Get a grasp of Chinese President Xi's 4 prescriptions...

Made in China G20 and its geo-economic significance

Pepe Escobar
RT, 5 Sep, 2016

What has just taken place in Hangzhou, China, is of immense geoeconomic importance. Beijing from the start treated the G20 very seriously; this was designed as China’s party, not the declining West’s. And much less Washington’s.

Outlining the agenda for the discussions, President Xi Jinping went straight to the point also geopolitically, as he set the tone: “The outdated Cold War mentality should be discarded. We urgently need to develop an inclusive, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable new security concept.”
Compare it with Xi’s so-called “four prescriptions” – “innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive” – necessary to re-boost the world economy.
Acting like the de facto World Statesman-in-Chief, Xi then proceeded at the summit opening to introduce a quite ambitious package – the result of excruciating planning for months in the run-up to Hangzhou.
The package is designed to propel the global economy back to growth and at the same time install more made in China-friendly rules for global economic architecture and governance.
The target could not be more ambitious: to smash mounting anti-trade and anti-globalization sentiment, especially across the West (from Brexit to Trump), simultaneously pleasing his select audience - arguably the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history – yet at the same time, in the long run, aiming at prevailing over US-led Western dominance for good.
That’s a predictable but still remarkable turnaround for China, which benefited like any other nation from globalization – with growth over the past three decades mostly propelled by foreign direct investment and a deluge of exports.
Yet now geoeconomics has reached an extremely worrying zone of turbulence. Since the end of the Cold War in 1989 – and of “history” itself, according to academic simpletons – it's never bee so dire. Greed led globalization to be “defeated” by inequality. In a nutshell, low inflation - due to global competition – led to the proverbial “expansionary” monetary policies, which inflated housing, education and health care, squeezing the middle class and allowing unlimited wealth flowing to a 1 percent minority of asset owners.
Yet even in de-acceleration, China was responsible for more than 25 percent of global economic growth in 2015. It remains the key global turbine – while at the same time carrying the self-attributed burden of being the representative of the Global South in global economic governance.
China’s outbound investment surged 62 per cent to a record US$100 billion in the first seven months of 2016, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce. But there’s a problem, which economists have dubbed “asymmetric investment environment”: China remains more closed than other BRICS members to foreign investment, especially in service sectors.

BRICS Building

The BRICS-dedicated meeting on the sidelines of the G20 was not spectacular per se. But that’s where Xi detailed China’s G20 agenda and set the tone for their 8th annual summit in Goa next month. According to a report by the BRICS Economic Think Tank at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China must improve these multilateral connections to “have a bigger say and push the West to step back on international rule making”.
It’s a long shot – but it’s already in progress. Zhu Jiejin, from Fudan University in Shanghai, sums it all up; “BRICS is a test of China’s new philosophy in international relations – although the fruit will take a long time to ripen.”

Interconnect or die

Everything in Hangzhou was calculated to the millimeter.
Take, for instance, the seats at the G20 table; classic Ming dynasty tai-shi chairs (“the seats for imperial grand masters”) with soft grey cushions; paper scrolls with light green jade paperweights at either end; a pottery plate with a pen; a green porcelain teacup; a square jade “seal” - almost as large as an imperial seal – which was in fact a microphone switch.
And take the geopolitics of the official picture; Merkel and Erdogan stood close to Xi because Turkey hosted the G20 last year, and in 2017 it’s Germany; perfect symmetry for Putin and Obama; perfect symmetry for two other BRICS members, India’s Modi and Brazil’s Temer The Usurper – at the extremities, but still first row; Japan’s Shinzo Abe in the second row – as well as Italy’s Renzi and Britain’s Theresa “we’re open for business” May.
And why Hangzhou, for that matter? This being China, it all starts with a historical analogy. Hangzhou has been described as “the Homestead of Silk” even before the development of the ancient Silk Road. Now connect it to Xi’s immensely ambitious New Silk Roads - or One Belt, One Road (OBOR) in their official denomination – which some Chinese analysts revel in describing as “a modern symphony of connectivity.”
OBOR is in fact Xi’s “four prescriptions” in practice; economic growth driven by a frenzy of “inclusive” connectivity, especially among developing nations.
The Beijing leadership is totally committed to OBOR as the ultimate geoeconomic transformative drive in Asia-Pacific, tying most of Asia to China – and to Europe; and all of this of course totally intertwined with Xi’s turbo-charged reinterpretation of globalization. That’s why I argue that this is the most overreaching project for the young 21st century: the competing “project” by the US is more of the chaotic same. 
Even before Hangzhou, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors met in Chengdu on July 23-24, to discuss global infrastructure connectivity. The communiqué had to state the obvious; greater interconnectivity is a defining demand of the 21st century global economy and the key to promoting sustainable development and shared prosperity.
This is what OBOR is all about. Chinese consultancy company SWS Research estimated in an OBOR report that the overall investment needed for infrastructure construction is close to an astonishing $3.26 trillion.
Showcase projects include the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), defined by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi as "the first movement of the symphony of the Belt and Road Initiative". And then there’s the high-speed railway bonanza - including everything from the China-Thailand railway within the Trans-Asia Railway network as well as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway in Indonesia.

