RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-genocide-test-faces-the-west-11611775797?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s determination that the People’s Republic of China is engaged in a systematic genocide of the Uighurs was one of the most significant recent developments in U.S. foreign policy. The State Department found that the atrocities have expanded to shocking reproductive coercion: “PRC authorities have conducted forced sterilizations and abortions on Uyghur women, coerced them to marry non-Uyghurs, and separated Uyghur children from their families.”

Because the announcement came shortly before President Biden’s inauguration, its far-reaching implications haven’t sunk in. The Trump administration would have done better to issue this finding before the election, but officially invoking the “genocide” label met significant resistance within the government, as it has in past presidencies. Mr. Pompeo deserves credit for pushing it through.

The new secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also deserves credit for not making genocide a political issue: He immediately concurred in his predecessor’s determination. It is now America’s official, bipartisan position that China is engaged in “ongoing” genocide—the gravest of all international crimes.

Joe Biden was ahead of the curve, accusing China of genocide in August. At the time a Biden spokesman added, “If the Trump administration does indeed choose to call this out for what it is, as Joe Biden already did, the pressing question is what will Donald Trump do to take action.” That question now passes to Mr. Biden.

The State Department has made a finding of genocide only six times, two of them in the past quarter-century: regarding Islamic State atrocities against religious minorities in Syria and Iraq (2016) and Sudan’s campaign in Darfur (2011). But ISIS and Sudan weren’t exactly major U.S. trading partners.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/the_ccp_an_international_thieving_mafia.html

What is not obvious to most is that China is actually run by about 50 very rich families who own and control most of the choice properties and businesses in China. The 91 million CCP members are effectively a total-control Mafia ruling approximately a billion and a half Chinese people. Yes, most of the very rich are members of the CCP or are officially communists but they more truly function like the criminal Mafia with worldwide ambitions.

The latest ambition of the CCP is stealing seafood from the territorial waters of less powerful nations worldwide. China has overfished its territorial waters in short-sighted fashion and its consumption of much national wildlife is similarly shortsighted. The Galapagos Islands (part of Ecuador), Argentina, Peru, West Africa, and North Korea, are just a few of the documented thefts of recent seafood worldwide by China. It seems that the only recourse will be to sink the Chinese militia armed fishing vessels or capture them in their criminal acts.

China is trying to steal international fishing rights in the South China Sea by building artificial islands manned by the Chinese military.

China is buying leases to strategic shipping ports worldwide to monopolize commercial shipping routes. The Chinese are clever fox predators rampaging through a worldwide chicken coup that has only recently become somewhat alarmed and is waking up to the global threat, thanks partly to the covid-19 virus and China’s blatant attempts at shifting blame elsewhere.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-winning-artificial-intelligence-race-opinion-1564169

Not only is China growing faster than any other big economy; it’s poised to take the lead in artificial intelligence applications to manufacturing, health care and transportation, leapfrogging the West in key new technologies. President Joe Biden’s chief Asia advisor Kurt Campbell says the U.S. should “balance between cooperation and competition” with China. We’re already far behind on the competition for leadership in a wide range of AI applications—an issue with urgent implications for American policy.

China is well on its way to building a planned 10 million 5G mobile base stations by 2024, wiring virtually the whole country for game-changing technologies. It has already deployed some of them in its response to COVID-19. Sensors connected to smartphones and linked to centralized databases monitor the vital signs of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens and visitors in real time. Three-dimensional facial imaging allows these systems to monitor the mobility of people and contact with others. Artificial intelligence algorithms extract information from these data to identify potential viral hotspots and guide forensic testing and preventive quarantines. China’s effective control over the virus—despite some localized outbreaks—provides further impetus to speed up the adoption of digital heath technology.

