RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/china/2021/07/ the-darkening-shadows-of-100-candles/

Helmsman Xi Jinping, dressed in his best Mao suit for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), presented himself to the captive population of the PRC, not to mention the (not-yet captive) world, as the third-most significant leader of the party: the successor to Great Helmsman Mao Zedong and Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping. In this, at any rate, Xi was not wrong. Everything else about the July 1 celebrations in Tiananmen Square was pretty much smoke and mirrors.

The great conceit of the Leninist dictator is that that connection between the party, the nation and the people is indivisible. The CCP, according to Xi, has always “loved the Chinese people”. At this point in Xi’s speech, one’s thoughts drifted to the party’s murderously quixotic Great Leap Forward (1958-62) which resulted in the death of approximately 45 million people. Liu Shaoqi (1898-69), at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in 1962, acknowledged the famine was 30 per cent the fault of nature and 70 per cent human error. In other words, the party was directly responsible for the death of 31.5 million people, even more than the 3.9 million (and counting) thought to have died on account of the CCP virus (also known as SARS-CoV-2).

The fate of Liu, one-time PRC head of state and author of How to be a Good Communist (1939), tells us much of what we need to know about Leninism with Chinese Characteristics. The former Chairman of the People’s Republic was demeaned, tortured, and purged by the party during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Officially designated a former-person, Liu (right) was sentenced to house arrest outside of Beijing and died, ignominiously, in 1969. Although his reputation had been trashed by the party for the period of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Liu was posthumously rehabilitated by Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980. His definitive rehabilitation, though, has now formally taken place. Helmsman Xi named him, along with Mao, Zhou, Deng and Zhu, as one of the great heroes of the party at the Tiananmen Square celebration.

As President Xi went on about “the spirit of the party”, I wondered what “the spirit of Liu Shaoqi” might have made of the occasion. Would he have been uplifted by the choir of 10,000 belting out patriotic songs about “national rejuvenation” – material, ethical, cultural, and ecological! – under the guidance of the party? Would the first appearance in the sky of the PLA’s Chengdu J-20 stealth fighters (left) have been a moment of immense pride? And, finally, would his induction into the pantheon of party legends have mitigated the shame he endured in the final years of his life?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2021/07/07/france-germany-and-britain-sound-alarm-on-irans-nuclear-moves-the-u-s-n1460117

On Tuesday afternoon, France, Britain, and Germany released a joint statement regarding Iran’s latest nuclear moves. VOA’s Jeff Seldin tweeted the statement out.

The three allies “note with grave concern the latest report by the IAEA confirming that Iran has taken steps in the production of enriched uranium material.” The statement further notes that Iran has no credible civilian use for its activities, leading the three to suspect that Iran is taking steps toward developing nuclear weapons.

It should be obvious why this is a gravely serious issue.

It’s made more grave by United States silence on the one hand, and Joe Biden’s obvious eagerness to get the Obama-era Iran deal back in vogue on the other. Like most American leftists, results that benefit Americans are of dubious value and matter a lot less to Biden than the appearances of inking some “historic” deal or initiating some government program that the media will cast as well-meaning. It’s the PR that sells the thought that counts.

Iran is not on strong footing these days, but that matters little. It’s internally as brittle as ever. Israel continues working solid diplomacy with some of its Arab neighbors after Trump’s historic Abraham Accords.

Iran lost power and even its “countdown to Armageddon” clock reportedly went offline in the blackouts. Yes, we’re having some blackouts too thanks to a grid that hasn’t kept up with population growth in Texas and an overreliance on wind and solar there and in other states. But America doesn’t keep a running clock that’s just counting down the seconds until we can annihilate someone based on their race and heritage. Iran does. That clock is what reportedly went dark.

Biden still wants to treat Iran as some kind of quasi-normal state despite the fact that it’s run by one of the world’s worst dictatorships — and one of the world’s most prolific sponsors of terrorism.

Nuclear weapons in such hands spell violence, misery, and doom.

In April 2021, Foreign Policy warned that Biden returning the United States to the Obama-era JCPOA would be unwise.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17551/what-is-china-doing

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”

There is one outcome that would be unacceptable to the CCP: China will do almost anything to keep the U.S. from concluding that the virus was developed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The CCP is already taking steps to encourage the U.S. to reach “the right” judgment, and it appears to have people in the West, including in the U.S., who are willingly supporting those efforts.

The Lancet has again come out with an unjustified dismissal of the lab leak theory, couched in support for the G7’s call for a new COVID origins study, led by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nothing could be better for China than having The Lancet as the messenger, lending scientific credibility to what the CCP wants the world to believe.

The July 5 publication of the letter in The Lancet is a strong signal that the CCP has launched an active disinformation campaign. The CCP will continue to spare no effort in ensuring that the COVID-19 virus appears to have originated somewhere other than China….

On May 26, 2021, President Joe Biden announced that he had asked the U.S. intelligence community to redouble its efforts to determine the origins of the COVID-19 virus. The U.S. findings are expected in about 90 days. So now we know what the Biden administration is doing, but what will the Chinese government, or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), do? In light of China’s obfuscation so far, it is absurd to imagine that it will be cooperating with the U.S. investigation. Neither will it be sitting idly by waiting to learn of the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions. Instead, the CCP will be doing everything it can to shape the report and ensure that the findings will be released in a context saturated by Chinese propaganda.

What does China want the narrative to be? The ideal outcome would be that the virus originated outside of China. Failing that, an acceptable outcome would be, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article, that the virus “that killed millions of people and shattered the global economy” would be “among the world’s most consequential mysteries.”