By Cynthia Chung for the Saker blog
“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
- Henry John Temple, aka Lord Palmerston (Britain’s Prime Minister from 1855-1858, 1859-1865), oversaw Britain’s First Opium War (1839-1842) as Head of Britain’s Foreign Office and the Second Opium War (1856-1860) as Britain’s Prime Minister against China.
Snow is Now Black
Bertrand Russell discussed in his book “The Impact of Science on Society” (1952) that the subject which “will be of most importance politically is mass psychology,” that is, the lens in which an individual views “reality” and “truth.” Russell is very clear, such “convictions” are not generated by the individual themselves but rather are to be shaped by the State.
Of course, individuals are not encouraged to think about an absolute truth or reality, rather they are encouraged to think on a much smaller scale, on individual “facts,” for this is much easier to control and shape and also limits “problematic” thinking such as the ponderance on purpose and intention.
Russell, in his “Impact of Science on Society,” goes on to talk about how one could program a society to think snow is black rather than white:
“First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.”
This is of course a program for the most ambitious “reframing” of “reality”. However, as we see today, we do not need to start before the age of ten for other sorts of “reframing,” and nowhere does this seem to be the most successful and effective with any age group than the West’s “foreign” policy.
For snow is something that we see and experience regularly. It is much more difficult to “reframe” something familiar, however, something that is “foreign” has always been a rather blurred and undefined concept for millennia, and thus is a much easier candidate for the State to “reframe” as our collective “reality,” our collective “existential fear.”
Thus, for most of history, our understanding of who is our “friend” and who is our “foe” has rarely been determined by the people themselves but rather their governing structure.
Such a governing structure is free to determine for us what is “truth” vs. “falsehood” what is “fact” vs. “fiction,” because the people, despite all the abuse and exploitation from such a governing force still look to this very thing to protect and shield them from the frightful “unknown.”
People have become accustomed to thinking “Better the Devil you know.” In this paper we will see if that is indeed the case or not.
[This is Part 2 of a two-part series. For Part 1 refer here.]
“Our Interests are Eternal and Perpetual”
“It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
- Buddha
Before I get into the geopolitical situation of today and attempt to address this question of what the global agenda behind pushing for war with China is, I would like to share a brief overview of some very important history, for I assure you, this plays a prominent role in what is shaping today’s dynamics.
For the sake of brevity, the story starts with the First Opium War (1839-42).
In short, the British Empire had made a move towards a free trade system in the 1840s, modelled on Adam Smith’s ‘A Wealth of Nations’. In this new system of trade it was believed that if there is a demand for a product, a country has no right to intervene in its transaction. Protectionism, which had been practiced by Britain up until that point, had now been deemed an unfit practice by…Britain, and all other countries were naturally to follow along according to the “new rules” chosen for them.
Britain, however, would grant itself to be the sole country permitted to continue the practice of protectionism while it enforced its “free” trade on others.
In the case of China, the trade of opium was ultimately banned by the Chinese, and severe punishments were to be delivered to those involved in smuggling the product into the country, which included British merchants. The British Empire considered this a direct threat to its ‘security’ and its new enforcement of free trade. Thus, when China did not back down, the First Opium War (1839-1842) was waged. The result was the forced signing of the Nanking Treaty in 1842.
This treaty, known as the first of the “unequal treaties”, ceded the territory of Hong Kong to Britain and allowed British merchants to not only trade at Guangzhou but were now also permitted to trade with five additional “treaty ports” and with whomever they pleased.
Created in 1600 with a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I, the East India Company was from its inception indistinguishable from the British Empire itself, rising to account for half of the world’s trade. As is aptly said by Lord Macaulay in his speech to the House of Commons in July 1833, since the beginning, the East India Company had always been involved in both trade and politics, just as its French and Dutch counterparts had been.
In other words, the East India Company was to facilitate the geopolitical chess game that the British Empire wished to see played out. Not only the trade contracts it received but whole colonised territories won by the British Empire were handed over to this company to manage, along with a large sized private military, all under the decree of the Crown. This would be most evidently seen in the freedom it was given to control opium production in British India and to then facilitate its trade within Hong Kong and other colonised parts of Southeast Asia.
China was deemed uncooperative to the conditions signed under the Nanking Treaty and a Second Opium war was declared on them by the British Empire, lasting from 1856-60. [There is an excellent Chinese movie called “The Opium War” that goes over this story, you can watch it for free here.]
The British (with French assistance) defeated the Chinese defenses after a four-year war. China, an ancient civilization with an advanced society both culturally and scientifically was forced to be entirely beholden to British foreign policy and its enforced free trade of opium.
On the 18th of October 1860, the British burned down the Summer Palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan (Gardens of Perfect Brightness), the French apparently refused to assist. The razing of the building took two days.
When the war was won, British and French troops (and mercenaries) looted and destroyed many artifacts, many of which remain abroad, scattered throughout the world in 47 museums[1]. An ongoing reminder of their spoils from the Opium Wars. How ironic that so many enjoy gazing upon such works of beauty and forget the horror that was committed in attaining them.
A British-friendly bank needed to be created to facilitate trade in the region, connecting the Empire’s newly acquired treasures Shanghai and Hong Kong with its British India (the major world producer of opium) along with the rest of the British Empire and Europe. HSBC was founded in 1865 for this purpose, that continues to this day.
This bank was not only meant to facilitate foreign trade within China in whichever way it deemed fit, but in addition was created namely to trade in the product of opium. It is important to note that although the founder of HSBC is credited as Thomas Sutherland of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a Scottish merchant who wanted the bank to operate under “sound Scottish banking principles”, the bank had been created from the start to facilitate crooked trade on behalf of the British Empire.
China refers to this period as its “Century of Humiliation,” also known as the “hundred years of national humiliation,” describing the period from 1839 to 1949.
What happened in 1949?
The Chinese had fought a 22 year long civil war (Aug 1927-1949), which overlapped the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) where the Chinese also fought against Japanese fascists for their very existence. The Japanese fascists wanted to ethnically cleanse China, as well as the entire eastern coastline of Asia. Ho Chi Minh led the valiant fight against the Japanese fascists in Vietnam. The Japanese fascists committed the most brutal genocide, perhaps in all of history, known as the Asian holocaust and to which westerners often are completely unaware (for more on this refer here and here).
The most notorious of these was the Nanjing Massacre, or the Rape of Nanjing, starting on the 13th of December 1937 and lasting for six weeks. It is estimated that over 300,000 were massacred and over 80,000 brutally raped and tortured.
The Chinese heroically fought back the Japanese fascists and kept their country intact by the end of WWII. Though many European countries did not even last a week against invasion by the German Nazis, China had resisted a Japanese take-over for eight years, while fighting a civil war. There is certainly not even remotely close to enough respect given to the Chinese people for this incredible and heroic accomplishment.
On October 1st, 1949, the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong won the civil war against Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang army and Mao declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China. This is a complicated history that is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in satisfactory detail, however, I will make a few points.
Sun Yat-sen, of whom I speak in more detail in Part 1, was instrumental in China’s Revolution against the corrupt Qing dynasty. He also received training in Hawaii and became an adherent to the American System of economics (for more on this refer to Part 1.) He was Christian but he was also Confucian, seeing no contradiction in their true teachings.
Because of Sun Yat-sen’s leadership, China won its revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1911. Sun became President of the Republic of China in 1912 but voluntarily stepped down (in order to maintain the peace) to Yuan Shikai. Yuan Shikai was a warlord and was a greedy puppet to British interests. Sun had no choice but to step down because he understood that if he failed to do so, Britain would militarily intervene.
China had won its revolution but was still beholden to Britain’s dominion.
Sun Yat-sen was no fool and understood the situation with clarity. China’s problem with Britain, was the same problem the colonies of the United States faced almost 150 years earlier.
Sun Yat-sen writes in his book “The Vital Problem of China,” published in 1917:
In another section of the same book, Sun Yat-sen writes:
And lastly:
Reference for the images with quotes: https://risingtidefoundation.net/immortal-quotes/
It looks like Sun Yat-sen was very clear in his understanding of what was China’s “vital problem.”
Sun Yat-sen is known as the Father of the Republic of China. It was Sun Yat-sen who founded the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek was Sun’s selection for next in line. During this time, many subsequent members of the Chinese Communist Party were originally members of the Kuomintang, such as Zhou Enlai (who was later instrumental in the formation of the Five Principles for Peaceful Co-Existence and a vital participant in the Bandung Conference, see Part 1).
Sun Yat-sen died in 1925 and China’s civil war broke out two years later. It is my belief that if Sun had remained alive longer, China would have never fallen into a civil war.
