@PACAF) November 3, 2018

Keen Sword “remains an expression of the commitment of like-minded allies and partners. To really see what we can do in terms of demonstrating advanced capabilities together to ensure peace and stability in the Indo Pacific,” the Chief of US Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said.

He also added that the US would continue its freedom of navigation operations in the East and South China Seas to emphasize on its opposition of “illegitimate maritime claims.”

Japan is also actively attempting to boost its military strength. In August 2018 it increased the maximum age for recruits. Due to the aging population the number of soldiers in the country is dwindling.

In May 2018 Japan also increased its military spending for the 6^th consecutive year.

China is also not sitting idle. It is rapidly expanding and modernizing its Navy. On October 29^th, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the military chiefs overseeing the South China Sea to prepare for war.

This followed the warning of Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges who claimed that it is very likely that the US will be at war with China in 15 years…

Continue this story at South Front

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Yesterday, Russia and China carried out what it said was the first “long-range joint air patrol” in the Asia-Pacific region, but the mission drew hundreds of warning shots from South Korean military, as well as a stern response from Japan. 

South Korea said that one of the Russian planes, a Beriev A-50 early warning and control aircraft, flew too close and intruded twice into South Korea’s territorial airspace – an area which is actually disputed territory surrounding a cluster of islands claimed by both South Korea and Japan.

In response to the Russian-Chinese maneuvers, South Korea scrambled F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, firing some 20 flares and 360 machine gun rounds according to reports.

Russia disputed the claim, stating that two of its Tu-95MS bombers were on a routine flight over neutral waters and did not enter South Korean territory.

Russian and Chinese bombers on 'first' joint patrol in the Asia-Pacific region.
The #China–#Russia alliance has become a reality and will last for long time. pic.twitter.com/SpE7MRsXrk

— Enrico Ivanov (@Russ_Warrior) July 23, 2019

IMAGE: Russian A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft flying near the Korean-controlled island called Takeshima in Japanese Tuesday, July 23, 2019.

Antiwar.com reports…

What is being described as the first ever joint Russia-China long-range joint air patrol ended up in a substantial confrontation, with South Korean jets scrambling, and firing 360 rounds of “warning shots” when they say the Russian planes violated South Korean airspace.

South Korea’s planes fired at an A-50, a command plane based on the more common Il-76 transport. South Korea’s jets were F-15F and KF-16 fighter jets. Russia denies violating South Korean airspace.

This is a difference of opinion on who actually owns some contested islands. Japan backed South Korea’s claims, while Russia and China don’t support the South Korean ownership of the islands, and therefore not the airspace either.

The long-range patrol was chiefly made up of long-range strategic bombers, and neither Russia nor China included an escort to defend them from a potential attack by fighters. That might change in future patrols.

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Our weekly documentary film curated by he editorial team at 21WIRE.

“In March 2011, an earthquake hit Japan, setting off a tsunami that caused an accident at the Daiichi nuclear power station in Fukushima prefecture. Radioactive contamination settled on the surrounding area, and the authorities decided to evacuate the population living within a 20km radius around the power station. Eight years later, inhabitants of the town closest to the nuclear disaster, Okuma, were allowed to move back to some of its territory. RTD takes a bittersweet tour of the nuclear ghost town with former residents considering whether to return to their hometown, and meets those who have already moved into new homes built in a less-contaminated part of town. Torn between loyalty to their roots and the desire to build a future for themselves, the people of Fukushima now have an agonising choice to make.” Watch:

.
Run time: 27 min
Production: RT Documentaries (2019)

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Our weekly documentary film curated by the editorial team at 21WIRE.

Japan is country and society in flux. With a massive declining birthrate, and a corporate culture which inhibits traditional family relationships, there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, despite numerous attempts by the government to stimulate male and female relations. This extreme corporate-led agenda has also led to a rise in suicides in big cities. Why are younger Japanese finding it so hard to achieve a work-life balance and to foster real sexual relationships? Add to this the increasing dependency on digital and virtual sexual experiences – and you have a potentially lethal mix in terms of a society and its traditional culture in terminal decline. Watch:

Runtime: 26 min
Production: “The Feed” for SBS Australia (2018)

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Our weekly documentary film curated by the editorial team at 21WIRE.

“The first atom bomb destroyed Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Just three days later, a second atom bomb flattened the city of Nagasaki, even though Japan had long been ready to capitulate. Conventional wisdom holds that these two atomic explosions – the only use of nuclear bombs in the history of war – brought the Second World War to an end. Yet an increasing number of historians are critical of this interpretation. International experts say it is a myth and say it glorifies an war crime that killed more than 100 thousand civilians. Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa argues that the Soviet Union’s unexpected declaration of war on Japan is what really pushed Tokyo to surrender. He says that Japan had been hoping that Moscow would step in to broker a diplomatic end to the conflict. Research in Russian archives has discovered that the United States knew that, so why did it drop the bombs at all?” (DW Documentaries).