The 3D facial recognition component of China’s public health initiatives have drawn international concern. U.S. commentators focus on its implications for social control, but the technology has already been incorporated into a wide range of remote services. With 3D facial recognition, people in China can board trains, buy produce and obtain medical services without physical contact. The majority of the Chinese population is willing to accept the possibility of invasions of privacy provided the benefits are clear.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17000/germany-armin-laschet-merkel

“You get the impression that Armin Laschet still believes in a partnership with Putin’s Russia. He ignores the fact that there simultaneously is both a geopolitical and a value conflict with Moscow. This conflict requires a certain degree of severity, a policy of deterrence and also a policy of sanctions. It is wishful thinking that all foreign policy conflicts can be resolved through dialogue and goodwill.” — Ralf Fücks, former Green Party politician and head of the think tank, Center for Liberal Modernity.

“Mr Laschet’s first priority will be uniting the party. It will not be easy. He beat Mr Merz by 53 to 47 per cent of the vote. There is a large minority in the party who want it to take a clearer conservative direction. When he lost the 2018 leadership contest, Mr Merz retreated. This time, he seems determined to weigh on the party’s future.” — Editorial Board, Financial Times.

“The new CDU chairman faces a difficult task of maintaining coherence in a party that is struggling to find its identity while simultaneously trying to lure voters from the environmentalist Green Party and the right-wing AfD.” — Oliver Hackel, senior financial strategist, Kaiser Partner Privatbank.

“German politics is drifting away from Mrs. Merkel’s breed of consensus. Despite winning a leadership election among delegates to the CDU party conference, Mr. Laschet’s soft foreign-policy views are increasingly at odds with prominent CDU figures who advocate a sterner approach to Russia and China. The Greens are on the rise as a mainstream center-left party on the back of their foreign-policy hawkishness and hostility to crony capitalism at home.” — Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal.

Armin Laschet, premier of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, has been chosen as the new leader of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He is now in a position to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor after general elections this September.

Laschet, a Merkel loyalist and continuity candidate, narrowly beat conservative Friedrich Merz by 521 to 466 votes in a run-off vote by party delegates on January 16. The CDU had previously chosen Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Merkel, but she stepped down as party leader in January 2020 after a series of regional electoral defeats cast doubt on her ability to retain the chancellorship.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17001/turkey-greece-peace-talks

Ankara and Athens, starting in 2002, held 60 rounds of talks before their exploratory efforts came to a halt in 2016. After a five-year-long pause the rivals agreed to resume talks on January 25, starting the 61st round.

“The idea that a strategic — so-called strategic — partner of ours would actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in Russia is not acceptable.” — Antony Blinken, President Joe Biden’s then-nominee for Secretary of State, Arab News, January 26, 2021.

“Turkey has adopted a strongly militaristic approach, making efforts toward conflict resolution increasingly unlikely.” — Dimitris Tsarouhas, a professor of international relations, a Scientific Council member of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies in Brussels, and a World Bank consultant, Arab News, January 26, 2021.

When traditional Aegean rivals, Turkey and Greece, agreed to launch “exploratory talks” to resolve their disputes, Iraq’s president was Saddam Hussein, U.S. President George W. Bush called for a regime change in Iraq, 9/11 was only months in the past, the euro had just become the official currency of 12 of the European Union’s members, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Mars Odyssey had found signs of water ice deposits on Mars.

Ankara and Athens, starting in 2002, held 60 rounds of talks before their exploratory efforts came to a halt in 2016. After a five-year-long pause, the rivals agreed to resume talks on January 25, starting the 61st round. Rounds 61 and onward will probably be the most fragile of all peace talks for a number of reasons.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/top-who-official-its-definitely-too-early-to-conclude-coronavirus-originated-in-china/

A World Health Organization official said recently that it is “definitely too early” to conclude that the coronavirus first started in China.

Michael Ryan, the executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, said Friday that “all hypotheses are on the table” as a team of WHO experts kick off an investigation in China into the origins of the virus.  

“I think we have to say this quite plainly; all hypotheses are on the table and it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started either within or without China,” Ryan said at a press conference in Geneva in response to a question regarding the head of China’s CDC’s claims that the virus had not originated in the country.