As the civil war broke out, Madame Sun Yat-sen (Rosamond Soong Ch’ing-ling) who was an extremely intelligent Chinese political figure in her own right, after some delay, picks in favour of the Communist Party of China. Chiang was no longer the man Sun once thought able to lead the Chinese people. Madame Sun Yat-sen’s sister who married Chiang was also politically astute and continued to back her husband.
This decision of Madame Sun Yat-sen, regarded as the true living embodiment of the philosophy and teachings of Sun Yat-sen, was treated by most, as if Sun himself had spoken to the Chinese people.
This caused an alignment with numerous other Chinese political parties and institutions to side with the Communist Party against the Kuomintang, which at that point was regarded as being in bed with foreign interests (British and American) and that Chiang was more concerned with keeping his power and influence than on the actual fate of China.
[Madame Sun Yat-sen held several prominent positions within the People’s Republic of China from 1949 on. For more on this refer here.]
Numerous times during WWII, there had been a call to unite both sides in order to focus on defeating the Japanese fascists, however, Chiang always essentially refused. Chiang wanted to use the Japanese fascists against the Communist Party in order to win the civil war. There was also the unsettling question of whether Chiang was starting to view Japanese totalitarianism as a model for governance.
Taiwan, which is an island just 100 miles from China’s mainland, has a history that goes back for many thousands of years. From the late 13th century on, Chinese people gradually came into contact with Taiwan and started settling there. By the late 17th century, Taiwan became increasingly integrated into China, with mostly Chinese people living there (the indigenous population still lives in Taiwan to this day).
When Chiang lost the civil war, he retreated to the island of Taiwan, which was at that point considered part of China and was inhabited by mostly Chinese people. Chiang continued to call himself the only true representative of the teachings of Sun Yat-sen and the only true leader of the Republic of China, even though, Madame Sun Yat-sen refused to recognise his legitimacy as well as the majority of those living in China.
Chiang ruled Taiwan, essentially under a dictatorship, from 1943 to the year he died in 1975.
The balkanization of China and the extermination of her people was a very real threat that China not only survived during this period but fought back with remarkable fortitude and courage. Those who are responsible for saving China are rightly seen as heroes in the eyes of the Chinese, and we would be foolish in under-estimating the will and courage of the Chinese people after such displays of valor (for more stories of China’s valor refer here and here).
Thus, the year 1949 was to mark the end of China’s “Century of Humiliation.”
The City of London
“Hell is a city much like London.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Over and over again we have seen that there is another power than that which has its seat at Westminster. The City of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against the government of the country. Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that which is being decided by the people.”
- Clement Attlee, UK Prime Minister (1945-1951) and political opponent of Churchill.
The City of London is over 800 years old. It is arguably older than England herself, and for over 400 years it has been the financial center of the world.
During the medieval period, the City of London, otherwise known as the Square Mile or simply the City, was divided into 25 ancient wards headed each by an alderman. This continues today.
In addition, there existed the ominously titled City of London Corporation, or simply the Corporation, which is the municipal governing body of the City. This also still continues today.
Though the Corporation’s origins cannot be specifically dated, since there was never a “surviving” charter found establishing its “legal” basis, it has kept its functions to this day based on the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta is a charter of rights agreed to by King John in 1215, which states that “the City of London shall have/enjoy its ancient liberties”. In other words, the legal function of the Corporation has never been questioned, reviewed, re-evaluated EVER but rather it has been left to legally function as in accordance with their “ancient liberties”, which is a very grey description of function if you ask me. In other words, they are free to do as they deem fit.
Therefore, the question is, if the City of London has kept its “ancient liberties” and has upheld its global financial power, is the British Empire truly gone?
Contrary to popular naïve belief, the empire on which the sun never sets (some say “because God wouldn’t trust them in the dark”) never went away.
After WWII, colonisation was meant to be done away with, and many thought, so too with the British Empire. Countries were reclaiming their sovereignty, governments were being set up by the people, the system of looting and pillaging had come to an end.
It is a nice story, but could not be further from the truth.
In the 1950s, to “adapt” to the changing global financial climate, the City of London set up what are called “secrecy jurisdictions”. These were to operate within the last remnants of Britain’s small territories/colonies. Of Britain’s 14 oversea territories, 7 are bona fide tax havens or “secrecy jurisdictions”. A separate international financial market was also created to facilitate the flow of this offshore money, the Eurodollar market. Since this market has its banks outside of the UK and U.S., they are not under the jurisdiction of either country.
By 1997, nearly 90% of all international loans were made through this market[2].
John Christensen, an investigative economist, estimates that this capital that legally belongs to nobody could amount to as high as $50 trillion within these British territories. Not only is this not being taxed, but a significant portion of it has been stolen from sectors of the real economy.
So how does this affect “formerly” colonised countries?
According to John Christensen, the combined external debts of Sub-Saharan African countries was $177 billion in 2008. However, the wealth that these countries’ elites moved offshore, between 1970-2008, is estimated at $944 billion, 5X their foreign debt. This is not only dirty money, this is also STOLEN money from the resources and productivity of these countries’ economies.
Thus, as Christensen states, “far from being a net debtor to the world, Sub-Saharan Africa is a net creditor” to offshore finance.
Put in this context, the so-called “backwardness” of Africa is not due to its incapability to produce, but rather that it has been experiencing uninterrupted looting since these regions were first colonised.
These African countries then need to borrow money, which is happily given to them at high interest rates and accrues a level of debt that could never be repaid. These countries are thus looted twice over, leaving no money left to invest in their future, let alone to put food on the table.
And it doesn’t stop there. Worldwide, it is estimated that developing countries lose $1 trillion every year in capital flight and tax evasion. Most of this wealth goes back into the UK and U.S. through these offshore havens, and allows their currencies to stay strong whilst developing nations’ currencies are kept weak.
However, developing nations are not the only ones to have suffered from this system of looting. The very economies of the UK and U.S. have also been gutted. In the 1960s and onward, the UK and U.S., to compensate for the increase in money flow out of their countries decided that it was a good idea to open their domestic markets to the trillions of dollars passing through its offshore havens.
However, such banks are not interested in putting their money into industry and manufacturing. They put their money into real estate speculation, financial speculation and foreign currency trade. And thus, the financialization of British and American economies resulted, and the real jobs coming from the real economy decreased or disappeared.
Although many economists try to claim differently, the desperation has boiled over. We have reached a point now where every western first world country is struggling with a much higher unemployment rate and a significantly lower standard of living than 40 years ago. Along with increased poverty has followed increased drug use, increased suicide and increased crime (for more on the sin City of London refer here, and on Britain’s opium bank HSBC refer here).
Now, we are ready to look at today’s global agenda behind the push for war with China.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative Put Into Perspective
“BRI seeks to back an array of projects, but to date, the vast majority of funds has been allocated toward traditional infrastructure—energy, roads, railways, and ports. Though principally aimed at developing countries, with Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka among the largest recipients of BRI funds, BRI also includes developed countries, with numerous U.S. allies participating. If these U.S. allies were to turn to BRI to build critical infrastructure, such as power grids, ports, or telecommunications networks, this could complicate U.S. contingency planning and make coming to the defense of its allies more difficult.”
- The Council on Foreign Relations’ “Independent Task Force Report No. 79”
The Council on Foreign Relations, a major shaper of U.S. foreign policy, has made it clear in its numerous reports that it regards it as the duty of the United States government to counter China’s economic relationship and partnership with every country in the global sphere.
It should be noted that the Council on Foreign Relations is the American branch of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (aka: Chatham House) based in London, England. It should also be noted that Chatham House itself was created by the Round Table Movement during the Treaty of Versailles Conference in 1919.
Thus, deterrence to all American “allies” in forming partnerships with China has also been heavily enforced.
Why are China’s international relations seen as a threat to U.S. national security? The short answer to this is competition, and the slightly longer answer is that China is forming an alliance of countries against the economic strait jacket that was first imposed by the British Empire under its free trade doctrine and which is enforced today in the interests of the Anglo-American Empire.
In 2014, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) launched the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), based in Washington, DC. In June 2020, SAIS-CARI published a report titled “Debt Relief with Chinese Characteristics.”
I would like to share of few lines from this report, which begins with:
“In December 2019, a Zambian economist commented: ‘Chinese debt can easily be renegotiated, restructured, or refinanced.’ Is this true?
…In this working paper, we draw on data from the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) to review evidence on China’s debt cancellation and restructuring in Africa, in comparative and historical perspective. Cases from Sri Lanka, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Angola, and the Republic of Congo, among others, point to debt relief patterns with distinctly Chinese characteristics. In nearly all cases, China has only offered debt write-offs for zero-interest loans. Our study found that between 2000 and 2019, China has cancelled at least US$3.4 billion of debt in Africa. There is no ‘China, Inc’…We found that China has restructured or refinanced approximately US$ 15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. We found no ‘asset seizures’ and despite contract clauses requiring arbitration, no evidence of the use of courts to enforce payments, or application of penalty interest rates.”
