RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/soviet-union-thirty-years-later-bruce-bawer/

For years, if you opened the closet in the foyer of my Manhattan apartment, you’d encounter a pile of copies of the New York Times from the week in late December 1991 during which the Soviet Union breathed its last. I’ve never been in the habit of hanging on to old newspapers in which my byline didn’t appear, but that week, it seemed to me at the time, was the greatest historical turning point I’d ever experienced.

It was certainly the most astonishing. I remember a point, sometime in the late 1980s, when, during a visit to Washington, I expressed over lunch with American Spectator editor Wladyslaw Pleszczynski what was then an almost universal cynicism about talk of a post-Communist Europe. “No,” said Wlady, who was far more plugged into these developments than most of us, “it’s really happening.”

That was the moment when I started believing it. But you have to forgive my doubts. Throughout the postwar era, nearly everybody had taken the U.S.-Soviet standoff for granted. The division of the world into two parts, free and unfree, felt like a fact of nature. Mutual assured nuclear destruction made any major change in the world order inconceivable.

For virtually everybody, that is, except Ronald Reagan. My biggest professional regret of all time is that, as a snotty young grad student in the early 1980s, I penned a condescending screed about the Gipper that appeared on Newsweek’s “My Turn” page, which was reserved for contributions by amateurs. And boy, was I an amateur. Although I’d voted for Reagan in 1980, I’d since bought into the media clichés about him and, in my silly piece, spat them back out as if they were a product of original thought.  

Like every other detractor of Reagan, however, I learned soon enough that I’d been a fool. All the know-it-alls at the State Department had shivered with embarrassment when he’d shouted in his 1987 Berlin speech: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” But the wall did come down. I was there, in 1990, when parts of it were still being chipped away at. All around me, people were snapping up pieces to take home. But I couldn’t bring myself to pick one up. I didn’t feel I’d earned it.

https://asiatimes.com/2021/12/chinas-post-covid-new-trade-order/

NEW YORK – China has become the dominant source of demand for Asian manufactures and the leading supplier of goods to the United States and Western Europe during the past two years, reshaping global trade patterns.

The sheer increase in China’s export volume is impressive, but just as important is the composition of trade. Asia has become tightly integrated as a Sinocentric trade zone, and the Western industrial nations have become more dependent on Chinese goods.

Some American strategists worry about China’s growing power in Asia. China’s enormous gains in Asian trade during the past two years at the expense of the US and Japan make that a moot point.

Elbridge Colby, a former Defense Department official who advocates a “strategy of denial” against China, tweeted on December 22: “Global peace isn’t our goal. Preserving Americans’ security, freedom and prosperity is. Not compatible with China dominating Asia, the world’s largest market area.”

In economic terms, that concern is two years late and a trillion dollars short.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18050/china-latin-america

China’s involvement in Latin America clearly seems to be translating into control, and not just of national resources.

“In the past four years, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama have each switched their recognition from Taiwan to China”, TIME Magazine wrote in February. “Gaining these kinds of alliances in Latin America offers Beijing invaluable votes at the U.N. and backing for Chinese appointees to multinational institutions. It also empowers China to embed standard-setting technology companies like Huawei, ZTE, Dahua and Hikvision – all sanctioned by the U.S. – in regional infrastructure, allowing Beijing to dictate the rules of commerce for a generation.”

Ecuador’s debt to China is equal to 38.7% of its GDP.

“The U.S. is losing Latin America to China without putting up a fight… And China is waiting, saying, ‘We’re here. We’re giving you money.’ They want control of course, but they don’t say that.” — Axios, September 23, 2021.

“It is not necessary to show malevolent PRC intentions with respect to its activities in Latin America and the Caribbean to conclude that the current and long-term implications of that engagement are grave for prosperity, democracy, and liberties in the region, as well as the security and strategic position of the United States,” — Professor R. Evan Ellis, Testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2021.

In 2000, China’s trade with Latin America amounted to $12 billion. By 2019, the number had grown to a staggering $330 billion.