The house that Ma built

These are the top Chinese players behind OBOR expansion and Xi’s vision of a reformed global economic architecture. It’s impossible to understand where China is heading without considering the role of each and one of them.
And of course there’s Hangzhou itself – a tech hub excelling in information economy and intelligent manufacturing.
Arguably the greatest star of this G20, apart from Xi, was Jack Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, established in 1999, listed in New York in 2014 and the embodiment of the several thousand Chinese companies that form the new “Chinese imprint”.
Alibaba’s HQ is in Hangzhou. And not by accident everyone - from Canada’s Justin Trudeau to Indonesia’s Joko Widodo - visited the company’s Xixi campus, guided by Ma, with an eye to promoting their nation’s products through the platform of Alibaba. Nearby there’s Dream Town - a center that helped spring up more than 680 Chinese startups in just a year.
Before the G20 there was a B20 – a business summit, focused on the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – where wily Ma, admitting “we are living at a crucial time when people dislike globalization or free trade”, forcefully promoted the advent of an electronic world trade platform, eWTP. Ma described eWTP as “a mechanism for public-private dialogue in the development of cross border e-trade”, which will “help small and medium-sized enterprises, developing countries, women and the young generation participate in the global economy.”
Also not by accident, Indonesia’s Widodo invited Ma to be an economic advisor. Indonesia has no less than 56 million SMEs, as the President noted; so one of his priorities is to boost the cooperation between SMEs in Indonesia and Alibaba to help them enter the Chinese and global market.
Of course all it’s not a rose garden. Among the five task forces at the B20 we could find dodgy players such as Laurence Fink, head of mega-fund BlackRock, sitting at the finance committee, or Dow Chemical at commerce and investment. Still, the key – lofty - target was and remains to help SMEs in the developing world to go global. 
What was really decided at the G20 will only become visible long-term. Xi closed the summit stressing the G20 has agreed to promote trade multilateralism and go against protectionism (ample evidence to the contrary, as it stands), while at the same time developing the first framework rules for cross-border investment (will everyone implement them?)
He also said the G20 agreed to continue reform of the IMF and the World Bank to give more say to emerging markets (not with Hillary or Trump in power).
China’s “message” anyway was unmistakable; it has set a geoeconomic path for the future and it’s lobbying hard for scores of nations to join on a win-win framework. And whatever the future of the graphically confrontational “pivot to Asia” – the TPP “NATO on trade” arm included - Beijing won’t sit silent to US intimidation, or threats to what it considers China’s vital security interests.
The G20 in Hangzhou showed China is ready to show off its economic clout and to exercise a much more active role in geoeconomics. It’s clear that Beijing’s prefers to play the game in a multilateral trade system based around the WTO. Washington, instead, has been trying to rig the game with new “rules”; TPP and TTIP.
He Weiwen, from the China Society for WTO Studies, may have hit the nail on the (trading) head when he observed, “The US said earlier that it can’t let China set the rules, but it seems its own rule-setting isn’t wining hearts as it only sees its own interests.”

Selected Readers' Comments:

# China believes win win. That is the only way to go.  US believes zero one; I am chosen and your are not which is  very backward and we all must grow out of it.

# China has the economic muscle to shape the world economy. China's economic reach is felt all over the world. US clout is fast diminishing and with it the old structures. Russian military might combined with China's economic strength will ensure the birth of a new world order.

# This article states, “The target could not be more ambitious: to smash mounting anti-trade and anti-globalization sentiment."
The world leaders and the press seems to always get this wrong whether through lack of insight or deliberate deception and mis-direction - like the typical politician trick of mis-directing attention away from the issues raised, towards blaming those that made the leaks possible, or towards some other such trivia.
No one is against trade; what people are against is money being siphoned off into already unbelievably wealthy pockets while the average citizen struggles with poverty. This imbalance is what needs to be “smashed,” then the atmosphere will be in more harmony. When the wealth of 62 people equal that of half the world’s population there is not going to be stability.
Globalization is seen as a means to ultimately subjugate mankind under one tyrannical government that will debase mankind - kind of like the “Empire” in the movie Star Wars. We all see policies snowballing towards that misguided end.
Few object to genuine progress provided it is heading towards freedom of choice and the elimination of poverty while keeping basic human rights and dignity intact.

# Greed globalization by a fraction of 1% based on 1-0 concept with its lack of demand, excessive unsustainable debt, "free" money,  austerity and gluttony with unprecedented concentration of wealth and power has failed miserably.   Pursuing that course is a highway to disaster and actually will end the human race, perhaps most life on the planet. 
Sanity demands the alternative of inclusivity, massive employment for creating infrastructures (roads, tracks, airports, green energy, housing, health care, social/economic/political structures, a culture of global, regional, local cooperation among players and people, etc.).
It seems this conference has convinced those with most power/wealth to RE-FORM.  Let's hope SANITY for many trumps Trump's insanity of continuing the  1-0 game.

# All the world wants is a rule that applies to all. Some nations wants to bend, rewrite or ignore these. Claiming to be the exceptional; a new game is being proposed to rigged the system for them and their old buddies. They promote one rule when it benefits them and another when they cannot get along with others. Crying "wolf" too many times is making others "sick and tired" of hearing the "false rhetoric."

Offbeat : Half-Indian (or half-Japanese) crowned Full-Miss Japan !

Close-minded Japanese folks get a lesson on multiculturism...