Watch this gripping retrospective report which reexamines one of world history’s most defining moments:

Run time: 42 min
A Report by Klaus Scherer
Released: DW Documentaries (2020)

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Brian Berletic
21st Century Wire

Tensions between Washington and Beijing are not merely the recent results of former US President Donald Trump’s time in office – but rather just the latest chapter in US efforts to contain China that stretch back decades. 

Indeed, US foreign policy has for decades admittedly aimed at encircling and containing China’s rise and maintaining primacy over the Indo-Pacific region.

The “Pentagon Papers” leaked in 1969 would admit in regards to the ongoing US war against Vietnam that:

…the February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain China.

The papers also admitted that China, “looms as a major power threatening to undercut [American] importance and effectiveness in the world and, more remotely but more menacingly, to organize all of Asia against [America].

The papers also made it clear that there were (and still are), “three fronts to a long-run effort to contain China: (a) the Japan-Korea front; (b) the India-Pakistan front; and (c) the Southeast Asia front.”

Since then, it is clear that from the continued US military presence in both Japan and South Korea, the now two decades-long US occupation of Afghanistan on both Pakistan’s and China’s borders, and the emergence of the so-called “Milk Tea Alliance” aimed at overthrowing Southeast Asian governments friendly with China and replacing them with US-backed client regimes – this policy to contain China endures up to today.

Assessing US activity along these three fronts reveals the progress and setbacks Washington faces – and various dangers to global peace and stability Washington’s continued belligerence pose.

The Japan-Korea Front

Military.com in their article, “Here’s What It Costs to Keep US Troops in Japan and South Korea,” reports:

In all, more than 80,000 U.S. troops are deployed to Japan and South Korea. In Japan alone, the U.S. maintains more than 55,000 deployed troops — the largest forward-deployed U.S. force anywhere in the world.

The article notes that according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), the US spent “$34 billion to maintain military presences in Japan and South Korea between 2016 and 2019.”

The article cites the GAO providing an explanation as to why this massive US military presence is maintained in East Asia:

“…U.S. forces help strengthen alliances, promote a free and open Indo-Pacific region, provide quick response to emergencies and are essential for U.S. national security.”

“Alliances” that are “strengthened” by the physical presence of what are essentially occupying US forces suggests the “alliance” is hardly voluntary and claims of promoting a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” is highly subjective – begging the question of to whom the Indo-Pacific is “free and open” to.

And as US power wanes both regionally in the Indo-Pacific as well as globally, Washington has placed increasing pressure on both Japan and South Korea to not only help shoulder this financial burden, but to also become more proactive within Washington’s containment strategy toward China.

Japan is one of three other nations (the US itself, Australia, and India) drafted into the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – also know as the “Quad.”

Rather than the US solely depending on its own military forces based within Japanese territory or supported by its Japan-based forces, Japan’s military along with India’s and Australia’s are also being recruited to take part in military exercises and operations in and around the South China Sea.

India’s inclusion in the Quad also fits well into the US 3-front strategy that made up Washington’s containment policy toward China as early as the 1960s.

The India-Pakistan Front

In addition to recruiting India into the Quad alliance, the US helps encourage escalation through political support and media campaigning of India’s various territorial disputes with China.

The US also targets Pakistan’s close and ongoing relationship with China – including the support of armed insurgents in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

Recently, a bombing at a hotel in Quetta, Baluchistan appears to have targeted China’s ambassador to Pakistan, Ambassador Nong Rong.

The BBC in its article, “Pakistan hotel bomb: Deadly blast hits luxury venue in Quetta,” would claim:

Initial reports had suggested the target was China’s ambassador. Ambassador Nong Rong is understood to be in Quetta but was not present at the hotel at the time of the attack on Wednesday.

The article also noted:

Balochistan province, near the Afghan border, is home to several armed groups, including separatists. Separatists in the region want independence from the rest of Pakistan and accuse the government and China of exploiting Balochistan, one of Pakistan’s poorest provinces, for its gas and mineral wealth.

Absent from the BBC’s reporting is the extensive and open support the US government has provided these separatists over the years and how – clearly – this is more than just a local uprising against perceived injustice, but yet another example of armed conflict-by-proxy waged by Washington against China.

As far back as 2011 publications like The National Interest in articles like, “Free Baluchistan” would openly advocate expanding US support for separatism in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

The article was written by the late Selig  Harrison – who was a senior fellow at the US-based corporate-financier funded Center for International Policy – and would claim:

Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces.

