China's Diplomacy, Geopolitics & Defense this Week

Fun and games on the world stage..

After details emerged about 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance, which Chinese authorities blamed on contamination from a hotel kitchen, none were suspended and some went on to win medals at the Tokyo Olympics, the US launched an investigation, but leaders at WADA suggested they might sanction one of their biggest critics, the US Anti-Doping Agency, over the law. "As a global regulator, one of our duties is to make sure our stakeholders are following our regulations and rules, and that the national legislation is in accordance with the world anti-doping code," WADA president Witold Banka explained. While some tried to calm things down, others could see a worst-case scenario: that the US will not be allowed to host big-time events such as the Olympics in the future. The US Congress passed that bill in 2020, the Rodchenkov Act, doesn't adhere to the rules, it could start the process of finding USADA in noncompliance. That, in turn, could trigger sanctions, which jeopardize America's ability to host any international event.

Compare US elections to a financier using his left (Democrat) & right (Republican) legs to climb the stairs toward a singular goal: the continuity of America’s policy of encirclement & containment of Russia. 

• Note how all of these policies contribute toward encirclement & containment & how each step would be impossible without the previous one, even by presidents with ‘opposite’ values; 

• Pay particularly close attention to the withdrawal from arms control treaties by Republican presidents & the stationing of weapons near Russia's borders by Democrat presidents that would have violated those treaties had the US not withdrawn from them. A similar diagram can be made of US policy toward Iran & China.

Samir Diab, General Goordinator of the Arab Leftist Forum, said that the Uygurs, like other ethnic groups in China, enjoy the freedom of belief and practicing their religious activities. He slammed the United States for interfering in China's internal affairs which "aim at striking China from within, weakening it, and destroying its economy and development".

In 2021, the global North appropriated 826 billion hours of embodied labor from the global South valued at €16.9 trillion in Northern prices, doubling the labor available for Northern consumption and draining the South of productive capacity that could be used for local development. Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labor that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income.

US Naval Blockade?

We are living in a reverse Cold War, economically speaking. Back when the West was economically strong, countries who were pried away from the Iron Curtain began to see immediate economic benefits. Now it’s the opposite: anyone staying in the diseased EU is subjected to economic suicide via mass austerity, migration, intentionally economically damaging policies, etc. And anyone joining the Russian-Chinese bloc immediately gets an economic boost and growth via real trade partners and can pay for imports in their own currencies.

Above: I visited the Kyoto family treasure house of an old Daimyo family. It was stuffed with breathtaking looted works of art. The Chinese bronzes were better than those in any museum I’ve visited. –Godfree