It continues:
“During the debt crisis of the late 20th century, we saw that many sovereign borrowers simply did not service the interest-free loans lent by the Chinese government. Because the interest-free loan program was diplomatic in nature, a core part of China’s foreign aid, pressing hard for loan repayment was simply not done. As of 2019, with a much wider variety of loans in play—many commercial–rescheduling is no longer so easy, although it is happening. Beijing’s main tool to press for payments when a country goes into arrears is to suspend disbursements on projects currently being implemented (which slows their completion but also hurts Chinese contractors), and to withhold approval of new loans.
… A committee led by China’s Ministry of Finance (which has overall authority for debt relief), with delegates from MOFCOM, China’s Exim Bank, and China Development Bank will approve or reject the debt cancellation request. ‘The Chinese government will see how the money was used. They will consider this thoughtfully. They will refuse applications from some whose economy is doing well…’ a Chinese official told one of the authors.”
The SAIS-CARI report concludes:
“Chinese debt relief for Africa has been going on for many decades, following the ups and downs Africa’s economic recessions, recoveries, and booms… As Zhou Yuyuan, a researcher with the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, noted in a recent article: ‘the cost for violating the contract is actually quite low for the borrowers.’ Furthermore, Beijing is concerned with its international reputation and its long term political and diplomatic relationship with individual countries. In addition, Chinese contractors, who usually advance their own money to get a project launched before being reimbursed through Chinese bank disbursements, suffer from project suspensions. Although loan contracts provide for arbitration in case of default, there is no evidence that Chinese banks have ever used this option, or that a judgment could actually be enforced, were it to be in their favor. We also see no evidence of penalty interest rates.
…We started this paper with a quote from a Zambian economist. A fuller version of that quote is:
‘It’s the US$ 3 billion worth of eurobonds that are the problem, not the Chinese loans…with eurobonds, you don’t play around when the payments are due. Chinese debt can easily be renegotiated, restructured or refinanced’.”
According to the Jubilee Debt Campaign in 2017, China owned 24%, the IMF and World Bank owned 20%, the Paris Club 10%, the private sector 32%, and other multilateral institutions 15% of Africa’s debt.
The Center for International Policy’s “Africa Program,” based in Washington DC, tracks and analyzes U.S. foreign policy toward the nations of Africa. Interestingly they conclude:
“As a debt crisis looms, there has been a growing demand from various advocacy groups for debt cancellation and the issuance of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) from the IMF. According to the Advocacy Network for Africa (AdNA), the SDRs are the IMF’s reserve currency that could ‘enable countries to boost reserves and stabilize economies, helping minimize other economic losses, without any cost to the U.S. government.’ Although SDRs offer African countries a lifeline, the U.S. has yet to support the initiative, adding yet another hurdle in their attempt to break free from their debt trap. In addition to advocating for SDRs, organizations like the Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) are also urging the IMF to sell its stockpile of gold to cancel the debt of the poorest countries. According to JDC, the profit from selling less than 7% of IMF’s gold (worth $11.8 billion), ‘would be enough to pay for cancelling all debt payments by the 73 countries eligible for the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative for the next 15 months’ and ‘would still leave the IMF with $26 billion more gold than the institution held at the start of 2020.’
The efforts of debt-cancellation advocates seem to continue to fall on deaf ears, as the IMF and the World bank refuse to make any move towards cancelling the debt of African countries. The Bank’s hypocrisy is observed in the fact that it continues to pressure China, Africa’s largest creditor, to cancel its debt to poor countries while itself has yet to cancel the debt it is owed.”
China is Africa’s largest creditor, it is also Africa’s largest debt canceller and is the most flexible in its renegotiation of debt and does not penalise through interest rates as we saw with the Johns Hopkins report. As the Center for International Policy confirms, it is in fact the IMF and World Bank loans, who refuse to be flexible in repayment of these debts. It is they who refuse to make any significant cancellation of debt owed to them by Africa, and who maintain these loans at exorbitant interest rates, which are behind the debt problem in Africa.
In addition, contrary to the enforced conditionalities that come from IMF and World Bank loans that discourage essential infrastructure like electrical grids (Africa has been kept dark for decades), China is actually building infrastructure in Africa to the admitted dismay of the Council on Foreign Relations!
This is what President Putin was referring to in a speech from 2018 to light up Africa.
In 2019, Reuters reported that the United States’ top African diplomat warned that African countries running up debt they won’t be able to pay back, should not expect to be bailed out by western-sponsored debt relief.
“We went through, just in the last 20 years, this big debt forgiveness for a lot of African countries,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, referring to the somewhat condescendingly named HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) program, started by the IMF and World Bank in 1996 as a nice window dressing.
“Now all of a sudden are we going to go through another cycle of that? … I certainly would not be sympathetic, and I don’t think my administration would be sympathetic to that kind of situation,” he told reporters in Pretoria, South Africa.
Hmmm, imagine if a Chinese diplomat were to have said that, how it would have been viewed by the west, but apparently when a westerner says it, it is somehow not exploitive and predatory…
Let us look at another example. What about Sri Lanka’s debt crisis, surely China is to blame like we have all been told repeatedly?
This is a graph included within an article by the German news press DW. As we can see, China owns only 10% of Sri Lanka’s debt. The Asian Development Bank owns 13% but don’t be fooled by its name, it is modeled off of the World Bank and has only held Japanese presidents on its board. Japan is beholden to the west’s diktat in all of its foreign financial affairs.
So, who owns this 47% market borrowings share of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt? Well, according to NIKKEI Asia, the world’s largest financial newspaper based in Tokyo, Japan:
“By the end of 2020, a year into Gotabaya’s term, the country’s foreign debt was $38.6 billion, accounting for 47.6% of the central government’s total debt, according to the IMF. International sovereign bonds made up the largest share, at $14 billion, followed by $8.8 billion in loans from multilateral lenders and $6.2 billion in bilateral debts. The top 20 ISB [International Sovereign Bonds] holders included BlackRock, Allianz, UBS, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and Prudential, according to Advocata Institute, a Colombo-based think tank.”
It is here that we start to see the truth behind such graphs that hide behind vague titles such as the “private sector,” “other multilateral institutions” or “market borrowings”. These are predominantly British and American banks and investment firms who are extending loans at exorbitant interest rates. Why are the names of these institutions not even mentioned, conveniently hidden behind such generic and seemingly benign labels?
We also see the outright slander and lying that is occurring against China in being blamed for Sri Lanka’s debt crisis. How can such an accusation be justified if China owns only 10% of Sri Lanka’s debt?!
Once again, we see, it is not China that is responsible for the economic mayhem that is occurring today in Sri Lanka (formerly the British colony Ceylon, and who was a significant organiser of the Bandung Conference). In fact, there is great reason to believe that the National Endowment for Democracy is behind much of the chaos in Sri Lanka (refer here for more).
What about the IMF? They do not seem to be hardly mentioned in these debt trap charts, they don’t seem too bad right?
You may be surprised, that the example I am about to give of an IMF economic horror story is not located in either Africa or Asia, but rather in Europe.
Ukraine today is a tragic story on multiple levels.
Ukraine used to be among the richest countries in Eastern Europe, known as “the breadbasket of Europe.” However, this economic fact is harder and harder to come by since Ukraine was a part of the USSR when their economy was at its peak. A most inconvenient truth. It is for this reason that you will be hard pressed to find any GDP graph of Ukraine that begins earlier than 1991, the date of their independence from the USSR. From 1991 to 1997, Ukraine lost 60% of their GDP[3] and suffered five-digit inflation rates.[4] Who was Ukraine beholden to during this massive recession that has never really ended for Ukrainians? The International Monetary Fund (IMF).
During the EU Deal dispute that was used to trigger the Ukrainian protests, it has since been discovered that part of the conditions of this “deal,” which was strong-armed by the IMF, was the demand that a significant rise in utility rates (first and foremost electricity and gas) be implemented while the income of Ukrainians stayed the same.
The Ukrainian people had no idea. The very deal they were fighting and dying for was to directly benefit corrupt gas companies such as Burisma Holdings and their foreign shareholders, to the economic detriment of the Ukrainian people. A similar situation to what most of Europe is facing today under a plethora of glorious “EU Deals” in the midst of an energy crisis.
It turns out much that was behind the youth protests in Ukraine was funded by not only the American government directly, but also by the National Endowment for Democracy, the American department of color revolutions.
Jeremy Kuzmarov for Covert Action Magazine writes in an article titled “National Endowment for Democracy Deletes Records of Funding Projects in Ukraine”:
“The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot founded in the early 1980s to advance ‘democracy promotion’ initiatives around the world—has deleted all records of funding projects in Ukraine from their searchable “Awarded Grants Search” database.