Of course, “Islamist forces” is a euphemism for US-Persian Gulf state sponsored militants used to both fight Western proxy wars as well as serve as a pretext for Western intervention. Citing “Islamist forces” in Baluchistan, Pakistan clearly serves as an example of the latter.

In addition to op-eds published by influential policy think tanks, US legislators like US Representative Dana Rohrabacher had proposed resolutions such as (emphasis added), “US House of Representatives Concurrent Resolution 104 (112th): Expressing the sense of Congress that the people of Baluchistan, currently divided between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign country.”

There is also funding provided to adjacent, political groups supporting separatism in Baluchistan, Pakistan as listed by the US government’s own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website under “Pakistan.” Organizations like the “Association for Integrated Development Balochistan” are funded by the US government and used to mobilize people politically, constituting clear interference by the US in Pakistan’s internal political affairs.

The Gwadar Port project is a key juncture within China’s growing global network of infrastructure projects as part of its One Belt, One Road initiative. The US clearly opposes China’s rise and has articulated robust strategies to counter it; everything up to and including open war as seen in the Pentagon Papers regarding the Vietnam War.

The recent bombing in Baluchistan, Pakistan demonstrates that this strategy continues in regards to utilizing local militants to target Chinese-Pakistani cooperation and is one part of the much wider, region-wide strategy of encircling and containing China.

The Southeast Asia Front

Of course the US war against Vietnam was part of a wider effort to reassert Western primacy over Southeast Asia and deny the region from fueling China’s inevitable rise.

The US having lost the war and almost completely retreating from the Southeast Asia region saw Southeast Asia itself repair relations amongst themselves and with China.

Today, the nations of Southeast Asia count China as their largest trade partner, investor, a key partner in infrastructure development, a key supplier for the region’s armed forces, as well as providing the majority of tourism arrivals throughout the region. For countries like Thailand, more tourists arrive from China than from all Western nations combined.

Because existing governments in Southeast Asia have nothing to benefit from by participating in American belligerence toward China, the US has found it necessary to cultivate and attempt to install into power various client regimes. This has been an ongoing process since the Vietnam War.

The US has targeted each nation individually for years. In 2009 and 2010, US-backed opposition leader-in-exile Thaksin Shinawatra deployed his “red shirt” protesters in back-to-back riots – the latter of which included some 300 armed militants and culminated in city-wide arson across Bangkok and the death of over 90 police, soldiers, protesters, and bystanders.

In 2018, US-backed opposition groups took power in Malaysia after the US poured millions of dollars for over a decade in building up the opposition.

I visited and I was sitting there with many of the leaders the new leaders of this government, many of whom were just our partners we had been working with for 15 years and one of the most senior of them who’s now one of the people running the government said to me, ‘gosh IRI you never gave up on us even when we were ready to give up on ourselves.’

…guess what one of the first steps the new government took? It froze Chinese infrastructure investments.

A US-Engineered “Asia Spring” 

Just as the US did during the 2011 “Arab Spring” – the US State Department, in a bid to create synergies across various regime change campaigns in Asia, has introduced the “Milk Tea Alliance” to transform individual US-backed regime change efforts in Asia into a region-wide crisis.

The BBC itself admits in articles like, “Milk Tea Alliance: Twitter creates emoji for pro-democracy activists,” that:

The alliance has brought together anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong and Taiwan with pro-democracy campaigners in Thailand and Myanmar.

Omitted from the BBC’s coverage of the “Milk Tea Alliance” (intentionally) is the actual common denominators that unite it – US funding through fronts like the National Endowment for Democracy and a unifying hatred of China based exclusively on talking points pushed by the US State Department itself.

Circling back to the Pentagon Papers and recalling the coordinated, regional campaign the US sought to encircle China with – we can then look at more recent US government policy papers like the “Indo-Pacific Framework” published in the White House archives from the Trump administration.

The policy paper’s first bullet point asks:

How to maintain US strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence, and cultivating areas of cooperation to promote regional peace and prosperity?

The paper also discusses information campaigns designed to “educate” the world about “China’s coercive behaviour and influence operations around the globe.” These campaigns have materialized in a propaganda war fabricating accusations of “Chinese genocide” in Xinjiang, China, claims that Chinese telecom company Huawei is a global security threat, and that China – not the US – is the single largest threat to global peace and stability today.

In reality US policy aimed at encircling China is predicated upon Washington’s desire to continue its own decades-long impunity upon the global stage and the continuation of all the wars, humanitarian crises, and abuses that have stemmed from it.

Understanding the full scope of Washington’s “competition” with China helps unlock the confusion surrounding unfolding individual crises like the trade war, the ongoing violence and turmoil in Myanmar, bombings in southwest Pakistan, students mobs in Thailand, riots in Hong Kong, and attempts by the US to transform the South China Sea into an international conflict.