Half-Indian crowned Miss Japan
6 September 2016

TOKYO: A half-Indian beauty queen with an elephant trainer’s license was crowned Miss Japan on Monday.
Priyanka Yoshikawa’s tearful victory comes a year after Ariana Miyamoto faced an ugly backlash for becoming the first black woman to represent Japan.
Social media lit up after Miyamoto’s trail-blazing triumph as critics complained that Miss Universe Japan should instead have been won by a “pure” Japanese rather than a “haafu” — the Japanese for “half,” a word used to describe mixed race.
“Before Ariana, haafu girls couldn’t represent Japan,” Yoshikawa told AFP in an interview after her Bollywood looks helped sweep her to the title.
“That’s what I thought too. I didn’t doubt it or challenge it until this day. Ariana encouraged me a lot by showing me and showing all mixed girls the way.”
Yoshikawa, born in Tokyo to an Indian father and a Japanese mother, vowed to continue the fight against racial prejudice in homogenous Japan, where multiracial children make up just two percent of those born annually.
“I think it means we have to let it in,” said the 22-year-old when asked what it signified for her and Miyamoto to break down cultural barriers.
“We are Japanese. Yes, I’m half Indian and people are asking me about my ‘purity’ — yes, my dad is Indian and I’m proud of it, I’m proud that I have Indian in me. But that does not mean I’m not Japanese.”
Yoshikawa, like Miyamoto, was bullied because of her skin color after returning to Japan aged 10 following three years in Sacramento and a further year in India.
“I know a lot of people who are haafu and suffer,” said Yoshikawa, an avid kick-boxer whose politician great-grandfather once welcomed independence campaigner Mahatma Gandhi for a two-week stay at their home in Kolkata.
“We have problems, we’ve been struggling and it hurts. When I came back to Japan, everyone thought I was a germ,” she added.
“Like if they touched me they would be touching something bad. But I’m thankful because that made me really strong.”
Yoshikawa, who speaks fluent Japanese and English and towered over her rivals at 1.76 meters (5 ft, 8 ins), will contest for the Miss World crown in Washington this December.
“When I’m abroad, people never ask me what mix I am,” said Yoshikawa, who earned her elephant trainer’s license to add spice to her resume.
“As Miss Japan, hopefully I can help change perceptions so that it can be the same here too. The number of people with mixed race is only going to increase, so people have to accept it.”
Reaction to Yoshikawa’s victory failed initially to trigger any real outrage, although predictably some were unhappy.
“What’s the point of holding a pageant like this now? Zero national characteristics,” grumbled one Twitter user, while another fumed: “It’s like we’re saying a pure Japanese face can’t be a winner.”
As the Japanese government continues to push its “Cool Japan” brand overseas to entice foreign tourists for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Yoshikawa promised to win over any doubters.
“There was a time as a kid when I was confused about my identity,” she admitted. “But I’ve lived in Japan so long now I feel Japanese.”

Chinese black magic for black obama at G-20 Summit

Tit for tat...

US spy agency apologizes for tweet about ‘classy’ Chinese welcome
RT, 5 Sep 2016

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has apologized for a tweeted joke about the welcome for President Obama’s team upon their arrival at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China.

The now deleted tweet had a link to an article by the New York Times, describing a row between Chinese security personnel and US journalists and officials. The tweet itself read: “Classy as always China.”

Though taken offline by the DIA, the tweet has circulated online as a screenshot.

The agency later issued apologies by posting another message instead, saying that its tweet “regarding a news article was mistakenly posted” from its account and did not “represent the views of DIA.”

“We apologize,” the agency added at the end of its post.

Obama’s arrival in Asia has been marred by several rows, the first starting on the Hangzhou airport tarmac.

Despite standard protocol, there was no staircase waiting for the president to exit the plane at the main door. The US leader had to opt for narrower stairs and the tail-gate as an alternative exit. A red carpet - standard in such cases - was also nowhere to be seen, so Obama had to walk the carpet-less concrete surface.

The standoff had started before that, however, as a Chinese official attempted to prevent US National Security Adviser Susan Rice from walking to the motorcade as she crossed a media rope line. It wasn’t clear if the official knew that Rice was a top member of the US delegation and not a journalist.

The same Chinese official then proceeded to blast the press corp for standing too close to the president under the wing of the plane. In response, White House officials told him that it was a US plane and the US president, to which the Chinese official responded angrily, “This is our country! This is our airport!”

As tempers frayed, Secret Service personnel stepped in, although they usually deal with the US president’s security only.

The whole scene took place without President Obama present, as he was still inside the plane at the time.

No red carpet treatment for Obama at G20, China says he never asked.

The altercations didn’t end there, though. The Washington Post reported that later on several White House protocol officers and other staff members came to a diplomatic compound ahead of Obama’s meetings, but were prevented from entering.

“The president is arriving here in an hour,” one of the staff said, but Chinese officials still wouldn’t let anyone in – reportedly almost resulting in a fistfight.

“Calm down, please. Calm down,” another White House official was reported as saying.

The row continued inside, with Chinese and US officials arguing if there was enough room for the 12 US journalists traveling with Obama. US officials insisted that there was, while the Chinese said there wasn‘t.

Following the incidents, Obama said he would not “overcrank the significance" of it. The president noted however that the American press had the right to report on his arrival and that the US does not leave its “values” and “ideals” behind when making such trips.

President Obama arrived in Hangzhou on Saturday for the G20 summit that kicked off on Sunday.
Selected Readers' Comments:

# Obama "freely navigates" his way out of his plane via the back entrance  onto Chinese territory. I would say he has learned with a jolt that US hegemony is ended in this part of the world...forever.

# why should anyone want to welcome him

# Shouldn't foreign journalists be able to quiz the "leader of the free world" and ask him about the "values" that he has brought with him? That would be quite a grilling. Instead, the president wants his room full of US journalists that ask 'fluffy' questions for their own narrative. It makes it easier for their purposes and reduces the "friction" :-)

# Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and then began Arab Spring, brought prosperity in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan ... good neighborly relations with Russia, China, Iran ...and do anything to help even bigger peacemaker Clinton to succeed him and bring "peace on Earth"

    # Drone attacks in Pakistan, Turning a blind eye in Yemen .... Oh, and is Guantanamo closed yet?

    # Nobel Peace Prize ... what a gimmick!

# It's just the beginning. Hope to see many others treat USA like this in future.

# It wasnt a mistake. They just backtracked their words. Trust me, in an organization like this, there are no foolish mistakes. Probably because they feared Chinese to retaliate. U.S owes China lots of money after all.