The archived webpage captured February 25, 2022 from 14:53 shows that NED granted $22,394,281 in the form of 334 awards to Ukraine between 2014 to the present. The capture at 23:10 the same day shows “No results found” for Ukraine. As of right now, there are still ‘No results found’ for Ukraine…
The erasure of the NED’s records is necessary to validate the Biden administration’s big lie—echoed in the media—that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was ‘unprovoked.’” [emphasis added] (for more on the NED refer here.)
So just to be as clear as possible here, the economy of Ukraine was beholden to the IMF after their independence in 1991 (after the dissolution of the Soviet Union). It was almost immediately afterwards that the Ukrainian economy began a downward trend, entering an economic recession and creating Ukrainian oligarchs overnight. [Russia also went through a serious recession and had its overnight oligarchs because of the introduction of the Perestroika, which was a western restructuring of Russia’s internal finances. In time, Russia has been able to gain in part its economic and financial sovereignty, but it has been a long process which still has elements that are beholden to the western diktat such as the Russian Central Bank.]
This is what makes up the “Moscow on the Thames” in London, overnight Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs who benefitted from the suffering of their own people. These are men who are servants to the City of London. These are traitors to their country, who would sell their grandmothers for the right to sit in the hallway of their masters, as President Putin said in a recent speech.
Both the Orange Revolution (2004) and the Maidan Revolution (2014) were at the end of the day, about economic despair. The Ukrainians died for the EU deal and closed out Russia. What did they gain for this? Before the start of this year, Ukraine was by far the poorest country in all of Europe as a result of signing onto the EU Deal seven years ago. They then foolishly allowed themselves to be led into a war with Russia in service of Anglo-America, which was the entire time never about Ukrainian freedom but about triggering an economic collapse within Russia, which has very clearly failed.
We would perhaps do well to remember Lord Palmerston’s words, “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
The Ukrainian people who bought into this were played. The result of this “Revolution of Dignity” is that Ukraine now lies in ashes.
Now the Taiwanese people are being asked to follow suit.
The Sunflower Movement: Taiwan’s Color Revolution
What many likely do not know, or at least do not connect together, is that Ukraine’s “Revolution for Dignity” occurred during the same year as Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Revolution” aka “Occupy HK” as well as Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement. Yes, they all happened in the same year and they were all funded by the National Endowment for Democracy along with western NGOs.
Let us first start with the case of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, which was a part of China for many centuries, was established as a temporary colony of the British Empire after China lost the First Opium War. After the Second Opium War was lost, Britain expanded the colony to the Kowloon Peninsula, and in 1898, obtained a 99-year lease of Hong Kong.
In 1997, Hong Kong was returned to China as per the 99-year lease agreement with Britain. However, Britain did not release Hong Kong fully.
Laura Ruggeri, who has been living in Hong Kong since 1997 and has done excellent reporting on the 2019 Hong Kong protests, writes in her paper “Agents of Chaos: How the US Seeded a Color Revolution in Hong Kong”:
“By all appearances, the process of creating a sense of identification with, and loyalty to, China was still in its infancy. In contrast, transnational actors, most notably churches, NGOs and advocacy networks regarded by the US as “vectors of influence” and “catalysts of democratization” were well-entrenched in the Hong Kong civil society. Working in concert with US-sponsored local media and pro-democracy parties they subjected both China and the local government to constant criticism, exploiting domestic grievances in order to deepen rifts in society and achieve the sort of partisan and ideological polarization that would make Hong Kong ungovernable.
…Hong Kong lawmakers failed to acknowledge that the political feasibility of One Country Two Systems ultimately rests on the stability of One Country, without which any talk of Two Systems becomes preposterous.
… when British rule ended in 1997 it left behind a toxic legacy of colonial institutions, British-trained civil servants and a damaged collective psyche precariously held together by a false sense of superiority towards mainland China.
…The US began laying the brickwork for a colour revolution in Hong Kong even before the 1997 handover: NED funding for Hong Kong-based groups dates back to 1994 and was described as “consistent” by Louisa Greve, who was vice president of programs for Asia, the Middle East and North Africa until 2017. Its first strategic objective was to prevent the enactment of a national security law (Article 23) in Hong Kong, as this would effectively make the activities of NED and other foreign-funded organizations illegal.
When in 2003 the Secretary for Security Regina Ip announced a Bill to implement Article 23[5], as if on cue, half a million people marched against the government proposal, Mrs. Ip became the target of a coordinated vilification campaign that forced her to resign from office and the Bill was eventually withdrawn.
…foreign agents and fifth columnists. Their task was to scupper the One Country Two Systems governance model and contrast any rise of patriotic feelings towards China. If the One Country Two Systems model failed in Hong Kong, the U.S. would also achieve another strategic goal at no cost, because Taiwan wouldn’t be tempted to adopt it in the future.” (For more on this refer to Laura Ruggeri’s exellent articles.)
Thus, as you see with all of these NED funded revolutions, the people are never actually protesting something that will harm their freedom and prosperity, but rather the very opposite. They have been fooled into protesting something that is actually to their benefit. They are played by the prejudice that has been fueled by foreign agents in their education system, media and government, to hate and remain distrustful of what is actually a better outcome for them.
In the case of the 2019 Hong Kong protests, this was incredibly started as an Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement, in response to Hong Kong’s introduction of the Fugitive Offenders amendment bill on extradition. Why did the Hong Kong government introduce this bill? Because a young girl was hacked into pieces and shoved into a suitcase. Her boyfriend who committed the horrific crime left her body in Taiwan and took a flight back to Hong Kong that evening.
Hong Kong’s law, due to the “one country, two systems,” did not allow for China’s extradition of this criminal, thus the introduction of the bill. Something that not even the Australian government saw as an issue in their cooperating with before the fervour of protests in Hong Kong. What this meant, was that those participating in the 2019 Hong Kong protests were ultimately protesting China’s right to “intervene” into how Hong Kong people live their lives, even if they are to commit crimes within China.
In other words, these protesters were saying that China had no right to intervene in crimes committed by Hong Kongers, even though Hong Kong is a part of China… Does that sound like a democratic peace-loving movement to you?
Let alone that they violently attacked any Hong Kong resident who disagreed with their views during the 2019 protests, including the elderly.
The 2014 “Occupy HK” received $400,000 in funding from the NED. Hong Kong received $1.7 million in grants spent by the NED from 2017 to 2019 for the 2019 protests.
The NED is also funding separatist groups in Tibet (2021 link) and Xinjiang (only called East Turkistan by the radicalised separatists and the NED). NED has recently scrubbed their Xinjiang list of funding, however, if you go to the “awarded grants search” within the NED site you will find that their primary funding goes to the World Uyghur Congress, which services US government foreign policy, and is the primary organiser and funder behind claims that China is committing a genocide in Xinjiang (for more on this refer here).
When Anglo-America made a second attempt to reclaim Hong Kong in 2019, it again failed to separate Hong Kong from China. If they had succeeded, it would have been used as a model for Taiwan’s separatist movement.
Strangely, there has been this claim circulating around the web by such news agencies like The Guardian, criticizing China for claiming that Hong Kong was never a British colony because China never recognised the treaties that ceded the city to Britain. This is true in the sense that it was the corrupt Qing dynasty that signed over Hong Kong to the British for a 99-year lease. When the Chinese people overthrew the Qing dynasty and eventually formed the People’s Republic of China, this treaty was never recognised. In other words, the Chinese government never recognised such a treaty in support of British colonialism.
What is disturbing in this sort of criticism of China essentially refusing to acquiesce to a colonial identity, is that the reaction from the British press is “how dare they!” You see how old habits die hard.
China recognised, as also confirmed by the observations by Laura Ruggeri’s work, that it needed to take back their education system in Hong Kong, not because they are some sort of dictatorship that censors freedom of speech but because those textbooks were continuing to teach a British colonial view of the world and Chinese history that was essentially anti-Chinese.
How ironic that these so-called freedom lovers in Hong Kong and their supporters are so quick to side with a colonial framework. Anything to sit in the hall of their masters…
The Guardian article goes on to say, how dare China teach in their schools that the 2019 Hong Kong protests were driven by external forces. What this means is; how dare China not accept the separatist movement in Hong Kong that is still brainwashed with a colonial mentality as genuine.
Picture of the 2019 Hong Kong protestors holding British flags.
Hmmm.
I would like to make a quick note here, that part of my family comes from Hong Kong, and it is most clearly the case that they saw themselves as superior to the Chinese living on the mainland, whom they viewed as dirty peasants, and likely have retained this prejudice despite mainland China now economically thriving with many cities being much more affluent and beautiful than Hong Kong. My family that grew up in Hong Kong, largely identified with western idealisation, and my mother and siblings have even confessed to me that they wished they had been born with more western features in their appearance. Does that sound like freedom to you?