Understanding that these events are all connected – then assessing the success or failure of US efforts gives us a clearer picture of the overall success Washington in encircling China.  It also gives governments and regional blocs a clearer picture of how to manage policy in protecting against US subversion that threatens national, regional, and global peace and stability.

***
Author Brian Berletic, formerly known under his pen name “Tony Cartalucci,” is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher, writer and special contributor to 21st Century Wire. See more of his previous work at Tony’s archive. Over the last decade, his work has been published on a number of popular news and analysis websites, and also on the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. Also, you can follow him on VK here.

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This week, Japanese health officials and the Olympic Committee have suddenly succumbed to pressure by the media and medical industrial complex, as they reverse course on policy of allowing spectators to watch the Olympic events. Government advisors claim that Delta Variant (formerly known as the Indian Variant) ‘cases’ are on the move, unleashing a new wave of official hysteria. This latest ‘state of emergency’ scare is a direct result of an increase in PCR testing and computer-modeled predictions about the ‘possible spread’ of an alleged ‘Delta Variant’ which health experts claim is surging through the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The Establishment media is attempting to blame this alleged ‘surge in cases’ on the Japanese government’s supposed “failure to get its covid vaccination program underway early enough,” claiming that the Games are not ‘safe’ for fans.

Currently, Japan has only vaccinated 20% of its population, but the media and global ‘public health’ experts believe this is not enough and are pressuring the government to push the experimental gene-jab on more of its healthy citizens to supposedly ‘push back’ the illusive Delta Variant.

Washington Post reports…

TOKYO — Japan will bar spectators from all Olympic events held in and around Tokyo, organizers announced on Thursday, as the government imposed a fresh state of emergency to cover the capital during the Games.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Tokyo’s fourth state of emergency would begin on July 12 and last until August 22, citing rising infections in the capital and the spread of the contagious delta variant. He asked bars and restaurants not to serve alcohol during that period – although the city’s streets are likely to remain packed during the daytime, as they have been during previous states of emergency this year.

In light of the announcement, the organizers of the Games held a meeting Thursday evening to discuss whether to implement further restrictions on spectators, or whether to ban them entirely. They announced their decision at a news conference, just two weeks before the Games are due to be opened on July 23.

“A very heavy judgement was made,” Seiko Hashimoto, the president of the organizing committee said, saying it was regrettable the Games were being held in a “very limited format.”

“I am sorry to those who purchased tickets and everyone in local areas,” she said.

Olympic organizers, working closely with the government, had announced two weeks ago that they would allow some domestic spectators to attend events. They capped attendance at 10,000 or 50 percent of a venue’s capacity, but warned at the time they might change course if infections rose again.

The government’s own scientific advisers warned last month that allowing even limited numbers of fans would raise risks of increased rates of coronavirus infections. Public opposition to proceeding with the Games had waned in recent weeks, but most people still believed the Games should be canceled, postponed or go ahead without spectators, surveys showed.

The ban will affect almost all sporting events being held in the capital, including the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and in three neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba, public broadcaster NHK reported. Events held in more distant prefectures, including cycling and earlier rounds of the soccer, baseball and softball competitions in Miyagi, Fukushima, Shizuoka prefectures will be subject to the 10,000 or 50 percent cap, NHK reported.

It means Tokyo’s newly rebuilt 68,000-capacity National Stadium, which was not completed in time for the 2019 Rugby World Cup as initially hoped, will be empty throughout the tournament, symbolizing the vast sums of money invested in these Olympics with little reward for the people of Japan or the country’s economy.

The stadium cost around 157 billion yen ($1.4 billion) to rebuild, according to official figures. The total cost of the Games is officially estimated at $15.4 billion, but government audits suggest the real cost was twice as high. All but $6.7 billion is public money, with the International Olympic Committee contributing only about $1.5 billion…

Continue this story at the Washington Post

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Summary:

• Japan has taken steps to warn its citizens about serious side effects linked to COVID-19 injections
• They’ve added a warning label to the jabs, warning about the risk of myocarditis — inflammation of the heart muscle
• Japan is also taking strict measures to monitor and report all side effects to the unprecedented jabs
• Hospitals must report, in detail, any adverse effects that occur within 28 days of receiving a COVID-19 injection
• Japan’s Ministry of Health includes a “consent to vaccination” section on its website, which states mandatory vaccination and discrimination against those who choose not to be vaccinated are not advised; this includes at workplaces, which are told not to force anyone to get injected
• Japan is standing out as a protector of informed consent and medical freedom, during a time in history when many other countries are opting for totalitarian control

Analysis by Dr Joseph Mercola

Japan has taken steps to warn its citizens about serious side effects linked to COVID-19 injections.¹ They’ve added a label to the jabs, warning about the risk of myocarditis — inflammation² of the heart muscle that can cause symptoms similar to a heart attack, including chest pain, shortness of breath, abnormal heartbeat and fatigue.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on their website, “Myocarditis and pericarditis have rarely been reported, especially in adolescents and young adult males within several days after COVID-19 vaccination.”³

Further, in June 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration added a warning to patient and provider fact sheets for the Pfizer and Moderna jabs about the “suggested increased risks of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart) following vaccination.”⁴

Unlike in the U.S., however, Japan is taking measures to monitor and report all side effects to the unprecedented jabs.