# China is on debt to their throat too. Their economy will clash soon as George Soros said.

# You take a nutjob criminal's words? US economy is a lot worse.

# It is estimated that U.S houseowner total debt is around 39k dollars per a house. If China would ask it's money back, U.S would go bankrupt in a second. But then again, so would China and other countries due to globalization.

# You don't demand respect as you have to earn it. But US government doesn't know anything about these values. They only know one language, i.e the language of destruction. I wouldn't be wrong in terming them Barbarians of the modern era. 

# Classy US diplomacy, like wine made by Rambo & Halliburton.

# Was she dual citizenship Israeli/American by any chance?

# This is coming from the US president himself...[the US does not leave its “values” and “ideals” behind when making such trips.]  Then China was smart as well as cautionary as it knows too well about "American values and ideals" such as trying to continue the long held tradition of electing criminals for US Presidents, invading any other sovereign nation that they feel threaten by and while at it, stealing their resources as well as any and all ancient museum quality statues and miscellaneous art pieces. China has been around for over 5,000 years by taking a back seat to criminals and invaders!

# He got a better welcome than he deserved.

# Just another sign that the USatanic Empire is over !

# G19 without this unsavory character from the US of A would have been classier.

# "the US does not leave its “values” and “ideals” behind when making such trips." US leaves deaths, chaos, and terrorists behind when making military trips.

# Murican media are just a bunch of freakin' unruly mob. They are all caught up in the delusional, self-aggrandizing propaganda of the US regime, its agencies and the US Congress of war criminals.

# Obama lost all respect, even among his peers (the other heads of state).

# Dddddown you go....

# Who organized these conflicts? Namely Barack  Obama and it unleashed a war in the Middle East, and has provoked a coup  in Kiev, but now he is white and fluffy, calls for peace and order.

# Obama should have been deported back to USA as soon as he landed as persona non grata.

# In diplomacy, the term persona non grata (Latin, plural: personae non gratae), literally meaning "person not appreciated", refers to a foreign person whose entering or remaining in a particular country is prohibited by that country's government. -Wikipedia

# Murican values and ideals? WTF.

# People kill each other in that country for a jacket, a smartphone or a pair if Nikes.

# obama stealing fish from the yellow sea.

# The problem is the US regime chief and the US MSM  do not know they are not welcome anywhere outside USA. 

# How can there be trust to the terrorists and criminals of US ? Let the americans trust him to remove the coconuts with palm tree.

# Most people don't know that only US presidents make of their presence on conferences real circus with bunch of reporters, security, administration etc. There are jokes about this among every conference organizers...US president and 1000 clowns has arrived.

# US MSM just repeats the lies, distortions and delusional propaganda of the US regime of the day in Washington. The press asks no questions and demands no supporting evidence for the ludicrous claims and pompous statements the regime flacks put out every day.

# There is no free, independent MSM in the US of A.

# This is China, our airport!!!... wow China flexing their muscles. Don't kid with these people USA!!!

# At the beginning on the whole world says, that the Russia is number one enemy, and then is surprised, that there is no trust in him. He's either an stupid  or a lying person, although one the other does not exclude....

# U.S.A= United Snake of Africa

# USA's delusional propaganda says the US regime leader is also the leader of the free world.
Where exactly is this free world?  EU and Europe are not free.  They are a bunch of captive, vassal states from the WWII era.

# Please remember - our President is NOT a king, or any kind of royalty, needing any kind of special "welcome."  He is a man, elected by the people of his country to lead them, of which he is not doing a very good job.

# Lucky for the U.S the Philippine President was not there.....

# US is exceptional nation, therefore they accept him solely as the lame duck, who tired of all with his delusions.

# Yapping and then always apologizing, typical classy American phenomenon.

# Why apologize for something that is true? Chinese are dirty and filthy who use childish tactics to put down other nation. They want to be a superpower, they should act like one. America is turning into a sissy

# When you walk around your apartment and see 90 percent of things there made in China I would say we are funding them well.

# the president should have just walked back on to the plane and come on home. then simply stopped funding china. I will never understand this presidents conciliatory attitude. he has soaked up every insult and presented the world with the image that he can be slighted with no consequences. the secret service has nothing to apologize for, america has never failed to show proper respect to the Chinese delegation even when they came to Washington state. what this shows is how we are viewed by the world...See more

# "What this shows is how we are viewed by the world", there you said it.  America used to try to act with honor, and so had respect, but instead of learning from their defeat by Vietnam, they have just gone on creating war after war.  The world is no longer as forgiving of their errors of judgement. Everyone knows there is no dignity in sowing needless death and destruction , regardless of how mighty you are.

Empowering Terrorism to “Stop” Terrorism : US style

A must read for the lazy, arm-chaired readers...

Empowering Terrorism to “Stop” Terrorism: America’s Foreign Policy in Syria Summed Up in Three Headlines

By The New Atlas

Global Research, September 05, 2016

The New At;as 2 September 2016

US foreign policy regarding Syria publicly vacillates between seeking to defeat the Islamic State to achieving regime change in Damascus. Even at face value, these two objectives are contradictory, even paradoxical.

Overthrowing the government of Libya in 2011 thrust extremist groups (used by the US to overthrow Tripoli in the first place) into power across the nation, leaving it bitterly divided and in constant conflict since. The collapse of a unified Libya also allowed Al Qaeda and its spin-off, the Islamic State, to flourish unchecked. There is little evidence to suggest that anything else but precisely this scenario would also unfold should the government in Damascus likewise be overthrown.