The astounding growth is suggestive of how China’s influence in Latin America has deepened over the past two decades.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/intellectual-terrorism-france-bruce-bawer/

Promises, promises. In October of last year, in an apparent attempt to co-opt the Islam issue from his conservative rivals, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a sweeping new program to defy the Islamic threat to his nation’s society, culture, and values. A major focus of the program was education: Muslim parents, vowed Macron, would no longer be permitted to keep their children from learning facts of which their religion disapproved, and university professors would help shape a new “Islam of the Enlightenment,” whatever that might mean. I wrote at the time that Macron’s promises seemed destined to end up on the scrap heap, and indeed, instead of making significant new demands of Muslims, French authorities have persisted in 2021 in their noble tradition of ruthlessly demonizing and prosecuting critics of Islam, notably the presidential candidate Éric Zemmour. Also this year, in yet another apparent bid to win conservative voters, Macron took to the bully pulpit to condemn the importation of “woke” left-wing ideas from America. His government doesn’t seem to have accomplished much of anything on this front, either. For a perfect example of Macron’s utter failure to live up to his own stirring rhetoric on both the Islam and “woke” fronts, consider the case of Klaus Kinzler.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/11_days_of_mourning_for_kim_jongil_with_no_laughing_allowed.html

December 17 of this year marked the ten-year anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il, father and predecessor of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-un.  To honor the erstwhile psychopathic leader, the nation will observe eleven days of mourning, during which citizens will not be allowed to engage in leisure activities, drink alcohol, or even laugh, a resident from the border city of Sinuiju told Radio Free Asia.  Citizens of the Hermit Kingdom were not even allowed to go grocery shopping on December 17, not that there is much produce to purchase.  Nor will they be able to conduct funeral services or celebrate their own birthdays during the 11-day official mourning period.

According to Fox News, the unnamed citizen also noted what happens to those who fail to comply with the orders: “In the past many people who were caught drinking or being intoxicated during the mourning period were arrested and treated as ideological criminals.  They were taken away and never seen again.”

The New York Post reported that North Koreans fell silent and bowed in respect for Kim Jong-il as a midday siren blared for three minutes.  Cars, trains, and ships blew their horns as the nation’s flags were lowered to half-staff.

That North Koreans would appear to mourn a sadistic despot like Kim Jong-il, or worship his equally vicious son, the current Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un, tells us that either they are terrified of revealing their true feelings toward these monsters or they have been effectively brainwashed by their government-media-academia complex.

As a PJ Media post noted, “[t]he Kim Dynasty, like totalitarians the world over, has discovered that people can get used to anything.  So while the ban on laughing might be extreme to us, it’s perfectly normal to North Koreans.  If your newspaper, your TV stations, your radio, and your internet broadcast similar messages 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wouldn’t your reality be so skewed that you’d see Kim the same way?”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18037/china-failed-wto

Twenty years later we can only begin to describe how wrong the assessments were about China and how damaging this single decision has been to the global economic order.

[China] was using predatory practices to drive out European competitors to Huawei so that the CCP would soon dominate this key market. Rather than following the rules, China abused its new access to go into more countries an engage in market manipulation, predatory pricing and lending, and surreptitiously to seed its national security apparatus abroad.

Most American companies have not had the backbone to defend themselves against China’s unfair policies and to stand up for their workers in the U.S. and human rights and freedom in China. More often than not, the only consideration these companies have is the bottom line.

It is time to reevaluate and confront China for the policies of the last 20 years…. Twenty years is enough of sacrificing American jobs, technology, and national security on the altar of full access to the Chinese market that the U.S. and the West will never get.

In all honesty, what is really dangerous is ignoring the long list of abuses and evil behavior by China and the Chinese Communist Party for another 20 years. Now is the time for the West finally to wake up before it is too late.

In 2000 the U.S. Congress passed legislation establishing Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China. The foundation for this successful China vote was established in 1998 when Congress adjusted terminology to rebrand “most favored nation” as “normal trade relations.” These and other shenanigans by Congress enabled China ultimately to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001. This fundamentally changed the economic role that China plays globally, propelling it to the second-largest economy in the world today.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18034/lithuania-china

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says that his country will not capitulate to bullying from China and that he is committed to defending the principles and values of democracy from attack.