Japan Has Strict Reporting Requirements for Jab Side Effects

In Japan, strict legal reporting requirements are in effect for side effects that occur within 28 days of receiving a COVID-19 injection. Hospitals must report, in detail, any adverse effects that occur within that time period.

Japan’s Ministry of Health reported that, as of November 14, 2021, for every 1 million males who received the Moderna COVID-19 injection, 81.79 youths between the ages of 10 and 19 developed myocarditis or pericarditis, as did 48.76 men in their 20s.⁵

For Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab, 15.66 out of every 1 million 10- to 19-year-old males who received the jab suffered from myocarditis or pericarditis, along with 13.32 of males in their 20s.⁶ Due to the risk of myocarditis, Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) recommended against COVID-9 injections for healthy 12- to 15-year-olds. JCVI member Adam Finn told Reuters:⁷

“… the number of serious cases that we see of COVID in children this age are really very small. There are uncertainties about the long-term implications of (myocarditis), and that makes the risk-benefit balance for these children really quite tight and much tighter than we would be comfortable to make the recommendation.”

In the U.S., where COVID-19 injections are recommended for ages 5 and up, the CDC stated it is “conducting surveys of patients (or their parents or guardians) and health care providers to gather information about myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination” and “contacting people who meet the case definition for myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.”⁸

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As of December 8, 2021, 1,908 reports of myocarditis or pericarditis had been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID-19 jabs, typically among male adolescents and young adults.⁹ December 17, 2021, just 51 days after approving the shots for children ages 5 to 11, the CDC reported¹⁰ that it had so far received reports of eight cases of myocarditis in that age group.

Past investigations have shown only between 1%¹¹ and 10%¹² of adverse reactions are ever reported to VAERS, which is a passive, voluntary reporting system, so the actual number could be much higher.

In its approval letter for Comirnaty (Pfizer’s COVID-19 injection), the FDA ordered Pfizer to conduct research to investigate the risk of inflammation in and around the heart, as voluntary reporting mechanisms are insufficient.¹³

The FDA accepted Pfizer’s suggested timetable for the post-approval study to evaluate incidence of heart and heart sack inflammation, which includes the submission of an interim report at the end of October 2023, a study completion date of June 30, 2025, and submission of a final report October 31, 2025.

Japan Says No to Vaccine Mandates, Discrimination

In stark contrast to much of the rest of the globe, Japan stands against compulsory vaccination. Japan’s Ministry of Health includes a “consent to vaccination” section on its website, which states mandatory vaccination and discrimination against those who choose not to be vaccinated are not advised. This includes at workplaces, which are told not to force anyone to get injected:^14,15

“Although we encourage all citizens to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it is not compulsory or mandatory. Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided.

Please get vaccinated of your own decision, understanding both the effectiveness in preventing infectious diseases and the risk of side effects. No vaccination will be given without consent. Please do not force anyone in your workplace or those who around you to be vaccinated, and do not discriminate against those who have not been vaccinated.”

The page even links to “human rights counseling in foreign languages,” which details what to do if faced with vaccine discrimination in the workplace.¹⁶ Japan is standing out as a protector of informed consent and medical freedom, during a time in history when many other countries are opting for totalitarian control. Rair Foundation explained:¹⁷

“Doctors worldwide have echoed Japan’s health authority warnings about the gene-therapies side effects. However, this kind of proper informed consent has cost many doctors in western nations their licenses to practice medicine. The government has accused these doctors of spreading ‘vaccine hesitancy.’

Furthermore, while Japan allows its citizens to choose whether to be injected with the experimental gene-therapies, other countries are forcing citizens to receive the jab. For example, in February 2022, Austria will mandate the injections. Citizens who refuse will face heavy fines and up to one year in prison.”

Japanese Researchers Warn of Blood Clots, Death After Jabs

Reports of both cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) have been reported following COVID-19 shots, including both fatal and nonfatal cases. In a commentary published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice,¹⁸ Japanese researchers revealed that, as of May 2021, 10 deaths were reported following the shots — and the manner of deaths raised a red flag.