Lastly, let us take a look at Taiwan’s “Sunflower Movement.”
Taiwan, in case you were not aware, is legally a part of China and is recognised as so by the entire international community, except 13 small countries and the Vatican City, Holy See. And I would go so far as to say that it was not the decision of these small countries to do so, who are beholden to the Anglo-American diktat.
The United States, despite sending weapons over to Taiwan, and having a small number of US troops in Taiwan, also recognises Taiwan as part of China.
On the US Department of State website they write, “We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence.”
So why all the belligerence from the United States? It appears it is the United States who is in violation of the law.
Quite ridiculously, Newsweek published an article which is the same sort of fiction that is being published all over media right now, titled “China Warplane Fleet Enters Taiwan’s Air Defense Zone.”
Below are the images published by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, showcasing China’s aircraft “violation,” that were used by the Newsweek article.
Do you notice something strange? Taiwan’s Self-Declared Air Zone overlaps with the actual mainland of China. According to Taiwan, China should not even have the right to fly above a section of its own mainland!
In addition, according to Taiwan, China has no right to pass over or through the Taiwan Strait, but a US Navy Destroyer can enter “its” waters, which happened just a few days ago and was not the first time.
CNN writes the very misleading headline “US Navy Destroyer enters Chinese-claimed waters for third time in a week.” Um, “Chinese-claimed waters”? The US Department of State recognises Taiwan as part of China, so yeah, it is in Chinese waters. Are you beginning to see what China is having to deal with?
Lastly, if you see the flight routes that China is taking in the image above, you can see clearly that China is making it crystal clear that those flight paths are not meant to pass over Taiwan. China is giving Taiwan its space, even though it is a part of China.
As, ex-Marine Corps, Brian Berletic’s The New Atlas has pointed out in his informative videos, Taiwan is completely dependent on trade with China, thus, if China really wanted to cause Taiwan’s “submission” to China, there would be no need to “invade” Taiwan, they would simply stop trading with Taiwan. China makes up 49.04% of Taiwan exports and 23.8% of Taiwan imports.
In 2014, the Sunflower Movement, like the Ukrainian “Revolution for Dignity” was over an economic deal. In the case of Taiwan it was over a free trade deal with China, which makes sense since Taiwan is part of China, therefore why would you not want free trade within the same country? Once again, we see that the protests were against something that was in fact to their benefit.
One of the leading organizations behind the Sunflower Movement was the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy which is directly connected to the NED and has received funding from the NED (for more on this refer to The New Atlas).
On the NED webpage “Taiwan’s Destiny,” the remarks by Carl Gershman, former US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council and who has served as president of the NED since its founding in 1984 to 2021, states:
“I visited Taiwan for the first time 25 years ago to encourage it to join the community of countries that was fostering democracy through non-governmental institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy. Taiwan was not ready for this idea at the time.
In the quarter of a century since that conference, Taiwan has consolidated a dynamic, stable, and successful liberal democracy, exemplified by President Tsai herself, who is the first woman to be elected President of Taiwan. Elsewhere in the world, however, democracy has entered a period of crisis…and authoritarian countries like Russia and China have become more aggressive and threatening.
Taiwan has not chosen to be a global symbol of democratic universalism, and I did not anticipate that it would become one when I came here 25 years ago, hoping that Taiwan might establish an institution to promote democracy in the world. It now has such an institution, and for that I’m very grateful. And as I said last year when I spoke at the TFD’s 15th anniversary celebration, I hope that the Taiwan government will increase the Foundation’s budget, as the U.S. Congress may soon do for the NED. The work is so important.
…Because of Taiwan’s sacrifice and commitment, I believe that day will come.”
Like what the sacrifice of the Ukrainian people brought for Ukraine in obeisance to this?
It is clear from the words of Carl Gershman that Taiwan’s Foundation for Democracy is an NED created and funded institution to encourage the separation of Taiwan from China.
And just like Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, the Sunflower movement allowed for the demand of a new government, a new government that would be picked and shaped by the US government. People such as Joseph Wu who is Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and is also the Vice-Chairman of Taiwan’s Foundation for Democracy.
Some Parting Thoughts
So, is it truly better the Devil you know? I always found this saying a confusing one, it essentially is describing one situation or person that we know for sure is monstrously bad and the other to which we acknowledge we do not “know.” So why the assumption that the choice is between one monstrous thing or another?
As we see with the technique especially of color revolutions, the ignorance of the people in siding with the Devil they know, is that they have chosen rather simply to remain in the hell they find themselves in. They are so fearful to travel into the unknown (which can become rather quickly known if one informs themselves) that they would rather stay with their captor.
Colonial Stockholm Syndrome one might say?
B.F. Skinner, a scary behaviourist, discovered a phenomenon in his work with rats which is now called, very creepily, “the Skinner box,” or by its somewhat less creepy title the “operant conditioning chamber.”
What Skinner found was that rats that were tortured within this box in the specific manner he does with conflicting messaging of reward and punishment, these rats would form a sort of dependence on this created “reality” as a coping mechanism to future stresses. It was found that when the rat was allowed to leave the box and was subjected to a stimulus that caused pain or fear that its immediate reaction was to run back into the box for its own perceived security out of its own volition!
Think about that.
There is a reason why behaviourists became extremely giddy over this “discovery” of Skinner, and it wasn’t because of its applications on rats…
We are told that we live in a complicated world. A world that is divided, a world that is full of hate and war and greed. And it is most certainly the case that the west in particular has descended into its own self-created hell. But that is the key right there.
As John Milton would say in his Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place and, in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”
Ironically, what many do not know is that Milton wrote a follow-up titled “Paradise Regained.” How interesting that we only focus on Paradise being Lost and seemingly have no care for Paradise Regained? Or that everyone has heard of Dante’s Inferno and perhaps Purgatorio but few have heard of Dante’s Paradiso which was meant to be read as a whole. Why do you think that is?
If we choose to walk in this life blind to what is the good, we will certainly condemn ourselves to living in a hell, but that is not reality, that is our self-made creation.
The choice is yours to make.
“It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
– Buddha
The author can be reached at cynthiachung.substack.com
- “Old Summer Palace marks 157th anniversary of massive loot”. www.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2018-06-30. ↑
- “The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire” (2017) Documentary. ↑
- “Can Ukraine Avert a Financial Meltdown?“. World Bank. June 1998. Archived from the original on 12 July 2000. ↑
- Figliuoli, Lorenzo; Lissovolik, Bogdan (31 August 2002). “The IMF and Ukraine: What Really Happened“. International Monetary Fund. ↑
- Article 23 is an article in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. It states that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region “shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organizations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies.” ↑
How do you write an article about Opium Trade and never mention the Kadoorie, Judah, Sassoon, Mizari Jews from Baghdad who controlled the trade and built a strong presence in Shanghai and were given New Territories.
Sassoon Family founded HSBC
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/sassoons-in-shanghai/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassoon_family
Same way you wage a war for the denazification of ukraine… 🤷🏻♂️
I guess these families were instruments for the British Empire. If this is the case they are mentioned in the article just on a higher level than your detail. No network could exist without a deal with the Empire.
If you go to Cynthia’s website, she gives a lot more information on the Sassoon’s infamy than the two links you provided.
There were many merchants from India involved in the opium trade in Canton apart from India based British companies, for example: D. & M. Rustomjee, Heerjeebhoy Rustomjee, Burjorjee Maneckjee, Framjee Dadabhoy, Bomanji Maneckjee, Burjorjee Sarabjee, Nesservanjee Dorabjee and many more (source: Nathan Rich).
This is very interesting information because not very people in India are aware – Also all this names are Parsis, a immigrant community originally from Persia who are till this date moneylenders and landlords who are reviled as vultures for their money grabbing antics – They own almost half of Mumbai and are tremendously rich but doesn’t spend any money outside themselves – Luckily they are dying out slowly due to their insular nature and inbreeding and local governments are slowly trying to release their death grip on the mumbai land
It isn’t about the opium war
“Just” before Opium War, in 1820s, China had share of 33% of global GDP according study by Angus Maddison. I think it’s useful to start thinking more that situation especially now in 2022.
I did read, that during the violent looting, burning, murder etc, (for femocracy), that some well tattooed, rough looking Caucasians joined in the fighting, they alleged to be Ukies. Mi5 at their best, eh?
Please the use of “eh” is reserved only for Canadians?
This suggests that the synchronised Government response to COVID was deliberately nonsensical and authoritarian to create a ‘ Skinner box” for the West’s population.
In that Skinner box is cancel culture, LGBTQ’, support for Nazis, permanent “vaccines” and unquestioning denial of the appalling nature of Ukraine’s Government.