“China is trying to make an example out of us — a negative example — so that other countries do not follow our path. Therefore, it is a matter of principle how the Western community, the United States, and European Union react.” — Arnoldas Pranckevičius, Lithuania’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“The tiny nation of Lithuania is punching way above its weight and has set a benchmark that the rest of the European Union must support and follow. Such leadership, particularly when stronger countries like Germany and France are buckling under the pressure and onslaught of this rising rogue nation, needs to be supported by countries across the world.” — Gautam Chikermane, Vice President, Observer Research Foundation.

“It is time for the EU to end its extramarital affairs with authoritarianism…. That China is a threat to democracies, in general, and the EU, in particular, is visible to all but the EU. Other than geography, the essence of the EU is values. And one event after another, one country at a time, the EU is giving them up.” — Gautam Chikermane.

“China as a communist superpower is so scared of 3-million Lithuania on the other side of the globe. Lithuania is the bravest country in Europe. We should all stand up with Lithuania.” — Jakub Janda, Director, European Values Center for Security Policy.

“We support democracy, as we will never forget the cruel lesson of living under occupation by a Communist regime for 50 years.” — Lithuanian Member of Parliament Dovilė Šakalienė.

“We would like to have relations with China based on the principle of mutual respect. Otherwise, the dialogue turns into unilateral ultimatums, requirements which are not acceptable in international relations.” — Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, in an interview with the Financial Times.

China has blocked all imports from Lithuania and has ordered multinational companies to sever ties with the Baltic country or face being shut out of the Chinese market.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/danish-heroine-goes-prison-bruce-bawer/

One of the many appalling challenges that have confronted Western European authorities since mass Muslim immigration began several decades ago is the arrival of adult – often elderly – men with underaged girls whom they identify as their wives.

Such marriages, of course, are not just permitted but encouraged under Islam. Muslims are taught to look in all things, big and small, to the example of their prophet, and they all know that one of the treasures of Muhammed’s harem – often described as his most beloved wife – was Aisha, whom he wed when she was six and deflowered when she was nine.

Needless to say, the pedofile alliances that are ubiquitous in the Islamic world – and legally sanctioned (or tacitly accepted) in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere – are invariably arranged and forced on girls by their parents. They’re also usually cousin marriages. The BBC’s website provides a helpful whitewash – I mean, justification – of such unions: “Arranged marriages ensure that Muslim marriages are based on compatibility rather than lustful feelings.” Yes, because there’s nothing more compatible than a 70-year-old husband and an eight-year-old wife. At least you can be pretty sure that the little girl isn’t feeling a hell of a lot of lust.

Anyway, as you may recall, the year 2015 brought a flood of purported refugees to Western Europe, and in January 2016 the Danish media reported that a number of newly arrived March-December “couples,” mostly from Syria, were living together in Danish asylum centers. To her credit, Inger Støjberg – a Liberal Party member of Parliament who was then serving as Minister of Immigration, Integration, and Housing in Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s center-right government – snapped into action.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18008/turkey-poverty-economy

Erdoğan’s biggest political rival ahead of the 2023 presidential elections seems to be — poverty.

The first decade of Erdoğan’s rule actually brought relative prosperity to Turks. Per capita GDP rose sharply from $3,688 in 2002 to $11,796 in 2012… Since 2013, however, reckless nepotism, increasing authoritarianism, corruption and economic mismanagement have boosted interest-rates, inflation and unemployment, bringing per capita GDP down to an estimated $7,500.

Nearly half of Turkish workers are minimum wage earners, meaning that millions of families must survive on $233 a month

Unfortunately, since early 2018, the lira has been on a downward slide due to constant geopolitical tensions with the West, widening current account deficits, shrinking foreign currency reserves and mounting public debt.

As the lira crashes to insane historic lows, local salaries are also severely devalued.

Erdoğan is heading fast to becoming the victim of his own miscalculations: a dramatically mismanaged economy and geostrategic challenges that went beyond Turkey’s political and military might.

Perhaps these missteps will be the beginning of the end of Erdoğan’s ugly populism — his neo-Ottoman ambitions that have caused major damage to Turkey’s economy as well as the country’s international isolation.

A punishing economic crisis in 2000-2001, the worst ever in modern Turkish history, pushed millions of Turks below the poverty line. In 2002, Turks went to the ballot box to punish a ruling coalition of mainstream parties and elected as prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. By a simple twist of fate, nearly two decades later, Erdoğan’s biggest political rival ahead of the 2023 presidential elections seems to be — poverty.