The conflict in Syria, raging since it was triggered by US-backed armed groups in 2011, has in fact created the very conditions in which the Islamic State rose to prominence, springing forth from designated terrorist organisation, Jabhat Al Nusra, also known as Al Qaeda in Syria. In other words, it was the pursuit of regime change by the US that gave rise to the very extremism it now claims it is involved in Syria, Iraq and now also Libya to defeat.

In order to defeat armed extremism, order must be returned to a unified Syria under a government capable of maintaining it. The only government capable of doing this is being intentionally dismembered and undermined by Washington and its allies.

1. Empowering Terrorism to “Stop” Terrorism 

Newsweek published an article titled, “How the U.S. Can Win in Syria,” written by Brookings Institution policymaker Michael O’Hanlon. In it, he claims;

…we need to be somewhat more willing to work with groups that are tainted by past association with the Nusra Front, as long as we can vouch for the fact that they are not themselves Nusra members. We should give them anti-tank missiles—though not anti-aircraft missiles—and much more help in terms of ammunition, logistics assistance and food, to help them build up their forces.

Quite literally, a US policymaker is calling for the bolstering of groups tied to Jubhat Al Nusra, a US State Department designated foreign terrorist organisation and the very source of the Islamic State’s rise to power in the first place to ”defeat ISIS, defeat the Nusra Front and replace Assad.”

Not only are there few groups that have “past” rather than very current associations with Jubhat Al Nusra, many more groups, including those directly backed by the US have recently, openly joined under the terrorist organisation’s banner to fight in and around Syria’s northern city of Aleppo.

In reality, only the toppling of the Syrian government will be achieved by such a policy, leaving Syria divided and destroyed, overrun by heavily armed extremist groups empowered by US foreign policy.

And while this may seem like rudderless policy by a Western centre of power losing its grip on reality, it is in fact an intentional, very cynical effort to turn Syria into a failed state, just as was done to Libya and use it as a springboard to launch large-scale, armed proxy military campaigns against Syria’s neighbours and allies, most notably Iran and southern Russia. It should be remembered that in 2011, after the fall of the Libyan government, US-armed militants were immediately moved into Turkey from where they launched operations into northern Syria and in particular, Aleppo.

Thus, US foreign policy, no matter how many times it is claimed that it seeks to confront and defeat extremism in Syria and Iraq, fully intents to expand it not only in the region, but  far beyond it as well.

2. Perpetuating the Misery of the Syrian People 

While the US publicly claims its seeks to end the destructive conflict in Syria often citing humanitarian concerns as a pretext for greater direct involvement in the conflict and for placing greater pressure on Damascus and its allies, in reality the US seeks to deepen, widen and indefinitely perpetuate the destruction of Syria, just as it has done in Libya.

In a Washington Post article titled, “Syria’s message to tourists: Come back, enjoy our beaches,” writer Adam Taylor condemns any notion that parts of Syria may be returning to normal as US-backed militants face defeats and Damascus gains the upper hand.

The article concludes by claiming:

The message sent by all this publicity might not only be aimed at tourists — but foreign governments and Syrians as well. Wael Aleji of the Syrian Network for Human Rights told the Telegraph last year that these tourism efforts were in fact “psychological warfare” against Assad’s opponents, designed to send the message that the parts of the country — exclusively those held by the Syrian regime — are safe again.

That the Western media reacts with scorn to the notion of normality returning to the lives of Syrians reflects a Western foreign policy that seeks to achieve its goals in Syria or burn the nation to the ground. It illustrates the truth behind the West’s use of “humanitarian concerns” as a facade behind which human misery is created and perpetuated, not exposed and defused. It is an example of the depravity that truly underpins the West’s direct and proxy interventions worldwide.

3. The US Fully Plans to Betray all of its Allies in Syria 

Considering the above facts, it would be foolish for interests within Syria, including the Kurds, to believe that the US is involved for any other purpose other than serving US interests. The very moment those interests diverge from assisting US allies on the ground, such assistance will be terminated. If for some reason these allies become an obstacle to US ambitions in the region, they will be terminated as well.

So obvious is this reality that even the New York Times in its article, “Kurds Fear the U.S. Will Again Betray Them, in Syria,” notes:

There is little sign that the United States has abandoned the Syrian Kurds. American officials have worked to negotiate a truce on the ground between the rebels backed by Turkey and the Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, and fighting has calmed in recent days.
But many Kurds say they now see the writing on the wall and worry that once the Islamic State is driven from its capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the United States will sell them out.

And of course, careful study of American history proves that not only will the United States ”sell out” the Kurds, they will stand by, even possibly assist the necessary “pruning” of emerging Kurdish influence in northeastern Syria to satisfy much more important requirements regarding relations between Ankara and Washington.

US foreign policy has always been cynical, violent, treacherous and even disastrously shortsighted and self-serving. The above three headlines shows merely the continuation of these policies unfolding in an information space where hiding the true characteristics of US ambitions behind either patriotic or humanitarian rhetoric is becoming increasingly difficult.

Whether or not this opportunity to more frankly appraise US ambitions sways public opinion either within the US or abroad to discourage such policies in favour of a more reasonable and constructive American engagement with the rest of the world remains to be seen.

The New Atlas is a media platform providing geopolitical analysis and op-eds. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Nazia Hassan’s family to open school for street children

Wishing all the best...