Ryan said virus discovered in sewage and blood tests outside of China could indicate “earlier infection.” 

“Let’s step back, let’s follow the evidence, let’s follow the science. Our team are on the ground, they’re having a good experience working with our Chinese colleagues. We’re working through the data. The data will lead us to the next phase, where we need to go next to look at the origins of this virus,” Ryan said.

“It is too early to come to any conclusion but again we believe we are making some progress and we hope to continue to do so in the interests of public health in future,” he added.

However, health experts the world over have said that the novel coronavirus likely originated in Wuhan, China in November 2019. Scientists in recent months have questioned whether the virus originated at a live animal market in Wuhan or was the result of a lab accident at one of the city’s two laboratories — the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control — that had been studying coronaviruses that originated in bats. 

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-25-china-is-wasting-no-time-in-testing-biden

If you were to consider a job description of the President of the United States, about 80% of it would involve issues of national defense and foreign policy — dealing with the other countries of the world, and keeping America safe. All of the responsibility for defense and foreign policy of the United States is under the personal control of whoever is the President. Whatever else you might have thought of him, and whether or not you agreed with his approach on any given issue, President Trump at least took his responsibilities in these areas seriously. Now we have Joe Biden.

To give you an idea of how seriously Biden takes his responsibilities, when he was Vice President he thought that it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to travel with him on Air Force 2 to China in 2013 to solicit investments from Chinese-government-controlled funds. And Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter’s company to accept an investment of approximately $1 billion of Chinese-government-controlled money, with Hunter having a prospective ownership interest in management fees charged on that investment. And then in 2017, after Joe had left the Vice Presidency but was planning a run for President, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for his son Hunter to negotiate a joint venture with a Chinese-government-controlled energy company. And then, when the joint venture didn’t go forward, Joe thought it was perfectly OK for Hunter to get a $5 million “non-interest-bearing forgivable loan” from this Chinese energy company.

Can you remember all the way back to January 6? That was the day — with Trump safely headed for the exit door — that China chose to make its move against Hong Kong, rounding up some 53 of the principal opposition politicians who were attempting to run in legislative elections in that city. Now only a couple of weeks on, that event (and its aftermath) seems to have completely faded from mainstream news coverage around here.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16999/china-test-biden

Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden — whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion — and the Chinese Communist Party, which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan’s airspace for two days in a row.

China also issued a new law permitting its “coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning” on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own.

Biden’s team should not misinterpret any Chinese conciliatory rhetoric as being a sign of a less aggressive CCP effort to push US military assets out of the Western Pacific.

Xi, a stalwart of the “One China Policy,” may still demand not words but actions, such as: a moratorium on Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) by US Navy vessels in the South China Sea, a cessation of US criticism of Chinese human rights violations, and a promise to reduce American VIP visits to Taiwan following President Trump’s high-level contacts with Taipei.

China has clearly assessed Biden’s capacity for bold leadership as highly improbable.

The Biden administration should not assume that Chinese objectives are negotiable. The CCP is committed to becoming the premier power in the world at the expense of US interests and is most likely willing to risk war to accomplish it.

Not a week has passed since the inauguration of President Joe Biden — whose son reportedly engaged in business deals with China worth $1.5 billion — and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which illegally seized Hong Kong last summer, has already sent more than two dozen warplanes, including bombers, into Taiwan’s airspace for two days in a row.

China also issued a new law permitting its “coastguards to launch pre-emptive strikes without prior warning” on any foreign ship that might enter disputed waters that China would like to consider its own.

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping is certain further to test the mettle of the new Biden Administration within the context of China’s “great power rivalry” with the United States. China’s leadership will determine the manner and speed in which to pursue the CCP’s geopolitical goals based upon Beijing’s assessment of Biden’s response to any test. Historically, the timing and the circumstances of China’s tests of previous administrations have been unpredictable, but there are a few that it seems likely will happen.