Among the five men who died, it was from causes other than stroke, but four of the five women who passed away died from ICH. “This imbalance is incompatible with the mortality data on cardiovascular diseases in the National Statistics, which show no apparent disparity between sexes or between hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke,” they wrote.¹⁹

Their analysis revealed “a disproportionately high incidence of death by ICH in Japanese women who received tozinameran [Pfizer’s COVID0-19 shot], suggesting a potential association of ICH with the vaccine.”²⁰ They also believe that a causal link between the deaths from ICH and the shot is possible and warrants further study. Others have also warned that blood clot formation with mRNA vaccines is inevitable.

The mRNA COVID-19 injections affect your body at the cellular level.²¹ In each dose of the Moderna COVID-19 shot are 40 trillion mRNA — or messenger RNA — molecules. Each mRNA “package” is designed to be absorbed into your cell, but only 25% stay in your arm at the site of the injection. The other 75%, is collected by your lymphatic system and fed into your circulation, Dr. Charles Hoffe, a family physician from Lytton, British Columbia, said.

The cells where mRNA is absorbed are those around your blood vessels — the capillary network, which are the tiniest blood vessels in your body. When the mRNA is absorbed into your vascular endothelium — the inner lining of your capillaries — the “packages” open and genes are released. Each gene can produce many COVID-19 spike proteins, and your body gets to work manufacturing these spike proteins, numbering in the trillions.

Your body recognizes the spike protein as foreign, so it begins to manufacture antibodies to protect you against COVID-19, or so the theory goes. But there’s a problem. In a coronavirus, the spike protein becomes part of the viral capsule, Hoffe says, but when you get the shot, “it’s not in a virus, it’s in your cells.” The spike protein, in turn, can lead to the development of blood clots:²²

“So it therefore becomes part of the cell wall of your vascular endothelium, which means that these cells, which line your blood vessels, which are supposed to be smooth so that your blood flows smoothly now have these little spiky bits sticking out.

So it is absolutely inevitable that blood clots will form, because your blood platelets circulate around in your vessels and the purpose of blood platelets is to detect a damaged vessel and block that damage when it starts bleeding. So when a platelet comes through a capillary and suddenly hits all these covid spikes that are jutting into the inside vessel … blood clots will form to block that vessel. That’s how platelets work.”

Japanese Study Reveals Adverse Events Following Jabs

In a preprint study released in October 2021, researchers from Nagasaki International University, Japan, studied adverse events that occur in young Japanese people following Moderna’s COVID-19 shot.²³

Using data from 7,965 individuals, they found that 83% experienced local adverse events while 65% experienced systemic adverse events. Those particularly at risk included women, youth under the age of 20 — who often experienced adverse events after the first dose — and those who experienced adverse events after the first dose.

Such information is crucial to proper informed consent, something that not only has been lacking during the pandemic, but actively censored. It’s encouraging to see countries like Japan standing out in their efforts to get a true picture of how dangerous COVID-19 jabs may be. As Health Thoroughfare noted:²⁴

“According to the latest reports, the country is reaffirming its commitment to adverse event reporting requirements to ensure all possible side effects are documented. These efforts from Japan’s health authority are in stark contrast to the measures taken by other countries to coerce citizens into taking the injection, downplaying side effects, and discouraging proper adverse event reporting.”

• ^1, 5, 6 NHK World-Japan December 4, 2021
• ² Mayo Clinic, Myocarditis
• ³ U.S. CDC November 12, 2021
• ⁴ U.S. FDA June 25, 2021
• ⁷ Reuters September 3, 2021
• ⁸ U.S. CDC August 20, 2021
• ⁹ U.S. CDC December 16, 2021
• ¹⁰ Reuters December 17, 2021
• ¹¹ The Vaccine Reaction January 9, 2020
• ¹² BMJ 2005;330:433
• ¹³ FDA.gov BLA Approval Pfizer/BioNTech August 23, 2021
• ¹⁴ Japan Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, COVID-19 Vaccines
• ^15, 16, 17 Rair Foundation USA December 10, 2021
• ^18, 19, 20 Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice volume 14, Article number: 46 (2021)
• ^21, 22 Bitchute July 22, 2021
• ²³ medRxiv October 5, 2021
• ²⁴ Health Thoroughfare December 12, 2021

***
This article was originally published at Mercola.com.

Author Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder of Mercola.com. An osteopathic physician, best-selling author and recipient of multiple awards in the field of natural health, his primary vision is to change the modern health paradigm by providing people with a valuable resource to help them take control of their health. Among his qualifications, he is a licensed physician and surgeon in State of Illinois.

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Since the war in Ukraine began, rhetoric from the West about NATO expanding to the Pacific region has gotten progressively louder.