Pakistani pop star Nazia Hassan’s family to open school for street children

IANS, September 3, 2016

The family of late Pakistani pop star Nazia Hassan, whose single “AAP Jaisa Koi” for Bollywood movie “Qurbaani” catapulted her to fame, is planning to open a school for underprivileged children in Karachi.
The school, an initiative by the ‘Nazia Hassan Foundation’, would help in the grooming and education of working street children, Muniza Basir, mother of the famous Pakistani pop artist, whose death anniversary was observed on August 13, told the Dawn.
“We are working towards establishing a school here in Karachi, but this is not just any other school in Pakistan. It is specifically dedicated to the grooming and education of working children on the streets — who have been burdened with the expectation of earning for their entire families at the expense of their own education,” said Muniza Basir in an interview.
“Our school aspires to offer these children a course on whatever they are already doing as a profession, while also teaching them basic subjects such as English, Mathematics, computer skills and History. The aim is to brush up skills that would help them flourish in their profession, while also being capable of going and taking up their work in any other place,” she said.
Nazia’s mother said she is pursuing her daughter’s wish that every Pakistani child must be able to earn a living while also get educated.
“We will be offering a five-year course for our students, and have been reaching out to universities who can authorise and give these students a diploma.”
The project has been entirely self-funded as “I have got help from my husband,” said Muniza.
The family is using their own building to set up a learning centre for children, Muniza is hopeful that others will join hands with them so that they can open more schools in other parts of the country.
The tentative name for the school is the ‘Nazia Hassan Foundation’, but it may change to Nazia Hassan’s Schools for Studying, adds Muniza.
Nazia died due to lung cancer at the age of 35 in London on August 13, 2000.
She ruled the music field in Pakistan during the 1980s. The first face of pop in Pakistan, Nazia was born in Karachi on April 3, 1965.
When she rendered “AAP Jaisa Koi”, she was just 15 years old.
Nazia, along with her brother Zohaib, released the evergreen album “Disco Deewana” (1981). This was followed by “Boom Boom”, “Young Tarang “(1984), “Hotline” (1987) and finally “Camera, Camera” (1992).
She was the youngest and first Pakistani to win a Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer — at age 15.
She worked as a political analyst for the UN in New York and became a cultural ambassador for Pakistan in 1991.

Comic Relief: Chinese 'honeytrap' for UK G-20 delegation ?!

Pot calling kettle black...

UK G20 delegation warned of ‘beautiful’ Chinese spies at summit
RT, 4 Sep, 2016
 
The UK delegation attending the G20 summit in China have been warned by government officials that they could be targeted by beautiful Chinese women acting as “honey trap” spies, who may attempt to offer them sex.

British government security chiefs have issued strong warnings to those who are part of Prime Minister Theresa May’s team attending the summit in Hangzhou, the Daily Telegraph reports.

They have told staff they should not accept any gifts and should be particularly wary of electronic devices, such as memory sticks and mobile phone chargers that could potentially be offered by the Chinese.

The UK government is worried that China may use the opportunity to steal secrets from British officials attending the summit or could try and upload spying programs on to their electronic devices.

Officials traveling with May have been given temporary email addresses and mobile phones for the trip to better protect themselves from potential Chinese hackers.

One Whitehall official told the Telegraph that the hotel rooms used by the UK delegation during the summit would likely be bugged.

“We have been told that if you feel uncomfortable about people seeing you naked, you should get changed under your bedclothes,” the source said.

There is precedent for fearing Chinese espionage attempts. In 2008, a Downing Street official, who was accompanying then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was preyed upon by a beautiful Chinese woman.

The UK official took the Chinese spy back to his hotel room, but woke up to find his Blackberry and documents from his briefcase were missing.

Damien McBride, who was previously Brown’s spin doctor, witnessed the incident, which he recorded in his memoires published in 2013.

He woke up the following morning "minus his Blackberry and half the contents of his briefcase,” as cited by the Telegraph.

The official also had a “very bad headache, owning to the Mickey Finn nightcap his overnight companion had administered to him in his hotel room.”

Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2014 revealed that the UK actually employed the very same “dirty tricks” that it is warning its delegation to Hangzhou to be wary of.

Snowden stated that British intelligence has used sexual “honey traps” to ensnare rival agents, hackers and suspected terrorists, with targets lured “to go somewhere on the internet, or a physical location” where they are then “met by a friendly face.”

Later in 2014, a leaked UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) document said that detailed instructions had been given to British officials that the Russian intelligence, the FSB, may try to compromise and blackmail foreign agents “through knowledge of marital infidelity or sexual activity the target may wish to hide.”

Chinese intelligence, meanwhile, has a “voracious, vast and indiscriminate appetite” for all types of data, and allegedly recurs to blackmail as well.

Selected Readers' Comments:

# Too funny. Like this is anything new. Remember US secret service in Columbia?  Hahahah.

# Interesting that they are mentioning these tactics used by the Americans and the Brits in their conventions on other foreign delegates, not to mention the US spying on their "allies" and using the information to blackmail them to do their bidding.

# Suddenly they have sense of moral.

# Coming from the no 1 spy nation, the UK, thats bold.

# Please second, we only have GCHQ that spys on all the data in Scotland before it's sent across the Atlantic using under water cables but the USA has Microsoft, Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Paypal and .....err.....well all the big names on the Web that work as a team for the NSA/CIA to steel our data.

# Why would a pragmatic, common sense delegation with family values require such a warning? Simple psychology: “the truth points to itself."

# America would do the same, but their girls are too fat...

# As for the room being bugged just put the radio on and run a bath, it worked for James Bond. Then do your best Sean Connery impression, 'yesh, are you pre-op or post-op?'

# point a finger and three are pointing back at you...

# Chinese female spies would rather loose their jobs than to sleep with these horrible looking british officials, who look like they lick the anuz like people generally do in britain and are filled with diseases. no sane woman will sleep with such sub-standard things.