As a citizen of small nation it really puzzled me why China with population 20 times that of Britain let those donkies controll and humiliate such a huge nation with long high cultural history. Only real reason would have been their own corrupted leaders. Same should be asked of India.
Large populations, numerous religious denominations, divide & conquer.
For India, the East India Company built forts, impregnable fortresses, defences, defendable with small well trained units armed to the teeth. Ukraine 2014 – 2022 resonates.
No mention of one of the largest beneficiaries of the opium/opium wars, Jardine & Matheson, privateers linked with the East India Company who did very well from Hong Kong real estate, shipping (smuggling ) , banking , other. Still a going concern today.
Great read!
They had better weapons.
All the European wars from the 15th Century onwards had a big impact on military and weapons advancement. Compare that with the relative peace and prosperity in Asia over the same period. Also, the backbone of Asian philosophy (i.e. Confucianism, Buddhism) promotes peace and harmony unlike the West which has a religious ideology where they need to convert everyone. You can say Christianity is used as a Trojan Horse. The annexation of Hawaii is an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK2MBnw6RlY&t=1s
Anyway, lesson learned for China. One cannot take their eye off “reality”; which is Evil always exists and you must be prepared to confront it even in the best of times.
This is clearly a first-rate piece of writing and it rhymes with my own views of China and the West which is mainly due to instinct rather than intellect–you provide the intellect so thank you.
While I think there certainly is an Anglo-sphere financial side to all this my own view is that most policymakers in Washington are focused on feeding and maintaining the Deep State for its own benefit and not for any overarching set of agendas. The Deep State has evolved out of what you have described and has its roots in the City (via the CIA) but as one retired CIA officers told a group of us, “the CIA is a cult and the man vowed to deprogram himself while, at the same time, be proud of his accomplishments. The Biden administration is populated by corrupt and ambitious careerists who are, in the main, ignorant of history and morality. Their model is Machiavelli without the erudition. They have no interest in seving either the society as a whole or even the financial oligarchs unless directly physically threatened by their goons (much more of power in Washington is connected to a mafia mentality including whacking people where required than most people suspect).
Current policy reflects a balance of power among competing interests and mafia bosses and there’s not that much thought put into long-term consequences of their actions and thus the constant stumbling and bumbling we all see–what we need to understand is those stumbles do benefit specific crews. Next week or month it may all go in another direction.
God bless you Cynthia
bless you for blessing cynthia . the world awaits the spreading of of her knowlege.
This visit by Pelosi was a deliberate ploy to make Xi look weak before his possible election for another term in office.
This visit is designed to destabilize Xi by emboldening his detractors who are to afraid to challenge him.
Now he has shown weakness this may cause ructions in the Chinese political class.
Remember the U.S love to topple governments through Machiavelli means…they cannot afford wars and they eventually lose them if they go long enough.
“Now he has shown weakness this may cause ructions in the Chinese political class.”
I can’t let that BS pass by. The result of that be-hatches visit to Taiwan is that China promised to inflict punishment — and that will come at a Time & Place of China’s choosing ! Nop weakness will be shown. Best of all is that the instagators do NOT know what the punishment will be. Served cold it will hurt !
Thank you Cynthia for your excellent interesting article.
Now i truly better understand why not much at all producing nations likely UK have hundreds of thousands of rich money making parasites with their “real estate” business. Hypocrites even pretend to be “anti racist” after looting huge property from Africa. No wonder why they need this huge MSM propaganda machine to hide truths not even Karl Marx would have imagined.
“The erasure of the NED’s records is necessary to validate the Biden administration’s big lie…”
When I read about NED erasing of records it made me think of Bellingcat.
Bellingcat had until recently listed the CIA’s NED (National Endowment for Democracy) as a source of grant monies.
Here, in April 2022, Bellingcat lists National Endowment for Democracy.
https://archive.ph/DXTl3
Today NED is not listed at Bellingcat:
https://www.bellingcat.com/about/
(Using the Wayback Machine I see NED listed on May 2nd, 2022 but not on May 4th.)
I used the NED grant search database and had no luck finding Bellingcat.
(Perhaps I didn’t make the proper selections to get it to work. I invite you to try.)
https://www.ned.org/wp-content/themes/ned/search/grant-search.php
As a “boomer” who was born and bred in Hong Kong, I found the article to be extremely informative. My thanks to the author.
However, can I just correct one point ….
Ms Chung wrote : «After the Second Opium War was lost, Britain expanded the colony to the Kowloon Peninsula, and in 1898, obtained a 99-year lease of Hong Kong.»
Hong Kong (HK) and the Kowloon peninsula were given to the Brits in perpetuity. It was the New Territories (NT) that was given as a 99 year lease.
Maggie Thatcher knew that HK and the Kowloon peninsula would be hopeless without the NT and that is why she gave the Colony up without a whimper.
The Old World Order would declare war against itself if that would be profitable for them.
The ‘culture’ of the American settlers called “rugged individualism” is opposite of the Chinese ‘hive mind’ culture. Yet both are easily manipulated WHEN YOU HAVE ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD.
I lone you a dollar, you pay it back, times infinitum, and the line on chart is flat.
I lone you a dollar at 5 % fee, times infinitum, and line on chart is going up at a consistent rate.
I lone you a dollar, at 5% “interest” meaning the 5% rate recurring, forever, and the “interest” on the “interest” will incur yet even more “interest” and the chart shows a parabolic curve starting out slow then getting faster than increasing at incomprehensible speed.
You Google “money supply”, first hit from St. Louis FED, has a chart. Can you see that chart shows a parabolic curve?
Please draw that exact curve, into the future 10 years, and tell us what the “money supply” will be then.
The “Great Reset” is intended to start a whole new parabolic curve, with the Old World Order still the only folks who control the “money supply”.
The greatest fear of the Old World Order is that some “New World Order” comes along and takes away the Old World Orders I’ll gotten gains.
That’s why we are about to start corrective wave IV in the super cycle which will bring deflation huge transfer of wealth in a fewer hands (Black Rock, Fidelity, Vanguard, StateSteet). You will have nothing and you will be happy. How about gold for much under a $1000/oz?. Deflationary Depression?
The cash will be the king. USD?
Such tricky ground covered with such ease and clarity. Thank you for furthering my education.
The author does not realize that the article just describes “realpolitik” done by empires, at least maritime empire, but also often land-based ones. There is nothing special about “divide et impera” and proxy wars done by the english empire in centuries past or by the american empire in the past century.
As to that one of the big ironies is that the americans have applied the same principles to their patient WW1-WW2 game of dismantling the english empire and taking it over in a somewhat different form, and for all their cunning the powers of the City have been obliterated by the cruder powers of the USA.
As to the China-Taiwan situation, the USA will say whatever it takes to “win”, so it does not matter, it will be resolved by patient China-mainland and China-Taiwan people. But not rapidly: consider the Korea-north/south split.
What an absolutely outstanding expose from Cynthia.
With Cynthia, her Husband Mathew Ehret, and of course Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar, humanity has the opportunity to educate itself on the breathtaking hypocrisy of predatory western neo-colonialism and their increasingly desperate attempts to maintain their financial hegemony.
This is such a powerful explanation of how the City of London/Wall Street interests uses its influences and in particular the IMF, and the World Bank, to create predatory and ruinous sovereign debt spirals.
It follows as a timely update on the excellent book and documentary ‘Princes of Yen’ compiled by Richard Werner that exposed this racket so vividly during the Asian Tiger crisis… another western orchestrated and blatant theft of assets and state utilities along with monumentally cynical manipulation of their laws and political processes.
Cheers and bravo for a truly great essay.
Col
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=princes+of+yen+documentary&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D17IKA-YsqXQ&ia=videos
Very interesting history which, given British propensity to use other countries for their wars, prompts questions regarding British machinations in the USA after their 1840s move toward Free Trade.
Britain is recognized as having perceived the burgeoning US manufacturing capacity and Northern push for tariffs as a sufficient threat to motivate British diplomatic encouragement of Southern opposition to tariffs. What guarantees were made between 1840 and 1860 to Southern interests regarding British support of Southern secession? What piece did Britain really play in fomenting the US Civil War? Being geographically isolated with no peer rival on the North American continent, there would be no other nation to make war on the new British rival, yet civil war could have the same effect.
Perhaps a good dissertation study for an energetic graduate student.
“They are so fearful to travel into the unknown (which can become rather quickly known if one informs themselves)…”
It’s the second part of that sentence that I really like.
Cynthia Chung is one of the clearest voices in today’s cacophony.
We are not sure which US military person told the author that Taiwan was heavily beholding to Mainland China’s trading system. But based on current info, Taiwan does big business with the top 10 trading partners around the world. Notice how deeply tied Taiwan is to the US. See below.
And given the fact that the US Financial Power has already started tightening the screws on Germany’s trading practices, the figure below may be much lower than projected for 2022.