Not surprisingly, US war hawks love the idea, as it will allow Washington to further impose its military might and carry out its unilateral political projects under the cover of a multilateral institution.

China is not taking NATO’s threats casually. Back in May, tensions began to ramp up to the highest level ever, and it did not take long before words were transformed into hardening policy. The Financial Times reported then:

For weeks Chinese officials and analysts have endorsed Russia’s claims that Nato’s expansion in Europe triggered its invasion of Ukraine. Now they are pointing to a new spectre to justify their support of Russia’s war: an “Indo-Pacific Nato” that could ultimately force China to decouple from the west and achieve self-sufficiency in everything from food to semiconductors.

Ever since Xi Jinping and Joe Biden refused to budge from their opposing assessments of the conflict during a two-hour phone call on March 18, Chinese diplomats have gone on a rhetorical offensive, arguing that US-led alliances are as much a threat to Beijing as they are to Moscow. Most of their ire is directed at the “free and open Indo-Pacific” strategy Biden inherited from Donald Trump, which seeks to bind the US, Japan, Australia and India in a united front against China.

“Nato has kept strengthening and expanding, and intervened militarily in countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan,” Le Yucheng, vice-foreign minister, said a day after the presidents’ call. “The Indo-Pacific strategy is as dangerous as the Nato strategy of eastward expansion in Europe,” he added.

“If allowed to go unchecked, it would bring unimaginable consequences and ultimately push the Asia-Pacific [region] over the edge of an abyss.”

NATO, which has now become the world’s largest international protection racket, is now in the process of aggressively co-opting Japan into its ‘Article 5 trap’. Like Germany, Japan has been militarily occupied by the United States since the end of WWII, and its supine government will have an extremely hard time pursuing its own independent foreign policy.

Once Japan is absorbed into NATO’s entangling alliance, all it would take is a series of engineered provocations against China in order to push the region – and the world, even closer to WWIII. Make no mistake, that is their ultimate objective.

The Blaze reports…

Fumio Kishida, the Prime Minister of Japan, is considering attending a summit of leaders from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to discuss the potential of Japanese collaboration with Western leaders over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The Strait Times, a daily English language newspaper published in Singapore, reported that Kishida’s move marks an “unusually aggressive stance for a Japanese leader.” The Times also noted that Kishida has repeatedly condemned the Russian military and the country’s leadership over perpetrating what he has described as a “war crime” against Ukraine.

The leadership of Japan has a long-standing practice of carefully maintaining their country’s relationship with Russia as the two countries have a long history of territorial disputes.

A spokesperson for the Japanese government said that officials will be unable to offer comment on the Kishida’s discussions with NATO allies. Kishida’s attendance of the upcoming NATO summit was first reported by Japanese media outlets this past Saturday.

The NATO summit will take place on June 29 and 30 in the Spanish capital city of Madrid. The meeting is expected to overlap with the Kishida and other Japanese politicians campaign efforts as the meeting will overlap with the upcoming Japanese election cycle.

Kishida is expected to make a final decision as to whether or not he will attend the summit in the coming days as he must take into account the rapidly approaching elections.

NATO leaders have invited officials from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea to attend the summit as its partners in the Asia-Pacific region.

Should Kishida attend the summit, it is expected that his presence will be welcomed and send a strong message of international solidarity during a period of heightened geopolitical tension.

The potential of an increasing Japanese presence among NATO allies could also be a result of China’s potential invasion of Taiwan.

According to leaked audio from a top-secret meeting of Chinese officials, China may soon launch an extremely aggressive invasion of its island neighbor.

Voices on the leaked audio recording discuss the need to secure strategic entry points to crucial economic hubs in mainland China and how many pieces of military equipment and personnel will be required to pull off the invasion.

This past May, it was reported that China’s economic regulators held emergency meetings in April to discuss how to insulate the Chinese economy from Western sanctions should the West use economic isolation to discourage and punish China in the wake of a Taiwanese invasion…

Continue this story at The Blaze

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This week, in its bid to stem the tide of inflation, the US Federal Reserve Bank announced its biggest interest rate hike in 25 years, raising the rate three quarters of a percent. Relatively speaking, this is like throwing a glass of water on a forest fire, but in the short term it will certainly tighten-up the economy which will trigger that bona fide recession everyone was fearing. In truth, the real economy has been in recession for years. As our globalized economy continues its tailspin due to the suicidal economic policies implemented by leading western countries – like the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union, the original ‘Asian Tiger’ economy, Japan, is now on the verge of systemic collapse with “dramatic, unpredictable non-linearities” manifesting themselves in already over-stretched financial markets, warns Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank and others. 

It’s no secret that Japan’s economy is massively over-leveraged and may very well see a repeat of its epic ‘lost decade’ from the infamous economic crash of the 1990s.