# It is understood that at all conventions, 'political' that these tactics are employed by all parties.

# If this was so, why the UK did not send 007.  He would have served both the purposes - spying and ant-spying.  Anyway, a nation which did not know the consequences of Brexit, what secrets could its smug officials possibly have?

# UK baboons looking like officials are too ugly to be offered sex by Chinese women.

# The wonderful and dazzling Chinese beauties are having success all over the world!
The UK is living in it's old imperial dreams of the " Opium war " era !
Nothing and nobody can stop mighty China today.

Turkey's neo-Ottomanic imperialist ambition emerging...

The recent Turkish coup attempt marks a turning point in NATO’s war on Syria. An emerging empire and portal to the orient, Turkey has always played a key role in NATO’s ‘Drang Nach Osten’- the drive to encircle Russia, destroy its client-states Syria and Ukraine, and serve as a bulwark against other emerging powers such as Iran. But now it seems Turkey may no longer be carrying out its designated role.

Turkey’s New Role: From NATO Lapdog to Emerging Empire?

By Gearóid Ó Colmáin

Global Research, September 03, 2016

Gearóid Ó Colmáin 31 August 2016

 

That the United States was behind the coup attempt there is little doubt, though some prominent analysts such as Thierry Meyssan disagree that the coup was orchestrated by Gülenists. Fethullah Gülen is known to be close to the CIA and the U.S. obmutescence during the coup was typical of standard procedure during U.S. covert regime change operations. While Erdoğan is unquestionably a war criminal who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Syria and Libya and heavy repression at home, nonetheless, as in the case of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, the Turkish leader seems to have fallen out of favour in the West.

The media have already begun the predictable, clichéd demonisation process –  publishing pictures of the Turkish incumbent’s opulent palaces etc. Turkey desperately needs a new, progressive regime, which would contribute to peace in the Middle East. But if the choice is between a monster the CIA wants out and a monster the CIA wants in, the latter is the best option as it weakens U.S. imperialism.

Turkey’s strategic imperatives

Stratfor director George Friedman claims Turkey is now a world power whose military is more powerful than the French or British. The U.S. strategy for Europe was to force Turkish entry into the EU – most recently through weapons of mass migration. The policy worked in Turkey’s favour. But the British decision to exit the European Union changed the balance of power. Moscow took the opportunity to extend the hand of friendship once more to Ankara. Just before the July 19th  coup attempt, there were reports of a possible détente between Turkey and Syria.

U.S./Turkish relations have soured considerably since 2013 when U.S.-based billionaire Fethullah Gülen fomented the Gezi Park protest movement against the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regime. Though there was certainly popular discontent in the country with Erdoğan’s Islamisation policies and his support for terrorism in Syria, the Gezi Park protests were really about pushing Gülen’s attempt to destabilise the regime and take over. Fethullah Gülen is the founder of a vast empire of private prep schools throughout the world. He promotes an extremist form of Islam.

Though originally close to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), Gülen’s movement Hizmat (service) is less nationalist and therefore more amenable to U.S./Zionist interests. The Gülenist network operates as a fifth column in Turkey, a para-state operating at the highest levels of the military, intelligence and judicial apparatuses. I was asked by Russian state media RT to comment on the Turkish shooting down of a Russian jet in November 2015. I said then that the Turkish government was acting against the national interest. It has since transpired that the attack was carried out by Gülenist military personnel who have been prosecuted for the crime. President Erdoğan recently apologised to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the attack. In fact, Turkey had indicated on July 13ththat it intended to normalise relations with Syria, thus ending the war against Assad.  Contacts between Ankara and Damascus have been growing in recent months and it now looks like Russia and Turkey may have begun to mend relations. Southstream, Russia’s plan to pipe oil to Europe through Turkey, had to be abandoned last year due to U.S. pressure on Ankara. There is now a possibility of renegotiation recommencing between Moscow and Ankara. Recent Turkish/Iranian contacts also indicate that the Kurdish question is forcing Ankara to re-calibrate its foreign policy.

Although secret talks have reportedly been taking place between Ankara and Damascus, the two countries remain at war in Syria and there is no change yet in the official position of either state.

The geopolitical theories of Greek turkologist Dmitiry Kitsikis have had a major influence on Turkish foreign policy. Kitsikis is famous for promoting the notion of Turkey as a civilisation-state which naturally encompasses the region stretching from North Africa, through the Balkans and Eastern Europe; Kitsikis refers to this as the ‘Intermediate Region’. Turkey’s previous ‘good neighbourly’ policy seemed to be in accordance with  Kitsikian geopolitics but was sabotaged by Ankara’s treacherous collaboration with U.S. chaos strategy in the Middle East since the U.S.- fomented ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011.

U.S. policy towards Turkey has always been to support the regime as a strong regional power to wield against Russia while at the same time supporting the Kurdish YPG (people’s defense units) in Syria. U.S. support for the Kurds is part of the long-term geopolitical remodeling of the region – the creation of what former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice at the start of the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings in 2011 referred to as the “New Middle East”. The U.S. and Israel want to carve out a Kurdistan in the region, which would become a client-state of Israel; thus providing the Zionist regime with an effective proxy army against its Arab enemies –  once the Da’esh-fomented genocide has created the requisite Lebensraum.