Taiwan’s Top Trading Partners
Below is a list showcasing 25 of Taiwan’s top trading partners, countries that imported the most Taiwanese shipments by dollar value during 2021. Also shown is each import country’s percentage of total Taiwanese exports.
mainland China: US$126.2 billion (28.2% of Taiwan’s total exports)
United States: $65.9 billion (14.7%)
Hong Kong: $63.1 billion (14.1%)
Japan: $29.3 billion (6.5%)
Singapore: $25.8 billion (5.8%)
South Korea: $20.2 billion (4.5%)
Vietnam: $14 billion (3.1%)
Malaysia: $13.4 billion (3%)
Germany: $8.2 billion (1.8%)
Netherlands: $8.1 billion (1.8%)
You seems to think HK is an independent country.
Try adding HK to China’s trade figure.
You appear to have crossed the Rubicon with your comment.
Add the US figure to its occupied vassal states SK, Japan and Germany percentages and the figure still only comes to a total of 27.5%.
Add China’s share to the other Asian economies, that are not under the Wall Street/City of London jackboot, and it comes to 54.2%… as near as damn is to swearing to double the US sphere group.
Call me stupid but the way I read the figures, that you yourself present, then they actually contradict your own argument.
The figures are not relevant.
There are many many Taiwanese companies operating in China,
using local materials, local manpower, and sell locally (eg UBC
Coffee). And there are many that export directly to the US, and
abroad (read Foxconn which OEM for Apple).
The GDP of Taiwan is soaked with water because they include
the turnover of Taiwanese companies operating abroad. This
is why the GDP per capita of Taiwan is over twice as much
as that of China, yet the living standard (eg salary of fresh
graduates) does not seem to be much higher.
Super job! Many thanks!
(kibitzers may focus on the very few editing errors…and I myself, and most people too, often make similar errors…but of course I do not design to be picky or petty…it’s a very fine job, and very welcome!)
I have been wishing for C’s essay. And relish it.
Warm best wishes to the Real Lady author, whose work I always read.
Once again, very well done, Ms. Chung. Your research is solid. It takes some time to read as the parts on China are mostly novel to westerners. But the read is worth the effort.
In regard to the fact that ignorant, but well meaning people work to their own destruction through manipulation and lies and traps set by machinations from Machiavellian forces, we can only say: The power of myths are such that the average person is almost sure to take the bait and lose sight of the goal that is consonant with his or her own future, both as a person and as a nation.
It’s a long road, where visionaries are required to light the way, and at the time appointed by Providence, the masses of average people will join the movement to rein in these evils.
China, Russia, Iran, et al. will remain standing, but the way it looks, the financial overlords will involve all of the West in a war where the average guy pays the price.
That seems to be where we are at, and we have one consolation if any. The expose of the deep state, financial manipulators, has become clearer and clearer since Ezra Pound first instigated an expose of the Federal Reserve after WWII.
Thanks for your work.
“Such a governing structure is free to determine for us what is “truth” vs. “falsehood” what is “fact” vs. “fiction,” because the people, despite all the abuse and exploitation from such a governing force still look to this very thing to protect and shield them from the frightful “unknown.”
And so there one has it the reason as to why so very few or none actually except your truly knows anything about the biblical teachings on climate change. Teachings which astonishingly even provide the solution to our meteorological problems.
But where it gets truly unbelievable is President Johnson actually had the gall to talk about controlling the weather by way of a weather satellite and perhaps even to weaponize it for worldwide control?
https://youtu.be/VM-JneoHWIE
This from a man who put his hand on a Bible when he was sworn into office? The ignorance and stupidity of mankind is a wonder and a shock to behold.
To read through this essay leaves me in deep shock really because Christianity in the UK and in the USA has truly failed and failed bigtime.
How can a people so well educated with so many great schools, colleges, universities and a history like theirs and today a people so totally and completely ignorant of everything called God, everything called the Christian religion is for me truly dumbfounding. Perplexing and troubling!
But it gets even worse. Birds falling dead out of the sky and fish tens of thousands washing ashore dead is also mentioned in Holy Writ when God had enough of some nations and decided to act.
Might I suggest ignoring the structure of government in all its spheres and the blasted universities as well.
sorry but that is the way it is and God had to choose an unschooled like me to try and get his words across.
God, I hope some are listening?
I get what you are saying i really do. It is indeed mind boggling. The truth is the western society divorced itself from God a looong time ago. Because we as a people choose to stay in and promote ignorance of the satan’s ways of manipulation, we were deceived BIG time. We were warned that in the last days lying evil spirits will masquerade as a teaching spirits, teaching unwitting and ignorant people deceptions and giving them false knowledge.
You either gather with God or scatter. The choice that the majority of western pastors and preachers made is obvious.
Thanks for the piece. I needed it.
To this day, China, to me, had always been a strange, even a somewhat threatening place inhabited by a somewhat strange, even threatening people..
I have to re-evaluate those perceptions.
In defence of Chiang Kai Shek I think it merits attention that the angloamericans were also supporting his rivals the Maoists and did so during Sun Yat Sen’s life. But accellerated the support when he died from a brain tumour I think.
With this in mind I think it is possible that Chiang was somewhat confused but knowing what Sen knew about the British would make that suspicion even stronger if Chiang was influenced by Sen.
Sen said Marxism was an analysis of a societal pathology but he believed they made the mistake of permanenting that pathology.
I believe the current leadership has many things in common with Sen and that some of Chiangs actions still look like they were the efforts of a true patriot of Chinas cause
Let me explain that I think Cynthia has struck a fine diplomatic balance with her words about the wife of Sen and Cynthia’s way of arranging the material is attractive and very useful for all to read.
“My family that grew up in Hong Kong, largely identified with western idealisation,”
A lot of people don’t notice that western governments are the enemies of western values.
Western values are the product of the French Revolution and serve the interests of the proletairiat.
Well, well, well… Another excellent article. Many thanks for the author.
This site is real window on the world. So many great texts.
ALSO SEEK OUT: from Angelo Giuliano, Arnaud Bertrand, Martin Jacques to Andy Boreham to Jeff J. Brown to Godfree Roberts to Tom Fowdy (and many others) and MetallicMan.com.
https://twitter.censors.us/ItsStillMaoCena
My girlfriend herself said she’d be happy for China too retaliate with Nuclear Arms right now. That’s how angry the Chinese people are. You Yankees poked the dragon, and now it’s awake.
Good job !!!!!!!!
Then – of course – all these chinese GUYS, inside or outside of CHN, for example:
https://twitter.censors.us/PandemicTruther
America-China Watcher retweeted
Yin Sura 尹苏拉
@yin_sura
Aug 2
🇨🇳 #China #TaiwanStraitsCrisis
Protesters in Taiwan against Pelosi’s visit 🤣
OR
https://twitter.censors.us/NiMingda_GG
倪明达 (Ni Mingda)
20h
Remember, China’s red line is Pelosi IN Taiwan.
As long as Nancy was not yet in Taiwan, she hasn’t crossed that line.
But now that she HAS actually landed, the red line has been officially crossed.
The USA has made its move.
It’s China’s turn.
And it won’t be predictable
Some netizens were expecting Pelosi’s plane to be shot down.
Why would the PLA do that?
That would only make Pelosi a martyr.
Worst, the U.S. could argue that she technically never “set foot” on Taiwan, and what China did was unprovoked aggression.
The CPC is not foolish.
As long as Nancy was not yet in Taiwan, she hasn’t crossed that line.
But now that she HAS actually landed, the red line has been officially crossed.
The USA has made its move.
It’s China’s turn.
By the way, it doesn’t matter if Pelosi’s plane left Taiwan tomorrow; Nancy is not some kind of prize to be held hostage.
The symbolic act of crossing the red line has already occurred.
So China now has the justification required to do whatever is best for China.
Wait and see !!!!
—————————————-
In the meantime, if you want get some real understanding of so called CENSORSHIP in CHN:
https://herecomeschina.substack.com/p/what-does-chinas-censor-censor?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
Fearless journalists exposed the 2002 AIDS epidemic in Henan province, the 2003 Sun Zhigang case of a migrant worker illegally detained and beaten to death in Guangzhou, the 2008 milk-poisoning scandal, widespread environmental protests, and food safety crises among other contentious issues.
In most cases, their stories raised a wide public outcry, as manifested in active discussions online. In some cases, they also produced a moderate policy shift … recently demonstrated in the courageous investigative reporting of Tianjin’s major chemical explosion.
Investigative journalism is flourishing.
On Cui Yongyuan’s talk show, Tell It Like It Is, (twenty-million Weibo followers), ne vehemently opposed the Government’s plan to introduce genetically modified food, made heated, personal attacks on GM food supporters, and helped defeat the legislation.