The tea leaves are alarming…

Zero Hedge reports…

Less than a week ago, we wrote that “As Yen Crash Accelerates, It Puts Catastrophic End Of MMT Experiment In The Spotlight” a less than cheerful assessment echoed this morning by Bloomberg, which writes that “Japan Starting to Crack as Yen Tumbles With Stocks and Bonds“ noting that despite the yen crashing to a 24-year low (for the same reasons we have repeated again and again, namely you can’t keep your 10Y yield at 0.25% and avoid a currency collapse in a scorching inflationary environment), Tokyo stocks were down the most since March.

But there was another major development, and one which suggests that days of fiat, and MMT are numbered: with Japanese yields surging, the Bank of Japan today bought more than 1.5 trillion yen of government bonds to defend its yield curve control target as the 10Y JGB rose above 0.25%, the upper end of the BOJ’s YCC corridor.

As Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos shockingly calculates in a post this morning titled “The printer is on overdrive“, and available to professional ZH subscribers, if the current pace of buying persists, the bank will have bought approximately 10 trillion yen in June. To put that number in context, it is roughly equivalent to the Fed doing more than $300bn of QE per month when adjusting for GDP!

This is a “truly extreme” level of money printing given that every other central bank in the world is tightening policy. It is one of the reasons why we have been bearish on the yen. And as so many have argued, currency intervention in this environment is simply not credible given it is the BoJ itself that is the cause of yen weakness.

More broadly, Saravelos echoes what we said in our preview of the end of MMT, writing that he worries that “the currency and Japanese financial markets are in the process of losing any sort of fundamental-based valuation anchor.”

The more global inflation picks up, the more the BoJ prints. But the more easing accelerates, the higher the need to press hard on the brake when the (inflation) cliff approaches and the more dangerous it becomes. As a result, we will soon enter a phase where dramatic and unpredictable non-linearities in Japanese financial markets would kick in, according to the DB strategist, who also notes that “if it becomes obvious to the market that the clearing level of JGB yields is above the BoJ’s 25 basis point target, what is the incentive to hold bonds any more?”

This leave us with a few exploding questions:

• Is the BoJ willing to absorb the entirety of the Japanese government bond stock?
• Where is the fair value of the yen on this scenario and what happens if the BoJ changes its mind?
• The BoJ may want to generate inflation, but how does it get there with triggering a complete systemic collapse?

Finally, what happens if and when the yen careens off the fiat cliff, and domestic holders of yen-denominated savings flee into either dollars or cryptos? We will find out very soon.

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The former prime minister of Japan was assassinated on Friday in the city of Nara, while delivering a campaign speech. He served in the office longer than anyone before stepping down in 2020. The assassination has rattled Japan and its sense of identity as a peaceful country where violent crime, and political assassinations, are very rare.

Is this a prelude to more geopolitical strife in the Pacific region? 

New York Times reports…

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, died on Friday at 67, after being shot while campaigning for a candidate ahead of national elections.

The police arrested a suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, on an initial charge of attempted murder before Mr. Abe’s death was announced.

(…) The graphic videos and photographs of Mr. Abe being gunned down during a lunchtime campaign rally in western Japan had stunned the nation on Friday. Shock turned to grief when the former prime minister was declared dead in the early evening…

“When Shinzo Abe was prime minister of Japan, he worked assiduously to bring the historically strained relationship between Beijing and Tokyo to a more even keel. But in recent months, Mr. Abe had become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Beijing and support for Taiwan, a self-governed island claimed by Beijing.

His hard line stance had drawn Beijing’s ire. In December of last year, Mr. Abe told a forum that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency,” and that Japan and the United States could not stand by if China attacked Taiwan.”

See more live updates on this story at NY Times

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Brian Bertetic from The New Atlas writes…

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara, Japan while giving a speech. A suspect, a local resident allegedly a former member of Japan’s military, was detained.

While the motives are still being investigated, anti-China circles are already leveraging the event to direct anger and suspicion toward Beijing.

Blaming China for it & thus escalating tensions in Asia – a region in which the US finds its power and influence waning – only benefits the US.

Watch this brief summary of this recent event by journalist Brian Berletic: 

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In this recent episode of the Patrick Henningsen Show on TNT Radio which aired on August 2nd, 2022, Patrick talks with political analyst Daniel Spaulding to discuss House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s errant trip to Taiwan where she managed to inflame US relations with China. What would a Taiwan vs China war look like? What do the other Asia Pacific countries think, and is Washington losing its touch in the region? Watch: 

TUNE-IN LIVE with Patrick on TNT every TUES & THURS at: 8AM-11AM (NEW YORK) | 1PM-4PM (LONDON) | 10PM-1AM (BRISBANE): https://tntradio.live

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