Erdoğan’s ambitions of reviving the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East ultimately threaten U.S. hegemony. The United States Navy rules the waves. The U.S. will not allow another major maritime power to threaten its global control. Rapid economic growth and the paying off of its IMF debt in 2013 have seen Turkey emerge more and more as a strategic regional power with increasing independence and political assertiveness. Turkish investment in Africa has increased more than ten-fold since 2000. The Turks  have opened embassies all over Africa. Ankara is selling the notion of ‘virtuous power’ in Africa with infrastructural development projects and investments designed to compete with China and the United States. Turkish involvement in Somalia has turned the East African nation into a veritable client-state of the emerging Turkish Empire. In 2015 Turkey opened a military base in Somalia. Turkey will henceforth have a strategic reach in the Gulf of Aden, one of the most important oil choke-points in the world. Ankara also has plans to establish military bases in Azerbaijan, Qatar and Georgia.

The Turkish regime has been attempting to oust the presence of the Gülenist movement in many African countries by offering to supply  state funds for education programmes. A recent statement by a Turkish government spokesman alluded to Ankara’s desire to counter Western ‘neo-colonial’ interests in Africa. The statement clearly shows that Turkey intends to join the new ‘scramble for Africa’ as part of neo-ottoman imperialism.

Turkey in Central Asia and China

Turkey has considerable power and influence in Central Asia where many Turkic-speaking people reside. In 2009, Turkey helped found the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States.  Turkish investment has been increasing in Central Asia. Ankara has also been training military personnel in Central Asian states.  The oil-rich Turkmenistan is one nation which has received visits in recent years from the ‘Sublime Porte’. During its spat with Moscow, Ankara sought to deepen ties with Turkmenistan in hopes of enticing that state to participate in the Trans-Caspian Pipeline – a project to pipe gas from the Caspian Sea through Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey to Europe, thereby bypassing Russia. Turkey also has considerable influence in Turkic speaking regions of the Russian Federation such as Tartarstan. Though relations with Moscow have now improved, Ankara’s links in Central Asia remain key strategic levers in the renaissance of Turkish imperialism.

Turkey’s links with Uighur terrorists in China’s troubled Xinjiang (East Turkestan) province has led to diplomatic rows with Beijing. Many of the Uighur terrorists operating against China have been trained and facilitated by Turkey in Syria. Although Turkey’s support for Uighur terrorists in Xinjiang complies with NATO policy towards China, it shows once again the potential reach of Turkish power.

Turkey’s drive for world power status, together with the decline of Europe as a political entity, means that Ankara will continue to flex its muscles in the international arena. The French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said that Turkey is no longer a reliable partner in NATO’s fight against the Islamic State. Of course, Ankara was never a partner in the war against the Islamic State as the Turkish regime has been arming and training the Islamic State terrorists along with its NATO partners and has been caught in flagrante delicto on several occasions. But what the French Foreign Minister’s remarks mean is that Turkey may no longer be as sanguine in its support for terrorism in Syria, due to the West’s support for the Kurds; rapprochement with Moscow and Damascus, and now more than ever after the failed U.S.-backed coup attempt.

Israel’s double game

The situation is further complicated by Israel’s stance towards the Turkish coup attempt and its aftermath. The Turkish regime thanked Israel for its help quashing the coup. Relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara have improved, in spite of the current dispute with Washington. One should not overlook the fact that, although the Israeli Lobby exerts considerable control over U.S. foreign policy, Israel often adopts a friendlier attitude to many of America’s so-called enemies. Israel’s relationship with Belarus has always been generally good, in spite of repeated U.S. aggression. Israel’s relationship with Azerbaijan  has been good, in spite of major diplomatic rows with the U.S..

Israeli/Russian relations are far better than Moscow’s relationship with Washington. Israel has always had a more nuanced oriental policy than the U.S. The Israelis are masters at playing both sides off each other in international conflicts. During the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s regime while Israel eventually provided Israel covert supplies of weapons to  Iran with on U.S. approval. The Israelis had established ties with Iranian fifth columnists Mir-Hossein Moussavi and Hachemi Rafsanjani. The aforementioned Stratfor director George Friedman has said that the Iran/Iraq war would be a template for dealing with the rise of Turkey as a world power.

A rising maritime power in trouble?

Turkey will pay dearly for the folly of abandoning its ‘good neighbourly’ regional policy, which showed some promise until 2011. It had a glorious opportunity then to exercise ‘virtuous power’. Now the country could be facing civil war. The purge of Gülenists in the Turkish regime has already led to hundreds of arrests of top military and government personnel. If Turkey is to emerge as a regional empire, it will have to leave the Zionist axis and find a solution to the Kurdish question in conjunction with Syria and Russia. It is currently beginning to appear that  previous secret plans agreed upon by Ankara and Paris to carve out a Kurdish state in Northern Syria may have to be abandoned. As the French escalate bombing of Raqqa in Syria in the wake of the Nice terrorist psyops, Turkey could be facing an acute state of emergency.

The United States cannot tolerate the emergence of a major maritime power like Turkey which, since the Cold War, has been used as a tool against Russia. Turkey’s Incirlik Airbase holds up to 80 percent of Washington’s nuclear arsenal in Europe. A significant oriental shift in Ankara’s  foreign policy would signal the end of America’s prospects of ‘full spectrum dominance’, creating the conditions for a new imperial division of the world- a geopolitical reconfiguration some might imagine as falling in with conjectures of a Moscow/Constantinople axis or, in mytho-historical terms, a ‘Third Rome’.

It is possible that the U.S. already sees that a reconfiguration of imperialist alliances is necessary with the influential former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski advocating a détente in U.S. relations with Russia and China. What is clear from recent events in Turkey is that the world imperialist system is going through seismic changes, with old military alliances breaking down and new configurations of imperial power emerging.  What prospect exist for global,working-class liberation in a period of deepening capitalist crisis and war remain to be seen.