Next he charged China’s highest-paid actress, Fan Bingbing, with cheating on her taxes (triggering a tax audit that cost the entertainment industry two-billion dollars in taxes and fines) while publicly accusing Shanghai police of taking huge bribes while investigating the Fan Bingbing case and of ignoring death threats to himself and his daughter.
He then publicly ridiculed them when they claimed they had been unable to reach him. After an investigation, Beijing charged Shanghai’s police chief, Gong Daoan, with corruption.
Cui’s next obscenity-laden Weibo post accused the President of the Supreme Court of malfeasance, and demanded to know why critical case files were missing.
A leaked video tape showed a Supreme Court judge hinting that CCTV cameras had been sabotaged when the documents were stolen from his office and an image of the case file’s cover page showed a judge’s directive to keep the case secret.
After a Court denial, President Xi personally intervened on Cui’s side.
“In China today there are too many damn people afraid of getting into trouble and too few with the guts to speak the truth,” says Cui.
Interesting but biased in favor of China.
China doesnt enforced most debt trap because they negociate relief against more debt trap. Many ports worldwide are 100% operated by China, whats the difference with debt trap enforcement?
Now regarding the supposed war thats not dealt with in the article: there will probably be no war because China is doing everything the Davos crowd can wish for: surveillance/social credit, organ harvesting, CBDC, plandemic manufacturing, hollowing western industrial base (western middle class destruction), supporting usd and debt diplomatie.
Global deepstate just need distraction from financial crisis and scapegoat for inflation and crisis itself
Just to add a sidelight to Ms. Chung’s wonderful article:
The expression about ‘the devil you know’ means the same thing as jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Milton’s Paradise Regained and Dante’s Paradiso are not well known because they are, basically, crap, compared with the authors’ searing hellish visions. Neither had any idea of how to portray a paradise that consists of the love of god and not too much else and make it sound desirable. Nor has anybody else. ‘Paradise’ to ordinary humans mostly consists of some combination of physical ease and sensory gratification, that is, food, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.
Remarkable historic overview.
I would have enjoyed some insights regarding how the Cultural Revolution fit into the picture, and why it is left out of most discussions today.
On a visit to China many years ago, I learned that the official Cultural Revolution museum was so little visited that the curator rarely bothered to open it’s doors.
What a magnificent class! Thank you, Miss Cynthia Chung! Your research is immensely relevant, current and necessary, and your writing is astonishingly didactic. I am studying the performance of the NED and the philanthropic foundations (Soros, Ford, Omidyar, etc) here in Brazil, their hybrid wars and their role in the current setback we are experiencing. I perceive immense harmony with your research, which enriches with new information and sources. Thank you so much for that.
Another interesting fact is that all or almost all of those countries that recognize Taiwan,don’t recognize “Taiwan”.They recognize that government as the “Republic of China”. So it’s a complicated issue even for those few that recognize that government.
Who knew?
“Sun Yat-sen, …was Christian…”
Another great piece by Cynthia. There is a lot of talk about the City of London but nobody ever provides names behind it. Why not? Are they the decision makers behind world events?
The closest I can fathom is that the Rothschild’s are very influential in world events. Mayer Amschel Rothschild born 1744, had 5 boys and 5 girls. He sent his boys to London, Frankfort, Vienna, Paris, and Naples. All became prominent bankers with influence in business, trade, and politics.
Quite a story is told of the influence of the Rothschild’s in shaping world policy, from funding WW1 to supporting the Bolshevic Revolution, to taking down America. The book I’m reading was written by Maj. Gen., Count Cherep-Spiridovich, “The Secret World Government or “The Hidden Hand” by the Anti-Bolshevist Publishing Association, NYC, 1926. It can be found on Google if you type in pdf after the title.
Can anyone shed further knowledge about the City of London, who they are, and their influence today? Are the Rothschild’s part of that group?
@ Cindy
It is said of the Rothschild’s that by 1850, they had acquired more wealth than all of the royal families of Europe and Britain combined. Stop and think about that for a moment?
A quote though by Dr. Carrol Quigley is quite enlightening from his book Tragedy and Hope:
“They remained different from ordinary bankers in distinctive ways: {1} they were cosmopolitan and international {2} they were close to governments and were particularly concerned with questions of government debts; {3} their interests were almost exclusively in bonds and very rarely in goods; {4} they were, accordingly, fanatical devotees to secrecy and the secret use of financial influence in political life. These bankers came to be called the international bankers.
Further to this is Dr, Quigley’s astonishing belief that they are the hope of the world?!
“I know of the operations of this network because i studied it for twenty-five years, and was permitted for two years in the early 1960’s to examine its papers and its secret records, I have no aversion to it, not to many of its aims, and have for much of my life been close to it, and to many of its instruments.” pages 979-980
His opinion was that we can trust these benevolent men who are secretly operating behind the scenes?
We can never know all that is going on and as for City of London I have my suspicions about it being the great power center of the world. Why, would i think that? I give you the name Colonel Mandell House!!! He is the key to a great many things and was surely the agent for Rothschild in America. start with this question how does a cotton farmer from Texas rise from such a lowly place to become a political powerhouse not just nationally but internationally?
one correction in quote above
{4} they were accordingly, fanatical devotees of inflation; {5} there were equally devoted to secrecy and the secret use of financial influence in political life.
apologies
Also be aware it is often their own who put their foot in their mouths by revealing the agenda. In his little book Philip Dru, Administer this Col House writes something truly astonishing:
“[Very] soon, every American will be required to register their biological property in a National system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging.
By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda, which will affect our security as a chargeback for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be forced to register or suffer not being able to work and earn a living.
They will be our chattel, and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through taxation, secured by their pledges.
They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one or two would figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability.
After all, this is the only logical way to fund government, by floating liens and debt to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably reap to us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a contributor to this fraud which we will call “Social Insurance.”
Without realizing it, every American will insure us for any loss we may incur and in this manner; every American will unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope for their redemption and, we will employ the high office of the President of our dummy corporation to foment this plot against America.”
It is this sentence though that should be in bold and/or italics because of the uncanny way in which it resembles Rev. 13 about no one being able to buy or sell unless he had the mark or the number of his name when discussing the last worldwide economic system:
Every American will be forced to register or suffer not being able to work and earn a living.
Voila, if we haven’t got right from the horses mouth the agenda and wow if House could see the magnificent technology of computer tech and things like the QR Code what could be added to the above?
further to this replace the “I” in the below quote with Dru the Administer above and if we haven’t the key to the wisdom where it says in the book of Revelation “here is the mind that has wisdom” as it describes for us the last economic system.
from Oscar de Caracas https://thesaker.is/american-diplomacy-as-a-tragic-drama/#comment-1128744
Lastly, after Col. House was done with Wilson he lamented:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
Nice, eh?
City of London is the financial centre of the world,, the Washington DC is the military centre of he World and the Vatican is the religious centre of the World. It’s the triangle of world’s power. Those guys in the City of London are only guardians of the Vatican Treasury. All of them are ashkeNAZI by the chance. Officially the white pope is the head of the church but unofficially the black pope (Jesuit General) rules the world with the Society of Jesus. The world lives in theocracy like in the ancient Egypt and doesn’t know about it.
I thought they are pushing for war wlith Russia. Which one it’s?
@ Cynthia Chung
Where the anglo empire is concerned how about this quote:
“The confession of General Cornwallis to General Washington at Yorktown has been well hidden by historians.
“Jonathan Williams recorded in his “LEGIONS” (WORK), 1781, that Cornwallis revealed to Washington that “a holy war will now begin on America, and when it is ended America will be supposedly the citadel of freedom, but her millions will unknowingly be loyal subjects to the Crown.”
Cornwallis went on to explain what would seem to be a self contradiction:
“Your churches will be used to teach the Jew’s religion and in less than two hundred years the whole nation will be working for divine world government.
That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry.”1
and add that to Woodrow Wilson’s other words about what Disraeli himself knew and warned about:
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
I agree that it is a good article. But, there are a lot of things that do not fit with the idea that the real war is a war between the Anglo-american empire on the one hand, and China and Russia on the other. It does not explain the highly profitable and close relations between top American government official and Chinese officials and nobody bothers them. As a matter of fact, anticommunists are the ones who are persecuted. And even beyond that, the empire is after its own citizens. It does not explain stupid decisions taken one after the other. It does not explain an infinite list of individual things such as why Greece was allowed to sell her port of Piraeus to China. It does not explain why everything is made in China. It does not explain little things such as why Trump’s granddaughter learnt Chinese before she learnt English. It does not explain why the US allowed the communists to take over in 1949!
Shouldn’t we then entertain the hypothesis that the fake news is that empire is at war with communist China? What if China style totalitarianism is what the empire wants to impose world wide?